A bigger crowd than usual, although some of the regular trainers could not make it we had several newcomers, and several people along to watch,bet and hopefully have fun (including some who cunningly disguised themselves as chickens, and from the way they managed to bet on winners I begin to wonder if that gave them insight into the techniques of the competitors!)
So here are the evening's results ;
Sango vs Cyanide
New bird to the arena but fully trained, against a fully trained veteran. Sango was keen, and very quick to attack, but Cyanide did a remarkable impression of a brick wall and stopped Sango cold. A few seconds later, after holding firm and letting Sango tire herself, Cyanide struck back and clinched the match.
Midnight vs Lightning
Two veterans, Midnight started the season well but had been a very close loser in recent two bouts, Lightning always a strong battler but sometimes unlucky. Similar to the first bout, Midnight rushed to the attack and looked strong, but Lightning dug in her claws and held on grimly, and after weathering the first rush gradually took control of the fight to take the victory!
Trinsic Steel vs Dryad
Two newly bonded birds, which usually means a very close fight - and this was no exception! Tough struggle, with neither pulling too far ahead until the final few pecks where Trinsic Steel clinched the fight in a flurry of attacks that Dryad had no answer to, to the delight of the large contingent of Trinsic folks cheering their Duke's pet on!
Bernie vs Flash
Two birds slightly trained, but new to the arena. A slight edge on skills made Flash a favourite by a feather, but Bernie was determined not to let this match go without a struggle, and held on grimly until a final push from Flash sealed the match.
Nari vs Geeko
Another new but fully trained bird against an almost fully trained veteran. Would experience let Geeko hold off the new challenger? Apparently, no. Nari leaped in fast and landed some very heavy hits, Geeko seemed rather stunned by the onslaught and despite a brave try, fell fairly quickly to the newcomer.
Our 'novelty' match - we'd hit the planned roughly one hour mark, so as usual had something different to round off the evening. One semi-trained Greater Mongbat stepped in to the ring, to face a challenge from - a gorilla! Probably the noisiest fight of the evening, the greater strength of the gorilla was offset by the skills and greater intelligence of the mongbat (not something you get to type often, that phrase...), and after a few seconds the gorilla was defeated!
Many people had turned up for the evening, and some had a couple more pets they wanted to let loose, so Oak Trunk led his two imps into the ring, LittleBalron and LittleDemon. At first they were not keen on fighting each other (sensible creatures...) but they got over their initial timidity and we had our first magic-casting battle! As I'd suspected, they piled in, hit hard, then healed themselves a bit before getting back into the battle..... with Demon getting the killer punch after a sneaky mana drain on Balron!
Thankfully we had no repeats of the strange events from the last match, and no wandering or disobedient pets. Hopefully those were a one-off hiccup!
Current league status is as follows :
4 : Cyanide
3 : Spike, Shadow
2 : Midnight, Frosty, BlueBlaze
1 : Lime, ThrobbingGristle, Spot, SnotKlap, Nugget, Cerulean, Lightning, Trinsic Steel, Flash, Nari
We have a clear leader at last - albeit with a very small lead, that could easily be eroded in one evening!
Next bout is planned for 8PM, Monday 22 March, where we see if Cyanide is setting out on the title road, or if the others have plans of their own to thwart her!
