I begin taking my part of the bonfire and shove a random stick through the fish I caught and lean them close to the heat to cook for a while.
They said Ziva came with the fish over an hour ago so I am guessing she might've taken a while to hunt it. But then again her hunting skills might be better than mine. I've never learned to really be a hunter in this world, but I might be able to use experiences and knowledge of hunting from my previous world. But not sure how helpful that would be.
*15 minutes later*
I look closer at my food and the outside seems to be crisp. Wish I had some sauce or some seasoning. But can't be picky when in a camp.
I begin tearing the fish with a couple of bites on my own close to the fire and swallow most of the bones with some crunch. Arla did say beastmen metabolism is strong so I assume eating bones works. Plus I assume Ziva could too. I remember feeding a wild cat some of the bones of my chicken when I would eat outside of my house for some days. She ate them within seconds and I questioned if she swallowed or chewed at times.
Hey kid, you want some real food?" Ungar asks from behind
"Uh nah, no thanks. I am fine with my fish" I say feeling a bit pouty.
As I am chewing I hear some shuffling and in the corner of my eye see a dark figure, but someone small moves over to my right side close to the fire.
I see Ziva sitting over to me and taking the other stick of the remaining 4 fish on it. Begins to sniff it out in silence and begins eating it out with me seeing her teeth. Clean, strong, and no doubt in pristine condition. I bet it would be like a house-cats effect. Bites in the hand and always draw blood. But I bet my jaw is more powerful and can snap bones.
"I thought you were gonna eat the seer you caught."
"I'm, prefer small bits of meat and stringy bones. Fish fit the bill more often than not. Besides, deers have too much fat on them than fish.
"I mean, fish do have some fat on them, but their whole body I guess is used for movement so getting fat isn't much of a likelihood."
"Don't correct me. I am eating the food I want. I caught the deer because I figured you'd all eat a lot. Clearly, I was wrong."
"Well, I am eating the fish I caught because I feel a bit you know..."
The moment turns silent and nothing happens for 10 seconds and finally, she responds.
"Go on?" Ziva says with a bit of annoyance.
"Well, I was a bit intimidated being outdone by you since I stood in a river for 2 hours just to get 9 small fish." I take a large bite out of 3 of the fish in a single attempt and begin chewing and crunching the bones of the fish.
"You are that petty?" she says with her yellow eyes widening further than what I thought her face would do. She typically looks pissed off and hides under the hood.
"Well, yeah. But I'm a much better per-" I stop myself and the feathers on my head begin to stiffen and flair up a bit. I stop for a moment and look behind me.
The others seem to be casually eating but, for some reason something is off. I glance back at Ziva who is also frozen. She undoes her hood for the first time and I see the gleam of her smooth silky black fur on her hair, with a couple of small short braids going down the back of her head when she turns her head to the right. Her ears are behind moving, adjusting, and listening.
It is clear something is off. We both drop out food and stand up and draw out weapons. I pull out my knife and short-handed sword, while Ziva draws two different knives out, one that is smooth and has double edges, while the other has one sharp edge but is curved a slight bit. Both are silver-like.
"What's going on you two?" Alistair asks getting concerned with us.
"Shh!" Ziva says without any other word. Her ears continue moving and flaring up.
"Hey, you can see in the dark right?" Ziva asks me
"Yeah, I assume you can too" I respond without looking at her.
"Of course, I can. But I can smell something strange."
"Yeah, it smells like something had rotted away or something that is rancid. It just appeared. But it is subtle." I say stepping a bit away from the bonfire to look over the horizon without the fire affecting my vision.
I don't see anything moving, but maybe it is aware I am looking so it is still. I adjust my eyes to infer and all I see are blue shades of cold. Not helpful.
I blink and switch back to my night vision when my feathers begin to flair aggressively for a moment and Ziva calls out.
"Look out!" I turn around and see a large animal coming out of the darkness and the smell begins to intensify, almost suffocating levels.
I blink and my vision goes back to normal as I see a large animalistic being that stands hunched over, with many scares, open wounds, and weird white saliva dripping out of the creature's mouth. As try to make of what I am looking at, Ziva and the others weaponize themselves more and attack.
"Wragh!" Ungar runs over with a one-handed axe jumps right onto the back of the beast and begins pulling on the fur and driving his axe into the back. The beast raises its large claws into the air.
Before I can get over to where the bear is I hear a rapid noise of shuffling and in the corner of my eye behind me I see a large dark figure increasing in size to me. I brace for impact and I get rammed into what feels like a truck.
*SLAM*
"URGH!" I go flying a bit over down a small hill and see after blinking again to a nighttime vision see more clearly what I am looking at. It looks to be like a warped version of some kind of black bear. Large, feral-like with open bloody wounds, missing patches of fur, white eyes, with drooling fluids I don't want to know is in it.
"WRAAAAAGH!" the bear roars standing at a huge height of over 8 feet it seems. I think this might be one of the biggest living things to ever stand in front of me to impose.
It brings its whole weight down towards me trying to crush me which I roll away. I with a single thrust of my sword go into the bear. But it gets stuck and I can pull it out for some reason.
Before I could pull my sword out it swing its right claw backward at me and I have to abandon it.
Where are the others?!
I look up the hill past the bear quickly and see the majority of the others seem to be occupied with the one near the bonfire. So I am essentially on my own trying to fight this bear on steroids!
I can only think of a single thing I might be able to do to something this big. aim for the neck. But that neck looks frankly like a couple of feet thick and my knife isn't even a foot long. I doubt it would let me close enough to find a precise cut anyways.
The animal attempts to charge at me and with a sudden lunge dives to me. Its jaw opens beyond what it likely could and I see the mouth tearing where it opens and it looks like it can open 180 degrees open like a book!
I do tep back but it continues to dive at me several times and I can't move out of the way. It swipes under my legs and then attempts to bite at me and manages to get a hold of my chest plate fully in its mouth. Beginning to swing its head wildly, it thrashes me around. It is holding me to the side holding onto me and doesn't seem to let up.
"Fuck fuck fuck!" I yell as I begin stabbing the head of the beast but as I do it feels like the skull of the beast is weak. Every stab attempt goes right into the head but it doesn't seem to be fazed by my attempts to release it.
"Agh!" As I feel the pressure of the bear deepening its bite into my chest I feel the armor compressing me. It feels like it is constricting my breathing a bit and might even suffocate me.
Continuing to thrash at me swinging me, I lose all sense of direction as all I feel is the spinning world as I can't focus nor control anything. I try everything I can and stab in one of the eye sockets but it digs its teeth deeper into my breastplate and I begin losing my breath every second.
"Urgh!" I take my hands and try to pry the jaw open in a desperate attempt to stop it, but it is to no avail.
I try to call out to the others but I can barely even breathe. I just can't breathe...
Then...
*CRACK!*
*Gasp*
*Meanwhile up the hill*
"Agh!" Ungar gets tossed away into the fire but it doesn't seem to singe him nor cause his clothes to catch fire.
Alistair focuses a bit and with both hands in a prayer position then presents his palms to the bear and two individual streams of fire towards the bear blasting it back a bit, but the beast does not seem to be fazed much after a couple of seconds. The fire doesn't seem to cause its fur to catch fire and instead, it begins charging at him. Alistair jumps at an incredible height and with a balling first, it catches fire and he releases an explosion down into it causing smoke, dirt, and dust everywhere.
Ziva blocks the debris from her face and tries to make clear the situation. But she comes to a stop. Feeling she forgot something.
"Hey, Ziva you alright?! Sheila calls out with a two-handed greatsword now in her possession
"Yes, but something is not right!" Ziva calls back
"Well of course something is wrong! C'mon, we need to kill this thing!" Sheila commands running into the smoke and dust without any strategy.
"Wait! Ugh! Damn, idiot!" she calls out. But then comes to a brief stop and looks around more of the trashed-up camp. She runs through the dust and looks around more and begins calling out to Coda.
"Coda?! Where the hell are you?"
She focuses her eyes on the darkness and looks over the horizon she sees a large dark blob in the distance dozens of feet down the hill.
As she looks closer she notices a bear-like mauled face. But then begins to see it is chewing something.
But after closer examination, she is shocked by seeing none other than seeing the beast from the side chewing the entirety of his breastplate in its mouth. He is so unresponsive to the fact the beast is chewing and is trying to break through his armor. Is he dead?
With a sudden grace, she jumps in the air and runs down the hill with blistering speed with daggers in reverse.
The beast takes notice and gets up dropping Coda's body with blood and saliva trickling around Coda.