Chapter 40 - You don't know me

"How comes the carnivorous plants don't attack her", Dante asked confused.

"That's because to them she isn't even there. To them she is just a shadow just like the Shadow Crawler over there", Serena said looking at it. "I have a plan, though if we want to beat her, we have to work together."

"What!? I am pretty sure you can handle her yourself", Dante said in a confident tone.

"Well I wish that was the case, however that isn't possible. That creature will drain my Nano Lites into it's body with ease, so my attacks are pretty much useless to it. Though you and Eric's attacks should work perfectly on it since it isn't influencing it with Nano Lites directly."

The Shadow Crawler seemed to be fully healed and prepared to go on the offensive. Telling them to prepare themselves, Serena used her gun, 'Ripple Pistol' to fire at Nightmare. Anticipating these shots, she dodged easily by moving from branch to branch. Using the ability of the Ripple pistol to the fullest, Serena maneuvered this shots back to Nightmare forcing her to keep on dodging them.

Seeing that it's creator was in trouble, the Shadow Crawler rushed towards them. Using her sight as an advantage, Serena told Dante of it's approach. Picking his hand up and pointing it at the crawlers position, Serena told him to create some ice pikes and to keep on shooting it in that direction.

Dante shot out massive ice pikes which flew to the position Serena had pointed to, eventually forming a wall of ice. The crawler was forced to dodge the whole time giving Serena space for the next part of her plan. Instantly she picked up Eric's hand and stretched it at the ice wall.

"Heat it up now!", Dante and Eric were surprised by the fact that she knew about his ability, however they didn't ask questions.

Heating up the ice wall, steam began to emit from them. This eventually sent steam moving round, acting as a wall Nightmare couldn't see through so well.

"I don't know how long I can hold this, hurry up", Eric's face tightened as he endured the fatigue on his body.

"Don't worry, leave the rest to us", Serena tried to encourage him.

Nightmare eventually got tried of dodging the bullets chasing her. Charging some daggers with Nano Lites, she threw each of them to intercept these Nano Lite bullets. Upon successfully doing this, she tried her best to observe her environment, however the steam made this difficult.

The ground below the tree she stood on began to rumble all of a sudden putting her on edge. This was not only happening around her, it was actually happening all round the hideout. Before she had noticed what was going on it was already too late.

Dante had encased the whole base within a rock dome making the place incredibly dark. Nightmare did not fret however as this was the place in which she flourished the most, heck it wouldn't even stop the Shadow Crawler's assault. Thinking that their plan was to ambush her in the dark, she was highly disappointed. Though that all changed when she got a whiff of something she didn't expect.

'Are this people crazy?', Nightmare thought to herself.

Eric had stopped heating the ice a long time ago. After that Dante had secretly began to create something else from his hands.

'Methane! But that will get them killed as well. There is no way they would do that', she thought once more to herself.

When the methane gas had moved round the dome and Dante had sure he had made the methane volume the right volume all through the air, Nightmare was quickly proven wrong when she identified a spark in the dark.

Boom!

A massive explosion rocked the interior of the massive rock dome causing it to shatter into pieces. The sound was so loud that it could be heard through out the Garden. It could even be heard in Ren's safe haven, Jericho.

"What was that!?", Mia asked Ren who was currently looking at a cloud of smoke going up in the air a distance away.

"I have no idea. Let me go check it out", Ren spoke as he looked on.

"I will go with you."

"Mia there is no need to do that. I will just check it out and I will be back, I promise."

Not wanting to argue with Ren, Mia accepted this. After getting her approval he smiled at her and began to sprint towards that spot at high speed. Judging by the speed he was moving, Mia believed he would reach this place within an hour's time.

After the smoke had cleared enough to see through, an image of Nightmare kneeing on the floor could be seen. She had used the Shadow Crawler to cover herself when the explosion went off. This ultimately resulted in the the creature's destruction. Even though she had protected herself, she had still gotten severely injured. Upon trying to get up, she received a shot to each arm from nowhere causing her to fall flat on the ground. Coming out of the smoke, Serena, Dante and Eric had came out unfazed.

"But how?", Nightmare asked in an almost inaudible tone.

"I made a shield", Serena pointed her gun at Nightmare's head.

Hearing this, she instantly remembered that Serena's use of Nano Lites was still unrivaled. It was no surprise she would be able to protect them from something like that. Serena had shot her hands so that she could not throw anymore daggers and Nightmare was well aware of this. She also knew it would take to long to create another Shadow Crawler. Her options were exhausted and she knew that as well. In short it was over for her.

"Serena stop! Don't do this, you are not that type of person!", Dante spoke as he fully understood what she was about to do.

"If we leave her alive she will come for us, and when she does we will be toast this time. I can't take that risk she is too dangerous. I will do anything for our survival."

"We will find another way! Please just don't pull the trigger!"

"There is no other way", Serena spoke before shooting a bullet straight into Nightmare's skull.

After she was killed Dante and Eric's sight returned immediately only for them to see a horrific sight in front of them. With eyes wide open, Dante looked at Serena who currently had an uncaring look in her eyes. It was as if she wasn't even fazed by the fact that she killed a human being.

"You don't know me", Serena said before walking off.