Aya spawned as soon as we crossed the street and entered Central Park.
The sky above us was gray, slightly foreboding, and as a crisp wind blew past, I had the feeling it might rain in the near future. Or sleet. It was November and we were due for snow any day now.
“Why do you look so sad?” Aya asked Lady C. as we walked through Central Park.
“We encountered a rare book seller back there, but we didn’t have any money to buy the books.”
“It’s okay,” Aya said, “I have a book you can read.”
Lady Cassandra turned to her. “You do?”
“It’s on Thulean royal lineage.”
The Metican warrior bit her lip.
“What? Not interested?”
“I’m interested, but I’m more interested in books that have detailed passages about magic.”
“There is tons of magic in this book,” Aya assured her. The thick book appeared in her hands. The pages were brittle, and portions of the leather cover were rotten.
“It’s written in Thulean,” Lady C. said.
“Yeah, that will be a problem.”
“Heads up,” I told the two as I turned to a swath of green.
My Brawl add-on flashed as I took in the form of a young girl, no older than eleven, who wore a sweater that doubled as a long dress and a pair of black combat boots. Sunglasses concealed her face and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was an Alpha.
She was joined by her first Hunter, a towering cyclops, as well as a Hunter fairy, pixie dust falling off her body as she hovered in the air.
Aya and Lady C. drew their blades as we stepped into the open space.
There were a couple of people doing yoga nearby, a man smoking from a pollution mask hooked to his back, and a father and son throwing a football.
None of this mattered to me at the moment.
I was focused on the two dogs that spawned in front of the young girl. One, a black beast with terrible eyes and a distended jaw, snapped its teeth and growled. The other had the head of a canine, but the body of a wispy cloud, so that it kind of resembled the spirit of a dog.
A prompt appeared before me asking me to select my mythcrea.
I quickly selected Magnus and Ophelia, and their forms took shape next to me. A new prompt asked me if I was ready to begin the brawl.
Ophelia approached me with a smile on her pale face.
“I have something for you.” As she spoke, a flash of sparkling magic drizzled over my shoulders. I turned to look at my opponent’s Fighting Party.
I could suddenly see their levels.
The Alpha teen was a Level Three, her cyclops and her fairy also at Level Three. As it had been in the tournament, there was faint red outline around the two Hunters. The ability Ophelia had just granted me also allowed me to see the level of her mythcrea.
[Hellhound, Level 6]
[Inugami, Level 8]
The black Hellhound snarled and snapped its teeth as it charged towards us.
The floating Inugami wasn’t far behind, and rather than have Ophelia go with her opening Sigil Curse, which would have let me see their weaknesses, I decided to focus on the two charging beasts and hit them with everything I had.
“Ophelia, Magnus, Lady C., take the mythcrea! Aya, you’ve got the cyclops.”
Aya smiled as she sprang into action, clearly stoked to be able to take on the one-eyed monster, who was about nine feet tall, bald, and had a shoulder span of at least five feet. A gnarly club was held tightly in his beefy paws, about the same size as Aya’s buster sword.
A fireball knocked the Hellhound off his feet just as Lady C. leapt over him, meeting the Inugami with her two swords.
Her swipe went right through the floating dog spirit. She stumbled, did a badass aerial, and landed on her feet, just in time for Magnus to come in for the distraction.
Damn, I wish Iris was here, I thought as Magnus gracefully sidestepped the Inugami’s bite, and swung around with a massive strike from his sword. This strike connected, likely because Magnus’ sword was cursed, and the Inugami disappeared in a flash.
Something told me it wasn’t dead.
The Hellhound dove for Lady C., who shrieked as the beast’s mangled jaw came apart, increasing his strike range.
But Lady C. was fast, and by the time the beast moved in for its strike, she cast her Bomb Cyclone spell, instantly creating a whirling cloud of flurries around the monstrosity.
“Aye!” The Thulean yelled out as she used her ghost limbs to flip her body up and onto the shoulders of the towering cyclops. He threw her to the ground; she landed like a cat and bounced back, her buster sword at the ready.
Their weapons met and I whooped for Aya as she held her own.
She dropped, rolled, and then she did something that made everyone in the fight stop and turn to the two.
As she came up from her roll, Aya loosed a throwing knife at the cyclops’ single eye and it connected.
The goliath staggered for a moment, the dagger sticking out of his eye, dropped his weapon and fell down face first.
He hit the ground hard.
His teenage Alpha shrieked and the people around us, people who were just going about their lives, oblivious to the fact that there was a serious battle happening in their vicinity, looked towards her.
She apologized, turned to me, glared, and as Aya stood over the cyclops, the fairy raced over to her, magic swirling all around.
I cringed as Aya knocked the fairy out of the air like she was a goddamn tennis ball. With absolutely no remorse on her face, the Thulean stepped on the fairy with her heeled boot, killing it instantly.
The teenage Alpha gasped.
New skill learned!
Magnus cut down the Hellhound with a magic spell that turned his sword into an enormous black wave of energy.
“Sword of Doom,” I said, and just whispering the name for the spell caused Magnus’ stats to appear and the spell to be added as a special ability.
The Inugami flashed into existence and Ophelia, a devilish look on her undead face, raised the Hellhound from the dead. The Hellhound, his eyes now completely white, attacked the Inugami and quickly tore its throat out.
The brawl was over.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The teenage Alpha started crying. Softly, so as to not draw attention, but crying nonetheless.
Aya stepped up to me and whispered, “Maybe you should console her, then again, maybe you should gloat.” She reached her hand out and pinched my cheek. “But you aren’t really the gloating type, are you?”
“Everyone return to the Dojo for a moment.”
I deactivated the Monster Hunt app and walked over to the teenage Alpha.
“Just relax,” I told her, “there’s no need to cry.”
“Yeah? Well, you didn’t just have your ass handed to you,” she said bitterly. “My first fucking Brawl too.”
I started to laugh. I wasn’t expecting to hear her curse. “That was also my first Brawl. I just got lucky, I guess.”
“Whatever.” She turned away from me.
“I’m Chase, by the way.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Keegan.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“Maybe I’ll see you around.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
Keegan turned and ran off. Once she got a good distance away from me, she stopped, looked at me once more, and turned away.
I felt bad for her, I really did, but she knew what she was getting into when she purchased and installed the Brawl add-on. Sitting on a bench, and still about fifteen minutes away from the time I’d scheduled with another Alpha, I reactivated the Monster Hunt app.
Aya and Lady C. stood there as if they’d been there the whole time.
“Let me sit next to you,” Lady C. said, and even though there was the entire right side of the bench to sit on, she chose smallest portion to my left.
Aya unsheathed her blade, flipped it around and drove it int
o the ground. She set her hat on the hilt, fixed her hair, and returned the hat to her head.
She placed her hand on the cross guard and leaned into it a little. A split in the gray sky overhead made it look like she was being blessed.
After a quick yawn, she narrowed her slitted eyes at me. “Where did the little girl run off to?”
“I really don't know.”
“Were you able to get her to stop crying?”
“Well, sort of. She was angry because she lost and it was her first match, or should I say, it was her first brawl.”
“No sense in crying over spilt drorikh.”
“Drorikh?” I asked.
“Ooo, I know that one,” Lady C. said. “Drorikh is fermented dragon’s milk. We had it in Unigaea too, but it is more common in Aya’s world, Tritania.”
“Got it.”
Lady C. yawned. “Shouldn’t we be napping right now?” She laid her head on my shoulder. “It’d be nice to take a little rest. We could just lay a blanket out, read, and relax the rest of the day.”
Aya scoffed at this idea. “And waste precious time? Chase has big dreams for us, and he owes Iris big money.”
“I told you earlier that I’d pay her back as soon as possible.”
“I don’t like the fact that we are in debt,” she said, toying with me.
“You aren’t in debt, I am in debt. Big difference.”
My Monster Hunt app flashed and I saw a heavy man in a black trench coat about twenty yards away. The Alpha had a neckbeard, acne, and his ponytail was pulled so tight that it looked like his hair was going to tear free of his head. His eyes were hidden by a pair of black sunglasses with light blue rims.
I stood, and told Aya and Lady C. to get into position.
A prompt appeared in front of me, asking if I’d like to accept the Brawl. I knew the guy was two levels higher than me, but I was confident in my fighters.
The next prompt brought up my available mythcrea.
Hoping to level Magnus and Ophelia, I chose the pair and they spawned in front of me, Magnus in all black with the lower portion of his face covered by a scarf, and Ophelia in a tattered white dress.
Still gruesome, I thought as they greeted me.
The other Alpha’s Hunters appeared and Aya gasped.
Standing across from her was a Thulean man, evident in his skin tone, the shape of his face, and the vertical tattoo that stretched from his chin to his throat. His stats appeared over his head, confirming it.
[Thulean Warrior, Level 4]
The second Hunter was a beast of a man, some type of were-guy, with bulging muscles, a predatory gait, and sharp teeth.
[Aswang, Level 4]
Aswang?
Focusing on the word caused a definition to appear on my vision pane.
Aswang is a shapeshifting monster of Filipino lore, the name of which is derived from the Sanskrit word asura, meaning demon. Aswangs predominantly take a single form, and many are known for their long proboscises, used to suck fetuses from the womb.
“What in the…”
The Alpha’s two mythcrea appeared. The first was an eyeless red worm easily ten feet long and three feet in diameter which snapped dozens upon dozens of razor sharp teeth.
Lady C. made an uncomfortable sound. “I hate bugs,” she whispered as she unsheathed both blades.
[Deathworm, Level 10]
“That’s no ordinary bug,” I said quickly. “That’s a deathworm, and it’s at a pretty high level.”
The second mythcrea was a female with the head of a black lioness. Clearly an Egyptian mythological being, the only thing covering her lady bits was a thin bit of string.
It seemed impractical, but when I saw her level, and I watched a cobra-shaped staff form in her hands, I knew that we were in for a hell of a fight.
[Bastet, Level 15]
I wondered then if I should switch Magnus or Ophelia out for someone else.
Fujin could come in handy, and it would be simple to send Rose after the Deathworm, but my gut told me to stick with the Fighting Party I had and I went with it.
“Ophelia, Sigil Curse, and please, please find something we can work with.”
“Aya, take the Aswang. Lady C., the Thulean.”
“I want the Thulean,” Aya gritted out.
“No, that’s what they’ll be expecting. Magnus, do something to that goddamn Deathworm.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Magnus did not disappoint. As his significant other cast her Sigil Curse spell, he cut the Deathworm down with his Sword of Doom attack.
A prismatic, black bolt of energy sliced the Deathworm’s tail off and to the horror of Lady C., the tail became self-aware, adding another opponent to their side.
“Shit, shit…”
With an angry grunt, Lady C. went for the male Thulean, who wielded a quarterstaff with a Persian blade on the end. He was fierce, but Lady C. was cheetah-fast, and as he lunged for her, she skipped left and sliced her blades in front of her body, almost as if she was trying to take out a cluster of butterflies.
I realized instantly what she was doing: the Thulean was trying to grab her with his ghost limbs and she was doing her best to set some sort of trap for them.
Yes! I thought as the man cried out and she bent backwards, curved right, and brought both blades forward, only to switch her trajectory at the last moment, and cut off one of his ghost limbs.
“Ay!” Aya screamed, even though she was busy engaging the shapeshifter werewolf, who had kept his canine form.
Losing a ghost limb must be as painful as losing a regular limb, and it quickly took its toll on the opposing Thulean. His eyes red with fury, he lost his cool and tried to all out charge Lady C.
Ophelia’s Sigil Curse took effect, and I saw that two of our opponents had a weakness to fire.
“Ophelia, fireball, Bastet!”
The fireball struck the Egyptian goddess just as Lady C. performed her Time Scissors move, appearing behind the Thulean man in a flash, her swords like a pair of giant shears.
She swiftly took his head off.
I caught my counterpart, the Alpha in the black trench coat, slamming his fist into his other hand. The worms turned to Lady C.
Oh, great, I thought as she started to backpedal.
“Magnus!”
He glanced over to me just as one half of the Deathworm, the side with the teeth, burrowed into the ground. The damn thing was like a drill.
Aya returned her focus the shapeshifting werewolf. She had regained her composure, and I decided it was time to change things up a bit.
“Aya, Lady C., switch!”
The Thulean’s ghost limbs propelled her over to the bifurcated Deathworm; Lady C. used her Time Skip ability to appear in front of the shifter werewolf.
“Now!” I cried.
Lady C. parried as icy tendrils swirled around her left blade. One Ice Explosion later and the shifter cried out. He was tossed sideways, his chest and upper body pierced by razor sharp slivers of ice.
A fireball sailed over them and connected with the lion-headed Egyptian goddess. Her golden robes caught fire, and even as she burned, her clawed hand came up and wispy strings of magic formed around her fingers.
“Magnus!”
Translucent hieroglyphs appeared in the air, growing in body until they were all pointed at their ends. Once they’d leveled off, the wall of spikes cut Magnus down, the spell similar to what Lady C. had just cast.
Magnus’ eyes went wide as black ink spread over his body, dipping into the wounds caused by the sharp hieroglyphs.
His eyes roll into the back of his head and he died.
Ophelia, her fragile form filled with rage, clenched her fists together as great wings of fire formed on her back. The wings peeled off her back and shoulders to create a huge flaming bird, its features accented by bits of blue flame.
New skill learned!
The firebird screeched, lifted into the air, and dove into the Egyptian goddess, killing
her instantly. Ophelia fell backwards too; only the Deathworm and shifter were left standing.
“Phoenix Kill,” I said, naming the spell.
Aya was having fun with the pieces of the Deathworm, bouncing left and right as she avoided its layers of teeth.
“Watch this, Chase!” she shouted to me as she distracted the head of the Deathworm, got between it and its severed tail, and jumped just in time to avoid its attack.
Its sharp teeth latched onto its own tail, and before the creature could separate, Aya went airborne, gripping her ironing board of a sword by the hilt tightly as she drove her sword down into the Deathworm’s skull.
“Yes, Aya!” I shouted, remembered I was in a public park, and quickly looked around to see how many people had heard me.
Her blade still stuck in its head, Aya casually tipped her hat. I gave her the “wrap it up” signal and she sprang into action, her blade still covered in purple Deathworm blood as she advanced towards the shifter.
With Aya on one side, and Lady C. on the other with her two blades, it didn’t take them long to bring the shifter down.
As they did, a prompt let me know I’d won the fight, and that I’ve received a token for my troubles. I also saw that both Ophelia and Magnus had gained a level, even though they’d died during the battle.
Not bad at all.
Chapter Fifteen: Sucker Punched
“You got a token, huh?” the other Alpha asked after he walked over to me. He had a thick East Coast accent and he walked with a slight limp.
“I did, and good fight, by the way.” I was still unsure what to say to someone after beating them. I quickly sent my Fighting Party away; it was less distracting with them around.
“What can I say?” he asked, his face red and his eyes bloodshot – the man looked very unhealthy. He was about three hundred pounds overweight, his ponytail greasy and his hands chubby little stumps. “That was one hell of an ass-beating I took back there.”
“Well, I’ll see you around.”
I started to turn away from him when he called out to me.
“You wouldn’t want to trade that token, would you?” he asked.
I knew tokens were rare drops, and also that I could get more by catching more mythcrea; still, they weren’t easy to come by. Plus a transferable token, like the one I’d received, was worth some real-world cash.
Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure Page 15