D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 1971: Chapter 1971 A Short Dream

--- Kat ---

Kat would’ve previously said that transitioning into someone’s dreams was always a little jarring. Kat had apparently learnt nothing. Entering Angie’s head was like slamming face first into a steel wall. A bit too literally actually. Kat found herself slammed into a metal surface and peeled herself off, wobbling a bit as she did so.

What the heck is going on? Kat glanced down at her feet and saw a black mist covering the ground. It was slightly curved and despite the smoke rising up from it, quite dense just a few centimetres in. It also felt... wrong. Like she was staring at an open wound. Which obviously this wasn’t... but it gave the same sense of ’off’ or ’not right’.

Kat tapped it with her foot a few times, expecting a clang... but it just didn’t make any noise. The place she was in wasn’t silent. There was a sort of odd droning in the background preventing it... but her footsteps didn’t add to the noise. It didn’t change or alter things at all. The droning continued, and nothing seemed to make noise. ”Hello?” Kat ’said’.

She tried anyway. Even though Kat felt the air leaving her mouth, made the right shapes, and sort of almost heard something... in truth she didn’t. It was just in her mind that the words form. Nothing ’real’ came from her mouth. For whatever concessions to the real you had to make while inside someone else’s head.

*Ok that’s very, very odd.* Now that Kat was really paying attention... it also didn’t quite FEEL like she was in a dream. Not that she wasn’t in Angie’s head, obviously she was... but a dream? No. *Is she even asleep? I... hmm... maybe but not properly. So... what is this?*

Kat stomped around the ground a bit trying to see any sort of reaction. A sound, a bit of give, a particularly angry response to her stomping... nothing reacted at all. So she tried to fly off, see other areas of whatever this was. Except... Kat couldn’t leave the ’ground’ at all. Flapping her wings did nothing. Kicking off the ground did nothing. This place was forcing her to do a whole lot of nothing.

Kat bent down and tried to feel the ground with her hands, get more detail then she could through her shoes but... once again, nothing. The black mist simply phased through her hands and the sturdy ground felt like she was touching air despite the fact it held her hands back. Even pushing down on it with force didn’t do anything. Trying to move her hands from side to side DIDN’T EVEN CRINKLE HER SKIN.

Kat stood back up and tried poking herself a bit... but her skin gave way as normal. Flexing worked, squishing her palms worked. Poking herself in the boobs? That worked too. Anything she did to herself seemed to react normally... it was just the rest of this place that seemed to have issues with standard causality. *So what do I do? Surely there’s something I can do... but well... the obvious idea might not be a safe one.*

Kat summoned some demonic fire to her hands and just let it sit there so she could stare at it. *Do I dare shove this into whatever nonsense this is? I don’t know if I really like applying demonic fire to random bits of her mind... but I didn’t exactly take it easy back when it was Major and Minor. Didn’t think about the potential consequences...

And is this even ’real’ demonic fire? Logic says no, but higher energy is always a little weird. Then the next question is, if it IS real will applying it to whatever this is be a good thing? I THINK this is a real curse on Angie’s mind... or maybe on her dreams specifically?

So breaking it SHOULD be good... but do I want to set fire to ANYTHING in someone’s head? Especially when I’m treating it as more ’real’ then the dream? Hmm... I suppose I could try to ask? If she isn’t asleep Angie can consent to more serious efforts or if she’s already asleep I can say I’ve technically succeeded even if the full problem isn’t solved.*

Kat nodded to herself, that all sounded right. Best to ask Angie... *How do I leave?* Kat tried to jump and fly off. That didn’t work, obviously. She tried to transform into her dream smoke and just fly out... but that didn’t work either. Kat tried changing into water mostly for shits and giggles, and that DID work. It was weird though. She could still only ’see’ things as if she was still standing there normally and she couldn’t really shift the water around at all.

*Ok... maybe leaving is going to be harder then I thought. With Lily it was always just when she woke up or I felt like it. With Minor and Major it was once I finished everything... but I wasn’t exactly TRYING to leave before that. What am I meant to do here?*

Kat glanced at the spot she’d had demonic fire summoned. It wasn’t there anymore, she dismissed it before trying to leave... but the temptation was there. The question of how much to use, was also there. Simply applying a bit to the area around her to ’free’ herself might work. At the same time... if she was committing to using any at all... was it worth just trying to clear away the whole curse? Assuming it was one?

*I think the big worry is that this invisible wall here is actually her mind protecting itself and the black mist is the curse. I mean... I think the wall might also be black instead of invisible but that’s a lot harder to confirm with all the black smoke rising off of it constantly and refusing to react properly.

I suppose I could clear out the smog first? Would that even work? It doesn’t exactly seem to be a finite resource at the moment. Though... maybe that’s an acceptable risk? Set fire to some of the smog and see what happens?*

Kat nodded to herself. It seemed like the best compromise. She didn’t want to hurt Angie, but she was also very much against being stuck here forever. Kat summoned up a small bit of demonic fire on her index finger and knelt down. Kat carefully placed the flame in the middle of a dense bit of smog and waited, expecting something like unearthly howls and screeches of pain.

That didn’t happen. There was still no noise but that droning. However, she had made some progress. The smog that past through her demonic fire seemed to gain a coating of ice before vanishing into nothing. It wasn’t just dissipating into the ’air’ either as things seemed lighter around her demonic fire.

I’m surprised this seems to work. Using demonic energy for purification. Then again, I suppose a lot of medicine is just the correct dose of poison. The question is. How much do I want to push this. Kat decided the answer was ’a fair bit more, but still not too far’. Kat exhaled and let a long stream of fire wind itself around her, though carefully keeping it from touching the ’ground’ as she did so.

The air around her started to sizzle and pop. Properly making sound for the first time since she’d entered this place. The area around her was filled with glittering fragments of white for moments before they’d puff away into nothing. The air seemed to clear up and the ground... honestly stayed about the same colour. For all that her demonic energy was introducing a positive shift it still wasn’t that much.

Still, Kat tried to jump and found she COULD do it. So quickly transforming, Kat turned to smoke and focused on leaving. As she did so, the demonic energy cocoon around her started to disappear, as if it was being dissolved and eaten away at, but Kat was gone before she could see more.

Kat came back into the real world, stumbling and nearly sliding along the ground. Her tail and wings kept her standing as Kat looked around. Angie was awake, yawning, and looking at Kat. Still mostly naked though. ”So? It didn’t take I suppose,” said Angie.

”Sort of,” admitted Kat. Angie raised an eyebrow, and Kat took that as her signal to explain what had happened.

At the end of the explanation, Angie nodded. ”That’s right it IS a curse, or at least I think so. It’s why I,” Angie paused and looked around. ”Signed up for guard duty.” That registered as a lie... but Kat got what Angie was trying to say. ”If you can deal with it, I’d be really thankful... though I do also understand your worries. Truthfully, I have no idea which of your theories are correct or how dangerous it is.

”Remember, this wasn’t taken care of instantly as payment. So... I’m ok waiting for a while longer if you want an expert opinion on the mater,” finished Angie as she looked up at the ceiling... while glancing at Kat to make sure she was noting that fact.