B-Day Fanfic for Gira

[Beast Blood]

Written as a birthday gift for Giratina93 back in December. His character, Mulek, and mine, Korraz, had a rivalry on an RPG site (which is down now) that I thought was fun and interesting, though it didn't actually go quite as Gira wanted it to. It started out with Mulek having a decent build-up, but her first target was Koko and Koko was frankly overpowered back then, so Mulek didn't do much to her. I always felt bad about it and wanted to see more Mulek and Koko interactions, so it's what I chose to write.

Links to the characters' stats pages:
http://cosmiccarnage.boards.net/thread/ ... ollTo=2491 - Mulek
http://worldofgiants.boards.net/thread/ ... crollTo=22 - Korraz

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Wide as the eye could see, the moon shined on the glistening ice shelf like a cold, pale sun. Like an animated, glowing scar of multiple colors painting the dark canvas drawn over the cold wastes, where stars hung in the blackness like the spots of an animal’s pelt, auroras swirled like the waves of the arctic seas below. The unrelenting wintry winds of the very north of Colossus howled, throwing frozen mist in ghostly shapes that collapsed back down on the ice in long, drawn-out dunes. All was silent in the cold night, only the northern wind’s fierce howls and the waves’ splashing serving as a soundscape. In the local village of Kollagskar, the Colossians that called the settlement of hunters and fishermen home slept peacefully.

All but a small group of them. The two local blacksmiths were searching for their son that had gone missing from their home. He had been in his bed mere moments prior, sleeping cuddled against his sister. Strangely, no animal tracks at all led in or out of the place. The entire village was quickly put on high alert as the Kollagskaren searched for the lost baby.

The cub’s father, a burly, rugged male known as Sirmaq, held his other offspring, his daughter called Skovska, in his arms to protect her. He found himself surprised to see that, despite all the commotion around her, the little one was still very well asleep.

The mother of the two cubs was not actually in the village itself at the moment - rather, she was gone looking at the places outside the settlement she knew her dear son liked to visit. Neither of the parents liked to be separated from each other, but in order to protect their daughter and to search more efficiently, they had to leave each other’s side for the moment being. Of course, they knew of each other’s strengths, and it brought them confidence - their trust brought them comfort in their absence.

A ways away from the polar home of gentle giants, a winged humanoid perched in a snowy pine tree patiently observed the ice shelf. About a hundred meters or so in front of her was a baby Colossian that had been ripped from his home, torn from the warmth of his bed and out of his sweet slumber to serve as bait. Not normally known to be this rude towards animals, much less young ones, Mulek made an exception for the Colossian species, no thanks to a certain individual from that race - that particular creature was precisely who she was trying to lure.

As the little one looked around him in search of anyone he would recognize, he perked up at the sight of a blue glow appearing to the far right side of where Mulek faced. His mother was coming for him. The angel of the moon glanced in that direction and grinned. Her plan, risky as it was, had worked.

At the horizon, an unusually large Colossian lumbered her generous weight with slow, steady, heavy steps. The gentle blue glows that made her so obvious in the darkness of the arctic night came from the heavy chainmail coat she wore, that reached just above her clawed toes. Like bony daggers, her claws dug firmly into the firm, bluish ice, leaving dents and scratches in its reflective surface. Stern yellow eyes, though one of them did not, in fact, see at all, glowed like two spotlights in the dark. The giant’s breath came in bursts of pale mist from her tusked maw as she raised her head and snuffed the air to check if she was still following the correct path that her cub’s scent led to - it was a smell she could easily tell apart from thousands.

When her head lowered back down as she heard the thudding of little paws on the ice, the fear and worry that had gripped her heart disappeared in an instant. She thought she had lost her cub, all over again. She had, thankfully, been mistaken. Her son was right there. Her arms wrapped around him as she picked him up and hauled him up against her. He was going to be fine. He would soon be back home safe and sound, sleeping comfortably next to his younger sister and his stuffed toys. His father was going to be so relieved. They simply needed to go back to Kollagskar and...

A brilliant burst of roaring flames lighting up in the midst of a nearby pine tree’s branches set an end to that train of thought.

By reflex and instinct alone, Korraz clutched her son protectively the moment she heard the noise and saw the flames.

“Why, hello there, fur rug.”

The goliath of spotted grey fur recognized the voice all too well - as well as the scent that she would have picked up long before had she not chosen to ignore every odor in the air beyond that of her precious cub.

“Took you long enough. No wonder you’d lost dear Kovrald before. A thousand predators could have gotten to him before you did.”

Without even needing broad daylight to see the traits of the creature she so despised, the angel knew she struck a nerve. Kovrald, taking in the words and noticing the subtle flinch from his mother, looked up to his parent with a frown. He pressed himself against his mother, leaving it difficult to tell if he meant to comfort her or if he wanted to comfort himself.

The humanoid’s smug grin widened and her bi-colored wings, one white as the snow, one dark as the night sky, spread wide. With a few flaps, she leaped out of the tree she was hiding among the pine foliage of and landed on the ice in front of the two furry creatures of the north.

“Did you think I’d have forgotten the humiliation you brought me, barbarian? No! You will pay dearly for your disrespect!”

Had Mulek been facing Glaxion, her threats would have been met with a burst of laughter and, most likely, she would have been called a derogatory term along the lines of “milk drinker”. But not Korraz. She took threats, especially those that involved her loved ones, very seriously. She once again had to put her pacifism aside to quell a threat, but first she had to put Kovrald somewhere safe before. She lowered the little one in the snow and used her magnetic powers to build a shield around him, securing him in a dome where he could still see, hear and breathe, but where nothing could reach him. With this done, Korraz directed her attention back towards Mulek.

“This time, things will go my way,” the angel assured, eyes hard and brows lowered in determination.

The grey giant with the glowing coat took a single step forward, but stopped cold in her tracks when she found herself surrounded not by just one, but by several Muleks. The duplicates threatened her from every direction. One of them was even taunting Kovrald, who was pawing at the walls of the shield around him in an attempt to combat the angelic entity. Korraz noticed him in the corner of her eye; she could not help but smirk proudly seeing her son stand up for himself. That was her boy.

Raising a hand, the wordless warrior conjured a lightning bolt and struck one of the duplicates squarely in the head. The ice covering the land lit up with an intense blue light for but a moment, a fleeting, ephemeral moment where sheer power cut through the cold air in a zig-zag of electric might, leaving no trace behind. As soon as the bolt struck, the deception disappeared.
Her other hand caught another of the duplicate in, quite literally thanks to the metallic gloves she wore, an iron grip. Her metal-encircled fingers crushed the mirage like a mere tin can. Her tail swung like a furry, stubby club and smashed two more of the clones. Each of them dissipated in the blowing wind. While she had been busy handling a small group of the Muleks, a few of them struck her from behind. Most left but a few scratches on her coat, but the last one, a hit from the real Mulek, sliced cleanly through the giant’s heavy overcoat and cut her to the bone with the unusual flame of her scythe’s blade. The giant moved her brawny arm over to observe the damage done, surprised by the damage and ease it was dealt.

Mulek grinned. Perfect. Her new scythe was-

A tremendous bang resounded across the night and created a shockwave around the battling beings when the cold iron of Korraz’s mighty fist forcefully applied itself to Mulek’s smug expression.

Launched like the bolt of a crossbow, at breakneck speeds that turned her into a blur, the angel flew for dozens of meters before her body finally reunited with the frigid earth. She slid for a while more before crashing to a stop when she hit an icy wall a distance away. It cracked and crumbled on top of her, burying her under snow and ice. Kovrald cheered for his mother, thrilled at the sight of her stomping a foe.

The immense power of the punch had completely disfigured Mulek and nearly ripped her head clean off the rest of her body, several of the connective tissues and skin that held the two together ripped apart like snapped rubber bands. Her entire face and chest, as well as the snow and ice around her, were quickly stained red with her blood. Her skull, broken open, took a long moment to recover its bearings. It was a miracle that the angel had not suffered a concussion or simply been killed outright, as was often the case for those who suffered the might of Korraz.

Dispersing the last two of the duplicates with a swipe of her claws before she patted dust and snow off her distinctive coat, Korraz raised her head to check on Mulek’s status. For a moment, she wondered if she had killed the angel flat-out and thus ended her menace for good. But then...

“Not so...” the angel muttered with an odd and nasally voice due to her shattered nose and mangled teeth.

Her wounds healed in mere seconds.

“... easily.”

Korraz frowned at the sight, but a quick look over at the full moon let her know all she had to know; now the angel was at her full strength. Things she could not do before, she could now accomplish, on top of possessing more power in her existing abilities.

Her arms raised, and following her movement were several boulders, icicles and branches that rose in the air like spirits departing from the world of the living. Realizing she was in trouble, Mulek took flight. The multitude of objects struck her from all directions and bloodied her form, although she did manage to avoid several.

Charging like a diving eagle, Mulek flew like a winged bullet towards the bison beast. Like an icebreaker relentlessly powering through ice, Korraz walked unflinching, unafraid of the impending enemy, towards her gliding foe. Her fists were clenched at her sides. Just as a collision between the two was about to happen, Mulek suddenly swerved upwards while swinging her scythe. Its burning blade carved across Korraz’s throat in a glowing, slanting line of burning fur. As the angel flew up, the giant’s arm reached up and tried to snatch the weapon with the intention of disarming Mulek in an all-too-familiar move that had cost her her previous blade, but the tricentennial titan quickly let go when her gauntlet was heated to a red-hot temperature in a mere fraction of a second. Her instinct as a blacksmith made her act fast in the face of hot metal, and the mute plunged her fist past the ice and into the frigid sea to cool it. Steam rose from the water in a thick plume.

While she did so, she was struck in the back by the scythe as it again cut through her fur like a hot knife through butter. Korraz had no idea what manner of alien fire this was, but it did not feel natural at all. Fire never hurt her this easily. Nothing hurt her this easily. The metal of her armor pieces resisted the highest temperatures of the lightning she conjured. Her coat normally deflected both heat and blades. Just what was Mulek’s weapon made out of?

A blast of the unusual flames engulfed her head, prompting her to try and pat the fire away. Her attempts worked, but the mask that she was constantly found wearing had melted in a few places. Some of the spiked plates were fused together as they cooled. Shaking her smoking head from side to side, Korraz shot her arm in the air and caught Mulek’s leg in a clawed paw. The hot metal scolded the limb, but a more severe pain was dealt to her when the giant lowered her arm in a swift motion and slammed her foe down against the meters-thick ice. Cracks came from her bones, the wind knocked out of her in a hoarse breath. Flattened on the expanse of frozen water like a pancake as it cracked around her in spiderweb-like shapes, she was lifted up and brought down again. It looked as though the giant was trying to punish the ice using the angel’s body. This time, however, the frozen water could not withstand another blow of such power, and Mulek was driven directly through the ice and into the dark waters below.

Her wounds healed as she sunk deeper and trailed blood in the dark depths, but how long would this battle of attrition last, her healing against the giant’s infamous durability?

She had to change tactics. In fact, the water she found herself in gave her an idea...

Korraz lowered her eyes to the ice below her feet, hearing it croak and groan. This was, no doubt, the angel’s doing; ice this thick was normally able to support Korraz’s heavy weight just fine. What was the damnable angel doing down there?

Before she had time to move out of the way and onto solid earth, the ice beneath her feet tore open and the giant tumbled. Kovrald tried to crane his neck up to see, but he could not pick up any sign of his parent. He saw Mulek fly out of the water with a few heavy breaths and laughs.

Moments later, however, his mother emerged from the dark sea, one muscular arm tipped by claws like steak knives getting a firm grip on the ice.

The short moments of the blue glows of the Colossian’s coat attracting all manners of sea creatures was all Mulek needed.

Korraz noticed the sudden, rushing water current when it was too late for her to get out of the water. In front of her pierced a gigantic fin that broke through the ice like a swift sword through the flesh of a foe. An enormous sea monster shattered the ice shelf like glass. Under Kovrald’s horrified gaze, his eyes wide and round in fear, a gigantic Hvalhaj, a behemoth feared by any and all Colossians, slammed its jaws shut on his mother’s midsection. Blood spilled from her pierced belly and out of her tusked maw.

Before long, a struggle between the monstrous strength of Korraz and the power of the Hvalhaj’s jaws ensued. Korraz forced the jaws of the whale-shark-like creature open as she extended her arms. Her muscles rippled with brutish power underneath her coats - the one that was made of chainmail and the one that was made of fur.

All the while, Mulek watched intently, clearly enjoying the show. Hearing the angel laugh, the grey giant with gritted teeth turned to her with a steely yellow glare, even as she strained holding the Hvalhaj’s mouth open.

Good. The giant was in a bad spot. Trapped.

“Say hello to your mate’s family members while you’re in there”, Mulek so helpfully suggested.

Korraz’s stern glare grew sterner still, in complete disapproval. Her teeth ground together.

“I mean, you might as well greet them when you’re on your way to meet your sister”, Mulek mocked.

The giant snorted a warning not to go any further with these personal insults. The hot air shot from her nostrils was like smoke from a dragon’s nose.

“Now, I wonder if your son’s fur makes as nice a coat as the one you’re wearing?”

Korraz slammed her fist against the Hvalhaj with a resounding impact of metal against blubbery flesh. Almost immediately, the sea creature lit up like a Christmas tree. Bolts of lightning surged through it and in the waters below. Muscles seizing, the Hvalhaj was paralyzed. Its body slid back in the water, dragging Korraz along with it.

Mulek burst out laughing, triumphant. She did not actually need to taunt the giant like that, but flinging jabs at her sure felt good. Finally. Her revenge was complete. Or almost so.

“Now, as for you…” the scythe-wielding being said as she turned concisely on a heel and casually walked towards Kovrald, whose shield had fallen down. She discovered that latter fact when she was suddenly rammed into. At first, she thought Korraz was back, but she realized it was Kovrald - they did have a strong family resemblance to one another. The young Colossian clawed and bit, tusked jaws goring her throat.

“Let me go! Let me go!” she exclaimed in alarm, trying to bring about her scythe to defend herself with. With the intention of using her healing abilities to seal the wounds later on, she sacrificed the chunk of her throat that the Colossian held firmly in his jaws to rip herself from him.

“Your parents have taught you well. But it won’t save y-”

She stopped herself when she realized the arm she was extending to point her scythe towards Kovrald was glowing blue. And that the night was suddenly becoming darker. She looked up...

And her eyes widened.

The dreaded giant was standing barely a meter away from her. She had not a slightest care in the world that her fur and flesh were ripped from her in several places. She had somehow gotten out of the water and was now swinging the Hvalhaj around with a single hand, holding it by the tail and wielding it like a baseball bat, despite the fact that it dwarfed her in size and outweighed out her by who knows how many tons. And now the whale-turned-weapon was falling down on Mulek dangerously fast, swung in an arc whose ending point was her person.

BOOM!

The makeshift weapon hammered her through the ice, breaking and cracking the ice shelf around for nearly fifty meters.

Kovrald looked on curiously, watching the dazed sea creature and the angel sink like stones. He hoped that was it.

But unfortunately for the two fur-covered monsters, the angel was still alive.

“That... did not feel good,” she commented conversationally as she teetered and stumbled to a stance. She spat water and blood on the ice. “But I swear I’ll-”

She was interrupted when the brutish behemoth’s hand grabbed her and lifted her off the snow. She could not escape her grasp. The cold iron of the blacksmith’s glove enclosed her in a prison she could not escape from. She was the one that was trapped now. She was at the mercy of her hulking enemy. Her unbridled might was about to fall down on her like the fury of a thunder god, something that was not actually far from the truth.

The Colossian’s fist clenched. Her arm cocked back, preparing to administer the mother of all Colossian punches to Mulek’s face. Perhaps she should not have taunted Koko after all. The angel closed her eyes and braced herself. The heavy breathing of the creature was all she heard. Her end would not be painless, but with the mammal’s immense strength, it at least would be fast…

It never came.

A loud, metallic impact resounded, and Mulek opened her eyes to see Korraz reeling. A ship anchor, likely that of a long-lost Kollagskaren ship, attached to the Hvalhaj's mouth like a fishing hook, had been sent flying directly in her face. The giant stumbled, but she still stood and held Mulek firmly in her grasp.

She had just barely managed to regain her footing and her bearings when she turned around to see the enormous sea creature, and the anchor, head towards her. Apparently, the Hvalhaj was unhappy with being thrown around by the hulking Colossian. With no time to get out of the way or try to catch the incoming heavy object of dense, solid metal, Korraz was whacked in the head again. This time, she released Mulek and fell down, catching herself with a knee and a hand. Her vision was blurry and filled with stars for a second time. She shook her head and shakily prepared to get back to her feet, but as the Hvalhaj dove straight down and left the area to find a less combative meal, the anchor was sent hitting her for a third time just as she stood.

Dazed, Korraz’s eyes lost their focus. An odd wheeze came from her as she toppled backwards, collapsing flat on her back.

“...hhhhrrrhhhhhHHHHHHNNNNRGH...”

Mulek stared at the fallen giant in confusion, taking a moment to register what happened.

She had won. There it was. Her victory. The titan, like a toppled mountain of muscle and fur, lay in front of her, blood dripping from her maw and nose. Knocked out cold.

She would now bring this fiend to justice. She would make a trophy out of this barbaric monstrosity.

She laughed, long and hard. Kovrald was too busy checking on his mother to pay any attention to her.

“Now, where were we? Ah, yes...” She grabbed her scythe again and prepared to bring it down on Kovrald.

Something sharp and metallic pierced one of her wings, pinning her to the ground. When she turned to her side, she was met by the sight of Sirmaq himself.

“I hope you picked up sign language from what little interactions you have had with Koko,” the angered titan said. “Because I am about to permanently take away your ability to insult her... just like I said I would,” he continued as he dragged his thumb’s claw over his throat demonstratively. “Did you think, for any minute, that I was not serious? That my warnings held no water? That my threats were empty?” His voice raised in anger, he twisted his greatsword, almost as tall as he, wrenching the wound wider.

As the angel stared at both her impaled wing and the new arrival, two more of the furry giants arrived on the scene. Of course. A wise druidic bear had once said poking a Colossian village was like poking a hornet’s nest. When offense came, they all rushed to their friend’s defense. It mattered not. With the moon on her side, Mulek would take them all on. If she had defeated the dreaded Korraz, she could defeat anyone.

The first of the newcomers was the healer Gaiyan, and the other one was a hammer-wielding warrior known as Glaxion. While one promptly went to offer the downed Korraz some medical attention, the other invited Kovrald to come to her. The cub of nearly black pelt left the fur of his adoptive father’s leg to climb in Glaxion’s arm. The horned warrior would not normally have left a battle, but she took her duty of keeping the cubs safe very seriously.

“Bring Koko to the healer’s hut. I’ll be fine here. And Glaxion… Please keep Kovrald safe,” Sirmaq told her in a voice that was trying to be gentle, but was shaking with rage.

“What do you care? You’re not even his real father,” Mulek snarled.

The polar giant snapped his head back at her with an icy blue glare.

“What does it matter? I may not be his father by blood, but he is mine nonetheless! And I will love him and care for him until my dying breath! What manner of parent, adoptive or not, does not care for their child?” he growled. “And as for that coward that serves as his real father, it is a good thing he has already been dealt with, as were he to cross my path, I would tear him to pieces!” Sirmaq roared, his booming voice hurting Mulek’s ears.

“The only one about to be ripped to pieces is you,” the angel of the moon snarled, leveling her scythe with the white beast’s throat.

“We will see about that, girlie,” Sirmaq growled. "Will we not?"

“Bring it,” the angel narrowed her eyes and clutched her scythe in preparation.

“Gladly,” the polar swordsman growled with a fierce glare...