Challenge for Smooshy ~Victory to Soul~

It seemed as if she had been wandering aimlessly for hours in a place she hardly recognized. Tucking her hands away inside the pockets of her long, beige coat, Thyla stopped herself and allowed her orange gaze to wander, grazing across everything in sight: a colorful evergreen tree - which a subtle scent of pine wafted from - planted firmly beside a massive rock that was almost exactly the same height as she, if not a tad taller. Rotating her head on her shoulders, she stared at a mass of white and purple blooms poking their way from the ground in various places. Examining a bit farther away, her eyes fell upon a river that sparkled under the sun's rays.

It all seemed so serene until a loud screech broke the silence. Her ears perked up as she twirled herself around multiple times, attempting to figure out where the sudden sound had come from, her bare paws clumsily snapping twigs and crunching leaves beneath them. If only she knew what was around, she would've tried to be more stealthy. Thyla's always been wary of others. As soon as the scream subsided, she kept her whole body still and allowed not even her ringed tail to flick or twitch, hoping to hear twigs or leaves from its creator. She removed her hands from the coat's deep pockets, then positioned them to help keep her balance.

Although, having been unsuccessful in finding the source of the sudden scream, she crept closer to the flowing river, unaware of the creature sitting upon a nearby log until it was almost too late. The teen stopped just before walking out into plain sight to gaze up at the sun, and her now-red eyes landed on the furry lounging on the tree's fallen body on the way back down. Frightened, she leaped backwards and crunched even more dead leaves. She stared wide-eyed out in the direction of the river for a bit, not daring to move another step in case of causing more racket. Quickly deciding there was no option other than to fight, she darted out into the decided enemy's field of vision, then came rushing at her head-on. Unsheathing her iron dagger with her right hand as she ran, she let out a loud, unpracticed battle cry and swung her weapon at her face, aiming to slash a nice cut into her lower cheek.

"RaaaAAHH!"

A sharp cry of pain had been released from her muzzle as she used her free hand to clutch the sliced wrist as if she could manually seal the wound. She fell to the ground and performed a somersault to get herself away from her opponent. Red eyes quickly studied the severity of the cut before flashing up to the girl who had inflicted it. Immediately noticing the look of amusement lingering on her face, Thyla clenched her teeth and shouted out after hearing what her enemy had to say.

"I don't care for your name, nor should you ca--"

She stopped in mid sentence, for Calix began running at her before giving her a chance to finish it. Springing lightly to her feet, she flipped to the right, then again, and in that single, fluid movement, she was behind her attacker. Without missing a beat, a serious look morphing to a sly grin, she thrust her weapon at her opponent, attempting drag it from left to right across the middle of her back. In that same swipe, she drew her dagger a bit higher, and if Calix's arm was close enough to her, Thyla could get a nice slice in there as well, as a potential bonus after the first attack. She decided to treat this as a game now. If she loses, at least it'll have been fun. Playing along with the enemy, she shouted out her name.

"Thyla!"

Still keeping on with that grin, she performed a back-flip and landed with her feet on the ground, along with her dagger hand. Her left arm was thrown randomly into the air beside her crouched body. Well, here goes, she thought, excitement flowing through her, carrying along strips of sparkling fear.

When her opponent's dagger had slapped her swipe aside, she had lost her balance and fallen to the hard dirt beneath her, landing square on her rump. She watched with slightly widened eyes as the second dagger her enemy wielded slashed in front of her face, missing by only a few inches.

As Calix took a step closer and shoved Thyla, she crossed her arms in front of her face and ducked down behind her makeshift shield to brace herself and, without having enough time to change positions, got struck in her right arm with one of her opponent's weapons. She instinctively released another squeal of pain and rolled aside without squishing her arms against the dirt, avoiding lodging the dagger further into her flesh.

Using her unharmed left hand and arm to prop herself up, she hoisted herself to her feet as quickly as she could go, then looked down at the knife stuck through the sleeve of her coat which had hardly done anything as far as resistance. Her pained expression turned even more distorted as an idea to remove the knife and use it alongside her own popped into her head and she began tugging at the thing. She dislodged it somewhat easily (and with yet another cry of pain) but let blood flow out the open wound, then stuffed her sleeve against it, hoping to absorb the liquid and slow its flow. Quickly deciding to switch which hand held what weapon, she switched them around, so now if her right attack would hit at least it would pack a punch.

Now wielding two weapons as her attacker previously did, Thyla gave a small chuckle and rushed at her opponent again, but instead of thrusting her daggers at Calix from the ground, she leapt ably into the air and used her newly regular blade to swipe at her right arm, and using her newly acquired knife in an attempt to slice her left jugular, but that attack had much less chances of landing, although if it did it would end in a painful shower of blood, because that arm was now weak from the wounds it had gained through the course of the battle, her wrist only beginning to stop bleeding.

Allowing a small grin to cross her face, Calix watched the young girl torture herself further by pulling the serrated blade from her arm. A look of disappointment crossed her face, however, as she saw Thyla weild Calix's own blade against her. Bracing herself for the headon assault, Calix was taken by mild surprise as the girl leapt over her, instict forcing her to follow the girl, rotating to protect herself from any swipes from Thyla's strong arm.

However, this meant that she rotated right into the weaker slash, the serrated blade catching her right ear, a large slash tearing half way across it, a small scream of pain passing through her clenched teeth as the blade ripped her ear to shreds in a single slash. Ignoring the initial shock of the searing steel that slashed through her, Calix swiped her dagger across from right to left the instant, her body swinging with the momentum of the strike she had thrown, her right foot thrusting up at Thyla's head, attempting to smash across the side of her face.


OOC: Sorry it's short, nothing else to really say, and I gotta go, so I can't add any more detail than that.

She almost laughed out loud when she saw Calix's ear being torn to ribbons of flesh from her very own knife. Thyla's bare paws had hardly hit the ground before her enemy began to swing herself around. Catching on to her intentions, she quickly crouched as low as her small body would let her go, avoiding both attacks at first, but having her face smashed into the dirt by her foot on its way back down, also causing her to fall forward.

Raising her head from the dirt, she stared up at Calix with her crimson eyes, on her hands and knees, then decided while she was down there she might as well try to do some damage. Raising her left hand, leaving her unstable right limb to keep herself off the ground, she thrust her dagger straight downwards with as much force as she could muster, aiming to stick it right through her foot.

Leaving her dagger to whatever material it had gotten lodged into, the girl then rolled backwards and stood back up on her feet in one simple movement, about a good five feet between the two. Thyla did her best to entertain an expression to prove she was holding strong, but instead showed a few signs of exhaustion and pain.

OOC: Sorry, this is kind of short too. o.o I also probably won't be able to be on too much today, but I hope that's okay.

As Calix watched the dagger plummeting towards her foot, she shook her head in irritation, noticing just how stupid of a move it was. Quickly, she drew her foot out of the way, waiting for the dagger to strike the terra. As it dug deep into the soil, Calix slashed her foot across where Thyla's head should be, hoping to send her sprawling.

If she struck, Calix would move over to where Thyla had been sent rolling to, her dagger ready to fall upon the back of Thyla's head, to finish the job. If she had not, Calix would stomp downwards upon where Thyla had moved her head to, sending her face-down into the ground, as well as possibly breaking the back of her skull from the impact.


OOC: Very short, but I really can't say more than this, there is nothing else TO say.

Just as she began to roll to safety, Thyla was taken by surprise when Calix's powerful foot collided with the underside of her jaw and sent her sprawling on the ground, laying helplessly on the ground and struggling to regain the breath that had been knocked from her.

Curling her body up on the hard ground, the knife just barely missed her head. Before she could move, however, Calix had stomped her face further into the soil. She tried to let out a cry of pain as instinct, but the dirt surrounding her muzzle muffled the sound and, in turn, began to choke her. While she was lucky her skull did not break, this soil clung to her throat even after she plucked her face from the ground and began to switch back and fourth between hacking and sucking in large gulps of air.

After leaving herself open for at least a minute, if Calix did not attack she would recover from the dirt and leap to her feet, bracing herself for what was to come.

OOC: GAH. Sorry I took so long to edit this. I was really busy for the past few days.

Grinning widely, Calix stepped forawrd towards Thyla, purposefully snapping as many twigs as possible on the way. Once Calix had reached the downed girl, she swiped her foot across where Thyla's head was poitioned. Assuming it struck, Calix took a leaping step towards the fallen girl, her right foot again raising, this time intended to kick directly into her ribcage, her talons making formidable incisors, the force of the strike possibly enough to crack any bones upon impact.

However, if Thyla managed to make the effort of dodging her strike, Calix would spin from the momentum of the first kick, moving herself slightly forward as she did so, leaping into the air and attempting to once again slam her foot again into Thyla's body, the sheer force of the strike being enough to knock most people out cold. The force crossed with the impact of her claws would combine to be enough to make this strike even more dangerous than her intended coarse of action.


OOC: Such an evil attack owo lol
OOC2: Edit: This is about 180 lines long, just wanna say x3

Still coughing in a desperate attempt to clear the soil from her mouth and throat, the older girl's foot swept across her head and sent her flying in the direction of a large tree. Not sure of exactly what she was even supposed to do now, she clutched the large trunk as if it would protect her, digging her claws in, body still spread across the ground with her belly-down. All she knew now was that her jaw felt absolutely terrible and she couldn't move it anymore. She also spotted blood smeared across the bark, right where her face had been. Thyla assumed it was seeping from her jaw as well.

One of her arms was damaged and the rest of her body ached from the struggle, but somehow she mustered up her leftover energy and gained a second wind. The young furry struggled for only a moment before ably scaling the tree, quickly leaping on to the first branch she found. She leaped just a bit before grasping the thick branch above her, somehow pulling herself up. She sat there, back against the trunk and rump at the base of the branch, legs curled around it to keep her from falling, and seemed as if she were just waiting for Calix to make another move. She needed time to think, if only for a moment, about how she could turn this whole battle around.

If it were even possible at this point.


OOC: What do you mean about the lines? And sorry that this is kind of a bad post. o - o

OOC: Deleted the OOC posts above, no longer need them.

::IC::

As Calix walked towards the sprawling female, her ears flattened out of irritation as the girl leapt up the tree. Sighing queitly, Calix shook her head and focussed her blue eyes open the dark red smear that was splashed across the bark where the girl's head had struck. Letting a small grin cross her face once again, she looked up towards where the younger female had scuttled to. Grinning more widely, Calix took note that she had dislocated the jaw of the younger female, and blood was now flowing freely from it, the girl still trying to gather her wits.

Thinking for a moment, Calix noted that there were several large branches above Thyla, and plenty of smaller ones. Raising a hand, she pointed lightly towards the branches that were above the younger female, ice starting to gather around their bases. Grinning, Calix called out to the girl perched in the tree, her voice in a mocking tone, ice filtering through the branch below the girl.

"Game over, Thyla. It was nice playing with you!"

As her voice died, Calix clenched her pointing fist, the iced sections of branch shattering in an instant. As the branches shattered, shattering from bottom to top, they all fell heavily towards the ground, Thyla almost certainly caught within the falling mess of wood.



~~~~~~~~~~~~
Current MP: 150
MP Used: 150
Remaining MP: 0

Game over? What...

Thyla quickly looked all around her, ears flattened with fear, before her wide, lime eyes caught sight of the shimmering ice on the branches above. She uncoiled her legs as fast as her injured, tired self would let her, them made a final attempt to leap from the tree.

The branches were too heavy, though, and toppled down on top of her just as she jumped. Her arms were outstretched in front of her, legs still coiled near the branch, and she fell just like that. The weight brought other branches below her to snap on impact, the first one breaking her left leg just like that. The young furry tried to scream but instead emitted a distorted screech as her jaw hung from her face, useless.

The mass of branches finally came in contact with the ground, and the force caused Thyla's head to be flung backwards, then forwards, and ended in an effective snapping of her neck. Her bright eyes lost their glow while life seeped from her broken body.

Her left hand still clutched the knife, but as death stole into her body, it fell from her grasp. With the very last breath she had, she whispered a string of piffle which were meant to be words, but Thyla had no idea what she was meaning to say.

And soon, she was dead, her corpse wedged between branches, limbs folded in various ways they shouldn't be. Her eyes remained open as her jaw continued to hang from her face. Only her left arm was still stretched out, palm down, hovering gently above the discarded dagger. That was about the only limb left on her body that wasn't broken.

As she watched the tree collapse upon the younger girl, Calix allowed a smile of pleasure cross her wolven face, generated by the realization that Thyla had not escaped the death trap. Lowering her fist, Calix let out a shuddering breath, her exhaustion only becoming apparent as that last breath of the fight escaped her body. Walking over to the tangled wooden ness that lay on the terra before her, Calix kneeled down beside the crushed and lifeless remains that had been her enemy, her prey. Reaching down, she picked up the fallen dagger that had been stolen from her, and gripped it tight. Lifting it up, Calix stroked the blade across her left abdomen, the blood that had accumulated on its surface wiping off onto the white, red and black material, leaving a dirty streak on it's unsually clean surface.

Reaching towards Thyla's face, Calix placed her index and ring fingers against the girl's face, her dagger balancing on her thumb and few remaining fingers, and slid the eyelids shut, giving the girl the peace she deserved in death. Standing, the wolf looked down upon her crushed victim, not even a trace of pity or remorse within her.

She chose her fate when she didn't run.

Twisting where she stood, Calix walked lightly away from the wooden tomb, towards her coat which lay discarded on the terra, away from the fight. Stooping down, she swept the coat up effortlessly, a fallen leaf falling once again from it's surface, this time to the ground below. Slipping her knives into the hidden holsters attached to the coat, Calix then pulled it on, hiding her white clothes once again. As she started to walk away from the clearing, leaping across the stream that blocked her path, Calix lifted a hand towards her torn ear, blood still running down from it's shredded edges, a small wince crossing her as the wound flared up again.



OOC: It's not as long as I was aiming for, but there isn't very much I can really say in this one.