Reborn as Error

14 - Meeting Night

Author note: I'm not a writer. I apologize in advance if something doesn't make sense. I'm sorry. Ok on with the story.

I was sitting along a ledge staring up at the lovely sky. I had been visiting Outertale more and more. It was peaceful without being suffocating. Recently I had another run in with Ink that was pretty brief. I was checking up on the Undertale that had the Papyrus I saved when he came by. He spotted me and tried talking but I wasn't comfortable around him or trust him enough to stick around so I left.

I wasn't going to sit there if he was going to accuse me of something. If he wasn't then better luck next time I suppose. 

I was going to regret that.

Surprisingly I was expecting to see more of Fresh. I figured when I first met him he was going to be annoying. Always in my way, always trying to get buddy buddy with me but that's not the case. I would see him for brief moments before he left claiming he had something to do. Eventually he admitted that he checks in on me to make sure I don't choke.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I should believe that or not. He could be trying to trick me.

Sci and his brother have been doing pretty well to. Apparently he also has met Ink since he was hopping around the multiverse and happened to land in his lab. Luckily Papyrus wasn't around for the mess that incident caused. But Sci has told me that he didn't speak a word about knowing me which I was grateful for.

I haven't seen any signs of Dust yet and I was still on the fence if that was a good or bad thing. Hopefully everything went well and he was enjoying himself since his au was now officially empty at the moment.

I suddenly felt a sense of dread which interrupted my peace. I wasn't thinking about anything wrong so the feeling was unwelcoming. I had an itch telling me that I should look behind me, so I did.

I made eye contact with another skeleton though they were more similar to me than the original sans. They were dark, only one eyelight was visible and it had bits of cyan to shoe the shape. They had a bit of a goopy appearance and seemed relaxed with their hands in their pockets.

They were observing me like I was observing them. Debating if the other was a threat. Eventually they spoke first.

"You know I didn't think we would meet so soon. Honestly I have to thank my luck."

At this point I decided to stand up and face them so I wasn't at an immediate disadvantage.

"I'm not quite sure I can say the same. Not sure if this is luck exactly."

"We shall see."

They walked over but kept their gaze to the scenery and stayed a certain distance away from me. Seems to respect personal bubbles I'll give him that.

"Why are you even here?"

"Cutting to the chase already?" He sounded amused and I wasn't sure if that makes me feel better or more on edge.

"I can sense negativity, I just followed the trail and followed that to here. Seems you have quite a lot...."

"That's none of your business," I said back a bit snippy before looking back at the stars.

"...you know, I heard about you from a Sans. He told me you helped him out through a pretty bad moment. I'm sure you know who I'm referring to."

That didn't sound like a question. It sounded like a statement, a fact, which was true. It just sparked up a question I felt like I had to ask.

"How is he by that way?"

"....better."

"Good." 

It fell silent between us. I wasn't sure what he was thinking or what he wanted from this interaction. I will admit he makes me very nervous and I knew he could tell.

"I know you know I didn't just come here because of your negativity, I have a proposal for you."

"And why would I agree to whatever it is. I'm doing pretty well on my own."

"That may be but you don't want to be on your own."

"That doesn't change my mind much."

"I know."

I heard him shift a bit and looked over to see him looking at me. The heavy atmosphere that surrounded him seemed to have lifted a bit making it easier to breath.

"My brother is going around forcing his positivity onto others. Now normally I wouldn't care however it's becoming a bit much. His helping is causing problems. Monsters are relying on him therefore increasing his power. He wants to stop me yet my negativity is only natural, I feed off it in a way. I need subordinates to keep things balanced. They go around to different aus to gather supplies and resources but time and time again they've been stopped."

I know that there was much more to the story. I knew the story of the two brothers and how it horribly ended. Honestly I could see both sides of the issue but I was more on Nightmare's side. I could tell he was trying to explain to me why he either wanted my help or alliance. His words were being carefully chosen. He could've easily have said something like 'I am the king of negativity and I want you to join with me to stop my brother.' But he didn't.

"I went to the Sans you helped because he had nothing left and I wanted to give him a reason to keep going, he now goes by Dust."

"Fitting name."

"Yes anyways, the way my brother treats others really rubs me the wrong way. From what I heard I feel like you know the importance of balance. You deal with issues in the aus by getting rid of anomalies."

"...that is true."

"You also don't force aus to change to be better."

"Maybe it's because I don't care."

"Now we both know that's not true. If you didn't care multiple people would be dead including Dust. One of my subordinates had a run in with a Sans from an au known as Dancetale. They were settling into a new au and according to them you saved them. Is that correct?"

"....Yes."

"I just want things to be balanced just like you. Too much negativity is bad for me and too much positivity is bad as well."

I thought about it for a bit and went to say something when I felt a slight push then saw an arrow whiz by our faces. 

"Brother! Leave them alone!"

Looking over I saw Dream along with Ink. 

"Just in time," I heard the dark skeleton say in an annoyed tone. He lashed out with a tendril causing the two to jump away.

"You might want to leave while you still can." 

I couldn't have agreed more. I opened up a portal only to have it blocked by an paint wall.

"You're not running away this time Error!"

"Buzz off!" I shot out a barrage of strings to hold Ink back and tried to leave again only for my path to be blocked by arrows. Now I was annoyed and started to fight back. We were still in Outertale and I could only hope we don't make too much of a mess. 

At one point me and Ink clashed, his brush in his grasp and a red bone in mine.

"I don't want to fight you Error!"

"I didn't either yet here you came disrupting a conversation." I forced him back and looked to see how Nightmare was doing. He was fine, just tossed his brother to another patch of land. I went for Nightmare to get us out of the au. I could tell that he didn't want to fight either, at least not right now.

He suddenly looked over to me and... I don't know. All I could remember was everything suddenly got blurry and I was falling. 

Then it went dark.