☽ Troublemaker ☾《Nightkiller》𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗲𝗱

☽ Chapter 14: Helping Hand ☾

Dream didn't know what to do.

All of this war and suffering had really started to get into his head. He told himself that it was just for the safety of the multiverse, but would the alternate universes appreciate it when all of everything they loved got hurt by the "protectors"? It didn't make sense.

He was currently sitting in a field of flowers alone, looking at the page of a book. Looking as in spacing out and not making any progress, but time to think helped him plan battles more.

And after Swap... he didn't want to think about it.

"Oh, Gaia. What would you have done?" he whispered to himself, crumpling a flower in his hands. The petals flew away in the wind, illuminated by the soft glows of the sunset. "War to save them all, or mercy to enslave them all?"

It was a hard decision, indeed.

His train of thought, however, was stopped by a rustling in the bushes. Dream wasn't concerned, but the sound startled him a little. "Hello? Are you a little critter?" Deers, bunnies, birds, squirrels, and more enjoyed the guardian's company, often visiting just to rest around him. It was like he was the guardian of their lives... though Dream didn't do much guarding anymore.

"More than that," a smooth voice whispered. Dream immediately got up, pulling his staff off its hostler. "Woah, no need to get all jumpy..." Suddenly a large figure phased out of the bush, raising its arms as two bloodred eyes appeared.

"YOU WOULDN'T HURT YOUR BROTHER, WOULD YOU?!"

---

Cross was currently making rounds around the desolated village with no summoned weapons as to leave as little of a trail behind. "Barren as always."

The village of Galla was always a small and insignificant one compared to Punia- where the incident happened, coincidentally- so when the skies turned red and the apples turned black, it was decimated immediately. So when Ink came over to this universe to do damage control, he never bothered to clean this place up.

It looked just like it did during the incident- all rubble and some bodies. All of the buildings crumbled on each other, the dry flaky walls collapsing by themselves. Human villagers who were none the wiser to what was happening, doing their daily routine before they got erased off the Earth, only a shadow of their soul left.

Cross didn't really have any pity towards them. Why would he? It wasn't like he personally knew them, anyways. But the fact that most people thought it just another day in life was pitiable. 

He was about to finish his rounds until he picked up quiet footsteps. Whipping around, he summoned a blood-red knife, pointing the tip at the source of the sound. "Reveal yourself." There was no response, causing him to narrow his eyes. "Or else..."

"Okay fine," Killer mumbled, then crawled out of a crater. It was actually relatively easy finding Cross. He had traveled across the Tundra, planning to search first in the enemy's territory. Dream's aura was painfully obvious, so he found out their general area. Maybe he had overestimated Cross? "Ya got me."

Killer wasn't worried about getting attacked. Cross wasn't the type to be reckless- well unless it was trying to get his chocolate back, but that didn't happen much after he blew up a hole in the wall of the mansion. "W-what are you doing here?!"

"Uhhh-" he coughed awkwardly. "I need your boyfriend's help."

Cross let out an amused scoff. "Oh really? Did things not work out with Nightmare?" Killer somehow made a cat meme face.

"Nah," he laughed, regaining his composure. "Uh- Well, you see..." Then he pulled up his sweater. Cross immediately covered his eyes, looking the other way.