The Lone Pursuit

Jean hadn't much further to go to enter the plant demons' main nest, as not only did they become larger as he razed through them, but they were far more aggressive. Alongside them, the imp-like Infernals had also grown in size, terrifyingly so; they were taller than him now. The two demon species fought more viciously and ignored him more intensely than before, but he knew the plant demons didn't want this.

Whenever they could, they would attack him with a vengeance, crowding him, and almost caught him in their tangles numerous times. Not that they were powerful--far from it--but even the weakest inhuman could overwhelm an experienced hunter when in a horde as massive as theirs.

The digitigrade, vaguely green-carapaced demons had cried out intermittently. Jean understood it as a call to something far more powerful than they were. And possibly something far more powerful than him.

The plants were trying to protect their territory. That much seemed obvious to him. The question he needed answered was which one of them inhabited the underground realm first? His bets were on the green demons. The plants did not make the ruins and the structures they were in...

Nor the green demons, an equally worrying realization.

Resting, his eyes closed and gun drawn, he scanned the area with his senses as he hid behind another fallen column. With his sensitive hearing, the roaring, growling, buzzing, and screeching around him was almost overwhelming. If it weren't for his ability to regulate how well his hearing could reach, he likely would have gone deaf. His time with the demons was furthermore making him antsy.

Opening his eyes, he glanced over the column to watch the demons battle each other. He couldn't tell which was winning, and he hadn't a clue if that had any bearing on his time with them. He watched the seemingly far more powerful green demons expel fire from their mouths, putting the plant demons ablaze with ease.

His gaze went to the remains of burning plants, grimacing. He wished he had a mask, but he fortified himself and jumped over the column, putting himself back into the fray.

Not a second after his foot hit the ground, he dodged in time to evade a spike from a large plant demon using its spiked limbs to climb along the ceiling; a new tactic of theirs. He rolled away when the spikes from their tentacles flew at him, and he ducked behind another fallen piece of ruin. The projectile spikes were also a new tactic they started using.

The demon ceased firing its spikes, and the ground shook as one of the green demons thundered over. Grasping Ringe, he waited to see what would happen. Roaring and screeches sounded off behind him, but he sensed the plant's attention move from him. He swiftly ran from the ruins in case something flew his way.

He had only stepped a few meters away when an abrupt pain blossomed in his stomach, jolting his body forward. He looked down to see a pointed green limb with barbs sticking out of him.

They could puncture through rock...?

In seconds, the limb had him and the rock dangling in the air, almost causing him to drop his gun. He grabbed the limbs, barbs be damned, and set it on fire with blue magic. As he fell, he saw several tentacles coming his way from behind a wall.

He raised a protective shield, and just in time. The shield remained up even as he slammed atop a jagged rock with a grunt. Rolling off, he narrowly missed several more spiked limbs, came to his feet, and shot the two demons nearest to him.

Regardless, while shooting he sheathed his sword and cracked his whip before lashing out, successfully slicing through several demons at a time. Green limbs tried to grab it, but the demons only hissed with anger at the resulting burn.

He suddenly winced, groaning as his wound stung. With a swear, he quickly brought back his whip and jumped into the air, making it through the flailing limbs by a hair's breadth. He landed behind them and ran forward, coiling his whip so he could press a hand over his wound.

He spat another swear when a vine wrapped around his leg, snagging him back. As it dragged him, he turned and shot the demon point-blank. He rolled onto his feet but suddenly stumbled when his vision blurred. A wave of nausea ran through him, and he immediately realized he had been poisoned. Instead of continuing to fight, he turned back around to attempt running.

Another spiked limb snared his torso. This time, he felt the spikes puncture his skin. He recalled the man from earlier and clenched his teeth.

He would not die here.

Seconds after this thought, another bout of nausea overcame him, sending his vision spinning. As the demon dragged him nearer, he turned his gun onto it, charging his magic into a single bullet before taking a shot. A powerful beam of white magic emerged from Ringe's barrel, powerful enough to make his hand tighten to prevent recoil.

The demons didn't even shriek when the light engulfed them. Breathing heavily, he watched as the entire collection of demons, including the green ones, corroded to blackness. Exhaling with relief, he rested on his back and finally let his eyes close. The rest of the demons would find him shortly, but he just needed to breathe...

Powerful poison, he thought with a humorless chuckle. Of course, such otherwise weak demons would have that.

Slowly, he moved into an upright position, hissing from pain, and grasped his wound. Fortunately, the plants he had seen for some time now were lacking eggs. If they had punctured him...

He'd rather not think about it.

He raised a green shield over his body to aid in his healing, then lifted his shirt to look at the wound. It appeared as bad as he thought it would be, a nasty, hollow, bleeding hole that ran from his back to his abdomen area. He lowered his shirt with a soft swear before shutting his eyes when nausea welled in him again.

After the moment of rest, he moved unsteadily to his feet. Swallowing, he reached for his gun and reloaded it. Six bullets in the cylinder, nine in the magazine. Having run through the others, he had one magazine left. Never had he been so low on ammo, a realization that didn't help his nausea.

He brandished his sword again. Shaking off his unsteadiness, he walked forward, down the wide rock hall, and toward the sounds of demonic fighting.

* * *

Inhuman hunters never hunted alone. It was one of their cardinal rules, one that only true inhumans--not tossers like himself--could ignore. It also depended on what exactly they were hunting.

He shouldn't be soloing a demon nest, of all things. But he refused to have spent so much time in this underground hellhole and not have done something worth enduring the ordeal. That, and he refused to have his group wandering in it, magic user or not.

All he thought about the nest--the main one--was true. Its size dwarfed the first one he came upon, and he planned how to approach it the moment he saw it. There were more people inside, most of whom were still alive. Some were dead, their blood drained, bodies strewn around the space. The bodies weren't rotting; they were fresh.

The fighting between the two demon species had also escalated to obscene levels. Jean existed as nothing more than a spectator, a lucky fly on a bloodied wall, and most of the plant demons had no choice but to ignore him as the large green demons attacked the nest as well.

Within said nest, the people were yet again tangled in the verdant, their massive, veiny, painfully taut potbellies protruding from within their prisons.

Another group of infested, much larger than the first group. The women had considerably larger stomachs, some of which were split and bleeding from the strain. From what he could make from his distant observation, people were scattered all around but in groups of at least three. He counted roughly twenty people hanging around, some of whom were being mauled by the green demons when the plants could not protect them.

No. There was no way in Inferno he would let his group come to this godforsaken place.

He navigated slowly against the wall, keeping his eyes alert for any wayward tentacles that might come his way. The two-legged demons, much to his confusion and great suspicion, had ignored him throughout his time in the cavern, even after he killed some. None would actively turn on him. Their roaring for that other something deeper within the cave hadn't ceased, however.

He had just turned inside the nest when a shrill shriek turned his attention to a plant demon rushing toward him. At least two stories high, the creature was the largest variation of their kind he had seen.

Blinking, he had just a moment to dodge the four-foot-long spikes it threw at him, sliding to the left against the wall and putting himself deeper into the nest. Ignoring the nausea and lingering pain in his stomach, he kept the two-legged demons in his peripheral as they fought the smaller plants. He noticed said smaller plants kept trying to near him, but they could not fight past their foes.

This larger plant...

The progenitor, perhaps?

It solidified his guess when the massive demon put itself between him and the wall of people. Its heavily spiked limbs threw away all the non-plant demons that approached it, and their fire didn't seem to harm it as easily as it did against its smaller companions. If Jean had to guess, these eggs within the people were different from the others from earlier; they hadn't been protected.

His eyes blazed a deep sapphire blue in the darkness, his upper lip curling with a growl.

Moving from the wall, he reached for Ringe. The atmosphere shifted the second he grasped it, and he flipped back to bound off the wall, evading several spikes and tendrils. As he spun in the air towards the demon, he imbued magic into his sword to elongate it. Swinging horizontally, he went for both the demon and the verdant on the wall. It prevented itself from taking the full force of the attack, molding its body so it somewhat flattened, but he nearly sliced the room in half.

The moment he landed on his feet, he swayed and groaned from sickness. The momentary lapse in his attention allowed a swift tendril to grab his leg. He gasped as it threw him into the air, only to grab his leg again, dangling him upside down. He still had Ringe and Hilde in his hands, but when he pointed his gun at the demon, it quickly swatted his hand away, causing him to lose his grasp on it. Ringe clattered to the side and none of the demons went after it.

The spikes dug into him, causing him to cry out, but he shortly sliced the tendril that held him up. While falling, he continued to cut the tendrils that went for him. He landed in a roll, then propelled to his feet and skidded towards his gun. He swiped it up and didn't stop his momentum, weaving through tentacles that put large holes in the ground in their attempts to impale him.

He charged his bullet with magic again, putting a greater amount of power into it this time, causing Ringe's barrel to glow bluish-white. In a second between an attempted impaling, he pointed toward the demon again and fired.

The light magic engulfed the space, blocking the demon, the wall, and the victims on it from his view. He winced from the force and pressure against him, tightly grasping his gun and praying it wouldn't break. Seconds before the light dissipated, some of the power threw him hard against the wall behind him.

Groaning, he went limp and fell to his knees before slumping prone on the ground.

The ringing of what seemed like a hundred screams echoed in his ears, demonic and enraged. With his arms, he forced himself upright and observed the destruction he caused.

The demons had disappeared from the immediate area. The wall he had faced, once covered in vines and the human victims, had disappeared, pieces of it crumbling and rolling to the ground, revealing the rest of the underground hell.

Grimacing, he lowered his head, breathing a prayer.

He hadn't intended to spare the victims their lives of suffering like that.

Looking for his gun, he found Ringe on the ground beside him. It lay there innocently, smoking quietly. A small smile briefly flashed on his face, and he took it into his hand. Its body was warm, but not much warmer than it would be from being held.

Magical revolver pistol, indeed...

From the bowels of the cavern, a deep, bellowing roar shook him from the depths of his core, making him grasp his chest and hiss in pain. The roar silenced all fighting within the cavern, casting the darkness in near-perfect silence save for the deafening sound itself.

Following the rumbling came the harrowing sensation of the creature which caused it nearing. He suddenly went stiff.

A-Class Infernal...?

As if on cue, the smaller plant demons thumped on the ground, chittering worriedly. Simultaneously, the two-legged demons crooned, the sound swelling to create a dirge-like harmony. Swearing harshly, Jean shakily moved to his feet, holstering Ringe and sheathing Hilde.

Move, Jean.

He grunted at his mental voice, which sounded oddly like his mate, placing a hand over his wound. He steadily left the area, and on the fringes of his senses, he knew the larger creature was nearing--and fast. He nearly stumbled again, his vision hazing over, but he forced himself onward. Where, he didn't know.

Anywhere but where he was.

Swallowing, he sniffed the air, shifting through the smell of his own blood to pick out what seemed to be...water.

A weak smile came to his lips, but it died the moment he abruptly fell to his knees with a pained gasp. Breathing heavily, his eyes slightly widened when blood trickled from his nose to the ground.

MOVE, Jean!

He clenched bloodied teeth and forced himself back to his feet.

The demons on both sides ignored him as he staggered towards the smell of water. Letting his eyes close, he used his senses to guide him forward. The rumbling worsened and increased, and his ears rang from the chittering and crooning behind him.

Finally, he came upon the pool of water and opened his eyes. It looked deep. Swallowing more nausea and blood, he staggered into it, took a deep breath of air, and submerged.

Coolness enveloped him, a minor relief from the burning of the poison. He swam fast, eyes darting left and right, his senses reaching, but there was nothing. The passage seemed to be long, which worried him. However, he may have missed pockets of air in his haste.

After a good eight minutes, the tunnel went upwards. He pushed off the ground to propel himself up and breached the surface with a gasp. Shuddering, he slowly pulled up, feeling horribly sick. He would have died a long time ago if he were human...

He went stiff.

The rumbling...

It disappeared.

His head snapped over in a direction where large red eyes glowed from within a void of darkness. Even without seeing the entirety of its body, he sensed its size--its frighteningly massive size. Shakily, he exhaled, moving to his feet and turning to it.

Despite everything, he couldn't discern it well. Whether because of the poison in his system or because it was a powerful creature...he couldn't reckon.

"What are you?"

He startled at the voice in his mind, a knee-jerk reaction. The speech, furthermore, wasn't a human dialect but a demonic one familiar to him.

"You are...not quite human."

He frowned but kept his guard up, responding, "I wasn't born inhuman."

"Yes, it would seem so...How interesting. I have met only a few humans who choose the life of a monster, they call us. Or...perhaps an inhuman turned you against your will?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees. Breathing heavily, he kept his eye on the creature with some difficulty.

"Oh...?"

The red eyes moved, approaching him. At first, it seemed almost like an illusion. He slanted his eyes and blinked. Slowly, it emerged from the alcove and revealed a somewhat misty, somewhat solid body with at least six long, centipede-like limbs. He had seen nothing like it before. Was it truly Infernal...or a hybrid?

"Such a shame, really..."

Slowly, he moved to his feet and took a step back. Its estimated size had surpassed two full-sized busses back-to-back.

"...it would seem from the smell of inhuman death about you that your profession is that of a hunter, one that kills our kind."

It looked him dead in the eye as he readied to run.

"I despise hunters."

Without a second thought, he moved. Forcing himself to use his fastest speed, he raced from the area into a room-like space complete with dim artificial lighting and remnants of a homely environment.

But the creature moved just as fast.

He didn't have a chance against it. He was weak, devoid of magic, and exhausted, never mind its class. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth to the ground, and he tripped over his own feet, but he forced himself to continue running.

His heart sank when he saw a dead end ahead. Panicking, he looked around and spotted another, larger pool of water that seemed much like the first.

He didn't think about it. He dove inside and swam as fast as he could. Behind him, the creature followed with a ground-shaking roar. He winced at the proximity of the sound, then readied himself upon sensing an attack coming his way. He barely dodged in time to miss a pointed, spider-like limb that immediately retracted.

It was close. It was so close.

He saw the surface and propelled himself out. He rolled on the ground and nearly hit an opposite wall, but moved to his feet. The scent of something in the distance reached his nose.

Fresh air...!

Panting heavily. he weaved through stalagmite columns, the sound of destruction echoing around him.

Ahead, he spotted a large wall. Gasping, he momentarily rested against it, sifting through the throbbing pain in his head and swirling thoughts for a way to get up. Left with no other choice, he used his claws, digging into the wall and launching himself up, slowly but surely.

"Determined little ant," the demon hissed.

The voice in his head only made it throb harder, and he nearly lost his grasp on the wall. It was playing with him. The smell of fresh air kept him going.

He reached the top and, to his great shock, sensed life further ahead. Human life.

Wobbling, he lowered to his knees, then rolled to miss another long limb that retracted in moments. Something slammed him against the wall, breaking stalagmites and stalactites and scrapping him against the cave's interior. He grunted but with quick fingers, he flipped out his gun and shot the inhuman point-blank.

With a growl, it threw him, sending him flying toward the exit. He rolled and forced himself to run again. His body screamed, his head throbbed, his vision hazed, and his insides burned. But he didn't dare stop.

The human presences increased. There were far more than there should have been, causing his worry to spike. His group must have gotten help...and the demon was still fucking with him.

He had half a mind to let his claws retract as he spotted the artificial lights from around a corner. He turned around it and it nearly blinded him after all the time he spent in the darkness.

The last stretch of ground he needed to cover felt like an impassible obstacle, and as he hid his inhumanity, he felt all the strain and hurting his body went through increase tenfold.

"Wait...is that...Jean?!"

The distant voice belonged to none other than Artie, and the following clamor of voices all melded together in his head.

"Ready yourselves!" called someone who sounded oddly like...Madeleine Crane?

"It's behind him!" Trevor shouted in alarm.

"Get him out of there!" shouted Nicholae.

Somehow, someone appeared at his side, and Jean collapsed against them. From their scent, it was Friedrich, and he must have used magic to teleport the short distance.

Everything else became a blur.

Worried, angry, and determined human voices. Monstrous screeches. Battle cries and heavy artillery shot rounds. People passed him around several times before someone eased him on something soft, so wonderfully soft.

He focused on breathing. Breathing, and hoping his friends and group wouldn't die by the creature's hands.

"Jean?"

He didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified to hear his younger brother's voice.

Ulrich took his hand. "Creator, you're alive...H-how?"

"Sheer determination, by the looks of it," said Musa, his voice strained.

The remnants of his shirt were shredded, and a sharp inhalation made it to his throbbing ears followed by a sound of alarm from Ulrich.

Eyes rolling in his head, Jean felt consciousness fading. He welcomed sleep.

"We will finish this, Hunter."

He grimaced, the inhuman voice echoing in his mind until merciful silence overtook him.