It was time. She could feel him congealing about the ship now: could feel that something had changed, that the ship was now at risk, that madness was starting to spread, that he now had the ability to hurt with his strength now. It would be the madness that would consume them. All this, of course, a demon girl could take in stride. Why shouldn't she?

She made darkness like this herself.

And because of that she strode forward, images of Silent Hill and Cristobell and tortured Alessa in her head. She heard the happy cries of the filthy cult as they burned the girl, and her anger was not enough, not without help. These things were untrue: filthy lies cooked by her demon memories, the secret feelings she had, She could even see bits of Shadow and Pirogoeth locked in a lover's embrace, plainly saying that she was a demon and unworthy of any in the first place. Images of falsehood. She even saw Shadow as a corpse, and a likeness of the Nightmare King triumphant, gathering the hedgehog's blood as the Nightmare King claimed himself the Ultimate Weapon.

All this Alessa viewed, detached, unaffected. To a human, she supposed there was a trigger in their heads to accept what they saw, that their eyes and own brain were not traitors. They could be and were here, if they were so easily tapped into. To this Alessa moved still, but the world around her began to look warped, pinched together, and Alessa knew why: they were fighting for dominance, and right now, Alessa could not win. She understood that herself.

But the Nightmare King could not drive her mad nor use imagery around her. If he were going to send an attack, he would have to through someone else's mind frame: hers was unstoppable when it came to a power they both understood. Logically, fighting the King by herself was folly: he could actually kill her. So she would need to ally herself with some of the others. She walked on, determined.

A passing thought went to both Pirogoeth and Shadow, as she pondered their safety. She was confident they were all right.