I had been with Nightmare's gang for three years and one month at this time, and everything was running smoothly. We had gotten used to going to Nightmare's tutoring sessions (also known as school), we had been on a winning streak in our battles, and we were growing closer and closer as a family. Honestly, it didn't seem as if anything could go wrong; that was why I was on high alert. I knew that when things seemed to be going great, something bad was bound to happen, or at least, that was part of my experience. When the resets seemed to be working in my favor, that was taken away from me, so why wouldn't my family have been as well? I wasn't going to let it happen so easily, though; I would do everything in my power to protect them, even if it meant my life. We were currently battling our familiar adversaries in an average universe, like always; this was our weekly independence test, which Killer, Horror, and I enjoyed. We were winning, too, and our streak had been continuing; there was only one problem.

This day wasn't like the others.

Dream didn't show up, since Nightmare didn't join us on these missions, which was fine with us. I was fighting Ink at the moment. He seemed rather off today, but I wasn't sure why; I wouldn't let my guard down - last time I did that, there were terrible consequences - in fact, I only raised it further. I was glad that I chose to do so, because something had really lifted Ink's spirits; in less than a second - I was pretty sure there was teleportation involved - a new skeleton had appeared on the battleground. 

"Here we go." Ink chucked. 

The new potential adversary sported a monochrome wardrobe, a large knife (it could probably pass as a large sword), and a scar under his right eyesocket; I could already tell he meant business. Nightmare had taught us about a lot of different universes, but we still had way more to go; I didn't recognize this skeleton, which slightly worried me, but I couldn't let my guard down. I was still in deadlocked battle with Ink when I managed to motion Paps into monitoring the skeleton, which was a huge mistake. Surprise, surprise, he could see Papyrus! He didn't make any movements except to look at Paps. I never really got a clear look at him, since Ink was dominating my attention at the moment, but I did think I saw something near him; perhaps he had a ghost friend like I did? That would have been exciting, if I had confirmation that he was on our side, but there was none of that, so I stifled my emotions by focusing on Ink. 

When Ink began to back away from me, I didn't have much time to react - why did the strong ones always target me? - when the new skeleton took his place. He was definitely an enemy at this point, and he was skilled, too. I could hold my own against him, but I had already been fighting for a while, and it was beginning to affect me; my best bet at the moment was dodging, which I consequently spent more time perfecting than any attacks - they said a good defense was a good offense, right? Killer and Horror had little chance of coming to my aid, being matched almost perfectly with the swap brothers, so I was essentially on my own. This adversary seemed to have a counter for almost any move, barring my attacks that I made up on the spot. It was honestly a challenge, but I was fully willing to face it. His attacks moved swiftly, and he had a really big knife, but I managed to dodge most of what came at me. I did, however, notice that he did indeed have a ghost companion, which was fun, since I did too; they seemed to be getting along, which was great: Paps really needed friends he could relate with, and a ghost was the perfect choice! I'm getting off topic.

After what felt like half an hour, Papyrus had formed a healthy relationship with the ghost companion of our new adversary, and I was utterly exhausted from fighting; my longest record for fighting without stopping was around thirty-five minutes, and I was way past that at this point. Luckily, it was right around the time Nightmare would check in on us, so hopefully help would be on the way; I couldn't keep this up much longer. This skeleton had extraordinary endurance levels, not seeming to break a sweat even after all this fighting and never saying a word; it reminded me of an anime Alphys used to watch about a silent warrior that could defeat any foe - too bad I was the foe. Before long, Nightmare did indeed come to our aid, and it really was perfect timing, because he came right at the moment that the skeleton bested me. My weapon had been thrown across the battlefield, and I didn't have any more spares; I really thought five knives and three daggers would be enough, but I guess not, and it was way too close to use my slingshot. When Nightmare arrived, he took over for me, which was a huge relief, because I could barely move; my energy was completely spent, I was lying on the ground helpless, and I was about to be stabbed through the soul with a very large knife.

When Nightmare came, the scales of the battle tipped more in our favor, since we weren't doing very well after the new adversary arrived. The protectors were forced to flee, but I noticed that the new enemy still didn't seem tired; he reminded me of an obedient soldier, doing only what he was instructed to do, exactly when he was instructed to do it, even without anything having to be spoken. It made me wonder who he was, and more importantly, how he got on the other side; maybe Papyrus could tell me more, but first, I was in pain - lots of pain - and tired. I managed to fall asleep as soon as there was no threat of being captured, and I had a pleasant dusty nightmare, which soothed my pain slightly; dust always came to me as a calming, relaxing relief from whatever I might have been dealing with previously. When I woke up, I was in my bed, no doubt left to sleep, and my weapons had been placed on my dresser, next to my camera. When I summoned the courage to leave the warmth of my bed, I gathered my weapons and camera and noticed Papyrus floating towards me.

"Hey, Paps." I greeted.

"Hello brother! Are you feeling better?" Paps inquired. 

"Yeah, a lot better. I noticed that you made a new friend."

"Oh, yes, brother! He is very nice, too!"

"Only you could be best friends with an enemy, Paps. You're the best."

"I am the Great Papyrus!"

"So, wanna tell me anything about him, or did you promise not to?"

"Oh, I'd love to tell you about him!"

"I'm listening."

"Well, his name is Chara, and the skeleton is called Cross! They're sharing a body, for some reason, and they are quite good friends."

"That's nice; get any origin?"

"From what I understood, they were created by Ink with the sole purpose of defeating Nightmare's gang."

"If that didn't make so much sense, I would be uncomfortable."

"They don't really want to fight you, since they had decided to be generally peaceful, but they had to fight you; it was embedded in their soul, somewhat like computer code - I believe Error could shed some more light on that. Chara was begging me for help, brother!"

"Well then, we're just gonna have to help them, aren't we? Any other useful tips?"

"Both Cross and Chara have an affinity for chocolate, and Cross has a fear of cows, for some reason; I don't think that would be helpful."

"It could be. Let's go see what the others think."

I held my camera strap almost like a backpack as I walked to the living room, where I found the others having a discussion, probably about the new adversary. As always, Killer was the first to take note of my presence. 

"Dusty!" Killer grinned. "How are ya?"

"I'm all right, just needed a bit of rest." I replied.

"Good to hear." Nightmare motioned for me to take a seat. "We were just talking about that new skeleton that showed up."

"So far, we've confirmed that he isn't from an older AU, nobody knows him, and he only answers to Ink." Error enlightened. "He's also pretty strong, by the looks of it."

"Did he tell ya anythin' while ya fought 'im?" Horror questioned.

"No, but Paps certainly learned a lot." I revealed. "He's got a ghost friend, and Paps formed a friendship!"

"Dust, your brother can literally become friends with anyone, you know that?" Nightmare chuckled. "So what did he learn from his new friend?"

I relayed the information from my conversation with Paps to the others, which took considerably longer due to all the questions, but all of the information was delivered successfully.

"So why is he scared of cows?" Error found this irrational.

"I don't know." I shrugged. "Why are all of you afraid of Nightmare's bedroom?"

"Things aren't natural in there." Killer shuddered. "You're lucky, Dusty."

"Either way, this is interesting." Nightmare certainly showed intrigue. "If this is true, we have no idea what Ink could be doing with this skeleton; I hope he's at least treated well for an unwilling soldier."

"If we need to, I could possibly modify parts of his soul to release him from Ink's control, but I would need him to be close, and possibly for a long time." Error input.

"We could lure him with chocolate!" Killer suggested.

"Mayhaps we can sep'rate 'im from the others durin' a fight." Horror added.

"Paps could let them know of the plan so they're ready." Paps had already volunteered.

"Those are all good ideas, but we need a solid plan and a specific time." Nightmare stated. "Until then, your brother can let them know that we have a plan, but not any specific details, just in case."

"Yeah, it would be unfortunate if we spent all that time developing a plan just for them to know about it." Error concurred.

"Then we'll begin developing the plan, but first, who's hungry?"

"Me!" Killer cried out. "Uh, heh..sorry."

"I figured. Food is in the dining room, and it's warm."

"Yes!"

Killer streaked towards the dining room with a passion, and the rest of us followed, feeling hungry as well. We were met with some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches, which were cooked to perfection; Nightmare was a great cook. We discussed more about our plan to save the unfortunate skeleton from his circumstances as we ate, which somehow developed into a heated debate about french fries; conversations during meals were just plain weird, and nobody could have changed my mind on that matter. Nightmare ended the argument by initiating a pop quiz, which was expected. Error laughed his skull off when we were stuck on the question 'Who is the first antagonist in Underswap?' knowing fully well that it was Temmie, but we got our laugh when he couldn't answer the color of the grass in Outertale. Overall, it was an average discussion in our family, and we savored it; perhaps a new member of the family would have joined us soon, or perhaps not. We were really worried about his well-being, knowing what Ink was capable of. We hoped he would have the decency to treat the other like a skeleton instead of a weapon, but we unfortunately doubted it.

When we finished our meal, Error put on a puppet show to get all the gloom out of our minds and allow us to focus on something else; we really enjoyed his puppet shows, especially since he had handcrafted the puppets himself, and he did it quite skillfully, too. Error really paid attention to detail in just about anything he did, including simply walking: he always stepped half a foot with each step on average, one and a half feet when going fast, and two and a half feet when running, but sometimes he would make an even three if he was in a large rush; the fact that he never strayed from this pattern was admirable. His puppet show featured a couple puppets of Killer and Horror having a picnic in a nice forest and having a discussion about food. There wasn't always a story to his shows, but they were always enjoyable, especially for Killer, who had a childlike attitude towards life in general. When the show ended, we coerced Nightmare to tell us a bedtime story before we went to sleep, which we had mutually decided to do at that moment. He told us a short story that he didn't even end because we were all asleep before he was halfway through. It was fun being treated like a child sometimes, especially with your brothers.

Perhaps there would be a new brother soon.

~~~chapter end woot~~~

Dust bean encounter Cross bean.

Thanks for reading my competitive writing!

Bye!