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| - Night had fallen over the dismal sub-region known as the Swamp. The caves were pitch-black, but fortunately the creatures that still crawled through the freezing-cold tunnels had superior senses that allowed them to navigate their lightless domain. It was around midnight when something discovered the unconscious Baruragaru. The clicking of jointed legs echoed through the large cavern as a new presence entered. Its strides were calm, methodical, and efficient, the footsteps of a creature out for a relaxing stroll. But that stopped as soon as it smelled the blood – not fresh exactly, but the unmistakable scent of a kill that had been made not too long ago. Better yet, the creature couldn’t feel the vibrations of any large predators around. At that precise moment, the clouds in the sky slid apart to let the moon shine through. The moonlight flowed through the windows in the ceiling and brought a dim, silvery illumination to the cave. Out of the shadows the creature emerged, and paused when it encountered a beam of light, waiting for its primitive eyes to adjust to the change. The light washed over its black exoskeleton and beautiful white crystals, revealing it to be an Akura Jebia – a massive scorpion-like carapaceon that stalked the Swamp with no equal. The Akura hissed and raised its pincers, snapping them to warn away any smaller monsters nearby. Just because it couldn’t feel them didn’t mean they weren’t there. It cocked its head, standing eerily still as it waited for vibrations to disturb the sensitive hairs on its legs. Feeling none, it continued toward the tempting scent of a potential meal. When it was close enough, the Akura Jebia’s weak eyes finally caught sight of what it sought. It paused, regarding the strange monster’s pale skin and overall body shape. It had never seen such a thing before. What was it? Was it dead? More importantly, was it edible? Upon walking closer, the smell of blood suddenly grew stronger. The Akura Jebia noted that the ground was covered with the stuff, and was more greatly concentrated around the possibly-dead monster’s leg. It towered over the odd creature that lay in the mud. Hesitantly, the carapaceon reached out with a pincer and lightly tapped its flank. When hard chitin made contact with squishy skin, the Akura scuttled backwards a pace or two, in case the monster retaliated. But there was no movement, so it poked it once more. This time, the creature’s long tongue, which stretched out from between its slackened jaws, wiggled a little. Similarly, its tail twitched, and a soft gurgle curled into the stale cavern air. So the unknown monster was alive, just weak. The Akura could handle that. It raised its crystalline tail, ready to bash the remaining life out of its prey in one fell swoop. Then it felt a tingle. Stiffening, the Akura Jebia dared not move a muscle as the feeling intensified. There was no way it could be mistaken as a simple vibration, the product of another monster stirring the air around it. No, this was a feeling that the Akura felt in its bones (well, if it had bones), an unnatural force that no monster had any business meddling with. There was magic here. Strong magic. A terrible squeal echoed through the cave as the Akura fled. It dug its way through the mud until it had disappeared entirely. Soon, the tip of its tail had been swallowed by the saturated earth, leaving only a few small crystals behind. Above the ground, the lucky Baruragaru stirred again as the magic in the air intensified further. Right outside an entrance to the caves, where the moon shone down on the filthy Swamp through the gaps in the clouds, someone was waiting. Keyren impatiently tapped her foot on the ground, ignoring the squishy sounds that occurred whenever her boot met the soggy grass. She had told Melody and Gekula to meet her here at sunset – and that had been more than three hours ago. Anyone else would have been worried, but no, Keyren was simply annoyed. The monsters here wouldn’t dare go after one of them, so there was no way her partners could have been attacked by one. No, there was absolutely no excuse for their lateness. “Oh, one of these days…” the girl grumbled, starting to pace back and forth in front of the cave entrance. “One of these days I’m going to kick their tails. Or maybe roast their wings off. For Fatalis’ sake, Duruhos, team me up with someone who actually has a sense of time!” She continued to mutter to herself as she moved swiftly over the grassy landscape. This portion of the Swamp was slightly more pleasant because of the trees and the relative lack of mud, but it was also very cold at night, and the crickets were far too noisy. Neither the temperature nor the incessant chirping were helping Keyren’s mood. More or less, Keyren resembled an average teenage girl. She had a slim, athletic build and a cherubic face, making her look cute but tough. She wore a pale blue shirt that was cropped just below her chest, exposing her midriff, and a pair of similarly-cut pants. Her boots were nothing special, just regular Kelbi hide that had been significantly worn by the elements. The difference between Keyren and most teenaged girls, though? She happened to be a Lagiacrus. A hole in the back of her shorts allowed a muscular blue tail to lash freely behind her. Several more holes in her shirt accommodated six large dorsal spines that extended out of her back. Instead of hair, Keyren had a hard blue shell that swept over her head and down her neck, producing a cobra-like hood that flared open on either side. Scaly ridges over her eyes took the place of eyebrows, while her fingernails were more comparable to needle-sharp claws. Two brownish-red horns rose up over her head. Yes, Keyren was an unusual case. She didn’t fit in among humans or monsters – instead, she was a freakish mix between the two, a hybrid of sorts that had come into existence through some one-in-a-million anomaly. One day, she was the undisputed ruler of the sea, a sixty-foot sea serpent with pinpoint control over electricity. She had been sunbathing on the coast of Moga Island, chill as could be, when all of a sudden… … she was stuck in a humanoid body, with no memory of the transformation except for the feeling of magic surrounding her. Days had gone by before her new human instincts took over, and when they did, language and locomotion came naturally to her. But inside, she knew that none of it was natural. Lagiacri weren’t meant to walk on two legs or manipulate things with a pair of hands. The worst part was that other monsters were terrified of her, because raw magic lingered in the air around her, as if her very existence was a contradiction to reality. But Keyren was by no means alone. She was far from it, in fact, and the event that had caused her transformation was anything but rare. Because all over the Great Continent, monsters were changing exactly as she had. “Where are the others?” the impatient Lagiacrus-girl yelled up at the sky. “Melody! Gekula! Get the hell over here before I shock the living daylights out of you!” Under normal circumstances, shouting wasn’t good for solving problems, and Keyren was well aware of that. To her surprise, though, this time it worked. With a flutter of wings, Melody appeared in front of her, grinning so hard that her cheeks were stained pink. The Qurupeco-girl wore a simple green T-shirt with a big red patch on the front, as well as a pair of shorts and a large flower in her shiny brown hair. Her legs were human from the knees up, but below that they were covered in brown scales and very bird-like. Large green wings stretched from her back on either side of her, and her heart-shaped tail wagged eagerly. “I was looking for you!” Melody announced, beaming. “That’s when I heard you shouting. Goodness, do you always yell at yourself like that?” “You were looking for me?” exploded Keyren. She grabbed the other hybrid by the front of her shirt and bellowed in her face, “You were supposed to meet me here three hours ago!” For a moment, Melody was very startled, and the pink tinge on her cheeks drained away. Then the huge smile was back on her face, and she replied, “Oopsie! I must have forgot that!” At this point, Keyren was so mad that electric sparks were starting to jump across her dorsal spines. She let the Qurupeco-girl go, and instead clutched at her head with a highly aggravated groan. After a few seconds, the anger faded, and she regained control of herself. “Did you find anything, at least?” she asked. Melody shook her head. "Nope! Nothing since that Chameleos hybrid from a few days ago." Shrugging, Keyren replied in a careless tone, "Well, at least our time in the Swamp is pretty much at an end. We can head back home and rest for a while before we go scouting again." "Hey, where's Gekula?" Melody chirped, looking around. Her head jerked this way and that, like a bird's. "Didn't you ask him to meet here too?" Hearing the name brought Keyren back into a bad mood. "Yes," she growled. "But who cares about him? Out of all the people Duruhos could have paired me with, he has to pick the one I hate the most!" "Aww, don't be that way," her companion pouted. "Gekula isn't that bad." Snorting skeptically, Keyren began to walk toward the half-hidden entrance to the caves, which was choked with damp grass and weeds. Some days, she couldn't take Melody's overly optimistic attitude seriously. She never met a hybrid she didn't like. It was enough to drive Keyren over the edge on a bad day. And so far, today was shaping up to be one. Then a face suddenly loomed out of the darkness of the cave entrance, unexpectedly enough to make the Lagiacrus-girl shriek like a Yian Kut-Ku. It was a Khezu-boy, that much was clear. His mop of thick white hair flopped over most of his face, completely obscuring his eyes. The facial features that could be seen would have been better off hidden, too – he had only a couple of holes where his nose should have been, and his mouth was full of sharp, crooked teeth. Per hand, he only had three fingers tipped with dirty, claw-like fingernails. He wore a heavily-stained turtleneck and baggy pants over his wiry frame. "You… bellowed for me, Keyren?" the Khezu-boy asked with a snicker. Once Keyren had gotten over her fright, her blood pressure skyrocketed. "GEKULA!" she roared. "You know I can't see in the dark! Why would you do something like that?!" After a moment of thought, Gekula shrugged and replied, "Eh, call it a mean streak." Melody patted her hands together. "Yay, everyone's here~! Did you find anything, Gekula?" The blind hybrid jumped at the sound of her voice, then took a breath through his nostrils. Gekula may not have been able to see, but his sense of smell was phenomenal. Once he had caught the Qurupeco-girl's scent, he relaxed now that he knew she was there. "Nothing," he replied. "But I was going to take another lap around the caverns just to make sure. You're… welcome to join me," he added, snickering again. This was exactly what no-one liked about Gekula. He was always lurking about with that smug smirk on his half-covered face, occasionally giggling to himself as if he knew something the others didn't. Keyren hated him. Keyren's friends hated him. Pretty much everybody hated him. Except Melody, obviously. "Yeah, no thanks," the Lagiacrus-girl snapped, lashing her tail in anger. "You can go crawling around with your fellow giant insects without us. I'll be here, trying to resist the temptation to leave without you." "Scared, Keyren?" chuckled Gekula. His lips parted to show his crooked teeth in an unpleasant grin. "I don't get scared!" she shouted. "And if you doubt that, I'll prove it!" Her expression the very picture of rage, Keyren stormed past him and entered the cave, being swallowed by the darkness as soon as she stepped inside. With a sigh, Gekula turned to Melody. "She'll never change, will she?" "I like her just the way she is~!" she chirped. "Torch?" he prompted her, picking a large tree branch off of the ground. Taking the stick out of his hands, Melody hocked up a wad of slimy green mucus that stuck to the tip. Then, she brought her wings down and bashed them together in a clapping motion. The special flintstones that adorned her wings produced several hot sparks, which ignited the mucus and turned the branch into a well-burning torch. "There!" she exclaimed. "Now we're all ready to continue our search!" And then something happened. A howling scream echoed from deep in the tunnels. The sound was equal parts fear and anger, which set the two hybrids' monster instincts on edge. Melody let out a squawk. "I-I think that was Keyren!" Trembling, and resisting the urge to run and hide, Gekula responded, "B-But why? Monsters are scared of us, remember? It's like they know we aren't supposed to exist." "I don't care!" cried Melody. "I'm sure Keyren made that scream, so she must be in terrible danger!" Not another word was exchanged as the two hybrids forced themselves to ignore their instincts and ran into the cave. Even though she had a short temper and yelled a lot, the Lagiacrus-girl was their friend, and their partner on this scouting mission. In this new world – a world where humans no longer hunted, where magic ran amok, and where monsters transformed into twisted mutants – hybrids needed to stick together, because they would otherwise have no-one. So that was why Keyren was in danger until Melody and Gekula could find her. But, little did they know, Keyren wasn't the one who had screamed. All was still when the Baruragaru finally rose from unconsciousness. It blearily blinked its eyes, its mind swimming with confusion and surprise. Why wasn't it dead? Had it really lived after encountering the Two-Legs that had damaged its leg? The leviathan tried to move its tail. After a couple of tries, it finally felt the appendage brush weakly across the muddy ground. Satisfied, it grunted to itself and slid its tongue out into the air, tasting its surroundings. It tasted the air again, just in case its sleep-addled brain misinterpreted the results. A little groggily, it concluded with some relief that it was alone. It was fine with being alone. Next, it tried to move its limbs. The leg that had been injured responded to the movement with a dull ache, but otherwise there was no reaction. That was odd. Surely, its wound couldn't have healed that quickly? A spasm coursed through the Baruragaru's body as it attempted to right itself. Immediately, though, it sensed that something wasn't right. With effort, it rolled onto its belly and positioned its legs so that it could push itself into a standing position, but the placement of its limbs felt… awkward. It could feel its knees digging into the mud and its elbows tucked up against its belly. "Sssss…" it hissed, irritated. Its stupid limbs felt too long for its body. Another attempt to reorient its back legs ended up with its knees touching the ground and its feet dragging behind it. Now its posterior was sticking up in the air, and its tail lashed with annoyance. The Baruragaru then tried to position its front legs so that its shoulders were level with its hips, and it ended up with its paws pressed into the dirt with an enormous empty space between its belly and the ground. What was going on here?! Staring into the darkness ahead of it, the Baruragaru instantly caught sight of a shaft of moonlight pouring down from a hole in the ceiling. The silvery light illuminated a pool of water that had yet to be absorbed into the saturated soil, and the Baruragaru slowly shuffled its way over as best as it could. Maybe if it could examine itself in the water, it could figure out what was wrong. It flicked out its tongue again, getting a better understanding of how far away the pool was. But it noticed something… it crossed its eyes, focusing on its extended tongue. How odd… the tip had changed into a greyish, razor-sharp point. It shivered, put off by what it did not understand. Soon, the moonlight was washing over the hideous monster's body, and the puddle was only a few inches away. Dread was starting to swim in its heart. It couldn't help but notice that the cavern looked a lot bigger than before, when it had been attacked by the Two-Legs and the Hawk-Thing. It promptly increased its pace as much as it could without falling over on its strange new placement of limbs, eager to gaze at its reflection and see what was going on. At last, its head hovered over the water, and a pair of orange eyes gazed into another. But what it saw was almost enough to make its heart stop beating. It was looking at the face of a Two-Legs. A horrible howl carried through the freezing tunnels, the awful sound born of despair, anger… and fear. "Hurry!" called Melody, half-flying and half-running through the pitch-black caves by the light of her torch. "The scream came from somewhere down here!" Gekula was with her, but he was not beside her. Instead, he used his uncanny climbing abilities to scale the walls and ceiling, following Melody's progress on the cave floor with startling swiftness. No wyvern was better than a Khezu when it came to defying gravity. The tunnel abruptly closed in around the pair of hybrids, forming a narrow passageway barely big enough for them to walk side-by-side. Gekula dropped down to the ground on all fours, simply unable to climb comfortably in such a tight space. He picked himself up and followed behind Melody, sniffing for any sign of Keyren. But neither of them needn't have worried, because when they rounded the next bend in the tunnel, they almost ran right into the Lagiacrus-girl. Her face appeared so suddenly when the torchlight illuminated it, Melody couldn't help but let out a loud squeak. "Will you be quiet?!" Keyren ordered. "We could be discovered if you make too much noise, so shut it!" Frowning, Gekula tilted his head and said, "We thought that scream was from you." "What gave you that idea?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "So," Melody began, then hastily lowered her voice when Keyren glared daggers at her, "so if it wasn't you, then that must mean there's another hybrid here." "That's what I thought," Keyren whispered fiercely. "We're going to get him –" "Or her," interrupted Melody. Shooting her another glare, Keyren finished, "…him or her and then get out of here." "Good," said Gekula, mostly to himself. "I'm starting to get sick of these scouting missions." A short span of silence ensued, and the Khezu-boy's words hung heavy in the air around them. No-one wanted to admit it, but they couldn't help but agree with him. Scouting was an important job, no doubt, but after weeks of being away from home, they wanted nothing more than for it to end. "We can take a break after we leave the Swamp," muttered Keyren. "Let's get this hybrid first, whoever he – or she – is, and then we can afford to relax. But for now, let's make like a Tetsucabra and hop to it." "Yes, fearless leader," Gekula replied with some sarcasm. The trio cautiously made their way onward, slowly but surely making their way down the tunnel and toward the cave they knew was on the other side. There hadn't been any other noise from the mysterious screaming creature for a few minutes now, but everyone was certain that they were getting close to its whereabouts. Finally, the light of Melody's torch ceased to illuminate the walls around them. Without a doubt, they were inside a much larger cavern, one whose boundaries were too far apart to be lit. Fortunately, moonlight shone through cracks in the ceiling, providing additional, however dim, lighting. It seemed colder in here, and the boggy soil in here was partially hidden by swirling mist. But, most importantly, there was something different about this chamber. A feeling of… wrongness, a feeling that there was something here that shouldn't be. "You feel that…?" whispered Gekula. "It's close," replied Melody. She shivered all of a sudden, and wrapped her wings around herself. "Good thing, too, 'cause I'm really cold…" A *splat* came from off to the right, somewhere where the shadows were thickest. Before the hybrids could ask themselves about the source, more sounds followed, as well as a quiet slither. "It's definitely in here with us," Keyren said, taking up a defensive position. Her spines glowed faintly, ready to discharge an electric blast if they were attacked. There was another *splat* from a different part of the cave. Whatever it was, it was keeping to the shadows, and remaining on the move so that they couldn't guess its position. "Sssss…" Melody gulped. "You hear that?" Indeed they did – a sibilant hiss that chilled the blood. And it was coming from yet another part of the cave. A low growl came from Keyren's throat. "Brace yourselves, you two. I'm going to flush this thing out of hiding, and it's going to cause some collateral damage." Without giving either of her companions time to reply, the Lagiacrus-girl planted her feet apart and cupped her hands. Her spines glowed more intensely, and a ball of electricity started to form in between her palms. Melody and Gekula had only just enough time to run for cover before Keyren launched the crackling orb at the ceiling. An explosion rocked the cave, and huge rocks tumbled down to further shake the earth. When things calmed down, a massive hole had been torn in the ceiling, allowing light to flood almost the entire chamber. Now that all but the farthest corners were exposed, the unknown creature was revealed – and it was a hybrid unlike any they had ever seen.
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