Still Around

Chapter 23: New Members

3rd Person POV

"What do I do? What do I do?—" a voice called over and over again. It caught Sabre's attention causing him to stop in his tracks that in turn caused Dark and Alex to turn and look back at him.

"Sabre?" Alex called.

"I hear something or someone. Shush!"

They saw a dark figure pacing back and forth. It made Dark gasp, Sabre just stared, and Alex looked confused.

The figure turned hearing the gasp and in return also gasped. He launched himself at Dark and enveloped him in a hug. Dark froze but eventually hugged back.

"Brother! It has been too long! Where have you been?" Shadow Steve pulled back from the hug with a puzzled look.

"Nightmare brought me back to this world," Dark started, "Shadow, how did you get here?"

"There seems to be something wrong with the Spirit realm. I was speaking with a Red Steve when I got hit with this huge bolt of lightning. I ended up here, panicked for around two hours, and then you appeared." Shadow paused for a moment, "Did you say Father was here?"

Dark scoffed, "Yes, he brought me back, I don't know how but he did. Yet, he is no Father, he would hardly tolerate the title 'father', he would force me to call him King using... unsatisfactory methods."

"Wow, I knew he could be tough but..." Shadow trailed off leaving unwanted tension behind.

"Sooo..." Sabre drawled walking closer to the brothers, "wanna join our squad, Shadow?"

"Squad?"

"Yeah, our little group! You have no desire to go back to Nightmare, do you? You could join us. Wait... you won't kill us right?"

"Kill you? I have no desire to do so, I doubt I ever will, never really wanted too. So, yes, joining your 'squad' sounds fun."

"Sweet! Welcome to the Squad!"

With Rainbow and Friends...

"HI, LIGHT STEVE! HI, BLUE STEVE!" Rainbow exclaimed tackling them both to the ground in a giant hug.

Blue spoke up, "Rain! Where have you been!? You just disappear one day and then poof you're tackling me! Also, can you please let me up it's getting a bit hard to breathe."

"Oh! Sorry!"

"It's fine," Blue and Light stood, dusting off their clothing. "Where have you been?"

"Here! Uh... Nightmare Steve brought me back... OH! Speaking of, Galaxy and I were searching for our friends. Care to join us?" Rainbow rambled.

Galaxy chose this time to chime in, "In other words, we are looking for our friends, we were attacked by someone named Origin Steve, he separated us because he wanted his wife and son back." He quickly explained.

"Who is his wife and son? And why would you willingly work with the enemy's family?" Light inquired.

"Uh, It's a long story," Rainbow drawled, "We will explain on the way, I promise they are good people, in fact you know one of them Light, you with us or?"

He got two nods in return.

Back with our other quartet...

Sabre's thoughts were in a muddled mess. He felt like the world just said, 'Hi! You did absolutely nothing wrong but I'm going to mess with you anyway!'.

First, he gets kidnapped, bribed into working with a bad guy. Second, he learns that his life wasn't what he thought. He still had parents, he had powers and was the son of his best friend and one the toughest evils he's ever had to face.

Third, his 'father' returns from the dead, attacks his friends. Then on the run teams up with Dark Steve his other enemy.

Fourth, he discovers the Spirit Realm is unstable then encounters Shadow Steve. Fifth, there are these weird warm feelings that rise up every once in a while that he has yet to understand.

The world is definitely against him in some way, but it's not all bad.

—~Time skip~—

They had been walking around for hours now and discovered nothing. Since it was getting dark out Alex suggested finding a place to settle down for the night. Everyone eagerly agreed and began gathering things for a fire, or clearing out an area for rest.

Shadow and Dark settled one side of the fire while Sabre and Alex stayed on the other.

The group had fallen asleep relatively fast, after discussing plans for the next day, as well as catching up the two brothers with any information they might've needed. Sabre was still up though, despite being thoroughly exhausted his thoughts were wild. So he took to staring up at the stars.

The area in the forest was not large so they slept very close to each other. Due to that fact, Alex unconsciously pulled Sabre into a tight grip. Sabre squirmed a little before letting himself relaxing into her hold, letting the warmth be comforting.

'Hm, So this is what it feels like to cuddle with a mother. I could get used to this.' And with that, he finally fell asleep.

——————

So, hi... it's been a looong time, I don't have an excuse other than laziness and lack of motivation. Here are just a few things I would like to say...

1: The Dark/Sabre ship is still going to be in this story but it does not take main priority by any means, so it'll be mostly in the background. Still there, just not meaningful.

2: Tom's one-shot has not been forgotten.

3: This story will no longer have an update schedule, so it's no longer on hiatus, but instead VERY slow updates.

4: Thanks for sticking around.

**Sometime next week I will post a one-shot I made a while back, it has nothing to do with this story but its pure fluff, and will hopefully make the wait between chapters more bearable.**