Khloros snorted, turning just in time to get tumbled over and trampled, rammed, the agony of searing heat burning into his flesh. He was bowled across the ice, a shrill, spectral shriek escaping him. As he scrambled up he smelled, with alarm, the stench of burning flesh--and realized it was his own.

This is a problem.

With a wild snort he regained his feet, hooves scrabbling for purchase on the frozen slabs below. His eyes were wide and wild as he turned to face the ram, ears flicking. Muscles surged as he tried to keep his balance, his thin shoulders and chest twitching. He found his teeth baring, another angry, screaming neigh escaping him.

The pain of the pointed hoofprints where they'd pierced his hide ached sharply, burning, burning--

Rapid, faster than a creature as sick as he should have been able to move, Khloros spun and lashed out hard with both hind legs, aiming a sharp double-kick for his attacker.

In a strange, accidental echo of Aries' thoughts, a few words ran through his mind--He must be stopped.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Round: 2/7
Attempt: Kick
Defense: None
Injuries: Horn-thumped, burnt
@Aries

The stench of burnt horse flesh invaded his nose, making his swollen lungs want to cough, but Aries did not yield his pummeling, not until the horse spun around. The ram's eyes grew wide it dawned on him. Khloros was lining up a kick. He spun to the side, trying to dodge, and in doing so, exposed his flank. It was a big mistake. The horse's powerful hooves cracked him in the chest. Aries bleated in surprise as he was sent flying, smashing into a wall of ice.

The impact sent him into a violent coughing fit, and every breath was agonizing. Unbeknownst to Aries, the kick was so strong, that it fractured a rib. He recoiled as he coughed up specks of blood onto the white ice. Aries clinched his teeth, grimacing as he gave Khloros a bleary-eyed glare. Foam and mucus drippled from the corners of his his mouth. He clumsily rose to his hooves, legs shaking from the illness that racked his body. Aries breathing was labored and shallow, yet his golden eyes blazed like an inferno.

Without warning, Aries lurched forward aiming his skull at the horse's diseased hide. With all his strength, aimed to ram him off the ice.

Only over his dead body would Khloros succeed with his heinous plan.

"speak!"

@Khloros
Round: 3/7
Attempt: Ram Khloros (haha get it? cause he's a ram? and this is the ramifications? hahaha... *coughs*)
Defense: None
Injuries: sickened, fractured rib

Khloros stumbled hard as he landed from his own kick. Barely had he turned, peering back with staring eyes to see how badly he'd hit the ram, when he saw it rebounding. He'd heard the crack--felt it--knew that he had struck true. But the creature was resilient... fiery, even, which seemed an appropriate adjective given his actual, literal fire.

And he was coming right at him.

Khloros turned to face the ram entirely, by instinct alone, whirling with pinned ears--only to get slammed full-on in the chest.

Up... back... and over, he was thrown, tumbling. The ice around him whirled, and his head cracked so hard into the cold slab beneath that for a moment the world seemed to reel. He flailed his hooves, struggling to gain some footing, and failing.

Instead, instinctively, he focused his magicka.

Sicken. Sicken, and die, he thought fiercely, past the pain wracking his body.

The ram had struck him. He'd already sickened him once--but now he focused on the plague in his matted, pus-ridden hide, where the creature had hit.

He would focus that illness, and he would stop this relentless attacker.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Round: 3/7
Attempt: Plague
Defense: None
Injuries: Horn-thumped, burnt, horn-SMASHED

@Aries

"Do you yield?!" The ram bellowed from above. He leap down to where the horse had fallen, and started to approach. He eyed the sickly horse with contempt, though a part of him ached when Khloros fell. For a moment he thought he killed him, but then the horse flailed his legs. Aries wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed. Murdering a fellow Gembound was very wrong, but what if could spare the caves from a disastrous fate? Aries had never experienced such inaction than at this moral crossroad.

Suddenly, another coughing fit stopped the ram in his tracks, this one more violent than the last. His cracked rib screamed and he winced in agony. Aries shriveled back, his muscles aching from the foreign fatigue that shackled his body as red sores formed around his mouth. Khloros concocted plague had found its way into him, swelling his lymph nodes. Though it barely gained footing, it gave him a taste of what was to come, if not purged.

I'll.... take that as a no.

He called forth his magicka, the heat, to congregate inside him and burn out this illness, but not magick came. It was like he hit a stone wall. Aries looked up at Khloros, eyes sunken from sickness, and scowled. He tried to stand tall, but that was hard to do with high fever that made his head spin.

"C-coward!" He growled, pausing to coughing up some mucus. "Too scared to.. cough, cough... face me as I am? You have to sicken me first? He managed a forced chuckled before wincing at the pain in his rib. Aries tried to hold his head high but found himself staggering. Khloros, you rat, have you no honor?

"speak!"

@Khloros
Round: 4/7
Attempt: "Burn" whatever is ailing him (not much of a medicine guy)
Defense: Making insides white hot
Injuries: Sicken, fatigued, cracked rib

The ram was talking, snorting, words tumbling forth that held no meaning, incoherent to the diseased horse's stunned mind. He scrambled at last to his feet, turning as he gained purchase, eyeing Aries from his taller, yet trembling, viewpoint. He was hurt, he could feel it, perhaps broken ribs and the burns-...

But Aries was talking. He needs momentum. He cannot charge me if I charge him first, if I get in too close. Khloros knew the ram could still do damage merely by swinging his head--but it would be less like being hit by a thrown boulder, and more like falling against one.

Without hesitation, with a sudden surge of violent movement, while the ram was still speaking, he charged.

He found that his hooves gave him no purchase on the ice, however, and he merely skidded on it, flailing like a large black spider, trying to simply keep his footing.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Round: 4/7
Attempt: Body-slam
Defense: None
Injuries: Horn-thumped, burnt, horn-SMASHED
@Aries

Suddenly, Khloros charged. Aries gaped and braced for impact, but the horse merely skidded on the ice, his hooves found no traction. Aries wasted no time. He was hurt, is strength was manning, but Khloros' mistake gave him a window of opportunity. Again he focused on his magick, this time calling it to his skin.

Thick, black smoke billowed from the ram's charred hide, obscuring him from view. As the smoke smothered the air in the tunnel, Aries took this moment to dig deep into his reserves, pushing the fatigue and pain to back of his mind. Quickly, he jumped up on the ledge's vertical face, as he planned his next attack.

"speak!"

@Khloros
Round: 5/7
Attempt: Char - second wind
Defense: make lots of smoke, climb ledge face
Injuries: Sicken, fatigued, cracked rib

Khloros snorted as the icy tunnel filled with smoke. Quickly he backed away, half-splayed legs skidding and slipping as he tried to keep his footing. Traction was hard to find but find it he did, at last, and as he backed farther and farther from the smoke, he wondered if the ram had finally made its retreat.

Was it too ill to continue? Had he fought it off? Warily watching the smoke wall--which kept expanding toward him, forcing him farther back--he gathered his energy, focusing on recovering himself, for now. He felt his trembling ease just that little bit, felt his breath catching back up with his exertion, felt his magicka returning to his body, if even a little.

Glowing eyes flicked up, watching the smoke wall--and even as he kept backing up, he waited for a flying ram to come leaping from the choking darkness.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Round: 5/7
Attempt: Recover
Defense: Just backing a good distance away
Injuries: Horn-thumped, burnt, horn-SMASHED
@Aries

Standing on the cracked, icy face, Aries mustered his remaining strength. When he felt the sickness strip away his will, it was at that moment he realized he was in a fight for his life. It was either him or Khloros, and the caves would wither and die if the diseased horse had his demented way. Aries could not let that happen. He had to stop Khloros, before his body expired.

The possibility of his own mortality rarely crossed his mind, but now as Khloros' deadly illness festered on his body, the image of the dying lessers flooded his mind. It chilled him to bone. He didn't want to die, not like this. But if this was to be his fate, then he had to make every second count.

Through the choking, charred clouds, he barreled through, smoke pluming from his blackened hide. The ram was wild-eyed, desperate, and he was coming straight for Khloros. He would slam his body against the equine, it did not matter if more contact made his ailing condition worse. He wasn't giving up, not now.

"speak!"

@Khloros
Round: 6/7
Attempt: Tackle, a shove!
Defense: none
Injuries: Sickened, fatigued, cracked rib

He thought he was ready, standing as he was, catching his breath at a distance and warily watching the smoke. When Aries came soaring (dramatically) through the black smoldering veil, Khloros was prepared to leap to one side.

He had failed to take into account, however, the fact that his hooves still were not suited to this ice. He slipped, and there was an instant of flailing panic, of reaching for an alternative and finding nothing, before the heavy set of horns smashed into his forechest and shoulder, sending him scrambling down and back yet again.

His legs slid over the ice, his chest briefly threatening to thump down into it. He struggled to stand, snorting furiously, his breath coming in pants that steamed hot in the bitter cold room. At least he was farther from the acrid smoke, now, but Aries was showing no sign of relenting.

Khloros felt himself, briefly, puzzled. Why was the ram attacking him? Surely he did understood what Khloros had prior said? They were all dying, all toys to this master, gears to this machine, every one of them. And besides, Aries was infected. It was only a matter of time.

"Why do you fight?" Khloros rasped loudly, through his pants, as he struggled. "You are already dead. We all are."

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Round: 6/7
Attempt: Dodge/avoid being smashed up (again)
Defense: Backed away through a dramatic veil of smoke
Injuries: Horn-thumped, burnt, horn-SMASHED
@Aries

"You don't know that." The ram growled coldly. His golden eyes glinted hatred and desperation against his blackened hide. Aries knew he had to make every moment count. His strength was fading. It was either him, or Khloros.

Aries lowered his large, round horns, sickly, yellow mucus dripped from his nostril and mouth. He stumbled for a second as a bout of dizziness almost knocked him off his hooves, but Aries shook his head and began to back up. The dizziness did not go away. Suddenly, Khloros was everywhere. He stopped, confused, Aries looked back and forth between Khloros and his doubles. A surge of panic swelled up in the ram. Was this some kind of spell? He couldn't think straight.

Aries had no idea how fast he was deteriorating. He looked visablely ill, as if he was about to vomit all of his guts. Aries stumbled around drunkenly, still wanting to strike at Khloros, but not knowing where to aim. Which one was the real Khloros? He felt bile rise in throat.

Screw it, just pick one!

Aries gritted his teeth and grunted in frustration. "I will not be deceived by your cowardly tricks, horse!" He screamed at Khloros. Locked in plaguebringer's lantern green eyes he charged forward with all his might, fueled by pure, blind anger. Suddenly, Khloros vanished and a sudden, terrible realization struck Aries. He has flung himself off a ledge.

The ram fell from the steep incline, this time, his hooves did not catch him. His body slammed against the jagged ice with a sickening crack and tumbled helplessly down the crumbling path. Finally, the ram's body came to rest at the bottom. Laid out on his belly, with his legs mangled underneath him, Aries did not move.



"speak!"

@Khloros
Round: 7/7
Attempt: a zealous headbutt
Defense: none
Injuries: Sickened, fatigued, cracked rib