Chapter Text
All Joule could see was pitch black darkness. His body felt warm, a sharp kind of heat similar to holding your hand too close to a campfire; it's like he was in a sensory deprivation tank. Well, apart from the sharp ringing of his ears that felt like it was boring a hole right through his skull. Wait, where even is he? What's going on, is he dreaming? He feels awake and aware of his body, but he can't move at all, he can't even open his eyes. The last thing he remembers is…
The forest. They'd just arrived in the Scarlet Forest as part of their first proper expedition. Marco and Kleio were walking in front of him talking about something completely nonsensical while giggling like a pair of school kids. Their seikrets were lagging behind them, struggling in the humid heat of the dense tropical forest. It was the season of Plenty and the forest was teeming with wildlife of all kinds.
He remembers being entranced by a Dazzlewing performing an unexpectedly complex dance trying to impress a female, its vibrant feathers gleaming in the sunlight that was breaking through the canopy. He couldn't tear his eyes away as he watched the small creature jump and flap its wings. It looked as if it were throwing rays of rainbow light with its every move.
Seems the female wasn't the only one enamored by the dance.
“Pfweeht!“ he instinctively closed his eyes and spat at the sudden intrusion of something soft landing right on his nose.
“What the hell?“
He clawed at his face to get it off, and what he found was a small and incredibly soft flower tuft colored a deep red. It felt almost like… hair. It was so pretty it made his fingers turn numb as he held it and stared at it, hypnotized by the way it swayed in the warm breeze. What kind of flower was this? He couldn't remember any plant species of this description being native to the Scarlet Forest, at least not during the Plenty. He felt the skin on his face go tight.
Wait. No, there's no way.
“GUYS LOOK OUT, THERE'S—”
Though the ringing in his ears was bordering on painful, even through it he heard the distinct clang! of steel being impacted. He forced his eyes open, and what he saw made his blood run cold with panic, instantly replacing the sharp heat of what he now knew was the paralytic toxin coursing through his blood. Thankfully he felt its hold on his body loosen as his vision gradually sharpened.
Kleio grunted with exertion as the spiked leg of the temnoceran impacted her shield, nearly sending her flying backwards. It took all the strength she had simply to keep her feet planted in the ground. She pushed forward, swinging the massive heft of her gunlance around her. The weapon impacted the monster’s side and she pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The forest shook from the explosion, the nearby smaller animals scattering into the underbrush. And the monster shook as well, recoiling back from the impact. Then Joule finally saw it.
The first large monster he’d ever seen face to face, a Lala Barina. It stood there almost motionless, twitching its head from side to side looking like it was thinking of what its next move would be.
Joule mustered what little strength he had to stand his body up on one knee, he had to get a better look.
He’d read about it dozens of times but seeing one in the flesh was, wow. It was the spitting image of beauty and elegance. Standing on four tall slender legs was a coat of fine, silky white hair that looked almost like a bespoke designer coat, covering nearly the entirety of the spider-like creature's body, save for the face and legs. It seemed to almost flow in the gentle breeze of the forest, forming waves as the warm air passed over it. He found himself staring at the two compound eyes at the front of its head as they refracted the surrounding environment into a thousand mirror-images that subtly danced as the creature moved.
He was pulled back to reality by the desperate call of Kleio shouting: “Joule, look out!”
He jumped to the side, sloppily landing with his back in the mud just as the sharp appendage of the Lala Barina impacted the ground where he had been kneeling. He couldn’t help but stare for a moment at the sleek shine of the razor-sharp crimson edge that adorned the underside of its spindly legs. He looked to his side and saw Marco laying there, face down in the dirt, not moving, his weapon lying by his side.
“Marco? Are you ok?” He frantically shook his side but felt his muscles were fully tensed up, and he realized he wasn’t the only one that had been paralyzed by the temnoceran’s florets.
Fuck, this is bad. What do I do?
His oncoming panic attack was cut short by the shrilled screech of the monster towering above him as Kleio unleashed another powerful shot from her gunlance. It staggered back in pain, its beautiful white coat singed by the powerful blast, spreading a disgusting stench of burnt hair around the area.
“Joule are you ok, can you move? You and Marco both dropped to the ground and this thing jumped out at me!” she exclaimed, trying to hide the quiver in her voice.
This was the first taste of actual, real combat she’d ever experienced. However the adrenaline coursing through her was doing its job and keeping her mind clear and her reflexes sharp.
“I’m ok I think… Marco is paralyzed; he can’t move. Try to keep it busy while I get him on the seikret, we have to run!”
He didn’t even look to see her reaction as he wasted no time trying to get Marco to sit up so he could drag him away from the danger. It was useless. His own body started breaking down the toxin, but it seems like Marco got a much larger dose than Joule. He was still unconscious in his arms, his breathing uneven.
As he tried to whistle to signal Marco’s seikret to come and carry him to safety, he looked over his shoulder and saw Kleio sidestep the brutal telescoping stinger the monster tried to impale her with.
It was a close call, if it had hit her, it not only would have pierced the meager leather armor they had all been given, but even if that didn’t kill her the lethal dose of venom surely would have.
He froze.
He didn’t have much knowledge about combat, much less any real experience witnessing it firsthand, but even he knew that if Kleio tried to fight this thing one-on-one for much longer, she would die.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. This was their first proper expedition without the supervision of a mentor. They were just supposed to go out and take survey of the Dalthydon population in the area and that was it. But they got unlucky, and it seems they weren’t the only ones eyeing the gentle herbivores at the time.
He glanced at Marco’s switch axe lying there on the ground. Equal parts hulking mass of sharpened steel and beautiful marvel of engineering. He knew Kleio couldn’t defend both him and Marco and get out of here in one piece. He knew he had to help. But what could he do? He was just a sheltered nerd who finished top of his class and got sent to the other side of the world, to the Forbidden Lands. He was part of the first wave of fresh recruits the Hunters' Guild decided to send and try to further establish their foothold in the area after the initial expedition stabilized.
He stood frozen, crouched over Marco, his vision narrowing and focusing on Kleio as she dodged the monster’s ruthless onslaught of attacks, delivering a few counterattacks of her own here and there but mostly just barely struggling to stay on her feet. Then his focus turned once again to the cause of all their problems.
Despite the situation they were in he couldn’t stop himself from marvelling at the creature’s beauty, the way it seemed to almost dance and pirouette around Kleio while it unleashed a flurry of deftly precise stabs and swipes with its beautifully elegant sharpened legs.
Then, he saw those same legs he had been admiring cut a deep gash in Kleio’s thigh, thick crimson liquid seeping out of the wound and dissipating into the water beneath her.
Before his mind had time to think logically, he took a stone from the ground and launched it full force towards the monster’s face. The projectile found its mark perfectly as it impacted one of the compound eyes, causing the monster to screech in pain and… something akin to annoyance?
Immediately, the spider turned its attention towards the young researcher. Its head rotated 45 degrees as it tried to get a better look at the source of its pain and frustration, and even through its non-humanoid anatomy he could tell it looked very pissed off at him.
What- what the fuck did I just do?
As if to answer his question, the spider reared back and with an excruciatingly loud roar the large hair-covered abdomen unfurled to reveal a massive bouquet of crimson flowers; the same ones that were the cause of his and Marco’s paralysis.
Ok it’s definitely pissed at me now.
The beast skittered forward towards its new target, completely ignoring its previous prey, and even though it had taken many heavy blows from her gunlance, this one was somehow far more annoying.
What was he going to do? How would he get out of here alive, protect Marco, stop them all from being devoured on their first real mission?
He didn’t have time to think right now; he needed to act. He looked down at Marco’s switch axe and lunged for it. The heavy thing almost seemed glued to the ground.
How the hell did he swing this thing around like it was made of paper? He thought to himself.
It’s getting closer! I can’t…
Fuck it.
He bent over and found every single piece of strength he had in him as he lifted the weapon, his feet digging into the mud and sinking down to his ankles from the extra weight. He held it by his side, assuming a pose that was more a crude mockery of a proper fighting stance than anything. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with as much air as he could. It was still coming right for him, seemingly dismissing him as any kind of real threat as it made a beeline straight at him.
His whole body strained with effort, it felt like every muscle fiber in him was being ripped apart as he took a sloppy, desperate upward swing aiming right at the monster’s foreleg as it ran towards him.
CRACK!
The unmistakable sound of steel shattering hard black chitin rang through the forest as the creature was sent flying backwards into the trunk of a nearby tree. It fell on its back with its legs curled up towards its abdomen. It looked just like a dead spider, only much much larger.
Huh, they do that too even though they’re so big?
Wait. Did he actually manage to kill it? No, he just landed a lucky hit as it was coming for him and the impact from hitting the tree managed to stun it, at least for now.
He dropped the weapon and turned to see Kleio limping towards him, chugging a potion as the wound on her leg seemed to bleed just a little less profusely. It was still a lot of blood though, much more than he was used to.
“Holy shit! That was a nice hit, since when could you fight like that?” Kleio’s eyes seemed to glow with delight, despite the state she was in.
“I don’t know… We have to leave, right now! While it’s still stunned.”
“Right” she said concisely as she whistled, much louder than Joule, at which her seikret came running out of the bushes towards them.
“You take Marco’s, I’ll carry him on mine” she said, and before he could respond she had effortlessly swung Marco on the back of the small Bird Wyvern and took off.
He went to jump onto the seikret, but he felt something hard and jagged press under his boot as he took a step forward. He bent down to inspect it, and what he found was a broken-off chunk of the smooth black carapace that he carved out from the creature’s leg when he made his heroic, but honestly stupid attack. He quickly stuffed it into his satchel and got on, grabbing the reins as they began sprinting towards base camp.
As they were riding back, he took the chunk of carapace out of his bag and held it, inspecting the glossy surface as it reflected the image of the canopy above them. Even though the mission had been a complete and utter failure and they nearly lost their lives, he couldn’t help but feel a certain kind of pride deep down in his chest. He replayed in his head the moment the sharpened axe blade he had borrowed impacted the giant hulking monster that was threatening to kill them all.
And yet he stopped it. He stopped it.
Maybe, getting sent all the way out here wasn’t so bad after all, he thought.