Misery Loves Company

Cross?

You freeze in your seat as your group looks at you, “what do you mean a weird dream?” Dream repeats and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him this serious.

Dream’s hands are on your shoulders in an instant and keep you from teleporting away, you avoid his gaze, looking at the suddenly very interesting floor. “nightmare” Dream says, a warning tone being used making your eyelight snap up to his stern face.

Your tendrils twitch in irritation and your boys seem to lean back for a moment, waiting for something.

You manage to swallow your pride and reluctantly tell Dream, “someone was invading my nightmare last night”, Dream’s sockets grow wide, “wait, for real?” he asks in disbelief.

You nod, “i’m pretty sure it was a dream version from another multiverse” you inform, Dream’s own browbones furrowing. Confusion and worry is wafting off your boys with a presence that is almost too much for you, your vision blurring slightly in dizziness.

Dream notices and turns to the boys, explaining what was happening according to his understanding.

“so, someone’s stalking boss?” the ever so quiet Dust inquires, pulling at Horror’s hand that had begun to reach towards his head wound. “yes” you answer, now relieved of the overpowering negativity, “and they’re very powerful” you say.

Dream and the others turn to you once more, “what makes you say that?” Dream questions. “one, they could invade my, the king of negativity’s, nightmare. that would require a lot of raw power to just withstand the amount of negativity, and two, they radited positive feelings like a fucking furnace, even producing such heat that could rival the sun” you say, grimacing.

Dream looks at you worriedly, “what?” you ask, confused at the new found worry. “did it hurt?” he asks and you pause, “what?...”, you didn’t think he’d ask or even know that positivity could harm you. “i asked you if the positivity hurt you”, you sigh, “yeah”, you slump in your place, allowing the smart ones that you surround yourself with to figure out what that means.

“Means…..physically…..close...to boss?” Horror pipes up, and you nod, “i have no clue as to what they would even want of me” you say. You look up and frown, noticing something you normally would have before, if you weren’t so out of it.

“where’s cross?” you say, looking at your men who also begin to look around the room. “i don’t think he was at breakfast, boss” Dust murmurs, glaring at the air beside him, no doubt his phantom brother floating there. Your frown deepens, a bit of worry wiggling its way into your soul.

Even if he wasn’t going to eat, he would attend, they all would. It was the only way you could make sure of their attendance and make sure they weren’t hurt or captured. Thus when a mission was given, everyone was to be back by meal time, even if they had to pause or even fail the assignment given.

On top of that, Cross was always last to leave.

You gather your mind and spread your aura, using intense focus in order to spread it so far away from your soul, closing your socket in an effort to not distract yourself with what’s going on in front of you. You spread it until the edge of the forest that surrounds the castle, the dead tree of feelings being in the village just beyond the forest.

...Nothing…

No sign of Cross’ soul outside or inside for as far as the forest, you frown as you open your socket, eyelight glowing brightly in rage and worry. Furious at whomever would dare take off with one of your people or if he’d left on his own, at his abrupt trip. But worried for his safety, whether he’d been taken or left of his own accord.

“he’s not in the vicinity of the castle grounds, must be even further than the stretch of the trees” you explain calmly, even though your soul is wiggling in your chest. Everyone pauses, Horror and Dust staying quiet but communicating to each other through their eyes, Dream also spreading out his aura through the grounds, and Killer stopping with the flipping of his knife, growling lowly.

“night’s right, he’s not anywhere on the grounds, we could check the village?” Dream suggests and you agree, maybe a bit too eagerly with the way Killer smirks at you with amusement. You glare at him and open a portal to the tree, shorting the time of the walk by a good three hours at least.

You look over the village, scanning it as your aura searches alongside Dream’s. The results disappoint you, ending up the same as before, nothing.

Where could he be?

You growl, frustrated as your tendrils lash out at the ground, plunging themselves deep into the ground causing fear and surprise to radiate from the group around you. Your eyelight glows brighter as your LV surges up, making you more volatile.

You hiss as you open multiple portals, “search the aus!! don’t return until you find a clue or if it’s very necessary!” you order, getting multiple noises of affirmation as they jump through the varying portals.

You jump through one as well, landing in the AU known as Martiantale, where all monsters are instead called Martians and live on Mars, the humans being astronauts.

Looking all around, you find only one sign of Cross, his scarf.

The one he treats like a precious treasure.

It’s torn and slightly burned, telling you that he struggled and you contact your group in order to relay this information, picking up the slightly tattered scarf and tucking it inside your inventory with care.

You frown, looking around, noticing how far the area is from where the humans and monsters usually are. Another clue to it being a kidnapping instead of voluntary, your mind instantly went to Ink as a main suspect, growling as you open a portal to the Doodlespheare that you can apparently access.