Sibling Bonds

The inside of the cave was similar to the tunnels me and Steven ran through during our raids on the other monster lairs. Unlike those ones however, this cave was a little more open and there weren't a bunch of branching tunnels that we could end up getting lost in. There were however, a couple of charred monster corpses on the ground. Some of those corpses even had bite marks on them.

"Looks like Emma and Fang tore through this place." I said, closely observing one of the corpses.

Steven nodded as he progressed deeper into the cave. The area was nearly dead silent, the only two noises were that of water dripping from the roof of the cave onto the cold hard stone floor and the sound of our footsteps. Wherever Emma and Fang were, they were too far out to be heard unless they had somehow been rendered unconscious.

I quickly waved that idea away, while I know Emma and Fang weren't the most combat oriented people, I still couldn't see them losing. Emma's much smarter than me and Fang is… well he's got those teeth so I'm sure that's gotta count for something.

Steven stopped for a second and looked back at me, "thanks for tagging along with me and sorry for acting so recklessly." Steven gave me a sorry look before facing forward again.

"Nah don't worry about it. They're my friends too after all."

Steven didn't say anything but I could just barely see that the top of his ears had turned red.

As Steven and I walked deeper into the cave, the sound of a giant explosion could be heard in front of us. Steven and I glanced at each other before dashing towards the noise at full speed.

Dashing towards the noise, we blitzed through a few monsters in our way as if they were nothing. Not only were they disposed of quickly, they hadn't even managed to slow us down. We continued pushing forward until we found a fork in the road.

"I'll take left!" I shouted.

Steven briefly nodded before splitting away from me. I continued running through the tunnel. With how the sounds of battle kept growing louder, I felt it was safe to assume I chose the correct path. Before I knew it, I had entered a giant clearing. In the middle of the room was a ravine where at the bottom I could make out three figures.

"Yeah that's probably them." I smiled, cracking my knuckles before jumping down. I used some smaller explosions to make it so I wasn't falling as fast.

I landed on the ground right at the center of the conflict. In front of me stood a monster standing on all fours snarling. I turned my head slightly to see Emma and Fang standing there with their mouths open.

"John?!" They both shouted in unison.

I grinned, "in the flesh! Steven should be here eventually. Until then, rest up and lemme take care of the rest."