Andie turned to look behind her. There, standing in the middle of the street, was the root of her patient’s suffering. It was a little small by Nightmare standards, only reaching about two stories tall. It was slouched over and moved with a slimy, shambling gait - letting its arms dangle and drag on the ground like a pair of rusty old chains. Its posture concealed the true length of its form, but its scrawny frame made height a poor measurement of its mass anyway. Shadow oozed off of the Nightmare, like almost every other member of its kind, spreading corruption and anxiety across the mindscape. Although this one seemed to drop chunks of itself as it did so - losing bits and pieces of its flesh to a gloomy rot. Within the gaps cut by decay, obsidian bones were revealed; shaped like a normal skeleton, but coated in a crystalline, cancerous cover.
It would probably only take one good hit from Andie for the thing to shatter into pieces, but the young hero had promised to wait, both out of caution and an unspoken desire to make sure Dyllan had a chance to participate. He needed that right now. Thankfully, the Nightmare was slow enough that dodging it was no tall order. A bob here, a weave there, and Andie smoothly kept herself just an inch away from impact.
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“Incom-ing!” Dyllan plummeted down from above, bouncing off of the Nightmare’s head before landing with a “paff” on solid ground. “One Dyllan T. Hoffman, ready to kick ass and take names, juuust as requested.” He spun his painted steel shield on his finger. On the surface, it looked like his usual cocky charm had returned to him… but his smile just didn’t have its usual edge to it. Most damningly, Andie couldn’t help but notice that his little chuckle - the one he always made after he thought he’d said something funny - rang a little bit hollow.
“Focus, you two.” Cedric strolled up behind Andie. She hadn’t noticed him land. “This one is more dangerous than it looks.”
“What do you mean?” Andie ducked underneath a clunky swipe. “Stupid thing hasn’t even gotten a single hit on me, and even if it did…” She leapt out of the way of another strike, letting it hit the pavement below her. The swipe took a noticeable groove out of the concrete, as well as left some shadow goo and a few thin cracks. As far as collateral damage from Nightmare fights went, this was pretty underwhelming. “See? The thing struggles to even… get through…” The liquid darkness stirred with life, then wriggled into the cracks in the pavement below it - sealing them shut and tinting the nearby area with an inky blackness. A closer inspection of Andie’s surroundings revealed dozens of these darkened patches. “Oh. Okay, yeah. I’ll be careful.”