Author's Note: This story has undergone a major rewrite to make it more enjoyable to readers. Sorry that it took such a long time, and thank you for reading.
Chapter 1: Incompetent
Day 1
Struggle was a beautiful thing.
No matter how hard he tried to shake off that morbid idea, Adal just could not get rid of it. He was disgusted—why would he think such a thing? The loss of someone did not merely leave a hole in one's heart—it chewed the hole out in the first place.
But, even so, there is something in tears and fights that incite the idea of a person venturing into worlds of strife that others would never have gotten the chance to experience otherwise—exploring worlds of power; becoming stronger. It was something that not a single individual could ever feel; get to know, but rather, it was species that did; a collective experience that organisms of many kinds go through, as wholes.
It was evolution—the medium of reality in which running was not a "cowardly" or "dishonorable" act, but rather, a godly one; an act of supreme ingeniosity, whose doer's genes are something referred to as divine, and, as a consequence, desired.
Yet it was evolution that allowed the same organisms, all those species, to be wiped out. Where are they now, then? Heaven? But do animals go to Heaven? Hell? But that was where they came from.
Hell they lived. In Hell they died. From Hell they came; came unto Hell.
It was Hell on earth. Hell in their minds.
Adal pitied the elephants that remained on this planet, as well as any other animal, for that matter. Claw that—he pitied all things alive. However, right then, he pitied himself the most.
He was about to die.
"Adal! Move!" The Zygote was bombarded by explosive bullets, all shot in rapid succession. Its mouth closed. It blinked its eye. It roared, and then it flew at Karel.
The Zygotes were everywhere. They flew and swooped at them and blasted them with air and poison. They shrieked and simply instilled fear in Adal like never before. He was not ready for "the battlefield", after all.
"Tch!" Karel rolled to his side to avoid the attack, risking getting devoured from the side by another Zygote. But he was prepared. As he rolled, he spun his God Arc along with his body's motion, jamming its barrel into the Aragami's open mouth as deeply and hard as he could, hoping against knowledge for it to rip through its body completely.
No such luck.
The god's bulbous body was far too thick for a flat chunk of Oracle cells to pierce through, but it was not far too slippery to not be stuck with the gun's end in its mouth. Karel let the gun let rip. The bullets let the Zygote burst.
With a high-velocity whirl, and a shocking static buzz, the God Arc ate the Zygote's body inside out, not so unlike a flesh-eating parasite. It left behind the carapace of a deity—a miserable representation of a God Eater's work. It was no more than a heap of Oracle cell, scrubbed of all life—whatever life there was.
Gina sniped down the flying deities relentlessly, not missing a beat from one target to another, only stopping to dodge attacks aimed to disembowel, stun, or erase her altogether, though, from where she ran, the "gods" seemed more like a swarm of flies, swooping down on them to feed like the maggots they probably harbored inside their bodies.
Wherever Gina's bullets flew, a trail of vacuum vanished, leaving behind a phantom of Death's shadow that her bullets carried. Under the shade of Death's gun, even gods succumbed.
Sometimes, Death would make way for a steel blade. Particularly a steel blade dipped and washed in the blood of gods, extracted from the very fiber of the divine's making. Its sharpness was, indeed, without lack of firmness.
A Zygote flew at Adal. Overhead, a dark shadow loomed. Long and thick, its edge was feared by the greatest of mountains.
Mightily so.
The Zygote's face showed glee. The next moment, the half of Zygote's face showed glee. Glee and blood—it got what it wanted. Is thine blood to thine liking, Lord Zygote?
Only one half had been splashed with its blood. One half had tiny splatterings of vile liquid; the other was dirtier—vilely so.
Shun's blade sliced the god apart, no red showing on its black luster. The heavier part of the Zygote's body was dragged first by the thirsty underworld. The part containing less fat was left in suspension longer. When flight mechanism failed, it, too, fell, albeit closer toward its corresponding side than the other had done.
Adal had to be brave. A Zygote was flying at him. He had to prove himself as a God Eater; he could not failhehadtohehadto-
He screamed, raising his blade like he would swat a fly out of the air. A large, deadly, godly fly.
He did not swing. If he had tried to, he would be left as a mere slab of half-eaten meat. He simply was not quick enough.
He had to block the blow. It pushed him back several meters, he who hid behind his shield. Adal could hear its ferocious snarling; smell the death in its breath. He had to defeat this one, at least. He had to.
It was a miracle that no other had come to gobble him up whilst he was struggling right then. Then again, his teammates were probably fighting them off; many of them off while he fought against one.
Adal could not hold much longer.
He screamed frustration, fear, instability and weakness. He pushed it away with a hollow, metallic clang, and just as it was flying back at him after recovering, he jammed his blade into its mouth, through and through, believing the whole time that it could devour him right there and then, whereas its mouth was full with the God Arc. The entire time, he was shaking.
It was over.
Gina and Karel laid off the remaining Zygotes wriggling about on the cracked earth, putting an end to them with a last wave of bullets.
They then ran over to where Shun was yelling at Adal, the latter's God Arc dropping to and clattering on the ground, like a toy, as he, face dirtied with something like gore, broke down and fought his own battle—the fight to stay still, all the while melting in his own blood.
He heard its rush, which drowned out the world around him.
End of Chapter 1: Incompetent
Next Chapter:
An enigmatic threat
An alien being