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ask-codeearasure · 7 months ago

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The Outer Realms -- Chapter 20

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Chapter Twenty:

Discoveries

—----

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

― Andre Gide

—-

Of all the depths of the multiverse, one couldn’t truly ever expect the unexpected for the unexpected was beyond comprehension. Truly of figments and glimpses of the most strange and the most predictable were like ghosts and momentary specks. Sparks that appear and disappear like lightning with no thunder to follow through. A most unsightly and incomprehensible fading thought like a dementia-riddled mind ridding itself of its memories from five seconds ago to the birthday one had thirty years prior.

Yet, there is always that one surprise. That one thing that sticks. That one seed that takes root and begins to slowly worm its way out of the dirt and into the light of the waking world. That is truly the only way to describe what Nightmare was looking at.

Figments that never faded. Figments that took root.

These pages are far beyond even his own world. Pages far beyond that of his usual toy boxes. Pages that hold far more interesting pets than those of prior. Truly they were beyond fascinating. Such oddities were unlike anything he had seen before. Like a new species of cat. Or a new maggot that fell into a tank full of ants.

He couldn’t help but grin.

Art of War. Read one page.

Perhaps that was the home of one of those adorable little creatures that thought they could play with him.

Venturing inside and worming around the timeline gave him a lot of fascinating tidbits. It wasn’t exactly like Something New. It was like an Underfell variation, but not quite. It was like an Underswap or Swapfell variant, but even then, not quite. It was an odd mixture of all three but at the same time completely its own monstrosity. Everything was so different, but familiar all in one delicious little package, like a chef took a few ingredients from several cultures and made a dish entirely their own.

This specific AU had walls between each section of the Underground, these walls being bases for specific military sectors and trying to be defenses in case any humans from a warring world of the 1940s were to come down there and drag them into it. But it was also in case they were freed from the Underground. The monsters would be prepared for this wonderful world war.

The negativity emanating off it all was delicious. Nightmare couldn’t help but purr at the agony he sensed from the humans on the surface, but he found the pet he had been looking for. That Killer-like creature. How adorable he was, 6 years old and challenging a fight it knew it couldn’t win, only to join the military. Yet at 13 it had its entire world torn apart.

The pain. The despair. All of it rolling into a ball of negativity that could barely be compared.

When he found it in the Multiverse, he’d make sure to use this information well.

He decided to look around some more. He found another interesting little story. It was the one he thought would make a nice pet. It was called Katagma. It was almost hilarious how similar it was to Dusttale, but at the same time so different, as was the first.

Who knew one little change would equate to such a drastic difference?

A memory that never fades, never wavers but stays there. Permanent and unending.

No wonder its negativity was so strong and addicting.

It couldn’t ever forget the horrors that human caused it. A human zealot talking endlessly about a god that didn’t exist and striking every monster down as if to prove themselves to that fake god and then doing it all over again and again. It was the funniest AU he had ever seen. Watching as the pet he was planning on taking in slowly was driven insane. And the cherry on top was the fact that the human eventually realized that they weren’t in their imaginary hell at all, and when they finally accepted it, it was too late.

It was too far gone. The pet finally beat the human only to start doing something far more fascinating.

It ended the world it was in. Not deleting it. No. It went to the surface and dismantled every single government body it could by destroying trade routes, stealing weaponry, and using magic to make plant seeds immediately sprout upon landing in solid ground. Its favorite being carnivorous plants, all in the name of correcting the world it was in because it wasn’t matching its delusions. And the best part was the fact that these plants killed their prey slowly and agonizingly. Normally Nightmare was against mass deaths, but humans dumb enough to get caught in them were trapped and digested so slowly that it was beyond agony for them. A slow and painful death and their friends and families could only watch because helping such fools would be a deathwish.

Perhaps a vast percentage of the multiverse dying off was useful for two things instead of the one.

Nightmare couldn’t help but find it funny. He normally took Killers from Something New Timelines, and they tended to suffer from extreme hallucinations, yet here he was, finding two pets that were as if they were a Killer split into two different beings. One with hallucinations, another that only worked efficiently.

Truly, he had the best of both worlds at his feet, just waiting for him to pull some strings. But really, why waste his time interrupting the events of these timelines when the two targets who made their existences abundantly clear to him were somewhere out in the multiverse right now?

Until they had the nerve to show up again, he had time to kill. After all, his targets were nothing more than lambs awaiting the slaughterhouse. He had noticed they had sent a copy of his brother out within the inner multiverse, just asking to be harassed and tormented.

Honestly, mere copies could never compare to the real thing and the real reward that was his dear ‘brother’s’ soul, but he was allowed to have fun here and there.

Nightmare traveled back to Art of War, breathing in the negativity that infested the very atmosphere. Prejudice, fear, pain, disorder, mass exterminations, political propaganda, it had it all and then some.

The Lord of Negativity laid his eye on the courtyard belonging to the Underground’s king, hooked onto his every move, how odd it was, this Asgore looked like an odd undead deer monster wearing steel chains and a tattered red cloak. He watched the scene from their shadows, grinning, translating their fluent German in his mind.

—-

“Truly, Doctor, I find this notion of not sending von Gaster to the surface absurd.” the demonically deep voice of King Asgore hissed.

This AU’s Alphys stepped back, unable to look away from the pale yellow eyes of the King. His shadow encompassed her completely. “B-b-b-but my lord, he’s only ten! A-a-a-a child that young would be a-a-a-an easy target!”

He lowered his head to her’s and exhaled a frosty breath with a sneer, “He’s one of our best soldiers, he’s already jumped far ahead of the majority of the soldiers that are twice his age and yet had joined at the same time he did.”

The lizard monster straightened her back and exclaimed nervously, “Exactly! W-we can’t lose our best soldier! W-what if we used him as… um… bait! Whenever a human falls into the underground he can be live bait! Making the humans drop their guard when they see him—”

“Did you forget what we’ve found from the humans’ waste that falls down here?” the king growled, straightening up, moving slowly like an ancient tree, “They’re in the middle of a world war, the second of its kind, and you expect them to have sympathy for a child? They’ve created propaganda to trick their young to fall for their politics. Their beliefs of minuscule differences being the end all be all of determining who is superior and who is not. They need a harsh correction, and sending our best soldier to collect the souls we need and freeing us, is the best chance we have.”

He turned and walked away from the woman who began following him as quickly as she could.

“But sire—”

“I’ve heard enough, doctor.”

“What would change your mind, my king?!” the lizard begged, “Surely, there must be something!”

“If you can get the majority of the military to agree with you, I might reconsider.” he snorted.

Using his magic, glowing scarlet chains wrapped around the lizard monster’s legs and dragged her down the courtyard until she was at its exit. The king entered his home and slammed the door shut, shaking the entire house.

The doctor slowly got up and dusted herself off, glaring at the home for a second before sighing, turning and walking away, hanging her head low, heavy with thoughts of desperation and morals swirling in her mind like a whirlpool.

—------

This was only getting better and better! Nightmare reached out, detecting an abundance of negativity from the neighboring universes, but also felt a difference in the pattern of arrangement. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the best word he had to describe it was like a ring of fire, a wall around the multiverse at large, and covered with holes.

Someone had been busy. Whether it was Error or someone else, Nightmare didn’t particularly care, but before the inner universes crumbled that day, perhaps this is where the glitch had been for all that time.

If there was a plane of existence waiting right outside this multiverse, what could it be? By destroying these ‘defensive universes’, breaking the barrier around the realities he had grown accustomed to, what could they let in?

He was strangely satisfied at the thought, but he planned to have it all collapsed long before anything alien had the mind to enter.

Then he felt it, a ping of concentrated positivity… It was about time that miscreant showed his face again. Nightmare’s body boiled with glee as he headed towards that aura, unknown magic crackling around him the closer he got to this other reality, this offshoot of Asylumtale, he duly noted, and stopped right before a barrier.

Smart, was whoever thought to practice shielding magic this intently to the point they could protect entire other universes from him. They had some nerve, but Nightmare had been craving a challenge for centuries. This reality’s inhabitants created so much negativity, he was certain that without outside aid, his brother was surely trapped. He must be in so much pain… poor thing…

A part of the Lord of Negativity was amused, but he knew whatever sense of ‘peace’ this AU understood, it wouldn’t last. He bellowed with laughter, filling the lack of air around him. Space magic. What an embarrassment. Nightmare placed his hands on the very center of the shield, bleeding his own magic into the barrier. Gradually, the soft flow cushioning him, begging him to turn the other direction and leave, stiffen. Hard as rock, yet thin and inflexible, so dark the distant ‘stars’ in the shield’s center cracked and crumbled into rotting geodes and dust.

Nightmare emitted a snarl of satisfaction and summoned his tentacles, ignoring the familiar sting of the positivity impaling his chest, infesting him with whatever poison it contained. But he could tell it was getting weaker.

There is a limit to happiness.

—------

“I’m sure he’ll be okay!” Dream encouraged the Head Doctor and Queen, soothing her uncertainty towards giving Katagma back his arm privileges.

Toriel pouted and stared at Katagma, who was giving her the biggest set of puppy-eyes that she’s seen yet. She then looked at Occultatum, who gave her a neutral shrug in response. The Queen took a deep breath and sighed, “So long as you keep up with your medication this time.”

Katagma stopped with the puppy-eyes and smiled, “YES! Kata will definitely keep them on hand at all times!”

“And no excuses this time! I know your memory is as perfect as can be, I don’t want to hear that someone flushed them, or that you lost them in some obscure AU, or anything of the sort!” she began undoing the belts binding his hands behind himself, “You come back as soon as you can and you make sure to come back every time you start running low on your medication!”

Katagma nodded, “Yes! Yes! I will! I promise! Please let Kata go! Please!”

With the last belt undone the first thing Katagma did was cling to Dream, wrapping him in a tight hug and spinning around in glee. The guardian squeezed him back, laughing lightly with the intake of fresh positivity, something that soothed the ache in his body from the abundance of negativity the asylum carried on a daily basis.

Toriel shook her head, mumbling, “I better not regret this.”

Occult nodded in agreement, “I feel you.”

Katagma slipped on one of the loose belts, falling backwards on the cell’s bed and taking Dream with him, which because of the fluffiness of the mattress, flew a couple inches into the air and landed right above Kata’s head. The two stayed silent for a moment, then burst into ecstatic snickering, causing Occultatum to just decide that yes… these two were his now. He’s adopted yet another brother in his mind. They’re stuck with him now.

Dream rolled over to sit up, flipping his hood out of his face and kicking his feet over the side, taking a brief look out the window, which overlooked a glimpse of the courtyard, watching a duo of children retreat back inside the asylum’s lobby floor like it was a race. Their happiness was untampered, considering their environment.

He felt Kata’s arms wrapping around his shoulders, the loose and much-too-long sleeves of his straightjacket covering half of Dream’s face, the illusionist purring up a storm.

“You sure you want to go to Invitation?” Katagma asked, “That’s Izanagi’s AU, by the way! It can be quite a… mad place. You’ll be in far more pain than you are here, I’m quite sure of that. It has a lot of bad things, possibly more than it does good.” He was still smiling despite the heavy concern in his voice. “I mean you might be able to make changes there if you stayed long enough considering that they may see you as a god – which I’m sure you are.”

Dream sat straighter immediately, a faint gold hue flush covering his cheeks, “A god? Me? I’m sorry, I’m not–”

“You sure?” Katagma held Dream’s head, forcing him to look up at the mad skeleton who squinted at him, then booped Dream’s nasal bone.

“Y-yes, I’m sure!” He was at a loss for better words to describe just how sure he was of the lack of any divinity he might possess, falling silent and gently grasping the illusionist’s finger to hold it away from his face.

“I am… certain I want to go to Invitation, but… I’m still thinking about it. Carrot told me to reconsider my options as well. I’m just worried, is all…” Katagma hummed before smirking, “Alright, if you’re so certain that you are not what you are. I’ll take your word for it, for now. But do know that it is best to consider all possibilities. DeVille is most definitely there with Iza, keeping an eye on him.”

DeVille. He knew that name. DeVille… oh. The source of the venom he was shot with. Katagma had mentioned them so casually and comfortably, though, so perhaps this person wasn’t a source of strife to him and Izanagi.

“Okay.” He was certain he’d find out later, but now something felt off. Dream couldn’t determine what it was, but he didn’t think their conversation was an issue. Maybe some of his symptoms were coming back, but it was fine! Occultatum had mentioned earlier that Toriel and Alphys were making medication for his sake.

“Um… remember the book you suggested to me back at the library?”

“Of course! The best book!” Katagma grinned, his purr increasing in volume at the mere mention of it, “Do you like it?”

“I do like it!” Dream smiled, regretting the fact he left it back in Outerswap, “But I don’t know what a shilling is, or what queer? Means… or… I’m unfamiliar with a few of the words in that book.”

Katagma fell over laughing, dragging Dream with him, “A shilling is an old British coin, like… a pence! Queer, though now used to describe the whole LGBT community, was and still sort of is another word for weird and odd, especially during the time when the book was published. And as for the last one… you may need a dictionary to help you. Or we could read it together, though Kata is a fast reader so he’ll be sitting by, waiting for you!”

“You would do that?” The little guardian looked up at him, elated at the offer, “I’d like that…”

Toriel leaned over to Occultatum and whispered, “They’re practically like brothers…”

Occultatum nodded, “I’m adopting both of them. They’re stuck with me for the rest of their lives.”

She giggled at his statement. “Of course they are.”

The sinking feeling continued to grow, and Dream anxiously glanced out the window again, noting the darkening sky. He frowned, then shifted his position enough to look over Katagma’s shoulder and towards Dr. Toriel and Occultatum. “Excuse me, doctor? What time is it?”

Toriel looked at her watch, “It’s almost 5pm, dear.”

“Does it uhm… does it normally get so dark this early?”

She frowned, “No.” she went over to the window and saw that it was in fact getting dark. “Occult–”

“On it.” Occultatum ran out of the room, heading towards the outside of the asylum.

Getting ahead of himself, Dream had almost jumped out of Katagma’s arms to follow him, but the illusionist shook his head like that was a bad idea.

Katagma held Dream a bit tighter, mumbling, “It’ll be okay, love. Occultatum will take care of it.” his purring increased to try to calm Dream down, but the sinking feeling persisted, tunneling down further, pursuing the depths, getting darker and darker.

The guardian shifted again in Katagma’s grasp, laying his head on the illusionist’s chest in an attempt to deafen the thumping of his own soul, pounding at him to get up and run. Dream swallowed his anxiety, pushed it down, but it only felt worse.

Apprehensively, Dream reached out, feeling for other sources of positivity, but they began to shrivel, blinking out one by one as the warm air around them turned unnaturally cold. He continued to pick up on whatever speck he could, but just up ahead, in the direction of the asylum’s main entrance, Dream’s body turned to face against his will, his eyesockets blown as wide as dinner plates, eyelights shrinking down to pinpricks.

He was here. He was here and he couldn’t move.

—-----

Occultatum looked up and used his magic to be able to look straight through the mountain and see what exactly was going on, but he couldn’t see much other than what was supposed to be a clear night sky. He frowned. Maybe it was overcast tonight? He couldn’t help but doubt it. The weather in Asylumtale was hardly ever like this.

He concentrated his magic, focussing on the barrier. There were only a few things that could counteract his magic, but they wouldn’t dare.

The Archiver expected all to be well, mostly. Perhaps his magic had gone rigid over the pass of time and needed a new layer to be applied, but reaching out to what he had conjured before came with results that certainly weren't his own.

It felt like his fingertips had brushed the surface of chalk; crumbling chalk over a cluster of burning coals and chilling stone. “Impossible…”

He opened his eyes again to empty, limitless vantablack darkness, as if the entire world was swallowed by a blackhole, instead of the stars and faux galaxies he implemented, and all at once, the very center of his masterpiece shattered, wiping out the asylum’s lighting system in under less than a second.

Whoever did this was fucking dead.

—----

He could feel him staring, eye drilling into his very being, and the voice Dream knew was right next to him a minute ago should have been louder than the distant whisper in its place. Any attempt he made to move, to summon his staff, his bow, his knives, were each met with a harsh force, shoving them back into the abyss from which they came.

The anxious whispers of his new friend soon became inaudible to him, and the pain his body had been withstanding for the better half of the day became intolerable. Dream felt his bones burn and chill over a million times in rapid succession, but remain as stiff and overpowered as he was that day, when he had spent so long as a stone figure overlooking the decay of his home.

The ground beneath him shook, and he felt something slam into him, knocking him back into the wall of Katagma’s room. He heard the illusionist yelp, but when he opened his eyes, no light illuminated the space anymore.

It felt like the entire building was holding its breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Dream went to stand up again, but stopped the attempt midway when the numbness of his body registered to him. The guardian laid back against the wall, biting back a hiss of agony when even the thought of reaching out again came to mind, the taste of blood thick in his mouth.

Katagma sat up and worriedly looked around until he spotted Dream, before he could do anything Toriel was already there hovering over them both, “Are you two alright? What happened? Are you hurt?”

“Kata feels like a poltergeist hit him but he’s not sure about Dream…” Katagma stated, he frowned at Dream before asking carefully, “Are you alright, love?”

The guardian suppressed a groan, but the face of discomfort couldn’t be hidden in time. He breathed in, then slowly out. Dream reached out for the bed board and used it as a source of support to get himself standing, but didn’t let go. “In a moment, maybe…” As if to spite him, his body shuddered. Dream breathed in again to fight off his nausea, and raised a gloved hand to wipe what he thought were tears from the edges of his eyesockets, only for the fabric to come away a dark red.

“...m-maybe not….”

Toriel immediately scooped him up and began running for the infirmary, Katagma following close behind her.

—------

Nightmare resurfaced in Art of War, in a timeline with the Underground emptied, dusted to oblivion. It had been so long since he had been this gratified and intrigued on the same day. Dream was weak, possibly from whatever that Killer-copy had shot him with all those weeks ago! The poor, unfortunate soul could pretend he was in working order come every deadline, but he was on the edge of expiring. Even through that barrier, Nightmare could smell his paralyzing fear, the helplessness that overcame him in his absence. No wonder he had to hide in such a minuscule, unimportant universe…

Nightmare chuckled darkly to himself, taking a seat upon the empty throne of the long-deceased king. Even though the entirety of monsterkind had already been demolished in this timeline, the world above reeked in confusion, hysteria, and misplaced insanity. He looked down at the weapon still lodged in his chest, the color having dulled from the work he had just completed. The Lord of Negativity growled in disgust, grabbing the blade and ignoring the agony it sent up his arm and throughout his body as he yanked it out, shattering the spear in a million pieces as if it were made of glass this whole time. Whoever made these things was at the top of his hit list. It wouldn’t be hard to conclude the identities involved if he just did a little more research… they did such efficient work copying Dream’s firepower, he had to admit to himself, which only compounded the importance of finding them.

It wasn’t like those weapons could kill him, but they were a greater pain than Dream was by himself.

He needed more negativity, and the Outer Realms provided a surplus in supply in the absence of the rest of the multiverse, even though their numbers were even more minuscule in comparison to the numbers he was better acclimated to.

At once, his wounds from the prior battles were mending themselves back together. If he stayed here longer, he’d get bored.

Wasn’t there a universe posing as his own out there?

It wouldn’t hurt to investigate…

—-----

A man with messy black hair and a violet suit and hat with a moon charm on it, and a white eyepatch over his right eye smiled gently as he handed a bottle of wine and a basket of Red Delicious apples to an older woman.

“Oh, DeVille,” the elder purred, “You are such a kind young man! This will help more than you know!”

He tipped his hat and smiled, “Don’t worry Miss Rayburn, it’s always a pleasure. Be sure to hide the bottle, I’d hate for Guerra to go hunting around again.”

“I will.” she replied gently, “Stay safe.”

Once the woman had left, DeVille leaned against a wall of a small building and sighed, he was lucky that Morabito had been busy running around the Multiverse doing that prat’s job. He’s been able to take over a bit of the bastard’s territory in the process.

However, for some reason, the day suddenly felt more… odd.

He looked into the sky and it seemed to slowly but surely get darker and darker until it was darker than night itself.

He heard a woman’s scream. Curiosity getting the better of him he ran over to where he heard the scream only to see a person he recognized holding onto a screaming and sobbing woman, blood splattered all over the wall and ground.

What the hell?

He swallowed his pride and urge to avoid the detective, he went over and saw that one of Morabito’s regulars looked to be… well… flattened. Body shattered into bits with blood pooling everywhere. Brains exposed and leaking from the shattered skull.

“That looks like a five story drop… why…?” DeVille mumbled.

“That’s what I’m wondering,” said the detective.

DeVille glared at the detective who ushered the woman to sit down far away from the body. The detective then walked up to DeVille.

“Armano Guerra…” DeVille spat.

“Nightmare DeVille…” Detective Guerra grumbled stiffly, “Don’t worry, I know you have nothing to do with this.”

“As if I’d take your word for it.” DeVille frowned.

They heard another scream. Then another. Both men exchanged looks. They knew they’d reluctantly had to both head the same direction considering that if DeVille wanted to keep his name in the clear, he’d have to be beside the Detective until the incidents ceased.

“Lead the way.” DeVille said with a huff, “It’s not like anyone at your agency would believe that I’m as innocent as you are.”

“Snarky as always.” Guerra frowned.

As they went from scene to scene they found a pattern if one could even call it that.

Suicides.

All of them were a case of suicide.

Being dragged to the agency, DeVille was forced to sit in the detective’s office, watching the man put up crime scene photos on a corkboard. As he listed out audibly to a recorder the names and ages of the victims along with how they died.

“Ponzio De Marco, age 57, death caused by jumping off of a five story building; Letizia Mele, age 15, hanging; Dario Chiellini, age 10, jumped off of a cliff into the ocean, Cesarina Pisani, age 42, hanging…”

The detective took a step back, “All occurred in what should’ve been a clear day—”

“Instead we’re shrouded in darkness and more darkness. No stars, not even the moon itself.” DeVille cut in.

“You say that like it’s some act of God.” Guerra shot.

“Or the devil.” DeVille shrugged, “What suspect do you have, detective, all you have are a bunch of suicides occuring on the same day an odd event occurred. Last I checked, that is not normal.”

“What’s not normal is a human surviving getting shot point blank in the face with a railgun!” Guerra growled.

DeVille stayed silent.

The detective ended the recording. “You still haven’t explained that.”

“I owe you nothing.” DeVille frowned.

“You and Morabito’s weapons disappear every time we get one, and a single scratch from one is enough to knock out a grown man, that is not normal.” Guerra said exasperatedly, “Are you even human?”

DeVille stared at the man, “And if I’m not, what are you going to do detective?”

Right outside the office, a gunshot sounded, then the thump of a likely already deceased body. The few people rushing through the hallways outside the office door screamed, and the sound of several people stumbling away was almost deafening. Another gunshot echoed from another room, and another from right outside the building.

What started as a few untimely suicides increased into rampant disorder. Cars blasted their horns in the middle of the streets, and the mass waves of insanity could almost be felt physically, existing alongside miniature riots in the town squares and market areas. Even some cops killed themselves on the spot.

“The world is falling to shit, detective.” DeVille stated, pulling out a pack of cigars, getting two out and pocketing the rest. “Think about it. It was a matter of time before the Sleep Law caused this.”

“Caused this?” Guerra whispered, “Yet you claim that you and Morabito are not the cause…”

“Why would we, detective?” DeVille asked, handing the detective one of the cigars, “We don’t want people dead, that’s the last thing we’d want – which is the second thing we’ve ever agreed upon.”

Guerra got out his lighter and lit the cigar and then DeVille’s, taking a long breath, then exhaled, “And the first one is the destruction of the Sleep Law?”

DeVille nodded silently.

“What does that have to do with all of this?” Guerra asked.

DeVille laughed, “Oh detective, you really are a fool.”

The human frowned.

DeVille got up and took a toke of his cigar and smirked, “You see, a person processes a lot of things in their sleep. Negative and Positive Desires. Their hopes, their dreams, things that affected them that day and the previous days. All of it ripe for the picking when they sleep. And when they wake up they don’t have to worry much about them, depending on what their dreams and nightmares showed them that night. These things help people regulate their emotions… If you don’t enter that state of rest… what do you think would happen?”

Guerra felt his heart drop down to the pit of his stomach. “Unrepentant crime and death…”

“Exactly.” DeVille frowned, “Whatever it is that is casting this wave of darkness, be it a falling asteroid or something else entirely, the world itself is falling apart because of the greed of the upper classes.”

“But what do you and Morabito gain from the dismantling of the Sleep Law?” Guerra asked.

“Desires.” DeVille stated. “We’ve been starving because your kind refuses to rest.”

“You mean you feed off of desires… you’re not human.”

“Exactly. And you’ve been a thorn in our sides for ages.” DeVille stated, “Yet here we are, witnessing the fruit of corporate labor. Tell me, Guerra, are you satisfied now?”

The human couldn’t answer the… entity. He doubted he could ever answer him. Truly, the lawmakers were the greatest fools to end all fools and he was their lap dog that followed them around thinking that they knew what was right. He looked away from DeVille and ran his hand through his dusty brown hair with gray specks.

“Get out of my sight.”

“Gladly.” DeVille said, “Oh, detective… I suggest you take a nice long nap. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

With that, the entity left. The detective looked over at the corkboard, all of this from a lack of sleep. A lack of understanding. A lack of knowledge. Truly, the corporations and lawmakers were the real monsters if all Morabito and DeVille did were just trying to exhaust people into sleep.

—------

Nightmare had to translate a lot of the Italian to himself to comprehend the constant sobs and screams of the humans of this AU. There was no Underground, no tree with a whore’s soul trapped inside it, nothing of the sort. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve believed that this city was a modernized version of the village he laid waste to back at Dreamtale, but at best this was a cheap imitation of what could have been.

Disgusting.

The Lord of Negativity sighed, but not in complete disappointment of the result before him. This was another one of the AUs infested with the negativity he yearned for, even if suicide rates tended to raise exponentially in his presence. Whatever was left alive would still be more than enough.

Nightmare traveled through the shadows of the city, reveling in the crumble of whatever thin layer of positivity the people above him relied on to keep living, as if it had been in the process of wilting since before he arrived.

But in the end it all made sense to him, much much quicker than Art of War and Katagma. Such an easy, workless snap to absolute delirium for an entire population of people also had a simple cause, and the near complete lack of beds in every house, apartment, hotel, mansion, and makeshift shelter said it all. With the strict illegalization of sleep, the lack of resulting healing and the processing of information deteriorated a subject both physically and mentally, but Nightmare felt genuine surprise that it had to take him traveling to such a place for crowds of the rotting to kill themselves en masse. He would have thought that with living conditions this intentionally cruel, the population numbers should be lower.

And oh, did the world around them all reflect this notion. The place reeked of greed and gluttony, a lust for more. More of what, though? Wealth for the higher-ups, perhaps. That’s what it always was in regards to government corruption. This was something humans and monsters had in common. Throw the cretins a morsel and they intend to take the entire season’s storage next time around.

It was ridiculous.

When he sensed a high concentration of negativity he found a human male walking out of a detective agency and just teleported away when he found no one – to his knowledge – around. That must be this AU’s version of himself.

At just first glance, his “double” looked utterly pathetic.

No matter. When he could no longer sense the presence of that other version, Nightmare surfaced in the middle of the street, the light poles brightening the cul de sac flickering out. From where he stood, the darkness below him expanded from an ordinary shadow to a cloud of corruption, spreading from the brick and concrete streets and into the buildings, corroding the quality of every space of the city it touched.

The building housing the detective agency right next to him began to decompose at an accelerated rate, the smell of death permeating the atmosphere alongside the smoke and rubble, fires and gasoline. Nightmare breathed in, then continued his walk, the polished brick underneath his feet cracking from light contact. His form morphed, growing from the shape of the basic hooded skeleton to a pale man in a tuxedo, tightening his tie and brushing black hair out of his face, leaving it to hover over the right side of his face.

The destruction was beautiful, and it was best coming from a society that had been falling apart since the establishment of its cornerstone. Nightmare passed a salon, the advertising window cracked and shattered from the inside, fresh blood dripping from the serrated points, and lights flickering in its own form of despair as his corruption swallowed it up.

He looked in, recognizing a newly killed corpse on the floor. Right next to it was a revolver, which must have been used for the dumb soul to have killed itself. Nightmare clicked his tongue behind his teeth, smiling slyly. The corpse twitched. Even with its brains blown out from ear to ear, it twitched, then convulsed, light skin darkening to a pitch black as Nightmare’s shadow swallowed it whole and spat it back out, all sense of identity stripped from the body and whatever could’ve been left of its soul.

It only mutated from there, limbs stretching in length, fingers and toes cracking as talons sprouted from its trimmed nails, the jaw of its face stretching wide enough to devour the head of another human in one bite, and its eyes sucked of all color. The reanimated body coughed and sputtered, black blood staining the pitch black floor, then it heaved itself up, haunching over as its spine popped, the vertebrae expanding into branches upon its back.

With one final huff, the ghoul screamed, its voice echoing and doubling after it hit the street, drowning out the screams and cries of what were soon to be its prey. It tumbled out of the salon, right past Nightmare. Its hunt began.

Nightmare’s grin only grew wider.

—-

The definition of the word Hell could not even describe what Guerra was witnessing. After having what could only be described as an Emotional Breakdown and calming down after it he ended up hearing the sounds of popping and snapping bones, the screams and cries of what was human becoming something else entirely. The door to his office began to shake with something entirely inhuman attempting to break it down.

He slowly backed away until he felt his spine hit a decaying wall as he slowly raised his gun. The glass door of his office shattered and he saw a slimy black mass that was a mockery of a human shape clamber into his office. He shot at it three times and side stepped it when the shots didn’t even deter it. It hit the wall, almost flattening itself against it with how hard it rammed into it. He ran out of the room and found more of the strange monsters.

He could only run as they gave chase. He ran down hall after hall of the building until he damn near fell into the basement where he and the other detectives kept the evidence of their investigations. He lit his lighter to guide his way as he ran through the basement, the monsters still tailing him until he noticed them hissing at one of the boxes of evidence.

Guerra recognized the evidence immediately.

Morabito’s Sleep Medication.

Why that of all things.

Then he remembered DeVille’s words

“You see, a person processes a lot of things in their sleep. Negative and Positive Desires…”

He remembered that before the mysterious death of the orphan girl Liliana, Morabito was often called a Positive Young Man by all those who had interacted with him. While they’d also think of DeVille as a rather depressed and Negative person. Someone who saw the worst in everyone, but would play nice.

If he guessed correctly, those pills had something from Morabito that repulsed these creatures. Something Positive about them.

Acting quickly, he grabbed onto the shelf that held them and many other pieces of evidence and tilted it until it spilled all over to the floor before running, grabbing the box and holding it close to his chest.

The strange beasts hissed and growled at him. They looked as though they yearned to attack him but couldn’t due to whatever it was in those pills.

“Morabito, when I get my hands on you, you better help me…” Guerra mumbled. “For the love of God, help us all…”

With that he slowly made his way up the stairs and watched as the beasts backed away and avoided him, hissing defensively in his direction. He held his breath as he kept walking, walking to the main floor of the agency, walking to the door and opening it to leave to the outside world…

To this place that was now worse than Hell itself.

—------

Nightmare continued to walk the streets of this town, Praiano. Watching the absolute destruction that his monsters create, let alone his presence. He ends up coming across a rather vast graveyard, he leaned on the fence and watched as the plant life in the cemetery rots away as the fence rusts to nothing. Several of the tombstones crack and shatter. Trees wither and decay.

To avoid getting bored, he decides to reach out into the multiverse again and see what else he can find in this outer circle of it. Poking around for a second only to find a good amount of confusion and negativity. Focusing in on it, he finds himself in a rather new timeline.

—-----

It was hard to understand this universe at first, the language of the monsters being an ancient form of Japanese, and monsters themselves could barely even be classified as such. It took Nightmare a full minute to understand they were Yokai. The Sans here being a priest of some religion to a Moon god(ess?ex?).

Ironic.

He watched as the Sans kept hilariously struggling with its violent urges. The negativity from it alone was euphoric. The urge to rip and tear. Slaughter and kill. Sick ideas upon sick ideas building and building until all he could do was tell the Frisk of this universe to get the hell out, only to regret it because the human killed their Emperor, destroying their Core in the process and thus destroying the only source of magic allowing them to have any source of plant life and food.

The slow rotting of their lives devolved into infighting the moment that the Emperor’s will was read, deeming the Sans to be the next in line for the throne, but the racism that plagued the Yokai culture caused more issues. This AU’s Undyne attempted to kill the Sans only for the Papyrus to jump in the way, leaving Sans with an unhealable head wound and his brother deceased..

The power the Sans emitted was just as incredible as the negativity it emanated.

Onryo, was what they called him. It was hard to figure out what that meant. Some sort of creature that was pure unadulterated negativity incarnate. A creature that thrived off of fear and vengeance and nothing more. A creature so powerful it controlled natural disasters if its vengeance was powerful enough. And the wrath Sans had could only compare to Nightmare’s own in some ways.

He didn’t kill Undyne. No. He ruined her. Destroyed her frail mind to such an extent that when Aliza fell into the Underground, all she found of Undyne was a blubbering mess behind boarded up doors and windows. Even when the Yokai were freed from their prison, Undyne stayed and died there.

The Yokai still ate humans. Even Sans did.

Moving to the current timeline he found the Sans in a “human” form, skull busted open exposing the gooey brains and blood still dripping down his face. He was haunting a human, disappearing and reappearing just within the peripherals of the human, but every time they’d try to see him, he’d be somewhere else. It was only when the human got too close to the Yokai village that Sans revealed himself.

The reveal being quite beautiful.

The Sans grabbed the human by their hair and threw them to the floor before prying their mouth open and kept pulling at their jaw, not stopping when their jaw was dislocated. He kept at it. The flesh and senue kept tearing and ripping till finally the entire throat was exposed and the human died from the pain alone.

That’s when he began eating, starting with the eyes, then ripping an arm off.

It was adorable.

He even shared it with a passing yokai.

The fear was rampant here… almost as much as Art of War. It came in bursts. His presence here seemed to stir the hunger in the Yokai, causing many to start hunting in the human villages. He didn’t need to tamper with this one, really. They seemed to avoid killing women and children, preferring to keep their livestock populous enough to repopulate.

He’s observed enough.

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