We started chipping away at each other.

The first exchange after his little—for lack of a better word—healing demonstration was fast and hectic. I was now mostly aiming for his head, trying to K.O. him before he could trigger his power. It made my attacks more predictable and I suffered some nasty counters for it, but I couldn’t see any other way to put him down for good. I didn’t know if his power had an upper limit, if he’d tire, how many times he could use it, or any other factors. For all I knew, he could have a similar transformation like knife boy and turn into a clock monster for Christ’s sake.

I also heard some gunfire in the distance. Ah, shit, did Ida and her crew get to work early? Any number of things could have gone wrong. Without the protection of the circle I had set up, when the wards finally went down anyone not warded against it will have a hell of a headache. I could feel the wards straining but they hadn’t given, yet. So much for my brilliant plan.

My thoughts were left behind when I got my first good hit in when he correctly predicted one of my attacks and went to pivot me into a hip throw, but was stymied by my weight. With the extra density of my muscles and bones, I’m a good hundred pounds heavier than I look. Coupled with the two tentacles I slammed into the dirt to halt my progress to the ground, there was an awkward moment where I was just kind of leaning heavily on him, so I raked my claws across his throat.

Again, my Limbs of the Other Side really seemed to enjoy warlock blood. I don’t know if I’m imagining the slurping sounds or what, but they reacted like a dog to breakfast when the warlock's throat sprayed the crimson liquid. It only happened for a second before he disappeared from under me. He reappeared a couple of yards away, his neck already reforming.

We re-engaged and on we went. It was the most intense, boring fight I’ve ever had. Granted, I’ve not had a ton of fights, but I’ve been trained to fight from an early age and if my father or Mr. Lui could see me now, they’d shake their heads. Both had drilled into me that a fight should only last seconds, while we were stretching into the fifth minute by now.

The problem is we both had counters to each other. Mine being my enhanced body and deadly limbs, his being able to reverse any injury. We were having a hard time hurting one another in a way that mattered.

What was worrying is that he wasn’t slowing down a bit. Nothing I did seemed to affect him for long, while every glancing blow he landed made my reactions that much slower. Plus, fighting at all is incredibly tiring. When you fight, an actual life-and-death fight, you are using a hundred percent effort. Hell, even keeping your hands above your heart for more than a few minutes is extremely tiring. I was breathing hard and giving more ground than I wanted to. If this kept up he’d win with pure staying power.

And the smug son of a bitch knew it, too. His bland little smile had an edge to it, now. He was pressing me harder, pushing me back. Though I did note he didn’t try to throw me again.

Disaster nearly struck when I stepped back and tripped over the corpse of a pirate. I lost my footing and the Time Lord quickly stepped through my weakened guard and landed a solid combination in my chest, ending it with an uppercut that nearly broke my jaw. I tilted back and barely maintained enough composure to remember to take the fall with a roll, swiping my tentacles all around in a panic to get him to back off.

It didn’t work. He dodged through my tentacles like an actor in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and snapped out a kick that broke my nose. I could hear the crunch in my head like someone had chosen that moment to chew a big chunk of ice violently. I peered through eyes squinted against the pain and by sheer luck caught his wrist in my hand.

We both froze for a moment, and even though I was still seeing spots from the pain, I could see his expression clearly. If I were to describe it, I would say it was simply; “Uh-oh.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I yanked him forward. His free fist came up to protect his head and face but I aimed lower and hit him right in the sternum. The air hissing between his teeth was a relief to hear. He tried to yank his hand away from me but I gripped tighter and sank my claws into his wrist.

He screamed with pain and went on the offensive suddenly, trying to get me to back away. I wore a punch on my side as the price of doing business and I yanked him to the side again, ruining his balance as I backhanded him across the face.

He went limp for a moment before panicked energy flooded his limbs. Suddenly the world—it kind of Bent. Angles and shapes that I had never noticed before suddenly popped out at me. The night sky, so full of stars a moment before was now a swirling, M.C. Escher-esque cascade of pathways made up of shapes that had no relevance to what I had known my entire life. And on each of those pathways, standing elbow-to-elbow was a copy of Mr. Forgettable.

“What the fuck?!” I tried to say. What actually came out was a melange of sounds and sensations that approximated language yet did not actually communicate anything other than the fact that I had uttered something.

The warlock used my confusion to break my grip and knock me away, breaking whatever hold that other place had on me. I fell on my butt next to the dead pirate as the warlock did his healing thing. Only this time, I watched carefully. Maybe I hadn’t known what to look for, or maybe being exposed to that other place had done something, but this time I noticed that the “healing” wasn’t so much reversing as it was being replaced.

“Whaaaaat the fuck kind of bargain did you ask for?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

The warlock flexed his arm and turned toward me with a grim look. He opened his mouth to speak right when a lightning bolt slammed into his back and sent him flying to my left, slamming into the ground with enough momentum to roll several times before flopping to a stop in a smoldering mess.

I blinked the after-image out of my eyes and saw a beat-up Alice with the dragon head in her hand, some dozen yards away, swaying drunkenly on her feet. She was blinking rapidly like she was having trouble focusing her eyes.

I need to learn that spell.

I got to my feet, glancing again at the warlock. He wasn’t moving. That didn’t mean he was dead, though. I glanced at Alice, who was having a hard time staying on her feet. Eh, the warlock was dead enough. I trotted over to her and got her arm over my shoulders.

“You look like shit,” she said, a slight slur in her voice.

“Look who’s talking,” I said as I started walking towards town. Towards the gunfire, I noted.

“You also took your sweet time,” she groused.

“Next time you can fight the monster made of knives and I’ll take on the pirates and teleporting warlock,” I said.

“Monster?” She asked.

“Remember knife guy? He made his skin knives,” I was scanning the area as we spoke, keeping my voice low. “It was really disturbing in a John Carpenter’s Thing kind of way.”

“Weird,” Alice replied. The slur was getting worse.

I glanced back to where the time (or duplicating? What the fuck was that guy's power?) warlocks body was—

It wasn’t there.

“Heads up,” I said, spinning us around to scan the surroundings. “He’s back up.”

“What?!” Alice said, her voice clearing as outrage colored her tone. “I put enough energy in that spell to kill a fucking elephant!”

She squinted into the night and I was reminded again that not everyone could see like I could. But even with my enhanced night vision, I couldn’t spot the tricky warlock anywhere. Alice and I both glanced around, straining to find him, but after a minute or so he still hadn’t made himself known.

“Maybe he ran?” Alice suggested.

“Good,” I said, a bit loudly. “Because I think I figured out his trick.”

I hadn’t. But I had an inkling that Mr. Forgettable wouldn’t react well to me trying to grapple him again.

Man. I wish I knew more jiu jitzu. Most of my training is in striking. If I had taken that fight to the ground I would have turned that little shit into hamburger.

We continued walking, parallel to the road and using what little cover there was when we could. Alice recovered a little bit but there was a definite deliberate-ness to her movement that suggested a head injury. But because of our caution we found the source of the gunfire without being spotted.

The prisoners I had freed had run into a patrol of guards.

Goddammit.