Serenity stared at the rockfin that had suddenly appeared in front of him. It didn’t look like any fish Serenity had ever seen, but the resemblance was far too close to call it anything else. It had a set of ribbon-like fins on its underside, supporting it. Its body was about twice as long as Serenity was tall, but it was only about two-thirds his height. It was notably skinnier than it was tall, with eyes set on either side of its pointy head.

Another set of ribbon-fins graced its topside, but a pair of side-fins and a tail showed that it wasn’t just ribbons. It was covered in scales that looked almost like they were armor plates made of rock, but they couldn’t be. Could they?

Its presence made it hard for him to argue that the Voice was wrong; the rockfin invasion was clearly not over.

The rockfin stood at the portal’s exit. It didn’t face Serenity directly; instead, it was turned so that the eye on the left side of its head was pointed towards him. It stood there without moving.

It was probably as surprised as Serenity was.

Serenity needed to do something about the rockfin before anything else. The first thing to try was to see if he could get it to leave, since it didn’t seem like rockfin were really organized enough to have a treaty or trade agreement with. It was probably possible to trade with them individually, but Serenity doubted that would be enough to resolve the invasion. “Hello?”

If the rockfin could speak, it almost certainly spoke Bridge. Almost everyone spoke Bridge.

The rockfin a long time to speak. When it did, it took Serenity a moment to realize it was speech, because it came from the rock wall, not the rockfin. “Not native.”

Did it mean him or itself? “I’m a native. I know you aren’t.”

There was another long pause. “Threat.” As it spoke, the rockfin turned to face Serenity directly and accelerated towards him.

This was a fight Serenity wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of. He was actually kind of grateful; a good fight would make him feel better.

Serenity pulled his naginata off his Quick Belt. He braced it against the cave floor; that would have to do.

The charging rockfin ignored the naginata. Serenity expected it to pierce the skin when it contacted, the way it would on a boar or the like, and prepared to jump to the side in case the rockfin charged up the naginata. He didn’t have a crossguard on it, the way a boarspear would.

That wasn’t exactly what happened.

Instead, the naginata impacted the charging rockfin in the middle of one of its large, rocklike scales, each about the size of a dinner plate. The naginata was pushed into the scale by the impact, before sliding down a little and being shoved into the next scale. The second scale popped off with a surprising SHOONK noise.

The naginata hopped out and back in as the rockfin came closer, and caught on the third scale. Instead of the scale giving, the naginata's shaft cracked just below where it was joined to the blade.

Serenity was already rolling out of the way. Being caught between something that large and a rock wall wasn’t quite the last place he wanted to be, but it was close.

He watched the naginata's failure unhappily. It was likely that the naginata’s enchantments were damaged or destroyed. Any that were on the shaft at all certainly were; it wasn't going to be an easy thing to get fixed.

It was probably time for him to get another weapon anyway.

For now, he pulled out his axe and his shield. He’d rather be between a wall and the rockfin than fight a monster like this weaponless. Replacement equipment would be hard to get right now, except as a dungeon drop that wouldn’t be any better than his now-broken naginata. He remembered his initial equipment holding up better than this, but then he hadn’t fought any invasions until months later. He’d need to start picking up some of the combat mage Paths at this rate; he’d planned to wait until a higher Tier for that, but it might not be possible.

At least the naginata held out long enough to create a weak point.

As Serenity was waiting for the rockfin to turn back towards him, the cave ceiling above him collapsed. He was able to raise his shield in time to not be badly injured, but his shield was damaged and he was buried in rubble.

Well, there was an easy way out of the rubble. Serenity shifted to Void Sovereign and flowed forward. The rockfin was watching the rockpile and didn’t seem to have noticed him; perhaps it didn’t consider moving darkness important or perhaps it simply couldn’t see him? There wasn't much light in the cave, after all.

After the rockfall and its way of speaking, Serenity had the feeling that manipulating the ground was how the rockfin did a lot of things. Perhaps it could also sense vibrations? In poor light conditions, Serenity could see how he’d be missed. Void Sovereign form didn’t move what was around it, after all.

Serenity lined himself up so that he could easily see the hole in the fish’s armor created by the sacrifice of his naginata. As he shifted back to chimera form, he felt the axe reform in his hand. The moment it was solid enough, he threw it at the opening.

It hit cleanly and penetrated several inches into the rockfin. Serenity knew it wasn’t enough when the rockfin turned towards him; he recalled the weapon. He quickly threw the axe again. This time, he managed a slightly better throw, without the distraction of being in the middle of a shapeshift. It hit the armorless spot and sunk even deeper.

A hail of small rocks flew at Serenity from the cave-in. He managed to cover his chest and upper body with the shield, but the impacts still staggered him. Several clipped through his leg armor, but none penetrated his scales.

Serenity recalled the axe; this time, there was a momentary flash of bone as the axe pulled itself free from the rockfin’s flesh. He’d been afraid of that; the damaged outer shell wasn’t over a vulnerable spot. This could be a very long battle, unless he managed to get through the armor in another point.

The rockfin turned farther and charged straight through the portal.

Serenity blinked, surprised. It was gone. He wasn’t used to opponents running away. Dungeon creatures rarely did, and few of the Final Reaper’s battles had any option for either side to run. Reposition, definitely, but not retreat.

He started towards the portal to pursue his foe, then stopped.

He didn’t need to kill the rockfin. He needed to prevent others from getting in while he investigated the portal and figured out how to close it.

He didn’t want to stand guard on the portal full time, but of the people at Serenity Settlement, he wasn’t certain who else could deal with a rockfin underground. Doyle seemed confident, the the first rockfin was above ground The cave-in showed Serenity that rockfin were nastier underground.

He probably should have expected that.

Serenity stopped and took the time to think through his next actions while he had the time. This portal was probably the best option they had to test anything; after all, they didn’t have control of any others. From what his father had said, no one did - or at least, no one was admitting it if they did.

He wanted to look at it magically and see if there was any way to detect it himself. He also wanted to see if the stuff Aide ordered could help. It didn’t have to work well; even a small clue would give others something to build on. He wasn’t the only person who could run tests, though.

On top of that, it needed to be guarded. He’d already determined that it would be difficult for the people of Serenity Settlement, even with his help, but why should it be only them? The same people that wanted to study the portal could help secure it.

Call Dad.

The call went to voicemail, so Serenity left a message.

“Hey, Dad? I’ve found an invasion portal - the one that rockfin came through. It’s still open; I just chased off another rockfin. I want to study it, and I’m sure it would be helpful to you too, but it’s going to need some guards until we can figure out how to close it. Give me a call back when you have some time.”

Void Sovereign form seemed to make the most sense to use while guarding the portal, but Serenity wasn’t sure he’d get a return phone call. He’d better check.

He had a good connection in chimera form, but when he shifted to Void Sovereign there was no connection at all. He’d just have to stay in chimera form while he looked into the portal.

First, though, he wanted to collect his naginata. He couldn’t stick it on his Quick Belt; it was in two pieces and he only had space for one. It didn’t take long to come up with a solution: take advantage of the odd way his shapeshifting worked with items.

Serenity shifted to his human form and went to pick up the naginata. He grumbled when he found that its pieces were buried in the collapsed ceiling; it was going to take him a while to clear enough rock to get at the pieces.

An hour of shifting rock later, Serenity found the battered pieces of the naginata. They were in worse shape than he’d thought, but at least he had them. Maybe Katya could repair them, or maybe he could find someone else. He took a good look at the pieces with his Mana and Essence Sight.

The shaft was magicless; there was residue running the length of the shaft, but it was fading as he watched. Digging a little deeper, it was clear that it was the remains of a durability enchantment.

He’d forgotten the weapon had that. It explained why it’d simply snapped; a durable weapon pushed past the limit of the enchantment would impose all of the force on the base material suddenly. Snapping was the least nasty reaction possible. It was still a worthwhile enchantment normally, but under the circumstances, he’d prefer a different one. Not that the normal option of Self-Repair was likely to be any better; this level of damage would have broken a weapon without the durability enchantment badly enough that self-repair wouldn’t have functioned either.

Serenity shifted his attention to the blade. He could see the residue of the durability enchantment, but there was also an enchantment still active on the blade itself, concentrated at the edge though the magic was anchored farther back. Sharpness. Yes, it was definitely worth keeping the weapon and seeing if he could get it repaired. Even if he replaced it with something better, someone would find it useful for a while.

The sharpness enchantment was probably why it’d cut through the first scale. Or was it actually armor? Come to think of it, the scale should be near here.

Serenity dug through the rubble until he turned up the scales he’d removed from the rockfin. The first one had split when it hit the ground (or maybe when other rocks fell on it), but the second one was slightly scuffed but whole. They seemed to be actual rock, and were therefore probably armor they formed with their magic, but he’d need better light to be sure. He was certain someone somewhere was studying the rockfin Echo and Doyle captured; they’d probably like to know about these.

Serenity picked up the four items and headed over to a clear spot. Next he needed to shift to chimera form to free his hands and wait for the phone call.

He hadn’t checked if he could get phone calls in his human form!

As he was thinking that, he felt his father’s ringtone go off in his head.

Such timing.