When the Stars Die

Chapter 10

Chara had gotten a lot stronger since any of them had last encountered her.

Her movements were like a blur, but because of their unique and special cases, they were able to keep track of her. But just barely. Her chaos-infused aura was messing with their senses, making them see or hear things that weren't really there. The whole fight was a mess, but that was just the way she liked things. And with her wielding Reaper's scythe, they had to be extra careful with their movements.

It was true that, since they were directly tied to the balance, they were some of the hardest things to kill. Ink being a soulless entity gave him extra defiance towards the force of death, and Error being a glitch meant he not only had extra defiance towards death, but could manipulate his own code and glitch the system to escape and reverse the damage done to him. Really, if you thought about it, Dream and Nightmare were the most vulnerable to dying under normal circumstances.

But these weren't normal circumstances.

None of them had ever really discussed when Chara had killed Life. The only reason she had been able to do so was because of the energy that flowed through her now, the energy that corrupted her inside and outside. The force of chaos within the Multiverse was directly from the Void, the infinite space where all things were erased, as though they had never existed, regardless of how significant or vital they may be to the Multiverse.

With the power of chaos at her disposal, Chara could change the reality around her. That was how she was able to kill Life, and how a mortal like her could even wield Reaper's scythe to begin with. With both of them in her grasp, she could bend the force of death to her leisure. She had killed Life once before, and Reaper knew she wouldn't stop there. She probably wouldn't stop until she'd made sure he'd lost everyone important to him, if her hate-filled words from that day had any meaning. Which they probably did.

Dream took a step back, breathing heavily as he tried to recover. There was a large crack on the back of his head, where some pieces of bone had already chipped off. He could feel his legs shaking from his exhaustion, but his general nervousness in regards to the current fight wasn't the cause of it. In addition to the large crack on his head, his legs had several cuts in the bone, and the rest of his body had gotten battered up a bit too. Those injuries were starting to sting as his adrenaline wore off.

He was clutching his weapon in his hands, the form morphing from a bow back into a scepter, but that couldn't stop the shakiness of it and his arms. He was well aware of this, and so was Chara. Due to their telepathic bond and ability to sense each other's feelings, Nightmare knew of his growing weariness too. Though that born-ability had dwindled ever since the Apple Incident, and his twin brother didn't know truly just how exhausted he was.

"Dream," Nightmare huffed as he landed beside him. It wasn't a huff of annoyance towards him, though the Guardian of Positivity wouldn't be surprised if it was, but rather was directed towards Chara still resisting. "Are you alright?"

"I've dealt with worse. Don't worry about me," Dream breathed, willing his scepter to turn back into a bow. "How are the others holding up?"

"Reaper's mostly been giving guiders. He isn't a hundred percent useless in this, but him being close to the scythe only amplifies its powers," he responded. "And since Chara's chaos contamination is already doing that, we can't deal with even more extra power."

Dream nodded, letting out a small grunt of acknowledgement to his brother's words. He heard the whisking sound of Error's strings and lifted his head just in time to watch them wrap around Chara's body, restraining her arms to her sides. Not even two seconds later Error gripped the blue strings tightly, doing a few spins in place before hurling her into one of the buildings, the anomaly of a child becoming a blur that-- in his growing haziness-- Dream couldn't keep up with.