Myra charged into another room, rushing past the door, which went flying off its hinges. She was probably around ten to twelve feet now. A giant monster of bark breaking into a room. 

We were in another giant room. Both human and clay soldiers were at the opposite side of the room, shooting towards our left, where a pile of giant crates was. I could see our teammates behind them.

Speaking of crates, this room was full of them. Also barrels too. Why were the other rooms that we were in so empty? Most of the stuff was covered in that hard light stuff that Isabel made. And I guess they didn’t want us throwing stuff either. Wow. They were so much more prepared this time. 

That meant I was pretty lucky to be trapped with Myra. If any of the other teammates were with me, I might not be alive right now. Even though she couldn’t shoot skewers, she could still send me twigs to throw.

I wasn’t happy to rely on others though. It made me really uncomfortable. Especially, when I didn’t plan for it to happen. That happened a lot with group projects. Back in high school, I had to do a presentation with a couple of other girls for English. We had a set of shared presentation slides and one of the girls didn’t finish her slides. I stayed awake constantly emailing her. And I had to do it in the nicest way possible so as not to break Rule #7. 

She finally responded at 5 AM and finished her part. I lost so much sleep that night. If it was just me, I would have done it the day before to not worry about it.

It really sucked because she was one of my fellow cheerleaders. We somehow got paired up so much during high school. I never told her my grades, but I bet she thought I was nerdy enough that I could do a lot of the work for her. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t going to do her work. Still, it sucked that I was grouped up with her a lot.

And now there’s Myra, the tree bitch that tried to attack me. I guess she was a lot better compared to some of the other people I worked with. She’s actually useful to me. Without her training, I might have died. And her superpowers did turn out to be useful when she was on my side.

Myra grabbed a barrel and hurled it over to the middle of the clay and human soldiers. I had Ento do the same. Our barrels crashed into the 2M’s firing line, causing the clay soldiers to break apart and the human soldiers to get crushed. 

They started yelling something, and I couldn’t make out what it was. What I could make out was that they were now targeting us. They started unleashing a hailstorm of electroshock bullets toward us. I quickly had Ento hide behind Myra. Some of the bullets went passed us on the side, while I could hear some of them colliding with Myra’s bark.

My main body was above Ento right now. I hope she didn’t do anything stupid and charge the 2M’s. My main body wasn’t immune to electroshock bullets. 

Maybe I could ask Myra to grow some of her bark over me? Eww. Never mind, that sounds disgusting. I’d only do that if it’s a last resort.

BOOM!

What the fuck? Did they have like a fucking tank in here?

“Woohoo!” Myra cheered. “Good job Everett!”

“Everett?” I had Ento ask. “Wait a minute, shouldn’t we be using codenames?”

“They’re all dead though,” Myra said.

“Huh?” I had Ento peek her head out. A huge fire was on the opposite side of the room. Some of the wall was also gone. The fire was obscuring the corpses of the clay and human soldiers. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if the humans got burnt to a crisp. Does clay also get burnt to a crisp?

Myra started walking towards our team. I had Ento follow her.

“I’m so glad you guys are all alright,” she said.

“I’m feeling kinda tired,” Everett said, panting. His dark clothes were full of bullet holes. So were Dario’s. 

“Don’t worry man,” Dario said. “We’ll be out of this soon.” He couldn’t know the future, right? So he had no idea when we would be out of this. Or maybe he was just trying to be optimistic?

It’s kind of hard to describe my experience during this mission. It’s been sort of fun and sort of upsetting. I’d rather not have my life be in danger, but I did enjoy using my powers. Now it was more like SpookyErind was the one using her powers since Ento was kinda useless against large amounts of enemies without any support. And my main body was busy being unconscious. When the fuck am I going to wake up?

“Erind!” Deen called out. She ran up and picked Ento up into a hug. I resisted the urge to kick her in the stomach. Just because Ento was small didn’t mean Deen had the right to pick her up. In fact, she should stay at least 10 feet away. The farther, the better.

“What happened?” Deen asked, looking at all the blood and bullet-torn clothes on Ento’s body. 

“It’s fine,” I had Ento say. “Ento’s all healed up now.”

“It’s not though,” Deen muttered. “And where’s your main body and other clone?”

“Umm, my main body got knocked out,” I said.

“Knocked out?!” Deen cried out.

“Don’t worry,” Myra said. “I have her main body safely secured.” She turned around and showed Deen my main body. Some of the vines constricting it had grown a bit thicker around her. One of the vines went around my neck. It reminded me of boa constrictors. 

I once had a giant boa constrictor around my neck once. It was actually pretty cool. Our local library brought a zoologist over and he showcased it. Mom dragged me over even though I didn’t want to go. I sat in the back, hoping no one would talk to me. But it turned out the zoologist called me out for a demonstration. I was really upset at first, but it was kind of cool to have the snake around my neck. It was pretty docile.

I asked Mom if I could keep it. This was after she found out about my insect habits. She said she was more afraid of the snake’s life than mine. To be fair, I didn’t intend to kill the snake. I wanted to see how I could get it to kill other creatures. Maybe I might have killed it if I got bored, although, I’m not sure if my young self would have been able to do that.

“What happened?!” Deen panicked again.

“We ended up fighting Slinky, one of the 2M’s Adumbrae,” Myra said. “I tried to save Erind, but Slinky was way too strong and knocked her out.”

“Wait, then you escaped with Erind?” Deen asked.

“Well… eventually,” Myra replied. A moment of silence passed. I guess no one wanted to talk more about this.

“Where’s your other clone?” Deen asked me. 

“It’s still in another warehouse,” I said. “She and Ento got separated.”

“Separated?” Deen asked.

“Yeah,” I said, not elaborating further. 

“Oh, I’ll search for you on Snippet,” she told me as she pulled out her phone. It was in pristine condition like the rest of her body and clothes. I bet my phone was probably broken since I crashed into a wall.

“Umm, I can’t find you anywhere Erind,” she said.

“Well, my other clone got shot a lot, so maybe some of the bullets damaged her phone,” I replied. It was probably technically true. But I couldn’t reveal to them that SpookyErind was currently a giant werewolf charging through the 2M’s base. “And my main body got thrown against a wall.”

“Against a wall?” Deen said. I was tempted to throw Deen at the wall if she didn’t put Ento down. “Oh my god Erind. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“It’s fine Deen,” I said. “You can’t be in multiple places at once. I should have resummoned my clones to my main body to protect me.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Deen said. 

“Thank you,” I said. She held me for some more moments. I could smell the smoke in the air. Should we get out of here?

“Umm, so how did Ento get to Myra?” she asked. Fuck.

“So the giant werewolf Adumbrae from the docks showed up here,” I said. I didn’t want to bring it up - it could lead to so many holes in my story. But I couldn’t just fabricate it completely since Myra was with me.

“It did?!” Deen asked.

“Yeah,” Myra said. “It was just so bizarre.”

“I’m not sure why she decided to help me,” I had Ento say. “But I’m glad it did help out. It brought Ento with her as she charged through the base and eventually killed Slinky.”

“Another Adumbrae came and saved you?” Dario asked. 

“I know,” I said. “It’s crazy.” What’s even crazier was that it was technically me and SpookyErind that had “saved” me!

“Maybe there’s some sort of civil war going on with the Adumbrae?” I suggested.

“Not sure about that,” Dario said. “But it’s definitely weird. At least you’re alive though.”

“I wonder if the Professor has any information on them?” Deen asked.

“I’ll make sure to ask,” Dario told her. At least they didn’t expect anything fishy with me. Besides, I don’t think there was enough information left behind for them to glean anything useful about Red Hood.

“We should probably go to another room,” I said. Everyone nodded and we headed out.

As we traveled down one of the smokeless hallways, the others talked about what happened.

“I had thought Reo had died!” Everett cried out. “Blubber was gone. I was down to my last energy bar.”

“Blubber was gone?” Myra asked. “Oh, you guys probably got out of range of Reo.”

“Probably,” he said. “But it was still scary. We managed to defeat the clay soldiers made by Finlay, and Blubber wasn’t anywhere to be found.”

“Did you guys run into Isabel?” Myra asked. 

“No,” Everett said. 

“Wait a minute, you’re talking about the woman who was wearing clothes made out of the same stuff the rooms were coated in?” Dario asked.

“Yeah,” Myra said.

“She appeared, but left after she got hit with my powers,” Dario said. Wow. Why was everyone’s powers more useful than mine? I know I was more powerful with all my clones, but I really wished my main body could protect itself. Was this a sign that I shouldn’t split up my clones? 

“How about you Deen?” Myra asked.

“Yeah, I fought her, along with Calder and Finlay,” she said. 

“All three at once?” I asked incredulously. Seriously, how strong was her power?

“No,” Deen said. “I dealt with Calder and Finlay first. Apparently, they look very similar. Might be twins? Then I dealt with Isabel. I wasn’t able to kill any of them though.”

“At least you got out unscathed,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’d rather be hurt a little if it meant I’d be able to protect you,” she said.

“Like I said before Mom, I’m fine,” I said. “I just need my main body to wake up.” She is way too concerned for me.

“Mom?” Myra asked.

“She acts like my mom,” I said.

“Hey! I’m just trying to protect you,” she said. I had Ento stick her tongue out. If Deen was sticking hers out, I couldn’t see since she was wearing a mask.

“Ento does look like a child,” Myra pointed out. 

 

We entered another hallway, but this time there were doors everywhere. But no 2M’s were around. 

“Anything?” I asked Deen.

“No,” she said. So her little prescient pet didn’t see any future danger right now. But why weren’t there any more 2M’s? Did they just retreat or something? SpookyErind was currently fighting some mutants, but she hadn’t even run into a guard recently. It was like they all just left. Or maybe they’re regrouping for another attack.

Dario walked up to one of the doors. “Let’s see what’s inside here.”

Myra walked up and ripped the door out of the frame.

Inside, sci-fi equipment lined up the room. In the middle, a middle-aged woman with black hair was resting on a medical bed, which was connected to more sci-fi stuff.

“We have to free her!” Deen called out. I internally cringed.