On the Hunt

My claws slice through the raindrops as I try to impale this damned horse, but she leaps out of my range a second before my claws tear through its body. I bellow as I rush forward and drive my knee at her head, only for frustration to kick in as she dodges to the side. I spin on my heels and lunge at her once more, but as I approach I notice that she's reaching into her bag.

She pulls out the twin candy cane shaped blades that she used on me the last time we fought. I smile at the sight of them, because not only do they look like stupid weapons, they'll also do nothing to me or my claws. I thrust my fist towards her head once more, but as my hand approaches I feel pain bite at my fingers. I pull my hand back to see that she's stabbed me with a small needle that she had been hiding under the candy canes, with a small vial on the back of it.

That must be poison or some kind of anesthetic. She's trying to slow me down or completely incapacitate me before I can do any real damage. Nice try bub, but that vial's way too small to be able to do anything to me. To prove my point I shake out my hand and give her a smirk. She doesn't do anything in response, but I can see her eyes looking at where she stabbed me.

"Don't bother thinking that little serum of yours is going to bother me. I've had far worse things in my system," I inform her before letting out another roar and hurling myself towards her. I aim for her chest this time and extend my arms as far as they can go to ensure the hit, but once again she's just outside of my reach. I snarl as the frustration starts to build. She's nimble, I'll give her that.

I decide to switch things up a bit and instead of going for another claw strike I throw out my leg towards her. She reacts a split second too late and only manages to bring up her arms to defend herself. My kick hits home and the little pony is sent flying across the grass. I race towards her the moment she hits the ground, not going to give her the chance to get back up. I leap into the air over her and descend with both claws aimed at her chest.

In what I think is a desperation move she flings her twin blades towards my eyes. I lower my skull to deflect the knives, but the moment I do so she rolls out of my field of view. I crash down and impale the earth where she had been a second ago. I slowly raise my eyes to look at the pony, who's holding a hoof to her chest, clearing taking in just how close she was to death.

"I'd prefer not to kill ya, I hope you know that," I tell her as I draw my claws from the earth and clash them together to get rid of the dirt that had clung to them. "But I know that look in yer eyes. You're not going to stop fighting me, not until you kill me or I kill you. And you can't kill me. So this can only end one way. Sorry to do this, but it's the only-"

The pony doesn't let me finish what I'm saying. She quickly reaches into her bag and hurls a small jar at me while clamping her jaw shut. I shake my head slightly before slicing through the jar with my claws, shattering the glass and causing the grey liquid that was inside to cover my claws. I look down at the claw in interest before I realize that the grey stuff is expanding across my claws.

The pony smirks at me before throwing a second jar at my head. This time I duck out of the way, leaping a bit of a way back to gain some distance between us. When I'm certain that I'm out of her range, I glance down at my right claw once again. The grey stuff has completely covered it, rendering my claws useless. That was her plan, to have me slice that stuff and get it on my claws. It seems to be spongy in nature, meaning that I can't break it. Great, now I'm down to one claw for the time being.

"Alright punk, ya got lucky with that one," I say with a nod to her. She spits to the side once more before reaching into the bag again, pulling out throwing knives. She then chucks them towards me, forcing me to act. I deflect the first one with the very sponge that she trapped my claw in. The blade gets embedded in the sponge, but doesn't seem to cut through it. Good thing I didn't try to cut this stuff off with my other claw.

I deflect two more of the knives before moving my head to the side to avoid the final one. I take a sniff of it as it passes by and smell a strange plant and chemical mix on it. Probably another poison or drug for me. Have to assume that all of her weapons are coated in some kind of toxin. That makes this a bit more difficult.

I've allowed her too much room. Time to get in close. I crouch down and tear towards her as fast as I can go. I hear her yelp at my sudden speed as she reaches back into her bag. It's too late. I'm already upon her. I slash at her with my left hand and she barely ducks underneath in time. But now she's off balance. I throw out my right hand and slam my claws into her gut. But to my annoyance she's only sent staggering backwards instead of impaled. Seems the spongy stuff also absorbs impacts. Dammit.

The pony whips out two more daggers from within the bag and lunges at me with them. I can't help but chuckle at the fact that she's willingly stepping into my range. I raise my good claw to deflect the first knife strike and immediately regret doing so. I let out a roar as electricity courses through my veins, causing me to stagger backwards.

The pony presses her advantage, letting out a cry as she plunges one of her knives into my chest. I roar with pain as the electricity within the knife courses through my body. My instincts kicked in, allowing me to plant my boot in the pony's chest and kick her away from me. I then reach down with my right hand and tear the knife out of my chest, snarling as I toss it off to the side.

"Alright, playtime's over!" I bellow at her as I lunge forward, slashing high while my leg comes up from below. The pony makes the smart move and moves out of the way of my claw, so my leg catches her in the chest and sends her sprawling into the grass. As she falls though, she throws out her second knife at my head. I move my arm up to deflect the knife and the knife embeds itself in my arm.

But then why don't I feel it? I lower my arm and glance down at it to see the knife clearing sticking out of my skin. It's in pretty deep. After a moment of waiting for the pain I grab the hilt and yank the knife out of my arm, waiting for the pain. Nothing. For some reason, I don't feel the sharp pain or the screaming of my nerves. But as I gaze at the wound that has blood streaming blood out of it, I come to a far more horrifying realization.

I'm not healing.

For a good ten seconds I gaze down at the wound, but it doesn't show any signs of stitching itself up like it always does. I then turn my gaze to the pony, who has the coldest smile upon her face. She's figured out a way to nullify my healing factor. She figured out how to hurt me and keep me hurt.

I then crouch down and take up my fighting stance once more, but with much more caution in my movements. Seems I was wrong about what I said to her. Now she just might be able to kill me. But I can still kill her. So that's one thing that hasn't changed. This battle is still to the death.

And for the first time, my life is on the line.

||X||

He knows. From his stance and the look he's giving me he knows that he's no longer healing. Good. I want him to be scared. We might not be able to heal like him, but we've got something that he doesn't. Magic. Twilight found a way to use magic to make it so the body doesn't realize it's damaged. Doesn't know it's hurt. And if it doesn't think it's hurt, then it wouldn't have any reason to heal, would it? How do you like-?

Can't think like that. I have no idea how long that magic medicine is going to last, especially since I'm sure the healing factor of that thing will be combating it. I reach into my saddle bag and whip out the donut discs. I can't risk fighting that guy up close anymore and with his ability to heal gone, I doubt that he'll want to get too close either.

But once again the creature proves me wrong as he lunges towards me, his one claw reflecting light despite the rain that's starting to pour down around us. His other claw is still stuck in the bog mud, but it won't be long till the mud dries. And once it does, he'll be able to get his other claw free. Need to finish him now.

I let the donuts fly towards the creature, the little razor discs slicing through the air as they home in on their target. The creature moves his claw at speeds I can barely see and the two discs shatter into pieces. In another moment he'll be upon me. I need to step it up now.

I reach into the bag, which I notice is starting to feel really empty. I grab hold of the Thunder Bolts and attach them to my hooves. The moment the beast is on me I duck under his claw strike before ramming one of the bolts right under his chin. The bolts generate a small explosion that snaps his head back and nearly knocks the beast over, but at the last second he rolls and lands on his feet.

I motion for him to bring it on as I start to hop back and forth on my hind hooves, jabbing at raindrops with my forehooves. In my line of work, you spent the first three years of your life learning hoof to hoof combat. And no matter how long you go without training, you never forget what they taught you. Because they beat it into you.

The creature realizes what I'm asking and gives me a smirk. He then advances once again, throwing a kick towards my head that I manage to just avoid. He follows it up with a claw strike aimed at my throat, but once more I'm able to get myself out of range just in time.

When we were studying the footage of him fighting back in the classroom, I learned his ranges more than anything else. I learned them so well that I could clearly image our battle in my mind and constantly worked out almost every scenario that he might try to kill me. I know from how he's standing or where his body is angled how he's going to strike at me. So I can get out of the way just in time. And from the expression that he's making, I'm starting to make him mad. Not good.

I catch movement out of my left eye and bring up both of my forehooves to catch his right arm. I didn't expect him to attack with this limb since the claw was covered, but I forgot just how crazy this guy is. I see him pulling back his free claw, which is aimed right at my side. With no other options, I look right into his face before spitting out a small blade that I had hidden in my teeth.

The creature doesn't react as the knife jabs right underneath of his eye. He doesn't feel pain anymore. But he knows that every blow I inflict upon him is another blow closer to finally putting him in the grave. He backs and reaches up to tear the knife out from beneath his eye. He snarls before tossing it to the side, his eyes slightly redder than before. I pull out another blade, my last one, and motion for him to bring it on again.

As he charges towards me I plan my next move. If I can get past his free claw, then I might be able to stab him in the heart. I have to hope that his heart is in the same place as the other humans, but even if it isn't he'll probably back off before being stabbed. He thrusts at me with his free claw and I duck under it, everything going according to plan. But when I stab up at him is when things go wrong.

He turns his body right before the knife enters where his heart is supposed to be located, so instead of killing him in a single strike I've now struck one of his ribs. The knife catches in his flesh and tears through his flesh, but then it sticks in his skin and is torn from my grasp. And now I'm in his range, with no way to defend myself. I look up to see a pair of red eyes looking down at me before his left arm slashes at me. I leap back as fast as I can, but it's not fast enough.

Pain so sharp slashes through my arm, causing me to cry out in pain as I crash to the ground a few feet away from the creature. I've been cut plenty of times, but never by something that sharp. It feels like I've been cut to my very core. I retain enough of my senses to toss down my only smoke pellet to create some cover for me to stagger away from him, clutching at the wound.

Once I'm free of the smoke, I glance down to see that blood is pouring down my left arm. I can't feel it. I can't move it. That's not good. The rain picks up and beats the smoke cloud out of existence, allowing me and the creature to see each other once more. My heart chills as he slashes at the mud with its claws, slicing the stuff off to free his other claw. My eyes shrink as it retracts and extends his claw twice, before he turns towards me with a sinister smile.

I can't afford to make any mistakes. We're both losing blood, but only one of us has the ability to heal from any injury. So if I can't kill him before his ability to heal returns, then I'm as good as dead. He reaches down and tears the knife out of his chest, causing blood to gush from the wound. But he's still smiling, with eyes that are now a bright crimson.

We both take up our respective fighting stances, except that I'm fighting with one arm while he's got both claws. But if I fall here, then he gets to Imp. And that can't happen. So I'll stop him here...or die trying.