Chương 149: B3. 6.3 - Hero Wannabes Assemble

"You're putting your trust in me, Erind?" Reo waved a floppy piece of pizza.

"That'll be one of your biggest mistakes. I don't even trust myself. But, yeah, I'll meet with Pino again tonight, even if I much prefer to run away. It's just that I'm too lazy to pack my shit."

"Don't forget what you're fighting for, Reo," said Dario.

"I signed up to fight Adumbrae, not work with them."

"It's only a temporary thing, man," said Everett.

"We'll have to put up with it. If we can get anti-Adumbrae weapons, it'll be worth it."

"If Pino's joining us, then I'm not going," Reo said.

"We'll probably have no choice," said Everett.

"If I were Pino, I wouldn't tell us the location of the target so that I'd have to go with the group."

"You want to be next to an Adumbrae while walking through tunnels?" Reo asked while chewing pizza.

"Talk about a fucking death wish." Another round of arguments erupted. Reo kept saying that it was a trap to gather the entire group and kill us. Dario, on the other hand, wasn't concerned because Deen was with us. Deen with a booster was way stronger, too. I could tell that Dario was a hundred percent committed to finding the nonexistent data for anti-Adumbrae tech. The PCM wasn't making their stuff, so they wouldn't have any knowledge of it. What did Auron want so badly there?

I didn't buy his spiel about the records of their experiments to cure Adumbrae seeding. They didn't have any progress at all! Much better to start fresh with a new idea. Did Cecilia feed them lies and fake test results? Heck, the PCM could partner with me and have a more promising future—I was keeping this ace up my very long sleeves. Point was, the PCM might be interested in working with Pino, the Messiah who'd save all Adumbrae.

"Again, we're going to decide after Reo's second meeting with Pino," Dario said in a deep tone that ended the arguments like a judge banging the gavel.

"Moving on to the next point of concern—possibly fighting the BID. We have to be prepared, despite having Deen. I'll have to contact the Professor to get boosters and other equipment." I glanced at Myra while munching on my burger.

"How about more pills for Erind?" Myra asked.

"We'll need every help we can get." Dario looked at me.

"Any improvement on the manifestation of your ability?" I shook my head.

"Nothing much except for this…" I held up my bandaged right hand that I had been covering with my sleeves. I had long abandoned my idea about using my Pino form as my fake Core power. Pino was now Red Hood's minion. However, I gauged that I had to show Dario some progress. He might start to suspect that I was keeping my powers secret. He had reason to believe that at least one of the prior hero wannabes wasn't so loyal to him; I didn't want him thinking that I had turned into a rebel as well.

"You're going to show it here?" Deen asked. I had told her about my plan earlier. She stood up and gestured for everyone to lean in, hiding what I was about to show them. As the hero wannabes huddled over the table, I unwrapped the bandages. There it was, for the whole group to see, my mutated palm. My entire palm had turned into metallic gold with crystals sitting in the middle. No biological-looking growths. Could pass off as a prop or something.

"Holy shit…" Reo whispered.

"What the hell is that?" I shrugged.

"Side effects of the artificial Core? What else could it be?"

"Erind had been worried about it for a few days now," said Deen.

"We didn't immediately tell you, Dario, because Erind was waiting for it to disappear. Maybe her powers could be armoring herself in gold that she'll produce, and it'll stabilize soon enough." Reo whistled.

"We'd be rich if that's how it'll be! Forget about the feds printing money. Erind could sweat out gold!"

"Don't turn Erind into the golden goose that lays eggs," Johann muttered.

"Or was it the goose that lays golden eggs? I forgot which is which." Dario took out a phone.

"Hold your hand steady for a moment, Erind. I'll take pictures for the Professor."

"Why? Is… is this a bad thing?" I had a very convincing, trembling voice.

"All of you don't have something like this? It's only m-me?" Let them think I was frightened of what was happening.

"Calm down, Erind," said Dario.

"The artificial Cores are experimental. The powers manifest differently in every person." He reached out to my hand.

"May I touch it?" I nodded.

"The crystal doesn't do anything."

"It'd be kickass if you could shoot lasers with it," Reo said. Dario poked my metallic palm. I couldn't completely close my hand now because my palm had become rigid; it couldn't bend or get squished like regular flesh. Did this mean that Spooky Erind's gauntlet wasn't a piece of armor but was her actual hand? It was kind of shitty that it was my right hand, my dominant one, that was transforming. It'd be very difficult to write with a pen or use my phone once the claws came out.

On the other hand, it'd be very cool to have a golden hand with wicked claws. Maybe I should try learning how to be ambidextrous. Next, Dario scratched the crystals on my hand with his fingernail.

"Have you tried removing this?"

"Wha-what do you mean? Like, dig it out of my hand? I'm not going to do that. Sounds painful." I had done that before, way back when the first crystal appeared. Lots of blood. Super painful. I did manage to remove a crystal using a kitchen knife. But when my hand regenerated, the crystal was back. During our training for hysterical strength, punching at concrete columns inside New Hope's abandoned buildings, my hand also got smooshed. After it healed, all the growths were back.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Dario squinted at the crystals.

"If I could get a sample…"

"No!" I withdrew my right hand and hugged it with my left arm.

"Don't do experiments or stuff to me." I had another reason for revealing the crystals and gold—they might bait out the Professor. Maybe I'd get to meet some people from this mysterious organization. If they wanted to test this amazing development with their artificial Core, they'd have to approach me, or have Dario bring me to their laboratories. Worth a try.

"Ah, no, no. We won't do that," Dario said in a robotic tone, putting his phone away. Most trustworthy guy ever. Not.

"Is this supposed to happen, Dario?" Deen asked, the ever-concerned best friend. She took my right hand and helped me bandage it again.

"Has anyone else experienced this?"

"Possibly, it's an incomplete manifestation of Erind's Core ability," said Dario.

"Erind couldn't fully control her powers yet, and it's stuck at a halfway point. Think of Myra absorbing this table to encase her arm, but she hasn't yet developed the ability to remove the armor."

"I'd be stuck with an armored arm," Myra said, nodding.

"Erind's hand, though, doesn't look like armor."

"Or this is like several frog species that didn't evolve the ability to land," I said. Everyone looked at me.

"What? They exist. I've seen it before on the Animal Channel. The jumping part for frogs evolved first as a means to get away from predators or something. Didn't mean they also knew how to land. That came much later." Deen gave me that look she had whenever I went off-tangent. But this wasn't a random topic. I thought that the analogy was quite close to Dario's guess of what was happening to me. And I found it really funny that some frogs didn't know how to land after jumping.

There could be some life lessons from that. Reo frowned, probably wondering if I was messing with them.

"So, what do those weird, half-complete frogs do? Just belly splash on the ground?" I nodded.

"Pretty much. This incomplete jump thing might be what's happening with my powers."

"Which means Erind needs more pills," Myra said, locking eyes with me for a moment. This was part of the script.

"She's so close to unlocking her power. I hope it isn't armoring up like mine. I'd feel less special," she added with a chuckle.

"Yeah, you'd be the shabby golem," said Reo.

"And Erind would be the golden one." Laughter all around. It was as if the group hadn't been arguing heatedly several minutes ago. I dearly wished for mind-reading powers to know what Dario was thinking about. He must be super confused and suspicious of all of us. No way he'd ever guess that I was the source of all of his problems. I'd also bet that part of him was excited at whatever was happening to me. Something significant happened for their field tests.

"A small matter," Dario said, after we quieted down.

"There's a chance that we'll run into the BID while exploring the tunnels."

"That's not a small matter," Reo murmured.

"I say a 'small matter' because it's a small chance that it'd happen," Dario said.

"We'll have Deen with a boosted Guardian Angel guiding our way. We'll also have your boosted fairies, Reo. I'd even wager that we won't meet any BID agents."

"I don't like that all the pressure's on me," Deen said, reaching for her back to massage it. She had mentioned one time that whenever she was stressed, she unconsciously tensed her back. Shouldn't her regeneration take care of it? Or maybe it hurt a lot because her muscles strained with super strength. What a weirdo.

"At any rate," said Dario, "I'll ask the Professor for signal jammers and so on. It'll be difficult on short notice, but I'll scrounge up every gadget available." Reo sighed.

"This is going to be crazy, but I can't do anything to stop it."

"Thanks for being with us, man," Everett said, patting Reo's back.

"You may not want to be here—I get you—but you still are."

"Anything else before we adjourn?" Dario asked.

"I'll have to get going to contact the prof. You guys finish up the food."

"I got a question." Reo raised his hand.

"What the hell do we do with Sgt. Hall? Taking care of him like the previous guy won't solve our problems. But we still have to do something about him."

"I'll do it after our PCM mission," said Dario.

"By 'it', do you mean…?" Myra ran her fingers across her neck in a slicing motion.

"He's the uncle of Deen and Erind's classmate, isn't he? Do you two have any, uh, objections?"

"Of course, we don't want to kill him or anyone else," I said.

"But I also don't know how to solve this. Deen?"

"I don't have any idea either," she replied in a somber tone.

"I… Maybe we can also put this off after the PCM mission? The problem has spilled out already. It's not just about Sgt. Hall." Reo clicked his tongue, frowning at his smoothie.

"A fucking huge mess… Johann, can't you do anything about the police database?"

"Haven't seen your name in the system," Johann replied.

"Except for that one time you—""The girls don't need to know about that," Reo cut in.

"Is Pino lying, then?"

"It could be that you're in the files compiled for the BID agents. I can't get to those."

"Dammit! Dario, can't we get any help from the Professor? Pull some shady government stuff? Anything? I don't want to end up asking Pino for help."

"That's another thing I'll bring up in our discussion," Dario replied.

"And don't readily believe Pino's words."

"If only Reo didn't get caught doing whatever," Myra said.

"Oh, shut it. Just one slip-up, okay? As if you haven't made any mistakes before. What was that lead about Kelsey that you told me last night? You ended up with nothing, it seems like."

"Yeah…" Myra shrugged.

"It was some stupid tip from gangsters. But we now know that Kelsey is underground. We just don't know where. You'd better get the location from Pino." After Dario left, the rest of us talked about random things while eating. I did a lot of eating. I just had a thing for greasy foods that day. Deen, as expected, barely ate any. She nibbled the edge of a pepperoni pizza like a paranoid rabbit. I didn't tease her about it because I got her smoothie—two chocolate smoothies for me! Sugar for the win!

Thankfully, our super regeneration didn't combat the high from the sugar. Probably because it wasn't an inherently dangerous substance like drugs or whatnot. This just meant I could consume more sweets, and my body would take care of the diabetes. Deen and I returned to Eloyce University for our afternoon subjects.

"I'm proud of you back there," Deen said as she drove.

"You manipulated Dario, and your plan basically worked. I don't approve of your plan, but it was amazing seeing you implement it."

"I may be an introvert," I said, feeling a bit proud, "but I didn't enter law school for nothing. I think I have the makings of a badass lawyer."

"It was also… unsettling… how you can lie that easily. Scary, really. I don't think I can do that." Oops. I didn't intend for Deen to have that impression of me.

"I was scared the entire time," I said.

"Practically a miracle that my voice didn't crack. If you felt my hands, you would've found them ice cold." I let out a huge exhale.

"I'm glad I managed to play my part well." The explanation satisfied Deen, and she continued to praise my awesome acting skills. This was a double-edged sword. There might come a time when she'd doubt if I was telling the truth about stuff. Actually, she already suspected that I might be completely controlled by an Adumbrae. A monumental challenge juggling the progression of my faces. And the difficulty was about to ramp up. I had a couple more meetings for the day.