Avid Adopter

42 - Relax

My boys had been rescued from their recent capture a couple days ago, and they were still heavily injured..but the multiverse didn't offer vacation time. Despite their wounds, they still had to accompany me to set the balance straight, and today was a work day. We spent a few minutes ensuring that their injuries wouldn't cause any problems while fighting, but soon enough, we had to go. A portal was made to an easier AU to handle, and we entered it. Before my boys ran off, I had enough time to tell them to stay safe before engaging in battle with one of the locals; I hoped this run would go smoothly. I watched as my boys battled their respective opponents, with Killer and Horror fighting some of the older inhabitants and Dust and Cross attacking the younger ones. As for myself, I handled the guardsmen and waited for the judge to arrive to make battle; my boys weren't capable of fighting a judge and winning. So, one victim at a time, we managed to make the inhabitants of this AU very negative, and we moved to the next before our enemies could show up. Our routine began again, and we commenced another battle.

Despite everything, my sons were keeping their usual pace; their injuries didn't seem to bother them too much as they attacked and occasionally killed some of the inhabitants of this AU. Then our adversaries showed up. The inhabitants fled when they realized that our collective attention was somewhere else, and the trio before us stood firm.

"Nightmare!" Ink shouted, since he was always leading these confrontations, whether we wanted him to or not. "Stop terrorizing this AU!"

"Hm.." I tested the negativity of the AU, finding that it was about as negative as possible, but the balance was still not steady. "Okay. Boys, next AU."

"That's not what I meant!" 

I opened a portal to the next AU we had to work in. "I get it; you're just trying to be helpful. Thank you for your assistance; I look forward to working with you again."

"Nightmare!"

My sons and I went through the portal quickly, dodging a quick paint attack, and resumed our work immediately, not knowing how much time we had before our enemies found us in this AU.  The multiverse was large, but it was not infinite, as I had told my boys multiple times. If one was to hide in an AU, and if their searchers were intent on finding them, they would likely be found. Truly, the only ways to hide were either to have powerful enough magic to conceal an AU or to ask Ink to create a hidden AU for one to hide in. He was able to keep secrets, especially with his ability to forget anything that wasn't important; he had been working on that, however..he somehow remembered everything about my sons..that was intimidating. We managed to move undetected for twenty minutes before the trio came to face us again, looking rather tired from their search. As before, Ink stepped forward, and the inhabitants took their chance to run.

"Nightmare, stop terrorizing AUs!" Ink adjusted his previous mistake by including every AU in his phrasing. 

"I'm afraid that's simply impossible." I shrugged. 

"What kind of a sicko are you, anyway?! Forcing your prisoners to do battle after they've been injured?"

"Injured by your doing. If you honestly cared that they were children, you wouldn't have hurt them; what kind of a Protector are you?"

"What do you mean hurt?" Dream looked at Ink worriedly; he obviously hadn't been privy to the events of the previous couple days.

"He's lying, Dream; I would never hurt a child!" Ink was lying.