"....'s....io?" 

...

"H..y! W....'s....n..io?"

...

"Hey!! I'm talking to you! Where's Dimentio?!" Mr. L's voice hissed.

My vision slowly began to clear. I could immediately tell that Mr. L wasn't yelling at me, but at someone else.

The ground slowly rumbled beneath us. There was the sound of metal screeching and of whistles blowing. We were on the subway.

Sitting on my right was Mr. L, clearly angry.

Sitting across the train from both of us, my father.

I hadn't seen him in so long. I don't know why, but I didn't expect him to look so... different. He didn't look the way he used to. He didn't even look the way he did when we first arrived in this world. 

It was actually a little satisfying. I was glad to see that he looked different. It made facing him easier. 

Unlike the lost ones, he still somewhat resembled himself. His facial shape was somewhat the same, he was still tall, and his eyes were still blue. However, his hair was a mixture of blue and black. Most of it was black by now, but there were a few blue strands hidden within. 

"Shhh... let me continue the story. Don't you children know that it's rude to interrupt?" My father asked while clearing his throat.

Story? What the heck was going on?!

"And from the hollowed darkness, the wretched abyss, a savior had come at last to slay the beast and bring order to a new world. The end," he said, using his softer voice. I always hated his softer voice, because it was never genuine. I knew he was being genuine whenever he got angry and raised his voice, but I could never tell what was going on in his mind when he used a gentler tone.

Mr. L raised an eyebrow, then slowly clapped.

"Bravo. Now, answer my question. Where. Is. Dimentio?!" The man in green cried. He was practically begging for answers.

My father hummed, then turned his gaze over to me. He smiled a small, yet chilling smile. 

"Rest yourself, Blu. There's nothing to fear, so long as you're with me. You're safe now," he cooed.

Nothing to fear?! Was he being serious right now?!

"You did this, didn't you?!" Mr. L cried, pointing an accusing finger at my father. "You changed things. You... this doesn't make sense. I've never done ANYTHING to you-"

"Open your eyes and look around, creator," my father interrupted while slowly holding his arms out. "None of this makes sense. Drawings, nightmarish creatures, a broken world that was destroyed decades ago, it's all fiction. Utter nonsense. And yet, here, it exists. It flourishes. Reality, guided by its creator's pencil. You should be thanking me, creator. I broke your endless cycle."

"HOW?!" Mr. L demanded. "And don't go pretending to be a good guy! You took my brother! He was innocent, and you took him! You threatened to keep me locked up when we first met so I wouldn't go restarting the cycle! Remember? I don't know what you're planning, but-"

"This world must be controlled. Made safe," my father continued, turning his gaze to an ink splatter covering the walls of the train. "These things... these angels and demons, are they really life? Or are they just ink stains?" He turned his gave back to me and smirked slightly. "Old mistakes, ready to be cleansed away for newer, greater things..." 

I clenched my fists slightly.

He was talking about her.

How DARE he talk about her?!

Timpani was more than an ink stain. She was alive. She was always alive. He never treated her like she was, even before this. She was a living, breathing person. She was never an old mistake that needed to be cleansed away.

"What do you even want from us?!" Mr. L demanded. "You're avoiding my questions! How did you change the cycle, and for the love of Grambi, where is Dimentio?!"

"I want your cooperation. Pure hearts. Safe." My father answered.

Pure hearts?

The pure hearts were here?

"Safe?! Elaborate, please. Because your definition of safe may be VERY different from my definition of safe. Tell me where he is!" Mr. L demanded.

"Oh, look. This is our stop," my father chuckled, slowly standing up out of his seat. As if on cue, the train slowed.

"No, no, no, NO! You don't get to just move on! Where is Dimentio?!" Mr. L begged, seeming to grow angrier and angrier by the second.

Why did he care so much? Did he not hear the thing my father said about the pure hearts?! That seemed like the more pressing concern at the moment. 

The train stopped and the doors opened to another station, similar to the last.

"Stay close," my father breathed. 

Stay close? Now that we were stopped, I was planning on getting as far away from him as possible-

Before I could even finish that thought, he used one inky hand to grab my arm, and another to grab Mr. L's. 

I could tell that neither of us was a fan of the situation. It felt like we were being arrested. 

"The demon's evil continues to spread... the world has begun to shatter-"

"He's lying..."

There was that familiar voice. The voice that was so familiar, but not quite identifiable. The Ink Demon's voice.

Mr. L and I both reacted to it, so I could tell he could hear it too. However, my father didn't seem at all affected. 

He brought us up the stairs and back into the castle. However, it didn't look the same as before. There were long rugs rolled out over the wooden floors. All the posters had been taken down. The ink had been scrubbed off the walls.

"Welcome to the civilized world," my father started. "The hearts create a barrier around this place so the Ink Demon may not enter..."

"How did you get your hands on the pure hearts?!" Mr. L demanded.

My father chuckled quietly before answering. "Decades of searching through the garbage. This world is one large wastebasket. Yet, as we all know, the finest of treasure can often be found amongst the trash."

So while Mr. L was running through the cycles, trying to figure out how to get our own world back, my father was searching for pure hearts? Was that why he was missing in action for so long?! 

"My assistant will have the two of you escorted to your rooms," my father breathed, opening a door that led to another set of halls. 

"You mean our prison cells?" Mr. L asked.

"Your rooms." My father repeated.

He let us go, then stepped away. I was honestly surprised that he was just leaving us all on our own. 

"You never actually killed the Ink Demon, did you?" Mr. L questioned just before he could leave.

My father paused, then looked down and shook his head. For the first time in the history of forever, a small wave of guilt flashed over his face.

He wasn't guilty because he lied, though. He was just guilty because he got caught.

"It's too fundamental to this world to be destroyed. If I did, then this place would fall apart. I want to bring order to this place, not destroy it," he explained. "So, instead, I just... used the hearts to seal him away. Contain him in a different form. One that was smaller. Harmless."

Inky...

"It seemed to be a fitting prison," my father continued. "But he keeps escaping. It's under control, though. Enough talk. We'll deal with him soon enough... now I leave you to the hands of my assistant."

My father quickly went off before Mr. L could stop him by asking more questions. The man in green let out a huff and looked down.

"That guy really gets on my nerves..." he trailed off.

Oh, he has NO IDEA. 

"Come with me," a female voice started from behind us. "Your rooms are waiting for-"

A gasp interrupted her train of thought, and she fell silent. Mr. L and I both exchanged glances, then turned around to face her. I didn't need to, though. I already recognized the voice.

Nastasia was my FATHER'S assistant?!

"It's you..." she trailed off, looking right at me.

I almost gasped once I saw her. The projector that had been forced onto her head was gone. She looked similar to Dimentio. Almost like herself, but not quite. Her arms and legs were black" as if she dipped them in black paint. Most of her hair was also black, and her skin was a pale grey color, slightly lighter than Dimentio's. Instead of being secured in a neat bun, her hair was down. Her glasses were also gone.

"Nastasia?!" Mr. L questioned. "What the heck are you doing here? Don't tell me you're working for this guy too."

Nastasia stilled, then looked down and nodded.

I felt a small sense of betrayal. I mean... did she not know who he was?! What he did to me?!

"He saved me. He got the projector off. Then we discovered that had the same goal," she explained.

The same goal?

"The same goal?!" Mr. L exclaimed. "You wanted to mess with things you don't understand and establish order? ... Wait, now that I think of it, that doesn't actually seem too far-fetched for you."

"No," Nastasia breathed while looking back up at me. "We wanted to find you."

Why though? I knew that my father sent out the lost ones to look for me, but why was he so desperate to find me? I had no power here. I was basically nothing. 

"Why?!" Mr. L asked for me. I was silently grateful for the fact that he was asking all the right questions.

".... Love?" Nastasia answered, though it sounded more like a question. "I... don't know why he wanted to find you. But in my case... I don't remember much, but I do remember that I have to keep you safe. I don't know your name or even what you're like... but I remember needing to help you. It's my whole purpose."

That never should have been her whole purpose. She was so much more than just my assistant. I should never have let her become that. I never really thought about how much of herself she gave up in order to work for me. I've known Nastasia as an incredibly loyal, hardworking, faithful assistant who always had my best interest at heart. However, I didn't know much about who she was before I came into the picture, other than the fact that she was a bat. I wish she didn't make me her entire purpose. It was selfish of me to let her, knowing I'd never feel the same towards her.

"Right..." Mr. L trailed off. "So let me get this clear; You joined with this clearly sketchy dude purely because he got a stupid projector off your head and because you have a crush on this guy?!" The man in green gestured to me. 

Nastasia folded both of her hands in front of her, then nodded. I wasn't surprised, to be brutally honest. She wasn't good at hiding her own secrets and she never cared to deny the obvious. She was always fairly straightforward.

Still, I felt guilty. There's always that guilty feeling that arises when someone loves you and you don't love them back. Sometimes, I really wish I could have loved Nastasia because being able to move on would have made everything so much easier. However, I only could ever feel that way for one person, and that was Timpani. No matter how much anyone else tried, a life without Timpani in it still felt empty.

"Well... come along. I'll show you to your rooms..." she trailed off, turning and slowly leading us forward. "It's not very often we get guests for me to look after. Especially ones I can actually talk to. Practically everyone here either can't speak or they're completely mad."

"Gee, I wonder why," Mr. L sarcastically remarked. "Where's Dimentio- wait, better question, where's Mario?! I mean- the Brooks you took earlier. You have him here, and I want to know where."

Nastasia didn't turn back to look at us as she spoke. I was glad to see that some aspects of herself were still present. She didn't avoid questions and was straight to the point. 

"The practically perfect Brooks is in a room of his own. I was the first one to realize that he was indeed the wrong one. Do not worry, he will be released... at a to-be-determined time, K? I just have to wait for the boss to give the OK," she explained. "As for your first question... I don't know anyone by the name of Dimentio. Would you be referring to the angel or the music director-"

"Music director. He has a name. It's Dimentio. Don't you dare forget it," Mr. L hissed. 

"Right. Yeah... I'm not sure where he took them. Most likely with the other troublemakers." Nastasia answered. "Don't worry. They're safe."

Really? Because something about them being placed with other "troublemakers," didn't seem very safe. Dimentio was very unstable, and just about anything could set him off at any moment. Yes, he had been actually behaving fairly well recently, but being in poor conditions surrounded by troublemakers could very well make him lose it. Once he feels cornered and once he realizes that he no longer has control over his situation, he could snap.

Nastasia led us to two rooms, both on opposite sides of a hallway. "Here we are. Best rooms in the building. I saw to every detail to make sure they were perfect. The bed is clean, the bathroom is on the right, and all ink stains on the walls have been cleaned. Well, do either of you have any questions?" Natasia politely asked.

I did, but of course, I couldn't exactly ask.

Luckily, Mr. L had plenty of questions, as always.

"Do you really trust this man you're working for?" The man in green asked her.

See? I could ALWAYS rely on him to ask the right questions.

Nastasia paused, then began to fidget with her hands while actively avoiding the man in green's gaze. 

"I don't trust anyone. But, he takes care of me. Keeps me safe. He once said that I reminded him of someone he missed dearly. Something he called his... wife? I don't know. Tell me, is that a good thing?"

I frowned.

I hardly even remembered my mother. I lost her when I was young. I didn't think of her often. Still, sometimes I would find myself missing her, even though I don't even really know who she was. Isn't that odd? How could someone miss someone who they don't even know?

"I don't know," Mr. L admitted. "I've never had one. I don't think I ever will..."

Me neither... not because I didn't find the right person, but because of circumstances. I'll never get the chance to be married and live happily ever after. I took that opportunity away from myself and everyone else.

"Well... thanks anyway. I best leave you two to settle. If you need anything, just call and I'll come straight away. I'm always up..." Nastasia trailed off, slowly leaving us behind. 

Mr. L let out a frustrated huff, then reluctantly went into his room and slammed the door shut. I could assume that he wouldn't stay put for long. If anything, he was probably just trying to get his bearings before going out and searching for Dimentio and Peach, then maybe Mario. He did seem fairly concerned. 

I let out a sigh, then walked into my room. It looked remarkably similar to the room I use to have back when the world was somewhat normal. I didn't feel like I was home, though. Truthfully, I never felt like I was home, even when in my real room before all of this happened. I only ever felt at home when I was with Timpani.

I missed her. A lot. I have been trying to distract myself from how much I missed her, but it was getting harder and harder by the minute. 

I let out a sigh, then walked up to the mirror. I hadn't looked in many mirrors because I already knew what I looked like. Not myself. 

In the mirror, there was the perfect replica of Brooks. Tophat and everything. Every detail perfectly matched the drawing. 

Mario, sure, was close to the perfect replica as well, but the tiny details kept him from being THE perfect Brooks. Things like how his eyes were just ever so slightly smaller, or his missing tophat. His left ear drooped down slightly. Small details that most people wouldn't even notice. I wasn't surprised that people mistook him for me. My father, the lost ones, even Mimi-

Suddenly, before I could react, someone knocked me over from behind. I was usually good about acting quickly, but the attacker caught me completely off guard. 

"Found you," a voice giggled.