Many imps gathered around the rift, though most were standing at quite a distance away. Only Rose, Violet and Coal actually approached it. Violet had her shield on her arm, expecting a fight, which was reasonable considering what was coming. The Orb was going to try to bring another imp like Coal here, which he had mixed feelings about.
It would be nice to have another like him that he could easily communicate with and to have something that felt familiar. But after giving it some more thought, he realised he liked his new pack better than his old pack and didn’t want one of them coming and messing everything up by trying to push everyone around; not that he thought they could, but he was sure they’d try, just like he had.
When the new imp appeared, Coal stared at her in awe. In his old pack, darker skin tones were always considered more attractive, it was the second most desirable trait after strength. The female standing before him now had skin so dark that it was almost black. He could only barely see the difference where it got darker on her hands and feet. She was the most beautiful imp he had ever seen and she smelled faintly of his old home, a scent he had almost forgotten since he was brought here. If not for his current pursuit of Violet as a mate, he would have challenged her to a fight straight away in hopes of impressing her with his strength.
She looked around at all the gathered imps before her gaze finally fell on Violet. With a smug grin, she pointed at the larger imp.
“You leader? I challenge,” she declared.
“She not leader,” Coal interjected, knowing that the others would not understand her.
She frowned and turned slightly to point at him.
“You leader? I challenge,” she repeated.
“I not leader,” Coal responded.
She deflated at that and lowered her arm to her side then peered at Coal suspiciously.
“Who leader?” She asked and Coal pointed towards Rose.
The new imp looked Rose up and down, trying to assess her strength. Rose raised an eyebrow in return.
“But…small, look weird.”
“She leader,” Coal insisted.
The imp continued to peer at Rose with narrowed eyes, then raised a hand to point at her.
“You leader. I challenge,” she declared again.
Rose sighed and turned to Coal.
“What’s she saying?” She asked.
“Want fight. Be leader,” Coal translated.
“No, I’d rather not,” Rose refused.
“Not want fight,” Coal relayed,
“Have to, I challenge,” The new imp demanded, glaring between Rose and Coal.
“Not rule here,” he refuted.
“Then…how be leader?” she asked with a dumbfounded expression, to which Coal shrugged in response.
“Everyone listen her. She leader,” he replied nonchalantly.
“She weak. I challenge, prove stronger. Then everyone listen me,” she proclaimed.
Coal shook his head in frustration. He didn’t think there was any point in arguing further; she wanted to fight and nothing he said was going to change her mind. Briefly, he wondered if he should fight in Rose’s place, unsure of how she would fare against another imp like him. While he had never actually fought against Rose himself, none of the imps here, besides Violet, had ever been able to best him; not that many had even been willing to try, especially not more than once.
But she had that thing they called ‘magic’ and could do things that he didn’t understand, so he decided to leave it to her unless she asked for his help. Though it would more likely be Violet who would step in if necessary.
The dark-skinned imp teleported behind Rose and slashed at her back, but her claws never made contact, instead being blocked by some kind of barrier that she couldn’t see. She was then violently knocked off her feet by Violet, who slammed into her with her shield. As Violet took another step to pursue her target, Rose held her back with a hand on her shoulder.
“Let me handle this one, it’ll be a good test of my skills,” she said.
Violet nodded and stepped back to give the two some space. The new imp glared at Violet as she retreated, then fixed her attention back on Rose.
Coal reflected on the way he had behaved when he first arrived and had to admit that this new female was more reasonable than he had been; she was at least willing to talk a little before attacking. But it still came down to a fight in the end.
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Rose wasn’t surprised that they had to fight, though she was a little irritated that Coal had pointed the hostile imp towards her specifically. But even if she didn’t like fighting other imps, this was a good opportunity for her; she spent a lot of time training with magic to improve her control, but not much practising using it in actual combat. Even when the others engaged in combat training, she would mostly be on standby to heal inevitable injuries, which was especially important when Violet and Coal got started. While healing others was valuable in its own way, she felt that her lack of combat experience was holding her back when the humans attacked.
The new imp teleported behind Rose again and slashed at her mana shield repeatedly. It was the same tactic that Coal had used almost exclusively the first time he fought Violet, and it was easy to block. She could put a shield around herself in a dome to easily stop the imp no matter what direction she attacked from, as long as she made it tight enough that there wasn’t enough room for her opponent to teleport inside it with her.
But she also had to actually attack as well and she couldn’t hide behind her shield forever. Her mana would run out eventually and assuming this imp was similar in ability to Coal, there was no hope of Rose winning against her in a plain physical fight. Magentam could provide her with extra mana, if necessary, but she’d rather try to finish this on her own, if she could, to prepare her for times when such assistance would not be available. Besides, even with Magentam bolstering her mana, excessive magic usage was still exhausting in its own way.
The next time the imp attacked her shield, Rose raised a hand and responded with a powerful wave of mana that sent her stumbling backwards. She looked around frantically with wide eyes, searching for the source of the attack. She said something to Coal again in her language and he responded, though their words were incomprehensible to Rose. The dark-skinned imp glared and began to slowly circle her.
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For all that it caught her off guard and made her act more cautiously, it wasn’t much of an attack, hardly more than a shove. Actively attacking while also maintaining a shield around herself was still difficult and something she needed to work on in the future. Keeping the shield up was also a constant drain on her mana and took even more every time it blocked an attack. If it was going to limit her attack potential in addition to that, then it was a hindrance she couldn’t afford.
Rose realised she would have a better chance of victory if she dropped the shield and focused on dodging attacks instead, attacking when she could and only activating the shield again temporarily when necessary. It would be riskier, but she knew she wasn't’ going to win if it became a battle of attrition.
With some hesitation, she let her shield dissipate. Her opponent was still circling, unsure of what to do. Rose pointed a hand towards her and released another wave of mana, though stronger this time, but the other imp disappeared before it hit her. Expecting another attack from behind, Rose immediately dove forwards and barely evaded the claws aiming for her back. She rolled onto her back and thrust her hands up, creating a narrow, but powerful gust of wind aimed at her opponent’s face.
The larger imp reeled back, blinking rapidly and trying to block the wind with her hands to shield her eyes. She teleported a few steps to the side and charged towards Rose. Though Rose had tried to dodge again when she disappeared, expecting the imp to appear behind her once more, only to be surprised to see her charging from off to the side instead.
She blocked the swiping claws with a shield and jumped back to get some distance. While the other imp was distracted by the shield, Rose dispersed it and lashed out with mana like a blade, slashing horizontally at waist height. It caught her target by surprise as the blade bit into her lower abdomen, just below her navel.
Crimson blood contrasted against the almost black skin as the imp hissed in pain. It was an idea that Rose had picked up after the recent battle with humans, though she’d had very little time to practise so far, so the attack lacked power and the wound was only just deep enough to draw blood, but didn’t cause any further damage beyond that. But that was fine for now since Rose didn’t actually want to kill the imp she was fighting.
The new imp glared for a moment before disappearing again. Despite leaping forwards to evade, Rose still felt the sting of claws raking across her shoulder blade, as the other imp was also learning and adapting and had similarly lunged further forwards as soon as she reappeared.
Without really thinking, Rose unleashed a wave of mana in all directions to push her away. She spun back to face her opponent again and unleashed another mana blade. The dark imp hissed as the mana sliced into her skin and darted to the side to dodge the follow up attack as Rose repeatedly thrust her hands forwards to send out more blades in quick succession.
There was a loud shriek as one of the imps watching the fight was hit by a blade that had missed its target, causing most of the observers to scatter, trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the two combatants. They could have left the room, but it seemed they still wanted to watch, despite the danger.
The new imp managed to avoid most of the blades that were sent towards her and teleported again. This time Rose dodged to the side instead of forwards. Predictability was her opponent’s weakness, she couldn’t let it be hers as well. She also created a shield as an extra measure between herself and where she expected the other imp to appear.
She saw claws slashing through the air where she had been standing and dropped the shield to lash out with a blade again and caught the imp in her side. With a hiss of frustration, the larger imp backed away as Rose continued to attack with more blades, before teleporting forwards again.
The fight continued like this for a while, with the dark-skinned imp teleporting to get behind her and Rose diving out of the way in random directions, barely managing to avoid her attacks each time. Rose fought back with mana blades whenever she saw an opening. But while it seemed like she was winning with the number of bleeding cuts she had inflicted, her mana was getting low, so she wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer.
Things took a turn for the worse when the imp teleported, but didn’t appear where Rose expected her to. Instead of teleporting behind her, she appeared directly in front of Rose. She had only raised a shield to protect her back and so was unprepared for the sudden change in tactics. In a panic, she raised an arm to block the downward swipe of her opponent’s claws. She winced as she felt the claws bite into her unprotected forearm but pushed her other hand forwards to unleash a powerful burst of mana to push the other imp back with enough force that she was knocked off her feet.
The wound on her arm was quite deep and bleeding heavily. The larger imp, finally showing signs of exhaustion, took a few seconds to stand back up. Rose used the time to heal herself a little, just enough to slow the bleeding, though doing so further ate into her dwindling mana reserves.
Defending herself was more difficult after that. Her opponent's predictability had been one of Rose’s best advantages, but it seemed that advantage was now lost as the teleporting imp was also trying to be a little more random with her trajectory. Sometimes, this meant she appeared further away as she had guessed the opposite direction that Rose actually dodged, but other times, she ended up far closer than Rose was comfortable with.
It was only her mana shield that protected Rose from taking further injuries, but now that she didn’t know which direction she would be attacked from, she had to create the shield all around her, causing a greater drain on her mana.
Once her mana had almost reached its limit, she tripped on a bone while trying to evade another attack and fell onto Magentam’s bone pile. They’d moved the chair holding the core and the decoy to the corner of the room, next to the radio, before summoning this new imp in preparation for the fight, but hadn’t bothered with the bone pile as it would have been a hassle to move them all. Now Rose regretted that decision.
Seeing an opportunity, the other imp pounced with a confident grin. In desperation, Rose grabbed the largest bone she could reach, a human skull that she grasped by its eye socket, and swung it forwards with all the strength she had left. The skull collided with her opponent’s head and sent her staggering back. Rose realised that she had been foolish from the start; she didn’t need to rely solely on her magic to fight. She should have brought her hammer.
Some of the bones still had mana crystals attached to them, so she quickly absorbed what she could and focused back on the dark-skinned imp, who was still a little dazed from the impact to her head. Rose figured she had only one more chance to finish this on her own before she’d have to ask for help. She decided to try something that Magentam had explained to her, but she hadn’t yet tested herself.
She began to compress the mana between her hands. She couldn’t compress it as much as Magentam could, not that she would, even if she was able to. When the other imp leapt towards her again, Rose unleashed a shockwave in her direction.
Rose couldn’t control it well though, and while most of the force was directed in the intended direction, she was still pressed painfully down onto the bone pile and had the air pushed out of her lungs, while other bones were scattered out in all directions. It was a thoroughly uncomfortable experience.
Her opponent, though, was violently knocked back, crashing to the floor and sliding across it until she bumped into the wall, with imps in the audience scrambling to get out of the way.
As Rose struggled to get back to her feet, she looked over at the other imp, who rolled onto her back, but made no further attempt to move until Coal wandered over to check on her.
“She give up,” he announced.
Rose let out a relieved sigh and sagged from exhaustion as everyone else cheered.
Congratulations on your victory. But you know you didn’t have to fight on your own, right? Magentam said and Rose felt a rush of mana spreading throughout her body.
“Thank you. And maybe you’re right, but she did challenge me specifically. I thought that, given the way Coal became obedient towards Violet, more or less, after she beat him, it might make things easier overall if I could beat her myself. Besides, it was a valuable experience that helped me identify several shortcomings of mine that I need to work on,” Rose replied.
Using a mana shockwave like that at the end was a bit of a risk, but I am glad it worked out. Though we should probably figure out a way to mitigate the kickback if you are planning to use it again in the future.
“Yeah, it was a little more than I expected,” she agreed.
Rose used some of the mana Magentam gave her to heal her injuries, and felt proud of herself for managing to get through that fight relatively unharmed. She sought out the imps who had been hit by errant attacks during the fight to heal them as well before moving over to the newest imp, who was still lying on the floor.
She knelt beside the imp, who flinched when Rose put a hand on her chest. Coal spoke to her again and she didn’t try to move, but she looked up at Rose with a fearful expression. She was bleeding from over a dozen shallow cuts all over her body, but despite their number, being minor injuries made them easy to heal.
As the wounds closed and the pain abated, she sat up with her eyes sparkling. Wiping away some of the blood, only a thin black line on her skin remained, though even that was hard to see with how dark her skin was naturally. She started chattering wildly, looking between Rose and Coal and pointing at her now healed injuries.
She threw herself at Rose and grabbed her in a hug. Rose hesitated, but awkwardly returned the hug.
“That's…not quite the response I expected,” Rose commented.