My Death Battle Attempts

by LittleZbot

In which I take two fictional characters and pit them against each other in a duel to the death. Rules in the first chapter. NEXT EPISODE: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender) VS Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson & the Olympians)

18. Alphonse VS Nightmare

Episode 16: Alphonse (Fullmetal Alchemist) vs. Nightmare (Soulcalibur)

A man's soul is his greatest possession. Regardless of what happens to his status, his body, or his mind, as long as he keeps his soul, he remains the same man. Even when the thing with the soul isn't a man at all, but instead a hollow suit of armor. Alphonse, the Armored Alchemist, and Nightmare, the Azure Knight of Darkness.

Note that nothing from the sixth Fullmetal Alchemist light novel will be accounted for in this battle, nor will the games "Sonata of Memories" or "Daughter of the Dusk." The reason for these exclusions are the simple fact that none have an English translation, fan-made or otherwise, making me incapable of understanding them. For the same reason, the novelization of "The Broken Angel" will not be accounted for, but the video game (which is translated) will. All else will also be accounted for, including the 2003 non-canon anime, the first five light novels, the collectible cards, the Profiles books, both movies, and the remaining ten games. Dream Carnival and To The Promised Day not having a translation isn't as big of a deal, since they're almost totally gameplay-focused. All in line with my typical "way overboard" fashion. Original Manga takes precedence, obviously. And while we'll be using the original canon version of Nightmare, I will take into account all noteworthy attributes of the new timeline's version, especially since it seems to be basically the same Nightmare with the same powers.

I'm LittleZbot, and it's my hobby to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle.

Alphonse:

Alchemy. The long-forgotten science of transforming one material into another by manipulating their base components. Even in a world where such a thing is possible, the only ones capable of pulling it off would have to be determined, brave, exceedingly knowledgeable, and naturally talented to an incredible level. And even then, alchemy always comes with a curse. For the power you gain, something else must go. That is the law of alchemy. And that is exactly the case for Alphonse Elric.

Edward and Alphonse Elric were the sons of Van Hohenheim, the most powerful alchemist in the known world. Natural inheritors of his talent and vigor, both sons were quick to pick up the basics of the skill, and with a natural ability beyond nearly anybody else, were able to train themselves and learn everything there was to know about it. Unbeknownst to them, however, Hohenheim was actually a centuries-old pantheon of captured souls who spent his days wandering the planet, working to stop an ancient demon from absorbing the powers of God. Yup. So, needless to say, he didn't have much time for his kids. But that's okay, because they had the world's most wonderful mom! She looked after them constantly, made them the best meals, settled their disagreements, encouraged their hobbies, and…yeah, she's dead. Completely, utterly, dead.

Scarred and left alone with a dead mother and a father that had seemingly abandoned them at the young age of four, Alphonse and his brother were taken in by a family friend and made a secret pact: they would study hard and learn the secrets of human transmutation, a form of alchemy that, according to legend, could raise the dead. And...they did. But things didn't exactly work out as they had hoped. The transmutation backfired, and ended up stripping Alphonse of his entire physical body and Edward of one of his legs. In a desperate, last-hope move, Edward used his own blood to alchemically bond Alphonse's soul to a suit of armor that was laying around, giving up one of his arms to do so. It worked, but neither of the brothers would ever be the same.

Unfortunately, attempting human transmutation is one of the cardinal sins of alchemy, so when the country sent a state alchemist (basically a highly-skilled alchemist who works for the military) to investigate the brothers' skill, they should have been taken away immediately. However, upon seeing everything that happened, the man they sent, Roy Mustang, decided not to report them, and instead recommended that the older brother, Edward, apply for the position of a state alchemist due to his skill and gumption. Right then and there, the two brothers made one more pact – that they would become great alchemists and explore the country in search of a legendary item that could restore their original bodies: the Philosopher's Stone. And so, after Ed got a few mechanical limbs, they trained, worked hard, and banded together, an inseparable duo who would take on the entire world in search of the object they wanted most.

And with their alchemic abilities, they could handle anything thrown their way.

Okay, let's talk about alchemy. This is probably one of the most intricate and complicated forms of fictional magic in manga history, so let's stick to the basics. Alchemy is the art of transmutation – converting one material into another by reconstructing its base components. Alchemists utilize the vibrational energies released by the movement of the planet's crust to deconstruct, alter, and reconstruct matter. They harness this energy through use of a renseijin, or transmutation circle, a drawing etched into the material that guides the flow of energy, instructing it on where to take hold and what to do. Every action requires a different renseijin, and to be able to make them requires unbelievable knowledge in chemistry, biology, and mathematics.

By understanding the base components of a material and how to reconstruct them, it's easy for a skilled alchemist to, say, make a spear out of a concrete floor, turn water into ice, or turn coal into diamonds. However, it's not a perfect system. Alchemy still obeys the scientific laws, particularly the Law of Conservation of Mass (which basically says that matter can't be created or destroyed, so all materials and matter used in alchemy must come from somewhere, be accounted for, and be repurposed) and the Law of Natural Providence (which basically says that the base components of transmuted matter cannot change, so while an alchemist could turn sandstone into marble, since they have the same base components, they couldn't turn sandstone into steel, since they don't). The biggest rule of all is the Law of Equivalent Exchange, which states that, for everything given, something of equal value must be lost. If you form a spear from a concrete floor, that floor loses mass equal to that of the spear. When an alchemist attempts to circumvent these rules, what's known as a "rebound" occurs. When this happens, the alchemical energies are sent into flux, and can horribly damage the user. This is what happened to Edward and Alphonse when they attempted human transmutation. Since there was no offered equivalent that could match a human soul, their bodies were torn and changed irrevocably.

But it wasn't all bad. This particular rebound opened up a spiritual alchemic gateway, known as the Portal of Truth, which dragged in the souls of both brothers. After entering the portal and seeing inside the basis of all alchemy, they became "enlightened" and were able to transmute without a renseijin. So while a normal alchemist would need to draw an intricate series of symbols on the ground and charge it with life energy to turn the floor into a spear, Alphonse can just clap his hands and one forms instantly! With power now limited only by their creativity and knowledge (and extensive training in Muay Thai, Boxing, Judo, Jujutsu, Karate, and how to wield basically any melee weapon imaginable) the two brothers began their search, and have had a lot of…strange adventures. Like when they fought a giant missile-launching crab mech suit named, and I quote, "Mega Super Ultra Cancer Last Final End Third Generation." Or when they defeated their evil clones, which were actually living dolls created by an alchemist who could bring homemade dolls to life. Or when they helped kill an immortal witch who wanted to destroy the world by summoning thousands of angels to literally eat all humans. And they did it by throwing grenades in her mouth. Bet you wish they showed you that in the anime, huh?

But Al's more than equipped to take them all on. While most alchemists only deeply study and utilize one form of alchemy, or, rarely, two, Ed and Al's natural skill (and their little visit to see the truth of all alchemy) means that Al is skilled in no less than twelve different alchemical styles! These include material alchemy (transforming basic materials like steel, concrete, and elements of the periodic table), liquid alchemy (transforming various liquids by utilizing their unique compositions), growth alchemy (making plants grow and controlling them remotely), gaseous alchemy (separating and rearranging gasses), and wind alchemy (forcing any air he chooses to separate rapidly, creating a sudden explosion of force, even inside another being). He can counter and cancel out certain other types of alchemy, enhance his own physical body, and heal others' wounds. And, after battles with a terrorist named Scar, Al also figured out how to use Destruction Alchemy, one of the most dangerous forms of the art. Remember how all alchemy is the process of deconstruction, alteration, and reconstruction? Well, with Destruction Alchemy, Al just stops at the deconstruction phase. So, as long as he knows what material the object he wants to destroy is, he can just clap his hands, put them on said object, and obliterate it completely! However, my favorite alchemical form he uses is a sort of telekinetic alchemy. It's never officially named, but I'll call it Flow Alchemy because of the names of certain RPG moves that use it. By using Flow Alchemy, Ed and Al can telekinetically control alchemical structures! Yes, really. Trust me; this is, like, one of the main things they do in the games. Ed can throw a spear and make it ram through his foe several times on its own, and Al can make the projectiles he shoots out of a crossbow home in on enemies.

For all of these, he uses an encompassing alchemy style known as "True Alchemy." There are a few encompassing styles out there, with each allowing their users to perform alchemy in a totally different way with totally different rules: Alkhestry, Velzanian Alchemy, Soul Alchemy, and the like. Al primarily uses True Alchemy, the version he gained from seeing the Truth, which is what allows him to use alchemy without a renseijin and perform crazy alchemical feats at no cost to his stamina and energy. However, both he and Ed have also shown knowledge in the encompassing style of Soul Alchemy, and, using that knowledge, Ed was able to tap into his own soul for some emergency healing and, far more importantly, the ability to attack his enemies on a spiritual plane. No, I'm not kidding. Alphonse has even been taught a little of the basics of Alkhestry, as in the manga he was able to use it to change some basic materials from a distance. But 99% of the time, True Alchemy is that way to go.

And with True Alchemy, Al's pulled off some crazy feats. He's transmuted a giant bomb from a pile of sand, formed a gatling gun out of a rock, and created a wall that was able to block Roy Mustang's alchemical fire - fire so hot, it can melt iron! While the melting point of concrete is well above that of iron, concrete is embedded with thousands of small air and water pockets, ensuring that if fire that hot were to come near it, it would instantly either fall apart or explode. To remove that factor, Al had to have altered the structure of concrete on a molecular level! He's turned handcarts into javelins, transformed a flag into a hang glider, made a turret gun out of propane tanks, transmuted land mines out of a city street, and he can turn a bunch of rubble into a stone horse – that then rushes at opponents and explodes in their face. Basically, so long as he has the materials on hand, Al can construct nearly anything he can think of with nothing but a clap and a touch. Heck, according to Ed's mental imagery, Alphonse is even better at alchemy than he is. And Ed is good enough to transmute grass into bread, dust into lasers (again, not joking), and a lamppost into a military tank!

Actually, Al is better than Ed when it comes to most things. Ed's even admitted as much himself – Al is far stronger and tougher than Ed, and apparently somewhat faster, too, as well as being a better alchemist. In fact, Ed has stated that the two spar nearly every day, and Ed has never bested his younger brother. Well, Al did lose once, but only because he was holding back so as not to reopen Ed's recent wounds. With hundreds of wins against his older brother under his belt, I feel it's safe to say that anything Ed can do in terms of physical ability and alchemic prowess, Al can probably do as well. And that opens up an entirely new world of feats.

With this new information, here are just some of the things Al can almost certainly do: He can form 100 Ton weights above foes' heads, use the water molecules in the air to form a wave of water, slam enemies with walls from underneath that attack with alchemical hands and then explode, form cannons that are dozens of feet high and fire actual cannonballs, change mechanical arms into a far weaker substance, turn dynamite to ammonia, turn stone and paper to flowers (somehow), and even construct entirely new houses. Ed's even reconstructed an entire street, including the houses – all with one transmutation! And with their powers combined, their alchemy is truly something to behold. Working together, they were able to alchemically create a barrier that protected them from a massive explosion by High Priest Zelgius. This explosion coated several streets and shook the earth all around the city. Taking all this into account, that explosion would have been worth more than 4 Kilotons of TNT!

However, it should be noted that a major reason their barrier endured with no problems is because both were specifically protected by the type of alchemy used (Velzanian Alchemy) through use of a holy symbol. This symbol, bestowed on both Ed and Al by an alchemist named Sophie, counterattacks pieces of that alchemy just by being around it. Still, this symbol is pretty darn handy. See, the way Velzanian Alchemy works is by eating away at the user's soul to provide extremely deadly alchemic techniques powered exclusively by the soul. This can be exceptionally dangerous to use, but produces more powerful alchemy than any other known style. So, by wearing this symbol, Al is made more resistant to any attack powered by souls. However, he must be careful; this symbol is powered by Sophie's own soul, and if overextended, her soul will evaporate, she will die, and the symbol will vanish. But, considering she's actually a vessel for a reincarnating god (plot twist, I guess), that's unlikely to happen. Al also wields the Galaxy Medal, a charm that boosts his physical abilities by 20%, and, after picking up a certain cat (don't ask, even I don't fully understand), he gained the ability to enter a beserker rage. This rage makes him significantly stronger at the cost of a complete inability to think straight or use any form of tactics. It's obviously not something he'll use often, but in the right situations, it can be a powerful tool.

But not using it is fine, because, even without taking alchemy into account, Al is shockingly powerful, with his physical abilities being incredibly impressive. He's strong enough to lift a massive bronze bell and turn it into a loudspeaker. Considering this bell's size, according to the Troy Bell Foundry, it'd weigh around 2200 pounds! Oh, but that's nothing. He's snapped an iron-slicing cleaver just by flexing, stopped a bullet mid-fire by pinching the barrel of the firing gun, one-punch-killed a chimera (a living creature made with alchemy) that could endure multiple rounds of gunfire, and resisted the strength of the homunculus (a human made with alchemy) Envy's monster form, which, measuring directly from Ed's height, weighs nearly 1470 Tons! His strength is also superior to Ed's, who can smash metal, hit a giant bird into the air, and punch a guy through a train car! He's also shown to have superior strength to another well-known alchemist: Alex Louise Armstrong. In various video games, Al is able to take out Armstrong on his own, and Armstrong exactly matched strength with the cow-human chimera Roa, and Alphonse was directly seen to be stronger than Roa. And Armstrong can smash through concrete like it's thin air, and was able to damage the homunculus Sloth with his pure strength, and Sloth could take a missile and a point-blank shot from a tank without being hurt, meaning that Armstrong, and therefore Al, are even stronger than that! That's right – Al's punch is more powerful than a shot from a tank! Speaking of which, Al and Ed once worked together to kick Sloth off of a balcony. Previously, Sloth had resisted the power of three tanks ramming him at once! The amount of impact force exerted by a 70 ton tank crashing into something at 45 mph (the normal full speed of a military tank) is about 359 Tons, and Ed and Al's combined strength outmatches the power of three together. That's more than 1077 Tons of Force!

His speed is also really impressive. He's dodged bullets plenty of times, but better yet, he ran and managed to protect a civilian from every bullet of gatling gun after it had started firing! He's faster than Ed, even managing to get in front of him to block one of his kicks, although he was already several feet behind him. And Ed once dodged a bullet from only four inches away! He and Ed have also kept up with and even surpassed dudes who have moved faster than the eye can track, including Scar, Ling, Aston Martins, and, in one video game, even Fuhrer King Bradley. Most impressive of all was when Al managed to catch Lust's Ultimate Spears when she was trying to kill Lieutenant Hawkeye. These spears are ridiculously fast – so fast, they're invisible to the eyes of Barry the Chopper, another soul-bound suit of armor, and Barry could keep up with his former body, which can dodge point-blank bullets! Now, to be fair, Alphonse did struggle to react to them, but he did manage it.

However, Al's best physical attribute is, naturally, his armored body. Al's metal armor was originally created by Van Hohenheim, the greatest alchemist to ever live, and has been reinforced by both Ed and Al's own alchemic abilities, making it much, much tougher than it reasonably should be. The helmet, just the helmet, was once caught in a massive explosion in the sewers that was more than twice as big as Envy's monster form, making it worth over 120 Tons of TNT! Do you think the helmet was damaged? Nope. It literally took being in the center of that explosion and didn't have so much as a scuff mark! This armor is so tough, it actually survived a blast of Destruction Alchemy! I mean, it was falling apart a bit afterward, but it should have been completely obliterated! The armor has taken hits from blades that slice through steel and iron and just…bounced them back. It also was hit by a bunch of icicles made by a guy who's some sort of weird cross between Criss Angel and Amai Mask, and they just shattered against it. These same icicles later went through steel-lined barrels like they were thin air! And then there was his most impressive durability feat yet. Remember that demon who wanted the powers of God I was talking about at the beginning of this? Well, long story short, he got them, lost them somewhat, and sent them into flux. In a major battle against all the heroes, he let loose a massive explosion that coated the whole area and should have killed everyone there, but they were shielded by Hohenheim and Alphonse, who both took the brunt of the blast for themselves. According to the official Death Battle, this blast held a yield of 30.5 Kilotons of TNT! That's more than twice the power of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima! Now, it did totally tear Al to pieces, but he survived it.

But that's fine. Don't forget, Al's entire body is nothing but a suit of metal armor. He feels no pain, no hunger, no exhaustion, no heat or cold, and can't be sensed by searching for souls or chi. Best of all, he can repair any damage dealt with just a clap of alchemy! Though it should be mentioned that the more his body is repaired, the weaker it becomes, as more metal is being thinned to fill out the missing parts. There's also the matter of his blood seal – located on the inside of the back of the neck of his armor. This is what ties his soul to the armor. If it's destroyed, he will die. This is dangerous because, while his armor is super tough, it has been pierced before by the likes of the Ultimate Spear, Pride's Tendrils, Ling's Dao Sword, and King Bradley's blades (all of which, to be fair, are among the best weapons in the land). Also, certain foes are able to take control of Al's soul by controlling his Blood Seal, since it gives an easy link back to his spirit. Oh, yeah, and then there's the minor fact that his body and soul aren't made for each other, and, as a result, it's entirely possible for the armor to randomly straight-up reject the soul at any point. Worst of all, Alphonse requires two hands to perform alchemy. Take off one hand, and almost his full arsenal is gone.

Well, not really. Al does have one more trick up his sleeve for fighting against really dangerous foes.

Remember how Ed and Al set off on this whole journey to find the Philosopher's Stone? Good news: they found a lot of them, and even figured out how to make them. Bad news: Philosopher's Stones are actually just a physical container for the energy of a human soul. To make one requires it to be fed multiple human sacrifices. So, yeah, no way they were going to use those. However, Al actually changed his mind later on for one specific purpose: when he was alone and outmatched, with multiple limbs missing, against Pride and Kimblee (two exceptionally deadly foes), he decided that the souls inside a Philosopher's Stone may be living yet, but they, too, wanted to fight for what was theirs. So long as it was for the greater good, Alphonse determined he could wield the stone.

And wield he did.

A Philosopher's Stone is an incredibly powerful tool. It's basically a battery that can convert the energy it contains (souls) to alchemical power. While using one, an alchemist's abilities improve dramatically, and they can ignore the law of equivalent exchange! Well, not really, you're just using souls as the ingredients for alchemy rather than anything else, but still, this opens up so many opportunities. Want a new arm? Boom. It's back, and better than ever. Want to make a flying golden bomb? Sure, why not? Want to make a giant lance, and then have a spike pop out of it and extend several feet to stab a guy? Child's play. Want to just DESTROY EVERYTHING? Oh, it can do that. It certainly can. The stone that Al uses is the same one that was previously wielded by Kimblee during the Ishvalan Civil War, where it demolished huge sections of the cities with ease. Kimblee was planning on using it to annihilate a mountainous village, and had previously used it to make a massive explosion worth over 150 Kilotons of TNT! The stone does have a limit, though – after all, batteries don't last forever. If Al uses all the souls inside the stone, it will cease working and fade into dust. Still, with the stone in hand, Al defeated the two quite handily. Well, until Kimblee revealed he had another Philosopher's Stone, and did the whole reverse uno card thing, but that's beside the point.

Still, his most impressive feat when all is said and done is actually what he did for his brother. During the final battle against the demon called Father, Alphonse finally used Soul Alchemy with the help of a nearby alchemist, and managed to reverse the trade Edward had made so many years ago, sacrificing his soul to give Ed his right arm back. This saved Ed's life, and, in the end, it saved the planet. At the cost of a single man.

Not that Ed would let him get away with that, of course. He opened the Portal of Truth again, and managed to not only reclaim Al's soul, but his former human body, too. It took years of hard work, desperation, and great struggle, but the two finally accomplished what they had set out to do.

Armored or not, there are few villains who would dare oppose the most powerful teenage alchemist in the land.

Lust looks down at a kneeling, sobbing Hawkeye. "You humans are such sad, weak, foolish creatures." She extends her fingers to form the Ultimate Spear, and steps forward.

As she does, she's stopped when Alphonse steps in between her and Hawkeye.

"Get up, Lieutenant," he orders Hawkeye. "You have to get out of here."

Lust scoffs at him. "Foolish boy. Do you want to die first?"

Al doesn't reply. Instead, he calmly claps his hands, and as a spear forms out of the ground, he picks it up and points it directly at Lust.

"So," Lust hums, "you opened the portal." She slices ahead, tearing apart the spear. "What a shame. I have to waste a perfectly good human sacrifice." She launches another slicing attack, but, to her surprise, Alphonse catches her spears in mid-air. She extends them anyway, piercing his armor body.

"Don't just sit there, Lieutenant!" Al shouts. "Run!"

Lust readies her other hand to strike past Al and kill Hawkeye. "Stay out of my way, boy. This woman wants to die!" She throws her spears forward.

Al stretches his arm out just in time to catch them in his plating. Again, he doesn't address Lust, but instead the Lieutenant. "I won't let you!"

Hawkeye finally speaks. "Leave me, Alphonse," she commands in a defeated voice. "Save yourself."

"No!"

Now she shouts. "I said, leave me! Just get out of here!"

"NO!" Alphonse shoves the spears back. "I WON'T! I'm sick of watching people die because of my weaknesses! I won't let another person I care about be killed – not if there's anything I can do to protect them!"

Lust grimaces and swings up, forcibly tearing her spears out, and taking Alphonse's jaw and shoulder with them.

He stands, ready and unmoving.

Alphonse:

Name: Alphonse Elric

Species: Spirit

Height: 7'6"/229 cm

Weight: Around 120 lb/54 kg

Age: 15

Occupation: Alchemist

Alchemist Title: Armored

According to the card game, has a +2 against villains!

Various canons contest what his armor is made of – some say bronze, some say iron or steel

Commonly rescues stray cats and hides them in his armor

Has a strange penchant for falling for princesses

Abilities:

Genius-Level Intelligence

Super Speed

Enhanced Senses

Infinite Stamina

Martial Arts

~Boxing

~Karate

~Muay Thai

~Judo

~Weapons Specialization (Swords, Spears, basically anything that's not a gun)

True Alchemy

~Material Alchemy

~Gaseous Alchemy

~Wind Alchemy

~Liquid Alchemy

~Blood Alchemy

~Healing Alchemy

~Machine Alchemy

~Growth Alchemy

~Flow Alchemy

~Human Alchemy

~Enhancement Alchemy

~Destruction Alchemy

Soul Alchemy

Alkhestry

Can Counter Other Alchemists

Arsenal:

Armor Body

~Natural Super Strength

~Alchemically Enhanced Durability

~Created by Van Hohenheim

~Blood Seal

~Invulnerability to cold, heat, and energy/soul sensing

Holy Symbol

~Counters Velzanian Alchemy

~Attached to Sophie's life force

Galaxy Medal

~20% increase to all stats

Ryuke

~60% increase in strength, makes Al insane & uncontrollable

Philosopher's Stone

~Dramatically enhances alchemy

~Feeds off souls, so can ignore the law of equivalent exchange for a time

~Feeds off souls to use alchemy, so can "replace" any material, allowing for all alchemy

Feats:

Defeated dozens of other Alchemists

Defeated dozens of soldiers & terrorists without using alchemy

Defeated Fu

Defeated Barry the Chopper

Defeated Kimblee

Entered an alternate dimension w/ alchemy

Figured out who the big bad behind a bunch of kidnappings and terrorist attacks was just by hearing about a random guy who a gave a little girl an art book

Transmuted wall that blocked Roy's flames

W/ Ed, transmuted wall that blocked Zelgius' flames

One punch killed a regenerating chimera

Used a giant lance that would weigh over 600 lb like a toothpick

Was on top of a crashing train, was fine

Formed giant building pillar w/ alchemy (weighing approx. 9820 lb), and swung it around fast enough to form a miniature tornado

Body tanked acid bubbles with no effect

Carried enough wood to build an entire bridge and doesn't slow down

Defeated Genz, even after his soul is transferred into a body completely made of automail

Tanked a bunch of ice shards, they just bounce off his armor

Shot the 3500 MPH Janice out of the air

Tanked missiles and grenades from a crab mech suit

Endured being shot with laser rifles

Ed & Al together were able to equal King Bradley, though they still can't totally beat him

Punched through solid sandstone blocks

Ed & Al defeated one phase of Velza

Took minigun rounds to the back without a scratch

Stopped a bullet mid-fire by pinching the barrel of the gun

Lifted a four-foot bronze bell effortlessly

Grabbed Ed's automail arm and held it back with one hand

Survived Destruction Alkhestry

Snapped Barry's cleaver in half just by flexing

Survived for a whole month on a deserted island – when he was nine

Roy stated that he had no doubt Al could become a State Alchemist at 10

Stronger than the Roa, who matched Major Armstrong in strength

Reacted to and caught Ultimate Spears

Armor also stopped the spears inside it, the spears could slice right through iron and steel as if they were butter

Managed to get up somewhat while Envy is pushing him down

Took down Gluttony with one kick

Helmet endured a 120 Ton explosion

Threw his head at Buccaneer's automail bonesaw arm, perfectly aimed for the plume to tie itself around the blade, and apparently the sheer impact damaged the arm

Al and Ed simultaneously sent Sloth over the edge of a balcony with a kick

Deciphered the true secret of Scar's Brother's research notes in mere minutes when it took everyone else days, he didn't even have to see the notes to figure it out

Captured & defeated Pride (w/ Philosopher's Stone)

Shielded others from a giant alchemical blast from Father with his body

Weaknesses:

Relatively naïve

Alchemy w/o Philospher's Stone must adhere to the scientific laws

Holy Symbol will run out of power eventually if it completely uses up Sophie's soul

If an arm is removed, cannot perform alchemy

If blood seal is broken/wiped off, his soul will fall apart

Bond to armor is not perfect; eventually, it will reject him

Magnets

Not immune to electrical attacks, and attracts them thanks to metal body

Soul can be superimposed over by soul-based attacks

…

Nightmare:

Transcending history and the world, a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold...this is the story of Soul Calibur, a holy blade made to defeat evil, and the story of Soul Edge, the evil the holy blade was made to defeat. And it's also the story of Soulcalibur, the series, because why have a normal name when you can just name your whole series after an important weapon and remove the space between two words for no reason. Regardless, these two blades were made to clash, and clash they did, over and over again. And though Soul Calibur has had many bearers over its years, there was only one true bearer for Soul Edge: The azure knight of darkness, Nightmare.

Centuries ago, war had broken out across the world. Death was in high demand, and as such thousands of weapons were made and used. One weapon, an ordinary sword, was lucky enough to survive every battle it went into. As it passed between dozens of masters, fought in hundreds of battles, and cut down thousands of foes, something began to ignite inside of it. Life is found in blood, and this weapon had been covered in such an insane amount of blood that life itself began to seep into the blade. A flaming demon born of death, carnage, and bloodlust took shape within the sword, and transformed it from an ordinary sword into the legendary blade known as Soul Edge.

Any warrior who picked up this new blade was in for a big surprise, as his battle prowess and physical abilities were enhanced immensely. Soul Edge was a powerful blade, and its users gained some pieces of that power for themselves, albeit alongside an inescapable bloodlust. The demon inside the blade, who would someday be known as Inferno, thrived off of the blood and souls of others, and sought it constantly, along with anybody who could grant it to him. Inferno even used his magic to transform Soul Edge into whatever weapon the wielder was most comfortable using! It kind of worked, but it started working much better when the demon began exuding an evil, addictive aura, permeating the essence of the blade with it. Anyone who saw the blade or came into contact with it would have an evil seed fester in their mind, slowly altering their wants and needs to revolve solely around the weapon. Basically, this is the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, but with one major difference. When you put the ring on, it just turns you invisible (or makes you all-powerful if your name happens to be Sauron), but if you pick up Soul Edge, Inferno will infest and suppress your soul, take your body as a host, and use it to just…murder everyone.

Many noticed the supernatural power given to wielders of the blade previous to the infestive aura, including the Hero King Algol, who wished to use the blade to stop the wars that pervaded his country. So, he found it and grabbed it. And apparently he was just so good and pure, he was able to resist Inferno's dominion! Wow! That's stupid! Algol felt the dark presence in the weapon, but managed to keep it under control, utilizing its power only to enhance his own while resistant its evil. With its power, he stopped all war in the entire country and ruled it all with justice – but just because he could hold back the will of Inferno doesn't mean it didn't still emanate its one ring to rule them all-ness. This eventually began twisting and altering Algol's son's mind, confusing and tempting him, until he finally picked up the blade, gave in to Inferno, and started a new murder spree, which ended with him fighting his father. Unfortunately, Algol is, like, the most overpowered guy in all of Soulcalibur, so he killed his son and broke a few shards off of Soul Edge. In anger, sadness, and terror, Algol decided to forge a new sword out of one of Soul Edge's shards to destroy the evil blade. So he gathered up all the best blacksmiths and sages in the country and did just that, sacrificing all of the purity and justice in his soul to create a spirit in the new sword that could match Inferno. And that's how Soul Edge's greatest adversary, Soul Calibur, came to be.

But Soul Edge lived on, and somehow managed to make its way out of the kingdom. It traded owners constantly for thousands of years, infecting kings and pharaohs and clan leaders and all kinds of important people, killing a bunch of people, and then getting defeated by Soul Calibur. But Inferno was still searching for a perfect host – someone who could actually utilize his powers and suitably host his soul. Eventually, the sword ended up at an auction, got bought by a guy named Adam, and was then stolen by the infamous pirate Cervantes, Captain of The Adrian, when he pillaged Adam's ship and killed everyone on board. Cervantes had been hired by a trader named Vercci to find Soul Edge, since Vercci thought the sword's legends sounded cool. So, surprised at having actually found the thing, Cervantes picked up the sword to bring back.

And then, over the course of one night, the entire crew of The Adrian and the population of a Spanish town completely vanished off the face of the earth, and nobody saw Cervantes again for twenty years. Or rather, nobody did and lived to tell about it. See, at this point, Inferno was done with not having a suitable host, and decided to just make Cervantes sit in one place until either a certain kid destined to wield Soul Edge (who is entirely unimportant for this battle) grew up or somebody more powerful than him showed up – whichever came first. He was hoping for a super powerful body with evil intentions. Instead, what he got was a bunch of riffraff and a holy warrior sent by the gods. This warrior, Sophitia, overpowered and nearly defeated Cervantes, even managing to shatter one of the two swords Soul Edge had become (remember how he transforms into whatever the wielder is most comfortable with?) with her own holy weapon. But the shards riddled her body, giving Cervantes the chance he needed – until a ninja lady showed up and finished him off. Neither took the remaining blade, but instead just ran off. Then an insane leader of a bunch of bandits named Siegfried showed up, fought off the demon, picked up the sword, and Inferno realized he had the perfect body. At long, long last, Nightmare was born.

Clad in thick blue armor with the only skin showing being a big monster hand, Nightmare was terrifying. In merely three years, legends of his might and indiscriminate murder were whispered across the world. Humans tainted by his darkness, the malfested, crawled out from the corners of the earth, slaughtering all in their way. Ancient powers awakened, portals to other dimensions were formed, all as a result to Soul Edge's power being unleashed. In time, he would gain a small group of followers who would go out and harvest souls for him. But his true goal remained the same: Locate and absorb every one of the dozens, likely hundreds, of Soul Edge's shards that had scattered around the planet from his battles. And he held the power to do it.

In this form and in nearly every one following, Soul Edge takes the form of a one-edged zweihänder, an enormous two-handed sword, and his favorite appearance is similar to that of a giant steak knife, but, you know, longer and more pointy. And covered in flesh, with an eyeball in the center. But regardless of how it looks, this blade is strong enough to cleave right through three men wearing heavy armor at the same time! It's cut right through steel and stone alike, and can rend even the toughest enemies in half. In various endings, it's outright been shown to be able to kill many of the Soulcalibur heroes with only one hit, and these are guys that take falling buildings and explosions on the regular! But it's the soul-based magic this demon wields that truly makes him terrifying.

Nightmare is a dangerous being with numerous magical powers. He can cast illusions, teleport short distances, cause people to hallucinate, open portals to other dimensions, and reanimate the dead with the souls he's collected. Speaking of which, every piece of magic he performs uses the powers of the souls he's absorbed by killing foes. This is theoretically dangerous, as he can run out of souls, and therefore, magical power. But that's really unlikely, considering he's absorbed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of souls. Enough to craft an entire dimension out of them, actually.

The Astral Chaos is a dimension that was created by loose souls and malice leftover by Inferno's rampages throughout history. All the chaos and raw energy slowly gathered and coalesced into this plane of existence – a place filled with so much raw emotion and power that any normal person who enters it will immediately go insane, or just straight-up lose their soul to the domain. Even the strong-willed only have a matter of time before losing themselves. Nightmare, however, thrives in this world. He can create portals to the realm at any point, and simply being in it increases his power. In fact, soaking in the dark energy can increase his abilities even further. For example, the first time he spent a huge amount of time there, he gained a new power: the ability to completely reform Soul Edge by summoning all the shards of the weapon back into it. The first time he did this, the blade had literally thousands of shards strewn around the entire planet, but they all returned in mere seconds. This effectively makes an already quite durable blade effectively indestructible, as he can just reform it the moment it's broken.

As if that's not enough, he can also reform his own body! See, Seigfried was indeed the perfect host for Inferno…temporarily. The man was good at heart, and, after some time had passed, consistently battled Inferno in the mind to regain control of his body. And, with the help of another great swordsman, he managed to do just that, suppressing Inferno and leaving his old armor behind him. That is, until a suicidal mage decided to show up and get Nightmare back into shape. This sorcerer, who was thousands of years old and had wielded Soul Edge in the past, gifted Inferno with a new ability: the power to form Nightmare without needing a living host. Claiming the old armor as his once again, the purple fire demon infested the armor itself, and though he was now no more than an empty suit of armor and a really powerful sword, he still had all the magical and physical prowess he had previously possessed. Nightmare was reborn as someone who felt no hunger, no heat or cold, no exhaustion, and no pain. And while he's never directly demonstrated the ability, there should be no reason he couldn't magically assemble his armor again as he did the first time. So if he loses a limb, no big deal, just a little soul power and it's back!

And to help with that, he has multiple ways of collecting a soul. First, anybody slain with Soul Edge, or anybody slain by someone at all tainted by the Astral Chaos, will have their soul immediately absorbed into Soul Edge, but if someone is a little harder to kill than normal, Nightmare can choose to handle their soul personally. If he gets a physical grasp on it with Soul Edge, he can completely nullify it, but otherwise he'll use an absorption technique like Evil Seed or Soul Wave. With Evil Seed, he launches his foe into the air and plants Soul Edge directly below them, using his magic to form a sort of spiritual gravity well than pulls on their soul. Anything that isn't super resistant will immediately be sucked into Soul Edge. Alternatively, there's Soul Wave, a potentially instant-win move that takes a whole lot of energy initially. Basically, Soul Edge just unleashes a massive wave of energy that stretches out for nearly a mile and absorbs all souls caught in the wave. Bada bing, bada boom, he's done. But if a soul's a little more resilient, that's fine. He has plenty of other ways to kill them.

Like with fire. Being a purple fire demon, Inferno can create and control hellfire to nearly any extent. He can throw fireballs, summon sheets of fire, wreathe his sword in flames, and even combine souls and fire together to make weird red explosion balls that have a surprising amount of power. Plus, his fire abilities have exactly canceled out Soul Calibur's ice abilities on numerous occasions, and that sword once covered nearly an entire castle with ice! But fire isn't the only element he controls. He also can manipulate electricity, summoning lightning bolts, shooting blasts of electricity, or wrapping it around Soul Edge to electrocute and burn through things. He's also displayed control over wind, being able to form entire thunderstorms, blast people with air explosions, and make small tornadoes. He can shake the ground with a mighty stomp, summon a dark horse made out of pure chaos from his dark dimension, and can summon ghosts of those connected to Soul Edge. These ghosts are a force to be reckoned with, as each one is only a slightly weaker version of the original being and has real physical presence, with their only notable weaknesses being that they can't think on their own and each will dissipate after only a single hit. And while he's only ever created ghosts of a few characters, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to make ghosts of all his former wielders. Also, do recall that he has all the memories and skills of his former wielders and anybody who's used a piece of Soul Edge in battle, including Soul Calibur, since they've now all rejoined his sword. So it's important that we analyze everybody who has previously used any piece of Soul Edge.

Unfortunately, that's basically the whole Soulcalibur world.

Let's start simple. Meiga, Riese, Eurydice, and Kanon are all masters of the sword, but all with different kinds of swords – giant two-handed ones, small dagger-like ones, katanas, and the like. Lerajie uses a rapier, Aeneas uses a lance, Ailian expertly wields a sickle, and Jinkei is a ninja. Boosting the level of power a bit, Lizardman is an anthropomorphic lizard-raptor-thing cursed by the gods, who's powerful enough to wipe out an entire village in one day. Barbaros waged war against an empire, Iska is one of the few alchemists who managed to create a real human, Charade is a weird rock monster that reforms its body into any weapon it needs, and Strife Astlar fought near-equally with a man who had taken on several armies with only a few troops. Raphael is an expert strategist and one of the best rapier-wielders in the world, King Arthur is the actual King Arthur of legend, and Ivy Valentine can block point-blank bullets and her snake sword can move through floors, affect spirits, and change between a sword and a bladed whip in an instant. Most powerful of all are Xianghua, whose skills are great enough to match and defeat Inferno himself, Seigfried, whose style and power are so great, he's the fighting style and weapon Nightmare chooses to represent 90% of the time, and Pyrrha. Pyrrha is by far the most powerful of the lot, having been groomed from birth to be the perfect host for Inferno. She's defeated dozens of skilled fighters, including Patrokolos (the perfect wielder for Soul Calibur) and even Nightmare – all before picking up Soul Edge! Yes, Nightmare seriously has gained all the skills from someone who can defeat Nightmare. Obviously, there are hundreds of others, but these are basically the cream of the crop. Suffice to say, Nightmare's abilities are pretty insane.

Even without all of these abilities, Nightmare's physical abilities are more than impressive. He's strong enough to hit a man so hard, he went flying and smashed through a large statue over a dozen feet away. He can move faster than the eye can track, casually dodge bullets and has matched plenty of guys who have dodged explosions, which expand at a rate of over 6000 MPH. One time, Seigfried went to hunt him down, and in the ensuing battle, Seigfried swung his mighty Requiem with all his strength at the armor-bound demon, upon which Nightmare just caught it with an open hand, stopping it in its place! And that sword can smash apart stone walls and metal armor like nothing! Another time, Seigfried was wielding Soul Calibur and fighting Nightmare again, and the two hit each other's swords after unleashing the full power of their respective spirits (Inferno and Elysium). The resulting clash annihilated the entire area of the castle they were in! We don't actually get to see this clash (because heaven forbid the story mode for one of these games be CANON, that would make too much sense!), but we DO see the aftereffects and how it was previously. Most notably, the entire structure minus a basic outside and the surrounding wall was destroyed, leaving nothing but an empty island. By comparing the size of the castle to the height of the windows and applying the formula for rock fragmentation, taking into account a somewhat hollow interior, a strike with that much force would be worth nearly 11 Kilotons of TNT! Sure, it did destroy his armored body, but he totally survived. And with that much power, it's ridiculously tough to take down this guy. I mean, he's taken out entire armies by himself, no sweat!

And even if you're an experienced demon hunter, you still might not be equipped to take him on; other demon hunters in Soulcalibur certainly weren't, as it turns out he's straight-up immune to sealing magic. As if all that wasn't enough, he can enter a sort of berserker rage, known as a Soul Charge, where he overflows his spirit with energy from the Astral Chaos, improving his strength, speed, and durability. It doesn't last long though – even under the best conditions, it will last less than a full minute. Still, I mean, that's more than long enough to destroy almost anyone he opposes. But even all that power is nothing compared to his true, ultimate form. After recombining with every shard of itself, including Soul Calibur, and absorbing lots of power from the Astral Chaos, Nightmare will transform into his ultimate form. Fiery, red, fleshy, and absolutely filled with the power of chaos and souls, I introduce you to the most powerful character in the Soulcalibur universe: Night Terror.

Night Terror is incredibly powerful, to the point where it makes Nightmare almost pathetic. He can shoot massive lasers from his head that can pierce any material, completely rend a soul from existence with just one hit, create energy shockwaves, and it now has massive fiery wings for, well, flying around. He's twice as strong as Nightmare, much tougher, and his powers are all amped up to the extreme. He's so fast, he was able to move faster than Seigfried and Zasalamel could even detect, and both of those guys have defeated Ivy Valentine in battle with ease, and she's fast enough to dodge and even hit back point-blank gunfire! According to New Legends of Project Soul, a sort of official artbook/encyclopedia on the series, Night Terror is a manifestation of the destruction caused by the Astral Chaos, and, after roaming the dimension for some time, grew so powerful, even Algol (yes, the same one who made Soul Calibur, except he's actually not, you know what, don't ask, it's way too long and complicated) decided to be wary enough to avoid him. And inside the Astral Chaos, Algol is powerful enough to create entire planets! However, don't overestimate this: Algol's power to do so specifically applies to him becoming one with the Astral Chaos, and so it's natural that he could will stuff like that into existence for that specific dimension. When it comes to fighting other beings, he's more on the level of Edge Master, another powerful fighter in the Soulcalibur world. In fact, Edge Master actually battled him inside the Astral Chaos for a short bit. That being said, Edge Master is also ridiculously powerful, as he's curbstomped Seong Mi-na, a martial artist who has defeated Inferno in alternate timelines! Also, when Zasalamel gained the power of a completed Soul Edge and Soul Calibur in a similar way to Night Terror, he was powerful enough to change the weather and summon meteors from the sky! So in any case, Night Terror is pretty ridiculous.

Not invincible, though. Actually, even though it may seem like he is at times, Nightmare is anything but invincible. He doesn't actually have that many impressive feats when all is said and done. I mean, he's been fighting and winning battles against entire armies for thousands of years, sure, but every single time he gets close to something really crazy, he gets destroyed by someone wielding Soul Calibur. It's actually a bit stupid at this point. There's also the detail that his powers, attacks, and, in fact, his whole existence are all based on souls. This wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that there are guys out there who have extreme resilience or outright immunity to souls. So that's annoying. Not as annoying as how stabbing the eye of Soul Edge will actually make Inferno himself feel pain, which is a weird weakness to purposefully expose yourself to. I mean, seriously, he's transformed into weapons without the eye before, so why does he continue to use forms with it?! Oh, and he kind of needs a physical body for his full power to remain consistent. As he continues to use his powers without a material body, he continually runs the risk of his soul rejecting the armor, forcing him to give up his Nightmare form. Though Inferno alone is definitely powerful, he's just not as good as Nightmare. And while Nightmare can possess certain ideal humans and remove this weakness (notably Seigfried and Pyrrha), they bring their own weaknesses – mostly that they can regain control of themselves and seal away the demon. So, yeah, hollow body is best, even if it has problems.

But, I mean, it's going to be really hard to kill a guy who has a hundred ways to kill you and just…won't die. You destroy the sword, and it comes back. You destroy the armor, and it comes back. And good luck destroying a spirit on the astral plane. If you cross this demon, be prepared to lose everything. Because you can be sure he's prepared to take everything away from you.

After a long battle, Nightmare finally knocks Soul Calibur out of Seigfried's hands. The holy blade flies into the air and pierces the ground several feet behind the knight. With a gasp, Seigfried falls to his knees. Nightmare stares coldly at him, then a fireball filled with electricity appears in his hand. When it grows large enough, Nightmare clenches his fist, absorbing the electric fire and passing it out through his armor and into Soul Edge.

As it reaches down into the blade, Nightmare lifts the sword directly above Seigfried's gravely wounded body and shouts "None shall be able to stop me!"

He plunges the sword down into Seigfried's back. Instantly, the fire pours out of the weapon, coating the entire area around him and burning away at Seigfried's lifeless corpse. When the fire clears, Nightmare lifts up Soul Edge and roars to the heavens, another soul added to his collection.

Nightmare:

Name: Inferno

Species: Demon

Height: 5'6/168 cm

Weight: 212 lb/96 kg (yes, his armor really does weigh this much)

Age: 4500+

Occupation: Evil Overlord

Notable Hosts: Raphael, Pyrrha, Siegfried

Decided to give Ivy a weapon that could kill him for no conceivable reason

Accidentally created a zombie invasion – twice

Entire personality equates to "I'm evil"

Abilities:

Pyrokinesis

Electrokineses

Aerokinesis

Teleportation

Dimensional Portals

Necromancy

Can cause hallucinations

Immunity to sealing

Summoning

~Summons Dark Horse

~Summons ghosts of those close to Soul Edge

Superhuman Strength

Superhuman Speed

Superhuman Durability

Skills of all former wielders and all devoured souls

Soul Charge

Reconstruction

Armor Summoning

Night Terror Form

~Can fly

~Shoots energy beams

~All physical abilities enhanced

~Soul Destruction

Arsenal:

Soul Edge

~Houses Inferno

~Can reform from scraps

~Can transform into any conceivable melee weapon

~Absorbs souls

Feats:

Defeated Raphael

One-shotted Seigfried

Destroyed entire armies alone

Absorbed the souls of over a hundred soldiers at once

Leapt over 70 ft into the air

Fought faster than a group of soldiers could track

Faster than Taki, who ran faster than an explosion

Threw a man through a stone statue

Cleaved through three soldiers at once

Walked through concrete

Shook a building with a stomp

Formed a thunderstorm that covered a large city

Matched and defeated Elysium, who can coat castles in ice

Recreated Soul Edge from thousands of pieces, possibly molecules

Caught Seigfried's strongest non-Soul Calibur blow in his hand and held it

Survived an 11-Kiloton explosion

Night Terror obliterated Zasalamel's soul, which was supposed to be impossible to destroy

Night Terror moved faster than the bullet-timing Seigfried could detect

Night Terror is stronger than Algol and Edge Master

W/ Seigfried, defeated Abyss, who can summon meteors and change the weather

Weaknesses:

All attacks are soul-based

Eye in center of sword will cause Inferno pain when stabbed, and will kill him if stabbed with a holy weapon

Been defeated fairly often

Some have wills too strong to corrupt or souls too strong to devour

Has terrible luck when visiting alternate dimensions

~Portal to Hyrule ended up killing him when he angered Link

~Portal to Star Wars ended up killing him by inviting the empire into Soulcalibur's world

Bond to armor is not perfect – eventually, it will reject him

…

All right, the combatants are set. Let's end this debate once and for all. It's time for a Death Battle!

…

It was a bright and pleasant day in Valdora. Birds sang, the streets were bustling, and, best of all, there weren't any homicidal maniacs trying to kill everyone. A rarity for the city.

And a rarity it would remain, as a portal opened up in the town plaza out of nowhere and a hulking suit of blue armor wielding a massive, flesh-covered sword walked out. The portal closed behind him, and people began screaming and fleeing.

Nightmare breathed in. An empty suit of armor he may have been, but when it came to souls, his senses were as good as ever. What a beautiful place this was. He could smell all the delecatble souls now. And, as he paid closer attention, he noticed a few oddities – an entire layer of souls coating the underground, and, many miles away, an enormous pool of souls all collected into one being. Normally, he wouldn't have been able to sense that far, but hundreds of thousands souls contained within one creature? Oh, he could taste them all now. Yes, unlike his previous dimensional excursions, this was a place he was happy to be in.

He saw now as everyone fled for their lives. A natural reaction, but a futile one. Nightmare simply raised Soul Edge to the sky, and a massive burst of red energy was expelled from it, travelling in all directions and coating what he was sure was at least half of the city. Immediately afterward, there was utter silence, as all souls caught in the blast were drawn into the demonic blade. Bodies of birds, pets, and humans alike fell to the ground and withered away, as if they had never existed. Nightmare stretched his non-existent muscles. He could get used to this place.

Meanwhile, Alphonse was about to get into the car with Yoki and Dr. Marcoh. They'd stopped on their way to central in this town upon Alphonse's request. He knew he was going to be fighting a lot of battles against people with Philosopher's Stones now that the Promised Day had arrived, and any help could mean the difference between the country's destruction or salvation. So he wanted to stop by here to get a refreshment on the holy symbol from Sophie, which would undoubtedly be extremely helpful. And to visit her one last time, of course.

He'd been just about to leave when he saw the red light in the sky. The wave stopped only feet away from the car, and he saw dozens of people running away collapse and fade into dust.

"What in the blazes was that?" Dr. Marcoh questioned fearfully. He tried to step out of the car, but Al shoved him back in.

"I'll check it out. Father probably sent someone to capture me in time for the ritual. I don't want anybody getting in my way. Otherwise, they could be killed."

"Well, you don't have to tell me twice!" Yoki announced. "Let's get out of here!" He slammed on the gas pedal and tore off. "Goodbyemyfriendwewon'tforgetallyou'vedoneforusI'llgiveyouaspeechatthefuneral!"

Alphonse shrugged and stood up. Luckily, Sophie was nowhere in the vicinity of the blast, but that didn't mean whoever this was wouldn't kill more people to get to him. He had to fix this.

Nightmare was surveying the damage, casually wondering whether it'd be more time efficient if he enslaved everyone first and killed them after, or if he killed everyone first and enslaved the few that remained, when a suit of armor entered his field of vision.

It spoke. "Are you the one who killed all those people?"

Nightmare sniffed. He couldn't sense a living soul in that armor, but it reeked of souls regardless. How strange. "What magic created you, talking armor?"

The talking armor appeared surprised. "So you weren't sent here to find me?"

"I came here to create chaos, to destroy all that humanity has worked to build, and to feast on their spirits!"

"I…don't understand, you should- wait, what are you?"

Nightmare took some steps closer. "A monster."

Alphonse readied himself. "I don't know who sent you or why they sent you here, but I can't let you hurt anybody else! I'll fight you myself!"

Nightmare sneered. "Fool. Tremble in my darkness!"

-FIGHT!-

Al clapped his hands and struck the ground. Instantly, several enormous fists popped out of the concrete below Nightmare. Nightmare plunged Soul Edge into the ground and created an explosion that tore apart all the fists before they were fully formed. Nightmare backed up and held Soul Edge forward. "Magician in armor. I cannot sense you, but I can kill you. Give up, and I grant you a painless death."

Alphonse didn't bother to respond. He clapped his hands and formed a barrier out of the buildings on either side of him, joining together in the middle to block the monster from seeing him. As soon as that was accomplished, he ran over behind the building to his left. A quick transmutation, and he was on top of the roof with a gatling gun. The monster had his sword inside the barrier, clearly attempting to slice through it, and wasn't even looking in his direction. Alphonse took aim.

Right before he pulled the trigger, the monster stood straight, as if it had just sensed something. Without even looking, it swung its sword at Alphonse and a lightning bolt struck down from the sky, hitting Alphonse square in the head. It should have wracked him and damaged his blood seal, but it didn't – it vanished after hitting him. Surprised, Al turned around to attempt to see why. Immediately he noticed the holy symbol on his shoulder glowing. So, this was some new form of Velzanian Alchemy. Then the creature couldn't possibly have anything to do with Father or his plans. But it was still going to kill thousands more if let loose. He had to end this right here and now.

After a silent thanks to Sophie, he turned the gatling gun on the monster again and pulled the trigger. Hundreds of rounds of ammunition spat out of the gun, all headed for the armor-clad…thing below him. But before a single one touched his armor, the being vanished. Startled, Al barely dodged a slice coming from his right. He turned and faced the monster, which had apparently teleported onto the roof with him. He clapped and struck the floor, disintegrating the whole building minus a pillar he stood atop of. The monster stumbled, but teleported down to the street before it could fall. Al simply jumped off his pillar, landing down onto the street with a mighty crash.

Nightmare faced him and let out guttural laughter. "You face Nightmare, foolish mortal. Your magic is nothing compared to my own! I feel inside of you – there is no body. I sense no soul. I know not what you are, but I have destroyed far greater than you."

"Nightmare," Alphonse clapped his hands. "Trust me. You can't win this fight." Air around Nightmare gathered, spun, and split, scattering about the town with reckless abandon. Nightmare stepped forward. The air felt…different. Just a little, but different nonetheless.

"It's over now," Alphonse announced. "I separated the oxygen in the air around us from the nitrogen. I don't need oxygen, but soon you won't be able to breathe or fight. You should just get out of here while you still can."

Nightmare laughed maliciously, as that was the only way he knew how to laugh. "Fool. I need no such sustenance. I thrive on souls alone." He swung his sword, sending an electrical shockwave at Alphonse. The wave struck him, but fizzled out quickly as the holy symbol glowed. Nightmare growled – this armor without a soul was way too annoying to kill.

Alphonse set his eyes. "You're hollow in there, aren't you?"

"Hollow? I am not hollow. Within me is the screaming torment of tens of thousands! I am fulfilled!"

"Is that so?" Alphonse clapped his hands and held them out into the air again. There was a sudden blast of wind that struck Nightmare and promptly encircled him. Nightmare snarled and lifted up Soul Edge, but not before Alphonse made another transmutation. Two metal spikes instantly stuck out of the side of the building next to Nightmare, one slicing up and the other, down, both completely missing him. Nightmare began to swing, and only then realized that the spikes weren't supposed to hit him. The spikes raked against each other, causing a single spark to pop out of them – which instantly turned everything around Nightmare into an enormous explosion of fire.

Nightmare growled and shouted. It was obvious to him now. If the armor could remove the oxygen, he could certainly put it back. All of it. Into one area.

He plunged his blade into the ground and its eye opened up, quickly absorbing all the fire in the air around him. In just a couple of seconds, he could see clearly again. "Fire is my domain, insect." The flames from the sword traveled quickly through his armor and into his left hand, whereupon he blew it all back at Alphonse. But Alphonse simply clapped his hands and held them out to the fire, dispersing it the moment the two collided.

Nightmare struck his sword down into the ground, summoning over a dozen skeletons from under the ground, and, with a simple point, they went after Alphonse. Alphonse clapped and put his hands on the ground, transforming the ground beneath the skeletons to transform into concrete sinkholes. They all vanished into the ground right away, and, with another clap, brought the ground underneath him into the air, making a moving pillar directly underneath him in order to catch Nightmare up close. He grew close almost right away, and summoned a massive battleaxe out of the pillar. He grabbed it and swung it down at Nightmare, who instantly raised up Soul Edge, catching the battleaxe and slicing right through it. Soul Edge ripped through the weapon and caught Al's shoulder, cutting a notch into it. Immediately, Al clapped his hands and placed it on Soul Edge, attempting to use Destruction Alchemy to destroy it.

But nothing happened.

Soul Edge let out a high-pitched noise, but not one of pain. It was almost like…excitement. Al jumped out of the way of the sword, clapping in mid-air to create an air cushion so he'd land softly. The moment he was on the ground, Nightmare teleported up to him and swung mightily. Al quickly caught the massive sword in his hand, grasping onto it as the two contested strength. Although Alphonse quickly learned he was the stronger one, he also discovered that this sword was not to be messed with, as it quickly began to cut into him. Now knowing that it wasn't made of normal steel, and not wanting to try to take the time to guess right now before attempting to destroy it again, he instead clapped his hands and put the alchemy on the armored hand holding the blade. Sure enough, the iron armor crumbled and exploded outwards, completely removing one of Nightmare's limbs and forcing him to drop his blade. Alphonse nodded in confirmation of his suspicions – Nightmare was nothing but a hollow suit of armor with a soul inside. Just like him.

As Nightmare backed up, Alphonse picked up Soul Edge, intending to study and destroy it.

Then, something happened.

For just a second, he saw it all.

Bloodlust. Anger. Destruction. Torture. Death.

Hundreds of thousands of souls screaming out, crying desperately for somebody, anybody, to free them from their eternal prison.

A spirit composed of purple fire walked through the souls, reveling in them.

It came too close.

It reached out to snatch his mind.

Alphonse dropped the sword with a gasp and stumbled backward, shocked and horrified.

Nightmare stepped forward to reclaim his blade. As Alphonse watched, his arm began completely reconstructing itself, and before he reached the sword, it was as if it had never been gone. Nightmare craned his neck forward. "So, you do have a soul after all."

"What…was that?"

Nightmare let out a low growl, but not in anger. It sounded almost like a growl of pleasure. "Blood. Darkness. Chaos. I shall take the souls of all in this world and consume them heartily." Soul Edge transformed, suddenly, into a rapier. "You first."

Alphonse backed even farther up, still reeling. He'd barely noticed the fact that the sword had transformed.

Nightmare teleported in front of Al and stuck the rapier through his eyehole, stabbing dangerously close to his blood seal. That woke Al up. In an instant, he clapped his hands and set them on the rapier – now that was steel. Steel it wasn't, though, as it transformed into an oaken staff right before Al landed the hit. The sudden extension of the weapon forced Al's head backwards, hanging off the edge of the pole, and leaving the inside of Al's body exposed.

Nightmare inhaled deeply. "I can smell them. The souls are inside you. Show me th- URGH!"

It was said in shock and gasps, rather than pain, as he could feel none. But apparently this armor didn't need its head to function. The body clamped its foot down over Nightmare own and turned, bashing its shoulder forcefully into Nightmare's chest. Nightmare stumbled back a bit, and then transformed Soul Edge back into its original, massive form. Alphonse's head was left some feet behind his body, but a clap and a touch and the group was more than willing to place it back on his head. Nightmare grimaced and raced ahead, slicing in a wide arc. Al jumped up over the blade as it effortlessly cut through the concrete structures left over from the transmutation. Al landed and alchemically produced an air blast that sent the both of them flying away from each other – he needed some distance. Al transmuted the top layer of the street he landed into a storm of fine dust, and, the moment he caught a glimpse of Nightmare's shadow, transmuted the dust into dozens of lasers that flew right at the monster.

Nightmare didn't see the first one coming and it hit him, which actually did do some damage. But he'd been fired on thousands of times before. This was no different. He immediately picked up on the location of all the other lasers and began swinging Soul Edge, deflecting each and every one down to the ground around him while moving ahead like a hulking beast.

Al clapped, put his hands on a streetlamp, and watched it transform into a tank right before his eyes. Without even bothering to get in, he reached into the tank and forced it to fire directly at Nightmare. A bit surprisingly, the tank easily fired a massive cannonball at the dark knight.

Almost as easily as Nightmare caught it.

Nightmare caught the cannonball with an open hand and proceeded to throw it back twice as hard, smashing the tank to pieces. Quick-thinking as ever, Al transmuted the remaining parts of the tank into a hundred land mines, and, with another transmutation, buried them underneath the ground. He transmuted a dust storm around the area and tore off into an alleyway.

Nightmare saw the dust suddenly heavily kick up. He wasn't stupid. He knew that this was some sort of ploy or an attempt on injuring him. He struck the ground with a burst of electricity, flowing it directly in front of him and into that dust cloud. Sure enough, he saw dozens of explosions go off that tore apart the entire section of the street of some of the nearby buildings. Good thing he hadn't stepped in that. But the armor must still be nearby…

He pulled on the edges of reality with his soul, scattering his senses over it all as he searched for souls. Even though the soul within the armor was unable to be detected, he still held within him a coalescence of souls. As long as he had that, he could tell where the armor boy was. And as he sniffed out the souls around him, the coalescence shone brightly.

Nightmare teleported to the source, which emanated from a nearby alleyway, as soon as he found it. There he was – a suit of armor, facing away from him. Silently and swiftly, he thrust forward with Soul Edge, impaling the armor in front of him clean through the middle.

The moment Soul Edge pierced the armor body in front of him, a hand sizzling with electrical power burst out from the side of the house next to him. Caught by surprise, Nightmare didn't react in time to dodge the hand as it struck his side. In an instant, half of his body was torn to pieces. Nightmare shouted in anger and swung to face towards the hand, using the fake body in front of him as leverage to strike out. Another hand came out of the wall and the two clapped and were placed upon the armor that now faced him. The steel morphed and wrapped itself around Nightmare's arm, solidifying and anchoring both his hand and sword to the ground.

The rest of the wall crumbled as Alphonse walked through it. He bent down and picked up the Philosopher's Stone where it had fallen out of the fake armor. He opened up his helmet and dropped the stone inside of himself before flipping his helmet back down. "I figured it out. You can't sense my soul, but you can sense the Philosopher's Stone. So all I-"

Nightmare shouted in rage and, under his strength alone, the steel cracked and broke. "Tricks will not assist you!" The steel finally gave way as his hand tore up through it. Soul Edge shifted into a lance and Nightmare thrust it at Alphonse, who quickly ducked out of the way. He clapped his hands and the ground beneath Nightmare broke open, ready to swallow him up. Nightmare teleported several feet away, back to the entrance of the alley. He held Soul Edge forward, and several ghosts gathered out of the dust around him. Fencers, knights, and malfested alike rose and ran at Alphonse.

Al clapped his hands and struck the ground, forming sinkholes around his new foes, but only the skeletons and malfested fell in this time. The dozen or so remaining fighters all jumped over the pits or ran on the outer walls of the houses next to them. The first one to reach him was a bearded warrior with a massive axe. Al dropped down and spun his leg out to trip the ghost. The ghost went down, and Al readied a follow-up alchemical punch, but, to his surprise, the warrior scattered into dust upon hitting the ground. A man dual wielding knives was next. He jumped up and tried to strike Al from the air, but Al backed up and quickly formed a set of spikes from the ground where he would land. And sure enough, the moment he touched the spikes, he, too, vanished into a heap of dust and smoke.

So, Alphonse reasoned, no matter how powerful these ghosts were, they would each fall after just one blow. That made things easier.

Alphonse punched out a long-haired swordsman, knocked a ninja to the floor with a kick, and, when he found a bladed whip wrapped around his arm, grasped it firmly and used his leverage and strength to spin the scantily-clad wielder in a circle, hitting and taking out a winged man and a giant raptor before slamming her into the ground.

A rock creature managed to match his punch with the back of its sword. It moved behind him, and thrust forward. The tip of the blade broke upon colliding with Al's armor, and Al turned and jabbed at him with his elbow. Charade formed a shield with one arm and caught the elbow before it landed, formed long, knife-like claws from its hands, flipped over Alphonse and struck again, this time piercing the armor. However, the claws stuck inside of it, and were unable to leave as Charade pulled on them. Al dodged a powerful swing from a blonde man wielding a massive greatsword, grabbed Charade's rocky head, and flung it at the man he now faced. Seigfried dispelled the head with one hit, and with it went the rest of Charade as well.

Alphonse clapped and a two-handed sword just like Seigfried's came out of the ground. Alphonse picked it up and swung to match Seigfried's next blow. The two greatswords clashed, creating a shockwave the split the ground around them. Seigfried didn't hesitate to swing again, this time in an upwards movement, but Al blocked him before his swing was completed, sliding off his blade and moving himself enough to the side to guarantee a miss. Alphonse was quickly caught by surprise when the ghost of a young woman with a shortsword stabbed him in the back, her blade easily slicing through his metal body. Al immediately turned around, swinging his greatsword at Xinghua, but she simply sidejumped over it, doing a cartwheel in mid-air. He noticed Seigfried readying an attack from behind, and instantly turned around to catch it on his sword, the two clanging against each other. Al dropped his greatsword, clapped, and struck the ground, creating an immense amount of spikes underneath Seigfried. As he predicted, Seigfried jumped backwards onto a wall and used it as a launching pad to reach Al. Alphonse then, having never removed his hands, forced the spike to suddenly grow three times taller, with one catching Seigfried in mid-air, dispelling him. Al then turned and grasped the blade of Xinghua, using it to pull her in close for a kick. The moment she was gone, Al felt his tension melt.

Right before he was stabbed through the back once more.

Pyrrha's ghost retreated her blade and backed up, readying a stance with her sword and shield. Al clapped his hands and placed them on himself, mending all of the wounds on his metal body. Al created spikes all around his body, thinning the metal, but far increasing his attack range. He just needed one hit. Another clap, and several gatling guns formed around him. The two stared down for a moment.

Then, surprising Alphonse, Pyrrha spoke.

"I'm sorry. I have no choice."

Alphonse backed up in shock, which Pyrrha immediately took advantage of by launching forward with a surprise attack. She bashed against the spikes with her shield, pushed down on them, and used them as a platform to hop up onto Al's head, which she instantly buried her sword into.

"Hey! No fair!" Alphonse reached up to grab the girl, but she quickly got out of the way, lighting her sword on fire as she pulled it out and backflipped off his head. She plunged her fiery blade into his back and effortlessly lifted his armor body up on the sword.

"Hey, what are you doi-whoah!"

Pyrrha spun around in a fiery circle, dragging Alphonse across the ground before holding her sword, and him on it, straight upwards, and releasing a blast of fire from the blade, shooting clean through Al's armor and throwing him off the sword and onto the ground.

Alphonse moaned a bit getting up, but he did get up – and just in time to catch Pyrrha's blade before it pierced through his neck and Blood Seal. He rolled over to the left and she scraped his armor instead. Al clapped and thousands of bullets came firing, each one aimed at Pyrrha. Gracefully and directly she dodged or blocked every one of them while constantly making her way towards Alphonse. Al clapped and formed a sword and shield for himself from the ground. He readied a stance as Pyrrha approached him, knocking bullets out of the air the whole way. The moment she reached him, she took a quick swing, which was easily blocked, and then pushed her shield down into Alphonse's, mildly overpowering him just enough to get a hole in his defenses. Right as soon as that happened, she stabbed through, lodged her sword in his body, and pulled him towards her. She sliced out, carving a hole in Al's armor, and pulled her shield down, putting her foot forward as Alphonse stumbled, causing him to trip and fall on his back. Pyrrha lifted her sword and slammed it down right at Al's neck.

But her sword never reached his blood seal, as Al's entire head suddenly became a spike that struck through the sword, caught Pyrrha by surprise, and stabbed right through her head.

Pyrrha faded into dust, Alphonse's head recreated itself, and Al finally got up and faced down Nightmare himself, now completely reconstructed.

"I don't know what kind of alchemy that was, but I swear-"

"Silence!" Nightmare threw a wall of red fire at Al.

Al canceled out the fire with alchemy, and Nightmare summed a giant energy wave to form his dark horse. As he did so, Al clapped his hands and transformed the ground around him into a horse statue. Both mounted their steeds, and with another clap, Al created a giant sword to use. Nightmare galloped at the alchemist, and Al used flow alchemy to force his statue to move ahead. Both swung, clanged, and passed by each other, then turned around for another go. This time, both leapt off their mounts at the last second, leaving the stone horse to explode on top of the dark horse, destroying both of them, and sliced at each other in the air. As both landed, Nightmare was the only one to have been hit, as he reached the ground and saw Al's giant sword left in his chest. Not to worry – Nightmare just pulled it out and the wound shut. Nightmare dropped the weapon, turned, and assailed Alphonse with soul-based fire.

As Al put up an alchemic wall to block the flames, Nightmare teleported away, back into the city square. Normal attacks weren't working on this armor-bound soul. He either needed to clutch its soul himself, or to destroy it completely. He wasn't used to making plans, far preferring to rush in and destroy all in his path, but the spirit of Dumas, of Raphael, still residing in him somewhat. It could be done.

But before his plan was half-composed, he heard the whistling of wind and turned to find an enormous greenhouse falling out of the sky, ready to crush him.

Nightmare swung Soul Edge, sending a windstorm to meet the greenhouse. It worked – the glass shattered against the efforts of the wind just in time, scattering bits of it all around the plaza.

The armored soul jumped off the roof of a nearby building – it was obvious he had used his material-transforming magic to throw the house. Nightmare formed a red ball on the tip of Soul Edge – a piece of magic that would suck away the souls of all it touched. Now that he knew the armor had a soul, he had to attempt to rid him of it. But before he could swing, the armored soul clapped and put his hands on the ground. Even as the red ball gathered, all the broken glass shards around him melted and moved, flowing deliberately inside him. Nightmare jumped and moved back, but the puddles of glass followed, undeterred, and quickly, gathering and filling out his armor. Another clap, and suddenly they were solid sand, heavy and unmoving, and Nightmare found himself unable to move his limbs. The red ball stayed on the tip of his blade, unable to be cast.

As the armor boy walked up to him, unfearful, Nightmare struggled to move. "What have you done?!"

Alphonse clapped his hands and held one up to Nightmare's chest.

"Heal this."

Al placed the hand on him, and Nightmare felt all the sand turn into something else. Something round, and heavier.

A wave of realization struck Nightmare.

"NO!" Nightmare swung down as the sand transformed, but he wasn't fast enough.

With a flash of light and an explosion that could be seen for miles, his body and armor disintegrated.

Alphonse stumbled and fell to one knee in the midst of the crater that had been created. It had been a huge explosion – nearly half of his body was gone. But he was still alive, which was more than he could say for Nightmare. The armor that once housed the harbinger of death was mere ash, and the sword he used, which was surprisingly far more durable, was in pieces as well. Al stood up on a foot that was threatening to fall off at any moment, clapped his hands, and placed them on his body. Every missing part of his armor began to regrow and fill out again. His body would be weaker for fighting the homunculi, but he'd stopped a huge threat. He was fine with the consequences. He turned to leave.

Never noticing the pile of ash stirring behind him.

He made it out of the crater and halfway through the soulless part of town before being impaled.

Shocked, Alphonse kicked out behind him, hitting something physical that pulled the sword out of his chest. He turned around, and saw a completely regenerated Nightmare. A portal appeared behind Nightmare, one leading to what looks like a plane of space, energy, and purple flame.

"Ho- how- but you-"

Nightmare grabbed Alphonse by the collar. "Darkness will consume everything!" He hurled him over his shoulder and through the portal before stepping through himself. The doorway closed behind him, and Nightmare sighed deeply as he felt the Astral Chaos once more envelop his body. As it did, he began to transform. A physical body was birthed within the armor, and the body and armor merged together in a horrific mess of red flesh, bone, and steel. Soul Edge grew longer, more like a greatsword, and a mass of teeth filled out alongside its edges. Two great wings of fire spread out from his back.

Before he was fully transformed, Nightmare spoke one last time to Alphonse. "Your nightmare ends. The terror of the night will devour all."

Al got up, groggy, and saw the unworldly disorder of a creature hovering in front of him. Immediately he looked for something to transmute – but found nothing. Nothing about this world was right – even the ground he stood on appeared more spiritual than material.

Night Terror tore at him, faster than the blink of an eye, and with only a single swing took off one of Alphonse's arms. His memory of everything that had happened before was muddled at best, but he did remember that this was an armor who used magic with his hands, and that he had to kill it. That was enough. He could kill. He liked that.

Al gasped and backed up. The holy symbol was glowing – it had clearly tried to lessen the power of the blow, but this was something even more powerful than Sophie's soul could deal with. He couldn't let it kill him. He couldn't let it kill her.

Not today.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I have to use you again. You have to fight for your kind one more time."

Al flipped over backwards, doing a handstand just long enough to transfer the stone from his foot to his hand before returning to his original position.

His remaining hand began crackling with energy.

He was ready.

Night Terror charged up and shot a laser beam from his forehead at Al, but Al just waved his wand and a wall of carbon materialized, blocking the shot. Not wasting any time, Al ran his hand over where his arm should be, and as his hand passed over it, it was reconstructed. Night Terror flew at Al, readying a swing with Soul Edge, and Al summoned a massive blade out of thin air, caught it, and matched the swing exactly. Al's sword crumbled in his hands, but it did delay Soul Edge long enough for Al not to get hit. The momentum of Soul Edge's strike carried Night Terror past Al, forcing him to stop himself on the platform and swing around to attack again. Al blocked this swing with his own arm, using the Philosopher's Stone to dramatically increase his durability, and then placed his other hand on the weapon, activating destruction alchemy and causing it to explode into pieces.

Al readied a boxing stance. "I couldn't do that before because I didn't know what material it was made of. But I'd have to be an idiot if I didn-"

Night Terror wasn't listening to a word he said. He shot a laser at Al, interrupting him and pushing him back long enough for Soul Edge to reform from its remaining shards.

Al took the laser for only a few moments before noticing how the holy symbol was glowing like crazy in order to protect him from it. Right away, he formed a mirror in his hand and held it up, deflecting the laser back at Night Terror. Night Terror took it right to the head and flew back, screeching like a wild animal. He tore at the air in front of him, creating massive shockwaves that emanated through the dimensions. Al was hit by one, sending him flying into the air, and then by another, and another, and another. Each new one carved through his body like butter, and Al had to desperately attempt to keep up with healing using the stone.

Seeing the struggling alchemist in the air, Night Terror took advantage of the situation and dove up at him. The armored boy saw him coming and attempted to transmute a wall to stop him, but Night Terror smashed through it and reached him. Night Terror dug his claws deep into Al's chest and unleashed another laser aimed right at his head. Al couldn't block it or move, as Night Terror kept him suspended in mid-air, but it was clear to him that Sophie's soul couldn't handle this for much longer. He used the stone to form a steel wall directly between him and Night Terror, then expanded it so quickly it hit like a cannonball. The winged demon leapt off Al in pain, and Al created a massive amount of vines and flowers to halt his fall.

Alphonse struggled to get up. This was wearing down the stone too fast. He needed to fight someplace where there were already materials he could manipulate.

Al clapped his hands and struck the ground.

Slowly, but surely, inky, black smoke surrounded him, and dark hands began to rise from the floor. An enormous white eye opened itself, as if the ground had been made of the eye of a giant creature all along.

Night Terror swung Soul Edge, shooting a mountain of fire at the eye.

But it just swallowed it up with no effect.

Taking a deep breath that was more to calm his nerves than anything else, Alphonse jumped into the Portal of Truth.

He felt himself deconstruct and reconstruct as he entered, he felt waves of information pass him by, and he woke in a completely white room. It was empty except for two large iron-like doors, each laden with complicated alchemic symbols.

"Well, well," a familiar voice spoke. "I didn't expect to see you here so soon. I was going to give it another few hours yet."

Truth appeared in front of him. Well, not so much appeared, but rather faded into his focus, as if he had always been there, but Alphonse just hadn't been paying enough attention.

"Are you here for your body?"

"No."

Truth grinned. "I know. I know what you want. And you can have it."

"What about the toll? I'm afraid I don't have much left to give you."

Truth laughed. "So you think I'll just let you go free? Yes, I do know everything you're thinking. I am all. I am one. I am truth." Truth held up a pure white hand. Inside of it was the Philosopher's Stone. "Hmm, this will do nicely."

"What?" Al searched for the stone, but realized it wasn't on him anymore. "No! Nevermind! Send me back! I won't let you take them!"

"As I thought, you still have no faith in truth." Truth's grin never changed. "Good luck."

The door behind Alphonse opened, and hundreds of hands reached out, grabbing at Al as he lunged at Truth, and dragged him into the dark, ignoring his cries.

Al woke up in the middle of the plaza again.

He should never have done that.

Meanwhile, Night Terror sniffed and smelled. He couldn't sense the souls anymore, not after they went through that giant eye. The eye itself had closed once the walking, talking armor had gone through it. He'd managed to reach it at the same time as the armor, but for some reason he didn't go in. It'd blasted him with a wave of power – familiar power. Holy power. It disgusted him.

But he could guess where it led.

He began charging his laser. When he opened up the portal to the other world, he wanted to kill that armor and feast on his soul. Delicious. He had to do it before he saw him. Otherwise there would be another tiring fight. He liked fights, but not as much as he liked consuming or destroying souls. Just the thought of that was enough to send chills down his spine. Oh, how excited he was!

After some minutes of charging, he sliced the air in front of him, and a portal opened up, showing the plaza of a town after what had clearly been an intense fight. Craters, missing buildings, explosions, weird giant hands, the whole works was there on display.

As well as a suit of armor on its knees.

Night Terror let loose the laser.

It rammed through the portal and gave the soul-bound armor only enough time to turn around before it slammed into him.

He transmuted a wall, but it cut right through.

He transmuted his armor, removing all the spikes and ornaments and relaying all the material to his hands, which he held in front of him to block the laser.

The laser ground into his hands and, though it was slowed, began to push him back and shred the metal it was hitting.

A symbol on the armor's shoulder was glowing bright. It was clearly helping him handle the laser.

But not for long.

Night Terror poured another burst of power into the laser, and with a shockwave, the alchemist's hands gave way and the symbol vanished.

Night Terror stopped the laser, feeling drained of much of his energy, but his excitement at seeing his prey helpless was palatable. He stepped through the portal and closed it behind him.

The armor turned to his shoulder and ran his fingers over where the symbol had been. "Do you know what you just did?"

Night Terror lifted Soul Edge and strolled forward. He reached Alphonse quickly and threw his blade down, ready to carve the armored body in two.

But Al reached up and caught the blade in his open hand.

And it didn't move.

Alphonse clutched Soul Edge with his fingers. He stood up, keeping his head down, and, when fully arisen, raised his head to look Night Terror in the eye.

"You just killed my friend."

His eyes glowed. As if they were on fire.

Al shouted the roar of a lion, and snapped Soul Edge with his fingers.

Night Terror backed up. What was this? How was he so much stronger all of the sudden?

Alphonse didn't care for strategy or sense anymore. His rage was pure. His beserk mode ensured that.

Night Terror clawed at the air, creating a shockwave, but Al jumped over it, grabbed Night Terror's hand, and ripped it off.

Night Terror howled. He screeched in pain and shock. His bloody stump of an arm was spewing out blood, both onto the ground and onto Al. Al didn't care. Night Terror charged up a laser, but Al stopped him before he could fire. He placed his fingers over Night Terror's eyes and gouged them out effortlessly. Night Terror jumped, shook, and writhed with pain and fear, but Al wouldn't let him go. Instead, he used the now empty eye sockets as grasping point to pull upwards as hard as he could.

And, with one last scream, he ripped off Night Terror's head.

Blood splattered everywhere, organs fell out, and the head, with spine attached, laid in Alphonse's hands.

The fog fell.

Al awakened in his own mind once more.

The moment he saw the carnage before him, he gasped, dropped the head and scooted backwards. "No, I…I didn't! I didn't mean to! It's not my fault!"

The sky darkened.

From the remains of Night Terror, a skeleton wreathed in purple flames emerged.

It looked straight at Alphonse. "I am Inferno. I inhabit the bodies of powerful warriors. I make them mine. Nightmare will be back soon. I had thought that perhaps I could use you, or at least feast on your soul, but now, I will be happy just to annihilate it!"

Inferno rushed at Alphonse.

Alphonse shouted in shock and fear and instantly transmuted a wall in front of him, but Inferno passed right through it like a spirit.

In panic, Alphonse quickly clapped again, and slammed his hands into Inferno as he reached him, using Soul Alchemy to attack him on a spiritual plane.

Suddenly, Al found his mind within the Astral Chaos once more. His mind alone, and now he saw the dimension for what it really was. It was the source of this creature's powers. No, not a creature – a demon.

This was the place he had seen when he touched the cursed sword.

And Inferno was the creature who had tried to take his soul.

Inferno appeared in front of him. "I will give you one chance to accept me as your host. You see my power now. You know you can't win."

"No!" Alphonse formed himself a body in this astral dimension. "I will never kill again!" He clapped his hands, charged them with a mixture of soul and destruction alchemy, and rushed at the demon. He held his hands out. One touch, and he'd win.

He got there.

He struck.

And Inferno grabbed his palms as if they were shaking hands.

Alphonse tried to blast him with his alchemy, but the energy just vanished. "What…what did you do?!"

Inferno met his eyes. He spoke condescendingly, as if he couldn't believe Alphonse hadn't figured this out on his own. "This is my domain. You don't win here. And now, you will never win anything ever again."

Alphonse panicked and struggled to get out of his grasp, but he couldn't.

Inferno sighed. "Pathetic."

A zap of energy crossed from Inferno over to Alphonse, and just like that, his spirit faded and his will vanished, leaving only his soul. And a moment later, that, too, cracked, broke, and dissipated.

In the physical world, Nightmare, aglow with the power of the Astral Chaos from his Soul Charge, pulled Soul Edge from Al's blood seal and roared with success.

-KO!-

Far away, and deep underground, Father opened his eyes. There was a dangerous new threat in this world. So close to the hour of his triumph, this would not do. He considered sending Pride after it.

No, he decided. He rose from his throne.

He'd take care of this himself.

…

Geez, is it just me, or are all of these Hero vs. Villain fights ending in a win for the villain?

Alphonse did have a distinct physical advantage in this battle. Nightmare could throw a guy through a stone statue, but even Ed has done better, being able to punch a guy through a train car. Alphonse can react to someone who moves faster than a bullet-timer can see, while Nightmare had to be in Night Terror form to get even near that level. Plus, at the most, Nightmare can survive an 11 Kiloton explosion before having to completely regenerate his body, while Alphonse took one nearly three times as powerful and was still able to (somewhat) fight. However, none of that is actually a real factor. At the end of the day, Alphonse just doesn't have a consistent method of actually killing Nightmare.

Don't get me wrong, he can definitely damage his body outside of his soul, but actually damaging Inferno himself is much more difficult than it may first appear. Al could always use Destruction Alchemy to destroy Soul Edge, but he couldn't use much else to do so. And this isn't that big of a deal. Not only does Al have much less experience using Destruction Alchemy than either Scar or even Ed, but to even use it in the first place, he has to know exactly what material Soul Edge is made up of. This is made explicitly clear by the manga – if you don't have a perfect knowledge of the makeup of the object you're destroying and infuse that into your alchemy first, then Destruction Alchemy won't work. And since Soul Edge can shapeshift, it can be any material Inferno wishes at any time. This doesn't give Alphonse much time or even much ability to decipher the new materials before Inferno just changes it again. And even if he does guess right and manages to catch the sword, that still probably wouldn't do much. Remember how Destruction Alchemy works? It's literally deconstructing the blade down into hundreds of tiny parts, and then just…not putting it back together. However, Inferno has the ability to pull all broken pieces of Soul Edge together whenever he wishes. If he can pull thousands of pieces from across the world in order to reform this sword in seconds, I'm sure he can do the same for Al's Destruction Alchemy.

And while only a few weapons can possibly pierce Al's armor, not only could the metal-crushing Soul Edge probably do it, but even if it couldn't, it could definitely transform into something that could. I mean, this is the sword that took out Seigfried in one hit, and Seigfried ALSO survived that 11 Kiloton explosion, albeit barely. But even if Soul Edge has a fraction of that power with every blow, that's still more than enough to cut into Al's body. And while both have a method of regenerating their bodies, Alphonse's alchemy is far more limited in this area than Nightmare's magic. To recover any missing part of Al's armor, the rest of it has to be thinned as a result, making it even weaker than before. And every time he does it, he runs the risk of ruining his Blood Seal, which would instantly kill him. And while Al can completely destroy Nightmare's body and it will just regenerate, the moment Nightmare lands a hit of any kind on that Blood Seal, it's game over.

And even though alchemy is an extremely powerful tool and holds much greater variety and potential for creativity than Nightmare's magic, it just can't accomplish much of anything in this fight. Al's alchemical structures have been quite impressive over the years, but Soul Edge and its magic are even more so. Remember how Soul Calibur once coated a castle in ice? Soul Edge's fire has frequently proven a match for Soul Calibur's ice powers, and, in fact, his fire actually dispelled that ice during that instance. Assuming the ice was blue ice, the toughest natural form ice can take, given the thickness of the ice and the amount of area required, Soul Calibur created, in this instance, more than 54,000 Tons of ice. That's way more than Al's ever made with alchemy. The closest we get for him is when Ed transmuted a small field into a dike in the fourth novel. Assuming this field had an area of about one acre and he transmuted as deep as the river itself, that still only comes out to 52,000 Tons of soil transmuted. And while Al is superior to Ed in terms of Alchemy, this feat also comes from a non-canon source, is extremely unspecific about the size of the transmutation, and that amount is far more than either of the two have transmuted before. Plus, not only would most of Al's alchemy be useless against a hollow suit of armor that can regenerate, but it gets straight-up removed from the occasion the moment Nightmare takes an arm off.

Nightmare also has a consistent advantage in certain other areas. His berserker mode increases all his physical abilities, not just strength, and allowed him to keep his mind, his electrical attacks would all guarantee a hit due to Al's metal body, and he had way more experience under his armor. Inferno has been living and fighting, for thousands of years, and while Al is adept with almost any melee weapon he can get his hands on, Nightmare surpasses him again by having mastered all of them. He also doesn't require a steady supply of materials for his magic, unlike Alphonse. And if he's managed to not waste his supply of hundreds of thousands of souls fighting over the course of more than four thousand years, there's no way he'd be able to blow them all in one battle against an alchemist. And, as an extra nail in the coffin, we can compare their rejection probabilities. Story-wise, it took nearly twice as long for Nightmare's soul to begin to be rejected as it did for Alphonse. At both's best, the rejection wouldn't play a factor, and at both's worst, Al was passing out for hours at a time just a few minutes after each time he woke up, while Nightmare simply lost a fraction of his power. Even if Nightmare's armor rejected his soul mid-fight, he could continue fighting as Inferno, but if Alphonse's armored rejected his soul mid-fight, he'd, well, die. So, yeah, there's quite a big difference in terms of how that particular weakness would hamper each combatant's chances in this fight.

Al does gain a bigger advantage over Nightmare's powers thanks to the Holy Symbol on his armor, but the symbol certainly isn't perfect. It may nullify some of the power of a soul, but not all of it – Ed and Al could be (and frequently were) hurt by Velzanian Alchemy even while under the symbol's protection. Without the assistance of alchemy, the strongest blast it's ever protected against was when Sophie herself faced off against Velza, and got hit in the face with enough power to carve out part of a castle. Judging by the size of the hole created, that's about 6.7 Kilotons of TNT, and it nearly killed her – to the point where, afterward, she almost died just from healing a single knife wound. It's extremely doubtful that the symbol could do much to suppress Nightmare's attacks, and even if it could suppress them completely, one 11 Kiloton blast would completely blow out the symbol. Yes, that blast was created by both Soul Edge and Soul Calibur together, but do remember that Soul Calibur has since recombined with the demonic blade, granting the same level of power.

And when it comes to their super modes, I'm afraid that Nightmare takes the advantage there, too. A fully formed Philosopher's Stone could theoretically give Al the power to destroy Inferno and maybe even Night Terror, but only theoretically. Kimblee once used the stone to annihilate an entire city that reached around 120 square miles in area. Comparing this to real-life bomb tests, to destroy a city that large would have required about 360 Kilotons of TNT. That's far more than Nightmare has ever shown. However, Al only received his stone after a lot of the souls had already been used for that very purpose. The manga actually gives us an idea about the amount of power left in the stone: When Kimblee first gets out of prison, he's recruited by Envy to destroy a small village. Kimblee volunteers to use the stone, but Envy directly states that it likely isn't powerful enough to do so anymore, and provides him a new one instead. The same stone that was replaced is the one Alphonse later used. We never get a good look at the village in question, but it's a hilly area with a train station, and we know it's quite small. Assuming he was planning on leveling it all the way to the train station, five square miles is probably a decent estimation. Taking into account the hilly terrain of the land, which would reduce the effect under normal circumstances, to completely level this area would require approximately 23 Kilotons of TNT. Still more than anything Nightmare has shown, but when it comes to Night Terror, that's a different story.

Night Terror is likely as powerful, or even more so, as Abyss, the form Zasalamel attained when he combined his power with both blades. And Abyss was powerful enough to part the clouds and change the weather! Given the distance we can see here, assuming this was created by a control over wind, as Soul Edge has shown such abilities many times, to create windstorms powerful enough to move all this into position would take just over 200 Kilotons of TNT. That's almost ten times more than anything Al's stone can do. And that's not even mentioning the fact that Night Terror is the combined power of Soul Edge, Soul Calibur, and the Astral Chaos. Another time, Azwel, a recognized genius when it comes to both science and magic, stated that when all three were combined, the result could destroy an entire country! So, yeah. And that's assuming Nightmare doesn't just pull out all the souls and devour them.

Actually, that's what really seals this fight.

Alphonse does, in fact, have a precious couple of ways to kill Inferno. Piercing Soul Edge's eye with a holy weapon (which he doesn't have), or attacking his soul directly through either the Philosopher's Stone or Soul Alchemy. But these just aren't reasonably going to happen without some major issues – primarily, Nightmare's ability to strike down, manipulate, and devour souls. Since the Philosopher's Stone is literally nothing but a catalyst for human souls, there is absolutely nothing stopping Nightmare from just pulling on them with his spirit and either destroying or consuming them. He doesn't even have to get up close, since his Soul Wave ability was able to absorb souls from nearly a mile away. And while Al can use Soul Alchemy to fight Inferno on a physical plane, and Inferno is certainly weaker than Nightmare, this opens up Al's soul for easy absorption as well. The only other time an alchemist performed this feat was when Ed used Soul Alchemy to enter Pride's Philosopher's Stone, and it was shown that Pride (had he not been distracted due to outside sources) could have used this opportunity to instead destroy Ed's soul. With thousands of years of experience destroying souls, Inferno could certainly accomplish this.

Actually, he probably wouldn't even need to get Al to attempt a soul battle with him in order to absorb his soul. Al's will may be strong, but it's been made clear by the series that having his soul bonded to the armor has made the soul weaker as a result. Not only is it constantly threatening to fall away from the armor, but Pride was able to take advantage of this to inflict his will over Alphonse's soul, effectively shutting it down. And Pride doesn't have nearly the same kind of experience at soul-bending that Inferno does. There's honestly no reason to say that Nightmare couldn't just use absorb Alphonse's soul right away. No muss, no fuss, no problem. Not even the Holy Symbol would help, since it specifically protects against things powered by souls, not things attacking your soul.

So, both were mostly unkillable except for a few certain ways, and Nightmare had a much easier time of accessing those ways to kill his opponent, and Alphonse even trying to do so to Nightmare would do nothing but open up opportunities for Nightmare to end the whole fight instantly.

This was a good match, but to take this victory, Alphonse' soul had to be on a much higher caliber.

The winner is Nightmare.

...

Next time, on Death Battle…

A small spaceship launches one last torpedo to finish off the massive rebel flagship.

VS.

A small spaceship fires a massive purple laser beam that finishes off a Death Star-like giant egg.

(The Kestrel vs. The Hero)

Whew, that took way longer than I thought it would! Who knew that Soulcalibur had such deep lore, or that Fullmetal Alchemist was such a merchandisable franchise? Anyway, I'm making the next fight in celebration of Season 6 of the official Death Battle. The writers made Season 6 filled with fights that weren't super requested, but were ones that the people who worked on the series really wanted to do. Sure, it's not over yet, but I highly doubt the next battle will come out before it is. And even if it does, the one after that surely won't. Anyway, The Kestral vs. The Hero is one that I have never seen requested ANYWHERE online, but I've really wanted to do for a while now. So even if you don't care about the fight or have never heard of one or both characters, I hope you'll stick around anyway, because I'm really looking forward to writing it!

Take care, and, if you liked this battle, checking out my would be appreciated, where I'll be releasing battle previews and polls and stuffs. The link is in my profile. M'kay, bye!