AN:// Merry Christmas everybody....who's ready for the 2020 angst? ;)

-------

When the scream resounded a second time, Remy and Roman were ready to launch into action.

Sleep formed a whistle out of his Sand and blew into it...there was no sound.

For a few Seconds that is.

An alarm suddenly sounded and Guards started Marching up to the Gate. All ready in battle formation.

Anxiety raises a brow in confusion. "Why aren't they coming with you?"

Remy shakes his head. "I have Troops out there already; they're here for defense since I'm heading in. They won't go beyond the Gate unless I blow the whistle again- we really don't have time for this, are you coming with us or not?"

Morality steps up.

"I'm going, I have a feeling that person needs as much help as they can get"

Logic gives his own nod of assent.

"Well I'm sure as hell not letting you guys go alone-"

The Prince claps the Youngest Side gently on his shoulder, with poor attempt of a comforting smile. "Glad to see you're aboard Anxiety-"

"Hate to break it up but let's go ladies!"

At Sleep's behest they all slide down.

----

Beyond the Gate and in the Subconscious, Remy leads the way.

The forest is thick and dark green.

Nothing one would think amiss in a forest of all things, but at a closer look, the green was far too dark to be natural.

An eerie wind blows and shakes the leaves; it's dead quiet otherwise.

The Sides shiver slightly but they simply grit their teeth and press on.

Roman takes notice that the sole Aspect's Jacket is fully zipped up for once, the Sand having moved instinctively to cover its Master.

He side glances to the back, also noting that Anxiety's shadows have done something similar with his hoodie.

As for Patton and Logan in the middle, while they didn't have sentient abilities, behind glasses, their eyes were glowing. Each their respective shades of blue.

Taking a deep but silent inhale, The Prince grasps his Katana tighter. Flashes of his past nightmares flow across his mind's eye but he ignores them, here and now he would protect his friends. He won't let It happen again.

-----

There was a very clear distinction of where things had gone beyond wrong.

The dark leaves had suddenly become pitch black, the trees were gnarly and knotted, either already dead or on their way. The worst part-

The worst part was the Ink.

The goop, though it was no doubt the same creatures from before, had spread around the tree trunks, making creepy vien like webs. They scattered and spread over the poor plants, seemingly draining them of life.

Everyone was on guard. Nothing moved yet but all of them knew very well what the Sentient black blobs were capable of.

Still, they moved forward.

-----

It didn't take long for things to go from bad to worse. They had started finding pieces of armour.

The Prince moves closer to what was left of a shoulder pad. "I recognize the rank symbol on the armor, this is the Gamman Troop isn't it?"

Sleep nods, his teeth clenched as he goes on checking another piece not a few feet away. "This is the Loftian Troop, and the piece in front-", the Aspect points at another piece of armour, this one a slightly golden color, " is the Baralain Troop. I sent all three of them in different directions, they shouldn't have met especially this close together"

With nothing else they could do, the group keeps moving cautiously forward, following the scattering of more armour and weapons.

A sword or shield here or there. A breast plate. Chain mail- a body.

They had found some of the Troops that Remy had sent out earlier.

Their bodies were half webbed in Ink and practically drained of life, their skin looked old and ashen. One actually disintegrated when Roman turned him around.

The farther they went, the more guards they see but with even the more goop covering them.

Now the bodies were definitely in a pattern, everyone was heading in the same direction, something very unusual.

A few of them were in literal cocoons.

Remy choked on a gasp.

They found Fairy Godmother....

-------

She was literally being encased by the goop in front of their very eyes. A thin layer of magic was probably the unconscious Fae's only saving grace.

Roman rushed forward and tried to cut her free but the Ink screeched and crawled it's way up. He quickly threw his Katana down and summoned another one, only to watch the creature devour the first whole. Sleep threw his Sand at it, thankful that the glittering gold destroyed the creature before it could do more damage.

Not wanting to waste anymore time Remy directs his Sand to help free the Fae but the Ink would quickly over powered it and continue to spread.

"Shit, FG's in some serious trouble here, If I use my Sand this Goo just fights it-"

"But your Sand Destroys the Ink doesn't it?"

"For some reason yeah, but for this I'll need a lot of Sand, and I mean a lot "

"Can you do it?"

"I could...but it'll take a lot outta me. I don't know about you guys but I'm not exactly too keen on being left defenseless in a place like this"

"Alright, that's fair, but we can't just leave her!"

"No, we won't, I got an Idea if you got the muscles for it Ro-"

"Go for it"

Remy calls up a good amount of his sand to cover the ink on the prone Fairy. The Ink and Sand hiss and bubble but soon the amount of Dream Sand wins over and completely encased both the Fae and the ink binding her. It forms a nice glittery gold cocoon-

Sleep drops to a knee, surprisingly its Anxiety who reaches forward to hold the Aspect steady.

"...ok...there...that should...that should keep her stable...", he pants. After catching his breath, Remy wobbles up to his feet. "We can keep her in a solitary room back at the Tower and I'll Sand my way into another Tsunami if it means freeing her, I owe FG that much at least"

Roman grunts as he hoists the gold cocoon onto his shoulder. "Alright then, let's head back. I think she's all we can save, anyone else would be lost by now"

The group nods solemnly in agreement

-----

Of course, not a moment later a roar resounds and...then...

They're being attacked by this huge monstrosity of live goop.

The group gets split up as they run for cover. Sleep and Anxiety on one side, Patton Roman and Logan on the other.

Anxiety tries not to panic, his shadows flickering around on high;Remy isn't any better, the Aspect's Sand was literally mimicking the dark side's shadows. Sleep, of course, not liking the situation one bit, decided to distract-well at least calm down-the other by talking.

In a safe section enclosed by various trees, somehow Remy ends up admitting the reason his Sand pulled him away is because he's afraid of Patton.

Anxiety blinks. "Really?"

The Guardian of the Subconscious shrugs

"Dunno babes, Sand says he feels like death. And I'm well aware of the Prominent's ability to erase creations, if you haven't noticed hun, I am a creation."

"He wouldn't do that though"

"I know, but it's always the quiet ones y'know?"

----

Meanwhile, Roman, Patton and Logan were running, thankfully their side didn't have as much creatures, though it was still the long way around.

"We need to get to the clearing! These things can't pass through it!"

A tweet.

Blue pops out of Roman's under sash pocket, looking adorably puffed up and ruffled.

"You brought Blue with you?!"

"Well, what else was I supposed to do leave my dear feathered friend on the Gate?!"

The Bluebird in question chirps in alarm and Roman instinctively rolls left. Narrowly missing a black pike that was shot forward. He grits his teeth as he cradles his "cargo" making sure that the Sand cocoon he was carrying was unharmed.

Patton deftly dodges a creature by going around a tree; he presses a glowing hand to the Ink and it explodes.

"We need to keep moving!"

"No need to tell me twice Pat!"

"Agreed, the faster we get out of here, the faster we can save the Fairy"

"Exactly! Blue, I need an eye in the sky, think you can manage?"

The Bird chirps and affirmative and takes to the sky. Chirping out shrill directions to dodge or avoid the Ink creatures when needed.

----

"Patton's really chill-" starts Anxiety as he blasts an ink creature into oblivion with his shadows.

"Yeah, well either way I wasn't gonna turn down those cookies-" continues Remy as he does the same with his Dream Sand.

"He's got some really good recipes-"

"Look there's the clearing-"

"What about the others?-"

"Roman knows the way, if not, we made a boundary. Once they make it through there they're safe, nothing that's isn't a resident of the Mindscape can get through"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah-"

A blur of Blue flashes above them-

A certain Bluebird comes flying, doing aerial maneuvers to dodge the goop that was chasing them.

"Ok, not gonna lie babes, but were legit being out styled by a bird-"

"You're telling me, and I thought my one back-flip was fancy"

Anxiety and Remy clear a fairly decent path for Blue allowing the poor puff ball to land on Sleep's head as It twitters out a message; that the others were worried about them and waiting for them by the Gate.

Like with Roman, Blue shoots up and ahead, chirping out warnings as the two below did their best to either dodge or cover each other as they moved forward.

The Bird, the Aspect and the Side make it to the "boundary" and the ink creatures behind them slams into an invisible force field. It scratches, slamming itself at the barrier before eventually retreating with an acidic hiss.

-----

They all meet up by the Gate and one elevator ride up and they're back on the wall in front of a familiar door on a white platform.

They follow Roman and Remy as they take the cocoon that is Fairy Godmother to an empty white room in the Dream Tower.

They decide to all use their abilities to free the Fae. Anxiety had coated Princey's sword in his Shadows hoping to prevent a repeat of what happened earlier and Remy not so subtly did the same with his Sand. He even made some "gloves" for Patton and Logan as a precaution.

It worked...but slowly, very slowly.

It had gotten to the point where it was now late evening and their effort was expended far more than their results were showing. This went for Sleep especially, he wasn't kidding when he had stated that the Sand Tsunami was nothing in comparison. He was using up a lot of Sand and very quickly, to the point where Roman had told him to stop and take a break.

As much as Remy would usually try to argue, the look in the Prince's eyes told him otherwise. With a sigh, the Aspect left the barren room to get some water...who was he kidding he needed a mocha with a triple shot of espresso after this. He'd bring back water for the others though.

Taking the long way downstairs to the main kitchen, Sleep thought of any snack he could possibly bring up for the Sides-

There was a knock.

Blinking, Remy headed to the door, wondering just who exactly would be standing outside the Dream Tower at this time.

He opened it.

"Sssalutations Dream Keeper~"

------

AN:// Hey guys! Finals are over and I got my report card...y'all I got a GPA of 3.79!!!! that's a freaking 92% I DID IT!!!!!

Lol first semester of University down, 1 ½ more to go (wish me luck lmao)

Sorry for the radio silence lately. I've been super busy lately, both at work and at home. My mom had some complications and needed to have a surgery, thankfully it was successful and she's recovering quite well.

Blu and I also managed to get our sushi and we also went Christmas Caroling with our Local Lion's club since we're Leo's (out here we Carol on the 20th and don't actually bother people during Christmas lol)

Anyway he had...a moment, where he couldn't spell our and went "oru" and now we're teasing him, "how does a loin roar?" "Oru"

We're still laughing about it.

Currently Blu's next to me as we celebrate our friend's birthday, we just finished having pizza and were driving around the island.

So yeah, everything's going good. Things were stressful but good.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK:

BY:Stars_And_Sky

"I found this fic on the 2nd of December and catching up on it honestly felt like an achievement 😅

"Well then,if your next report comes in magenta ink, don't say I didn't warn ya! "

Nice little reference there, my friend.

I guess you could call this my first comment here. I've commented on a couple previous chapters but I had a moment and deleted them all. Don't know if you've read any of them lol. This fic has honestly made me cry, but probably not enough to make me move from the Screamer's section of the Angst Train. Speaking of the Angst Train, can I put in a request? Can we have a room full of things you can break, preferably near the Screamer's? BECAUSE SOMETIMES THIS ANGST MAKES ME WANNA BREAK SOMETHING AND I DON'T WANT THAT SOMETHING TO BE A PERSON!!!!!!!"

Lol, sure we can work on that friendo and welcome aboard!

Welp, guess we'll see who all shows up next chap, hmm?

The angst will be coming, the warnings in the tags WILL apply.

Heh ;)

See y'all in the comments section!