“Erind!” Ramon shouted.

“Ow,” Finlay said, “right next to my ears.”

“Stay where you are,” I said. Good that he didn’t mistakenly call Paolo with his real name. Or maybe he just reacted to seeing my human body, even if a fake one, getting beaten up. I could relate.

“Yeah, Ramon, my pal, my buddy,” Finlay taunted him. “Stay here with me.”

“Shut it or I’ll kill you!”

The minutes were ticking down before I was out of here; I shouldn’t feel anything for these people anymore. Yet, I was peeved.

My last moment in this face would be losing.

What could I do here now though?

Nothing. Transforming into Blanchette later and trying for a round two wasn’t also looking that good either. Especially since I needed to fight and eat a lot of random monsters to make my Blanchette form stronger before duking it out with Stella. I was better off just escaping.

And getting revenge with my Blanchette body wasn’t the point. Even beating Stella wasn’t the point. This was going to be a failure for Pino’s heroic persona. As Pino, I was not only running out of options but also of time. I could walk away—and I will—but my first intentionally crafted hero face was going to crash and burn with nothing to show for it.

Fucking annoying.

The surviving clay creations of Finlay, five of them, formed a wall in front of Stella. Did he realize my ability had something to do with shooting with my fingers? Not that I would try controlling her. I was already busy keeping Calder still. Weirdly, this guy wasn’t fighting back that hard, just lolling around on the ground like a he was taking a nap. His mind was quiet; no yelling or whatever.

“The fuck you’re doing?” Ramon shouted. His purple blade was glowing hot, burning the skin on Finlay’s neck. “Stop controlling those things.”

“You think you can order me around?” Finlay retorted, not showing any reaction to the pain. “But if you ask me as a friend—”

“Enough of that friend talk!”

“Ramon, don’t let him get to your head,” I said. “Focus, or else he’ll escape from you again.”

“I-I’m…that won’t happen again! But what about Erind?”

“I’m sure they won’t kill her.”

“Lots of things worse than death,” Finlay chimed in.

“The fuck is this in front of me?” Stella said, her brash, infuriated tone returned. “I can’t fucking see what’s going on.” She karate chopped a couple of the clay men in front of her, destroying them. “There we go. Where were we?” Her voice became gentle and friendly once again.

“They’re worried about Erind,” Finlay called out.

“She’s already healing herself,” Stella said. “No harm done. Permanently anyway. And why do you care about her? What's all this?”

“Can’t blame us for still trying to fulfill our job of protecting her,” I nonchalantly replied.

“All of us here are on same side, right? You said it yourself.”

“Our contract didn’t specify any exceptions,” I said. Let her make of that what she will. “What will you do to Erind?”

“Hand her over to the Supplier and be done with this. I don’t know what he wants with her, nor do I care. We have plenty of other matters to attend to, especially after our relatively successful—I think that’s a fair assessment—field testing of the new weapon commissioned by the Supplier. A return to form, you know? We were weapon smugglers a long time ago.”

“So I’ve heard. You look pretty young if you were already around since that time.”

“Young and pretty,” Stella corrected me. She gestured for one of her men to fetch her an object she was miming. “There’s a lot cosmetic surgery can do with a rapidly regenerating body.”

“You’ll just hand her over, just like that?” I said, making a last-ditch effort. “How about—”

“I know where you’re going with that,” Stella said. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

I shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

“What the hell is that for?” Ramon said, as one of the grunts handed Stella a scary syringe, about the size of a water bottle, filled with fluorescent blue liquid. “Are you—No!” he said as she jammed the needle into the side of Paolo's neck.

“You’re weirdly attached to her,” Stella observed.

“It’s…I…”

“They’re just putting her to sleep,” I said as I felt Paolo’s woozy mind go completely blank.

“Exactly,” Stella said. “It’s for the best. I don’t want to keep on punching her.” She let go of Paolo’s hair, letting him drop to the ground. “Maybe we can put her in one of the vats. Do we have an empty one—?”

“Hold on!” Ramon said. “We still have Finlay!”

(Don’t—) I started to say.

“And his brother!” He pointed his bladed arm threateningly at the unconscious Calder. (What?) he snapped at me. (We can’t just let them take Eri—I mean Paolo!)

(Um…I’m thinking of a plan.) Stella already didn’t care about us. I was going to suggest we leave Paolo and escape. It could be a win for me of sorts. But perhaps I could still do something with this.

Contrary to what I expected, they knocked out Paolo instead of putting him in restraints. Still overwhelming odds. But there was something else bothering me that could be used in our favor.

“You can have them.”

“Huh? You don’t care what happens to these two? They’re your men.”

“No.”

“Aw, come on, Stella,” Finlay said. “Don’t be like that.”

“That’s Miss Stella to you. I’m not sure what nonsense you were doing in the security room. I still can’t contact Dekano. Fucking useless. You, not Dekano. Calder too, just lying there like a piece of shit on the floor. Did he get too used to hiding behind his illusions?” Stella turned away from us. “I’ll try calling Dekano again.”

(She’s bluffing us), I told Ramon, even though she wasn’t.

“You’re bluffing!” he said out loud. “There’s no way you’ll just let your investments on these two go to waste,” he continued, following the lines I fed him.

Stella held up a finger. “Hmm…still no connection.” She frowned at her phone. “And since I already have a finger up, I’m going to point out a few things to you. One! Erind, as a true Adumbrae, is more valuable than those useless twins. Two! You’re acting very suspiciously for your story.”

(You there?)

(…hello there...)

(It’s me. The metal woman, Pino.)

(Nice mental thing you’ve got going here. Calder, at your service.)

“Three!” Stella continued as she held up another finger. “No one’s going to miss if the three of you disappear. The boys at Vegas won’t lift a finger no matter what happens to you. Four! True Adumbrae who still haven’t been completely overtaken? I bet I can get a high price for just your corpses.”

“What?” Ramon said. “You’re going to kill us?” He stared at me, concern was on his half-monster face.

I wasn’t unnerved by what Stella was saying because I was busy negotiating with Calder. (You stay out of our way, we do our best to take down Stella.)

(By the way, how did you—)

(Dekano.) I recalled Finlay mentioned he took care of Dekano. There was some internal shit going on with them that I could capitalize on.

(I see. You're good. Tell Fins our code, ‘I’m your bestest friend in the world’. He’ll understand.)

“Five! I’m out of fingers. And you're out of time!"

All of us tensed up. I still wasn't finished planning.

Stella grinned at us. "Don’t get so worked up, I’m just kidding. You’ll seriously fight back if I try to kill you. Which is a hassle on my part because I still don’t know all of your powers.” She nodded her head towards me. “You, for one, are strangely calm.”

“We’re all on the same side,” was my answer. I was preoccupied with explaining the plan to Ramon and Doms, the latter was strangely silent.

(Are you being serious right now?!) Ramon said.

(Don’t let Stella notice your reaction.)

(Can we trust them?)

(I’m not sure…but we don’t need to trust them.) My favorite answer. Trust not the person, but the certainty of their motivations. Which was why I wasn’t sure I could count on Doms. She was behind me, blissfully reunited with her daughter.

“Since we are…colleagues,” Stella drawled, “I do hope you can help me with a small favor.” Right after threatening to kill us, it was obvious she wasn’t asking for our consent. Her gaze swept over the cowering hostages. “There’s something I’d like to capture on film. It'll make for very good promotional videos.”

I never paid attention to the hostages before because I knew I couldn’t save them; I was already having a hard time saving the ones with me. One step at a time for my heroic journey. But now that I closely examined them, I noticed tiny red blips inside of their heads. It dawned on me. “Seriously? You’re going to make us fight them?”

“A lucky guess or your powers at work?” She pointed at a metal box, the size of a briefcase, sitting on top of the large machines beside the green vats. It looked similar to the one we found before. Her men hurriedly brought it to her.

(They're going to turn into monsters), Calder said.

(I guessed that much. Any tips?)

(See that box?) he said. Stella was pushing some buttons on it. (It transmits a signal that controls the monsters on a basic level.)

(How do we mess it up?) I asked him. Fuck, if only I knew that stupid box was important then I wouldn’t have left it behind.

“What’s happening to them?” Ramon said.

The hostages started to transform. Some grew larger, some smaller, most stayed humanoid in size and shape. All becoming horribly disfigured. They were ripping the ties that bound their legs and hands. A lot of them sprouted extra limbs. They chewed their gags as their mouths widened, crying out a hair-raising cacophony of an inhuman choir.

“If we win we get to go?" I said. "Is that it?”

“Correct!” Stella said. “Adumbrae versus subjects infected by the XR-Series!”

“We’re not going to do that,” Doms said, surprising me by speaking up.

“They’re…they’re humans too," said Ramon. "We’re not joining your stupid game.”

I was about to say that Ramon had already killed plenty of monsters, but I was memorizing the instructions of Calder.

“I thought you might refuse,” Stella said. “That part about being humans though…eh?” In a blur, she threw something. It blew past my head, the sweeping gust almost toppling me. There was a loud crash as that something collided with the wall behind us. “And another phone gone. You might have already gotten your daughter, but I hoped you wouldn’t just leave your friends.”

I turned around. Doms was inching towards the doors, but Stella nearly hit her with her phone. Doms didn’t meet my gaze. I wasn’t judging her or anything; it was natural she’d try to escape with her daughter. Speaking of her daughter, what is that? There was something inside of her too.

"All of you will fight."

“We have no part in this!” Dom said. “Just let me and my daughter go.”

“I can’t do that, because your daughter needs this.” Stella showed us a vial.

(Sorry. My bad for suggesting that to Stella), Calder said. I already knew what he was apologizing for.

Doms figured it out without any more explanation. “What's inside my baby?” She raised her gun, one of those we nabbed from Finlay’s clay soldiers.

“Are you sure you want to shoot? You might hit this oh-so-important vial.”

She lowered her weapon and contacted me, (I’m sorry I was about to leave—)

(I understand.)

(I'm really sorry)

(Don't worry about it), I told her. (We're all in this together.) For a few more minutes anyway.

(I need your help—)

(We will all help each other. Give me your gun.) I gave her a run down of the plan.

“You guys get a good shot of this,” Stella barked at her men operating the cameras. “We’re about to start!”

Sure, we are, I thought, smirking in my head. “Ramon, go!”

Ramon and Finlay fought. He bodily threw the clay-making bastard away. Calder, supposedly breaking free from my power, jumped on Ramon. He was also flung aside, fulfilling our deal to get them out of the fight. Then Ramon yelled, “I’ll get you,” charging at Stella.

“Oh?” she said, surprised by the sudden turn of events. “What’s going on—huh?” The controller for the monsters was snatched away from her hands by none other than—“Erind?”

Ramon leapt across the air and crashed into Stella before she could go after Paolo. I controlled Paolo and tweaked the machine, recalling the instructions of Calder, to scramble its signal.

“How are you awake?” Stella said at Paolo while she kicked Ramon, ripping her tight skirt, sending him flying into the chandelier above. Stella went after Paolo next, but I ordered him to fight back.

“I'm going in,” Doms said.

“I’ll protect Lizzie,” I assured her. “Good luck in getting the vial from Stella.”

“Thank you,” she said.

It wasn’t just a three-versus-one fight. Many of the hostages were already full monsters and joining in as well. But they weren’t attacking just us, they were attacking everyone. That machine box thingy we messed with sent all sorts of mixed signals, driving them wild.

The human grunts of the 2Ms fought for their lives as the monsters fell upon them. The monsters were also eating each other, targeting those slow to transform, eating the ones who were mostly human.

“Aunt Pino.” Lizzie hugged me as we retreated to the door.

“I’m a bit busy here,” I said. A woman with the uniform of a condominium employee was crawling on the floor, heading for us. Her skin and flesh were melting off her skeleton as if it were hot wax. I shot her a few times on the head. Thankfully, the parasite was in the same place as her brain.

“I’m not feeling well…”

“I should get you out of here…no, I can’t leave them or they’ll lose without my powers.” Or lose faster rather. Because the three of them were already losing now.

Stella was basically just bullying Paolo, Doms, and Ramon. It would’ve been a funny scene, given she was just a bit taller than me, but she fiercely rained blows on the three of them with such speed that they were like stationary punching bags. I felt a bit sorry for them.

“Aunt Pino…it hurts.”

“Er…Hang on.” Maybe I should just tell Lizzie to run away while I stayed here? But I wasn’t sure if she’d be safe on her own, especially when all of the monsters around us were going crazy. Monsters? I looked down. “Woah!”

Lizzie stared back at me with snake-like eyes. “Is something wrong with me?”

BAM! BAM! Doms bounced off the floor like she was a thrown stone skipping across a river.

“Mommy!”

“You want this?” Stella said, throwing the vial at Doms.

It shattered on the floor beside her. Doms reached for it, her shaking hands trying to scoop its contents off the floor. "No! No...no...no..."

“You bitch!” Ramon yelled. He was covered in black smoke, his blade arm growing larger and larger.

“Don’t get so worked up,” Stella said. “That’s just water. There’s no cure."

"What?!"

"That’s what you get for thinking you could trick me!”