Despite the new form change ability, Goth was still Error and he still had a duty to do.

Entering the Anti-Void, Goth took on the form of Error before he checked on the state of the Multiverse, it seemed that since his kidnapping two years ago, Ink had slowed down on the speed that new AUs and copies where being created.

It did make some sense that Ink slowed down his Creation sprees, it would be difficult to find him if there was too many AUs for everyone to go through and if those AUs had copies of him in them, they had to figure out if they were the real him or a copy of him tied to that AU.

There was no AUs or copies for him to destroy today.

He was about to leave when he sensed a familiar aura. He turned around to see Nightmare.

Goth had mixed feelings about the goopy Skeleton, as Goth, he had only heard the stories about Nightmare and all of them were not good, but as Error, he had seen the truth behind the stories, he had gotten to know the real Nightmare, who occasionally treated him like he was one of his Boys.

He now understood why he treasured those times, he was technically still a kid, he was still frozen in time, but the only change was that his physical body was closer to his mental age now. He had missed his family, even though those memories had been locked away by Fate, so, the Fatherly Affection that Nightmare had given him, helped to ease that pain but it never went away...

He sighed, right as Nightmare began to speak to him.

"Error, what's wrong?"

"Everything and nothing at the same time." Goth replied as he let himself fall backwards onto his blue beanbag.

"Everything and nothing?" Nightmare repeated. "What do you mean by that?"

Goth frowned, thinking about it. "What if, I told you, that I might have a plan that has a 50/50 chance of yeeting some common sense into Ink's head?" He asked.

"Does this have to do with why you have been almost silent for the pass two years?"

"Yes.... Two years ago, I remembered, who I had been before I became Error." Goth began. "The memories broke through the seal that Fate had been using to keep them back. She had a good reason to do that..."

"Why..."

"'Mare, I come from this time, Fate took me two years ago and she dragged me back in time, I was an Outcode before she took me and turned me into this, but my parents and my siblings are still alive. I wasn't even a normal Outcode, I looked younger then I was, a kid when I was actually a teenager. I was locked in time, something that still stays with me, even if Fate broke the lock long enough for my physical body to have an overdue growth spurt."

"You're just a kid!?" Nightmare yelled before he scooped Goth up into a tight hug, allowing the teenage Destroyer to wrap his arms around him.

"Yeah..." Goth muttered before he buried his head in Nightmare's neck. "I miss them so much. My Dad, my Mom, all of my siblings, my best friend, Fate took all of them from me, just for her own selfish reasons!"

"I know, but no matter how hard we try, sometimes, we can't fix the past." Nightmare said as he gently rubbed Goth's back. "But we can move forwards and fix the future, I could give anything to have the chance to go back in time and stop the villagers from forcing me to eat those Apples, but what I have left to give is what I want to protect, they are mine and I am their's. You can't stop Fate from taking your past self but you can fix what she broke within your family. You can go home now, right?"

"When she took my past self, it had a side effect on me, it was how I remembered who I was..." Goth muttered. "And I can turn back into who I used to be but I can't go home, not yet..."

"Why?" Nightmare asked as he pulled away from Goth.

"Something is bothering me." Goth said, playing with his strings. "Why exactly does Fate need a Destroyer? She can't have started out with the need for one, so, what happened to change that?"

That was a good question, if Error was needed from the start, then he should have been born at the same time as Ink, but he hadn't. He had been added after the main puzzle had been created, an extra piece that you didn't need. What happened to make Fate change her mind....

The goop on Nightmare shivered as he came to one groundbreaking answer to that question.

"This isn't the first run for our Multiverse..." Nightmare whispered. "It's the second...."

Goth nodded his head. "Ink had to have overcrowded the Multiverse to the point that it collapsed, there was no one to get rid of the AUs and copies that wasn't needed."

"So, why is he repeating the chain of events that lead to the Multiverse collapsing?" Nightmare asked. "If he remembers how it happened the first time, why is he doing it again?"

"Fate can be cruel..." Goth said. "But most of all, she hates it when someone decides to go against her... Ink had to come up with a solution to prevent this from happening again but I think that Fate didn't like any of the solutions that he had, because in the end, the only thing that Ink could do was limit the amount of Creation that he did... Fate must have done something to make him forget about the first run of the Multiverse, which could be the reason why he has Swiss Cheese for his memories..."

"And then she forced you to do the job that she should have done."

Goth nodded his head. "Things would have been so much easier if Fate explained to Ink about the balance, because, technically, we are the Life and Death of the Multiverse. You can't have one without the other and it also brings me to something that I have noticed about Ink. Two things actually..."

"What is it?"

"Ink is Soulless, right? But some of the things that he can do, needs a Soul. We can argue that Magic can help him to do most of these things, but it's Palette that brings up a lot of questions about Ink's status as a Soulless Monster, because, shouldn't he have a half a Soul instead of a full Soul?"

"You're right! That brat should be like Cross, with half a Monster's Soul, what did they do to the brat to stop that?"

"What if they didn't do anything, to create a new Soul, you need two Souls and a lot of Magic, but in some AUs, they just use a lot of Magic instead. Palette could have been created through the second method, but as the Creator, shouldn't Ink be able to use both of them?"

Nightmare looked at Error. "So, if the brat wasn't created through the second method, and they didn't do anything, how is this possible? Did Ink lie to us about being a Soulless Monster..."

"No, he is a Soulless Monster, but, who says that he was always a Soulless Monster..." Goth said. "The fact that he needs paint to feel emotions, should have been the trigger for alarms bells."

"Why?"

"Emotions are just as unique as our Souls, everyone has different triggers for their anger, everyone has their own way to make themselves happy and everyone has their own breaking point. Artificial emotions can be created, but they don't last for long and a long time ago, when some of the other Sans were dared to drink the paint, they had different reactions to it."

"What are you trying to say Error?"

"What I am trying to say is, the only way that the paint can give Ink emotions is that if they had a baseline to work on, an idea on how Ink feels these emotions, his Soul."

"Wait, are you saying that he used to have a Soul!?" Nightmare asked. Everything that Error told him was slipping into place, Ink wasn't always a Soulless, he had a Soul, once.... "What happened to change that? Did he remove it himself!?"

"No." Goth said, staring at two certain Puppets that hung above him. "If the Seal placed on my Memories can break, then what about the one on Ink's? It would break eventually, nothing stays hidden forever, Fate needed another way to keep him under her thumb and the best way to do that, possibly? She took his Soul and she hid it somewhere, she couldn't have taken it with her, the paints need the baseline in order to work, and since, they are created when Ink creates a new AU, it has to be here, somewhere...."

"Error...."

"If I can get it back, I can use it to end this fight forever, no more Creation, no more Destruction. I can go home and be me again, I can go back to my Mom and my Dad, my siblings, my best friend, I can have them back and..."

Nightmare could clearly see the tears rolling down Error's cheeks, to be so close to finally bringing this War to an end, to finally freeing himself from the chains and the duties that Fate had forced on him....

"But what if it doesn't work?" Nightmare asked, seeing a flaw in Error's plan. "What if he still needs his paints?"

"With a Soul, he should see a need to cut down on how much of it that he drinks, making his supply of paint last longer." Goth shrugged his shoulders. "I'm okay with the occasional new AU or Copy being created once in a while, as long as it doesn't tip the balance and destroy everything. I will step in if that does happen, but in the end, both of us get something out of it, Ink gets a Soul and I can go home. I know that this plan won't solve everything, but.... I can deal with that when that day comes...."

"I'll tell my boys to keep an eye out for anything suspicious." Nightmare said as he opened a portal. "But Error, who are you?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out." Goth smiled. "I know how much you love a good riddle."

Nightmare smirked, before he entered the portal, with it closing behind him.

The smile on Goth's face dropped once he was gone and the teenage Skeleton brought out his knitting supplies. He brought down the two puppets that had been hanging above him, staring at them.

Reaper and Geno. His parents.

He placed the puppets next to him before he opened a one way portal to Undernovela, because, despite everything that had happened, he still loved Undernovela.

The noises of his knitting needles hitting each other as he began to create a new puppet, faded into the background as he watched his show. He didn't know how long he sat there, but when he looked down, he found himself looking at puppets that looked like his siblings but the one that grabbed his attention the most, was the one that he had just finished.

"Palette..." Goth whispered as his form flickered and he returned to his birth form, surrounded by the handmade puppets of his loved ones.

He whimpered, before he closed the one way portal to Undernovela, put his knitting supplies away, and he gathered all of the puppets in his arms.

Goth opened a new portal, heading to the apartment that he currently lived in. He placed the puppets on his bed, all of them, apart from the Palette puppet.

He placed this one in his left pocket.

"I know that you miss me and that you want me home, where I am safe and you can keep me safe." He muttered as he picked up the puppets of his parents and he hugged them tightly. "But I can't come home, not yet, not now, not when I am a danger to you all... If anyone found out who I am, what I have done, what I plan to do, it would put all of you in danger and I don't want that!"

Goth could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"But I swear, once all of this is over, I'm coming home and I'll never leave you again, I promise."