H.O.T.P: Highschool Of The Primeval

Written by; The-Confused-Blue-Dragon

Prologue…

Calm.

That was the best non-inappropriate term for the night time air that hung over the quiet and still rows of trees standing beside the gates to a large collection of buildings that made up Tokonosu Elementary. The gates, normally locked shut to prevent intruders from getting in, were swinging slowly in the gentle wind. The street lights that once lit up the road were mysteriously knocked down, like trees that had been blown over in a raging storm. A section of the tall fence that marked the boundaries of the school premises, next to the freely swinging gates, were wrecked: something big had broken through it as if it was a flimsy piece of paper.

But all was not right, for an occurring phenomenon had, without warning, threatened to change the course of life on Earth forever…

…In which humanity's very existence now hung in the balance.

FLASHBACK…

Three teenage school students, two boys and one girl, were running for the safety of a raised section of building atop the roof, their heavy panting concluding that they had run a fair distance to get here, their sudden presence disturbing a large group of strange aerial creatures, making them all take to the air once again in the same manner as a flock of birds evading a predator.

And for good reason; a pack of ten or so dark green coloured four-legged reptilian creatures, serpent-like with fairly long necks and very long tails that made up a half of their entire length, and a virtually identical body structure to a large cheetah, was hot on their heels and closing in rapidly, the odd one or two literally flanking the three students.

The raven-haired boy, armed with a baseball bat, just managed to spot one of the carnivorous creatures bounding for him out of the corner of his eye.

Luckily, he was in the correct position to hit back, and as the animal was just milliseconds from his face, the force of the swing sends the reptile flying away to one side with a painful yelp.

The trio kept up the pace, their adrenaline-fuelled bodies strained their muscles under intense pressure to escape to safety and avoid becoming a meal to these alien predators.

"Hurry!" The dark-haired boy calls out, another of the creatures blocking his path only to get struck out of the way with his bat, his two companions narrowly dodging another as it pounced after them after scaling the wire-mesh fence next to the stairs, hitting the wall with a hard thwack.

"Hisashi; you okay?!" The first boy called to his injured companion, but was totally oblivious to the third taking up a defensive position between the injured boy, now known as Hisashi, and one of the predators on the staircase.

She primes her staff towards one of the creatures at the bottom of the stairs, her weapon custom made from a broom handle with the snapped off end twisted into a sharp point like a spear, and with a brief war cry she jabs her staff into its left shoulder, the animal howling in agony at the sudden strike and flailing about like a hooked fish.

The girl's black-haired companion looks back to see her trying to fend off the creatures, "Are you nuts?!" He yells in frustration.

"Say what?!" She snapped back in response, her attention no longer on the wounded reptilian beast.

Taking this as an advantage, the carnivore bites its jaws onto the girl's staff, yanking the weapon out from where it struck its shoulder, the girl's hands still firmly gripping the weapon.

Feeling the sudden violent movement, she realises her dilemma and tries to regain control of her only means of defence, only to have the animal yank it out of her hands and hit her back in the abdomen with the staff, the girl flying into the wall from the impact.

The sudden pang of pain made her fall on her rear, her weapon having been tossed back on her lap by the creature as she held her stomach in anguish. The deep throaty growling to her left caught her attention and looks up at the creature, already wounded from her retaliation, and now angrier than ever as it now launched itself at her with terrifying speed, the girl just about managing to grab her spear before it could snap its jaws with her head in them, her staff caught in both its jaws and paws as the beast pressed its weight against her in a fit of animalistic rage.

The dark-haired boy's eyes went wide in shock, and as well he froze on the spot as the monster ploughed itself into the girl.

Then his bat was yanked out of his hands by Hisashi as he raced by, "Rei!"

With the creature still ramming its full body weight into Rei, unaware of Hisashi rapidly approaching from above the stairs with the bat at the ready, yet by the time the rabid creature realised Hisashi it was too late; Rei's rescuer slammed the baseball bat into the reptile's back like a hammer ramming a nail into a piece of wood, the creature throwing its head back with a howl of intense pain that now coursed into its spine.

For the beast, it was a bad move to make; Hisashi swung the bat again, this time from below as if hitting a homerun, his weapon hitting the dark green creature under the jawbone and sending it flying back into its pack-mates below, sending off a domino effect of flailing bodies and shrieking caterwaul snarls.

Rei, having covered her face with her arms, looks up to see Hisashi standing over her as the carnage continued at the bottom of the staircase, "… Hisashi!" She sighed in relief, and climbs back up the stairs.

"Did you see that?" Hisashi mentioned to the other two, "Hitting them beneath the lower jaw's the only way to kill them." He explained, but saw all the creatures, including the one that Rei wounded earlier, stirring and groggily getting back up onto their feet after an unexpected tumble down the stairs.

"Perhaps I might be wrong…" He added to himself.

Another one of the reptilian predators pounced onto the guard rail with a shrieking snarl, making the trio jump in surprise. But a roundhouse kick sends the creature tumbling down the stairs in a blurred flurry of limbs, back into the rest of its pack and knocking all of them off their feet, like a bowling ball hitting a strike.

The raven-haired boy covers Rei and Hisashi as they pass through; his arm wrapping around Rei's neck for support as his counterattacks, plus his long run from the monsters, had sapped a large amount of energy.

He looks back at the pack of monsters, now in the middle of a vicious squabble that would most likely resemble a heated argument.

"What the fuck…" He said in thought, it wasn't until just a half-hour ago that everything went mental; first the phone-lines no longer working, completely unknown reptilian animals of all shapes and sizes running loose in and on the school premises, enormous beasts that easily towered over some of the nearby terraced houses, and aerial creatures nearly blocking out the late afternoon sunlight.

This was serious, very serious.

If this was happening in Japan, it would be likely that this sudden invasion would be taking place throughout the entire world.

"WHAT THE FUCK'S GOING OOOOOOONNNN!"

The shadow of an enormous aerial creature slipped by the small group of three, the beast's sharp keen eyes locking onto the source of the scream as it soared overhead the school, a deep throaty growl escaping its jaws before the creature flapped its enormous wings, having decided to look for an easier meal elsewhere.

To be continued…