Beaten, pushed around, bruised. Ink fell through the access point not bothering to know just which Au he had fallen into. He didn't bother trying to stop his fall through the trees as the branches tried to slow the decent for him. But they weren't succeeding as intended, branches tearing his clothes as they bent to his weight all while he fell.

He failed, ink had...failed. He's never failed before. It was almost as if he had meant to fail just to come back later. Yet that didn't mean it didn't hurt. He laid there now on the grassy floor, feeling a gentle wind blow past him as he laid. His eyes closed for a moment uncaring if his vials were cracked in the slightest.

He felt guilty. The look in your eyes when you both had finally caught the others gaze. You were scared, upset, lost. The person you relied on to rescue you and he gets beaten to a pulp for the first time in, well probably, forever.

Finally ink began to move coughing into his hand at the impacts he's taken only to get a view of his surroundings. Well he's in a pacifist route that's for sure. He's on the surface but where and when and such he wasn't sure. He had intended for underswap but when it's the surface and not the underground it's difficult to tell where is where at times.

What's blue gonna think? Or dream?

Ink heaved a sigh as he slowly rose to his feet at the thought. Feeling his legs wobbling from beneath him. He's so beaten he can't even stand. He's surprised really, error's thrown him around like that before and it hadn't hurt as badly. So why was it hurting so much now? Regardless the pain was there and ever so persistent.

Is this what it normally feels like?

The thought entered into his mind as he leaned his heavy weight against a spare tree. To be beaten in such a way, he was certain Error was getting a kick from all this. Too pleased with himself for defeating ink, even if it was one small victory and not the whole war.

He's probably gloating.

Ink rolled his eyes at the thought beginning at last to check himself for any real damage. Nothings cracked or broken at the very least. But he's sore as if he had just been thrown to and from for hours on end.

In a sense he had been thrown about, but nothing too extreme, and certainly nothing he's not used to. This loss, was weighing heavily upon ink. To think he had to go back to poor blue empty handed.

Ink wobbled until at last gaining his footing, being able to stand on his own after what felt like forever. Slowly he whipped out broomie staring at his beloved paintbrush with a sense of dread.

He wasn't looking forward to visiting blue at the moment. Knowing the poor guy was going to be heart broken hearing that his new human friend wouldn't be returning to his Au any time soon. This was far more serious than ink had ever anticipated. He needed to plan his next strike, not dive in head first. Certainly quite the wake up call.

After so many years, diving into a situation head first and thinking of a plan later had never been a problem. But now, after that encounter, there was a problem. A big problem.

His hand rested against his rib cage, trying to ease the sharp pain that was still persisting in hurting him. His eyes looked to the sky, catching glimpses of reds and yellows and oranges paint the sky with a soft glow. The sun was going down, or was it coming up? Ink couldn't really tell.

"Well first order of business is to find out where I am!" Ink nodded his head, speaking aloud to himself and only himself. But it was a habit he was well used to. (It got lonely in the doodle sphere.)

His eyes looked around surveying the surroundings, trying his best ink searched for any sign of town. The suns setting, or rising, rays of light hit something that glimmered in the distance revealing that it must be the windows of a tall building. Deciding that was the way to go, ink began his walk. Limping slightly all the way.

He couldn't get over it, he had lost. Actually lost! Maybe this was some sort of revenge for something. The author, who ink carefully made sure had such an amazing idea, must hold some kind of a grudge against him. Or maybe this is just what needs to happen to progress the story. Like a filler, to keep an audience waiting and wanting more of their beloved antagonist.

What ever the reason, ink wasn't particularly fond of the authors want of having him smacked around like this. (Okay sure the first time was just the rain, and this time was a real situation, but the point remained!)

The longer ink walked the longer it felt like he was taking to reach the town, even if more accurately it was only a 2 minute walk from where he had landed in the beginnings of the forest. Ink paused as he was met with the road.

An interstate.

Ink blinked his eye sockets at the sight of it, there it was indeed, the exit road from an interstate.

That must mean town isn't far from here, maybe then I can get some answers of what Au I'm in!

Filled with determination of his own ink bounced on the heels of his feet, with every step he took towards the supposed town. He could see the buildings just peeking out from behind the trees, glimmering windows from the sun. This would make for a lovely painting, with the way the shadows casted down on everything, yet filled with so much warmth and light from the sun. It was a perfect contrast.

If he wasn't on a mission maybe ink would of stopped gotten a few supplies and drawn and painted it all. But he was in a hurry, and so the beautiful display had to be forgotten. The closer he got to the city the more cars and people he started to encounter, no one even looked his way.

Humans, either they resented the monsters or didn't care about them in the slightest and only worried about themselves. Most of them anyway. Always so busy to get from one point to the next. Go to their jobs, go home eat sleep repeat. Certainly not the life of an artist! Or a monster artist who happens to be a skeleton.

Ink cringed are the idea of having to work one of those silly boring jobs, which aren't very fun even for humans, he'd much rather be entertained by some sort of game than this nonsense. But he also enjoyed a life of not needing to have money to put food on the table. (In his "profession" all he needed to do was just go some where and get it for free.)

Passing by the small groups of people ink tried to get a better look at his surroundings. It wasn't a big city, but it wasn't a small town either, it was just a nice middle. With roads leading to homes and multiple jobs and shops and restaurants. Everything was either clumped or spaced out, and there was no in between. But it was then, as his eyes looked over the tall buildings, did he see it.

There peeking out from behind one of the smaller buildings was the top half of mount ebbot. A familiar sight, that every Au with a pacifist timeline, had a beautiful view of. Now that ink knew for sure he was in one of the au's the question was which one.

There were so many, there were even some au's where the original sans, meets another human and they fall in love. Well technically speaking ink may of had a hand in making sure most Au versions of sans had something like that written about them, whether it was with someone in their Au or even just a human girl guy or in between. (What? He's a hopeless romantic when he wants to be!)

Still, getting off topic doesn't quite help the situation. Thinking about trying his hand at helping create such a story, ink wondered how the girl was doing. Will Error still keep her? Will he just kill her? What if he decides to destroy underswap now?

A lot to think about but really, there were no answers to what was really happening in that anti void. Ink could ask Dream to keep an eye on them, while he plans his next move in this game of theirs, but would the girl be too negative to even allow him to be that close? What if nightmare gets ahold of this news?

Everything his mind kept coming up with just kept getting worse and worse. It was one think after the other, and all ink could do was stand there amongst the crowd looking down at the floor seeing his shadow casted from the sun behind him. 

"Ink! Ink!" The familiar voice pulled ink out of his thoughts, his head turned up at the sound of his name and he quickly twisted his body to the sound of the voice. There, running with a hand waved up in the distance, was blue. It seems he was with Chara, who seemed as though they had been crying the bags under their eyes red and puffy, and his brother papyrus. (Papyrus looked sadder than normal.)

Ink found he couldn't move. The moment he really didn't want to be faced with was here, and blue was running toward him with so much hope that ink felt guilty again. He had lost blue's new human after she had just been created. Ink almost found himself, as still as a statue in these moments.

Chara seemed to try and tug at blue, pulling at his scarf a bit with an almost knowing look in their eyes. They signed something to blue, and while ink was fluent in sign language as many other languages with the way he felt, ink couldn't quite see what was said.

Blue seemed to stop, his rushed running halted as he seemed to really watch Chara's hand movements. His shoulders dropped. Ink knew blue had just been told by Chara at that point that their sister and friend was no where to be seen with the creative skeleton.

Regardless of that fact though, blue still walked up to him, more composed than before, eyes still gleaming with hope. But they were fuller than when he had originally called for ink the first time.

"How did it go? Did you get the eldest human home and back safely to us!" Blue was still trying to be optimistic. Trying so hard to find the good in this situation. But it was clear to ink, that blue was sad. All the monsters were sad to loose the sister to the human who had saved them all.

Ink's eyes rose to look up at papyrus who had his hands stuffed into his hoodie's pockets, slouched over more than usual, with a cigarette laced between his teeth. At least that was usual. But the look in his eyes is what had caused ink to look. There was a weight to them, and at the same time a resentment. Maybe towards ink? Or towards himself?

Ink couldn't quite tell what was going on inside Papyrus's head other than the fact that he was unhappy with the outcome. Ink, slowly, brought his eyes back to look at blue. And with a deep breath, he tried to form some sort of sentence.

"I-well-you see-about that-" his sentence was garbled, awkward. Every word ink tried to utter was nothing more than tongue tied and lost in the sea of his minds quick thoughts. But regardless of all of that blue waited patiently for ink to get his thoughts in order. Now ink felt as though he was on the spot.

With a scratch the his spine, which was more of an action of scratching the back of his neck, ink tried to start again. Hoping that this time he would sound more composed.

"I'm sorry blue, but I-" ink paused, hand falling from his neck, "i-I lost."

There was a silence that hung in the air. Maybe it was shock, maybe it was defeat, maybe it was the feeling of Hope vanishing through the air. But regardless of what had really been the reason behind the thick silence, ink knew blue was really thinking.

"You've never lost before," blue seemed so shocked as he spoke but continued speaking anyway despite how shocked he truly was, "but not every battle is a victory! The human has taught me that we do not need to fight, so maybe this was a lesson for you not to fight! We'll help you find the human, friend! And we'll make sure that Error knows that we like her very much!"

Optimistic. If there was one word to always describe blue it would be optimistic. He was always a cheerful and pumped up little ball of energy. And this was no different. The only thing that was different was the look in his eyes. While his words were comforting and brought ink a sense of ease in a sense, the look in blue's eyes was serious. It was almost, unnerving to see blue look so serious in his eyes. (But he wasn't considered a star sans for nothing.)

"Mm!" Chara tried to make a sound, tried to speak, but nothing but that weird sort of him came out. But they had done what they had wanted to reach ink's attention. Their hands quick to sign their words.

"Sans is right, we'll help you get sis back, and we won't rest until she's back home safe with us! She did the same for me! It's only fair that we do the same for her!" Chara looked so worried and yet at the same time their determination was sparkling within their eyes as the signed.

Ink felt, hmm, how did he feel? There was a lot to take in. Naturally ink should of known that blue wouldn't of been so harsh on him like he thought. But it was still shocking. He had failed. The "hero" was defeated by the "villain" that's not how the story is supposed to go. But here he was. The best way, to describe the feelings, would be that he felt energized by his friends.

With a smile and hands to his hips ink sucked in a deep breath only to let it out in a heavy sigh with his smile returning again. Blue is right, maybe this was a chance to see that not ever solution to beating error required fighting. It was time to get his head back in the game!

"If you really want to help then we should start forming a plan! After all we have to be a step ahead of Error, who knows what he's planning now that he's gotten an ego boost from winning today!" Ink huffed a bit at the thought but it was more of a playful sound. Blue seemed to perk up more now and nodded his head.

"Right! Come along! We shall return home at once! And you can tell us all of your battle and what had transpired so that we may help you plan for next time!" Blue jumped to grab ink's hand, and ink happily let him take it feeling the tug from blue as they all started walking together and the recount of the battle was being told.

But in this story, no matter how much planning is involved, Error is going to win. No matter what it takes.