MAVERICK

"We, we should find a hospital. Yeah, that sounds like a plan... but how? And where? Ah--- I know! Phone, phone, phone... Fuck, I don't have my bag." That voice sounded like it belongs to Tala. I can't tell where she is 'cause I'm dead tired I don't even have the energy to open my eyes.

How did we escape? Did she carry us? I know I'm heavy and Kai ain't no joke, as skinny as that darn kid look.

I tried racking my head for any memory of what happened but before I could an excruciating pain surged through my body. A low groan escaped my throat. A nervous, warm hand soon touched my shoulder followed by another string of curses.

Sounds like Tala alright. She couldn't stop voicing her complaints last night, my sanity was slipping with every protests leaving her mouth. Kai said we should get some rest because of her. I wasn't keen with the idea. I feared that we might get attacked by what we were looking for if we let our guard down especially since it's known characteristic is being active during the night. I never realized that if I wasn't so alert, even though I was sleeping, I wouldn't have gotten lured into a trap.

A hysterical yet alluring cry woke me up from my sleep. It was midnight when I heard the cry. As a wolf, my ears perked at the mysterious cry. I didn't know what it was, it's just that... I can't really explain but I got drawn to that something that hides in the forest.

Before I knew it, I shifted back to my human form and got dressed. The clothes that I left balled up near the mouth of the cave felt cold but it wasn't enough to snap me out of the trance that I didn't realize I was under in.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see Tala plastered on the ground. She occupied a territory for herself, her arms spread out wide as well as her feet. Her mouth opened as she lets out a breathy sigh before scratching her nose and turning his back on me. Kai's the exact opposite with him sitting across Tala with his arms folded and eyebrows creased.

In their own way, they are both heavy sleepers. Kai didn't even flinch when he fell sideways to the ground, no longer sitting in his sleep.

For some reason those two didn't register to me as someone I am familiar with even though I know who they are. It's like my whole body is working in auto-pilot with a destination somewhere in the forest. I don't know the specifics, just somewhere out there.

Man, why am I being vague?

Even my grasp about my surrounding appears to be a low resolution nature video featuring a graphic audio of a baby crying. Soft rustling of leaves drowned by that cry, my movements slowly making its way toward somewhere. Trees around me gradually became bigger and thicker with the pathway resembling a red carpet except it's green with moss.

Where am I heading? I asked myself. The question got lost in my head as another cry held me deeper in its melody.

I sense something hair-raising towards the cry... something ominous much like the trees looming over me. My instincts is telling me to not---

"Uwaa!" Oh, that's the cry. Is it near?

I chuckled like a fool, "do not fear. Big brother is here."

Ain't I a real fool. My feet dragged itself across the leaf covered ground as if I am drunk. With my state of mind, I might as well be.

"Woah," the back of my hand rubbed against my eyes automatically as I witness the light of the moon illuminating a small bundled up figure in front of me, "I'm... awake, right?"

The bundled up figured cried once more, eating away all my concern as to why there's a baby abandoned in the middle of the forest.

"Don't worry!" I cracked a smile as I stupidly walked over the figure. "Who the heck leaves a baby in the middle of a forest?"

This feels wrong, I thought to myself.

Stop moving, my instincts warned. For a second I thought of doing just that but I'm unable to do so.

I stopped my hands that was about to reach the figure when it started crying harder. It snapped me in my thoughts and replaced it with another strong urge to hold the figure.

I laughed to myself, "I'm a werewolf. I ain't new to strange."

I should probably check if the baby has any scratches or wounds before picking it up. I might injure it more if I carelessly held it in my hands.

"That's right! I should do that!" I said to myself. "Come to think of it, why is it bundled up like this?" How can the baby even breathe with the blanket covering the entirety of it's adorable body?

As my hand reached for the blanket, everything seemed to happen so slow and too fast at the same time... I might've invited my own death or death has invited me.

Whichever it is, I'm dead.

My memory flashed before my eyes. It felt like my consciousness is finally catching up to what is happening, me waking up with the sound of a baby crying. I, unknowingly, try to find it and when I found the source, I see a baby bundled up in a nice blanket. As I reached to let the baby breathe because why would anyone wrap a baby so tightly? And in doing so, I am met with a clear misfortune.

It's naked just like any baby would be though the skin is not like a baby at all but more like an old man smashed together with a demon whose mouth is filled with jagged teeth smiling at me with it's preying red eyes with black snake-like irises. The crying died down and in its place the... baby? laughed like a maniac.

I dropped the blanket that bundled around its body as a scream failed to escape my throat. Just a croaking sound of stuttering and pure shame.

"B-baby?" I croaked. My voice was too high-pitched, I could've mistaken it for someone else.

My senses finally came back to me as I realized the demon baby tried to stand. It didn't have to try at all. It looked like it could stand on its own and--- holy dog and a saint horse!

I shifted quickly, my clothes ripping in the process. The baby pounced on me making me swerved away from it. That baby can jump! I growled and it just laughed when it landed.

His back was behind me. Like torture, it twisted its head slowly, the laugh never faltering, to look at me then his body slowly followed. If its trying to scare me, it should know that I'm a werewolf, this is like a normal day in my life. I've seen more gruesome scene being the Strike team leader but the surprise element definitely pumped my blood.

For counterattack, while it's busy being a creep, my jaw opened wide to rip its baby head out of its baby body only to be stopped by a warning shot arrow--- A warning shot because it didn't hit me at all. It was almost an intentional miss.

I growled at whoever shot me and missed! How could they miss! I'm a huge werewolf! What kind of idiot miss a target like me---I mean, I was about to put an end to the luring monster! I mentally screamed. Problem-solved! Mission accomplished! All of it turned to stone!

"Step-away from the baby, werewolf." A girl with brown hair tied in like a braided loopy-thingy around her head. What do you call those things?

Her face looks like it belonged to an angel. Her emerald glaring eyes isn't even something I could seriously consider as a glare. She's too soft-looking to be horrifying. Does she have freckles? Or are those dirt from the forest?

"You, monsters, would even harm defenseless babies?" She scowled. "What did I even expect?"

Who she calling a baby? This little demon? I looked at that abomination grinning at me with it's shark-like teeth.

Cautiously, the girl walked towards me with an arrow pointing at my head. Her eyes would casually glance beneath me. As I follow her gaze, I saw the creepy demon baby shifting its appearance into a regular baby, naked and showing it's private part at me as if admitting that he's doing an absolute dick move and he's being proud about it

Sorry to use the word but this little butthole deserves it.

And this human hunter is being unnecessarily heroic to the butthole.

I should just let her die in the hands of butthole, over here,--- for effort, I sneered at the little faker--- but I keep remembering how she stopped me from murdering butthole and just the thought of that irritates me that it makes me want to harm her first.

Even now, she's still irritating me! When I sneered at butthole, she released an arrow that could've blinded me but she intentionally missed... again! It was another warning shot.

Jeez! Is she an amateur? Just kill me right off the bat, you pretender! Who's training this backbone-less hunter?

I was so close! Super close to going home and presenting the cause of the problem to the principal and have her find the solution to save the members of the strike team and then! And then someone had to be an ignorant stuck-up hero-wanna-be!

"Try to attack again and I will not hesitate." Is she kidding me? Two warning arrow had been shot!

Two! That is too many and she's telling me she will not hesitate?

I lowered my stance, glaring at the hunter, bearing my teeth even! She is testing the limit of how patient I can be in my wolf-form.

And I bet butthole is having an amazing time watching us.

Sighing, she took an arrow behind her. "You wanted to die today?" Uno reverse card to you!

Why can't I give out a reply in this form? This hunter really thinks she's all that with her one-liner and taunting phrases.

A low, guttural sound escaped my throat as I circled around her cautiously. I should've just pounced her but I'm too big to dodge an arrow at point blank. Butthole is even inching closer to her and she doesn't even notice it! Even if I can just nabbed that demon, that arrow could--- what's that scent?

A thick scent of apricot? My nose twitched trying to find where that scent is coming from and it led me to that arrow. An arrow tip dipped in apricot?--- No, nerium oleander, a sweetly scented poison. I breathed in the scent once more to make sure and it is indeed the sweet smell of apricot. This hunter is armed with dangerously lethal poison-laced arrows and she dared waste it as a warning shot? I can't say I ain't glad she hesitates but I can't say that I'm proud to even be hunted by her either.

I should've been dead by now! Maybe she doesn't lace all her arrows with poison but damn it, I'm pissed. Wasting her ammo like that. Either way, if she's equipped with those arrows, I guess she can kill that demon herself. There's no point in risking my life trying to kill something if she can do my job for me once she realize butthole is a fraud.

After she murder that nuisance, I would just dash towards the corpse, snatch it and go back to the academy to save the members of my team.

I made a strategic retreat, running away with my tail between my legs, whining as I go. She could chase me but I bet she wouldn't leave an 'innocent' baby behind. She wouldn't waste that arrow either.

Once I was far enough, I shifted back into my human form. Stumbling against the leaf covered ground, I managed to catch my balance. A few dried, crunched up leaves got stuck all over my skin but I could worry about that later. I should probably see if that hunter finished her job.

I half-expected a murder scene once I return to those two. Mostly, I was right. The part where I'm not right, is the fact that the murder scene is scented with actual blood. And when I said murder scene earlier, I meant a soul is being sucked out of a human's body since that's pretty much how the other cases are. No blood should've been involved, that's why most of the case had been undetected and isolated cases.

I stopped under a huge tree just in front of them, that hunter had her back against me and the butthole hadn't noticed me yet. Picking up a scent of human blood near the scene is quite a alarming. Finding the hunter limping is even worse with the demon baby, I endearingly nicknamed as butthole, crawling like an evil maniac towards the hunter. .

See, if that hunter gets murdered, we monsters get blamed and then the hunters are going to issue another hunt which is bad because most of the monsters that they kill aren't even rampaging, blood-lusted monsters but innocent myths that's trying to live their lives under the radar. I could save her but the problem now is that, I don't plan on becoming a rampaging, blood-monster either.

My hands are tied in this situation all because this hunter is pathetically weak in skills!

She was covered in scratches and her legs are filled with gruesome bite marks. Her body trembled as she drew an arrow and pointed it towards butthole. She had been wasting a total amount of 7 arrows right now! It was a horrible thing to watch, watching her fumble around and dropping the arrows several time in her attempts to do so. I couldn't help but groan in frustration.

Is she trembling in fear? Ain't she a big joke.

Hunters' should know that they will face death if they think that they can just hunt monsters down and kill them as they please.

"My plan had already gone down hill the moment I overestimated this hunter's capability," I groaned.

I thought she could defeat butthole then after she does, I'd just have to snatch the dying demon baby's body and run-away but that seems far-fetched now. It can't be helped, I have to await the upcoming fate of this hero-wanna-be. Watching her die would be painful to watch but there's nothing I could do.

I decided to climb the tree and sit on the branch of the tree top while waiting until this is over. Another hunt is on it's way, I just hope these hunters could find real monsters.

It's frustrating how I can't even do anything to make the situation better! I'd definitely end up being the monsters in a human children's bedtime story. The one's who hurts humans and are treated as nothing but villains. The thought of being nothing else but a villain made me want to vomit.

Being the hero, that's not our purpose in the grand web of destiny. To save lives--- Bah! What a tall tale dreamt by a kid who didn't know how harsh destiny can be. We're only here to guide and/or warn humans about their own fates but their actions and the consequences of it are not ours to stop but theirs to overcome. They're the true heroes of every stories.

We're like NPCs in a game or something like that.

Sometimes, I feel helpless.

The way anxiety floods your body, your brain yelling at you, telling you to do something, anything but you don't know what? Knowing that a problem is right in front of you but no matter what you do, no matter how you wanted to reach out and help someone,... you can't because then you'd be the problem.

If you can't solve the problem, don't add to the problem. What a disgusting motto that I remind myself to repeat over and over just so I could not do anything.

Being born a myth yet having the urge to protect others? I guess it's the wolf in me to protect. It's the reason why I entered the Strike team and at the age of thirteen, I became the leader up until now.

I badly want to protect everyone around me but watching the hunter die without me doing anything? The feeling of guilt, I cannot help it gnaw at my conscience. If she can't save herself, she'll be dead by day break because no one can.

"Why did I trust you? Why can't you save yourself?" I gripped the branch hard trying to get that thought out of my head.

My eyes stared at the hunter then suddenly thoughts flood through my brain causing me to flinch. I thought of trying to save her. Jumping down this tree and pushing her out of the way--- I couldn't do that. My right hand reached my left arm, my dull nails dug through the skin, unable to pierce it. My hand held my arm tight trying to stop--- No, will myself to not act.

To stay put. Sit still, naked and all, in the branch, away from the action.

The devil baby butthole took menacingly slowly baby crawls and each crawling made me want to just jump in and do something!