#poor blank

x~x~x

“I was actually beginning to worry you weren't going to do it.” A voice chuckled when Chase, Blank, Anti, Bim, Google, Bing, and Yandere popped into the warehouse. “Which one of you is the demon?”

“Guess,” Chas stated, his hand on Blank’s shoulder as his vision adjusted to the dimmer lighting, finding what appeared to be a man in a red shirt with a black vest, tie, and slacks standing at the other end of the room. He held a cane in one hand and with a tap of it on the ground, what looked like to be his double, came out from behind him. The other had dark purple surrounding his eyes and moving down his face as if they were tears.

“I figured you’d say that. Now, give him back.” The man in red held a hand out.

“Where’s Marvin?” Chase demanded.

“Oh, yes, almost forgot about that.” A snap of the man’s fingers showed Marvin next to him in a chair, bent over and gasping for air.

“Marvin!” Chase cried out and it took everything in him to not run over to his husband.

“Blank, come here.” The man ordered. Blank started to shake and he looked at Anti. “Blank. Now.” Blank whimpered before suddenly disappearing, leaving blue pixels in his place as he appeared next to the man. “Did they hurt you?” The man grabbed Blank by the chin and forced him to look up.

“N-No,” Blank answered.

“Good.” The man shoved Blank away and the second one caught him, laughing a little.

“Give us, Marvin,” Chase stated, praying Anti would behave and not attack. Not yet. He could tell how much seeing Blank being treated like that was affecting him, he knew that pain all too well.

“Not until you tell me who is the demon. I can guess that one is your Virus.” The man pointed his cane at Anti. “Or else Blank wouldn’t have looked at him.”

“Why does it matter to you?” Chase asked.

“Who wouldn’t want to know someone who is just like you?” The man smirked, red smoke slowly forming at his feet.

“What the-” The second man was cut off by getting hit and sent flying into the nearby wall.

“You’re nothing like me,” Dark growled, now standing behind Blank, hands on his shoulders.

“I knew I should have made Phantom stay behind, he’s so easily distracted.” The man sighed as he glanced over at the other man, Phantom, who was pulling himself out of the wall, eyes glossing over and going purple. “Stay.” The smoke at the man’s feet went to Phantom and the man instantly calmed down and sat. “So, care to grace me with your name at least?”

“Dark.”

“Dark? Fancy.” The man chuckled. “I’m known as Nightmare, but most just call me Mare.”

“Do all demons have edgy names or something.” Anti scoffed.

“Now that we know each other, fuck off,” Dark said. “Leave Blank and Marvin to us.”

“Do you really believe I’m going to leave Blank behind? To allow you to keep him for your own wants? After taking all of this effort to come here?” Mare reached into his vest. “Like hell, I’d do that.”

“Don’t!” Chase pulled out a gun as Mare took out his own and shot Blank in the head, the bullet going through Dark’s chest as well.

“No!” Anti shouted and glitched over to the two while Chase fired several shots at Mare.

“Yan!” Bim tried to stop Yandere before she went after Mare with her katana. Mare was easily dodging Chase’s shots and when Yandere swung at him, he stepped to the side and avoided the slice. Mare grabbed the top of the blade and used his elbow to smash at Yanere’s hands, forcing her to let go and he used the handle to hit Yandere in the center of the chest and knock her down and out. Mare turned the blade and was going to stab down on Yandere but Google got to him first, knocking him aside with a punch to the face. Mare swung at Google and the blade was caught with Google’s hand, black oil dripping down his arm from the open wound on his palm. Google gritted his teeth through the pain and punch Mare again. Mare just glared at Google before jumping back several feet, leaving the katana behind and Phantom appeared in front of him, lashing out at Google. Google used the katana to block the blow but was thrown down to the ground. Phantom wasn’t able to do anything else to Google since Bing was now on him, having jumped on his back and getting a few good hits on his head before he was tossed off.

“Blank? Blank!” Anti was kneeling next to Blank’s body, hugging him to his chest.

“I’m sorry, Anti,” Dark said, laying next to Anti with blood on his shirt, the wound already closed but not having enough energy to even get up.

“Blank.” Anti whimpered, sniffing as he tried to will the other Virus to move again.

“Anti! Help!” Chase’s shout got Anti to look up and the sight of Chase and Bim trying to keep Mare away from Yandere as Bing and Google struggled against Phantom got his anger to spark.

Anti placed Blank back down gently before standing, body twitching before he suddenly let out a scream, catching everyone’s attention. Anti glitched in front of Mare and got a solid punch into his chest, feeling something crack under his chest before Mare flew into the wall just like Phantom had, but to a much harsher degree. Phantom quickly got away from Bing and Google and went in front of Mare, blocking him with his body. Mare got up and placed a hand on Phantom’s shoulder.

“This isn’t over,” Mare grunted out before snapping, making himself and Phantom disappear in a cloud of red smoke.

“Marvin!” Chase didn’t need more than a second to react and rush over to Marvin, moving to place his hands on Marvin’s shoulders to start trying to comfort him, but he fell through. Marvin became a cloud of red smoke and left Chase to go to his knees. “Fuck!” Chase shouted and punched at the ground. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Do you think the others made it in?” Bim asked as he held Yandere, who was still out cold.

“I don’t know-” Google’s statement barely made it out before all of them were engulfed in a pink smoke cloud, taking them away from the warehouse.

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“I’ll get it.” Bim offered and stepped out.

“I promise that we’re good people, we won’t hurt you,” Chase said.

“Everyone is the good guys in their own eyes.” Blank stated, but the way he spoke made the words sound like they weren’t his own. “You kill for hire.”

“We do,” Chase admitted, knowing there was no point in lying. “But it’s more complicated than that.”

“Is it?” Blank started to pick at his fingers.

“We only take jobs from those who wish to prevent any more suffering. Who want really really bad guys dead. The kind of bad guys that kill more with just a simple wave of their hand than we ever have in our years doing this.”

“I just want peace.” Blank whimpered, flinching away when Bim walked up to him and held the cup of water out.

“Bim good,” Robbie said from the spot on the floor he sat on. “He’s just fancy.” He added with a giggle.

“Fancy?” Blank giggled as well.

“Why is that funny?” Bim asked.

“I think it’s hilarious.” Anti chuckled and took the cup from Bim, who just sighed and sat back down next to Yandere. “Mom already knows everything that you told me, I sent what’s basically a transcript.”

“Mom?” Blank looked at Chase and tilted his head. “Who’s dad?”

“The man that your creator took, my husband.” Blank went stiff when Chase said the last word.

“Husband? Your loved one?” Blank glanced at Chase’s hands and saw that he was wearing two rings. “He’s your loved one? The one you want forever?”

“Yes, yes, he is.” Chase placed a hand on Blank’s shoulder. “Please help me get him back, please.” The circuits on Blank’s face flashed a quick blue. Chase hissed in pain and yanked his hand away, using his free one to hold it out towards the others when they moved to defend him, all except for Henrik though.

“He’s definitely been with some bad people.” Chase sighed as he moved his fingers, slowly getting feeling back into them.

“Is that the learning spark you were talking about?” Edward asked.

“Learning spark?” Dark gave Edward a disproving look for not talking to him about something.

“Henrik just brought it up the other day,” Edward said in defense. “When Anti was first made, there were a lot of things he couldn’t learn from just looking it up on the internet. Mostly types of emotions that are beyond basics.”

“I still don’t understand,” Dark said.

“Blank was made the same way Anti was, so it’s safe to assume he works the same way,” Henrik stated. “Anti was created with a base form of knowledge due to coming from something connected to the internet. Such as basic history, biology, math, language, and the works that someone that was Marvin’s ago would know.”

“He doesn’t act like the age it looks like he’s been formed into,” Dark said, not catching that Blank shrunk a little at his comment. “He seems young.”

“So was Anti,” Chase said. “He spoke young, acted young because he was young.”

“Blank’s barely been alive,” Anti said, giving Dark a look that told him he messed up.

“What does the spark mean?” Dark asked, changing the subject to get Anti to change his facial expression.

“It just means he learned something new.” Henrik shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure out why it happens, but whenever Anti learns something new, a little bit of electricity comes out of him. He’s learned to control it and have it come out of a different location on his body of someone’s touching him, but clearly, Blank’s not yet learned that and he shocked Chase. He saw what love was by looking at Chase and it was new to him.”  

“I’m sorry.” Blank was on the verge of tears and was shaking again. “I did-didn’t mean t-to.”

“You’re not in trouble, buddy.” Anti gave Blank a smile and Blank shook his head, as if not believing him.

“They say that and they still hurt me anyways.” Blank hugged himself.

“Blank, can you roll up your sleeves?” Chase asked and Blank’s eyes went wide once more.

“W-Why?”

“I just want to see something, okay?” Chase waited for Blank to look at Anti again and when Anti tugged at his own sleeves, Blank did the same. “That’s what I thought.” Chase sighed when he saw the dark bruises on Blank’s arms. “Are there more of them?” Blank only nodded. “Can I give you a hug?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be soft.” Chase moved close to Blank and wrapped his arms around the small man, confirming his thought. Blank was nothing more than skin and bones, he could practically feel every rib poking into him. He looked at Anti and the two shared a look that they both knew about Blank’s size. “Jackie, make some food for Blank,” Chase said when he let Blank go.

“But I-”

“I’ll eat with ya, I’m starving.” Anti gave blank a smile. “What sounds good to ya?”

“Pizza?” Blank perked up when Anti chuckled.

“Fuck yeah, let’s make some pizza.” Anti guided Blank towards the kitchen and Jackie went with them, Robbie popping up and joining them when Chase gestured with his head for him to.

“Why did you hug him?” Google asked.

“Nothing wrong with hugs,” Bing said with a shrug.

“You wanted to see how big he was, didn’t you?” Henrik asked. “After seeing those bruises, I would have made the same assumption as well.”

“Is Blank not eating?” Edward asked.

“More like he’s not being fed what he needs.” Chase corrected. “He needs a lot more food than you’d think he would.”

“So, it’s hard to guess if he’s being denied food or if they don’t know any better,” Wilford said.

“If they caused those bruises, I wouldn’t be shocked either way,” Chase grumbled. “Anti will be able to tell out of all of us since he’s a Virus as well.”

“What do we do? Feed him and then ask where the others are? Do we really think he’ll do that, he seems terrified of them.” Dark said.

“If they rely on Blank for what I believe they do. They'll be getting a hold of us any second now.” Chase said and soon one of the control panel screens went to static.

“You have something I want.” A voice they have yet to hear stated.

“As do you,” Chase said back, not even facing the screen.

“Give him back.”

“Give him back,” Chase repeated.

“I see we’ve come to standstill.” The voice cleared his throat. “Tell Blank to take you to the First Location, he’ll know what it means and we’ll have a trade-off. I’ll be seeing you with him in twenty minutes. I know you’ll be able to get there in time.”

“What do you think he means by that?” Yandere asked.

“Host suggests we make a plan.” Host stated. “He is unable to tell what exactly it is, but something...fishy is going to happen.”