Monster Hunt NYC 3

by Harmon Cooper

  And with a spark, her blade lit aflame, black smoke trailing after her movements as she continued to try and bring the man down.

  “Do we intervene?” Iris asked me, her instrument aimed at the two.

  “Maybe not,” I finally said. “If he actually wins, which I seriously doubt, we will just tag-team him and finish him off.”

  “I’m down with that,” she said, Lady C.’s fiery blade reflecting off Iris’s glasses.

  The man grunted as he thrust his staff forward, Lady C. pivoting just in time, bringing her hand back, and slicing his wrist off with her flaming instrument.

  He cried out in in agony; Lady C. silenced the man by driving her blade into his stomach, her face inches away from his as she pulled her blade up, the man screaming as his flesh sizzled.

  The gong sounded.

  We had done it again.

  Chapter Nine: Goblins and Sisters

  Two battles down and two to go.

  “That was a tough one,” Iris said, her hand on her side as she took in deep breaths.

  “What are you talking about, Little Iris?” Aya asked her. We were back in the locker room now, sofas pressed against the walls and the healing punch-potion sitting on a side table completely replenished.

  Once again, we could not see anything outside, nor could we hear the cheers or jeers from the crowd. I had noticed that some of them had come around in the end, especially because the last fight was pretty dynamic.

  It was good to know that I could use my bass playing to heal someone, which was funny in a way, but seemed appropriate considering the power of music.

  “I guess it was really tough for you, wasn’t it? You were, after all, the first to die,” Iris told her, stepping up to the plate.

  “Is that so?” Aya’s hand came to the hilt of her weapon.

  “You two aren’t seriously considering fighting, are you?” Lady C. asked. “Because I don’t know who would win that fight. What do you think, Chase?”

  “How about not putting me on the spot here?” I asked her with a grin.

  “Yeah, Chase, who do you think would win between the musician, and a trained Thulean warrior who had her first kill at the age of eleven?” Aya turned to me, her orange eyes narrowing. “Well?”

  I felt her ghost limb lightly tap me on the cheek. “I would prefer not to have this conversation,” I started to say.

  “Who would win?” Iris asked. “Be fair…”

  Iris smirked, clearly aware of what she was doing.

  I never had to answer in the end.

  Our frog attendant took shape, an impressed look on his face. He ran his hands along his Operation Iraqi Freedom Three desert camo. Apparently, changing after each fight was his thing. I didn’t know why he’d chosen this particular attire, but it didn’t fit him very well, especially with his oversized gut.

  “What a performance!” he said with a ribbit. “I have to be honest here: I figured Kingdom Lume would throw in the towel in the test round, and then lose to a stronger team in the first round, especially considering that Kingdom Sana was last year’s victors. But here I stand corrected, out a couple thousand Proxima Dollars too,” he said with a growl, “but corrected. And there is still time to bet on your group…”

  “Bet the house, frog man,” Aya told him with a tip of her hat. She went over to the punchbowl and poured herself a cup of healing potion. The Thulean warrior threw it back, and turned to us, holding the goblet as if she was planning on underhand tossing it at the frog. “What? Why is everyone looking at me?”

  “She is a feisty one, isn’t she?” the frog said, licking his lips.

  I shrugged, hoping he’d move on from this line of questioning. Eventually, after no one would join him in discussing Aya’s demeanor, our frog attendant begrudgingly began to explain the rules of the next round.

  “You will be going up against Kingdom Psy and Kingdom Ventus,” he said, a floating gold bar appearing before him. “A three-way match, with the winner moving their kingdom to the final round. Easy enough?”

  “Sure,” Iris said, watching as the names of our list of mythcrea appeared along the golden bar. They started to spin until I couldn’t read the words anymore.

  “Tell me when to stop,” the frog said on the tail end of a ribbit.

  Iris looked to me. “Um, stop?”

  The spinning names started to slow, and for a second, I thought our chosen mythcrea was going to be Sun Wukong.

  In the end, the golden bar stopped on…

  “Hiccup?” Lady C. asked, her brow furrowing.

  “The goblin?” Aya shook her head with disdain. “Goblins are only good for target practice, and I’m not an archer.”

  The frogman peeked around to see what word the golden bar had stopped on. “A goblin, huh? I hope this Hiccup fellow is a bloody good fighter!” He offered us a puckered, smarmy grin as our forms dematerialized.

  We reappeared on the sidelines of the battlefield, the Kingdom Lume side erupting with thunder and lightning, the other kingdoms we had already beaten, Ignis and Sana booing, some trying to cast spells that were blocked by the invisible barrier.

  I noticed for the first time that the skybox had activity around it, people scrambling to get a view of who I assumed was Ray Steampunk. The dark-haired man wore a shining suit of golden armor and a flowing red cape, but he was too far away for me to truly make out his features.

  “So that’s Ray Steampunk, huh?”

  “Great,” Iris said as she turned to look at the stands and then back to the battlefield. “Steampunk decides to come for this match, of all goddamn matches.”

  Iris had a competitive streak that didn’t always show itself, but it was apparent now as she paced back and forth, waiting for Hiccup to appear on the battlefield. Aya and Lady C. were with us as well, Lady C. already commenting on how cool it was to see the fight from this perspective.

  “He’s going to get murdered,” Iris whispered as our first opponent appeared.

  Representing Kingdom Psy was a man with long white hair and dark armor, a sword on his back and another at his side.

  [Witcher, Level 15]

  “A witcher?” I asked.

  Iris’ glasses flashed, telling me that she’d already started researching the mythcrea. “Yep, I was right. Murdered. This really isn’t good.”

  “Nothing is good when we are being represented by a goblin,” Aya grumbled, feeding off Iris’ disappointment.

  “The concept of a witcher was created by a Polish writer,” Iris explained. “It later became a video game series, a HuluFlix series, and had a successful anime show as well. A witcher is a monster hunter who uses runic magic. They are tough as nails, basically a spell sword.”

  “I would bring my blade through his body before he could get off one of his fancy illusions,” Aya said as another warrior appeared, this one a man in bulky armor with a sword damn near as big as hers.

  [King Arthur, Level 17]

  “I know who that guy is,” I told Iris just in case she thought I wanted an explanation.

  “Even I know who King Arthur is,” Aya said.

  “Wow! That’s a really rare catch right there,” Lady C. said.

  “Ventus,” I told the group, as if the kingdom mattered.

  Actually, we couldn’t see the other Alphas and Hunters on the sidelines, which made me think that they were watching from a different plane of existence (or something).

  Then again… how did the crowd see us earlier?

  In the end, I didn’t have time to dig deeper into the physics of the Proxima Galaxy.

  Hiccup’s form took shape, the portly goblin clad in a pair of boxers, his body smacking into the ground as if he’d been lounging.

  “Fick! Fick! What in the fick?” He got to his feet and started looking around, his eyes going wide with terror. His boxers had clearly seen better days, but I could still make out the word plastered across both ass cheeks: FeeTwixRox.

  Aya buried her head in her hand. “Here we go�
��”

  “Fick!” Hiccup threw the magazine he’d been reading into the air.

  “Over here!” Iris called to him.

  “What in the fickered fick is this fickery about?” he asked, approaching the sideline. Half the crowd, including Kingdom Lume, was either laughing or booing him at this point, especially once Hiccup started picking at his ass crack, fixing his boxers.

  “Yeah? Yeah!? Well fick everyone in this fickin’ stadium!” he announced, flashing two middle fingers at the crowd and doing a full spin so everyone could get a chance to see them as he approached us. “Fick you, fick you, fick you, and especially fick any fickin’ ink shadows and fickered Thuleans. Fick off, all of you! FICK OFF!”

  “Hiccup, equip armor and a weapon,” Iris shouted. “You’re supposed to be fighting for us!”

  A number appeared over the battlefield.

  Three…

  “Fighting for you? What the fick do I look like? Is this fickin’ the 1850s or some fickin’ shit, and you’re a wealthy landowner named Chick Palahfick who holds Fick Clubs in his BDSM basement, and I’m this ficked in the head potion salesman who actually is hallucinating this other fickered ficker named Tyler the Creator who encourages me to fight? And all of this fickery is supposed to mean something? Because if that is the fickin’ case, I’m nobody’s goddamn fickboy!” The goblin showed the crowd two middle fingers again. “Fick off!”

  Two...

  “We’re going to lose this one, aren’t we?” Aya groaned. “Filthy goblin…”

  One….

  The fight began, King Arthur and the witcher charging at each other with their swords drawn.

  “Fick!” Hiccup shouted like a sissy as soon as their weapons connected. “Not Marbles, what in the fick!?” The pink-haired goblin with the brass arm threw his hands wide, an axe appearing in one and a shield about the size of a trash can lid taking shape in the other.

  He glanced down at his boxers and grunted as a tunic formed on his body followed by pair of boots and a shiny chainmail. A small trash can, followed by a silver helmet appeared on his head, as Hiccup braced himself, watching the two warriors fight.

  “Fick you!” he cried as he ran forward with his axe overhead, immediately tossed backward by the witcher, who had traced some sign in the air.

  “Let them fight!” Iris shouted to him.

  “You don’t know fick all about fighting!” Hiccup roared as he again approached the witcher and King Arthur, the overweight goblin already out of breath by the time he reached them. “Maybe I need my fickin’ toe knife. No. Not yet, Hiccup. Fick, just let me… fick. That’s it. Fick yeah!”

  He threw his armored ass between the two, taking swipes from both the witcher and King Arthur, the witcher eventually kicking Hiccup out of the way.

  “Yooooooooy!”

  The goblin stumbled to the left, going for a healing potion and guzzling it, half of the potion spilling onto his chainmail.

  I caught sight of Aya out of the corner of my eye. The Thulean had her hands over her mouth as she watched the battle. Lady C. wasn’t as worried. She watched with a determined look on her face, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she actually believed that Hiccup would be able to do it.

  “Just let them fight it out,” Iris cried, not taking her eyes off the battle. “Then finish whoever is the last one standing!”

  But it appeared that the goblin had other plans, and a few tricks up his sleeve as well. Once he was back to his feet, Hiccup threw his axe over his shoulder, yet another red potion appearing in his hand. He guzzled it down, wiped his lips, and grunted as a different axe took shape in his hands, this one smaller and more manageable.

  “Fick you and the fickered big chalupa donkey you fickin’ rode in on!” he announced as he lifted his axe over his head, a bolt of lightning striking it and cutting down both opponents.

  “Yes!” I shouted, clapping my hands.

  “Fickin’ right!” Hiccup snorted. He was pretty sure of himself in that moment, licking his lips and nodding as he approached his two foes. But before he could fire off another blast with his lightning axe, the witcher lifted a single hand and traced up another sigil, and Hiccup was suddenly blasted backward by an explosion.

  “Yoy!” he shouted as he landed on our side of the battlefield, kicking up a cloud of dust.

  “Get up, Hiccup!” Iris shouted.

  “Why the fick did you chose me to fickin’ fight?” he growled. “I was fickin’ reading the latest copy of Goblin Holes: Dark Hairy Wet Holes edition. It only comes out once a fickin’ year! Shit is exclusive for subscribers, fick,” he mumbled as he got to his feet. “And then, whaddya fickin’ know? I’m fickin’ standing here in this this fickered stadium like some sort of gladiator glory hole or some shit. Fick!”

  The Tritanian goblin cringed as he let out a squeaky fart, and threw his lightning axe over his shoulder, the axe slamming into the invisible barrier in front of an increasingly furious Aya.

  “Riptak jatla blanktakh boomboom morrha!”

  “Yeah? Well, fick you too!” A healing potion appeared in his hand and he chugged it, his tongue entering the bottle once he’d finished it up, trying to get just a drop more.

  “Apollos Cherry. Shit is fickin’ good,” he said with a burp. Hiccup threw the bottle in Aya’s direction, the invisible barrier preventing it from reaching her. “Fick, okay, so I got two long-haired-short-dicked-fickity-ficks going at each other like a pair of inbred goblin brothers fighting over one of their fickin’ sisters who clearly hasn’t figured out how much she can stuff in her lady choop, and why all goblins were given three easily accessible fickholes. Okay, Hiccup, think, what would Twixy do?”

  A laser gun appeared in his hand, the type of technology that could only exist in video games. It was bulky, covered in lights, with a square muzzle and alien writing on the side.

  “This could work…” he said as he brought it up to his shoulder, licking his lips again as he took aim. “Fick, that’s right. This shit has a tracking-fick-circle as well.”

  “Can he use that type of tech?” I asked Iris, who was clearly scanning through the rules.

  “Yes,” she finally said. “It’s legal for the mythcrea match if it’s in their list, and it’s something they’d normally use. This was established after a tournament in the 2050s by a guy named Quantum Hughes, who won a giant tournament in Tritania by taking down a Thulean with advanced tech from another world.”

  “Quantum Hughes?” Aya shook her head bitterly. “Actually, Thuleans used to hate him, but he’s not so bad, really. Not as bad as a goblin.”

  “Okay, just hold your shriveled chalupa you stupid fickin’ Knight of Non Compos Mentis…” Hiccup grunted as he stared down the barrel of the weapon. He triggered the weapon and nothing happened.

  “What in the fick?” Hiccup glanced at the weapon again, remembered something, and clicked a small button near the trigger. “Fick yeah! Here we go. Got to turn the fickin’ safety off, kiddos.”

  The goblin aimed the gun at the two fighting warriors. His tongue came out of his mouth again, and once the two had separated, Hiccup cut King Arthur down with an incredible green blast that sent the goblin flying backward into the invisible barrier.

  “Yooooooooooy!”

  A gong sounded, King Arthur now a sizzling puddle of flesh, the crowd booing in response.

  One mythcrea down…

  “Yes!” I said, clapping my hands. “Holy shit, that worked!”

  “Hiccup, get up!” Iris shouted.

  Aya kicked at her side of the invisible barrier. “Up, you filthy goblin. Up! Up! Up!”

  “Fick!” Hiccup said, his eyes going wide. “Where the fick am I?” He glanced around, suddenly dazed and confused. “Spewy? Marbles? Twixy? Liz? Elfy? Conan? Wolfy? Snowballs? Fickin’ Tamana’s traitorous ass? Fick!”

  Aya was down on her knees now, screaming at him in Thulean through the barrier. She switched to English. “Up, you filthy goblin! Up, you idiot!”

  “Fick
, okay, fick, okay! Goddamn Liz’s meaner half-sister with half a brain and half a heart, fick you and your invisible fick limbs!” Hiccup got to his feet and tossed the concentrated energy weapon aside, which fired again, this blast cutting a huge black mark through the battlefield.

  Before he could equip anything else, the witcher appeared in front of Hiccup, moving faster than I’d ever seen a mythcrea move.

  His orange eyes shone as he tried to stab Hiccup with his silver blade, the goblin barely rolling out of the way in time.

  The witcher flashed into existence again just as Hiccup wobbled up to his feet, bringing the hilt of his sword down onto the back of Hiccup’s head.

  “Yoy!”

  Stumbling forward, Hiccup equipped a small tomahawk and swung wide, trying to take the witcher down.

  The monster hunter appeared in front of Hiccup, driving his blade into Hiccup’s belly, the goblin falling backward, his hands on his stomach now.

  “No!” Iris shouted as the witcher turned away, lifting his sword, the crowd going wild.

  But Hiccup wasn’t done yet.

  The scrappy goblin went for another healing potion and kept it in his mouth as he swiveled to his side, using his neck to throw the potion back and finish it off.

  Still celebrating, the witcher didn’t see Hiccup approach from behind and tackle him, the two rolling around on the ground, each trying to get the upper hand.

  Hiccup’s shortness and girth gave him an advantage here, and eventually they settled, Hiccup on top while the witcher tried to slug him. Going for a short blade, the witcher stabbed Hiccup in the side, blood spritzing the air as the goblin screamed.

  “Yoooooy!”

  His hand now on his side, Hiccup was just about fall off the witcher when he did something else instead.

  With a simple twisting gesture, he pulled his own brass arm off and began beating the witcher with it. He hit the witcher again, each swing harder than the last.