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

--- Lily ---

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The beat got stronger as the drake's eyes started to glow. Its new head glancing around at the world with new eyes. Everything that had been eradicated in the explosion had been completely replaced with crystal. From the neck up that same tainted blue had overtaken everything. Parts of its limbs now had a layer of crystaline scales over them as well.

The particulates inside of them were swirling around everywhere and the eyes. The eyes glowed with blue light with an extra bright segment where the pupil was made of green.

Lily was frozen in shock, paralysed by the new weight the drake seemed to push out just from existing. It was like the drake was pressing into the nearby space forcing it to do its bidding. Even as Lily was frozen, the others started to move… the drake included. While Kat and Hunter were readying themselves to continue the attack, the drake was also.

It shook its head from side to side, dislodging large chunks of crystal from its new mane, yet they did not fall to the ground. Instead they rose up around it, attatching themselves to invisible points around the drake's head. Hunter started to take potshots at the large collections of crystals but each shattering was temporary. They quickly reformed as if the bullets were never there.

Before Hunter could switch targets the crystals started to fire out at the group. Kat pulled out her fans and started to bat them away. Each crystal hit with the force of a truck going at full speed. Somethng that Kat was equipped to deal with, but they were relentless.

In just a few moments half of the crystal swarn had charged after Kat and broken against her fans… only to reform at the drake's side.

The rest were split up, with half of those remaining going towards Lily's group and the other targeting Hunter. The lamia put away her favoured weapon to pull out a much smaller gun with a large clip. Hunter sprayed bullets into the swarm of crystals, shattering them for now, but unable to deal with them permanetly.

Over with Lily, she just didn't know what to do. Her paper and shadow unable to deal with the large, deadly looking crystals as they approached… but Kamiko was ready to step up to the plate. The sucubus stepped forward with a look of determination on her face. Naginata blade retracting as she slammed the now blunt head into the first crystal shattering it.

What followed as a wave of projectiles. The drake had no desire to let up at this moment. Every shattered crystal just meant that another one could be fired in an endless stream towards them. After Lily got her wits about her she tried to see some way to help but disrupting Kamiko seemed like a bad idea, and the others were much too far away.

*Shit, shit, shit, shit. This is really bad. Like, the worst news. What the heck do we do now? The drake only got more powerful when we destroyed all the crystals. There's MORE OF THEM NOW.

What do we do?!*

Chapter Find:

While Lily was panicking the others were calming down. Kamiko had gotten into a rhythm. The drake didn't know how to alter the patterns of its attacks. It simply launched a crystal as soon as it reformed with no care for tactics.

It was easy to fall into a rhythm, and though Kamiko wasn't getting complacent, and eye always on the drake as well as the crytals launched her way, she was confident enough to manage the barrage.

The only issue was that of the drake slowly approaching. It was heading for Kat first, as the closest… but its approach was slow. Clearly it couldn't use all of its speed while firing off crystal bolts. Which was nice, but a potential issue in a minute or so. Kamiko had no idea what to do about it either.

Bower was thinking, "Got any plans Lily?" he shouted over the sound of shattering crystal and feeling a touch useless.

Lily snapped out of her panic spiral and looked up at Bower for a few moments before transforming. "Nothing good. The only thing I can think of… is forcing the drake to transform the rest of its body into crystals. If we do more damage… maybe with the rest of the explosives? If we did that it might fall apart. Hunter said it was a matter of energy and surely this takes more energy then normal…

"But if we fuck it up we could die… turning the whole thing to crystal would surely empower it more… but… but I don't know what else to do. Something I must be missing is telling me to go all the way despite the disgusting feeling it gives me,"

Bower looked over at the drake, taking his time to take in as much detail as he could. He kept this up for a good thirty seconds before nodding. "The crystyal is retreating,"

"What?" asked Lily.

"The crystal is retreating. You can see it around the legs, it's slowing working its way back up. I dunno what that means precisley… but either a balance is needed, or the crystals aren't as great as they seem. So… I say we go big," said Bower with a grin.

"How can I launch the bombs though? Kamiko has most of them and she needs to be the one to charge them all!" shouted Lily. She also didn't mention that there was only one chance. Her mana was low and there was no way she could send off multiple rounds of bombs, not anymore.

Bower thought for a second, "You got a shield in that ring of yours?"

"Um… yes?" said Lily after a moment of searching. She pulled out a large tower shield that cracked the ground slightly when it landed. Bower picked it up, heaving with exersition as he did, crossbow now laying down discarded. Lily quickly pulled it into her ring.

"Fuck, pushing these old bones hard," grumbled Bower before moving forward. Lily winced as it sounded like bones were cracking all over his body when he moved. "Damn, guess I'll needd to really push it," Bower dropped a hand to his pouch and pulled out a glowing vial and downed it in a moment.

The cracking intesnsified… and then a layer of scales seemed to fall from Bower's body tinkling against each other as they collected in the dirt. "KAMIKO! SWAP WITH ME!" Bower said as his body puffed up a bit, muscles strengthening as he charged forward. "CHARGE THE BOMBS!"

Bower stepped into Kamiko's old spot and was immediately forced backwards after one of the crystals impacted the shield The metal rang out long a gong, but Bower managed to hold it mostly steady, shifting in smalls ways to make sure the shield caught all of the crystals.

Kamiko didn't hesitate to pull out the remaining explosives. "Two minutes again? Starting with the first and counting down from there. It'll be cutting it tight but you had extra time before and I don't know how long Bower can hold that,"

Lily nodded and Kamiko got to work, one bomb after the other arming it and adding it to the pile. Lily summoned up another paper plane with slight indents for the bombs. This one was larger then last time to spread everything out a bit more. Arming all five of them took the full fifty seconds of course, and there was only one minute twenty left on their timers once Kamiko got ready to throw.

Bower had been taking hard hits this entire time. His arm, the one bracing the shield, was covered in cracked scales and bleeding slightly but he was standing strong. He had not fallen just yet. Kamiko jogged backwards and threw the plane high up into the air. Lily took control and pushed it forward, getting it closer to the drake while warning Kat.

She could only hope that Hunter would be ready as well.

Lily didn't see it, her eyes glued to the sky, but Bower took one hit too many and collapsed backwards, shield on top of him. Kamiko rushed in to fill the gap in the defence and started shattering crystals once more. She tried to find the time to flip over the shiled, but there wasn't any. Lily eventually noticed and sent her shadow to push it up and off of Bower.

He didn't look great, cracks lining most of his scales… but he was alive. Hopefully he'd stay that way.

Up in the sky the plane made the approach just as the drake got to Kat. It lashed out with a talon and Kat ducked around it… only for crytals to fly off towards her. Kat transformed into water, letting them sail through, only to have large chunks of that water be pulled into the crystals as they did so. Kat winced, but didn't complain to Lily, she didn't need the distraction.

The bombs would be ready any moment now… and Kat wasn't sure if she'd be able to back up in time.