Hunter's Rise

All characters involved in any sexual scenes are above the age of consent.

This is the first installment of a lengthy story that I had to split into multiple chapters to make it more digestible.

I wanted the characters to have more screen time before the Pupil arc's end, so that's why I wrote this.

This chapter is more story-focused, but with some lewdness here and there.

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Part 1

"Hey! You guys were hanging out without me?" Zara typed into the group chat jokingly under Akemi's selfie with Gaylor, and she could also see Bambi in the background.

"Of course not!" Akemi replied with an emoji. "It's open day in the high school. So bad you can't come here. The Lexisters are missing you."

Zara almost forgot about the open day. The Lexisters, Gaylor, and Pixie were students there. Akemi and the other girls went there to visit the shows and classes, and just to hang out together in general. They invited Zara as well, but she was reluctant about this. She didn't like being around too many people at the same time, but maybe she could try something like this in the future. She didn't mind so much that it was on the same day as the weekly course.

She was sitting at her usual spot, waiting for her new partner and Aritimi.

"Good morning, Zara," Aritimi appeared in front of her with a flash of light.

"Morning," Zara said without looking up from her phone. "You were a bit too early. The other girl is not here yet."

"I know. She is on her way here," Aritimi nodded, "and I want to talk about her for a moment."

"Huh? Why?" Zara looked up from her phone.

"She belongs to a big-name monster hunter family. The Bonez family."

"Hm...I don't remember them," Zara tried to recall anyone with a name like that.

"They are more well-known outside of the United States. Anyway, her parents keep nagging us because she has issues getting along with others. She is very shy and has no career plans. And worse, she has issues controlling her augmentation."

"Sad to hear that, but what should I do about this?"

"I want you to help her get more social. Gaylor was also pretty shy before she met you, so I thought maybe you could have some good influence on her as well." Aritimi revealed, "You know. Spend some time together today."

"I'm not going to promise anything," Zara said, looking at her phone again, "But I can try helping her as much as I can. This course is about bonding with others, so why not? But it's up to her as well, not just me."

"Good to hear that," Aritimi smiled at her. "Now I'll go. I want you to have some time to talk before I take you to today's course." She said before jumping into a portal.

A few minutes later, Zara noticed a figure approaching. It was a young woman wearing a sweater and jeans.

"H...hi," she said shyly to Zara.

"Hello," Zara said. The girl was nearly half the size of her. No, she wasn't short; she was nearly the same height as Zara, but she was very skinny.

"Skeletina Bonez," she stuck her thin hand out, her voice barely a whisper.

"Zara Cromwell. Nice to meet ya." She shook the girl's skeletal hand. Like shaking hands with an undead, Zara thought.

Skeletina was true to her grotesque name. She was gaunt and ghost-pale, with a figure so thin she looked like she might rattle when she walkes. Her long hair reached her waist, like a black cape around a cadaver. Her face was bony as well. But despite her macabre appearance, she had an unmistakable energy to her.

"Huh! Your parents had a sick sense of humor," Zara snorted.

"Oh...yeah. They named me Skeletina because our last name is Bonez. I still try to figure out if I can sue them for this or not," she smirked, her voice still low.

"Why are you whispering?"

"It's hard to control my voice sometimes because of my augmentation."

"What kind of augmentation?"

"Yell Yale vocal cord transplant."

"Oh, I heard they are strong," Zara said with a whistle.

"Yeah, I found it out when I sneezed and shattered every window in the neighborhood," Skeletina whispered. Then she sat down beside Zara.

"Did you hear anything about where we will go today?" Zara asked, trying to get her to talk.

"No," she shook her head.

"Maybe we will pay a visit to the HSA's Space Force and fight some space monsters," Zara said, jokingly.

"I hope we will visit a bit more peaceful place," Skeletina murmured with a shiver, her eyes darting around nervously. "I'm not good at fighting."

"What about your augmentation?"

"My dad taught me how to aim with it at the shooting range, but that's all."

"It's a good first step to get control over your augmentation," Zara agreed.

"Thanks. I'm good at aiming, but controlling the force is very hard."

"It will get better; just train more," Zara shot her a smile, trying to feel encouraging.

As Skeletina and Zara were talking, a familiar voice could be heard from behind their bench.

"Good morning, pupils." Aritimi greeted them.

"Can you please stop doing that?" Zara flinched.

"Nope."

Skeletina smiled faintly.

"So..." she asked hesitantly, turning to Aritimi, "where are we going today?"

"The HSA's local high school," Aritimi replied, clasping her hands behind her back.

"Ugh, seriously?" Zara groaned.

Skeletina looked unbothered. "Sounds okay to me."

"Why are we going to a school?" Zara asked, slumping against the bench.

"Because teaching the next generation of hunters is just as vital as slaying monsters. Open day is the perfect time for that. Some of your friends are already there, as I heard."

"Yeah, I saw," Zara mumbled.

Without another word, Aritimi raised her hand. A shimmering, hexagonal portal unfurled in front of them.

"Well," she said, "let's go back to school."

"I hope it won't take long." Zara sighed.

They stepped through the portal.

Part 2

The portal dropped them into a lavish room bathed in warm lighting and lined with dark wood panels. Velvet curtains framed enormous windows, and golden accents glimmered on the furniture. Everything about the place screamed authority and excess.

"We are in a mansion or something?" Zara glanced around.

"It must be the principal's office," Skeletina whispered, her voice nearly inaudible.

Zara nodded slowly. Yeah, that made sense. Only someone in charge of an entire building full of teenagers would make sure their office looked like a throne room.

But the room was empty.

They waited.

Aritimi didn't speak, didn't even blink. Then, with a creak and a low whumph, the office's double doors swung open.

And through them came the largest woman Zara had ever seen.

She was enormous, inhumanly obese, the kind of size that defied anatomy charts, but somehow, she glided forward with total grace. Like Jabba the Hutt, but as a human, Zara thought. Her rotund body barely squeezed through the double doors despite their generous width. But she made it through, with only a low grunt of effort and a dramatic sway of her immense fur coat.

The coat was the only thing she wore, elegant and thick, adorned with embedded jewels that sparkled with every movement. Her wavy blonde hair swept behind her head like a golden flag. Her meaty fingers were weighted down with oversized rings adorned with gemstones. But what caught Zara's attention was her red high heels.

They were dainty. Delicate. Ridiculous.

Yet somehow, they supported all of her weight, which could be on par with an Ogre.

Zara leaned in closer to Skeletina and whispered, "Those things gotta be reinforced with magic."

Aritimi stepped forward. "This is Venus Margrave, Principal of the HSA's local Education Unit. You may know it as Hunter High."

Venus stopped in the center of the room and smiled at them, radiant and smug. "Charmed," she said, her voice rich and silky.

As she talked, Zara's eyes were drawn to the necklace...or what she thought was a necklace. Small sparkling jewels floated around Venus's neck, slowly rotating without touching her skin. Like planets circling a star.

"Uh...your necklace is alive?" Zara squinted.

"Oh, that?" Venus chuckled, a warm, rolling sound like thunder under velvet. "It's not the necklace. It's my gravity."

She raised one thick finger, and the floating jewels suddenly changed direction, rotating the other way.

"My augmentation is a gravity core transplant. From an Orbit Orangutan," she explained. "I can manipulate my own gravitational field. It makes walking easier, no matter how...voluptuous I become."

"And the voluptuousness...?" Zara raised an eyebrow.

Venus smiled coyly. "Ah. A side effect. I require a larger mass to generate stable gravitational fields. So technically, this..." she gestured to her entire body, "...is all functional."

Aritimi, arms crossed, gave a dry smile. "She cheats on her diet. Don't let her fool you."

Venus let out a rich laugh. "You wound me, Timi darling."

"Just speaking the gravity-defying truth," Aritimi replied.

"Welcome to Hunter High," Venus said grandly, spreading her arms. "Let's take a look. Shall we?"

Venus turned with a graceful pivot, well...as graceful as someone of her size could manage; and led them out of the office. The hallway outside was wide, its floors polished to a mirror shine. The walls were decorated with displays, immortalizing the achievements of students and the monster hunters who were students here.

As they stepped into the corridor, a young woman approached them in a hurry. She was obviously Venus' daughter. She had the same blonde mane and full cheeks, but her size was more on the realistic end of obese--definitely big, but not in the gravity-warping way her mother was. She wore a neatly pressed school uniform, stretched tight over her rounded body, and a security badge bounced around her neck.

"Mother!" she called, slightly out of breath. "Wait, I need to scan them."

Venus stopped and beamed. "Ah, my darling Reberta. Everyone, this is my eldest daughter and my right hand. She runs security here at Hunter High."

Reberta gave a quick, professional nod. "Just a standard scan," she said, pulling a handheld device from her belt. It looked somewhere between a barcode scanner and a sci-fi prop. "So the security system won't go haywire."

"Why would it do that?" Zara blinked.

Venus waved her fingers dramatically. "The school's internal system is very sensitive. It automatically detects the presence of monsters or anyone carrying monster parts. That includes augmented people like us."

"Because of Poe radiation," Reberta added, matter-of-factly. "It's how the system tracks and categorizes potential threats. We just need to tag your signatures in the registry so it knows you're friendly."

"Fair enough," Zara said, holding out her arm.

Reberta scanned her with a quick beep, then moved to Skeletina, who flinched slightly but let her do it.

"Done," Reberta said, checking the screen. "You're both cleared. Welcome to Hunter High."

"Thank you, sweetheart," Venus cooed. Then she turned back to the group. "Now, let's continue. The school's courtyard is where all the real excitement is."

They followed her through the corridors until they stepped into the central yard. Colorful banners fluttered from the balconies, and the smell of grilled food wafted through the air.

The yard was packed.

Everywhere Zara looked, students moved in excited clusters, visiting booths manned by various HSA divisions. Each booth had displays, props, or even small monsters in containment. She spotted a few familiar logos: Kaiju Unit, Pest Control, Augmentation Research, and even a guy in a wetsuit handing out flyers beside a tank filled with water creatures.

"This is actually...kind of cool," Zara muttered.

Aritimi turned to her and Skeletina. "Feel free to explore. Venus and I need to check in on some stuff. I'll send my portals after you two if needed."

Then, without waiting for a response, Aritimi and Venus vanished into the crowd, Venus parting it like a slow-moving meteor, Aritimi slipping through it like mist.

Zara glanced over at Skeletina. "As I know, my friends are here somewhere. Maybe we should check on them."

Skeletina's lips twitched. She seemed to be already overwhelmed by the crowd.

"Just follow me. It will be fun," Zara smirked.

They stepped forward into the chaos of Hunter High's open day.

Part 3

"Where should we go first?" Skeletina asked, looking around the massive crowd of students and stalls.

"As I've seen in the group chat, my friends are checking out the stalls of the units they are interested in."

Their first stop was at the Pest Control Unit's stall. Zara immediately noticed her friend there. She and some students were watching the caged bug monsters on display.

"Hi, Aki," Zara patted her shoulder from behind, which almost made her jump.

"Oh, my God! You scared me." Akemi said with a smile. "What happened--did they cancel your course today?"

"No. We are actually visiting Hunter High's open day as part of the course."

"Oh, she must be another pupil then." Akemi turned to Skeletina. "Hmm, you're kind of familiar. Tina, right?"

"Almost. It's Skeletina," she corrected, "But I often shorten it as Skelly or Tina."

"Ah, yes! I remember now. Do you have any plans for today, girls?"

"Aritimi told us to explore, so I guess we are free for a while now," Zara answered.

"Cool! The others are also here. We are going to check the other things around the school. Do you wanna join, you two?" Akemi offered.

"Yeah. Why not?" Zara nodded.

Skeletina gulped, her sunken cheeks flushed red.

"How many of you are here?" she asked.

"A lot. Two-digit number," Akemi replied.

"Mmm... it sounds great, but I don't know if Aritimi would be okay with it. I mean, maybe she will call us to do something in any minute." Skeletina said.

"No, I won't!" they heard Aritimi's voice from a few meters away. She was buying candy with Venus, who already had a few bags of edibles floating around her frame, like small moons orbiting a planet. "Explore the school as much as you want," she said, chewing on a gummy candy worm.

"Okay, let's meet at the Van Helsing statue near the stairs. There's a ramp there so even Keller can follow us easily." Akemi pointed in the statue's direction.

"Sure. Maybe we'll check some other stalls while waiting," Zara nodded.

"Can we take a break? I have to visit the bathroom," Skeletina said timidly.

"Yeah, of course. I'll wait," Zara said.

"Skeletina's really shy," Akemi said, watching her walk away.

"Yeah, I could see her heartbeat through her sweater. Aritimi said I should help her get more social. Maybe we shouldn't gather into a big crowd if it scares her that much."

"No. I had anxiety when I was younger. It just gets stronger. The only way to fight it is socializing." Akemi shook her head.

Zara had to admit that she was right. After all, Zara herself was and kind of still is awkward with others, but now she has more social skills, thanks to meeting new people very often.

"Hi, girls!" they heard somebody speaking from behind the counter. It was a young black woman with a pair of afro buns on her head.

"Hi, Isela," Zara greeted the girl. "Inez is also here?"

"No. She is busy, but I'm here to represent our unit to the students." Isela said proudly. "Oh, and look what I got." She raised a hand, and suddenly, black chitin appeared on it.

"You got an augmentation?"

"Yeah. The research team called me in after I almost got kidnapped, and they gave me an experimental chitin implant from Koshka. Now I can harden my skin into a chitin armor. Not the best ability from a Bug Queen, but still better than nothing."

"It's still cool," Akemi said.

"Okay, I'm back." Skeletina arrived.

"Alright, we will walk around a bit while waiting for the girls," Zara announced.

"Okay, I'll let you know once we are ready. See you later," Akemi said as they left.

Part 4

"So many units and students," Zara looked around.

"Yeah, it almost feels suffocating," Skeletina said, tugging on her sweater's neck.

As they were walking across the packed yard, a loud "Yee-haw!" pierced the air, followed by dozens of gunshots.

Skeletina ducked immediately.

"Ugh! Must be the Winchester girls," Zara said, helping Skeletina up.

They didn't have to go further to see that Zara was right. Fifty blonde cowgirls were doing tricks like playing with a lasso or shooting things with high accuracy. Oh, and they were doing these while riding on robot horses.

"They don't need a special permit for using guns here, even if it's just a show?" Skeletina arched an eyebrow.

"Well, those aren't real guns that they have, but their augmentations, so I guess it's a different category," Zara pointed at one of the girls. The gun she was holding actually grew out of her hand. "They are HSA employees at an HSA property, using augmentations provided by the HSA."

"I see they all have the same Warfare Warthog augmentation. Are they all related?" Skeletina asked, scanning the small army of cowgirls.

"Yeah, they are cousins. Half of them are the kids of Dallas; the other half belongs to Dakota. You didn't meet them?"

"I've seen the twins, and I saw one or two of their daughters, but I didn't know they had that many."

"I met them with Jacintha when they were all at home at the Crisis Response Team's HQ." Zara explained.

"Wow! How many times did their mothers give birth? That's a lot, even from two mothers."

"They got triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets, septuplets, two sets of octuplets, and Dakota even had nonuplets in the end. They are called the Winchester Herd for a reason."

"A big family," Skeletina smirked.

"Oh, and they were all named after the states of the USA in alphabetical order. The first of the triplets is called Alabama, and the youngest of the nonuplets is called Wyoming. And if you take a good look at their cleavage, you can see that they each have the state flower of their assigned state tattooed on their left breast, close to the heart. They are a big and patriotic family."

"Huh, the HSA employees are really keen on giving thematic names to their kids," she smirked.

They approached the Crisis Response Team's stall, which belonged to Dallas and Dakota Winchester, the mothers of the cowgirl army. It looked like a stall from an old carnival from the Wild West. They even equipped a shooting gallery with moving targets.

"As Aritimi said, the Winchesters were born into the wrong era," Zara whispered to Skeletina as they got closer.

There were a bunch of people there, but there was one who was sticking out like a sore thumb. She was one of Zara's friends, Jacintha.

She looked pretty unique, to say the least, because of her body modifications: spiky purple hair, sharpened teeth, snake bite piercings on her lips, split tongue, both eyeballs tattooed purple, corset piercings on the back of both of her calves, and a bigger one on her back that started right below her neck and ended above her butt.

The corset piercings were decorated with black ribbons, matching the rest of her clothes. She also had a subdermal implant on the back of each hand in the shape of a skull. Above these, she had full-sleeve tattoos depicting black roses across her arms.

Not the type of girl one would bring home to Mom.

"Good to see you here, Zara. If I don't have to help more here, I can join you guys later," Jacintha said.

"You've helped us enough already," Dallas said from behind the counter.

"Yeah, you deserve a break," Dakota nodded.

The cowgirl twins looked identical. Although they were in their 50s, they could deny nearly a whole decade of it. Their golden blonde hair had no white strands, and their tanned skin had no wrinkles.

Jacintha then had a little chat with the girls.