Chapter 1: Griffin

Awakening with a snarl, the boy looked down from his perch in the tree to see a large raven twice his size with glowing red eyes hopping around in the clearing he had made his traps in the previous night. He let out a low growl as the raven flew towards where he had hidden his leftovers. It found them and let out a joyful cry as it happily dug in.

In a fit of rage, the boy jumped down, dagger in hand towards where the raven had found it's meal. He let out a loud battle cry as he brought down the dagger piercing through the raven's wing like butter.

It let out a low cry as it felt the sudden pain in it's wing. With it's own battle cry, it span around, throwing the boy still grasping onto his dagger towards the ground. With a few movements out of desperation, he somehow managed to turn feet first while preparing to cushion his landing.

He landed on his feet and rolled to break his fall. He turned around to once again face the giant bird when suddenly, his blood started shaking uneasily within his veins and his mind screamed DANGER. He let out a small whimper and dove into the nearby bushes.

The raven let out an enraged shriek as his attacker had slipped away. It was about to give chase when roar that shook the heavens sounded out above him as a 40 ft long griffin with red scales along it's golden feathers and fur. Swooped down from the sky and snapped the raven's neck with it's powerful beak, took a brief glance towards where the boy was hiding before flying off with the corpse in it's mouth.

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"Father, are we nearly there yet?"(???)

"Abigail, my dear, you must be patient. There is nowhere else for us to return to now. We must head to the forest, it will be at least two more weeks until we get there, and that's with good weather. You must wait"(???)

"Yes, father"(Abigail)

"Everything will be better there. I have... friends in the forest that will hide us. They will not discriminate against you because of who your mother is... because of your... animal parts."(Abby's Father)

"Father, it is fine, talking about my ears and tail will not hurt my feelings. I am happy that we are going to mother's tribe. Do not be sad for me or worried about me, I am not a child anymore!"(Abigail)

"...You will always be my baby, Abigail."(Abby's Father)

The boy sat in the bush for 10 minutes trying to calm down the alarms going off in his mind and his blood that was still uneasily shaking. After a while, he silently stood up and started walking. He knew that he was in the griffin's territory and he had to get out. Now.

He walked for hours, upon hours as he could still sense the griffin's powerful aura. Roar! The boy tensed up and looked around with his dagger at the ready. He looked down at his stomach and silently put away his dagger and decided to go find some food.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

An hour later, the boy had once again set up his favorite pitfall trap and stood there like an unsuspecting prey. He waited for another hour, knowing that patience was vital when hunting. He finally sensed what he was waiting for.

A red jaguar with two horns growing out of it's head was creeping along in the jungle with a more practiced style than the two gorillas.

"Still not enough to escape my view."(Boy)

As expected, the jaguar leapt out of the foliage expecting an easy meal, when in the same manner as before, it fell through the floor and landed on the spikes. The boy yawned and walked towards the pitfall to haul out his prey. As he reached the pitfall, the jaguar jumped out of the hole and swiped towards the unsuspecting boy and left a gash on his bare chest.

He flew back a meter before slamming into a tree. The jaguar launched in a sprint towards the boy who had dropped his dagger when he was knocked back.

The boy was struggling to get up when he saw his impending doom. His blood once again started boiling, in a different way this time. He felt a strong power flowing through his veins and heat building up and swirling around in his body. Following his instincts, as usual, he gathered all of the heat and power towards his right arm and sent it out in a punch.

All of a sudden, the heat and power inside of his body disappeared and a towering flame was sent out of his fist towards the incoming jaguar. The jaguar reared back it's head and widened it's eyes in fear knowing that it could not escape. The flame reached the jaguar and completely engulfed it.

When the flame had passed there was nothing left but a fingernail sized pearl that shined a flaming red. The boy stayed conscious by willpower alone as he new he would die if he embraced the warmth and comfort of sleep. He was bleeding out through his chest and had spent all of his energy on the attack.

He slowly crawled over to the small pearl and weakly reached out his hand to grab it and dropped it in his mouth. Boom! With a rush of energy, his eyes snapped open and he felt all the previous weakness leaving him. In fact, he even felt slightly stronger than before. If previously he could lift 200 pounds, then now he could lift 210. If before he could jump 30 inches high, then now, he could jump 36.

One must realize though, he had already been tempered by the forest and had strength and speed far surpassing those of the same age. He just now has a boost. Even with the newfound energy, the claw shaped mark that ran 8 inches down his chest was still an enormous problem and he felt that he would bleed out in a few hours if nothing was done.

He searched around for anything that could stop the bleeding but only found water repellent leaves that wouldn't be of any use. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small animal around 2 feet long and had long ears and a short stumpy tail but was shaped like a fox. He immediately threw his dagger with pinpoint accuracy straight through it's brain.

10 minutes later he had skillfully skinned the creature and had wrapped it around the wound, crudely, but effectively stopping the blood. He turned and continued his journey through the forest and away from the griffin.

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A few hours away from where the boy was now, two humanoids with dark tanned skin, green, feline eyes, and orange tails and ears with black stripes on them.

"This is very interesting."(???)

"Yes, we were assigned a mission to find who it was that has been trespassing in our clan's territory, but I never thought would be a human."(??)

"Yes, these tracks are definitely those of a human, it has even been hunting in our territory. Grrrr."(???)

"Calm down, he has walked towards the griffin's territory, he is not coming out alive from there."(??)

"Yes, hehehe, it takes days to get out of there while walking non stop. The griffin will definitely notice him, and when that day comes, he will DIE"(???)