The sky was still a pale gray when they began their journey, a color that seemed to reflect the despair enveloping the planet. Crowe had managed to send a distress signal to Felicia's communicator, obtaining the coordinates for a military bunker about thirty kilometers to the north. On paper, it wasn't a great distance. But in a world torn apart by catastrophe, thirty kilometers was a continent to be conquered.
Elijah led the way, carrying the mysterious girl with care. Her light frame was barely a presence in his arms, but the weight of his responsibility felt heavy on his shoulders. Evelyn moved by his side like a silver shadow, while Crowe, breathing a little heavily, followed behind, his eyes constantly and warily scanning the ruined horizon.
The first hour of the journey was the hardest. They were still adjusting to the loss of the bunker, the only place they had called home. Their steps were hesitant amidst the rubble of buildings and the rusted skeletons of cars. The first attack came from a pack of agile mutants that leaped from the ruins of a train station. Elijah, his mind still in turmoil, misjudged a jump and nearly stumbled. Evelyn had to pull him back as metal claws almost tore through the back of his armor. They managed to defeat the horde, but their teamwork felt stiff and inefficient.
Entering the second hour, they began to find their rhythm. The silence between them was no longer awkward, but one of unspoken understanding. When a thick-scaled mutant charged from an alley, Elijah no longer needed to shout. He just had to shift his position slightly, and Evelyn already knew to strike from the monster's blind side. Her silver energy knives danced, finding the gaps between its scaly plates, while Elijah's red sword slammed into its head. The fight was over in seconds.
By the third hour, they had become a coordinated killing machine. They found a partially collapsed overpass, and beneath it nested a dozen insectoid mutants. Without a word, Evelyn activated her cloaking device, disappearing to find a higher vantage point. Elijah, now acting as bait, provoked the mutants by firing small plasma bursts into their nest. As the monsters swarmed him, Evelyn appeared atop a bridge pillar, gliding down like an avenging angel. Their coordinated assault slaughtered the nest before a single one could touch Elijah.
In the fourth hour, physical fatigue began to set in, but their skill had reached its peak. They moved no longer as mother and son, but as two complementary combat units. Elijah was the shield and the sword, while Evelyn was the unseen dagger that struck when the enemy let its guard down. Crowe, though exhausted, was amazed at how they had adapted. The spoiled boy he once knew now moved with the instinct of a veteran soldier.
Just as the cloud-shrouded sun began to dip toward the west, another sound broke the silence—not the growl of a mutant, but the disciplined report of firearms and a heavy explosion that shook the ground.
"That's military-grade gunfire," Crowe said, pointing toward a plume of smoke not far ahead.
"We have to check it out," Elijah stated. He spotted a five-story office building with most of its windows shattered, looking deserted. "Mom, you guys wait here. Watch Crowe and… her," he said, gesturing to the girl in his arms, still sleeping peacefully amidst the chaos.
Evelyn looked at her son. In the past, she would have flatly refused, insisting on going with him. But now, she saw a calm confidence in his blue eyes. She knew an argument would be pointless. "Alright," she replied, her voice firm. "But promise me, if it's too dangerous, you run. Don't be a foolish hero."
"I promise," Elijah nodded. He gently laid the girl down in a safe corner of the room, then reactivated his helmet and disappeared through a shattered doorway.
Elijah moved around the area with silent steps, his red armor making almost no sound. The sounds of battle grew clearer, accompanied by vibrations he could feel in his bones. He peeked from behind the remains of a bakery wall. The scene before him made him pause. At a wide intersection, two battle tanks and dozens of soldiers in black uniforms were surrounding a gigantic monster.
The creature looked like a colossal octopus born from a nightmare. Its bulbous, slimy body was covered in erratically blinking yellow eyes, and dozens of thick tentacles slammed into anything in their path. Each swing could crush a car or toss soldiers into the air like rag dolls. The asphalt around the monster was utterly pulverized. Elijah frowned, watching how bullets from machine guns and even shells from the tank cannons seemed to just bounce off the creature's slimy hide without leaving a mark.
The squad looked desperate. As they fell back to regroup, Elijah saw a familiar figure in their midst. Felicia Vossard stood tall, giving commands with a calm demeanor even as a tentacle slammed into the ground just meters away from her. Seeing their desperation, Elijah knew he couldn't just watch. This was his chance to prove his worth.
He stepped out from his cover. Instantly, several on-edge soldiers reflexively aimed their rifles at him. Elijah froze, raising both hands.
"DON'T SHOOT!" Felicia's sharp voice cut through the tension. "He's not an enemy."
The soldiers hesitantly lowered their weapons. Felicia ordered them to refocus on the giant octopus, then walked over to Elijah. Her cool expression showed no surprise.
"I didn't expect to run into you this soon," she said, her green eyes assessing him from behind her visor. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm accepting your offer," Elijah replied, his voice slightly distorted by the helmet. "But on one condition." He looked into Felicia's eyes, trying to convey his seriousness. "My people and I will join, but we are not your soldiers. If there's an order we feel needlessly endangers our lives for no good reason, we have the right to refuse. Don't force our hand."
Felicia was silent for a moment, then a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. "You're so much like him."
"Like him?" Elijah frowned. "Who?"
"Your father," Felicia answered simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "He always made his own rules, too." Before Elijah could ask more, Felicia nodded. "I understand your position. And I agree to your terms. We need all the help we can get."
Elijah felt a small wave of relief. "Alright. In that case, do you need a hand with that ugly monster?"
Felicia glanced at the octopus, which had just smashed one of the tanks with its tentacle. "That thing's durability is off the charts. We've thrown everything we have at it. Nothing's worked."
"Let me try," Elijah said.
He activated the two energy swords from the wings on his back. The glowing red blades hummed in the air. With a plasma-boost from his feet, Elijah shot forward. For the next twenty minutes, the intersection became a stage for a deadly dance. Elijah moved with agility, dodging lethal tentacle whips. He leaped onto rubble, slid under sweeping appendages, and slashed his blades against the monster's body time and time again. Each of his strikes was accompanied by covering fire from Felicia's troops.
But the result was the same. His energy blades, as hot as a star's core, only sizzled against the octopus's skin. A thick, transparent membrane enveloped the monster's entire body, neutralizing the heat and repelling every physical attack. Elijah could see the membrane quiver and smoke slightly where he struck, but it regenerated in seconds. He was frustrated. How was he supposed to get past this protective layer?
As he was wracking his brain for a strategy, a panicked voice suddenly crackled through his armor's internal comms system. "Elijah! Elijah, can you hear me?!"
It was his mother's voice. "Mom? What is it? What happened?"
"The girl! She's gone!" Evelyn sounded panicked and guilty. "I… I stepped out for a moment to scout the perimeter, to make sure no mutants were approaching. Crowe followed me because he was bored, we chatted for a bit, not even five minutes. When we came back… she was gone. We've searched the whole building!"
Elijah's mind went blank. Gone? How? His concentration shattered. He didn't see a tentacle sweeping in from his right.
CRACK!
Elijah was thrown like a bullet, slamming hard against the wall of a building across the street. His armor absorbed most of the impact, but his head still felt dizzy and was ringing. His vision blurred. He tried to get up, but his body felt heavy. Suddenly, a slender but strong hand supported his arm, helping him stay upright.
When his vision refocused, he was looking into a pair of clear, sky-blue eyes. It was the mysterious girl. She was no longer asleep but standing before him, her face etched with genuine concern.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice as soft as music.
"I'm… fine," Elijah answered, still a bit stunned.
The girl then pointed toward the rampaging octopus monster. "That creature," she said calmly. "Its weakness isn't its skin. Its heart is here." Her finger pointed to a specific spot between two large tentacles on the lower part of the monster's body. There was a small crevice there, almost invisible among the pulsating folds of skin. "The protective membrane is thinnest there."
Elijah stared at her in disbelief. "How do you know that?"
"I just know," she replied, her eyes meeting his with complete certainty. "You have to trust me."
Elijah hesitated. This was all too strange. But seeing Felicia's forces being pushed back and remembering his own futile attacks, he knew he didn't have many options. He had to try.
He reactivated his communicator. "Mom, I found her. She's safe with me. I'll explain later." Then he ran toward Felicia, who was taking cover behind the wrecked tank.
"I have a plan!" Elijah yelled over the din.
"What is it?" Felicia yelled back.
"Order all your troops to focus their fire on its eyes! Make it angry, break its focus! I'll attack its weak point!"
"You found one?"
"I have a hunch," Elijah replied, not wanting to explain about the mysterious girl right now.
Felicia looked at him for a second, then nodded. "Do it!" She immediately shouted into her comms, "All units! Divert fire to the monster's primary eyes! Bravo and Charlie teams, move to the left and right flanks, create as much noise as possible! Clear a path for him!"
Instantly, the attack strategy shifted. The barrage of bullets and lasers now concentrated on the dozens of yellow eyes on the octopus's body. The monster roared in pain and rage. Its tentacles thrashed blindly, destroying everything around it to eliminate the tiny pests. It was in the midst of this chaos that Elijah found his opening.
He ran, no longer with wide, sweeping attacks, but with a singular focus on evasion. A tentacle slammed down where he had been standing a second ago. He leaped onto the hood of a military truck, then slid off just as another tentacle swept over his head. Dust and concrete debris flew all around him. He could feel the heat from a nearby explosion and the cold sweat on his back. His focus was on one thing only: the spot the girl had pointed out.
After dodging three tentacle swings that nearly claimed his life, he finally made it. He was directly beneath the monster's underbelly. The crevice was there, a faintly pulsating fold of skin that looked more vulnerable than the rest of its body.
"Now or never," he muttered.
He gripped both his swords, fusing them into a single, larger, thicker blade. All the remaining energy he had, he concentrated into the tip of that sword. The red blade now glowed so brightly it was blinding, its heat causing the air around it to shimmer.
With a roar, he thrust the sword with all his might into the crevice.
There was a moment of resistance, and then his blade pierced the membrane. It felt like stabbing into incredibly tough flesh. The monster let out a high-pitched shriek unlike any before—a scream of pure agony. Its entire body convulsed. Instantly, several tentacles that had been rampaging above now turned and plunged down toward Elijah.
He quickly pulled his sword out and leaped back, using the last of his strength to rocket away. He landed, gasping for breath, near Felicia and her team.
They all watched with bated breath. The stab wound was oozing a thick, purple fluid, but there was no sign the monster was dying. On the contrary, its movements became ten times more ferocious. Its tentacles demolished the remaining structures in the vicinity, its blazing eyes now scanning the crowd, searching for the red figure that had wounded it.
"Your plan worked," Felicia said, her face tense. "We found its weak spot." She then looked at the monster, now far more dangerous than before. "Now, how do we stab it a second time?"