round 3 Iron Breaker - First Blood

[+ Yalu]

((Latched to the Dorsal Fin of a Hardskin Ally, The Void))

:: Iron Breaker sent out a pulse of excitement at the conflict it was engaged in. To the Hardskins it would mean nothing but to its people they would know that battle had been joined in the spawning grounds. And to Born in Broken Light, closer at hand, it would be an admonition towards his inaction. His carapace still glowed a bright pearlescent white as he gave into the hate he'd borne for generations. He could hear, vaguely, Broken Light pleading with him but remained deaf to it and all other entreaties. This Hardskin-friend was obviously defenceless and he would soon have another victory to add to his already long list. ::

:: Flexing his carapace he gained a firm purchase on the prey-beasts dorsal fin and began to crush it between his void hardened plates. Fissures and breaks in it's skin released puffs of gasses that blew out along his stomach with significant force. Around him he could sense debris being torn loose and drifting away as he rocked back and forth and from side to side. To Born in Broken Light it would look like he was thrashing on the Hardskin's back, using the long lower half of his body as a counter weight as it hung along the back and below its target. ::

:: With a final, terrible heave Iron Breaker reared back. The lower half of his body swung like a pendulum beneath the Hardskin and his upper half arched backwards with his prize. Dozens of black fissures and cracks spider webbed along the top disc of the Hardskin, each spreading away from the gaping wound left in its back. Inside the sound of shearing metal would resound through every level of the Ally as part of it was torn away, exposed to the cold. In between his plates he squeezed again, putting a final effort into destroying the dorsal fin he'd taken. It buckled and bent and he felt the last explosions of gas as he let it go and watched it drift up and away from the fray. ::

:: Iron Breaker allowed himself a moments rest as he drifted away from the wounded prey-beast. Though in part it was also to take in the terrible wound he'd inflicted. Iron Breaker watched with cold eyes as the last few burst of white gas escaped the two ragged spars that stretched above the disc. His carapace glowed a soft blue as a euphoric pleasure swept through him, a pride in what he'd just accomplished. Reaffirmation that his name was rightly earned and that age had now slowed him or dulled his instincts. He watched as the Hardskins tiny Ally hung limply in the void below him and felt victory close at hand. Rearing back his massive, scarred head he let out a void roar that made even Broken Light recoil. ::

:: His one remaining antenna twitched a fraction of a second before the first spear struck him in his exposed belly. It was one of the Hardskin Predators vorpal spears. The largest they possessed and tipped in such a way that removing it was impossible. Iron Breaker had survived five such blows in the past, but only once to his stomach. His roar of victory changed swiftly to anguish as his carapace lit up bright white again, and with frightening speed he turned from the wounded Hardskin and expelled gasses from four of his six gills, rocketing away to a safer distance. ::

Iron Breaker
Cosmozoan Guardian and Warrior

as simmed by

Lieutenant Oliver Weston
Intelligence Officer
USS Drake