While I was busy trying to use my free tentacles to remove the little bushes off of me, the bush-dog was quickly gaining on me. I’d lost a lot of speed from having less tentacles to run with, so it wasn’t super surprising, but it’d be a big damn lie if I said I wasn’t pissed off that it was allowed to catch up to me just because it forced me to focus on its bushes.

 

I wasn’t able to leap like I wanted to since I was hindered by its little chompy bushes, but I still did a graceful leap over its head as the bush-dog came rushing my way. The bush-dog ran past, but its neck still did a 180 to watch me behind it, never once looking away from me as its body performed a small u-turn and started charging at me once again.

 

…You know, the fact that it kept looking at me like that was actually pretty odd? The treant and I both had omnidirectional vision, like we could see around us in a dome. Did this one only have front facing vision? Is that why it had such a hard time seeing me in the trees before this whole mess started? But it clearly doesn’t have any visible eyes, so why does it still see through its head…?

 

As I pondered the oddities of the bush-dog, I repeatedly jumped over his bull-rushes while trying to get the remaining bushes off of me. It almost felt like we were playing some kind of game, like cousins or siblings just getting along. Maybe if I weren’t so annoyed by all of this, I would have tried to sing some kind of nursery rhyme and make it feel even more game-like. Heck, there’s the possibility that I could still do it, once the bushes were finally gone. You gotta take the opportunities to have fun where you can, you know?

 

Still, the opportunity never came, since the bush-dog apparently had other types of fun lined up for me.

 

Maybe it just got frustrated with me after all this jumping I was doing, or maybe I’d just done the same thing one too many times and had become predictable, because suddenly the area was swarmed with what I was sure must have been the remainder of the bush-dog’s bushes. They waited for me where I was about to land, and I could see the small wooden chompers inside of their foliage bared open, ready for me to fall into them. Being able to see it coming made the trap less scary though, since all I had to do was twirl my tentacles as I fell and turn myself into a weed-whacking top. Sure, maybe I got my tentacles bit by even more of the bushes, but I sent a majority of the bushes flying away in tatters, and with the harsh speed that I’d managed to hit some of them with, their silly little wooden mouths had surely been shattered or crushed, so I’m sure they would no longer be an issue. Now all I needed to do was crack my tentacles like a whip, and the remaining bushes who’d been lucky enough to bite me should have all been removed! Oh, and I should probably also heal up my tentacles, since they’re looking a bit worse for wear after all of that.

 

Honestly it was super easy to get rid of those little bushes.

I don’t even know why I freaked out and took so long to do it earlier-

Ah okay, this must be exactly what the bush-dog was waiting for.

I guess I brought this onto myself.

 

While I was busy gloating and removing the last of its bushes, it completely rammed into me, knocking me down onto the ground and biting into a chunk of my ‘neck’ and shoulder with its chainsaw-like teeth. I instinctively wrapped my tentacles around its neck and jaws, trying to gain control over the situation, and managed to pin it against me so that it wouldn’t be able to rip out what it already had in its large jaws. Sadly though, I completely forgot to send any of my tentacles to try and constrict its legs, and the claws that it had on its root-paws were beginning to dig into my torso like they were trying to tear me apart. Well no, I guess it’s not ‘like’ that, that’s really what they were trying to do!

 

As I desperately twisted my body left and right, trying my best to dodge the claws or at least not let them dig at one spot too much and expose my stomach, my root-legs scrambled to unravel themselves and plant into the ground. I grew vines around us, quickly trying to loop them around the bush-dogs legs so that I could tie them away from me and stop getting clawed at, but the bush-dog’s legs worked too much like mine; They could bend however they needed to, and weren’t stopped by being pulled in odd ways. Even when I tried to simply make it so they could no longer reach me, they would just unravel a bit and get a little longer, enough that they could still reach me, but at least that made the force they could exert a bit less, so it was still sort of a win in the end for me. Still, if I stayed in this position for too long, even those weak scratches it was doing on my already scratched up petal-skin would eventually cause enough damage to break through. As it is, I was already using some light magic to try to regrow my torso petals so I’d have a bit more time to work with, but that could only go on for so long.

 

Let me be honest: I was starting to run a bit lower than I would have liked to on resources.

 

I still had enough raw nutrients in me to heal myself up, sure, but my magic was starting to get depleted with all the constant vine-age that I’d been putting out. I’d started this fight sitting perfectly pretty on everything, but I was still far from topped off at the time, if you catch my drift. I mean, can you blame me? I basically had to pick up the scraps that wandered by this bush-dog’s territory for the past three days. I thought I had plenty enough resources to take this thing down at the beginning, especially when compared to that time with the treant where I pretty much had none. But now, with me having made upwards of probably two hundred vines already against this bush-dog, healing that kid (which I won’t lie, honestly takes a lot of resources out of me), and fixing my tentacles a few times as well as trying to regrow my torso right now…

 

Yeah, I’m starting to get a bit worried about how much I’m spending.

I mean, I’m not in a crisis right at this moment, but if this keeps going on for too much longer, then…

Yup, it’s best for me to finish this as quickly as possible.

I guess my best bet would be to take a gamble?

Let’s see, if I was going to attack something, I guess it would be~...

 

I begrudgingly grew more vines, making them wrap around the bush on the bush-dog’s back. As they squeezed around the spot where its foliage sprouted out from its root and stick based body and began to tug, the bush-dog frantically started to squirm and thrash in my grip, much more than it had already been doing. I could feel its jaws against me trying to move and warp, as if the bush-dog were desperately attempting to figure out new ways to free itself from my grip. Surely that must mean that I was doing something super right, right? So obviously I made my vines on its bush pull even harder, and popped the sucker off like the flower off of a stem. The bush-dog (or maybe it’s just root-dog now?) let out an odd noise, like a cross between a small howl and a gurgle, and struggled against me for a short while longer in anguish, before suddenly going limp and letting go of my neck/shoulder.

 

Is… Is it over?

Hello bush-dog~, are you there?

 

Yeah okay, so I didn’t think that would actually be enough to kill it? Like, I figured its bush was like my stomach, and if I ripped that out then it would get significantly weaker without its nutrient source and maybe later die, just like I would. But uh… Wasn’t that a little bit too immediate? I mean it’s not like I ripped out its seed, right? Otherwise, wouldn’t it have crumbled to dust just like the treant did…? And wouldn’t the little chopped up bushes that are around the place have gone away just like the sub-treants did?

 

…What the heck is going on right now?

 

I unwrapped my tentacles and pushed the lifeless wooden husk of the bush-dog off of me. Although it had let go of me when it died(?), there was still a biiiig chunk of me that it had dug out with its mouth. It wasn’t the end of the world if I didn’t immediately fix that part of me up, though, so instead I made sure that my stomach-area was all nicely patched and wasn’t in any danger before I got up and looked around. I tried nudging the wooden dog husk a few times with my roots, but it was completely stiff like a regular bunch of sticks and roots would have been in the first place, so I was pretty convinced that it wouldn’t be moving around again anytime soon.

 

I mean…I guess it’s fine if the thing didn’t turn into ash? Who knows, maybe that treant was the weird one, and we’re not supposed to go ‘poof’ when we die. Maybe our deaths are supposed to just be more natural. After all, aren’t we a part of the forest? Aren’t we a part of nature? It really all makes sense, if you-

 

Ah shit, okay, I get it.

Yeah, that bush is still moving, isn’t it?

 

The bush that I’d torn off of the bush-dog’s back was shaking wildly, and its two tentacles that it usually hid were growing out and lashing towards me like whips. Sooo I guess this means that the bush-dog’s real main body was its bush all along…? I guess… that makes sense? No no, wait, listen, it does make sense! After all, these little mini-me’s that it’s been spitting out were all mostly bushes anyways, right?! I totally thought that they were like that for camouflage more than anything, but actually it’s because the bush comes before the dog, just like the egg before the chicken!

 

Oh wow, I really am becoming a zoologist!

This is amazing!

 

While I was basking in the newfound knowledge that was filling me, the bush somehow managed to make its way closer. It twisted its two tendrils threateningly at me, trying to figure out how to grab a firm hold on me, and… I don’t know, eat me, I guess? It’s a silly idea, since we don’t really get very much nutrition from eating other plants. In fact, I don’t think we get any at all. Although actually, didn’t I wonder what would happen if I ate a magic filled plant? Isn’t there actually one right here that I can try it out on and see?

 

One of the bush’s tentacles finally made contact with me, trying to wrap around one of my root-legs and pull me towards it, although in the end it was what was dragged closer to me. It’s other tentacle rose, ready to strike me like a whip, but I easily caught the tentacle in a few of mine, and used my others to quickly lift the bush up into the air.

 

=Welp, guess it’s as good of an end for you as anything else anyways, right?=

 

And with that I opened my mouth as wide as I could and stuffed the bush inside. It was hard, but I was able to smush its bushy fronds and its two struggling tentacles into my stomach with a bit of work. I had to use both of my inner mouth-tentacles to hold it down while it was being digested, but it’s really surprising how small I was able to squish it down in the end, although it was still really filling. I wonder if something did the same thing to me how much I could be squished down? Since I don’t have any organs or bones inside of me, I expect I could fit into a large jar quite easily… But I’d have to lose all of my stomach acid to do that, so I certainly won’t be testing it out anytime soon!

 

The tentacles totally fought back against me from the inside, which was just as uncomfortable as I expected it to be, but it didn’t last very long, and soon all of the bush’s struggling stopped. The fullness that the bush had been causing abruptly came to an end shortly after everything became still, and when I opened my mouth up again, there was no longer anything there, not even a seed. Seems I was right, our kind really do just go ‘poof’ when they die.

 

Also, even though I was sure that thing still had magic left in it, I didn’t even get a single drop.

Really, it’s such a huge waste…

_____

AN: And with that, I must announce that life has become a little overwhelming once again, and that I'll be going on a break for about a month! I'll be back May 18th for my birthday, so I love you all and I'll see you all then! And hey, if you're missing the story while I'm gone, then maybe take a trip to my patreon at  patreon.com/user?u=63286737 and think about seeing more. ;P

Oh also, when I come back I plan to put out two new little side stories. Still totally gonna focus on this one and update it like regular, those two'll just be updated whenever the heck I feel like it. One is romance for sure, but the other one is totally smut, although it's still romantic. I can't help it, I just super like love, I'm sorry lol. I have some other stories in the wings that aren't romance and are a bit more like the adventure segments in this, but I gotta say, the vast majority of my sotries have love in 'em somewhere, so sue me. Really hope you guys give 'em a chance and check 'em out but it's totally okay if you don't, lol.

See ya in a month!