The Final Return to Troll Citadel

"You're revolting! I can't tell what's worse, your creepy behavior or your lack of honor!" Kama scolded DragonierMan as he tasted her skin, regardless of the sweat and sand. Granted, trace sand wa pretty inconsequential to a creature sized as he currently was.

"I wouldn't provoke him! He'll do what he says!" Lee warned her. "Drago here takes the honor of a ninja like a normal guy takes a whiz: regularly and with gross, involuntary bodily pleasure!" Vee smacked her on the back of the head, but Kama didn't see that.

"Alright, enough then! I'll tell you what I can... but know that there are no closely guarded secrets of the Alexis for me to share with you. Alex leads by strength; our only goal is to subjugate progressively stronger societies and gatherings. From each of these, Alex takes capable fighters for herself, then leaves the rest alone to spread her name in terror... unless the society is, like my former home,composed entirely of capable warriors. In which case, she subjugates them all."

"I've become one of her most trusted Alexis, but only because of my skills as a ninja, which are not particularly useful in my present state. Thus, I was put on guard duty here until we could send in a team to recover the cauldrons. Lately, Alex has been interested in such artifacts... different tools of war that operate outside techniques ordinarily available to navis. At any rate, that's little more than a hobby for her- what she really hoped to test was how far the Shogun could stretch his forces to respond to Alexi threats. Judging by what I'm hearing, it sounds like you are the ace used for everything around here," Kama continued. "And I'm sure you have her attention. But know that the ultimate goal of Alex in this attack is to gather information on your army,with the final intent of challenging and eliminating your Shogun. The chaotic Neo-Shogun Empire would be the greatest accomplishment of her career, if she could conquer it."

"Chaotic? What a misunderstanding. We in the Empire's army are going to unite the net and put an end to chaos like that you've caused," Vee scoffed.

"The net is only going to stop being a hotbed of random violence once we have a leader who is content with no less than the subjugation of the entire net. Alex will be the leader of absolute authority and will accomplish just what you all seek, only with surer methods," she finished.

"But hold on... DragonierMan already defeated her! Does that mean he's the strongest?" Lee asked, turning her eyes to him as if to ask "just how strong are you?"

"Impossible. If it seemed so, she was merely playing with you. Loath as I am to admit it, she likes to run the cliche of hiding her true strength," Kama sighed. "I follow her only because I've seen so much of her strength... I know opposition is delaying the inevitable. Of course, I'm still glad that she's stronger than you! She may have burned my village, but she didn't hold me down and run her tongue over me," she remarked angrily.

"And so there's no other secret information you can give us? How about money? Can we make her give us money?" Lee asked, pressing her fist to her chin thoughtfully.

"Are we mugging her now?" Vee sighed. "DragonierMan, let her go so we can make our report. And give you your reward."

DragonierMan spread his wings and leapt off Kama. Summoning his large warm cloak in his hands, he tossed it over Kama, covering her with it. "Here, cover up. You have given me all I want. You are free to go."

"And I will learn if there is a way to shrink you back to your original size. No one should have to suffer in a situation not of their choosing." DragonierMan flexed his wings a bit, working the kinks out. "I'll find you when I have found that solution, as payment for my actions today."

He smiled then. His fangs glistening in the sunlight. "Just be aware that I will eventually hunt down everyone who works for Alexis, and claim them for my own. Starting with Alex herself. Don't worry about telling her though, I called that out to her when she ran."

"Now..." he said to Vee, Lee, and Trik. "It is time to change me back. Although I enjoyed my time as a giant, I have other duties to attend."

"Thank you for your generosity," Kama spoke as she rose from the sand, wrapping the cape around her shoulders and chest. "I bear you no ill will if you wish to seek out and challenge Alex again, I only know that it is impossible to succeed against her." It was hard to imagine that she didn't bear at least a little ill will towards him, but his promise to help her change back to normal seemed to ease the tension between them. She was the type to put a lot of stock in promises after all.

"Yeah we heard you the first time! Make like a ninja and disappear!" Lee shouted, shooing Kama off. The giant ninja bowed (briefly eclipsing the sun and covering the smaller NS officers in shadow) before vanishing with no detectable motion. "Is she gone? She's not going to finish her hand seal and then destroy us with ninjutsu, is she?"

"No. Honestly, sister, you are a terrible judge of character. We are going to make a lot of enemies if you keep jumping to conclusions in situations like this," Vee sighed, chastising her sister.

"Yeah, well you're short! Any way, Drago needs our chips since he fixed both of our problems for us," Lee explained.

"You're calling him that too now? It's not good to pick up Dee's habits," Vee retorted. "I guess he did... He'll probably get more use out of it than I will," she sighed, reluctantly producing her data packet to follow Lee's. "You'll get some faction points too once we turn in our report."

(DragonierMan received ElecDragon1 and HeatDragon1, as well as 20 faction points!))

"And now let's go get something to eat. I've been thinking about ice cream... you probably want some since we're at the beach and all," Vee suggested, looking from side to side in search of vendors. There were none, of course, given that the area was formerly the home of giant evil sandcastles, trolls, and wrestling giants.

"Psh! More like you want some! You know I don't eat cold foods!" Lee laughed, calling her sister's bluff. "If you ever want to know the way to get my sister's attention, it's food," she further teased. "Oh! Right, you need to go back to normal size, right? Ask that witch!" With that reminder, the two left.

Luckily, the witch hadn't cut and run yet. She was busy counting her cauldrons. "Fine, just hold still," she grumbled, then lifted her hands over one or the pots. In an instant, DragonierMan's vision faded. He once again felt himself underwater, then rising up, found himself inside the cauldron that she had just been practicing in front of. "Now we're through: I have my cauldrons and you got to be giant. I'm calling that even," she finished, turning the back of her robe to him as she returned to her count. He must be normal size again, seeing as she didn't look like an ant seen from above or anything.

DragonierMan lifted himself out of the cauldron and tried to brush the liquids off himself. Who knew what was in those cauldrons. He turned towards Trik as he finished drying what he could without a towel, wringing out one of his sleeves. "Yes, we are even. However, perhaps you would be so gracious as to explain to me what you meant earlier about that ninja not being able to return to normal size? Clearly there should be some way to do so, if not exactly the way that I was turned back. Or do you not even know how she messed herself up in the first place?"

Trik turned again to face DragonierMan, looking both surprised and impatient. "Originally, the plan was to infiltrate my compound by competing in one of my giant monster tournaments. Alex entered, then surprised me by having me use my magic on her ninja, Kama. Now, I normally use this magic only on my own monsters, which I create from SP bases. That means that I have no idea what it's going to do to a navi. To be honest, you're lucky you're not stuck as a giant yourself," she responded, hesitating as she realized that he might react negatively to that information. With a shrug, she faced her cauldrons again and got back to counting. "Whatever the case, the ninja got unlucky, cause once she was transformed, she couldn't be changed back. Hell knows I tried; she wrecked this stronghold, as you can see. I don't know why she's an oni, either; I didn't do that part. She was a demon-looking thing when she first came in here."

"Have you ever shrunk those monsters down after you had turned them into giants?" a female voice asked as a short, blonde-haired girl in a leather vest and skirt appeared to DragonierMan's right side. "If so then I might have a solution. An SP is linked to the code of a Navi. If you can shrink your monsters, then we would just need to create a monster from an SP linked to Kama, and then you would be able to use the link to shrink her back."

"That is surprisingly insightful Suzume." another short, blonde-haired girl in a matching leather vest and skirt said in a more deadpan tone as she also appeared nearby, seemingly stepping out from behind Drago as if coming from his shadow. "And the fact that she is already part-monster should help."

Suzume placed her hand to her chin and nodded thoughtfully, pleased with the praise from her twin sister. "Yes, I was thinking the exact same thing Aya."

"Yeah, I always shrink them back once I'm done. Too much of a liability to leave them giant, for various reasons," the witch revealed, turning back around once she realized they were actually going to make some commitment to shrinking the giant ninja ogre back down into a regular ninja ogre. She was likely thinking that having one less enemy giant to worry about would help her as well. "Do you know about technology used to render Navis into SPs? It works the other way as well... that is, they start as SPs and then I make them into navis. Their data is perfectly capable then of working with my pots; they're still not quite navis, just close enough to count. I don't know that shrinking her cat is going to make her shrink as well. But what I do think is that if she converted herself into an SP, I could work her up into one of my monster navis and then shrink her back. She might lose some of her strength in the process though, hard to say... "

The witch smiled, showing her fangs. "Then again, if we were to go through with it all and she was go lose her power by accident, that would be an acceptable loss, I think. It would also be a consequence that we wouldn't necessarily have to share up front before she agrees. Hell, if I had my way I would have her agree to become an SP and then leave her that way, but this way we wouldn't have to lie about it... at least, not in any way she'd be aware of."

Trik sat on the rim or the cauldron behind her. "That's my best suggestion. Of course, all of this is contingent on you bringing her back here at some point to undergo the process, cause I'm definitely not going out of my way to find her," she shrugged.

DragonierMan listened as Trik outlined the plan, nodding thoughtfully all the while. "Very well. I shall find her and explain the situation. And when I bring her back you will turn her into an SP to perform the modifications necessary to shrink her back to normal size. Then you will change her back," Drago said with emphasis. Making it clear that Trik would put Kama back to being a Navi after the ritual if she knew what was good for her. Turning around, he started heading back out of the ruined citadel.

"We shall keep in touch!" Drago called over his shoulder as his SPs and him left the basement and headed out into the sunlight again. Disappearing in a beam of light.

[DRAGONIERMAN LOGGED OUT!]

((DragonierMan received 12 Vee FXP, 6 Lee FXP, 1 Kama FXP))