Everyone needed a vacation. Even tentacle monsters... especially students. It was a bright and sunny afternoon, a late afternoon actually, when Icosagon was by the beach. Most of the students were out of class now, many beating the heat in bikinis and frolicking in the refreshing waters. While the shapeshifter could have easily disguised himself as one of the girls, moving among the flock, he had distanced himself today.

He had things to think about. Past numerous rocky outcroppings, in more remote bays and pools of Shokushu Island's beaches, he lay atop a number of the higher, craggier rocks, watching the girls from a distance. He had been busy at work, lately, on his new little base of operations... now, he was just taking a break. He had been playing with a number of his creations... but he was not sure what he could do with them.

Was he just toiling away for no purpose? What would the benefits of his labors be?

Whenever he was confronted with such questions, he did what he always did... watch the students. Watch... and brood over the possibilities. It was with those thoughts swimming in his mind that he noticed one girl, with bright red hair, and began to idly observe what she did...

Haruko had been swimming laps all day... That's right, I said all day. She'd chosen spots to turn around in each direction, roughly the size of an olympic swimming pool's length, and swam back and forth endlessly over and over again. Any breaks were spent treading the water or floating on her back and were never very long before she continued her furious pace all over again. This place was Devil's ground and she needed every ounce of training she could get. She had to return to her former strength!

Even so she eventually came to a stop, though not for a full rest. Instead she swam to shore, jogging all the way to her towel and quickly taking off at the continued brisk pace. Time for a good run! So long as there were still people around she'd be just peachy! And so she took off along the shoreline, kicking up sand with every step.

The redheaded battle vixen wore a modest, white with red trim, no-frills, one piece suit that covered her form well, but neither that nor the towel now slung around her neck did a very good job at hindering the slight bounce of her rather unsupported and well endowed breasts with every hard step that struck the sand.

That was about the last thing for her to start thinking about at the moment. She was just a tad too busy thinking about fighting and what she'd do if she were to manage to find herself getting attacked again. She'd actually managed to whallop a few of the lesser beasties and chase them off... but she'd lost the battle more than once. She couldn't afford to lose again!

So absorbed in her thoughts was she that she hardly even noticed the lack of any signs of human life in the area she'd now found herself in. Immediately the young woman stopped with an incredibly stunned expression. How had she managed that?! She must've just been that absorbed in her thoughts... And with that she quickly turned around and ran at an even more hurried pace back in the direction that she knew people were.

Ico watched from his perch as she swam... and swam, and swam. He had to admit, she had endurance! It was rather impressive, and he contented himself to watch her swim. Watching her sluice through the water, swimming, enjoying herself, and then moving up to jog.

Finally, she had began to stray. He did not strike, letting her wander as she jogged up the beach. Finally though, he had to move, slipping off the rocks to follow...


She had worked up a good sweat from her run by the time she realized she was so alone. Taking off like a bolt, she ran and ran! Her feet pounded on the sand, grains sticking to her ankles as her still-damp body booked it. Up ahead, she saw rocky outcroppings that loomed by the sandy beach, a few large rocks sitting at its base.

With the sun casting a long shadow from the craggily hill by the water, she almost missed the shape of something moving up the beach towards her. It was shaggy, hunched over, walking slowly and swaying back and forth. That was... NOT normal, for sure! It looked like a bit of a pushover, but it meant she was already running into trouble. How far did she wander, anyway? She did not recognize any part of this beach...

"Fucking hell!" she shouted in both surprise and anger. Having already met her fair share of beasties and baddies on the island, something like this hardly scared her. If she had to she could pound its ass into next week, but given her situation she didn't want to stop moving unless it was absolutely necessary. If she was already drawing out the nasties then this was probably not the worst one in the area. And then again she'd already learned that looks could be incredibly deceiving...

Ignoring the urge to turn about and bash its skull in, Haruko instead took a wide swerve, kicking up sand high as she put as much distance between her and the hairy beast as possible. She refused to be caught! Haruko didn't even look back as she poured on even more speed than she had before, calling on a rush of adrenaline for help as she huffed out her breaths. She was already pretty tired from all the exercise she'd just put in.

As she shouted, the bestial creature snorted and looked up! Drooling, it blinked small, beady eyes at her, and lumbered in her direction. Still, even with it moving surprisingly quickly, she was still too fast for it! She dashed around, nearly bumping into the rock-face as she maneuvers about, kicking sand in her way. It reaches out with a hairy paw, but misses its attempt to grab the nimble and trained girl.

Running on, she can see more of the twisting and turning beach ahead. It seems like she is still quite a ways, and certainly out of sight, of the beach where the other girls are. She must have been jogging for quite a while, lost in her thoughts; she was easily ten minutes away, which was all the more reason to put on the speed!

The creature did not pursue her, not able to keep up with her quick run, and apparently not interested in trying very hard to either.

Or maybe it was because it did not have to. As she came around another large rock on the beach, she saw THREE more of the things! Varying in height, they were all still similar; shaggy, long-armed creatures, bent over, with short bodies and mammalian snouts. They reminded her of particularly shaggy brown dogs... of they were mixed with apes, had hands, and walked like hunchbacks.

They were just turning towards her as she came around, one grunting and making a light 'oooOooooh' noise as it reached out awkwardly for her!