Hello my friends, here I come with another chapter.
Sorry for the delay, I was busing writing the second chapter of 'DxD: The God of Wolves, Okuchi-no-Makami', which came out pretty good so go check it out, and in recent time here in Brasil we got hit with a serious heat wave, staying in my room to write anything wasn't a option during this time, luckily the weather is getting back to normal.
Anyways, here's the chapter.
DISCLAIMER: I don't know if I should do this or not but whatever, I don't own anything here apart from my OC's.
May have grammar errors
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Five Days Later
If regret alone could kill, I'd have probably died a few dozen times already. In the span of just five days I came to learn the hard way that, following a Gryphon is, in fact, quite hard.
However, it isn't hard for the reason you might think, as in 'unable to follow the Gryphon's trail', no, that has been something honestly not so hard to do. The true complication of the matter here is another one…
"This bird is toying with us!"
That's right.
That Gryphon, or 'That Bird', as the mercs came to 'affectionately' call it, in a display of elevated intelligence when seeing us following him started to toy with us.
For instance, he'd leave a trail that led to a piece of highland which we only managed to access after arduously climbing, however, when we had been just about to reach the top he'd fly down. Letting out that call of his he passed just a couple of meters above our heads; before then zipping away into the distance.
At the time the group reasoned that we had just scared him away again, resting a bit we once again followed on his trail, which this time led us to a part of the forest we hadn't been before.
The place was actually a mangrove, with everyone doing their part we managed to cross the difficult to traverse terrain. There in a dry small island the Gryphon was munching on a sardine looking fish, trying to not scare him away this time we went to another piece of dry land a certain distance away.
However, we barely spent two minutes there before the Gryphon flew away once again, after that we followed him to cliff near a beach, then to a seaside cave on the other side of the Island, then once again to the forest, and after it back to the plains…
As the days passed it became quite clear to our group that, the Gryphon, was toying with us, the way he would wait for us to arrive at his location, only to fly away just as we got there, was too perfectly timed for t only to be a coincidence.
The way he always led us to difficult to traverse terrains all over the island felt too purposeful, furthermore the way he would fly just a dozen meters away from us, the way he would look at us, and that call he'd make while doing so, all had the word 'mocking' written all over them.
Everyone could sense the mocking tone on the creature's actions, it was too obvious not to notice, however it was worse for me, because differently from everyone else I could actually understand what the Gryphon was saying.
Every call that thing made was filled with such mockeries, such insults, that listing them down would be a tiring endeavor. At first I didn't thought much about them, however was the days passed, and the frustration of having to follow him around build up, these mockeries began to grit on my ears.
The worst part was that at some point the Gryphon had apparently sensed my aura, the aura of a dragon I had deep inside of me, and saw to make me his prime target. Every time he would fly past us he would make sure that I heard how much little he thought of me, that while I was a predator like him, that I could never match his mightiness.
One interesting fact not many people knew about a zoan devil fruit, was that personality traits of its animal could, no, would bleed into the user's own personality and fuse with it.
As the user of the Lightning Dragon fruit, a zoan, I had after some time inherited a few of the personality traits you would normally see in dragons, with one of them being their pride.
Although far from being an arrogant person, I actually had a good deal of pride deep inside of me; pride of my family, my friends, my skills, of my fighting prowess and, of course, of my devil fruit. And there was nothing wrong with that, I never actually felt bothered by it as it never got in the way of my life.
However, when hearing the mockery of that reject project of a parrot, the draconic pride I had inside of me felt insulted, and with each passing day the boiling draconic wrath I also had in me slowly, but surely, began to surface.
I wasn't one to let my anger get the better of me, in fact none of my friends here had ever seen me truly angry. However there was something in the mocking of that Gryphon, the mocking of another predator of the skies, another mystical like being, that truly made me feel angry. That truly irked me.
And after enduring five days of endless mockery, endless insults, I had reached my boiling point…
"I'LL GET THIS FUCKING BIRD!"
Letting my anger flow out I roared in anger, everyone around watched with astounded looks as my body grew and change. Away with my human look I turned into my hybrid form, a menacing black dragon that stood on two legs. With a beat of my wings and a mighty push of my legs I shot up into the air!
"LUCAS!"
My friends called out to me but I didn't pay any heed, I had no stopping at that moment. My sudden outburst and subsequent transformation caught the Gryphon by surprise, the look on his eyes said as much.
Going straight at him I extended my left claw forward to attack him, however showing why he was such fabled predator of the skies the Gryphon managed to at, the last second, move his body out of the way.
"▂▂ ▂ !"
Failing to land my claws only grazed at his side, and as the momentum I had behind me was too great, I wasn't to change course and ended up shooting past the Gryphon.
Feeling that this wouldn't be a good match, and also probably still shook by my roar of anger, the Gryphon took advantage of this moment and turned around to flee.
I, however, wasn't having that. Doing an arc in the sky to adjust my course I once again beat my wings and shot away after the Gryphon.
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Back on the plains, the group of researchers and mercenaries looked at the two figures vanishing into the sky with agape mouths.
They truly hadn't been expecting this development.
"I knew he had a devil fruit from the moment I saw him calling down lightning during the event with the Shoalstriders, however, it appears that my hypothesis about the nature and extent of his powers needs to be rethought…"
Said Dr. Victor Sinclair who, like the others, was quite shocked by this sudden development of events, Oscar who somehow knew of Lucas's dragon identity tentatively approached both Tashigi and Torlo then and asked "Is that something normal to happen?"
"Not really…" sheepishly replied Tashigi "I've never seen Lucas act like that, but then again, he had commented how the Gryphon was getting on his nerves as of lately"
The leader of the mercenaries, Vanix, also walked towards the two marines and to ask them something.
"Will he kill him?"
His voices carried the same astonishment and confusion felt by everyone else at that moment, however if one was to pay attention, they'd be able to feel an underline of anger in his voice as he asked the question.
"What you mean?"
"Will your friend kill that Gryphon?"
"I highly doubt that" replied Torlo with a voice dripping with conviction "I know my friend, his anger may've gotten the better of him now, but his will is strong and he'll soon be getting out of that funk"
"They're right"
The one that talked was surprisingly Dr. Victor, approaching them he looked at Vanix before stating "Let's be frank here my man, the Gryphon was getting on everyone's nerves. It was clear that he was toying with us for days, and even I was getting increasingly frustrated with this whole situation. Young Lucas not being able hold his anger is reasonable, he'll just need to chase the Gryphon down a bit and his anger will drain out"
The renowned researcher's words helped the others, his researchers, and the mercenaries, come to terms with the whole situation. The reasoning was good, and the Dr. himself was a man of renown and that radiates an aura importance thus giving him more credibility.
Having in mind what both Tashigi and Torlo had said before, and what Dr. Victor said now, the group as a whole decided to wait and see what'd happen next.
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It has been a few minutes since I had started this rage fueled chase across the sky, and if I was to be completely honest my overflowing anger had already calmed down a bit.
The wind brushing past my scales, and breathtaking view of the landscape I get from up here, greatly helped me cool down and make me truly start to ponder on what exactly I was doing.
Don't get me wrong, I'll still be punching that Gryphons one or two times, he did get on my nerves after all. However, now that I had cooled down a bit the wish I had earlier had of plucking all the feathers of that reject parrot, along with shaving all of his fur, had gone away.
Instead I will just rough him up a bit to get my remaining anger out, then I'd take the downed leathery lion back to my group so they could heal him up, and also take advantage of the opportunity to study him a bit from up close.
I just need to catch him.
"Not laughing now huh?!"
"▂▂ ▂ !"
In our chase we had actually left the plains and actually arrived above the forest, the guy was truly a skilled flier I had to give him that. He was able to weave through the sky in way that was honestly amazing to watch, unfortunately for him I was a dragon, 'The Lightning Dragon' to be precise, so at the end of the day me catching up to him was only a matter of time.
Getting right behind the Gryphon the taste of chicken was already on my mouth, this rage fueled chase had already gone for long enough, opening up my maw I was going to give him a little bite and then bring him down.
However, just as I was going to do that something unexpected happened…
Bang!
"Argh!"
Something heavy had hit my side and exploded, the feeling reminding me of that one time my Grandpa had thrown a cannon ball at me, the power however was many magnitudes weaker.
Still, this sudden attack having hit me square on made me lose control of my flight, tumbling through the sky I tried but was unsuccessful in my attempt of regaining flight, before I knew it I had already broken through the treetops of the forest below and crashed into the ground.
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On another part of the plains, one closer to the forest, there was a hill where a certain group of people, one that wasn't that of the researchers, could be seen.
This group was composed of about ten men, of different statures and looks one thing they all had in common was the green camo, leather armor they all wore.
At that moment they were all looking at the direction of the island's forest where Lucas had fallen, one of them was lying on ground with a pretty scary looking heavy rifle on his hands, meanwhile the other nine stood behind him.
"That was one good shot Duncan!"
"Thanks mate"
The man with the rifle got complimented by one of his companions, then patting his rifle, which had some smoke coming out of its barrel, the man rose up from the ground and said while looking at the forest "Still not quite sure what that scaly flying creature I shot down was"
"Who cares?" grumbled another man "The thing was about to gobble the Gryphon we came here to pick, have he done that the boss would've been livid!"
"He is right my friend" continued the man from before "We hadn't come here to catch a flying lizard, so who really cares?"
"I guess you guys are right" acknowledge the man with a rifle, pausing he looked around and then inquired "Speaking of the boss, were he is again?"
"Earlier he went away with the others to hunt down a giant tiger he saw roaming the island, he'll probably be back soon"
"Well, let's wait then"
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In a certain part of the forest a scene you'd normally expect to read from an adventure book was happening, the scene being that of a group of about eight men surrounding a giant beast they had cornered.
Hunters these men all wore leather armor, similar to the one used by the men in the hill, and the beast they had cornered was a tiger with flame like fur and of prehistoric proportions.
"All right men, we almost got him!"
One of these men stood out amongst the others, with the stature of a basketball player and the physique of a warrior, this Caucasian bald man standing right before the giant tiger was the leader of this group of hunters.
The man's name was Logan Hartman, Chief of a group of hunters that go around 'collecting' rare and exotics animals for a price, he had brought his men here to this island in search of the fabled Gryphon.
However during their search Logan had spotted this giant tiger roaming the island, with giant size and glowing eyes the creature radiated a kingly aura that was like no other. To the Chief Hunter the allure of this majestic being was too big, taking some of his men, and leaving the rest to continue the search for the Gryphon, Logan set out after that tiger.
He had easily found the tiger. however he knew that a head-on confrontation with the tiger wouldn't go well for his side, so using his great hunting expertise he devised a trap to catch the giant beast.
A couple hours of preparation later, and with the use of some clever misleading tactics, the Chief Hunter Logan was able to successfully trap the tiger on a trap made using long and thick chains.
However a tiger was, after all, the King of the Jungle, so even though he got trapped and wasn't able to move an inch the tiger still had a defiant look on his face, baring his razor sharp fangs at his captors he made sure to let them know he wasn't defeated yet.
" ▄▄▅▅ -▅▅！"
"This a true tiger, defiant to the end"
Mused Logan as he looked at the trapped tiger, the corners of his mouth curved into a pleased smile. Turning his head around Logan gazed at the many trees which have been brutally torn off the ground by the beast, returning to look at the tiger he said:
"There was no way what we would've won against you in direct fight, you strength is just that big" getting here he chuckled "However In the end you're just a tiger, and never would be able to win against the tactics of a human like me"
Pulling out a giant knife from a sheath attached to his leg he looked at the tiger and smiled wickedly.
"Now you become my prize!"
"-Do that and see how fast I plant your face into the ground"
Before Logan could proceed with the claiming of his 'prize' a voice rumbled across the area and stopped him dead on his tracks, feeling an incoming danger the man jumped back and returned to beside his men, in the location where he once was a white haired figure now stood.
"Who're you?!"
"I make you the same question!"
Retorted the white haired figure, glaring at Logan his anger was palpable in the moment "I truly wish to know the name of the fool who dares to entrap Khan!"
The trapped tiger was Khan and this white haired figure was, of course, Lucas.
'Who would've thought I'd find this type of situation after falling here…'
As Lucas was on his hybrid form earlier neither the shot he took while flying, nor his subsequent fall to the ground caused by it, did any actual damage to him. He was still a dragon after all, so after a couple minutes Lucas shook away the headache he got from that and rose up from the ground.
He was about to fly back to his friends when he heard a commotion coming from deeper into the woods, curious he reverted back to his normal self in order to be more stealthy and then approached the source of the noise.
Arriving at the location he was greeted by the sight of his dear friends Khan trapped in a thick chain, a bald man with a knife in hand was looking at his tiger with clear malice shining in his eyes, while talking about making Khan his prize.
Witnessing all of this Lucas of course wouldn't just stay there watching, so he jumped and stopped right there what the man was going to do.
"The tiger is yours, huh? Well, I did saw a type of identification band around his limb" saying that Logan looked at Lucas and then sneered, "Not that it matter to me, I'll be taking him with me as a prize and there's nothing you can do about tit"
"You're sure about that decision? You'll surely come to regret it later"
"Heheheha that's a good one kid, what can you do about it? It's eight against one"
"Don't cry later saying didn't warn you…"
Moving his leg Lucas stomped down at the chains wrapped around Khan's forelimbs, the object only gave the barest of resistances before crumbling away under the weight of Lucas's foot. Khan now with his limbs free brought out his claws and quickly use them to torn to shreds the other chains trapping him, soon enough the King of the Jungle was free once again!
"ATTACK THEM!"
Bellowed Logan to his men the moment he saw Khan got out of his chains, moving into action they brought out their weapons and began to attack the young marine and his tiger.
A burly hunter jumped at Lucas with his jagged hunting knife in hand, the marine however was able to easily dodge the attack and then send the hunter back flying with a punch to his sternum.
Another one appeared from the shadow of the first however, a spear like weapon in hand he made a thrust attack, Lucas however was able to weave the attack by stepping to the side, then by grabbing the spear's shaft with his left he stopped the man on his track, then bringing down his right forearm he broke the thing before kicking the man on the chest and sending him flying back.
"?!"
Right as Lucas was about to go forward to deal with another hunter he felt his instincts warning him of an attack, in reflex he used partial transformation to change his arms, and then brought them together before his body to shield himself.
Bang!
A rumble was heard and Lucas felt something strong hit his arms, no damage was caused to him due to his scales, however the strength of the attack still pushed him back a couple steps.
Lowering his arms a bit Lucas saw the Chief Hunter, Logan, aiming a beefy hunting shotgun at him. Smoking coming out of the barrel it wasn't hard to guess that it was he that just attacked him, feeling like the man would be problematic, and being angry that he had trapped Khan, Lucas made of the man his next target.
"Khan, you deal with these guys. I'm going after their boss!"
Roaring that to his feline friend behind, whom in fact was already engaging the other men in combat, Lucas then dashed forward towards the man who was the leader of this group of hunters.
The Chief Hunter however didn't just stood there waiting for Lucas to get to him, decisively turning around Logan shot away into the forest. Locked onto the man Lucas too dashed into the forest, there by using his experience in these types of locations he made sure to keep the man on his line of sight.
However, as the chase progressed Lucas came to realize that his expertise in this matter wasn't actually up to the task, his foe, as a man that had hunting as his lifelong profession, had a level of skill in traversing these types of terrains that was way higher than his.
The forest was his home field, so despite Lucas being able to keep up with him at first, the way the man was able to maneuver through the forest made him unable to shorten the distance between the two, as such while Lucas had the man on his line of sight, he wasn't any close of getting to him than he was at the start of this chase.
'I'm not having this!'
Calling upon his powers Lucas focused some lightning on his foot, then strongly kicking off the ground he shot forward at great speed towards the Chief Hunter. Arriving behind his target Lucas's right hand was already crackling with lightning, his plan was to deliver one overpowering punch to defeat the man in a single hit right then and there.
Logan, the Chief Hunter, had other plans for that however.
"Gotcha you kid!"
"?!"
Before Lucas's attack connected the Chief Hunter Logan had turned around, catching Lucas by surprised he weaved his attack and hit Lucas in the gut with a club he got from, well, somewhere.
"Argh!"
The man's strength was put into display here.
His surprise attack not only stopped Lucas's entire momentum, but actually was also able to send him flying. Shooting back through the air Lucas took a few moments to get his baring back, adjusting his body midair Lucas was able to prevent himself from falling flat face on the ground (It'd would have been the second time that day).
Back on his feet he was about to return to his chase, however when he gave his first step the young marine felt something biting at his leg.
"Whata- a bear trap?!"
Gazing down Lucas saw one of those classical contraptions of metal used to hunt bear biting on his leg; thankfully his legs had been covered in scales due to partial transformation this whole time, something that others wouldn't normal catch on to due to his pants hiding the scales.
Still, Lucas was bewildered with what just happened, and due to that he wasn't able to react on time to avoid the log that was hurled at him.
Being hit square on Lucas was once gain sent flying, landing on the ground a dozen meters away he would attempt to rise up, but before he could do that the ground underneath him gave him and he fell into a hole.
There on the depths of this pit hole trap Lucas for a moment did nothing, looking up at the sky through the hole in complete bewilderment, he tried to figure out how did that man manage to make him fall on his traps like that.
'When did he set these up? Did he make them before for Khan?'
Shaking his head Lucas tore away the bear trap from his leg, getting up once again he did a jump and got out of the hole.
Back on the surface he quickly turned around and in searched for the Chief Hunter, when not seeing him anywhere Lucas tried to use his enhanced sense of smell to sniff him out.
However no matter how many times he tried, no matter how much he sniffed around, Lucas was unable to get a hold of the scent of the man, his trail ended right there on that area and wouldn't go anywhere.
"He escaped!"
Angry Lucas allowed his lightning to flare around; the draconic energy flowing to his right hand he did a punch in a random direction and launched the lightning at the line of trees there, the destructive power of the wrath of heavens blew apart many trees there.
Having got his anger out Lucas turned around and dashed back to where he left Khan, arriving back he saw his feline friend healthy and well waiting for him there, however as he looked around Lucas was unable to see any defeated hunter on the ground.
"Where're they Khan? You didn't eat all of them, right?"
" ▅▅！"
"They tricked you with a strange smoke bomb then got away?"
" ▅▅▅！"
"Damn…" brushing his hand against his hair Lucas sighed in frustration "Guess our brute strength lost today buddy, let's just go back"
Feeling like there was nothing else to do there Lucas hoped onto Khan's back and the two made their way back to the others. He still had that Gryphon to find after all.
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After Lucas gone away silence reigned in the area where he had fallen on the traps, for a full half hour nothing happened, but then…
Rustle
A bunch of vines and leaves near a tree got pushed away, from underneath them the muddy figure of the Chief Hunter Logan rose up, looking at the direction Lucas had went away he smiled.
"You're a thousand years too young to be challenging me on my home field like that kid, too young indeed" turning his head to the side he looked at the trees destroyed by Lucas in his anger, the man's smile vanishing he grimly stated "Still, like with your furry friend fighting you head on like this would be a sure loss for us, even my traps will probably not be enough now, you're not a dumb animal after all so you'll be ready for them next time"
"It seems I'll need to bring out the big guns"
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"What happened?"
That was the question my friends made me when I arrived back where I had left them, camp had been set up there as a certain time had already passed since I left.
Jumping off Khan's back I went to them and began retelling what exactly had happened, explaining how I kinda allowed my anger to the better of me, then about how I was about to catch the Gryphon when someone shot me down from the sky, then about my encounter with those hunters.
And as expected they become shocked when hearing this part, a stunned Tashigi yelled:
"Someone shot you?!"
"Yeah, but I was in my hybrid form so my scales cleanly tanked it. The pain was afterwards, when I had to shake away the headache I got from crashing face flat on the ground"
"You talk about falling from the sky with such nonchalant tone that is impressive…"
Said my friend Torlo with a resigned sigh for some reason, from the side Oscar approached me and voiced a question "Who was the ones that shot you?"
"That's a good question" said Torlo, a hand on his chin he mused "The info given to us didn't mentioned anything about another group being on the island"
"They're probably just some hunters"
The one that talked next was surprisingly Vanix, seeing that we got our attention he kept going
"You talked about some hunters going after your tiger, right? Well, the ones that shot Lucas must be another group of hunters that came here to finds some goods score, this island isn't completely unknown after all"
"The why did they shot him?"
"Can you really blame them? In his transformed form Lucas had little that resembled a human, if anything at all; they probably just thought he was another beast"
"You bring some good points, but that still doesn't excuse them for shooting my friend down. He could've been seriously hurt!"
"But he wasn't, so it's really good to get heated over this? Let's just forget about them and continue our search of the Gryphon"
"You-!"
I could feel anger coming from Torlo, not wishing to for things to escalate more I dragged him back before the tension between him and Vanix could grow any worse.
Back on our part of the camp I tried to calm him a bit, cooking a meal for all of us we ate and talked some in order to let the tension of that day wash away.
When everything was back to normal I took out the den-den mushi Thomas gave me, calling the ship filled both Alvara and Thomas in on everything that happened that day. I also inquired about that request I did of info about the 'IronGuard Mercenaries', however Thomas said that the base was yet to send him anything noteworthy.
Here remembering about what happened today, I requested for him to also try looking up about the hunters that I saw, I only had their appearances to give, but Thomas said he probably should still be able to find something with that.
I ended our call by asking them to stay on alert, after that I went and stood watch as I've always been doing these last days. When doing so I started to ponder on what happened, today was technically my first actual loss, despite all my strength I had failed to defeat the hunters, all of them having run away.
It's a bit of an eye opener really, to finally see all my power not producing a positive result.
"I hope that this'll not happen again so soon…"
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Meanwhile in the opposite side of the Island, a dark ship could be found docked in a hidden bay; the thing was pretty big with many cages of varying sizes all over its deck.
At that moment walking through this deck was the Chief Hunter Lucas had fought earlier, Logan, following behind him were the hunters he had with him at that time. Also with him were the men that had been on the hill, the same ones that with a heavy rifle had shot down Lucas out of the sky.
As they walked through the ship's deck one of the men looked at Logan and asked:
"Are we still going after that Gryphon boss?"
"Of course we're, our contractor will be furious if don't get him one. However that kid will be in our way, I know that"
"So what we do Boss? You yourself said he is pretty strong"
"Yeah, that's why we'll be using that against him…"
Saying that Logan went and stood before one big cage, kicking its door open he uttered a special whistle. Following this a giant beast came out, looking up at the creature looming over them Logan smiled maliciously.
"Let's see how you fare against this…"
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Well ,that's the chapter.
Not exactly my favorite chapter, but not the worst one I wrote either. A little bit of action in this one we actually saw our hero 'losing', well, not a loss in the more normal way, but one nonetheless.
Next chapter will be the last chapter of this arc, and probably the last on here in the South Blue actually. There was this one particular things I wanted to do here, and in the next chapter this 'thing' will be achieved, as such making the gang stay in the South Blue will have not much meaning.
Thanks everyone for the constant support, you all are awesome.
Constructive critics are always welcomed.
Fiquem Bem!