The portcullis rose, and a furry yiffed her way towards me. Six small, hairy breasts led the way as her claws were pulled back and spread wide.

  A snarling snout, saliva blowing back like a dribbly dog with its head out of a car window, roared at me.

  “Nice teeth,” I growled, my head moving close to the ground as I flashed her a much more impressive grin. “Are you related to my baker as well?” I hoped Jenny didn’t come to the fights; I was going to get rolling-pinned in the head so hard if she did.

  My banter was, as usual, bloody terrible. However, my teeth weren’t subject to my inability to form a cutting remark, and ought to have had more of an effect than they did. With a snarl, she leapt straight at my eyes, a claw reaching out for each glowing purple orb. It was at this moment that I realised I was not fighting a smart opponent.

  I yawned in anticipation of a self-delivering dinner, letting my instincts guide me as to precisely when to snap my jaws closed. At the perfect moment, my fangs came together with a clop. Or they should have done.

  “Da fug argh do ‘oing?” I muttered. My mouth was being held open. I could feel a pair of clawed, and probably filthy, paws pressed against my gums just behind my lower teeth, and a pair of my incisors was being pushed upwards by something grabbing hold and straining against my bite pressure.

  I hadn’t ever thought to try to calculate the amount of force I could generate with my jaw muscles. I’d bitten cows in half in a single try, so I’d assumed it was pretty high. Humans, even furry ones, had always seemed like babies to a pit bull in my eyes.

  I probed cautiously forward with my tongue. Not being able to see inside my own mouth had never seemed like it would be an issue, but I felt suddenly vulnerable. Rough, shaggy fur, the taste of which made me gag, was bad enough. Her seemingly tiny fangs that closed on the tip of my tongue as I snatched it back were worse.

  I opened my jaws as wide as they would go and shook my head back and forth frantically. A pair of furry legs, two tails, and a hairy ass flailed back and forth in my vision as she clung to my teeth. I reached up with a claw and snatched at her to yank her off my damn dentistry.

  I had suffered a broken fang recently and had yet to confirm if it would ever grow back. It didn’t replicate in my human suit. I had a full set of shiny gnashers as a mammal, but whenever I was a dragon, my tongue had a habit of poking mournfully at the stump like a puppy looking for its master. I did not need to lose any more ivory.

  The bitch, and in this single case, I certainly couldn’t be accused of being sexist for using the term, refused to let go. I sat back on my haunches and shifted my grip so I had a foreclaw wrapped around each of her legs. Then I closed my jaws.

  A yowl of pain followed. I lost my grip as the resistance vanished and she went tumbling ass over tea kettle across the sand, spurts of brown blood fountaining from where her fingers used to be. I spat out her digits and made a note to get Cyrus to cook me up some hepatitis shots, possibly rabies as well. Her blood tasted foul on my tongue, and it was one of those tastes that lingered and spread.

  Despite the flavour, I carefully probed the teeth she had been clinging to and found that, while sore, they were thankfully intact.

  “I’d better not have just caught lycanthropy,” I growled as I moved towards her. She bounced back to her feet, her tails held stiff and curled out to either side behind her. She spat at the ground and raised her right hand in my direction.

  Her fingers regrew before my eyes, all of them curled into a fist, bar an upright middle digit. “You are not worthy of the blessing. I’ll never give you the gift.” Her voice was soft and high, like a puppy whining for a treat, but there was an undercurrent of menace in there as well.

  “Speculator Visus!”

  Alicya Caine

  Ancient Lycanthrope

  STR 245 DEX 210 MAG 51 ARM ???

  “How high is your ARM stat?” I asked as I padded around to circle her, my head once again held low on the ground and my tails coiled and ready to strike.

  “Does it matter? You can’t kill me.” She dropped into a wide-legged stance, her arms held ready at her sides. Her newly regrown claws gleamed in the harsh light coming down from above.

  “I bet if I pull off enough of you, sooner or later you’ll stop regrowing your bits.”

  “Better beings than you have tried.”

  She rushed forward with a snarl. If I’d been a human, I would have been terrified. Lips curled back, claws reaching out, sextuplet boobs bouncing, the vision was just weird.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Cockroach-Infested-Kitchen set me to stomping down on her as she flashed around my legs. Sparks flew as she raked my scales with her claws, but she was fast enough that my feet always landed a half a second too late.

  Inverted-Scorpion-Sting came into play, my tails stabbing out under my belly to try and impale her. I craned my neck so I could look beneath myself and try to track her more effectively, but as soon as I did, she kicked sand into my eyes. Dammit Bob. Nictitating membranes.

  As soon as I’d blinked the worst of it away, my built-in flying goggles snicked closed across my eyes, and things became a little easier. She tried a couple more times, in between slashing at my god-forged armoured hide, but she figured out my eyes were now safe from that kind of dirty trick.

  The crowd was going wild. “Death to the beast!” was being chanted by almost everyone, and it wasn’t entirely clear which of us they were referring to.

  “You can’t hurt me,” I snarled as a tail finally managed to get through her evasive moves and sent her spinning through the air. “Oi! That’s a cat thing!”

  She had somehow managed to stabilise herself mid-air and landed gracefully on her feet, digging a pair of shallow trenches as she slid away from the blow.

  “I’ve killed dragons before,” she hissed.

  “Roddy, are you actually trying to get me killed?” I called out.

  “A true challenge was needed! Can Bob the Merciful overcome Alicya the Ever-Regenerating’s innate healing? An immovable object has met an unstoppable force, and only chaos can ensue! They’ve traded blows! Get yourselves down to the bookies and place your bets! This match is brought to you by the Dalgliesh Business Enterprise, think BDE for all your import and export needs!”

  My eyes narrowed on the werewolf as a shower of sparks exploded around me. “You work for Dalgliesh?”

  “Never heard of the guy,” she muttered, shaking out her arms and flexing her claws.

  “You’re his way of getting around the contract. He isn’t acting against me directly, so he sent you. A seemingly unkillable opponent. Did you know Big Kenny?”

  “Everyone who is anyone knows Big Kenny.”

  “Would you fight him?”

  “No. I would run from him.”

  “I killed him.”

  Her eyes, which I only now noticed were big, brown and puppy-dogesque, widened briefly, then narrowed. The brief flash of neotany I’d experienced vanished as her lips curled back. “Liar.”

  “He hasn’t been seen for a while, right?”

  “He’s never seen unless he wants to be.”

  “Fucking ninjas, am I right? Well, he won’t be seen ever again. You hear that, you Glaswegian tosser? You’re out there somewhere in the crowd, aren’t you? Just so you know, your attack dog is dead. Be a shame if your enemies decided to make a move on you now that you don’t have his protection!” The crowd had gone deathly quiet. I guessed everyone really did know the stories about Kenny.

  Alicya cocked her head on one side and lifted one ear upright. “You aren’t lying.” An accusation, not a question, but I nodded anyway.

  “Chopped him in half. One bit went into the ocean, one bit got fed to arachnoshrooms.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Nonetheless.” This time, my grin was broad and genuine. I really didn’t like ninjas, and thinking of the villain's death filled me with a strange sense of pride.

  “Arachnoshrooms are delicious, but I wouldn’t eat anything that had fed on that bastard. It’s a shame they’re so rare,” she said, slowly starting to relax.

  “They are really tasty. I’ve got a dungeon floor full of the damn things. First monster the system threw at me. Not fun to fight in the dark.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got dark vision. Perfect sight even in total darkness.” She crossed her arms over her chests, obscuring the middle pair, and looked me up and down. “How much did the god-forged scales hurt?”

  I settled down on my haunches and pulled my injured tail around to inspect it. The adrenaline was fading. “You ever had to pluck a nostril hair?” I glanced over, and she glared at me, a shiny, damp and thoroughly hairless nose just below the big brown eyes. “Bad example. It was like that, but turned up to eleven.”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad. When I transform, I literally rip apart my human body from the inside out.”

  “Messy.”

  “Yup. So, look, do you want to call this a draw?” she asked with a shrug. “You seem alright for a lizard, and I’d rather not have to hurt you.”

  “You reckon you could?” I let my injured tail swing back behind me and curled my head around to focus on her properly. Jack had somehow managed to crush the muscles below the scales on my tail. The outer armour was intact, but it felt like he’d put it in some sort of vice and squeezed. It still hurt. “Sui Sanitatem!” Green light spilled out from the sigil in front of my nose. Tendrils wrapped themselves around my aching teeth and gums, while others snaked their way down my body to soothe my sore tail. I sighed in relief.

  “I need two more wins to get my freedom back. I’m willing to let this one go. Us shapeshifters should stick together, right?” She gave me a toothy smile and offered a hand.

  I summoned an item I’d nicked a while ago, long before my divinely sanctioned looting of Bulb’s warehouse. The golden chain of control flicked out as I lassoed it over her head and pulled it tight, almost yanking her off her feet.

  “Sit.” She sat, her hands coming up to the chain. “Good doggy. Sorry about this. Say ‘I surrender to Bob the Merciful, most magnificent and magnanimous of dragons.”

  Her body was covered in thick fur, but I suspected that beneath that mat of hair, her skin was now a blazing red colour. She ground out the words.

  “Take off the chain.”

  Her claws scrabbled at it and threw it back at me as soon as it was clear.

  “You fucking bastard!”

  “Yeah. Some pixies used this to control me.” I raised the chain in one hand before it vanished into my storage space. “So I know how it feels. I’m sorry.” How much had I just hurt my karma? “How about… Roddy! I want to buy out Alicya’s contract! I’ll do her fights if that’s what it takes!” Conscience salved.

  “Bob the Mug—Magnimous, ladies and gentlemen! Have we ever seen such a bout? A mighty battle followed by a meeting of minds! And he will be back soon to take on extra fights for your amusement!” Roderick was doing his best, but the crowd was unimpressed by the end of the fight. I didn’t care. I shifted back into my human form and stepped forward to offer Alicya a hand up.

  “Why do you wear boxer shorts with love hearts on them?”

  Glancing down, I realised the mistake I had made. Hulk’s clothes didn’t magically regrow when he deflated; he just ended up in his shorts. Still, it was a step in the right direction. No more going commando, though. I checked my pocket dimension and the armour was all safely stored away.

  “A gift from the missus. Seems you’re going to be looking for a new job sometime soon. How do you feel about joining my adventurer team? All the arachnoshrooms you can eat, I promise.”