Nightmare Epic/synopsis

Editior's Note
As this was written over 10 years ago, there are a few changes I want to make, but will take a while to - Nightmare gains the ability control X-antibodies without the machine. - Nightmare's goals are fleshed out. She ultimately wants a world with only X-Antibodies that are completely under her control. A world without any will but her own essentially.

Opening
Nightmare Epic begins with a bunch of fanon characters fighting their X-antibodies under a dark and stormy sky. Every x-creature is aggressive, and violent, even if they are usually calm in real life. In fighting, they appear to feel no pain and never tire, causing their opponents (mainly good guys) to become exhausted. Then we see Zone looking forward smiling. He breaks the 4th wall and tells the reader that they’re probably wondering how this came to be. He pipes up his voice and starts to narrate the story. He explains that he knows the whole story because Darktan, Nightmare, Kwiksilver, Kill, and others have filled the gaps for him. I haven’t decided whether this portion should be in 1st or 3rd person (3rd person would be a "look into my memory" type thing).

Prologue
This begins with two scientists, Anthodiel and Finwe. Anthodiel is an orange penguin who has been locking herself up for the past few months working on a development known as “Project X”. She has a deep grudge on Finwe for not continuing the project with her and for destroying it when they were half-done. Finwe is concerned about Anthodiel, but his pleads to make her stop are scoffed by Anthodiel. Finwe notices that Anthodiel’s feathers are becoming darker, and some are black. Anthodiel says that she doesn’t care what Project X is doing to her, and would keep on going even if it turns her all black. Later we find out that Anthodiel has become Nightmare and does stuff like fight Marcus Kwiksilver, and spread the X virus which was the result of Project X.

Nightmare Plans
It has been 5 years since the Great Darktonian Pie war, and many characters are celebrating. The Good Guys decide to have a happy 2-year anniversary in South Pole City. Nightmare is still angered that neither side destroyed each other, but realized that it would have worked that way anyways (Good Guys are merciful, and Darktan would rather enslave than kill). Nightmare believes that she should attack and therefore get rid of both armies, but realized that they were very powerful and could defeat her. She has a meeting with her best mates, Lizlord, IcE, Metal Explorer and Zone. They decide to take on the Good Guys first and Zone goes to spy on them, because his hypnotic powers could allow him to avoid being caught, and he has the ability to communicate to Nightmare through his dreams. Lizlord, Ice, Metal Explorer start finding the destruction Gems However, Zone also knows that the Good Guys are powerful and considers fighting for them if Nightmare’s army should fail. He sends Kill to spy on Nightmare to see whether their tactics are better than the GG. Meanwhile, Theangol Anator, is still being discriminated against because he was Darktan. He doesn’t know how to truly redeem himself, because he is now a pacifist and is too frail to do anything extraordinary anyways. Later, he sees Bugzy and decides to have a little chat with him. He tells Bugzy that he shouldn't be a criminal, and Bugzy starts to threaten him, and roughs him up a little.

Kill sees Nightmare gathering many X-creatures for his army. However, he realizes that many are in Darktan’s Army, and dislike him. Nightmare thinks about this and decides that it would be good if he merged Darktan’s army with his to take down the Good Guys.

Good Guys meet Zone
At the Good Guys’s place, Zone notices that people not very prepared for an attack, but they speculate that Darktan could potentially rise again and do another war, using weapons more deadly than pie. He sees that they have very good plans on defeating Darktan, but wonders if they will work. He decides arrange Nightmare’s Army to fight the Good Guys, and see who’ll win. He copies the diagrams for Nightmare to see, clearly giving the side he’s currently on an advantage. Kill tells Zone that Nightmare is going to make an alliance with Darktan. Zone knows that Nightmare’s Army and Darktan’s Army could defeat the Good Guys, but still has a feeling that they could lose. He then comes up with a sneaky plan; he’ll get the trust of the good guys, and tell them the Nightmare is going to attack them at South Pole City. With their knowledge of the attack, they’ll be able to take down the X-antibodies easily. However, Darktan’s Army will come in as reinforcements, and will PWN the good guys. Zone has been absent from Nightmare since he was sent to spy, so he would have never heard of this, allowing the Good Guys to keep on trusting him so he can backstab them- or Nightmare- at anytime. He gives the diagrams to Kill and tell her that Zone doesn’t know that DTA and Nightmare’s Army will be joined together.

Nightmare is finds Darktan, and tells him to join forces to defeat the Good Guys. Nightmare says that they can go back to hating each other when the Good Guys have been defeated. Darktan isn’t very happy until Nightmare says she’ll spare the lives of the Good Guys and allow Darktan to force them into slavery. Darktan agrees, but says that his army hates Nightmare very much. Nightmare tells Darktan to use his imagination.

Before the Attack
Zone meets with Kwiksilver and Speeddasher and tells them that he’ll rejoin their team and give them information about Nightmare, who’ll be attacking. They, and many other Good Guys are suspicious, but decide to let him stay and prepare for Nightmare’s attack.

Darktan sends Mectrixctic to speak to rest of his army. She uses a similar speech to the one she used with the Demon Penguins, and tells them that they’ll just temporarily be with Nightmare to defeat the Good Guys and then turn on Nightmare afterwards. This has somewhat less effect than it did with the DPs but the members eventually agree. Mectrixctic sends Foamy, the diplomat, to speak with Nightmare’s army. He uses very soft words, and tells little of backstabbing Darktan when they’re finished. He is also successful, and Mectrixctic hopes that his speech will “soften up” the X-creatures and DTA will have the advantage.

The X-creatures on DTA show a kind of brotherhood with the other ones, and think that this may not have been a bad idea. However, the X-creatures on Nightmare’s army and the un-X-creatures don’t get along very well. Darktan X is not happy with the Conclave of Doom for using his DNA to create Darktan II. And Xorai is VERY unhappy that Darktan is now on his same team. However, they agree to attack South Pole city when the Good Guys are partying. However, they don’t know that Zone has informed them about (part of) the attack.

The Attack
Eventually the time comes and Nightmare unleashes hundreds of X-creatures to attack the good guys, like Kwik, Willy, Speed, Explorer, etc. Zone breaks the wall again and tells the audience that this wasn’t the scene he stated talking from because 1. the X-creatures are not targeting their counterparts 2. they feel pain and are not exhausted and 3. the weather is sunny and nice. The Good Guys prove that they are a match for the antibodies, but after beating them up many times, Darktan’s Army show up to attack the worn out Good Guys. The agree that they can’t defeat both armies, and many flee, while many are taken prisoner. In the mist of the fighting IcE and Lizlord fo to Tail's house and steal the destruction Gems so Nightmare can become Super Nightmare. Zone flies off at night, but unbeknowest to him he's getting followed by Speeddasher. Zone and Kill meet up to exchange information, their conversation being overheard by Speeddasher. From this conversation, its confirmed that Zone is the spy and Speeddasher then runs off to tell the Good Guys. However, he's seen by Zone and they start fighting. Speeddasher nearly defeats Zone, but then Zone pulls some dishonorable tactics, like getting Kill to fight with him instead of it being 1 on 1. Zone and Kill's attacks are synchronized with each other, which ultimately beat Speeddasher. Speed is then brought to Nightmare and imprisoned.

Aftermath of First Fight
Theangol sees this and is very ashamed that he is responsible for the monsters that did this even tough it was indirect. (He was the original Darktan, who created Doom Weed, which was made into the X-virus). He managed to escape capture and decides to break his pacifist vows to defeat the monsters.

Zone tells the Good Guys that Speeddasher has been kidnapped by Nightmare. With the Good Guys temporarily focusing on rescuing Speeddasher, Zone then goes into sleep mode and warns Nightmare that the Good Guys are attempting to rescue Speed. While the Good Guys are distracted by Speeddasher's imprisonment, Nightmare tells Zone to gather the second and third Destruction Gems.

Nightmare is happy that she has defeated the Good Guys and has the X-creatures on DTA on her side. However, he is not happy that a good portion of the X creatures are, well, good. She decides to go around Antarctica to kidnap X-creatures and force them to join her Army. Darktan is not happy, since he thinks they should focus on invading the rest of Antarctica, but Nightmare convinces Darktan to rest a bit, since even though the Good Guys are defeated, there are still other armies that would willingly try to fight them. Darktan agrees, but starts to question Nightmare more than ever. He sends Shadow the Penguin to spy on Nightmare.

Nightmare was right, and other Armies were forming to help defeat Nightmare. Kwiksilver is the main leader and they start planning and join forces with the armies of Chi Con and Snowzerland. They say that they will get information from Zone, which many reject, since he didn’t tell them about DTA merging with Nightmare’s. Zone’s plan works perfectly and Kwiksilver state that Zone was with them when Nightmare made that decision, and thus couldn’t have known. They didn’t know about Zone’s ability to communicate with Nightmare in his dreams. They start planning and Theangol says that he’ll tell Luce that she’ll have to become Brilliance to defeat the bad guys.

Nightmare Kidnaps X-Creatures
Zone and Kwiksilver have a talk goes back to Nightmare to obtain information for the Good Guys (as well as give information to Nightmare, that sneaky little monkey). He notices that the Good Guys combined are bigger than the who other armies, and a whole lot less dysfunctional. Zone knows that he can’t just keep helping both sides, and he’ll have to choose one. He decides that he will be in the Army he has the most influence on, which is Nightmare’s Army since many Good Guys don’t trust him. However, he decides to end the quarreling of DTA and Nightmare’s Army, and wants to become the Leader.

Nightmare sends out his army to quietly kidnap other X-creatures from around the continents and force them to be in his army. Since they are not evil, they refuse to join, and Nightmare unleashes a wrath and starts to violently beat some of them. She tells his other minions to keep them in line. The Leader X and Tails X manage to avoid being caught and are chasing each other.

Meanwhile Zone gets in contact with Kill and explains his plans. He’ll take over Nightmare’s and Darktan’s army, put up a big fight, allow Kill to be captured by the Good Guys, triggering the King of Sorrow. Kill is not happy that Zone would turn into the thing which devastated Yoenah, but agrees because she loves him.

Nightmare and Zone Mind Controls X-Creatures and Darktan’s Army
Nightmare and Zone meet again for the first time since Nightmare sent Zone off to spy on the Good Guys. Nightmare is not happy that Zone had let the Good Guys know about the attack, but is glad that they have his trust. However, Zone explains that trust isn’t enough to have others do what you want them to. Zone tells Nightmare that he knows that he having trouble keeping Darktan’s Army and the good X-creatures in line. Zone says that he has a vision of creating an army of emotionless creatures with no free will or care about themselves. He takes out a piece of technology with his Amulet of Deception strapped to it that he claims he made to turn the Good Guys into his army of zombies, but realized that it would require more trust than he had with them to lead all of them into his fortress, and there are too many of them to fit, and some would eventually realize his scheme. Nightmare is delighted and decides to try it on Darktan before putting it into the Zone Fortress, with no idea that Shadow the Penguin is watching him.

Richperson was one of the many who was captured in the fight. Nightmare experiments on him and with the help of Zone’s Amulet of Deception and her REM sleep machine, she turns him into the Shadow Knight, a mindless and powerful slave of her. Zone and Nightmare agree to do this to all of Darktan’s army and the X-Creatures.

Shadow doesn’t like the idea of turning his co-workers into zombie slaves, but wouldn’t mind if Darktan got the blow, so he doesn’t tell Darktan, and goes off to tell the Treacherous Trio, and other members of Darktan’s army. To Shadow’s dismay, they tell Darktan. Darktan is very angry at this, and goes to Nightmare to fight him. He uses a lot of his power from the Aether Amulet, but Zone uses his Amulet of Deception combined with the gadget to turn Darktan into a mindless slave. The rest of the minions Darktan brought with him manage to escape. However, nearly every other X-creatures and DTA members are stationed in Zone. Zone sends Kill to scout the escaped members of DTA.

Zone is backstabbing Nightmare, but doesn’t plan to reveal this until later on. Zone and Nightmare combine the Amulet of Deception with the REM sleep machine and put it on maximum power. Eventually everyone in the fortress (save for Nightmare, Zone, Lizlord, IcE, and Kill) is a zombie, which also means every single X-creature except X Leader, Tails X, and the ones in Treacherous Trio is a zombie, every Darktan Army member except for the Treacherous Trio is a zombie, and the captured Good Guys are zombies. Nightmare is very delighted that she (actually, Zone) has an army that will do anything he wants them to, that can feel no emotional or physical pain, and will require no luxuries. However, Zone had tampered with Nightmare’s REM machine, so that the zombies obey him instead of Nightmare.

Project X
Nightmare has other plans though. She wants to continue working on Project X. Project X was not only supposed to create a clone of an organism; it was to create a clone of any form of matter. He has invented "X-bombs" which would release energy around a given radius. Whatever is in range of the "explosion" would be copied and put into a vortex in his secret lab. Nightmare decides to have the zombified X-creatures put the bombs around Antarctica so he can create a new Antarctica he can rule, destroying the old one. He orders them to do so, since Zone has commanded them to work for Nightmare (for now)

The Treacherous Trio meets up with the good guys and say that they must team up to defeat Nightmare. The good guys don’t agree because Zone is “on their side” and is against them. The good Guys try to arrest them, but they put up a fight and escape into the wilderness. They get spot by Kill. She tries to take them, but they manage to hold her off. Kill doesn't want to be captured by them, because she doesn't want Zone to turn into the King of Sorrow, and surrenders. They agree to let her go if she explains what is going on. he tells them that Zone is going to betray Nightmare and take over his army soon to attack the Good Guys, who won't be expecting it since they believe Zone is a good guy as well. The members are somewhat satisfied that nightmare and the Good Guys will get their comeuppance, but fear what the zombies will do to them when they're done with Nightmare and Good Guys. Kill goes to the Zone Fortress and tells him where the escaped members are. He doesn't think that they'll be a threat and is satisfied with the number of zombies in his army, so he lets it go. Kill did not tell him that they knew his plan.

While placing X-bombs all over Antarctica, one X-creature (who was a criminal) gets captured. However, he/she/it is still zombified, and scientists begin to do research on it. Professor Shroomsky finds out that the X-creature becomes very aggressive when near the DNA of it's counterpart, and will attempt to destroy it. He doesn't know what is going on, but files a report.

Battle at Zone Fortress
Soon, people have noticed that nearly every X-creature has suddenly vanished and Nightmare and Darktan haven’t done anything for days. They find the connection, and try to hunt down the two villains, but have found no clues. The Treacherous Trio tell the good guys where Zone Fortress is, and that they should attack there. The Good Guys are desperate, so they listen. The Good Guy’s army follows them to Zone Fortress, and Theangol takes his daughters and a few friends with him to defeat Darktan. Luce and Vesper create a half-light half-darkness Brilliance. Nightmare orders Darktan to turn into Hardcore and defeat Brilliance, which surprises Theangol since Darktan is not one to take orders. Subconsciously, Darktan knows he can’t because the powers of the Aether Amulet has no effect on other wearers of an elemental amulet; however, he has no choice because he is hypnotized. After many tries, Darktan is almost defeated, to Nightmare’s horror (Nightmare doesn’t know the Aether Amulet has no effect on the wearers of the others). Darktan is about to die, but is snapped back to normal when he gains the will to live again, and knows he is fighting for his enemy. He surrenders and tells Theangol that he has been hypnotized by Nightmare and Zone. Theangol is surprised and saddened that Zone was a traitor all along. Darktan gives Nightmare a dirty look and flies out of the window as fast as he can. Theangol hops on Brilliance and flies in a different direction, so Nightmare can’t go after both. Theangol then proceeds to tell the Good Guys that Zone is evil.

Nightmare is baffled that Darktan became un-hypnotized and was epically losing to Brilliance. He also is afraid what may happen when Zone’s true identity is discovered. He pays a visit to Zone to explain what happened. Zone tells Nightmare that the hypnosis can be broken if the creature is threatened with obvious death, which Nightmare is not happy with since the battles he wants to put them against the good guys will be full of death. Zone then proceeds to backstab Nightmare, and sends the X-creatures and hypnotized DTA members on Nightmare. The only exception to this is the Shadow Knight. Nightmare is confused and injured, and flees the scene with Shadow Knight. The Good Guys manage to rescue Speeddasher and other allies, who tells them that Nightmare is trying to find the final Destruction Gem.

Zone Takes control of DTA and X-Creatures
Darktan, and the gang go to the GG HQ and say that they’ll team up to defeat Zone and Nightmare. The Good Guys are hesitant but they set up a peace treaty with Darktan called the Darktonian-Antarctican Treaty, and prepare to get ready. They go to the site of the final destruction gem. Unfortunately, Zone's army of X-creatures come early and burst in. They begin attacking everything they can, but once they find their counterpart, they focus on that. The members of Darktan’s Army that aren’t X-creatures or not hypnotized begin to attack anyone who doesn’t have an X-antibody. Every X-creature is aggressive, and violent, even if they are usually calm in real life. In fighting, they appear to feel no pain and never tire, causing their opponents (mainly good guys) to become exhausted. The sky is dark and stormy. We see Zone looking forward smiling. And that, he replies, is how this all happened.

Zone stops telling the story. We keep seeing the armies fight each other.

The Good Guys have contacted other across the continent, and are receiving reinforcements, Corai shows up with an army of Chi Con soldiers, Triskelle comes with Freezeland ones. However, the numbers of X-creatures are not shrinking, and the Good Guys are being badly beat since they are up against zombies.

Meanwhile, Nightmare Lizlord, and IcE are in a secret lab. Nightmare tells the two that he has been working on an invention that would allow him to harness the power of the King of Sorrow. It is a giant iron suit, with guns and stuff, and a button that would open up a vortex that would allow him to become Super Nightmare, take the King of Sorrow from Zone, and put it in the suit, allowing him to be Super Nightmare all the time, as well as giving him deletion powers. Lizlord and IcE help him complete it and give him the destruction gems, turning him into Super Nightmare. He goes to the vortex where "New Antarctica" is in. He decides to release it.

Reinforcements for the Good Guys show up, with many other weapons. This was the time Zone was waiting for. One of the X-creatures got a headshot from a snowbullet and dies. Other X-creatures notice and one by one break out of their trance. Eventually all of them do, and they surrender or retreat. Zone then sends Kill to attack the good guys. She does, but is immediately captured. This triggers the King of Sorrow and Zone transforms into the blue guy. He goes on a murder spree using his tentacles to squeeze the life out of people, and starts de-aging many so that they are too young and weak to fight (before killing them). Just then, Super Nightmare comes and does more damage while trying to approach the King of Sorrow.

Kill Dies and Nightmare steals King of Sorrow’s powers
Kill is horrified at the atrocities Zone was committing and decided to join the Good Guys. She tells them that she'll take on King of Sorrow while the others should help defeat Super Nightmare. Kwiksilver believes that KoS is a greater threat and joins Kill in trying to defeat him. Kill takes out a sword and starts to attack Zone, doing no damage. He gets sent into a warped in twisted state since the person he's trying to protect is trying to destroy him. Super Nightmare is very hard to stop, and many retreat because he is too powerful, and Zone is still sending deletion blasts everywhere. Super Nightmare goes to Zone and starts attacking him. Zone forgets about Kill and focuses energy on Super Nightmare. Nightmare hopes that he'll get Zone angry enough to trigger his deletion apocalypse, but nothing is working. Tails shows up and starts to attack Nightmare, which gives Zone the advantage, and he temporarily defeats Nightmare. The King of Sorrow goes up to Nightmare and is about to destroy him, but Super Nightmare orders Shadow Knight to kill Kill, and he does so. However, realzing that he killed someone he breaks out of his spell and joins the good guys.

Zone is in an even more twisted and warped state knowing that he caused the events that led to Kill’s death. He tries to reason with himself, and then starts to blame other fanon characters for this, like Nightmare, Darktan, the Good Guys, etc, and then decides to do his deletion apocalypse to destroy all of Antarctica. He starts to build up more and more energy until he has enough to destroy the south. However, Nightmare uses her machine combined with the destruction gems to absorb the King of Sorrow's power, making Zone normal (and exhausted). The Destruction Gems being used up are dispersed again. Tails knows that he is no match for Super Nightmare with the King of Sorrow's power and leaves, along with Kwiksilver, Speeddasher, and anyone else who isn't dead. Nightmare starts to taunt Zone for "falling for it" and lets him lives because he thinks Zone is suffering a fate much worse than death. Zone is confused on what he should think, but then decides not to think and just make a funeral for Kill. He picks up her bloody corpse and carries her to a place with more dirt walking, rather than flying, slowly in a trance.

Super Nightmare then proceeds to call herself "Epic Nightmare" and now has the ability to unlease a deletion level apocalypse onto Antarctica. However, she decides to keep most of her powers, as she has created a “New Antarctica” in a vortex that she plans to use to crush the old Antarctica and rule over. The Good guys try to fight Nightmare, but many of them are deleted in a blink. Nightmare opens the portal to New Antarctica which will crush the old one and destroy everyone. However, Shadow Knight lunges towards Nightmare and causes her to lose control of the King of Sorrow powers. She said it doesn’t matter since if she unleashes a deletion apocalypse New Antarctica will still be here. However, Speedasher and Tails manage to force Nightmare into the portal to New Antarctica causing it to be deleted. Tails becomes Dark Tails, and with Speed, they start to fight Super Nightmare.

Final Battle and aftermath
They manage to close up the vortex, freeing everyone, including Kwiksilver. At the last moment, Nightmare recognizes Kwiksilver as the warrior who defeated her in his war against the High Penguins and it distracts him. This initiates an automatic Paradox procedure in Kwiksilver's Vortex Manipulator, sending him back to the HP War against Nightmare. Kwiksilver has just appeared in the middle of a duel between Marcus Kwiksilver, Kwiksilver's ancestor and war commander of the High Penguins and a much younger Nightmare with his own body. Kwiksilver takes over from Marcus, who has been poisoned, and defeats Nightmare. They return to present day, and we see that Nightmare’s suit has been destroyed and she is Super Nightmare no more. Nightmare is bombarded by the energy and weight of the mechanical suit. Her body reverts to the orange high penguin that is used to be one thousand years ago and then disintegrates.

Darktan’s Army and the evil X-creatures, on DTA or not, tell the Good Guys that the next day thay’ll be enemies again, with them committing crimes, creating destruction, and trying to take over the continent. However, both sides are exhausted and agree to take the rest of the day off and chillax, have a cup of tea, and get to know each other better. This should be the comic relief after the epic battles and casualties, with X-creatures chatting their counterparts, and otherwise serious characters acting a bit silly (ex. Darktan II calling Theangol and Darktan X “Mommy and Daddy” and them arguing which one is which).

The story ends with Zone finishing Kill's grave and mourning. After a few hours, he gets up and starts to walk away slowly.