ALL NOVEL Chapter 74: Caught In The Crossfire
By the time Leo let Dominic know that he’d finished for now, the sun was rising over the horizon. One of the moons was still high in the sky, the others almost out of view. Clearly they had different orbit speeds.
The lionesses were lying around Dominic, cat-napping. Dominic had no doubt that they’d be wide awake and ready to face any threat if one came calling, but for now they were the dictionary definition of relaxed. Several were snuggled up together, the cubs in particular making a bit of a pile. Two of the cubs were feeding from their mother – the littlest were the ones who had survived the hyenas. Perhaps they had been able to hide better under their mother.
As for the lioness closest to Dominic, she looked rather satisfied, matching the terrible smugness which emanated from Leo.
‘I don’t want to hear about it,’ Dominic warned him, preempting the comment he could sense was coming. With a hint of a grumble, the lion subsided.
While this whole scene was practically domestic, Dominic felt restless. He hadn’t come anywhere close to death in the last battle, but he’d lost far too many of those under his protection. He’d levelled up, yes, but the enhancements he could choose always seemed like a drop in the bucket of the power he needed.
‘I’m going out,’ he announced to his companion, pushing himself to his feet and stretching. He could do with a bit of water, actually, even if his satiation level was still very good.
‘Where? Why?’ Leo asked, seeming a little confused. ‘Relax with the pride – we’re accepted by the females now; we might as well gain the benefits of it.’
‘We need to get stronger,’ Dominic told him stubbornly.
‘I know. And I agree. But now we have a pride, should we not face enemies together with it? What if enemies face the pride while we’re gone?’ Leo asked him pointedly. Dominic bared his teeth both mentally and physically, even as he started padding away from the group.
‘That’s why I need more power: to help protect them. And no, I’m going out alone – fewer targets; less chance of others being caught in the crossfire.’
‘And if we die because we’re alone with no backup from our pride?’ Leo spat. Dominic stood stock still and growled, the sound rumbling in his chest.
‘What do you want to do, then? Stay lazing around with the pride, hunt a meal every few days, mate with the females?’
‘Yes!’ exclaimed Leo. ‘Exactly that. We’re strong; we can protect the pride as long as we consider that to be our most important duty. We will need to patrol anyway – we can face other lions and kill them then.’
‘That’s not enough!’ Dominic sighed explosively. ‘Look, I get it that you want to be a lion and do lion things. Becoming the male or one of the males leading a pride is, like, the best thing that a lion can do. I understand. But you need to understand that the world isn’t like that anymore. It’s what I said before: to continue being more powerful than our foes, heck, to even keep up with them, we need to keep levelling. Think about how many corpses we’ve Consumed to get this far; with the way the levels keep increasing in point requirement, we’re going to need more and more. If we just relax and chill, we’re going to fall behind’
The lion was silent but Dominic sensed he was listening. He’d thought they’d overcome this while standing over the corpses of the lions which had died because he wasn’t strong enough to protect them. But maybe the long period of mating and basically being the lion in a pride was enough to make Leo backtrack, return to his origins and his original desires.
‘Look,’ he said more quietly. ‘Think about those hyenas. They weren’t hunting for food; they were hunting for kills. Whether or not they understand about Prey Points yet, they certainly understood that killing made them stronger. And they weren’t targeting the buffalo: they were targeting us. And they didn’t care how many hyenas died as long as they killed some of us.’
Actually, that was something Dominic was a bit curious about. Sending allies into the meat-grinder to kill a few baby lions didn’t really seem worth it, but maybe the hyenas were taking a ‘trial by fire’ mentality? Or maybe they had some sort of Prey Point sharing scheme which meant that the leaders were able to gain points from what their underlings had killed, even if they weren’t actually part of the fight themselves.
‘Heck, it’s not really enough for me to gain points alone: the lionesses need to level up too,’ he mused to the silent lion. ‘If they only hunt buffalo, they’re not going to increase much faster than the herbivores will. Heck, since herbivores surely can’t be levelling up by killing other creatures, yet they clearly do level, they must have some other system which affects them. If that’s the case then unless the lionesses take levelling seriously, they might even fall behind their prey.’
‘Which is why we have to protect them,’ Leo followed with a sense of proving his point. Then he sighed. ‘However, I think it will be difficult to convince the females to do more hunting than necessary. Not until they are able to recognise the need.’ He grunted in frustration. ‘Just…try not to kill us, yes? And maybe patrol for interloping males while you’re at it. Then once we’re back with the pride, we can stay with it to help protect them.’
With that, he settled down in Dominic’s mind, giving off the distinct impression that he wouldn’t be taking any more part in the conversation. Oh well, Dominic said quietly to himself. As long as he thinks about it, it’s fine. And he hasn’t rejected my thoughts directly, which probably means he at least sees where I’m coming from.
Though, thinking about it, Leo did have a point about convincing the lionesses. It might not even be possible to do so until they were at least past the half-step evolution point. And, Dominic realised with dismay, how am I going to get them to join me to take over the Place of Power? Because it seemed unlikely that Dominic himself would be able to grow strong enough quickly enough to take on all those sonic-wolves alone.
That was a question for another time, though. For now, he shook his mane and padded onwards, looking for some traces of prey.
It didn’t take too long before he was picking up the marks of something on the ground. The odd hoof-print here where the ground was softer; a few bits of hair caught over there in a thorny bush.
Following the tracks, it wasn’t too long before Dominic chanced upon what looked like a group of deer. Although they didn’t look exactly like the ones Dominic had seen in European forests, they definitely had a good set of antlers. Some of them, anyway. Dominic felt that it was safe to say that the ones with the antlers were the males – unless this was actually a non-Terran creature and their physiologies were reversed for some reason. It was always possible….
Still, this looked like a perfect target for what Dominic had in mind. Though he did intend on doing some patrolling to appease his companion, he wanted to earn some Prey Points first. Plus, they didn’t look like too-difficult targets: even the biggest was slightly smaller at the shoulder than Dominic himself. While the antlers might be able to do some damage, he wasn’t intending on getting caught by them.
The deer had found a small waterhole, not the one where Dominic had encountered the pride for the first time, but still a small area of water. They were drinking in shifts, the rest milling around nearby eating and watching for threats.
Dominic quickly went to ground in the long savannah grass. While it wasn’t that thick, it was up to his belly in height; when he crouched down low, he was hidden. It was a different kind of grass from that which Leo was used to, but it did the job well enough.
Creeping forwards, Dominic spotted one which had got a little separated from the rest of the herd, nibbling its way around one of the bushes and out of sight. Perfect.
Step by step, the lion covered the ground between his starting point and the deer. His belly rubbed at the ground, his pads flexed and shifted silently. He’d learned much from watching Leo and the other lionesses hunt.
Closer, closer, he crept towards the unfortunate ungulate. When he was within a few body-lengths' distance, his target actually turned and started chewing at the bush itself, unwittingly presenting its back to the waiting lion.
Dominic couldn’t believe his luck. Gathering his muscles, he jumped, his powerful hindquarters and Quick Strike propelling him forwards at a blinding speed.
The deer saw him at the last possible moment; it was far too late to move. He hit it full-speed, his claws and teeth digging into its spine with Crushing Bite engaged.
Without making a single sound, the deer thumped to the ground, Dominic’s own landing cushioned by the ungulate’s body.
[You have killed Barasingha (Basic Beast level 3)]
[You have earned 14 PP]
Nice, he said to himself. The attack had been so quick that after a moment of alarm at the thumping sound, the rest of the barasinghas had actually gone back to eating and drinking. Clearly they weren’t the smartest of prey. Fortunately.
While a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, Dominic was inclined to push this as far as he could. Still keeping low, he looked around to see if there were any other easy targets. Although there weren’t, he did see that there were quite a few grouped together near one of the bushes. I wonder, he said to himself.
Belly pressing down to the earth again, he started creeping towards the group. If all went well, he’d be able to get at least one more, maybe even more.
Once more putting his learning to good use, Dominic was able to get surprisingly close to the group of barasinghas. Clearly wherever they were from, they weren’t used to lions.
Again taking his time to prepare his ambush, it wasn’t long before he went flying into the group of deer. He’d aimed at one of the middle animals, his successful ambush taking it down as quickly as he had the other.
[You have killed Barasingha (Basic Beast level 3)]
[You have earned 14 PP]
Not stopping there, though, he rebounded off the corpse of the dead male and immediately used Quick Strike to pounce on a female which was a bit slow to react to his attack.
Although he obviously didn’t get the full bonus of an undetected ambush, he did manage to leap onto her back, his bite probably gaining the +25% of the bite to a vulnerable area. He’d check his log in a moment. With Crushing Bite also adding power to his jaws, she crumpled beneath him.
[You have killed Barasingha (Basic Beast level 2)]
[You have earned 11 PP]
Of course, by that point, the rest of the deer were in the wind, taking off as fast as their hooves could carry them. Not that Dominic minded too much: he’d got what he wanted. Bait.
