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gore

It's too dark to see. Alcina's frantic attempt to slam Vargas into the ground only delivered her right into his claws. There's the horrible screeching and scrabbling of the drone as she finds claws drive into her jaws, tearing away at teeth and flesh and bone.

There's nothing but pure agony in the link, even as Juggernaut attempts to intervene. It's too late, anyway, as Vargas latches on around Alcina's upper jaw and rends it off, sending pale fluids and white flesh spraying into the dark.

She's lucky he couldn't sense her stone, or it surely would have been her lower jaw missing instead, as she falters and drops the floor, sand sticking together as ordered fluids leak out and cause it to clump, and the clearstone falls around her, cloaking her in even more darkness.

The last thing she sends through the Hive's link is a pitiful forgive me...

@Vargas (for visibility)

Exit Alcina - to chrysalis.

Blight banked, flapping, tattered wings beating at the air. He aimed a second blast for Orthus: a follow-up to his first, intending to rapidly advance his plague to its final stages. Though he opened his jaws in a screeching roar, the attack's magic was direct and targetted, aimed for the heart of the white beast, who even to Blight's natural night vision was but a blur in the shadows.

His gaze cut to the slightly sluggish blue glow of the beast who had taken Bone--the one he'd already plagued. Some brief and savage part of him wondered if he ought to secretly kill that one, too... or cure him. And with a brutal triumph, he realized that the Sentinel's life, in some sense, lay in his hands--or talons.

@Orthus (if the first attack is dodged this probably won't do anything?? but I wanted to post this round before I forget)

Well, it had become pitch black. Nidhogg bared his teeth--then closed his jaws, flattening his quills and scurrying into the underbrush alongside where Scorn had been heading. He paralleled the boar, doing his best to hide himself, with the full intent of biding his time (for once) and striking unseen. Maybe if he could get alongside him, hide himself completely... and then leap out at his face?! (Nidhogg's planning was good in theory, but the end goal was still very much up in the air. It was as if he'd planned about half of an actual plan and would figure out the rest as he went along--so not much of a plan at all, really.)

I'm gonna EAT IT, he decided, unaware of what an incredibly questionable decision that would be.

In an instant, though, and even while moving forward, he'd rolled in sand and leaves, covering his glowing parts with matted foliage--and now he was arrowing for Scorn, eyes narrowed to hide their glow as best he could.

The question was mostly "is that actually Scorn"--while the drones were bright white, and thus easier to see against the shadows, it still was quite dark. It remained to be seen whether Nidhogg's assassination attempt would be made against a boar, or--for example--a particularly bleached piece of driftwood.

Mother said they were winning, flooded their minds with an early triumph. She had promised their success, but it was getting harder and harder for the Juggernaut to believe in it. Not in any logical way mind you - it hadn't weighed the odds, noticed how uneven the numbers were, the sheer difference in skill between the families. It had always been an emotional creature, one especially susceptible to whatever warm fuzzy feelings were pumped into its brain - to Mother's benefit of course.

But through the smother dark, he saw it. Worse still, he was able to comprehend it. He saw the blow coming, felt the pain in his leg as he stumbled to catch it. No prayer now, just the shredding pain that charged through him like a solar flare, symmetry ripped from her body by misshapen arms. Before that awful, dreadful nothingness - she asked for forgiveness.

As if this were her fault. As if she had chosen her opponent - misjudged somehow.
As if he hadn't crawled to her aid too late.

And suddenly, they were upon them - the two hulking shapes reached with those terrible claws, seeking his weaknesses. Whatever stupor the loss had left him in was shaken with the feeling of new pain. Distinctly physical, not muffled or altered by other minds. The tendril came away easily tendons and tissues carved to shreds in the brutal offense. Instinct overtook him. He was not fighting for his family now - he was fighting for his life.

The creature that had struck down Alcina darted to the side, what he must've assumed was the direction of Juggernaut's flank. Or where a flank would be located - if the drone actually possessed one. Another blow that sought his legs. Unable to truly avoid it, he hoped to mitigate it instead, tucking the limb so that the blades would graze against his armour rather than a joint.

His reaction was well timed, pain and adrenaline roaring through him with energy anew. The blow still cut, breaking through chitin to inflict a painful gash, but it wasn't nearly as debilitating as the attack's intention. Three limbs Juggernaut could adapt to, but two was asking a lot of it.

Alcina's last words to it, before falling to clearstone silence - they made its organs writhe with feeling. Forgive me. She had not failed them. She had kicked and screamed against impossible odds, struggled against some cruel and unfeeling power that hated her, hated them all. For what? What had they done?

Followed their Mother's word - only children, only children -

Well this baby was about to rip out someone's eyeballs.

The three tendrils it had left cracked forward for the head of the creature Vargas. It sought the sickly acid-green spheres, nestled into hollow sockets. Juggernaut wanted to scream at him, tell him exactly what he had done to his family, shriek for an answer - Why? - but he did not have the vocabulary. The mouth underneath roared, but he knew it would do nothing.

The beast would never understand their connection - none of them would. Unloved and unlovable until the end of time... Or until Mother freed them from their miserable existence.

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

It didn't help that someone had turned off the lights. While Juggernaut had still been visible as a white smear against the dark, the thrust of tendrils was far less visible--and the Leviathan's eyes made a prime target in the shadow. He saw the sudden thrust of white far too late to fully avoid it, and it was all he could do to jerk his head aside at the last second, lifting an arm to shield himself. He felt the rip of pointed, blade-sized needles tear through the rigid flesh of face and forelimb, and realized with a surge of rare rage that these would leave scars.

He jerked back afterward, shaking himself, the welling acid blood dripping glowing neon against the beach sand. It left a trail of sizzling chartreuse, drops that served as proof of his mortality hissing beneath him.

@Juggernaut (for visibility)

How lame. The big mean white boar wasn't even chasing them any more. Rue wanted a fight, not a punching bag. They already had plenty of punching bags.

Their night vision is alright in the dark - enough to tell the familiar shapes of the rest of the Forge from the others. But that did not mean Dread and his dragonkin would be safe from Rue.

Luckily though, it is not a member of the Lair the corrupted hound turns towards. Instead it focuses on a Praetor, one leading the new charge into the cavern. To it, and the ones behind it, Rue would simply be the flash of green glowing eyes, and sparks of red flashing underneath fur.

Die! Die in the dark where you belong! Forgotten and left to rot! they scream mentally. Perhaps it was a blessing that the Forge were not linked in the same way the Hive was...

Rue howls, praying to no one their magic lashes out, to take it down.

...Instead, they light up with a nice toasty glow. Whoops.

The Warden breathed a sigh of relief when it saw the Sentinel escape the Praetor's nearly deadly attack, but then the flash of white in the corner of one of its eyes alerted it to the insectoid monster attacking the child instead of the parent. With a snarl, it made to bring up its glaive against the creature lunging forward, to knock it away so that it didn't end up barreled over as the Sentinel had.

But - again, it wasn't quick enough. Just as it was bringing the hilt up to knock the attacker away, a claw slammed into the weapon and knocked it aside, out of the Warden's hand, and then a body was crashing into it, throwing it off-balance and scoring a deep hit on its side, where it felt the warm black liquid beginning to spill from. It fell on the ground, for the moment at the mercy of the Praetor, and probably in horrible danger, if the Sentinel hadn't made to smash the attacker, driving it off of the Warden for the moment.

But it didn't have any moment to breathe as another of the insects was looming over it, claws out, fangs primed to dig into his flesh. For a moment, the exhilaration of battle was gone and there was only fear for its own life as it was suddenly overwhelmed. It made to kick the Praetor away, feeling the banging of the thing's jaws against its armored foot, not breaking the thick skin, but then both mantis-like blades carved into its side and the Warden howled with pain as deep, grave wounds were opened on its side.

It was already getting light-headed, a combination of its existing wounds, these new ones, and the venom from the Drone, things were growing darker then the already pitch-black cave. It could feel itself shutting down, but it made for one last attack before it was finished.