Take the offensive.

Dana is thrashing desperately and you are **** to lean precariously over the water to maintain your grasp. This was a losing strategy, if you wanted to save Dana you'll need to be more proactive. Hauling yourself dangerously far into the water you lift Dana straight up, giving your last bit of ground in the process. You also expose a foot or so of slimy grey flesh below Dana's foot and you don't hesitate to lash a slew of tentacles across it. Thanks to your newly hardened bark the effect is something like a buzz-saw made of branches and it makes short work of the squishy flesh of the tentacle, severing the tip wrapped around your friend.

The appendage whips back into the water with a plop and a low sound emanates from the depths, sending a shockwave of ripples cascading across the surface. You hastily backpedal onto shore, turning to move Dana as far from the water as possible. You got the feeling you were about to make a new monstrous acquaintance who really wanted his tentacle back. Scrambling through the sand you catch a glimpse of the lake mermaid, eyes wide in terror, leaping out of the water in an actual backflip before vanishing below the surface in the opposite direction. If she wanted gone, you probably should follow suit. You're able to put about thirty feet between yourself and the water before the lake literally explodes.

The water can't get out of the way fast enough and domes over an indistinct gray shape before foaming and crashing onto the beach in an immense wave. You dig your roots in and lift Dana over the deluge, holding strong against the impromptu tidal wave... Until a thick slab of muscle the width of a horse slams into your trunk and you are very nearly ripped out by your roots. You rock back dazedly, armored petals snapping closed around your flower, and off handedly realize the main reason your roots weren't torn free from the sand was because a sizable portion of them were torn free from your body. You'd never really understood why humans were always unresponsive for so long after a heavy impact but you were beginning to understand as you struggled to take in the shock of sensory input. Pain. Water. Air. Dana. Grey. The world swirled sickeningly for a long moment before you were able to make sense of your body and right yourself.

Water swirled around your roots, carrying a significant portion of the beach with it, and the last bit of the original eruption was raining from the sky. Droplets spattered across your flower, vanishing into your skin. Rain. It's raining. It wasn't much, your trunk was still oozing sap from a dozen splintered cracks, but you could feel your roots growing back and your mobility returning. Ha-HAHa! You laugh weakly as you feel your health points restore thanks to your Plant ability. Your laughter peters off as you behold the monster before you.

It. was. IMMENSE. A flailing mass of grey flesh reaching out of the water, tentacles wider than an old oak pulverizing the beach around you. Probably thought it hit a tree so now it was avoiding you and systematically crushing the rest of the beach. It is a horrified realization when it dawns on you that it only hit you once, nearly dismembering you and easily dealing the strongest strike you'd ever taken. On accident. It wasn't even all the way out of the water.

Some snarky part of your mind thought it was seriously overreacting to a little loss of limb, it happened to you all the time and this thing didn't exactly have a shortage in the appendage department. The rest of you was completely dumbstruck as to how you were supposed to fight this thing. Here I thought I was a **** of nature...