Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A figure reclined in his chair, booted feet crossed at the ankles and propped up on the dark, wooden desk in front of him. His right gold-tipped boot tapped silently on the other beneath it, keeping tune to a soundless song nobody knew as one of the many computer screens behind their outsoles flashed at regular intervals. The ominous red light made little effect on the dark room around it, but succeeded in illuminating the creature lounging in the office chair in front of it; red glimmering and reflecting off of the shiny gold patterns on his boots and armor. Sighing, the figure leisurely uncrossed his legs and brought them off the desk. The wheels of his chair rumbled as they brought him closer to his workspace. A spandex-covered elbow brought itself to the surface formerly used as a footrest, allowing the figure the ability to rest his cheek in one hand, and bring his other to the desk. Five, gloved digits tapped aimlessly at the firm surface, the velvet red fabric of the glove doing nothing to muffle the hard knocking noises each finger produced as they drummed against the smooth wood. There was a hum and a sigh.

“This one is really looking for attention, aren’t they?”

A pause, the silence only being broken by the hard drumming of his fingers. The figure was deliberating, his other hand stroking his bony, white chin. His gaze lingered on the flashing, red notification on the screen, reading the white number and message over and over until it was burnt into his mind.

“Warning! 1080 R. T: 360-O”

Should he confront this issue? It is his job, after all, and he had given them all the chances one could expect from him. In addition, this notification had been blaring for far too long.

It was getting a bit cumbersome.

He thought they would get bored, as many do when they reach at least 5 R, but this one? This one was persistent. This one was seeking attention, and it appears they had been doing so for a long while.

“Well,” He stood and stretched, sighing as a series of pops echoed from his limbs and reverberated around the darkened room. He reached over his shoulder, unsheathing a long, gold, bladed weapon, and swinging it in a large arc over his head. The air in front of him split, the weapon cutting a clean hole in the fabric of time and space from which a bright, gleaming, white light emitted. Lifting his leg, he carefully slipped through the tear, the anomaly sealing itself with the click of a lock, and vision of a keyhole before fading to nothingness.

“Best not keep them waiting”

Chapter Text

The light reflected off of the spinning, metallic sheen of a knife as it rotated vertically in the air; its grip landing in the soft, light-skinned palm of a child before being flung back up into its dangerous spiral with nonchalance. The pattern continued again and again, mindlessly as the child’s footsteps clicked loudly on the white stone floor. Their surroundings were ominously quiet, each click reverberating off of the monochromatic cityscape that the walkway overlooked. A small rustle of leaves and the crumbling of stone followed the click of the child’s hiking boots every few seconds, the two noises being the only indication of life in the grey expanse of skyscrapers.

The bustling, foot-traffic cluttered streets of New Home now stood empty, shops abandoned and buildings vacated as if an apocalypse had struck. The only constant were the walls of the buildings that stood, solemnly watching over the evacuated city with flickering glass eyes. A mist shrouded the city’s walkways in white, the tiny, sand-like particles within sticking and making claim to all they made contact with. Small piles of the stuff accumulated on specific, almost random streets throughout the city, being buffeted by the stagnant wind of the environment in which they resided; some topped by or within articles of clothing. There were khakis, jeans, jackets, sweaters, dresses, and school uniforms littered the shoe-scuffed paths in a variety of colors and patterns with one exception: that being the variety of smaller articles that were only patterned with stripes.

The silence was deafening. The silence was all-encompassing. The silence was smothering. The silence . . .

Finally allowed her to think clearly.

It was perfect, and her face held a lopsided smirk as the knife landed and spun, landed and spun, landed and spun.

She knew who was next. She had run through this scenario many times over, after all, and they only became faster and less worrying over time. In fact, she felt that this run was her best, yet, but she didn’t really care about breaking records. She knew there was more to this. She knew she could find something new. She had experienced differences in her interactions with the other people who resided here all throughout her many, repeated adventures; nothing significantly life changing, but different nonetheless.

“Chara,” The clicking stopped, the ground ahead of her cracking open to allow a small, 7-petaled sunflower to breach the surface. The pistil of the flower was instead replaced with a fuzzy, white surface upon which blinked two worried, black, seed-like eyes. Its mouth sat beneath the two opticals on the same, fluffy surface, and curved downward in hesitant distaste. It opened, revealing an upper and lower set of human-like teeth, two sharpened fangs replacing the usual canines on the top row.

“Why are you doing this? Weren’t ten runs enough?” It inquired, voice squeaky and high like the cry of a small kitten. It continued, “I just don’t understand what you’re trying to do, here. We’ve taken this route so many times with so little changes. Don’t you feel like it’s time to stop? See what else there is to do?”

The small girl giggled, her tone smooth and childlike, but smattered with dark, breathy undertones. When she spoke, her voice held a malicious glee unfit for a young girl at her age.

“Oh, Flowey, you know what I’m looking for; why I’m doing this. Weren’t you ever curious about what you could discover if you continued to peel back the layers of this world? What you would find if you ran through a fourth or fifth iteration?” Her eyes glinted, pupils locking onto the plant, and smirk pushing her rosy cheeks up into a far too wide, empty, glassy-eyed grin. She moved the hand holding the knife to touch the tip of the blade to her other pointer finger to add to her expression before moving both hands to clasp the grip of the weapon behind her back, returning her focus to her goal, and stepping around the flower, each step causing her to bounce childishly.

“You’ve seen everything! There is nothing else!” She ignored his whine, eyes locked on the wall at the end of the overlook as she took a few more steps, eyes half-lidded and smile far too wide.

“So, you’re planning on going through again? Running me through with your knife and starting over as if this all never happened?” She halted, pausing quickly and standing like a statue. Her messy, dark-chocolate bob settling and waving with the nearly unnoticeable city breeze. She breathed slowly, chest rising and falling in an almost calculated fashion.

“I’m supposed to just beg for my life, and you expect me to stand there and just go along with it like a performer in a show?” Without any warning, she was in his face, again, knife pointed at the stem beneath his petals, and blade pointed up to his ‘chin’. His lip quivered, mouth agape as he was forced to stare the child directly in her widened eyes; their once brown color distorted into a shining, dangerous red, and once relaxed expression shifted to one of manic glee.

“We all have our parts to play, but I’m not afraid of going off-script. That is, of course, only if you so wish,” She remarked, voice a deathly calm invitation.

Flowey felt sweat accumulate above his ‘brow’ and trickle down the side of his face, leaving a trail of damp fuzz in its wake. His breaths were shallow, mouth dry as he struggled to reign in his reason. When he had first seen the child in front of him, she was blind, eyes perpetually closed and body weak and frail. He thought her a perfect target, at first; fooling her into trusting him, quickly before crushing that trust with one foul swoop. Unfortunately, she survived that encounter, but he quickly realized that her survival was advantageous for him. The next run, when the world restarted, she decided to see what would happen if she was not so merciful to the citizens under the mountain in which she had fallen. When the world restarted once more, he began to notice changes in her. At first, it was a small thing, like giggling at citizens she had killed or changing what she said in certain situations, but over time things escalated. She began to grow more confident, but slowly turned toward more violent means of achieving her goals until mercy completely lost its appeal; a very swift process and the one that kicked off many, more extreme changes. He would never have imagined that he could be afraid of the weak child that fell into his domain what felt like all too long ago, but what he felt at this moment proved him wrong. It was not fear: it went even further, and as he swallowed the lump in his non-existent throat, soul pounding at his chest, he made a realization.

Carefully bowing his stem to stare at the ground, he avoided her eyes as he groveled in submission.

“I’m s-sorry, Chara. I-it won’t happen again.”

There was a moment of silence before the girl lowered herself in a crouch and moved the knife away from his ‘throat’, reaching her empty hand out to pet the back of his ‘head’.

“Good. I’m proud of you,partner,” her threatening tone diminished for a moment, instead becoming somewhat mocking and a tone meant to spark humiliation: a task at which it was succeeding, greatly. She sat back on her haunches in a deep standing crouch and hummed.

“Now,” she said, rising to a normal standing position.

“Go do your job.” She commanded in a more irritated tone, pointing the tip of her knife toward him as a warning.

He swallowed again, and still averting his eyes, responded in the affirmative and with a nod before quickly sinking back into the hole he emerged from, and out of sight. She stared aimlessly at the hole in the stone for a few moments - perhaps to make sure he did not re-emerge - before allowing her grin to stretch back to its unnatural state, turning, and continuing down the hall; knife flipping in the air, once more.

When she got to the end of the walkway, she immediately swiveled right, stepping through a large arched doorway and into the golden room beyond. Back in the monochrome city, silence reigned again.

Chapter Text

Dusty boots buffeted the once clean, shining, gold-tiled floor. Light filtered in through the impressively large glass panes lining the walls, painting the yellow stone walls and columns in large strokes, and giving the entire hall the impression of a room bathed in sunset. Chara stepped up to the wall opposite the door from which she emerged and eyed the seemingly mundane wooden chest. Her eyes flicked from the box to a place in the air beside it, a smug smile pulled by her cheeks stretching beneath her half-lidded, seemingly content gaze.

This was her favorite part of every runthrough, and she turned to admire the daunting passageway, knowing she was not going to be alone for much longer. He was never one to disappoint. At first, she thought his interaction would be a comically underwhelming experience; his lackadaisical nature and knack for bad comedy giving the impression of a highly boring and annoying encounter to come. But when it came, this prior judgement was contrasted brilliantly. She was not afraid to admit that it had thrown her off, but probably should have caught on to his game, sooner. The creature had exhibited some odd behaviors alluding to his true nature, but carefully masked the truth from the world with a sickeningly permanent grin. She giggled, wondering what would differ, this time.

Oxygen was sucked into her nostrils, fists clenching before being let out in a sigh, hands relaxing and confidence filling her vacant eyes with an ominous glow. The child moved forward, smile growing with every step before she caught the first sliver of white and blue stepping out into the center of the room, formerly hidden by one of the daunting columns lining the hall, and halted. The judge had emerged, and it was time to play.

“Human,” He began, face darkened by the hood of his baby blue jacket.

“Hello, comedian,” She remarked, holding her hands behind her back in a faux display of innocence.

The sound of church bells ringing twice indicated a change in atmosphere, the person ahead of her appearing to straighten even further, if that were possible. She felt him stare not at, but through her, into something she knew had become corrupted long ago. Her soul; that deep, blood red husk that no longer shone brightly to melt hearts, but to break them. The vibrations echoed into silence, filling the already daunting hallway with a suffocating aura that pressed down on her from all sides, giving her the impression that she was far smaller than she really appeared.

The creature in front of her was around her size, if not slightly taller; rotund body filling out a white shirt and unzipped, blue hoodie. Bony legs adorned in a pair of black exercise shorts, white socks; and to juxtapose the shorts, a pair of fuzzy, pink slippers. His hands buried themselves in his hoodie’s pockets, the bottom half of a round, grinning skull peeking out of the darkness that was his hood. The skeleton stood, legs securely anchored to the ground and spine straighter than she knew he was comfortable with. She heard the intake of breath before he continued, voice a rumbling baritone that - she knew - in any other context, would have held notes of quiet softness and been as relaxed as his outward appearance had indicated.

None of that soothing aura emerged from him, now; voice dryer than sun-kissed sand and as monotonous as a desert.

“This has gone on long enough.”

She giggled and took a step forward, tilting her head to the side and raising her shoulders.

“Oh, has it? I was only just getting started.”

A sigh filtered through the monster’s immobile jaws, producing a whistling hiss that faded as quickly as it emerged.

“Ya’ know what? I see no point in stallin’,” he tilted his skull from side to side, cervical vertebrae cracking.

“Let’s get dis ovah wid.”

The human’s eyes widened with her grin, pulling her knife from behind her back and crouching in preparation. A red, three-dimensional, glowing heart floated out of her chest and levitated gently before her, the soul bobbing up and down gradually in the air. She waited for his opening monologue; something he nearly never failed to do. It was some sort of clever little message about children being sent to the pits of hell on an ironically beautiful day, and she never thought it overstayed its welcome. But as she waited, the knife-wielding girl’s brow began to rise. He was not speaking. Instead, two pinpricks of light that acted as pupils bore into her own. Neither moved or even appeared to breathe.

Finally, she dropped her stance, fists clenching tightly enough to whiten her knuckles.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to say the thing?”

“The thing?”

Her grin pulled into a pout, brows pushing the skin of the bridge of her nose together and into small, folded wrinkles.

“The thing about the birds and the flowers?”

“Oh! Well, if you insist.”

He paused, clearing his throat and collecting himself. He leaned on one of his slippered feet, bending the other leg to stand in a more comfortable position. The zipper on his hoodie jangled a little as he pulled one hand out of its resting place, performing a one-armed shrug for emphasis before inhaling deeply through his nasal cavity. 

“When a man and a woman love each other very much-”

She growled and stomped her foot, childishly. The crack of her sole on the tile rang out sharp and loud, fading quickly into a soft crackling echo before she pointed at him accusingly with her free hand, eyes filled with a growing rage.

“Don’t fuck with me! You know exactly what I mean! Didn’t you say that you didn’t want to drag this out?”

He chuckled, darkly, the corners of his permagrin pulling upward sardonically.

“To be completely honest wid ya, kid? You an’ I both know what’s comin’, and I don’ think ya’ have the right ta’ tell me not ta’ fuck wid ya’ after all you’ve done.”

Her brow twitched as she ground her teeth together before taking a breath through her nose and allowing her mouth to pull back into a large grin.

“I guess I’ll start, then,” She said, bolting toward the comedian. As she neared, her grin began to widen, pupils and scleras constricting dangerously as she readied her knife arm to swing.

The blade sliced through the air in a dangerous arc, leaving the after-image of a trail of glittering red in its wake. Of course, the skeleton had not just stood there and taken the hit, disappearing from this world and popping back into existence a few feet to her right. Having anticipated his actions, she turned to face him as he retaliated, the once white lights in his skull disappearing. His left socket sparked and fluttered before bursting into a mass of cyan particles, staticky magical orbs coagulating and flickering like a flame. The ring of magic acted as a haunting sclera as it flickered with interwoven shades of yellow, and only intensified as he pulled his left hand from his pocket and swung it upwards, as if tossing something underhanded. Large, glowing, white bones speared through the once uniform tiles and carved complex patterns at his will, their path swiftly snaking toward the child with the rumbling crunching of stone. She sprinted toward the obstacle, weaving through the glowing protrusions and skipping over smaller ones. Her eyes flitted from bone to bone as each neared, anticipating her next action before any prior dodge had even been completed. Stepping on one of the smaller stragglers, she vaulted over the last of the wave, both hands clasping tightly around the grip of her weapon as she brought it above her head and back down mid-air; using gravity to her advantage

He was gone before the metal could make contact, and just as quickly as she landed, she felt the trembling of the floor, again. Her knees bent and extended, hiking boots leaving the ground and body leaning back in the air, tilting, and angling backwards and sideways, twisting into a front-facing somersault. She landed one-footed atop one of her foe’s weapons, which appeared to saw through the ground this time, growing and shrinking in alternating patterns. She hopped, each foot landing precariously on the magical surfaces as she once again made her way toward the rotund skeleton. Her sharp, red glare focused on his grinning mug, aim unwavering until out of the corner of her vision she spotted a dash of white. Dropping off of her makeshift platforms and into a roll on the reflective golden floor, she was able to faintly feel a downward-facing bone skim through her locks. They were coming from the vaulted ceiling, now, and ignoring the feeling of long, bobbing weapons running through her locks, she charged at her opponent, spinning like a bladed top, and passing through the point at which he once stood, his afterimage evaporating like a fog. She broke her momentum with a heel, rubber squealing with friction against its perch.

Chara swiftly leaned backward as a bony projectile flew over her chest. Regaining her standing, defensive position, she turned toward the weapon’s origin point and advanced with purpose, once more. The skeleton surfed upon what appeared to be the skull of a ginormous beast. It levitated much like her soul as two others appeared to float up, and level with the skeleton’s mount on either side. As the three skulls and skeleton rose, three rows of bones, protruding upward from beneath the tiles rapidly slid in a uniform line toward their target. Their sizes gradually increased in a zig-zagging hierarchy of shortest to tallest, creating the illusion of a bony set of alternating steps from the girl’s perspective. Leaping, she felt the solidity of one of the shortest sets of bone attacks beneath her feet before pushing off to the side and climbing the sides of the bullets like a skilled parkourist would wall-jump, using the makeshift platforms to gain altitude. 

There was the whooshing, vibrating, squealing sound of energy charging before the otherworldly noise of its explosive release. She spun sideways, to the right just as a beam of blindingly white light swallowed the space where she had just been, her back just millimeters from being singed. It quickly faded and she resumed her rapid climb, the head that had fired previously closing its maw while the right-most opened theirs; a ball of energy collecting in its jaws. She pushed and spun off the left side of a bullet with one foot and landed on the left-most pattern of bones, not pausing to look as the wall of light whizzed down the path she was just traversing. The bones in the wake of the blast were left unscathed, but a fine, sandy substance floated up and trailed behind the projectiles like steam. It permeated the air with clouds of grey-white silt and the smell of burning hair. The child’s eyes watered as some of the particles flew directly into their oculars, gradually causing the whites to grow pink, then red with veins. She refused to even blink to avoid removing her target from her direct line of sight, however, growing closer and closer as the blasters alternated their firing patterns.

Finally, she landed atop the tallest, largest bone, legs bending and pushing off once more as she powerfully leapt toward her attacker’s perch. The skeleton appeared not to anticipate this, and instinctively stepped back, blue eye blinking out. The skull he was standing upon along with the rest of his arsenal dematerialized, leaving both parties suspended in the cloudy air of the judgement hall. To the fighters, the moment crawled along. him; falling backward with hands outstretched in a stunned, protective gesture. Her; diving toward him, one leg extended in the aftermath of her jump, and blade at her side, at the ready. As the young fighter neared the elder, the chestnut bob framing her face beginning to float upward and the monster’s back slowly rotating to be parallel to the ground, the knife-wielding arm slowly moved forward, extending in a spring-loaded lunge toward its target. The pinpricks of light that were his pupils flickered, narrowing in upon the pointed tip of the metal aiming directly at his nasal passage. His permagrin twitched at the edges, droplets of sweat accumulating above his brow bone and trickling down the side of his skull, along the curves of his cheekbone and lower jaw. 

Time slowly accelerated back to its normal pace, and the stagnant air whistled and sizzled around them as they hurdled down, the silt still floating in the air collecting on and rolling off and around their clothes. Chara’s grin stretched manically as her weapon quickly neared its target, a pleasant tickle rising up their throat and attempting to make itself known as laughter. She held it back, eager to hear her victim’s last moments, and her eyes trailed to his sockets. She reveled in his panicked gaze, and her silent enthusiasm only intensified. At once, their forms were obscured by a cloud of grey-white bone dust before clearing again, and chara felt her manic joy extinguish completely.

In the split second when they were obscured from one-another, he had pulled his vanishing act again, and this time without any hint as to where he would show up. At once, she was both infuriated, and overjoyed. Finally, something new! But before she could celebrate, she heard the gravely shuffling and cracking of an emerging bone. Her breath was torn from her lungs and left her in a near-silent grunt as her body folded in on itself, around the projectile. She felt the rippling shockwave of the impact run through her body and the air around her before, like a pinball, she ricocheted, flying limply, backward through the dusty air. Quick as a whip, and fighting the pain and inertia, she flipped her weapon and pushed her arms above her head.

With a deep, rumbling crash and the sound of crumbling stone and settling debris, she slammed into one of the massive, thick pillars. Her entire back and crown throbbed as she hung, limply from her weapon, which had embedded itself into the stone above her with the force of the impact. She felt the back of her head and neck grow warm and itch with droplets of blood running from the place she was sure the skin of her scalp had split open on impact. Her ears rang and felt compressed; as though she were hearing through water. When she opened her eyes, her vision was doubled and spun in uneven, wobbly mirrors. 

Despite being disoriented, Chara knew and understood the severity of her situation. She did not have long, and so gripped the handle of her knife with the opposite hand, spinning her body to face the crumbling pillar. The swift swiveling motion brought the feeling of bile rising to the back of her throat, and an ache between her temples, but she persevered; lifting her legs to place her soles flat against the side of the pillar. Faintly, she heard the deep baritone of her foe, but could not make out what he said - nor did she want to - instead focusing on prying the stuck blade from its current stony sheath. Her legs pressed into her feet, pulling the handle with a force strong enough to make her veins pop out under her skin. The muscles in her calves became taut and braced themselves, pushing with all of their might against the solid surface. Her knuckles pressed against the thin skin of her hands, turning the skin tight and white around the leather grip of the blade. 

Again, the skeleton spoke; this time a little clearer. Still, she ignored him, focusing all her efforts on freeing her arm’s deadly, detachable, metal extension. The hair on the back of her neck, untouched by the blood, stood on end; a sign that the creature was readying an attack. At this staticy feeling, she doubled - no - tripled her efforts; screwing up her face in exertion and pulling for what appeared to be no use. Electric energy was slowly coagulating behind her, the skeleton letting out a chuckle as Chara felt the buzz in the air grow more rapid and loud. The child knew her fate were she not to escape on time, and winced as she recalled the searing pain of the first time she had experienced the attack. At its peak, the blast would consume her body, scorching her skin down to the cellular level, and boiling her fluids within her veins. Sweat bubbled up into droplets that coated her forehead in a shiny sheen, and she shook her head, returning her focus to her goal. 

Buzzing gradually built into whining as the human pulled, adjusted, and wiggled, desperately hoping against hope to loosen it from its compromising position. Sans took pleasure in the child’s suffering, drawing out the final blow as long as he could as some sick form of retribution. His low, rumbling chuckles could be heard over the crumbling of displaced stone and her own heartbeat, but were slowly being drowned out by the screeching ball of rapidly condensing energy behind her. There was a crack, and the buzzing halted for one, brief moment.

“Don’t come back, this time.”

A roar echoed throughout the golden hallway, a blast of white-hot magic exploding in a long, thick, directed ray of light. In the milliseconds it took to hurdle toward the kid, she was able to loose her weapon from its entrapment and drop to the floor in a roll. The tips of her bob sizzled and blackened in the heat of the attack, but she paid no mind to the way the ashy locks seared her already-bloodied neck, turning her attention to her enemy. 

She crossed the distance between them in a swift dash that kicked debris and dust back up into the air, behind her. Her sprint’s stride was long and powerful, and she reared her arm back once more, intending to use the entirety of her body’s strength in her next swing. She was so quick that the rotund creature only had the time to flinch backward, nearly tripping over his pink house slippers as the blade sliced clean through his hoodie’s strings. His eye flickered from blue to yellow and back, hand extended with his palm facing the human. Panicking, he attempted to grab her soul, but was inaccurate, eyelights sputtering between white, blue, and yellow. Before he could properly do anything to retaliate, she was onto him again, moving her arm in a swift, deadly upward arc. He stumbled back again with a grunt, sweating and panting; expression a mix of fear and apprehension. He wheezed, holding his ribcage and trembling as he felt his jacket had been sliced; vertical line of zipper teeth separated horizontally, and blue fabric frayed and sliced along with it. Chara’s eyes, wide with adrenaline-fueled mania, curved upward at the bottom as a grin too wide to be human split across her face. The monster’s eyelights fogged over, shrunk, grew, and shrunk again; quivering in their sockets as the bags, stress lines, and crevices underneath seemed to grow darker and deeper.

“What’s wrong, Sans?” She stepped forward with a little giggle. 

“I thought you loved it when people smiled?”

The skeleton’s breaths caught in his throat and became erratic. He took a step backward.

“You aren’ human,” he shook his head, his grip on his chest tightening, deforming the fabric of his hoodie and shirt.

Chara giggled, taking another step forward. Her head tilted down and to the side, slightly, deepening the shadows on her face.

“Aw, just figuring it out, now? What gave it away?”

He stepped back, silently shaking his head. She stepped forward. Each step he took back she returned, the distance between them remaining stagnant despite their changing positions. Sweat coated his skull and he trembled, bones clicking and scraping together uncomfortably. To his horror, he felt cold stone abruptly meet his back.

“W-,” he swallowed, “what ah you?”

She giggled again, slowly closing the distance between them. Her scleras glinted and glowed unnaturally, voice appearing to duplicate and distort on top of itself. He winced as they came together. Painfully familiar, and yet unfamiliar, at the same time.

“Oh, sans. You always were so entertaining.”

His sockets widened as he slowly picked out one distorted overlapping voice from another. No, they weren’t distorted - he could hear that, now - they just spoke in unnatural, unsettling tones; tones that did not match their characteristics. He knew those voices.

“You were always my favorite, you know? So many secrets, quirks, and powers in one, tiny, insignificant, bony body.”

His breath hitched. Those voices: Toriel, but far too excited and malicious; Undyne, but deathly calm, and far, far too sweet; Alphys, but loud, eerily enthused, and giggly; Mettaton, but quietly conniving; Flowey, but soft, and almost persuasively kind; Asgore, but small, and somehow sharp . . .

“Such a shame you choose to lay about; wasting your talents and skills on so little.”

Papyrus, but monotonous, soulless, empty, and dead.

He covered his acoustic meatuses, trembling and shaking his head.

“Stop it.”

“I wonder how much you could change this little game of ours?”

“Stop it!”

“It is of no consequence however.”

“Stop using their voices like that!”

“You wanted to know who I am?” Chara put a finger under the skeleton’s chin, moving his skull up to look him in the eyes. 

He ceased trembling, eyelights extinguishing in apprehension and terror. Tears had been collecting along the bottom ridges of his sockets, and some quietly escaped, rolling down over his teeth. His grin was strained: Incapable of turning down into a frown, it sat at a near neutral stance; lines around the corners indicating his desire to pull his jaw down further. Chara had an almost comforting look upon her face, eyes relaxed, smile small and soft. 

But before she gave him his answer, her face changed. Eyes melted from their sockets, the sludge bubbling and dripping, turning into an inky black slime that smelled of blood, mucous, pus, and decay. Her jaw dropped open into an unnatural grin, teeth and tongue slowly turning into the black substance that currently ran from her eyes. Her skin sagged on her skull, as if attempting to melt like the other features of her face, but only capable of doing so half-way. The monster’s sockets filled with more tears, the trembling and ragged breathing returning as he attempted to press himself closer to the stone behind him.

“I am your god”

There was a crack, the skeleton gasped, and the other creature stepped back, surveying him, appreciatively. His eyelights returned, fuzzy and blurred, and trembled in the blackness of his skull. His shaking hands made their way to his chest, feeling the place he had gripped earlier before slowly pulling away. The white pinpricks in his sockets slowly lowered and his shaking picked up as he eyed his phalanges.

His red phalanges.

He coughed, slowly sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. There was something stuck in his nonexistent windpipe. He cleared his throat, and coughed again. Whatever it was rattled the air being forced out of his invisible lungs like phlegm. He coughed harder and wheezed, the intense, harsh movements of his ribs causing him to curl up onto himself. There was a searing pain that had awoken itself in his ribs and pounded and throbbed through his torso in a diagonal line. He coughed again and hacked up something thick that tasted like iron. He spat it out onto the tiles in front of him. 

He didn’t want to look at what it was.

He sobbed, his whimpers turning into depressed gurgling and choking as the fluid built up in his system and dribbled down his chin. He didn’t know who or what he was going up against, in the first place. It wasn’t fair. It was never fair. As far as he could tell, the deck was stacked against him from the moment he was born. The skeleton hung his head low and spat out another glob of red. 

“Maybe you’ll make things different next time, Sans. More . . . exciting?”

Chara inspected her knife, already preparing to step into the throne room through the doorway at the end of the hall. Her back was facing him, and he could see over her shoulder the wet glitter of red splattered across the blade.

He took a shaky, rattling breath.

“F-ffuck you-!” He cut himself off with a coughing fit, spewing the liquid ahead of him, all over the tiles, his legs, and hands.

“Ah- Ah-! There are children listening,” she looked over her shoulder at him, tapped her ear, stuck her tongue out, and giggled. Sighing, she turned back toward the threshold to the throne room, eyeing her weapon again.

 “Anyways, that is my cue to leave. See you next round, comedian!”

“I DO NOT THINK SO, FRIEND! YOU HAVE BEEN VERY EAGER TO GET MY ATTENTION FOR A LONG TIME NOW, AND I BELIEVE THAT THE BEST TIME TO DISCUSS THINGS WOULD BE NOW.”

The skeleton froze up, head swiveling to eye the newcomer. A high-pitched, nasally, British tenor. It was the exact same voice as-. But, it couldn’t possibly-!

It was another skeleton; this one taller than both other parties. His head resembled a human skull, but was slightly thinner with large, pointed incisors in both his top and bottom jaws. He appeared to be barrel-chested, ribs adorned in a brown, silver, and gold chestplate that shimmered in the golden rays of the Judgement Hall. The center of his chestplate had the design of a large, black keyhole. On each large hand were red, silver, and gold gauntlet gloves which followed the theme of the chestplate; being adorned with black keyholes. His pelvis was adorned in a brown piece of armor with golden fringed trim. A silver, gold-trimmed blanket was tucked into the sides of his pelvis armor and a cream cape draped behind him, fluttering softly with the rise and fall of his chest. Over his shoulders, a bright red scarf was lovingly wrapped around his neck and tucked into itself to avoid entanglement with his other clothing items. Under everything else was a black bodysuit that appeared to conform to his bones.

Behind him, was a swirling, golden tear in the fabric of reality. The tall monster twirled what appeared to be a very large silver and gold sword-sized, bladed key. The handle appeared soft and to be made of a sort of red fabric while the hand guards appeared to be made of bone. The ridged end of the tool was stuck into the portal and twisted, the tear shrinking to the size and shape of a keyhole before vanishing in a flash.

“B-bro?” The small skeleton gurgled out. “P-Papyru-us?”

The newcomer looked over to the round monster with sympathy, sheathing the strange tool in a carrier on his back, stepping away from his original position, and kneeling down to caress the top of the other’s skull. At this angle, the two foes could spot three spikes protruding from the new skeleton’s vertebrae, and emerging through two carefully crafted slits in the back of his chestplate and cape.

“N-no Sans, but you’ll be with him, soon.”

Sans reached up to grasp the gloved hand caressing his skull, and brought it down in front of him, squeezing it, tightly with both hands. He swallowed and gurgled something quietly to the larger skeleton.

“I’m sorry?” He leaned closer to Sans’s face, head tilting so his acoustic meatus was angled toward the bloodied teeth.

Again, the round skeleton gurgled, and this time, the key-wielding skeleton could understand, but only just.

“Stay with me?”

The frown that adorned the other’s skull turned down further, socket-lids lowering, and brow bones drawing up and together in sympathy. He nodded, bringing his wounded not-brother into his lap and wrapping his lengthy arms around him, to the best of his ability. Sans looked lost for a moment; sitting with a noticeable gap between his torso and the newcomer’s. Foggy sockets scanned the other’s chestplate and looked up at his thin skull in a silent query. The key skeleton chuckled sadly.

“Do not worry about that. I do not mind a bit of blood.”

There was a pause, the wounded monster processing the other’s words before his watery sockets filled higher with tears. They overflowed in salty rivers as the corners of his jaw quivered into a bittersweet grin. Shakily, he scooted closer to the lengthy monster’s chest and wrapped his arms around the metallic chestplate. He squished himself as closely as he could to the other skeleton, smooshing the front of his skull into his ribs and squeezing his sides as tightly as he could.the other monster reciporocated, hushing Sans’s cracked sobs softly.

“Y-you’re so cool, b-bro,” he gargled out, shaking in the larger monster’s arms.

With that, the smaller skeleton began to break down into dust; beginning with his toes and fingers, hands and feet, legs and arms, and then to his head, which the armored skeleton stroked one final time before releasing. Slowly and carefully, he stood, allowing the dust in his lap to fall to the tiled floor. He brushed himself off before respectfully rounding up all the dust and piling it together into a safe corner.

The remaining skeleton’s silent reverie was interrupted by a series of condescending slow claps.

“Wow, what a performance! So very touching! I really wish I had that recorded!”

Chara couldn’t see the other skeleton’s face at the angle at which he stood, but noticed the stiffening of his shoulders at her applause. The reaction brought her a malicious sense of joy, and she couldn’t hide her smirk.

“So, how did you survive, Papyrus? I was sure I had completely severed your skull clean from your spine!”

There was a short pause, the tall skeleton’s shoulders relaxing. She noted he took a deep inhale before exhaling just as deeply before he swiveled on his feet, chuckling, grin not quite meeting his sockets.

“AH, WELL, THAT IS QUITE EASY TO EXPLAIN, HUMAN! YOU SIMPLY DO NOT DIE IN THE FIRST PLACE!”

Chara giggled and hummed in question.

“So, you claim you are not Sans’s brother?”

Papyrus stared at her blankly, grin emotionless for a few seconds before his sockets appeared to light up, grin widening.

“CORRECT! I AM NOT SANS’S BROTHER, BUT I AM SANS’S BROTHER!”

The girl quirked an eyebrow.

“I’m . . . sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t understand?”

“WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?” He clasped his hands together in front of himself and cocked his head to the side, innocently.

“How are you Sans’s brother, but not Sans’s brother at the same time?”

Papyrus hummed, pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“THAT IS AN EXCELLENT RIDDLE, HUMAN! I DO NOT KNOW! HOW ARE YOU SANS’S BROTHER AND NOT SANS’S BROTHER AT THE SAME TIME?”

“I’m asking you that!”

“YOU ARE ASKING ME WHAT?”

“You-! I-! You asked-!” Chara stopped and yelled in frustration before slapping her palm against her face, dragging it down, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. She paused before slapping on a calm smirk.

“So, you are new! I have never had anyone come back from the dead before. Does this mean I get to kill you, twice?”

He hummed.

“I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT DO THAT, HUMAN.”

“Why not?” She gasped and grasped her hands behind her back, smiling up at the tall monster, innocently.

“Papyrus, do you still think I can change? Even after I killed your older brother?”

“I BELIEVE THAT EVERYONE HAS THE ABILITY TO CHANGE, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES!”

“Oh, Papyrus!” She giggled and stepped up to him, gaily. “You know, you’ve convinced me! I think I’m feeling like a much better person!”

“REALLY?”

“Really! In fact, a while ago, you offered me a hug of acceptance! Do you remember that?”

“I SURE DO!”

“Well, I’d like to offer you a belated hug of acceptance. How does that sound?”

“THAT SOUNDS WONDERFUL!”

“Then come here!” She opened her arms, wide, prepared for an enthusiastic embrace.

“ALRIGHTY!”

He bolted up to the small girl and crouched down, long bony appendages wrapping around her far smaller figure. His grin widened and sockets squinted shut in joy. Chara couldn’t help but to let out a giggle as she was squeezed. This was too simple.

“Oh, and Papyrus?” She subtly reached behind her back, gripping the handle to her prized weapon.

“YES FRIEND?”

“You are really naive.”

she swung her arm back around the skeleton’s neck and slashed downward, towards herself, awaiting the satisfying sound of cracking vertebrae. Instead, however, she was met with resistance.

And one of Papyrus’s arms was no longer holding her.

“Not as naive as most may think.”

Chara only looked on, eyes wide and jaw slack as the gleaming silver and gold tool lodged in the space between her knife’s blade and his neck. The missing hand was held over his own shoulder, tightly gripping the key in his gloved fist. He had moved at speeds the child never thought the tall monster possible to intercept the attack; and with such a bulky weapon, too. The skeleton’s once naive expression was pulled and twisted into a smug grin, confident sockets lidded and grin wide. He chuckled as the girl turned her attention back to his face.

“Surprised? I would be, as well. After all,”

He leaned in closer to her ear and dropped his voice to a threatening drawl.

“Us Papyruses are very good actors.”

He leaned back again, brow bone raised as he eyed the being in front of him.

“You are not Papyrus, are you? Not my Papyrus, anyway.” her eyes flicked between his sockets, apprehensively.

“ Now you catch on! I was wondering when you would take me seriously. Then again,” he pushed the knife away from his neck and swiftly released her. 

Stepping back and turning his body to the side, he pointed the end of the bladed side of his weapon at her jugular. The grin dropped from his skull, leaving an unimpressed, and disappointed expression in its wake.

“You never took Papyrus seriously, in the first place.”

She sized up the bladed tool in his firm grasp, neither confirming, nor denying his claim. His empty hand rested on his hip, and he scanned the child’s body from top to bottom.

“Who are you?”

“I am one of the failsafes.”

“Failsafes?”

Papyrus’s grin returned, smugly cocking his head to the side.

“Beings responsible for protecting and ensuring the integrity of the timelines. You,” he poked Chara’s chest with the end of the key, the child’s brow twitching in response, “have reportedly repeated this run 1080 times. If you are to continue, you have the possibility of corrupting your experience, the timelines within your universe, and the universe, itself.”

He re-adjusted his stance, looking away thoughtfully, and putting his empty hand to his lower jaw.

“I am surprised that you even managed to continue for this long without significant error.”

She scoffed.

“You act as though you are the one in control. My experience is my own, and this universe is mine to exploit.”

“Maybe so, though the creator’s whim states otherwise.”

“The creator? You mean T-?”

“You are not the only one aware of the nature of this universe’s existence, player.”