(A/N) Ok, I get that a worrisome trend is starting to form here, but if you're up to date with your xolef225 lore, you'll know that a Monster Hunter crossover is a long time coming.
"But Xolef, you can't update consistently worth shit! Why are you doing this to yourself? Go update Fear the Superhero or something, you unabashed attention-whore!"
That is also true. If it's any consolation, having more stories doesn't mean that I'm dropping any. It just means that I'm ready to suffer more.
My "trigger moment" for this fic in particular was the Monster Hunter Movie. To keep things concise, I didn't like it. As a result, I raged at the keyboard.
For any readers going in blind here, knowledge of the Monster Hunter universe is welcomed but not necessary to enjoy this story. As the movie highlighted quite effectively, there isn't much of a story there to begin with. Or rather, a plot. The richness of the world tells a story all on its own.
On the same train of thought, I'll be using the New World as a setting, but my interpretation of Monster Hunter: World's narrative progression will be about as loose as Medb's–
Never mind.
Moving on, I actually don't need to use a single OC here. You'd think that I'd run out of characters when writing a story-heavy fic about a not-so-story-heavy game, but pretty much every NPC has a backstory and a decently fleshed-out personality. Who would've thunk it.
If you'd like to take a shot at guessing which characters are which NPCs in the reviews, be my guest! I'll confirm the identity of all NPCs the chapter after they appear.
With that said, please enjoy, and please go easy on me for writing this instead of updating one of the gazillion other things I have going on.
Lol.
X
"Quite something, isn't it?"
Rin nodded absentmindedly. The entirety of her attention was captivated by the grandeur of the Carillion Observatory.
Although it was the oldest space in the college, its appearance was far from worn out. Not only was it massive, but the ornate tapestries that decorated the nine-meter walls didn't look aged more than a day despite being centuries old at the least.
Her teacher walked past her, the heels of his shoes clacking loudly against the marble floor. He beckoned her to follow with a quick wave over his shoulder.
"The mystery that I want you to investigate is this way."
The young woman took a deep breath before falling in step behind him. She appreciated the Wizard Marshall for taking her under his wing, but the apprenticeship was inherently dangerous.
Her academic thesis involved the study of the Kaleidoscope. If being a magus was to walk with death, then pursuing true magic was to jump off the side of a bridge and hope that wings would sprout from your back.
For the sake of her research, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg gave her "assignments" such as this one. He dragged her across the globe and had her analyse supernatural abnormalities with principles borrowed from the second magic. She wasn't able to decipher the craft itself without having accessed the akashic records, but understanding its applications wasn't necessarily beyond her.
It was mildly disconcerting to know that one such mystery existed beneath such an important edifice, but considering that it was built atop the grave of a dragon, it wasn't too surprising either.
"Ah! Rin. I found you."
Hm? That sounded like–
"Emiya," greeted the old magician before she could turn around. "It's a pleasure… as always."
The idiot was standing behind them with a small cloth-wrapped container in hand.
What was he doing here!? It was the middle of the day! Wasn't he on the clock as Edelfelt's glorified manservant right now?
Wait, no! Forget all that other stuff, the Carillion Observatory was off-limits to the general public! How did he even get in here?
"You didn't stop by for lunch today. Luvia gave me some time off to bring you something."
With a smile, he pushed the lunchbox into the startled woman's hands.
"The vice-director led you here, I suppose?" Zelretch surmised.
Shirou laughed uneasily. "Yeah. Miss Barthomeloi was kind enough to let me in."
Her again!?
Rin felt her temple throb but suppressed the visceral compulsion to accuse him of being an unrepentant philanderer. For the sake of her own mental health, it was best to let it go.
"Master Schweinorg, shall we continue?" she urged.
Zelretch brought a knuckle to his chin pensively. "Yes, of course. Would you like to join us, boy? You've already come all this way, after all."
His poor student almost choked on her own spit.
"Sure, if you wouldn't mind," the redhead agreed easily.
The old vampire ignored the not-so-subtle reactions of the girl next to him and led the pair to the back of the nave-like room.
A staircase materialized out of thin air. Unlike everything else in the observatory that could almost be considered modern, the new passageway wore its age proudly.
Seeing that the two younger magi were hesitating, Zelretch led them forward with a small push on their backs.
They descended, and Rin lit the way with a simple fire spell. After a decidedly abnormal amount of time, they had reached some sort of grotto.
The surface beneath their feet was no longer stone.
Shirou crouched and placed his hand flat against the floor. His brow furrowed.
"This is…"
"The Tomb of Albion," announced the Wizard Marshall. "You're standing on the skull of the dragon who serves as the literal foundation of the Clock Tower."
His follower and her plus-one reacted immediately. Rin went stiff as a board whereas Shirou pulled his hand off the bone surface as if it scalded him.
Paying them no mind, he illuminated the dark cave-like space with a flick of the wrist; a ball of light held itself motionlessly in the air above him.
A few paces forward existed what could only be described as a crack in the air. Whereas the stone walls and osseus matter caught the light, the crack refused to exist as anything but a strange puddle of darkness.
Zelretch planted a firm hand on his apprentice's shoulder.
"That is the gate through which the dragon hadn't been able to pass."
She gasped. "Is it still functional?"
"I would hope so, considering that I brought you here to begin with."
Crossing her arms, she followed up with another question.
"If the gateway never closed… then why wasn't the dragon able to make it through?
He pinched his fingers together. "I'd say that's an awfully small opening for something so large. Wouldn't you?"
"Oh, uh… right."
"For your own sake, I would like for you to carry out your investigation from a respectable distance. Neither of you should get any closer than this. Understood?"
"Of course, Master."
…
There was a telling lack of response from a normally-cooperative young man.
The woman and her teacher looked to the empty spot which had been previously occupied by one Emiya Shirou.
Then they looked back to the mystery in question which was now humming quite conspicuously.
That could only mean that he–
Oh no.
Rin's heart thumped painfully in her chest.
That didn't just happen. That did not just happen.
"Master," she hissed out. It took all of her strength to keep control of her voice. "Did Shirou just flounder his way into the reverse side of the world?"
"Of course not," Zelretch denied quickly.
Freed of her immediate distress, she let out a sigh of relief–
"After all, that gate doesn't lead to the Reverse Side."
X
Shirou gasped.
Panicking, he thrashed his limbs as he tried to force himself to his feet. The surface beneath him wasn't as solid as he expected it to be, so instead, he faceplanted right back into the earth.
…No. Not earth. Sand.
He was seeing double at first, but his vision corrected itself quickly enough. Even with his head flat to the ground, it was evident that he found himself beached at the shore of some sort of body of water.
The man groaned and tried to get up once more, only this time he did so more carefully.
Hm?
Wasn't he at the clocktower just now? With Rin and…
His thoughts came to a complete stop once he realized that he was face to face with some creepy-looking animal.
"Ah!"
Acting on instinct, he backpedalled a few feet and readied his hands for a projection.
Now further away, he got a better look at the creature.
Or creatures, rather. He was surrounded by four of them.
Dinosaurs.
These were actual living, breathing, dinosaurs, weren't they? He couldn't remember their name for the life of him, but that dome-like crown and the bipedal, scaly body was unambiguous.
He tried his best to not lose sight of them while his eyes darted back in forth, grasping at anything that might be a clue to finding out where he was.
Palm trees… a forest…
This was either an arboretum belonging to a particularly eccentric magus, or he really wasn't in England anymore.
The dinosaurs started growling. At first, it was mistakable for snorting or some sort of heavy breathing, but those possibilities were thrown to the side once the largest of the group charged straight at him.
His worries would have to wait. Without wasting another thought, Kanshou and Bakuya were traced. He had no means to gauge the strength of presumably magical creation in front of him, so he dodged the headbutt rather than divert it with the pommel of one of his blades.
In the same motion, he swiped at the dinosaur's side. It left a pretty deep gash along its hide, making it screech but not much else.
Shirou grimaced. He was used to fighting anthropoids, not animals; his style of combat was supposed to be efficient and purposeful, but right now felt utterly directionless.
For starters, where the hell was he supposed to aim? Its head? It looked pretty tough, so probably not. He wasn't really able to slice through its ribcage in one blow, so maybe immobilizing it with a blow to the legs would be a good start?
He was almost reminded in an unpleasant fashion that the creature wasn't alone. He just barely stepped out of the way of a smaller dinosaur's straight rush.
All four of them came after him one after another… which all things considered, wasn't as difficult to manage as it should have been. They seemed a little disoriented after each charge, and it took a moment for them to try again.
How convenient.
The largest dinosaur lowered its head and made a b-line for his seemingly unprotected back. The other three had yet to compose themselves, so he was able to commit to a course of action.
He spun around, Kanshou and Bakuya both braced for a significant impact. He was aiming for the neck; he could only hope that it wouldn't be too thick to deal a critical blow.
The dinosaur screeched. Though the swords weren't able to cut the whole way through, it was enough to kill it instantly.
He could work with this.
The other three weren't too happy with him offing their companion. Their behaviour became more erratic, but also more violent.
Not that it helped them any.
The more their numbers dropped, the easier it became to deal with them. Soon, four dead dinosaurs lay on the sandy shoreline.
The Noble Phantasms were dismissed.
As he got his breathing back under control, he once more began to consider any clues he could scrounge on his involuntary relocation.
Last he remembered, he was in the tomb of Albion along with Rin and her thesis supervisor. The Wizard Marshall pointed out something strange, and then…
And then, what?
He couldn't remember anything after that. It was highly unlikely that he had been abducted or anything of the sort because the Tomb was practically impossible to get into without the permission of a very small group of individuals. He was either missing a larger chunk of his memories than what he had originally anticipated, or, the most likely scenario, he had somehow found himself entangled with the second magic.
The second magic was the reason that Rin was exploring the deepest parts of the clocktower in the first place. It really wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume that he had been spirited away as a collateral result of… something.
That, or Zelretch was using him as the butt-end of another "learning experience" for his student. If that were the case, then he was resentful and cursed the man's name to hell and back.
If that wasn't the case, then he'd greatly appreciate any and all endeavours on their part to bring him back as soon as possible.
Thanks in advance.
"…"
He glared distrustfully at the very tall and unearthly conglomeration of trees that spiralled upward in the middle of the positively massive forest in front of him. He sighed, accepting –no matter how reluctantly– that he'd need to pass through that unknown territory sooner or later.
If the dinosaurs were anything to go by, it was safe to assume that it would be dangerous.
With that in mind, he walked onward.
X
Shirou nodded to himself.
Yep. This forest was creepy. Moreover, he didn't recognise a single plant or insect that passed him by.
He shrunk his head back and let another bug fly around his face before landing on a tree. Was it a beetle? A cockroach? Who could tell, but he sure as hell didn't know of any bug with wings that lit like a lightbulb.
Something grabbed his leg and dragged him into a bush.
His heart nearly jumped out of his chest, so caught off guard was he. His elbows came shooting back to create some space between him and his assailant.
He heard a pained hiss, and a very human-looking arm came from around his back and locked beneath his left armpit.
Before he could shout, the person's hand shot up to cover his mouth.
"Quit it!" they whispered angrily. "You'll get us both killed."
Panic and indignance made way for confusion. The person holding him down must have noticed this since they pointed at something that he hadn't taken note of until now.
A big something.
It was a vaguely reptilian creature with spiked, blood-red scales. It walked like a bird, with a lowered head and wings tucked at its side, but a quick stretch of those very same wings was enough of a reminder that it was a lot more terrifying than a regular bird.
If anything it reminded him of a–
He gulped.
A dragon.
The monster froze for an instant, and Shirou felt as though his heart froze along with it. Thankfully, after sniffing the air a few times, it took to the air with a few strong flaps of its wings and flew away.
He lost the strength to keep himself upright the moment he was out of immediate danger. Or rather, the person holding him did.
He was dropped unceremoniously onto the ground.
"Ah… that was close," breathed out the individual who helped him.
The disoriented magus slowly got to his feet and stole a glance at his fellow bush-hider.
It was a young woman. She sat tiredly on her haunches with her head downcast. Her pink hair was matted to her brow, and her ponytail had more than a few twigs caught in it.
From her demeanour paired with how gingerly she was holding her shoulder, he could safely assume that her body had been put through the wringer recently.
"I, uhm…"
His muttering caught her attention. Lidded eyes looked his way expectantly.
Noticing that he had trailed off, he coughed while he gathered his thoughts. "Thanks for that just now. Did I…?"
He cut himself off but stared at her injured shoulder pointedly.
She caught on to what he was trying to say quickly enough. To his relief, she waved him off with a smile.
"Nah, don't worry. Your elbow got me good, but this here is from earlier."
Though it was unfortunate that she was hurt at all, a small part of him was glad that he wasn't the one who caused the injury.
Outwardly, he just nodded.
"Do you know how to get out of here?" he asked hopefully. With any luck, this woman wasn't dropped in this forest out of nowhere like he was. Maybe she was even a local... if such a thing existed.
"Not a clue," she answered with an uneasy chuckle.
Well, so much for that.
"Say," she started again with a thoughtful expression, "What happened to your equipment?"
What? Equipment?
It was only then that he noticed how much their attire differed. He wore a simple cotton turtleneck and a pair of slacks –as tattered as they were– whereas this woman was dressed in some strange type of leather armour. It wasn't particularly bulky, nor did it do a fantastic job of covering most of her body. More than anything, it seemed like some sort of reinforced undergarment.
Shirou panicked. Not wanting to seem more out-of-place than he already did, he said the first thing that came to mind.
"I lost it."
By some miracle, she didn't spare his off-genre dress code a second thought. Instead, she grimaced and rubbed her eyebrows with exasperation clear to be seen.
"You too, huh? My stuff's probably still on the ship somewhere." The woman froze, wiped her hand down the length of her face, and schooled her expression. "Well, there's nothing that we can do about it now. We shouldn't have crashed far from Astera, so our odds of survival are looking good. Probably."
She didn't have to add that last part, did she?
At the risk of sounding less informed than he should be, Shirou proposed, "Let's follow the shoreline."
She mentioned a ship, right? If her people actually had some sort of base of operations nearby, then there would also be a dock for sea vessels.
The girl seemed to agree. "Right! But… which way should we follow it: left or right?"
"…"
They shared an uncertain look before the woman managed to perk herself up.
"Welp, I'd say our odds are about fifty-fifty! Wanna go left?
That's not a solution! Don't sound so relieved all of a sudden!
But honestly, he didn't really have a better suggestion.
"Sure. Let's do that."
And so, that's what they did.
As they travelled, there was a clear difference between them in how they carried themselves. Shirou couldn't get that dragon out of his head –he was paranoid, his mind fully alert– yet his companion was whistling a jaunty tune while holding her ruined shoulder.
She didn't forget that she was injured and weaponless in a forest with dragons in it, did she? Maybe it was a cultural thing around these parts. For all he knew, maybe dragons weren't all that uncommon.
What a frightening thought.
"We sure got lucky with that rathalos, huh?"
Her sudden return to conversation had him on his hind leg. "I'm sorry?"
"The rathalos," she repeated, thinking that he didn't hear her the first time. "I thought it found us for sure, but it turned out that it was just heading to a different locale!" she laughed. "Seriously, fighting one of those things unarmed must suck."
Rathalos. So that's what the dragon was called. Was it a species? Was there more than one of them? It was a little strange to hear her talk about it as though it were a minor inconvenience and not a phantasmal beast.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, noticing his grimace.
He dismissed her worries with a chuckle. "It's nothing. I was just thinking… fighting a dragon without a weapon would be pretty rough, wouldn't it?"
Unexpectedly, she lurched forward before catching herself.
"H-hey!" shouted the woman with a trembling voice. "Even as a joke, that's a little… eurgh. Just the thought of it gives me heebie-jeebies."
Shirou blinked. Well, that was a strange reaction– or actually, the reaction he was expecting much earlier. Did he say something weird?
"Ah! There it is!"
In front of them stood a large gate. Thick wooden logs were tied together to form a wall so strong that it was practically a fortress. He couldn't even call it overkill because he'd seen first hand the sort of creatures they were trying to keep out.
"We've got two more!" shouted a voice from the other side of the barrier. Slowly, the gate was opened for them.
A large man greeted them with a smile and a casual salute.
His armour was the first thing that caught the eye. It wasn't chiefly made of steel. Rather, it was a combination of furs, hides, and… scales?
Shirou stared intently at the odd piece in an attempt to peer into its history. What animal could possibly–
The man stood proudly over the corpse of the mighty flying wyvern. The red beast's flames had left their mark, but the elation he felt could not be lessened by such inconsequential pains. After all, this was the first time that he'd hunted such a beast alone.
The desert-dweller erupted from the sand in a last-ditch effort to do him in, but he was much too experienced for such a thing to work. Its desperation created an opening for a single, powerful swing of his greatsword. The finishing blow was dealt with conviction.
The monster's icy breath was a hindrance– nothing more. It wasn't a powerful beast, but its tendency to keep to the skies wasn't the greatest matchup for him. And so, when it finally made a mistake, he knew that he needed to capitalize on it. Once it lowered itself too close to the ground, he struck with a vengeance.
The fangs of the red hound cut deep. Even with his mastery over his weapon, he wasn't able to prevent the lacerations that littered his arms. He was almost as injured as his opponent, though unlike him, the beast wasn't able to continue. It collapsed, felled in a war of attrition.
Shirou, wide-eyed, did his best to not react outwardly.
That armour held actual Mystery. Such a thing was incredibly rare– or at least, it was rare back home.
It was awe-inspiring. Outside of Noble Phantasms, he didn't think that he'd ever see something of the sort during his lifetime.
This man hunted… what were they? Phantasmal species? He slew so many different kinds in order to craft that one set alone. That monster from the forest might as well have been nothing more than a particularly hostile iguana to someone like him.
"What's wrong, Fiver? Did you hit your head or something?"
Shirou blinked. Was the man talking to him?
"Sorry, I'm fine… Oh!"
He almost forgot. His travel companion was injured, wasn't she?
"I think her shoulder might be dislocated, is there anyone around who can take a look at it?"
"What, this?" she asked disbelievingly, poking the appendage all the while. "This is nothing. Give me a week or two and I'll be good to go."
Eh?
The larger man nodded as though what she had said was completely reasonable. "Of course. Follow me. I'll show you around."
Eh?
Shirou kept quiet as they followed a few paces behind. Eventually, however, he couldn't help but ask her in a low voice, "Are you sure you'll be fine? Maybe a second opinion could be–"
She laughed. "What are you so worried about? This sort of thing happens all the time. Are you telling me you've never gotten a little scuffed up by a monster before? It's no reason to bug the people at the med bay."
…Well, sure he's worked through some injuries in the past, but that was because he had to! Wasn't it just common sense to get such a significant wound treated, if for nothing other than your own peace of mind?
The man leading them stopped.
"Welcome to the Research Commission's base camp in the New World. Your ship's a little busted, but you lot have been trickling in slowly but surely all day. I'm sure that everyone on the fifth fleet made it out just fine."
Seeing the camp for the first time, Shirou couldn't help but feel like calling it a "camp" was a major disservice to its grandeur.
It was built from a shipwreck… or multiple shipwrecks? He couldn't tell if most of the ships were placed in such a way on purpose or not. Regardless, how they had built up from that foundation was nothing short of ingenious. Levels, floors, buildings, ramps, stairs… it looked like they had made a small village with nothing more than the resources they had on hand.
The camp was bustling with activity. No one was standing still, and everyone moved like they had a job to do, like a giant well-oiled machine.
By the water, a ruined ship was being relieved of its cargo. Presumably, that was the boat that the girl had arrived on.
Other armour-clad individuals moved from one level of the camp to another by holding onto a chain rope lift. That had to be unsafe, but then again, he was starting to think that safety wasn't really a priority here.
What captured the greatest majority of his attention, however, was the giant cage housing a sleeping tyrannosaurus. There was a group –scholars, if their garb was anything to go by– standing right by the beast, seemingly taking fieldnotes of some kind.
The man in the monster-skin armour led him and the girl to an elevated platform modelled after the quarterdeck of a ship. Or maybe it really was a quarterdeck once upon a time. It was a little hard to say for certain.
"Glad you could join us!"
An older man greeted them in the very same manner as the larger man did earlier, although the motion looked more natural– less practiced. It held natural confidence; natural charisma. As someone who was quite familiar with imitations, Shirou could guess that the younger man borrowed the gesture from him.
Beyond any shadow of a doubt, this old man was in charge here. If his body language wasn't enough of a clue, then the history of his armour sold the idea pretty convincingly.
"Commander!" greeted the younger man in question. He didn't bow or anything of the sort, but his body stiffened right up as if anticipating an order.
"At ease," the commander replied. He took a good, long look at the pair of newcomers. "The Research Commission welcomes you. It's good to see more of you in one piece. With that said, take the day off and get accustomed to the place. You've had a trying day."
The girl gave the man a thumbs up, then slapped Shirou lightly on the chest. "Sounds good to me! I'm spent. See you around, man."
And with that, she made her unceremonious exit.
"You too, kid. I want a moment to talk with this one."
At first, Shirou thought that he was the one being addressed.
"Oh, uh, all right," the larger man agreed with just the slightest hint of confusion laced in his voice. "If you need me for anything, you know where I'll be."
And so, he was left alone with the commander.
"…You're not from the fifth, are you?"
Shirou kept as straight a face as he could. It was only a matter of time before the jig came to an end, after all. No matter which way you sliced it, there was too much of a noticeable difference between him and them.
"I am not."
He spoke calmly. All that was left was to wait and see what they'd do with him. If he had to, he'd fight his way out of the camp.
At the end of the day, his objective was to stay alive for however long it took Rin to find him. His odds of survival would have been higher in this well-defended base than out there in a forest chock-full of dangerous monsters, but he'd adapt to high-risk camping if need be.
The older man sighed. "You're a stowaway then. Well, it's not like there's much that we can do about it now. Can you make yourself useful?"
…A stowaway? If that's what the commander wanted to believe, then he'd let him. It sure made a lot more sense than being from a parallel world.
Not wanting to push his luck, he agreed silently with a nod. Maybe he wouldn't be getting in any fights after all.