AN: I started watching hunter X hunter 2011 while writing OK? Good. Now shut up.
January fourth: Russet
Dolle harbor was a nice enough town, small, lots of friendly people, ect. The only problem I could see was circumstantial. That being, with the number of hunter wannabes passing through, the prices for food and survival equipment had quintupled. I mean, sure, that damned R.O.B. Had left me more than enough money for me to afford it, in fact I could probably buy the whole supermarket without the number of digits going down, but it was still a lot of money!
Now before we continue, I feel it would be best for me to introduce myself. My name is . . . classified.
Oh come on, you thought I'd actually tell you? Ha! No way. Besides, I'm in a world were psychological powers are the main weapon of . . . well, anyone of note, meaning the saying "names have power" is now literal.
So, I go by an alias. Russet Roulette. Russet, because it's my eye colour, and Roulette because I have a tendency to let my choices be decided by chance, flipping a coin, roiling a dice, ect. And roulette is a gambling game. That and the whole thing sounds cool.
I am a white male, a little under six feet tall. I have curly, golden brown, shoulder length hair, that I am a little vain about. I was wearing glasses, a maroon turtle-neck shirt(made of rather thin material) and black dress pants. I had simple white running shoes over black, knee height socks.
Around my waist I had my black, waterproof, spring jacket, covering the back of my legs down to the knees like a half-skirt. On my back, a oversized backpack, with a collapsible mountain bike and a metal cylinder is attacked to the back.
I am rather thin, with little visible muscle. Considering my family, I'm confident I could build some noteworthy muscle, but I am a rather lazy person, who only began to seriously train when I found myself in this world, back in May. Now, I've been training for eight months, and it is January. The fact that I heal faster, and thus build muscle, faster here do to anime logic also helps.
"What a pain." I groaned aloud as I walked down the street, adjusting my bronze, circular glasses, (Which had often caused my younger sister to jokingly call me Harry Potter). I was looking for some sign of the hunters exam, which technically started in three days.
By asking the locals, I found that people had been showing up for weeks before arrival, about two days ago. I have been . . . running surveillance(Read: wandering around aimlessly hoping for luck) since then.
Now before you ask, I had watched the show, but I haven't read the manga, or watched the older anime, so I don't know what continuity I'm in, assuming their are any differences early on.
A good moto for things like this is "hope for the best, prepare for the worst." So, I was going in acting like everything I already knew was wrong in the first place, and done my best to be ready for anything.
Of course, I wasn't going to ignore what I remembered, so I have placed tracking devices I had bought from a rather shady arms dealer in an even shadier city(more on that latter), on people getting on the the bus.
It was somewhat annoyng to have to use them for that, But, I did get forty, and they have an effective range of over 100 kilometres, so I guess they're worth it . . . it being the price of a sports car.
Sure enough, according to my monitor, none of the buses actually got to were I estimate Zaban city to be(the tracking devises show were they are relative to your own position, so it wasn't exact). Thus, I was trekking through the port town, trying to find a path to the hunter exam. After all, magical creatures or no, the Kiriko couple can't be the only way to the exam . . . can they? That would require that each of them fly well over a hundred examiners to the city over sixty kilometres away!
Of course, if I remember correctly, returning examines get a free pass there but still that couldn't be . . . I suppose I'm bothering you with all of my paranoid thinking!
If I don't find anything my tomorrow I'll just head for the big tree. Hopefully I can pass whatever the test is. If its the same old kidnapping bit Gon faced, I'm in trouble. Theirs no way I could run down a Kiriko . . .
January fifth: Russet
Sitting in the middle of the road, was a man in robes, playing the flute. Now, considering the shear number of colourful individuals I have passed by in the passed two days, I would have normally just walked passed him. however the army of snakes slithering around him were taking up the whole road, preventing my passage. What, I didn't mention the snakes? Oops.
"Ahem!" I coughed, hoping that I could catch his attention. I sighed in annoyance when he didn't react. "Excuse me!" I spoke as loud as I could without outright yelling. That made him open his eyes. "Would you be so kind as to have your snakes make a path? I need to get to the other side of town and your blocking my short-cut." I explained as polity as I could in the scratchy tone of voice I had taken on in recent months.
He starred at me unblinkingly for a moment, before rising to his feet. After a moment every serpent in sight(and few who weren't) slithered towards him, up his legs, and into his robes, disappearing from sight. He turned and walked away.
'How did he fit what had to be twice his weight in snake under . . . I'm just going to go with "Anime Logic" and be done with it. Not that I have a right to complain, considering all things I've hidden in my back pack, and the weapons hidden under my jacket . . .'
That little episode dealt with, I continued on my way. Yesterday evening, I had overheard about some people who looked like they were taking the exam disappearing after going down a certain back street. This wouldn't have caught my interest, if it wasn't for one thing.
One of them was describes as a girl having mint green hair and a big hat. That sounded like Ponzu, who is supposedly going to be at the exam. There's no guarantee it was her, but better safe than sorry.
After asking around about the street, I found that some people who frequented a restaurant nearby that there was an open sewer pipe down that street, that had been closed and bolted last week. Apparently a few of them hand nearly fallen down the hole because of how suddenly it was removed. Of course, the lid could have just been stolen, but who steals a man-hole lid?
Turning down another alleyway, I came upon the run down restaurant that was one of the landmarks I was working off of. Now, I go to the end of the street and turn left. The sewer pipe should be at the end of the street with the bent-in-half stop sign.
At the end of the street, was a open man-hole cover. I could see how you could fall in, the tall building here make this alley somewhat shady, so the fact that the lid isn't obvious if you aren't looking for it.
Staring down into the darkness, I reached into my oversized-back-pack and pulled out my head-lamp, setting it to the second of its four settings(candle, flashlight, searchlight, and AGH!MYEYESYOUBATARD!) and a pair of rubber coated work-gloves. Putting on the gloves, climbed down the somewhat rusty ladder, glad for the added protection.
At the bottom, I saw a sewer right of tmnt, a long maze of brick tunnels. The sewer appeared to be a bit cleaner than you'd expect, and I have no sense of smell to speak of, so I can't judge the smell, making it more pleasant that you'd expect of a sewer, but after ten minutes of wandering, I had found no signs of anyone passing through. Unless you count the fact that the cement floor is clean enough that I think it must have been swept clean in the past month. For instance, to prevent footprints . . .
Turning down the tunnel on the right, I was nearly ready to turn back. Even if there was something down here, I wasn't going to be able to find it. Not with my . . .
"They went left, the other way." The sudden voice caused my heart to skip a beat. Turning on my heel, I slipped my hand under my jacket, once again around my waist, and grabbed the handle of the revolver hidden there. Standing in front of me was the snake charmer from earlier, a snake coming out from under his collar, seemingly tasting the air.
"What?" I asked him, fighting down my raised heart rate and doing my best to keep my surprise from showing visibly. Luckily, my sister had all but desensitized me to minor surprises like that years ago, so it was rather easy to control.
In response to my question, he tipped his head in the opposite direction I was heading. "My snakes say that the scent is coming from the other way."
I looked down that direction, seeing nothing I could see to indicate that someone had passed through. But their was never any physical evidence in the first place, not that I could find, so I suppose that isn't surprising. "Ok." I said, turning the way he had indicated.
As I walked passed him, he gave me a slightly curious look. "Your going to trust me?"
"I didn't here you coming, and I doubt I could beat you in a straight fight even if I had." I responded. "So, you could have killed me, or knocked me out if it was your intention to harm me, and could force me to do whatever you wanted if you needed me to do something, as I wouldn't be able to fight back. Might as well trust you. Worst case scenario is your using me to test for traps I would have tripped anyway." I felt my explanation went all over the place, but it seemed to satisfy him, so I turned back to the tunnel and walked.
Now that I was actually searching for the snake charmers presence, I could register that he was following me, a side affect of spending six months living in a city that you could easily describe as "New Gotham" if you wanted. It was just another sign I wasn't in on earth anymore, this "presence" I seem to feel. Even now, I could tell he was roughly ten feet behind me, and a little to the left, slowly getting further away, as his stride was shorter than mine. I paused every time he got more than fifteen feet behind me, and didn't start walking again until he was withing seven feet.
While we were walking("my snakes say turn left at the next bend") I had my hand lightly wrapped around the concealed knife/lighter(Switchblade hidden in a lighter) hidden in my pocket, just in case, making sure that my grip was light enough the it wasn't obvious.
As we came to the next turn, the snake man stopped. "The trail ends here." he said.
I came to a stop as well. Thinking over his words for a second I looked around for a doorway or other such exit. Nothing. Seeing as their was no definite exit, I began stomping lightly, looking for a hollow sound. If the scent train ended here, there must be a way out from here we can't see.
After about half a minute of stomping and rapping my knuckles on the walls, I found a spot of concrete that made a different sound when I stomped. I crouched down, and saw that the cement on the edges of the bricks didn't actually connect to the other bricks. Pulling out my pocket knife(no, not the switchblade, just a normal pocket knife) I slipped the blade into the crack.
After a few seconds of wiggling around, I managed to fit my fingers under to lift the bricks, a whole three by three foot area of floor coming up, revealing a dark passageway. Looking to my companion, I asked. "You want to go first, or should I?" Rather than answering, he walked over and jumped down.
After he jumped, I counted to three and said. "You out of the way yet? I'm coming down in a second." I waited one second, then jumped down.
I huffed when I hit the bottom, and came into a role to cancel out my momentum. I'd say that was a twenty foot drop, and my legs didn't like the strain, even if they wouldn't break, as the ground was soft. Standing back up, I saw that the snake-man was already heading down the tunnel. I followed at jogging pace.
We had been walking down the dirt tunnel for over an hour now,and I was certain that we were at least a few miles beyond city limits by this point. Me and the snake charmer hadn't spoken in all that time, and that was perfectly fine with me. My mouth only had two settings, silent, and blather.
It was after this thought passed through my mind that I noticed that the light seemed to have changed. Curious, I switched off my light. Sure enough. "Hmm, theirs a light up ahead of us."
The snake charmer actually snorted, before saying, "I noticed."
At the end of the tunnel, we found a large room, with several pieces of mining equipment scattered about.
"Well, I wasn't thinking I'd get any others after that last group, but you've proved me wrong." a thick french accent spoke from above us. Said voice started the snake charmer nearly as much as me if the way he stepped back was any indication. The voice originated from a hole in the roof, from which a head was sticking out. Looking at the speaker, only one though came to mind. 'Is that Mole form Atlantis!?'
Sure enough, there he stood, in all his chubby, dirty, unshaven, buck-toothed glory, goggles adorning his face zooming over us like a chameleon.
"I suppose I should say hello." he spoke, dropping down from the cealing. "I am Gaetan Moliére, mineral and ancient ruin hunter, and the one who will decide if you get to take, the hunter exam!" he exclaimed dramatically in his accented voice, Goggles zooming in on us, before pausing as they zoomed in on my hands, and he waddled over to me, taking a closer look. "You wash your hands to often, their is no dirt on it more that four days old." he looked at me and snarled. "I don't like you."
Yep, mole.
"And how", the snake charmer asked, "will our right to entry be determined?"
The mole-man snorted. "Well I wanted to have the test be identifying different kinds of dirt and rock from around the world, but nooooo, the chairman said that only I would be able to pass such a test," he snarled in a complaining voice, before his look turned into a smirk. "So, we will just have to play a little game of tag, instead. You, are it!" With that, he jumped straight up, back flipped, and tunnelled down into the earth with an explosion of dirt that flawlessly filled the hole in after he disappeared, all but erasing the signs of his passing.
I turned to the snake charmer. "Why do I get the feeling this is going to turn into a big game of whack-a mole?" Well, what do you know, captain deadpan can smile.
AN: Over 2000 words in two days. Not that impressive, but it's my all time record! Is this what its like to write while in the middle of watching the anime? If anything, it's keeping me inspired. I mean, I know i've spoiled half the series for my self before i even started, but, well lets just say I can already tell hunter x hunter is a master-piece and be done with it. Lets see if I can get another chapter out before Sunday, my other stories(as short as they are) can wait!
Chapter edited on August 18th, 2018, at 11:37