Evil Hero (A Skybrine Story)

Chapter 15: Hunters

Jerome's POV

"Can we just go already?" I pace impatiently back and forth outside the house, waiting for Mitch and Ryan. Ty, Jason, and Kermit are already out here with me.

"Coming!" Mitch calls. He comes running out of the house with a bag slung over his shoulder, a bow and arrows strung across his back, his diamond sword in its scabbard, and six iron knives in his belt.

"Do you really need that much stuff, Mitch?" Ryan asks, coming out of the house behind Mitch.

"No. But we have to be prepared, right?" Mitch shrugs.

"Wait, where's Sky?" I ask, recounting the members of our group. Mitch, Ryan, Ty, Jason, Kermit, and me. That's only six people. Sky definitely isn't here.

Ty clenches his fists and whispers something to Jason. But Ryan just shrugs. "He's not in his room or anywhere else in the house. It's like he teleported or something."

Kermit speaks up. "I don't think he's coming back anytime soon."

"Okay," I mutter. "But he was nice."

"We should go," Mitch gently pushes past me and leads the way to the woods. Ty, Jason, Kermit, Ryan and I follow him. After all, he knows this city better than any of us.

We reach the woods at the outskirts of the city and look at each other. "Should we split up?" Jason asks.

"Yeah, we'll cover more ground," Mitch says. "Remember, you can keep some of your catch, but most of it has to come back to me. This is my family we're hunting for, remember?"

The other three nod. Then Ty says, "Don't trust Sky."

And with that, Ty, Kermit, and Jason disappear into the forest.

"Wonder what that's about," Ryan says as we walk through the woods, looking for food.

"Yeah, Sky seems pretty trustworthy to me," Mitch says. "I mean, he healed Jerome. But how did he do that?"

"It was like magic or something," I say, ducking underneath a snowy branch.

"Let's go to the river," Mitch says. "There's bound to be fish there, right?"

We make our way to the river. It's a fast-moving one, and the water still has fish in it.

"Perfect!" I exclaim, wading into the freezing water and scooping up two fish.

"Are you crazy, Jerome?" Ryan asks. He and Mitch are standing on the shore, watching me catch food.

"Well, how else are you supposed to grab the fish?" I ask, scooping up more fish and tossing them into the riverbank.

"Ryan, stay with Jerome. I'll climb into the trees to look for animals," Mitch says. He climbs as high as he can without falling - which, for a human, isn't very far - and slides back down a few minutes later.

"Found a herd of cows!" Mitch exlciams. "C'mon, let's go."

I grab one more fish from the river and wait for it to die in the cold air. (that sounded really cruel...) As we walk, I slowly eat the raw fish. Delicious.

We go on like that for the rest of the day, hunting down animals, killing them, and moving on. Hopefully by nightfall we'll have plenty of food.

"I wonder how the other group is doing..."

Kermit's POV

"I don't think they got the message," I say, kicking the snow at my feet.

"We're supposed to warn them!" Ty exclaims. He's in full human form. "This would be way easier if Seto was here. And where has he been?"