[Kibagami]

Holy crap that was long. (for you)

[IamEpicFailure]

Kibagami, on 27 December 2011 - 12:29 AM, said:

Holy crap that was long. (for you)

Is that a bad thing? D:

Quote

-Chapter 37 : A Little Trip-

“Victorious?” Alatreon's voice contained a hint of surprise. “It seems I have more of an asset in those Fire Wyverns than I had initially thought.”

“Yes...probably,” Mirage had conveniently left out the part where she(?) jumped in to prevent everyone in the cavern from dying. Conjuring up a barrier around the explosion with herself(?) in the middle of it to ensure the barrier remains as powerful as possible while simultaneously shielding everyone else was hardly an easy task, even for someone like her(?). “Next time though, please warn me in advance if there is bad blood between monsters.”

“You mean I forgot to tell you that those two came up to my cave and literally begged me to take them in, swearing that they will take down the Emperor and Empress of Flame one day?” A faint smile formed on Alatreon's lips as he recalled the memory. “But Fire Wyverns are still Fire Wyverns, no matter how powerful they may get. It should be almost impossible to be able to defeat something in the ranks of an Elder Dragon. Are you sure you offered no help whatsoever?”

“I didn't even move a muscle. They trained under Theo and Luna before, surely they would know the weakness of their ex-masters.”

“True, true,” Alatreon still eyed Mirage suspiciously despite his words. He never believed that an Elder Dragon would fall to something besides another Elder Dragon, and in his eyes the victory of Taiyo and Tsuki was naught but a fluke. “Moving on. Now that that's settled, we should start on choosing which monsters to send after the Fatalis. I was thinking of sending two Pokke monsters at a time...”

===================================================

Mirage emerged out of the telephone box, her(?) face still expressionless until she(?) had walked a fair distance away. Then she(?) bared her(?) teeth and softly swore at Alatreon for what seemed to be the first time since she(?) had entered his service.

Alatreon had stuck with the decision of sending two monsters at a time, despite Mirage protesting strongly against it. Mirage knew that two was scarcely enough to get rid of the Fatalis once and for all. It was made all the more worse by Alatreon wanting to send only Pokke monsters. While the Glittering Black Dragon had made it sound as though he was really trying to kill the Fatalis trio, Mirage could easily see what he was really planning.

Alatreon wanted to get rid of the Pokke monsters, or at least reduce their numbers drastically. It would appear that he did not believe the monsters from Pokke would remain loyal to him, especially not after news had spread about the Fatalis trio still being 'alive'. Rather than wait for them to start having second thoughts, Alatreon would rather send them to their deaths, at the hands of what could potentially be their saviors no less. Sending Taiyo and Tsuki to Theo and Luna was also another way of weakening potential allies of the trio; the Silver Rathalos and Gold Rathian were originally Pokke monsters as well after all.

“Not if I can help it,” Alone in the shadows of a park, the outline of the human figure known as Mirage faded out, leaving a tiny purple monster on the ground. The creature's eyes looked both left and right at the same time, making sure that no one had saw it transform. A pink tongue lashed out from its mouth, striking the foliage of a nearby tree and dragging an unfortunate Vespoid which had witnessed the transformation into its mouth. “I didn't join his cause to watch him send Pokke monsters to their graves. If he doesn't want to end this once and for all, then I will.”

A sudden picking up of the wind made the creature fade out into invisibility, perfectly blending into the surroundings. Mirage's suspicions were confirmed by the appearance of an Elder Dragon flying overhead, his voice calling out the name of the Elder Dragon of Mist.

“Oh Chameleos! Stop hiding, I know you're out here,” The Amatsu slowly circled the trees Mirage was hiding under. “I saw you move inside these trees. Come now, I only want to talk.”

A human outline formed itself on the back of the Amatsu, slightly astonishing it. Mirage wasn't in the mood to entertain the Amatsu however. “You're that Elder Dragon always flying around inside Alatreon's cave...what do you want?”

“Ah, so you noticed me. My name is Zarklyion. Before I continue, give me a second to flush out those annoying bugs,” The Amatsu closed his eyes, but before he could use his powers Mirage was already snapping up any remaining Vespoids in the trees with multiple chains that flew forth from her(?) hands. “Hmm...you're fast.”

“Being hungry does that to you,” The Vespoids that were hit by the chains found themselves being dragged back into the robes of Mirage, where a gruesome death by digestion awaited them. “It is slightly weird though. I don't normally eat so much at night. Anyway, what are you here for again?”

“I overheard your conversation with Alatreon,” Zarklyion flew closer to the ground, and landed with his body in a circle around a pavilion. “You seem to disagree with his notion of sending only two monsters to attack the trio at a time.”

“What's your point?” Mirage folded her(?) arms.

“You want this silly game of Alatreon to end quickly, so your fellow monsters can go about roaming this land freely just like back in Minegarde, do you not?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I'm just saying, but what if you simply took matters into your own hands and send four monsters at once to finish them off?” A sly glint appeared in Zarklyion's eyes.

“Four at once?” Mirage looked at the white Elder Dragon in front of her(?) with narrowed eyes. “And risk punishment?”

“Your power is illusions, correct? You can always just make it such that those monsters just happened to be there at that moment, and they just happened to engage the trio at the same time.”

“And?”

“You want them to win instead of losing. So what if you just happened to be there as well, and provided some help to the monsters by splitting up the hunters so they each face a monster alone?”

“Splitting them up?” Mirage sounded deep in thought as she(?) replied. “Not a bad suggestion...united they might be strong, but if I can catch them unawares, it might just provide the monsters enough of an edge to win.”

“Well, I've said enough. I'll be on my way now.” The Amatsu drifted upwards to the sky.

“Just a moment,” Mirage stopped the Elder Dragon. “Why the sudden helpfulness?”

“Just offering my suggestion to a fellow monster,” Zarklyion shrugged, his fins rippling in the air. “Nothing wrong with that now, is there?”

“No...I guess not.” Mirage fell silent for a while. There was something the Amatsu wasn't telling her(?), and she(?) knew it.

A single Vespoid crawled its way out of Mirage's robes; the only one she(?) had allowed out. It crawled onto the palm of Mirage, shaking off what the digestive juices on its body. She(?) brought the insect close to her(?) face, causing it to tremble in fear. “Do you want to live?”

The Vespoid nodded its tiny head frantically.

“Then I have a little job for you.”

===================================================

MC sat on his chair in front of his room's table, his fingers interlaced with each other as he stared at the black screen of his computer screen. He had scarcely moved from this position for the past three days, with the exception of eating and going to the toilet. There was no reason to move after all; school had been literally destroyed, and his last remaining source of entertainment with it. Now he simply sat unmoving, just wishing that the desktop screen would, by some miracle, flicker on so he can continue gaming.

Not that such a miracle would ever happen. The last three days had been incredibly dull, with absolutely no monsters randomly rushing into MC's life at all. With no one other than Crimson and Black to keep him company, MC could almost feel himself rotting away in his chair.

Not that Black seemed to mind though. Once again he was strolling around MC's room, never getting tired of walking circles. His figure appeared more solid than before, which he had told MC was a result of his ever increasing depression.

“You know,” Black started, “The amount of despair you are giving off from a simple loss of a gaming device is staggering. Not that I mind, of course.”

“It was the last one I had,” MC replied with a blank look. “And having all your gaming devices taken away from you in less than a week is a huge blow. It's like getting grounded. Only permanently.”

“Well, why not work for a new one? Look at Ayumi, for instance. She certainly seems to be enjoying her time without school.”

“Don't wanna,” MC yawned. Ayumi had been spending the past few days working at Dean's, whose customers had slowly begun flowing in once again. Volt had offered his assistance as well, and MC often found himself alone in the house. With no one to prepare lunch or dinner for him, and with his minimal knowledge of cooking, MC's diet had consisted of nothing but cup noodles. And yet he still doesn't want to work. “Working is pointless. I'd rather spend my time thinking up new strategies to use once I get my games back.”

Which is never, seeing as how you don't want to spend your time effectively. Crimson jeered from inside MC's mind. And you just sitting here doing nothing is only making Black more powerful. Talk about unfair. Get angry or something so I can materialize myself outside your mind as well.

“Never,” MC muttered, then shifted his gaze away from Black to the clock on his table. “10am, huh...Ayumi and Volt should be heading out for Dean's by now.”

===================================================

The Vespoid watched the humans below it going about their business from its position on the ceiling of the house. It had been ordered to spy on the trio, and has been performing its duties diligently for the past three days. Maybe too diligently, for it has not ate nor drank anything at all since it arrived. Not that it didn't want to; it had tried to leave the house to forage for food on the first day, and had bumped into the robed human figure outside. The figure had made itself clear then: any more attempts to leave its post would result in a swift death.

But going for three days without anything to fuel its body was leaving the Vespoid positively lightheaded. It was hanging precariously off the ceiling, and would have been spotted multiple times already had the robed human not made it invisible to the humans in the house. For now it could only watch quietly, until it hears where the humans would be going. Out of the corner of its eyes it spotted the female human moving up the stairs to the male's room. The insect dragged its body along the ceiling closer towards the room, hoping that this was the moment it was waiting for.

===================================================

Ayumi knocked on the door of MC's room, although she knew her brother won't actually bother to respond. To her surprise though, MC actually opened the door and looked at her with eyes that look half dead.

“Going out?”

“Yes, wait actually, no. I mean-” Ayumi stumbled over her words. “Are you okay? You haven't been looking in the best of health after that fight with the purple thingamajig. You're making me worried about your condition, the way you keep locking yourself up in your room.”

“I just don't feel like moving. Losing all the means I have of playing games does that to me.”

“Um, maybe you should go out of the house. Get some sunlight or something, you know?”

“Holy shit, why didn't I think of that before? That's a great idea!” Some life returned to MC's eyes.

“It is?” Ayumi blinked. She didn't expect MC to really accept her suggestion.

“Yeah! Why didn't I think of this earlier? I'm gonna grab some money and be on my way to the arcade to shoot down some zombies or something.”

“Wait, what?” Ayumi frowned as she watched MC rummage through his cabinet. “I meant doing some exercise or something, not going to the arcade.”

MC didn't appear to even hear her as he continued searching his cabinet for cash. Annoyed, Ayumi walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. MC's reaction was not quite what Ayumi had expected though.

“Geh!” MC fell to the ground and started to spasm slightly, causing Ayumi to retract her hand and look at it in shock. The moment she did, MC looked at her and rubbed the spot on his back where she had touched him. “What the hell did you do? That was painful.”

“I didn't do anything.” Ayumi answered truthfully. A different voice spoke out of her mouth as soon as she finished her sentence. “But I did. Just a little motivation. Plenty more where that came from. I don't like it when little brothers ignore me.”

The two looked at each other in silence as White finished speaking. Ayumi flexed her hand in amusement, then poked MC with a finger. The effect was comical as MC literally jumped into the air.

“Stop that! What the hell!” MC backed off to the far end of his room, keeping his distance from Ayumi and her hand.

“Heh, sorry. So anyway, I've thought of the perfect location to get us some R&R,” Ayumi smiled. “Let's go to the beach!”

“Why would I want to go to the beach? And what about Dean?”

“I'll call him and get me and Volt a day off. There's only a small amount of customers anyway, so he'll manage. As for your second question...” Ayumi giggled as she looked at her hand. “You heard White. There's plenty more where that poking came from.”

“Great, and I thought losing my last PSP was bad. Now I'm about to be bullied into submission by my little sister. What kind of crappy day is this?”

“I don't know, but if I don't see you downstairs in ten minutes, I'm going to poke you. A lot.” Ayumi turned and went down the stairs, leaving MC lamenting over his fate.

===================================================

The Vespoid buzzed excitedly. That was the cue. Now it knew exactly where the humans would be going. With unsteady wings it flew towards the open window, very nearly knocking over several obstacles in its way. Veering past them in a fashion not unlike a drunken car driver, the Vespoid exited the house and made its way slowly to the pavilion in the park.

There, waiting for it, was the robed human figure. The insect landed in front of the figure and squealed with what strength it could muster, hoping the figure could understand. The figure just shook its head, then snapped its fingers as a pink Bird Wyvern appeared beside it.

“It says that they're going to a beach,” The Kut Ku finished reading the mind of the Vespoid, then turned to the human figure. “Somewhere with sand and water...we should be able to use those two elements to our advantage.”

“Good enough,” Mirage dismissed the Vespoid with a wave. “You're free to go. But just to be sure, you won't be seen by any of the other monsters at all. Can't risk you telling Alatreon now, can I?”

The Vespoid didn't care, it was free and that was all that mattered. Mirage watched the insect fly off in joy, then turned to the Kut Ku. “We'll have to be fast. I already have two monsters in mind. We should go pay that Amatsu a visit; he'll probably know two Yukumo monsters who can use the elements to their advantage as well.”

===================================================

“Oh wow. The two of you didn't pack anything at all, huh?” Ayumi looked at Volt and MC as the three stood at the door. “Well, don't blame me if you get sunburn or something.”

“What are we going to do there anyway? Let me make myself clear on this one first, I am not going to swim under any circumstances.”

“Suit yourself,” Ayumi shrugged. “If anything, at least the walk to the beach and back will count as exercise.”

“We're going to walk? Oh god...” MC's voice softened as Ayumi held up her index finger and brought it dangerously close to him. “Okay, okay, let's go.”

The three of them left the house and began their walk towards the beach, and after a few minutes MC started to complain of leg pains. His grumbling attracted the attention of several people walking past them, one of which coincidentally happened to be a familiar face.

“Elizabeth?” Volt noticed her first.

“Oh, it's you guys,” Elizabeth looked past Volt to see MC still making a fuss about his leg hurting. “I thought that whining sounded familiar. Where are you all headed?”

“To the beach. Or Ayumi will poke me,” MC stated bluntly, gritting his teeth as Ayumi prodded him again. “At this rate I'll have a burn inflicted not by the sun but by her. It feels like she's burning me each time her finger goes near my skin.”

“Wanna join us?” Ayumi offered, ignoring MC's cries of pain as she jabbed him in the rib.

“Hell, why not?” Elizabeth smiled. “I need a little break from practicing archery all day long too.”

===================================================

The four finally arrived at the beach after an hour, MC looking quite out of breath as he looked at the scenery before him. Ayumi's relentless poking had given him quite the reason to not stop moving, and as such he was the first to step onto the sand out of the four.

“Damn, this place is big,” MC shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked around. The beach spanned at least several hundred meters across, and since it was in the middle of the day, the area was packed with people looking to escape the heat. “It's going to be difficult to find someone amidst the crowd. Maybe I can hide myself away from Ayumi.”

“Don't even think about it,” Ayumi appeared beside MC, looking at the amount of people at the beach. “Let's go find a good spot that has a decent amount of shade for us to camp under.”

The four walked slowly until they arrived at the middle of the beach. That was the moment when everything took an unexpected turn.

It started with a woman screaming. The group were just close enough to hear her, so despite the noise produced by everyone else, her scream was still pretty clear. People near to her looked at the woman with puzzled eyes, wondering what she was going on about. Then it became clear.

One by one, the swimmers behind the woman disappeared under the water, as if they were pulled by some force into the depths beneath. The woman herself was the last to disappear, and as she did, an enormous head emerged out of the water. Blue and brown scales adorned the head that resembled something like a shark, and its white skin on the underside of its body was tainted red by the blood that flowed down from the body of the woman in its jaws. With a quick slurp, what remained of the woman was devoured by the Plesioth, and it turned its attention to the other humans on the beach. “I could have sworn all of them look exactly like frogs.”

“Holy shit, it's like something out of Jaws,” MC looked at the shining blue scales of the Plesioth in awe. “And they said Plesioth only fed on frogs.”

People were panicking now, running amok as they shoved and pushed each other in order to get as far away from the monster as possible. Not a single one managed to leave the beach though, for an unnatural sandstorm suddenly picked up in front of them, forcing everyone back into the beach.

Another human vanished, this time dragged under the sand. No one noticed until at least a dozen had disappeared however, for the sandstorm hampered their vision. The only hint they have of someone being dragged downwards was the odd whump sound, and even that was difficult to hear amongst the screaming.

A group of five teenagers clung onto each other for dear life as the people around them disappeared, thinking that they would be able to pull each other up should something happen. If only they had known how huge the mouth of the being under the sand was, they would have regretted their decision. The sand the teenagers were standing on began to ripple, and they looked at each other worriedly, the question of what was causing the ripples inside all of their minds.

The answer was soon clear to them however, as a huge blob of sand dived upwards from under them and swallowed the five easily without a hitch. The blob landed on the beach and shook off the sand around its body, revealing brownish skin that blends in with the color of the sand around it, and a blue colored hide below the brown skin. What was most distinctive of the creature though, was its absolutely humongous jaws. The creature's head itself was roughly three to four meters across, and its mouth spanned the entire length of said head. Two yellow eyes shined with hunger behind its bulbous, absurdly huge nose.

“These humans don't taste half bad,” The Hapurubokka snapped its jaws multiple times in anticipation, creating a gnashing sound. “And with so many of them here too. Let us have a feast!”

As if in response to its last word, the sand around the Hapu exploded upwards as multiple monsters resembling swordfishes and hammerhead sharks dived out of the sand. They swam along the sand as if it was water, and easily caught up to the humans running around chaotically. The fortunate ones died to a single spearing attack from the Delex, but the more unfortunate humans died a slow death getting dragged along the sandy floor by the Cephalos.

“Hapu and Delex? The Delex normally isn't this aggressive...what's going on around here?” Volt flinched as a young boy got impaled in front of his eyes. The sandstorm was severely limiting their movements, and the hunter couldn't move fast enough to save anyone at all. “And they are ignoring us completely. Did they plan this out?”

“I don't know, but dammit, we have to do something! I counted three giant monsters, the Plesioth, the Hapu, and that Cephadrome over there,” MC pointed to a what appeared to be a larger version of the hammerhead sharks with an extremely bizarre head. Where the heads of most of the Cephalos were flat and diamond shaped, the Cephadrome's was more rounded and budging, making it look ironically like a real hammer.

“Guys, I think one more's in the water!” Elizabeth drew the group's attention to the sea water, which had turned from a transparent white to a sickly purple. A long, slender head with a purple crest and mane slowly lifted itself out of the water, the mane visibly puffing itself up as it did. The dark purple eyes of the Royal Ludroth focused on the four hunters, and as it walked towards them, the water puddles it left on the floor hissed and let out an unpleasant smell.

“Great, just great. Three sharks, and one Spongebob,” MC muttered under his breath, then turned to Ayumi. “You brought Wendy along, didn't you? Have her clear out this stupid sandstorm already!”

Ayumi nodded, cursing herself for not having thought of asking Wendy sooner. As if knowing that she was about to put an end to it, the sandstorm roared even more mightily with arrogance, and before the four knew what had happened, they found themselves being thrown into the air.

Ignoring the sand that was flying around everywhere and getting into her hair and eyes, Ayumi screamed into her cellphone as she took it out. “Get rid of this sandstorm!”

“Got it.” A blast of wind emerged from the cellphone and formed a circular ball of wind which steadily grew outwards, clearing out the weather for everyone at the beach. Each of the hunters fell to the ground, but when they picked themselves up it was clear that there was something very wrong.

The beach was littered with mutilated corpses, and the thick smell of blood was strong in the air. But that was not the only thing the four noticed. When the wind finally cleared out the sandstorm, they realized that they had been taken further away than they had thought.

For none of them could see each other now.

Yes, I just did a short time skip of three days. Because 10 chapters for 1 day is lolwut-able.

This post has been edited by IamEpicFailure: 01 January 2012 - 12:58 PM

[IamEpicFailure]

With this my holidays come to an end.

Quote

-Chapter 38 : Disillusion- VS Cephadrome~

While the hunters are still clearing their heads and trying to find each other, Mirage and the Kut Ku had settled themselves at a nice position near the center of the beach under some shade. This location allowed them to have the four hunters in their sight, whilst still maintaining a safe enough distance to avoid getting hit by attacks, friendly or otherwise.

They had planned it out carefully with the other four monsters on the beach as they rushed here; the beach was a large enough area to separate the four, or at least give them the illusion that they were apart from each other. The four monsters would then each take on one hunter alone, while the hunters could not see or lend their support to each other. This illusion only applied to the hunters however, for the monsters could see each other as well as all of the hunters clearly.

The pink Bird Wyvern had lowered its body into a resting position, and was looking at Mirage curiously. The latter had not lowered her(?) arms since casting her power onto the four hunters and making them invisible to each other, and appeared to be in a state of deep concentration with both eyes closed.

“What are you still raising your arms like that for? I thought you only needed to apply your power once.”

“You know, you really should look at the situation carefully before commentating on anything,” A trickle of sweat rolled down the forehead of Mirage, despite not being in direct contact with the sunlight. “Remember, my powers are real as long as you don't know that it's an illusion. But if it were broken, perhaps by them realizing it or getting hit by a ranged attack from the other monsters you aren't supposed to be fighting, it would still take time to shatter.”

“Oh right, all of the monsters have some form of long range attack, and even if they can't see the attack they can still feel its effects. Man, I hope that Hapu doesn't attempt to do that crazy sand spitting tornado attack of his.”

“He will, no doubt about it. That's why I'm holding up my concentration and reapplying the illusion constantly; should the illusion be broken somehow, it would be reapplied faster than it can shatter,” Mirage sucked in a deep breath of the ocean air before she(?) continued, “Of course this method isn't without drawbacks. The reapplication has to be fast, and to be play safe I'm doing it every millisecond. It has an incredibly taxing effect on me, but as long as they win it should be worth the effort. I already told them about this as well, so they will be able to go all out without worry about the other monsters' targets seeing them.”

“Better safe than sorry I suppose.” The Kut Ku muttered, turning its head to the nearest hunter and monster duo. It happened to be a girl holding a Bowgun in one of her hands, and a weird device in the other. The Kut Ku concentrated as it faced the girl, and noted the presence of another being speaking inside the girl's mind.

The opponent for her was still lurking underneath the sand, waiting for a chance to strike. A small fin penetrated the soft sand every now and then along with a hissing sound, alarming the girl and causing her to turn towards the source, only to find nothing there. “A land shark versus the White Fatalis? Not much of a match in my opinion.”

“Are you sure? There are other ways to win a battle besides using brute force. You of all monsters should know that best, since your mind reading powers takes fighting to a different level. Besides, I told them that they can use any method they want, as long as they win.”

“We'll see.”

===================================================

Ayumi's head turned around the area, searching for any sight of the others while trying to ignore the bodies that had been flung around by the monsters earlier. It was the first time she had seen monsters actually going on a massacre, and the impact of seeing this many corpses had triggered a fear for her life that she had not experienced with the earlier battles. The result was her looking around with a flustered expression while shivering from the thought of getting killed.

“Calm down. We won't get anywhere if you start to panic,” White's voice rang inside her head. “Take a deep breath. That should start getting you to think more rationally.”

“Right, sorry,” Ayumi apologized and did as White said. The rancid stench of the already decomposing corpses filled her nostrils, but she still tried her best to ignore it. The sudden sound of shifting sand made her turn her head sharply towards the noise. “That sound...I've already heard it at least three times. It has to be one of the monsters.”

A dorsal fin appeared out of the sand, and Ayumi's grip on her Bowgun tightened. The fin moved in a circle around her, maintaining its distance. As it circled Ayumi for the second round, the fin took an abrupt stop. A monster with a deformed head emerged out of the sand, although it stopped pushing itself out once half of its body was exposed. Ayumi suspected that it was a defensive move on the monster's part; having half its body still under the sand would allow it to return underground much faster.

Aside from the head, which looked like it had been punched in from both horizontal direction at birth causing it to swell to the large size it is, the rest of the monster's body appeared streamlined for swimming swiftly through the sands. It flapped its fins in the air as if taunting Ayumi, and waiting for her to speak. And speak she did.

“Oh. My. God. Did you hit your head against a brick wall while swimming when you were young? How do you swim so fast with a huge head like that?”

“I don't know, it's been like this since I was born. Why don't you ask the Diablos how does he move so quickly through the sand with those horns?” The monster seemed to have been caught off guard by Ayumi's exclamation. “Hey wait, that's not what I'm supposed to be talking about. I'm a Cephadrome, and your opponent in this little game.”

“Game? Now you sound just like my brother,” Ayumi rolled her eyes. She could already guess what the conditions of this 'game' was. “Let me guess, I have to defeat you to proceed.”

“Yes, but I didn't come to engage you alone,” Several smaller creatures lifted their heads out of the sand as the Cephadrome said that. Some looked like smaller versions of the Cephadrome, others like swordfish. Ayumi only remembered too well the damage these minions had caused, and flinched unconsciously. The Cephadrome had a swagger in his voice as he spoke again, “Ha, so you recognize them. Yes, these Cephalos and Delex were the ones who were busy ripping the pathetic humans to shreds while you and your friends stood by watching without lifting a finger to help.”

“Bullshit, we were boxed in by the sandstorm.” Ayumi's reply sounded weak, even to herself. If only I had called on Wendy to help earlier...

“Is that so? Funny how you managed to clear the sandstorm away after that though. But it was too late all the same, everyone on this beach died because none of you took action.”

“Tch, enough! It might be too late for them, but I won't let you or your kin live on to cause this much death to anyone else in the city!” Ayumi's fingers were already loading her Bowgun with bullets even as she spoke. “You won't get away with what you've done here. I'll make sure of that.”

“Hehe, you really think you can defeat me with that gun alone? I have many more minions lurking beneath the sands, each waiting to replace a fallen comrade. How many bullets do you think it will take to kill one of them? No, rather, how many bullets do you think you can fire before you find yourself out of ammo?”

“Enough to defeat you, that's for sure. Every bullet is guaranteed to be a sure kill, and if that isn't enough, I still have Wendy on my side,” The Elder Dragon of Wind materialized herself behind Ayumi, causing the winds around the area to pick up instantly. “So you see, I don't even need ammo to finish you off.”

“Humph, so you pulled out your trump card at the beginning, I see,” The Cephadrome eyed the Kushala Daora carefully. “Then I shall respond in kind. Let me give you a piece of advice: you do not, under any circumstances, want to have that Daora attack me in any way whatsoever.”

“What kind of bluff is that?” Ayumi scoffed.

“It's no bluff, I can assure you that. Look around the beach,” The Cephadrome raised one of its fins and waved it across the beach. Ayumi looked at the area which the monster's fin was waving across, but she could not see anything out of place besides the corpses along the coast. “Don't see anything? Thought so. Didn't you even wonder why you couldn't see any of your teammates, or even any of the monsters from earlier?”

Ayumi realized that the Cephadrome was correct. The beach, while fairly large in size, was not capable of making an individual vanish completely from sight even when viewed from one end to the other. One would at the very least see a tiny dot moving in the distance should there be another person further away. And with the size of the monsters Ayumi had seen earlier, there was no way they could not be seen on the beach even if they were far off. And yet, there was no sight of movement or life anywhere.

“So you've realized it, I see,” The Cephadrome had seen the look of realization on Ayumi's face, and had continued speaking. “Correct, technically you should be able to see your teammates, or at least the larger sized Plesioth or Hapu. But you don't. Why? That question must be running through your mind now.”

“He's trying to pull some trick. Don't fall for it,” White warned Ayumi. “Better finish him off fast before he can do anything.”

“I know, but there has to be a reason it's so confident I won't want Wendy to attack it,” Ayumi knew that the Cephadrome's statements were correct. And if the monster knew the secret of why she could not see any movement on the beach, then there was no harm asking. “So tell me then, why won't I want Wendy to attack you?”

“Because you can't see them. Someone cast an invisibility effect over your friends so none of you can see each other. And such a misfortune it is that you happen to be a ranged attacker,” The Cephadrome laughed loudly, a polar opposite to the gasp that Ayumi gave out as she caught onto what the monster meant by its last sentence. “And now, with the knowledge that any of your attacks from either you or that Elder Dragon may kill your teammates which you cannot see, come and attack me. If you can, that is.”

===================================================

“Oho! Interesting, very interesting! Maybe I did underestimate the Cephadrome after all,” The Kut Ku could not help but laugh at the predicament the Land Shark had landed its target in. “What a sly one he is, to play mind games when he realizes he is outclassed in force. Now that girl can't attack without fear of her bullets hitting her allies.”

“Huh, I never thought he would take advantage of the reapplication of the illusion like this,” Mirage's breathing was beginning to become irregular, the strain of reapplying her(?) powers over and over again starting to show itself. “But this means I can't let my concentration lapse after this point. So be quiet and let me focus.”

The Kut Ku nodded and shifted further away from Mirage to give the latter more space, then turned its attention back to the battle. The Cephadrome had appeared to have placed the girl in check, since she was now in an extremely disadvantageous position, unable to launch an attack unless she was willing to take the risk of attacking her teammates. The Cephadrome, however, was free to attack as much as he wants along with his minions now without fear of retaliation.

===================================================

“You do know that there's a very high chance he is lying?” White spoke to Ayumi inside her mind once again, trying to straighten out her thoughts. It had been thrown into disarray after the Cephadrome had told her the risk of hitting allies. “Look at the beach, it's big enough such that when the sandstorm took you four apart each of you would have landed in a different area. The chances of two people being thrown into the same area is low, much less three or four. Call him out on his bluff.”

“Well...” Ayumi looked at the wide beach before her. What White said was true, the odds of two people being in the same area was tiny, almost nonexistent. And yet no matter how small that chance was, it was still there. She had already indirectly killed the people on the beach by failing to respond fast enough to the sandstorm. The last thing Ayumi wanted was to cause the death of someone on their team by firing a bullet straight into their brains without even knowing it. But there was no benefit in standing in one spot worrying about what to do either. She would have to do what White said for now. “You're lying. For all I know they could have flown to the other side of the beach.”

“Lying? Well, if you don't believe me, you can go ahead and shoot. Tell that Elder Dragon to shoot her cutting wind as well while you're at it. I'm feeling sorry for the guy with the Switch Axe though, he'll be torn apart so fast he won't even know what hit him. Or maybe that's because he can't even see what hit him, hehe,” The Cephadrome saw the look of hesitation in Ayumi's eyes as he said this, and laughed even louder. White and Ayumi were correct, of course. The Cephadrome was a liar, and a very convincing one at that. Both MC and Elizabeth had flown off to the other side of the beach, and only Volt remained relatively close. The monster had taken precautions to remember several features of the hunters however, one of those being what weapon they were using. “Well? Are you going to attack, or are we going to have a staring competition for the rest of the day?”

“White, just let me finish him off with the same attack I did with the Aoashira.” Wendy growled, having listened enough from the Cephadrome.

“For all you know, I could be a meter away from the one with the Switch Axe right now. Try anything funny, and I'll simply dive under the sand, safe from your winds. I can't say the same for the hunter though.” The Cephadrome had guessed that Wendy was about to attack using some special way. From the snarling expression on the Daora's face, he knew he had guessed right.

“No, that hammerhead's right. Wendy, go back to the cellphone for now. Don't come out until I tell you to,” Ayumi sighed. Wendy bowed respectfully and vanished into the cellphone, which Ayumi promptly placed into her pocket. “So I can't attack you then...”

“Nope, as long as I stay behind this hunter – oops, did I say that out loud? Doesn't matter, I suppose. Now, we're both stuck in this position, but I have something you do not,” The Cephalos and Delex began to circle around Ayumi. “Minions.”

Three Cephalos dove out of the sand in unison, and reared their heads back before throwing a fast moving ball of sand out of their mouths towards Ayumi. She easily dodged the three, but made the mistake of looking at how much damage the attack had caused to the ground. The projectiles exploded upon impact with the floor, scattering sand all around. A bit of it found its way into Ayumi's eyes, causing her to instinctively close them.

The moment of blindness was just what the Cephalos needed. One jumped out of the sand the instant her eyes closed, gaping jaws open and ready to rip the head of the hunter off. Ayumi somehow opened her eyes faster than the Cephalos had anticipated however, and narrowly managed to avoid death by a few centimeters. The Land Shark had another trick up their fins however. While its initial plan to use their teeth to attack had failed, it had another form of offensive measure to use.

As its body whizzed past Ayumi in an impossible display of defying gravity, the Cephalos lowered one of its fins, and barely managed to graze the skin of Ayumi's arm. It was a small wound, but the effect was immediate as she started to feel numb in the arm that was hit.

“Paralyzing toxin?” Ayumi muttered under her breath. It was only a scrape for now, so she still has control over most of her body. But should she suffer any more similar attacks, her chances of getting paralyzed would increase exponentially. She started to run, turning away from the Cephadrome and increasing the distance between them. Jumping over several corpses in her way, Ayumi swore as she desperately tried to think up a battle plan. “Dammit, what do I do?”

There was no time for the hunter to stop moving though, for Delex were emerging out of the sand with the intention to impale Ayumi through her feet. It was clear they did not want to kill her outright. Perhaps they simply wanted to slow her movements down, or stop them completely, so the Cephadrome and its lackeys could kill her at their own leisure. Either way, they were not giving time for Ayumi to stop and think things through.

“Wait, I might not be able to go on the offensive, but I still can defend! Wendy, can you generate a barrier strong enough to deflect those sand projectiles around me? Make it just able to get rid of those projectiles, I don't want to run into someone and accidentally slice them into bits.” Ayumi was careful in defining the exact strength of the wind barrier. It would be bad if she ran into Volt or someone while the barrier was on if it was running at full strength after all.

“Easily,” Something shifted a little in her pocket, and wind began to gather around Ayumi, forming a circular barrier. It was spinning fast enough to make everything seen through the barrier a white tint, but was nowhere near the destructive power of the wind that the Kushala Daora wrapped itself in. “It's safe to touch, you'll just feel something like a strong wind pulling your hand along. When a projectile hits however, it should be strong enough to disperse it.”

“Thanks, Wendy,” Ayumi finally stopped her running, using the time to take a short breather and plan out an attack. The Cephalos and Delex did not have the slightest clue about the barrier Ayumi now possessed, and was understandably confused when their projectiles dispersed without affecting the hunter at all. “Now let's see here, I had run about thirty meters away from my original spot.”

Ayumi turned back towards the direction she had originally ran from, and was somehow surprised to see that the Cephadrome had not seemed to move an inch.

Maybe he wasn't lying about Volt being near him. A soft sound underneath her feet caught Ayumi's attention, and she shifted her leg just in time to avoid getting speared by the sharp upper jaw of the Delex that had crept up to her from below the sand. The Delex was not about to give up, but swung wildly from side to side in an attempt to injure her.

“Dammit, you guys just don't know when to give up,” Ayumi aimed her Bowgun loaded with Normal Shots at the monster, and fired a bullet into the Delex at point blank range. The shot pierced through the soft flesh of the Delex with ease, putting an end to its life immediately. “Melee range...of course! If I can get into melee range and fire my shots from there, I'll be able to fight back without worrying about hitting someone.”

“I've been thinking, and I believe there is another way as well.”

“What? There is?”

“Think back to your previous hunts. What did you do against Sparkwolf?”

“Sparkwolf? That lightning wolf...oh!” It took Ayumi less than a second to figure out what White meant. In the Jinouga's case, it was immune to every attack except the ones that hit its back, and the way Ayumi had attacked was such that her bullets arced downwards from the skies. “From above!”

“Correct. And there should be no worry about hitting anyone now, is there? After all, none of us can fly.”

“Yeah, so I've got two ways to defeat that stupid shark with. Let me at him!” Ayumi started running back towards the Cephadrome, this time with a swagger in her step. The Cephalos and Delex swam around her, attempting to use melee attacks this time. But that was a foolish thing to do, for Ayumi had prepared for them to get into melee range. She focused on evading the attacks at the last second, then got as close as possible to the attacker before unleashing a barrage of bullets into their faces. This continued for quite a while as the minions tried their best to hamper her advance, but they were losing ground, and eventually found themselves forced to regroup near the Cephadrome as Ayumi approached the giant Land Shark.

“Ooh, look who's all confident now?” The monster did not seem to be the least bit worried. “Let me guess, you're going to try to get into melee range so you can finish me off like you did with the minions, correct?”

The last question by the Cephadrome was actually a test to see if Ayumi had saw through his lie. While he had put on a good act without giving off the fact that the closest hunter was at least sixty meters behind him, the look in Ayumi's eyes had led him to be cautious. Depending on her answer, the monster would then be able to determine its next course of action. Ayumi did not know this of course, but she had intended to use the aerial bullets on the Cephadrome first instead of taking the risk of engaging such a huge monster up close. “No, I am going to stay far away and shoot. But not in the way you're expecting.”

“Eh?” Ayumi's sentence had thrown the Cephadrome off guard. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Oh you'll see. Hold still,” Ayumi took out the Normal Shot ammo and replaced it with one of her Pellet ones, then pointed the Bowgun towards the clear blue skies. What would normally be the last bullet she would use in a situation where hitting your allies is a large possibility had now become the bullet that will be used to finish the Cephadrome off. “Wendy, you know what to do.”

The bullets flew out of the Bowgun's muzzle with a bang, flying upwards without sight of stopping. The Cephadrome's eyes followed the projectiles for a few seconds before scoffing at Ayumi. “What are you doing? That was a total miss.”

Its face distorted in pain a split second later as the bullets that were carried by the wind flew back down onto its back, burying themselves deep into the creature's dorsal fin, its weakest spot. The sudden attack out of the blue shocked the Cephadrome enough to jolt it out of the sand, revealing the lower portion of its body. It flopped around on the land helplessly in agony, and Ayumi took the chance to fire off five more of her Pellet Shots.

“Told ya,” She watched the bullets fly upwards and then arc down once again, this time aiming at the monster's exposed belly. But the bullets met an unexpected obstacle halfway through; several Cephalos threw themselves out of the sands and took the attack meant for their leader. Ayumi watched them do so in awe, for such loyalty was impressive. “They willingly die just to protect that ugly thing?”

“Hehe, I told you beforehand, didn't I? There are more minions under these sands than you think. They know that they are replaceable, but I am not,” The Cephadrome had flipped itself onto its legs when Ayumi's attacks failed. It was quite an odd sight to see a shark with legs, but Ayumi had already seen enough during her previous encounters with monsters to not be surprised by it. “That was one crafty attack, I'll give you that. But that sort of trick only works once, and I won't get hit by it again. Now it's my turn to attack. How about you look at your feet?”

“What?” Ayumi turned her head downwards just in time to see a brownish green fin nick her left ankle through her shoes. The toxin took effect instantly, and Ayumi felt her left leg turning numb. The Cephalos that had inflicted the wound took a turn to attack once again, but with one of her legs being semi paralyzed, it was difficult for Ayumi to evade the attack.

The fin cut through her shoes and wounded her again, this time in her other leg. Now unable to control either one of her legs, Ayumi found herself forced to drop to her knees. Several Delex swam around her, taking a jab at her every few seconds or so. Ayumi managed to defended herself by shooting at them as they jumped out of the sand. Strangely enough, even when she missed, their attacks fell short of the hunter. It was as if they were mocking her inevitable fate.

“I win, little girl,” The Cephadrome approached, this time no longer afraid of getting attacked by Ayumi. And it had a good reason to do so as well. “Aren't you going to fire? Your upper body still isn't paralyzed, and I'm in close range now.”

Ayumi swore silently at the enemy offering his advice in front of her, then swiftly pointed her Bowgun at the monster's hideous face. At this distance with a Pellet Shot, the attack should blast the creature's head clean off its body. But this was exactly what the Cephadrome wanted: a final stab of humiliation at the hunter before him.

Chink! The sound made by the empty magazine of the Bowgun was enough to make Ayumi lose all of her fighting will. In front of the monster, there was no way she would be able to reload without getting killed first. It was nothing short of a complete defeat. “Oh.”

“Ahahaha, I've been watching your weapon very carefully while you were busy killing off my minions. You didn't need to reload at all, and I was wondering why that was so,” A Delex swam up beside, a bone husk cleanly caught in its sword-like jaw. “Their target after you started running back towards me wasn't you. It was your weapon. Bowguns have a small area from which used bullets fly out, and the Delex were targeting that spot the whole time.”

“But when did you-” Ayumi looked at her Bowgun. There was indeed a tiny hole shaped like a box at the side. No doubt it was from there that the ammo had fallen out.

“It fell out when you were defending yourself from the Delex that were circling you earlier. I was simply waiting for that moment when it did,” The head of the Cephadrome swung sideways faster than she could see, knocking the Bowgun out of Ayumi's hands and sending it flying. It landed roughly ten feet away behind her, hopelessly out of reach. “So what are you going to do? Summon that Elder Dragon of Wind again? You saw the speed at which my head can move; I can probably kill you faster than any wind could form at this range. Well?”

Argh, I'm getting sick of his gloating, but he's right. That head of his might be huge, but he's fast and precise with it. He's probably right about being able to smash my head in faster than Wendy can form up her wind. If only White...no, she can't help me when I'm not holding the Bowgun.

“Who said you aren't holding it? Look at your fingers.”

Huh? Ayumi looked down at her hands, and saw how it was that White was still able to communicate with her. A silky thin white string was tied around the pinky of her right hand, and it extended all the way to her Bowgun. Somehow the string of her Bowgun had managed to tie itself to her before it go flung away. The monsters had not noticed it, their attention focused solely on the crippled hunter before them. The hunter tugged gently on the string, and the Bowgun behind her moved ever so slightly.

“See, I learned something from that Aoashira fight. This way, even when the Bowgun is out of reach you can easily retrieve it. It does feel a tad uncomfortable though, seeing as the string is part of my body. So reel me in quick, would you?”

But I still can't move my legs. Maybe... Ayumi was trying to come up with an idea to finish off the Cephadrome in front of her in one blow. The monster was still gloating over his victory, and the thought that it might lose in the blink of an eye never occurred to it. It was close enough that Ayumi could smell the foul breath from it as it spoke. White, you just said that the string is a part of your body, but what about the rest of the Bowgun?

“The string is the heart of the entire weapon, so I shouldn't have a problem controlling the entire weapon as well. Except for those parts that were forced open like what the Delex did, of course.”

Then, if I'm holding a bullet in my hand, do you think you can position the Bowgun such that when it flies through the air and arrives at my hand, I'll be able to reload instantly?

"Hmm? What are you thinking about?"

Well, I have one hell of a crazy plan.

-

“-so you see, that is how I've managed to triumph over immeasurable amounts of monsters who think they can outsmart me. Just like the humans, they think they are so smart, but I-”

“Uh, excuse me,” Ayumi interrupted the Cephadrome's victory speech. The time it had taken to talk about why it was always the winner in a battle had given Ayumi enough time to form a battle plan. “But you seem to think that you've won.”

“What, you mean I haven't? Look at yourself, kneeling in front me. What can you do?”

“I'm going to win,” Ayumi flashed a confident smile at the monster. “In three moves. Since you're so self-assured, I'm sure you won't mind me taking these three moves, right?”

“Is that a challenge? Okay, I'll take you up to it,” The Cephadrome jumped a little and sank the lower portion of its body under the sand once again. This was preparation to escape in case the tables somehow turned against it. “Go on. We won't attack, but I'm counting your moves. Once it hits four my minions will tear you to shreds without mercy.”

“The first move is taking a bullet out of my bag,” Ayumi knew the monster will not refuse this challenge, if its attitude since the start of the battle was anything to go by. She reached into her bag with her right hand, then took out the bullet with 'Clust Shot' labeled on it. True to their word, none of the monsters shifted from their positions. “Oh by the way, I lied.”

“What?” The Cephadrome attempted to dive under the sand quickly, but Ayumi had anticipated it would do that. Her left hand flew out and grabbed the beast's head, the electricity used on MC earlier now being used on the monster. The shock was not fatal, but was just enough to hold the Cephadrome in place. At the same time, her right hand tugged hard on the string, causing the Bowgun to sail through the air. It slammed squarely into her palm with the bullet, just in the correct position such that the ammo slid into the magazine easily. All of this happened in the short time span of two seconds, leaving the minions confused as to what was happening.

The Cephadrome watched with widened eyes as the Bowgun seemingly reloaded itself without the need for Ayumi to pull the string. It was not able to move a muscle as long as Ayumi's left hand was on its head, and the minions' reactions were too slow. Ayumi pushed the muzzle of the Bowgun into the jaws of the Cephadrome, who was powerless to do anything but watch. “Nice knowing you...not.”

With that last word Ayumi pulled the trigger, and the bullet flew forth from the muzzle with a bang. It did not take long for the bullet to hit the insides of the Cephadrome, splitting into deadly bombs that each exploded inside the body of the monster. The beast's body was blown open with the final explosion, spraying its gory insides all over the immediate area in a fountain of dark red blood. The minions closest to the Cephadrome were blown away, and Ayumi would have suffered the worst of it were it not for Wendy. The winds had formed a protective field around her when she fired the bullet, and warded off the explosion around her.

Wendy appeared behind her thereafter, snarling at the Cephalos and Delex still nearby. The minions knew that they did not stand a chance without their leader; none of them could attack at the speed he did. They backed off from the Elder Dragon and quickly escaped by going under the sand. Without any more threats in sight, Ayumi let out a long sigh of relief, tired out by the battle.

“That was some stunt,” A shadow of a smile appeared on Wendy's face. “What would you have done if it failed?”

“That monster was a coward by nature. He wouldn't take his chances attacking me if it meant putting his own life at risk,”Ayumi replied as she got up. There were still corpses lying around, and she did not want to kneel near them for long. The numbness on her legs was beginning to wear off as well. “Oh snap!”

“Hmm?”

“That explosion...you don't think the flying minion bodies hit anyone, do you?”

This time Wendy laughed a little. “You worry too much.”

This post has been edited by IamEpicFailure: 22 January 2012 - 02:52 AM

[Kibagami]

Why didn't I see this earlier? This is awesome, dude, awesome.

And long in a good way

[IamEpicFailure]

IEF uses WALL OF TEXT!
It's super effective!

Quote

-Chapter 39 : Bloodied Blade- VS Hapurubokka~

Roughly fifty meters eastwards from where the battle between the Cephadrome and Ayumi had ended, the hunter known as Volt was walking slowly along the water's edge, keeping his eyes on the lookout for any potential attacks.

The expression on his face hardened as he came across the bodies of several youngsters. Their faces were frozen in a mask of fear, even though all life had already left them. Volt cursed himself for being unable to do anything earlier.

“I've been too negligent. Back in Yukumo no monster was stupid enough to bring the fight to the village; they would have been destroyed by the hunters residing there. But here...here no one even knows about their existence. These people died without even knowing what killed them,” Volt shifted the bodies aside. If he had a shovel he would have given a burial to as many of the bodies as possible, but for now the least he could do was move them inland to avoid the tide washing them away. This way the friends and relatives of the corpses would at least know that they had died, rather than think that they had gone missing and wait in vain day after day for their return.

While he was shifting the remains of the humans aside, Volt noticed his weapon trembling slightly on his back. His eyes looked downwards at the corpse he was moving; the body had several holes made by Delex, and there was still some blood on its clothing. Blood. The weapon responded to this red liquid of life, and there was plenty of it splattered everywhere on the beach after the massacre. Volt shook his head and finished the task of placing the nearby bodies together in a row. Now that that was over, he decided to go and find the others who got swept away by the sandstorm.

A slight movement caught his eye moments before he turned away from the bodies. Volt frowned a little and approached the corpses once again. There seemed to be something amiss, but he could not figure out exactly what it was. He observed the bodies another minute, but spotted nothing unusual. Shrugging it off as his imagination, Volt turned from the bodies once again.

Crunch! The sudden sound made Volt grab his weapon from his back and go into an attacking stance. This time Volt was positive something was wrong with the bodies. He took slow steps around the bodies, weapon ready to strike at anything that decides to jump at him. Circling around, he found what had caused the sound. Or rather, he found what had happened to cause the sound.

One of the bodies had had a part of its head removed by what appeared to be a bite mark, and the fluids now dripping down from the large opening was enough of a sight to make the hunter feel sick to the stomach. Warning bells also rang in his head, telling him to turn away from whatever was hiding amongst the bodies. Volt involuntarily took a step back, and while he was not aware of it, that action saved his life.

A gust of wind blew at his face, causing Volt to tense up. The wind felt like anything but natural, for it had enough force to kick sand up to his knees. It was as if someone had used a giant fan and waved it once at him.

The sound of sand shifting alerted Volt to the presence of something behind him. Not wanting to get flanked from both sides, he made a roll away from the bodies as he turned. Now that there was some distance between him and the corpses, Volt could focus on whatever had shifted the sand.

Several large sand dunes stood out in front of the hunter, a familiar sight for one who had hunted Hapurubokkas. The monster often disguises itself as a sand dune, waiting to catch prey unawares. Of course, every hunter who has taken down one of them before knows that Hapurubokkas expel sand into the air when they breathe, and this act allows hunters to easily identify it even while disguised. While Volt did not know how the creature had managed to conjure up this many dunes in such a short period of time, he was not about to stop and ask the Hapu directly.

The hunter's eyes darted from one dune to the next, waiting under the hot sun as beads of sweat dribbled down his forehead. He counted a total of three dunes which were close together, forming something of a triangle shape. A stream of sand flew upwards from one with a hissing sound, and Volt slowly approached the fake sand dune. The hunter knew that if he did it correctly, he would be able to land a mortal blow before the Hapu could even respond.

“You're dead,” Volt muttered as he got into reach and brought the Switch Axe's sharp edge down on the pile of sand. To his surprise, the weapon met no resistance at all, and easily dispersed the sand around everywhere. “What?”

He had definitely saw the stream of sand coming from the dune in front of him when the Hapu was breathing. And yet in front of him now, there was no sight of the monster. With a quick swing of the Switch Axe, Volt sliced through the other two dunes at his sides. The results were the same with the first; nothing but sand greeted him. On a hunch, the hunter spun around, slashing the area behind him with his weapon as he did.

“Nice try,” The blade missed the grinning Hapu's face by a few inches, and Volt swore at the creature's luck. The creature was almost entirely submerged under the sand with the exception of its head. “But I ain't that stupid to hide under some sand when a hunter is on the prowl.”

“You're going to regret making that decision,” Volt stated calmly as he made a small cut on his palm to charge his Switch Axe up. “Your life would have been better off dying to me in one hit.”

“That's what they all say,” The Hapu looked behind the hunter and snapped its jaws together, a look of hunger in its yellow eyes. “I see you lined up the bodies nicely. That's great, once I'm done with you, I'll just run through the entire row and swallow them all up.”

“You won't get past me. I can't allow you to disrespect the dead any further!” Volt dashed forward and swung his weapon downwards, the blade creating a whistling sound as it sliced through the air. The Hapu was undaunted by the attack, and it did not back off like Volt had predicted the creature to. Instead, its smile got even wider, revealing the gums that held the rows of shiny white teeth inside its mouth.

At the last instant when the attack should have connected, the Hapu's jaws snapped once, perfectly intercepting the blade as it went down. Its sharp teeth showed no sign of breaking despite having caught a blade in between them, and sparks started to fly as the two sharp edges made contact. But Volt was at a disadvantage, he could not take the risk of letting the weapon go. The Hapu easily used this to his advantage by flinging Volt away with a flick of its head while loosening its grip on the blade. “Is that it? I heard your weapon got an upgrade after that wolf broke your original one. But is that all the power it could muster?”

Volt landed on his shoulder, the soft sand breaking his fall and preventing a dislocation. He quickly got up and charged at the Hapu once again. The monster simply held its position and waited, smiling at the hunter once more. “You want another go? Come on then.”

But Volt had another plan in his mind, and was not about to let history repeat itself. Just when it looked like he was about to bring his weapon down the Hapu's head, the hunter rolled forward and then swung the Switch Axe wildly sideways at the monster's unprotected back. The creature could not turn fast enough to intercept the blade, and the attack successfully damaged its soft flesh. The blood that spurted out from the wound was quickly absorbed by the Switch Axe. With such a large head, the Hapu had difficulty trying to turn and face the hunter attacking its back, and Volt took this opportunity to hack away at the beast.

“Gah! That hurts,” The Hapu's voice tone contradicted what it was saying however. It sounded to Volt as if the monster was somehow bored by the battle. He soon found out why. “Okay, playtime's over.”

The sand surrounding the Hapu started to swirl up around its body, forming a solid armor that protected its back from the attacks by the hunter. With a cry of surprise, Volt found his weapon bouncing off the hide of the Hapurubokka, the force of the rebound almost sending his fingers flying along with his weapon. “Dammit, I can't hit his front or his back.”

The Hapu sneered at Volt, and a blueish-yellow tail sprung out from underneath the hunter, striking him in the chest. Volt was knocked back a few feet, but even as he slid backwards from the force of the blow he was already thinking up a way to counterattack. While the Hapu's face and back were out-of-bounds, its tail was not covered by the sand armor its back possessed. Jumping forward in an incredible display of speed, Volt brought his weapon down on the tail heavily. The Hapu let out a yowl and instinctively spun around its immediate area, sending Volt flying once more as the huge bulk of the monster crashed into him.

But the damage was done, and the once blue and yellow tail was now tainted red with blood, appearing to be almost severed. The Hapu snarled angrily at Volt, and charged at the hunter with mouth agape, intending to devour him whole while he was still picking himself up.

Volt realized that he did not have enough time to evade the attack by rolling, for the Hapu's jaws covered quite a large area, and it was moving extremely quickly. Instead, his eyes focused on the hive-like uvula inside the monster's mouth. He switched his weapon into its sword form, giving it a red eerie glow. The amount of blood inside its phial was only just enough for one semi burst, but Volt was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. It was do or die.

With the monster merely a few feet away from him, Volt thrust his weapon forward at the beast. The Hapu's jaws clamped down on the weapon once again, but this time its teeth found Volt's palm. Grimacing in pain as the blood flowed down to the weapon from his hand, Volt somehow managed to find the trigger to use the phial burst attack using his free hand. With a click, the weapon unleashed an explosion of highly pressurized blood inside the monster's mouth.

The Hapu released its hold over Volt the instant the phial attack was used, letting out a yelp of pain as blood with enough cutting power to rival a blade sliced at its uvula. But that was not enough to finish off the Leviathan, for the attack power of the phial was too weak even with the additional blood from Volt's cut hand. The monster spat out some blood as it spoke, the anger in its voice now evident. “You crazy human. I'm going to enjoy ripping your body apart limb by limb!”

“Dammit, I'm not going to last long if this continues,” Volt muttered to himself through his panting. Blood freely gushed forth from his injured hand, and if it had not been for the Uniqlo glove's protective fabric his hand would have been long lost into the beast's stomach. The casual wear had proven Mark right when the PSP claimed that its defensive properties surpassed Volt's Jinouga armor. For now, he gripped the hilt of his weapon as tightly as he could with the hand, letting the Switch Axe feed on the warm red liquid as much as possible. “I have to finish him off fast.”

“You don't look like you can go on for long,” The Hapu had noticed the copious amounts of blood that were flowing from the hole on the hunter's hand. “With a handicap like that, I predict that you'll last a maximum of five minutes against me.”

“We'll see,” Volt spoke through his heavy breathing. It was ironic that while he was getting weaker from the loss of blood, his weapon was getting stronger with each passing second. His eyes automatically looked at the handle, where there was an indication of how much blood was currently in the phial. The meter read one-tenth, the same amount he had used when the beast brought its jaws down onto his hand earlier.

It was barely enough to deliver another phial burst attack, but the Hapu was obviously not going to let Volt use that on him again. That being the case, the hunter decided to drag for time so that he would have enough blood inside the phial to use a full burst rather than a semi one. He knew that the meter needed to read at least half before he could use the full burst, but the amount of blood needed increased exponentially with each level. There was no way he would be able to charge it up to half alone unless he drained his own body dry.

Thinking quickly, Volt considered the possibilities in front of him. Continuing to use blood from his own body was risky, he might be too weak to put up a fight should he try it. A second opinion would be to target the Hapurubokka's tail, for the monster did not seem capable of extending the reach of its sand armor over it, and if he was lucky he might be able to slice if off completely. But the Hapu had spotted the hunter eying his hind part eagerly, and quickly hid its tail under the sand once again. It flinched a little as the sand made contact with the wound, but its anger towards the hunter allowed it to ignore the pain.

“So much for the second opinion,” Volt turned towards the corpses. The third opinion...

The hunter bolted for the bodies behind him. There was no other choice, no other source of blood was nearby. He did not manage to take more than two steps before he found his legs sinking under the suddenly soft sand. “Quicksand?”

“A weapon powered by blood...you're intending to use the blood from those corpses? Haha, you make me laugh. What was all that about not 'disrespecting the dead'?”

“Damn,” Volt tried to move his legs to the best of his ability, but his struggling was only resulting in him sinking deeper. Eventually he stopped moving to reduce the rate at which he was going down, and found the sand itself moving such that it turned him to face the Hapu. This was the monster's doing; he wanted to see the face of the victim as he finished the hunter off.

“Great, now that you're facing me, I'm going to start the process of tearing you limb from limb. Starting with your legs,” The Hapu sneered, and began to suck in the sand around it into its huge mouth. Volt recognized the attack coming instantly; the last time he was hit by one, it felt as if a truck had run him over. But this time was different from the others. With his feet bound to the ground by sand that felt like many tiny hands gripping him tightly, the upper portion of his body would be blown off by the attack while the lower portion stayed where it was. The hunter swallowed his saliva in fear as he realized the Hapu was serious about tearing his limbs off.

“Buh-BAI!” With a triumphant cry, the Hapu shot forth a vortex of sand from its mouth. The sand being expelled from the monster's mouth was being forced out with so much strength that it could easily rip through the thickest of hides. With no other opinion, Volt switched his weapon to its sword mode and brought it in front of him in a defensive stance. If he was lucky, what had happened with the Jinouga might happen again now.

What happened next threw both Volt and the Hapurubokka off in surprise. With a whirling sound, the red aura of the blade extended outwards, and a sudden burst of blood exploded forth from the edge. Within a second of leaving the blade however, the liquid completely crystallized, form a barrier that appeared like several red icicles roughly joined together. To this effect, some of the sharp edges had froze centimeters away from Volt's face, and he had thought that his life was about to be ended by his own weapon.

The blast of sand continued to be blasted at the hunter from the Hapu without pause, but the defense of the blood barrier proved true. When any part of the barrier was chipped off by the sand attack, it would instantly regenerate by using what blood was left inside the phial. But Volt was getting worried even though he was safe for the time being; the amount of blood inside his weapon's phial was not infinite.

After what felt like an eternity the sand being blasted at him slowed down and started to die off. The Hapu let out a grunt of frustration at the sight of the hunter in front of him barely being scratched by his most powerful attack. “I didn't think a weapon would be able to utilize the defensive properties of Sparkwolf's aura.”

Volt was scarcely paying attention to what the Hapu was saying; he was trying to think up of a plan to escape from the quicksand. He had sunk down to his knees by the time the attack by the Hapu ended, and it was a matter of time before the sand reached his waist. The blood barrier had disintegrated; it was not meant for long term usage. To make things worse, the meter for the blood inside the phial showed that it was a drop away from empty.

“Shit, there has to be something I can use!” Volt scanned the area around him. Behind him were the bodies of the dead humans, but there were too far for the hunter to reach. Even if he were to switch his weapon back to its Axe mode and extend his reach as far as possible, they would still be a few feet away from him. To his right there was nothing but the sea, and to his left only sand dotted with the blood of the Hapu's tail greeted him. And directly in front of him, the Hapu itself was smiling devilishly once again.

“It's sad to see that I wasn't able to blast your torso off. Oh well, no matter. I'll still get your legs, only this time I'm using my jaws.” The Hapu smacked its jaws together and created a gnashing sound once again. It slowly started to sink into the ground as it did so, until it completely disappeared from Volt's sight. The hunter was frantic with fear now, for he knew what the Hapu meant. Unless he did something fast, he was about to lose his legs.

“If only there was a way to know where he was...” Normally he would be able to tell where the Hapurubokkas were hiding under the sand thanks to the geyser they shoot up, but the Awakened Hapu had proven that it has long overcome that flaw. Volt turned to his left once again. The trail of blood left by the monster's wounded tail when it charged across the terrain had given him an idea.

Its tail is almost severed...so the injury must be enough to cause blood to appear should he exert himself. Volt switched his weapon back to its Axe form. This weapon had reacted to the blood from the corpses earlier, so should the Hapu be nearby it should start to react to the blood from its tail. I should be able to use it as a compass of sorts.

He held the weapon up in front of him, loosening his grip so that when the weapon vibrates, he would be able to know. “One last ditch effort...this better work.”

Time seemed to slow down as Volt waited with bated breath for the Hapu's assault. The first second passed without incident, and the second went by similarly. Was it his imagination, or did the ground shake slightly on the third second? The Switch Axe shook just a little in his hand, and Volt gulped. The Hapu was beginning his attack.

Four seconds. Five. The vibration of the Switch Axe was constantly remaining the same. Volt guessed that the monster was taking his time, relishing his final attack against the helpless hunter.

Six seconds. The trembling suddenly doubled in intensity. The Hapu was getting closer. Volt was focusing so much on the weapon that he had forgotten to blink. His vision was beginning to blur. But at in the current situation, blinking might very well drop him into the clutches of death, and the hunter ignored the urge.

Seven seconds. Adrenaline was pumping through Volt's veins, and he was seeing the world in slow motion. The sound of the tides crashing against the shore barely registered in his head compared to the sound of his heartbeat.

Eight. Now his vision was starting to get all fuzzy. But the shaking of his weapon was now triple, or even quadruple its intensity compared to the third second. The monster was near him now, possibly even within attacking range.

Nine. Was the beast's jaws already open and ready to snap shut around his legs? Volt did not want to know the answer. He switched the weapon back into its sword form and lifted it upwards. With the strength drained from his injured hand he would have to depend on gravity to attack.

Ten. He let the weapon plunge downwards into the area directly below him. The blade easily cut through the quicksand, and with all his strength Volt pushed it as far down as he could.

If the Hapu had launched an attack from below and swallowed the hunter whole, the entire plan would have been moot. But it had stated its intention of ripping the hunter apart limb by limb, and specifically said it was going for the legs. And going for the legs meant closing its jaws around them from below the sand, which also meant that it had to get close. And getting close would mean putting itself at the risk of being attacked as well.

Two feet down, the blade met some jarring resistance. It did not take long for the entire sand around Volt to fly up as the Hapu jumped out of the ground from the unexpected attack by the hunter. Volt himself was pushed out of the ground by the Hapu's body, and noted that he had narrowly escaped losing his legs. The sudden attack from him had caused the Hapu to thrash about wildly underground, and it was fortunate that the beast did not close its mouth. Something beige colored also flew upwards along with the two. Volt saw what it was as the Hapu was suspended with him in midair; a third of the Hapu's nose was missing.

Landing on his knees, the hunter quickly changed the form of his weapon back to its axe mode, gathering the blood that was raining down around the area. The Hapurubokka itself was still disorientated from the attack, unsure of what had happened. It landed on its back on the ground, and struggled to turn its body the right way up.

“Alright, let's finish this!” Volt yelled at the Hapu, who was a pathetic sight as it tried again and again without success to correct its body position. He gave a quick look at the phial meter; it read two tenths. Just enough for a semi burst attack, and if it hits the Hapu's already injured nose the damage done would no doubt be fatal.

Before the hunter could move though, a large geyser of sand shot out from under the Hapu, the force giving the monster the push it needed to flip over. The Hapu's mouth was now a snarl as it glared at the hunter. It did not even seem to care about the blood gushing forth from its nose. “Enough. Of. This. First you cut my tail, then you cut my nose. Fine, forget tearing you limb by limb. I'm just going to kill you outright!”

The sand around the two started to move seemingly of their own accord, and picked up pace until it had gathered into a large sandstorm. Volt swore at the Hapu's resilience; it simply would not die without giving the hunter trouble. The hunter managed to make out a black shape charging at him in the midst of the sandstorm, but he could not attack with the sand flying into his eyes. He rolled to the side instead, trying to buy time so he could think up another tactic.

The sand struck at his exposed skin relentlessly, eventually cutting them. While the wounds would normally not have been of much concern, with sand flying all around the pain from them was multiplied tenfold. Volt could see the silhouette of the Hapu lunging at him once again, and tried to evade the attack once more. But visibility was reduced to near-zero due to the sandstorm, and Volt could not see exactly where he was. Before he could roll, his foot struck something hard, and it caused the hunter to trip and fall over.

“Shi- mmpf!” Volt could not even speak without eating a mouthful of sand. He took a look at what had caused him to fall; he barely made out what appeared to be a log.

No, not a log. Logs don't wear shoes. He reached out his fingers behind him, and felt something else solid and cold. Somehow he had run into the corpses he was trying to protect from the Hapu. But there was no time for Volt to ponder over what to do; his mind was screaming at him to pick himself up and run. The black shape was now meters away from him, and with a burst of speed the hunter took off, trying to keep a distance away from the shape pursuing him. It turned out he did not need to.

Crunch! The sandstorm took a sharp drop in speed as the Hapu let out a whimper of pain. Volt turned back, puzzled as to why the monster had stopped chasing him and why the weather had returned to normal. The Hapurubokka was looking at him, a mixture of fear and confusion on its face. “I...can't feel my tail.”

Crunch! There it was again. The sound that had caused the Hapu to stop moving. Volt moved closer towards the Hapu. Now that the weather was clear he could see that the Hapu was extremely close to the corpses of the humans. “Is this some sort of trick?”

Crunch! The body of the Hapu started to shake. It sounded almost as it something was eating it. Now that he thought about it, there had been something near the bodies earlier. But the battle had distracted him, and he had forgotten all about it. The Hapu was pleading with him now, his face distorted by pain and fear. Volt was finding it hard to believe that this creature was about to him less than ten seconds ago. “...help.”

Crunch! The hunter's eyes widened. A chunk of meat had just vanished from the Hapu's body in front of his eyes. Crunch! Now a part of its right fin had disappeared. Volt slowly approached with his weapon ready. It could still be a trick after all.

Keeping his distance, Volt circled around the Hapu. It seemed that whatever was doing this to him was attacking his back. But what the hunter saw made him wince. The entire back of the Hapu was missing, appearing to have been eaten away. Even as the hunter watched, another chunk of flesh was tore off from the Hapu and seemingly disappeared without reason. The internal organs of the monster was all but revealed, and with one final crunch, the still beating heart of the Hapu was taken by the invisible force.

“What the hell would do this?” Volt backed off from the body of the now dead Hapurubokka. It was a monster, that he was sure of. But whatever that monster was, it was not above eating one of its own. His eyes looked towards the corpses; of the original twenty-odd that he had shifted, now only five remained. The monster had probably been feeding off the bodies, and when he and the Hapu had clashed, they had unknowingly interrupted its meal.

“Shit...I'm getting out of here,” Volt turned and hightailed it away from the body of the Hapu. Even as he ran the crunching sound did not stop, and the body of the Hapu was getting smaller with each crunch that sprung forth. He would have to face that particular monster someday, but not by himself. Deep down something was telling him that he would not last long against the thing alone. With quite a considerable distance between him and the body, Volt mustered up the guts to turn around and look behind him. No trace of the Hapurubokka remained.

===================================================

“H-hey Mirage,” The Kut Ku had been observing the battle between Volt and the Hapu. Something weird had occurred in the sandstorm, but the Bird Wyvern could not figure out exactly what. All it saw was the sandstorm clearing, and the hunter running from the scene like something was hot on his heels. “Did you get some extra help besides the four monsters?”

“What?” Mirage looked at the Kut Ku with a tilted head. She(?) had been busy maintaining the illusion, and had not noticed the results of the battle. “No, I only called those four. What about it?”

“And how did you call them here again?”

“Now you mention it, it was quite a weird conversation. I simply mentioned the first thing that came to my mind, food. I've been feeling quite hungry these days. Anyway, they were all like 'yeah, let's go and eat something!'” Mirage noticed the odd expression on the Kut Ku's face. “So, what's wrong?”

“I dunno, man, something just feels off. I don't think we're alone here.”

“It doesn't matter, whatever it is can't see us anyway. Unless, of course, it was already inside the beach when I made all of us invisible. But I didn't sense anything, so there shouldn't be any trouble,” Mirage frowned for a moment. She(?) had just noticed that Volt and Ayumi were victorious. “Dammit, how did they lose?”

“That weapon made from the Jinouga helped. I saw everything, its power is absurd,” The Kut Ku replied absentmindedly. It was staring at the corpses at the far end of the beach where Volt originally was. Instead of there being five, now there were only two lying side by side. The head of one vanished as the Bird Wyvern looked on. “I knew it. There really is something else here besides us.”

This post has been edited by IamEpicFailure: 15 January 2012 - 04:42 AM

[IamEpicFailure]

After screwing with physics in chapter 38, it's time to screw with chemistry!
Forward to yayness!

Quote

-Chapter 40 : Fire- VS Royal Ludroth~

“Impossible,” Mirage repeated herself for the second time in response to the Kut Ku's claim that something unwelcome was in the beach together with them. “I'm telling you, I did not sense anything here aside from us and the trio's group when I cast the illusion over the beach. You're just being paranoid.”

“I swear, man, the thing is getting closer to us. It's jumping from one corpse to another so fast that we can't even see it. And the worst part is that the bodies are all disappearing as it does so.” The Kut Ku was becoming more and more jumpy with each passing second. Another corpse vanished off the face of the earth as he watched, and the Bird Wyvern jumped a little. The thing, whatever it was, was moving fast. As unpleasant thoughts of being eaten alive started to fill its head, the Kut Ku shook a little from the fear that had taken root in its mind. Another corpse started to disappear as chunks of flesh started to be ripped off by the invisible force.

Or perhaps it was not so invisible after all. For a brief instant, as the force moved on to the next corpse, the Kut Ku caught a glimpse of what it looked like. A flash of green, muscles budging out of the creature's back as it hunched over and moved swiftly towards its next meal. Several sharp, serrated teeth that appeared to have grown in front of the beast's mouth. What was even more disturbing that its appearance was its thoughts. The Kut Ku had saw this as chance to read the creature's mind, and after doing so, immediately wished that it had not.

Food...so much food...so hungry...chiccccckeeeeeeeen...

The monster must have seen the Kut Ku looking at it, causing it to think that last word in its mind. Normally the Bird Wyvern would be going berserk over being called a chicken once again, but this time it was simply cowering in fear. Even as the creature vanished using unknown means once again, the Kut Ku was sure it would only be a matter of time before they were killed by it if they were to stay where they currently were. With a quick prod to Mirage with its wings, the Kut Ku spoke in a whisper, its voice so soft that it could hardly even hear itself. “Mirage...we have to move.”

“Move?” Mirage clicked her(?) tongue in exasperation as she(?) turned to the Kut Ku. Upon seeing the genuinely frightened expression on the Bird Wyvern's face however, she(?) instantly regretted taking that tone with the Kut Ku. With a sigh, Mirage picked herself(?) up from the floor, hands still suspended in midair. “Okay, but we'll have to change locations slowly. I don't want to risk breaking the illusion should I trip and lose my focus or something.”

“Yeah, that will be fine.” The Kut Ku was already a few steps ahead of Mirage, wanting to get as far away from the monster it had seen as it could. Even though it was somewhat reluctant to move out from the cool shade of the area it was in, there was no way it was going to place being comfortable above not dying.

“...If I may ask, what exactly did you see?” Mirage had an inquisitive look on her(?) face as she(?) walked alongside the Kut Ku, her breathing slightly more strained than the Bird Wyvern's due to the amount of concentration needed to maintain the illusion around the beach.

“I don't really know myself. Can't say I've seen it before. But it made almost made me shit myself,” The Kut Ku confessed. The Bird Wyvern was hardly familiar with monsters outside of the Pokke region. The feeling of dread it had felt as it read the green monster's mind was still fresh on its mind, and caused the Bird Wyvern to speed up its walking pace. “Its thoughts were about nothing but food and eating. If we found ourselves at the mercy of those nasty teeth, I've no doubt it'll be the last anyone hears from Mirage and her Kut Ku ride.”

“Thinking only about food? Nasty teeth?” For an instance her(?) concentration faltered as Mirage tried to recollect monsters with particularly noticeable teeth and a healthy appetite. She(?) only noticed that the illusion had been stopped when Volt gave a holler at Ayumi, who had suddenly appeared before the former's eyes. Cussing out loud at herself, Mirage considered raising the illusion on the two who had seen each other, but then decided against it. There was no point in having the two be unable to see each other for any longer, seeing as how they had already defeated their respective opponents.

Redoubling her(?) efforts, Mirage applied the illusion back on MC and Elizabeth as she(?) settled down onto the soft sand, undisturbed by the multiple corpses surrounding the area she(?) had chosen to sit down in. The Kut Ku wasn't about to let down his guard; his yellow eyes scanned the other side of the beach, vigilantly on the lookout for the monster of his nightmares.

Somewhere further off, the beast tucked into yet another meal.

===================================================

Volt had called out to Ayumi and started to run towards her when she suddenly appeared out of thin air thirty meters ahead of him, and as he finally reached her, his breathing was ragged. Running a distance like this would normally be an easy task for a hunter such as himself, but he had lost quite a lot of blood during his battle with the Hapurubokka, and was hardly in top physical condition.

“It's nice to see you again, Volt, but...you look deathly pale. Are you feeling alright?” Ayumi gave a concerned look at the hunter, whose hand injury was made all the more obvious by the way he had ran up to Ayumi whilst clutching his right hand.

“Yeah, I think,” Volt looked down at his hands, both caked with dried blood. Shaking his head quickly to clear it up, he looked Ayumi in the eye and remembered the reason he had hurried towards her. “No time for this. There's something dangerous on this beach, and we're not prepared to take on something like that. Come on, let's go.”

He was already staggering forward even as he spoke, causing a confused Ayumi to follow him with a quizzical look on her face. Volt didn't manage to take more than ten steps before he almost collapsed onto all fours, and it was lucky Ayumi had been beside him to give him support when he fell. Volt simply bowed his head slightly in a thankful gesture, but otherwise kept quiet and focused on moving forward with Ayumi's help.

A worried Ayumi frowned, unsure why Volt was so adamant about moving away from the particular part of the beach that he had come from. There was one thing she was sure of though. Looking at the hunter wincing with pain with every step they took, coupled with the fact that he looked like he was on the verge of blacking out, Ayumi decided that enough was enough.

“You need to rest,” Ayumi stopped moving, causing the hunter who was depending on her for support to do the same. Her eyes glanced over from the hunter to the area in front of them. Several palm trees in front of them offered some decent cover from the burning hot sun. “Come on, we'll stop at the shade up ahead.”

“Are we...far...enough...how many...corpses...behind?” Volt was speaking in between wheezes, and Ayumi knew that she had picked a good time for him to rest. If they continued, it seemed likely that Volt would just drop dead to the floor. Looking over her shoulder, Ayumi scanned the beach to try and answer Volt's question. They had moved quite a fair bit away from the location where Volt had run up to her. As for the number of corpses...

Ayumi squinted her eyes a little. There seemed to be less dead bodies around than she remembered, but it might have just been because they had moved further away and some of the bodies were out of sight. Still, Ayumi didn't want to tell Volt that, afraid that he might insist they continue moving. Instead, she replied with what he wanted to hear. “We've moved far enough, there are plenty of corpses between us and this...thing that you worry so much about.”

Volt simply nodded, and when the two reached the palm tree, the hunter lowered himself to the floor using the tree's trunk as support. Ayumi remained standing, looking over the beach in front of her. The cool ocean air blowing against the two's faces would have been quite enjoyable, if not for the rancid odor of the corpses around them.

White...do you think I'm to blame for causing the deaths of everyone here? Ayumi looked downcast as she fully took in the sight of the bodies lying around them.

Why would anyone blame you for this? White's answer was firm.

But I was the one who suggested coming to the beach in the first place. Ayumi sighed despondently. All these people could probably have lived if we didn't come here.

There wouldn't have been a difference. Even if you had decided to go elsewhere, these monsters would have followed you and killed innocent people in the place you went to. Once again her tone was firm, but reassuring. We can't change the past. We can, however, change the present. And by that, I mean having the monsters who did this pay with their blood.

The last part of White's sentence hinted that she was not at all pleased with what the monsters had done, and that even though she appeared refined at most times, she still had a demonic side lurking somewhere deep within her. Ayumi turned around, returning to Volt's side to check up on him. The hunter was looking slightly better than before, but his eyes were still unfocused. Turning to look at the corpses, Ayumi noted that the body count had dropped compared to the last time she had laid eyes at them. And that was merely minutes ago. But the hunter was clearly in no condition to move, and Ayumi figured that the amount of bodies between them and the thing Volt was so worried about should be enough to last them for at least ten minutes.

And now I'm just thinking of these dead people as nothing more than meat shields. Ayumi shook her head dejectedly and muttered a prayer for everyone whose lives had ended on the beach. For all it's worth, I'm sorry for causing your deaths.

=================================================

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose, the stench from the corpses permeating the air around her. For the past few minutes or so she had been walking around the beach, but there was completely no sight of the other three she had arrived at the beach with. For an instance earlier, she thought she had heard Volt's voice, but upon turning her head towards the source she saw nothing but thin air.

“Too much archery screws with your head, Elizabeth,” She muttered nonchalantly to herself, looking at her surroundings once again. Bodies everywhere, with no sign of life. “Keep going girl, you'll find them eventually.”

And then there was the matter that she was not really dressed for the occasion. With a white blouse and blue skirt, Elizabeth wondered why she had accepted the offer in the first place. The unforgiving sun shone its rays down on her without mercy, and since she had walked quite a bit while carrying her bag around, her back was now beginning to get sweaty.

Elizabeth continued onwards slowly, avoiding bodies in her way by keeping a fair distance and circling around them. It was not an easy task, with the sheer number of bodies around her. Occasionally she was forced to walk in between them, something she did with understandable haste. After a while, Elizabeth figured that she was standing on the very spot where Volt was when he had called out.

“Nothing...maybe it really was just my imagination,” She looked at the area before her. There were few obstacles that impeded her sight from the position she was at, and it was clear that there was nothing at the other end of the beach. Sighing, Elizabeth started to backtrack her steps, making a face as she passed by the corpses again. Then she brought her hand to her face as she remembered something. “Didn't Ayumi always bring her cellphone with her no matter where she went?”

Stopping to fish out her own cellphone from her back pocket, Elizabeth silently thanked the gods that it had not been blown out of her pocket during the sandstorm. She started to punch in the numbers to Ayumi's cellphone and her face lit up as the call went through. A familiar voice answered her on the other side of the line.

“Ayumi speaking.”

“Hey, it's Elizabeth. Um, are you still at the beach?”

“Yep. I'm with Volt actually, and he's not exactly looking too good right now.”

“Yeah, um, then why can't I see either one of you?”

“The monster I fought with told me that someone had cast something over all of us so that we won't be able to see each other. Apparently we were each supposed to fight with one monster each. Me and Volt both won, so maybe that's why we could see each other.”

“So we can't see each other...” Elizabeth chewed her lower lip. “That explains a lot.”

“Yeah. Oh, Volt also said that there was something dangerous at the area of the beach he ran from. Just to be safe, you should tell me your location. See any landmarks around? They should help me get a hint of your location.”

Elizabeth looked behind her, noticing two palm trees crisscrossing each other. That would have to do.

“Um, I can see two palm trees crisscrossed around each other. I'm roughly several meters in front of them.”

Silence reigned for a moment, and Elizabeth though that the line had went dead. “...Ayumi? You still there?”

“Yes. Look around, you should see a section of the beach that is completely devoid of corpses.”

Elizabeth turned to her right, and saw that Ayumi was right. There really was a portion of the beach that was empty of bodies, and if not for the bloodstains one would think that the area was quite clean. “I see it. Are you guys over there?”

“No. Listen carefully, run away from that section as fast as you can. Run to the other side of the beach if you must. Whatever has got Volt on edge is wiping out corpses at a breakneck pace, and it's heading towards you. Hell, it may well just be several meters away from you right now.”

“Uh, there are still quite a number of corpses to my right though. I think I should be able to-” Snap! One of the corpses a few feet from Elizabeth had its hand tore out of its socket, vanishing into nothingness. “Never mind. Gotta go.”

She ended the call, placing her cellphone back into her pocket, then slowly backed off from the corpse whose body parts was vanishing. Five slow, nerve wracking steps later, Elizabeth made a mad dash towards the opposite end of the beach.

=================================================

By the time she arrived at her destination, Elizabeth was sweating profusely. A quick look behind her confirmed that whatever it was she was running from had not followed her. Dropping to her knees, Elizabeth took in deep gasps of air through her mouth. Suddenly recalling that the stench of corpses was now being sent to her lungs unfiltered, she made a disgusted face and tried with some difficulty to breath in through her nose.

“Damn, I should just call Ayumi and have all of us leave the beach together,” Elizabeth started to call Ayumi once again, but as she did a hissing sound behind her caught her attention.

“I'm afraid I can't let you do that.”

Elizabeth spun around, just in time to see a ball of purple liquid heading towards her. The liquid hissed malevolently as it sailed through the air, but it dropped in velocity before it could hit its target. As it made contact with the ground though, the ball erupted into a tiny geyser, spreading its contents around the area.

A few drops of the liquid landed on Elizabeth's hand which was holding her cellphone, and she dropped it instantly as pain started to spread from her hand onto her arm. Backing off from the geyser, Elizabeth inspected her hand closely. Her hand now had red patches around where the purplish liquid had landed on, and it almost looked like she had been scalded by boiling water.

Corrosive liquid? Elizabeth's eyes shifted their gaze from her hand to the creature that had shot the ball in the first place. It didn't take her long to place the monster as the one she had spotted coming out of the water. She had done her research on the internet, and knew the monster's name well. A Royal Ludroth, but judging from what it shot and the purple tinge of its skin, it must be a subspecies. Shouldn't be too hard I guess, since it's one of the first monsters beginners face in the game, with an added poison ailment.

The monster was looking at her with something of a smirk on its face, as if it had missed its projectile attack on purpose. It took slow steps towards Elizabeth, each step releasing some of the poisonous water contained in its mane onto the ground.

“I saw you running all the way from the other end of the beach. Quite a fast one, aren't you? But I wasn't really that into killing you quickly, so I went into the water and watched the other two duke it out with their targets first,” The Royal Ludroth snorted with contempt as it said that. “They sucked. Got completely outplayed by their opponents.”

He must be talking about the monsters sent to take on Ayumi and Volt. Elizabeth readied her bow as she thought this, placing her bag onto the floor and taking Mark out of it.

“Sup? So we're finally hom- hey wait, where are we?” The PSP had been asleep inside the bag, and was confused as to what was happening. “I thought you said we were going home...darn it, I knew those rocking motions earlier wasn't caused by you running wildly about.”

“Those 'rocking motions' was the result of me being blown off my feet by a sandstorm,” Elizabeth strapped the PSP to its usual spot on her back. “Be glad I hugged the bag tight enough so you didn't get blown off into the sea.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to be glad I didn't drown or short circuit myself or something.”

“...I'm locking you up in my cupboard when we get home.”

“Fine, fine, I'm sorry. You're an awesome PSP owner for not letting me fly off into the yonder. Happy now?”

“Better,” Elizabeth patted the PSP's screen a few times, then grabbed the arrow that materalized from the device, notching it and aiming at the Royal Ludroth'e eyes. “Now let's finish this quick.”

“What, you think you can kill me? Oh please. You're the weakest in the group, what makes you think you'll last even a minute against me?”

“Weakest?” Elizabeth tilted her head slightly, then released the arrow. A burst of purple water flew forth from the Royal Ludroth in response, engulfing the projectile and disintegrating it instantly. Once again, Elizabeth successfully managed to avoid all but a few drops of the poison that splashed onto her hands, but that was enough to cause them to burn up in pain once again.

“See?” The Royal Ludroth's mane had decreased in size a little after its attack, but it scarcely seemed to be bothered by that. “Let me enlighten you, seeing as it's the best I could do for a poor hunter wannabe.”

“Poor what?”

“Okay, how do I put this...four of you, one a hunter, three otherwise normal people. Two of said normal people have bodies that are playing host to the spirits of some of the most feared beasts all across Minegarde,” The Royal Ludroth cleared its throat, as if to emphasize on the next point. “Which brings us back to the one normal person, who remained nothing special. At all. You.”

“I,” Elizabeth scowled at the purple Leviathan. “Am going to put an arrow through your banana sized brain.”

“As if,” The monster scoffed. “Your arrows won't even make it close to me before my poison melts them away.”

Elizabeth was not even listening anymore as she notched arrow after arrow into her bow, firing them without delay while maintaining a distance from the Royal Ludroth. That was one of the advantages of using Dream Apollo over other bows : its automatic redirection of arrows did not require its user to take careful aim. That said, the amount of strength used was still a factor that affected the power of the bow's attack, and Elizabeth's rapid attacks were weak in power even when they managed to go past the Royal Ludroth's wall of water. Most of the attacks simply bounced off the tough hide of the beast, or merely nicked it.

But slowly, the speed at which the Leviathan was sending water out from its mane started to slow down. Elizabeth realized why as she continued her assault on the beast; the mane of the Royal Ludroth which it used to store water had shrunk considerably. With a smile of confidence, she stepped forward a little to give her arrows less distance to travel so that their power would be increased.

It was the mistake the Royal Ludroth was waiting for. With an unexpected burst of the speed, the monster suddenly lunged forward, then turned its body sideways and rolled towards Elizabeth. A last minute evasive maneuver saved her body from being crushed under the weight of the Royal Ludroth, but the creature's large size covered a wider area than she had anticipated. Elizabeth yelped in pain as her legs were ran over by the rolling monster, the feeling not unlike having a couple of bricks dropped onto her feet at terminal velocity.

But the rolling attack was not the only trick the Royal Ludroth had decided to pull. As it rolled past Elizabeth and felt a bump, it released what remaining poison was inside its body instantly. There was no avoiding the poison at this range, and when Elizabeth's legs came into contact with the volatile liquid, she let out a scream as excruciating pain shot throughout her whole body.

“Whoa there! You okay?” Mark unstrapped himself to look at the extend of injury caused by the Royal Ludroth. “The physical injury shouldn't take too long to heal, but the poison...see, you shouldn't have made me waste my last max potion on Volt. Now we have no way of patching you up.”

“Looks like this is the end, you little wannabe. I told you that you don't stand a chance. Let me get rid of that contraption beside you while I'm at it. Two birds with one purple water bomb,” The Royal Ludroth arched backwards, then appeared to gag as it opened its mouth to shoot poison at them. “Whoops, forgot I used up all my poison. One second, stay here and don't move. Well, not like you can anyway.”

With a chuckle, the Royal Ludroth turned and headed towards the ocean. Elizabeth knew that it was going off to refill its mane, and that should she still be here when it returned it would be the end. Try as she might though, any movement only caused another spasm of pain to shoot up from her legs. The burning sensation from the poison wasn't going away either, and caused the already unbearable pain to become even more agonizing.

“Okay, let's see...I think Bitterbugs might work. Want to try your luck?”

“Bitterbugs?” Whatever that was, it definitely did not sound appealing to Elizabeth. Mark's screen lit up for an instant, and an unremarkable blue bug that somewhat resembled a cockroach crawled out from the screen. “Oh god, what is that thing?”

“Bitterbug. They have a substance inside their bodies that supposedly cleanses poison. You're supposed to consume it orally. If you're lucky, the poison from the Ludroth might be removed from your system.”

“What the heck are you talking about, the poison is nowhere inside my bloodstream. It's on the outside, and only on my legs,” Elizabeth cringed in pain even as she spoke, the corrosive poison burning through her skin. “I'm not gonna have that thing anywhere near me, much less eat it.”

“Good point,” Mark brought himself down on the Bitterbug, squashing it under the weight of the PSP. Faster than Elizabeth could protest, he started to rub the remains of the bugs onto the part of her feet that got hit with the poison. Elizabeth, of course, almost screamed her disapproval at the PSP, and if she could move her legs she would have kicked the device into the ocean right there and then. “Don't blame me, it's either you do this, or you die.”

“Oh boy. If this doesn't work I'm never going to talk to you again.” Elizabeth tried to ignore the sight of her legs having insect remains on them, and turned to where the Royal Ludroth was. The monster was frolicking around in the sea, and seemed to have forgotten all about the human he had left on the shore.

“Now that we're done with that, your legs should be feeling slightly better. Maybe I can conjure up some-”

“No,” Elizabeth cut him off, not wanting to take the risk of having to rub more bugs onto her body. Instead, she bent down to observe the trail of poison left behind by the Royal Ludroth as he had walked around the beach. It was glowing a light purple, and reflected the rays of the sun quite clearly, so Elizabeth had no trouble spotting them. “Say, Mark. What kind of poison do you think this is?”

“I don't know. It's corrosive, so it's probably some kind of acid.”

“That I can guess. But what kind? Don't you have a way of finding out?”

“You don't say?” Mark hovered beside her, lowering himself down enough to look at the purple trail. “Sulfuric, maybe?”

“Sulfuric acid? But I thought they didn't have any color or odors,” Elizabeth frowned. “And besides, don't they catch fire easily? If he's really using sulfuric acid, won't he be worried about being set on fire from his own poison?”

“Well, the poison might have gotten its color and smell properties from other chemicals inside the mane of the Ludroth. But yes, I suppose it does catch fire quite easily. Maybe that's why the purple Royal Ludroth is weak to the fire element," Mark's voice dropped. "But what good is that? We have no way of starting up a fire.”

“Says who?” Elizabeth smiled a little as she looked at the Royal Ludroth still rolling around in the water. Its mane had reached the storage capacity for water, and excess poison was leaking from the mane onto the surrounding water. The seawater around it was already beginning to take the same purple hue as the skin of the Leviathan. “Arrow Rain 'Blast' type.”

“Ah,” Mark realized it as the words left Elizabeth's mouth. The blast type arrow rain did indeed have the ability to create fire, seeing as it caused an explosion upon impact with something. The explosion itself lasted only for a moment, but a tiny spark would be all it takes for the fire to start. This is, of course, if the poison of the Royal Ludroth really was flammable. “You know, if this doesn't work, we're both screwed.”

“We're screwed anyway if he suddenly remembers about us and comes to finish what he started,” Elizabeth stretched her hand over Mark's screen, gripping the arrow tightly as it materialized. “Might as well try.”

She readied the arrow, placing it against the bowstring of the Dream Apollo, and pulling it backwards with all the strength she could muster. The position from which she was firing from was an odd one, sitting on the floor with two legs outstretched in front. For that, she was grateful that the Dream Apollo's arrows homed in on its targets. But that was still no excuse to not give it her all.

Turning the bow sideways to allow her to have a better view, Elizabeth steadied her breathing and felt the wind blowing against her back. Even the weather was on her side. She adjusted her aim higher, then higher still. The Royal Ludroth was quite a distance away, and even with the wind bringing the arrow further, she had to make sure it lands a direct hit onto the beast's head. Finally confident that the arrow would land exactly on top of the Leviathan's head, she let go of the string, the force of the string returning to its original position sending the arrow flying.

As it flew through the air, Elizabeth watched the arrow carefully. If there a slight shift in its trajectory, that would mean that she had calculated wrongly. But her aim was true, and the Dream Apollo did not correct the flight path. As it started to drop in height, the Royal Ludroth noticed it flying towards him. His dark purple eyes gazed from the arrow to Elizabeth on the shore, who was winking at him as she placed an index finger to her temple. The meaning was clear; she had said it herself to the Leviathan earlier.

“An arrow through my brain...” The Royal Ludroth scoffed, preparing to time his burst of protective liquid just before the arrow hits. As the arrow got within range, the purplish water flew out from the mane of the monster, forming a visible shield.

The moment the arrow made contact with the water, all hell broke loose. The explosive components inside the arrowhead reacted to the shield as though it was a physical one, and promptly ignited themselves. The initial explosion wasn't spectacular, but the one after that was. A pillar of flame shot up around the monster as every single part of the Leviathan caught fire. The sea around the Royal Ludroth was set alight, having been tainted with the same chemical he used as his poison, and offered little respite from the situation he had found himself in. The last thoughts of the Royal Ludroth before it was burned to a crisp was how ironic it was to die in a sea of poison, two of his most trusted elements.

Elizabeth watched the fireworks calmly, Mark floating by her side. When the last of the flames died down, she looked down at her legs. Mark rubbing the Bitterbug on them had worked; her legs did not look as swollen and red as they did before. The intense pain had been replaced by a dull one, and even that was dying off.

“Well that was a blast.”

“...You need to work on your puns.” Elizabeth grinned at the PSP. A familiar voice sounded to her right, and as she looked on, Ayumi and Volt seemed to appear out of thin air under the shades of some palm trees.

Picking herself up with Mark's support, Elizabeth limped along the coastline, quite a sight to the other two as they looked at their friends moving slowly towards them.

This post has been edited by IamEpicFailure: 22 January 2012 - 05:47 AM

[Kibagami]

Your writing has improved considerably...good.

[IamEpicFailure]

Quote

-Chapter 41 : Phantom Pains- VS Plesioth~

MC stretched himself out on a big rock twice his size at the water's edge, appreciating the quiet moment he currently had without Ayumi being around to inflict some pain on him. He had landed near the rock after the sandstorm dropped him, and having no intention to look at the bodies that laid around him, had climbed onto said rock in order to steer clear of them.

Earlier on, he had been looking out over the vast ocean in front of him, watching the ships of different colors and sizes go about their business. It got boring after a while though, seeing as they hardly appeared to be moving unless you were on the vessel itself. MC's eyes naturally shifted to the corpses lying everywhere on the sand, taking in their facial features that were full of fear and horror, and the clouded eyes devoid of all life.

Death was never something he was comfortable with. It was never something anyone was comfortable with, but MC had thought himself desensitized to it, what with all the killing he had done in video games. That could not be further from the truth; MC was trembling with...fear? Sadness? An onslaught of emotions that even he himself wasn't sure of was assaulting him as his eyes focused on the bodies.

He had thought himself prepared for this; but now that he had time to think it through, MC saw that he wasn't. Rather, he had shoved the entire issue of death aside into the recesses of his mind, not considering it a part of his life at all. The risk was right there from the start; this was monster hunting, not some game where you have multiple lives and could easily restart over from the beginning once you get killed. MC knew that he would have to take the whole hunting business more seriously, or the people around him would end up getting hurt or worse, killed.

High time you figured out that people die if they are killed. Crimson's remark cut through MC's thoughts, causing him to turn away from the corpse that he was staring at, and return back to looking at the choppy waves of the sea.

It was at this moment that the sea erupted into flames, and MC found himself giving a yell of surprise as he ducked behind the rock he was sitting on. He had thought it was a monster's attack, but when no followup attacks were performed he peeked out from a corner of the rock, taking in the view of the flames dancing on top of the water.

Convinced that there was nothing attempting to attack him, MC climbed back onto the rock to check what had happened. Even though the flames were at least twenty meters or so away from him, the heat they emanated could be felt against his skin, a stark contrast to the coolness from the ocean breeze a minute earlier.

On top of the rock, it was easy for MC to make out what had caused the explosion, or at least set the path for the fire to ignite. The part of the sea that had been set alight had a purplish hue to them, and MC had initially suspected that it was oil. But it was burning out fast as the flames ate up the mysterious substance at an extremely quick pace while they spread, and even though MC looked around, there was nothing around to suggest what had created the substance or set it aflame.

“Crimson, did you do that?”

Do I look like a pyromaniac who would go around setting things on fire?

“Actually...yes.” MC laughed a little. The flames burnt out the last of the purple substance, and without anything else to sustain them, they vanished quickly under the tides of the sea. With the fire gone, the ocean took on a look of serenity once again. If it wasn't for the corpses, MC could almost believe that he was taking a well deserved break.

He looked at the seagulls flying overhead, appearing ever so carefree as they flapped their white wings. They reminded him slightly of Okuu, but only because they both classified under birds. The raven was several sizes larger than the biggest seagull here, and their colors were complete opposites.

But even animals knew the concept of death well, and most of the seagulls flew over the beach without stopping. Those that landed avoided the areas littered with bodies, choosing to stay away from them. There were those that chose to land near the bodies though, and MC observed them closely.

There was something odd about their behaviors, and their eyes had a weirdly savage look in them. Even as the first seagull began to peck away at the flesh of the corpse, others were already flying in and joining in the feast. MC watched on, unsure whether to be disgusted by the act the birds were committing. They were animals, true, but it was still unnerving to watch the body of one of your own kind being eaten in front of your eyes, even if said body was long dead.

With the constant pecking and the way they squabbled amongst each other to get a good chunk of meat, it was inevitable that one of the seagulls was going to get hurt. One of the bigger seagulls brought its hard yellow beak down onto a smaller one's eye, and blood spurted out as a result. Seeing the red liquid seemed to drive the other birds insane as they started to peck at each other, forgetting entirely about the corpse in front of them. They screeched as they attacked one another in a frenzy, and eventually the winner was the original bird who had started the whole thing in the first place.

It let out a cry of triumph and started to drill away at the bodies of another seagull, before seemingly losing interest and flying off to a corpse further down the beach. MC watched the bird eat with a frown; seagulls normally don't kill each other for food like that. It was disturbing, to say the least. As MC watched the bird chow down, he blinked once, and in that split millisecond he thought he heard a panicked squawk. When his eyes opened again, the seagull had disappeared.

===================================================

“Hey. Are your legs alright?” Ayumi helped Elizabeth sit down slowly onto the floor, holding onto her like she had with Volt.

“Been better,” Elizabeth replied. The pain from the poison might be disappearing, but that didn't mean she could instantly pick herself up and walk around like nothing had happened. She simply could not find any strength inside her legs to walk properly, and if she walked unsupported, Elizabeth was sure she would collapse after a step. “Damn, my legs feel like they are made of jelly.”

“Look on the bright side, you're better off than Volt over here,” Ayumi turned to the hunter as she said his name, kneeling down and checking to see if he was still alright. Even though she had her attention on him for the past few minutes, she still felt like he would die the instant she looked away. “You still feeling okay? Not going into shock or anything yet, or you?”

“Gah, I told you...I'm fine,” Volt hesitated a little as he answered. “Hunters don't die easy. Besides, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.”

“I don't think that's applicable here,” Ayumi smiled a little, reaching out to touch the hunter's arm. It felt slightly warmer than earlier, maybe a sign that the blood was flowing back into it. “At least it's good that you're feeling be-”

A loud squawk interrupted her sentence, and Ayumi turned around to look at the source. But there was nothing except the corpses in front of them, and a few white feathers floating slowly to the ground.

The corpses...? Ayumi stood up and squinted at the bodies in front, then looked to the side of the beach. Only three more corpses were between them and the thing that was devouring the the bodies. Shit.

“Sorry guys, but we'll have to move again,” Ayumi turned back to Volt and Elizabeth. “Volt, I'll help you up. Elizabeth, you okay with hanging onto Mark?”

“Yeah. Don't want to be anywhere near that thing,” Elizabeth was already holding onto the PSP as he floated upwards, struggling a little to carry the extra weight. “The sooner we get out of this beach, the better. Which reminds me, why don't we just leave this stupid beach first? That way we won't have to worry about that thing, whatever it is.”

“I don't think whoever is holding us here will let us do that,” Ayumi shook her head as she helped Volt onto his feet. The hunter shook his head to clear the dizziness that attacked his senses as he stood up, then took slow, lumbering steps forward with Ayumi supporting him. “Besides, we haven't got MC yet. We're leaving this place together.”

“What she...said. Hunters...stick together.” Volt managed to say his piece despite the difficulty of speaking while moving in his current condition. Elizabeth nodded in agreement, and the three started to make their way towards the final stretch of the beach that still had corpses in abundance.

===================================================

“Careful. Something is out there,” Black had appeared next to MC as he looked on at the corpse where the seagull had vanished. “This presence is vaguely familiar, but I can't place my finger on exactly what it is.”

“You think it's a monster?”

“Definitely. Aside from that, there is also another being there,” Black pointed a finger at something. “Something over there is very afraid, and whilst its presence is masked, its fear leaks out like an overfilled teapot. Allows me to see it easily.”

MC followed Black's finger to the sand behind them, but to him it appeared that the Elder Dragon was pointing to nothing in particular. “Don't see anything.”

Black sighed and placed one of his hands on MC's shoulder. MC jumped a little as the world before him seemed to take on a gloomy look, the vibrant colors of the area drained out and replaced with different shades of black and gray. There were several tendrils of darkness in the air that appeared to be swirling around, and as MC watched, they seemed to home in on the location that Black had pointed in. They formed a vague outline of a creature that MC had seen before, both in real life and in his games.

“A Kut Ku?” MC cocked his head in confusion, and found his vision returning to normal as Black withdrew his hand.

“Yes, that's what I think it is as well,” Black nodded, and sat down beside MC. “But that is unimportant for now. Our opponent is not the bird, but rather, the Wyvern.”

“Wyvern?”

This time, Black did not reply, instead putting a finger to his lips. MC was hopelessly baffled, but did as Black had signaled and kept quiet. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore, and the occasional cry of seagulls was all that could be heard. And then, there came a creaking sound that seemed to come from nowhere around them.

Instinctively, MC turned to the waters. There was nothing on land, after all, and the only logical place left to look would be beneath the tides. The blue sea showed no sign of a creature around, but MC knew better than to trust his eyes after what Black had shown him with the Kut Ku. Again, there came another creaking sound, this time louder than before. A large yellowish-white fin broke the surface of the water, but it was pointed away from MC rather than towards him as he had expected. But that fin alone was enough of a tell-tale sign as to what monster he would be facing. “Plesioth...”

Ho, boy, finally a monster! Time to kick some ass! You owe me as much for cooping yourself at home for three days. Crimson's voice reverberated around inside MC's head.

“Did you know? Plesioths are avid daydreamers. They zone out so much, which is why it's so difficult to get their attention. It's also the same reason why frogs are used to lure them in; sound travels faster inside liquids than air, and the croaking sound they make easily get the Plesioths to notice them.”

Okay, lesson over, and I bet three-fourths of what Black just said was just bullshit he made up on the spot. Time to for some practical lessons, with the Plesioth as a test subject. Crimson was sounding increasingly impatient.

MC, however, was more interested in what Black has to say than the latter's brother. “So what's your point?”

“That while it would be extremely disadvantageous to head into its lair, you're going to have to do so to get it to notice you.” Black smiled, then vanished in front of MC's eyes. MC groaned at the suggestion. He wasn't even in his swimwear, how could he possibly take a dip to engage the monster?

Ha, that's where you're wrong. Who says you have to go into the water to get its attention? MC found his hand moving of its own accord, snapping his fingers together. A meteor dropped at high speed from the heavens, crashing down directly onto the fin that was beginning to submerge. The result was comedic as the Piscine Wyvern jumped out of the water in an obvious state of panic, randomly lashing out at thin air before it dropped back into the sea. The fin turned towards MC as the Plesioth let out an angry cry. See? Simple. Now lemme pound his face in.

“Fine.” MC rolled his eyes and closed them. He wasn't in any mood to fight anyway. Normally there would be some resistance whenever Crimson took control of his body, but this time there was only the feeling of passing through a spinning vortex, something akin to what one felt when they are in the state between being awake and asleep. It didn't exactly feel good, but it was better than having control ripped from his body forcefully.

When the eyes of MC's body reopened, they burned a deep red with the hatred of a hundred demons. Crimson sneered as he flexed his right fist, barely curbing the impulse to jump in and start smashing the Plesioth's face in immediately. The lack of any excitement the past few days had him on edge, and his body trembled with anticipation as the Wyvern approached closer.

The Plesioth's head broke the surface, water gleaming off its blue and brown scales. It studied Crimson for a while, and the two stared at each other for some time. Just when Crimson decided to break the silence with an insult to taunt the monster onto shore, the Plesioth beat him to speaking. “Not interesting enough. Come back with frogs. Lots of them.”

Before the stunned Crimson could find a suitable retort, the Piscine Wyvern flipped over backwards and submerged itself into the water, disappearing from view once again. Silence hung in the air for a few seconds as Crimson momentarily considered jumping into the ocean to pursue his target. Evidently deciding otherwise, he snapped his fingers multiple times as meteors started to fall in random locations around the sea in front of him.

But striking randomly was only a waste of energy, and after the sixth meteor, Crimson stopped his assault. Instead, an idea took root in his head as he hopped off the rock and approached the water. Placing two of his fingers into the liquid, he watched with satisfaction as the water around his fingers started to bubble with heat.

“If you're not going to come out, then I'll just boil you alive, along with everything inside the water.” Crimson smirked as he surveyed the location. It was going to take some time for the heat to spread across such a huge ocean, but he had a feeling the Plesioth won't leave without attacking him first. All he had to do was make it uncomfortable enough and force the Wyvern out of its hiding place.

Just as he was envisioning his victory over the beast, a spasm of pain shot up Crimson's arm. “What?”

The sudden discomfort took the Elder Dragon by surprise, and he withdrew his hand from the water, causing the heat to stop spreading. Thinking that stopping the heat was what the Plesioth had wanted, Crimson swore out loud in anger as he decided to chase his foe into the waters in reckless abandon.

Crimson, wait! You already got his attention, heading out into the waters now would put you at risk! Black gave a valid reason for his warning, but his brother was already midway through jumping into the sea.

“Shut up, I don't need your bloody advice on how to do things. I'm gonna rip that shit a new one.” Crimson held his breath and dived in, looking around to find the Plesioth. He didn't have to look far.

The Piscine was waiting for him from below, a part of its back still bearing the black mark where the meteor had struck. It seemed to grin at Crimson before its jaws closed around his legs, dragging him deeper into the depths of the ocean. The sharp teeth failed to penetrate Crimson's legs though, for the Elder Dragon's rage had built, and it caused his skin to harden considerably.

Crimson knew he could not count on his meteors this deep into the ocean; they would be reduced to nothing by the currents before they reached him. But fire was his element, even in the most unfavorable circumstances. Crimson focused his energy on the leg that the Plesioth was holding on to, and successfully heated it up enough to force the creature to let go.

By now the two were pretty deep under the sea, and Crimson could see schools of fishes and coral all around him. None of this concerned him as much as the giant creature in front of him though, and he prepared himself to engage to the beast in combat.

The Piscine twisted its body gracefully in the waters, spreading its wings out to their full size and facing Crimson, the fear of being hit by random things falling from the sky no longer existent. With a sudden jerk of its head, the Plesioth's mouth opened, and a thin beam of highly pressurized water shot out of it. Crimson saw the attack coming and tried moving to one side to avoid it, but the water made his movements sluggish, and the beam managed to injure his arm a little. Only a minimal amount of damage was done thanks to his hardened skin, but the attack still managed to split the skin apart and drew some blood.

Useless human body...can't even take a hit without blood being spilled.

“So, I was right. You can't fight properly underwater, and that gives me a good advantage. Especially since I'm perfectly at home in these conditions.” The Plesioth spoke in a derogatory voice.

Crimson wanted to respond, but remembered at the last second where he was, and swallowed his words. An Elder Dragon could hold his or her breath for a long time, but speaking underwater would render that ability useless. It wasn't like the Plesioth would be able to understand him anyway. Instead, Crimson pointed at the Piscine, then brought the same finger across his throat.

“Ahahaha! You're still so arrogant, even when it's obvious you won't be able to fight back. Doesn't matter then, I'll take my time torturing you here.”

Crimson swam forward, readying his right fist to deliver a punch. But the pressure underwater killed the effectiveness of his attack, and if it was not for the spikes on his glove, Crimson would not have been able to damage the Plesioth at all. As it was, the Piscine merely let out a mocking laugh as he swiped at Crimson with his tail, knocking him aside with little trouble.

It was at this point that Crimson realized how foolish it was to jump into the water without considering the factors. All of his attacks were nullified, since his meteors won't reach underwater without crumbling, and his fist attacks probably felt like getting hit by a child due to the pressure. He could try to heat up the area, but they were quite deep under the sea now, and it would take too much time. Crimson looked upwards. If he could make it to the surface, he would have a better fighting chance.

The Plesioth caught onto what Crimson was thinking as soon as his head tilted up. It swam swiftly and positioned itself between Crimson and the surface. “Give it up! We're at least twenty, maybe thirty meters down. Even if you got past me once, I can easily overtake you and beat you downwards. I hope you can hold your breath for at least a day. Or maybe you should adapt to the ocean like me, and learn to breathe underwater? Heh.”

Crimson growled a little, but it went unheard. He estimated that he would have around five minutes, but that was the limit for the body he was currently in. If he had his old body, he would have dived in and snapped the Plesioth's body in half with his jaws before staying for a day to prod and make fun of his corpse. But the human body he now possessed severely limited his abilities, and Crimson knew that he had to make a battle plan of some sort.

I'm never good at thinking...Black, give me something over here.

Black appeared with a slight 'pop' beside him, smirking at his brother who had just asked him for help. Since he was still an illusion of sorts, breathing and speaking under the water was not a problem, and he was invisible to all but Crimson. “Really? I thought you wanted to rip him a new one.”

Don't get all cocky shit with me. I'll rip him a new one after we get onto shore.

“And what happens if you don't get to shore?”

We all die. And that means you too. So stop gloating and start helping.

“Huh, you do have a point,” Black shrugged, then drifted over to the Plesioth, observing it closely. “I don't see anything exploitable...”

By this time, the Plesioth had gotten tired of watching Crimson, who had apparently given up on fighting and was just floating around. “I hope you haven't decided to stop just yet. Maybe some encouragement would do?”

The Piscine spread out its wings to their full length once again; a magnificent view as the water flowed around the white webbing that each ended in a spike colored with a hint of emerald. But Crimson's attention was scarcely on how breathtakingly beautiful the Plesioth looked; he was still trying to find a way to get out of the situation he had landed himself in. His concentration was soon broken as pain shot throughout every fiber of his being, and with a look of vengeance he turned his eyes towards the Plesioth.

“I bet you never wondered why us Plesioths always had such huge hitboxes in the game. Now you know.” The Plesioth's face was beaming with satisfaction as Crimson grimaced at the pain, knowing that the Elder Dragon will break sooner or later.

With another unheard growl, Crimson knew he had to make his move now. His armored skin might hold out against the invisible assault, but there was still the problem of oxygen. Swimming upwards towards the Plesioth, he braced himself for the impact as the Wyvern's tail lashed out at him. Taking the hit head on, Crimson managed to grab onto the tip of the Plesioth's tail as it went past him just before he was flung away.

The spiked tips of the Piscine's tail were filled with toxins that induced sleep, but the amount inside each spike was miniscule, and Crimson found himself hardly affected. Clutching at something that looked more fragile than a straw, he started to work his way up the Plesioth's body. The Wyvern was not about to let him do so without a fight, twisting and turning its body and tail randomly to throw the Elder Dragon off.

When that failed, the Plesioth resorted to slamming against coral reefs, hoping to smash Crimson and get him off its back. This combined with the slippery scales of the Wyvern would have thrown any normal person off, but the Elder Dragon was persistent, and held onto the Piscine with hands that had enough force to penetrate the thick scales and dig into its soft flesh underneath. Using his legs as anchors, Crimson steadily climbed his way up the Wyvern's body with each passing second. When he reached the dorsal fin, Crimson ripped it off the creature's back with glee, resulting in the Plesioth screaming bloody murder as blood started to pump out of the wound.

But the creature was still aware of its surroundings, and Crimson decided that that wasn't enough pain to pay the beast back. Looking below at the Plesioth's legs, he sneered and began to rip the protective blue scales off with his right hand. Under the scales was tissue and tendons, but that wasn't what Crimson was aiming for. He tore them off without hesitation, and finally saw the dull white color of bone.

Holding onto the Plesioth with his left hand, Crimson worked his right hand until they had a firm grip onto the entire bone itself. And with a tremendous burst of strength, he pulled. There was a loud popping sound that seemed to echo around the water as the bones of the Plesioth's legs was torn out, and the beast itself shrieked in agony. The area around them was beginning to turn red from the amount of blood that had been spilled.

The Piscine was in a crazed state from the pain that Crimson had inflicted, and was now swimming around randomly without a sense of direction. The one priority on its mind was to remove Crimson from his back, at any cost. The random movement was slowing Crimson down, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to afford stopping his attack. There was a time limit in which he could stay underwater, after all.

As he moved up the Piscine's body a little more, the wings of the Plesioth beat at him, the toxin contained within them being used in an attempt to dissuade him from moving further. Crimson had taken quite a large dose of the toxin from both the tail and the dorsal fin, having touched the spikes of the latter while he was tearing it off. By now he was beginning to feel its effects, and as the wings struck him more and more, drowsiness started to overtake him.

“Oi, you must suck real bad if you're gonna fail here,” Black had been watching the whole spectacle before him with great interest. “Some Elder Dragon you are, losing to a lowly Piscine Wyvern. Pffft.”

I'll fucking kill you! The insult was all it took for Crimson to get all fired up once again as the water around him begun to boil. As the wings neared him once again, the Elder Dragon stretched out his arm and made contact with the webbing. They started to come apart like paper being set on fire, shriveling up and losing what beauty they once had to the burst of heat from Crimson's palm.

It was too much for the poor Piscine to bear as it started thrashing around wildly, but Crimson was hardly going to be deterred by some random movement. With the flames of determination and pure animosity flaring inside his eyes, he continued his path up the Plesioth's body. Each time he let go of a part of the Wyvern that he was holding onto in order to reach outwards and grab a new part, yet another stream of blood gushed out of the five holes left behind by his fingers.

It didn't take Crimson long to reach the Plesioth's neck, but time was steadily running out. He had less than a minute left, and the clock was still ticking. Taking care not to touch the fins on the head of the monster, the Elder Dragon wrapped his arms around the neck of the beast, then started to rend the scales away.

The Plesioth was beginning to see random colors clouding its vision as Crimson's hands emitted intense heat while literally tearing his neck apart. With all the suffering it was being put through, the Wyvern failed to note that it was approaching the surface of the water. Crimson had slyly tilted its head upwards while rending at his neck, and as the Plesioth struggled harder and harder, it finally broke through the surface of the water with a splash.

“Game,” Crimson let out a maniacal laugh as he took in a deep breath and snapped his fingers. Flaming rocks started to rain down on the Plesioth, plowing into the side of the already weakened Piscine and propelling it towards the coast. When it finally reached the shore, the remaining life force inside the Wyvern had been claimed by death in the form of its injuries. Just to be sure, and also because he was still pissed at it, Crimson hopped off the beast's neck and punched the eye of the beast until it was reduced to a slushy solution. When he didn't get any response, the Elder Dragon cracked his knuckles with a look of contempt on his face. “Over.”

===================================================

“I don't believe it. They all failed. Seriously?” Mirage shook her(?) head with disbelief as she(?) finally dropped her hands and lifted the illusion on the hunters. Each of the monsters had engaged a single, lone hunter, and they had all failed. Now there was going to be a lot of explaining to do to Alatreon. Groaning at the thought, Mirage turned to the Kut Ku with a flick of her(?) head. “We're outta here. Let's go. Oi, do you hear me? Jiken!”

The pink Bird Wyvern was still staring in awe at what Crimson had done with the Plesioth, and only snapped out of his reverie when he heard his true name being called. “WHO DARES TO ADDRESS ME BY MY REAL NA- oh. Sorry.”

With a sheepish look, the Kut Ku lowered its body down just enough for Mirage to hop on. Suddenly remembering the presence of the unknown monster at the beach, it looked around just in time to see the last corpse near its location disappear.

“Come on, I don't want to stay here longer than I should, and I don't think you want to either.”

“Right, let's fly.” Trembling slightly as the thought of being attacked before it could take off hit it, the Kut Ku pushed itself backwards to keep a distance from where the last corpse had been before it vanished, then took flight.

===================================================

“Oi, MC!” Ayumi waved to Crimson. The latter had appeared in front of her together with a monster corpse that looked like it had been ravaged time and time again. Realizing her mistake as she looked at the eyes of Crimson as he approached, she frowned slightly. “Get MC back.”

“You don't ask very nicely, do you? Fortunately for you, I'm done venting all the pent-up rage that has been gathering inside me these past few days, so I won't start bashing your face in. One second,” Crimson closed his eyes and concentrated, and control of MC's body returned to its original owner, who let out a yowl of pain. “What the hell, Crimson! I thought all damage done to this body while it was in your control won't be applicable to me.”

Dunno, maybe the Plesioth's phantom pain attacks works differently. Besides, you have to learn to build up some pain resistance.

“I feel like a truck just ran over me. Twice,” MC gritted his teeth to bear the pain, his drenched clothes that was sticking to him due to the water not helping in the least. Turning an eye to Elizabeth and Volt, he finally noticed the state they were in. “And you two look like you got it worse than me. What the hell happened to you guys? And why does Ayumi look like she didn't even get any wounds at all?”

“Yeah, right,” Ayumi lifted up to show MC her shoes, which had been cut cleanly by the Cephalos which attacked them earlier. “I was kneeling in front of a hideous monster who found it enjoyable to brag about his victory.”

“Still better off than Elizabeth. She looks like a cripple,” MC looked at Elizabeth, who was leaning onto Mark for support. “And Mark, shouldn't you do something about the Plesioth?”

“Sure thing,” The PSP gave Elizabeth enough time to let go of him before he drifted over to the Piscine, silently taking in the view of the wounds Crimson had inflicted. “Woe be the one who earns the ire of the embodiment of rage...”

“So then, I assume you guys were all battling another monster by yourselves, and that Mark had already collected them all?” MC looked out at the beach. He didn't see any sign of there being any other monster carcasses.

“Ah, about that...something tells me we won't be able to collect them anymore.” Mark floated back to the group as he finished with the Plesioth.

“Huh? Why not?”

Volt interrupted the conversation with a cough. The color had drained from his face, but it was only partially due to the loss of blood. There was fear written all over the hunter's face as he lifted a finger to point behind Ayumi. “No more...corpses.”

Turning around to look, Ayumi let out a gasp as she saw the final corpse between them and the invisible force vanish. Something black dropped onto the floor out of the body's pants as it disappeared, and the object settled into the soft sand without a sound. Ayumi had estimated that they would have enough time to get out of the area once MC was done with his opponent, but evidently her estimation had been wrong.

“Help Volt up.” The words leaving her lips were barely a whisper. The hair on Ayumi's back was standing up, and there was the unnerving feeling of being watched by something in front of them. Perhaps that something was hiding in the black object, which Ayumi managed to get a closer look at as she helped Elizabeth onto her feet. It was a cellphone.

===================================================

The monster drooled slightly inside the cellphone as it pondered over the situation. The four in front of it didn't look to be in the best condition for fighting; it could easily swipe out and eat one or two of them before the others knew what had happened.

And yet despite knowing that, it hesitated. It had met one of the girls in front of it before. She was the one who had unknowingly given him the idea of using the contraption that it was currently hiding in as it observed them.

It had held back from attacking that same girl during their first encounter, simply because something inside its head warned it not to. It had sensed danger coming from the girl, and it still does even now. To make things worse, the boy that the girl had been talking to had the same aura of danger emanating from him. But the monster had ate the beach clean of the bodies, and only these four remained in front of it. What else could it do?

It turned its eyes to the tarred road not too far from the beach. Odd objects of different sizes and colors that moved quickly were traveling on it, and the monster gauged that the distance was just right for it to jump from its current location to one of the objects. One of them was coming its way, four circular wheels spinning quickly as it moved. Loud music blared out from the open window, and the human inside it was blissfully unaware of his fate later on in the day.

The monster had devoured almost everything at the beach, true enough, but the beach was only one side of the entire city that it was in right now. It turned its eyes to the four humans, who were frozen stiff and looking worriedly at the device it was hiding in. Their paths will cross again, the monster was sure of that. As the Deviljho closed the distance between it and the moving object, thoughts of devouring things on the other side of the city running through its mind, corrosive saliva dribbled out of its ravenous maws.

===================================================

A gust of unnatural wind blew into Ayumi's face, and at the same moment, her eyes caught movement. Ayumi turned towards the source quickly, but only caught a fleeting glimpse of a large shadow vanishing. Returning her attention to the black cellphone, Ayumi noticed a shiny trail of transparent liquid leading away from it. The trail had not been there before, for she would have noticed it glimmering in the sunlight if it was.

Ayumi turned her head to look at the others. They were all looking in the same direction she had when she spotted the shadow, even MC who had not been informed about the situation. There was no question that they had all saw the same thing she did.

White? Is it gone? Ayumi suspected that the wind might have been the creature passing by them at an incredible speed, but she wanted to double check nonetheless.

Yes. I believe the creature had chanced upon us before a few days back when you passed under some power lines. It never showed itself, so I could only sense its presence, but I'm positive it's the same monster. I don't sense it anymore though, so we're safe for now.

“White says that the thing just left,” Ayumi chewed her lower lip as she said this. She hoped White was correct. If the thing suddenly jumped out at them, she would never be able to forgive herself in the afterlife, if there was one. “But still, watch your step.”

“What just left? What are you talking about?” MC frowned, trying his best to balance Volt on his body while ignoring the pain. Ayumi hasn't explained anything to him at all, only telling him that they had to move quickly, so he was understandably confused. Looking at Volt and Elizabeth who were hardly in the condition to make idle chatter though, he quickly added, “On second thoughts, we can continue this conversation later.”

“Hey,” Volt nudged MC gently and pointed to the trail of liquid. “Let me...see that.”

“Sure thing. Just don't lean too heavily on me, or I think we'll both topple down.” MC helped Volt take step after step forward, and when they reached the cellphone, the hunter signaled for him to be put down.

He dabbed a hand inside the liquid, then a look of surprise and worry overtook his face as the glove of his armor started to melt off slightly. Volt had been trying to place what monster would possibly be gluttonous enough to eat all of the corpses on the beach, but now the liquid in his hand confirmed his suspicions. Only one monster had saliva that could corrode through armor, the voracious Brute Wyvern species that had caused many a casualty back in Yukumo Village. Volt's eyes followed the trail until it ended on the main road.

It's still out there... He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the area and hoping that the monster was still in the vicinity so that they could finish it off. But there was no sign of it, no evidence that it had been here with the exception of the saliva. It had done a good job cleaning up the bodies as well, leaving no corpse uneaten. Only the smell of blood still hung in the air, mixing with the salty smell of the sea, a haunting reminder of the horror that had taken place. With a sigh, Volt rubbed the liquid off onto the sand, and MC helped him up.

“Something wrong?” MC had noted the look on his face when Volt realized precisely what creature had been hounding them on the beach.

“No,” Volt lied. He didn't want to place any more worry on them, at least not for now. “Let's just...go home.”

“Yeah.” MC agreed. It had been one hell of a day. What was supposed to be a relaxing time at the beach turned into carnage in the blink of an eye. MC's whole body ached, and the rest of the team didn't look that well to do either. After all that they had been through today, going home sounded pretty good to his ears.

Granted, they would have to check in at the hospital to recuperate later in the day, but for now all he wanted to do was head back. MC turned to the two girls who had been watching them the whole time with a worried expression on their faces, and managed to smile at them despite the pain he was feeling. “Let's go home.”

And voila, I'm done with the beach arc.
Special thanks to Hena for giving the idea of powers for Plesioth, Hapu and Ludroth.
I probably won't be chugging out another chapter with fights inside for some time.
...What? You just had four battle chapters in a row.

Also, @ Kiba : Thanks, but it's still not good enough yet. Hope I can work on my flaws :/

This post has been edited by IamEpicFailure: 01 February 2012 - 11:26 AM

[IamEpicFailure]

This chapter is character development.
PROPER Character development...I think? :3

Exams coming, so as usual, 1 month break. (With ~1 additional week for gaming)

Quote

-Chapter 42 : Resolve-

Ikio sat at one of the interrogation rooms at the police station, his hands dangling at the side of the plastic chair. His legs were placed defiantly on top of the table, and anyone passing by would probably think that a detective was a gangster who had been caught, if not for the police badge inside his wallet that had been nonchalantly tossed onto the table. Two jet black feathers hung from a newly attached key chain in the wallet, and Ikio found his eyes constantly returning to them no matter how much he tried to look away. The air inside the room was stagnant, and the detective completed the picture of idleness with the pose he was striking.

The air outside the room was the exact opposite. Officers of all kind and divisions were running frantically around the station, the ringing sounds of phones begging to be picked up adding to the chaos. Most of the officers had already been overworking themselves due to the shortage of men before, but now the amount of workload they had was overwhelming. Reports of missing persons were being filed in succession one after another, and it was obvious that the police were struggling to cope with the speed.

There was a shuffling noise outside the door before the handle turned as a figure stepped in. Ikio closed his eyes instinctively to shield them from the light that streamed into the dark room. There was a clicking sound as the light switch of the interrogation room itself was switched on, and in another moment Ikio groaned as he recognized the face of the person who had just walked in on him.

“This is a one way mirror, Ikio. You don't really think you could slack off in here, did you?” The Chief of Police glared at him, eyebrows knitted together to show his displeasure. “Now get out here and start helping us. Those phones aren't going to answer themselves.”

Ikio sighed and took his wallet, giving the feathers one last look before placing it back into his pant's pocket. He had been tired, and just decided to take a small break from all the phone answering by hiding himself away in the room. He even still had all the files from the reports still laid out on the table. Ikio knew the Chief wouldn't want to listen to his explanation though, and instead asked about the situation with the phone calls.

“Are the calls still about missing persons?”

“Flooding in like no tomorrow,” The Chief replied, watching several other younger officers rush past him in the corridor with a flustered expression on their faces. Turning back to Ikio, he continued, “Look Ikio, I know it's hard, what with your pet bird dying not too long ago and all that. But it's about time to move on. You've been distracted at work lately, and it's starting to show.”

Ikio didn't reply, and instead stared at the Chief in silence. He had indeed been distracted the past few days, and Ikio himself was well aware of that. But it hasn't been over Okuu's death. He had been thinking about the previous cases, and looking through their files. Initially there had only been sparse reports of sightings about 'monsters', but as they became more frequent, the amount of missing people in the city had started to rise.

It was easy to pin the blame on the monsters attacking humans, but there was the question of whether anyone would believe him. Ikio knew that there was no concrete evidence of the monsters' existence. He saw with his own eyes that when a monster is killed, its body would vanish into thin air, and that made the job of proving their existence even more difficult.

Ikio had then considered taking a photo or video of the monsters. And that had been precisely what he has been doing research on for the past couple of days : searching for where a monster had been last seen, and then rushing to the location with the hope that he would be able to capture one of them on film. Thus far, all his attempts had only sent him on a wild goose chase. The large amount of reports being filed this time was probably due to some of the monsters beginning to get more daring.

“Ikio?” The Chief's voice brought Ikio out of his thoughts, and the detective muttered an apology. The features of the Chief's face softened as he nodded. “I'll give you another ten minutes in here. Then I expect you to be out there, working.”

The door clicked shut as the Chief left, and Ikio stood up to flick the light switch of the room off. With all the research taking up most of his time, Ikio realized that he hasn't been thinking about Okuu much. But the way his eyes kept returning to the two feathers still showed that he longed for the presence of the raven. He wanted to hear her soft caw once again, to stroke her feathered back. Ikio took out his wallet once more, gently touching the feathers and feeling their fine texture.

The detective's eyes shifted from the feathers to the files placed on the table. Then they narrowed as he resisted the urge to smack his palm against his own face. The Chief had been right; he really had been too distracted. So much so that he didn't even notice that all of the missing people had been last seen at the beach. Such a mass disappearance that Ikio easily attributed to the monsters should involve MC and the others, since hunting monsters was what they did. And if they hunted monsters, then they must know where to find them.

Ikio left the interrogation room and then quickly exited the police station, slyly avoiding the Police Chief. Once outside, he sucked in a deep breath of the cool night air before fishing out his cellphone. He had a good memory, and still remembered the numbers he had pressed to call Ayumi over to the station the other day.

His fingers paused at the last two numbers required to finish the call. It had just occurred to Ikio that besides him, they were the last few people who had seen Okuu alive. The memory of the raven sprawled on the floor half dead reemerged in his head, and Ikio shook his head to remove the unpleasant mental image. He pushed the last two digits and placed the phone to his ear, wondering if it would have been better to call them the next morning. His worries went unfounded however, as the call was answered and Ikio heard a somewhat tired Ayumi say her hellos.

===================================================

MC realized that he now disliked the hospital greatly. The white corridors and rooms served as an unspoken reminder to him about the suffering and pain that patients go through here, and death was probably a frequent visitor to the wards. He had had enough of death for one day, and yet being in the hospital, he was sure he would meet yet another corpse, even if it was covered up in a white sheet.

MC would have suggested going to the local clinic rather than the hospital, but the pains inflicted upon him by the Plesioth were yet to subside. He had a feeling Volt would need medical assistance as well, and Elizabeth will probably also need to see a doctor regarding her legs. As he had expected though, the doctor could not find anything wrong with him. It wasn't as much of a surprise, considering that the pain didn't even come from a natural source in the first place. Still, the doctor had prescribed some painkillers, for all the good they did.

There was an itch in his foot, and as MC stretched his body forward to scratch it, his muscles screamed in protest. Not wanting to risk making himself hurt more than it already did, MC lied back on the white bed and tried his best to scratch the itch away with his other foot. He found himself wondering about Volt, who was currently being treated for his loss of blood in some other room. The hunter's equipment had been repaired by Mark, and was neatly folded in fours on the bed opposite MC's. The hunter had objected to having his armor removed, and had only done so on the promise that he would be back in them before the day was over. The doctors had probably promised him that out of sheer desperation.

A noise at the door caught MC's attention, and he turned towards it just in time to see Ayumi and Volt entering into the room. The hunter looked enraged; the doctor had probably told him that he would have to be dressed in the hospital gown for quite some time. He strutted over to his bed and jumped onto it, mumbling angrily to himself about the shenanigans pulled by the doctor.

“Volt's gonna have to stay here for some time. No guarantees, but the doctor estimated it to be at least a couple of days,” Ayumi sat down on MC's bed. “So, Ikio called.”

“What for?” MC sat up, trying to ignore the pains that attacked him as he did. None of them had heard from the detective for quite a while.

“Said something about wanting to help us by proving that the monsters exist to the public. Even had some film and cameras ready, apparently.”

“It isn't as if it'll help. If those monsters wanted to kill someone, having knowledge about them isn't going to save the victim's life. And besides, you can't capture a monster on film or a photo. Call him back and tell him to quit while he's ahead. The monsters won't be going after him anyway.”

“I did tell him to stop what he was doing. Hell, I even explained what had happened to us and why we were in hospital. But right after I said that, he said he had another idea. Something about joining us and coming over to visit us one of these days. Seems he's dead set about helping us no matter what.”

“Must be because of his bird's death,” MC cringed as he shifted his body slightly. He had no idea how he was going to sleep tonight but he still had to try. “Well, if he wants to help us hunt, I have no qualms about it. I just hope he knows what he's getting himself into.”

===================================================

And Ikio did know what he was getting himself into. Now that he knew there was no chance at all of proving to anyone he knew that the monsters existed, Ikio had decided to get in on the action without the aid of the police. He would have greatly preferred knowing that the police got his back, but circumstances had worked against him.

Even before he walked into the Police Chief's office, he was already thinking up the excuses that he was going to give for taking extended leave. One thing he didn't foresee however, was getting rejected.

“No,” The Chief flatly refused to accept the form for extended leave that Ikio had placed on the table. “We're shorthanded enough as it is, Ikio. I'm sorry about your pet, but it isn't a strong enough reason for you to take such a long break from work.”

“How about this, Chief,” Ikio slammed his hands on the table, creating a sound loud enough to cause those outside the office to look at the two with curious eyes. “What if I said that this break wasn't because of Okuu, but rather, because I know what's causing these disappearances? What if I told you that I'm going to put a stop to them personally, but in order to do that I must take leave away from the station?”

“So you're saying you have a lead then?” The Chief raised a questioning eyebrow. “Then why can't you just tell us what it is?”

“Because it sounds baloney, and you will never believe me. Not one bit,” Ikio was sure about this part. He had seen the way the Chief scoffed at all the reports about monsters, and the way he disregarded them.

“Try me.”

“There are giant monsters rampaging out there, and we potentially have a crisis at our hands. If we don't stop them soon, they are going to wipe this entire city out.”

“You know what, I think I will approve your leave after all.”

Ikio smiled. He knew that would enough to get him the approval he needed. Placing his badge and gun on the table, Ikio turned to leave the room, only to be stopped by the Chief. He straightened his overcoat before turning, beads of perspiration going down his forehead. He hoped the Chief wouldn't change his mind at the last minute.

“When will you be returning?”

Relief rushed through Ikio as the Chief asked a question Ikio had been prepared for. He answered it quite fluidly, simply saying the words out as they appeared in his head with a grin on his face. “As soon as the monsters are all gone.”

The Chief snorted in response, and gave a gesture of dismissal with his hand. Ikio had no doubt the Chief thought that the stress had finally made him break. As the detective passed by one of his friends inside the station, he gestured the man over.

The man was well-built, and was a few centimeters taller than Ikio. His crew cut made his appearance as a model officer all the more convincing, and the sharp brown eyes with his matching hair color made quite a handsome face. Ikio had met Collin not too long after joining the police force, and both men had always treated each other with mutual respect.

They had been partners in several cases, and in each they had watched each others backs. There was one specific incident in which Ikio had very nearly been knocked down by a car, and if Collin had not been there to push him out of the way he would have been hit without a shadow of doubt. That was the reason Ikio knew he could trust Collin, unlike some other people with whom he had the misfortune of working together with.

“Collin,” Ikio leaned in closer to the officer, not wanting to be overheard. “Let me know if any weird reports come in.”

“Weird reports?” Collin's voice boomed loudly, and Ikio flinched visibly. He forgot how loud Collin could be at times. Thankfully, a quick glance around showed that no one had really paid any attention to them. Collin lowered his voice as he showed a genuine face of apology. “What do you mean weird reports? Where are you going?”

“I won't be in for quite a while. Business,” Ikio kept his explanation simple. As much as he trusted Collin, Ikio had a hunch even his good friend won't be able to believe him if he told him the truth. “As for the reports...well, anything you deem unnatural, you tell me about it. You can at least do that much, aye?”

“I suppose,” Collin winked, knowing better than to grill Ikio about where he was going. “But you owe me lunch for this.”

“When this whole thing is over, yeah,” Ikio turned and headed for the door, one hand outstretched in a gesture of farewell. “See ya.”

-

Ikio arrived back at his apartment half an hour later, his eyes instantly drawn to the conspicuous packages awaiting his return outside the door. There were two of them, and they were placed neatly side by side, one of them clearly larger than the other. Ikio knew better than to shake them, for he already knew what was inside the smaller one. The larger one worried him slightly though, and Ikio decided to leave it in the corridor for the moment.

Sneaking a look into the abandoned corridor out of habit, Ikio opened the door to his apartment and placed the small package onto the floor gently. He opened it slowly, taking out the two firearms inside with great care.

The two pistols were delicately made, their designs a perfect mirror image of each other. Each had the image of a bird's wing imprinted on either side of the grip panel, purple in color and glowing faintly in the darkness of the apartment. Ikio frowned slightly; maybe the one who made the gun had heard of Okuu's death. The manufacturer did have connections with the police, after all. That was how Ikio got to know them in the first place. He released the safety lock of one of the handguns and opened his front door, pointing it at the door opposite him and firing without hesitation.

Scarcely a sound was made, and Ikio nodded with satisfaction at the results. He had specifically requested for guns that made minimal noise, and the gun he was holding was scored a perfect ten in the silent department. Grabbing a key from his nearby table, Ikio stepped out of his house and opened the door of the apartment which he had just put a bullet through. No one had lived in it for quite a long time, and the dust that had collected on the floor was proof enough of that. It was part of the reason Ikio had chosen to live in the rundown building : no one except him resided in it, which allowed him to pull off absurd law breaking stuff like this without anyone knowing.

Ikio estimated the trajectory of the bullet and moved through the apartment, a gaping hole through the wall telling him that he was on the right path. He went from the living room to one of the bedrooms, where another hole had been made. The bullet's power had dropped slightly at this point, and Ikio figured that it should stop at the next room.

His guess hit home, and Ikio stepped carefully into the room, avoiding the splintered wood of the closet that had been scattered all over the floor as the bullet went through it. Ikio brought his head closer to the closet and sniffed the air. There was the smell of gunpowder, and mixed into it, the unmistakable iron smell of blood.

He hurried back to his apartment and returned with a flashlight in less than a minute, worried that he might actually have hit someone who was hiding in the closet. Perhaps a teenager who was doing drugs had been hiding in the abandoned apartment. The place was a good spot for hiding after all. As Ikio's eyes followed the flashlight's beam of light and saw what the bullet had hit, he exhaled in relief. The bullet had killed something, but it wasn't human.

“Unbelievable,” Ikio looked at the dead rodent that was staring back at him with glassy eyes. The bullet had lodged itself into its head, bringing swift death to the animal. Okuu had always hated rats with a passion, and whenever one of them was scampering around the house foraging for food, the raven would always hunt it down and bring her talons hard onto the creature's head. For a moment, looking at the rodent killed in almost the same fashion, Ikio remembered what MC's PSP had said once again. This time, he felt that there may be a hint of truth in what it had claimed. “Maybe Okuu's spirit really still lives on. Maybe.”

Ikio stood up and returned to his apartment, stopping outside the door with his eyes focusing on the bigger box. He had only requested for the dual handguns, and nothing else. The large packaging made him slightly edgy; what if it was some sort of time bomb? Ikio quickly dismissed the notion, knowing that the person whom he had ordered the handguns from wouldn't attempt something like that. He observed the package again and again, speculating over what was inside. But there was nothing that gave what was inside the the box away, it was a simple cardboard box with no design whatsoever.

The suspense too much for him to bear, and Ikio teared the box open after a while. After shifting aside the protective layers of plastic, Ikio caught sight of an assortment of firearms inside, their black frames reflecting the pale rays of the moon that illuminated the corridor from outside. There was no point testing them; Ikio knew that while they were good, they would not be able to keep up with the handguns he had. They would serve as good backup weapons, though. A yellow note attached to one of the guns caught Ikio's attention, and he strained his eyes to read it in the darkness.

I

Thought you might probably want these after you specifically gave instructions for me to give you a a custom made handgun that was to be, in your own words, “as silent and deadly as my raven”. Since you only gave us such short notice and an even shorter deadline, I had to pull some strings and gather some people to help me in the process. Don't worry though, I supervised everything, so expect nothing but top notch material.

M

Ikio wondered if he had really requested for his handguns to be like that. He didn't even have any recollection of saying anything related to Okuu when he had made the phone call the other day. He looked at the guns inside the box, trying to imagine the look on a monster's face as it took a blast of lead into their faces. But Ikio knew he didn't really have to imagine for long.

He looked at the note once more, the 'M' at the end of it distinctly written in a unique curvy style. Ikio had met Max at a police station when he was younger, where Ikio had commented about on the gunsmith's newest gun and how impressive it looked. The gunsmith had approached him later in the day with a tinkle in his eye, asking the detective to visit him when he had time.

Ikio had agreed, and from his first visit he had been hooked on how amazing the process of gun making was. From that period of time on, Ikio had dutifully visited the gunsmith every week, watching the gunsmith create his weapons. Max offered tips on how to handle guns on occasion, and Ikio had put them to good use while he was in the force.

Then he had been placed on his mission overseas, during which he had bought Okuu. When he had returned from Japan after a few months, he was dismayed to find out that Max had decided to stop working on his profession. The gunsmith had said that he had earned more than enough to retire comfortably, but told Ikio that he would still accept requests from the detective should he need them.

It had been more than three years since Max had last made contact with Ikio, and the detective had been worried that his friend wouldn't be able to recognize him when he made the call to the gunsmith four days ago. But the same gruff voice he remembered as Max's had answered the phone, addressing him by his name by the second sentence. Ikio had been glad he wasn't forgotten, and after a bit of small chat, had stated his order to the gunsmith, explaining that he needed them for 'business'. Max had not questioned the detective, and simply accepted the request without much hassle.

Ikio carried the entire carton into his apartment, and as he laid it on the floor, another piece of yellow paper fluttered to the ground. The detective picked the note up and narrowed them, using the moon's light that shone in from the window to read it.

P.S : These don't come with bullets. Only the ones you ordered did. Use your own.

Ikio cracked a smile. “You bastard.”

[Kibagami]

AWESOMEZORZ

MOAR PLZ

THIS GOT ME ALL PUMPED UP TO HUNTTTTTT

AND READ MY STORY TOO PLZ

This post has been edited by Kibagami: 05 February 2012 - 06:40 AM