March 14th, 1349
Ben walked through Moga, a town that was floating on the ocean.
Apparently, at one point, it had only been a small hunting village, but it gained popularity when a hunter from it managed to drive back a Ceadeus that was troubling the village despite overwhelming odds, which gained it a lot of popularity, even if they spent the better part of their life afterwards in Loc Lac.
So, because of that, the village had expanded greatly. While it did sometimes encounter trouble, there were now enough hunters that nothing short of another Elder Dragon attack could deter it.
This is where Ben now found himself, having been hunting there for a while now.
It looked like another day like normal, when suddenly two girls walked up to him. They seemed normal enough appearance with the exception of their eyes, which were for some reason purple.
There was a momentary pause before Ben walked around them and kept on going.
"Hey, where are you going!?" The longer haired one yelled.
Ben turned around and pointed to himself.
"Yeah, you! We stopped you, that means we want to talk to you, yeah!?"
"I don't think that's how things work here…" The shorter haired one muttered.
"Huh… Noche sure is a weird place... Whatever… we just gotta talk to you, okay?"
"Sure."
"So yeah anyway, you're like a hunter who hunts alongside a…" She thought for a second before turning to the other one. "Shayusaur?"
"They call it Plesioth here." She responded.
"Yeah, you hunt with a Plesioth, that's the one. So anyways, we wanna work with you, because we've got ones of our own!"
"Cool."
"...Is that it?"
"Well yeah, I don't really know ya, so there ain't much reason to get excited."
"Well, I guess that makes sense…"
"By the way, who're you? Cause you haven't really explained much…"
"I'm Natasha!" The long haired one responded "And that one's Natalie, my sister."
"N-nice to meet you…" She murmured.
"So yeah, we can go kill monsters now, right?" She then started running out of the village.
"Where are you going!?" Ben yelled.
"To kill monsters!"
"You need a quest first!"
"Oh, I forgot about that."
"..."
Natasha stopped and walked back.
They got a quest to hunt a Tetsucabra and set out.
They walked a little ways into the Deserted Island, before the two suddenly stopped.
"They should be around here…" Natasha muttered, before an Arzuros appeared.
"Is that it?" Ben asked.
"No." She responded, before running at it angrily screaming and swinging her weapon around.
She was using an axe, which at first looked the same as Ben's axe, but upon observing closer he started to suspect that it was a charge blade, not a switch axe.
His suspicions increased when she turned it into a sword and shield.
"Is this allowed?" Natalie asked.
"Yeah, so long as we say it was self defense."
"Oh… that helps."
She ran forwards, pulling her weapon off her back, a hunting horn.
The Arzuros tried to fight for a good while, but couldn't do much, being easily pushed back.
After a short while, something else entered the arena.
It landed a short distance away, and Ben turned towards it with his weapon drawn.
Upon closer inspection, he realised it was a Crimson Qurupeco.
He was about to start attacking it before something bad happened, but he was stopped.
Ben was obviously confused, so Natalie explained. "That's my monster, Frega."
"Oh, makes sense, I guess."
There was a silence while Ben took this in.
"It's a Qurupeco, right?"
"Crimson, yeah."
"So why not have it control the Arzuros…"
"She can only imitate cries she knows…"
"Why not just have her use one of those…"
"It's kind of a gamble."
Ben didn't really get what this meant, but he figured he should just leave it.
Eventually, the Arzuros dropped to the ground, having been overwhelmed.
They quickly carved it before setting out.
On the way there, Ben heard the noise of running.
He turned to see Plessy excitedly running straight at them.
He ran up to them, then looked more hesitant due to the others. "Nah, don't think they're planning anything bad." Ben said. Plessy seemed reassured, though the other three felt somewhat offended that they were apparently so naturally suspicious.
Walking around for a little while longer, they saw a Tetsucabra.
They also saw that its tusks were much longer then they were normally, and that it was more blue than it was normally.
"Is that a subspecies?" Natalie asked.
"Nah, think it's a deviant…" Ben responded.
"What's that?" Natasha asked.
"Ya seriously dunno? It's when a monster survives some fights, then evolves. Like, above subspecies at this point."
"Huh, never seen one before. Well, Deviljhos only learn by eating!"
"What?"
Instead of answering, Natasha just simply rushed forwards, straight at the Tetsu.
It saw her coming, so before she reached it it dug its tusks into the ground and pulled up a chunk of it, creating a wall between them.
Natasha quickly ran around this, heading to the right.
Ben and Natalie ran forwards, with the intention of supporting her.
The Tetsu seemed to have anticipated this, as it pulled up the ground once again, this time holding onto it.
Natasha moved in closer, at which point it raised its head into the air, then crashed its head down, crunching down on it, almost hitting her.
She slashed at its side, and it tried to bite at her, being unsuccessful but at least halting her attacks momentarily.
At this moment, it pulled up the ground once again, this time forming another wall.
The others caught up, and Natasha ran around this to find it was gone.
"It must've dug under the ground…" Ben muttered.
"Did it leave the area?" Natasha responded.
"Dunno, your guess's good as mine."
She didn't understand what she said, but wasn't able to ask as they heard a noise some slight distance away.
The Tetsu was standing in place, moving its body in a somewhat menacing fashion.
They drew their weapons once again, figuring that it was going to come at them.
They weren't wrong, but they were expecting either a dig through the ground or an all out charge, instead of a leap through the sky.
But even so, they was what they were undoubtedly faced with.
They tried to dodge, but were unable to clear the impact, being knocked back slightly.
The one closest was Natalie, who took a swing at its head.
This was successful, followed by another two.
The Tetsu ended up dodging out of the way, and retaliated with launching some rocks at her, but these were dodged with some difficulty.
While this had been occurring, Frega had been striking her wings together, getting ready to strike.
Finally, the timing was perfect and she leapt forwards, hitting the Tetsu with a surge of electricity, causing it to recoil with pain.
Natalie then stepped in for two more hits, before stopping to play a song on her horn.
Ben felt his strength increase and Plessy seemed to be the same.
Plessy took a firm stance then raised his head into the air, before finally shooting out a beam of pressurised water, straight at the Tetsu.
It didn't have the time to dodge, taking the attack at more than full power.
Finally, it finished, the Tetsu still standing.
Natasha charged for it, but at that moment the rock which it had put up ages ago began to move. It fell over, set to hit her.
It looked like this was going to happen, but as to be expected at this point, it didn't.
Instead, a large stump that could be counted fist crashed against it, pushing it back.
The rock hit the ground, covered in green slime, which then turned yellow and blew up.
Natasha looked around and finally murmured "Was wondering when you were going to show up…"
She turned to Ben "This is Aki, she is cool."
The Tetsu watched this happen, and once again created a wall, to try and shield itself.
Not letting this work, Aki ran up to it and punched it.
Just as before the slime stuck to it, before it blew up, revealing the Tetsu was already underground.
Aki noticed some slight movement, then leapt through the air towards it.
She fell short, but stuck her horn into the ground.
For a few seconds, nothing appeared to happen, but then explosions started appearing in front of her, blowing the ground up.
This launched the Tetsu out of the ground, in great pain.
It shook this off and looked forwards, the two monsters now staring each other down.
They both then suddenly leaped into the air and clashed midway. Aki was able to land some hits, but was pushed back by the Tetsu's landing, sustaining a fair amount of language. The slime then went off and exploded, injuring the Tetsu also.
The two began to fight for a while, Aki able to land more hits but the Tetsu's attacks being more effective.
The fight was going nowhere and everyone else was unable to interfere, when suddenly the Tetsu stopped its movement completely. Aki missed her punch. It hit the ground harmlessly. She was now open. This confirmed it, so the Tetsu charged forwards with the intent of pinning Aki to the nearest wall.
Aki tried to strike at him, these were successful, but she was lacking the advantage she had before, as now her fists had dried out, the slime was completely harmless. Aki was slammed against the wall, causing the rocks on it to collapse, almost burying her. She managed to get out, but the damage was clear.
Natasha charged in, slashing at the Tetsu's side, while Aki recovered, the others joining in.
Despite a temporary advantage, things were still stuck in an advantage.
After a few dozen minutes, Ben was frustrated.
He turned to Natalie and yelled "Hey, ya still got that mimicry trick up yer sleeve, right!? If yer gonna use it some point, now's pretty good!"
Natalie paused "Are you sure about this?"
"Better than what we got now!"
"Okay then…" She turned to Frega and nodded.
Frega moved her head backwards, her vocal sac puffing up and her horn opening, and let out a deep roaring noise.
Natasha, Aki, Natalie and Frega herself all started running for cover. Ben thought for a second about this, before finally recognising it. He started running, and Plessy followed. This left only the Tetsu, highly confused.
They just about managed to scramble into hiding, when a Deviljho stormed into the area.
The Tetsu looked up at it, and felt somewhat confident. It roared at the Deviljho and then crushed a rock with its jaws, as if trying to show its strength.
The Deviljho was unimpressed.
Continuing on, the Tetsu dug into the ground and started to move towards the Deviljho, confident it couldn't be seen.
The Deviljho waited.
Finally, after waiting to check the angle was right, the Tetsu pounced out of the earth, ready to strike.
The Deviljho looked at it, then raised its foot.
The Tetsu drew near, then right when it was underneath, the Deviljho stepped down, pinning it and stopping it completely.
The Tetsu struggled with everything it had, unable to escape.
The Deviljho then used dragon breath, blasting it for a solid minute.
Just to make sure, it then stomped on it some more.
It was pretty much dead by now, so the Deviljho started to eat.
"Wait, isn't that bad?" Ben asked quietly.
"It's dead, isn't it?" Natasha responded.
"The Deviljho's eating it." Ben explained.
"Well we could fight it." Natasha declared.
"Any other monsters you could mimic?" Ben asked, ignoring Natasha.
Natalie looked over at Frega and nodded.
Frega mimicked a cry, and in flew a Rathalos.
The Deviljho and the Rathalos fought for a little while, the Rathalos clearly losing. It refused to get hit by the dragon breath, due to its strong weakness against it.
The fight wasn't going anywhere, but then another monster showed up, this time a Rathian. The two worked together well, so they were able to make it leave the area.
The Raths waited in silence for a moment, recovering, when they noticed the Tetsu corpse.
Ben suddenly leapt out of hiding and began sprinting for it, but by the time he reached them they had already grabbed it and were headed off, dodging around Plessy's attacks as well.
Without really thinking, Ben and Plessy started to chase after them, the other four tailing.
They eventually reached a nest, where the Raths landed, dropped the body, then took off.
Ben moved forwards, to make sure the monsters weren't still around.
They heard a noise to their left.
It was a nest of tiny Raths, newborn most likely.
Ben continued on, not having any intent to do anything to do them, but then he saw Natasha walk up to them, her weapon raised in axe mode.
She was about to swing down, when she was suddenly stopped by Ben.
"Hey, what're ya doing!?"
"I'm killing these... wyverns before they can grow up and become problems."
"Ya can't just kill them, they're only kids!"
"They're still wyverns, they need to be killed as they're a problem."
Ben was about to argue back, but then they were interrupted by the two Raths landing. They roared, so they quickly moved to the corpse of the Tetsu, putting it behind them.
"What do we do now, if we're not allowed to kill them!?" Natasha yelled.
"This!" Ben yelled, signalling to Plessy, who knocked all of them off with one large tail strike. They fell until they hit the ocean. When they hit, Aki panicked and immediately climbed for land, while everyone else seemed fine.
The Tetsu corpse began to float on the sea, so they carved it, but they didn't have any way of taking it back now.
They made it back to town, then Ben finally went to sleep, feeling tired.
March 15th, 1349
Ben walked out of his hut, figuring that today would be more normal, when once again he was stopped by the two blocking his path.
"So whaddya want now?" Ben asked.
"I want to ask more about why you didn't kill those wyverns." Natasha asked "Because I don't get it."
"Well, simple, ain't it? They're just kids, ain't hurting anyone, so there's no point in just cuttin' their lives short like that…"
"Still though, even if they're not fully grown now, they will still grow into larger wyverns, and then they'll probably end up hurting someone."
"There's a chance, yeah, but at the same time there's also a chance they're all just gonna go off live their lives not bothering nobody."
"That's still quite low… plus, what makes it different from that Arzuros we killed back there?"
Ben thought about it for a moment or two. "Honestly, dunno. Ain't gonna claim to be some super heroic dude with great morals and shit, I just don't like the idea of killing kids like that."
There was a silence. "I still don't get it…" Natasha muttered. She spun to Natalie "Hey, you get this?"
"Well, not really, but if that's the way things are here, then there's no helping it…" She answered.
"Huh, that reminds me, Where're ya from? Cause it sure ain't here, seeing as how you don't know mosta it."
Natalie looked really shocked and somewhat worried, but Natasha just responded "Oh, we're from Día."
"Never heard of it."
Natasha was about to say something, but suddenly Natalie cut in "It's just a country to the west of here. It's quite different to here, which is why we're so confused, so that's why!"
Ben didn't get why she was so worried about this, so he just figured he should leave it.
He started to walk off, when suddenly Natasha started yelling again. "Hey, we're coming with you!"
Ben turned around "Why?"
"Because, I still don't get that sparing monsters thing, so I figure you're the best shot I have at working it out." Natasha explained.
"Also we started hunting with you to work out how to hunt well with our monsters and we didn't really do that… at all." Natalie added.
"Okay then." Ben said, walking off again, this time with two really strange hunters behind him.
TO BE CONTINUED
So yeah that's another chapter, only slightly late this time, so I mean I'm getting somewhere. School's been difficult I guess, but still now it's the half term, so who knows I might get somewhere with the last two chapters of this arc.
I don't really have that much to say here, the names of the two new characters are super similar because I hate you or something.