[REND] 6.1 - Hero Wannabes, At Your Service

“You’re here to save me—us?” I really needed to see the movie script because I had no idea what was going on. This guy must be with those attacking the place. But who were they?

Ski Mask—the numbing headache impaired my nickname-generating organ—raised a finger to his mouth. He cocked his head, listening for noises. Only the sound of fighting from the outside filtered in. He twirled another finger above him, questioningly tilted his head at me. Was he asking me if it was safe? Or if there were others around?

I shook my head in response.

With an effortless jump, Ski Mask got on top of a large crate that was taller than he was. He crouched and stalked above the crates to my right, surveying the surroundings. He moved with purpose and experience.

Did he have some training? The police didn’t wear ski masks when saving kidnapped victims. Neither did the BID. Wouldn’t be Corebrings either. Both the BID and the Corebrings had overwhelming force to tear this place apart. These people might be the ‘Adumbrae bandits’ thing that Purple Mohawk mentioned.

Super difficult to think with this swirling headache. Made me want to puke.

Ski Mask hopped off the crate. Raising his hands to show he had no weapons, he slowly approached. “I’m here to help.”  

I grabbed the sides of my head as a severe bout of migraine stabbed into my brain. My eyes watered. The hell was this pain? Was it a side effect of my transformation? The headache got more intense as Ski Mask neared me.

“Ah, I apologize,” he said. My headache suddenly vanished.

He has powers. An Adumbrae too? So much for the city’s claim to be Adumbrae-free for seven years. A lot of them were scurrying around.

“What… Who… are you?” I asked. Purple Mohawk’s enemy wasn’t necessarily my friend.

“Call me Blank, for now,” he said in an intentionally gentle voice. I could tell he was forcing himself to sound nice, and this wasn’t his normal tone. He knelt beside me. “To confirm, there’s no one else here?”

“Yes. I mean no, as in—”

“Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m—”

“Your friend?” Blank-For-Now, his updated nickname, looked down at Deen lying on my lap.

“Deen got knocked out by those dart thingies.” I omitted that it was my fault. Blank-For-Now would just assume that our kidnappers did it.

“Allow me to…” Blank-For-Now stretched his hand toward Deen’s head. He looked at me for permission. I nodded. He opened Deen’s left eye. Then he leaned down to listen for her breathing while checking her pulse.

“Who really are you?” I asked. “Like, are you with the police or something? The BID?”

“I’m on your side.” Blank-For-Now straightened as he faced me. His steel blue eyes peered from behind his ski mask. I suspected that he wanted to appear sincere with the eye contact, but he came off as trying to intimidate me. “And we’re going to get you out of here. Safely. That’s all you need to know for now.” He looked me over. “Blood. Are you wounded?”

“I-I’m fine.” Most of the blood on me was from Purple Mohawk. Some were mine; I did get shot by Bigsby. “This blood… It’s from other people.”

“There are other prisoners? You mentioned there was no one else here.”

I shook my head. “They killed them. The men who took us. They ki-killed the others in ca-cages.” I choked up on my words as I pointed. “I don’t think you can see it from here. Near the front of the warehouse. Lots of blood.” I recalled the sensation of this guy’s headache powers and pretended to gag.

“Those ruthless bastards… Where did they go? How did you escape?”

“Uh, nowhere. They’re dead too. No one guarding us.”

He leaned back in surprise. “What do you mean? Who killed them?”

“There was this woman…” I started my tale. And I wasn’t talking about my hot, monster alter ego.

Assuming that Blank-For-Now and his team were the Adumbrae bandits, they’d likely know the woman on the train that Purple Mohawk was looking for. Was Blank-For-Now looking for her, too? I presented this vague story and gauged the situation from his reaction.

“She’s not normal… I think.” I went one. “Not human. She killed the guys trying to assault Deen. She’s really super strong. And scary.”

“What does she look like?” Blank-For-Now asked with an intensity in his voice.

“I-I do-don’t know,” I replied, holding my head and closing my eyes. I couldn’t be sure if the woman targeted by Purple Mohawk and the one Blank-For-Now were thinking about the same, but Blank-For-Now did seem interested. “I was—”

Blank-For-Now clicked his tongue. “You couldn’t have gotten a good look at her because you lost your glasses.”

I felt around my eyes. Dammit! Another one gone.

And I could’ve unintentionally broken Rule #2—Do not break the character of my face. I had the face of Erind, the law school student, the dutiful daughter, and the normal human. That face had glasses, which Blank-For-Now was aware of, probably because his team was spying on me. Good thing that Blank-For-Now reminded me before I committed the ultimate mistake.

“Did anyone mention her name?” Blank-For-Now pressed. “Any clue as to her identity?”

“Sorry, I swear I don’t know anything. When they started to fight, I curled up and covered my ears.”

“Stay here,” Blank-For-Now said. “I’ll be back. Two minutes. Maybe one. If you leave without me, you’ll get hurt or die.” He was away in a sprint.

I almost chuckled when the echoes of hurried footsteps of Blank-For-Now abruptly stopped. I wished I could see his shocked face at the scene of the monstrous massacre. Maybe he wouldn’t get unnerved. He gave off tough-guy vibes.

But back to the more pressing questions: Do I stay or go?

These Adumbrae bandits wanted to rescue me. Why?

Surely, not out of the goodness of their hearts. However, I also needed more information about what was going on. If there was any danger, I could transform into—no! That would accelerate Spooky Erind’s takeover. Did the Adumbrae bandits know how to slow down the Adumbrae taking over the mind? Blank-For-Now was apparently in control of his mental faculties. Someone fully controlled by an Adumbrae probably wouldn’t save other people.

I looked down at my shirt. Some tearing from my scuffle with Purple Mohawk. Three bullet holes, too, courtesy of Bigsby. I tore those holes a bit bigger so it wouldn’t appear I had regenerated bullet wounds. The important thing was not to let these Adumbrae bandits realize I was no longer human. I couldn’t assume that any Adumbrae was a friend.

I checked my right palm. The pimple patch covering the crystal was gone. Must’ve been lost during the fight. Did the snout face that Spooky Erind gave me come out of the crystal?

Was I imagining things, or did the crystal… grow bigger?

If this would eventually become Spooky Erind’s gauntlet, I better have a galaxy-brain-sized plan to disguise it. Would anyone believe that I just wanted a golden backscratcher?

I closed my hand when I heard Blank-For-Now coming back. He had a hand on his ear while muttering. A communication device was covered by his ski mask, was my guess. It was hard to discern the expression of his covered face, but I expected him to be more distraught by what he had seen.  

“The woman who killed your kidnappers,” Blank-For-Now quickly asked, kneeling beside me again. “She was alive and well after the battle?”

“I, uh, maybe? Sorry, I don’t know anything. I was trying to wake up Deen. I was so, so scared! We need to get out of here.”

Blank-For-Now nodded. “That’s just what we’re going to do because time is running out.” He picked up Deen and lugged her over his shoulder. “Stick close to me.”

“What do you mean that time is running out?” I asked, jogging after him.

“More bad guys coming.” Blank-For-Now kicked open the metal door. The sudden resonant thud was too loud, I even twitched from it.

A bit of whimpering afterwards was my improvisation. And the Academy Award goes to Erind-in-distress!

Blank-For-Now hesitated for a moment, as if figuring out whether he should apologize for scaring me or not, but then just said, “Keep your head down.”

We exited the back of the warehouse. Tall walls topped by barbed wire bordered the compound. Sounds of battle continued. On top of gunfire, there were roars and other inhuman sounds. We rounded the warehouse and waited at the corner. Blank-For-Now took a peek. I shuffled forward to take a look, too.

The area in front of the warehouses was a battlefield. Several dead bodies of both humans and monsters were strewn about wrecked trucks and freight containers. The team of Blank-For-Now was quite formidable.

A hulking metallic monster pounded an insect-like monster to a pulp. Metal Hulk then chased a jeep with a machine gun mounted on its back. The guy manning the gun shrieked like a girl, sounding a lot like me when I scream, as he fired. The bullets harmlessly pinged off Metal Hulk’s body.

Metal Hulk flung his arms and shot metal spikes. The jeep and everyone riding it were turned into a pin cushion. Just spikes everywhere.

“Merge, don’t chase them!” Blank-For-Now shouted into his radio or something. “Start falling back. I got Erind and her friend. No other survivors. Emcee, how are things on your end?”

A muffled voice responded. I didn’t quite get what this Emcee person reported.  

Metal Hulk must be Merge. With Emcee, there were at least three Adumbrae in Blank-For-Now’s team. The natural or artificial kind? I didn’t know yet. Fighting them even in my transformed state would be dangerous, especially this Merge guy.

Blank-For-Now assured me that they were on my side. I should keep it that way.

“Ride, pick us up,” continued Blank-For-Now. “You need to choose a better codename than ‘Ride’. Everyone, we’re moving out. Oberon reported that Jim Ambrose is coming with reinforcements from the docks.”

Man, sure would be nice to know what the fuck is going on, I grumbled in my head. I took for granted the peace of boring normalcy. The upside of this was that sort of things happened only to the main character. I’m getting my big break, Mom!  

A beat-up van squealed past the torn gates of the compound. That must be our getaway vehicle, driven by Ride. It looked more like a kidnapper’s vehicle than the black SUV that took me. The van headed our way.

“Stop fighting, Merge!” Blank-For-Now shouted to his mouthpiece. “This is a repeat of—hey, I’m not a dictator. I’m keeping the team intact.”

Merge threw a forklift at a group of armed men hiding behind a semi before running in our direction too. He gradually became smaller and smaller, shedding off the armor until he looked like a metallic mannequin.

“I’m here!” said a voice above us. Someone dropped down from the roof of the warehouse. It was a guy wearing a full-headed gorilla mask, probably bought from a dollar Halloween store. He must be Emcee.

He looked me over. “Hey… how are you doing?”

“I think so.” Awkward opening interaction.

“That’s, uh, good. Yeah. Good.”

“Save the chit-chat for later,” Blank-For-Now cut in. I suppose I should just refer to him as Blank, his codename. Blank sprinted to the van that was slowing down as it turned.

Emcee grabbed my arm and pulled me as he ran. I will hurt this guy someday.

The van’s door slid open, but it wasn’t stopping. Blank jumped inside the moving van with Deen.

“Wait!” I yelped. Emcee carried me like a baby and followed Blank. I scrambled off of Emcee as soon as we were in the van. He deserved death for doing this to me. A painful death.

He climbed into the backseat of the van. Blank, Deen, and I were in the middle row. Blank arranged Deen into a better sitting position. He then tilted her chin up, making her lean back on the seat’s headrest. Must be to ensure breathing. I should’ve thought of that as Deen’s supposed best friend.

I hugged her to show that I cared, also displaying my fear and suspicion of these people. I pushed down my disgust of physical contact. It was somehow lessened because I initiated the touching.

The last to hop in was Merge, squeezing his bulk into the passenger’s side. The van dipped from his weight.

“Shed the pounds, Myra!” the driver shouted. Tires dug up gravel as the van’s frame groaned. And we were away.

“No names,” Blank snapped. “Mission ongoing.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Ride turned the wheel hard left. The van protested as it rounded the corner past the gate. “Seriously, Merge, you’re still too heavy.”

Merge’s metal body deflated like a balloon. “I could’ve gotten more of those weakling shits!” A female voice. Another instance I thought a gal was a guy. “Just ten more seconds and there’d be fewer bad guys on this planet.”

“Don’t stray from our plans,” Blank said as he looked over his shoulder. “Anything?”

“Can’t see anyone following us,” replied Emcee. “All clear.”

“Keep watching. Look out for drones too.”

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Myra the Merge said. Her body has settled into its true shape, her metallic skin turning a slightly tanned complexion. It turned out that Metal Hulk was a woman wearing a sports bra and cycling shorts. A very fit woman with six-pack abs.

And blue hair… that I had seen before. Just earlier today, in fact.

Myra leaned between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

“Hi there, fellow Eloyce student,” she said with a grin.

“You’re…” I flipped through the pages of my brain to the section of people I didn’t care about. Ramello had pointed her out to me while we were at the memorial service. “Myra Fletcher. I’ve seen you around Cresthorne.”

“Yes. My sister goes there. I go to med school.”

“Kelsey, right?” Congratulations to me for remembering another inconsequential name. “I haven’t talked to her because she’s in Section Three and I’m in One.”

Gears began to turn in my head. Kelsey was on the train during the Adumbrae attack—one of my classmates mentioned it. Was it Adrian? And according to Ramello, Kelsey hasn’t been found yet. Feared dead. Something about Myra waiting for the DNA results of the dead people. Not true, it turned out.

I had a hunch about what was going on.