Chapter 10

By the time Jack had arrived home he was feeling slightly calmer and more determined than ever to become a successful hunter, to find a way forward as a lightning cultivator. For that he needed power and a way to use it. He sat down on his old sofa and took a deep breath. He had managed to cultivate using those giant rats yesterday and felt that power in his core. It was only a minuscule change but it was there, he knew he was only just beginning and he needed to hunt a great deal more but for now he thought he should try to manifest his element into something visible, an ability.

He relaxed and leaned forward, bringing his hands together he concentrated on pushing some of the lightning energy out from his core to his hands. At first nothing really happened, he could feel the energy flow to his hands, but it wasn’t enough to do anything. He pushed harder and suddenly there was a buzzing noise and he saw crackling blue lines of electricity appear and flow between his hands.

“Ha! I’m like a human taser!” It was small but it was progress. Jack thought about how he could use this in a fight when he realised he could probably measure how much energy he was putting out in terms of watts or volts and see if it was actually dangerous. He’d look into that later he decided. Another idea occurred to him, perhaps he could channel that into a weapon, he looked sideways to his machete, just laying there innocently, minding its own business.

He leaned over and grabbed the machete and focussed like before, this seemed to be much harder than simply channelling energy through his own hands. It felt like he was trying to force his way past an obstacle but in the end he felt some of his energy slip into the blade, there were no sparks but he did hear a faint hum or buzz from the blade. He hesitantly touched the blade but couldn’t feel anything, did his own power even affect him? He put the machete down and jumped in shock as the blade let out a loud bang and several crackling sparks against the table surface it rested on. It lasted only a moment before whatever energy the blade had was spent, he gingerly picked the machete up and sheathed it. That could prove useful in the future, he thought, remembering the slime in the abandoned construction site.

He considered going back out but it was getting late, he was hungry and feeling strangely drained from even just a minuscule use of his powers. He decided to eat and go to bed since he still had work in the morning.

The next day he got up early and got ready for work. As he was getting dressed he watched the news, there was a reported increase in monster attacks in rural areas and experts were predicting a rise in house prices in cities and larger towns. Meanwhile another expedition had been launched into the Dire woods where the Yorkshire Dales lay.

He finished getting ready, made sure to take his machete and left for the office. It was a cold blustery day. Jack shivered as he stepped off the bus and started the ten minute walk to work. As he walked he noticed several people walking quickly, jogging or just outright sprinting in the opposite direction. He looked around in confusion along with others who were walking in the same direction as him, he continued along his route for another minute before he saw the cause of peoples apparent consternation.

All he could describe it as was a demonic super moose, or a tank on legs, it stood over nine feet at the shoulder, it had long shaggy black fur, the antlers looked more like two gigantic thorn covered tree branches with hundreds of wickedly sharp tines. Its back was not covered in fur however, instead it seemed to have segmented silver plates all the way down its neck and down its back which continued to form an extremely long silver segmented chitinous tail several metres long which trailed lazily behind it. Steam blew out from its nostrils, sparks flew from its hooves and it strolled down the middle of the road like it owned the place.

Jack sort of felt like he was supposed to do something right now, definitely not fight the thing. He wasn’t crazy, but probably call it in at least. He was glad he thought to bring his pager, so he took it out and dialled up the hunters HQ.

“Good morning North Yorkshire hunters headquarters, how can I help you?” A pleasant female voice answered the call.

“Uh hey, this is er Jack Errant, I’m a hunter with the guild erm….” He wasn’t really sure about the proper protocol here.

“Yes sir, we have your device and identity registered, we also have your current location. Do you require medical aid?” She sounded very professional and calm.

“Not exactly, I was just on my way to work, you know, my day job, when all of a sudden a rather large monster comes walking down the road. It looks a little bit out of my league. I’m supposed to alert you when this happens right?” Jack turned and watched the monster pass by, people had stopped running from it and were now standing around gawking, some were taking pictures with their phones. The monster stopped too and was now looking rather agitated at the sight of so many people surrounding it, it shook its head and started pawing at the ground. A shower of sparks were kicked up with every scrape.

“Yes sir, we’ve alerted the nearest neighbourhood watch team and they’re on the way. Are you able to take a picture with your pager so we know which monster we’re dealing with?” She was still calm as could be whereas Jack was eying the now obviously pissed off demon moose with increasing trepidation.

“Uh yeah sure, gimme a minute.” He fumbled with his pager for a few seconds before snapping a shot and sending it to the current call. “Uh how's that, did you get it?” he asked anxiously.

“Yes sir we have it, we’re just identifying it now……....oh fuck. Er ok Jack, this is slightly more serious than we thought, you need to retreat as far as possible and warn others to do the same. If you see the watch team, tell them not to approach.” Now she sounded nervous. It was always worse when the person who you expected to solve everything sounded nervous.

“Wait wait what? What are you gonna do then?” he asked while backing away and started to jog in the opposite direction as the increasingly agitated looking monster, it seemed other people had the same idea.

“We’re already contacting an on-call team of B and A rank hunters, they’ll be at the location within ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” That seemed like a long time for something that looked built for speed and strength, he glanced back and witnessed the monster suddenly lunge and jerk its head to one side, absolutely shredding a car to pieces with its antlers. He hoped no one was in there.

“Uh yes! Please get to safety! Thank you very much for your call hunter! If there is anything else in the future do not hesitate to call! Er do you require anything else?” She now sounded a little frantic, like she was trying to stick to a script but in the background he could hear a flurry of panicked activity and multiple voices shouting things.

“Um, no?”

“Ok, have a great day!” The line went dead with a click. He stopped momentarily but a deep, angry, inhuman bellow was enough to make him scurry onward, maybe the office was safe, or at least far enough away.

He kept running for several minutes until he came within sight of the office, he also managed to spot a small group of heavily armoured people arguing with each other. Two of them seemed to want to go in the direction Jack had just vacated and it looked like the rest of the group were trying to persuade them otherwise. They must be the neighbourhood watch team the operator had mentioned, thought Jack, he considered approaching them but they’d obviously been made aware of the reality of the situation judging by the contents of their conversation Jack overhead.

“Are you an absolute idiot!?” one large woman asked scornfully. “That's a Kladican over there!” She pointed down the road, Jack thought she had streaks of grey hair at her temples but noticed the streaks of grey were confined to her skin.

“Just listen! We can take it! We just need to work together! Pin it down like we always do and go in for the kill!” one man declared, he looked to be the leader of the group, he was garbed in shiny plate mail almost like a mediaeval knight and carried a long sword that seemed to be dripping flames making a puddle on the ground.

“Er I don’t know, the operator did say A rank, we’ve never done one of those before, just D’s and C’s” A young man frowned.

“What about that Grollox?” Shiny said.

“That was a low B rank and that was an accident! It collapsed a building on itself. We couldn’t even harvest it because it was under so much rubble,” another young woman explained in exasperation. “And Eric was in the hospital for weeks afterward, remember!?” Getting more agitated her hair seemed to be moving in a breeze that only existed around her. The young man that had spoken earlier looked uncomfortable.

“Hey, it's Sparky! Still alive?” One of the men standing next to Shiny turned out to be a familiar face. The man that kept calling Jack sparky, Jack had never caught his name but at least it wasn’t Barry.

The group of hunters turned to where he was pointing and spotted Jack.

“Oh, who’s this Nate? Another hunter?” Shiny asked, looking curious.

“Meh, sort of. He’s good at killing rats though, ain’t that right Sparky?” Nathan or Nate as he was known grinned at Jack.

Jack shrugged. “Pretty good I suppose, I’m sure there are others who are better.” He stopped and stared at the group with a straight face who stared back with uncertainty.

“Erm…right, anyway do you know anything about the Kladican nearby, were you the one who called it in?” Shiny asked.

“Yep, it’s right down there”, Jack pointed the way he’d come. “Follow the screams and trail of destruction, you genuinely can’t miss it, but if you reach an intact piece of road or piece of property that doesn’t look like it's been ripped apart by an enraged beast then you’ve gone too far.”

Nate smiled. “Right, thanks Sparky! We’ll take it from here. C'mon Lucas, if these guys are too scared then it’s up to you and me!” Nate strode forwards followed by a determined looking Lucas who clanked a little in his armour.

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“I think I was told to tell you guys not to go near that thing, in fact it seemed like they wanted the whole place clear. Something about calling in a team of A and B rankers? Seriously though, I think you should leave it be.” Jack was concerned they actually wanted to go ahead despite knowing what was ahead.

“You see!? That thing’s way too much for us to handle! We need to hang back! If you want we can help get people to safety but you cannot fight it!” The large woman spoke up again.

“Look, let's just get a closer look first, see what we’re up against, then we can decide,” Lucas spoke and then ignoring everyone else started walking down the road. Everyone but Nate continued trying to argue him out of it but still reluctantly followed, sirens could now be heard in the distance. Jack also trailed behind thinking he’d feel guilty if he didn’t at least try to help them in some way.

Several minutes later after following along the trail of destruction they found the beast surrounded by wrecked cars, rubble, ruined asphalt and several torn up corpses, its antlers and tail looked to be dripping blood. There were also several ruined police cars with police crouched behind them. Lucas and Nate both hesitated but slowly strode forwards, Lucas gripped his sword tight and Nate also drew a sword from a sheath at his side.

Jack along with the other three hunters stayed back and spread out, the young woman tried to get Nate and Lucas to stay back but the older woman grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

The monster noticed the two approaching hunters and turned its horned head towards them, steam blew from its nostrils as it quietly waited. Nate began to slowly circle around to flank the creature whereas Lucas approached it directly. Jack looked back at the others in confusion. Was he really going right up to its face?

Lucas stood in front of it and his blade flared up with orange flames, he waved it in front of the creature as if to make it flinch back. The monster didn’t move a muscle, it just stood and stared at him, then Nate came charging in from the side and swung his sword at the creature's side with a grunt. Rather than penetrating however the blade just glanced off and broke in half, Nate backed away with a horrified look on his face whilst holding a broken sword. Lucas then lifted one of his hands and unleashed a large concentrated plume of fire straight into the beast's face, he held it for several seconds before allowing the flames to die off gasping and panting heavily.

The area the beast occupied was wreathed in smoke and dying flames, everyone held their breath and struggled to see. Suddenly a large antler swung out of the smoke and impaled Lucas through his armour, he was lifted up into the air and wrenched around like a rag doll with blood and viscera spraying everywhere. There was a scream from the young woman and everyone started to stumble back.

The smoke cleared and the monster was revealed to be unharmed with Lucas resting pin-cushioned on its antlers, high above the ground stabbed many times all over his body. Blood was still pouring down liberally and the monster tilted its head back and opened its mouth to drink some of it. Everyone watched horrified and spellbound before the monster eventually shook its head more vigorously and Lucas’s corpse was ripped apart, different body parts were scattered all over the scene. The young man Eric who was standing next to Jack vomited.

The beast turned its head to eye the group. They scattered, Jack ran off to the side as fast as he could and didn’t look back. All he could hear was an angry bellowing from the monster and the sound of its hooves. He stumbled and tripped over some debris and struggled to get up, he heard a loud snort that seemed to be close by, he looked over and saw the beast looking directly at him. He didn’t dare take his eyes off it and tried to scramble backwards as the beast began to walk towards him, he started running faster and the beast matched his pace then started gaining.

He was outright sprinting as fast as he could but it was nearly on him, Jack knew he was about to die but out of instinctual desperation he reached into his core and called on everything he had. The monster began lowering its head to swing its antlers and then the world seemed to slow down, everything including the monster and Jack himself felt like they were moving through thick mud. Jack’s perception however remained the same, he could see the monster’s antlers ever so slowly lowering in preparation for a strike and wondered why they were moving so slowly and why he also seemed to be moving slowly too. Several thoughts ran through his head but the one that overode them all was the desire to the get the fuck out of the way. He threw himself to the side in a dive with everything he had and just like that the world returned to normal and he just managed to escape the swing. But now he was lying on the ground with the monster still standing above him and looking ready for another go, he now also had the mother of all headaches.

The monster turned around and was looking down at Jack when suddenly a large spike of stone erupted from the road and impacted on the beast's flank sending it stumbling away with a bellow of pain. It staggered to its feet and actually seemed to be bleeding, Jack looked on in wonder, he almost thought the thing was impervious to harm. Before it could get fully upright another stone spike blasted it off its feet and it rolled over several times before crashing into a wrecked car.

As he was watching this in amazement someone walked past him, it was a tall broad shouldered man wearing black armour with a massive axe slung on his back. The man had his arms outstretched towards the struggling monster, he seemed to tense before multiple large spikes of stone rose straight up around the monster preventing it from moving. The beast roared and struggled to get free in a frenzy and the stone spikes began cracking and splintering.

“Hurry the fuck up Tom!” the tall man cried.

The air in front of the beast’s face looked like it had fog or mist gathering in front of it before it coalesced into a sphere of water. The water then forced its way into the monster's mouth and nostrils, it began making a choking strangled noise and reared up onto its hind legs. It broke free from the cage of spikes but it didn’t matter, it quickly fell to the ground and began struggling. After a couple of minutes its struggles grew weaker before it finally went still and pale red water gushed out of its mouth onto the ground.

Jack stared at the scene numbly. “Well that was horrifying, do you always kill things like that?” Jack only belatedly realised what he’d just said when the tall man looked down at him and grinned.

“Sometimes the simplest way is the best way,” he replied. “That was a good dodge by the way, wish I had reflexes like that!” He grinned again before making a beckoning motion to a figure on the other side of the road.

A tall thin figure wandered over and nonchalantly leaned against a lamppost.

“Hey Bernie, job done then? Shall I harvest or do you wanna? Those plate segments and antlers will be worth a decent amount if we can get em,” he spoke in a relaxed manner.

“Halfsies, I’ll do the plates and you do the antlers,” Bernie, as the tall broad shouldered man was known, replied.

They both approached the downed beast and set to work harvesting their chosen loot while Jack watched. The tall broad shouldered Berny put his hands on the back of the monster and the air seemed to vibrate and judder slightly around several of the plates, he then took out a large knife from a sheath at his side and levered it under some of the plates prying them off. Tom bent down by its head and gingerly touched the thorn covered antlers, the air also seemed to vibrate before Tom stood up again. He shook his hands and wiped them on his trousers, he’d cut them on the antlers.

“Hey Bernie can I borrow your axe?” Bernie threw his axe to Tom who caught it and set to work. While they were doing this Jack looked around at the various bodies littering the scene. He went over to the nearest one to see if they were still breathing, they weren’t. He went to several and none of them were breathing, they had all been either trampled to death or torn apart. Some of the police had come out of cover and were also crouched over some of the bodies checking for life. The remnants of the watch crew Jack had followed were standing around staring dumbly at the pieces of their former teammate.

He’d never seen anything like this before, it was one thing to see the aftermath on the news but another to witness it in person. Maybe the rumours were right after all, maybe monster attacks were becoming more frequent, this was the first time anything like this had happened in broad daylight in the middle of a city in the UK that he knew of, well, except for Oxford.

A few minutes later Jack heard sirens and looked down the road to see some police cars and ambulances traversing the ruined road and wreckage. What appeared to be news vans were following them. The police and paramedics rushed over to the scene and started trying to find people they could help, meanwhile several reporters frantically gathered their equipment then scrambled over to Tom and Berny who were now standing over the monster corpse watching the reporters warily.

While several camera men were lining their cameras up on Tom and Bernie a paramedic approached Jack picking his way over the rubble.

“Hi there! Are you ok sir, do you need help?” a youngish man asked Jack with concern.

“Um no I’m ok thanks, no injuries here.” Jack shrugged.

“Really? Then what are those on your chest?” He pointed down to Jack’s chest, Jack looked down and saw several cuts in his coat, he brought his hand up to feel them and let out a hiss of pain. He took his hand away and saw it was covered in blood. He suddenly felt slightly light headed and stumbled slightly. The paramedic caught his arm and helped Jack over the rubble.

“This way sir, I’ll take you over to one of the ambulances to check the wound.”

They picked their way over the rubble and Jack was made to sit down in the back of an ambulance while the paramedic rummaged in his bag. Jack watched as several gurneys were wheeled past bearing injured or dead people and placed in ambulances. The paramedic fished out some medical supplies and helped Jack remove his coat and T-shirt. Once that was done Jack looked down and could see several long bleeding cuts running across his chest. The paramedic examined the cuts.

“Huh, these look pretty deep, I can actually see a bit of muscle tissue here, but they’re not bleeding as heavily as I would expect though. Are you cultivating?” This was apparently a standard question medical personnel asked patients these days, like asking if you had any medical disabilities or were on any medication or had any allergies.

“Er yeah.” Jack answered hesitantly.

The paramedic was still looking at the wound, examining it in more detail. “Ok, which element?” He got out some bandages.

“Erm…..” Jack did not really want to say, he still didn’t want people to find out he could cultivate the lighting element.

“It's okay if you don’t want to disclose that information sir, now I can stitch these wounds up here so you don’t need to go to hospital if you’d like?”

Jack nodded his head, feeling relieved. The paramedic got to work cleaning out the wounds and began stitching them closed. While he waited for the paramedic to finish wincing from the needle every now and then, Jack watched the two hunters that had slain the Kladican get interviewed, it was a lot more hostile than he’d expected.

“Do you agree with the policy that only cities deserve the protection of more powerful hunters such as yourselves rather than villages and other rural areas?” one reporter asked.

“Erm we don’t really-” Bernie tried to reply.

“Are you aware that three villages have been attacked and destroyed in the past two months without a single hunter showing up?” another reporter interrupted.

“How can we-” Tom and Bernie couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

“What about the military? Why aren’t they doing more?”

“Is it true the Dire Woods are expanding?”

“How can you justify charging such extortionate prices for saving people’s lives?”

“What are you doing to help the-”

Whilst enduring the barrage of awkward questions they couldn’t answer Tom and Bernie calmly looked at each-other, nodded seriously, shrugged then turned and ran away. They were incredibly fast, even carrying their loot above their heads like cartoon bandits they were at the other end of the road around a hundred metres away in just a few seconds. Just before they ran Jack thought he overheard Tom say they should have listened to the PR guy better and Bernie replied that he’d completely forgotten what they were supposed to do in these situations.

The suddenly bereft reporters looked confused for a few seconds wondering what to do without targets to question. They began to fan out among the devastation, some swarmed the watch team or the police and paramedics. Luckily the paramedic was done with him because a reporter was eyeing him speculatively, Jack accidentally made eye contact and the reporter began to walk towards him. Jack panicked and leapt out of the ambulance before quickly making his way down the road.