I had been with Nightmare's gang for one year and ten months now, and everything seemed to be running smoothly: the balance was steady, our family was growing closer and closer, and we were winning a lot of battles. We were currently at work in a rather drab looking universe, and the citizens honestly looked like they didn't care about anything going on around them; it was weird, but we didn't question it. Error still didn't join us on many occasions, which was fine, since he had his own job to do; we sometimes wished he could have help like Nightmare. There were too many strings attached to keeping a balance for only one skeleton. We were glad we could help him with his life, if not his work, though. He was really beginning to become a valuable part to our little family, and we loved his company. He also had an interest in sewing, which I guess wasn't that much of a surprise, since he had literal strings in his power set; sometimes he would even put on a little puppet show, which we enjoyed greatly. When the familiar adversaries arrived, we readied for battle and faced them. Ink took the liberty of repeating his age-old phrase that was honestly boring by now.

"Nightmare and gang, leave this AU alone!" Ink demanded.

"Is that the only thing you can say?" Nightmare asked. "We have fought hundreds of times and you're still saying that. I thought you were supposed to be the creative one."

"That isn't relevant!"

"Everythin's rel'vant." Horror scoffed. "We could think o' more lines than ya."

"Is this really what you're focusing on?"

"Why not?" Killer liked this. "Embarrassin' ya's almost as fun as fightin' ya."

"Your face is a literal rainbow." Nightmare pointed out. "Dust, are you getting this?"

"Every second." I replied, giggling. "Every second."

"What is so funny about this?!" Ink was angry.

"Everythin.'" Horror chuckled.

"No! There is nothing funny about this! You switch from torturing an innocent AU to criticizing my creativity?!"

"Sure." Killer was laughing his skull off.

"Do you even realize what this would do to your image if anybody watching this told their friends?" I questioned.

"My image isn't important! Stopping you is! Prepare for battle, villains!" Ink used that line again.

"You can't even think of a different line for that, either." Nightmare said.

"Shut up!"

Ink, Dream, and the swap brothers didn't even realize that the balance was restored simply by annoying Ink to this extent; it was the perfect fallback if we couldn't finish with the universe alone. When the fighting began, I let my camera hang around my neck, since I didn't want it to come to harm, and pulled out a couple daggers - the one that matched Killer's from Christmas and a different one I had carved for myself. It had my name on it so it wouldn't get mixed up with Killer's; he sometimes borrowed it for his own purposes. It was now considered normal for me to fight Ink, since he absolutely despised me - I still didn't know why - and wanted to end my life. He did refrain from doing so, though, since there was something called 'a fair trial' that I would have to go through if I was captured, and I couldn't exactly attend it if I was not living. I also didn't attempt to kill Ink, since I didn't think he was mortal; Ink recovered from injuries too fast to be mortal, and Error said he was immortal, so I wasn't going to try. Nightmare also told us not to kill people, and I wouldn't break that rule on purpose.

When Ink was riled up like this, his fighting seemed to improve, and that wasn't the best for me, since I had to fight him. Papyrus was wonderful at helping me, though; he's the best. While I was fighting, I noticed that Ink was a bit more focused today than usual, and he was getting a bit too close for comfort to hitting me with his brush every time he swung it. Although I managed to dodge many of his attacks, he still landed a lot of blows; I hit him a lot too, though. I believed Ink just genuinely despised me with every fiber of his being, and that was just the way it was; perhaps someday there would be a form of peace, even if it was unlikely, and we could have made amends, but for now, I just dealt with being hated like my friends. We were professionals at being despised across the multiverse, and we just lived with it; it wasn't as if we could really change anything at this point. 

The battle had been raging for ten minutes, and although I could have gone for another twenty minutes, probably, I didn't exactly want to. I noticed that Horror was getting a little tired out, so I motioned to Paps to help out Killer and Horror with the swap brothers. Ink had given up on using his paint when fighting me, so he didn't realize it would actually come off once Paps left my side; I didn't like having Paps too far away from me, but occasionally, I would have to allow him to. I shouldn't have done it during that battle; two minutes after I let Paps get away from me, Ink had the chance to deal a massive blow against me, and I was out cold. Why did these things always have to happen to me?

When I awoke, I half expected to wake up in an unfamiliar place, but I didn't fully expect it, for obvious reasons. I didn't feel like opening my eyesockets, but I did, to my regret, and noticed the stony roof; welcome back to prison, I guess. I took note of my surroundings, which were as follows: one rock roof, one rock floor, three rock walls, some iron bars, and no furniture; how homely. I felt like something was missing. There was obviously furniture missing, but that wasn't it; my camera was missing, but I was in prison, and they would have taken my belongings, and my weapons were gone for the same reason as my camera. What was missing? It didn't take long to realize, since the missing part was someone dear to me.

"Paps?" I whispered. "Are you here?"

There was no reply, and nobody came.

"Come..come on, Paps, this isn't the time for games.." I didn't like this feeling. "Papyrus?"

He wasn't with me. We were separated; he must not have been able to join me in time.

"I'm gonna hate this, aren't I?" I mumbled to myself.

I sat against a wall in the cell, mumbling to myself, and essentially doing exactly what anybody would expect an insane skeleton such as myself to be doing; my behavior wouldn't be questioned, and I took full advantage of that fact. What would Papyrus say in this situation? 'Brother, you should have let me stay with you'; no, he wouldn't say that. 'Brother, I miss you'; he might have been be feeling that right now - I hoped he wasn't. 'Brother, don't be afraid, I'm with you in spirit. You can get through this, with or without me!' Yes, that was what he would say. Papyrus is the best, whether he was with me or not, and I would get through this and make it back to him! I just had to wait for something to happen; there wasn't much I could do when I was trapped in a prison cell, no doubt stripped of my powers. Before long, I heard a few sounds of footsteps approaching my wonderful temporary home, but I didn't acknowledge them; I didn't want to.

"Hello, we're taking you to the interrogation room now. Please work with us." A voice requested.

I didn't even bother to open my eyesockets, which I had closed.

"You think he's a mute?" Another voice asked.

"No, just a murderer." The first voice replied; I could practically feel his glare.

"We have to take him either way." 

"Come on, maybe he'll be more compliant in this state."

I didn't really feel up to doing anything without Paps by my side; I felt lonely. Even if I knew somebody was there, I didn't want anything to do with them if Papyrus wasn't there. He was like a part of me - one of the most essential parts - and if he wasn't there, I just felt empty. I didn't struggle when I was led to the aforementioned destination, letting them think I was in a trace or something along those lines. I didn't want to talk to anybody, nor be interrogated, but I supposed I would have to at some point, even if I was going to do everything in my power not to. This was only my second time being captured by the enemy, but I somehow remembered the familiar feeling of being strapped into a chair and left for several minutes. I didn't open my eyesockets when I heard the other two enter the room; I didn't do anything.

"Good morning, Dust." Dream greeted; Ink wasn't as polite.

"We're going to ask you some questions, and you're going to answer them, capiche?" Ink stated.

I didn't say a word.

"Hello? Earth to Sans?" I sensed the impatience in Ink's tone.

"Is he even awake?" Dream wondered.

"Maybe not; Sanses can fall asleep almost anywhere, so I wouldn't rule it out."

I felt a bit of shaking, but didn't respond.

"Is he dead or something?" Ink questioned, with a hint of glee.

"No, monsters dust when they die." Dream pointed out. "Did..did I just make an unintentional pun?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe he's just being annoying and pretending to sleep."

"Well, maybe we can just ask him the questions?"

"All right; question one: what's that thing on your soul?"

My eyesockets shot open. "What?!"

"So you're not asleep, after all. What is it? Must be pretty important, eh?"

"It's none of your business."

"Actually, it very much is our business; you see, we took a small scan of that device, and it was giving off a higher magical signature than most Sanses have regularly. That isn't normal."

"Again, it's none of your business."

"It's filtering magic into your soul. That amount of magic intake would kill almost anybody, yet you seem perfectly fine."

"I don't have to tell you anything, it seems."

"At least tell us how you can stand all that magic without dying; it's worrying." Dream was obviously worried about my well-being. 

"No."

"Did my brother make you wear it? Is it hurting you?"

"Your brother doesn't make me do anything."

"Then why are you helping him?"

"Because I am. You seem like an understanding skeleton; perhaps you can leave off here, for your own sake."

"All right, I'll tell you what we're going to do. Since you won't tell us why you have that device in your soul, we're going to send you to a little laboratory where we will find out, okay? That seems like the best option right now." Ink tried to smile. I could tell that he wanted to get me alone again.

"It seems so, unless you want to just tell us now?" Dream gave me a last chance.

I didn't say anything. I didn't exactly want to be tested on in a lab, but I also didn't want to tell them about it at face value. I figured I would make it as hard as I could for them, if nothing else.

"Very well. You chose the hard way, congratulations." Ink scoffed. "We'll have you taken back to your cell for a little bit while we arrange the testing."

I didn't struggle on the way back, and I didn't say anything else; without Paps, I couldn't bring myself to fight anymore. I wanted my brother back, and I wanted him now. The empty feeling inside me just kept growing, and I didn't know what to do anymore. I could focus on my loyalty to my friends to keep me somewhat myself, but for how long? He was the only one I could rely on when nobody else was there, and now that he wasn't there, I had no one to rely on, talk to, or even just look at. I couldn't handle the pressure for too much longer without Paps by my side.

I needed my brother back.

When I was left in the cell, my loneliness just grew. I resorted to talking to myself and pretending Paps was there, if only to calm my nerves. It worked a little, but it couldn't replace Papyrus; he's the best, and I was not, so I naturally couldn't live up to his standards of greatness; I could only take what I knew about him and act like he was there, but I knew he wasn't there. I could never replicate the calmness Paps gave me, or the companionship he never failed to provide, and I most certainly could not replace him in any way. He was just too cool to compare with, and I was just a skeleton with no idea how to survive without his brother. Maybe I was holding Papyrus back; I wasn't good enough for him. He'd probably already moved on, right? I wasn't any great skeleton like he was, and he probably knew that, too. I should have been happy that he didn't have me to hold him back from his greatness, or coolness, or anything, right? I was lost without him, though, and I didn't know what to do. Even when I tried not to think about him, to try to keep calm, he was still in my mind. I couldn't stop myself.

I eventually tried to go to sleep and pretend Paps would be waiting for me to wake up. Yeah, he always waited for me to wake up; it wouldn't fail this time, right? He had to be there, and that was the end of it; he would wait for me. He's the best brother ever, so of course he would wait for me! I had nothing to fear because Papyrus would be there when I woke up, like he always was, and everything would be fine again; it had to be fine again. As the dust of my nightmare swirled around, I was almost confident Papyrus would be there. Without Papyrus, I lost myself, but I had to hold on to some parts; I couldn't expect him to be there, because maybe the others had a tough time trying to get me out, and Paps was just delayed, so he couldn't be there right when I woke up. Yeah, if he wasn't there when I woke up, that must have been the case, and he would just come later. 

I could wait. I had to.

~~~chapter end woot~~~

Dust bean alone oh noes.

This is kind of like a part one, and the next part will be in chapter 25. :)

Thanks for reading my isolated writing!

Bye!