Guitar Strings and Flower Petals

Prove Them Wrong

The Phoenix's strategy was simple, brutal, and effective. So efficient, so clear-cut, and so ruthlessly carried out that it was almost respectable in a brutal, no-ground-given, no-prisoners-taken kind of way.

Of course, if Skara wasn't the cornerstone of their strategy, she might have been able to appreciate it in a more... Pragmatic sense.

As it stood, she was just trying to avoid getting hit by it. And failing.

"Skara, watch ou-"

Cat's yell was cut off as Skara found herself being slammed by a huge glob of Abomination goop, hurled at her with enough force to throw her off her feet, and large enough to completely submerge her in it, so that she couldn't move, shout, or even breathe.

That was step one of the Phoenix's plan - The second the ball was on the field, hit Skara in creative and brutal ways, ranging from knocking the wind out of her with stone to getting thrown around the stadium by swinging vines. Anything that incapacitated her, or required someone to either heal or free her was essential.

For maybe the third time in this match, Skara found herself holding her breath, and trying not to swallow or inhale anything that would have made her violently ill. Each time, she found herself, for a split second, wondering if anyone was actually going to come help her. But Cat always did.

And that was part of the plan too.

"Bleh!" Skara heard Cat gag in revulsion as she clawed away the Abomination goop. As soon as she saw Skara, she reached in, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her out of the goo pile. She fell onto her back as she did so, and Skara fell unceremoniously flat on her face.

Step two - They waited for Cat to rush to Skara's aid. That meant that two of the three Banshee's were either distracted or completely indisposed. If they made it so that Skara had to be attended to, that left three Glandus players up against one Hexside player. And that was always Boscha. And as good as Boscha was at Grudgby, she wasn't three-on-one good.

Which led into step three: Gavin and Angmar running with the ball as fast as they could, whilst Bria would be the one to break off from the team, and fight Boscha one-on-one, while her teammates kept sprinting right past the final Banshee.

Picking herself up off the ground, Skara glanced towards Boscha and Bria as they fought one another, yet again. As always, Boscha tried to break-off, to go and grab the ball from the other two, but each time, Bria cut off her avenues of escape, and forced her to fight. Skara could just tell that this was the outcome Bria had wanted from the start. She seemed to enjoy duelling against Boscha just as much as she did winning.

And that inevitably led to step four - One of the two of them, this time Angmar, launching the Grudgby Ball through the ring, and scoring yet another point.

" AND THE PHOENIX'S SCORE ONCE AGAIN FOLKS !"

"I'm not quite sure I needed to be an Oracle to see that coming."

Around them, the Glandus crowd began to cheer and holler and chant their players' names. The Hexside crowd did... None of those things.

It was now sixteen-nil in favor of Glandus. Hexside had nothing to celebrate.

"Skara!" Cat reached out a hand, pulling the Bardup off the ground. "Are you okay, girl?"

"Physically? Mostly."

Psychologically? Never again.

Because after that, came step five in Glandus' strategy - Wash, rinse, and repeat. And that was what made it all particularly brutal. They never gave Skara an inch. Never gave her a chance to recover. Never gave her a chance to do anything.