"Why don't you tell me about yourself!?" Naruto yelled over the sound of wind rushing past them as he rode his bike at speeds now well surpassing what most cars could do. Desma was sure the two of them had already travelled over two hundred miles in the last two hours!
"Not much to know! My dad is Apolo, and my mother was a hooker from Florida! I came to camp when I was three years old, and I have spent most of my life training!" Desma yelled near his ear as she hung onto his waist for dear life. If she fell of this bike at these speeds, she was going to get more than some scrapes. She would be missing CHUNKS of her flesh and her bones would be shattered. That was more than she could heal.
She was only good at healing bruises and poisons.
"You mom was a hooker!?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow, and he could feel her shrug her shoulders at him.
"She was a big tittied bitch, and knew how to flip dad's switch!" Desma said, and Naruto couldn't help but laugh at that one. That was actually a pretty good joke of her to tell. The hooker part seemed to be true, but the way she said it made it funnier than it should have been. Naruto wasn't going to hold the hooker part against her though, because you can't help who your parents are.
"What did I say about rapping!?" Naruto asked her, and he tilted his head to look at her straight in the eyes. She shrank back from the flames that seemed to lick at his eyes, and she was pretty sure that he wasn't even trying to look scary. His warm eyes just made the thought of disappointing him to unthinkable that it scared you when you thought you were annoying him.
"Sorry! I won't do it again, and I promise I am not... LION!" Desma shouted in fear, and Naruto looked at her for a second before he realized why she yelled lion.
Right in front of them was a huge golden lion easily the size of a pick-up truck, and not only that but Naruto barely evaded it when it jumped at them. He ended up having to grab Desma quickly and tilted the bike so that they slid under the lion. This caused the lion to give chase after them, and Naruto saw the silver claws of the lion destroying the road behind them. It's fangs bared at them, and for a split second Naruto was worried.
"This is BULLSHIT!" Naruto yelled in annoyance at the fact they haven't even gone ONE day and they already had a fight on their hands. Right now Naruto was very sure he was cursed with shitty luck when it came to missions.
"Just peddle!" Desma yelled in terror, because she was staring right at the damn thing and she finally remembered what the creature was. This was no ordinary lion, it was the Nemean Lion. A creature that had an impenetrable pelt, and that only Hercules had been able to truly defeat.
"What are the odds of us killing that thing?" Naruto asked her with a small amount of excitement in his voice. Now that he thought about it, this was what he wanted. To battle monsters, and gain trophies from each one.
"We have no chance!" Desma was now nearly crying in fear of this thing, and she missed the smile on Naruto's face.
"I like those odds!" Naruto said as he tripled the speed of his peddling, and shot ahead before turning the bike around and going right at the lion.
"You crazy bastard!" Desma yelled, and she was about to jump off of the bike before she saw Naruto take his left hand off the bike. He channelled chakra through his arm to keep what he was about to do from breaking his bones, and for Desma time went in slow motion as the claws of the lion were an inch from Naruto's face, while his fist was an inch away from the lion's nose.
"SUCK IT!" Naruto yelled when his fist knocked the lion off course, and the creature was forced to land on it's side as blood gushed out of the creature's nose. Naruto slowed the bike to a stop, and started to shake his bleeding fist with a pained hiss. Even with his chakra strengthening him, he had broken the skin, as well as a few bones in his hand from that.
"You broke the Nemean Lion's nose." Desma muttered in shock, before she saw the creature get up. Even with one of the few non-fur covered spots of it's body busted, it wasn't enough to make it want to give up this god-sent meal. The aura of a powerful immortal was coming off the blond boy, and such a meal would be more tasty than any normal demigod.
"Get your bow ready and back me up from long distance." Naruto said as he hopped off his bike and the bronze colored ring on his middle finger turned into his new dagger. Desma nodded and quickly started to use the bike to get some more distance away from the lion, because she would be no good in a close-range battle with such a creature. She had a bow and arrow for a reason! She sucked at fighting with any other weapons!
"Got it, and good luck!" Desma yelled from her new spot about fifty feet away, and Naruto nodded with a grin. Things had just started to get a lot more exciting than he thought they were going to be.
"Here kitty, kitty, kitty." Naruto said in a mocking voice, and he could tell he had irritated the Nemean Lion if the roars of rage were anything to go by. Naruto charged at the monster, and when the monster swung a mighty claw at Naruto, he grinned just before it hit. Twisting his body, the claw went over his body and Naruto swung his knife. He was shocked though when the lion was completely unhurt by the attack.
"Okay, so kitty has some bite to him." Naruto said blandly as he started to jump and flip through every attack the lion would send at him, while all his own didn't even pierce the lion.
Naruto ducked under the claws of the creature again, before standing up as fast as he could and headbutting the monster in it's open eye. Naruto blinked when the creature roared in pain, and he started to put two and two together. When Naruto had punched the nose, he had done damage, because the nose had no fur on it. When he had slashed at the fur he did no damage, and when he hit the eye, it had hurt the lion. Did this monster have some sort of defence related to it's fur?
'I have a risky idea.' Naruto thought as he started to run wind chakra along the edge of his dagger, and this time when the creature tried to take a bite out of Naruto he dropped to his knees and let the creature pass over him. Raising his dagger up, he stabbed at the monster's stomach, and saw a very thin cut appear...painful, yet not deep enough to cause any real damage. The lion did roar in pain though, and kicked at Naruto's with it's hind leg.
A deep gash appeared on Naruto's shoulder, as his golden blood spilt on the road. Naruto winced in pain, before he rolled out of the way as the lion slashed at him again. Naruto winced worse when he rolled over on his injured shoulder, but he still channelled wind chakra through the knife, cutting through the pad on the underside of the lion's paw when it attacked again. Naruto saw an arrow hit the lion's side, but do no damage. The lion even ignored it in favor of forcing Naruto to roll to his feet to avoid getting his head ripped off.
Bringing his hands together in a cross shape he grinned as the lion got closer.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto yelled, and in forty puffs of smoke a small army of clones appeared before him. All but two clones jumped at the lion, and each stuck themselves to the lion with chakra to slow it down. With five chakra powered Narutos on each leg the monster was no longer able to move it's legs, leaving it to become a sitting duck.
The original Naruto stood up a grin that held his knife between his teeth, and on each side a clone was groping at the air above Naruto's palms until golden orbs of swirling power appeared in each palm. Naruto looked at the golden colored Rasengans in his hands in shock as the clones poofed away.
Was this the result of so much of his godly blood activating, like with his now golden blood?
"HOLY SHIT!" Desma yelled as she watched the battle Naruto was having, and Naruto grimaced. He had completely forgotten that she was there, but it was to late now.
"Might as well test some new power." Naruto muttered with a small sigh as he started to walk forward to the restrained lion. thirty-eight clones of Naruto holding it down did not completely stop it, and that was pretty impressive. He picked up his speed until he was in a run, and then he popped two clones to give him enough room to hit the the beast.
The result...epic. It would seem that his new, golden version of the normal form of the Rasengan was just as powerful as the Big Ball Rasengan, and two huge trails ripped through the ground and expanded so that the lion was completely covered by the golden chakra. Naruto sighed in relief as he saw the the fur on the lion's body start to grind away, as gold dust started to hit the ground the lion was sent skidding across. Naruto winced and looked down at his palms and saw the some of the skin had been ripped off as well.
Soon though, he felt the pain in his shoulder and hands fade away as his new heightened healing factor took care of the wounds as if they had never been there. Naruto groaned though and took off his gold stained shirt and jacket, before he grimaced at it's condition. Rips and tears along the whole thing, and while still slightly usable it was not in condition for another fight.
Instinct kicked in at that moment, and Naruto jumped in the air and OVER the lion as it passed over him. Dust gushing out of it's side, and using his torn shirt he landed on the lion's back and wrapped the shirt around it's neck. Taking his knife out of his mouth, he channeled wind chakra once more and stabbed the creature right in the eye. More than deep enough to destroy the creature's brain.
Naruto smiled and jumped off the dead monster as it turned into into golden dust, leaving only a pelt behind as proof of Naruto's first victory. Picking up the pelt, he held it up in the air as a final sign of victory.
"You did it!" Desma shouted as she started to run towards him, and Naruto watched as the pelt transformed into a long-sleeved golden vest with a longer than normal collar that covered his neck, . Down the middle of the vest was a pure silver zipper for the vest, and Naruto didn't waste a moment to put on his victory trophy.
He needed a new shirt anyway for the journey.
"Yeah, and that thing was tough." Naruto said as stretched his limbs out, and Desma looked at him like he was insane. He took out the Nemean Lion like it was nothing, and has the gall to say something like that?
If only she knew the kinds of things Naruto had done in his old job and in his old life before being sent to camp, then this wouldn't be so surprising to her. Actually, if Naruto hadn't gotten that weird boost to his Rasengan at the end he was sure this would have been a lot more difficult to do. Not that he was complaining one bit, but he was still surprised. He had actually checked before, and before today his Rasengans had been blue.
"What the... what was THAT!?" Desma yelled as she pointed at the crater that Naruto's attack had made earlier, and Naruto tried to think up an excuse as quickly as he could. He was not going to tell this girl everything, mostly because he didn't trust her fully yet.
"My special...godly powers." Naruto said in a voice that fooled her into thinking he was telling the truth. It was half true, because compared to demigods shinobi powers were on another level, and you didn't even need an affinity for something to use a different jutsu. You could have a fire element, but if you trained hard enough you could learn to use water jutsu. Demigods were stuck with whatever powers they got from their parents, and that was it.
"Well...damn, there isn't much I can say to that. I'm still in shock that the Nemean Lion attacked us on our first day away from Camp. You must have a REALLY powerful aura to attract it so quickly." Desma said nervously, and with good reason. Naruto's aura would easily repel weaker monsters, while stronger monsters would flock to him if he stayed in one place for too long.
"What does that have to do with anything? I'll just kill anything that comes at us." Naruto asked with a curious look on his face. His flame-colored eyes gazed deeply into her soul, and liked always, she shivered when she met eyes with him. She was going to have to get him to wear sunglasses, because no matter how warm and loving those eyes were, they were still pretty scary. It was really like staring into the eyes of somebody that held your life in his hands.
He deserved his titles of Flame-Eyed Prince and Male Goddess.
"Monsters will come back, even if you kill them. They reform after enough time had passed." Desma lectured, and opened his mouth to speak for a moment. Then he closed it and thought about it for a moment. If every monster he killed just reformed, that meant he could fight them over and over to his heart's content without having to worry about them.
"So I can fight it again?" Naruto questioned her, and she nodded.
"Yeah, but they remember how you beat them last time, so they get tougher every time they lose." Desma said, hoping to prevent Naruto's train of thought.
"Awesome! I can't wait to see the Nemean Lion again, so I can kill it again!" Naruto said with a grin, and he went over to his bike and got on it. Desma shook her head and followed him anyway, mostly because she was finally getting the adventure she had trained for most of her life. She wasn't about to quit now, just when it was getting good.
'Only this guy would want to fight the same monster again, even though it will be stronger than before.' Desma thought as she placed her hands on his waist. She looked at his arms and saw that the fact he wasn't wearing sleeves showed that he was more toned than even the other guys at the camp. That was impressive in it's own right, and she wondered how he got those muscles.
She would question Naruto about his cloning thing later, because she was pretty sure he would just lie to her again if she asked to soon.
"You're really warm." Desma commented with a strange look on her face when she noticed how hot Naruto's body was, and she didn't mean that in the romantic context. She meant that in the way that his body was actually a lot warmer than a human body should be.
"My mother is a goddess that deals with fire all the time, and can control fire. Fire is apart of my very being, and my body reflects that. Can't really help it." Naruto said as he started to pedal at a slower rate than before. It wasn't like they had a time limit or something, and there was the fact that Naruto was pretty happy with how soon he got to fight.
'I can't believe I didn't even get to test out my new flame-based powers.' Naruto thought with a slight frown on his face. He really wanted to fight something soon that would push him to the limit, so that he could exceed his limits and grow that much stronger.
Growing stronger was in his very nature after all.
- With Artemis -
'Now that is very interesting.' Artemis thought as she looked at the silver ring around the ring finger on her left hand. Her ring had another feature she had yet to tell Naruto about, and that was that it would tell her if he defeated any monsters while wearing the ring. It was only fitting that the huntress be alerted to when her future husband has slain a monster.
The fact that the monster he had slain was the Nemean Lion was a feat worthy of some of the most powerful demigods...not that Naruto could be called such a term with his blood. Yes, the term Near-God was much more correct in his case. Not that it mattered, because soon he would be a God... or rather a 'Male Goddess' as she had been informed about through watching what had been going on at the Camp before Naruto left.
"How funny, the Goddess of Chastity will be wed to the one that is called the Male Goddess. It makes me wonder what he will be a God of when he has turned." Artemis spoke to herself softly, and with amusement in her voice. The fact that people were already giving him labels when he had yet to show what he would be a god of was rather humorous, and she doubted that he would ever live down the one title she was sure he wasn't fond of.
What man liked to be called a Goddess after all?...but it was indeed fitting. Most of his blood did come from a Goddess after all.
She wondered what beast Naruto would 'hunt' next.