On the morning of the day when Zach recruited new members into the group, a man with short black hair woke up.
He stood up, appearing to be fairly tall, then stepped outside, beginning to walk straight towards the gathering hall.
As he went through the crowd, he went through his typical routine of avoiding contact as much as possible. This wasn't due to him being bad at communication, or simply disliking it, but him seeing it as something unnecessary.
However, as he continued to move he felt something off with this routine, as though he was being watched. He could separate himself from the crowd and try to draw out whatever was watching him, but that'd be a waste of time. He had to quickly get to the gathering hall and take the highest paying quests before anyone else could. He'd just hope that the presence would disappear in the time it took him to do that.
But, as he walked into the hall, he heard something. A sound like a bullet soaring through the air, except much larger. He then stopped, the bullet like object crashing into the ground where he was about to be.
The street somehow carried on, as if not noticing this. Sean paused a moment, before stepping over it, when suddenly his leg was grabbed.
He then kicked the thing until the arm lost its grip, and stepped forwards, before the bullet finally sprung upwards.
"Sean!" A voice yelled, finally causing Sean to finally acknowledge the bullet's existence.
A relatively small blonde(?) girl with long hair was there, with a light bowgun strapped to her back.
Sean paused for a few moments, trying to work out who it was, before finally going "Oh, it's Alicia. How'd you get here?"
"That's it…?" She briefly muttered, before returning to focus "I became a hunter! And then I just found ya now!"
"Cool."
"Well, I guess your impossible-to-faze-ness doesn't change!
"So why are you here?"
"Joinin' ya."
"I don't need help."
"Yer still gettin' it."
Sean then walked away and looked at the quests, his attention instantly being taken by the urgent quest for a Deviljho that was just sighted in the flooded forest, a well paying quest.
He took the quest instantly, but as he went to leave he noticed Alicia following him.
"Yer really gonna take a Deviljho quest?" He asked
"Yeah, I said that we're teammates now, right?"
"Sure, we'll work out a plan on the way."
Instead of taking the cart to the flooded forest, Sean instead walked out of town. He then whistled and an Azure Rathalos dropped from the sky.
"Oh, so you're still with Azure." Alicia thought aloud, despite having already known that.
Sean walked up to the flying wyvern and told him "Today we're going for a Deviljho in the Flooded Forest."
Azure silently gazed over at Alicia, to which Sean informed him "She's coming with us."
Azure could vaguely remember someone matching her appearance, so he decided to accept the explanation given.
Sean climbed onto his back and waited for Alicia to respond, to which she confidently stood in place.
Sean waited a few seconds, before saying "Aight." Azure began to take off.
"Wait!" Alicia yelled.
"We already did." Sean replied "Do you wanna get on now?"
"No, it's just… I'll be there in a minute."
So Azure flew in the direction of the flooded forest for a minute, until a Pink Rathian started to close in on them, Alicia clinging to her back.
"How's this? Pretty cool, right?" She asked.
"Yeah, sure." Sean responded.
Alicia had no idea how to respond to that, so the rest of the journey continued in silence.
Azure circled the forest for a while, before noticing a pickle shaped monster moving around between the trees.
He silently glided down, followed by Alicia and her Rathian. However, as they landed a roar called out in the distance, which the Deviljho responded with a roar in return, before beginning to sprint towards. Azure began to follow, this time on the ground.
The Deviljho finally came to a stop, behind a smug looking Crimson Qurupeco. Near it were four hunters, as well as three monsters. Azure caught up, but remained hidden.
For a few seconds, the world remained frozen, until the Deviljho lowered its neck slightly, then clamped its jaws down on the Peco. The mimic didn't have time to register what has happening, as in a single instant its head had vanished.
The Deviljho then started to eat the rest of its prey, while Sean continued to wait. Alicia caught up and was about to move to attack, before Sean muttered "Stop."
"Why?" She quietly replied.
"We'll wait and see what happens."
"Aren't those hunters over there gonna be at risk?"
"If it goes well for 'em, then we can join in. If it doesn't, then we can wait for it to get tired. Besides, we dunno what's going on with the monsters around 'em."
Alicia didn't agree with this, but she decided that for the time being she'd follow.
A minute passed, with the other group seeming to be on the losing side. They were finally knocked down by dragon breath, leaving them defenseless except one who remained standing, just barely.
Sean continued to wait, while Alicia looked alarmed.
"We gotta do somethin' now." She began
"Not yet, we'll take it by surprise when it starts eatin'."
"We can't just let random hunters die."
"Well, we can, really. Not like it matters much to us."
"That's not what ya would've done before, what's with ya nowadays?"
"What I used to be like isn't-"
Just then the Deviljho turned over to them, their loudness completely distracting it from what it was doing. Sean stopped his sentence midway, as the hunters disappeared off the cliff. The two duos jumped separate ways as the Deviljho crashed into the hiding spot. Azure kept his distance from the Deviljho, while Alicia's Rathian remained relatively close.
The Deviljho got ready for a stomp, causing the pink rathian to leap off the ground and strike at its side with her tail, poisoning it. In return, the Deviljho chomped at her, narrowly missing.
Alicia shot at it from above, while Sean shot at it from a distance. The Deviljho leapt towards him and Azure, narrowly missing. Azure then rose into the air. Sean kicked off his back and landed with a slide, shooting dragon sides at the Deviljho. It was distracted by him and started to pursue, going straight for a narrowly avoided bite.
As the Deviljho was distracted Azure rose higher into the sky, before finally stopping to spin around. He then headed straight for the ground, surrounding himself in fire. The Deviljho continued to focus on Sean, unable to notice the flaming wyvern bullet aimed straight for its head.
Azure's body crashed into the Deviljho, sending it straight into the ground. He still wasn't done, quickly rising into the air to finish it with a fireball once again aimed at the head. The eater of worlds finally stopped moving.
"That was super cool!" Alicia exclaimed, still on her Rathian's back. "Ya got like… a super attack name for that, right?"
"What" Sean replied.
"Somethin' like… blue storm drop, right?"
"Why would I do that."
"Because it sounds cool."
"We just did that cause Deviljhos tend to only be able to focus on one thing at a time, so if I distracted it then Azure would be able to use that."
Alicia then calmed down from the excitement of the fight and went back to how she was before, not saying anything.
They made it all the way back to town, before Sean finally decided to say something.
"Are you still mad about the lack of a name?"
Alicia looked at him with confusion, this not being what she expected. "What,no, it's… I'm mad because ya got worse!"
Regardless of whether he had been expecting this response or not, Sean's expression was unchanged. The conversation continued either way. "Worse at what?"
"Being so not-caring about anyone. I remember how you used to be, ya'd never do something like that."
"People change all the time."
"I know that… and just kinda accepted it. But now I got my Rathian, I can pursue after you."
She then paused.
"I'll stop you from getting worse. I'm gonna make you act like you did before. You escaped to the skies before, but now I can follow you there."
Sean still didn't react. "Sure, if that's what you wanna do, I don't have the effort to stop you." He then walked away, leaving determination long behind him.
TO BE CONTINUED
I wasn't planning on writing comments, but it feels appropriate to put some here. The original story is split into two parts, the aimless first half which was written by my friend and the second half which just rushes to the plot and is also terrible.
While I was able to adapt the first half by just changing some things around and adding/removing a few scenes, the second half is kinda impossible for me since tone-wise it makes no sense and a lot just happens for no reason. I'm probably going to change a lot to make more sense for the characters, but in order to make certain aspects work there's likely going to be parts that feel forced. It could also make a few of the old references in G feel redundant, but I'm pretty sure I included a recap at the start for the old version and you can probably just ignore those. I guess you could read the old version if you felt in a so-bad-it's-good mood, but that's probably why you're already here.
Also I have to apologise for how fast it will feel after this relatively slow buildup arc, but that's just how it is on this bitch of an earth.