An: Holy shit, I’m fucking stupid. I used the drop thing instead of the publishers thing. My stupid ass did it again!
Last we left off: Jack, Taro, and Tea had entered the forest with the intention of teaching the two new hunters how to shoot animals. Jack showed his ineptitude while Taro showed his average talent by only injuring a deer. They tracked the trail to its dead body and proceeded to butcher it. A bear showed up and severely injured Tea. Jack stayed back to fend it off and ended up in a tree with many superficial injuries. He now stares down the gullet of the beast as it attempts to shake him down.
‘What am I going to do?’ Jack thought to himself as he continued to stare down the roaring mouth of the bear currently trying to shake him down from the tree like one shook sand off their body. The only reason why he didn’t fall down was because of him using his Tree Walking Technique to stay stuck to the tree.
He couldn’t use Piercing Fang on his knife because it required at least a second of concentration to bring it up. If he fell away from the bear he wouldn’t be able to get back up in time because he has only a week’s worth of fall training. Mostly as a side effect of every failed attempt of Tree Walking training.
The only thing he could do is keep using his technique until either the bear got bored and left, or his Chakra got too tired and he couldn’t keep up the technique anymore. With the fact that he exhausted it from two minutes of full-powered Body Enhancement, he could, at most, last another 10 minutes or so. Based on how the bear was still on his tree two minutes in and still didn’t seem to calm down, he didn’t like his chances of it just getting bored.
Still, what other option did he have? Climb up the tree? With how violent the top part of the tree is, he didn’t know if he liked his odds of staying on compared to down here. So, Jack just continued to hold on with a prayer under his breath and desperate hope in his chest.
God must be real, then. Because his prayer was soon answered with a-
BANG
The bear roared once more, but this time in pain. It stopped shaking the tree and got back down on all fours before shaking its head back and forth while using its front paws to nudge at a missing ear. Jack’s heart finally started to calm a little as he saw this and no longer had to fear imminently falling to his death. He looked at the small field in front of him to see who shot at the bear so far out of here.
His eyes widened in shock as he saw none other than Taro standing just around 25 meters away. Taro’s face showed nothing but grit and determination as he stared back at Jack. He then shouted, “Oi! Get down from there and run away, dumbass! If you don’t, then me being here will be for nothing!” He aimed once more at the bear, who was still shaking its head back and forth while pawing at its missing ear and slightly gushing blood.
Jack couldn’t help but feel a stupid, watery grin form on his face. He could feel his eyes start to water from tears and sting from the salt of it and the sweat flowing down into them. His could even feel snot about to bubble out of him from how hard he wanted to cry at seeing his friend not leaving him behind. He truly thought he was going to be eaten alive, alone in the woods.
Taro fired another shot at the bear, hitting it in the side. Unfortunately, all that did was make the bear focus on him now. Seeing it looking at him, Taro fired off another shot, hitting it in the front right leg. The bear roared at Taro. Jack snapped out of his distracted and joyful state and looked down at the bear getting ready to charge once more. He could see a faint light shining from the left paw. Jack focused and ‘inhaled’.
The bear charged at Taro, whose courage quickly fled once he saw the grey bear charge so quickly he could barely react to it other than recognize it being just 5 meters away from him. Before the bear could lunge and use its claw technique on Taro, it stopped as a weight suddenly dropped onto its back, causing a bunch of pain in the hurt leg that took all of that weight. It roared once more as Taro saw Jack Williams had jumped from the tree and land feet first onto the back of the bear. Now he laid flat on his stomach on its back, clenching onto its fur with one hand and holding his hunter’s knife with the other.
This was Jack’s chance! The bear couldn’t easily get to him while he was on top of it, which meant that he could focus on bringing up his Piercing Fang Technique onto his knife! Before the bear could try and buck him off, Jack had only two things on his mind as he closed his eyes.
Execute the Piercing Fang Technique, and never stop clutching onto the fur.
Taro watched on in awe over the next few seconds as the bear shook side to side and roared to get this annoying insect off of it!
Jack, finally, had his Piercing Fang Technique equipped to his knife. He opened his eyes, reared back the hand holding his knife, and aimed to thrust it into the neck of the beast. Taro, seeing Jack rear back, aimed once more and fired into the bear’s uninjured left front leg. The bear shouted its pain to the sky above as it stood on its hindquarters.
Jack got a clear view of its neck and plunged the tip directly into its side where he could see the esophagus was! The loud beast went silent as his airway was blocked by the metal of a large knife. Jack pushed forward his knife to give a large, gaping hole into its throat. Then, Chakra finally fully exhausted, Jack let go as he could feel his body get weak, falling to the ground behind the standing monster.
The bear stayed upright as it choked on its blood and its main artery shooting out almost a cup’s worth of blood every beat. Then it started to sway. Jack looked up as it swayed in his direction and so he quickly rolled his weak body out of the way as it began to fall on him. He made it out just in the nic of time.
The forest was quiet once more.
Taro and Jack panted together in that field, staring at the dead animal. Then they stared at each other.
Jack was the first to break the silence. The gratitude and hysterical joy he felt at seeing Taro again and not dying caused him to cry, sob, and laugh all at the same time. Taro just followed after with some stuttering laughter and wet snorts.
They laughed together.
Line Break Here
The two walked in the forest, heading to where Taro had placed Tea so they could use the med kit to patch themselves up. After just three minutes of walking, they managed to find Tea. “Ah, good. You’re not dead.” Said injured man jokingly said to the two. “I thought I was going to die here from being eaten by wolves or something.” That one was also said jokingly, but it held some wobbliness in it, making it somewhat true.
Jack closed one of his eyes, gave a thumbs up, and gave out a good chuckle. “Don’t worry, Tea! We got that fat bastard for daring to hurt you!” Taro closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and nodded his head. “I would’ve turned him into a rug for you, sir, but I was dealing with Jack’s crybaby face and decided to show him your fine.” Jack immediately turned to Taro with an annoyed and angry look on his face. “Hey! I thought we agreed to never talk about that, ever!” Taro looked away as his face twitched, trying to not laugh as he kept his demeanor up.
Tea gave a deep laugh, before abruptly stopping and groaning as he clutched his shoulder. Both of his students stopped what they were doing and turned back to Tea with concern in their eyes. Tea gave a chuckle soon after. “I’m alright. Just hurry up and patch me up. Jack, use the bottled water, rags, and the antibacterial gel to treat those wounds of yours. Taro, as the only one not wounded, you treat me.” Both men agreed and did as they were told.
Over the next 10 minutes, Jack started to wash and cover his wounds while Taro was being careful tending to Tea’s wounds. Once Jack was done with the last of his wounds, he went to help out Taro.
Then another ten minutes passed as they used water and soap, hydrogen peroxide (ignoring Tea’s screams as they did so), stitches, and gauze to tend to his shoulder wound, before tending to the scratch on his foot. Finally, they brought out their little sled/wagon to put their teacher on to act as a makeshift stretcher. Except Tea told them to do one last thing.
“Yeah, that one, Taro,” Tea said as Taro held up a Capsule Corp. capsule from his teacher’s pack of equipment. “Go ahead and take it out.” After the little puff of concealing smoke, what came out of the capsule was some kind of car battery hooked up to what Jack could only assume was a motor. “Now, there is a little compartment under the sled, here. Hook that in as I tell you to.”
Once Jack and Taro had done so, Tea reached his good arm under the sled and did something that sounded like the pressing of a button. Jack and Taro watched as the battery and motor whirred to life, and Tea’s sled started to rise as the wheels revealed a suspension behind them. This suspension was lengthening with each wheel, and Jack could see with his eyes as the bed of the sled straightened out to be perfectly leveled with the ground. All of the wheels were touching the ground, but they were all at different heights as the ground was bumpy.
“Jack,” The two snapped back to their teacher as he spoke up. “I need you to push me to the truck. Taro will use the compass and map to lead us there. He’ll also be the one on the look out for more dangerous animals, since he’s the only one able to use a gun effectively.” Jack grimaced at the mention of his… lack of talent when it comes to guns. The image of the bullet in the tree next to Taro’s head coming to mind.
So they did. Jack got behind the sled to push it, and realized something as he did so. It was significantly easier to push the sled than usual. Like, comparable to an empty shopping cart easy. He looked at the wheels, and noticed that they were bumping and going up and down as it followed the bumpy ground, but the bed of the cart was barely moving at all. He turned back to Tea to ask about it, but then saw his smug smirk as he had his eyes closed.
Jack glared at the injured man for forcing him and Taro to have to go through so much pain and misery just to pull some meat back to the truck.
Still, they did not talk as they walked back. 10 minutes in, Jack decided to use his Nurturing River Technique to get rid of the soreness in his muscles. He used it for an entire 30 minutes, loving the fact that he could easily push Tea up hills with his recovered strength.
Line Break Here
“Thank you, boys. Once again, I have to thank you.” Tea told them as he was lifted into the bed of the truck. His body and the sled were just small enough to fit in it, with the sled almost automatically lifting its wheels to help get the sled in. This is probably something Tea thought about when he bought the sled.
“Don’t worry about it, sir.” Taro said to him. Jack saw his eye twitch when they saw the sled have an automatic feature to lift the sled and its contents into the truck, so Jack knew that Taro was just as annoyed as him at what Tea had them do for the past few weeks. Yet, they also knew they weren’t going to bother Tea with this revelation. At least, while Tea was still injured. They’ll do it after Pol looks over him.
“Yeah, we’ll get you to Dr. Pol En in no time, and then we’ll bring your wife to worry and nag over you.” At hearing about his wife nagging, Tea’s gratitude waned a little. It was better than dying, at least. Jack looked back to Taro, getting his friend’s attention. “Do you want to be back here, keep an eye on him? I’ll drive us back.” Taro confidently nodded back. Jack smiled, and jumped off the side of the trunk before closing its door. Taro sat down by Tea’s head, which was right under the small, sliding back window panel.
Jack walked up to the driver’s side and got in. As he started up the truck, he couldn’t help but think about Taro. Firstly, Taro was back on speaking terms with him, which lightened Jack’s heart. Second, Taro seemed a lot more confident now. Probably from standing up to a bear and helping in killing it.
Finally, Jack was going to leave as soon as he and Dr. Pol En could, but he really didn’t want to leave behind Taro. His friend was starting to rapidly become his best friend. Leaving him behind was, well, not very palatable. Yet, he couldn’t think of a reason to bring him with them when they leave in just a couple of months.
Either Jack could convince Taro to come with them, or he’ll have to make a very difficult choice…
Jack snapped out of his thoughts as he heard knocking on the back window. “Hey?!” The muffled shout of Taro sounded out. “What’s the problem?! Are out of gas or something?!” Jack turned his head to look back at Taro with a smile. “No! Just letting this old lady warm up! I thought you knew about that, what with Ruby and all?!” Taro gave an annoyed glare and tsk’d before getting back into position. “Just hurry up!” Jack sat back forward and put the truck in Drive. “All right! Next stop, Home!”
He has time till then, it wasn’t like anything bad was going to happen in the next few weeks, either.
Line Break Here
Ralph Wrecking pedaled as hard as he could. His bike was not meant for speed, but for ease of pedaling. It had a slightly smaller gear for his pedal than it did for his back wheel. Despite that, Ralph was flying down the street at the rate of an Olympic’s sprint. His heart was pumping, not just from the exercise, but from what he saw just two hours ago.
Yesterday, the police had all of its hunters gear up for battle with the incoming threat. They set up within various storefronts and had all of the citizens evacuate to their homes. A few snipers were on top of buildings, and what little hunters they had in the town joined them in preparation. Then, he came into town.
A giant bear man whose body was littered with scars, wounds, and sported a missing eye. Recently, too, with that blood pouring out. The police had used a megaphone to command him to stand down, or they would fire upon him. The bear man just scoffed, and told them back that if they surrendered their wealth, he wouldn’t kill them all in front of their families. The police replied by opening fire.
It wasn’t effective at all.
The man just stood there for a few seconds, letting the bullets hit him and crumple to the ground or just bounce off somewhere else. Then he roared and charged the closest storefront with policemen inside. He slaughtered all of them. Then he went back out and went to the next storefront. Then the next. And the next. Then he climbed up a building to get to their roof using his clawed hands and feet, and killed the snipers and policemen up there.
He kept killing and killing, until the opposition was killed. Until he stood, alone. Soon after, an entire band of bandits came up with equipment and tents. Seeing this, the townsfolk surrendered immediately. Many stores were looted from, mostly jewelry stores and technology stores, but others were as well.
After they looted the stores, they slept in the various homes and motels of the town as they saw fit. The leader, Moon Shine, slept in the Mayor’s Office and had his father and his secretary tend to his every need for that first night. Ralph couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw this, and ran away back home. Thankfully, no bandit decided to sleep in his and his mother’s home.
Ralph didn’t know what to do at all, and his mother was even worse off. Her fear was so great that she started to hallucinate and started to call him by many men’s names. He didn’t know who they were, but he had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with what his father told him about her.
In the end, they both decided to sleep and deal with it in the morning. However, the bandits weren’t done with tormenting them, yet.
In the morning, the bandits woke everyone up at 6 AM, and herded them all to the mayor building’s entrance. Regardless of whether they were a kid, woman, or elderly, all were sent there. Including Ralph and his mother.
There, Moon Shine, now bandaged up and wearing an eyepatch, stood in front of everyone to give a speech with his father standing right beside him.
“Good people of Wasabi!” Moon Shine shouted out into a microphone-speaker system for them all to hear. “I sincerely hope you’ve had a good rest last night, because today will be the first day for the rest of your new lives living under us!” His wide grin of sadistic pleasure was seen by all. The citizens huddled together tighter to each other at the news. “You’ve been under the protection of the World Kingdom for quite a while now, so you don’t know the reality of the world outside of it. Don’t worry, I’m here to show you what it means.”
He then held up his hand, showing all five of his fingers spread out. “From now on, all wealth gained here will be taxed at 50%!” The murmurs in the crowd turned to fear and outrage. “Don’t worry, though, you no longer will you have to pay the World Kingdom its tax. Instead, the new Moon Kingdom shall be your faithful leader!” He then pointed to himself with his thumb. “And I shall be your new Bandit King!”
Outrage was no longer a murmur, but was now loud enough to be heard by a good portion of the crowd, and by Moon Shine as well. “Oh? Someone’s dissatisfied with their new law? Well, then, bring them up, boys!” Ralph watched as a classmate of his, one he knew of to be a violent troublemaker, was dragged up to the stage like a wild animal. His thrashing certainly made him look like one.
Moon Shine chuckled. “Now, young man, tell me.” He leaned in close and held up a sword underneath his chin. “Did you just say that you weren’t going to pay your taxes? That’s a crime, you know? Punishable by death.” Ralph felt his heart drop, as he knew that the classmate, who he knew not the name of, was too prideful to back down from anything. “Yeah…” The classmate said, loud enough for the nearby microphone to pick it up. “Yeah, I ain’t paying you shit!”
Moon Shine paused, getting an idea, before turning to Mayor Wrecking. He held out his sword to him. “Well, you heard him, Mayor, he’ll need to be executed for such a crime. Go on, take up the sword and do it.” Ralph watched as his father’s face was terrified and sweating. Still, he picked up the sword and walked to the teenager. He hesitated, glanced back at Moon Shine, before swinging the sword at the teen’s neck.
The swing was clean as it sliced open the neck and caused the teen to choke on his own blood. He died just a few seconds later. This scene caused the crowd to gasp in fright, before falling silent. Ralph’s father panted, and his arms and sword were shaking from what he’s done.
Moon Shine roared with laughter and clapped his big, furred hands. His own men laughed alongside him. “Well done, Wrecking, well done!” Then he took the sword from the shaking man, and looked at the blood staining the handle. “However,” Moon Shine growled out, still a sadistic smile on his face. “The second law, is that only the military men of the new Moon Kingdom may execute criminals. Anyone else who does so, is considered a criminal.”
Mayor Wrecking no longer trembled, and just stared into Moon Shine’s eyes. “B-But- You-” He said no more, as his head was lobbed off from Moon Shine’s swing.
Ralph didn’t know what happened afterwards, as all he could do was stare at his father’s disembodied head. The Bandit King talked, something happened, and then he talked some more. Ralph didn’t know how long time had passed until the crowd around him bumped into him as they trudged back to their homes. He looked around, and saw his Mom on her knees nearby, just staring at her husband’s body and head.
Her eyes were dead. Just like his father’s. She may be breathing, but her soul has definitely passed on.
Ralph turned and booked it back home. He only had one shot of what he needed to do.
There, he found his bike, a map, some tents he and his father used to do for camping back when he was young, and a water canteen to bring clean water with him. He packed up everything he could think of to deal with a long journey, and headed north. Headed towards East City, to inform them of what was happening.
He didn’t know how he managed to slip past the bandits guarding the town, but he was grateful for his newfound luck. He just hoped that luck didn’t run out.
AN: Managed to get this out today. Hopefully I can get the next one out on Friday. Thanks for reading!