#compsys

“Riddle me something,” Nightmare mumbled, spawning in a few more wires and moving the removable wall panel a bit more, “tell me what the universe thinks of me.”

CS was quiet for a moment, pulling up data and exact quotes from the internet.

“Of the company or of you personally?”

“Me, personally.”

More silence as Nightmare hooked up wires and covered said wires with their proper casings. 

“Well, they’re calling you ‘Ender Of Worlds’, ‘Genocider Of Stars’, ‘Winner Of The Galaxy’s Most Gruesome War’, ‘Comparable to The First Scourge’, and plenty other nice things like that.”

Nightmare had to literally force himself from getting a grimace. This was unusual, unusual indeed.. He hadn’t felt the need to emote, much less frown in the past couple hundred instances of his existence.

Why did the completely justified names affect him now? Especially that last one. 

Dread built in him as quick as he put this small wall contraption together. 

“..Sir?”

Something didn’t feel right.Was he sick? He’d never gotten sick. He didn’t have the parts to be attacked by viruses or parasites, so how would he be able to be ill? Perhaps it was some magic sickness, able to transfer to creatures like himself? That was the most likely solution.

“Hm. Interesting.”

He hummed, deep and powerful. Not a hint of sickness.

“Sir, are you okay?”

The question had caught him off guard a little. What reason would CS have to ask such a thing? The wizard was stoic, powerful, and unshaking. He’d shown no sign of illness.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re gripping onto that cord like it owes you money.”

Oh. Yes, perhaps he’d grabbed the cord he was working on with utmost tightness without even noticing. He loosened it, relaxing his hand before going back to work on the cord in question.

“Sir, I’m worried.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine when we open our doors to customers and employees alike, CS.”

“No, that’s not what I’m worried about.”

More concern in the salesman’s voice. Nightmare had created him with full emotional capabilities in order to reason things out. The other’s main objective was to ensure the health of the company, so to be this concerned over something, it must be directly connect to that objective.

“Then what do you worry for?”

“For you.”

Nightmare was silenced.

“These past days, I’ve noticed sluggishness, lack of enthusiasm, general lack of motivation.. It’s not typical for you, so I worry. I worry for you. I worry something’s happened, and by the way you reacted when I read off those names, there is something wrong.”

What a smart one, CS was.

“Specifically, telling from that, you have something wrong with what people are calling you. You don’t like it, do you? You’re not enjoying being called a genocider or a scourge.”

Not that Nightmare was surprised by the other’s intelligence..

“Which, compared to how you’ve acted to the past, with complete indifference to being called things along those lines.. Something’s wrong now. Something’s happened to you, despite the fact you’ve never left the fortress once in my existence.”

CS was given quite the big brain, after all. Petabytes worth of functioning and thinking power.

“I’ve read on you. I know you go to the Dream Realm, and what that’s all about. Something there, in the Dream Realm, has been hurting you, right?”

“You’re quite the clever one, CS..”

Nightmare hadn’t even looked back at CS once for this entire conversation. That was quite the dramatic thing, huh?

“Then I’m right?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Sir, tell me what’s wrong, please.”

“There’s nothing wrong.”

“Yes there is. Sir, I know you’re not stupid enough to not realize there’s something wrong with you.”

Sickness. Yes, there was sickness. Perhaps, the sickness wasn’t magical, and more of a mental one. Mental illness..

“There is something wrong with me.”

“Tell me.”

Nightmare, honest to The Stars above, choked on his words for a moment.

“I am sick.”

“That’s literally impossible. With what?”

“..I feel tired..”

“Tired..?”

Nightmare sat up from the floor, rubbing his ‘eyes’. He had been asleep, visiting the Dream Realm. Looking at things, finding out what was happening in the universe via the memories of the sleeping.

He didn’t need to sleep by any account, but he liked it anyways. Sleeping gave him a little bit of a mindless, nice daze when he woke up. Well, that’s what it usually did. Instead, now, he was just.. Exhausted.

“But you just woke up.”

“Nh.. Don’t talk so loud..”

He mumbled, feeling a bit 

“Apologies, sir.”

CS did lower his voice considerably, thankfully.

“Has anything happened while I was asleep..?”

The Destrayas tended to find travelling ships a lot more often during the times he was asleep.

“That kid came by again, going through the transporters as usual. I don’t know why you continue to let him just go and use those things willy-nilly, sir. We really should charge him.”

“There’s no harm in letting him use them..”

“It wastes energy.”

“CS, our electricity is essentially infinite for the next billion or so years..”

All electricity and power in the base was drawn from the blue sun it was built around. All the energy that was drawn (via solar panelling) was more than enough to power the gigantic headquarters.

“CS, I understand you don’t like people,” which was strange because CS took up selling monster to customers and generally dealt with people a lot, “but there really is no harm in letting the child use the transporters.”

“Just like how there isn’t any harm in letting that girl stop by for pit-stops and take free gasoline for her ship.”

“Joe and Silica are both good hearted children, CS. There’s no reason not to.”

“Sir, I know they’re good natured. I’m just worried your generosity could be abused in the future by someone who-”