Author's note: I forgot to add a disclaimer before, but I do not own monster hunter or any of the various monsters in the games. I also re-wrote the chapter using a different perspective since I really didn't like how the first person was playing out. Read, review, criticize plz and thanks
Nightmares and Realities
Wet leaves brushed against my Basarios armor as I sprinted through the jungle. Even the humid air seemed to slow my steps as my lungs began to burn from the long run but I refused to let something like fatigue slow me now. I gulped down a demon juice and took slight relief as the burning faded from my legs. He couldn't be that far ahead of me now, I'd only been out for a few hours. I broke through the trees to come to an out cropping that overlooked the jungle with a drop off about a hundred feet to the jungle floor. There he was in his ceantaur armour, surrounded by raw meat, gun powder and seven red barrels which I knew were filled with the old man's prototype powder. But any anger I felt towards the old man faded as my eyes drifted towards the perimeter of my little brother's suicidal set up. Two Kushala Daoras patrolled the perimeter waiting for his shock traps to fail. They seemed intrigued by the mad hunter's set up. His eyes must've seen the movement from the top of the cliff, signaling my arrival. I hear him shout defiantly "I'll show you cowards what it means to be the sixth No Life King, and the glory that comes with it!" My wordless scream is lost in a wave of heat as I watch my little brother swing his Bullhead hammer down for the last time, acting as a flint to create the spark which would grant him his glorious death.
Michael opens his eyes. The sun was just barely beginning to peak over the mountains to the east of the village. It had only been three years since that night, but to him it felt like a millennia ago. The ex-hunter goes to stoke the fires of the bakery and put the first batch of rolls into bake. He can hardly remember what his sword used to feel like, the only blade he'd had held since that night was a bread knife. This was his life now, a baker. He is dressed in simple villager's clothes with a baker's apron on over them. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for his right forearm, constantly bandaged from wrist to elbow hiding his mark of shame that was once his greatest pride. A"3" tattooed down his forearm, designating him as third best hunter of the No Life Kings, the rebel group that had risen to challenge the guild five years ago and ignited a war. At least it had been a three when he'd seen it last, almost three years ago. How different things were now. The smell of bread beginning to burn catches his attention; he makes a mental note to forget the nightmare at least for the time being, after all he'll have enough time to think on it when he goes to bed, he has it every night.
*Ding* The bell from the front of the bakery rang. "What can I get for you?" Ugh, Natty Edgecombe. The local governess, Natty could claim some distant bloodline to the royals, so her family was able to get away with calling themselves as such, and lording it over the people of the village as much as possible. "You know Raphael returns from his first hunt soon, and I want a magnificent cake to commemorate the occasion." Raphael Edgecombe, the worst example of a child buying his way into being a hunter. With his parent's financial and political influence he was coddled in his training and had a suit of azure Rathalos armor for his first hunt along with an Eagle cleaver longsword to top off the ridiculous farce being called his first hunt, oh and of course a paid escort of three experienced hunters. His parents claimed you simply couldn't be too careful; after all he was hunting a Blagonga. Pfft, most seasoned hunters don't approach the giant ape beast as casually as Raphael does. But none of that was Michael's concern, not anymore, he was a baker, he figured if he just kept reminding himself that one day it would stick. If the only beast he saw till the day he died was a popo then that suited him just fine. "Alright, fill out the order form and leave it on the counter, I'll send word when its done." Michael left Natty standing there dumbstruck by his boldness, most of the villagers had been accustomed to her prattling on about how her son was going to "bring home the big one." He was in no mood to pacify her ego, after taking the rolls out of the oven and replacing them with another batch he went back to pick up the abandoned order form. The village was busy bustling with activity now, vendors had set up shop, the blacksmith was hammering away and children were running and playing only as children could. Michael's gaze rested on a young girl of about sixteen or seventeen, with long black hair down to her waist, she was athletic and pretty. She was demonstrating striking techniques with a sword and shield made from monster bones to a group of young children, mostly around the ages of seven or eight. They all watched completely riveted, she had good form, a natural, too bad. Her family was dirt poor; it had taken her two years to save up enough for that Bone Kris. The village would be better off bankrolling her training, Instead of indulging the whims of a seventeen year old infant. He takes one more deep breath and heads to the back to work on Raphael's cake, and then his perfect plan to lay low till the day he dies gets turned completely upside down.
Whenever people recount tales of great battles no one ever mentions that moment where everything goes quiet, where you make that split decision to act, probably because so many people regret it. A cross between the thud of an Aptonoth dropping from a two story building, and the crunch of bones cracking was what came just before that moment of quiet. Michael ran from the back of the bakery, abandoning Raphael's cake mid-decorating. It was like a scene from a nightmare. There, in the middle of town, sitting in a crater, was a Blagonga. Standing twelve feet tall, forearms rippling with enough muscle to tear a man in two, it resembled a baboon, a very large and angry baboon. Two foot long whiskers protruded from each side of its face, well there should have been two this one had lost its left whisker, and recently by the looks of it. As a matter of fact, this Blagonga was wounded in a number of places, its tail had been severed at the base and there were multiple stains on its fur from repeated paintballs. But perhaps its greatest wound was on its left back leg where a piece of longsword was protruding from his hide at an odd angle. Why would it be here? Blagonga never venture down the mountain, even to its base let alone the village itself. Then it hits him, the multiple wounds, the labored breathing. This is Raphael's Blagonga, it was too injured to hunt, so it had come to the place where the pickings were easiest: the village. That's when people started screaming. Some fool farmer thought his scythe from the field would be enough to finish the beast but only served to get him killed. As the Blagonga stopped to enjoy its meal, Michael turned and started to walk to the back of the bakery. This isn't my fight, I'm a baker. No one would blame me for letting this run its course and waiting till it was over, worse comes to worse no one survives and I move to a different town out in the boonies. Then a sound that chills the bones of even the most seasoned of veterans came to his ears, the screams of children.
They were huddled behind the girl with the Bone Kris, she was shouting for them to run but they were frozen with fear, able only to scream. The girl set her face into a determined scowl, and set her feet for the standard defense formation. Idiot, there's no way she can take a charge from the beast with no armor and that child's toy for a weapon. Remember that moment of quiet I told you about? Well Michael got another one right here. He saw the Blagonga perk up at the sound of an easier meal than the one it already had, less than fifty yards away, he saw the girl determined to die for someone else's children, and then he felt the baker's knife in his hand, good for one strike at best, it was made for cutting through bread and pastries not hide and bone after all. Michael flips the blade in his hand, switching to the backhand style and sprints the short distance to the clearing where the girl had been practicing with her sword. She looks at him with surprise and wonder. Michael chuckles to himself; he can only imagine what he looks like. She probably takes me for another overly-courageous villager about to die for nothing more than to fill the belly of a beast. He re-grips the blade in his hand, going over the suicidal plan in his head one more time; I only get one shot at this. The corkscrew moonsault was a complex maneuver, having said that: Michael had always hated this move; it was flashy, almost useless in combat and very, very stupid. It all came down to timing, jump too early and the Blagonga would smash right through him as he fell back down, jump too late and he'd be bulldozed before he made it off the ground. But if he timed the jump and rotation of the spin just right, Michael would end up right behind his skull just as his head passed under him. Monster anatomy is similar to humans in some aspects they have a brain, a spine, and organ systems. Take any one of these out and they go down. At the base of the skull is a two inch sweet spot in between the skull and beginning vertebrae of the spine. That's what the moonsault is for, putting your blade into that two inch sweet spot. Like I said; stupid. Breathe in, breathe out, Michael tries to steady himself as he starts his charge. One hundred feet, Michael sees the beast's speed and adjusts his to compensate so they'll meet at exactly halfway. Fifty feet, breathe, I've done this before. Twenty feet, jump.