Origin - Five - Rending Nightmare

Rending Nightmare crashed into the atrium’s floor feet-first, and in that split-second battle between the floor and her feet, her feet came out on top.

Splinters of linoleum scattered out around her and some of the people running by screamed.

She took a deep breath and stood. Dream Charter was held by her side, her hand tight around its hilt. She was in her full costume, mask included, and she was about as ready to face whatever was coming up as she could be.

Or so she hoped. A few weeks of practice didn’t feel like nearly enough.

“Come on,” she said.

I AM FOREVER BY YOUR SIDE.

The blade’s words in her mind were a comfort, at least. Seeing people running by in a panic, on the other hand, didn’t calm her down any. She stepped to the side as a woman ran past, a toddler pressed close to her chest and her stroller abandoned behind her.

More people were running by. Mostly younger people, but a few elderly people were there as well. Alice wanted to help. She saw a pair of older ladies helping each other, both of them barely moving faster than Alice could walk even as they obviously tried to flee.

She ran her thumb along the edge of Dream Charter’s hilt. She’d help by destroying the threat first. There would be time to look after the civilians later.

Alice let out an unamused laugh. The civilians. As if she could really consider herself anything different.

The mall’s centre had a wide open space with four glass elevators in each corner and a walking area in the centre. Some years they had events there. A tiny haunted house, some Christmas decorations with a Santa Claus actor for kids to sit on and list their wants to. Once, she recalled, a petting zoo.

Now it was mostly screaming locals. Surprisingly, there were a number of men there, all of them looking deeper in, towards the food courts. A trio of guards in clean white uniforms were there too, hesitating as they watched a few last people running out of the court.

Alice walked past them, ignoring one’s shout for her to stop.

The food court had dozens of chain restaurants in it, all encircling a space with tables and benches and half-walls with fake plants sticking out of them. It smelled like fried chicken and mixed spices, spilled soft drinks and blood.

The walls were painted a garish red, and the lights of the restaurant’s many ads were competing with a glowing slit in reality that hovered to one side of the court.

Alice stopped at last, right on the edge of the food court.

There were imps.

She recognized them from her school. Small creatures, no taller than her hip with ruddy red skin covered in scabs and welts, with little stubs for horns and often carrying weapons.

Some of them had been here for a while, she judged. Those were covered in blood, gore, and whatever food had been abandoned in the court. A few were clearly gorging themselves on trash while others plunged poorly-made knives into the corpses of those too slow to run.

Alice felt her stomach recoil at the sight and smells hitting her. She wanted to run, to go elsewhere. A girl didn’t belong next to this kind of carnage.

But maybe a magical girl did.

An imp ran at her, voice a high-pitched shriek.

The sight of a tiny, murderous creature charging at her with knife raised snapped her out of her funk. She half-turned to better face it, then stabbed forwards with her sword. The tip bit into the imp’s face, and when she pulled the rapier out it came with a gush of blood that she had to sidestep to avoid.

That got the attention of the others.

There was a long moment of growing tension as the imps in the food court turned her way and stared. A number of them were grinning.

“Ah, so you’re here already.”

Alice’s attention snapped to the glowing scar as a person stepped out of it. A man, shirtless and only a little taller than herself. He wore chains around his waist and skulls, broken and disfigured, hung by their hips. The red skin and foot-long horns told her all she needed to know about their origins.

With a wave, the demon dismissed the portal behind them which slowly began to close itself. “I didn’t know if I would find you so easily.”

“Who are you?” Alice said.

“Kill her,” the demon ordered. “The one who brings me her head will be given their weight in infernal gold and an eternity of pleasure in the house of Lust.”

The imps ran at her, screaming and yammering.

Alice weighed her chances.

Against one or two imps, she knew she would win. Their movements weren’t super human, and they seemed no tougher than a person. She had better reach than them, could move faster, and she suspected she was stronger.

But against the dozens charging her? A quick glance around let her count at least forty little demons. Some were hanging back, flaming balls forming between their hands.

Alice whipped her arm around with a grunt of effort, and from the shadows pooling under the nearest food court table came a wash of dark energy that slammed into the nearest imps with the strength of a runaway train.

Imps were thrown back, but the wave washed away in the light and the fireballs rushing her way weren’t going to be stopped.

So she ran.

Keeping herself low to the ground, Alice hugged the edge of the tile half-walls, only peeking up between plastic fronds long enough to keep an eye on the imps, and the demon who followed her with its gaze. That had to be some sort of leader. It had directed the imps after all, and the imps themselves... didn’t seem intelligent enough to orchestrate their way out of a paper bag.

A Fireball whooshed past and crashed into the stores along the edges of the food court. She didn’t pay them any mind. Maybe they’d light something on fire. Maybe not. It wasn’t a concern yet. What was a concern was taking out as many of the demons as she could.

Coming around the end of the halfwalls, Alice spun, dug her foot into the ground to stop herself, then darted towards the demon, the floor behind her cracking with the force of her push.

“You are not as impressive as I expected,” the demon said.

Alice brought Dream Charter around to her left, then swung as she approached the demon.

Her eyes widened as her swing met the demon and his entire body turned into a roaring fire.

She gasped, eyes clenching shut as she ran through an expanding cloud of flames that licked at her skin and hair. It hurt. Strangely, it felt like jumping into a pool of cool water a few days after suffering from a sunburn.

Spinning, Alice looked for the demon and found it sitting on the edge of a half wall across from her. Another illusion? How would she tell? She glanced down at herself, checking for injuries. She seemed fine, and after the initial surprise and flash of pain, she didn’t feel any more discomfort.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I still expect her head,” the demon said to the gathered imps.

The imps renewed their squealing attempts to behead her and Alice grimaced as she stepped to the side and avoided as fist-sized ball of roiling flame that zipped by at the speed of a baseball.

Fighting every imp to reach the demon would take time, and she wasn’t in that kind of mood. “I’m supposed to be in class, you know,” she growled. “If I get a failing grade because of you...”

The demon laughed. “Are we so unimportant to you, Nightmare, that you would put such foolishness before our evil cause?”

Alice raised a hand, closed in a fist at first, but when she opened it a small spinning ball of darkness hovered over her palm. She aimed it towards the nearest imp, and with a small focus of will, the ball shot ahead and into the chest of one of the nearest imps.

That had taken her a split second. Too slow. There were a lot of them.

She needed to push herself harder. But she kept glancing at the demon, the true threat, and...

Alice flung herself backwards, Dream Charter raised before her just as a lick of flame appeared from nothing before her and crashed into the edge of her blade.

Her grip tightened as she was flung back a dozen metres until her calves caught on the edge of a table and she ended up backflipping into an ungainly heap.

She didn’t linger on the floor. That would have been asking for trouble. She rolled along the floor, then onto her feet, sword coming up before her in a guard stance she’d learned on Youtube.

It took her a moment to realise what had hit her. It had come out of thin air with only some flames to announce its arrival. A cord? No, a whip, though one that struck without a whip’s crack.

Her gaze snapped from corner to corner, looking for the demon but seeing nothing of him. “Dream Charter, what do I do?” she asked.

THE ENEMY USES YOUR SIGHT TO BLIND YOU. BUT YOU ARE THE RENDERER OF NIGHTMARES. THE QUEEN OF DARKNESS. INVITE HIM AND HIS SOLDIERS INTO YOUR REALM.

She took a moment to parse that, then looked up. The ceiling was lined with neon lights, and there were more lights in the various stores and restaurants around the food court.

Could she break them one by one? Would that help?

She shook her head. No. So far, she hadn’t found a true limit to what she could do, and if there was ever a time to push herself…

Gritting her teeth, she closed her eyes for a moment, squared her shoulders, then roared.

The shadows in the food court shifted. The imps screamed. The room’s darkness grew sharper until its edges could cut.

Then the shadows speared upwards, darkness made manifest and physical as they lanced towards the nearest lights.

Alice opened her eyes to see glass raining from the ceiling. The court, far from any windows as it was, was pitched into darkness.

She was considering congratulating herself when the bright flare of a flame bursting to life came rushing towards her and she jumped to the side.

“I don’t see why so many were afraid of you,” the demon said. “Nothing but a mortal child with a few petty tricks.”

Another flame, another slicing whip, cutting through the air on a path towards her.

She ducked under it. This wasn’t sustainable. The imps were confused now, but the flashes of light near her were pointing them in the right direction, and a number of them were summoning fresh fireballs to push away her darkness. Darkness which she realized she could see through with perfect clarity.

Something to investigate later.

The demon had to be in the room... so she’d just turn the entire place inhospitable for him.

Before another whip could swing out towards her, Alice repeated her opening strike against the imps, but this time, as she swung her arm out and demanded that her will-empowered darkness do the same. The blasting tendrils of darkness weren’t just shapeless blobs. They were sharp.

Tables were sliced apart, bricks and tiles flew into the air and pieces of imp were sprayed across the room as sharp-edged shadowy spikes hissed out of the shadows.

Alice heard a grunt and she turned to see the demon a dozen steps behind her. Its teeth were showing, and it sported a nasty cut along its calf. “Clever, clever,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed and she spun around. “You’re mine,” she shouted as she brought Dream Charter to point towards its chest.

There was a moment of calculation in the demon’s eyes before, with a grin, he made a choice. “No, I don’t think so.”

Alice jumped away as a wash of flames rushed towards her... only for her to realise that it was all illusion.

When she landed once more, the demon was already slipping through a burning slit in reality.

She flung a blast of darkness at it, but the slit closed and its glaring light faded.

Her darkness faded into light, leaving her in the centre of a devastated room. “Damn,” she muttered.

***