ORIGIN

"AND FOR OUR NEXT BATTLE-MONSTER, WE HAVE A PROMISING UPCOMING BRUTAL MASTER OF DISASTER, THE THUNDER ON FOUR HOOVES, THE GORE-HORN HIMSELF," (Nemean checked her notes. She had a name written down, but she didn't know what it meant. It had "Luchador" noted next to it. Eh, fuck it.) "ABADDON, THE DEMOOOOOOLEDAAAAR RUBIIIII!"

The stone door churned open, and very much exactly like the start of a bullfight, complete with dirt arena and black fighting bull, Abaddon came charging out. His head started low, tail tassel lashing behind him, his musclebound charge sending up plumes of sandy dust behind him. Then he looked up, around, slowing; the heavy metal and roar of the ground and flashing spotlights was terribly confusing, distracting, chaotic. It was too much input for his simple "eat grass, gore things that move" mind to handle, and he began to turn this way and that, regarding the crowd with dull surprise in his dim, red gaze.

He was much larger than your typical Spanish bull, but apparently he'd gotten the Spanish wrestler name tacked onto his. He didn't know what it meant. What any of it meant. He'd only given his name; apparently Nemean had decided to spice it up a bit. He didn't know, nor care; all he knew was that the noise was aggravating, the lights infuriating, the scents of meat and blood on the arena floor irritating.

Abaddon spun, this way and that, jerking his head to and fro--looking for something to fight.

The bull was nothing if not predictable, and the moment he saw the Agate (past the haze of more Words and Lights) he did exactly that.

He charged.

Horns dropped, and the slow trot turned into a haunch-pumping, chest-churning charge, dust pluming up around his hooves. Cloven hooves on thick legs sent him barrelling toward Gatto. He had charged and missed enough times, in the past, to expect his foe--his target--to dodge; and to that end he was ready to toss his head left or right, and try to catch them if they moved. But he was thickly-muscled, not a creature of agility; his dull red eyes burned with only blind fury.

These noises were too loud.

A cascade of thundering filled his ears--the sound of his own hooves--and just as he reached Agate, he stumbled over his own two forefeet. His momentum carried him forward, down, skidding nose-first into the dirt; he tumbled, downed by his own tangled legs and briefly in perfect range--and total exposure--for Gatto to land a strike.

He was slow getting to his feet--a snorting annoyance, a shake of his head. And as he shook his head--as he tossed it to the right, blinking and trying to clear his vision, something whipped into his field of vision. He hardly had time to see it; and then he saw nothing on that side, bar darkness. Magic?! he thought, with another grunt that lifted into a short bellow of frustrated anger. Then he was on his hooves, and the stench of blood was in his nostrils-... And, belatedly, a sharp pain seared his right eye socket.

Agate's strike had ripped clear across the right side of his face, etching a deep gash from ear to nostril and taking his right eye with it. A ruin of blood seeped from the empty hole, its dull red glow extinguished.

Infuriated, the bull bucked into a frenzy: thrashing, throwing himself horns-first and kicks-in-the-air every which way. His form, though heavy, became a bloodied dark blur flinging itself in every direction.. If Abaddon were very lucky, it would most likely strike Gatto a single blow; but it was not the devastating attack a trained fighter would have offered. He was trying to throw off the pain, to destroy anything close--not close in for a kill.

It hurt.

He spun, and the pain of something so small as air against his shredded eyeball left him bellowing again, his distress evident in the sound. He felt the impact of his head against... something, something just large enough to jar him a little in his thrashing, almost to stagger him. And he heard words, too, though they were an unpleasant flow against his mind, which was locked in anger, faint fear, and agony.

Who knew damage to an eye could hurt so much? It was like... an eyeball papercut. But times a thousand.

If the idle thought (had it been that) of 'Really, though, that bull could do a lot worse if he calmed down and put his mind to messing Gatto up,' had been heard by a Narrator, that Narrator would have immediately responded with a dire: "BUT HE DID NOT." Abaddon was no trained fighter; he was very much a primeval bull thrown into the bull-ring, and he was spinning--pawing at his face with one massive cloven hoof, then looking around with a single, blinded eye and a stupid gaze as he sought out the opponent he was unaware he had tossed away.

It took him a moment to spot them, and even then it was only really those lingering, finishing words that clued him in.

His hooves dug into the sand, shoving at the arena floor, the stains of blood clinging to his legs. He charged, again--it was all he knew--head dropping low, silent aside from the thud of his hoofbeats and the snorting of his ragged breath.

Oblivious, bestial, idiotic: he ran for where he'd last seen the Agate.

They could just fly. They could easily attack him before he'd realized that they'd moved. But he was a bull; did he care? What was his alternative? He couldn't fly. He just charged for the stranger, mindless with fury and pain, intending to probably trample--or impale, or gore it--once he got there.

But first--he had to get there.

The bull fell straight for it: a charge right for Gatto, picking up speed like the slow, powerful churn of a steam engine. Chug, chug, chug, except each cycle of his engine was a surge of black-swathed muscle and the pump of four thick legs.

The healing wounds across his underside were now aching, but they were healed enough; it didn't slow him down as he barrelled for the flapping, feathered, squawking-

-wall?
The thought was a blank, fraction-of-a-second realization before he struck stone, a crash of hefty bulk into rock, his entire two-thousand-pound weight hurtling into the worn and ancient wall.

One horn snapped off at the center, the end falling away and blood spattering out of its splintered cuticle; the other shattered at the tip. Abaddon went down, and for a moment it seemed he might stay down--he struck the wall, slid down to his side in a thick plume of dust, and then lay there with his heavy legs swaying dizzily in the air out to one side. The healing scars across his chest and gut, shiny and hairless, were clearly visible; he let out a low, distressed bellow and slowly, blinking (or was that winking?) his single eye, staggered back upright.

He looked dazed; his tongue hung out, his gait staggering.

It was possible that all that was needed was a coup de grace; it was also possible he could turn the tide in an instant of uncaution from the smaller Agate.

Given the way he began a lopsided lumber toward Gatto, uncertain or confused, it was far more likely to be the first.