charlie knight ; freddy krueger (comingforyou) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-01-01 17:51:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | batgirl, freddy krueger |
Who: Charlie Night Terror and Quinn
What: Nightmare encounter.
Where: Dreamland~
When: Earlier this week (after the not-yet-posted Aceso mission).
Warnings: Violence. Typical Charlie stuff.
There hadn’t been a proper article about him in at least a month. Children were still waking up each morning bearing horrific wounds, but none of them were fatal and despite his threats it seemed as though the general population had resigned themselves to dealing with the problem as well as they could. It would take a death to really rattle their cages, a particularly horrific one, but Charlie was running out of time. He needed to make his move and he needed to do it soon, before everyone slowly began to forget about him. The Kappa was already rising to fame with the attack on the young girl and the recent Aubade death, which meant that Night Terror needed to show the world that they weren’t any more safe while they slept than they were while they were awake.
His real problem lay in the fact that he had no way of stopping his potential victims from waking up and escaping his grasp. He couldn’t even tell when they were about to awaken until it was too late. Of course he could have easily killed quickly, but he didn’t want it to be a simple stab wound that the police discovered in the morning. He wanted it to be unlike anything the so-called ‘law enforcement’ had ever seen - something that topped even what he’d done back in Musings. That took time, which he didn’t have a lot of; in all it was more complicated than it sounded. But he wasn’t worried - he’d already found the one he would kill, and he was building up to what he knew would be a grand finale.
Finding said special child was never too easy a task. It was a matter of narrowing down the vast expanse of dreams he had access to and continuing the process until he found the right one. He built up his strength first, feeding off the fear of those whose nightmares he passed through on his way to his main goal, and he was getting close.
Charlie moved easily from one nightmare to the next, as what separated them was nothing more than flimsy fabric to him. He paused within the newest one, cocking his head to the side and allowing the contours and details of the dream to sink in so he had an idea of what - and who - he was working with. A little more fear couldn’t hurt, another sliced-up little body, before moving on to his target prey.
Quinn rarely slept this deeply where she lost herself in her dreams. For a girl who was always on guard, letting herself fall into a dream state was unusual. Her dreamscape was a sprawling city, empty of people and filled with a labyrinth of winding streets and alleys. The sky was a dark, hanging grayness with heavy clouds barely holding back the rain and Quinn was standing in the middle of the city. A small, dark haired figure surrounded by the heights of ominously, empty buildings with dark glass windows.
She could hear familiar voices -- Gwen’s, Wren’s, Luke’s, Darwin’s... All of them called for help, but in a multitude of directions. Quinn’s hands clenched tightly at her sides before she took off in a run, heading down a dark, dank alleyways at full speed. The voices seemed closer, but so far away. Heart hammering in her chest, Quinn didn’t even notice if there was someone not them in her dream. All she was focused on was rounding corners, trying to find the people she needed to save.
Every single dream was different, of course, but some shared similarities whether they began as nightmares before his influence or not; at the end of the day people weren’t as unique as they thought. This girl’s dreamscape wasn’t an exact replica of any he’d seen before, yet the empty city and its labyrinth-like streets were a faint echo of past dreams, of abandoned cities and impossible mazes without ending. Charlie perched on the roof of one of the buildings and watched the dark-haired girl round corner after corner, listening to the pleading voices she seemed so desperate to find. What she was feeling wasn’t quite the fear he was accustomed to, but it was close enough and he had still strength to spare.
He focused on one of the voices, a female - Wren’s, although he didn’t yet know specific names - and toyed with it, making it louder than the others. Her cries for help became panicked before shifting into downright terror, and with a flick of his wrist the girl’s terrified voice rose to a shrill scream that echoed painfully throughout the dreamscape before fading to nothing. The other voices continued with their pleas, but they too slowly began to rise in volume.
The strength of Wren’s shrill scream was enough to send a jolt of fear through Quinn, one that caused her to still in place. She was frightened of possibilities, of the why’s and how’s that caused the voice to disappear. There was a strangeness to her fear, it was a controlled one. As if she had learned very early to not show it, even in the most terrifying situations. Her face was still a mask of scanning determination, feet pounding against pavement to find the sources of the voices.
There was something else unusual about her -- a hyperawareness of knowing when she was being watched. Quinn slowed her steps, looking around slowly and squaring her shoulders. Her stance was defensive, on guard suddenly as she looked for the intruder. “Who’s there?” she called out finally, a grim look falling across her face. Oh, she sure didn’t take kindly to that feeling.
The girl’s fear was very carefully hidden, and if Charlie hadn’t been who he was then it would have been difficult to notice - but because he didn’t need to adhere to normal rules in this realm it didn’t matter how deep she buried her fear, because he could feel it. No matter how little of it there was or how hard she fought it, he would always know it was there. These voices clearly meant something to the dark-haired girl, and he intended on using that knowledge to his advantage until he could dig a little deeper.
He didn’t mind too much that she sensed his presence before he decided to make himself known. Most of his victims remained oblivious until he revealed himself, but there were some who seemed more aware than most; apparently this girl fell into the latter category. That was alright. Charlie was quite adaptable when he needed to be. Chuckling darkly, he stood and unfolded his limbs from their bent position, casting an impossibly large shadow down on the street below. In real life he was an intimidating enough figure to the weak, taller than most and capable of the most horrific of crimes, but in the dream world he was ten times worse. Now he was a faceless shadow man, swirling darkness surrounding him as though he could command it at will. The only thing that could be made out clearly was the bladed glove on his right hand, and each blade was razor-sharp and shone silver despite the lack of a light source.
“I’m here.” His voice echoed as though it came from everywhere at once, and in the blink of an eye he vanished from his spot atop the building and appeared behind the dark-haired girl. “Your friends had a chance to play, and now I think it’s only fair that you get a turn.”
The shadow didn’t scare her at first, the swirling darkness was something she was almost accustomed too. She seen enough boogeymen to mask any spark of fear, rather planted her feet in to the ground and stared defiantly at the shadows. Quinn took in the sight of the blades with a quirk of an eyebrow, mentally trying to think of all the ways she knew to deal with knives and blades. Rattling off in her head the different feints and blocks kept the rush of adrenaline fueled fear at bay, but as he talked the unsettled feeling crept over her.
Her friends. The implication he had laid even a single bladed finger on her family was enough to turn wary fear into a spark of anger. Quinn wasn’t prepared for a fight like this, but damned if she’d go down without one. When he disappeared and reappeared behind her, Quinn’s immediate reaction was to drop low and swept the shadowman’s legs with a kick. “Picked wrong person to play with,” Quinn warned lowly.
Charlie simply stood and regarded the girl, finding it almost cute that she appeared to be sizing him up. By this point he was accustomed to recognition as soon as their gazes fell upon his blades, but most responded by cowering in fear or attempting to beg for their lives. Didn’t this silly girl realize that he made the rules here? There was absolutely nothing she could do to him no matter how strong-willed she was, whereas he could do whatever he wanted to her if he played his cards right.
The kick knocked him off his feet, but he vanished before he could hit the ground and reappeared a few feet away, standing languidly as though nothing had happened. “Nice move, sweetheart, but you’ll need to do better than that.” He chucked darkly and began to advance upon her, rubbing his blades together to purposely create a painful-sounding metallic noise. “Not very good at finding your friends, are you? They kept calling and you didn’t help them.” The voices started up again, begging for help, but this time they were joined by other sounds - metal slicing through flesh, objects meeting skin with deliberate force, and something wet splattering against some hard surface.
“No one’s going to help you either,” he said almost conversationally, moving around her with speed that would have been impossible in the waking world and lashing out with lightning-fast precision to swipe his blades along her back like the claws of an overlarge cat.
Once the boogeyman really came to view, Quinn knew who he was. Cipher warned about him, but she never took the precautions of sleep. He was dangerous, but she was determined to not let him take her down without a fight. She brought her fists up as she stood, taking a fighting stance and attempted to put a cap on her emotions. She couldn’t hide, though, how shaken the sounds made her. Her mind supplied all the gruesome details, even if the man didn’t. “Shut up,” she snapped out.
There was no way she could’ve dodged the knives, by the time she looked over her shoulder when he disappeared and reappared. She let out a garbled noise of pain, cutting it off before she could make a proper sound. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her pain, rather she sunk down a little as she tried to keep standing. “All you do?” she asked, as she moved quick to disengage and try to stay out of his reach. She needed to keep moving, even if it meant running. “Thought better. But wrong,” she prodded him, “Nothing special.”
He could already tell this was going to be a good night. Surprisingly enough he didn’t encounter too many fighters during his nightly excursions, so brats like this were a fresh challenge among the weak and pitiful. It was much more fun to watch these brave ones put on their game faces as though they actually believed in their own strength. Charlie let the sounds continue when he saw the reactions they elicited from the girl, adding a few more gruesome details to really get her imagination working in overtime.
The blow had landed right where he wanted, and he bared his teeth in a dark grin at the short noise of pain. “Oh, no. Don’t you read the newspapers? I can do so much more.” He licked her blood from his blades with deliberate slowness, looking at her with mock disappointment. “I’ve barely even gotten started.” His gaze was impossible to follow, yet he watched each and every one of her movements with careful precision. This empty city labyrinth thing was actually quite boring. Charlie decided he didn’t like it. With a snap of his ungloved fingers their surroundings changed, becoming the interior of one of the abandoned warehouses he’d taken some of his children to before torturing and eventually slaughtering them. The real version had long since been destroyed, but it lived within his realm - just as it had all those years ago. Blood still stained the floors and walls, while small corpses that were just beginning to decompose were suspended from the rafters by rope tied around their wrists and ankles.
“Time to play on my turf,” he informed the girl with a flick of his bladed finger. “Now, would you like to see what I did to your friends? It’ll be sneak preview of what’s going to happen to you.”
Quinn was silent as she regarded his movements, face falling in to a snarl as he licked the blood from the blades. She couldn’t really assess her wounds right now, beyond the fact she could still feel them bleeding down her back. Though, she did notice his pleasure at drawing sounds of pain out of her and settled that she wouldn’t dare give him the satisfaction again. She’s dealt with being silent through pain before, she can damn well do it again.
Taking a few steps back as the surroundings changed, Quinn let a look of disgust cross her face. Attacking and killing people his own size was one thing, but a child murderer was a whole different ballgame. “Turf of a coward,” she retorted, “Cowards stall for time.” Quinn raised her fists again, despite the odds and the fact it would’ve been smarter to run. He had control here, but...she may have an idea of how to turn this attack around for her.
“Want me? Come get me.” With that, she surged forward and struck out with a quick left hook.
This one was a mouthy little bitch, wasn’t she? Charlie was usually unaffected by whatever witty retorts these inferior beings threw at him, but he didn’t like being called a coward by some overconfident little girl. Disrespect was something he didn’t tolerate, and fortunately he knew just how to deal with the ones who never learned how to respect their elders. She wanted action, did she? Fine. He was interested in finding out just how brave she’d be when he was carving words into her flesh. Lasting messages were always fun.
He simply laughed at the look of disgust on her face. What he did didn’t bother him, and he specifically chose children because of the responses their deaths elicited from the public. “No foreplay, huh? I can work with that.” He smirked, eyeing her raised fists with faint amusement. Did she really think she was going to be able to hurt him here? Didn’t she understand the way things worked by now?
Charlie took the hit, but if it did indeed hurt him he made no outward reaction to suggest it did. He turned his head slightly to the side as though considering what to do next. “Like I said, girlie, you have nice moves.” His gaze snapped back to her with sudden quickness. “But mine are better.” She might have had speed, but he could vanish and reappear in less time than it took to blink - which was exactly what he did. First he was on her left, then on her right, then behind her; a blur of black and shadow that never stopped. At various intervals he lashed out with his bladed hand to strike whatever part of her body was closest, but he never stopped moving and kept laughing all the while.
Quinn was completely out of her element and drowning, but she was thrashing for all it’s worth. As he disappeared and reappeared, she tried to catch where he would go. Her fists swinging out and missing by half a second, if she was lucky she was landing glancing blows. Frustration welled up inside her as he laughed, her face falling in a look of pained determination. She would keep her feet beneath her, refuse to give up or sink to the floor. There were enough cuts of steady bleeding that made her dizzy, but her silence was all he earned. No cries of pain, not a sound that he seemed to crave.
“This it?” She prodded him again, goading the blades like waving red in front of a bull. Her fists swung out, barely missing and catching only air again. “Unimpressive.”
It was quickly becoming apparent that this was no ordinary girl, even though he did have the upper hand. Even the ones that fought never kept going for this long - if he didn’t know any better he’d say this wasn’t her first fight, not by a long shot. Her skill could have easily been explained away by the fact that it was a dream, but he wasn’t so sure; for now, though, it didn’t matter. She could swing at him as many times as she liked and it didn’t matter whether the blows hit their mark or not. In the dream world he felt no pain, suffered no injury, never grew weary. He didn’t have to adhere to the rules of the waking world.
Charlie’s face contorted into a snarl at her goading. He was seriously considering killing this girl as well as the one he’d already marked, if only for the satisfaction of seeing all that defiance fade like a candle being snuffed out. “Do you have a death wish, bitch?” Maybe she did, or maybe she was so stubborn that it was starting to become stupidity. As quickly as he’d begun moving he stopped, curling his bladed hand into a fist and lashing out with a solid blow aimed for her jaw. “Because if you do, I’m about two minutes away from granting it. And if you don’t...” He bared his teeth in a feral smile. “I’m going to kill you anyway.” He circled around her like a panther, the blades on his glove slowly elongating until they were longer and sharper than they’d been before. “I think I’ll disembowel you. I prefer slow deaths, you know?” The words were barely out of his mouth before he vanished and reappeared on her opposite side, swiping at her with his newly lengthened blades.
Quinn took the hit solidly to the jaw, grunting a little when it connected. All she could taste was copper on her tongue, trying to shake off the daze from a solid hit. This battlefield wasn’t to her advantage at all. The road she needed to take was to get them to a battlefield that she did have some advantage on, but it wasn’t in dreams rather in the waking world. She smirked a little, wavering on her feet as she spat blood to the floor. “Can come try,” she beckoned at him, barely able to dodge the blades with deep cuts across her abdomen and side. It was better than the disemboweling he was hoping for, so Quinn was counting it as an achievement.
She didn’t say anything, except she noticed the world around them was starting to shake. With a triumphant realization, Quinn knew she was starting to wake up with the sound of the alarm that was buzzing. “Too bad,” she threw out at him, backing up on weak legs and not letting her guard down. She was being pulled out, but she had to keep him away from her before she was awake. “Real challenge is,” she started, “find me when awake.”
The one disadvantage Charlie faced was the inability to sense when his victim was waking up, at least not until it was too late. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t keep any dreamers asleep and there was no pattern that he could figure out as to when the dreams would end. It was random, a chance thing, and it was the biggest obstacle he faced so far. “No,” he snarled, but even he knew there was nothing he could do when the dreamscape started to shake and fade. “You got lucky this time, bitch... but I’ll find you again.” He was getting better at that part each and every day.
He began to advance on her, hoping to get in another good blow before she could fully wake up, but he stopped short when she issued her challenge. “Find you when you’re awake?” He couldn’t help but laugh. “We’ll see, sweetheart.”