Welcome to the Circus

Recluse’s focus was purely on her opponent. Medusa had managed to move out of the way of her attempted ramming but Recluse had no time to dwell on that as Medusa’s movement had been in an attack attempt of her own. Pain spread out from her shoulder blade, Medusa’s shoulder thrust had luckily not been able to get to the soft tender flesh of the joint due to the hunch rolling her shoulders forward had caused, but Medusa’s attack still struck bone, almost certainly it would leave some moderate bruising and a hiss of pain escaped her lips. Recluse knew well enough that she had to move quickly, Medusa would attempt to follow up on that hit, and almost on instinct more than anything else Recluse took a little sidestep to her right, Medusa’s paw narrowly missing her own, no doubt ripping some fur from the side of Recluse’s left foreleg on its way down but leaving nothing more than a light scratch in its wake.

As an added bit of luck her sidestep put her a little further to Medusa’s left and gave her a little more room, Medusa’s attempted grab fell a little short, instead of getting a solid grip that ran along the central spinal collum below her skull Medusa’s fangs dug into the left side of her neck. Medusa’s lower fangs found purchase just below the left side base of Recluse’s skull, her uppers getting close to her hunched left shoulder. She would probably bleed from the puncture wounds but it was moderate and importantly a much easier grip for Recluse to work with than what Medusa was no doubt hoping for.

Recluse would keep her head low and make an attempt to push further in towards Medusa, stepping back to her own right and forwards Recluse was hoping to put herself right under Medusa’s throat because Recluse’s real plan was simple. Regardless of if she got further into Medusa Recluse tucked her head as deep as she could given the hold her opponent had on her before throwing it back and angled to her left, just in case, with as much force as she could muster, if she’d calculated correctly Recluse hoped she would slam her skull into Medusa’s throat, just below her voice box, hopefully forcing Medusa to gag and releasing Recluse as a result, but if not hopefully Recluse would still connect with her opponent’s neck or lower jaw and leave a nasty bruise.

At the same time, she was trying to “throat chop” Medusa Recluse also flashed her right forepaw up and out, hoping to connect the bottom of her paw forcefully with Medusa’s left foreleg, Recluse was aiming for slightly below Medusa’s chest, hoping to hit the joint that made up Medusa’s right elbow and maybe, if she was lucky, the leg would buckle from the force of her hit. The movement was almost like an afterthought aiming to be a second or two after she started moving her head, to try and force Medusa's attention off of the attempted kick.

speech think action