The city was silent in the aftermath of the battle, save for the faint hum of streetlights flickering in the distance. The air, still thick with the residue of burned flesh and the lingering echo of flames, held an unsettling stillness. A twisted calm had taken over the place where Lucas had just fought the League of Villains.
The ground was littered with debris—broken glass, torn clothing, and the scent of smoke filled the streets. But the most unsettling thing of all was the monstrous figure that had left its mark on the city.
Lucas, now fully in his Nightmarionette form, stood over the broken quintuplet of Villains, his focus? Shigaraki, his elongated arms trembling with a sense of twisted satisfaction. His heart was racing, but not with the rush of victory. It was a different kind of pulse—a cold, calculating beat, as though his very soul was beginning to recognize the weight of what he had just done.
Without warning, he raised one of his massive, monstrous hands and seized Shigaraki's arm, ripping it clean from the villain's body with a sickening crack. The sound echoed in the night, a grotesque reminder of the battle's brutality. Tomura's shrill scream of pain echoed into the night as he writhed on the ground, clutching the stump where his arm had once been.
But Lucas didn't look back. He couldn't afford to.
He had done it. He had taken the first step into becoming a nightmare of his own making, a creature not bound by the limitations of his original self. But it was not a step he could undo. Once the power was taken, it was impossible to return to what he once was.
---
The Nightmarionette's limbs began to retract, slowly at first, but each moment felt like eternity. His body, once grotesquely elongated, was slowly shrinking back into a more human-like form. Yet, as he transformed, Lucas realized something that made his chest tighten with fear.
His limbs, though shrinking, were still stretching, elongating further with every passing second. His once-human form was a nightmare of puppet-like limbs—bones extending out of their sockets, joint after joint popping and snapping, muscles twisting and cracking. His body distorted as he returned to his original form, but it seemed as though the curse of the Nightmarionette had latched onto him permanently.
And just like that, he became over 200 meters tall, looming over the city in a terrifying, grotesque parody of a human being.
The world around him seemed to shrink as he stood, towering above the buildings. His head was far above the tallest skyscrapers. His limbs, twisted and far too long, reached out into the city as though he could stretch them across miles if he desired.
For a brief moment, the nightmare was no longer in his control. His once carefully calculated movements turned chaotic, and his mind reeled. He could feel the power surging through him—the raw, unchecked force of the Nightmarionette. He was a giant, an impossible creature, an abomination that the city could barely comprehend.
---
"Control… control…" Lucas whispered, his voice distorted and hollow. But even as he uttered the words, he knew they were meaningless. He had no control anymore. The form of the Nightmarionette had consumed him. The longer he stayed in it, the harder it would be to return to his human form, to who he was.
He turned away from the wreckage of the battle and began to walk away, each step shaking the ground beneath him. Every movement seemed to stretch on for an eternity. He could hear the distant sirens of emergency vehicles approaching, the flicker of lights that would soon flood the city with attention. But he didn't care.
His mind was clouded with a mixture of guilt and sorrow. He couldn't let himself change back, not yet. Not after what he had done. If he changed back into his original form now, he feared he wouldn't forgive himself. The weight of his actions—the dismemberment of Shigaraki, the chaos he had wrought—would crush him. And he wasn't sure if he could bear it.
---
As Lucas continued his escape, a sense of dread seemed to spread through the city like a disease. The people in the streets below looked up, terrified at the monstrous figure that loomed above them. Their eyes widened in shock as they saw what they thought was a nightmare made flesh.
For ten minutes, Lucas—still in his towering, nightmarish form—moved through the city. His limbs stretched impossibly long, reaching out with a mechanical precision, his form a haunting image of death and destruction. He was like a twisted puppet, moving slowly, but with terrifying grace, as if his very body was an extension of some darker force.
In his mind, the world seemed to bend to his will. He could feel it—the weight of his form, the crushing pressure of his power. And yet, there was an emptiness inside him that matched the vastness of the cityscape he towered over.
The city—his city—was breaking beneath him. People screamed, fled, and watched from their windows in horror. The media was quick to pick up on the images, their cameras capturing every inch of the monstrous figure in the streets. Lucas had become an urban legend overnight. A nightmare that had taken form.
But he wasn't interested in fame. He wasn't interested in becoming some symbol of terror. He just wanted to disappear. To escape.
And just as quickly as he had appeared, he vanished into the night, the silhouette of his figure slowly fading away as his limbs shrank back into their normal proportions. His form collapsed into itself, returning to the human shape that he had once known.
---
By the time the city returned to some semblance of calm, Lucas was gone. His transformation, while brief, had left a mark on the landscape that would not be easily forgotten. The memory of the towering nightmare—of the puppet-like figure that had walked through their streets—lingered long after the creature had disappeared into the shadows.
But for Lucas, the damage had already been done. He knew that this was only the beginning. The form of the Nightmarionette had marked him. It was no longer just a tool. It had become a part of him. And no matter how much he wished to leave it behind, it would always be there, lurking beneath the surface.
He had taken Shigaraki's arm, a grim trophy of his power, but he knew it meant nothing. No matter what he had done tonight, the price of using that power would always haunt him.
---
As Lucas disappeared into the dark alleys, hiding from the chaos he had unleashed, one thing was certain: he was no longer just a fugitive in a world of heroes and villains.
He was a Nightmare.
And the world would never be the same again.