As Kat and Minor were pulled into the corridor it faded quickly to black. "I suppose this next memory will be the time when we met and Major sort of cracked" said Kat
"Actually" said Minor "We should have one more before that. I think it is perhaps Major's most important memory aside from the whole 'losing' your sister bit"
Kat tilted her head "Third tail?"
Minor grimaced but nodded "It's more than that I think… it's not really my place to say, because I can't be sure even though I can hear Major's thoughts and I don't want to put words in her mouth but… I do know it is important"
"I see" said Kat running her hands along her tail.
"Oh, did you need some time?" asked Minor
Kat checked her reserves and found them to be completely full "Nope I'm good to go"
Minor nodded but the scenery stayed blank. "Um Minor?" asked Kat
Minor shrugged "Sometimes these take longer than others, I'm not extending it but… actually"
Minor turned to face Kat fully with a determined look on her face "Kat, how long can you hold your flame?"
*Um… what?* "Well… I guess that depends on how much?" said Kat "I'm not quite so good at being conservative with it, I tend to waste a lot of my energy, but if it's just a bit of fire like last time, I'd say a good while… why?"
"Well… I just… I have a feeling that protecting this memory we are about to see might be important. There are too many ways for a Nightmare to interfere, and I was thinking that rather than trying to deal with the Nightmare before it enters, we deal with it before?" said Minor
"I'm listening" said Kat. *If this can actually work, this could be a big step forward. We might even be able to protect the final memory when things went pear shaped. I'm not sure how important this memory could realistically be, but… I hope this works.*
"Ok… so, I'm hoping I can sort of��� manipulate it so that your fire covers the whole memory. Just a thin layer of course… and I'll probably be stretching the rules of the dream world, but I think I can do it" said Minor
Kat bit her lip as she thought. *Do I have the energy for that… I mean… I guess it depends how small the memory is exactly* "How much fire do you need" asked Kat
"Almost none" said Minor "I hope… see we can sort of just… use the idea that it's shielded right? Or at least that is what I'm thinking. Because the Nightmares are largely conceptual, then maybe conceptually blocking them off will work"
Kat nodded. *Well, she is the expert on various dream world stuff…* "Alright I'm ok with that. Just know that if the memory is too long I might have to stop, and then I'll be down on energy"
Minor bit her lip as a slightly panicked expression came over her face before she calmed herself "It should be fine. If needed I can make use of the trick we pulled off in the Reverendi memory, and use a bit of your flame to attack instead"
Kat nodded "Well, if you're sure. When should I warn you?"
Minor took her tail in her hand and run her fingers through the fur. "Um… hm…. Can you give me a halfway, warning, and then maybe like… a quarter? And whatever else after that if worse comes to worst"
Kat nodded "Should be fine"
Minor nodded "Sounds good"
Minor and Kat stood facing each other for a moment. This stretched further into thirty seconds as the scene continued to remain black. "Are we waiting on something?" asked Kat
Minor looked around confused "No… I don't think so? I mean I'm not stopping the transition"
"Huh" said Kat
"Chair?" asked Minor summoning one for herself and falling into it.
"Sure…" said Kat. *This is starting to be a little weird… why is it taking so long.* Kat looked behind her and saw that Minor had her strange chair she'd designed with Kat in mind. Lowering herself down into the chair, as soon as Kat touched the surface, the scene started shifting.
*That would be right wouldn't it!?*
The scene shifted to an overcast day. Shizuka was once again in the garden with its four season sections. She was now balanced on the same pole as last time, but now she had a ball of ice, and a secondary platform balanced on that to sit on.
This meant that Shizuka was incredibly still as her shards of ice orbited. Now numbering five in total, with three in one orbit and two in another. As Kat gazed as Shizuka, something seemed to flicker behind her, though Kat dismissed it and got to work on her fire.
Holding out her tail as a place to start, Kat summoned a tiny flame at the very tip, and then fed it a trickle of energy to keep it existing. Minor nodded when she saw it and got to work instantly. She reached out with her hand placing it over Kat's flame.
Kat nearly panicked at the sight, but noticed that when Minor touched it, nothing happened. Calming down, Kat scaled back slightly on the energy because in her panic she'd doubled the amount she was sending.
Minor started to make strange hand gestures, like she was pulling and kneading dough or something similar. After a few moments of this Kat shivered, and started to feel strange. She could still feel her ember at the end of her tail, but it was suddenly everywhere.
*What the…* It took a moment of thought to identify the sensation before realising why she felt her fire everywhere. *Duh, of course, that was Minor's entire idea. Feels really weird though…* Kat looked down at the ember Minor was messing with.
It seemed to be the same size, despite her mind telling her it certainly wasn't. It was made weirder because her eyes felt like they were swimming. *What is going on with me? Is it because my eyes think the ember is an illusion or something?*
Kat wobbled slightly but steadied herself. Keeping a tight rein over her energy was about all she could do. Checking her reserves, she saw it was shrinking, but only by a trickle. If Minor's trick didn't use up any more than it currently was, she felt they were safe for an hour or so.
Kat stretched out her wings, letting them flap lightly. Due to her dream state she was already above the ground, but her mind was having a harder and harder time keeping track of everything.
*Is it safe to disconnect from the fire? I can't just remove my senses from it because it is more connected to me than it should be despite being everywhere… I certainly don't like this.*
Kat tried again to focus on Shizuka, hoping it would distract her but it only made things worse. She could still see that flicker behind Shizuka every few seconds. She wanted to enhance her eyes to see what it was, but could hardly keep her demonic energy under control, and didn't want to risk anything.
Finally, Minor seemed to finish whatever it was, and things stabilised. *Ugh… I never want to go through that again. I almost think it would be easier to just fight the Nightmares.*
Kat used her wings to steady herself as the feeling over being everywhere slowly receded. She still felt like she was touching everything with her fire somehow, but it was less disorientating, and just uncomfortable now, and the wings helped.
Kat head the crunching of stones and the clanking of metal coming from behind her as someone walked the garden path, but Kat couldn't bring herself to move enough to turn around. Luckily her patience was rewarded.
*What… the heck.* The person who walked into Kat's vision was perhaps the strangest looking individual she'd seen since meeting the other demons in the accounting department.
The person in question was clearly a rabbit beastkin. Kat could see their large ears and fluffy tail quite clearly. The person that had these features though, was tall. Even discounting the impressive size of her ears, she stood at least a head taller than Kat.
As for her outfit, it looked more like a loose collection of junk than armour. She had huge pauldrons nearly the same size as her head. Despite this, her midsection was only covered by a light wrapping around her breasts and nothing else. Her pants were leather with a layer of light chain over them.
Her boots though, looked to be heavy steel traps, that if Kat had the ability to improve her eyes, right now, would see them grinding down the gravel they stepped over. In her arms she held her weapons, a small buckler in her left, and a trident in her right. The details were obscured from Kat's vision… mostly by the pauldrons.
"Yo Shizuka, what's up" shouted the strange rabbit.
Shizuka startled.. The ice around her shattering and causing her to fall backwards into the pool with a splash.