20 The Hunt begins...

*** Karls Perspective *** We continue to journey over the roofs as it's just a quicker way to travel through the city while not stirring up any extra attention. I'am still having trouble with guessing the needed strength for some jumps as the Buildings are not always the same distance apart, not to mention the height differences from time to time. But I still manage to continue the conversation. "Ok. So the Durants have some nasty abilities, like Swarm and Hustle so the main Idea is finishing them fast possibly in one to two hits. So that either their abilities don't activate at all or they don't have the time to use them, either option is fine. To manage that we will try to catch them off guard. Ideally only in small groups, best of course when they are alone, although I doubt that we will find any walking around alone. As you already know they prefer to travel and live in groups to defend themselves." I struggle to land right for once and stumble a few steps before continuing. "So we will lay low wait for them to pass by and then hit them when they don't expect it. But for that we first need to scout ahead and find out the routes they use to travel. Durants are... well back in my old world we called them Ants, only that they were much much smaller. Ants use the same routes they once found over and over again, only straying of them when passing is impossible. So once we found the routes they use to patrol we can wait for them." - I look over to check if she understood what I just said. After all my main focus is not jumping in some wall falling down a few meters, only to hit the ground hard. She just nods and says: "Makes sense. So far I get the idea. Any more details?" "Sure. So because their armor and outer carapace is so hard we try to go for the eyes or the legs. I would say if aiming for the eyes is too hard or troublesome, we just try to rip off their legs so immobilize them, then we can take all the time to finish them off." Cate starts staring at me: "You mean, like taking off all their limbs before killing them? Isn't that a bit gruesome?" "Might be, but if we really want to fight against them, with our numbers we have to use everything we have at our disposal. I'am a bit freaked out about the idea as well. But I believe we have to roll with it. Do you have a better idea? I really am open for suggestions especially if they seem less psychopath." At this point, we stopped running, and are standing in the middle of some roof between some big white Air conditioning Systems and a Water Reservoir. "Can't we trap them somewhere and take care of them afterward, defeating them in a more normal way?" Oh... that's right. I can't believe I did not think of that beforehand. I had so much trouble in defeating my first Pokémon and even more in eating one and now I just think this coldheartedly. I may turn crazy if I don't pay more attention to it... "You are right we can do that, you don't have any good ideas for traps do you?" - I ask that would be ideal. "No...sadly.. not yet? But I'm sure I'am able to think of something! - she seems a bit troubled but nothing a good idea can't solve I think,... well I hope so. "It's alright lets just both think of something, I'm sure we'll figure out something. Let's move!" She nods and we continue running. It's mostly quiet between the two of us while we try to figure out how to trap the durants. It would be really helpful if I could finally figure out how I can learn certain Attacks or just their elements. All this guessing is really annoying me quite badly. Best would be to have a fire attack, but I am not sure how I can get one... wait. "Hey Cate, do you know how many Heatmors are left to hunt the Durants?" "No, a couple I guess? I haven't seen too many but I haven't been searching for them either. Why?" "Well, I think I already have an idea on how we can improve our chances of success..." *** About 5 Minutes later *** Edge of the City We reach the end of the city and come to a stop. "So what do you think Cate?" "Overall the ideas are not all too bad, but I wonder if we can combine them somehow." "I guess that would be difficult but if we could that would help us a lot. I think we should give it some more thought. I know we just reached the end of the city and aren't even in the territory of the Durants but do you think we could just sleep until the sun rises again? I think scouting out in daylight would be better for us, I guess it doesn't matter to you because of your night vision, but I would feel more comfortable that way." "Sure we can take a break, I'm not in a hurry so it's not like I care and we just ate so I'm not too hungry to sleep." "Great, I slept before I met you but I guess I can use the time it takes me to fall asleep for some thinking. Do you know a safe spot around here?" "Sure, I know my way around this town and it's vicinity. Just follow me." I nodded and start following, we follow a smaller dirt road out of the city to our left a forest is slowly starting to build up with more and more trees, on our left side the trees disappear and huge fields of rice appear, even someone with no clue about farming can recognize the fields with small rivulets in between the plants. I don't think Pokémon are interested in those, at least I believe so. Cate doesn't care as far as I can see. Well no wonder, what would a Pokémon do with uncooked rice? Anyhow, we continue walking next to the rice fields after about a hundred meters we turn into the forest and walk along a small stream on a pathway that seems only to be used by smaller Pokémon. We pass by a huge tree that fell over and knocked over three smaller trees. We walk off the pathway and around the three smaller trees. Two of them had to stand really close to each other before they got taken down by the bigger tree, it fell right in between them so that the trees fell away from each other in some kind of V-Shape. One of the smaller ones and the big one now create a small save space, which can't be seen from every side and protects you from other Pokémon and wind. Some of the thicker branches are still on the tree so that they form some kind of roof if you consider entwining branches without leaves a roof. It's not protecting you from rain or snow but at least bird type Pokémon will have a hard time if they want to attack you from above. These fallen trees make a fairly good shelter for the night, I would prefer sleeping in the treetops but I guess this way I don't have to worry about falling out of the tree. "This is the place I was searching for so,... what do you think?" - she asks looking back at me. "It's good I have to say that much, I slept in trees quite a few times but I guess this will be a lot more comfortable." - I look around once more and nod in approval. "Alright then, see you tomorrow then. Tell me if you notice any movements or smell something funny. I will on the other side." - she nods in the direction of where the big tree next to us knocked over the other smaller tree creating a similar hideout. "Ok, I guess that works out, too. I thought we would stand guard in turns but I guess that unnecessary?" - I ask, with a confused expression. "Yeah sure we could do that, but I guess that would be overkill. We are really quite safe here, I slept here a lot of times and never had anything happen to me." "Ok I guess, you are the expert. Well then, see you tomorrow." - I bow my head in her direction and lie down. "Sure, see you tomorrow." - She replies giving me a confused look. Before jumping onto the tree and climbing over it. *** Cate's Perspective *** What's up with him and all this bowing? He is one weird fellow. Well, whatever I hope he figures out whatever he is planing and I hope it works. I really don't want to deal with the Durants all that much. They give me the creeps, to be honest... I lie down between the two trees, under the weird branch roof full of holes. And not long after fall asleep. *** Next Morning *** It takes me a couple of minutes to wake up completely. For some reason, I feel like Karl hasn't woken up yet. So I jump on top of the tree to check on him. He isn't there anymore. Must have gone to take a leak. I guess I will just wait. About 20 minutes go by but Karl doesn't seem to appear anymore. I'm beginning to get worried. *** Karl's Perspective *** About 20 minutes earlier... I wake up to the sound of a bunch of pigets singing in the trees around me. I slept like a stone, I don't know why but I haven't slept this good since I became a Pokémon. I have no idea if this is supposed to be a good sign or just the calm before the storm. Either way, a good night of sleep is a night well... spend? I get up and look around, seeing nothing that should unsettle me I decide to check on Cate. I climb on top of the big tree and look down into a similar tight space like the one I slept in. She seems to be getting a good rest as well. Maybe not a deep slumber like me, which I guess is better if you don't want to die out here. I decide to let her sleep a bit more and head out without her getting my preparations done. Before falling asleep I had some good ideas I want to test out. If this should work out as planned the job should be done after a few days. Sadly most of it will be preparing. Ok,... now to the weird part. Well, weird for me. I trust my sense for orientation but I want to make sure I find this spot again, and not lose my first friend in this stupid forest. So a Mightyena Mutant gotta do what a Mightyena Mutant gotta do. I run down the big fallen tree and jump the tree top where once of where once were a ton of branches. I turn around to check if nobody is watching. should be far enough of. I nod to myself. Now being alone and undisturbed I take a leak and deliberately mark my territory for the first time. My sense of smell got a lot better so why not use that fact to my advantage as every territorial animal does. Now feeling weightless compared to before, my search can begin. I head to the small stream we followed to find this place, to drink some water if I find any Heatmors on my way there even better. But aside from the pidgets in the treetops, I don't seem to find any other Pokémon and after about two minutes I arrive at a spot where I can drink safely without risking slipping on the wet rocks into the small stream. Wouldn't kill me that's for sure. But I would be annoyed by being wet for the next two hours. As a human I never had that problem, most of my life my hair was short and dried quickly, but now the fur on my back is fairly long and I'm sure that it won't dry as quickly as my short human hair. After drinking I scout around for heatmors or durants, whatever I find the counterpart can't be far. I find a used dirt path, probably trampled down by the Pokémon living here, as the branches and bushes are mostly intact and not broken off over the height of my head, which surely would have happened when humans would have used this path. Finding this meant that I was on the right track. I follow the path for five minutes finding berries here and there that I remember from the games, not having any negative effects. I get the ones in reach and take two with me in my mouth after I ate the other ones. I'am not exactly sure what effects they have but maybe they'll help later on. Even if they don't... fine with me. I've always liked snacks. I come to a stop before the path leads between to big boulders. The left one even has a tree growing on top of it. I decide not to walk between them but climb up the left one to get some vision of what lies behind them first. I start climbing where the Tree roots start to dig into the ground, the tree roots make it much easier to find hold with my claws. A few moments pass and I reach the top. I can see that the terrain from here on turns out to be much more rocky, soft and damp earth turns into a hard stone floor littered with rocks. I decide to climb up the tree to get some more vision, climbing trees somehow became one of my easiest tasks, after sleeping in the treetops and branches. Being a Mightyena this normally shouldn't be normal, but I guess training it and the random evolutions I went through helped with it. I reach the highest and thickest branch, which I believe is able to hold my body weight. Now my vision is less obstructed because I can look over some of the trees and I realize the reason for the changes in terrain. All this is the start of a mountain. There is not much vegetation, so I guess the earth is just a bit too hard to grow bigger plants. I see some kind of farn-plant growing out of the mountainside. Which is a bit weird I always thought they were plants that need more water. But whatever, it really doesn't matter to me. What I need are some heatmors before I pay attention to the durants. And I get the feeling that this might be the spot I was looking for. I hear something, but I don't know what it can be. Sounds like a flamethrower, but neither humans here make sense nor them carrying flamethrowers. I decide to jump down from my watchtower-tree and check what causes this sound. I leap off the boulder and walk along the tree line at the bottom of the mountain, after a short while I spot them. Five red and brown colored Pokémon standing on their hind-legs. Nearly standing at one and a half meters tall. These Heatmors are the Pokémon equivalent of anteaters in this world. They are busily incinerating everything in sight, by blasting fireballs at the twelve durants. The durants scream in pain, and the sound of agonizing pain mixes with the sound of blazing flames. One Durants seems to have gotten away and run back into their lair. Leaving his melting mates behind. A heatmor splits of the group while the others seem to pull their smoking prey away from the tunnel entrance. This should be my chance. I doubt I can take on 5 heatmors not yet. Especially after seeing this slaughter. I'm not willing to risk it. But one? In a tunnel where it's hard to turn around? With my speed, it should be a fairly easy job. I jump forward, propelling me towards the same tunnel entrance all the other heatmors just turned their back to. I arrive there at a speed that even surprises me, barely making any sound. The Heatmor still didn't notice me, the Durant looks back for a moment, I would have thought that's because of the Heatmore, but it looked me directly into the eyes when I landed behind the Heatmor. All three of us continue running, the Durant having the knowledge of the tunnel layout is a bit faster than the Heatmor which has to look a bit more carefully to not run into some wall or lower parts of the tunnel. I want to take care of the heatmor as fast as possible so that I can kill the durant too before it can call for help if I get surrounded here things would look much worse. I get to the Heatmor and take a final leap reaching its tail. I ram my front claws into it's back and my teeth into its tail right at the bottom of its tail, sealing the oxygen pipe inside its tail used for producing the internal fires it creates to attack. The Heatmor finally notices me, but it's too late. Not being able to light me on fire because I sealed off its Oxygen access, it just screams in pain. I don't let go, but rip my head from side to side, slowly ripping the tail apart from its body. The pain seems to be too much for it and it collapses onto its back legs. That downwards movement is enough for the tail to completely separate from its body. At this point in time the fleeing Durant, just looks at me in shock, not knowing if I really just saved it or if I am just another enemy. I let go of the tail and drop it to the floor of the tunnel system. Right now I decided differently. Heatmors are way bigger than expected, this thing might as well be my breakfast and the breakfast for Cate. Maybe if I don't attack it now, it will call its other buddies on me. Anyhow, I have to finish off the Heatmor first. I jump onto the back of the Heatmor when it turned its head towards me in pain. Looking into my eyes angrily. It seems like becoming the hunted after thinking of being the hunter didn't crush its will to live. Out of its mouth is shooting a tongue of fire, just way wider and less dense looking than expected. All the images I have seen as a human the fire-tongue looked way thinner and the fire more controlled, less flakey. The tip actually hits me, I didn't expect any resistance. Which caught me off guard, extremely stupid of me. To my surprise, I actually manage to pass through its tongue of fire, which I didn't think was possible. I guess ripping off its tail made the oxygen supply it pulls in less controlled, even though that it, doesn't disable it. The tongue hitting me is hot, but not really painful. It feels like this thing you did as a child when you move your finger through the fire of a candle. Although it's one of the slower versions where you actually burn yourself slightly. Normally I would go for its Neck now, but the Heatmors neck is really thick, way thicker then its tail, so I am worried that I can't snap it with enough force. My thought process ends as the heatmor breathes in and prepares another attack. I try to jump to the other side of its body as it would have to turn around its head completely to get me. That's when it manages to fire off one of the fireballs that earlier completely fried the durants outside. Luckily it fired it off when its head was only halfway rotated into my direction. The fireball is just like the tongue before, much more flakey not as concentrated but way wider. Now filling half the width of the tunnel into my direction and into the direction of the durant. The wall it hits becomes black after giving the rock a layer of ash. I try to jump out of the way, as much as it's possible in this tunnel. Halfway over it's back I close my eyes as the outer part of the fireball hits me. The heat covers my body, similar to the feeling of its previous attack it hurts, even though not worse than before it still is an attack of a way bigger scale. The attack goes by and as I open my eyes I see that the tips of my hair at my legs are all curled up. Luckily that attack didn't make me go bald. As if that was the worst that could have happened. My paws touch the ground and I decide to leap towards the heatmor again. The heatmor looks shocked at me recovering that fast and tries to crawl away towards the durant, as it's hind legs have stopped helping him move moments ago. My head passes it's snout and we get on eye-level, I could swear I could just see the panic and terror in its eyes. I snap my head around now directly facing its head, which compared to its neck is much smaller. I rip my mouth open faster then I ever have in my life and use crunch as my jaw reaches over and under its head. And then a moment later it's all over. Surely one of the most critical hits you can land. As my mouth snaps shut, I can feel the bone of the heatmors skull shatter between my teeth. The taste of blood fills my mouth. As my teeth sewer all the nerve cords which connect brain and body the heatmore becomes lifeless nearly instantly. I let go of the body and check for the durant. It ran away earlier, but I don't want to get backstabbed by the Pokémon I am supposed to hunt. I can't see the durant anywhere and decide it's best to retreat before it comes back with friends. Come to speak of it I wonder where the other heatmors are... ... I saw them pulling away durants from their killing field, hopefully, they aren't around to spot me. I decide that thinking about it is less useful than actually checking out where they are. I look down at the now-dead heatmor. What I see catches me off-guard and I nearly have to puke. Deep teeth marks are covering the crushed skull the brown fur around the marks is now colored blood red. The eyes look like they are ready to pop out of the skull at any minute, and the blood coming out of the eyes doesn't make the view much better. I close my eyes and try to shake the picture out of my head. I grab the heatmore by the thick neck and drag it slowly towards the exit of the tunnel. Which actually isn't as easy as the heatmor is quite a bit bigger than me. I reach the exit and put the heatmor down for a moment to sneak up on the tunnel opening, to peak at any potential heatmors waiting for me. When I spot one pulling the last durant into the forest, right on the opposite side of the tunnel entrance. I jump back to grab the heatmore and sprint out of the cave as fast as I can, it's only a matter of seconds after they come to check on their packmate. I run off to the right side towards the boulder with the tree on it. and into the forest. It can't be long until they smell something is fishy. *** Cates perspective *** *** Minutes later *** I'm getting worried. I haven't seen him for a while now. I decided to search for him and reached the small stream and start drinking. After I finished I look up and spot the dark silouett of a Pokémon carrying a heatmor on it's back which is quite a bit bigger then it. I turn around to face it, when the heatmor drops into the stream and the Pokémon under it starts talking. "Oh, good moring. So you woke up?" My mouth drops open, "What the fuck?!" *** to be continued ***

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