Mal flees a block north to unwrap this annoying chain from around his leg. Then he notices something promising just ahead of him. From 100 yards away, Angel can barely see Mal. That worries him. If he waits for the gang to follow him in their vehicles, Mal will have time to circle round and come at his friends from behind. He has to pin the wily, lightning-fast vampire down. Connor is slower to follow. But he soon quickens his pace. Connor is nothing if not resilient. Even when he should know better. Especially when he should know better. One good thing about his preference for dark-colored shirts is that they hide the blood. And there was a lot of blood.
Angel forces Mal to make the first move. Mal throws a straight left kick. Angel moves back out of the way. Mal steps forward and tries a left hook. Angel ducks down. In his right hand is an 18 inch-long lead pipe, short but heavy, and therefore perfect for the task. Angel hits Mal's left knee. Mal kicks Angel in the body with his right foot. Angel circles right, trying to exploit Mal's hurt left leg. He hits Mal in the ribs with the pipe. Mal lands a right cross, but Angel responds by nailing Mal in the face with his weapon. Angel kicks the stunned Mal in the stomach, then in the chin. Mal flies back thirty feet before tumbling to the ground. Angel thinks that's a bit much. Connor doesn't recognize the ruse, and he rushes in. Angel has no choice but to follow and defend Connor. Mal leaps at Angel and decks him with a flying right kick. The move puts Mal behind Connor. So he leaps over Connor's head. When he lands, Connor turns and attacks. He sends Mal staggering back with a right roundhouse kick. Connor presses his advantage, closing with Mal and throwing a right hook. Mal grabs Connor's arm and tosses Connor over the railing behind Mal. Running beneath the street is Highway 101. Connor falls thirty feet and lands on his back in the median. Blood starts flowing out of his right ear.
Angel lands a right uppercut. Mal responds with a right jab, right hook, left cross and right roundhouse kick. The flurry of blows knocks Angel down. Mal leaps down to continue working on Connor. He sees the small pool of blood that collected to the right of Connor's head. Connor was just getting to his feet when Mal arrived. He puts Connor back down with a right hook kick, then grabs Connor's neck with his right hand and picks the boy up. He further tears Connor's shirt around the stomach wound with his left hand and sticks his left index finger into the wound so he can do some painful probing. Connor groans. He's too weak to cry out. Mal bodyslams Connor, who coughs up more blood. Mal licks his left index finger. "Full of energy. No wonder you're so hard to kill." Mal brings the heel of his left foot down onto Connor's left knee, then onto his left shin. Connor grunts in pain as Mal uses the boy's own toughness and resilience against him. Mal looks up to see Angel flying down. He looks so heroic. So noble. Like an actual angel descending from the sky. Just the sort of thing to inspire the old warrior. He leaps forward, meets Angel in mid-air, drives his left palm into Angel's chest, and sends him twenty feet back. Angel slams into one of the concrete columns which hold up the road they were just on. One of the problems Angel faces: the better his opponent fights, the more satisfaction Mal derives from killing him.
Mal walks back over to Connor, who has finally stood up. So bloody, so covered with wounds, yet still fighting his heart out. Mal doesn't know whether to thrash the young man or throw him a parade. "A Slayer would be dead by now," Mal tells Connor. He throws right and left crosses, which Mal blocks before kicking Connor in the stomach with his right foot and putting him on the ground with a left hook. "I was right about you." Connor turns his head and spits out more blood. He can't quite hear Mal over the roar of the cars zooming past them on either side. Angel hits Mal from behind and pushes him to the right, trying to knock Mal into the traffic. But Mal's too heavy. He puts his right hand against the guard rail and hits Angel with left elbow. Mal hops onto the guardrail, jumps in the air, spins around and pummels Angel's face with a flying left windmill kick. Mal grabs Angel while he's down and thrusts his head into one guard rail, then the other. After that, Mal picks Angel up and drops his back onto Mal's knee. Angel rolls to the ground.
While Mal's savoring this success, Connor comes from behind and drives his dagger into the back of the vampire's neck. The point breaks off when it hits one of Mal's vertebrae, and it falls back to the ground. But the rest of the knife goes through his flesh and comes out the front of Mal's neck. Connor has trouble pulling it out. Mal turns around and takes Connor's throat with his left hand. "I love this kid!!," Mal exclaims. Connor can see that the knife went clean through. He thought that would have worked. After professing his "love," Mal tosses Connor to his left, into the westbound traffic. It's a six lane road, and Connor lands in the fourth lane from the median. Angel's friends look down helplessly. Lorne drops a short sword behind Angel. He picks it up as Mal advances towards him. He's watching his son with the greatest concern, but knows that coming to his aid would be difficult, even if Mal wasn't there to prevent it from happening. While Angel's distracted by his son's desperate plight, Mal drives him back into the concrete column. Mal's regimen of body-crushing blows is beginning to take its toll. Mal lands two right uppercuts to Angel's stomach, lifting his feet off the ground. Angel ducks a left hook, and Mal's fist pounds away a small chunk of concrete. Angel swings the sword in his right hand for Mal's left shoulder, hoping to do some damage. Mal backs up with his characteristic quickness that is not only super-human, but super-vampiric. He relaxes his neck muscles and pulls out Connor's dagger, which is about half the size of Angel's sword. Mal prepares for the mis-matched sword fight.
"Is one of us compensating?," Mal asks Angel. He stabs for Mal's neck. Mal backs just out of the way and slashes Angel's right forearm. He blocks Angel's next move before slashing deep into Angel's right shoulder. Certain that Mal will protect his neck, and desperate for some small success, Angel stabs for Mal's stomach. The sword goes clear through his body. Mal calmy stands there and jabs Connor's dagger through Angel's neck, entering on the left side and exiting on the right. Mal quickly yanks it out with his right hand and sends Angel staggering back with three left hooks, advancing after each punch before throwing the next one. Then Mal leaps up, pushes against Angel's chest with his right foot and drives him back into the column. He finishes off with a left hook-right hook-left hook-right hook combination to Angel's face, putting him down for the count. Mal steps back. Angel sits there and watches him from fifteen feet away. Mal tightens and contorts his stomach muscles, causing the sword to slide out the front of his body. Once the points exits, he takes it in his left hand. Angel worries about what Mal's going to do now that he has both weapons. Mal hurls the dagger back and to his right. It enters the windshield of a car heading west and pierces the driver's left eyeball. The driverless car going sixty miles per hour causes all sorts of chaos. Mal throws the sword back and to his left. It crashes through a front side windshield of an eastbound car and travels clear through the driver's head. Another pile-up ensues. Even though it's good Mal didn't use the weapons on him, Angel can't help but feel bad for the innocent people Mal just killed. Mal feels wonderful. He knew he was good, but this just confirmed how good. He does more damage as a momentary afterthought than most vampires could intentionally cause in a whole night.
Upon hitting the asphalt, Connor rolls a few times and looks at the headlights onrushing vehicle. With his hands and feet, he pushes off of the ground and leaps above the car and into the lane to his left. He's now two lanes from the shoulder. Gunn and Lorne can't help but think of Frogger, but they know this isn't the time for jokey pop culture references. Connor lands on the roof of a car zooming by. He quickly hops up and to his left, having been on the moving vehicle for only an instant. Its momentum sends him hurtling backwards as he sails to the left. Connor slams into the sheer rock face at the edge of the shoulder and falls down onto the shoulder. He's a physical wreck, but at least he's safe. Slowly, Connor climbs up the rocks. Angel's friends drive over to try to help him. When he gets to the top, Connor looks down at Mal and Angel. It seems to him that Mal could finish Angel off right there, and he tries to figure out how to help. Mal turns to his right and looks up at Connor. Flying over all the traffic would require an eighty foot leap, which is a lot even more Mal, especially now that he's wounded. Granted, the traffic was bottlenecked and grinding to a halt on account of the deadly accident Mal himself had caused. But even when he made it across, he'd still have to climb or jump up twenty feet of rock, with Connor waiting at the top to kick him back down. Instead, Mal leaps back up onto the northbound road he was on before. This move puts him behind Angel's friends, making them vulnerable. And Connor was in no condition to defend them.
Angel stands, looks up and realizes this. Can't leap up to the road in his state. He could cross the highway and climb up, but that would take too long. Plus, Mal could kick him back down. Fortunately, Connor's kept his head, damaged as it may now be. He orders Angel's friends to head north. They don't want to abandon Angel, but he insists, screaming for them to go before coughing up some blood. And they're not about to say no to such a brave and horribly wounded young man. When Mal walks over to his intended targets, he finds them gone. Connor has retreated a block north as well. Angel's friends are in their cars a block north of Connor. Mal realizes the boy is trying to beat him at his own game. Mal lured Connor into a trap with the same tactic of feigned retreating. Even better, this move forces Mal to make a choice. He can jump back down and continue beating on Angel. But Angel's friends could return any second in their vehicles. Then they could drop very heavy things on Mal. And make it tough for him to come back up to street level. A tear wells up in Mal's right eye and falls down his cheek. "Such a wonderful son. It's a shame he has to die. But not for me." Mal smiles and runs at Connor. Whether or not this was his intention, Connor's move has given Angel time to recover and return to the fight. Angel jumps and grabs onto the steel I-beam thirteen feet up. He pulls himself up, then climbs the rest of the way back onto the street. From his vantage point on the highway median, Angel couldn't see Connor's maneuvers. Now that he's back up, everyone's gone, and he doesn't know where they went. But he can follow their scents. Angel dreads what could happen if they have to face Mal without him.
Directly north of this section of 101 is a series of rugged hills leading up to the Hollywood Reservoir a miles west of Griffith Park. Connor hides on the reverse slope of a hill. He has ordered the others to take the road east and circle round once Mal approaches. When he gets within thirty feet, Lorne and Cordy do as Connor commanded. Wes lies lamed on Lorne's back seat. Gunn stands on the back bumper of Cordy's car, holding the back door with his left hand and a bat is his right, daring Mal to attack. Fred sits on the floor behind the back seat, nervously watching Charles. He's upset that he hasn't gotten his chance to attack Mal. Cordy drives away slow, both so Gunn won't fall and because Connor insisted on it. Mal can tell that he is being lured. Gunn and the others are making themselves too enticing as targets. So he lets them go. But it wasn't a trap so much as a diversion. As Mal watched them drive away, Connor scampered further north, leaving Mal all alone. Connor knew that he was the one Mal wanted. Not the easy kills. For the first time in the fight, Mal can't see any of his opponents. That worries him. He's no longer in control. Mal has no choice but to track Connor's scent. And the trail of blood he's leaving.
As Mal stalks Connor, Angel stalks Mal. He begins to realize that his son is carrying out some sort of conscious, intentional plan. He's proud, but worried. Angel notices the trail of blood Connor leaves, just like a wounded animal. Connor's plan does have the downside of tiring him out even further. He has to move mostly uphill across a quarter-mile of rocky ground, and he has to do it as fast as possible in order to keep ahead of Mal. Connor didn't know his destination would be so far away. Or maybe it felt farther because he was badly injured. He had been healthy when he hiked it last summer. Still, he makes it. Mal travels the distance with more ease and looks down at a road thirty feet below. Across the road is a thin strip of park land with an even higher ridge above it. "Not bad," Mal says as he stands there. Connor jumps out from behind a nearby tree and swings a large rock for Mal's skull. He blocks the rock with his right hand, grabs Connor with his left and tosses him up in the air and backwards. Connor crashes through the tree branches before slamming down to the ground. But right then, Angel comes up from behind and brains Mal with an even bigger rock. He tumbles down the hill. "Better than you thought," he says, answering Mal's faint praise of Connor. Angel rushes over and helps Connor up. He doesn't know what Angel just did, and he's upset his plan failed. He doesn't want Angel's comfort, and he sure as hell doesn't want a pep talk. He pushes Angel away in frustration.
Down below, Mal sits on the road and shakes his head at his blunder. He had completely forgotten about Angel. Then he hears the cars approaching. Lorne and Cordy see him on the ground, and they floor it (Gunn inside Cordy's vehicle by now). Mal quickly stands up and jumps leftward into the parkland. Lots of trees. An nice place to try and kill a vampire. The boy appears to have thought this one out. The boulders on the ground prevent Cordy and Lorne from running Mal down. Angel worries he could attack them. He tries to run, but he's badly hurt and the slope is very steep, so he ends up falling and rolling down to the road. Connor walks slower and more carefully. He can feel the blood running out of both ears and down his neck. His left leg is hard to stand on – because it's broken, which he doesn't yet know. He's extremely woozy from the loss of blood, most of which has saturated his two t-shirts and begun to trickle down and soak his jeans. Before Angel can arrive on the scene, Mal goes to work. The five friends stand together. They happen to be in front of Cordelia's car. So Mal rushes to Lorne's car and overturns it. The car rolls over twice, crushing the hood but landing right side up on its tires. Gunn hits Mal twice in the back with a four foot-long, four inch-wide steel I-beam left behind by Xander's construction crew. Mal goes down to his knees. Gunn whacks him in the back of the neck. He swings downward for Mal's head. The vampire rolls to his left, avoiding the blow. He stands up and turns around to find Angel five feet away and closing fast. Mal throws Angel over his shoulder. Angel quickly gets up. Mal circles away from Gunn. Angel moves in and throws a left jab. Mal backs away. Angel tries a right cross. Mal grabs Angel and throws him up over his head. He flips in mid-air and crashes down twenty five feet away. Mal turns to watch the painful impact.
Gunn hits Mal yet again in the lower back. This is really beginning to hurt. Gunn swings for his head. Mal reaches his right arm up and grabs the beam. As he turns around, he rips it from Gunn's hands. Before Charles can react, Mal swings the steel upwards into Gunn's chin. He flies twenty feet back and lands on a large boulder, splayed out like Prometheus. Mal bends the two ends of the beam down and inward until they touch. Then he tosses it away. Connor slams a rock into Mal's left ear. Mal is starting to get dizzy and experience a small portion of what he's putting Connor and Angel through. Mal hates empathy. In his right hand, Connor holds a branch that's about six feet long. After bashing Mal, Connor stabs for his heart, wielding the branch like a spear. Mal grabs it with both hands, rips it away from Connor and uses it to sweep out Connor's legs and knock him down.
Mal looks at down Connor and goes bumpy. "I would make it quick and painless, but you deserve better," Mal tells Connor. He tries a right hook kick and a left roundhouse kick. Mal backs up as he blocks both kicks. Connor tries a left jab, but Mal blocks that as well. He swings the rock in his right hand for Mal's fangs. Mal stops it with his left hand and hits Connor in the nose with a right jab. He yanks the rock away and holds it in his left palm while he walks towards Connor. "How are you going to kill me with this?," Mal asks. He slams the rock into the asphalt, grabs Connor's jaw with his right hand, leans in and sinks his right fang into Connor's carotid artery. More of a deep stab wound than a bite. Mal lets go and watches Connor fall. He grabs his neck as the blood spurts out. Mal carefully licks his right fang before going back to his human face. He sees Angel approaching on his left.
But he does not see Lorne approaching on his right. But even if he did, he wouldn't care. Lorne holds a taser in his left hand. After tiptoeing up as stealthily as he could manage, Lorne reaches out and jabs the taser into the right side of Mal's neck. He holds it there for two seconds before Mal turns around and hits Lorne's chin with a left uppercut. Lorne flies thirty feet back before crashing through some branches and tumbling to the ground. Cordy limps over to him. "Look Auntie Em. I can fly," the very punch-drunk Lorne jokes to her.
"What was that?," Mal asks about the electric shock as he faces Angel. No one had ever stuck him with one of those before. He puts his hands up and realizes that it has made his hair slightly frizzy. "So many weapons. And I'm still standing. What do you have left?"
"Me," Angel responds, trying to imitate Buffy and emulate her winning ways. He goes bumpy and gets ready to bring the pain. Mal doesn't take him too seriously. He keeps looking over his shoulder, waiting for Connor to attack again.
"That's quite a nose bleed," Mal tells Angel, who steps forward and throws a right jab. Mal grabs Angel's right arm and throws him over his shoulder to the ground. Mal turns to face Angel. Now all his enemies should be in front of him. When Angel stands up, he realizes what Mal was talking about. The blood pours out of his nostrils and down to the ground, forming puddles. It won't stop. He's hemorrhaging. This must be the beginning of what Wesley was talking about. His body was losing the ability to hold itself together. "Like a faucet," Mal tells Angel with a smile. He charges, but Mal kicks him in the chest with his right foot. Angel flies back and falls down.
Connor discovers that the blood is spurting out of his neck about twice every second. He's never before had an artery cut open before. Connor puts his right hand to his neck, trying to stanch the bleeding as he walks towards Mal. Angel gets up and sees his son to his right. He can tell the boy's in deep trouble. Then again, so is he. On the plus side, Mal's troubled by all the blood on his shirt. The worst part is, most if it's his. He rips off the shirt and tosses it to the ground. Connor has never seen Mal with his shirt off. He's never seen anyone with such a comically well-defined musculature (and Connor had met plenty of cartoon characters in his brief time on Earth). At this point, it couldn't help but intimidate him by adding to Mal's aura of invincibility. Angel just tried to remind himself that Mal was also hurting.
"He's a wonderful son," Mal tells Angel. "Clever. Resourceful. Explosive. Willing to sacrifice himself to save others. And he has that rare animal cunning. It's a real shame he never met that special Slayer. She's a very gifted girl. Silly name, but so talented. I think your boy would have been perfect for her. Heaven knows he would do her a lot more good than that silly-looking, yellow-haired vampire." Angel is both outraged and confused. Mal knows too many details. Almost like he's met them. Connor's too badly injured to lead the attack. He waits for Angel to make the first move. Connor doesn't worry about Mal having met Buffy so much as wonder why Mal would draw such a ridiculous conclusion. Angel wonders if Mal genuinely believes that Spike is inferior to him, as well as inferior to Connor. Even now, he can appreciate a good slagging of Spike. Meanwhile, Mal waits for their attack as they wait for his. The three of them are stuck in stalemate. But Mal is in no hurry. He knows that time is on his side.
They had all taken their shot at going toe-to-toe with Mal. All except Cordy. And it was now or never. She gets in her SUV and starts the engine. She's going to find out if it really can go off-road. Cordy drives down the road and into the grass. She speeds up as the tires and the suspension system negotiate the rocks. The extra ground clearance does come in handy when running down an enemy. Angel and Connor step to the side as they hear her coming up behind them. Both of them worry about her safety. Cordy bears down on Mal. She's going too fast for him to back up out of the way. So he leaps up, lands on her hood, runs up to the roof and leaps off the back. Cordy slams on her breaks just before hitting the steep hill that would have stopped her in her tracks anyway. She puts the truck in reverse and goes backwards. Mal had forgotten that cars could go in reverse. He never bothered to park properly. He always saw cars zooming down the road, never pulling in and out of garages and parking spaces. So this was a surprise. Mal turns and runs. When Cordy gets back to the road, she spins around and puts it in drive. She chases him across the narrow meadow, then swings north of Mal to block him from running up the ridge. She turns around again, spins her wheels and drives back towards Angel and Connor. Mal could have ducked behind a tree or found another way to avoid Cordy, but he was determined to beat her at this little game.
Cordy forces Mal to flee towards Angel and Connor. He doesn't want to do this. So Mal stands in the road. When Cordy gets really close, he hops to his left. As she drives by, he rips her front passenger-side door clean off. Now he's damaged her car, and acquired a weapon and a shield to use against Angel and Connor. Mal attacks, swinging the door in his right hand so the thin bottom end faces his enemies. Angel and Connor back up. He hits Connor's already repeatedly damaged left knee, then jams the bottom corner of the door into Angel's stomach. While he's trying to force it further into Angel's body, Mal gets run over by Cordy. He had forgotten about her, not realizing that Cordelia of all people would not let him trash her property and get away with it. He flies thirty feet back and slams into the side of the hill. Mal still holds onto the door, which left Angel's stomach the moment she hit him. Her bumper went straight into his knees, and the blow really hurt. Cordy slams on the brakes and gets out, approaching Mal with Angel to her left and Connor to her right. They don't think Cordy joining the attack is such a good idea.
Mal stands up and hurls the door like a frisbee, aiming straight for Cordy's face. To Angel's and Connor's great relief, she ducks in time. Mal leaps down from the hill. He simultaneously nails Connor with his left fist and Angel with his right. Cordy pulls out a hammer and swings its claw down for Mal's head. With his arms outstretched, he can't block it. Mal ducks and leans forward. The claw imbeds itself in his back. Mal grabs Cordy and tosses her twenty five feet into the air. She slams face-first into the roof of her vehicle. Mal reaches his right hand behind him and pulls the claw out of his back. "She was my favorite," Mal tells Connor and Angel as he backs away from them. The hammer is worrisome. Though, if it's any consolation, Cordy left a good-size wound that is causing Mal quite a bit of pain. From fifteen feet away, Mal throws the hammer at Connor's head. He reaches up and catches the handle between both his hands. Not exactly his usual panache, but it got the job done. Mal steps forward and kicks Angel in the chin with his right leg. He flies back and crashes into the ground. Connor swings for Mal's left knee. Mal lifts his left leg up. Connor rolls along the ground and sweeps out Mal's right leg, taking him down. Connor swings for Mal's left shin. He rolls away, stands and continues backing up. Connor pursues, putting more distance between himself and Angel.
"It's been a long while since I have had a kill this good," Mal tells Connor.
"Me too," Connor responds, at this point not even convincing himself.
Mal blocks Connor's right kick for the body. Then he rips the hammer away when Connor goes for his head. Mal lands three quick right jabs as he holds the hammer in his left hand. "Who needs this?," Mal asks as he tosses the hammer away. Connor attacks. Mal throws him face-first into a small boulder. His forehead bangs against the rock. "When I have this," Mal concludes, looking at his fist. He throws a left jab downward. Connor moves his head to the right. Mal's fist slams into the rock. Mal quickly grabs Connor's very bloody shirt with his left hand and hits him in the head six times with his right fist. Connor lies there, nearly unconscious. Mal grabs Connor's feet, picks him up and slams Connor's back into the rock. Angel comes to the aid of his nearly expired son. He grabs Mal's head from behind and tries to snap his neck. Mal reaches back, grabs Angel's head and tosses him forward and onto his back. Then he picks Angel up, turns around and uses all his strength to toss him forty feet into the distance. Angel lands on the road and rolls over several times before stopping. Fred and Wes hobble over to Angel, but he tells them to go help Connor.
After getting rid of Angel, Mal picks Connor up and looks into his vacant eyes. "Elders first," he tells the boy before clocking him with three very powerful left jabs and throwing him to the ground. Connor's slipping into unconsciousness as Mal walks away. As he makes his way to Angel, Mal sees Fred and Wes hobbling towards Connor. Mal goes bumpy and rushes towards them. They back away. Wesley trips over a rock, and Fred trips over a root. Mal returns to his human face, smiles and goes over to finish Angel off. He is barely standing as Mal approaches. Angel is very light-headed. He hasn't felt this way since when Darla was siring him.
"I told you I would not make you watch your son die. Now I will keep that promise."
"You mean this is when I kill you?," Angel meekly jokes as he coughs up more blood. Mal shuffles his feet and dances around, though more slowly and less gracefully than usual. Angel, for his part, can hardly move. Mal lands a right roundhouse kick. He follows this with a left kick that sends Angel airborne. Before Angel's feet hit the ground, Mal leaps up and pounds him with another right kick.
"Get up!," Mal taunts. "Not like your feet are broken." He reaches down, grabs Angel's right foot and twists it 180 degrees, snapping Angel's ankle. He winces. "Not yet," Mal adds. Angel gets up before Mal has the chance to completely hobble him. Mal lands a left and a right punch, then another left and another right punch to Angel's body. "Why are you crying?," Mal asks. Actually, blood has begun to trickle out of Angel's eye sockets, a sure sign that the end was in sight. Angel lands a left jab, but his right cross falls short and Angel staggers forward. He's having trouble seeing. Mal connects with a right jab and a left hook to Angel's face. He follows this up with a right uppercut, right hook and left cross. Angel goes down again. Mal is nearly done beating both his opponents to a literal bloody pulp. Mal walks around Angel. "Come on. One more time. You can do it. You have to. There's no one left. Your friends. Your son. They gave all they could. Now it's your turn." Mal is in a lot of pain. Especially for him. He won't be as energetic as usual with Nina tonight, but by tomorrow evening he should be all better. And from then on, he'd be there to serve her: personally and professionally. Giving Nina tips on how best to defeat the powerful yellow-haired Slayer with the funny name. Maybe getting Spike alone and seeing how long he could stand up to Mal's punishment. And Nina had promised he could kill all of Buffy's family, friends and hangers-on who weren't Slayers, Potentials or Watchers. That way, Nina wouldn't have to bother with them.
All of this goes through Mal's head as Angel gets to his knees, puts his left foot down, puts his right foot down and slowly rises to his feet. "I can feel it," Mal tells him. "This is it. Your last shot." Angel is having a very hard time maintaining his balance. Everything around him is spinning. He has nothing in the way of peripheral vision. And then there's all the pain. And the numbness. Like every part of his body is either feeling nothing or screaming out in agony. He can no longer see Connor in the distance behind Mal. Angel's friends are either semi-conscious or in no state to provide any meaningful assistance. All they can do is watch the slow, painful execution of the man they love and serve.
As Angel stood up, Connor became more conscious, and used his hands to pull himself along the ground over to the rock Mal thrashed him against. He leans against the rock, sitting partway up. It doesn't look to him like things are going so well for Angel. Connor figures he'll have to save himself. But how? He can't even stand up. Connor puts his left hand down, and it hits several small pieces of rock. These are the shards that broke off when Mal's left fist hit the rock on the only recent occasion when Connor dodged a punch. He looks down at them and feels around. One of them seems kind of sharp around the edges. He picks it up and looks at the piece of stone. It's flat. Round. About three inches in diameter. Connor looks up. Sixty feet in front of him is Mal's back. Connor smiles as the blood trickles out both corners of his mouth.
"How can a rock kill you?," Connor asks, repeating the question Mal put to him a few minutes ago. "Here's how." Connor whips his left arm forward, flicks his wrist, and tosses the stone. He's pretty sure it's his last hope. The stone disk spins through the air and hits its mark, slicing through the back half of Mal's neck, right as he's about to finish Angel off. Mal looks confused.
"That's new," Mal says to himself. Immediately, his flesh begins repairing itself. The skin on the right half of the cut has healed. And the right half of the spinal tissue has reattached itself. Angel sees the puzzled, distracted look in Mal's face and throws a right hook with all the strength left in his body. Mal also throws a right hook. Angel's fist hits Mal's left cheek. About five hundredths of a second later, Mal's fist hits Angel's left cheek. Angel goes down for for good. He knows he won't be getting up this time. A few seconds after falling on his back, Angel opens his eyes and looks up. Mal is still standing right in front of him. But he appears to be missing his head.