I had been with Nightmare's gang for four years and six months now, and I felt great. Papyrus had recently been able to appear at some points to others, which made him ecstatic when he could do it, and I even caught him on camera once, which was a big accomplishment for him. Killer seemed to be doing well with his emotions and also seemed to have great control over them. Horror had been increasing the time he spent with us, which we enjoyed greatly. Error loved being part of our family, and we loved having him with us. Cross and Chara seemed to be forgetting their early days nicely and rarely thought about them - at least they didn't look like they were thinking about them. Nightmare had recently begun writing a book about our adventures, which everybody enjoyed greatly, since he would sometimes read funny parts to us when we walked in on him. Me? I was just being myself; that was the only thing I was really good at.

At the moment, we were sharing stories from our pasts around a makeshift campfire on the roof and laughing our skulls off at the funny parts of each. Chara wasn't too interested in our stories, since we had told them all before; he decided to patrol the house or whatever he wanted to do. There were a variety of stories told - some funny, some sad, and others were just incomprehensibly cryptic. Overall, we were having fun with our stories. Near the end, Killer had given all of us a challenge to make an intriguing story starter in two sentences, which was difficult, to say the least. Nightmare went first.

"Let's see. I think I can do this." Nightmare got an idea. "When I was young, we had a rule, which was to never go near the forest. I wish I had listened to my parents."

"Ooh! Creepy!" Killer clapped. "Horror, you're next!"

"Aight." Horror coughed. "'N the town o' Cliff's Peak, i' was a steep drop ta the bottom. The rock slide didn't care."

"Poor town." Killed frowned, then smiled again. "Dusty!"

"Oh, um, okay." I thought for a minute. "I got used to the dust of my victims a long time ago, but does that make me crazy? Perhaps."

"Dusty, we're all crazy!" Killer laughed in a half insane fashion. "Crossy!"

"O-okay." Cross tapped his jaw. "I-in the start, th-there was ev-everything. Where d-did it go?"

"Mysterious!" Killer wasted no time. "Error!"

"All right." Error already thought of his. "When you can't fight a winning battle, they say you'll lose. I just say they'll call a tie."

"Awesome!" Killer complimented. "My turn! I told them all to trust me. They should have listened."

We all clapped for Killer's story and complimented the others for a while before putting out the fire and heading back inside. Chara rejoined Cross quickly when we entered the house, and the rest of us went about our normal business, consisting of games, fun, and craziness. Killer decided to play 'grab Dust by the wrist and drag him around the house at speeds he can't handle' with me; Killer could run faster than anyone else I had ever met, probably reaching forty miles per hour at certain times, making me question a lot of things, such as physics. Killer never ran anyone else around the house at ridiculous speeds, aside from Cross occasionally, but he never passed twenty miles per hour when Cross joined; Killer seemed to think that this activity was special, and he reserved the honor for me. He really didn't have to do that; I didn't like moving that fast. The others thought it was hilarious when I collapsed from vertigo, but I didn't mind as long as everyone was happy. Killer didn't run for as long as he usually did today, making me wonder why he suddenly stopped. When I got my bearings, I looked out in front of him, and was in shock at what I saw.

Our adversaries - excluding Dream - were in our house.

They hadn't seen us yet, but we had seen them; that gave us the advantage. Killer quickly unsheathed one of his knives and hit a single bell on the line, causing a chain of single rings to permeate the house, in contrast to the usual reverberation of rings. This was a specific signal that we had made after we found Dream in our house and decided to use if anyone else did the same. Anyone who heard the ring was to report directly to the library, which was the most accessible room in the house, since it took up two floors. Our enemies seemed to notice the ringing, but they didn't know what it was - they shouldn't have known, since we had never used the signal before. Killer took charge of the situation, grabbing my wrist and teleporting us to the library, where the others waited.

"Is it an emergency?" Nightmare immediately asked.

"Ink and the swap brothers are on the first floor." I quickly replied.

"Were you seen?"

"Nope." Killer responded.

"Good. Do they know it's our house?"

"I'll be darned if they don't."

"Grab your packs and follow me."

"Yes, Dad." We harmonized. Error didn't say 'Dad.'

We each grabbed a backpack that Error had designed to hold our essential belongings without risk of breaking and had a design to match each of our personalities; Error really was great at designing things. My backpack held a few assorted weapons, including my slingshot; some small samples of dust from my friends, in smaller containers; a few foodstuffs that were high in magic, just in case; an extra couple communicators, in case my current one died; some pictures of my family, which didn't take up much space; and a spot for my camera, rounding out the bag. The others had other things in their backpacks, of course. Nightmare led us out of the library and into the hallway, where we used our stealth training to overhear the conversation in the floor below us.

"I never thought Nightmare of all skeletons would live in such a nice house." We heard Ink comment. "Do you think they know we're here?"

"What do we do?" Killer whispered.

"We can either evacuate or face them." Nightmare softly answered.

"Dad..I'm not givin' up our home without a fight...unless ya say to."

"All right. Who is willing to fight, and who wants to leave?"

Without hesitation, we each agreed to fight to protect our home from the intruders. Nightmare led us downstairs, where we met our adversaries. Ink noticed us first.

"And here they are!" Ink gestured to us. 

"Get out of our house and we'll let you go peacefully." Nightmare ordered.

"That sounds familiar. Almost like what I say to you every time you invade an AU!" 

"I'm not going to say it again, Ink."

"You see, when we found your house, we figured we'd take you by surprise, but it seems you're alert even in your own home!"

"We don't invade people's houses, Ink."

"You may not do that, but you certainly do invade AUs, and as the protector of AUs, I have a job to stop you."

"Breaking into our house is just low, but I'm sure we can show you Killer's version of hospitality."

"And what could Killer possibly know about hospitality?"

"Would you like to show our guests around, Killer?"

"Of course I would!" Killer jumped.

I was trying hard not to laugh, knowing exactly what was going to happen; or at least I was, before Killer grabbed my wrist and brought me along. We approached the trio, weapons sheathed; we didn't need weapons for what we were doing. Killer outstetched his hand towards Ink.

"Nice to meetcha." Killer grinned. "Shake my hand, if ya want."

"All right, I'll shake." Ink scoffed. "What is this, a whoopie cushion?"

"Not quite." I snickered.

As soon as Ink's hand got close enough, Killer grabbed his wrist and started running, probably reaching forty miles per hour, leaving the swap brothers with Nightmare, Error, Cross, and Horror. Ink was half amazed and half scared of how fast we were travelling, but I was simply used to it, since Killer did this to me every day. Ink had no time to grab his paintbrush with the speed of Killer's running and was forced to let Killer drag him around; in the meantime, the swap brothers were obviously having a hard time with the rest of our family, judging from the sound of the fighting in the hall. Ink was yelling for Killer to stop from the start, since he wasn't used to these speeds. He eventually got an idea that would mess Killer up, moving his legs to intercept Killer's, and forcing us to tumble in the hallway. As soon as we fell, I was up and ready to fight, knives unsheathed; Killer was a bit shaken but still with me. Ink wasn't doing as well as we were, not able to get off the ground. We didn't engage him, since he wasn't in a suitable condition to fight, but we were ready for any movements he had prepared.

"You can..run fast.." Ink coughed. "Faster than Blueberry.."

"If ya wanna pass out, ya can." Killer helpfully reminded. "We won't stop ya."

"Why would I..pass out?"

"Ya seem tired. We can run ya 'round more if we need to."

"Hah..it's going to take a lot more than..that..to knock me..out.."

"We got time. Wanna go again, Dusty?"

"I'm not opposed if you're not." I smirked.

"Let's go, then!"

Killer grabbed the tired Ink's wrist along with mine and began to run again, matching his previous speed. He ran for another five minutes undisturbed, having enough time to return to the hall with the other battlers. When we got there, Ink was too tired to stand up, and we found the swap brothers knocked out.

"That's that, then." Nightmare stated. "Now we have a few options."

"Erase our location?" Killer suggested.

"If these three knew it, I highly doubt there aren't others. If their visits become frequent, we may have to move."

"M-move?" Cross didn't like the sound of that. "Move wh-where?"

"I don't know."

"Mayhaps they'll leave us 'lone, after this." Horror hoped.

"I doubt it. I want you to start wearing your packs inside at all times, just in case."

"Do we send them away?" I questioned.

"For now, yes. We'll send them to Underswap."

"Okay, Dad." We saluted and sent the skeletons away.

Once the adversaries were out of our house, we gathered in the living room to talk about our next moves.

"All right." Nightmare exhaled. "I'm going to start looking for another house in case we have to move, but we will stay here. I want you to keep your valuables in easily accessible places, so that if we have to move quickly, nothing important is left behind. Any questions?"

"I'm scared, Dad." Killer clutched to Nightmare.

"I know, Killer. I know."

"I wanna stay here forever.."

"It's okay, Killer." 

"But it's not okay! What if...what if.." Killer began to cry; he was losing control of his emotions again.

"Shh, calm down, Killer. Everything will be just fine. We'll be just fine."

"I love you..."

"We love you too, Killer."

The next few days moved swiftly, and they were filled with preparations for the possibility that the adversaries would return, probably with numbers on their side. They hadn't made any moves yet, but we knew they would eventually. Paps was a big help to us since he could reach high places that we couldn't, other than Nightmare and Error, who were taller than us; I guess that was why they were the older ones. They weren't ridiculously tall, though: only tall enough to reach the shelf with the cookie jar. I'm getting off topic. Paps is the best. At the moment, I was lying on my bed, doing nothing of significance, when Paps started a conversation.

"Brother, what do you think will happen next?" Paps wondered.

"Not sure, bro." I sighed.

"Well, I'm sure it will turn out all right, brother!"

"You're the best, Paps."

"I am the Great Papyrus! You should get some rest, brother; you have a big day ahead of you!"

"It's always night here, bro."

"Day, night, what's the difference?"

"You're right. Night, Paps."

"Good night, brother!" 

After this brief exchange, I shut my eyesockets and fell asleep rather quickly; I must have been tired. When I fell into my usual dusty nightmare, I wasn't bothered by it; it was just like all my others. I continued to have my dusty nightmares every time I slept, but I would never talk about them; it would hurt my family. The next few years were filled with fun times and laughter, making us virtually forget that our adversaries knew of our location. They never made use of the information, which was confusing, to say the least. Over the years, nothing really changed: we were constantly growing as a family, Papyrus remained the best, and we were happy together; that was all we needed, really. We were happy with our lifestyle, and we wouldn't change it for the world; actually, we might have wanted a bit of peace, but other than that, we were happy. We were the misunderstood skeletons of the multiverse, and we were content with leaving it like that.

We were a family.

~~~chapter end woot~~~

Dust bean family house found oh noes.

Thanks for reading my located writing!

Bye!