HALF: Dead nor Alive

Archie ran toward the guy and quickly thrust his hand toward him, the guy was a bit surprised to see how fast Archie’s movements were compared to last time. The guy smirked and immediately reformed his hand into a blade-like hand and slashed Archie on the chest. Archie took quite a deep cut from that but his regeneration ability rapidly healed the wound and closed it.

“For someone whose life was spared, you took me by surprise,” The guy said as he grabbed Archie’s arm and threw him away to the side.

Archie instantly went back up and charged at him without saying a single word.

The fight between those two was something unbelievable to watch. Vincent and the others were watching them from the top of the dome since they didn’t want to stay on the ground.

“Captain Vincent, what is going on?! Why Archie can do something like that?!” Tommy asked as he looked at Vincent with his eyes wide open.

Vincent couldn’t keep his eyes away from the battle. “Archie isn’t a human like us, he’s an Ex-Human,” Vincent replied.

“What?!” Both Tommy and Daniel were shocked by it. “Wait, does that means, all this time, he has been with us and you’re fine with it?!” Tommy asked.

“I just know about that a week ago and it was Ruby who told me about it. I don’t know when did Ruby know about Archie’s true identity, but it seems like she had known about it ever since he was in your squad.” Vincent answered.

Both of them looked at each other with disbelief.

Archie already took a lot of hits and he landed zero hits on the guy but it didn’t a problem for him. No matter how much damage he took, no matter how many times he got injured, his regeneration ability helped him back up. His regeneration ability got better thanks to the battle he had with The Mother and her children.

“Shame, you’re going to die here,” The guy said as he tear Archie’s left arm off.

Archie ignored him and used the opportunity to thrust his hand at the guy’s right ribs.

Archie’s hand was inside the guy’s stomach and immediately made it deeper while he had the chance. The guy broke Archie’s arm and kicked Archie away from him, then he looked at the hole in his stomach. He scoffed with disbelief and tried to stop the bleeding with both of his hands, Archie on the other hand watched the guy with confusion and realized the guy didn’t have regeneration ability, or at least that was what he saw.

“What’s wrong?” Archie asked as he smirked at the guy.

The guy scoffed. “Do you think you’re the only one who can do that?” The guy said as removed his hands from his stomach. The wound was getting smaller but it didn’t heal entirely and it seemed that it would take a long time until the wound completely healed.

Archie thought to himself based on what the guy said earlier and the wound in his stomach that the guy didn’t have the regeneration ability like him. Archie had a plan and that plan was to deal enough damage to the guy in a certain amount of time so the guy couldn’t heal all the wounds at the same time. With that being said, he believed he would be able to kill him and all he had to do was to find an opportunity.

Archie right arm healed and his left arm regenerated, he charged toward the guy without hesitation while the guy still had the hole in his stomach. As he fought him, he learned that he could modify his whole arms, not only his hands anymore.

Archie modified his arms and strengthened them, both arms were covered with black veins as he fought the guy. The guy tried to break Archie’s arm again but he was surprised that his hand couldn’t break it, Archie used the opportunity to thrust him into the chest but the guy dodged it barely and his side was injured by Archie’s claws.

Knowing that he couldn’t use the same strategy, he backed away and tried to recover the wounds on his body. Archie didn’t let him breathe and kept pushing forward and threw attacks relentlessly. The guy couldn’t make another mistake because he started to feel a bit threatened by Archie’s capability and he had wounds that made him hard to move freely.

The battle went on and on for hours, Ruby had regained her consciousness and watched the battle with the others. They were all silently watching those two fight in the middle of the night, they realized that they had no chance if they were the ones who had to deal with that guy. Ruby thought to herself and realized that Archie might be the savior of humanity, and with him around they had hope that they never thought they had.

Archie started to feel confident and he believed that he could win against him until the guy suddenly laughed.

“I never thought I will be using this against someone like you,” The guy said as he breathe heavily.

The guy’s muscles were twitching and suddenly his whole skin was torn apart. He wrapped himself with his muscles that looked like tissue, his body became bigger and bigger and he was almost as tall as a two-story building. No face, no eyes, nothing, all Archie could see was muscles and the guy’s arms that became blades.

“No more time to play…” The guy’s voice was so deep that it trembled the ground around him.

Even with that gigantic body of his, he moved even faster than his original form. Archie couldn’t dodge them and he couldn’t run away from him either, the only thing he could do was to endure and let his body heal itself.

“What are you going to do now?” The guy asked as he slammed Archie to the ground and threw him to the walls.

Archie didn’t know what he should do because at that moment, the guy was invincible and he couldn’t even get close to him. He was thinking so hard about how to kill him, and he couldn’t find any answers since he was being beaten up by the guy.

Ruby and the others were stunned by what they saw, Ruby then turned around and looked at Vincent. “We have to help him! He won’t be able to make it if he keeps getting beaten up like that!” Ruby said.

“Help him? How? How are we going to help him against an Ex-Human that’s as big as a building? We are going to die as soon as we step our foot there,” Vincent replied.

“I know that already! I’m just telling you that there must be something that we can do to help him!” Ruby explained.

They both were thinking so hard about how to help Archie, but then Daniel raised his hand. “I think I have an idea.”

Ruby approached him and grabbed his shoulders. “Tell us!” She said.

“Since we are on top of the old laboratory, that means there’s a chance that they have the serum to weaken the parasite. I’m not sure if there’s any left in here, but if there’s none, with the material that they left behind, I might be able to make one that similar to that.” Daniel explained.

“Good! Let’s move out and search the entire laboratory for the serum, and if you can’t find any, find the ingredients to make a new one.” Ruby said as she looked at the others. “Daniel, you know the ingredients, right? Tell us the ingredients and we will look it for you!” Ruby said as she shook Daniel’s shoulders gently.

“I do, my mother is working in the laboratory so I learned a lot of things from her,” Daniel said as he nodded his head.

“Perfect! Let’s move!” Ruby said as she jumped down from the building and entered the laboratory.

Hours had passed, and Archie was like a doll being thrown away until he lost all his limbs and grew them all back over and over. On the other side, Ruby and the others were looking for the serum but they couldn’t find any so they were looking for the ingredients in each room and corner of the laboratory while they had to deal with parasites themselves.

“Dan! Is this the one you’re looking for?” Tommy said as he brought a container with green liquid inside it.

Daniel grabbed it and opened the lid and smelt it, his eyes were wide open with a smile on his face.” Yes! This is the last ingredient that I’m looking for! Now I can make the serum!” Daniel said and then ran to the room where all the equipment was left behind.

“First I need to put this… then this…” Daniel mumbled to himself as he mixed some of the ingredients together. “After that, I stir them until the color changes…” Daniel continued as he stirred the solution in the glass. “Okay, the color seems right, now add this…” Daniel was so focused on the ingredients while the rest of them were guarding and keeping an eye on the door from the parasite.

Ruby crossed her arms as she looked down and wiggled her foot, patiently waiting for Daniel to make the serum.

“I did it! I made the serum!” Daniel said as he held the serum in his hand and showed it to them.

“Excellent! Let’s pour all the bullets in there and hope it works…” Ruby said.

All of them nodded and immediately removed the bullets from the magazines.

Ruby looked at the wall in front of her as she pulled out the bullet from the magazine. “Archie, please wait for us, we will come to help you…”