I want to thank Dark Fox Tailz, ripitupgenki, and Butterflygirl1234 for all of your feedback! I wasn't sure how this story would take off, but I'm really relieved you guys like it so far. I love humorous stories, but I've never written one so I wasn't sure if it would be comical enough (I'm not good at writing comedies). I hope to do more comical stories in the future since writing more serious stories like Delusions of the Heart can get kind of depressing. XD I'm done my rant now. Thanks again and enjoy!
This is set sometime between Gray Wolf's defeat and Naga's defeat.
Disclaimer: I don't claim to own Monster Rancher or the characters. I'm just a huge fan. Tecmo owns everything. I just own the plot.
For Granted
Chapter 3. A Pinch of Salt
Several pairs of eyes stared at one another as silence fell upon the forest. Not a chirp of a bird or a snap of a twig was heard as the staring continued. This awkward, nervous, and downright annoying silence had been hanging above the still campsite for over an hour now. The silence was suddenly broken by a loud cough admitted by the ill brunette girl who slept restlessly in the middle of the camp site with a large rabbit monster lying next to her.
"Alright, we need to think of something fast."
"You go ahead and do it."
"Me? No way! Do you want me touching your food with my tongue?"
"Alright then. How about you?"
"Me? Mocchi just a baby, chi. Don't know how, chi."
"Ug, what about you? Can you do it?"
"What part of I only have paws do you not understand? You do it!"
"Me? No way! I can't!"
"I thought you could do anything, Mr. Energy."
"Shuddup!"
The group sighed in frustration as they looked down at the ground. For over an hour the group had been arguing about who would do the cooking. It had sounded like a fun and exciting thing at first, but as soon as the rebels looked at all of Holly's spices, herbs, different sized pots, and several different kinds of silverware, the rebels were lost. None of them had any cooking experience at all and they didn't even know to make a basic stew. In other words; they were pretty pathetic.
"Come on, guys! Make up your minds and cook something! Holly's getting really restless." Hare called out to the rest of the group as they turned their attention to the rabbit monster.
"We know already!"
"Yeah! Shut up, Hare! You got the easy job!"
"Oooh! Tee hee! You're right; I do have the easy job! I get to lie close to a cute young lady while you guys do her usual choirs. That's what happens when you're a nice monster like me and volunteer." Hare smiled and nodded as the rest of the group sweated slightly. The group was still worked up over this unusual arrangement.
"Anyways," Genki said, trying his best to advert the group's attention away from the sly rabbit monster. "We need to cook up something fast. We've watched Holly cook like a billion times. It looks easy enough. It's just cutting up food and throwing it in water and waiting for it to cook."
"What should we… put in the stew?" Golem asked as the young boy pondered this.
"Um, let's use whatever we can find in the woods! Let's head out, guys, and get some grub!" Genki announced as the rest of the monsters agreed with him. "Golem, you stay here and make sure no Baddies come into the camp."
"I will… make sure Holly… is safe." Golem complied as he sat down near the edge of the camp to keep watch.
With that taken care of, it was time to find something to cook. Genki took off on his rollerblades with Tiger, Suezo, and Mocchi hot on his heels. After only several minutes, the group spotted some colorful fruits and berries.
"Alright! Let's take them all!" Suezo said with a grin as he began to fill up his handkerchief full of the new found food.
"Man, that was really easy! I wonder what takes Holly so long when she's out finding food. Maybe we should do this for now on!" Genki grinned victoriously as the group headed back toward the camp. Suddenly, another plant caught Genki's eye.
"Hey, are those potatoes?" The boy asked with a curious look as the other monster joined in.
"Yeah, they look like it. I'll dig them out, so stand back." Tiger said as he began to dig around the embedded plant. With strength like no other the wolf monster torn through the roots of the plant and ripped the potatoes out of the ground. He felt himself smile smugly at his victory as the other rebels watched in amazement at his speed.
"Great job, chi!" Mocchi praised as he poked one of the roots with the tip of his hand.
"Holly has some other vegetables back at camp that we can mix these with." Suezo said with a nod as he began to haul the fruit back to the camp with the other rebels in tow.
The rebels stared down hungrily at the berries they had picked, but they wanted to save them for their sick friend. When they returned to the camp, Golem was still in the same spot they had left him in.
"You found food… so quickly?" The stone monster questioned as he looked down at the arrangement of fruits.
"Yeah, it was really easy. You should try these red berries here. They're really sweet and refreshing." Genki smiled with a grin as the rest of the group also snuck several berries for themselves. They hadn't eaten all day, so their hunger was starting to get to them.
"No… thank you. I am good… right now." Golem refused politely. Genki shrugged before eating a few more berries as Suezo sorted through their findings.
"What kind should we give to Holly? We don't want her to choke." Suezo frowned as he looked down at all the different colored berries with slight confusion.
"These ones look pretty good, chi." Mocchi smiled as he pointed to a few light blue colored berries.
"Yeah, they do look good." Genki replied hungrily as he resisted the urge to eat the berries right there and then. Mocchi smiled and gave the blue berries to Genki to give to Holly. The group was pretty sure Holly wouldn't want to eat anything that came from Suezo tongue, no matter how close of friends they were.
With consideration not to be rough, Genki slowly knelt down to Holly's side as Hare was now asleep. He gently shook her arm as the girl flinched before her eyes slowly opened to meet his gaze. Her eyes were feverish and lacked the normal shine they always had to them, which Genki couldn't help but be worried about.
"…G…Genki…?" Holly weakly asked as Genki smiled sadly at her and nodded. In response, Holly returned his smile with a weak one before letting out a few coughs.
"Holly, you have to eat, okay? Then you can go back to sleep." Genki said softly as Holly nodded her head like a lost child. Seeing her like this was truly awful. The young boy pulled out the handkerchief that contained the berries as he slowly hand fed the ill girl, who was blushing the entire time. When she was finished, Holly gave him a weak and tired 'thank you' before her eyes closed and she was fast asleep.
With a yawn, Hare slowly woke up from his nap (he was quite tired after Genki's rude awakening that morning) to see the young boy kneeling next to Holly. A sly grin formed on his face as he let out a chuckle.
"So, Genki, you wanna trade spots with me?" He said with a wink as Genki flushed and turned his head.
"No! I was just giving her something to eat!" The young boy scowled in defense as he glared at the rabbit monster.
"Really? You guys actually cooked something? I'm impressed! Can I have some?"
"Eh, we didn't cook anything. We found some berries and what we think are potatoes."
"Berries? Are you sure they're safe?"
"Uhh…."
"Well, what color were they?" Hare asked the young boy with a hint of concern on his voice.
"The ones we ate were red." Genki replied nervously.
"Well, you're lucky that the red colored berries that grow in this region aren't harmful." Hare said with a nod. "So Holly had that kind, too? You know berries won't hold us over for long…"
"Holly had these light blue colored berries."
"Light blue? Are you serious?"
Genki suddenly felt the color drain from his face as he looked at the rabbit monster with fear. "What's that mean? Is Holly okay?"
As is responding to Genki, Holly let out a painful moan as she clutched her stomach. The ill girl let out a small whimper before turning over to Hare… and vomiting in the rabbit monster's lap.
"…Nevermind."
After the berry incident, the rebels agreed to throw out the fruit they had collected. It was better to be safe than sorry. Genki couldn't get over the feeling of guilt since he was the one who fed Holly the berries, while Mocchi felt guilty because he was the one who picked out those particular berries to feed the girl. Suezo felt guilty since he was the one who had picked the berries in the first place, and Tiger felt guilty because he hadn't been able to sense that the berries were harmful. Golem felt guilty because he hadn't been there to warn the group of the berries since he was quite good at recognizing different plants because of his time in solitude, and Hare just felt like crap because he had just been puked on. The group's mood was pretty down, and they were still hungry.
"Okay, we need to cook up something." Suezo said with a determined look.
"Yeah, but what, chi? None of us know how to cook, chi."
"We'll learn! Like I said earlier, if Holly can do it alone, then we'll have no problem with six of us." Genki smiled and gave the young monster a thumbs up.
Hare trudged off in a sour mood to go clean himself off while Suezo looked through the various cooking supplies Holly owned. How she managed to remember what spices were which and what utensil to use was beyond the eyeball monster's thoughts. In Holly's supplies bag was an assortment of different vegetables she had picked up before they headed through the forest including celery, broccoli, carrots (to Genki's horror), and peppers. It was enough produce to make a decent stew.
Suezo headed down to the creek to obtain some water for boiling while the other rebels began to prepare the vegetables for cooking. Although it was awkward and rather embarrassing, the rebels cleaned and cut all of the food as they felt fit. Golem finished cutting up the carrots as Genki built a roaring fire to cook over. Things were looking up for the group.
The water bubbles and hissed as it began to heat up over the burning fire, and all at once the rebels dropped what they had been preparing into the boiling water. Genki grinned as he watched the food simmer and the steam rise from the pot.
"That wasn't hard at all." The energetic boy said with a laugh as he took a seat next to Mocchi, who in turn jumped on the boy's lap and curled into a ball. Within moments the sweet cake looking monster was fast asleep.
"Yeah. That wasn't difficult at all." Tiger huffed as he let out a yawn before turning away from the group to catch up on his sleep.
"This whole time I thought there was a knack to this." Suezo said with a smug smile as he brought over Holly's bag of spices. "What should we put in the stew?"
Genki and Golem sweated with Suezo as they looked at the complicated and strange names of the herbs and spices Holly had obtained. Most of the spices none of them had ever heard of before.
"Uh, paprika?"
"Nutmeg?"
"Thyme?"
"Hey! Here's some salt. At least I know what that is. Oh! And this one says 'pepper' on it! I think we'll be set with these." Genki smiled as he took the two pouches and brought them over to the stew while still cradling Mocchi in his arms.
"How much… do we put in?" Golem asked quietly as the other two rebels looked at each other and shrugged.
"I bet one little bag of this is equal to one serving, so I guess we put the whole pouch in." Genki formulated as he untied both bags and poured them into the stew.
"Now that that's taken care of, I say we take a break." Suezo said with a nod as he hopped under the closest tree before leaning against the tree with relaxation.
"Yeah, all we can do is wait for the stew to finish." Genki said as he sat back down near Golem with Mocchi in his arms. His eyes felt heavy as he let out a yawn, and before he knew it, the young boy was asleep.
"GENKI! GET UP! GET UP!"
Genki sprung awake from the rude awakening by Suezo's ear shattering voice and in the process, dropped Mocchi onto the ground with a thud. Mocchi grumbled, but the penguin-like monster stayed asleep.
"Huh? What's going on?" Genki questioned as he instinctively put his roller blades on in case they were in for a battle with some Baddies.
"LOOK FOR YOURSELF!"
Genki turned in time to see the soup bubbling over and black steam beginning to rise from the meal. The young boy felt sweat form on his head as the soup released a huge gurgling noise.
"THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
"MY FAULT? WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THIS STARTED?"
"I..uh… I WAS BUSY! YOU FELL ASLEEP!"
"Suezo, we can still save the soup! Come on!" Genki yelled behind him as he ran toward his backpack. The energetic boy took out his towel and skated toward the soup before grabbing the handles of the pot with the towel and carefully taking it off of the fire. The fire began to blaze more and the fire quickly began to spread, however, and Genki could hear Suezo shouting to him before taking off.
Before the fire could move throughout the campsite, Tiger rushed in front of Genki and released a Blizzard attack. The fire slowly began to die down before it diminished completely.
"What happened?" Tiger demanded as he looked at Genki. Before Genki could reply, Suezo hopped back to the campsite with a pail of water. Seeing his efforts were for nothing, Suezo mentally sulked as he put the pail down.
"Before we say anything, just remember you were sleeping, too." Suezo said with a nod as Tiger sweated slightly.
"I… I was not!" Tiger growled as he sat down angrily.
"We saved the soup, so let's just relax." Genki reasoned as fanned the soup off a little with the lid of the pot.
"The soup… looks good." Golem said with a smile.
"Wanna try it first?" Genki offered as Golem nodded. Genki dished the soup into a small bowl for the rock monster to try, and Golem took it with a thanks. He slowly took a long sip of the soup before turning back to the other rebels.
"It is… wonderful." Golem praised with an upright smile.
"Alright! Let's give some to Holly then to help her with her stomach." Genki said with a sweat as he thought back to the berries. Holly had been getting sick every hour or so ever since she had eaten the berries.
Genki dished some of the soup into a bowl before bringing it over to the ill girl. The other rebels (except Hare, who was still cleaning up) circled around the girl in excitement (Tiger kept his usual cool look) to see how she would like the soup. Once again, Genki nudged Holly gently until the girl woke up. When Holly woke up, her eyes widened slightly and a nauseous feeling came over her just seeing Genki with another food product.
"Holly?"
"Ug… Genki…?"
"I'm glad you're awake! I'm sorry about before, but this will make up for it! We made you some soup! All of us, except Hare, helped make this for you." Genki stated proudly as Holly cringed slightly.
"Thank you, everyone, but… I'm not very hungry… right now…" Holly trailed off, trying her best to be polite and not to vomit again. The smell of the soup was absolute torture.
"You have to eat something, Holly! This'll give you strength!" Genki exclaimed, his voice having a pleading sound to it.
Holly stared up at Genki, and she gave out a defeated sigh. She couldn't say no to Genki's pleading look and she knew it would be the death of her someday. Her body was screaming for sleep and her eyes began to get heavier as she looked up at her friends.
"I'll… have a little…" Holly said with a shaky voice. She could see Genki's eyes light up with happiness as she took the spoon containing a single teaspoon of the stew as she brought it up to her lips. With one last glance at Genki, Holly swallowed the stew with one motion.
"Do ya like it?" Genki asked in excitement. His question was answered when Holly began to wheeze and gag involuntarily. The group looked at each other in confusion and panic as they began to run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Tiger was the fastest to react as he grabbed the pail of water Suezo had gotten earlier to put out the fire and ran to Holly's side. The wolf-like monster placed the pail into Holly's hands, and the girl instinctively brought the container up to her mouth and drank the relieving liquid. Water had never tasted so good to the girl. Exhaustion filled the brunette as she tiredly slumped back down into her sleeping bag, where awful food wasn't going to haunt her.
"…What happened?" Genki asked in confusion as he looked down miserable and guilty down at the food. "Golem said it was good!"
The rebels nodded to each other as they each took a spoonful of the stew and swallowed it. All at once, they all began to gag and spit it out as the scrambled to get to the creek for some water.
"AHHH! THE SALT! MY TONGUE IS GOING NUMB!"
"THE PEPPER! IT BURNS!"
Golem watched the rebels disappear from sight as he shrugged and took another sip of the stew. "Golem likes stew… and now likes cooking. Maybe I'll… open a restaurant… someday."
Somewhere in the distance, the sounds of gurgling and gagging could be heard throughout the forest for several hours.
This chapter wasn't all that funny, sorry! I was having trouble writing this since my brain is fried from studying for finals. XD Time for the Monster Rancher references! In the third season, you find out that while the group was separated that Suezo and Golem stayed together. During their travels, apparently Golem was their cook and he was awful. He loves cooking though, and in the episode after Golem, Suezo, Holly, Genki, and Mocchi reunite and Suezo tells them their tale about what they've been up to for the past year, Holly and Golem talk about cooking together. Far later in the series when Most lends the rebels his Iron Bird, while heading to the shrine to unlock Holly's father, Golem talks about wanting to open his own restaurant in Holly's hometown. Holly likes the idea, but Suezo is rather disturbed. XD The other reference is Genki's hate for carrots. I forgot what episode it is in the third season, but Holly cooks a stew with carrots in it. Genki reels back with disgust because he hates carrots, and Holly looks pretty hurt. Immediately Genki starts to stuff his face with the stew and say how much he loves carrots just to make Holly happy (thought there are waterfalls of tears falling down his face. XD). At the end of the episode, they go to a restaurant and Holly orders him this huge carrot dinner because she thinks he loves it, and he laughs at the irony of it. So cute! ^_^
RockyRoadSmith: Signing off! :3