#dserror

Nightmare waited with bated breath whilst leaning against a few bins, hidden between two warehouses in a random au. He had a stolen laptop, rope and various wires on hand, intending to hack into the various mechanisms that were fused to his friends. Nightmare had managed to figure out how his friends were being controlled, they seemed to have some sort of device that was wired to their minds, controlling their every move. 

He grimaced, thinking about the past few weeks he had spent preparing for this risky move. He had no choice but to go to Blue for help. Blue proved to be quite helpful despite how uncomfortable it felt to be around him, something about him just seemed off to Nightmare. Through Blue’s help, Nightmare managed to learn how to hack into systems and had figured out how to get his friends back. Now all he had to do was wait, and hope that what he does is enough.

He snapped out of his thoughts as he heard heavy footsteps nearing him. They knew he was there, and that was exactly what Nightmare had planned.

He momentarily peeked over the bin, immediately catching sight of the artificial eyes that seemed to be scanning for him. They glowed a soft yellow against the darkness of night, making them easy to spot. But despite that, Nightmare could tell it was them. He thanked whatever deity was above for Dream sending them out instead of someone else to catch him. He swiftly ducked down once more as he heard them getting closer, taking a moment to mentally prepare himself for what was about to happen.

He held his breath, waiting until he heard them move right up to where he was hidden. The moment he heard the metallic feet hit the floor mere inches away from him. He leapt out, intending to tackle one or both of them to the ground. 

It all seemed to pass in slow motion to Nightmare, he soared above them, arms out and ready to push them to the hard concrete ground. He watched as their eyes followed him, impassive eyes staring blankly up at him. Error’s arm moved, seeming intent on wrapping Nightmare in his strings. Cross had his arm out, ready to summon knives. But Nightmare was already in the midst of tackling them. Time sped up once more as Nightmare slammed into them, forcing them both to fall. He could hear a sudden clank and the scraping of metal against stone as they fell over, Nightmare now sitting on top of them. The force of the fall was enough to momentarily knock them out. 

Tackling them had left Nightmare a small window of time to act, he couldn’t afford to just sit there and so he wasted no time, hastily tying them up with the rope. He quickly grabbed the laptop and wires, struggling to set it all up as Error and Cross thrashed against their restraints. Nightmare shoved the wires into the laptop and the back of Cross and Error’s heads , Yep, they literally have USB ports in the back of their heads, and began to aggressively type on the laptop, pulling up a hacking program that had been installed prior to this risky action.

It didn’t take him long to bypass all of the security put in place by JR, which in hindsight was slightly worrying as it meant that anyone with basic hacking skills could take control and cause chaos with this. But, it was also helpful, as Nightmare didn’t have so much trouble saving his friends. They had soon gone from aggressively thrashing to sleeping as Nightmare scrolled through the lines of coding. It was all so sickening to look at, how many restrictions JR had programmed into them to make them obedient. Nightmare took a good few minutes disabling certain things and activating others. Eventually, he found the main bit of coding that he needed to alter, the bit that removed their ability to do what they wanted. 

[ ENABLE FREEWILL? Y/N ] 

[ Y ]

[...]

[ FREEWILL HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY ENABLED ]

Nightmare carefully removed all of the wires. He held his breath in anticipation, tapping Cross’ shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked at Nightmare for a moment, then his eyes shifted to look at the surroundings. He squirmed a little when he realised he was tied up with ropes. “What the fuck? Why are we here and why am I tied up with Error?” He looked at Nightmare. “Explain” He said. “Just take a look at yourself” Nightmare said. Cross did so and his eyes soon widened. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” He yelled, waking up Error in the process. “WHY IS MY ASS METAL?! WHO DID THIS?!” Cross asked. “The winged glowstick did it” Nightmare answered. “That asshole? I’m… not even surprised actually” Cross said.