The torrential rainfall could not drown out the cheery voices of hunters that echoed from the guildhall. Hunters and common folk gathered and told stories of the hunt over pints of whatever drink they chose; usually ale. The wooden floors creaked and the partially thatched roof leaked as the men and women sung their merry melodies. People danced and sang all the time here, rejoicing that they had made it back alive from the hunt, but tonight was different. Tonight they were celebrating the death of a particularly nasty Rathalos that had evaded capture and expiry on account of many hunting blunders. He was said to be cursed, or so the townsfolk chose to believe all too often. The hunters that had brought about his demise, after failing themselves twice before, were ignoring most of their admirers as they sat off to the side at their own table. Two of the hunters from their group had left the party earlier, but still two remained, and for the most part, the other people in the room left them to their business.

Children were not allowed in the guildhall, even on special occasions, but tonight a certain unwelcome local found his way into the building and through the crowds of familiar faces. In his tattered clothes he burst through the crowd and tripped forward, landing in front of the two hunters. He raised his head and gazed on in amazement at the magnificent colors of their armor. The man to the boy's right was equipped in a full set of Azure Rathalos armor as the scales shone blue and green in the dim lights of the bar, and what lay behind his seat appeared to be a matching gunlance with a shield. The woman on the other side of the table wore what looked to be Lagiacrus armor that fit her figure slimly, but it was white as snow. Two short swords with teethed blades leaned against the wall behind her. The two monster hunters turned their heads to face the boy at the same time and looked at him through their helmets.

"You guys look so cool." He said as he got to his feet. The man in the azure armor laughed a hardy chuckle and then looked behind himself. He grabbed a chair from the empty table behind him and placed it in front of the boy. He motioned with his hand for the youngster to join them, so he raised himself onto the seat and sat down. The man took his helmet off first and placed it on the table. His hair was long and straight, and a dark brown. When the woman took her own helmet off, it revealed frost white hair tucked back in a ponytail.

"What's your name, kid?" the male hunter asked.

"G-Gordon…" the child was obviously nervous, but not as much so as most people that the hunters had met – their weapons were intimidating after all.

"Well, Gordon, can I ask you were your parents are?" he said as he leaned his head against the wall lazily. The child answered with his head down as he twiddled his thumbs awkwardly back and forth.

"My parents are… dead." He said solemnly. The hunter was obviously taken aback by the sudden change in mood, but he retained his cool.

"I'm sorry to hear that…" he replied, almost not sure of what to follow up with. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, down to Gordon's level. "My name is Roderick, and this is Luca."

"Hi there!" she said sunnily. The child didn't know why, but he felt safe here, safer than he had been in a long time. Life on the streets had lowered his standards to the point where being surrounded by drunken strangers was safer than his usual company.

"What do you do to survive around here; a kid your age can't have a job." Roderick asked as he grabbed his drink.

"My older friends steal food for the younger ones… sometimes I have to help." He said as he looked at the hunter's face with sad, tortured eyes. Roderick knew he had to say something before things got too sad.

"What did your parents do for a living?" he could not think of much else to say.

Gordon's green eyes lit up, "They were hunters; like you!" he said cheerfully. Roderick laughed friendlily and positioned his hand beneath his own chin, supporting his head.

"Were they any good?" he asked.

"Of course they were good! They were some of the best hunters around. My dad even made his own armor!" he proclaimed his father's achievements with pride. Roderick couldn't help but be reminded of someone he knew, and he looked over to see Luca with her head down and her eyes blank in thought. "I bet you guys are awesome hunters!" Gordon said. He must not have known that they were the reason for the celebration.

Luca snapped out of her depression for a moment to laugh and remark on his naivety, "You could say that."

"And I bet you have tons of stories!" Gordon said as he pulled his chair closer and the legs creaked as they dragged across the wooden floor. Roderick slammed his mug down on the table and smiled as he leaned toward the boy.

"Stories?"

"Oh, great," scoffed Luca, "Now you've done it." She crossed her arms and leaned her chair against the wall.

"How much time do you have, kid?" Roderick asked.

"I have all the time in the world…" Gordon replied.

Roderick grinned a smile of pure sunshine, "Do you want to hear how we formed our first hunting group?" Luca pointed her fist at him.

"Dear GOD, Rod! If you tell this long ass story again, I'm gonna-!"

"Calm down, Luca. I'll keep it short this time."

"That's what you said last time…" she snarled. Roderick sighed and then looked at the child. Gordon had a look of amazement on his face; he would get to hear the story of real elite hunters.

"Do you want to?" Roderick asked.

"Sure, that sounds like fun."

"Okay, well…"

Monster Hunter:

Glory in the Chase

Our story begins twenty eight years ago in a small settlement south of Pokke village, a settlement with six houses as was usual for small mountain villages such as this. One day, the door to one of the houses opened, but as the red-headed owner of the house stepped out onto the porch, she realized that a small basket with a baby in it was just in front of her door. She picked the child up and looked into its eyes. The baby boy made an adorable sound that made her smile, and she knew that she would be taking care of it whether she really wanted to or not. She could not say no to that face. Every day she cared for the child and taught him all she could. The woman herself was a huntress of great prestige in the village and beyond, so the child grew up around weapons and mounted dragon heads on the walls.

Fast forward seven years and the child was already learning how to hold a blade three times his size. He couldn't yet swing a great sword, but he could hold it for more than a few seconds. The woman – her name was Sybil – had named her adoptive son Roderick in the hopes that he would become a great hunter. When on a hunt with her friends, two of them had died fighting off a raging Deviljho, but that was not the worst of it. Her two friends were lovers and they had left behind a seven year old girl named Luca; what else was she to do? She took the girl under her wing as well, and began teaching her just as she had taught the boy. The girl had long silvery hair that often fell into her face, but she refused to cut it still. One day, Sybil simply took a ball of yarn, grabbed Luca's hair, and tied it into a ponytail; Roderick just laughed at her as she tried to push her guardian away. The two children grew together, and formed a special partnership that was unexplainable. Many other children lived in the small village, but it wasn't the same kind of friendship. Luca had always been a tomboy, so the two often referred to each other as brothers, which confused others greatly.

The two of them befriended two other prospective future hunters, a boy and a girl. The boy was a smiley fellow that was almost always cheery, and the girl with bleach blonde hair was a shy, innocent girl whose father had pressured her into training. She wasn't a bad hunter; she just didn't have her heart or soul in the hunt. When she was around other hunters however, she seemed to perk right up and give everything her all. Time moved forward as it does, and for years the four adolescents trained for the day when they could finally hunt real monsters. Roderick was a fidgety character, he could never stick with one weapon, so he had spent day and night learning to maintain and use Great Swords, Gunlances, Long Swords, and after a few tries and accidently cutting his hand open, he even mastered the Switch-axe. Sybil was rightfully proud of her students, and her son.

Roderick was sixteen years old now and his friends and he were in the front yard of Sybil's house, waiting for her to return from her latest hunt.

"I think I've found my weapon of choice." Luca spouted with confidence as she tossed one of her blades in the air and caught it. Roderick was off to the side sharpening the blade of his gunlance with a whetstone.

"Hey, can you toss that over here when you're done, please?" asked Asher, the other boy on their team, as he brushed his black hair back with his hand. His long sword was tucked beneath his arm.

"If it isn't all used up, sure." Roderick replied lazily, slurring his words, as he focused on maintaining his weapon and nothing else. Cynthia, the other girl, was sitting in the grass beside him. She carefully cleaned each part of her bowgun with a soft cloth to a near mirror sheen. Her hands had a delicate touch of sorts that made everything of hers so much cleaner than everyone else's.

"Are you ready today Rod?" she asked in her usually soft voice.

"Yep, good to go…" he said, again ignoring all reality other than his weapon. He raised his weapon into the sky and it reflected the bright noon sun onto the grass. "Here." He said as he passed the stone to Asher and he began sharpening his own sword, after taking it out of its sheathe dramatically. Cynthia moved closer to Roderick and nudged his leg.

"Do you think she'll let us actually kill something again?" She asked to him. Before Roderick could answer, Luca interrupted.

"Don't count on it, may just be drills again." She said without much hope.

"I'm sure she'll let us kill a Giaprey at least." Reassured Roderick as he gave Cynthia a friendly smile. She blushed back and turned away as if to inspect her weapon. From the border of town, walked four people, three of them were hunters that they knew well – two men and a woman – and the fourth person was the village elder. He was an old man that was always dressed in heavy clothing with a long grey beard.

"Hey," pointed Luca, "Isn't that Sybil's hunting party?" the men drew closer and closer until they finally came to a stop in front of the four teenagers. Every one of them had a look of distance to them, as if they were not all there, as if they had lost something. And then Roderick noticed the helmet that the elder held in his hands, it was Sybil's. As well, one of the men held Sybil's custom bowgun in his hands and he put it down in front of Roderick and then whispered so only he could hear.

"I'm so sorry…"

Roderick held his sadness behind his glassed eyes, and even though his vision was watery he did not shed a tear. He got to his feet and approached the elder, slowly. Everyone watched as he grabbed the helmet and put it against his head; as if Sybil was still there in the helmet. "We won't give up." He whispered to her.

"I live for the glory in the chase!" she had always said to them. As his hands tightened their grip on the helmet, his hands bled from the tips of the scales digging into his palms. Cynthia grasped her mouth in surprise and gasped when she clued in to what had happened and her eyes began to water as his did. Asher and Luca stayed sitting, but lowered their heads in mourning. Roderick let his arms, and the helmet, fall to his side as his eyes stung.

"How… how did she die?" he asked as he continued to supress his emotions.

The man who held the bowgun stepped forward and grabbed the boy's shoulder. "We were getting rid of some Giaprey… when a Tigrex swooped down. None of us were prepared, and she suffered because of it." He let go of his shoulder, "I'm sorry…"

"It's okay… it's not your fault." Roderick replied. The village elder remained but the group began to walk away, when the man turned around again.

"You won't want to see the body…" he said. When the hunters had disappeared, the village elder sat down in the grass with the teenagers.

"What do you do now?" he asked.

"We're not old enough to hunt yet… right?" Asher reminded him. The elder looked up and shook his head, but then smiled through his thick beard.

"That is the official guild ruling, but I am allowed to make my own rules for my own hunters." He said. Roderick's eyes lit up.

"You mean we can hunt!?" he said with a yearning flame burning in his brain.

"If you get properly armored and you show me that you can handle the easiest assignments, then I shall grant you hunter status." The elder replied with his arms crossed staunchly. Roderick grabbed his gunlance and shield and hoisted them up before folding the lance and placing it on his back, clicking into place on its holster.

"We need better armor." He said. The village elder gave a deep laugh and then stood up on his rickety old legs.

"I'll talk to the armorer and see if he can do us a favor. One last favor for Sybil…" he said as he began to walk away.

Asher got to his feet and went over to shake Roderick's shoulders, "Are you crazy? We're not ready to take on monsters by ourselves!"

"Yes, we are! We can do this with the four of us, easy." Roderick retorted.

"Maybe we'll even get to kill that bastard Tigrex…" mumbled Luca below her breath.

"I'm not sure about this, Rod…" worried Cynthia as she gripped her bowgun and stared down at Sybil's weapon and then at the helmet beside it.

"We have to try and support ourselves, because without Sybil here we have to be our own teachers; not to mention that now it's just me and Luca in this house…" he motioned toward the well-made log house that they stood in front of. This was the only home he had ever known and now it really was his, it made him mournful but he remained strong regardless.

The hunters from Sybil's party had felt ashamed for not bringing her back alive, so they took it upon themselves to help craft some basic armor for the youthful hunters. They went exploring in the mountains day and night just to gather the materials that they would require. By the end of the week, there had been crafted three sets of blade master battle armor – two to fit men and one to fit a woman – and a gunner battle armor set. Armor sphere after armor sphere went into ensuring that their armor was as tough as it needed to be. On the day when they finally received the armor, the new hunters were overjoyed. Roderick rushed into the house and stripped down to nothing before slipping on his new attire and it fit like a glove in every area. Everyone looked like a real hunter then and it felt like they might be ready to go.

"If you make it back from this hunt," Said the male hunter, who looked remarkably like a samurai in his dark armor, "We have a gift for you." He teased. Roderick smiled and gave the man a hardy hand shake that was weighted heavily by their gauntlets. The three hunters left once again, and the village elder was again alone with this village's newest hunters.

"Do you want your first mission?" he asked with a smile. Roderick nodded sharply.

"Of course we're ready!" he said, without any input from his comrades. The village elder laughed a bit and then handed him a piece of paper. The look of confusion on Roderick's face made the elder giggle a little.

"Uh, this is a mission to hunt Popo, but we've already killed things as tough as Giaprey so why are you sending us out against these tusked fuzz balls?" Roderick said with disgust.

"It's your first hunt; you need something easy – besides, someone needs to collect food for the village." The village elder gave the anxious hunter a coy smile and a chuckle.

"Sigh… fine, let's get going guys!" he pointed off towards the village's hunting grounds as they prepared for the hunt.

It was early the next morning when they had finally arrived at their destination, a hunter's tent fit with a BBQ spit and a box of emergency supplies. Roderick sat his tired behind down on the four person bed and let out a sigh as he laid back. Luca walked over to him and gave him a Charlie horse right in the one place on his thigh that was not armored entirely. "Get up." She said.

Roderick sat back up and flipped her off, but she just laughed and spun her swords around in her hands like a baton thrower would twirl a baton to show off. Cynthia began loading her bowgun with ammunition so Roderick figured it was time for him to do the same. He unfolded his gunlance and then flicked it forward while depressing a button on its underbelly, which made the barrel collapse forward and the chamber where the ammunition was deposited to be shown. He put five rounds in the chamber and then flicked it back into place. Asher released his sword from its sheathe and began practicing his forms outside of the tent.

"I can't believe we're only hunting Popos." Roderick reminded them, bitterly. Cynthia shrugged.

"At least we're getting out of the village for once."

"Yeah, I guess…" he mumbled back.

"Are you sure Sybil would be okay with us hunting like this?" Questioned Luca as she sat in a foldable wicker chair.

"It's what she trained us for and it's what we're going to do." Roderick said with confidence. Luca continued playing with her swords.

"But she said herself that we weren't ready yet." She reminded him.

"Yeah, well who in the hell is going to teach us now? Hm?"

The room went dead silent for a moment. Maybe Roderick was being a bit too harsh, even if it was the truth of the matter. All of the other hunters were far too busy to bother training them like Sybil did. She had a dedication that none other could match, and a heart of gold.

"How many Popo do we need to kill?" asked Asher as he returned from his practice.

"If my math is correct then we should need to kill two, which should be enough meat." Roderick replied with his fist under his chin. Asher clapped his hands together.

"Alright then, when are we gonna get a move on?" he asked cheerfully and full of energy. The three hunters looked at him and Roderick scoffed.

"We only just got here. Take a seat and rest for a bit; we'll be setting out within the hour."