D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Kat —

Kat had found herself in something of a holding pattern. Is this was a more standard fight, running would be the optimal strategy. In a sufficiently large arena Kat would just kite Eleanora around the edges until the elf gave up. If she was fighting for real, she’d either go around the stupidly competent elf or give up and try again some other time… but that wasn’t what she was here for. She was here to give Eleanora a proper fight and maybe get a guard out of it to protect her friends.

Which meant instead of running away and abusing the fact she had nearly unlimited stamina and Eleanora probably didn’t… Kat was charging in over and over again. It was tougher then it seemed. Eleanora could summon and dismiss her constructs with shocking speed. The mana requirements should be ridiculous…

So it had to be something else. Kat was guessing that Eleanora had something on her that let her store the limbs in an expanded space pocket. These weren’t limbs that she was constantly recreating they were a set of metal limbs that were stored and brought out as needed. It made Kat wonder if Eleanora actually had some minor affinity for space on top of her other three.

The ice… Kat was less sure about that. The metal definitely wasn’t being conjured wholesale but it was possible the ice was. Perhaps some combination of the two? Or maybe an enchantment on the metal itself? Kat didn’t know. However, after fighting for over an hour against Eleanora something became clear.

Eleanora’s enchantments were all about efficiency. She could clearly cast spells on her own but it just wasn’t worth it. Everything she did? She did to ensure that it costs the absolute minimum amount of mana. It was breathtaking to realise and relied on a lot of knowledge Kat had ‘borrowed’ from Lily’s sleeping mind to figure out. It was a strange way of fighting, and probably one that cost a lot of money to set up but it really let you stretch your mana over longer fights.

However, that realisation led Kat to another one. The hands and feet were intimately connected to Eleanora’s own. That’s how they could be moved so swiftly and with such power. What that meant in practice, was that any injuries Kat inflicted on the metal parts of the limbs were reflected on Eleanora. It was really hard to notice considering she wore full armour…

But Kat managed to confirm it. She’d slammed a full strength demonically enhanced kick right into the wrist of one of the giant hands while keeping a close eye on Eleanora. It was unbelievable. Eleanora didn’t twitch. She didn’t flinch. Nothing in her posture indicated she’d even felt a pinprick much less having her wrist shattered as the hand disappeared into its pocket space. Eleanora even let her arm drop so that nothing would seem too off…

But just before Eleanora had moved to cover the injury, Kat could see that her wrist was broken. Hanging limb and unmoving right before it was shifted to Eleanora’s side. Of course, Kat had no idea what to do with that information. The fact Eleanora also had regeneration as an affinity meant that having a broken wrist wasn’t a true concern, just something to fix up after a few moments of concentration.

Still… it was an avenue of damage and perhaps a good way to run the elf out of mana. At the very least it gave Kat hope that she could eventually win against Eleanora but there was a lot of emphasis on that ‘eventually’. Kat had long since found herself looking out for any sign that Eleanora was starting to run low of mana but so far there was nothing to report. No additional sweating, no shaking, no paling of the skin. Everything seemed to be going as normal.

Which was annoying for the person constantly being kept away from their target. Eleanora’s ‘ice ball’ technique was one of the better ones. Kat had to be quick on the ball to counter it and the only way to do so opened her up to other counter attacks. If Kat punched hard enough she could shatter the first half of the ball and hit the metal underneath… but that was only if she was ready for it and applied the force before getting trapped. Annoyingly, Eleanora didn’t always summon the second half of the ice dome, and even then she usually did it as late as possible.

Which was a problem because Kat regularly found herself crushed or battered by that second hand when she was making her way through the first. It made using water form even more risking. Kat had swiftly identified her form switching as one of the more costly techniques. Sure it was relatively cheap but it did cost more demonic energy then she was regenerating to swap regularly and Eleanora had capitalised once she realised Kat didn’t want to use it too often.

Still, the orb wasn’t the only thing to worry about. Eleanora’s giant boots were just as deadly. Eleanora’s feet could cover more distance and changing directions better. Her arms had to have some flow to them but because they weren’t arms but hands and a bit of wrist there were only so many tricky movements she could pull off without being wasteful. The feet on the other hand? Were a completely different story.

Eleanora could kick one foot into the other, she could drop onto the ground for a moment to drastically change the trajectory. The giant copies of the feet clearly didn’t care much for the laws of physics. They didn’t ACT like giant feet but like normal sized ones… until you remembered they could crush houses easily.

They could also unleash a devastating ice nova style attack where one slammed into the ground and set a wave of chilling air from them. Kat had dodged the first one by turning into water instinctively and boy was that a mistake. Her normal form was all but immune to the cold but her water form was not. It was, mostly, just normal water and a good chunk of it had frozen under the magical assault.

Kat had wasted a huge amount of demonic energy transforming back with the ‘missing’ pieces and endeavoured not to do it again. That’s when she learnt the wave of frost and snow also contained little exploding ice pellets that could get through her skin if when they hit her. It wasn’t much damage, and it was all healed in just a few seconds… but it was another bit of demonic energy she was spending when she didn’t always have to.

The one upside was that this technique was that it was either a spell that cost a good amount of mana or it was an enchantment that required some charge time because Eleanora didn’t use it all that often even when Kat was right next to the boots. It had only been broken out after the thirty minute mark and had only been used four times in total. A rather low amount for what Kat felt like was one of the more damaging abilities Eleanora had in stock for her.

So Kat needed to plan ahead. Set some sort of trap. At first she started to destroy more of the dirt area around Eleanora then tried to force the elf to move up and into the debris in hopes of tripping her up. Sadly the closest Kat got to tripping Eleanora up was when she slammed a foot straight through the dirt and rock that nearly tripped her up but it was clear Eleanora was paying attention to her footwork, far more so then Kat herself was.

Next Kat went for distractions, kicking bits of debris at Eleanora whenever she could. Even if they didn’t do much damage if they could break her concentration for even a moment Kat would take it. A slight disturbance would hopefully be enough to sneak past the limbs. Kat felt like she threw thousands of little things at Eleanora before…

A slight twitch. Kat readied herself and dashed forward as Eleanora seemed to stumble… and then she kept falling… and falling… and there were no hands or feet and now Kat was just confused. Slowly approaching the downed elf Kat turned her over to reveal Eleanora had fallen asleep. “Huh?” Kat poked the elf in the chest a few times and she just responded by mumbling and latching onto Kat’s leg. “Huh?”

*WHAT SORT OF SHIT IS THIS! I thought I finally had her! That I’d finally distracted this fucking elf but no! Instead she’s just completely exhausted! God dammit! Does this even count as a win?! I’d bet she’d say so but… seriously what the hell!*

What Kat didn’t know was that Eleanora had come straight over after her failed hunt through the forest. She hadn’t slept in days. Thus so ends, the battle of the Ice Witch and the Ice Demon. Where despite everything, Kat was the one left upset and annoyed at the battles end.