Chapter Text
Dreamtale, a beautiful Au, with equally beautiful views, but unfortunately, this story will not dwell on the beauty of the world that existed at the very beginning of the Multiverse's formation.
In the Au, once more or less populated by civilization, only a small House on a hill now remains. In its garden grew the precious Tree of Feelings, which bestowed feelings and emotions upon the Multiverse, preventing its inhabitants from becoming weak-willed, emotionless dolls. However, while the Tree preserves and beautifies life in the Multiverse, it also greatly poisons it for the two Guardians of Emotions, who are obligated from birth until the end of their days to guard it, at the cost of their own lives. For about five hundred years now, the Guardians of the Tree of Feelings, namely the Guardian of the positive Fruits — Dream, and the Guardian of negative fruits — Nightmare, have been 'chained' to the Tree. While the latter has more or less resigned himself to his fate, the former has not even thought about it, each time looking for new ways to escape from his native Au. He often ran to the so-called Star Sanses, whose rank he'd become a part of several years ago, inspired by their exploits protecting Au, and then begging to join their team. Or can we even call it begging? Sure Dream was pretty desperate as he looked for a place he can escape the duties as a guardian, but still Swap Sans nearly fainted when he saw the Guardian of Positivity on his doorstep, let alone refuse one of the most honored Guardians a spot on his Au protection squad, which was already pretty smaller than the Villains. And yes, in this multiverse, there's also a villain squad called Bad Guys. This may seem odd, considering that Nightmare didn't become an octopus in this multiverse, but it's easily explained if you consider that the dark liquid calling itself Nightmare and Nightmare himself are two completely different characters. Also, if you've read carefully, you might have realized that the village whose inhabitants bullied Nightmare no longer exists in Dreamtale, and there must be a reason for that, namely — the other Guardians. The fact is that when the Apple Incident began, unlike in the original, the shift in balance was noticed in time by the Guardian of Balance — Neil, who managed to prevent the consequences. Namely, upon arriving in Dreamtale, Neil, seeing the commotion, attacked Nightmare, thinking he'd attacked the Tree, severely damaging Nightmare's right eye socket in the process, leaving a scar and partial blindness for the rest of the skeleton's life. Having knocked him out, Neil was stopped from further attempting to finish him off by Dream, who noticed their fight rather late, but having noticed it, he grabbed the Stranger by the coat, trying to pull him away from the unconscious body of his brother in vain, while simultaneously desperately begging the Man to stop hurting his older brother. Only at that moment did Neil start to think more or less, noticing the small skeleton, almost hysterically begging him not to touch his brother. Neil looked down at the supposed intruder, only then realizing that a Skeleton was lying underneath him, albeit disfigured, covered in its own blood and some kind of black liquid, but still a Skeleton, and moreover, resembling the child crying next to him, but what plunged the Guardian into an even stronger shock was that, given the size of the skeleton lying beneath him, it was apparently also a child, not much older than the other skeleton. Pulling away from the small body beneath him like he burned him, the Guardian looked around in confusion, only now noticing the crowd of enraged Dwellers who had managed to surround the Tree, and the Guardian with the two skeletons beneath it while he was knocking Nightmare out. As soon as Neil noticed them, one of the Dwellers attacked the Cat from behind, but fortunately, Neil was no pushover and managed to knock them out almost instantly, which unfortunately only enraged the crowd further. Before Neil could recover, the entire crowd was upon him. Of course, theoretically Neil could wring everyone's necks, but what would be the point of doing so? Firstly, he doesn't even know what happened, secondly, he has already managed to notice the state of the Tree of Feelings, so, in all likelihood, the Commoners just fell under the influence of the Tree's negative aura, thirdly, he has no idea where the Guardian of the Tree, Nim, dissappeared. Of course, there is a possibility that the inhabitants could have killed her, but the Guardian did not want to rush to conclusions. Realizing that in this situation, it would be difficult to have a meaningful conversation with the Villagers. He was about to leave the AU for help when he suddenly noticed something strange: the skeleton's voice, which had previously begged him not to touch the purple one, could be heard in the crowd, though muffled by the villagers' cries. It seemed as if he hadn't been affected by the Tree's aura, as unlike the enraged villagers, he was only tearfully begging everyone to calm down and talk. And then there were those strange clothes—where did simple peasants get colorful, sturdy robes that didn't resemble stitched-together rags and gold jewelry reminiscent of tiaras? Something was clearly wrong here. After hesitating for half a second, the Guardian suddenly pushed several monsters away from him, clearing a path to the skeletons. Grabbing both of them with his single arm, he teleported out of the AU. Thus, after lengthy investigations, the Guardians discovered that the official Guardian of the Tree had been dead for nearly ten years now, and in her place, she had left two children to guard the tree. This surprised the Guardians greatly, as it was a terribly dangerous job that required proper training. As what had happened to Nim had shown, not even every adult could handle it. How could two monsters, that didn't know anything of the world, be left in this position? Having found out all they needed, the Guardians had no choice but to take the once unofficial Guardians under their wing, while two loyal guards were sent to guard the tree. However, they didn't take into account one thing: the negativity that nearly consumed the negative Guardian turned out to be sentient. Accordingly, while the Guardian lay unconscious at the healer's, the black liquid, realizing it was about to be eliminated, attacked the healer, taking control over their body and escaping the AU. Thus, over the next centuries, it hopped from body to body until it finally found the body of a skeleton, which it has been for the past hundred years now. It found allies in other skeletons who weren't so fortunate in life, and nicknamed its crew, as we all know, 'bad guys'. As in the canon story, it's goal is to destroy all positive emotions, but it's keeping its goal secret, so that the Guardians wouldn't take action against it, considering it just another minor mistake that didn't require their precious attention or time.