Lost Soul

Chapter Twenty-Four

When Soul comes to, he quickly realizes that he doesn't know where he is. Soul should be familiar with every AU by now. It's nearly impossible that he could have missed one given how long he's been at it. Weirder yet is the fact that Soul is pretty sure he was just in a heated battle with the two Balance Keepers. What was he.........? Ink. Soul just jumped into Ink.

"What's happening?" Soul asks out loud. He looks down at himself to find the same plain bones and blank clothes that he wore in the Dreamscape. This is definitely not Ink. Where is he?

The ground shutters. Soul stumbles and tries to keep his balance at the AU shakes around him. Something is very familiar about quakes like these. Soul takes a few steps forwards, and before he knows it, he's running towards the source of all the commotion. A few monsters are screaming as they run past Soul in the opposite direction. They take little interest in him, and one monster nearly bumps into him. The AU shudders again, and part of the sky seems to deteriorate. Soul only knows one monster who can do that kind of damage.

"Error! You're here-" Soul shouts as he rounds the corner, but his voice quickly dies out. That monster has to Error, surly, but he doesn't look like the Error that Soul is familiar with.

The tall monster stares off with a certain detached expression on his face. He has dark black bones, but none of the red or yellow ones that Soul is familiar with. Even Error's blue tears have now been changed to white. The white lines trail all the way down his neck and creep along his arms like swirling vines. Error's outfit is also very strange. He's unrecognizable, but Soul is still sure that it's Error.

"Error?" Soul asks again.

The black boned monster stands up a little straighter and walks forwards. Soul doesn't move when Error gets closer, expecting him to say something, but Error remains silent and walks straight through Soul. Soul gasp in shock and clutches his chest. Error doesn't notice him at all. The Destroyer lets strings grow off his fingers and wrap around a building, crushing the code and continuing the destruction of the AU.

Soul is invisible to Error. How could that be? Soul wracks his brain to try and come up with an explanation, reviewing over everything he remembers before appearing here. The answer comes to him abruptly: none of this is real. Soul did successfully jump into Ink. This is a memory. Soul has never before been so overwhelmed by a memory that he's practically trapped by it. Soul currently has no perception of what's going on in the real world. How could this be? Is it because Ink is a God? Soulless? For all he knows, Soul could actually be stuck here while Ink is still in control. Soul wasn't able to take over Cross, either.

Error is still destroying the AU. As Soul watches, he notices that Error is kind of...... slow. Error seems to be a little unsure of what he's doing. His strings occasionally fail to grab something properly. Sets of codes aren't completely destroyed the first time, and Error has to go back over them. He's not very good at it. Inexperienced.

A strange sound makes Soul turn around. A portal has opened up behind him. It looks strangely generic and lacks thought. The monster that drops out is instantly familiar to Soul. The monster's white bones are decorated in black vine-like patterns. Instead of a paintbrush, a short double-sided spear is strapped across their back. Ink looks incredibly plain wearing only a few bland colors. When Soul looks between Error and Ink, it's obvious that their appearances are exact inverses of the other. They even have the same height and build with eerily similar faces.

Ink takes a moment to get his bearings before realizing what is happening. The AU is half way destroyed at this point. "Hey! What are you doing!?" Ink shouts. He runs at Error.

The Error that Soul knows is nearly expressionless. The few moods that he does seem to show are anger and annoyance. Nothing gets to him. The Error in this memory seems to panic when he sees Ink running at him. Error doesn't shift to fight like Soul expects, but tries to run. Error's face is full of surprise and fear as he tries to get away. The normally sure-footed destroyer trips over some ruble after only a few steps and goes sprawling onto the ground. He sits up only to come face to face with Ink. This is the point at which a brutal fight should break out. Error was clearly destroying one of Ink's precious AUs. Soul expects Ink to retaliate, but it never happens. The two beings stare quietly at one another.