A loud crack of electricity arced out from the changeling queen's throne. I jumped in front of Luna and took the hit to the chest. My body seized and I fell to the ground convulsing. I blacked out from the lightning frying me, but only for a moment, as my body's regeneration fixed the damage in seconds.

  There were still spots in my eyes when I looked back up at the changeling queen from the ground. I was lucky that lightning attack wasn't as strong as an actual lightning bolt, because I was sure that even my powerful regeneration wouldn't be able to take it. I unconsciously winced as I saw the changeling preparing another attack. Before the spell could arc to my still prone form, the electricity was redirected to Luna, who used her magic to route it away from us.

  Luna grit her teeth. ("I can deflect the attacks, but I can't use any other magic while doing it!") she broadcast through the ring.

  I couldn't hear whatever Maxwell must have replied to her over the ringing of my ears, but I pulled myself back to my feet as quickly as I could. I couldn't let anyone else tank a hit from an attack like that. It would be too much for anyone else. It could kill any one of them instantly. As much as I'd love to shift out of my metal armor, I needed to stay a lightning rod. I didn't know how much resistance I had to the effects of lightning magic, but if it's anything like that last attack, I should be able to take it as long as multiple attacks don't come at once. Between Luna and me, I think we would be able to do this.

  Another arc shot out at Maxwell and Piper at the same time. Unfortunately, Luna and I both went to shield Piper, and the second arc shot out at Maxwell. He raised his shield, and miraculously, the tenacious human managed to block it. The lightning collected along the metal of his tower shield, and smoked from the attack, but Maxwell was able to effectively hide behind it and diffuse the lightning magic around him. I sighed in relief as I bolted toward the changeling queen before the next attack.

  Luna had dragged the bolt of lightning away from Piper and redirected it as I pressed forward. The changeling's eyes went wide as I barreled toward it, but another bolt of lightning slammed into me before I could react. My body tipped forward and I slid along the smooth stone toward her while my body shook in white-hot pain. As soon as the electricity flowing through me stopped, my body began to heal, and I was able to look up in time to see Maxwell pressing forward right through another arc of lightning behind his shield.

  Maxwell shifted his weight and braced his shield as he prepared to ram the creature on the throne. The changeling queen leapt out of her seat just in time for Maxwell to crash into the glass throne and break through an invisible magic barrier she had cast around herself. Thousands of spiderweb cracks exploded up the walls of the throne. The changeling queen rolled out of the way just as Maxwell spun and swung it at her again. The queen's wings buzzed in a high-pitched whistle as she evaded the attack by the skin of her teeth.

  She twirled in the air and giggled like all of this was a game. "Oops! Almost got me that time! I don't like tag, though! Let's play hide and seek instead!"

  "The fuck are you talking about?!" Maxwell growled as he tried to follow up with a sword slash that she fluttered away from. Now didn't seem like the time to try to explain the difference between tag and hide and seek to him, though.

  The changeling queen spun in the air and suddenly looked like a catkin fully covered in white and black striped fur. Giggles rang out from the crowd of changelings watching the show as they began to transform into matching catkin and jump into the arena. In only moments, I lost track of the changeling queen as she mixed herself in with the other identical looking changelings. It reminded me of a zebra hiding amongst its herd.

  I knew my friends were in danger, so I snagged Maxwell by the waist and jumped back over toward Luna. As I landed and Maxwell scrambled away from me, another bolt of electricity slammed into my armor and made me convulse again. My muscles locked up and felt sore, but I somehow stayed upright for long enough that Luna had redirected the bolt of lightning into the crowd, frying some of the nearby changelings instead.

  Stumbling back, I felt several small knives shove in and out of the various gaps in my armor, but I just roared and threw all of the monsters surrounding me away. I was starting to get pissed off by their cowardice. I snarled and whipped around before chomping down on one of the changelings that was still holding a knife. I felt his body go limp between my teeth as my jaws cracked his bones and nearly split the creature in half. A rush of adrenaline invigorated my body as the changeling's magic flowed into me, mixing with the sudden surge of bloodlust I felt.

  In a frenzy, I spun and tore through all of the changelings around me. I slowly waded a little bit away from my friends so I wouldn't have to worry about cutting them to ribbons with the rest of these monsters. I tore one in half and was about to leap toward another one when I was thrown from my feet along with all the changelings around me when the glass throne exploded. Glass shrapnel had rocked through the crowd, killing dozens of the changelings closest to where the throne had been, but my armor protected me from the brunt of the attack for once.

  ("Is everyone alright!") Luna cried out through the rings.

  I waited a moment before responding. ("I'm alright.")

  ("Move toward the center! The mana from the throne is pooling into these glass pillars, they're about to turn into lightning towers!") Luna hurriedly relayed to all of us.

  I turned and started carving a path for myself when I received another message from her, this time a personal one. ("Helena! I need you to help Iris! She's surrounded!")

  Standing to my full height, I scanned the immediate area. There! I spotted an empty gap in the crowd where Iris's air shield was keeping the changelings at bay. With a growl, I cut the changelings between me and my packmate down as I pushed through to help her. Once I tore through, I found Iris panting with exertion as she poured her mana into her wind shield. Thankfully, I managed to make it to her before she ran dry. I pushed in and through the wind of her shield before scooping her up and leaping to the center of the room with the others, like I had been told.

  I counted myself and Iris lucky that a bolt of electricity didn't tear through me at that moment, and we landed safely next to the shattered remains of the glass throne. All of the electricity that the changeling queen had captured was now angrily buzzing in the surrounding pillars instead.

  "Iris! Clear the area of glass! Shoot it that way!" I called over the cacophony of giggles and screams coming from the nearby monsters. I couldn't afford to waste Iris's precious mana on communication when I was still holding her in my arms.

  She waved her short staff frantically, and a powerful gust of wind bowled changelings over and then shredded them with chunks of sharp broken glass. She must have just killed a dozen that way by happenstance, but there was too much going on to focus on that right now.

  "Where are the others? I only heard Luna!" Iris cried out.

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  "They're coming! Shoot everything outside of these two pillars!" I yelled back.

  Iris's magic was a bit indiscriminate right now. She didn't have a ton of spells that only hit enemies, so instead I restricted the area where the others shouldn't be. The large pillars loomed large enough that we could orient ourselves with their help.

  Speaking of indiscriminate, the eight pillars surrounding the boss area were wildly shocking anything that got near them. Something like a fourth of the changelings hadn't even gotten to do anything before the pillars tore their bodies apart. The queen changeling occasionally tried to take a potshot at us with her lightning, but after the ones that hit me and Maxwell, Luna has managed to ward off every bolt that I've seen since. She would snatch up any bolts of electricity sent our way and redirect them into other groups of changelings.

  Finally, Maxwell and Aria burst into the center of the ring with us. Aria had abandoned the crossbow somewhere and was firing her normal bow at fast speeds. She was quickly burning through arrows, but between Maxwell's shield and her kill shots, they were able to tear their way through the crowd and meet up with us. Aria and Maxwell looked tired, but they were still in good shape to fight. Aria slung her bow on her back, slipped out a pair of twin daggers, and began to fight like a dancer, stabbing and throwing the changelings around as if they had practiced their choreography ahead of time. Her quiver was less than half full. She must be conserving her arrows.

  "Where's Luna?" Maxwell called out.

  "That way, moving with Piper!" I pointed toward the tug of the ring Luna gave me, the magic inside always led me to my love. "They have to go slow so Luna can protect us from the lightning!"

  Another arc of electricity was redirected right above our heads. Taking the opportunity, Iris spun in the opposite direction Luna should be coming from and pushed a giant spray of fire from her bracelets and into the howling wind she was creating. All of the changelings in her path screeched in pain as their beastkin fur caught fire. The voice of the changeling queen screeched in pain over the rest of their voices from that direction, but things were too hectic to tell exactly where the sound came from.

  Piper cried out in fury as she pushed the last of the way through the crowd. Her body was covered in blood, and scratches scoured her armor, but her skin was pristine. Her self-healing removed any damage as she received it and only left her angry. She looked practically feral as she slashed and cut a path through the changelings for the two of them. The only other spell Luna had cast all this time had been a fire shield that sprayed fire out at any of the changelings that tried to break it. I could feel more than I could see the magic that hummed through the shield, but her primary focus was on catching all of the monster's lightning attacks as she followed Piper through the crowd.

  "Iris! Right thirty!" Aria called.

  The mousekin perked up, and a rush of wind swirled around Aria as an arrow was loosed from her bow. A split second after the arrow was shot, it cracked like a whip as the projectile slammed into the pillar in front and to the left of us.

  "Again!" Aria called before shooting another arrow. Again, Iris's magic empowered the attack to a speed enough to break the sound barrier as it slammed into the pillar and caused it to explode into glass shrapnel crackling with electricity. In a panic, Iris extended her wind barrier and caught all the shrapnel while Luna caught the arcs of electricity that traveled nearby and redirected them into the crowd in front of us.

  Aria spun around and called out again. "Iris! Left thirty!"

  Once again, Aria's arrow shot from her bow, cracked in the air, and crashed into one of the pillars hard enough to nearly shatter the thing.

  "Again!" Aria loosed another arrow, and it accelerated into the pillar hard enough to make the next one explode. Iris was panting now, but she dutifully caught all of the shrapnel again while Luna handled the lightning.

  "Right sixty!" Aria called as she loosed another arrow.

  This continued on for another three pillars before Iris had to stop her.

  "Left eighty!"

  "Too- too much. Give me a second!" Iris called out.

  This time, the arrow harmlessly bounced off the pillar, and Aria slung her bow back over her shoulder before starting to dance with her knives out again without another word. There were only three pillars left, but the intense battle was wearing on all of us. The one most affected by all of this was Iris, but after watching the two of them destroy five of the pillars in a row, I was more than impressed. Luna was also sweating, pouring her intense concentration into intercepting every shot of electricity that came our way. As things progressed, the lightning attacks became more and more frantic as the crowd of changelings was thinning. If this had been any situation other than a dungeon boss controlling a horde of dungeon monsters, anyone else would have called off this horrific fight by now.

  My entire body was smeared with blood as I had been able to devour their magic faster than I could spend it. My body hummed with magic as I tore through the monsters and kept my pack safe. My eyes were always watching, though. I looked at the face of every fake beastkin I could see. Every time I lifted one of the changelings and sank my teeth in hard enough to break a spine, my eyes flicked up and scanned the crowd. We must have been fighting for nearly half an hour when I finally spotted her. The queen.

  She had grown more frantic and frightened as her minions died. The haughty quips and teasing barbs had stopped long ago. The lightning pillars surrounding us had kept this creature trapped as much as it had taken away our ability to escape. I could see its weakness. It was scared. It was losing. It would die.

  ("Piper! Cover me,") I growled through the rings as I shot forward in an instant. The remains of the changeling I had just eaten fell to my sides as I soared through the air after my running leap. Lightning shot up at me and nearly connected with my armor before being yanked away toward Luna. The afterimage of the lightning stung my eyes as my dilated pupils watched the expression of the horrified changeling queen gazing up at me. Her last line of defense had been rendered ineffectual.

  The queen tried to spin on her heel. It felt like I was watching it in slow motion as its body tried to shift back into the form of a changeling, but it was too late. I landed behind it and reached forward with my claws and dug them deep into the creature's flesh. I pulled it toward me and chomped down on its body from neck to ass. It crumpled under my teeth and I felt the buzz of rich energizing magic fill me like sickly sweet nectar.

  Now that the creature was dead, I opened my jaws and used my claws to rip its torso open to expose my prey's heart! If I thought that its body was rich with delicious magic, it was nothing compared to the bloody morsel that I crushed between my teeth. It popped like a grape and filled my mouth with its ambrosial juices. My entire body shuddered and my eyes closed despite the danger I was still in, surrounded by the other hostile changelings. They didn't even register in my mind as a threat as I moaned in bliss at the flavor that filled me. My fur stood on end across my body as if I had goosebumps spread from the top of my head to the tip of my toes.

  Something in the air changed. I could feel the magic around me. My vision brightened as my sight was enhanced. Everything was almost glowing enough to blind me. The intense mana in the monsters and environment lit up my vision enough to turn everything near white. I could tell the individual changelings apart by the minute differences in the amount of mana in their bodies now. I was in a jubilant frenzy as we mopped up the last of the changelings. Eating the remaining monsters nourished me after such a challenging fight. We destroyed the last of the pillars keeping us trapped here, and finally sat down to rest.

  Hello! Bossfight! It's been a while since we've had a good fight. The story has been focused on other things for a while so it was nice to get back to basics once and a while. Aria and Iris get to show off their combo magic attacks, and Luna makes up for her poor impulse control by taking control of all of that lightning magic! I hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading!

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