11 – What the Hell Are They Feeding These Kids?

Whatever the thing chasing Tommy was, it was nothing Jonny recognized. It was like someone had crossbred a monkey and a boar. It had a boar’s body, covered in bristly fur with high shoulders and rippling muscles, but its head and limbs were wrong. Its forelegs were too long, and ended in clawed hands, its tail was long and prehensile, and its head was like an baboon with tusks.

It skidded to a halt after missing Jonny, then turned around to size him up. It wasn’t actually that much bigger than him. Not height-wise, at least, but Jonny had been in enough fights to know that it outweighed him by at least double. And its claws and tusks looked like they could easily kill him. This was not a good fight to take.

And yet, he didn’t want to run away. He might have been outsized, but he wasn’t weak, and he was currently almost full on mana. He was far stronger than anyone his size had any right to be, and he had decades of fighting experience. Not against animals or monsters or whatever the hell this thing was, but the principles were the same, right?

Besides, it had been years since he was able to properly fight. Shadowboxing in the yard never really scratched that itch. Plus, if he ran away, then Tommy…

Wait, Tommy? Did that little shit abandon me?

He glanced around, but there was no sign of the other boy. He couldn’t hear anything either.

Probably better this way, anyway, he thought bitterly.

He turned his attention back to the monkey boar, which was slowly circling him, looking wary and somewhat confused. It had probably expected Jonny to run like Tommy had, and now that he wasn’t, it wasn’t sure what to do. Jonny remembered something one of his buddies told him on a camping trip once. If he ever encountered a bear, he should make himself look as big as possible, and make some noise to try to scare it off. Bears were strong, but in the wild, injury meant death. Unless it had a good reason to fight, it would avoid tough prey, and go after easier targets.

He wasn’t sure if this kind of creature was the same, but the responsible thing to do was at least try to scare it off. He might have been itching for a fight, but he wasn’t suicidal. If he could scare it off, he would. And he’d probably regret it later, but he’d have plenty of time to fight later, while he couldn’t fight later if he died doing something stupid right here.

Or maybe I can… he thought. I mean, I already died once, didn’t I?

As the boar monkey circled him, he began to circle it back, and soon, his back was to the orphanage. He considered making a run for it, but decided against it. Turning his back to something like this was more likely to get him killed. And he had seen that it was faster than Tommy. If Jonny hadn’t been there to distract it, it would have easily caught up before Tommy made it back. It would be faster than Jonny too, then. His only hope was to either spook it, or beat it.

“Rah!” he shouted, stepping forward with his hands up.

It flinched back a step, but then it crept forward another step, growling. Jonny shouted again, taking another aggressive step forward. It jumped back three paces this time, but never stopped staring him down. Jonny tried to backtrack a step, but the moment he did, it stepped forward.

Well, I tried.

He lowered his arms into a more comfortable fighting stance and advanced again, but this time it wasn’t a feint. If the thing wasn’t going to run away, he wasn’t going to let it take initiative. Fighting passive against a stronger opponent was a great way to lose.

It backtracked a few steps, wary of his approach, but after a few seconds, it decided it didn’t care and charged forward. Jonny had been prepared for this, though, and leapt out of its path. This time, he was able to keep his feet, so when the boar monkey was trying to stop and turn, he charged it, slamming his shoulder into its side and sending it tumbling to the ground. It immediately tried to get up, but Jonny didn’t give it any time to breathe, immediately pouncing after it and landing a hammer fist on its face.

His strike stunned it briefly, so he tried to capitalize by pinning its forelegs down to keep it from getting up. But in doing this, he made a mistake. He was used to fighting other humans whose arms bent in certain ways, while the boar monkey’s legs were very different. He tried to hold them steady, but when flailed its legs backward, there was nothing he could do to stop them. The long claws dug into the knee he had planted on the ground, and Jonny sucked in a breath as he wrenched the claws out and struggled to his feet.

When he got up, so did the boar monkey, and both fighters took a couple steps back to assess the situation. Jonny’s leg was throbbing, and he felt warm blood spilling down it. He tested its mobility, and found that he was mostly alright, but it was still unideal.

Meanwhile, the boar looked largely unharmed. He had knocked it to the ground and punched it in the face, but it was sturdy, and in the end, almost no damage was done. It was wary now, but he saw it glance at his leg and sniff the air. There was no chance it was running away now, and with his leg injured, he wouldn’t make it far either before it caught up.

“Guess it’s time for round two.”

The boar monkey seemed to take his words as a challenge, and responded with a growl before charging again. It didn’t seem to have learned its lesson from the first two failed charges, so Jonny was able to leap aside yet again as the beast flew past him. He was a bit slower to tackle it this time, but he managed to get it to the ground anyway. And when it tried to get back up, he tried a different strategy from before

Rather than ineffectively pounding at its head, he needed to go for its limbs. Its claws were dangerous, and as long as it could move, he was at a disadvantage. His knee was fine for now, but it wouldn’t be fine for long, and if he didn’t find a way to immobilize the boar monkey, he would become a sitting duck.

While it flailed its legs, trying to get up Jonny stepped side so his foot was nearly against its stomach, then spun around mounting its side and grabbing its foreleg in one hand. He put one leg on either side of the foreleg, then locked his ankles, leaned back, and started to pull. His goal was to put it into a makeshift armbar, but once again, the inhuman anatomy of his foe stumped him. He tried straightening the leg to break the elbow joint, but he just couldn’t get the right leverage with the way the legs were angled. And when he tried adjusting his angle, moving his feet closer to its head, he suddenly lost the weight leverage he had, and a moment later the world spun, and he found himself lying on the ground with the boar monkey standing over him.

Shit.

The boar monkey ran up to him, then stood up on its hind legs, raising its claws to eviscerate him when it landed. Jonny barely managed to roll out of the way, but the boar monkey just came again before he could get up, trying the same trick.

Stolen novel; please report.

Jonny rolled twice more trying to get away, but on the third try, he found himself up against a tree. As the boar monkey loomed over him, he somehow managed to twist his body and use his hands to redirect the boar’s leg to either side of him, but then he was stuck with the beast straddling him. A drop of saliva from its mouth landed on its chest as he tried pinning the legs down to keep them from attacking, but the boar monkey just brought its head down instead.

Fuck, am I really gonna die again?

Suddenly, there was a muted thud, and the boar paused and looked to the side. Jonny saw a rock fall to the ground beside him, but he didn’t waste time checking to see where it came from. Instead, he took advantage of the distraction. He was in no position to get out from under the boar, so instead, he reached up and grabbed it by the tusks jutting from its lower jaw. The boar tried to pull away, but that was exactly what Jonny wanted.

With his right hand, he pulled, and with his left, he pushed, helping the boar monkey back away. He used its movement to help himself back to his feet, then set his stance, and began pulling even harder. He wanted to break a tusk off. It had become clear that he needed a weapon, and what better weapon than the boar’s own.

But the tusk proved too much for him. He pulled and he pulled, and while he was sure he could have done it if the boar was dead, it was fighting against him the whole way, its flailing getting wilder and wilder. He only had a few seconds before it broke free of his grasp, and he’d be right back where he was before.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!

As he pulled with all his might, with adrenaline coursing through his body, he had a sudden epiphany. In the moment, he barely even realized what he was doing. It just felt natural. His body was giving its all, and his mana moved to help it. His arms surged with power, and then there was a sharp crack as the boar monkey’s tusk tore free in his hand.

The two stumbled backward, the boar monkey squealing in rage and pain, but Jonny was smiling. He was back on his feet, he had a weapon, and he felt stronger than ever for some reason. When the boar monkey charged him again, he welcomed it. The pain in his knee was utterly forgotten as he sidestepped it and tackled it again while it tried to turn around.