Yet again they met in the middle, but this time, Zelsys had prepared. She allowed Rikke to strike her with her left hand just to ensure this landed, grappling her serpent arm with her own left for the moment. Zelsys gave no clear indication. One moment she had her right arm up in a guard, and the next, she’d kicked Rikke away, the berserker’s razorflayer claws ripping four trails of skin and flesh out of Zel’s back immediately followed by six more whipped right out with the tendrils. The serpent arm ripped off at the seam, skewing Rikke’s flight path to the left.

It meant nothing; she just closed the wounds as she gave chase, grinning and flooding her right arm with Fulgur. Physically, she gave not an iota of telegraphing; she even struck Rikke twice in order to conceal what she was doing. Only when the berserker started to get her bearings and stopped herself by digging her claws into the ground, only then did Zelsys stop with her.

She smashed her own head into Rikke’s, taking the shock without issue thanks to the additional padding inside her skull, and in a split-second took up that stance. Left leg ahead of the right. A pivot on the heel with a step forward, whipping the entire body’s mass into a punch. She even used the motion to knee Rikke in the face while she was doubled over.

An adjustment for a slightly downward strike.

Her right arm became a lightning-wreathed whip.

There came a thundercrack.

A STRIKE TO HUMBLE THE GENERALS OF DIVINITY

FORMLESS BUTCHERY: THUNDERCLAP STING

Smashed down to the ground, Rikke bounced from the sheer force of impact with a geyser of blood. Her back had been caved in on the right side, her shoulder joint dislocated and protruding out the back alongside several broken ribs.

It didn’t matter to Zelsys that the White Snake had caught up and that it was zigzagging towards her, hissing and spitting acid. She got out of its way, expecting to strike it down after dodging, but it didn’t try to fight. The beast instead scooped Rikke up in its mouth, coiled up, and used its own body as a spring to launch itself all the way across the arena. Zel figured she could probably catch up to it, but she just… Stood there, flabbergasted. She wanted to see what exactly was happening, and let it play out uninterrupted, taking the opportunity to reset herself and prepare.

Victor was having the time of his life. That he could see the fight happening and mostly make sense of it, that was the most impact the enantiomorph had had upon him thus far. And the aura… They were nearly matched, but Rikke’s waxed and waned, where Zelsys exuded a constant and continuously-growing sense of manic battle-fever. Even without these cruciform eyes, when he closed them, he could feel it in his bones.

The White Snake shrunk by a noticeable amount, steam erupting from its nostrils and ear holes as it writhed in place. A few seconds later it regurgitated a membranous egg and collapsed, instantly starting to rot away.

It was ruptured from within by a sudden omnidirectional spray of needle-like spikes, ripping through the air as fast as sparklock pistol bullets, still a ways from reaching the sound-speed barrier. Their size, however, compensated for their lack of velocity; each was as long as her forearm. Many of them had been stopped from striking the audience by a barrier whose presence Zel hadn’t noticed until now.

“Must’ve been raised after we went in…” she thought as she dodged a few that would’ve struck her, observing the projectiles that had landed at her feet. A sudden influx of actual caution went through her when she realized that they were all coated in that same weird acid and covered in barbs. She used a braid to pick one up in case some acid was still on it, keeping an eye on that egg.

Heavy, as if made from solid iron… And partly hollow.

“What… Oh. Shit.”

Its point crumbled, a small amount of acid pouring out. At the same moment, smoke erupted from around the spikes around her and holes were eaten into the ground around them. They were designed to release acid after penetrating a target. At that exact moment, the egg's flexible exterior ripped apart and a Rikke stepped out, vastly altered from her previous form.

It hadn’t been claws, blades, or more spikes that destroyed the egg. Rikke’s aura of violent intent had become so intense it burst the sac, enveloping her in a reddish haze.

Most of her outward humanity was gone save for her upright gait. Rather than being partly covered in white scales or white fur, her arms and legs were instead covered entirely by black, pointy scales, with these same barbed spikes protruding from her fingertips. Her left arm’s tendrils were now tipped with these spines instead of blades, and three such spines also pointed out from the underside of her right forearm in a row.

Each of her footsteps cracked the ground beneath her feet; the berserker slowly walked forward.

Her face next caught Zel’s eye; utterly bestial, with an even more pronounced muzzle than before, small spike-whiskers growing. Her hair had been completely replaced by a porcupine-like spike-mane, stretching all the way down her back and sides, even forming a short cloak as it ended at the bottom of her back. Only her chest wasn’t completely covered in individual spines; instead, it was armored with interlocking plates, and from these plates arrays of the spikes grew, seemingly as many as could fit. It gave the appearance of a strange scalemail when she moved, but… The spines moved of their own accord.

MONSTROSITY INSTALL

EMBODYING SURVIVAL OF THE FIERCEST AS THE ONLY LAW

CHIMERA MANTLE: THREE-HEADED RAMPAGE BEAST

Rikke raised her right arm and the spines on its underside erupted outward, launched by the flexing of muscle. Just as Zel moved to dodge, she whipped her left arm’s tendrils and launched their spines as well, leading for Zel’s vector of movement with one and somehow aiming the others to cut off other paths of avoidance.

“Fine.”