Book 3 Chapter 11
Teaching her binding technique was as simple as the technique itself. While Remy was a little doubtful of the efficacy of such a straightforward binding, Willow made sure he understood that sincerity in his offer of friendship was the most important part.
She was also a little unsure if the technique would even work for him since she hadn’t exactly used it herself since growing older and becoming a little more cynical. Could she muster up that same sincerity when she was no longer a child? It didn’t really bear pondering as she wasn’t going to lose any of her friends to find out.
But it was the best she had to offer Remy, and she had to believe it would be enough.
Afterwards Willow began to prepare the dreamscape for the coming confrontation with the Grudge. She couldn’t use her other forms or friends here, so it’d just be her and Andrea.
She still felt it was odd that Xandra couldn’t enter the dreamscape too, but apparently Memory was an entirely different mental realm. Which annoyed her to no end since it was all part of the mind, right?
Then again, how often does one remember a Dream?
Things to ponder at a later time. For now she needed to get in the right headspace for a fight.
She set her priorities, something her grandmother taught her to do if she had time before a fight. It helped give her a framework to work off of in the heat of the moment, even if it didn’t always work out that way in practice.
First, protect Remy.
Second, keep herself and Andrea safe, since she could save more people by keeping herself alive.
Third, make the Grudge stop being a problem for the village.
Fourth, do it without ending the Grudge.
She hated herself a little for placing the Grudge’s survival last, but it was a matter of balance. One life spreading misery versus a village full of people. She would do everything possible to keep them alive, but if she had to make a choice she couldn’t hesitate.
Even if it would break her a little to do so.
Willow shook her head. It wouldn’t come to that, and dwelling on it wouldn’t help.
It was time to summon the Grudge.
“Remy, think of your brother, and try to focus on the things that make you mad at him.”
The teen was briefly surprised before connecting the dots, letting out a sigh as he did what he was told to.
The connection between her friend and the spirit strengthened as his negative emotions intensified. The dreamscape flickered to show scenes between the brothers, but Willow did her best to ignore them. What happened between Remy and Rom was frankly none of her business, though she could make educated guesses.
Now she just needed to wait and hope that the Grudge took the bait. She couldn’t imagine there were many active food sources for the spirit this late at night, so she reckoned it wouldn’t be long.
And she was right.
Willow felt the spirit move through the still night air, following one of many tendrils of qi it used to feed on the populace, enticed by the bounty it probably felt in her friend. From what she could sense of it, the malevolent entity was a nebulous cloud of emotion and intent, quite large as far as these things went, but still indistinct and lacking in coherent form.
She so badly wished that she had the capability to deal with the Grudge outside of the dreamscape, but the risk of it slipping away inside one of its many victims was too high. So she just had to watch through her senses as it entered Remy’s mind.
The spirit of negative emotions moved closer to the source of the enticing emotional bouquet that her friend was sending out, eventually entering his dreamscape and falling into Willow’s trap.
Inside the dream the formless cloud took on an ever shifting visage of grasping hands, gnashing teeth, and hostile eyes. Every movement of the spirit felt like a series of still images in a sequence, skipping the moments of actual motion.
Willow felt like she might’ve recognized some of the features of the spirit from her brief walk through the village, but she was a little preoccupied with the execution of her plan.
She wrapped Remy’s projection in a thick cocoon of Dream qi, hopefully keeping the seat of his consciousness safe even if there was still a chance to damage his mind through the dreamscape.
The Grudge looked around at the field of flowers with growing concern, likely wondering where the feast it had sensed had gone.
Dream qi was generally quite versatile in the dreamscape, limited only by the imagination of the user. Willow currently had a small handicap with the energy due to both her own inexperience and her partner’s current lack of creativity.
Andrea was still young and mostly thought like the Poppy spirit they started as, so flowers were their go to weapon. Willow either had to work around that limitation, or she’d have to fight her friend over parts of the dreamscape, leaving both of them less effective.
Thankfully there were a lot of things she could do with flowers.
With a wave of Willow’s hand and an expression of both her and Andrea’s wills the nigh endless field of flowers exploded into motion. The petals detached from their stems, growing razor sharp and moving in a swarm to attack the surprised spirit. The stems then attempted to bind or hamper the movements of the Grudge whenever possible. Meanwhile, pollen flooded the field, attempting to muddle the senses of their opponent.
The spirit roared out a cacophony of curses in myriad voices, and yang qi burst out of the Grudge, dispersing a chunk of her attacks. The dreamscape trembled from the force, and Willow had to spend more of her qi to stabilise it.
Willow’s reserves were already a little low, due in part to the loss of efficiency from the distance between her and Remy, and she was beginning to worry she wouldn’t have enough qi to finish the fight.
There was a solution, but she was hesitant to use it as it meant leaving both of her friends alone for a moment or two.
Yet running out of qi would jeopardize her first two priorities more than trusting Andrea for a couple seconds.
The Grudge began to rampage, screaming and cursing, using teeth and ragged hands to tear at the stems attempting to bind it in place, getting ever closer to its attackers. The pollen seemed to do nothing, likely another thing she wasted her qi on.
No, it was unhelpful to think like that. She just had to repurpose it.
While Andrea continued to control the swarm of petals and thrashing stems, Willow fully focused on the cloud of pollen, condensing clumps of them together into seeds that then burst forth into stronger vines that her friend could use to hold the Grudge in place.
With that final act dropping her qi to dangerously low levels she informed Andrea of her plan, returning to her body and ceasing to harmonize with their bond.
She clasped her hands together and began to draw on the qi of the rest of her friends to refill her core, using Change to neutralize the affinities of the myriad energies of her bonds.
It only took a few moments, but it felt like an eternity as she couldn’t focus on what was happening in the dreamscape due to the complexity of the task.
Willow would have to trust Andrea to hold the Grudge back in the meantime.