I watch in silence as Ollie stretches his arms forward and makes a bowing gesture, bringing his head down and arching his back. I wonder if it is another one of his fake-sportsmanship-tricks, but as he keeps the pose I see his wound begins to heal itself up. The flesh knits itself together with the muscle fibers running across the wound and grabbing onto each other while the skin moves like melted wax, slowly covering the whole wound. And then the feathers grow back, thicker and fuller in color, armoring the spot better than before. But this is good, I did not forget Ollie's healing capacity when I made the wound, the opposite rather, as I remember how Ollie ran away after being wounded too many times last time we fought. It is not only beheading that kills us, but the healing will stop when we have not eaten enough to sustain the healing process, something I'm familiar with. So either I kill Ollie by cutting of his head or we keep the fight going long enough for him to end up being killed by the wounds. The second way the fight can go is that I start loosing, but if I can manage to wound him so much that he resorts in sacrificing his body mass to fuel the regeneration, he will ultimately become weak enough to be finished off by the guards. For that, I must concentrate my attacks on the wings for the start, and when they stop healing I can begin causing actual damage.
"Giving me time to heal? Is this the fair play you wanted, or...?"
Ollie looks at his wings, before folding them tightly against his back, and starts smiling smugly. Well, this doesn't really make my fight any harder; it just means that if I die he has the chance to escape without further injuries. Nothing to be done there, I prepare for the fight. I crack my neck just for the effect and leap forward, stepping on Ollie's reach. Ollie immediately responds with a slamming attack done with both of his arms, but I'm already out of reach before he gets the attack on speed. Simply a distraction, I jumped backwards as soon as my feet touched the ground, aiming at my machete further down the street. Right hand on the hilt, pulling up and bringing the blade on my sight, I notice that the tip has been chipped by the constant slamming, but retains enough sharpness for me to force it through Ollie's skull if I try hard enough. A pleasant thought, distracted by the ruble Ollie dug out and threw at me as continuation for the slam. My armor like fur can take the hit from the fist sized and smaller pieces of cobblestone, so I only avoid the one whole tile he managed to dug out, and move both of my hands on the hilt of my machete.
Soon enough the shadow size of a van is cast on me and Ollie dives down from the sky, arms outstretched. I intercept with a two hand swing aimed at his head, but his movement is interrupted as he opens his wings, and the momentum is transferred on to his kick, sweeping from front. I stop mu swing and bring the blade back, slide one of my hands from the hilt upwards my machete's spine as I move it in a horizontal block for the kick, keeping it chest high with one hand on the hilt and one near the end of the spine. Ollie's leg hits the machete with the lower part of its shin, the blade sinking in the bone, as the foot slams onto my stomach full strength. Nothing I can't endure I think as a taste of blood rises on my mouth and my body slides backwards, tearing the blade from Ollie's shin and cracking the bone for good.
More chips in the blade, but it keeps its edge. Ollie rushes forward, ignoring the broken leg that bends under his weight and begins his barrage of cuts with his talons. Moving on his left side, on the side with the broken leg causes most of his right arm's attack miss and left arm's to fail to reach devastating speed, as he can only keep balance on the other leg, so I begin cutting his arms as they come to my reach, making small cut and deep cuts by chance, lopping of pieces as two cuts connect internally and chopping of few lucky fingers here and there. Surprisingly easy and as I manage to cut of his right arm from below the wrist, I make a move towards Ollie's chest. The left arm block but I cut it from above the elbow and strike the blade deep in his chest, causing Ollie to coughs up blood. And I coughs up blood too as Ollie's right arm, now healed to a point of his wrist bone sticking up from the wound is slammed on my side, below the armpit and between two ribs. Next comes the strike with his left arm also healed to the point that the bone is sticking up from still pulsing mess of flesh, aimed at my left eye. I avoid by hair's width by moving my head saving my eye, but the bone carves a red gash on the side of my head. I let go of my machete and jump away, looking as Ollie's wound heal on a faster pace than before.
"Didn't think that I would experiment how different wounds heal? Well, it seems the bone grows first most of the time, giving me a natural weapon if I don't mid breaking the jutting bone and restarting the regeneration, but as already said, 'for killing you I don't mind sacrificing a leg or two'. Heh, I also noticed that stretching the wound slows down the regeneration, 'cause it causes the process to create the extra matter to fill the void you leave with the stretching. Nifty if you want to fool the opponent to think you can't keep up with the damage. And if you're wondering why I'm risking this much loss for wounding you just once or twice, take a good look at your wounds. I promise you they won't be healing after wasting all you got saved up in full body transformation like that."
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Ollie's right, his body has already healed fully while neither of my wounds has even stopped bleeding. For me this is over in one well placed attack while he can shrug off enough to kill an elephant ten times over. And I don't even have my machete anymore, as Ollie holds it in his hand after pulling it out.
"Nice idea, using this kind of bladed weapon, but only for the first strike. See how the blade is completely chipped already from constantly making contact with my bones? Only the first strike matters with these..."
Ollie throws the machete back to me and I catch it midway its lazy arc. The blade truly is a dulled mess after the short exchange we had, so I throw it aside, guess it claws from here out then. I make the first move this time, crouching low with my dash, and avoid his talons digging down from above by. Short slashes to his wrist, causing more bleeding than than actual damage, but he does have to regenerate his blood too, so highly effective for my currently low damage. I keep this going, copying his attacks from the time I was bigger and stronger and he was the faster one, this time just slashing instead of punching, making small cuts all over. Every jab is sidestepped and the forearms length is clawed open on the surface, every straight is ducked under with a cut to the inner thigh for artery damage, every knee is med by spinning around it and forcing him to slowly chase after or I can keep shredding his wings. Slowly but surely Ollie's face distorts in rage as his own tactics are used against him. Noticing his beak opening slightly I make my move.
"You think..."
I jump upwards as his mouth opens to speak and dive my fingers in his eyes, all six of them going blind at the same time.
"You talk too much, it's getting easier and easier to predict when you begin talking and the slight slowing down that happens with it."
He starts flailing his arms around, hoping to hit me hard enough to throw me away, but I tuck between his legs and climb up his back. I trail my claws along the lines of his wing's growing points to locate them and start tearing into them, steadily clawing along them till the wings started dropping off. He tries to smash me onto the nearby walls, but because his recently induced blindness he mostly crashes onto the buildings with his sides, slowing me down, but not stopping me. When he finally gets one working eye, my work is done, and all four of his wings are scattered along the road, between the ruined sides of the buildings. Of course I jump off from his back, as without his wing there is nothing shielding me from him just grabbing me, something he forgot he could have done after the first wing fell in his panic and rage.
From behind I have a great view as his wings begin to grow back, only to end being nothing but bone stumps jutting up from his back. Enough damage done I see, and Ollie turns to face me worried look on all his three eyes that grew back. He rushes away from me, making his way around the capital to where we met, probably to eat the horses and the corpse of the third, but I don't mind....
******************************
Ollie flies back onto the scene, with new blood covering his feathers and few strips of the third one's and the horses' skin hanging from his beak and talons.
"You idiot, you really let me to feed? What kind of irresponsib..."
He stops halfway, probably because he noticed the feather pieces and blood around my mouth. Ollie's face flashes with disgust as he looks around the road, taking note that all of the wings, hands and miscellaneous pieces of him have disappeared from here. Taking a good look on me Ollie noticed that my wounds have healed completely, and I gained more mass from the last time. I can see as his face distorts while he is trying to decide if the obvious conclusion is the right one, so I decide to help him out.
"You know, and I'm not even saying this to mock you, you taste like the spicy chicken wings my mother sometimes bought from the local supermarket."