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- THE LEVIATHAN -

He felt spines and teeth and claws sink into flesh, and they were his teeth and claws and not his flesh and that was good-

A muffled bellow of satisfaction, of triumph, was pressed up against the other monster's meat. Claws rended. Oil-thick blood sprayed.

The jolt of electricity caught him by surprise, and it was a body-seizing paralytic wave of agony, one that roared through his muscles and left him spasming. He could feel it clutching at his veins, his heart-

-Instinctive, reflective, with the experience of centuries of fighting, he attempted to kick off the ground, to break the circuit. Let her shock herself--

His foot kicked off, and the agony rippling through his muscles lessened--he was no longer tearing at her, merely using her to stay off the ground, dazed and pained by the hit. But with luck, the end of her crackling magic (and shit, he'd need to be wary of this-! Her magic was strong, despite her immense physical size) would strike her, instead of him.

Through her legs, into the stone.

Through her muscles, as it had just seared him.

Already he was planning ahead, his tactical mind leaping to the next move, and the next--but already, Draconua was proving a far less predictable opponent than he would ever have expected.

Round: 2/?
Attempt: Un/ground himself so she takes some of the jolt
Defenses: no
Injuries: Burns MORE burns, now of the electrical variety

@Draconua

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Weight pushed against her as Vargas lurched forward—and what corrupt lightning he'd not taken shot through her own veins like wildfire. Hide burned where it entered and travelled, fractals blooming in their path and already due to scar over. (That is, if she fought to survive.)

Draconua's own assault was unplanned, chaotic; she reached for whatever was nearest and crushed it in her iron grip. Her head snapped towards him—aggravating and tearing the wound on her neck further—in stuttering motions, limbs twitching and seizing. For the moment, she was apt to take one wrong step and topple over.

May as well bring him down.

Her tail curled around her, thumping against the dark rock with a guttural shriek. A small radius of the earth broke apart, rearranging itself into a chaotic mass of sharply-cleaved stone and Oilslicked gems. Draconua threw herself towards it in a lurching motion, stopping just short and teetering as if to disturb Vargas's grip on her with what limited motion she had.

Round: 2/?
Attempt: Shatter the ground where Vargas might land as she stumbles
Injuries: Gored through the jugular and lower jaw, numerous lacerations across body, fairly deep bite on shoulder, electrical burns

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

A thump. A cracking shatter of rock. The glint of razor-point stones and gems beneath them. He was pitching, falling, and he had but a fraction of a second to tense against this behemoth.

Vargas attempted to leap with his falling momentum, an attempt to clear this crushing hole and land just safely to one side. If he succeeded, it would play into his plans--but there was no time to think about that now, for if he failed, he would find his flesh shredding on the meat grinder that Draconua forged below.

There was a split-second of hesitation--another plan blooming in his mind, the realization that he could try to twist her into the rock below, to land beneath his weight for extra damage. But there was no time to readjust his position, either: only to focus, keen and with sudden, pure silence in his mind--that heartbeat moment of slowed time--for the leap.

Muscles surged, shoved. Burns seared through his consciousness, raking along his nerves with pain. Claws pushed off the other monster, not to damage but to grant Master Vargas momentum--a momentum that carried him to the new pit's edge, scrabbling at it, hanging for that brief, breath-held moment-...

...and then he was up, feeling the brief cut of gem over his foot, and sprinting away. The burns had slowed him--he had barely made it clear. He would attempt to get space--to zigzag--anything that he could: for his initial attack had drawn blood.

It had drawn a great deal of blood.

Now he had to get clear, and let those wounds do their work.

To let Draconua bleed out.

Vargas spared but the briefest glances over his shoulder as he swerved, ready to circle, to sprint, to turn... his flanks heaved with effort, the scent of his own burnt skin sparking a further roar of adrenaline through his veins.

Round: 3/?
Attempt: Leap entirely clear
Defenses: no
Injuries: Burns MORE burns, now of the electrical variety

@Draconua

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This beast was a swift one—strong, cunning, too. Dangerous. Perhaps for a moment she reconsidered how foolish it had been to challenge him; but, the thrill of combat was almost too much to bear. Draconua would continue to fight, even at her own expense. The pit that now yawned between them was an obstacle of her own making. Her limbs quivered from their brief squabble and the violence of it, and her heart beat a thousand times a second. Blood roared in her ears at the same rate it poured from her throat—

—oh.

The violet-black glow that'd been glimmering in her bared throat dissipated and she recoiled as she stumbled forward, one of her own feet catching on the wickedly sharp spikes. A hiss gurgled from her throat. There were no stakes here to say that she should fight to the death—though every carnal sense her being had been equipped with pointed to merciless onslaught, to keep going.

Many times as she had perished in battle, it was for good reason. She did not waste her bodies.

Draconua tucked her chin down low, the holes of her faceplate glaring at Vargas with renewed wariness. A shot of fire puffed from her mouth, but rather than reach its intended target of her own throat, it lashed across the thick part of her left forearm. She backpedaled, tail lashing as it met the heat of the Black Spire. Another gurgling roar escaped her, but this one meant stay away.

While making her (pathetic little) retreat back beneath the Spire, she rattled out, "Master Vargas." He had made hardly a single cast of magic while she was clawing for it again and again. Even with his brutality, the Leviathan had been going easy on her by not holding her in place and ripping her to shreds—or calling upon his fellows over yonder to finish the job. Perhaps it was a lack of choice that made Draconua accept him as what he said he was; otherwise, it was death.

Even still, she would serve Him. If this one knew His decree and she did not, then she should listen.

If allowed to molder within the confines of her own chrysalis again, the Hound ground out, "what would you have me do to reclaim the Caves for Him?"

Round: 3/?
Attempt: Cauterize even part of her neck with corrupted fire
Injuries: Gored through the jugular and lower jaw, numerous lacerations across body, fairly deep bite on shoulder, electrical burns, shards of stone embedded in one foot, corruption burns on left forearm

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

He showed nothing of his relief.

Nothing, too, of his wariness that this might somehow be another trap, though it was true he drew no closer.

She was large--too large to continue fighting head-to-head; he had already decided to avoid that, to use his speed and hope that she could not match it, to let her bleed and hope that she could not reach him with her magic. But hope was not a certain thing.

Surrender was--when it was not a trick.

But he showed nothing of it, for confidence was as much a weapon as spines and fangs and claws. Intimidation, surety. If he staggered now-...

"Mend yourself," Vargas snapped, mustering all the authority he could manage, even while his own body screamed for mending. He fought to call upon his magicka, and though he showed nothing of his doubts, he could not help but tremble slightly where he stood. His muscles had burnt, and spasmed, and every ripple of searing heat and electrical charge that jolted through them threatened to turn his limbs to jelly. The surge of magicka eased only the surface of it, and he knew that he would need time to recover, but...

So far, he was holding.

"We would not waste your usefulness. But mend yourself, if you can." It was blunt, commanding, but almost indifferent: "If you cannot, then return to your stone; I offered you aid and you denied it, and I cannot mend what I have done to you." Not revenge, nothing sneered, but simple fact. "If you survive, you may aid in the retaking of these caves and their return to productivity. You may accompany me, perhaps, to meet the Hand of the Creator, Lord Dhracia, when next she visits to check on our progress." Here Vargas paused, briefly, wondering if this creature was capable of splitting itself, of handing off a soldier to his Lord. "If you have something to offer her--all the better." Did she even know what such things were-? "Now: your name, again?" he asked, teeth gritted against the sudden seize of muscle in his forelimbs.

@Draconua

Mend yourself.
Aside from burning the worst of the wounds shut, only the passage of time could work that constant spasm of muscle and hide out of her system. Such a thing was just an imperative. Fix what'd been shredded or, retreat into another restless slumber. Either way, Draconua would survive to serve whatever existence this was. Just within the hole would be where she lay. Her faceplate was just barely visible amid the broken rock. No matter how carefully she stepped over the shards, they caught in the pads of her feet. A full-mouth grimace was a permanent fixture on her face.

Vargas continued to speak, and as he did, she was crouching low—as if to lie down, but not yet. Not while this one, Master or not, was still around. She would sequester herself in this hole for a while, even if her mind—addicted to chaos—rallied for more and more and more. A flush of magic misfired again, but she snapped her mouth shut in time to keep it from burning at her again. Another spasm rocked through her haunches, and she lurched in place.

"I eagerly await it," Draconua echoed darkly, expecting total war to be beyond these halls. What else could reclamation entail? Peaceable existence? Foolish. She could offer anything the Hand could ask for: a pointy reckoning to shutter one; a rain of fire to cull many; her own fissioned selves to serve in her place (though she'd make a plea for the thrill of fighting at His side once more.) Not that she offered as much to the Master—he did not specify what might be required of her.

Now: your name, again?
"Draconua," she uttered. Then, after a moment of consideration and a dimly-lit, wicked grin, the Hound added, "the Sleepless Chaos."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas was in motion again--closer, now, but not too close, pacing as though his muscles weren't writhing beneath his skin in agony. As if the skin itself wasn't blackening, burning with a tracery of scars already.

The concentration honed over centuries of combat silenced this, and he focused on his magic. He did not think it would come--as he had told her--but he attempted it nonetheless; perhaps the Black Spire's presence here would bolster him. I need this one, he thought to it, with a glance upward at its always-shifting black-slick shape. It was one step off a prayer.

The Creator did not answer prayers.

It had, in retrospect, been a foolish attempt, given how badly and how often it tended to backfire; and Vargas found himself tumbling back, falling to his rump as muscles seized and twitched, as his own blood flooded and roared in response. At least he hadn't torn Draconua's blood out through her open wounds.

A growl escaped him, and he hoped she had not seen his tumble, or that if she had she'd think it some sort of... tactical... respositioning. Maybe she will believe that I just sat down, he thought wryly, and there was, even, some shimmer of embarrassment at what his servants--Overseer, hangers-on and children--at the cave entrance, must be thinking.

"The Sleepless Chaos." He said it aloud, mulling it over. Was she ironic, then-? Possessing, at least, beyond that chaotic certainty--that mad paladin's fervent dedication to violence--of amusement? Or did she truly believe that she had never slept..?

"Draconua. You are not one of mine. But you are one of his. When you are well enough, I will tell you who, and what, we are. I will tell you, if you wish to hear it, what has happened in this cave from beginning to its end, so far as I am aware--we have all slept. Your actions and choices beyond that point will be your own, and so long as they do not conflict with our goals, I expect that we will not become enemies. We serve the same Creator." A pause, then, as he considered his words--but pain, and now cramping muscles, had distracted him from whatever point he'd intended to make. Ahh, well; not all speeches could be burnished gold. This one would make do as brass. "Tell me when you are ready to speak, and we will speak! Until then I will mend the damage you have done," and this was said with amusement. "You are an admirable fighter," he added, ever honest in his words. "I am Master Vargas, the Leviathan. Once Overseer Vargas, looking over the choosing, the culling and the trials of this nest's creations." Did she know what any of that was-? Was she a new creation, never-woken, or was she like him, an old one, confused by long sleep? "Do you know what any of that means?" he asked, at last--and wondered if the dripping of blood that he could hear was signalling merely injury, or her end.

@Draconua

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

gore

Were she in any better state, she might've bared her teeth in a fully wicked grin—Vargas's stumbling back did not go unnoticed. Subordinacy required or not, her strength had been enough to inflict damage. It didn't occur to her that it was a backfire of his own—one's magical prowess was too great for that, when they held such a title. Those blooming scars along his sides were an achievement all on their own. Pay no mind to the wounds barely clotting on her own body. Draconua grimaced, keeping her chin tucked and trying, again, to seal at least that one laceration.

At last, entropic fire bloomed against her throat. Her teeth gnashed against one another as flesh boiled and popped, Oil taking heat eagerly and burning even hotter than it already did. One second of contact, a pause, another second of contact, pushing and pushing until the seams met and there was little but messy, gory residue. It stung and burned—and moving too much would certainly tear it right back open—but, she was no longer in mortal peril.

This body had not been wasted yet.

The Master wore out her name, her title, and he spoke. Of goals and histories. But, hadn't he already dispensed as much? Rebellion among the Masters? An eternity of sleep—which, she could not find herself believing—for every creature ever to be? "Tell me, then," Draconua rattled, voice sounding far more strained and hoarse than she intended, "how I could have lived through eons of Chaos and Darkness—yet been asleep." Where did dreams end and reality begin? Her conviction smudged that line out of being. "What has happened?"

Then, slowly: "I know only of Masters."

@Vargas

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas' eyes narrowed. Despite his promise, he did not yet launch into cave history, did not sit down, whip out a blackboard and put on six-eyed spectacles-... No, he stared, mind churning over this information.

She knows only what Masters are. She is new--wholly new, then?--and yet she fights like this. With magic that could shatter rocks. With the power to fight the Leviathan himself--and potentially win. She was left here, he thought to himself, as Draco's guardian, perhaps. And yet Jupiter was not stopped. Why-? Not ready, yet, then? Or perhaps it formed her itself, this Black Spire, later--beneath itself, to protect itself. Toxic gaze darted up to examine the ever-shifting stone.

"I will tell you, then, but first tell me this: do you know where you are, or how you came to be?" A pause, a grimace as he tried, and failed, to stand on cramping hind legs. "Do you know what this place is?"

@Draconua

Draconua swept aside shards of Oilstone with a single claw, still crouched low into her womb—her tomb?. Her faceplate, unexpressive as it would ever be, stared at the Leviathan. Truth be told, she knew not what this place was. There was no name she could place for it. A thousand shattered chrysalises lined the walls. His Spire lay above her, its heat baking into her backside. It was a place of formation, but where?

"No," her breaths rattled out, and she shifted in place, "I see where His creatures might have been festering, but I lack a name for this place." As for her origins? A thin grimace formed on her maw. "He must have granted me this body to continue my service." Draconua'd like to think she was damn good at her job.

Then, she waited.

@Vargas