Snekman II: The snekaning

"And that'd be it. Of course you wouldn't make anything like this easy. You know, of course, that letting him kill me is a disruption of the balance?"

Yaksha spoke to no one whatsoever, looking up at the sky as he saw the Troll arriving. The creature was enormous, covered in such thick slabs of muscle that it was hideous to behold. And yet it was by no stretch of the imagination slow; a creature that size, one would think, would have a damn hard time maneuvering. But it had a lightness on its feet that was almost startling to watch. Yaksha only needed a few heartbeats to determine, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this creature was far too powerful for him to challenge.

Could he simply open a portal to Hueco Mundo and leave? Probably so, but that would leave the Hound alive, and that would mean that Canaan would be better armed against him. Yaksha had no interest in leaving himself wide open like that; his plans necessitated some degree of stealth. He could try to send the Troll to Hueco Mundo, but a portal that size would take time to finish creating.

His only hope was to try and down this opponent; to buy himself as long as he could, and hope that the beast would be felled eventually. To do it himself was absolute madness.

Then again, hollows were renowned for being mad, weren't they?

He braced himself, tail coiling beneath himself, his entire body trembling with concern as he watched the beast approaching. Or maybe it was laughter; it seemed after two or three seconds, he could be heard chuckling, ever so slightly. There was a thick, almost garbled quality to it, as faint flickers of red light could be seen between his teeth. The Troll stopped for just a couple of seconds, assessing this new threat...as if trying to determine whether he should charge, or jump, or find a projectile to toss.

Finally, he seemed to settle on the latter; one hand reached down, grabbing a chunk of earth, and yanking it out with the same careless ease one would use to tear cardboard apart. And then it flung the thing right at Yaksha's head. The hollow hardly even seemed to notice, too busy on charging the cero.

At the last moment, there was a dazzling, blinding beam of light, that filled the air, leaving visibility next to nill. And there was enormous clouds of dust and dirt filling the area where Yaksha had been. There was no sound, no sign whatsoever that he was still alive.

After approximately a minute, the dust cleared, to reveal...a hole. A perfectly circular hole, about ten feet deep, not far from Yaksha. And there wasn't even a splatter of blood from Yaksha's remains; the only sign that he had ever been there was his tail, smashed to a perfect pulp.

Another tectonic disruption. The ground lurched, and it sounded like there had been a grenade going off underground. More faint plays of red light, and then there were fissures all throughout the ground. From one, Yaksha's voice drifted up, faintly amused, weirdly modulated.

"Any good at Whack-a-Mole?"