[REND] B2. 6.3 - Monster in the Labyrinth

We’re sent by Red Hood? Ah, I could see why this mad scientist would think that.

Cecilia didn’t know about artificial Corebrings, but she should know about what happened at the docks. Given that we were supposedly Adumbrae in her eyes, and Red Hood was the rumored big bad Adumbrae around here, she’d assume that we were Red Hood’s subordinates. Perhaps Red Hood intended to drive the remnants of the 2Ms’ forces out of the city and considered the PCM an enemy, too.

It was only a matter of time until the PCM clashed with Red Hood. Cecilia seemed to expect Red Hood would make a move at some point. This experiment of theirs would obviously make Adumbrae angry.  

“Red Hood?” Deen frowned. “No, we’re not—”

“Fatalis, don’t bother pretending,” I said, locking eyes with Deen. My best friend should understand to play along and accept this neatly-packaged fake identity. Pretty dumb to admit we were from a group with artificial Cores. “They had reached out to our boss, Red Hood. A great boss, by the way. And now, we’re here. Didn’t expect that, did you?” I asked Cecilia.

“I’m right?” Cecilia laughed more. “I shouldn’t be too surprised because that’s often the case.”

I gambled that she’d be more inclined to talk because she thought she knew us. “You PCM idiots should’ve stuck to protesting instead of playing with things beyond their comprehension. We’re putting a stop to this.”

Cecilia was all smiles with a deranged look in her wide eyes. “Well, well, well. You caught us. Congratulations! I didn’t expect you to know about what we’re up to this fast. Let me guess—someone had spilled the plump and juicy beans? I wonder who did it.”

“Do you think this is a joke?” Deen shook the scientist like a rag doll. My best friend was seething from her failure to save anyone.

“Don’t be so angry that we’ve experimented on your friend,” said Cecilia. “We wanted to help her. We can help all of you!”

“You’re going to pay for—!”

“For this experiment!” I shouted down Deen, which was a huge effort on my part, while pointing at the vat. I subtly shook my head at Deen. “We don’t need your help. This is our choice to shed our humanity.”

Deen shouldn’t let it show that her goal was to save the humans. Otherwise, Cecilia would doubt that we were with Red Hood. Cecilia believed that she wasn’t getting out of here alive, and we’d most likely kill her at the end of this, but she was having fun messing with us, Red Hood’s minions. Let her tease us with information and stuff.

But if it turned out that we were from an unknown group, Cecilia might clam up. Not sure if torture would work on a mad scientist, or if Deen would be willing to do it. Myra probably might. Here she was now.

Myra grabbed Cecilia from Deen, extending her stone hands and fingers to form a pincer around the scientist’s midsection. “Who is that Adumbrae?” Myra raised Cecilia and made her face the vat.

“Who? I don’t know,” Cecilia said, giggling. “When we captured this Adumbrae, she was incapable of speech. Though she retained some of her mental faculties. That’s not the case now. Is she your friend, perchance?”

Perchance? Only a mad scientist would use that word. Why couldn’t I meet someone normal like myself? Normalish. Myra and Deen had their own respective flavors of insane.

“What’s her ability?” Myra asked with surprising calmness. She probably didn’t think this was Kelsey, but was just making sure.

“Oh… I don’t know,” said Cecilia. “But this is another point to me for being right. We’ve nabbed one or more of your friends, and you’re looking for them. Can’t recognize her, I presume? Does she look quite different compared to the last time you saw her? It must be due to the people she had eaten. We keep our guests well-fed.”

I like this mad scientist. We could easily kill her, but she didn’t fear us one bit. She didn’t fear death. She even controlled the flow of the conversation. Too bad this’d be her first and last appearance on the show.

“Answer the question!” Myra shouted. “None of that yapping. What is her ability? You should’ve seen it when you captured her.”

Cecilia grinned. The green light from the vat caught the creases of her face, upping the creepiness of her appearance. “Why don’t you release her and find out? All you have to do is go to the control panel and push that—ah!”

Myra tightened her stony grip on Cecilia’s slender body. Cecilia let out only that small yelp and nothing more. She was only human, as shown by her squishiness, but she had quite the pain tolerance. Very likely that she had some weird body parts like her partner. I needed to question her about it.

“How many other Adumbrae have you captured?” Myra asked. “I’ll kill you if you don’t give a straight answer.”

“More than one,” Cecilia replied in between gasps. “Is that straight enough of an answer for you?” She decided to go down messing with us. I respect that.

“I’m warning you,” Myra growled.

“Warn me about what? I gave you the answer that you wanted to hear. Have hope that your missing friend is among the other Adumbrae we hold.” Cecilia tried but couldn’t laugh because Myra’s grip had become too tight.

“Stop playing games, puny human,” Myra said, following the ‘Red Hood script’. Maybe she thought that it’d intimidate the scientist. “Where—?”

“You’ve passed through the holding tunnels,” Cecilia replied. “There are other places. You’re not kids who need handholding to explore the city’s underbelly. Now that I’ve answered your questions, you should let me go. That’s how this works.”

“We have more questions,” Myra said. She loosened the pincer, crushing the mad scientist. “What are the abilities of all the Adumbrae you captured. Enumerate them!”

I congratulate Myra for still using her brain despite the pressure and anger she must be feeling. She must be itching to ask if one of the Adumbrae had grabby-grabby projection powers. But if she did, Cecilia would know that we were interested in a specific Adumbrae and would continue to mess with us. She might even use Kelsey as a bargaining chip.

“You can’t expect me to remember them all,” replied Cecilia. “Give me a clue. What’s the ability of your friend? Don’t be shy. Tell—urk!”

Myra squeezed the mad scientist again. “Don’t test my patience or I’ll kill you!”

“Kill me and… you’ll never… get… your answer.” Cecilia’s face turned red as she coughed blood.

“Is that a challenge?” Myra’s chuckles were hollow. “I’ll gladly take you up on it, dumb bitch. We can look for our friend ourselves.”

Deen wasn’t saying anything. Her face was devoid of expression as she stared at the dying scientist. Myra was going through with it, and Deen wouldn’t do anything?

I have to be the voice of reason? What had the world come to? “Stop! Don’t kill her, Myr—Merge!” I waved my hands. “Let me talk to her.”

“She’s not going to tell us anything useful,” Myra replied. “We’re wasting our time." Still, she lowered Cecilia to my eye level.

“Wha-what can I help you with?” Cecilia sarcastically asked while spitting blood.

I wiped it off my face. “Our boss thought that the PCM was making a Purple Bloom down here.” I wasn’t lying. Part of me hoped that my fake story was somewhat close to the truth, but it was far from it.  

Cecilia shook her head. “A Purple Bloom forming would mean the destruction of La Esperanza and the surrounding towns and cities. We’re called the Protectors of the City. Making a Purple Bloom is the exact opposite of our goal.”

“And your real goal is to turn Adumbrae back into humans?” I asked.

“The exact opposite of making Purple Blooms.” Cecilia leaned toward me. “It is but natural that we try to save wayward fellow humans, giving them back their original bodies. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Deen stepped forward. “By killing other people? Don’t spout crap about the means justifying the ends.”

Crap? I couldn’t recall Deen ever using that word. Proof that she was super pissed.

“Why not, dear Adumbrae?” Cecilia tilted his head at the smoldering people. Their gamey barbecue smell annoyingly tickled my nose. “In every human advancement, lives are sacrificed. Sometimes, metaphorically. Sometimes, literally. Think of the lives knowingly and unknowingly sacrificed for medicine to—”

“Shut up!” Deen yelled.

I noticed that Deen was looking over her shoulder. More specifically, the space where her Guardian Angel should be. What was it warning her about? Were more PCM members coming? They’d need a lot of firepower to take on the Three Bs.

Facing Cecilia, Deen said, “You’re using people like livestock. You’re more of a monster than the monsters you’re trying to cure.”  

“If I had to be a monster to save humanity, so be it. I’ve been called worse.” Cecilia turned to me. “Can I interest you with the cure, dear?”

“Me?” Wasn’t this what I was looking for?

The PCM hadn’t succeeded yet, and there was no certainty that they would, but this was another potential way of regaining my humanity. The powers were nice, of course, but it’d be so much easier to live as a normal human. Getting hunted by the Corebrings and BID wasn’t a fun life at all. Definitely not one that could be compensated for by the fun of being superhuman. I didn’t want to be an Adumbrae… right?

“Yes, you, dear Adumbrae,” said the mad scientist. “I sense that you’re more perceptive than your friends. Perhaps you’re not an Adumbrae by choice, but one forced by circumstances? Do you miss being human?”

I almost smirked. This fucking mad scientist was a great character. She wanted to mess with us before dying.

“I do miss being normal,” I said. “But I don’t believe you have the solution. Enough about that.” I showed her the metal band. “I got this off your buddy after I, uh, ki-killed him. What is this?”

Deen jolted upon hearing that. She scanned the room, finding the other scientist a few feet from the door, lying in a pool of his blood.

Yes, Deen. I, Erind Hartwell, your best friend, had ‘officially’ killed someone. This was excellent trauma-dumping material. I could even blame Deen for this because she didn’t walk away, as her Guardian Angel advised. My mind wanted to daydream about all the drama that would branch out from this event, but I reined myself in. This metal band was important. Could be on the same level as artificial Cores and man-made Adumbrae.

“An instrument of sorts with a specific purpose.” Cecilia squinted with bloodshot eyes at the metal band. “You’ve seen what it does—that is its purpose, and it did it well.”

“But what does it really do?” I pressed. “Attach monster parts to people? Your friend is still human… I think?”

Cecilia didn’t answer me. “As much as I want to claim credit for such a marvelous invention, it wasn’t a product of my genius brain. It’s the creation of Euphonia. You should know her if you’re under Red Hood’s command.”

Who’s Euphonia? Was this a trick to check if we truly were with Red Hood? Or was there an actual person called Euphonia who was known among Adumbrae? Best not to answer Cecilia, just like she wasn’t answering me.

“But can you recreate this item?” I asked. “Or were you simply given this? Stolen?”

Cecilia chuckled. “An admirable attempt to hit my ego and bait me into giving information. I would’ve enjoyed this tussle of words, but our time’s up.”

I raised a brow. “Huh? Time’s up?”

“Prepare for a fight,” Deen said while checking the people she had wanted to save. She couldn’t accept her massive failure.

“Fight with who?” Myra asked.

Sounds of sloshing liquid answered her question. We all turned to the large vat. The vents lining its base opened, draining the green slime all over the floor. The Adumbrae inside stirred as it descended to the container’s base along with the liquid level.

“I had set a timer for your friend to awaken,” Cecilia said. “A few minutes for us to talk. Get to know each other and make friends, if possible. I should’ve set it for longer. I misjudged the time you would allow me to live.”

“It should’ve been shorter,” said Myra, squeezing Cecilia until bones audibly cracked. ‘Squeeze’ probably wasn’t the right term because Myra almost cut the mad scientist along her waist with the pincher. Myra threw away the corpse that looked like a tub of toothpaste crimped in its middle.

I approached Deen and clung to her arm. “We… we should leave. The Adumbrae is waking up.” I personally wanted to stay and see how Deen would fight. After killing the Adumbrae, the Three Bs have much exploring left to do.

“I’ll try to knock some sense into that Adumbrae,” Myra said as she absorbed the floor, thickening her armor and growing spikes on her arms. She might’ve taken inspiration from Mr. Ogre. “Maybe I can ask it some questions. You two—”

“Are staying,” finished Deen. “We can’t let an Adumbrae roam free. Furthermore, we’re not done with this place. We’re going up to save other people and… and…”

“And kill these PCM fuckers?” Myra suggested while laughing. “Fucking finally, we’re on the same page.”

“Stay behind me, okay?” Deen held my shoulders and pushed me back. “This’ll be a dangerous fight. Gabe… Gabe’s been yelling at my ear. His urgency means a tough opponent.”

“Shouldn’t we follow your Guardian Angel and leave?” I wasn’t going down with Deen’s stubbornness. Then again, I probably should try to save Deen and Myra because they could be useful to me. If the going goes tough, I’d drag the other Bs out.

“Gabe’s instructions had changed,” Deen said. “He had accepted that I’m not leaving.”

“What is it now?” I asked.

“Gabe is telling me to tell you that your power is the solution.”

“Wha-what? My super strength?”

“I don’t think so,” Deen said. “Your Core power. It has manifested, hasn’t it?”

(Author's Notes: More clues of the PCM being more than just a group providing bodies to the 2Ms. And a mention of Euphonia, a character from the Prior Cycle. Also, this will be the first fight of the Three Bs together. It seems like the Guardian Angel will bet on Erind saving Deen, like during the docks mission. And what could their opponent’s powers be? As always, thank you for the support! I really appreciate it.)