Chapter Text
Nightmare stood silently above the being that had dared break into his castle. They had slumped against the wall of their cell, asleep. He’d observed them briefly before they’d fallen asleep. They had been staring at the wall, picking at their wrists where the cuffs were seated. Deep bruised marks were visible around the cuffs as well. They were wearing Killer’s shorts, he noted, one shoe conspicuously missing. He narrowed his eye down at them, silently cracking the cell door open. He stepped into the cell and slammed the door, jolting the intruder awake. Their head snapped up with a gasp, eyes large as they stared at the king, pressing themselves impossibly closer to the wall. Their body seemed to shift rapidly before being held solid by the charmed cuffs.
“You’re not going to escape that easily,” He started with disdain. “If they truly thought you would be enough, you get past my defences, then they’re desperate.” Their small form shook with fear as they narrowed their brow at him. Their plain confusion filled Nightmares' senses, as their pupil-less eyes seemed to flick downward.
“You went through my stuff.” They realised meeting Nightmare's eye once more. The king's venomous glare had them trembling as a tendril shot out, yanking them off the ground by their arm. They yelped, flailing wildly as they were lifted off the ground and pulled much closer to the king. The smoke that made up their body thinned again; whatever magic that allowed them to phase was clearly instinctual.
“You don’t have stuff anymore, spy,” He hissed into their face. “Your belongings, your magic, your very soul was forfeited the moment you stepped into my castle.” A small whimper escaped them as they twisted their head to the side, pressing their chin into their shoulder and squeezing their eyes shut.
“And if you want your death to be a painless one, you’ll tell me what your mission was.” The ex-guardian snarled, enjoying the snack that their spiked dread and anxiety gave him. Their eyes shot open, their head shaking slightly as they opened their mouth to speak. The shifter's jaw trembling too much to form any words for a moment.
“I- Ther- There’s, please- I-” They stammered pathetically. The king scoffed, tossing them back to their feet. They stumbled, leaning up against the wall to stay on their feet. The shapeshifter rubbed the part of their arm that he had grabbed, taking shuddering breaths to steady themselves.
“Well?” He questioned, holding no sympathy for the trickster in his dungeon. “Spit it out.”
“I don’t work for them.” They stressed looking up at Nightmare, and a taste of desperation flowed from them. Desperate to be believed, or understood, he wasn’t sure.
“There’s no mission,” they continued, hanging their head. “Please, you have to believe me.” He narrowed his gaze at them in scrutiny, and they took his silence as a sign to keep going. “I’m so sorry about Killer. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt, I just wanted-”
“Shut up.” Their mouth snapped closed. “Say, I believe you. Why do you have one of the Omega Timeline's keys?” He demanded stepping closer to the small smoke monster.
“I stole it from one of their scouts.” They explained, flinching back from Nightmare, clearly craving distance from him. The lack of anxiety behind their story left the king inclined to believe them. “They left it on a cafe table while they were in the bathroom. I don’t think they even know I exist…” They trailed off, and Nightmare was taken aback by the amount of despair that came with the statement. He shook off his surprise, keeping his tendrils curling passively behind him.
“So you came here of your own accord?” They nodded, swiftly. “Why?” He growled to them, leaning down and crowding further into their space.
“I- I don't know? You have food, and there’s not a lot of people here, it seemed safe enough.” They muttered, picking at the bottom of their shirt. Nightmare pulled back, raising a brow at them. Looking at their form a little more closely, he had assumed their size was a choice or perhaps due to the clear malnourishment they faced, but something about that reasoning felt impulsive, even juvenile…
“How old are you?” The question left him before he could stop it, and it got the intruder to look up at him again. No longer awkwardly avoiding making eye contact. They were quiet, taking the longest to answer such a simple question.
“I’m…” Their fidgeting halted, eyes flicking nervously. Nightmares' tendrils tensed, ready to react to the lie building on their tongue. “I… just turned nine…” They whispered the truth quietly, so quietly that the king had a hard time making out what exactly they’d answered. He blinked down at them, their hands were tearing a new hole in their shirt, their eyes, which were too large for their face, made nervous eye contact with him, like a kid fessing up to a lie. His eye widened slightly, without the stripes that marked most monster children he assumed they’d outgrown them, even if it turned out they were young. Not that they weren’t even at double digits.
“You truly are nothing but a child.” He realised slowly. “Who’s taking care of you?” He asked cautiously. Their eyes narrowed up at him before they shrugged.
“I take care of myself.” They muttered noncommittally. Nightmare scoffed, and something akin to a glare passed over their face. He couldn’t imagine a child being any good at taking care of themselves. Their appearance only seemed to prove his point, the ability to steal anything they wanted or needed, and they ended up in tattered clothes, malnourished, with almost nothing to their name.
“I do!” They insisted, raising their voice. “It’s easy to steal when you can do what I can! And when people catch on, I hop worlds.” He was indifferent to their anger. Casting a stare that had them shrinking back into the wall.
“That’s quite the life. How long have you been doing this?” He hummed, a curiosity bubbling in the back of his mind, in regards to the young intruder. Nightmare was never one to take risks; he needed more information to approve his idea. The child's confusion was clear as they looked at him, he tilted his head, flicking a tendril towards them in subtle threat. They got the gist, flinching away.
“Since I was six…” They answered quietly. Nightmare stilled for a moment, and they stiffened in return. His gaze moved over them before his motion returned. Their situation felt familiar to him, struck a certain chord, he supposed.
“Something happened to your parents?” He questioned, and they shook their head. “No?” He raised his brow. Not having parents wasn’t exactly rare in the multiverse, but most children had some kind of guardian. Babybones Sanses and Papyrus’s had Gasters, Monster Kids had Undyne, etc. Based on their appearance, perhaps a Grilby?
“I never met my parents.” They murmured, looking down at their feet. Their emotions had settled into a tense nervousness that seemed to escalate to something closer to panic when they looked at him.
“So who took care of you, for those six years?” He pressed, shock ran through the prisoner, and for the first time, they looked up at him with defiance.
“Why do you wanna know?” They asked, hands curling at their sides. “Aren’t you going to kill me?” It seemed their patience was running thin, but Nightmare wasn’t in the mood to gently remind them of proper respect. His tendrils lashed aggressively, as he stabbed one through the stone wall. They stumbled back into the corner, their fear rising as he glared down at them.
“I’m not in the habit of killing children.” He claimed. “But there’s really no line I won’t cross.” He continued, his voice bordering on a growl. “And right now, you’re on the wrong side of that line.” They shrank back further, eyeing the tendril lodged in the wall.
“So if you want to earn your life back, little one.” His voice went sweet again as he ripped his appendage from the wall, cracking the bricks, and causing rubble to cascade downwards and bounce off the floor.
“You’ll answer any and all questions I have for you,” he snapped. They gulped and nodded a little frantically. “Good.” They were silent for a beat till Nightmare raised a brow at them. They blinked, though when they did, their eye closed vertically. Nightmare resisted the urge to make a face as they realised what he wanted.
“Scientists.” They muttered. “In this big lab complex, with other experiments.” Nightmare could feel their discomfort around the topic, but he needed to know where exactly this magical marvel came from.
“And you were one of these experiments?” Nightmare asked, crossing his arms. They nodded, returning to their picking habit to calm their raised nerves. He tilted his head in consideration once more. “Perhaps a prized experiment?”
“I don’t know…” They answered truthfully, “We were all kinda treated the same.” He narrowed his eyes down at them, and they swallowed hard, but their hands never stopped moving, so he brushed it off as nerves.
“We?” He pushed. “The other experiments were alive? How many were there?” Their hands tightened into fists for a moment. Defiance and anger bubbling through the terror, swiftly those emotions were bottled and suppressed to give the king his answer.
“I never counted.” They returned, tugging on a loose thread. “More than ten?” It was the best answer they could give him. “I don’t think any of them made it out alive…” They muttered mostly to themselves.
“How did you escape? Assuming they didn’t let you go.” Their mouth pulled into a hard line at the question, smoke flickering and shifting once more. As their hesitance returned, the king questioned if they were worth the trouble, but before he could entertain the thought, the intruder was answering. It seems his threat had stuck.
“I… I’m not sure what happened…” They started softly. “They’d all been working on- on this massive project. Then one day, alarms started blasting, and the lock on my door failed. So, I left disguised as a doctor, there was so much chaos and panic that no one noticed me. But I went through this weird door, an-and I ended up in a different universe.”
Nightmare raised a brow at that. One of the Omega timelines' doors? Core frisk wasn’t usually one to condone experimentation. Were they truly turning to such depraved methods to overpower him and Error? He would need to conduct further research, as the child's knowledge appeared to be limited. Until then, it seemed his enemy had provided him with a very interesting opportunity. He turned his attention back to his prisoner, whose fidgeting had increased since he stopped talking to them.
“It's a shame, really,” He cooed toward them. They stiffened, staring up at him wide-eyed. “Someone your age, out there all by themselves… No one to take care of you. No purpose, just survival.” He shook his head as if crestfallen at the idea. They swallowed, shuffling in place as they shrugged.
“So?” The shifter questioned their caution rising as equally as fear, though they didn’t show it. He tilted his head slightly, so they could keep it together when they wanted to. Good.
“Well, the Omega timeline is supposed to help, poor souls like you.” Their eyes narrowed. “They could have saved you sooner… could have saved the other *experiments* as well. Instead of aiding the people, experimenting on children.” A hurt rage rose from the child before him.
“What?”
Oh, this was too easy.
He raised a brow to them. “Well, those universal doors, you mentioned, are only used by the Omega timeline,” the slow shock on the shifter's face had Nightmare fighting a smirk. “They were there that day.”
He let silence fall over the room for a long beat. Letting the implications sink in a little. To their credit, almost none of it showed. Their face was pinched, their hands still, but they didn’t cry or yell; they simply seemed to accept it. Dust had been right. They were far too good to waste.
“You want to walk out of here alive?” He asked, breaking the silence. A hopeful nod quickly answered the question. He smirked and let out an amused huff that had them shrinking back.
“Alright. How about a deal then, little shapeshifter?” He inquired, summoning the key for the cuffs to his hand. Their eyes found it immediately.
“What kind of deal?” They wisely questioned in return, and the ex-guardian couldn’t fault them for that.
“You receive training, food, security, and a warm bed at night.” He offered, ignoring their narrowed gaze. “In return, you work for me. On my team, spreading terror across the multiverse.” He extended a hand to them. They stared at it, then at him, then at the key. Conflicted.
“I could just kill you. Or let my men kill you.” He supplied revelling in their fear-ridden flinch. “I’m giving you an out and a purpose.” They swallowed. “Play your cards right, and we could get revenge for all the experiments that didn’t make it out of those labs.”
Their face was tight for a moment, their eyes falling once more to his hand. They took a deep breath before their chains rattled. Their hand raised to meet his in a sealing handshake.
“Deal.” They breathed like it was a secret or awful fate. Perhaps to some it was, but to the king it was assured victory.
“Excellent.” He purred as they pulled their hand back from him, holding their wrists out to be unlocked. There were, in fact, uncomfortable-looking bruises around their wrists, undoubtedly from their futile escape attempts. He hummed before releasing the hands.
“You got a name, kid?” He asked, approaching the cell door.
“It’s Mirage.” They said with a nod, and Nightmare raised a brow.
“Huh,” He looked them up and down, a trickster shapeshifter who didn’t stay in one place long. “Fitting.” He commented.
“Well then, Mirage, welcome to the team.”