[REND] B2. 5.1 - The Three Bs

“Just two girl pals strolling through the mall,” I sang in the tune of a familiar song. “Hoping no one is following them.”

It was the afternoon of the day after my Marsh Row field trip. Actually, it was the same day, given that I got home at almost three in the morning. I didn’t get much sleep because I was too excited about all the unraveling drama that I started. Just thinking on and on about various scenarios. Thankfully, my Adumbrae regeneration took care of any pesky headaches.

“I can’t tell if someone is tailing us.” Deen looked over her shoulder. Then she craned her neck to see above the crowd of people around us. There was a big sale at the mall, and people who had just gotten off work were there.

“Good job making it obvious that we’re looking for tails,” I said. “If there are any, they now know to hide better.”

“Don’t be sarcastic with me,” Deen said, pinching my arm.

“Hey!” I pulled my arm away as it stung. I thought Deen was being playful about it, but it actually hurt. This fucking bitch was scolding me like a child. I bet her mother did this to her. The stress of the past few days was digging up the dark side of my best friend.

“Here I am, being prudent for both our sakes,” Deen said, “and you’re treating this like a game.”

Part of me wanted to smack her head, but that’d be uncharacteristic of the face I wore. And her Guardian Angel wouldn’t allow my hit to connect. Fine, I was going to be the level-headed best friend and just let this go. “Let’s just walk faster and let the crowd cover us,” I said. “This is why we entered the mall, anyway. Where’s the exit we’re supposed to take?”

Deen pointed at the path in front of us. “If this path leads to the Melthorn street exit, then we should follow this one.” She led us down the way to the left.

“Let’s hurry. Myra might be waiting for us already.”

Our mission for today was to look for Blanchette. I couldn’t help but grin thinking about it. Good thing that I was short; Deen wouldn’t notice my expression unless she looked down. Fenhern Beach was supposed to be our original destination—someone there could give us a clue, according to Johann—but it was changed last minute to Marsh Row. Something about his contact moving there just today.

I had a bad feeling about it, but I still had to go. One, I needed to know about what Myra and Deen would find out. And two, I’d try to hamper their progress by suggesting wrong ideas or false leads. This wasn’t even about protecting my Blanchette identity. I just wanted to mess with them and have a laugh out of it.

Of course, we weren’t going to Marsh Row in either Deen’s or Myra’s car. Might get broken into or vandalized in that sketchy neighborhood. And we didn’t want to easily get followed, too.

Deen and I went to Sanders Mall, left Deen’s car in the mall’s parking space, and merged with the mall crowd. We exited through one of the mall’s side entrances and waited beside the street for Myra to pick us up in a different car. She’d use Johann’s car, I think. I didn’t know where and how Myra made the switch, and I didn’t really care.

“All these precautions…” I muttered. “It’d be funny if there were no one following us.”

“It’s better to be safe,” Deen said, “because we do know that Sgt. Hall had been observing you, Myra, and Reo. We don’t want him to see us at Marsh Row. Also, don’t forget not to display… you know.”

“Display my cleavage? Don’t worry, Mom. I don’t have any.”

“Not that! Why are you so sassy today?”

I shrugged. “I just think it’s cool that we’re having an all-girls mission. It’s like those movies—” I stopped because a green hatchback pulled up next to us and honked its horn.

The passenger’s seat window rolled down, and Deen and I peered inside. The driver had long, brown hair and was noticeably bulky under her jumpsuit.

“How do I look?” Myra asked as we got inside the car. She had used her powers to add a thin layer of armor on her body to change her silhouette, not to a very great effect. She also wore a wig over her dyed blue hair.  

“Um, you definitely don’t look like you,” I said, sitting in the backseat.

Deen was in the passenger’s seat. “If that’s what you were going for, it’s serviceable. You’ll probably attract attention with your disguise.”

“That bad, huh?” Myra unzipped her jumpsuit, revealing her body covered by a dark, elastic material. As she peeled it off her, she explained, “It’s rubber. I used an old, popped tire I had in my trunk for ages. And now, I’m making a mess inside Johann’s car. Ah, he’s not gonna get angry at me.”

“He definitely won’t,” Deen said, her tone implying a deeper meaning.

Myra and Johann did seem too close during our team meeting a couple of days ago. It didn’t matter to me. Or maybe it should, like I could use Johann as a hostage someday. Man, I didn’t want to add more corkboards to keep track of relationships.   

Myra cleared her throat as she started to drive. “Uh, so… What were you two talking about?”

“Erind was saying something about movies,” Deen said. “What was that, Erind?”

“I was saying that this is like those action movies with an all-girl group kicking ass. We can call ourselves the Three Bs.”

“Three bitches?” Myra guessed. “It’s only me who can be a real bitch sometimes.”

“No, no, no,” I said. “The Three Bs because of our hair. Deen is blonde. I have black hair. And you have blue, Myra. Though it’s probably better if you keep the wig on for this mission. Come to think of it, girl groups for action movies usually have three members. We’re perfect.”

“Yeah, I know those,” Myra said. “We got Deen as the pretty one. Hey, Deen, you should change your codename to—”

“No,” Deen snapped. “It’s ‘Ambriel’, and it’s staying that way.”

“You’re definitely the femme fatale of the group,” I said. “I’m not going to stop pushing for your codename to be ‘Fatalis’. Myra, you’re the hot-headed one, who’s always up for action. I’m just saying that’s the archetype. Not that you’re hot-headed.”

Myra snorted. “I definitely am. Sometimes.”

“And what are you supposed to be, Erind?” Deen asked.

I took off my glasses. “Since I’m the quiet one who wears glasses—just fake glasses now—I suppose that makes me the hacker, techie whiz girl. I really look the part even if I don’t know anything about computers. Thin and short. I should be out of the fight, sneaking into the security room of the—why are you laughing?”

Deen was chuckling like a stupid hyena. “There you go again with your ramblings.”

“I’m just saying we could be in a movie,” I said, sulking in my seat. These troglodytes couldn’t appreciate the way my brain worked. They were trapped in their boring reality. “If not random stuff, what do you want to talk about?”

“I got a question for you, Erind,” Myra said. “Did you take the pill from Dario? I’m kinda getting excited for your powers.”

“This morning,” I said. And it did great, pushing back the bodily changes caused by Spooky Erind. Only a few marbly spots on my skin remained, and they could all be covered by my clothes. The white in my hair also lessened into barely noticeable strands.

Unfortunately, the growths on my hand—the tiny crystals and my metallic skin—remain unchanged. It wasn’t difficult to hide it in class. With my timid and introverted face, no one really cared if I hid the palm of my right hand. The challenge was when Deen was around. A couple of times, she had noted how weirdly I moved my hand. I simply brushed it off, changing the topic. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up until she’d demand to see my palm.

“What might your power be?” Deen wondered. “If it’s connected to your super strength, as you have guessed, then it’ll be pretty straightforward. How I wish I had an uncomplicated power.”

“Your Guardian Angel saved our asses at the docks,” Myra said. “And if you’re talking about complicated powers, then Reo takes the top spot. His power is too cumbersome to use. The abilities of his fairies are great, don’t get me wrong. But it’ll be better if those were his own powers instead of needing to summon tiny creatures from inside him.”

“If my power turns out to be vomiting out creatures,” I said, “I’m not going to use it.”

But what if my powers were turning me into a metal mannequin? I had to reveal something to the hero wannabes at some point, or Dario might become suspicious and ‘ask’, in heavy quotations, to test me.

How did my Core power work anyway? Did I need to transform into Blanchette and reach my giant werewolf state? Now, that was super cumbersome. No way I’d attempt to test that, and definitely no way I could show it to the hero wannabes. The easy solution here was to use my metal mannequin powers.

I looked at the headrest of Deen’s seat and thought, she’d be happy if I showed my ‘Core power’ to her first.

“Take the rest of the pills,” Myra said. “Who knows if we’ll meet the Adumbrae friends of Blanchette. Fricking real Adumbrae. They won’t be as friendly as her, I’m betting on that.”

“So… who’s this contact we’ll meet?” I nonchalantly asked. “He’s at Marsh Row, right?”

“The name is Enrico,” Myra said. “He sells fake luxury items. Not as much of a piece of shit as the rest of the scum hanging out at Marsh Row. Those luxury brands are ripping off people with their bullshit prices. I support ripping off those companies. I’m going to shake this guy’s hand later. No offense to you, Deen.”

“Why would I be offended?” Deen asked with an edge to her voice. “If an item has good quality, I’ll pay well for it up to a point. I don’t buy bags that cost more than a car just because of their brand.”

“I have an idea for later,” I said. “We can test if Deen can—”

“Let me guess,” Deen cut in, “you’ll check if I can spot a fake bag or not? That won’t work. For one, they’re all going to be fake there. Number two, I’m not a snob to care about original luxury items. Anyway, I heard the knockoffs sold at Fenhern Beach are almost indistinguishable from originals.”  

“I’ve never been to Fenhern before,” I said. Time to ask what I really wanted. “Myra, why did Enrico transfer to Marsh Row?”

“Beats me,” Myra replied. “Johann didn’t know because Enrico wouldn’t tell him. If I were to guess, this is connected to the 2Ms’ disappearance. This is my gut feeling.”

“And Johann thinks this guy knows something about Blanchette?” I asked.

“Apparently, Enrico was bragging that he saw her,” Myra said. “Her, as in Red Hood. Not Blanchette. But I’m sure that they’re the same person. Word reached Johann, and he reached out for a meeting with Enrico. Um, Johann told me not to tell you, but he threatened this guy with the police raiding his warehouses so he’d cooperate.”

Who the fuck is this Enrico? Then again, a ton of people knew I was at Overdrive’s base. Should I order Overdrive to execute Enrico? It’d be a fun test of my hold over the gangsters.

“I hope he can lead us to Blanchette,” Deen said. “I want to meet her again.”

“Why are you so sure she’s not going to eat you?” I asked. “I mean, yeah, your Guardian Angel can protect you. But you still don’t know what an Adumbrae is thinking. You can’t even understand what she’s saying.”

“That might be part of it,” Deen said. “She can’t fool me with words. I’ll judge her based on her actions—she had saved me twice. And the more important evidence was I can feel it in my Core.”

“What did you… feel?” I clenched my fists, remembering the icky feeling when our Cores connected. I despised those emotions that flooded my system, though they did knock some sense into my feral brain. What was it like on Deen’s end?

“It’s… It’s difficult to encapsulate with words. But I didn’t sense any malice or evil from Blanchette. I was in front of her, and she was rampaging and killing, but I somehow knew she wouldn’t hurt me.”

“That’s some self-confidence you got there,” Myra said. “You should take the lead if we find her. A very big ‘if’. I’m going to be tweaked out if Enrico got nothing for us.”

It didn’t take long to reach Marsh Row. I recognized the bridge we drove over as the site where I threw the corpses of Beanie Twig and Corpo Slave over. I hadn’t explored the area past the bridge. Same-same as the rest of Marsh Row. Maybe less dilapidated and had more people dotting the sidewalks.

“I think this is it.” Myra parked next to a two-story building.

Its windows were boarded up, and it had an old sign in front showing that it used to be a butcher shop on the first floor. The door was open, and we could see people moving boxes and stuff inside.

“Ready?” Myra angled the rearview mirror towards her to check her wig. Then she fixed a mask to cover the lower half of her face.

“Ready.” Deen expertly twisted her hair into a bun and hid it under the hood of her jacket. She also wore shades and a face mask.

As for me, I had been braiding my hair during the drive. I put a cap over my head and sunglasses, and that was it. Myra and Deen gave me questioning looks. “My face is too plain to remember,” I said, not wanting to explain that wearing a hoodie and a face mask would make me more recognizable. “I’ll just hide behind Deen, and no one will notice me. Let’s go.”

(Author's Notes: Let's start the new segment with the Three Bs hanging out. We're going to see their progress investigating Kelsey's whereabouts. In the Prior Cycle, I kind of forgot about the missing Kelsey. This time, we're going to resolve her plot line. Where the hell is Kelsey? Lol.

I'm really sorry about the delay. I had to rush something at work yesterday. We're going to have our Author's Retrospective for Book 1 tomorrow because Book 1 has ended on RR/SH. Then the next chapter will be on Monday. I have a chapter to make up for; I’ll do it this month.

As for Smite Happens, after analyzing the feedback given, I gained insights into how to make it better. And so, I decided to push back the public release a couple of months or so. I think it's also for the best that I pile a lot of chapters before public release. We'll continue Smite Happens here on Patreon. I'll edit the chapters we have now before progressing.

Thank you for your support!)