Cantios

It can travel across all terrians, no matter how extreme they are. Wherever it goes it numbs the nerves of their victims, then silences them completely....-Sherin Blacksmith

Cantios (Cahn-tee-ous) are flying wyverns able to hunt in all environments. It is the flagship of Monster Hunter Tri Frenzy.

Appearance
Cantios main shape is that of a flying wyvern's. Its wings are bladed, and on ground has clawed hands like a tigrex's, which are not visible while flying. Its head is embodied with horns like a crown. Its talons resemble that of a raths. The tail is like a mace, two arcs from the top and bottom, and two thinner ones from the sides. Along its neck is what appears to be gills like of a fish. Several spines cover its feet, back and chest.

Its body is a light brown, with red zig zag patterns across its legs, tail and wing webbing. Its wings, hands, feet and tail blades are a deep green. Its chest is blue.

Behavior
These wyverns don't see many as a threat as it knows how to fight on all terrians. However once such a foe arises, it shows that skill in combat attacking with claws on ground, breath and wings in air, and tail with body in water.

If it finds itself outclassed it has no hesitation to quickly flee the area to escape the stronger monster.

Like most of the flying wyvern class it is highly aggressive and will attack those who seem like a threat.

Encounter Intro
Sword Shatterer: Area 3 Fallen woods (In the quest, seregios avoids area 3, the chest must be broken and no other parts can be broken.)

The hunter tracks down a seregios that has been wounded by his/her hand. It goes to sleep near the poison pond. Something is seen swimming in the river above the area, it looks like a wyvern only meant for flight. It erupts out of the river in a jump similar to tigrex, slicing off the seregios' tail in a single slice. This expectedly immediately awakes the seregios and enrages it. The hunter quickly dashes for safety as the two wyverns fight. Cantios flings fire from its claws which miss the seregios, only for it to receive a deadly kick to the face and breaking its horn. Seregios sends its shards towards Cantios but it takes off and flies like it was a rath. It gives chase in the sky to claw Cantios. It reacts by breathing out a silver mist at seregios. Seregios no longer appears to protect its damaged parts anymore. Cantios uses its wings to send out blue wind at the tail stump, freezing it in place. Cantios torpedoes into seregios, breaking its wings and back. Defeated seregios falls into the poison pool as Cantios flies away. The scene swifts back to the hunters view, next to the now dead Seregios.

(The quest then scriptedly abandons)

Hunt Untro
Sherin peaks: Area 5: Master Of Environment's

The Cantios bursts from the seas, flies up into the sky and breathes a cloud of Undrea and lands on the ground. There it dashes towards a carcass of a kelbi to eat. The hunter is seen behind and Cantios takes notice, abandoning its previous meal. It swiftly breathes Undrea and roars, and the hunt is on.

Attacks
Cantios is unique in being able to fight in all enviroments. The fight will be a challenge for that reason, with strategies changing on the go.

Ground
(Ultimate rank only)
 * Roar Does the flying wyvern style roar animation except it keeps its wing talons on the ground. Requires high grade earplugs to block.
 * Side bite: A slight bite to the left while swinging its tail up, does minor damage.
 * Snap Cantios raises its head and wings and lunges forward in a chomp. Enraged this is done twice.
 * Claw of fire Its claw is dragged into the ground and flung up, sending fire sparks out.
 * Tail club Turns around 180° and slams its tail. Always done twice. It is the tail spin of Cantios.
 * Charge Rushes forward with its mouth open and skids to a halt. This is done in a true flying wyvern style.
 * Undrea breath Its chest will turn grey and it spreads its wings out as it breaths out a cloud of Undrea. This will cause Undreablight.
 * Slashes In an arc it swipes the ground in front of it with both claws one after the other.
 * Hip check Bends to its side and tackles with its wing. Done to hit opponents by its side.
 * Undrea ball Raises itself up and breathes downward firing a ball of Undrea. There is a chance it will remain skyborne after this.
 * Kick Cantios pounces at a target and lashes out with both talons.
 * Tail smash Looks behind it as it raises its tail. It smashes it down at a quick speed enough to cause quake.
 * Turning charge Apon doing its rath styled charge, it extends its claws, turns around, and does another in the style of tigrex.
 * Slide Leaps forward and does a plesioth like slide.
 * Tail swings: Drags its tail to the right then left. Borrowed from the blos wyverns.

Air
(Ultimate rank only)
 * Aerial roar: Shakes its head and roars to the ground.
 * Headbutt Violently turns its head to the side while turning.
 * Wing slash Extends its claw to swipe while spinning with the other wing to keep it airborne.
 * Bite Bites downwards causing minor damage.
 * Airborne undrea breath Inhales, then exhales undrea fumes in a straight stream.
 * Talon slam If low on stamina, it will aim at a hunter. Cantios glides back, readys its talons and slams into the ground. If successfully done it will proceed to eat from the player.
 * Glide Moves back and rushes forwards. Borrowed from rathalos.
 * Surprise ruined If any attack Cantios from behind it will upswing hunters using its tail.
 * Rock throw Slams both talons in the ground, pulling out a piece of earth. It swings back and then forth tossing the rock. Can Iceblight or fireblight when in environmental areas.
 * Air freeze Cantios curls its wings and flaps forward a gust of cold air causing ice blight.
 * Undrea blast Goes high into the sky and creates a cluster bomb like Undrea ball. Strongest attack.
 * Circle glide Airborne a while it will fly at extreme speeds in a circle to hit unsuspecting players off guard and is difficult to see coming.
 * Earth ripping glide Goes to the ground and extends its claws and talons. Using them to tear the ground and unearth rocks that fly behind.
 * Undrea glide Breathes a cloud of Undrea that surrounds its wings. With a wide span it flies overhead, leaving the Undrea cloud behind.

Water
(Ultimate rank only)
 * Underwater roar: Does a leviathan styled roar.
 * Swinging chomp A bite that reaches from both of its sides.
 * Wing flap Takes its wings out of fin form and pushes a current of water. Causes Waterblight.
 * Claw A very quick strike from one of its extended claws.
 * Tail flip Raises its tail and back flips, if the tail isn't cut off it can inflict waterblight.
 * Spin Dashes to its side and spins itself in a circlar motion.
 * Undrea wave Breathes out three balls of Undrea that move in a wave like pattern.
 * Dash Swims backwards and spinning charges into a faraway opponent.
 * Freeze flap An unexpected attack as it uses its wings not as fins. It repeatedly flaps them and exhales into the cloud formed. It bursts to hit anything in its range with iceblight.

Undreablight
Undreablight is a ailment used by Cantios. It has the lethal effect of blurring the health and stamina bars, making it harder to tell how much damage you can take before fainting.

Plus Undrea attacks have a 3% chance (6% in Ultimate rank) of inflicting Severe Undrablight, an extremely dangerous version which completely blurs out the health and stamina bars for a mostly fatal outcome as theirs no way to know much health is left. With the Undrea cursed skill Undreablight is always severe, no matter what.

Cantios' armor grants the Undrea master skill that negates Undreablight and increases effectiveness of Undrea element weapons which are unique to Cantios.

There are two ways of curing it, the Spicy bottle introduced in the game or a nulberry.

Rage and tired states

 * Enraged: Undrea fumes from mouth and eyes and red patterns glow.


 * Tired: Drools from mouth, chest will shrink if not broken and Undrea attacks will fail.

Breaks

 * Head (2x), horns then scar up the middle of head
 * Chest, spines broken and weak point revealed
 * Tail broken, tips of blades broken
 * Tail sever, tail must have been broken first
 * Left wing
 * Right wing
 * Left wing claw
 * Right wing claw
 * Back spines
 * Foot talons

G rank

 * Cantios Master scale: Grown to bare through all environmental threats this scale is the perfection of nature.
 * Cantios Cortex: Light, strong, adaptatable, there is little this armor has wrong.
 * Cantios Mace: Sneak attacks fail to a blow from this sleek tail.
 * Cantios Hardhorn: A head brace from the head that offers protection.
 * Cantios Peeler: Its masters hunts has made this claw red from heat and blood.
 * Cantios Morphwing: A limb that will go from wing to fin instantly if needed.
 * Cantios Tongue: A Undrea invested organ. Its believed this alone can cause The Undrea.

Ultimate rank

 * Cantios Supreme scale: There is literally no environment that can defey this shards strength.
 * Cantios Axon: Shell that has lived through many hazards that many a shell would dissolve under.
 * Cantios Bludgeon: A sturdy yet light tail that canon moves through water with ease. One strike leaves skulls cracked.
 * Cantios Stronghorn: The creature's crown of steel hardness. No temperature affects its shape.
 * Cantios Skinner: Razor claws that have become red hot from multiple hunts. Will never cool down.
 * Cantios Transwing: A wing that works perfectly on land and water. Often used in exploration of the skies and ocean.
 * Cantios Lung: The source of Cantios' Undrea. Dragon element and the remains of its food mixtures.

Mount

 * Cantios is attacked on the back in the land and sea. The land shake off animation can be of that of a nargacuga's or the standard flying wyvern one. The sea mount involves it darting in circles.
 * Cantios is attacked on its chest in the sky. Apon finishing it falls on its back

Land
It begins like tigrex/nargas but will then raise both wings up and flop down on the floor dead. A combination of tigrex, rathalos and plesioths death animations.

Air
It shares this animation with Seregios.

Water
Cantios extends its wings and its claws to try and make it to air, but it fails and with a few flaps, turns on its side and dies

Music Theme
It has its own unique music battle theme, but Chaoarren the creator didn't want to use one from another game, nor could he even upload a music file. So, feel free to imagine your own.

Interactions with The Frenzy/Apex
Cantios can become infected by The Frenzy as Undrea cannot block it out. Its red zig zag markings become purple and its roar becomes a much lower pitch.

Cantios can overcome The Frenzy and become Apex Cantios. The brown hide it has turns very dark, almost to jet black. Its roar becomes completely unreconisable from its normal one. When on ground its claws spread off fire sparks when it does any attack involving them. Its undrea blast increases in wideness. It becomes truly deadly, gaining another set of attacks to go with the original.

Transformation To Apex
Tundra: Area 2: Corruption Of The Cantios

The sun shines over the Tundra as a familiar shadow dashes past. The camera shows that its a cantios fleeing from what looks like another one, only frenzied. The frenzied one let's out a distorted screech striking out and hitting the cantios back. Despite this it continues to flee, with frenzied one in persuit. After a while the frenzied one hits the tail of the normal making it lose balance, followed with a divebomb that sends it directly into the area with cracked ice surrounding its seemingly dead body. Right next to it is a popo which the frenzied lands directly on, killing it instantly. The frenzied wyvern eats from the meat, then proceeds to sleep on the areas right edge.

As night comes, The Frenzy starts to taint the cantios, unexpectedly causing clouds to form as it fails to fully infect the Cantios. A blast of purple lights the area as the clouds now begin coming from the Cantios' body. This awakes the frenzied, who fails to see the danger and rushes right at it lashing with its wing talons. The talons completely break from the hardness of the shell causing it to emit a pained yet distorted scream. The new apex replies with a roar of its own, a horrifing scream distorted beyond recognizion. The frenzied one dashes and takes flight from fear from the apex, only for apex to leap at it in tigrex fashion biting off its tail and seemingly burning its wings from its claws.

As the frenzied struggles to get up, a wing arm broken the apex predator lands directly in front, biting its servered tail into shards. Its wing talons glow orange, melting the snow on which it stands. The frenzied is pushed down as the apex brings its right claw to its throat. The screen turns black just as the apex slashes...

The Aftermath
Tundra (Night): Area 2: Brutal Aftermath

A camera pans across the area, turning towards the right. The sight seen is grim. The skeleton of a cantios is seen, with several parts of its flesh remaining however burnt. Ice around is stained red with several holes in the floor. In the centre is a crater like impact zone, with a popo skeleton next to that. The dead cantios is seen to have died brutally, with its wing talons missing along with its tail, a broken wing and many fractures. It appears to have had its troat cut, mauled then eaten. A yelp from a barioth interrupts the scene, seen flying overhead from area 4 as a dark figures knocks it straight into the area...

Apex Intro
Tundra: Area 4: Cruel Master

The hunter appears and with no waiting there is already action! A heavily wounded barioth charges at the apex cantios, affected by Undrea. Cantios swiftly dodges a bite and with a reflex it pounces and slashes its wing claw at barioths chest wound, killing it as the flames burns through and smashes against a wall. The Cantios' gaze turns to the hunter, slowly turning towards him/her. It gives out its distorted roar, causing him/her to leap out of the way as ice spikes fall from the ceiling. Before he/she can react Cantios' picks him/her up in its talons! And proceeds to even leave the area!

Above area 3 the hunter manages to use a wystone to make it drop him/her. The apex theme begins to play as apex cantios hovers over and roars in annoyance, then the hunt begins from there!

Ground
(Ultimate rank only)
 * Leap: In ground mode it pounces and slashes in a tigrex fashion causing fireblight.
 * 360° tail strike: Spins its tail in a over quick style like nargacuga.
 * Single slash: Leaping at a target it delivers a powerful slash from one of its wing talons causing hunters to get knocked back far.
 * Maul: Will strike both wing talons together in an attempt to trap a hunter. If it succeeds it will repeatedly slash at him/her with its right wing talon. If not broken out of in time it picks him/her up with its left wing talon, drops him/her only to violently slash him/her away with its right. The hunter can actually hit another one, causing damage to him/her as well. The worst part is that this pin is very hard to mash out of.
 * Double slash: When enraged it will repeat the attack immediately on a different target.
 * Slash maul combo: If it misses its slash attack twice in a row it'll do its maul grab as it lands.

Air
(Ultimate rank only)
 * Dive slam: Will suddenly extend its wing talons ands slam directly below it.
 * Airal glide down: Climbs to a high altitude and glides to the ground with foot talons out. When enraged it fires down a single ball of Undrea.
 * Glide Undrea breath It always fires a ball of Undrea even when not enraged. When it is, the ball turns into a full continous stream of it.

Water
(Ultimate rank only)
 * Turning tail whip: Does a plesioth style tail strike, inflicting waterblight.
 * Advancing 360° spin: Dashes forward a bit bringing up its tail before dashing more as it spins that tail around.
 * Spin Undrea add on: As it does its spin it breathes out Undrea during it.

All

 * Undrea mist: Now whenever it does an Undrea attack it will remain on the ground as a mist for a few seconds to infect any who are unaware.

Trivia (MHTF)

 * Apex Cantios' pin comes from the original idea of Seregios pin, in which the "damage other hunters" didn't happen in the final game.
 * Cantios is not the only user of Undrea, it is also comes from Dasamios. Its ash clouds contain elements that cause Undrea from its back vent and mouth.
 * They seem to have a hatred for Seregios, possibly from the natural viewing of them as weak.
 * Plus, seregios shards don't seem to harm them much, sometimes having no effect.

=Reappearance in Calamitous=


 * It is revealed the Sherin region is their birthplace, and their migration was caused by Tri Frenzys events.


 * It appears in all main areas as well like the previous game.


 * One event in the village story has one attack Sherin village as its introduction.


 * It can now be hunted in high rank

Introduction

 * Cantios' Raid!, Sherin village (battle), Area 1

Rocks lie underneath spires of rubble which continue to block the safest path to the Sherin Peaks. Villagers try to redirect a Pikfrin which has moved into the area to their displeasure. Down behind the blockade in the river a wyvern swimming down it eats fish one by one in a single bite. A lancer arrives at the scene to forcefully move out the stubborn Pikfrin. Just before it receives a stab to the neck the blockade is completely destroyed as the piscine wyvern bursts through! Or what was a piscine wyvern as it takes a tigrex stance and pounces onto the Pikfrin and does the job the lance couldn't, only that the result is death.

The villagers scramble to the main living section, as the gates close behind them. It is yelled that the monster is Cantios, a dangerous wyvern around the region. Standing ground the lancer tries to fight it, but is one shotted by its mace tail.

The villages hunter arrives to see the lancer being dragged unconsciously away. He/she looks just in time to dodge a glide swoop from the wyvern, which now looks to have the ability of flight. The scene zooms out with the Cantios snarling at The hunter which transitions to battle.

Hunt intro

 * Undrean hunter: Sherin Peaks (MHC): Area 13

The hunter arrives in the area only to be immediately ambashed by Scofisl. Although he/she manages to fend off the raptors, it ends as the hunter falls over paralyzed. It is revealed to be a Prime Scofisl who orders one to finish off the hunter. As the scofisl jumps a Cantios springs out of the jungle and slashes through, cutting the scofisl in half and sending its pieces into the trees. The wyvern then proceeds to chomp and swallow the second, cut through the third with its talons and smash the the final into dust with its tail.

The sight of seeing its group slain sends Prime scofisl into a rage. The hunter leaps down to avoid Prime scofisl's leap towards Cantios' face latching onto it and stabbing its head with its tail. It takes airborne, with it still attached. Patterns on its wings glow red as it is angered by the bird wyvern. Roaring causes prime to flinch, giving cantios the opportunity to bite into its body and chuck it off.

Pain causes Prime to become evasive, which Cantios hates. A silver stream of mist is emitted from its mouth which envelops Prime, which suddenly makes it aggressive again. Cantios leads it to the waters side where it suddenly sits as the angry raptor races towards it. It leaps for cantios' face again. But just before it hits, Cantios sours up high, cuts off the raptors tail and results in causing prime to plummet into the waters! Fall alone critically injures it, breaking its legs. But it still tries to fight as if it was unaware of its wounds, its in vain as it sinks into the deeper water and drowns.

The hunter has not gone unnoticed as Cantios drops from the sky right in front of him/her! Looking right in the eye it roars as the hunt begins!

Changes

 * The high rank version can only use Undrea attacks when enraged.
 * Its AI is overall smarter, and increases as ranks go higher with new abilities.
 * The High rank version can sit still next to water, and once near will fly up and knock the hunter in.
 * The G rank version can fake out its bite to breath Undrea.
 * The Ultimate rank version will cover its fangs with Undrea when enraged, making its bites cause undreablight.

High rank carves

 * Cantios Scale: Thin in air, thick on land, and solid in water, it is a environmental scale.
 * Cantios Carapace: Recognized from its brown and red zig zagged colour, it is the wyverns armor.
 * Cantios Tail: Developed to act like a hammer on land and fin in sea.
 * Cantios Horn: One of the three horns located open the wyverns head, its dagger shape shows danger.
 * Cantios Claw: These only extend out on land, anywhere else its hidden spines.
 * Cantios Wing: A wing and a fin in one form. How its able to be like this is unknown.
 * Cantios Tonsel: Located in the back of Cantios' mouth, it is very hard to carve out in usable form.

General Trivia

 * Cantios' creation came from a simple idea: What if there was a creature able to hunt everywhere without being unsuited?
 * Its featured in a blog post from being the most spoken about monster of the week
 * Its wing claws where originally always extended regardless of mode, but due to the render made, Chaoarren decided to make them only appear in ground mode.
 * Like most fanon flagships it is the users favourite creation.

Appearances and variants in other fan games

 * Cantios (MHEX): It shares more with Seregios in its EX1 cutscenes, uses more flashy and special attacks and is as deadly as before!
 * Veteranized Cantios: A variant of Cantios introduced in MHEX2. Battle hardened and uses new abilities unique to it.
 * Cantios (MHOG): It is heavily redesigned because of lack of water combat and Undrea not being present in this game.
 * Shredder Cantios: A variant of Cantios in MHOG, (speculating that it uses its claws far more.)

User credits

 * Rathosaurus, for the main render.
 * Ailuromancy, for the icon.
 * Gojira57, for using this monster in his EX series.