45) Rock and a hard place.

The next bout was me up against an Alter.

A stretchy guy. Since he had to grab a hold of stuff like the corners or the ring to stretch himself and then snap a fist forward, or let himself get pulled to the corner, that put him at Alter Rank 2.

The nature of his rubber like body put him at a Brute 2, at a 3 for toughness, but minus 1 for a lack of all that much in the way of enhanced strength.

He bounced around the ring when he got called in, then froze in place when they called my fake name.

Why?

Oh. Stretchy guy can take a punch, but something sharp, like Samantha's teeth, might be a different matter.

I gave him a big wide smile before I ducked under the top rope on the ring. A toothy one.

He turned and walked over to his corner and slapped his hand on the support post three times. “Nope! I’m out!”

There was a lot of booing, but with a few understanding nods from the audience.

They left me standing in the ring for a few minutes. By my count, this left us with me, Foraker, and…

I’m not sure. I kind of lost track.

Looking around I see Roxy walking from the women's locker room with a pleased look on her face.

I nodded to myself. Yeah. She and Foraker would be a good match up, which is why they sent her to knock me out of the competition first.

I would take a dive, rather than risk getting Samantha's body hurt. But I think I can take Roxy, and I haven't had a chance to show off yet.

Besides in Samantha's body, I'm a brute four. Roxy would either have to be a 5, or a whole lot better than me at fighting.

She stepped into the ring barefoot and pulled her shirt off over her head.

Well, I guess she is a woman. And there goes her pants.

Definitely a woman.

She stood there as the crowd cheered, and her skin began to turn darker, and thicker…

And faceted as her entire body transformed and grew into a seven foot tall black shiny stone figure with ridges and spikes on her joints, all carved into a statue of a tall muscular woman.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Who pounded her knuckles together with the sound of cracking stones.

An Alter 4 for creating or storing away extra mass. Well, I guess she isn’t afraid of getting bit.

She tipped her head at me with a sneer. “Even if Alaska man beats me, I still go home with a hundred thousand for second place. But to be honest, I’d beat the crap out of you for free.”

Alaska? “Wait, I get a hundred grand if I beat you? Cash?”

Roxy shook her head, “Stupid slut.” Then stepped forward and swung her arm at me in a wide arc.

She didn't even wait for the bell to ring.

I took a step back out of her reach and nearly got my face torn off as a spike on her elbow stretched out with the sound of cracking glass to nearly twice as long.

Correction, a high Alter 4. If she can alter her shape into other forms I'd call her a 5.

Circling to stay on the move I studied how she moved.

Which was slowly. “Neat trick with the spike. Can you launch them?”

She glared and tried to punch at me. I knocked her arm aside while watching her spikes. They didn’t do anything this time. “Either you can’t or you’re keeping it a secret for going up against Foraker..”

Roxy sneered again and raised both of her first, spikes emerging from every single joint in her hands and pointing in all directions.

I ducked and lunged forward to bury my fist in her gut. Her black stone body cracked and broke apart as she grunted, between the broken glass like stone, I could see her entirely flesh belly underneath.

Oh, she’s not an Alter. She’s a stone former. She didn’t change her body, she armored it.

I got a spiked elbow to the top of my head in exchange for that information. It might be armor, but it’s also a weapon and it’s giving her reach.

She must have planned on the headshot doing a lot more damage, or stunning me, so I get the chance to slip away.

I run around behind her, testing her speed again… and slip and fall on her pants which are still lying there on the floor of the ring behind her.

Before I can get up, the lights get blotted out as what feels like five hundred pounds of hard stone drops on me.

I guess she can go fast when all she has to do is fall down.

I squirmed as she tried to grapple and I twisted around until we were face to face. She grinned, "What are you going to do, bite me?"

Opening my mouth, I licked her eyeball.

Saw it in a webcomic. If it’s stupid and it works, it ain’t stupid.

She flinched back. “Ah! Why would you...?” I got an elbow over the top of her shoulder, and dug it into her neck to push myself loose, then dug my thumb into her ear as hard as I could.

It felt slimy inside. “Hey! That went past your armor, and clean your ears! Uegh!”

Roxy had rolled away, clutching at her ear, before pulling her hand away and seeing the blood on it.

Oh yeah. Samantha had a little sharp claw on his thumb tip too. Didn’t plan that, but that’s not how I’m going to tell it later.

I got to my feet, quickly, and kicked Roxy's arm out from under her before she could fully rise. Then I dropped an elbow on the back of her head.

And myself on several spikes coming up from the back of her shoulder. I felt one of them come out my ride's back.

I still cracked open the black stone on her head and slammed my elbow into the back of her skull hard enough to drop her face down into the mat.

She went limp, and I pulled Samantha’s corpse off of Roxy’s spikes.

What dripped out onto the mat was darker than blood. I hoped no one decided to check on it.

I got my arm, the non injured one, lifted as I was declared the winner. As I nodded to the crowd, I finished up healing the wounds.

Then I decided to be nice and helped three guys carry Roxy out of the ring to the clinic. Her stony armor didn’t vanish or peel away after she was out. So at the moment, she was a good sized woman encased in a few hundred pounds of solid stone that wasn’t flexing with her movements since she was out cold.

The healer managed to get a finger inside the crack I made in the stone around her head. “Crap lady, you cracked her skull. She got bleeding on the brain. Somebody get a sledgehammer in here, I need more skin contact.”

Whoops. "Let me try." I got my fingers from both hands on either side of the healer's and jerked. Breaking away most of the stone on Roxy’s head.

The Healer nodded at me absentmindedly. “Thanks, that did it.”

One of the guys who helped me carry her out sighed as he arrived in the medical room with a solid steel conduit bender and saw that Roxy had already been freed up. I patted him on the shoulder. "I'm sure they'll need the rest of it broken away once the Doc heals her head."

That cheered him up.