Monster Hunter Legion-eARC Read Online Free Page B

“Just him. Get out of my way.”
    “You mess with MHI, you mess with all of us!”
    The giant cocked his misshapen head to one side. “What? MHI? ”
    Nate tried to punch him, and though he was fast and relatively skilled, the giant was simply out of his league. He effortlessly slapped Nate’s hands aside, grabbed my brother-in-law’s tie to hold him in place, then slugged him. One, two, three solid hits before Nate’s brain had even recorded the first impact. Nate went down, out cold.
    That really pissed me off, and I came off the floor, ready to kick some ass.
    Hotel security guards were pushing their way inside. Since the restaurant rotated on a platform, the whole place was shaking badly under the stampede. The other ice sculpture fell and broke, and somehow somebody had managed to throw something hard enough to break one of the chandeliers. There was some screaming as Green got pepper-sprayed, and more screaming as Lee shoved a rival Hunter into the chocolate fountain.
    One of the PT men got in my way and I dismantled him. I didn’t have time to dick around with these chumps when there was a real enemy to fight. I stepped into the clumsy swing and drove my forearm and all my mass into him so hard that he went spiraling over a table. Another of the black polo-shirted Hunters had gotten between us, so the giant simply picked him up and tossed him over the sushi bar, not even bothering to slow his pace. We met in the middle and proceeded to beat the crap out of each other.
    He was fast for a big man, and so was I, but he had a reach advantage, so I had to keep moving to stay ahead of him. I wasn’t used to being the smaller and lighter fighter. We locked up on each other as we hit the far end of the buffet, both of us throwing knees and elbows. Between the two of us we probably weighed close to seven hundred pounds, and the furniture broke around us like someone had turned loose a herd of enraged wildebeests. I didn’t realize we’d gone too far until my shoulder hit the cold glass of the restaurant’s bubble. The glass cracked.
    I caught my boot against the railing, heaved the giant back, and managed to hit him with a staggering overhand right. That slowed him down.
    “Lacoco! Stop! Z! Owen! What the heck? Quit hitting that Newbie!” Milo was running our way, just ahead of a bunch of casino security and a Las Vegas police officer. “You’re on the same team!”
    The giant must not have heard Milo’s words, because he bellowed, launched himself into me, caught me around the waist, and we hit the interior window. The glass shattered around us and then we were falling, briefly . We hit water, but it wasn’t particularly deep, because right after the water came tile. And the tile was very hard.
    Groaning, I lay there, flat on my back in half a foot of water, covered in sparkling shards, the wind knocked out of me, staring up at the hole in the buffet’s glass wall one story above, as cold water from a dragon-headed fountain spit on us. The giant was on his side next to me. He had a few nasty cuts on his face and arms from the glass. I probably didn’t look much better. I realized then that his not-quite-in-the-same-direction eye was fake, because it had popped out and was sitting at the bottom of the pool between us.
    A huge crowd of gamblers and shoppers were standing there, gaping at us. Many of them started taking pictures.
    At least the fall had finally knocked the fight out of him. The giant looked over at the MHI Happy Face on my tattered shirt with his good eye and groaned.
    “Jason Lacoco?” I gasped.
    “Uh-huh…”
    “Owen Zastava Pitt.” I coughed. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to Monster Hunter International.”
    Then several police officers converged on the fountain to arrest us.

Chapter 2
    “This sucks,” Trip said as he studied the cement floor of our cell. I had lost count of how many times he’d said that already.
    The two of us had been separated from the others not too long after