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The Outer Realms -- Chapter 22

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Chapter Twenty-Two:

Honesty Part 1

—----

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”

― Thomas Jefferson

—-

“Come on! Tell me! How do you do it?!” Leo begged, staring at Edelweiss who was sitting across from him. His curiosity was buzzing. This guy’s AU must be crazy compared to all the ones his brother visited.

Leo, Ink and Aster were all curious about how he had such strange spells, from cryokinesis to even the ability to appear human without it being a full on illusion. Though Ink had run off to change his clothes due to being covered head to toe in snow a moment ago, the guy was curious about the human transformation.

“I am also curious. Only Boss Monsters have such power on a daily basis, and the ability to transform into such a convincing human form is fascinating.” said Aster, who sat next to his son.

Edelweiss froze up and searched every word in his mind to try to figure out how to explain the way his powers worked and how he had such powerful magic. Finding the best route to go he took a deep breath and did his best to explain.

“For my Ice Magic, it’s a bit… hard to explain.” he began to use the magic to make a large snowflake made of ice, so he could fiddle with it, usually he’d take apart a gun but he didn’t want to seem threatening, “I’ve alwayz had it. At first I wasn’t all zat good at utilizing it but eventually something happened to… force me to train endlessly to improve my skills so I could join za military. I realized zat, to control the weather, the atmosphere itself, itz all about how zou think about it. Condensation, and controlling it through temperature. Once zou get that, itz as easy az breathing.”

He messed with the edge of the snowflake.

“As for za human form… I got zat for taking za soul of a human. Since it waz za same type of soul az one we already had, it waz given to me. I waz supposed to use it to go to za surface to collect za last few souls we needed, but everyone in za military protested because I waz too young, according to them.”

“Too young?” Leo asked, confused, “How old were you when you got it?”

“Ten.” Edelweiss answered. He didn't even need to think about the answer.

“Ten? And you were in the military?!” Aster exclaimed, “Who let you into the military?! Why?! Where were your parents?” shock and horror laced the hybrid’s voice like a thick syrup.

Edelweiss would’ve rolled his eyelights at the questions. “Yes. King Asgore. Because I needed to take care of my brother. And dead.”

Aster was taken aback by how casually and automatically Edelweiss answered the questions. The soldier likely had heard the questions many times in his life. But it was still shocking. How many AU’s did not have an orphanage? What about relatives? Why would the king of his AU let him in?

As they spoke, Ink had gotten the backpack Edelweiss had brought him and took it with him to the guest bedroom that he had woken up in, minding Error’s napping. They were rummaging through it, looking to find anything that could reawaken their missing memories. He found strange weapons and chains that he had no recollection of, and the empty paint vials that felt alien to him. Sure, they held the paints that helped him, but they didn't feel right. Like they didn't belong to him. He didn’t recall carrying jars with him instead of his usual sash of vials. Even the bag itself didn't feel like it belonged to him. He had no recollection of having it.

Upon taking those items out of the bag, he found a notebook that had several journal entries in it.

Was it his diary? Since when did he keep one? Did his scarf finally run out of space?

He opened up to a random page and began reading.

—--

Entry 5:

The doctors insisted that I need to feel emotions in order to function properly. That they're “important”. That they have a use for self-preservation and having connections with those around me. I don't understand it.

The other patient, Digital Klezmer, also insists that emotions are a necessity. That they are what make the worlds themselves interesting. Diverse.

That being emotionless is like a deck of cards that are all blank.

Nothing they say is really making sense.

It is all illogical.

The asylum itself is evidence of how emotions are useless and do nothing but harm. Perhaps emotions are a mental illness itself.

People are broken, unable to escape their own broken mental states because of their emotions. When I brought this idea up to Digital, he told me that if I kept up this line of thinking I will “lose everything to the house”. When I asked what he meant by that, he said it was Gambling Terminology, essentially meaning that I will lose everything I have and walk away with nothing.

I still don't get it.

What do I have to gain from emotions? What do I lose to not having them?

—-----

Was this even his? He knew exactly what he'd lose by not having emotions. He'd lose his life, his freedom, all his awareness. All feeling in every way, shape, and form. And even then, he had fun, he had connections, he had memories!

He flipped a few pages.

—-------

Entry 15:

Digital Klezmer is the strangest person here. I do not understand him. He always goes and plays the piano in the common room in A-Wing. He will even take the kids of this AU to show them how to play despite his irrational fear of physical contact.

He even taught them several simple melodies.

What did he gain from doing such a thing?

When I asked, he said “Nothing, I just felt like it.”

Though it was hard to understand him. That scarf of his kept getting in the way. Why does he even have it around?

He said it belonged to his brother. Claimed it meant a lot to him.

It's just a scarf.

His AU is gone. It served its purpose. Why keep the scarf around?

—------

Ink frowned and flipped several pages this time only to find something that they couldn't even describe.

The closest thing he could compare it to, was criminal evidence.

The pages were a mess and hard to understand, scribbles and smudges stacked on top of each other with scrawling and chicken scratches for handwriting. The most he could make out were the words ruined, lost, and done.

Ink didn’t know what they could do with any of this, but he now understood for certain this couldn’t possibly be his. Even the writing itself looked flat under normal circumstances, and they could recall they regularly wrote in cursive, for the sake of comparison. But if this was not him, whose diary was this?

The artist stopped pacing around the room and sat down against the bed’s side, turning to the back of the notebook for empty pages. He fished through the bag for a pen, pencil crayon, something, and got a broken colored pencil, then just to prove to himself that his handwriting was just as good as he remembered, scribbled random words on the empty page.

Okay. Cool. Definitely different.

Ink sucked in a breath and let his head fall back onto the corner of the mattress behind him, letting Error’s snores fill the atmosphere for a second before he started investigating again. Absentmindedly, he reached for the tail ends of his scarf, but their hands closed on nothing. Ugh, they forgot. Without his scarf, Ink felt a little naked.

They sighed and closed the notebook. Maybe they’d ask Error what was up whenever he decided to rejoin the land of the living, but he was… really irritated before Aster took them out of the room an hour ago.

But seriously, what the fuck was wrong with whoever owns this notebook? Ink didn’t want to profile them, but it was clear the two of them shared some similarity… in the… no-natural-supply-of-emotions part.

Ink ran his fingers up and down the fabric making the brown sweatpants he pulled on a few minutes ago ground him, letting them wander over the teal star patches sewn into it. They couldn’t figure out why reading through all that made them so disturbed, not when a big part of their work as the Guardian of AUs demanded he reads the scripts of every disturbing AU alongside every other story in the multiverse, and they definitely could get worse than Underfell. He felt sorry for whoever couldn’t stomach the simplicity of Underfell’s premise.

Though, that would mean he felt sorry for Dream, which didn’t have the most respectful connotation… oh my god. Dream.

He sat up immediately and went back into the closet across from the bed, fishing out a brown shirt, teal tank top to put over it, and grabbed one of Leo’s old hoodies, previously a bright blue, but turned a worn gray-blue shade with its age. He needed some layers. He just needed them.

Did they find Dream yet, cause he had a sinking feeling where his soul should have been that screamed NO.

Their body worked on autopilot, swiping a roll of dark gray sports tape and a silver necklace to add more than just brown and teal to their hopefully temporary look.

Distantly, they heard the front door open and close, catching the vocals of Aster and Leo welcoming in two other sources of voices which they recognized, but was again struggling with names. Aster is married, right…? That would mean he has another parent, and he was blanking on who that could be.

Ink wrapped the sports tape around his feet and ulna and radius, then twisted the necklace around his right arm. If it didn’t look as good as he visualized, they could always change it. The only thing missing still was his scarf and vials.

Okay, they were definitely missing more than that, but they couldn’t think of anything else they wanted right this minute for another layer of self-stability.

Ink sat down again with the bag and pulled out the last thing that stood out, which was another book, and opened it from the middle. The artist was greeted with solid and simplistic patterns, things one would find in birthday party banners from the dollar store, laminated construction paper that hung from the ceiling. It was that kind of deal. Ink flipped through the pages onwards, finding the same thing over and over and over, and the few differences between them that initially began in that middle segment were gradually taken out.

His brows furrowed, paired with another uneasy feeling he couldn’t recall the word to, and flipped back to the beginning, now greeted with more intricate designs and sketches, uses of the paper that had some life etched into it. There was some variety, drawings of people and places, sometimes things one would find specifically in a doctor’s setting, but the one theme common in most of them was this one specific person.

A skeleton wearing glasses, wearing a particularly fluffy jacket and a worn scarf, as they were shown almost every time they were drawn. Sometimes they discarded the jacket and stuck with a normal sweater, sometimes their face wasn’t even shown as they were drawn from a different angle, but the owner of this book had drawn them so frequently Ink could tell it was the same person over and over again regardless, but the one thing that stuck out to him the most was the presence of tear-tracks stretching down their cheeks from the bottom of their eyesockets.

It was no surprise there were other errors, even glitches that closely resembled them, throughout the multiverse, but none of them looked almost completely like Error.

The artist twisted from where they sat to look at their slumbering friend, then held up the sketchbook, turned to a page with the odd character, for the sake of comparison.

Error’s lookalike looked tired, more tired than Error himself did every other day, but this contender really took the cake. And in some sketches, the smile they presented made all of it look like there was no weight to it, no bite.

But Ink still couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong here, and it was beginning to irritate him beyond all else. He knew he knew this person too, and it wasn’t just their physical features shared with Error that ticked every box. He saw this person somewhere. He knew he did.

The sound of boots clacking against the floor down the hall snapped Ink out of their frustrations, and a particular pattern of soft knocking was audible from the guest room door.

“Ink, are you in there?”

Oh! That was one of the people that just got here! The artist sprang to his feet, the sketchbook an afterthought, and slowly turned the knob so the squeak wouldn’t disturb Error. Ink peeked out the door, his vision blurring with the minimal movement he had to offer, but could almost make out the person waiting for him. Now it finally clicked. This was Gaster.

Ink, by some miracle, managed to suppress the squeaky part of a squeal, pushing the door out of his way to hug Gaster’s legs as his other father laughed softly through his teeth, getting the hint he should be as quiet as possible as well, and backed away from the door as an extra measure as Ink proceeded to jump onto his shoulder, hugging Gaster’s entire face, their arms covering his eyes in an affectionate squeeze. Somehow, Gaster was able to maneuver the both of them out of the hallway despite his loss of sight and Ink’s refusal to budge, the artist’s ribcage rattling up a storm, making a fucked up purring noise. Gaster laughed, though it was muffled.

He reached up and patted Ink’s head and used the walls of the hallway to guide himself back to the dining room where Aster, Edelweiss, Balloon, and Leo were at. He knew he got to the dining room the moment he heard Aster gasp.

“Ink! Get off of your father! You could get both of you hurt like that!”

Ink whined as he felt Aster grab him by his sides to gently lift him off of Gaster’s face. Aster shook his head as he chuckled to himself.

Sons…

Gaster also seemed to take joy in the moment.

“Glad to see you easily remember dad than you do your own brother.” Leo teased.

Ink stuck his tongue out at Leo who rolled his eyelights.

“I see our guest is feeling a bit more comfortable,” Gaster looked over at Edelweiss who gave a nervous shrug.

“He will if you don’t tease the poor thing.” Aster whispered and used his tail to playfully pat Gaster’s shoulder.

“Thanks for helping Ink, by the way,” Gaster smiled, “He got us very worried there for a while.”

Edelweiss shrugged, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

“Actually wait–” Ink said quickly, “if you can… I mean…do you know where Dream is? Also I’m missing my scarf and a few other things, do you know where they are?”

Aster put the artist down only for him to grab Edelweiss by the shoulders before the soldier could even answer the questions, “Please!”

Edelweiss rubbed the back of his skull and hummed, “I do know where Dream iz, but it will take a while to get zere. Az for zour belongings… I have an idea az to where they could be, but I doubt you’d want to get them on your own, but I might be able to figure out how to get them myself.”

Much to Edelweiss’ shock Ink grinned… then quickly looked away to vomit a pool of his namesake.

“Iz–” “It happens all the time, you’ll get used to it.” Ballon interjected. He didn’t even react when Ink manipulated the mess, shaping it into a carpet, then started changing the design over and over again.

Edelweiss looked at Balloon as if he said the sky was neon pink, and the resident Papyrus’s face brightened in response to his visible shock.

“I’m serious! One day with him will either make you or break you!”

“I think he gets the idea, Dodge Ball!” “Ink, my name is Balloon.” “Peu importe, Ballon.”

Balloon stood up from his seat in a playful threat and cracked his knuckles. “Don’t use your French against me, BROTHER! I WON’T UNDERSTAND YOU!!! I AM BEHIND ON MY FRENCH LESSONS!”

“C'est votre problème de compétence!”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, BUT I, THE HILARIOUS PAPYRUS, WILL ASSUME IT IS AN INSULT!!!”

The artist got the message and leaped out of the way of Balloon attempting to grab him. With a shit eating grin on his face, he hid behind Gaster’s legs like the vertically challenged gnome he is in spirit.

“Is everyone here insane or something?” Chara asked.

Edelweiss decided he didn’t want to die today, thus, he kept his mouth shut.

But as if this world hated him, Ink opened his big mouth. “What, you think you wouldn’t fit in or something, Chair-AH—” Leo swatted them with a rolled up napkin, having joined Balloon in messing with him.

Edelweiss grumbled under his breath, “Erschießen Sie mich.”

He was seriously going to have a long, long conversation with Klezmer about his choices in targets to attack. Along with maybe an extremely long month to a year in Asylumtale. Just… trying to figure out how to get this shitty human soul from pissing him off constantly. Perhaps even convincing Toriel to help him get the damn thing to go dormant so he could just live his life without having to put up with the damn demon every five fucking seconds.

“Verpiss dich.” Chara shot back at the soldier.

He heroically held back the urge to freeze his and Chara’s souls in dry ice.

Thankfully now, the world’s unrelenting supply of spite was put on pause. Ink squeezed himself in-between Aster’s wings and the back cushions of the couch, giggling like a maniac as Balloon quickly retreated and Leo attempted to climb right over their father to get to him, pillow in hand.

But have mercy on his impulsive ass, he got swallowed by their parents’ black and violet feathers, trapped for what could be a few minutes. Being trapped with Aster was no joke. The hybrid monster cleared his throat, keeping his grasp on Leo firm until he gave up the struggle and teleported to Edelweiss’s side, picking a couple feathers out of his eyesockets. “So uh. Know how to write with a quill?”

“I know four people who can, not counting myself.” Edelweiss shrugged, taking the biggest feather. He guessed he owed Izanagi an apology gift. Why were their Gasters like this?

In Leo’s absence, Aster had managed to snag Ink in his hold, but unlike his brother, the artist was content with his fate. Gaster sat next to them and crossed one leg over the other.

“May I have your attention, Ink?” “Of course!” Ink sat up a little straighter, watching as Gaster took off his top hat and pulled out folded fabric. The ringmaster straightened it out, then turned it to a shade of brown and started adjusting the color to something more faded. Ink leaned in closer to watch Gaster work, always fascinated with his mode of creation, even for the little things. “I wanted to know if you remembered anything before you arrived here with Error.” “Ah…,” The artist’s face fell, “I’ve been asking myself the same question, but I don’t really recall anything… sorry.” “Mm.” Gaster nodded, “I figured as much, but didn’t want to question your companion. Aster already tried with little results.” “Eeegh… yeah, that’s Error for ya!” Ink replied. “Is there anything we can do for you? It’s no secret you have a limited supply of paints. I’ve already made a few trips to the Doodlesphere and back–”

Ink nodded along, his face twisting with dull emotion, but enough for it to be obvious he wasn’t exactly pleased. The artist sighed, and Aster patted their head. “The creators have been gone for a while… I thought maybe everyone was taking a break, but it got too long and– someone came in and destroyed as many AUs as they could reach. I don’t… Error and I have been doing what we can to keep the remaining ones safe. I even brought their papers with me just in case they went back for more, but… I don’t know what else to do. I thought you and dad would help.” Aster and Gaster exchanged an understanding glance. Gaster breathed in, but Aster cut him off.

“I don’t know what we can do for the other universes, but maybe we can help you with your paints? We already made a few attempts, but they didn’t do anything to wake you until Edelweiss came along.”

Ink frowned, deep in thought. “It doesn’t work that way, I don’t think… My paints are created through, well, creation, and seeing how there hasn’t been much for a while, I uh– eheheh… I’m not sure if you can make the paints by yourselves. That’s the only process to it as far as I remember. Wait–” He then sat up a bit to look at Edelweiss. Thinking about Aster’s words he asked, “You got me the paints right?”

Edelweiss nodded.

Ink then asked, “Where did you get them from?”

Edelweiss sighed, “His name iz Sketch, he’s a bit like zou in the vain zat zou both don’t have souls and rely on paints to feel anything. But unlike zou, he refuses to take them. And despite this he doesn’t stop functioning. He only really carried them around because he didn’t want anyone to try to trick him into taking them.”

Ink stared at the soldier. So that bag and those notebooks belonged to this Sketch-person. Wait a minute…

“Wait, can he communicate with the creators too???”

Edelweiss thought about it, “The last time I heard anything about him doing so, he could hear them but never really tried. Mainly observed from a distance. I don’t see why he couldn’t communicate with them. Though I think he can only really hear two of them?”

Only two…

Shit.

Gaster looked down at Ink, “I doubt that would be enough to help recover enough of his medication.”

“Surely your friend knows more creators…” Balloon mumbled.

Weiss cringed at the word ‘friend’, “I can’t even say he knowz those creators. Like I said, he only observes them. Maybe he and Ink can go around looking for some. But I cannot promise anything.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Leo shrugged.

It was a gamble, but Ink had to admit it was better than nothing. Before Ink could say anything he saw Error walking into the room, stretching all the tension he could out of his bones.

“Error!” Ink exclaimed, “Have a nice nap?”

Error nodded, “Mmmhm–” he froze and stared at the soldier. Eyeing the shorter skeleton suspiciously.

“Oh, that’s Edelweiss!” Ink said only for the glitch to suddenly attack the soldier with a flurry of scarlet bones. When the shock wore off, they found the chair was impaled beyond repair, but Weiss was gone.

Weiss was barely able to dodge the attack but was able to make a quick teleport to the other side of the room.

“ERROR, WHAT THE—”

“You IDIOT, that’s the guy who shot Dream!” Error growled, “That Klezmer guy was the one who told us that, remember!?”

Edelweiss didn’t deny it.

—---

Klezmer watched as the multiverse went dark. He hated it. Fact was he hated the darkness of what always appeared to be Death. It was just something that made him shudder. He found his target and yet had to contend with the fact that his target was likely going to kill him if he didn’t find Edelweiss should the worst come to fruition. That was his end of the deal.

If anything were to happen. If he were to find himself nearing Death’s door. If he were to be running out of mana. He needed to find Weiss and just be nothing more than a mouse leading the predator to a different target for his own survival.

It was the worst feeling in the world. But here he was, with the weapons that Edelweiss crafted for him.

Edelweiss had discovered that enough gravity magic could force the arrows to shatter. It was thought only Morabito himself could ever break the arrows and destroy them – powderize them. But no. Edelweiss, being the weapons master he was, found that enough Gravity Magic was the one other factor the arrows had no other choice to give into. It took a lot of mana, but he was able to craft the many weapons they all had been relying on to try to at least incapacitate the abomination that was Nightmare.

But this… this was practically his Magnum Opus. The epitaph to Nightmare… hopefully.

Ribbon-spears woven with Klezmer’s strings coated and woven with strings made of the Positivity Magic Morabito had to make the arrows. He had about twenty, considering that he often had Edelweiss’ help with weaving all of them when they were first developed. But this would allow him to be able to control the weapons without even thinking about it, as always.

He had them all pulled back the same way he had them in his fight against Ink. The rotating strings lending their momentum to the ribbon-spears, all the strings pulled taught just to lend to their soon launch to have a velocity and power that would rival any arrow’s pound-per-square-inch.

Here he stood on a gaster-blaster waiting for the abomination to show itself. He even had a ribbon spear, unfurled and wrapped around his neck like a scarf. He knew that if anything, this was going to be a fight to the death, whether he looked for Edelweiss or not. It wasn’t an exaggeration.

That creature was only against killing because it preferred torture. Calling it a monster was insulting. It was more than a monster, more than any demon Izanagi could ever summon. It was worse than that, and the issue was there weren’t enough words in the English language that could properly describe it.

And Klezmer was suicidal enough to say ‘Fuck it, I’ll fight the damn thing to bide Dream some more time to recover because balance and whatever.’

The moment he spotted the damn creature, Klezmer held back the urge to vomit. He wasn’t sure why. Fear? Maybe. Disgust? Possibly.

A complex mix of emotions that couldn’t even be described due to the fact that he could hear Death’s humming as it observed him and the damn creature, knowing what the outcome would be despite the fact that nothing has happened yet?

Definitely.

That damned song.

Oh Death, won’t you spare me over til’ another year?

That accursed song.

That song it loved so much because it showed its favorite aspect of the living. The unyielding begging to be spared from being taken.

Klezmer summoned the embodiment of his contract: The Lantern. He stared at it. Its faint emerald glow made him feel uneasy. He kept it.

He swore he heard a chuckle.

He took a deep breath and used the spell Edelweiss taught him: Calculation.

With a wave of his hand he was able to see where his target was and all the escape routes it could take. It was as if the Check spell was more advanced. More designed for enhancing lethal spells. The moment it finished…

He fired 18 of the ribbon-spears at his possible murderer.

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