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

After taking a break for dinner, Kat felt like getting some training in to burn off some energy. Lily, not one to deny catch much decided to come along. This was of course after the pair checked for Blue and Burnice but the fae and elf were nowhere to be found. Perhaps they were training as well, or perhaps they were getting some early sleep. Mint followed along with Kat and Lily; mostly just because she didn’t have anything else to do. ｂｎ𝚘ｖ𝚕．

“So… I have another possibly terrible idea I want to try,” said Kat as they landed. Kat had selected one of the unoccupied corners (as opposed to one of the two occupied ones). It was off to the north-east when facing the front of the inn. The two over on the West side were occupied, but Kat didn’t investigate long enough to know by who, nor what they were doing. It seemed better to give them their privacy.

“Can we just not?” asked Lily. “Last time you had an idea it was excruciatingly painful, and technically still is because you didn’t perfect the technique because it wasn’t necessary in the end,”

“Wait, why would it hurt?” asked Mint.

Lily glared at Kat who let out and awkward cough before explaining, “Right… so… one of my abilities is to turn myself into water, and I needed to… obfuscate the fact I was a demon, so my plan was to turn just my wings, and maybe my horns, into water and hide it somewhere, probably in a backpack. The problem was… well…

“I couldn’t manage it properly. I could only transform part of my hand, and none of my bones. The exposed nerves were not happy with me, and that’s not even getting into the few times I only managed to turn the skin into water. Sure the water doesn’t hurt, but the exposed muscles do. Not a pleasant time really,” said Kat.

“And… and this was for a good reason? Yes?” asked Mint.

“Well it was to better hide at my little sisters science fair showing so… I’m going to go with yes,” said Kat.

Lily jumped in to add, “She’s leaving out the fact that said little sister already had a workaround planned and it was totally unnecessary for Kat to go through with it,”

“Hey, it was fine. It can be a useful skill. I just need to work on it some more,” retorted Kat.

“I think I’m with Lily on this one,” said Mint. “Unlike me, you seem to experience great pain when your body is damaged,”

“Wait, can dryads not feel pain?” asked Lily.

Mint made a ‘so-so’ gesture, “There are some ways we can. Quite a few actually. Our main tree is the big one. If it takes more than just minor wear and tear things get quite painful quite quickly. Then there’s the fact Thyme can wire up bodies to have nerves. This one doesn’t, but Thyme can make them, and even gave us a chance to pilot one. It’s… quite painful to use. Then finally, there is magic.

“As being are fairly magical in their inherent makeup, magical spells that deal more damage then a certain acceptable threshold start to cause us pain, even if other bodies. It’s a bit strange because there’s no reason it should, and we can take more than enough magical damage to destroy the body and be fine. It just hurts,” explained Mint.

Kat nodded, slowly walking over to the ocean now that everyone had been sufficiently distracted. “Kat what are you doing?” asked Lily without turning away from mint. Apparently she was NOT sufficiently distracted. *Quick think of an excuse.*

[Tick tock, running out of time for that ‘excuse’ Kat.]

*Um… woops?*

[No, no, I’m not exactly surprised and I’m happier that you accidentally broadcast to me then I’d be if you tried to make a poor excuse… so why not just admit to the plan allowed so Mint can listen?]

“Right… um… so I was going to see what happens if I use my water transformation then touch the ocean?” offered Kat.

Lily slapped a hand against her face, while Mint asked the obvious question, “If you’re expecting issues why not start with a bathtub or something? Why go straight for the ocean? The largest body of water around.”

“Good question,” said Kat.

Lily just groaned into her hands. “God Kat. You’re grades aren’t this bad. Why are you so stupid sometimes,”

“Ah, you love me,” said Kat easily.

“I do, and I’d love you more if you were less of an idiot when it comes to potentially hurting yourself. Regeneration does not equal immortality,” said Lily.

“True… but honestly? It feels pretty close a lot of the time. I’m not sure I have a proper fear of death anymore… still, I can work with the bathtub idea,” said Kat. With that in mind, Kat walked over the ocean and summoned up her demonic fire. Sure salt water was a little harder to freeze… but Kat’s demonic fire was so far beyond that task it was basically irrelevant in terms of energy use. Kat just carved out a roughly circular looking bowl that was about half again as wide as her wings before pulling it out of the ocean.

The water in the centre was slowly starting to freeze over, mostly around the edges but it wasn’t like the cold was going to bother Kat so she just ignored that. Lily sighed and let Kat do her thing without interruption, while Mint pulled out a notepad from… somewhere. Lily was guessing an expanded pocket on the uniform, courtesy of Thyme.

Kat wiggled her fingers above the water for a bit before letting her ability activate. A moment later she plunged her ‘hand’ into the water and was pleasantly surprised by the lack of pain. Kat lifted her ‘hand’ back out, then put it back in. Out. In. Out. It was an odd feeling. The water didn’t instantly become part of her. Instead, it was sort of like… the water that she was controlling was reaching out to the rest of the water.

Kat placed her hand back in the makeshift bathtub and then let the water do what it wanted. The demonic energy drain was noticeable but not too great. About twice her regeneration rate, but that was enough for the pool to quickly come under her control. Once it was ‘marked’ for lack of a better term, all the water seemed to be the same. Kat controlled the water that looked most like her till it was over the centre of the water and then let it drop into the tub.

For special effect, Kat then sprung back out as a giant version of herself. She could see… honestly not that much further. Despite more than doubling the amount of water making her up the extra vision she received was maybe twenty percent more space? Mostly upwards to adjust for her drastically increased height. The radius she was using to see was barely affected.

Kat waved to a tiny Lily and Mint before activating the mental switch to turn herself back. She had a moment, a moment of perfect clarity where time seemed frozen and Kat knew she could pick anywhere in the giant form to reconstitute herself. Mostly just because she wanted to, Kat reformed where the makeshift head was for the giant and let the water drip off of her. “That was… surprisingly natural. It wasn’t as big an improvement as I might have hoped, but it’s certainly not painful,” said Kat.

“Well that’s good. You’re not going to like… vanish into the ocean or anything if you touched it right?” asked Lily.

Kat waved a dismissive hand. “Nah, it’s not like that at all. I sort of keep all the ‘marked’ water together naturally. It’s pretty easy to keep it together, takes no effort at all. It just takes a touch of effort, and a bit of demonic energy to spread my control. I’m… not sure how large I could make myself. Didn’t really test if it cost more to maintain a larger form after ‘claiming’ the water. Might have to do that,”

“Hmm…” Mint murmured. “You might get banned from more activities for a skill like that. I’m not going to tell Thyme… assuming they don’t just know already, because I’m nearly certain they do… but yeah. You might not be able to participate in some events. I suppose I shouldn’t say any more though,”

Kat shrugged, “I’m not too bothered if that happens. Either Lily can take my place or someone else can. I mean, if it happens it happens but I’m not going to stress over it. I trust Thyme to keep things if not completely fair, then at least feeling fair. Though that could just be because I’ve been winning most of the time too. That might help make it less annoying,”

Mint giggled, “Perhaps that is the case. Maybe, maybe,”