Chapter 23: Compliments

Commander Rein had finally returned from wherever he’d vanished to. Without saying a word to anyone, he went into a private room and locked the door. Drake went outside the room, by the door. He was a bit annoyed.

“Rein, where’d you go off to?” he asked through the door.

“That’s ‘Commander’ to you,” a reply.

“Whatever! You left somewhere without saying a word and you come back without telling anyone. Where were you?”

“I’ll tell you later, when I feel like it.”

Drake was getting frustrated. “When you ‘feel like it’? Listen, you left at a bad time. Everyone was in depression from the recent battle and losing Arthur. At a time like that, they needed a leader to raise their spirits and tell them everything would be okay. You weren’t there to do that. I had to take up the job.”

After a while, “…thanks.”

Drake was incredulous. “That’s it?!? Explain to us what was so important that you had to abandon your duties here.”

“…I brought us some food from outside. I left it outside, near the entrance.”

Drake went there and found a sack. Opening it, he found that it was filled with corn. He went back to Rein’s room.

“That’s it?!? A sack of corn? You spent the day collecting that?! Was it really that important?!” Sure, the Cyll Survivors couldn’t go out much, and they needed to save their canned food reserves for winter, but getting corn from nearby former farms was not a priority at the moment. Drake found it ridiculous.

“I also killed some pests that were hanging around outside.”

“You prioritized those over troop morale? Neither of them is important at the moment!”

“Stop, Drake. Not now…” Rein said in a quiet voice.

“You know, you really aren’t that good of a leader,” Drake berated him. “If Arthur was here…”

The door opened. Commander Rein came out of the room. He was drenched in black fluids, covering his body and uniform. His eyes were red and traces of tears could be seen.

“I know that!” Rein yelled. Drake took a step back, startled. Rein’s voice dropped and he lowered his head. “I know I can’t live up to be as good a leader as him…” After a pause, “I can’t do this right now…”

He walked away, leaving Drake standing in place, confused.

The black liquid was clearly Mayhem's blood. And the normally indifferent Rein had been crying. Drake remembered that Rein and Arthur had been good friends for many years. This meant that Rein must have had more grief than him when Arthur passed away. In his rage and sadness, he went out and killed Mayhems for revenge for the whole day under the pretense of procuring food.

Drake could understand how he felt. His own solution to grief had been revenge as well. He hadn’t considered Rein’s feelings before coming up with expectations for him. He thought of him as someone who was just good at fighting or a fellow Mayhem-slayer, not as another human with emotions.

In addition, Drake had a lot of frustration building up from the recent meeting of the Raven, and it was in Drake’s nature to always let out his emotions to get them over with. This was one con of having this mindset.

He thought to apologize to Rein as well as thank him for saving his life, but then decided against it. It was best to leave him alone for some time.

* * *

It was the next day. The Defense Force, with encouragement from Drake, planned to go to the SORS the following day and finally accomplish the purpose of their mission. The injured would stay in the Mall to rest, while the remaining members would venture out. They wouldn’t be held back. Rein, in an effort to make up for his abandoning them, offered to lead the group, while Commander Eric would stay behind.

Drake learned about the problems of the Cyll Survivors. They did have a lack of food, and without many weapons nor much training, they couldn’t travel outside to gather resources often nor protect themselves. It was a pitiful state they were in, compared to those living in luxury in Rencia, but they took pride in their ability to survive and self-govern this far.

There wasn’t much the military could do to help, apart from going out and procuring food and resources for them for the future, but they would have to leave them eventually. Drake had the idea to train them in fighting with some of the Defense Force’s swords for now. Even if they couldn’t hand over their precious weapons, the civilians could learn something from it, similar to how Drake learned from his lessons in combat.

An idea that Steve had was for the Survivors to make an indoor farm. If they could harvest the sun rays coming through the glass rooftop above the central hall and windows, or have it on the roof, and get water there somehow, they could farm their food in safety.

Later, with Drake’s convincing, he and Steve went up to the roof of the Mall building to sleep under the night sky that night. They laid there pondering while looking up at the vast sky above them. Above the debris from the Space Wars, hundreds of tiny, visible white specks dotted the black canvas of night, and the vast depth and possibilities of it all revealed themselves to them. Drake never thought he’d ever see something like this in the twenty-second century, but the Apocalypse had offered it to humanity as a silver lining. Seeing this daily had become common now, but never boring.

Steve spoke: “You know, back when we were near that Raven, and you went over and punched it, I was really surprised. Trying to run away from it is one thing, shooting at it takes guts, but you ran at it without any weapons or anything and clawed at it.”

“Ah, right, that. Looking back, that was pretty stupid and embarrassing. I wasn’t really thinking at the moment.”

“Stupid as it may be, it took a whole lot of courage—no, bravery. Maybe that much is a bit too much, but I wish I had some of your courage. You’re always fearlessly fighting Mayhems. Back when I met you, you led me to survival, later you blew yourself up to save the city, you fought Mayhems for over fifty minutes…” Steve stopped, worried that he brought up a touchy subject.

Drake waved his hand for him to continue. What was done was done. Arthur was dead. Drake’s emotions had burst out before, and now, it was over with. He shifted his focus back to his mission. It was better this way, to perform the duties that Arthur had entrusted to him rather than crying.

Steve continued: “Even the smaller things, like speaking out in the Smummr without any care of the thoughts of others, are things that I envy. It’s weird, considering you’re younger than me.

“You know, I never knew my parents. I had a brother, but I don’t know what’s happened to him or other members of my family; he could be dead by now. I would have given up trying to survive in this scary world by now if you hadn’t inspired me. You taught me not to give up, that there’s always a way, and to keep working hard to improve myself and fight. Thank you.”

“Huh… I didn’t know you thought that way,” Drake replied. “Bravery isn’t really something I’m proud of. Sure, it can improve your life in some ways and make things convenient, but it also leads to irrational choices like with the Raven and oblivion to people and stuff happening around you.

“Actually, I’ve wanted to be more like you. While I’ve been stuck selfishly pursuing my revenge, you’ve been helping humanity by being on Dr. Lazzie’s team as an assistant in researching the Mayhem virus. You distributed supplies from the buggy during the battle despite being injured back there. You came up with the idea of the Expedition, without which we wouldn’t be here on the verge of finding out what happened that day.”

Drake didn’t blame Steve for the events back in the outskirts of Cyll. He merely put out an idea related to which the higher-ups had to decide the execution.

“You care about and try to help humanity. And it’s not like you don’t have courage. You decided to come on this Expedition. You saved me when I was unconscious, got us on that helicopter, and helped all these Cyll Survivors. Besides these, you’ve got persuasion skills, intelligence, an ability to understand people, and a million other good traits.”

Steve had never thought of those. He tried his best and used whatever abilities he had to make up for his inferiority in other areas.

“And don’t tell the other Privates about this, but you’re at least better at doing your job and accomplishing your goal than them.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m saying you’re more competent-”

“I get that part, but why do you say that the soldiers in the Defense Force aren’t as good at their jobs.”

“I mean, just look at the results. Sure, they’ve been working hard training and have motivation and persistence, which I can respect, but the results matter too. In the battle two days ago, their Mayhem kills were mostly in the single-digits, which is an improvement, I’ll give them that, but we couldn’t win the battle without escaping and they’re all injured now. How can we continue with the mission like this?

“Maybe that sounds too expectant, but if you want to bring down Mayhems, try not to drag the rest of the Defense Force down.”

Steve thought for a moment, wondering where exactly the problem in Drake’s thinking lay. He realized Drake’s initial assumptions were wrong.

“Drake, I think you’re misunderstanding something.”

“What’s that?”

“The military doesn’t exist just to kill Mayhems. You don’t have to be some fearless Mayhem slayer to join it. That’s not even what the military is for.”

“Huh?”

Drake was confused. Did he not understand the purpose of the Defense Force? That couldn’t be right. He’d joined it months ago with a single purpose: to kill Mayhems. He, a member, should know all about it.

“Never mind. You’ll understand it one day. I expect that you will. I’ve noticed that you’ve been improving in your thought process about the whole Mayhem situation.”

“You have? In what way?”

“For example, back right before that Mayhem attack two days ago, you were thinking of telling the General of the incoming sunset and that we should set up camp there.”

Drake remembered. “Yeah? What about it?”

“That would be unusual of you a month or two ago. You’d normally daydream unless your attention was bought by some Mayhems or a related matter. Yet, you are focused on the mission now, even if it’s not directly about slaying Mayhems.” Steve had noticed Drake’s strange ability to usually remain unconcentrated on anything unless when it was important to him, at which point he has intense focus and determination to achieve his goal.

Drake thought about it. Steve was right. It was proof of the change in his mindset that he’d wanted, from attacking Mayhems straight-on to killing them with care.

“Huh. Let’s take that as a good sign.”

“It definitely is.” Steve smiled. “Let the both of us continue to progress like this.”

* * *

It was the fifteenth day of the Expedition. The fit members of the Defense Force ventured out of the Mall, headed to the SORS that had been their initial aim. They passed through the city of Cyll safely and sneakily. Along the way, many Mayhem corpses could be seen, and Drake knew whose doing they were. Eventually, they reached the edge of the city, where concrete met trees. They then traveled through the woods.

After a several-hour-long journey, they arrived at the beginning of a farm. It was the corn farm that Drake and Steve had walked through that night long ago. It brought back memories. Drake was no longer running, scared; he was equipped with weapons and ready to fight any enemy that approached.

Through a hidden, secret path, they stumbled upon an entrance to an underground bunker in the middle of the farm with a satellite dish next to it. After breaking through the door, one could see a flight of steps going down into a dark chamber containing the answers to many mysteries: it was the entrance to the SORS!