A Snap of Fangs, the Swish of Tails (Private/Rihzome)

[Posting as Nerezza.]

Nerezza arrived at the meeting point, a bare, empty space with several dark caves nearby, to her right. Their entrances were like gaping maws, and she shuddered as she forced herself to look away, towards...well, nothing. Barren wasteland was more like it. Where was Rihzome? Well, she didn't know him well, but she did know that he was one of her patients who offered to spar with her...to move her "lazy bum", maybe? She plopped herself to the ground, her wings folding neatly, as she looked at the evening sky, which was streaked with red, orange, and some dark-ish purple.

Where was Rihzome?

It would have been much quicker to fly to the meeting point instead of walking, but something told Rihzome that he would need all his flight time available to him today. Glancing around the scenery, he found it to be… unique was a word that came to mind, closely followed by desolate, abandoned and dead, not in any particular order. Dragging his eyes from the incredibly riveting scenery, he realised with a start that a small rise in the ground, one of the few difference in this wide plain, was consuming his view of the meeting point. Sighing in annoyance, he leapt up, a single flap of his wings enough to propel him to the top of the small rise. At the apex he noted with a small amount of surprise that he was incredibly close to their meeting point, only a few hundred feet from Nerezza herself. Walking closer, he coughed loudly at around 80 feet, if she had not noticed him by then, the tattered remains of honour binding him. Regardless, he continued walking until he was roughly 40 feet from her, and he examined her, a twinge of doubt forming in his mind. She was easily 20 feet higher, and her wings seemed extremely well developed. Nervously shuffling his damaged wing, the only indication of exactly how unearned he was, he inclined his head slightly. “I trust you are Nerezza?”

Nerezza was watching the sky slowly darken into black when she heard a cough. Her gaze shifted, and landed on Rihzome. Upon seeing him, a grin spread across her face, and she stood up. She watched him come closer, closer, and suddenly she remembered what they were here for, and she tensed. The stiffening of her body was barely noticeable, but she kept the smile on her face. Finally, Rihzome stopped, around 40 feet from her. At his question, she nodded. "Yes, I am Nerezza," she said, her gentle voice loud enough for Rihzome, and Rihzome only, to hear. "Rihzome, right? How's your wing?" she asked with a tilt of her head, eyeing his wind. It was healing, at least; it didn't look too bad, as compared to that day when there was a dark shape staggering into her den, with a misshapen wing, and cuts and wounds all over his body. She shuddered slightly at the thought, but forced herself to return to the present. "But are you sure your wings can support your weight in the air? Do you want to...spar on the ground?" she asked, anxiety colouring her tone.

Rihzome raised his head to face Nerezza, nodding in affirmation of her first statement. “My wing is healing exceptionally,” he almost flawlessly lied, stretching them to try and emphasise his point. Of course, he wasn’t going to tell her that the wing had healed malaligned for all her skill, and was very likely to be his downfall in this friendly fight. It was a disadvantage, and one he would simply have to overcome. Folding his wings again, he swung his head from her to glance around the desolate land, finding it somewhat alien in the encroaching darkness. “My wings will carry me for a time. If we are to spar in the sky, so be it.” Turning back to face Nerezza he took a step backwards, mentally preparing himself. It would be interesting to say the least, with most of his fighting style consisting of trying to maim or kill his opponents. Even as he stood there, his mind was spinning through a hundred different ways to take her out of the sky, each too violent for something that was supposed to be simple sparring, and against a fellow Nightwing. Taking several deep breaths, Rihzome seemed to physically relax, his wings slightly lifted, his eyes trained on Nerezza, or rather her body language, and ready to spring in any direction.“You may make the first move if you so wish it.”

Nerezza was sure Rihzome was lying. His wing didn't look too good. Then again, he hadn't let her come too close to his wing in the first place. She'd already told him that his wing was misaligned and she'd needed to fix it, but he'd told her to just do whatever she could do without touching him. Oh well. His loss. She shook his head at his last sentence. "Let the battle commence," she said, and took a step back. This wasn't her first time sparring, but she hadn't sparred in quite a while.

Time to see how much of combat tactics she remembered, then. Taking into the air was the first thing she did. She spread her wings to its full extent before realising how stupid the move was and hurriedly snapped them to her side, causing her to rock in the air a little, but she remained in the air. She then readied herself to dodge whatever attacks that were bound to come; she had no doubt that Rihzome would attack swiftly, lethally.

Quite predictable… Rihzome thought, almost sadly, as Nerezza immediately took the sky. He would have to somehow try and lure her back down, ideally into the small network of caves that he had seen earlier… if they were even interconnected… But it wouldn’t be easy. She had a major strategic advantage in the sky, that wasn’t something one gave up easily. Take a blow or three, fall out of sky, retreat to caves. Foolproof. Unfurling his wings, Rihzome took to the air, unsure of his next move, regardless of the fact that there was only one sensible thing to do.  

Trying to engage in any lengthy battle in the sky would end badly for Rihzome, leaving him weakened and easy prey, so his first goal was bringing Nerezza back down to earth, literally. Speeding his wingbeats, he angled upwards, in an attempt to ascend faster than she had. If she tried to tackle or otherwise dive and attack him while she was still above him, he would flip himself in mid-air at the last possible second, and try to meet the attack, grappling face to face in an attempt to drag her down. If she allowed him to fly higher, or simply kept above him, he would attack head-on, and aim for her wings, the alternative being he simply ended up engaged in a pointless upwards spiral that ended with him falling out the air. Both avenues had their merits and dangers, but both ended, ideally, with the same goal. Both of them on the ground.

Nerezza saw Rihzome shake his head and thought, Well, what do you expect of me? I'm not a general, nor am I a soldier; don't expect so much of me. Im just a healer. Then he took into the air, coming straight for her, and she had a feeling that he was aiming for her wing, to damage it, then maybe start a fight on the ground where he could move unhindered by his wing. So she wheeled around and headed away from Rihzome, tilting her wings up as she flew higher and higher, trying to keep out of Rihzome's reach. She then did a loop-the-loop in the air, which was pretty much to fly further from Rihzome.

A voice snapped in her brain: Go fight him, idiot! No, she couldn't. In a fight, she was bound to lose in paw-to-paw combat, so all she could do then was the exhaust the other opponent, then fight them. Maybe. Folding her wings, she let herself plummet to the ground like a falling stone. She flared her wings a few feet from the ground, slowing herself enough to land on the ground gently.

Nerezza hoped Rihzome would take the bait. Poised to release something from her maw, she watched him in the sky, waiting. She was also ready to dodge if needed. She was pretty sure Rihzome would set some trap for her as well.

As Nerezza angled upwards, to fly even higher, Rihzome growled, slightly annoyed. Striving harder, he was caught by surprise as she turned a loop-de-loop. Pausing mid-flight, he hovered for a second, prepared for some sort of aerial manoeuvre or attack that never came. Eyeing the dragoness, he watched her dive towards the ground, pulling up at the last second. What is she planning? Giving up her largest advantage… Or does she have another trick up her sleeve, so to speak.

Watching for a few seconds or so as she watched him back, he noticed she was low to the ground. Looks like she’s ready for something… Let’s see if she’s ready for two somethings… Focusing for a moment on the air in front of him, he watched as his shadow twin formed. Taking a second so that their wingbeats were mimicked, they both glanced downwards, Rihzome to Nerezza’s left, his clone to her right. Mimicking each other’s actions perfectly, the both folded their wings and dived downwards, spiraling together in a ploy to confuse her as to which was the real one. Splitting apart roughly 100 feet from the ground, they curved apart, skimming across the ground, towards Nerezza, his clone attacking from behind, and him from the front. Ideally, he hoped she would assume he was trying to attack her from behind, while his clone was distracting her.

If that was the case, and she turned to face his clone, he could quite simply land on her back and attack her wings, ideally doing enough damage in those few seconds to make flight less appealing for her. Of course, if she had managed to keep an eye on which was the real Rihzome, or simply chose the dragon charging her from the front, she could quite easily just ignore his clone and focus on him. If she did choose right, and did focus on him, he would try and go low at the last second, trying to ram her chest to destabilise her and possibly take her to ground.Of course there was the third option, but he highly doubted she would try for it.