[hider=Context, please read]I am formally withdrawing from TZDL 2017.

I normally hate quitting a fight prematurely, but there's simply too much happening lately and too many health concerns going on in real life right now, and the added stress of the tournament isn't helping. My availability is suffering because of it and I'd rather not hold up my bracket just because I can't post on time.

This should not be taken as a reflection of my views on the tournament, current match, or opponent. I fully intend to join TZRP and later TZDL runs, but currently can't keep the pace up with everything else happening. I've been mulling over this since my previous post and have no desire to slow things down when the tournament's already suffered delays.

It was a great fight, Junction. Maybe we can have a rematch at some point and finish it properly.[/hider]

[color=#CD7F32][i]Tch.[/i][/color]

[color=#000080][i]This needs to end. Now.[/i][/color]


The dragons take little heed of the fire and ice as Jason shoots higher, chased by the icy flames and doing his best to evade the plasma hooks. Driven by a settling panic and sheer protectiveness, Mimring pursues his master heedless of what pain or frigid cold he might be in. The orange aura even intensifies until he reaches the Shapeshifter, as if a last ditch effort to make it to the other dragon before being frozen solid--

[color=#CD7F32][i]Thuri![/i][/color]

-- and reach him he does, the bright electricity surging with a heated aura taking a slightly different form than expected. The instants before their merging, an idea- an impulse- ran from master to dragon and they knew precisely in those moments what needed to be done. Rather than an incomplete suit of armor spread across Jason's body, the brilliant gold is focused almost purely on Jason's head, neck, and shoulders, the helm thicker than the rest even atop the Darkwing's dense crown of bone. From snout to forelegs, the only openings in the armor are the eyes and nostrils, even holding the great beast's neck in position.

Jason continues to fly upwards, not even so much as slowed down by the armor that has turned his front into a battering ram. Angling out of the magma blossom snare trap, the dragon makes a straight, swift course for... the ceiling. Hot and cold nip at his extremities simply by proximity- the ice and the plasma are both right on his tail and he needs to act [i]now[/i]. Orange becomes a verdant green once more- if it helps, it helps, and perhaps they can break through some tactic of their adversary to stop this last-ditch attempt in its tracks.

Something slices past Jason, grazing the armor just behind his jaw and leaving a sizeable laceration but missing its intended mark of Jason himself. Despite the lack of injury, it was far too close for comfort, they need to move--

[color=#000080][i]Break through![/i][/color]

This thought runs across the link even as the airborne battering ram crashes into the shaking ceiling. For a split second both are concerned that this won't work- but the cracked, damage stone gives way. The full force and momentum of a fleeing dragon bursts from the frigid, hazardous chamber into the intense midday heat of the desert, its light and radiance spilling into the pyramid like a wound. The heat is almost a relief after the dangeous, near-fatal cold inside the pyramid and as soon as he has broken into the sky Jason angles downward to both hide his location from his enemy and create a barrier to stave off pursuing attacks.

But the dragons do not intend to stick around and see how their would-be killer will deal with this new development. The angled dive simply increases Jason's momentum, and when he feels he has picked up enough speed he sharply pulls up to escape into the Egypt sky, allowing the hot updrafts of air to do the work for him in gaining enough altitude that pursuit, and by extention combat, would be nearly impossible.

[color=#000080][i]We're not dying today.[/i][/color]