Chapter 218: a Major shower
After Kat thoroughly assured herself that she had not in fact failed any missions, especially because she was paid in full for that first one. *So how could I have failed?* As well as making sure that she had properly regenerated her energy, Minor set about sending them to the next area.
She was once again looking at a patch of exposed dirt. "Now Kat, because we spent some extra time and the sun is up in full this scene is likely to break on its own. I'm just going to force the issue a little bit.
"Please be ready for whatever might happen. I can only imagine what might happen next. Because it seems we are currently unwanted, I can only imagine that each one we break will be harsher and harsher somehow. I can keep myself mostly safe but I'm not sure about you" said Minor, voice steady, eyes locked on Kat's when she finished the sentence.
"I'll be fine. You've seen my regeneration" said Kat
Minor nodded and said "Well here we go"
As Minor's hand made contact with the ground there was a faint flash, and then the scene shattered. Kat had precisely one moment to make sense of things before everything started to go to hell.
Kat reacted by speeding her thought process up and taking a look around. With the change of scenery, she was now in the pouring wind and howling rain. She didn't need to put up with the sound just yet because the scene had only existed for a moment but Kat was sure it would be here in short order.
Now, wind and rain were issues, but no worse than snow. The real danger of this particular scene was that they appeared to be falling from a great height, with only a mostly sheer cliff face on Kat's right to help slow her descent.
*Can I afford to use my wings? Even with time slowed as it is I can feel the wind, and see the rain. It must be blowing a gale… I'm not quite sure I can control myself in such poor weather. Perhaps with some training, or maybe with excessive energy expenditure… but I'm not sure*
That was when Kat noticed, something. Minor was also falling. It was clear by how she had started to spread herself out, to catch the wind. Despite none of her clothes falling out of place, Minor was sinking slowly lower.
*Dammit. Can she fly like me? Use her bend reality powers? No… I don't think I can take that chance. So, I need to grab Minor, that's fine, she isn't far. But does that change my issue with my wings?*
Kat's lips would have pressed into a thin line but time was slowed enough that unless she was willing to burn energy, the action could only be performed in secret. *Ok, so, Minor is immune to environmental effects. So she should be fine if I have to catch her and the landing is a bit hard. Based on the direction of the rain, if I use my wings to catch her, slamming into the rock face is nearly a certainty.*
*I just need to make sure that I'm prepared for a bit of pain and then cling to the wall. We can make a better plan once we can actually talk to each other.* Kat kept increased thought speed as she flared her wings and pushed herself towards Minor.
She was only just barely out of reach and one solid flap was all it took to grab hold of Minor. Of course, spreading her wings like that have given the wind ample surface area, and as she brushed Minor's outfit, she felt herself being pushed towards the cliff face.
Grasping the cloth that made up Minor's robes Kat accepted the push and retracted her wings as quickly as she could. *They won't slow me down enough to make up for the extra push of the wind, so I'll keep them closed.*
As the cliff face rapidly closed the distance, relatively speaking. Kat braced herself for the impact, moving her head to the side and leaning it back slightly while spreading out the rest of her body to absorb the impact.
Despite this, due to her horns, Kat still felt her head come into contact with the wall first. A loud crack, followed by a thud, as Kat??s body got to experience the tender care of a stone wall.
Luckily, the wind was still whipping around, and her wings had unfurled slightly, moving on impact, keeping her mostly stuck against the wall. Using her hand that wasn't holding Minor, Kat forced her hand into the wall.
Rocks cracked, and were ground under her hand as she fed it energy to keep herself anchored, before she called out to Minor. "Hey Minor are you ok"
"I'll be fine" said the fox hanging from her left hand. "Can you pull me up?"
"Sure" said Kat and lifted Minor up to her height. The angle was a little awkward but to Kat's strength, Minor weighed essentially nothing. Once Minor was beside Kat, she placed her hands on the wall and just sort of stuck there.
When she turned to face Kat though, she had a large bleeding cut at the top of her head. "Minor are you ok! You're bleeding. I thought you were immune to environmental effects" shouted Kat over the wind.
"I'll be fine. I can choose if I am affected or not and well… I needed to be affected by the ground, to not just fall through… of course now that the ground was introduced to my face it was less ideal" said Minor
"What about you though? I heard a rather bad crack when you landed" asked Minor
Kat used her now free hand to reach up and explore the area where her head had contacted with wall. Running her hand along the side of her horn she felt nothing but the smooth wet surface of her horn soaked because of the rain, but otherwise undamaged.
Her quest for damage, was solved though when she started to pull back, and her hand brushed along a large gouge… in the stone near her head. "Oh… seems I found the crack. Turns out my horns are tougher than the wall is" said Kat
Minor nodded "I suppose that is to be expected really. If they were not solid constructions it would be dangerous to have them be a main component of your power" said Minor
"Um what?" asked Kat
"Demons powers relay on their horns to direct them, don't they? I mean that's what I was told" said Minor.
*Huh… hey system is she right?*
Kat's vision however was not obscured by any firey text she'd come to know and appreciate. *Oh right. I guess I forgot about that. I've been able to get Minor to answer most of my questions so I sort of let it drift to the back of my mind.*
"I don't really know… I think they help? But I also ranked up quite soon afterwards so I never really got the chance to see if the rank up helped or if it was just the horn"
Minor nodded "Ok… so now the question is, how do we deal with the cliff"
"Aren't you the dream realm expert? What is your plan" asked Kat
"Well… I'm not quite sure what this scene is supposed to be. So, it could either be plummeting to our death with you unable to use your wings lest you get dashed against the rocks… or it could be an endless climb to the top we will never find" said Minor
"Why would we ever fall to our death? This sort of rock isn't that hard, I just punched through it" said Kat "And you've seen my regen I'd be fine"
"Well, actually, Major never really saw any of that. She just knows you have wings, and perhaps a bit of extra stamina. I don't think she knows how much better you actually are, so that gives us an advantage" said Minor
"Ok… so what is the plan" asked Kat
"I think… I think we go up. My gut tells me that Major wouldn't have thought you could so easily break into the wall. I bet it's about the strength of normal stone, so by climbing up instead of falling we should be able to shatter the scene" said Minor.
"Will you be fine?" asked Kat
Minor nodded "Yeah, I can't get tired, and the rain just slides through me. Plus I can sort of just attach myself to the wall. Make the motions and pretend, and that's good enough for me" said Minor
Kat nodded. *Welp. Let??s hope this isn't a long climb,* thought Kat as she started to climb slowly. She kept her wings in close, and her energy circulating her fingers, easily crushing the rock as she forced hand holds for herself. Though, her tail had curled itself around her stomach, perhaps so it wasn't forced about by the wind.
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