My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts
Here it came; the moment he even entertained the thought, it became true. The kick was fast, though. He had a little distance, true, thanks to the range of his Py-Pole; by accurately predicting the kick, he even had a few added ticks of reaction time to step back out of the way. It wasn't enough though. The armoured toe slammed into his chest, creating a shallow wedge in his chest. Only shallow, though.
He'd let the kick land, but it didn't mean he was going to sit back and let the full force smash his tiny little body into a clay pancake. Both feet pushed off the ground to follow the track of Irathia's foot, while the heavy tail underneath his body swung out to the left, shifting his trajectory so that it rolled off the right side of the foot, in the same direction as the wind, which added precious millimetres to his distance. A glancing blow. It was a difficult split-second mid-air maneuver that took a lot of thougth to pull off, especially at such short notice with no warning. After he'd cleared the foot and Irathia had pulled back, the tip of his tail pressed down against the ground, flattening like a small support pillar that he could lean back against and tip backwards onto his hands from.. and from there, flip back to his feet again. His chest was pretty deformed but that could be left alone.. as long as it didn't interfere with his limb functions, he could keep fighting.
Then a hammer slammed into his body. He'd not paid attention and this was the price he was going to pay.
The Pycon's head rolled backwards to shield it with the rest of his body but there was nothing else he could to do deflect the blow this time. Shielding his nexus with the rest of his body was pretty much the last option available and he took it happily, feeling his arms and legs bend unnaturally as their joints were snapped and twisted on the spot like tangled pieces of string. For a human, feeling their entire torso contort, bulge and flatten all at once must have been a very traumatizing experience - for Arch, it just meant that he was going to live to see another day as the sand of the arena floor cushioned his impact just before darkness settled underneath the smothering weight of the hammer.
Weight was still pressing down on his nexus. He'd used the rest of his body to shield his head from the hammer's impact but now it was his body that was being pushed down on his nexus, squeezing it, making the Pycon feel ironically light-headed and dizzy. Shyke.. He didn't have enough strength to lift the metal slab again. He tried to push his head deeper into the sand, distribute weight elsewhere, spread himself out, push at a corner, but it wasn't working. Shyke!
"Archailist?" The knight watching over the two squires picked the hammer up by the handle and lifted it up into the air.. and he recoiled so fast that he nearly dropped the offending weapon again.
Whatever was attached to the hammer wasn't a squirrel. It didn't even look alive anymore. It just looked like a giant wet, sticky mass of clay, bulging out where the nexus was, otherwise flattened like a puddle. Other pieces hung limp around the bottom of the handle; one flexed, quivered and whatever thin strands were still connecting it to the other lumps snapped suddenly, causing it to flop onto the ground limply with a dull squish. "Sweet Sylir.." This was probably the knight's first time seeing a Pycon deform in such a way. To be honest, it'd been a very long time since Arch had felt this way, too. It wasn't enjoyable. Actually, it was extremely painful. If he still had a mouth to use, he'd probably be screaming right now.
