The brilliant moonlight was shining down upon the beautiful greens of Pigmy Woodlands. The sound of howling wolves, snickering goblins, and roaring mad boars were present during the night. Nothing out of the ordinary for Pigmy Woods, monsters have always been more active during the night rather than the morning. Humans tend not to explore the forest when the sun is away. It has been universally accepted between both races that the night belonged to the monsters and the day belonged to the humans. Of course, not everyone accepted this rule, there were a few unsavory types that ignored this rule and decided to do what they pleased. One such group could be seen right now. 

“Do you know how much gold we will get for this job?!” An excited young mage exclaimed with greed in her eyes. 

“I’ll be able to get new equipment!” A large towering beast of a man shared the excitement of his partner. 

“I’ll be able to live lavishly for the rest of my life!” A young stick-like youth drooled thinking about the future. 

“Shut your fucking traps! We haven’t even started the quest yet.” A scarred man commanded. 

  The three obeyed the man’s words promptly and he shushed them before motioning ahead with his sword. They slowly stalked forward to see the tribe of the Khasix Monkeys. Khasix Monkeys were as tall as a human child but were strong enough to crush a grown man’s skull with their feet. There were four on watch above the trees. Scarred nodded towards Stick. Stick smirked confidently as he grabbed his bow from his back. He licked his finger and held it in the air. After a confirmation of some sort, he pulled back the string and rapidly fired 4 arrows within a second.  

  The team heard the sounds of 4 bodies falling without a screech. They moved on and closer towards the heart of the monster tribe. Many of the monsters were sleeping peacefully but a small number were walking around keeping watch over the others. They resembled humans in the way they acted: orderly and disciplined conduct, making a community, and the many different personalities they showed. But no matter how much a monster imitates a human, it’ll always be a monster in the end. 

“I beg of you water spirits! Give me your power so that I may wash away my enemies!” The young mage softly shouted as she channeled mana within her staff. A ball of ice appeared in front of her staff. 

“Icicle Crash!” She shouted! 

  The ball of ice shot a beam above the tribe of monkeys. The beam stopped once it made a certain distance above the camp. Once it stopped, it expanded into a magical circle. The magical circle stretched itself over all of the campsite. The fluctuation of foreign mana in the air riled the monsters awake. Screeching and hollering rang out as large icicle spikes started raining down from the magical circle. 

“That’s our cue! Kill em all and take that pearl!” Scarred ordered once a majority of the monsters perished at the hands of female mage. 

  The small squad of adventurers ran in to finish off the remaining number of monkeys. With the strongest of the tribe dying to the ice spell, it was easy pickings for them to kill the rest. And they did with gusto! Terrified screams and gleeful laughter rang out through this part of the forest for minutes. The adventurers did not make it easy on the monkeys and spent their gracious time sending them off in the most painful of ways. Their shrieks and cries meant nothing to the adventurers. After all they were just monsters to the adventurers. Monsters can’t think and feel like humans. They were little more than beasts and coins to the average adventurer. 

“Is this the pearl?” Stick asked. 

“No that’s a fucking egg you idiot.” Scarred responded. 

“But why is it decorated like that? Khasix Monkeys don’t lay eggs.” Mage curiously questioned. 

  The egg in question was surrounded by leaves and strangely shaped rocks while it laid in the middle. It was around the size of a watermelon 

“Is it some sort of altar? Maybe the dumb monsters thought it was something important.” Beast halfheartedly suggested. 

“Well wondering about this stupid egg isn’t gonna get us paid. Find that pearl so we can get out here before something bad shows up.” 

  It would take the adventurers around five minutes to search the corpses and the rest of the dirt huts before they found what they came for. Sometime after that, the monkey tribe was devoured by the monsters attracted to the smell of their dead bodies. Leaving no trace of what conspired that night for anyone to know of. Well, almost no trace was left. 

  The egg was unbroken. It laid tipped over on its side in the open clearing of what used to be the home of a tribe of Khasix Monkeys. It somehow miraculously escaped being devoured or broken during the feeding frenzy of the wild beasts that feasted upon the monkeys. Perhaps the Goddess of Dark was looking over this young egg. 

Crack!  

  Oh, it seems the egg is hatching. It’s shaking quite violently. It must want to get out right this instance. The cracks are increasing and a light pink color could be seen through one of the cracks. 

“Aie!” The monster within the egg broke free of its restraints! 

  It lifted the top half of its cell over its head and threw it into a nearby tree. It cracked all over the tree, leaving residue on the bark. The monster used its arms to slap the bottom half of the prison into pieces, completely freeing it.  

“Ay!!!” It shouted in jubilation. 

  The monster smiled at its new freedom. The monster was shaped like an egg. It had a soft, light pink, and smooth body. On top of its head is a curly outgrowth that resembles a ponytail, with a dark pink band around the base. There is a pouch around the lower half of its body, which resembles a diaper. The pouch is red with a white stripe around the top. The pouch was rubbery and flexible. 

  The monster looked around with wonder. It knew nothing but the insides of that egg shell. The sights out here were much more exciting! She touched the ground and exclaimed at the feel of it. She touched the bark of a tree and awed in wonder. She felt her own skin and giggled in amusement. 

“Hehehe!” 

  She touched and rubbed everything in her immediate surroundings with her stubby arms. They lacked any more than a single digit so it’s a wonder on how she was able to pick up a white stone that caught her fancy. It looked pretty to her so, she grabbed it and placed it inside her pouch. Making it look as if she was carrying around a little egg in her pouch but she was just born a few moments ago. It wasn’t possible for her to lay eggs yet. 

  She happily patted her “egg” and started walking through the woodlands. She wanted to see more of this place! She was curious. She was excited. She was looking forward to seeing all the new things! Like the little squirrel watching her atop of a tree. 

“Ai!” She waved towards the little squirrel with a smile. 

  The squirrel tilted its head before mimicking her actions with a single paw. This was enough for the little monstress and she merrily walked on ahead, leaving the squirrel confused about what just happened.  

  She saw a large bush filled with berries. The berry aroma was mesmerizing, she couldn’t stop herself from grabbing a berry and gently plopping it in her mouth. 

“Mhmm!!!” She exclaimed. 

  She picked berry after berry after berry to fill her stomach. It was her first meal ever and it tasted so good. How could she just stop at one? The little monstress picked the berry bush clean of all its berries, leaving her with quite the messy mouth afterwards. She didn’t notice this though and happily skipped through the forest. Seeing that the world was nothing but goodness and beauty, the little monster couldn’t help being so cheerily. 

  As she was exploring the forest, a strange noise caught her ears. She went over to investigate what that strange whimpering sound was. Maybe it was something like the little brown creature she saw earlier. She hopes that it can be her friend! How did she know what a friend was? Who knows!? The baby monster peeked from a tree and saw the body of a goblin. The goblin was laying against a tree with most of its body grievously injured. Its intestines laid outside of its body and the body was filled with deep cuts that reached the bone.  

  The pink infant slowly walked over to the nearly dead monster. Tears pooled in her eyes. She could feel the sadness within this creature’s heart. That sadness made her sad. She never knew what being sad was like. She didn’t like to be sad. How can she make it not sad?  

  She tried to give it one of the berries she placed in her pouch from the berry bush but the only thing it managed to do was make the goblin gurgle blood. Tears fell down her eyes, she began to panic. She hugged the body of the fallen goblin and hoped it would make it stop feeling sad and in a way, it did. The goblin gurgled its last from the endearing contact from the pink baby and passed on.  

  The little monstress wiped away her tears. She could not feel anything from the monster anymore. Did she make the sad go away? She tried touching him some more but he wasn’t responding. She slowly started to smile. He wasn’t sad anymore! She hugged the corpse again in joy from her success and slowly felt movement from the goblin’s body.  

“Hm?” She backed up a little bit to see a small white thing moving inside the monster. 

  She reached out with her arm to touch it out of curiosity. The white thing suddenly jumped at her hand and stabbed into her arm! The little infant screamed and started crying at the scare and sudden pain. Her loud crying and frantic running around stopped her from realizing that the strange white thing burrowed into her skeletal system. 

---

  It found a new host! An alive host! It has to make sure this one stays alive longer than its last host. Its last host was a very dumb and weak host. It was abandoned by its own kind and had no self-preservation of its own. It wandered through the night without any food or direction like an idiot. The magical parasite realized that it wouldn’t last long with such a dim-witted host and refused to attach itself permanently with him. 

  It wanted to jump ship as soon as it could. It tried to attach itself to the wolfling that did his previous host in but the mother was nearby. It would no doubt be able to sense it and destroy it instantly. So, he abandoned that plan and bid his time until someone stumbled upon the corpse of his old host. 

  This new host had potential, the magic within its body is very bountiful. It can do a lot with this much mana. The parasite attached itself to the top base of the monster’s spine and burrowed inside before working its magic. It started sucking in the abundant mana within the creature. The parasite planned to use this mana to help its host become an even better host for a creature like itself. A weak host puts its own life at risk. He couldn’t risk his life coming to an end. 

  The parasite used the mana to take over the host’s skeleton structure and improve it to an unprecedented state. No other creature could dare compete in terms of skeleton mastery to this little parasite. His creator would behead himself if he proved to be a failure of a creation. It wasn’t as if he cared if his creator lived or not but he will do what he was created to do and he will do the best job at it. 

---

  The baby monster tired itself out from all the crying she did and fell asleep soon after. Her body felt strangely good as she slept but she didn’t know why it did. She would soon awake from her nap after her tantrum and find that the moon was out. She looked at the moon with sparkles in her eyes. It was different from the other floating ball from earlier! It was dark out too! She could barely see! 

“Ah....” She exclaimed with a noise. 

  She was feeling much better after crying her eyes out. The little infant dusted any dirt on her off and began exploring through the forest at night. She heard many more interesting noises at night than she did at day. She wanted to find out what was making each noise but the noise coming from her stomach protested fiercely. The baby monstress didn’t like this feeling.  

  Her eyes unhappily searched for any bush berries. She didn’t want to be hungry, it didn’t feel good to be hungry. She walked and walked between an endless terrain of large trees to find anything that smelled remotely good and just as she was about to give up hope. She found her shining savior. 

  The moonlight was directly beaming on the bush filled with delicious smelling berries. The small monsterette rushed over without reserve and started filling her belly with the fruity goodness. The pain from earlier was quickly fading away as she ate berry after berry. The berries were dark red in color, which made them hard to find at night.  

---

  Unbeknownst to the baby pink monster, it was currently being watched by one of the top predators within Pigmy Woods. The creature was slithered around a thick tree. It’s hundreds of legs stabbing into the bark, allowed it to sense its prey within the cover of darkness. It sensed no signs of anything else just the small creature below. That made things easy for it then.  

  It could not see anything dangerous on the creature. No claws, spikes, or even armor on the monster. The large insect started to descend down the tree. Its many legs surprisingly not making any noise as it crawled towards its defenseless prey. 

  The foolish inattentive monster was busy filling its gullet with berries and soon it will be filling its belly with the flesh of a tasty looking pink monster. It increased its speed towards the unaware little creature and raised the upper half of its insect body as it posed to strike. The little monster won’t even know what hit it. 

---

“KIIIII!”  

  An insectoid shriek caused little monstress to jump high in the air. Her first reaction is to cry and run away but a strange feeling in her back stopped her. She turned her neck and saw something weird coming out from her back. Her back was slightly ripped open and her spine was stretched out of her body. But that wasn’t even the craziest part. Her spine was hurting a monster! She could see the green liquid leaking onto her bones. 

“Stop hurting them!” She yelled to her body. 

“It tried to kill us!” Her body responded back. 

  The little monstress doesn’t know what it means for something to kill another. The only thing on her mind was that the bug was in pain. 

“Stop hurting them right now!” She righteously demanded. 

  Her spine that was morphed into a bone scythe slowly took itself out of the hundred-legged monster. It was close to death now as its green blood slowly flowed out of its body. The centipede’s body was flailing around in pain. The little pinkster’s friend inside her body kept its scythes raised above and behind her in case the monster attempted a second attempt on his host’s life. 

  Pinky put her hands together and called upon her innate magical abilities as a monster. She wished with all her heart that the pain going through the monster would disappear! While she was praying, she didn’t know that a blue aura appeared around her body and was flowing into the dying centipede. 

---

  The stab wound speedily closed up as if it was never there. The blood within the centipede’s body replenished itself back to full. Even the pain that was ferociously plaguing it, disappeared without a trace and in its place, a soothing pleasant cool feeling took hold. It didn’t understand what was happening to itself. One minute it was trying to gobble up some easy prey, the next it was experiencing hell and was pretty sure it was dying soon from something. But now it was feeling better than it has ever felt before. Just how in the world? 

  The centipede looked up to see the prey it was attempting to eat earlier. It had a strange magical energy around it. Did it possibly heal them? Why would it do that? It tried to mercilessly kill it just few moments ago. 

  The monster-sized centipede got up from the ground and stared at the little monster in confusion. The little monster looked back at it without any fear. The little creature rushed towards it with its arms raised. The menacing killing intent it got from the bones sticking out of the prey’s back made it shiver in fright, it couldn’t move as the pink thing wrapped its arms around it. The feeling of wanting to eat this prey has disappeared completely. 

“Friend?” Pinky asks while still hugging the big bug monster. 

“Not Prey.” Centipede responds. 

“Friend!” Pinky happily exclaims.