Chapter VI: New Friends, Old Enemies

A Chapter by Oran

Now the amazing story resumes with the main character reminiscing the past as he walks through Crestfall Glades, a forest considered as a paradise for both flora and fauna while the two Anima are sleeping on their owner's shoulder. Although seemingly inhospitable, it is also where the great "Tyrant of the Skies" is nested. Some say it's a thousand years old. As for Solis, he's only concerned with cutting off its poison loaded tail as well as ripping its huge, thorny wings off.

"Watch out", Eve calls out to him but he's too busy spacing out. "Solis!"

"What!"

Abruptly, he comes back to his senses, then dives out of the way of... a [1]Fel Boar. These rough riders are very aggressive and territorial, but not very formidable when stabbed in the back. Their skin is bright red and their faces are fitted with not-so-big tusks. When these creatures mastur-

"You filthy pigs!" Hey! I wasn't done talking to the readers!

The Slayer runs off, effortlessly taking one down by jumping on it and cutting its throat. It violently tries to buck him off but then it gradually loses more blood until it falls on its underbelly. Meanwhile, Eve has managed to ride on one of them while it was trying to charge. The next moment, the rest of the [1]Fel Boars ran the opposite direction including the one Eve was riding on when it hits the brakes, demonstrating Newton's Law of Interaction.

"They're running?", she wonders, trying to get up.

"Get down!", Solis exclaims as he pulls her for both of them to be concealed behind a patch of grass covering a bush.

Now, Solis was laying prone on Eve who was laying face up with only his arms holding him up; it's probably the only thing hindering any contact between them. His face closes up on hers as he presses his index finger against his lips, signaling her to keep quiet. A large gust of wind blew behind him so he turns toward it to check and see. Whatever he saw made him turn the other cheek and duck down a bit lower, leaving a puzzled look on Eve's face. The two cats are also in the same position, both asleep though.

Whatever "it" was, it had very heavy foot steps. You could hear it getting closer and closer if you were there. It sounds like it's sniffing something out; maybe it's looking for lunch? Well, it did find lunch, though. The pig that Solis aggravatingly punished left a bit of a whiff, so it diverts its direction to the slain animal.You could hear it going the other way. The sound of it walking came to a halt, then another sound came by: the sound of a huge bird snatching a huge prey. At once, another gust of strong wind blew, meaning it already had a satisfying take out. The Slayer stands up at the same time and runs to confirm what it was. He was only able to catch a glimpse of its tail, but he knows what it is.

"What was that?", asks Eve as she comes out the bushes. What's she blushing for?

"That...", he sheathes Kirin, "...was Herod, 'Tyrant of the Skies.'"

"No, I mean, what's with that position? You could've just told me to keep quiet!", sounds like what 2D girls would say.

"Oh, sorry", he looks away.

"Don't ever do that without telling me first!"

"Yeah, yeah", Solis concurs, whatever it meant. Again he walks like an air head without emotion. Maybe he's going through something like a high school kid who didn't want to see his failed test paper or anything the like.

"Is he having problems?", she thinks out loud to Tenenbaum emerging from the bush while she plays with Lux.

"Yeah...", Lux jumps then lands on top of her, "... I don't remember correctly, but when he was still a rookie he failed his 'hunt' for old Herod."

"He's such a child"

After a while the two Elementals were going through a cave lit up by clusters of tiny flashing lights moving about. These flashing lights were being pounced on by their pets, but to no avail.

"Kawaii...", Eve thinks as she watches the two adorably hopping to catch the glowing creatures.

Behind her, Solis was staring into space. She wonders what happened between him and whatever Herod was. She thought she could snap him out of it so she turns around and rushes toward him and karate chops his head, with less force of course, causing only his eyes to react to the attack.

"What was that for?", says Solis in his trademark childish tone that charms certain women. Come to think of it, Eve looks a bit taller than him. Or is it because of her heels?

"Trying to get your attention.", she says as if she's his older sister, or as she likes to call it: Onee-chan.

"You could've just said something", he says in an irritated tone now.

"Tried it earlier; didn't work."

"Whatever"

"Hey, don't you turn your back on me", she worries about him.

He moves ahead while Lux catches one of the [2]Thunderbugs, horribly shocking her with a low voltage as a consequence. Tenenbaum rushes in to help her fallen comrade.

Once they got out of that limestone cave, a sign happened to be posted by Riverine Pass that leads to Rathian Desert.

"Warning, Flying Death Ahead", Lux reads aloud.

"That means...", the two cats look at each other, "... we're all gonna die!", the two shout in unison while raising their arms, "Yay!"

The sudden turn from cute to creepy sort of left Eve to think: "Kowai"

"Is this the only way through?", Solis asks while looking at the sign. Surprisingly, he's not idle-minded.

"Yeah, unless you wanna sneak through Elven territory", she suggests.

"Good", moves in ahead a lot faster, leaving her behind.

"How is 'flying death ahead' good?", she catches up.

"He can't kill me if I kill him first, can he?", he looks back at her.

"Whatever you say, Slayer", she smiles like trusts him.

"Hey! I think I remember why he failed his mission!", Tenenbaum, running along with Lux.

Before she could elaborate on what memory came back to her, a feral scream swept across Riverine Pass. It was no other than our main character's old friend. It had large clawed wings with spikes protruding from each end and a tail that's shaped like one from a scorpion's. On its head was a blood red crest, which serves as its crown. Black and Green scales on its body and on its hind legs conceals him when inside his kingdom, Crestfall Glades. To top it off, it's able to produce a corrosive substance from his mouth which will also steal your breath once you inhale it.

"Eve, may I have permission to throw you in the bushes?", he asks as he sprints like there's no tomorrow from flying death right behind him.

"What?"

"No time!"

He dives on the grass that leads through the pass with her and the other two who were playing like children.

"That was fun!", Lux remarks.

"Okay, here's the plan...", Solis explains to her the plan, which is to lure him to the end of the pass.

"See those two rocks?"

"Yeah"

"There's some equipment there that I was supposed to use back then. Take him right between those two then get up on the other rock. I'm gonna go ahead and set it up."

"Got it", she gets back up.

He holds on to her arm to stop to say: "Please... don't die."

"I'm not as stupid as you", she smiles while she pats his head then dashes out after calling out to Lux.

"Right behind you", says her trusty companion.

While the other pair goes to do their job, Eve and Lux got Herod's attention, making him land in front of them. It stood on its hind legs with its clawed wings supporting his movement while it tries to impale them with its tail. It took a lot of effort for Eve to dodge until Lux managed to burn him in the eyes, but not blinding him. With that she lets out both her blades. The two blades spark and then pulsates with a dark aura, but that spark doesn't seem to scare their current adversary and instead lets out its acidic breath which causes the ground to let loose some smoke once he recovers. Lux jumps back on Eve's shoulder, trying not to inhale any of the deadly air that is currently diffusing. She backs away as she coughs and covers her mouth, daggers still in hand and retaliates by throwing one of them. An ethereal chain appears and binds on her arm while the blade goes under the beast's skin, causing it to flinch. She does the same with the hooked blade. Now there's two daggers stuck to it; one on the right wing and one on the head. Eve pulls it back until it falls on the ground with only its left wing trying to pull the other direction. This gives Lux an opportunity to fire a blast on the Wyvern's left limb, so it falls down completely.

"How long is that thing gonna-"

"It's been ready this whole time!", Solis replies as if screaming at his older sister who didn't set the table because she thought he wasn't done washing the dishes.

"Oh", she retracts her blades with the chains.

Before she could look back at the fallen tyrant, it's already back up and dragging its body toward her while it roars.

"Get over here already!"

She runs up to where the rocks were standing by the pass. Eve sees some sort of hidden machinery attached to both. It looked like gigantic drills which were set to stab anything that goes through the rock. Herod was still eager to take the life of the one who bought down his highness, so he drags on a lot faster with a demonic look in his eyes, just as planned.

"Get to the top of the other rock", says Solis on top of the other rock.

Still running, she finds a ladder right behind the tall mass of earth, then she climbs up and sees a huge, white switch.

"Here he comes; get ready to pull that lever!"

Just as the Tyrant tries to topple the rock where Solis was standing, they pull the switch. A few cranks and clacks, then bang! The set of drills went erect and ran through the vicious beast's body, pinning it down like what happens in a boss fight in a video game where you get to have some free hits. And just like in a boss fight, Solis comes down for the finishing move. His frivolous smile beams up once again as well as his murderous intent. Well, at least he's smiling now.

His maniacal laughter fills the air as he enjoys various killing techniques and such. He starts with the tail, then the wings, and at last, the head. It lasted about three minutes, which is also how long Eve was stunned at the unimaginable sight of animal slaughter while the two were just cheering him on. Three minutes was also the length of time it takes for the drills to retract. To make an outstanding end to the climactic slaughter of his highness, he tries to burn him with Sunfire like what he did to those Stygians. He fails since he's out of mana.

"You're out of mana because you don't have a weapon compatible with your Element...", says Eve.

"That just makes me angrier...", he destroys the King some more.

Once he's done with his dirty job, he gets back the rest. Surprisingly, he only caught a small amount of blood on his suit.

He takes a deep breath then exhales, "I feel better now."

"I don't...", she wipes the blood on his face with a piece of cloth that happened to be on her pocket, "That was horrible."

"Well, I hate that guy after all. And when you hate something you can either kill it or forget about it. And I forgot about it, but he reminded me so I killed him."

"That doesn't make any sense; why do you hate him so much if you're the one who failed your hunt?", she asks him, trying to understand her companion a little better so she could get along with this murderous brute.

"Failed my hunt?", he moves ahead, "That's not why I hate him."

She moves with him, "Then why do you hate him?"

He sheathes back Kirin, "When I was still a rookie, I made a few friends who were top class Slayers. They'd bring me along with their hunting so that I could learn a bit. A few hunts later, we went to slay Herod. The only one who came back after that failure of a mission was me. We were gonna use that [3]Dragonator back there, but we couldn't."

"You mean those drills?"

"Yeah.. the drills; that's what I used to call 'em too. They used to make fun of me for that too", a weak smile appeared on his face.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you die before me", she pats him in the head again then moves ahead of him.

"She has an odd way of showing devotion", says Tenenbaum who has just recently jumped on his shoulder.

"I have no idea what that means.", Solis replies.

"I hope you don't mind me telling her a bit about your past."

"I do mind, so from now on I don't want you talking to her about me or whatever happened to me in the past."

"Really? I thought you'd want to have a better understanding with one of the only persons left in your race", she has a malicious look in her cat eyes.

"We'll have a better understanding when she tells me her real name.", he looks back at her with scoff in his look.

"Your choice, Slayer", she shrugs.

By afternoon they make it to Rathian Desert and it's too damn hot. This should be fun.

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1. A neutral unit from Warcraft III

2. Small fireflies that emit electricity from Monster Hunter.

3. A giant device that skewers dragons from Monster Hunter.

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