Riko:
Height: 182cm
Weapon type: Great Sword
Preferred weapon: Tigrex Great Sword
Armour: Volvidon
Armour pigment: Purple
Monster: N/A
Age: 25
Place of origin: Jumbo Village
Hair colour: Brown
Hair style: Curly, short
Eye colour: Black
Trivia: Knows that defenestration is a word that exists.
Zach held up a quest paper.
"So today we're hunting a Zinogre in Heaven's Mount."
Joseph thought back to when they fought the Zinogre in Tanzia. They were about to fight a normal Zinogre.
"Huh, this'll be easy." Joseph thought.
Five hours later, Joseph was low on health and he and Daimyo were standing alone.
"Oh yeah right we never actually fought that Zinogre."
Nine minutes and 17 seconds earlier
The nine hunters walked out of base camp and saw the rest of the mountain ahead, promising even greater heights to scale.
Not that they'd ever go there, the Zinogre was down on this level.
They ended up splitting into 3 groups of 3.
Joseph, Anthony and Zach went to check area 2.
Ben, Callum and Alexandra went to check area 5.
Sean, Alicia and Riko ended up getting on Rathalos to fly around and see if it could be spotted from there, Riko riding on the back of Azure.
The first three weren't really expecting to encounter the Zinogre, the only one who didn't have a weakness to electricity being Anthony, due to Lagiacrus and all that stuff.
They just figured that the others would send off the signal and they would get a fair bit of damage in while they took the long route around, so they could reap the rewards at the end of it without much trouble.
But then, they saw the Zinogre walk in at the other end of the arena.
"H-Hey… guys…" Anthony began "That's… that's the Zinogre isn't it?"
"No… what are you talking about… that can't be… right? Zinogre don't come down here… they're usually in area 5, 6, 7 or 8 from what I've heard… There's no way that that can be right, right!?" Joseph yelled in denial.
"We… we should've just stayed in base camp… shouldn't we?"
"Don't say that! We can't look weak ya know!? We'll get laughed at! We don't wanna become Callum, ya know!?"
Zach smirked slightly "Hmph, you're both mistaken." He announced "This isn't a Zinogre, this is an impostor!"
He then walked up to the Zinogre and began to pull at its face. He really tried his best, but to no result. This Zinogre was indeed, contrary to popular belief, a Zinogre.
"Ah, well it appears that I was wrong. Bye, guys. It was fun..." He said as the Zinogre surrounded itself with lightning, sending Zach flying away.
Next, Joseph drew his bow and attempted attacking.
The Zinogre did some form of ninja flip to get around the arrows fired at it and landed gracefully.
Joseph was kinda impressed, but he wasn't the one attacking next.
Instead that was the job of Daimyo.
Daimyo shot out pressurised water, which hit the Zinogre.
Didn't do much apart from push it backwards but I mean it's the thought that counts at the end of the day.
Especially as that wasn't the intention.
The Zinogre looked back and saw that both Joseph and Daimyo had vanished.
It tried to look around some more when suddenly it was rammed into by a Ludroth moving at incredibly high speeds.
Zappy had the Zinogre pinned to the ground. While his hold wouldn't exactly last, it was enough time for Joseph and Daimyo to run over, pick up Zach from where he had landed and start running away.
However, instead of getting free through brute force the Zinogre chose to use electricity.
Zappy was pushed back from this, taking a fair bit of damage.
Still, it was enough time for Daimyo to run over, Joseph to pick up Zach and then have the three of them run away.
The Zinogre started trying to attack them, but it was at that second that it got hammered.
Once again it tried to recover from Anthony's attack.
"That's not all, though! Here's a special attack that Wave has been working on for a while, now!"
Wave shot out a orb of electricity, followed by a few others.
They surrounded the Zinogre.
Five in total, four on the same level as the lightning wolf and one above it.
Some sparks flew between the orbs, before many did, connecting them with electricity.
These also hit the wolf on their way to each other.
Absolute Death Move: Five Orb Cage!
Anthony smirked "Pretty cool, am I right?"
Joseph was kind of unimpressed "...How'd you get it to be in bold? What's up with all of those exclamation marks… Do you really need every word to start with a capital!"
"Shut it!" Anthony yelled "It's a cool move, isn't it!?"
"...Honestly it was kinda basic… like couldn't you just do that normally? What's with all the build-up? What did you even do? Shouldn't you be more involved?"
"DUDE! I NEED SOME KIND OF SPECIAL SHIT!"
"?"
"Think about it! Last arc, everyone got such cool fights! While they weren't all of the same quality they were at least memorable! I got the first damn fight! Characters that people don't care about always go first in tournament arcs, the tension always comes later! Not only that, but what was up with my fight's boring gimmick!? I was poisoned and didn't have antidotes, that was it! Everyone's been through that, all you need to do is heal until it goes away! The author can't even remember if I won or not, they can't be bothered to check either!"
Anthony was then distracted from his ranting long enough to notice the electric wolf powering up as a result of the electricity he had it with.
"Ah… I forgot… about that…"
Daimyo started walking away.
"Waitwaitwait!" Anthony yelled "Where the hell are you going!?"
Joseph turned around "Well… I wouldn't want to steal you screentime and I figure that since you powered it up, you should bring it down so…" He gave a thumbs up "Do your best!"
"You don't have any reason to try escaping, you're not injured at all! You just don't wanna fight this Zinogre, do you!?"
"Believe in the me that believes in you!"
"You're not Kamina!"
Joseph punched him in the face.
"Don't doubt yourself!"
"You're just trying to get me to stop doubting you!"
"Fine then…" Joseph turned around with Daimyo, who dropped Zach onto the ground with a loud thump "Let's go, Daimyo!"
Joseph shot out some arrows, all of which connected.
Daimyo launched himself off the ground and then turned around, swinging his claw forwards.
"GIGA DAIMYO BREAK!"
The punch connected with the Zinogre, knocking it back.
While Daimyo was flying through the air, Joseph launched arrows into the air, which landed on the Zinogre, adding extra damage to the already fairly damaging combo attack and hitting the Zinogre with enough force to push it down, crashing into the ground.
The Zinogre landed with a loud crash, splitting the ground around it and leaving a crater, a strong 7 on a scale of a small crater to post-saibaman Yamcha.
"Seriously?" Anthony asked "You're directly copying Gurren Lagann?"
"Shaddup!" Joseph yelled back "It's because of you that I have Kamina on the mind, ya know!? At least my special attack had me involved in it, what did you even do for yours!?"
"So it's come to this, has it!? My involvement in mine was great, it's just so subtle that your simple mind can't process it, you damn new world bumpkin! You see, while Wave's attacking, I-"
Anthony was then hit by the Zinogre, having recovered and enraged. Wave had also been taken down while they were too busy arguing to notice.
Joseph began to draw his weapon again, confidently smiling, but mid action he was hit with lightning and knocked backwards.
This was quite strong lightning and now he was low on health, standing alone with Daimyo.
Joseph and Daimyo then tried to tactically retreat, but both were instantly taken out by the Zinogre.
The Zinogre looked down at the two hunters and their monsters.
Had it any desire to, then it could've easily taken them out.
But instead, the Zinogre chose to simply leave. It sensed that there were others attempting to claim its territory.
Alexandra, Ben and Callum had found exactly 0 Zinogres in area 5 and were now in area 6.
They saw the Zinogre enter the arena, electricity sparking around it.
Alexandra and Callum both tensed up to fight, but at that point Ben had already began sprinting towards the Zinogre.
Ben swung his axe forwards, but this didn't work when the Zinogre jumped around the attack and hit him with a swipe powerful enough to slam him into the ground.
Ben then got back up, bleeding enough to make multiple blood donations. He began to plan his next move.
"Hmm… Well if attacking won't work, then maybe attacking will!"
This didn't work.
"Damnit! This thing's good, it appears that attacking isn't the answer here… what if… yeah… that could be it… I should try attacking!"
This didn't work.
"Heh, but that not working was all part of my plan. Now that I know that attacking won't work, this is the best time to attack!"
This didn't work.
"Huh… looks like it's over… even so, I've got one option left! That's right! Time to attack!"
Surprisingly enough this did work, however it was so comedically ineffective that it might well as not have worked in the first place.
The Zinogre then gently tapped Ben with such force that he collapsed on the spot.
After that comedic break to the serious fighting, Alexandra drew her lance once more, ready to fight, but noticed that this Callum was missing.
While this had been going on, Callum had climbed up and was now jumping at the Zinogre with his weapon drawn, while screaming that sounded vaguely like "FOR GLORY!".
He slashed at the Zinogre, but due to the Zinogre being high rank and a gathering hall monster, this didn't topple the Zinogre and just left Callum standing there kind of awkwardly next to a slightly more angered Zinogre.
He tried to climb back up again, but the Zinogre cut him off, leading to him running in the other direction and entering the crawlspace underneath one of the structures.
"Hmm… Well now I'll have the upper hand, at least. Once the Zinogre jumps to the entrance in an attempt to pursue me, I'll run to the other side, climb up and then jump at the Zinogre while it's trying to destroy the structure and topple it, leading to mounting it, toppling it again so we can hit it a lot. Yeah… let's g- wait where did the Zinogre go?"
While Callum, had been planning this, the Zinogre had jumped over from where it was to the top of the structure Callum was currently under. Since Zinogre's are kinda heavy, the structure collapsed underneath the weight of the Zinogre.
Callum was still inside of the structure while this happened, which wasn't that good for his health.
Sanchez managed to stop Callum from dying using a force field from a distance, but this was really tiring and he went home.
Plessy tried to attack but his low thunder resistance led to one hit before he grabbed Ben and hightailed it out of there, running like a majestic Plesioth on the wind.
Being the last one standing, Alexandra now finally had a chance to attack, after all this comedic relief procrastinating the actual fight.
But then, all of a sudden, as if on comedic timing, Riko fell out of the sky, the joke that fate had set up being that this was a subversion of what the scene originally appeared to be.
What had happened to set this up off camera was that the Zinogre had been spotted while circling the mountain.
Riko was unused to flying and figured that he should just directly engage the Zinogre.
What he forgot was that he flying on the back of Azure.
This led to him falling through the sky with no way of slowing himself down.
This worked better than he thought it would, as the weight of his body as well as the massive metal (?) Tigrex Great Sword on his back turned him into a sort of bullet using gravity.
A bullet that almost hit the Zinogre's back.
Had it done so, it could've potentially crippled the Zinogre at best, and at least done a lot of damage.
But it didn't and Riko hit the ground.
The ground hurts, especially at that speed.
Somehow though, Riko got up, despite some brain damage and a high chance of a fractured skull.
He swung at the Zinogre, which the Zinogre then moved around.
Riko then attacked again, this strike connecting.
The Zinogre flinched as this strike had connected with its head, but still pressed through the damage to swing its tail around and knocked Riko flying.
Riko hit the wall, but got back up and started running at the Zinogre again.
The Zinogre tried to swing its tail around, but Riko jumped over it, much to the surprise of the Zinogre and Alexandra who was just sitting at the side, waiting for her inevitable fight.
Riko swung his Great Sword downwards, connecting with the Zinogre's back and cutting into it.
This toppled the Zinogre and it crashed onto the ground.
He hit it with a lvl 3 strike, which caused a loud crash and a roar.
The Zinogre then swung onto its feet and brought its front paw crashing down, hitting Riko and pinning him to the ground. It then attacked him for a while before discarding him and throwing him into the wall.
Riko was now low on health.
"Shit… this could be the end. Before this thing takes me out…" He raised his weapon "I'll take myself out!"
"The hell is the point of that!?" Alexandra yelled from the sidelines "Just use a potion, that accomplishes nothing!"
Riko turned and gave a regretful smile "But… it looks cool."
Suddenly a voice appeared from nowhere.
"Stop, young man! Suicide is not the answer!"
It was Sean, ready to deliver an advertisement.
"No matter how bad life may seem, with things such as elder dragon attacks and unemployment, always remember that once you commit suicide, there's no going back! There have even been times in life where I've simply wanted to give up and die, but I stuck with it and look at me now, being paid good money to lie about having wanted to commit suicide! You can find out more by calling us at-"
"Sean." Alicia tried to grab his attention
"18-"
"Sean."
"00."
"Sean."
"...What is it?"
"He passed out midway through that."
"Oh… dammit…" He thought for a second before looking at Alexandra "Hey, would you mind being suicidal for a minute or two? I need to finish this sponsored advertisement!"
Alexandra was just kind of confused at this point.
Alexandra realised that if she let this stupidity go on any longer this would drag out forever and she just wanted to go home.
She charged at the Zinogre and the Zinogre tried to swipe with its tail, leading to her blocking the strike.
It was at that moment of hesitation in the fight that the Zinogre was suddenly hit with bullets from the side.
It flinched as a result of the pain and saw Alexandra begin to rush in, attempting to take advantage of the opening.
It then saw Alexandra immediately retreat at a high speed and was confused as to why until it got simultaneously hit with 2 fireballs.
The Zinogre was stunned by the pain momentarily but still managed to recover in time to dodge another hail of bullets.
The Zinogre saw Alexandra moving into attack again. It decided that the people with flying wyverns and guns posed more of a threat and chose to retreat to attack them.
First, it jumped at Alicia. Alicia tried to dodge out of the way but wasn't able to get entirely clear of the Zinogre in time, being hit by some lightning produced by the impact of the landing.
Alicia's Rathian took this chance to attack with a tail swipe, which connected, creating a wound on the Zinogre's arm.
In response the Zinogre increased the voltage of its charge and body slammed the Rathian.
For the uninformed, Pink Rathians, as well as being well as being weak to dragon (which this Zinogre didn't have, as it wasn't a Stygian), were weak to thunder (which this Zinogre did have, as it wasn't a Stygian).
However, after this attack was over, the Zinogre left itself open in terms of positioning.
For a few seconds, it was stuck unable to land.
This was enough time for Sean, having already entered siege mode, to fire a metric shitload of bullets at the Zinogre.
Well I mean, maybe not that many but still a lot.
Also Azure got a chance to shoot off some fireballs and Alicia was recovered enough to shoot in a crag shot.
The Zinogre did land, only to be slammed into the ground by a tail swipe from Azure.
Unfortunately, Alicia's Rathian had to retreat at this point due to its injuries, so Alicia decided to go with her.
While the Zinogre tried to stop them both, Sean managed to hit it with a clust shot from the side, drawing its attention to him.
The Zinogre howled, keeping Sean stuck in place. It then ran at him, Sean unable to dodge in time.
It connected with Sean, sending him flying backwards.
He coughed up some blood before collapsing, still conscious.
Azure tried to attack, but the Zinogre was too fast for the King of the Skies to keep up with at its current level of charge.
It grabbed the head of the Rathalos. It then slammed downwards with all the force it could, creating a crater on the ground.
The Zinogre then pulled up, ready to strike again, when Alexandra jumped in and jammed her lance into the Zinogre's side, toppling it.
The Zinogre quickly recovered and stood up again.
Now it was Alexandra's time to fight it.
The Zinogre pounced forward, an attack that Alexandra stepped around.
She jabbed forward, piercing the side of the fanged wyvern.
The Zinogre swung its entire body around. Recognising that she once again couldn't block this, Alexandra hopped backwards, clear of the Zinogre.
The Zinogre tried to strike with its paws, but these were blocked.
Three attacks in total before the Zinogre changed its tactics.
Alexandra used the Zinogre's time to think as a chance to attack, charging in and attacking twice before pulling out as the Zinogre reacted to the attack.
The fight went on in a similar way for at least five minutes.
During this time Sean and Azure had also decided that to pull out of the battle to heal.
The two opponents were both tired. While they were hesitating, Alexandra noticed something. There was a scar on the Zinogre's neck. It was healed, but still left a mark. The wound almost seemed to be infected, despite its age.
Suddenly, the Zinogre ran off.
Alexandra could've gotten everybody from base camp and come to finish it. But instead, she chose to go back down the mountain.
When asked why she simply replied with "There's something I want to discuss with the Guild."
She approached Cathar's quest counter and asked to talk to village's Guild Master.
He was an elderly Wyverian, but for some reason, he still seemed to have a fierce glare about him.
"So… What did you call me to talk about?"
"That Zinogre that I went to hunt earlier today, I would like to remove the hunting order on it."
"Oh?" The Guild Master replied, seemingly surprised "I'm afraid that there's no way that it can avoid being hunted. If you remember the quest description, it has been running through the mountain trying to claim it as it's own by disrupting the other monsters on the mountain and even settlements like ours."
"It wasn't doing this out of any malicious intent. Allow me to explain. It is common for Zinogre to travel in packs, correct?"
"Yes, that is correct."
"The only reason that this Zinogre would have to travel alone is either that it was forced away from its pack somehow. I think I might've worked out why. The sanctuary on the upper parts of the mountain is the place where Gore Magala come to mature into Shagaru Magala, which are capable of infecting other monsters with the frenzy virus. From what I can tell, Zinogre packs typically live on the upper parts of the mountain. So if a Shagaru Magala were to arrive there, then it would destroy them."
"While I do understand your theory, that couldn't be correct. The Zinogre only spend the summer season near the sanctuary at the top of the mountain. Gore Magala arrive about midway through Winter. By the time the Gores begin to arrive, the Zinogre are long gone. Only particularly bad incidents of frenzy virus reach them."
"But, what if a Gore Magala was to reach the sanctuary early and mature then? Since the Zinogre wouldn't have left, they would be among the first infected by the virus."
"I see… but what's your evidence for this?"
"Have you ever seen a scar left by a Magala or a frenzied monster?"
"Yes, the wound constantly appears as a result of the frenzy virus."
"Well… I saw that same type of wound, on the neck of the Zinogre that I fought on the mountain!"
"I see…"
"So this is what I believe happened:"
It all began when the Gore Magala arrived at the sanctuary earlier than expected. It spread the frenzy virus due to this maturity. While normally, smaller monsters would be infected first and the Guild would send hunters to deal with the problem before it reached larger threats, the Guild had no involvement. To make this worse, larger monsters were among the first infected due to the Gore having arrived early. This infected a Zinogre pack. From here it's uncertain what happened, but the Zinogre we're focused on survived the virus. It then moved down the mountain and started attacking other monsters. My guess as to why it did this was to claim territory for itself, as a reaction to having its previous territory taken away by the Elder Dragon.
"Hmm… that does seem correct… but there's one thing that you missed. Try to think of what effect the frenzy virus has on monsters and hunters."
"It makes them incredibly violent, to the point where all they can do is attack. If they don't attack enough, then they'll be at a strong risk of death. If they do attack enough they'll briefly become stronger before the virus passes over."
Alexandra realised something.
"Yes…" The Guildmaster answered "It's very likely that the reason why this Zinogre has no pack… is because it killed many of them. Even with that, are you sure that this Zinogre is no threat? Even if it isn't remember that Zinogre are very social monsters. They care for other members of their pack, so think about how much pain the Zinogre must be feeling. Are you sure that it wouldn't be better to kill the Zinogre and end it's suffering, as an act of mercy?"
There was a silence as Alexandra hesitated, thinking about this.
"Well… I'll leave that decision to you, as you're the one who offered it. I need to contact the Guild and get them to send hunters to deal with this Shagaru Magala problem we're having. Thank you very much for your information on that, by the way, you will be rewarded for it soon enough."
The Guildmaster walked off, seeming almost casual after everything that had just been uncovered.
Alexandra walked up the mountain, approaching the cave that the Zinogre was resting in.
She walked up to it, from what she could tell it was asleep.
She rose her lance into the air, when she noticed something.
The Zinogre's eyes were wide open, watching her movement.
It was wounded, but it would've still been able to move.
Alexandra lowered her weapon. Had the Zinogre had any hostile intent it would've struck then, but it chose to remain in place.
She paused, thinking of what to say.
"I think… I've worked out why you're doing this. It must hurt, mustn't it, to be without the people you care about. I think that… I can relate to it, to an extent. You don't want to do anything, then suddenly you're angry, then suddenly you're depressed again, then whatever happens next is up to you."
She paused once again.
"So… you have a choice now… I can kill you here… if not, two things could happen. The hunter's guild will send in strong hunters to deal with that Shagaru at the top of the mountain and while they're here they'll probably hunt you down, at which point you'll be turned into some armour or a weapon or just disregarded in an item box. Or… you can come with me and get strong for all those people that you lost on the way."
Alexandra stayed there for a few minutes. Then she got up and left.
She walked towards base camp to descend the mountain when finally she saw the Zinogre running towards her.
She braced for combat slightly, but it didn't attack.
There was another silence, before both of them descended the mountain together, ready to put whatever happened in their pasts behind them and become stronger because of it.
"So yeah," Alexandra continued "I decided to call her Zino, in the end."
"Original name." Joseph commented.
"You named Daimyo after the first word of his species' name."
"You don't know that."
The Guild Master suddenly appeared.
"One thing you should know. Since you're taking ownership of this Zinogre, that means that you'll have to pay for the damages it's caused."
"Okay, well that shouldn't be too bad."
"Factoring in the damage to both wildlife and our village, the total is…" He was now using a calculator.
"243'354'917 zeni."
There was a long silence until Sean pulled out his bowgun murmuring "Let's just kill this thing."
TO BE CONTINUED
So yeah that was a bit of a long chapter. I'm not gonna say too much here, seeing as how this ran on longer than the first chapter.
Well I'm back, I don't think exams went that horribly (haven't got most results, but an A on my photography mock so there you go, now I just have to not fail the real one).
Though one thing I do wanna mention for this chapter is that the virus here works slightly differently in monsters than it does in the games, as it mirrors the way hunters react. So I just thought that I should mention that to clear up any potential confusion.
So I mean yeah see you next chapter I guess. That'll have more of an author's notes probably.