Collateral Damage

Council Endeavors

A white boned, greasy looking skeleton marched his way up a particularly unpleasant flight of stairs.

He was slightly on the shorter side, and covered head to toe with inky smudges.

"Damn, I'm going to be late- should've skipped HELPtale-"

He scrambled to scribble down on his dirtied brown scarf.

Finally the neverending flight of stairs ended and he found himself running down the carpeted hallway.

"Crap! Crap! Crap-sicle!"

Dramatically the inky skeleton burst through the door of "The Judge".

"Ink!" A skeleton with a golden tiara approached him with a gentle demeanor.

"Did I make it?"

"Right on time, Guardian. With two seconds to spare. I think that might be a record."

A familiar voice. Similar to Classic's monotonous joking, but far deeper. Far darker. It came from just beyond a dark shadow, where two burning cyan eyelights peered down at him condescendingly.

"The Judge" was the only name Ink knew of the distorted Sans. But more importantly he knew that he controlled absolutely everything.

Ink shivered, leaning into his tiara'd friend for support.

He'd remembered the last time he was late. It was unpleasant.

"With that I think we're ready to start."

Looking around the room Ink could see the majority of the Council.

The DreamTale brothers, though on opposing ends this time. Two out of four of The Nightmares. Swap, Fell, and Classic. Even Reaper, who rarely show up.

Looking even closer Ink could see, slightly in the shadows was Geno, just behind his husband. Geno wasn't a Council member, actually he was a jury member, which made his presence all the more strange.

All except the destroyer of worlds. Again.

"You may start, Sans."

All heads turned, but only one responded.

"Today we are here to discuss the Varis R9 epidemic, instance thirteen, sector 125."

"Varis? I'm unfamiliar." The guardian noted looking through his scarf, and finding no trace of a "Varis R9" or any epidemic for that matter.

"Blue, could you hand Ink the packet, please."

Swiftly the shortest skeleton in the room searched through an unrealistically long filing cabinet, and with rather impressive timing found the packet of information. Just as swiftly he waltzed to the guardian, packet in hand, and offered it to him.

All without a word.

Ink couldn't imagine such a thing for the smaller skeleton just over a decade ago.

"Thank you."

Reading through the packet, Ink became increasingly confused.

"There are only thirteen instances? Hardly an epidemic."

"Not technically, no." Classic responded, rather professionally to add, no jovial hints of a pun for miles.

Ink continued to read the contents of the R9 "epidemic".

"Excuse me if I speak out of terms, but this hardly seems like a Council matter."

"The Judge" shifted forward in his position, now half his face was visible from the shadowy darkness.