Killing the Beast

Lena and Maxim were totally unaware of the unfolding drama elsewhere in Wanta as they walked back to the apartment building that Kana and Yuna had walked in. As they did, they saw Serena, who they did not know, standing outside, and as they got closer, she recognized their uniforms. Curious, she asked them, “Hey, are you guys from Rimnan Castle School, too?”

“We are,” Lena replied. “Who are you?”

“I’m Serena Tull. I’m a monster hunter around here.”

“Do you recognize us at all?”

“I recognize you in particular,” Serena replied. “The Duchess of Vale isn’t hard to figure out. You certainly look like your father, Duchess, God rest his soul.”

“I figured as much. Anyway, we’re looking for two girls with the same uniforms as us.”

Serena’s ears perked up as soon as she mentioned Kana and Yuna. “You mean Kana Demas and her friend, right?”

Maxim, pretending to be shocked, asked her, “Wait, you know about them?”

“They met up with me to discuss the Beast of Wanta,” Serena explained. “I’m sure you’ve heard of it by now. The attacks it’s done have been in the newspapers.”

Lena was not super familiar with the Beast of Wanta, but had heard of a series of what was described as brutal murders and disappearances in the Wanta area. “So you mean that the so-called ‘serial killer’ in the newspapers in Wanta is actually a monster?”

“Correct,” Serena nodded. “Did you follow Kana out here?”

“We did,” Lena replied, admitting the truth right off the bat. “We’re worried about that other girl she’s with. Her name is Yuna Miller, and she’s from a noble family like me. We think she might bring harm to her. Do you know where they are now?”

“They could be anywhere in Wanta,” Serena shrugged. “They went hunting for the Beast. I’m about to go out too, actually.”

Lena’s eyes widened with fear. “You mean… Yuna’s tagging along with her?”

“Not by Kana’s choice.” Serena chuckled as she recalled a conversation the two of them had before they left her apartment. “Yuna was practically begging to be brought along. Kana finally relented but told her to stay away when she fought a monster on these streets.”

“Then we have to find her as soon as possible! What direction did they go i-?!”

Suddenly, screams filled the air as the three of them turned around. They seemed to come from an unseen man, who was yelling into the sky, “OH MY GOD! NO! MY FAMILY! SOMETHING JUST KILLED MY ENTIRE FAMILY!”

“Scratch that,” Serena said as she formed a small staff in her right hand and ran down the road. “Someone’s in trouble!”

“Wait, hold on!” Lena, unable to get her to stop, sighed and ran after her. “Maxim, come on! Let’s go!”

When they made it down the road, they found a man sobbing on the side of the road. Serena quickly ran up to the man and asked him, “Sir, what happened?! Where’s your family?!”

“Inside,” he replied, pointing to the front door of the apartment building he was sitting in front of, which had had its front door ripped off the hinge and some of its walls damaged. “It got into my apartment and ripped it to shreds along with my family!”

Lena, Serena, and Maxim looked at each other before they all ran inside to see what they could do. As soon as they stepped inside the apartment in question, they were met with a grisly sight. The small four-room apartment had been thoroughly destroyed, with anything larger than a book ripped apart and torn to shreds. Blood covered the walls, and on the ground were the mangled bodies of a woman and four children. The sight was enough to make Maxim gag as Lena muttered to herself in a rare moment of vulgarity, “Wha-… What… What the fuck? Oh my God…”

“Holy shit,” Serena remarked. “This is one of the worst scenes I’ve ever seen… Nothing was left untouched.”

Maxim asked as he stepped outside to avoid seeing anything else, “Did the Beast of Wanta do this?”

“No way,” Serena shook her head. “This was a clone. The clone could be dead by now if anything. The real monster is somewhere in this area.”

As they stepped out of the building, unable to do anything for the victims of the attack, two police cars quickly pulled up onto the scene. Four military police officers jumped out, one of them asking the man outside, “Where’s your family?! What happened?!”

“They got killed by a monster,” he replied, still crying. “They’re all inside. All of them are dead.”

The officer then looked at the three young people exiting the apartment building and ordered them, “Hey, get out! Don’t tamper with the crime scene! Did you three do this?!”

“No,” Serena shouted back. “We heard the man crying about his family from down the block!”

“You fucking liar,” said the officer as he formed a small wooden club in his left hand with a spell. “I bet it was you! You lowlifes in Wanta always do this shit!”

“She didn’t do anything,” Maxim then shouted as she came to Serena’s defense. “She’s trying to hunt the monster who did this!”

“Shut the fuck up!” The officer then walked up to Serena and tried to grab her by the arm. “Come with me! If your little boyfriend here tries to defend you, he’s going to jail, too!”

Lena then stepped in between the officer and Serena, demanding from him, “ENOUGH! Let go of her!”

“Who are y-?!” The officer then paused as he looked at the uniforms of both Maxim and Lena, and when he looked at Lena, he recognized exactly who she was. “Du-… Du-… Duchess Vale?!”

“Correct,” Lena nodded, annoyed by the officer’s conduct, which by now was even making the other three officers on scene nervous. “These two were with me. We heard the man screaming for help and rushed down. Me and this other girl hunt monsters, and we’ve accepted a reward to hunt down the specific monster in this neighborhood. I don’t like using my noble title to my advantage, but if you keep acting like this, I’ll say something to your commanding officer. You know full well you shouldn’t be acting like this as a member of the Military Police.”

An older officer among the four of them also stepped up, telling the offending officer, “Come on, just calm down. You don’t want to get on the bad side of a Duchess.”

Finally backing down, the offending officer backed up and had his wooden club dissolve with a silent spell. “Alright, alright, I’ll back off. Just get out of here before you contaminate the crime scene, alright?”

“Absolutely,” Lena replied with a smile. “This scene is all your’s, officer.”

Serena turned to Lena and told her as the three of them walked away from the scene, “We’ll split up. I’ll go north. You and your friend can go south. How strong is your telepathy, Lena?”

“I could probably reach you from a good six blocks away,” Lena replied. “What about you?”

“Not as powerful,” Serena sighed. “I can only go within the same building roughly. Hopefully, you’ll find him first so you can tell me.”

Maxim, deciding to bring up his own newfound telepathic powers, then said, “Telepathy? I can do that, too.”

This comment made both Lena and Serena stop and turn around, both of them looking at Maxim with shock on their faces. Serena, disbelieving him, declared, “Bullshit. There’s no way you cou-“

“Can you he-… -Now?”

Serena and Lena both gasped, having heard Maxim’s words in their heads, albeit rather scratchy and spotty in terms of reception. The former in particular exclaimed, “No way!”

“It’s spotty,” Lena replied. “But it’s there! How did you manage to do that?! Usually, telepathy of any kind takes a lot of training, even for people who are born with heightened abilities to use magic.”

“Like I said, I don’t know,” Maxim explained. “I didn’t even know I could use magic at all until I started going to Rimnan. That’s why I’m not in any classes about magic.”

Serena was stunned. “You… What?! You’re telling me you didn’t know until now?!”

“It’s not totally unheard of,” Lena pointed out. “Like I told him, such a development this late in life usually means your magical abilities are either extremely chaotic or extremely powerful, with virtually no in-between.”

“Maybe your powers could come into use here, if they don’t kill us first.” Serena then began to walk to the north. “Anyway, good luck. If you find the beast first, I’ll let you guys keep the reward money.”

“No, it’s fine, Miss Tull,” Lena assured her. “You need it more than we do, and certainly more than I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“Very well.” Serena then ran off to go find the Beast of Wanta, at which point Lena and Maxim nodded to each other and ran in the other direction.

…

Within about fifteen minutes of starting the search, Lena and Maxim managed to run into Kana and Yuna quite literally. As the duo rounded a corner, walking at a steady pace and focused solely on finding the Beast of Wanta, they bumped into the other duo by accident. Maxim ran into Kana first, causing the latter to take a few steps back and the former to then fall to the ground. Lena meanwhile bumped into Yuna right after, also falling to the ground in the process. All of them shouted as they did so, with Maxim yelling out, “Agh, shit!”

Kana yelled back, “Hey, watch where you’re go-!” She stopped herself when she not only recognized the two people she and Yuna had run into, but the position they found themselves in.

Lena had landed on top of Maxim, causing both of them to blush in embarrassment. Then, to make matters worse, Maxim looked down and saw that his arm was right up against her chest, causing both of them to light up a bright red before they quickly got up and dusted themselves off, unable to look at each other. Maxim felt horrible, feeling as though he had groped Lena even if it had been an accident. Trying to come up with something to say to her, he stammered out, “Well, uh, I… I… You…”

“It was an accident,” Lena told him as she fixed her clothes. “I’m not mad, Maxim.” She then looked down at her body, feeling a bit self-conscious about herself. “Sometimes, they get in the way.”

Without thinking, Maxim asked, “Wait, what gets in the way?”

Yuna blushed when she realized what Lena was talking about, while Kana sighed and facepalmed, asking him, “Maxim, what did your arm just touch?”

“Her boo-“ Maxim then stopped himself when he realized what he was about to say. “Oh… They get in the way…”

Addressing the proverbial elephant in the room, Lena admitted, “I know I have one of the more… Womanly and buxom figures among our peers. Sometimes, it has its benefits, but other times, it brings trouble. I know you didn’t mean to touch me, Maxim. Like I said, my breasts sometimes get in the way.”

Maxim was shocked that Lena did not try to dance around the issue with euphemisms and just said it out loud, nor that she did not immediately lash out. Usually, such things would happen in anime or manga, perhaps to tease the audience without saying anything outright or maybe a reluctance to lay things out explicitly due to cultural differences. Here, Lena was rather blunt. It was a surprise, but one that was not a bad one by any means. He asked her out of concern, “Are… Are you okay?”

“I told you,” she insisted. “I’m fine. If we keep mulling on it any longer, it’ll just distract us fro-“

“Holy shit,” then screamed a man who happened to be down the block. “What the fuck is that thing?!”

All four of them turned around to find a larger version of the monster Kana had fought walking around the street. The man from before was running as fast as he could to avoid being caught by the monster, which all of them immediately knew was in fact the Beast of Wanta. The beast smashed his head into a parked horse-drawn carriage, destroying it entirely and breaking the glass windows of a shop it was left in front of. It then used its tail to strike another man that was running out of the same shop, effectively cutting him in half and killing him instantly.

Lena charged up both of her arms as energy formed around them. She told Kana, “Forget about our little dispute for now. This is more important.”

“Agreed,” Kana nodded before she formed a bow. Just as she did, the beast suddenly opened both of its mouths at the same time and let out a giant roar as a blinding light emitted from it. Within seconds, the ground before the beast was smoking from the intense heat, and a smaller version of the beast similar to what Kana had fought stood up and shook its head and body a bit before roaring in rage at the duo. “Looks like it formed a clone right in front of us!”

“Wow,” Yuna exclaimed from the sidelines as she and Maxim stepped aside to let Lena and Kana do their thing. “So that’s what they were talking about when they mentioned it could clone itself!”

“Holy shit,” Maxim remarked. He had seen Lena and Kana battle the Beast of Wanta in the original story, but all of the images he had concocted in his head about what such a battle would look like in real life were inadequate compared to actually seeing it happen before his eyes.

Lena fires two energy blasts at the smaller beast, stopping it in its tracks before it could run up to them. Kana then fired three explosive arrows at the beast, all of them striking their target and killing it. The two of them shielding their eyes from flying debris, they were unable to look again before the main beast was almost on top of them, prompting Yuna to call out, “Lena! Kana! Look out!”

“Shit,” Kana yelled as she and Lena barely dodged a bite from the main beast. “Too close! Way too close!”

Lena then charged up her right arm and delivered a hard punch to the beast’s right foreleg, injuring it and causing the beast to scream at her before trying to strike her with its tail. She ducked down just as the barbed end of the tail passed just a few inches above her head before she then fired another energy beam with her left hand at the beast, severely burning part of its right abdomen.

Right at this moment, a woman happened to be on the third floor apartment fire escape, a rather rickety metal contraption, and barely missed several pieces of road cement that had been kicked up by the beast’s attacks that struck said fire escape rather hard. This was enough to weaken the fire escape and cause much of it to collapse, especially since one piece struck a support for it. Lena and Maxim, both seeing this happen, ran over right as the fire escape began to come down. The woman screamed in fear as she began to fall, but right before she hit the ground, Lena and Maxim reached her and caught her in their arms.

Lena asked the woman, “Ma’am, are you okay?!”

“Thank you so much,” replied the woman, who was beginning to calm down from almost falling to her certain death. Then, the beast tried to strike all three of them with its tail, prompting her to panic again as Maxim shielded her as best as he could, fearing the worst.

At the last possible second, Lena used her energy blasts to deflect the tail strike and destroy the barbed end, removing about five feet of the beast’s tail in one attack and causing it to scream in a combination of rage and pain. She yelled to Kana as she helped Maxim and the woman they both rescued up, “Miss Demas, strike now!”

Kana nodded and formed a large arrow in her bow, aiming it right at the beast’s head and firing. As soon as the tip impacted the beast’s nose, the head of the beast exploded, ending its life and its reign of terror on the people of the Wanta neighborhood once and for all. The beast’s body keeled over and toppled onto the ground with a loud thud as residents gathered around and the sounds of whistles and sirens from the military police filled the air. Finally, the monster that had tormented them was dead, and a sense of relief soon began to fill the air.

Lena, having helped the woman get to safety along with Maxim, walked back towards Kana and Yuna. She smiled and told the former, “Good work, Miss Demas. So, shall we pray to send these monsters back to the soil?”

Kana was quiet for several seconds, uneasy about doing so with Lena given the two did not see eye to eye about much. She then turned away from her, saying, “I think your friend could help you with that.”

Confused, Lena asked, “Wait, my fri-?”

“Maxim Ranka,” Kana clarified. “As long as he knows the chant, I think he could pull it off. I’m sure you’ve seen his magic potential like I have.”

“I’m aware of it,” Lena nodded. “But it’s bound to be unpredictable since it emerged so late in his life. If you don’t want to do it, why not have Yuna help me?”

This comment incensed Kana, who sternly replied, “No way in Hell!”

“Calm down.”

“I told you, she’s not going to get involved in this business! I’ll make sure of it!”

“Why are you so insistent about that?! If she wants to get involved, let her!”

“She has no idea what it’s like, Lena!”

“I’d say she has a great idea of what it’s like,” Lena pointed out, getting increasingly frustrated with Kana’s behavior. “Consider the fact we just killed a monster in front of her! If she wants to do it, I can guide her and keep her safe!”

“No, you can’t!”

Yuna, uneasy about the two girls fighting over her, spoke up. “Um, guys… Uh… I’m right here…”

“Miss Demas, you’re being ridiculous! Are you afraid someone more powerful than you is gonna come along and steal your thunder?!”

“I’m not!”

“Then what are you afraid of?!”

Finally, Yuna had enough of their bickering and screamed at them, “STOP IT, BOTH OF YOU!”

Lena and Kana stopped arguing and looked at Yuna after she yelled at them, both of them feeling bad for having fought in front of her. At the same time, Maxim began to walk back over to them, having heard their shouting match and Yuna’s interruption. He asked the trio, “Guys, what happened?” He, of course, knew exactly what had happened, or at least a version of it, as the trio had a similar argument in the original story, albeit without his presence being a factor.

Lena sighed and asked Maxim, “Are you familiar with how to perform a Body Release?”

“A Body Release? Yeah, I know how to do it.” His knowledge of canon was about to pay off. “Do you think I could do it with you?”

“You’ll have to. We don’t really have a choice.”

“Alright.”

Both Lena and Maxim took deep breaths and closed their eyes before putting their hands together. In unison, they then chanted, “May the Lords of Light take this foul beast away and return him to the soil below our feet. Amen.” With those words, the body of the Beast of Wanta and the clone it had produced, as well as any other clones it may have had active or dead in the area, dissolved into dust. The battle was finally over, and the monster was no longer a threat to anyone.