Dancing among the branches isn't that romantic

The battle unfolding before Donnie was rather unreal to his senses. It's one thing to have a fight in a park, it's another when the aforementioned park was a melting nightmare version of one born from memories.

On one side was a Batibat, a Filipino nightmare demon born from fallen timber and with a nasty habit of choking people in their sleep. Taking on the form of an ancient, obese demonic woman, the Batibat looked ready to crush her opponent into dust.

On the other side, a brash, heroic looking woman dressed in Greco leather armor and armed with a golden spear. Despite a plain looking face, the fierceness in her eyes and the cocksure grin on it made her look like the battlefield was her home.

Donnie didn't know who would make the first move, but he could feel that it was going to be explosive.

"BROOOOOAAAA!"

The Batibat let out a mighty roar moments before transforming her arms into thick and twisted tree trunks that began to reach out towards the distant Tatterhood, threatening to crush her like a fly against a battering ram.

"Flashy, but slow," Tatterhood remarked with a confident tone.

Tatterhood kicked herself off of the ground and into the air, elegantly dodging the encroaching tree trunks. When she was out of harm's way, she landed onto the Batibat's tree arms and began to run up them.

Spear in hand, Tatterhood readied herself to jam the spear into the tree monster's head. The aforementioned tree monster, however, found it rather insulting someone was using her beautiful arms as a running track.

A deep vibrating growl emanated from the obese demon's throat, causing her arms to vibrate as well. Tree branches that were as sharp as spear began to jut out of her tree trunk arms in an attempt to skewer the running Tatterhood.

While initially surprised by the sudden counterattack, Tatterhood didn't let the sudden onslaught of branch spears stop her momentum.

Branch after branch shot upwards in an attempt to pierce Tatterhood, but none of them managed to hit their mark. Everytime a branch almost pierced her, she would sidestep, spin or just leap forward to avoid the attacks.

From Donnie's point of view, it looked like Tatterhood was dancing through the spears as she made her way closer and closer to the Batibat. The fact that she sang while doing so, strengthened this opinion.

"Do you believe in life after love?," Tatterhood quietly sang while dancing through the branches.

The warrior woman was now in stabbing distance when the Batibat made a sudden change in tactics. a wall of branches covered in thorns rapidly grew in front of the demon moments before launching forward at Tatterhood like a tsunami of a wood.

"And up we go!"

Undeterred by the sudden obstacle, Tatterhood slammed her spear into the ground and used it as a pole vault to launch herself upward and leap over the wall of thorny branches.

"Eat this you tumorous overgrowth!"

Tatterhood threw the golden spear at the Batibat, aiming it at her bulbous head.

Unexpectedly, the Batibat's neck began to elongate and twist like a viper, enabling her to avoid the spear.

As Tatterhood's golden spear impaled itself into the ground behind the Batibat, the demonic tree woman launched her own head forward to take a bite out of Tatterhood. At the same time, the Batibat retracted her arms back into the original shape.

"Oop!"

The Batibat almost succeeded in taking a nasty bite out of Tatterhood, but Tatterhood managed to avoid the hit by punching the Batibat's head once it got into range.

The momentum from the blow allowed Tatterhood to roll across the Batibat's elongated neck, back down to the ground. Once Tatterhood was close enough to her spear, she landed a brutal stomp kick onto the Batibat's back and sent herself flying towards her spear.

Tatterhood grabbed the spear to stop her forward momentum, extracted it from the ground using the aforementioned momentum and charged at the Batibat in one fluid motion.

The Batibat retracted her head just in time to see a golden spear getting jammed into her chest.

Wisps of holy golden energy began to leap from the spear head and worm their way into the Batibat's newly acquired chest wound. Tatterhood gave the Batibat a smug smile as she jammed the spear deeper.

A bloodcurdling roar echoed through the dream park as the Batibat howled with pain at the repulsive holy energy squirming away at her wounds.

Dark nightmarish energy began to condense inside of the Batibat as she attempted to extract the spear that Tatterhood was firmly holding in place.

"Uh oh."

Several beams of dark light began to leak out of the Batibat's wounds, moments before a huge amount of force launched the spear out of the wound and Tatterhood with it. Thankfully, Tatterhood managed to correct her posture in time to land on her feet.

Tatterhood was ready to launch another attack against the Batibat, until she saw that the wound she had just inflicted start to close up. Seconds later, the Batibat looked fully healed, but significantly angrier.

"Looks like this is gonna be a war of attrition."

_________________________________________________

Back at Donnie's Apartment

"And clear!"

*BZZZT!*

Tony and Kathy stood back as the defibrillator did it's thing and shocked Donnie's heart. The heart monitor on his wrist had stopped beeping erratically and was now beeping at a steady pace.

The tanuki and kamaitachi duo let out sighs of relief as their master's heart wasn't in trouble anymore.

"That was stressful," Kathy groaned as she slumped to the ground, "what the hell caused all of that ruckus? I know the boss is fat, but..."

"I get what you're saying," Tony nodded, "one of us should probably get inside his head to see what's going on."

Tony and Kathy looked at each other, expecting the other to volunteer to go into Donnie's dreamscape.

"..."

"..."

"I don't want to deal with whatever is going in there."

"Me either."

"Rock, Paper, Scissors?"

"Best two out of three."