Assimilative Evolution: Or I was Reborn as a Jagras but I Have a Cheat Ability

Consume.

Assimilate.

Evolve.

Three words and the meaning behind them etched themselves into my head, giving way to a burst of information that made sense of the situation I was in now. I died. And now I live, but not the same as I was before. I gasped deeply, taking in as much air as I could into my lungs and getting a feel of my new mouth, how the cool air traveled between the sharp teeth that could easily rip through flesh, the alien grooves on the roof of my mouth, and the scales on my lips.

I…wasn’t human anymore. I don’t know how to feel about that. I…I need to gather myself first and foremost. Yeah, yeah let's do that. And figure out what I am and where I am. Let’s start with the most pressing issue; myself. I rolled off my back, and right off the bat I have spikes(quills?) growing out of my spine. Off to a great start…and I’m a quadruped.

Great, no more walking on two legs for this guy.

I laid on my stomach and wiggled all of my limbs and appendages, rotating and rolling my joints and testing my body. Okay, from the bottom up. I now have claws for hands with only four digits on each paw, say goodbye to thumbs(fuck!). A neck long enough to turn and look at the rest of my body, a body covered by yellow and gray-green scales, and a tail. A freaking tail. Which I proceeded to whip back and forth like an excited dog, amazed at the new limb I’d gained.

I think I know what I am, I just need some sort of reflective surface to confirm my thoughts. Now, if what I am is an indicator, it should vastly shorten the list of where I am. With all the greens of grass, trees, leaves, plants, vines and roots all around me, I just need to look up.

It was a tree. A truly massive tree. Wide as a skyscraper, tall enough to reach the clouds, and branches big enough to hold houses. It was the most wondrous piece of nature I have ever seen in my life, something that made me feel small but humbled by it.

Well, that answered that question. I’m in the Ancient Forest from the Monster Hunter franchise.

Shit.

And at this point, with all of the gathered information I have, I’m confident I was reborn as a Jagras.

Double shit.

A spike of information buried itself at the forefront of my mind. News that made me smile(which was weird to feel as a jagras) and gave me hope for my survival in this world.

I have a cheat ability.

---

Okay, now that I’ve gathered myself(after many philosophical and thought-provoking ruminations on life after death) I can plot out the beginnings of my future. I’m a jagras in the world of Monster Hunter. That’s hard enough as is, like starting on the hardcore difficulty in any game, but only made easier because of my power, which I will get into later I promise, but I need to make ground rules first.

Obviously, on what actions to take when meeting the monsters and hunters of this world.

Let’s start with the hunters: run. Just run. I ain’t going to explain how dumb it would be to approach them. I’m sure I could get leniency because I’m a jagras, but even then I’m not chancing it. So, run away to live. Easy peasy.

Now onto the monsters, this is where things get interesting. Because of my ability, I have a chance of becoming an Elder Dragon. The apex predator; a trouncing force of nature at the top of the world. Beings that can shape the lands around them with their sheer power.

Crazy right?

I have the ability to absorb monsters and gain their attributes. Permanently. In layman's terms, the more I eat, the more powerful I get. And with the rainbow spectrum of monsters here, I have a buffet in front of me.

But I need to be smart and careful about this. As I am now, a kestodon could kill me. And even worse, I don’t know the full capabilities of my power. All that I know is that if I eat a monster, I gain its power. That’s it. It doesn’t go into detail or say anything about the little things. Like for example, do I need to eat their entire body? Will a drop of blood suffice? Will I know how to automatically use their power when I gain it? If I eat a whole monster, will I turn into that monster fully or could I allocate its attributes to wherever I want it to be? Will I know how to fly when I inevitably gain wings or will I have to figure that out?

Stuff like that. And no answers but questions instead.

So like all plans in history, we start with a step. An easy step, a disgusting step, but necessary to survive and learn.

Let's eat a bug.

 

Now if you’re wondering on what particular bug I’m going for, let me give you a hint. You use it as a material to make a trap in Monster Hunter. Veterans, you already know the answer, folks that don’t, you’ll figure it out.

As I walked, I marveled at the feeling of ease of walking on all fours. It was shaky at first, my memories telling me I should be bipedal instead of quadrupedal. I stumbled, swayed side-to-side, and tripped here and there, but it came to me. Like I was relearning how to ride a bicycle again. I guess I got lucky that whatever put me here had the forethought of easing me into this body. And with use, came experience, and experience: confidence.

I had a little swagger in my steps(like I said: confidence), and I recalled any facts about jagras that I could. I know eventually, they grow into a Great Jagras, who have the ability to unhinge their jaw and eat a monster of a similar size in one swallow, where the stomach is capable of stretching and expanding to accommodate it, then proceeds to break it down quickly with its strong stomach acids. Huh, alongside my power, maybe starting out as a jagras isn’t so bad. Still sucks though.

But this does give me options and ideas. Could I unhinge my jaw as I am now? I know for a fact a Great Jagras can, but could a regular one do it? I stopped and opened my mouth, focusing on the muscles and bone that connected my jaw to my skull, and flexed. With a pop, my mouth dislocated. Wow, I can do it, and no pain too! I shook my head and felt my jaw wiggle without my input. Hehe, this is kind of fun. Now how do I put it back on? Do I flex my muscles and-oh, there we go. With a loud clack sound, my jaw was set again.

I opened and closed my mouth repeatedly, testing my jaw and smiled when no signs of issues came. Quickly, a stream of ideas came to me and what I could do with this. Like eating a baby aptonoth that was away from its herd and gaining its strength and size. But that was for later when I learn more about my power and get stronger.

So, I continued onward to my goal. As I walked, I was continuously cross-referencing and looking out for any landmarks of the Ancient Forest, comparing it to World and trying to learn where exactly I was. Thousands of hours on World helped on making it easier, but I was already noting a difference. Everything was a lot farther than the game. Unsurprising really, as one was made as a game and shrunken down to fit it while the reality was a lot bigger.

It was also a lot more lively. I can hear all manner of monsters and life teeming around here, a constant wave of sound both familiar and alien reaching my ears. I still haven’t come face to face with any yet(which I’m not looking forward to), but I plan on avoiding them until I complete my objective or if I’m forced into a situation where I can’t run away.

Time passed as I continued on my journey, learning about my environment and mentally mapping out the forest. Finding landmarks from the game and adjusting my path, going around the roars of the beast and seeing distant and blurry figures of monsters making their own way in the distance amongst the trees. Some of which frightened me, but I made my way.

It had to be past the afternoon when I finally found it. I lowered myself and hid in the shrubbery and poked my head out enough to see my target. It could have easily passed as a freakishly large insect that you would expect to come from Australia, with its six limbs, green carapace with its wings currently tucked in, and antennas sprouting out of its head. But what made it stand out was the glow of blue light coming out of its butt, reminding me of a firefly. A firefly if it was on steroids.

It’s a thunderbug.

A couple of these and a trap tool is enough to stun a fully-grown monster in place. Imagine if I ate one of these? Or a dozen? Something small, relatively, harmless will be a good and strong foundation for me to take my first step into evolution. There are also two more in the area on a tree a dozen feet away, making it three in total that I could potentially eat.

I prowled forward, keeping myself on the pads of my feet and minding my claws to not make too much noise and startle the thunderbug that was by itself. I only untensed myself when I was merely inches away from it and I realized it wasn’t going to run away from me. Must not consider me a predator. I shrugged, oh well, it only makes things easier for me.

Still, I got to psyche myself up. I am about to eat a giant ass bug. Remember, this is for power and survival. I gathered my nerves and quickly snatched the thunderbug into my mouth.

Ew! Ew! Ew! I could feel it wriggling in my mouth. Chew! Chew! Chew! Ow! Ow! Ow! It’s shocking me! Swallow! Swallow goddammit! My mouth was numb by the time I finished swallowing the damn thing. I was sure I had electrical burns now, but for the time being, I ignored my wounds and focused inwards as I could feel my ability activate and digest the thunderbug.

My insides shifted and moved as a new organ formed amongst them, it was quickly followed by a surge of energy that filled it. New nerves extended from it, nerves that spread and merged with the existing ones underneath my skin. The energy moved and filled the old and new nerves, electrifying me and filling me up from exhaustion up to this point I had no idea about. The skin on my forehead, shoulders, forearms, and the base and tip of my tail merged and segmented into rough and chitin carapaces instead of scales as the energy within lit them up into a dull blue light.

Woah, that was…something. How do I say it in words? Power, it was power. And damn does it feel nice. I looked down onto my chest where my new organ sat and pondered at what I could now do with it. It’s small now, but I know I can make it bigger in the future. I breathed in deeply and flexed my new organ. The energy flowed outward into and throughout my nerves where it shot out of my scales and chitin. In mere moments I was covered in blue electricity.

I did the jagras equivalent of a cackle as I examined myself. I didn’t feel any pain, though the scales around the chitin were slowly turning numb, I concluded my thunderbug attributes were more conductive to electricity. I tried to see if I could shoot lightning like a gun, but nothing happened as the electricity continued cracking around my body. Okay, I can’t live out a personal fantasy of mine yet of shooting energy beams, but just having a literal electrifying aura was enough to make me very giddy.

A giddiness that disappeared when I ran out of energy and the light show stopped. Alright then, I have a limited amount of power. Good to know, but now I’m empty and a new question arises. How do I fill it back up? I could eat the two other thunderbugs and-nope. They’re gone. Shit, I must’ve scared them off when I released all of my electricity. Maybe I could treat this like a car? It needs to refuel itself, but what would be gas for it?

My thoughts turned back to all of the hunts I did in the game and I remembered all of the monsters would, after taking a certain amount of damage, would run away to either sleep or eat another monster to refuel itself. There’s a potential answer to my problem.

So, what should I eat next?

 

An aptonoth. That will be my next target for consumption. A baby aptonoth to be more specific. As I am now, and unless I had a pack of jagras following me, I can’t take on a fully grown adult. So here’s my game plan: I’ll move around the forest until I find a pack of them and observe from a distance. If there are no young ones among them, I’ll move on to the next. If there are some, I’ll stalk and wait for an opportunity to present itself. Preferably if a baby wanders away from the herd and is defenseless enough for me to swoop in for the kill.

Two areas popped into mind, one was where the Ancient Forest and the Wildspire Waste meet and the other was at the very beginning of the map when the player goes out for their very first hunt. I could go to either, preferably the latter, but if I’m lucky enough I won’t have to go so far. With a new clear goal, I moved onwards, mindful of my surroundings and keeping an open mind for my next meal.

While I would like to eat an aptonoth or even a thunderbug, any other organism will do to figure out my power. So time passed, the afternoon turned to dusk and one definitive problem was answered. I can’t generate energy for my electricity right now. Or was it bioenergy in this context? The word ‘bioenergy’ made me think of Xeno’jiiva and all the laser beams the baby ender dragon was dishing out like it was going out of style.

Definitely not going after that thing, no way.

I shook away that derailing train of thoughts and focused on what was in front of me. Now when I eat a monster, could I focus it instead to only fill my reserves instead of gaining its attributes? Or will I gain both attributes and energy? Is there a max amount of bioenergy I can carry? Questions, always have to be asked to find all avenues of my power.

I climbed over rocks, clawed up roots to get into trees, leaped a good dozen feet(a feat that emphasized the power of a simple jagras compared to a human from my world), and made a decent headway to my destination. Dusk turned to night, and I stopped at a stream of water for rest. My new lizard brain told me the water was good, and I was parched, so I dipped my head in and drank to my heart's content.

I pulled away with a sigh of relief as the water cooled me down from the trek. That was some good water and…woah. I blinked astoundedly as I finally got a good look at myself reflecting from the stream, with light shining from a full moon illuminating the forest. I really am not a human anymore, am I? I sighed and lay down on my stomach. While I am glad to be alive, I would have preferred being human while doing so. And thumbs, don’t forget the thumbs.

It’s kind of lonely, but it’s also peaceful. I will miss my family, there is no doubt there, but this new life is freeing in the sense that my old one is dead. There is nothing I can do from here that could affect my previous life over, what I assume, a couple of dimensions that way. If tears leaked out, it was okay. I’m mature and smart enough to know it’s alright to think and let these emotions out. It’ll be good for me.

When I did finish, it was to a lighter chest and a sense of tranquility. And exhaustion, both physical and mental. I got up, climbed a tree, made sure it was high up so nothing could potentially snack on me and tucked myself into a nice and, surprisingly, comfortable crook. I assume my jagras body doesn’t mind going to rest like this. With the last of my thoughts being on the biology of jagras, my eyes closed and I dozed off to sleep.

---

I woke up to a beam of sunlight shining between the branches onto my face, I got up and stretched in a very cat-like manner. I hopped down the tree, drank water from the stream, and sat on my haunches as I thought about the plan of the day. A baby aptonoth was still at the top of my to-eat list, but after some time thinking about it, I could eat just about anything to test my theories.

I glanced at the stream again and I remember there being fish in the Ancient Forest. My thoughts froze as my mind exploded with an epiphany. I could eat a fish and breathe underwater! Oh my god, I totally have to eat one! That would be so cool! I always dreamed about breathing underwater since I was a kid. Man, screw the aptonoth. I’m getting a fish instead!

I dashed alongside the river, running past bugs(sadly they weren’t thunderbugs) dodging out of the way of a pack of kestodons that were resting next to the water, totally going to eat one of them in the future, and kept going until it sloped down a small cliff. I stopped at the edge and looked down onto a massive pond, it had to be a hundred, maybe more, feet long and three-fourths wide. I don’t know how deep exactly, but with how crystal clear the water was, I could hazard a guess.

And boy does this pond look good, because I can see dozens of fish, fish I have no idea what the names are, but they look delicious. In my previous life, I was an islander so fish was always a part of my life for as long as I could remember, so these were monsters I had no qualms about eating…unless they were poisonous. Though, do I even have to worry about that with my ability? I’m…gonna say no. I don’t think I have to worry about that since if I eat one and gain its attributes, then I will also gain its immunity to its own poisons. That made sense.

With that out of the way, I leaned forward and tensed my muscles for action. Now, for that guess on how deep the pond was? Deep enough for a jagras to jump from a cliff. With a target chosen, a barebones plan, and excitement running through me, I dived off. I held my limbs close to my body, and since the cliff wasn’t too high, I speared into the water quickly onto my unsuspecting prey. Both gravity and my own strength assisted me as I crashed mouth-first into the monster fish with my jaw clamping around its neck.

Ha! Gotcha ya bastard! First try too, how’s that! And-woah! Stop struggling! Come on now, daddy wants some sushi! I held strong against its desperate attempt to wrestle free from me and swam to the surface as I learned something. Having a tail to help push me made swimming a lot easier. I broke the surface and tread my way to land with my ill-gotten gains.

I looked down upon my prize with pride oozing off of me. That was fun, it was just like how I used to free dive and spear fish during high school before I stopped when I didn’t have any more free time as a working-class adult. A little something to remind me of home.

Looking at this fish from a different angle other than above, it actually looks a lot like a catfish to me. A very fat catfish, that was also the size of my chest. Man, it's fat. It’s so round. And fat. Hehe, I started poking its belly for fun. My head whipped to the side from a sudden force, a stinging pain emanating from my cheek. I gasped and slowly looked back at the catfish in disbelief.

This motherfucker just slapped me…with its tail!

Alright, you’re getting in my belly you prick! I unhinged my jaw and winced at the electrical burns littering my mouth I got yesterday from that thunderbug. It was easy to ignore before, but this meal was going to be painful. I pumped myself up and started at its head. Let me tell you, the next couple of minutes was the weirdest and most painful moment I’ve ever encountered eating.

If you recall me explaining earlier, I talked about a jagra's ability to unhinge its jaws to eat prey that couldn’t fit in its mouth and how its belly could stretch to accommodate its prey. So believe me when I say this, it was an experience. The catfish, actually I think it’s called a gajau, something that was the size of my chest as previously mentioned, was able to fit and slide down my gullet. It was literally stretching my throat before quickly disappearing as my ability devoured it. I guess I don’t have to worry about that weakness jagras have by waddling around with fat bellies.

Okay, let's test and see if I can direct the assimilation process and pull something off. I have three questions: Can I eat a monster and use the bioenergy to heal myself instead of gaining attributes? Can I only gain only specific attributes that I want? And most importantly, can I refuel myself to power my electricity and stockpile on bioenergy?

I focused my intent as it coalesced and it responded to my desires. Behind my head, on the sides of my neck, gills formed as my lungs transformed to be able to breathe both air and water. My new gills were closed for now since I was currently breathing air. My tail lengthened and grew thicker as dull orange dorsal fins formed down the spine of my tail and a large caudal fin formed at the end. The burns in my mouth numbed before feeling quickly returned as my wounds healed.

My reserves were filled and the excess stilled, waiting to be used. And used it was. With a flex, I was once again covered in blue electricity. The excess bioenergy was being funneled into my electro organ, constantly topping it off as I was filled with glee.

Hahaha! YES! This answered so many of my questions! I stopped the flow and my sparks sputtered away and I smiled at the feeling of having leftover bioenergy still. So many roads of possibilities opened up to me, with two, in particular, standing out to me.

Two of my favorite monsters in Monster Hunter: a fire-breathing T-rex swinging its sword-like tail and a dragon breaking the sound barrier in a jet-like fashion. Glavenus and Valstrax. Oh, I am definitely eating them in the future, I’m already fanboying just thinking about those two. Such cool and well-designed monsters. Woo, man, I just love them so much! So cool!

I shook the thoughts aside and looked upon the pond and smiled once more in excitement. I rushed forward and threw myself in the water and laughed as my gills opened and I experienced the wonders of breathing underwater. Alongside my modified tail, I was zooming end to end in joy. I am now living like a fish. Awesome.

Now, what shall I do next?

 

Over the course of the next few days, I stayed at that pond testing and exploring my abilities and using the gajau as fuel to conduct my experiments. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far: for instance, I can only hold onto so much bioenergy, a limit I learned about after eating a gajau and not instantly absorbing it. For thirty minutes I was waddling around with an inflated tummy, I have never felt so slow and sluggish in my life as I digested the fish the normal way.

After that lesson, I learned that I have two tanks within me, one was the organ that generates my electricity while the other was…metaphysical to hold onto my bioenergy. It wasn’t physical in nature but I could feel it coursing through my body instead of in one place. My electric sac would absorb from the tank of bioenergy and convert it into electricity. I would then gain bioenergy by eating monsters. So what happens if I were to get a flame sac? Would it also be in a similar situation I have now? An answer I can find in the future.

And speaking of energy, I’ve learned how to conduct my electricity. I can now light up my tail like a biological taser. It was fun poking the gajau’s and watching them twitch over from the voltage running through them. I will admit though, it took quite a bit of tries where I could do that without killing them. That's how I learned that I had a limit for my bio-tank as this led me to eat the dead gajau’s so they weren’t being wasted. Regrets were made that day.

Now here’s the final thing I want to get into. Assimilation and Evolution. After eating a monster, I can assimilate its attributes and gain them for myself. Easy and intuitive to use, something I’ve been using this entire time since I got here. Evolution, on the other hand, was a whole other tree by itself. From what I’ve gathered, I can use my bioenergy to upgrade my body and current abilities that I currently own.

For example, I was able to make my electric sac capable of holding onto more electricity, but I can’t form another limb. The bioenergy would respond to my will but when I tried it, it would attempt to do it but disperse instead, incapable of keeping a form. It felt like I had the capabilities to do so, but I didn’t have the blueprints and software to make it work if that made any sense. Like, I have the parts, but my power doesn’t know how to put it together and how it works. Since I couldn’t do some crazy things yet, I’ve been upgrading my muscles instead and my scales.

In the process, I’ve gotten bigger and leaner, covered in corded muscles with my old scales shedding off for new and stronger ones to fill in their place. My little sanctuary was littered with my yellow scales with bits of my carapaces here and there as well. The spikes(quills?) on my back, still don’t know what they’re called, were growing and were starting to turn into those dreadlock-looking style that Great Jagras has, but I was pulling that process back as much as I could. I did not like that look on me, it made me look messy instead of the sleekness I was getting naturally. I kept my body in the shape of a basic jagra, but I did broaden my back and chest. Only a little, I still want to be nimble and not massive yet when I wasn’t sturdy enough to take a hit from a hunter.

Speaking of hunters, it’s about time for me to head out and find another target to make me stronger. While it would be nice to stay here and just snack on gajau’s and mess around with my powers, I’m still weak. While I do have a good way of escaping fights with my gills, sadly, it only works if I’m around a large body of water, so that’s very situational but something good to have in my back pocket. To help me on this journey, I’ve made a list of monsters I want to go for. It’s made with the intention of their abilities to ward off large monsters and monsters that I can fight at this time.

The List

1. The toads.

There are three types of, frankly wonderful, toads. The paratoad, it has the ability to stun by releasing a paralyzing gas from within its body. The sleeptoad, similar to the paratoad, it can release sleeping gas. Finally, the nitrotoad, what it can do is this: it explodes. I could make some type of joke about that, but just the thought of a suicide bomber toad was enough to make me laugh. Now sadly, I can’t access the latter of the two as they reside in the Coral Highlands and the Elder’s Recess respectively. Ain’t no way in hell am I going to Elder’s Recess until I was as strong as an Elder Dragon myself. So what I’m left with is the paratoad.

2. The bugs.​

Here’s where I had to get picky. There are so many bugs with amazing properties, I have to keep this list short or I will get indecisive and try and go for everything and get pulled in too many directions. So I’ve narrowed it down to three easy-to-get bugs: the flashflies, the wiggly litchi, and the vigorwasp. A flashfly is a literal living flash grenade, no other explanation is needed. The wiggly litchi has, in-game, the ability to halve stamina consumption for the player, so I’m curious how that would be for me when I eat one. Now, the vigorwasp, this one has the most potential out of the entire list. It has the ability to create Vitality nectar, the healing potion of Monster Hunter. Yeah, think about that. My survivability in this world will shoot by like…1000% if I eat one! Please don’t question the number, I’m not good at math in this scenario.

3. Kestodon and Aptonoth.​

I want the skull and horns of the kestodon, both to reinforce my skull by an order of magnitudes and the horns as another weapon for my arsenal. For the aptonoth, I don’t really need anything from them, but I want to test a theory I have with my power. What would happen if I were to eat an egg of an aptonoth instead of the monster itself? I know an embryo holds all the DNA information from its parents and how it would mature as it ages, so could I gain all the attributes of the monster? It’s a really good question I want to test because I could shortcut my way to power without having to eat scraps or fight my way to it.

With that set, I topped myself with bioenergy with an electrocuted gajau, and I made my way out. Now with how massive the Ancient Forest is, I knew that this could potentially take days or even a week or two to complete, even longer if I cross paths with the predators of this forest, or if the world wanted to punch me in the gut, I stumble upon a party of hunters. I shuddered at the thought, I remembered if I ever got frustrated with a challenging hunt, I would load a mission with a low-rank Great Jagras and bully it to make me happy. I hope that never happens to me.

And so, time passed, hours of exploring and looking around with a keen eye, always on the lookout for danger and keeping, while not constant, a good amount of diligence. The beauty and alien nature of the Ancient Forest still blew me away with the Ancient Tree standing proud among the clouds. I remember being told by my friend that every single tree in the Ancient Forest was connected to the Ancient Tree by its roots, and being here in person? I can believe that.

More time passed, with me eating a bug here and there and not really gaining anything from it. A full day passed, it was night now, with a half-moon hanging in the sky as I took a break to rest. If you’re wondering, I can actually use my bioenergy to heal the aches in my muscles and keep going, but I don’t want to waste it like that when I can just stop and rest instead and not worry about running low in case of an emergency.

I laid down next to a rotten log that had to be the size of a car and kept a lookout. A couple of minutes passed and I caught movement at the side of my eye, I whipped my head to look and…found a wiggly litchi crawling slowly on the log. Huh, go me. Don’t know how I missed it, but hey, there it is. I wasted no time and I practically slurped it into my stomach.

My bioenergy traveled across the entirety of my body, responding to the new material I fed it and acknowledging my desires. It didn’t take long and the exhaustion from earlier disappeared, and I knew it worked. I now was passively generating an equivalent of Dash juice, which could also lower stamina consumption by twenty-five percent, but better. A wiggy litchi could lower stamina consumption by fifty percent, and now I had an infinite amount of it. Oh man, I can now run and run and run, and then keep on running. Awesome! I did a little dance of celebration before calling it a night and finding a tall tree for me to sleep in. One down.

The next couple of days passed in a similar manner, and I had intensive stress testing of my new stamina. Back in our world, a human could sprint for thirty to thirty-five seconds before stopping to rest. I can sprint for twenty minutes. Sick, right? But, I’m pretty sure the humans here could sprint for about five minutes themselves. Just an intrusive thought, but I’m one hundred percent confident they are superhuman. The crazy shit they can do.

Anyway, the second on the list that I found was the flashflies. Hard to not find them when looking for ‘em, they are a literal ball of light. Made more apparent with the shade the Ancient Forest gives here. And let me tell you, even though I don’t want to, it took a couple of tries. The number of times I got flash-banged had me believing I was seeing heaven at a certain point, or limbo. I’m pretty sure I went blind at one point, if I wasn’t able to heal my eyes, I would be blind right now. But I did get it eventually.

I concentrated, closed my eyes, and with a pulse of bioenergy, a powerful blue flash emanated from my glowing carapaces. I blinked a couple of times afterward, as even with my eyes closed it still affected me. I messed with my eyelids, flashed again, and smiled when I wasn’t affected by it. There we go.

On the ninth day, I stumbled upon a pack of kestodons. I hid amongst the foliage, keeping a low profile and keeping still as I observed from a distance. It was a group of six, with four adults and two young ones, not babies but not adults quite yet. I…think I can take them on. Trust me when I say this, I would love nothing more than to avoid confrontation but that would be dumb. I know for a fact I will have to fight eventually, there is no circumventing that. It’s just when I do, I want my first fight to be under my conditions first and not on another's terms.

I’ve had to have been on this world in this body for about, or near, two weeks. That’s a lot of time, time for me to get comfortable with my new body. Time I used well exploring, testing, and using to hunt and kill gajau’s back at my pond. So I know how to use my body as a weapon, but I have something that’s greater and more powerful than all of the monsters here: My mind.

So let's use it.

I looked at my surroundings, I took stock of the abilities I have available to me, and a plan formed. A thing about jagras that a lot of Monster Hunter players probably don’t think too hard on is the fact that they are really good climbers. So good in fact, it almost felt like I was walking on land as I climbed the roots and trees and hopped from branch to branch so that I was above them. It took a couple of minutes, minutes spent on not making too much noise, but I did it without them noticing.

Step one: get to the high ground. I leaned forward, the muscles of my body tensing in preparation as I carved grooves in the treebark beneath me and roared as loudly as I could. The kestodons startled and looked up at me. Step two: get their attention. I closed my eyes and sent an extra dose of my bioenergy and activated flash. I was rewarded with roars of pain. Step three: blind them. I covered myself in electricity and pounced onto the largest of the bunch with a warcry bellowing from the bottom of my lungs. Step four: slaughter them.

With how high I was, it would take a second for me to hit the kestodon. A second where I felt the wind buffer me, the butterflies rumbling and flipping around in my stomach as gravity pulled me down, and a foe I was about to fight and kill. A coolness entered my mind, a singular objective driving me forward and giving me clarity for what I was literally falling into.

I crashed into the monster claws first, with my weight and the force of my jump sending us tumbling into the dirt. It hurt, but not by much. It felt like someone pushed me onto a matted floor instead of the cooled dirt of a forest. How durable was I? Something for later. I quickly got to my feet, facing my opponent, who was shaking from the paralyzing effects of my electricity, and I clamped my jaw around its throat. With a sharp twist, I tore it open.

My eyes quickly bounced between the rest of the pack, they were still affected by my flash but I don’t know for how much longer. I could take them out one by one, but that may give them an opportunity to attack. I ran at the nearest one, electricity on full blast, and shoulder-tackled it to the ground. I didn’t go down to rip its throat out, instead, I kept running at full tilt and did the same thing to the rest in the span of seconds. Seconds that felt too long, and turned around to look at my handy work. Five kestodons were on the ground paralyzed. I didn’t waste any time and quickly tore open their throats.

Success. Bloody, but successful.

I took a step back, taking deep and calming breaths as I looked at the corpses at my feet. That. Was. Awesome! Scary, but so exciting and heart-thumping! Whoo, yeah, that was it, baby. In the grand scheme of things, I know that the kestodons are hardly even classified as a threat, but fuck that! I couldn’t help the pride oozing through me at my accomplishment. That was like, the perfect ambush. I feel so cool right now.

Now, let's get to eating. I walked to the biggest and most developed of the bunch, its horns were large and magnificent. Perfect for me to assimilate. But there was an issue, it was too big for me to eat in one go like I usually do. I had about sixty percent of bioenergy in the tank, so if I were to eat all of it it would be too much. One leg alone would be enough to top me up and I can’t have myself slowed down with a bloated stomach at this point in time. I don’t know how much time I have, but I know that other monsters will be attracted to the smell of kestodon corpses so I have to do this quickly. I tilted my head to the side in thought, I could rip off the limbs and tail to make it smaller. The hind legs and tail made up a huge bit of it, and all I wanted from it were its horns. The rest were disposable.

So I got to work hacking off its limbs. The arms were the easiest, but the fat and muscle of its legs were a bitch. In the end, all that was left was its head and torso. I took a breath, unhinged my jaw, and prepared to…eat…it…what's that sound?

It sounded like scribbling. Scribbling on paper to be exact. I hinged my jaw with a loud clack and focused on my ears and looked in the general area from where it was coming from. I didn’t see anything, but my hackles were raised. It wasn’t until the sunlight broke through the clouds dotting the sky and reflected off of something shiny that I saw it. The first thing I saw was the glasses. Then the person wearing the glasses…

My heart soared as to what the being in front of me was sinking in. I then noticed the long elven ears. Wyverian? I scanned him for any weapons but didn’t see anything but a small knife strapped to his waist. In his hands were a book and a pencil that was furiously writing in whatever language was written here. He wasn’t wearing anything that looked like armor, so I don’t think he was a hunter.

A researcher? The beat of my heart was slowing down at that revelation. Of course, he was, I didn’t see any of the famous weapons of Monster Hunter on him. But was he by himself?

That sped my heart back up again.

Would he be by himself? No that wouldn’t make sense, this was the New World and these guys were exploring this unknown region and its dangers. But I do remember the characters being eccentric enough that some would go out by themselves instead of with the protection of hunters with them. But were their real-life counterparts similar, or was the game an exaggeration of them? My eyes were drawn to the mutilated corpse of the kestodon at my feet.

I can’t eat it with him watching, he’ll see me assimilate it and report it back to the Hunter’s Guild. I…I…could kill him and hide his body. But can I do that? Could I kill another thinking being like I did with the monsters just now?

…No. No, I can't do that. I can handle killing monsters, but a person? No way.

It seems like he didn’t notice me stopping to look at him, I could run up and taze him then book it with the kestodon in my mouth and then eat it when I was safe. There’s an idea, and it does look like he’s by himself. I tensed, my feet digging into the dirt and-

“Vera! Where are you?! You know you’re not supposed to separate from us!”

The wyverian and I froze. ‘Vera’ recovered first, he looked up at me and I took a step back. A grimace crossed his face as he as well started to take steps back in a slow manner. He wasn’t alone. Fuck. That means hunters were nearby.

Oh god. I have to get out of here.

I snatched an arm in my mouth and ran. I ran and I kept on running and never looked back. I ran through branches, jumped over roots, hopped into and swam across ravines, climbed trees, and I kept running. When I thought I was far enough, I kept on running. I pushed myself until day turned to night. The fear of hunters tracking me and on my tail keeps me going. I didn’t stop until I realized I ran all the way back to my pond.

Only then did I stop.

I dropped to the ground in exhaustion with the arm clattering next to me and I realized I used up the rest of my bioenergy during that run without conscious thought. Okay, I thought I would be prepared for meeting the denizens here, but the fear coursing through me showed otherwise. Can you blame me? The game showed these guys were willing to throw down with a moving mountain.

And then there’s me, a jagras.

Sigh, I got up and my muscles creaked in pain and dived into the pond. The water cooled me down rapidly and set my mind in a pleasant haze. I’ll deal with this tomorrow, I need my rest. These were my last thoughts as I drifted to sleep under the pond.

---

Vera sighed in relief and a little bit of disappointment when the jagras ran off with an arm in its mouth. He came to the Ancient Forest to learn the habits and the nature of the kestodons and to see any differences compared to the ones back in the Old World. He enlisted the help of two A-lister hunters to accompany him on his research, but he separated from them when he found tracks of a pack of kestodons and in his excitement left them behind.

He found the pack just in time for the jagras to announce its presence and was blinded by it. He heard a loud crash, a gurgle, then multiple thumps hitting the ground before he recovered his vision, and it was quite the sight. The alpha of the pack was dead and the rest twitching on the floor and a jagra covered in electricity standing over them. It proceeded to kill them with slashes to their throats or just tearing them open with its fangs.

He quickly pulled his notebook and pencil out and started to jot down his thoughts in the book and hid among the foliage. I believe I’ve found a subspecies of the jagras line. It looks similar to its cousins, but there are noticeable differences. It seems to have chitin growing out of its body that gives out a dull blue light which it can use to give a flash of light much like a Flashfly(a defensive measure?) Its tail is wider and longer with dull orange dorsal fins going down the spine of its tail and a tail fin at the end of its tail(It’s aquatic? Did the jagras line evolve out of the ocean? But it still has gills, so does it also breathe underwater? Strange). Its back and chest are also broader(More strength to help it swim? But I don’t see any webbing between its hands).

It’s quite clever, and much more aggressive as is common with subspecies of other monsters, as it garnered the attention of a pack of kestodons and blinded them(a defensive measure that eventually turned into a hunting tool? Or was it always intended to be used like so?). While in that state, it paralyzed them and then tore their throats out.

Vera’s attention shot back to the jagras and watched it sniff and circle around the alpha kestodon. His interest rose as instead of eating it, it proceeded to rip off its limbs in a rather gruesome manner. It’s currently wrenching off the limbs of the alpha kestodon, but why? Is it a picky eater? A clack had him looking up from his notebook to see the jagras jaw dislocate and its strange mannerisms made sense. Of course, it would do that, while it looks different it's still of the jagras line as it also has the ability to dislocate its jaws to devour large prey, and it’s ripping off the limbs of the kestodon because it’s too big for it to eat all at once. He kept writing in his notebook and when he was content with it, he started sketching the monster in front of him.

“Vera! Where are you?! You know you’re not supposed to separate from us!”

He froze and looked up to see the jagras was in a lunging position facing him. His heart sped up and he took a slow and delicate step back. He didn’t even hear it move, he was lost in his book and didn’t realize it noticed him. While he does have a hunting knife on him, he wasn’t a fighter and did not like his odds of fighting the monster after the showing he revealed to him and the aftermath.

It seemed like luck was on his side, the jagras grabbed one of the arms and ran away into the forest. Vera relaxed and leaned against the tree and called out to the pair of hunters trailing after him. “Over here!”

It only took a couple of moments before they reached him. The bigger of the two was covered in anjanath armor and had a bone greatsword strapped on his back while his female companion was wearing pukei-pukei armor with a blacksteel crossbow cradled in her hands. Ajax and Mary, veterans of their craft and happily married together. Good people, and good companions for this expedition.

Spoiler: Ajax and Mary

“Come on Vera, you know this, you’re supposed to stick with us and-woah. What happened here?” Ajax stopped in the middle of his admonishment and gripped his greatsword while Mary started scanning the area for any monsters when the pack of dead kestodons came into sight.

Vera waved them off and took a sip out of his water bottle. “It's quite alright my friends, the danger has passed.”

“You know what happened?” Ajax questioned, his attention shifting back to Vera while Mary kept her head on a swivel. He trusted her to spot any danger before he did and warn him about it.

Vera smiled in excitement. “I’ve discovered a subspecies of the jagras line! Come now, you can help me decide on a name for it while we head back to Astera!”

He sped off into the treeline, heading in the complete opposite direction and electing a sigh from both of the experienced hunters.

“Come on Vera! I just talked about this!” Ajax yelled after him and ran after him while Mary shook her head at the wyverian researcher. While he was smart, he lacked some common sense. Must’ve lost some from living over three-hundred years.

Well, at least they got to head home early. She couldn’t wait to order an aptonoth steak from Mr. Meowscular and shrimp…and a mug full of mead…and soup…and mashed potatoes…

To those who didn’t know her well, it would’ve been a surprise that behind her cool exterior all she thought about was food. Mary followed after her eccentric friend and her husband with a line of drool leaking out of her mouth.

---

AN: And so, we have our very first contact. I have to admit, I'm rather impressed with myself for writing this all out in a day while sick and taking a nap in the middle of it. Not bad me.

I hope you guys enjoy being in my character's brain and his thought process, writing his thoughts has been pretty fun. And our first action scene too! I hope you guys like it.

Shoots, I'm heading off to bed.