May 11th, 1348.
10 PM
Nodecoh, a town in the South El De District.
That was where Zach and Zappy found themselves.
Zach strolled through the marketplace, somewhat absentmindedly.
He didn't even know why he was here.
This place wasn't really near any dangerous hunting grounds, so the most he could do was gather.
"Damnit…" he muttered "Why'd it have to be three years, I'd have been fine with just one. There's seriously nothin' interesting 'round here."
As he contemplated his own existence, he heard a yell in the distance.
"Stop, thief!"
"Oh hey, this could be something" Zach thought, running towards it.
Upon arriving the scene, he found a merchant looking somewhat distraught.
He asked where the thief went, the merchant pointed to the left and upwards.
Zach got Zappy's attention and they climbed onto the roofs.
In the distance, Zach could just see a figure, so he pointed that out to Zappy and he set off after them.
They approached and Zach yelled "Stop, or we'll have to use force!"
The thief didn't stop.
"Well, can't say we didn't warn ya." Zach thought, as Zappy shot off mucus.
This connected with the thief, slowing them down greatly.
Still, they continued forwards.
Zach then got off of Zappy's back and leapt forwards, not yet unsheathing his weapon.
He closed in on the thief, when suddenly there was some orange in front off of his eyes.
He then found himself running the other way.
Zach stopped himself and attempted to turn and run towards the thief, but all he found was himself running away some more.
"Wait, I must just be confused, so all I've got to do is the opposite."
He then yelled "Zappy, run in reverse!"
So Zappy did this, but by the time they got to where they were the thief had already escaped, never to be seen again.
Zach thought to himself for a second, before loudly yelling "SHIT!"
Zach then went home, giving up on everything.
May 14th, 1348
9PM
Zach strolled through town again, still here for some reason.
He'd pretty much given up hope, but then suddenly he heard someone yell "STOP, THIEF!"
Zach got Zappy's attention and the two took off sprinting.
He ran to the distraught merchant, asking only "Where?".
The merchant pointed and off they went, onto the rooftops again.
The thief noticed them and tried to speed up, but was slowed down.
Zappy saw orange but instantly began to run backwards, propelling himself forwards.
Zach then lept off Zappy's back, headed towards the thief, only to see a blue beam.
He saw this for a few seconds, before everything went black.
The thief watched Zach crash into the ground face first, fast asleep.
Then Zappy also fell asleep just behind him.
The thief then escaped.
9:15 PM
Zach woke up and began yelling angrily again.
May 19th, 1348
9 PM
Zach strolled through town, waiting.
He heard the word "STOP" and ran.
He found the merchant and asked "WHERE!?"
He then went onto the rooftops, Zappy following.
They found the thief, became confused but didn't care.
The beam hit Zach but he didn't care, running right through, for his armour had negate sleep as a skill.
He closed in on the thief, only to be randomly hit with something yelling loudly, hitting the floor and blacking out.
He woke up a little while later and began yelling loudly, in a similar fashion to what had hit him.
May 21st, 1848
9 PM
Zach ran through town, hoping for any sign of crime.
He heard a yell and instantly got into the rooftops with Zappy.
He chased after them, inverting his running and passing straight through the beam and picked up on what was flying at him, then dodged around it.
Finally he reached the thief and ran straight towards them.
Until the roof beneath him gave away and he fell down.
By the time Zach had climbed back up, they were completely gone.
He didn't even say anything this time, just sulked.
May 24th, 1348
9:03 PM
The thief ran along the rooftops, having just stolen from a merchant.
"They're late…" Zach muttered, already on the rooftops.
He started to give chase.
Zach ran in the opposite direction, straight through the beam, dodged around the attack, watched his step on the roof and finally found himself caught up to the thief.
Finally he got a good look at them.
The thief was a woman in her late teens to early twenties, with black hair and brown eyes.
Zach didn't really have anything to say to this. He realised at this moment that he'd just been focused on catching up to the thief this entire time, not really what happened when he caught up.
As Zach tried to put something together, he heard the yelling again.
He ducked and it flew straight over him.
He finally saw what was trying to him.
It was a melynx with black fur and blue eyes.
Zach attempted to work out how to respond to this, but then a Malfestio landed next to them.
They got onto its back and it flew off, leaving him there.
Zach took this in for a second, before running to Zappy, waking him up and setting off, tailing the Malfestio.
Eventually it flew into a cave and the Zappy stopped.
They edged closer to the cave, being careful to hide their presence as they advanced.
The moment they got near, Zach nodded to Zappy.
He then ran in yelling and randomly firing off his gunlance.
The three in the cave reacted with surprise.
After a moment's hesitation, they all grabbed their weapons and ran to face them off.
The Melynx dived for Zach, just missing.
The girl took a swing at him, only to be blocked.
At that moment Zappy charged forwards, straight towards the Malfestio.
While it was able to use its scales to confuse him, he continued onwards anyways, slamming straight into the Malfestio, knocking it against the wall.
It slumped down and the Ludroth turned back around.
While the girl was distracted by this, Zach took this chance to sweep her legs out from under her.
She fell onto the ground.
Zach turned to just dodge the melynx again, but this time before it landed Zappy charged into it.
The three in the cave where now defeated and Zach had no idea what to do.
No seriously, he hadn't expected this to work out so well.
He'd just planned on catching up to the thieves, he hadn't thought about anything else afterwards.
There was a long, drawn out silence.
"I'm just gonna say the first thing that comes to mind!" He thought "What could go wrong?"
A moment passed until he said "Ya should become hunters."
"Yeah that'll do, nice one." He thought.
The girl then interrupted his self-compliments in a monotone voice.
"Why?"
"Well, I mean… ya got no choice here."
"?"
"Well if ya don't, then yer gonna get arrested and thrown into prison and shit, yeah? So I mean, might as well."
This time the felyne spoke up "So you're telling us that we should avoid going to prison by doing a job that puts our lives at risk, nya?"
"Ah come on, it ain't as bad as it used to be anymore, all that bullshit died down a few years back, these days the death rate's way down, yer only gonna be seein' a big event once or twice a year."
"Even so, nya. We're still probably gonna run into trouble with being criminals and all, nya."
"Nope, guild doesn't do any background checks on ya. Don't even have to officially exist to be registered as a hunter."
"That… seems easily exploitable…"
"Well, guess so. People these days get the the risks full well, y'know? So the Guild needs to take anythin' it can get."
There was a pause that rung out.
"So anyways, what's yer names? I haven't really learnt much about the two of ya, just sorta been chasing after ya."
The felyne spoke "Well, my name's Shoot, and this is my partner, Lyra."
"Hey." Lyra said.
"And back there's Chante, she's a Malfestio, if you couldn't already tell, nya."
"Cool. I'm Zach, that's Zappy, a Royal Ludroth. So yeah, now that introductions are over we should probably get goin' back to town."
"Wait a minute, nya. Why do we have to follow you, nya?" Shoot inquired
"Because if you don't you'll get arrested." Zach responded.
"No, but here's the thing, nya. You've only found this cave we're in. If we were to knock you out and get away, then you'd never find us, nya."
"Well, I kinda have reason to doubt that." Zach replied.
"Why's nyat?"
"I don't think ya can get away from this area. If it'd been me, I'd have left on the last escape with the roof, anything else's pointlessly risky, ain't it? And I don't think ya'd tell me that if ya were plannin' on it."
"O-Okay, nya..."
So they went back to town, the thieves not even trying to escape.
On the way there Shoot spoke "Wait a minute, nya. Don't we need last names?"
"What's that?" Lyra questioned.
"It's something that the ones in the cities do. Because there's so many of them, they can't tell each other apart by name alone. So they have to use those." Shoot explained.
"Ah right, ya can just make somethin' up for yer surname. Like I said, no background checks, so really ya can just go and put whatever ya need."
"Uh… might as well go with Windgralde, nya. Name of our village seems like a good enough for it, nya."
So they headed back to town, got registered and registered their weapons.
For about a month after that, they took on smaller jobs, like gathering or slaying smaller monsters.
Not much happened, but it was peaceful.
June 15th, 1347
Today, the three walked into the jungle with a new mission.
To hunt one Velocidrome.
Unlike the last few quests, Zach wasn't going to be helping out with this.
Since he was a high-rank hunter, the fight would be over in seconds if he was there, so he was going to hang back and only interfere if things went badly.
Shoot spotted the wyvern in a clearing.
It was surrounded by Velociprey, though it didn't seem to be doing anything.
Just standing around.
Not doing anything.
The three of them edged closer, surrounding it.
Chante moved her head backwards, and then let out a scream.
The monsters were briefly stunned by this, which gave Lyra and Shoot the opportunity to rush in.
The Velociprey recovered first, splitting themselves up to charge at them.
Both of them had to deal with three.
Lyra dodged around the first, before swinging at the next.
She connected with its face and used its body to slam into the third.
She then jumped into the air, leaping towards the first.
It was surprised, which caused it to not have enough time to dodge the oncoming strike to the head.
Shoot jumped straight at the first, knocking it backwards.
The second attempted to bite at him, but he dodged around and hit it with his weapon, sending it flying.
The third then started to back off, only to be hit with a strike jumping upwards.
Now the Velocidrome was surrounded, it looked around.
As it attempted to form a strategy, it saw Chante hit the ground a few metres away.
Something orange rose up from the ground.
She then jumped backwards and flapped her wings.
The orange scales flew forwards, the Velocidrome inhaling them.
Instantly it felt strange.
Lyra and Shoot both moved in to attack it.
It attempted to escape, only to find itself moving towards the Malfestio.
Chante flew forwards, striking at it with her claws.
The Velocidrome flew backwards, only to be hit with a staff from behind, followed by a strike from a club.
The two stopped for a second, a second which the Velocidrome attempted to turn to its advantage.
It leapt back onto its feet, but instead of trying to fight, it tried to run.
But, due to the confusion, it was moving in the wrong direction.
Even though it didn't understand what was going on, it pressed on forwards, heading backwards.
Due to this confusion, it soon found itself cornered.
In desperation, it jumped forwards, blindly striking out.
It knocked Lyra on to the ground and attempted to bite at her.
All its jaws found was a staff being held between them.
The Velocidrome tightened its grip anyways, almost breaking the staff.
At that moment it was hit by a strike on the head, loosening the grip and hitting it into the wall.
It then paused completely for a second, as if to register a new plan, but was hit by Shoot anyways, finally killing it.
The three of them stood over the corpse for a moment before starting to carve up from behind, when Zach walked up behind them.
"Well, wasn't bad for a first hunt, I guess, but ya really went and left a lotta room for improvement."
"Really, nya?" Shoot questioned "Do go on, nya."
"I'll do it on the way back, just focus on carvin' that thing up for now."
July 1st, 1348
The Velocidrome walked through the jungle, surrounded by Velociprey.
Suddenly it saw some blue coming from its right, but before it could dodge it found itself falling into unconsciousness.
It awoke to an explosion.
It leapt to its feet, having been weakened by being exposed to the brunt of this explosion.
Attempting to recover, it scanned around.
The Velociprey were lying dead on the ground and there were three things around it.
An armoured hunter, an armoured felyne and a Malfestio.
It tried to attack them, but before it could do anything the Malfestio hit the ground.
Some scales flew up, and the Malfestio beat its wings to send them towards it.
The Velocidrome was unable to dodge, and started to feel strange.
Before it could work out what was going on, the other two ran forwards, striking at it with their weapons.
It couldn't fight back, as any time it tried to move it ended up doing the opposite.
All it could do was feel pain.
Eventually, after it had experienced this pain for a short while, it felt its consciousness slipping again and rather than fight it, it felt into a peaceful sleep.
The three hunters had certainly improved in their hunting skill, so really the best thing to do now would be to have them move onto larger, more difficult to kill monsters.
As Zach explained this to them, they heard a stomping moving through the jungle.
It was shaped much like a serpent, with a long and slender body, though unlike a serpent it had fur on its chest, underbelly, legs and tail. It also had fins on multiple parts of its body, like the head and back. The creature's entire body ranged from yellow to purple.
Everything about it seemed normal, save for one thing.
Its entire body was covered by scars.
This was worse around the face. Both of the eyes had scars running through them, making it seem like they were blinded.
"What's this thing meant to be, nya?" Shoot quietly asked.
"Mizutsune, a Leviathan that primarily uses bubbles to attack. Rated as a 5 star threat by the guild. Though this one might be above that, judgin' from its size. It's bigger than high rank ones, so I'd say this is a G-rank monster."
A silence rang out as they took it in.
"For now, we need to sneak back to town and report this thing. If worst case happens I'll try and hold it off while ya escape."
"Still though, nya. Can that thing even see where it's going?"
"No idea, honestly."
Surrounding it were bubbles, floating through the air.
They touched the surroundings, popping upon impact.
One of them flew towards Zach without him realising and popped against his armour.
At that moment the Mizutsune suddenly spun towards them.
"Did- did it notice us!?" Zach thought.
This question was answered by the leviathan rushing towards them.
All of them jumped out of the way as it slid past.
As it passed him by, Zach noticed something.
Its left eye was radiating blue, water vapour coming out.
The Mizutsune stopped and spun around, scattering some more bubbles.
One of them connected with Zappy, and the wyvern turned to him.
Its head reared backwards momentarily, before moving forwards once again to fire off a jet of pressurised water.
Zappy attempted to dodge around, but the Mizutsune moved its head around wildly, attempting to connect with anything.
It hit Zappy by pure chance and then suddenly stopped, focusing on that specific point it hit.
Zappy couldn't move, experiencing nothing but pain.
Eventually the Mizutsune ran out of energy and stopped, spreading out its bubbles again.
"Shit, this thing's really strong…" Zach thought, observing the damage Zappy had taken "Is it a deviant?"
At the time Zach didn't know what was going on, but the monster he was facing down was called "Heavenly Eye Mizutsune".
Zach turned to the other three and yelled "Hurry the hell up and start runnin'! I'll deal with this thing!"
The bubbles ended up completely missing them, hitting the surroundings.
For some reason, it didn't move.
"Wait… is that how it's doing this?" Zach thought.
Some more bubbles started to float through the air, so Zach ran towards them.
It was a fair distance away from anyone else.
Zach popped the bubbles and the Mizutsune turned to him and rushed forwards.
Zach just about rolled out of the way.
"I got it now!" He thought.
He then turned to Zappy and yelled "This thing works out where we are using the bubbles! Just avoid the bubbles and we'll be able to get away!"
One of the bubbles ended up connected with him as he finished this, and he quickly spun around to see the Mizutsune fire off a blue coloured bubble.
Getting a bad feeling from this, he raised his shield.
The bubble connected with the shield, exploding.
Luckily, since Zach was blocking he was able to avoid most of the blast, but he didn't want to think about what would've happened it he hadn't been.
Zach regrouped with Zappy and tried to work out a way out.
While at first the blindness seemed to be to their advantage, it seemed to be more of a disadvantage here.
The area they were in was surrounded by bubbles.
If they wanted to escape, they'd have to pass through them.
If they did so, the Mizutsune would know the position and would pursue them.
All the while, the Mizutsune waited.
Zach considered his options.
He could just try to run straight through the bubbles, but then the Mizutsune would pursue him.
He could try to pop the bubbles by shooting them, but he could only shoot one area at a time. Since he still had to break some to get through, he'd let the Mizutsune know where he was.
There was the possibility of destroying some bubbles and breaking through, but if the Mizutsune created anymore bubbles behind it while pursuing where it thought they were, they'd be found.
There was the option of splitting up, but that'd be bad for one of them.
All they could do is wait and try to think of a way to escape.
But even then, they'd have to think quickly, as more bubbles were being created every second.
In the distance he heard a landing noise.
It was a fairly large impact.
Then he felt a gust of wind and saw a massive amount of scales flying towards him.
The scales hit the bubbles, popping all of them.
Not understanding what was going on, the Mizutsune randomly attacked everywhere.
Despite being stunned, Zappy suddenly took off, running as fast as possible.
They finally got back into town and explained what was going on to the Guild.
Some hunters would be dispatched soon enough and for now any hunting there was prohibited.
He walked through town, eventually finding Lyra, Shoot and Chante.
"So then…" Zach started "Why'd ya go and save me back there? I already told ya to run."
"Who knows, nya…" Shoot muttered "Still though, nya, you needed the help, right?"
"Well yeah, I guess."
Zach paused for a second
"To be honest with ya, I'm really not that strong. I mean, ya saw it back there right. Couldn't do a thing to stop that damn thing… To me, not being able to do shit is probably the most frustrating thing there is. All ya can do is watch as it unfolds. Too weak to change a thing and too afraid to even try. I can't say I get yer backgrounds, but ya gotta get what I'm sayin' here, right? If ya were a bunch of thieves, whatever led ya onto that probably wasn't great."
Another pause
"So, what ya gotta do is go and get strong. Aim for the top of things, that's the only way yer gonna make a difference in the way the world works. I'm workin' towards it, and I wouldn't say it's easy by any means, but it's at least something to work towards."
The others took this in.
"Well I mean, we're hunters anyway, so it's not really like there's much else we can do other than just stay where we are, nya." Shoot responded.
"What was even the point of that?" Lyra asked.
"It was for motivation, damnit." Zach answered, somewhat annoyed this hadn't had much of a visible effect.
Zach then walked off, ate some food and slept.
He woke up the next day just to find that the Jungle was still quarantined due to the Mizutsune and then lamented on how this time he was the one causing his own boredom.
TO BE CONTINUED
So yeah, there we go, that was a chapter.
If you can't tell Nodecoh and Windgralde are both places I made up to fuel the plot, though the South El De District is a place nearby to Jumbo Village, hence why the Jungle is being hunted in.
I'm bad at writing felyne speak, so that's why "nya" is in every sentence.
We also got one of the Fated Four Deviants showing up, which was good, though because I haven't played MHXX myself I can't say if this is accurate or not.
Honestly most of this chapter was unplanned, it was originally meant to just be the first section, but then I realised that was barely anything and that I had to add something.
The Mizutsune idea only came to me earlier this week, which might explain why this is going up five minutes after I'm done writing this sentence.
Bye, see you next update.