The beast was moving fast on Azad and Xandra. Its mind and eyes had plenty of time to soak in what they were doing, as if in slow motion.

Xandra had her fists closed, her arms at her sides, and she was angrily screaming, facing towards the approaching beast. Veins protruded on the visible parts of her body, such as her neck and forearms.

She's using her power in a different way, I thought, but to what effect?

I couldn't tap into the fragment of the power to understand more than what I was seeing through the were-fox-frog-monster's eyes.

Xandra charged forward, the lake water at her shins splashing as she hurried closer.

Insane, I thought, does she want to speedrun dying?!

The beast bounded forward on all fours, splashing up huge swaths of lake water at the bank. In no time at all Xandra and the beast were within reach of each other. She had no weapons to use to fight, nothing to pierce or pulverize, cut, or burn with.

Up close, the beast's lava-like skin beneath the armour glowed red hot, turning the lake water beneath a fiery red too.

The beast's arm swiped. Xandra, with incredible deftness, dodged the attack, turning, and entering into a spin which stopped once her feet touched down on the lake water. The beast pursued, throwing more lunging swipes at her. Each one she dodged, but just barely, either moving to one side or the other, or bouncing backwards; slower than she might have thanks to the water sucking up some of her momentum.

What is she trying to achieve with this? I thought, She's only going to dodge until the beast lands a successful hit!

The beast chased her all the way to the upper lake bank.

Its fury growing, the beast did something wholly unexpected. Xandra had bounded back, and had flipped over backwards. But, before she could land, the beast did a motion like a lunging swipe. The distance was far too great for the swipe to land, but the slab of bone armor which was attached to the swiping arm came free. Worse, the underside of it was glowing hot and the whole of the bone began to grow bright, cracking, as if about to explode. The slab hit Xandra square in the gut, sending her hurtling back between two trees and into the forest.

Moments later the forest area she had fallen back into burst with fiery red flames. The bone-slab the beast had thrown must have exploded.

It's getting smarter, I thought, the beast is learning how to fight.

The beast kept its pursuit of Xandra, sensing that it must have dealt a killing blow. It leapt forward out of the lake water and over the bank into the upper forestation. It was as it did this that I realised what Xandra had just done.

She had drawn the monster away and had allowed Azad to get away safely. In that sense, she hadn't been trying to hurt the beast yet at all; just distract it.

The beast reached the section of the forest which was on fire. The flames weren't catching much on the surrounding trees, the impact zone and embers quickly dying.

The beast reared its way this way and that like a mad hunting dog, trying to find any sight, smell, or sound of Xandra.

It quickly found her.

Not too far off, lit by the dying flames around her, Xandra stood panting. There was blood at the corner of her mouth, and her stomach looked burned, but not as badly as I feared; maybe she had used the precious few seconds it had taken the beast to find her to heal some of the damage? Or maybe her rubbery skin was just that tough?

And then Xandra smiled, her eyes locked on the beast. She wiped the blood from her mouth with her index finger knuckle.

"Come on!" she shouted, "We don't have all night!"

She readied herself into another fighting stance, ready for more. The beast wasted no time accepting the challenge. It witch-frog-scream-screeched and charged towards her, tearing up the grass and soil and gripping onto tree bark, tearing it away as easily as if it were tissue paper.

Briefly, I allowed myself to hope that maybe Xandra wasn't as helpless as I first thought.

Xandra faked out the beast by breaking into a sprint and bounding off at high speed, instead of charging ahead like she did last time.

The beast gave chase. It was bigger, and heavier, but that did little to prevent it from having the raw power to catch up to her. No longer in the confines of the factories before which had slowed it down, the beast was free to roam, to gain momentum, to stretch its limbs into full powerful movements.

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Xandra moved down low as the beast neared her. She picked something up off the ground. The beast dove, and swiped at her; the swipe landed, cutting into her upper left shoulder.

Xandra screamed, and lost her footing, and under the force of the momentum she tumbled through the foliage before landing hard against the base of a tree, her back and head slamming hard enough to send a shower of leaves down from the canopy above.

Before any of those leaves could touch the ground she got herself up again. She was holding a long stick, which was a branch fallen from one of the trees. She used it to support her getting to her feet.

The smell of blood and burned flesh was driving the beast ever more wild. It knew it would soon win, that it only had to land one decisive blow and it was all over.

But the beast didn't just want to win by ferocity alone. It seemed to have gotten a taste for playing things smart. It threw out its left arm, making the same swiping motion it had before. The same heated bone slab attack from before occurred.

This time Xandra was ready for it, though she was still greatly dazed from being cut and sent hurtling into the tree. She staggered to her left, as if drunk, and this proved just enough for the bone-armor slab to strike into the tree Xandra had hit before. The slab built with heat from within, and then exploded itself and the tree it was attached to at the same instant. The fiery explosion lit up the forest even more.

During this commotion the beast hadn't noticed Xandra's next move. She had thrown the stick she was holding. And it landed, with deft precision, straight into the beast's shoulder right where there was no bone armor. The beast felt the sting of being stabbed, but the tough leathery skin, and bulbing heat it gave off, burnt away the remains of the ineffectual stick. And even then, the stick had accomplished little more than a superficial annoyance which was healed within seconds.

But it had distracted the beast enough to lose track of Xandra again. It listened and smelled the air; the mixture of dying flames and the burnt stench filling the forest made keeping track of Xandra difficult. It didn't seem like she was trying to go unnoticed however, because the sound of her running back towards the lake bank met the beast's ears.

The beast screeched, turned, and set off bounding through the forest after her.

Back to the lake bank. Azad nowhere to be seen. But Xandra stood at the edge of the lake facing back towards the forest where the beast had just emerged.

Why isn't she running away? I thought.

It didn't seem possible to me that someone would want to fight this hard for me. Azad had taken me down, because he had his dream. His mission to be the world's greatest hero. That had little to do with me. I had been someone in need, but also an enemy to be conquered at the same time.

But Xandra, who had been willing to go on the run on her own, who, it seemed to me, valued her independence and freedom; why was it that she was so willing to risk her life like this? It couldn't have all been for me, could it? What was it she felt she needed to prove?

The beast stopped at the fringe of the forest. The last attack which had landed had made it ever so slightly wary of things being thrown at it. Perhaps also, it was curious how Xandra, so small, so ineffectual, had managed to survive the fight up to this point. It hadn't expected her to evade it so much.

The beast's keen eyes saw something strange then. Xandra was holding something again. It had the shape of a jagged icicle, but it wasn't made out of ice. That was easy enough to tell because the object Xandra was holding was crimson.

After sniffing the air the beast figured out what some of the strange new object was made out of.

Blood. Xandra's blood. And then it made sense to me. The beast had cut her shoulder, and that opening had caused Xandra's blood to leak down her arm. Maybe it was because she had changed the substance of her body that she was able to have greater control over her own blood and had turned it into a weapon.

This made sense because she could have taken the time apart from the beast to heal the wound at her shoulder. By the look of it she had healed the wound just a little, but the blood was still leaking. But she had given the blood a new purpose.

Something changed for the were-fox-frog-monster. It's mind searched for something, I could feel it with my own mind.

The beast calmed a little and then rose up onto two legs. It grew back the missing pieces of bone-armor it had flung before. It cracked its knuckles, and cocked and popped an ache in its neck.

Then, slowly, it began to walk forwards. Each step from the beast scorched the ground, burning the soil and grass beneath it. Xandra backed up several steps into the water. She moved back until she was up to her shins in the water.

The lake water sizzled at the beast's burning soles touching down in it, causing white vapors to rise up.

"Come on then!" Xandra shouted.

The beast didn't rise to the bait. It continued moving forward slowly, its towering body moving deeper into the water. It knew what Xandra was planning to do and wasn't going to give her an easy opening.

"Fine!" Xandra shouted.

She brought the pole-like-length of solid-blood over her knee, snapping it into two pieces. She broke into a sprint to the right, and the beast turned.

As expected, Xandra threw one of the blood-spears with powerful speed and precision.

The beast saw the piece moving through the air and caught it just before it could land somewhere in its throat-sack. It squeezed, breaking the blood-spear into pieces.

Xandra threw the second and again the beast moved an arm to bat it away. This time however the blood-stick landed in a way the beast should have predicted. The blood-stick pierced through the beast's palm, going through to the other side.

The beast let out a screech as it felt the pain in its hand. It yanked the blood-stick out of its palm and right away the beast concentrated on healing the wound.

This was another mistake from the beast. It didn't have the luxury to stand around and heal itself. Another blood-spear was thrown by Xandra, which she must have created during the precious seconds the beast was distracted by the wound in its palm, had come soaring through the air. It struck the beast beneath the armpit where there wasn't any bone protection. The blood-piece sank deep enough that not even the tough leathery skin or the bulbed heat could prevent the piercing damage.

The beast staggered sideways and nearly fell into the lake water. It yanked out the new blood-stick, but as it did so it kept its attention on Xandra for fear of another attack.

Another blood-spear sailed through the air and the beast had to leap backwards avoid the blood-spear landing in an opening at its gut.

Xandra was on the attack.

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