marked M for death Match

WE ARE BORN. WE ARE READY. WE ARE BORN. READY.

Disregard and discard circumstance, expectation. Those are for lesser animals. Durathror simply is, and what she is is UN. FUCKING. STOPPABLE.

Hours alive spent charging out of Draco, through the meadows leaving a sizzling trail of acid and fire wherever it went, burning a hole in the world and any lesser small enough to fit in its mouth. Durathror has a very large mouth.

Now, it is bursting into Cepheus, and it hates what it sees as much as an animal can hate, every new neuron bursting into flame as it beholds - the horror - manicured lawns and pruned hedges. And, oh god no, potted plants. Those are the most egregious insult, and they must die first.

CRASH! CLATTER! The tiger is out.

She's chewing of fragments of ceramic as they're reduced to powder and spit when she remembers that she hates the grass, too. But that brand new brain of hers puts the pieces together and suddenly, dark tufts of fire are sprouting, beginning to slowly raze the garden - yes, yes... Much better. Incredible work.

@Dawn

The sound of shattering pottery sends a bolt of electricity down Dawn's spine. Like a puppet on strings pulled tight, she jolts to attention, whips around so fast you can almost hear her joints crack, and dashes for the source. She was created to GUARD, and now that there is REBEL [presumably] presence in the Palace, she will GUARD this place and DESTROY the threat.

"HALT!" Dawn commands as she burst into the garden that Durathror was currently wrecking. She does not halt herself. Her eyes flick to the violet-black fire spreading among the plants with a sense of revulsion and horror, but she does not let it distract her. Instead she barrels straight for the INTRUDER and THREAT and REBEL, elegant hooves carrying her and all her teeth and wrath on a collision course for it.

@Durathror

Round 1/?
Attempt: charge straight at durathror and tackle her
Defense: none
Injuries: none

If it were older, wiser, it would've paid Dawn no mind and keep at it until she'd physically intervened. However, her big head raised like a dog's at the strange words, the first real contact it'd had with someone who it didn't share blood with-

The stranger slammed into her side, a blur of white and the sting of teeth, reminding her of this world's nature and Durathror's place in it. Sublime. Exquisite. She toppled over, rolling onto her back as her mouth snapped towards Dawn's torso, threatening to drag Dawn along with her.

ROUND 1/?

ATTEMPT: trying to fit a whole dawn in her mouth
DEFENSE: the power of incredible violence
INJURIES: slammed on

@Dawn

She feels the electrifying impact of hooves and antlers against a solid, heavy body and the world tilts and spins as they bowl each other over. The REBEL's jaws close around Dawn's shoulder and she lets out a shrieking "AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!" that is decidedly incongruent with her elegant figure. While her jaws are open from the scream, she rips them open further until it's teeth all the way down her neck and lashes the extended version at Durathror's body. They're rolling on the ground. They're tearing at each other. Well, mostly Durathror is chomping on her and Dawn doesn't really know what her own jaws are doing. She's certainly trying to tear. It may not be the rebel that she's tearing but she IS TEARING. There is a lot of blood, marring Dawn's perfect fur coat, but she feels the thrilling satisfaction of knowing that she is doing her JOB. Maybe.

@Durathror round 2/?
Attempt: rip and tear
Defense: all the naturally pointy bits
Injuries: chomped

Durathror's current strategy isn't entirely suited for combat, but it appeared to be working just fine right now, so what the hell. Literally eat her. Swallow her whole if you have to.

Teeth sink into meat, drawing blood - that blood pools into the hollow of her mouth, onto her tongue, tongue tastes that blood - fireworks. Her whole body succumbed the gravitational pull of violent murder, disregarding the shredding teeth making their way through her thick plating, her own toxic orange blood beginning to soak the grass underneath. It sizzles where it falls, the only part of getting injured she cares about. Let it burn.

She rolls over once, twice, any plan to actually get back up completely decimated by the need to tear this thing in her mouth to shreds. She shakes her head, growling, energised by the mere idea of the damage it could do. Key word: Could.

@Dawn

ROUND 2/?

ATTEMPT: shakes you
DEFENSE: the power of incredible violence
INJURIES: bruised, various bleeding cuts around her neck and chest

There was a FIRE in the gardens. There were SCREAMS. "OH MY GOSH!" Scorch exclaimed as he hurtled through a window and came upon this incredibly violent scene. Someone was eating one of the cute palace deer! And setting the GARDENS on fire! Scorch loved plants so whoever setting them on fire was a BAD PERSON and he had to stop them from destroying the palace!

"STOP THAT! RIGHT NOW!" he cried. To emphasize his point, he swooped down, magic sparking to try to grow a giant sundew where the Gembound destroying the garden was fighting the deer. Tangle it up and let it see how it feels when IT'S the one getting eaten!

round 3/?
attempt: make a sundew to try to snag, glue, and eat durathror
defense: none. well he is flying i suppose
injuries: none

Flesh tore from sinew and connective tissue in a sickening rrriiipppp as the REBEL SHOOK its head back and forth and ROLLED. At least it hadn't managed to drag her further into its mouth. Dawn kept shrieking, though it was muffled by the fact that she didn't have full use of her mouth. She kept trying to bite and tear the REBEL, to give it a taste of its OWN destructive medicine. If her mouth burned from the acidic blood, she didn't make the connection. All the pain blended in to the REBEL HURTING HER. She had to HURT IT BACK.

@durathror round 3/?
attempt: bite and tear in retaliation
defense: that's not my job
injuries: extra chomped

Durathror rolled directly into the growing sundew, the plant immediately catching on her body and forcing it still - or at least forcing her to stop rolling around so much. The enzymes chewed at her thick pelt, partially kept at bay by her natural resistance to acids, but persistent enough that her resistance wouldn't matter if she stayed attached for a couple seconds more...

But it wasn't something that could think ahead right now. Teeth flashed its way and something sparked, defensive instinct beginning to awaken now that the Helldeer threatened to 1. Escape and 2. Eat her back???

In retaliation to this clear imbalance in the natural order of things, Durathror released her grip on Dawn's torso and attempted to reassert it on her face, and maybe her neck, in order to force her mouth shut.

@Scorch

ROUND 3/?

ATTEMPT: Biting dawn's mouth shut (epic fail)
DEFENSE: the power of incredible violence
INJURIES: bruised, various bleeding cuts around her neck and chest, stuck to a sundew and being slowly digested

Why were they still biting each other!? The sundew was supposed to stop that. Instead Scorch watched as the person responsible for the destruction just... kept biting, undeterred. He hooted with frustration as he made another pass over the tangled duo, and got a sudden flash of inspiration from what, ironically, Durathror herself was doing.

"I SAID STOP THAT!" he shouted again, and tried to manipulate the sundew to shift its grip to Durathror's mouth, to hold it shut before she bit the poor deer again. As it turned out, though, sundew was SUPER STICKY and moving its grip once it had caught was really really hard. In fact, it didn't move at all.

round 4/?
attempt: hold DURATHROR's mouth shut
defense: flying (though getting rather close)
injuries: none

Whoever was shouting at them to stop fighting, it was REALLY FUCKING STUPID. Did they honestly think that a VIOLENT DESTRUCTIVE REBEL would listen to REASON? Or that Dawn would ABANDON her DUTY? NO, they wouldn't!

"JUST SHUT UP AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL!" Dawn interrupted her biting frenzy to shout. Honestly, was everyone here completely fucking useless? Thank god there was at least ONE palace guard willing to do her JOB. She was nearly cut off by the REBEL's jaws snatching for her face. Thankfully she jerked back just in time, and reared up to lash at it with her hooves. She'd realized by now that the rebel's blood was doing some sort of thing to the inside of her mouth, which burned and wept its own blood to mix with the rebel's. She needed to give her mouth a break.

@Durathror round 4/?
attempt: rear up and kick durathror (head/neck/chest?)
defense: not willingly putting acidic blood in her mouth anymore, i guess
injuries: chemical burns, chomped