A New Beginning In A Mana Apocalypse

The four of us were currently hunting in the Great Realm. Of my wives only my beast wives had any interest in hunting. The rest had all found positions within the haven to help keep it running smoothly. Except Kayda. She had no idea what she wanted to do, given her race hunting with us would be a good choice, but the memories of when she was trapped in the s.p.a.ce pocket and consumed the twisted trapped with her still brought her nightmares. So she gave hunting a hard pa.s.s. Instead she was staying close to Megan and Karen to see what she could do. Besides hunting I thought bodyguard was a good idea too, but hadn"t brought it up. No one wanted to believe that it was a necessary position within the haven. I wasn"t so naive, and I had seen the way the other men were looking at my wives.

I grinned as I remembered when I had to put one of the military hunter group"s leader in his place. I had never been a man of violence, or any kind of physical activity. Yet when I watched another man smack Grace"s a.s.s I had him by the throat and a foot in the air before he even knew I had moved.

I had glared into the man"s panic filled eyes with a hatred I had never felt before. "No one touches my women." I had told the surrounding audience as I was certain the man in my grip wasn"t able to understand anything but fear and the fact that he had s.h.i.t his pants. Though to be honest he might not have realized that last part until I released him to fall to the ground coughing and trying to suck in as much air as he could.

The man"s squad had all glared at me angrily, two ran forward to check on their leaders condition.

"What the f.u.c.k!" the leader of the squad yelled at me angrily once he had caught his breath. Completely forgetting how helpless he had been just a moment ago. "I"ll report you to Derek f.u.c.ker. You can"t go treating us this way! We the ones who risk our lives to bring food to this G.o.d forsak….." the man started to rant but I stepped closer then reached our and grabbed his shoulder and squeezed until he stopped talking. "Another word and I will dump you in the Great Realm and leave you there." I told him seriously. "No one touches my wives, no one. I hear about anyone else touching them and they get a one way trip out of my haven."

The man in my hand cringed though it might have been from the pain. I looked around at the rest of the spectators which now included the rest of the military hunting teams. "There will be no more warnings." I told them all coldly.

I shook my self to rid myself of the memory though the smile wouldn"t disappear. The man had been built like an action hero. When I walked away he didn"t have the courage to speak again. Derek had come to speak to me but he didn"t reprimand me instead he gave me a list of the men in the hunting groups that were the troublemakers. The idiot I had dealt with was at the top of the list.

A few more steps and I was able to see through the foliage catching my first sight of our target. It was one of the lesser beasts, a stone rhinotile. It was an enormous lizard fifty feet tall and one hundred and fifty feet long with thick stone like scales. It was a lesser beast because they had little intelligence, not much brighter than a cow on Earth. Granted these rhinotile were still dangerous. A horrible cross between a rhino and a crocodile, extra sized and covered in armor. Besides the stone armor it also had a six feet long horn on its snout that looked awfully dangerous. Of the lesser beasts we could hunt, the rhinotile was of the most dangerous and therefore hadn"t been the target of any of the hunters to date. Not even the other beast teams were willing to go after it. While the beast sounded like it was too big to be real it was still dwarfed by the forest around it. There was no name for this place but I wanted to call it the Forest of Giants, until I was told this forest only had the small beasts in it.

Thankfully they were solitary beasts.

As I watched I saw the immense gray scaled beast munching on a clump of bushes. The bushes themselves were fairly interesting as they were no bigger than the bushes from earth and each bite practically took out all of the branches and leaves above ground. Yet in just a few seconds the bush had completely regrown, just in time for the rhinotile to take another bite.

"Emy do you have a sample of that bush?" I asked sending an mental image with the thought.

"No master, while it is a fairly common plant a sample from the branches and leave will not pa.s.s on that ability. You need to get a hold of the rootheart. Any attempt to dig it up will cause the plant to flee. It might not seem so but the rootheart can separate from the rest of the plant and flee through the ground faster than moles." she replied back to me.

That was good to know, I would have to give some thought into how I could secure a sample for me, Emy, and Mary. Before that we needed to bag us some dinner.

I glanced to the side where Nala was, she had concealed herself in the shadow of a large tree leaf. Her gaze was fixed on our pray with a hungry look.

Dena was on my other side, and while she didn"t seem as enthusiastic she had a determined look on her face. I gave her a smile and a wink which made her blush.

"Any signs of danger?" I asked Trill mentally.

"Nothing I can make out, but this place is weird. I have no idea what is and isn"t dangerous here." she replied.

"Ready?" I asked her.

"No my mate, but I will do it anyways. Just remember your promise, if it hurts even one of my feathers you will shower me with attention tonight." she thought back.

I smirked the crane had turned out to be a very touchy kind of girl who loved to be the center of attention. She wasn"t as comfortable with playing with the other girls, but loved being watched as we made love.

"Let"s go." I sent out to my three wives then started moving slowly towards the rhinotile.

When we were a hundred feet out Trill appeared in the sky above the rhinotile"s head. She was staying low in the sky as there were beasts in the sky she had no chance of beating. She didn"t scream out to draw the beast"s attention as that could draw in more attention than we wanted. Instead she dropped a boulder on the beast"s head. It was the largest she could comfortably carry yet it did no damage to the beast at all. Then again it wasn"t meant too. It was merely meant to draw its attention up and away from us.

Once the beast looked up and growled at Trill for interrupting its meal we started sprinting. Once we were close Nala and Dena shifted into their beast form. With their increase tier their beast forms had gotten bigger. Nala was fifty feet tall herself while Dena had reached sixty feet. It was like watching clash of the t.i.tans when my girls reach it Nala went for its throat while Dena aimed her tusks to the area just behind its front legs.

The rhinotile roared out loud in pain and anger as Nala and Dena pieced its rock platemail causing it injury. I smiled then rushed forward myself. As I neared I shifted into my own alternate form. After some investigation and experimentation Kayda and I had agreed to call our species t.i.tan. My human form grew from my normal six or so feet to sixty feet in height packed with steel like muscles. Channeling earth magic into my fist I swung my arm so my fist impact the rhinotile just under its eye as it tried to turn its head to bite at my wives. The blow stunned the beast giving me a chance to leap onto its back and hit the s.p.a.ce just behind its skull with all my strength. I heard a rather satisfying crunch as the beast went still. As far as I could tell it was still alive, just paralyzed. We would transport it back then kill it before stripping it down.

I glanced up into the air to smirk at Trill only to feel my blood run cold. Behind Trill high in the sky was a bright red streak heading down towards my wife. "Dive!" I yelled at Trill. She didn"t question me and dove immediately as I quickly conjured a air lance a hundred feet long and braced it against the ground so the tip sat just below where Trill had been flying. A moment later and the beast reached the place where Trill had been hovering and continued descending. The lance was invisible to sight and it was moving too fast to notice it"s presence before it pierced its chest. The beast lost control and followed the air lance down to the ground. Once it was still I was able to get my first clear look at the beast. It was three times the size of Trill with four large wings of bright red feathers. However it wasn"t a bird. Instead I saw that the body looked more like a wolf. Except for the clawed paws with opposable thumbs and a prehensile tail the tried to wrap around the air lance in its chest. Kind of like a wolf that had gain traits from a hawk and a monkey. A wind blade finished it off, extra spoils were always welcome. I just hoped the wolf bird monkey thing tasted good.

I used my s.p.a.ce ability to transport my our kills to the designated spot in the haven then glanced at the bush the rhinotile had been feeding off of. As if it sensed my gaze and intent the branches and leaves withdrew into the ground.

Pity, at least Emy said it was a common plant.