General POV

  Hanna looked around Astera like a kid in a candy store. The sights and sounds of base camp her her eyes wide, and it was only when she was given another steak that she started to pat attention. She was led to what Hanna could only describe as a shipping yard before the smell of cooking meat, rich stew and smoking firewood caught her senses. Her head snapped up to the cliff face and she spread her wings, earning a cry of surprise from her entourage, only for her to leave then.

  Hanna flew up to the cliff to find what she could only describe as outdoor kitchen and she immediately went to sit. Staring expectantly at what she saw was the buffest fucking cat she'd ever seen. Her arrival had caused a commotion to the kitchen staff and those eating, and people started to scramble away from her. Hanna paid them no mind, her attention was on the giant sbs of meat roasting on the stone griddle.

  Shai POV

  Oh dear. Sapphire star preserve us, the beast smelled the food and flew up to the canteen. The hunter of our party ran off to warn the Commander of what was going on and my junior researchers and assistants scatter to compile their own private notes, leaving me to deal with the sinking dread that perhaps this wasn't the best idea of mine, leading an unknown, highly adaptable, apparently voracious monster to Astera.

  There's a lecture in my future.

  I sigh and start the climb up the stairs to the canteen, only to be fbbergasted when the monster isn't fighting but...eating?! Well, that isn't perhaps strange in an eatery, but the MONSTER was doing so WITHOUT TROUBLE. As of it were a patron. Then I see the aptonoth corpse that I definitely know wasn't there when we'd arrived. Did the beast hunt it and bring it back? In the time I took to go up the stairs? I know I'm not in the best shape, but I'm not that bad, right?

  I look to the chest who shook his head helplessly, but I can tell he was enjoying the fresh ingredients. After all, transporting a monster corpse back here is a nigh impossibility. Only the most experienced or well kitted hunters could manage such a feat and they have MUCH better things to do with their time than to bring food back to the canteen.

  Then to my horror, the Huntsman sms his bde between the humanoid monster and the chef.

  I had to fight the urge to ugh when I saw the monsters indignant gre at the old hunter before I paled when the beast stood.

  Oh, no.

  Hanna POV

  I can't believe this stupid, stuck up asshole! Here I was enjoying my first home cooked meal in weeks, reveling in the tenderness, the juice, the seasoning, oh my god the seasoning, and this dickhead puts his nasty, smelly katana on it! Your goddamned right I'm pissed.

  The white coat gets between us, chattering away at the Armored swordsman, and it's all I can do now to sink my poisoned cws into the man for this slight against food.

  Their conversation slowly cools down. Well. The thin man's part of it does. The swordsman doesn't reply beyond monosylbic grunts or four word sentences. Soon there's a whole slew of armed people, White coated people, and leather cd people with thick books, crowding around me. Some of the people with white coats were touching me, feeling my scales and muscles, and it was all I could do to keep a straight face.

  These people are fuckin' nuts! I spread my wings, baring my cws and most of them got the message before I caught the eye of a older man with a stern look.

  My gaze must have been rather intense, because people began to look between the two of us then clear a path. The swordsman keeps his stupidly long katana pointed at me as this new face approaches me and I regard him. If he were younger, he'd probably be my type of man. No nonsense, goal oriented, protective.

  Oku POV

  The creature was staring at me, matching my gaze and regarding me with clear intelligence in its eyes, and I spoke to it to gage just how intelligent it was.

  "Can you understand me?" I said slowly, enunciation clearly for the beast. At my words the creature's brows knit together in frustration and cause it to tilt its head.

  Then it bared its teeth at me, a low growl escaping it's throat.

  Before we could prepare for it to attack, it hunched over, it's hands pressing to its head.

  We all watched in horror as the creatures eyes and nose start to bleed and it screeched in pain, falling to its knees.

  Shai spoke up, "It's mutating again!" He said with a hiss, and everyone began to back away expecting the worst.

  Imagine our surprise when it spoke to us.

  "Where is she?"