Two days later I found myself sprawled across the same fighting ring.
“Up, Ryan! If I was a monster you’d be dead by now,” Tabitha growled at me.
I sprung to my feet and lifted my fist—and stub—into position once more. “Hate to break it to you Tabby but, you are a monster.”
Her mismatched eyes flared in anger and she launched into an onslaught once more. Unlike during my duel with Blitz, my strength did not allow me to simply tank Tabitha’s attacks, and I was forced to put in some footwork to keep her fists from connecting.
“Don’t you dare call me that,” she roared, speeding up her attacks so much that her eyes suddenly flashed yellow. This—I had been learning the hard way—was all the warning I was going to get before her werewolf side came out.
It didn't help that I blocked the majority of her attacks. She was not the most patient of tutors to begin with, but I was still starting to pick up on a few things. Unfortunately my growing collection of minor successes only drove her further over the edge of frustration and into full-blown rage territory.
In a burst of tattered gym clothing and shreds of skin, Tabitha’s human form erupted outwards and was replaced by her werewolf form. She backhanded me clear across the ring and leapt after me, preparing to pounce and probably rip my throat out or something equally horrifying.
My heart pounded in my chest, and a rush of boiling blood shot down into my left arm.
Oh good, there it is.
Rebounding off the ropes, I came back at Tabitha with my Carnisaur arm already swinging. It connected with her jaw as she landed on top of me. Her claws skittered across my suddenly stony flesh, failing to get any purchase before my newly-sprouted dino-fist knocked the daylight out of her.
She landed in a heap and rolled directly to her feet, her rage so powerful that she didn't even notice her jaw dangling at an odd angle.
“Easy, girl.” Some part of me was hoping she would actually calm down. But the rest of me was much louder as it silently urged her to get back up and continue the fight. Whatever was happening to me that made my fist regrow was having a few weird side effects. The most potent of them was that it made me way more aggressive and bloodthirsty.
Tabitha yowled at me and leapt again, claws bared.
My vision flashed red and suddenly my blood was a river of fire rushing through my veins, singing a song of violence that begged me to rip this foolish enemy limb from limb.
No. Tabby may not have been happy with me right then, but she had good reason for that. She was not my enemy. She was one of the only—possible—friends I had in this strange new world. I was not some mindless freak who went around murdering his friends.
I was in control.
The red hue dimmed from my vision and I moved to meet her attack, stilling my thundering heart and acting with my brain taking the lead instead of allowing myself to be ruled by that potent rush of instinct and bloodlust that came with each pseudo-transformation.
My three-fingered hand caught her around the muzzle and checked her advance. With a reverberating grunt I slammed her into the floor and got on top of her, locking my clear eyes upon her blazing yellows.
“For someone who claims not to be a monster, you’re sure acting like one, wolf.”
Tabitha’s eyes flared. First in anger. Then in recognition that I was right. After a moment they dimmed back to their usual blue.
“Do you yield?” I asked softly.
She struggled against my strength for a moment, but I had her pinned.
Relenting at last, she nodded and let her hands fall to the mat.
“Good girl,” I praised, rising from her and offering her my—human—hand.
Though a hint of yellow may have briefly flared into existence at my word choice, Tabitha accepted my hand all the same and allowed herself to be hauled up to meet me. As she ascended she shifted from her werewolf form and landed on her feet rocking her human body once more. Minus the ears and the tail, of course, she was a stunningly gorgeous human woman with a core of steel, perky tits, and an ass that wouldn’t quit.
One of the benefits of pissing her off enough to wolf out on me was that it shredded her normal clothing enough to reveal what lay underneath. Yeah, she had some magical elastic bras and underwear that she wore all the time, but they hugged her figure tight enough that I barely needed to engage my imagination to trace the curves that lay beneath.
She caught me looking and narrowed her eyes.
“See something you like, hotshot?”
When I was younger I might have looked away, embarrassed. So much as a week prior I wouldn't have been looking at all, still overcome with the grief of losing my fiance and entirely uninterested in the process of moving on. But that day, with all the monster blood coursing through my veins, that day I met her eyes and nodded firmly.
“I do indeed. Does that bother you?”
Tabitha blinked, perhaps a little stunned by my directness. For a split-second it almost seemed like she was leaning up towards me, her eyes darting towards my lips. Then that flash of yellow came back, like she suddenly remembered she was supposed to be mad at me right now. I watched her throat grow taut as she swallowed nervously and looked away. I took the hint and stepped back.
“Hit the showers, Ryan. You need to cool off. We both do,” she commanded.
“You got it, boss,” I agreed. “Thanks for the lesson. Enjoy your shower.” Without another word I slid through the ropes and onto the floor, taking off for the gun range at an easy jog. I had no intention of showering just yet.
This monster blood coursing through my veins had already caused a shift, and I knew it. Other people were taking notice of it too, especially Tabitha, but I didn’t really mind. I was a couple inches taller than before, and I had significantly bulked up in the muscle department. Admittedly I was feeling a little husky at the moment, but that was no longer the end of the world for me. Whatever these changes were they brought with them a massive appetite and finding the right balance for my diet would likely take time. Assuming I survived my first mission, time was a commodity I would have in spades.
Before the attack a couple days ago I was pretty close to completely checked out of life. Barely making ends meet, drifting through life on cruise control because I couldn't bear the weight of how much everything had fallen apart. Today I was walking tall, learning how to fight monsters, and taking life into my own hands. Hands! Plural.
I wasn’t quite the Ryan I was before a year ago, but maybe that was okay. That guy lost a hell of a lot more than just a hand that day, maybe it was time for a new Ryan to take control.
I walked into the gun range and went through my usual circuit. Anything I could fire one-handed was on the list. Rifles were out. While yes I could occasionally grow a dino-arm to replace my severed left hand, it was spotty at best and faded after a while. So far my best guess was that it worked like some sort of defense mechanism. Rather than expect my hand to appear and be stable enough for me to use assault rifles and shotguns and whatnot, I was focusing on weapons I could use with just my right hand.
Handguns were a must, I had already decided. Certain submachine guns were good too. I could fire a few others, like a one-handed grenade launcher, and a few lightweight weapons that were not really designed to be wielded with one hand, but nothing worked quite so well as those first two. Since my options were limited I decided to focus on getting good with those and always went straight from my sparring sessions with Tabitha to the gun range.
The ballistic range down in the Bureau was incredible. Moving targets and smart ammunition that listed off all sorts of statistics about performance, and the instructors there were way kinder than Tabitha or anyone else I was working with. With their help I was becoming a better shot with each visit.
My accuracy was improving, but where I struggled the most was reloading. For the most part my reloading technique consisted of hugging the weapon to my chest using my left arm and doing everything with my right hand. It was slow and not pretty, but it was all I had to go with.
Without a reliable workaround for that logistical problem just yet, my next area of focus was melee weapons. The weapon I really wanted was a battle ax. But, as with firearms, my options were limited. I went with a collection of swords meant to be wielded with one hand and was surprised at how quickly I picked up on it.
The other areas of my training were a big struggle as I had all this new stuff to learn and my missing hand proved time and time again to be a detriment. But fighting with a single sword was actually quite simple and while having an extra hand could have been helpful, there was no use in me whining about it. I listened to every word the instructors spoke and excelled in every sparring match they threw at me.
While my progress in the gym was solid and even promising, it would mean nothing if I had no clue what I was up against. After hitting the showers I walked up to the elevator and keyed in the button for the library on the external control panel.
After a few short seconds, the doors slid open to reveal a lamia girl—human from the waist up but with a snake-truck for her lower half—wearing a blouse and skirt and clutching a clipboard.
“Oh.” She exhaled softly, looking me up and down. The dark skin of her cheeks lightened a few shades as she blushed. This sort of response had been happening more and more the past two days. I would be lying if I said I minded. Admittedly the whole snake-lady thing was taking some getting used to, and I found my mind struggling to work through the logistics of how we would even…anyway. It was still early days. I was adjusting.
I smiled warmly at her and stepped inside, leaning up against the wall and pretending not to notice the way she undid the top button of her blouse. That poor shirt was already strained to the breaking point as it was so I wasn't sure how much more it could take. A peek at what she was keeping stuffed away in that lacy bra gave me some insight into how there might be a workaround for some of the logistics I was struggling with in the privacy of my own mind.
The doors started to slide closed and I noticed that the library was the only selected floor.
“Is this your stop?” I asked the cute, busty lamia.
Her eyes widened in slight embarrassment and she quickly slithered out into the training floor without speaking. Her cheeks flushed purple to match the purple hue to her snake tail, and she had even made her fingernails and eyeshadow the same color. The effect was striking and made me briefly reconsider my stance on the whole snake-lady thing.
The moment the doors closed, I found myself staring down at the floor in shock.
I had just been fantasizing about fucking a snake lady. What the fuck?
Get it together, Ryan. Focus!
It was hardly as if women had stopped noticing me over the course of the past year, it just never got to me like this before. I hadn’t been interested. But something was different now. Maybe it was just another side effect of the Carnisaur blood. I was scared it meant I was starting to get over Hannah, but I supposed it had been enough time.
Before I could examine that thought process any further, the doors opened to the library and I headed off to learn more about monster anatomy and how to fight Ferals.
Two hours later I was sitting at a tucked-away table in the library with about six different books all splayed open before me. I was scribbling on a yellow notepad when I heard someone approaching.
My eyes lifted off a page describing the effects of Basilisk venom to discover blue eyes staring at me.
Tabitha had two books tucked under her arm and looked…nervous. Which was a first.
I held up my hand in mock surrender. “Easy there. I’m not looking for a fight.
She winced and glanced down, embarrassed. “Right. Yeah, I kind of lost it on you earlier. My bad. I’m under a lot of pressure here and if you die it’s…it’s gonna be a lot of paperwork.”
“Oh well, we wouldn’t want you to have to worry about doing paperwork, would we?”
Tabitha sighed and waved off my comment. “That didn’t come out right. Listen, I’ve treated you harshly and I’m looking to start over here. I just got out of a stressful hearing with Agent Phillip and I’ve had a lot on my mind. But that’s done now and I’ve decided to make your training my priority. Today, in the ring, you proved you are more capable of handling the flare-ups of your monstrous urges than even I am. That’s impressive. Actually, that’s kind of an understatement. Remaining in control while your monster side is out is sort of unprecedented. So…truce?” she offered.
After careful consideration given to both her sincerity and the fact that she was wearing a very revealing shirt-and-booty-shorts combo that was weakening my resolve with every passing second, I finally agreed. “Truce.”
The way she gave a little celebratory fist-pump at her side and held the books closer to her chest—this squished her breasts up towards her throat, which I didn’t think that was an accident—did nothing to relieve the swelling interest I had in her.
“May I sit?”
I moved my foot beneath the table to slide out a seat right across from me. “Please do. If you feel up to it I could use some direction, honestly. I feel like I’m chasing my tail here.”
Tabitha winced. “Dog puns? Really?”
A slight smile crept across my face at my unintentional faux pas. “My apologies. That one wasn’t on purpose. I’m…a little tired at the moment.”
“Yeah? What’s wrong, hotshot, have your instructors been hounding you?”
My mouth fell open. “Was that—Did you just make a joke?”
Tabitha’s peal of laughter lifted a burden from my chest I didn't know I had been carrying, and instead of sitting in the chair across from me she moved over to my side of the table and sat down right next to me. “Stick around long enough and you’ll learn that I actually tell great jokes. But if you’re going to survive long enough to do that, first you’ll need to focus on the right reading material.” She leaned up onto the table, giving me a clear view of her cleavage as she pushed away the book I had been reading most recently. “Basilisks never appear above ground anymore. They’ve all moved into the sewers or fled back to Monsterworld. You would be better served reading these.”
I tore my eyes away from the display she was putting on for me, making eye contact with her first and silently acknowledging that I knew what she was doing with that low-cut shirt and the push-up bra. The innocent look she tried to put on faded into an unblinking challenge. A ‘what are you going to do about it, hotshot’ kind of look.
I liked it. A lot.
Turning to the books she set before me, I read the first title. “Vampires. Are we likely to find many of those in Eastport?”
Tabitha scoffed. “Wow. Every now and again I almost forget how new you are to this. Vampires live all over Eastport, my dude. Some of them work honest jobs but a lot of them are in charge of the drug scene. Junkies are easier to prey upon and nobody questions it when they black out and show up with holes in their body. I’m not sure a vampire is what we’re going after, but we’ll be in prime vampire territory for the hunt so it’s better to have you prepared. Here, chapter 17 goes into what to look for when…”
I leaned back in my chair and let her words wash over me, absorbing both the meaning of what she was saying and what she was doing here. The time of Tabitha being pissed at me seemed to have passed. She was deciding that her best chance to see me through the weekend and thus avoid getting another permanent mark on her record—or the paperwork my death would create—was to stop beating me up and start focusing on bringing me up to speed.
I ate it up. Every word. The fact that she was here, trying. The skimpy outfit she was wearing while she did it. All of it.
She was interested in me too, I could tell the second our eyes met after that last fight in the ring. But instead of coming out and saying it, she was laying down a challenge and the rules were pretty clear. Prove yourself as a monster hunter and survive your first mission, and maybe we can explore whatever this is further.
Alright Tabby, game on.