Cougar was indignant. He usually prided himself in honorable conduct, and
this was a blatantly disrespectful gesture to any of the recent dead,
more so of a fallen warrior!
Gorak laughed a mighty roar and ignored Cougar, returning to his gloating.
"Puny kitty cat think it know better how to pay respect!! Puny Cat NO LIGHT THUG'S PYRE! I LIGHT BROTHER'S PYRE!!!" His voice growing in volume and size as he continued his words until he was screaming at Cougar Bear.
Cougar's steel nerve twanged. Brother? Clearly, Gorak was not about to
be brought down that easily, if at all. Guilt welled up in Cougar's
heart, but he ignored it.
Cougar Bear thought about this, realizing now why the champion had a
grudge against him from the start, realizing, now, that he was in for
the fight of his life. Not a challenge of debasement and honors.
This was a deathmatch.
In spite of his passionate display of emotion, it was clear the champion
had high levels of self control as to not attack Cougar Bear outright.
Cougar Bear instinctively realized this meant his opponent was not only
a massive and indomitable vessel of combat, not just a highly skilled
warrior, but greatly experienced as well. It meant he knew how to pick
his battles so as not to engage in a waste of effort. Terribly uncommon
for huge Orcs like this, who would usually rely only on brute strength
alone.
It meant that either Gorak was a mighty skilled warrior who knew,
without a doubt, that he could defeat a Weretiger without breaking a
sweat, or that he was as utterly retarded as he was muscle clad.
Cougar silently hoped for retardation, now regretting giving into his own short temper.
He was trapped and now caught in thought...
'Gorak, huh? sounds like a strong name, an Orc of his stature
deserves no less. Man look at the size of those muscles, his arm is as
big as a hippo! mmmmm hippo... f**k, I'm hungry... god, i haven't
eaten since they had a feast earlier this afternoon... it's not long
till sunset, maybe they will feed us before the fight?'
... He was shocked out of it when Gartha approached, shaking her head
disapprovingly and spoke, "You are great warrior, Cougar Bear, but you
have committed suicide today..."
Cougar was not phased, he had an ace up his sleeve that no one was yet
aware of. Though preferably wanting to be an ally of course, he has his
silent options.
He can sacrifice his seasoned Weretiger body and give the tribe back
their honor, he could then shape shift at the brink of death and escape
as an insect, thus preserving a potential meal ticket in the future for a
different body, though rousing suspicions for future visitations.
He could sacrifice his pride and admit fault, but be exiled from the village... probably not alive.
Or he could fight to the death and use every shape he's got and risk a village massacre...
His thoughts clearly enveloped him, and Gartha prodded his lower ribcage "you have second thoughts, don't you?"
"maybe third..." he responded as if in a trance, unaware of his own
words, still engorged on thought. he gazed toward Gorak, but as if
looking at a mountain in the great distance.
"You sure you will not take back your challenge?" she queried. Her
command of language exposed her Human lineage, but cougar only just now
noticed. "you talk good" He said somewhat sheepishly, though
unembarrassed.
"You're just fulfilling your death wish, aren't you? It probably doesn't
matter what i say, since you're clearly listening to me as it is..."
Sarcastic, but Gartha's patience was saintly, yet even still,
inadvertently, Cougar tested it; And she was absolutely right, he wasn't
even listening anyways, thinking only of the life he knows, fighting...
eating... surviving... The Fight To Come...
Cougar was fed up with standing around gawking at an overly boastful Orcish Berserker. Champion or not, brother or not, this showed no honor to his slain sibling.
Cougar unleashed a long and fierce tiger war cry. He stared Gorak down and snarled "NO HONOR" He growled fiercely.
Gorak's fans had dispersed to a safe distance almost instantly. Gorak
kept a cold, frozen shoulder. "No Honor? YOU Have No Honor. You have
SHAME! SHOW ME Your HONOR!" and Gorak turned slowly to face Cougar Bear. "SHOW. ME. YOUR HONOR!!!" He roared, bearing his teeth and fangs and hippopotamus sized muscles.
His arms lowered, begging Cougar to strike, Cougar's ego wouldnt ever
allow him not to. He leaped at Gorak, claws first, mouth wide open,
snarling.
A single back handed blow was all it took to send
Cougar over the village walls. His ego damaged far more than his body;
his mind falling apart, grinding, cracking, tearing at the seams. He
could see only red, his Skinwalker eyes overflowed with emotion and
rage, burning bright crimson red, betraying and exposing his shape
shifting capabilities.
He clattered on his feet and rolled across the ground, turned, and
rushed the walls, rapidly clawing over them with ease, leaping at the
height of the massive walls and shape shifting into a rattlesnake half
way through his descent, which slowed his fall enough to land unharmed.
All eyes being on Gorak, no one noticed this
feat but Gartha. Stunned, disbelieving, she cleared her eyes, and when
her vision returned, there was no longer a snake but a Werecougar.
Cougar Bear caught eye of her and was stunned for a moment. Their eyes
met. Locked. He was momentarily paralyzed by her catching him in the
act, knowing he lost the element of surprise. He solemnly bowed his
head, for but a moment, then made a mad dash toward Gorak.
Once he was within range, he leapt into the air at him before Gartha shook her shock and shouted, "Gorak!!"
Gorak turned to face Gartha in time to greet Werecougar claws. His forehead and left cheek quickly shredded and bloody.
His shock was long and indignant, he couldn't comprehend what had just
transpired, staring at a Werecougar with fierce blood red glowing eyes.
Gorak's lip quivered, his mind was swirling and nauseous, his voice
betrayed his ferocity "who? who you?" his eyes were now childlike, still
in shock.
Cougar Bear morphed before the whole village into his former, favorite
but damaged, Weretiger body; his eyes unable to change, the intense,
raw, passionate rage controlling him now, his fur changed color, grew
longer, and started becoming striped, as his snout molded shape. Eyes
blazing red.
The crowd gasped and fled in fear, Gorak's shock slowly waning, his eyes gradually gaining focus, ferocity; rage.
His eyes crossed, then focused on Cougar. An epic battle cry replaced his childlike question.
There was a massive quaking in the immediate
area at the emanation of Gorak's voice and Cougar's matching rage took
form as well. Gorak slammed his foot forward and roared, his foot
initiating the miniature earthquake, his roar so massive, itself, as
though carrying the shock waves of the Earth further.
He leaped at Cougar. To Cougar's dismay.
Cougar watched the massive Orc Berserker launch himself 6 feet into the
air. Rushing Cougar, just like that, pummeling Cougar's head into the
earth. Seemingly impossible for such a large mass!
In the midst of the action, Cougar's Skinwalker instincts snapped his
favored body to a weaker, 1-eyed, "face" of another Weretiger; a great
feat of his kind to morph face so swiftly, so quickly, so
instantaneously and in such short notice, a trained repetition of
transformation to a single face.
Dead. Dead; although that face was lost upon impact, Cougar was able to
evade death once more: While in the moment between killing him and
raising his fist from the crater where Cougar once stood, Gorak could
feel Cougar Bear morph, again, into his preferred body. He was once
more the faster, stronger, leaner, meaner Weretiger.
His clean face belied the blood stained and brain splattered crater,
which confused and infuriated Gorak. Now he was in an equally blind
furor rage as Cougar, and swung his stronger, right hand; Head on
Hippo-on-Head Strike.
Cougar backflipped to try to match the inertia and absorb damage, then
clawed the gigantic fist, latching on, and biting, getting an early
start on, hopefully, acquiring his new face.
The crowd that had fled the city "watched"
from beyond the city walls, feeling every blow Gorak landed upon the
Earth, feeling his every enraged step and stomp, some villagers even
climbing up to look over the top.
Gartha and few others who had fled to their homes now peered out their
windows and door flaps or stood beside their homes and watched the epic
battle in awe.
Cougar Bear didn't get to chew more than a thin sliver of the back of
Gorak's hand before he found his own skull near-mortally crushed,
between sheer forceful muscle and the dark, bloodstained, rock hard, dry
clay. He could hear and feel his skull cracking.
He had to shape shift, to preserve his favored body, he had to morph out of it.
An excruciatingly painful snap and crack as bone dislodged from his face.
His ego split between his favorable body and self preservation.
Excruciating pain induced shape shifting. He doubled back in a single
leap at the initiation of the morph, thereby quadrupling the distance
between he and Gorak because as he shifted, with his blood was everywhere, his face mangled and marred
from sliding out while jerking; bone showing around his left eye, which
protruded from his skull more than it should, his snout utterly
flattened and crushed, limping in places it shouldn't, and his body
rapidly shrinking: His size and mass shrank into a small mouse amidst a single forcible jerk of his body.
He meweled feebly and collapsed from a
residual signal his presumably lost favorite body initiated.
His mind raced, though he appeared to have passed out. He could feel the
Berserker slowly approach with each and every thudding footfall.
He could feel Gorak was no more than 4 of his giant steps away. Another
thud. Three steps away, and Cougar's mind was blank; he wasn't even
aware he wasn't thinking, just utterly gone, had he not been alive, had
he not been so unaware, he would have though he was dead.
One more vibrating step.
Next, his body exploded in blood, gore, bone, tissue, and all other
manner of living organic material as Gorak stomped him in with his 1
foot wide heel. The aged, seasoned, and experienced Cougar Bear has
seen much worse, though never been as badly beaten all at once...
Cougar's Skinwalker instinct was so powerfully developed and honed, he
involuntarily shape shifted into a flea just before the moment of true
death.
Still mind blind, still. totally unaware, utterly blacked out to all of
the universe, the flea instinct took over and he bit Gorak's foot and
devoured some blood.
The nutrients of the blood restored some cognizance and he realized, in
great pain and miserable sorrow, that his most powerful body had just
been slain.
He morphed into an Elephant and trumpeted loudly, tears gushing hard and
fast. As he morphed, he was lifting Gorak into the air upon his back,
eyes as teary as red, and as ever Red.
He stood on his forefeet, raising his hind legs, throwing Gorak's center
of gravity forward, while lifting his head and trunk. Naturally Gorak
compensated, and when he did, Cougar stomped his rear legs down, and
flicked him off with his trunk, launching him off his back and over his
tail. Not far flung, but with enough force that he skidded into the city
walls. Cougar trumpeted again and charged Gorak, in hopes of goring him
with one of his tusks and ending this fight now.
Gorak was stunned but only gently, as he quickly rose to his feet before
Cougar could even cover a quarter of the short distance between them.
He lowered his arms again and readied to launch the elephant into the
sky. Cougar Bear came to the very sudden and horribly shocking
realization that he has tremendously underestimated Gorak's strength
and, only just now, realized not only what he was preparing to do, but
that he would be tremendously successful in doing so!
He couldn't slow his inertia with this less and awkward body, so Cougar
attempted to jump, breaking 3 of his legs while twisting his massive
body, and launched into Gorak; as he flew, he shape shifted into a
Whale; upon impact, like a whip a 10 ton whale snapped into Gorak. He
crushed Gorak into the ground and fell on top his legs and torso,
thereby pinning him down, but knew he hadn't much time, and had to think
of a shape that could hold up to Gorak.
His thoughts made no progress before Gorak lifted the huge Baleen-Cougar
Bear, off of him, raising him above his head: raising up a foot,
stepping up to a knee, from a knee to affirm his feet upon the ground
and stand mightily up.
Cougar's blackout was fully over and he snapped back to reality. His eyes, wider than ever, glowed no more. As Gorak began to throw him off, he shape shifted into his Werecougar face. His... now... most powerful and honored body.
The launch successfully sent him all the way back to the Human village,
which now lay decimated and in ruins, villagers' bodies mostly charred
on a huge pyre.
The villagers outside the walls of the slightly evacuated Orc village
observed the flight of Cougar Bear, the Werecougar, and cheered
mightily.
_________________________
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Inside the superconscious mind of the primal
Skinwalker instinctual consciousness, the body of a Weretiger with one
eye missing, a mostly hollow mangled and shattered skull. The vital parts glowing; where vital, quite little was glowing indeed. No, glowing, brain function above the stem, heart crushed between crushed ribcage and spine.
As though alive, yet not alive. The two minds connect, a Werecougar and
a dead, dying, yet-in-stasis Weretiger... Acknowledging each other.
Passing the torch, the Were tiger hands his shattered open palm to
another, leaner, Weretiger who was also face-mangled and partially
brainless, but otherwise in much better condition. He carried
something; red drops and streams coating the fur of his forearms where
he cradled this dark and crimson mass.
The one eyed weretiger falls limp, and his fraily bound dismemberments
and fractures fall apart to the floor, disappearing into void-ness. The
leaner Weretiger approaches the Werecougar solemnly.
He hands over the mass of small mouse; guts, skull, tail... corpse. The
tiny head turns only to nod, and lie down gently, fading into void.
The Weretiger raises his head, revealing a mangled skull, snout, jaw,
eye sockets... one eye remains, and surprisingly, enough brain matter
for partial cognizance. The eye is rolling wildly and staring at the
Werecougar between fidgets. They nod to one another. The Weretiger
places his right fist upon his chest and his left arm onto Cougar Bear's
shoulder. Cougar's shoulder is then occupied by the large trunk of an
elephant.
The elephant lifts the body of the Warrior who is on the verge of death onto it's back, bowing it's head and kneeling down on his good leg, in spite of his three broken ones.
Cougar Bear's Werecougar body reaches out toward the newly fallen
warrior, who will continue to be remembered here in this superconscious
void between awareness and observance; atop his noble mount who forever
stands guard the Warrior's Secret Tomb, dead to the world. They are barely alive, in stasis within the genetic void, of one warrior who will never forget:
The smeared mouse guts across the forehead of a broken elephant who is
mounted by a fallen half-alive corpse of a Weretiger, fading into void,
but not fading...... ... ...
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