Monster Hunter

Part II: The Nexus Initiative

It was exactly five months after the lab incident. We had worked ourselves to exhaustion, training tirelessly without knowing what laid in wait outside.

From my veranda where I sat every night gazing at the beautiful city of Seoul, everything seemed normal. I could hear cars honking, people chattering, birds chirping, and street noise; it was all so familiar.

I kept pondering: if we truly were in danger and if these so-called creatures are here, "why would the whole country still be at peace right now?" Of course It might be a lie; maybe we are the so-called creatures that'd plague the Earth.

It was my first time joining the crew on a monster hunt. Our Handler had previously denied me the privilege due to my lack of special abilities, which felt unjust but also considerate for my safety. I felt nervous, fighting otherworldly creatures with unknown powers. I pictured them with, 10 eyes, a whole lot of hands and having alien looking depictions so I was feeling a bit uneasy.

We were given a pager, whenever it beeped we had to report to our SANGHWANGSIL(situation room).

I received a pager that beeped three times, summoning everyone to the situation room. I took a hold of it and started descending, on the way I met most of the others. When we got there, our Handler and Bok Kyu (the tech guy), awaited us.

Our Handler pressed the remote stretching his hand towards our direction and we turned back to witness a whole new surprise. A new room appeared, entirely white. Upon entering, our Handler handed us a small box, he called it our own "ARTILLERY". What I found when I opened my box was a necklace, it had my ensign on it: letter A written on letter M. He had probably seen me drawing it somewhere.

"What are these for?" Dave asked our Handler.

"Do you intend to go out there, dressed like a space explorer again? Out handler said winking at me. He continued, "I made a little costume for you; don't worry, I doesn't have capes and whatnot, it was made with uranium and mercury, so are the weapons too"

He turned towards my direction and picked up a knife. Sliding his hand through the length of the blade he said... "Weapons made with these metals are the only things that can hurt these creatures, and these are not your regular knives, they can hurt you too, kill you even. I tried making the costume as comfortable as possible, don't worry about the visible metal showing, I made sure the costume is totally weightless and it feels almost natural for you all"

"So where are these so called costumes?" Na Na questioned the costumes' whereabouts

"I gave you your artillery right? It's all there" our Handler replied her

"Wait, you mean it's in a bracelet? Or is there any other thing else I'm meant to find insides this box, it can't even contain a baby's diaper" Dave said rolling his eyes.

Jeong Su also was given a necklace, just like me but none of us were able to use it. Bok Kyu wore his costume which looked impressive, the design and patterning of the costume looked really catchy, we were eager to see ours. His had a silver breastplate, with a jacket where orange lines ran round from the side towards the underarm and comes up towards the shoulder, moving down to his chest region.

"We're facing a weak one today, it's more like a horse with wings, you know, like Pegasus but nothing like Pegasus. My Ojiichan told me about it when I was younger, it's more of like a family tale, he said he saw it once. That's why when I was told I could do something about them here I decided to stay" Bok Kyu said, his voice filled with confidence.

"Mwo (what)? Ojiichan? What's that?" Dong Man asked him

I explained to him that it means grandfather in Japanese, realizing that Bok Kyu's mother was probably Japanese, I said.. " who would have thought you mother would be Japanese?"

"How do you know it's my mom that's Japanese??" He asked me, looking all surprised

"You name is Park Bok Kyu, that's Korean not Japanese, so if you have an Ojiichan that means he's prolly from your Ma, only an idiot wouldn't know that"

Dave said in a low tone, "Well… I didn't know that, though; just to come clean"

"Yeah…. like I said, only an idiot" I replied

We still didn't know how to access our costumes, and our Handler didn't seem like he was going to help us out of our confusion. After a little while, Jeong Su took her gloves off her hand and touched our Handler on his shoulders, she read his memories and saw how it works. Immediately, she tapped on the necklace's pendant, the pendant fells off her neck; at first, I was anxious, but I kept my cool as it formed into a big box, and the box started getting dismantled each piece fitting into one part of her body. Min Ji followed suit and I did the same. As I removed the chain off my neck and I tossed it up, it started creating a twirl around me from my head to my toe piercing a batch of the costume of each part of my body.

Mine was quite different from theirs; it didn't have the lines like theirs, but instead, it had nine fleece attached to its jacket, looking different yet sleek

We were all set, all geared up, I packed two sashimi knives by the side of both my legs, one sashimi on each side. A sword that had the inspection MONSTER HUNTER on it was attached at my back, I nodded and smiled.

Just then another surprise popped up at our front filled with varieties of fast motorbikes, we were about heading out when Johanna asked

"Uli eodilo ganeun geoya (Where are we going)?"

"It's all there, the helmet has the coordinates and the bike has the map of where you're going to" our Handler said

"This is your first battle Su Jin, don't go too reckless and stick together with them as a team, you all must come back in one piece. And don't forget, capture not kill!

Hwaiting! (good luck)." Our Handler shouted, increasing our morale.

The coordinate from the bike started beeping green, it seemed we have arrived at our destination. It was a hollow alley, dark and eerie. We started hearing shrieks from our back as well as our front, from the noise of the sounds coming from behind us and ahead they were quite a number,

"How does our Handler want us to bring all those in?" I pondered.

We got off our bike and it shrunk into a a flat disc and attached onto our thighs.

"Woah this is awesome" Daesang commended.

When the creature making the noise finally came out of the shadows, it was a human looking creature. As it came out of the shadows, his minions flooded the alley where we were, they were small purplish creatures and they looked annoying. At first we were not sure of what to do so Dong Man open a telepathic line within everybody to foster communication. For the first time, I was having a conversation in my head and it wasn't with myself

"What do you think we should do? He seems quite human to me" Dong Man said

Immediately, Bok Kyu ended the deliberation with just a statement. A statement that I found very sensible

"No one comes to greet a visiting committee with this amount of minions around, Ani (no), attack"

Bok Kyu brought out his blade, ready to attack. One of the small creatures jumped towards him to attack but was immediately destroyed by Dave's arrow. Just one piercing and the creature became blistering dust, just like the holo-monsters.

The battle was fierce; we fought the creature and his minions. Bok Kyu, Min Ji and Na na went for the creature itself, the rest of us warded off his minions.

They swamped, in tens, then later in hundreds, so much for a first mission. We had injuries but they healed within the blink of an eye, I was breathing heavily as my sashimi did damages to the creatures. The monster didn't seem like an easy one, he alone was handling all three of them comfortably, he had the power of an horse, and wings like a typical Pegasus, giving him the ability to fly and wander around, making it even harder to nab him.

The small creatures kept coming back, no matter how much we destroyed, it was if they were just not going to finish. Finally, Na na slashed the monster and I noticed his little creatures feeling the pain.

"They can't finish because they're made from him, so far he's alive they'd keep coming back" I thought to myself.

"Dong Hwa!" I shouted, "what are you doing? You manipulated your instrument into a crossbow? what the heck man, are you from medieval England? Are you gonna represent South London with a crossbow? Show me some 21st century artillery!"

He receded for a minute, charging up to maximum power, maintaining uttermost focus. "Everyone, Move…" he said, his husky voice broke through the noisy air.

I turned back and saw a Gatlin, it started whirling, whirling and releasing a lot of bullets, the minions began to fall like leaves of a withering tree. As the minions were falling drastically, I looked at the monster, "if they're hurt when he is, then it must be vice versa."

Johanna, splitted her staff into two and flung it into his wings.

The creature screamed aloud. Bok Kyu did the rest, he chained him down and cut off his wings. As soon as he cut off his wings, all his minions started dying one after the other, dissipating on the spot.

I placed my hand on Dave's shoulder, he was already bleeding from his nose, it must have been to hard for him to handle

"Are you alright?" I asked him

"Yeah, I am getting used to it, manipulating these things ain't all that easy, it takes a certain amount of energy away from you, the bigger the instrument the more energy consumed"

"Sorry man, didn't know that" I said tapping his shoulder.

I assisted and quelled my first monster, it was a little bit intense, didn't seem like the monster that fits a first time job, but we overcame, our spirits were high. All the training didn't go to waste, we didn't know what was coming our way later but we savoured the moment. Bok Kyu brought out the disc and placed it on the floor, it magically, the disc started getting dismantled and clanging, forming back into the bike, it was very fascinating. We all did the same and rode back.

On getting back, our Handler, was waiting for us already, the door opened and he let out a big smile, "Chughahaeyo (congratulations), the first time always hits differently Su Jin, trust me, I'm proud of you guys"

All tired and worn out, we sat on the chair in the situation room, Dave was almost drinking anything liquid that he found.

"Seosaengnim (sir), what sort of monster is that, this is one stubborn creature. Where are we to put him?" Min Ji lamented

"This is just one of many, there's still a long way to go if we're actually going to get rid of all of them"

I whispered to myself and sighed. I couldn't care less, what I had wished for had finally come true, I was now a Monster Hunter.