“Fuck you, you stupid bitch,” Carrie growled. “You want a lesson, I’ll give you one.”

Carrie’s body flowed, snapping into a new shape: half-person, half-animal, wrapped in sparse, sandy fur. Thick ropes of muscle corded her massive neck, supporting her round head with giant jaws and a forest of sharp fangs soaked in drool. The muscle continued to knot between her shoulder blades, forming a hump. Colossal biceps powered her arms, the network of veins bulging through her hide. Her feet and hands bore three-inch claws that would shred flesh like a knife cut through a ripe fruit. She looked like the stuff nightmares were made of. If you didn’t know any better.

I took a couple of steps forward, so I’d have plenty of room to maneuver. My furry me was proportionate: my limbs were properly formed, my jaws fit together into a neat muzzle, and although my hands and feet were oversized and armed with claws, my fingers weren’t misshapen. Maintaining this form came effortlessly to me. But Carrie was a regular shapeshifter and her warrior form was on the shaky side. Her jumbo biceps bulged from her too-long arms, limiting her movement, while her short legs barely had enough meat to support her top-heavy frame. She hunched over, because her spine fit into her pelvis at an angle, and no effective kicks would be coming my way. She didn’t specialize in combat, which meant she’d fight just like any other civilian shapeshifter: claws, teeth, nothing fancy. Good enough to tear most normal humans into pieces.

Next to her Deb raised her arms. No warrior form, but she was good at boxing.

Carrie’s eyes stared at me, shining with ruby light. She outweighed me by a hundred pounds. She thought the fight was in the bag.

Inside my head, Michelle’s squeaky voice mocked from the depth of my memories, “Hit her again, Candy. Hit that beastkin bitch. She deserves it.”

Never again.

Carrie charged me. She thundered across the pavement and lunged at me, swiping with her right arm diagonally and down, trying to gash my chest open. I leaned back. Her claws sliced through the air, an inch from my chest. I caught her wrist, yanked her massive arm straight and smashed the heel of my hand into the back of her elbow. The cartilage crunched, the joint popped, dislocated, and her arm bent the wrong way, its elbow inside out. Carrie howled and dropped to one knee, her right leg bent, her left almost flat on the ground. I stomped on that weak calf. I sank all the power of my hip and butt muscle into it. Like getting hit with a jackhammer. The leg didn’t stand a chance. Carrie screamed as the bone broke.

Deb bladed her body, standing sideways, trying to present less of a target. Her hands were up, curled into fists.