[REND] B2. 16.1 - Boss Red Hood

“Still some people around,” I said, peering from behind the corner. Kelsey and I had dropped down into a dark alley and were now surveying the area around the train station across the street. “This was why I wanted to wait a couple more hours.”

We took my usual route to my chosen train station to hitch a free ride to Marsh Row. This area was an oldish part of the city, sort of left behind by progress. Not many restaurants to have dinner at. Barely any apartment buildings. And so, there weren’t that many people getting off the train here. Still, it wasn’t a ghost town—well, it usually was near midnight. But it was just half past seven.

“We can make a dash for it,” Kelsey said, “before anyone could whip out their phones to record us.”

“Some people might see us,” I replied, looking back at Kelsey, covered by shadows. I knew that we didn’t really have any other option.

Kelsey shrugged. “Then they’ll call the police about a possible monster. The police already have a lot of those sorts of calls today. If you’re so worried, you can go first, and I’ll hop on towards the end of the train.”

“The train would’ve accelerated much by then. I’m not saying that you’ll get injured jumping on it—you have a forcefield and all. But you might crash through the roof or something. How about your teleport powers thingy? Can you teleport us over there?” I pointed at the concrete wall fencing off the entrance of the tunnel.

“I can’t teleport myself. But I can send you so there’ll be fewer eyes on me compared to if both of us are running together.”

“Do that. I can hear the train leaving the—woah!” I felt something grip my sides.  

I was instantly across the street, looking at a tall, horned woman running across it. For a split second, I thought of pranking Kelsey, pointing at her and screaming ‘Adumbrae’ so that people would look at her. But that’d also negatively affect me, obviously. Just moments of tempting self-sabotage.

Before I could think of other crazy stuff to pull, I climbed up the wall. The front of the train had just passed below me. I jumped down and crouched low to balance myself as my feet hit the train’s top. There was a thud a couple of seconds later. Looking to my right, I saw Kelsey had landed towards the end of the next train car.

We joined up as the train descended into a tunnel. Kelsey laid on the train’s roof, gazing up at the tunnel’s grimy ceiling, because she was so tall. A risk that her horns might snag on something.

“Welcome to my premier mode of transportation to Marsh Row,” I said, sitting next to her. The absurdity of the situation wasn’t lost on me. “Unglamorous, but quick and free.”

“It does feel freeing…” Kelsey said. Her scales glittered under the passing lights.

“I meant free, as in we don’t have to pay for a ticket. But, yeah. Riding on top of the train feels freeing. It’ll get better once we’re out of the tunnel. The night breeze will wash over us as the train picks up speed.”

There was mostly awkward silence between us. I couldn’t focus on planning and scheming because the deafening silence wouldn’t make for a good episode for the viewers. Should I bring up the floor tile that Kelsey broke? I wasn’t going to make her pay for it. Just joke around that my mom would get angry at me or something.

Or maybe we could talk about the chips I bought. I usually preferred sweet snacks to salty ones, but I liked eating chips from time to time, especially when watching movies. The problem was that the munching noises could get distracting. Still, I managed to catch up a bit on my movie backlog—this was the main reason why I didn’t want to leave my condo early.

That, and there really were a lot of people out and about at this time. Hopefully, I made a good enough excuse for not immediately jumping into action.

Maybe I should cut classes more. It was fun lounging in my condo for several hours, just eating and watching movies. What was the use of education at this point? I could fully transition into the life of a crime boss. Overdrive would run the business while I’d watch movies until it was time to terrorize the competition.

“I’m glad Myra has someone,” Kelsey said, sitting up. The train was running on top of a bridge running through a canal.

“What?” I asked, pulled out of my fantasies.  

“I’m talking about Myra and Johann.”

This might be a good opportunity to make Kelsey feel guilty. Guiltier. A little payback for cracking my floor tile. “Well, they’re a thing. But I don’t think they’re really pushing their thingness. I mean, Myra is no longer human. I’m not sure how that’s going to work between them in the long run.”

“Oh, that’s right…” Kelsey looked down at her crossed legs. “Myra had to take the artificial Core because of me.”

“She’s also focused on looking for you,” I added with a concerned tone. “And the missions of Dario. No time for dating when a lot of serious stuff is going on.”

“Poor Myra…”

“After we save your sister, wherever she is, you might have to reveal yourself to her before leaving. This might be the time to free her from Dario.” There. Kelsey would think that I was a good guy.

I didn’t want Kelsey to go with Myra. But I probably couldn’t avoid Kelsey communicating with Myra after this whole thing was resolved. I was planting the idea that Kelsey had to continue being separated from her sister.

“That way, Myra will stop looking for you,” I said. “Also, Dario can’t find and eliminate you if Myra doesn’t know where you are. We’ll continue figuring out a cure so that both of us can turn back into humans. Dario won’t have a hold on Myra anymore if she knows that you’re out there looking for a cure yourself. Isn’t that great? Not like Dario and the Professor helped you with anything.”

“I don’t think the Professor’s going to let my sister be. I wonder… what her future will be like? Can she be… normal again?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied, stoking the embers of Kelsey’s guilt that her sister melded with the Core. “Ah, yeah. This might be a big problem. Maybe the Professor will experiment on Myra, just like the PCM did with you. Myra is too valuable as a test subject.”

Kelsey sighed. “I’m afraid that you’re right. A normal life might be unattainable for both of us. What if Myra and I ran away together?”

My left cheek twitched. “You should let Myra have a normal life. It’s reachable for her now. We’ll find our own way, you and me.”

“Myra should’ve just abandoned me,” Kelsey said. “That way, only one of us is no longer human.”

I placed my hand on Kelsey’s shoulder. “You know that Myra wouldn’t have abandoned you. That’s why we have to focus on working on this link-Core thing. It’s our best shot, thus far. Much better than what the PCM has, for sure.”

Kelsey nodded. “But we have to find Myra first.”

When the train passed near Marsh Row, Kelsey teleported me off and jumped after me. Such a convenient power this was. Kelsey explained that she could make invisible barriers and giant hands. The barriers were self-explanatory in their use. The giant hands, on the other hand, could be used like, uh, giant hands, but they could also teleport things they grabbed between them. Like, the left hand could grab me and teleport me into the right hand’s grasp dozens of meters away or straight into Kelsey’s real hand.

I was wrong to assume that Kelsey would’ve been in more trouble if she had taken our fight outside of Overdrive’s building. She could teleport me far away in the open space—she wouldn’t tell me the range of her projections, but she did confirm that she needed a line of sight to cast them. Maybe she was concerned about the guys I brought with me, like they’d join the fight, once she was outside.

I had memorized the way to Overdrive’s place, even in the darkness.

Well, it wasn’t so dark anymore. With the PCM retreating from Marsh Row, the usual denizens of this place returned. We followed cars heading to an explosion of lights.

Overdrive’s building had become a lively place again, with lots of vehicles parked around it, different-colored lights flashing everywhere, and people drinking while dancing to booming music. Many of these people probably weren’t part of the gangs under my command, looking more like idiot, club-going, college students with money from their rich parents to buy drugs with. Didn’t take long for Overdrive to return to his old ways of partying every night.

Wearing my signature red hoodie, and Kelsey following me, I strutted up to the building as the Queenpin of this territory.

A girl in skimpy clothes dancing on top of the car was the first to spot us. Rather, she spotted Kelsey, who was very hard to miss. The girl’s screams didn’t immediately alert the rest of the idiots dancing in the parking lot because the giant speakers blared music. She fell off the car, picked herself up, and started to run. Her friends turned around to see what had frightened her.

“An Adumbrae!” A guy squealed like a pig, pointing at Kelsey. Other people started to run as well.

I thought that my badass entrance was going to be ruined by a lack of audience, when someone thankfully spotted me.

“A red hoodie? It’s the boss! Red Hood is here!”

“Get your shit together! Fall in line!”

“Show respect to the boss, or you’re dead.”

There was a lot of shouting over the music as word of my arrival spread. Some people ran, but most remained, even moving closer to see what was happening.

The crowd opened up a path for me, as they lined up on my right and left. People bowed as I passed, as if I were some mafia boss. To be fair, I was more dangerous than any regular human boss of a criminal organization. Having Kelsey with me upped my intimidating image by a ton.

I looked like a teenager hiding under a hoodie. Kelsey looked like an actual demon, but she was behind me. The contrast in our appearance made me more fearsome.

From their bowed positions, the gangsters peered up at Kelsey. People would be afraid of Adumbrae—I supposed that the gangsters were happy that they had me as their boss. That was bragging rights. And, yep. I knew and expected my minions to tell everyone that Red Hood was their leader, even though I had orders for them not to do so.

I spotted a couple of wasted girls, trying to steady their phones to take pictures of Kelsey. Someone else snatched their phones away and pushed them back before I got angry.

Getting seen didn’t really matter that much to me. Kelsey the monster didn’t look much like Kelsey the human. As for me, a mask and hoodie obscured my face.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the BID had informants among my men. Which meant I had to lie low after this, especially with the BID going after the PCM soon. No doubt, Red Hood and the gangs of Marsh Row would be dragged in somehow. But that’d be Overdrive’s headache to deal with. For once, someone else would deal with the mess I made instead of me facing the consequences.

But before I had to disappear from public view, I wanted to enjoy this unique experience. I was playing background music in my head. Rock, maybe? I almost stumbled because I unconsciously slowed down my walk, imagining myself in a music video. Hopefully, I didn’t look uncool.

Despite the slight hiccup, this was one of my best things that happened to me. Ever! I shivered with excited tingles as I headed to the door. Overdrive’s men greeted me, gesturing for me to head downstairs.

“With this many people,” Kelsey muttered, “we’ll find Myra faster.”

I nodded. “And the PCM would be more willing to talk if we had a small army with us. We just need to find a way to—”

“Boss! Boss!” Overdrive was running up the stairs to meet me.

He paused, looking at Kelsey. The shock and fear on his face turned into recognition, then confusion, and lastly respect and admiration. He realized that the bestest boss in the world tamed the Adumbrae that was hanging out in his place.  

“Uh, boss. Swell that you came,” said Overdrive, returning his gaze to me. “I sent men to look for you where I had dropped you off.”

“Well, I’m here now. Call back your men because we have stuff to do. Let’s go down to talk and—”

“Boss, I have to tell you something first. A couple of somethings.”

I closed my fist for a moment, irked that Overdrive wasn’t following the script. And what was this new problem? “Is the BID coming? Or the PCM?”

“The PCM—they sent us a message. They request a meeting.”

“Really? Saves us the trouble of looking for them then. It’s going to be a trap, though. We have to be prepared. What’s the other something?”

Overdrive’s forehead creased with worry. “Uh, some people are here to visit you. I swear I didn’t tell them that you’re here. We can probably blame Enrico, Dulce Maria’s brother. Anyway, they’re waiting in the basement, these two people. I say people, but one of them isn’t human.”

A lump got caught in my throat. My proverbial sixth sense was warning me of a massive deviation from the script. Major headache incoming. “Not human?”

“I-I don’t know if she’s an Adumbrae, boss. She got superstrength. She may be a BID agent. However, she claims that you know her. You helped her at the docks—that’s her story. Now, she needs your help. Related to the PCM or some shit. Her story sounds legit enough, so I didn’t try to make her leave. She would’ve killed us anyway.”

“What does she look like?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“She got a mask. But she’s blonde, and I can tell that she’s quite the looker under her mask.”

(Author's Notes: Boss Red Hood is in the house with her monster enforcer/bodyguard. Erind is having the time of her life with a badass entrance. Too bad there's a new headache that ended Erind's happiness. The situation is ripe for drama, but Erind is probably more annoyed than happy about this.)