“Stop wasting all your power from the start!” Copernicus yelled at his Lightbearer from the side-line as Rave was currently busy going one on one with the first and only boss of the Steampunk Tier 18 arena.

It was a towering goliath, about three metres tall and shaped like a spider-centaur. A golem of bronze and silver, with four arms and eight legs. Its appendages didn’t end in feet or hands, but incredibly sharp needles. When it hushed over the floor like an overgrown spider, it created a staccato of clicking noise, boiling hot steam rising out of the small chinks in its plated, somewhat crudely worked form.

The boss, balanced for John’s current level and buffed to prove a challenge to seven people instead of just one, was an unsurprisingly tough challenge for his girlfriend. It was buffed further through the I.D. settings, John had increased drop rates for all items on that end.

For the why, it was because two people had insisted on it. First, his girlfriend, second, her cat, the former because she wanted to pound her frustrations into something, the latter because he wanted Rave to fight against something really strong. John had accepted with a sigh, he figured that he could take care of that golem with his elementals if need be, and with Undine, he had more than enough healing power.

In short, he wasn’t worried, but he wasn’t psyched either. Especially because he spent that time just sitting on his butt, counting the gears underneath the seemingly indestructible glass pane they were sitting on top of. The audience of mechanically augmented humans, at least that was their appearance, seemed to love it either way. They were sitting in their seats above and just applauding whatever happened in the rectangle shaped battleground.

‘I wonder if it’s 2 or 3 football fields,’ John thought as he watched from above.

Copernicus was busy lecturing Rave in the meantime, “If you just use everything from the start and go all out, that works great if you can take out your opponent in one go, but when rushing in against an opponent that is stronger than you, all you do is exhaust yourself, eventually leaving you defenceless!” he shouted at her.

“This is really the wrong time for a lecture, Cappy,” Rave informed him.

The suncat ignored her and continued, “On top of that, you fight like your mother. She doesn’t have to worry about the mana strain of keeping an elemental summon puts on you…”

‘Something which I don’t have to deal with, thankfully,’ John thought, having recently read up on why elementals weren’t further spread. If they were just additions to one’s fighting strength, why wouldn’t just about everyone use them? For a start, if one didn’t have an Innate Ability that landed them an easy contract, it took a lot of time to nourish an elemental to become anything usable. For non-Gamers, that was.

Innate Users got around that by contracting already existing, stronger spirits. In doing so, they got themselves a capable and strong companion. The kicker: keeping them around cost mana, and having them contracted changed one’s mana circuits in a way that made it just better to rely on them.

To put it into numbers: if somebody operated at 100% of their potential fighting power when alone, they operated at 75% if an elemental was around them, meaning that the elemental needed to provide the remaining 25% to cut even.

With an already grown elemental that was, generally, not only met but trumped. The way Copernicus buffed Rave meant that her initial drawback was also mitigated. That didn’t mean it was removed though. If Rave was operating under 90% of the power she could have had if she was solo, then Copernicus represented another 60% that she was just wasting.

Together they were stronger than what Rave could have accomplished with her own potential, divided Rave would be better off doing things on her own. Nariko, on the other hand, had made no contract and fought with her complete power in her own hands, which, at the current time, was also higher than her daughter’s.

Rave should have known all of this when she made her contract, but, to quote her: “I just thought, hey, maybe you get a cool buddy and we can punch Moira together or something.” In other words, she hadn’t thought about the long-term.

“…So, instead of keeping on training just yourself, maybe you should ask yourself how I can be of use in your fights.”

“Y’are such a cat!” Rave shouted and barely ducked under the four spiked arms of the Click, aiming to put her into the warm embrace of a bloody maiden. “Really, this is not what I want to hear right meow!” Rave shouted, the strain of battle forcing her into old speaking habits. Kicking away one of the golems legs, she caused a ripple of light that followed and got another two on the bosses right side who was now keeling forwards. “I have lost!” she shouted and punched Furtrue in where a human’s stomach would be, creating a small dent. Steam whistled into freedom, apparently she had crushed some pipe by pure chance. “I feel dumb enough already!” she added jumping over the retaliation strike and then kicking the golems head in mid-air.

The four arms came for her, the clear intent to use Rave’s torso as a needle cushion. The funky lightbearer grabbed one of the oversized arms and used her grip to dodge in a whirl that would have made the jaws of Olympic level athletes drop to the floor.

“And now my mom isn’t the bitch I always thought she was!” Rave delivered another kick to Furtrue’s head. The golem staggered to the side, Rave jumping off from his shoulder just before he crashed into the ground. “This blows!” she announced, her cat ears flicking at a random dust particle that tickled the sensitive formation of magically enhanced hair. Turning her back at the enemy, she looked at John, “Let’s do something e-“

“Watch out!” John shouted as the golem suddenly started moving again and closed the distance in a mere moment.

Its head and stomach were dented, but the golem was still largely operational. In her anger and confusion, Rave had forgotten one of the most vital rules of combat: make sure that your enemy is truly beaten. The sick whistling of a constant venting of steam from the boss’ head made it unmistakable that the funky lightbearer had dealt some damage but not enough to take the boss out.

Two arms stabbed through Rave’s shoulder and stomach in an act of sloppy revenge. The other two, aiming for vital areas missed their mark, the one aiming for her head thanks to Rave reacting in time, the other one, aiming for her heart, thanks to an unlikely help.

“You will repay me later for this,” Siena casually noted, having deflected the blow, the needle screaming over her bladed fingers. A moment later a heavy gust of wind forced the boss to pull back.

“The only stabbing that happens to Rave involves Johnny and his dick!” Sylph reprimanded the construct; “And maybe Aclysia and her dick. And maybe Undine and her tentacles. And maybe Siena and her tentacles. And maybe me and a strap-o-“

“WE GET IT, JUST HIT IT WITH LIGHTNING, YOU AIRHEAD!” Salamander interrupted her as the golem started to recover.

John was already at Rave’s side. The pink battlesuit had failed to prevent the damage in its entirety, the spikes had went straight through Rave’s body, but John could imagine how much worse it would have been without it. The thing also immediately sealed up the wound, so at least she didn’t bleed all over the place.

“That was not exactly graceful of meow, was it?” Rave managed to still giggle despite the pain she must have been in.

John went for the wound in her stomach first, “Nope, and I think your liver has been literally punctured.”

“But that’s my favourite organ!” she complained as John patched her up. The pained hue in her eyes quickly subsided and was completely gone once he got to her arm.

The golem was thrashing about, trying to deal with the two flying annoyances, the stabbing thing that struck from its own shadow, and the nearly unmoveable girl of stone between it and the easier prey. If Furtrue could have roared, it would have done so now. Instead, a great amount of steam was blown into the air in an alternative show of anger.

“There, good as new,” John said and patted Rave between her cute pink ears. Despite the somewhat unfitting place, Rave purred a bit.

“Thanks, tiger,” she said and kissed him.

“Call back your elementals, John,” Copernicus demanded. “Jane is going to beat this thing with my help only.” John glanced at him, then looked back at Rave. His girlfriend nodded, and so they did as the suncat demanded. Returning to the side-line with his girls, but without Copernicus, John stayed at the ready to intervene again.

“Ya know I am not the smartest of the bunch, so why don’t ya drop the cryptic nonsense and let’s do what I am good at?” Rave used the moment that the golem spent confusedly spinning around its own axis, in search of the enemies it had just been fighting, to ask this question.

Copernicus sighed in defeat, “I need you to Unleash me, do as I instruct.”

There was a moment of silence, then Rave nodded. Whatever the Lightbearer had just learned, Copernicus had used their telepathic connection to inform her rather than convey it with simple sounds. This either meant that the instructions were too specific to be explained in a mere moment or the cat just wanted to tease the hell out of John. The Gamer had no chance to ask as the golem finally started moving again.

Rave didn’t take a single step as the eight-legged mechanical monstrosity stampeded his way towards her. Its course was slightly off, the dented shape of its head messing with its sight and balance. It didn’t need to land an exact hit anyway, with its sheer size and weight, running over the Lightbearer and then stomping at her with its pointy legs would be enough to take her out.

At the very last moment, Rave dropped down. Her mana bar emptied in an instant as her aura, usually blue but a dark gold when she was in her cat mode, flared up dangerously. The upwards kick that followed was horrible, and John recognized the technique in an instant.

A sole sized hole burst through the golem’s eight-legged lower body of Furtrue. The excess Ki-energy spread through the air and threatened to dissipate. This was the attack Regan had used in his fight against Travolta. The fact that Rave knew this attack was no news to John, she didn’t like to use it because of the sheer amount of mana it wasted.

Powerful it was, without a doubt, but if not used as a sure-fire finisher, it left her needing to regenerate, and the amount of mana it took was better used in a light-based attack, which she could use without wasting her own mana.

The question why she used it now of all times came in the shape of the mana in the air suddenly all heading towards a single point. His little cat mouth wide open, Copernicus devoured the mana of his summoner. There was not a single bit of actual air movement, the only thing the cat attracted was the mana of Rave. John’s own Mana Protection stayed entirely unobstructed. Out of curiosity, he fired a Mana Ray at the ground. Even the blue energy remains of that attack were unaffected.

‘So it’s only her mana,’ John thought as Rave fled from the disadvantageous point. Hole or not, being in a cage consisting of eight pointy legs was not where she wanted to be.

“Is that enough for ya?” Rave asked once she was in relative safety, the golem setting after her as she did her best to regenerate mana. There was no sunlight down here, so she had to resort to the less productive method of breathing.

“It will suffice for a demonstration,” Copernicus meowed, running at her side, his golden fur glistening with newfound strength. “Surely a few seconds will be enough to turn this golem into a bygone nuisance.” At the last word they both turned around and jumped at the golem.

Rave used what little mana she had regenerated to blast him in the face with blinding light, the oldest trick in her book. With his already damaged ocular sensors, the golem went completely blind. The wild flailing of his spikey arms hitting nothing.

In his flight, Copernicus transformed. Little cat paws became mighty claws that could break a bear’s neck with a single swipe, the golden fur rippled with power as his whole form grew and grew until the copper lines in his fur looked like they had been drawn using a large brush instead of a pencil. Light like a golden mist rose from the suncat’s new form, now a tiger that rammed its teeth, blinding white light in the curved shape of biological daggers, into the golem’s neck as the force of his impact bent the upper body of the boss.

Bent and bent until the flexible material of its spine could no longer accommodate and snapped. The lower body skittered around like a headless chicken for a few more moments. “GET AWAY!” John shouted the moment Rave and Copernicus hit the floor.

The Lightbearer grabbed the suntiger’s fur and swung herself on his back as he sprinted away. One tick, two ticks, three ticks, then the upper body of Furtrue exploded behind the two of them. Copernicus swatted away a piece of scrap metal that was threatening to hit Rave with his tail.

Then he suddenly vanished, and Rave was left flying through the air a bit and trying her best to make a running landing. She succeeded, and her momentum petered out just in time for her to… well, it didn’t peter out at all; instead, she used John as an emergency brake, causing both of them to tumble to the ground.

When they stopped, Rave lay on top of him and was laughing loudly, “Ya know what they say, cool girls don’t look at explosions!”

“Well, you are cool alright,” John grinned and they made out as the made-up audience above boo-ed.

“You know what I also am right meow?” she asked.

“Tremendously horny?” John suggested.

The answer to that was a wide grin.