Chapter 437: Tiny steps

Derek stood with his arms crossed — which was a somewhat difficult endeavor given all the various hilts and blades protruding from them. He stared up at the giant that Mite had entered with a pensive expression on his features and tapped his foot on the ground in thought.

Hm. That is a whole lot of sticks. I wonder if they taste—

“What are the chances he succeeds?” Vil asked from behind him, breaking his contemplation.

Derek didn’t miss the fact that she had positioned herself so that he would take the brunt of the blast if the giant exploded. He also didn’t mind. It wouldn’t save her. Vil seemed to have gotten the idea that he’d survive the explosion, which couldn’t have been more wrong.

It would definitely kill him.

He’d just come back.

She probably wouldn’t.

Derek shrugged. “I don’t know. You probably should have asked him that before you came along.”

Vil grimaced. “Look. The last few days have been a lot.”

“Comparatively.”

“What?”

“Comparatively a lot,” Derek said. He grinned. “You’ll get used to it. You just need to have a whole lot more bad days.”

“That… isn’t comforting. At all,” Vil said.

Derek didn’t waste words on a response to that. As far as he was concerned, people liked speaking far more than they did listening. He’d already said everything he had to say. The giant overhead was far more interesting than the current conversation.

That was doubly true since there was a decent chance it was about to explode. Derek did hope that it wouldn’t, though. He rather liked Mite. It would have been a shame if he died. This whole thing definitely would have been a lot easier if Mite had asked for help.

But he hadn’t. And that meant it wasn’t Derek’s place to interfere.

“Is everyone at Mirrorwane like you guys?” Vil asked.

“Hm?” Derek frowned slightly. He glanced back at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Like you. And Alex. And Claire, even though I didn’t really get to see all that much of what she’s capable of,” Vil said. She shifted uncomfortably and glanced to the side. “All of you seem like you’ve got some insane powers from the System. It’s terrifying. You realize that, right?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Derek said.

“How?” Vil asked in disbelief. She thrust a finger at him. “Look at yourself! You should be dead! You’ve been run through a dozen times. At least some of those are going through vital organs, aren’t they? But you aren’t even bleeding.”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “And?”

“And?” Vil repeated. She blinked. “It’s abnormal! And then Alex is going around controlling those nightmare monster things. They’re terrifying. Completely fucking terrifying. My town had a summoner, you know. He could summon a bunny with a horn on it. That was it.”

“Was it a strong bunny?” Derek asked.

“It was — that’s beside the point!” Vil hissed. “Everyone seems like they’re a genius or a monster of some sort. Even Mite. That guy is a cocky little ass, but he built the whole town, didn’t he?”

“Only parts of it.”

“The creepy ones,” Vil said. She glanced over her shoulder. The eyes on the walls of the reflected version of Mirrorwane glanced back. She shuddered and hurriedly turned away from them. “You see what I mean? That’s not normal.”

“Mm,” Derek said. He was silent for a second. Then he grunted. “Okay. I still don’t get it.”

“I’m saying — all of you are clearly the top of your class to some degree,” Vil said. “And I’m feeling a little out of place. Maybe a lot out of place. I thought my town was pretty damn strong. But compared to this, it’s nothing. And compared to you guys…”

Derek sneezed.

Vil paused for a moment. Then she frowned.

“Compared to you guys—”

Derek sneezed again.

“Okay. You’re doing that on purpose,” Vil said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek said with a shake of his head. “I’m just sneezing. Did you have something you wanted to say?”

“I was just saying it seems like I’m a bit of a fish out of water,” Vil said. “I’m completely outclassed. Everyone here is some kind of special other than me. I just got… dropped off here after the people I gave everything to protect betrayed me. But I’ve always been in a position of power. I thought I was ahead in the Apocalypse. Now I’m behind. It’s not a very comforting feeling.”

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Derek was silent for several long seconds.

Vil stared at him expectantly.

Finally, impatience overtook her. “Are you going to say anything?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, no,” Derek replied. “Was I meant to?”

“I was hoping for some advice,” Vil said. “You seem pretty intelligent. I was hoping you could tell me a bit about how I can make myself useful or something. I don’t want to get tossed to the side.”

“Doesn’t seem like that’s very likely,” Derek said. He looked up into the giant looming over them. There was no more sign of Mite. He was working somewhere inside it already. Given the fact that they hadn’t all exploded yet, it seemed that things were going as well as they could be. “Although you aren’t a very good liar.”

Vil blinked. “Huh?”

“You seem to fit right in,” Derek said. He peeled his eyes away from the giant to finally turn and look down at Vil properly. They narrowed slightly. “You smell like the Mirrorlands.”

“What?” Vil asked.

Derek tapped the side of his nose. “Wasting your time, Vil. I dunno who you’re trying to fool. But I don’t get what you’re trying to say in the first place. How do you feel out of place? You seem to fit here more like anyone. Not even Alex smells like the Mirrorlands as much as you do.”

Vil stiffened. “What are you trying to—”

“I figure Alex and Claire already know,” Derek said with a shrug. Then he leaned down until they were at eye level. Vil flinched back. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with actually being weak. But you’re not going to get anything out of pretending to be weak. That’s just wasting everyone’s time.”

Vil stared at him. Then she shook her head.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not strong. I mean, I’m not weak. I’m pretty good at what I do. I’ve been practicing since the moment the Apocalypse started. But I have no idea what you’re smelling or whatever. Maybe it’s because I was stuck in the System for a while or something, but I’m not hiding anything. This is who I am.”

“Whatever you say.” Derek shrugged and looked back to the giant. “It really doesn’t matter to me. It’s your future, not mine.”

“I think you’re seriously mistaken,” Vil said. “I’m telling you, I’m not hiding anything. I get nothing from doing that! I’m trying to prove that I’m worth letting stay in Mirrorwane. Why would I do anything that endangers my chances to do so?”

“Good question,” Derek said. “You figure that one out. I don’t really care.”

Before Vil could say anything else, a loud crunch echoed out from the inside of the giant. Vil flinched. Derek glanced over toward it. The two of them were silent for a moment.

“That didn’t sound good,” Vil whispered.

“It didn’t sound like an explosion,” Derek said. “And when you are concerned about explosions, hearing sounds that are not explosions seems like a good thing.”

A second later, Mite’s head poked out from the hole in the giant’s chest.

“Hey, Derek?” Mite called. “I think I need a little assistance. I’ve got the core partially separated, but I can’t do the next step on my own. We need to cut every single remaining connection to the giant all at once. That’s the only way the magic doesn’t have time to cycle through its body and go kaboom. My puppet only has four limbs with cutting apparatus on them, so I’ll need some more hands.”

“Sure,” Derek said.

He leapt into the air, sailing straight toward Mite and the hole in the giant’s chest. The Bioengineer’s eyes widened. His puppet yanked him out of the way a moment before Derek sailed through the hole with a series of loud crunches as his weapons caught on the roots and tore through them.

Derek caught onto a large root, then fount his footing on the webbing wood beneath him before looking up to Mite. “What now?”

“Jesus, man,” Mite muttered. “You don’t half-ass anything, do you?”

“How could I?” Derek asked. “I have a whole ass.”

Mite snorted. Then he nodded to a ball of roots above them. “That’s the core. We need to cut the roots holding it away, all at the same time. I can get four of them. I need you to somehow get three others. Do you think you can do that?”

“How long do we have?” Derek asked, tilting his head to the side. He clambered up to the core to get a better look at it. “A second?”

“Half,” Mite replied. His puppet brought him up alongside Derek and he gestured to a thin cut on one of the roots connecting the core to the rest of the giant. “Maybe a bit less. I’d say a bit less to be safe. I’ve already put some cracks into the roots. They should split easily. I just don’t want to take the chance that they don’t.”

“That doesn’t seem too bad,” Derek said. “So it doesn’t care if we weaken anything first? It’s just the final cut that matters?”

“Yeah,” Mite said. “But I know what you’re thinking. We can’t shave them all super close to breaking and then hit the core. First, that has way too much chance to damage the core. It’s probably fragile. And second, we can’t risk one of the roots snapping before the others. That would be very bad.”

Derek nodded. “Okay. Makes sense. This doesn’t react to magic, then?”

“No,” Mite replied. “It’s just a power source. I mean, don’t use anything that has a chance of igniting. We can’t risk damaging the core.”

“Is the core alive?” Derek asked.

Mite blinked. “No. I don’t think so. It’s just an energy source. Why—”

Derek reached out and touched the surface of the wooden ball.

There was a faint hiss.

Tendrils of darkness raced out across the roots from where his palm met the roots. The wave spread rapidly to completely envelop the entire thing, their path stretching down the strands of root connecting the ball to the rest of the giant.

Rot bubbled and spread across the surface of the wood. Chunks of it withered and started to melt.

And then, before Mite could say a word, every single one of the strands connecting the ball surrounding the core to the rest of the giant snapped as one.

Derek shot a hand out. The core landed in his palm, rotting wood sloughing away from it in thick chunks to bounce and splatter off the wooden veins running throughout the giant’s hollow interior.

“I — what?” Mite stared at Derek in disbelief. His eyes flicked to the core. Its housing had largely fallen away to reveal a metallic silver-purple orb about the size of a large basketball. “What did you just do?”

“I rotted the wood,” Derek said. He squinted at Mite. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“I know that!” Mite exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could do something like that! Why didn’t you say earlier?”

“You didn’t ask for help until now,” Derek said. “I didn’t want to overstep.”

Mite’s eye twitched. Then he blew out a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. A grin split his lips a moment later. “You know what? Who cares. That was fantastic. I would have loved to know you could literally just melt the whole damn thing… but sure, I’ll take it. Thanks Derek.”

He reached out.

“You’re welcome.” Derek handed him the orb. It vanished, swallowed by Mite’s spatial ring.

The two of them were silent for a moment.

“So… I didn’t get the idea Vil was very optimistic about my chances of pulling this off,” Mite drawled.

“She was using me as a shield,” Derek replied.

“Figured.” Mite’s grin grew devilish. “That means bragging about doing this successfully is going to be twice as fun.”

“You didn’t do it,” Derek pointed out.

“Yeah, but I did ask for help,” Mite said. His smile turned sheepish. “That counts, right?”

Derek thought for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Well, it’s progress. I reckon it ’s close enough.”

“Great,” Mite said, turning back to the hole he’d put in the giant’s chest. “Let’s go. I’ve got to go revel in my victory for a bit before I get the Endbringer Culverin built and shower myself in even more well-earned praise.”

Derek watched him leave. Then he shook his head and clambered after him.

Progress it might have been, but it seemed Mite still had a ways to go.