Chapter CXXIII: There’s Nothing to Fear But… ~Kurayami

Kurayami walked through the twisted forest, aware that the Spectrum had left without him, looking for the energy that he felt with his loyal warp drone following behind. He was hungry(he didn't like Sapphire's cooking, or anyone else's cooking.) and quite annoyed. He moved silently past monsters scattered around the path, all of them curled up and shuddering in fear. The demon Yoshi stopped in front of one monster and picked it up. It was dead, scared so badly that it held its breath and suffocated. "This must be the work of the Fear Nightmare." Kurayami thought, taking a bite out of the dead monster and throwing the carcass off to the side. "Tastes good... Better than the food on that train." He then walked up to another monster, tore it apart and promptly ate it before continuing on with the hunt.

Without warning, there was a rustle in the distance and a figure dressed in grey floated through the trees, going parallel to the path. Kurayami turned around and immediately gave chase, jumping off the path and dashing through the trees. "Come back here Nightmare!" he yelled, morphing from a his semi-anthro form to a more dinosaur like form to increase his running ability. After some running, Kurayami lost track of the grey figure and he sniffed the air, trying to pick up the scent of the Nightmare. "You may be able to hide your energy pattern with your illusions, but you can't hide your foul reek..." the Yoshi said out loud just before dashing off once again.

Kurayami crashed through through bushes and trees, forchign himself through all in his way. "I have you now!" he yelled when in range, jumping at the figure. However, just before getting a hold of the figure, something else popped out of the bushes and he crashed into it. It was Omega.

"Oh, never expected you to be hin here." Omega said as the grey figure made its escape, "I guess you were the undetected thing chasing the unidentified energy source."

"No @#%$, you accursed robot." Kurayami replied as he got up and rubbed his head, "What's wring with your sensors anyways? You can detect a Nightmare when CR can't identify it but you can't detect me with this following behind?" The purple Yoshi then pointed to the warp drone floating off to the side with the incomplete Nightmare Obsidian in it.

"I'm running at 150% of normal capacity. I can't get any better than this. Anyways, I'm a hologramatic simulation of the original Omega. A temporary projection to keep track of that moving energy source." Holo-Omega replied.

"Whatever, I don't care what you are, just stay out of my way." Kurayami growled before darting off into the woods again with his warp drone trailing behind.

Kurayami continued on, following the scent of the Fear Nightmare, trailing through underbrush and bushes until he reached the end of the trail. To his surprise, the Nightmare was nowhere to be seen.

"Did you find him?" asked a voice from behind. Kurayami turned to see Holo-Omega climbing out of some bushes.

"You know that you're a REAL ANNOYANCE, right?" yelled Kurayami in a furious rage, "Remind me to trash the real Omega when..."

Before Kurayami could finish his rambling, a grey figure came down out of the trees and smashed him back with an obsidian staff. It was Fear.

"You must be Kurayami," Fear said with a smile, "Nice to meet you, but I gotta run so you won't drain my powers... and thanks for bringing my ticket outta here." Fear then spun around and stabbed his staff into Holo-Omega. The energy from the hologramatic matrix was then siphoned into the staff, eliminating Holo-Omega.

"Who are you kidding, you can't escape." Kurayami said as he got up and dashed towards Fear.

"Too late, already have... Mwahahaha!" Fear retorted just before a portal appeared under him and he slipped into it.

"Come back here!" Kurayami yelled, forming a portal through the Shadow Dimension that would match the energy pattern of Fear's portal. He jumped through and to his surprise, he appeared in the Spectrum. The members on board were surprised to see Kurayami suddenly back on the train and they didn't bother to ask.

"He's around here somewhere... But I can't sense him. Too many energy sources." Kurayami thought, "Hmmm... I do sense something else around here, something familiar. Ah, yes... Havering."