I am so happy! I have fanart for this story! Ahhhh!
Thank you MeatballsAreYummy and if you wish to see the Fanart, you can find it in their story, 'My Art Book and Short comics' in the chapter 'Goth's Punishment (Fanart)'.
And thank you, this is my first ever piece of Fanart, I'm trying my hardest to stop myself from crying happy tears....
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Goth groaned as he woke up, fighting his way out of the blankets around him. He was still half asleep when he finally managed to sit up.
"Good morning." Nightmare said.
Goth mumbled something and he dove back underneath the blankets, it was too early for this.
Nightmare just chuckled and he left a chocolate bar by Goth's head, watching as the teenager poked his head out to see the chocolate bar, before he grabbed it and he returned to his blanket burrito.
Nightmare could hear the sounds of eating coming from the burrito and Goth poked his head out again a few minutes later, with a small chocolate smear on the left side of his mouth.
"You were out cold for two days Goth, what the hell was you doing in that temple?!" Nightmare asked him.
"Wait! Two days?!" Goth yelled. "Damn it! I'm late! I have to go, now!"
Goth leaped off of the couch and he would have ran to the door, if it wasn't for his blanket burrito and Nightmare's tentacles.
"Goth, what's going on?" Nightmare asked the young skeleton as he placed him back onto the couch. "What is so important that you would run out of here, half naked?"
"I-I-I...." Goth began to stutter. "I need to talk to Shades."
"And who is Shades?"
"My counterpart."
"Goth, what's going on, because a Fell Goth is normally called Lotus, not Shades."
"He's me, but he's from another Multiverse." Goth eventually said, he knew that Nightmare wouldn't let him leave without an answer. "I'm not the only Goth who has been taken and turned into Error, Shades is like me. He was taken and turned into Error, we've been working together to fix this, after we met and we discovered that both of us had gone through the same thing."
"And why do you need to see him right now?"
"Because we can't hide anymore..."
"What..."
"We could stay under the radar while we was looking for our Ink's Souls, but now, that both of us have taken out a Guardian and gotten a piece of it back, well, Shades did, we caught the attention of the ones who created the Guardians and they'll made them stronger.
And if this is the result of taking one of them down at our current level, we would be sitting ducks against the other Guardians if they are stronger then the one that we have already taken down. We need a plan to make sure that we walk away from the next ones alive."
Nightmare was quiet for a few seconds, before he spoke up. "Goth, you said that Shades found a part of his Ink's Soul, but you haven't said anything about our Ink's Soul, why?"
"Because it wasn't there." Goth said. "It never was..."
"What..."
"I found out from Shades what happened to cause this." Goth said. "It began a long time ago, back when Ink had a Soul....
Ink was being courted by another God, Fear, but while Ink truly loved him, Fear never did.
Fate tried to make Ink end it, Fear was not his Destined One and here, is where it gets confusing...."
"Why?"
"In one timeline, he listened to Fate and he ended it, but in another, he didn't, and in that timeline, that Fear took Ink's Soul.
That action changed everything Nightmare, because it tore the original Multiverse in two, creating two new Multiverses, Shades and mine.
And while Shades's Multiverse follows the timeline where Fear took Ink's Soul, ours follows the timeline where Ink ended it.
But the timelines and our Multiverses weren't the only ones split into two, everyone was split into two. I am Shades and Shades is me. We're two halves of the same coin, just like our Multiverses. If one of them falls, then so will the other one.
Our Ink nearly destroyed both of them, when he overcrowded our Multiverse, because the balance was split as well, and while Shades's Multiverse took on a more positive balance, ours got the negative half.
Our Ink was creating to fill the void let behind by what happened to his counterpart, if our Fate hadn't stepped in, who knows what could have happened when our Multiverse was finally reached that point..."
"Goth... but wasn't Fate the one to turn you into Error..."
"I know, but when I spoke to Shades about my Fate, he was shocked. He said that his Fate never acted like mine, even if she did turn him into Error.... Something happened to our Fate when the Spilt happened, but I think, deep down inside, she remembered everything." Goth frowned. "So, she beat our Fear to it, she took Ink's Soul and she left the temples behind as red herrings. She was just trying to protect her child..."
"Well, she went too far, and if the Soul isn't in the temples, then where is it?"
"I don't know..." Goth eventually said. "That's why I need to talk to Shades, he might know something that I don't and Fear, we need a plan for when it catches up with us. Our Fear still has to be looking for Ink's Soul, it has to be...."
"Goth." Nightmare put his hand on Goth's right shoulder. "You can't do this alone, my boys and I can help you, let us take over for now, you need to rest."
"No." Goth shook his head. "I have already asked too much from you, I can't ask for anymore, this is something that I have to do on my own."
"And who told you that?" Nightmare asked him. "You're not just Error anymore, you're Goth as well. Error wouldn't let us help him but what about Goth? Will he let us help him? Stop acting like you're still Error, Goth and let us help you. We want to help you and we will help you, no matter what you say about it."
Goth was quiet. Was Nightmare right? He wasn't just Error anymore, he was Goth as well....
Maybe it was time to let go of his pride as Error and ask for help, as Goth....
"Thanks..... Papa...." Goth blushed as he said those words.
"You're welcome Goth, now come on, you have a Soul to Save, right?" Nightmare asked. "And before any of that, you need to eat okay? Now, get dressed and let's get some breakfast in you."
Goth nodded his head before he reached out for the pile of clothes on the table.
Nightmare then had a sudden thought. "Goth, if Shades is you, does this mean that I need to force food down his throat as well?"
Goth couldn't help his reaction, he started to laugh at the mental image of Nightmare forcing food down Shades's throat.
-----
Reaper froze when he felt the wave of Magic coming from Underdesert. That was Goth's Magic.....
He ignored his brother's cries.
"Brother! Where are you going?! Brother!"
He quickly teleported himself to Underdesert, heading deep into the desert to the ruins of a temple.
He arrived there to see that most of the roof of the cave that the temple was in had collapsed, but the temple itself had been left untouched.
But as Reaper floated over to it, he saw the still fresh purple Magic splattered across the ground, mixed with Marrow.
He couldn't breathe, he could sense who the Magic belonged to...
Goth....
Goth had been here and he had been hurt....
Goth could be buried under one of the rock piles....
"GOTH!" He yelled, before he started to dig into the nearest rock pile. "Come on Goth, please, if you are here, answer me!"
He reached the bottom of the rock pile to find a torn piece of cloth soaked in Magic and Marrow. His hands shook as he picked it up and he placed it in a pocket of his cloak.
He floated over to another pile of rocks, digging into it, tossing the rocks behind him as he dug deeper.
He didn't want to find his son or his Dust under any of them....
He didn't know how long he spent digging those rock piles but he didn't find Goth or his Dust.
However, he did find the curious remains of something that was soaked in Fate's Magic.
"What the heck..." He whispered as he picked up a piece of it, realising that it wasn't decaying in his hands. "Fate, what have you done?"
He looked at the Temple, before he put the fragment into another pocket of his cloak. He floated over to the temple, hoping to find some answers.
The inner walls of the Temple had images craved into them. They seemed to be telling a story.
The first image was clearly Ink, to Reaper's surprise, holding a Soul in his hands. He could still see the faded paints that must have added colour to the image, back when it had just been craved.
The next image had been damaged, Ink was there, but he was standing side by side with another figure, most of it had been destroyed but enough of it was left to show that the other figure wasn't looking at Ink. He was looking straight at Ink's Soul.
The third image was of Ink talking to someone, most likely Fate from the symbols that were scattered around the image. He recognized all of them as Fate's, but in the image, Ink was crying....
The next one was completely destroyed, there was no trace of it left, and not even the evidence that an image had been craved here remained...
The image before the last one was of Ink again, but this time, he wasn't holding a Soul in his hands, he was holding Broomie instead.
The last image was of Error, to Reaper's shock but there was something different about it.
Reaper could see the faint figure of a skeleton curled up, into a ball, where the Soul should have been on Error.
There was no identifiable features on the skeleton, but Reaper could clearly see the strings that was wrapped around them, strings that wasn't coming from Error.
And then there was the sliver wings coming from the skeleton's back, these were actual wings made from the metal silver.
Reaper shivered when he looked at them.
Why would Error have a skeleton instead of a Soul and why did this skeleton have wings? They looked like the wings of a Death God, Reaper brought out his own black wings and he compared them to the silver ones. They were identical, apart from a few differences, they looked like the wings that Goth would have had if he did inherit them from him....
No.....
Fate, she didn't....
No, it couldn't be, not his baby, not his son, no!
What gave her the right to do this?!
"Goth, please..." Reaper whispered, touching the craving of the skeleton. "Please, you can't be Error, you just can't be him...
Please... just come home. I don't care if there is a chance that you are Error, just come home, please.."
He didn't know how long he stayed there, but when he pulled his phone out to see what time it was, he realised that by now, Geno would have put the rest of the kids to bed...
"I will find you Goth, I promise..."
He put his phone away and he was about to leave when he heard clapping from behind him. He summoned his scythe and he quickly turned around to see someone standing there.
"Awww, how sweet, how would have thought that Death himself could be such a sweetheart."
"How's there?" Reaper asked.
"But unfortunately for you, what you saw here would be a big setback for my plan to win this game, and I can't afford to lose..."
"This isn't a game!" Reaper yelled. "I don't know everything about what has happened, but because of this, I lost something precious of mine and I will find a way to get it back, no matter what..."
The figure smiled, before he pulled out a small sapphire. "... Not with the prize that waits for me at the end of the game."
Reaper growled and he swung his scythe back or he would have, if he wasn't suddenly surrounded and pinned down by creatures that he had never seen before. Creatures that were not alive in the way that everything else was, because while they slowly decayed from where they were touching Reaper, they weren't dying or dropping like files from being around him.
The figure walked forwards and Reaper suddenly felt weak. "What have you done?" He whispered.
"It's surprising that with the right Magic and the right Spell, even the great God of Death is helpless..." The figure held the sapphire in front of Reaper's face. "Goodnight and Goodbye Death, this should keep you out of my way for a while."
He could hardly move, he could feel himself being drawn towards the sapphire.
"Gen, Goth, Raven, Shino, Sorell..." Reaper whispered as his eyes closed, before he was sucked into the sapphire, leaving his scythe and his phone behind.
"Leave them." The figure said as his minions started to drift towards the items. "The desert will bury them for us."
The figure and his minions left but in Nightmare's castle, Goth suddenly gasped as he felt the bond that he shared with his Dad shut down. He dropped the fork that he was using and everyone looked at him.
"No... Dad..."
And he wasn't the only one to feel this.
His siblings gasped and the girls started to cry as the bond with their Dad went cold.
But Geno? He was woken up by the pain, it felt like his Soul was being ripped in half.
"Reaper..." He whispered, reaching out for his Mate. "Reaper.... REAPER!!"