A/N: Two days that lasted. Ah, well, I have an excuse, see? People from out of town came over.
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Raven huffed, putting up a shield as Malchior blasted her back another few feet. In a last-ditch effort to avoid getting thrown against the (stone!) walls again, she pulled the shadows at her feet around her, concentrating to keep the shield up at the same time, and melted into the floor. She then moved forward, pulling her being up out of the hard rock and regaining tangibility, only to be dealt a swift punch to the jaw and crumpling, hitting her head along with her elbow.
She looked up at the crude lighting fixtures and breathed in deeply, letting the air curl in her lungs coolly before coming out again. Sparring with Malchior was painful. Not even painful in the 'I-trusted-you-and-you-tried-to-kill-me-and-now-I-have-to-see-you-again' kind of painful, but in the 'I-have-bruises-in-places-I-didn't-know-existed' kind of painful. Her nose was throbbing from multiple kicks to the face (Malchior didn't seem to discriminate between magical and physical violence), her hands kept scraping the less-than-smooth tiles and she really didn't like the way it was getting difficult to tell the difference between one candle on the lousy chandelier hanging above them and the next.
Malchior, on the other hand, looked better than ever. And this could really be taken literally, as the Casanova (as she'd taken to calling him on account of the busty brunette who kept meeting his gaze from her spot in a chair off to the side and licking her lips) wasn't wearing a shirt. From her place on the floor, Raven observed as he tossed his bangs out of his eyes and flexed his abdominals for the woman and smirked at her appreciative smile. She attempted to grit her teeth in annoyance, but that just wasn't happening – the blow he'd dealt her was making any movement of her jaw difficult.
"Would it kill you to be serious?" she snapped.
He turned back to her, derisive expression back on his face, and raised an eyebrow. "There's no need for me to be. You're weak enough that I hardly need to exert myself."
She stifled a growl and got up, swallowing a mixture of blood and saliva, and settled into a defensive pose. Malchior just sighed.
"If all you're going to be doing during the battle is defending yourself, we won't get anywhere. We need an attacker who can actually inflict some damage more than a defender." Still, he moved forward with fistfuls of crackling, harmful energy and took deliberate slashes at her, aiming very purposefully at her vital organs, head, and legs.
Blowing a strand of hair out of her face, Raved expanded the area of her shield and pressed back, "Maybe I could attempt to attack from time to time, if you'd let me."
"One, no-one will let you do anything in a real fight. Two, you choose to be on the defensive, it isn't that I make you." Malchior barked back, the magic in his hands dying away as he put two hands on the solid expanse of Raven's shield and released a funnel of power to tear her screen apart.
Raven scowled, "Fine!" She shot a beam of black at him, which he dodged with little difficulty. Her glower deepened and she tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear with great frustration. What was wrong with her? She parried another one of his attacks and used her levitation to fly to the opposite side of the room in an attempt to get away from him for a short while. Malchior seemed to take this as a forfeit and turned to walk to the brunette, who offered up a towel and some significant skin-on-skin contact.
Ignoring the two, Raven summoned forth a sphere of her usual dark matter and took some time manipulating it. It wasn't working nearly as well as she was used to, the miasma probably having some sort of effect on it. Come to think of it, according to Trigon, everyone here was stronger than her because of the miasma. The bind her father had placed on her arm had eased the effects of her body, but her powers were still wildly out of control.
She frowned, dispelling the ball of shadow and examining her arm again. The skin was infuriatingly bare. She bit her lip, working over the effects her father's magic would have had on her. If her power was increasing and she had nothing to base it against, then she would likely push it back with too much force and end up with less juice than usual. But what she needed wasn't less, it was more, and with the constant exposure to so much concentrated demonic pressure, it was likely that her abilities would continue their unwieldy ascent in 'horsepower' and she would continue pushing them back with either too much or too little force.
With a sigh, she dropped her arm and accepted the towel that Adrian offered. "I don't mean to imply that you cannot improve any more today, your Highness – " – Raven snorted – " – But if you plan to enjoy a bath before your dance lesson with your betrothed, I suggest you take your leave now." She nodded, and they walked together to the exit, Adrian giving Malchior and his groupie her excuse on their way out.
[-M-]
It was a pleasant surprise that she had a half hour to kill after her bath. Apparently, Adrian had been referring to a twenty-minute long soak rather than her usual quick rinse after workouts. Eyeing the darkening collection of bruises on her hip with more than mild annoyance, Raven dressed (by herself this time, thankfully) in the newly-cleaned uniform that she'd arrived here in, and sat down for a long session of meditaion. Slowly, her dark surroundings melted away and the soft fabric of the bed ceased to be felt by her. In her mind, she visualized opening her eyes and expected to see the dark cosmos and various floating islands of her inner world.
Instead, she gazed straight into the annoyed countenance of her four-eyed self.
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A/N: Malchior, you glorious bastard. I've been reading through some of the softer RaeMal fics and comparing their Malchiors to mine…and mine is such an ass.