No Second Chances

Nyitzcha waited patiently by her husbands side, watching the others hurry out the door before the hunter closed it behind them. Now that they had some privacy, she cleared her throat and gently lifted his arms to inspect. It was reddened from fingertips to forearms, he hissed as her small fingers tapped and stroked his skin with little pressure applied. Felix saw the expression in her face and looked away, embarrassed and feeling defeated as the nerves in his arms and legs throbbed with every beat of his heart.

Nyitzcha slowly put his arms down and sighed, scooting over to his side. They briefly locked eyes and she could read the defeat in his soul before she could speak a word, placing her hand on his leg to comfort him.

"Ye 'xhausted yerself, an' I don' think bruised hands will be strong enough to wound anyone but yerself."

Felix hung his head, staring at his reddened fingers unable to form a fist.

"I've come this close."

"Ye did, ye made it further den any, de likes not many could say dey reach at all. Don' look at dis like defeat, yer brought us dis far."

"I can't stop now, not when I'm this close that I can smell her scent."

Nyitzcha placed her hands over his own. "De spirit rises but de body lays 'n fatigue. Sometimes it takes courage to admit when ye can't push forward no more."

"She's right. In your current state you're in no shape to continue fighting anymore." Leone interjected, calmly walking by them before reaching down to inspect one of the two halves of Perdilius' chestplate. "This is new, these engravings seem familiar. Was this an enchantment?"

Felix looked up. "The big man wore it under his robes, soon as I took them off he grew massive and became something huge. It was like he transformed into a giant.... giant, I guess."

"No, these markings symbolize surpression. Whatever Perdilius turned into was his real form." Leone turned the plate around as a medallion was revealed to him. In it, he noticed the symbol of a raven staring back at him. Raising his brow, he removed the medallion from the plate, tossing aside the metal and placing the medallion into his belt for keeping.

"Why did you do this?" Leone turned to face him with a questioning look as Felix pressed on. "Why did you turn on them? They were your family."

"I've explained myself before, I wasn't aware and when I was I had no choice. Should I break my contract, the Guild would be quick to send a Hunter for my head, one after the other, until they return with my own as conquest."

"So you did it to save yourself?"

"Lad." Nyitzcha pressed his chest, wanting to take his focus away. He didn't budge, his eyes never wavered.

"Did she know about you being her dad? Did any of them know?"

Leone kicked some dust aside, hand placed in his belt as he turned his head from side to side. Running a hair across his silver hair, he closed his eyes and glanced to his left. "Care to take this one for me?"

"I was worried you would request that." A troubled mother's voice whispered softly in return, slowly entering the hall from the stairs behind the hunter. Both monster and hunter traded awkward looks before turning away, her face emitting a light red hue while his eyes dropped and his shoulders grew tense. From an outside perspective, it looked like two children caught by their parents red-handed. Both shared a secret but neither had the heart to tell.

"It wasn't that way at first, we tried to make things function as best and as naturally as it could. He was present, not always but most days he was there."

Leone pressed back along the wall, lifting his head. "We taught the clutter about the basics of survival, food gathering, and self defense. It's hard teaching women with paws how to fight, but we managed with a bit of improvising."

"Nityri saw it as a dance, her and Na'Vi even practiced during their time together." Emyri smiled as she reminisced of sweeter times. "They called it-"

"Tat Tat." Felix answered for her, his dwarve wife keeping silent and listening to the two continue to share.

Leone stepped forward. "It wasn't going well, the progress we had was outstanding but I was having less free time as more contracts were made. Things became difficult the day one contract involved a village nearby and one of our clutter, Na'Vi."

"We had to fool them into believing he had killed her, I didn't want to lose another. This one was troublesome and distraught, her father took her mother away from her and she pursued which led to her near capture. I adopted her as my own and in time she got along with Nityri, or KuliKuli as you named her."

Felix shook his head. "When Perdilius hired you, why didn't you just lead him away? Why take him to your family, was that against your contract too?"

"He knew where they were, he had captured Nityri then and had her lead them to the clutter. The best I could do was to let them slip away, and it wasn't many who could."

Emyri sighed. "I spoke with Alma to hide the others when my daughter went missing. It all happened so fast that night, we ran forward too scared of what was happening that I forgot to look back. We didn't know for how long she had been missing, but I knew she could not have been caught. Leone let us escape when she was there."

"But I did tell you that when a time occurs where I have to hunt you down what we should do. You were supposed to head north through the mountains, instead you stayed within the region. It almost felt like you wanted to be caught."

"Our daughter was missing and Na'Vi was hurt, I wasn't going to lose another girl when I could help! I know you wouldn't understand, but-"

"Emyri, you could have been killed. Who would look after the kids?" Argued Leone.

"Then I will die if it means keeping my family safe, end of discussion!" Emyri raised her voice back.

Leone stabbed his sword into the ground. "That isn't going to help anyone here, he wanted you girls and damn it I could only delay him for so long. If you had done what I said before, if things had gone as we planned-"

"Yes! We did plan things Leone, we planned for a lot of things but obviously nothing had gone according to plan! And I was never comfortable with the plan either way as you know. It's not easy, I can't just leave my clutter. Not after what we have been through, I promised Cyri I would look after them. I thought you would know better." Emyri's voice had softened as she held her chest, closing her eyes and turning away. Leone reached out but froze, his eyes looking away for a distraction before giving up and hanging his head in silence.

"I... I don't know what to say."

"Do you regret us?"

Leone raised his head. "Regret what?"

"Our family, our little girls... do you regret having that with me? I know I'm something you're ashamed of but... sometimes I think it was the wrong choice. But then I look at them, I seem them with your spirit and I feel... alive, again. I feel happy, fulfilled, overjoyed. I wish you could share that, I wish you would smile for them too."

"It's not... I don't, no I don't. But." Leone stammered, feeling for his belt and staring at his boots. Felix and Nyitzcha stared and waited, the scene may have been awkward but neither felt invited into this conversation quite strongly. "I wasn't... you had a mother and father Emy. You had friends, you had family, you have examples of what to do in that role and I don't. It's not that I didn't feel happy for Dimyri or Nityri or Syri, but I also felt... I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know if I was doing well or if I was doing wrong. I was raised in a system where the students who failed died, you either adapt or were left behind. I wasn't raised but rather I was trained... and when I realized that I wasn't so much being a father as I was being a teacher to them..."

Emyri's back was to him, she turned her head to the side as she spoke. "Leone, being a teacher helped. It was something, it was better than just not being there at all. Our family is in trouble now, maybe it's..."

She closed her eyes, silence in thought before facing forward again. This time it was Felix who made the first move, groaning hard and pushing his body weight against the wall to stand to his feet. His thighs ached, his joints felt like they grinding from bone onto bone. He grit his teeth but pushed on, forcing his body to obey as Nyitzcha nearly panicked and tried her best despite her small size to help him stay balanced. Eventually, she stood in front of hims raising her arms as high as she could for him to hold onto her hands for support.

Emyri and Leone looked over and watched, with Emyri gasping and approaching to help. He refused, shaking his head and making contact with the hunter.

"I don't know your story, but I didn't have any parents either. I was born into a family I never knew who either died or sold me off. In place of my childhood, I was raised and taught my purpose to obey my master. As a slave, I would be fed scraps and expected to fulfill every task, every chore, every order I would receive in my life. There was even one day when I believed I would die, when my body felt light as a feather and my skin had grown as pale as snow. I still remember my owner's name. I still have scars to remember her by."

He turned around, pointing at the digits marked into his skin. "This is who I was, what I was born into. I thought when I found my freedom that all that mattered was survival. Heck, I was even scared of Monster Girls too. But that all changed when I found an unconscious cat under a collapsed shed in the middle of a storm. She had lost her memory from the crash, so I spent the first few weeks teaching her and the next few falling for her. I saved her life then, and she's saved mine in return. I didn't know what to do but survive, and now I have a better reason to live. I didn't know what being in love was like, I didn't know how to be a teacher or how to take care of someone else. But I tried and I did my best for her and she accepted that. Maybe she would have felt the same for you, maybe not. But trying is better than giving up, I see that now. I can't ask you to break your contract for her, and I won't expect you to do that for me. But I'm going up those stairs, and I'm going to keep fighting until my last breath because a life fighting for her is better than a life without her. KuliKuli, Syri, Dimyri, you guys have accepted me. Maybe not gracefully at first, but you gave me a chance. Thank you for that Emyri."

"Aw." Nyitzcha smiled and stepped back in admiration. "Me wee lad's a speech talker."

Felix felt his knees wobble before his legs let go, his body crumbling down on the floor as the dwarf and cat girl jumped to help him back up immediately. He looked up at their worried faces and smiled nervously. "Well, I have the spirit for it at least. Do you happen to have any of those healing leaves on you, Emyri?"

Emyri shook her head. "I'm a cat monster who walks around in no clothing, I don't share any storing spaces to keep them in dear."

Nyitzcha and Emyri watched as Leone approached them and lowered to one knee, digging under his cloak before pausing. He made eye contact with Felix, staring strongly, analyzing this man laying before him in pain.

"You're sure about this? Tonight is the big night, there's no second chances from here. If he wins, all Monster Girls will be dead."

Felix felt his eye wince. "We have a plan for that, but I thought he was ranting about cleansing them or turning them pure again?"

"Monster Girls aren't born from pure magic, it's just a lunatic fantasy facade he's built for his ego. I doubt there would be any other way around purifying a dark magic being over killing them, should such a thing exist."

"But KuliKuli is both pure and dark, so what happens to her? What happens to monsters like her?"

Leone paused in deep thought for a moment. "I don't know, they either lose themselves completely or transform into a human state. What Perdilius is doing is something we only know in fictional stories yet to be proven as real, we don't have a clue what will happen."

"All the more reason to stop him." Emyri added.

Nyitzcha nodded, giving Felix a questioning look. "Didn't see dis one comin' when ye mention savin' yer love, lad."

He smiled sheepishly in response. "I didn't know the details myself. Thank you for helping me get this far."

"Ay, thank me later when we singing tales back de way 'ome."

Leone leaned forward, raising a small tube of a glowing red liquid, its contents glittering under the glow of the torch light above them. "This formula is used for medicinal treatment and surgeries, it removes the users ability to feel pain depending on the quantity used. It's a rare and highly sought-after formula, I only have this much available. This measure dosage will only grant you a few hours of its effects, depending on how much your body can sustain. Broken bones will be ignored, but blood loss will take its toll regardless of feeling. I need you to be absolutely certain that you can do this."

Felix glanced at Emyri, her worried face and loving nature as her soft gentle paws comforted his sore shoulder and chest. She wasn't stroking the areas, but just the contact alone made him feel at ease. He then looked over at his Dwarven wife, the tavern owner who reluctantly assisted their journey to save his family once she came to understand the urgency of the situation. Perhaps it was admiration for what they were willing to go for to save someone they loved which convinced her. She locked eyes with him and they both nodded knowingly, the fight wasn't done yet. She understood that now, he wasn't going to stop. Not now, not ever.

"Nyitzcha, you know the plan?"

"Ay."

With her confirmation, Felix looked up at Leone one more time. His hand reached up and his fingers closed around the tube.