Chapter 631 - 631 Kat In The Q&A
While Sylvie was enjoying the feeling of running her fingers through Lily's knew fur and Lily was enjoying having someone, even if it wasn't Kat, dote on her for a bit, the other three were talking about Kat's recent bout of training. Kat was giving a brief overview of her training, certainly nothing like the level Lily got, mostly just giving the briefest of descriptions of each event before moving on unless prompted.
One of the major areas of description was Callisto interest in the various poses Kat had been taught to help increase her flexibility. Callisto had revealed to Kat that she performed her own series of exercise for that purpose as well as general health. Vivian occasionally showed up as well, but as Callisto normally did these exercises in the middle of the night when everyone else was sleeping it was exceptional rare. Though Vivian made sure to move around plenty for work, so she wasn't unfit despite skipping these sessions.
A lot of the poses were ones Callisto already knew. The bulk of the knew information came from ways to incorporate Kat's tail or wings, something Callisto did still show interest in. "Just… why Callisto? Why are you asking about these poses? I get the ones that you can use, but I don't see how knowing the specific pose for how to increase the degree to which I can move my wings up and down."
Callisto had to make a concerted effort not to glance at Lily at this point. Halfway through the discussion about posing Lily's eyes had locked on Kat. Kat didn't notice because Lily was getting some control over what she sent down the link. Her desire to not interrupt Kat or reveal her mixed feelings about staring helped mask the feeling. Sylvie just continued to play with Lily's fur. It was very smooth and allowed your hands to glide through it without catching.
Still, Callisto needed an answer, and unlike some others in the household had no issue manipulating the truth or simply lying about the answer. "Well Kat, not only is it interesting to learn there are exercises for that kind of thing, which makes sense intellectually even if it doesn't quite seem right at first glance… it also helps me further my understanding of my own poses. Perhaps only in small increments but the researcher in me can't give up that kind of thing."
Kat nodded even as she felt her eye twitching slightly. *Did I get something in it?* Kat rubbed the 'effected' eye trying to chase away that strange twitching. It stopped quite quickly so Kat put it to the side. *Must just be a little thing regeneration doesn't really deal with.* Shrugging it off Kat continued with the demonstrations as she discussed what Mai had taught her before finally moving on to her 'various' opponents.
"Seems like quite the colourful cast," cheered Vivian, "I'm surprised at how many people Mai was able to portray. It's really cool and shows she's quite talented!"
Callisto frowned at Vivian's explanation, turning to Kat to ask, "Would you be able to confidently say each form Mai used had a unique fighting style? And please elaborate more on that first opponent and how they fought."
Kat tapped her chin with her tail a few times as she reviewed the memories. "Well, yeah they all obviously had their own fighting styles. She didn't even use the same weapon multiple times except for the start. Though I think that was more a lesson in control or battlefield awareness. I had to 'save' her life a few times because she swung the sword wrong and when I deflected it, the sword nearly or in one case did, take off an arm. Some of the mistakes she made… I honestly wonder if anyone is that dumb… but I can see it. Especially considering how little I really knew about my fans at the start of training. Surely they wouldn't go out and fight like that though?"
Callisto let out a soft whistle. "Regardless of your question about the idiocy of the standard person, this Mai is a combat genius. If she truly was able to utilise so many weapons all at a high level of proficiency that shows a mastery of combat I frankly struggle to comprehend. On top of that, to know how to make fake beginning mistakes is something else entirely, or that one fight where she was able to control multiple heads and dynamically adjust the difficult for two combatants at a time… there is no way she wasn't going easy on you the whole time Kat."
Kat shrugged, "I kinda figured. It was never about beating Mai, it was about beating the persona Mai was using at the time. You didn't see how fast she was able to regrow heads in her hydra form. I can just imagine trying to fight her for real. Constantly shifting forms and fighting styles to throw off an opponent. Splitting in half to avoid attacks before regrowing lost mass. Heck, I don't even know how much damage she could take.
"That hydra I mentioned? Easily as large as the house and she lost a bunch of heads during the fight. I'm sure she reabsorbed a lot of it but the sheer mass required to maintain that, especially towards the end… she could pretend to be human sized and lose limbs like they were hair trimmings. I doubt it would really slow her down. The only way for me to potentially stop her would be demonic fire… but she could just cut off whatever sections I burned…
"And even if she couldn't take those back in afterwards… she'd have so much mass stored up I'd probably be the one to run out of energy first. It's a scary thought in all honesty." Kat let out a slight shiver as she imagined fighting Mai using a better version of her own 'trade major damage for major damage and rely on regeneration' strategy. Something that Kat was surprised to realise, they hadn't really touched on. Mai had always made her fight without taking that much damage.
*Hmm… I wonder if she was trying to tell me something with that…* before Kat could go too far down that rabbit hole, Callisto spoke up, "Kat, could you ask Lily what food she wants and how much of it? It's already lunch time and I haven't even started cooking,"
"Oh dear, that's something I completely forgot to ask…" said 'Lily' "I know I can eat just about anything because Memphis were an engineered race even if I'll trend towards meat like a normal cat, especially in this form… I have no idea at all about the quantity…"
"Is raw food better for you?" asked Callisto curiously.
"Not necessarily? The big thing is that I only have the same number of taste buds as any other cat so I can't really taste the difference. Or I suspect I won't be able to taste the difference. Hmm… I just realised I haven't eaten at all since I woke up in this body… I wonder if that's a lingering effect from the tank this body was grown in or if I have similar eating habits to Kat now… well, I suppose I am a lot smaller… hmm… I just don't really know" said 'Lily'
Callisto noted down the information on a notepad she pulled from one of her pockets. "Alright. I'll make you a proper lunch today because it isn't that much harder when I'm already doing lunch for everyone else… but let me know how it tastes. In the future, especially for other meals, if you still eat them, I'll keep some raw meat around if that turns out to be better tasting to you. I don't mind putting in effort when I'm cooking, but if it isn't going to be enjoyed I'm just as capable of skipping over them.
"For example Vivian has a really hard time tasting cloves. I don't know why, and neither does she. That means I pretty much never bother with recipes that include them, or when I do, I either use a substitute for cloves or just skip over them in Vivian's dish. No sense in wasting herbs if they don't do anything for you."
Vivian nodded along with Callisto's talk. "Yup. I could eat a whole pile of dried cloves and just wonder why I was inhaling so much dust. Just let us know what works for you. Somehow we managed to acquire to girls that aren't fussy at all so if we, or well usually Callisto, have to go out of our way a bit that's perfectly fine. As much as I'd like to convince Callisto to do less work occasionally, she seems to enjoy it for some reason. Like a crazy person."
Callisto rolled her eyes. "The lack of sleep is probably the cause of my slowly diminishing sanity I'm sure. Then again, it's not like I ever left space for a proper bed in my room anyway…"
Vivian snickered, "Well I could always use a warm pillow. Your always welcome. Except on days ending in X. Can't be having you around then."
Callisto rolled her eyes at that knowing Vivian would happily collected everyone in the house for a slumber party at the drop of a hat.