Advrik can't remember a time he'd used his phone more, and he was beginning to grow sick of the notification sound effect.
He only wished he could have given Brigid her own specific sound so that he wouldn't eagerly reach for his phone every time someone texted him.
The wolf looked at his phone now with a tinge of disappointment as he read the text from the Mayor's Office. It was another job offer.
"That your girlfriend again?"
Desmond chimed in across the street, watching his wolfy partner stalk through the woods on the opposite side. Still close enough to hear the jingle of Advrik's phone going off, but far enough away that, beneath the shadowy cover of the forest's canopy, he was a shapeless blob.
"She's not my girlfriend. We're just friends, and we've got a lot to talk about, is all..." He paused for a second, allowing the signal to drop.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't try and make excuses, dumb wolf." The mole's voice came through Advrik's earpiece clear as day. They had used the bounty profits from the Chimera hunt last month to give their communicative gear a substantial upgrade. The cheap K-Mart stuff they bought wasn't going to last, and the quality left a lot to be desired.
So they ordered cheap Amazon stuff to replace it.
"Remind me again what one of these nests looks like again, Des," Advrik whispered, another twig snapping beneath his paws as he moved deeper into the woods and further out of sight.
***
Days earlier...
Following the announcement of Garou Zophar's visit to Brickhedge in the coming week, the town had been up in the hustle and bustle, the likes of which it had never known. Within hours, media outlets started rolling into town in their vans with camera crews and reporters inside. More vehicles than Advrik could remember were moving through the streets, making places that were largely considered safe for kids to play a sudden danger zone as journalists and the like flooded the town hoping for a scoop or to be the first to put Brickhedge on the map.
First came the local news stations, then the big ones. CNN, Faux News, Cloud1, etc. Brickhedge's existence was going international, and the little town hidden away in the mountains would no longer be the secret it once was.
That fact had sent the town's longtime residents into an uproar. Shops were closed midday to keep photographers out, locals declined to talk to journalists, and even the police refused interviews when asked about the crime rate and monster population in town.
Mayor Filbert had seen the worst of it, however, as he spent all day giving interviews to various outlets, some even giving him scripts to read when asked certain questions. This was a sly, malicious act of controlling the narrative being delivered so that the outlet if questioned later on, could truthfully claim the interview was unedited.
The third day of the media flood brought the question to the surface of just how safe Brickhedge was and whether Dispel fields should be erected before the Zophar's arrival. The mayor had done his best to alleviate the concerns over Magitek, citing that only the police force and a select few freelancers had been hired to tend to the monster population and had actual knowledge of Magitek's ways.
The mayor, who had seen his ability to deal with the crowds develop in such a short amount of time, had assured them that an investigation of all zones outside of town had been conducted, even relaying the fact that seven monster nests had been found(honesty on that part had been encouraged by Eligh) and that a team had already been contracted to tend to them, assuring the inquiring minds that all would be safe and sound when Mr. Zophar arrived...
***
The present...
"First, watch your step. Secondly, most monster nests tend to look like gross, almost pulsating boils in the ground. Just keep your eyes glued to the forest floor and where it looks like the ground might be breathing."
Advrik stopped dead in his tracks. "Breathing?"
"Yes, dipshit. Breathing. You've seen those videos online. Just look for that and then toss one of those vials in and then run." The mole momentarily flipped the bluetooth off and rubbed the bridge of his snout, tentacles curling as if making annoyed little fists. "Two hunts with this wolf, and he's failed to do his research both times. Fuckin-A."
"...one! Almost fell in," his partner was saying midsentence as the connection between communicators was re-established. "Desmond, man, c'mon! You didn't tell me that it'd be soft!"
The wolf stepped back, frantically kicking the gelatinous near-translucent goo from his paw and watching in awe as the forest floor, which he had just stomped a hole through, stitched itself back together into the very image it had maintained until now, right down to the same pile of leaves he'd gone through!
The ground rose upward, fake leaves and twigs rustling with a foley artist-like rustle. The trees, which must have had their roots destroyed, moved with the pulsating forest floor as a deep, low grumble echoed from far below.
"Desmond, I think I'm about to get the 'Get off my property!' rant," Advrik mused, gazing at the imitation forest floor as it receded and exposed a cavern below.
"Yeah," the mole barked, "No shit, Sherlock. You just kicked in their front door. I'd be pissed, too."
Exploding through the deep, dark tunnel below the forest floor, a giant beast-sized insect took to the air, its dry rustling wings sounding like a sheet of wax paper being balled up. The monster shot straight into the air, then, like an arrow, shot straight down, landing atop the forest floor with a sense of grace and weightlessness that betrayed its bulk.
The dark-shelled creature stood upright on two legs, cutting the image of a cloaked figure amid a lush green forest. The sun ray that cut through the rustling canopy momentarily revealed the creature's face. Advrik blinked twice, trying to separate the image the monster had suddenly created from what it actually was: The monster stood upright, about six feet tall, with broad shoulders, its wings folded in front of the insect-like body like a cloak. The most surprising feature was that, if one wasn't paying attention to this thing on a busy city street, one might mistake it for an elderly canid of some sort.
It had held its two mandibles up, placing them together and creating a mask with minimum canid qualities. Like those caterpillars that had evolved to imitate snakes to ward off potential predators, only this was a predator that had developed a sort of camouflage that allowed it to mingle WITH its prey.
Clearly understanding that the wolf standing before it had already seen its true form, the imitation dog face split down the center as the monster lowered its arms, revealing the grotesque insect face beneath!
"Desmond, we got a mimic."
The cloaked figure exploded in a flurry of rapidly fluttering wings and chitinous scraping as the monster's limbs rubbed together as it took flight.
Advrik summoned his Magitek sword in a short, blue-and-white burst of magic sparks! The insect monster buzzed just overhead as the sword finished its rapid materialization, revealing a long handle in the wolf's hand and an even longer, shimmering blue blade!
The wolf was fast, but the monster was faster as it shot overhead, its carapace-covered mandible reaching out and grazing the back of his ear as he rolled out of the way.
Standing upright, Advrik fell into his favorite stance as the insect monster circled overhead, coming back around for a second attack. But he'd be ready this time; He held his sword at waist-level with both hands, blade pointed slightly to the right. The blue metal, the three-foot-long blade, had been crafted to catch the sun's rays and refract the light against the trees.
As the monster drew in for the kill, so did the wolf, drawing his sword up to eye level, the sharpened side of the blade held to the sky. His legs spread apart, and his right leg bent slightly, ready to propel him forward.
The monster came down on him as he bolted forward, sword arcing downward and scraping off the monster's shoulder but finding purchase in the flexible tissue that held it together at the joints! The insect screeched an eardrum-shattering scream as the sword slice clean through its elbow, separating it from one of its mandibles as the bulk of the beast crashed through the foliage, heading for...
***
"What the fuck was that?!" Mimics don't have vocal cords; they're just possessed toy chests--" Desmond ranted over the earpiece. That was when he witnessed the monster as it crashed onto the highway that led into town. Standing in broad daylight, fully exposed to the noontime sun. Desmond had come face to face with his first monster.
He silently mouthed the words "Fuck me" as he attempted to slide off the hood of Toyota without catching the attention of the giant insect.
To the mole's amazement, the monster stood there, definitely staring back at him, but it did so from behind what looked like half of a Halloween mask: An old dog or something.
Desmond realized the monster was only half-disguised, noting the absent right arm. "That's what Advrik meant," he thought, the car's hood making a bump! noise as it popped back into place, no longer bearing the mole's weight.
"Advrik, where are you, man?!" he said lightly into the mic, voice whimpering as he felt the bulbous eyes of the monster follow him from the front of the car to the driver's side door. The mole knew full well that no vehicle short of military-grade stuff was going to stop this thing from getting him. But just maybe if he drove off...
The wolf had gone radio silent, likely either fighting more of these things or having just lost his earpieces in the resulting chaos. Either way, Desmond was alone and now had to fight for his life for the first time.
"I guess it's now or never," Desmond said with a quivering voice, stirring the monster into a fit as it fell on all six of its legs and readied itself to pounce.
Desmond blinked, kept his eyes closed for a solid second, daring to let the monster that would surely butcher him out of sight for just that long, began to conjure his Magitek--
The amount of surprise that went around was copious; Desmond, in the middle of summoning something, the giant insect monster as it exploded against the grill of the until then unseen and unheard eighteen-wheeler with the faded K-Mart logo on the side, and finally, the driver of said truck as he slammed on the breaks against the impact. The truck slid several yards on halted wheels, smearing the definitely dead monster's yellow-green blood across the highway.
"--mond! Desmond, do you copy? I just killed another one of those things." The wolf's voice was nice to hear again, Desmond thought. "Desmond, are you there? Over."
"Yeah, Advrik. I'm here." He paused for a second, then said, "I just killed one of the fuckers, too," he lied.
***
The forest floor expanded upward, like the belly of a giant inhaling, and then it rapidly collapsed in on itself. The vial's contents had done their job by destroying the unique, weak magic field monsters used to create their dens. Assuming they weren't truly massive, anything left down there would quickly be suffocated or crushed.
The packaging read, "99.8% effectiveness rate at destroying monster dens!" It was a special concoction invented in the 1960s to combat the increasing occurrence of monster dens.
"That's one down, six to go..." Advrik sighed, taking advantage of this brief reprieve to check his text messages. There was one from Brigid; a reply had come down in the last several minutes.
BRIGID: I hope the monster hunt's going well! I better see your face in the newspaper again after this. ;3
He smiled, then began typing his reply. He wasn't sure how he felt about the fox just yet, but he certainly wouldn't deny the simple truth that he enjoyed chatting with her. She wasn't like some of the girls he'd talked to in the past; she didn't get agitated if he didn't reply immediately. Hell, she'd never sent a reply that was shorter than seven words in length. Not getting "LOL" as a reply was so refreshing.
"Just sealed up the first den, moving on to the next." He hit send, then sent away his sword, gathered his rucksack, and started back for the road, where he had parked his car.
Moments later, her reply dinged his phone, which made the old AIM instant messenger sound upon retrieval.
BRIGID: That's great! What kind of monster was it? You can tell me later if you're still busy. No rush!
The wolf stopped short of the highway, not even noticing the gruff truck driver standing beside his little mole friend at the top of the hill. He rapidly typed a reply, then replaced his phone to join his friend, curious about what happened to the other monster and why there were bits and pieces of it scattered up and down Highway 91.
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