HALF: Dead nor Alive

Archie was groaning in pain as he turned himself back to his human form and tried to get rid of it. He didn’t want to use his other hand because it was dangerous so he kept swinging his arm but it didn’t do anything.

“I can’t get rid of it, Eve, cut my arm off!” Archie said while he felt an immense amount of pain from the corrosion on his arms.

Eve looked at Archie’s hand which was slowly melting and she immediately cut it off without hesitation. It was so fast and clean that Archie didn’t even feel anything until his blood came out from his shoulder.

Archie sighed with relief as his arm slowly grew back and looked at his sword which looked fine even though it was smeared with phlegm. He didn’t know what to do but he didn’t want to leave his sword behind so he grabbed the handle where it didn’t smear with phlegm.

“Be careful, Eve, you might injure yourself,” Archie said as he held his shoulder.

“What’s this? Are you worried about me?” Eve asked with a smile on her face. “You don’t have to worry, my skin has high resistance and it won’t affect me,” she continued.

Eve grabbed the sword from Archie’s hand and then she touched the phlegm with her bare hand. Archie looked at her palm and it didn’t do any harm, so he believed her immediately.

“See, nothing happened,” Eve said as she showed her hand. “Let me play with this bug while you recover from that injury,”

The parasite looked down and glared at Eve, he breathed fire at her while Archie took a giant leap to avoid the fire. Eve was bathed in green flame but it didn’t affect her at all, even her hair didn’t get burned by the flame, only her uniform turned into ashes.

The flame got fierce after the parasite noticed that the fire didn’t affect her at all. Archie had to take cover behind a giant rock but it didn’t change the fact he was in danger nonetheless.

Eve jumped toward the parasite’s mouth and she used her claws to stab its upper mouth. She swung her arm and slammed the parasite’s head to the ground as if it was nothing to her.

“I wonder if she decides to help us kill all the parasites, do you think humankind will prevail?” Vincent asked as he aimed the sniper rifle at the parasite’s head.

“Do you think she cares about us? I believe she looks at us as food or even worse a piece of trash. Sure she can make the world better, but why should she since she already got everything she wants,” Ruby answered as she looked at Eve through the binoculars.

“But Archie might be able to convince her though, right?” Vincent asked and stared at Ruby.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think Archie really care about us human anymore. He has changed compared to the first time we met him, he doesn’t even have any sympathy toward the humans anymore,” Ruby answered as she sighed.

Eve covered her body with her long silver hair that looked like a piece of cloth. She could modify every part of her body and Archie observed her from a distance because he was curious if he could do something like that.

Vincent took the shot and hit the parasite in the other eye, then he shot another one in the mouth of the parasite. He was amazed by his own shooting skill because he shot the bullets from a mile away and not to mention the wind was blowing quite hard.

“That should be enough, right?” Vincent asked as he leaned his head back and lifted the sniper rifle.

The parasite was rampaging and started to smash the ground over and over while Eve casually let everything flow. She jumped over and bounced from debris to debris as if she knew where to go and what was flying toward her.

Eve pushed herself and went closer to the parasite, she then landed on top of the parasite’s head and scratched its skin with her claws. She rode the parasite while the parasite used its tentacles to attack her but the parasite was only hurting itself because she dodged them all so easily.

Archie’s arm grew back and he finally could rejoin the battle but the parasite was rampaging because the serum started to show an effect on its body. Slowly but surely the parasite lost its ability to move and see, that was why the parasite was stomping the ground rapidly.

It was hard for Archie to get closer to the parasite but he took the risk and tried to copy Eve’s movements from earlier. He got launched and started to bounce from debris to debris and he did a great job that Eve was quite impressed by it.

Archie stabbed his sword and then pulled himself up onto the parasite’s back. Eve clapped her hands as if she was so proud of him but then the parasite’s body started to tremble and let out a deafening screech.

Archie stabbed the parasite’s neck and pulled it down as hard as he could but it only made things worse because the parasite started to use its claws to scratch its body to get rid of them. The parasite dug the ground as if it tried to run away from danger but both Eve and Archie made sure that it didn’t run away.

“Where do you think you’re going? You will stay here and play with us!” Eve said as she punched the parasite’s head and it was enough to stun the parasite.

Archie used the opportunity to cut off the tentacles and managed to cut a few of them before the parasite recover from the punch. Ruby and Vincent watched them and it looked like they were playing around with the parasite.

The sound of the propellers was getting louder and louder and both of them started to be cautious of their surroundings. Archie knew that the people inside the blimp could see them from the distance and they would start to feel suspicious about him, especially Eve if they knew that they both could handle a king-type parasite on their own.

“Eve, we need to leave now, we can’t be here because they’re going to drop the bomb on us!” Archie said as he pulled the sword from the parasite’s tentacle.

Eve nodded with understanding and then they both jumped off from the parasite’s body. They ran as fast as they could because the blimp was right above the parasite.

The sound of the bomb falling from the sky was like a whistle and nobody knew how big the radius of the bomb was. Even Ruby and Vincent started to run as far as they could to protect themselves from the explosion.

The parasite was digging the ground and half of its body was already buried underground but then the bomb touched its back. The bomb didn’t make any sound at first then the shockwaves were enough to break the wind and it was as fast as the speed of sound.

If the bomb wasn’t harmful to humans but dangerous to parasites, it could only mean they used some kind of radiation bomb and destroyed the cell of the parasite from the inside.

Archie looked at Eve he immediately hugged her from behind to protect her from the explosion because her skin was exposed by the explosion.

They both got blown away by the shockwaves and Archie didn’t let her go as his back was exposed by the explosion. He immediately felt his back was itchy and it started to burn that came right behind his skin.

Archie started to cough blood while Eve stared at him from up close. His eyes turned red and his skin turned red as if his whole body was boiled.

“Stay away from me, Eve, you might get-” Before Archie could finish his sentence, he groaned in pain and his whole body started to transform into a parasite. A form that he never knew was possible for him to be like that.

Eve was a bit surprised and she immediately grabbed Archie’s hand and dragged him far away and went into the forest behind the hill.

Faye looked at the massive explosion and she was worried because the general who commanded the soldiers inside the blimp confirmed there were four people near the parasite. She was worried that even though the bomb was harmless to them, the explosion alone was enough to kill them if they were too close to it.

The general looked down and saw the parasite’s body was laying on the ground and it didn’t move a muscle. “Did we kill it?” he asked.

The general squinted his eyes and realized it wasn’t the parasite, it was just the skin of the parasite because it was a bit transparent and saw a giant hole underneath it.

“It seems that it wasn’t enough, let’s go back,” The general said. “But it should be enough to prevent the parasite from destroying the Sky Station. Good work everyone,” he continued.

Eve looked at Archie with her eyes squinted. “What have they done,” she said calmly.