Found in Hidden Darkness

Don't Ask Questions, You Don't Wanna Know.

The Destroyer

"Why do you have his soul? And why hasn't Fate done anything to get it back?" I shout up to the monster of a man. His smile is a sly as his whole character, tilting his head to the side. I don't know what he expected me to do with this information, but this is the chance to fix things again.

Ink will finally get his soul back.

"Do you not remember what happened the last time we met? I had everything, your powers, Inks soul, and determination." He speaks with a bitter nostalgia, as if he could taste the power he had lost. The cracks in his face look more haunting than before, sending familiar shivers down my spine. I can only guess what Chara is feeling right now.

"But you had to ruin everything! You thought it was so clever to just reset the time line. But of course it had a cost, your memories, your soul. Fate may still have you under her control, but I am the one that taints your magic."

"Your creativity."

"Your powers."

Gaster moves closer, one with the surrounding darkness. Chara moves back, unaware of almost everything that is going on. Ink is still unaware to all of this, unconscious to the world around him. And I can't tell if that is a good thing, especially since there are so many ways it could have gone. A, Ink could have fully accepted the truth that Gaster and I have been trying to tell him this whole time.

That he doesn't have a soul.

He could have taken that traumatic news and turned it into determination. An elevated sense of motivation to work together and defeat Gaster once and for all.

Or B, Ink could have denied it.

He could have given into the own lies of his mind, or the ones that Fate had been feeding to him. Ink would have claimed that we were working together, me and Gaster. He would have thrown paint in my eyes again, calling me a traitor to Fate and Destiny. The whole multiverse or something.

My money would have been one ending C. Ink would believe that he had lost his soul. The pieces of the metaphorical puzzle would finally click together in his mind. Maybe he would even remember fighting Gaster for the first time. But would he trust me? Probably not. Unless the all memories of our previous adventure return, he will assume the worst.

The look of shock and betrayal would spread across his face, a shaking hand over his heart. Where his soul would have been. The building blocks to everything he had ever known would crumble. He would fight Gaster...and me.

"Error, we need to get out of this memory." Chara says, Ink's voice tricking me into thinking it was him who was conscious in the moment. "No kidding." I say, talking out of my mouth as I back up with them. Gaster begins to grow more and more frustrated, reminiscing on his almost-success.

"Now Ink, do you have nothing to day? Cat got your tongue? I can assume that Chara is taken back by being directly indirectly addressed. I'm more shook by the idiom he just used. "Uh yeah definitely, you really should give my soul back." Chara says, trying to sound convincing.

But their acting is as enthralling as the Void's scenery.

Gaster looks unamused and a little suspicious. "Why do even want my soul, if you can't actually have control of my powers?" Chara asks, giving me a side glance. I can almost read the message they are sending me. "Hey I'm going to distract him, figure out how to get the frik out of here."

The last time Ink and I had gotten out of a situation almost exactly like this was when Ink had smashed a DT against his no longer present soul. I don't think that's going to be an option, but our bodies were injected with some sort of concoction by Fate. But it's anyone's guess as to what it could be.

Then Ink went to the place where he could reset. Which I didn't know was an actual location, but according to Chara it wasn't here. Then he reset...without a soul. But this is a memory, can we even reset a memory? I know Fate sent us here to destroy the remaining piece of the corrupted AU, but that would be Chara.

"I was able to begin my plan, maybe not exactly the way I had originally hoped. But the system is crumbling." Gaster finally answers Chara's question, oblivious to the plan that I am currently formulating. But that response caught me a little of guard. "What system?" I ask upwards to the man that speaks in hands.

"The multiverse. Ink is the Creator, and with his power to compose entire worlds in my control, I have tainted his magic." The mass of bones and black sludge continues to explain, even in his own cryptic kind of way. But it looks like Chara is beginning to get impatient. "You already said that the magic is tainted, how does that help you. And why does Fate have to do with this, you creepy mushy skeleton."

Chara snaps, making the behavior look very foreign on Ink. Hopefully Gaster takes it as a lashing out kind of response to traumatic news. And not a sassy response by an irritated dead child. "All of the alternate universes that you have been creating since the fateful day you lost your soul, are corrupted. Corrupted by me."

"Their code tainted with my very being. Over time, the more you create, the more I become a part of the multiverse."

"I am spread across worlds,
Timelines,
Universes,
And because of your constant creating and the magical boost that Fate has been feeding you with those vials..."

"Now Fate had helped me with step 2."