Chapter 44: Hope

As Drake returned to the battlefield, he watched the battle that unfolded. The Defense Force was attacking it at various places with their swords and laser shooters to keep its attention focused on them.

It let out an earsplitting moan feeling like heavy thunder mixed with an earthquake. Steve, which hadn’t moved from its spot, probably due to its weight, slowly moved its giant arms to swat them. Trying to recover quickly from the roar, the soldiers flew out of the way to a safe distance in time.

Drake recognized this as the same tactic used against the Gorilla. Although they couldn’t cause much damage, this was their best choice because their aim was to distract it and prevent it from causing further damage in the vicinity, allowing civilians to evacuate.

Since the soldiers were busy, others had to take up the job of evacuation, and things seemed to be going well, leaving aside the people who got crushed beneath rubble or eaten by human Mayhems. The Humayhems, as President Atkinson would probably call them, were mostly trapped beneath rubble as well, but the area within their reach was dangerous, and not much could be done about the ones roaming about; a few soldiers were trying to gather them to one convenient location. Whether they were going to kill them or not would be a serious ethical decision made by higher-ups, assuming everyone survived.

Unfortunately, with many soldiers being injured or dead from the Expedition, the size of the military on duty was too small.

“Yo, Jord!” Drake called out. “How are you all getting so close to Steve? Aren’t you scared you’ll mutate?”

“Oh, Drake! You’re back.” Jord yelled back from the distance while avoiding a swinging giant alien arm. “Turns out touching it won’t actually mutate us.”

“Huh? But it mutated those humans down below.”

“I don’t know why. Maybe it only had that effect while he was mutating.”

It was strange, but now wasn’t the time to think about such things.

“One minute.

“Raah!” Jord slashed at the Mayhem’s arm.

He flew away and huffed as another attack came his way. Drake watched the wound as it regenerated. Before long, there was no trace of a wound.

“What!?! It can regenerate without eating?!” Drake exclaimed.

“Yeah. Strange, right? That makes this a lot tougher. I’m afraid there’s no way to kill it using normal weapons…

“By the way, did you get the cure?”

Drake smiled. “You bet, I did.”

* * *

Drake gathered the General and a troop of soldiers. He took out the vial.

“I see…” Rein said after listening to Drake explain it. “Not only is there only a small chance of this working, but we also must get the fluid through the creature’s skin for it to be effective. I’m not the scientist, so I don’t know how that works, but did the people on Lazzie’s team seriously come up with a solution that requires someone to get up close to Mayhems and pierce their skin?”

“I didn’t think of it like that, but it does sound suspicious…”

In reality, the team had assumed it would be better to start with a simple, working prototype, and make it convenient later.

Rein sighed. “We can’t do anything about it now. So, we have to land on the Mayhem and cut through its skin before pouring this into the wound and do so before it regenerates, all while making sure it doesn’t pay attention to the one cutting it. Anyone got any ideas?”

So motivating, Drake rebuked Rein’s leadership in his head.

“If I may, General!”

Everyone’s eyes fell on Walter Allen. Rein nodded him to go ahead.

“Currently, the other soldiers are distracting Steve quite well. If we try to attack it… er, him from a blind spot, then he won’t notice until we make the cut, and perhaps even afterward, considering he won’t be sensitive to pain, or care, being focused on the food in front of him.”

Of course, this was assuming ordinary circumstances, and not accounting for extreme possibilities like Steve being able to see what’s behind him or grow a third arm.

“That does seem like the safest option.”

“It won’t require many people either. Just one or two persons will do.”

“Can’t think of anything better. Nice thinking, Walt.”

Everyone agreed with Walt’s idea.

“It’s certainly better than pulling a Drake…”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?!” Drake demanded.

“It means ‘running straight at the enemy without a plan’,” Jord answered.

“Huh?! It’s not like I’m still like that!”

“We know, but it sorta stuck.”

“…After this battle, I’m going to punch whoever made that term.”

“M-moving on…” Walt nervously tried to change the topic, “we need to choose a location.”

“Back,” everyone unanimously agreed.

* * *

Drake and Walt were chosen to go to Steve’s back to insert the Blucteryhem Cure. Now they were flying around the behemoth to get behind it. All the other soldiers were busy keeping it busy.

Drake looked at Steve’s eyes. With them being completely black, one couldn’t tell where he was looking, and it always seemed as if he was staring into the depths of one’s soul with hatred, similar to the Gorilla. It was creepy.

Drake shivered, shook his head, and turned his focus back on flying. But as soon as he and Walt started seeing Steve’s back, it turned its head and Drake could swear it looked at them.

They stopped. It was no longer worried about the other soldiers attacking it.

Suddenly, it leaned back. Its humungous weight fell onto the Wall, which was right behind it. The collision caused a massive boom. The Wall’s iron plates creaked and dust rose.

“What!?!” the two shouted in surprise simultaneously.

The other soldiers were confused as well. The Mayhem turned back to the middle, took a deep breath, and screeched a deep rumbling roar, announcing it was ready to take on any frontal attack.

“Steve…”

“Drake, let’s go back and reassess.”

Drake nodded.

They went back to the General.

“It noticed you were trying for its back and covered it up? This is strange.”

It was the first case of a Mayhem possibly showing so much intelligence, assuming it wasn’t a coincidence. Was it because it was originally an intelligent species, unlike the other animals?

“That makes this more difficult… We need a new plan: one where we can completely distract it from seeing you two. Everyone, gather here.

“Steve can use its eyes, so we need to keep it from seeing what’s going on…” Rein looked at the afternoon sun in the sky over Steve and the Walls. “Hmmm… I have an idea.”

* * *

The Behemoth groaned with a heavy breath and stared out at the massive toy town that sprawled before it with dull, flaming eyes. Suddenly, there was a twinkle in the sky. It turned to look at it. Then, there was another. And another. Soon, there were around a hundred point-sized lights flickering seemingly out of thin air. The lights blinded Steve’s vision, and it turned its head away. However, the lights soon followed and shone upon its eyes once again. Steve swung its arm at them. They moved around to avoid it.

Unbeknownst to the beast, the sources of lights were members of the Defense Force, using anything they could—flashlights, lasers, mirrors reflecting sunlight—to blind and distract it. Meanwhile, Drake and Walt were headed to Steve’s legs. Not only could Steve not move its legs, it couldn’t see them while focused on its targets above, making them the ideal next choice for inserting the Cure fluid.

While Walt kept watch, Drake landed on Steve’s skin. There really was no mutation as a result. Drake then took out his sword and slashed at the skin. It was quite deep and tough to dig through.

Seriously, Drake thought, how do mosquitos do this so effortlessly?! He had a newfound respect for them.

Once he’d struck muscle, which was the same color, but you could tell from the black fluid that was blood and the texture, he put away his sword and took out the vial he’d been entrusted with. The wound was already starting to regenerate, so he had to be quick.

“Drake!” he heard a voice nearby.

Drake turned around. Walt was yelling something while pointing above. Following the finger, Drake saw that Steve’s arm was headed toward them.

Shoot! He noticed us already?! What are the others doing?!

In any case, he had to finish the job now. He quickly popped open the vial and held it out over the well of a wound that he’d created.

“Drake! Get out of there!” he could hear.

“Steve. Come back to us. I want to know why you did all this. I’m your friend, after all.”

With Steve’s hand nearly upon him, Drake closed his eyes and emptied the liquid. And…