??? ??? ??? [Perspective: Skadi]

  "Skaditty's [Starlight Punch]!"

  Skadi's fist collided with Sir Vicious's face, knocking it aside and aggravating his jaw injury. Yay! She bounced upward on her rabbitty feet before Vice-Kin could bite into her. Her head-limb ears struck out several times, landing hard punches against him and shoving him against the arena's edge.

  It seemed the barrier could handle her impacts, which was super delightful.

  She caught something else then, while using her ears to glide downwards. The Arena went dead silent. Shock rippling through. Then an eruption of gasps and disbelief.

  "…Wait… she hit him?"

  "She hit him—she actually hit him!"

  "No way! The Venolisk are supposed to be untouchable!"

  "That snake's jaw twisted!"

  "She's faster than they said, way faster!"

  Some monsterfolks cheered wildly out of sheer excitement, but most were stunned and trying to process what they saw.

  Skadi landed with a soft drop and turned to her best friend, Rox. Skadi saw a ridiculous look plastered on Rox's face. She didn't need to acknowledge that Rox was shocked; she knew it, but she couldn't let her friend feel frightened. Nope. It was time to switch it up. A morale boost for the sake of teamwork!

  "Rox! Are you ready to continue playing? Our hunt would be a fun experience! Skaditty truly believes so."

  Rox gasped. She didn't look relaxed, but she huffed and looked down. It seemed she calmed her nerves.

  "You really see this as one of your games, huh? Can't say I should be surprised."

  "Darn you!"

  Skadi and her buddy Rox turned to face where Vicious lay. His jaw had been twisted out of place again, just like how Ki had broken it earlier when she had hit him into the sky. Maybe Skadi could do the same thing a couple of times throughout this match; it sounded fun. Or she could make a jump rope out of him. Or maybe—

  "[Venom Splatter]!"

  Vice had appeared out of nowhere like a blur, startling Skadi, and the veins that lined his scales splashed a viscous glop into the air.

  Both she and Rox had been swift enough to dash out of its radius, being superb speedsters in their own right.

  It was then Skadi noticed how the ground sizzled as the icky stuff splashed and melted through wherever they landed. If either of them had been hit, it would have been terrible.

  Skadi needed to change her mindset. She needed to take this a bit more seriously, or else Rox would get hurt.

  Her ears twitched happily as the gooey venom still hissed across the floor, gobbling up the stone like a hungry monster. Oh, scary-sizzle stuff! Not the kind you'd want to stick your paws in, no-no. Vice was relentless in pressing the attack, vomiting the purplish, hazardous liquid. Ew!

  She bounced twice, once to the left, once to the right, like she was hopping across stepping-stones in a meadow. Except this meadow had teeth. Very big, slimy, hissy teeth.

  But Skaditty loved games like this. If the floor wanted to eat her, then she'd just make the sky her playground.

  She skipped up into the air, somersaulting in a sparkly twirl, and giggled down at Vice.

  "That was a mean puddle trick! But Skaditty's too quick for sticky stuff~!"

  Rox was panting, ears pulled back in panic, wings half-open like she wanted to fly away but couldn't.

  Skadi's eyes softened. She didn't need to say anything to know her friend's heart was fluttering with fright, but she did say something anyway, because words were as important as punches.

  "Don't worry, Rox! They're just overgrown worms with cranky faces! We'll bop them like balloons at a festival!"

  That made Rox choke on a laugh. A tiny laugh, but it was enough. Yes! Skaditty magic worked. She wouldn't let the snakes gobble that little courage flame out of her friend.

  She noticed it outwardly, too. Outside the battlefield, even the skeptics all around couldn't help but admire.

  "Is she... joking around? In the middle of a death match?!"

  "That bat's smiling now too! What the hell is going on?"

  "Is she seriously treating this like a game? Hah!"

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  "I kinda like her spirit… don't you?"

  A shadow swept across her. Vicious struck like a thunderbolt, maw wide, venom-drip teeth aimed at her sparkly fur.

  Skadi smiled. Her paw glowed.

  "Skaditty's [Starlight Uppercut]!"

  Her fist, wrapped in radiant beams like candy-ribbons, smashed into Vicious's chin. His entire skull jolted skyward, his body dragged by the impact like he was a giant puppet tied to invisible strings.

  The crowd gasped as the serpent's jaw snapped and it crashed into the barrier wall, rattling it like a tree shaking after a thud.

  This was the explosive turning point. The crowd roared like a thunderstorm, equal parts disbelief and exhilaration.

  "Holy—she launched him like a toy!"

  "Vicious is bleeding! She broke his jaw again!"

  Some of the same spectators who called for their forfeit were now on their feet, screaming for Skadi. The chant began to shift: scattered cries of "Skaditty! Skaditty!" start echoing.

  "Yaaay! Ding-ding! He goes up, up, up—like a balloon after all!" Skadi sang, twirling on her toes.

  "SKADITTY! SKADITTY! SKADITTY!"

  Vice roared, scales and crest rattling with fury, his tongue darting as if tasting not just air but her joy. His gaze burned. He wasn't smiling anymore.

  "Little rat. I'll tear you apart and savor every shriek."

  The crowd turned against him, booing, now completely invested in Skadi.

  "Boo! Sit down, snake!"

  "You're just mad she made you look dumb!"

  "She's got more guts than both of you worms combined!"

  "Keep dancing, Skaditty! Show him up!"

  His hatred surfaced so strong Skadi felt it prickle her fur. But she didn't shrink. Oh no. She tilted her head, eyes sparkling with innocent confusion. "Aw, you sound upsetti-spaghetti! Did Skaditty bonk your brother's balloon too hard?"

  Behind her words, though, her mind ticked fast as lightning.

  His anger would make him sloppy. His emotions were boiling out like leaky stew, and she could sip them, taste them, read them. Every tremble of muscle, every twitch of fang, every lash of his tail whispered his plan before he moved.

  That was the secret. She was listening to the music inside their hearts: their fear-beats, rage-chords, hungry-hisses. And in that fantastic song, she could always find her rhythm.

  Vice lunged, venom spraying. Vicious forced his jaw back into place, and his eyes blazed as he circled from the flank. The twin maws opened wide, two abysses waiting to close around her.

  The crowd screamed. Rox cried out.

  Skadi just grinned, light pooling in her paws, ears flaring like radiant wings.

  "Okay, wormies. Skaditty will dance with you for real now."

  ??? ??? ??? [Perspective: Rox]

  Rox blinked hard as her chest heaved from the adrenaline. She had been frozen, pinned between the Venolisks' venomous vibes and her own cowardice. But Skadi turned it into a game. She somehow turned fear into a song you could laugh with.

  Her heart still hammered in her chest, but it wasn't panic anymore. No, not after Skadi had flipped the script from those thugs.

  Punch-crash! Step-hop! Laugh-spin! She was absurd, ridiculous, unhinged. And absolutely perfect.

  Skadi was a whole damn drumline of chaos that made the serpents look clumsy, like drunk dancers stomping on their own tails. The snakes thought they were running the show, thought they were predators closing in for the kill. But no. The tempo had shifted. Rox could hear it, could feel it.

  Against all odds, the crowd had also stopped being an ocean trying to drown her. Now they were an amplifier. And Skadi was the wild riff tearing out of the speakers and ripping through venom and scales.

  Rox knew this vibe, and suddenly, she remembered the forest. Her guardian, Perl, had taught her to listen—not with her ears, but with everything around her. The forest had its own rhythms too: the wind clattering through the branches, birds thrumming low calls, and the ripple-buzz of insects gnawing through the night.

  Even silence was music if you didn't fight it.

  Perl had sung her spells into Rox's veins then, teaching her to cast her will into the world and make it answer back. Perl's voice had taught her to catch that music, to spin it through her throat, to weave sound into something enchanting.

  "Sing even when the monsters crawl close," Perl once told her. "If your voice doesn't waver, neither will you."

  She smiled at the thought, while Skadi sparkled like a manic disco ball of fists and joy. Rox realized she didn't need to fight against the horrid auras of Vice and Vicious alone.

  Alongside her awesome friend. She could play along, twist their venom into reverb, turn their snapping jaws into percussive crashes, and make their hate a drumbeat for her own song.

  She let her wings flex open, stretching the thin membranes until they quivered with vibration. Fighting back was a rad possibility. She tried to get courageous, locking her gaze on the snakes that circled and hissed. Every threat they spat became just another ugly chord for her to shred against.

  Her mouth opened, and the sound that emerged wasn't pretty—not in the sense of the clean melodies that Perl would always conjure. It was raw and jagged, like broken glass being strummed over metal strings.

  It reminded her of the guitar-object that Ki had given her to play with, and she had loved it then.

  But Rox's version of the [Melodious Shout] moved. It throbbed. It smashed through the Venolisks' venom-thick aura and sent ripples across the floor, shaking loose the tension in her own bones.

  I sang a raw shriek loaded with [Disrupt], a tearing feedback wave that ricocheted across the zone. And the [Disruption] worked! She grinned, sharp-toothed and defiant.

  "Yeah, that's right, worm-boys. You wanted a show? Then listen the hell up."

  Then an aftermath of her technique emerged.

  The vibrations of [Melodious Shout] wrapped around Skadi like invisible armor, harmonizing with her bounding rhythm. Every punch Skadi threw carried not just muscle, not just starlight, but Rox's beat thrumming underneath.

  Skadi became joy set to tempo, all starlight and sparkly sugar, bouncing like a rabbit-shaped metronome across the arena. This subtle enhancement Rox provided showed that they could be a duo. A band. A goddamn uprising on stage.

  Vicious jerked his head, fangs gnashing. "Little bat, you'll regret that."

  Vice snapped his head toward her, tongue flicking, eyes lidding into slits as if only just realizing that the bat-girl wasn't backing down anymore. He coiled to strike, venom bubbling at his fangs.

  Rox licked her lips, tilting her head with that smirk Perl used to hate and love all at once.

  "Oh, you don't like my voice? Too bad. I'm just getting warmed up."

  She howled then, a wild, guttural note that tore from her lungs and bent into an enchantment. The sound crashed against Vice's focus like a hammer, forcing his coil to twitch and stumble. Vicious swayed like a broken marionette, shrieked as the vibrations rattled through his skull.

  Skadi giggled beside her, clapping as if she had just joined her playtime. And maybe she had. But it was not play for Rox; it was survival as a song.

  The crowd erupted, their roars syncing with her own voice, lifting her higher. For the first time in this fight, Rox acknowledged that she wasn't simply following Skadi. She wasn't stumbling in her shadow. She would jam alongside her and blast her own sound into the fight, and together they would rewrite the song.

  No longer prey. No longer the underdogs. They were the noise the world wasn't ready for.

  ? Phoenix Flight [Lite LitRPG - Dungeon Diving - Slow Romance] ?

  by RainyLiquid

  Weak to Strong, gathering of powers, skills, and spells.