Hello again.
Here's something new.
For the fourth night this month, they are at each other's throats, quite literally. Biting and clawing, throwing themselves with reckless abandon, as the sounds of their warring echo through the hallway, bouncing off the rubberized walls of the training room. The sparring dummies are in splinters, there are dents in the walls, tables are snapped in half, and the two show no sign of slowing. They spin, tumbling, slamming into walls, the floor, each other, anything within reach becoming either a weapon or a target. Sometimes both. No speech, no words; only panting, animalistic snarls, broken only by the occasional ragged expulsion of breath that follows the landing of a blow. For a moment, they separate, the air between them charged with bloodlust and fire, the two of them equally bloody and battered. Both of them equally without control, grinning with sharp teeth as they circle each other. Then, a fist crashes into the side of his face, her legs are swept out from under her, and they fall together, all claws and teeth as their struggle brings them to the ground.
The first time this happened, the two had woken, bruised and aching, in the center of the war-zone that had once been the living room. Surrounded by the wreckage of the couch, its fluffy innards strewn about like snow, they had done what they could to either repair or hide the damage in shell-shocked silence. The couch had been beyond repair, and at some point one of them seemed to have thrown the other through the screen of the television. That had been a nightmare to explain to the team. After a second, similarly expensive incident, they learned to quarantine themselves to the training room or the roof when the need arose.
For once, Garfield finds himself winning. Snarling, fangs bared, he crashes into her again, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that reminds him, mockingly, she isn't even using her powers. The voice pipes up again, as she sends him flying back against the dented wall, that he's probably lucky. He ignores it still, recovering from the blow and leaping forwards, attacking relentlessly each time she knocks him off his feet. The two of them are equally savage, but at opposite ends of the spectrum; Raven's demon is calculating, all technique and agility. His beast, on the other hand, is raw force, given form and an endless supply of energy. She can put him on the ground as many times as she likes, but he can barely feel the pain. All he has to do is outlast her, stay on his feet long enough to catch her off guard. Every other time they have fought, Garfield has found himself unconscious long before she grew tired, but not this time. This time, he can see her flagging, hear from the gasping of her breaths that her unnatural pool of stamina is finally running low. Through the blood dripping into his eyes, he sees her stagger, swaying slightly, clawed hands still raised. With bloody teeth, he grins, picking himself up once more, head cocked predatorially. She snarls again, eyes red, all four of them. The cruel grin is gone from her lips, now that she is backed into a corner. A slash of her claws, a kick to the center of his chest, ribs almost bending under the impact. The animals screaming in his head tell him to ignore the pain, tell him to welcome it. He is finally winning, for the first time, and his blood is singing, and—and she has him on his back again, her heel digging into his chest. With a frustrated growl, he thrashes, trying to throw her off, earning nothing but a two-toned laugh and a knee in his throat. She rests her weight upon him, moving her knee down enough to let him breathe.
"You lose, Gar." He looks up at her, still struggling, through a haze of blood, exhaustion, and head trauma. The words don't register at first, neither of them having spoken in the last half hour, but eventually they worm their way into his adrenaline-clouded mind. He sees her properly, sees her violet eyes, no longer flooded red. She kneels over him, one knee holding him down, her hair brushing his cheek. He pants, eyes wide, teeth still bared, staring up at her. Victorious again, her demon is satisfied. The beast, on the other hand, is clawing at his fingertips, screaming for his battered body to get up, get up, bite, claw, get up, don't—Garfield's eyes are pleading, behind the bloodlust. His beast won't let him rest until one of them is unconscious. Raven smiles down at him, gaze soft as she wipes a smear of blood from her mouth. Then, with only the slightest sign of smugness, she draws her fist back once more, and everything goes dark.