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

Seeing Lily’s burst of confidence Nira nodded and headed for the no longer so hidden door in the tree and opened it. Lily followed behind into a clean white medical facility. It smelled faintly of cleaning products but the strange thing was that she couldn’t quite put her finger on which one. If pressed, she might realise that it didn’t smell like a cleaning product at all, but the IDEA of one. Alas, that would be a little too hard for a human with no hints.

The door she left had ’Waiting room #034’ on it when she glanced back and was much less appealing to look at then the inner door. It was just a slightly darker white, still clearly white, but dark enough to make it easy to see against the pure blinding white of the walls. The tiles were a pale blue you might find on medical masks. The whole thing screamed hospital to her. It made a part of her wonder why they went through the trouble of making the waiting room so calming if the rest was so clinical.

”Now,” said Nira dragging Lily’s thoughts aware from the environment, ”you’ll be meeting the two others in charge of your surgery. They won’t say much, just introduce themselves and which task they’ll be doing. Don’t worry about it much. For them this is a job, not an opportunity like it is for me. Well… actually… with how experimental this is, perhaps it’s an opportunity for them as well. I’m not sure…”

Lily didn’t really know what was better. Well, she also didn’t know what the difference would be for these other demons. She idly wondered what kind they’d be. So far, of the two demons she’d met, they were both Succubi. Kat also met a high number of Succubi, but a lot of that was down to her tour through Lust and the friendship with Kamiko. Still, it was something to think about while they traversed the corridor.

It took a full five minutes of walking to get to the elevator which was just as white as the walls and stood out because of its silver bordering. Still, Lily was still determined to see this all through and jumped on with no hesitation, Nira following behind her and putting a finger on what looked to be a scanner of some kind. After a beep, Nira took her finger away and pressed one of the buttons but was blocking Lily’s line of sight.

”It’s not actually a fingerprint scanner you know?” said Nira suddenly. Lily turned her head and gave a confused look. ”Right of course. Sorry. See it’s actually a demonic energy scanner. Nobody has quite the same… I guess frequency? Is the right analogy, or fingerprints work too… anyway, it lets us keep things secure or even grant temporary access. We don’t have to worry about anyone who isn’t a demon getting passed it and it’s quite hard to fool. Even then, this is just the basic stuff, it’s much harder to get into the building then you’d think, especially with how you got here.”

*Why would you just give away that information Nira? I guess it doesn’t matter overly much because I can’t use it either but surely I could tell someone who can? Or maybe it’s something any demon would be able to tell. I guess the main bit of security is matching the frequency so it’s ok? Or maybe this is actually a test of some kind? Maybe not for me… just in general. Actually wait… how did Nira open the elevator?*

Realising that there wasn’t a button outside to call the elevator and that it had opened automatically when they’d approached, Lily decided that it was likely such a small matter as to be irrelevant. It was then the door opened, and Lily couldn’t quite shake the suspicion that it had been timed somehow.

Back into the corridors they went, though this time Nira had to go through an extra set of doors that enclosed the area around the elevator. It had a keypad lock by the look of things but it took Nira no time at all to get through. The rooms here looked the same as on the previous floor so Lily found herself zoning out.

Even with that, it didn’t take long to reach their next destination, Nira pushed open the door to reveal two demons ’sitting’ down behind a large panel with a number of buttons and lights that Lily felt might have been a seizure hazard. The reason for the confusion of if they counted as sitting was that one of the demons was a shadow demon, that looked to be only a 2D entity. They were essentially pasted against the chair and bent at odd angles that certainly weren’t appropriate for their body parts. The backrest ended about halfway up their chest, and the end of the chair was far too high up on the legs.

The oddest thing was that they were actually wearing something, it caused a slight itching in the back of Lily’s eyes when she looked at the clothes as well. The shadow seemed to both be wearing it, while at the same time it seemed like part of its body as there wasn’t any definition between them… unless Lily looked at specific angles then all of a sudden it looked like the clothes popped up slightly. They were just standard medical attire like Nira was wearing but there seemed to be something different about them.

The other demon was a Succubus, but that wasn’t what was odd. They weren’t just any Succubus, they looked almost identical to Kat. Everything about them at a first glance looked identical, and Lily had certainly stared at Kat long enough to know exactly what she looked like from all angles and in her demonic attire which the Succubus was currently wearing. Lily thus found it odd she felt absolutely no attraction to this figure.

She could practically feel all of her instincts screaming ’NOT KAT’ at her and it was very off putting. Lily, in a rare moment of courage spoke up, ”Um… I know we’re here for me and that this is a big deal… and that you’re quite powerful but can you stop… whatever it is you’re doing it’s freaking me out,” Lily gestured vaguely in the direction of Notkat.

The figure actually looked surprised at the request while the shadow seemed to be stifling giggles. ”Oh? What seems to be the issue? I should have a pleasant form right now, no?” said Notkat.

”Well, yes you look exactly like my girlfriend but practically everything including my soul is screaming at me that you are not, in fact her. It’s really weird and off putting. I don’t even know how my eyes can be showing what you look like while also telling me you don’t look like that somehow. I cannot describe how weird this is,” said Lily.

Notkat’s eyebrows shot right up. ”Quite a strong reaction. I apologise.” Notkat’s form then started to shift and change slowly morphing and moulding into a copy of Nira. ”I’m a shapeshifter and sadly I lost my original form a long time ago. I have it set to essentially be the ’best’ form for any given situation. I’m guessing it decided the form you’d be most comfortable around would your girlfriend, which is likely true, but did not account for your ability to tell that it wasn’t her. It is odd that you had so many warnings though. I wonder what gave it away…”

”Yes, yes I’m sure you’ll be thinking about it for the next week,” said the living shadow whose voice sounded like soft velvet. It seemed to linger around the ears and sound like the words were being whispered even though they carried through the room at a decent volume. ”However, we are not here to question why this relatively normal human can see through your shapeshifting. It was probably just your posture or something. The girl clearly likes the real version, and spends a lot of time around the authentic article, the little issues probably screamed out. You weren’t exactly trying.

”Anyway,” the shadow turned towards Lily… which was really weird because the ’head’ didn’t shift so much as the eyes moved across the plane so that it appeared like the shadow was looking at Lily now. ”My name is Slethnoth and I’ll be handling the soul side of the equation as well as scanning and protecting your old body during everything.”

”I suppose I should introduce myself. Sometimes I wonder if my parents were Seers or something because my name is actually Nobody. It’s my real legal name and it is not any less annoying to know I’m more powerful then they’ll ever be. It was a stupid name before, and is still a stupid name now that I’ve lost my form.. I’ll be in charge of building up your new body,” said Nobody with a slight bite in her tone.