Gone Camping (1)

We were walking on the trail that led through Preternatural Forest, a very heavily wooded area. Marion was walking to my left and Jessica was in front of us, leading the group.

She had just turned around and, while still walking, handed us a paper.

“It’s the special details for the quest, my man,” Jessica said. “It’s just a basic rundown of everything we know about the monster we’re looking for.

“Some people say it’s real big, and others say it’s humanoid, so in all likelihood it’s a rogue kaiju shifter. It also tends to attack at night rather than in the day, so I think it’d be prudent to set up camp during the day and find the beast at night when it’s active.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I said. “It’d be easier to find the beast if it was up and about, but that also makes it more dangerous. Especially if it happens to find us first.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that, we should be able to know if it’s near us or not,” Jessica said. “I mean, we’re not little children after all, and even so, kaiju aren’t exactly hard to see coming.”

“I’m just glad we’re all in agreement about this,” Marion said.

Mmhmm. Agreement. Wondrous agreement. Joyous agreement. Beautiful agreement. As long as we can agree that this is stupid and we’re all gonna die… then yes, we’re very agreed.

Well, maybe we all won’t die. Marion can heal herself and Jessica’s a long range fighter. But I’ll probably die. I can’t heal and I’m anything but a long range fighter.

What even is a kaiju or kaiju shifter anyway?

Come to think of it, weren’t those mentioned in that book Canvas won’t let me read? Wait, what did Marion do with that book in the first place. Might as well ask…

“Hey Marion, do you remember-?” I started to ask, only to be quickly interrupted by Jessica.

“Shut up for a second and look over there,” she said while pointing to something off road.

I looked over and saw a massive disruption in the green scenery I had become accustomed to. A couple trees were knocked down, bent over themselves as though something big had forced its way through the area. Also something smelled terrible.

I looked towards the ground and found- a stinking pile of kaiju shit… disgusting…

“How much you wanna bet that this is because of our kaiju?” Jessica asked.

“How much you got?” I replied. “Because I’d be willing to bet anything that a kaiju came through here. And judging by the amount of flies around that horrendous pile of kaiju shit, it seems this is somewhat recent, but the real problem is why would a kaiju be moving so recklessly here… Did something attack it while it was taking a dump? Maybe someone was trying to hunt it, but- I’m getting a bad feeling about this…”

“Wow Oliver, I didn’t know you knew so much about kaiju,” Marion said.

“I… don’t…?”

I don’t know why, but for some reason what I was saying felt… familiar, in a sense. Almost like when I do Shisu Arts without really knowing what I’m doing. Strange…

“Well, my man, can you tell which direction it went in?” Jessica asked.

I looked at the trail of destruction, one on both sides of the road, although I can also see where the destruction ends on both sides. Whatever spooked this thing didn’t spook it for long I suppose.

I pointed to the left side of the road.

“I think it went this way.”

“Well then let’s not waste any time,” Jessica said as she began to move.

“How close do you think it is?” Marion asked as we followed Jessica off the road.

“Well, we can’t see it yet, so probably not close enough to be worried… unless it is a shifter…”

“Because then it could just appear out of nowhere and surprise us.”

“Sure… that seems like it makes sense…”

“Oliver, is something wrong?” Marion asked.

“I don’t know how I know anything about kaiju,” I said. “The only thing I can actually remember about them in the first place is seeing their name in that book… If I’ve ever encountered one in real life, it was in my erased memories…”

“Erased memories?”

“Oh yeah, I must’ve forgot to tell you earlier,” I said. “When I got reincarnated or whatever I lost some of my memoires.”

“How many?” Marion asked.

“A lot apparently… I don’t even really know how to use a shisu blade. Canvas said that I used to use one back on earth, but I just follow a feeling when I’m doing the different arts.”

“Really? But it doesn’t seem that weird whenever I’ve seen you do it.”

“It does when I see him,” Jessica said, interjecting herself into the conversation.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“I’m not sure how much fighting experience the princess has, but for me it did seem a little static when you were using the moves,” she said. “Well, not the moves themselves, you performed each art beautifully… but in between was when you were off. It almost seemed like you were a mere novice, more amazed that you could do the moves and that they worked then focused on the battle, but it was a simple spar and not anything actually dangerous, so I didn’t think too much about it.”

“Doesn’t sound like you didn’t think too much about it…”

“Anyway, my point in interrupting your lover’s talk like this is to remind you that during this mission we’ll be fighting together. You might want to get that thing with your memories sorted out for the future but since we’re just fighting one opponent together, I’ll have your back. Just focus on what you do know how to do and together we’ll still paint a masterpiece. Are you feeling what I’m saying, my man?”

“I think…” I answered. “You’re basically saying that for now you’ll make up for me not knowing the basics of swordplay.”

“Wait, you don’t know the basics?”

“Not really…”

“That may be troublesome, but whether it’s a kaiju or a kaiju shifter, as long as you know the arts you should be fine. If it’s a shifter we’ll likely have to fight them in kaiju form anyway, and everyone knows the first weapon arts were made specifically to combat kaiju and kaiju shifters.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, and since you only know the arts you’re basically only good for fighting kaiju anyway. Meaning this is the perfect mission for you, my man!”

“I guess that’s… a relief?”

“It should be! As long as you remember the first and most important rule when fighting a kaiju.”

“Which is?”

“No matter what… Don’t get hit.”

…

After following the general direction of the trail for a while it started getting dark. So, we took a vote and decided to set up camp.

Earlier we had bought some basic camping supplies in the town, just some hooded sleeping bags, food, and no tents… I don’t really get the point of sleeping outside when we still have a room at the tavern we’re paying for, but whatever. It’s all about the experience, right?

Anyway, after setting up camp and starting a fire, we decided it was time to strategize.

After we gathered around the campfire, not that there was anywhere else to be in the first place, I started us off with a question.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“That’s what we’re finding out, my man,” Jessica responded.

Of course there wasn’t a plan. Why would there have been?

“So, where should we begin then?” Marion asked. “I think we should start with the task ahead of us and work our way down from there.”

“Very well, Princess,” Jessica said. “The task, as we all know by now, is to take down the beast in this forest. This beast is either a kaiju, a kaiju shifter, or someone wasting a lot of time trying to come off as one. If it’s one of the more likely first two, then we’ll be going against something big and dangerous.”

“I hate to interrupt like this,” I said. “But what is a kaiju? And while we’re on that note, what’s a kaiju shifter?”

“You really don’t know what a kaiju is?” Jessica said. “I know you said something about losing your memories, but you are from earth aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but-”

“I’m not too good with my earth studies, but I’m pretty sure all accounts say that that place was swarming with kaiju,” she said. “How could you be from earth and not know about kaiju?”

“Well, I don’t know much about kaiju, but I must’ve learned how to fight them,” I said. “I mean, I can do the first ten shisu arts without a problem, and you said earlier that they were first developed for fighting kaiju in the first place.

“But even so, I think things will go a lot smoother if I actually know what a kaiju is, rather than depend on some supernatural feeling to tell me.”

“Fair enough,” Jessica said. “Let’s see… describe kaiju, huh…?”

“I’ll do it,” Marion offered.

“Sure thing, Princess,” Jessica said, opening the stage for Marion to explain.

“Basically, a kaiju is a normal pecus-”

“A what?” I interrupted.

“That’s just a word to describe non-anthropomorphic animals,” she responded.

“Okay, please continue.”

“So, a kaiju is when a regular pecus gets mutated via rapid fluctuations in either it’s elemental core or soul color-”

“Wait, what?”

“-this change causes it to grow many times its normal size,” Marion continued, ignoring my interjection. “Usually ranging anywhere from twenty to sixty feet or even beyond that. They also gain a lot of power and durability in the process. Sometimes a kaiju remains passive, like a regular pecus would normally be, but unfortunately most of the time the transformation comes with an unbridled wrath that makes the kaiju violently lash out at anything it sees.”

“Okay… so a kaiju in a sense is just a big monster,” I said. “So then, what’s a kaiju shifter?”

“That’s when a person has the ability to change into a kaiju,” Marion said. “This ability is usually tied to wrath, and as such people with the ability to change into kaiju usually turn out to be… problematic…”

And as such the very possibility of her being a demon kaiju shifter scared the other nations so much that they started a war just to kill her before anything happened. That’s rough, but not exactly unfounded…

What happened yesterday is still very fresh in my memory.

“So, how are we going to deal with this kaiju or kaiju shifter?” I asked.

“Simple,” Jessica said, “We’ll all gang up on it and attack it all at once.”

“Um… there might be a problem with that plan…”

“Of course there is,” Jessica said. “That’s why we’re having this meeting about coming up with a new one.”

“Also, I’d prefer not to be attacking,” Marion said.

“Come again?” Jessica asked.

“Well… I don’t have very good control over my power,” Marion said. “That’s why the fight with me and Trigger Happy got so… brutal… So I’d like to avoid using my powers too much so that I don’t become a problem for you two on top of the kaiju…”

“Hmm…” Jessica said as she went deep into thought.

“But I can use my healing blood without risking losing control of my anger,” Marion said. “So I could stay back and heal you two if the need arises.”

Jessica still sat pondering for a moment before finally coming back to our reality.

“In that case, I’ve already come up with the perfect formation we should take while dealing with this kaiju,” she said.

“Really?” I asked. “What is it?”

“It’s a simple plan really,” Jessica said. “You and my titans will be up front, dealing with the kaiju personally while me and the princess will be flying above you on the Carrier Titan.”

Of course I’m up front while they get to fly around safe from harm.