A Fiendish Hunger (Satoshi)

Satoshi Ishikawa was crouched high in the branches of some tree in the menos forest. His dark fur combined with the shadow cast upon the branch he stood on rendered him all but invisible. There were good and bad things about hunting in the menos forest. The good thing was that it was full of prey; food was never scarce. The bad thing was that many of the denizens of the forest viewed you as food too.

Anyway, Satoshi was watching from the branch he sat upon for a possible option, while constantly being alert for danger. He was actually about to pounce upon an insect like Hollow when a Gillian came onto the scene and devoured the insect Hollow effortlessly. What was interesting about the Gillian was that its mask was not the standard cookie-cutter mask of most Gillians. That meant it was at least conscious of its own existence. That meant, that although it would be an incredibly tough opponent, bringing it down would result in great reward.

Its back was turned to him now; it was the best opportunity he was going to get. Satoshi jumped towards the Gillian's back, landing on its massive back and digging in with his four back claws to hold himself there. The Gillian's skin was tough; much tougher than any other skin that Satoshi had ever dug his claws into. This would be tough. He made two slashes with his other two claws and began attempting to scythe into the Gillian's back with his impressive fangs.

Dammit, Satoshi's claws dug in deeper as the Menos's skin convulsed beneath him like an earthquake. He was going to be shaken loose at this rate. When the Menos started to fall backwards, however, Satoshi decided that that was probably a good thing, and bailed. He landed on all six of his feet, and darted out from under the Menos just in time before it hit the ground and sent several Ceros rocketing into the ceiling, sending chunks of stone raining down upon the two of them.

Satoshi flung himself away from the falling chunks of ceiling, occasionally having to bat them away with his tentacles as he sought higher ground amongst the branches of the forest again. Here he paused for breath, as the rocks ceased their falling. The Menos's screaming was indicative of its anger, and pain, obviously. There was no backing out now. I'll give you something to scream about... Satoshi's two tentacles looped over him and began firing Hiendan fireballs directly at the Menos lying on the ground.

When they hit, they would explode, and their flames would stick to whatever surface they touched, including flesh. The flames were also very difficult to put out; only an extinguisher with reiatsu in it could do that.

Satoshi's eyes widened in disbelief as the Menos used its spiritual power to take away the brunt of his Hiendan attacks. They widened in fear as it began charging a Cero; Satoshi saw one option, and only one. Given his height, he would obviously have to go down to stand even a chance of surviving; he did not have the ability to travel quickly along the tree branches. But he also wanted to prevent himself from being blown away regardless, even if he was on solid ground.

That left only one option as to where in the nearest vicinity he should go in order to avoid the Cero, the one place close by where the Cero wouldn't hit. Satoshi leaped down, falling faster and faster as gravity took him. No, not falling. Diving, and aiming for the Menos's body; the one place it wouldn't shoot its Cero. Satoshi tried to dig in with his six claws in order to latch himself onto its body again, but he was going too fast.

His claws were wrenched from the flesh as easily as he sunk them in, and he tumbled the rest of the way to the ground; bruised, but at least not disintegrated by a Cero. Now he had to avoid the Menos's feet - getting smashed was hardly on his to-do list. Satoshi darted between the feet and disappeared into the forest, stopping behind a tree to catch his breath. He wondered if the Menos would be inclined to follow him. Only time would tell.

This was a dangerous game. That Menos was more than Satoshi could take, and every minute he spent tangling with it weakened him, which made him all the more vulnerable to the other denizens of the forest.

Satoshi's breath came raggedly as he ran through the Menos forest, dodging past trees and Hollows alike as he attempted to lose his pursuer. Luckily, his spiritual pressure was largely insignificant compared to the Menos's, and so the other Hollows pretty much just left him alone as he ran. Satoshi was about to have a more pressing concern, however.

The Menos's Cero had brought down the ceiling, and was bringing large chunks of rock down at the unfortunates on the ground. While a Menos could certainly take hits like that, Satoshi was more fragile. Wood splinters and dust flew into the air as the first chunks of rock hit the dry ground and trees. Satoshi flexed his tentacles and sent Hiendan spiraling up into the air, turning as many of the chunks of rock as he could into flaming meteorites.

The intent, of course, was to make it easier for him to sense the falling debris and avoid. It also had the added benefit of making his reiatsu appear to have multiple sources, which he hoped would help him escape the Menos. Finally, it was possible the flaming rocks would do damage to the Menos if they hit. Anyway, Satoshi's constant barrage of fireballs appeared to be working- there were just a few hundred yards to go before he would break free of the area of effect of the rockfall.

There was no escape, at least not from this Gillian's cage-like grasp. Satoshi did the only thing he could do; he began causing as much mayhem as he possibly could, biting, clawing, shooting Hiendan from his tentacles and mouth alike. Maybe the Gillian would feel enough pain to let go. Then, Satoshi had a burst of inspiration- he could do that, but also focus on a specific area. Immediately he began to claw/dig through the palm that was the "floor," as well as fire Hiendan at it to make his work easier.

His goal was to dig a hole through the palm so as to escape, and at the same time cause the Gillian as much pain as possible. So far as Satoshi could see, it was his only hope.