Chapter 12 – Monstrous Meetings
-.-.-.-.-.
The sun was setting. Sanguis shielded his eyes and hissed distastefully at the painfully bright orange light that saturated everything aboveground, as he and Sera emerged from the abandoned human smithy and back into the city. Long shadows were cast over the ground, while everything else glowed orange from the light of the sinking orb in the sky.
Sanguis had never seen a sunset before. He always tried to avoid the Bright Circle when it hung in the sky uncovered by clouds, as it hurt his eyes dreadfully and made him feel too warm. Even now, he was extremely reluctant to gaze at it directly, for fear of what it'd do to his eyes if he did. But instead, he focused his sights on the brilliant colors that it stained the rest of the sky – all kinds of bright pinks, oranges, and yellows, gradually fading to dark blue where the Bright Circle's rays weren't able to reach.
"Nice, isn't it?" whispered Sera.
"Sssss…" he replied, his tail rippling uncomfortably. And then, suddenly, he felt a huge yawn pull his mouth open against his will.
"Tired?" Sera asked him.
He nodded, knowing that the gesture equated to an affirmative response to these hybrids. Being able to communicate would go a long way toward his own survival in this unfamiliar, artificial place, but still… the Baruragaru didn't feel comfortable with it, knowing that he was already deviating from the monster he thought he was.
"It'll be dark soon," Sera said, eyes wandering elsewhere as if in disinterest. "You can follow me. As your caretaker, I can lead you to my place. Every hybrid needs a bed to call his or her own, after all… I must warn you, however, the shelter is kind of crowded."
Sanguis just stared at her. Now that it was getting darker, his orange eyes stood out even more than usual.
Without another word, Sera led the way. She walked with the same confidence as before, an attitude that belied her true, more insecure, nature. Although she walked quickly, she would often pause and glance back at Sanguis. Upon seeing him only a few feet behind her, the Unknown-girl would then resume her course.
To himself, Sanguis supposed that, as his 'caretaker', Sera was supposed to make sure he was keeping up and not getting lost. He still didn't know why she cared, especially since she always seemed to be wallowing in her own emotional problems (which he certainly wasn't troubling himself over).
Those few hybrids they passed instinctively got out of Sera's way as if just being near her was unhealthy. These encounters never did anything to faze her, Sanguis noticed. He knew better than to assume that she simply wasn't noticing the glares that the passing hybrids were throwing her way. He knew better than to underestimate the mysterious girl about anything.
However, not all hybrids were content with letting Sera walk wherever she wanted without obstruction.
If Sanguis wasn't so good at seeing in the dark, he would have been hard-pressed to recognize Spark, the hefty and foul-tempered Rajang-man, when he came lumbering up the path from the opposite direction.
"Out of my way, filthy wench!" the huge hybrid roared, and violently shoved Sera aside.
The Unknown-girl landed amongst a pile of crates stacked up against a nearby building. The sound of shattering wood filled the air, tearing Sanguis' attention away from the immediate threat of being treated the same way. But that didn't last long.
"You want some of the same, thing?" Spark rumbled, cracking his knuckles while leering down at the Baruragaru hybrid.
Sanguis stretched out his tongue with a hiss and darted away before his enemy could find a reason to punish him.
With a dismissive grunt, Spark stomped away.
The immediate threat now gone, Sanguis allowed himself to go back to the demolished crates in which Sera was now buried. He stood there for a few seconds, waiting. Then the black-clad hybrid emerged from the pile of splintered wood more or less unharmed.
In fact, the only part of her that was out of the ordinary was her eyes – once again, they were burning blood-red. And this time, the red glow lingered until Sera shut her eyelids. She stood stock-still, with her head bent so that her lengthy bangs fell over her face, and clenched her fists so hard that they turned white and trembled.
She only opened her eyes again when she had stopped trembling. They were as dark and despair-filled as ever when she did.
But Sanguis thought he caught a brief flash of fear in those orbs of hers. Unnerved, he twitched his tail and backed away from her in the same manner as when he had evaded Spark. He wanted her to have plenty of space so that he would be in less danger.
"Sssss…" the Baruragaru hissed to himself, suspicious.
He shouldn't be so wary of this quiet, inoffensive girl. But those eyes held more secrets than he was comfortable with bearing the knowledge of…
"I-I'm alright," Sera whispered. Not to her charge, but to herself. "I'm alright. Spark didn't hurt me. H-He was just… b-being an inconvenience."
When she seemed comfortable again, she turned back to Sanguis. "Let's go. The shelter I share with the others is not far from here."
Sanguis perked up. Shelter? He could certainly use a rest. He hoped it was someplace dark and damp, to help him relax after having his world flipped upside-down more times than he could count today. (He couldn't count at all, actually, but that didn't change the fact that today had been extremely strange.)
But, he had to wonder, who were these 'others' she spoke of?
At last, the two of them reached the entrance of a medium-sized building – one with a fully functional roof – that had a soft glow coming from each of the windows on either side of the door. Sera lightly tapped her fist against the door before slipping inside, making sure to hold it open so that Sanguis felt welcome to follow her.
The transformed Baruragaru was treated to one of the most interesting sights he had ever seen.
It was a dark room, one in which small candles were used for illumination. They only really brought light to the center of the room, though, and not the rest. All of the furniture in the room, apart from those that sat the closest to the central table, was shrouded heavily in shadow. It was that table that sported the most candles. It may not have been damp enough for Sanguis' liking, but he did appreciate the darkness, and even the candles to an extent. A little bit of light was good.
Despite the inside of the shelter being so dark, it was by no means unoccupied. There were several hybrids gathered around the table, some of which Sanguis was shocked to realize that he actually recognized. He noticed Melody and Dissidia, and with a strange jumping sensation in his chest, Keyren as well. The other hybrids – no, he didn't know them at all.
The first one his ever-cautious eyes were drawn to was a rather large male hybrid that was lying sprawled on a couch. His most obvious features were a long pink tail and a belly that protruded well beyond the confines of his shirt. He also had shaggy hair combed into a large spike, and long claws that brought a shiver to Sanguis' spine. He'd have to be wary of natural weapons like those.
The second hybrid was a girl dressed in a heavy coat, which featured thick white fur around the edges of the sleeves and hood. White wings extended from her shoulders, the edges of which were studded with black spikes, and she had a tail whose underside was also covered in spikes. She had a warm smile, which Sanguis failed to notice in favor of the long orange fangs that glinted in the candlelight.
The third was… actually, Sanguis didn't know what to make of him. He sat at the back of the room, shrouded in shadow so that he appeared partially invisible. It was very hard to discern any of his features, but like Sera, he dressed himself in all black. The loose, light clothes he wore covered so much of him that even his nose and mouth weren't visible at all. A pair of pointed ears stuck out from the sides of his head, while a whip-like and very muscular tail waved elegantly from side to side. The hybrid's arms had what looked like silvery blades attached to them – Sanguis remembered the weapon that had cleaved through his leg a short time ago and shuddered.
"Oh hi~!" Melody was the first to talk, in a chirrupy voice that pierced Sanguis' ears. "It's our friend from the Swamp~!"
"How's it going, Swamp Boy?" asked Keyren.
Sanguis felt his heart skip a beat when he heard her speak, and again when she shot him a very lovely smile. Embarrassed by his own reactions, he felt his face warm up, and greeted the attractive female hybrid with a quick, awkward nod.
"He doing good," Dissidia answered Keyren's question, trying to be helpful in her own dumb way.
"Let me introduce you to the ones you don't know," Sera said quietly, grabbing Sanguis' attention as well as everyone else's. "There's Mike, the Congalala hybrid. Second is Yuki, the Barioth-girl, and then Claire, the Lucent Nargacuga-girl."
Oh, so the dark one wasn't male after all. Sanguis felt embarrassed again, a new emotion that made him uncomfortable enough to wish he would never experience it again.
Mike, the fat one that Sanguis had been the first to notice, rolled off of the couch with what looked like a bit of effort and held out his uncomfortably long claws. "Yo, pleasure to meetcha," he greeted in a slow, ponderous voice. "I'm Mike. Don't worry about me getting in your way, I try not to move too much. But anyway, it's good to have another guy to talk to in here. Lemme know if you have any questions about… well, anything about life in Loc Lac."
"Sssss..." Sanguis hissed. His tongue slithered out – and then immediately zipped back inside his mouth after getting a taste of Mike's scent. It was so pungent that he couldn't even attempt to describe it.
He grimaced at the less-than-pleasant experience and backed away, deciding he didn't like Mike. The Congalala-boy was too smelly and too talkative.
Yuki was waving her hand at him from her position at the far end of the table. Now he noticed that the Barioth-girl's fingers were adorned with black claws with hooked tips. He wondered if they were for climbing or just for more efficient killing. He tilted his head at her curiously, which Yuki seemed to take well. She grinned at him, exposing more of her saber-teeth. He didn't know why. Maybe she was thinking that he would taste good. So he made a mental note to avoid her as well.
The only one that didn't move – or indeed, react at all – was the one Sera had referred to as Claire. She regarded Sanguis with unblinking, cat-like eyes, not coldly but not particularly welcoming, either. She leaned a little bit more into the light, allowing Sanguis to see the mask-like cloth she wore over her face and the dark brown hair that spilled over her shoulders. She, too, lifted her hand and made a waving motion, before retreating back into the shadows. It may have just been a trick of the light (or lack of it), but Sanguis could have sworn that Claire completely vanished for a second.
"Sssss…" he hissed suspiciously.
"It's okay," Sera said. "She might be scary… but she's harmless."
The Nargacuga-girl's eyes narrowed at the Unknown-girl.
"Here!" Keyren spoke up. "Swamp Boy, you must be hungry. We've got some leftovers from our meal, if you want 'em."
She held up a small bowl, from which Sanguis detected a tempting taste wafting.
"Better hurry, before Mike eats it," Melody giggled.
"Hey," the Congalala-boy muttered. "Says the girl taking care of a Deviljho."
Sera's neutral face never changed as her charge got down on his hands and feet and scuttled awkwardly toward the bowl of food that Keyren held out, tail waving with excitement at the prospect at filling his belly. He hadn't had anything to eat in… days, now that he thought about it.
But when he got close enough to peer at the offered food, he hissed with displeasure and shot Keyren a dark glare. Solid food? What was wrong with her? Didn't she know that liquid food was infinitely better?
"Oh, you don't want it?" the Lagiacrus-girl asked, frowning.
"He's a bloodsucker," Sera told her. "Remember what Duruhos said? Obviously he won't want Kelbi chops… and definitely not Kelbi chops that have been sitting in a puddle at the bottom of that bowl…"
Keyren's demeanor became aggressive in an instant. "Who asked you, creature?"
"Yeah, stay out of this," grunted Mike, sounding half-asleep.
Yuki opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to lose her nerve at the last second. Sanguis noticed this, and looked back at Sera, only to see something that made his spine prickle.
Her fingers were twitching and her eyes were rapidly blinking red. He could practically taste the anger radiating from her, but she never acted. Actually, now that Sanguis thought about it, it looked like she was trying to stop her anger before it started.
That was strange… and what made it scary was that Sera was losing.
But then, she stilled, and her eyelids slid closed. When she opened them again, there was no sign of rage.
"Come on, Sanguis," she murmured. "I'll show you where you can sleep. There should be a spot next to mine… I'll be sure to have something good for you to eat in the morning…"
The other hybrids were as silent as the grave as Sera led Sanguis into a part of the room that was particularly thick with shadow and curled up in preparation for sleep. Hesitantly, Sanguis joined her, enjoying the feeling of the cold seeping into his body from the bare floor.
In moments, they were both asleep, leaving the rest of the room's occupants wondering.
"Guess we've got a new companion," remarked Yuki.
"But Sera's as much of a killjoy as ever…" Melody hummed.
Keyren lay down in her seat, wrapping her tail around herself as she prepared to settle down for the night. "Just don't pay any attention to her," she recommended. "Remember, we have combat training tomorrow – I'll just kick her tail if she aggravates me. That goes for all of you too, so watch yourselves."
"Yeah yeah, you're very intimidating," Mike muttered, scratching his large belly and using his tail to dump a bowl of leftovers into his mouth. With his mouth now full of food, he mumbled, "Maybe you should think of something other than being the best at everything…"
Somehow managing to decipher his speech through the chewed-up mush, Yuki nodded in agreement. "You are a bit competitive, Keyren. You should –"
"What was that?" the Lagiacrus-girl asked dangerously, shooting her a glare.
The Barioth-girl squeaked and hid behind her chair.
Satisfied, Keyren lay back down in a relaxed pose, wearing a smug smirk that she turned to Sanguis when she saw him watching from his corner. The Baruragaru felt his face heat up again, and felt the sudden urge to look away. Somewhere deep inside of him, he harbored a dim hope that he could win her over. She was lovely and strong. He shivered – even thinking about it was enough to provoke a fluttering sensation in his chest.
The darkness, and Sera's body heat coming from close by, helped Sanguis sleep soundly that night.
-.-.-.-.-.
On another part of the Great Continent, the midmorning desert heat beat down upon Phisto like nothing else. The sun was so bright that it had no defined shape as it hung there in the cloudless blue sky, covering the sandy dunes with its unrelenting heat. The heat squeezed Phisto as if it were its own physical force trying to crush him under its weight.
Sweating profusely in his Jaggi-skin armor, he stood up and panted for breath. It didn't satisfy him. The open plains of the Desert were so hot that the air was thick and very difficult to breathe. Whoever said that hot air was less dense than cold air clearly didn't know what they were talking about…
With a grunt of effort, Phisto heaved his Carmine Blade off the ground, only to find himself lifting up the Hermitaur carcass that the weapon was apparently stuck in. He shook the Great Sword slightly, and the dead carapaceon fell off and hit the ground with a soft *crunch*. Already, he was sick and tired of this dirty work, and he had only been in the Desert for a few hours at most.
The Guild-Master hadn't been lying, though, when he had said that the Hermitaurs were absolutely everywhere. It had taken Phisto this long to clear out only one area of them – this long to slay what must have been at least two hundred. Luckily for him, not many of the little crustaceans had found proper shells yet, making the task of killing them a cinch. Even better, they were nearsighted and lacked the sensitive antennae of the fully mature Daimyo Hermitaurs that could sometimes be seen roaming the Desert. By now, Phisto's sword was stained heavily with the coppery blue blood of the human-sized carapaceons.
And he was far from done. If he wanted to make a dent in the Hermitaur population, which had recently exploded to a level that was certainly not safe for the Desert's ecosystem, then he would have to work for almost the rest of the day. It wasn't something that he looked forward to. But on the bright side, at least he was finally done with this particular area.
"I'll move on to a… less open area," Phisto decided, almost desperately chugging down a Cool Drink to give himself some relief against the disgusting heat. "I can't stay out in the open for even a minute longer."
After consulting his map, Phisto found what looked like the entrance to a large oasis. It was relatively close by, on the other side of the canyon that was already visible on the horizon. He tucked his Great Sword back into the sheath on his back and began the long journey back the way he had come, across the desert sands in hopes of reaching the relieving shade on the other side before long.
Fortunately, he did. The coolness of the shade washed over him as soon as he reached the towering canyon, prompting a sigh of great relief from the young hunter-turned-researcher. There were some more Hermitaurs scuttling around, and with his mouth set in a grim line, Phisto made quick work of them.
"Too bad they have to go to waste," he said to himself, regretfully. "I could have asked the Guild-Master for help, and an airship to haul it all back to Mezeporta. I'm sure a lot of people like seafood."
He was about to continue his murmured complaints when he heard a sound from up ahead, deeper in the canyon. It was unmistakably the roar of a monster, so with only the slightest hesitation, the Docks boy ran in the direction from whence the sound had come.
Diving behind a rock for cover, Phisto peeked over the top and gasped quietly. He was witnessing a group of no less than a dozen Hermitaurs advancing on a smallish Rathian. The female wyvern's scales weren't quite as green as fully-grown one, indicating that this one was perhaps a fledgling that had recently left the nest. Under her claws, she clutched the body of an Apceros while she snarled at the advancing carapaceons. But it was clear that the Hermitaurs had the strength of numbers, and they instinctively marched forward toward the smell of freshly-killed meat.
Fire shot from the Rathian's mouth, burning three of the nearest Hermitaurs to a crisp. But those that remained backed the flying wyvern against the wall of the canyon, snapping their claws.
Even Phisto knew that the Rathian, probably possessing very little experience, could very easily fall if she did not submit to the Hermitaurs and fly away. Where could she go, though, in a desert overwhelmed by the Hermitaur population boom?
Gripping the handle of his Carmine Blade tightly, Phisto jumped out from behind the rock and began what could best be described as a massacre.
By the time he was finished, the Hermitaurs lay in pieces around him, and he panted for breath as he had quickly exerted himself to the point of exhaustion.
Phisto put away his Great Sword and noticed that the Rathian was staring inquisitively at him. He backed off, making sure to keep a close eye on the flying wyvern in case she suddenly decided he was a threat that needed to be removed. But she did no such thing, just stood there with her head tilted to the side.
"There, you're safe now," Phisto managed to say. "You should eat while you still can."
The Rathian seemed to grow more alert at the sound of his words. He had no idea if she could understand – what was he thinking, of course she could understand him. The Rath species was one of the smartest breeds of wyvern in the entire known world, and there were records dating back to before the Human-Monster War that mentioned Raths being taught how to speak. Hopefully, though, this one would take Phisto's words to heart and leave him be.
Strangely, the Rathian didn't make a move. Her eyes bored into Phisto's with their oddly intense stare, almost like she was trying to tell him something significant.
Then, in the language of monsters that no human could understand, the Rathian let out a single sound. "…Docks."
Phisto blinked, wondering what the Rathian had just said to him. The quiet grunt that she had emitted seemed important.
"Docks," the wyvern said again, and spread her wings. "Docks, Docks…" she continued to repeat as she lifted into the sky, abandoning her Apceros corpse, and soared into the yonder through the canyon's gap.
Rendered speechless by the peculiarity of the brief encounter, Phisto watched the Rathian make an expert banking turn and vanish over the lip of the gorge. Obviously, she had been speaking to him – even the language barrier couldn't hide that. What possibly could have been so important that she had to talk to him about? Didn't she know that humans and monsters couldn't communicate?
Well… that wasn't entirely true. The Hero was rumored to be able to speak to monsters. Other than that, though…
Shaking his head, Phisto put his current thoughts away at the back of his mind. He had a mission. A mission that he doubted he could ever fully accomplish, admittedly, but it was a job all the same. The Guild-Master was counting on him to prevent a calamity from befalling the local monsters of the Desert.
And, little did he know, a lot more than that as well…
-.-.-.-.-.
"What?!" Caela gasped.
The Wyverian woman was back at the Hunter's Guild with her grandfather, preparing for their next big undertaking. No, it wasn't the long-awaited expedition to the Sky Corridor – it would take a very long time before they managed to build a new Large Exploration Ship and rally the necessary supplies to make the journey across the great ocean. Actually, the trip to the Sky Corridor was the last thing on their minds right now.
Shortly after they had arrived back at the Guild, the Guild-Master's Halk had arrived with a letter from Port Tanzia. It was from the local Guild-Master, telling about some urgent matter that required the Mezeporta Guild-Master's presence immediately. (Or at least as soon as he could arrive – the Guild-Master of Tanzia wasn't nearly rude enough to disregard the fact that their home regions were an entire continent apart.)
Anyway, it was to the bustling coastal city that the old Wyverian and his granddaughter were preparing to travel. And the former had just said something that the latter simply couldn't comprehend the reasoning behind.
"First the Sky Corridor, now this?" Caela was protesting. "I know you think he's special, but that doesn't mean he should come along on all of our travels! He's only an ordinary researcher, not… well, one of us."
"But…" the Guild-Master wrinkled his brow. "The vision I had… I wouldn't have seen Phisto if he wasn't important in some way…"
"You saw him in the same vision you saw Gogmazios and the Seven!" she shot back, raising her voice uncharacteristically high. "For all we know he could be connected to them – even working for them!"
The instant the words were out of her mouth, Caela regretted them. She sighed and went on in a much softer tone, "I apologize. I do not truly think that Phisto would be anything like that, but… my argument still stands. He's a perfectly normal boy, not even out of his teenage years. You can't give him such special treatment merely because your vision showed you his arrival in Mezeporta."
The Guild-Master shook his head. "I understand what you're saying," he told her, "but I cannot shake the feeling that there's more to that boy than meets the eye. I don't even think he suspects it. He must be placed under our protection, or else…"
He broke into a coughing fit.
"Please, calm yourself," Caela said, bending down to place a hand on his shoulder. "I trust your judgement. I did not mean to make you feel as though you had to defend yourself. I was just… shocked."
She stood up and looked at him with exasperation. "But I swear, if Phisto gets a heart attack when I tell him of your latest decision, I'm blaming you."
Her severe tone didn't fool the Guild-Master, who chuckled heartily at what he recognized as a joke.
-.-.-.-.-.
More characters introduced! All of which are, admittedly, quite minor characters. But Mike, Yuki, and Claire definitely add to this story's variety, you can't deny that.
That encounter with the Rathian definitely has Phisto puzzled, though. Was it a coincidence that she knew his surname, or is there something else going on?
And, for a final question, what is going to go down at Port Tanzia? Stay tuned and make sure to review so you can find out!