Sweetheart (Errorink)

Delightful Detection

Ink's POV

"What's the apple incident?"

Nightmare blinked at me in silence for a few seconds.

"..The what?"

"The apple incident, ya know.. the thing that turned you into.. that goopy mess."

"Oh, that. It's none of your business."

"Why not..? It couldn't have been that bad, right?"

"It doesn't matter whether or not it was bad, I don't have to tell you anything."

Nightmare walked back over to his desk and sat down, picking up his pen and writing down.. stuff, I didn't know what he was writing.

"C'mon! You're so adamant about learning Error's past when he doesn't want you to know about it, so why can't I do the same thing?"

"Oh? Is that what you spoke about with him? Interesting, but I didn't tell you you weren't allowed to pester me about what happened, so you can't use that to excuse your actions."

"Ugh! I just wanna know~! You're so.. mysterious, I barely know a thing about you!"

"That's for the best, I don't want people getting close to me."

"You told Cross about what happened, though."

"That was an accident, I was drunk. It won't happen again and Cross knows if he tells anyone about what I told him there'd be.. serious consequences."

"A punishment? Would he not be allowed to-"

"Death, that's what he'd get. I'd kill him on the spot."

I was taken aback by Nightmare saying that he'd just.. kill Cross right on the spot like that. He had to have been lying, right? Cross is friends with Nightmare.. Nightmare wouldn't just turn on him like that out of nowhere just because he revealed something like that.. right?

"Haha.. uh.. funny joke, Nightmare!"

"Don't convince yourself it's a joke to make yourself feel better, because it's not. If Cross were to ever speak about what I told him he'd immediately suffer the consequences. I don't have any type of emotional attachment to him or anything of the sort, it wouldn't be that difficult."

Nightmare spoke without ever looking up from his paperwork, his facial expression never changed; it was just.. emotionless. Was he doing this on purpose to scare me off? Yeah, that had to be the case, right? He couldn't possibly just have a business type relationship with Cross.. maybe he did beforehand but after years of knowing each other and living in the same home there had to be some sort of connection between them, right?

"You're thinking about how I must have some type of friendship with Cross, right? I used to care about him before I told him what happened, but after the incident I've gotten rid of all attachment I had to him just in case he does reveal what happened. I would rather his death have no effect on me."

"That.. you.."

"You'd understand if you've been through everything that I have, but sadly you have not. I wonder if anyone out there has been through what I have? Betrayal, pain.. all of that stuff. Of course, someone has to have gone through it, but to what degree? Is it the same as mine? Is it less.. or more? I'll never find the answers to these questions no matter how hard I search, so I- ah, I'm rambling. You're probably lost for words, huh? My apologies."

"N-no.. I.. I just.."

"Hah, the look on your face says it all Inky~. You're confused about all of this, I know. I can feel it, the confusion, the tiredness, the sadness.. all of it. It's alright though, I'm used to the rest of the Gang feeling these emotions, so whatever you feel won't phase me. Go ahead, let it all out."

"I.. I don't need to.. I'm just a bit.. confused about all of it, I guess? How the Hell can you go from having a friendship with someone to just.. being able to kill them if they reveal something about you? I don't get it."

"Like I said, you probably wouldn't be able to understand unless you've been through what I have. Is Killer still asleep?"

"You mean unconscious? I dunno, check the CCTV or something."

Nightmare sighed and summoned a screen that had numerous camera feeds on it, so that was how he used the CCTV system. I assumed it was something like a load of computer screens that were always in use, but if it was like this then getting around him was a lot easier than I had suspected.

"He is, that's annoying."

"..Why?"

"I needed him to do a mission. Ah, I know, I'll just send you instead!"

"What?! Cross told me you wouldn't be sending me on anymore missions today!"

"I wasn't planning on it, but since Killer is still unconscious and I need this done today you'll have to do it."

"You can't make me!"

"Of course I can't, but do you really want to refuse?"

"..No, I don't."

"Good boy. I need you to destroy a few AUs, that's all. You can destroy any you want, just make sure five or more of them are gone by tomorrow."

"..So I can just destroy five genocide Underfell timelines?"

"Go ahead, like I said I need at least five AUs gone by tomorrow. It doesn't matter which ones."

"Okay."

I whipped out Broomie and swiftly made a portal to an Underfell genocide timeline and jumped through, landing in Snowdin with ease. Thank God I probably wouldn't have to deal with Dream or Blue this time, or.. well.. I hoped I wouldn't have to deal with them. The fact they could just turn on me with such ease.. it astounded me. They didn't even know if I truly was with Nightmare's Gang or not, they just immediately began to attack me. Although I did turn on them as well, but I had reasons to do so. They were using me for their own benefit, I know that now and I refuse to let it happen again so.. so they're in the wrong here, not me!

Pulling up the source code I deleted everything easily, it was a blessing that Error taught me how to do it like this instead of the 'manual' way. I understand if he wants to enjoy it since well, I 'enjoy' creating stuff so I know how he feels about his job, but geez.. if he did it the 'automatic' way the Multiverse would've been fucked a long time ago. I created a portal beneath me and fell into Snowdin once more, thank God I could just delete these five AUs and be done with it; it annoyed me to no end that I had to do Killer's job here. Wait, did Killer know how to destroy AUs? No, he couldn't know how to do that since it's only Error and I who can access AU source codes! Did Nightmare trick me into doing this by saying Killer was the one who was supposed to be doing it but he couldn't because he was unconscious?!

I irritatedly pulled up the source code and deleted everything, however this time I didn't wait until it was all gone to create another portal. I simply made one beneath me as it was deleting itself, which spread to the AU I had teleported to. So.. creating a portal to another AU whilst the AU I was in was corrupting and deleting itself causes the deletion process to spread to whatever AU the portal leads to.. interesting. I wonder if Error knew about this, he probably didn't or he'd have thought to warn me about it. I stood still as the AU deleted itself but I made three portals, all to different Underfell genocide timelines, and watched as they deleted themselves as well. This just made my job much easier. All five AUs gone just like that!

Happy with my work being finished relatively fast, I teleported back to the hideout; ready to confront Nightmare about if he had tricked me or not.