Raging flames and immense heat. Those were the things that Mako both saw and felt when he first opened his eyes. The flickering orange and yellow lights of fire illuminating the building he was currently in.
Pushing himself quickly into a sitting position, Mako took little time in scoping out his current situation. He didn't know what was going on and he didnt know how he had gotten inside a burning building, but he didn't have the time to worry about those things. With the raging flames and the suffocating smoke filling the house, Mako had to figure out how to stay alive.
Climbing onto his feet, Mako looked around the room before bolting towards the door. The fire had already reached a substantial height and was currently blocking the only escape route, but the decision was to either get burned a little or get burned alive. In interest of not wanting to die, Mako ran up and slammed his foot against the door, forcibly breaking it down.
Darting through the flames, Mako made his way down a long smoky hallway, kicked another door open and ran out into the cool evening breeze where he took a nice huge breath of fresh clean air. Coughing uncontrollably a few times, Mako began putting out the flames that had started in his tail, slapping it rapidly until it was all gone.
"Holy sh*t, the hell was that?" Mako rubbed his eyes as he attempted to get his bearings. "I was nearly cooked alive!! One hell of a way to wake a guy up." Mako blinked a few times as he turned his attention onto his surroundings.
He appeared to be in a village of sort with rather bland looking houses made out of wood. Each and every house looked rather poorly constructed and was currently in the middle of burning, flames coming out the busted windows, consuming everything. Not every house in Mako's general vicinity was on fire, but with the current breeze, he was sure that the fire would eventually spread since the houses weren't that far apart from each other.
"Where in the hell am I? Certainly not in Kansas anymore, let alone New York." Mako's usual bored expression turned into one of curiosity as he broke in a light jog, running through a few houses that had yet to catch fire. "Lets figure out whats going on."
Mako kept running until he appeared on what he guessed was the main road, a dirt path that snaked its way along, pointing both north and south. The north road lead to a quick way out the village while the south was currently blocked off by what apeared to be a few dozen carriages that were currently headed his way.
Backing up, Mako stepped out of the oath and onto a patch of grass so the carriages could go by, but instead of that, all of them stopped right where they were. This greatly confused Mako until he looked closer and saw what was in the back of each carriage.
In the back of each carriage was a large metal medieval style cage. In each and every cage, dozens of humans could be seen crammed into each one, all of them shouting or crying uncontrallably. Some of them even looked as if they were mortally wounded, clutching various parts of their bodies to staunch the flow of blood.
However, even with all of this, the thing that Mako noticed the most was that all of them had animal ears and tails. Most of the females had cat or rabbit ears and a tail while the males had dog or ears of some other animal and a tail. From what Mako could see, they were all captured and shoved into the cage most likely because they had those features.
While Mako wasn't entirely sure it was correct he got the distinct impression that whoever captured them had a strong disliking for whatever these people were.
"Hey, it looks like we missed one boys," A voice shouted out, a sound that made Mako's ears twitch and his stomach churn. "I thought we either got all of them or killed all of them."
Turning his gaze away from the cages, Mako looked at the five men who were now approaching him. Each one wore armor that knights typically wore in fairy tales and anime. Bright silver suit of armor and a symbol of a lion on their left breastplate. They each carried a long bronze colored spear and judging from the way they were walking towards him, Mako assumed that they had experience using it too.
"Boss, this one's a Wolf type Demihuman," One of the knights said, his brown eyes looking over Mako. "This type is said to be especially rare and quite powerful!! For one as young as this one, we can sell him for a little over 100 gold pieces!!"
"Aye, good eye youngin'," The tallest and fatest man said. This guy had a rather long black beard and an eye patch over one of his eyes. "We obtain 'im an we be drinkin' out tonight. A free drink for whoever captures this feller alive!!"
One of the guards cheered and charged ahead of the others, his spear raised in front of him, his eyes filled with determination.
Mako was more than ready and though his expression had returned to its normal uninterested look, underneath it all he was feeling nothing but anger. When it came to the discrimination of others based on what they looked like, Mako had no tolerance for people like that. Racism in his eyes was something that he couldn't stand and his anger was only fueled even more after thinking about how these guys were most likely the ones to set fire to the houses.
"You think you can capture me?" Mako squinted his eyes at the guy the knight had called boss. "What can a wannabe Hagrid and a bunch of adults in hunks of metal do against me?"
Side stepping the charging knights spear thrust, Mako grabbed handle of the spear, stepped forward, clenched his free hand into a fist, and slammed it into the knights temple. The knight stumbled to the side before eventually crashing to the ground, his eyes still wide open as he passed out unconscious on the floor.
"I can guarentee you that the next person to step up to me will get more then they bargained for." Mako twirled the spear he had stolen before pointing it towards the boss of the knights. He wasn't an expert in the weapon like they were but he figured he'd use this as a learning experience.
"That was very good, but we have much more men than just the five of us!!" The boss gestured to the surrounding buildings behind Mako. "I'm sure you didn't notice because the burning of houses was blocking your hearing and smell but while you were beating up that one guy, my team of 50 highly trained knights were busy surrounding you."
Lowering his spear, Mako turned his head and looked behind him. Sure enough, knights began to file out from the surrounding area, each one carrying either a spear or a sword in their hands as they walked towards Mako with looks of determination in their eyes.
Mako looked around for a bit as they approached closer, eventually shaking his head. "Well, I guess this isn't New York anymore. In which case, I'm gonna assume the laws here aren't the same. In which case....you activated my trap card." Mako raised his spear, his heterochromatic eyes staring daggers in the leader of the knights. "Which means if I beat all of you within an inch of your life, I won't be blamed for it as what your doing is just as illegal."
Pushing off his feet, Mako charged towards the cages, heading in the one direction that no one was guarding. Running right past the head guard, Mako made his way over to the closest cage and, after fiddling with a rather old fashioned lock for a bit, managed to open up the cage.
"Hey!!! What do you think your doing?" The Hagrid wannabe asked. "Those people are property of the Golden Lion Knights. That means they are the direct property of the Golden Lion Kingdom and belong directly to the majesty herself, Queen Amareigh. If you release them then you'll be a wanted man throughout the entire kingdom!!"
"So what??" Mako threw open the cage and knocked out an approaching guard with a swift throat punch. "I wouldn't want to be accepted into a kingdom that treated people like this anyways. In fact, I'll make it easy for you."
Mako ran over to the next cage and this time ripped the lock away using the stolen spear. "My name is Mako D. Carson!! You can go and tell the whole world for all I care!! Either way, your not making any money off these people today!!"
"Fool," The leader of the knights stamped his large foot onto the ground in frustration. "I'll have your head for this outrageous action. It doesnt matter if your a Wolf type demihuman, your as good as dead. Knights, kill him and bring me his head on a spear."
Mako laughed softly as he threw open the cage. "Everyone who doesnt want to become a slave.....I suggest letting your fellow demihumans free and leaving while you still can. I'll draw them all away from you so you can escape."
Without another word, Mako bolted away from the cage and began knocking out each knight that had gotten too close. Each time he was getting close to being encircled, Mako would break his way out and run a good distance away from the cages. Whenever he would run from the cages he would shout out profanities and a constant stream of taunts and insults in order to keep the other knights away so the demihumans could run away.
This method worked like a charm and slwoly but steadily, Mako began to whittle down their forces until a little under ten remained. Mako had used up the majority of his stamina and was on the brink of collapse, but he made it so that it looked like he could still fight. He was tired and hot but managed to stay on his feet.
"Retreat!!!" The leader yelled. "Forget about the slaves and retreat!!" The fat bastard waved his arms as he ran, or rather rolled, his way back to the carriages. "Lets leave this hell and gather reinforcements."
Mako watched in relief as the knights near him turned around immediately and began running back to the carriages, grabbing their fallen comrades as quickly as they could.
Ten minutes later after grabbing their fallen friends, the carriages began leaving one by one. Once the final one was long gone and had disappeared from view, Mako took a deep breath and began making his way in the direction that the other demihumans had fled to.
Mako was covered in multiple wounds and had blood flowing from quite a number of scratches that were both deep and shallow. It was only by sheer willpower that he was even still on his feet. This of course was expected as fighting off fifty guys with weapons and not getting injured was impossible.
Mako made it into a really big clearing that he assumed was the edge of town. The guge group of people near it all was what he guessed every single member of the village that was now nearly completely burnt to the ground.
The fires were still raging behind him and smoke still filled the air but the breeze was blowing from north to south, providing clean and fresh air while blowing away the smoke.
Mako made it about halfway towards the loud group of demihumans before he collapsed onto the ground and descended into darkness.