After breakfast the next morning, Kat was back to training. Kat spent an hour attempting to focus her transformation on just her finger with no success. With a frown, she looked over to Lily who was trying to manipulate the shadows and also having minimal success. "Lily… I’m about to do something stupid,"

Lily glanced up from where she was standing and staring at her shadow, "Kat… I don’t approve but I do accept your reasons for trying this. Perhaps it will even have more practical uses one day… but know that I’m NOT happy with this. I… I’d also like you to close our mental link. Feeling you in pain is a horrendous experience,"

"I understand," said Kat.

"I’m not sure you do, but I’m willing to accept that as an answer," returned Lily.

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Kat frowned deeper at the response but didn’t complain. Instead she focused once again, this time trying to recreate her partial success from last night where her arm disappeared. Thirty minutes later, Kat was biting down on her lips to keep from screaming out in pain. She’d managed it again… but clearly, she still hadn’t done a proper job.

Two more failed attempts, and Kat realised she needed to be a bit smarter about this. The next attempt Kat made saw her speeding up her mind and focusing on taking in as much detail about her arm as she could. A moment later, blinding pain seemed to last for an eternity in that distilled time. Despite the pain though, Kat had her answer. She wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it, but she had an answer.

In that moment of time, Kat managed to see her arm as it was. The transformation was only partially successful. Despite leaving behind a watery impression of her entire up that went from her fingers all the way to the joint at her shoulder, it was clear now why the pain was so intense. There, inside the watery figure of her right arm, was a series of floating nerves and all the bones in her arm.

The reason for the pain was that her nerves hadn’t been turned into water alongside everything else, instead they were freely sitting inside the water, spread out almost like a spiderweb. Her bones were floating in place, even without muscles or ligaments to support them. The nerves were too thing to really see what colour they were, but Kat could confirm what she already knew. Her bones were black as midnight and matched the horns on her head perfectly. Kat knew that if she had the mental capacity at the time, she’d have tried to see if her fingers could still move. It was oddly beautiful to look at… if not for the pain that accompanied the sight.

*You know… part of me really wants to figure out how to become a walking skeleton with just water and bones. I do need to work out why the nerves and bones are sticking around though. And why I can’t see to focus on just my finger, or fingernail disappearing. Why was my whole arm easier to change? Also I didn’t seem to be bleeding from the shoulder… but that might have just been because I didn’t stay in that state long enough. I hope I can stay like that without issue… but it does raise some questions.

Like the obvious, can I still move? I want to say… maybe? My nerves clearly still work perfectly fine without the rest of my body around them to help them out… but I honestly don’t know enough biology to know if that’s normal. That sort of thing might be important… because what happens if I transform my lungs or my heart? You could argue that I can transform my whole body into smoke or water and still be fine… but then I also don’t have a brain that still needs blood.*

"Hey Lily… weird question, but can nerves keeping working outside of the body?" asked Kat.

"Why would you even want to know something like that Kat?" asked Lily, even as she started to work out a plausible answer on her own. It was even the correct one. Not that Kat knew that yet.

"Ok… before you judge me… do you know the answer?" asked Kat.

Lily groaned and nodded, "Yeah… yeah I know the answer... but that doesn’t mean I want to tell you,"

"Well that’s just rude, sad Kat with a pout. What can I bribe you with for the answer?" asked Kat.

"I’d like you to honestly tell me why you want to know," returned Lily.

"No kisses?" asked Kat ’innocently’.

"Fine, I want to honestly know why you need this information and I want a kiss, every hour, on the hour, for the rest of the day," said Lily with her best smug face.

Kat used her full speed to all but teleport in front of Lily. "Well considering I’ve already missed the few hours, I’ll have to make the first few extra special to make up for that," said Kat with a grin.

"I may have made a mistake," mumbled Lily before she was pulled into a deep kiss by Kat and her mind turned pink.

When Kat eventually let her go, it was some time later and Lily collapsed. Kat had to catch her girlfriend and carefully place her down on the bed. Lily’s face was completely red at this point, and her breathing was heavy. "D-dangerous. That was dangerous," mumbled Lily still not really conscious.

Kat didn’t mind waiting, she just smiled at her girlfriend for the time it took Lily to recover her mental faculties. Eventually, Lily managed it, but not without some effort. "That was just your first kiss. There are still many hours left in the day," said Kat with a smile.

"Meep," said Lily.

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"That’s adorable… but I would like my question answered," said Kat. _{Please visit fr𝗲𝙚𝔀e𝙗𝓃oν𝐞𝑙. c𝚘𝘮}

"Oh… um… right… what was the question?" asked Lily, apparently not quite as back together as she’d hoped.

"Nerves Lily. Do nerves keep working outside of the body?" asked Kat.

"Oh… right yes… well there was a few tests done on that… and it’s super creepy… but yeah as long as they’re still connected to the brain they work," answered Lily.

"Bother. I mean, I did assume that, but it makes my tests a bit harder. Not sure how safe they are now either…" mumbled Kat.

"Oh? So you’re finally going to give up on causing yourself immense pain?" asked Lily.

"Perhaps? I’m not giving up just yet… but I did find the reason for the pain," said Kat with a slightly too wide smile. "You see, apparently nerves and bones are harder to turn to water, or perhaps change their state? Anyway, my nerves were just… sitting exposed in my hand when it was water for an instant and that’s where my problem is," said Kat.

Lily turned a little green as she imagined that. "I really hope your plan isn’t to try and turn all of your nerves into water next," grumbled Lily.

"I mean… it was… why is that an issue?" asked Kat.

Lily flipped herself over and screamed a little into the bed before flipping herself back. "Right… Kat… what else is connected to your nerves?"

"Spine?" asked Kat.

"No your brain Kat! The thing you’re ignoring right now apparently! If you succeed… but not completely you might turn just your brain to water and I’m really not sure if you can recover from that," said Lily.

"Oh… oh," mumbled Kat.

"Yes, ’oh’ indeed Kat. Look… maybe there’s a better way of doing this?" asked Lily.

"Or… we could ask Nira to watch me test things out?" asked Kat.

"Do you really want to bother Kamiko’s mother with something like this?" asked Lily.

"I mean… yeah? If it lets me go support Sylvie at the science fair without problems I’d totally do it," said Kat.

"Look… can you maybe focus on hiding your wings instead? We can figure out something for your horns. Even if it’s just a fake headband that looks like it’s holding your horns up," said Lily.

"You do realise there are both bones and nerves in my wings right?" returned Kat.

130

"Of course I do… but if you can manage most of your hand, perhaps you can work on the rest of your hand, and not try to turn all of your nerves, or bone, into water. Both of those seem really bad unless you can prove that your body still works even with parts of it as water," said Lily.

"Hmm… that might be worth testing. Perhaps I should focus on changing one or both of my legs and seeing if I fall over or not? If I stay standing despite missing my legs, then it’s probably fine," said Kat.

"I don’t like that you’re crazy idea is starting to seem reasonable to me… but I understand this is important… though… do send a message to Nira and Kamiko. Just in case. If they offer to help, then technically we didn’t ask," said Lily.

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