No Matter What (A Dreammare Fic)

Chapter 12: The Council Shall Decide Your Fate

"Hi!" Tech greeted Dream when he walked into his lab. "Are you ready for the council meeting today?"

Dream squirmed in place. "I suppose."

He was here to cover the details of his proposition before the council meeting. He certainly wasn't excited to enter the room like a guppy into a shiver of sharks with his papers.

Tech was next to him in an instant, a hand on his shoulder. "You'll be fine, the councilors are nice."

"For you maybe," Dream muttered, " and how do you do that?"

Tech was already on the other side of him, flipping through their papers. "Do what?"

Dream frowned. "The quick travel! No one else seems to be able to short-cut in this dimension! I certainly can't!"

"Oh." Tech chuckled, shrugging. "Well, that's because no one can. Boss had me install an anti-teleporting rig throughout the entire manor."

"And you?" Dream questioned.

Tech shrugged. "Part of my error condition. I can dissolve myself into strings of code and translocate. Even through solid objects. The wards don't work on Error either, something about not being able to be labeled by the rig as in the manor."

"Can you do it across universes?" Dream pondered, thinking of the Destroyer. Was this why he saved Tech? Because he was like him? He hadn't done that before, had he?

Tech looked him up and down. "I can. No ward can keep me out, although every time I translocate it is possible I lose a body part, or glitch out of existence." He paused, then adjusted his lab coat. "The longer I am dissolved, the more likely something goes wrong--cross-universe travel takes a while."

"I... see," Dream replied simply. Just like with Ink and his talk of Creators and paint and doodles, he never could get the idea of code outside or inside computers. He looked over the papers somehow in his hands again, and sighed. "I'm ready to go, if you are."

Tech tilted his head, and laughed, doubling over. Dream cocked his head, and Tech explained, "no you aren't! You're not even dressed!"

Dream looked down at himself, suddenly terrified that he hadn't gotten dressed that day. When he found he was, in fact, clothed, he looked back to Tech quizzically.

"You don't have your official clothes on!" Tech clarified, still laughing.

"These..." Dream trailed off, feeling the fine silken fabric under his phalanges as he balled his hands in the train of his jacket, "aren't... my official clothes?"

Tech laughed again. "Nope!" he disappeared and reappeared in a blink with a hanger, appearing to have a normal outfit for Tech until Dream looked closer. The lab coat was almost purple looking, and the back appeared to have the symbol of the empire on it, although in red and blue. Each sleeve had a sort of embellishment, namely what appeared to be part of a Fell collar on one sleeve and a blue piece of fabric on the other.

"Woah!" Dream exclaimed, "that looks awesome!"

"Thank you," Tech crowed with a smile, "I didn't make it." He grinned, then disappeared and reappeared without the hanger. "You should have one, too. Haven't your servants told you?"

"I dismissed all of them," Dream murmured. He hadn't liked the feeling of people doting on him, nor their constant presence--although Lucinda dropped in every now and then to gossip, mostly about her crush, or the knights and Nightmare, or the regular manor talk he still couldn't quite understand.

Tech tsked at him jokingly, about to quip when the knights walked in. First was Cross, who managed to both startle and stun Dream into silence. He was wearing a white dress shirt, black slacks, and dress shoes. The white dress shirt was overlaid by the 'X' shaped straps attached to his cape--although this one appeared special, with the empire's symbol on it in black. The slacks had white stripes down the sides, with similar 'X' shapes on each pant leg.