Glorybringer: The Nightmare Within

Entering The Panic Room

Glory awoke with a start at her desk, cluttered small letters, a cup of water, and an empty plate with a napkin to the left. Her face had caused the ink to smudge all over the paper, and upon a quick wipe with her talon, she discovered that she had ink all over her face. Glory reviewed her letters, making sure she had everybody. She had one for all the queens, Grandeur, Stonemover, and all of her friends. Glory grabbed a cup of water that she had put on her desk and combined it with the napkin to clean off the ink on her face. 

The letters contained her final messages to her friends, in case she didn't make it back. She hadn't originally intended on making them, but Foxy had insisted. "You couldn't pay me enough to go to that damn place," he had explained. "So far, only 12 people have ever made it through, despite the billions that have tried." That had scared her into doing it. But I'm going to come back, she told herself. I have to... for the sake of the whole world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About 12 minutes later, the queen arrived at the point she and Anemone had agreed to meet; deep in the forest, about a mile from the border of the new Rainforest Kingdom. When she arrived, she was met with a field that had been utterly flattened, even the dirt melted and then cooled to create a smooth surface. In the center, Foxy sat with his legs crossed and eyes closed, the crystal floating in front of him. The glowing red shard retreated down back into the box as the queen approached.

"Morning, Glory," he greeted, eyes still not open. "You notice that I brought you out to this... hellscape, but for a good reason. This crystal, even when contained, is a massive energy source, and with any energy extraction there's a massive exothermic reaction, this is the 27th face I've had to regrow after being blown up by this thing. Anemone, bring the... the thing."

The seawing stood at the edge of the blast radius, cautiously coming forward. Clearly the fox wasn't the only one who had been surprised by the destructive power of the crystal. She approached the rainwing with a bracelet, diamonds forming a number: 3:00:00.

"It's a countdown. I calculated the amount of time you'll have before, in our time, Bendy will be almost here. The countdown will start once you enter the dimension. Glory..." Foxy crouched down awkwardly so that his face was level with hers and put his hands on her shoulders. "I cannot stress enough that you need to be prepared for what is about to happen. You are going to be teleported into a place known only known as the Panic Room. This room is a dimension of a Spectrum called Crouseless Cleeassmentas, which translates to Cruel Punishment. The moment you enter this dimension, it suddenly knows everything about you, and it will use that leverage to break you down and hurt you in ways that you couldn't imagine. It will put you in situations you dread the most, situations that you didn't even know you didn't want to happen. All you need to do is overcome one of these fears, and you will have your prize. But I must warn you, do not tell yourself that it isn't real, because that is far from true. You can die there, and if you do, your soul will be forced to live in this torment forever. I will bring you back in 3 hours, which will be 3 days before Bendy arrives in Pyrrhia."

Glory took this in for a moment, nodding. Don't think about it... don't chicken out. Foxy took the box, held it in the air in front of him, then let go and let the raw power of the crystal stand before them. Foxy traced his arms dynamically around the crystal, creating shapes that surrounded the crystal, intriquate symbols and signs. Every movement was calculated; graceful but rigid. Foxy then pulled back one arm as if drawing a bow and the center of the shape stretched back toward him. He looked at Glory. "Ready?"

"Yes," Though Glory wasn't quite sure if she meant it. However, it was good enough for Foxy, who then pushed at the center of the symbols, causing to protrude forwards and blast out a single, concentrated beam into the floor a few meters away. Red cracks began to form, starting from Foxy's fingers and traveling up his arm. Glory could tell that they must hurt.

My moons, Glory realized. He's dying. Just being near this crystal is enough to kill him.

That information would be useful for the future... 

"Get ready to run!" Foxy yelled. A large crack in the earth was beginning to form, and skinny, rock-like like tentacles began to seep from it. "Looks like the Panic Rooms ready to come to us." 

The darkness was mostly held back by the red beam, but it was still managing to seep out. Foxy groaned, before yelling out with effort as the beam intensified and black energy began to spew from his scars. However, despite his efforts, the darkness continued to creep into their world. Foxy suddenly abandoned his complicated symbol and seized the crystal outright. His arm suddenly became charred black with glowing red cracks as he howled in pain and shot out a larger beam of energy. Nature seemed to attack the pair, offended by Foxy's sudden boldness. The wind howled and lashed at Glory's side, nearly knocking her over; the earth tremored in rage, or perhaps even terror.

"Now!" Foxy roared, and Glory ran toward the end of the beam. It suddenly occurred to Foxy that he could keep the beam going. If he did, Glory would jump and be instantly vaporized, and there would be no more problems for the rest of the invasion. That was tempting. VERY tempting. But so was the urge to let go of this crystal and not die today. So, he brought the box to himself and jammed the crystal into it, slamming the case shut. The beam stopped just as Glory got to the portal and dove in. The portal closed in a matter of moments, and the creature, satisfied with its catch, also retreated back as the fissures faded away.

Twisted sent the crystal back into the receptible and then passed out from exhaustion.

Glory, however, did not pass out. She was delved into total darkness. If there was a light source in this vast space, it wasn't doing a great job. This room gave Glory a strange feeling, a tingling on the tips of her horns as if they were antennas emitting some kind of special signal that only this room had access to. 

Suddenly, she was no longer in the dark room, but in another realm of darkness. It was Pyhhria, but at the same time, it was so different. She was at the entrance of JMA, looking out at the charred and rocky land. Creatures stumbled around the hellscape, their top half scavenger-like, but their bottom half a tail that ended in a barb, moving around by the spider legs that sprouted from it's spine. The monsters had pitched black skin and no eyes, just a massive, gaping mouth with razor sharp teeth.

"We call them Grievers," Foxy said, sauntering up beside Glory. "They're genetically modified to be mindless monsters that tear apart everything in sight. But the thing was, they just kept attacking our troops. It was an animal, it didn't recognize friends or foes, only food. We managed to program our scent into them, so they can tell who's who by smell, but they still attacked anyone they saw. So, we just..." He brought a hand up to the side of his face, and made a gesture of stretching his skin across his eyes. The Queen's stomach churned.

"Where is everyone?" Glory demanded. "Where's Deathbringer, wheres-"

Twisted stretched out his arm, and a moment later an object a bit larger than his head shot into his hand. He threw it over to Glory. "Here he is," Foxy said cooly. The rainwing caught it but then threw it to the floor, resisting the urge to barf all over Deathbringer's skull, chunks of meat and blood still attached. Foxy grabbed Glory's soldier and pulled her side against his. He smelt awful, like burnt rotten flesh. She gagged as he forced the Queen to pan around the scene in front of her. 

"Take a long, hard, look," Foxy said in a proud tone, "take in every detail; the lack of life, the dead dragon skulls everywhere, the smell." Of a thousand lost showers, Glory thought bitterly. "And just... take it in. I'll wait."

He waited for a moment, and despite herself, she did. She watched as the abominations walked what was once her home. She guessed that every one of her friends were dead. All the queens, everyone she loved. So why had he left her alive? 

Because it's not real! Glory scolded herself. 

"Not yet," Foxy said as if responding to her thoughts. Then he turned towards her and forced her to look at him. "THIS! This right here?"-he gestured once again to the vast wasteland, then turned back to look at Glory with malevolent green eyes-"This is my happy ending!"