Tommy had expected that if the chip was damaged, it would merely be a human disguise that amplified her natural abilities. What he was about to confront and witness this night was something he could never have prepared for. The chip that gave her, her human form greatly hamstrung her abilities in certain feats, such as brute strength, smell, and hearing while in that state.

  "Oh, fuck." At this point, he realized he made a grave error by toying with her so much. Still somewhat confident, halfway through her transformation, he began to cautiously run towards her in an attempt to correct his mistake.

  That's when Tiff got to watch what Tommy was talking about without her face being mercilessly bashed in. As she was reverting back to her original state, she was watching him switch things up, physically using the nanomachines.

  She watched as the silvery fluid began to rapidly flow out of the pores of his forearm, coating it and his hand. It looked like mercury running down a slope, then hardening into some weird metallic armor material with flex points at the joints. The silvery fluid reformed his hand into a large bony rat paw with hooked claws glinting in the moonlight.

  Her five-foot-one shortstack body was no more; she had grown to a beastly buff six-foot-one, though she was still shorter than Tommy for now. He moved in fast to close the gap, raking his hooked claws across her face. His nanite-enhanced metallic claws cut her deeply, tearing out huge chunks of her cheek and nearly slicing her newly formed muzzle off.

  She gingerly grasped her dangling snout, pressing it back to where it needed to be. She winced at the brief pain before it was quickly replaced with what looked like peace and relief, as if a sedative had kicked in. The bone, tissue, and muscle started repairing themselves. The wounds stitched together and closed, transforming from mortal gouges to kitten scratches before disappearing altogether.

  She opened her mouth as wide as she could, moving her jaw side to side to work out the stiffness in the newly formed muscles and tendons, then snapped her jaws at Tommy with a smile on her face, making him jump.

  Her emerald green eyes peered down at him as she steadily grew taller, her muscles rippling and bulging. The tight fabric of her once-long dress shrank right before Tommy's eyes, highlighting every ripple. Her broken bones reconstructed, her broken teeth were replaced by freshly sharp canines, and her joints popped and cracked, each leg contorting unnaturally as the bones twisted and realigned. With a grotesque final snap, her legs reversed below the knees, giving her an eerie, predatory stance.

  He reared back and swung with all his might, aiming for her gut. His encased fist cracked and fractured, blood seeping from the cracks in the metal as his hand was crushed by his own armor. The blow was enough to unsettle her stomach.

  *Urrrrp!* "Oh, excuse me!" she said, putting a hand to her mouth.

  Tommy, on the other hand, fell to his knees, howling in pain like a wraith, clutching his shattered wrist. Still encased, he released the nanobots to liquefy and reabsorb the damaged armor, revealing the mushy mess that was now his right hand. After seeing the damage, he re-encased the hand to keep everything together for later repair.

  He watched in shock and horror, sweat pouring from his brow as he became a nervous mess, seeing how events were unfolding. In the blink of an eye, everything was falling to pieces right in front of him as she changed and shifted, with every bit of damage he dealt to her being erased in seconds. The face he had carved and broken fused back together without a trace of his work. It eventually dawned on him what kind of creature he was looking at, and he started to mumble, gradually talking louder.

  "What the hell are you doing on this mud ball?!? Your kind's supposed to be extinct, dead, wiped from the universe!" he started yelling at Tiff in disbelief, backing up steadily from her clasping his arm.

  "I get that a lot, and you called me dense..." she said, grinning,showing her fresh canines.

  He stepped back. Her transformation was complete, her eight-and-a-half-foot frame now towering over him. In a blur of motion, she kneed him in the midsection, knocking the wind out of him and doubling him over, gasping. His eyes bulged from the blow as he fell to his knees once again.

  "Aw, that was just a bump. I thought you said I couldn’t hurt you? Now let’s see how durable you are against someone bigger," she growled, holding a balled fist in front of her and cracking her knuckles. Then she switched to her other hand, glowering as her teeth bared. She looked down at Tommy, who shrank back as she rose to her full height.

  Her once-beautiful burgundy gown, looked little more than a babydoll lingerie top instead of a dress. The slit on the side, which originally ran from her right ankle up to her hip, now extended from her midsection instead. The hem of the garment, which had once stopped at her ankles, now hovered just above the base of her tail. Her panties had shrank into nothing more than a tight white thong, with the waistband digging into her flesh with tufts of hair poking out all around what remained of it.

  “Now, how about round two? Want a free hit?” Tiffany asked, her toothy grin slowly spreading as she looked down at Tommy. He stood motionless, his gaze blank, unmoving. The weight of the moment began pressing down on him; heavily.

  *This would be a dream come true under different circumstances. I thought lupas were just mythical beasts from bedtime stories. The chance to catch one to sell would be a trapper's ultimate dream, a prize they'd gladly give a limb for,* he mused, glancing thoughtfully at his own arm. He takes a moment to collect himself.

  "Well, this has certainly taken an unexpected turn. Is there really no way we could negotiate a contract for you to work with me?"

  Tiff froze. The sheer audacity of this slick little bastard wiped the smirk clean from her face—and for a moment, she was speechless.

  *The heck? The balls on this one....after all this, he's still trying to sweet-talk me into joining?* she thought to herself, stunned in disbelief.

  "You must be joking. You've tried to kill me, and without hesitation, killed whoever was inconvenient to you. And you still think I'd want to work with or for you? Are you daft?"

  "Perhaps a little," he said, holding up his left hand towards Tiffany, his thumb and index finger about a hair apart, dropping it back by his side after a moment. "Maybe I can sweeten the deal by leaving your friend be for the time being. Maybe you can sweet-talk him into turning a blind eye to our...trade deals," he said with that creepy smile carved back on his face again.

  Tiffany seemed to contemplate this and weigh her options, standing there hunched down, arms crossed, tapping a clawed finger on the bottom half of her muzzle like a human tapping their chin in thought.

  "Hmm, so if I work with you, I get paid threefold, and you leave the human detective out of this. Am I right to assume?" she queried in a deep, gruff voice.

  "Absolutely!" he said, snapping his fingers, his creepy smile starting to break character with small beads of sweat forming on the top of his bald forehead. "I'll even draw up the biometric data, transfer papers, and everything! The GSA will have the documentation of a real transfer, so everything will be one hundred percent legit."

  "I dunno—don’t think my boss would appreciate a transfer like this," she said, tapping a claw on her muzzle, still mulling things over.

  She clasped her hands in front of her like a supervisor about to give some bad news, with her eyes closed and facing her clasped hands.

  "As generous as all of your offers have been, I don't think in good conscience I could go through with this offer."

  During the entire conversation, Tommy had his broken hand behind his back. In a smooth motion, the nanomachines encasing his broken hand re-liquefied and reformed into a sharp scythe blade.

  "I understand; some people cannot be reasoned with no matter the offer."

  That creepy carved smile appeared on his face again. A normal person, even augmented, would've been dead from the next blow. Tommy put everything he had into this final move. Quicker than a flash, a blur moved to cut through Tiffany, her eyes still closed as if she was still pondering with her hands clasped.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  What happened next left Tommy befuddled for a split second—a moment that seemed to stretch forever, as if the world itself had frozen, slowly advancing frame by frame, moment by moment. He thought his blow had landed, yet there she stood, calm and untouched, a weapon glinting in her left hand, eyes still closed.

  Tommy was in shock—not just confused, but reeling. He stared at both of her hands: one gripped a weapon, the other dripped with blood, her claws slowly retracting back into her fingers.

  It took him a few seconds to register what the weapon was. His eyes bulged in disbelief, stacking on top of the shock still coursing through him. Then he looked down at his arm—or where it should’ve been. Just above the elbow, it was cut clean. The rest was in Tiffany's hand.

  She was examining the blade almost in the same curious way he had examined hers before breaking it.

  "I want to say this looks like a nice knife, but like everything else you peddle, it's just a cheap imitation. Here, looks like you could use a *hand,*" she said, tossing the limb back to Tommy. He just stood there with a blank, clueless expression on his face as the limb hit him in the chest and fell to the ground with a wet *thunt*, laying at his feet.

  He looked at the limb before him, then back at his stump, back and forth. It didn't seem like it was registering to him what had happened. If the nanomachines hadn't quickly liquified and resealed the stump, stopping the bleeding moments after the limb was severed, he would've bled out by now.

  His bravado and any confidence were stripped away in an instant, like his arm laying at his feet. He relied heavily on his augments and nanotech to have an advantage over his opponents. In this case, though, it wasn't cutting it. His brief arsenal against a clearly more powerful opponent was weighing heavily on him.

  "I need to get out of here. Maybe if I make it back, I can get some backup. This shouldn't be happening! I should have her outclassed in strength and speed. I mean, I've single-handedly taken down a freaking Grizmonger while it was in the prototype phase! I need to get out now. Maybe I can throw her off my trail and take that damnable cop in one go."

  Tiffany was watching his facial expressions shift and go through a vast array of changes. The one that surprised her was the last one—he went from panicked to cool and collected, his steely eyes watching her. She carefully watched him, muscle spasms, any sudden movements, and the way he shifted his weight.

  He straightened up as tall as he could, dusting his suit off with his good hand.

  "It's been a real pleasure, Ms. Rafuros, but I have prior engagements to attend to. Since this one had a less-than-desirable outcome. Until next time!" In the same movement, he gave Tiffany a saucy salute and performed what looked like a flash step. To normal people, it appeared as though he phased out of existence. To her, he zipped off so fast, he left an afterimage.

  She was left speechless, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.

  "That son of a... hey—wait!"

  "Shit, that slippery rat knows how to flash step?!" she thought.

  Her brain tryed to process the WTF moment of Tommy just giving her the brush-off; it felt like her mind was floating in a sea of fog. She quickly shook her head from side to side, then topped it off by slapping the sides of her face with both hands to snap herself out of the daze and put her game face on.

  "That arrogant prick! Just wait till I catch up to him. I'll rip his other arm off and beat him with the bloody end!" She growled to herself. Sprinting across the clearing, she launched herself into the trees, moving from branch to branch, following the haze of his scent wafting through the night sky.

  Tiffany's senses narrowed to shades of grey as she tracked, the only color being Tommy's trail—a crimson mist winding through the forest. His scent was like a plume ribbon of musk and blood, leading her through the chaos of the forest.

  "I should’ve caught up with him by now. Where the heck did he go?" She slowed down almost to a crawl when the crimson mist trail went from that to a crimson cloud.

  "The heck? Is he trying to bleed out?"

  Now Tommy was starting to use his head. Figuring he'd be tracked by scent, he, not too far from Tiffany's location, unsealed his wound, whipping his hand on his stump. Wincing from the pain, he proceeded to fling his blood in all directions.

  "Let's see that bitch follow me now," he thought to himself while the silvery fluid recovered and sealed his wound off.

  "Now to find that nuisance of a detective," he thought. He resumed his lightning pace through the trees, skipping over branches. The sound of a lone motorcycle echoed through the forest as it cut through the corners banging off the redline, making its way to the bottom of the mountain.

  Tiff stopped on a branch, her senses being overwhelmed from Tommy's scent being scattered everywhere. It was like he was everywhere at once.

  "Well, I didn't expect it to be easy," she huffed, closing her eyes, her large pointed furry ears twitching-searching.

  "Ah, there you are, you bastard. Should've known you'd still go after the human instead of scurrying home like a good little rat," shaking her head in somewhat disappointment.

  Now that she had her bearings, she picked up the pace, skipping from branch to branch, following the sound of the motorcycle.

  Tommy, still ahead, somehow sensed she wasn't far behind. He paused on the next tree branch he landed on and whipped more blood off his wound, spreading his scent to hide his location.

  "I don't know how she's still tracking me, but maybe I can throw her off and surprise her," he thought, hiding behind the thick trunk of the tree. He could hear her closing in fast, and he squatted down in wait.

  As she barreled through the trees, he waited, knowing he had probably one last chance for a good hit—to try to knock her off balance.

  As she leapt into the air toward the tree he was hiding behind, Tommy jumped up, timing his move just right.

  They were both airborne when she spotted something like a large tree limb in her peripheral vision—her reflexes kicking in.

  Tommy, in a smooth, fluid motion, leaped up, shifting his leg to his silver nano armor and attempting to roundhouse kick Tiffany in the face to knock her off balance.

  The kick connected, but not how he was hoping. At the last second before it did, she opened her mouth wide.

  When Tommy realized his error, it was too late. Tiffany bit down, and hard—*craaaack, crunch*.

  Tommy howled in pain as her large canines crunched through his armor, sinking into his leg.

  He dangled and jerked from her vice-like bite as she gracefully landed on the branch she was aiming for. Like a dog with a chew toy, she shook him from side to side. Then, in a quick snap of her neck, she jerked her head straight up, releasing him and causing Tommy to flail in the air like a rag doll.

  As he came back down, she caught him with the tips of her claws digging into his sternum cutting through some of his ribs. *Blaaargh-cough* Tommy vomited blood in Tiffany's face, coating it thoroughly. She lifted Tommy up and, with a quick flick of her wrist, lightly tossed him in the air. In a fluid motion, she ejected her claws, raking them through his midsection .

  The sound of a motorcycle snapped her out of her bloodlust-driven rage. Her claws had separated Tommy at his midsection, his bottom half tumbling off into the woods, his top half gurgling and coughing unintelligible curses at Tiffany as he fell to the road below.

  Moments later, she heard the screech of tires and the revving of the engine as the rider downshifted to dodge the unexpected obstruction.

  "Great, all this to protect and save a guy, and now I probably killed the poor bastard by dropping a dead body on him," she said, facepalming herself. She noticed when she pulled her hand back that her palm was wet from the blood that Tommy spewed on her. With a sigh, she wiped her hand off on what little fabric was left covering her breasts.

  "*Sigh* this night just keeps getting better and better."

  "Well...let's see if I can try and salvage this... yaaay; maximum fudruckling effort," she mumbled sarcastically, lazily circling her index finger in a 'woopty do' motion.