Open Letters(Open)

Acun shuffled though the trees, the whisper of the night rustled the leaves around her, but her steps made no sound. Not an echo from the lake, not a quiver in breath.

BAM!!!

A violent jolt shook Acun's body, all of the birds took wing in flight, and a brief echo of the flash that had come before the sound carried over the waters of the pond. A creature, not quite human, not quite wolf, dissolved into the blackness of the night. It complied with the orders that she was given, but she wondered what IT was. A white bone-like plate had covered its face, contouring to its curves like a mask. Fearing its strength, she had hit the eye socket, but it was gone now. 2 other creatures she had vanquished before, had similar, but dissimilar masks on it. Completely unique, but related...

What could it be?

She slid down into her shelter, and by low lamplight of a cellular phone, she read the letter again, to make sure she was supposed to have this much freedom...

Quote :

Acun Tenshi, You are to rid the forest surrounding Sanagu City of any non-human spiritual beings. Humans you are to call and aid in their extraction, your supplies consist of: Forest Camoflauge Uniform, Standard Issue; Combat Boots, Entrenching Tool, Canteen, Water purification kit, Combat knife, Web Gear, First Aid, Cellular Phone, Personal Affects and Weaponry.

Your mission begins a 0600 tommorow.

Terse and brief, it had given no instructions otherwise to what she was doing. But sitting in a bush waiting for beings to wander by was taking its toll on a 7 year old girl, even if she was finely honed into a killing machine. She started fidgeting at first, then finally decided to go for a walk, She crawled out from the bushes, carrying only her sidearm and whatever spiritual power she could bring to bear, and went for a stroll around the rather large pond...

All living things require sleep. The same holds true to spiritual beings. For hollows such a thing has a large problem: resting can get you killed. Much like how creatures feed on one another hollows must be aware of their fellow beasts. Try to sleep in a bad spot and you'll never live to wake up. For Stratus he found that sleeping in the human world was far easier than the Hueco Mundo. Especially in the strange forest outside the city. The air here reminded him of the white desert, but the tension wasn't there. While it was true he detected other creatures like himself none posed a real threat to him. Still to be cautious he lowered his signal as much as possible as he settled into a cave deep within the strange woods. His foot kicked the bones of the previous occupant; a family of bears. Normally animals fled in terror of him, but his one had tried to protect it's cubs. It's attack had been futile as it and it's family became Stratus' supper. His stomach grumbled. The flesh and souls of the animals was hardly satisfying, but would have to do. If he couldn't eat a good meal he would at least get a good night's rest. He moved to the cave entrance and released his slime. The green liquid shot from his hands in a steady stream. Within minuted he had covered it completely with the sticky substance. Moving closer he touched the wall of slime and channeled his energies into it. The slime was replaced with jagged crystal. Nodding his approval he retreated to the rear of the cave and lay down on the dirt floor. He didn't care about comfort, it was his safety that concerned him. Taking one last look at the crystal barricade he closed his eyes and tried to relax. It didn't take long for him to drift asleep.

Some time later

Stratus woke suddenly as he felt a spiritual signal flare and vanish. Although sleeping his senses stayed alert. Even when you think you're safe something can come at you unexpectedly. A hollow? Or at least it was a hollow. It was hard to tell exactly. The real question was what had destroyed it. Only slightly did he feel another presence. Still too far away to get a clear reading. He rolled over thinking to ignore it when his stomach growled. The bears were definitely not enough. Perhaps he should feed his curiosity as well as his belly. Stratus stood up and walked back to the covered entrance. He touched the cold surface and channeled his power once more. The wall shattered into small shards instantly. The fresh air blew against the hollow as he opened his senses to get a direction of what he had felt earlier. North. With a mighty leap he took to the air and landed gracefully on a tree branch. The wood groaned beneath his weight quickly he jumped to the next. He stayed there only a second before going to the next. Swiftly he moved through the trees towards the mystery signal and his new prey.

Acun was careful not to make tracks, but that apparently didn't matter because she felt someone coming for her... Something big... She pulled her sidearm, filled with crystal bullets, it would do damage to spiritual beings, hopefully it would do some damage to whatever this was...

She felt it get closer... And closer...

Then human nature kicked in, called panic, the bigness of whatever was coming to her was overwhelming, she ran, a full on sprint in the other direction, toward the light of the city. Dodging in and out of tree's, she tripped over her own feet several times, then she reached and unfortunate thing, the edge of the forest, whatever it was almost was upon her, and it was taking every ounce of disipline not to cower in a ball and hope to not be noticed. What seperated her from potential safety was a crop field as large as a 4 football fields. Next to that was a major highway, and train system.

"You'll never make it", some part of her concious said. But never the less, she tried, but tripped on a root before she made it 20 feet into the field. Now the being was upon her... she turned on her back, her sidearm drawn, ready for what was chasing her thinking... Hopefully death didn't hurt...

The gap between him and his soon to be target shrunk. Moving within the trees wasn't as quiet as he had thought. Each time he landed the whole tree shook in turn making all the branches shake. The woods seemed to hiss as he moved. All the creatures around were already in a stir from his presence. The added motion only seemed to further agitate them. Little by little the target was getting closer. He could feel it better now. Definitely not another hollow. Nor was it a shinigami. That left one delicious option left. Stratus grinned as he hopped the recent branch and landed. Humans made the tastiest of treats. He increased his pace as his appetite grew in anticipation. The rustling of the woods got louder.

Despite all this he was still shocked when the target suddenly began to move in the opposite direction.
"Damn it!" he grunted and tried to move faster. Had the human heard him? Or perhaps in his glee he had released some of his spiritual power? There was no way to tell now, and no point hiding if he was already found out. Dropping from the trees he landed on the ground. He could smell the human, he had just barely missed them. The smell still lingering in the air was so enticing. Stratus opened his senses and felt the human's movements. Like a bull he rushed headlong in that direction. His huge frame darted between the trees the darkness have little effect in hampering his movements. The smell was getting stronger as he moved. So close, oh so close. Slowly the forest started to thin. Straining his eyes he thought he spotted movement ahead. With a final surge he launched himself forward. His sudden acceleration shot him right into a tree. With ease his form tore the oak in half and sent shards of wood everywhere. Stratus landed on the edge of the forest amid the shower of pieces. It was then he spotted the human. "A bit small, but I've had worse." It looked like a kid, but like he said, he'd eaten smaller humans than that. He didn't even notice she was holding something. Without hesitation Stratus strode forward to claim his prize.

Acun was still as stone. Nothing could have moved her voluntarily. Her lip quivered, her heart raced, hyperventilated breathing, her eyes conveyed the terror of her situation, and cold sweat broke across her brow. The monster before her was nearly twice her height, armor plated its body, nothing would get through that, mabye a tank shell...

She would have simply died if the chattering of a firearm had shocked her out of it... Mabye not out of fear, but of the stupor. She had the opportunity to process what her mind had been looking at for what seemed like an eternity. A monster, it seemed, but with a hole in its chest, with tentacle arms spawned from its shoulders, an exposed ribcage with a the black void of its skin, a plate skirt made of bone... And with a hole in the chest, evident with the night sky shining through it on the other end. Her mind whirred like a computer processor, and went for the universal weakspot. She had completely missed with her first shot, but in a quarter of a second she fired again, and again, empting the entire cartridge of incindiary ammuntion at the eyesockets of the monster before her in less than a second.

She scrambled to her feet, it only took a moment, but perhaps too long, a knife was in her hand, and the desolate empty clicks of her pistol echo'ed after the ringing subsided from the shots. She dropped the gun, and held her crystaline knife in a reverse grip. Her left hand strayed to her pocket, hitting one button on her telephone, a button for emergencies only...

There was a popping noise accompanied by a flash as the girl discharged her weapon. Stratus heard the hiss as the shot missed it's mark. The wayward shot stopped the towering hollow in his tracks. This proved to be a mistake as the young girl took this time to correct her aim. Stratus had faced a human once that used a gun, the weapon was less effective than annoying. He resumed his advancement upon the girl. There was another pop and flash as she now sent a volley of shots at his eyes. The next shot caught him in the left eye. His vision was instantly destroyed as the shell pierced his optical nerve. Luckily this caused him to shut both eyes and the other shots hit off his eyelid as he jerked his head back from pain. The remainder of the shells hit his mask. A couple of the shots ricocheted off his face. Screaming Stratus opened his good eye and locked on the corpse in the making. His left hand held his wounded face as his right hand flexed it's claws. With a snarl he pointed towards the girl while expelling his slime. A stream of green flew and hit to the left of her position. Having only one eye did effect him. Not only that his anger at being hurt was preventing him from taking the time to aim properly. Undaunted he fired another shot of slime. This time it was a thin sheet of the sticky substance. Like a net the slime expanded as it flew at the scrambling girl. When he caught her he would make sure she died screaming. He was tempted to just launch a cero and incinerate the bitch, but his throbbing eye demanded vengeance. Already a trickle of blood ooze from the ruptured orb.

Acun reacted violently to being shot at... The slime was no exception, things slowed down, and her weight shifted lower, followed by a forward roll, she came back up to her feet, preparing to make a charge for glory, and make her life last as long as possible versus the thing that she was fighting.

That was the plan. Until she got floored by the second shot of slime. It covered her in patches, but the stuff stuck her to the dirt good and tight, she managed to keep her left hand free, as the knife had cut free upon impact. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be enough, her arm was still immoblized by the slime. She considered suicide just then... Perhaps sparing her from the painful death that was to come... She could cut her wrist and bleed out in seconds...

Seconds she didn't have, Acun didn't frantically try to cut free, she did what she did best, took aim, and fired... Her knife at the remaining eye of that damn monster... It wouldn' live to see her die if she could help it...

His second shot success put a sneer on Stratus's face. Like a fly in a web the girl struggled to escape as the sticky slime hit. She wasn't going anywhere now. Snickering he once more began his approach once more. This wasn't going to end well for the waif. Each step he had visions of how he'd make her scream for death. His eye was throbbing violently. Whatever kind of ammo that girl had used hadn't been the kind he'd confronted in the past. He would have to be wary of all weapons should others use it too. Snorting in disgust he got ready to exact his revenge when the girl had the balls to throw her weapon at him. He didn't expect such a maneuver, but he was more than able to deal with it. His left hand still clutching his wounded eye his right hand snapped forward and backhanded the crystalline blade. The weapon was knocked away into the dark field. Stratus looked at the frail human then looked at the back of his hand. There was a cut in his armored claw in the spot where he had hit the blade. Suddenly the tall hollow began to laugh. His whole body trembled as the demonic laugh rose from his body. For a moment he forgot about the pain in his eye. Finally the laughter stopped and he looked at the girl. Even faced with death the child didn't know when to quit.
"You suffering will be legendary, even in hell." he growled. Slime burst from his right hand and it hardened with a bit of his spiritual power. The hollow now wielded his own crystal weapon. A five foot blade of jagged emerald glimmered in the faint light. Stratus rushed forward at the girl bringing the weapon down in a downward swing.

Tariasha was on his night patrol around the forest; it wasn't his favorite place to patrol, but someone had to do it. The night was silent, one could hear the leaves rustle across the floor of the forest; yet no animals were present. Tariasha had not noticed it at first, but he normally heard the sounds made by owls, or other nocturnal creatures around the forest. There was a monstrous weight of reiatsu around the forest, it almost seemed to come out of no-where. It was something that he was expecting to happen tonight, another hollow with another soul; that's what he thought as he traveled through the forest, this time with a little more haste than before.

As he started to get near to the whereabouts of the hollow, he could make out another being, this one was human; yet no ordinary human, its power was stronger than a humans (who virtually had none) this was possibly what the hollow was concerned with, a much 'tastier' (to put in the hollow's terms) meal. He opened up to the forest clearing, where he could make out a large hollow, which had a small girl trapped, could that be the superhuman?.

'May the arrows of my soul, be guided by my will, to reach their true destination, Hado 20 Arashi-Tomoshibi' he conjured up four orbs, each he knew with a large explosive power. Tariasha shot off the orbs towards the hollow, to break its run first, landing each one either just in front of the hollow or to the sides of it,only letting one go to directly hit the hollow, but aimed at it legs. Letting the dirt act as a camouflage for Tariasha's incoming attack; Tariasha moved to collide with the hollow, drawing his zanpakuto out he slashed for the hollow.

Acun was paralyzed with fear, she knew she was going to die, how could it be avoided, she would die as a plaything for this monster's appetite, a shadow of memory not even to be remembered by her comrades. Her body would be dumped into the Marriana trench, never to be found by today's society. The words, WAIT, that bastard was sentient! It knew what it was doing must be wrong! It was just pure evil...

Acun certainly want to die that damned abomination of a sentient being, she mustered every ounce of spiritual energy into her right hand, crystal started to form in the shape of a disk, and with each passing moment width and thickness were added. A shield of sorts.

A flash of light, several distracted her for a moment, oh a precious moment too, but reinforcements had arrived, but there was nothing that they could do would stop the incredibly large sword, jagged and menacing, from doing what it was made to do.

Acun raised her shield, and the blade hit it with such a thundering applause, the first inch released the crystialine flames, but the rest just broke as you might see glass, completely shattered. And the blade came down, perhaps dampened, but not at all stopped.

The blade had cut through to the bone on Acun's left arm, and had imapcted itself on Acun's sternum, the blade also made a cut all the way from her brow to the cheek, the arm had managed to protect that.

Acun screamed, one of terror, one of fear, and one of pain, she was still trapped in the slime, incredibly wounded, nearly out of crystal she could summon, and the monsters blade was resting on her head. It finally broke any semblance of self control, she started sobbing, uncontrollable, tears flowed from her face... The her fate was not in her own hands... It was in the new combatant;s and the monster's hands...

OOC: Sorry Jim, you were too late with your attack, blame Acun

His charge brought him to the girl within seconds and his weapon came barreling down. It was then he noticed the girl still hadn't quite given up. Growing from here hands had sprang more of her crystal. Stratus didn't noticed the luminous substance until he had already brought down his swing. When the two gemstones met there was an explosion. Flames burst forth at the hollow. The fired licked at his exposed flesh while the rest ate at his armor. It was thanks to the latter that he was mostly unharmed. He hadn't expected such a thing from the young girl. The technique was quiet similar to his own power. While the damage was minimal the sudden flash of flames and heat had robbed him of his vision. Still the girl's cries of pain reached his ears despite his blurred vision. That small victory wouldn't last as there were now others to join the fray. There were sounds of voices. He could feel the spiritual signals surround him and the wounded girl.

The first one to strike would be shinigami. There were explosion on either side of Stratus. Dirt and rocks flew up and showered down upon him. Smoke surrounded him. Such a smokescreen was wasted on the already blinded hollow. He could only stand there as the last of the orbs collided with him knocking him over. If he had seen it coming he would have braced for impact or at least avoided it. Instead Stratus took the full force of the sphere's explosion. The explosions scattered his concentration, but he could just barely feel the stronger spiritual signal approach him. Unable to see what was going on, he could only jump away. Furiously he rubbed his good eye. All he could see is a multicolored blur every where he looked. He growled in frustration as he struggled to see the tendrils that made up his armor started to rattle.

OOC: Nevermind, it was a nice gesture

Tariasha was pleased that he managed to land a hit on the hollow, although coming in with his zanpakuto was way too slow, the hollow had already moved out of the way with amazing speed, something that Tariasha knew he could not match. He knew that the dirt would have some sort of slowing effect as the Hollow had not been able to move out of the way of his kidou.

He turned to where the hollow was, it had moved quite a distance; the other spiritual presences had made sure of that as well as the incoming attack shown by Tariasha, but these presences could not be shinigami, nor the hollow reiatsu, which meant it was time for him to leave, quickly. Forgetting that the hollow was there he tried to run, he knew he could not out run the hollow but hopefully it was still dazed .Tariasha bounded to the tree line, hoping the hollow had not enough time to recover; if this hollow had recovered enough Tariasha knew that it could be the end of him. The tree line was in effect safety, he knew that the other presences may not be able to catch up to him, as he was hidden physically and was able to get a head start on running away. The observation would begin as soon as he hit the tree line, his zanpakuto at the ready, and a Hado ready to be fired off at the slightest intimidating motion. The hollow had felt them way before Tariasha did, with the speed of the hollow, and the endurance show by taking a full hit with barely any marks showed that he was no match for the already wounded hollow, although he had at least prevented it from doing much more damage to the girl.

Acun's struggled still, her arm nearly cut in half, her head bleeding profusely, her vision blurred and blackened as she struggled against the slime. She felt rough hands take her by the shoulders and pull her out, dropping her on the ground after they did, knocking her unconcious.

--

An officer rode in his jeep, the grav-wheels keeping it hovering of the ground, it sped toward the signal, an ancient device, in an antiquitated part of the country. 2 other APC followed behind, but it was his advance team that would get there first. His officers cap held on his bald head, a synth leather jacket flapped in the wind behind him. A large revolver was in his hand, specialty ammunition was loaded, crystaline, incindiary. His whole taskforce was issued that ammunition.

They sped to the scene, and they hopped out of the jeep, which stopped automatically. The men fanned out, and held their fire, their movement silent as they approached the battleground. The girl was the extraction target, he was sure, as a man in black robes or a monster seemed like improbable targets.

He shouted "FIRE AT WILL" and correctly, all of his men fired at the monster, not targeting any place in particular, but trying to kill it, or drive it off. His squad of 4 ignored the man in robes. THe officer himself picked the girl out of the green shit she was stuck in, simply pulling her out of it, and dropping her. He cracked his knuckles, and a purple energy flickered around him. He was surely ready to take this monster if it came at his squad...

While Stratus waited for the attack that from the shinigami. the human force made their assault. Needless to say the was surprised as he was peppered with shot from their artillery. His body was showed by the curious bullets that the girl had used earlier. Crystals that burned. As the first wave of the shells struck he tried to cover his face as they landed. Quickly he turned his body so that he was standing sideways making himself a narrow target. Still that didn't help as the rapid firing shots still slammed into him. Some of the shells bounced off his armor while the rest struck him on the legs and exploded. They were weak, much weaker than him. One or two shots wouldn't be a problem, but the hailstorm of bullets was enough to cause even a strong hollow some pain. The thought of running away entered his mind, but with a snarl he dismissed it. He wasn't about to run from the damn humans. Being blinded did limit his options. Little by little the bone on his armored hide began to chip under the relentless fire. Stratus dared not use his slime as the fire would consume him completely as soon as it touched. It would be suicide. He grunted as shot ricocheted off his arm and burst against his neck. If he could see things would be different.

Unwilling to retreat and unable to attack he tried to come up with a plan. His armor rattled. It would seem that they were anxious to attack as well. What good would they do if he can't see? It was then he had a thought. The tendrils didn't see and yet they'd helped him before. In a way the seemed to work on with his sense of detecting spiritual power. Perhaps they wouldn't be so useless after all. From all the shot it wasn't hard to tell what direction the humans had come from. Stratus now opened his sense zone in on their proper position. As soon as he locked in he jumped into the air. In seconds he landed within five feet of the human squad. His feet dug into the ground from the impact sending a little tremor to those close to him.
"Sick em." the blinded hollow said as the tendrils came unfurled. The first of the tendrils sprung forth and slashed through a soldier. It didn't take much for the sharp edge to slice through his armor and out the other side. The man's stomach was ripped open by the horizontal cut. Blood gushed forth and the man looked down realizing he was dead. Before he even hit the ground another tendril had impaled the soldier beside him and then whipped the startled man back and forth vigorously like a dog with a chew toy. Yet another tendril went straight up and then came down atop a soldier's head. Rather than cut the man it drove his skull into his rib cage while breaking his legs. In a matter of seconds the tendrils had killed a soldier each before a blink of an eye. Stratus was pleased. True he couldn't see it, but he could smell the blood in the air. If only some of them would scream would things truly be perfect.

Tariasha watched silently as the as the jeep pulled through into the forest; they grabbed the girl and placed her ..... dropped her on the ground. The man who was their leader shouted the command to open fire, but not at him, at the hollow; of course why shoot a human-like spirit when you could shoot a monster that is even more threatening. Tariasha waited as the hollow had figured out its next move; it was blinded, had multiple enemies and was being shot at from many different gun. Nevertheless, it had already figured out its move as it jumped into the air. The hollow landed in front of the squad, unless they were experts in hand to hand or had any other weapons specialized for melee... they were going to die. Tariasha silently observed as the men were ripped to shreds, violently killed and not a singular piece of respect for them. It was time to act.

'Hado number 4 - BYAKURAI!' he aimed his fingers at the hollow who was pre-occupied with the humans, it had a very good chance of hitting the hollow, but it was nothing too strong, not strong enough to leave a mark, but strong enough to divert its attention. Straight after he had fired off his shot Tariasha bounded in towards the hollow, aiming for the tentacles that had appeared from the hollow; this was the moment, he would have to use all the techniques shown to him from other shinigami, for this was no ordinary hollow; and many humans had already been affected. His zanpakuto was coming in a diagonal shape for the swing, aimed at one of the protruding tentacles.

The officer didn't bat an eyelash at two of his men getting killed by that monster. He smiled. It finally had moved closer, what he was hoping for. The purple haze that had surrounded now focused at his fist, a blindingly whitish purple light from reshi was surrounding his hand. He took a few steps at strolling speed, unleashing the 50. Caliber that rest in his revolver, one at a time, one for each of his six steps, Then he punched the monster, the force of a cero being behind the punch, If it hit, certainly the monster would run, and mabye it would die.

A beam of light shot out at the officer, and he quickly said, "Kill that thing!", his men would get the point, and shoot at the lazer shooter on who was shooting at their Colonel. They pointed their assault rifles, and fired a short burst above its head, soon to be followed with nearly 60 lethal incindiary rounds.

--

Acun began to wake, a blurred eyesight and bloodloss made her abit weak, but felt "ok" otherwise. She began to scoot toward the jeep, which was parked mere feet from where she had been dropped. She managed to reach up with her good arm and grab a first aid kit from the side, and used the supplies, a stick, and the actual bag that the first aid had come from, to form a sling for her arm, after bandaging it up. The cut on her face was bleeding into her eye, and but it wasn't life threatening... at least, she thought... Acun found some amount of strength, and crawled into the passenger side of the Jeep, she was looking for a weapon, mabye a rocket of some sort. She didn't find the rocket, but she found the Jeep's mounted railgun, loaded with conventional rounds. She tried to conjure some sort of crystal over the tip of the bullet, and managed to cover about half of the round. She would have to figure out how to fire it though... As she couldn't seem to find the trigger...

The symphony of death went on around Stratus as the tentacles went to work. The initial surprise of his attack had worn off, and the men tried to return fire. All of them were within range of his tendrils as the wove and cut through the men. Those that not cut were instead battered by the body of the tentacle as they wiggled about. Still blind Stratus relied on his sense to feel as each human's life was extinguished. One soldier began firing as the man next to him was cut down. Rather than aiming at Stratus he opened fire on the tendril. The burning shots sparked against the armored portion. A few of his shots hit the body and the tentacle tensed. The end was better protected than the rest of it. The man brightened as he had found out it's weakness. At this point he started to fire more shots where there was no armor.

"Aim for the AAHHHHHHHHHH!" Just when he was going to share the information with the rest of the group, another tendril has snake it's way over to him and struck. With a mighty swipe the blade had tore through both of his legs just above the kneecaps. The man's message was lost amid his scream of horror and pain. His blood arched into the air dying the bits of the field crimson. Even if he had gotten the words out they would have been missed as the others had their hands full. The tendrils moved through the group killing and retreating almost effortlessly. People were to busy trying to stay alive to listen. The now legless man clawed at the ground as his stubs wiggled fruitlessly. He lost way to much blood and was already in shock. Even with immediate medical attention he wouldn’t survive too much longer.

With all the chaos going on around him Stratus did his best to keep aware of his surroundings. The tentacles were on full attack all he could do was sit and ‘watch’. More so he kept himself aware of the huge signal the sat within the group. It wasn’t the shinigami to be sure, but he was till wary of it. Still with all the activity going on he nearly missed as it suddenly began to move towards him. While he could sense the presence there was no way for him to see what that person was doing. He found out soon enough as the first of the shells from his gun slammed into his unprotected hide. The stopping power of his weapon was greater than the fast firing guns that the rest of the unit carried. When you added that special ammo, you got a very effective combo. As the second shot fired Stratus raised his arms to protect himself. Rather than hit his body the shot collided with his arm. The next two shots glanced of the his armored claws that he held near his face. Stratus then he noticed the power signal was getting closer. It would seem the tendrils were to busy to protect the main body. There was no way he could stop whatever was coming. With a growl he did the only thing he could as the next shells hit and the person drew ever closer; he jumped backwards. Stratus wasn’t stupid. As much power as the person was putting out, we wasn’t going to let them touch him. Unfortunately his leap to safety was hampered by the extended tentacles. As he left the ground he could hear the crackle of energy and the sudden heat as something coming very close hitting his back. Having the tendrils moving as he made his move made the jump less than graceful. The added weight made him flip rather than rise up and backward. While in mid-air the tendrils retracted which didn’t help matters. Stratus was now flipping end over end until he came crashing down into the ground head first. With his own weight and momentum it was more than enough to bury him up to his shoulders. If Stratus had his sight he would only see darkness. Slightly stunned he tried placed his hand down and pulled himself fee.
“Damn it.” he said rubbing his eyes. To his surprise the vision had returned to his right eye. At the same time the pain in his left eye had faded.

Acun stumbled to find the trigger, a button, anything that would operate the gun. Unconciousness was pulling at her, her vision a tiny cone as the blackness of unconcioiusness pressed in from all sides. A red button, covered with a safety switch. Her fingers fumbled for the switch, trying to get anything to work. In her frustration, after hitting everything at least once, she banged her fist against it... And a resounding boom sounded throughout the Sanagu City.

Acun passed out, the shot was directed at the hollow, but the minimal amount of crystal on the tip would make the shot nonlethal, but it would be packed full of kinetic energy, perhaps throwing the hollow back a 100 feet it if hit. If it hit the officer, who was calmly reloading his revolver, preparing to resume his bout with the beast.

((Won't you run away? I have no interest in continuing the thread...))

OOC: A pound of flesh. Nothing more nothing less. No flesh, no bone, just a pound of flesh.

Having his eyes damaged had hurt as well as hampered his fighting up to this point. With his vision now returning he was ready to meet this battle with a renewed vigor.
Even as he thought this a hail of bullets came at him. It didn't take long for the remaining soldiers to set their sights on him and start firing again. Reflex kicked in and he covered himself. Mainly he covered his eyes he wasn't too keen on being blinded again. Still being defensive wasn't his style. With such a wide spray pf shots his arm was of little use. There was till flesh to be hit and the shells bit at him everywhere. The same flaming shots the blasted girl had used. There was a loud bang and Stratus risked looking from his guard to see what had caused the noise. It would seem this was a wise decision. Upon looking he saw the large projectile coming right at him. Rather than move he raised his arms in defense and grabbed it. He was tried of running, it was time to show these pathetic humans who was boss. His clawed hands clapped together, he had missed the shell entirely. Strangely enough the bolt had hit him dead center in the chest. Fortunately Stratus already had a hole there. Since his skin was dark black it was easy to miss the void in the middle. Without trying the young girl had hit the bulls-eye. The shell entered,but was unable to pass through. It's momentum as it wedged itself in his chest and knocked him off his feet. Shock was on the hollow face as he was easily pushed away and to the ground. The short trip ended with Stratus rolling to a stop. He stood up relatively unharmed. Dirtied, but unharmed. But there was something different he now had the undetonated shell in his chest.

Bewildered Stratus tried to pull the object free of the small cavity. It wouldn't budge. His fingers dug into the round and he tried to pull again. Still nothing. As he yanked he felt a strange energy coming from the shell. Energy? Something familiar about the energy. It was then that the human resumed firing on him. The short trip had taken him only a couple of feet out of their range. He tried to shield himself as he pulled at the object in his chest. As the crystallized ammo ignited against his guarding arm he realized where he had felt that energy. The weapons the humans were using had the same feel to them. Was this shell somehow like those? Now he was worried. The small arms were no trouble, but one this big might be more than he can handle. Especially when he considered it going of inside him no less. He had a sudden flashback to his encounter with a shinigami that had stabbed him with her flaming sword. The slime in his body had nearly burned him up alive. Stratus was definitely not looking for a repeat performance. He tried his best to cover his face and chest with his free hand while he frantically tugged at the shell. Still no effect.
"Don't think I won't forget this." he growled as he released his hand on the bullet and leaped away. Up and up he sailed quickly putting distance between himself and the troops. "Damned humans." he grunted. Below him the woods stretched. He would need to hide and try to get the blasted thing out of him. From his hands oozed out green slime. With only a bit of energy it hardened encasing the round. Stratus would have to be careful when he landed. A sharp impact might set it off. He landed with ease the branches of the trees slapping his face as he came down. The hollow stayed down in a crouch after landing and opened his senses. No one was nearby. As he cursed his bad luck he wondered how he was going to take the weapon out of himself without setting it off. No idea came to him after many moments of thinking. With a scream of frustration he reached out with his spiritual power and tore at the air. Instead of grabbing nothing his hands pasted into the empty space and tore it like fabric. Holding on fiercely he pulled and made the tear bigger until he could walk into it. There was no choice but to try talk to Moledale. As he stepped through the jagged portal he could already hear the Rei and Roun laughing.