Right. Okay. Cedric needed a battle plan before Andie started an unplanned battle. With a wave of his hand, Cedric dismissed all the pop up windows except for the one about his Nightmare. “Cedric’s Nightmare. Type: Semi-conscious psychophysical construct. Status: Hostile. Alert. Panicked. Current Activity: Undergoing intense fight or flight response. Hunting Cedric.” How marvelously unhelpful. Hopefully the extended version had something actually useful. “Notable Strengths: Scales are highly resistant to psychokinetic and psychothermal damage. Technically part of a dreamwalker - thus immune to all psychic phenomena not produced by its host. Invisible. Notable Weaknesses: Comprised of tangible emotional trauma - damaged by healing effects. Internally weak - vulnerable to attacks that bypass scales. Extra Notes: A psychophysical construct - a metaphor made manifest. Will prioritize Cedric over other perceived threats.”

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…well that was thorough. Basically an entire plan all on its own, though Cedric could have done without the faux technical terms.

Cedric snapped his fingers, manifesting dozens upon dozens of illusory duplicates of his Trait. It was time to make his move, before Andie ran out of patience and made hers. “Wait.” Cedric paused. On second thought… “ ‘Will prioritize Cedric over any other perceived threats’…” All but one of Cedric’s illusory drones flew over to one of the many asphalt islands, transforming into copies of Andie as soon as they reached something resembling solid ground. Meanwhile, the final drone flew over to pick up the illusory clone that Cedric had initially tested his Trait’s search function on - carrying it off to provoke his Nightmare.

The trap had now been baited and camouflaged. Now all that remained was to spring it.