The battle was escalating, reaching it's hypothetical climax, and Apollo couldn't help stave the fear that began to swim alongside his pain and fatigue. Terror took root within him, nestling in his veins and cooling his blood to a frigid temperature at the simple thought of what could happen if he should lose... Confutatis was darkness incarnate. Never in all of his years had he met someone with such vile wickedness about them, someone with such sickness rotting their brain, and the Merciful feared for all of his family if his crown was knocked from his head.

Would she kill them? Or give them a chance to flee? The images that snapped into his mind were gruesome, sickening, and heinous. They confirmed his fears, his doubts... The beautiful hills and mountainous valleys of the Foothills would be bathed with the blood of innocents, and Apollo couldn't stand the thought of it. Not to his family, his home...!

No...

Confutatis slides from him like a dead thing, heavy and cumbersome and completely unwanted, but Apollo gives it little thought as he feels his attack hit. Somehow, like the mighty strike of a war drum, the overo's rear hooves smash into the side of the black bitch's cranium. Relief and fear both fought for dominance within his sweaty breast, stealing his breath; did he kill her? Such an attack could do a crippling amount of damage, especially to such a vital place as the head... The Chief in him prayed she would not rise. The Medic did not. Tearing himself from her, his legs slapping at the muddy ground in an attempt to put some distance between them, Apollo let out a long, shuddering breath. He stopped just a few feet in front of her, left side facing the recovering demon, his sides heaving in sweat, blood, and heavenly tears.

Between the two of them, he was better off as far as injuries went. Confutatis suffered from whatever head injury she may contain, and the gouge to her belly. He wondered what compelled her to continue to fight. Was it pure idiocy, or her mental affliction that caused her to continue on? What was worth putting yourself through so much agony? Apollo could never understand, and if the situation was different, he would have offered to heal Confutatis' wounds instead of attempt to cause more of them.

It seemed that just as he began attempting to catch his breath, Confutatis was ready for more. Narrowed honey-brown eyes watched as she pushed herself to her feet, clearly worse for wear, and charged him. Like an angry wet cat she attacked, yowling and screeching pointless nothings in his ears, her hooves slipping and sliding the sucking muck beneath them as she attempts to throw herself on top of him.

Apollo sucked in a sharp breath as he tried to turn his head towards her, but only for his rear right hoof to slip in the obtrusive sludge-like silt. The moment that it takes for him to catch his balance is all the time that it takes for Confutatis the Bitch Cat to leap upon him, landing against the broad length of his back and causing his hard-earned balance to abandon him once again. A guttural oof! left Apollo's throat as they collided, and once more his hind right leg went sliding in the mud and out from beneath him, narrowly sending the stallion sprawling to the ground before he caught himself.

The cuts and abrasions upon his back and shoulder burn and scream in pain as Confutatis flails atop of him, surely smearing her blood upon him, but that soon became the least of his worries. Something hot and terribly uncomfortable began to burn upon his withers, like acid almost, and it was with a new kind of terror that Apollo doubled his attempt to break away from her. Tossing his head, the stallion released another cry of indignant, agonizing rage, the fur and flesh upon his withers beginning to corrode and burn off from Confutatis' saliva, which had rubbed upon the ebonite unicorn in their collision.

It hurts! Dear Gods above!

Through the mind-numbing pain and terror that he felt, Apollo did the one thing he could think of doing; moving towards Confutatis. With a mighty grunt Apollo tried to push himself towards her and throw her off of him, all the while twisting his neck to the left to try and gouge her once again with his horn. Just as the last time he did such an attack, Apollo cared not for where his horn hit, if anywhere. He simply wanted the devilish beast off of him, and for her to take her damned mouth-excretions with her!

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