As Lucifer starts to trek down the dirt road, she takes in the sights around her. The calming sound of the river flowing downstream. The sounds of local fauna like rabbits and deer closer to the forest. Off in the distance, away from the forest, she sees huge mountains. The kind of mountains that dragons would live on in video games. “Oh I’m definitely making a note to visit that at some point when I get stronger, who knows what lies there!” Eventually she reaches a mound that gives her a good viewpoint of the surrounding area. Far off in the distance, a good way to the west of the mountains is a massive lake with an equally huge city surrounding it.

Closer to where she is, though, she notices a carriage on the road that seems to lack horses to move it. Confused, she moves closer. However it soon becomes clear what happened here, when she hears voices coming from within the carriage.

“Oh, what a haul! These merchants have so many property deeds, wares… This would all sell for hundreds of gold pieces! Maybe thousands!”

“Definitely, boss. They sure didn't put up much of a fight either.”

“Are these bandits?!” Lucifer thought to herself. “Shit. I need to get down this road and find a village, but I can’t get seen by those guys.” Knowing that there’s no way she’s getting out of a fight, looks at her two combat magic spells, her only means of attacking.

“Ok,” she thought, “I have 50 max MP, meaning I can cast at most 10 “Fire Bolts” before I run out of MP, but if I need to heal that number goes down. I'll need to take them by surprise.”

Lucifer aims her arm at the caravan, palm outstretched and yells “Fire Bolt!” straight at it. Immediately the caravan gets set on fire and the bandits, three in total, rush outl, shocked at the sudden attack. Looking behind the caravan, they see Lucifer standing there aiming her arm at them. She casts “Fire Bolt” on the left and right bandits. They both collapse on the ground, burnt to cinders.

“Nice!” She exclaims. “Now if only I had some cool battle music in the background to really sell this moment!” She giggles excitedly at the thought of her first actual battle.

The third bandit sitting between the other two, is a hulking behemoth of a man. Lucifer knows that one Fire Bolt would absolutely not take him down like the other two glorified cheerleaders. 

“My riches, and my men! You fucking bitch! Even taking you as a slave wouldn't be enough. You need to die!” The bandit’s eyes go bloodthirsty, taking out an absolute beast of an axe with a lengthy handle.

“Quicken”, he mutters one phrase and within seconds is face-to-face with Lucifer. Before she can react, he smacks her upwards with the hilt.

Lucifer jumps backward after getting hit and checks her HP and MP “32?! That one hit took out almost all my health! 55 MP, so at least the level I just got refilled that bar” She backs away from the sole bandit. Unsure of what's going to be next, she casts “Light Heal” on herself, bringing her back to full health. She thinks to herself, “I can't just switch here, that'd take too long!”

Panicking, she casts “Fire Bolt” again at the bandit which he effortlessly dodges thanks to his increased speed. “You're mine!” he yells. He charges a spinning slash with the axe which Lucifer narrowly avoids, but she still gets smacked in the stomach with the blunt end.

“Guh!” She collapses on the ground. The wind completely knocked out of her, she starts gasping for air. She sees the bandit standing there, unmoving, with his eyes closed as if he's trying to calm his nerves before finishing off Lucifer right there. She checks her health, “26 HP, my healing spell’s on cooldown… I only really have one choice.” 

“Sex Shift!” As she toggles the skill, immediately she begins to feel burning pain as her body morphs into its male shape. The cost is paid as he's brought down to a single point of health. 

The bandit then begins to bring down the axe, trying to cleave Lucifer straight in two. As it comes down, Lucifer manages to grab the upper handle of the axe. The bandit opens his eyes, seeing this resistance from this supposedly weak and frail girl. To his surprise, what he sees is no girl, but instead a man with golden blonde hair and blazing red eyes. A bit androgynous in appearance and build, but still noticeably male.

“W-what?! Who are you? Where's the girl?!” Shocked, the bandit loses the momentum in his swing. Lucifer notices his opponent’s lapse in judgment and swiftly sends a kick into his stomach, sending him backwards. Taking the axe from the bandit, Lucifer gives it a small twirl.

“Oi, you've really given me a bad first impression of this new world. And I thought that was going to be a pretty damn hard thing to do.” He's furious that someone would force him to endure another dose of pain from “Sex Shift”. In retaliation, he aims the axe directly at the bandit’s neck.

“No, no, wait, wait! Spare me! If it's gold or food you want, I'll hand it over, as much as you want! Listen, my name is Garret, just tell that name to-” The bandit begins pleading but Lucifer is having none of it.

“That body was amazing, you know?! You forced me out of it!” Lucifer seems to have really enjoyed his new female body, and is fuming that he would need to switch without his own desire to.

“Wait. What are you talking about? That girl, were you-”

Taking the axe, and in an act of pure fury and self-preservation, he brings it down on the increasingly panicked and confused bandit’s skull. However, because he has no idea how to use an axe, he ends up swinging with the blunt end.

CRRACKKKK

As the bandit drops dead, Lucifer drops the axe on the ground and starts limping away back onto the road. The carriage was already burnt to ashes due to the fire spell. He doesn't get very far until he passes out from sheer exhaustion.

As he does, though, he sees a figure in front of the falling sun, walking in his direction. 

“Hey! Shit, he collapsed! Hey! Stay with me here!” The figure begins running towards Lucifer with worry.

iMidnighte

The first battle already. I wanted to start with something like this to illustrate the importance of "Sex Shift" when it comes to overcoming difficult fights. And it's a crucial lesson for Lucifer to learn. They will need the strengths of both forms to succeed in combat.