Hulkling manages to dodge the first two knives, but the last one catches him in the wing, and it makes him hiss in pain, pulling it in out of instinct. Of course, that instinct neglects the fact that he is supposed to be airborne and he plummets toward the ground, his one good wing flapping uselessly in the attempt to stop his crash. He lands with a loud painful thud that might actually bruise him, though his bones are still too tough to break.
“GO!” he shouts up at his teammate, retracting his wings in the hope that it will stop whatever is starting to course through his veins. His body is trying to do the same thing, even without his thinking about it, but he can still feel it seeping into him. “GET OUT OF RANGE!”
He gets the feeling that one of them is not going to get out of this, and if he has to be that one, so be it. Wiccan is the more valuable of the two of them, powerwise, he was the one who needed to be able to escape. Sucking in a slow breath, he forces himself to his feet and starts to shift again, this time giving himself a horse bottom, like a centaur.
“Message received. Playtime’s over,” he snarls, turning his fist into a giant hammer to swing straight at their attacker.
The mage’s breathing elevates, panic setting in with each spiralling moment that passes. He barely misses being injured by the blades hurled in the duo’s direction, but one of the sharpened edges cleanly rips through his cape, gravity shunting the weapon downwards and unceremoniously dragging the teen from mid-hover to tumble to the ground. The fabric bunches up and constricts around Wiccan’s throat, the scarcest hint of a choked yelp rising from shocked and parted lips, his slender form hitting the ground with a resounding thud. The dagger firmly wedges itself into the grass to pin the red material down, the glow of the teen’s fingertips dissipating entirely as his attention is directly aimed at the weapon keeping him in place.
Amidst the ache of having heavily fallen, it doesn’t take much effort to tug the obtrusive obstacle out of the tufts of greenery to free the boy, but it’s enough of a distraction with the accompanying delayed time for Wiccan to not have been watching his teammate and the hunter. It becomes swiftly apparent that something’s wrong - Hulkling may have altered his appearance to an apparition right out of one of the many books of mythology that the reality-warper had enjoyed as a child, but there’s pain evident all over his visage.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Wiccan stubbornly doesn’t heed the other’s directive, refuses to leave him, rage clouding his judgement and potential rational tactics to abruptly go on the offensive. Feet pummel into the ground as the teen charges in the hunter’s direction, fists aglow, the mage sending a series of wondrous orbs towards Kraven’s path. In the heat of the moment, the boy completely discards his usual tendency to fight defensively.
A strike. An opportunity that manifests itself as a figurative foothold for him to grasp into, take advantage of – in the shape of the piercing wound struck through the creature’s once-airborne appendage. Now struck through and faltering, having the more than preferable impact of sending its form crashing to the ground. On even footing.
Akin to something presented by the Bolshoi, he cannot help but draw the comparison as he goes through the steps of his plan to an exquisite rhythm that rings only of the finest execution. Every motion deliberate, every action leading to the next in a sequence as fluid as waterflow amid a forest brook.
Kraven gives himself to it. Some part of his thought surrendered to this flowing stream as it grows in strength, mounting in force as the drums begin to sound within his head. The very height of this hunt at hand as the creature changes form once again, heed barely paid to the other boy as he focuses on the mutated half-equine figure headed in his direction.
Of course, the boy rudimentarily relies upon brute force with the form he has taken; he giant hammer of a once-fist swings down, and the old mercenary leaps. With more grace than any man of his years, whether genuine or through the appearance of his face, should ever be expected to bear, he lands upon a heels-clicked pin point upon the swung head of that flesh-formed hammer for just a crucial instant. Using the point of leverage to launch himself in a clean, arching vault over the would-be mythical creature’s head.
He lands upon the beast’s back, expectant to draw his spear and deliver a potentially fatal blow within the next moment – but he has not forgotten the young mage. The opponent not struck, but downed by the mysterious habits of this world in combination with his earlier assault. Consumed by rage, the child now approaches, and with spiritual projectiles in tow.
Driven by force of instinct despite the jangle of protective bone charms hanging from around his neck, Kraven leaps from the green-hued monstrosity to avoid the flurry of aggressive attacks. Another note in the symphony of his dance, he recognizes with a calm satisfaction as large, deft hands reach to a rope-dart dangling in neatened loops from his belt, undoing a simple clasp and withdrawing it into his grasp.
It swings in tightened arcs, gaining momentum and keeping its trajectory untracked as the young mage gives in to the howl of his emotions.
“You are outclassed, boy.”
Kraven states matter-of-factly, before swerving out of the way of one of the next incoming projectiles and utilising the ensuing gap to fling the tethered dart out towards the boy’s shoulder, the onyx-tipped projectile whistling through the air with an accompanying sound eerily resembling that of an unearthly shriek.
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