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

--- Kamiko --- (A good deal of time later)

Kamiko reacted instantly, diving straight at Hunter to pull her into a hug. The other three all pulled out their weapons at the sudden movement, pointing towards a completely unconcerned Kamiko. Luckily nobody actually fired, and soon Kamiko was sniffling into Hunter's shoulder as Kat wasn't around.

Hunter looked around awkwardly before giving Kamiko a few stilted pats on the head and just letting her get it out of her system. "I… I was so lost!" cried Kamiko. Meanwhile, Meg had walked over to have a look at the rock Kamiko had brought over. The compass had been pointing in a completely different direction before Kamiko's arrival but now… now it pointing directly at it.

A few quick tests confirmed that it was indeed a drake part and Meg turned to make a snide comment, at Kamiko's distress only for Bower's hand to clamp down on her shoulder. "What's your problem old man?" asked Meg, eyebrow raised and considering.

"Don't give me that look lass. You've got a sharp tongue and little Pinky is clearly distressed. Not only that, but she managed to find a drake bit we coulda missed. I get that your personality is shit but leave it for now alright?" said Bower.

"Oh? Do you really think so little of me? Even after I used my abilities to find the most likely spot for Kamiko to get spat out of the bubble? Seems strange, especially when it's your job to navigate these woods for us and you managed to lose her," retorted Meg.

Experience tales at empire

"I admit that's my mistake. Bubbles don't usually catch just the one person in a group, heck they barely ever split the group at all. Something you mostly just come to accept. Perhaps if I was fully on the ball or a century younger, I would've noticed that things didn't feel quite right. Still, I noticed she'd gone missing right away so I don't feel like I made any major mistakes.

Then again, that might just be because I'm an old man. We get funny ideas sometimes you know?" said Bower with a snort, unconcerned at Meg's attempt to flip things around.

"I was just going to poke at her a little, nothing serious," said Meg as she bent down to get a better lock at the blue rock Kamiko had dropped.

"Right… perhaps it's nothing serious for you but she's clearly not in the best place," said Bower firmly.

Meg glanced over at Kamiko who was still trying not to cry as she hugged Hunter. The lamia still hadn't really worked out what to DO with the other girl, and instead of just returning the hug like a normal person had apparently decided to just awkwardly pat the girl occasionally. Kamiko didn't seem to mind too much.

"Ok I do admit that's adorable and I might've ruined it with my comments… but I'm telling you it was fine,"

Bower just shrugged, "Clearly you're still overly focused on it. Just to give you something to fight off the temptation… tell me about this rock. Is it what we're looking for?"

"Yes, definitely. Though… the fact that we found it in a bubble at all has some concerning implications…" said Meg.

"I do believe you mean KAMIKO found it in a bubble," pointed out Bower.

"Hey she's part of the team, therefore it's a team effort," Bower just rolled his eyes at Meg's retort and gestured for her to get on with it. "The concerning implications?" Bower nodded. "Well… I'm just not sure if the compass is working properly. I'm pretty sure it should be able to work around the bubbles… but the fact we overlooked this one? Might be a problem…"

"I remember you talking about dialling it in and that the compass focuses on a balance between how close the thing is, and how much energy it's putting out. So you think this should've gotten picked up instead?" asked Bower.

"Well that's the question isn't it? The compass didn't change direction until Kamiko got out… I think. I wasn't exactly keeping my eyes glued to it while we were just sitting around so I can't be completely certain of that. So now I'm wondering just how many pieces we need. If this one was too small to matter then it's fine… but if it isn't? We've got a problem," explained Meg.

"Well that all makes sense to me. You going to crack it open?" asked Bower.

Meg nodded, "Yeah shouldn't be too hard. Just need Hunter to heat it up a bit. It's not like that stupid ore from the first one. A bit of heat and this will soften up a good deal. I can just rip it to pieces after that,"

Hunter, hearing this, sent over a large ball of fire. Hunter flew it right over Kamiko's head… and she didn't react at all. Hunter gave Kamiko a concerned look for a few seconds until she realised that she didn't know what to do about it and went back to looking at a tree and just letting the hug happen.

"Thanks Lil Sis," said Meg as she moved the ore over to the demonic fire. Meg was careful to keep her hands outside of the flame while resting the centre of the ore right on top of the hottest part of the flame. The ore quickly started to glow where the flames licked at it and a few moments later Meg pulled the ore from the fire and twisted.

A loud crack split the air causing Kamiko to finally look up from her hug. Meg was half expecting the crystal to fall down to the ground after she split the ore open and was ready to drop the pieces in order to catch it just in case but it seemed that was not to be. Inside the ore was a long drake claw as well as a chunk of its toe and it seemed pretty well imbedded in the right side.

Looking it over for a few more seconds Meg frowned at then started to pull out a table, then a mortar and pestle. "Um… what are you doing?" asked Kamiko.

"I'm destroying the drake parts for good. It's got a few weaknesses but the simplest one is going to be breaking it up and then quickly swallowing part of the shards," explained Meg.

"What?!" yelped Kamiko. "That… that can't be good for you… right?"

"Oh it's not good for you at all… but for demons such as ourselves it's not deadly either. I'll probably feel a touch under the weather for a time but I'm sure that I'll feel better if I get a bit of love and attention from my little sister," said Meg.

"I'd be willing to volunteer if it's going to be a pain," said Bower.

"Eh? Weren't you listening?" asked Meg. "When I said it's not all that good for demons, I meant it. For a normal mortal it'd be super deadly. Honestly it might still be a bit of an issue for Kamiko and Lil Sis truth be told but my biology can handle crystals a fair bit better. Kat would probably be fine as well, what with her regeneration and all but she's not here so…" Meg finished off with a shrug.

"Is eating it really the best course of action?" asked Hunter. "It is not the first time I have encountered such an issue but I have never seen it in anything like a drake,"

"It's by far the most certain way of dealing with it," confirmed Meg. "Eating a piece of the drake makes it too hard for the thing to reform. If I break it down and then eat a good chunk of it the rest will remain broken,"

"Is someone going to have to eat all of the pieces?" asked Kamiko with some concern.

"Maybe?" said meg with a shrug. "This piece is a bit too small to be considered part of the larger drake still. I can tell how to destroy it, and it's connection to the greater parts, but it's not considered the 'main' part, or maybe it's just not large enough,"

"Wait… so that means it was for nothing?" asked Kamiko.

"No, I wouldn't say that either. It could've still reformed into a much smaller and less powerful drake, it just wasn't trying to reform into the main body of it anymore. It was almost a separate entity. Not sure if we need to get all these littles ones… it was implied to me they were still a fair bit more connected then it appears,"

"Is that likely to cause issues?" asked Hunter.

Meg shrugged, "Eh we follow the compass till it stops leading us places and then phone home. If they've got a problem with it, that's on them not us. They are the ones that prepared the compass after all. If it doesn't work that's hardly my fault,"

"I do not like the idea of leaving a mission unfinished," stated Hunter.

"Well it WILL be finished once the compass stops leadings us places because that was the mission," retorted Meg with a huff.