Zero Stories Left

9 | A Line You Won't Cross

A long time has passed since Zero learned his AU destruction move.
Error was still teaching him some stuff about it and the multiverse in general.

Of course, he knew that it would take far less energy to kill everybody in there, but it would also take more time...and he didn't think he had the heart to do it, as of what happened one time...

                               ***

Error and Zero were doing the same thing as usual, training and all.

"I..get it. Even if you're not my real brother...y-you're my brother from another universe. If you get to preserve balance of everything and my death is needed...you're allowed to do so." I collected his dusty scarf, remembering my own Papyrus in my own homeworld that was lost. He hid the newly obtained scarf into his pocket, yet it felt like he was taking an ancient relic, something from the past...it made him tear up a little. But he couldn't show emotion! He quickly reassured himself of his goals of multiverse's safety and prosperity, and went to help Error. For the sake of something that he couldn't do previously in his own world...for the sake of his old brother.

                                ***

Zero imagined himself outside of the box and saw a piece of paper.
Zero seperated the No Mercy timelines from the Pacifist ones and sighed. There was no rule on this, right?
And nobody has to suffer more than they should. This wasn't the first time he did this, so he got a little bit used to it.

He sighed, thinking if it would actually do any good for the multiverse if he only destroys the so-called "bad timelines", but he was sure that Error would notice already if something was worse than usual. So he didn't feel like separating the timelines was an awful thing to do. His mind wandered until...a sudden kick to the head, this quickly got Zero out of his thoughts, as his head started riding into the "floor", as it was thrusted in, like his body was none other than a sword and not a living being. He stood up, just realizing that something happened, the spot where he got hit in the head burned a little, he wondered if that could leave a mark.

"And who are you?" Zero's arms dangled down, as if he was tired of it already.
"What you are doing is wrong! Why are you doing this?!" - the mysterious person started.

Their move was sudden, ready to fight at any second, as if they were more experienced in fighting off people that didn't look too good for them than in talking it out, maybe that was how most people react to danger...Zero was not one to base it just off of looks, but the person looked male to him. He looked the same height as Zero, in fact, he did look like a Sans with their brown jacket, the pink puff at the end looked like Outer Sans', he also had a slash similar to a wounded Sans, the difference being that it was...also brown, like the color of his jacket?

The unknown Sans' lime eyes shined, as was in a fighting stance, only the brown scarf getting in the way. Brown scarf...hm, it reminded him of the guy he met once, Ink, right? - "Did I meet you before?"

"Huh?" The question took the "Ink wanna-be" by surprise. "No...? Did you meet- *cough cough* that's besides the point! You can't destroy timelines!"

"And...why can't I? ...Are you gonna do something about it?" Almost hyping himself up the blue-eyed said.

He shot a beam from five gaster blasters above, smoke forming.
"Hm, come at me then!" Zero said arrogantly.

The person summoned a knife out of thin air, as one of his eyes began leaking a black substance.
He started shooting out those red magic slices like he was a ninja or something. Even more smoke formed...Zero sliced the smoke in half with his hand horizontally and went forward.

"What the... normally evil Sans-es go out faster than that...but he tempered with timelines, so I should've known he is different than the rest..."

"Too much talk for a fight!" Zero launched his fist, aiming for the skeleton's chin. Anyone could see that he didn't really try.

The now "Killer Sans" cosplayer with his leaky black liquid eye made a red barrier, which cracked exactly when it got hit. "How the-" he tried to jump out of Zero's range. ("A serious opponent this time... he's toying with me, I can feel that. Seriously, what's up with this guy? Why is he not killing me or...torturing me already? Is THIS the torture? Humiliation? I'll show you!")

He made thousands of tiny cuts of the air, forming the red magic slices that would cut open the enemy, while they didn't look dangerous, they would pack a punch. That's exactly what you needed in a battle after all. Show that you're weak, when you're actually strong. Hmm...who said that? Sans Tzu?
He couldn't think twice about that, because he had to block an oncoming attack! A 2 meter chain?!

He sliced it into thousand pieces in a millisecond and made a shield to protect himself...but it just turned out to be a normal chain.
"What? Did you think it was going to magically trap you or something?" Zero turned out unharmed from even from the attacks. "Or maybe I'm still talking to stop you from seeing it do that?"

The opposing skeleton quickly started looking around to see anything abnormal, but everything seemed fine.

So he was still playing with him...the "indetermined" person seemed pretty much determined right now, as they started trying to hit even with a single attack, entering close range, which was somewhat foolish, but he wasn't scared because he knew if the blue-eyed wanted to kill him, he would've already done so. Even the LOAD powers were useless, as he figured out already, he could at least try and give a performance.

"You know, you remind me of someone deep in my memory..." Zero sighed as he dodged. "So, what, you don't care about the balance of the Multiverse? That's why you want to stop me from destroying the timelines?"

"Huh? That's stupid. Where have you heard something like that? From whom?" Anger dulled, the skeleton stopped right in the tracks.

"...What do you mean? How would you know? You don't look that experienced."

"I am probably not that experienced compared to some, but don't underestimate me! If someone were to know, I think it would be me since..." he waited a moment as if thinking if he should tell. "My power is that of different timelines. I won't get into details how it works, but depending on how many timelines there are in an Au, I am stronger in using that universe's power."

"So I will guess this was...someone else's power?"

"Yes...you're correct on that one. Truth be told, I wasn't feeling too well because of something...But I won't be that easy to defeat next time! My name's Line. Who are you?"

"...Just call me Zero. I didn't say there would be a next time now, did I?" Zero came slowly closer...Line's face went pale...somehow. "I'm only joking, come on. I'm up for a good challenge if you weren't in your best mood today or something." Zero said, tired of teasing him. "How about...we meet in AU...like with one timeline? Does a thing like that exist?"

"Yeah. Even infinite timeline AUs exist. It's really hard to help those especially... I guess we'll meet at... OneTimelineTale!"

"What type of name is that...? Alright...let's meet in...two months?"

"Hmm, sure. Make a unique signal. Temper with the timeline a bit in your way to show me that you're there. But please be careful, I...don't like when they get hurt."

"I don't get it, across infinite versions of them, will there not be one with a similar signal? Well, it won't hurt to try, right? Good luck...if we're successful then we'll meet again...soon." Line extended his hand to Zero, Zero then shook hands with Line. Zero felt something strange on his hand and tried to shake it off. "..."

He then turned his back and started walking. After he heard Line jump into his portal he started thinking. "Why did I trust Error with no evidence...just because of his experience? And how can destroying AUs help...? Isn't the Multiverse infinite anyway? How can it go beyond that and break? " Zero spent a lot of time thinking on what to do...

                                  ...

Error opened the portal. "Are you done? Let's go."

"Hmm. How did you find me?"

"Heh, I got a few tricks up my sleeve." Error just laughed it off. "As I said before, far more experienced than you are."