07-08-2016, 07:53 PM
THE EARTH IS ALIVE, AND MAN IS A PARASITE.
AND HEAVENLY BODIES MAKE US FIGHT.
He is seething within, though nothing but his eyes show the intense abhorrence simmering beneath the surface of his otherwise too-still behemoth form. His flesh still bristles from the various sharpened cuts carved into his tissue, though there is nothing but the tingling of nerve endings remaining. His heart still beats heavily, but it is slower, more methodical - it felt as if it still held the heavy burden of ice penetrating its every fiber. His mind flinches inwardly with the occasional reminder of what had just lingered in the astuteness of his mind, the darkened images of blood, decay and rot, and he fades in and out for a long moment while he attempts to pull back at the reality of what still lies before him.
He feels uprooted; uncertain. Had he imagined it all? Had none of it truly happened? Here he stands, with a sheen of sweat covering the length of his body, with nothing but distant, unfounded memories to spur his anxious mind. There was nothing to suggest anything had been more than a dream (aside from his menacing smile and gleeful chuckle) - or rather, a nightmare. His eyelids close as an icy hand is placed at the based of his neck, sweeping away damp tendrils of hair away from the skin there. The man strokes him soothingly, but it does nothing but agitate his very core.
”It is time to see your true potential, Offspring. You are stubborn, but so am I. Let us see what you are built of.”
With that, he grasps his harness with unusual force, drawing him away from his solidified, unwilling imprisonment. He does not fight it (he is not sure that he could, even if he attempted to), and soon he is led through a darkened hallway with the stagnating stench of something he cannot decipher. The loud clipping of his hooves against the cobblestone is muffled by the muck of something that lay strewn across the floor, but it is too dark to see and so he can only imagine the horror that lay beneath him. Perhaps the entrails of another – friend or foe? He knew naught, but he knew that in spite of the dread festering within the pit of his belly, he was going to soon find out.
At last, a blinding light is cast upon him and his very retinas burn beneath their assault – he is disoriented; he cannot see and yet he follows blindly. Trustingly. Something soothes him and dulls the ache that will one day envelope him in his entirety, but in this moment, he is suddenly at ease with an unsteady calm that he has only ever recalled feeling when the warm cloak of darkness descended upon him each and every time he neared – and taunted – death. His mind trails away from the impending death that he is certain must be inevitable, lingering on old, forgotten memories of devastating loneliness and woe. He had suffered at the hands of time, he had tried desperately to end it on more than one occasion, and now – now as death stared at him, eye to eye, he felt eager for even a stolen moment with his beloved family.
The uneasy calm melds in with this aching longing and soon it seemingly melts away. His crimson eyes adjust at last to the obscenely bright lighting, though still, he squints from behind thick lashes to see the bloodied Colosseum that lay before him. His heart pounds slowly into a rhythm fueled by the adrenaline that floods once more through his previously frigid, frozen veins. From with the core of his spine, something springs and crawls out from the matted, beaded surface, rapidly developing and growing into a pair of massive, iridescent wings, which swell with abundant plumage and spread to three times the length of his body on each side. He cannot be stunned; he merely admires their power and length before his gaze returns to that of his admirer, who smiles cheekily.
”A pleasant start! Let's see what a little stress can draw out of you. Protect me, my protege.” He cackles with jubilant delight as he gives a playful pat to his broad cheek and disappears to the left. A long, lingering stillness draws out the uncomfortable creaking and rattling of something off in the distance. Though the cobblestone cage before him is well-lit, the light from above is blinding and he can see nothing of what surrounds it. He cannot see if there are any spectators, any friend or foe – he cannot even seen Grumblesnakes, though something that tingles within his senses tells him that he is lurking within the shadows.
Abruptly, a hefty, shackled wall cast of iron drops from behind him; a wary eye is cast behind him to look but he knows it is ill-deserving of his intention. He cannot escape, even if he attempted to, and something urges him not to even attempt it. Rather, he emerges hesitantly from the broad aisle, emerging into the lustrous light. His wings glimmer gently beneath the artificial light, shining deep shades of amethyst, jade and turquoise within a murky black. He listens, jaw shifting beneath the control of the halter – but the waiting has come to a screeching halt.
With a loud clamor, an iron gate similar to the one that lay behind him (but six times its size) now shifts before him, slowly rising along an endless stone wall before shuddering to a shrieking stop. Within lie only the promise of dangerous shadows, and cautiously, he begins to pace, to the left, to the right – all the while, his fierce gaze staring blankly ahead, awaiting movement. Thump. Thump. The ground quakes beneath its behemoth force, rattling the chains hung all around and echoing off of the expanded chamber. He stills, wary of making any sudden movement, when it emerges from its cloak of darkness. Its own eyes begin to blink and squint painfully at the light above (two – four – six pairs of eyes?), though it soon shakes itself of its dizzying reverie and a grumbling snarls from each of its three heads.
Canine in composition, it is menacing, many times his own size and soon, the drooling, heaving Cerberus is raising its hackles upon the very sight of him. He draws his wings close, and he shifts his heavy weight from one leg to another – before beginning a hefty, reverberating gallop across the east side of the amphitheater. He expands to each side, letting the updraft of his pace carry him, before leaping into the air, and with a massive swing of his wings, he is airborne. He is liberated, no longer bound by the laws of gravity as he raises higher, and higher – halted only by a glimmering wall above. A force field. He eyes with a stewing disdain before turning his attention to the snarling, jaw-snapping creature below. He soars loosely around the perimeter, heart thumping against his rib cage, and at last his eyes settle upon Grumblesnakes.
Wordlessly, he pushes two words into his mind, like a seed to be sowed. Kill it.
Offspring circles still, uneasy to his very bones – he begins to search, he begins to urgently hunt for something, for anything he can find – when suddenly a massive paw stretches up and skims the air below him, reminding him of how close death looms below him. He bristles now as his vision begins to shift and change, and suddenly, it is not blinding light that he sees, but a profound darkness with only the outline of a figure cast in various shades of pink, red, yellow and orange. He can see the very essence of the Cerberus; he can see its inner-makings. Its pounding heart – a single, massive organ centrally located within his chest. An urge rises within him, to reach into the depths of its living, breath, snarling body and rip out its pulsating, bleeding heart, and it is an urge he cannot quench. He begins to circle again, with his massive wings carrying him as he mocks the beast.
It rises up, claws and teeth alike striking out at his flesh, though he is suddenly covered in a mass of malleable, glimmering armor – it reflects the very light from above, momentarily distracting the drooling mutt as he beats his monumental wings towards it, remaining stagnant in the air as his mind begins to hone in on the broad chest of the three-headed monster. He focuses not on its shining, blood-encrusted teeth, nor does he focus on the way it slowly approaches. He maintains his distance – wings carrying him back with each bulking step the Cerberus takes – as his vision sets it on the pounding target that lay deep within. He hones in with a focus that is all-encompassing. His body trembles and his flesh breaks out once more in a beaded sweat, and his head begins to ache in a way he had never experienced in any of his years of living, but he presses on. Pulling, pulling, pulling -!
At last, with a viscous spray of blood that pours from the center of its mass, the great canine splits into two, the bones of its very rib cage torn apart into two separate pieces. With a droning shriek and bound of aching, anguished whimpers, the massive three-headed carnivore slumps into its own muck and settles in a puddle of torn tissue, shattered bones and blood. He himself is cloaked in a cascade of red, but he heaves, panting, his wings damp and spent as he finally drops down to the cobblestone floor below. His vision slowly begins to restore, and before him is a mass of carnage. Within, its thundering heart beats ever so slowly, exposed to the elements but eased into death by shock, but the same two words rattle in his mind. Kill it.
With the weakened prowess of his own mind, he moves naught, but draws out a shattered splinter of its own rib cage, manipulating it and plummeting it into the very center of its heart. Soon, the beast grows still – it breathes no more, and its heart ceases to beat again. It is done. It is finished.
It is dead.
With a heaving breath, he gazes around, stunned by his own power, startled by his own simmering blood-lust. Had it always lain dormant within him, aching to be set free? He stares at the bloodshed before him, trembling, if only slightly, as the heavy scent of copper and metal finally penetrates his own senses. It fills him to the brim with something he cannot describe. Fear no longer lingers within his beaten, downtrodden soul. He peers up fiercely into the light above, knowing that he is being watched – that there are a particular set of eyes on him that watch his every move. He does not loathe it, nor is he wary over the new calm that settles within his bones. His tongue is tainted with the taste of fleshy tissue that had washed over his whiskered lips, and he now knows a hunger that now begins to loom within the shadows of his heart.
Alas, the reverie of victory is short-lived - the bones of his newfound wings break and shatter, and with a sharp cry, they cease to exist. The diamond-plated armor that one lay across his scarred, charcoal-painted body retracts, folding into itself and vanishing from sight. He can no longer alter his vision, and the urge to split and manipulate bones washes away like a dense tide of salty seawater. The blood melts away as well, and soon there is nothing but his darkened pelt and raw, pink scars. Still, he can sense the blood. He can smell it. It is a part of him.
And Grumblesnakes knows.
"You have shown yourself to be quite the warrior, Offspring." He muses as he glides with ease to his side, icy, gangling fingers once more stroking the skin of his neck. His eyes, glittering with mischief, meet his. "Such a theatrical performance. Vim, vigor and - dare I say a spot of desire? Violence, even? Some of the most calculated fighters crave it, Offspring. It is nothing to be ashamed of."
Then why do I feel so burdened? He wonders to himself, casting his dark red eyes away.
The man merely chuckles, all too aware of his innermost thoughts. He can hear each and every one.
That will fade. It always does.
OFFSPRING
the ice king of the tundra
Opponent: Cerberus.
Abilities: Dragon vision, bone-bending, wings, diamond armor generation