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Transversal, crossing over the backs of legends

Chapter 5: Giovanni: Making a Killing RD

Notes:

AN: There's a discussion of and acting upon wanton hunting practices and killing for food and sport. It's gory, borderline mature, and I don't shy away from the creepiness of the scene. If that's not your cup of tea and you want to continue this tale anyway just drop me a line and I will forward you a chapter summery with the relevant information. I was going to tab in the flight of the Tikitek scene but considering chapter length I'm going to use it, and the planned stinger, in the next chapter.

Chapter Text

a/n:  Ran through Grammarly in 4.28.21

 

He fell into old routes and routines as easy as breathing. Thrashing through screening greenery and thick trees, he’d made a territory in the familiar and been camped a little less than a week. The town’s thick, wooden, walls were one edge, the roads beyond it a taboo and only to be watched from the security of height and sparingly. At night the walls were manned by men and ‘mon who clearly hated their obligation, and to spare them he avoided the walls when he could, especially at night, when perversely, the guards were more awake. As it was early morning, with no one about to peer wearily at the gathered dark and bug types and keep them out… Well this span, touching close to civilization, was his until noon. And he’d take advantage of every minute.

 

Forked stick in hand, he prowled the edges, face still wet from ablutions, hair damp more from the water of a pond he’d set camp at than sweat, he stormed among the bushes and trees. Raising hell among the weaker because he had to to get results and irritated because he knew that if he kept up that he’d need another bath.

 

The following thwacks were harder for that realization. More dark forms raced before him, chittering and hissing outrage that he irritated them. His goal for this herded hoard was a tree deeper in the forest. Doing the task somewhat inexpertly as he was hardly an Arcanine, he used force and stomps. Not indulging in shouts and handclaps like a true hunter least the human sounds carry to the wrong ear.  

 

His goal, was a false sun of fool’s gold. His Kakuna was tucked back and away, and would be a lure for the harried preditors. Because they were simple creatures, focusing on prey and escape, a lone Kakuna without a hive would be a snack. To that temptation, the harrassed would be careless from hurt and hunger. It would be simple to go after an easy, stationary, worm, on the way out.

 

Save the "snack" was placed so claws and beaks would struggle to get a hold. Branches were woven around to make a shield, thorns woven in to cut and scrape at any who dared go for a kill. And Kakuna was strong enough to spit a string shot hard enough to shove something back. Thus the scaling intruder would be punched in the face with the bug's binding fluid. Gravity, if their luck was in, would do the rest. 

 

By the time Giovanni made his way back to the clearing there'd better be more than one pinned creature. After all half of those kills were his. And Kakuna wasn't the only one hungry.

 

Deciding this was going to be the last of this hunting run Giovanni settled his attention on a rather large, rusting, bush. First circling, to make sure it wasn't rooted in some oversize oddish or 'saur, once sure it wasn't a mon in and of itself he smacked at the edges with his branch. The rustling thing went deeper in, and a few stabs got it to surge out. The revelation, preceded by warbled and soft snapping sounds, wasn't an unexpected one. An irate bird, black and squarish like all the birds here, burst out of the flora with a squawk  

 

It was a lively one that he had to dodge and smack at when it wheeled close to try to take his eyes. A hardy beast too, as it didn't fall from the direct blow, snapping it's beak as it spun away. His refusal to back down and the fact he chased after it, cutting the flyer off from the sky by blows when it dared ascend too close to him and a thrown rock when it tried to do so at a "safe" distance... Well, the bird waffled, between flight and the urge to peck out his attacker's eyes. Swinging a low circuit about the clearing, wingtips near brushing the surrounding trees, the avian swung around once, twice, then seeing safety in a bush a bit further off, one with berries, the bird swept off and away.

 

It flew towards the west and anticipating where it'd go Giovanni picked a path to follow it. Not in any particular rush now that he was sure how this was going to go, it wans't quite a saunter, but it wasn't a jog either.

 

 The Rocket had spent his first days when not observing the walls by denuding all the berry bushes he encountered and preparing a killing ground. Fire and a stolen pan had allowed him to crudely roast and dry the ones he recognized so they'd last longer than freshly plucked, and merging two baggies of electronics, batteries keeping wires company for a while, had left him a spare to pack his crude travel rations up. In his labors of denuding this patch of the forest of edibles, he had left exactly one berry bush untouched. The bait was a decent distance from his camp, least it draw attention where he didn't want it, and the clearing the bush had been in had been altered to suit its new purpose as a kill box.

 

While crude the Rocket had made adjustments. The edges were jammed with piled rocks and brambles atop those. Only one path left for ingress and egress for something walking afoot. Not without a bit of effort and bleeding. The trees on the clearing's edges were scaled. First with Weedle atop his head, then when the bug evolved, Kakuna riding in an emptied backpack. They'd sprayed a crude net that ran from topmost branch to topmost branch. It was holey, but a passable net that could trap anything that would fly out carelessly...

 

Their first breakfast in this Nevernever Land had been one of the abomination birds. The stupid thing had flown into the net before it'd fully dried, bringing down a chunk of it and snapping its neck and wings as well. Giovanni'd cooked the kill to near char before offering the gooey bits to Weedle, who'd near oozed venom from every orifice after eating such a fresh kill. Giovanni had to pointedly tell the bug to rub itself against a rock to work some of its venoms out before it would be allowed to climb back atop his head.

 

On a whole, the clearing looked alternatively tidy and trashed. The corners and edges and spans between the trees save a particular path to it jammed with rocks and gummed with string shots and topped with anything like an edge. The trees looked like the victim of a bug-type party. With off-white banners swaying in the wind. Another trip that'd ended with him landing on his rump had left Giovanni wasting half a day picking the clearing's floor free of anything vaguely branch shaped that he could trip over. The end result wasn't perfect or horridly safe, and the moss that ran down the tree's trunks to grow across the northern part of the clearing like fake grass made his efforts to tidy a joke...

 

But he'd done the work, and was satisfied, and had made Kakuna a nest from his efforts and gone out to lure prey to the bug.

 

This was his third killing run. He'd been working from dawn to now and it had netted them a small pile of prey. This was going to be his last hunt for the day before returning to camp, and he wasn't looking forward to dragging a kill-gorged, venom-seeping, Kakuna with him to camp. But he wasn't ruining his backpack by having the bug weep poison into it either.

 

Wanting to just be done he scaled his walk up to a flat-out run, and small things, all dark and rat-shaped, scattered before him. He drew his adlibbed weapon on them, herding them because a few more kills wouldn't hurt. He didn't chase after the ones that broke off in other directions. Enough went the right way that he felt comfortable letting them go, and as they passed that final stretch, a hill leading down, the paths clogged as much as he could make them so there was only one route... Well he let them go ahead, they were spooked enough not to notice that he was keeping pace, so he slowed. Stopped, and allowed himself a moment to bask in how much everything hurt.

 

Breathing deep, settling against a tree, shade side favored, he ached and burned in ways that spoke of a pampered state. And in this Legends got it wrong again. But he was hardly surprised, they’d made more errors than anything else thus far, and this wasn't any different. This error was correctable. It'd just hurt like hell to get in shape, and he wasn't going to complain except note it as another error among the multitude.

 

He’d been more muscle and sinew in his youth. Training and hardening his body so it’d not betray him because everything else would at the crook of the Madam’s manicured finger. 

 

A foot and a half before his full growth, his hair near down to his hips…. it was little wonder the grunts he had worked under had called him bean pole… flag pole… something like that. It'd been years and the insults had been uncreative and dull. Reaching up, he raked out tangles with dirty nails, plucking out branches, and then got to braid the lot with one hand. The other, his off hand, he flipped the water canteen open. He drank and worked, and once done drinking clicked the bottle closed and set both hands to tighten the final loop. the braid would be loose, and sloppy, but he’d no need to run so that didn't matter too much. With care, he’d not have to deal with too many tangles before his second bath.

 

 Weapon of harassment propped beside him, he focusing on getting his hammering heart to slow down. Tipping his head and Gift back a bit he listened. No sounds from the walls, none from behind. His sport had drawn no attention. As for the previously unwanted attention, his lips quirked, bemused by a resolution decades-old…  

 

He’d not have to endure the insults for long as though he'd been young (too young, he'd never allow Silver to deal with Mob affairs at the age of fifteen) he'd had a Nidoking. A Nidoking, and a shorter temper, and a perchance for blood. Something his personal ‘mon had reclaimed, considering the bulk of them were raised to hunt and hunt besides him no less. The first taunt, the first disrespect to what had been dubbed the “pack leader”, had lead to the first snapped neck under the ‘King’s hands. 

 

None had dared breathe a word of disrespect to his face after that.

 

Though aching he wasn't bone-weary, it would do. So he snapped up the branch in aching hands and picked his way back and up. Waving up at a specific tree and it's false gold up high. A greeting and warning both. Ascent done he went down, towards a deepening thicket, making the wall and its attendant town more a memory and less a concern. A marked clutch of trees led the way, and in the gloom he reached out, feeling about the violet spines in their side to better guild him through the gloomier paths. Pushing past the tree line he broke into the clearing, and froze at the sizzled hiss and thud as a string shot connected and something and that something was caught and took a bad fall. Lifting his stick he waited, and when nothing struggled at him he lowered the weapon. His eyes adjusted to the near night dark of the false canopy after a moment and he could see and see properly.

  

It wasn’t home, or much. But there was comfort in coming here to something he'd made after a hunting run to properly rest. The small pile of bodies at the base of Kakuna’s perch was a bonus. There were many small forms shrouded in white gunk that looked, to the unexperienced, like melted mozzarella. The lumps under their deluge of coating squirmed and cried out. Some crying at him. He could reach with his Gift, strain his thoughts to understand if he wished.

 

But he didn't. Just listened with mundane ears at the many voices, of the many ‘mon. The prey sampling was wider than the few 'mon he'd seen on the roads. They at first stilled at his footfalls, and then, perhaps so close to civilization, the gathering was partially tamed. For they assumed human meant savoir or at least capture which would be around about saving from the slow smothering of death by stringshot. They kicked up a partially choked cacophony at his approach, and to that, he smiled.

 

Counting the gathered, soon to be to kills, he threaded among them, ignoring the few little limbs that twitched after him to beseech saving. 

  

The bird from before had gotten this far. Caught mid flap its limbs were spread and pinned in its fall, its stick-like legs were scratching at the sod while it literally dug its own grave. A black swollen rodent squirmed mere steps away, a limp form, more smothered than the most, caught his attention. A familiar stylized tail stuck out, vaguely resembling ruffled lightning, and besides that, a small form so enshrouded in semi-liquid goop… Well, he couldn't tell what it was. But the creature's writhing was slowing as he watched. There were other forms, but these were the ones nearest to him, and nearest the tree, and thus the only ones that mattered. The fringe could be left to wear themselves out and the carrion gathered up later.

 

Tipping his head up Giovanni waved again, lips twitching, and the Kakuna in the trees could see that. 

 

Evolution had granted his bug wider, sharper eyes, as evidenced from the many pinned and bound ‘mon about. There was no trill of acknowledgment. The noise, any noise, was impossible in its present confinement. But the bug type was expressive enough to rustle some leaves about him as he rocked on its hard shell. Tossing thrashing stick from one hand to the other, Giovanni bared the pain from each impact because his callouses were gone and pain was one way to get them back.

 

A cursory examination showed the bird’s wings were unbroken. Its beady eyes scrolled up to him as he circled, weapon in hand, and it quivered. It'd been one of the few bound 'mon that'd not perked up at his coming. Perhaps seeing its death at hand.

 

Exam done he decided the creature was coherent with minimal damages. It would do for his later plans.

 

“Pick your breakfast, anything but the bird.” He called up to the bug.

 

The answer, when it rained down, was pointed, and poisoned. A poison Needle as a pointer, sinking into the earth about a lump, baring that familiar tail. The attachment to that tail squeaked. Sparks smothering as they met something uninclined to conduct, or burn, or twist aside. Squeals turned to coughs as grass and sod caught and the air quality went down.

 

Well, he’d come prepared, taking and sharpening a rock over breakfast that first day. That was at the roots of Kakuna’s snipping tree and he gathered it up. Double the size of a fist, grey and squared, perhaps the leaving of some cement  something  that’d broken. Regardless of its origin, he’d shaped the stone and it would serve. 

 

Giovanni turned the rock about so it's edge was facing out, and hefted it in one hand. Then, in his off hand, he swung, setting a stinging blow to that familiar, hated, rodent. Its riposte was a light show. He stepped back, two quick steps, though one would have been safe. He waited, as the form writhed and wheezed, choking on the mix of binds and failed electrical attacks. 

 

Another stinging strike and the sparks came again, another and they were significantly less. A glow that was akin to a child’s nightlight rather than nature reformed to malice-born whim.

 

When the fourth strike garnered him nothing save screams, chittered pleas that set the beast’s around it to a squirming panic, he knew he was done. While Giovanni could have switched the thing to death there was no point. And if there was no point, then there was no profit.

 

Setting stick aside, he slid the rock into his pocket and winced as the belt bit back. He’d not do this killing, it was more to another’s benefit the thing be alive, or at least  dying  when the last blow came. And that blow would be best to be the snap of fangs sinking home. A hiss from above, the creak of descent as a string shot was loosed and wound by mobile mandibles. A rocking jerk served in leaps steed, and Kakuna descended on a string of sticky spittle.

 

“And of course you expect me to carry you?”

 

The bug swayed, a venomous pendulum near toddler-sized, and the impatient swish flick of its squirming as it dangled served answer enough. Threading about the prone, missing the familiar click of his boots… these sneakers near squeaked… Giovanni slid a hand about and under. Tilting the creature into the crook of his arm, old habbit meeting the new situation in the oddest of ways.

 

Fangs worked, unweaving and severing so only the thinnest of threads lingered about the creature’s mouth. 

 

Tipping the beast encouraged the yellow bug to spit the last glob to the side. Grip sure, miming old holding patterns first introduced in training classes ages gone, and mastered with practice after, Giovanni took himself and his ‘mon among the smothered masses.

Beyond, behind walls, a false thunder of drums went up. Whoops and cheers, the fourth since dawn, and the reason as to why his curiosity had been stirred. Enough so that he had specifically hunted down a bird for later…. 

 

But for now he lowered his Kakuna before his kill of choice. Pulling his rock from his pocket. He’d do one more blow to soften the meat than the rest would be on the bug.

 

Sifting through loom he picked up his hunting stick, he set that atop the still Kakuna and felt those black eyes roll up at him in irritation.

 

“Unless you want to try to crush the thing under your weight, or we could wait a half hour for you to spit needles and hope one of them poisons the creature  than  wait another ten minutes for the venom to carry it off….”

 

All petulant rocking ceased, and black eyes locked on his hand, the creature near humming in impatience and hunger.

 

Well, Giovani could understand hunger. He’d only had a few bites of various berries himself as he’d stalked through the woods and Kakuna had had less than that. Though this hunt and its resulting mass of pinned ‘mon would serve a day, perhaps two, for food, seeing food was not eating.

 

Pulling off his shirt, keeping the rock in his hands at all times least something try to attack him in a moment of vulnerability, Giovanni mused on the nightmare of cleaning bloodstains. Better to be avoided when he had no access to replacement clothes yet. Folding the fabric absently he tossed it beside him, minding the bodies. Any bloodstains on his pants could likely be passed off as residue from a fall, or hidden be a longer garment, his shoes jointed his shirt after a moment of fussing with the thin strings.

 

One strike, two-handed, overhead, at full strength was all it took. The mid-section of the rodent crackled a mix of breaking bone and discharge, and in that one moment, he could feel the frantic, weakening, thrum of the creature’s dying at his hands. A flick of the stick got him to pry the edge of coagulated string shot and charred earth up. He could see the creature’s form then. A curled crescent of yellow and widening red. There was a hiss and sizzle as white 'shot snapped over the things near liquid midsection, binding to the epidermis, and turning to follow the line of string shot found that Kakuna was beyond waiting. A pull and the near liquid 'string was tugged, dragging the soon-to-be carrion forward and apart turn by turn. The rodent screamed even as it was wheeled up, the rodent's belly shredding even as it was made to be level with eager mandibles. 

 

“Easy, you don’t want to fall.”

 

A hand, set to rest to the creature’s back, slowed its frantic motions. Stipped the faceplant in a widening cavity hole that'd of been a nightmare to clean. Giovanni could feel the writhing brittleness as protean met anticipation... and didn't lead to evolution. Sliding his hands down Giovanni considered swells where legs would be, where the flesh stiffened and strained and better braced but the developing form underneath could not burst through just yet.

 

Perhaps tomorrow then. With a pat, minding the oblong swells where wings would be and thus be horridly sensitive on the bug’s back, he ignored the gargled croaks as the pikachu was consumed. The suckling crunches were not a true ‘Bite, but were getting closer… 

 

And that'd do, for now.

 

Recalling elementary lessons, that poison was immune to poison, Giovanni hunted among the masses for a lump of rounded black. A tail tip tipped him off and he didn’t even have to do much. An application of the rock to the beast's head and a bit of leverage and the Rocket returned, another morsel in hand in a crude russack of sorts. 

 

Dazed by a blow to its misshapen head and perhaps sporting a concussion, the black rat within near fell out of its binds as it was tipped forward in a mute offering.

 

Black eyes, ringed round by another rat's gore lit up, for seeing the "package" and the bug rocked even as the Rocket drawled, “Seconds?”

 

It was easier to make out the developing, thickening, lines of legs to-be as the bug reached and wobbled at him. Still, Giovanni spared his beast too much effort. Kneeling before Kahkuna and passing up the black rat so they rested in the straining, growing forelimbs. They didn’t burst past chitin and into being, and they still reached for him and his offered treat. Giovanni watched as the food was mainly consumed, partially dissolved, the rat never waking to feel its death.

 

A pat, to tell he was going to rise, was met with... well not a violent twitch, but a wobble. The motion didn’t seem right for evolution, and while the 'bites were more sure they hadn’t been quite right yet. So the Rocket waited, as black eyes scrolled up to him, then his bloodied hands, and again the semifluid line between existing and not was strained in a mute reaching motion.

 

It was a mute “I want” more than anything. Recalling him to another’s mute motions, small hands, reaching, pointing….

 

Part on whim, part in melancholy, Giovanni offered his hands. The same mandibles that had torn flesh from bone, ground bone into powder via pressure and acid, and sucked the semiliquid melding of the two, slid over his skin. The lower jaw first braced, then sucked in as the upper combed over his knuckles.

 

Nipping a path down his skin, Kahkuna only applied force once. When its trainer’s attention wandered. The nibble left a reddening span, about a pin prick’s width as a prompt… And to such Giovanni turned the limbs over, letting the creature ghost fangs over his palms and worry about his left thumb that had a crusting of red near the nail.

 

“Done?”

 

A wobble as a nod and the shell smoothed, attempted rebirth done for now it seemed.

 

“Good,” Sliding his fingers over the creature’s domed head, Giovanni left his slightly damp let hand scroll a few circles, thinking and soothing all at once. “Up to the first watch?”

 

His ears ached for not hearing a confirming buzz. The vibration of brushing wings had been the only sound over various campouts, stakeouts, and the like. The ascent and scrape of stingers as the beast would look about for perch and settle. To such a lack of... normalicy... sanity even... Giovanni ached. But, as he turned on his heel, first to reacquire the garb he’d quit, then to hunt among the bound for the bird, he consoled himself. It’d only be thus for a little while longer. Spearing the edge of the hardening attack, he slid the branch under and around the bird.

 

It made a crude rucksack, and after a shake to make sure the lot was secure he carried the bound bird back.

 

The avian shrieked bloody murder when it saw the killing ground before what normally would be its prey. Clearly, the bird was not liking the idea of being on the other side of the food chain. 

 

Kakuna, ever a black hole in this stage, perked up and wiggled in anticipation. A snort and glare stilled the mute begging for  thirds , and Giovanni set the feathered bundle before the bug with a glare that prevented all bites from occurring. While there might have been some merit in intimidating and breaking the avian if it were going to be a long-term acquisition spite had made Giovanni decide to make the thing a one-time tool. He set bird before his bug and snapped his fingers.

 

One of the two looked up. Anticipation of a different slant flickering in the black of those partially evolved eyes.

 

“Once it stills, you’re breaking it out and letting it go.” Daring, he drew the bird close, set it between him and Kakuna even as he set his back against the bug. Facing away from the gore and suffering of the uneaten Giovanni slid one hand against the edge of the bird’s face. While physical contact wasn’t… necessary… it helped him focus. The avian was hyperventilating at his touch, wanting to turn its head and goggle at its impending death. He braced the bird, stilled all motion, making the bird meet his own black eyes. 

His heart quickened in sympathy of the bird's panic, he breathed slow and deep, to differentiate it and him. The bird's beady eyes glazed, mirroring his own detachment as the Gift woke in him and dragged the avian's thoughts against his own. 

 

Talking was an effort, still, Giovanni was not one to give up. “Once it leaves… You’re in charge of waking me if… if...”

  

Another rub, wrong ways, deliberately rough, from the exposed crown to beak, and the bird’s eyes slid shut on instinct.

 

In empathy all unwanted the Rocket’s world went black, the darkness was the last sensation he experienced from his body before his awareness was washed away in a flood of smallness and terror. 

 

Taking over a 'mon ws a bit like dreaming, a nightmare self infliced and hard to wake up from. His nerves sang and set his skin, borrowed and other, to crawling as the bird's confinement was his. And the wounds the avian bared made his own chest and arms ache.

  

Then his eyes opened, against his will, and they weren’t his. They were sharp and skewed, meant for distance and height. It made the immediate a nightmare of details that were hard to pick out sense and reason from. The world was a wash of color, there were screams and a sick slick  thing  wrapped about his frame that needed to be gone. Now.  

 

There was nothing but terror until  a  terror descended in food’s form. Hauling him up and turning him over and over due to string and angles and bloody mandibles. He was nestled against impossible ridges as the monster (which was supposed to be prey!) worked him around, a jaw full of binding, blinding white slowly being chewed through.

 

Fangs clicked, then it was moving, spinning, another mouthful of binds, another snip-snip of mandibles scissoring through the strings one slow minute at a time.

 

Save there no minutes, merely echoes of old flight, and the impulse to fly.

 

In this world of sensation all unwanted, in thoughts that were never his yet running rampant in his own head, it was all Giovanni Sakaki could do not to drown( and scream, to never stop screaming) in fear. It took iron-hard will to remain still, waiting in silence, as his Kakuna cut him free to fly in a body that wasn't his own.