The Wolf and the SEAL
"Gwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..." the growl came at an extremely low octave, low enough, in fact, to be felt in Vissili's chest more than heard by his ears. It was petrifying. Growls that low come only from something extremely large and dangerous to dare threaten a human.
Vissili didn't dare to move, barely even allowing his breath to puff out in little white clouds into the crisp mountain air. It was impossible for him to differentiate between the rumble caused by the growl, and the tremble caused by the adrenaline overflow in his system.
His tall, gaunt frame could easily be mistaken for statue by the awkward pose he was in; one foot an inch from resting in the snow, one leather gloved hand wiping the sniffle's from his nose, other hand about to retrieve the map and compass from his back pocket. But hold that position he did, nothing moving except the adrenaline forced tremors in his limbs as his body prepared to give Vissili his best chance to fight for his life.
If only he had a life in the first place. Vissili happens to be a self made hermit. An outcast tired with putting up with the demands of the modern world and all the comforts it brings. His parents were dead, tragic in fact since they died on a vacation that started off as a business trip. Their insurance paid Vissili triple for it, the million dollar policy they both had turned into six million, all paid to the benefactor, their only son. No other relatives, since they were first generation immigrants from the Ukraine, fleeing the effects of Chernobyl. They immigrated to California with Vissili, who was seven at the time, and from there they moved to Alaska to start a business tracking down good lumber plots for the timber industry.
Ten years later, their bush plane, flying through a mountain pass at the time, was caught in a sudden gale, and was slammed into the rocky mountain side. Only the co-pilot, today a paraplegic, survived the crash. The eighteen year old Vissili simply put the multi-million dollar payoff in a secure bank account. From that point he didn't have many options, he did have a dual-citizenship. But his frustration at the situation ruled his judgment, and instead of taking over his parents business, he sold it and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, relinquishing his Ukrainian ties.
Vissili had no real incentive, he just signed all the papers the recruiter put in front of him, and found himself being trained to be a Navy SEAL. He didn't care; the punishment gave him an excellent outlet for his frustration. Six months later he graduated from basic underwater demolitionsSEAL training. Another year and a half, he was an expert SEAL sniper, explosive ordinance disposal tech, Russian translator, small arms expert, hand to hand combat specialist, and an all weather wilderness survival professional. His skills were in high demand and applied generously to all over the world: Norway, Siberia, Afghanistan, Iraq, all over Africa, and even in remote regions of Asia.
But after his six year service was over, he retired. Turning down all the private contractors' six digit salary offers in addition. Vissili simply left the armed forces to move back to Alaska, using his generous military bonuses to buy several thousand hectares of untouched wilderness, and left on an indefinite hiking trip to walk his property line. That was three years, and thousands of miles ago. Today, his past showed through, the harsh wind over the years was beginning to create worn lines around his grey eyes, and dirty blond hair. The skin on his face and the back of his hands was worn and leathery from the bitter weather, and ice encrusted the thick beard on his face.
Though terrified, his face betrayed no emotion, his figure frozen as the ground he stood on as his eyes traced back the source of the growl to its owner, an amber eyed shadow hidden in the long deep shade from the early dawn sunlight.
His eyes traced the shadow quickly, tracking all the outlines, only able to locate the creature's head by the eye shine and hot, steamy breath escaping from the evidently long muzzle. At first, Vissili thought it could only be a bear, given the massive size of the damn thing, but the coloring of the fur was wrong, a mottled blend of black, grey, and white. Then his eyes traced the outline of the ears, large furry triangles that shifted and scanned the woods even as its hackles wrinkled into a snarl as it continued the deep, baritone growl.
The head looked vaguely canine, but Vissili could swear on his parent's grave that it was impossible for any canine to reach that size, but he trusted his senses, and providence has taught him to never doubt them. So he could see, and hear, that the creature's head was canine, but as he continued the examination from the corner of his eyes, he could see that the creature's bodily outline also was much too big to even remotely be canine, all except the long bristly tail that stood on end behind the creature.
"Looks like a wolf..." escaped un-expectantly from under Vissili's breath. The noise was barely audible to his ears, but the large triangle's atop the creature's head snapped forwards to focus entirely on Vissili's thin frame.
‘GWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..." the canine growled louder letting the noise oscillate out from its chest. Its head tilted lower to the ground and its hackles were fully raised, exposing the huge, gleaming white teeth and mottled black gums to the frosty morning air. It raised one of its forelegs and slowly brought it out of the shadows. Vissili couldn't tear his eyes away from it as it lightly crunched the snow as the paw, or very nearly a hand, he observed acutely, lowered itself to the ground.
The twenty-seven year old stood rooted to the spot as more and more of the creature was revealed as it slowly stalked out from the shadows. The canine indeed looked like a monstrously large wolf, except that the front arms were shaped exactly like what a human's would look like if they were covered in thick winter coat fur. Even as a new bout of tremors broke out across his body, Vissili help but to notice the large, stringy muscle and taught tendons that wrap their way underneath the thick fur. But again his gaze was drawn away from the rest of the creature towards the lightly furred hands that crunched the snow as it slowly began to circle around him. The hands, though covered in fur, seemed almost delicate, if it weren't for the thick black claws that arched out from the ends of the fingers.
Vissili's body was demanding more oxygen, causing him to began to hyper-ventilate. But as his breathing became more ragged from his panic, the giant wolf circled closer to Vissili until it came to a rest a good eight feet from him. Not so far away with something that big at that distance. The haggard breathing broke the paralysis that kept his frame frozen in that awkward position.
Immediately, Vissili's foot crunched in the snow as it nearly stomped the ground when he pivoted around to face the giant wolf-creature. The hand that was about to wipe his nose instantaneously balled itself into a fist and the other hand dropped the topographical map and jumped to his thigh to grab his pistol from its leather holster.
In response to the aggressive change in demeanor, the wolf also pivoted, but instead of towards Vissili, it leaned backwards and stood up, towering upwards a good three feet above his six. The growl shifted from a low rumble to loud and terrifying snarl.
Sweat broke out across his body as he nearly shit himself with fear at the impressive display of ferociousness. He restrained his body, barely, but instead lowered himself until he was in a nearly comfortable crouch, ready to leap in any direction necessary to escape from the black, gleaming claws that hung from the muscular arms of the wolf.
His and the creatures eyes finally met, deep grey meeting golden amber, and they both recognized the intelligent hunter behind them. Vissili, steeling himself for the fight to save his existence, and the wolf, ready for a quick finish to a long night of unsuccessful hunting.
In a swift, practiced movement, Vissili un-holstered his pistol and shot at the giant creature from the hip the first time, the heavy .45 caliber slug tearing through the wolf's neck only making a dull thud as it ricocheted off the spinal column. As the blood sprayed the woods with a pink mist, he quickly brought the pistol up to peer straight down the sight at the wolf's chest, firing off another three quick rounds and then shifting his aim to fire another two at its head.
He could see the jets of pink mist spray out behind the wolf as the bullets carried flesh and blood through with their shockwaves as they all past unhindered though the wolf's body. But the giant creature didn't collapse as he knew it should, blood didn't begin to soak its fur from any of the six bullet holes in its body. Vissili watched in a terrified fascination as the nearly half-inch holes simply closed up before his wide, horrified looking eyes.
"Fucking hell?" he asked himself quietly into the dead silence of the woods, now noticing that the creature had stopped growling. The silence rang loudly in his ears, after the loud, sharp gun retorts and omnipresent growl, as once again his eyes locked onto those deep amber irises. Instead of growling, the giant wolf creature was now panting, its entire frame shaking. To Vissili, it seemed to border on laughter.
In fear, Vissili quickly aimed once again at the creature's head, except this time he fired the remaining six bullets into the creature's head, and watched as chips of bone, cartilage, and flesh crunched and spewed out and away from its skull. This time however, Vissili ran at the wolf and jammed the now empty pistol into the rapidly closing hole in the creature's face, and sprinted past it, away into the woods and towards the high mountain cliff while the creature was still blinded by its own blood and the steel hampering its normally nearly-instantaneous healing.
The wolf howled in pain and agony as the silver-chrome lined barrel of Vissili's pistol burned deeper into its skull. This time it did fall over, clutching and clawing blindly at the source of its agony. It spasmed violently and grasped desperately at the pistol until, finally one of its claws caught on the open slide and yanked the offending piece of metal out of the gapping wound.
It rolled pathetically on the ground, clutching its face gingerly as it healed slowly compared to its normal rate. The creature's breath came in ragged gasps and whines as, slowly but surely, the wound began to knit itself closed. Finally, several minutes later, with its vision and sense of smell restored, the wolf rolled over to rest on its back, letting the chill snow seep into its guard fur, as it stared at the tall evergreen trees sway in the chill wind, relaxing as it began to plan what it would do when it caught the human.
*
While the wolf lay wounded and healing, Vissili had sprinted away from the giant creature; his direction governed only his instincts and his speed fueled entirely on his adrenaline. He didn't know exactly where he was running to, but the unnatural fear he had felt from the presence of the wolf-creature began to fade gently with each footfall until he found himself face to face with a cliff.
"Oh, God! What...the hell... was that thing!?" Vissili gasped to himself between breaths as he leaned into the cold rock face, burying his face into his arms to recover from the mad dash away from the wolf-creature.
As he was panting, catching his breath, he gazed up from the crease in his elbow in order to reorient himself and to begin to lay down a new plan on avoiding the giant canine. As he was thinking about it, he turned around to rest his back against the granite wall, and let his head sink backwards until it too was resting against the rock.
Vissili swallowed hard and willed his racing heart to slow, and lungs to billow more slowly. He sank to the ground gently and gazed into the sky, using the wispy clouds as projector screens for the terrifying scene. He sat there for ten minutes, recalling every detail he could, from the way it had suddenly stood up, to the obvious intelligence he had glinted from its eyes, to the seeming invulnerability to injury, until that was, he had jammed his pistol into the hole in the creature's head. That last part particularly confused him, why would something that could easily take six bullets to the body, and laugh about it, suddenly go down screaming by the exact same thing except with the pistol sticking into its head.
"It probably has something to with what the gun was made of..." Vissili mused to himself.
"That's exactly right." a feminine voice replied from the direction Vissili had fled from, "Your gun was probably lined in a silver-chromium alloy."
Vissili was instantly on his feet again, machete drawn silently from a fore-arm sheath on his left arm, and his entire body on alert again. The owner of the voice walked, or rather stalked closer, her head was lowered giving her a predatory look. Her long, dark black hair was cascading over her shoulders, and casting her face in shadows, light green eyes flecked with amber, shown from deep within their sockets. It was also impossible not to note that she wasn't wearing a single article of clothing, completely disregarding the extreme cold.
Vissili growled under his breath as the unnatural fear he had felt when he was confronted by the wolf-creature return with a vengeance as he watched the beautifully naked woman walk gracefully through the snow. Her figure could be the very definition of splendor, if it weren't for the fact that her forehead was stained with blood, and black hair matted from the frozen clutches of the winter air.
"What... the fuck!" Vissili cursed at how strange his morning had been turning out to be, "listen up miss: I don't know who you are, why you're buck-ass-naked, or maybe even what the fuck you're doing out in the middle of Alaska in the middle of the fucking winter!"
The woman simply clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, "Well, well, what a big bad tongue you have. Can't you try being a little more civil around a lady?"
Vissili started, and gazed stupidly at the irony of her statement as she stopped a few paces away from him. Her green eyes scrunched up as she laughed silently to herself. Vissili instantly recognized that expression, as well as the blood pattern on her forehead, neck, and chest. The building panic in the back of his mind nearly overwhelmed him as he realized who he was staring at.
"Well fuck that!" Vissili spat, "I fucking know who you are, so drop the bullshit and get on with whatever it was you were planning on doing with me."
"Ahhh, a quick one I see." The woman smiled, flashing sharp needle like incisors and dagger like fangs, "You're a rare treat, human. One I plan to thoroughly enjoy." Her words hung in the air as Vissili stared at her, eyes squinting in suspicion as he watched her movements warily.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah... eat shit and die, bitch." Vissili said at the reference to him being a doggy treat for her.
"OH! Are you trying to hasten your death? Because discourtesy is a fine way for me to simply kill you now and get it over with." She smiled again, this time plane flat human teeth shined from her mouth.
"Maybe, ‘cause I'm not one say no to a favor offered." He growled at her, "So do what you need to... I'm waiting."
In the back of Vissili's mind he recognized that what he was doing could prove to be suicidal, but his instincts were telling him this was the best way to get out of this mess alive, and he always trusted his instincts.
"I thought I had already told you... I'm planning on drawing out as much fun from this as possible. And besides, I don't even know your name." she stated as she crossed her arms over her chest and pointed a finger at Vissili.
He rolled his eyes at her attempt to play ‘cat with caught mouse' and took a deep breath of the crisp air to calm himself down to the point where he didn't want to rip the hair off the top of his head. The whole conversation was taking a turn down a cliché circle. "Oh. My. God. What is your problem!?" Vissili nearly yelled, "Can't you say anything that's not fucking retarded? Or that doesn't sound like it came from a goddamned sitcom from the nineties!? Shit lady! At least make up your own lines or something, ‘cause not only do you nearly make me shit myself every time you move! You have to torture me with this god awful conversation! God, I'm sick of this SHIT!" Vissili then lapsed into his drill sergeant voice, shifting the shallow fear into anger, giving up entirely on containing his emotions, "WHAT IS YOUR MALFUNTION LADY!?!? DON'T YOU KNOW THAT PISS'N IN THE WIND BURNS YOUR FACE? OF COURSE YOU DON'T! WANA KNOW WHY? ITS BECAUSE YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM IS THAT YOU CAN'T GET OVER THE FACT THAT AS A HUMAN..." he paused to breath, "YOU CAN'T MAKE SHIT WITH YOUR OWN ASS! SO I SUGGEST THAT YOU TAKE THE BIRD SHIT OUT OF YOUR EARS AND GET TO THINKING ON YOUR OWN TWO FEET ABOUT WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE GOING TO DO TO ME! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR??" he managed to scream at her.
She whimpered, put off by Vissili's sudden change in demeanor, the sudden dominance he showed wrecking havoc on her instincts. The naked women looked around nervously, and realized that she was crouching down, trying to make herself look smaller, being submissive. Her eyes were nearly bulging from their sockets, making her look like a deer caught in the headlights. "Where the hell did that come from?" she muttered as she shook her head.
He panted, trying to recover his breath as he stared at the naked woman in front of him. With a start, Vissili realized that the rising panic had subsided. The fear was still there, but at least it was manageable now.
After a few minutes, Vissili decided to push his luck a little, "Well? Have you made up your mind yet?"
She shook her head, still disoriented by the sudden shift in control, "No, I haven't yet."
"Well, why don't we start with you telling me your name, missy? And then from there, we can enjoy a nice conversation between the two of us." Vissili spoke softly, taking advantage of the situation.
"I have to admit that this has never happened before. I mean me taking this long to kill a human and all-"
"Your name if you please." Vissili interjected quickly. The woman straightened up and glared at him.
"Now that was rude! I don't think I will tell you my name at all now." she stated firmly as she cast a sideways look of contempt at Vissili.
"Fuck! King! Hell! Stop being so God-damned difficult. You're acting like a prissy little spoiled rich bitch that can't get over the fact that she isn't the center of the whole fucking universe. Now stop with the goddamned horseshit right now or I'll simply hack off your motherfucking head where you stand." The contempt in his voice gave his words an acid edge to them.
"Someone has some anger issues." She accused
"No shit Sherlock." He retorted, "Now answer my question."
"Or what?... You'll kill me? Don't make me laugh human. You barely escaped with you life last time, what makes you so sure can overpower me?" she challenged him as she took a few steps closer to Vissili in order to prove her point.
He matched her steps with a few of his own, placing them a few arms lengths apart, and, with eyes crossed with contempt, hissed to her, "It would be easier for me to kill you right now instead of drawing this whole fucking thing out longer than necessary. I now know a few weaknesses of your's. One, silver obviously hurts you, by your own confession and your screams of pain as I ran away. Two, you have an over-inflated ego and a stubbornness to match, from your pouting at not getting your way and your cringing when I yelled at you. So despite that big body of yours and the fear that accompanies it, you wouldn't stand a chance against me as you are now, or if you were the big, bad wolf once again." To illustrate the point, Vissili slashed at the woman with his machete, slicing a lock of hair from her head so quickly that she didn't even see his arm move.
"HEY!" she yelled at the indignant remark. "What the hell is your problem!?"
Vissili's neck spasmed in rage, "MY FUCKING PROBLEM IS THAT YOU ARE SO GODDAMNED SHALLOW THAT ANY TWO BACK-TO-BACK COMMENTS YOU MAKE SIMPLY CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT! GET YOUR FUCKING PRIORITIES IN FUCKING ORDER AND MAYBE I'LL JUST RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND STUFF BIRDSEED DOWN YOUR NECK! WOULD THAT HELP YOUR SINGING ANY, LITTLE BIRDY? ONE SECOND YOUR THREATING TO EAT ME! THE NEXT YOUR ACCUSING ME OF BEING IMPOLITE! FOR FUCKS SAKE, I'VE NEVER DELT WITH ANYONE SO STUUUUPID IN MY LIFE!!" the last part was a complete lie of course, but the statement served its purpose.
The naked woman found herself stumbling several paces backwards and crouching on the ground again. "How the hell...?" She didn't get to finish the statement because Vissili cut her off.
"FIRST THINGS FUCKING FIRST! WHAT THE FUCK IS YOU NAME?!" Vissili barked out.
"It's Grace!" she squeaked out before she could stop herself.
"AGE?!"
"Fifty-seven!" Grace replied automatically.
"Fifty-seven?" Vissili asked, bewildered. She didn't even look like she was in her mid-twenties yet.
"Fifty-seven." She confirmed solemnly.
"Well fuck me silly.... I'm going to guess its ‘cause of the monster thing you have going on." He paused for a moment before continuing, "Well, since you told me your name and age, I'll return the favor. Name's Vissili and I'm twenty-seven. Humph. That's a nice thirty year split between us..." he trailed off losing himself to his own thoughts.
Grace stood up again, arms crossed over her chest, and asked, "Alright then, Vissili, do you have a last name?"
"No. I don't." he replied curtly, stepping back to lean against the cliff to glare at Grace.
"Wow, I still don't know why you're not dead yet, being so rude and all." She muttered
"Its because I like to stay alive, idiot. And just a quick FYI, if you try anything again, I'll knock you out. And if you try something after that, I'll kill you. Just for the sake of keeping the peace." said Vissili, simply.
Grace gave him a strange look before asking, "And how do you plan to enforce that?"
"Try anything at all and you'll find out, Grace." He growled her name, almost threateningly.
"Fine then, I'm leaving." She snapped before turning around and walking back into the forest. She was sick of putting up with Vissili's attitude, and frankly, his whole attitude made her feel uneasy.
Vissili beamed, "Right then, see you later as well, Grace!" he called out, waving after her.
She turned around, eyes flashing deep amber, and smiled, teeth longer then they should be. She didn't wave, instead she began to change into the wolf-like creature. The transformation began with her hands, fingernails running like wax, to reform themselves into the jagged claws they were before. Grace's arms thickened, gaining new muscle as well as long, wiry hairs began to spout from her flesh. The new grown fur thickened until the skin was barely visible underneath before the soft undercoat and winter fur grew and thickened beneath the newly grown guard hairs. The overcoat growth out paced any of her other changes, growing in completely before her arms or legs had shifted fully. Her legs seemed to be the most radically shifted parts of her body at that point, bones, tendons, cartilage, and ligaments altered to give her a more digitigrade stance. Her ankles and shins shortened while her femur and tarsus lengthened, muscles being layered in her toes and calves to allow much more strength in her new stance.
Her face came next, with her ears gaining a very noticeable taper and triangular shape, before beginning to crawl through the fur towards the top of her head. Her dark, shoulder-length hair seemed to have shrunken into her head, or changed into the mottled white and black fur that now covered her body. Her ears continued to grow, becoming more and more triangular with each passing moment until they flicked, testing the muscles that allowed them to pan back and forth to scan her surroundings for her prey. Grace's face began to push out from her skull, at first it seemed to Vissili that she was pouting her lips, but that notion faded as soon as her nose began pushing out with the rest of her face. Her lips stretched as her chin extended making more room for more of the needle-like teeth in her mouth to line up properly, giving Grace's face a proper canine look.
With the major shifts complete, Grace new canine body began to grow, Vissili could see the snow around her paws bunch up and fold over itself to make room for her rapidly growing size. Several seconds later, Grace was standing at her full nine foot tall size, and began walking towards Vissili slowly, almost falling forwards onto all fours.
"Well, there you are! I was wondering if you were wondering that I didn't want to mess you up a little!" Vissili joked. The now lupine Grace simply growled at him, and flashed her hackles at him, not slowing her pace at all.
Great, he thought to himself as she came closer, the bitch is going to try to smack me as soon as she gets within arms length.
She wasn't a trained fighter like Vissili, she couldn't mask her intentions, or think about what she was going to two moves in advance, only what she would do to attack the human first.
The emotion drained away from Vissili's face as the wolf came within her striking range. He dropped into a low crouch, lowering his center of gravity and staggering his feet to make it easier to jump to either side to avoid or deflect any attack she may make to harm him.
Vissili could see the attack come from a mile away, from her pause to set her stance, to the way she cocked her left arm back to give it more speed, to the blaringly obvious snarl as she swung her arm forwards with all her considerable strength. Vissili didn't even bother to dodge the attack; he simply dug his feet deeper into the snow and seemingly shrugged, bringing his right him to chest level to knock the massive limb up to swish the air above his head. He simply redirected the blow instead of wasting energy to stop it completely.
Grace had put everything she had into the swing, so when the blow didn't connect, her body continued forwards, off balance. Vissili seized the opportunity and slashed at her back with the machete, slicing deep and through muscle to bounce off the bones of her rib cage, but not deep enough for the silver etched company insignia to touch her flesh. At the same time, he kicked her left leg, which was supporting all of her weight, letting her begin to crash into the rock wall behind him.
Vissili pivoted, bringing his body around hooking her leg with the top of his own foot, effectively tripping her already severely off-balance body and not letting her use the wall to catch her. The huge wolf fell to the ground gracelessly, her large body falling in the snow. She snarled in frustration before scrambling to use the wall to brace herself up to rest on all four feet facing the emotionless Vissili.
"Gwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..." she growled at that familiar low octave again, evidently peeved at failing so miserably at harming her prey.
"None of that now," Vissili mocked her, "we'd be a hate'n to see ya off at such a bad note, lady-o. Besides tha fact that I don like ya much, it'd be rude for ya ta be grumble'n about manners in your sleep."
What does he mean by that? Grace thought to herself as Vissili smiled at her but didn't make a move to attack. So she crouched lower to the ground and began to circle his relaxed looking figure.
Vissili let the smile fade as she began to circle him a thousand possibilities flashing through his mind as she stalked around him in a loose circle. Inspiration flashed in his mind as Vissili straightened his tall figure and sauntered away from Grace's large canine form, seemingly un-perturbed by her new found caution and aggressive stance. But he wasn't as relaxed as he was pretending to be, tension could barely be made out in his muscles, evidence that he was ready for the ever so predictable pounce as Grace leapt at his retreating figure.
Vissili heard her warning snarl as she began her obvious leap at his back, and simply crumpled into a compact ball of flesh, rolling backwards into the apex of her jump. Grace flew over and past the human, arms swiping the air above his feet as he planted his hands and machete into the snow to flip lithely back onto his feet. Again, Grace hit the granite wall behind Vissili without causing any harm to her prey.
She picked herself up, furious and spun around to charge directly at the human, this time checking her speed so she wouldn't fly past Vissili. Vissili was already on his feet and resting in a comfortable crouch, back of his legs flush with his well developed calves from the years of hiking through the mountainous wilderness.
Her first swipe at him found itself painfully redirected by an angled piece of sharpened steel slicing deep into her wrist, allowing blood to smear across the well-cared for metal. Grace yipped out a pained cry as her flesh slid through the silver etched eagle clutching a golden trident in its talons. She growled angrily as the wound wouldn't heal as fast as her other more sever wounds had, still slightly confused at the fact that her thick, steaming blood was melting and staining the snow beneath her feet. But her anger hardened her resolve, she would teach this weak human a lesson and kill him here on the spot for his insolent remarks and for the pain he has caused her!
Grace lashed out with her other hand, putting more force behind this blow and angled it lower, towards Visili's midsection instead of his throat. Vissili saw the next blow coming and leaped backwards, thrusting his upper body away and bowing his frame in order to avoid the sharp claws that again nearly missed their marks.
With the extra force Grace had put behind the blow, it came faster then what Vissili could dodge completely. The sharp claws tore through his well worn leather jacket and under layers, and barely sliced through the thin skin underneath. Vissili ground his teeth at the pain and braced himself for the follow up attack that again aimed itself for his throat.
Ignoring his new wound, he deflected the blow easily enough over his head and took the opportunity to pull himself behind the raging wolf, grabbing a hold of her massive hips as levers to pull himself tight against her massive frame. Vissili then kicked out the back of the wolf's massive legs and using his hold on her lower body to throw her to the soft blood speckled snow beneath them.
As Grace hit the ground hard, she felt Vissili on top of her back, pinning her tail painfully against her back as he settled his legs along either side of her waist, squeezing his knees tightly in order to hold himself in place as she began to thrash about violently under his lithe frame. But Vissili knew what he had to do; he quickly scanned her back and instantly located the point where her spine was connected to the first of her ribs.
Vissili wasted time in raising his arms above his head; machete still clutched in his hands with white-knuckle tightness, and brought his right elbow down with all his weight and strength into the joints of her neck. With a choked high pitch yelp, Grace instantly became limp under Vissili's body, now completely unconscious.
Vissili checked her pulse quickly and choked back a laugh, "Guess what kills a normal person only conks you out! Well, I told you you shouldn't have tried anything, Grace. But I'm going to leave it as your ego's fault for the state you're in now. Guess I'm holding true to my word, and only knocking you out." He looked up past the mountains and evergreens to the clouds and murmured a quick, "Adios, Senorita." before quickly climbing off her unconscious body and jogging lightly back into the deep woods of his land, picking out the shallow areas of the snow to avoid sinking into the deep drifts. Quickly disappearing into the morning sunlight to find something to use as a bandage for the gashes on his chest.