A few days later...
There, Lukas sat on that sunlit hill with his best friend by his side. He looked once again into their bright yellow eyes as Niko smiled back which lifted his spirits almost instantly.
"You know, back when my world was destroyed, I never thought I'd be able to have a normal life ever again... I mean, this life certainly isn't normal but... you get what I mean." Lukas explained with a slight laugh. Niko joined in with Lukas' laughter before responding.
"Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?" They asked with their head slightly tilted.
"Well, ever since I helped you out, it's been nice to just come here and hang out with you in a place where my powers aren't needed. It almost makes me feel like none of this insane and confusing stuff has happened, you know?" Lukas continued as he stared off into the distance across all of the golden fields of Niko's world with a smile on his face.
"Yeah, I understand, after what we went through together... which, by the way, I'm still not entirely sure how real most of that was, despite that being how we met, it's been nice to hang out with my new friend." Niko agreed as they stretched their arms above their head.
"Plus, it's nice to not be carrying around that heavy lightbulb anymore." Niko stated which caused the two of them to laugh as a cool breeze blew by.
"I'm sure Bethany enjoys it here too." Lukas spoke as he looked to his left to see Bethany's ghost sitting next to him.
"I wish I could see and speak to her, she sounds like such a good friend." Niko said out loud which made Bethany giggle quietly although they couldn't hear her.
"I'll have you know that she appreciated that comment." Lukas explained with a smile.
"Hey, they don't need to know that!" Bethany exclaimed as she immediately regretted even making a sound which just made Lukas' smile widen.
"Seriously though, it hasn't all been good things between me and her... but then again I doubt any friendship doesn't have any bad moments. My point is, despite all of that, she has helped me a lot more than a lot of people who claim to be my friends. In fact, I'd probably consider you to be the only other person who is an actual friend of mine since that day." Lukas continued which caused Niko's eyes to light up as if they didn't expect to hear that kind of comment. It also seemed to Lukas that Niko was so happy to hear how he thought about them to the point where they couldn't even express it through words so they just opted to sit there with a huge smile on their face that was almost as large as Lukas'... almost.
The two of them sat there for a few more minutes before eventually, Lukas began to stand up.
"Well, I think it's about time for me to be going... well, I think it was that time about half an hour ago actually." He admitted before stretching his arms above his head.
"Really? I thought we were only halfway through our time today... or at least that's what it felt like." Niko commented in disbelief.
"Yeah, the Protectors are trying to make me cut down on the time I spend with you because apparently, I've got these things called 'responsibilities' now. I promised them that I would see you an hour less every day... spoiler alert; I won't." Lukas replied which caused his bright-eyed friend to start laughing again. After they had finished their conversation, Lukas once again spoke up.
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow, Niko." Lukas promised before he began to slowly walk away.
"Hang on a second, I have a gift for you!" Niko practically yelled at Lukas before he could take another step. With yet another sigh and a smile, Lukas turned around only for Niko to throw their arms around him which stunned him for a second... before he quickly began to hug them back.
"Thank you for being there for me, for giving me a place I can come to and just relax, thank you for being my friend, Niko." Lukas whispered as he held his friend tightly.
"Hey, it's alright, I would've been a friend of yours even if you didn't save me from that world." Niko responded as Lukas began to feel something tightening around his neck.
As Niko stepped back and looked at Lukas, they seemed to be incredibly excited.
"It looks perfect!" They exclaimed which made Lukas look down to see a bright red scarf wrapped around his neck.
"You... you made this for me?" Lukas asked as he held one of the ends of the scarf that was blowing in the wind; the material was so soft to the point where he didn't want to let go.
"Well, I'm not that good at making stuff like that yet, I had to ask my mom to make it for me... I picked out the colour though. Look, she made it just like mine!" Niko ecstatically spoke as they showed the end of their scarf to Lukas which looked almost identical to his own, not counting the colour.
"You're too kind." Lukas simply said as tears began to roll down his cheeks.
"Don't cry! You're gonna make me cry!" Niko stated before Lukas embraced them once against as he cried into their shoulder.
"Thank you... thank you so much." Lukas quietly spoke before the two of them stood there in complete silence. After a minute or so, Lukas let go of Niko and the two of them wiped their own faces dry.
"See you tomorrow, Lukas." Niko spoke in a quiet tone as all Lukas did was simply nod before turning and wandering into the fields where nobody would be able to see him use his powers.
"I hope you know that if I wasn't completely incorporeal, I would be giving you gifts like that too." Bethany explained which made Lukas smile once more.
"I don't doubt that for even a second." Lukas responded as he stopped moving before holding his breath and blinking in an attempt to teleport which he was thankfully able to do in only two attempts.
"I think I'm starting to get the hang of that." Lukas acknowledged how much he had progressed to which Bethany nodded her head in agreement.
"On the topic of you considering me a friend; I'm still confused as to how and why you're able to forgive me for all I did." Bethany stated as she still seemed curious about it despite the two of them talking about it multiple times over before.
"To be honest, I'm wondering the same thing... but I'm certainly not regretting my decision though, are you?" Lukas inquired as he glanced around at the multicoloured specks in the distance that he had recently learnt were other universes.
"Nope; I haven't regretted a single moment since we started getting along." Bethany answered with the exact words that Lukas was hoping to hear.
"Also... I can tell how much you regret doing what you did just by listening to you speak. The very fact that you don't bring it up every time you feel remorseful about it tells me that you don't want to upset me by bringing it up again and that tells me that you genuinely regret it. It's kind of hard not to forgive you after all of that." Lukas admitted before he began flying back towards the Sanctuary.
"I swear, it's so hard to hide how I'm feeling around you even when we're not talking about my emotions. You seriously got all that information just from listening to me talk about what happened a couple of times?" Bethany asked as she wasn't sure whether Lukas could really gather that much information just from the few times they had spoken about that topic.
"Well, that was just my assumption but I'm pretty sure you've just confirmed it to be true." Lukas replied with a smile on his face.
Suddenly, Lukas felt a tap on his shoulder which shocked him considering the ridiculous speeds that he was currently traveling, without another thought, his weapons were summoned into his hands and whipped around his back as they connected with what touched him. With a fierce look in his burning-red eye, Lukas watched as blood spilled out of the small cut he made across the mystery figure's hand... only for him to quickly realise his mistake as Lukas noticed that the unexpected person was, in fact, Eanaro.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" Lukas immediately blurted out as his weapons dematerialised and he stopped his forward momentum.
"No, no it's okay, I really should've expected that to happen if I made my presence known like that." Eanaro replied as he stopped moving on que with Lukas.
Slowly, Lukas floated over to his ally who he had accidentally injured so he could attempt to treat the wound no matter how insignificant it seemed... however, Eanaro simply pulled his hand away whenever Lukas got close to it and before long, it appeared that his vision of the injury was becoming blurred. Slowly but surely, the strange blur left Lukas' vision and he suddenly saw that the damage on Eanaro's hand had been completely healed which simultaneously made Lukas jealous at how he was so easily able to do that and also excited at the possibility that he might learn to do that himself too.
"How do you do that?" Lukas asked with anticipation and a wide smile as he hoped to be able to learn the answer soon.
"I assume that you did the same thing to recover from those injuries the last time we met." Eanaro responded as he cleaned off some of the blood that landed on his sleeve.
"Oh... that... right, well, I don't remember much about what happened on that day. Also... sorry about what happened then." Lukas explained in a disappointed tone as he remembered everything that he did when he saw Eanaro a couple of weeks ago.
"It's fine, I've survived much worse but your power and potential really shocked me... especially after I expected you to just die." Eanaro admitted with a smile slowly growing across his face, a sight that Lukas hadn't seen much.
"Speaking of that, I understand that I could've caused a lot of destruction but was it really necessary for you to just leave me in a state in which you were sure that I would die?" Lukas continued to question Eanaro which caused him to sigh.
"Look, most of the Protectors follow this 'no killing' policy as they believe that destruction only leads to more destruction... and whilst I DO protect the Multiverse, you could say that I'm sort of an 'unofficial Protector' so I don't really need to follow the rules and I just do what I think is best. Believe me, you wouldn't have been the first one that I killed because I believed it would help others live peacefully, nowhere close to the first in fact." Eanaro clarified which sent a chill down Lukas' spine when he had finished speaking. In a desperate attempt to move on from the frightening realisation of how cold Eanaro is to those he considers threats, Lukas tried looking for another topic to jump to.
"Did... did you hear what happened to Zero?" Lukas inquired as Eanaro began looking off into the distance, watching the faint flickering of universes just barely within sight.
"No, did you manage to destroy them or something?" Eanaro replied with another question which Lukas couldn't tell whether it was meant to be sarcastic or not.
"I wish I was that powerful... but they just seemed to disappear after they told me that they had apparently betrayed their master." Lukas said which seemed to spark serious intrigue within Eanaro as his eyes widened and he quickly turned to face Lukas after he spoke those words.
"Did he say how he betrayed the master?" Eanaro simply asked which began to make Lukas nervous seeing him being so serious.
"A-Apparently he was told to fight me and possibly kill me but upon seeing how I reacted he just kind of... left, told me I had a week left before he completed his mission... but then he came back a couple days later and said that we wouldn't see each other again because he was gonna disappear." Lukas quickly explained which seemed to make Eanaro start thinking deeply. After a long while of silence, Eanaro began mumbling to himself which Lukas overheard slightly.
"I see... so that's what happens when a Seeker disobeys the master... most likely completely obliterated." Eanaro quietly spoke to himself before once again facing Lukas who was noticeably eavesdropping.
"So, if a Seeker is destroyed when they disobey their master... how come you're not gone yet? You haven't really been a constant threat to me like Zero has and I suppose Gaster has an excuse as he's just trying to keep himself alive so he CAN perform his task." Lukas thought out loud.
"Well, it's good that you mention that because I have recently remembered a bit more about my past. It appears that my master... no, my creator; Xeroc had made me and given me this system as some kind of experiment, I may well have been his first attempt at creating a servant. Although, if my memory is to be believed, Xeroc may have made me too powerful to the point where I can resist his commands and remain unaffected by any of his attempts to destroy me." Eanaro spoke his assumptions out loud which seemed to shocked Lukas.
"Wait, you're powerful enough to resist a god's power? Just how strong are you?" Lukas asked with genuine surprise filling his voice and covering his face.
"I'm honestly unsure myself... sometimes I just end up trying to look for an excuse to use all of my power at once although I never find a good enough reason. Besides, I wouldn't praise my powers too much... I find reason to believe that Xeroc may have lost a majority of its powers over time... maybe that's the whole reason it created the Seekers in the first place; it wanted somebody dead but was unable to do it themselves due to their decreasing strength?" Eanaro once again began thinking out loud as his thoughts slowly trailed off from the original conversation.
"I'm just glad that you're the only one that doesn't think I'm the one you're supposed to kill for some reason... speaking of, why do the others even think that I'm the one they're supposed to be after?" Lukas asked in the hopes that at least one of his most puzzling questions would be answered. Eanaro paused for a second before sighing and responding.
"Lukas... there is a reason why they think that you're the one that Xeroc wants dead... and I know why." Eanaro stated as he stared Lukas in the eye. A chill began slowly rising through Lukas' body once again as Eanaro being serious seemed to scare him. With yet another sigh, Eanaro continued.
"Lukas... I've seen your power for myself, I've experienced your Hysterical Strength first-hand and I see your potential so there's no doubt in my mind... you ARE the one that Xeroc wants dead."
"Where is Lukas?"
"I promise you, Michael, he's somewhere here in the Sanctuary... I just can't find him is all."
"You're lying, Dream, I can hear it in your voice."
"Why do you even want to see him? You don't even know him!"
"Well, you've certainly seemed to take an interest in him... not to mention I saw the destruction he has caused, I can't just allow somebody like him to be roaming free."
"He's not a Destroyer!"
"And how do you know that? Can you seriously claim to know everything that he's thinking? I saw him injure a man who I've never seen in this place before and I could tell just from a glance that man was almost as powerful as I am."
"I sent him out anyways, I don't even know where he is anymore!"
"He'll come back, I'll just be on lookout until then... and if I don't catch him, then I'll find the place he keeps running off to and... well, he won't be going back there. Dream, your position as a Protector will be called into question for supporting such an obvious threat to the safety of the Multiverse."