Searcher slowly woke up, he had gone to sleep, after Umbra, and Shades, had talked to him.

His ratty straw bed seemed to be bigger...

"What the..." He whispered, as he looked at his hands...

Solas's hands...

This should be impossible... Wait... If Shades was trapped as Umbra, it made sense that he would be trapped in Solas's body... If Shades couldn't be Shades... He couldn't be Searcher...

But this meant that the vent that was too small for Searcher....

He grinned, and he tied a strip of cloth, over his right eyesocket, and he removed the grill from the vent.

... Was too big for Solas.

He grinned, and he started to crawl through the vent, replacing the grill, to buy himself some time. The minion would be here soon... And he wanted to put as much distance between him, and Fear, as possible.

He yelped, as he suddenly fell down a vertical shaft, cracking his skull, and losing consciousness..

----

They woke up, with no memories of who they were, or why they were here, but all they knew was that they had to get out of here!

They picked themselves up, and they crawled through the vents, searching for an exit.

The land that they found, when they found an exit, was barren...

Nothing lived here.... Nothing could survive here... They stood out, in their white robes, and with the markings on their face... Markings that they had seen looking back at them, when they crawled through a shiny shaft...

They picked up the bottom of their robe, and they began to run, putting distance between themselves, and the castle... They could hear hounds chasing them...

No... No... They didn't want to go back!

----

Dinner.. was interesting.

After all, Umbra's form was a stranger, to Goth's younger siblings, and Umbra wasn’t used to crowds.

Shades was taking his turn on tracking down Ser and Solas, they had a solid lead now.

Palette was looking at his boyfriend with wide eyelights, and a slight blush, on his face.

Umbra tugged on the sweatshirt his Papa had found him, for him to wear, it was white with ‘Born to Reap’ on it.

Probably a gag gift in the past. He still wore his own pants and boots, but his... other ones.. needed to be washed...

Even though no traces of pregnancy could be seen in this form, he could still have the reactions.

Darn it, he and Shades had thought that the morning sickness was over.

He would rather call it the anytime sickness.

He absently pushed the rest of his meal away, unable to eat more.

As Umbra, he didn’t actually have to eat, his Magic, and energy, were always filled, and eating was just an extra.

Right now though, eating was making him feel noxious.

“Umbra?” Geno said, taking note of the barely touched meal.

“I... don’t actually eat, eating is more a pleasure thing.” Umbra admitted, he was a bit embarrassed about that..

“That sounds boring.” Palette said, making a face, and pushing his empty plate away.

“I still snack, chocolate is the best.” Umbra quietly said.

“It's fine Umbra, you ate what you could. Why don’t you two head to your room?” Reaper said, with a grin on his face.

“Sure Mr Reaper.” Palette grinned, grabbing Umbra's hand, and dragging his mate's other self away.

While Palette was getting to know Umbra, Shades was still searching.

It was rather frustrating, he could track the stupid travelling Multiverse now...

But the Issue now was finding a way in....

He might have found a chink in it...

Suddenly, he was pulled back into control, when Palette accidentally startled Umbra.

By kissing him.

The only kissing Umbra had ever faced was Solas.

And Solas was Solas.

“You kissed Umbra.” Shades giggled as he slid into the driver's seat of the body.

“I didn’t think that he was so shy Gothy.” Palette said, with a shocked look on his face.

Shades laughed, and Palette stopped the laughter, by kissing him.

------

They panted as they ran, the ends of their robe was tattered, and ruined, from the mud, and them tripping over it.

Thorns scratched them, and they had felt the teeth of the hounds nick the back of their leg bones...

They sobbed as they climbed over a small wall that they had almost run into... They could see the hounds figuring out that they had to go around it, and up the slope, to reach them, and an eyelight went wide, from the fear that they were feeling.

No...

They got up, and they started to run, away from the hounds.

This place was cold, and lonely.. It was empty, and they couldn't see anyone... Well, that was what they thought, until they ran into someone's legs.

---

He looked down, to see who had run into his legs. He could hear the howls of the hounds.

It was a kid... The robe that they was wearing was tattered, and covered in their narrow, and mud, and they had a bandage over their right eyesocket.

He quickly scooped the kid up, and they clung to him, as he ran.

He remembered, how the end had started...

He didn't know how it began, and what caused it, but soon, Fear was attacking the AUs of his Multiverse, tearing their walls down, and merging them into a larger AU...

And they had been pushed back, the Sanses, the Papyruses, and the Outcodes, into smaller, and smaller AUs, with their kids...

They had been at peace for so long that relationships had been born, and blossomed, between former enemies, and rivals, and they had kids...

But a war was no place for children, and because of that, a plan was created, by him, Reaper, and Error, and the Swap!Papyrus from Yanberry's AU, a quiet skeleton that had given himself the nickname of Sketch, behind everyone's backs.

They would take the children, and run away, to find a safer place to raise them, to keep them safe from the war...

And so, the Great, and Terrible Papryus, the Original Fell!Papryus, became Skulduggery, one of the Keepers, and Caretakers, of the next generation.

Their actions saved the children.

An hour after they left, they were betrayed, by one of their own.

Stretch.

He didn't know why he did it... But it hurt... Stretch had betrayed them, and if they hadn't removed the children, they would have been caught up in the fight...

And in the end, Fear won.

The copies that they had saved from Fear, were killed, and the Originals, and the Outcodes, were taken, to become slaves, and some of them vanished in the dungeons, never to be seen again, as their powers were Sealed, and they were trapped in crystals.

He knew what those crystals could do... If a crystal was implanted in you, before you were killed, it would freeze your body, in that moment of time, and your Dusting could only be continued when the crystal was broken, but it could be used as a prison... He knew that Fear had trapped the more powerful Original Sanses, and Papyruses, in those crystals.

Fear needed the Originals, to keep the Multiverse alive, you could kill a Copy, and it wouldn't do anything to the Multiverse, but if you killed an Original...

He didn't want to think about that...

They didn't have the Resets to bring anyone back... Core had done their best to save everyone else, and the last time that they had heard from them, everyone was settling down, and before Fear had caught Ink, the artist had recreated some of the AUs, in the Omega Timeline, so that everyone wasn't staring at the white skies...

He rubbed the Kid's back, when they whimpered.

Ink had been lucky to escape Fear's attack, with some of the Originals, but he ended sacrificing himself, to Seal the Omega Timeline, to stop Fear from entering it.

Ink was another prisoner in Fear's castle now...

The castle that this Kid had escaped from....

"Hold on Kid..." He told them, as he entered a ruined town. "You're going to be okay..."

The kid looked at him, and he found himself looking at a swirling gold, and purple eyelight, as he slipped into a secret passage, that took them down, into the earth.

"Where are we?" The Kid asked him.

"My home... What's your name Kid?"

"I think that it's Hibana... But I don't remember anything else..."

"Don't worry about that Hibana... My name is Skulduggery.... And this place is the last hideout of those who have escaped Fear..."