The buzzing noise only grew louder as Sebastian waited for the flying creature to near.
Finally, it seemed to catch some speed and buzzed straight towards Sebastian with its butt pointed straight at him.
Thankfully this creature didn't have a tail like its human did. Maybe in the future it would grow one, but as of right now, it lacked one. Which was a good thing for Sebastian.
As soon as it reached arm's length, Sebastian used his usual method of backhanding the stinger, and the entire creature went along with it.
Since Sebastian deflected it, it still carried a lot of its original force. That force carried its sharp stinger right into the bark of a tree.
It was very much stuck and completely helpless to Sebastian's next attack.
Sebastian walked up behind it and punched the already concussed creature upside the head. Knocking it unconscious.
Killing someone's companion would obviously be frowned upon, and someone would be severely punished for doing such a thing.
It fell asleep with its stinger still wedged into the tree.
"Thankfully you aren't as bright as your human."
He turned and quickly headed towards Cindy and Jade. The two were still in a struggle, which Cindy was winning. Jade gave up on trying to sting the beast and resorted to kicking.
Which wasn't working well either.
Sebastian ran around the two in a wide arc. His goal was to get into Jade's blind spot, which he accomplished. He then headed straight towards her, quietly.
He got behind her and waited for Cindy to attack again before doing the same.
Jade could do nothing about the pincer attack, even if she did know about it.
She managed to land a kick on Cindy, but in response her tail was stomped on to stop it from moving, and she was placed into a chokehold.
She didn't tap out immediately, thinking that Stinger would maybe come to her rescue like Cindy did, but no such thing took place.
She tapped, and Sebastian let her go.
Jade lay on the ground for a second, catching her breath, before Sebastian approached her.
"Come on, let's go home." Sebastian said.
Sebastian helped her stand up and then removed Stinger, who was still asleep, from the tree and handed him to her.
"My poor boy." She said while holding him.
"Yeah, whatever. I feel no pity for you two. You tried to stab me like 5 times."
"Yeah, but you're thirteen years old; he's only 1 day old."
Sebastian snorted.
"And he still tried to stab me. You guys belong together."
He climbed the tree slowly since he was still injured and reached the carcass, or where the carcass was supposed to be.
He looked left and right in confusion, thinking he could be on the wrong branch.
"Hey Jade, you didn't cut down the meat when I wasn't looking, right?"
"No, you idiot. It should be there." She responded.
"Well, it's not."
He started to worry that someone had snuck by and stolen the food during their scuffle. And then he head munching.
He looked straight down only to see Cindy eating the meat, which somehow ended up on the ground.
Sebastian stood in shock.
"What the hell?"
He quickly reached the ground and landed next to Cindy, who barely acknowledged his existence and continued eating.
Jade approached too and stared in shock.
"What happened?"
Sebastian just shrugged his shoulders.
"Maybe you cut enough of the rope for it to become weak enough to fall."
Jade went to the end of the rope.
"Yeah, I don't think so. These aren't knife marks."
"Of course they're knife marks; what else could they be?"
Sebastian made the connection that second.
"Are you saying she cut the rope herself to get the meat to fall to the ground?"
Sebastian and Jade just looked at each other in absolute shock while the noise of Cindy enjoying her hard-earned meal could be heard in the background.
Eventually they separated Cindy from the meat and began walking back to the village with Sebastian dragging the corpse behind him.
He had placed Cindy on top of his head when they left, but shortly into the walk he realized she wasn't there.
She was instead using the carcass as a sled and eating it at the same time.
"Sebastian. Do you know what this means?" Jade asked.
"Yeah, Cindy really likes to eat."
Jade facepalmed.
"No, you dummy. Your beast is highly intelligent. Probably one of the smartest animals in the whole forest, even at one day old!" Jade exclaimed, unable to take her eyes off of the cute beast.
Sebastian didn't really believe her.
"She's a little smart, but I wouldn't go as far as saying she's one of the most intelligent beasts in the whole forest."
Jade shook her head in disappointment.
"You don't even recognize a gem when it's right in front of you." Jade said while looking at Cindy.
Sebastian noticed something.
'Her voice became a little high-pitched there; that was weird.'
He chose to ignore it, though.
Jade started listing off reasons why she thought Cindy was so smart.
"Most creatures, if they were able to reach the carcass in the first place, would have latched onto it and eaten it while it was hanging. Especially if they had sharp claws like she does." She stated while rubbing the scars on her face.
"But she decided to use her claws to cut down the rope to allow the meat to fall to the ground so she would have to expend less energy consuming it! This is huge, Sebastian."
Sebastian seemed unimpressed.
"Maybe she just saw you cutting it down with your knife and tried to copy you."
Jade only got more excited at the idea.
"If that is true, then that means she's even more intelligent than I thought her to be. The ability to attempt to imitate human tool usage would make her a genius in the animal kingdom."
Jade continued.
"As someone who has tried to fight her, I have to say that she is highly intelligent and very hard to land a hit on."
Sebastian was beginning to agree.
"Okay, so what does this mean exactly?"
"It means that if she grows to become a powerful beast, she'll be an incredibly formidable foe to anyone who crosses her path."
Sebastian was very glad to hear that. He still remembered the disappointment his parents displayed, and he wanted to make it up to them by being successful.
'I hope my defeat over Jade and her bee shows them that Cindy has some potential.'
They made their way back to the village completely uninterrupted by any other refined.
Even if they were, he doubted they could actually be beaten. Even in their injured state, a 3v2 was extremely disadvantageous, especially since Stinger had woken up halfway through the walk and Cindy was entirely uninjured.
As they reached the outskirts of the village, Jade paused.
"Well, all of the food stores up north have definitely been claimed, so I and Stinger are going to keep heading south and hunt some small game. Thank you for not beating us up too much."
Sebastian refused to let her go, though. He had grown up with everyone in this village; as boring as they seemed, they were all family.
"There's no way Cindy will eat this whole thing. You have some."
At that moment, Cindy looked at Sebastian like he had two heads.
She then began eating even more, even faster, to make sure no one else got any.
Jade was surprised.
"Are you sure?"
Sebastian walked over to the meat and pulled Cindy away from it.
"Of course."
Jade smiled sweetly at Sebastian and placed Stinger down on the meat to allow him to eat.
Sebastian and Jade sat to the side and talked to each other while he did so.
"I thought bees didn't eat meat."
"Stinger is a special bee, a rare carnivorous breed."
Sebastian realized that he might have been wrong.
"Maybe everyone in the village didn't get boring animals."
"Of course we didn't only get boring animals. Your parents aren't the only influential ones, man."
While Sebastian's parents were the most important in the village, the elders were still important.
And a lot of those elders had children, Jade and Twain being two of those children.
"Stingers is pretty powerful; he's big right out of the egg, and he can fly."
"Yeah, he's great," Jade added. "I just hope he keeps getting smarter. People say beasts don't get smarter after they're born. I hope that's not true."
Sebastian shrugged.
"Even if he doesn't, you're smart enough to make up for him."
If Sebastian had bothered to look over at her, he would have seen her cheeks go red, but he was watching Cindy prowl around Stinger, who had just finished eating, about to pounce on him playfully.
He stood up.
"Come on, let's get back. I wanna find out how everyone else did."