It started with the smaller cracks in the floating chunks of bunker. They, alongside any other minor damage, peeled off the concrete like stickers - dissolving into bubbling black hate-goo as they pulled into the space right in front of Dyllan. Then the bigger cracks started to peel away and dissolve, gathering together with the goo in front of Dyllan to form a slow moving vortex. Next the fissures from which the vines had sprung, like every crack before it, peeled away and dissolved. The more the tar-like hate gathered in front of Dyllan, the stronger the vortex it made became - pulling harder and harder at every bit of damage that plagued Dyllan’s mindscape. Finally, bits and pieces of his Nightmare began to tear off, hatred leaking from the wounds like blood and funneling into the churning sphere of blackened slime alongside everything else.

The pull only continued to get stronger, but if Dyllan waited any longer it would start to tear away at more than just his trauma. So he swung his bat, his Trait. His Justice. He swung it with every ounce of strength he could muster and smashed it into the ball of hatred in front of him. His weapon stopped just short of the vortex, but even though the bat had stopped the blow continued. The momentum behind the strike stayed, and as Dyllan funneled more power into his attack it began to grow. Electricity crackled and arced between the vortex and his bat, half of it black the other half burning red.

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Then, brilliant white cracks began to spread across the liquid violence. The same kind of cracks that formed whenever a Nightmare had been struck by Andie or Dyllan’s Virtues.

With a thunderous “thoom”, Dyllan’s bat broke through the stalemate and slammed into the sphere - sending it flying as the cracks of white light erupted with burning red flames that consumed the orb, turning it into a massive fireball. Dyllan’s Nightmare tried to run, skittering away like a cockroach after the lights turn on - but the fireball could not be escaped. It pursued with the relentless focus of a well trained hunting dog, and precise swerving movements that kept its momentum going through even the sharpest turn.

Inevitably, the fireball crashed into Dyllan’s Nightmare and splattered into Will to Live, covering the beast and all the nearby bunker chunks in the burning red ectoplasmic liquid. Dyllan had seen Will to Live come into contact with the liquid hate that Nightmares were made of many times before. Every single time, the black sludge had dulled and consumed the Will. Dousing and extinguishing the light of hope in darkness. This time, the opposite happened. Dyllan’s Nightmare was almost instantly incinerated - burning away all the fear and frustration to leave behind only a floating pool of burning red Will to Live.