Helo wakes up with a big yawn, Helo gets an angry yip from the fox and a small bite on his shoulder for waking her up. “Sorry sorry” Helo says with a laugh, “It is time to get up anyway. Don’t yell at me because your lazy.” All he gets back after that is cute eyes blaming him for the early morning.
Realizing with a start that he forgot about the 650lbs bear in his entryway he walks to the path leading into his cave and sees his door knocked outward and the bear gone. Well, I guess that is that.
Seeing that he is alone and Lelai is still sleeping Helo takes out the journal Ms.Accleas gave to him and fills in what happened through the previous day. Including as many details as he can remember about Fuzzballs injuries. This whole journal is written in a language that he was taught from Ms.Accleas before even English.
A man on the phone is pacing through his office just outside Sacramento. “WHAT! AHEM. I mean, what do you mean you lost the bear. It is a freaking bear, and you cut it. How did you lose it.”
Another man speaking is heard through the phone “Sir, we were following behind it. We were about 10 minutes behind the bear's trail, sir. We would have been closers, but Cam was injured. I had to patch him up. So were following and we get to this clearing that has a bunch of blood in the center. It must have sat there for a break or something. We look around and there is just a hill with a fallen tree and more trees. After checking we notice a trailing leading toward the city. So, we followed it, then it was just gone.”
“Take the phone, I’m too tired to deal with this Antonio” The man says. Tossing the phone to his subordinate that is standing behind his desk. He looks out the window of his office toward the mountain and scowls.
“Yes Mr. Carbani” the man in a suit says in a respectful voice. With his voice turning much more severe he says to the phone on the desk. “You have greatly disappointed Mr. Carbani. You were supposed to cripple, and then capture the target. It was a simple job. For simple men. But... instead you got distracted by what I assume is a game trail.”
“Antonio sir, I know we will find it again tonight. It should return to its home.” The voice on the phone says.
“Mhm, you have one more chance. Don’t mess up.” Antonio says after seeing Mr. Carbani holding up one finger. Then he hangs up the phone. Turning the Mr. Carbani, Antonio says. “I’m sorry for my recommendation. They have been useful in the past. They are a part of a few less than reputable businesses near Mr. Bernard’s town.”
“I am aware Toni, I am not mad at you I just wanted to be on my way home. I was supposed to have a date with my wife. Now I'm going to have an awkward conversation instead. Can you change out flight time and check with the source in Grass Valley. If the bear truly has started to develop a mana core and we are the family to get it. It could be a great boon for the family and myself. If they fail tonight, we are going to have to get a tracker sent from Venice and my cousin can be so difficult to work with.” Mr. Carbani says regretfully looking at his cell phone with his finger over the call button.
“I understand Enzo. I will go with them tonight. If the bear hasn’t found a new home, I’ll make sure we grab it. Animals outside the great families’ compounds and dungeons are always full of more potential. And if we must work with your cousin, I'll take care of it.” Toni says as he walks out of the room.
As he leaves, he hears his boss typing in a phone number, then the defeated voice of his friend and boss, “I’m sorry love… please don't be mad.”
“What a lovely day.” Helo says while walking down a game trail. Lelai is walking behind him, her tail high in the air and head up like she is some kind of princess. Helo Leans down and plays with her ears. Then continues on his way. Well might as well check my traps. Getting closer to his first trap he can smell the blood in the air mixed with fear and desperation. “Ahh looks we got a rabbit.” Helo breaks its neck and continues on his way. Doing a circuit of his traps he finds six more small game animals from squirrel to birds. It is too much for him and Lelai so he frees 3 of them.
Halo heads north up the mountain for about 30 minutes and proceeds to skin and clean the game giving Lelai whatever she wants from the pieces and leaving the rest for scavengers.
Getting back home he proceeds to start a fire in his cave making sure there is room for the smoke to flee. Then he cooks them. I wonder where Fuzzball went. After his meal Helo starts to track Fuzzball. He is using the sense of smell as well as the imprint of the bears paws in the dirt to track it. The smell can give him a feint sense of direction and as he finds paw prints he is verifying that he is going the right way. After 30 minutes of sneaking through the forest he finds a massive bear swatting at a honeycomb in a tree. Helo sees what is happening then and turns tail and runs. He wants nothing to do with that. It's about time he went into town and found some small jobs to do anyway. Maybe Wendy will have some treats for him.
Antonio starts heading into the valley from Sacramento. I'm glad it was just Enzo in that room if others were a part of that conversation, it would have been an embarrassment. Such a simple job yet they fail. The people I reached out to. Now I'm just disappointed. This should have been so simple now I have to personally get involved. As Antonio parks his car on a side street, he sees the one man he really did not want to meet here.
“Well well well would you look at that! Antonio how is Enzo doing. Did he happen to come into town as well.” Bernard says. He could feel a strong presence approaching and left his office in the town to find out who showed up into his resort town unannounced.
“Good morning, Sir Bernard. I just have some business to discuss in town and I won’t be staying long. I'll be gone by noon.” Antonio says while trying to hurry away to not get caught up in a conversation.
“I see. How unfortunate. There is no clan meeting. That means if you have any business to attend to while in my domain it should be confirmed with me. Otherwise, you must act through proxy. Like the men that got sent into my forest yesterday. Do you know anything about that? You do know if you personally get involved, I will have to let someone on the council know that the Carbani family was acting in Resort ground.” Bernard says this while never breaking eye contact and slowly releasing the pressure of his cultivation and level.
“Ahhh yes well, I uhh.. I will just be going. I will let the Carbani family know you said hello” Antonio hastily says while quickly going back to his car and heads back to the hotel in Sacramento.
“bzzzz, ring, bzzzzz, ahh hello?”
“Jared. This is Antonio again; I'm calling to let you know that you better catch that damn bear and do it tonight. Goodbye.” Dammit they better not fuck this up. He throws his phone in the other seat. While gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.
Helo is feeling cold and annoyed. Last night was a beautiful night. It was warm with a nice breeze. Tonight, it is raining, windy, and the weather decided it was going to drop a few degrees. Why did I decide to watch this bear. It is nice and warm in its den asleep and happy. While I'm up a tree waiting for nothing to happen. In thirty minutes if nothing happens, I'm going back to bed. Fifteen minutes later Helo is getting ready to climb down the tree when he sees four people sneaking their way toward Fuzzballs cave. Huh. I guess I was right. Not on my watch.
Helo slowly climbs down and grabs a rock from the floor. As he gets closer, he does his best to make as little noise as possible by focusing on his breathing and intentionally calming his body. These are the meditation techniques he learned from Ms. Accleas. Whenever they would do something active, she would always have him meditate beforehand and during she would ask him to focus on the techniques. Which is not going well with all the rain because he is upset. But he can hear some talking from the four people.
“We need to…. Bear
“Its asleep … have.. .. knockout.”
“Just maim it”
“It already cut … my leg …. Kill it”
As he gets closer the voices get clearer, and he can hear more. That is when he realizes he knows those voices. It's his tormenters and the crooks. With this new knowledge his decision is even easier. Helo cocks back his arm as the four men approach the bear and throw a rock directly at the bear.
Fuzzball wakes up slowly from the hit from the rock and lifts its head. All four men freeze in place. One of them turns around because he notices the rock clatter on the ground. As he is turning he sees a shadow fall back behind a tree. He does not notice the bear awakening and starts heading to the tree. As the man steps away and approaches Helo, Helo watches and starts grabbing handholds of the tree and lifting himself higher. The rock in his other hand is not helping so he sticks it in his mouth and grabs it with his teeth.
At the same time Fuzzball sees the men and roars. “Rahhhhhwrrrrrr!” He leaps from his den at the men and swipes a paw forward. His initial lunge catches Cam, swiping and damaging his other leg. Blood flies into the air as four large gashes are now on his thigh leading down to his knee.
“Ahhhhhh of God not again.” Cam screams. As he screams the man near the tree turns around giving Helo enough time to drop out of the tree and smash his rock on the man's head. Dropping him to the ground.
Helo does not care enough about the men to intervene and starts booking it through the woods taking a long route to get back home. As he flees, he smells some blood in the air and cannot help but think how nice it smells in the rain. His pace running through the night is not any slower to his pace during the day.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The last two man both have a massive bear charging them. Jared seeing a mouth full of fangs bearing down on him and dives away only to take a paw to the arm. Breaking the bone and tearing rough gouges through his bicep. As he falls the last man gets back to his feet and shoots a tranquilizer at the bear. The bear turns his way and starts charging, only for it to slowly start moving more lethargically.
The man continues to shoot the bear while running away, eventually after following the man for a few minutes the bear falls down. Rob, who lead the bear on a short but violent chase runs back to his group.
“Rob? Oh there you are!!!!” Jared yells as Rob comes back into view. “Get your ass over here and help me get up. We have to get the bear back.”
“The bear!!!! Cam is bleeding out and so are you! Where even is Dillan. We have to get you both to the hospital.” Rob starts yelling at Jared. “I know the boss of the BackRoom put you in charge. But you can get the bear back yourself I'm not letting them die.” Rob walks past Jared and takes off his jacket trying to get it around the wound of Cams leg. Cam is still yelling and is slowly calming down. Grimacing Rob thinks Both his legs are torn up. This is not going to be good.
Dillan wakes up at this time and sees everything going on. He remembers the shadowy figure but has no idea who it is. So, he decides to put it out his mind for now and get his friend home. “Don’t worry ill call them once we get in range and we can have them come get the bear they want so badly.”
The three men start walking back the seven miles to the village while carrying a whimpering Cam.
The next morning, they get off the phone with Antonio. All of them grimace inside Cams hospital room. “So, I guess for some reason they are not allowed to enter the area and they needed proxies. By the time to other guys got there the bear was awake and gone.” Were so fucked. They all are thinking as they look at one another.
Ms. Accleas sighs looking onto the landscape of the grounds owned by the royal family. It really has been a while since she has been back here. Standing at the exit of the personal teleportation circle to the royal family. She slowly makes her way down the path surrounded by all sorts of trees that look far different than the ones from the orphanage where she left her cute little charge.
She is surrounded by many different colors, purples and blues. Bushes so red they look like they will light on fire. It does not take her long to walk out of the path and smile. The view before her feels like homecoming. It is a massive valley with a beautiful castle at its center. This castle is so large that it has two wings leading up the side of the valley itself leading to the peaks of the mountains surrounding them.
It doesn’t take long before Ms. Accleas reaches the doors to the palace and enters while flaring her aura to the guard. They stand aside as a crystal on the door activates. Accepting her aura signature and allowing her entry. Walking through the ornate and lavishing filled hallways she remembers her childhood of running through these halls with her mistress and friend.
“khm, khm” Ms. Accleas lightly coughs in her hand as she tries to awaken her mistress without her husband waking up. She made it into their room only to find them both asleep. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect on the sleeping couple. Bowing quickly, she quietly speaks, “Your majesty, sorry for intruding and waking you, I just had to speak to Rose”
A deep voice echos throughout the room slowly saying. “You're in my room, in the middle of the night, call me Joram.” Looking down at his wife with a smirk, “and either drag her out or joins us.”
Lisa laughs and grabs her friend's arm and pulls her out of bed bringing her into a princess carry and dragging her into the kings waiting room.
Rose, the Queen wakes up in her friend's arms and gasps. “Lisa!! It has been 10 years since I saw you last. How are you, how is Kai!!” flailing around trying to walk on her own the Queen does not look queenly. She manages to slip out of her friend's arms falling onto the ground. Only to look back up at her friend and hold her arms out waiting to be pick back up.
Laughing she says, “He is fine, I left him at an orphanage that I funded and filled with some of the best caretakes I could find. The time differential is not exceptionally large on the unintegrated planet. The realm that the planet is in should be quite stable for some time.
I should be back before he gets out of their system for orphans, he should be 14 when I return.” Lisa says while setting her friend down on the couch laughing, they have known another for a long time and even though she has become a queen not much has changed with her best friend. Rose still loves to be pampered and laze around.
“That is great! Once you get back you can tell him all about us. I will send someone when you should return after the war. Now, tell me all about him!” Rose says excitedly.
“Well Rose, he is very impressive. His control over mana should be great, when he meditates, I can already feel the surrounding energy stir in the air. Also, he takes after his father, where he is much more comfortable in nature than in civilization. When I get back, he should be at the prime age to unseal his potential and teach him.” Lisa says with a big smile. She feels bad for her friend not being able to meet her first and only son. But she is happy with the chance to raise him. “Although, I am confused about his coloring. His eyes are red. But not his father's blue/red flame attribute. But a blood red, which is confusing.”
“Uuuhhh, I don't know” Cooos his mother Rose. “It does not matter; I am sure he is perfect. But is he cute, I bet he already has all the girls following him.”
“Oh, Rose. I already sent some blood I took from him to the enchanters. They will add him to all of the keystones, so that when he comes near your territory, he has access.”
“AHHHAHAHAH well look at you! Graham I never thought I'd see you this time of year. You are aware the meeting of the resorts isn’t happening right now. You know I can't play favorites. Us resort holders around the world have a code to live by, to be the meeting place and facilitate trade and communication between the families.” Mr. Bernard joyously yells at his friend. “But am I glad to see you. There has been an uptick of suspicious activity around the area.”
“I know. I already know all of that. You tell me every time I meet you. Rubbing in the fact you live at a resort. Even about the activity. Do you have any idea what it is about. Was another Preapproved found? Or maybe someone with great talent? Ahh it must be a mana enhanced beast?” Graham BrightMoon guesses.
“I am not sure but let’s get out of the street. I know my city is beautiful but let’s head up to the resort.” Bernard says while looking around the city. It is a sunny day with white fluffy clouds in the sky and a backdrop of the mountains. “I'll have someone come pick us up.”
The two men followed by several bodyguards walk down the main street of the small town. In the distance a fancy SUV starts driving towards them. Both men are silent knowing that they should not be having their conversation aloud in public. A minute later they both are in the SUV and heading up the mountain path.
“So do you have any idea what is going on?” Graham asks. “I know I'm not allowed due to the laws of the clans to get involved. But your resort is still within my jurisdiction, is there anything else I should know?”
“There hasn’t been someone with a presence over level 1 near my resort. The closest is in Sacramanto. That means if something is happening it is happening by proxy. Which means you can only act by proxy unless you deem there will be substantial damage and if not, you will be heavily fined.”
“Huh. I know Bernard.” An exasperated Graham says. “I am one of the heads of the 16 clans. I've been in my position of leadership longer than you.” Graham says in an annoyed tone taking a champagne bottle from nearby and filling a glass before throwing it back and filling his glass again. “I am honestly here because I got into an argument with the wife. My daughter is turning twelve and I may have gotten a little to overbearing trying to keep her from going to see her friends. I mean come on; you have met the Starhaven heir. That kid is an ass. He is turning out to be exactly like his father. I feel bad for Grace.”
“Hahahaha. I'll call Cheynne and get the details from her later.” Bertrum says laughing at his friend.
“So, do you have any interesting news for me? Anything to keep you from laughing at me the whole time?” Graham asks.
“Well yes I do.” Bertrum says while leading Graham inside the resort. The front of the resort if a beautiful gate surrounding the entire complex. As you enter on foot it is like walking back into the forest. Defensive measures are all over but disguised and you can feel the ambient mana rising. The resort building resembles Japanese architecture with large beautiful roofs and sliding doors. The whole place is red, blues, black and white. Bertrum leads Graham inside the resort, and they head directly to the bath house and the exterior spa. “Do you remember that child I told you about that showed up to my town a few years back?” Bertrum says while looking at his friend.
Graham nods and reply’s “The kid you called an escape artist, right? Something about always running away?”
“Yes, that one, well he escaped three more times from homes we tried to put him in, mind you at that time he was eight and nine years old.” Graham’s eyes widen at that. “Now he is eleven, only a year younger than your daughter.” At this point Grahams eyes narrow. “Oh, don’t give me that look this kid is talented. I'll let you in on a secret, that suspicious activity has to do with the kid. They are trying to find an animal in the forest the kid befriended, and he keeps helping it escape or break free.”
Bertrum laughs that this point. “It is hilarious for me to watch. Whoever is trying to get this beast has been trying for a year. Thankfully, they haven’t broken any rules. Plus, I'm going to have to deal with the beast eventually. Its core is about to awaken. I think I'll auction it off at the clan meeting next year. But the beast has slowly been getting stronger than the natural limits.”
“Hahaha. That’s amazing. What are your plans for the kid? And please don’t mention the meeting, that was the reason for my argument I had with my family. My daughter wants to come with all her friends.” Graham grabs his head and groans. “She’s going to end up meeting all the ‘young masters’ from all the other clans and I'm going to want to kill them all. I'm not ready for my baby to grow up!”
“It was bound to happen eventually and with the kid I have no plans. Maybe in a few years but right now I'm just making sure he is warm and has food.”
Helo is now eleven years old and things have been going well for him. He spent the last year with Lelai and Fuzzball avoiding poachers. Helo is not sure why, but he has noticed that Fuzzball keeps getting stronger, faster and more intelligent. The same is true for Lelai but it is at a much slower pace.
“Hey Lel, let’s go to town Wendy has food for us.” He said as he walks out the entrance to his cave. “I am getting hungry and it's the weekend.” Helo says this because the weekend is when Wendy brings him a homemade meal.
Hearing a yip from behind Helo takes off into the trees. It has only been a year, and he is eleven. But Helo has gotten much faster. Running down the path, pushing himself Helo feels alive with the leaves rushing by and the wind blowing past his face.
From his left side he feels soft fur bush on his arm. This is Lelai running past. She was playful as a baby but now that she is older her playing style has matured as well. This is because she likes naps after playing tag now.
Running after the playful fox, Helo can't help but break out into an almost feral grin. He starts to pump his arms harder and unaware to him his canine teeth have started to push out, looking like fangs. Running in the woods has turned into a hunt. In front of him Lelai lets out a piercing cry and an takes off toward town running as fast as she can. She dips under a fallen log jumping over the next one only to veer off the path as she is running. Following her Helo leaps from log-to-log falling on the ground and running off the path. This continues for a few minutes and Lelai has disappeared around the corner.
When she is out of his sight Helo hears another of Lelai’s yips but this one isn't of joy but surprise and maybe fear. Pushing just a little faster he rounds the corner and sees Lelai on her side with a cougar prowling toward her downed form.
Without breaking his stride and with all his weight Helo tackles the cougar as hard as he can. As they fall on the ground Helo wraps his arms around the neck of the cougar and bites it as hard as he can on the back of the neck. At the same time the cougar lets out a loud yowl of surprise, and Lelai cries out scarred for Helo.
Getting off the cat Helo feels some pain in his leg, but it is quickly disappearing as he starts feeling great. The cougar looks at the downed fox before staring at the human before turning around and fleeing.
“Are you okay!” Helo shouts as he drops to the ground on his knees near his friend.
“Wrwrwaaaoo” Lelai reply's. Looking between his mouth, eyes and leg in worry.
I'm not sure what that means but I think she is alright. Helo thinks not knowing that she is surprised his leg is fine and that his teeth grew out and eye color changed from red to gold for a moment. “Well come-on we don't want to be here if it decides to come back.”
Picking up Lelai and petting her fur to calm down the fox Helo is lost in thought as he makes his way to the town lightly jumping from foot to foot. Wow I feel great. Must be from that run and tackling a cougar.
Looking down Helo mutters to himself. “I should probably go change.”
