Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)
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CHAPTER START---
Seeing Rajang and Kirin constantly trading blows was a jarring experience even for the high-level Loki familia executives.
Looking at the fight before him, as if time stopped, Finn considered all possibilities in the situation, if Rajang wins, then they potentially have a supercharged monster on their hands.
If Kirin wins, then they have a monster that they can't hope to touch because it effectively teleports with every movement.
Their only real option was to wait for a telegraphed engagement and destroy the horn after weakening both monsters, if they run, the winner could make it to their camp and that would definitely cost them some of the supporting members of their familia.
"Everyone listen up," Taking a moment when the monsters are locked in combat and still oblivious to their presence, without releasing his hold on Ais's wrist for fear that she'd charge in recklessly as she has been doing since her fight with Yang, he relays his simple plan to them.
"Kirin is literally lighting fast, Ais, Bete, and myself will handle Kirin," he receives a serious nod from them before turning to the other half of his team, "Gareth, Tiona, and Tione will focus Rajang, the guild info says the arms are the most dangerous parts so be careful of its strength, Riveria will support both teams, this area is too small for most of her magic to be used safely," he announces his plans as they all spring into action.
As Kirin and Rajang knock each other to opposite sides of the room, the small room containing the Cadmus spring worked against them in this instance, glancing to his left Finn sees the Cadmus Dragon laying against the far wall of the room, scorch marks on its scales and a crushed skull, it clearly tried to join the fight and wasn't appreciated. He knew this wasn't going to be easy.
As Finn's team rushed Kirin, he spun his spear, "Ariel", Ais chanted beside him, sharing her magic with Bete beside her.
With one large push, the three fastest adventurers in their familia dashed to the monster as it shook its dizziness away from the last clash with Rajang.
As Bete's kick, Ais's sword, and Finn's spear were less than an inch away, before their very eyes Kirin disappears in a flicker of lightning.
*BOOM!*
The ground where it stood explode, knocking the three adventurers away and across the floor.
As Bete and Ais tumble Finn catches himself and plants his spear in the ground to steady himself.
Across the battlefield as Gareth sunk his axe into Rajang's shoulder, the blade barely managed to penetrate the monster before Tiona and Tione follow up with their own hits to its back.
Shrugging off their hits, Rajang swings its hands from side to side wildly, Tione and Tiona are knocked away harshly, the older amazon finding herself planted in the wall of the room while Tiona rolls to a stop a few feet from Riveria, receiving a potion for her bleeding head.
Gareth however, is a contender for the highest strength and endurance in all of Orario, he cannot simply be pushed aside.
Reaching up and grabbing Rajang's horn with one hand, he tried to pull the monster down only for it to lift him off the ground, the monster seemed to be ignoring him, he'd take the chance. Lifting up his great axe he swings it down.
*BOOM*
Before his axe can even properly be brought down, lightning and burning air knock him aside as a massive thunderbolt strikes Rajang's back.
Gareth skids to a stop, his feet digging into the stone floor to stop himself as his team regroups. Seeing Kirin standing on the back of Rajang before leaping off.
"It dropkicked it and did that," Gareth says in a bit of awe, looking at the crater beneath the monsters and his burnt left arm, the unfortunate limb was holding Rajang's horn and took the brunt of the lightning.
"These monsters definitely aren't normal, they were listed as some of the more rare sightings in the new 'Monster Manual' the guild gave us, I can see why, they're completely ignoring us," Finn says as Tione joins them to observe the monsters having another skirmish, completely ignoring the adventurers.
"He knocked my brain around," Tiona whines as she rubs her head, joining them with Riveria at her side.
"If either of these guys wins we have a problem, we need to at least weaken them, preferably we kill Rajang first but make sure they're both weakened no matter what, keep them together so we can focus our attacks while they ignore us, Riveria start chanting your ice," Finn commands as he leads the charge forward.
This situation was new territory for Loki familia, they'd never seen monsters attack each other before.
Somehow the guild knew these particular monsters would challenge each other, and they also knew what happens if Rajang wins, but Finn couldn't bother himself with those questions right now.
As they begin their final approach, Kirin's horn lights up, lighting begins arcing all around the room, the weapons in their hands being raised up to tank the bolts, made to combat situations just like this, because adventurers never knew what they'd find in the dungeon.
As both monsters are constantly trading blows and chasing each other, Loki familia takes every chance they can get to chip away at them.
With every hit, Gareth and Tiona give Rajang more scars, Tione and Bete keep Kirin busy long enough for Ais and Finn to pierce its hind legs, forcing it to use the lightning movement technique and kick less.
"This thing is damn hard! It's all muscle!" Gareth announces as his great axe can barely ever get a few inches into Rajang no matter where it hits.
"Yeah, this thing's tough!" Tiona adds on, her Urga can barely even break through the skin at all.
"Then let's switch to bringing down Kirin, destroy the horn completely when it drops!" Finn declares, his voice reaching Riveria at the other side of the room thanks to his Command Howl ability.
Taking the order to heart, Gareth immediately slams his axe into Rajang's back as he stands atop the monster.
"I'll CUT YOU DOWN!" his battle cry rings out as he beings madly hacking away at the monster to distract it while the others focus on Kirin.
Pushing down on the ground with its powerful arms, Rajang leaps backward as the black mane on its back begins to spark with yellow lighting unlike Kirin's white, "oh no" was all anyone could think before the fur on the monster lit up in a bright gold as it leaps high into the air.
"It's enraged!" Finn tells them, knowing this means its strength is boosted.
"That was calm before?" Tiona cries out, being one of the people targeted by Rajang's fury.
As it leaped into the air with Gareth on its back, at the height of the jump it swings its arms to one side, the momentum forcing its body to turn and face Gareth, the dwarf is forced to stare wide-eyed as he is stuck in mid-air.
Looks of horror come across everyone's face, Ais is still laser-focused on Kirin as her ally is grabbed by an electrified massive hand, wrapping around his entire body.
Rajang's powerful chimeric legs, specialized in quick bursts of power and absurd jumping strength, to everyone's horror, touch down on the ceiling as he holds Gareth down facing the ground.
"ARRRGGG!" Gareth tries to struggle, futile.
Rajang springs off the ceiling with all his might, part of the stone ceiling collapses as the entire thing cracks. Before anyone can even helplessly cry out his name, Gareth is slammed into the ground with the full might of an angered Rajang aided by gravity.
A plume of stone and dust erupts as they crater the ground, something flies out of the smoke. Their heads turn toward it, Gareth was thrown toward the wall above Riveria, stuck a good foot in the stone with missing teeth and a bloodied body. One of the physically strongest adventurers in the world was manhandled by Rajang with relative ease.
"Wynn Fimbulvetr!" Riveria cries out in rage, with her chant finally complete a powerful row of ice freezes everything between her and Rajang and easily reaching the far wall. With sweat on her brow, Riveria takes deep breaths as she tries to focus her mind once more, seeing the power of their targets she was forced to pour most of her magic into that one attack. If it could overpower Gareth, they could take no chances.
"Finn now!" she yells out while turning to help Gareth, Finn immediately presses the assault on Kirin.
Hearing the ice cracking behind him, he knew he only had little time, the Monster Manual said Rajang was most weak to ice, but its body was terrifying, Riveria was likely one of two people with enough ice magic to even momentarily imprison it, and the other was currently in the Dragon Vase...
As everyone chases Kirin around, the monster was injured already, two of its legs were hurt, it was forced to constantly blinking around, Finn stops in his tracks and observes the battlefield.
They were all chasing Kirin while Riveria was focusing on healing Gareth with her magic and potions, but he noticed something, Kirin would always move up toward the largest open space, a simple instinct for such a powerful and graceful monster.
"Everyone, spread out and leave the corner with the spring vacant!" he commands, his team doesn't really understand what's going on, but they follow his command.
Hearing the ice prison cracking behind him, Finn raises his spear and aims at where he expects it to blink to, "Tiona! On my mark!" the Amazon immediately sees his spear poised to throw and readies her Urga. "Ais now!"
As she expands her wind to force Kirin to blink away, both Tiona and Finn throw their weapons, Urga spinning while his spear pierces the air gracefully.
Just as his genius mind predicted, Kirin appears at the furthest point from all opponents, in the direct path of his spear.
The monster however is lightning fast, seeing the weapon it narrowly moves its head. The weapon scrapes against its neck, drawing blood but sinking into the wall behind it.
Urga however, is much wider. The spinning weapon slams into Kirin's side, sinking deeply into the more fragile monster's body.
As the monster is stunned by the pain, "Ais!" Finn cries out, in a moment Ais is swinging her sword clad in wind at the monster's horn.
As her blade Desperate finally makes contact, the natural lightning conductor cracks, then the battlefield is scorched.
*BOOM*
A massive pillar of lightning expands outward from Kirin, slamming into Ais before washing over the battlefield. Her wind armor enhancing her defense allowing her to slightly resist the stun.
Silence befalls the battlefield as the bits of grass at the spring are incinerated. Everyone, all the adventurers as well as Rajang are laying on the floor from the massive attack. Kirin is gone, but the horn and monster crystal remains.
"Mmmm," Ais groans, feeling the ground tremble as Rajang's fists slam into the stone, the monster was waking back up already. The shaking wakes everyone else up before the monster is on its feet.
Rising to her feet Ais takes the crystal in her hand, seeing the lightning crackling through it, feeling the power in her hands as she looks at Rajang, the monster breathing heavily as it eyes her hatefully and greedily. More focused on the crystal than the girl.
"Ais, destroy the horn," Finn's voice reaches her, smoke rising from him as he pours a potion over himself.
Ais receded into her thoughts, this was her moment, 'this was, no adventure, no real challenge, to become stronger I have to face death and overcome it...for the sake of getting stronger...'
Looking at Finn once more, she tightens the grip on her sword and stares down the Rajang, before tossing the horn over to the monster.
Catching it greedily the monster makes no show of biting into it.
Everyone's eyes are wide in shock and horror. From the shock of Ais deliberately disobeying orders, then from the Rajang's fur changing from black to bright gold once more, much stronger than before, arcs of yellow lightning jump from its body to the ground with every twitch as its eyes are brimming with power. It's gone even further beyond.
"Rr, arr, RAAAAAARGGGHHH!!!" it cries out, a beam of lightning firing from its mouth and carves out a trench in the stone walls as it turns its head left to right. Muscles bulging, bloating, and flexing as they constantly snap with the newfound power of the Kirin.
This time the lighting-powered state wasn't a fleeting moment, no, it was brimming with power that wouldn't go away.
They knew it would be stronger, but this was as if it became a completely different monster entirely, Rajang went from angry to Furious Rajang, the truest form of a regular enhanced species, equal to Savage Deviljho.
They were in for the fight of their lives... all because of one girl's desire to be stronger...
END CHAPTER---
Author: Furious Rajang has entered the fight.
Readers: Oh, that's interesting.
Monster Hunter fans: Oh no :( *Intense Rajang Hunting PTSD*