From Murder to Dust

48 - History

"Dust, are you paying attention?" Nightmare caught my attention.

"Nope, not at all." I replied.

"Well, at least you're honest about it. Would you please pay attention from this point on?"

"Sure thing, Dad!"

"Thank you. As I was saying, the rule of Ink lasted for about five years, until he was overthrown. His rule affected many universes in horrible ways, such as causing starvation, separating families, and even, unfortunately, corrupting a few. The corrupted universes were either destroyed or repaired, but, as we have learned, there isn't much you can do. Any questions?"

A Sans raised his hand, being called on.

"So if this Ink really existed, why don't we hear 'bout him more?" Sans asked. "Surely, in a school about the multiverse, you would hear more about a character like this, correct? I wouldn't want to find out that this character was some made up dictator."

"The reason you don't hear about him much is because our family was one of the ones affected." Nightmare responded. "To put it simply, I'll make an example. If your family was terrorized by a dictator, would you want to talk about it?"

"I guess not."

"Any other questions?"

A Papyrus this time raised his hand to be called on.

"How exactly was your family affected if you were dead during most of his rule?" Papyrus wondered.

"Well, somebody had to overthrow him." Nightmare was a bit unnerved by this topic, but I had let him know that I was okay with it. "You see, Error was held prisoner by Ink during the reign, while we were, unfortunately, not living. Dust was the first to come back, due to a reset in his universe. When he did, he created a device to revive the rest of us, which is now known throughout the multiverse as the 'Unduster.' Fun fact about this device: they originally coined the term 'Last Hope.'"

Nightmare took a breath before this part.

"After he created the device, he went on a rescue mission to save Error." Nightmare sighed. "He was unfortunately captured during this, although Error escaped to revive the rest of us. As we have learned..Ink was not the nicest dictator.."

Nightmare paused; he didn't want to talk about the subject, but he would.

"Ink was horrible.." Nightmare stated. "While Dust was imprisoned, Ink would..t-torture him mercilessly. When he was rescued two months later, most of his bones were broken, and he was covered with Ink's red paint, which we have already discussed. Before much could be done, Ink arrived at our door with a proposition that he would either take a prisoner or he would attack the refuge in Dreamtale; we had already formed our plan by this time to overthrow him. Dust volunteered to go back and wait for us to enact our plan, but that cost him dearly. He was..paralyzed for two years, and he had very limited movement for another. In the past two years, he has made quite a remarkable recovery, though. I suppose that was a rather long-winded answer, wasn't it?"

"Wait, so this took place only five years ago?" Papyrus was shocked.

"Indeed. Any other questions?" 

I raised my hand with a smirk on my face; Nightmare knew what I was up to, but he called on me anyway.

"Let's see.." I started. "If a train leaves the station at three o'clock on a Sunday evening, doesn't take any passengers, and never makes a stop until it loops around the track, and assuming the train is in fact a locomotive steam engine from the old times of the surface world, I believe I would be correct in assuming it simply wasn't a passenger train at all, or nobody was at the station. When are you going to finally give names to our meals?"