Asteria Nightmare

Part sixteen of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma

Wishes: Happy Halloweeeeeen everybody! You can probably tell based on degree of creepiness in my works that it is a holiday I very much enjoy :D

Music Box: One musical piece in particular always jumps to mind for this chapter, so here's my suggestion:
www (dot) youtube (dot) com (slash) watch?v=4iay7kmkj44
It follows the flow of the story events very well, in my opinion :) From the awe of the temple, to the evil things in it.

Note: This story has surpassed even Mindshattered in terms of the reviews that fic had when it was originally finished. Wow guys. Thanks a bunch. I love you all. :D (It's also longer, because I'm crazy).

Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, One Piece or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs solely to Eiichiro Oda. The only thing that belongs to me here is the concept for the story.

"You sanguine about the kind of reception we're apt to receive on an Alliance ship, Cap'n?"
"Absolutely. What's 'sanguine' mean?"
" 'Sanguine.' Hopeful. Plus—point of interest—it also means 'bloody.' "
"Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don't it?"
~Firefly

The Straw Hat Pirates stood, tired but with new confidence, as the Nightmares still within the Temple of Dreams swarmed screeching towards them. Brook's violin music was able to easily hold the Harvesters at bay, and slow the attacking Shepherds; there were no Generals in sight. In the narrow choke point of the entrance hallway, with the doors safely closed at their back, it was all too easy to repel the angry creatures. As the boys fought off the initial onslaught with renewed determination, Nami took the time to look around and regain her bearings.

The first thing she noticed was that the Temple of Dreams was not dark, as she had initially anticipated it would be. That struck her as odd. While obviously not injured by the light the way the zombies on Thriller Bark had been, the Nightmares still clearly disliked it and were blinded by the brightness. Nami had expected their chosen nest to be dark and dank as a result, designed in every way to be comfortable and to their advantage. Not so at all: the outer walls of the Temple seemed to be made entirely of crystal, and much like the spires and domes outside they acted like thousands of prisms, casting oddly beautiful rainbows all over every available surface as the sunlight worked its way through them. The floor was still made of stone, although it was scratched up heavily from the Nightmares' claws, and in some places it appeared to have been intentionally torn up and thrown against the crystal walls to block some of the reflected sunlight. But for the most part the sun-strengthening crystal walls were uncovered, causing the dusty air to shimmer brightly all around them.

Something about that didn't sit right with Nami. It didn't make any sense. She was sure her initial expectation of the creatures' stronghold was correct: by all rights they should have chosen a darker place, more suited to their own preference for night, as their nesting grounds. They did willingly choose to attack at night when they could, after all, and obviously their night vision was stronger. If this Temple didn't suit their needs, if they couldn't even seem to touch portions of it, or actively block out the light, then why choose to stay here?

The only explanation that Nami could come to was that there was something else about the Temple that held them there, for whatever reason. Robin had said that the ancient recordings told of the Nightmares coming from Oneirosa—perhaps they had originated from this Temple, and were bound to it somehow. Or perhaps they were like dragons, jealously guarding some treasure of theirs inside the Temple of Dreams that they didn't want others to find (she briefly wondered if it was worth anything to humans, and if they would be able to slip out with it as well, along with her nakamas' Dreamshards; at least the entire endeavor wouldn't be a total waste, then).

But ultimately their reasons didn't matter. What did matter was that this was definitely the center of the Nightmares' base, or hive, or whatever it was, and they could not afford to drop their guard now. Even with the few advantages the Temple provided to them—like the lights that would blind the creatures, but help the pirates, or the fact that Brook's music now echoed in the ancient passages of the Temple and seemed to stretch even further than before—they still had to be very, very careful about how they approached the Dreamshard recovery, or they were all going to be worse than dead...shortly before they were dead.

Especially because the writings Robin had translated repeatedly spoke of a Queen of the Night. And if the writings had been accurate about everything else...then this Queen probably existed, and she was probably at the heart of the Nightmares' territory.

They wouldn't get anything done standing here, so Nami readjusted her Clima-Tact and hurled another Cyclone Tempo at the Nightmare-packed hallway in front of them, blasting the creatures back the way they had come long enough to give the boys a breather. "Let's hurry!" she shouted to them, as they gratefully stepped back from the fighting for a few moments. "Remember...we're looking for Attendants first and foremost!"

Several voices acknowledged her, and somehow Sanji-kun even had enough energy left to trill "Yes, Nami-saaaaaan!" loudly over the Nightmares' outraged screams; his voice echoed all around her in the crystal halls. Usopp and Chopper darted back to their currently unconscious dreamless nakama, lifting Robin and Zoro to keep carrying them forward. Nami, Sanji-kun, and Franky spread out across the wide hallway to block the Nightmares from their weakened crew mates, and Brook followed just behind them to support them with his now eerily echoing music, still singing old folk tunes and sea ditties that Nami mostly didn't recognize.

For her part, it felt strange to the navigator to be fighting alongside Sanji-kun as a front-line attacker. He was usually in the thick of any fight with Luffy and Zoro, while she remained behind more or less as a supporting combatant to guard her—that was, the crew's—treasure, unless it was a big fight that required all of them. And even Franky usually saw more straight-up brute-force combat than she did. But now here she was, smashing Harvesters and Shepherds into smoke with her Clima-Tact, her usual subtlety in combat completely abandoned in favor of breaking in more than a few heads. She was getting as bad as Luffy or Zoro!

All the more reason to get their Dreamshards back, Nami decided, as she brought her weapon cracking down on the back of yet another Harvester's twisted cat skull. They can take back their titles and I can go back to telling them they're being idiots for doing exactly what I'm doing now.

They forced their way down the hall, beating back furious Nightmares with every step they took. Even with the doors to the outside closed, and with the hundreds—probably thousands—of Nightmares outside cut off from their brethren, there were still far too many for comfort in the confines of the Temple of Dreams itself. Nami wasn't surprised. From what she and Sanji-kun had seen yesterday, the Temple was enormous, probably because it had once been the center of worship on the island if Robin's translations were anything to go by. The Temple was probably still packed to bursting with the evil creatures, and most of those were probably the stronger Shepherds than the weaker Harvesters, if the bunch they were currently dealing with was anything to go by.

But at last they made it to the end of the hallway, and Nami cursed in surprise at what she saw. Further into the building, the walls and floors changed more to stone. It seemed only the very exterior of the Temple was made out of crystal, while what had probably once been hundreds of rooms and hallways inside were built from easier to arrange quarry stones. Once upon a time, the entrance hallway they were presently in probably led to an enormous set of double stone doors, perhaps leading into a large place of worship that could hold many people, like the temples they had seen in other villages on the island only magnified many times over. Nami could still see traces of the doorway's stonework, but the walls had long since been caved in, probably intentionally to block entryway. Nami had a suspicious feeling it was the Generals' handiwork, and that something very important was on the other side of that former doorway, but now it was an impassable roadblock.

They'd have to go around, unfortunately. Two hallways stretched to either side in front of the old doorway, going in opposite directions; the entire front of the temple seemed to be situated like a 'T' shape, with Nightmares pouring at them from either side. Nami was just trying to deduce which way would be safer to travel in, when she heard Chopper give a sudden shout.

"An Attendant!" The doctor yelled, hefting Zoro on one shoulder and setting down his plank long enough to point down the left-hand hallway. "There, at the back of all these Nightmares!"

"There's another one in the other direction!" Usopp called a second later, squinting through his goggles as he pointed to the right.

Nami's eyes widened and she whipped her head back and forth, trying to catch sight of the creatures even as she smashed her Clima-Tact into still more Harvester heads. "Are the baskets glowing? Do they have Dreamshards?"

"Can't tell," Usopp shouted back, frowning. "The crystal walls are making it too hard to tell if there's anything in them."

Nearby, Chopper nodded in agreement, looking frustrated, and yelled, "The one I spotted is running, Nami!"

Nami swore under her breath. There was no help for it; they had to get to those Attendants. The chances that they were carrying Luffy's, Zoro's, or Robin's Dreamshards was too high to pass up. They simply had to risk it. "We'll split up," she ordered. "Franky, you take Usopp, Robin, and Brook and head right. Sanji-kun, Chopper, you're with me, and keep a tight hold on Zoro." Who had been unconscious ever since they stepped into the Temple, same as Robin, so he probably wouldn't be doing anything stupid. "We're going left. Catch those Attendants, and make sure you kill them...even if they don't have the Dreamshards, only one will be left and it won't be able to pass them around!"

"Will you be okay without my music?" Brook asked anxiously. His bony fingers were still flying over the strings with remarkable speed, even as he asked the question.

"We should be fine," Nami said grimly, "with luck, anyway. Our hallway seems to have more Shepherds than Harvesters, and Sanji-kun doesn't have as much of a problem destroying those." The cook beamed next to her even as he kicked in the jackal-like head of one of the creatures in question, and it vanished with a howl after a single attack. "Now hurry, before those things get away!"

"Got it, Sis!" Franky said, and the cyborg charged his way down the right-hand hallway, swinging his enormous plank wildly to keep the creatures off of his nakama, especially the one still bundled so carefully on his back. Brook charged after him, still playing the violin, and Usopp followed, dragging the unconscious Robin along with one arm over his shoulders.

"Let's move!" Nami ordered, turning to their own hallway.

Sanji-kun immediately leapt to clear the way for her, roaring, "Frit Assorti!" loudly as he kicked upwards at several of the sluggishly charging, looming Shepherds. The creatures burst into stinking oily smoke on impact—not much of an improvement over their usual stench—and the others fell into step behind him, cleaning up the rare few creatures that managed to slip past the cook. Chopper, still carrying a very pale and unconscious Zoro over one shoulder, had finally been forced to sling his plank aside, unable to use it with only one hand. The reindeer had planned ahead for such a problem, and now fought with thick strips of sailcloth that had been tied around his Heavy Point's knuckles, enhancing his punches considerably with Franky's personal dream. And Nami still had her cord-bound Clima-Tact, putting it to good use by smashing in the heads of the few Harvesters in their way, allowing Sanji-kun to focus his considerable power on the more dangerous Shepherds.

They fought hard, but even so their progress was far too slow for Nami's tastes. Moving forward was like trying to wade through a river of molasses; even with all their strength it still took three times as much effort as it should have just to gain a few feet, and without the benefit of Brook's music the Nightmares' assault seemed never ending. Even worse, up ahead Nami could see the Attendant turning, beginning to slither away as the Straw Hats pushed their way towards it. Even worse, a General had appeared ahead from around the corner at the end of the hallway to escort the basket-carrying Nightmare protectively. Any moment now the thing was going to vanish around the corner, and who knew if they would ever find it again?

"Sanji-kun!" She roared over the screeching and barking of the attacking creatures. "Don't let that thing get away, hurry! Chopper, let's go!"

"Yes, Nami-san!" the cook answered immediately, and Chopper nodded as well; both understood exactly what she was getting at. She and the doctor charged forward, striking out simultaneously with fists and Clima-Tact. The Nightmares were surprised by the sudden maneuver, and in the brief few seconds it provided Sanji-kun ducked back out of their range and began spinning rapidly in place. This close to him, Nami could feel the temperature rising suddenly and exponentially as he funneled it all downward, and seconds later he came to a halt, his entire right leg crackling fiercely like white-hot embers. For a brief moment Nami was concerned that the flaming maneuver would burn up the sailcloth tied around Sanji-kun's shoes, but when she squinted very carefully she noted with grim satisfaction that the cloth, like the cook's shoe and pant-leg, was completely safe.

The Nightmares recoiled momentarily, unsure what to make of this new development, but after a moment the General at the very back of the hallway gave a rumbling hiss and waved them forward. It seemed unconcerned, and Nami figured that it had probably heard about Sanji-kun's last use of the DiableJambe,back in the village of Remia. The attack had stunned the creatures badly then, but otherwise been useless.

They had no idea what was in store for them, Nami thought, as Sanji-kun glared at the creatures hatefully with his one visible eye and tapped his now-flaming leg experimentally on the worn stone floor. He crouched, and then with all the enhanced speed that his Diable Jambe move seemed to grant him, hurtled himself forward and roared, "Extra Haché!"

It was a slaughter-fest. Sanji-kun barely needed to tap the Nightmares, even the Shepherds, with his heavy barrage of rapid-fire flame-coated kicks before they screamed and died, and his momentum from the initial charge was so strong that the single attack practically carried him halfway down the hall. The bursts of flames from Sanji-kun's attack were so hot and fast it was almost impossible to tell where his attack left off, and the flame bursts of the dying Nightmares began. Within seconds the first half of the hallway had been cleared of the creatures, leaving nothing but emptiness in the cook's wake, and Nami and Chopper ran quickly to catch up and keep him safely nearby.

The General at the end of the hallway was acting alarmed now, pushing and gesturing frantically for the Attendant to run. And although the last half of the hallway was still clogged with Shepherds and some Harvesters that were clearly reluctant to act as cannon fodder, they nevertheless charged at Sanji-kun furiously, barking and screeching at the tops of their lungs.

Sanji-kun didn't hesitate, and using the same move as before he propelled himself forward, blasting the now-panicking Nightmares into smoke and flames with his significantly powerful dream-enhanced attack. A bare few seconds passed before almost all of the creatures in that hallway were eradicated, and Sanji-kun landed in front of the few remaining in the corner, acting as a last pathetic wall between themselves and the Attendant.

Chopper and Nami charged forward into their diminished ranks, swinging fists and Clima-Tact with unerring accuracy, sending another pair of the creatures screaming into nonexistence. Nami frowned slightly as Sanji-kun joined them; she could hear him panting slightly, and had a feeling his flame leg was probably to blame. She had never seen him use it for very long, mostly just to give significant attacks of his a major boost, and figured he likely wasn't supposed to employ it for too long without consequences.

But ultimately he knew his own limits better than hers, and she knew for certain that they were all going to be straining themselves to the limit before the day was over. So she smashed in the head of another Nightmare and yelled to him, "Sanji-kun, the Attendant, quickly!" as the creature and its General escort darted around the corner.

He answered with actions, not words, and leapt through the cracks in the Nightmares' defense that Nami and Chopper had created. The General turned to face him, reaching out with its many hands to protect its charge as the cook hurtled himself at it. Sanji-kun responded with a sharp "Mouton shot!" and brought his outstretched flaming foot smashing right into the General's snakelike face. It barely had time to shriek before it burst into smoke, and by then Sanji-kun was already whirling, spinning on his heel to bring his burning leg down in a vicious axe kick straight into the unprotected Attendant's body.

The basket-wielding creature dissolved rapidly, utterly noiseless, its multitude of eyes wide in what Nami almost thought could be fear, and its basket dropped uselessly to the ground. Sanji-kun bent to snatch it up quickly with one hand and darted back towards them, away from the new rush of enraged Nightmares in the second hall just around the corner, just as his Diable Jambe finally began to fizzle out.

"Take him for a second," Chopper said frantically, and pushed the still-unconscious Zoro at Nami quickly before darting towards Sanji-kun. Nami yelped in surprise as the not-swordsman was shoved into her arms, and her knees buckled under the unexpected weight before she managed to recover and haul him back up; he drooped over her arms like a rag doll, legs dragging on the ground. Before she could question Chopper, the doctor had reached up to his back and pulled the largest and heaviest of Zoro's three swords free from their bindings.

That morning Brook had, as their only other swordsman, wrapped the black and red-sheathed swords with cord bindings to make them just as effective as the white sword, again to prepare for Zoro's hopeful recovery and aid in the Nightmare battle. Chopper whipped the black-sheathed sword free now and swung his arm around sharply—Sanji-kun ducked under his elbow as they passed each other—and with a roar the Heavy Point reindeer swung the sheathed sword like an old iron pole. The attack struck three of the attacking Nightmares. Two vanished on impact, while the third, a Shepherd, took a second hit before disappearing as well.

"I can hold for a bit!" Chopper yelled over his shoulder to them, as he lashed out again with his improvised sword-pole (Nami was for once thankful for Zoro's unconsciousness, just so he couldn't see how badly they were managing to treat his swords again). "Take care of Zoro, hurry!"

Sanji-kun staggered up to her by then, panting from his exertion but otherwise seeming no worse for the wear; he didn't appear to have taken any new injuries from his massive assault. With the doors to the Temple closed behind them, Chopper blocking the way in front, and Franky's group handling the other hallway, the were able to stand in a surprisingly abandoned section of the Temple, and it allowed both Nami and the cook to rest for a fraction of a second while Chopper kept their enemies at bay.

And she definitely needed it, Nami decided. Zoro was damned heavy and already straining at her arms. She dragged him over against one of the crystal walls, hesitated when she realized it might actually hurt him if the Nightmares couldn't touch it either, and finally laid him out on the stone floor instead. Sanji-kun grimaced in irritation at their not-swordsman (Nami suspected it was probably out of jealousy, as Zoro's head had lolled against her chest in unconsciousness when she moved him) but he began pawing through the basket in his hand after a moment, searching for its contents.

"There's nothing in here, Nami-san," he finally growled in frustration. "It was a waste...not that your plan wasn't brilliant!"

"It can't be empty," Nami said helplessly, and snatched the basket from his limp fingers. She clawed her own fingers through it as well, half flinching with the expectations of brushing against the intensity and intimacy of her nakama's dreams, but those powerful influences on her senses never came. Frantic, she tore the basket apart, searching for a hidden compartment or flap of some sort—she'd discovered them all the time, when she stole from rich, paranoid pirates, with gemstones sewn into the linings of their capes or extra coins snuck into secret pockets. But even when the basket was a shredded mess of broken reeds she found not a hint of glinting Dreamshards.

"Damn it!" she cursed in frustration, and flung the last torn bits of the basket from her fingers. Sanji-kun watched her anxiously, and from his defensive position Chopper inquired loudly as to what was going on, sounding worried. His concern snapped her back into focus, and she pressed her palms to her temples, trying to calm her roiling, anxious mind long enough to think.

"Okay," she said out loud, trying to organize her thoughts, "This is a setback, but it's not the end by far. There's still more. Maybe Franky's group got them, or maybe the Dreamshards are with the third Attendant that originally had them...the one I injured. We just have to find them and kill them, and the only way we can do that is to move forward." Taking a deep breath, she added, "Sanji-kun, can you help Chopper? We need to keep exploring, see if we can still find those Dreamshards."

"Of course, Nami-san," Sanji-kun said immediately. "Er, what about the marimo?"

"I'll drag him for a bit," the navigator said after a moment. "As long as he's using one of Zoro's swords, Chopper can kill the Harvesters and Shepherds faster than I can, and we need all the speed we can get. I'll follow after you guys, and swap with Chopper when he starts to get tired."

Sanji-kun nodded immediately and darted back to Chopper to help with their renewed assault, smashing into the creatures with another series of strong—but not nearly as strong as before—kicks that sent the creatures dissolving into mist. Nami noticed he didn't use his Diable Jambe again, which was probably smart thinking on his part. Athough he could blast his way through the halls in a matter of seconds like that, it would wear him out quickly, and he might not have the energy for it if—or more likely when—they needed it later. Even without it he and Chopper were making good time, already beginning to smash their way through the swarms of newly arriving Nightmares. Nami set her jaw as she hooked her arms under Zoro's shoulders and heaved him up enough to pull him after the others, with his heels dragging along the floor. Hell, he was heavy...he would definitely owe her for this later.

They made decent time, pushing their way against the heavy stream of monsters down several more halls. Nami honestly had no idea where they were headed, although she tried to keep them on track, angling back towards the direction where that first door they had seen might have led to. It was largely guesswork, and several times they were forced to abandon trying hallways before they even turned down them; at the ends of the halls she always spotted broken down, crumbling remains of doors that had been blocked for good, just like the first one.

The hallways leading to these useless doors were often empty, or less populated than the others, and after a while Nami fell upon a new strategy: following the ever-present stream of Nightmares to wherever it might lead. Part of her mind screamed that such a strategy was insane, a plan to obtain nothing but death. But a second part of her mind, one that had become more and more vocal since she joined the Straw Hat Pirates, observed quietly that it was the exact sort of insane plan Luffy himself might approve of. That voice won out, and so they turned another corner, and another, pushing their way still further into the Temple's confines, occasionally with Nami and Chopper switching places when the all-out assault became too tiring to handle. Sanji-kun, for his part, remained doggedly persistent, and though he was clearly tiring after the all-day assault he fought vigorously all the same, putting down more than his fare share of Nightmares as they attacked.

They had probably been forcing their way through the Temple of Dreams for at least half an hour—probably more, if Nami was honest with herself—when, without warning, the entire building began to shake. Nami was currently taking her turn fighting at the time, and staggered sideways as the floor shuddered beneath her. Only Sanji-kun's well placed kick kept her from being seized in an over-eager Harvester's jaws. She heard the cracking of stone above her, and dodged aside as some of the stone ceiling dropped from above towards friend and foe alike; out of the corner of her eye she saw Chopper curl himself protectively over the limp Zoro's head and chest.

And then she heard it. It was the strangest noise she had ever listened to—like the roar of a hungry animal, the hoarse call of carrion bird, a chorus of howling from a pack of wild dogs, the cold hiss of a snake, interspersed with hundreds, no, thousands of weeping noises and desperate cries and pained screams that were unmistakably, unquestionably, human in nature. It was all blurred together, enough that Nami could tell it certainly belonged to one creature alone. And yet at the same time she could clearly pick out each and every voice in that one unnatural cry, feel in her heart the very depths of despair, suffering, and loss that each individual voice shared. The hallway shook around them as the angry and sorrowful wail continued, one long, continuous call that she felt in her very bones, and she realized with a sudden twist of horror that it was the same sort of desperate scream she had heard emerge from the throats of Luffy, Zoro, Robin, and even Sanji-kun when their Dreamshards were stolen.

Whatever had made that sound was the origin of all the pain and suffering that had taken and killed this island. She knew, without a shred of doubt, that the thing that had made that cry was the Queen of the Night.

What she didn't know was why it had made that call...but she had a distinct feeling they did not want to find out.

"Hurry!" she ordered frantically, and brought her Clima-Tact around yet again to smash into still another Nightmare's ugly head. Her arms were starting to get tired after the full-scale battle that had been going on for hours now, but after hearing that call and feeling its cold grip on her heart she knew, she knew, that they were running out of time. Luffy, Zoro and Robin still needed them, and they had to hurry. She could endure a little exhaustion and pain for them.

A little exhaustion and pain, the first little voice in her head seemed to shriek at her. You're getting as bad as the Monster Trio, now! Look at you, you're a mess! Which was true: her wound on her arm from yesterday had probably opened up again, the way it was throbbing, and she had a dozen other minor gashes all over her arms and legs from her skirmishes throughout the day. She was bloody, bruised, her whole body ached from constant exertion, and her hands were still mildly numb from the Thunderbolt Tempo outside and her improvised lighting rod earlier.

But this is nothing compared to what Luffy will go through for you, the other, crazier part of her said firmly. What he has gone through for you. This is nothing. This is worth it.

And it was.

So she fought harder, lashed out with the Clima-Tact again and again alongside Sanji-kun's flying kicks and Chopper's flailing punches, and they pushed through another hallway, and another, and another, following the endless stream of Nightmares to who only knew where. Until at last, unexpectedly, there was a doorway ahead down the hall that wasn't demolished, that the Harvesters and Shepherds and even the occasional General streamed from, and Nami knew that the space on the other side of that door was the same one on the other side of the first door they'd encountered in this crystalline hellhole.

She knew there was something unspeakably evil on the other side of that door. She knew, somehow, that it was the same thing that had made that terrifying, loss-drenched cry, the thing that had caused this whole entire mess to begin with, and she knew that her every instinct was screaming at her to run away, run away from it and never come back, don't let it see you, don't let it find you, don't let it take you, and she could feel her whole body shivering in response to those instincts.

But she also knew they hadn't found her captain's Dreamshard yet, or their swordsman's, or their archaeologist's, and they were not leaving without those dreams intact. And she understood, with a sudden, sick twist in her gut, that the cry had been more than just an attempt to terrify them: it had been a challenge, a taunt. I know what you want. I have what you want. Come take it from me, and I shall kill you.

Nami swallowed, and her trembling increased for a moment. But then she grit her teeth, shook her head in determination, and glared down the hallway at the door. "We need to go that way," she said, her voice intentionally flat as she did her best to keep it from betraying her trepidation.

Sanji-kun nodded. "I feel it too," he said simply. "One way or another, that's where this will end."

Chopper nodded as well, setting his face into a determined grimace. "The thing that did this to Zoro and the others is in there," he said in agreement. "We can get the Dreamshards back from it." And one enormous arm curled into a steel grip around their drooping, unconscious swordsman, refusing to let him be taken from them again.

"Right," Nami said. "Let's go then!" As one they threw themselves forward, fought their way brutally through the last stretch of hallway, and forced themselves, triumphantly, through the doorway into the space beyond.

And froze, staring in wide-eyed shock and horror at what lay on the other side.

The room they had entered was enormous and open. Nami guessed they easily could have fit the Thousand Sunny in the space, and probably the Going Merry beside it, while still having room for a few houses. As Nami suspected, the wide open space had probably been the center of worship within the Temple itself, and the gathering place for Oneirosa's thousands of citizens several centuries ago. The room had already been designed to hold that many people...and judging from the broken mess around the edges of the room, had probably been expanded upon even further by the destructive Nightmares as they carved their way ever outward. She could see walls torn down, doors collapsed, rooms gutted, second and third floors sagging as their stone walls and floors crumbled all round the exterior of the room, destroying the utter grandeur that the center-place of worship had no doubt once possessed. The only thing to still stand since it was originally founded was probably the enormous crystal dome above, the same one as the largest dome she and Sanji-kun had seen outside last night; it glittered brightly above, sending sprays of soft rainbows down upon the ground as if to reassure the people in the Temple.

Several hundred years ago, it had probably had a beautiful and calming effect, reassuring the inhabitants of Asteria Island that they would be okay and that their religious beliefs, whatever they were, were looking out for them. Not so now. The Temple of Dream's new inhabitants were monstrous, its old ones were dead, and the soothing colors and glittering light that came form above now seemed a mockery, exposing brilliantly the macabre expanse all around them.

The entire floor of the Temple of Dream's center, almost every square inch of it, was covered in bones. Nami was no doctor, and didn't even have Robin's archaeology skills to identify most of them, but all the same even she could see that the remains scattered around them were many and varied, both in type and in age. Right by her foot was something that looked distinctly like a human skull, still bleached white and relatively fresh looking, while not too far from Chopper she could see the dusty, faded remains of what looked like arm and hand bones so old she suspected they would crumble at the slightest touch. The bones weren't just human either. She saw the much smaller skeletons of what looked like the rodents and birds that had once lived on the island, and over in the far corner she saw what she swore had to be a giant's femur. Nothing, it seemed, was immune here, or safe from these terrible creatures. Any living thing that came to the island, whether on purpose or by shipwreck, through birth or through travel, was destined to die at the claws, fangs, and intimate thefts of the Nightmares.

And as if in testament to these hundreds, if not thousands, of unrecognized deaths, there were Dreamshards.

Thousands of the miraculous shards filled the room, and Nami's jaw dropped at the sight of them, even now, even knowing what each shard meant for each and every being those bones had belonged to. The Dreamshards studded virtually every surface in the enormous, carved-out room; they were buried in the walls and broken pillars like decorations, piled in glittering mounds among the bones like trophies. Each and every Dreamshard appeared exactly as the ones back on Adamantina had: glowing with a myriad of colors as the sun struck them, flickering through the spectrum of light with such speed it was almost impossible to watch any single one of them for long. But none of them glowed with an inner light of their own, and Nami realized after a moment that every single one of these Dreamshards was dead, and every single one of their owners had died helpless, hopeless, never destined to remember, much less achieve, their own personal goals and dreams.

It was a sickening thought, to realize so many people had met such a disgusting end, worse than death. To think these vicious, despicable creatures had uncaringly destroyed so many lives, so many hopes, for the sake of their own hunger and greed.

But worst of all, even worse than that single thought, was the thing that sat in the middle of the hollowed out Temple of Dreams.

It perched like a hungry spider in the web on top of an enormous pile of ancient remains. The rubble of the broken bits of the Temple had been swept together with heaps of bones and hundreds of glittering Dreamshards, creating a twisted nest of destruction and misery. At first Nami thought it was a shadow: an enormous blob of a shadow, approximately the size of maybe two giants. But the light cast down from the ancient crystal dome was all wrong to create a shadow of that size, and after a moment she realized it was more than just an absence of light; it was alive, in the most twisted sense of the word.

There was no real sense of a shape to the creature at all. She could see dozens of limbs extending from it, in all the wrong places. There were insectoid, spider-like legs emerging from what she thought might be its back, twisted black wings with dying feathers emerging from its chest in entirely the wrong way to be of any use, writhing squid arms where legs should have been, strange human hands with reversed joints that looked broken and useless, animal legs with claws in all the anatomically incorrect places. It had faces too, far too many faces to ever be considered natural; she could see the glittering eyes of humans and cats and insects and snakes and wolves and other things she couldn't identify, staring at her from the thing's legs and wings and body even though it had no discernible head to speak of. It was a disgusting, blob-like mass of shadowy parts that came together into a mass of a hundred-thousand terrifying images...and, Nami realized with horror, it kept shifting, always changing, like it was made out of some strange, shadowy, viscous material that held together unnaturally against the very laws of nature. Even as she watched, several of the legs and a single wing melded seamlessly back into the body, and many of the glittering, watching eyes closed and winked out. Moments later new eyes formed in other places, and new limbs formed elsewhere. She saw different animal legs now, and hands with too many fingers, and a thick scorpion tail that sprouted from just behind the brand new formation of what looked vaguely like a human skull.

"Stolen," came a rasping, shaky voice from behind them, and Nami, Sanji-kun, and Chopper jumped and spun to face the noise. It was Zoro, still slung protectively over one of Chopper's large shoulders. His eyes were open now, and he was barely conscious, or maybe not even conscious at all anymore; he had the same glassy-eyed, unaware look that Luffy had possessed since the moment his Dreamshard was taken. Their not-swordsman was speaking now, in a harsh, rasping voice that sounded so utterly small and weak it was wrong, and that made it all the more terrifying. "Stolen, stolen, stolen...she took it from me...and now she'll feed well...no hope when it's gone, only despair, only fear..."

She took it from me...Only despair...only fear...

"Oh, God," Nami whispered suddenly, as she turned back to stare at the monstrous creature before them. It seemed utterly unconcerned, and even the Harvesters and Shepherds and Generals surrounding it had frozen, no longer bothering to attack them. It didn't care. It didn't fear them. It knew they would fear it, and it welcomed that, because it was hungry. And in that sudden moment, Nami knew what it—no, she—really was.

"A nightmare can be anything," Sanji-kun muttered softly from beside her. He, too, was staring up at the enormous, constantly shifting creature, his one visible eye wide, looking utterly dazed. "Everyone fears something different. Everyone dreams of different things, and everyone is visited by a different nightmare in the night..."

"And the strongest one would be anything and everything," Nami concluded, feeling the wave of dread emanating from the creature.

"The Queen of the Night," Chopper whispered, and the three of them stared up at the creature that had single-handedly caused the destruction of Asteria Island—and soon, most likely, the Straw Hat Pirates as well.

Wuh-oh. That's probably not good, amirite?

Please note that from here on out updates might be a little slower (off by a day or so). Don't worry, this fic will be finished; I 100% guarantee it. However I am starting the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge as of November 1st, and will be dedicating most of my writing and editing skills to that, so please be patient! :)

And now I'm off to watch my other favorite singing skeleton, the Pumpkin King Jack Skellington. :D

~VelkynKarma