purplesub01.

sixty4gamer.

dragondudes3 himself.

survivors of the influence. marked by it, torn into by it... yet they'd each managed to withstand its consuming presence, managed to fight against its ways of possession in their each respective ways. purplesub01 used an exploitation panel she unearthed from the neverending blogs of former ROBLOX admins & such; sixty4gamer had utilised his headstrong confidence & persevering qualities, & as for dragondudes3 himself, he’d persevered through the influence’s eating corruption by his own method of stubbornness—his want for getting ace back to his group.

ace had been a dear friend to dragon; the dearest, & ever since ace had been torn away from dragon, torn away from the friend group entirely, dragon had always felt an everlasting sense of emptiness in the depths of his heart that could never be fulfilled until ace came back again. he hadn’t known what it meant at the time, yet now he did; & that newfound discovery only served to fuel dragon’s determination to get ace back once & for all.

“look up at the stars. look up at the stars. it’s cold.. it’s cold… what could it all mean? what could it mean?!”

dragon thumped his desk in frustration, his dragon’s tail thumping against the legs of his chair in reciprocation. he was attempting to decode the influence’s main two catchphrases, the same two sentences ace had only muttered back in their final encounter some lengthy years ago. he wracked his mind for all possible meanings that could be hidden behind the words, & when he finally undid the metaphorical knot, he jumped up in his seat in triumph.

stars. cold. winter night sky. the stars shall lead.

from that point on, dragon knew what he had to do. he followed the stars; as soon as winter came, he set out on an expedition alongside with purplesub01 & sixty4gamer, studying the stars & letting them guide the group as they went. the journey was arduous; sixty4gamer broke a leg whilst traversing a mountain, & purplesub01 often got food sick. however, dragon persevered through all of their troubles, & kept his team standing.

eventually, after many weeks & months of travelling, dragon stumbled across a tombstone. on it, the text INFLUENCE read in etched stone. he brushed his hand over the dust covering the front of the tomb, & his fingers grazed against a latch. that, he hooked his fingers around & pulled at, which caused the ground underneath his feet to open up with a groan, swallowing him whole. his team remained behind on the surface, oblivious of where dragon had disappeared to. meanwhile, dragon soon found himself reawakening in a very, very dark place, far from the forest he’d just been in hours ago.

he stumbled to his feet, eyes scanning his bleak surroundings. the sky was blood red, with branches of black void creeping up into it. the ground was nothing but a black platform, swallowing all light. the air was oddly cold. too cold. … cold. it’s cold. nevertheless, dragon unlatched a lantern from his belt, allowing it to shine through the void & give him way. he wandered around for what could’ve been days at most, until he finally saw something indenting in the voidlike ground. a small print. blocky, followed by others of similar shape & depth, going off in a direction. a set of footsteps… inhuman. dragon followed these footsteps. he followed the trail, never taking his eyes off of the trail of footsteps lest he lose sight of them in the void backdrop. he went on this way for a good few minutes until his head abruptly hit something sharp, blocky—hard. he stumbled back a few steps in surprise, dropping his lantern onto the ground with a clatter. he fell on his rear, & when dragon finally opened his eyes once more, his neck craned up. & up. & up. there was… the influence itself; but it was consuming ace. ace was hanging from the influence’s grasp like a puppet; long appendages protruding from ace’s back whilst the now-monochrome boy hung from them like a marionette with severed strings. dragon couldn’t help but cry out to him.

“—ACE!!”