4.36 – Solo Fighting

Her first preparation was the spell that had prompted their so-called vacation in the first place—Ice Armor. Zoey had needed, above improving her combat abilities, a way to defend herself without relying strictly on Rosalie’s protection.

The spell forming in her mind, then activating, a sheen of ice coated her body, starting from her stomach and spreading outward, growing in thickness as her mana turned energy into physical material. Second by second, plates of see-through ice interlocked around her body, covering her in protective armor.

The material, as tested thoroughly with Maddy, could take a blow as well as metal could. Though, it would’ve been more effective layered on top of existing armor. Being spawned in naked wasn’t ideal. Then again, Rosalie had said the shard made the encounters weaker to make up for it, so it balanced out in the end.

Behind her, Delta burst out laughing. It was unexpected enough Zoey’s growing focus—her intense concentration on whatever upcoming fight she’d get into—dispelled. She blinked and looked backward.

“Nice,” Delta said. “I mean, I guess I should’ve expected it from you, but still. Caught me off guard.”

Rosalie, likewise, was looking at her with two raised eyebrows and a highly disapproving expression.

“What?” Zoey didn’t know what was going on. What had prompted the reaction? Her armor?

She looked down at herself, then gaped.

“What,” Zoey said.

In her practice sessions with Maddy, her ice armor spell had covered her in a typical knightly fashion—an aesthetic similar to a full suit of plate armor.

Now, she wore a jagged ice-bikini.

“I didn’t do that,” Zoey protested, turning and inspecting herself. She ran a hand across her exposed stomach, and the ice was there; it had simply taken a perfectly crystalline, see-through composition. “Seriously, what?” The only parts made of the familiar dark-blue ice that she’d practiced with Maddy were her sensitive spots: a fierce looking ice-metal bra, and of course, the bikini bottom.

“We know you’ve got a great ass, Zoey,” Delta said. “But you don’t need to show it off.”

Rosalie, the more focused of them, asked, “This isn’t how it usually looks?”

“No,” Zoey said. “It’s just normal plate armor.” And while Zoey would admit the ice bikini didn’t look bad on her, it was still embarrassing to be caught off guard. She hadn’t specifically designed her defense to be perverted.

“The shard’s influence, like usual,” Rosalie said dismissively. “Though that it affected a spell is odd. That’s not something I’ve heard of.”

“I’m a big fan,” Delta said, laughing having quieted, traded for a grin she couldn’t, or didn’t try to, wipe off. The way her eyes ran up and down Zoey’s body heated her skin up. Being naked was one thing, but adorned in a tight, very revealing bikini, one Zoey hadn’t even mean to put on, was another. “Though I don’t know about the effectiveness of just letting your ass hang out.”

Zoey looked back at herself, and saw that, indeed, it was all just hanging out. The front wasn’t very chaste, but the back … even less so.

“It’s still there,” Zoey said. “The armor. It’s just clear.” To confirm, she tapped her ass, fingers meeting the hard material. It plinked off, despite seeming like nothing was there. “Just how it looks.” Clearing her throat, Zoey said, “Anyway, that’s a surprise. I’m gonna keep going, now.”

Amused, Delta waved her on. Rosalie also seemed amused, though in a more subdued manner. Her eyes had also cataloged Zoey’s new outfit, and not in an entirely practical appraisal. Zoey could tell she approved, even if she wouldn’t say it.

While aesthetically impractical, the armor should work as it had before. It drew on her mana—her Lust—to reinforce itself, and despite being invisible in places, would still protect her.

She forced her mindset back to practical combat matters. The bikini had been a surprise, but ultimately, irrelevant. Her skin heated up, feeling somehow more exposed than when she’d been naked, but around Rosalie and Delta, Zoey was hardly self-conscious.

Combat. She had to focus on that.

Her ice armor summoned, even an ambush shouldn’t pose immediate danger. The protective material covered her head, likewise see-through. Against a first-advancement shard, Zoey shouldn’t have many problems.

Though, while she was technically third advancement, her strongest runes, and her highest leveled ones, were her support abilities. Her suite of solo combat abilities came from her rune of arcana, which was only second advancement, and far less practiced than a typical wayfarer. Add that to her general inexperience with fighting—being just some girl yanked from twenty-first-century Earth—and she had her work cut out for her, even fighting below her weight class.

Strangely, she looked forward to it. She wasn’t an adrenaline junkie, but this was to be her life for the foreseeable months, and she wanted to be good at it. Though the idea of combat itself didn’t excite her, she itched for the chance to prove herself.

She ventured down the hallway, tense, with her senses strained. Rosalie and Delta followed. They would intervene if Zoey failed, so she was in no real danger. Still, Zoey’s heart pounded in her ears.

The scraping, scurrying noises alerted her to the first enemy. Zoey remembered the alien creatures—similar to Earth’s animals, but also not something she actually recognized—from her and Rosalie’s first delve, so she didn’t flinch as the six-legged furry monster swung around a corner, scratching stonebrick as claws propelled it forward. Beady red eyes locked onto Zoey, and it screeched as it scrambled toward her.

She’d prepared her first spell in advance, holding onto the formula inside her head. Her Ice Armor and Ice Spike spells were by far her most practiced, but she and Maddy had worked on others. Ice was an element suited to disabling, Maddy had told her, and so they’d had Zoey practice with a rooting spell. The bulk of their efforts had been solidifying Ice Armor, so that Zoey could keep herself safe, and so she was much less effective with the root—but Zoey could bridge that gap by using her newest ability, Burst.

Ice exploded from the stonebrick floor, engulfing the monster’s six legs, bringing its charge to an abrupt halt. The brittle material flowered around it, up to chest level. Normally, it wouldn’t be half as effective, but by using Burst, she’d expended much more Lust than it would have cost otherwise—and empowered and stabilized it an appropriate amount.

She was just glad she’d gotten the spell off at all. About a third of the time, she botched it. Spellcasting wasn’t easy, especially in the middle of a fight.

Given that temporary reprieve, Zoey readied her next spell. Ice Spike. Now that her opponent was locked down and immobile, she could do some damage. And she better, because the ice cracked rapidly, the monster shattering its confines as it thrashed in its grasp. She only had a handful of seconds.

A handful of seconds in a fight, though, was a huge window. Her next spell formed with ease, being the ability Zoey had the most practice with: the skill she’d used all throughout the first and second shards, and also simple and straightforward. A chunk of ice, propelled at great speed.

And, of course, empowered with Burst. At least for her first fight, she’d use her full kit without worrying about spacing out resources for the full delve. Rosalie and Delta could always recharge her.

Lastly, she tapped into her other commonly used combat ability. Pressure Point. She’d been using the ability not just in the second shard, but during … other encounters, too, passively. It helped Zoey identify weaknesses, and she had grown accustomed to using it pretty much constantly.

Here and now, it suggested Zoey aim for the monster’s leg. That made her pause, since she’d have figured slamming the ice spike straight into its skull would be best, but she trusted her ability: if it said to aim for its leg, she would do so.

The spell activated, and a thick, jagged spear of ice—larger than usual, empowered by Burst—materialized from thin air, throwing up puffs of frost, then shot forward.

It landed true. The weapon cut straight through the front leg she had aimed for. Locked down by ice, it had been a safer target than its head, which thrashed violently as the monster struggled against its icy prison.

Zoey was already readying her next spell. The root she’d conjured weakened by the moment, and she doubted whether she’d even get a second ice spike off in time.

Indeed, by the time she’d cobbled the spell together, the monster had burst forward, breaking free, and continued its mad scramble for her.

She didn’t aim her next ice spike as delicately—she aimed simply for center of mass. Considering the speed it was rushing toward her, that was smartest. Immobilized, aiming for a specific weak point had been ideal, but Zoey simply wasn’t skilled enough to hit a moving target exactly where she wanted.

The ice spike buried into the monster’s shoulder. It screeched, but was far from discouraged. Instead, it scurried even faster, set into a frenzy by the injuries it had taken.

And then it was on her.

The melee began. Zoey grunted as a surprisingly dense six-legged—well, five-legged—monster slammed into her. She spun with it, heaving with all her strength to get it off her. It was more of an instinctive reaction than a trained one. While Delta and Rosalie had, on a few occasions, given her pointers for how to fight physically, it was an unemphasized portion of her training. As the support mage of the group, Zoey really shouldn’t be getting into brawls.

To her surprise, her attempt to fling the heavy creature off her worked handedly. As in, shockingly well. It had tried to bury its claws into her ice armor, and even had succeeded to some extent, but Zoey broke its grip easily. She flung the monster, and it went sailing away, smacking hard into the wall.

She wasted the advantage, unfortunately, in her surprise. The realization came quickly: of course she was stronger than she’d expected. Her advancements, to name one reason, which came with passive benefits, even to mages. Secondly, her stat-sharing skill, which gave her a portion of both Rosalie’s and Delta’s strength. While she wasn’t remotely on their level—it was only a small portion of it—it still boosted her to a non-negligible degree. Certainly enough to handle a first-advancement shard, seeing how her teammates had second- and third-advancement stats.

The monster lay there, stunned by the impact, which Zoey used to pull together another spell. She would have gone for a pain-amplification ability, now that she’d put a few injuries into the thing, but she didn’t trust her capabilities, there. She’d only been practicing with that set of spells for a single session.

So, another ice spike. The monster had recovered by the time she manifested it, but she’d loosed it before it reached her a second time. The spike slammed into the monster’s face, biting deep.

Even that didn’t kill it, though. Monsters were, unsurprisingly, durable to a supernatural degree.

It did effectively secure Zoey the fight, though. A short brawl later—having to peel the monster off her in another quick melee—and two more ice spikes, the monster’s speed and viciousness flagging from her previous attacks, and she’d successfully killed her first monster.

Panting, Zoey stood over her fallen opponent, feeling inordinately proud of herself. All that for a single first-advancement enemy, but still—her first solo kill.

She’d be a real wayfarer in no time.