As it turns out, brave words are easier to say out loud than he thought, and As embarrassing as they might sound, it's not easy to back them up. And Jake was made to realize that the hard way.
'....the last thing he does, really?' Jake thought.
For some reason or other, Lieutenant Sands kept spewing cliché lines one after another through the whole battle. Like it's the most natural thing in the world, Sands doesn't seem to realize it yet. And Jake didn't take the liberty to correct him either, he just went with the flow. He can only imagine how mortifying Sands would feel if he could see himself in the mirror now.
"Hey, can you hear me!?" A voice screamed.
But all Jake heard was the ringing in his ears.
'It's kind of distracting.'
Yet, what occupied most of his mind right now was pain. Jake felt a searing pain shoot through his leg as it became the target of a brutal attack from the fearsome direwolf monster. His limb, now broken and unsteady, forced him to hobble through the chaos of the supernatural skirmish.
'Is this it?' inwardly debating how he was going to die, he tried to stand up again, but failed. blood seeped from the gash of his chest which was made by claws.
Amidst the eerie howls and savage strikes of the wolves, one of its sharp claws tore through Jake's arm, leaving it severely wounded. It screamed with agony as his human flesh met the creature's supernatural claws, but Jake clenched his weapon tightly, knowing he couldn't afford to let it drop.
[+1…]
His skill, Frostblade, allowed him to fight the injuries. He froze his wounds, preventing any more blood loss by clotting it, to stand back up.
Then, a ferocious impact from the werewolf's head left Jake disoriented, his vision swimming as the monster's fangs and maw came dangerously close. The world spun, but he shook off the dizziness, forcing himself to stay focused.
Gyrs and Sands supported him at the front so he could recover.
Despite the relentless assault, multiple puncture wounds from the werewolf's fangs began to sap his strength. Each heartbeat seemed to push more of his life's essence from his body.
'Yep. This was not my cup of tea.'
Jake found himself teetering on the brink of life and death. In the midst of the turmoil, He remembered how he had always hated tea, its taste and bitterness, how he avoided fights for the simple reason of not wanting to hurt others. The memory seemed almost comically trivial in the face of the life-or-death struggle unfolding before him, yet it brought a faint smile to his lips.
On the other side, Shrektha was growing tired of such a predictable turn of events. It was dull, he noted. As much as he enjoyed toying with humans down until their end, the repetition of such events only made him bored.
'Sigh, I should've gone to California, too.' Shrektha thought. 'Drakaroth was saying something like how there was a strong human who never dies, and how he enjoys each time killing him.'
The monster kings had their territory, and Shrektha and Drakaroth never saw eye to eye. The gods they serve were at odds for centuries, and as their messengers, such traits followed them unknowingly.
But his thoughts suddenly got interrupted.
"!"
In the blink of an eye, a deadly attack was closing in on him.
[Skill: Swordthrow]
An icy sword came lunging forward until he avoided it at the last second.
When looking in the direction of where the attack came from, shrektha saw an injured human with broken armor.
It was Jake, along with Gyrs and his shield, protecting him at the front.
'Oh?' shrektha grew curious so he decided to take a closer look with his mana sense, the humans' appearance and their power level became visible to him like gamma ray scanning. And the results shocked him, when Jake came into view.
He gnashed his teeth and his anger took over, "This human…"
He used his teleporting power to appear right in front of Gyrs and sent him flying with a single wave in his hand.
Jake was perplexed as fell on his back, to him the monster appeared invincible. Unbeatable. 'It was all for nothing,' He closed his eyes waiting for his turn.
But the pain never came, no attack hit him, but a coarse voice speaking in English, "You look familiar.."
When he opened his eyes, the wolfking grabbed him by the neck and lifted him in the air. "Tell me, human. What do you know about the name Zeff? How are you two related?"
It became harder to breathe as the monster held him tighter, plus the name 'Zeff' didn't bring any bell. He met many guys with similar names, but that was it. He can't think of an answer that would be satisfying enough.
Shrektha saw the human's troubled face, and decided to push through, "If you tell me, I might just spare you people." He said before taking a look around, "...at least, what's left of you."
"Kegh…!", Jake shook his head, trunk to free himself from the fierce grip.
"Hm? No? Or perhaps you know him as Kai? He has dark hair and always has a fox-like pet following him… Ring any bells?"
At that moment, Jake forgot the pain, an image rushed into his head. The image of his family. And someone else he forgot until now.
The descriptions matched him, Kai, with dark hair and a fox pet. An unintentional word escaped Jake's bleeding mouth, "...Brother?"
***
"Impossible!" Bucky screamed, bewildered, knocking his chair over.
He had been watching in real-time as everything transpired, but he still couldn't believe it. It had happened in the blink of an eye, and the reinforced chamber had been blasted to smithereens. The intruder was nowhere to be seen.
"What the hell happened!?" he questioned in a worried tone. "Squad 5, respond! Where is the captain?"
As the dust settled and the lingering smell of gunpowder in the air began to subside, the soldiers' minds cleared after the impact on their heads, and their vision was no longer blurry. They realized their captain was missing.
Bucky quickly ordered to replay the whole thing; the camera that recorded everything was still intact. The monitors displayed Kai once more, but this time, in slow movements.
There he was, zapped and helpless, falling onto the floor in the line of fire with incoming bullets in rapid succession.
But in the next moment, the digital screen glitched, missing anything that happened in between those three seconds. Bucky's eyes widened as the footage returned, the intruder was gone. his sister nowhere to be seen, Bucky believed she had been taken. Kidnapped right before his eyes.
He crushed the communicator with his bare hand as nerves popped out of his head, his face reddening with anger. "How?"
Bucky made a face he had never made before, his easygoing attitude long gone. He glared at the glitching image of Kai taking his sister.
'Whatever you did to make an escape like that… You made a BIG mistake,' Bucky thought, 'I'll grind your bones until I make you realize it.'
***
As for how Kai pulled it off, only Zeff saw the whole thing go down, and it still made sense to him.
["I started to think you'd never use that thing as a tool,"] Zeff commented in his mind.
"It's not a thing or a tool," Kai parroted. "He's a friend, and he has a name."
["Whatever you call it, it's not human. I personally don't like it,"] Kai ignored his next comments, focusing on catching his breath.
He was exhausted by that point and lacked the energy to respond to every comment Zeff made.
Kai glanced sideways with a frown, and, to his expectations, he saw a small figure, like a puppy, emerging in the corner. It had every feature a cub would have in the premature state of a monster.
It had vibrant red fur with white patches, emerald-green eyes, and a long, bushy, red-and-white tail. He was irresistibly adorable.
["Since when does that 'thing' follow us?"] Zeff inquired.
"You mean me," Kai corrected. "And yes, it was with us the whole time."
With its puppy-like eyes, the fox gave an adorable "kyuu" before saying, "What do you want me to do next, master?" in a cute voice.
===