With the help of Luigi, Nancy, and his brothers and sisters, turned soldiers overnight, the Commander had prepared. Prepared about as well as anyone could to fight the living embodiment of evil, anyway.

The chances were, and privacy seemed to force such honesty out of him, abysmal. Odds were that some of those brothers and sisters died. Higher were the chances of that happening with him getting caught in the crossfire. There would be no blaze of glory, fighting to the last breath, or until the last pint of blood spilled out. A claw through the heart and that was the end of his story.

Outside, part of the top floor functioning as a balcony, the rain poured for the second night in a row. Beat down, battering the landscape and whipping trees back and forth. Not since this business with Krueger had started had he seen the Pidgit who ferried between lands, carrying passengers as much as he carried information. No lightning pulsed across the sky, as it had before, but imagination got the better part of fear and he managed to shake off neither. The swirling miasma, the same private war affecting each and every one of his men, he imagined becoming tangible.

First it was a hand with fingers large enough to block out the moon. Then the fingers were claws, claws that clamped around his spirit, squeezing, keeping there until there was no life left to siphon for Freddy-

"Commander?"

-Krueger. And the one fighting tooth and nail to stop him and the one who'd brought him over were one in the same.

Gut reaction prompted him to swear at her, something along the lines of fucking hell, and then bark about her and Luigi needing to watch for Krueger at their own points.

The words phased through her, and she said sorry as reparations for the guilt she imagined she was supposed to feel. Lord above, Luigi knew the language. Why did she have to make communicating so damn difficult?

"Are you..Is everything okay?"

A tree whooshed heartily. He shrugged, which felt like the only response to a question so inane and pointless without coming off as outwardly vindictive.

"I was just- just running over to fill you in on things. Everyone's in positions now. We've got Shy Guys spread across the temple inside, Shy Guys camping on the outskirts."

She paused, seeming to accurately read his get to the point expression.

"No sign of him yet. They're still working on the Birdo. Calling it a Robirdo now." Nancy chuckled at her own joke, which quickly died when he wasn't finding it so funny.

The way she waited around, skating her foot in a sandy circle, pretending to check her fingernails, he felt more obligated to not say something, having no want to talk with her in the first place.

"We're all, umm, hoping for the best."

He may have nodded, if not a slight tilt upwards.

Silence, deafened. But Nancy, still standing on the edge of vision, lingered.

"Look, I get it, we're not bosom buddies or anything, but you'd tell me if I've done something or said something to hurt you, right?"

Not for a split second did he consider telling her the truth. waiting Then there were tracks in the sand, and he knew without looking back that she had given up and slipped away.

Most likely she picked up that tactic from her previous encounters with Krueger.

Poor girl, part of him thought. How old was she? Couldn't be beyond her mid-twenties. Jeez.

And then, more powerful, came the and yet. The realisation. Try as he might, he could not separate the three; the girl, the murderer, the toll. No Nancy meant no Freddy. There would be no spread of death across Subcon, no trifecta of chaos. There would be nothing, except peace.

He stood alone, again, looking out into a sky both terribly blank and condensed to the point of dwarfing his diminutive stature in the grand scheme.

If not for Nancy herself, then he hoped the best for the men and women she was leading into battle.

Including his wife and son.

…

There was no rainfall for Luigi, or the Shy Guys surrounding him, to idly admire. At the insistence of one hyperactively superstitious Shy Guy, superstitious even with a battleaxe weighing down his left arm, they had kept the wall in place. Things were too dire, him too nervous, to look straight ahead and meet the eyes of the others. But he did make the occasional eye contact, offer the odd consoling message, hoping to God he looked something close to resolute.

When Nancy reappeared, he mockingly clutched his chest, but the anxiety was very much real. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, his heart was in knots enough as is.

"Any update?"

"Nothing major." Nancy sat down with him, hands embracing her knees. "Commander's doing fine. No sign of anything strange except the weather."

"And it was rainin' already even before we got here."

"Right."

There was a silence, but with them, silences could be comfortable, and now more than ever were very much appreciated.

"Who are you thinking about?"

"My parents," Luigi said warily, a little taken aback. "I think they'll finally be proud of me now. Have t'be."

He turned to Nancy, taking the time to look into her eyes. He couldn't shake the feeling something was off. But then, who wasn't?

"What about you, Nance?"

"Well I don't have parents, so myself, mostly. All the people here. The ones living, the ones dead. And you."

"Me?"

"Yes. You, Luigi. Because it's my fault you got wrapped up in this goddamned shitstorm in the first-"

Luigi stopped Nancy by physically putting his hand out, a strange gesture, stranger still the fact it was a reflex. The more she had gone on, the more distraught she sounded. Something had been leading up to that eruption. This, he was sure of.

"Little lady-"

"Really not that much younger than you."

"Nancy, what makes you think you're at all responsible for what happened? There's a Freddy with or without you."

"I don't know," Nancy huffed, sounding out of breath already, "Just, the way the Commander was when I talked to him, it's like he felt I was the reason. Maybe he wasn't too far off."

"He's just bein' plain ol' unfriendly," Luigi assured.

"Right."

Nancy looked like she was staring a hole in the ground, much like he himself had been doing earlier.

A moment passed. Nothing but small voices and the ambience of the temple. Then another moment passed. Then another.

"Luigi." Nancy turned to him with a certain urgency. "If we don't…well, you know, just know that us getting this far was-"

Breaking her own sentence, Nancy yawned, impromptu, the totally noncommittal nature of it contrasted by her silence afterwards.

"Tired?"

"Try half dead."

Now that he thought about it and actively noticed, the events of the last few hours were starting to take their toll on Nancy. Or had it always been there, that baggage beneath the eyes, the redness around her pupils no new addition but instead a detail that had gone unchecked for too long?

Halfway turning to her, as if administering some secret knowledge, he asked:

"Do you think it's possible? To fall asleep in a," he yawned, "damn, sleep bug bit me too, dream?"

"Logically you wake up. Not that that holds much worth here. And Subcon seems to be another entity. Another thing separate from the dream world, linked by the same gateway."

"Only one thing to do, then. We sleep in shifts. One keeps watch, the other catches up on Z's."

All it took was a few minutes and the cool stillness of the night, and Nancy was out for the count. When she slept, she did not snore. In fact, she hardly breathed at all.

While she recovered her energy, Luigi spent the two hours – they had designated that as the time limit – wandering around the temple, checking in with various sects. The bow and arrow people, he gave a quick reminder on how to aim. Those with potions, he reminded of the cardinal rule of throwing them, which was that it had to be from up close, right between the eyes. He even tried his hand at helping the people with swords, which turned into an exercise in how little he knew himself.

Some time later, Luigi returned to his spot, the haze of sleep beginning to cloud over him also. He blinked, felt the want for his eyelids to crust shut, then jarringly returned to full consciousness.

Right, he thought. One of us has to be fully conscious. Moron.

For some time Luigi kept his guard up. But, even then, he almost missed it. It being a shifting against the wall he was resting on. Not quite rumbling, but there was some movement, some cracks being formed along the stone.

Along the stone, and behind her head.

"Hey," he whispered – not entirely sure why he was speaking so quietly.

More cracks formed. This time, Luigi nudged her as he called her name, which ended up doing the trick.

A bleary-eyed Nancy looked up at him, clearly not conscious enough to see Luigi as he was, but striving to gain that level of clarity. She opened her mouth to yawn. It would have led to a sentence, but she never had the opportunity to start talking.

Something emerged from the cracks.

…

For miles around, on the northern wing of the temple which much dulled the wind battering outside, the Commander was the only man or woman with no weapon. Instead of polishing a tool he didn't have, he wiled away the time via rumination and acceptance.

His wife and kids…he hadn't seen them since this whole Freddy fiasco had started with that first meeting.

Not that he was planning to, but before he could go and look for them, a Shy Guy walked up and courteously waved.

"Everything okay, sir?"

He half-considered telling the honest truth. Truth was, however, he hardly knew this particular Guy – only that once they might have fought together.

"About as fine as I can be given the circumstances."

Then he remembered something. Something such as the fact that the Shy Guy was stationed outside of the vault, the second most secure area of the temple besides the vault itself. Sandwiched between guards armed with weapons and their own strength was his wife. Their daughter, secure elsewhere, not directly on the battlefield.

"How is she?" the Commander asked, deceptively uninterested.

"Still asking for more guards."

This he laughed at far more than the man, because he could envision it, could hardly wait to hear the story direct from the horse's mouth.

"Say." The Shy Guy's gaze moved downwards. "You don't have any weapons, sir. What gives?"

"Don't need them," he said. "If it comes to that, it'll be just me and him. No holds barred."

Evidently the other, redder Shy Guy then lost a handle on what to say, because he saluted him and returned to his place on what would soon be a battlefield.

It was inevitable. But it was in the air, too, where something had changed.

He thought about Luigi and Nancy, coming close to acknowledging a joint role in the planning of the destruction of Freddy but finding himself unable to shake the idea of the former being the primary contributor.

He thought about his own mortality.

Someone screamed, an earsplitting noise that punched through thirty-two other floor.

Then, the Commander wasn't thinking much at all. Moving through the speed of haphazard thought and sudden action instead.

I'm gonna make you proud, honey.

…

Down below, on ground zero, things had been too silent for their own good. Up until a few seconds ago, where, unintentionally in sync with the other Shy Guy returning to his post, a hand burst from the wall.

A gloved hand, from the section of wall behind Nancy.

After she shot up and screamed, the wall came tumbling down.

It did not surprise her, or Luigi for that matter, to see him again. That it would be the last time, however, that made the difference.

"He's here, people! Right here! Get your weapons ready!"

So they did. Those Shy Guys not already holding their weapons took them into arms; spears clutched, handles of swords gripped tight, torches at the ready. All around the temple was a hubbub of moving footsteps and worried murmuring, but no approaching Freddy.

Luigi watched the standoff between a gloating Freddy and his vengeful-looking friend, his worst enemy. In his own mind, he had a better plan. Evidently they wanted to settle things differently.

"I really should thank you, Nancy." He ran a leathery tongue across his lips, then back around, knowing how much it disgusted her. "Gathering all these people and getting me an entire feast to devour! And then…and then, you'll be the last one on the menu. But not least. No, not a chance."

In lieu of a natural weapon, Nancy aimed to do a number of things, none of which were occurring to her as Freddy and the second monster that was his sheer presence loomed over.

Luigi considered, momentarily, the Fire Flower, and his sweating hand hovered around the crudely stuffed pocket.

"But first," Freddy said, smiling crookedly, "a sign of things to come."

With his bladed arm he intended to slash Nancy across the face, leaving three large gashes to flay her cheek. The only problem was, with both her hands, Nancy followed where her mind first went to and grabbed his wrist.

It was exhilarating, in the same way rollercoasters thrilled and driving under the influence excited. It was holding the sun, the power of God in one unworthy hand.

As Freddy reconciled and visibly recoiled at the image of what was going on – a girl half a foot shorter than him may as well be an imp, and here that imp was, stopping him dead still.

It didn't occur to him that Nancy had a follow-up, her confidence looking to peter out to nothing, and if he were being honest Luigi wasn't sure either.

Naturally it came as a shock to him, a devastation to Freddy, when she pushed his arm back far enough to hear the bones snap.

Krueger cried out, dropping to one knee and cursing her name for all the hatred in the world.

A moment to savour the pathetic image was all Nancy had and all she gave herself. The whimpers and expletives were music that empowered her as she ran away, leading into the temple as opposed to the bloodbath waiting to happen that was ground zero.

"You…just you wait, bitch! I'm gonna catch you, then it's fucking feeding time!"

Similarly, Luigi did not hesitate to follow in her tracks, shadowing Nancy's rhythm. By this point running for his life came as second nature. He twisted around corners, braved the stairs, and when they came to one, jumped a gap in the floor without missing a beat.

"So, what's the end goal here? You know, beyond the obvious?"

"Logically," Nancy grabbed hold of a wall, almost falling as she zipped lightning-fast around an L-shaped turn, "he'll come to me now. He's too angry to do anything else."

"And then?"

"And then he gets what he wants," she said grimly. "I wrestle him to the ground. You turn up the heat on that flower."

"I- you can't really mean..you don't really think I.."

The end of the path forced the conversation to a standstill.

Few were the things that outright bewildered Luigi now, and so his jaw dropping at the sight before him said a lot.

Three sets of stairs. Each led, in theory, upwards…but the first twisted upside down, and the others led to doors sideways or beneath.

Just looking at the display made Luigi feel as if his head would explode, never meant to comprehend such sights, and so he took to looking at the human and familiar as soon as possible.

"I don't know," she said, the question obvious in his expression. "I've never seen anything like this. But I do know this. There are two lines of logic in a dream. One, any pain you suffer, you suffer in real life. Two, what is and isn't possible is yours to- hey!"

Roles were reversed. Luigi ended up leading the charge up the second, and by far most vanilla, set of stairs. This one travelled up as a straight line. The only problem was, as he came to realise to soon, it came to a dead end beneath the platform above, too far for even him to make the jump.

He imagined an hourglass ticking, only the thinnest of sand grains left.

On the left was another platform, this one twisting and coiling.

"I don't know if we can make it!"

"Me neither, Nance. But we have to try!"

As Luigi readied his jump, crouching so as to store more energy for the torso down, another door opened.

Freddy Krueger poked his head out from beneath the third staircase.

Without another second of hesitation Luigi bit the bullet. There was a moment where he knew, or thought he had come close to knowing, what death felt like. Uncertainty. Agonising self-doubt.

He landed intact. Stranger still, he landed on his feet. The more he tried to understand, the less it made sense and the less certain his balance was.

"Easy," Nancy soothed, holding his shoulder. "Easy. Remember the second rule."

What is and isn't possible is yours to decide, he replied, at least in his head.

"Don't you brats get it?" Freddy shouted, hugging the third staircase. "This was gonna be the dream of the century, and it still is! Because you two shitheads won't be around to clog the works much longer!"

This odious threat was made moreso by Freddy's letting go of the stairs, flying winglessly. This, like with so many other things about the man, Luigi tried not to dwell on.

"I'm following you." Nancy, no more than five steps behind.

Underneath the second flight, now appearing on the same plane of gravity, was a wooden door that maybe led to anywhere, nowhere, both at the same time, both at different times. It was no different in appearance; only closer than the other options, thus infinitely more appealing.

It was a complete leap of faith, nothing to break the fall from one point to another if things went awry, if gravity tried to get its act together.

Krueger's door slammed shut.

Luigi kept his eye on the door as he willed his feet off the ground, screaming hopeful thoughts to drown out the dread and anxiety.

He did not, as a little part of him expected, plummet. But he did not float, or fly, as Freddy briefly had.

Nancy discovered it first. It being more like swimming, a current existing, with a need to be pushed against. In large sweeps, she moved her arms, and in doing so propelled her momentum. Luigi did the same. Did it faster, on account of many a Cheep Cheep or Blooper that needed fleeing.

He was still wading through invisible water when he got to the knob, and then felt the handle.

Nancy held her breath. Luigi calmed his eagerness down some, and then gently fell on the checkerboard tiling that not a minute ago he had hovered over.

He felt the individual grooves between his fingers as he turned the lock, each tiny movement contributing to that trademark groaning creak.

Light at the end of the tunnel manifested in the most literal sense, in that on the other side of the door shone a light so brilliant that both Luigi and Nancy were forced to glue their eyes shut.

When next they opened them, their first sight, after the spots of heavy colour disappeared, there was Freddy, his smile brighter than ever.

Nancy ducked underneath a swipe of his claws, pulling Luigi along with her. And as she passed through it, she remembered his advice from earlier, from teleporting from "Springwood" to Subcon.

Where she ended up, leaving the mess of wild geometry behind, was exactly where she wanted to be; the bottom floor of the temple, warmed up by fire from drawn-taut arrows.

"Nice work," Luigi said, not even waiting until he had passed through the door to congratulate her. She didn't respond because he had nothing to be grateful for…not yet, anyway.

Nancy yanked him forward, practically throwing a fully grown man to the ground, and in the next breath Freddy manifested. He was snarling like a beast, and in general exuding the kind of energy that suggested he would kill everyone in the vicinity if given the chance.

Luigi worked out her endgame, and gave the thumbs-up to one half of the room. Those with potions readied themselves to jump over ledges and down to the ground. Turnips were held high in the air with sacred importance, as were swords and daggers, heavy rocks in the hands of those slower to the armory. The other half, with crossbows and catapults, pocket knives, fully-grown blades, Nancy beckoned to her call with but a single command. Two words.

"Do it."

So it was said, and so it would be done.