Dysfunction to Refunction

Chapter 4

Nightmare stopped to think. Why would he care if Cross was here? Alone? In the antivoid… Well, balance was tipping pretty badly with only 2 people destroying, 2 protecting, and 1 creator. The odds weren't in his or Error's favours. Maybe recruiting more destroyers could be useful… He turns to the sitting skeleton.

"I heard you had training before your AU was erased…?"

"Y-Yeah… I did…"

"What can you do?"

"I was trained for a number of things like, uhm, spying, close and long range fighting, and evasion."

"Hmm… Any experience with torture and intel gathering?"

"Moderately…?" Cross sweats.

"Good enough. Fine. You're  coming with me, then."

Cross looked at Nightmare with hopeful eyes, stumbling to his feet and following him.

"You mean it?!"

A portal opens and Nightmare looks back at him with a devilish smirk.

"Sure. Why not?"

A trip through the portal lead them to a version of Chesstale. Chesstale-55, to be exact. Cross was wide-eyed, looking around with wonder.

"Where are we?"

"Chesstale… And your first assignment."

Cross was slightly alarmed. So soon?! He'd expected at least a little down time before he had to do anything.

"What's the assignment?"

"It's so simple that even an infant could do it: Kill everyone."

"K-kill everyone?!"

"What? You didn't think my job was to tickle everyone into nonexistence, did you? Go."

Worried that Nightmare would put him back in the antivoid if he refused he hesitantly ran off, his knife drawn and glinting in the artificial light of the underground. Cross was trained as an assassin, yes, but he had never killed anyone before! Nor did he really want to. Despite not really caring about much after the whole thing with the entirety of his friends and family turning on him… no matter. He had a job to do. He owed Nightmare for getting him out of that hellhole of an antivoid.

A whimsun and a froggit were loitering around the corner and froze when they saw the skeleton, specifically his large deadly weapon. With little dread for the creatures, he threw his knife at the froggit, instantly dusting it. He dashed forward to grab it back before the whimsun could flee any farther. Gripping the hilt, he dashed after the whimsun. It had flown pretty far despite its small size and desperately tried to find a Guard.

Too late it seems as Cross stabbed through their sheet ghost-like body, dust floating away. Two down, a few thousand to go. Why did Nightmare leave him to ALL of them??? How exhausting. Thankfully, that was what his stamina exercises were for. Soon enough, half the population of Chesstale was eradicated in the next hour. Far quicker than most monsters and humans recorded. Granted, he was the only person recorded in the first place. It impressed Nightmare regardless.

He couldn't have asked for a better assassin to be part of his team than Cross. And if loyalty eventually became an issue, the millions of monsters' dust and human blood on his hands to… persuade the skeleton. Blackmailing wasn't a big deal. What he was doing was for the good of the whole multiverse. The ends justify the means. Even if it meant keeping killers at gunpoint so to speak.

"P-Please! Don't kill my kids h-ack!!" The monster's head was sliced off and the children were killed right after. The wife must have been somewhere else or already killed.

"Really, Cross? Shameless enough to kill kids now?"

"You know I have no choice."

"Bull. You have all the choices. Leave. Hide. Run away. You're doing this on your own accord."

"So what if I am?"

A screaming monster was cornered and dusted.

"I thought you weren't the insane murdery type?"

"That part of me died with the rest of my miserable world. What else is there to live for? Another painful visit from Ink? Sitting around in an endless empty void? Yeah, I'd rather kill for Nightmare."

"Wow. Look how far you've fallen, a**hole."

"Shut up. I don't need you to distract me."

Papyrus attacked him but was ultimately useless against his blade. A sad 'nyeh' seemed to echo around. No doubt the Sans of the AU would arrive shortly. He made haste to finish up the last few monsters: Sans, Asgore, and Flowey.

"I hate fighting boss monsters…"

"Because you suck at fighting?"

"No! I just don't like the withering looks they give me…"

"Well, you did kill everyone. You kinda deserve it."

"I thought you were on my side?"

"I'm on my own side, idiot."