Chapter 25 - Monster - Part 2

Saturn - Orbital Habitation Ring - City 1 - Twelve Days Later

Simon sat in the middle of a group of surviving soldiers. They were trapped on the roof of a mega-skyscraper, an ocean of monsters surrounding them on all sides. Below them, several dozen behemoths smash their bodies against the building's support, trying to bring it down. One of the men tries to look over the side and is knocked off when a behemoth manages to shatter one of the thousands of support pillars below. His screams could be heard for over a minute.

Simon shook his head and stood up while taking a look at the few men that remained. There had initially been four hundred of them, yet only twelve remained. All of them were cold and starving. Many were suffering from dehydration along with altitude sickness. They had lost three men to the latter yesterday. Their corpses were laid out by the edge. They had stopped breathing in their sleep.

Simon walked over to the corpses and had Artoria analyze them before tossing one of them over the side. None of the men voiced any complaints, too tired and hungry to care. Suddenly Simon ripped off one of the corpse's legs and bit into it with a grimace. He continued chewing the stringy meat for several minutes before tearing off a thigh piece and handing it to one of the starving men.

"These two are safe to eat. So get to it. Drink the blood if you can stomach it. Otherwise, you'll be long dead by the time they realize this tower isn't going to fall and send the flyers instead. Although, to be honest, I'm surprised they haven't already."

--- Four hours later ---

"So, they've finally come. Men, ready yourselves. The Cavalry isn't coming. The only thing that's left for you to rely on is the strength of your arm and the strength of the men beside you. We've come a long way, but it ends here. We are men of the 847th division. We do not go quietly. We're going to die horribly anyway, might as well return the favor."

{ That one actually wasn't that bad, you know. Fumbled with the ending, though. You should have stopped with, 'We do not go quietly.' }

Simon shakes his head at Artoria's words and quietly readies his pistol.

--- Saturn - Artificial Skies above City 1 ---

"Sir, there's nothing here. Look, none of the structures are even standing anymore."

General Ironwood nods his head with a sigh as he observes the literal mountain of nightmarish corpses leaning against a collapsed megastructure, "So, that was where it all ended. 'We do not go quietly, indeed.'"

"Major, make sure to get a picture of this and have it sent to high command. I'm sure they'll manage to spin it into some kind of propaganda for the survivors. Arthur, any word on the enemy's whereabouts?"

"None, sir. As usual, they vanished before we arrived. The only thing they left behind on this damned ring were corpses, at least what used to be corpses anyway."

Ironwood nods his head as if expecting as much, "Go ahead and initiate the destruction sequence. If any of those bastards are still alive, let the planet's gravity take them."

"Yes, Sir!" Arthur heads towards the communications equipment and starts giving the order.

"General Ironwood has given the order. Detonate the surviving anti-gravity arrays."

"Sir!" a woman's voice cries out from the sensor array onboard the shuttle. "We've got a reading on the I.F.F. display! It's him!"

All eyes in the shuttle turned towards the shouting girl.

"Where, Captain?"

"At the base of megastructure five! He's outside and heading towards the clearing!"

"You heard her, Warrant Officer! Take us down! Now! Arthur, tell the demo squad to delay that order by ten minutes!"

--- Five Minutes Later ---

As soon as the shuttle's doors opened, dozens of armed men spilled out and quickly secured the area. Behind them, General Ironwood slowly descended the ramp flanked by Arthur, Jack, Qunicy, and Abraham. The five of them peered off into the distance as Simon's shambling body came into view and gasped at the sight.

The entire left side of his face was missing, along with his lower jaw. The metallic alloy his bones were composed of was clearly showing beneath the tattered remains of the muscles that had once been surrounding them. Millions of nanites frantically tried to repair the damage but fell off and turned to dust as their power ran out, leaving a black trail behind him. One of his arms was missing, torn off from the shoulder, and was being held tightly in the hand of the remaining arm.

"I-is he even alive?" one of the soldiers commented softly.

Soon a robotic voice could be heard coming from the palisade suits marred speakers.

"Warning: Power levels critical. Primary consciousness unresponsive. V.A.I.A. system offline. Structural integrity compromised. E.N.R. Systems failing. Immediate assistance is requested. Warning: Power cells -"

The message continues playing on repeat as the walking corpse nears the shuttle, moved solely by what remains of the palisade's artificial muscle systems. The message changed before the shambling corpse arrived at the shuttle.

"Warning: Power cells depleted. All systems shutting down. Initiating self-destruct. Please clear the area immediately."

An eerie countdown started.

General Ironwood stood stock still for a moment before slapping himself back into reality, "Don't just fucking stand there! Get the medical team out here already. Stop that fucking countdown! We didn't come all this way just to have him die to some idiotic self-destruct system installed by those fat bastards back on Earth!"

Immediately a team of medical personnel came dashing out of the shuttle. By the time the team managed to halt the countdown, there had barely been seconds left before detonation.

Ironwood let out a sigh of relief once the eerie counting stopped and issued another order, "Get him loaded up. Now! I want a full diagnostic done immediately and brought to my desk before we reach orbit. Understand?!"

All of the men turned and saluted the general as he walked up the ramp.

---Saturn - Orbit - On route to Earth ---

A data tablet is placed on the small metallic desk.

"I thought I said I wanted this report before we reached orbit.", Ironwood let out a sigh as he observed the report.

Anything that could have been shattered, punctured, ripped, or torn had been. But according to the medical staff, he was remarkably still alive. Artoria had been brought back online after emergency maintenance had been performed on Simon's cracked internal power core. According to her, she had been knocked offline when the megastructure collapsed and couldn't tell them how they had managed to make it back alive.

"What about the suit records? Anything on them?"

The captain shook her head, "No sir, As soon as the megastructure collapsed the records became corrupted. The techs are trying but they don't think anything can be recovered."

"Not a single bone in his body remained unbroken?" Ironwood's eyebrow tilted upwards in a familiar manner as he shook his head before looking up at the female officer standing in front of him.

"Captain, have the navigator change course. We're heading to Mars. If we bring him back to Earth in this state, High Command is likely to say he died back on Saturn in a heroic last stand or some shit."

The captain offered a quick salute and left the room.

Ironwood confirmed the door had been closed before pulling a cigar from the drawer and lighting it. "Son, You've really done it this time, haven't you?"

--- Present Day ---

"I wasn't alone and that was no victory."

"But you were in the end. You stood alone against that foul tide until they swallowed you. Yet you returned."

"I did. But I still don't know how I did. Maybe it was luck, or maybe..." Simon breaks out into a sad smile and laughs. "Maybe it was God."

Suavi shakes her head while looking up from between his coat, "That world had no god."

Simon closes his eyes and nods his head quietly, "Aye. It had no god. Perhaps that was what sealed our fate."

A quote from an ancient philosopher came to mind, "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

Suavi stares upwards at him wide-eyed.

"Friedrich Nietzsche. An ancient scholar from Earth. Darlin said that once when we were alone staring at the remains of the last city. At the time, I didn't understand why she quoted that, but now I think I do."

"D-Does Kayae know?"

"No. No one does."

"Why? Why do you keep fighting?"

Simon shakes his head, "Because I'm a soldier. It's what I do."

Suavi finally smiles and laughs softly, "Liar."

Simon looks down at the smiling girl with an eyebrow raised.

"That's not the real reason you keep fighting, is it?"

"I don't understand."

Suavi chuckles softly before pulling close to Simon, "You keep fighting for those you've lost and for those you can yet save."

Simon pauses for a moment and spots Kayae looking over in his direction with wide eyes.

What is she looking at?

He brings a hand to his eyes and brushes something away before staring at it.

Tears?

"So, even monsters can cry."

Suavi shifts her position in Simon's lap until she's able to softly pat his head like he had been doing her before, "You've fought this burden alone for your entire life. You've managed to beat it back, but in turn, it beat you too."

"I wasn't alone."

Suavi nods her head while stroking his graying hair, "The hole in your heart. It's fresh. Did it happen when you arrived here?"

"Yes. When I awoke, she was already gone."

Simon catches her hand and pulls her back down onto his lap, "How did things turn from me comforting you to you trying to comfort me?" Simon's eyes narrow as he watches the small girl laugh in his lap.

"Fufufu. Of all the questions you could ask, that's the one you choose?"

"You're right. That quote earlier was in old English, yet you understood it. How?"

A sly smile appears across Suavi's face, "Being a spirit has its perks."

Simon's eyes widened suddenly, "You learned the language when you looked into my soul."

"That's right, although you don't have a soul, or at least you don't have something that I can recognize as a soul."

Simon's eyebrow tilts upwards, "I don't have a soul? Is it because I was created rather than born?"

Suavi places a finger across her lips in a thinking motion, "Maybe. Maybe you had one before, but then something happened, and it was replaced with that void. I don't know. Nothing short of a god or at least a god-like spirit would be able to tell you that."

"Does it matter?"

Suavi suddenly hits his chest softly, "Idiot! Of course, it matters! If you die, there's no telling what will happen! You may go to the spirit realm, or you may vanish into nothingness for all I know. Not to mention you aren't connected to the world system!"

Simon smiles widely, "So, nothing has changed. I wasn't planning on dying yet anyway."

Suavi lets out an exasperated sigh while shaking her head, "This isn't a laughing matter you can casually dismiss with one-liners and the wave of a hand. I sware how did Artoria deal with you?"

Suddenly, the wagon's temperature dropped, ice began creeping across the surface, and Suavi's eyes activated unconsciously. Above her head, Simon was looking down at her with eyes filled with rage. The void where his soul should have been widened and the anguished screaming souls surrounding him were pulled in one by one. Each time a soul entered that void, the temperature surrounding her dropped further. Soon she began to shiver, and the porcelain teacups shattered, the tea inside frozen solid.

"Do. Not. Say. Her. Name."

Suavi tried to speak, but nothing came out. The very air in her lungs had frozen, so instead, she meekly nodded her head.

All at once, the temperature in the wagon returned to normal, and she gasped for air. Meanwhile, Simon left the wagon and headed over towards the waiting men, "We're moving out. Pack up your things. We will reach Ebonshear by nightfall. Understood?"

No one voiced a complaint and merely shook their heads without meeting Simon's icy gaze. Only Kayae had her head raised, clutching her chest tightly as Simon turned on his heel and headed back towards the wagon.

W-What was that?

Suavi stared on, still trying to process the situation as the wagon train rolled onwards.