From Murder to Dust

17 - Trio

I had been with Nightmare for eight months now; our faces were on every wanted poster in the multiverse, and we were probably more notorious than Error by this point. We were getting so infamous that he was actually starting to pay attention to us; I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. When Ink said he hated me more than Error, I realized that to be true in battle. I had the chance to see a recording of one of Ink's battles with Error once, and he didn't try nearly as hard to beat him as he did me. That's another thing that I wasn't sure what to think about. Error still wasn't up for joining us, though; of course, that didn't stop Nightmare from trying. Once, when I asked him why he was so eager to get Error to join us, he told me a lot. He wanted Error to join us so we could protect him. The Destroyer was alone, and if we could do something to help him, it might have been able to make a difference. I understood Nightmare's motives now.

Horror was in his universe right now, so Killer and I were left to our own devices, which were games - lots of games. Killer was better at board games, physical games, and creative games, while I was better at logic games and thinking games. While he was the master of backgammon, I beat him in checkers. I didn't know why he was so good at backgammon, but it was better not to question it. When we got bored of these, we decided to bother Nightmare. He was most likely in the library, reading; he really, really liked reading. We opened the door to the library and approached him; he was in his comfy purple reading chair, reading a book. We stared at him until he took notice of us. He lowered his glasses, exhaled, and looked at us.

"May I help you?" He asked.

"Whatcha readin'?" Killer wondered.

"I'm reading a book about certain groups in the multiverse."

"Are we in there?"

"As a matter of fact, we are."

Nightmare flipped to a page, revealing a picture of him, Killer, Horror, and me.

"Who else is in it?" Killer questioned.

"Various groups." Nightmare replied. "There's the Star Sanses, the Originals, the Bad Time Trio, and others."

"Bad Time Trio?"

"Yes, a group composed of Classic Sans, Swap Papyrus, and Storyshift Chara."

"What do they do?"

"When a Frisk or Chara commits too much genocide, they can take over for the judge of an AU, and the child suffers; that's what would have most likely happened for Dust if he had the means to call them."

"That sounds exciting!"

"Yes, they have a lot of fun together."

"Brother, Horror is here." Papyrus stated.

"Oh, cool! Paps says Horror's here!" I repeated.

"How about you two go play with him while I read?" Nightmare suggested.

"Okay! Come on, Dusty! We can show Horror your checkers streak!" Killer grabbed my wrist and dragged me away.

We were met with Horror in less than a minute, since Killer was very fast.

"Heya." Horror greeted. We returned the greeting. "What's goin' on?"

"Not much; wanna play backgammon?" Killer offered.

"Uh..'m more a cards skeleton m'self."

"That's fine. Wanna play a game?"

"What game?"