Nightmare

Nightmare was a ghastly wraith that helped create the X-Virus and is crowned leader of the X-Antibodies. Alongside Lizlord and IcE, Nightmare spread the X-Virus around Antarctica in hopes to create a new world where the mistakes of the past become undone. No one knows exactly how Nightmare formed; some claim that Nightmare is made out of gases. This theory cannot be true though, as Nightmare seems to be solid. Rather, she was composed of raw terror and hatred; she was an actual nightmare given physical form, a manifestation of everyone's deepest fears, hence the given name "Nightmare"

Over 1000 years ago Nightmare was actually a High Penguin known as Anthodiel; a scientist who worked in Chemistry. She had discovered ways to clone test subjects and alter their appearance and personality, some of them even obtaining powers of the supernatural. However, Anthodiel's work was eventually her downfall, as there are some things in the world that we were not meant to discover. Because of her transgressions, Anthodiel's hatred began to decompose and her appearance changed into a malevolent, dark being whose only goal is to destroy everything.

Before her demise, Nightmare set her eyes upon the ultimate prize; the destruction of Antarctica. Lizlord helped Nightmare in creating the X-Virus, whereas her three henchmen IcE, Metal Explorer, and Zone helped spread the virus. Nightmare amassed quite a unique army; even bigger than Darktan's, which is still operating after she died. She secretly planned to harness the power of the King of Sorrow and threaten to delete the entire continent itself, and was successful in the Nightmare Epic, but was stopped and killed by Kwiksilver in the process.

As the physical manifestation of nightmares, Nightmare's power is at its peak during sleep, as she can enter someone's dreams and manipulate them to her desire; altering the environment, changing the course of dreams, and shapeshifting herself into unimaginable terrors. She uses this power to communicate with her subordinates, and has used this power in Nightmare Epic to ask about the information her spy has gathered. However, when she uses this power out of malice her victims become absolutely terrified, as she invades the victim's subconscious and uses its greatest fears to her advantage. Some victims have even stopped sleeping altogether in fear of Nightmare haunting them.

Background
Nightmare's history is still mostly shrouded in mystery. The Snell-Libros are still trying to work it out. This is what they discovered so far.

Early Life and Creation of the X-Virus
Nightmare was one of the original High Penguins to come to Antarctica, and her name was Athondiel. She was married to an Ettin Penguin and they had a chick named Ignis Moonlight. Athondiel hated Finwe and thought that the Light Keeper was a foolish old penguin who refused to accept science as the way of the future. See, Athondiel's main talent was chemistry. She was obsessed with it, spending up to twelve hours a day in her laboratory. It was thought by Finwe that during this time she had unraveled the mysteries of life itself, and in fact, she had. One day in her laboratory, Athondiel created a parasite that would create a super-powered copy of any host it infected. She brought it to Finwe, claiming it would be a great chemical weapon to add to the High Penguin arsenal.

Finwe disproved of Athondiel's parasite, proclaiming it was evil and would only corrupt the High Penguins into abandoning magic and adopting science. He threw her experiment in the trash. This got Athondiel angry. She swore to show Finwe the full power of science. Athondiel locked herself in her laboratory and accepted no visitors as she edited and changed the parasite. Finwe started to get worried. Athondiel's desire eventually morphed into anger at Finwe, then into hate, then into revenge. She let her evil consume her, and due to her constant experiments, her colour changed from a healthy orange to pitch black. She renamed herself Nightmare, and emerged after five years with the X-Virus formula. Anthondiel made it her goal to completely take over the High Penguin Confederacy, destroying anything that stopped her.

Conquest
After the 5 years of perfecting the X-Virus passed, Nightmare poisoned her town's water supply with the X-Virus, and soon she had over five hundred X-Soldiers. They marched to confront Finwe. Finwe, thinking one step ahead, had already built an escape tunnel and fled to Arda with the rest of the High Penguin Council. Nightmare arrived at an empty palace.

Finwe explained the situation with Nightmare to Marcus Kwiksilver, the leader of the High Penguin Military. Kwiksilver decided to evacuate all the High Penguins in Antarctica to Ard Mhaca to stop Nightmare getting any more soldiers. The High Penguins barely escaped Nightmare and her X-Soldiers. Finally, the X-Creatures had surrounded Ard Mhaca City. They demanded the city, but Finwe would not yield to their demands. Marcus Kwiksilver called a truce and it was decided that he and Nightmare would fight to the death at dawn.

Showdown at Ard Mhaca
See also: Marcus Kwiksilver

Dawn came, and the High Penguin forces met Nightmare's Army at a flat plain south of Ard Mhaca. Nightmare and Marcus drew their swords, a pitch black blade for Nightmare, a shining sword for Marcus, and the battle was on. They fought long and hard and neither seemed tired. At about midday, Nightmare tricked Marcus and stabbed his flipper. Marcus fell to the ground, and he was lucky because the referee called time out.

Nightmare grinned as she surveyed Marcus' flipper. Her poisoned blade had turned it black and it was numb. She was going to win. Nightmare laughed from the sidelines as he was treated by a medic. Suddenly, there was a green flash of light and a penguin appeared where Nightmare and Marcus were fighting. He took up Marcus' sword and fought Nightmare.

The young penguin's speed and agility surprised Nightmare, and Nightmare was defeated. Nightmare went to a dark depression after this and wasn't seen for a long time.

Return of Nightmare
The Great Darktonian Pie War involved almost the entire population of Antarctica fighting against a near unstoppable evil. Darktan had ravaged the lands like a merciless plague, and his forces never seemed to grow tired. Darktan's hatred for his enemies, as well as the Good Guys hatred for Darktan grew and grew until it began to seeth throughout the land as an invisible force. The fallen Nightmare, who still hadn't completely healed from her previous battle, began to feed off this hatred, and her power began to gradually increase. She used this power to observe the war, though in her current condition she did not think it was wise to intervene. By the end of the war, she had regained her former power and rose to become the new threat to Antarctica and its welfare.

Completion of X-Virus
Nightmare spent a majority of her time surveying the landscape and population. She wanted to know what possibilities she could come up with for her army, and she also planned to make a more potent X-Virus as 1000 years of technology advancement should have brought in some more interesting results. As she observed the ongoing threats of Antarctica, such as the Doom Weed plague poisoning the land, Nightmare had a theory that the Doom Weeds just might give the X-Virus a little more kick in its effects.

As she was observing the chaos of the Great Darktonian Pie War, she noticed a wounded Lizlord trudging along. It would seem that Darktan did not take Lizlord leaving his side very well, and as such decided to punish him. Eventually, Lizlord collapsed on the snowy ground, and Nightmare used this opportunity to get inside his head.

When Lizlord was dreaming, he was in a rose garden that seemed to stretch on endlessly. Nightmare had total control of his dream and he was unaware of Nightmare's presence. Nightmare then shapeshifted herself into Darktan, and approached Lizlord. Lizlord attacked the fake Darktan, and he vanished into thin air.

Dark matter crawled up from the ground and morphed into members of Darktan's Army, circling Lizlord. He was surrounded and outnumbered;

"Somebody... please help me.. who should I fight for? Why am I fighting?"

As Lizlord thought this question to himself, the army members were then struck down by black lightning bolts. A voice then echoed throughout the landscape;

Lizlord gasped, looking around as to where that voice came from;

"Who are you?" Lizlord inquired, as Nightmare manifested before him;

"A-are you... Nightmare?"

Lizlord then woke up, and as he looked up he saw Nightmare, her red gaze piercing through him. Astounded by this power, Lizlord then bowed before his new master, and they began work on completing the X-Virus, which was completed in just a few months in 2007. Thanks to the Doom Weed properties in the virus, the infected's clone would be granted powers from the Doom Weed source. Using this power she was able to clone the first controllable Antibody, Gargantuan.

Involvement
Nightmare's involvement dates back to High Penguin times, where she was once known as Athondiel. Though she was once a penguin, her blind hatred towards Finwe corrupted her - and caused her new appearance. As the creator of the X-Virus, Nightmare is trying to spread the virus around the USA with the help of her four spreaders; Lizlord, IcE, Metal Explorer, and Zone staining the land with her will.

While many X-Antibodies joined her side, many others didn't because they weren't evil, or joined another evil master like Darktan. To prevent this from happening, Nightmare created a machine that would amplify her brainwaves and put new X-Antibodies in a permanent REM sleep that she could control. Older Antibodies are not affected because they already perceived the real world, and have the willpower to fight off Nightmare's influences.

Conquest of the USA
She ws trying to get enough Anti-Body's to take over the whole continent.

During the Nightmare Epic she grouped nearly every X-Antibody together and lead them as her own personal army against the good guys. Zone betrayed her and took co tool of the army for himself, although Nightmare anticipated this and allowed Zone to be a distraction while she got the destruction gems ready.

Death and Legacy
During the course of the Nightmare Epic, Nightmare gets Darktan's Army and Zone to find the destruction gems for her. She manages to get them and later absorb the deletion powers of the King of Sorrow. However Kwiksilver stops her by breaking the suit and Nightmare is killed in the process.

Very few mourned Nightmare's death. The vast majority of the members of her army had nothing but contempt for her after they were mind controlled and forced to fight a bloody war. Lizlord was one of the exceptions, and he visits Nightmare's grave regularly.

The X-Antibodies who worked for her still want to conquer Antarctica. Xorai has filled the vacuum that Nightmare held and is commanding the current "Nightmare's Army". Bigotry against X-Antibodies has only increased after Nightmare mind-controlled them and many people still think they willingly joined Nightmare. This had let to many hate-crimes, discrimination, yet some X-antibodies have formed civil rights groups to counter-this. Others, feeling society will never accept them have joined evil armies like Xorai's group.

Trivia

 * She hired Lizlord and gave him the X Suit, that prevents him from getting an antibody from exposure from X-Virus.
 * She sprays airborne strains of the X-Virus into the atmosphere every 36 hours.
 * She only appears in Nightmare Crater, so far...
 * She owns Nightmare Enterprise
 * No one, and I mean absolutely NO ONE knows what is under her cloak.
 * She, unfortunately, has a super form...called Super Nightmare.
 * She has an army
 * Croc E. Dile used to work for Nightmare because of his rasor sharp crocodile teeth that could easaliy spread the X-Virus but she fired him due to his lack of common sense.
 * Nightmare once hypnotized Blue Pengu 7 it worked only for about 2 weeks before it wore off (This is why Blue Pengu 7 ended up in Cp Prisons for a month)