“I don’t like this. Not one bit.”
Mrs Bubba announced for the umpteenth time that day.
“Neither do I.”
Albert agreed, unsurprisingly one of the few times the elf and dwarf ever shared the same opinion on anything. They alongside a priest sat in the peanut gallery of a local training hall as they awaited the combatants to take their starting positions. Some guilds had halls attached to their building allowing members to freely accept a contract or get in some early morning training within the one space. The Capital City branch was due to receive such a renovation until they were forced to scrap plans to rebuild. As such the guild had formed a deal with nearby gymnasiums and other sports facilities within Adventure Town offering their members reduced rates. The one Joanne rented out was a woefully underused space partially due to its relatively cramped confines being barely larger than a tennis court and more importantly for the ludicrous price. As a former member, she was no longer entitled to her guild discount and the girls weren’t high enough in the organization to qualify. So, the beast woman rented the entire hall as well as the services of a priest from out of her own pocket although given her combat style and the collateral damage she could cause there was no doubt she was in for a tough few weeks of scrounging and saving.
“A-are you sure about this?”
Valerie asked, equal parts excited and nervous at the prospect of taking on one of her guardians. She was aware Joanne was something of a living legend back when she worked for the guild but to jump right in after so long surely wouldn’t be fair. The former adventurer laughed heartily causing her intricately decorated armour pieces to jiggle and clang against one another. Although she hadn’t worn it in years, she still kept her old equipment in pristine condition just on the off chance she needed to break it out again. Due to her animalistic proportions a full set of heavy armour would prove more hindrance than help thus the beast woman opted instead for a mix of leathers and steel plates that covered her joints and vital areas respectively. She was well protected all except for her head, feet and a window from the nape of her neck to just above her heart, exposing her more attractive features while keeping just enough to the imagination. It was a lesson neither rookie had been taught yet, but adventuring was as much about killing monsters as it was advertising oneself and nothing caught the eye like a little sex appeal. Or a lot in the beast woman’s case.
“Scared are ya? You can always back down. Course you’ll have to admit you’ve been acting like a brat and… oh what the hell you’ll need to work in the kitchen for a week.”
The huntress turned pale, embarrassing herself was bad enough but working under Joanne? Her and Samantha were lucky to be friends with the slave driver because working for her seemed like torture, she expected nothing but the best.
“Not a chance! When we win you owe us a year’s free meals!”
Joanne smiled her typical toothy smile, that was a gamble she could take although there was a problem.
“We? I don’t see your other half.”
She could definitely smell her, but Samantha was otherwise nowhere in sight.
“Can’t make it too easy for you. You’ll find her when it’s too late.”
Valerie boasted and tore Tiger’s Will from its sheath while lowering herself into a fighting stance. The beast woman sniggered, if that’s how they wanted to do it she was more than happy to play along. She crouched down to open a case at her feet and slowly set out a series of metal rods as well as a dagger that bordered on being a short sword. Methodically, she pieced the rods together screwing each into one another until they formed a two-meter-long pole which she affixed a sharp triangular tip to. With her spear completed, Joanne held it close to her snout and whispered a few words into the weapon.
“Lass die Wut alles verzehren”
A red wave passed through the pole causing etchings in the metal to shine and give of a faint red smoke. Her preparations complete, the ex-adventurer rose and kicked the case away. She set the butt of her weapon into the ground deep enough for it to stand on its own and branded her dagger at Valerie mimicking her stance.
“If you would be so kind father.”
The priest in question stepped forth and raised his hand above his head.
“Let this bout be blessed by the divine and may all those involved leave better warriors. Amen.”
With his last word, the priest lowered his hand and the fight began. Valerie immediately reared back to throw Tiger’s Will.
“Turnab-“
“Too slow!”
In the blink of an eye the beast woman was before Valerie, her left fist colliding with the huntress’s stomach while her right arm raised up with the dagger poised to plunge into her opponents heart. Valerie still lacked proper armour so she was fully exposed to the attack that could rip her from head to toe. Thankfully the attack never struck as a series of chains flew down from the rafters to encircle the clawed appendage. This was too early, Valerie thought while falling over as all the air in her lungs was forced out of her. Samantha was supposed to come in at the last second not at the start of the fight, now their whole strategy had gone out the window. Having been privy to all the rookie adventurers many boasts and stories of their hunts, Joanne expected their usual tricks and decided to upturn their plans.
“Samantha! There you are! Come join the FUN!”
She yanked hard on the chains wrapped around her arm snapping a number and failing to drag out the shadow user. Forgetting about Valerie and turning to stare into the rafters overhead, Joanne saw a myriad of shadow chains snaking around the beams and completely obscuring the roof. It was a good thing those chains broke as the ex-adventurer may have accidentally brought the ceiling down on top of them.
“C’mon Sammy, you can come out. I’ve heard all the stories; I know you’re the real spine of your group. How many “hunts” would have ended poorly without you? Not to mention, you got precious little Valerie to run away with you when she was too chicken to do it herself. I think its time to drop the dead weight and face me!”
Mrs Bubba listened to the rude jab and was about to yell back at Joanne when Albert put his hand on the diminutive woman’s shoulder while shaking his head.
“That’s not very nice.”
Samantha said from somewhere unseen, her voice echoing through the room.
“Not nice? You mean like Valerie? She left you to die, don’t you remember. She was too busy thinking about herself and how much she wants to be “independent”. She doesn’t care about you. The second she can manage on her own she’ll forget about you.”
“Hey that’s…”
A stern wolf like scowl from Joanne stopped the slowly rising huntress from uttering another word. The expression vanished as quickly as it had appeared as the tall woman adopted a carefree attitude.
“Val, sorry I’m trying to talk to the real warrior hear so just do us a favour and BUTT OUT.”
She demanded reaching her spear before quickly twisting on her heel and tossing the weapon directly at Valerie. The javelin travelled faster than the eye could follow and would have impaled the huntress had she not been kicked out of the way. A loud clang reverberated through the hall as Joanne’s spear embedded itself into the wall with Samantha and Valerie falling to either side of it.
“Oh, that’s gonna be costly… but it worked. Finally, a real warrior has come to the stage.”
Joanne’s barbs continued even as she mentally calculated how much it would be to have the wall fixed up.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Why are you doing this?!”
Samantha demanded after using the beast woman’s discarded weapon to stand back up. The red runes on the spear dimmed and a scarlet haze crept into the shadow user’s vision. She felt angry, angrier than she ever had been, Joanne’s words hadn’t gotten to her before but now she couldn’t tear her eyes off the person belittling her best friend.
“Why? Because you wanted this, because wittle Val here is weak and because you need to be taught what a real champ can do.”
Getting back into swing of things, Joanne pointed her dagger at Samantha daring her to attack.
“You know what they called me in my adventuring days?”
“A rude mongrel!”
Mrs Bubba couldn’t help but interject appalled at the performance she was watching. The diva herself laughed merrily and stared her opponents down.
“Close, they used to call me ‘The Bad Bitch’ cause I took no one’s crap and told it like it is.”
Lowering herself once again, she beckoned her true opponent forward while completely ignoring Valerie still laid out on the floor.
“You! You! You’re wrong!”
The scarlet haze turned to a blinding red that infected the shadow user, and a deluge of vitriol began to pour forth.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this but you’re wrong! You’re wrong, wrong, wrong! She’s a great warrior and she saved me! She’s my best friend and she’s amazing and could beat you or Fandrial or anyone! Even if she forgets me, I’ll NEVER forget her!”
It took a lot of effort to hold herself back from tearing up, but Samantha barely managed it. The display tugged at all but the priests heart strings seeing the usually calm and cheerful girl so consumed by her anger. Valerie especially was struck by Samantha’s words and felt an ache in her chest.
“Ha ha hahahahahahahaHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!”
The beast woman however couldn’t help but bellow out a laugh and wipe a single tear from her eye. Fury overtook Samantha and she rushed forward into danger.
“Samantha don’t!”
Valerie tried to call after her friend but was too late as the ex-adventurer and shadow user got into a melee. If you could even call it a melee, in reality Samantha used the many chains from overhead to spear down into Joanne’s path always missing or being knocked away by her dagger. The assault ended when Joanne hopped into the air, twisted three hundred and sixty degrees and delivered a powerful kick to the shadow user’s head. Luckily Samantha summoned a number of chains to come between her and the blow, but all this did was blunt the strike not stop it entirely. She was violently knocked to the floor disrupting her concentration and causing all her conjured chains to evaporate instantly. To add insult to injury the ex-adventurer rested her foot atop her downed opponent pressing lightly upon Samantha’s chest and nearly chocking her in the process. Joanne clicked her tongue annoyed at the shameful display.
“Maybe you were right, maybe I was wrong Samantha. NEITHER of you is worth being an adventurer. I think I’m gonna go and talk to Margaretta about getting your membership revo-”
A thrown knife to Joanne’s shoulder embedded itself between the armour plates.
“Nice knife.”
She said admiring the expert craftmanship as she turned to face Valerie once again. What she saw instead was the white knuckles of the huntress as they made contact with her face.
“GET OFF OF HER!”
The furious huntress demanded striking as hard as she could into the beast woman’s noggin. The attack worked and sent Joanne sailing back a metre before she dug her claws into the ground skidding to a stop. Unlike the shadow user, Valerie’s rage wasn’t influenced by an external force and was all her own. Seeing her friend beaten down finally woke her from the shock of being cast aside and pushed her to act. Extending a hand to Samantha, Valerie hoisted her up without letting go. A bit of the red fog clouding the shadow user’s mind vanished with the severe knock to the head, or maybe due to the concussion, she didn’t know she wasn’t a doctor. On stable footing once again, the pair stared down their guardian who looked down on them derisively.
“What now? Gonna use Sam as a meat shield while you cry and wail?”
Joanne continued to egg the two on, they were making good progress so far and with a single opponent to focus their ire upon the duo were inching towards a revelation. The beast woman wasn’t a genius by any measure, but she knew giving people a common insurmountable enemy brought out the best in them. From Valerie’s next words her hasty plan was working.
“You aren’t fighting one of us!”
The huntress announced as a shadow chain shot out of the opposite wall knocking Tiger’s Will free of Joanne’s shoulder to fly straight into Valerie’s waiting hand.
“You’re fighting both of us.”
The duo said in tandem while taking on posing dramatically side by side. The beast woman licked at her lips and showed off her impressive chompers.
“Good, good. Well? What are you waiting? COME AT ME!”
Joanne dropped to the floor and dashed forward on all fours. The rookie adventurers barely dodged out of the way in time to catch their opponent tearing her spear out of the wall, the red runes glowing ever brighter and colouring her one eye scarlet. The fog completely left Samantha as she was hit with a feeling of vertigo and shook her head to try and dispel the nausea. With their original plan thoroughly eviscerated the pair were forced to improvise and use another from their playbook.
“Bang bang?”
A sound mind Samantha asked to which Valerie nodded, a grin spreading across her face as she rushed forth. Joanne attempted to stab with her Spear meeting resistance as it collided with Valerie’s backhanded knife. The huntress was barely able to push the attack off centre and towards the ground where she held it with all the strength she could muster. Samantha soon ran up behind Valerie to use her back as a jump pad. Leaping as high as she could go, the shadow user soared over head much to the onlookers and Joanne’s confusion. It was all just for show really, the ‘Bang Bang’ manoeuvre only really needed one thing: a person or monster’s full attention on Samantha staring right into her eyes. Raising a hand up and extended two fingers, she focused her entire being and partially opened the jail.
“Bang.”
A concentrated invisible blast of her eery aura shot directly at Joanne who reeled from the sudden onset of fear overtaking her senses. In the brief moment of disorientation, Valerie moved up jamming her blade into the beast woman’s arm and forcing her to drop the dagger. She would have gone for the other one too and completely disarmed Joanne but was forced to leap back as the beast woman recovered. She did however collect the dropped dagger while retreating and brandished both knives at her opponent. Joanne was about to lay down the pain train and get back her weapon when she realized she lost sight of Samantha.
“Hey, Bang!”
Not for very long however as a voice to her side drew the ex-adventurer’s attention and caused her mind to reel once again. It was an attack that could only last so long before she grew wise to Samantha’s trick but that was all the duo needed. Valerie charged in wielding both weapons and feeling her aspect empower them. Using a dagger she was unused to and with no history felt like it diluted the power but that was alright for the time being. Slashing rapidly, she forced Joanne onto the defensive, the ex-adventurer using her spear as a shield to block the attacks as her mind re-focused. Before she could however, a shadow chain knocked into the back of her knee causing her to fumble slightly until the real attack came from Samantha attempting a drop kick. Due to the height difference, she wasn’t able to reach the beast woman’s head and instead struck her armoured side.
Joanne was stuck, the flurry of Valerie’s rapid strike commanding her attention while Samantha performed hit and run tactics kicking at her from all angles. The tide would turn in her favour however as Samantha was nowhere near strong enough to actually harm the beast woman and Valerie was wavering, her pitiful mana pool dropping rapidly. Or so she thought, just as Joanne was about to begin her counter offensive she noticed almost every slash from the huntress was directed to the same exact spot carving a gouge in the spear. She tried to re-orientate her weapon, but Samantha was suddenly atop her shoulders and leaned directly into the beast woman’s line of sight.
“Bang!”
She announced as Joanne braced herself, yet nothing happened. The shadow user then blew a raspberry into her face and leapt off allowing the beast woman to catch the shocking display of Valerie. She was definitely running low on mana, but that was because she was storing it up and now was about to unleash almost the entirety of it upon the beast woman. Both Tiger’s Will and the stolen dagger shone brightly with brilliant light as the huntress struck swinging both weapons simultaneously in an ’X’ shaped slash. The combined force sliced through Joanne’s spear and forced the beast woman’s arms apart exposing her. She tried to block any follow up, but a chain wrapped around her wrists leaving her open for a finisher. Valerie charged into the opening and delivered a devastating uppercut to Joanne’s jaw forcing the beast woman to stumble and then topple over. All fell silent for a second as Valerie backed away and Samantha appeared at her side.
“Ha, haha.”
The ex-adventurer laughed and slowly rose to her to stare at the shocked pair. She rubbed at her sore jaw and felt a single tooth wobble.
“That was a good warm up.”
Casually breaking free of the chains binding her, Joanne stood to her full height and cracked her knuckles.
“Shall we get started now?”
What followed was a depressingly short fight as neither Valerie nor Samantha succeeded in landing another hit on the warmed-up beast woman. After a desperate five minutes, Samantha dangled from the ceiling wrapped up in her own chains while Valerie struggled valiantly beneath the massive rump of Joanne.
“You done yet?”
She asked growing slightly bored from the uncomfortable seats constant bids for freedom. Pushing one last time and trying to reach for Tiger’s Will that lay just out of reach, the huntress finally gave in and toppled to the floor.
“Yeah… I’m done. Please get off me.”
“Not yet, first…”
The beast woman began waiting for her seat to finish.
“I’m- I’m sorry for being such a child.”
“Good enough.”
Joanne rose up and offered a hand to Valerie who took it without complaint.
“Good you finally remembered you’re a kid. It wasn’t just something to rile you up.”
She said smirking at the sore huntress
“I know that already, you didn’t need beat it into to me that I’m just a weak kid.”
The ex-adventurer smacked her face dramatically, this was why she didn’t want kids.
“It aint about being weak, it’s about making mistakes. More importantly it’s about making mistakes, owning up to those mistakes and being better. It aint enough to say your better or you’re doing better or you’ll get better. You actually have to, and you had best listen to this, be better. That goes for you too!”
She shouted at Samantha who still dangled helplessly. Pointing at the huntress then to her accomplice.
“You were too in your head trying not to feed into your ‘call to hunt’ and she couldn’t be honest to save her life.”
Joanne knew the truth straight from the horse’s mouth. Valerie and Samantha never split up even when the former thought otherwise. While the huntress fought the cursed tiger, Samantha was right there with her in the shadows and ready to pounce. It was killing Valerie to think she left Samantha all alone and wasn’t a real friend but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She did so much for the shadow user that she had become borderline obsessed with her even if she had no idea how to express it. Joanne didn’t speak a word of it however as it wasn’t her conversation to have.
“You two are both a bundle of issues that you could not pay me enough to fix. That being said, you are a damn efficient team and divine forbid if either of ya actually figure it out.”
It wasn’t simply flattery, Joanne heard all about their hunts and knew the pair worked well together but they were even better in tandem. Their fight against her hadn’t been close at all but they had the potential to be so much more than she could ever be alone. What made her strong wasn’t just her tenacity and strong physique but also how she used her own brand of spells. When asked she often described herself as an external berserker, forcing other people to fly into a rage if they came into contact with her weapons. It worked wonders on monsters causing them to lose focus and charge at the beast woman where upon she would skewer them. People too could be influenced although it was less effective with those who already used anger to fuel themselves like Valerie but for Samantha it was a killer. She may be immune to fear, worry, anxiety and so on but anger was another story altogether. Joanne too wasn’t immune to the effects of her magic but had learned to harness it effectively and was near unstoppable once she got going. Although they didn’t know it, the pairs ‘Bang Bang’ plan was the perfect counter to Joanne’s magic as replacing her rage with unavoidable fear meant she couldn’t focus her strength. She would explain all this later and give pointers for how best to improve their coordination however both rookies were pretty banged up at the moment and needed fixing.
“Oi father, need a healer over here. Work on the scary one first, think the bloods rushing to her head.”
While the priest walked over to work his magic, Joanne picked up her discarded weapons disassembling the pieces although she probably didn’t need to.
“Sorry about, cutting your spear in half.”
A remorseful Valerie mumbled. After getting her knife upgraded and giving it a name, she saw a whole new world when it came to weapons and their owners.
“Eh its fine, barely use the thing anyway. Tell you what though, you can work on paying me back while you and Sammy are in the kitchen.”
The huntress’s face immediately dropped.
“Y-you were serious about that?”
“100% serious.”
Joanne confirmed, resting a comforting hand on her Valerie’s shoulder and gave her a not so friendly smile.
“Don’t worry, you’re going to look great in an apron.”