Dyllan took a deep breath as he watched the Nightmare melt into the pavement below.

Fuck. Fuck fuck, fuckity fuck-fuck. He couldn’t let this happen, he couldn’t just stand by and watch as liquid hate soaked into the roots of someone’s heart and mind. Hurting one person to help another… that wasn’t who he was anymore. He needed to do something, but what? Cedric! Cedric would know! Surely Cedric had been following closely behind Dyllan, and would be there any… Oh. He’d already arrived...

Dyllan wasn’t sure when Cedric had caught up with him, but he was here now - and from the look on his face it was clear that he was already caught up on the situation and forming a plan. No, that wasn’t good enough. Cedric’s plans were thorough, but he was slow to produce them. He needed Andie’s quick thinking to -

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Shit! Andie had passed out from her wounds! Dyllan was the only one ready to act, he needed to come up with a plan all on his own. He needed to do something Andie-ish. Something bold and stupid that made a weird kind of sense, something heroic. Something like what Finnegan had done to save him back when -

Right! That was it! Dyllan bit hard into his own hand, tearing open a wound for his glowing Will to Live to flow out from. He gathered as much of the floating ectoplasmic energy as he could in the palm of his hand, then charged the decomposing Nightmare, and slammed the burning energy down into the Nightmare’s wounds. Brilliant red light and electric flame erupted with a cataclysmic thunderclap - sending Dyllan reeling backward.

After a moment of silence - after the dust had settled and the adrenaline had worn off - there was no longer a Nightmare, nor was there any shadowy black goo. Instead, there stood a noble red flag fluttering in the wind, flown from a stainless steel pole.