Chapter Text
Newbie wasn’t sure how long they’d sunk down into the darkness.
The darkness, at least, was warm. Not at all what they’d expected as it coiled and curled around them and smelled like sweetened honey. The ruined clothes they’d been wearing melted away into the void and entwined around them as a familiar-looking blue hoodie and green stockings.
It was what they’d worn that day, when the conference had gone bad. It was what they’d worn when they’d first met the others, all that time ago…
How long had it been since their death?
They didn’t know.
Eventually, the sweet-smelling void opened up once more and they tumbled through the air, landing with a soft oof on hard concrete.
Ow.
The bright light shined directly in their eyes, forcing them to blink a few times as the world came into focus once more. Falling and landing this hard so many times couldn’t have been good for them, dreamworld or not.
As their eyes focused once more, they blinked a few times to see the blue glass wall not ten feet from their face. They turned over onto their back (despite every muscle and bone in their body protesting) to see the towering building extending upwards into the sky.
Well, wasn’t that familiar? They’d know the HQ they visited half a dozen times on their initial journey from just the front door of it alone.
They reached their hand out to try to call forth their gear to use the healing card again, but alas, no dice- er, cards.
Just as they resigned themself to their fate of getting up and wandering while being in a lot of pain, there was some laughter in the distance.
“Red, slow down!”
“Keep up, then!”
Ah… they knew those voices.
A familiar pair skidded around a corner while Newbie sat up, and the kids didn’t even notice them.
Gone was the formal attire from the party; the kids now wore their normal clothes, hoodies and shorts that matched one another. They were… robloxian, still. Not inphernal.
None of them were inphernal here.
Whatever- it didn’t matter anymore. Newbie stood up while the other two ran and chased and played, completely ignoring them.
“Hey- hey guys- hey-!” They called out, waving like wild trying to get their attention. It didn’t really work, best they got was a glance from Blue who proceeded to turn back and focus on chasing Red.
“Well that was weird.” Newbie looked around again, but there was nobody else out there. The street was completely empty, no cars, no people; not even a rat. “Guess I don’t really have much of a choice.”
With that, they turned and began to follow the kids down the street, keeping pace with them. Even if Newbie wasn’t the tallest, they were still fairly tall and their long legs did a lot of the keep-up work here.
“Guys-! Red! Blue! Come on, slow down!” They called out desperately, trying to get their attention as the two continued to play their game. “Please! Can you just explain what the fuck is-”
And that was when Blue, who was closer, turned around and punched Newbie in the stomach.
Hard.
Newbie doubled over clutching their mid-section as the kids ran off again, laughing like Blue hadn’t just done that.
… alright, so this wasn’t the same Red and Blue Newbie had known during their first adventure. The Blue they knew wouldn’t have just punched someone like that and run off laughing. She would have at least used a sword.
That wasn’t… Red and Blue.
And a switch in Newbie flipped at that point.
This wasn’t Red and Blue.
Sure, they’d fought the kids before, but in those situations they’d tried to go easy on the kids. It had always seemed wrong to beat up two children, even if they’d pummeled a guy and then sicced their uncle on Newbie themself. But this wasn’t two children- they weren’t real, just figments of Newbie’s imagination that seemed to not give a single flying fuck.
They let out a harsher sigh, almost like they were disappointed in themself for not realizing it sooner. It should have been so fucking obvious.
Well, if “the kids” didn’t want to bother, then he’d see how long this piece of him could stretch out that lack of care.
They reflexively reached out again to summon their cards, but like last time, it didn’t work. Of course it didn’t. Didn’t work earlier and it wouldn’t work now. But this was their dream adminsbannit-
Breathe. Focus.
They tried again. Just one card, any card at all, and flexed their hand.
Something crystalline grew from their hand a moment later and they were able to grab something solid. It was blank. A blank card. For most that would have been bad, but for Newbie…
…
Cards may have been good for something after all.
Cards. Blank cards. The cards that could be used to trap inphernals to later use as gear… and those two may not have been inphernals, but Newbie did remember the Red and Blue call card they’d used so many times while out adventuring…
They could do this.
Slowly but surely, their feet began to hit the ground. The rhythmic pat pat pat kept them company as they began to run down the sidewalk of the Dreamworld, following the laughter that sounded far too fake for it to be real. Happy, fake, careless laughter bounced off the flat walls of the city around them, echoing back to Newbie as they turned corner after corner. Still, though, the children always seemed to be one or two turns ahead of them.
Which was fine. That was fine. This was their dream world, right? Even if they couldn’t control it, they sure as hell knew it had to have a limit somewhere. The Dreamworld last time was a confusing maze, but this one seemed to be made up of a mish-mash of their memories.
So, think, where could the two have gone…
They looked around corners, checked around bends and trees, and then heard the laughter from up above them.
Ah.
They craned their neck to look up and saw two shadows leap across a few buildings, moving more like liquid together than anything solid. At this point Newbie briefly wondered if Ghostwalker had put something in their bloodstream somehow, but eventually chalked it up to normal dream weirdness. If this was only the first trial, shit was probably gonna get weirder.
With nowhere else to go, they went up.
They clenched the card they’d been carrying between their teeth as they grabbed hold of a conveniently placed ladder (which they weren’t going to question) and began to climb up.
On the rooftops, two children continued their ceaseless game. Two hearts as one, two minds melded together.
Or was it ever separated?
Euphoria itself couldn’t have told you.
Maybe the memories that made up its dolls were once separate things. They were always seen together, and those memories had long since merged into one cohesive concept.
Red, headstrong and brazen. The child had always given it his all in everything he’d done from what was in the memories. Blue was the more cautious one, always pulling her friend out of trouble, yet unafraid to strike while the iron was hot.
It had chosen this form in Newbie’s memories. It loved this form in their memories. The children were innocent, happy, and that’s all it wanted to be.
Happy. It wanted to be happy. It couldn’t stand that Newbie couldn’t just be happy.
It didn’t matter, not anymore. Here, in this dreamworld built by Ghostwalker, Euphoria had room to run and play with its dolls, weaving them back and forth as the game continued.
“Tag, you’re it!”
“No, you’re it!”
“How did you catch me?”
“You’re just slowwww~!”
Back and forth the dolls ran, and Euphoria watched from inside their minds.
Newbie, meanwhile, thought it was frankly a little weird that the children were just running back and forth in circles on top of a roof. This couldn’t be safe, what if they fell off?
“Hey,” they called out once, but got no reaction from the children.
“Hey!”
Again, no reaction.
They didn’t seem to care as they laughed and chased each other around. It was strange, to be standing there, watching two happy children run around. It was familiar in a distant sort of way.
They reminded them of when they were younger, before the worries set in. Back when them and their sister had all the time in the world to play once they were done with their studies.
Alone in an orphanage, yes, but not without each other. They had books about heroes to read and a warm bed to sleep in on cold nights.
And they’d chase each other endlessly back and forth, caring for nothing but being happy.
They shook those memories away. Useless memories now.
This wasn’t some fairy tale. Newbie died. And they didn’t want to die again in this dream world before they even had a chance to find out what was going on.
So, they did the only thing they knew they could do. They began to play with the kids.
Well… “playing” was one way to put it. In reality it was more like running back and forth, edging closer and closer to the edges of the building.
At one point Blue’s foot hit the edge and she stumbled, but Red was right there to grab her arm and pull her back. And the two children just laughed and kept running in circles.
Could they not see how dangerous this was?
…
These weren’t Red and Blue. They were hollow shells of children.
Euphoria had known the entire time what their dolls were like. Crafted of memories of a childhood stolen by loneliness and fear. Memories of a place that they’d once called home and left behind.
This was somewhere the children could run free. This is somewhere the children could be careless.
And Newbie understood that as they ran around and smiled, putting their arms out like wings that would never reach the sky. They’d been denied heaven once in death; what was once more in a dream?
And Newbie knew what they had to do to end this endless, senseless game.
They waited. They ran and they waited until one of the two teetered too close to the edge again. Red’s foot slipped and they took their chance.
As Blue yanked Red back up, Newbie was there, grabbing hold as all three of them tumbled from the roof.
The children screamed. Of course they screamed, how could anything else have happened? But Newbie knew this couldn’t be like this.
They pressed the card into the children in their arms, condensing them and their puppeteer down into nothing more than the callcard they’d once known.
They held the card tight to their chest as they fell down, diving towards concrete. They muttered apologies under their breath, not even sure if the false children in the card could hear them.
What a beautiful thing it was, to be able to say they were sorry for this as the void swallowed them whole again.