As Kat finished the final section of leaves, she could hear the thuds approaching. Now wasn't the time to go through everything in her head. They had a plan, and she just needed to act. Kat let herself drop like a stone. Disregarding the safer gliding alternatives for simply tucking in her wings and shooting towards the floor.
Kat took the impact in her knees, funnelling energy into her legs both to cushion the blow to her muscles as well as prepare for the inevitable spring up. As Kat was forcing her energy into her legs a roar shook the clearing
Following the sound Kat's eyes found the source of the noise. It was the Nightmare. Instead of its fluid inky blackness, it was now dotted with small a spattering of purple fire, spread all across its body. Various parts were clearly frozen over, but they were cracked and broken and oozed a paler grey liquid that almost looked like a strange twisted version of pus
On top of this, the thing was clearly shorter, it had shrunk by around half a head, but that hadn't slowed it in the slightest. It lunged for Kat and she kicked off at the same time. As she started to leave the ground though it was clear she wasn't going to be quite fast enough.
Tucking her legs in as far as she could Kat watched as the arm barely missed her by a hair's breadth. However, before she could relax, a smaller arm shot out from the Nightmare's main arm, grasping towards her feet.
Kat panicked, and tried to pull her legs up even further, but that was impossible. Her body was already as tightly packed as it could be. The arm, in question slowly nearing Kat's leg. The instant started to stretch, and Kat tried to get a handle on her thoughts, as she considered what she could possibly do.
Stumbling on a crazy idea, Kat lit her shoe on fire and kicked down. The hand instantly grasped onto the foot in question, and Kat tried to manoeuvre her foot out of her shoe and leave it to the Nightmare's grasp
Instead however, the shoe started to twist. As the Nightmare grasped more firmly the shoe started to snake around and dig into Kat's leg. Reacting purely on instinct Kat dismissed her attire, and her foot came free.
Giving herself just one flap of the wings to make up for lost momentum Kat continued to climb up through the trees. Shooting through the small gap she had made for herself. The leaves scraped along her shoulders as she climbed, forcing the whole to be slightly larger than she'd made it, but luckily she wasn't caught.
Once she was safely above the canopy, Kat spread her wings wide, and started to fly upwards, cutting through the downpour, even using a bit of energy to speed up the process just in case the Nightmare had any other tricks up its sleeve.
Once Kat had managed to fly up for at least three minutes without suddenly being accosted, she let herself level out, and released a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. "That was much to close" said Kat
Minor shifted in her arms before letting out a cute "Eep" sound.
"What's wrong?" asked Kat quickly scanning the horizon for anything that could pose a danger to them but couldn't see anything. There was something faint in the distance, but it certainly wasn't anything making its way to them, so Kat dismissed.
"Eh, ah, um…" stammered Minor carefully looking away from Kat
"Seriously Minor what's gotten into you" said Kat
Minor shakily returned to facing Kat, but her face was bright red and she was shivering "Do you have a cold or something? Did the Nightmare managed to get you? I was so sure I managed to keep you safe" said Kat
"Um… your clothes" murmured Minor under her breath as quietly as she could.
"What about them?" asked Kat confused.
"They um… aren't there" said Minor
Kat paused. Well, her wings were beating, but the rest of her froze. Looking down at herself revealed that Minor was in fact right. She was currently naked. *Huh, it's not even cold.* "When did that happen?" asked Kat
Minor squeaked, but responded with "Why is that your first question! I can use my powers to get your clothes back I'm sure" said Minor
Kat shrugged "Eh, it's no big deal. I mean, I can summon them back, but even still it wouldn't really be an issue"
Minor shook her head "That's very inappropriate"
Kat couldn't help herself. She let out a hearty laugh. Something about the situation just lent to the ridiculousness of Minor's statement in Kat's mind. *Hahaha, we are in a dream, attacked by Nightmares, searching for the remnants of her sister's consciousness, and instead of telling me to hurry up, or resting herself more she's concerned I'm not wearing clothes.*
"It's not funny" said Minor pouting, and letting her cheeks puff up.
No, when a younger girl starts pouting at you, puffing up her cheeks and telling you something hilarious is in fact 'not funny' well, there could only be one reaction. Kat's already hearty laughs started to shake her entire frame.
It was all she could do to keep Minor in a relatively safe position as she laughed. Her wings, keeping them afloat solely through instinct. Kat's mind was long gone.
Finally, after a full minute of breathless, laughter Kat managed to recover enough to smile down at Minor and simply resummon her Demonic Attire. "See no problem" said Kat
This was not the response Minor was looking for. Huffing and turning away from her demonic friend. Kat had to do everything she could to make sure she didn't burst back into laughter. Kat's own cheeks started to fill with unreleased laughter, and her shoulder shook slightly.
She even called up some demonic energy for her elbows to smooth out the motions to prevent Minor from noticing what was going on behind her back. It took Kat another thirty seconds to get a hold of herself.
*I really needed that. I think I might have been a little tightly wound since Minor shattered. I mean sure I was panicking a little before that, but seeing her like that was perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back*
*It really drove home that as crazy as this dream is. It's Minor's whole world, and while hopefully I can fix that as well, if she dies here that's the end of it all for her.*
Kat hugged Minor closer. "See, everything is fine Minor. Thanks for everything"
Minor stiffened in Kat's arms for a second before leaning into the hug. The young kitsune could tell by Kat's tone it that she wasn't being thanked for trying to preserve the succubus' modesty, but it was the thought itself that mattered. It gave her a surprisingly warm feeling, one that spread through her limbs just like her foxfire would when she was angry. This was in stark contrast to the downpour covering them, but for the moment it didn't seem to matter.
But it was such a soft feeling. Like she was being hugged by Kat twice over. And it was nice. Sadly though, all good things must end, especially when you're on a timer. Shortly after the hug was started it ended, and the world was dimmer for it, though still brighter than it had been before.
"Let's go find your sister" said Kat with newfound conviction she hadn't realised she'd lost
Minor nodded "Yes, let's" responded Minor.
Kat headed off towards the distance. Heading in the direction of the disturbance she had seen from the air it was a little hard to see from this distance with the pouring rain. It was in the same direction her hole in the canopy should be as well, and this reinforced the idea that it was something to investigate.
As she got closer and closer, the scene came with further clarity. This only confused Kat though, as she recognised fully that the strange shapes in the air were in fact snowflakes, and they were falling down towards the ground.
*Why the heck is there snow here? Was it there before? It's hard to tell with the pouring rain before but now I'm closer I can tell it's snow. It has to be.*
Kat flew, lowering herself closer to the blackened canopy where the light snow stood in stark contrast to its inky surroundings. A beacon of pure white shining through the rain, and darkness. This, of course, Kat found strange considering that clouds covered the sky and the sun couldn't be seen, even in the bright white shining down.
As Kat got closer and closer the full picture came into view. The snow was falling into the original clearing. It had piled high into a massive mound that reached up past the canopy. It seemed an awful lot of snow considering the time Kat was gone but she simply talked it up to dream logic.
*Now… do I jump into this same as last time?*