The Hangry Hunter: Powered Personnel Side Hustle, #1

By K. A. Maxwell

On Planet Arijog, never play games with beasts.

 

When a group of tourists play the Hunt'n Eats app, it leads them, hot breaths ablazing, to find tasty food and valuable reward points in the forest.

That's the same day Vanessa, a professional in creative and destructive arts, worked from her cavernous home. With her forest on fire, she must stop the beastly gamers before they destroy it, including her breakfast.

 

As they will learn, it's never a good idea to make Vanessa hangry.

 

The Hangry Hunter is a side story that takes place during the events of Powered Personnel: The Big Startup.

 

It has around 13,200 words of sci-fi, aliens, heroics, drama, and lots of working-from-home action.

 

It also has scenes of violence, mature themes, and coarse language which may make this book unsuitable for younger and sensitive readers.

 

Seriously, Vanessa wants to eat people and uses a lot of f-bombs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K. A. Maxwell
• Release date: Sep 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781777658021

Book preview

Chapter 1

Planet Arijog.

The beast’s eyes opened a crack, letting in a familiar blue light, before they closed once more.

Mmmmm… five more minutes.

Eighteen minutes later, give or take, it shifted once more and opened. A long tail with a mix of golden and brown scales unwrapped from its body. It stretched its arms out and with a thrust, launched itself from the sea floor. Schools of underwater creatures barely had time to make way for the beast, especially an idle creature not much larger than a fruit with its back turned. By the time it noticed, the beast snapped its teeth and consumed the creature with one bite.

The sea grew brighter as it became more shallow. It was at this point where the beast finished its journey on webbed foot and shifted itself into an upright position. The impact of its feet on floor whipped up waves and left a resounding thump with each step. The walk wasn’t long, and it approached a stone staircase that led out of the sea. The beast’s horns were the first to emerge out of the water, followed by charcoal colored hair, short with a distinctive fringe that parted at the front right side. Another step and its yellow eyes with narrow slit irises rose out of the water. It paused for a moment, scanning the area.

With the coast clear, it continued the ascent. The sea water washed over fine scales resembling tanned skin. Its broad shoulders flowed into strong upper arms, with the same golden-brown scales covering its forearms onto four-clawed webbed hands. Thick, solid muscles made up its torso and full, rounded breasts did nothing to soften her profile.

She glanced to her right, and her eyes caught the movement of a couple silhouettes moving with what looked like some sort of vision scopes. She took one more step, but this time, stomped on the stone riser. The impact sent a large wave out around her, and it crashed against the shoreline where the supposed intruders were. Her slanted, pointed ears picked up rustling from a couple trees. She growled, sharp teeth clenching into a sneer. Seconds later, the water that had been in her mouth turned into steam, which gave way to an orange glow. She took a breath in, opened her mouth wide and blasted a fireball the size of a large fruit towards the supposed hiding place. It slammed onto the ground, leaving a splash of flames in its wake. The clicking and rustling sounds vanished along with the trespassers. If they were smart, they’d keep running.

With three more steps, the beast’s hips emerged, nearly as wide as her shoulders and connected to powerful legs, golden-brown scaled shins, and massive three-pronged claws. She reached the top of the steps, her long tail was the last to exit the water. She snorted, her face slightly lean, with narrow cheeks. She took another breath and sighed, exposing sharp teeth, then breathed out a light smoke, hot air clearing out the rest of the lingering sea water in her throat.

Go find some other fantasy figure to do yer shitty snapshots with, said the beast, her voice rough and sharp.

Vanessa Locsolen strode up to the back entrance to her lair, a stone cave which had a large enough opening to accommodate hosting other beasts the height of a commercial truck’s trailer. The rest of her lair, more average-sized lined across the lot from either side of the back entrance with windows. On the top of her lair were a pair of chimneys, no doubt, to funnel out the excess heat generated by its owner.

The cackling of the growing fire by the shoreline caught the Beast’s attention again. She moved to the side of her backyard where piles of boulders were stacked. She reached out and grabbed one of them about the size of a vehicle, claws penetrating its surface. She curled it up and threw it. It slammed into the ground with a thump and all at once;