Shades of Time

Chapter Five: Two Fates

So, finally two Goths meet. This was suppose to be one chapter, Snow almost murdered us when we passed it onto her to edit. Enjoy Searcher from 'Child of Death, Destroyer of Worlds' by @ChaosDancer12 and my Goth 'Shades' from 'Shades of Time'

To Shades's relief, the private area was empty. It was a small room created by intersecting bookcases, and there were two comfy couches, a plant that seemed to be glowing, a pair of dark desks, and what looked like a door, carved with intricate flowers.

He waved his counterpart in, then closed the door with a click.

The room grew very quiet, and the flowers engraved on the door were now glowing, showing the privacy magic in the room was in effect.

"I hadn't known there were places like this here," Searcher said with interest, taking a seat.

Shades gave a wry grin. "I discovered it one day, when an Ink kept bothering me. First time I ever saw an admin kick someone out," he replied, taking a spot for himself.

"Fun, now tell me the background on your Ink's soul and I'll tell you what I know of mine," Searcher asked.

"Seems fair," Shades said to the other destroyer, and began to tell what he knew. While his Fate wasn't evil like Searcher's, the voices in the Anti-Void had told... stories.

Falling in love wasn't something he could see Ink doing.

At least not now that he was soulless.

Searcher leaned back in his seat and he began his story.

"I only really figured out that something was wrong when I saw some other Sans on a dare, drink some of Ink's paints, now, you would expect them to experience similar reactions to Ink, right? Well, they didn't. One drank the pink paint and he was worse than Lust, another drank the blue paint, causing himself to fall into depression and Dust himself, and the last one drank the yellow paint, got hyper, and trashed the place."

"Rather extreme reactions, my Ink's paints only have reactions on himself," Shades said frowning.

"Yes, but what if the paints were created using Ink's Soul as a baseline? And the extreme reactions are a defense, to make sure that only Ink would drink the paint, because he would be the only one to survive?"

"Not good at all, your Multiverse is... very dark compared to my own," Shades said, it was like his Multiverse was a happy reflection on it.

"That may be because of our Fates, I don't remember her much but I remember the one time that Dad complained about her, she was not happy that he had overruled her on something... I don't know what it was but she harassed him for quite some time."

"Your Fate is not neutral? My dad told me that was the most important thing beings such as Fate had to be as they must have balance, even if they must do great evil to keep the multiverse moving. It's why admins are able to move so freely, to make sure all stories are told, I just wish I had a larger god locally that worked with the Admins as they could help me look for Ink's Soul or help me locate this so called 'False Love' that caused the issue," Shades said unhappily.

"I didn't know that." Searcher said. "And if what you say is true, my Fate must be breaking a lot of laws. It may be enough for my Dad to do something to remind Fate why she should be neutral. I don't actually know why Ink lost his Soul, but I do know that I was a last minute addition to a completed puzzle. My main theory is that this is the second chance for my Multiverse, Ink must have overfilled and overcrowded it the first time, and Fate didn't like any of the plans that he had to stop it from happening again. She must have blocked off the memory, causing him to have Swiss cheese for a memory and removed his Soul so that, if he did remember, she still had a way to control him."

"That's just messed up, just not right. Now I wish you had someone on your side to help, as Fate is a Deity and not actually that high in the totem pole of cosmic power." Shades said, tapping his chin.

"What's weird is that our multiverses both came from the same core code, we shouldn't have this many differences. A broken fate compared to a neutral fate, both Inks' souls were stolen... but the reason for them is different. Can you check something for me, about the 'false lover'... can you see if any codes from your multiverse ever visited mine? I think someone is playing games," Shades whispered.

(Snow, one of the admins, snickers in a hidden part of the bookshelf, where she is curled with her Nintendo Switch, although the wards on her hiding place keep them from hearing. She finds the fact that she is literally playing games hilarious.)

Searcher froze when Shades mentioned that someone was playing games before he checked their codes, side by side. They were identical, up to a certain point, where they spill off from each other, before they continued down different paths.

Searcher stared at the split point. "Holy bleep..." He mumbled. "I found where our timelines split, you mentioned a false lover, right?"

"Yes, Ink fell in love, and they ripped out his soul. Ink only survived because, well, he's Ink," Shades said, pulling up his own multiverse's codes. He poked about until he found the codes of that moment, showing the other, as he knew that Searcher would be able to read it, unlike others.

"My Ink listened to Fate, and he ended it..." Searcher whispered, showing Shades the code of that moment. "That is where our timeline splits. Ink ended the game, he won... And I guess that someone didn't like that..."