Nora pursued her sister through the moonlit night. Her whole body begged her to stop, but she forced herself onwards. As the darkness encroached upon her, sharp snarls gnashed at her ears and wispy, shadowy tendrils lapped the air, constricting and suffocating the environment around her. The hiss of a thousand whispering voices droned from the darkness, yet she could not decipher what they were saying. With no link to reality for her to grasp, she had no choice but to pursue the only thing not trying to hurt her, lest she be consumed by the darkness and forced to relive that nightmare over and over again.
"Hazel, wait!" she pleaded, but her sister continued to lead her farther and farther into the depths of the forest.
Was it really a forest anymore? The trees dropped their boughs which rained upon her like spears. From the tops of their bare trunks dark domes grew with a thousand red eyes peering at her from underneath. From the edges of the fleshy domes stretched numerous lance tipped vines, thin as cat's tail, that lashed after her as she raced down the trail. Beneath the surface of the bark, their angry spirits smoldered in red hot cinders.
A scream ahead of her made her blood chill. She skidded to a stop at the sight of her sister swaying in the air. The vines had sewn themselves through her body like needle and thread, leaving her dangling above the blood-bathed path. Two trees fought over the prize, tugging the girl back and forth.
Seething with rage, Nora grabbed Magnhild and fired her grenades at the trees. The assault did no damage, but it did get the entities'' attention. The trees shed their tendrils, dropping Hazel to the ground in a tangled mess, and grew new vines in their place. Nora was their new target.
The vines shot after her, but she met them with her hammer, deflecting their strikes and knocking them back one by one. Lunging at one of the trunks, she heaved her hammer and smashed the trunk to splinters. The abomination fell to the earth, shattering on contact with the ground, and the pieces melted through the fabric of reality and out of existence.
She dodged before another vine could skewer her. Though it missed its first strike, it whipped back at her, wrapped around her body, and lifted her into the air. Where it touched her, hundreds of barbs almost too tiny to see, tore into her skin. Struggling against its hold, she managed to free one of her arms. As she tore off the coils around her, another tendril snared her free arm. She had to find a way to reach Magnhild, which lay on the ground below her.
She pulled back at her arm and bit into the foul vine, ignoring the burning sensation from the barbs and pulling her arm free once more. Then, she grabbed the end of the loose vine and stabbed the one that still held her, making it uncoil and drop her to the ground. She landed on her feet and snatched up Magnhild. Her skin and mouth tingled with a sensation like a burning itch. It was more annoying than painful, so she shrugged it off.
Using her weapon to launch herself at a tree, she started rampaging, smashing through one after another, weaving in and out of their reach and destroying the entities before they could snatch her up again. She used her explosions to keep her momentum going and to make her movements unpredictable.
One by one they fell under her hammer - until she tripped. The culprit was something rigid around her ankle. Something was making the soil ripple beneath her. Before she could push herself off her knees, dozens of roots erupted from the earth and wrapped around her. Each one wrapped around her several times before digging back into the soil, anchoring her in place. Unlike the flexible vines, these were rigid, trapping her in a skin tight cage. She struggled, but was unable to move. Magnhild sat inches in front of her, but it might as well have been miles away.
"Nora!" Hazel, with blood dribbling down her arms, ran to her and pulled at the thick roots to no avail.
"Use my hammer!" Nora said through clenched teeth. She couldn't move her jaw, and could barely see out one eye.
Hazel tried to pick up Magnhild, but it was too heavy for the girl to lift. For the first time, Nora was regretting her weapon choice. She couldn't turn her head to see, but she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.
"Hazel, look out!"
The remaining corrupted trees reached for the two sisters. Nora could only watch as the lances neared her sister, but at the moment of contact, Hazel vanished in a brilliant flash of blinding light.
When Nora's eyes recovered, Hazel was nowhere to be seen. The trees were gone and the darkness swirled around her surroundings in a closed, amorphous structure. Restless as storm chopped waters, it slithered and coiled against itself forming a constantly shifting, impermeable fabric that separated the small bubble of life from the rest of hell.
"Nora!" The voice wasn't Hazel's, but Nora recognized it.
"Ren, help!" Her best friend entered her small field of vision and in another moment was at her side.
"Hold still." Using one of Stormflower's blades, he carefully began to cut away the massive roots, starting with the ones around her head and neck. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Are you alright?"
"Ren, it's happening again. I don't know where I am, and I don't know what's going on." She let out a relieved breath as her jaw was freed. "I tried to find that medicine I gave you. I tore apart the whole room looking for it, but it wasn't there."
"It's okay. As soon as I get you out of this, we'll get help." As he wrestled away the roots obscuring her vision, she saw something she couldn't see before. "Nora, what's wrong?"
"It's him! Ren, it's him, it's that man!" She panicked and struggled as the entity drew near.
"Nora, stop, you're going to hurt yourself." Ren said. "Please, calm down, you know he can't hurt you." Ren was startled by the dark laughter. He turned to see the monster that haunted Nora towering above him.
"I that so?" His dark voice teased. He was three times Ren's height and held a thorny, knotted club.
"That's. . . that's not possible." Ren stammered in disbelief, face to face with the man he'd hoped he'd never see.
"I've been waiting for this, boy. You won't be able to protect her this time." The entity spoke in a deep rumble, grinning at his trapped prey and the boy that had always kept him away.
With Stormflower at the ready, Ren stood to face him. "I've told you before, I won't let you lay a hand on her!"
The entity's grin grew wider, and with a sweep of his club, Ren was sent tumbling across the ground.
Ren rolled onto his feet and ran at the monster, firing his weapons, hoping to isolate a weak spot. Before the club came crashing down, he leapt into the air, flipping over the foe and firing nonstop. When he landed behind his opponent, he slashed at the back of its knee, hoping to sever tendons, but his blades glanced off without so much as a tear left behind.
Another bash of the giant club knocked him back. The entity laughed at him as he struggled to get to his feet and shake off his daze as blood dripped onto the ground. The monster was brutal, and Ren couldn't afford to take any more hits. The last hit left a few deep gashes, and he felt his strength waning with the steady scarlet drizzle. He panted through clenched teeth while he tried to come up with a plan.
"Give up. My pets are hungry, and they don't like waiting." The ever grinning madman gestured to the darkness where red demon eyes were peering through, waiting for the life within to flicker and fade so they could engorge themselves with the fresh kill.
The only escape would be through victory, but Ren was exhausted and injured. Forcing himself through the pain and the weariness, he leapt at his foe, but the blades once again glanced off the monster. He had no time to launch another attack and barely dodged the opponent's swipe. The monster was fast for his size, forcing Ren to stay on the defensive.
Exhaustion burdened Ren's movements. He fired his guns between successful dodges, but it did nothing to slow the entity down. The club was swung at him again. He recoiled Stormflower and met the attack with his aura. The club glanced off the barrier.
Rushing at the entity before it could recover from his last swing, he delivered an aura infused palm thrust to break the being's leg, but the manifestation laughed at his futile attack. Ren rolled to the side and the ground shook as the club smashed behind him. It was swept at him again, and this time he was thrown across the ground like a bloody rag doll.
"This is your fault for intervening." The figure hissed, sadistically grinning at the wounded hunter fighting to get back to his feet. He grabbed Ren by the throat and lifted him in the air.
Ren struggled to remove the fingers wrapped around his neck to no avail.
"Is she that important to you?"
"Leave Nora alone!" Ren choked through the vice.
"What will you do to stop me?" the giant taunted, then slammed Ren into the ground. "You're in my world this time, and here we play by my rules."
Ren lay on his back where he landed, gasping for breath as bloody billows bathed the ground beneath him.
"Leave him alone!" Nora yelled. "He's not the one you want!" She couldn't sit back and watch anymore, but she couldn't break free. Seething at the monster, she jerked against the roots, this time not out of desperation, but of anger. The roots started losing their hold in the dirt and started to rip, though they still refused to break.
His toxic laugh infuriated her. "Does this feel familiar to you? Nothing has changed. You couldn't help your sister, and now you can't help your friends." He lumbered towards her. "Do you see now how worthless you are? Everyone you've ever loved will perish because you're not good enough."
"Get away from her!" Ren growled between labored breaths. He managed to roll over onto his stomach and was trying to push himself up, though he was having difficulty getting his body to comply. Once back on shaky feet, he ran towards Nora, hoping the momentum would keep him upright as he grit his teeth through the dizzying pain.
His advance was halted when he was crushed back into the ground under the weight of the being's massive club, his ribs cracking from the impact. The club was lifted off of him and the entity laughed.
"It's over, boy. You've got nothing left."
From the fabric of the darkness surrounding them, a set of massive jaws bared themselves. They opened, and beyond them lurked a vast abyss – the nothingness of the Void. From the lips of the Void's maw, a spindly arm tipped with a single hooked talon reached out and stabbed Ren in the back. Three more arms shot after him and hooked into him. They slowly dragged the struggling warrior towards the hungry jaws of nonexistence.
"No!" Ren growled as scrambled to pull himself free. He armed Stormflower once more, and slashed through the arms. The decapitated fingers remained embedded in his back, but the arms retreated with a woeful shrieking noise. Too weak to try to get up, Ren lay limp on the ground while he caught his breath.
"Ren! Look out!" Nora yelled, but her warning came too late.
New arms replaced the damages ones and reached after him before he could get away. For every foul limb he decapitated with his blades, two more took its place, and his projectiles did nothing but ricochet off them. Changing plans, he dug his blades into the ground and used them to anchor himself in place. More arms embedded themselves in his body. Blood oozed out of the wounds as the claws tugged at his sinews. He was overpowered, and the blades snapped. Desperately he clawed at the ground.
"No! Nora!" he cried as he was being pulled away.
"Ren!" Horrified and helpless, she watched him struggle through the fatal game of tug-of-war. She tried to push herself off her knees and managed to work one foot underneath her. She forced herself to her feet and took a step forward, straining against the roots' hold. Her progress was too slow; she wouldn't make it to him in time.
More arms skewered him, several digging deep enough to hook underneath his bones. Others didn't find a solid hold and left deep gashes where they raked through his flesh. He fought against them with all his remaining strength, wearing his fingertips down to bloody shreds and ripping his fingernails away, but there were a few dozen talons embedded in his body. It was hopeless.
The monstrous manifestation roared in laughter, relishing the boy's final moments. "Don't be so scared. She'll be joining you soon. I'll make sure of it, and you'll be there to help me."
"Nora!" Ren fought to the last moment. As he was pulled through the jaws, his being unraveled into a fine pink dust. His remnants were sucked into the Void, and the jaws snapped shut.
"Ren!" Nora screamed, but she was drowned out by the entity's sadistic laughter.
Gathering all her strength, she threw herself forward, pulling more roots from the soil as they tried to hold her back. The small advance was all she needed to reach her weapon. Her hands were still buried under the coils, so she improvised. Dragging Magnhild towards her with her heel, she rolled it so the hammer head faced the ground directly beneath her. She placed one foot on the handle near the head and used her other to find the trigger.
The explosion rang in her ears, yet she saw no evidence of the blast beyond the initial blinding light. The roots she was trapped in were gone, and the moon and stars shone above her, unobstructed by the darkness surrounding her moments ago. She sat up from where she lay in the dew soaked grass and scanned her surroundings.
A thick fog had settled in, and daylight still seemed far away. Hidden in the fog, the shadows hissed, only revealing their coils where the fog thinned. She heard the sound of light footsteps disturbing the ground. A familiar figure approached her from out of the fog.
"Ren!" 'Oh thank goodness, it was just a dream.' she thought, relief washing over her. She ran to meet her friend, but a sudden sense of dread in the pit of her stomach made her freeze in her tracks. The hair on the back of her neck bristled and her heart raced. Something wasn't right. His movements were jerky and unnatural, and his eyes were glossed over.
"Nora," Ren said in cold monotony, "Just relax. This will be over quickly."
"Ren, what's going on? What happened to you?" A dark figure materialized behind Ren, looming over the boy. His giant hands were outstretched and shadowy strings ran from his fingertips and ensnared her best friend at his joints.
"He's mine now, Nora." The figure taunted. "What's left of him."
"What did you do to him?" She yelled, fuming for what he had done to Ren in her nightmare. Perhaps it was more than a bad dream after all.
Dark, guttural laughter shook her eardrums. "You know what I did. You were there. You saw it with your own eyes. It's time for you to join him." The man's fingers pulled at the strings, manipulating the cadaveric marionette. The corpse's posture shifted into a battle stance as the shadows grew out of their foggy cover and obscured the puppeteer and the rest of the forest from sight.
Nora ignored Ren and fixed her angry stare on the undulating shadows behind him. She gnashed her teeth and breathed in forced huffs. As soon as he'd show himself, she'd kill him, even if it meant she had to drag him to the Void with her. Nothing else mattered anymore.
She reached for Magnhild, but her weapon was gone. A flash of blue rushed at her from the foggy darkness; Nora barely dodged it before the ground froze where she had just stood. Ren, Ruby, and Jaune, each reduced to a lifeless puppet, charged her from separate directions.
She bashed Ruby with her shoulder, knocking the smaller girl away. Jaune attempted to rush her with his shield. She stopped him with one well aimed punch striking mid shield, and a left hook knocked the shield away. Grabbing Jaune by the arm, she swung him like a club into Ren, who had tried to sneak in behind her. The two boys smacked hard against each other and fell to the ground.
Someone struck her shoulder. Blake was moving so fast, she could barely see the faunus. She swung madly at the agile corpse, but she was too slow to land a single blow. Blake jumped back in a blur as another wave of ice rushed in, this time ensnaring Nora's feet. From behind, she felt the faster girl's arms slip under hers and lock hands behind her neck. The aggressive hold twisted her shoulders back and prevented her from using her arms.
Nora looked around, gritting her teeth. Blake's skin felt cold and leathery. She saw Him grinning from the shadows, watching her being forced to fight her friends for her life. Weiss, Pyrrha and Yang stepped out of their foggy cover, Jaune was trying to help Ren to his feet, and Ruby pushed herself up off the ground. Pyrrha was holding Magnhild at her side.
Their eyes all fell on her, yet the lifeless gazes lacked focus and emotion. She trembled, fearing what they had become. Her friends were gone; their only remaining purpose was to aid in her destruction.
Shadowy snares slithered towards her, threatening to make her part of His army. Nora thrashed, breaking through Blake's hold. Reaching behind her, she grabbed the faunus, and with Herculean strength, she whipped the girl up and over her head, smashing her victim through the ice to free her feet.
Yang rushed at Nora, hitting her in the gut with a fiery punch, and knocking her back and onto the ground where Ren jumped on her before she could get back to her feet. Rolling her onto her stomach, he grabbed her arms and twisted them behind her back. The snares encroached on her once again. She couldn't let them reach her.
She struggled, but couldn't get any leverage to throw Ren off. "Relax and come with us. Everything will be all right."
"Liar!" She roared through clenched teeth, glaring over her shoulder at him. "You're dead! You're not real!"
But her attention was snatched away by menacing roars and bloodthirsty snarls as they erupted from the cold silence. Nora looked over to where the Weiss and Pyrrha stood, fighting off a horde of demons as they lurched forth from the shadows. The skeletal hellhounds set upon the battlefield, dead flesh clinging to their bones like putrid ooze. They had waited long enough to reap their spoils.
One of the creatures lunged at the trio, knocking Ren off of Nora. She took the chance to get away from Ren and Yang. More beasts were unleashed from the shadows that had overtaken the foggy forest. There were at least a dozen creatures separating her from Magnhild. Pyrrha and Weiss struggled against several opponents, trying to protect Blake's body that lay motionless on the ground. Ruby and Jaune were cornered, and Ren and Yang scrambled to fight off the hungry scavengers.
A chill crawled down her spine when her eyes found him, still manipulating her friends from the shadows. He enjoyed making them seem as if they still had lives to fight for, all to torment her further. Without her weapon, there was little she could do for them but watch, and he knew it. Seeing no other option, she ran away as fast as her feet would carry her, hearing the creatures pursue, grunting in excitement.
She tried to lose them in the thick forest, but they kept at her heels, showing no sign of giving up their hunt. They chased her into a clearing, where other monsters were waylaid. She doubted she could survive another fight without Magnhild, but what choice did she have? Running was no longer an option. She prepared for her last fight.
The first demon to lunge at her crunched under her fist. Another leaped at her and yelped as she smashed its rotting jaw and tore it out of its skull. Filthy talons raked across her back, but she clenched her jaw and shrugged off the pain, only for another swipe knocked her to the ground.
Rolling away as a fetid paw came crashing down where she had been, she grabbed the limb that nearly killed her and thrust her boot into the creature's elbow, snapping the limb in half at the joint. Then, she flung her left fist into the skull of the creature, shattering the bones underneath, sacrificing the integrity of the bones in her own hand.
She was knocked off her feet again as another creature leaped on her, pinning her under its weight. Its teeth sank into the flesh on her left arm, and, with a jerk of its head, her arm snapped. She screamed in excruciating pain, fighting to push it off.
Fighting to gain leverage, she jabbed her fingers in its rotting eye and partially ripped it out. Opening its mouth in a blood curdling yowl, it released her mangled arm, and she seized the instant of opportunity to swipe her fist at it from the side, snapping its neck. Its limp form collapsed on top of her.
Another beast grabbed her right ankle with its jaws and dragged her out from under her last kill. With a mighty thrash, it threw her into the air. She smashed into the trunk of a tree, her ribs crunching under the force of the impact. Unable to find the strength to catch herself, she flopped to the ground.
Lightheaded from loss of blood and gasping for breath, she looked up at the remaining three creatures closing in on her with frothy spittle hanging from their jaws. The taste of iron nauseating her, she spat out the foul mouthful of blood. Using the tree for support, she got back up for her final stand.
'So this is how it ends.' She thought as hopeless tears stung her eyes. She had nothing left. The darkness pursued her wherever she went, consuming everything that once brought her joy. It permeated her dreams. It broke her body, crushed her spirit, and devoured her friends. Even Ren, who had promised to always be there for her, was gone. Cradling her dangling arm in her good one, she prepared to be sent back to the Void in shreds.
With a brilliant flash of green, numerous projectiles ripped through one of the festering demons. Ren jumped at the beast he had injured, slicing its head off with Stormflower. Their attention stolen away from her, the monsters engaged their new prey. In desperation, she ran from the battle, fueled by her last bit of adrenaline.
She didn't care which direction she was headed, she only tried to put as much distance between her and her foes as possible before the pain crippled her completely. At the very least, she could hope to bleed to death in peace. In the end, she couldn't help herself, nor could she save her friends. They all got dragged into this mess because of her. Maybe she really was worthless. Maybe she really was nothing but a burden and a nuisance. Maybe she was better off –
"Nora." She stumbled and fell onto the ground. Feebly, she rolled over onto her back and watched the dark, looming figure approach her.
"It's over, Nora." He tormented, relishing his victory.
She lay still on the cold ground. Why wasn't she trying to get up? Something inside wouldn't let her.
"Mommy and Daddy aren't here to save you." He closed the distance between them with each thump of his boots.
It wasn't the fear holding her back. It wasn't the pain or the exhaustion.
"Your friends failed you." He said, now towering over her.
Deep down, she knew the answer.
"You're all alone." He reached towards her.
She had given up.
"And at last, you're mine." His fingers clasped her throat. She didn't fight back. Life had become more terrifying than death, so she welcomed it, finding comfort in her last moments. Her vision blurred, and at long last, the world, and all of her pain with it, faded away.