In the end, Kat let herself fall out of the sky towards Xiang. It wasn't ideal, but she'd rather check in on the idiot than let him run free outside of her view for too long. So of course, as Kat reached the ground and noticed that he wasn't even in the clearing, Kat felt the strong desire to slam her fist into a few trees just to see how they shattered.
*I can't believe this. I just needed him to wait a little bit. I hardly even took half an hour looking over an entire enemy compound. I cannot believe he already got bored and wandered off. I mean really.*
Kat shoved as much energy as she could into her head and ears, already wincing at the cost of what she was about to do. Sounds hit her like a wall, and she focused her mind on sorting them all out trying to find where the heck Xiang had managed to sneak off to. Luckily, it didn't take too long to find the idiot in question, but Kat was already down a small chunk of energy on a completely useless expense.
*And now I need to waste more energy catching up. At least he hasn't gone that far, but… I just can't believe he's so stupid.* Kat sprinted off towards Xiang, making sure to step as quietly as possible and also refraining from going so fast as to cause the wind to make undue noise. Her wings were tucked in close, and her tail was wound tightly around her stomach as she ran, limiting herself to slightly less than twice human speed.
As Kat started to approach Xiang's position, she started letting up on her speed as a horrifying realisation came to her. Xiang was much too far away. He had to have either left as soon as she hit the sky and let her focus leave him. *And she really hoped he wasn't that impatient.* However, the alternative was that he boosted himself with qi. A very finite resource that Xiang would need shortly. *And that is terribly stupid isn't it. At least he can't have been going at full speed if that's what he did but… it's just so dumb.*
Kat let herself glide along the ground as she covered the last few steps, using natural grace, since she didn't really know she had to flit between the trees and over roots while keeping quiet. Despite her quick approach, Xiang didn't so much as twitch when she appeared right behind him. In fact, he was still moving forward, hunched over, sword held tight against his side as he ran from tree to tree.
Kat put a heavy hand on his shoulder. In response Xiang tried to whip around but she flexed her fingers, digging them in and warning him not to try anything funny. Instead of backing off, and analysing the situation, the idiot went to wrench his arm out of her grip. If he had tried as things stood, either his shoulder would have been dislocated from the movement, or her nails would have caught and shredded the armour he wore.
Kat, however, was used to the idiocy at this point and was watching for this exact response, so she just sighed and lightened her grip on Xiang. This meant that he had nothing to wrench against and now found himself being thrown forward by his own weight. He tried to correct and remain upright but was failing.
Kat's first instinctive response was to wrap her tail around him and stop him from falling. Then that stray spark of anger came back, as well as a little disgust for some reason, and that let Kat decide that watching him fall over was actually the right course of action.
Xiang hit the ground, but he wasn't completely hopeless. He rolled forward with the momentum once he realised it was hopeless, before throwing himself back to his feet, and around to face Kat.
His hand was already in the process of drawing his sword, when his eyes met Kat. When their faces met, Kat didn't know what to make of the expression. There were so many contradicting messages in the young fool's face, she hardly knew where to start. Anger, mixed with fear, mixed with relief, and then more anger, and a very small piece of shame Kat missed when she stared back at him and held his gaze.
Xiang gulped. "Um… hi?" said as his face morphed more firmly into that of a little kid being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Which Kat thought was rather apt.
*If you are going to act like a child maybe I should start treating you like one. Sylvie is NINE. NINE dammit and she's smarter than Xiang by far. Now of course, that might be unfair because I think there's a good chance she's also smarter than me… but still, all the older kids in the orphanage at least know that when I tell them to do something, they DO it, and I wasn't a powerful demon back then, just a slightly taller kid for most of it.*
"What were you thinking?" Kat hissed, letting a bit of demonic energy sink into her vocals. "I just needed you to wait for a few minutes. The base is right there, we've been on the road for two weeks. Was giving me thirty minutes so hard?"
Xiang frowned "There is no reason I couldn't get closer. I wasn't going to be spotted" said Xiang starting to raise his voice a bit.
Kat with her exceptional hearing, wasn't going to let that slide. "First off. Quiet. I want you doing nothing more than whispering. If this whole thing is ruined because you can't wait for an hour, you will only have yourself to blame.
"Secondly, what was your plan? You say you aren't going to get caught, but how will you prevent that? You are just running blindly through the woods. Sure you happen to be going the right direction, but you didn't know that did you? You just took my word for it. I could have been generalising, or l-" Kat felt herself get cut off when she tried to say she could have lied. *Gee bit strict on that one.* Kat shook her head. "Look, the point is. This was a stupid risk."
"Well what else was supposed to do? This is MY revenge! I won't have you do everything for me!" hissed Xiang, proving he was at least smart enough to keep his voice low. He may have raised it a little on the 'my' and Kat's eyes might have started glowing in response… but neither would admit that when asked. Kat mostly just because she didn't notice.
"Wait" said Kat "That was what you had to do. You summoned me because you didn't think you could do this by yourself, and perhaps it's only now dawning on you how much stronger I am, but Xiang, you are the one being stupid here. Do you really have so little patience?"
Xiang's eyes narrowed and he said, "I have plenty of patience. I waited weeks to get here, but I'm so close, I can't just sit around doing nothing anymore"
*This kid… he thinks he was 'waiting?' as we travelled all day at the fastest pace he could manage? If I knew he was going to be such an ass about it I'd have just carried him, even if that would leave a bad taste in my mouth.*
*The whole point was to take it slow and convince him to tone it down dammit.* Kat cursed herself internally. *Ok, sure I probably failed at that. No I certainly did… but I mean… he's just such an idiot, he's annoying, and I'm almost sure that if I'd magically teleported us here he'd still complain about the waiting. He's just like that.*
"Listen here Xiang. I have been more than cordial with you. I have tried to keep things professional. But it needs to be said Xiang, you are an idiot. You need to actually take a few seconds and THINK. Now what I'm going to do, is tell you the layout of the base we are assaulting, and then, we are going to sneak in, properly, together, and NOT engage in combat unless we have to" said Kat
Xiang glared at her, but Kat glared back, eyes flashing with purple light and Xiang was sufficiently cowed. "I understand" he said, though he sounded more aggravated than understanding.
Kat took a deep breath. *System give me strength.*
D.E.M.O.N.S is incapable of doing that on short notice and without the use of Favour Token.
*It was an expression. Can't be asking god for help now that I'm a demon.*
D.E.M.O.N.S knows.
Kat made sure not to sigh. It wasn't a sigh, just a long exhaling of breath. "Ok Xiang, this is the basic layout.. I'll even make you a little diagram in the dirt. So first is…"