Glorybringer: The Nightmare Within

Confrontation

Glory and Deathbringer stopped right in their tracks, staring at the menacing beast in front of them. The queen squinted at the fox. It looked so... familiar. But for the life of her, she couldn't figure out where she knew him from!

Then, it struck her, and her heart collapsed in her chest. It was the fox from her Nightmares! 

"Well, well, well," he treated with an amused look on his face. "It's nice to see you all! How are you doing? I hope you've been burning."

The fox cackled at his own bad joke, which was barely even a joke but seemed to amuse him nonetheless. Deathbringer was frozen solid, knowing that they'd have to fight him if they wanted to have any chance of getting past him; but he also knew that there was no way he could win against Twisted.

"You know, I really would've kept my promise," he informed Deathbringer. "if you had helped, I was really going to provide all the services I offered you, without any tricks. But now that you've not only disagreed and made my agent betray me, but you also had to go and join the Cawthon..." 

Twisted's smile turned into a snarl, before reverting to his amused smirk. "Now... Now we'll just have to kill you before I go on with my plan... And since Glory's here, I'll have to kill her too!"-- as he added layers to his plan, his speech grew more and more frantic.-- "And since the tribe will notice their queen missing, I'll have to kill them all too! And since a tribe disappearing won't go unnoticed, I'll just have to kill everyone! And it all started with YOU!"

He aimed his hooked hand at the two and Glory came to another startling realization. The hook, she thought. It's the one Thorn gave me! That means... he was in the palace... he was 3 hallways away from where we sleep!

Deathbringer suddenly pounced into action, fueled by adrenaline. The floor broke underneath him when he pushed off of it, calling on Venom's strength as he flew forward his target. Twisted only smiled and stepped to the side nonchalantly, easily avoiding the attack. As the nightwing flew past, the fox seized his tail and swung him over his head into the ground in front of him. 

Glory's bodyguard hit the ground hard enough to not only crack it but to bounce back up. Without missing a beat, Twisted drop kicked Deathbringer, seeing the ex-assassin flying down the hall until he slid to a stop. 

"So predictable," the fox sighed. Deathbringer saw Glory open her mouth to spit acid, and before he could tell her to stop, the world-destroyer was on her. He grasped her throat, lifted her off the ground then slamming her back down. He looked the nightwing in the eyes, and his heart gripped. He wouldn't dare, he told himself, but he knew that wasn't true. 

However, to his relief, the fox didn't kill her. He stood up, with her still in his clutches, then discarded her like trash. The queen was sent through a wall, but it wasn't with enough force to kill her. 

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone this," Twisted monologues as he sauntered toward Deathbringer. "But not long ago, we intercepted a transmission. It had obviously been intended for the Cawthons but we found it first! In this transmission, an unidentified speaker told us to find the mystic.'"

Deathbringer growled despite his curiosity and attacked again. However, the result was the same. The nightwing quickly followed it up by sending multiple of Venom's tentacles, hoping to ensnare the Nightmare. Green flames appeared in front of the fox, and pain overtook Deathbringer's body as the symbiote also shrieked in agony. Fire weakness, the nightwing remembered.

"Originally, we thought it was Lefte. I mean, who else would it be? But something wasn't sitting right with me. Why would the Cawthon's be told to find the mystic, when he's already with them?"

Deathbringer tried to attack again, but Twisted put a stop to it even before he stood up, blasting the bodyguard with green flames. They were unnaturally hot and left him feeling sick inside.

"So I ordered an investigation, and sure enough, it wasn't him. My job was to come here, identify who the mystic was, and either recruit or kill them. We were here for a thousand years, Deathbringer."

Before the nightwing could even think of attacking again, the fox kicked him upside the head. His body snapped to follow his head, making his body contort painfully.

"Just when I was about to call off the mission, it happened. The Cawthons find out where I am, and haphazardly open a portal in a rush to escape the agents I sent after them. I look up and what do I see? You getting struck not once, but twice with lightning infused with mystic energy."

Twisted put a foot onto Deathbringer's head, pressing it into the floor. "Then, weeks later, Venom says that you somehow remembered events that happened in a reset."

"Why are you telling me this?" Deathbringer questioned. The fox grinned sinisterly, pressing his head harder into the ground. 

"You're a mystic, Deathbringer. And, well, since you didn't join, I have orders to destroy you."

The nightwing roared and struggled, but despite Venom's strength, was powerless under the world destroyer's grasp. Then, as if in hesitation, Twisted's foot lifted just enough. Deathbringer knocked the fox back then threw himself away from him, scrambling to his feet.

"But here's the kicker!" the fox growled, his grin spreading wider and wider. "I'm not going to kill you!... He is."

On cue, Deathbringer heard a thump behind him. Before he could turn to see who it was, he was knocked away by a red tentacle, seemingly from a symbiote. A much more powerful symbiote. The hit knocked him through the palace wall. Venom reacted quick enough, taking over Deathbringer and landing on their feet.  Their attacker roared. Though, it could barely be described as a roar so much as a high-pitched screech. Finally, the other symbiote showed itself, and Deathbringer's blood ran cold.

It shouldn't have, because the nightwing had no idea who this red klyntaarian was. But Venom did. His shock was so great, it overwhelmed the symbiote, allowing it to flood into Deathbringer's body. 

"My boy..."