Lightning flashed once more, the storm sitting on top of them completely. Thunder was almost instantaneous, booming and deafening the Dauntless. His back hooves returned to the ground and he refocused his balance, narrowed eyes seeming to glow in the darkness of the storm. Archibald remembered his battle with Fence, a test for Fence to become a Mystic Woodlands warrior. Archibald’s back hooves had felt a familiar sensation during that battle, clashing hard onto the white Orlov’s shoulder. Archibald had felt a sense of superiority in that battle as well as a pure joy from dirtying the pristine white coat of Fence. The feeling blossomed in him now, not for disrupting the already clay colored coat of Jackal, but for disrupting and hopefully damaging the shoulder muscles in the smaller stallion.

As Archibald’s body prepared for his next attack something happened so quick and so fierce it sent the Dauntless reeling. His once narrowed eyes widened to expose the whiting around his golden irises, and his hooves scrambled as he pushed his body as fast as he could to the left. His face stayed protected from the spiraling flames because of his quicker reaction time (something his battle buffs graced him with), but the right side of his neck felt the wrath of the small reptile’s fire. This pain was something new for him—never in his spars had he been attacked by a dragon. The flames licked the side of his neck and his eyes closed tightly, pain rippling through his body. Archibald’s legs swallowed earth for several bounds, landing him yards away from Jackal and his companion. His jerking movements had left Jackal’s extended hooves to scrape lightly over his ribcage. The pain from the blunt force to his flank was nothing compared to the white hot pain of Dei’s fire. Shit. The Dauntless sent a loud grunt of pain into the wet air, the sound of the rain hitting earth and stone concealing it.

Raw anger surged through Loretta; an emotion hotter and thirstier for flesh than the fire that spewed from the disgusting lizard’s mouth. Her amber eyes narrowed as she focused on the reptilian creature, a roar-like growl splitting the air. In dark waves the malamute’s power rolled out of her body, heading straight for the bronze dragon. The little bastard sent his fire towards Archibald—she knew all too well the damage fire could bring from the scars upon the faces of Paladin and Ricochet. She did not want any fire to harm Archibald—and she was angry at herself for even letting the gremlin release his fiery weapon on the Dauntless. The time magic that split through the air between the two companions ripped Dei’s life away. Physically, he stayed the same; mentally, he would be reduced to nothing but a babe. Her power, such a strange and powerful thing, would send him whirling back in time. Down below, in her muddled, angry thoughts she hoped that the idiotic dragon would crawl back so far into infancy that he would forget all together to bond he shared with the red dun appaloosa and fly away in fear. Her body shuddered at both the powerfulness that coursed through her as well as the freezing cold rain that soaked her straight to the bone.

Through red-strained pain Archibald turned back around and surged towards Jackal, his body drumming with anger and pain, a dangerous mixture. Archibald’s ears pinned back and he stretched his neck, muscles quivering in pain as he hoped to land a bite—his teeth aiming for the bastard’s jugular.

[WC: 798 | ¾ | Companion/Magic: ½ | Archibald veers to the left and bounds several yards away from the fire, getting the right side of his neck burned up. He turns back around to face Jackal and runs forward, ears back and teeth aimed for Jackal’s throat.]