A Fork in the Roof

When out on a hunt many problems can happen. You can forget your gear. You can be betrayed by your fellow hunters. You can run out of magical essence. You could just get tired, or injured. I've definitely gone to far, and run out of essence before. 

 Though the thing you have to be most aware of is the law of the jungle, the food chain, the blood in the water, the behavior of other monsters in the area you are hunting. There is always a bigger fish out there. When keeping your eye out for the bigger fish, you need to be careful of the medium size fish with the hunger to get bigger.

“Cara, there is a monster perched on the roof to the left of us.”

The soft Italian voice of Sinistra my left earring, had me slowly peering up onto the rooftop. It was a two-story storage building for home goods. Squatted like an athlete was a large metal fork. It had a huge fork for a head and the stem of its body broke off into to long flat legs. It had arms that stretched out with fine metal engraving, and smaller forks for fingers that gripped the edge of the roof. Evil metallic gumby.

“Skreeeeeeeet,slk slk slk”

That was the sound of mashing metal teeth. The fork monster didn’t have any eyes, but below the prongs it had a large mouth. A big pink animal tongue licked and circled its lips as it stared down at the fight between the Elite Lightning Wolf monster and the Pin cushion flower monster. 

The lightning was conducting and bouncing off the steel-like needles of the plant, singeing and burning the flower. But it wasn’t enough, the flower had the wolf thoroughly wrapped, and was beginning to mummify the wolf in steely vines. Then began stabbing the wolf even more through the gaps. Like some sick torturous spider ready to devour prey. It was hard to watch, the magical essence dripping out from the wolf.

The fork Monster kept watching, while it was ranked lower than the other two monsters. It could still gather some essence after the fight. Scavengers existed everywhere, instead of hyenas we now had Forks. It's location was quite a surprise, the forks presence wasn’t a complete mystery thanks to Keisuke’s analysis of the local monsters. I began putting distance between myself and the Warehouse where the monster perched, keeping my eyes on it.

“three, four, five. Five prongs.”

Most forks had four prongs. The Words of Keisuke rang back in my head, that monsters manifest from the Zeitgeist. Meaning from the collective thought of the current humans alive. You weren’t going to a see something completely out of the ordinary, unless a lot of people thought about it enough. So when something outlandish or off-center appears, it’s probably an abstract or high rank essence. Kei included in his report the great and grand rank monsters in his report because S rank Essences often disguised themselves as lower rank monsters.

“Rei over here”

Meika had ridden over to me. I abandoned my little tip toe and grabbed her hand, letting her pull me up onto the panther.

“On the roof do you see, the Fork monster. It doesn’t have eyes and its got five prongs. It’s probably something like a Hunger or gluttony monster.”

“There wasn’t anything about that in the report, Kei said a fork. Ahh!!”

There was a large blast, the lightning wolf had used one of it’s spells, and a pillar of lightning was blinding her from in front. The plant monster sizzled, and screamed, larger steel needles appeared from beneath the ground stabbing the wolf from below. It was too late; the wolf had freed itself. It leapt and bit the flower of the needler. Another shriek and then a large release of mist and motes of magical essence exploded from the wolf’s maw. It howled it's victory to the sky.

“Cara the fork is on the move”

Sinistra was right. I mean she was Italian for left, Destra was right, but she was correct. The Hunger monster had leapt into the air, and was now crawling on all fours towards the lightning wolf. The essence starts clumping together and the prongs glowed hot. The boys who were also about to move in for the kill, faltered.

“Get back, get back!! There’s a fork in the road!!”

“There’s a fork monster!!”

Me and Meika yelled at the boys.

“It’s not a fork though. Don’t let it get the wolf!”

Looking confused at that last tidbit, Resize quickly hit the breaks, now only a short distance from the wolf. He had the Hatman in one hand and Thor in the other, who looked deep in conversation. As a I scanned the area, captain Kawakami and vice-captain Kirigaya were a little ways back behind the boys. They had been keeping watch seated on one of the captain’s clouds. The lighting wolf was devouring the relic of the plant. When it should’ve been worried about being eaten itself.

“Skt skt SKreeettt”

More metal mashing sounds and the head of the fork monster reached out on an elongated neck, the steel stretching until it was over the wolf. It’s mouth now wide and open, bit the wolf on the side. It chomped a few times before it’s spell ended, and it’s head retracted back into it’s body taking a chunk. The head retracted but it's charge didn't stop. It nosed dived into the wolf, prongs first.

“Meika we need to distract the fork while the boys handle the wolf, if we let it get the wolf’s essence it’ll become an Elite”

“Got it.”

The two of us began chanting. There wasn’t much need. The boys were on it, flanking the monsters. Resize who had grown even bigger, leaped into the air to bellyflop the wolf. The Hatman wearing a large cowboy hat now, began to throw a lasso around the fork monster, pulling it towards them. Thor was waiting for it, and smashed it with a large thunderous hammer.

“They have nice teamwork.”

Meika conceded, I kept my chanting.

“Time to rest, act like a stone, turn immobile,”

There was another explosion as Resize made a crater in the ground, and mist exploded from beneath him. Signaling that the wolf had been disposed of. The fork monster was knocked back towards the buildings by Thor's attack. A few of its’ prongs were bent out of shape. It sparkled and tingled with electricity. Seeing it’s prey destroyed and now wounded, it began to run away down the street. Hunters while having essenc of thier own, were not purely made out of it like monsters. The fork was making a break for it. Monster hunting was fast paced and unpredictable.

“PETRIFY!”

I released my spell, predicting one of them running away. The fork monster’s body froze and tumbled forward by the momentum of running. Somersaulting over itself with the clang of a silverware drawer.

"It's an S-rank essence, probably hunger. We can't let it escape."

Thor who was in hot pursuit, suddenly stopped. He held his hand back, signaling us all to keep our distance. The captain and vice-captain, were now racing towards him. The Hatman was helping a now normal Resize up. My anxiety was already running high. That Hunger monster put a wrench in our whole rank up., why wasn't he chasing it.

“Sachio, tell me what’s happening.”

I pulled the baseball out of my pocket and threw him high in the air, to see over the buildings into the alleyway.

“Oomph”

Sachio said as he landed.

“There’s a large piece of graffiti that’s pulling itself off the wall, it’s another monster.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Do you know what rank?”

“I’d wager at least Elite by the skill, and essence. I’ll need another look.”

“Meika, we need to regroup with the rest.”

“Already on it.”

I held Sachio firm, as the shadow panther galloped into the center of the field. The boys now gathered where the crater from the elite monsters had fought. There weren’t any reports in Keisuke’s notes about a graffiti monster or a paint monster. The only other grand ranks were, the docile balloon monster that floated above a nearby school, and a bubble monster in the fire station. Both were well known and domesticated monsters. 

The hunger/ fork monster was bold enough to approach elite rank monsters and hunters thanks to it’s ambitious nature. It would eat at any cost, going where other grand ranks might not have the courage. If there was a monster capable of willingly engaging with hunters. We were in trouble.

Scanning the area, the observers had already cleared it of civilians in preparation for the hunt.

“Hahahahahaha, Kapow!”

A humanoid figure flew out of the alleyway as if launched out a cannon, and kicked forky square in the face. Knockin it flat onto the ground, with a boot pressed on its neck. The attacker was wearing shabby robes, and had all sorts of trinkets hanging from belts. The most notable feature was the brown mask it wore with the mouth curled into an “o” shape, like it was blowing bubbles or sucking a pipe.

“Jokes on you, the meals on me!”

The masked assailant, picked up the fork with both hands and spun around, the fork waving in the wind. The fork seemed to get thinner and flatter and before my eyes the masked man was waving it like laundry. He then began to fold it up like a sheet, crumpling it up further with its hands. With a final squish the monster shoved the crumpled-up ball into its mask hole, biting down. An explosion of mist and motes of magical essence leaked out of the masked hole like a water hose. A few more chewing motions, and then it spat out a fork.

"Mmmmmm Delicious!"

Th masked man picked it up and began miming picking his teeth with it. He did a jaunty little jig.

Captain Kawakami now in front of us, chanting and summoning more clouds.

The vice captain had a small book out rifling through it too one page.

“Known S rank Arch-Monster, the Joke monster.”

The vice captain tightened her grip and drew her sword.

“Codename Hyottoko”