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

— Kat —

The plan to ‘kidnap’ Corela was quickly derailed, though not necessarily in a bad way. As the group of Kat, Kamiko, and Lily who was still in Kamiko’s arms left the aquarium they ran into the workout crew, Pip included, panting a bit and clearly just finished with a workout. Pip grinned and waved as Kamiko cheered, “Hi Pip! Just working out?”

“Yeah we had a really fun dance off!” said Pip with a grin. “What have you been up to? Is this your friend Kat? Where’s Lily?”

Kat grinned at the affection in Pip’s voice as well as the soft smiles plastered across the group behind the younger girl. “Yeah this is Kat,” said Kamiko as she gestured towards the demon in question. “She’s the same type of demon as I am. Lily is the little kitten in my arms. She can transform, and is technically a Memphis which is sort of a demon but not really?

I won’t go into it, but you can ask her. As for what we’ve been up to? Well we’re planning to ensure that Corela gets some sleep,”

Pip stared Lily for a bit before looking between Kat and Kamiko a bunch. “But where are your horns and wings and stuff? ” asked Pip.

“Huh?” Kamiko mumbled confused.

Malt chuckled, “Kamiko has much smaller wings on her back. I’m surprised you didn’t notice them… though I’m not too sure about the horns?”

“Oh I hide those in my hair buns see?” Kamiko moved aside a bit of the hair on her head. She needed to shift Lily around a bit to get the free arm, but it wasn’t too hard.

“Does it mean anything that you have smaller wings and horns?” asked Pip. Malt and the twins looked a bit pained at the question but Kamiko didn’t seem annoyed.

“Oh… um not really? Well yes but no?” mumbled Kamiko. Everyone’s slight concern turned to deadpan glares that made Kamiko wilt a bit. “Um… it doesn’t mean anything too major but Kat’s really lucky to have wings large enough that she can fly with them. The horns though are just because that’s the type of horns my family tends to have,”

“Oh like how we have different scale colours,” said Pip with a nod.

Chen? Glanced at Kat for a few moments before asking, “Those don’t seem large enough to fly with, no offense,”

“Not without magic… but I can’t consciously control that aspect of things. I can fly now, and Kamiko may be able to fly later. Lily can fly as well, but only when she’s like that,” explained Kat.

Shen nodded, or at least the second twin took this chance to speak, “So… now that we’ve established that what do you mean by getting Corela to sleep? We agree she probably needs it but how are you going to convince her?”

“Not so much convince as… force the issue,” admitted Kat. “Demons all have a sort of aura around them that imprints emotions onto the surroundings. We can expand it and force it onto other people with effort. Fear is by far the most common and can be mixed with bloodlust and killing intent… but I happen to have a calming aura…”

Kamiko picked up from there when Kat nudged her slightly. “Right… um… so with Kat’s calming aura the plan is to warn everyone else what we’re doing with a sign or something, blast Corela with calming aura until it causes her to fall asleep then take her off to bed. Maybe washing her in the process? She can’t be super clean but we don’t want to wake her up either…”

“Do you think your bubbles would work?” asked Kat. “I know they’re for injuries…”

“But they are still bubbles,” agreed Kamiko. “We can try it. Um… but yeah anyway that’s the plan. Is there like… a spare room we can use for that? I’m not actually sure where we planned to put her after she fell asleep. I think the plan was to just ask afterwards?”

“Hmmm… well if you don’t mind waiting a bit for us to take a quick shower, or just use the instant-wash we can help out. Show you where we keep the spare blankets so we can wrap her up and then lead you to one of the spare rooms. I bet if you’ve got us helping you she wouldn’t even fight too much. She thinks of us as very fragile,” said Malt.

Kat winced a bit, agreeing with Corela. “Yes we know we ARE very fragile. Ben’s already told everyone about you threatening him with the metal bar,” said the twins. Kat’s wince deepened of course, though the twins continued on seeing this. “Hey we know he’s full of shit so we’re not worried… but it does mean we’re weaker then we thought.

Gonna have to learn how this mana stuff works and how to use it to improve our bodies fast,”

“Ah well…” Kat started only to trail off quickly. “Right, sorry about that but yes you guys are pretty weak once you move past mortal limits. Um… I like the idea of getting you all to help though?” Kat turned Lily and Kamiko who both nodded. “So we’re all on-board it seems, so um… do you want to meet back up here in the corridor? The aquarium?”

“I’ll just rush through the instant-wash and be right back!” yelled Pip as she bolted off down the corridor. “We can meet up at the blankets!”

Malt sighed and shook his head as he watched Pip run off. “Might as well chat a bit while she does that then…”

“What’s the instant wash?” asked Kat. “Not that I don’t get it from the name, but I was under the impression you didn’t really have magic here,”

Malt opened his mouth to explain before closing it slowly and thinking for a few moments. “Well… I heard, perhaps falsely, that what the instant was does is blast you with a specific kind of vibration that knocks the dirt off of you. Doesn’t work great on clothes but can in a pinch. Now however… I’m wondering if that wasn’t some made-up excuse for them?

We only have one instant-wash station in the communal shower area, and I don’t think any of the private baths have them?”

The twins gave matching shrugs. “Right might be something to look into then. Um… but yeah we’ve got a few public washing areas but only the main one has an instant-wash. The others might have had them at one point and they broke, or maybe they didn’t have them ever,”

“Isn’t this place meant to be the fancy suite?” asked Kat. “Why have communal bathing?”

“Eh… from my understanding?” offered Malt. “This is meant to be one big floor for like… a couple of clans? Bigger families? So while everyone does get there own decently sized bath and show set they wanted a place for everyone to bathe together. The biggest one has this whole hot spring setup but it’s not appropriate for bathing. The room next door though?

It’s got a bunch of showers. I guess for if everyone wants to hop into the ‘hot spring’ room all at once?

“There’s also a bunch of showers around the pools, the aquarium, a small set of showers near the gardens, one attached to the workout room. They’re all over the place,” Malt finished explaining with a small shrug.

“Um… why didn’t you all shower in the workout room then?” asked Kamiko.

“Because the people who designed it were IDIOTS!” hissed Chen. “The whole place is open, and you can see everything. The little wall dividers just aren’t big enough. Now, maybe that would be fine, there’s two different shower rooms after all. You can separate if you don’t want some weirdo staring at your ass…

“But they didn’t put in any proper shelving! There’s nowhere to store your clothes or toiletries! You have to either store your clothes outside, and then get a bunch of water on the gym floor, or take them inside the shower rooms and accept having your clean clothes get soaking wet from the steam… and the fact that they’re on the floor. All the other shows have proper shelving!

Why was it just the gym!”

Kat cringed at the mental picture. “Um… best reason I can think of is that they just didn’t get added in? Is it possible to like… just add the shelves in yourselves?”

Chen shrugged, “Probably but it’s a project that continued to get pushed back. There ARE plenty of showers and they aren’t that far away so walking a bit further was never an issue for us. Plus there’s not all that much space in the gym showers so… better to just let them go unused, or save them for when someone desperately needs a shower right that moment.

Like that one time a ceiling panel collapsed and there was just… shit everywhere…”

At that moment Pip came sliding around the corner. She was back in her old gym clothes and as soon as the group saw that they all gave various exclamations of exasperation. It was clear that Pip had just hopped into the instant wash without stripping and then left just as quickly. “You’ll need to take a proper shower later!” shouted Malt. Even as Pip was already pulling Kat and Kamiko away.