“You sure about this, Jack?” I turned and stooped to collect my mace. Something slammed into my back and knocked me face-first into the sand.

  Kitten-On-Hot-Glass had me back on my feet and facing him in a fraction of a second. He was still blinking away the afterglow of my armour's automatic defence, but the sneer on his face told me that he was indeed sure about this.

  I lunged forward, leading with a left jab that he batted away with one hand. He retreated carefully as I advanced, each blow either deflected or dodged with the minimum of movement.

  “Slippery bastard,” I grunted, switching to Teenage-Girl-Slap-Fight. Both my hands flew in rapid succession like I was swatting at flies on his face.

  Every move I made was countered or evaded.

  “I thought you wanted to show them what you could do? I have to say I’m not terribly impressed. I expected so much more from you. I’ve been studying you, after all.”

  Jack jumped backwards to open up some space and brought his hands together like he was praying. He lifted one foot off the ground and laid the sole of his foot vertically against his thigh.

  “You’re going Karate Kid on me? Well, I know Dragon Fu!” As the words left my mouth, I felt every butthole in the arena tighten in embarrassment. They stopped chanting my name and began to mutter unhappily.

  “Well then, come at me!”

  Rather than attack as he anticipated, I sent a blast of orange-green fire in his direction, then flinched as I waited for the kill notification. I would need to invest in an expandable breastplate if I were ever going to be able to fight properly again.

  After the blast passed, the guy stood there, still balanced on one leg, totally unperturbed. Perhaps a few strands of his black hair were out of place, but it was impossible to tell for sure.

  “You cannot hope to beat me with something so simple as that. You will need to go all out if you want to have any hope of victory, Bob. But you won’t, will you? The gods of light and shadow are both vying for your favour, and all you want is a quiet life of greedy capitalism with, what was her name? Esme?”

  I strode forward, sand crunching beneath my sabatons, and stopped directly in front of him.

  “Keep my wife's name out of your goddamn mouth!” This time, my slap landed, and he went tumbling away from me. I briefly wondered if that was some hidden Dragon Fu technique that wasn’t officially named: The Will Smith. Wrath was incandescent in my mind, the other anthropomorphisations of my traits cowering away from the metaphorical heat of his fury.

  I looked around for a seat to return to so I could enjoy the rest of my evening, but then a kick sent me stumbling, bright lights flashing from my armour and the motes of gold that had spewed out around me in my anger.

  “That was a good one. I bet you can’t do it again?” He spat to one side, marring my shiny foot with his saliva.

  Shit talking, I could accept. Landing a few blows on my armour was fine as well. The bright lights released with each blow were sparkly and distracted from the shower of glitter I was constantly spewing.

  But spitting on my foot? That was right out.

  I transformed back into my real body. My neck stretched up as scales sprang out to cover my skin. A nest of tails grew out of my ass, thrashing back and forth angrily. My purple eyes glared down at Jack, and I hit him with Hunter’s Gaze to lock him up for a second.

  A quick check around my feet confirmed that my armour hadn’t been ripped off as I transformed. With a thought, I sent a blast of light from between my eyes, using the enchantment built into the helm that I was somehow still able to access. With a flick of my head, I made the laser slice through his thighs, leaving glowing red lines across his flesh where it managed to cut through his fancy clothes.

  Dog-Finds-Fox-Poo sent me rolling to the side, my wings throwing up clouds of sand as the feathers hit the ground. I kept the laser going, snaking out my head to slice across the back of his legs as well.

  “These were expensive trousers,” he complained as the lower halves fell down to his ankles, exposing ridiculously hairy legs.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Are you related to my baker? Jesus, dude.”

  There was a circular line of bright pink skin that was now very thoroughly tanned. The deep brown lines just below the cleanly cut and the still smoking ends of his shorts stood out against the pale skin that peeked out through the insane amount of hair.

  “Now I’m annoyed.” He blurred, a fist rising up to slam into my lower jaw. My teeth slammed together painfully as my head was thrown upwards. A heavy beat of my wings threw a cloud of sand at him and let me hop backwards further than I should have been able to.

  “That won’t help.” He was on me again. Swordfish-Hunting-Salmon sent my tails spearing out, but he was untouchable. It had to be some kind of skill or ability. My eyes flared with purple light, and he locked up for a second, but that was all I’d needed.

  My tails were all tipped with a slightly curved chitin claw. It wasn’t quite as tough as my scales were since Tesla got done tinkering with them, but those bony spikes were still tough. One of them slid into the fleshy part between his shoulder and the base of his neck, just above his collarbone.

  I lifted him off the ground and brought in three tails from each side, slamming them together on either side of him. I did not envy the audience in the stands behind me, but hopefully my cloaca had fully healed by now. In fact, fuck them. Let them see the purple starfish and quake in fear; it was the final destination of anyone who truly stirred my anger.

  I, of course, meant they would be coming out of my poop chute, not going in. I shook my head. Focus Bob.

  The crushing impact had hurt the bastard. He grabbed the end of the tail that was piercing his shoulder and heaved with both hands, dropping to the ground with a grunt of pain. My tongue flicked out, and the air was rich with the taste of fresh blood.

  “Can’t jump about like a bloody flea now, can you?”

  With a blur of hairy legs, he disappeared. I howled in pain as one of my tails crunched. Then I felt another one be taken hold of in a firm and unloving fashion. Hydra-Having-A-Bad-Day turned the area behind me into a swirl of scales and muscle, and I felt his grip fall away as he was sent bowling through the sand.

  A claw flashed out as I spun to land where he had thudded to a stop. He groaned up at me. One arm hadn’t been pinned, and he began to futilely beat at the back of my claws. God forged scales for the win.

  I gave him a grade nine grin, my long fangs must have been terrifying as they slowly drew closer to his head, and my tongue tasted the familiar ammonia smell that told me I’d gotten to him.

  “Una Somna!” I growled, and his eyes rolled up as his lids came down.

  I wasn’t going to risk eating or killing an obviously high-level human when I could expect another fight shortly.

  “Speculator Visus!”

  Jack Stocks

  Level 257

  Dodgy Bastard

  STR 94 DEX 321 MAG 15 ARM 301

  I scooped his unconscious form up in one claw and walked calmly towards the edge of the arena.

  “I won’t kill him. He knows he was beaten. Or he will do when he wakes up and changes his trousers.” My voice rang out across the crowd. I transferred Jack to an undamaged tail and slowly raised him up over the wall that separated the contestants from the audience. I let him slip through the coils and fall in a heap out of my sight. The crowd had backed up as my tail had crossed the boundary, but they crept forward as soon as I withdrew and turned to walk back into the middle of the arena.

  “You happy, Roddy? Got any shit to say about me sparing a human?”

  “BOB THE MERCIFUL! Let’s hear it for the noblest beast to ever take to the sands!” The mob roared in approval at the voice over as they came back to my side. I wasn’t sure if this counted as a heel turn or the opposite of one. Either way, I seemed to have accidentally cemented myself as a crowd favourite, despite my shockingly bad banter.

  Vanity preened in my mind, staring lovingly at an image of itself in a hand mirror. The damn thing looked just like the human me, only better. I made a few mental notes of where my image of myself was actually better and resolved to work on my shapeshifting to incorporate the effects on my mammal suit.

  I raised a claw in salute to the crowd as they continued to bay out my name. Jack should have been too strong for my magic to work. Was it due to his own very low magic stat or the fact I’d kicked some of the shit out of him before I tried to use it? More questions for Tim and Inedible-Reg next time I got a chance to chat with them.

  “You’ve had the beast slayer, you’ve had the beasts, you’ve had an unanticipated bonus round against a random powerhouse! Our champion has bested them all! But I know you all want more!” Roderick announced. I didn’t like the level of smug I could hear in his voice. It boded ill for me.

  “Excuse me! I’m pretty damn sure I was contracted for one set of three rounds. That would mean I’m done here for the next six months.”

  The mob is a fickle creature. Cries of approval became boos of opprobrium in less time than it takes for me to flick my tongue in and out.

  “Good people! Don’t you want to see the final battle we have lined up? The one with all the prepaid bets on it, Bob. You all want your money's worth, don’t you?”

  “YES!” the idiots all yelled simultaneously.

  “Dammit. Fine. Whatever. Who else do you want me to smack the snot out of?” I bellowed before sending a blast of fire into the sky. Suddenly, the crowd loved me again, judging by the way my name was once again on every set of lips in the place.

  “He agrees! Now, for the finale, where our new champion will truly be tested, we have something very special. What mere mortal could hope to face the wrath of a dragon? We’ve already seen humans fall, we’ve seen beasts fall! What about something a little bit in the middle?”

  A howl rang out from behind the opposition portcullis, and furry, claw-tipped fingers gripped the bars and tried to heave them upwards. Fangs, not that impressive compared to my own, caught the light where it managed to reach into the shadows.

  “It’s time for team Edward to meet the real team Jacob!” Roderick declared. I grimaced at the golden motes falling past my eyes.

  God. Damn. Twilight.