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Another case, another super myth, more of the usual. Hlev liked his job, he got to get around and see cool places, take cool pictures, too. This one had him back in Bledilo, it was just as bright as he remembered. He wasn't by the mountain this time, but still deep in the forest.
The foo fighters blended into the glowing trees, and multiple times they came from nowhere and almost got him. He's lucky for his quick reflexes, or he would not even get the chance to meet the super myth...
Actually, where was it? He'd walked a while now, he expected it would have appeared by now. But no, just glass birds, foo fighters, boiks and cane killers. Nothing interesting.
Everything was bright as hell, the anti street lamps seemed to stop working. Hlev stopped to rub his eyes, blinking a few times to really refresh his eyes. This didn't helped as he hoped, it's still hard to see. His slight blindness didn't concern him though, even with how he's about to fight another super myth. He's confident enough in himself.
The regular trees rustling from winds was interrupted by a more deliberate rustle from something moving through the trees. This could be it.
Still couldn't see it, but it was here, for sure. Well, if the source of the noises wasn't just another myth.
The rustling-of-unknown-origin stopped, and normal rustling resumed from being background noise to now being the only sound.
...so was it coming? Or maybe this was a false alarm? Or—
Lucky for his quick reflexes, and that it was covered dark enough that it didn't blend into the glowing trees.
It lunged out and he barely avoided getting his face ripped right off. Large and bird-like, and feathered, but humanoid. Its 'wings' seemed more like human arms than functional wings, and the flight feathers definitely were too short relative to its body for it to be capable of flying. Of course, the eyes were piercing white like any myth. He made all of these observations in the moments when he jumped backwards.
It quickly adjusted itself and lunged again, and he already had moved, but it was fast, and kept up with him.
That wasn't the greatest, he couldn't really orient himself to get good pictures of it while he also had to worry about not getting mauled. He also noted it hadn't spoke once, was that deliberate choice or was it a genuine wild beast?
Hlev probably should've been more mindful of his surroundings, specifically the ground, and the fact that ahead in the direction he ran, the ground gave way to a steep slope downhill. Suddenly there wasn't any more flat land to run on and he began to tumble, scratched up by rocks and the thorny parts of plants his body tore through on the way down.
He came to a stop by the base of one of those big trees. Well, that hurt!
He lifted his head up at the tree and immediately had to close his eyes. Way too bright from this close.
He remembered reading once that the famous glowing 'trees' in Bledilo weren't actual trees, but huge bioluminescent fungi. The whole forest was actually one giant clonal organism connected by a vast underground network of mycelium roots.
The world gave rise to really fascinating forms of life. Like the myths, too—oh, wait, speaking of myths, he should really be back to—
He was grabbed by the back of his cloak, or whatever it was, really it didn't matter, what did matter was that it was choking him. He couldn't get in a good breath, and his body seemed to reflexively start thrashing, but that didn't do anything besides waste energy.
He was lifted up and violently shaken around. This with the lack of air made him insanely dizzy, his vision swam and he couldn't make out anything beyond bright colourful blurs. Shit, was he really going to die here? Really not the first time he's faced near death, or super myths trying to kill him, it's just the last times he narrowly escaped. This time didn't seem to be panning out so well.
Then, suddenly tossed aside, he hit the ground rough and his body seized, not expecting the impact, or the sudden ability to breathe again. His body was greedy, it gasped and inhaled involuntarily. He heaved and felt around blindly, for his camera... where was his camera...
He was pinned down by a crushing weight, the air was taken out of him again. Breathless, he returned focus to his hands. Had to get a grip on... his camera, he brushed against something, that was his camera, maybe? Hlev took hold and felt around the shape in his hands, trying to find which side held the lens. If he could flash it with his camera...
Hlev threw it upwards and over his head, and pressed the button.
It shrieked, and the weight shifted, but its claws clenched and dug into his back. It seemed like it fell back and put its full weight onto him, which just crushed him further. Something cracked inside him... did he just break a rib? No, no time for this.
The weight was suddenly released and for the second time he took in huge breaths. He didn't waste any time though, rushing to his hands and knees. This had to be the most battered he'd ever been while on any case, even when Kaygano was trying to kill him with knives, he didn't get hurt too bad, just a few scratches and torn fabric. But this...
His legs were too shaky, his whole body was. The trade-off of being light and quick is being fragile and easy to break.
He stared wide-eyed at it, he couldn't help it. This must be how it felt to be a prey animal. A scrawny little gazelle staring death in the face. People rarely had to consider that they were part of the food chain, and, when it really came down to things, humans were not built as apex predators.
Intellect can take you only so far when you're pitted against raw strength and instinct.
It crept towards him. The... he assumed the protrusions from its head were ears. They were pinned back, and it was almost crouching, holding its head low, but never looked away from him. It made some odd guttural clicking noises as it... assessed him, maybe?
Either way, Hlev couldn't just stare at it forever. He had to do... something.
He held up his camera again, but his arms were shaking, it wasn't very threatening as a display.
For a moment its eyes narrowed, then it grinned and lifted its head up with a deep bubbling-and-popping cry. It loomed over him, but he figured it wouldn't matter if he wasn't so short, it's still taller than any normal person.
Now, the smile...
...was that a genuine smile, as in it knew what it was doing? Or was this some odd mannerism that just, by pure coincidence, resembles a smile?
Well, he didn't want to die, but if he had to go out like this, he'd rather be part of the natural food chain (preferably also, die before it started eating him) than killed for nothing but sadistic glee.
Should he close his eyes and accept?
He didn't get to decide because there was a loud bang and the creature instantly crumpled. Huh?
"This was not what I expected to find here."
That's not—what? Here? Wait, he was confused. He knew this voice, but he didn't...
He turned, and indeed, it's Mezel. Who Hlev also did not expect to find here. He wondered if Mezel witnessed him getting thrown around earlier or if he just happened upon them now.
Hlev looked back at the other myth. Being a myth, it wasn't dead, it picked itself back up while its head still had a hole in it. Bits of its face dripped like sand, but it was reconstructing itself.
He backed up and nearly fell over, if it wasn't for Mezel suddenly being next to him.
"Easy," he helped Hlev get stabilised, "I only came out here to hunt. Then I heard screaming so I came over here... and found this."
The screaming was probably the bird myth when Hlev flashed it with the camera. He didn't make too much noise, honestly, despite how much it definitely hurt. The thought, though, that he narrowly missed this miraculous salvation (if he didn't get to his camera fast enough...), was slightly unnerving.
And speaking of that bird, it vaulted at them. Mezel put Hlev aside and, with just one arm held out, stopped it.
The bird sunk its teeth into his arm with such force that its face wrinkled into a snarl, but Mezel seemed unfazed, it didn't seem like too much hassle for him to push against it. Damn. Hlev wondered how much of that strength came from being a super myth, or if he was just naturally that strong regardless. Still, it was admirable.
It gnashed its teeth into his arm, almost chewing on it, and thrashed, trying to overpower him, to have him in its grip instead, but he was steadfast.
Hlev didn't see enough myth-to-myth conflict, there was that one time with the missile crisis in Beskonach, where he saw some bottleniks ganging up on a cane killer, and later a heavy cane killer holding up two bottleniks (he also wondered, if this was an act of vengeance related to the first one he saw, or just silly coincidence). But besides that, it was mostly him versus myths. Myths didn't really antagonise each other.
Well, except this one. Mezel threw his arm out, which by extension threw it off him, and it was quick to puff itself up. It fanned out its tail, did everything to make itself look big and scary.
Honestly, Hlev thought this was pointless as Mezel already demonstrated how he was just as strong, or stronger, than it.
Hlev was so engrossed in this that he forgot he wasn't being supported until his legs, pushed to their limit of standing, trembled and gave out. He lifted himself with burning arms and made his way to the nearest Bledilo tree. Probably in his best interest to not stand up, anyway.
He continued to watch. They were evenly matched, he felt like he was watching two giants with power far beyond him fight.
More of those clicks followed by long bubbling-popping sounds. There had to be some meaning behind these. Communication, most likely—and either it had intelligent linguistic meaning behind cryptic noises, or it was just an animal making a call. Not as deeply complex as language, but still mildly complicated enough to be intriguing, as each sound broadly conveyed some idea, but with much more nuance than a single word in language could.
Hlev broke out of his thoughts as they started to actually attack each other. He recognised Mezel's tactics from when he fought, specifically the charge and ram to knock back the target, in this case the bird.
It was really remarkable how Mezel was able to then quickly ready and fire—and absorb the recoil—his shotgun. Again, the bird was not killed, but slightly inconvenienced.
Still, it was clear he was the better fighter here. It's where having strength and intellect can get you.
Though still he didn't know if the bird had human intelligence or not, and probably wouldn't unless it announced this itself. That was unfortunate to him. He'd like to know its name...
But also, he really didn't want to meet it again after it almost killed him. Not yet.
The bird was persistent as hell, it really didn't want to give this up.
It took Mezel pinning it down for it to seem even a little less interested in attacking. Hlev couldn't see its face, but imagined, if it was capable of human-like emotion, it might look surprised. Or, maybe it still did, as many animals, especially birds, opened their mouths when stressed, and this conveniently resembled the human expression for shock.
He loosened his grip. It violently writhed free and made it pretty far before it turned around, hissed at them, and then ran into the forest.
Mezel clapped his hands together in a motion like he was washing them clean.
"Well, that's that."
Now he returned to Hlev.
"You look terrible," this was very blunt. Hlev was aware he'd been battered, but was it that bad?
"How did you even manage to beat me but lost to an overgrown bird?" He sounded genuinely surprised.
Hlev thought about it for a moment, then said, "I... guess I just had bad luck this time. I was fine until I fell down a little hill and it caught up to me."
Truly, he performed best when he was evasive in his strategy. He was so fast and frail.
"Bad luck, eh?"
What was that thing Mezel said when Hlev beat him...?
"It's like you said, everyone has to deal with bad luck. In my case it was a giant bird trying to kill me."
This made Mezel laugh, and Hlev wondered if his tone didn't come across as he intended? He meant it in the vaguely thoughtful way...
He was also becoming aware how much his body ached. That bird put him through hell and the adrenaline was now wearing off, leaving him in pain.
"I think I need to go to a hospital," he said.
"No shit."
The other thing that was overcoming him was exhaustion. He could probably sleep, right? It wasn't like he was bleeding out or injured too greatly that he would have to worry about dying in his sleep...
...yeah, as much as it was probably good practice to stay awake when in dubious condition, he didn't really care. He was tired.
"I have to tell Tortino, too... didn't really work out," he shut his eyes and just exhaled slowly, and couldn't open them again.