Tactics and Logistics (East)

[Peregrine]

I'M NUCLEAR, I'M WILD

The ring called to her, its siren’s song that lured the gladiator to the games. The bread and circus that drew in the crowd so too drew in the fighter. This was life until life started for her anew. And it would soon, so soon. She tasted the blood and the dust on the tip of her tongue. Tonight she would celebrate there in the ring, a momentous occasion. It was that night that she knew what they would be called: Tempest. She’d long appreciated the imagery of the storm, of tumult. It was both homage and divergence, for this storm would be her own; she’d refute relics of the past and forge her path anew, where blood would fall like rain. Her Master had shaped her not only for his own use, she had come to realize, but for her to be her own Master when the time had come. He fought for conquest, for blood and bones, for the storm. So would she, now, after his death so long ago.

The calls of the crowd welcomed her once more as she leapt into the ring. The crust of the bloodied sand was luscious earth to those who welcomed it, the surrounding fence no longer a cage but an embrace. Tzafar stood where hundreds had stood before, willingly or otherwise. Her blood would join the fray, as it had before. The Kangal mongrel waited motionless save for measured breaths. Challengers could be a reluctant lot, at the prospect of a loss. Even here, where a win or a loss meant ultimately nothing, there were only so many individuals who would allow themselves to be compromised for the sake of another’s entertainment. There had been a time that Tzafar, perhaps when she was young, would have felt similarly due to a sense of idealism rather than shame. But as she grew, she learned: there were certain forums for idealism, and this was not kind of place that was one. So she waited for her opponent amidst the throbbing atmosphere.

I'M BREAKING UP INSIDE

TZAFAR VS. GRIMSHAW
- Two fight posts each
- Intro unjudged
- One week time limit
- 500 word cap
- Unlimited attacks/dodges (within reason)
- Loser gets pinned
- Winner goes on to fight another, if they wish
**NON CRITIQUE JUDGING

My unjudged intro.

[East]

MAKE IT RAIN TO RINSE ME OUT

Bodies teemed around the ring, around Grimshaw; they forced against the dog's side, stamped at his toes, shouted across his back and laughed in his ears. They did it without knowing him, nor he them. Strangers met one another with a brusque intimacy lovers could envy, all consigning themselves to boil in the underbelly of the building where they bundled together like a charged nerve. The scarred dog was entwined at the heart, generating its impulses. He was a constant in an ever changing mass, and long desensitized.

As a result, Grimshaw Agilulfo never expected to recognize a face. There were new fighters every night and seldom reoccurring; tentative newcomers that bit off more than they could chew, the humiliated boaster dragging away the tatters of their pride. Or the family man, shifty eyed when he left with, no doubt, lies on his tongue as to where he'd been. Grimshaw could empathize with that kind. So when he noticed the tan female return to the empty ring, where she'd already beaten several victories in its dirt, the host snapped to attention.

There was always a few moments, the equivalent of a held breath, where they awaited the next challenger to come forward. Nervous, perhaps, that it would themselves. Grimshaw flicked the tip of his tongue against his teeth, considerating, before he made the plunge to join the Kangal dog.

Landing squarely, the thud of Grimshaw's paws was drowned out by the ensuing uproar. He waited for the thrum of impact to fade from his pads as he pushed his shoulders back, freeing them from tautness. He looked towards the female as he faced her, the indolence of his dark gaze evasive of the study they made from his opponent. There was no fanfare to introduce their fight, as was the custom, only the dirt being cast aside as he propelled forward. She was the first opponent he'd taken seriously in this underground gambit; it mattered not if the crowd watched or dispersed.

The dog's charge was short, limited by the length of the ring. With the burst of momentum he'd assembled, the Dane mix lowered at the second before contact and twisted his torso away with a skidding step to aim his shoulder at her chest. If he could wedge it against her sternum, he had a chance at hoisting the female up from her foothold to drive her backwards.

MY FIRE IS WILD, MY RAGE IS DEEP
ONE BLACK EYE, BUSTED TEETH

edit: INTRO

[Peregrine]

I'M NUCLEAR, I'M WILD

Familiarity could ward off uncertainty, even when familiarity was not all-pervasive. There had been a time when the ring was novel to her, though the happenings within were not. That was no longer. Even so, rarely did she know the face of her opponent, and rarely did she remember the face of her opponent; it was an intimacy that lasted minutes at most, charged with the electricity of lovers, only to be forever forsaken within a count of ten. All of them were the same at their core; the metallic tang of blood on her tongue was identical between so-called individuals.

Silence, even amidst the near-constant jeering of the crowd, was the ballad of the unwilling. It was a song that could continue only so long. When the large Shepherd mongrel took to the ring, Tzafar felt a stark twist of pleasure within her gut. She knew him, but she was not sure if such knowing was mutual. She was but one of a thousand, while he was the head of that same thousand. After today, though, she would be sure. It would a lesson in blood from a practiced teacher, one that she longed for him to never forget.

He did not wait. The Ringmaster lurched suddenly forward, the great weight of his frame the fuel behind his charge. The pair was confined within a limited circle, the imminence an element forced. As he kicked from his spot, so too did Tzafar stir, for she could not afford the inevitable unbalance of inaction. That was what many fighters forgot, and it was often to their downfall. The scarred Kangal danced forward with heavy steps, muscles tensed to meet him. Within the flash before impact, there was a sudden half-rear and pivot, a bodily parry; Tzafar’s action was what she could manage in that moment. Instead of hitting her head on, the Shepherd mutt deflected off the lower side of her chest, sliding by and catching the crook of her forearm and fully dislodging it from the sand below.

There was an instant, fleeting, in which all of her weight was upon him, held hostage by him. She scrambled for equilibrium, pushing contrary so as to right herself on her free forelimb. But it was merely for that momentary reassurance of earth. Tzafar returned to swing wide jaws like a skewed pendulum, seeking a bite on the broad side of her opponent; in the same instant, she grappled for traction with all four paws, thrusting the enormity of whatever force she could garner back upon him with the intent of driving him toward the fence surrounding the ring.

I'M BREAKING UP INSIDE

[1/2]

[East]

MAKE IT RAIN TO RINSE ME OUT

As the Kangal female tore ahead with the pound of paws against dirt to meet the Ringmaster's advance, their impact promised gravely to be devastating. In a clash of titans, prowess was recognized through size and strength; victory obscured until the smoke had risen from the rubble of the battlefield. What the slavering crowd didn't see were the subtleties that distinguished their combat from the savagery of beasts; the twist of a foot or the precise shift of weight that would turn the tides far more effectively than simply bolstering their might without appropriate aim.

Because of such, his opponent had ensured he'd meet her with only half his intention, Grimshaw's shoulder forced along the curve of her chest until it fixed against her armpit. The scarred dog shoved against the weight he was instantly burdened with, releasing a guttural breath of effort. There was only a brief give before she took reign of their stalemate with a powerful lurch, followed by the bat of her jaws. He buckled instinctively at the smarting sensation and recovered within the same second, but a second was already more than he could afford as his back paws slid sharply along the muddied sand. Grimshaw Agilulfo sank lower, bracing the front of his skull against her chest when the muscles in his back legs began to tremble under the strain.

A thought spiked sense through the collective shouts of the observers. He'd not be able to withstand her any longer. Rather than meet failure on her terms, he would tactically relent for an alternative strive to success. Grimshaw relinquished his stasis by aiming his jaws at the front of her shoulder to puncture and grip.

Surging backwards as he was overpowered, his paws skipped across the floor in an attempt to curve his path sharply away from the fence. The Malinois mutt was relying on her momentum when he dug his heels in to make fleeting action before they reached the edge of the ring. Using whatever hold he'd procured, the male would would try to twist aside and drag her along and forward in the motion. There was no way he could halt the female's propulsion entirely, but there was a chance that they'd hit the wall together.

MY FIRE IS WILD, MY RAGE IS DEEP
ONE BLACK EYE, BUSTED TEETH

[1/2]

[Peregrine]

I'M NUCLEAR, I'M WILD

The Ringmaster’s general mass was greater than hers, and so he would manage to budge against her resistance given the right time and circumstances. But she could not yield to him the battleground, however cramped, however limited, however spat upon by elitists. They were one with the dirt and the blood, they were each other’s; they would be torn from none until they’d had their way. In the movement of that pendulum that was their skirmish, advantage swung in the Kangal’s direction—for now. But she’d take what she could from it, with jaws well forged to bite.

Or was it her advantage, when it was freely given? Like a pendulum, it swung both ways. The two of them, a pair interlocked, plummeted sidelong toward the fence under Tzafar’s strength. It was her strength until it wasn’t; he’d thrust into her with his teeth, carving against the ridge of her shoulder, in order to secure himself. At last came the right time and circumstance, as his size came into play. There might have been a squelch of pain and blood – or, perhaps, the attention to such a sensation – had she not been gripped proverbially by the skull. It began as a shift of his might, which forced their dance to a pivot that wrenched her well enough from her intent.

The length of her body clattered against the fence, a long line of superficial, but apparent, pain. There was no growl upon her lips in that instant; it was a waste of breath, a frivolous show that had its time and place. Not here. But her face twisted into a snarl just the same, the fighter’s smile. He was her friend and her enemy, so she extended him only the finest of her brutal decorum. Parallel to the fence, a breath away from the crowd of jackals that indulged on their masochism, Tzafar bucked toward the Ringmaster. The latter portion of her body bunched and rippled in favor of gravity; she angled her torso upward with the tenacity of a warhorse, her forelegs kicking like one. The scarred beast drove forth against the other with thunder in her paws.

Tzafar swung a sideward arc with wide open jaws, so that a strike upon one side of the Ringmaster might lead him to collide with the fence on his other. She aimed for the face, the neck, the shoulder—she did not discriminate between anything within the reach of her scythe.

And she forged ahead until he would stop her.

I'M BREAKING UP INSIDE

[2/2]

[East]

MAKE IT RAIN TO RINSE ME OUT

Flesh twisted and sundered through teeth that held firm to the bone as he swung momentum to his advantage, selfishly denying Tzafar anything but its very edge to cling onto before it would forsake her entirely. The laws of physiques were unbiased, however, sparing Grimshaw no more kindness than what was due. The fence caught him hard by the haunch and shoved him away like a volatile partner, jolting his mouth from its hold. The resulting booms of bodily impact was akin to a gunshot in close range; the ringing screech filled his ears for a half second and reverberated through him.

It was a strangely peaceful, almost blissful feeling. How it must have felt at the eye of the storm until the chaos came back to life all at once in a screaming, circling gale to drag the dog back to its midst. The thunder of the crowd crashed over the buzz of tranquility, fiercer than ever, but it was Tzafar who would get to be his tempest.

Bloodied lips stretched away his teeth and to mirror her fighter's grin, surely a joke they could both ridicule before they would join once more to revel in it. There was no charge behind the ringmaster, only a rise to become the land that caught the sea when she raged down on his shores.

But not without consequence. The serrated edge of her mouth cut his shoulder and drug up along his neck, quick but harsh as blood instantly filled the furrows left behind. There was a rush of stinging heat without the fury, but he savoured its fuel regardless. The Kangal dog's blow had knocked his weight to force his side against their arena's edge but he angled his chest to crush towards hers, aiming to secure one fore leg behind Tzafar's and the other stretching for across her shoulder as the muscles in his own swelled with shaking tension.

At the apex of their match, one would have to fall. It was in these last seconds, where adversaries hung in the balance of a hollow victory or a faceful of dirt that their melees were most desperate, most heinous; all to get that final punch in. Grimshaw thrust his weight at her and snapped his jaws towards the female's face, then continued to snap until they found a spot that would yield to his teeth. Should they find their clutch, Grimshaw would go to ram her skull sidelong into the wall that had made a friend and an enemy of the both of them.

MY FIRE IS WILD, MY RAGE IS DEEP
ONE BLACK EYE, BUSTED TEETH

[2/2]