As they explored the floor, they noticed that the destruction was much greater on this floor. In addition, they noticed a lot of burn marks and some slash marks that had some melting around the edges of the gashes. Then they started to come across the skeletons.
They were alien things, things that made no biological sense. Some had multiple monstrous heads, appendages, giant scythe-like claw hands, or hands whose bones were as sharp as knives. They weren't human and certainly resembled no Nomu they had ever encountered. Even Aria in her bestial form looked nothing like the skeletons. One thing they all had in common though, was that the skeletons were all in pieces and bore signs of charring at the cut areas.
Ochako was not one prone to fear, not anymore anyway, but deep in her stomach, she felt a pit starting to form. The more alien the skeletons they found, the more her sense of anxiousness and tension rose. Every hair on her body was on end and she was sure that the Hunter harbored similar tension. Eventually, they came to a doorway whose door had been smashed in. They entered and they saw that they were in some kind of operating room. Dusty surgical equipment littered the floor and dried blood was all over the table and floor around it. There was a lit-up flat light panel with ancient x-rays still displayed. The light was dim and the panel blood-spattered so they couldn't make out what was displayed, though it looked like it could be a skull.
The table itself was also interesting, while horrible to look at the set-up was extensive. A series of machinery and tools were positioned above the table and linked to a central housing unit, likely used for more advanced and delicate procedures. It actually reminded Ochako of the operating rooms she had been in and out of multiple times during Project Angel. She shivered looking at it and she felt phantom pain pulse along across the multitude of scars on her back. She turned away and avoided looking at it if at all possible.
The Hunter meanwhile looked around and saw a manila folder lying on the ground in a corner, the papers scattered about. He went over and picked a few up and started reading. Ochako did the same, and she picked up the folder itself and saw that the first page of the report was still inside.
Project Nightmare
The following report is to be sent to Doctor Garaki and Chisaki and details current progress towards achieving the desired goals of Project Nightmare.
The rest of the page was illegible due to some blood having soaked through the top of the folder, though the next page was much clearer.
Progress towards achieving the control of Nightmare proceeds well, currently, we have augmented the mental faculties of the subject, and thanks to Rewind we are able to reverse any mistakes quickly. The subject is completely docile while awake, and will carry out most orders silently. Of course, this means little if we cannot communicate with the subject while asleep.
Progress towards sleep-based communication is progressing poorly, so far we have found no way to communicate nor to influence nightmares directly on our end. We do suspect, however, that an individual with a quirk able to tap into the mind of the subject directly. A passive or active method of communication may be our only means of control over the subject. We, therefore, recommend resources be directed towards acquiring someone with these abilities in order for project completion.
The rest was fairly illegible and she tossed the folder to the ground.
"Anything on those pages?" she asked turning to the Hunter.
"Not much, nothing specific anyways. Most of it is blood-spattered but I can determine that this room was used for making modifications to the Nightmare Child, whatever that is," he said, putting the papers together and putting them inside the folder.
"Best to keep this together, I imagine your techs will be able to get more out of it than we can by just looking at them," he said, putting the folder on a small surgical table which he stood upright and brushed the tools off of.
They searched the room some more but could find nothing else of note and so left the room, continuing down the hallway. They had only taken a few steps however when they heard a distant roar. It was unlike anything they had ever heard before and it made every fiber of their being shiver. Describing it was impossible, it was too alien to be the noise of any natural being and they felt a strange pressure settle over them like something heavy was lying atop them.
FEAR
She hadn't felt this sensation in a long time, but this, whatever manner of monster roamed these halls its very roar was enough to convince their bodies of the truth. They were prey, and it was the predator. They hadn't moved since the roar, but another noise echoed to them and broke them out of their trance. It was like the chime of a bell, and as? its echoes reached them they felt the fear lessen.
"We need to move." Ochako managed to get out shakily.
Hearing herself speak, she finally managed to rid herself of the last of the lingering fear, and she started down the hallway towards the noise. She would not let herself become food to whatever monster it was that lived down here. As she started down, she heard the Hunter start to follow behind her and together they crept through the halls, closer and closer to where the noises had originated. They both thought it likely that the creature had created the barriers leading to the surface, so the sooner they took care of it, the sooner they could leave.
Eventually, the hallway came to a T-intersection with large double doors facing them. It was clear the noises had likely come from the large room in front of them and they positioned themselves on either side of the doors. The Hunter gave a nod to Ochako, who returned it and they simultaneously pushed the door open a little so they could peer inside. After confirming there wasn't anything present, they cautiously entered the large room. Which turned out to be a cafeteria of some kind. Though, the only evidence of that was the stock standard serving trays scattered about. Otherwise, the room was a nightmare, skeletons, both human and alien were scattered about and dried blood covered almost every surface. The blood, however, if you could even call it that, was not the brownish red of dried human blood, instead, it was a sky blue color and it was everywhere. More concerning out of everything though was the clear evidence of a battle having taken place recently. There were gouges in the floor and some cut tables that burned slightly and had a distinct sign of melting around the edges.
As they examined the battle area, they both spun around when they heard the creak of the doors opening. The doors were swinging backward, and at the same time they immediately looked up to the ceiling. A huge, monstrous creature adhered to the surface of the ceiling, and when it saw that they noticed it, it launched itself at Ochako, releasing another unearthly roar. Ochako didn't have time to think, she just acted.
Her armor was at maximum and the creature pelted through the air at a tremendous speed, its head possessing multiple jaws that were open ready to bite her in half. She spun on one foot and using her quirk, accelerated herself to an incredible speed and slammed the heel of her other foot into the creature's head. The kick sent it flying to the opposite end of the room, where it skidded and flopped around in an apparent daze, affording them a chance to examine the creature's form.
It was unlike anything they had ever seen, no nomu, or mutation quirk could compare. It was something out of a nightmare, it had four long spindly multi-segmented arms more bone-like than fleshy, each ending in giant scythe-like claws each the size of Ochako herself. Its torso consisted of lacquered black scales, which could bend in shocking ways as demonstrated by its contortions as it flailed about. It didn't have legs, instead, it had a huge, long, snake-like tail that glistened, covered in some slimly viscous fluid, and on its upper side was covered in barbs like a porcupine. These barbs continued up the back of the creature to its massive head. The head was the size of a rocking chair and had a surprisingly similar shape to one if it were turned upside down. It had an elongated, cylindrical skull to start but it flared out the farther back it went, with four eye slits that were on fire with faint smoke rising from them, and a mouth with multiple jaws and two giant tusks jutting upward. Hunched over slightly its size was misleading but if it straightened up it would probably have been near 10 feet tall.
They watched the creature in horrific fascination as it finally righted itself and spun around to face them. It released a howling shriek, then it seemed to suck in its mouth then in a blur of motion spat something out, hurtling towards Ochako in a blur. It impacted her square in the chest and she went hurtling backward, flying across the room until she hit the opposite wall and slid down to the ground. As she got up she saw it was the same spine she saw embedded in the wall on the lower floor. She got up and flew towards the monster, even as she saw it slither up to the Hunter who also ran at it, throwing out several knives as he went.
Three of the knives the creature deflected with its claws, but one knife, thrown at a different angle from the rest slipped through its defense and impaled it in one eye. It screeched and jerked its head back, missing with its claws as the Hunter lept onto its head and slammed his wakizashi blade into another one of the creature's eyes. It let out a hideous scream and its tail reached up from behind it and smacked the Hunter off itself.
Ochako caught the Hunter in midair and using his momentum, spun around in the air and threw him back at it as she sped alongside him in the air. The Hunter latched onto one of its claws on its blindside and drew a knife, while Ochako dodged around the blades as she sped past the creature entirely. Instead, she grabbed the wakizashi out of its eye and spinning around in the air, shot it at the creature from behind, directly where the neck and skull connected. The blade simply bounced off and went flying away. Then she saw a spurt of blue blood come from in front of it and one of its claws go flying away. The Hunters knife apparently couldn't pierce the bones, but he had managed to trick the creature into slicing off one of its own claws on its blindside.
The creature flailed about in anger and pain, throwing the Hunter off it and spinning around, and trying to slice Ochako in half with its blades, while keeping the hunter occupied with its tail. Ochako tried to dodge all the attacks, but its flexibility and speed outpaced her ability to shift her gravity. One giant blade came in at an awkward angle and cut clean through her gravity armor and left a large gash across her midsection. The armor wasn't entirely useless however, it slowed the attack enough to allow Ochako to glide far enough back to prevent the claw from doing any fatal harm.
The situation was starting to get pretty bad, the creature was too fast and was being careful to cover its weakness from missing a limb. Ochako was being steadily pushed backward until she hit the wall behind her. She slapped a hand against the wall, sending a pulse through the walls, ceiling, and floor. The pulse spread to the random debris scattered throughout the room and sent everything she could straight at the creature. The creature wasn't letting up on its attack, however, and it got three more slashes in before the first round of objects started crashing into it. The objects didn't do much to hurt it, but the speed and force behind the objects were more than enough to distract and push it back, giving Ochako some desperately needed breathing room. She dashed over to the Hunter and gave him a quick once over.
He was in good shape, but his armor had some definite dents in it and he was bleeding from several puncture wounds in his right arm, but it didn't seem to be anything to be overly concerned about. He had retrieved his Wakizashi and was wielding a knife in his other hand, he glanced over to her, assessing her wounds in turn, and then turned back to the creature. It was still swinging its claws and tail around, destroying the storm of objects as they came. They had maybe a few seconds before it would be on them again.
"Grab its severed claw. I'll create an opening and you use that opportunity to slam it as hard as you can into its skull." Said the Hunter, right before he charged back towards the creature tossing his knife away.
Ochako flew over the claw and picked it up, gripping it by the back and butt of the blade since she couldn't affect it with her quirk. She turned back around and started pushing herself back and forward at once, creating an equilibrium but storing a tremendous amount of speed. The Hunter ran towards the creature, staying low to the ground and coming in from its blindside he reached down to a pocket on his hip and pulled something out. She watched as he ran right up to the creature and then jumped nearly all 3 meters of its height and latched onto its side. He reached up and gripped its tusk and using it, pulled himself up rapidly to the top of the creature he flipped up onto the top of its head and then jumped off of it to the other side. Narrowly avoiding the lashing tail and claws he threw something back behind towards the creature. There was a tremendous flash of light and loud hissing noise as some kind of mist exploded out of the object he had thrown.
The creature screeched in anger it was blinded by the light and now had acid in its eyes. Ochako wasted no time. She removed the gravity pushing her backward and the stored gravity slammed into her and she blasted forward in a small explosion of dust and debris, and in less than a second, she was slamming the claw of the creature straight into its head. Her entire mass and speed behind it, it slid effortlessly through its skull. She stopped herself just before she slammed into the far wall and slowly lowered herself to the floor.
As she touched down she felt something splatter down onto her head and shivered as the blue blood spewing out of its head landed all over the place, including on top of her. She just grimaced however and walked through the impromptu rain of blood towards the creature. It was flopping about weakly, just spasming and writhing like a snake would in its death throes. While it died, she ran over to the Hunter who was lying on the floor. As she approached she could see him breathing heavily like her, but he slowly got up, and after pacing to her he turned his attention to the creature.
It had finally stopped moving, now it just leaked blood onto the floor. Then in front of their very eyes, it started to melt. Its flesh sloughing off and melting into the air, until nothing but its skeleton remained, even the blood had evaporated into the air.
They stood staring at its broken skull for seconds before the Hunter said, "We can't stay here, we need to get out this room, now." And he started towards the far doors.
Ochako walked beside him catching her breath and asking "How many do think there are? We must have seen at least a dozen skeletons by now, there might be even more in some of the rooms we didn't explore."
The Hunter hissed in frustration, "No idea, but if we're lucky it was just the one left. I think they might have killed each other off to ensure they didn't starve to death."
They marched through the far doors and back to the corridor they came in from and started down, back towards the stairwell. As they stepped into the corridor, however, they heard a horrible squelching, spitting noise, and an instant later, Ochako felt something punch through her gut. She looked down to see a massive hole where her intestines should have been, then she looked to the Hunter who had a look of pure horror on his face before she fell forward into the darkness.
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"Dammit!" Shouted the Hunter reaching over and grabbing Uravity and pulling her back into the room they had just exited. He could see the spike that had punched clean through the hero embedded into the far wall.
Then there was were a massive flash of light and a concussive wave knocked him to the ground. He looked up and saw a figure standing above him. The figure reached down and grabbed both him and Uravity and then there was another flash of light and they were in a completely different room. The figure then pulled Uravity from his grasp and before he could even process what had happened he heard a snap-hiss, and a barrier just like the ones they had seen blocking the exits encapsulated him in a cylinder. He slammed his fist into the barrier but it just shocked him for trying.
He glared at the figure with pure hatred, as he knelt above Uravity. He placed a hand over her heart and there was another flash of light and he watched in shock as her body was healed instantaneously. The shock he felt go through him prevented him from moving when the barrier suddenly went down around him. No quirk in history had ever existed that had the power of instantaneous perfect healing. Let alone someone who could also teleport and create incredibly strong barriers.
"I can assure you that she is no longer in danger. She will be unconscious for a few minutes longer but when she awakes she should be fine." Said the figure.
The Hunter took that opportunity to study the man, for it was a man, more closely.
He had tight-fitting robes of brown and black, with a katana strapped to his back. He was at least 6 foot and bore a small short hair beard with slicked-back hair that was perfectly clean and kept. He had kindly features, with laugh lines around his mouth, and eyes that seemed to house great wisdom though he wasn't sure how he knew that. The man's back was broad and he was fairly imposing standing at his full height.
"I know you must have questions, but let me start by introducing myself. You can call me Guardian, and I must thank you for killing the Nightmare earlier. Though I regret I could not arrive in time to prevent the wounding of your friend. For now, though, you both are perfectly safe here. The Nightmares are not yet strong enough to come here, though with the killing of the previous Nightmare that will soon change." He said.
"Firstly, will she be all right?" asked the Hunter.
"She will be fine, though I will admit my healing powers are untested on others. Though I know it is safe. My power cleanses one of the unnatural and impure, freeing one of injury, both physical and mental. She will awake shortly, for I will need both your help in the time to come." replied Guardian.
"Secondly, what the hell are those things?" asked the Hunter.
"They are nightmares, literal nightmares. They cannot be truly killed, for they are unending, ever-changing, and ever-evolving. I exist as their counterweight, I will grow in power to match them, for I am of dreams, their antithesis. To prevent their breaking free and running amok above, I have trapped them here. Though that means I cannot let you two go either while they yet still live." replied Guardian.
"Ok... so how do we-" began the Hunter until a blood-curdling shriek echoed down the hallway to them.
"They have grown stronger, faster than I anticipated. They will be coming here soon, and they must not be allowed to enter here, for that would spell doom for us all." Said Guardian gravely.
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She gazed down at Ochako, sleeping in her bed, a blissfully ignorant expression on her face. Ochako was still pure. Jaded, deeply scarred, self-deprecating, but still pure in the end. She had taken on all the real pain, the hard choices, the true evil that lurked in her heart. She would bear these things willingly, for she loved Ochako more than she loved herself.
"You should have freed me sooner, then I wouldn't have had to do this. I love you Ochako, no matter what happens that will never change. Everything I do is to protect you, I protected you during the war, I helped you keep your friends safe, and now I help you once more. So sleep... Sleep and dream pleasant thoughts..." she soothed, brushing Ochako's hair away from her face.
She started to walk away but stopped when she saw the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. She hadn't looked at herself in the mirror for years now, not since Ochako had gotten that doctor to lock her up. She was still deeply hurt by that, but she understood, and she forgave Ochako for making such a rash decision. Unfortunately, whatever had freed her wasn't strong enough to free her permanently. Already she could feel the faint weight of the chains slowly, ever so slowly, coiling around her again.
She walked up to the mirror and started to look herself over. Still short, but she made up for it in other ways. Her brown hair hung down to her shoulder, with the ends curving inward some. Her thick upper eyelashes, framing her brown eyes. Her faintly permanent blush, and the small pads on each finger. Her modest figure, accented by the tightly corded muscle running down her body. Lithe, yet strong, just the way she liked it. She was still OCHAKO, though she knew Ochako deeply wished otherwise. She shook her head sadly, and headed out the door, making sure to close the door silently behind her. Ochako deserved her beauty sleep after all.