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

The sun was peaking out around the nearby buildings as Callisto pulled into the underground carpark. Callisto had originally planned to find a park outside in the shade of a building where it was still dark, but despite the quiet streets the parks aboveground seemed to be taken for a fair distance around the building. Luckily it seemed like they were still one of the first people here, so while the underground park was well lit, there was only one other car with people in it, and Kat could just hide on the opposite side of her vehicle when putting on her costume.

Kat carefully shook Lily and Sylvie awake. Lily quickly transformed into her human form, now complete with slightly oversized sunhat to hide her ears. “Urgh, I feel like I should’ve taken the time to find a better solution then just ‘big hat’. My ears are already uncomfortable and it’s only been a few seconds,”

Kat rolled her eyes but gave Lily a kiss on the cheek as a reward for coming anyway. Sylvie was yawning and keeping herself firmly planted on Kat’s legs. “Come on Sylvie, time to wake up,” said Kat softly.

“Don wanna, comphy” mumbled Sylvie.

“It’s science fair day, you need to set up,” whispered Kat.

Even as a whisper that was enough for Sylvie to shoot up and only Kat’s superior reflexes stopped Sylvie’s head from smacking into her chin. Kat laughed a little as Sylvie started to look around wildly. Patting Sylvie on the head a few times Kat pulled them both out of the car as Lily opened the other door and hopped out herself.

Callisto was already unpacking the wing contraption and getting it ready. Callisto apparently had experience putting on strange devices, because not even five minutes later Kat found herself completely fitted with a set of extra wings, and the part that had taken the most time was just fitting her real wings into the fake ones. “Now Kat, there is a mechanism to ‘move’ your wings on the model, but we have turned it off and disabled it. You can still move your real wings to cause some motion, but try not to go overboard lest people notice anything strange,”

Kat nodded, “Yeah that’s fine. Do you want me to help with the boxes?” asked at.

Callisto frowned at the supplies in the back of the car, “I do indeed wish for assistance but I am unsure if it would be suitable. Technically speaking those wings you are wearing should be barely within your ability to lift. It is a bit of a risk to have you seen carrying a box as well… but they are quite light, so perhaps we can get away with giving you one of the heavier ones and pretending otherwise?”

“I can take some as well,” said Lily from the side. “I’m not like… Kat strong, but my muscles are better then human now and I should be able to take a few boxes on my own without issue. If we need to take extra trips I can come along with you for that while Kat and Sylvie set things up,”

“Wonderful idea, is that ok with you Sylvie?” asked Callisto. Sylvie nodded shyly, and Callisto frowned at that. “Sylvie are you feeling nervous now? Normally you are quite good with words, what’s causing you issues?”

“Well… I chose a bit of a weird project didn’t I?” mumbled Sylvie.

“Sylvie, you picked a wonderful project specifically so you could have your sister here with you…” Sylvie perked up at the ‘sister’ recognition in Callisto’s speech, “… and there is nothing wrong with that. We’re not here to win, we’re here for you to have a good time, show off a bit, and maybe find a friend,” ｂ𝚍ｎｏ𝚟ｌ.

Sylvie, if anything, only seemed more nervous about finding new friends, but Callisto chose not to comment. Instead, she sighed and handed one of the boxes that were actually lighter to Sylvie, and the heaviest box they could play off as light to Kat. Lily took three towering boxes that were about middle of the road while Callisto picked up two and locked up the car for now.

They made it upstairs without running into anyone, the people that had been over by the car had already moved upstairs while Kat was getting fitted. The staircase took them to an empty lobby with signs pointing them to the auditorium, so it wasn’t hard to figure out where to go. Then they entered the convention room. It was a large, mostly empty room marked out by tape into sections. There was a desk with a bored looking man at it, who asked, “Name and school please?”

Callisto pointed to Sylvie hiding behind Kat’s legs and said, “Sylvie from Hill Primary School,”

“Hey, out of towners, I went there myself!” said the man as he reached over and grabbed a number, “I never did figure out why it was called Hill primary though, not a hill in sight. This here is your number, please find the designated square to set up your booth,”

Callisto, knowing the answer to his question said, “Thank you for the ticket. As for the name, it was named after the first principle, Robert Hill who was a major construction owner who built the school as his last construction job and then retired afterwards, giving the construction firm over to his son,”

“Wait the school’s named after Robert Hill from Hilltop construction?” asked the man.

“Yes,” answered Callisto simply as she grabbed the ticket and started to walk away finished with the conversation. Then man seemed to glare after her a bit until he really took a look at Kat and Lily and felt his jaw drop.

Now, Kat and Lily had… somewhat skewed ideas as to their own appearances. Kat was overly humble with no use for mirrors and Lily was used to being the small mousy girl with messy hair that she didn’t really take care of properly. Now they were both supernaturally beautiful by normal standards. It wasn’t immediately obvious in other worlds, where the ambient higher energy helped refine everyone’s appearance, especially the powerful, but on earth with none of that? Lily could compete with some supermodels and Kat was a step beyond that due to their heritage.

Neither noticed the weird looks, and in the end the man just shook his head, thinking that Kat and Lily were good with makeup. If they could make such an impressive ‘costume’ for Kat, then Hollywood level makeup was not out of the question to him. Of course, Kat hadn’t ever touched makeup in her life, and Lily didn’t think of today as something she needed to really dress up for, so there was of course, none on them.

Heedless to this misconception, they strode over to their marked area. Callisto smiled, they managed to get a booth on the edge. It wasn’t quite a corner space, they were just two numbers off for that, but they were towards the back and Callisto hoped the crowds wouldn’t be too bad here.

Everyone placed down their boxes, and then the group split. Callisto and Lily went back for the rest, while Kat and Sylvie got to work on the setup. It mostly consisted of posters, and diagrams split into stages, showing off a full appearance, then muscles and bones, and then just the wings for each given image. Off to the side would be the calculations Sylvie had done for the image, and the proposed biological basis for the changes.

The walls were made of thick cardboard. Kat was pulling out blocks of wood with slits cut into them to place on the ground and slide the cardboard into. The blocks locked together to join the whole structure together and keep it more stable. They filled the edges of their booth with this setup. Kat then pulled out their little side table then waited.

Soon, Lily and Callisto came back with the last few boxes that had the 3D models Sylvie had made. It was a bit of a tight fit, the table wasn’t very large so that Kat and others could still walk in and out of the booth without trouble, but they didn’t exactly have much space to work with so it would have to do.

“Well… that took a lot less time than I expected,” mumbled Callisto as she looked at the setup. It didn’t even take than half an hour. “Not sure what to do now… we’re not really supposed to be looking around at everyone else until later… but I really did think we would need more time than this,”

“Callisto… I’m not sure what you thought we’d need to do but you and Sylvie already had everything more or less setup. The paper was all pinned or glued, I’m not sure, to the cardboard. The blocks were easy, and the models all came premade. What did you think still needed to be done?” asked Kat.

Callisto just shrugged, “No idea… but I do have a chess set in my car. I’ll go grab it and we can occupy ourselves for a while,”