The march down to the arena for their match was marked with little pomp and even less circumstance. The four of them had to admit that they were a touch intimidated by the display that her previous conquests had put on for her. For her part, Len wasn’t too worried but it was never a great thing to know for an absolute certainty that there was a pair of murderous psychopaths with an interest in seeing you dead. That particular concern, however, found itself firmly on the back burner when they got a good look at their opponents.

Four Ogres. Whatever batshit organization system was in place for this tournament had decided that the proper structure for this battle would be to pit a team of one dark elf and three goblins against four goddamn ogres. Len shot a glare up in the stands and actually caught the Demon Lord’s eye for a half second. There was a touch of pity there she thought, but little else. That just pissed her off even more. The Lord stood up and offered some generic words of encouragement to all assembled contestants and once again got entirely too much approval for the mediocre speech for Len’s liking then sat back down, waving for the battle to commence.

“All right, guys, I know we planned to hold off on this as long as possible but I don’t think we’ve got much option here.”

“I’d love to disagree with you, boss,” said Moe. “But yeah, you’re gonna have to use that thing of yours now. You think you’ll be good to use it again in the next fight?”

“Love the optimism to assume that we’re just gonna win this thing, but yeah I think I’ll be able to manage. Not like I have much choice in the matter. I doubt they’ve got anything nastier in store for us after this, though. Something tells me that they figure we’ll be taken out pretty easily here.”

“All right then, let’s prove them wrong.”

The four nodded at each other and took their positions. The three goblins took up a spearhead formation with Moe in the lead. Len dropped into a cross-legged rest behind them and tapped into that power again, drawing the symbol in the air as she’d done many times now and letting the wave of agony wash over her as she activated it.

The ogres mostly looked amused by the situation. Two of them were casually lumbering forward, openly jeering at their puny opponents. Len almost pitied them. Almost.

Enhanced by Lens magics, the three goblins surged forward, practically becoming blurs of green and brown. They fell upon the unprepared ogre that had taken the lead and went to work with brutal precision. Curly drove his dagger point through their victim’s left foot while Larry slipped slightly past him and slashed the tendons in his right heel. Moe, meanwhile, lunged straight at his chest, carving a slash upwards from right side to left shoulder. Blood sprayed outward, bathing goblin in crimson as he grappled onto the shoulder just long enough to kick off and send the ogre stumbling backwards.

One heel frayed beyond immediate repair, the other foot stapled to the ground via dagger, and rapidly losing blood from an attack that he’d barely seen coming, the ogre toppled to the ground with a look of stunned horror on his face. There was a moment of absolute silence in the arena, followed by roars of approval from all sides. Much as a pack of hyped up monsters might enjoy a good slaughter of vastly overpowered foes, there was just something satisfying at a primal level about seeing an underdog get an upset. The remaining ogres adopted more defensive positions as they adapted to the new reality that they were actually in a real fight.

The ogre furthest back began chanting something and waving his staff in a circular pattern and called down a ball of flame. It surprised Len to see that rather than aiming it at any of her team, he called it down on the fallen ogre. The smell of singed flesh permeated the air and she thought for a moment that the flames might have killed the poor sod, but then saw that it had been used to cauterize the wound. Not the most gentle of doctoring approaches, but she supposed that they had to work with what they had at their disposal.

Their initial ambush over, the three goblins had to split apart. It was a tactic that had served them well in their training over the month, and had even managed to take down a small bear on one particularly unfortunate night, but wasn’t the sort of trick that could work twice. Len’s ability to keep the buff up was limited, and they all knew what would happen if it ran out. Each one selected an ogre opponent and made their move on them.

Curly, having retrieved his dagger, sprinted past first the heavy warrior that remained and then dodged a rock the size of his head flung from the sling of the second remaining ogre, and engaged directly with the caster, not allowing him time to bring that spellcraft to bear on Len. Moe chose to meet the heavy warrior head on, effortlessly lifting the fallen ogre’s club with one arm to the confusion of the onlookers. That left Larry to deal with the slinger, and he looked just a bit too eager at the opportunity.

Len, meanwhile, was already starting to feel the strain. Every second she kept the spell up was miserable, but the real bitch of it was that it got worse with every moment that passed. It was already taking all of her will to keep her focus, and she knew that if she let up even for a heartbeat they were dead. This was not the sort of knowledge that made her feel better as the thousands of tiny (and, she hoped, imaginary) tendrils writhed inside her skull.

It was getting harder to keep a grip on the specifics of the flow of battle. She saw Larry catch the slinger’s weapon in a hand and slash it to ribbons with lightning fast strikes then calmly point his blade at the ogre’s throat. She thought she saw Moe shatter his foe’s blade with the club and force a surrender. As for Curly, she had no idea how he’d bested his foe, she just realized after a moment that the three of them were surrounding her once more.

“That’s enough, boss, you can let it go,” said one of them, she couldn’t tell who.

Sighing, she released the glyph that empowered them and sagged as the worst of the pain ebbed. To her credit and relief, she didn’t pass out this time. So far it had always been a fifty fifty chance whether that happened. With their help, she got herself to her feet and waved weakly to the cheering crowd. To the Demon Lord, she offered the faintest of smirks.

“So there, you little shit, if that’s all you’ve got to take me out, you’re out of luck.”

“What’s that, boss?” asked Moe.

“Ah, nothing, let’s just get out of here before I collapse. Probably best not to do it in front of these guys after managing to make such a strong impression.”

“I suppose you’re right, but it’d be nice to bask in this a little longer, ya know,” said Larry. “I’m not sure any goblin’s ever gotten this kind of attention.”

“Yeah, it does feel good,” said Curly. “But don’t let it go to your head, this is just the first fight and we’re not gonna catch the next guys off guard like we were able to here. It’s only gonna get harder.”

“Geez man, don’t be a buzzkill,” mumbled Larry, chastened nonetheless.