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

— Kat —

Kat didn’t get a chance to hold him for long, the thrashing was violent enough that Kat, even with a light grip, felt the thing’s bones shattering and soon it started to spasm and twitch before vanishing from her arms. “What’s the issue Meg!” hissed Kat as the looked at the reforming problem, already two indistinct fuzzy shapes.

“That! That is the problem! They’re so full of weaknesses that it’s like having an encyclopedia shoved right into my brain the moment I look at them. It’s not a problem of finding a weakness it’s finding which one can actually kill them!” retorted Meg.

Kat was about to ask a follow up question when the thick stone Pebbles had used to keep the others trapped was sliced into from multiple directions and four Trvis climbed out, with another two likely on the way… even as the two on the surface reformed. “I’LL GET YOU!” they shouted, more like a bad recording now then anything else.

Everyone had to react to contain them. Pebble’s learning from his mistake last time raised four walls to block the Trvis in, missing the ones nearest to Kat and Lily as he didn’t want to also capture the demons. Once in place, Pebbles got to work adding extra earthen layers while focusing on durability for each of them. This also blocked most of the groups view, allowing Ronldo to try disappearing from the scene… causing Hunter to follow him just in case. She might not have been as emotional as Kat about it, but Ronldo had crossed a line.

Kat really wasn’t sure what to do with the idiots… idiot? With the two Trvis still trying to attack her. Kat instituted her best idea and transformed into her water form, enveloping the two monstrous figures and hoping for the best. She could feel them swiping their claws through the water she currently possessed and removing it from existence as they did so. Not great, but Kat had the demonic energy to deal with it for now.

Seeing this, Lily took the chance to ask, “So Meg what do we do?”

“Look I love that you’re coming to me for answers but I really don’t know!” Meg hissed in response.

“Yes, yes, encyclopedia I get it but WHY is it happening?!” asked Lily.

“Because technically these are all just copies. I don’t think any of them were the original and technically we do kill them when they get sufficiently damaged… they just also reform into additional copies. The real issue is that I can’t be certain this is the original at all. Plus the drake crystal is nowhere near large enough to have been the piece we came for. So I don’t know if the copies will increase until the volume matches again, or if the rest of the crystal is somewhere,” explained Meg.

While she was doing so, the two Trvis Kat had trapped managed to get themselves killed. Again. They kept slashing at the water while also breathing in and managed to drown themselves swiftly. Kat and Lily were wondering if they were actually intending to kill themselves. Did they understand that technically they were dying and new copies replaced them? Did they just want to increase their numbers? It was hard to know how intentional they were being. It also meant Kat couldn’t just use her water form to contain them.

The four figures started to reform around Kat, no longer trapped in the water. Kat reduced herself back down to ‘Kat’ size and dropped the transformation. Taking the brief chance to recover some of her spent demonic energy. Letting out a long puff of air Kat listened in and could tell that the Trvis in the stone box were definitely trying to escape. How many they were or how successful Kat couldn’t tell just from hearing alone.

“Is there any way to contain them? Forget your weakness list for the moment, what can we do?” asked Kat.

“I’m struggling to think of anything!” hissed Meg. “The issue is that they’re so much more fragile then they look. A bit of accumulated damage from just about anything means they’ll fall apart and reset. In fact, I’d be willing to bet the ones clawing their way out of that box will kill themselves soon. Which is… not great…”

“So what, do we need to go for the original crystal? Look for the original Trvis? Keep killing them until they run out of copies to spawn?” asked Kat.

“I don’t KNOW!” hissed Meg as Lily jumped up and onto one of the nearby houses. The four Trvis around Kat had reformed and screamed out their slogan, and she didn’t want Kamiko to be anywhere near them while she was still unconscious. “Look Kat. This isn’t a simple thing. You’ve given me a good list to try sure but I don’t know which if any of them will work. Depending on how the crystal integrated with him and how it’s maintaining or gaining power any of those could work!”

Kat sighed as she dodged around the four Trvis and immediately realised her mistake. They’d all launched themselves at her with no regard for each other… so instead of slashing at the empty air where she had been they sliced into each other with no regard for their fellows, falling to pieces… and soon starting to spasm and split into eight new Trvis.

“For fuck’s sake,” cursed Kat under her breath. “This guy is worse than a horde of cockroaches!”

Meg frowned and flicked a bit of demonic fire at one of the currently reforming Trvis to see if that would hinder their respawning. It did not. In fact, it was one of, if not the very worst thing she could do in that moment. The figure seemed to shudder, and then expand, as it did so several copies of Trvis were thrown at of the ballooning figure and into the nearby houses and Pebbles’ wall… ‘killing’ them and creating more copies.

Meg swiftly retracted her demonic power, slamming down on that bit of fire and removing it but the damage was already done and they were up to somewhere around twenty visible Trvis. “Ok… definitely don’t use demonic fire,” muttered Meg.

*You don’t say!* grumbled Kat mentally as she looked over at the screaming horde. “I’LL GET YOU” ringing out from over a dozen different mouths. Kat really didn’t know what to do about these things. Killing them made more. Dodging them just made them kill each other. Pebbles’ wall was holding for the moment but if they were dying while inside it was really just delaying the problem…

Which wasn’t even getting into the issues with all of the other people nearby. Sure they’d left the area but the Trvis here would quickly multiply and expanding. Kat refused to believe there could truly be an infinite number… but enough to fill up the town and slaughter everyone? That was scarily possible.

Pebbles had reached the same conclusion and was already working on summoning up more earthen walls, visible sweating though of course hidden from sight by the first set. He was actively trying to contain everything… though how successful he would be in the long run remained to be seen. Pebbles had raised the walls towards the edge of his range, at least for summoning new material anyway. He could only hope everyone had obeyed his orders and left the area beforehand.

Kat decided to do a bit of her own testing. When the next Trvis lunged at her she ripped the crystal from its chest and waited to see what happened. This did require dodging a few other Trvis and for a moment it seemed like she’d worked out a good solution… only for the body she’d stolen the crystal from to shatter into two and then, as expected reform into more of the dickhead. “I’LL GET YOU” shouted the new copies.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’ll try,” grumbled Kat as she tried to work out how to slow things down. Meg had picked a blanket out of the storage ring and tried wrapping one of them up in it, but the issue seemed to be the wings. When trying to wrap a Trvis up like that the wings were able to tear their way out… somehow? Kat didn’t understand how that made any sense at all and Meg clearly didn’t either.

*Alright… so I surround one in water… it drowns. I dodge, they slice each other. Blankets and restraints don’t seem to work. Demonic fire is very much the wrong answer, and the crystal being removed is less helpful then you’d think. The stone walls still seem to be our best bet for now at least… the problem is that it might not be fixing things?*

Kat decided to fly up and find out, launching off the ground she looked down into the stone box… and was not happy with what she saw. There was a large pile of Trvis that were slashing into each other. The ones at the start of the line would attack the wall, the ones behind that would attack the ones at the wall to GET to the wall, and it just continued back like that. Soon the bodies would fill the entire thing.

*So stone walls are NOT the answer…*