Monster Hunt NYC 2

by Harmon Cooper

  The Hunter to her right was a cowboy with tight jeans, a pearl snap shirt, a bandana, and a cowboy hat. He had two six shooters holstered at his side.

  He was at Level Fifteen, and his counterpart, a man in a trench coat who had a face that reminded me of a lion, was at Level Fourteen.

  I could tell that the cowboy used guns, but the trench coat guy? His handle pretty much gave it away.

  [Weretiger, Level 14]

  Unlike the other Alphas we had faced, this one didn't have a weapon. She simply had her fists, which were pressed together over her stomach.

  Lightning struck the coin and it flipped into the air, landing with a rumble and revealing that we had won the toss.

  A man appeared behind the opposing Alpha wearing Roman-styled armor, a Brawler. He was bursting with muscles, and rather than weapons, he wore a set of brass knuckles with spikes on them.

  “Sun Wukong!” I shouted to Iris.

  And I could tell by the way she was hesitating that she was considering what I’d said, but she wanted to go with her gut.

  After a few furtive glances my way and back to the other Fighting Party, Iris went with Anastasia, the bird with a woman's head that we had captured in the tunnels beneath Brooklyn.

  Anastasia flapped her large wings as she rose into the air above Iris, crying out as she moved higher and higher.

  “Five…”

  “Four…”

  “Three…”

  “Two…”

  “One…”

  ~~“BEGIN FIGHT!”~~

  Her ukulele in her hands, Iris fired off eight sweet blasts of sound at the opposing Alpha.

  A sigil decorated with hieroglyphs and Arabic writing appeared in front of the other Alpha, taking the blunt of Iris' attack.

  “Aye!” The Thulean reached the trench coat weretiger, who had since morphed into his beast form. He leapt for her as she lifted into the air with her ghost limbs, coming down behind him. A snarl on her face that almost matched the snarl of the weretiger, Aya performed an aerial with her blade behind her, again dodging the tigerman’s sharp claws.

  She caught his legs with her ghost limbs and pulled his feet out from under him, forcing the weretiger to face-plant, and giving her an opening to drive her blade into his back.

  But he rolled out of the way just in time, got his bearings almost instantly, and lunged for her again.

  The thing was, it looked like the buff Romanesque Brawler could beat Lady C., judging from the way she just barely avoided his spiked fists.

  And the cowboy hadn’t quite shot Anastasia out of the air, but one of his bullets had gone through her right wing, which she was now nursing as she tried to get into position.

  Just as he raised his weapon again, Anastasia lifted both wings and the cowboy suddenly stopped, a stupid, lovestruck look spreading across his chiseled face.

  He didn't quite radiate little Valentine's hearts, but the smile that formed on his face told me he now had an affinity for Anastasia, and this affinity led to him firing his weapon against his own teammates.

  The cowboy shot at the female Alpha, which she blocked using another sigil shield. She was getting pummeled from two sides, the cowboy shooting at her and Iris firing off a stream of steady sound blasts from her ukulele.

  That's why she chose Anastasia, I thought as I briefly scanned the mythcrea’s special abilities.

  Anastasia’s Faint Appeal spell allowed her to seduce an opponent and turn them to our side. Also to her advantage was the fact that Algo was her main class, meaning she was able to use algorithm-based attacks.

  As the crowd roared behind me, my focus returned to the fight, watching as Aya sheathed her blade and approached the weretiger with both fists at the ready.

  “What the fuck is she doing?” I mumbled, as she beckoned the weretiger forward.

  The creature charged at her, and rather than pull her sword, she dodged left and savagely brought her fist into the side of his neck.

  The weretiger tried to swivel and get her again with his claws, but she'd already dropped to her belly and used her ghost limbs to lift herself up and over the creature, where she was able to punch it a couple of times in the back.

  “Finish him!” I shouted to her.

  But Aya was having too much fun throwing down with the weretiger, so she continued her boxing act, and even threw in a few Muay Thai-style kicks to the weretiger’s ribs.

  My concern was the brawler that was still fighting Lady C.

  Neither of them had gotten in a shot, and I didn't know if Lady C. would be able to get one in due to his speed.

  I could tell that she had already tried to throw some magic at him, none of which had worked. She had shocked him, tried to freeze him, try to light him on fire, and even though I couldn't tell she had done it, I was pretty sure she’d tried to stop time for him as well.

  But he was a powerhouse, and rather than have a little fight club with the weretiger, Aya should have been helping Lady C. out.

  The female Alpha had yet to actually attack, and didn't look like she would be able to with the amount of blocking she was doing.

  I thought this was great, keeping her distracted, but I was worried that if Lady C. fell, the fight would turn in their direction.

  Her wings flapping as she held her position in the air, Anastasia turned her attention to the brawling warrior. A shadow formed around her and spread up and out, reaching the stands, and the barrier above us.

  Like a bridge rising and settling back into place, the shadow came together into a single line and slowly lowered toward the Brawler.

  The brass knuckle bastard completely lost it. He ran toward the far end of the stadium, fighting invisible enemies, completely abandoning the fight.

  He reached the stands and began punching at the invisible barrier protecting them. Lady C. was hot on his heels, and once she reached him, she lunged forward and stabbed both of her swords through the small of his back.

  Her sword still sticking out of his stomach, she began dragging him back to the battle, leaving a trail of blood as he shrieked and foamed at the mouth.

  Suddenly tired of playing with the weretiger, Aya came in for a punch, ducked a swipe from his claws, and drew her blade with her other hand.

  It was a swift death, and if there hadn't been a screaming crowd around, I would have heard the weretiger’s head slap against the ground.

  A throwing knife cut the lovestruck cowboy down, leaving only the female Alpha.

  Panic on her face, she kept up her shield act for another few minutes.

  Eventually, Iris broke through with a particularly biting strum on her ukulele, a heavily distorted sound which formed a solid wall of light that dismantled the female Alpha’s shield, leaving Aya and Lady C. to finish the job.

  Chapter Sixteen: Multifarious Musical Epiphany

  It was hard to wrap my head around just how loudly the crowd was cheering for us. The volume was ear-piercing, I could feel it in my chest, down to my digital bones.

  I had joined Iris and the Huntresses on the battlefield, watching as a ring of yellow and electric blue roses sprouted from the ground around us.

  There were fireworks overhead now, but instead of your traditional fireworks, these ones fizzled out into zipping bolts of electricity, purples and greens, hissing to the far corners of the arena.

  A large bolt of lightning touched down before us, and a man stepped out of the smoke the strike had created. He was a tall fellow, clean-cut, and he wore the same crisp blue outfit that the city guards wore in the kingdom center. Only his was slightly more decorated, not quite a mid-twentieth century Russian general, but his ranking was apparent from the medals pinned to his chest.

  He stopped before us, and slapped his arms at his sides.

  “Congratulation, Chase Knowles and Iris Snout, and congratulations to you as well, Lady Cassandra and Aya Duchig,” he said, his voice booming all the way up to the nosebleed section. “It is with great honor that I bestow upon your Dojo, an
d all mythcrea you have returned to EverLife, the honorific title of Lightning Knight. You are now ready to compete in your class bracket at the EverLife Tournament, bringing glory and recognition to Kingdom Lume.”

  I turned to Iris to see an emblem appear over her head. It was an artistic rendition of a lightning bolt, and I knew by my reflection in her glasses that one was now also hovering over my head.

  The lightning bolts lowered onto our heads, and I felt a warm energy move through me, settling in my chest. The dignitary thanked us again, waved at the crowd, and disappeared after a bolt of lightning struck him.

  He wasn't the only one to zip away so quickly.

  Before I could even take a step forward, the four of us were suddenly standing in the field of our Dojo, the crowd and the tournament a distant memory.

  “There's no after party?” Aya asked as she looked around.

  “You never really struck me as the after party type of gal,” Iris told her.

  “Oh, please,” Aya shifted her weight to her right hip. She had been standing quite erect in front of the crowd, pride evident in her gait. “None of you have ever been to a tournament in Tritania, and if you had been, you would know that the after party can be as action-packed as the tournament itself. But fine, no after party.”

  “Well, we do have a gig tonight, actually, pretty soon I think, at the Midnight Library,” I told her. “So that counts, right?”

  Aya yawned. “It seems like you have a gig there every night, so count me out for this one. I'm getting some much-deserved rest.”

  With that, the Thulean turned toward her cabin. She glanced over her shoulder at me just once, looked me up and down, and continued forward.

  “I can't wait to go to the Midnight Library!” Lady C. went from her armor to a loose-fitting dress in a flash. The dress was a deep shade of maroon, her tube top two shades lighter and, from what I could see through the slits on the sides of her dress, exposed her midriff.

  I snapped my fingers and my black suit appeared on my body, the top two buttons of my shirt open. “I guess we have enough money to get some new clothes, but these are still pretty good.”

  “Speaking of money,” Iris said as she too changed into a sweater, skirt, and high heeled boots. “Mining operation? We can get that started now.”

  “That's not a bad idea,” I told her as I turned to the meadow. “Do you think it will disturb the others in the meadow?”

  “Let me check that out real quick,” Iris said as her cat, Garfield, approached her.

  The big orange tabby twisted between her legs, lightly flicking his tail against her shanks as he purred. Her glasses lit up as she did some research and I turned my attention back to our mythcrea quarters to see Mirror the phantom kangaroo hopping over to us.

  “So now we're some type of royalty?” the kangaroo asked, out of breath. “Great, just what I always wanted, more attention.”

  “I thought you liked attention, Mirror,” said Lady C., no hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Yeah, I like attention, if you’re a big beefy blacksmith with forearms thick as tree trunks, but that's about it. Now people are going to know who I am wherever I go, ugh, which is an inconvenience for me.”

  “Have you gone anywhere yet?” I asked her.

  “No, but I'm just saying, if I do go somewhere, people will know. Annoying.”

  “Nope,” Iris looked up at me, “a mining operation won't affect the land or the Dojo in a negative way. Also, here are the few that I recommend.”

  Iris swiped her hand in my direction, and a carousel of options appeared before me. The options were horizontal, the models three-dimensional, and I scrolled through them until I found a pretty good operation.

  It wasn't the cheapest one, and it wasn't the most expensive, which was kind of the sweet spot for me.

  It reminded me of an oil derrick, except it was taller, and there was a spherical light at the top. It didn't have any information on how much it would return, none of them did, which I found both interesting and somewhat annoying.

  “There's not even an estimate?” I asked her.

  Iris shook her head. “It's based on where you set it, and they're designed to be aesthetically pleasing, so you can pretty much set it up anywhere. And of course, since they are like a giant tower that kind of bobs up and down, you can't have more than one.”

  “Let's just go with this one.”

  I selected the mining derrick, and pressed the purchase button.

  A version of it now hovered in the air, semi-transparent, and I was able to move it around in real time and set it where I wanted it to go. There were other things I could buy, such as equipment that would do soil tests, but those cost as much as the derrick.

  As usual, I figured we’d play it by ear.

  “It's not atrocious,” Mirror said once I finally set it down at the back of the meadow, behind the pond, “but I don't like it.”

  With that the sassy kangaroo turned, slapped her tail against the ground a few times, and left.

  Proxima Dollars: $30,170

  Spent: $137,500

  Loan: 0

  A quick glance at our bank account and I saw that we were still sitting pretty, and that money could be used for other things, or even traded for real-world dollars.

  I wouldn’t mind another nice date with Iris.

  “So, Midnight Library?” Iris asked. As if they had been waiting for us to say the words, Magnus and Ophelia came out of the mythcrea quarters and joined us. I whistled for our lightning horses, which landed just about a minute later.

  We mounted up, hit the air, and made our way to the center of Kingdom Lume.

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  The sound of the house pianists reached my ears upon entry to the Midnight Library. While it was a grand piano that they played, the sound was of a harpsichord, and they were currently rocking out again on a groove that had an eastern flair to it.

  I nodded to the groove of the music as Iris and I moved to the greenroom, where we would find Dalton the ink shadow.

  Iris caught me smiling at her as she stopped in front of the entrance.

  “What?” she asked.

  “This is just so awesome. We play here, and people come and they love our music. We play New York, and it’s hit or miss. Yes, and I know, this isn't the real world, but there's definitely a vibe.”

  “Definitely,” she said as we entered the room.

  “There you two are.” The ink shadow sat on the couch, half his form merged into the leather. Next to him was the drow groupie that was always with Dalton, or maybe it was a different one, I never knew.

  She smoked from a hookah, and when she saw me, she took the tip from her lips and offered it up.

  “Care to partake?” Dalton asked.

  “This is some of the stuff you got from Fumus?”

  “It is indeed,” he told me. I could see his true form underneath the billowing black of his ink shadow body. There was just a glimpse, an older man, frail, nothing like the outer body.

  But rather than stare, and feeling like celebrating after our victory, I took a puff of the hookah.

  “Iris?”

  She also took a puff, just about the time I noticed that my vision had changed.

  It was a very subtle change, and I wasn't high per se, but there was a simmering fuzz on the edges of my vision. That, and I could see what looked like soundwaves floating in and around everything.

  “What is this stuff?” I asked Dalton.

  He laughed long and hard. Iris handed him the nozzle, and after a big puff, he handed it back to the drow.

  “Are you seeing stuff too?” I asked Iris.

  Iris nodded. “Soundwaves?”

  “Same here.”

  “I've been trying to get you two to puff this stuff since our first gig,” said Dalton. “It helps you see the music, the vibrations. Look at that plant, remember when I told you to play to it?”

  I remembered, and looking at the plant now, I could see som
ething different about its edges, something almost blurred as it sat quietly in the corner. I glanced to Iris to confirm if she could see it as well, and returned my gaze to the plant.

  It seemed greener than before, neon green even, and looking at it gave me this strange sense of life.

  “You see it now?”

  “I see it,” I told the ink shadow, also noticing the calm aura surrounding his head like a halo.

  “Everything is sound, and sound is everything. Hell, even that plant’s color is sound, that beautiful vibrant green. That's a sound too.”

  I stared intently at the greenness of the plant, noticing upon further examination that the green had a vibration to it, the lighter green wall behind the plant also had a vibration, and its pot, a ceramic pot the color of garnet, had an even more intense vibration around its edges.

  One look at Iris and I saw that she was seeing the same thing as me, an odd look of understanding painting across her face.

  Dalton stretched his arms over his head and floated from the couch to a standing position. “I want you both to think about this while we perform tonight, that everything is vibration. Maybe it'll improve your abilities to improvise.”

  “Let's do this,” I said, inspired by the feeling coursing through me. My bass guitar appeared in my hand and I marched to the door, ready to perform.

  Iris joined me two seconds later, and exchanging smiles, both our smiles containing the fact that we had just come to understand something that many would never understand, we stepped onto the stage.

  “How do you want to do this?” I asked Iris.

  Last night, we’d played a little intro to get the crowd worked up, a crowd that was half the size of the crowd now waiting for us to begin. A few cheered our names; more faces turned to the stage.

  The place was packed, and if there had been a fire marshal in Kingdom Lume, he wouldn't have been happy to see this.

  I spotted Lady C., Magnus and Ophelia up front, a stack of books on the table behind them. The Midnight Library was set up so that people could sit at their high tables while the crowd stood around them, reminding me of lily pads jutting out of a marsh.

  I thought about this pond as I began playing a low rumbly note with my fingers, a sound that seemed like nonsense at first.