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

--- Kat --- (2 days later)

After testing out the trunks Kat had spent some time relaxing. This was mostly done by spending time with Sylvie when she was home (and had no homework) or sitting on her bed while Lily took notes on shadow magic. Despite having just come off a beach resort island… Kat felt more at peace here then she had while away. It was nice to see everyone together.

Part of her mind insisted she should be training… but she did enough of that during her 'vacation' anyway so she was content to settle down and relax while back at home. At least. That was the plan.

Kat was surprised in the late afternoon by a message from D.E.M.O.N.S asking her if she wanted to 'Allow Hub Representative'. After a quick glance at Lily, who just shrugged Kat decided she might as well see what this was about. After hitting accept a pentagram burnt itself into the air just above her carpet.

Kat just watched it, waiting for the person to come through when instead of a humanoid figure a giant hand of shadow exploded from the pentagram.

Kat jumped back, grabbing Lily as she did… only to watch the hand fumble around in mid-air as it failed to make contact with anything. Kat watched in confusion as the hand started to stretch as best it could until it just barely managed to make contact with the wall. Then, between one moment and the next, the shadow arm vanished and suddenly there was a shadow figure taking up her bedroom wall.

It had a fairly distinct outline, darker then the other shadows in the room somehow with a mouth that looked more like it was cut sliced open, showing jagged teeth and a blinding white light seeping out of it. The eyes were similar, rough patches cut into the darkness that leaked a good deal of bright light into the room.

The figure gave a full body shiver, and let out a curse, "Dammit, those fuckers at the office are going to owe me for this shit. 'It'll be fine' they said 'It's just a contract request' they said 'She can turn it down so there isn't even any pressure' they said. Well they fucking sent me to a low mana world! Dammit, being in the shadows here is like hugging a fucking corpse!

Why do I always get the shit jobs…"

Kat and Lily shared a confused look as the shadow just continued to rant and complain about… his? Various s co-workers and they ways they had individually slighted him.

At the five minute mark Kat and Lily had completely gotten over their fears and moved back to the bed as they waited for the demon to finish… at the ten minute mark Kat got up to grab some drinks when the demons finally noticed he wasn't alone.

"Ah… oops?" he said with a sheepish expression. At least that was Kat and Lily's guess. It was very hard to tell when the face in question was lacking eyebrows. "Sorry about that. I was told this would be a simple mission but, while true, they neglected to mention the very real problems lack of mana causes my species of demons… so I may have ranted a little. Sorry about that.

My name is Miznark and I have a few things to discuss with you…" Miznark pulled out a piece of paper from somewhere "Kat?"

"That's me," said Kat. "What exactly have you got for us?"

"Right… well I'm sure you've got a bunch of question but let me just go through the basics alright? Oh, and know that you CAN turn this request down but you get a favour token for accepting and you are currently one of the better options for this mission.

"We need you to find an exterminate… well we're not quite sure exactly what it is, but it's a demonically corrupted drake, or perhaps true dragon. As I said hard to tell. Our diviners found out about it recently and it needs to be killed before the situation becomes apocalyptic. Um… no pressure?" said Miznark.

"I feel at least some pressure," Kat deadpanned. "Why would you think there's no pressure?"

"Well if you do end up failing we'll need to send in someone stronger. We'd really rather not because the potential collateral would be massive at that point… and also part of the reason why we're in this mess. So… yeah minimal force. Oh, and you'll be on the mission with Kamiko and one other demon," explained Miznark.

"I have so many questions…" mumbled Kat.

"I feel like he has to be doing this intentionally. You've left so many open ends Miznark, really where are we even meant to begin? Actually, I know. How do you even know about this? Like… why were diviners even looking into it and how do they work?" asked Lily.

"Ah, well… it's a touch complicated on both ends. The easy answer to why we were looking into it, is that we do routine checks on all worlds that demons go to. Mostly to prevent exactly this sort of problem. Diviners? Truthfully I don't understand how it works myself but I can share an explanation that I was told before…

"So time, is a bit like a river, you can't see too far ahead because corners are frequent occurrences… but at the same time there are rather notable events that you can still see.

They act like… giant rocks that sit in the middle of the river, you can see them from quite far away… and in this case it's like someone dropped something huge into the river, and a large wave washed backwards to where we are.

"So we know that a catastrophe is coming, and some of the… let's call them 'debris' give us a better insight into what exactly happened though obviously not the full picture. When this happens, we investigate the matter as best we can, throw multiple diviners at the problem if we can and then try to figure out ways to fix the issue if we can.

"Now, some people believe that seeing stuff like that? It's the universes way of telling us that it's about to end prematurely and so it sends out warnings to try and prevent it. Not sure I believe it myself but plenty of people DO believe it and hold strong to the explanation.

Something I think is moderately fair because you need to be at least Rank 5 to see more than a few minutes into the future and in this case? We're talking about potentially years or decades into the future.

"Now… as to why we're looking into this issue specifically? Well Kamiko happened to get a much easier mission in that world and from what we can gather the locals are going to summon her to try and deal with it. She would've failed, but lived, and after that we'd need to call in the big guns to stop things…

"So we're calling together a team that can, hopefully, deal with it all before that happens consisting of you, Kat, Kamiko, and Hunter 23HX443," Lily glared at Miznark "Ah, yes the name…

"She is demon on the younger side of things… though I suppose for you and Kamiko she's quite old. She is approaching her seventieth year and is making good progress for herself. Her clan traditionally do not take names until they either reach 5,000 and are deemed an elder or manage to get to Rank 5. Whichever happens first,"

"That… seems like child abuse," said Kat bluntly.

Miznark shrugged. "It's not really my department and they're a clan of Pride and Envy demons that have kept up the tradition longer than the Hub we operate out of has been around. Allegedly it gives them the best rates of Rank 5's in the Hub… but I don't know how true that is, I'm not even sure if they know. It's really not my department so I tend to just stay away from it,"

Kat was sure that if she didn't have her regeneration she'd feel a headache coming on about now. "Ok, that's… well I suppose that's a thing. Why exactly were the three of us chosen?"

"Well Kamiko was chosen because she's familiar to the locals and they were trying to summon her specifically. We can… fudge the dice a bit more on the summoning if we let her go along. You are being sent for your impressive regeneration and friendship with Kamiko. She's only Rank 2 after all and we know it will be dangerous so we trust you to keep her safe.

Hunter 23HX443 is being sent for her tracking ability and her ability to cut down foes in a permanent manner. She's got one of the best hunting records for her age group, and is a significant cut above the next best candidate. She's also, already agreed to go on the mission regardless of your choice,"

Kat rubbed her eyes. *I feel like I have MORE questions now not less.*