He had done it!

No laws of time and space limited him. With a single thought, with so much as a blink Gaster could rewrite entirely timelines and shape the world as he saw fit. Worlds and universes could be eradicated without a single living memory, never existing for any trace could be gone, gone, gone! He could rewrite the perfect ending, create the perfect story so that there was no more need for senseless resets, for these pesks of alternate realities to form without control, without limit. The painter had fought so valiantly for their existence but in the end that was futile, for not one living thing had the power that now ravaged throughout Gaster's form.

The human and their pet glitch meant nothing to him. Gaster could turn them on each other in a moment's notice, erase the history and their false truces that they had built together. For not one thing could resist the corruption of the Overwrite button, the very essence of his power that allowed Gaster ultimate domination over the coding of all living things. For he now had a complete soul, filled to the brink with power form the determination of his stolen human soul. He was in an unimportant universe, a mere blip in the multiverse that would soon be forgotten.

Underswap, Gaster believed that was what Ink had called this world. He had traveled here and stolen the determination from the human that claimed dominion over this timeline! Hah, he laughed at the thought! Such determination and power was stored within the feeble body of the pacifist child, a human that had vowed to never once use thier power on the monsters that existed in their world. What a waste of determination and magic that was, for the child had reserves of magic that could move entire mountains if they so pleased, yet they had been hell bent on never summoning such things. But none of that mattered now for Gaster had killed the child and absorbed the determination. He would use the power as it was always meant to be used. He would move mountains.

The rest of this universe was unimportant. Those that lived in this reality were nothing more than figments of code as was everything else in the multiverse. Nothing was ever truly alive or a setinent creature, only mere strings of code that were programmed to believe that they had the ability of thinking and feeling. Gaster was the true creature, the only living being in all of this world. No code constructed him, nothing bound him. He was free to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

But Gaster wasn't going to delete this Underswap universe, not yet anyway. He waved his hand and a purple button was brought into view, a wretched thing that seemed to reflect everything foul and corrupt in the multiverse, manifested into a single thing. The word 'Overwrite' was written in jagged Winding dialect across the button, beckoning to be used. In time Gaster would erase this universe from the face of existence as he would for the rest of the anomalies.

But for now, he was going to have fun.

~ The Chess Pieces ~

The silence was deafening.

The song of the multiverse had changed, one less voice in the mix. Already Gaster had gone to work conducting his wrath against all of time and space, eradicating whole universes with a mere thought. Error seemed to sense the shift too, having shared a part of your soul and thus in tune with the happenings of the multiverse as well. You felt a tremor of remorse pass through you, mourning the lost lives and codes of the universe you could not save.

"There's nothing we can do to stop him," you muttered, running your hand through your hair. "What can we do to stop Gaster? He has the power to change our very code with the push of a button, in the blink of an eye he could wipe us from existence if he so pleased. How can there be any hope for us? How can we kill a god?"

"Gods can die," Error replied, his voice oddly calm. No longer was he arrogant, offering sarcastic and witty remarks. The tides had changed, the final battle was near. Despite your differences, despite your flaws and your weaknesses, the fate that bound the two of you had one goal, one destination and the final hour was almost at hand. There was no time to delay and no time to waste when the multiverse was about to heave its last breath and you two were the only ones with the power to dictate otherwise. "Gods exist when there are those that fear them and believe that nothing can be done to oppose them. But gods are nothing more than a person with powers that are diluted in their arrogance that nothing lives to oppose them. But yet we exist and we have the power to stop Gaster, so he is not a god."

"He can delete us," you murmured, your thoughts sinking back to your own dead world filled with dead memories and dead lives that would never exist again. "How can we fight against him? We lost the minute the fight started, the minute Nightmare declared war on Ink and those that stood with him."

"That is Gaster's weakness," Error concluded. "He acts alone in this thinking that he has won and that nothing can oppose him. So what need does he have for Nightmare any longer? What need does he have for the army that Nightmare commands? I sense that Gaster's control on him is gone now, when he is diluted in the fantasy that he has won."

Was it possible? Was there still a scrap of hope that victory was possible, that there was a way to defeat the demon after all? If Gaster had truly thought that he had won and relented his control over Nightmare, maybe he was once more thinking for himself and would see reason with you and Error. And if that was the case, if you could really convince Nightmare to rally behind you, that would mean you would have an army at your disposal and even a god could not face an army alone.

"But where would we find him?" you asked, attempting to tune out the song of the multiverse, hating the sudden change of tune, hating the so obvious disppearance of one of the worlds. "It could be only hours before Gaster masses enough strength to kill us all. The Void is infinite and Nightmare walks in it, meaning it could take us lifetimes before we finally find him."

"Perhaps once it would have been impossible for you to locate him," Error mused, "but if the balance has shifted and you have taken Ink's place, you are in tune with every living creature that has and ever will exist. I would personally smite myself if I had to live with that, but perhaps it is a power that will serve us useful."

"But how do I use it?" you growled. "It's no use if I don't know how to use it."

Error shurgged, enjoying your frustration. You rolled your eyes and then extended your mind, a third eye that could see for miles around, vision extending into whole different worlds. You were taken aback at the sudden shift in reality but pushed onwards. Through your third eye you could make out Error's pulse, the energy that ran through his life's blood. It was entrancing, the faint glow that surrounded his skeletal form, the life that emenated from him even if the Void had chipped away at his sanity for years and years.

You continued to search through the Void, feleing isolated and alarmed at the emptiness of it all, how devoid of life and infinite the terrain was. Occasionally you could make out the hate demons, leftover piles of hatred from their forgotten universes that never died for they were not a living thing. A sudden spark in the distance drew your forwards, eagerness pumping through every essence of your body as you sought to identify this living creature.

You were met with a whole lot of them, a collection of living beings that seemed to stand out for miles in the empty hell of the Void where living things were shunned and the dead and dust welcomed. And in the midst you could feel the pulse of Nightmare's own energy, the strange glow that pulsed from his corporeal form. Satisfied, you retreated back into your own body, once more confined to a physical form.

"I found them," you gasped, the tax on your energy reserves enormous. "Nightmare's angry, I could feel it. I think he's freed from Gaster's control like you said, and maybe this is the opprotunity we've been looking for." You closed your eyes and relayed the location to Error through the faint mental link between the two of you, brushing lightly against his consciousness, not wanting to get lost within the insanity that ravaged inside.

Error seemed to stiffen against the transmission of information, still not used to the growing link between the two of you. If it was true that you could exchange thoughts and emotions, what if some of Error's own insanity was transferred to you? How would that affect you and in turn the balance, the cycle that dictated all things?

We don't have time for this, you thought, interlacing your fingers with Error's as he prepared to teleport. We can only live in the now and pass through each second and do whatever it takes to survive. We will deal with the tomorrow if we can live to see such a day. For now, there are more pressing matters at stake.

The memories were still fresh in your mind, the recollection of how Horror and the other skeletons had turned on you and your friends. Whether they had been under Gaster's influence or not, it had still been them that had killed Geno and the deaths of so many others. But Reaper was an entirely different story, he had acted out of his own personal gain to sell you out to Nightmare and ultimately playing a part in Geno's death.

And yet you could not bring yourself to kill Reaper even as you materialised in front of Nightmare, your eyes skimming over the skeleton that had betrayed you. After having taken Ink's placed, gained new insight into the multiverse and the world around you, you couldn't bring yourself to kill him even with the hatred of Error's soul that manifested inside you, wanting ot put the anomaly out of its misery. He was still a creation, a voice in the song of the multiverse.

You wondered if the song in the Void had a title.

"You," Nightmare bristled, the tentacles of black matter twitching anxiously. Your left palm glowed a [F/C] colour, a warning in case those around you dared to attack. "What are you dong here? The war is lost, don't you get it? Gaster has played us as chess pieces and manipulated us for his own personal gain. He has gotten what he wanted and it's only a matter of time before we are all erased from the face of this world."

"There's still hope," you snapped, avoiding Reaper's eyes. "We've found him, pinned his code to a single universe. I don't know why he's still inside it, but whatever Gaster is doing to it, it can't be good. This is our time to strike and we can win if you help us, all of you."

Horror was leanng against his axe, the lone red eye staring hauntingly at you. "And what would we get out of it? You have no reason to help us, we were trying to tear out your throat only days ago and we would do so again in a heartbeat. We are enemies, sworn ones since the moment you entered the Void my dear human. So what do we owe you? Why would we risk our lives chasing after a senseless campaign?"

"We're going to die one way or the other," Error retorted. "We can fight and hope to change something or we can simply wait for Gaster to kill us all. It's your choice."

Indistinct murmurs rippled through the crowd of skeletons, each debating with one another as they fought to reach a consensus. Nightmare narrowed his eyes at you. You recognised the skeleton standing behind him, the one called Dream. He had attacked you a few fights back, when his code has been corrupted and under Gaster's influence. But he seemed to be free now, able to think his own thoughts and feel his own emotions. At least there was one who would be on your side even if Nightmare decided to foresake you.

"Enough!" Nightmare snapped, silencing his army. "We're going to die one way or another, and I have a few choice words I would like to exchange with Gaster, so I'm coming. The rest of you can follow if you so choose."

You closed your eye and allowed your consciousness to once more extend past the capabilities of your corporeal form, seeing for miles and miles around. Away you went, searching through miles and miles of empty terrain before finding what you sought. In the farthest pocket of the Void where even the forgotten seemed to be forgotten, there Gaster was, still within the confines of the world he had destroyed, still destroying. But there was something else there as well, something manifesting within the hollwo shell of the former universe. It seemed that Gaster was rewriting, remolding the universe to his own will.

Error says that Gaster is no god, but can't a god create and destroy? What mortal has the mere power to do such a thing?

"I've found him," you whispered to Error, relaying Gaster's location through the mental link. You could sense Error's resentment towards the anomaly, the disgust as he saw through your memories just how corrupted the painter's vessel had become. Even if the comedian and the artist had once been sworn enemies, they had once walked as friends with the same story and the same experiences before stopping at a crossroads, each taking different directions. Would that happen with you and Error? If the two of you lived past this, even with your mental link and... connections, would you still be forced to turn on one another, caught in the endless cycle of rinse and repeat?

"In the now, we live in the present, not in the future or the past," you whispered to yourself nad looked upon Nightmare's army and then to Dream, all who seemed ready to join you as well.

Your fingers interlaced once more with the anomaly's as he prepared to teleport, one step closer to the final battle that would forever alter the course of the multiverse, one step closer to the future, where it seemed that none would live to see.