CRIMINAL AMNESIAC

CHAPTER 9: GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, MAN!

Horror was stuck with the duty of teaching Dream how to use non-magic weapons.

Nightmare didn't want Dream to use his old magic attacks (for... quite obvious reasons given how the positive energy Dream gave off merely by existing already bugged him). Instead, he'd be using... a sword of all things.

A non-magic sword.

It was simple: Steel blade, dark gray grip, black cross-guard and pommel.

However, even before fight-training began, some difficulties were already encountered.

"Don't I have magic too?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"Tell me how to use that then!! What can I do??"

"L-Look, uh, I-I've... uh, never seen you use it before, um, so-"

"What do you mean??"

"Y-You never used your magic around us before, um, yeah, just stuff like this..."

"Why though??"

"Well, I don't know! Don't ask me!"

"Fine, whatever. But why can't I use something cool instead? Like a hammer??"

"...a hammer?... why one of those things? They're way too small!!"

"Ugh, whatever, you wouldn't get it..."

Dream crossed his arms, disappointed. He just wanted to be like his favorite character from that video game.

Horror was just relieved that Dream believed him about the magic.

"Alright, so, just whack the training dummy a couple times. I don't know. Usually we don't have to do combat training."

It was the typical type of training dummy you'd find in most AUs (like the one in the Ruins in Undertale)... apart from how this one was not possessed, at least not to anyone's knowledge.

They really only had it to practice new strategies on, and that was rare of them to do.

After about a minute of preparation, Dream proceeded to cleanly slice the dummy's head off,

It wasn't as if he were inexperienced in combat, though Horror was still shocked that he managed to adapt so easily.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, the remaining two Star Sanses were still struggling to get back on their feet. Ink seemed to especially be panicking. Every day, he'd get paranoid about what this could mean for the rest of the multiverse.

"Wh-What happens if they attempt to destroy an AU with Error!?! H-How are we supposed to stop them if that happens!?! And what if they get you or me too!?! The multiverse is doomed!!-"

"C-Calm down, Ink!! Pull yourself together!! W-We just have to, um... recruit new members?? At the very least until we can get Dream back!! Besides, Error doesn't work with anyone anyway so they're probably not gonna team up!! Right?!"

"What makes you think he's even gonna want to come back?!"

"W-Well, he used to be with us, so there's gotta be something we have that they don't or something?!?"

"It's no use, Blue!! He doesn't want to be with us anymore!! I even talked to Fell yesterday and he told me something about someone who looked like Dream pranking him with Dust!! H-He actually likes them!! A-And everyone else seems to think we're always just fine handling stuff, I haven't seen anyone else who's brave enough to tackle universe-destroying threats, and no one can take on Nightmare anyway!! Th-Th-The multiverse is going to suffer for this, we can't keep it going, THE END IS-"

Blue slapped Ink in the face.

"I TOLD YOU TO SNAP OUT OF IT!!! We'll get through this, I know we will!!"

Ink tried to take a couple deep breaths, though they didn't do much to calm him down.

"O-Ok..."