AfriCatastrophe: Earthgrip-Sushai

A roar echoed through the air around what had once been Vastime's capital, and the ground shook with footsteps far larger than any these lands had seen before. Hollows had begun to crawl from the sinkhole that had been created in Africa, but none were so large as this one. Other Hollows fled from his presence, and anything which stood in his way was crushed underfoot or swept aside like it was nothing more than paper.

Other, lesser Hollows were on the hunt, using the carnage and chaos of this grand monster to their advantage. But him? He simply strode forward. Purposeful, absolute in every step he took.

He was the supreme creature among all the Hollows that had crawled from this pit, and his sheer presence was enough to kill people who were unable to escape. He would stop for no one.

Naturally things always happened, the sink hole was a large enough problem to deal with but this? Now this was just a problem. These insensitive hollows had no idea how problematic mass death was with the delicate balance of souls, did they? Admittedly she'd have preferred if there were more than just the group of unseated shinigami she brought along, well besides the 20th Seat but she was neither here nor there with that guy. Where were her shinigami though? Trying to handle the hollows and save individuals that were caught in the crossfire while she turned her eyes up at the colossal beast.

He was like a mountain of flesh. She had never seen a hollow this large but everything could be cleaved with enough effort, what good was she as Murasaki's vice-captain if she couldn't handle this while she oversaw the situation and took command of any further operations that would need to be taken if it got out of hand here? So Erika sighed a little bit, she had been trying to avoid using her katanakaji lately and now she had to do it against this creature.

"Damn..."

She complained to herself as she drew out her first sword. A blade that appeared completely mundane except for the fact that smoke was wisping from its length. Erika leapt towards him with shunpo, aiming to get get to about his torso with a couple of steps before going for an attack.

"Hadō #78. Zangerin!"

Through using it through the conjured sword, she released the energy as a sweeping arc to try and cut into his underbelly but with the benefit of being enhanced by her sword that had compressed the intense heat of a Haien within the blade. Plain and simple, the sword was designed to incinerate everything it cut without a trace and that same heat had been attached to her zangerin.

Alastair had not expected to be back in Vastime so soon, after everything that was still going down within the Duvalier group, but he was also not the type to refuse the call when it came up. His section knew what they signed up for too, they were the tip of the spear right there alongside him. That was no different today, as Mr Rooks had already headed off to aid in dealing with the aerial threat, and Ms Hellian was already working to establish a corridor down which they could more efficiently evacuate the remaining civilian population. He had every faith in them to do their job well, now he would have to do the same as he faced down this behemoth of destruction.

"We need to draw it away from the population centres. Ideally, we would draw it out into the desert and cut loose, but we may have to improvise."

His comment was directed to the other Vandenreich soldier at his side, Liltotto Lamperd, though there would not be much time for conversation. If they spent too much time waiting, the Hollow would have levelled the whole downtown area.

Stepping upwards on platforms of reishi, seeking to gain some elevation, Alastair summoned Falke to his hand with a flick of his wrist. Knocking an arrow of orange light, he tracked the creature and waited to see how effectively Erika's opening strike went. Rusty eyes tracked the Shinigami as she struck first at the beast, observing perhaps how well she handled herself, though it did seem like such a monstrosity would give even the Vice-Captain of the First Division some trouble.

Ah, how unusual. Her duties were usually nothing terribly extreme, but to hear the news that an entire capital had suddenly fallen into the Earth was pretty shocking, even for someone as long lived as she. To suddenly be pinged reports that said hole had a ton of hollows crawling out of it? Definitely added to her shock, but did nothing to wane her confidence in their forces to be able to handle it. Faced with a towering beast that made her want to gag merely smelling it? Her expression remained neutral, but her intents said bring it on - she wasn't letting some giant nasty hollow psyche her out. If she did that, then the thing would've long won before she even jammed an arrow down it's throat.

She was witnessing the scene with Alastair, carefully watching the Vice-Captain's attacks on it. She could already tell the thing was tough, but how tough was the real decider in how she was going to tackle it. It was either they kill the thing or it goes about causing trouble for who knows how long, the best option obvious.

"Aye-yay, Capt'n." She would give such simple acknowledgements before immediately taking herself into the air, pushing with all she could with each step to gain altitude as quickly as possible, immediately scouting safe routes for the giant brute to be led through to cause the least harm.

Whatever the hell this is, all of you better make it out in one piece, she'd silently wish to the rest of the Vandenreich operatives present. There was confidence they'd be fine, but she still felt the pull of worry as she worked, keeping an eye on the scene near her as she'd dot the beginnings of a path with fired arrows and reishi chains connecting each point to be visible even from the heights.

The gaze of the tyrant seemed to shift slowly, in spite of the irritation of a wound. His eyes moved downward toward the cut that had scorched through his hardened flesh, but he made no sound of pain. Instead, he simply stopped in his forward walk, and with speeds that seemed at odds with his hulking figure, swiped at the shinigami with one of his massive claws, easily enough to crush most people under nothing but its weight.

For now, though, this shinigami was little more than an annoyance. Compared to other creatures, it was hardly even worth his notice, and this wound was just one more to be collected, to scar over and serve as a sign of his dominion. But his eyes stayed firmly on the tiny creature, and no sooner had his clawing motion finished than he whipped his tail toward her. A relatively slow motion, compared to some creatures, but a typical human would certainly have no chance of avoiding something of such size barreling toward them, mowing through buildings as if they were nothing more than paper.

"Hmmph."

It barely had any effect or rather the wound was too small to matter in any decent fashion. She'd need a different tact but first there was the hulking behemoth's swipe which she made her way about by leaping with shunpo to stand on the air above the giant hand before she started to free fall towards the group and look at his tail.

Rather than run away from this one she aimed herself to flip midair, do a couple of flickers with her shunpo to make an acrobatic performance of landing safely. On its tail of course while it finished its attack and lose a bit of its momentum. It was her bridge now. A flash of gold hair and black robes sprinting over the tail's length with the intention to make her way up this titan's back. She'd need to aim for the weak and vulnerable spots if she wanted to take it down after all. The face was a good start.

It'd be really convenient if these Vandenreich bystanders did anything other than watch her though. They were probably in despair at the reality of the situation, they weren't strong enough to do anything here besides interfere and make things more difficult.

Ugly thing didn't even flinch at that strike. She focused entirely on the opportunity granted by the beast going for the smaller target, already bringing herself into a better position for her next move, with a motion of a hand a bright sword appeared in her grasp as she maintained her height on the creature. She didn't have any big moves or strength that could pierce it in one stroke, so going off of any weak spots was her focus, her sword's shape bubbling with an increase of acidic energy. Propelling herself with a hard kick and the height of her speed, she'd aim towards the next best place to strike if the underbelly was too tough - the eyes. If they couldn't cut it open or stop it's legs, at the very least impairing it's sight would be effective.

Her focus was right on her target, a two-handed strike seeking to thrust the sword directly into the beast's eye, glowing intensely with built up energy. The moment the tip of her blade enhanced by the speed she took sunk into her target, a burst of acidic energy would rush into the break, seeking to penetrate into her enemy's eye and cause as much internal damage as possible. Any acidic touch didn't bother her as she'd plant her feet upon the surface she reached. If the initial strike didn't do enough damage, she would go on to continuously stab and twist at the opening with smaller bursts of acid from her blade unless stopped. She wouldn't give this thing even a moment to regenerate if it was capable of such, acid continuing to eat at whatever defenses as it was laid.

If killing this thing was an attrition war, she would fight it.

The marauding creature absorbed most of that initial blow without so much as batting an eye, though that was hardly surprising given its tremendous size. Having taken the time to gain elevation, at least, had given Alastair the chance to observe his surroundings and move into a position where he might be able to carry out his own orders. It certainly seemed like his allies were more intent on simply bringing the beast down, though, so he would have to do what he could to aid them in that endeavour too.

Tracking his aim upwards as the giant hollow flailed at Erika, Alastair loosed his first arrow at the side of the head. He was not trying to be so precise as to strike the monster in the eye of something particularly vulnerable though, as he instead began to barrage the general region around his initial arrow with shot after shot in swift succession. Each one might lack the punch that a hefty blow from the other close-range attacks would bring, but his intent was to pepper them with more minor blows until it took notice.

He continued to fire as he continued to climb, ascending above the surrounding buildings until he could look his foe in the eyes. Or, rather, singular eye, as it would have to turn to face him to stare him down in turn. A challenge to the monster, an invitation to try to strike down the man that would look at all the destruction that had been wrought with such disgust plenty visible behind those burning eyes.

Pain. That was something Earthgrip-Sushai knew well, from countless battles with lesser creatures. It wasn't something he was unfamiliar with, and it only gave him a firmer understanding that these foes were worth proper attention. One of them had moved to his back, but that was something he would need to wait a moment to address. One colossal arm moved upward, a immense clawed fingers opening as his tremendous hand moved to simply crush the Quincy on his face like an insect. The acid she had poured into him seemed to hardly bother him at all--indeed, it seemed as if it was simply seeping into him like water into dirt, rather than actually wounding him at all.

But the man in front of him, who deigned to properly challenge him, was worth far more notice. If a face such as his could smile, the tyrant would surely be wearing such an expression. His mouth opened with a mighty roar, and energy began to course through his body, lighting up his back with burning blue light. It would likely get that other one off him, as well.

Then, all at once, he simply spat the beam toward the quincy in front of him, the air turning scorching hot the moment it made contact. No matter how far such a cero flew, it would be catastrophic for whatever it impacted.

Every thrust of her sword became increasingly irate, not seeing even a speck of damage form from her constant stabbing. It felt like she was trying to jam a stick into a hunk of lead, and she definitely didn't have much strength to reinforce her strikes. This was pissing her off - how the hell were they supposed to stop this fucking giant? She was hoping the Shinigami she lost track of was gonna pull something by now, they always seemed to have some crap up their sleeves, but she heard the low woosh of a giant object flying towards her, quickly turning around to see the terrible lizard's hand soaring toward her.

Oh, fantastic, Her droll, sarcastic thought came by as she immediately made a move to get out of the way - Up was a bad idea, she didn't even need to see the sudden rise in energy along the creature's back to know that would've been an uncomfortable move, and right in front was also pretty bad with the sudden rise in energy she detected from it's mouth.

Fun, the brute was firing a Cero, she observed as she let herself drop straight down from it's face, wind whipping against her ears and adrenaline making her heart race as she'd shoot a chained arrow to the beast's thigh, gripping the fastened chain hard to stop her descent and swinging toward it's ankle as it rattled from both the wind and the force of the beast's blast, eyes fixated on her destination and deep breaths to calm her body. Leading this thing away from the hole was chalking up to be a bad idea, there had to be some way to get it to at least go back in. Killing it seemed like a fever dream at this rate.

Well, she absolutely hated this next idea, but it was all she got. Thing seemed to drink up energy like crazy no matter where they'd strike. Fine, she'd do something that didn't use energy. The heat in the air wouldn't be enough to dissuade her, climbing toward the back of it's leg to where she hoped there was a major tendon. If the best she could do was inflict something to stop reliable advancement, it'd have to do, regardless of how much it'd suck for her later.

"Fuck you," She'd grumble, her mouth stretching into an unnaturally large shape, her pointed incisors then snapping down on the beast's lower hind leg region, cringing at the terrible flavor as she squeezed her eyes shut and bit down with all the force she could muster. Of course it'd be agonizing, right after she promised to eat better, too.