From Murder to Dust

24 - Alone

I had been with Nightmare's gang for one year and ten months now, and everything seemed to be running smoothly: the balance was steady, our family was growing closer and closer, and we were winning a lot of battles. We were currently at work in a rather drab looking universe, and the citizens honestly looked like they didn't care about anything going on around them; it was weird, but we didn't question it. Error still didn't join us on many occasions, which was fine, since he had his own job to do; we sometimes wished he could have help like Nightmare. There were too many strings attached to keeping a balance for only one skeleton. We were glad we could help him with his life, if not his work, though. He was really beginning to become a valuable part to our little family, and we loved his company. He also had an interest in sewing, which I guess wasn't that much of a surprise, since he had literal strings in his power set; sometimes he would even put on a little puppet show, which we enjoyed greatly. When the familiar adversaries arrived, we readied for battle and faced them. Ink took the liberty of repeating his age-old phrase that was honestly boring by now.

"Nightmare and gang, leave this AU alone!" Ink demanded.

"Is that the only thing you can say?" Nightmare asked. "We have fought hundreds of times and you're still saying that. I thought you were supposed to be the creative one."

"That isn't relevant!"

"Everythin's rel'vant." Horror scoffed. "We could think o' more lines than ya."

"Is this really what you're focusing on?"

"Why not?" Killer liked this. "Embarrassin' ya's almost as fun as fightin' ya."

"Your face is a literal rainbow." Nightmare pointed out. "Dust, are you getting this?"

"Every second." I replied, giggling. "Every second."

"What is so funny about this?!" Ink was angry.

"Everythin.'" Horror chuckled.

"No! There is nothing funny about this! You switch from torturing an innocent AU to criticizing my creativity?!"

"Sure." Killer was laughing his skull off.

"Do you even realize what this would do to your image if anybody watching this told their friends?" I questioned.

"My image isn't important! Stopping you is! Prepare for battle, villains!" Ink used that line again.

"You can't even think of a different line for that, either." Nightmare said.

"Shut up!"

Ink, Dream, and the swap brothers didn't even realize that the balance was restored simply by annoying Ink to this extent; it was the perfect fallback if we couldn't finish with the universe alone. When the fighting began, I let my camera hang around my neck, since I didn't want it to come to harm, and pulled out a couple daggers - the one that matched Killer's from Christmas and a different one I had carved for myself. It had my name on it so it wouldn't get mixed up with Killer's; he sometimes borrowed it for his own purposes. It was now considered normal for me to fight Ink, since he absolutely despised me - I still didn't know why - and wanted to end my life. He did refrain from doing so, though, since there was something called 'a fair trial' that I would have to go through if I was captured, and I couldn't exactly attend it if I was not living. I also didn't attempt to kill Ink, since I didn't think he was mortal; Ink recovered from injuries too fast to be mortal, and Error said he was immortal, so I wasn't going to try. Nightmare also told us not to kill people, and I wouldn't break that rule on purpose.