[color=96C8A2][h3]𝓠𝓾𝓪𝓻𝓮𝓵[/h3][/color]
[@DracoLunaris] [@Lunarlors34][@Lucius Cypher]

Like the lid of a chest being thrown open, Quarel's intended target opened wide its rubbery mouth and shot its tongue at him.  [i]Idiot,[/i] he concluded as the sticky pink tendril zoomed toward him.  [i]I was coming that way anyway, and now you're gonna get cut.[/i]  He held one arm in its path, and dutifully the tongue latched on.  With very little delay it began to pull, throwing him off and preventing a good overhead chop.  When the strigiforme's blade struck the tongue, it was at a bad angle, and without enough power to cut very deep at all.  Knowing he wouldn't get a second chance, Quarel gritted his teeth as the monster reeled him in, and its jaws snapped shut on him almost as string as a bear trap.  Unfortunately for it, the toad wasn't giant enough to fit him completely, and the bottom third of his body poked out from between its warty lips.  For his head, however, the world had gone dark and slimy, and despite its age and small size the toad turned out to possess quite the set of jaw muscles after all.  Its squeeze nearly caused Quarel's eyes to bug out, and he couldn't stop himself from shouting in pain.  Another feeling assailed him, though—the familiar sensation of adrenaline surged through his veins, just as it did whenever he, having gotten into a fight, realized that his opponent intended to kill him.

Quarel turned his cry of pain into one of rage, and with a strength enhanced by fear and anger used his free hand to shove his knife into the soft skin on the roof of the toad's mouth. Yanking back his captured hand, he ripped into the tongue with his sharp beak.  Now that it had done its job pulling prey into the toad's mouth, the tongue muscles had gone slack, and he was able to shred it badly enough to essentially free his second hand.  Into the bottom jaw went the second knive, with a splash of gooey blood and a meaty [i]shluck[/i].  All that remained then was to push, but to his chagrin Quarel found his strength unable to repel the oppressive, bone-bruising force of the toad's jaws.  Clocked into overdrive by the chemicals pouring through him, Quarel's mind found and in an instant accepted that there was only one thing to do.  Groaning, he pulled his legs inside the mouth and performed, to the best of his ability, a split.  His well-developed leg muscles went to work trying to pry open the toad's mouth, while he used his hands to more deeply embed his knives in the toad's flesh.  He'd reached the limit of what he could do; all that was left was to test his energy and endurance, and see whether the owl or the amphibian would come out on top.  For the first time, he wondered why nobody else was helping.  Between his incomprehensible effort noises, he mused, [i]Guess I'm not...as good a motivator...as I thought![/i]