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

--- Lily ---

It was the next morning and Lily wasn't too happy with the current state of affairs. "Come on Lily, you're the one who wanted me to wake you up for practice," whispered Kat right next to Lily's ears. An easy thing to do when they were much larger than the human equivalent.

Lily let out a hiss as she swiped in Kat's direction… but as was the norm she was in her Memphis form, so she simply didn't have the reach. "Don't be like that. I'm just doing as you asked Lily,"

*It's WAY to early for this nonsense.*

"If you want to sleep that's fine Lily. This is meant to be a bit of a break for us. You can train later if you really want… but you DID ask for this. So I'm sticking to my end of the bargain. Until you tell me to go away or get out of bed I'm going to continue to pester you," said Kat.

Lily set out a huff but transformed and held her arms out while making grabbing motions. "Carry me!" whined Lily.

"You know you could just ask normally instead of exaggerating like this right?" asked Kat as she swept Lily up into a bridal carry for a moment… then realised that the door to their room wouldn't be large enough and moved Lily to her shoulder. "Especially not when I can feel that you're not annoyed, even at this,"

"What? No. I'm totally annoyed. This indignity won't stand and all that," said Lily calmly as she used her new position to look at Kat's ass as best she could. Kat's wings were in the way, and the kimono Kat always wore wasn't helping matters… but Lily didn't exactly mind. Imagination was half of the fun.

"I could just strip down naked for you if you want," said Kat.

"Hey, I meant what my internal dialogue was saying. The imagination part is included in the fun here! Plus I'd probably just pass out," said Lily.

"You've seen me naked before you know," Kat pointed out.

"Look, it's different now. And no, the times I've seen you naked the times you were in my head don't count. Even if it was actually you and not just a figment of my imagination it's just… different ok," said Lily.

Kat just shrugged… and then winced immediately after. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking properly,"

"It's fine," said Lily as they made their way down the stairs. At the desk Mint's body was frozen, but it was posed in such a way as to be pointing off to the side. Curious, Kat and Lily turned to follow Mint's hand, and saw a sign that had been left out. On it, was the words 'Be in the cafeteria by 8:00pm' with a little figure of Thyme drawn in the corner holding a clock.

"I guess we've got out time limit," said Kat.

"I suppose so… wait why are you putting me down?" Lily grumbled as she was placed on her feet just outside of the inn.

"Well, I plan to go to Burnice's practice spot and either spar with her, or if she isn't there yet, do some katas until she IS there. I take it you'd rather be doing something else then just watching me practice?" asked Kat.

Lily had a brief flash of Kat in a martial arts uniform with the front open to show off large amounts of cleavage while slicing her hand through iron rods. *Hot.* "Urrr… wait I mean. I um… hmm. Ah whatever I'm too tired to come up with a good excuse for that.

I'd love to watch you practice because as much subconscious just told you, the idea is quite hot… but yeah I want to get some practice of my own in and there's no way I'd be able to concentrate with you close by,"

Kat gave a shrug and said, "Well it's up to you. I can take you with me… or you can find a place to practice yourself,"

Lily slumped over and let out a long sigh. "Urgh, probably best I go off and practice. Though do come and get me if it gets too late. I wouldn't want to miss Thyme's announcement or whatever's going on at 8,"

Kat gave Lily a salute, before dashing into to kiss her girlfriend and sprinting off. Lily smiled at the gesture and then started walking in the opposite direction. As Lily was walking she tried the 'first next step' which was to see if she could do anything with the shadows of other things… and the answer was not really.

At this point, while Lily didn't have amazing control over her mana, she had enough control to reach out to the other shadows and do… something. Anything. As Lily walked she started trying to get these shadows to do anything at all. Precision was not the aim, just moving a slight amount would've been enough… but nothing.

Lily kept trying until suddenly one of the shadows reacted. Lily smiled while stopping in place. Claiming this area to practice with. She reached out to the shadow that had moved again and… nothing. Frowning Lily stared down at the plant that cast the shadow she'd managed to move before.

Lily focused a good chunk of her mana at the shadow and tried to force it to move again… but nothing. "Hmm… what is going on. I'm sure that I managed to get it to move before. While I suppose it could've been the wind… I'm pretty sure it wasn't just that. Hmm…" Lily mumbled aloud.

Lily combed through her mind and it quickly became apparent WHY this shadow had reacted. It hadn't done anything… until she'd moved passed it and her own shadow had connected to the plants. Carefully, Lily reached out with her own shadow and once they connected she tried to move the plant's shadow to see what would happen.

Lily watched with mixed feelings as the plants shadow moved… barely. It swayed as if it was being moved by the wind, but the clear lack of movement on the real plant made it clear what was going on. It felt… almost wrong to be doing things like this. Or perhaps not wrong… but like trying to move sand by the handful instead of using a bucket.

It wasn't that she was doing this completely wrong, but it was clearly not the best solution either. *What's even the point of this? I can massively increase the size of my own shadow so why would I need to manipulate a things shadow so… inefficiently?

Oh sure, I can picture a spell where I can control someone with their shadow… but that would be a specific spell, and likely one that's beyond me as I am right now. The plant isn't stirring in the slightest regardless of what I'm doing with its shadow… and I can't even do much with that.*

Still, it was an idea worth testing a bit. Lily tried to reach up with the plants shadow… but it refused. Glaring at the shadow Lily watched as she manipulated it along the ground… but it refused to lift up at all. *Right… well that sort of makes this feel useless. Can I at least connect to multiple shadows?*

Lily warped her shadow until it looked more like a hand and sent the 'fingers' out to five nearby shadows. Everything connected smoothly and Lily could now move all of the shadows. It wasn't much harder then moving just the one actually. *I see… so it's actually easy to have them move in concert.

I won't say it's easy to move a whole bunch of shadows… but most of that difficulty is present when moving any shadow but your own. Adding more shadows doesn't up the difficulty all that much. This has potential…

But until I can work out how to do anything useful with the extra shadows I'm not sure how worth it this technique is. At the very least it gives me something to do until eight… but I'm just not sure what's the point. Could it perhaps be the key to extending my shadows? I… hmm…

The other shadows clearly feel different. Not only are they harder to control, but that separate control is quite apparent in my mind. Hmm… could I string them together though?* Lily disconnected all but one of the fingers leaving her in control of just two shadows. Her own, and the nearest plant's shadow.

From there she, slowly, stretched out the plants shadow as much as it would allow and then tried to push her own shadow out of the other side… only for everything to snap back into place. "Damn…" grumbled Lily. She tried a few more times to the same result. Yet even still… "I feel like I'm right on the edge of something here.

It doesn't work… not as it is… but I feel like there might be something to this technique. Hmm… it seems there is more testing to be done,"