“Fliers first this time.” Vlad said, as both groups charged at each other.
It didn’t appear like the Phreaks had brought any ranged attackers. So taking out the highly mobile fliers was an excellent strategy. Shaggy just didn’t have any clue how he was going to accomplish that. He watched as a fly-headed Phreak with a female body and four rapidly moving wings shot straight into the air and charged at them.
The rest of the Phreaks followed her, shouting and growling as they brandished their mutated arms. He saw a few with weapons, but he still hadn’t formulated much of a plan as both their groups slammed into each other. His body hit another warm body as their group of six hit the larger mass of bodies.
He jammed the broken end of his pipe into the nearest body as he rammed into a Phreak with furry cat ears. The cat-man went down screaming as the pipe was wretched from Shaggy’s hands. He didn’t have enough time to snatch his weapon back up before he was assaulted from several directions. Something pinched around his wrist as he felt a fist slam into his side.
Focusing on his wrist, he blindly kicked in the direction the punch had come from. He found his wrist in the grip of a giant red crab claw. The female Phreak’s entire left arm was that of a crab and she was smiling evilly as she tried to clamp down harder. Shaggy screamed as he gripped the claw and pulled.
He swung the female Phreak in a wide arc as he wrenched the crab claw open. Luckily his mutant strength was stronger, and he felt the dactyl of claw bend and then snap off. Now she screamed as he kicked her away and turned to look at the fight. But he was struck again from the side as the crab-lady’s spot was quickly taken up by a rabbit-eared Phreak who was screaming madly and throwing rapid punches at his midsection.
The punches didn’t hurt, but they were annoying, and the odd swipe from a nearby Phreak member didn’t help. He was about to back up out of the scrum of bodies when two large bodies crashed into the Phreaks around him. Tinsel and Ren were still injured, but they were throwing wide haymakers, keeping their opponents back. He saw a brave Phreak, who looked like he had a body made of pure stone, step too close and take a large swing from Ren. The Phreak’s stone body crumpled as Ren’s enormous fist collided the stone man’s face.
Shaggy grabbed the rabbit Phreak by the collar and jammed his forehead into their nose hard before he looked around. They were doing fairly well. Blobby was nearby, multiple tentacles growing from his body and swinging about wildly. He wasn’t doing much damage, but he was harrying a large group of Phreaks. He didn’t see Ephemara at first until he noticed the pale woman appear behind a Phreak battling a tentacle. She appeared out of nowhere and stabbed a sword into the Phreak and then disappeared again.
Shaggy dodged another punch from the rabbit Phreak as he tried to find Vlad. He punched into the Phreaks throat, causing them to choke violently. Stepping forward, he kicked the poor rabbit-man’s face and looked around again. A loud screech from above drew his attention, and he saw Vlad wrapped around the insectoid woman and trying to pull her wings off.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He wasn’t having an easy time of it, as another flier was trying to yank him off his teammate. Shaggy looked around for something to throw, but most of the weapons were still being used. Nearby, Tinsel threw a kick into a group of Phreaks as Ren lifted and threw one. An idea sparked in his brain and he ran toward Ren, kicking a few of the down Phreaks as they moved across the dirt arena.
“Hey! Big guy! Toss me!” Shaggy shouted, pointing up at Vlad.
Ren looked confused for a second as he punched another Phreak in the face. But the big rhino-man eventually got it and smiled wide. He moved toward Shaggy and gripped his already ruined shirt and the back of his pants. Shaggy was unceremoniously lifted into the air as Ren spun around once as fast as he could and then let Shaggy fly.
Shaggy was surprised it worked as he heard the rest of his shirt rip away into his Perinadon friend’s hands. He flew up into the air on a collision course with the three bodies currently still stationary in the air.
“COMING THROUGH!” Shaggy shouted as he grew closer.
It was only as he saw the looks on both the Phreaks and Vlad’s face did Shaggy realize he really didn’t have a plan. What was he going to do? Punch one of them? He grimaced and tried to turn in mid-air. He was partially successful as the side of his body hit the second flier. His vision blurred in a mass of bodies as he heard another rip, a loud scream, and he lashed out with both hands, trying to grip something. But he couldn’t find anything as gravity took hold of his body.
Shaggy tried to think of something as his body was plummeting through the air. But the only thing that occurred to him was to not fall straight, so as he hit the ground, he threw himself forward, trying to help mitigate the damage. But he heard and felt something in his left leg pop loudly and he gave a howl-like scream of pain as he went facedown in the dirt.
He rolled painfully onto his front and looked down to see his leg bent at an odd angle. He patiently grit his teeth and waited for it to heal, but nothing happened. Instead, a loud grumble resounded from his stomach.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Shaggy thought as he dragged himself painfully away from the battle. “My Regeneration is powered by food?!”
As he bit his lip painfully, he looked around. He saw the body of the second flier lying on the ground unmoving, But Vlad and the insectoid lady were gone. The fight looked to be winding down as Ren and Tinsel absolutely decimated the Phreaks. Blobby was helping too, but the amorphous being wasn’t really a heavy hitter, and Ephemara had done her disappearing trick again.
“YOU!” a voice shouted from nearby.
Shaggy glanced around again until he saw the other flier was now standing up. Except now the man’s butterfly wings looked torn, and he was bleeding from his head. The butterfly-man looked livid as he limped over toward Shaggy. The Phreak picked up a broken weapon from nearby as he trudged slowly closer. Shaggy didn’t really get a look at the man’s weapon, as he was busy trying to summon his claws.
Shaggy found that his claws weren’t coming, though. He couldn’t get his mental state back to one that would help with his Partial Transformation. Probably something to do with the angry Phreak barreling down on him.
As the Phreak grew closer, he raised his chosen weapon up over his head. Shaggy belatedly noticed it was a broken sword as he tried to get an arm up to block the swing. He preemptively grit his teeth and tried to think of a counter for when his arm was chopped off. Shaggy waited for the blow to fall, and waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually, he put his arm down and glanced up to see the Butterfly-man stood stock still with Vlad’s mouth clamped down on his neck.
Shaggy sighed and laid back in the dirt. “We have got to stop meeting like this.”