Chapter 12: Night Terrors"I'm not surprised you would come all this way for the little kid." Stitches said. "I remember seeing how devastated you looked when they said good-bye." "That's because I never got to say good-bye." Grey sighed. "We just... let Puzzleman take them to Fate knows where." Stitches sighed. "Young Princess... it wasn't our fault, and certainly not yours, that he took those two out from our realm." Oaken quietly held and tightened his friend's hand in comfort, as the monster king spoke. "We didn't let him take them. Neither of us could have known, not even you." Grey nodded and made it seem like she felt better, but she was still hurting. A few minutes later, Mr. Stitches lead the two kids turn after turn, and the duo wondered what was down the other corridors. "So, princess, bitten any king's fingers lately?" "You're still upset about that?!" Grey asked. "You had me locked in a cage and poked me! You were being very annoying!" "Why is there so many branching paths?" Oaken asked. "To trap trespassers, and send them back to the start. Very convenient portal system." The stitched monster said. "T and I made all these branching paths to make sure we don't be disturbed when one comes across this place." "How do you know where to go?" Grey asked. "Follow a set path with special paint, and soon, the paint isn't needed and it's as simple as walking in your home." Stitches smiled. The trio soon heard the sound of keys loudly clacking and machines whirring. "How goes the search, hun?" Mr. Stitches asked as he leaned against the door frame. "65% close to Masked Kid 745 and Elizabeth." T. bur replied, not taking his eyes off the screen. "I'll stop soon, and let the machine continue the search on it's own while I sleep. I'll need to feed it more of 745's DNA to keep the search going." "I almost lost them once, I'm not going to lose them now!" The shark said. "What do you mean by that?" Grey asked. T. Bur looked at the princess in disguise, and shook his head. "It's time you and Oaken got some sleep, Princess." He puts a fin on her shoulder as he passed her. "You'll need all you're energy tomorrow morning." "What it because of the accident...?" Grey asked. "That's a discussion we want to have, when we find the kid and Elizabeth." Stitches said, following the shark. That night, Grey and Oaken slept in sleeping bags in a spare room. However, Grey's dreams were less than hopeful. She opened her eyes and found herself in a vast white wasteland. Nothing but floating appearing and disappearing blocks and a massive stary void could be seen ahead of her. As she started walking, she could hear whispers all around her. "Hello...?" The princess turned, only to find no one. As she resumes to walk, she smacks into an invisible wall. "Ow..." Grey groans as she rubs her nose. "Guess I can't go this way, anymore." She places her hands on the invisible wall, pressing on it, and banged her fist as hard as she can. No dent. "If I can't get passed this glass wall, maybe I could find the end." Grey decided aloud. Keeping her hand on the wall, Grey walked along the wall to the end. Despite being a sturdy wall, she could hear a shrill scream clear as day! She looked in the direction of the scream, and she felt her heart drop to her stomach... It was Mouse and Elizabeth facing off against what she assumed was a more demented version of Puzzleman. Her blood felt like it froze when she saw her friend's own streaming out their wounds, leaving dark indigo puddles as they stepped. "Green Boots! Green Boots- I mean, Mouse, I'll be right there!" Grey shouted. She turned to run, but slammed into another invisible wall. "Ow..." Grey whimpered, covering her nose. But as she turns to the left, she jumped as her hand met another wall. "You gotta be kidding me..." Turning again, and the same thing. The princess started breathing heavier as her heartbeat quickened. In a panic, Grey started slamming against the walls from all directions. Grey felt powerless watching Mouse get weaker and weaker. And the Puzzleman set a blast of energy through the poor kid's chest. "MOUSE!" The disguised princess shrieked at the top of her lungs. "NO!" Grey woke up in a cold sweat, waking Oaken with her shout. "Huh?! What's happening?! A-are we in danger?!" But when the former hero say his friend, his expression softened. Slowly and quietly, Oaken scooted closer to Grey, and remained there until Grey calmed down. When her heart stopped racing, she sniffled, and rubbed her watery eyes. Meanwhile, Mr. Stitches found himself back at his crumbling castle, kneeling before the masked kid who bested him. "Oh, who am I kidding?" Stitches sighed. "End it, child." He's accepted his fate. "The responsibility... is now yours." This kid will be the new evil leader. "At least I can finally... rest." But to his surprise, the kid dropped the hilt, and they too, fell to their feet, and cried. "No..." Mouse sobbed. Elizabeth looked at her substitute hero with remorse. "It's alright, kid. It's over..." She sighs. "I'm sorry I made you got hrough this." "W-what?! NO!" Mr. Stitches stammered. "NO! NO! NO! YOU HAVE TO!" He could feel the blood drain from his face. "You will doom us all!" The hilt rolled her eyes. "Come on, dude! Give it a rest. Don't you think the world would have ended by now?" "...You do not... understand..." Stitches's heart was beating out of his chest. "You useless fools." A familiar voice growled. That voice shook the monster king to his core. "Who the-" Before Elizabeth could finish, Puzzleman appeared before everyone! "Do you have ANY idea of what you have caused?!" He growled. "The unbalance YOU have brought to this world!" "Y-YOU?!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "You are behind all this?!" "OF COURSE I WAS!" The dice head snapped. "I've been trying to guide you all this time, and you do exactly the opposite! YOU ARE WORTHLESS!" Realization hit T. Bur like an out of control carriage. "You must be the one that has been poisoning Stitches's mind for all these years! I KNEW he wasn't mad!" "So the hero cycles are your doing!" Princess Cereza glared through her mask. "The destruction of the world..." Elizabeth thought aloud. "That was just a lie, wasn't it?" "A... lie?" The not-so mad king felt like he was going to vomit from this realization. "This runt has ruined everything! Hundreds of years of harmony, gone..." There was a collective gasp as he teleported between Mouse and Stitches. "Just so you could feel like a little HERO?!" Puzzleman grabbed Elizabeth, summoning the blade, "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, KIDDO." And plunged it right into Mouse's heart. Silence... The demented game host pulled the sword out, and everyone watched as the child fell to the floor, surrounded by their pooling blood. "Look at what you've done, Salle... All this, because you couldn't finish them off." Puzzleman sneered at Stitches. "Th-they weren't supposed to be the-" "And yet, you allowed them to do it, anyway." Puzzleman snaps his fingers, and everyone in the arena was slain with a crack of thunder. Stitches felt frozen and helpless. "Now, I'm going to have to start all over..." Stitches heard one last thunderclap as he woke up. He panted as he looked around. His shark husband turned to face him. "Another nightmare, dear...?" T. Bur said in a groggy tone. Stitches nodded. "Felt just as real as the others." The shark put a fin on the burlap king's back. "Wanna talk about it?" "Puzzleman murdered Mouse... right in front of us..." Stitches murmured. "He used Elizabeth to pierce their heart... I couldn't... I couldn't do anything! I just... watched..." He sobbed. "I feel like we failed the-" T. Bur stopped Stitches and held his hands. "That is enough!" The shark said sternly. "We've come too far to feel like failures." Stitches held his husband close. "We will find 745 and Elizabeth... and we will find them alive." "You're right, babe." The burlap king smiled, and nods. "I'm really glad you didn't listen to me."The AccidentSlowly, Mouse opened their eyes. They were back in the Stitched Castle, Hero's Road, more specifically. Looking around, they noticed that the halls were bigger than before. Walking down the hall, they could hear voices. They ran as fast as the could, halls feeling longer the more they ran. The voices sounded... familiar... "A............ou two, list....up! ...........ches gave................ha.....way. ........ill..........pass thr...............the boss.............defeat him!" "You do.................just cannon....................we don't............that monster! ...............drop..............or something." The more those voices spoke, the more Mouse realized who those voices belonged to. "Well, we're not............ with that attitude...... Hey, you!...........The quiet one back................anything to say?" The chandelier... Mouse thought as their legs shakily caried them closer to the voices. Bumping into a large mass, Mouse looked up, and their blood went ice cold. "Ready to meet the masked void, worm?" A masked kid proclaimed. "Wow, that was awful. What does that... even mean...?" As the masked kids bickered, Mouse saw themself, shakily gripping the lever that connected to the chandelier. The same chandelier that crushed the hero. "I was so scared when the hero came, and then my fellow underlings left me behind..." As if their body was controlled by something else, Mouse's past self pulled the lever down. "Say, weren't we supposed to be a trio?" Realization hit the masked kid. "Oh, no..." At that point it was too late for anyone to react as the chandelier rapidly fell on everyone... "I snapped all of a sudden, and let the chandelier fall... I couldn't believe what I had done..." Mouse woke up screaming and clutching on to their chest. Cereza woke up to see her little friend hyperventilating. "Mouse...? Mouse?!" "Wha...what's going on...?" Elizabeth asked groggily. "I think their having a panic attack." The princess murmured. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." Mouse repeated over, and over as they breathed rapidly. "Oh no..." The hilt murmured. Cereza hugged Mouse tight as they gasped and sobbed, they were unable to hear her or feel her touch. A couple minutes pass, the tiny Eevee slowly wrapped their arms around the princess, hugging her back, still crying. "It's okay... I'm here... Ellie's here... You're safe... no one's going to hurt you..." Cereza whispered. "I promise..." The two girls let the underhero cry it out, until they grew tired and fell back asleep. Cereza didn't let go of Mouse, not even as she grew drowsy herself, closing her eyes. The trio finally drift to sleep. "I... I am so sorry. :::"gifgifgifCH 4: Sneaking OutBack at the Chestnut Kingdom, Princess Cereza looked out her bedroom window with a crestfallen look. All she could think about was her friends she knew for a short time. She gazes into the sunset as if Mouse and Ellie would suddenly appear over the horizon. It's been months since their disappearance. The princess felt hopelessness clutch her heart. But she refused to let it completely take hold of her. Some people would tell her that it was just a few days and to just forget about them, but what would they know? They weren't the ones who masqueraded as a masked kid to find the hero's weapon and wanted to battle Lord Stitches. Cereza thought about writing again to Mouse and Ellie, but she's started running out of interesting things to talk about, to her at least. And the unsent letters were starting to pile up. She can't keep doing this... She can't keep sitting here and do nothing! Cereza then looks at her Grey Kid outfit. Feeling the smooth glass-like surface of the mask, made her get a sense of nostalgia. Oh, how she longed to go venturing as the mysterious Grey Kid again. A knock on the door made the princess hid the costume in her closet. "C-come in!" Cereza tried to hide the panic in her voice. The door opens and She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Oaken walk enter the room. "Oaken... Thank the gods its just you!" "Yeah, I asked the guards if I could visit, and they told me you were in here." The brown-haired boy said. "What were you doing?" "Oh, you know... Staring our into the sunset for what feels like years... You know, princess stuff!" Cereza grimaced. "You're still thinking about them, aren't you?" Oaken frowned. "It was that obvious?" Cereza asked. Oaken just nodded. "I just... I just feel so helpless. I want to help, but I don't know what to do..." Tears were threatening to fall, but she refused to acknowledge them. "I haven't felt this helpless since Stitches kidnapped me. Back when he was a puppet to that dice head..." She breathed out. A tear finally fell from her face. Despair started to sink in, but not for long. Her sad face shifted into one with determination. Like a fire started in her heart. Her mind was set! She knew what she wanted to do. "I want to be the Grey Kid again." Cereza said with a firm tone. Oaken just stared at the princess. "I want to be the Grey Kid again." She repeated. "I know this is selfish, but I'm desperate to see them again. I never even knew Green Boot's name." "So, when do you plan to sneak out?" Oaken asked. "Tonight, you don't have to go if you don't want to." Cereza said. "But just know, you're not stopping me!" "But what if I want to go with you?" Oaken asked. As Cereza writes something, she pauses and turns to her friend. "Are-are you sure?" The dark haired boy nods. "Okay, while I'm getting ready, guard my door. Knock three times to warn me when someone approaches." Understanding his task, Oaken leaves the princess' room, allowing her to get changed. Her gown neatly hung in her closet, and the grey hoodie took it's place. She always felt comfortable in it anyway, she's long since washed it. The red gloves and red boots fit nice and snug. Placing her crown on her desk, She hides her face with the horned mask. Finally her rapier, she always felt secure holding this weapon. Cereza checked the tip to make sure it was sharp. Princess Cereza was now the mysterious Grey Kid again. After no warning knock, the disguised princess opened the door, and tapped Oaken on the shoulder. "All set!" She whispered. Oaken followed Cereza inside. "Remember, not to call me by Princess Cereza when I'm like this. I'm just Grey." "Got it!" Oaken nodded. Grey tied his bed sheets together and threw it down his window for Oaken, since he doesn't have a hoodiechute like Grey. He looked at his unsent letters and decided to take the small pile with him, tucking them into his pouch. The Grey Kid sat on their window sill as Oaken got ready for his decent. Just as Grey was about to take off, she heard her doorknob shaking, leaping off the window as quick as she could, as the door opened. One of the knights looked around her room, looking for Cereza. Pulling the sheets off her bed, only to see a bunch of pillows that looked like a person was sleeping. He looked under her bed and desk, in her closet. "Princess? Princess!" The knight looked out the window as Grey hovered to the ground. "You! Grey child! Stop at once!" You've got to be kidding me! Grey thought to himself. Thankfully, Oaken hid himself under the bushes until the knight looked away. Grey looked back, just in time to see the castle light up, and Oaken catching up to her. "I bet you they think I kidnapped myself!" Grey laughed. Oaken smiled at that, and followed the grey kid into the woods behind the castle. The guards, although to far away to catch up, chased after them and split up.