Nightmare POV:

I sat at my desk, contemplating what I should do. I had decided not to go spread negativity today, I should be fine for one day. Maybe that will help my predicament. I sipped some of my coffee up and wrote on some stupid paper work. I almost spat out my coffee as the prince came up beside me. The first thing I saw was the destroyed half of his face and it startled me.

"What." I growled towards him. He just shrugged. I sighed "You're wondering why I'm still here, aren't you?" The ghost nodded. "I need a change..." He saw the ghost glare "...and no. I'll keep reading with you." The ghost stopped glaring. He then looked embarrassed. I took another sip of my coffee and continued working. The ghost watched me. 'He has to be bored.' I thought 'It's better than him annoying me.'

~A Few Hours Later~

I was taking a break. I'd worked for awhile and needed a coffee. As I was waiting, I started to feel another rising source of negativity. It was coming from an au that was already pretty negative. I looked at the ghostly prince, who was still following me. He could feel it too.

"That isn't too unexpected, but that is a very strong source." I snickered. "I'm going to go check it out." I looked at the ghost. His good eye looking at me questioningly. "I don't need you making me seem more crazy than I already am. Stay here." I didn't bother to check if he listened, and I teleported away to the au with the rising negativity source.

I arrived just outside the au's Snowdin. The source of the negativity was nearby. It had to be the two skeleton brothers of this au. I teleported up to a roof and heard their fight fight in the snow.

"YOU CAN'T JUST LOSE THE RATION!" I assumed that was the voice of the Papyrus. He was not happy.

"I'm sorry! I couldn't catch them. They were too fast!" The Sans replied. I peeked out at them. They were both children.

The Papyrus then slapped the Sans. 'Hmm.' That reminded me a bit of what went on in my ghost's life. Except, it wasn't his brother hitting him. The Sans had a hole in his head and the Papyrus had abnormally sharp teeth.

"DON'T COME BACK UNTIL YOU GET SOME FOOD!" The Papyrus then walked inside and slammed the door.

"From where?" The Sans quietly said, tears forming in his eyes. He then ran off, now crying. 'Hmm...' I thought, amused. 'Although, that does seem pretty sad. What am I thinking? I like the negativity!' I argued with myself. "I just need to leave him." I muttered to myself. I teleported home.

I arrived back at my empty castle. I was still arguing with myself.

'You have plenty of room.' One side argued

'But I don't want him here.' The other side argued.

At this point, I wanted to get my coffee and go back into my routine. I grabbed my now cold coffee and warmed it up. As I went on with my day, I kept on arguing with myself. And then I started feeling...bad for the Sans? That happened while I was reading with the prince. He waved his hand in front of me to get my attention.

"What?" I asked him. He pointed to a quote in the book. "Are you okay?!" Is what it read.

"Why do you care?" I said. He just tilted his head at me for a response. I told him what I witnessed earlier. He just stared one I was done. "Why did I even tell you?" I said, disappointed in myself. I walked off. I decided to try and work.

~The Next Day~

I woke up and gave up. The part of me wanting to help the Sans won. I sighed. 'Now I have to track him down in Horrortale. Shouldn't be hard.' I could still feel the kid's negativity. I got up and did part of my morning routine and teleported to Horrortale, again.

I arrived in the same place I had the first time, just outside of Snowdin. I felt the Sans's negativity right away. He was behind me in the forest. I started heading in that direction to find him, using his negativity as a homing beacon. I eventually came to an area where I seemed to be right on top of him. I saw a tree right beside me. I looked up. I saw a lump curled up on one of the trees. I used my tentacles to climb up to him and crouched on the tree branch in front of him. The kid was crying, not noticing the goopy monster crouch beside him.

"Hello?" I asked

Horror POV:

"Hello?" The voice didn't belong to anyone I knew. I quickly looked up at them. I was face to face with some sort of goopy skeleton monster. I screamed and backed into the trunk of the tree. "It's okay!" He said

"WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE YOU?!" I screamed. Who was this goopy creature?

"Look, I'm not trying to harm you. How can I prove it to you?" He asked

"Food. Bring me food. Not poisoned, dead or rotten." I said "And a lot of it."

He vanished right after. I sat there, not wanting to encounter the creepy skeleton again. I climbed down the tree. Just being around him felt scary. I ran farther into the forest. My stomach growled. I sat down under another tree. Suddenly with a flash of teal, the goopy skeleton was back. And he had something in his hands. It was a box. I hopped up and tried to back away. I backed right into one of his slimy tentacles. He knelt in front of me.

"Are you g-gonna hurt m-me?" I asked, fear audible in my voice.

"Nope." He said and opened the box. There were spider-donuts inside. "I got these from an Outertale au." The donuts had little frosting spiders and stars on them.

"You put something in them, didn't you?" I asked, skeptical.

"Nope." He had one of his tentacles hold the box of donuts and pulled one out. He broke it in half and showed me the inside.

I hesitantly took the two parts of the donuts from him. I took a bite of one. His expression didn't change. It was really good. I quickly wolfed down both parts. "Can I have more?" I asked, already reaching for more of the donuts.

"Of course." The goopy skeleton said, holding out the box of donuts to me.

I wolfed through all the delicious donuts surprisingly fast. The goopy skeleton told me his name was Nightmare. He cast the box aside as I finished the last donut.

"Sooooooo..." Nightmare started.

"Yes?" I asked

"Would you like to come with me?" He asked. I looked at him, stunned. "You don't have to. Just a suggestion." I remained silent.

On one hand, I'd be leaving my brother, but he'd get more rations. On the other hand, I'd get yelled at for coming back empty handed. And Nightmare had been so nice to me. He was sitting criss-crossed on the ground in front of me, awaiting my answer. I looked up at him and replied

"I'll try."

He looked at me, a bit surprised. "O-okay!" He said "Come here, you need to be holding onto me to be teleported." I walked up to him and grabbed his arm. With another flash of teal, we arrived somewhere else. I looked around. This whole room was bigger than me and my brother's house.

"Wow..." I whispered.

"Do you want to see your room?" Nightmare asked from behind me.

"Yes!" I replied.

Nightmare picked me up. I rested my head on his shoulder and wrapped my legs partway around his waist. It felt like I had a parent again. I giggled to myself.

"What's so funny?" Nightmare asked

"Nothing..." I replied.

We arrived at the room not long after that. It looked a bit boring and bland. I turned to look at Nightmare.

"If you wanna decorate it, I'll get the things and help you." He said, as though knowing what I was thinking. I smiled at him.

~Many Hours Later~

3rd person POV:

Nightmare and Horror spent the afternoon decorating Horror's new room to his liking. Nightmare liked having a kid around. They got some food after and Horror ate his in under five minutes. He took Nightmare's left over food and ate it too. Horror was like a skeletal waste disposal. Nightmare also gave Horror an axe, since he seemed to really like those.

Horror came over and found Nightmare later, complaining that his skull was hurting. Nightmare gave him some medicine for it.

"If it continues to hurt, tell me. We'll pay a visit to Sci." Nightmare said. Seeing Horror look at him happily, made something inside him light up. Horror began to see Nightmare as the parent he never had. And finally someone cared about the condition of his skull.

That was the start of the little family known as the bad guys.

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