This is super long and it took me a while, so have fun reading this long -ass chapter I suddenly had the urge to not split up into others to not make you guys wait! (Sorry for any spelling errors if there are any!)
Word Count —> 3,736 words
1 year, 6 months, 2 weeks
A year and a half has passed and things were already getting boring. Well. ish. You had left the castle in #3's care as you went to adventure, for now. You went to adventure in the sense of training and helping yourself in being able to increase your magic reserves and on how many times you can travel to different au's.
Also, You have found Fluffytale. Aka, Ccino's cafe.
To your surprise, Ccino did not care who you were and already knew about au travellers. His cafe was basically a multiverse cafe, you could say.
So instead of being frightened of you as other au residents are, you only felt curiosity from him and maybe a little anxiousness, but just a twinge of it.
During the travelling of au to au, you had to learn how to make a good poker face and how to not show emotion in front of others. And you were glad that you learned how to do that because Ccino was so cute! And that was your fangirling mind speaking as Nightmare explored the cafe in awe and Corrupt didn't care, staying in the headspace that was made earlier (You'll talk about that in a bit).
But Ccino's coffee was amazing! Espressos were your favorite coffees from your past life so of course that was the one you chose to drink. What also caught your attention were the cats all around the cafe as well. You've known about them because Ccino's cafe would gain a new cat every single time a new type of sans would come in and order a drink. And because you did, your next visit was greeted by a black cat with dark cyan paws and underbelly, with 2 tails, one eye closed with a scar over its place and the other eye a beautiful glowing cyan. There was also another cat with a small moon circlet on its head while it was white with grey spots with a lavender underbelly with lavender eyes.
Ccino came up to you and told you to name them since they appeared after you left meaning that they were from you. You shrugged and named them, the Nightmare look-alike as Lavender and the Corrupt look-alike as.. Well Corrupt. You know, you're un original.
Anyways, back on point, after getting your usual espresso from Ccino, Ccino asked you a few questions on your tenth visit to his cafe after you gave him the G owed. This was about after 8 months of him knowing you and you knowing him.
"So, stranger," he starts and you answer.
"Not really a stranger if you know my regular already," You interrupt with a calm face as you face Ccino.
Ccino doesn't show any emotion at your interruption as he keeps a calm face as he re-states his question, "Alright then, pal, you've been coming by and you're an interesting guy so care to share your name?" Ccino asks and you can feel a pinge of curiosity come from him.
Swallowing down another small mouthful of espresso, you answer the skeleton as he drags over a chair to sit down for a while across from you.
"Nightmare," you answer, "Guardian or King of Negativity and Nightmares."
Ccino emits a small aura or surprise, "King? Should I call you your majesty now?" he huffs out a small laugh, "And what's your majesty doing here in this plain old cafe?"
"Just came to check it out," You shrug as you sip away at the espresso, "And who's a King if they don't ever want a break?"
"I can see that," Ccino nods, "Well then King Nightmare, do you need anything else?"
"Cake pop," you reply without hesitation. You have always wanted to try one but always forgot to.
"Ok, one cake pop coming up." Ccino says as he smiles and stands up from the chair and heads to the pastry display.
After you finish your espresso, you're given a cake pop and before you pay, Ccino stops you, "You know, you're an interesting fellow, everytime you get something, your payment will be you giving me news about what's happening in the multiverse or something about yourself. I need to keep myself up to date anyways."
You shrug and pocket your gold, "Fine."
Then you melt and open a portal underneath yourself as you do, effectively portalling yourself to dreamtale, as you wanted to.
You wanted to check up and talk to Dream, you've been visiting Dream about every 2-3 months just because you wanted someone to complain or talk to about anything. Nightmare and Corrupt would have their inputs as well.
Also- that cake pop was good, you should get another one when you come back.
23 years, 7 months, 1 week, 2 days
You wonder if you really should keep on trying to try how many years, days, or weeks have passed. You and Ccino know each other a bit better, but you're pondering on telling Ccino your situation yet. To have someone to talk about this with. But, you think this should be left to you in the future.
Somehow, through all of the training the years had passed by very quickly. Another interesting thing that was found out was that You, Nightmare, and Corrupt can switch around on who's controlling the body. But since you had more power, you were able to choose if you wanted them to control the body or not. But back on track- you can finally rest for a bit from your body and being a ghost is pretty cool you're not gonna lie! But there was also something else which made no sense to you at all. There was a limit to how long you could stay out of the body before being forced to being dragged back in and kicking the others out. The limit was 5 hours and then you were forced to return to your body.
Another breakthrough, when switching through forms, if Nightmare controls the body, the goop melts off of him and Corrupt Has the goop on him. You can choose which you want but it was painful for you for the goop to go out as well as go in so you don't do that as for you, why don't you shapeshift to your form, you don't really like it. Sure your name is Y/n, you are Y/n, but your body died a long time ago and it also feels uncomfortable to be wearing skin after being in a skeletal body for so long. But you'll keep your name, you like it.
Nightmares magic was also experimented with, unlike you, he can do a little healing magic and has his own staff to fight with which is great! Nightmare has also matured a bit due to all of the years that have passed.
Fighting/training and magic training has been doing well and you've made some progress. Corrupt had taken to training you on your posture when walking, talking, etc. He said 'if you are going to be a king and name yourself one, you have to act like it'. He had a big ego but good planning skills and etiquette, you guess. You knew that if you didn't listen to Corrupt, he wouldn't stop bothering you about it.
And another thing happened...
You had to create negativity due to the balance starting to tip ever so steadily. You did not like this.
"How am I even going to-"
"Shut up. You're so annoying, go kill some people! Create misery in one au! Spread your aura to make others depressed, that's how," Corrupt deadpans and you start to panic slightly.
Then a tendril hits your skull. Hard. And you hiss in pain, "Corrupt, what the fuck-"
'Calm down. Whatever, fine. Can't believe I'm saying this. You can go to an au of your choice and I can spread misery around it for you if you despise the idea so much,'
'Awww, that was so nice of you corrupt-'
'Shut up, Nightmare' Growls Corrupt as he slightly blushes cyan in embarrassment, then talks as he turns to you, 'Take it or leave it, bitch'
"That last word was unnecessary but sure! Thank you!" You smile happily.
'And stop smiling or I'll take it back'
You stop smiling immediately. Corrupt was one to keep his word so you don't doubt that, that would happen.
Thinking through all of the Au's you've been through, you remember candytale, pigtale-
Pigtale. Ink really needs more creative choices- actually, the creators need more creative choices. After all the creators choose what to make and the multiverse is endless with their ideas.
But seriously, Pigtale is a dumb name and Au honesty-
"Pigtale" you say and Corrupt grumbles as you start slinking your control away from the body and Corrupt takes over to control.
Now you get to relax! Yay!
If only life could be like this, to escape from reality and hand it to somebody else. But this wasn't permanent for some reason so you will enjoy those free 5 hours as much as you can in the mindspace with Nightmare.
The mindspace was exactly what it sounded like. A space in the mind that had everything you wanted/imagined.
A place where Nightmare, Corrupt, or you and go in to relax with your own hobbies or things to do. Nightmare was in there already.
"Yeah, best to stay in when all of the stuff is happening huh," you say to Nightmare as he shuffles a deck of cards. It's what you both do when you let Corrupt control the body for whatever reason. When you let Nightmare take control, you read books with Corrupt or just speculate on things, small talk, stuff like that.
"Yes. I was never one for violence anyways. After what happened, the villagers.. Dream..."
You grimace and sympathetically pat Nightmares back.
"All in the past Nightmare, and after these years pass, You will be able to meet Dream! In secret though, I don't want anyone to know about this merging after all. Who knows what the reactions will be and what might happen if that's revealed." You say and Nightmare nods as he deals out the cards.
"Anyways, what do you want to play?"
73 years, 1 month, 3 weeks, 5 days
Time passes by fast. And for that to keep your memories (and with Nightmares suggestion) you got yourself a diary where you would fill 2 pages or more after a year, explaining g on what was learned and what conspired during that year. Like a yearly diary.
So here you wrote down things about your travels and discoveries as well as about yourself, Nightmare, and Corrupt.
Friendship has sorta improved you could say.
But right now you were right here in front of Dreams statue. Talking/telling to him about what had been happening.
"Hey Dream," you start, "It's uh, been a while since I came and talked, sorry about that. It's Y/n speaking by the way. I don't know if you can hear me or not but if you can hear me, don't speak about my name in the future when you're free. So yeah. You know, it's weird to come here regularly to talk to someone who can't respond but it isn't bad, that means they can't judge you for what you say except if they're sentient." You sigh to yourself. Your loneliness was getting to you despite having Nightmare and Corrupt with you.
You should let Nightmare talk to his brother.
As you start to leave the body, Nightmare quickly replaces the spot and the goop melts off revealing Nightmare underneath. Due to aging, Nightmare looked a little taller and mature. But because he was a guardian, he aged slowly so he looked like a 14 year old right now but in reality he was way older than that. In monster terms though, he was a teenager.
As Nightmare talked with his brother, you were reading a book in the mind space. It was one of your favorites so you could just imagine the book and it'll pop into your hands, ready for you to read. You sigh. What made you mostly sad during visiting Dream was 1, the brothers had such a horrible past and 2, you never had your own sibling. Seeing that sibling bond always made you jealous but you didn't interfere with it.
You should head back to the castle to see how it's going and if it's done.
213 years, 10 months, 1 week, 20 days
The boredom was absolutely killing you but it still wasn't time yet to recruit the gang in your opinion so you weren't going to. But a few years ago, you came back to the castle and all of the Papyri were overjoyed at your reappearance, but #3 was the first to greet you and then walk you around the castle and showing off all of the work that was done.
The halls looked pristine and everything was furnished and built. Not even a speck of dust! The Papyri have done a great job in your opinion and you thanked them all and then assigned them to different jobs around the castle.
Cooks, guards, cleaners, resource collectors, etc. Took a while but you were able to do it. And the guards needed to be trained so you decided to do that yourself. Sure, Corrupted knew how to fight himself but you didn't, so you took this as an opportunity to train yourself as well to practice your fighting skills against the Papyri as well.
The years flew by but not fast enough. Everything was getting boring but you were trudging along as best you could. Corrupt would spread negativity, Nightmare would talk with his brother, you took care of most of the other things.
Another thing was the great library the Papyri put together. Books from everywhere (You don't even know how they go such a big variety! Could they travel to other au's?) There was even a book about basically almost all of the aus in the multiverse! (Which you'll have to remind yourself to read later) Nightmare and Corrupt were obviously happy about the library despite their protests to you.
Heh. Bookworms.
398 years, 4 months, 2 weeks, 6 days
You stumbled upon Error and Ink. What the fuck.
You had usually ignored the certain spikes of negativity in certain universes but you usually ignored it because of a cautious feeling you always had but this time your curiosity got the best of you. You stumbled into an Altertale copy to find Ink and Error battling it out. Glitched yells and curses and smug responses were being sped at each other at every second. Inks emotions felt extremely fake (which was weird to feel) and Errors emotions were mostly negative. Anger, frustration, hate, etc, etc.
You probably should not tell Error if you were a creator if you talked to him in the future you winced to yourself as you remembered the voices Error has. Ink though, might be thrilled but a blabber mouth. Not very good at keeping secrets really...
'Corrupt, Nightmare, WHAT DO I DO!?' you panicked and Nightmare tried to calm you down and Corrupt scoffed.
'Ignore them or just talk. What's so bad about them anyways?"
'DESTROYER AND GUARDIAN OF AU'S!' you shrieked in your head and you saw both skeletons wince, 'Sorry!'
'It's alright,' Nightmare says, 'How would you like to approach them? I have no clue'
'I don't know! Maybe strike a deal with Error to help with future missions? I don't want to die!'
'Then fucking calm down idiot. I'm going back to sleep, remember, don't die or I'll find you and I'll kill you in the afterlife'
'That's not even a bit reassuring' you pout.
'I don't know how to help you on this Y/n but I can stay by your side and help! Your idea from earlier sounded nice!'
'Ok, ok...' You take a few deep breaths and slink into a shadow when you think you saw one of the skeletons take a look at you, 'Then when they're done with their fight, I'll follow Error.'
'Alright'
~~~ In this small time skip, have a snack break! Drink a cup of water, stay hydrated! Maybe you have some chores or homework to catch up to! Don't stare at your phone/electronic screen so much, it strains your eyes a lot so remember to take breaks! ~~~
When they finished fighting, you slinked after Error, hiding into his shadow, into your own dark realm that you were able to find out about after about a hundred or so years. Taking a small look out, you only let your 1 cyan eye resurface to look at where you were heading. It seemed like Ink won this time you thought to yourself as you heard Error grumbling to himself, frustrated and angry. His emotions also fueling you.
Once he steps through a portal he made to Outertale, you move to a different shadow immediately and watch as the destroyer eats some food from his inventory to heal himself. What approach should you take? You thought to yourself.
'Badass approach, like you know everything and are really serious on the matter. Makes the other really consider their options and take you seriously,' Corrupt states matter-of-factly as he pops out of headspace.
"God I need espresso," you mumble to yourself as you shake your head and steel your mind as you make your poker face. Alright, time to run the show.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the Destroyer of Alternate universes, what a treat."
Error's eyelights snap to you and you can see Error's hand reach up to his eye sockets and you move on instinct, dodging a flurry of strings immediately.
Thank god for your instincts and for you deciding to hone them. "Isn't that rude," you purr, keeping your calm composure despite feeling your metaphorical heart beating through your ribcage, "I'm just here for a friendly chat, and to give a proposition you could say."
Huffing with his distorted voice, Error rolls his eye lights and speaks, "Speak. Now. Before I change my mind, glitch."
And you nod, you were probably listened to because Error was just too hurt and exhausted right now of everything and didn't give two shits about you right now.
"In a few 70-80 years Ill build up my own group to spread negativity when needed. Ink will definitely make an appearance with my brother and as a guardian, I cannot rival the power of the gods, no matter how much I don't want to admit it, it's true. So I am proposing a pact. Whenever you need help, I will help with my group. When I need help, you come to me."
Error narrows his eye sockets and scrutinizes at you and then huffs, "Fine. Whatever. Better keep up to your deal then glitch, and I will keep up mine. The squid has been more annoying with the swap anomaly anyways."
"Glad we could come to an agreement, but before we seal the deal, what's your name?"
"Error, don't wear it out, guardian."
"Pleasure to be in your acquaintance, Error, I'm Nightmare," you purr and before you slink through a portal under yourself, you see Error make a string and then hand it to you.
"Pull on the string when you need me," Error says and then your thoughts blur together.
Shi, shit, shit! What about you, what should you do?! How will he call on you?!
'Corrupt, Night, help!' You hurriedly say and Corrupt speaks up first.
'Negative feelings idiot,' he says as he rolls his eyelight.
'Right! Sorry!'
"For you to call on me, I need to feel a surplus in negative feelings, sorrow, anger, anything of the like." You say as you take the string and then head to your base.
Shit.
You forgot to inquire Error about the lock. You sigh, whatever, you'll do that later. Tying the lengthy string onto your radius so that you wouldn't lose it, you shrug your jacket's sleeve back over your arm as you head back inside the castle.
Welp, time to find another way to pass the time.
494 years, 11 months, 2 weeks, 0 days
You have your own small room dedicated to the journals you've made over the years. You've blocked it off from everyone and will do that when you start recruiting your gang in 2 weeks as well. You know that sooner or later you will be found out from your journals but you want to keep memories no matter how dangerous it might be. You forgot everything from your past life except for how you looked and what your name was. And... you had a fear of it happening again, so when Nightmare proposed the yearly diary, you immediately jumped at the idea. So that was your reason. Also- you were nearing 300 diaries. You loved writing in detail apparently-.
Anyways, a few years back, you met Ink who first fawned over you, but then after seeing Corrupts hostility hostility and on over what Corrupt was doing to the au. Ink got angry. You ended up battling him because while Corrupt was sucking in Inks negative emotions and fighting him, his time ran up with him and you were dragged back into the body, now your turn to defend yourself and the other 2. You decided on to not call upon Error as the situation wasn't too dire as Ink wasn't too serious.
You only escaped with just a few scratches and bruises which as always healed pretty fast. But now, after two weeks, you're going to go into recruiting.
You also need to find out a way to find out how to halt/stop the X-event.
Things won't be pretty if that happens. Anyways! After a few boring centuries, now it's time to spice things up and get to work!
~~~~~~~~~~
Should Ccino be the first one to know about your current situation?
Yes
No