[REND] B2. 7.1 - Slippery Sisterly Sightings

My cute original body got hammered into the floor like a cartoon character, leaving behind a me-shaped hole after Deen dug it out. I wanted to fill the hole with plaster and take the molded form home. Would look great in my living room. Mom would probably find it bizarre.

I expected my original body to have regenerated any injuries caused by Illusory Eye. But my clothes were a mess, peppered with tears, powdered by dirt, and accented with spots of blood. I might be really cursed, having my personal belongings destroyed all the time. Then again, the same was true for Deen and Myra.

“Are you… dead?” Deen held my original body’s wrist to check for a pulse.

“Huh? No,” I replied. “Why would I be? It’s like my soul or something got transferred to this metal body. That one is an empty shell.”

“So, you can’t feel anything with this body?” Deen poked the left cheek of my Erind self.

“Nothing at all. Thankfully, it retained its toughness and hyper regeneration.” I frowned when Deen continued to search my original body for injuries, raising my shirt, moving my limbs, and groping everywhere. Should this be considered harassment? I appreciated the thought, but this counted as physical contact even if I currently inhabited a different body.

“That’s good news,” Deen said. “You won’t worry much about this body.”

“It’s still a huge downside to have it just lying around, being useless. Well, not completely useless. I could puppet it, too. Though not very well. I need practice. Better to link with someone willing, like you.”

“I wasn’t willing, at first. It was… It was scary, to be honest, having someone else inside your head. It must be what people infected with Adumbrae experience. When you suddenly took control, I panicked and fought back.”

“Yeah. Sorry for that.” My robotic voice hid the giggles well. Having Spooky Erind inside my head shouldn’t be funny, but it was amusing that Deen said those things to me, an Adumbrae. “I had to do it.”

“And you did great! You saved us. You saved me from my own stupidity.” Deen fell silent while wiping the dirt from the face of my original body. “I should’ve listened to Gabe. We were so close… so close to dying, if you didn’t have your power.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” I said, taking mental note to bring this up later. Trauma-ammo increasing. “Myra would’ve gone in regardless. We couldn’t leave her alone, or she really would’ve died.”

Deen wasn’t listening to me. “That Adumbrae was a terrifying opponent. I know that I sometimes complain about Gabe ordering me, but it was unnerving when I could no longer hear him. Then you and Myra attacked me. In my mind, I mean.”

“Same dream here, if we can call it that.” A pity that it wasn’t real. All I had left were memories of injuring illusion Deen. No way I could do it in real life with her Guardian Angel protecting her. “You were punching and kicking me. I just curled up in a ball until I remembered what you said about using my power. It all felt so real.”

“The Adumbrae probably influenced our thoughts to believe it was real. Gabe warned me not to trust my senses, and I still fell for the illusions.” Deen weakly grinned at me. “I’ll have nightmares for days about you trying to gouge my eyes out.”

“Your illusion counterpart was super scary, too,” I said. “You clawed my cheeks, like ripping open the skin and stuff. Even though I eventually remembered that it was all an illusion, I couldn’t bring myself to attack you.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet.” Deen looked up as Myra came over.

“Here’s your body, Eri—I mean, Croissant.” Myra dumped the rest of my body next to my head.

“I’m a fan of croissants, but not of using it as my codename. I’ll think of something related to my powers later.” I started to reform myself, tugging at the almost invisible connection tying together my parts. Even after the hits they suffered, there was no damage at all. “Merge, can you check how tough my new body is? Try to destroy a piece.”

“Any piece?” Myra chose one of my forearms. Surprisingly, there was nothing inside it. Just an uneven tube in the shape of an arm. Myra peered through the hole. “There’s no mechanism or anything that makes you move?”

“Energy from another dimension, I guess.” I shrugged a shoulder that had just clicked into place. “This is why the Adumbrae couldn’t trap me in illusions.”

“Literally no brain to fool,” Myra said, holding my forearm with both hands.

Squeezing it didn’t do anything. Not even a tiny dent, no matter how hard Myra grunted. She then placed the piece on the ground and stomped on it. The concrete floor broke, but the piece’s shape remained the same.

“The hell is this material?” Myra asked, pulling my forearm out of the hole. “It looks like metal but doesn’t feel like it.” She knocked on it. There was almost no sound made.

“Don’t know what it is,” I said. “Can you try breaking the link next?”

“What link?”

“This one.” A thin thread of light hung from the piece of me that Myra held. I pointed with my left hand, having reformed most of my upper body. It turned out that Myra had my right forearm.

Myra squinted at the spot I was pointing to. “I don’t see anything. It’s just air.”

“What about this here?” I pointed at the thread connecting my right index finger to Deen.

Myra shook her head. “Can’t see shit.”

“Fatalis, can you see this?” I asked.

“Not me either,” Deen replied, making a face at me for using her disliked codename.

Interesting. It was a slight advantage that the enemy wouldn’t immediately know who I was linking with. Heck, I could even sneak a connection with my enemy. Send bothersome thoughts or try wrestling control of their body. That might create an opening. “Really, nothing? What about when I powered you up? It turned green.”

“I was too focused on fighting the Adumbrae. Wait, are you saying that we’re still linked?” Deen had a huge grin. (Hello, Erind.) She sent images of croissants.

“Cut that out. Don’t treat our link like social media.” I willed it to cut off. The line disintegrated into nothingness.

“Maybe only you can see it with your weird eye,” Myra said.

“Myra, can you try stomping here?” I pointed at the link between my right forearm and elbow lying on the floor. Myra stepped on it several times. I nodded at the intact connection. “It turns out that this form, including the threads, is way tougher than our superhuman bodies. A problem is that I fall apart easily.”

“Perhaps this, erm, let’s call it a feature, is related to your personality,” Deen said as she helped me assemble my legs.

This bitch was saying that I get overwhelmed in stressful situations? The audacity! If it wasn’t for me, we’d all be trapped in a mind prison until we were turned into street art. The bloody kind. If anything, Deen was the overdramatic one among the Three Bs. Pain in the ass, morally impaired hypocrite.  

Calm down, Erind. But I shouldn’t get angry at Deen’s impression of me. It simply meant that I presented my timid face too well. “I think you’re right,” I said. “And I need to be a stronger person.”

“We’re here with you.” Deen pulled my real body towards her as I completed my not-really-metal mannequin self.

“You’re plenty tough already,” Myra said, “saving us and all. Your first fight went so much better than mine.”

With my body reassembled, I took off my mask and found myself lying on Deen’s lap. She looked down at me with a face full of concern. Her blonde hair draped down like curtains.

“Are you alive?” Deen asked, holding my cheeks.

“Hey, I was never dead.” I pushed her hands away and sat back up. “Ugh, my hair is a mess.” Using my fingers, I combed away the stones and dust from my hair. Action movies didn’t include this aspect, the real aftermath of a fight. They’d just add splotches of blood on the actress’s cheek or something, but the hair and makeup would be immaculate.

And when it came to superhero movies, their costumes would only be slightly dirty even after bursting out of a building or surviving a blast. What material was their costume made of? Come to think of it, Corebring suits were extremely tough. I couldn’t recall ever seeing one torn, and I had seen several videos of Corebrings fighting Adumbrae.

“Your other body is just instantly gone.” Myra gestured at where my mannequin self stood before. “I thought there’d be something more to it, like how Oberon vomits out his summons, and swallows them when he’s done.”

“Good thing I don’t give birth to my other self or something,” I said. “I’d rather not use my powers if that’s the case.”

“What do your powers do, exactly?” Myra asked. “Control people? Puppet people, since you looked like a puppet?”

“It doesn’t work if they’re unwilling. Fatalis resisted my control. Only applicable in specific scenarios, like fighting this Adumbrae with illusion powers. I think the more useful aspect of my ability is strengthening people.”

“Damn right, it is!” Myra punched her palm. “One hit and that fucking bitch was minced meat. Less than minced meat. Pulverized might be the better word. But that getting huge and muscular, like an inflated Emcee, isn’t very… appealing.”

“Maybe I can control how much energy I give.” It did feel like I sent a burst Deen’s way frantically. With enough practice, I might be able to send small amounts to not cause an unsightly transformation. “Fatalis, how did that feel when your arm ballooned?”

“It felt amazing…” Deen had a dreamy look on her face while gazing at the ceiling.

“Amazing?” I repeated. “Are you… Are you okay?”

Deen shook her head. “No! No, no, no. That made me sound like a deviant. I meant that when you made me stronger, it felt amazing to be that powerful.” She pursed her lips and shook her head again. “I’m doing an awful job explaining things. I… felt invincible. As if I could do anything.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Myra said. “It’s like how Adumbrae makes seeded people feel powerful with superhuman bodies so they’d get addicted to it. But this one isn’t intentional on Croissant’s end. I’m just sharing something my sister told me.”

“That’s close.” Deen turned to me. “I’m not saying that you’re an Adumbrae.”

“I know, I know,” I replied. “What about the actual enlarging thing. How did that feel?”

“Very painful.” Deen massaged her arm that had transformed. “Rushing blood made my arm tingle. It was as if I could sense actual adrenaline in my veins. And I could feel my arm growing, quite the opposite of how our body regenerates. We don’t actually feel our broken bones reforming, right? Only the pain going away. As you can imagine, it’s quite painful for an arm to suddenly grow to that size.”

“So-sorry about that,” I said, bowing several times. “I didn’t know my power would do that. At least it deflated when I stopped giving power.”

“Not exactly,” Deen said. “My regeneration fixed my arm. You have to understand that your power changes the body but doesn’t change it back. Be careful when using it, okay?”

“I-I will. Sorry again.” This gave me an idea.

What if I linked with a normal person and gave them that energy? A tiny bit would give them super strength, probably enough to fight an Adumbrae. More, and they’d just die, wouldn’t they? Well, they’d become horribly disfigured first. And then, die.

I recalled Conrad, the other PCM scientist. His arm turned into a monster club thingy. He probably had a way to—

“The metal band!” I looked around for it.

Deen jumped to her feet in surprise. “What’s wrong?”

“Help me look for a sci-fi-looking metal band. It used to fit the arm of the guy scientist that I, uh, the dead guy scientist.” That metal band was an important clue to what the PCM were up to. Did Illusory Eye crush it while hammering me?

“What’s so important about this band?” Myra asked while helping us search.

“I’m not sure, but I think it allowed the guy scientist to have a monster arm. The rest of his body was very human, though.” I explained to them what happened when I chased Conrad, not missing the opportunity to add a dramatic flair. “I… I had to kill…” I choked up on my words.

Myra groaned. “Not you, too. Get into your head that these are the bad guys. We’re doing a good deed here.”

“You had no choice,” Deen said, giving me a small hug around my shoulders. “He attacked you with a monster arm, and you protected yourself. Let’s focus on finding this item.”

“Maybe the lady scientist also had one?” I went to check the crumpled body of Cecilia. Where did Myra throw—? There it was, near the door. Was it always there? Reaching it, I shouted, “We have a problem! Come over here!”

The mad scientist’s corpse was missing its head.

“Merge, did you decapitate her?” Deen asked.

“Why would I do that?” Myra replied. “You saw what I did. I crushed her body and threw her away like the trash that she was. See, her midsections in just mushy and bloody. The Adumbrae probably crushed the head while—”

“No.” I knelt next to the body. “If that happened, there should be all sorts of gore here, not just this puddle of blood. It’s like the head was just… removed.”

I tore open Cecilia’s lab coat, revealing a strip of metal threaded with tiny wires that lined her chest around where a loose neckline would be. Everything above line—part of the chest, the neck, and the head—was cleanly gone.

“Ah!” I exclaimed, scrambling back. I shouldn’t forget that I was the timid one among the Three Bs.

“This is… What is this?” Myra picked up the body and made the top face us, revealing the cavity left behind by the missing head. It wasn’t a normal human body at all. More like an empty shell with a tacked-on head.

“A trail of blood,” Deen gasped, pointing at something that led to the door.

“That crazy woman was just a head?” Myra wondered. “And she—”

“And she left her body,” I finished her sentence.

(Author's Notes: For those who've read the earlier version of the previous chapter’s Author's Notes, sorry for the spoilers about Cecilia. Yep, Cecilia isn't a normal person. Not really shocking. Deen and Myra know about Erind's powers, and the bond of the Three Bs grows stronger. Thank you for your continued support!)