19 Tigger Please!

     Troy had gathered quite a bit of Chaos in order to counter any unforeseen effects of this unknown potion. He cautiously monitored his body's condition, as he witnessed the potion's magic beginning to take effect.

     He had already determined, through his initial analysis, that the Chaos in the potion should accomplish more or less what Gilly claimed but the behavior of that Chaos wasn't like any spell with similar effects that he knew. Of course, Troy had yet to learn any body enhancing magic and so his assessment may be based entirely on his own ignorance.

     Regardless, without knowing all of the potion's effects for certain, he naturally would have to take some precautions.

     The contents of the beaker had traveled smoothly down his throat and into his stomach, where it began to seep into his intestines and then into his bloodstream. Once the potion was distributed throughout his entire body, the magic that the potion held was activated and Troy could immediately feel the difference.

     Letting go of the Chaos that he now knew he didn't need, he stood up from his sitting position and began flexing his limbs and digits.

     "Damn! It actually worked and pretty well, too! Hey, Jorgen, put your hands up and try to stop my punch."

     Jorgen stood in front of Troy with his hands overlapping and his palms facing forward. "Alright, give it your best shot!"

     Troy took aim at Jorgen's palms and cocked his arm back for a full powered punch. Making sure to put his back into it, Troy sent his fist forward and into Jorgen's palms that then flew into Jorgen's face that then flew into the wall behind him.

CRASH!!

     Jorgen was completely stunned by the power behind that punch. He really was wondering whether or not Troy had played some kind of prank on him and perhaps that was some kind of spell he had been hit with.

     "What the hell? You mean to tell me that little beaker of fairy dust made that much of a difference? How is that possible?"

     "It absolutely did! As for how, well…, there's magic involved and the how of that I myself am not entirely certain of, at the moment, but we'll have plenty of time to figure it out, once we've settled our business here.

     "Geralt, are you still treating this as your contract? If so, do whatever Gilly asks of you and I can promise you the rewards for all of us will not be small." Troy asked, with a slight grin tinted with wickedness.

     "Absolutely, I'll see this through to the end and then Jorgen can take the next contract." Geralt promptly responded.

     "Excellent! Then tell Gilly that we'll gladly accept her services in return for our services. She wasn't kidding when she said these things could easily wipe out her debts. Jorgen, let's leave Geralt to his business. The sooner he's done the sooner we can jump into the juicy stuff!"

     "Fine by me! I had sign training on today's schedule anyways."

     Troy and Jorgen both left Gilly's house and left Geralt to follow up on his contract.

     Once his buddies had departed, Geralt made his way back over to where Gilly was working on her potions. He waited patiently until she was done with the one she was working on, before interrupting her.

     "Gilly, are you done? We need to talk."

     "Of course, Master Geralt! Were you able to test the potion's effects? I'm sure it will work! I just know it will! It has to! It's the only thing I…" Once more, Gilly's eyes began to water and so Geralt decides to intervene, before the waterworks come in full force.

     "Gilly, it's alright! Not only did your potion work wonders we've already decided that these are more sufficient to compensate for our services. So, with that said, do you want to talk?"

     "NO!"

     An unshakable resolve could now be seen in Gilly's watery eyes. She had worked tirelessly for several years to finish her husband's research, because she knew it was the only thing she and her son could rely on to keep themselves housed and fed.

     Now that her husband, her only son, and most everything else had been taken from her she no longer cared about how she would feed herself or any other such concerns. She was already much older than the age that most women were able to live to.

     She had cast aside all other concerns and now there existed only one thing inside of her. So, recognizing that the witcher could now see her value thus giving her a solid footing in these negotiations, she gave voice to darkness in her heart.

     "NO! I ONLY WANT ONE THING! I WANT TO SEE THE COLD AND LIFELESS CORPSE OF MY SON'S KILLER LYING BEFORE ME!" Gilly screamed at Geralt, with tears now streaming from her eyes, as if he had been the one who had killed her son.

     Geralt didn't respond immediately. He simply stood there examining Gilly, conducting a silent assessment of her.

     After nearly ten seconds of silence, Geralt gave one short but definitive nod before turning to leave.

     Geralt still knew the scent of Gilly's son's killer and so he hadn't expected it to take too long to find him, assuming that he was here in the city.

     However, just as he was riding off to start his search, he caught a whiff a that familiar scent. He looked back at the direction he'd come from and, standing there knocking on Gilly's front door, was a man with short curly brown hair giving off the scent that Geralt was sniffing for.

     Gilly had almost immediately come to the door, probably assuming that it was one of the witchers, and was a bit surprised to see him.

     Geralt began slowly moving Roach back towards the house and focusing his hearing towards their direction as he drew Supirre, the eavesdropping sign, on his left glove.

     Their exchange was actually pretty short and ended with the man handing her a satchel, after offering his condolences over her son's death.

     Witnessing the man walking away from Gilly's house he decided to follow at a safe distance to see where he would go. The man wandered very casually through the streets for several more minutes, before finally arriving at a small house that he entered and did not leave.

     Geralt moved closer to the building and focused all of his senses on it. He could hear the man moving around inside for a couple of hours before nightfall.

     Not too long after the sun went down, he finally noticed the man settling down for the night and his breathing becoming slow and constant. Geralt, making sure not to draw the attention of the townspeople, went around the side of the house and wrapped lightly on the man's window.

     At first, there was no response but, after gradually increasing the volume through a couple of more attempts, he could finally hear the man beginning to stir.

-----

     Daren was sleeping peacefully after a long day's work. He was hoping to soon awaken to sunlight shining on his face but some strange sounds kept interrupting his sleep.

     It wasn't long before he was fully awake and decided to go see what all the commotion was about. He wouldn't have any mercy on some damn rabble rousers but if he had intruders, well...he had another little surprise for them.

     Grabbing the machete that he kept near his bedside, Daren made his way towards the sound of the disturbance.

     As he approached the front door of his house, he quickly turned his head to the right as he finally pinpointed the source of the noise. 'Hmmm...it seems I have some incompetent intruders after all. Well, if I'm going to do this right I'll have to invite them in first.'

     Daren made his way over to the window, stood up against the wall to the side, and undid the latch. As soon the latch was undone, the window was slowly raised and Daren held his breath and stilled his body waiting for the intruder to enter.

     No sooner than the thought of watching his would be intruder pissing his pants at the sight of his true form passed through his mind, a muscular pale arm shot through the window clasping its unnaturally strong hand over his mouth.

     The hand, which now had an inescapable grip on his head, jerked him unceremoniously through the window. Before Daren even had a chance to understand the situation he was in, a powerful force met the back of his head and his consciousness faded to black.

…

     Daren awoke with a powerful and pounding headache. His attempts to move his body were only partially successful, as he soon realized his hands and feet were both bound tightly.

     Once his eyes finally adjusted to the near complete darkness of his surroundings, he realized that he was in a familiar place. 

     'This cave! This is my den!' He thought as his current situation started to become a bit clearer.

     'I see! Whoever brought me here obviously knows what I am and probably knows that I killed Palo. But then why would they leave me in this place with these clearly inadequate restraints? All I have to do is transform and these binds will snap like twine.' Suddenly an uncomfortable thought occurred to him.

     'Shit! Is it that witcher that was hanging around Gilly's house! Fuck! I don't know if I can take on a witcher and I don't want to find out. I don't know why he's not here but I'm not waiting around to find out.' With that final thought, his body mass began to quickly expand. Slick black fur quickly grew over his skin, while his skull and joints began deforming at visible rate.

     In less than ten seconds, the previously bound human form now stood upright at a full two meters tall, with a head reminiscent of a panther's, long sharp claws on his paws, and a slightly bushy tail.

     The second that Daren finished his transformation, Geralt stepped into the open chamber from where he had been waiting patiently.

     "So I was right. You are a Therianthrope. And a Werecat, no less." Geralt drew his silver sword from his back and drew the flat of the blade against his palm as he looked down and inspected it.

     "Witcher, please, I don't want to fight you!" Daren spoke, now with a much  raspier and huskier voice. "Surely, we can talk about this! I know you were probably hired by Gilly, right? But I know for a fact that she can't deliver on whatever she promised you! She's flat broke! However, if you'll spare me, I can assure you a generous reward! Unlike that delinquent, I'm actually good for it!"

     Geralt continued to inspect his sword, while taking short, slow, and casual steps towards Daren. "You know, I'll be honest with you. If I were you…" He turned his head to look Daren directly in the eye. "...I wouldn't want to fight me either. But…" He quickly shifted his grip and entered a battle ready stance. "...unfortunately for you, I've already been paid in full. And what I've been paid to do is to kill the killer of Gilly's son.

     "So, you can either die quickly, after telling me why you killed him or you can die very very slowly should you refuse. What will it be?"

     Despite being in the form that usually gave him an overwhelming sense of power and invulnerability, his current form actually came with some very reliable senses. One of those senses was a kind of sixth sense, telling him when danger was approaching and the like.

     Right now, that sense was telling him to run! Just being in the presence of this witcher had set his senses off. He didn't want to even think about fighting him but he wasn't really being given much of a choice.

     Ultimately, Daren was a coward and although he was scared of this witcher he was more afraid of dying. Even though he knew his chances were nearly nonexistent, he forced himself to release a tremendous roar and then charged directly at the witcher.

     Geralt immediately leapt backwards, in response to the incoming swipe, while slashing his sword directly into Daren's paw. A large gash appears between its claws making it whimper and whine.

     This hesitation, however, was all the time Geralt needed to form the Igni sign and send a concentrated stream of flames into the his face.

     "AAARRRGGHH!!!"

     The searing pain in Daren's face was almost mind numbing. Not only was his face fur on fire, his eyes and exposed nostrils were also burning. Even one of his ears was being burned by those intense flames.

     Sadly for him, his misfortune didn't end there. A powerful slash soon landed directly across his burning face and the a powerful force that impacted his entire body shortly afterwards sent him reeling to the ground.

     He was going to try and get up when a another powerful slash sliced through the muscles and tendons of his left armpit and then his right. Daren, feeling a level of pain that he had never imagined possible, managed to remain partially lucid due to his overwhelming fear forcing all of his attention onto the witcher before him.

     Geralt stood above the Werecat Daren, with his sword pressed dangerously close to his throat. Staring menacingly into Daren's feline eyes, he asked him, "WHY did you do it…" Geralt moved the tip of his sword directly onto his neck and pressed it firmly but not leathaly into his skin. "...or should I make a few more cuts… maybe an amputation or two? Perhaps, you're one of those who likes the pain? Here allow me to indulge you!"

     Just as Geralt moved his sword to make another strike, Daren's cowardice forced him to decide upon the only path that led to an easy way out. "STOP!! I'll tell you, please, just stop! It was… a girl… named Lorine. She and I were childhood friends and I had always been in love with her but never managed to tell her how I felt. Then one day that damned Palo came along and started talking a bunch of nonsense in her ears and for some reason she actually believed him and they… started becoming… intimate with one another."

     At this point, Geralt could hear the anger in Daren's voice growing steadily. "That damned nobody...he was sleeping… with my woman… and HE HAD TO DIE!!"

     Daren somehow managed to become so crazed during that moment that his hysteria managed to show on his panther like face.

     "Are you fucking serious!? You took a man's life over something so trivial and petty!?" Now it was Geralt's turn to be mad, as his already dark expression became much more severe. "You know what? Fuck you!"

     After saying these words, Geralt began stabbing Daren's body repeatedly in all of his non lethal areas. Occasionally he would throw out an Igni stream or stomp on his face but for the next three hours Geralt made sure that Daren's last moments were hellish as possible.

     Now that Daren had breathed his last, Geralt only needed to return the corpse to Gilly and inform Troy. Then they could finally sort out the details of this cooperation and hopefully move on along to their next destination.