Ray vs. Ranber, Brains against brawn!

[Ray(SR)]

Ray dodged out of the way a second too late. Ranber's paw clipped him on one side of the head and smashed him into the floor on that side, dazed, head throbbing. Gotta get up before he kills me, he thought hazily, but his stiff limbs wouldn't let him do it.

[Jacqueline(LB)]

Yawning, Jacqueline trudged into the wolf's side of the arena. She couldn't care less about the fight going on with the two challengers unknown to her, but her white fur was bristling with excitement about the ritual afterwards. She never tired of meeting with other Neva followers and banding together to worship their goddess. To others their following might seem dark or dangerous, but in reality it was just like worshiping any other goddess, just better. Neva was the strongest god or goddess of them all, because Death is inevitable.

Might as well watch the last few minutes of the fight. Jacqueline loved a good fight, but it wasn't nearly as interesting when she wasn't participating in it herself. She peered down at the two duelists. They were both black-furred males. One of them was on the ground while the other raised a massive paw. It would be ended quickly. The soon-to-be winner's face was turned in the other direction, but even from here Jacqueline could clearly see the lemon-yellow glitter of the loser's eyes.

Her heart stopped. Could it be?

"Ray!" she shouted. Yes, that was him, she was sure of it. No, no...she knew she could bring him back to life, but she couldn't watch him die. "Ray - use your ice!" she shouted on impulse. The rest of the spectating wolves were too busy shouting and screaming to hear her, either at Ranber telling him to hurry up and kill Ray, or at Ray, telling him to get up. She wasn't even sure if Ray heard her.

"Ray!" she screamed one last time.

[Ranber(SR)]

Ranber grinned at the sight of his opponent lying on the ground, beaten already even though Ranber hadn't yet dealt the finishing blow. "Happy now?" he asked Ray, bringing himself up to his full height. He intended to finish the fight by crashing the whole weight of his body down on his opponent and simply crushing Ray beneath him. Just like the bug he was.

Without waiting for Ray to answer, he leaped up into the air to gain momentum and prepared for impact.

[Ray(SR)]

Amidst the screaming of all the spectators, Ray could have sworn he heard a familiar voice. "Jake?" he muttered dazedly. The voice went on, pleading with him to use his ice. But he could have mixed it up with all the other voices shouting at him to get up. Too weak to talk, he thought to himself, No. I won't use my ice. I want a fair fight. And if I lose, so be it.

Above him he sensed rather than saw Ranber getting ready to crush him. It was the death he had always had nightmares about; being crushed beneath some incredible weight, squeezing the life out of him. Before this he had always imagined it was a rockfall. But then, what was Ranber but a giant boulder?

Somewhere in his dazed, dying mind he realized something. Ranber was not a boulder. Boulders were hard stone, impossible to dig your claws into. But Ranber was flesh and blood. And flesh was easy to penetrate with claws.

As Ranber's huge weight came hurtling down on him, he managed to lift his legs into the air, claws protruding.

[Ranber(SR)]

Ranber's face stretched into a huge grin as he came down on Ray with a thud. Only a moment and Ray would stop wriggling beneath him and lay still like a squashed bug. But suddenly, he felt pain in four different places at once. The worst was his throat - his jugular. And for a moment, he felt incredible fear as his own heartbeat pushed the blood out of him.

Then...blackness spiraled down on him like a dark cloud, extinguishing all he had ever known and covering his face in a suffocating blanket.

OOC: Congrats, Ray - you killed Ranber. Only now Jake gets to bring him back.

[Ray(SR)]

OOC: Yay, I won!!!

BIC:

Ray felt his tense muscles relax as Ranber's blood spattered across his chest and neck. It was over. Groaning, he pushed Ranber's limp deadweight off his body and just lay there for a moment, heaving for breath. Then he managed to sit up and looked over at his dead opponent.

"Yes," he breathed, so quietly that if Ranber were alive he was the only one who could hear him. "I'm happy now."

He turned and saw Neva's followers coming toward them. Jake was among them; she must have been watching after all. The rest of them formed a circle around Ranber's body with a gap just large enough for Jake, who ran toward Ray. "Ray? Ray? You're okay, right?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Ray coughed. "Go on, Ranber needs your help."

"C'mon, Jake," one of the followers called. Jake went to fill the gap in the circle and Ray watched as Ranber slowly began to move. The moment he stood up, fully alive again, Jake walked back over to Ray.

"Hold still."

Ray was happy to oblige; his wounds hurt more when he moved. Muttering a few words under her breath, Jacqueline closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. Ray stiffened as gold and red sparks leapt among his black fur. The color of fire. Then his head stopped hurting.

[fyreshadowes(A)]

OOC: Congrats, Ray. You're now in first place. Ranber, you're in second. Not bad, not bad!

Howard, you've won 100 gambling points. You are now in first place in the gambling category.