I watch as Johnny the wolf pup spits in the response to my deal, wondering where are the manners of our hero wannabe? He rises upright after spitting his mouth empty. I almost made a joke about swallowing, but decide against it when my vision becomes more blurry than it used to be. And for a while now, my vision has been little too blurry for my taste. Shit, how much can a simple headbutt mess me up? My nose is even more crooked than after the transformation I humorously note. But the problem is how my heads swimming, so I'm trying to remember my coach's lessons about what to do in these kinda situations. Better play time, Wolfie is in better shape than I am.

***********************************

I catch my breath while my head settles down and hear Owllie shouting at me: "Maybe we got of on the wrong foot, or fist, but let's talk this out, for real now!" I ignore him, which seems to piss him off. He tries to keep the talk going: "Okay, maybe I did do something morally reprehensible, but it's not like you're any better than me!" This gets my eyes flaring in anger. I stop catching my breath and start making my way to the Owl-boy. He gets full on grin from that, so I stop and start thinking what he's planning. If he's only faking those injuries, rushing in only forces I back to the punching bag position. But what does he gain if I stay here?

I get my answer after minute or so, as he jumps towards me yelling: "Thanks, just had to play time to get my bearings, figured that confusing you was the easiest choice!" Not the best situation to be in, as he is as fast as ever. Or not, as this time I get my guard up in response to his punches and I keep up with his circling. He looks pained, both physically as he moves and mentally as I respond to his movements, but I can't still land a punch. I block few left jabs with my right forearm and send a left straight towards him. He pivots on his left leg to avoid it with a spin and delivers a kick to my side, which I block with my right arm again. He manages to slip his leg from my side faster than I can grab it, but neither of us is delivering any hits home this time.

So it's time for a plan B. My time to annoy: "What good is the strength if you can't land a hit you asked? Well, what good is the speed if none the hits you land have any effect?" I tease while rising on my toes, tiptoeing just to prove that I gained back my balance. He actually looks annoyed even though my effort wasn't the best there is. Maybe I hit a sore spot? "Is that what this was all about? You're pissed because you liked the idea of being powerful and then somebody much stronger shows up? And now you feel scared and threatened?" The mockery continues. "Powerful? You? Who's the one with the army? Who's the one with the reputation? I am! Don't pretend you know about power when you hide behind morals and let them make you weak!" His tirades are worthy of getting made into a bad villain character in a kids show. This actually quite fun.

"Morals make me weak? So what, I don't need to bully the weak to make myself feel strong." I quote some hero from a cartoon I watched as kid. He eats it up and rushes in. I grab on his exposed shoulders and lift him from the ground. "Making mistakes when angry, now where did I se..." I'm silenced by him plunging his talons in my eyes. "Getting angry? Over your childish insults? Or you know, I could have pretended to make you drop your guard." He says calmly, with a smile you can hear from his tone. I lift my forearm to guard my eyes and start to check my vision; left blind but right is fine. But this is a problem for me I realize as we return to the I-miss-he-hits style of fighting we did earlier, but this time he simply hits from my new blind spot instead of actually outpacing me.

"You want to make someone angry or break them, you got to hit where it hurts." He teaches me as I anticipate an emphasis with a crotch kick, but that never comes, instead he keeps talking: "Like that horse of yours, a warhorse as one can tell from the coat and physique, not something you can afford without killing. So you either stole it or killed someone for it. So, which one is it?" I grunt as a response. "And the fact that nobody has come to kill me, claiming that I'm possessed by a demon probably means that you haven't told anybody about our condition? And the fact that you go by John here instead of Johnny? It means there are at least two things you lie about to people!" I don't respond. "Then there's the fact that you spoke about not hanging with our-worlders. Which means that you met some people here, right? So how many have died because of you? This makes me avoid his gaze for a second, causing him to smile as wide as he can. "So there's people dead because you, hero? You steal, lie and cause deaths while playing the role of a hero, simply because you got the power to be a one, and the you try to claim the moral high ground over somebody? You're exactly like me, justifying all things you do with the power you got!" he exclaims proudly.

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I imitate his boxer stance and begin to retreat backwards, while tracking my feet. He tilts his head as he looks what I'm doing and lets out a chuckle. "And now you retreat your head hung low, dragging your feet, simply 'cause someone told you how much a failure you are. Now this is just too much!" He half talks and half laughs that and comes closer, but still keeps his distance from me. I simply keep retreating while staring at him. "Seriously man, what are you doing?" He ask while lifting his head upwards and I answer: "Just looking." "At what, me?" He stares alternately at my eye and where it's looking. I answer as my dragging feet goes over sufficiently big stone on the forest bed: "For one of these" And kick it towards his left eye at full force. He tilts his whole body to avoid the stone and I close the gap between us in that moment. My right fist, raised during the small rush in the over shoulder punch he so mocked in the beginning, hidden first by the flying stone and now by my body comes falling down without giving him time to react. I had just learned how hard it is to avoid attacks from a blind spot after all.

My fist makes contact with his left eye and I feel the socket collapsing under my fist. It doesn't really matter how I punch, all my punches hit hard after all. His body is slammed on the ground and I make a short kick-stomp with my right leg on his side to stop any attempt at rolling away, snapping one the ribs. Next kick on his shoulder to roll him on his back and then move my leg so I stand on his wrist, sealing his movements. Then I grab on to his throat with my right hand and begin squeezing. He turns red very fast and starts wheezing. 

"You want to break someone, hit them were it hurts? I never played the role of a hero. When the camp was attacked I run to chase the attacker instead of helping the people and when I returned, it wasn't the triumphant return while carrying the enemies head to them, waiting them to worship me. No, I returned my head hung low, wondering if they accept me or attack me. I never justified my stealing and lying with my strength, but with the fear of the wolf and what it's doing to me from the inside. I never played the moral high ground by trying to stop you or going around helping people. In fact I been avoiding them this whole trip and I would have let you go had you not attacked me. And being like you? Because I lie and steal out necessity? While you kill for fun, steal because you're greedy, treat humans as your toys and hunt the weak as a hobby? When it comes to grades, my math grade was never that good either, but I don't think that the scale of inches and miles were that close."

He wheezes something in response from between his now blue lips and grabs my wrist with his free hand. Not that it helps, he can't overpower me, but his as of late shut left eye opens and I see his eyeball. The Yellow iris that paints the whole eyeball seems to split in three pieces. In the center of the all three pieces new pupil is formed and I see his eye stare in three different directions as the irises and pupils of each part wriggle violently. Then each of the new parts starts to take shape independent from each other, and I'm left staring at newly formed three eyeballs crammed into a one socket. Distracted by this horror show I fail to notice how his grip gets stronger.