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

--- Lily ---

Lily blinked and raised her hand to block the sun before stepping to the side. *I didn't realise how long we'd been speaking, it's nearly lunchtime…* "Um… I can keep going with the questions but did you want to get some walking done while I do?" asked Lily.

Meg let out a small chuckle, "Nope. I took this mission as an excuse to bother Lil Sis and I plan to spend as much time doing that as possible. If you're not willing to force the issue I'm going to stick around here. I suppose you could stop asking questions if you really want…"

Lily shook her head, not willing to press the issue. *Dammit. Why does Meg have to make things so much more tense. I… I guess it's fine that she wants to waste time it's not like we're really in a hurry anymore and from the messages we've been getting from Sylvie it seems she's having a lot of fun with her friends. So… Kat and I don't feel as compelled to get back.

I mean, my parents might be concerned but… I haven't fully patched things up with them and can't quite bring myself to care.

So the only real time limit is that we might have issues getting to the next round of the tournament. It would be quite bad if we were called away partway through. I'm not even sure what would take priority. Urgh… but honestly Meg is scary. Granted Hunter was going easy on her… I think… but still scary.*

"I guess I'll ask the big one then… why is it that you seem to have adopted Hunter?" asked Lily.

"Oh, that's because I love her honesty. Plenty of people have lied to my face for their entire lives and yet Hunter has always been quite clear with her words," answered Meg.

Lily frowned, "Didn't you grow up with demons?"

"Of course, but that doesn't mean we can't lie to each other. It just requires some creative wordplay to say things we don't necessarily mean. Sure we can't lie, lie… but when that's the case you quickly figure out other ways to get the same result.

Our society has been around a long time Lily and something as seemingly concrete as 'lying' is pretty easy to get around as I'm sure Kat has already figured out.

"In this case, Hunter has always been quite direct. She will say what she thinks and was always willing to engage me in conversation. Lil Sis might not like me, but she treats me the same way as she treats everyone else which was such a breath of fresh air when I was younger, and still means a lot to me even now.

"I mean, I'll give some other examples but an easy one is right now. None of you like me because I've made a fool of Lil Sis but you've been trying to get along with me despite that dislike. It's a very standard tactic and I don't hold it against you… but it is quite dull and not something I care for.

"As for what gave rise to this? Well when I was younger people either looked up to me as one of the rising stars of the clan, or hated me for being more talented then they were despite the fact that I still disliked my place in the clan. It's almost expected for people with lacking talent or drive to complain.

They weren't cut out for the life… but there were a bunch of signs indicating that I WOULD be cut out for the clan life and I still hated it.

"Which caused even more people to dislike me because I had what they didn't, but was still complaining. Most of them knew their complaints meant nothing, but MY did mean something and that annoyed a whole bunch of people across the spectrum. Even still… my reputation was one that kept a lot of people in one of two camps. Either away from my, or with their nose up my ass,"

Lily coughed a bit as she tried to parse what Meg meant. It took a good few seconds to work out she meant 'brown nosing'. With the lull in conversation generated by Meg's awkward statement, Lily slipped in a new question without really thinking. "Um… I guess that makes some sense but surely that alone isn't enough for Hunter to keep your attention?"

Meg laughed and said, "Well I wasn't exactly finished with my explanation Lily… still good initiative!" *Wait didn't I get in trouble for that last time?!* "The other thing is that Lil Sis is super confident. She doesn't like to brag and regularly downplays her achievements by comparing herself to much older hunters. She's by far the most skilled in our generation.

I might be lucky with fast Rank ups and talent, but Lil Sis has a seemingly endless amount of talent and drive.

"It remains a lot of fun to compete against her! Lil Sis might try to avoid me on the regular, but that too is a sort of game. When we meet up properly though? We tend to get involved in some sort of competition. Archery, shooting, races of all sorts. I nearly managed to trick her into a triathlon once.

She caught on to my scheming though so I pivoted to a kayak race instead,"

*What's the issue with a triathlon?*

[Presumably the cycling section. Hunter doesn't have any legs after all.]

*Oh… well… I feel a bit silly now. Obviously that would be something Hunter couldn't do.* Lily waited for Meg to give her the go ahead, and this time Lily got a thumbs up. Which seemed good enough. "Is really it? I mean… I don't want to be insensitive but you've been friends for… I want to say decades? At this point.

It just seems like… not all that much,"

Meg shrugged, "Sure there's more… but not that much more you know? I consider Lil Sis to be super important to me. Perhaps my most important person… but I'm also not quite sure we've really become friends. I know my general attitude annoys Sis a whole bunch and its been a work in progress to slowly grind her down into accepting me!"

I* am no longer so sure she doesn't have a crush.*

Meg continued "Some of it is probably my power. The whole weakness thing? Yeah I feel pretty compelled to make use of it. Didn't think I'd be admitting that already… but I guess if you won over Lil Sis it's ok. Anyway… yeah it makes it hard to develop proper relationships because I can ALWAYS see the weak points in them and that massively fucks my perspective of the world.

"I think I mentioned my issues with my parents right? Well for years after my weakness powers came in I could only see them as a collection of issues. I tried to help them a bit before the whole… blackmailing me for money thing. Wait… is it blackmail or extortion? I think it's just blackmail. They are not physical threat to me…

"Anyway… my point is that I could destroy my parents marriage as well as their much nicer relationships with my siblings… and all it would take is a few words, a misplaced note and an orange peel. And… and so many things are like that. I can see so many ways to just… BREAK people and that's not something I like.

"Lil Sis… my powers work oddly around her. Especially the social aspect. I don't know, and I don't WANT to know if it's something she trained early on, something to do with her hiding aura, or just luck of the draw but I just don't see many weaknesses in Lil sis, and most of them are physical.

"Like, it'll tell me that she's slower then me, or that she injured her shoulder training and maybe a few social things… but in regards to completely undoing her? Not so much and Sis is the ONLY person our age that my powers don't seem to work properly on.

It doesn't seem to work properly on Rank 5's, but that's a completely separate issue and likely something to do with the transition between 5 and 4 so I don't count it,"

*See… that to me sounds like the real reason. Makes me wonder if her power has always been a bit funny around Hunter. Not sure if I should ask that though. I've pushed the envelope a bit here… and while Meg has continued to smile she hasn't actually made any requests for my questions this time, nor has she given me 'points' to use to reduce my sentence.

I mean, the information was great, I'm calming down a bit and new info is always nice. Just… yeah.

Though… it's especially interesting to note that Hunter doesn't seem surprised by this. So this isn't necessarily secret stuff. Hmm… hmm… should I be directing some questions about Meg to Hunter then? Maybe questions to Meg about Hunter? But I don't really want to invade Hunter's privacy… hmm… maybe distract them with food?*