Viola’s fist flew through the air, finding its mark, the skeleton’s skull shattering. Its headless body collapsed into a mess of bones that clattered to the rocky floor. The somewhat surprised bunny girl stared at her right gauntlet, the one that had slammed into the skeleton’s skull, for a moment, her bunny ears twitching.

“One hit. One KO. I really wasn’t expecting that. I thought they’d be tougher somehow.” The green-eyed girl lowered her fist and turned her attention to the remaining two skeletons. The skeletons just stared back, not moving for a moment. Then the two of them turned to one another. What could best be described as a shoving match broke out between the pair. It was actually quite bizarre. Viola was just standing there, but the two of them seemed more interested in pushing each other than fighting her for now.

The orange-haired bunny girl sighed as she watched the shoving match intensify. “What the heck are they doing? Should I just, like, attack or something, or let whatever this is play out?” She mulled the options over in her mind. “Wait! Are they arguing about who fights next?”

“I’ll take you both on at once! Let’s go!” She rose her fists defiantly. The skeleton pair stopped shoving one another and turned to her simultaneously. A cocky grin graced the bunny girl’s face.

One skeleton moved first, swiping an arm horizontally at her. Viola ducked it. She glanced up with a smirk before rising up with an upper cut, crushing the undead’s jaw with her right fist. Its jaw gone, the thing managed to stagger back a few feet before collapsing into a pile of bones.

“That’s two. One’s left,” Viola thought to herself, a huge smirk plastered on her face. She turned to the final skeleton, finding that it had started to back away. She took a step towards it, but it held a hand up motioning for her to stop. “What is it doing? It doesn’t seem afraid, so why is it distancing?”

The last skeleton came to a stop, upturning its skeletal palms at its sides. Sparks of electricity began to gather above its upturned palms, coalescing into orbs of lightning. The monster flung the orbs towards Viola, first the right and then the left.

Viola’s emerald eyes widened in utter disbelief. “A freaking mage?! The last skeleton is a freaking skeleton mage?! What the heck?!” She ducked the first lightning orb, but leapt to the side to avoid the second, a pair of explosions sounding a moment later. “Figures that this wouldn’t be that easy. Of course the third one is going to be tougher.”

The bunny girl set her emerald eyes on her surprisingly tough opponent, sweatdropping at the sight of it just standing there menacingly. Actually, it was now walking towards her menacingly, already charging up another pair of lightning orbs.

“I don’t think I much like that last skeleton.” Her hand reached for her sword, but she stopped short of drawing it. “No, I’ll fight it with my fists like I did the other two.” She crouched down, ready to strike.

***

“Three little wisps, all alone~ What you gonna do?~” The cat girl smiled pleasantly, her crimson eyes watching the three remaining creatures before her. The wisps seemed terrified of her and were quite obviously trying to keep their distance.

“What’s a matter?~ Don’t you want to play~” Eks took a step forward, her cat tail playfully swishing from side to side, the wisps backing up. She clapped her hands together, her cat ears twitching cutely. “…but I still want to play~”

The wisps began twisting around one another in a bizarre display, catching the cat girl off guard. She cocked her head to the side in confusion. “What the heck are they doing?” Their bodies started to merge, the combined form dropping to the ground, clearly having lost the ability of flight. Before her, a towering three-headed hydra of a monster reared its heads upwards.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is most definitely not it.” Eks brought a hand to her chin, thinking the situation over. The massive wisp hydra didn’t wait, instead lashing one of its heads out at her. She sidestepped the attack, then side-stepped another, and finally avoided a third by jumping up on the offending head.

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“You know, you could give a girl a bit of time to think here.” Her tone was relaxed, arguably not even serious. She leapt down as the thing started shaking the head she was using as a perch. “For such a big monster, you seem awfully weak~”

The hydra started flailing at the insult, sending wave after wave of attacks. The attacks really weren’t what one would called aimed at the start. Instead, it was merely lashing out randomly as it raged. Quite obviously, that last insult had gotten to it. In time, though, it stopped the random flailing and started actually planning attacks, not that that seemed to do it much good.

Eks grinned as she easily danced around the blows. “Put some muscle into it~” she chirped playfully as if the whole thing were nothing more than a game. More attacks came for her, and she racked up more dodges. Then she felt her backside press up against a wall.

“Oh my~ Whatever am I to do?~ Seems I’m up against a wall~” She continued to mock, obviously not afraid. In fact, she seemed on the verge of laughter. Cutely, she put her hands behind her back and leaned forward. “What are you gonna do?~”

The hydra was livid at her antics. Even after the three of them had combined into this more powerful form, the red-eyed cat girl continued to make a mockery of them. In anger, it reared up before plunging all three of its heads down towards the vexing woman.

“Too late~” Eks snapped her fingers, and the hydra’s body ripped apart, residual smoke scattering. “We should do this again sometime~ Oh right~ We can’t because you’re dead~”

The cat girl stretched her limbs before turning towards the fight that Viola was in. “Is that a skeleton mage?! What the heck did I miss?!” “Go, Vi! You can do it!” she cheered, pumping her arms into the air.

***

Viola kicked a lightning orb away, the thing bounding across the rocky floor before detonating against the tunnel wall. The explosion sent small shards of brown stone scattering across the battlefield. The bunny girl and the skeleton stood their ground, neither yielding as they continued to square off against each other.

“Not bad,” Viola complimented her foe, a smile on her face, an occasional pant coming out from between her lips. “You’re much tougher than those other two were.”

The skeleton grinned as well as a skeleton could. It opened its mouth, unleashing a series of odd screeches, skeleton speech perhaps.

“I-I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” The bunny girl sweatdropped, her ears twitching. “A-Anyway… Let’s finish this.” She slammed her right fist into her left hand, her orange hair swaying with the movement.

The skeleton mage nodded before jumping back. The undead balled up both its fists bracing itself, an electric aura appearing around it. Sparks of electricity coursed through the monster’s form as the aura intensified.

“Did it just power up?! Guess it really is going all out.” “Let’s do this!” The bunny girl darted forward, drawing her right fist back, the skeleton doing the same. They both swung, gauntlet meeting bone. The next thing she knew, she was flying back, shards of electrified bone flying everywhere. She wobbled back to her feet, the world seeming to swim around her.

“What the heck?! D-Did that skeleton explode?!” Viola blinked her emerald eyes as the world stopped spinning. She glanced around, noting the clear lack of her prior opponent. Now there were just a bunch of bone shards everywhere. “Definitely looks like it blew up. Guess it powered up a bit too much.”

Confidently, Viola turned her attention back to the mole queen, calling out, “Hey, we still doing this?! You can still just step aside!”

“Step aside?! As if I’d step aside! Just cause you beat a few skeletons, don’t think you can defeat me!” The odd woman struck another awkward looking pose, quite obviously trying but failing to look intimidating with it.

“Fine then!” The bunny girl started closing the distance between the two.

“Eep! Wait a moment! Wouldn’t you rather challenge me in a game of checkers?!”

“C-Checkers?!” Viola stopped, her bunny ears twitching in utter annoyance. “Seriously, what the heck?! I am not playing you in a game of checkers right now! Just get out of the way already!”

“Jokes on you because I didn’t have a board with me!”

“Then why did you even ask?!” Even the girl’s bunny tail was twitching in annoyance now.

“Why indeed?” the mole queen answered cutely.

“Let’s just get on with this!” Viola readied herself for combat. The mole queen did likewise.