--- Kat ---
With the water elemental still frozen, Kat got Lily to ask a few more questions while everyone thought of the best course of action. "How are you doing on demonic fire Hunter? It looks like you've used... quite a lot of your reserves. Did it really take that much?"
Hunter nodded as she slowly raised herself back up to a more ready position. "It is a combination of Kat's larger then normal reserves and my own, arguably, wasteful actions in the attack," stated Hunter.
"What do you mean?" asked Lily with no need for input from Kat.
"It is simple. Not every demon has the same amount of demonic energy they can call upon. It is not too significant in most cases... but Kat also makes use of the demonic energy YOU generate for her pushing Kat further away from the mean. While it would likely be incorrect to say Kat has the reserves of two demons instead of one, it is not entirely incorrect.
"The other reason is that I unleashed dense fire with the hope that it would drain the elemental's core. See, the simplest way to take an elemental out is to target the core directly. Even a single good hit on an elemental's core is enough to take them out completely. The other way, and the one I attempted to make use of, is to burn through all of the energy stored inside of their core.
"My attempt was clearly misguided as despite spending enough demonic energy to destroy your average elemental five times over this one remains in operation. Even if it is confused for the moment. I see a few potential reasons for this. The first, is that its core is massive, containing at least ten times the mana of a normal elemental.
I suppose it could also be Rank 4 or 5, but that goes along with the additional mana reserves the elemental seems to be displaying. The second, and potentially more worrying idea... is that it isn't an elemental at all," explained Hunter.
"Wait... not an elemental? If that's the case then what IS it?" asked Lily.
"If I knew the answer to that question I would likely be able to end it. I am afraid my knowledge in this instance is lacking. There are many creatures that could summon up an elemental to serve it, and essentially any sentient water mage could manage something like this without issue...
"But it appears to be frozen just because Kat is pretending to be a water construct. If there was a proper intelligence behind this thing then I would assume that Kat's change of form would be of only minor consequence, certainly not enough for it to remain frozen for this entire conversation.
Bower do you have anything to add?" explained Hunter, before turning to Bower at the end for her own question.
It was enough to get Hunter out of the corridor, and Kat started to follow after them. Water swirled around trying to reform but Kat just flew straight through it without a care in the world. The group was off and running now, potentially able to get away from the elemental.
Which is why nobody was happy that a few corners later there was a watery figure blocking their way. Nobody new if it was the same elemental as the other one, a new one, something connected to the same source or really what it was. Kamiko was ready though. She shot forth two columns of flame from her eyes, looking a bit strange but effective none the less.
The new figure was frozen before it could even start to attack.
Kat was able to catch up at that point, running forward and shattering the new ice sculpture with the back of her hand as they stormed through. As they ran, the water around them was starting to churn. No attacks, and no figures, but the water was clearly moving with purpose now, the moss was sucking it up and moving it somewhere...
They'd figure out where that somewhere was a few moments later when the series of long tunnels opened up into a somewhat large hall. It was filled with pillars of moss and not truly open, but it was a much larger space then they'd seen so far. Popping out of each pillar was a small water elemental looking their way. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. "Shit..." said Kat.
Kat grit her teeth, now wasn't time to think, it was time to act. "GO!" she shouted as she burst forward letting flames leak from her fingers. She kept feeding the steam of fire energy even as she let it pick up steam, swirling around her in a typhoon of powerful fire, freezing those that got close. Kat couldn't see an exit, but she was making a path.
Smashing any columns that were unfortunate enough to be directly in front of the group.
Thousands of water bullets rained down on them, but Kat's flames froze them, stripping of much of their power and all of the intent behind them. Some did manage to get through to clatter useless against Hunter's scales but nothing more than that. Hunter was just as focused, if not more so than Kat.
She was using her extensive muscles and flexible body to ensure that nobody other then her was taking hits, a much more challenging task then it looked.
Just as the columns started to fade out to be replaced with a large, if shallow lake... the world seemed to creak for a moment then silver mist rushed in from the cave walls enveloping them all. A large watery hand reached out from the lake, as if trying to stop them... but a moment later they were back in the forest.
The transition was smooth, too smooth. Hunter and Kat were both running at around their full speed and there wasn't any chance to stop. Kat let herself smash into a nearby tree, breaking it in half and taking no damage. Hunter was similar, she dodged the tree in part, only to allow it to make contact later on.
She wrapped herself around it swiftly to try and prevent the group from being separated from Kat, snapping it to pieces in the process but killing her momentum.