Valen, or as he was known by most of the population, the Sky Piercer, became popular overnight in Dundorma. The day of his introduction was accompanied by a short speech from him but was so caught up in the moment he didn’t remember a single word of what he had said, all of it just a blur for him.

  What he did remember, was something that happened the following day, after spending a night in the luxurious guild hall. He was walking through the streets to get to know the city better when a Palico noticed him and excitedly waved at Valen.

  “Meowster! Come! We have something paw-some to suggest to you!”

  He frowned behind his helmet. Felynes could be mischievous beings when they wanted to be, but this one seemed to be eager to see him. Deciding there was no harm in indulging the request, he nodded and followed the excited Felyne.

  He was led into the alleys of Dundorma, passing through some dark roads, and was encouraged to enter what looked like a rundown tavern. Walking through the entrance proved all his expectations very wrong. The inside couldn’t look more different than the dingy exterior; it was full of Felynes of all kinds and colors. He even saw a couple of them wearing full armor made of high-ranked monsters for their size, though most of them were wearing simple leather gear. Once he entered the room, all of them meowed in excitement and they stopped whatever they were doing to shake his hand.

  Valen was a bit overwhelmed by it all but he took it in stride, and simply nodded and shook paws until they all were satisfied. Then he simply asked. “This is all fine and good… But what’s the occasion? I don’t know what I have done to deserve such attention.”

  It was at that point that one particular Felyne braved through the crowd, which immediately got Valen's attention, as while he had no particular gear, the muscle he could see on his limbs showed that this particular Felyne took great dedication to train himself up.

  “We received a letter with a royal seal last night… It said that you needed a Palico assistant. So meow-turally we fought among ourselves to discern who would get this honor! And I, Adem, am the winner!”

  Valen frowned. He remembered that His Immenseness declared him getting a Palico assistant to be an order, but he expected to have to wait a bit longer before it was done. It looked like he would get no choice in the matter though. After thinking about it for a bit, Valen said. “I would love to give it a try with you but know that I now have high standards after what I’ve gone through. I won’t accept a slacker.”

  “Rest assured, Adem is not!”

  Valen nodded. “Good, we’ll try training for a couple of days before I make my decision concerning you.”

  “Claw-mazing! We’ll do great things together, Meowster!”

  Thus Valen met Adem, the Felyne companion that would stick with him for the foreseeable future. After Valen spent a couple of days sparring with him only with fists, he was pleasantly surprised by the skills the Lynian displayed. Adem showed great promise, though Valen knew that he would need to get gear better made for him if he wanted Adem to be able to keep up… The rest of the Valstrax materials weren’t enough and would not bond with him anyway.

  It made Valen worried though, as the Palico assistant meant that he would have to bring one more person in on the secret. He’d have to explain the situation to Nikki. He hoped that Adem would be understanding.

  It took a week before Valen was able to leave the city. His promotion had meant a lot of paperwork needed to be filled out, and it had taken up all of his time. It also meant that he had yet to truly be able to train with his new armor. But he figured it’d probably be for the best if the first time he trained was actually against Nikki. However, it also caused an issue: Their old meeting spot was way too far for them to continue meeting, even worse, Valen was now sure that meeting her would be far more of an occasional thing than before, due to him now being mostly tied to Dundorma than a far out village.

  However, there was a small scare a couple of days ago when there was a Valstrax spotted flying in the view range of Dundorma. It wasn’t unique, it happened sometimes, but the guild still kept track of Valstrax sightings, which was the main reason Valen thought it’d be hard to meet now that he was at the heart of the guild.

  Still, as he was in an empty alley, he waved at the crimson dot visible on the horizon and did a couple of signs indicating a direction. He hoped Nikki would spot him and understand him, as he planned to go in that direction to meet.

  So that was why a couple of weeks later, Valen was on an official mission to train himself up with his new armor, accompanied by Adem. He officially had a month where he could do and go where he wanted as long as it wasn’t hunting, and he would be sure to make the best of it.

  However, due to him being way more cautious, he decided to travel for two whole days before finding a spot that he deemed secure enough. He knew they were outside the view range of the observation outposts surrounding Dundorma, and he observed Nikki manage to make her final approach without the iconic crimson tail that accompanied her. He was certain that she simply used her remaining inertia to carry her to her destination, as well as reconfiguring her wings to be able to sort of glide.

  It was why, after he spotted her flying in the skies above, he pulled out his flare gun and fired it along the ground, not up in the air. The blue flare was visible only for a couple of seconds before it burned itself out in the grass. Adem was however confused, as he had already asked him why they met there, and was even more confused while Valen was simply scouting the skies.

  The red dot simply disappeared. Valen smiled behind his helmet, he was sure it was because Nikki spotted him and was heading in his direction stealthily.

  It still took several minutes before he could spot her approaching, and while he was used to a Valstrax simply heading towards him, Adem was not, and the Felyne looked like he was ready to bolt. “Meowster, that’s a Valstrax. An Elder Dragon. I know you fought one already, but maybe we shouldn’t stand out in the open and purr-actically offer ourselves up as snacks?”

  Valen snorted, then gave the cat a reassuring smile. “This is the secret I mentioned on our journey here,” he said as Nikki reignited her wings for a moment to kill the last bit of her speed and land safely. “Adem, meet Nikki! Nikki meets Adem!” He said while signing the first two words of the second sentence.

  Adem was understandably confused by the turn of events, while Nikki simply had a smug look. Valen sighed and he turned to Adem. “Adem, Nikki saved my life five years ago, when my whole group got almost wiped. She nursed me back to health and made sure I was strong enough to get back to my hunting life. I was scared of her at first, I thought she had nefarious plans for keeping me alive and I admit it took me a while to see otherwise, but now? I wouldn’t have it any other way. I trust her as much as she trusts me.”

  Then Valen turned to look at Nikki and signed to her. “Sorry for wait, busy.”

  She simply blinked and nodded, accepting the apology. Then she started circling him, studying how he’d changed in her absence. Her attention lingered on his new armor for quite a while, but Valen was eventually forced to turn away and explain things to his new companion. Adem was still confused. “Wait, so you’ve known her fur five years, and yet you still hunted one of her species?”

  “I hunted that Valstrax at her request. She sensed something was wrong with that rampaging Valstrax and asked me to be the one to put it down. I suspect whatever ailment it had wasn’t curable and would have become worse over time. As for the armor? I think she understands the necessity of hunters when there are some threats that even Elders don’t dare oppose. She probably thought it was the perfect opportunity for me to get the best thing I could ask for… And as you can see, my armor is unique, and I’ll have to adjust my whole style to integrate it.”

  “So you had plenty of paw-ractice fur that famous hunt. Five years, huh? By that point, it must have been a breeze, right?”

  “Not as much as you might suspect. I had to think on the fly for a couple of moments, but I’ll admit that it helped to know exactly where to target and what attacks a Valstrax instinctively goes for.” He smiled as Nikki finished pacing around his armor and nosed the thrusters on his back, then in a surprising move, she directly touched the Mindstone slotted into it and stood still. Valen immediately felt something change and gasped. A surge of energy washed over him and he immediately fell to his knees, panting. Nikki pulled away, but she seemed to be looking at him in surprise as well. It seemed she didn’t expect such a reaction either.

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  “What in the Sapph-fur Star was that?” Adem seemed to be caught off guard as well.

  Valen took a deep breath and stood back up before frowning in confusion. The motion felt even more fluid than before, surprisingly easy. He looked cautiously at his armor, turning around his limbs and trying to crane his neck to see his back, but couldn’t see anything different, even as he answered the Felyne. “I have no idea. She does this sometimes, doing things that I cannot truly understand… However, I suspect that this was Bioenergy. I have long since known that she has fine control over it, and she has been able to infuse my previous armor with it, making it able to withstand a couple of her unrestrained hits, as well as making my weapon ineffective on her scales… Though probably she didn’t mean to give me that much now, even I felt it clearly whereas before it was barely noticeable.”

  They both looked at Nikki who seemed to be lost in thought, before Adem asked, “I noticed you signed with her, do you have some kind of language?”

  Valen smiled. “Yes. We have developed a language between us. I've noticed that she does not react as well to some words, so I figured a visual language would do better for her, and I was right.” He rummaged in his pouch before extracting a notebook. “Here, it’s a dictionary I’ve written of the words we have.”

  Adem snatched it so fast Valen would have missed the motion if he blinked, and he immediately started leafing through it. The Hunter shook his head before looking at Nikki, who was now interested in what the both of them were doing. “Spar?” He signed to her as a question.

  She nodded, a sharp, oddly birdlike motion, then motioned to his weapon, indicating that she wanted to make it safe for her. Valen smoothly grabbed it, switching it into Axe mode as he did so, which would disable the magnet keeping it fixed to his back. Nikki gently bit into it, and took a moment to do her usual thing, though he noted that it took longer this time. After a while, she pushed the handle back into his hand, and he took it back.

  Drained of Bioenergy as it was, the weapon felt weaker than the Plesioth Switch Axe he had been using, though Valen noted that there seemed to still be a faint echo of its usual feeling this time. Maybe he was just connected to it better than with the Plesioth gear?

  Valen did a couple of practice swings with it and then nodded firmly. While weaker, it would not hinder him. Then he smiled, knowing that a pair of surprises awaited Nikki within it.

  Nikki jumped backward to the other side of the field, getting to the usual distance they started their spars with. Valen looked at Adem, who had raised his nose from the book he was reading, and said, “You should find cover Adem. In this spar, we’re going to be trying to find my new limits… Which means that Nikki won’t be holding back all that much.” Adem glanced at Nikki, slowly nodded, and then went to hide behind a tree.

  Valen crouched, holding his weapon with both hands, a posture both familiar and reassuring for him. His eyes were fixed on his opponent, searching for any hint of motion He knew that she usually started with her wing thrusts, though she had adapted and had become less and less predictable over the years. The same went for him though, and so this time he decided he would be the one to initiate combat, jumping into movement from a standstill and running towards her.

  As he expected, she immediately reacted, raising her right paw and preparing to stomp him into the ground with it. Jumping right, he narrowly dodged the strike but felt something was off, and he was proven right soon enough when he saw her left wing twitch. Valen reacted by jumping backward, narrowly avoiding the pile drive that slammed into the ground, kicking a plume of dirt up. Had that attack hit him, it would have broken through his old armor. She usually held back her strength when making that move before… The fact she did it with such force meant that she was confident that he could take the hit… Though not without leaving a gigantic bruise on Valen for sure. However, he quickly realized that she was not finished when she reared back her other wing to do the same thing. Out of options, Valen reacted the only way he believed he could manage, immediately squeezing the new lever on his weapon’s handle and bracing for the inevitable kickback.

  The two thrusters on his weapon ignited and immediately pushed him out of the way, dodging the attack Nikki was coming at him with. She seemed completely caught off guard by the move, dropping her guard and looking at him with outright shock, and Valen did not let the opportunity slip by. He released the trigger, killing the thrusters, and stopped his momentum by digging his heels into the dirt. Staying on the offensive, he jumped forward and slashed at Nikki’s exposed paw. The attack cracked a couple of scales, making Valen wince. He had put too much force into the strike, and he did not intend to injure Nikki that much.

  Now realizing the predicament she was in, Nikki ripped her wing from the ground and attempted to bite him. Still, he easily sidestepped the attack and morphed his weapon into Sword mode, slashing upwards as he did so, and rasped the blade of the weapon on Nikki’s neck. He put less force into the attack and it did only scratch them this time.

  She hopped backward immediately after, putting distance between the two of them. Valen pressed the offensive, not letting her catch a break. Bending forwards, he hit the hidden triggers in his gauntlets to ignite his jetpack with a violent whoom. Rocketing forward, he closed the distance in an instant, and, still in Sword mode, he took the opportunity and let loose with a swipe at her left shoulder that made her recoil with an involuntary hiss. Valen noticed a thin trail of blood that had appeared on his weapon and frowned. It seemed that it still could break through Nikki’s scales.

  Even with the injury, Nikki was more prepared for his thrusters this time, and he barely noticed he was behind Nikki’s wing, before she punished him with an airburst from the aforementioned wing, detonating the dragon energy violently from it.

  Valen was sent flying by the explosion and he tumbled around for a while before he felt his thrusters activate mid-air and stabilize him. His head whipped around in shock. He had not ignited them himself.

  Nikki seemed to have sensed something was off and did not follow through with her planned attack, a spear thrust. She had her beak slightly open in her version of a smile. And signed to him. “Him, respect you. Will protect you.”

  Valen realized that it was something that she expected. And if Nikki was not surprised… That meant that it was related to the Mindstone for sure. He smiled. It seemed like Valstrax would never run out of surprises for him. It was also then that he realized that the explosion had hit him, but he barely felt bruised by it… Which meant the armor was way more effective than he expected.

  Adem peeked out from the tree he was hiding behind. “Meowster, anything wrong?”

  “Just an unexpected development, Adem. But we aren’t done with the sparring! We’ve barely begun!”

  As Adem ducked back behind the tree, Nikki and Valen lunged at each other once again.

  Once the month of training was done, Valen returned to his duties. He had improved in great strides, beyond anything that he thought was possible. Even though he had to completely reinvent his style of fighting, he quickly realized something: The thrusters on both his armor and weapon allowed him to always have at least two vectors to dodge. One was up, and another — most of the time, at least — was away from the monsters. Which allowed him to be even more aggressive than before, knowing he had ways to get to safety if he needed to. Nikki adapted to that of course, and became more aggressive in turn, and he believed she no longer held back at all. With his new armor, even though the hits he now took hurt, they didn’t break him. And he could take a couple of them before they had to stop.

  If anything it was Valen who had to hold his strength back, as his weapon was still naturally sharp enough to break Nikki’s scales if he struck hard enough. Still, what this resulted in was Valen being able to come to a monster’s face and dodge anything that was thrown at him. He was also now able to win about half of his spars with Nikki, whilst before it was barely one in ten. His new armor made that much of a difference.

  Valen was quite happy with the results. It meant that he was now strong enough to protect those who needed protection, and that was only a positive for him.

  Adem learned Nikki’s sign language in record time and was now able to communicate with her as well. The Felyne was impressed by how aware she was, and her ability to convey her meanings through the limited shared vocabulary. They ended up talking more than Valen did with her, which amused him, but after all, he and Nikki knew each other too well now, and Adem was a novelty for her. Aki only learned the basic words so she didn’t have extensive conversations with Nikki.

  Once they finished their training, they were immediately assigned an urgent mission: Mating season had started for the Mizutsune, and a male was currently rampaging around after being rejected by the females. Unfortunately, he was too deep into his anger to simply be diverted, so they needed to put him down.

  The leviathan was beautiful, the pink colored scales, the bristles that covered his underside and allowed him to slip around with ease, his distinct face bringing to mind the legends of the Kitsune told in some parts of the world.

  However, Valen was too much of a match for the Mizutsune. Valen was able to match him in mobility and the fight was short. As their foe expired, Valen kneeled to him and gave him respect for the life he endured.

  They used part of the hide to make new gear for Adem, who had helped Valen by distracting the leviathan a couple of times, and Valen had to admit that the new gear fit the Felyne well. But the biggest impact of this hunt was that it solidified Valen’s opinion that he was now fighting in the big leagues, that regular wyverns or leviathans were no longer a match for him. It wasn’t a realization that bothered him. In fact, he was reassured — in the event that the Guild called on him, it would be because they truly needed his services. Now he and Adem were truly a team, and always fought together!