Get Up, Stand Up

[Fritz]

Date: 3 Feb, 2007 -- 14 Apr, 2007

Characters:
Mar, Beauceron Mix
Rorr, Gordon Setter

Summary: Mar and Rorr have a battle!

[Fritz]

The day was cold, brisk. The snow covered the ground in thin icy layers. Rocks and frozen grass, along with a myriad of pawprints broke the serene scape. It was a battleground, a training facility, an open sore on the land. And Mar stood at the center of it.

The black Elite lifted his head and howled. In a deep, powerful note, he summoned Rorr to meet him, to fight. The Gordon Setter had made a mistake in challenging him. By the end of the fight, Mar would make sure that he knew...

"Where are you, Rorr?" Mar bellowed. "Which path did you take?" Fight him or leave the Death Stalkers for good. That had been the deal. Both outcomes meant death for the young dog.

The wind rippled his dark fur. Mar waited.


((sorry, I'm late... had to do something else...))

Minutes passed, and the Elite's howl remained unanswered. The only sound was the eerie howling of the wind flying through the open lands. Everything else was dead silent. Perhaps the Setter wasn't coming?

Not so fast!

"(singing) There's a man who leads a life of danger! To everyone he meets he stays a stranger! With every move he makes another chance he takes! Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow! Secret agent man! Secret Agent man!" After much waiting, a singing voice broke through the deadly silence of these fields.

"(still singing) Da da da da da da da-da-da da da da da da da! Ah, be careful what you say! Or you'll give yourself away! Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow" Soon the owner of the voice became visible in the distance, it was Rorr --the setter was keeping his word.

With an exaggerated arching of legs, Rorr was trying to mimic the cowboys from the wild west that he had seen so many times in his former master's TV. For him, this was no more than yet another cowboy duel, yet another brick in the wall.

Defeating this jerk was going to be a pup's play in his opinion... afterall, he believed himself 'macho man'; no, better, 'super dog'.

Rorr's exaggerated pace came to a halt exactly in front of Mar, just a couple steps away from the deadly Beauceron.

And there he stood, facing the Beauceron with a serious-looking expression in his face. The wind blew past him and moved the long hairs of his ears in a dramatic way.

"I'ma here, Mars. And I'ma such a gentlemen that I'ma goin' t' leave ya do the first move. Aha, go ahead, there's a reason why does this Rorr's still undefeated. Don't tell meh I didn’t warn ye!" He said to him, in an overly confident tone.

Every muscle in his body was getting prepared for the big burst of explosive energy that was about to be unleashed. The question now was: would Mar be able to control that black blur? Or was it true what Rorr had always believed... that he was Neo and he could easily dodge bullets?

Only time could tell... but as the song he was singing went:

Ah, be careful what you say
Or you'll give yourself away
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow.


Mar's head lifted majestically as the Setter approached. He made no move, other than those of his eyes as he followed him. A dark smirk passed over his features as he eyed the dog. He was young, smaller than he, and was a green horn when he came to fighting. Mar couldn't count the number of times that Rorr had slunk back to the park after being beat by some bigger dog. At least the boy had the sense to know when he had lost...

Rorr's c.ocky grin and arrogant words only made the Beauceron more eager to... dispose of the dog. It was no secret that he loathed the Setter.

His eyes narrowed and his ears drew back aggressively. The savage roar and attack that Rorr had expected didn't come, instead the deep thunder in his throat turned out to be a laugh.

"You truly are a fool, aren't you Rorr? I thought you would have left when you had the chance." His deep, baritone voice was harsher than usual, and grated with the laugh. His paw lifted and he circled to Rorr's right.

Mar didn't know the tune the smaller dog was singing, didn't know the rest of the verse, or the movies that he imitated. If he had, he would have found it to be oddly ironic. Yet the Elite didn't associate with humans. Of all beasts, man was the only thing that he feared. Mar continued his pacing around the Setter, like some devilish python or shark stalking its prey. His movements brought him ever closer to Rorr.

"I was the one that gave the warning, cur. Now's the time to face the consequences."

Without warning, Mar lunged forward. A barbaric roar ripped from his throat, an added effect that should serve to startle and intimidate the dog. His jaws snapped at Rorr's throat, but that was only a feint. He had rushed in at an angle, intending to ram the dog with a hard blow to his shoulder. If Mar knocked him down, it would be all the better.


What do you do when you have a brute, that is more than twice your size, and worst of all, you've insulted, and now it's mad and charging at you? Three words, run in circles. But really, it is not such a bad strategy, counting with the fact that there is nothing else to do, and that... who in it's sane mind would be able to predict such move?! Not many people certainly. Add to this strategy some singing, and you get more or less what Rorr was now doing.

"(singing) And I got such a long way to go! To make it to the border of Mexico! So I'll ride like the wind! Ride like the wind! Ride like the wind!" The setter sang while he ran in circles around the Beauceron. Like some sort of enraged sattelite he went, running and running, skilfully, in loose circles around Mar.

The sudden burst of energy alone would have been enough like to stop the charging elite on his tracks-- it was like an overdose of chili pepper, black gunpowder, nitro-glicerine, C4, and peanut butter. A pretty bad combination."(singing) RIDE LIKE THE WIND! RIDE LIKE THE WIND! RIDE LIKE THE WIND!" Rorr suddenly increased the volume to max as he ran faster. The setter had transformed the fight into an endurance battle; area in which his kind exceeled.

The incredibly unpredictable plan of running in circles could suddenly become incredibly predictable though, when your enemy understood what was it all about. But the question now was: would Mar have the concentration required to focus through the insane singing of the Gordon setter? Or would the latter's mindless strategy actually work?


The Setter jerked forward and away, easily slipping away from Mar. The dog has always been fast and agile, fair competition to the few sighthounds in the pack. He became almost a black blur around the Elite with whisps of song for his wings. He gave the occassional snap of his teeth and occassional charge forward when the Setter came too close, but missed each time.

Mar leaned back, allowing Rorr to charge around. He was an experienced hunter and fighter and knew how to outmaneuver the fleetest of animals. The key was in finding the right moment when the other slipped and to cut off all points of escape. The latter would be harder to complete -- in the open field, Rorr could take off just about anywhere. Yet if it were a test of endurance that the young dog wanted, than he had found the wrong opponent. Mar had been bred for endurance; it was in his blood and in the blood of his ancestors to endure. The French Beauceron herders were trained for endurance in the fields, easily travelling over fifty miles a day. Endurance? Mar had endurance...

Rorr's dizzying circles had turned up the snow and opening up the ground to his claws. The earth was already soft from the snowmelt, and so, it would not take long for a slippery spot in the mud to appear. Mar had already spotted it. In one more circuit, Rorr would almost definitely hit it. When his paws hit the slick mud, Mar would charge in, this time for the kill.

Even the fleetest of runners had been taken down when they made a mistake in footing. Mar was ready.


Rorr could have easily avoided the slippery spot, if he would have been paying attention, but Ride Like the wind was such a good song and all… They say that speed if but a bonus... that speed is but something that could enchance your fighting capabilities; that if you can not endure a good beating from whatever you are trying to fight, the battle would be over before it even started. His race had been breed for the hunt, not for fighting beaucerons; he was designed to show impressive amounts of energy, and to keep it for hours. Still, the oung setter was convinced of that he was super dog, and that he was going to beat this guy in a matter of seconds. Mar’s missed attacks just reinforced his theory. Rorr was convinced, that in brief seconds, Mar was going to quit, too tired to keep on fighting; and then the self proclaimed undefeated black blur would emerge the victor. But things came out just a little different than what he had been expecting… "(singing) And I got such a long way to go, to make it to the borders of Mex-" For not paying attention, Rorr soon paid the price, he even stopped singing, when his forepaws began slipping on the muddy surface, his fuzzy paws staining in the slippery mixture and making everything get ten times worse.

Desperately, the Setter Gordon tried to continue running despite of the impossible surface; he then realized that it was not cutting it; turning suddenly, he attempted to run in the oposite direction. For one second, he kept running but going nowhere—it was like something out of a cartoon. But at next, he found himself nose-diving at the muddy mixture. Immediately as he landed his not so graceful landing, the setter tried to get back up, and ended up tripping over his own paw; back on the mud, back on the floor. Rorr landed flat on his back after the second fall; this was definitively not a good position to get on while fighting a mad Beauceron… well, technically, no position was actually a good position to fight a mad Beauceron. Rorr attempted to flip over, desperatedly, like some sort of zebra that had been knocked down by a lion, and had to get up or die. The real situation wasn’t all that different from the one in the savannah, actually… all the Gordon setter could do was to widen his eyes when he saw the Beauceron’s shadow slowly looming over him. But even though the nature of the situation, Rorr could not contain himself from making a little comment, perhaps directed to himself, perhaps not. “(singing)Kippy sank in lava, Corwin turned to slime, they could both see what was coming but they could not pray in time.(no longer singing) Yet another stupid death.” Rorr rolled his eyes and scratched the surface of the treacherous mud; something that would resemble a human’s finger drumming before turning to the angry Mar and saying the only thing that was left to say “Um… Mar, buddy, can’t we discuss this…?” The setter asked with a stupid slime. Sure, stupid, but things could not get much worse from what they already were…


Mar's lips curled back in a savage sneer. His heavy pawsteps brought his big frame over the young setter and a forepaw lifted to press down on his throat. His maw lowered dangerously close to Rorr's face.

"We've had time to discuss, Rorr," Mar hissed. "And you made all of the wrong moves."

"It is time to pay for your incompetance, boy..." Death was a hairs' breadth from the Setter's throat now and approaching closer; it's dark freme crouched between the open jaws of the Elite.

((short and silly, sorry, Rorr.))


- Fin -