YOU CAN'T STRAY FROM WHAT YOU ARE YOU'RE THE CLOSEST THING TO HELL I'VE SEEN SO FAR He doesn't know his own strength. In his flailing, frantic state, his hooves hit their intended target - her withers. She crumples like a sack of shit, prone at his feet, and his eyes widen. "Shit, Auriel!" He'd wanted to bring her to her knees, to own her, but he's unprepared for quite how fragile her body feels beneath his colossal hooves, how easily she tumbles to the ground under his brutal ministrations. Her yelp, her admission of pain, doesn't arouse him as the rest of the fight has, due to the sudden searing guilt that stabs through him. He hadn't meant to hit her quite so hard, hadn't meant to decimate her - he wanted to exert dominance, yes, but not to this extent. At least it makes the screaming stop, but his ears still ring in the aftermath of her banshee's cry. He shakes his massive head, stumbling backwards and away from her so as not to injure her further, because there is no pride or glory to be found in crushing a woman already on her knees. As a result, her horn misses his leg quite by chance, and her wing flaps just in front of his face with a tickle of wind. He hardly notices - his concern is too great. Even his dragon appears perturbed by the beast's sheer brute force, and Volterra feels his bonded's rapt, intrigued attention. With aching ears, the giant moves towards her again, but makes no move to attack. The fight is over; he is remarkably unharmed save for his ears, and the thought makes him feel dirty. A battle is only proper when both warriors end up bruised and bleeding, and he is neither. His old friend, on the other hand....He stands sentinel beside her, a sweating, heaving wall of power, and offers a shoulder for her to lean against when she rises so he can help her walk away from the battlefield if she so chooses. ________ Closing defense - 324 words

THINGS I LIKED:

- Emotion again! You've done really well with her throughout the fight, she's a really interesting read and I'm definitely excited to see more of her. I ended up feeling really sorry for her, whilst also getting a sense of her strength and determination.

- Once more (you'll be sick of me saying this haha) your spelling and grammar was fine, only the one glaring error (see below) that I could see. As I say, proof reading is your best friend in these fights, so keep up the good work ^^

- The distracting wing attack was interesting to read and a good idea. It's always good to see 'different' attacks like this - feints, distractions etc, and as long as it's not too outlandish, it'll usually earn you decent points!

THINGS TO IMPROVE

- The major thing is make sure you don't end the fight lying down! This immediately results in a 10 HP penalty, as it's a gesture of submission and admission of defeat. You got really unlucky with me rolling a critical hit, especially when Vol was attempting such a devastating attack. What I personally would have done is, rather than having Auriel take the damage to her withers where he aimed for, I'd have perhaps had her scoot forwards so his hooves smashed onto her rump instead, where it's fatter and more padded. This could have caused her hindlegs to crumple and scrape on the ground, but without her falling down completely. You could have had severe muscle bruising and scratches, without having to end up lying down.

- 'I threw my head back, a (mostly likely in vain) attempt and thrusting my split horns into the flesh of his left leg'. As good as your grammar and spelling was overall, I'm guessing the underlined 'and' should have been 'at'. That one typo changes the whole context of the sentence, as it could be interpreted as GMing by saying she's thrusting her horn into his leg due to the 'and' coming after the 'attempt'. Try to be careful as little errors like this can really cause the points to tumble away.

- Although you were much better at being specific with attacks in this post, you could also have added in where exactly on his leg she's aiming for - the bottom, the top, the side? You had lots of words left that can be used to describe the attacks even further, so the judge can get a real picture of what she's trying to do. This post was much better for that, though!

Overall, you did really well in this fight. You've suffered some awful dice rolls, but as I said in my last set of notes, try not to get too disheartened and never give up because you just never know! :D You've got the makings of a good fighter and the basics are all there - spelling, grammar, and the 'feel' of your character. If you can get down the technical parts, the nitty gritty bits, you'll do fine! Well done!