Inkwhumptobertale 2024

Day Eleven

Clock - Seeing Double, Convenience Store, Loneliness, "Leave no trace behind, like you don't even exist." 

Trigger warnings: murder, a corpse, blood, and semi-graphic gore.

Comments are welcome and appreciated! 

Please enjoy!

~~~~~

Tapping his fingers anxiously on the door handle, Dust stared at the frozen goods in the freezer - ice cream, frozen waffles, and pizza rolls, for the most part. Nothing the gang needed - nothing that required his attention. Breathing out a sigh, he closed the freezer door; he couldn't have the store clerk getting suspicious. He'd been sent to a remote convenience store on the side of a barely-traveled road for one purpose: to meet one of Nightmare's associates..and take him out. The associate in question was the puppet ruler of some AU that the gang had once taken control of, put in place by Nightmare to serve Nightmare, and lately, he had been making some decisions that didn't exactly serve Nightmare, landing him on the chopping block. It was uncommon that anyone upset Nightmare enough to warrant being killed, but it happened occasionally, and this was one of those times. Although, killing a puppet ruler in front of a crowd wouldn't do (that could have caused unrest and potential riots); Nightmare preferred to dispose of those types discreetly, leading to the current situation. The target had been invited to "talk about Nightmare's future plans for the AU," and he had been given these coordinates (they weren't suspicious to those who worked with Nightmare - the guy had turned countless normal-looking places into secret meeting places and bunkers all across the multiverse); Dust just had to wait for him. 

Waiting was not Dust's specialty.

Killer was the one who typically took on these types of missions, but he had run into some unfortunate luck with kills recently, and he had gained LV. When one's LV was as high as someone like Killer's, every level-up turned into an agonizing LV spike, and Killer's could last for days. They were rare nowadays, with the amount of EXP he needed between each LV gain, but they existed, and while Killer was out of commission, Dust had to take on the role of assassin. Dust couldn't really blame the guy, though; his own LV gains weren't a cake walk, either.

Dust looked at the clock; it was half past eleven. The "invitation" had requested that the target tried to be here at eleven sharp. The store was open 24-7, but Dust had definitely overstayed his welcome by now; if this took any longer, he'd have to take out the cashier, too.

"Are you gonna buy something?" The cashier asked, from across the store. "This isn't a homeless shelter; I can have you arrested for trespassing!"

Dust didn't grace the question with a reply, but he supposed he could buy himself a few more minutes; Horror would appreciate an extra bag of chips in the house. Man, what he would have given to be home right now - the unemployed solitude was making him antsy. He grabbed a bag of chips - the flavor didn't matter, and he didn't check, since Horror would eat anything - and took them to the counter, silently paying for the snack before returning to his prowl. 

"Seriously?" The cashier wasn't pleased, but that was hardly Dust's problem. 

Fifteen minutes passed, and finally, finally, the target arrived, entering the store. It was an adult Asriel, a type that Nightmare didn't typically use as a puppet ruler, but there were exceptions - this specific exception had clearly been a mistake.

"You're late." Dust commented.

"Hope I didn't keep his majesty waiting." The target rolled his eyes. "What's the purpose of this meeting? I have work to get to."

Dust pulled out a universe-altering device - a tool that only Nightmare's most trusted received, and only to use in their work - and pressed a button on it, blocking portal travel to and from this specific world. The Asriel recognized it, obviously, and his eyes went wide.

"W-wait, what are you doing?" The target backed away a couple steps.

"Hold still, and I'll make it quick." Dust summoned a bone attack.

"H-hey, what's going on, here?!" The cashier panicked, and Dust regrettably (not) had to impale the poor human with his bone attack.

"What did I do?!" The target asked, shaking in fear.

"You upset the boss." Dust let out a sigh and summoned a barrage of bones. "Don't fight back; it will only make your journey to the afterlife longer and more painful."

The target did not heed Dust's advice, and a short brawl broke out in the store, but there was no chance for the target; he was dusted and done with inside a minute's time. With him out of the way, Dust only had his least favorite part of the job left: clean-up. Nightmare insisted that missions such as these were quiet and unnoticeable by the time people could stumble upon the scene of the crime. The cashier would be dead, yes, but that human had been a necessary casualty..and annoying. Dust enabled portal travel in this world once more before he scooped up the target's remains and sent them off into some obscure AU - the traditional rites would be ignored in favor of subtlety. Once the dust was gone, Dust's eyelights shifted over to the dead store clerk, and he let out a groan; he hated cleaning up humans. At least he had destroyed the security cameras before entering; maybe he could set this up as some sort of freak accident to hide his presence here.

Dust stared at the corpse for a while, trying to figure out what would work; the human had a giant hole in its chest..not exactly easy to frame as an accident. Perhaps he should have used a different method to send it off; if he'd used a different construct that didn't pierce flesh as much, he could have set it up as a hit and run, but he hadn't. He had little space to work with, here; his best bet was to throw the corpse into a random Horrortale, type up a letter that implied the human's desperate wish to run away from its life, and leave it at that. That was his plan, then. Once the body was disposed of, Dust set to work cleaning the blood off the walls and floor, and he did his best to obscure the damage done in the small fight with the target with spray paint and tactical realignment of the store's shelves - he hadn't spent all that time staring at the shelving just to not know what it had looked like moments prior.

That was the blood, dust, and battle scars..now, all he needed was that letter, and that was easily done. He used the store's computer in the back to type out a vague letter, and he printed it out on the store's printer. After setting the paper on the front counter, he flipped the store's open sign and portaled home. 

All in a hard day's work.