Nightmare

Name: Nightmare "Alastor" (1400)
Age: 60 minutes
Race: Greater Nightmare
Weapon: None
Appearance: Nightmare Alastor's appearance varies, as he is basically nothing more than a collection of dark matter and the bones of any deceased in the area. His favorite form is a semi-human shape of darkness wearing a rib cage like a vest, and a demonic looking skull that's constructed out of the horns of a bull, the fangs of a tiger, the head of an overgrown bird.
Abilities/Skills: Alastor has control over darkness. His strength grows at night, but is not hindered by daylight. He can manipulate his body shape to whatever he chooses, stretching, reforming, etc. and often uses his own body as a weapon, shooting his fingers out like needles or using his leg as a whip. He also has the power to manipulate dead bodies, although doing so requires concentration and physical contact. He can immediately rot dead bodies down to the bone so he can use their skeleton as parts to add onto himself as a form of armor or weaponry. His signature attack is his "Death Scream" where he fires an extremely powerful black beam from his mouth. Although simple, it's effectiveness comes from the fact that it's as black as his own body, so it's harder to notice the attack when he's shapeshifting. He can also take on the attributes of other things around him, and doesn't necessarily need to use bones; for example, if there's a fireplace nearby, he can inhale the flames and temporarily use fire power. Although none of his forms are definite and are applied to the situation at hand, he has several transformations that derive purely from memory that usually stay the same:
-Raven Mode: He changes into the form of a giant black bird with bones that arrange themselves to look like the bones of a bird's wings. His custom skull changes so the bull horns flip around and attach to the back of his head.
-Cyber Mode: By absorbing something technological, he learns about the way it's constructed and takes on some of it's shape, and ends up looking more like something from Transformers. Because his body is made of shadow, he does not have physical limits to form like joints, so he can rearrange his mechanically-structured body at will.
-Spider Mode: He rearranges his body to look like a demon with 6 arms. His mask changes in position and shifts to where the top of his head used to be, with the horns now pointing directly forward and his jaw positioned much lower on his new head.
History: Alastor's lifespan is only 60 minutes. He technically has a hive mind personality, due to the fact that he is nothing more than a sentient fusion of hundreds of small, insect-like creatures called nightmares. Nightmares are the physical embodiments of dark thoughts and emotions who only appear in a place known as the Forest of Sorrow. They prey upon those whose hearts are pure. The nightmares have the ability to fuse together, but do not do so often, due to them being mostly unintelligent. Alastor's first appearance was when a dark alchemist visited the Forest of Sorrow and performed an experiment on the nightmares by using a bait method to force them to fuse together. His experiment was successful, creating an intelligent, sentient, powerful being he nicknamed Alastor. In his confusion of having actual intelligence and emotions, Alastor wildly attacked everything around him. The mage quickly imprisoned him, and after an hour, found out his new creature could only stay in his fused form for that long, before collapsing back into hundreds of small nightmares. A side effect of the experiment seemed to be distributing a hive mind personality on the nightmares, giving them the ability to socialize and work together and fuse back into Alastor. The bird-bull-tiger combination skull he always carries with him is his only means of communication, unless he decides to pick up another skull. His custom skull is his favorite, however, and feels that it's the most terrifying to his opponents. He is extremely protective of this skull for some reason, and will risk losing a battle just to get it back if it is somehow taken from him. Because of sentience, the nightmares are now free to escape the forest at will.
Weakness: Light-based attacks, ice attacks, his short lifespan, his arrogance, his extreme favoritism for his bird-bull-tiger skull.


Name: Nightmare "Alastor" (2000)
Age: 600 years
Race: Greater Nightmare
Weapon: Chains
Appearance: Unlike his year 1400 self, Nightmare Alastor has a definite appearance. His body is in the shape of a human wearing a vest with the shoulders pointed up, as if there were bent shoulderpads hidden inside. He also appears to have tight, black leather pants and chains wrapped along his forearms, his shins, and his torso. He still has his bird-bull-tiger mask, but it is now permanently bonded to his physical form, and now looks more like a mask, and what he has of a face can be seen underneath. He has a surprisingly humanoid form upon close inspection, having clothes, lips, eyes, ears, nails, a nose, etc. Grafted along his shoulders and torso and such are bones, which he uses as armor.
Abilities/Skills: Alastor 2000 is a shapeshifter like his previous form. His transformations now seem to be more rigid, and instead of liquefying his own body to attack, he makes minor, more intricate transformations instead. Whether this is a permanent change in strategy or whether transforming as he used to has become more difficult is unknown, but he still seems to be able to retain some of his old transforming abilities. He no longer has his Death Scream, and now uses two new signature techniques, Demon Twister, which is a large, spinning beam of darkness, and Nightmare Cannon, in which he fires a powerful, concentrated ball of his own nightmare matter that explodes on contact. His dark magic seems to have improved greatly since his previous form, evolving from simply controlling the dead or shooting lasers to being able to materialize objects around his target which close in to crush them. This is partially due to him consuming a wicked mage. He can also steal someone's soul to gain their power, but this is never used in battle, as it is extremely time consuming and requires complete and absolute mental submission from the target. He is also immune to ice-based attacks. Because his new form is more solid than liquid, he can make his body as tough as steel at will.
History: Nightmare Alastor (1400) was imprisoned in ice for 600 years with an extremely strong spell cast by a sage who wanted to stop Alastor's reign of terror. Apparently travelers or archeologists of some sort uncovered Alastor's frozen body, which had decomposed into liquid dark matter and his favorite bone mask. When defrosted by scientists, the Nightmare, with his memory completely wiped from being in suspended animation, was unable to think up a body shape, and was forced to copy one of the human scientists to an extent. He blasted his way out of the laboratory, realizing being frozen had strange effects on his body. His new form was no longer as limber, nor as agile or...liquid as it once was. He felt...real. Solid. He continued about, finding creatures whose forms he thought were worthy of mimicking, eventually combining the best possible traits he could get into one default form. To complete his "rebirth", he managed to locate a very strong, respected dark mage. Little did he know, this was the man who helped to create him. But he didn't know, nor he did he care. Alastor terrorized the mage into letting him steal his soul, resulting in the Nightmare's dark magic growing ten fold. Later on, he realized that while his skull-mask is nearly indestructible and cannot be removed, getting hit there causes him severe pain. Due to him being imprisoned in ice for so long, he has developed a total immunity to ice-based attacks.
Weakness: His skull mask, light-based attacks