Be Your Own Hero

There Isn't Much More Time

'Anti! Anti can you hear me!? Guys I don't think he can hear me.'

Anti was overwhelmed with what was going on at the moment, though. He had been caught in a constant loop of Dark's memories that involved him as well, in front of him was a man he didn't recognize but could be an Iplier ego and Marvin was in his head.

It was a lot to deal with at the moment but he swallowed and thought in his head, 'Fucking yes I can hear ya, Marv. But I'm a tad busy at the moment so shut up ya magic bastard!'

The stranger in front of him smiled, "Are you alright? You're Anti, right? I've seen and heard a lot about you"

'Anti, who is that with you? Is it Dark?  . . . . Is it the void!? But he hasn't woken up yet that we know of'

'Shut it! I don't know!'

"Uh. . ." he  managed.

Marvin sighed in his head and Anti cleared his throat to block his brother out of his mind a tad.

"Who are you?"

The man straightened up, looking surprised, "Oh! Yeah, I guess you wouldn't know who I am, would you? I'm Damien!" he came forwards and held out his hand to shake.

Anti didn't take his hand, though, still weary.

Damien's smile wavered but he just looked awkward still trying so Anti caved and shook his hand. Except he couldn't.

"Oh" Damien chuckled, "Darn it. Sorry about that. I keep forgetting. Dark did the same thing earlier, actually!"

That caught Anti's attention, "Wait what? Dark? You know who he is? ̶W̸h̶e̶r̵e̶ ̸i̶s̶ ̴h̷e̷!̸?̸"̸

"Easy there, Anti" Damien smiled fondly, "I thought you didn't care about him before? What changed?"

"How do you know about-"

'Anti' Marvin could hear the conversation himself, 'Be careful. I don't know if you should trust him'

"It's alright" Damien responded, "Tell Mark about me. He'll let you know whether I can be trusted or not"

"Like that's gonna help with anything. Until today he thought Celine was the g̸o̷o̴d̸ ̵g̸u̴y̴!̷ And how could you hear Marvin through my head?!"

"The void holds secrets for no one" he answered cryptically, "And don't talk about Celine like that. She WAS good. It's not her fault the void corrupted her being. She sacrificed herself to save me from being corrupted by that thing. But I guess you're right. Oh well. I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it?" he shrugged lightly.

Anti didn't know what it was about this man . . .  but he couldn't sense any malice coming from him. He didn't FEEL suspicious and usually Anti had a good judgement for these sort of things. 

Anti gave him a small nod and the unshaven man grinned, "Great! Now we don't have much time until the void reawakens. If you want to find Dark, he's at the frozen lake. He-"

"̸Y̶e̴a̵h̵ ̶I̷ ̵k̸n̸o̵w̶ ̶t̵h̶a̶t̶!̵ I saw him there not long ago but was taken out of the void before I could get to him. But I can't seem to find my way back there again."

"There's a reason for that. Have you figured it out yet?"

"Figured w̸h̴a̶t̷ ̵out!? Can't you just tell me!? We don't have much time, as you said!"

'Mark says we can trust him. But you have to hurry up, Anti. You don't have a lot of time until you lose yourself.'

"He's right" Damien's voice turned sorrowful, "You've already started to become unstable, haven't you?"