ArtistTale: Ink and Adeleine

Act III: Chapter 14

(Perspective: Ink)

My body still felt weak, but I felt strong enough to stand up again. The damage Error did to me was unreasonably powerful. I thought I was immortal, but I must have lost that power when no new AUs were arriving while the rest got corrupted. The only thing keeping me alive now was the half SOUL Adeleine gave me. I sluggishly walked over to Blue Star.

"Uh, hey," I said weakly. She turned to me and slapped my face.

"What were you thinking?!" she shouted in anger, "Lending Error your paintbrush and letting him gain infinite power! I'm so disappointed in you. Because of you, thousands of AUs have been corrupted, including Underswap, Underfell, Storyshift, Storyswap, and many more. He's corrupted the AUs outside the Undertale multiverse as well. What do you have to say for yourself?!" I didn't say anything and just turned my head down.

"I'm... sorry," I mumbled. Adeleine ran over to me and hugged me. She turned her head to Blue.

"Please don't be so hard on him," she said kindly, "He said he was sorry. Besides, we still have a chance." Blue raised an eyebrow.

"Why shouldn't I be hard on a Soulless jerk like him?" she asked, "After all, he can only feel emotions from those ink vials."

"About that," I said as I pulled out my SOUL, "I do have a SOUL now. Now I'm wondering, where's yours?" Blue got a shocked look on her face when she heard this. It was as if she could feel her sins crawling on her back.

"You're right," she said, "I'm sorry for taking out my anger on you and calling you a Soulless jerk. Now that you can feel real emotions, I better start treating you a bit better."

"A bit better?!" Ribbon snapped, "You need to give him WAY more respect."

"I like this one," Blue said, pointing to Ribbon, "What do you call her?"

"My name is Ribbon," Ribbon answered, "And I'm a fairy."

"Nice to meet you," Blue said, "So what's the plan now?"

"We're trying to reconstruct Galactic Nova so that he can wish us the strength we need to beat Error," Adeleine explained.

"In order to do that, we have to deliver some Gem Apples back to Susie's lab," Meta Knight added.

"That sounds like a fair plan," Blue said, "But wishing enough strength alone won't be enough. We are going to need some new weapons as well. So before we came here, Dream, PJ and I created some new weapons for you that might come in handy." Blue snapped her fingers and a bunch of fancy new weapons appeared on the ground. Blue handed a paintbrush to Adeleine.

"This is a multi-purpose paintbrush," she explained, "Including the ability to create anything you want and have it come to life, you can change it into any weapon at will, whether it be a sword, spear, boomerang, or even a wand with elemental properties."

"Thank you," Adeleine said politely. Blue then picked up a fancy pink ray gun and handed it to Ribbon.

"This is a shard gun deluxe," she told her, "Along with crystal shards, it can fire lasers."

"As if I would need this," Ribbon said, "But I'll take it anyway." Then, she handed Daroach a more powerful wand and gave Meta Knight an upgraded version of Galaxia. Then, it was my turn to get a weapon. Blue handed me a small wand with a star on it.

"This is the Star Rod," Blue told me, "It will destroy the darkness inside any enemy. It might come in handy when going up against Error. Keep it along with your brush."

"Thanks for the weapons," I said, "I think my friends would like to meet you three and get to know you a bit better."

"Great idea," Dream said, "But can we do it not in this city? I want to do in it a less gloomy place."

"Sounds fine with me," I said, "Let's go find a more colorful and happy place."

"We could use the Lor Starcutter," Adeleine suggested, "It's a nice colorful flying boat."

"Uh, wouldn't we have to ask Magolor for it?" Daroach asked.

"That won't be necessary," Blue said, "I can just summon one for us. You might want to get out of the way though."

"Actually, nevermind," Adeleine said, regretting her idea, "We'll just take the train again. It shouldn't be a long ride back to Cappy Town." I got a little confused and a bit annoyed.

"Wait," I said, "We could've just taken a train here? Why didn't we do that in the first place? We could avoided so much drama if we just did that." Adeleine started to scratch her head.

"Well, you see, it wasn't open that day," I explained, "In fact, tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. is the grand opening of the train station. Besides, the journey here was fun, right? I gave you half of my SOUL and we shared our first kiss."

"I suppose you're right," I said. PJ looked at us funny.

"Did daddy get a new girlfriend?" he asked me. I looked down at him.

"As a matter of fact, I did," I told him, "Her name is Adeleine. She's the nicest person I have ever met."

"Oh," PJ said, "It's nice to meet you, Adeleine."

"Nice to meet you too," Adeleine replied, "Anyways, the train station won't open until tomorrow, so we better head to bed so we can be well rested." We started walking back to the hotel. My body still felt somewhat weak, and I started slouching about halfway there. Adeleine noticed this and turned to me.

"Do you need some help?" she asked me.

"No?" I lied. She raised an eyebrow, making it clear she wouldn't take "no" as an answer. She walked over and stood in front of me facing her back towards me.

"Get on my back," she instructed, "I'm gonna carry you the rest of the way."

"Okay," I said. I put my boney arms around her neck and hopped on her back. She grabbed my legs and carried me the rest of the way there. As she did, I rested my head on her shoulder and slowly fell asleep.

The next morning, we all woke up early to head to the train station. I felt a lot better than I did last night. As we were arriving, a conflict entered my head.

"How are we going to pay for 8 train tickets?" I asked, "I don't assume you guys all have the money for it."

"Actually," Blue said, "I have the money for it. I used to be a princess after all. I'll pay for the tickets."

"Cool," I said, "That would be awesome. Thanks." Blue walked up to the ticket counter.

"8 tickets to Cappy Town please," she said as she placed a bunch of coins on the counter. The guy at the counter smiled, took the money, and handed her the tickets.

"Enjoy your ride," he said.

"Thanks," Blue responded. Then, we boarded the train and took off for Cappy Town.