Fighting Monsters? Been There, Done That (Kaori)

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

It had been quite some time since the previous battles against the monsters of Fat Monsterland had taken place. Many mages had gone into the danger zone and stopped the advancement of the creatures, saving many in the process. Samira had not been a part of those events, although she had heard the news once it was all over. No doubt back then she likely would have been killed and devoured by the monsters. She was far too weak and could barely even handle the simplest of enemies. That had changed over time...well somewhat. Fighting like some professional martial artist was certainly not a quality she had, and she was only moderately decent at handling basic weapons. What had changed was her magic getting stronger, and as a result had access to more powerful summons. Somehow that made her one of the top ranking mages in her guild, but she had no idea why. It should had taken more than just raw magic power to be classified as such for her case. Her summons were powerful, she was not. It was a work in progress, and it seemed the world would not be put on hold just for her.

Another call for aid from the Magic Council had reached many guilds and mages alike. The new mission was to go into the center of Fat Monsterland and eliminate the powerful creatures at the base of operations within the area. From there, members of the Rune Knights were supposed to come in and take care of the rest. Of course the guild focused on monster hunting would have been one of the first to receive the message. Samira was unsure as to how many members actually responded, but for her part she would represent the guild and help take care of the monster mess. Better her than some of the weaker ones that reminded her of herself some time ago.

The summoner stood at what was supposed to be the entry point to the monsterlands. She could hear sounds of battle further in, likely from other mages that had also come to assist with clearing out the place. Well step one of a successful monster hunt was completed: get to the area with the monsters. Now she just needed to venture further in to get to step two: find the monsters. That was probably going to be the easy part since it was possible they would find her instead. Why would that be harder than step one? Because she did not call on a certain friend who happened to have a ship to make the trip smoother as well as faster. She disliked going to her for such a trivial thing when she had her own ways to get there... although using a certain flying lion that ditched her the moment they landed was far from being a pleasant ride.

'I told you he would take off as soon as you reached the so called Monsterlands. But did you listen? Nope. Of course not," one of Samira's spirits complained mentally from his place in the celestial world. 'Didn't listen to me when I suggested asking Ninja Girl either. You do know we're on twenty four hour surveillance, right? Kind of pointless to hide the fact you're out here pretending you're something special.'

The green haired summoner sighed. She wasn't hiding what she was doing. Samira just didn't see the point in going to Kaori for everything. There were some things she could handle herself. Killing monsters wasn't exactly new to her, after all. Not to mention... "The call for aid came from the Magic Council. The possibility of her being unaware of what is going on is very slim," Samira stated as she pulled out her iLac and began to mess around with some of the apps. The words were true enough. Kaori was a Wizard Saint, and even if she weren't she always had her ways of finding information. There was no way she did not know of the monsters lurking around and the call to eliminate them before they caused more chaos. If she ran into her friend while in the area she would have assumed it was because the both of them had decided to help out due to being affiliated with a monster hunting guild, not the paranoia that her spirits had of constantly being watched by Kaori and her team. 'How logical. Just don't do any of those black outs if you're really set on doing this solo...ish. I guess you're technically not alone if you manage to summon one of us.'

The iLac beeped before displaying a general map of the area with dots on it that were supposed to represent the lifeforms that were around. A tracker of sorts...or something. She wasn't really good with technology and it was her first time using it. Samira took a step forward as she held the device in front of her face with the intention to follow the map and avoid the single dots while continuing further in until she found a giant cluster of them to indicate the base of operations. However, she quickly stopped herself. Just one quick thing had to be done first. With a simple press of a button on the screen, a sort of clicking sound was made as the iLac took a snapshot. She was apparently getting a little too addicted to taking pictures with the device. It was so much better to have visual representations for her journal entries!

'Oh, wonderful. Now you're taking pictures like this is a tourist attraction. Don't summon me. Let one of the others work to save your ass. Please.'

"Documenting is important." With that said, Samira continued forward in search of the monster base, using the mapped dots on her device as a guide to avoid anything insignificant. Even though she had said before it would not be surprising to find Team Kaori within the area for one reason or another, she still thought it was unlikely. She had plenty of her own affairs to attend to usually, and with as many guilds and mages answering the call the whole event was probably placed in the "someone else can deal with it" chart. As far as the summoner was aware, she would be eliminating monsters solo...ish.

(Word Count: 1052)

---

Darkness covered the halls of the base where a large collection of monsters had been rumored to be located in. Kaori, having been sent ahead of the other groups, had been asked by the Magic Council to infiltrate said base and assassinate a mage inside who was resurrecting monsters. Her ability to move without making a single sound, as well as her obscenely powerful magic had made her the perfect person for the task. That, and the fact that they knew there wasn't a single person in earthland or off it who could buy information from Kaori. There was no one who could threaten her for it, there was no one who could make her talk if it was asked who hired an assassin. Kaori was a noble in four countries as well as the leader of the most powerful clan in Midi, well, one of them; so she didn't need anyone's money. She had access to thousands of people who owed her favors, an entire air based army, over a hundred thousand skilled warriors, and her magic wad capturing her extremely difficult. The Magic Council was highly sceptical of Kaori for the same reasons since it meant she could destroy Fiore from the inside and no one would be able to find out why she did it, and no one that they knew of could stop her. In this case however, her being so dangerous had been a godsend to the council...

Using her telekinesis to keep herself on the ceiling, Kaori slowly moved over the various monsters below while keeping a count of the enemies. When she was done here she'd certainly have to clear them out and by the time she had gotten to a set of massive doors with a pair of powerful looking Gryphons in front them, Kaori had already counted thirty or so enemies- not including the necromancer. 'Hey Cap, gotta ask you something...' a voice called from inside Kaori's ear where a communication lacrima was placed. 'What's that?' she replied, stopping her movements. 'Did you invite Samira to come along?' the voice replied, a question that was absurd... Kaori would never ask Samira to accompany her on a "kill this bitch" mission. 'Oh, well she's walking towards the area.' the voice replied, causing Kaori to almost let out a sigh. 'Of course she is... The enemies aren't too terrible back there, she can handle it. I'll regroup with her after finishing the target.' she replied, marveling at the fact that even when she left early, she had less time than she was expecting. It was also funny how she didn't ask Samira to come along on the mission and she still found her way of getting mixed up in this kind of stuff. Kaori used her telekinesis to open the door, causing the two gryphons to look inside thinking someone was coming out and when they saw no one, they looked around and even up but saw nothing still. They closed the door thinking that it was just a weird circumstance, something that was a one-off due to magic... Oh how wrong they were.

Inside the chamber, Kaori saw the target leaning over a type of altar of sorts with a book in front him. A massive set of bones were arranged to form a crocodile-like being that was much, much larger than any normal crocodile should have been. An arrow in the back of his head had interrupted the resurrection ritual, preventing him from making a fourth one. Kaori dropped from the ceiling, slowly descending before landing on the floor and walking to the middle of the room where the skeleton was. "Now to just take care of the building, and go get lunch... might invite Sammy." she said while reaching into her satchel and withdrawing a rather large cylindrical object. She set it on the ground and pressed a series of buttons causing some metal spikes to drop from the sides, allowing it to be held in place without tipping over and falling down. She pressed a series of buttons more and the nuclear fusion core began charging up, preparing to go off when Kaori was ready to start the timer. She then walked over to the door and pulled out a pair of explosive lacrima charges, sticking them to the wall and arming them. Where they were placed was directly behind the two Gryphons and would cause much more damage to them from the shrapnel being sent through them due to the shock wave released by the blast. More importantly, it would draw attention to Kaori which will give Samira some time to get a couple sneak attacks in... though, after that she'd have to fight like hell.

Kaori pulled out her iLac as well and pressed a button. On the other side of the doors, the two Gryphons had turned to face the door after hearing the various beeping sounds from Kaori's fusion core being set up. They were expecting the ninja to walk through casually so they could tear her a new one after chewing on her bones, and were getting curious about why it was taking so long. One of them let out an inquisitive grunt, the other jerking its head to gesture for its 'friend' to go in and check the door. The one who let out the sound shoot its head, they looked at each other and began approaching the door to check out was was going on... but the door and wall around it suddenly exploded and sent them flying backwards, into a wall that surprisingly was uninjured. The sound of an explosion very well could be all it took for Samira to know Kaori was here, but it also could be something that let her think there was some other mage present... after all, the Magic Council had advertised to the world to get people to help out so it was a very real possibility that she had arrived late to the party. Suddenly, Ikuchi would appear out of nowhere next to Samira with his usual attire, except his mask was switched out for a set of pitch black shutter shades. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked at Samira with his usual half frown that made reading his emotions quite difficult. "You know... We would've picked you up if you asked." he stated, pointing up at the large flying ship that looked like an actual boat, Recon-One, that loomed overhead. Ikuchi took his shades off and they were engulfed in flames, turning into his mask that he then put on. "Kaori's in the middle... The enemies are quite strong but also corrupt, I advise using Amaterasu. Here, you can use these." Ikuchi handed Samira a set of four lacrima with pins in them. "The white ones can be used to knock enemies back and create openings, the light blue ones release a bright flash similar to Amaterasu's. Pull the pin and throw it at the targets, they go off exactly four and a half seconds after the pin is pulled... I'd go with you but I have laundry to attend... Kaori's lingerie is surprisingly delicate." he explained and then vanished.

Rain had begun to fall over the area, indicating that Kaori had activated her mark and created a series of twelve swords around her. The gryphons had both gotten up, shaking the various bricks off of them and charging at the white haired ninja with no sense of fear. Kaori flicked her wrist, sending the swords out and slashing the two hybrid animals across the stomach and sending them flying to the walls. They were allegedly so powerful that they gave H Rank wizards a hard time, but Kaori was so powerful that she had much the same effect. The gryphons had taken a total of fourteen hits by that point but didn't feel like giving up... They attacked Kaori again who in turn, created a massive array of swords, spears, daggers, glaives, naginatas, and all other manner of weapons behind her before sending them forth and impaling the two corrupt mythical beasts multiple times until they fell dead looking like that throne from that one series about people who did stuff and had a throne with a crap ton of swords at a back rest... except these weapons were all real. Kaori walked out the room and turned to face the empty hallway leading to the exit, knowing there was a lot of work to do.

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

The map had been easily used to avoid small patrol groups as Samira made her way deeper into the Monsterlands. However, the further she went the air around the area grew more heavy and cold. It felt corrupted and was a little more than unsettling. Even worse was how quickly the sounds of battle faded. It seemed not too many mages were making it that far into the middle of the lands to face the stronger monsters. Slightly predictable, but she still expected more due to the huge notice that was sent out by the council. Regardless of the fact very few allies were likely ahead, Samira pressed on. It would be unfortunate if she ended up having to do everything herself, but that was the life of a higher ranked mage she supposed.

Looking at the iLac screen once more, the summoner noticed a huge cluster of red dots displayed not too far away from her current location. The size of the dots were even different. From what she could conclude, the bigger ones represented the strongest enemies, of which there were three that were huge. That had to be the main source and bosses of the monster army. Targets located! Or, so she thought. One of the dots disappeared, causing the green haired girl to halt her progress. None of the other dots were disappearing, and the one that had was so far in it shouldn't have been possible to not take a few of the minor ones out before reaching it. A loud explosion then took place, and the smokey effects and fire could be seen floating into the air up ahead. The other two major dots faded slightly on the iLac screen, indicating their weakened state. Samira could have acknowledged the possibility that another powerful mage had taken care of the two. Explosive magic wasn't such a rare thing, nor were explosive items in general. Although, there was only one person she knew of that could bypass all insignificant enemies in such a way that also had a thing for making things go boom. If she was right, then Kaori had actually decided to spend her time helping the Magic Council after all. Of course, certain spirits would just claim she was some sort of magical stalker, but those sorts of comments would have to go ignored. For now, further evidence that Kaori was in the area appeared in the form of Ikuchi.

Due to her thoughts regarding the explosion, Samira was not as surprised as she would have normally been when he appeared beside her. The only thing that really caused her to blink and stare awkwardly at him were the shades he had on instead of the mask. It called for only one reaction! Snapshot click of the iLac as she held it up and faced the magic camera in his direction. He then mentioned something about them picking her up if she had asked and pointed up, to which her green gaze followed. A sweatdrop and blank face at first as she wondered how she didn't notice the flying boat-like ship up in the sky. Was she really getting so addicted to staring at an iLac screen that she couldn't even leave it to stare at the sky to see obvious points of interest? A problem to be corrected another day! "Unnecessary," she replied after composing herself. "It seems I acted on the call much later than Kaori did, so it is only natural that I find my own way here as a result."

Ikuchi had left her with some information regarding Kaori, the monsters, a suggested spirit which happened to be the one he normally suggested due to her being his favorite or something, and had even given Samira four lacrima that had simple but useful effects. A simple explanation on how to use them, resulting in a silent and acknowledging nod in response, then that was followed up with a statement that went in a way Samira did not expect. He had offered to tag along, but had said he had something else to attend to. That was something she could see and understand, however, she had expected that something to be slightly more important than laundry! Samira had opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out due to the shocking reveal that laundry was much more important and difficult than getting through and clearing out a land full of monsters. He had also vanished anyway soon after he had spoken about Kaori's lingerie. Blink blink. Blink blink. Well with Kaori being Kaori, her underwear was probably the strongest enemy around. If handled wrong then the true boss would appear.

'She wears delicate underwear? Hmph, makes sense I guess. A little weird but makes sense.'
'I didn't even know she wore underwear or fancy lingerie. I just always assumed she wore magic diapers.'
'What?! That's completely stupid, even for you.'
'Hold on! Hear me out! When was the last time on ANY mission you heard Kaori demand a "potty break" or that she needs to go to "the little girl's room?"'
An uncomfortable silence followed as Samira and all spirits within the mind space couldn't even remember such a thing taking place.
'...Magic diapers?'
'Magic diapers.'
'Are they the super absorbent kind?'
'Well, they're magic. So...probably?'
'I am surrounded by idiots.'

Rain had begun to fall, thankfully interrupting that conversation. There had been no signs of predicted rainfall beforehand, so either it was just one of those quick and random occurrences of rainfall or the Wizard Saint had activated one of her abilities that Samira had only seen once before. If it was the latter then it would be best if she herself did not get too close or she would feel the effects from it. The topic of lingerie and diapers long past, Samira put away the iLac and made her way over to where she recalled the cluster of red dots had been located. With the leaders being taken care of by her friend, that left cleaning up. As she rushed her way through the monster forest, she felt her magic energy being depleted a bit, and upon questioning why, a small spirit the size of a doll appeared. The small spirit sat on her left shoulder with a package of some twisted straw looking red candy. He was munching on one, and although one couldn't see his face, his green eyes were quite visible. They disappeared for a moment, indicating he blinked, and then he turned his head to the rather confused summoner. "I do not recall calling on you."

Munch, munch, munch went the spirit as he continued nibbling on the candy that disappeared even though no mouth was visible. "There's a dead thing over there." Just as he said it a rather large set of jaws came snapping towards Samira from the side. If the appearance of the spirit had not slowed her down she likely would have ran right into it. Apparently the thing had moved since she last looked at her map. What was the mysterious thing that had attacked? A skeletal creature that seemed to take the form of an oversized crocodile; a Deinosuchus. Samira had thought to use one of the lacrima to blast the thing back a bit to buy some time to summon an offensive spirit, but the candy munching spirit already out stopped her. The package of candy had been dropped as the spirit floated over to the creature and disappeared inside its skeletal form. From there, the dark holes where the creatures eyes should have been glowed green, indicating the incarnation of the god of the underworld had taken over. 'It will not last long. I expect cookies after this. Chocolate chip.' Samira could only chuckle a bit at the preferred payment currency. It was a much easier request than some of her other spirits. "Chocolate chip then. I will add peanut butter cookies if you charge in before me. That thing is technically still alive. It would help if you eliminate some targets while they also help weaken that one before you take off."

Peanut butter was all that needed to be said. The smaller spirit had one hell of a sweet tooth. The possessed skeletal creature took off into the direction of the rest of the enemies surrounding the earlier explosion. Quite a few of them were still distracted by what had happened, but others had began to move around as they pleased, now having no leader to give orders. One of them just so happened to be another resurrected Deinosuchus. The one on Team Samira waltzed right in and went for it, locking its jaws on the skeletal neck of the other. Naturally, a sort of magic was protecting the bones from snapping or breaking, but the same held true for the possessed one. The two would eventually wear each other down. As for everything else, well, that was quite a number of large monsters. A few of the half dragon..man...things noticed the fight between the resurrected creatures, and soon took notice of a certain summoner. As a quick response, one of the white lacrima was used to knock them back before they could react further. The more armored ones were less affected, but enough time had been bought to pull out the key belonging to Amaterasu. “Open, gate of the Avatar, The Shining Light! Amaterasu!” Samira shouted as she used the key to unlock the gateway between the spirit's realm and her own. A bright flash appeared as the portal did, causing the half dragon giants to have to shield their eyes and interrupt any attacks they had been preparing. When the flash was over, five of the closest giants had fallen, having been attacked repeatedly during that time by the quick moving spirit. Shortly afterwards, her next powerful move had been activated. A large beam of light descended upon all the enemies in the surrounding area. The only ones that remained unaffected were those lucky enough to be out of her range, which, if they were, they were hardly significant at that point and would likely be dealt with by another. While the light attack was not enough to end the creatures fully, it did damage them, and would continue to do so for a long while yet.

---

Kaori began charging forward, quickly spotting one of the large crocodiles she'd passed earlier. She wasn't sure what was more disturbing about the creature, the fact that it was a giant walking skeleton or the fact that it was intelligent enough to decipher friend from foe. As far as Kaori had seen, it was the only thing in this place that was alive while also being dead so it should be attacking the other monsters. The black holes in its skull that designated the location of what used to be eyes had suddenly shown a pair of red dots, likely the manifestation of a physical representation or substitution for eyes that were quickly aimed in Kaori's direction. The ninja didn't care to be quite honest, prey was prey whether it was alive, dead, or stuck halfway... since this one was the latter, she decided it was her duty to help it get the rest of the way to the grave.

Kaori and her floating swords vanished and reappeared next to the creature, the twelve swords spun and cut through its femur before she vanished again and did the same to the other leg upon reappearing. The calcified jaws began snapping wildly while the undead monster was wriggling, flailing and releasing a sound that made Kaori wonder how the hell it was possible on account of it lacking several key components. First it needed lungs to hold air, a diaphragm to make the lungs inflate and deflate, an esophagus for that air to flow through, vocal chords to vibrate from the passing air, and a uvula to control the pitch... this thing was just bones, animated bones... The white haired ninja vanished and appeared high above the creature with a massive hammer formed in her hands, the head being shaped in the most demonic of ways and was as big as the crocodile's head. Saying Kaori was strong enough to lift such an absurd weapon would be a vast exaggeration of her physical strength, naturally and much more logically, she was using her telekinesis to do it and then let gravity take hold with the hammer smashing the crocodile's skull. The creature however didn't die, much to Kaori's surprise the crocodile's body continued moving around and trying to hit Kaori with its shoulder blades and spine. Kaori took a couple leaps back as it lunged forward, repeating that leap backwards each time the reanimated corpse made another attempt. "You're honestly going to make me do this, aren't you?" she said under her breath, a bit of disdain contained within her voice would imply that what she was about to do was something she truly hated doing. By trade, Kaori was an assassin... but when it came to killing mages and magical beings, she was practically a goddess. Kaori took off the glove on her left hand, revealing an array of tattoos hidden under it that all began glowing in a bright azure color. Upon doing so, the downpour outside had gotten even heavier and feelings of confidence, annoyance, and pride radiated for miles around. The creature came in for another attack but immediately stopped in front Kaori as she held her hand in front her towards it. The bones began rattling and it couldn't force itself to attack for some odd reason. The magic markings on its every bone had begun deteriorating as beta particles filled the air originating from Kaori's tattoos. Such things weren't at all lethal to Kaori since her magic was fueled by her heart and the emotions it held rather than ethernano like other wizards. Samira was far enough away that she wouldn't be at risk of coming into contact with it.

The bones each dropped one by one starting with the vertibrae closest to Kaori that originally connected to the now shattered skull and moving piece by piece down its body as the magic circles became too weak to move the massive bones and keep them connected. Kaori let out a sigh and rolled her glove up before tucking it in the space between her skirt and her under garment. Kaori move onward towards a room with five large pillars inside that she'd come through on her way to the necromancer and noticed the door she entered through was closed. Kaori looked around, eyeing the glowing pillars at the far ends of the room and then turning her gaze towards something in the middle. There was an item that was glowing brightly behind a type of barrier, a lever by the looks of it. 'Summoner, perhaps you should destroy those pillars.' the voice of Ira chimed in Kaori's head. 'Indeed, they seem to be feeding the barrier.' Query added in. Kaori's knowledge of magic was pretty limited, but she had been thinking the same thing on account of the pillars glowing. She used her telekinesis to levitate and hovered in the middle of the room over the lever with the barrier and created an array of swords around her, twenty four in total arrange equidistant from each other in a circle. The circle began spinning and Kaori infused the swords with some of her magic before changing the spell's element to 'fire' and making the burn white hot. The room became a swirling vortex of white flames as the swords begun spinning faster and faster while moving further from Kaori. Once moving fast enough, Kaori expanded them and each sword melted through the Magical Constructs, causing the tops of them to fall and shatter. The swords vanished as did the barrier below her and Kaori dropped to the ground, pulling the lever and opening the doors.

Running through the halls again, Kaori had heard the sounds of fighting coming from the direction she was heading. By the time she arrived on scene, Samira had already dealt with her enemies using the bird faced spirit of the sun, Ra. She vanished and reappeared next to Samira and Ra, watching as their enemies began turning into a black mist that quickly vanished. "Well... that's a thing." Kaori said while blinking a couple times. Kaori turned to face Ra and said "Sup R-" "TWEETYYYYY!!!!" a voice called out and the sound of a cannon was heard with windows shattering all along the hall. Ra would find himself on the ground with Kaori's sky blue eyed clone snuggling him while nuzzling her cheek against his. Kaori would find herself with a sweat drop rolling down the back of her head. That quickly changed to annoyance with a vein mark showing on her temple and Kaori saying "What the hell did I tell you about-" "But I wanted to snuggle the tweety!" the other Kaori looked at her original self with large, glistening eyes that made Kaori drop her forehead into the palm of her hand. Kaori pulled the glove from her waist and put it back on with her eyebrow twitching, not wanting Samira to be exposed to the marking's terrible power for too long. From the direction of the entrance, the sound of large footsteps were heard and Kaori's gut told her more fighting was up ahead. "Hey Sammy, everything that way's pretty dead. You wanna go get something to eat? I'm pretty sure the other wizards coming can handle whatever scraps of enemies we leave behind." Kaori stated. Her other personality had looked up with a puffed cheeks and said "Now I can't snuggle Tweetsy." while making Ra's nickname even cuter. She then cheered up almost immediately and gave him another death hug "I'll snuggle you later! Bye Tweetsy!" she said before vanishing.

"Mages come in all shapes and sizes. Where one may falter at something, another may excel."

All enemies around were now fully aware of the summoner and spirits. Long had the distraction from the earlier passed as did the bright light from Amaterasu's portal. If that were not enough to warrant being focused on then the attack that had hit all enemies in the area did the trick. The light spirit teleported towards the nearest remaining half dragon giants while two clones of herself illuminated in light split from her body and went towards another giant each. The target of the actual spirit had been caught off guard from the rapid teleport ability and could not react before it had been fatally wounded by her blade and left to perish as she moved onto the next target. Clone number one had met a target that tried to use a sort of ice breath attack that followed it as it moved. Round and round the light clone ran until the giant had gotten dizzy as well as impatient. The half dragon giant stopped its breath attack and changed towards a weapon approach. A large broadsword it wielded, a sizeable weapon to match the creature itself. It was slow though. The moment the blade came down the clone hopped onto it and then jumped again to be hind the creature. Off went a part of the tail as the light sword used by the clone sliced it off. As the giant cried in pain, a slice through the wings had been made, and then eventually the head. Clone two had picked a more poisonous half dragon giant. A thick smog breath had been unleashed and the clone had vanished inside it. Only small traces of light could be seen through the poisonous cloud. The clone vanished, but not before throwing its sword with enough force to pierce through the gap in the giant's helmet. Target eliminated. The spirit and first clone continued through the wave of enemies.

Back with the one on one fight of the two large skeletal crocodiles. The one that had been an enemy had met its end, but so did too the possessed one. Both the resurrected monsters had met their fates at the same time. Hades, the spirit that had taken over one, left the host at the final attack. A small explosion of magic energy erupted from the skeletal beings as the final strike of each had been made. Bone by bone fell from them, slowly at first, and then increasing as the magic holding them together faded into nothing. Soon they were nothing more than a pile of inanimate bones once more. The spirit of the underworld then poofed into magic particles after declaring he would come back for his payment for being useful later. That left room for another spirit to be called. Technically, Samira knew she had the power to keep three of her spirits out of the celestial realm, but she was not comfortable with the effects and toll it took on her. She preferred to save such risks when it had to be done, and as far as she could tell, it was not one of those times. The fight going on right then was nothing more than clean up. Still, there were quite a good many left.

Samira had recalled the sky in the surrounding land being quite dark. There was the added rain effects of Kaori's mark as well. The spirit the summoner had in mind would not only be in a fouler mood than usual but weakened as well. He was one of her more powerful ones though, as well as the only one left of that tier that could attack many enemies at once. She would just have to go through with it despite knowing the stern stare she would get afterwards. There was just one problem though. With the distraction of the possessed oversized crocodile gone, and Amaterasu off on another side, enemies that had been left alone were making their way over to the summoner. Her green eyes noticed the small white fires that covered them from the after effects of the large pillar of light attack, but it seemed the damage they were doing was not enough to slow them down at all. As axes and swords came together from the small attacking force, Samira held out her arm in front of her and a magical pulse released. The weapons came to a stop just before impact. Time for the enemies and environment had come to a complete halt. The abilities of Chronos' had been borrowed for herself. A fusion of sorts between summoner and spirit and was quite faster to activate than normal summoning. The only disadvantage she could think of was the change of attire. She rather despised many of the outfits as they normally did not suit her or the situation. The one with her current link was colored white for instance. It was normally quite bad to wear anything white if it was predicted the attire would get soaked. No doubt the thin material of the dress-like outfit had become slightly see through by that point. "Apologies, but I do not think that I would enjoy having my limbs severed and sliced through. I hope you can understand," Samira said to the frozen enemies in a rather calm and matter of fact tone. The fact one of her spirits was cutting several of their giant allies had either been forgotten or just a bit overlooked. As long as she wasn't the one made to be a bloody mess it was all right. A key was taken from her keychain, although slowly rather than with a sense of urgency. There was no need to rush with the enemies frozen in time. Slashing the air in front of her with the small magical item, a new portal had been opened. “Open, gate of the Avatar, God of the Sun! Ra!” As Samira said those words, the portal flickered with bright fire as the sun spirit entered the mortal world. The skies above became an odd orange color and soon, not only had it been raining water, it was raining large fireballs. Several had hit the cluster of giants on the ground and continued to do so until most of the enemies had been dealt with. Some with fire as their element were very much immune to the attack, but Amaterasu quickly eliminated the problem.

With the need for his presence diminishing with each passing second, Ra crossed his arms over his chest and glanced over at the few frozen giants in front of Samira. "Asking this is likely of little worth, but I will allow my curiosity to overwhelm me this once. Why did you not just use Chronos from the start and eliminate them one at a time before the effect expired? Did not one of Kaori's spirits mention this at one point?"

"I did not consider it." Samira replied with a blink and absolutely no embarrassment whatsoever for not thinking of the simplified strategy. It was the complete opposite of Kaori's reaction when the spirit called Query had mentioned creating a black hole to rid the world of the giant snake a while back. Samira was used to doing things the hardway. Thinking in such a way that could end something in seconds was going to be quite a twist for her brain to do. That was best saved for more annoying circumstances.

The falcon headed spirit sighed in exasperation and fought the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, the energy was used to set the frozen giants aflame. By the time the time freeze effects had ended it was too late. The enemies turned to ash. Into the halls of the main base they went now that the outside area had been cleared. Not too many enemies were within and seemed to be composed more of stragglers. The main force must had already been dispatched elsewhere within the Monsterlands and had the guard outside rather than in. A couple of giants here and there, but otherwise uneventful. It looked like the clean up process was pretty much done. A wild Kaori had shown up as the new entertainment just as Ra had finished lighting up another patrol batch. Spirit and summoner had turned their glances over to the ally. Samira had begun to say something, but stopped when Kaori was beginning to speak. That as well had come to a halt as the ninja was interrupted herself. A familiar cannon sound had gone off with resulting window shatters and near bleeding ears. Samira knew where that was going. Before she could warn her spirit the Kaori clone had already tackled into him and dropped him to the floor, much like she had done with Kukulkan some time ago. Upon hearing the loud noise, Amaterasu had returned after going to check another room. She saw the snuggled and swirly eyed Ra. The light spirit had laughed at first, fully amused by the scene, but then she realized that fate could be hers next. Nope! "I am sure the area is clear of enemies. If there are anymore I am certain you all can handle the rest." With another giggle, the light spirit poofed into particles to return to the celestial realm.

Samira sweatdropped at the scene, eyes wide and mouth open. Tweety? All of her spirits were going to have an embarrassing nickname at that rate. In the back of her mind she wondered if they would come if she actually used the names in the summoning. Such evil plots were foiled as she began to feel the effects of a certain mark. Her eyes looked to Kaori, who had already been putting the glove that usually covered it back on. Then the sounds of more enemies approaching echoed through the halls. Well so much for having cleared what was behind them. Some had apparently managed to escape them and were coming back around. She wasn't worried though, and neither did her friend seem to be. "I am pretty hungry," Samira said with a blink. It was a rather odd thing to think of eating after having killed a base full of monsters. Then again, doing such a thing could make one hungry. "I do need to get some cookies for one of my spirits too. He will get more than a little angry with me if I forget. There is just one thing though..." Her eyes went downward towards the convulsing spirit on the ground. He had not made a single effort to stand. In fact, Samira was even pretty sure his eyes had taken on an X shape. First the tackle, being called Tweety, being called Tweetsy, snuggled half to death...it was all too much for his pride. He was dead. The more serious of her spirits defeated by a blue eyed clone Kaori that acted much like an excited child. "Do you think you can control that one a little better? I am starting to worry none of my spirits will come out if you are around if this keeps up." Her tone wasn't scolding or one of anger. It was just one of mild worry and concern. The moment she was stuck using her more looney spirits was a moment that would be most face palming. Before turning to leave, Samira dismissed the falcon sun spirit, seeing as he had now become useless.

"There should not be many in the direction of the entrance either. I cleared most of that way. What remains is likely just a few stragglers." With that said, it was time to head out and get some food.