Well fortunately the fucking things can do hardly more than scratch him, so he flings himself away and takes off to get the hell away, thank you very much.

Those things sure do pack a punch, though, when they reach him in the air they screw his balance over.

Does it want to be alkali'd or grounded.

It does not express desires either way.

It also does not burn like a presumably biological being would, but instead starts emitting pyreflies like a fiend.

Well that's very nice of it! He would have felt worse if it seemed biological, since Rikku said cactuars leave bodies! (And also he probably would have stopped quite briefly after making it clear that you do not attack him, if it seemed like it were leaving a horrible mark.)

He stops short of trying to actually kill it, or do more than cursory damage with the alkali, and moves on to trying to disable its movement instead.

It's not like it has much in the way of movement now it's half-buried but the half that isn't buried can still shoot thousands of needles.

He puts more alkali on the bit that shoots needles.

It is its head.

He didn't put much on. It's magic and can do some truly ridiculous quantity of needles, it can deal.

He's assuming it did not help much.

Nope. It melts and dissolves into pyreflies.

Oops.

He'll suspend judgment on feeling like a monster for now. Since it seemed rather like a fiend.

And fly back to the others.

"Find anything?"

"There was a fiend that looked suspiciously like a cactuar and shot at me repetitively." Pause. "It was emitting pyreflies when it got injured."

"...cactuars don't do that." Thunder. "Aaaah!"

"… So probably not a cactuar? Just, uh, do you have shapeshifting fiends or something?"

"Not really."

"So we have at least one fiend that looks rather like a cactuar?"

"...maybe they're cactuar fiends?"

"Do you typically get fiends in the shape of sapient creatures…?"

"No, but... fiends are usually humans or other species, not cactuars."

"Oh, you mean –" He cuts himself off. "Oh."

"When cactuars turn adult they become cacti, so these would be..."

"Kids."

"… And are cacti different from what I expect the word to mean? Like, plant things, stationary, show no signs of sentience?"

"Well, they can talk."