Going to market

[gale_force]

Gale did not expect it to be raining. Weather proceeds as usual, apparently, even if life does not. Through the wet smack of raindrops, he can barely hear the sea breathing a few blocks away. The dust from the millions of bodies, trees, plants, and animals seeded the clouds and dragged down moisture from the sea. The precipitation has turned the

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[gale_force]

A few spikes of earth pierce all the way through the rival Atma, and Vayu arches his torso out of the way, still managing to keep his jaws clamped tight and his feet firmly planted. The demon keeps struggling for a few moments, doing more damage to itself on the spines of rock. The movements finally slow, and the demon slumps back, blood crawling outward across the floor. Vayu holds his position until then. The nostrils on his chin flare to take in full breaths of the pungent smell of fresh Atma blood. Saliva creeps from his mouth in strings.

He's only half-aware of the sound of others approaching as he begins dismembering their shared kill (which Vayu considers entirely his, thank you.) The famished demon is choking down a hunk of arm when the second wave of rogue Tuners comes into his view down the tunnel. His sense of sight is poor down here, still as the air is, but so long as the demons keep moving, they're easy to spot

[teradyne]

Prithivi makes an odd, high pitched whine as the demon stops struggling. Both of her mouths are gaping open, breathing in the rich smell. Occasionally, one bites at the air, and leaves a few strings of saliva between the teeth when it opens again. She starts moving forward...And then she catches Vayu's display.

There's a loud audible hiss from Prithivi, more like the air is being shredded in two, when she sees that the wind based Atma is blocking her from the kill. Her arms uncoil, and she practically bristles in challenge

[gale_force]

Vayu half-heartedly tries to tug the first Atma's carcass along as he shuffles out of harm's way, but it's still firmly stuck on the stone spires. He gnashes his teeth in hungry dismay and leaves it for later.

Debris from the Atma-made earthquake clatters down into the tunnel, making an imperfect barrier of wooden beams, plumbing, and bricks. Imperfect in that it still has enough holes for the nagas' flexible bodies to slither through. The first gets rather ungracefully stuck, while the second quickly coils through.

In his frustration, the first settles for conjuring up an explosion of fire that disintegrates the lumber and turns fragments of brick and pipe into potentially dangerous projectiles. This maneuver grants him his freedom from the wreckage, to continue his advance with the second. It also sets some of the other fibrous structural elements on aflame.

Vayu responds to the volley of shrapnel by tossing it back with a charged burst of air, made all the more concentrated by the enclosed space. It also fans the growing flames

[teradyne]

Prithivi gives the an angry snap when she feels the air move. Her upper arms give a slight twitch, and then the lower parts form back from being whips. The knives in her hands are still folded outward, flicking back and forth across the backs of her hands as she stalks forward.

Once she gets close to Vayu, Prithivi hesitates, stalking a few paces forward before scrabbling back. The Atma hates the idea of putting Vayu at her back...But she likes leaving him to make another kill even less. In a moment, she gives up trying to get directly ahead, and kneels down.

There's fresh earth underneath her, newly exposed thanks to the earthquake. It's enough to let her bury her hands...and her arms...And in a moment, the Asura is suddenly gone, sunken underground.

There isn't much of a warning for what happens next; no noises, no disturbance in the ground, save for a few cracks that suddenly branch out from under the Naga still crawling out of the debris. That's the only sign before the ground underneath it explodes in a hail of concrete

[gale_force]

Since the Prithivi has claimed her opponent, Vayu sees to the remaining naga. The few bites that made it to his stomach have taken the manic edge off of his hunger, and now he moves a little more slowly, methodically, but still in an unmistakably predatory way

[teradyne]

Meanwhile, there's a tight, snarling knot writhing about on the ground, slamming into walls, and only occasionally breaking apart a little to show the two demons. Prithivi's armor is showing signs of scratches. The other Atma is showing signs of asphyxiation, as Prithivi has managed to loop one of her arms around it's neck, and is keeping the whip tight and constricted.

The naga is making raspy, choking sounds, which only grow more labored as it tries to jerk and move away. In a moment, it becomes obvious why the demon is trying not to stay still; the earth it keeps rising up as sharpened stakes of stone. The shards also branch out erratically, some of them darting towards Vayu and his opponent. Prithivi only tightens her hold, not aware or not caring over how much her focus is slipping

[gale_force]

Thrashing has also begun on Vayu's end as he tries to keep his balance with his blades still buried in the now-writhing naga. Clearly, he didn't pierce anything immediately vital, and now he has to deal with the demon at close quarters. Naturally, the Atma swings with his blades, but Vayu grabs his opponent's wrists to stop the arc, and holds on with a ferocious grip.

An extremely awkward, but deadly serious moment follows wherein the two demons use their last immediate weapon -- their respective mouths -- to bite at whatever they can reach. Vayu feels a summoned heat rising, and relinquishes his foothold to free up his legs. He wrestles the naga around, and punches his feet sharply against the demon's torso, thrusting him backwards onto one of Prithivi's spires of rock. He uses the momentum of the kick to flip backwards, landing safely beside Prithivi just in time to observe the impaled naga's last throes and receive a final, hot blast in the face from the incomplete fire spell.

[teradyne]

He might want to think about jumping away again. Prithivi reacts poorly to having the other Atma land so close to her, and pauses long enough to snap at him with both mouths.

That isn't the limit of her display either, as the ceiling above them starts to buckle, before a large chunk of concrete breaks loose and plummets down between the two demons. Prithivi has already yanked herself back, gripping the torso and pulling her kill along with her. Even as the stone crashes into the tunnel floor and sends up clouds of dust, she's back to ripping and tearing out more mouthfuls. It's clear that she hasn't had a meal like this in a long time, and doesn't intend to share or have it cut short by anything.

She's already made good progress, and the pinkish-white of several ribs are already poking through as her head jerks back up and around. There's enough edge off her hunger that she's ready to pay attention to a few other things aside from continuing to eat.

[gale_force]

Vayu easily scrambles out of the way, and replies with an irritated shriek, backed up with a gust of wind, ineffective as it is against the concrete barrier. Prithivi's gesture is quickly forgotten, though, to the immediacy of food. Unfortunately, this particular naga-Atma is much like a shellfish, and it takes a few moments of turning, tugging, and cracking to get to the soft, fleshy parts. The rock spire helped this along somewhat, and Vayu works out from there.

And what messy work it is. Messy and fast. The Atma nearly chokes himself several times trying to eat a greater volume than his body can contain at once. Prithivi will find her meal serenaded by hissing, snorting breaths interrupted by hacking, juicy coughs as more-than-mouthfuls come up and go back down Vayu's gullet.

[teradyne]

Maybe it's just that she has two mouths, or that her kill has already been tenderized and lost some plating in the struggle. It could be that listening to Vayu's messy eating encourages her to also eat faster, but for whatever reason Prithivi finishes quickly. (And with little regurgitating, although a few fingers and red bits left on the ground in a mixed pool of saliva and blood show that her meal wasn't very neat, either.)

Bones in the torso and tail are left cracked open with only bits of stringy, unappitizing meat clinging to them. The head is barely distinguishable, along with the arms, and the Asura leaves them all on the ground before stalking towards the first demon the two had brought down.

She does keep close to the walls and ground, not quite ready to engage in a fight for food if she can help it. The scent coming off the first kill is too tempting to ignore, however, and if Prithivi has her way, she'll have picked over it before Vayu ever comes back to claim the rest of it.

[gale_force]

Although Prithivi had the head start, Vayu isn't far behind in finishing his meal. He barely makes an effort to clean up the scraps. At least, he's not as conservative as he would have been if there wasn't the temptation of that second helping.

The concrete barrier blocks his view of Prithivi's progress, and he entertains similar ideas of sneaking around to that first corpse without immediately alerting his (grudging) comrade. Clearing the wall, though, his shriek of dismay ends in a rumbling growl. A swirling wind rips through the tunnel, hurling debris and the last meaty chunks of Prithivi's meal.

This has been the best meal he's had in well over a year, and he's not about to give it up without a fight.

[teradyne]

Prithivi doesn't take well to the wind, as proven by a startled hiss. She breaks off from feeding, and tries to crouch behind the body to lessen the wind; to her, the sudden burst of air is like a sharp punch to the gut, and she's quick to react.

The tunnel is given another harsh shake, causing more bits of fist sized concrete to fall from the ceiling. The floor, however, gets altered the most; a lot of the spires from the fight start to crumble, and reform into what can only be described as barriers of rock; similar to sandbags in function, although very different in appearance.

Prithivi is already darting between them, and with a sharp groan of rock sliding over rock, sends two more shooting at Vayu.

[gale_force]

Vayu, agile as he is, can't dodge all of the raining rubble, so he takes cover instead. He curls in to shield his head against the pummeling, and the stone thuds against his back. The dull pain of the spreading bruises (some of them as deep as his ribs) inspires even more anger in the Atma. He's very ready to turn Prithivi into a third helping, any loose notions of pack loyalty be damned.

His advance is quick and erratic. He dodges the first slab of rock with a leap, but landing it is a little more difficult as the earth beneath him continues to shift. When he does find footing, the second sheet of stone hurdles into his legs, tripping him into a forward roll that lands him flat against one of Prithivi's barriers.

The impact knocks something inside of him ajar. He growls at the niggling sense of the other one waking up. Vayu feels a very primitive sense of injustice and frustration. He shouldn't be a slave to his host; he'll do what he needs to survive! He almost forgot the flavor of his fellow Atmas' blood, but to taste it again

[teradyne]

The 'air bombs' go off only a few feet in front of her; too far away to do damage, but close enough to cause panic. Her entire body leaves the ground, twisting and wrenching away from that pocket of air

[gale_force]

Vayu doesn't exactly trust Prithivi to miss him by any margin, and so bounds out of the way. He doesn't stop though; he keeps circling, his panting breath whistling between his parted teeth.

It's that sound that gives him an idea, helped by the urgent need to end this before a certain someone can intervene. The Atma plants his feet and stretches his arms forward in a seemingly harmless gesture. There is very rarely anything harmless about Vayu, though, and his element can work in near-imperceptible ways.

If Vayu had eyebrows, they'd be furrowed in concentration, but he's just stock still. No posturing, no obvious plans to attack.

In another moment, Prithivi might find it very difficult to breathe. Vayu is halting the air inside her lungs, blocking fresh oxygen from entering, or the spent contents to leave. He's quite satisfied with himself: she'll suffocate in a few moments, and he doesn't so much as have to move or jostle Gale into awakening any faster.

[teradyne]

The inside of Prithivi's head is chaos right now. Argilla is panicked and struggling, both to get control and to breathe. Her terror is mixing into Prithivi's confusion, creating a roiling storm that leaves the demon frozen as it tries to to inhale...Or exhale, even