There's nothing quite like a fight to bring the blood to a rushing boil. Your muscles tensed under the barrage of an overwhelming scarlet torrent as you strain to keep your heart from pounding through your chest. In a fight, discipline and anger both rush together to create a flow of mind that seeks only to survive. Prepared reaction meets a keen sense of seeking weakness that can cast even the lowest of warriors into the role of a battlefield assassin if given the right moment.

Indeed, the mind and body are thrown into a chaos during conflict that is rarely experienced elsewhere. Except for perhaps in one place...

To introduce a concept such as transformation into this hallowed ideal makes for an interesting interjection. Both could be viewed separately in much of the same light. Such as the ebb and flow of distinct conflicting entities that inevitably will see one overcome the other, the experience of one's mind and body becoming stretched to their ultimate breaking points often by elements outside of your control, and finally, the melancholy resolution of intensity incarnate brought into a somber cool down as wits are restored and conclusions are reached.

As such, to bring both concepts together seems like a natural thing to do. What difference is there really in having your humanity consumed just as you seek to consume your foe? Every lunge parried by the sensation of twisting flesh and block enunciated by flowing fur or scales. Clashes cracked with the lightning of change as armor is torn both by a foe's weapon and one's evolving form, unfamiliar paws gripping at both ground and hilts as tails balance out the rush of well considered feints and wildly misplaced swings.

They say that at the end of battle there are only monsters. Individuals whose humanity had been stolen by the simple fact that they had hurt another.

So why not simply make it literal?

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Thank you to Tiggs for being willing to get this fantastic piece with me! I rather enjoy the idea of shifters clashing together as their forms undergo change. Armor ruptured to reveal fur just as weapons become wielded by hands now rendered into unfamiliar paws. Or having to deal with your shifting vision as your muzzle grows in just as your balance is thrown off by a bursting tail.

Personally, I think it's a great concept and one definitely worth revisiting sometime.

Art by  catmonkshiro

Tiggs (right) belongs to  Tiggs

Rygone (left) and the species Hirith belong to  Rygone