Chapter 74: Episode 11- Sloth (7)
Aliana and I hid in our classroom along with my parents.
"So, you said Ethan attacked someone?"
"Yes, mom, he did. Just- don't talk to him anymore."
"I understand."
My mother crossed her arms and looked dejected.
"So, what made him do it?"
I recalled what led to the incident and felt disgusted. Some kid was talking about Maxine, and Ethan snapped. I quickly explained it to my mother.
"I would feel the same," my dad said, "if someone were to say those things about you or Theresa."
My dad instinctually grabbed my mother's hand.
"When you explain it like that, I can understand how that kid feels. He seems troubled."
(No, he seems psychotic.)
"Where is the girl now?" Dad asked.
I heard knocking from the classroom door right after my dad said that.
***
I have a funny side story to tell. Before we enter the obvious action sequence where a monster terrorizes me, I want to recall the past.
It happened when I was younger, probably age nine to eleven. My mother found this foreign horror movie called "Shutter" and made me watch it with her. There was a scene that featured mantis breeding; my mother said it was the scariest part. The segment stated that a female mantis would eat the male while mating, horrifying my mother.
A few years later, I saw this PBS nature documentary about the insect kingdom. If anyone here knows about PBS nature documentaries, you should know how wild they can get. It was ingrained in my memory; I saw a colony of ants crawl over a mantis and bite its head off. All the while, you could hear this disembodied British voice say, "And now you can see the power of ants and how numbers play an important role in survival."
It was something along those lines. I also remember watching a YouTube channel called Casual Geographic, and it mentioned how a mantis can sometimes kill hummingbirds.
Basically, I knew random shit about mantises.
-!Krikrick!-
The Fire-Grade mantis's forearms crushed the building it clenched. Ever so slowly, it inched closer without turning away that soulless gaze.
"U-uh!! Get in a building!!"
The squad leader was slow to respond due to fear, and who could blame him? I grabbed Marcus by the arm and shouted, "Run!" We turned tail and ran down the block. They say, "never look back," and that advice is valid, but I couldn't help myself.
"Aaahhh!!!"
When I did, I saw one man in the mantis's grasp, his body being pierced by its spiked arms. He was drawn closer to its mouth, and the mandibles ripped into his back. Chunks of flesh and bone stained the mantis's mandibles as blood splattered onto the hot pavement.
"Auuaaghh!!! Gwaagh!! H-help me!!"
Before I could see what happened next, Marcus and I ran to a house and kicked down the front door. We slammed it in place and backpedaled into the foyer and living room.
"Crap! That thing was huge!"
"I know. Stay here; Imma head up the stairs and look out the window."
I stomped up the stairwell, hoping nothing was in there. I found a kid's bedroom with a perfect view of the monster. I peered out the window and saw the Fire-Grade mantis attacking another house.
(Did everyone else flee in there?)
"Ethan?"
I turned around to see Marcus standing in the doorway.
"Yo, dude, the mantis is attacking everyone else. It's not paying attention to us."
"What?"
Marcus didn't believe me and ran towards the window. As he looked out, his complexion paled.
"W-we have to save them, right?!"
Marcus looked so fearful and unsure. He faced a moral dilemma; give into his self-preservation instincts, or save others due to higher ideals.
(Imma be honest, are they worth it?)
I'm not the perfect judge of character, but I know much about evil. It's within every person, no exception. If so, how evil were Santiago's men? I thought about how they dehumanized the flare zombies and toyed with the undead.
(They do seem like jerks.)
Although, were all of them the same? I don't remember clearly, but did each one treat the undead wrongly?
[Fable "Ender's Game" is fluttering its pages.]
My memories of that time gently flowed into the forefront of my mind.
(Ah, goddamnit.)
It wasn't fair, nor mature, to generalize groups of people due to the actions of specific individuals. This applied to humans and aliens alike. I decided to answer Marcus's question.
"Yeah, let's save those pricks."
I turned toward my newfound friend and smiled.
"First, we'll need a plan."
***
I am the master of confusion and bullshit. With confidence, I can say I'm the Asian version of Deadpool. Not because I am cool in any regard, but because I am absolutely erratic.
I approached the Fire-Grade mantis, which was still attacking the building. I knew a few facts about it: it adapted to infernal environments, making flame attacks useless. It had a thick exoskeleton, stronger than armored tanks. Like Earth mantises, its two arms could quickly snatch prey at lightning speed. Within the official [Star Stream] rankings, the mantis was classified as a Tier-6 monster.
(It means it's dangerous as hell.)
Now here I was, standing right behind it, attempting to save people who were probably douchebags.
[Constellation "The Black One, Lord of Muspellheim" is looking at you.]
[Constellation "Abyssal Black Flame Dragon" wonders what you'll do next.]
[Constellation "All-Devouring Wolf of Apocalypse" watches you closely.]
For the plan to work, I needed the mantis to notice me. It was time to pull a Jack Sullivan from "The Last Kids on Earth." It was time to erupt into stupid dancing.
"Yo, mantis, check out my crazy moves!"
The creature turned its triangular head and soulless gaze in my direction. It seemed to pause and ponder whether I was better prey. I knew how to get its attention.
"Look at me! I'm a Fortnite kid; I grew up with V-bucks and the Golden scar!!"
-!!Screech!!-
Two gigantic arms flew in my direction, but I quickly dived out of reach. I began running at a breakneck pace while hearing the scuttling feet of the insect from behind. All the while, I egged it on.
"Psych! Minecraft forever; I grew up with a diamond pickaxe!"
-!!Thrash!!-
Before it grabbed me-
-!!Rip!!-
I ripped a car door by its hinges and threw it.
-!!Crunch!!-
The mantis grabbed the metal door by instinct and crushed it. I continued to run as fast as possible and took a left turn.
(You better be here, Marcus!)
The mantis followed and almost grabbed me again, but I juked it and jumped onto a rooftop.
[Stigma "Flames of Muspelheim" has been activated!]
I gathered and condensed two fireballs into the palm of my hands.
-!!Whish!!-
I threw one fireball at the mantis's eyes while saving the second one. I blinded the creature for a brief moment, and it screamed.
"Now, Marcus!"
I heard the heavy slapping of sneakers against the hard pavement, and accompanying it was system messages only I could see.
[Character "Marcus Santiago" is preparing for battle!]
[Character "Marcus Santiago" is activating their Stigma!]
[Character "Marcus Santiago" has activated their Stigma "Fenris Transformation!"]
Marcus ran towards the mantis's flank and launched himself into the air, aiming directly for its head. I leapt as well, condensing as much strength into my legs. In midair, I empowered the second fireball and swiftly threw it at the mantis's right arm, using the kinetic energy to knock it aside.
-!!Screeeaahhh!!-
Sufficiently disoriented, the mantis was unable to respond to the attack.
-!!Shriek!!-
I landed on the creature's shoulder and saw Marcus's arm elbow-deep in the mantis's right eye.
"Ethan, my arm's stuck!"
(For the love of God, let the Negan bat lead me to victory.)
I performed a horizontal strike and bashed in the insect's eye even further. The thick flesh became weaker, and Marcus pulled out his arm. I briefly saw the dark fur on his skin and his clawed hand bristling with energy. Sadly, Marcus lost balance and fell to the cement below, but he should be fine.
(If Fenris Transformation is still activated, Marcus is currently invulnerable to most monsters.)
"Ah, shit!"
The mantis reared its body wildly, and I had to cling to its one good eye to stay balanced. I felt like Sam Witwicky in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" as he hanged from Starscream's eye socket.
-!Shriek!-
The monster shrieked wildly and jumped around like a buffalo. I gripped the baseball bat's handle and tried to jam it in the creature's eye, but it wasn't enough. I was also moving too quickly to strike the mantis properly, so I was stuck on this crazy insect flying around.
"Marcus, aim for its legs!"
The world grew blurry, and my ears could only hear the rushing wind. I don't even know if I said anything correctly - I was moving that fast.
"Fire at its joints!"
I thought I heard some voices, but I wasn't sure. Although, I think I definitely heard a hardy "thunk" and a bloodcurdling scream from the mantis. The creature's leg became limp and fell to its side, with me alongside it. I was violently thrown into someone's backyard and crashed into some old garbage cans.
My body felt sore and broken, but I knew I didn't fracture any bones. I was just winded and whiplashed. After a moment, I boosted myself and crept out of the backyard, only to see something unexpected. I laughed to myself.
I saw Santiago's men attacking the fallen mantis, stabbing at its joints to immobilize it or aiming for its head. I looked around and saw my baseball bat was thrown into a window. I jumped up and tore it from the glass.
"Hey, let me get in on this," I said.
The other squad members barely registered my presence. They were too enraged. Maybe it was the sense of powerlessness or the fear or the pent-up anger that they felt. They took it out on this Fire-Grade insect.
(I almost feel bad.)
Everyone was aiming at its neck, exposing the rest of the head. I slowly approached and saw the mantis's one good eye staring at me. I proceeded to monologue to myself.
"You know, when I saw that Casual Geographic video, I was pretty angry."
[Constellation "General-Slayer" is wondering what you mean.]
"Like, seeing a small green mantis kill a beautiful bird stuck with me. Also, knowing that female mantises kill males while having sex is fucked up to know. So-"
I playfully spun the baseball bat in my hand.
"-Imma kill you with a lot of satisfaction."
I held the bat with both hands, raised the weapon over my head, and brought it down against the mantis's eye until it turned into a pulp. It screeched pitifully, and as it did, I looked up to the sky, hopefully towards a camera.
"And now you can see the power of gang violence and how numbers play an important role in survival."
I swung the bat one more time, and the strike was so strong that it broke my weapon. Afterwards, I backed away from the large body and saw the fully decapitated head. I don't know whether I killed it or Santiago's men did, but I knew it was dead.
***
"We can't save him," someone said.
The mantis attacked one man and successfully got him. It seems he was discarded for more tempting prey. The person in question sat down, his back propped against an empty car. He was panting raggedly.
"Let me check. There might be a chance."
Surprisingly, everyone else let me inspect the fellow. I asked him to sit forward a bit, and he complied. I was left disturbed. A chunk of his backside was gone, and I could see his exposed spine. It seems he lost several organs and a few vertebrae. I was surprised he was still alive and able to move. It was probably due to a system skill keeping him alive.
"I-it h-urts..."
Tears ran down his face. I barely registered it before, but I did now. He was the man who detained me, the one I called an Oblivion NPC.
"S-stop it... I-it hurts."
He meant the pain. I don't think I could.
"Does anyone have any pain-nullification items? Something like morphine?"
The squad leader scowled and said, "We're just grunts. We're not given that fancy shit."
The man cried out due to the pain. Maybe he heard us.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," I said.
"We should mercy kill," the squad leader suggested.
"Don't say that!"
"It's all we can do, Marcus."
"I'll do it. It's the right thing to do. I don't know him like you do."
I looked at everyone else and saw their pained expressions. Perhaps they weren't friends, but this man still meant something to them.
"Does anyone have a knife?"
A person handed me their switchblade.
"Hey, can you tell me your name?"
In between his pained gasping, the man mustered up his strength to answer.
"It's Logan."
"It's gonna be okay, Logan."
I grabbed the man and wrapped my arms around him. From an outsider's viewpoint, it looked like I was hugging him, but I wasn't.
-!Shiik!-
The knife piercing his flesh made a dull sound. Soon after, Logan's crying stopped along with his breathing.
"What did you do?" The squad leader asked.
"I stabbed him the nape. It should've been an instantaneous death for him. I hope it was."
"Let's get out of dodge and return to the school."
"What are we gonna do with mantis's body?" Marcus asked.
"Let's go check."
We walked back, only to see flare zombies eating the corpse.
"Ah, shit!" Someone exclaimed.
"It's nothing much," the squad leader said. "I wouldn't want to eat the thing anyway, after what it did to Logan. Let it rot."
After saying that, everyone saw it from that perspective and understood. We'll let the body serve as a relic of our tribulation. We walked away from it, but Marcus and I looked back. He was probably paranoid, but I was thinking something else.
(It'll be a shame to waste the monster parts.)
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
EnderGolem997
EnderGolem997 Hey, author here. Late chapter because I didn't submit on Saturday. I was hit with a bunch of fatigue, so I slept that entire day away. These past few days, I couldn't focus as well because I went from studying to writing. That's trading one form of work for another. I didn't get this sense of relaxation from my break yet. Imma try to take it slow and not bite off more than I can chew, since the quality of chapters are impacted by my mental capacity.
I'll still try to submit chapters on the days I designated for myself. Also, Imma try and speedrun this arc to move to the next. I feel like we stalled and I want to move on to writing new episodes, like the battle of Washington D.C. (different from Washington State) and the battles of every Disaster. Also, I forgot to mention this: I will write a battle for each Disaster in Washington State. I hope when you guys read it, you'll find it interesting. Also, I don't know why this chapter hyperfixated on a mantis. I swear there's a point. Maybe.
Anyways, happy reading!
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