Howdy, folks. At last, I was able to crank out another oneshot. I know it's taken hell of a lot of time, but there's always the main project to work on, so I had only very few opportunities to work on it.
On another note, once my story is finished, the oneshots will be integrated in the story as chapters, along with some more changes. This is gonna be the prologue.
Disclaimer: I don't own Monster Hunter. However, I do own my plot and my original characters.
Courage of despair
The hunter came to a sliding halt on one of the snow-covered rocks that littered this part of the Nameless Mountains. He was a well-trained man with long, black hair and piercing blue eyes. His body was clad in an armour that was made of the remains of a Tigrex. On his back he wore an impressive longsword, that had been forged more than a hundred years ago, when Minegarde had still been an empire.
He pushed a few bangs of his hair out of his face and looked down into the valley. On its far end he could see the tip of their prey's tail as it disappeared into the maze of cliffs and canyons that reached up to the Dragon Lands, a landscape that was more infested with monsters than all others. He considered this discovery with mixed feelings. On the one hand he was glad that they would soon have caught up with it, but on the other hand he was worried about what would happen then.
The sound of footsteps snapped him out of his thoughts. Before he turned around, he could hear the huffing of his old friend closing in. "Nathan, will you wait! You wanna lose me?"
Nathan managed a wry smile. Wenh was a small, but sturdy man with a broad, friendly face and short, red hair. He wore a suit made of Blangonga-pelt that effectively protected him from the cold of this region. The heavy bowgun he had built himself was slung to his back, the ammunition for it filling most of his pockets. He was an excellent sprinter, but didn't take very well to a long run.
"Of course not", Nathan replied gleefully. "I thought you were right behind me the whole time. Where have you been?"
"He fell back because he wasted precious breath by complaining about your speed", a third voice revealed.
Borel, a tall, slender man with long, blonde hair that he had tied to a knot appeared behind Wenh. He wore an armour made of white Khezu-hide that was of great use for hunting in the mountains, since from afar it could hardly be made out in the snow. His weapon was a one-handed, double-edged axe that was covered in the rubber-like skin of a Gypceros. This skin was drenched with the same poison these wyverns used in battle, so that Borel was able to poison his enemies with his attacks. On his left arm he wore a round shield that was also covered with it, for it perfectly absorbed the lightning-spheres of a Khezu, keeping the hunter from harm.
"Instead of complaining about my speed, you should thank me for it. After all, I could just see our prey." The others looked at him with surprise. "It's moving far slower than I had anticipated."
Wenh took a disgruntled look around. "This area is far more unhostly than it looks. Until we're down there it will take at least half a day, maybe more."
Nathan shook his head. "We don't have so much time. If we don't manage to catch up to it... there's no telling what would happen then."
Borel stood beside him und looked down the cliff. "So we slide?"
Wenh took his weapon and joined them. "I can't see any caves or large rocks, so it should work."
Nathan took his sword from his back, together with its sheath, and held it out before him, so that it wouldn't get stuck between the rocks. Considering what they were about to do, this could easily be fatal.
The three hunters had spent their entire lifes in these mountains. During that time the had developed methods to venture through this area which others wouldn't even think of. One of those was the Sliding. This harmless term stood for a very dangerous process. They would jump off the cliff, slow down their descent by stemming their feet in the snow and thus slide down the mountainside.
"Look for good positions", Nathan ordered. After all, even thought there were no obvious hindrances, the wall of a cliff everything but even. The smallest of obstacles could already be their end, since falling would be deadly due to the speed they would slide down with.
After they had positioned themselves properly, he clenched his teeth. "Ready? Go!"
Together they jumped off the cliff. As soon as their boots had touched the snow, they began to slide down faster and faster. More than once did Nathan have to readjust his weight to avoid obstacles. "Get ready to jump!" he yelled when they were only about three hundred feet from the ground. They bent their knees and forcefully leaped off the mountain a few seconds later, turned in mid-air and came down on the ground. The impact shook his every bone and his momentum made him roll onward several meters before he finally stopped.
He dizzily got up again, wobbling intensively, so he needed a few attempts to strap his sword on his back again. A few feet away from him he could hear Wenh laugh, like he always did when they survived such an insane deed. Borel seemed to be completely unfazed by it, as usual.
After the world had stopped spinning around him, Nathan shook his head once more, then he turned to his friends. "We just saved a lot of time, but we still have to hurry."
The others nodded, so they kept going. Borel eyed him questioningly. "Seriously, Nathan, how do you think are our chances?"
Nathan was silent for a while. How are our chances? We're hunting something no hunter has even seen ever before. "We'll know when the time comes."
Wenh scrunched his face. "That doesn't really soothe me."
"If what the legends say ist true, Akantor is one of the most powerful monsters ever, even stronger than a Lao Shan Lung", Borel said. When no one answered, he quietly continued. "Is that the reason why you asked Erris to stay in the village?"
"I just wanted to make sure she's safe. If something goes wrong, Ezakiel shouldn't loose both parents", Nathan answered.
"But our chances would be much better if she was with us", Wenh said.
"If the legends exaggerate, as legends tend to do, we can take it out without her."
"And if the legends don't exaggerate?" Borel asked.
Nathan sighed. "...Then another sword wouldn't make a difference."
His comrades were honestly shocked at that, but then their fear made way for resolve. Nathan knew that these men were willing to die for their families if they had to, and, in secret, he was almost certain that it would come to this. After all, they were not up against an ordinary monster, but against a beast of lore that had been sealed in the eternal ice ages ago because it could not be defeated. It was more than probable that they wouldn't survive this hunt.
The hours went by when they followed their preys trail into the cliffs. They couldn't possibly miss it. A chill ran down Nathans spine when he saw its footprints, as long as a man was tall.
Borel looked in the direction the traces led to. "Appearently it's headed for the Dragon Lands. In that case we can get in front of it by taking that pass." He pointed to a small cut in the mountain that was too narrow to be called anything else.
Nathan looked at the map he always carried with him and saw that he was right. Even though this region was overrun with countless of canyons, there was only one route Akantor could have taken, simply because it was the only one it'd fit into. It coiled its way throught he mountains while the pass Borel had suggested led almost straight to the end of this route. They would not only be able to catch up to, but actually proceed it. With that they would have enough time to prepare for the battle.
"We should come up with a strategy", Nathan said when they entered the pass. "What do we know about Akantor?"
Wenh turned around, looking at the traces the monster had left behind, while walking backwards. "We know for sure that it's big. I'm sure it's strong as well, after all, it could get out of a mountain all by itself."
"It's also slow", Borel interjected. "We could close in on it far quicker than we anticipated. Most likely the cold gets to it. That means that it's also not very agile. If we manage to surround it, we have an advantage."
Nathan critically looked at the map. "Unfortunately, this will hardly be possible. This ravine is hardly broad enough to take it in. There's a basin we could use, but it lies a bit of a way in the direction Akantor will come from. If we face it there, we might not have the time to prepare."
"But that's still better than fighting it in the canyon. It can't maneouvre there, but neither can we, and in this narrowness it would have all advantages. If we want to have any chance at all to defeat it, we have to fight the battle on our conditions, not its."
"Then I say we should hurry", Wenh said.
Nathan had to smile. "You volunteer to run?"
His friend grinned. "For my life? Sure. If I don't, we'll probably all die."
"Well, then we shouldn't waste any time. Let's go!"
They crossed the pass double quick. The rocky walls narrowed threateningly at times, but after about half an hour they reached the end. The gorge before them branched in two directions, of which Nathan chose the right one after consulting his map.
"How large is this basin anyway?" Wenh asked.
"In any case, it's far larger than anything else in this area. Maybe three hundred feet in diameter or more", Nathan replied. "One way or the other, it's the best we have."
Shortly after that, they reached their destination. The plaza was rather oval than round and luckily quite even. With relief they noticed that the snow was still untouched. Akantor had indeed not yet been here.
"So this is where we'll make a stand", Borel mused. "As long as we have time, we should rest and prepare. It might be a while until it gets here."
Nathan nodded. "All right, but we won't make a fire. I don't want it to notice us first."
They set up an improvised camp. Since they didn't have a fire, they had to make do with hard-frozen rations. While they were waiting, they checked their weapons. Nathan took a very worn-out whetstone out of his bag and sharpened his sword while Wenh took apart his bowgun to clean it. Only Borel left his weapons, where they were, and had his eyes closed to meditate.
"Say...", Wenh began after having completely rebuilt his weapon. "...how do you imagine death?"
"Don't you think this is a bad moment to talk about that?" Nathan asked.
"Painful", Borel said, ignoring him.
Wenh raised his eyebrows. "I actually meant what comes after that. I know it hurts to be eaten."
"What comes after that?" Nathan asked. "What should come after the end?"
"Well, you see, some say there is nothing, only an absolute emptiness. Others think that one is reborn, as someone else. What do you think?"
"I believe what I see", Borel replied. "I wouldn't know what I'd prefer anyway. Feeling nothing at all, including regret, or living again to approach death and ask myself the same question once more."
"Maybe, but wouldn't you wanna know?"
Nathan decidedly shook his head. "Definitely not. I don't think that this knowledge is meant for the living, anyway. Just think about what it could cause. Let's say, there's nothing after death. Wouldn't you lose all hope, since anything you accomplished in life would be in vain? Or the other way around, what if you knew that you'll be reborn? You wouldn't care whether you accomplish something, for if you fail, you could just take your life and try again. You either loose hope and live in fear or loose your motivation don't give a damn about your own life. That's what it leads up to, and that's why I wouldn't want to know even if there was a way to find out."
Wenh thought about that for a while. "If you see it that way, it really seems to be best to just see when the time comes."
"Right, but we should make sure that it comes as late as possible."
After that there was silence. Each of them was lost in their own thoughts. When the sun had almost completely set, Borel stiffened and listened attentively. "Wait, did you hear that?" he asked, closing his eyes to focus on his hearing. Nathan and Wenh followed suit, and indeed they perceived a thudding noise, as if something heavy would drop.
Wenh's face became worried. "These aren't it's footsteps, right?"
"I'm afraid they are", Borel quietly said.
"Fan out!" Nathan ordered. "Borel, go to the right of the entrance. Wenh, you come with me to the left. Your first shot will be our signal. If we're lucky, we can surprise it."
They hurried to their positions with weapons drawn. When they reached them, they could already clearly hear the stomping footsteps of their prey. Nathan risked a peek around the corner and made out a huge, dark shadow closing in slowly, but snow and fog prevented him from seeing more. "Get ready", he called to Borel as loudly as he dared, who nodded in return. He himself gripped his sword more tightly. Beside him Borel loaded some powerful shells in his bowgun. The stomping became louder by the second. Nathan didn't look around again, afraid of giving away their presence.
Then Akantor entered the basin. Nathan's heart almost stopped when he saw it. The broad head alone was at least seven feet high. Two Tusks, each longer than a man, protruded from its lower jaw, the rest of the maw was riddled with razor-sharp teeth. The actual body seemed almost plump, but the great muscles belied this. Large, pitch-black, thorny plates covered its body and the massive tail ended with something that looked very much like a claw.
All in all the giant was a horrifying sight to behold. Nathan felt his heart sink. Now he could understand the surnames it was given: Akantor the calamity. The Black God.
Fortunately, the beast didn't seem to have noticed them, for it trudged along without slowing down or even looking around. Nathan bowed closer to Wenh. "When it reaches the middle of the basin, you shoot. That way it can't take cover anywhere", he whispered. Wenh nodded fearfully.
On the other side of the entrance, Borel had raised his weapons and was ready to attack. Nathan levelled his sword and inhaled deeply to calm himself. Then Wenh pointed his bowgun at the beast and pulled the trigger.
The projectile left the barrel with a loud cracking sound and precisely hit Akantors hind-leg. Immediately the two meele-combantants charged forward while Wenh kept on shooting. Their enemy roared angrily, a sound like growling thunder, and turned around.
When Akantor had just faced the threat, Nathan was in range. He jumped forward and cleaved his blade down with all his strenght. It impacted right on its snout – and bounced off!
Perplexed, he attacked again with just as little success, then he had to leap aside as the powerful jaws of the colossus snapped where he had been moments ago. Meanwhile, the powerful tail struck Borel, who could barely evade. All the while they could hear Wenhs permanent firing.
Nathan jumped up again and circled around the beast. It followed him with its gaze, but when an especially well placed shot hit its tusk, it stared down at Wenh. It opened its maw, inhaled deeply and let out a roar that, for some reason, seemed to distort sonic itself, as if the sounds were sucked into themselves.
Wenh seemed to sense the danger, for he sprinted to the side just in time, for the roar created a shockwave that blowed the snow away and tore up the ground before crashing into the mountain and drilling a several feet-long tunnel into it.
Nathan was crestfallen in the face of such destructive power. If this attack was able to do something like that to solid rock, a human would have no chance at all. He quickly pulled himself together, for such thoughts had no place in battle. He rushed towards the left front-leg of the monster and attacked it repeatedly, but there was no getting through either. Not even a small scratch was left on the heavy shell.
Borel obviously had similar problems. No matter how fiercely he struck, it had no effect. Wenh continued to shoot while running, but he too couldn't hurt it. Nathan started to become desperate. It wasn't as if the shell was merely very tought, but rather it seemed invincible. Their attacks would have left at least traces on even a Lao Shan Lung, but on this beast it looked as if they hadn't engages it at all.
Wenh closed in on Akantor in order to be able to circle around it more easily, Borel jumped on its tail to climb along it and Nathan acted as the bait, hitting its head time and time again to anger it. He seemed to have success, for it growled menacingly and charged at him with what little speed it could muster. Even though it was pretty slow, its enormous size made it look like a mountain attempting to crush the hunter.
Before he could realize the madness of his action, Nathan ran towards it, avoided its snapping jaws and trampling feet and managed to get below its body. Then he came out again at its flank and used the opportunity to slash at its hind-leg, but to his dismay, it had no effect.
In the meantime, Borel had managed to climb on their enemy's back, from where he now started to descend to the head. Akantor simply ignored him and instead stared down at Nathan, while small explosions blossomed on its other side where Wenhs shots hit. The beast growled angrily and stroke out with its tail.
Shocked, Nathan saw that it was coming towards him, which, seeing as it stroke out, meant that it would swing the other side. A chill ran down his spine when he realized what Akantor was about to do. "Wenh! Watch out!"
The mighty, black appendage swept over the snow. Akantor's massive body blocked the hunter's view, but Wenh's short scream could be heard as distinctly as the impact that silenced it. For this single, absolutely gruesome moment Nathan, against all reason, clutched to the desperate hope that it might just have been a trick of the senses.
A hope that was crushed when he saw Wenh being flung through the air like a rag doll, to drop back down to the ground more than twenty meters from his original position. "Wenh, no!" he screamed in horror. Borel, who had been able to see everything clearly from up above Akantor's back, became as pale as a sheet.
Without taking heed of the monster, Nathan rushed to his friend, but stopped a small distance away from him. Wenh's body was twisted unnaturally, as if every bone in it had been shattered. Dark blood seeped from the mangled corpse and stained the innocent snow.
In this instance, Nathans world seemed to fall apart. He had grown up with the small man, pulled through some of the most insane adventures with him – and now he was dead, crushed in a few moments.
A sound as if sonic itself was distorted snapped him back to reality. With a desperate lunge he leapt to safety, then this weird shockwave blasted past him, shattering the ground and lifting Wenh's body into the air, where it was smashed vor good, as if the fist of an enraged titan had hit it.
While Nathan came to a stand, Borel had reached the beasts head and started thrashing it like a madman. Akantor's knees indeed buckled, but only to kick off the ground with frightening strength and stand on its hind legs. Borel lost his balance and dropped down to the rocky ground, where he stayed, dazed. He could look up just in time before a giant paw smashed him into the ground.
Like an agonizing lightning the realization hit Nathan. Another Friend was dead. It was, as if this thought cast aside all others, for there was nothing else in his mind. He stared at the monstrosity before him, as if hoping to be able to kill it with his mere gaze. In this instance he knew, without a doubt, the he – if at all – had only minutes to live.
He didn't care.
He gathered all his sadness, his fear and even his despair, to warp it into fiery, all-consuming wrath. A red mist seemed to cloud his vision while he charged at his mortal enemy, sense and reason were forgotten. When Nathan reached it, he started hacking away with reckless abandon, cleaving down his sword on its snout several times. The thought didn't even occur to him that it was in vain, for in his mind, there was only space for the wish – the order! - to tear this thing apart, with bare hands if he had to.
Akantor wasn't impressed by that. When Nathan made a powerful, horizontal cleave, it snapped forward, catching his sword between it's teeth, wrestled it from his grip with playful ease and hurled it several meters away, before it slammed it's massive head at the hunter with incredible force.
Nathan could loudly and clearly hear most of his ribs break while he flew through the air and eventually crashed down. Strangely enough, he felt no pain. In fact he felt just about nothing. Even his hearing seemed dull, time unnaturally slow, while he fought his way back up to his feet. He distantly wondered why he was able to do it, after all, his ribs were broken. He dizzily staggered to keep his balance. Something warm ran down his chin and when he touched it with his hand and held his fingers in front of his eyes, he saw that it was blood.
So it's over. This is the end. At least I did what I could.
He looked ahead again. Akantor stood still and inhaled deeply.
Oh, Erris, how glad I am that I didn't let you join me. Now you can take care of Ezakiel. A great future awaits him, I know that deep down in my heart.
The Black God obened it's jaws. A sound could be heard, as if sonic itself was distorted.
Erris. Ezakiel. I love...
xxxxxxxxxx
They had all come together. The entire populace of the village of Pokke stood on a small, remote valley outside the village, gathered around an exactly five meters wide, two and a half meters long and two meters deep.
It contained three bodies, wrapped in expensive cloth to spare the villagers the terrible sight. Those three men were Wenh, Borel and her husband, Nathan.
Administrator Erris stood in front of her beloved's grave, an arm protectively laid around Ezakiel, her ten year-old son. Aside from the tears that ran down her cheeks, her face betrayed no emotions. She wouldn't break down. Not again. When the scouts returned with what was left of her comrades, she had given in to her feelings, but now she had a task. She had to be strong, for the villagers, bur most of all for her son.
Pekeya, the tiny village elder, inconspicously stepped to her side, followed by her long-time companion Treshi. "You don't have to speek if you can't", she quietly said. "We would all understand it."
Erris shook her head. "No. Our people need me as a strong leader." She took a deep breath and looked into each pair of eyes around her. "This is a dark day", she spoke aloud. Her voice was a little shaky, but otherwise firm. "The first day of a dark time, for we have lost more than our protectors. We have lost our fathers, our brothers, our sons..." She gulped. "...and our husbands. From this day forth, nothing will be as it was. Difficult trials await us." Her voice became more determined. "Trials we have to overcome. Our heroes died, wishing us to live. That is why we have to look forward, to our future. I don't want you to forget them, for what they gave us in live is to precious to be lost. It is life itself, the hope for a better tomorrow. But we also must not let us be held back by the ghosts of the past. We have to step forward, with strength and determination, so that the wish of these men may be fulfilled."
She closed her eyes and was silent for a second. "Remember the dead, but fight for the living."
Well, this is it. Please review and tell me what you think of it. And remember, you can make suggestions for what I should write about next. I hope I'll have the time to actually write it.
Until next time!