Hugh stared the hunter known as Jelani down as he rose from his bow. Hugh was irritated by his playful attitude
"What do you want?" Hugh asked in a harsh tone cautious of the hunter in front of him
"I want you to listen to your father and return quietly to room"
"And if I don't?"
"Well your father was right, you are feisty". Jelani said as he stretched "Just because you are a C rank morph doesn't mean you'll be able to beat a D rank hunter like me" Jelani's eyes sharpened and his previously playful attitude was gone
Hugh got ready for a fight "We'll see"
Jelani brought out a remote from his pocket and clicked a button on it and the ground shook violently as walls shot out of the ground
Hugh ran towards Jelani but a wall appeared and block his path. As Hugh looked around the walls continued shifting from place to place encasing him in the middle
"Welcome to my Maze"
As the walls came to a halt two paths stretched out to Hugh's right and left
"If you want escape from the maze you'll have to find me and get the remote, but beware of the traps and don't try to scale the walls or you'll be in for a shock" Jelani chuckled
Hugh was frustrated, why did his father go this far just to prevent him from leaving, it didn't make any sense to him
"Argh! I'll beat the crap out of you!" Hugh shouted. Hugh ran down the left part and moved through different paths his mind solely on finding Jelani
Hugh's head moved left just in time to see a dagger flying through the wall towards him. Hugh kicked the dagger away but another appeared from the wall at his back a planted itself deep in his back
"Pay attention"
More daggers flew at Hugh and he tried his best to dodge each of them escaping the siege with only a few cuts
Hugh took off the down the path to his left while dodging the daggers flying at him with unbelievable accuracy.
'How is he this accurate!?' Hugh looked at the walls and around him as he ran but he couldn't pick up any cameras or drones
As Hugh continued running down the corridor he saw a dagger appear in front of him heading towards the ground
Warning bells rang in Hugh's mind but it was too late. As the dagger struck the ground a bright orange glow was followed up by a violent explosion which threw Hugh backward
Hugh stood up furious "Are you trying to kill me!? what's up with playing dirty!?"
"Your dad didn't say anything about your well-being, plus I'm not playing dirty. I don't even know where the mines your dad placed are"
'Dad placed them!?' Hugh was in disbelief that his dad could do a thing for only a short while 'It's dad after all'
Hugh shook his head and continued to run all the while barely avoiding the combined assault of the daggers and mines
Hugh saw a dead end in front of him and daggers kept flying past him. Hugh continued running towards the wall and jumped up the wall using it as a type of spring board to do a backflip. As Hugh's leg left the wall a bright yellow glow engulfed the wall and an explosion sent him flying backwards
"I told you not to scale the walls"
Hugh groaned has he tried to get back up to his feet just before a piercing pain assaulted his thighs keeping him on the ground
Hugh gritted his teeth as the pain grew in intensity. His body was barely responding to him due to the effects of the venom from the guards and the effect of his poison
Hugh's eyesight blurred and his breathing became slow and rough as he gasped for air but there was something oddly familiar about this to him
The daggers had stopped assaulting Hugh so he was able to think about how this situation was so familiar to him
Then it hit him. During one of his training sessions his father had put him up against mole type soldiers which attacked him from below. Unable to find a way to beat them he was terribly injured.
His father was disappointed in him "Use your ears you fool, your a bat, think like one" his begrudgingly adviced him
'My ears...' Hugh managed to get himself back to his feet not willing to lose the battle. He removed the daggers from his thighs and continued his sprint towards the opposite direction of which he had been heading
"You still wanna play? if you say so..."
The daggers resumed their barrage. Hugh concentrated on tuning out the sounds around him and focus solely on the 'whish' sound made by the daggers and soon Hugh was able to dodge the daggers perfectly weaving them easily by predicting their point of contact and moving his body just in time to dodge them but soon the pain from his thighs slowed down his reflexes and reaction time
'This should do' Hugh thought. As Hugh focused on the sound of the dagger and the sounds of his footsteps bouncing off of the walls he was able to pinpoint Jelani's location
'Gotcha' Hugh smiled as he picked up his pace, adrenaline rushing through out his body and dulling the pain and effect of the venom on him
After weaving through the maze Hugh made his way to the middle of the maze where Jelani. waited with a smile on his face in the middle of a large field
"I'm impressed you made this far"
"Can it! I'm gonna end this right now!"
"Quite feisty aren't we" Jelani said has he lost his friendly smile and attitude as they replaced with an oppressive aura and dead serious expression "come and get me"
Hugh smirked and dashed toward Jelani. Jelani smiled as Hugh rushed toward him 'Yes come closer and this fight will end sooner than I expected'
As Hugh was about to one more step he suddenly swerved to the right and released a ball of poison at Jelani
Jelani quickly retaliated by firing a dagger that destroyed the ball of poison
Hugh appeared behind Jelani and tried to attack him with his claws but before he could a tail grabbed his hand and flung him towards a wall which the collided with creating an explosion that sent him flying towards Jelani who used his tail to hit Hugh towards the ground
Hugh bounced off the ground and coughed up blood as Jelani strangled him with his tail
"If you won't give up I'll just have to knock you out"
Hugh clawed at the tail but it had no effect. Hugh struggled to breathe as the tails strangled him. Hugh grabbed the tail and poison leaked out of his hand which paralyzed it and loosened it's grip allowing Hugh to break out
Hugh coughed and wheezed as he fell to the ground
Jelani brought his tail towards him and promptly chopped it off smirking "Impressive"
Jelani's tail instantly grew back and grabbed two daggers and held them in the reverse grip "Let's see how good you are in hand to hand combat"
Hugh got to his feet and extended his claws. both Jelani and Hugh exchanged devasting blows as Hugh's claws left dents in Jelani's daggers and vice versa
Sparks flew, both of them disengaged and stared each other down
'I need a clean hit on him with my paralysis poison and I'll end this fight but...' Hugh looked at his discolored and swollen arms 'I'll only get one chance'
Hugh steeled himself and rushed towards Jelani who retaliated by using his tail as a whip each strike moving fast and hard
Hugh blocked with his arms But the impact sent him sliding backwards and left his arms partially broken. Hugh continued running toward Jelani but instead dodged the tail strikes
Soon both of them were close to each other and they both continued trading blows. Hugh however tensed his legs and delivered a sharp round house kick to Jelani's side and sent him flying
As Jelani was about to land he used his tail to hit the ground and help him land gracefully
"I won't fall for your tricks"
"It wasn't a trick"
Suddenly Hugh dashed in front of Jelani and disappeared
"What? I can smell him but his too fast!"
Hugh dashed around him so fast that his eyes couldn't keep up and Hugh left multiple lacerations all over his body that were coated in a purple liquid
"Check mate" Hugh then slashed both of Jelani's calves and the base of his tail then sent him flying with a kick to his back to a wall which exploded upon contact
Hugh walked toward his charred body and rummaged around his body until he found the remote and used it to undo the maze, Jelani's eyes lingering on him
"The paralysis will wear off in an hour" Hugh said as he walked towards the gate
******************************************************
Hugh groaned as the pain from the battle slowly overwhelmed him as the effect of the adrenaline was wearing off
His vision blurred but he was determined to get to where he was heading. After walking for sometime in a clearing deep in the forest was a tree like a Willow but with blue glowing leaves and blue lights like spores drifting around it
Hugh sighed as he rested on the tree 'It's been some time since I was last here'
Hugh looked around and saw a familiar beaten up log of wood. He smiled a bit as bitter sweet memories of his past flooded in
'But...why? Why did I want to come here after all this time?'
Hugh got up and moved around the tree until he spotted a ladder that led up into the tree. He made his way up the ladder in through a trap door at the end into a medium sized room with two bunk beds to side a window in the front overlooking the clearing
A lone wooden table stood quietly in the middle of the room, illuminated by the gentle blue light filtering through the window and a single silver box gleaming in the light beside a framed picture seemed to beckon him
He walked over to it and picked up the picture, in it was him and his mom along with Aiden and Shayla
He clenched his teeth and fell to the floor 'Guess this is how everything turned out'
Hugh closed his eyes and laid on the floor as he drifted into a deep sleep exhausted from his fight
A large dark figure loomed over Hugh "Everything is in motion"