Andie blocked one blow from Maddie’s hammer, then dodged backward out of the way of another one. The fight had gotten to its peak before she’d even realized it, and it was going much worse than she’d hoped. Maddie was every bit as persistent as a shadow, showing no signs of tiring as the battle went on. She wasn’t as weak as a shadow, though. She’d kept Andie on the defense for near a minute now, and had almost gotten a hit in already.

“Andie! You half-brained buttmunching lunatic!” Cedric rushed up toward Andie from across the street, Dyllan following closely behind. “Fall back, fall back!”

“…buttmunching? Cedric, what the hell -” Dyllan shook his head. “Never mind, not important. Frickin’ leg it Andie!”

They didn’t need to tell Andie twice. As soon as she had an opening she made a one-eighty and took off running for her friends. She didn’t make it far.

“Three on one, huh… Thought you goodie-two-shoes were all about fightin’ fair.” The rancid yellow of Maddie’s eyes flickered with an acidic glow as she pulled Andie towards her by the scruff of her collar. “Guess your stupid ‘morals’ only apply when convenient for you, as usual.” Her grin narrowed into a vicious smirk. “Seems to me it’s time to level the playing field.” With that, Maddie called forth a sickly cloud of dream smoke - no… dream smog - and tossed Andie into it.

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Dyllan and Cedric chased after their friend, pushing through the dream smog and into a mindscape. It was a maze like place, walls of cinder block apartment buildings towering over the dreamwalkers. Everything was painted with garish colors, and lit with bright lights.

“O-kay…” Andie pushed herself up off the pavement, looking about to find the concerning absence of a Maddie. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know…” Cedric’s eyes scanned his surroundings, sweeping every corner. “But I think I see something over there.”

Dyllan turned to see a large Nightmare looming over them. It was tall, thin, and robotic, with a cracked yellow visor covering its eyes. Patches of black bristly fur were bursting out from various cracks on the Nightmare, and a huge wicked grin was literally painted onto its face. Much like the Drugmare, it was primarily silver in color, so it was likely a Dream turned bad as well. There was no rust this time, though. “Gee, Cedric. I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“No, not that! There was something -” Cedric sighed. “Screw it, one thing at a time... Get into that alley over there, I have a plan.”