Skullizar (MM) vs. Kuromori (PCZ)

[Monster Master]

The rubble parted as the flames bathed it, and as the zombie rose from its latest grave, the fires hit him. Flesh burned black and turned to a dry ash. But yet, the zombie stood and shouted, lunging forward with striding steps in hopes of continuing his mean.

His appetite was far to large to be dwindled by a few pieces of meat. Even once eating this entire meal, his hunger would still be there... And Skullizar knew this not, nor did his little, pitiful mind even ask why.

Weakened and tired from the on-going war already, the guardian could only take a sigh of relief from the fact Skullizar's jaw bones were damaged in the latest smash. One of them, the bottom right, ripped through his dead flesh, exposing it completely and diss-allowing the zombie, as much as he tried, to properly close it. Likewise, the monster's own blood lust re-burst his knee-cap, transforming his entire leg into a bloody pulp, even as he stepped, the bone cracked and splintered.

The maw came down around Kuromori's head, while not able to close tight, it was able to hold down as the zombie's head thrashed. The guardian fell to the ground, panting as the zombie swallowed another chunk of flesh.

The monster's head leaned back and roared in fierce before he charged forward again. His left hand held the guardian's throat down as he sat on its chest. His right hand shot downward... Entering the guardian's maw and hoping to rip free some more tender, succulent flesh.

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

Kuromori gagged as the vile beast forced aside the broken remains of his stone muzzle and pushed its hand down his throat...but instead of stomach bile, he was going to vomit something quite worse. Ignoring his impulse to retch and spit the corpse's arm back out, the Colossus clamped down on the limb with his own jaws; not hard enough to sink through the diseased flesh, but enough to keep its owner from pulling free and escaping this retribution.

That done, he proceeded to disgorge searing hot flames from his gullet, bathing the zombie's arm in mystical fire. Predictably, the dumb brute grunted and tried to pull away...and its confusion and aggravation mounted as it couldn't free its arm from the living furnace. Kuromori's head jerked to and fro in tune with the enemy's struggles, but he kept up until the burning meat gave way and he felt his meager jaws clamp down on bone.

At this point he ceased and relinquished his foe, observing with no small satisfaction the results of the saurian's continued ignorance: a limb charred to a fine, ashen crisp.

"Assshesss, to assshesss..."

The beast gave no heed to his words as it snarled and started toward him again, no doubt to finish what it had begun...but Kuromori was quicker of movement and mind: he lurched forward and ran his now scarcely-armored head against its good leg. With the strong link of its balance upset and its weak link unable to compensate, the monster started to fall forward - and was met not with a faceplant into the ground, but a heavy upward blow of Kuromori's tail that slammed its jaws together and lifted it back up for a few seconds...long enough for the wall-crawler to shuffle sideways, wait for it to begin its fall again, and then smack another powerful blow to the side of its face that cracked its mandible and sent its head skidding and scraping on the asphalt a short distance.

Once more, Kuromori stepped back a few paces and took the brief moment of respite while the enemy was down. He needed to think of a way to stop this beast for good; it took everything he had to throw at it and just kept coming, and he was running out of ideas...

[Monster Master]

Skullizar, his body bleeding and face literally dented, rose up. Fires spewed upward around him, engulfing the demon in a bath of heat, but the monster simply lunged forward, jaws gapping wide, but he only came down on asphalt that quickly vanished into his throat.

As the zombie looked up, he saw the guardian looking on... Debating what to do next. Snarling in hunger, Skullizar turned around and lashed out with his tail. The appendage smashed against the guardian's skull, sending the monster rolling to the side and slumping it against a half-destroyed building.

As the guardian recovered, Skullizar charged forward. Maw open, he gripped the mid-section of the creature and hoisted him into the air before smashing him down on the structure. A blast of debris covered both beasts as Skullizar sank his fangs in... Feeding on the beast's fresh meat yet again.

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

The reptilian golem groaned in agony as he fumbled for grip on the undead saurian's chomping jaws...he couldn't keep this up for much longer. Those damnable jaws and teeth, gnashing and tearing away his precious flesh, spilling unholy amounts of blood...if only there was some way to stop this fell beast feeding on him...

...Wait a minute.

Kuromori slowly flexed his paw...uncertain if this would work. But, wincing and barely suppressing a howl of pain as he felt another bit of meat stripped from his body...well, what more did he have to lose? Grabbing half-blindly for the zombie's nasal horn, he ignored the tip biting into the sensitive skin of his paw and roughly jerked the beast's head away from his belly, forcing it to come face-to-face with him.

Blank and soulless eyes glared back at him for a second, before its ugly chapped lips folded back in a snarl of hollow anger, and it opened its jaws to go for his heavily-damaged head and neck. In that moment, the guardian silently braced himself as best he could, and thrust both forepaws into the dinosaur's gaping maw. Holding its jaws apart with his paws, ignoring the drool-dripping teeth beginning to bite into him, he pumped his sticky adhesive through the pores in his feet...more than he normally would; occasionally shifting his grip as he did so, in between wrestling with the brute as it violently shook its head trying to convince him to let go.

Finally, he did: he withdrew one arm, but allowed the other to linger in the enemy's mouth a fraction of a second longer, just to entice it to--

CHOMP!

The teeth nicked one of his miniscule digits, but Kuromori paid it no mind as he watched the creature's mouth intently. The living corpse snorted and shook its ugly head and started to have another go at him...but then stopped. It grunted in puzzlement as it tried to open its jaws to taste more of the Colossus' succulent flesh, but its teeth felt like they'd just been fused together. Its head jerked and shook as it tried and tried to open its mouth, but its jaws could not pull apart.

Kuromori's exposed mouth quirked into his equivalent of a grin. It might not last, but hopefully he'd be granted some reprieve from this demon's empty, insatiable hunger. While the distracted beast clumsily gagged and snorted as it tried to work around the fact that its mouth was permanently shut, the Colossus rolled back to his feet and scuttled forward beneath the saurian's belly...he braced his forelegs, then raised and slammed his tail against the pile of rubble he'd made from being smashed through another building, and thrust hard up with his legs: performing his best equivalent of picking the beast up and throwing it over his shoulders, which sent it flipping up and over and crashing down spines-first into the remains of the human monument.

Trapped and helpless, the zombie could only moan and growl feebly as Kuromori turned to face it. Eyeing the grave of debris around it, he spotted a fairly-sized chunk of metal with a nasty-looking edge to it. Not that much of an edge would be required to slice through this corpse's decaying flesh...but the golem had in mind to do even worse. Taking the impromptu weapon in paw and holding it before his face, he channeled his armor's magic and belched a short burst of flame over the end of the spear, alighting its edge in fire. This done, he crawled carefully up to the wallowing beast's side, hefted his burning weapon and stabbed it too easily through rotting meat and exposed bone...and, not so much to make a point as to further the damage, he remorselessly jerked the piece of debris back and forth within the enemy's body.

Now, taking a look to his left and spotting one more undamaged structure less than a block's distance away, one more idea came to him. Turning and moving away, he quickly and carefully scaled the wall of the building until he reached the top, then turned toward his foe down below: the building stood roughly the saurian's height, give or take a bit...Kuromori would have preferred a taller one, but this would suit the purpose. Gathering his legs beneath him, he crouched and mustered all the strength he could - and leaped to the air. Slowly tumbling upside-down in midair, he curled up his legs and tail "beneath" him as he began his descent, becoming an improbable ball and bringing to bear his dorsal armor, damaged but still functional.

He collided back-first, tucked into as tight of a ball as he could manage, with the zombie's exposed gut. Its limbs and tail and head lurched up from the blow; thick, viscous mucus expelled from its nostrils as its mouth could not serve as an outlet for its breath, which did nothing to help the monster's growing frustration at its handicap. Not wasting any time, Kuromori deftly rolled off his enemy's stomach and uncurled, then turned back to its quivering head and crawled toward it again. Reaching up with one forepaw, he secured a grip on its nose horn and then grasped it with both forepaws: as the bony protrustion extended upward from the creature's face, and it was currently upside-down in the debris, this allowed the guardian to thrust it right down and jam it into the asphalt.

This did no noteworthy damage, but would hopefully keep it stuck there for his next maneuver. Turning the other way, he again tucked into a ball and rolled off a fair distance, stopped, turned around, braced himself, and rolled right back with all the speed he could muster, aiming to collide full-bore with the beast's cranium, still trapped in the street by its horn...

[Monster Master]

Skullizar was helpless as Kuromori rolled forward and smashed into the zombie's skull as if it were a hammer. And hammer-like effects is what the blow did, indeed, do. A geyser of black blood, some red though, rose into the air and, for a brief moment, the eyes of the zombie bulged outward as if they'd burst out of their sockets.

But as the ancient, stone-covered guardian backed away, Skullizar's clawed hand reached up, quickly gripping its leg in an attempt to keep it there. The beast fought back, kicking its leg, but the zombie held on tight as its form crawled forward.

With a tug, the beast brought the quadruped to its belly and yanked it backward. Its jaws fought against the glue-like substance the still refused to let him use his jaws, but biting wasn't the only danger here. Its other arm reached forward and came down claw-first. The claws burrowed into the rock and came down, creating a series of sparks before ripping it away to cut into the warm flesh below.

The other leg of the guardian swatted the zombie's face, but the hold was still tight as he lashed out once again and tore another series of gashes within the rock and the succulent flesh that rested so nicely beneath it. As drool fell from his nose, the zombie's legs bent and cracked as he stood up.

The guardian's shrill cries of terror echoed for miles as he was hung upside down by the zombie. With a grunt and a snort, the zombie threw its head to the side and once more attempted to break the glue that bound it. A sickening tear of flesh and muscle filled the air as the flesh that covered Skullizar's very jaws was torn apart.

His decayed flesh fell to the ground in a mound of rotten flesh as he snarled and shouted in victory. Most of his jaws now exposed to the bone... His head reached forward and downward, ready to bury itself into Kuromori's pulsating and prime belly.

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

By the gods...this unholy demon would not stop. Pain, damage, fatigue...nothing affected it. Even a broken leg did little more than slow it down...and nothing could satiate its yawning, empty hunger; he could sense it. Even once this creature stripped him to nothing, it would continue to hunger ever more for fresh, living flesh and bone to feast upon. This beast was a living-dead void, consuming everything that crossed its path.

And he, the Wall Shadow, ancient guardian of the Forbidden Land and living monument to a god's great power...was just another meal to it.

...

No.

He would not become just another meal. He would not fall as all helpless victims before him.

He would fight...he would destroy this abomination, and end its rampant, all-consuming tide of boundless hunger.

His paws clenched and unclenched, then shot up and grasped the sides of the devil's jaws as it lunged down for his tender, exposed belly, pooling with pure-dark blood from innumerable ragged bite wounds, beginning to throb and swell as the foul infection set in. Kuromori had no time to deal with this handicap now, however: the slathering jaws of death itself hovered scant feet above him, snarling and shaking threateningly.

His own mouth parted in a hissing snarl, the bloody orifice began to glow with the buildup of power - Skullizar apparently saw this and instinctively tried to withdraw, but Kuromori held tight to its exposed jawbones, jerking its mouth open and unleashing his firebursts right into its exposed palate. When the last shot struck, the Colossus released his hold and let the demon stumble and hobble backward, shaking its heavily-damaged head in irritation, then once again rolled back over to his feet...noting with dissatisfaction that now his blood spilled freely from his grievous wounds. Alas, he had no time to spare to tend his own damage now: all he could do was try to destroy this fell beast before succumbing to his injuries.

Forcing his weary and numb-aching body to move, Kuromori lurched forward, pushed up off the ground with his forelegs and locked paws with the reeling saurian...then thrust up off of his hind legs, carefully balanced on the tip of his tail while he gripped the enemy's knees with his back feet, then let himself curl and tumble backward while dragging his foe with him in what appeared to be a repeat of his throw maneuver from earlier on. This time, though, he kept his grip and simply let momentum carry the both of them in a roll until the living corpse's spines once again embedded and trapped it in the ground, leaving the guardian now sitting astride it.

Shifting forward, he planted his back legs firmly upon the zombie's arms and pinned them to the ground as best he could while shifting his forelegs' grip to its lower jaw and its nose horn. His eyes glowed a verdant, fiery orange as he silently hissed his anger at this damned husk of a living soul...and then he brutally wrenched its head to the side. Decayed joints snapped and cracked, rotted flesh stretched and tore, and thick, viscous blood oozed and spilled. A mere broken neck or spine might not stop this abomination, but Kuromori heaved and pulled with all the strength he could muster, hoping to tear this devil's head from its shoulders. And when this failed, he shifted his forefeet back upon the monster's gut, tensed and then stretched his body as far as it could possibly go, this time overstretching the bones and flesh of the enemy's torso. Black lifeblood spilled from his belly and mingled with the demon's own ichor, and its exposed ribs quivered threateningly as they came close to snapping out of their sockets, perhaps stabbing up into the guardian's own gut.

Finally, his own waning strength forced him to cease his attack. Slowly, he crawled off of the beast, and made it a short distance away before half-settling, half-collapsing into a vague resting position...hoping against hope that the savage brute would remain stuck in the ground long enough for him to regain a scrap of strength.

[Monster Master]

The ground the two gigantic titans fought on, however, was ridden with cracks, fissures, and rips. While the situation allowed for the guardian to regain some of its much-needed composure, the zombie's constant thrashing and kicking soon made the entire streets shudder. As he rose up, a sickening ripping of flesh echoed in Kurmori's ears as many of his back-grown spikes remained stabbed into the ground, now only hanging from the kaiju's spine by a few strands of griss that soon snapped like straw.

The monster remained back-first to the guardian and rose his head, sniffing the air with gluttonous, pig-like sounds before turning around like a rabid dog. Cold, dead eyes locked onto Kurmori as drool began to fall from his blood-covered jaws.

With a shout of rage, the beast charged forward, wrapping his decayed hands around the guardian's shoulders and pushing forward, ramming the lizard-like creature through a complex of buildings before it finally fell to the ground with a shriek.

The zombie snorted as his jaws lashed downward, just missing the kicking leg by a foot before pulling up and swallowing nothing but air. The zombie snarled once again as he reached downward, gripping the rock-covered chest with his claws and pulling a way with all his might.

The rocks soon gave way, show casing the precious flesh it protected and the claws stabbed in again and tore free a strip of jerky-like scales. Satisfied, Skullizar fell backward, bringing the strip to his eager jaws...

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

Quivering with pain and barely-suppressed rage, the Colossus raised his head and howled to the sky, sending tiny spurts of blood from his mouth. The thrice-cursed zombie, of course, ignored him as it salivated profusely in anticipation of feasting on more of his delectable flesh.

Repulsed as he was by the sight, Kuromori managed to force his inner feelings aside and begin figuring out how to make this damnable beast pay for its gluttony. He noted that it had carelessly torn its own dorsal spines free of its back in order to free itself from the ground--and in that instant, his eyes were drawn to the bony protrusions, still resting where they'd become stuck several hundred meters distant.

...But, in his weakened state, he doubted that he could retrieve the spines in time to successfully launch an attack with them. One mere strip of his meat would not tide the enemy over for very long...he needed to buy himself some time, enough to limp his way over to...

!

Slowly he rolled himself over yet again, turned and began to plod past the feeding Skullizar...the beast spared him not a glance as it ravenously chewed away at his ancient flesh. So much the better, he thought as he swung his broad tail to the side in passing, catching the zombie's unbroken leg and fatally disrupting its balance. He didn't look back as the beast wobbled, swayed and fell, all the while determinedly holding on to its food.

'Even faced with starvation, the field of battle is no place to indulge your hunger.' he smirked to himself as he crawled quickly but carefully to the enemy's dislodged spines.....then wondered just how he was going to go about freeing them for his own use. Buried deep in the broken ground, dripping with slimy ichor and gristle...his waning physical strength alone might not be enough, and his adhesive secretion would have a tough time taking hold of them anywhere.

If you cannot find a foothold...then make one.

Of course, he realized. Fat and oil burned most furiously. Taking a step back and bracing himself for the flare, he took a deep breath and unleashed a short puff of fire on the greasy, grimy undersides of the enemy's spines, where they joined its flesh and the rest of its bones. The result was immediate and harsh, as fat and gristle ignited with a flash and encouraged the fire to quickly spread...but just as quickly, the flames began to die down as their source of food was swiftly and ravenously consumed.

Just like the former owner of the spines, Kuromori thought with the slightest shudder as he reached up and scraped away layers of soot and ash to make himself a handhold, then applied a fair amount of his adhesive, and began to pull and push simultaneously with legs and tail...and after a few seconds, with a resounding CRACK, the sharp and pointed bones were pulled free of the rubble and asphalt.

Now he tugged his paws free of the spines, then turned about and spared a look at his enemy in the distance. Its paws no longer held a piece of meat, but still it wallowed and struggled to climb back up from the ground with only one good leg. Good...he still had time. Slipping his tail beneath the loose bones and hefting them aloft, Kuromori began the return trip...but as he slowly approached, estimating their relative distance and figuring for probable unexpected movements of the enemy--he seemingly second-guessed trying to use the spines as a weapon, and dumped them on the ground behind him...

Finally, Skullizar managed to force its good leg beneath it and slowly stand upright...but then a pair of paws latched onto its tail and yanked down, forcing it to unexpectedly rear up and expose its open back - and then, it shuddered as a swift and fierce torrent of heat and fire ripped through its back, threatening to burn clear down to its insides. Kuromori had burned the remaining fatty gristle and other innards that clung to its back from when its spines were torn loose, and the results were gratifyingly similar to a moment ago.

Fierce and angry flames still chewing away at its backside, the corpse turned suddenly with a snarl of anger - but its tormentor was already lunging in low, ramming its support leg right back out from under it and forcing it to fall atop him again. Before it could recover, Kuromori hunched down low as he mustered every last scrap of strength left in him, and with a furious roar, thrust his upper body off the ground and catapulted the hapless zombie from his back.

A second later, he squirmed just a little as the grotesque sound of impaling and mangling flesh echoed.

Somehow he managed to turn around to observe the result of his move: Skullizar toppled over on its side...the weight of its momentum causing the spines to tip over as they now bore the weight of most of its lower body upon their jagged edges. Its body twitched slightly, but it didn't move beyond that. No violent thrashing or screaming of anger.

At this, Kuromori managed to feel some sense of accomplishment that he might have finally done some damage to this unholy monster...but sternly reminded himself that it wasn't over until it was over. And, much as he wanted to believe otherwise, his instinct was telling him that it wasn't over yet...

[Monster Master]

(OOC: Hope you don't mind what I do about half-a-post in, but I thought it'd be neat... Besides...)

Skullizar remained laying back-first on the spikes. One of them had torn straight through its decayed body where its heart would be and exploded from its chest. Another emerged from its groin, and both of the holes oozed with bacteria-filled black blood. The zombie's head fell to the side as he gasped, spewing fourth his own blood and chunks of chewed flesh before his arms pushed against the ground. A sick plopping sound filled the air as the first spike came out of his body and took with it what remained of his once-vital heart.

The second torn free, turning the groin of the monster into a blood-soaked torn-up tin can-like shape. The guardian watched on even as the broken leg of Skullizar continued to splinter even more, forcing more pieces of bone and muscle outward. The ancient lizard crawled backward just as Skullizar stepped forward and then fell with a crash.

The leg kicked on the ground as the tail slapped the floor. He tried to stand... But couldn't. The zombie didn't care, he had no reason to... No mind to. His only concern was reaching his food.

Like a starved dog, the zombie began to crawl, pulling himself with his arms as he left a long trail of blood. Kuromori watched with eyes-opened as the zombie crawled forward, grasping the air in hopes of gripping his food.

The guardian stepped back, but his own body ached with pain and oozed his own blood. Just as he stepped, his legs gave way, forcing him to fall just within grasp. With a cry of hunger, the zombie's outstretched hand wrapped around Kuromori's paw and pulled it forward. A snarling cry was accompanied with a crushing, grinding noise as the zombie gnawed on the guardian's hand.

Still unable to stand, the zombie sat upward as its backed cracked and popped from the movement. The hand was pulled upward as the guardian thrashed back, bopping the side of his face with his free hand, but the zombie refused to release it. Blood began to fall to the ruined ground as the other hand of the zombie caught the free arm in mid-punch. The jaws released the other hand and came down on the other and he quickly began to chew...

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

No worries...my only concern now is that I'm running out of ideas for how to keep fighting without just repeating the same old tricks.

(A summary if you don't feel like reading through all this fancied-up drivel: after you chewed on my paws for a bit, I backed off and summoned a beam of focused sunlight to burn most of your body...and now I'm holding your nose horn by the feet while hurling you up and over me, soon to slam you into the ground.)

---

A demon. A horrid, gods-forsaken demon this creature was. It was as if death itself held no dominion over this husk of flesh and bone and endless hunger.

Wincing as the thing's jaws continued to gnash upon his sensitive paws, Kuromori somehow managed to wrench his arms away and begin clumsily crawling backward.....as he scraped and slid pitifully against the broken ground, blood trailing from his innumerable wounds, a hoarse whimpering began to issue from his throat. His wounded legs trembled as he tried to put some distance between himself and this unholy devil.

...For perhaps the first time in his existence, the great Colossus knew fear.

And the demon's exposed jawbones seemed to grin hollowly at him, exacerbating the fear he felt as the lifeless devourer continued to drag itself toward him, still seeking to feast on him.

"No...no! S-sstay back, fiend!!" The golem shook its head feverishly...but its warning went unheeded. Stifling terror crept over him, smothering his mind and will...and as though the toxin flowing through his blood was beginning to take effect again, his mind began to impose a horrific picture over the mindless corpse that struggled ever closer. Pale flesh...a human shape...

An arrow lodged in one leg, which lay limp as the figure futilely dragged itself along...rags of clothing, woven in fine designs but marred and tattered...

A sword clutched tight in hand, caked and stained in black blood.

The same damnable blade that had ended Kuromori's life in the past, and haunted his nightmares for ages since his revival. It seemed for all the world to him now, that the blade's terrible power was come back to end him once and for all, in the form of this unstoppable shell of a living creature.

No matter what he did, no matter how hard he attacked, he could not blot out the sword's withering light...he could not--

"Nothing be unstoppable."

Kuromori froze as the voice rang out from the heavens. Even Skullizar paused, sniffing the air as if trying to detect where the foreign sound had come from.

"It is you who wield the light, Kuromori..."

...Dormin.

The enemy slowly looked to and fro, trying to find where the voice was coming from...hoping to find another source of food.

The guardian bowed his head and sank to his knees, his eyes dimming. 'Great Lord,' he prayed silently, 'I beg of You to lend me Your aid...I fear that I cannot stop this monstrosity on my own.'

'...We have never left your side. We are the light which casts thy very being, Wall Shadow...'

His eyes slowly came alight again, as the timeless deity's words began to take root in his fouled and foggy mind...

'Our power is yours to wield...but you must wield it.'

Gradually, a new hope and strength began to course through him, as though Dormin's holy light itself burned through his veins, invigorating and cleansing impurity. A ragged snarl brought his attention back to the foe that lay before him, as the zombie came within reach and opened its jaws to take another chunk out of him.

He met its empty and soulless gaze with a glare of newfound determination and clarity.

"No, you don't."

His eyes flashed - and the skies above him parted to allow a thin, blinding ray of focused light to sear on down, striking Skullizar's decayed flesh. The beam had no force behind it, but it burned like the light through a magnifying lens...a massive, divine magnifying lens. The undead beast squirmed and writhed as it futilely tried to shuffle out of the searing ray's path - but the beam merely stayed in place, and in doing so burned through all the more of the creature's rotting meat and muscle, at times piercing all the way through its body and scorching the ground behind it.

After a long moment of this, Kuromori was at last forced to allow the beam to withdraw...manipulating the sky was something that required unfathomable power, and while the Colossi were capable of serving as the channel for Dormin's power, they could not do so for prolonged periods of time. Especially when they were already so beaten and weary as he was now.

Again, he took a couple of steps back from the creature; no longer out of fear, just to give himself some breathing room. He then turned his back to his enemy while raising his tail, as if to slam it down on the beast's skull...but instead, craning his neck to look behind him, he hopped up with his back legs and grasped hold of its battered nose horn. He allowed it to vainly drag itself a little closer in preparation for his next move...then crouched as best as he could, tensed his fore- and hind legs, and thrust up with all his might. In an impressive display of strength, his lower body lurched up off the ground, hurling Skullizar's crippled body along with it by the nasal horn, while his forefeet remained planted firmly on the ground to serve as the fulcrum for the massive catapult. Keeping his motion going to preserve momentum, Kuromori rolled his upper body forward and slapped his broad tail back "down" with great force, providing the extra boost needed to hurl the zombine beast down, soon to smash into the ground with considerable force...

[Monster Master]

The zombie knew not what had just happened. Its dead eyes only knew he had been attacked by something else, and his simplistic mind was unable to connect the dots that the attack was thrown at him by the guardian. By the time the zombie's focus was on the wall shadow again, his skull was hammered on the floor. Streams of black gore rose up from billions of gashes on his skull, throwing forth of shower of blood that washed on Kuromori.

As the guardian snarled in sheer hatred, Skullizar's eyes rolled in their sockets before looking into the air. Maybe a sort of primal anger, the zombie slowly stood up, not taking his dead eyes off the sky while he began to honk at the clouds.

The ground seemed to shout at beneath its feet as he leaped upward but came down in a heap as his leg bone popped and snapped again. A moan-like groan came from the beast as he drooled, longing for the succulent flesh that just attacked it from the sky.

With a shriek, an ear-bleeding cry of hunger, the zombie's head turned so quick that his own neck bone snapped out of place, exploding like an arrow from his neck while he looked at the guardian and hooted once more. The zombie's feet stabbed into the ruined streets without remorse for those caught in the middle as he charged the gap between his delicious prey.

The guardians shouted back, swatting Skullizar's snout with a firm punch and going for another, but the saurian's own momentum kept him going. With his head lowered, the long horn stabbed into the guardian's gut and drew about a fresh stream of red gore. The guardian stepped back, yelling in response, but the zombie's twin arms came up, gripping the bottom jaw and the throat. With a thrust, Kuromori was pinned on the ground, the set of jaws coming down to meet his top jaw...

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

Kuromori was unable to stop the creature's jaws clamping down on his face, dangerously close to his eyes...but in spite of the new pain that assaulted him, he kept a clear head and took advantage of their close proximity. Contorting and raising his stubby arms as high as they would go, he pumped sticky adhesive into his paws again, then slapped and slathered the substance on Skullizar's face.

Right where he estimated its eyes to be.

The demon roared in response to being suddenly blinded, and the defender used the brief lull in its attack to escape. Miniscule bits of flesh and blood clung to his paws as he pulled them loose, but the dark tarry substance remained slathered over the beast's eyes, effectively blinding it. It could still smell him, of course...but without being able to see precisely where he was and what he was doing, its ability to properly respond to his attacks would be reduced.

The great monster growled and shook its head in irritation, but the tar would not come off that easily...and while it vainly tried to restore its sight, Kuromori turned around, tucked and braced his broad tail down and to the side, then simultaneously hopped up off his back legs and swung up with a powerful uppercutting blow that cracked the beast's lower jawbone and actually lifted its feet a bit off the ground.

They came back to the ground at the same time, Skullizar barely managing to remain standing upright on one good leg. Now the guardian reared his back up to his foe and shook loose another cloud of his explosive mist, then tucked into a ball and rolled until he was a fair distance away, and then uncurled so that he ended up on his back facing his enemy, and coughed a single fireball back in its direction.

FWHOOMF! The feral beast was engulfed in a brief but explosive blast of fire and smoke. Now, Kuromori reared up his whole lower body, and kicked forward to lurch up as he rolled up again and continued further on away from the enemy, picking up steam. He was nearly to the edge of the city when he turned around, and came back on a collision course for the stunned creature. A scant hundred and fifty meters before impact, he slapped his tail against the ground as he rolled with all speed, propelling himself into the air to smash right into the weakened monster's torso.

He fell to the ground and slowly let his body unfold: Skullizar crashed and skidded painfully for a short distance, losing bits of dead flesh and blood all the way...and just lay there, oozing saliva and blood from its open maw. Infectious ichor dripped from what wounds and other openings in its body hadn't been burned by Kuromori's fiery attacks, and its leg and neck canted at unnatural angles.

And Kuromori himself was in no better shape...he groaned, coughing out a bit of dark blood as his paws clasped against his stomach. Wincing against the pain as he forced his paws to move over and in his wounds, he spread more of his natural tar to try to stem the flow of blood. Weak and faint, he had to rest once more before he could find the strength to rise and keep fighting...

[Monster Master]

The zombie snorted as he slowly came to his feet, almost falling again as his knee cracked and splintered. Thankfully, the fiery blast that engulfed him burnt enough of the glue-like tar from his face and allowed him to see. With a shout, the dinosaur's hungry gaze returned to the guardian.

With strides that'd shock most kaiju, the zombie galloped his way to the guardian and gripped its shoulders in his dead hands. The beast was pushed to the ground as the zombie's good leg came up, forcing the head down also and forcing it to push itself into its body like a turtle's does.

As blood began to come from the guardian's mouth, Skullizar's own head came down... Wide open. A sickening tearing of flesh followed as scales and rock were ripped from its home and swallowed. The lizard, by now, was being given a baptism of its own blood... Mixed in with Skullizar's that were sure to cause even worser effects soon.

Finally the muscle gave way of the back and the zombie fell backward, but instead of taking its time... The beast engulfed it whole in a show of blood-thirsty lust. The zombie lashed out with his claws again, forcing the beast's head into the ground...

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

Acting purely on instinct, Kuromori ignored his pain and tiredness and forced his body to scuttle away from the ravenous zombie before turning to face it down. The creature rumbled as it wallowed and started to roll over, trying to pick itself up from the ground...having little success with a burned arm and a broken leg, but it was clear by now that such impediments meant nothing to this beast.

Still, he allowed it to try to regain some footing...silently edged forward, careful to keep out of reach of its swinging tail...and then once the animated corpse began to rise, he made his move. With its wicked dorsal spines gone, Kuromori was free to leap atop its back: he crouched, tensed his legs, and jumped with all his might - flying up over the thing's back and coming down square on the back of its head as it hunched forward, still trying to stand upright. The devil's snout was smashed into the pavement, and the Colossus felt a sense of twisted satisfaction as he felt the bones of its skull crack and cave beneath his weight.

Now, he deftly crawled backward so that he sat astride the beast, then gripped its shoulders with his forepaws and threw his whole weight backward, forcing the zombie to rear up and nearly fall over toward its bad leg. With its battered skull exposed again, Kuromori channeled his armor's magic and - *SHEW-SHEW-SHEW!* - pelted the charred flesh and exposed bone with another trio of explosive firebursts. Then, thrusting his weight backward again, he caused the reeling beast to sway dangerously and begin to fall again.

He knew it could well crush him under its massive weight if he remained there...but he had no intent of that. Clambering up as quickly as his frame possibly could, he hefted his lower body up so that he perched atop the crown of its skull again...and as its fall to the ground became inevitable, he pushed up and off with all four legs, jumping free and propelling its head with terrific force into the asphalt once again.

He landed across its upper torso and neck, not hard enough to do any significant damage...but in a good position for it. Looking behind himself to see that his footing would be secure, he shifted his rear legs and firmly gripped the creature's neck with his feet, secreting more tar to give himself a firm hold. Then he reached up and gripped each of the monster's forearms with his own forelegs to keep them at bay, while he shifted his stance once again and made ready to yank his back legs apart...to pull and rip more charred and rotted flesh with them.

[Monster Master]

With ease the flesh was ripped from Skullizar's build, but the ever-so hungry dinosaurian zombie wasn't about to just lay still and take such blasphemy. With the bacteria flowing freely through Kuromori's blood, the guardian fell to the side almost effortlessly as the beast began to thrash like a bull.

With a dreadful moan, Skullizar's form stood up. His body covered with patches of black and red, his blood freely mixing with that of his foes. The guardian, thus far, rolled back to its feet, moaning aloud as the flesh that was torn from Skullizar's body clung to his forepaws.

The reptile's eyes widened in horror as the zombie trucked forward before pushing a firm foot down, with his good leg, on Kurmori's skull and curb-stomping on the ruined streets. The assault, once more, wasn't done as his eager jaws were slung down... The teeth already ripping into the thrashed back of the guardian.