His flank hits hers, and the contact causes a frisson of pain to rocket through the area of impact as he connects with her pebbled skin. His teeth find flesh, and as he'd anticipated, it's hard beneath his roving bite, tough and relentless. He snatches his jaws back, his teeth aching slightly for their exertions. She catches his eye. His crimson gaze glimmers, and the hint of a smirk caresses the corners of his jaws. The colossus is allowed to admire his opponents, is he not? Whether he does so for their battle prowess or for their simmering beauty, his eyes are free to roam where they please. With women, he can hide it beneath the guise of sizing them up, when the reality is that he's usually simply picturing them beneath him, writhing, ravished. This time, however, he is keen to size her up and see what he's dealing with, whilst also admiring the exotic beauty of her aquatic body. He is just a man, after all. He has a man's drive, a man's desires, and a man's eye for a fine woman. The brute aims to swing to his right, this time, in an attempt to bring them face to face - but he isn't quite fast enough, what with his colossal size and woeful maneuverability. He only manages to turn a fraction before he feels her hooves rasping down the outside of his left foreleg - the sharpened edges of her feet carve into his skin, cutting medium-length grooves into his flesh. His natural reaction when he feels the pain is to snatch his leg back, which prevents his tendons and bones being damaged, but the agony is still quite precise, and his ears slam backwards into the tempest of his mane. His jowls open into a breathy laugh. Ooh, she can make him bleed. She is not finished, either. Her head lashes upwards, and Volterra tenses the thick muscles in his neck. Because of his prior movement to his right, her teeth only glance against his flesh rather than gaining a good grip, but their razor-sharp edges still rip into the tight skin on the left of his throat and give him a sudden burst of concern that, had she hit a few inches to the right, it could have been very nasty for him. As it is, the cuts are only quite shallow, much less sore than the wound to his leg, but it's still a painful reminder of his flaws. Perhaps this is what he needs - an almost-devastating blow to show him that, contrary to his beliefs, he is not invincible. He is not made of stone. He is flesh, blood and meat, and it only takes one lapse of concentration for him to be taken down. He makes a note of this. He learns from every fight he participates in, and today he's learned not to let sharp predator-teeth near his throat - not that he didn't know that already, but it's good to have it hammered home. But the beast is a vengeful creature, and he simply cannot allow the fish-woman to get away with the affront of harming him so. He channels his pain, uses it as a weapon, and strikes. As a fish, he assumes fighting on land is quite foreign for her. Perhaps if he makes their battlefield even more foreign, it will throw her off guard and allow him to claim the victory he so craves. His dragons scream their ire, disgruntled that they have not yet been called into action, but Volterra commands them to hold their positions with one vicious stab of his mind. Soon, darlings, soon. Instead, the goliath summons his magic. He aims it for the ground beneath Aquila's right foreleg - he attempts to lift this patch of earth into a small, knee-high tower, to try and badly unbalance and confuse the piscine mare. Simultaneously, he continues to swing his body to his right, aiming to bring them fully face to face - he throws his weight to his powerful hindquarters and lifts his front end off the glimmering sand and into a monstrous rear. His forehooves flail and thrash, blood spraying off his injured left leg - he tries to keep this one more tucked, and kick less with it than with his right one - and he attempts to crunch them into Aquila's beautiful, fishy face. He does not attempt to obliterate her, or knock her head from her shoulders, but he hopes to land a few good, hard hits to the area. Blood and sand spray from his feet as he flails them, and he half-hopes it'll land in her eyes - now that would confuse her. _____________ Teaching spar for @Aquila ! Teaching notes below :D 2/3 - 779 words I AM THE RUMOUR ON EVERYONE'S LIPS I AM THE CURSE ON YOUR GIRLFRIEND'S HIPS

ART: DARK

Teaching notes:

Spelling/grammar - Perfect, again! You do a great job writing her. I know this section of the notes suck lmao but you're already so good so there's nothing else I can really say except keep up the good work! :D

Emotion - I love her frustration at how hard it is to fight on land - it's really realistic I think for a sea-creature like Aquila to find land-fighting tricky. I think you wrote a good amount of emotion in this post, and I definitely got a sense of Aquila's thought processes. I love how she appreciates Vol's combination of attacks, and you write her eerie, under-sea-ness very well.

Attacks - Whilst the idea behind the attacks was good (as I said, I love attacks that occur at the same time) I though they were a bit confusing. 'Sharp, front hooves aimed to strike at the sides and backs of the tendons in his forelimbs'. In my last post, Vol moved parallel to Aquila, his left side to her right side, facing the same way. In your post, you have his slam move her to her left, but as far as I can read, they're still largely parallel, albeit maybe more in a V shape now as I think her hips moved left more than her forequarters? I can't see how Aquila could use her forehooves to get under his body to attack the back of his forelegs. She'd basically have to get underneath him, which isn't feasible with their positioning. I think the confusing part is that you say she's attacking the back as well as the sides of his forelegs, and also you say forelimbS, plural. I just can't see how she could a) attack the back of his legs, and b) attack both forelegs at the same time when she's on his left side - his right foreleg is the opposite side of his body from her.

So the attack itself is a good idea - using her sharp hooves to scrape his tendons. But I think it would have been better if you'd specified the attack some more by giving rights/lefts (and you had plenty of words left to do this with!) whilst also refining it down a little. You could have had her just strike at the outside of his left foreleg (as that's the side she's on) and specified where on the leg she's aiming for, what she's trying to do etc. She could even have tried to keep them parallel, and tried to scrape the tip of her right forehoof down the back of his left foreleg by approaching from behind. You definitely had the basics of a good attack, it just needed a bit more specifying!

I loved the bite attack, but again I'd liked to have seen more detail about it. As she's towards his left side, I'm assuming she's aiming for the left side of his neck rather than the front, as the front would be inaccessible. So more detail on this would have been good too :)

Damage taken - I think you took a good amount of damage for a 1 dice roll, with superficial damage from the bite and slam. However, I'd have liked to see more reasoning as to why the slam didn't cause more damage - in my post, it's stated that he's attacking with intent to barge her over to her left and badly unbalance her. The damage you take is very light, more of a small stumble, which is a fine amount of damage to take BUT it's best to make it clear WHY the attack didn't hit as Vol intended. Did she step away, so there was less of an impact? Did she brace herself against the ground so she wouldn't lose her balance? The fact she just didn't take full damage without an explanation as to why could cause a GM/PP deduction :)

Also, be careful with how you write out the order of attacks. In my post, Volterra did his ass-slam first, then a few seconds later he did the bite attack (as he'd initially decided not to bite, then changed his mind, so there would have been a short gap between the two attacks). However, in your post you address the bite attack first, which could result in lost points for realism or GM/PP. It's nothing major, but when I read it it sort of seemed like the bite attack was first, then the slam.

Other - Although you clarified in your OOC notes that she isn't actually poisonous, be careful with sentences like this: 'She did not know how much poison would rush into his bloodstream, but it would be there.' To my knowledge, judges don't use OOC notes in their judging, so seeing this sentence without the prior knowledge that she is no longer poisonous could cause a judge to deduct for GM/PP.

Again, you're a fantastic writer and you have the grammar/emotion etc. parts down. It's just the finer details of attacks and damage that you can work on, but so far you're doing a brilliant job! You've already improved loads from the Nyx v Tembovu fight c: