We're Monster Hunters! Sort Of. (Monster Containment Event, Grema and jt)

Tapping was coming from Kaori's office, a room on her flagship that doubled as the war and strategic planning room. In the middle of it was a large, circular table with the map of the world and rolled up pages pinned to it with daggers. The pages marked contracts that Kaori had taken up, and there were currently four of them. Wooden figures shaped like men, horses, and ships dotted the map. A large cluster of men and horses were in Midi, with several ships on the largest port in the country. All of the ship pieces looked like a normal boat, except for one... At Hargeon's end of the map were two ships, one that was a normal boat piece, the other was a tiny version of the Arc of Destiny that was scaled to match.

The walls of the room were made of bloodwood, an extremely rare and expensive, but beautiful and rugged wood. Mounted on the walls at the top were the heads of different animals, taking up three rows and encircling the room. The animals weren't the cute ones like deer, elk, and gazelle; no, they were the horrifying types... the ones that Lamia Scale hunted. Below them, on each of the walls were weapons galore. Swords, spears, axes, bows, daggers, guns from all civilizations and time periods- all in perfect condition. Tables with glass cases on them lined the bottom of the room with treasures within, neatly arranged to display Kaori's travels. On the far side of the room was a desk with a stack of paper on it a foot thick sitting in the middle, and four more stacks of equal size on the right side. The desk, like the walls, was made of bloodwood and had an ornate golden pattern embedded into the top that made of gold, not gold paint. Hovering in front the desk were a dozen lacrima screens, all flashing with video feeds from within the residing guild and port town of Hargeon. The source of the tapping sound was a certain masked warrior pacing back and fourth in her office, waiting on the arrival of a certain courier. She had been awake for days waiting on the package as it held significance in her clan, and finally decided to take a seat at her desk.


She resumed her pacing, the vein on her temple twitching in impatience at the return of her heirloom when a nervous -dink dink- was heard, and she knew this time it was truly him. Kaori opened the door to see a man with a scared expression and no package in hand, who instantly got on his hands, knees, and face and began shouting for forgiveness. Holding the hilt of her blade, Kaori prepared to behead the man for failing to protect such an important item but knew he was a vassal of a clan whose trade wasn't in combat. Slowly returning the blade to its original position, Kaori decided to spare his life. She grabbed the man by the collar of his robes and slammed him against the opposing end of the hallway with strength unknown to her. "Where. Is. My. Pendant...?" she asked, venom seeping from her every word. "I- d-d-don't kno-ow..." he stutted rightfully fearing for his life. In Kaori's clan a courier doesn't arrive without a package, he dies trying to retrieve it if it went missing- regardless of how it was misplaced. "Tell your master he will hear from me about your incompetence." she said, the words being daggers in the man's stomach. Kaori's clan was powerful, and unlike many others, needed nothing to maintain this power... This made for a bad day when the leader of said clan (Kaori) left a bad report since it left the others questioning how long it'd be before war was declared. While Kaori proved to be less violent than her predecessors, she was known for taking contracts to kill things other countries and their armies were unable to come near- and she did it alone or in teams of 3. It was no longer just the fear of being taken over, but fear of being eliminated that other clans had- even if their leaders knew Kaori to be a reasonable person.

'Ikuchi, get your gear. We're going hunting.' she said to her servant using telepathy. Ikuchi was in Kaori's room cleaning when he got the message, and from the sound in her voice, she was beyond pissed. Ikuchi had donned his mask and vanished, appearing in his dragonhound form outside the ship and waiting for Kaori. "Market." Kaori said and the hound took off, quickly arriving at the market. Kaori began using her historical clairvoyance to play the history of the market and watching a blonde person steal the item. "Sniff out a mix of gunpowder and magic... and female." Kaori commanded, the massive beast beginning to sniff around while not caring for the people who were backing away from fear of the creature. Even if the rider was well known in the city, the sight of large, sharp, ebony colored teeth was unnerving for most. Ikuchi snarled and took off running towards a place Kaori disliked for its depressing atmosphere, but didn't mind visiting for the right reason.

Upon arriving in an area appropriately named 'Fat Monsterland' Kaori looked over the horizon and saw a group of people moving around about a kilometer away. They were tiny and Kaori couldn't see them well, but she did see much bigger things being dropped like flies. Behind here were five dead cyclopes that all had holes burned in their chest, redefining 'heart burn' to a meaning that even Bepto Pismol couldn't help. "Which one is it?" Kaori asked in an emotionless tone. Ikuchi replied 'That one.' in her mind while pointing his snout at someone being chased by a score of large serpents. "That's no good... I can't let her die, that'd be rude of me." Kaori said sarcastically while getting off Ikuchi's back. Kaori took her bow from Ikuchi's back where he'd wedged it between a couple of the scales and said "Shirofune." with a calm voice. A white sword materialized in her hand. The sword was double-edged, and was perfectly straight. It was three feet long, and the blade was a quarter inch thick, and one inch wide. There was no guard on the blade, and the hilt contained a forked end like an arrow.

Kaori had used her Fuse spell to combine her Doppelganger and Replacement spells, allowing her to make nine copies of herself that had all of her abilities. One of the other Kaori's used this same combination, and one of the other nine who were created did this as well to create an army of Kaori twenty eight strong. All of her copies had a bow, and each said "Shirofune..." at the same time to create the sword. They all laced their sword-arrow on their bows and began charging them with a combination of Kaori's Imbue and Passionate Strike; increasing the damage immensely. They all imbued the swords with fire properties, saying "... sekai o moyasu." and causing the area to get so incredibly hot that the ground begun steaming slightly. The flames were holy in nature and burned white, as the sword arrows were released into the sky they looked like a series of shooting stars that were really closely grouped.

On Aliarey's end, she'd see one of the snakes trying to take a chunk out of her befor a hole magically appeared in its head that was glowing red around the edges. The other head reeled back and hissed from pain, and then it began raining white. A sword would land directly in front her and be followed by even more of them, all slamming into the ground around her Grema and Liam, each sticking half way in the dirt and turning the area red hot from contact. Several of the snakes had been hit, and even the enemies they defeated had their deaths confirmed by the attack. The swords that passed through enemies all had a hole in the blade roughly the size of a gum ball, where as the ones that missed targets were completely whole. All of them would hear in their mind one word spoken in a foreign language... 'Shii-nee' which meant "Die" in Midi. The swords with no holes began glowing, and the ones with holes vanished leaving the enemy they passed through beginning to glow. Suddenly... everything erupted into a colossal explosion that shook the ground, and consumed everything near the three mages- including them. However, they would find themselves unharmed as Kaori didn't consider them to be her enemy and the one who was, she wanted to put the fear of god into in person. They would notice that as the oxygen was sucked from the air, they'd have a moment where it was hard to breathe; but as the explosion completed the oxygen would come back.

Around them was nothing but red ground that quickly hardened into glass. No enemies, no corpses, nothing on the ground... Suddenly, a greyish-white flake would fall in front Aliary, Grema, and Liam. Another, and another until it was snowing. Above them, the griffins looked around while staying in the air where they were safe from the barrage. Whoever caught one of the flakes would notice it wasn't cold like snow... it was brittle, and fell apart. As ashes fell like snow and decorated the glass floor, it would be apparent what happened to the snakes chasing Aliary and the corpses Grema and Liam had left lying about... They were all destroyed and were snowing on the group. The group would find quickly that not all enemies were killed, as the griffins began their attack with the assumption that they had caused the explosions. Kaori stayed back to let them have their glory, right before delivering her justice.

Lava Hawk
Motorcycle
Ikuchi
Word Count: 1,715/2,000
Mana: 90%

+50% to Spells
+50% vs. Dead, Undead, Unholy, Darkness
+5% MP Regen
+25% Speed
-25% Spell Cost
-30% Magic Defense

The battle had seemed to commence and Kaori had done nothing to aid the three combatants. She watched as they got to work, the first one, the thief, creating some kind of weapon. From what the masked ninja could see from her position so far away, it was some sort of ranged weapon. The other girl had used some kind of magic attack that merged with the one the first one's cannon had fired, likely enhancing it. The attack was indicative of Kaori's spells that were useless on their own, but deadly while being used in tandem with other attacks. Though, she would wager that the two girl's attacks were useful even while not being fused. The third one, Kaori had seen no movement from at all, as though he needed time to understand that he was fighting a griffen while ashes rained on them both. The battle between the griffin and the two girls would continue with no assistance from Kaori or her dragonhound. Rather than help the two and a half mages, Kaori and the dragonhound both turned into griffins and took flight. Kaori's 'Clone' spell had been used many times to turn her into something that wasn't herself, and while it didn't give her any of the magical powers of her targets, copying their anatomy down to the last atom was pretty damn good. Ikuchi, the dragonhound, had the power to copy Kaori's spells and use them to an equal extent.

The two began closing in on the battle while staying as high as possible, appearing as black dots in the sky while approaching. From above, they could see the two women trying to defeat the foe as well as their male companion should he ever join in. Once the two were flying above the battle, circling like vultures as the battle drew its end, Kaori would decide she'd allotted them enough time to finish. 'Kill the spare.' she would order the dragonhound with a cold mental tone. 'As you wish.' he would reply, and the two would begin diving down. Kaori had used her burst to vanish and reappear on the ground, the compressed air from her free-fall catching up quickly and throwing ash into the air and concealing her. Through the ashes, Grema and Aliarey would see the violet glow of Kaori's eyes through the slits in her mask. Her hair had inherited this same energy and was slowly waving as though she were submerged. A white circle had appeared around the group, and everyone would feel something weighing down on them, immobilizing them. The griffin crashed down behind Kaori with Ikuchi standing on its back, his ebony teeth sunk deep into its spine as it growled loudly. The dragonhound inhaled, crimson veins on the bottom of its neck glowing brighter just before it exhaled a powerful black flame that was so hot it melted through the griffin's head. The animal hybrid had stopped struggling and gone limp, leaving the only threat, the girl with a powerful aura who was preventing the team from moving.

Kaori's magic wasn't sensed the same way others was, her's was her emotions radiating from her body and no matter how far her enemies were from her, it felt like she was directly next to them. Aliarey would feel a hot blade in her stomach, slowly, lovingly cutting her open. However, Kaori would remain standing in front them all. The other two would feel an absolute rage like none other, the kind felt when you finally found someone who killed someone you loved and was about to execute them. There was silence for a moment as Kaori viewed the woman's history to confirm she was the target. Grema and Liam would feel that Kaori had no problems with them, but rather, feel that her current anger was directed towards the third member of their little team. She began moving towards Aliarey, the violet glow fading from her and the ash resettling on the ground below. The pendant she stole lifted from Aliarey's pocked and moved itself to Kaori's hand. "I could kill you if I wanted..." she said in a cold tone, her mask slightly muffling her words. "...but I'll teach you a lesson about thievery." she added while putting the item in a pocket on the inside of her shirt. "ONE!" Kaori shouted as she used the same hand that put the pendant away to backhand smack Aliarey. "Know the person you're stealing from, BEFORE you do it... TWO!" she used the same hand to smack Aliarey, taking full advantage of her 'Passionate Burden' still being in effect. "Never steal unless you know for a fact you can get away with it... and THREE!" Kaori smacked Aliarey a third time, harder than before. Kaori's knee came up and found its way to Aliarey's stomach, right in front her ovaries "Never!" she shouted before vanishing and spin kicking her in the stomach to force her to bend over "STEAL!" she shouted again, vanishing afterwards and kicking her to get her in the air "FROM ME!" Kaori vanished once more, reappearing over Aliarey and planting her heel into the woman's back to send her back down- an attack that normally split skulls. "AGAIN!" she shouted and reappeared standing in front the gun user while looking down on her. A white glow appeared in Kaori's hand and healed Aliarey's wounds, quickly removing any pain she would feel from the various places Kaori hit her. She knelt down and spoke with a grim tone while saying "Did my lesson stick?" implying she would repeat her lesson if the first time around was insufficient.

While Kaori was taking advantage of her spell, the dragonhound had decided to do the same with the other female of the group. As the head was poking at her arm and face, Grema would see  a massive head with large, demon-like horns pointing behind it. The head would have many exposed teeth, and be decorated with black, gem-like scales that had crimson trimming on the ends. These scales continued down the back of Ikuchi, all the way to the tip of his tail. His sides, and belly were covered in a thick, dark grey, leathery material that may as well be on a rhino. His four massive claws were the same material as his scales, and were razor sharp. In terms of size, Ikuchi stood at six feet tall while standing on its four massive legs, fifteen feet from nose to tail, and three feet from shoulder to shoulder. Just as Kaori finished with Aliarey, the dragon would poke his nose into Grema's stomach to pick her up on his head and begin carrying her away. "Oi! Put her down!" Kaori ordered. He let out a series of groans as a reply, much like the ones huskies let out, as though talking. "I don't care if you think she's cute, you can't have her!" Kaori argued with the beast.

Dragonhound: *More husky like groans* (But we won, we should get a prize.)
Kaori: "We've been through this before, people aren't prizes."
Dragonhound: *three short groans* (But she's part machine...)
Kaori: "That's actually a good point... still, no!."
Dragonhound: *long whine* (Why noooooot?)
Kaori: "Because she's still human, just with some really neat additions."
Dragonhound: *whimpering* (Please, master.)
Kaori: "Do we need to do more... 'training' tomorrow?"
Dragonhound: *sharp whine & groaning sound* (No ma'am!)

The dragonhound set down Grema gently and gave her a small lick while whimpering. Kaori knelt down over Grema and said "Sorry about him, he likes cute things... and tiny things... and combinations of them..." with an awkward tone. She then grabbed one of the dragonhound's horns and pulled herself onto his neck. The spell she was using to keep everyone from attacking her had faded and Kaori and her dragonhound began leaving the scene.

Motorcycle
Ikuchi
Word Count: 1,715/2,000
Mana: 82.5%

Kaori dropping in could be at any point you guys want, after a million attacks on the griffin or after only two or three- your choices. Please message me if anything is ultimately wrong, I know using "open ended words" is supposed to be done, but those don't come naturally to me. If there's an issue with the post let me know ;^^