HALF: Dead nor Alive

Archie went back to the abandoned laboratory and he could hear their voices coming from the hallway. He went there and saw all of them were cheering for something, then he looked at a full bucket of pieces fragments covered with powders underneath. “Is it a success?” he asked as he approached them.

“Archie! You’re back?!” Ruby asked as she looked at him with a surprised expression.

“Yes, I took care of it already so I’m back now,” Archie replied.

Ruby grabbed the bucket and shoved it to Archie’s face. “Look! We got a lot of them!” she said with excitement. “Newman said this is enough to make two swords at least and see if there’s a leftover and if it does, he could make a dagger from it!” she continued as she kept staring at the inside of the bucket with a huge smile on her face.

Archie looked at Vincent as he shook his head while Vincent was just smiling and shrugging back at him.

“I’m going to check the meteorite now,” Archie said as he walked past Ruby.

Archie entered the room and the smell was unbearable, Newman and Marie were shocked when they saw him enter the room without a mask. They both ran toward him and scolded him for not wearing protection while Newman threw him the mask at him. Archie immediately put on the mask and saw the meteorite that was slowly eroded by the chemical.

Archie walked closer toward the meteorite and saw something shiny from a few sides of the meteorite. “What’s that shiny thing? Is that what you’re looking for?” he asked as he pointed at the meteorite and looked at Newman.

“Yes! Do you see how beautiful that thing is?! I can’t wait to see how big that shiny thing is inside that huge rock!” Newman answered as he mixed the chemicals in the bucket.

“How are you going to even process it if you can’t dissolve it with chemicals? I’m sure that there’s nothing in this area that can break that thing up,” Archie asked as he kept staring at Newman.

“You don’t have to worry about it!” Newman said as he lifted the bucket and walked toward the meteorite. “I don’t think there will be a huge chunk of it inside and I can carry it out back to my house and just try to melt it in my workshop,” he continued as he put down the bucket carefully.

Archie just nodded with understanding and then Newman patted Archie’s shoulder repeatedly while he giggled. “Don’t worry, kid! I will make you the best weapon in the whole world!” he said.

Newman continued to soak the meteorite with the chemical while Marie was watching him doing his word. Then after an hour of carefully layering the whole area of the meteorite with the chemical, they decided to go back into the city and start working on the metal and fine powder they got from the process of dissolving the meteorite.

Since Ruby and Vincent couldn’t hold their excitement, they wanted to help or at least watch the whole process. With that, the three of them including Marie decided to stay overnight in Newman’s house to watch both of them work.

Archie and those two were observing Maria and Newman melting the pieces of the fragment in the forge. He was fine with the heat but the parasite inside his body seemed to be uncomfortable with it that he could feel it move all the way to his back where the only spot his body didn’t get exposed by the heat. He thought to himself that the parasite would be useless if one day he had to fight in a desert or place with high temperatures, so he was thinking of a way to make it heat resistant.

Those two worked all night that none of them realized that the sun was rising already. It took them quite a while to melt all the pieces and Newman without wasting any time, decided to forge and make a sword from it. He already had the blueprint for the design of the sword with Marie’s help, so they both put the melted metal and another metal to make an alloy. They started to work on shaping it into a long square glowing hot alloy then started to hammer it.

The process was so long and they both were carefully shaped like it was some kind of artifact that they didn’t want to ruin by accidentally bent it or breaking it. They kept repeating the same process repeatedly and observed it whenever they cooled it down. Once they were satisfied with the shape and the thickness and everything, they stopped working on it.

“That was intense…” Newman said as he wiped his sweat on his forehead.

“It seems that our skills are still sharp since we have been working for decades that our hands seem to be moving on their own,” Marie said as she sighed and sat on the chair.

“Thank you for the good work, both of you,” Ruby said as she approached them with two glasses of cold water.

They both nodded as they drank the water in a single chug.

“Should we go and check the result of the second day?” Newman said as stand up and groan.

“I think we can handle that since we have been watching you taking care of it yesterday. It’s better for you both to get some rest for today because you both deserve it,” Vincent said as he looked at them both.

Newman raised his eyebrow. “Are you sure you guys can handle it? The chemical is really dangerous so you have to be very cautious and careful when you’re soaking the meteorite,” he said with a worried expression.

“Don’t worry about that, I can do it with this hand of mine,” Ruby said as she raised her left hand. “If I made a mistake, at least the prosthetic arm is replaceable, so don’t worry, I will be very careful,” she continued with a grin on her face.

“Alright, you guys be careful out there and don’t overdo it because you need to be patient and let the natural processing do its work. Do you guys hear me?” Newman said as he pointed his index finger at the three of them.

“Yes, Sir!” Both Vincent and Ruby said at the same time.

Newman scoffed and shook his head then the three of them went to the abandoned laboratory to gather the pieces of the meteorite.

A week had passed, and they finally dissolved all the layers of the meteorite except the shiny silver one. They were admiring the mineral that didn’t even leave a mark when they tried to scratch it. They could tell how sturdy that mineral was because when Newman dropped it on the steel floor, it bent the floor and nothing happened to the mineral.

“Look at how beautiful this thing is!” Newman said as he looked at the mineral on the floor. “If anyone discovers this, they would bow their heads and kiss my feet and beg to me so they can have this,” he continued as he giggled.

Newman grabbed the mineral that was as big as a newborn baby, even though it looked so small, it was ten times heavier than its size. They all decided to leave the abandoned laboratory with no leftovers from the meteorite. The sword that Newman and Marie had forged a week ago, they still hadn’t finished it because they still had to make it the best weapon they ever made.

“We should finish that sword, Marie, it’s time for that baby to have a hilt and a scabbard,” Newman said as he looked at her.

“We could still do a lot of things with that, we can still make it stronger and a bit thinner so its sharpness is going to be unmatched with all the weapons in the world!” Marie replied as she imagined the sword in her head.

“Well, now that we have finished dissolving the meteorite, we can have all the time to work on that sword now since these two guys have been waiting for the sword to be finished,” Newman said as he looked at Ruby and Vincent.

“Okay, we can finish it in a few days since we can still make an improvement on the blade,” Marie replied while she nodded with understanding.

Three days had passed and Archie with Ruby and Vincent visited Newman’s house because they heard the good news from Marie that they finished the sword. Ruby knocked on the door and they heard footsteps coming toward the door, Newman looked at them and tilted his head to his right, “Come in,”

The three of them went inside and Newman grabbed the sword in its scabbard and then showed it to the three of them. “Here, take this,” he said.

The scabbard was carved that looked like stars when it was exposed to the light, Ruby grabbed it from his hand and the three of them admired the sword from top to bottom. Ruby then unsheathed the sword and the sword was all black but it still could reflect anything on the blade. Ruby chuckled as she grinned widely and looked at the sword. “This is magnificent!” she said.

“Well it’s yours, so you should take good care of it since that’s a masterpiece of my work!” Newman said.

Ruby just nodded as she kept admiring the blade. “Do you name it?”

“Of course! I name that sword Bachmut!” Newman answered while he nodded and crossed his arms.

“Bachmut…” Ruby said quietly. “You’re mine now,” she continued.