Sensation returned to his body. Gwil tried to sit up, but something shell-like encased his skin. Instead, pop.

  Gwil burst back to size. The air needled at his skin. He looked down at himself and saw that he was naked—save for a few charred tatters and one shoe—and his skin was the shiny red color of raw beef.

  Challe screamed behind him, and Claws screamed in front of him, though Gwil suspected Claws’s scream had less to do with Gwil’s flayed-lobster-like appearance and more to do with the fact that his fingers had been blown off.

  Gwil put his hands on his head and turned to Challe. “Aw man, you destroyed my clothes and made me bald, but you didn’t fix my head.”

  Challe had fallen to her knees and was choking on her sobs.

  “What the— I’m okay. It’s fine, Challe. Accidents happen.”

  “Wait, wait,” Tezca shouted. “Everyone stop.”

  Gwil turned around again and saw Tezca unwrapping the shawl from his robe.

  “I’d never force a man to fight in the nude,” Tezca said, handing out the green shawl for Gwil to take. “Nothing would be so uncouth.”

  “Thanks!” Gwil said. The shawl wasn’t much, but he was able to wrap it around his waist like a towel.

  “Gods, man,” Tezca muttered. “I saw you there—you looked like a gingerbread cookie left in the oven for eighteen hours. How did you heal so fast?”

  Gwil shrugged.

  “My claws!” Claws howled. He held a twisted mess of melted metal in his mangled hands. At the same time, Challe loosed a shrill scream.

  Tezca sneered and looked at Gwil. “Let’s give them a moment, eh?” he said with a sigh.

  Gwil nodded and went over to Challe. She looked at him, wide-eyed, her irises colored their normal brown, without a hint of green. “No, no, no. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.”

  “Huh? Challe, it’s nothing. I’m sure it’s really tough to control lightning. Don’t worry about it.”

  Gwil winced, the bright green light burning his new and still-sensitive eyeballs. “Hey, is that statue messing with you? We can destroy it if you want.”

  “No!” she shrieked as she lunged at him. “Kill my killer. You must be the one.”

  Gwil jumped back as Challe scrabbled toward him, trying to wrap up his ankles. She seized and then went still.

  Tezca knelt beside Claws. “The claws aren’t the weapons, Claws. They’re you!” He put his hands on the man’s cheeks and wisps of silver-prismatic Nirva drifted out. “Use my Nirva to grow your fingernails. Make your own claws.”

  Claws held up his hands. His fingers finished regrowing, but the nails continued to grow and grow, like meat coming out of a grinder. Claws marveled at his hands, turning them over to reveal that each of his nails was as long and as thick as a hunting knife.

  “Ewww!” Gwil said. “That’s so gross.”

  “Self…” Claws said reverently. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before? You didn’t think I was ready?”

  “No. I never told you because it’s gross. But I need you to fight with me instead of crying like a baby.”

  Inspired, Gwil clenched his jaw and scrunched up his face, concentrating. He pushed all his Nirva into his head, into his scalp, into every single one of his hair follicles. His neck tautened as he strained. It was a bit like trying to shit out of the top of his head.

  Poof! He gasped with relief, then ran his fingers through a mop of soft, lush hair. Gwil laughed. It might’ve been even longer than before, and it was much cleaner.

  The erratic thunder stirred into an uplifting rhythm and Challe stood, eyes again aglow. Gwil could hear a faint whine coming from the Goddess statue. He glared at it. Hmm. Probably gonna need to destroy that thing.

  Claws held up his hands, waggling his disgusting fingernails. “Self, I really want to shred these two, but I am a little worried. Perhaps we should forget the statue. Yuma could arrive any minute now.”

  “My boy, you have a lot to learn,” Tezca said, falling into a stance. “That would be uncouth. We can spare a bit of time for our dignity. That divine corpse is precious to me.”

  Beside Gwil, Challe’s breath was heavy and raspy, animalistic. She was getting wild again, and lightning sparked out of her body, so he decided he’d better not shrink.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Good thing, because Challe immediately sent a web of lightning crawling over the floor. Bolts formed in the air above, striking down at random, scorching the ground and spitting bits of rubble.

  Claws jumped up to sit on Tezca’s shoulders and the larger man pressed forward, stepping through the lightning like it was just a puddle.

  Challe floated upward, and from the way her body hung, it seemed the wreathe of storm clouds was lifting her.

  Claws cackled as the two-man behemoth bore down on Gwil. He reached out, slashing with his nails while simultaneously growing them even longer, nearly to sword length.

  Gwil skirted back, keeping an eye on Challe. He went to the dead warrior bodies piled along the wall and retrieved two clubs. One he took from the hand of a man who had a chair rammed through his torso.

  Hearing Tezca’s heavy footsteps, Gwil whipped around, swinging. He got a good slash along the width of Tezca’s belly—the blade got stuck! Gwil tried to wrench it free, but through the rip in the fabric, he saw how two rolls of Tezca’s fat had become like lips, embedding the club within.

  “Wagyu-grade Tenderizer Technique!”

  As Gwil dove away from the attack, he realized that Tezca had used his healing to envelop the club with his stomach. Cool!

  Above, Challe, hanging limp, was being wrenched around while lightning erupted from her body. The strikes were erratic; the stench of burnt flesh filled the hall as a bolt incinerated a few corpses.

  Gwil dropped his club and pop. He took the chance to shrink, only to the size of a cat, and moved close to Tezca. Just as he hoped, Tezca could not resist the opportunity to go for a body slam.

  As Claws tumbled off Tezca’s shoulders, Gwil came out of his roll with the club back in hand.

  Pop. Pop. He blinked between the weaving fingernail-swords and smashed Claws on the back of the head with the club.

  Gwil went for a second hit—too greedy. Flopping on the ground, Tezca grabbed Gwil by one ankle, pulled him closer, and grabbed the other ankle too.

  Dangling Gwil upside down—and backward, so Gwil faced him—Tezca drew himself up onto his knees. “Wishbone Technique!”

  The agony came slowly as Tezca ripped him in half bit by bit. His groin tore. His hips cracked before shattering.

  “Challe,” Gwil whimpered.

  She appeared with a flash, landing on the ground in between Tezca’s arms. Challe fired two bolts of lightning into both of Tezca’s eyes, causing him to scream in pain. Then she rammed all four of her hands into his agape mouth, burying them up to the wrists. Blood streamed as Tezca gnashed his teeth.

  Green lightning exploded inside Tezca’s mouth, wave after wave, shooting down his throat. The large man’s body convulsed wildly. That made things worse for Gwil because as Tezca’s arms spasmed, he ripped Gwil’s body in multiple directions instead of one.

  But then Tezca lost his grip and Gwil fell. He dragged himself as far as he could and then shrank—toward his head for a bit of extra distance. Nirva swelled through his bottom half.

  “Fucking hell,” he squeaked. Feeling his lower innards leaking out that way was horrid.

  It took about a minute for his Nirva to cure the nasty sluicing sensation, at which point he stood up and, pop, grew back to size. Still tender, he hobbled over to where Challe and Tezca were struggling with each other on the floor. Her hands were still in his mouth, but she wasn’t shooting lightning anymore.

  Claws was balled up in a tangle, because he’d stabbed himself in the thigh with one of his fingernails. Gwil kicked him in the face as he passed and then picked up another bladed club.

  He flipped it around and rammed the narrower handle-end into Tezca’s gaping mouth. Wedging it on the teeth, Gwil jacked the man’s mouth open, and Challe ripped her hands out.

  She rolled away and then went still.

  “Pig in a Blanket Technique!” Tezca yelled, throwing his arms around Gwil and dragging him down.

  It was then that Gwil realized one boon of his backward-facing head—the efficacy with which he could headbutt. He arched his back as Tezca pulled him in and slammed the back of his head into Tezca’s face.

  Pop. He slipped away and was again served by being able to see behind him. Claws had recovered and was crawling toward him.

  Gwil ran at him and then threw himself into a tumble as he embiggened. He rolled up Claws’s fingernails like they were a ramp—getting his torso sliced along the way—and kneed him in the face.

  The blow put the man down flat on his stomach. Gwil twisted around while focusing Nirva into his hands. He grabbed two fingernails with each hand and bent them backward, folding them along the nailbed until they tore.

  Tezca watched, biting down on his lower lip, nearly swallowing his chin. “Oof. I did not give sufficient consideration to that vulnerability.”

  Gwil threw away the two keratin blades and sidled up to Tezca.

  He turned around to face him. “You get a free shot if you fix my head.”

  Tezca jiggled his jowls with one hand, considering. “Deal.”

  Gwil rolled his shoulders and braced himself.

  “Pineapp—Pork Shank Technique! Bahaha!”

  Gwil heard his spine break but felt nothing. He dropped, spilling to the floor as if he were made of liquid. He tried to call Tezca a ‘stupid asshole’, but he couldn’t speak.

  Panic filled him when he tried and failed to shrink. His heart pounded in his ears. He could feel—dully—his Nirva working in his spine, but not fast enough.

  “Claws, go get the statue. Maybe rip off your other fingernails so you can carry it more effectively,” Tezca said. He put his foot on Gwil’s back, driving the heel down, interfering with the healing. “Uncouth of me to violate a deal, but you’re such an idiot for trusting me that I can convince myself it doesn’t count. Now… should I kill you or leave you to deal with Yuma?

  “Hmmm… There is something about you that I enjoy, but also, you’ve committed outrageous crimes against me. The real conundrum is that I don’t even know which of the two options is worse.”

  Squelch. Something wet and squishy and purple flopped down beside Gwil’s head.

  The snaketopus.

  Eight snakes hissed, dancing and snapping their jaws. Tezca staggered back and then fell onto his ass. He was panting, as if struggling to breathe. His jaw quivered. “O-Octavia?”

  The snaketopus crawled onto Gwil’s back and the eight snakes reared themselves up to their full heights. Gwil grinned, glad that he was facing in this direction.

  “Octavia?” Tezca cried.

  The snaketopus responded by aiming its underside and shooting a glob of ink at Tezca’s face. A few of the snakes nuzzled Gwil and licked his cheeks with their flickering tongues.

  “Nope,” Tezca said. “Nope, nope, nope. I’m done. I can’t handle another betrayal. Not today. Octavia, how could you do this to me? I’ve fed you the finest cuisine for years.”

  Pop. Gwil shrank, causing the snaketopus to plop onto the floor. The rush of Nirva burnt away… most of the numbness. He looked down at his spine and spotted the piece that was out of alignment. Alright, I’m coming around on this again. He banged the vertebra back into place and then grew to size.