The "prey" that Shiva came upon was a young man. It wore odd colors compared to her mother, which confused her. The human wore baggy clothes not made from the skins of its enemies. Rather, it wore the remnants of plants.

How curious.

How ... weak.

Mother told her that humans were weak, and mother was right. These humans were weak. They couldn't even stomach the rights of victory a hunter had.

Silently and cautiously, Shiva swerved around the creature, which held a tiny rock to its ears. The rock sang with odd versions of human voices.

No matter. It was merel crippling itself further.

It didn't notice her.

She was upon it.

It didn't notice her.

Her hands closed in.

It didn't notice her.

She grabbed it.

It screamed.

It was silenced.

She pulled at the carcass's useless clothing towards the gateway to her home.

Food for herself. Food for her siblings.

Skin for clothes. Skins to proclaim her successful hunt.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

For Taylor, May 5th was a special day. It was the day she triggered, after all.

She hummed quietly as she laid out the silverwares for dinner.

On the table was a array of delectable salads, steaks, honey porkchops, steaming soups, spiced fish, and the like. Something she should not have been able to afford.

Fortunately, villain hunting had its uses. By law, it was her right to claim the loot, and claim them she did.

Now, she wasn't exactly rich, but she could pay off her family's mortgage. However, she was not exactly a hero either; the PRT already released information about her -they called her the Nightmare Queen. Ha! If they only knew- and condamned her methods. So bringing in ninety thousand dollars or so into her family's bank account out of nowhere was going to alert the PRT and the Protectorate about her -or at least cause suspicion and thus restrict her.

Once again, it was her fortune that since her Realm was inaccessible to all but her, she had just tossed the money in there, and began adding tiny bits of money into her father's bank account.

Her father was not coming to this dinner, however.

Taylor came to a conclusion quite early upon learning how to mold the Nightmares to her design that the Nightmares ... didn't quite have common sense. They didn't know how to talk, possessed no ettiquette, or anything of the like.

Her sensibilities did not like that.

This dinner was part of that quest. Quest to educate her children! Well, for some of them. Her brightest didn't quite need her instruction.

She clapped her hands. "Alright, boys and girls. Time to chow."

Of the countless Nightmares, only five appeared.

These were her, for a lack of better word, lieutenants. They were also the most eager to learn, the most learned, and the most ... tame of their siblings.

The first was Brute. He named himself, to her surprise and dismay. Brute was not a name she liked, but Brute was extremely stubborn about it, going as far as to ignoring her when she used other names she had given him. She gave up, and called him Brute for his stubbornness.

Brute was also the Nightmare who took apart Crusader.

The 21st child to be shaped into life, Brute was a mama's boy. He did everything she asked, including learning manners.

"Queen Mother," Brute answered her call with a slight bow.

But sometimes, he went overboard. Really, Queen mother?

Taylor huffed. "Brute, I told you not to call me that. You're going to get your siblings to call me that too."

The second Nightmare to arrive was her firstborn, the eldest of the Sisters of Blasphemy, Uriella. Unlike her younger brother, Uriella looked mostly like a human. She had soft brown skin with toga to cover herself. What made her rather intimidating was her wings. Her six pairs of bright white wings tended to scare humans really, really well.

Considering that she looked like one of the Endbringers, Taylor thought that it was a warranted terror. Unfortunately, none lived long after meeting her.

Uriella had been the one that Taylor went to when times got tough. Like when the E88 hurt her father.

She was also in charge of the Nightmare Realm when Taylor wasn't "in."

'Speaking of Nightmare Realm,' Taylor thought to herself as her other children came through. 'I'll have to ask how it's going over there.' Unlike the material world where time is relative but linear, the Nightmare Realm was anything but linear.

In fact, there were parts of the Realm that drastically sped up time or do the opposite.

Her 5th son was stuck in one of the time-slowing ones. It was quite the loss for her current campaign because Oroborus had a very good nose to sniff out people based on identity, not physical smell.

"Hello, mother," the 3rd Nightmare to join the table spoke up.

"Hi, Johnny!" she grinned.

Johnny, despite his name, was no humanoid. In fact, it was a glob of slime that had numerous skulls and bones floating inside of it.

The 4th Nightmare to join remained quiet. It nodded to its mother, to which she nodded back. Shepherd was a headless centaur, which spoke volumes about its ability to nod.

The last of her children to join her was ...

"Shiva?"

The girl was bloody up rather well.

"Did you go human hunting? I hope you didn't attack anyone who's not a villain," Taylor said as she put her curled up hands on her hips.

Shiva nodded frantically, even pulling out a red and black bandana of the E88.

Taylor beamed and the others scowled. "Good job! But what did you do with the body?"

Shiva looked over her shoulder.

Everyone looked at the portal she came through.

The Nightmares on the other side were busy eating too.

"Right," Taylor replied. "Well, it's time for us to eat too. Uriella, can you teach Shiva how to hold her silverware?"

"Of course."

"Dig in!"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The dinner was a loud affair. As educated as the elder four were, they were still loud -except Shepherd; he had no mouth.

Shiva seemed overwhelmed.

Taylor clapped her hands twice, and the noise died down immediately.

"Well, it seems that Shiva can at least hold her utensils correctly, right Brute?"

The large green skinned Nightmare changed to pinkish red. "Not my fault my hands are so big."

Taylor laughed as did ... Shepherd?

Well, Taylor supposed the blood gurgling from its neck was a laugh... or was it choking? It did eat -no mouth doesn't mean you can't shove food down the esophagus- but if it sent food down the wrong way...

She rolled her eyes mentally. Who was she kidding? They were all her children, her Nightmares!

A bit of fish bones wasn't going to kill them. Or harm them.

Would it even bother them?

"Well, today's meeting is about Shiva's education and the Nightmare Troops' attack on E88," Taylor announced. "Uriella, are you up for it?"

The firstborn shook her head. "Sorry, mother, but coming here alone is straining my schedule." When Taylor looked sad, Uriella quickly corrected herself. "But no less enjoyable."

"I'm glad to hear," Taylor smiled sadly.

As much as she did want to take over the role she had delegated to Uriella, she couldn't. Nightmares could not be born with her hands and the hands of the few shard holding Nightmares.

In fact, of the countless Nightmares she made, there were only nine shard holders, three of whom were in this very dining room.

Brute held a shard Taylor named "Hierro," Spanish for Iron Skin.

Shepherd held a shard called "Herd Mentality."

And the finaly shard holder here was Shiva, whose shard was dubbed "Multiplier."

Hierro reduced whatever damage Brute took and reduced its impact by 99%.

Herd Mentality allowed Shepherd to control Nightmares directly, and with his significant tactical intellect -which existed somehow without a brain-, he was the Marshall of the Nightmare Troops.

Multiplier was odd in that it demanded Shiva to hit to be activated. It multiplied the damage she dealt to others every two hits by two. So if she struck a target, however lightly, with all four of her arms once, the next real punch would hit four times as hard.

"Hmm... Would you do it, Brute?"

"I don't trust anyone else to guard you, mother."

Shiva nodded frantically again. She knew Brute was strong. She knew Brute would protect mother better than any other Nightmare.

"...Could you find someone to help Shiva then, Shepherd?"

The headless centaur nodded.

Taylor beamed.

And once more, Brute and Uriella were reminded of the powers of a mother. They couldn't even see that imperceptible movement of Shepherd's neck moving with his 'nod,' but mother did.

Impressive, indeed.

"Good. Oh, also, Shepherd?"

The centaur straightened its back as it took in -somehow- mother's suddenly cold tone.

"I want at least a hundred of the Empire's thugs, cape or no, brought to the front of the PRT by tomorrow morning. Send out all Nightmares if you have to."

Uriella looked affronted. That much logistics of food to be fed...! "Mother, it would be alright if we hunted for more, right? It's getting hard to feed the more active Nightmares."

"Oh. Of course. Just not the innocents, alright? Rapists, murderer... hell, go invade the prisons around the world if you want to."

Uriella nodded, and though Taylor didn't see it, Uriella's angelic face gave away to a jaw-splitting grin filled with rows of sharp saw-like teeth.

Brute scoffed at his eldest sister's antics.

'As always, Uriella is too bloodthirsty,' he thought to himself.

"Brute?"

"Yes, mother?"

"You will be around, yes?"

"Of course, mother."

"Good. Then let's clean up before you go."

/\/\/\/\

Unlike the rest, Shiva remained after the table was cleaned up.

"Yes, dear?"

"Ah..." Shiva moaned but didn't go on.

Taylor facepalmed. 'Right,' she thought to herself. She didn't learn how to speak yet, though she understood. If it wasn't for the fact that she was her mother, understanding would be impossible.

"You ... want to give me something, dear?"

She nodded. From her back, she pulled out a recently dried peach leather.

Taylor beamed. "Did you work on that for me?"

Shiva nodded.

Taylor took the leather gently and petted Shiva's reptilian forehead. "Thank you."

Shiva flushed with a goofy grin.

Taylor wondered what exactly made Shiva this way.

Shiva, her third daughter and the latest addition to the Nightmare Troops, was once a Nightmare drawn from the minds of a dying old man. The hospitalized old man was a soldier, and had been having nightmares about the child he had accidentally killed during World War II.

It was sad, really. Even though it happened eighty years ago, it plagued him.

Taylor did the right thing and silently -and quickly- took the man's life and shard.

As she watched Shiva leave, she thought about the possibility of humans imprinting on each other beyond the physial means, because hell, she was the embodiment of Nightmare given form. Sure, she had a shard herself to help her, but why couldn't normal humans do so?

After all, her Nightmare Realm wasn't hers until she took it from another human.

A shardless human.

Beep beep!

Taylor startled and pulled out her phone. It wasn't a new model, but it was a smartphone she stole from one of the E88 thugs she killed. And on it was a single remainder.

[Cultists wanted to meet at 9pm today! Don't forget!]

"Right," she muttered to herself.

Ever since she begun her good career, she had run into a lot of people. Some people recognized her, and told her that she reached into their dreams and took their nightmares away.

And some of the more loony people decided they wanted to form a cult around her.

She just shrugged, and replied, "Why the fuck not."

Now, she was going to need to bring one of her Nightmares to prove herself -humans were so fickle otherwise.

"...Brute? Can you materialize when I call for you?"

"Of course, mother."

With a snap of her fingers, her patchwork leather costume draped around her, including the fur-rimmed cape covering most of her body, and she walked into her Nightmare Realm.