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It took Izzy a short moment to register exactly what Theurge had said. Had he really just told her he thought she, a scrawny twig in comparison to his bulk, could actually oust him from his leadership position? All he had to do was fall on her, and she would be a pancake.
But she could not afford to think like that. Her brothers had never won a match by doubting themselves, and that was simply for the fun of it. This was a matter of life or death.
She would beat Theurge. She would win. And she would retrieve Cerasus’ left arm. The man-child had enough confidence in that. And if Theurge thought she could be that powerful, it was now she needed to prove it, to both the hulking monster before her and herself.
Izzy inhaled, a look of stiff determination on her face as he spoke to her the second time. Fearing she would lose what bit of courage she had if she opened her mouth, she nodded in answer.
She sized him up. She knew his bulk did not hinder his speed, and she still did not trust his apparent lack of weapons. Just because he was not holding his sword did not mean he did not have something else hidden on his person. But everyone had a weak spot, and perhaps she could use his weight and momentum against him, somehow get his legs out from under him, even if they were thick enough to make tree trunks jealous. After all, she could punch through brick walls now.
She exhaled through her nose, then charged toward Theurge, keeping low and ready to dodge his massive arms, watching for any weaknesses or an opening to try bringing him to his knees.

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Adrenaline buzzing through her body, Izzy shouted in shock at the sight of her now missing arm. She scrambled to her feet, the action awkward with the off-balance of only a right arm, the grass damp beneath her palm and knees. At least she had not felt it, not in the traditional sense, anyway.
She looked to Theurge with wide, panicked eyes, not wanting to lose sight of him for even half a second, then glanced back to her arm. She did a double take when she realized it was, in fact, there again. She took a fraction of a second to wiggle her fingers and flick her arm, testing out her newly regenerated limb, but that was all the time she dared spare in awe at the vampiric power.
Though such strength came as no surprise--it was blatantly obvious she was not match for him in that--she had underestimated his speed. Again.
Inhaling and doing her best to not think about what had just happened, she darted toward him, slower this time, hoping to allot a short span of extra time to register his movements before their opposing forces met.
Just before the last possible second, in a single movement, she crouched as low as she could and sprung at his weight-wielding leg.

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Her attack far from successful, the breath knocked from Izzy’s lungs when Theurge’s fist slammed into her back, then slid a few yards away from a kick, pain prickling through her ribcage at the initial attack. She laid in the grass for a couple seconds after the feeling returned to her legs, stunned.
She shakily got to her feet. This was not working. She needed to strike from behind him somehow, not head-on.
“Like I said,” she began uneasily, unsure whether she should take Theurge’s comment as a compliment or an insult, “all I want is Cerasus’ stupid arm. No gimmicks. No trickery.”
Once more, she ran toward him, only this time, she veered off, making to run a circle around him. She pushed her legs to move as fast as they could, then even faster, to circle him a few times, hoping he would turn just a moment too late and give her an opportunity, no matter how short of a window, to land a blow to his backside.

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Even though he did not turn, his gaze never left her, showing he held a confidence even with his back to Izzy. When she fully closed the circle and went in to attack and Theurge whipped around, she saw his arm coming and ducked beneath it. She felt the wind of it on her skin.
Thankful for her quick reflexes--and even quicker memory recall--she gripped his outstretched arm with one hand on his wrist and the other at his elbow as she had seen in the illustration, and pulled toward her, using his own propulsion to aid in hurling him against the ground. Should he fall, she braced to land a kick of her own to his head, before leaping away.

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A sense of satisfaction bubbled in Izzy’s chest when she saw his eyes widen, but the feeling lasted mere seconds. Izzy let out a yelp at the sharp stinging that erupted just above her wrists when Theurge freed himself. She stumbled away, horror struck at the harrowing sight of her hands on the ground, before she remembered they would grow back. No sooner had she recalled such, then they did.
She looked back to Theurge, alarmed, and took a few quick bounds back from him, wondering where he had pulled a weapon from. Her mouth opened slightly when she saw that his arms themselves had turned into blades. She had thought Cerasus was mocking her statement about turning into a bat when he mentioned transformation, but it would seem he had been quite serious.
Her hands clenched and unclenched as he assumed a defensive position, wondering if she could do something like that, and how.
She had all but forgotten that Theurge would have once been a human as well, with the way he acted. But he did make a point. She was no longer apart of the human side of the world. Here, the rules were different. She could count the number of them she knew on one hand. As long as Theurge did not chop it off first, anyway.
“Ever think about trying to turn back?” she grumbled, her voice low and shaky. She only half payed attention to him as she tried to concentrate, imagining her own arms mimicking his.

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Izzy gave a frustrated growl when nothing happened. Only when Theurge asked if she was giving up, did she realize two things: first, he had not come at her to attack as she would have expected in her distraction, and second, she probably looked ridiculous just standing there in the middle of their rather one-sided fight. She glanced quickly around the field, hoping to find something to use as her own weapon against him, but the only thing there was a soccer net someone had forgotten to bring in.
The unfairness of the whole wretched mess settled over Izzy, making her snarl.
“You’re a coward, you know that?” she snapped, bearing her fangs. “I get one good grip on you, and you need to bring out those?” She gestured to his transformed arms, then noticed a flagpole without its flag about eighteen feet tall at the end of the field behind Theurge. She had forgotten about the flagpole.
“Give me liberty, or give me death,” she muttered under her breath. With a quick glance to Theurge, she made a run for the pole. Though she doubted it would do much especially if she could snap it, at least it would be better than standing there like a nitwit with nothing and giving up.
In reaching it, she jumped and reached up to grip and break the shaft higher up so it would not be too unwieldy, the metal giving a squeal in protest as she broke it in passing. She marveled for just a moment mid-air that she had actually broken it.
She landed back on the ground none too gracefully and, gripping her roughly nine-foot-tall makeshift staff in both hands a couple feet apart, she swirled around to face Theruge. Its pointed gold-colored tip facing him and the shaft extended as far out as she could make it without compromising her grip, she advanced on him, watching his blades with wary eyes.

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Izzy gritted her teeth against the metallic ringing that echoed through the field, filling her ears and buzzing unpleasantly down her arms when metal struck metal. Thankfully, the bar held against his strike save for where it distorted beneath her vice-like grip, and her body remained intact.
When Theurge swung at the flagpole and sent her flying, the only thing she could think about was not turning her back to him, unintentionally letting her body take over instead of her human logic. In result, she landed easily on her feet, facing Theurge, the broken portion of the flagpole still held defensively in front of her.
Now, it seemed, she had the advantage of speed, and the hard metal of her impromptu quarterstaff granted her a sense of security, of confidence. Despite its thickness being greater then what she was used to, the pole-turned-staff felt familiar. Though she was no expert in the matter, she had watched videos (and played one too many video games) and implemented a few of their techniques to the best of her abilities with her own walking staff upon occasion. After all, it never hurt to be capable of defending yourself against wild animals. Or little brothers. Or mountainous vampires.
A look of fierce valor settled over Izzy’s face when Theurge came at her again.
Think like a vampire, she told herself, then ran as if to meet him head-on once more, her pole held in both hands at her side.
Before she came within his swords’ reach, in one fluid motion, she stuck the pointed end of the pole into the ground at the side, used it and her speed to catapult and swing around to get near Theurge’s backside, pulled the pole from the ground as she landed with her legs slightly bent, and used the momentum of the entire maneuver to strengthen a blow aimed at behind his knees. She was ready to either to bring it for another swing toward his head if the first succeeded in at least making him stumble, or leap away and run from his fury should it fail.

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The crack of a breaking bone made a shudder run down Izzy’s spine. She released the bar and only just managed to back away when Theurge lashed out at her.
Though he was currently incapacitated, Izzy knew that, if her body could regenerate entire limbs, then a broken knee would not keep him down for long, and with her weapon wrapped around his leg, she had nothing to land a second blow without risking her life.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the equipment shed. She took a few backward steps toward it as Theurge pried the pole from his leg, then turned and ran for the shed. She wrenched the padlock off, splintering the part of the door onto which it was attached. She pulled the door open, and raced inside.
Despite the darkness, she could make out the various bits of equipment lining the walls, from baskets filled with various types of balls, to a stack of uniforms and helmets. She needed something long-distance. Quick as a flash, she grabbed a basket of baseballs and an aluminum bat, and rushed back to the door.
Taking note of where Theurge was, she dropped the bucket beside her, quickly picked up a baseball, tossed it in the air, and swung the bat. With an earsplitting crack! the baseball sped toward Theurge as Izzy bent to pick up another one and repeat the action to pelt him with baseballs.

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Theurge, it seemed, healed significantly slower than Izzy, which was good news for her, especially with her rather poor aim. When it came to the final ball, she gave it her all before realizing exactly what she had thrown. For the short millisecond between it leaving her hand and when it hit his face, she hoped that the force of it would knock him out, but of course she had no such luck. Instead, murder rested in his all too alert eyes and sent a chill through her.
Now, she was out of ammo, not that what she had had done much good. She turned to look back in the shed, to find something else. Sitting beside the shed and partially hidden under a tarp was a field roller.
That might work.
With really no other options available to her, she cast a quick glance to Theurge, his pace quickened in rage, then rushed to the roller, pulled the tarp off, and gripped the end intended to be attached to a tractor. Though it stuck for a short moment from its lack of use for the past while, she easily pushed it out into the open, around the shed, and raced it toward Theurge.

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When her swing hit nothing, Izzy feared she had miscalculated when they would meet, but as she righted herself, she saw that Theurge had stopped, his blades raised in surrender.
She eyed him for a moment, wondering if it was a trick, then slowly lowered her giant club as he voiced the reason behind his action. Triumph blossomed in her chest.
Standing tall, she stared him down... or up, depending on how you wanted to look at it, like a mouse staring down a lion. She kept one hand gripped on the roller, just in case, and cast his still bladed arms a couple wary glances.
“My prize, then?” She raised her chin slightly, her face stern.