CreaseTale 0.3 (ErrorInk ~ Undertale AU)

Rebooted

It was all going wrong.

Fizz could feel himself descending into darkness as Error's strings crushed his soul. His control came back, and he could feel himself again. The skeleton's eyes widened in terror, but he was already blind. There was... everything was black. Shadows pressed into him, like he was blindfolded.

"Stop!" Fizz screamed. "You're gonna kill Cure!"

It was true. Their souls were too closely bonded; if one died, so would the other. Fizz didn't really care about himself, but if Cure died... how would the others ever survive? None of these skeletons deserved to die. Apart from Error maybe.

He gasped for breath, but the air was tight and heavy. He could hardly suck enough in. Fizz's spike-tipped tail swung back and forth, and he clawed at his throat trying to remove the invisible hands that were choking him.

Error looked down at Fizz sullenly. He didn't really care about this 'Cure', but... could Fizz be fixed? Would Ink care?

He could give Fizz a painless death. A fast one. Just pull harder on the string; that was all he had to do. But... he couldn't. And a slow death was even worse; how could he do that? The dying skeleton writhed on the ground, giving up on trying to convince Error to spare him.

Once again, Error was left with two options: Mercy or Fight.

"Please stop..."

...

While Fizz and Error were battling, someone had slipped away into the control room.

Tangled wires hung from the ceiling, dangling and draping over all of his equipment. The walls were thick and concrete, a boring grey just like everything else in that world. The Anti-Void. The place between AUs.

He crawled over to the master computer. This was one hell of a computer, it's screen as large as a TV with a semi-circle keyboard and two massive monitors behind. It sat, ugly and bulky and boring, on a plain white desk made out of plastic. How the desk could hold such a monster was a mystery.

The room was cramped and tiny, with cardboard boxes stacked against the walls, swaying and tilting like they were going to topple over. There were wooden shelves, holding so many books that they were beginning to lean towards the ground. The only exit and entrance was a single door opposite the computer, painted grey to match the walls. A mess of codes and wires was all you could see if you looked up; copper, yellow, grey and black lines ascending into shadows, green numbers that flickered and flashed, mostly 0 and 1.

There were no seats, so he stood behind the computer, completing the intense security program before changing the codes. His foot tapped impatiently on the carpeted floor.

{ACTIVATE PROTOCOL #13 "CALLOUT MEETING"? Y/N}

{ACTIVATING PROTOCOL #13 +CANCEL?+}

{PROTOCOL #13 ACTIVATED}

...

Ink's eyes travelled towards the heavens. Instead of the murky, smoky sky that had settled over them before, the entire place was white. Even the floor had turned to the colour of snow or paper.

A few seconds of whiteness and silence, only broken by Cure's horrifying whimpering. Whatever was happening to his soul had delayed, pausing at least for now. Swap was on his knees, rubbing Cure's back, trying to help. Not that there was anything he could do.

The system rebooted.

Everything came back.

The smoky sky above them, the dusty ground below. Grey instead of white. However, there was something else as well. Before them was a strange building, large and dull, made of concrete and stone. Outside the building stood four figures.

Swap!Sans, Cure and Ink stared at the four others, confused and nervous. Cure was still trembling on the ground, and Swap was wringing his hands wearily.

At that instant, Ink recognised one of the figures.

Error came sprinting towards them. "WHAT THE HELL–" he screamed, but Ink noticed his cheekbones were wet and glistening.

"Error," Ink breathed. There was no emotion in his tone, and he sounded almost bored. Swap bounded forward, smiling sadly as he hugged Error, who had stopped in front of the others. Blue strings trailed from his fingers.

Cure stared at something in the distance. "Fizz?"

The glitching skeleton thrust himself forward, muttering something that sounded like: "Oh dammit." He wrapped his arms around Ink, breathing heavily, staring at the ground. He was clearly irritated and frustrated with himself, but his cheekbones were a bright yellow. Ink didn't say anything as he put his arms around Error, returning the hug, even though he felt nothing and nobody was compelling him to. He just wanted to.

The poof-poof-poof of footsteps sending plumes of dust into the air alerted the group of another skeleton. Error, who had buried his face in his scarf after drawing back sheepishly from Ink, watched his friend closely as he joined them.

Nightmare. Freed from his cell, the cursed skeleton reached the group, a look that could kill settled on his face.

"We gotta get outta here," he snarled.

"WELL OBVI–" Cure broke off, shooting Error a half-pained, half-excuse-me-what-the-heck look. "Hey, what are those strings?"

Error glanced down at the blue strings trailing from his fingertips the way someone would look at a foriegn object that they had randomly managed to acquire. He hadn't even noticed them until now. "Uh..."

"Are they... are they connected to Fizz's soul?" Underswap Sans demanded.

"Maybe?"

"TAKE THEM OFF!"

"He was trying to kill me!" Error protested. "He's workin' for Nightmare's boss!"

Nightmare shot Error an unimpressed glare. "I'm resigning."

"Please, you're gonna kill both me and Fizz," Cure begged, opening his palm to reveal his splintered, fractured soul. It flickered, threatening to go out completely. Already, small fractions of Cure were beginning to break off and disappear. He was already turning to dust.

Error twitched back a little, and he winced for a millisecond. But then that familiar sly, unamused smirk came back, and Ink wondered if he'd imagined it. Error sighed and shook his hand out. The strings dispersed.

Cure gasped for breath. "Thank you..." he waited a few seconds so that he could recover, then sprang to his feet and swung a fist as fast as lightning. It struck Error on the rib and sent him staggering backwards.

"OI!" Error yelled in fury, regaining his balance and taking a dangerous step forward. He loomed intimidatingly over Cure, who glared back at him. Error was a bit taller than him.

"Fight, fight, fight!" Nightmare chanted, clapping his hands like a kid.

It was Swap who pushed them apart. "Guys, now isn't the time for fighting. We have to escape,"

Cure nodded, sighing as he withdrew. He summoned his soul, holding out his palm for it to float above. His pupils turned electric green and the fragments of soul pieced back together, glowing emerald as they healed.

Swap's eyes were starry as he admired Cure's skills. "Cool!"

Ink rolled his eyes. He hadn't said a single thing during the ordeal.