Nightmare's Little Brothers [ShatteredDreammare Story]

An Old Friend

Dream's theme is so bad ass for some reason, and I am all for it 🙌

[Torture warning. And slight trigger warning]
  

   Sunrise.
   That's all the time Nightmare needed to get his team and Error in on Dream's plan.
   And before the sun rose on the horizon of the abandoned Dreamtale that Shattered once called home, Nightmare, Dream, Killer, Dust, Horror, Cross, XChara, and finally Error all arrived infront of the abandoned castle, while Shattered himself stayed behind to keep watch of Dream.

   "Surround the castle, Shattered's Ink must be in here somewhere." Nightmare ordered his team, and at that the four split off to keep watch of all entrances and exits of the castle in case Ink ever tried to run. Good thing thay already knew the layout of the old castle even with it being destroyed.
   Dream, Nightmare, and Error walk up to the main entrance of the castle, finding something unexpected.
   A pile of paintbrushes of various sizes lay at the front door of the castle. Ink's brushes. As well as big yellow lettering on the doors that read "Meet you at the top ☆"

   "Error?" Nightmare asked.
   "They're not our Ink's paintbrushes. The markings are different." Because apparently Error pays that close attention to his friend's paintbrushes, "And their code is different from our world... They must be Shattered-Ink's paintbrushes." Error explained.

   "Why would he trap himself like that? If all of them are here then he can't open a portal to escape." Dream thought outloud as he looked at how some of the brushes and pencils were snapped to pieces, even his comically sized paintbrush was sitting in the pile with it's bristles wrecked.
   "If he did trap himself then good, he can't run. Still, we need be careful if it's just supposed to throw us off... Stick to the plan for now. Error, go find our Ink, he won't necessarily be here in the castle." Nightmare shooed Error away as we walked past the paintbrushes and pushed past the door.
   Dream read the words on the door again as if he would find some encrypted message in the lettering, but there was nothing but a bittersweet star left on the end of the sentence.

   Dream could remember the first time the three of the Stars got together and came up with their oh so clever little team name. He got a nostalgic feeling as he remembered Blueberry sujest the name to him and Ink. Dream could only imagine that Shattered had a similar conversation with his friends.
   Now look at the three, and how differently their universes turned out. It must have been just the smallest change that could've caused all of this to happen to Shattered's world.

   Dream followed Nightmare into the castle.
   "Where is the tallest tower anyway? If he wants me to meet him at the top, that'll probably be where he is." Dream asked, smiling lightly as he wrapped an arm around Nightmare's, in hopes of at least making his fiance feel better.
   "Fallen down in this rubble. But the next tallest tower is right here." Nightmare answered, he appreciated Dream's smile, but he preferred to focus on keeping his guard up and keeping Dream as safe as possible.

   Nightmare walked up the spiral stairs of the tower first as Dream followed close behind him. The staircase felt more narrow than it actually was no thanks to the occasional holes through the walls of the tower. You would almost think the tower was on the brink of falling over if the wind hit it in the right angle. But the structure stood strong, so long as no more holes were beaten into it that is.

   As they got closer to the top, the two felt an unsettling emptiness waiting for them at the top.
   Normally an Ink would give off a weak aura or even no aura of emotions at all, since Inks didn't have souls, their emotional auras were always unique to other monsters.
   But Dream and Nightmare felt something more than just a lack of emotional aura, they felt nothing at the top of the tower. Like an aura that's void of anything.