I have Nine Lives

The ape's speed was rather low but it was certainly going towards Felix's and the others' direction, it was as if he could surely feel the life force of all of them!

They were the only ones who remained in the vicinity as everyone else had already run away from the toxic bomb the skunk duo had detonated with their lives.

Bizkier immediately started to retreat as he grabbed Lindo by the arm and dragged him away, Altraeimo glanced towards Felix and made a motion with his hand indicating that they should run away from there as quick as they could!

Felix looked at the incoming ape and felt that he was quite the strange person, he had the soul of an infant and he didn't look to be that unstable, he was just angry when the kangaroo told him that he had been abandoned by his raven friends as he felt that the man was lying to him.

Children were very emotion-based beings and they would always do things without thinking them through at all so Felix wasn't even sure if the ape knew where he currently was or what he was supposed to do!

The others didn't know about the soul age of the ape so that's why they were so scared of him, if they knew they would think of a similar plan as Felix had.

As the ape got closer Felix appeared from the bushes against the wishes of the others, he came a little bit closer to the ape, the ape looked down and saw Felix's small frame compared to his and his eyes lighted up as he patted him on the head with strength. Felix almost felt his brain shaking and liquefying from the casual pat of the ape but he endured as he used the surrounding hex energy to strengthen his head defenses.

The ape looked at him with a strange look as he felt the hex energy surrounding them change and approach Felix's head enshrouding it into a shield-like bubble.

The ape felt quite interested in Felix as he never found someone who used hex energy in this way before, he was a child so of course, he was very curious about everything around him, he was innocent in that way.

He got closer to Felix as he grasped him in his hands with even less strength than he used in his former pat and asked:

"Do you know where my friends are?"

Felix shook his head indicating that he didn't know, he didn't use the same words as him being abandoned by his friends as the kangaroo said as he didn't want to trigger him, he just gave him a negative response.

The ape became sad as he let Felix down and tears started to well from his eyes, even though his human form looked like he was a middle-aged fat uncle, his expression said otherwise.

Felix patted him on the leg as he couldn't reach his shoulder without jumping up and he didn't want to antagonize him by doing such a sudden action, the other three had their mouths wide open seeing Felix's actions and how easily he befriended the former rampaging giant.

Bizkier rubbed his eyes as he said:

"It was that easy to defeat him?"

Lindo shook his head as he said:

"We can't really call this defeating, even if we took advantage of his current situation do you think you can pierce through that thick skin of his?"

After Lindo pointed that out, Altraeimo who wanted to say something similar shut his mouth as Lindo's words were as true as they could get.

"So do we go to Felix or should we just let him handle it?"

"Let's just wait here considering Felix befriended him there is a chance he would become aggressive against outsiders like us, who knows what he would do?"

They felt that his actions were childlike but they thought that he was only mentally impaired and not really a child.

After Felix patted his thick leg the ape felt a little better as he forgot about his friends and said:

"We are friends now right?"

Felix nodded and told him his name:

"My name is Felix, what's yours?"

The ape smiled showing his sharp teeth as he said:

"My name is Goro."

Suddenly Goro's stomach started to rumble as if he hadn't eaten mountains of bananas before.

Felix didn't know what to do in this situation... where could he get food for this hungry mountain?

The other three finally found a use for themselves, they all had some rations in their special bag that they could give the mountainous man but they realized that it wouldn't be enough to feed him...

Bizkier frowned as he looked into his special bag, there was no way the food he packed would be enough for the Ape who ate mountains of bananas like they were nothing:

"Guys what should we do?"

Lindo interjected after he looked through his food:

"Uh well, he won't even eat my food cause apes don't like meat right?"

Lindo had packed only meat as he was a lion and he didn't eat herbs or fruits or anything like that.

As for the other two Bizkier had a variety of herbs and fruits as he was an elephant and Altraeimo was a fish so he had underwater food that was unknown if the ape would like or not.

And from what they could see all of the things in this forest were poisonous so it was unknown what would happen if the ape anything from the forest and then went on a rampage again.

"I guess we will have to give him this and see what will happen, hopefully, he won't become too angry, but if we succeed we will get a strong ally!"

Since Felix befriended the ape already they could take a gamble and get a strong bodyguard that could easily let them through their current trial, since no rules were said who said that they couldn't ally with the Haron continent contestants to finish this thing?

Bizkier walked forward with Lindo and Altraeimo, when the ape saw them at first he was rather confused, where did these people come from? He only felt Felix's existence at first for some reason but now that he saw them as well their auras became visible to him as well.

The ape looked at Felix and Felix smiled as he said that they were his friends, each of them took out some food and came closer as they offered it to him with both hands, Goro took a glance at Lindo and sniffed the cooked meat that was in his hands and shook his head as he ignored it, he didn't like the cooked meat!

His eyes then started to shine as he looked at Bizkier's food, there were some fruits and herbs that he especially enjoyed that he immediately took from him and popped them into his mouth as he chewed them loudly for a few seconds before he ate everything, he was still a little bit hungry as he took the food from Altreimo's hands as well, he didn't bother sniffing it as he ate it whole.

Altraeimo had some plankton-like plant in his hands and the moment the ape ate it his eyes opened wide as he finished chewing and swallowed.

"This is very good!"

The three of them along with Felix made a 'phew' sound as the ape liked it, at first they thought that he didn't like it.

Thus Altraeimo took some more of his foodstuff and gave it to the ape, they only gave out a few pieces of each of their food as they still needed some food for themselves but the ape was still hungry, not as much as before but he still wanted to eat.

Felix frowned, maybe the ravens abandoned him because he ate too much? Why would an infant ape even join this deadly fight?

Felix couldn't understand why but if he knew a little bit about the customs of the ape tribe he would have understood.

The ape still felt hungry but he knew the others didn't have any more food for him, but for him, the actions of the four people around him made his heart feel grateful towards them, he was a child and children were quite pure, now that they fed him he wanted to help them with something as well!

The ape got up as he looked around before saying:

"I will protect you!"

Then he pounded his chest with both hands as he grabbed all of them and put them on his wide shoulders, he easily hauled them as if they weighed nothing, he actually looked quite funny with 2 people on each shoulder but he didn't care about his looks as a hex energy shield appeared around them.

Bizkier eyes widened as he looked at the shield and placed a hand on it while muttering:

"Such perfect energy control? From this angry ape?"

Everyone was quite surprised by the ape's ability.