Oh mama

Uh-oh. Ash knew the second he saw that godforsaken little round fuck of a bear cub he was in trouble. He tried to back away slowly, oh he did try, but he heard a huff of sorts, well, maybe it was a snort behind him. And he turned, ever so slowly around to see the beady little eyes of fury that was a mother bear in all her glory.

Ultra fucked.

There was no backing out of this one. Metaphorically or physically. So, Ashmedai bolted forward. He was glad he was wearing the ridiculous harness for shits and giggles. While it was one of the strangest things he had ever seen, it did do a good job of being spiky, generally unappealing to predators, and... well... spiky.

Apparently the mother bear was neither phased nor deterred. She flung her jaws open, strings of saliva billowing and flinging in all directions at her roar. It shook through the air and vibrated in Ash's chest. The baby toddled around, ambling to hide behind its mother.

Okay, cool, so this was how it was going to be. Ash got it. He set all his defenses naturally, silently thankful for this amazing BDSM armor he was wearing. It might get him a lot of shit, but his shoulders were pretty much untouchable and even if others wanted to laugh, he doubted they were going to be lunging at him any time soon. Now if he only had some spikes for hit butt, he'd feel safer about turning tail and running, but he didn't.

He needed to distract the bear and possibly lure it to a place where he could, being slightly more limber and a little smarter than the average bear, escape without getting gutted. Bears weren't something you generally wanted to mess with or piss off and when you did, it was typically a good idea to get the heck out of dodge.

So, Ash got himself all ready and skirted around the bear. The bear, of course, turned along with him.  Ash dodged back the other way and the bear continued to follow. Damn, full aggro, huh? Ashmedai tried a growl of his own and a small lunge forward. The mother probably wouldn't leave her cub's side if she thought she was still protecting it. He lunged, the bear swiped at him, just missing. Ash backed off and tried again. Side, side, lunge, then he tried to further his arcs around the bear. Could he get her spun around enough to jump back the way he came?

Ok apparently not because as soon as he got about halfway around, she lunged at him, her claws knocking his armor hard enough to cause him to yelp and jump away, breaking their cycle of dash dash bite or whatever you wanted to call it. Ashmedai turned as if he was going to run and sure enough, the mother charged at him again with enough speed to cause Ash to skitter off sideways as he tried to regain the offense. The baby, meanwhile, just sat their chewing on its own foot as if it was enjoying a nice snack for the show. It had no idea the danger it could be in. Probably because it never needed to with its mother always looking out for it.

Ashmedai tried to regain his composure, but it was pretty hard when looking at an opponent who was just... massive compared to yourself. This must be how others felt like when they had to fight him or wolves that were his height and lager. It was pretty breath-taking and scary to be honest.

He just wanted to be able to go back to doing whatever it was he was doing before, but alas, he was here looking for some ope window to escape this enraged mother bear. Ok, ok, left dodge? Right dodge? Charge with the shoulder? Ashmedai tested several positions and situations just to  find that the bear blocked him like a wall. None of this was working no matter how hard Ashmedai tried. Which left one option- he really did have to try to escape.

He came up with a plan, formulated and calculated for the bear's prior interactions with him. He did some dodging left and right. The bear seemed to latch onto his movements. Good. Now he tried to be repetitive enough that the bear got used to the pattern but not enough to cause the bear to break the pattern herself. Right when she seemed to be predicting that he was going left, Ashmedai feigned just enough to make her commit to moving her massive body to her right. As soon as her weight was shifted, Ash pulled back and dashed right. The bear roared and made an attempt to correct her movements, clawing in Ash's direction quickly enough that he felt the air from her paw on his tail as he slid by.

He didn't have time to look back as he ran. He had to keep going. He wove and jumped and ducked and whatever he could do to make sure the bear wasn't following him. He ran until his legs completely gave out after jumping over a log. He tucked himself against the cool, rough bark and panted for what felt like an eternity. His ears kept pricked, listening for any sign of the mother bear. Eventually, Ash regained the strength to get up and he went to find himself a nice hole to die in... metaphorically. At least, Ash hoped he had actually escaped and not died.