Summary: How babies are made- but not really.

(Warning: This story contains violence, injury, and swearing.)

A stormy growl tore out Nightmare's throat as he found himself under fire from more shimmering golden arrows. Their brilliant yellow gleam radiated positivity (all the nasty emotions like hope, love, and care), causing the non-existent bowels of the dark lord's stomach to coil.

The riled tendrils on his back flailed outward and deflected the projectiles to the best of their ability.

Alas, they could only react so quickly, especially while being assailed by a near endless barrage of speeding arrows.

Eventually, one of the golden projectiles pierced a tendril's gooey exterior. The dark ooze hissed and bubbled around the arrow's edge as the positivity ate away at the corruption, drawing a pained hiss from Nightmare's clenched jaws.

Another tendril sharpened and cleaved the positivity-poisoned appendage clean off slightly below where the arrow's magic had taken effect. Thus, allowing the attack to fall away from his body and dissipate. Meanwhile, the severed negativity plopped uselessly on the ground, twitching and squirming before falling still.

Snarling, the Guardian of Negativity settled his cyan eyelight on his opponent.

Dream stood unwavering- even in the face of Nightmare's evident p̶a̶i̶n̶ anger. He drew his bowstring back, causing several arrows to appear along his weapon's frame. Each ready to fire.

Nightmare raised his tendrils defensively, tensing when Killer's back suddenly bumped against his own.

The target-souled skeleton wasn't fairing too well against his opponent.

Then again, not many could go toe-to-toe with Ink.

Not without severe injury, at least.

Killer had since abandoned his precious knife in favor of clutching his battered, cracked shoulder. To prevent it from getting jostled around too much and creating a worse injury, no doubt.

Nightmare's eyelight flicked between the other and his foe. Even through a passing glance, he could see deep red liquid welling around the splits in his follower's bone and slowly sliding down his arm.

Droplets of blood slipped off, splattering down onto the dark lord's freshly severed tendril.

Both sides of the battlefield halted as a loud crackle echoed across the landscape. Eyelights - yellow, cyan, multi-colored, and pitch-black - landed on the source with varying degrees of concern, intrigue, and shock.

Nightmare's negativity and Killer's blood fizzled and sparked. Then merged into a bubbling, deep - nigh black - purple mass; It wiggled and squirmed until it took the vague shape of a skeleton.

Said skeleton-shaped ooze soon sat up after a moment struggling to control their gelatinous limbs. Once situated, their chest spat out a swirling black and cyan glob that hovered mere inches away from the space.

They curiously eyed the shifting magic before looking up at Nightmare and Killer with wide purple eyelights. Their face twisted into a snarl not a second later. All the while, they hissed and promptly scuttled away.

"Shit!" Killer swore, pulling away from Nightmare. "What the fuck is that?!"

The dark lord's teeth curled in disgust as he regarded the fleeing creature the target-souled skeleton was referring to and grumbled, "Ugh... Something I'll need to pay Error to get rid of later."