#dt hunter

……….

Edric was used to sharing a bed with Hunter back at the school.

Was it nerve wracking? Yes. Titan only knew the amount of near heart attacks the greenette had waking up in the morning with the small male curled up on top of him. However, watching the violette lazily awaken in the mid morning light, usually accompanied by a big yawn that displayed an adorable tooth gap, made the near misses quite worth the trouble. 

The addition of Jack didn’t present any new problems, at least that night, the redhead being a rather sound, still sleeper.

However, it did bring a new perk to the table.

“You fucking asshole” Jack hissed quietly as Edric ran his fingers through Hunter’s fluffy hair, the Violette having curled up on top of the redhead during the night. “At least help me out! What am I supposed to do?”

“Well, you can either wake him up now and deal with him being cranky” Edric hummed, moving to brush Jack’s soft bangs out of his eyes. “Or, let him wake up on his own. I’d recommend the second option from personal experience”

“Are you serious!? Theres a lot of shit I need to get started on if we want to get home within the next two months, at the earliest!” Jack whisper-shouted, scowling with a bit of a blush as Edric simply moved on to running his fingers through the boy genius’ hair. It was rather messy from a good nights sleep, so it made the other boy appear even more flustered.

Cute.

“Well, if getting back is gonna take a while regardless, then there’s no point in rushing the process” the greenette reasoned, pushing the redheads bangs back again with a little more scrutiny. “Theres other things to focus on in the meantime. For example, we’re gonna need to track down some decent hair-dye, not to mention figure out the whole food situation”

“We could be stuck here forever, and your immediate concern is my dye job” The faux redhead deadpanned, eyebrow twitching as the greenette chuckled, finally withdrawing his hand. 

“It was you who told me you’d prefer choking over ending up having to go back to being ginger” Edric replied, moving to sit up more properly in bed as he checked the clock. “Besides, Hunter is an early riser, soon enough he’ll be up long before we are”

“Why can’t it be today though?” Jack whined, before he went beet red as Hunter shifted a bit in his sleep, his consistent purr rising in volume. “What’s with the purring???”

“It’s a witch thing, he’s happy” Edric hummed, relaxing his back against the headboard as he watched Hunter tighten his arms around the redheads upper torso. “Although, yesterday was certainly the first time I’ve heard him purr so audibly when conscious”

“Thats… really weird”

“It’s only weird because you don’t do it” Edric replied, summoning his glasses and a book he’d checked out from the library before the whole disaster took place. “Just, relax, Hunter will be up soon enough, and he won’t say anything about this”

“Just how often does he-“

“No idea, he’s usually up long before me” Edric cut off the inquiry, putting his glasses on and opening his book to where he’d left off. “Let him sleep, he needs it”

……………

“Alright, Jack, you have the floor” Hunter hummed as Jack settled down at the lab table, spreading out the blueprints he’d managed to salvage from his previous attempts to return home. “What’s our game plan for getting home? I assume you were making attempts when Wuya first left you here”

“You assume correctly” Jack replied, a little flattered by how well the violette knew him. “That’s probably the only good news I have in that regard, though”

“Whats the bad news?” Edric asked as Jack flattened out the creases of the old paper, some small aspects having worn a bit or become illegible due to exposure and having been written hastily in pencil. 

“Well, this is the closest I got in attempts to design the portal we’d need” He huffed, glaring at the half-concepted mess on the paper. “Not only that, but since this world essentially lives off the magic that flows through it, electricity is completely useless as a power source for a portal out”

“So we just need a source of raw magic?” Hunter asked, and at Jack’s affirmation, he reached into his jacket and produced a scroll made of ink tablets, sliding it across the table. “Problem solved then, this relic has enough magic to trap Sun Wukong himself, so powering a gateway would, theoretically, be child’s play. Just… don’t touch it bare-handed. It gives humans horrifying hallucinations”

“What is that?” Edric questioned as Jack picked the scroll up with his palms, giving it a close visual examination. Deciding it was worth testing, he turned toward an old magic reader to see if the artifact was compatible with the magic needed. “Actually, better question, where did you keep that? Between your tits!?”

“No! I have a pocket sewn on the inside of my hoodie for it” Hunter defended, and whatever he said next was blocked out by Jack focusing on the readout his scanner had just returned. Translating technobabble from magical output was an achievement he was rather proud of.

“Bad news, this thing is incompatible” The redhead announced, cutting off the flustered conversation that had been going on behind him. Careful to not let his bare fingers touch the artifact, Jack returned the scroll to the table, sliding it back in Hunter’s direction. “If we tried to use that as a power source, it’d be much more likely to tear this reality apart than open a portal back home”

“WHAT!? Hunter, why would you be carrying something like that around!?” Edric shrieked as the violette tucked the scroll back into his hoodie, jumping away from the other witch like he was diseased. 

“Because it’s only dangerous if some idiot other than me tried to use it” the smaller boy replied, patting his chest where the scroll had been stored. “I repurposed it’s magic to my own end, a final gambit of sorts should I ever be backed into a corner”

“What the hell kind of-?“

“Instead of exploring whatever unspeakable horrors that thing could possibly unleash, can we please get back to the topic at hand?” Jack interrupted, making the greenette pout a bit as he sat back down. “Thank you. Now, does anyone else have any exceptionally magical artifacts I should know about?”

“No” Two voices, one answer.

“Then it looks like we’re gonna have to power this thing as I had originally planned” Jack sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he pressed a button to activate the hologram projector in the table. “With the Shen Gong Wu. And all the shit that comes along with claiming them”

“Pfft, is that all?” Hunter cackled, leaning forward to poke at a holographic projection of the Xiaolin Temple. “Just point me in the direction of the vault here, and we’ll be back home before you even have to start fixing that entrance”

“Hunter, that won’t accomplish anything other than alerting the monks to our presence, which I would like to avoid for as long as possible” Jack argued, pulling up a holographic replica of the monks vault. “You have to actually open the door in order to access any Wu inside, and that is a painfully difficult and loud process, making discreet espionage almost impossible”

“Yet you managed to steal shit from them more than once?” Edric, with some skepticism. 

“They were distracted and I was lucky, but not the point” Jack replied, before pulling up a list he’d programmed a long time ago. “Now, I don’t know if some of the unclaimed Wu I was told about have been recovered just yet, but considering how often new artifacts reveal themselves, there should be plenty of opportunities to legitimately claim enough of em’ to power the portal, at least within the next couple of months”

“Well, we can certainly shorten this timeframe, right? I mean, if we just had one, we can start challenging the monks to Showdowns” Hunter mused, eyeing the school bag hung on the chair next to Jack. 

“Don’t even think about it, the Monkey Staff is off limits, both for powering the portal and wagering in Showdowns” The teen genius sniped, snatching the bag off its temporary perch and holding it close. “I’ve lost it more times than I’m comfortable with already”

“Calm down, it was only a suggestion” the violette replied, holding his hands up as a sign of surrender. “I can wait for a Wu to reveal itself naturally, alright?”

“You better” Jack almost hissed, hugging the bag protectively. 

“Okay, you can chill out Golem” Edric interrupted, snatching the bag away from the redhead and pulling out the Monkey Staff, careful to not touch it with his bare hand. “If you’re gonna go all “My Precious” with your stick, then you need to leave the rest of our shit out of it”

“You’d understand why I like this thing so much if you were man enough to try it out” Jack argued, accepting the staff with a bit of a sly smirk. “Just ask Hunter, monkey tail’s are awesome”

……………..

Hunter would be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to what the next few months had in store. 

He was back out in the hidden grove next to the entrance of the base, having just put away a week’s worth of groceries in the kitchen. The nearby village had great deals on tofu and other traditionally Chinese ingredients, being primarily a farming community, and the violette couldn’t be more thankful for Pigsy’s tutelage, for he was now well versed in making healthy Chinese cuisine.  

However, the true root of his optimism came from the opportunity this world provided. 

The opportunity for revenge.

He’d heard all of Jack’s stories, knew how his friend had been tormented by both the monks and his so-called “allies”. It had the violettes blood boiling, enough that he’d made use of the “freakout room” more than once to calm down. 

Now, though, Jack’s tormentors were in reach. 

It was now just a matter of patience, wether it be out in the field or right at the door, they were bound to cross paths with the monks, or even Wuya alone with some luck. It was a guarantee with their goals so intimately aligned, and Hunter was eager for some vengeance. 

All he had to do was wait. 

So, he’d retrieved his current palisman carving project, and took advantage of the quiet grove just outside the door to make some progress. Sure, he was using up the last of his limited supply of palistrom wood, and Buddha only knew when he’d be able to quietly pilfer more from Terra’s personal garden, but he’d already made up his mind about what this particular hunk was going to be, and who for, even if it meant Luz would have to wait even longer for her own palisman. 

The hunk’s shade of grey was just too perfect of a match not to, anyway. 

Overall, the project he’d undertaken was rather ambitious, carving a Crimson Glow Valstrax down to the smallest detail being a challenge in of itself. However, considering who the palisman was meant for, Hunter had chosen to carve aforementioned Elder Dragon with its wings risen in a protective stance, giving it the appearance of an ornate spearhead to the uninformed eye. 

Getting its face right from behind those wings had been a bitch and a half, but thankfully, Hunter had successfully overcome the hurdle, and now the fun part of detailing and sculpting was upon him. A welcome distraction from the wait he’d have to endure.

He just hoped Jack would like it once he was finished.

He just hoped Jack would like it once he was finished.