Experiment
Disclaimer: Monster Hunter is copyright Capcom. Most of the characters in this story are mine. Many characters belong to others, as stated in previous chapters.
Edited by: Hoenn Master96
This one-shot is CANON with The Lost Civilization
Four Years Since the Fall of the Alatreon
It was a humid, cloudy day, with a cool nip in the air, but that was to be expected in the winter, even in a sub-tropical climate. The sky was dark though, despite being so close to midday, but it wasn't the threat of rain which filled the clouds. The rolling of thunder grumbled menacingly in the sky above, not enough to warrant a real fear of lightning, but enough to keep a watchful eye up just in case.
Levin wasn't enjoying it at all. He'd be more apt for this kind of inclement weather someplace else: maybe inside a cavern, listening to the dull roar of the skies, or at an inn, talking with friends. Preferably though, back with Ellie in their new home in Perir Town, maybe cuddled up near the fire…
But that's not where he was now, oh no! Not at all! Instead, here he was, several miles north of Hearth, standing not someplace relatively safe and low to the ground, but on top of the Meridian Tower, the tallest, flattest structure Levin had ever seen since awakening in the hunter's world! Of course he'd find himself below a budding thunderstorm at the highest point in a hundred miles, with only a few sparse aqueducts around to act as possible lightning rods!
"You couldn't have picked someplace lower down the mountain to do this?" he asked, looking down. A few feet away, Harker looked up from what he was doing. The former hunter knelt in front of a machine he had built, some five-foot-tall mechanical contraption he had been constructing for several months now. He had no armor on, as he was no longer a hunter, and wore a simple coat, with his right arm hooked into a makeshift sling under the jacket, while the left continued to tinker with the machine.
"You've asked me that several times, my friend, and my answer remains the same: this is the most effective location to test the machine, and if things turn sour, I would like to avoid damaging any surroundings…"
"Yeah, yeah… and there's no more durable location for your tests than on a massive slab of Meridian stone… I know, I know…"
"No need to be impatient, my friend," Harker laughed. "Trust me, when the test is finished, I think the weather will be the last thing on your mind."
"I certainly hope so…" Levin grumbled, irate that Harker always seemed to enjoy picking out the most out-of-the-way places to travel, especially when the two of them journeyed out together to gather supplies or test Harker's experiments.
Of course, he couldn't just blame Harker. The Guild had pretty much hired him specifically for these kinds of things, once he'd managed to get back into hunting. They were worried about what Harker got up to, and not without reason. His work for the Guild (and his personal projects, for that matter), tended to have the madman running around to all sorts of places, gathering materials and information from wherever he could get it, but he tended to leave a small trail of devastation in his wake when he was working on a project, and the Guild was almost always left in the dark about how or why such things tended to end in ruin. Kerry was willing to give the Guild information about what Harker got up to at their home in Nastre, but was often absent when the madman journeyed outside of town, preferring to remain behind to care for their children instead. Harker just wasn't giving them the details and information they wanted.
So they'd hired Levin to do it for them. It had been four and a half years since the death of the Alatreon, and Harker's reputation was still bordering the line between fame and infamy. Levin was one of the few people who Harker trusted enough to keep closeby, and was still willing to stay close to Harker, despite the danger in simply being in the retired hunter's vicinity. Of course, Levin had been hesitant to take the job. He liked Harker, and being paid - rather well for that matter - to stick near his friend and keep watch on him didn't sound like too bad of a deal. But at the same time, he was pretty much spying on Harker, and that didn't sit well with him.
Thankfully, both the Guild and Harker seemed amenable about the whole thing. The Guild didn't want intimate details about Harker, or his deepest, darkest secrets. They just wanted somebody out there with the madman who was willing to give them more detailed reports than Harker had been offering them, so they weren't left blowing in the wind. And Harker didn't mind at all either, when Levin had told him what the Guild had asked of him. In fact, the madman seemed to enjoy the idea, considering it a challenge: how much information could he give Levin, who would give it to the Guild, without giving away all his secrets and keeping his results a surprise? Levin had been worried that his friend wouldn't give him enough to keep the Guild happy, Harker still had a tendency to ramble when excited, so Levin was able to gather enough information to satisfy the Guild of the madman's doings.
However, there were other downsides to the work. Often enough, Levin would return to Perir with singed hair and a few new wounds which weren't the result of some harrowing large monster battle. And he was no scientist, so half the things Harker said or did went right over his head, and the Guild was occasionally left frustrated at Levin's inadequate reports, not being able to decipher Harker's reasoning or choices, though how they expected Levin to know any better was beyond him. The most prominent downside, of course, was his absence from Ellie. The pair of them had only been married for just under three years now, and even the short one or two weeks this kind of work demanded was taxing enough. Normally the huntress would have simply come with him on his and Harker's little escapades, if for no other reason than to visit Kerry, but that had changed too, since Ellie was now four months pregnant with their first child.
Oh, yes, Ellie had been miffed about that. Not that she didn't want children; it was nothing like that. It just meant she was essentially out of commission from hunting for nine months, and for a hunter, nine months of inactivity was positively torturous. Not to mention Levin had only managed to get his hunter's license back last spring; the pair had been hoping to have a few years together, hunting and traveling again like they had when they were only rookies, before settling down. But that plan had gone out the window in late summer, not long after a Gobul hunt, when a few bouts of morning sickness for Ellie had alerted them to a rather abrupt change in their life plans. Ellie had been cursing about air philters for some reason…
But they were adjusting and preparing. It may not have been entirely planned or expected, but the pair of them were taking to it excitedly.
Of course, Ellie wasn't going to just spend nine months sitting around, gestating their progeny while Levin ran around doing work to keep them going. In the meantime, she'd decided to help her parents, Mary and Daniel Geisel, with their printing business, which had certainly received a lot of work from all over the place thanks to their reintroduction of the printing press into society. Books weren't too uncommon in the hunting world, but providing a more efficient method of printing had been a massive boon.
But Ellie had surprised him when she'd come home one day with news that she had a plan to turn a small side building near the printing business into a shop of her own.
Apparently she'd concocted some scheme to make a sort of… sundries store for hunters, a place where they could trade materials and carves for other materials they needed. She'd sell maps, guides, basic hunting equipment, goods normal shops endorsed by the Guild sold. But unlike the Guild, she'd also gather carves: things like horns, scales, claws and the like, maybe even plates and gems if she could get her hands on them, and then trade them away for other materials from far away hunting grounds. The Guild tended to keep any monster carves hunters sold to them; Ellie was selling or trading them back to hunters instead.
Levin didn't quite understand the details; business was never his forte. But it seemed to be working. His wife had somehow gotten her hands on some wyvern stones and plates and the like, which she used to trade for bird wyvern gems and other things which could be plucked from the bodies of monsters in nearby areas. Then she'd trade those to caravans passing through for different rare goods from distant locales, which she'd trade again here in town to those who didn't want to go a long way for the materials they wanted, or fight a particular monster they found irritating. It was a circular process, with Ellie at the center of it, cutting deals with the hunters and merchants who came looking for certain materials. Apparently she was quite the shrewd negotiator, judging by some grumbling Levin had heard in the local tavern, and soon enough Ellie's small shop was gaining popularity. Levin believed it; with all the hunters who had been gathering in Perir the last few months, there were plenty of customers who would be willing to pay quite a bit for an elusive plate, gem, or other material they were desperate to get.
It wasn't making the best money in the world, but between Ellie's foray into the world of entrepreneurship, and Levin's work as a hunter and his 'spying' for the Guild, they seemed to be making enough money that they'd be able to care for their future child without too much worry. At least, in the monetary sense. Levin didn't know how Harker and Kerry did it, though; the pair of scientists were somehow making enough money through their work to care for not one, but five children! Kerry had managed to give birth to triplets a couple years ago, and just last year went and gave birth to twins! Five little things just as excitable as Harker himself running around, and Kerry seemed perfectly content with the whole thing… Levin didn't understand it at all.
But he supposed those were concerns for another day. Levin shivered a bit as a gust of chill air brushed past him; they were far enough south that the winter didn't call for much more than a slight cooling of air, but at such high altitudes, cold winds bit into him frequently. At least his armor was fairly well-insulated against the cold weather.
He'd managed to get himself a nice set of Gobul armor since he'd started hunting again, materials he'd garnered from his and Ellie's last hunt together before her pregnancy. He wasn't as fond of it as he had been of his old Rathian armor, but it fit nicely, and he'd gotten a good deal on it. And he could see a lot better without the face guard the Rathian armor had sported, which was a plus. It had a lot of 'menacing' spikes sprouting up from the pauldrons, which he thought were a little ridiculous, but he supposed they went nicely enough with his switch axe, a black, twisted weapon made from parts of the World Eater. He'd been hesitant to use the materials at first, as the villagers in Boma could've sold them to help rebuild the village. But they'd insisted, giving them to him as a going away present when he and Ellie had moved to Perir. He'd had to travel a distance to find someone who could work those materials into a viable weapon, but he had to admit he was rather pleased with the results; the thing looked incredibly menacing, and proved to be quite powerful at the same time.
It would certainly help if something nasty showed up to give them trouble, that was for sure. Harker couldn't fight since his right arm was still partially disabled from the Alatreon's fangs tearing into it. And Levin… he reached up and rubbed his right shoulder, just above where the Dark Metal limb merged into flesh. It had been… what, four years since he'd started training to control the limbs, and he still wasn't completely used to them. He'd had a half year of practice actually using the dark limbs in official hunts, but a Gobul was the nastiest thing he'd fought so far. If anything worse than that showed up, he had to admit he wasn't sure if the limbs would hold out.
Levin shook his head. No sense worrying about that now; they'd cross that bridge when they came to it, if they came to it, and hopefully they wouldn't anytime soon. For now, Levin returned his attention to Harker's contraption as his friend continued to poke and prod at wires, while scouring a notebook below him.
The machine was a mass of metal and wires. That was all he could really decipher from the object, though there were a few discrepancies a more learned man could use to determine the machine's true purpose. Clear glass tubes pumped a pale, bluish-white fluid up and down the side of the contraption, sliding in and out of the machine at regular intervals. At the top of the machine, a sort of thick glass dome capped off the whole thing, filled within with a dark, misty haze of some kind. Deep in the center, Levin could make out something glowing faintly through the fog.
"About done?" he asked.
"Almost," Harker replied. "Those airships Silas' company has been producing are becoming smoother every day, but they seem to lack the care I'd like. It seems I can hardly bring any of my machines here for testing without the ride knocking one or two dozen things loose. I've learned my lesson from the last time…"
"It took me weeks to regrow my eyebrows," Levin muttered sourly, remembering his and Harker's last trip up to the Tower. "I have to admit though, I've never seen green fire before…"
"And you may never again! I have yet to figure out how exactly that happened. Certain minerals burn green, such as copper and salt, but to create a pillar of fire like that, considering the circumstances of the experiment… Perhaps the Lady Kerrigan would be able to figure it out. She's been looking into the flammability of certain ores and minerals recently."
"What is Kerry doing to keep herself busy these days?" Levin asked idly as Harker tinkered. He was getting sick of just standing around while Harker did the finishing touches on his machine. "Besides mothering, of course."
"Would that I could be there to aid in her 'mothering,' my friend," Harker sighed despondently. "If there is one thing about this 'Lost madness' which I despise over anything else, it's the pull of my desire to experiment and test my works. It was simpler to put up with when we were hunters, and before the children, when it was just her and I, and we could go wherever we wanted. Not that I regret our progeny of course, nothing of the sort! I would rather be at home, with our children, seeing to their upbringing… but at the same time, I am compelled to see this work through. It is this… desperate need to follow my projects through to fruition, even if I know in my heart there are things more important…"
Levin nodded somberly, and patted his friend on the shoulder, trying to be comforting. "I'm sure she understands, Harker. She's a smart girl after all, and stern too; if she really had a problem with it, she'd tell you, no hesitation. And your kids adore you, even with… maybe especially because of these experiments of yours. They really take after you, though that might not be the best thing ever… You've got a good family Harker, and as long as you're trying to do your best by them, they'll love you all the same."
"A greater gift I could not have asked for, even in my most conceited moments," Harker said with a small smile. Then he sighed and shook his head. "But I have not answered your question, have I? The dear Lady Kerrigan seems to have found her true passion in her work, and has been studying natural sciences with an admirable enthusiasm the last couple years. Geology, biology, anatomy, some chemistry, that sort of thing; when not 'mothering', of course."
"Hopefully she's not being as destructive as you tend to be."
"No, no. Lady Kerrigan has always been a more… cautious type than myself. She has had her fair share of volatile reactions, but nothing so concussive as most of mine. I have no illusions that if she were as inclined towards explosive incidents as myself, the Guild really would classify us as walking disasters, as it has been threatening to do. But she seems to be leaning towards studying the world as it is, and how it works, rather than using that knowledge to experiment and craft as I do. She seems to have taken on exceptional fascination with studying how monsters interact with the world around them, and how they'd come to influence it since their sudden appearance during our time."
"What's that mean?" Levin asked curiously, as a spark jumped from the machine, jolting Harker's hand. The madman hissed, cursing under his breath as he shook the appendage, before returning to his tinkering.
"Well, certain people out there, Lost and Therian alike, may have the perception that the world would be better off if we simply had the hunters summarily execute every last monster which exists, thus removing the threat of the creatures from our lives. This feeling has had a resurgence since the Lost appeared, due to their stories of a world which worked just fine without monster presence. I'm sure you can understand the sentiment."
"A bit…" Levin admitted.
"Well, despite the idea being pleasant to some, it just wouldn't work. The world around us has adapted to the existence of these monsters, and simply ridding the world of them could be dire. Ecosystems, niches, even the weather itself could suffer! Just think: this world likely has millions of Lagiacrus swimming in the oceans and rivers, each of which can generate and store hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity. If they all simply were killed… all that potential energy has to go somewhere, my friend, and there is no guess as to what effects it could have on the environment. And elder dragons… well, they are an issue all on their own. Jhen Mohran kick up sandstorms in their wake. What would happen if all of them were wiped out? Why, just think of the entropic consequences of such an action! The energy and entropy of a system must maintain balance! If creatures so massive and powerful as to affect the very weather were to be removed, then-"
Levin sighed as Harker continued to rant, going on about entropy and thermodynamics and a hundred other things that Levin couldn't understand. The madman finally petered out a bit when he realized that Levin had a blank look on his face, and the switch axe user shook his head. "I can't even guess at the consequences of wiping out all the monsters in the world."
"Few can, or even dare try. But that is where the lovely Lady Kerrigan has turned her attention. She seeks to study monsters and their influence on the world around them. A noble desire, and I look forward to seeing what she can accomplish. Though it may have to wait before she can really let loose in her research… she is wholeheartedly putting a majority of her attention into the raising of our children at the moment. A decision which I fully support, mind you. But I've been pestering the Guild, not to mention the hunters I've hired to work for me, to send us monster corpses for her to dissect, and that seems to please her. She's been filling up notebooks of her own with the fruits of her research into monster biology, though she aches to study monsters in the wild, rather than dead on a table."
"I've seen those notes," Levin muttered. "They're interesting, sure, but they're covered in bloodstains."
"Not Lady Kerrigan's, I assure you."
"I figured, but that doesn't exactly fix the issue," Levin muttered with a sigh. Looking down at the machine, he reached forward and poked at one of the tubes filled with the pale white substance. "So what's all this in the pipes?" he asked, and Harker replied without even turning about.
"Crimson Qurupeco extract."
"Crimson… extract?" Levin muttered, pulling his hand away from the tubes warily. "Now, when you say 'extract'…"
"Trust me, my friend: you do not wish to know the details."
"Ew…"
"Indeed."
"And the rest of it?" Levin asked, motioning to the rest of the machine.
"Mostly metal and a cocktail of chemicals I've brewed myself. A lot of the size and weight is for the safeties, shielding, and redundancies, though; Lady Kerrigan insisted. I meant to collect Fulgarbugs too, but Zinogre are hard to come by… Oh, and a Lagiacrus Sapphire at the core of it all, with a few D-shockers from an Ivory added for oscillating purposes."
Levin's eyes popped wide open at the words. "What… woah, wait, what?! D-shockers from an Ivory Lagiacrus and a sapphire? Where the hell did you get those? I heard about the incident with Rena in the Flooded Forest, so I know about the Crimson, but…"
"You hadn't heard?" Harker asked, turning in surprise. "I bought them from Eleanor, your wife."
"What… you… but her shop doesn't sell Lagia Sapphires! I've seen a couple shockers go through, sure, and the occasional wyvern stone and plate, but…"
"I put in a special order," Harker replied simply. "And she put a call out through her contacts to find one for me. Honestly, I don't know how she managed to create such an… efficient business in such small time. Perhaps her fame grants her easier access to things than others might be able to garner… But anyway, she had one for me in but a month. Though, she clearly trusted me about as far as you do, my friend. Normally, she's willing to give me a 'friendship discount', but she charged me an arm and a leg for this one… ah, no offense, my friend."
"None taken," Levin muttered, rubbing his right shoulder again.
"Oh, yes, and one last thing I needed… or rather, three things, to provide the ignition energy I desired." Harker knelt down, unlatching a small box in front of him. The lid popped open quickly, and Levin leaned over to look within. Lying on soft cushioning were three sturdy glass objects, within which swirled a bluish fluid which churned and roiled. At the end of each glass bottle was a metal cap, holding the swirling substance in, but providing several thin valves which would allow the release of the fluid's energy. Levin recognized the objects immediately.
"Switch axe phials?"
"Lightning phials, to be precise," Harker replied, pulling one out and holding it up to observe it.
"Yeah, I know; I still use my Lagi switch axe sometimes… Don't they only sell those in pairs, though?"
"Usually. However, I specifically requested three."
"Why do you need two spares?"
Harker turned, giving Levin a quizzical look, before nodding in realization. "Ah, yes, I'd nearly forgotten: switch axe hunters only use one phial at a time, with one replacing the other when the first is depleted… right, right. No, no, my friend, there are no spares. I plan to use all three at once!"
"Three? At once? What the hell would you need that much energy to-" Levin paused and frowned thoughtfully. "So, hold on… Crimson Qurupeco extract, D-shockers, a Lagia Sapphire, and three lightning phials to top it all off… What the hell did you build, Harker?"
Harker opened his mouth to reply, then paused and gave Levin a wicked grin. "Well… every mad scientist needs a death ray, don't they?"
"Harker…" Levin growled, and the madman laughed, raising his hands.
"Don't worry, I promise to use it for good."
"You're not helping your argument! I promised the Guild I was supposed to rein you in from doing those kinds of things, remember?"
"Oh, calm down, my friend," Harker laughed. "Why don't I show you what this machine really does before you decide whether or not my intentions are worthy of siccing the Guild on me? I do believe you will be impressed with the results!"
"Assuming the machine works, you mean," Levin muttered.
"What, you don't have faith in me?" Harker asked, pretending to pout.
"Green fire."
"Hm… well, I suppose that's a good point. Oh, fine then. I've been more careful with this project than those before; just let me finish up here, and I'll prove it to you!" With that, the madman set to work again, putting the finishing touches on his machine… whatever it did. It didn't take long, thankfully; Harker had apparently been nearly done, and all that was left was the installation of the lightning phials.
So, with the phials loaded in, the former hunter darted around the machine, checking and double-checking his connections against his notes, an excited smile growing ever larger as he continued. Then the notebook slapped shut, and the madman rushed over to his supply box, digging through it for a short moment, before pulling something out.
It was a control rod of some kind, made of metal, with a long, glowing crystal of some kind pulsing dimly at the end. Thin wires and tubes lined the sides of the thing, save for a small grip Harker had his hand wrapped around. A few small levers and buttons were located under the finger grips, from what Levin could see, easily controlled by whoever held it. With a dramatic flourish, Harker held up the rod for Levin to see, grinning ecstatically.
"And here it is! The final piece of my experiment! With this, we can begin the test proper, and you can see what sort of work I've been up to the last year or so!" He began to reach into his pockets, digging around for something. "Now all we need to do is set the draw, and I can activate it-"
"Hold on, hold on," Levin cut the man off, earning a scowl from his friend. Levin pointed at the ground beneath them. "We're testing it here? Now?"
"Of course; where else would we do it?"
Levin looked at the machine, then back to Harker, before reaching forward and grabbing the madman by the sleeve. As his friend sputtered indignantly, Levin snapped at him. "No, Harker! I have had far too much experience with your tests to risk blowing myself up again, especially if you've got not one, but three lightning phials in there! If we're going to test this, we're doing it from a distance!"
Harker tried to argue, but Levin remained stern. Finally, after several minutes of bickering, the madman was forced to concede, and the two began to stride away from the machine. Harker paused, turning around at twenty yards, but Levin pressed him on. The madman paused twice more, hoping to remain close, but Levin refused to allow him, continuing to drag him across the pale stone tower. Finally they stopped, almost two hundred yards away, Harker's machine a pale blue and black dot in the distance.
"This seems unnecessary," Harker mumbled sourly, and Levin glared at him.
"As someone who's been blown up by a switch axe phial explosion once, I'm not about to risk doing it again. If you want to activate your machine, you do it from here or not at all."
"Oh, fine! The machine's effects should theoretically reach this far anyway. May I proceed with my experiment, Mr. Picky?"
"Go right ahead," Levin replied, crossing his arms.
Harker nodded, holding up the small rod and pressing a button on it. At the tip, the pale crystal shard began to glow. Levin looked back towards the machine in the distance, and noted the glass orb at the top of the metal construct was glowing as well, increasing in intensity as the crystal on the control rod did. He watched nervously as Harker stared down at the rod, waiting for some sign Levin couldn't see. There didn't seem to be an indicator or anything on it, so he wasn't sure what Harker was waiting for, but he hoped his friend knew what he was doing, especially now that there were three lightning phials at risk of detonating. With Harker at the wheel of this experiment, detonation was not exactly the least likely result…
Both the crystal and the machine continued to glow brighter and brighter with each passing moment, and Levin found himself growing increasingly uncomfortable as they did. He wished Harker was as forthcoming about what exactly he was trying to accomplish as he had been when they'd first met, so at least Levin would be able to know what was coming, but the man had grown more secretive in the last few years. Though, Levin wasn't sure if that was due to the Guild keeping tabs on him, or if he just liked surprising people with the results. Either way, Levin wasn't looking forward to whatever the machine did.
Several minutes passed, and the machine continued to glow brighter, with Harker still showing no signs of his intent. A dull hum could be heard coming from the machine as Harker's creation shivered from the intensity of… whatever it was doing. Levin wasn't sure if it was nervousness or something the machine had done, but the air around him seemed to be growing… greasy. That was the only way he could describe it. Even the sky above him seemed to grow darker, though that might have just been an illusion from the machine, which was now glowing with an intensity rivalling a flare… or an energy blast from a switch axe, now that Levin thought about it…
"It's almost ready," Harker muttered, looking up from the rod. "All we need to do is drop a draw down and it'll be ready."
"A draw?" Levin asked. From out of his pocket, Harker pulled out a small, disc-shaped object, and handed it to Levin. It was made of metal, with a dark black, stone-like object in the center.
"It's a voltstone," Harker explained. "It's the 'flint' from a Crimson Qurupeco. I find it's rather fragile, but it works surprisingly well as a conduit. A D-Shocker from an Ivory would work better but…" The madman chuckled sheepishly. "I was… running a bit low on funds by the time I got around to making it, so I had to use other materials instead. It should work just fine, though, or at the very least I'll learn something from this whole thing."
"What do I do with it?" Levin asked nervously.
"Throw it! Somewhere far, please, and not towards the main machine. It'll be the focus point for when I-"
Both men froze where they stood as a powerful roar abruptly sounded in the sky. Levin's eyes darted around fearfully, and his hand went instinctively to the hilt of his switch axe. He knew that roar: it was the call of a Rath! The rumbling of the clouds and the humming of Harker's machine had dulled the noise, so he couldn't tell if it was a Rathian or Rathalos, but either way it meant trouble. He turned to face Harker again, intent on telling the madman to shut his machine down so they could hide.
But it was too late. A dark shadow pressed through the clouds, and a huge, winged shape dropped from the sky, sweeping towards the two. The creature screeched at them menacingly as it circled them, its red eyes gleaming in anticipation as it spiraled down closer and closer to the pair. A jolt of lightning rippled through the clouds, and the light reflected off the wyvern's brilliant scales as it flew closer, gleaming a brilliant gold. Levin's jaw dropped in shock; he couldn't believe it. A Gold Rathian!
"We need to run!" he said quickly, reaching out to grab Harker's shoulder. "Where's the nearest edge? If we hurry, we can get off the tower, and escape to the caves-"
"Oh, let her come," Harker replied nonchalantly. "She'll give me something nice to use as a target."
Levin turned, staring at Harker as though the man had grown a second head. "What? A target? This isn't the time for your experiments, Harker! What do you-"
The ground underneath Levin shivered, pulling his attention back to the Gold Rathian as the wyvern landed, its bulk shaking the earth below it, despite it being Meridian stone. Flames began to blaze along the creature's maw, and it bared its fangs at the humans in what Levin could only describe of as an anticipatory grin.
"The draw!" Harker hissed, grabbing Levin's arm and motioning to the Rathian. "Use the draw! When the Rathian is holding still, throw the draw under it! Trust me! I'm certain this will work!"
Levin looked back at Harker, and his friend had a look of absolute certainty on his face. Reluctantly, he sighed and nodded, and Harker grinned enthusiastically. It wasn't as though they had many other choices. Levin looked back towards the wyvern fearfully, as the creature began to make its way towards them. The Rathian growled at the pair of them as it strode confidently across the pale stone. Levin's grip tightened nervously on the 'draw' Harker had given him, waiting for the wyvern to stop walking, and hoping beyond hope that Harker's confidence in his experiments wasn't misplaced for once.
The Gold Rathian paused, rearing its head back to unleash a powerful roar. At the motion, Levin lunged towards it, heaving the draw over his head and hurling it through the air towards the wyvern.
But he miscalculated the weight of the draw, and the disc-shaped object flew a couple feet further than he'd planned it to. It was just far enough that, when the Rathian swung its head forward to unleash its thunderous roar, the draw sailed right into its mouth, bouncing off the creature's tongue, and dropping into the gold monster's throat. The Rathian only managed to bellow out a short burst of its roar, before the draw caught in its throat. The beast squeaked in surprise, beginning to cough wildly, reeling back and wheezing, trying to dislodge the draw from its throat.
"Oh… um, it wasn't supposed to go in her mouth," Harker muttered worriedly. Levin winced at the words, reaching into his pouch. He had a few flash bombs at his disposal; if he used them well, he might be able to distract the Gold Rathian long enough for the two of them to run.
"Get ready Harker!" he shouted as the Rathian finished coughing, and turned its furious red eyes towards the pair of them again. There was nothing on the ground in front of the Rathian; the creature must have swallowed the draw. "I'll blind it, and then we can-"
"Hold on. Let's see if it still works."
"What are you-"
Harker was pointing the rod in his hands toward the Gold Rathian, the crystal tip glowing brilliantly, and with a quick nod and an excited smirk, he pushed the central button, and the crystal pulsed brightly.
The world in front of Levin seemed to erupt into light as a massive lightning bolt dropped from the sky, crashing into the Rathian's spine. The wyvern screeched in pain as hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity ripped through its body, and the beast reeled backwards in agony. Scales and plates were torn from the wyvern's back as the brilliant white energy shredded into it, the lightning vanishing as quickly as it came, leaving tendrils of lingering electricity rippling through the beast's body. The Rathian shivered in pain, stumbling a bit but still alive despite the damage it had taken. Its eyes steeled again in anger, flames licking at its lips as it growled at the pair menacingly.
"Ha ha! It worked! Wonderful! Though I suppose one bolt wasn't enough…" Levin gaped in shock at the words, and stared in horror at his friend as the madman grinned wildly. Had Harker… actually called down lightning? Is that what his machine had been designed to do? Two hundred yards away, the machine was glowing brilliantly, the internal light pulsing. His friend giggled madly to himself as he held out the control rod, aiming it towards the Rathian once more. "I suppose this is a good chance to conduct another test, now isn't it: how many bolts of lightning does it take to kill a Gold Rathian? Let's find out, shall we?" And with that, the madman pushed the button on the rod, and the crystal pulsed again.
Once more, a massive lightning bolt crashed down from the sky, punching into the Rathian's body. The golden creature reeled, howling in agony as the voltage lanced across its body, and even more shining scales clattered to the ground around it. A wide, gaping swath of flesh was exposed along its back now, hissing and steaming and blackened from the heat of the lightning. The wyvern wheezed and moaned in agony, staggering backwards, but fire still blazed in its maw as it refocused its gaze on the humans. But Harker simply nodded, and pressed the button again.
The lightning crashed down a third time, catching the beast's right wing and tearing through leathery webbing, but still the Rathian refused to yield or run. A fourth time, and the wyvern's threatening growls turned to pained whines. A fifth time, and the beast actually managed to launch a fireball at them in its rage, but in its pain the shot was wildly off target, sailing through the air past them and crashing into a stone tower several dozen yards behind them. Levin cringed at the close call, too stunned by everything that was happening to even move or dodge, but Harker hardly flinched, keeping his gaze on the Gold Rathian.
He pressed the button again, and lightning crashed down a sixth time. The Rathian howled, wheezing in pain. Its body sparked with lingering electricity, lancing down and jumping across the Meridian stone below it. The creature's eyes were glazed and unfocused now, and though flames still jetted from the wyvern's throat, they come out in bursts synchronized with the Rathian's gasping breaths. The creature staggered, letting out one last, pained wheeze, then toppled to the ground, crashing into the Meridian stone with a shuddering thump. It let out one last, strained death rattle, and died.
There was silence across the tower surface for a long minute, save for the sizzling of the Rathian's flesh. Then Levin turned on Harker, glaring angrily. "I thought you said it wasn't a death ray!"
"Well, I never denied it, if you'll recall…" Harker replied with a grin. "Besides, it technically wasn't a ray, per se…"
"You are insane!"
"I've heard that so many times since awakening from the blue crystal, I fear the sentiment has lost its luster…"
"That's not a good thing, Harker."
"Perhaps…" the madman admitted. Then he looked at Levin with a smirk. "But, my friend, surely you must admit the test of my device was rather… cool?"
Levin opened his mouth to argue, but was forced to close it a moment later. "Well… maybe," he conceded. Harker raised an eyebrow expectantly, and a moment later Levin gave in and laughed. "Alright! Alright, I have to admit, that was pretty awesome. Dangerous as all hell, but awesome nonetheless. Can you please just… warn me in advance the next time we do something like this?"
"Ah, yes, of course, my friend. But I have to admit this is quite encouraging!" Harker said excitedly. "I did not expect my test to work so well, at least not on the first try!"
"Wait, this was your first try?" Levin asked worriedly. "Nothing you make ever works the first time…"
"Perhaps my luck is changing for the better! Why, just think: if this kind of fortune keeps up, I might be able to finish my testing on the machine in only a few-"
Before Harker could finish, however, he was cut off as a blinding light blazed to life across the top of the Meridian Tower, and a cataclysmic explosion erupted into the sky two hundred yards away from them. Both men were knocked clean off their feet as a shock wave rippled across the tower, smashing into them and throwing them back several feet and onto their backs. Levin winced, holding his hands over his head for several moments as a wave of heat washed over him, and he felt his hair stand on end as the air around him seemed to grow charged and filled with static. Levin and Harker held themselves down for a good minute or so, before the rumbling of the explosion finally began to die away. Levin pushed himself carefully to his feet, hurrying over to help Harker up, before turning to look towards where Harker's machine had been.
A towering cloud of fire and smoke was climbing towards the sky, a thick wall of devastation which had to be a good forty or fifty yards wide. It was tinted slightly bluish-white as bolts of electricity lanced back and forth within the cloud. A few clinks and clanks could be heard here and there around him, as bits and pieces of Harker's machine began to fall from the sky, loose nuts and bolts and shards of metal which hadn't been completely obliterated in the blast. Even the sturdy Meridian stone beneath had suffered damage, several narrow cracks spider-webbing across the white surface. The winds of the mountain were slowly beginning to pick up again, carrying away the tower of smoke little by little.
"I told you!" Levin snapped, pointing a finger at Harker and glaring at the man. "I told you! Three phials! Three phials, and you thought you'd be alright testing it standing right next to the damn thing!"
"Ah… well," Harker muttered, watching as the column of smoke rolled into the skies. "Damn it all. I suppose it really was a good idea to stand so far away… I must remember to continue that practice in the future."
"They probably heard the blast all the way in Perir… there's no way anyone in Nastre missed it."
"Lady Kerrigan is not going to be pleased with me…"
"Well, at least you're still alive to be lectured by her when you get back. And no wounds, either: she won't have to chastise you in the hospital."
"I suppose those are rather noteworthy boons," Harker admitted, looking up as the rolling smoke pushed into the clouds above them, and crackling electricity jumped between them. "Well, there's nothing left to do now but wait for someone to send one of Silas' airships up to pick us up… No sense sending up a flare now. They know we're done with the experiment, I'm sure."
"A flare would let them know we're alive," Levin reminded him, reaching into his pouch to pull one out. "Though if we didn't, I suppose we could take bets on whether or not they fly caskets up in the airship…"
"How morbid…" Harker muttered sourly. "Though… I've heard tell some of the other researchers in Nastre have actually sized one for me, and they're keeping it ready in case one of my experiments does get the better of me."
"A lovely bunch you've taken leadership of, isn't it?" Levin laughed, aiming the flare skyward and firing, sending a brilliant red light searing into the sky. "But, man, with people like those… hell, with a wife like Kerry, if she's even half as crazy as you are, she might just try and sew you up and bring you back to life. And if you haven't completely disintegrated your notes, you might have given her a lightning machine to do it with."
"That wouldn't-" Harker sputtered out, before pausing mid-sentence and tilting his head in thought.
"Mercy! No, Harker!" Levin gasped, smacking the madman upside the dead. "Bad deranged lunatic! Bad! I was just joking! No thinking about resurrecting the dead! You warp the laws of nature enough with things like your lightning machine! Please, please keep your abominations of science to a minimum, or I'm going to be the one dying prematurely! From stress!"
"Fine, fine!" Harker chuckled, rubbing his head. Then he gave Levin a twisted smile. "But then, if you did die, I might have incentive to try and attempt resurrecting the dead… I'm kidding! I'm kidding, please don't hit me! I still need my head!"
With a weary sigh, Levin unclenched his fist, before plopping down to the ground to await the arrival of the airship. Harker muttered in disappointment to himself for a few minutes, before dropping to the ground as well, choosing to watch the dark smoke trail twist in the wind up to the rolling clouds above them and scribbling into his notebook. The humming of the airship engines could already be heard to the south, over the whistling of the winds. Tapping a finger against the Meridian stone, Levin turned his gaze to the golden corpse a few dozen yards away from them.
"So… what do we do with the Rathian?"
Author's Note: Please Review!
Did you think I was actually going to write Levin soloing a Gold Rathian while Harker sat on the sidelines or acted as support? Some of you may have forgotten that I don't make my characters as singularly awesome as other writers do. I did enjoy writing what Harker is really capable of outside of hunting, though.
As you can see from this chapter and the last, there will be canon chapters in this story to show a bit of what happens to my characters between the end of TLC and whatever the sequel turns out to be. I'm fairly certain that they won't all be in chronological order, of course. Pretty sure the next chapter I'll release takes place before this one, and another will take place about 7 years after this. I might put a chronological order in the first chapter if I really release a lot of these one-shots. Also, that means a good number of these longer chapters might have several chapters of exposition at the start, like this one.
I spent a long time listening to They Might Be Giants when writing this chapter. I feel like it's a band that Harker would have enjoyed, and honestly helps me get into his personality.
It's really encouraging to see people fave-ing and reviewing The Lost Civilization, even a few months after the story ended. I guess with each passing day there are more people getting into the MH fandom, and are looking into the fanfics to see what's available. But I just find it odd when people follow TLC. I mean, the story's done and over with, and won't be updating anymore, so why bother? I appreciate the sentiment, but still…
Reading: Neko Musume Michikusa Nikki by Ike, Acchi Kocchi by Ishiki
Playing: Pokemon X
Listening: They Might Be Giants, Cake, Relient K, Welcome to Night Vale Podcast, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Van Morrison, Mumford and Sons