D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Kat —

Kat took a running start before kicking off the ground and launching herself and Lily up into the air. Soon her wings took over and Kat started to climb rapidly. There were a few monsters flying around but none overly close and even then none of the visible ones seemed to be changing direction at all. Kat thought she might just be able to find the village without any issues… until there was a tear in space and what could only be described as a giant laser cannon showed up.

It consisted mostly of a giant green crystal that was sucking in the light around it. The crystal was suspended amongst metal braces that had swivelled around to target Kat. *SHIT!* We know what the defences are! Even as Kat complained mentally she was already throwing herself downward. Kat flew downwards as quickly as she could while keeping a watch on the laser, it was still charging up even as she descended. *Shit shit. Lily do I try and throw you as far as I can right now? Or just before it fires?*

[WHAT?!]

*Well you don’t regenerate do you?*

Lily wasn’t happy to hear that response but Kat wasn’t wrong. [Last moment then. We wouldn’t want another one to show up and target me afterwards.] Thought Lily bitterly. It wasn’t an outcome she liked but they needed to make quick decisions and technically this was a combat situation. Now was not the time to complain about Kat’s inability to care about her own injuries.

When they were just a hundred metres from the ground the light seemed to concentrate on the end of the laser, it seemed ready to fire and Kat prepared to throw Lily. Logic dictated that Lily should be thrown soon, that light travelled too fast… but so did naturally occurring lightning. Lightning magic however was completely different. Still… Kat didn’t want to risk it.

Just as she was about to throw Lily away they crossed some invisible threshold and the laser instead aimed itself towards the sky for a moment before simply retracting back into the pocket of hidden space it had been located in before. Kat kept up her rapid descent and slammed into the sand. Her legs absorbing some of the impact force but most of it was dispersed by the explosion of sand going everywhere.

Lily let go of all the tension in her body and turned into a blob in Kat’s arms. In fact, the demon needed to switch her grip up a little bit so Lily didn’t just slip out of them and onto the ground. At the same time, Kat found her breaths coming in swiftly. She wasn’t personally in all that much danger but Lily WAS. Even if Thyme would make sure nobody died it was still a heart pounding moment.

Kat considered swiftly moving on… but her head wasn’t in it. She was likely to mess up and there was no way she was willing to let Lily go at this point… and if Lily was in her arms when she messed up? Again? Then that was going to be a really big problem. Instead Kat just… collapsed onto her butt. There was enough sand still around that it was a soft landing… for all that, that mattered to her at this point.

Kat let out a long sigh as she leaned backwards letting herself lay on the sand, slightly lifted up by her wings to prevent the sand from invading her kimono and become a problem but it was hard to care all that much. Well. Shit. That… I wasn’t expecting something quite so blatant.

[Neither was I. It’s… not really Thyme’s way of things. Do you think it’s something they were pressured to add?]

*No way to tell really but I’m certain it wasn’t Thyme’s initial idea. Someone else would’ve needed to pitch it… though maybe Thyme thought it was funny enough after it was suggested. It’s… hard to tell.*

[You’re not thinking of going up there alone again are you?]

Kat thought the question over for a moment. She hadn’t been until Lily had mentioned it but… now she was thinking it over properly. Eventually though… *No I don’t think I will. I mean… I’d be willing to but I’m more worried about impact force then the laser burning me.*

[Impact force? That’s not really how lasers work…]

*And we established that ‘magic lightning’ doesn’t behave like ‘natural lightning’ either. My worry, looking back on it, is that the laser might’ve pushed me out into the fog. I have no idea how far it could launch me… but it was a lot of power right?*

[Yeah a whole bunch.]

*Then I suspect it’s meant to damage anyone severely and send them out past the fog. Just at a guess anyway. It would knock us out of the competition for a while… and I don’t think it’s worth testing to check.*

[At the very least I can agree it’s not worth testing. Though… why don’t you think it showed up last night?]

*I’ve got two ideas. The first is that we simply didn’t get high enough for it to trigger, and the second is that perhaps the monsters are the night time defence. It DID seem to be sucking in sunlight to help supercharge itself. If it can’t operate during the night it might be a window where we can fly around and see things… but at this point I just don’t think it’s worth it. Not when the laser didn’t disperse any of its energy before disappearing.*

[Wait… are you thinking it’s a… compounding timer? Like you have say, one minute in the air before it fires… in total? And if you went back up it would still have all of that power from before? That… it shouldn’t work like that…]

*I can’t think of anything we’ve encountered to suggest it wouldn’t work that way.*

[Yeah I realised that halfway through what I was saying. It’s not guaranteed… and we could risk it if you want to… but I’d really rather we just didn’t. I don’t want to see you get hurt for a small advantage.]

*Not sure I’d consider it a ‘small’ advantage but I understand. There’s a difference between doing something dangerous and testing that something that’s certain to hurt and may take us out of the competition for a few hours. So… where are we going?*

[Let’s just get the fuck off the beach. Honestly we might want to book it somewhere because surely that landing could be heard for a while. People are going to head this way if they want to investigate.]

*Yeah you make a good point.* Kat sighed as she used her tail to push off the sand. Brushing off her kimono to shake off the few more stubborn grains that hung around anyway, Kat gave a quick kiss to Lily’s cheek and then started to sprint off and into the forest. She wasn’t really trying to be quiet nor worrying too much about orbs. Lily had covered the area somewhat in this direction and Kat didn’t want to go too deep into the mushroom woods just yet.

They soon came across the corpse of Lily’s first crab kill. It still looked to be in good condition and reminded Kat to ask. *Actually, do we want to break for lunch at all or are you full up on crab?*

[I’m not hungry BUT I forgot to mention it and we’re right here. Go grab some of that meat. It’s basically just crab but with a better texture. Or well… a texture I prefer anyway and I don’t… think that’s the cat part of me talking?]

Kat nodded and moved over. Lily hopped out of Kat’s arms and the pair of them got to work. They weren’t overly careful with things, this was a rush job… and there were plenty of other ones around that Lily had taken out so it wasn’t like they’d be low on meat. Kat alternated between cracking open the shell at regular intervals and storing away the meat while Lily focused almost entirely on stripping said meat off the crab in the first place.

It was an efficient system and they managed to get and store most of the meat without too much trouble. It was in fact, so efficient that when they ended up running into the second corpse not too long later they repeated the process. The only issue was Kat could tell the band they had was filling up somewhat. Between the supplies they’d brought along, the chest and two giant crab’s worth of meat they were starting to run low.

*Alright do we bother with a third one of these? We’re sort of full up on storage. Well, not actually we MIGHT be able to fit another crab in here but then we’ll just be lugging around a bunch of monster crab meant.*

[It’s very tasty… if you don’t think it’s worth grabbing the whole thing we should just get the best parts of it.]

*And those are?*

[You know… I’m really not sure. I was mostly just going for the meat that I could easily grab and it’s not like I’m all that large so I got full quickly. Um… the claws? Maybe? I think that’s meant to be the best part?]

*Are you just wanting to taste test the various areas? If you’re hungry we can…*

[No I do not. I’m really not hungry anymore. Just… just grab one of the big claws and call it a day.]

*Hmmm…*