Swearing, because Nightmare is a sadist and Skull is being tortured.
Oh yeah, mild torture warning. Is it mild? I have no idea.
Credits on the picture
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"Not gonna talk?" Nightmare smirked, raising a boney hand to stifle a yawn. This was entertaining, for sure, but not the best activity he's ever done. He could just get rid of the Papyrus, though... However, killing him would mean losing leverage over his hostage. Besides, it was way more fun to keep them both alive for now, until they realize that he'll kill them anyway, after the Sans, who was dusting heavily from his femur, cooperates with his interrogation.
He twirled the gun lazily between his digits. Ideally, he shouldn't reveal too many of his abilities, but this was quickly getting annoying. Patience, Nightmare told himself. For the time being, no more spontaneous killing using magic. He would have to settle for the old-fashioned way for a while. Any information the enemy collected on him could potentially be exploited to coordinate an assault against him: if the skeleton brothers made it out alive, that was.
The chances of that happening were incredibly low, but better safe than sorry.
Nightmare tightened the tentacle's grip on the other's neck. "Now, now," he cooed, "We wouldn't want your neck to suddenly splinter, now would we?"
Silence, apart from heaving breaths- one always more rapid than the next.
"I just want your name, fuckwad. Spit it out."
He added a little more encouragement, sliding yet another inky tentacle underneath the wrinkled shirt and cocooned a few pearly white ribs in an all-too-eager to obey appendage. The Sans shivered in blatant discomfort at the cool, almost slimy feel of something coating his ribs, his already-agonized expression contorting into something unrecognizable. At the moment, if those things he detested were to release him, he wouldn't be able to support his own weight.
"Fuck," he hissed. "You fricking bastard."
Nightmare grinned back. Subsequently, he pointed the slightly smoking gun to the next, untouched leg bone, the limp hand hanging next to the creased pants twitching erratically. "Would you like another round? Lose a precious rib or two? Or would you like to tell me your name?"
The Sans winced at the implications, then bowed his head with resentment and whispered, "Skull."
"What was that? I can't hear you."
Skull spat frustratingly from below, "Skull, my name is Skull. Got that in your head, bastard?"
"Good, good," Nightmare crooned, snidely sticking his leering face into the other's pained one.
"Are you ready for the next one, Skull?"
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It was undeniably not the best day he's ever had so far, but certainly not the worst. Yet.
The tentacles were suffocating the last of his wit to oblivion, his cover blown, and his brother's position was compromised. They would probably have to call the boss soon, at the risk of Skull's own life; not because this dangerous Monster would catch onto their code, but because he technically failed this mission.
Either way, his gut feeling was that he was going to die; it was only a matter of damage control to the family's reputation. If word of this spectacular crushing defeat was ever passed on to other gangs, they might as well give up their weapons and pride and live as hermits in the sewers before even trying to kill off the ones who knew.
One mistake, and everything falls apart.
He gritted his teeth through the pain fogging his thoughts until they merged into one big blob of nothing. Time was running out, carrying his options to the exit as well. One of the few left in the dwindling pile was to use their natural abilities, since there was no way in hell either of them would actually be able to defeat the threat unless they used magic; sadly, that was forbidden. Had been ever since the treaty of the last Mafia War.
So, if ever someone were to find out that a certain rival Monster Mafia used magic with the intent to maim another on opposing Human Mafia soil, the consequences were not going to be pretty, to say the least.
But frankly, their uninvited guest had already overstayed his welcome with the near-miss of a human patrol in the other alley; it was more or less a Monster-friendly area, or, as friendly as it could get in a human sector, but the pact still stood. Up until the blunder that landed him in this mess, he was cursing his name for saddling him with clean up duty.
In conclusion, magic was definitely off limits. Especially anything that could connect the skeleton family to the crime.
Any way it went, the chances that the antagonizer could be defeated by their combined attack, magic or not, would still be slim, so it didn't matter. The skeleton- Skull didn't even know his name; he's become rusty- seemed way more experienced in combat, close and far-range, than them, anyway, and he wasn't even in a position to initiate combat.
Calling the boss it was.
He twitched his dangling hand into the quick hand signs ingrained in his memory; Papyrus was sure to catch on. After all, it was just a simple string of five words disguised as an anticipated reaction to pain, grounded and paced enough so that the receiver could distinguish the pattern: call-Boss-attack-hostage-S.
Gaster would have his dust for this.
"Now, now," he heard him say. "We wouldn't want your neck to suddenly splinter, now would we?"
Skull painstakingly swallowed the pooling saliva in his mouth, throat raw with lack of oxygen blocked by the moist tentacle. It wasn't like he could die from strangulation; he was a skeleton, and didn't need oxygen, yet annoyingly enough, skeletons would still feel the different effects on their body like a regular human would.
Ergo, it felt like he was dying. He wasn't- not really, at least. But with the dawning of nauseating tunnel vision, he was close to running out of air and suffered greatly from the deprivation.
'Come on, Paps', he thought tetchily. 'My HP ain't gonna last that long.'
He snapped out of his agitated thoughts once he felt the same slimy sensation curl around his ribs as the one around his neck, grimacing at the tar's- it smelled like tar- viscosity.
Well.
Wasn't this fun.
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Papyrus didn't dare lower his aim, not even when he saw the words flitting from his brother's hand.
It wasn't because he felt that they didn't need to contact Gaster; not in the least. Everything was happening all at once, raining hard over their heads, and for all their experience, he felt lost.
Dread and fear for his brother crept over him like the metaphorical raindrops, relentlessly keeping his broad shoulders raised in tension, fearing that if he dropped his guard, Sans- Skull- would die in a flash.
His gloved digits trembled as he shakily reached his left hand into his blazer's pocket for his compulsory walkie-talkie, pressed the 'on' button, and whispered through the speaker, "This is Trigger. Requesting Alpha."
The line crackled to life, revealing the quiet, low voice of the revered leader.
"Yes, Papyrus? What has happened this time?"
Papyrus shivered at the casual use of his name. The boss's voice had an undertone of annoyance, the type that beckoned an explanation, lest he slipped over the line of 'miffed' to 'mad'.
"Prime capo captured. Offender: heavy. Hostage. Requesting counterattack."
The line went silent for a few moments, broken by Gaster's irritated mutterings in the background, practically melting into the soft static.
"Fine. Where are you?"
"Bodoni Avenue, alleyway number four."
Then, the line dies, and his trembling subsides just a little. It's enough for him to place his hand back on the trigger, and he silently awaits the requested backup.
Hopefully Skull could stay alive until then- preferably with all extremities attached.
———————
To say that Gaster was not pleased was an understatement; he was bordering angry, because two of his most competent lackeys are being outsmarted and defeated by this mystery Monster.
He was frustrated at their incompetence, and they would be partly pardoned if the opponent truly outmatched them.
If proved otherwise, they would be rotting in the basement for a long, long time, no favoritism here.
His anger wasn't like Skull or Pap's, who tended to keep it in until the final straw was drawn, then explode and decimate whomever found themselves in their path; Gaster's anger was cool and silent, the paralyzing type that swept over you like a hail of ice and blades. It was the type that could wrangle even Sans to submission, and that was terrifying.
The location was situated not that far away from the main base. Five minutes of teleporting- it was traceless, thus more or less safe to use- and voilà, he had a wonderful bird's eye view of the... problem.
It was lovely.
Perhaps the situation was dire, but he couldn't help but crack a small smile.
Sans had held the spot of the strongest amongst the ranks for quite a while, excluding Gaster.
Looks like he'd been knocked straight off the pedestal this time. Too bad none of the others could hold a candle to their captain's talents.
Perhaps he could recruit the dark skeleton. He seemed to have no trouble dealing with Sans.
Gaster sighed, and loaded his guns. He'd rather have an intact underboss than a ceramic urn of dust.
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Alright, that's another one done!
Next chapter will be the last for this Multiverse until quite some time later.
Error's coming up soon :D
Speaking of which, for the high school AU, do you guys prefer I keep their original names, use a variation (example: Classic=Comic), or I change their names completely (example: Palette=Paxton or Classic=Bert or something of the sort)?
All right, see you!
Stay safe <3
(November 30, 2020)