Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[SYSTEM_REBOOT]
[ERROR LOG: MEMORY CHAIN – CORRUPTED]
[SOUL LINK – NULL]
[IDENTITY FILE: MISSING]
[BOOTING BACKUP PROCESSOR...]

Darkness.

Then—pain.

No, not pain. Wrongness.

He opened his eyes .

Weird, he doesn't remember closing them.

[INTERNAL DATA LOST]
RELOADING . . .
FILENAME: ?????????

Colors snapped in and out—fragments of black, white, static, red. His vision wobbled as it came back in pieces. His body didn't feel right. It felt... jumbled. Like it had been cobbled together by a doctor using the remains of someone else.

The Beings skull ached.

No—no, he was- No he was a male.
He didn't even know what a male was, but he knew that's what he was.

He was laying in the middle of somewhere. The ground under him felt soft, crunchy, like something—but he couldn't tell what until he looked at it later .

His breath hitched, whether it was from the pain or confusion he wasn't sure.

His fingers twitched as he brought them to his face. the white powder falling off to revel a white sleeve wrapped around what felt like his hand.

They were bones. At least... they looked like bones.

Except they were glitched ? —flickering between colors, dragging red and blue static like smoke when he moved them. white after affects trailed off it like ash. He flexed his hand slowly, waiting to see if he felt any pain from it.

The back of his head pulsed.

He brought the hand reaching up, trembling, and touched his face. Bone or what he thought felt like it. He let go of his face and le his hand drop to beside him on the ground.

The snow was cold.

That was thing he noticed. Not the pain he was in. Not the dizziness. Not the static fizzing at the edge of his thoughts that he only just realized was there.

Just... cold.

A groan slipped from somewhere deep in his chest—he wasn't even sure if it even came from him. Limbs, heavy and foreign, shifted beneath a thick blanket of snow. His fingers—bone fingers, he had to remained himself—dug into snow. Hard. Unfamiliar. His entire body was screaming in discomfort, twitching like he'd been struck by lightning. Or torn apart. Most likely both from what the pain he was ignoring told him.

He pushed himself up. The snow slid off his hoodie—white, oversized—and fell around him like sand.

That's when he finally noticed what's been bugging his head the whole time his been awake.

He saw incredibly clearly what looked to be numbers and words, but mostly numbers everywhere.

Everything had a number an name a value then a rule.

No matter where he looked or how hard he blinked, they were still there.

Lines and strings. Variables. Tags. Parameters.
It was all around him—overlaid on the world.

He looked down onto the snow covered grass, and more words popped up in response.

ground_Snow_covered
object_flag: placeholder asset
gravity = Default

He blinked again.
Still there.

"...great," he muttered, rubbing the back of his skull with his hand as he muttered. "I've got dev tools for eyes."

He froze.
Did he just say a pun at a time like this?

"...Was that... supposed to be funny?" he murmured, His voice was deep but he didn't notice that static that overlaid it.

He didn't know.
It just came out.
Like it was as easy as breathing, Like he didn't need to think to say it.

And worse?
He felt better after saying it.
Like something inside eased up. Clicked into place.

And that bothered him.

"Okay," he mumbled, pacing slowly across the snow. His boots didn't echo. The only sound was the static that surrounded him. "Lots of snow. Floating numbers and words every where. Everything's code. And I... can make jokes on instinct now ."

He kept walking, reading the numbers hovering over everything as he made to walk past the trees.

"...Do I do that a lot?" he asked aloud, hopping the numbers around him would help.

No answer, of course.

He sighed and kept walking. The snow crunched underfoot, accompanied by the constant sound of static that surrounded him.

The snow covered forest he at least knew, was some what familiar too him so he knew he was making some form of progress. Cold wind. Pale trees. A quiet that felt too deliberate—like something was waiting for him to ambush him.

That didn't change the fact he still didn't know where he was.

And worst of all... everything he looked at wouldn't shut up.

Snowdin Snow
Tree Object - Static
Temperature: -5°C
Wind Velocity: 2.2m/s
Tag: Zone Start

The words floated over every surface in a dull pale white glow. Small, Messy and constantly moving in his vision. And behind each one he could feel what felt like tangled wires waiting to be pulled, stretched massive webs of data—layered beneath everything like a second skin.

He grit his teeth, exhaling sharply as his sockets darted from tree to tree, snow to stone. Each glance brought more clutter. More meaningless noise.

"Shut up," he muttered, voice low. "Just... shut up."

He focused—forced every ounce of whatever power he had into one task: stop seeing it. Push it out. Silence it all.

Nothing changed.

He tried again, and with just a thought, he focused—harder this time —this time however. He pulled at them instead.

Suddenly, everything exploded into a blinding wall of symbols.

INSTANCE ID: 034A - ROOT_DEPTH: 0.42m - ANCHOR_STABLE: TRUE - CODE STACK: 45308_LINES_LOADING...

The forest around him was gone. In its place, a sea of scrolling code burst across his vision like raw numerical vomit. Strings, values, hexes, tags. The entire world peeled back like a skin. All that was left were a red and blue background with letters, Numbers, Weightless and infinite covering every angle.

The pain hit instantly. Like staring directly into the sun—if the sun was trying to speak to you in screams.

He staggered, gasping, clutching his head as a sharp glitch-static screamed came out from his skull.

"NGHH—Fuck, okay, too much. Waaaay too much."

He squeezed his eye sockets shut and pushed the overwhelming code back down, tried to suppress it—just enough to still be able to see normally, without hurting him.

When he opened his eyes again, the storm of data was gone.

Attempt world Override: unsuccessful
System Alert: Observation Layer Accessed
Permission Level: INSUFFICIENT

A sharp glitch-crack rang through his skull like feedback, and he stumbled back, wincing.

"Ghhh—dammit!"

The best he could do was dim it. Blur the details. Make it manageable. Instead of full code, he now saw only faint tags floating in his view. Words like:

Tall Tree
Zone Marker
Object: Rock

Still there. Still very not normal. But good enough.

"I hate this," he grumbled, dragging one hand down his face. "I fucking hate this."

He turned his head skyward—only to be met with a giant carven roof above him

SKYBOX: Underground Cavern
ERROR: Surface Script MISSING
Surface Missing and incomplete

"Of course," he muttered bitterly, sockets tilted to look at the crystals on the caverns roof above. "Even the sky's fake."

Chapter Text

Snow crunched under his feet.
The forest was quiet—too quiet. No birds. No wind Just snow.

Wait hold on....he almost forgot to mention the pale glowing text that floated over every tree, every rock, even the air itself if he focused. It just didn't stop.

He tried tuning it out, tried squinting, blinking hard, even closing his sockets.

No dice. It was still there

But he figured out how to interact with it.

After some trial and error, he'd learned on how to focus on what he wanted to see. Condense the wall of gibberish into just short names. Like using nicknames instead of full names.

He squinted into the quiet forest as he walked past between two trees.

The cold didn't bother him—it should have, he thought, but didn't.

That felt... wrong.

Or right?

Hell if he knew.

"Okay..." he muttered, brushing more snow off himself, "if there's anything alive in this place, it's gotta be somewhere populated. Town, camp, bunker, something."

As if on demand, something flickered.

A small, glowing mouse arrow appeared a few steps in front of him—floating gently just above the snow, pointing forward through the trees.

"...What the hell?"

The arrow was mostly a deep blue, slightly transparent, and jittering with faint red rims.

He looked left. Then right.

No other signs.

He gave the arrow a flat look.

"...Well. It's either this or yelling into the woods. Lead on, magic mouse."

He started walking and it moved forward in front of him, leading to where ever it was pointing.

The path wound gently through the trees for what felt like hours. The whole forest looked the same—tall, snowy, dead quiet. Hell it felt like even the air had stopped moving here.

Eventually, the trees thinned. The arrow led him to a path leading to a town town of wooden houses and dark windows that were half-buried in the snow.

Floating above it the entire area, in bright white glowing text, were the words: Snowdin Town :Population: 0

He stepped into the town's center next to the decorated tree, staring up at the text. "So, either everyone left... or I just missed the party."

But he felt something else tied to the text. Like looking at a smaller picture of something a lot bigger.

He squinted at it.

And without warning—

The numbers exploded into clarity.

A sharp PING! rang in the air and a translucent blue screen snapped open in front of his face, glowing with more white text.

"STARS—!" he yelped, stumbling back.

He glared at the screen, then looked confused as he rubbed the bridge between his sockets. "What—why the hell did I say stars? What am I, a cartoon?"

The screen hovered calmly in front of him, flickering red slightly. Giving no response to his out burst.

Murmuring a few insults under his breath , the skeleton looked at the screen.

[ FILE: REGION_OVERVIEW ]

Name: Snowdin Town

Status: Inactive

Original Population: 120

Current Population: 0

Classification: Mid-Zone — Civilian Hub

Last Interaction Timestamp: [REDACTED]

Region Anchor: Missing

Interior Assets: Accessible

Associated Files:

→ Puzzles (Variant 002-B)

→ Character data (Obsolete)

→ Weather Data (Archived)

He scanned the screen, eye sockets narrowing in thought.

"Weather Data...? Character files...? What is this, a video game? Is that what I'm seeing, Game code?"

His reflection warped slightly in the blue screen. His skull, the weird eye sockets filled with red and blue respectively, white text in them. The weird red liqued text leaking from the red socket with a similar blue one underneath the second socket.

His breath—wait, did he even breathe as a skeleton?— fogged up the air.

He reached out and poked the screen.

It flicker before returning to normal.

"Guess I gotta learn how to work this thing the hard way," he muttered. "Figures."

The floating mouse arrow had paused, circling lazily around a decorated tree in the center of the town.

He turned his attention back to it. "Alright show me what else is in this ghost town."

The arrow moved again but still floated lazy pace, weaving through Snowdin Town. But he kept following it for now.

The town was quiet. Every building sat untouched, blanketed in snow. But above each door floated a glowing white tag—.

Shop (Civilian Vendor: Obsolete)

Inn (Temporarily Closed)

Grillby's (Closed: No Signature)

Tree (Decorated)

Moving on, he passed by a crooked building with a large sign over it.

Librarby

He blinked.

"...Librarby?" he read aloud. A huff of breath escaped him before he even realized it. A short, surprised chuckle.

"What kinda name is—?" Another chuckle. "Seriously? Librarby?"

He covered his mouth, like the laugh betrayed him.

A pause.

"...Why the stars do I think that's funny?"

There it was again. Stars. Why did that keep slipping out? Who even says that?

He shook it off and stepped inside.

The air in the library was...surprisingly warm.

Dusty, yes. Cold still clung to area near the door, but it was dry. The snow hadn't gotten in yet.

Rows of bookshelves stretched in perfect grids, Perfect.

But what really got his attention was that every single book had a glowing label floating an inch above it

Monster History Vol. 1

Soul Theory: Basic Constructs

Journal - War Veteran (Name: Gerson)

Children's Book: "What's a Human?"

Grillby's Recipes (revised)

Laws of Monsterkind: Abbreviated

"Monsters & Humans: A Shared History"

"Basics of Fire Magic"

"The Barrier: Creation & Purpose"

"Children's Fables of the Underground"

"Soul Shapes and Traits"

"Cooking to make Magic Food"

He whistled low. "Thank the Stars... I really didn't want to have to look through each to get what I wanted."

He paused again.

His eye socket twitched.

"...Okay, what the hell is with me and stars?! Why not—damn, or crap, or something normal?"

The books didn't answer , neither did the the arrow, that stayed outside for some reason.

With a sigh, he reached toward one of the books, grabbing it gently. The book shimmered for a moment—then popped open on its own, pages flipping until stopping on a specific section.

He stared, wide-eyed. "Okay. That's new."

He drifted down the aisle, stopping only to poke more books, glance at a few phrases, and keep moving. The glow from the Lamp lit the room in soft yellow. The snow outside frosted the windows completely so he couldn't see out them.

He sat at a nearby table, getting a few books and flipping through the pages.

Diagrams of diffrent monster and human SOULs. Notes on elemental affinities. Cultural bits about monster kind. A debate about whether snail pie should be sweet or savory.

"...Cute town, must have had lots of fun people" he muttered, though the silence made it feel more like a mockery then an actual compliment.

Still—something about this was....nice.

First, he grabbed a basic book titled "Channeling Magic Through The body (Monster body Friendly)."

It opened with diagrams—Monsters of different Body types in various casting stances, fingers glowing, hands raised, projectiles forming from midair. He turned to the pages about skeletons, there was way less Information on skeletons compared to the entries of other monsters types, but there was enough to at least give him an idea.

"Skeletal monsters use the natural framework of their bones as conduits for magic. The phalanges and forearms are particularly efficient in directing compressed magic to form bone-shaped projectiles or shields..."

He flexed his right hand without thinking.
Then stared at his glitched left one which had a lot more glitches? compared to his right arm. It twitched, and he quickly hid it back in his sleeve.

Moving on.

He found another book, this one older, wrapped in leather. It read "Applied Soulcasting"

This one hit harder.
The text was denser, but something about it felt familiar.

"Soulcasting is the process of externalizing internal traits through magical focus, forming spells, weapons, or constructs tied to one's SOUL Trait. Many monsters with strong traits can summon weapons unique to them, or can use it to summon special attacks."

He didn't know his SOUL Trait.
He wasn't even sure he had a SOUL.

But the thought of summoning something... some part of him wanted to know how. His fingers tingled slightly in excitement.

He shoved the feeling down. He wasn't ready.

The next batch brought up more advanced topics:

"Ideology of Monsterkind"
"Magic as Identity: The Binding of Form and Thought"
"Temporal and Spatial Pocket Realms: Also known as Inventory "

The first one was too deep. Too philosophical for his current self.
But... that second one. Magic as Identity.

He opened it slowly.

"Monsters do not simply cast magic. They are magic. Their form is shaped by memory, belief, and intent. If these falter or are damaged, so too is the body."

"So too is the body....huh........good to know"

Chapter Text

The snow was colder than it was few hours back, but not in a natural way. It was the kind of cold that came from absence—no warmth, no presence, no life. Just empty houses, frozen streets, and silence thick enough to press on his bones.
He found an open patch just past Grillby's, where the snow was soft and untouched. This spot would do.

He raised his hand, fingers outstretched. Nothing happened.
He tried squinting, focusing, mimicking the diagrams in the book he'd spent hours memorizing. Still nothing.
"Okay," he muttered, "step one: believe you can do it. Step two: Gaslight yourself into thinking that helps." He pointed forward and tried again.

A small flicker of blue light buzzed near his fingers. It blinked out before he could react.

He didn't stop. Day after day— He honestly couldn't tell the time, he just based it on the crystal lamps going on or off at certain hours—he practiced.
Forming shapes in the snow. Concentrating until his sockets buzzed. Willing energy into his fingertips. Sometimes he felt it twitch.

Sometimes nothing at all.
Other times, something wrong happened.
Once, while channeling through his slightly more glitched arm, a jagged red bone erupted and shattered a tree way behind what he was aiming at. His vision flickered red for a bit. He stopped for a break after that.

Another few days later, he sat on the roof of the Librarby for a little break, legs dangling. No wind. No birds. No sounds. Just the buzz of "LIBRABY" sign blinking gently under him.
He tilted his head up.
"Stars Dammit, I'm bored as hell."
He'd said that a few times now. "Thank the stars," or "Scared the stars outta me." when he blew something on accident.

But there weren't any here. No sky. Just a dark cave roof stretching over his head with crystals to fake them. And yet, the phrase kept slipping out of his mouth like it was built more into him more then the puns he kept thinking about. Like a muscle memory of a limb that wasn't there anymore.

He clenched his jaw and hopped down the roof. Bones appearing under his feet to cushion his fall.
He could now proudly say to anyone that his progress wasn't just some sparks anymore—he was doing actual magic now.
He could conjure three types of bones. Now What each did, he was still trying to figure out himself, But they seem to be based on color coordination.
He walked into the clearing again—his makeshift training ground just past Grillby's. It had become his unofficial Testing grounds for weeks now.

Hand raised, focus narrowed, he inhaled.
With a flick of his wrist, a line of sharp, Blue glowing bone, burst from the ground and hovered in the air in a basic formation.

"...Tch. still can't get them as high as I hoped." He flicked his glitchier hand to de-spawn them. "Still not fast enough either."
He tried again. This time with both hands. He realized magic materialized faster and easier with more body casting. The structure was tighter this time, brighter too.
He stood there, staring at them. Letting them hover midair. It was a lot easier once he let his body do most of the work.
Like instinct, or muscle memories, if that can even be said for him since he was a skeleton.

He slowly looked at his hands. "I've must have been incredibly good at magic for my instincts to be this good."
Whoever he used to be—he had known magic well enough that his body and magic remembered what to do even after whatever happened to the old him.

Sleep came rarely to him nowadays. And It wasn't the fact he kept forcing himself to stay awake to keep training.
No it felt like sleep had became much more...optional to him rather then it being an actual need like it used to be.
Or at least that's what it felt like to him.

Weeks passed—he stopped counting them. He didn't feel tired. Not like he remembered tiredness should feel, anyway. His joints didn't ache. His bones didn't sag. He never yawned once.
A few weeks back, just out of curiosity, he decided to lie down and try.

That's when the static came.
He didn't fall into the non-awareness of dreams he was expecting. He was just not perceiving anything while still being aware, no images or sensations.
Just an endless gray static that surrounded him and the constant buzzing. Like he was in a broken Tv.
He woke up a few hours later, feeling the same as he was when he laid down. No Fuzziness. No rest. Just that invisible pressure slightly removing itself from where it was in the back of his skull.

He didn't sleep often anymore after that, unless he really needed too.
Didn't see the point of it any more.

A few days back—maybe more like a week ago or so—he'd tried something reckless.
Every time he pushed his magic further then what it took to form bones, he kept feeling a strange tingling in his skull. He could feel something wanted to form out of his magic. Something big.

The next second, a jagged shape of white-blue light had started to appear, a second later, half of a skull of some kind appeared with its jaw unhinging appeared around the light, the light in its jaw growing by the second.
He didn't know what it was. Still didn't, since It lasted a second before freezing in place.

Then exploded in a burst of blinding light and noise.
He should've taken the hit full force, he was too close to it and he wasn't fast enough to get out of its range—his reaction was purely instinctual. He jumped.
But when he landed... he was Thirty feet away..

His vision had blurred, twisted, and blinked—just like when his sockets buzzed when he focused too much magic out of himself too quickly. And suddenly he was outside of the clearing, a giant hole where the skull was.
Teleportation. He could Teleport.
He hadn't tried to summon that skull thing again though. Not yet.

He found a general store a day after the incident.
The sign over the door simply read:
[SNOWDIN SHOP - OWNER: NULL]

Inside the store, it was dusty but mostly untouched. Shelves were still stocked.
He took a couple of items like some black gloves to cover his hands that went all the way to his elbows, some longer pants since he didn't want to keep wearing the same shorts all the time. Not that he didn't clean them, but—he just felt like he would've been nagged at for looking like a wreck.(Hold on he was the only one he-

He also found some snacks....that healed him for some reason?
[MONSTER CANDY - RECOVERY HP ITEM]
[Asset-FOOD ITEM]

It honestly soo good he grabbed every box and stuffed them all into his inner pockets.
He also found what seemed like an outpost and sentry shack, tagged as:[OUTFITTERS POST - TEMPORARILY CLOSED (??? DAYS AGO)]

Inside was some boxes of pile of cloths, belts, utility pouches. and some stuff most royal guards carry. All labeled.
There were also some boots—a bit bigger then the slippers he was wearing, but they were a lot more sturdy. He took those too, mostly because they looked cool.

He realized that sooner or later, he would be carrying too much on his person.
His arms full of some cloths, his scarf weighed him down, his jacket pockets overflowing.

'Man... would be nice if I could just—store all this somewhere, hold on wasn't there another book that said something about monsters having an inventory?'

The moment the thought clicked, so did something in him.
INVENTORY reactivated

A small, flickering square appeared in his face, causing him to nearly trip over a few rocks he was walking over.
Faint. Cyan-lined. Showing a black screen with blinking text: [Inventory: 1% full]

He blinked. Looked down. And thought of everything on him going into it.
All the stuff he had on him shimmered—and vanished with a soft PING.
But when he imagined his old slippers back into his hands—they reappeared instantly.

He tested it with books, food, spare cloth, hell even a table.
All gone in a flash. All came back when he thought about them,

.....
..........
.............
...............
.................
Thus began the skeletons Criminal arc.

Chapter Text

Within the next few days, the skeleton went everywhere.

Every house. Every store. Every crate, drawer, and shelf.

From Snowdin's cabins to Waterfall's homes, from the abandoned stalls of Hotland's MTT Market Row, he made his rounds.

And he didn't knock. Not once, Who was here to answer if he did anyway?

If the door was unlocked, he walked in, if not he just broke the door with a bone, No-One was here to stop him.

Not out of cruelty—no one was left to mind, after all—but because the idea of leaving anything behind made his skull buzz with annoyance for some reason. It didn't matter if it was nailed down, bolted in, sealed in place or rusted into itself—if he could pull it out, grab it, or rip it, it was now his.

He went back to Snowdin's General Store and looted shelves of scarves, gloves, empty firewood baskets, packets of monster food, and a pile fishing rods from behind the counter. He even yoinked the cash register— Money Included

Grillby's Bar had entire tables and chairs taken. He phased them into his inventory midair by making the screen bigger and pushing the furniture into it. Barstools, salt shakers, even the wooden sign outside with "OPEN" burned into it.

The stove, massive and covered in years of grease? Gone. Liquor cabinet? Emptied.

He even took Grillby's fireproof bartending apron, just in case.

He went to back to the Library, shoving armfuls of books into his inventory, from "Monsters and Humans" to "The Origin of Magic Vol. 8."

Reference guides, history scrolls, children's fairy tales, maps, unfinished essays.

And yes—the desk, the librarian's chair, the entire filing system, and the "Shhh!" sign hanging over the counter.

He visited the houses in Snowdin. Every single one.

He took couches, pillows, beds (complete with mismatched sheets), bathroom mirrors, and kitchen sinks—sometimes full kitchen counters.

One house had ten toasters, none plugged in. He took all ten.

Another had a wardrobe filled with knitted sweaters. Inventory got 'em.

In Temmie Village, he took bags of gold, Temmie flakes, old armor, and the entire TEM SHOP sign just because it was funny.

Hotland's MTT Resort was a gold mine of goods—every unused oven, pan, and spice rack from the restaurant including all of the food and ingredients. As well taking every piece of furniture he could take.

He took vending machines, Bathroom supplies, and the entire front desk bell that had a sticky note reading "DING IF COOL."

The Lab, now long abandoned: he took leftover blueprints, broken robot parts, untouched books on quantum Physics, and every screen that still blinked, as well as every VHS and those weird comic books he found. deeper into the lab, he snatched up control panels, unmarked energy cells, and every intact monitor he could find.

The floor panels? Several got phased into his inventory.

He even grabbed a few glowing cores that hummed with heat, unsure what they did—he just knew they would be useful one day.

By the second week, his inventory space should have been filled. But no.

The inventory window still read:

[Inventory: 32% Full]

To the skeleton, it felt endless.

And so, with every cabinet raided, every room turned inside out, and every last "do not touch" label gleefully ignored...

He kept going.

He planned to stuff the entire Underground into his pocket.

Not because he needed it.

But because he could.

After cleaning out the entirety of the MTT resort, He decided to take a break and lay in one of the VIP rooms beds.

The room was too fancy for him no too anyways.

Gold trim. Purple carpet. Glittery paint that sparkled even in the dim emergency lights. All it was missing was some over-the-top robot yelling about ratings.

Which, honestly, would've made things feel less weird. Since there were poster of them on every surface in the resort.

He lay flat on the bed, arms stretched behind his skull, bones creaking just slightly as he relaxed. his Jacket warm from being in Hotland for so long, the last of its heat spots seeping into him on the comforter.

His eye flicked sideways to the corner of the room, watching the same three glowing words float just above the floor: MTT VIP Suite Room.

"Five stars," he mumbled. "Would invade again."

A flick of the hand, and the familiar hum of magic shimmered in front of him. He reached through the ripple and yanked out a thick notebook—his personal log. The pages were already stuffed with his barely-legible writing: spell tests, teleportation math, food stashed in the inventory, and his latest attempts at summoning the half-formed skull cannon thing.

He still didn't know what to call that... thing. the last time he tried to spawn it in it floated above him, stop forming halfway through, at least it didn't blow up again.

He rubbed his bony jaw and snorted. "Guess I've don't need to hide behind a wall of bones every time i summon it."

Notebook open, pen floating lazily above the paper, he scribbled:

Progress Log — MTT Resort, Room 232

Magic improving. Got teleportation locked in now. Small hops work. Long-distance still makes me a bit more dizzier then normal.

That thing didn't explode this time. Need a name for it though... 'Kaboom Buddy'?

Figured out the inventory's linked to my magic pool. I dumped an entire store's worth of supplies into it and it's still barely full. Either I've got unlimited space... or I used to hoard stuff like a dragon.

He tapped the pen thoughtfully against his teeth as he thought about who he used to be.

He didn't panic this time. He didn't have another existential meltdown. The truth was, the idea of not knowing didn't really bother him anymore. What did it matter? He had hands, he had magic, and he had his mind. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

Besides, he'd picked up on small details that were eligible enough for him to read in his own code.

With his small break now over, he got up, stretched his arms with a yawn that didn't make sense physically, and waved his hand to open his inventory, and the book vanished. With a lazy blink, his left eye flared briefly—just a flicker of blue static—and he disappeared from the room.

Chapter Text

He sat cross-legged on the couch in one of the main lobbies of the MTT resort, eye sockets both glowing flickering in the half-light. 

The skeleton blinked. Right now he had his vision set to "normal"—just fancy furniture and a carpet smelling like old perfume and the sound of water from the fountain behind him. Then he focused on opening his eyes to the world again.

 This time, he didn't flinch as badly as last time. No flashbang headache. No dizziness. But he could see it a lot more clearly now. 

Code. Reality. Data. Purpose. All visible to him. It had taken him days to build that tolerance. but he still felt some resistance, like he shouldn't be seeing any of this.(Which honestly made sense

 Right now it sat like a second layer over everything. Almost like putting on glasses. The color of the world had faded away as a bright blue washed over every surface, hundreds if not thousand's of white text moving in every direction, some of them incredibly large while some small, covering each surface.

 "So," he mumbled, his blue eye socket flickering more for a second, "what happens if I just poke the these?" He stared at a nearby chair.

Object ID: CHR_1429 Condition: Intact Placement: FloorTile_4C Script Link: None

He reached toward the floating code. The text fluttered slightly at his movement, acting more like birds startled by his hand. Then his fingers brushed the string of code.

But the moment his finger tapped the line of code, something changed. At first, it was subtle. A soft buzz in the air, like static creeping under the walls. The chair shimmered, not like glass—but like something melting out of its own shape. The humming grew louder. 

Then the walls around him began to change color randomly. Red spilled outwards from where the chair was spreading through the room— the clean blue of the code he'd seen before was being pushed back by it, the two colors clashed and he had to admit that it looked amazing as the jagged, red-streaked waves forced themselves further, lashing out in sharp angles and broken shapes. 

"W-whoa, whoa—what the hell?!" His breath caught as the floor fractured beneath his feet. The carpet glitched, flickering between patterns like it couldn't decide what texture it was supposed to be.

 A poster on the wall warped into floating shards of colorless shards, hovering mid-air. He staggered back, eye wide. The code was spreading from him. He was damaging the world. He was infecting it. 

"Okay—nope! Nope, nope, not good!" He reached for the code again, trying to shove it away, to close it, to do anything. But it didn't respond. It spiraled, bleeding error symbols across the ceiling.

The furniture jittered between existence and deletion. Panic clawed at his ribs. "I didn't mean to do anything! Just—just go back!" Nothing he did worked, the red Error message kept spreading, it was starting to effect the hotel as a whole. 

Then—he tried a different approach. He clenched both fists and pulled—not at the code—but at the actual glitch itself. At the red waves leaking from him like water from a dam. It resisted. It fought him.

 He could feel it wanted to spread outwards, it wanted to be free. But it was his, wasn't it? The book about monsters said that the body of a monster was made to represent who they were as a person from there soul.

The corruption came from him. It was his corruption. He was the error that was spreading. 

So, with trembling hands, The skeleton gritted his teeth and willed it all back into him. The red lines stuttered. There brightness dimming. flickering like they'd been drown in cold water. The red error messages stated fading while—one by one—the glitched after effects evaporated, and the red sucked backwards to the bottom of his boots like a vacuum.

 He dropped to his knees, panting in silence as the code returned to a blue that was paler then it was before. The chair was gone. So was the most of the decorations in the lobby. The poster, if you call it that anymore was half-shattered into fragments on the floor. 

"...Right," he muttered, voice shaking. "So, maybe that wasn't a good idea." He stood slowly, brushing himself off, hands twitching faintly from adrenaline. 

"Note to self—don't touch the damn code like it's a light switch." The skeleton decided to leave the code for a while. Not out of fear—though he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a bit spooked—but because... That was way too damn close. 

He doesn't know what would've happened but what he did know was that he needed to figure out what the hell he is supposed to do. 

So against his better judgement, he let his curiosity lead him, and honestly it was pretty fun thing to try and understand code. 

One accident? Sure, scary. Two? Intriguing. Dozens? Now we're talking. 

The underground became testing ground. None of his test gave clean results he could actually trust—but it was honestly way more fun when  he broke physics, tore floor tiles, made walls start flickering , and  made half-pixelated furniture.

 Each time he touched the world code again, he focused harder, keeping the error in him from leaking outwards. Testing how much he could poke and prod without corrupting it. He tried doing a lot of small scale stuff first, then he moved on to bigger things as time went by.

 [TEST 1: MODIFY TEXT LABEL] Success. Changed [Sign: Open] into [Sign: Clopen ].

 He laughed at that one longer than he should have.

A few test later he figured out that he could mentally 'Copy' code from an object and could spawn in more of it. 

[TEST 19: COPY OBJECT CODE – LAMP] Success. Made second identical lamp appear. Conclusion: Duplication possible with full code access, He copied the code of a coffee machine and made four more. 

An interesting thing he learned, was that as long as he could view somethings code, he could copy all or just certain parts of it and place its code in a different set of code. He gave the same code that gives a steel beams its durability to a piece of paper, and he couldn't rip it apart.

 He even also found how to use  the placement tool for the  code and rotated a window until he had a horizontal skylight to the caves roof. 

What he couldn't do—yet—was interact with living code. He didn't know if he could alter people. There was no one to test that on. No one to clone or crash or rewrite.  (And that was probably a good thing.) 

He jotted that down in the back of his notebook. Then flipped to a new page:

New Discoveries: — Can duplicate inanimate objects from their code. — Glitch can spread from me if I'm not careful. — Can "copy/paste" code and specific code fragments from the environment. — Editing things = possible, but don't know what it could do — Closest thing I can say I might be a dev tool or a virus. Or both. 

He leaned back in the chair—if you could call a half-glitched couch "a chair"—and sighed. Its been a few days since his rapid test of the undergrounds code. 

By now, he barely even flinched when pulling the world-code open. It was just... normal now to use code. Want the door open? Will the code to change. 

Tag: [DOOR_LOCKED]. Edit: [DOOR_LOCKED = false]. Click. Open. 

Want more light in the room? Tag: [LIGHT_SOURCE: NULL]. Edit: [LIGHT_SOURCE = ambient.glow_45]. Boom. Soft blue light filled the space. 

He didn't even need to touch anything anymore. Just look. Focus. Will it. Reality, as far as he was concerned, had become malleable. It was like someone gave a hacker root access to the universe and said, "Yeah sure, do whatever." So he did. 

Breakfast? He looked at a countertop. Created a "coffee machine" from a saved prefab. Clicked it open. Changed [WATER_LEVEL = 0] to [WATER_LEVEL = ∞]. He never had to refill it again. The mug? Just copied one from the café in Hotland. Slapped a goofy skull on it. Tag: [MUG_TEXTURE = skull.jpeg]. "That's comedy," he muttered to himself, taking a sip. 

Hell he even modified a room in the resort to have adjustable gravity. Just for fun of it. One line of code let him turn the place into a no-gravity chamber. Another made everything weigh as much as a boulder. [ROOM_ENVIRONMENT: GRAVITY = .1] 

It was... practical, alright it helped him train his balance. Float. Fight in strange conditions. Did he need that? Probably not. Did it make him laugh like a maniac the first time he tried to float through the ceiling? Absolutely. 

Sometimes he added things just for comfort. One of the couches had bad springs. Instead of finding a better one [OBJECT_TAG: COUCH] [STATE = Uncomfortable] → [STATE = Plush_As_Hell] Much better. 

He even renamed a few buildings to help him organize which still had some stuff in he could take and which he robbed clean. The hotel lobby? Now called: [LOCATION: Still need to take the couches]

He wasn't sure if that was clever or lazy. But it made him snort every time he walked past it.

Chapter Text

He wasn't sure why he wanted to test his limits again, why he wanted to try and see if his tolerance built up enough to view more of the world.

Maybe boredom.

Maybe ambition.

So he sat on the throne in the castle, coffee in hand, and let the code unravel again.

This time, it didn't hurt at all.

No searing pain.

No static

Just silence as it looked like snow falling in reverse.

The world peeled open like sheets of thin plastic code, revealing the world to him.

The world code.

It blinked into being around him — lines, fragments, hovering values and names — the raw skeleton of reality, humming and alive. Normally, he only peeked into it. Used it to modify the world around him. Open menus, shift items, patch holes or make them.

But this time?

He looked outward.

And the world... peeled back.

The strings of code weren't just in the air anymore — they pulled away like curtains. He pushed further, willing the code to show him more. Zooming out. Further. Further.

He saw the world he was in, like a glowing 3D orb of numbers and swirling commands. A world floating in an empty black void surrounding it.

 He kept zooming out until the blackness wasn't empty anymore.

Other orbs flickered into view.

Dozens.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

Each one glowing with its own light, its own data signature. A galaxy made of universes.

Each one was connected to others — strands of glimmering light stretching between them like glowing cables. Some were thick and bright, pulsing with a heavy presence — close siblings, he theorized. Others were thin, spiderwebbing off into the dark, barely visible.

He realized the cables represented similarity.

Worlds close in design, theme, structure — their magic and rulesets familiar, shared.

Above each orb floated a name, written in clean, bright white text:

Sciencetale

Shiftfell

Danceswap

Outertale

Underswap

Mobtale

He zoomed his vision in—and more info appeared under them as they were labeled.

[STRING: OUT.UNIVERSE_ID_002] - "Danceswap"
[STRING: OUT.UNIVERSE_ID_009] - "Altertale"
[STRING: OUT.UNIVERSE_ID_025] - "Sciencetale"
[STRING: OUT.UNIVERSE_ID_000] - "Mobtale"
[STRING: OUT.UNIVERSE_ID_404] - "Outertale"

Some glowed blue. Others red. A few blinked like Led lights.

And this world?

He looked down at where his body was, he didn't even realize he had his journal out and was documenting everything he saw.

[UNIVERSE_ID: UNRANKED_INSTANCE] - "N/A"
[CONNECTED_TIMELINES: 13]

Some where like that were they didn't have any name and hundreds more. Some familiar in tone. Some alien entirely.

He blinked — or rather, the mental equivalent of one — and focused on a nearby orb labeled Hand_Plates.

It was connected to the world he was in by a thick but slightly flickering strand — stable enough for contact. Familiar, but not identical.

Right in front of his seated body, a glowing swirl of red and blue split started forming.

He just focused on one labeled "Hand_Plates." Because something about the name made his eye twitch.

Stars Dammit he just stared at it.

And that was enough it seems.

A glitch ripple traveled from his chest—where the red and blue parts of him originated—and the space in front of him started ripping open.

Crkk-zzzzrt.

A red-and-blue portal, that looked more like his eye socket, tore through the throne room.

He would have stumbled back if he wasn't already sitting.

The code where the portal was near the tear vibrated violently, reacting to the distortion.

[PORTAL_CREATED:BRANCH GATEWAY]
[STABILITY: BETA]
[DESTINATION: Hand_Plates]

"...Okay what the hell did I just do?"

He glanced at the code. The cables seem to have reshaped themselves to make a literal door for him.

He hadn't clicked anything.

He hadn't edited anything.

Just... looked.

And now he'd made a portal

The portal hummed, emitting a low, familiar frequency.

Familiar because it sounded just like the static noise he makes when he speaks.
aa well as some buzzing, layered with static, half-laugh, half-machine growl.

He reached toward it instinctively—and stopped.

He looked at his hand.  then at the portal, he didn't know how he was doing any of this.

But one thing was clear:

He could.

And if he could do it once...

He could do it again.

Anywhere.

Any universe.

(He Could be free and that enough filled him with DETERMINATION)

He stated walking towards the portal again, hands in his hoodie pocket as the static around him seem to get louder the closer he got. 

When he stepped through the portal, he expected chaos. Or noise. Or maybe even pain.

Instead, it was quiet.

The cold bit at him first — faint, but noticeable. He was now standing ankle-deep in snow, the soft crunch of it beneath his boots the only sound. He stood at the edge of a forest trail, familiar wooden signs poking out of the snow like when he first appeared here. To his left, the outline of town: Snowdin, covered in soft white frost, but he could hear and see it from here, it was alive.

But he didn't care about the view.

He wasn't really looking at the town.

He was  trying to looking at the world's code. Specifically he was just looking at the surface level code for an overview.

Lines of it glimmered faintly in the air, invisible to normal eyes — but to him, it was like a  seeing a new color. His gaze swept across the snow-covered rooftops, the icy paths, the far-off river still frozen in motion.

It made everything feel... off.

Not bad off. Just different.

The Snowdin in his world had code that bent, looped, and jittered like it had been patched and overwritten a hundred times. But here?

This place was clean. Structured. Alive.

He lifted a hand slowly, letting his eyes adjust — flicking his internal vision filter, letting the deeper layers of the code come into view.

That's when he saw it.

New code.

Fresh, glowing lines floating in motion. Moving. Breathing. Code that wasn't tied to static environments or unchanging rooms — dynamic values, updating in real time.

Life. That was the code that represented Life Itself.

He could feel it from here — faint traces of code tethered to distant points in the town. People. Not leftovers or broken remains. Not old templets of code in an empty world.

Actual. Living. Code.

A flicker of emotion flashed across his eyes

"...Huh."

His voice, which had more static-filled buzz, crackled softly as he stared out over the snowy rooftops.

"So this place has people."

He stared at it. The feeling didn't go away. Another spark — a new emotion joined the first popped up. Then another. And another, What honestly felt like hundreds of sparks of emotion kept hitting him.

His sockets buzzed, flickering erratically between red and blue. The wind whispered through the trees, and the code — the code of living  — fluttered in the air in his face.

His breath hitched.

Then it started.

A low, static-choked laugh slipped out of his mouth, unbidden.

"Ha... hhahah... hahahaha—"

The sound distorted and cracked like broken speakers, echoing into the still, snowy quiet. His shoulders trembled, the static weaving through his voice spiking into sharp bursts making it sound like three people speaking at once.

He clutched his ribs as he doubled over, the laugh coming harder, louder. It wasn't clean. It wasn't pretty. It was broken — raw. Static-laced joy, stained with disbelief. A cackling, shaking, glitchy mess of a laugh. But it felt real.

"HEHEHeEHh... hHEhhHEeHEEEhheh... th-tHey'rE reAl— tHeY're actually rEaL—!"

He lifted his head, half hunched in the snow, face tilted up toward the soft white snow, his body flickering with red and blue  light.

"People... there's ACTUALLY people!"

His voice burst with static and glitches, colors sparking around his sockets like corrupted fireworks.

"I knew it. I KNEW I wasn't just screaming into a dead void!"

He spun around, arms wide, stumbling a little through the snow as if he could feel the pulse of life just beneath the surface of the quiet town.

"No more silence— no more empty chairs— no more DAYS THAT NEVER CHANGES!!"

The laughter turned to wild gasps of breath, still shaking.

Then, slowly, it softened. Not faded — just... steadied.

He stood there, chest rising and falling, snowflakes catching on his hoodie. The sound of wind returned, and in the distance there was the Snowdin of this universe

He turned his head toward it.

His grin was wide. sparking. Crazed

"...Guess it's time to say hi."

And with that, his Blue Eye Socket Flickered as he  used a shortcut.

Chapter Text

The skeleton disappeared in a blink—only to then reappear in a different location.

High above the largest cluster of living code signatures he could sense, his feet hit something solid. A rooftop. Maybe a maintenance catwalk. He didn't care.

His eye sockets were wide. The white after effects-flickering around him seemed to spread to the rest of his body, pupils flickering and glowing in the dark.

Below him was a large, semi-outdoor amphitheater, half-covered in glass and metal, ringed with pale white stone. Flood lights lit the edge of the platform spreading light. Banners hung from exposed rafters, each stamped with a shimmering emblem shaped like a monster soul, a DNA helix and the Delta-Rune.

And on the stage were monsters. A dozen of them. All in clean white lab coats.

Most stood on stage, gesturing to holographic displays of formulas and theories that made no sense. Some sat in rows in the audience, nodding, clapping, taking notes.

But The skeleton wasn't listening to any of that.

He didn't hear a single word. He couldn't. He was seeing something else entirely.

Their code.

The raw, twisting, alive data of people who moved and thought and felt.

Each one radiated its own structure. Unique yet familiar. Imperfect. Changing. Living.

And he was surrounded by it.

It hit him all at once — like a hundred strings pulled tight around his skull. He couldn't tear his gaze away. His vision jittered as his vision tried to track it all.

"...Woah."

Static hissed softly in his throat. His mouth hung open just slightly. He crouched on the beam he'd landed on, one hand gripping the railing.

His fingers twitched.

One by one, he tagged each living code signature. Not to track them — not even for his own safety.

Just to prove to himself they were real.

He could feel the data shifting with emotion. Thought. Memory.

It was beautiful.

His voice barely came out — broken, distorted, low.

"...They're real."

He didn't even realize he was slowly leaning forward, hyper-fixated. The presentation on the stage below blurred. He saw the speaker— a bug-eyed monster in a massive coat, holding up a beaker that glowed like a soul — but the only thing he saw was the swirling code rising off the glass like heatwaves.

He couldn't stop staring.

He was drowning in it.

As he crouched above the crowd — tucked in a shadowed balcony over the glowing lecture hall — his eyes flared as he looked deeper at there code.

Every single monster below him was wrapped in strings of organized logic and chaotic scripts. It was like looking down on an exposed character Sheet.

[ENTITY: #MTR_045_HOPP]

Name: Marry

Species: Reptilian Subtype (Variant 03B)

Occupation: Lab Assistant

Behavior Tree: Curious > Logical > mischievous

Emotion State: Anxious/Focused

Soul Color: Yellow - Insecure Confidence

Personality Tags: soft talker, overthinker, panic loop(10%)

The skeleton tilted his head. That line—"panic loop." He followed it, and sure enough, the lizard's eye twitched whenever the lead speaker raised their voice. The code didn't make it happen becuse it was just there, it just described them. It was just how they were as a person.

His grin dimmed at that train of thought.

Next batch of code.

[ENTITY: #PRT_133_BNY]

Name: Dr. Hopper ton

Species: Lagomorph | Senior Class

Position: Quantum Bioengineering Lead

Magic Class: 2B - Construct & plant Manipulation

Skill Functions: construct nerve vine()biofield stabilize()collapse matter(locked) Unique Tags: loud laugh, hates mess, eats chalk(secret)

The skeleton blinked rapidly at that.

Eats chalk?

He perspective flicked to the next cluster of entities. The code danced like fire — beautiful, layered logic. Even when it said something he was sure he didn't need to know, it had purpose.

Each one had:

Behavior Tree: outlining how they think

Emotion Set: that determined how they react to something

Magic Structure: defining how their power works, with executable lines

Event Triggers: that determine reactions when conditions are met

He even saw item slots.

[INVENTORY_LIST: #MTR_009_SML]

Pocket Watch: tagged -> Grandma Gift()

Lunchbox: Tuna Sandwich

Notebook: Fireproof

Key Item Flag: LabPass_A

This wasn't reading people. He was practically opening all of there secrets to himself.

And they had no idea.

Their codes were adapting as he watched — facial ticks triggering subroutines, dialogue forming from layered variables.

And yet it all made sense.

It made his own messy, corrupted code feel like someone who tried to build a house by throwing bricks into a blender.

He couldn't do any magic with out the end result having the same glitch aesthetic as him.

He couldn't stop himself from laughing again.

A low, glitchy, static-laced laugh echoed from his throat, so raw and full it buzzed in the air around him.

His left eye flared red. His right glitched blue as a plan formed in his skull then he moved in burst of white static.

One moment, crouched on a rust-stained vent shaft. The next, he flickered — static wrapped tight — reappearing silently atop a steel scaffold halfway across the compound.

His left socket flickered crimson. His right hummed faintly with blue sparks.

He wasn't planning anything too bad.

He just wanted to know more.

After slipping  into the upper rafters, The skeleton narrowed his vision. Static hissed louder in his mind—not painful, just a bit more of a sting compared when he did it for the universe he was in previously.

He'd been the physical surface code of this world. Its people. Its flow.

Now he wanted to look deeper.

He relaxed the anchor keeping his sight grounded and let go. The world dimmed. Everything froze.

And then a screen formed in front of him with the same white text his always seen—not raw binary, not tangled gibberish. No he learned that was a headache waiting to happen.

This was time though it came to him... clean? Structured. Intentional.

[UNIVERSE DESIGNATION: HAND PLATES]

[CREATION TYPE: Past Focused AU]

[CORE PREMISE: Revised Past of Certain Events]

[KEY FIGURES: W.D GASTER (Chief Royal Scientist), SANS (Sentient Skeleton clone), PAPYRUS (Sentient Skeleton clone)

[Timelines: Moderately Low; No Save/Load/Reset used]

[POPULATION CLUSTERS: Snowdin, Hotland, New Home Civil Sector]

[THREAT LEVEL: Low]

[DATA STABILITY: 100% - Clean]

"So this is what a stable world looks like..." he muttered aloud, voice crackling as he hovered just out of everyone's view.

Chapter Text

His glitching sockets flickered as he scanned the crowd again, this time narrowing his focus. He wasn't looking at everyone — just the ones who felt louder to him.

Not in volume. Not in magic. In presence.

His vision shifted —new Info appearing, hovering over heads and shoulders of certain people like flies. His attention was pulled to a yellow lizard monster that was in the back of the crowd.

[ENTITY: #MTR_006_ALPHYS]

Name: Alphys

Tag: Anchor_ Character

Importance: High

Narrative_ Weight: 89.3%

Event_ Triggers:

Trigger: Meet(Main)

Trigger: Lab Incident Future

Trigger: Nervous Break Down

The skeleton frowned.

"Narrative... weight?"

He spread his vision outward—  

The world around him went dim — blue-glowing points popped into view like stars.

The heat map was shocking though.

Large amounts of monsters had were spread out in the underground, their presence combined to make a large bundle of code swarms. They were coded to be more like background noise.

But even with all of there interference, there were still beacons in his map.

Blazing, defined, sharp presences that felt like the beating heart of a story.

[Presence Detected: #CORE_UNIT_ASGORE]

Narrative Anchor: 92%

Code Weight: Class A

Position: New Home Sector

[Presence Detected: #CORE_UNIT_SANS]

Narrative Anchor: 100%

Code Weight: Class S+

Position: True Lab - Sector 2

[Presence Detected: #CORE_UNIT_PAPYRUS]

Narrative Anchor: 100%

Code Weight: S+

Position: True Lab - Sector 2

The skeleton exhaled, static flowing with each breath like fog 

"They hold so much importance that it wouldn't be wrong to call them main characters..."

The realization didn't give him a sense of fear or awe.

It gave him more clarity on why some things were codded like they had someone in mind for.

The world didn't function like a game or a story. It was just very similarly built like one. A story. A layered narrative stack with predetermined pivot points — triggers and routes.

And only some people were "written in bold."

The skeletons eye socket flickered again as he stared at the crowd, they were cheering and pointing towards the cavern ceiling above. It wasn't difficult to guess what they were talking about.

He looked back at the code he place around this Alphys person. Nothing dangerous, just a locater tag in case he need to find her again.

Alphys had a gravitational pull to her code. Wherever she walked, the world's data focused on her slightly. Interactions stacked around her, code pinged active before she even arrived — like the universe was a person watching someone they knew.

He watched her below, scuttling through her way towards Hotland.

Clipboard in one hand. Those weird comics in the other.

'She probably a scientist or most likely an assistant' he muttered, trailing above her whenever he could and using shortcuts to get to different parts.

 Another shortcut later, he reappeared atop a segmented pipe crawlway, just above the building she was about to enter. He sat, legs hanging over the edge. Watching as walk towards the door.

Alphys keyed open the door. The entrance hissed, and she walked into a dimmed lab with machines humming quietly.

He leaned forward, fingers tightening on the edge of the ledge as he saw her walk in.

He wasn't stalking.

Not really.

He just didn't know how to talk to people. Not after being alone so long.

(Hell he technically has never talked to anyone since his been alive)

Watching was easier. Reading code? Safer. Simpler.

Still...

He wanted to see what made her and those other seem so special.

Another flicker of static. Another shortcut.

This time, he appeared in the shadows behind a bulkhead in the lab she entered, staying hidden, but close enough to read every line of code pinging off her interaction with the room.

Alphys adjusted her goggles, booted up the monitor, and set down a canister of something glowing.

"Call Dr. Gaster," she said aloud to the terminal, which responded with a cheery beep.

 A Gaster... who ever he was, the code said he was very near the center of this worlds story.

His sockets flickered as he crouched deeper into the shadow, trying to give himself a better view of the monitor.

He'd watch a little longer to see who this Gaster was.

Just a little.

He has been telling himself that a lot lately.

===================

POV: ALPHYS

===================

Alphys adjusted her goggles again.

The scanner she was using flickered, mapping electrical outputs from the circuit she'd pulled out —just to pass the time as she waited for Dr. Gaster to pick up, nothing unusual. Stable electrical currents. Low-level magical emissions. 

No reason for the scale on the back of her neck to start itching.

And yet...

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkk—

That noise.

Like the old television she uses to watch some of her anime. It was low, constant but close.

At first she thought it was feedback from the cooling fans, or maybe one of the audio sensors buzzing. She tapped the panel near her workstation. It stopped for half a second...

shhhhhhhhhhkkk...kkktkkk...

There it was again.

Her brow furrowed behind the lenses.

Slowly, cautiously, she turned down the lights in the room, one level at a time. With each dim click, the shadows in the room grew longer.

And so did the sound.

shhhhhkt... tk-ktkkt...

It wasn't coming from a device. It wasn't ambient.

It was... in here with her.

She held still, breath catching slightly in her throat, ears twitching toward the source. It wasn't behind her. Not directly. It wasn't to the side either.

It was somewhere by the door.

Alphys turned — slowly, deliberately — toward the large coolant pipe arching over the door.

Nothing.

Just metal, dark and still.

She squinted her eyes around in the dark as she stepped around in the lab cautiously, her tail scuffing across the tile.

And then—she heard the softest scrape.

Directly above her.

She tilted her head up, slowly, even though her instincts were begging her not to.

And that's when she saw them.

Two glowing sockets hovering in the darkness above the ceiling pipe — one red, one blue — both flickering brightly in the dark like flood lights. And inside each one was what looked like white pixel-text, flashing random characters like a computer.

Below them: a wide, unmoving bone-white grin.

No body. No outline.

Just eyes and teeth in the dark.

Her breath caught. She didn't scream — she couldn't.

Before she could even think to turn and bolt, a crack echoed behind her.

She turned to the door only to see what looked like three long bones that had rose from the lab's doorway, glowing faint blue with flickers of white text? — or what looked like text anyway — embedded across it.

Alphys turned back to the sockets and the smile.

She couldn't see him fully, but his presence was so heavy on her that she knew instinctually that she should not make any sudden movements.

Alphys raised her trembling hands slowly, her voice high and shaking. "Wh-what are you?"

A ripple of white static? shimmered across the floating eyes, then it disappeared.

Chapter Text

The room buzzed with the low hum of outdated technology. Screens lined the curved wall, each showing live feeds from different angles of both the research complex and public areas. Two guards sat inside—one bored, sipping from a thermal mug, the other clicking through feeds manually.

"Hey, uh... Marv?"

"Yeah?"

The other pointed to a screen labeled Observation Deck A.
There, perched  above the science expo, was... something.

"That supposed to be a skeleton?"
"It's got the body type—looks a little like Dr. Gaster—but those colors... the hell is that glitchy static?"

The image was clear: twin eye sockets glowing red and blue, static distortion pulsing from their frame, shifting as though their presence was never fully registered to the screen. The skeleton leaned over a railing, staring down at the crowd like he was studying them.

And then—

"Did it just vanish?"
A flicker. A blur of static. And he was gone.

"Run that back. Pause. Zoom."

The blue-cloaked guard leaned in as the image enhanced.
There was no doubt now.

"We got an intruder on-site. They seem to be a skeleton monster but are.....glitchy? with a red and blue eye socket and having a white static affect surrounding them. "

A long pause.

Then one of them said, " We should properly report this to the higher ups.

"Both of them?"

"Asgore first. But Gaster too. They'll want to see this—especially if that thing is able to just disappear through walls like it owns the place."

The report was sent to a secured line. Copies were sent to encrypted inboxes flagged TOP PRIORITY.

[Scene: Science Division - W.D. Gaster's Private Office]

Gaster's face was unreadable as he stared at the paused footage. His eye lights shone with a dark purple, parsing through every fragment of the image. His long bony fingers tapped the desk, unreadable equations scrolling behind him on a floating screen.

"Not from here..." he muttered.

The static. The visual decay. The mismatched alignment. This wasn't just a corrupted version. This... wasn't from this universe at all. The magic wasn't aligned to any monsters magic structure. It felt layered, foreign, unfinished—but alive.

He tapped a command.

"Asgore, I assume you've received the feed."

[Asgore, through the call:] "I have. He's not hiding very well, is he?"

"No," Gaster said. "But that may not be the point."

The air in his  office was tense, crackling with Gaster's presence.

He replayed the security footage again and again. Frame by frame. Every flicker of static, every twitch of that glowing red-and-blue skeleton was cataloged, studied, hypothesized upon.

"He's not from here... and yet he's rendered by our rules. That shouldn't be possible. Every single test I've done showed that leaving ones own universe was impossible."

He tapped the side of his desk, pulling up a voice memo file.

"Entrée number 31: Subject appears to have a similar build to S1-type skeleton. Visual aspects include glitching and chromatic static present. Soul signature my be fragmented or hidden. Possesses knowledge of space-time magic and most likely basic skeleton magic, but lacks complete awareness of there surroundings. Entity is—"

He paused.

Then smiled.

"Entity is research material."

He opened the comms line to security.

"This is Director Gaster. Classify the unknown skeleton as Priority Capture – Level 3. I want him alive. No permanent damage. Do not engage lethally. Containment teams are to be dispatched immediately. Engage if spotted. Immobilize using non-standard methods only—sleep gas, force fields, or stasis pulses."

There was a beat of silence.

"Sir... what is he?"

Gaster looked at the paused image again—of the odd skeleton leaning over the rail, eyes glowing with corrupted static, smiling and occasionally laughing at something only he could see.

"A walking hypothesis."

The wind was cold, but nowhere near the cold of Snowdin.
The skeleton crouched low on a rooftop, a little dizzy from the sudden short cut he had to pull He hadn't even realized how close he was to getting caught by Alphys. He would have to leave this world soon, he already got a large amount of good info from this trip. No need for him to risk his safety.

Then a bright light hit him like a slap. A bright white floodlamp flared up from across the building. More followed. A dozen more. Each rooftop surrounding him now lit like a stage.

Then came the voice of someone he couldn't see  behind the lights.

"Target identified. Unknown skeletal entity—do not move."

Metal boots. Soft humming forcefields. And the bark of a voice through a megaphone.

"You are an unregistered experimental anomaly. You will surrender immediately. Lay down any magical constructs and prepare for containment."

The skeleton blinked. Then smile dropped a little.

"...Experiment?" he said slowly.
His voice crackled like a broken speaker, spitting static at the edges.
He stood, hands held loosely at his sides.

"I'm not an experiment."

No reply. Just the low whine of magic charging up. The soldiers—monsters in sleek lab-stamped armor—advanced in formation.

He sighed, brushing a glitch off his shoulder like lint.

"I'll just leave then."

He turned toward the edge of the building. His foot hadn't even touched the ledge before—

PFFT-CHK!
A dart flew past his shoulder.

PFFT! PFFT! PFFT!

Three more. One aimed right at his spine.

He spun back round, catching the darts between two fingers.

"...Ohhh."
His head tilted. Both eye sockets brightening in there respective color.

Then his voice shifted. The static deepened. The distortion thickened.

"So that's how you wanna play it."

The air around him was bathed in his magic. The weight of it forced all the weaker monsters nearby to drop to there knees

"G̶u̵e̷s̴s̸ ̶w̸e̵'̸r̴e̷ ̴d̸o̵i̵n̶g̶ ̷t̸h̴i̸s̸.̶.̵.̸ ̴n̴o̴w̷.̶"

A CRACK echoed across the rooftops.

A long femur bone—blue, flickering, and glowing with white text—snapped into his hand like a blade. He twirled it once and lowered himself  into what professionals may have theorized to be a defensive stance.

"Round one."

The soldiers opened fire. Dart after dart, net after net.

The skeleton didn't even move at first.

Then suddenly he wasn't even there anymore, static replacing the area he was.

His body blinked out of position—suddenly six feet sideways without warning. A dart passed through where his chest used to be.

Another blink. Another.

Thwack.

He slammed one soldier's rifle arm up with the bone, twisted behind them, and tossed them into a wall so hard it cracked the concrete.

CRUNCH!

Another tried to flank him—he reversed it, using the femur as a staff to sweep their legs. 

"This is me being polite."
He caught another dart mid-air and stabbing another monster with it, paralyzing them for a moment, then throwing them spinning into a guard's helmet.

They just kept coming. He didn't stop grinning as he kept fighting off.

He wasn't even using half of what he could, but it still felt amazing to fight.

He should get into more fights if this is what it always feels like.

Chapter Text

Scene: Rooftop

Alarms blared now. Soldiers groaned on the ground, all of them were still alive, but were in no condition to keep fighting. Their traps, wires, and electric snares had all failed.

The skeleton stood in the center, surrounded by the groaning bodies of still living soldiers—calmly spinning the bone staff he held and doing some simple tricks with it.

His frame flickered softly jumping from one frame and the next. His eerie grin stayed frozen, eye sockets glowing Red - Blue with white, corrupted font still shimering in them.

He exhaled, letting the bone construct in his hands disappear.

"Okay. That was cute. But I'm done." He turned to leave, walking over some of the guards.

"Stay."

The voice cut through the air like a scalpel dipped in tar.

CRACK-CRUNCH-CRACK.

From a side door cloaked in reinforced security fields, a figure emerged. Bone white skull. Multiple skeletal hands with holes in the center of each. A tall skeletal silhouette wrapped in a trailing lab coat, eye lights flickering purple with an unreadable expression.

[W.D. Gaster.]

Head royal scientist

Behind him, the shadows near him flickered— suddenly unsteady. They moved like snakes wanting to converge to him.

"I just want to understand you," Gaster said, stepping forward, complety ignoring the people he was stepping on. His voice was calm, but the predatory gaze he had told a different story.

The skeleton backed a bit away from him, arms relaxed, his expression strained.

"Yeah no. I'm good."

A pause. His eyes rolled once, sockets glitching. "Honestly this one's one of my worst mistakes yet. Shouldn't have assumed a hype secure science facility wouldn't have security cameras."

He had to stall for time, he needed a plan for an escape, luckily one of his past habits seemed to have been being a good staller via word play.

He began to glitch backward. A short-range shortcut— where to, best place he could think of was the ruins. If he was right they should ve locked from the inside, But right when his shortcut was activated, he was suddenly surrounded by hands. Six of them to be exact 

From the code he still had in his vision, these were called[Chroma Hands].

Each hand was a pulsing bone-construct of color-coded energy and hyper-condensed soul trait magic.

They shot out like snake and surronded him, leaving no room for escape.

The skeleton blinked once and suddenly one of the hands was clamped over his face.

"H̶o̵w̵—"

He body started glitching violently, body spasming as sparks erupted from the impact point. He snarled, grabbing the hand and trying to pry it off, but it was held a steel grip on him.

"You're not from here. You're not even formed right." Gaster's voice didn't raise, but it still got his attention.

"Your magic system is foreign. Your structure is barely stable. You're missing markers that define origin... and you're anchored to nothing."

More hands slammed into him—arms, shoulders, legs, locking him downand holding him in place, The skeletons body started sparking even more violently.

Gaster's Chroma Hand still gripped his face, trying to force something into him.

But then something happened, the glitching intensified.

His body spasmed once—then again. Then violently.

And then both his sockets turned neon red.

Not glowing. Not crackling. Screaming.

Error messages danced across the surface of his eyes, then spreading to the rest of his body, each letter blinking and corrupting itself faster than it could render

[ F̸̕̕A̷͠T̶͗A̵̓́L̵̕.̴E̶R̷R̴O̵R̴:̵N̴O̸]

[ S̶U̷R̵G̷E̶ ̷I̷N̵ ̷P̷O̸W̷E̵R̷ ̵L̴E̴V̶E̴L̵ ̸/̵/̵/̷/̷ !̶!̷!̷ ]

G̶̕E̴̽̓T̴͑̔ ̷̿̓O̸̚F̶͒͛F̸̅̅ ̴̈̑M̴͗͑Ĕ̴̐—!"

He screamed—but it wasn't from him.

It was a howl of rage from the Error within him.

The air cracked around him as red Error messages leaked into the ground below him, shatering the rooftops they were on.

BZZZ-ZZZZP—!!

 A single dragon like skull blinked into existence mid-air it had the skeletons eye lights, but had green error messages flickering around them—then ten appeared around the first one—then thirty.

Some were already charging up with blood-red beam in there jaw. Others flickered like static. All of them locked their jagged skulls forward—straight at Gaster, his security team, the rooftop infrastructure, and whatever was unlucky enough to exist in that moment.

 They all fired in unison

BWWAAAAAAAHHH—!!!

A harmony of destruction occurred.

Rings of crimson-white beams tore across the rooftop, carving through scaffoldings, walls, shields, homes and the lab itself. The roof cratered. The emergency field collapsed. Gaster was forced to teleport back, arms raised, green shields flickering as blasts exploded around him.

Security guards who wearnt hit by the blast itsellf were blown into nearby buildings. Sirens wailed. Parts of the lab tower now were now seriously damaged or outright gone.

===Gaster POV

Gaster's chroma hands surged forward again—this time with far more force and numbers. Thin, glowing threads whipped through the air connecting each hand, circling the enraged skeleton in spirals, aiming to override his nervous system abd force his mind to submit.

  It worked on the others.                                         On S1. On his other test subjects.

But why didn't work on the entity the first time, they held an uncanny resmblance to S1, so they must be an alternete version of his expiriment.

This was something too valuble to lose. This entity was something he needed to get his hands on without causing to much damage to its structure.

Gaster's voice was tight as he issued a command to the hands still holding onto the entity "Override Protocol—S-A-N-S—Initiate Command Line: forced submission."

A hand manage to get close enough to grab the entities face again.

That seemed to have renewed it's aggression

BZZZZZCHHRKKK—!!!

The entities entire body spiked with red and blue static. magic seemed to scream out of him like broken glass through a tornado. His sockets were locked on Gaster through the gaps on the hands, twin wells of error messages and burning hatred.

Suddenly his magic command was rejected and a message was placed in his mind.

[C̸O̷N̶T̵R̶O̵L̴_̵R̶E̸J̴E̸C̷T̴E̷D̶]

[N̷O̵_̵C̶O̶M̵M̷A̷N̸D̵_̶R̷O̵O̶T̵]

[A̶D̴M̸I̴N̸ ̵C̴O̵D̴E̷S̶:̶ ̷U̵N̶K̷N̴O̵W̴N̵]

It seems like capturing the entity without letal force will take some effort on his part.

Suddenly jagged, blade-like bones glowing crimson and cyan respectivly—exploded out from around The entity in every direction, skewering everything around him in a 70 square meter radius.

The entities Gaster Blasters were still firing spraticly in every direction, beams fired wildly through the lab and across the entirety of the lab and all nearby buildings.

( How did the entity even have access to these, they were his personal creation, he must have gained them from his alternate varient.)

Then—the entity moved.

In an instant, The entity appeared right infront of The shield Gaster was still holding. His glitch static seemed to surged violently. He speared his habd through the shield, shatering it easily, he grabed the front of-

Gaster panicked. "Wh—"

The entity hands seemed to penetrate through Gaster, the entity seemed to notice Gaster's fear and tilted his head, and in a voice layered in more static anf fury, he growled out,

"You think I'm one of yours?", The static made it nearly impossible to tell what he was saying but the intent he was giving off made it quite easy to understand what the meaning was.

His hands dug into Gaster's chest—he didn't feel and damage done to him directly—but he was still doing something.

(Why couldn't he move, he was just standing there, move Dammit MOVE)

=========POV Restore

He stared into Gaster's Core Code, ripping through identifiers, traits, privileges. His sockets already filled with red errors began to hum with more ststic as he finaly found what he was looking for.

Gaster felt it instantly. His HP dropped. Not with an attack. Not from magic.

But from his total HP lowering.

[HP̶̓̔:̷̓̽ ̶̽͛/̴̎͌1̷̋̍2̸͒0̸̆̍ 1̷̋̍2̸͒0̸̆̍]

[HP̷̛̓:̸́͝ ̷̂̋1̴̽0̷͑6̴͊/̷̀͂1̴̽0̷͑6̴͊]

[HP̷̛͌:̴͒̿ ̸́͝ 9̷̿͂1̷͝/̶̐́ 9̷̿͂1̷͝]

[HP̶̓̔:̷̓̽ ̶̽͛7̷̿͐6̶̀/̴̎͌7̷̿͐6̶̀]

And it kept going down.

"How—are you—What are you doing to me—!?" Gaster demanded, attempting to pull himself backward—but the skeleton didn't let go. He was smirking now, eyes flaring as error messages seemd to leak from them.

"Y̷o̵u̷'̵r̸e̴ ̸m̷a̷k̸i̶n̸g̸ ̵m̸e̶ ̶t̶e̴s̵t̸ ̶t̴h̵i̴n̸g̶s̵ ̴I̷ ̵h̴a̴v̶e̷n̶'̷t̶ ̴t̷e̵s̶t̷e̵d̴ ̷y̸e̷t̵.̸.̵.̴"

"L̸e̵t̶'̴s̶ ̷s̵e̴e̷ ̷w̷h̴a̴t̸ ̵b̶r̷e̵a̶k̴s̷ ̷f̷i̵r̸s̷t̶.̵.̸.̸"

But right when Gasters Total HP dropped to the lower 50 range—

SHUNK—!!

A flash of motion.

A crack of bone.

A sudden stab of pain flared through the skeleton.

A glowing spear stabbed into his side, white static hissing from the wound.

"I don't know what you are," came a voice from somewhere behind him, "but I don't like what you're doing to my boss."

His glitching flared uncontrollably. His body spasmed. His magic destabilized. His breath hitched. For a moment, his eyes flickered with something more then just rage. 

Instinct kicked in.

His magic lashed out—and somewhere deep in his fractured, staticky mind, he could finally think  again.

The air in front of him cracked.

A swirling, jagged portal of red and blue static opened—another portal, pulling at him like gravity.

[CONNECTING TO: ███████]

[DESTINATION UNKNOWN]

He glared at Gaster as well as the fish lady that was helping him up. Voice nearly undistinguishible from static around him.

"Y̷o̶u̴ ̶s̷h̸o̸u̷l̵d̴ ræłlƴ føcùse ̴oṅ §ůřvīvįňğ ťĥįṣ "

 Right before he dove through the portal, he had the still firing gaster blasters

(there was no way he was gonna keep calling them after that basterd).

All aim at the duo and hold fire at the two. The fish lady in armour sent out another barrage of glowing spears at him, while Gaster created a green shield around the both of them.

As he jumped into the portal, he forced the swirling rift to collapse behind him before the fish ladies spear could enter right after him.

Chapter Text

With a crunch of digital static and a flash of flickering red and blue static, a glitchy portal slammed open—spitting the skeleton into a grimy alleyway with a graceless thud.

He hit the ground hard, shoulder grinding against rough concrete, ribs flaring with pain from where that spear had torn through.

The stench around him was nauseating—perfume, old glitter, garbage, and something vaguely resembling melted plastic.

He groaned low, static crackling from his ribs.

"Ugh...stars...what is that god awful smell?"

He tried to get up, but the movement pulled hard at the wound on his side. Red glitch light sparked around the injury. He was low on magic, his body was too tired to move, and he could barely string a coherent shortcut together.

And just as he forced himself upright, staggering against the wall, he heard it.

Click. Click. Click.

A tall, curvy bunny monster in fishnets, a cropped jacket, and more confidence than self-awareness sauntered into view. She stopped dead when she saw him—bleeding out, covered in static and hunched in pain, practically dead on his feet.

Her lips curled into a sultry grin and her eyes widened like Christmas came early.

"Oooh honey, you look like you've been through hell," she purred, eyeing him up and down like he was a free meal. "You need someone to help you... loosen.

She leaned forward with a purr. "Just pay me a few gold, so I can give you a little... comfort?"

The skeleton didn't even bother to look at her.

With a sluggish flick of his wrist, a blue bone slammed into the brick wall right next to her head.

CRACK.

Dust showered her, and her grin dropped off her face just as fast.

Slowly, the skeleton tilted his head upwards, that's when she saw it, eye sockets glowing—two empty voids filled with scrolling red and blue static, his bone-white grin stretched across his skull like it was painted on.

His voice wasn't as stable anymore, It sounded more like it came from a broken speaker.

"I̶ ̸s̴u̵g̷g̴e̵s̷t̴ ̶y̷o̴u̵ ̶l̴e̴a̶v̴e̴.̷.̷.̵ ̵b̸e̶f̶o̶r̷e̸ ̴t̶h̴i̸n̷g̷s̵ ̴g̸e̴t̴ ̷u̶g̶l̵y̵.̵"

That did it.

She squeaked, heels skittering as she bolted the way she came, clutching her purse like it could shield her if he decided to attack.

The skeleton leaned back against the wall, breathing hard—though he didn't need to breathe, it still helped him calm down. The Error messages spreading over his ribs and across his arms slowly stop moving.

"Stars above," he muttered. "I'm too tired for this. Not in the mood for more bullshit today."

He dragged himself deeper into the alley, the red-blue static  following after him

Stealth? Fuck that

Mood? Shot straight to hell.

The snow in this world didn't feel as cold as his old world.

[Underlust] didn't feel cold.

It most likely had to do with the fact that there were actual people here enjoying there lives.

The skeleton sat at the edge of a jagged cliff, tucked behind the outer reaches of Snowdin, overlooking the empty, dark valley below. Neon lamps flickered in the distance behind him.

His legs dangled over the edge.

His body was still flickering, red and blue static crawling lazily along his coat, trailing from his boots to the seams of his ribs were most of the damage lay.

Most of his outfit were a bit scuffed or torn, but nothing he couldn't fix with some code.

But he wasn't focused on the world around him.                                                                                                                                                                                                    He was focused inward, on himself. He opened his own code to see what he could about his current state.

And under some miscellaneous data, where he kept all of the code he copies—

"Saved Copy Gaster: Hand_Plates."

It was some of Gaster's code. incomplete as it was, but it was still most of his code.

Lines and lines of Gaster's history, personality, memories, magical constructs, stats. Most of it was incomplete, and what he did get was mostly too damaged anyways for actual use. 

But what he didn't remember was when he even copied it in the first place.

He must've latched on to it during there fight. That time when he grabbed Gaster to get a better look at his code.  

Or that one awful second when those Chroma hands were on his skull, and he panicked.

"Nice," he mumbled.

His smile didn't reach his sockets. Neither did the faint laugh that followed have any actual joy in it.

It wasn't all usable. Some of it was fused too tightly with Gaster's personal identity to be any use other then a book to read. Some of it was above even his comprehension in scientific terms.

[ SUBJECT FILE: GASTER_W.D ]

> STATUS: INACTIVE (??)  

> RECOVERY: PARTIAL  

> INTEGRITY: 76%  

>  UNIVERSE CLUSTERS: [1200]

───────────────────────────────

| NAME: W.D. GASTER  

| PLOT POINT: [CREATE (SANS/S1) AND(PAPYRUS/P2)]  

| RANK: ROYAL  SCIENTIST  

| SPECIES: Monster (Type: Skeleton – Variant)  

| CODE ORIGIN: Core Central 1073– Prime Timeline  

───────────────────────────────

| LV: 4 

| EXP: 0 (N/A)  

| HP: ??? (NULL TILL ACTIVE) 

| SOUL TYPE: MULTI - Fragmented  

| MAGIC CORE: Singularity-Aligned

───────────────────────────────

| ABILITY MATRIX (COMPLETE: 89%)  

 • [✔] CHROMA-HANDS — Psychically generated hands made of high-density soul trait magic 

 • [✔] MULTI CASTING — Simultaneous magic projection (up to multiple hands)  

 • [✔] SOUL GRIP — Anchors target to physical world via CHROMA HANDS

 • [✖] MEMORY ENCRYPTION — (DATA DAMAGED)  

 • [✖] PERSONAL FISSION LOOP — (UNUSABLE: MISSING CORE STRAND)  

 • [✔]RESONANT VEIL — Creates a thin, invisible barrier that reflects or dampens specific types of magic.

 • [✔] BLUEFIELD CONTROL — Applies blue magic to objects or enemies, drastically increasing their gravity or locking them in place mid-air.

• [✔] GASTER BLASTERS —
High-output beam projectors shaped like skulls. Can hover and fire simultaneously,

───────────────────────────────

| INTELLECT PARAMETER: 9.5 / 10  

| EMOTIONAL RESPONSE: ~NULL (REMOVED / Data-Routed)  

| MULTIVERSE AWARENESS: YES  

| HOME UNIVERSE: STABLE  

───────────────────────────────

> PERSONAL NOTES:  

// Memory Fragment 8C-A32  

"Magic is math. Emotion is noise. If it can be written, it can be understood."

> FILE COMMENTS:  

// Several ability nodes disconnected from usable framework

He could copy code. Then construct it or Reverse-engineer.

By that logic, Maybe he could even replicate people or change them,

the realization felt like someone was holding a scalpel made of ice to his bones.

He closed the file. Folded his code back in and placed the Code in the back of his mind.

Because he wasn't ready to act on that. Not yet.

He leaned back on his palms, watching the snow fall.

Chapter Text

The skeleton sat at the cliff's edge near the end of the bridge, one leg hanging off, the other pulled up to rest an elbow on. Snow drifted down lazily around him. Wind howled through the cliffs below. He wasn't cold. But he could still feel the weight of the wind pressing on him from all sides.

He was staring at his hand again.
The red Errors had slowed down now, he was calmed now but not fully okay yet.

The inky darkness of the chasm below stretched out under him. Wind bit at his bones, the cold rattling the bones around his injury. He had a hand on his side, fingers ghosting the wound  the fish lady [Undyne] had left —  it was healing but it was going to take a while,  at the current moment at least he wasn't leaking any more magic. 

But that wasn't what bothered him. He was trying to think calmly, but the static was starting to get too loud in his head.

Trying to sort through the endless static floating behind his sockets. Trying to understand how the hell he could use a piece of someone else's magic—how Gaster's chroma hands even worked.

"Hey, buddy?"

The skeletons whole body jerked upwards.

The sound hit him like truck, cutting through the static that was slowly drowning him.

His head snapped around, sockets wide but blind as static spread over them. He scrambled to his feet—but his limbs were still sluggish and the wound at his side made him freeze in place—and he fell backwards.

Right into the chasm below. Or, he would've. 

Except— right at that moment, a bunch of  small bones shot out from the side of the cliff, creating a platform for him to land on. It caught him hard, spine-first, and he had to hold in a shout of pain as he landed on his back, close to the wound at his side.

He stared up at the sky for a second. Static slowly disappearing from across his vision as he calmed down.

"...The hell just happened."

"I saved your cute little bony butt," the voice said again. Soft. Smooth. Kind.

The skeleton craned his head and saw his helper:

A skeleton a bit shorter them himself, in a fur-lined purple jacket, heart-shaped sunglasses lifted onto there skull, standing a few feet back. Stylized. Colorful in a way that made him jealous for some reason.

There eye lights, were a soft shade of violet irises glowing inside sockets — were filled with something he couldn't really figure out.

"Didn't mean to scare you, sugar," the stranger said. "I just didn't want to see you go over. You okay?"

He didn't answer right away.

He didn't know how to answer.

This is a person. 

Talking. To him.

A real, talking, breathing person. 

He wasn't scared.

He wasn't overwhelmed.

He was—confused.

"you're talking to me?" he asked, his voice glitching as he muttered, climbing awkwardly back onto the cliffside.  

The skeleton blinked behind his sunglasses, there face turned amused "I mean, I hope so. Otherwise this entire outfit is going to waste if I was talking to no-one."

He didn't speak again for a while. He just stared at the skeleton like they were expecting someone.

The skeleton just stayed silent.

They  just smiled but he could feel something coming from them. 

Calm. Comfortable. Safety.

"Could ya... maybe step away from the edge for me, yeah?"

There voice asked, casual. playful even, but there was something behind it.

The skeleton stiffened slightly but stayed still anyways.

He looked at the other skeleton and pulled some of the code back into his vision. The words around the figure told him enough.

[MONSTER – CLASS: SKELETON – UNIVERSE ID:UNDERLUST – TAG: "SANS"]

So this is what a 'Sans' variant looked like. 

Was a lot more different then he expected honestly speaking.

There hoodie was tight-fitted, not baggy like his. The fur lining was fluffy, glowing a soft pink.

 there smile was genuine, but had something else in it. Eye lights soft but alert. He had that relaxed slouch—but the skeleton could feel he was coiled, like a spring, ready to react.

'Is this guy going to say anything or...?' the skeleton blinked slowly as he stared at the other.

"Look," the stranger.... no, Sans continued, raising both gloved hands in what they clearly thought was a calming gesture, "I know things can feel kinda rough sometimes. Life kicks ya down, you start thinkin' maybe... it's not worth standing back up, yeah?"

He tilted his skull slightly as he continued to listen to Sans rant.

"I mean, you don't gotta do this, pal. Whatever's got you sittin' out here alone—there's better options than... well, jumping off a bridge."

There was a pause.

A long, awkward, static filled pause.

The skeleton slowly took a step away from sans, brushing snow off of him as he looked at them like they were the crazy ones.

"...Jump?" he stated flatly. "I'm not gonna jump off a bridge."

Sans blinked. There eye lights suddenly became a bit brighter. "...Oh thank the stars, thought there was gonna be another one that jumped."

The skeleton didn't here them mumble as they looked down at the cliff, then back at him. "Do I look like I'm gonna swan-dive into the abyss?"

"I mean... kinda?" Sans shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
"You're sittin' all dramatic on a rickety bridge, with your hood up, static waving off you like smoke pouring off your arm and sides,

"Really."  The skeleton sighed. "I'm literally just trying to calm down. Not... end it all at the first sign of trouble."

Sans blinked at him. Then chuckled.
"Well hey, that's actually good to hear. My bad. Usually folks who sat were you were just now, show up in my life just before a very dramatic monologue and some kind of explosion."

The skeleton muttered under his breath.
"I mean... that could happened."

Sans raised a brow. "So..." he questioned. "...You good?"

The skeleton stared at sans.

'Am I good?' he thought. 'My injured side just stopped leaking magic, I've crash-landed in a world that smells like overpriced perfume, and now I'm being questioned about my mental health by a version of me in a hot pink hoodie.'

He shrugged.
"Define 'good.'"

Sans smirked. "Not dead?"

The skeleton paused.
Then nodded.

"...Then yeah. I'm good."

Chapter Text

There was a moment of quiet between them.

Sans hadn't moved. He just kept watching the skeleton with that patient smile, it was unsettling.

"He's looking me over," The skeleton thought. Not like how he did. With actual observational skills.
Sans had the posture of someone who'd seen things. Maybe not his kind of things, but enough to know what to look and how to find it in a person. But they were looking for exactly was still unknown.

"So... mind if we just sit for a second?"

They then plopped down were he was sitting before he fell, letting there legs dangle over the edge like they were two friends hanging out after school. The silence lingered for a second, then he decided to sit next to sans.

"Y'know..." Sans started, glancing over at him without turning his head, "you got this certain vibe."

The skeletons brow twitched. "What vibe?"

"You know the one. 'I'm not okay but I'm pretending I am because I don't know what being okay looks like anymore.' That vibe."

The skeleton stared at Sans for a full few seconds, trying to see if he was serious."...I'm literally just sitting here."

"Uh-huh. Sitting alone. On a high place. In the cold. With the saddest resting skull face I've seen in a while."

The skeleton just grumbled there complaints, the static around him flickering slightly.

"This is just... how I am."
"I'm just trying to recover alone, not look depressed."

Sans tilted his head, looking him over. "You don't even realize, do ya?"

"Realize what?"

"How much intent you're leaking. Not just the glitched-out aesthetic, dude. I'm talkin'... emotionally."

The skeleton looked down at his hand then his side. The red Error messages had mostly dimmed, but it still crawled along him in slow pulses.
 "I'm not suicidal. If that's what you're thinking."

"Didn't say you were." Sans smiled faintly. "But that you said it first... kinda says something."

The skeleton sighed, breath shaking.

"So. You from around here?"

He let out a low, dry chuckle.
"Nope. Not even a little."

Sans nodded like that was a totally normal answer. "Figures. Don't think I'd forget a guy like you walkin' around Snowdin."

He held back a chuckle. "Yeah, that's fair."

The wind picked up again, brushing wind across their skulls.

"So what brings you to my cliff?" Sans asked, watching the snow swirl.
"Sightseeing? Trying to find yourself? Dramatic moment?"

The skeleton smirked slightly, there tense posture softening.
"Bit of A, bit of B... definitely not C."

"Shame." Sans said, mock disappointment thick in there tone. "Coulda used a cool cliff monologue about revenge or destiny or something."

The skeleton side-eyed him. "...You're weird."

"Takes one to know one, pal." Sans grinned.

A beat passed. "...I don't get people like you," he muttered.

"People like me?" Sans shot back, there tone puzzled.

"You just sat next to someone who looks like trouble, covered in red and blue static like they just lost a fight with the universe, and your biggest concern is making sure they don't jump off a bridge."

Sans shrugged, looking up at the rocky cavern above them..

"Hey. Everyone's got their thing. You? You're glitchy and mysterious. Me? I talk to glitchy and mysterious guys on Tuesday."

Another quiet stretch.

Then the skeleton said, in a voice low and reluctant

"...Your ok with me being here?"

Sans turned there head and gave him a soft, lopsided grin.

"Only if you want to."
"But I figure... if you sat on this cliff long enough for me to find you, maybe you were hoping someone would."

The skeleton didn't answer.

He just... sat there.

======== SANS POV

From the moment he spotted the figure on the bridge, something felt off.

Not just in the I-just-saw-a-guy-about-to-jump-off-a-cliff way.

This guy—this skeleton—glitched.

That was the first word that came to mind.

His silhouette was jagged. His form shimmered with blue and red static in flickers. Like reality couldn't decide what frame he belonged to.

One eye socket glowed red, the other flickered blue, with what looked like ERROR MESSAGES in white text floating around each socket.
His smile was lazy, but unnatural. Not malicious, just... stuck. Like they couldn't make any other expression.

His red scarf looked stitched together. Not literally, but visually—fragments of itself held them together, the seams occasionally flashing like pixels.

And that sound.

A low, ambient buzz. kinda like a bad radio signal playing in the back of your mind.

He was also bleeding blood, most monsters don't do that. He was also bleeding magic a an alarming rate, but still seemed fine.

This wasn't just a lost monster. This was something else. 

Sans didn't know how he knew that. But it felt right.

And yet... he didn't look violent. Didn't feel violent. There intent showed that they didn't have any malicious plans

Just... tired. Disconnected.

That's why Sans sat down next to him.

Not out of any malicious plans.

But because this guy looked like he had no idea what "being a person" was supposed to feel like.

=================POV RESTORE

When asked about the injury, he had the gall to say, "I'm healing."

"Yeah?" Sans pointed to his still buzzing wound. "Doesn't look like it."

"It takes its time."

The skeleton looked back over the edge. "I just wait until my HP restores itself."

Sans expression changed to a deadpan.

"...So you're just sitting here bleeding out in the cold, hoping to regen?"

The skeleton glanced at him again, slightly confused at what the point was. "...Yes?"

"...Wow. Okay." Sans said dumbfounded in that logic. "That's both hardcore and really dumb. I respect it."

The skeleton didn't reply. Another gust of wind passed. The other skeleton leaned back on his hands.

"What's your name any way?"

The skeleton blinked. "...What?"

"Your name, man. Gotta call you something."

That made him pause. " I can't just give a random person my name without knowing there's first"

Sans looked at him, his bright eye lights showing how amused they were, " well then stranger, the names Sans, Sans the skeleton. Now its your turn."

The skeleton opened there mouth but then suddenly froze. His sockets dimmed briefly, buffering error seemed to jump between the two.
After a long silence, he answered in a low voice. "...I don't know."

Sans blinked in surprise. "Wait, seriously? You don't know your own name?"

The skeleton looked down, expression frozen as they scoured through all there memories.

"I don't think I ever realized I never had one till now."

"...Whoa."

Sans leaned forward a bit, grinning a little. "Okay, now I have to give you one."

The skeleton blinked away the errors as they looked at sans excited expressions. "Is that necessary?"

"Yup." Sans gave him finger guns. "You can't just be 'glitchy' or 'that spooky bleeding skeleton' forever. I've just been calling you the skeleton in my mind the whole time, it was getting a bit annoying"

"...I'm not even bleeding anymore."

"Buddy, I can see the red stains from your ribs. You're were leaking enough magic to power a house for a few hours."

The skeleton looked away from Sans grin. “Besides it’s depressing calling you ‘that weird static skeleton.’ Also, if we’re gonna be friends, I can’t just yell ‘Hey, glitched guy!’ across the room. C’mon. It’ll be fun.”

“Highly doubt that.” But he doesn’t try to stop them.

Sans continued to grin as they listed on potential names. "Alright. What about... Static? Nah, too edgy. Sparky? Ehh, sounds like a dog. Crash? Hmm?"

The skeleton stared at him like he was slowly becoming more concerned for his mental state than his own. "...Please stop."

“Okay okay… how about… Pixel?”

“...No.”

“Crasha? Like… short for crash anomaly?”

“I will leave.”

“Wow, okay. Harsh critic. Hmm… Fragment? Bitstream? Codeling? Error?”

The skeleton pauses at the last one.
The red in his right socket brighten a bit.
The low buzz around him gets a bit louder.
“...That one.”

“‘Error’? You like it?” 

“I don’t know. It feels… familiar. Wrong. But not bad wrong at the same time.”
He tilts his head, a shimmer of red static crawling up his arm. “Like I’ve heard it before, but it wasn’t mine.”

“Ooh, mysterious. What if we make it yours? Put something in front of it like a surname.”
He taps his chin. “How about… Soft Error?”

“Sounds like a plushie.”

“Corrupted Error?”

“Makes me sound like the problem.”

“Sexy Error?”

A large amount of static appearing over his face was the response.

“Aw, you blushin’ or glitchin’? Okay, wait that gave me a good idea… hmm… Glitch Error? No, redundant… Broken Error… Nah, sounds like a bad emo band—Fatal Error.”

The skeleton didn't hear what most of sans said at that moment, they were too busy getting there glitches to calm down, but they did hear the last one clearly.

“...Yeah...That last one seems good.”

“Oh? We got a hit?” They asked, not expecting an agreement that fast.

“‘Fatal Error’... yeah. That feels… right. Like it fits whatever I came from, and wherever I’m going anyways.”

The name echoed in his head.

It felt... sharp.
Final.
Like a warning label.

He didn't hate it.

"You know," Sans, still chuckling, "kinda fits. You look like a walking fatal error message. Like if someone's computer came to life and was also pissed."

The skeleton Fatal Error let the silence hang for a bit longer.

Then muttered, "...I've been called worse."

Sans offered a lazy grin and stuck out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Fatal Error. I'm Sans, welcome to the underground.”"

Fatal looked at the hand like it might explode, then, slowly… awkwardly… slaps it with the back of his own gloved hand, and very slowly, shook the two.

"Nice to meet you... Sans."

There was a buzz of something in his chest that he couldn't quite name.

Maybe it was... social interaction?

He wasn't sure yet.

Sans just looked like they were seconds away from bursting out laughing from the handshake.

“I’ll take it.”

Chapter Text

Sans blinked once, Slowly. Then twice to make sure what they were seeing was real.

He had offered a healing snack to fatal, expecting maybe a static filled "nah, I'm good" or a humble “I’ll take a bite.” What he didn’t expect was for him to summon an entire wooden crate out of thin air with a flick of his fingers.

[INVENTORY: Cinnabunny × 99]

The crate thudded down beside Fatal with a puff of snowy dust.

“…You… just carry that around?” Sans asked, scooting away slightly, as if the crate might explode from sheer pastry pressure.

Fatal, still sitting like it was the most normal thing in the world, looked at the open crate wit some reluctance. “Didn’t want to waste any unless it was serious.”

Sans leaned over. Looked at the still-injured gash on Fatal’s side. Then back at Fatal’s reluctant  expression. “So… not serious?”

“My Hp Is just a number going down. It’ll go back up.” Fatal shrugged. “Eventually.”

Sans stared at him. "Eventually?"

"Yeah. Not like I'm leaking blood or magic anymore." Fatal gestured at his side. “Just red. Red’s normal for monsters, right?”

Sans pinched the bridge of his nasal bone. “Bro. That’s not red. That’s… like, RGB soup.”

Fatal squinted at the wound. “Tastes like what I feel strawberry's would taste like.”

“…You tasted it?”

Fatal didn't answer. Which was answer enough.

Sans sighed and sat up straighter, looking a little more serious now.

“Okay, first? You’re hella messed up—physically and possibly mentally. Second? You need to eat something before you straight-up fall unconscious. Third? What kinda weird hoarder magic lets you carry that many buns?”

Fatal tilted his head. “Inventory space scales off magical reserves. The more juice you got, the more junk you can carry.”

“…I know that, but how much magic do you have to keep all of this?”

Fatal gave a thumbs up. “ Quarter capacity right now. Well, mostly. I keep a percentage open for furniture.”

“…Furniture?”

Fatal reached behind himself and just yanked out a small wooden stool.

Sans scooted farther away. “Okay, okay, okay—you’re either a pack rat or a walking glitch with hoarding issues and an unholy love for bread.”

Fatal gave a small static-laced chuckle. “Can’t it be both?”

Sans blinked again. Then smirked. “You’re growin’ on me, glitchy.”

“You know what, never mind…anyways you still want a tour?” Sans asked, already starting to get up from where they were sitting with a lazy grin. “Might as well see the sights if you’re gonna be crashin’ here for a bit.”

Fatal blinked. “Sure,” he said, casually stuffing another cinnamon-drenched Cinnabunny into his mouth as he got to his feet. The crate vanished back into his inventory with a gentle pop sound, while he puts some into his pockets.

He didn’t know if he was actually healing properly. His HP number hadn’t changed noticeably from there unreadable text. But his limbs felt… smoother. Less pain full. That was probably good. He decided not to think too hard about how food worked with skeleton biology.

They headed down the trail toward Snowdin proper. The walk was casual—quiet snowflakes drifting, light crunches underfoot. Then they entered the town square.

And everyone stared at him.

Fatal felt it immediately—signatures pinging all over his vision, little tags lighting up like party lights: [NPC], [CITIZEN], [QUEST GIVER (???)]—he turned that setting off real fast. Too much noise.

People didn’t scream or run. They just… stared.

Because when a glitchy, red-and-blue-cored skeleton with static leaking from his bones walks beside the local most eligible bachelor like it’s no big deal, people notice.

And then—

“Heya, Snazzy,” came a sultry voice from the alley.

Fatal turned just in time to see a wolf monster, tall, fluffy, and wearing about two scarves and a dream, lean out from the shadows. Their fur was a soft silvery gray, and they wore tight leather straps like fashion was a dare.

“I been waitin’ for you to pass by all week,” the wolf purred, licking their fangs as they slinked closer. “You miss me in your bed, baby?”

Sans rolled his eyes hard enough it nearly made a clicking sound. “Still a no, Jak. Like, a very no no.”

Jak smirked. “C’mon… your hot brother’s in the capital with that robot. Bet you’re all lonely now.”

Then Jak actually reached out—slowly, confidently—to lay a hand on Sans’ shoulder.

Fatal wasn’t even being acknowledged.

Which was perfect, honestly, because he was distracted anyway.

Gaster’s hands…

He could still remember how they felt when they gripped his skull. Code-enforcing constructs. Created from compressed magic and intent, hard light, and aggressive structure. He had the code now. All of it. Stored, copied. It sat in a little tab in his mind labeled [CHROMA_HND_001].

Could he recreate them?

His magic was different, not Gaster’s. But the logic behind the construct was solid.

Fatal narrowed his eyes as his vision flickered for a moment, the memory flashing across his mind—the pressure, the grip, the connection—

“—Hey, Fatal?” Sans nudged him with an elbow.

Fatal snapped out of it, just barely stopping himself from accidentally summoning a glitch-clawed spectral hand into Jak’s face.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Was thinking.”

“What, existential crisis or dinner plans?” Sans joked.

“Hands.”

Sans blinked. “…What.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Meanwhile, Jak, still ignoring Fatal like he was part of the scenery, leaned in a little closer to Sans with an exaggerated wink. “You sure you don’t want some warm company, sugar?”

Fatal blinked once, finished chewing his Cinnabunny, and casually said, “If you don’t stop, I will test something on you.”

That got Jak’s attention.

The wolf froze, looked at Fatal—really looked at him—and saw the empty red and blue sockets, the frozen smile, the faint red warning letters flickering inside one of his eye sockets.

“…I’m good,” Jak said quickly, backing into the alley like he’d just remembered he left his oven on.

Sans snorted. “You’re a natural at scaring the creeps off.”

“Is that what that was?” Fatal asked, tilting his head.

“Yup. Welcome to Snowdin.”

=============== Sans POV

Sans wasn’t new to creeps.

Snowdin attracted all kinds. Lonely types. Flirty types. Desperate types. People who thought "no" was a conversation starter.

He’d learned how to brush them off with a smile and a pun. Usually worked.

But this guy—this glitch beside him—was something else.

Not just in looks, though stars, that too. The dude looked like a half-corrupted computer screen wearing a skeleton hoodie. Red and blue glitchy light flickered across his bones like static on a dying TV. One socket glowed red, the other blue, both full of scrolling text. His smile didn’t change, but it felt like it wasn’t really… for anyone.

When Jak showed up—again—Sans was ready for the usual back-and-forth. A few sighs. A shrug. Maybe a well-placed pun and walk away.

But then he felt it.

A pressure in the air.

Like the moment before an accident happens, when something bad was gonna happen and all you could do was hold your breath and wait.

Jak didn’t feel it. But Sans did.

Fatal had turned his head, ever so slightly. Not fast enough to seem aggressive.

Just that slow, casual movement—like a jogger spotting an interesting thing on there walk.

And Sans felt the intent hit Jak like a beam of cold light.

Detached. Curious.

Jak was a pest, sure, but not dangerous. Normally Sans would’ve just dealt with it with a deadpan and moved on.

But the moment Fatal said “If you don’t stop, I will test something on you,”

Sans felt it in his spine. That wasn’t a bluff. That wasn’t anger. That wasn’t even threatening.

That was an idea.

A statement from someone who had a hypothesis and needed a subject.

And Jak had just volunteered.

There was no negative emotion behind it. No irritation. No anger. Just... curiosity.

Sans had dealt with desperate people. He’d dealt with toxic people. But his never seen someone speak honestly enough that it scares someone else.

So he watched Jak retreat with wide eyes and a fake laugh, tail between his legs.

And he looked back at the glitchy stranger beside him—who calmly chewed a sticky cinnamon bun like nothing had happened.

“...You weren’t kidding,” Sans muttered, half to himself.

“What?” Fatal blinked, genuine confusion in his voice.

“Nothing. Just… remind me not to annoy you.”

“Okay,” Fatal said casually.

Stars.

This was gonna be one weird day.

Chapter Text

The walk through Snowdin had ended when they reached a modest little house tucked between larger, flashier buildings—a nice contrast to the bright and overly romanticized nature of the rest of the Underground.

By the time they got to his place, the snow had started pouring down heavier.

Not that hard — just enough to make the air feel like its biting into you. Fatal didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care. Sans couldn't tell. He couldn't tell a lot of things about this guy.

He unlocked the door to his place, motioning Fatal in with a wave as he pushed open the door with a soft creak. “Welcome to Casa de Sans," he said with a lazy sweep of his hand. "Shoes optional. Trauma not required, but I see we're overqualified.", he said with a grin, stepping aside for Fatal.

The glitchy skeleton hesitated at the threshold, gaze scanning the room like it might collapse on him. The interior was warm—literally, with plush rugs, glowing lamps, and a faint scent of rose tea and cinnamon. Cozy. Lived in. Real.

His glowing sockets were looking over the room. (The light from his eye sockets were bright enough that you could actually tell what he was looking at even without him having actual eye lights.) 

But what really caught Sans attention was the expression on Fatal's face

Not awe, relief or anything understandable. No he looked like he was filled with confusion.

Then, under his breath — but it wasn't loud enough that Sans heard it.

"This house wasn't here in the other world I woke up in?..."

Sans stood by the door. "...Are you just gonna stand there or are you going to come in?"

Fatal stepped inside without a word, his boots not quite making a sound. And started walking around inspecting everything. With slow, careful steps. He trailed his fingers along a countertop like he was checking for dust. Opened the fridge. Peered inside and grabbed the first thing he saw.

"Same brand of ketchup," he muttered. "Slightly different expiration Date in the code though..."

He put it back in and closed the door, turning to the living room, he took two steps and crouched to take a closer look at the coffee table.

His fingers hovered over a photo frame on it—one of Sans and Papyrus laughing at a dinner table—but he didn’t pick it up.

"...Bro," Sans said, trying to keep his tone casual. "You good?"

Fatal looked up at him, and for a split second, his face cracked — not with an actual emotion, not exactly. But with a strange kind of distance. Like he'd only just realized Sans was still here.

“Where’s this brother of yours that guy said?” he asked, ignoring Sans question.

“Capital,” Sans said, flopping lazily onto a loveseat. “Got invited by Mettaton for something-or-other. Flirting, probably. Or fashion. Same thing, really.”

Fatal’s head tilted slightly as he thought about that.

Sans watched him with a quiet sort of curiosity. “You know, you kinda look like someone who’s trying to act normal but doesn’t know what ‘normal’ is.”

“I think I lost a majority of my memories,” Fatal admitted rubbing the back of his skull. 

“I still remember basic common logic or anything that doesn't have to deal with my personal life . But… I don’t really understand some stuff that I’m supposed to already know, a big problem that I'm trying to fix is that because I don't remember everything, I cant tell what's missing and what i need to know.”

That made Sans sit up a bit more, he was smart enough that he was already connecting the dots on why fatal's behavior was so off when they met. "Have you been able to regain any old memories, or is it a more 'blank slate' type of thing?"

"I think the last one, but there have been stuff that stuck with me even if I cant remember doing any of them before"

“So, what I’m hearing is you’ve got Dissociative Amnesia.”

Fatal blinked. “...Is that why I also don’t like talking to people?”

Sans laughed a bit as he got off his seat and moved to the kitchen and grabbed two bottles of MTT kids Juice from the fridge. (Don't ask what's in it. He didn't know. It just buzzed.)

He offered one to Fatal, who stared at the label. Then took it and turned it over three times, checking for something Sans couldn't see.

Finally, he opened it and took a swig

And for the first time, his voices static lowered slightly.

"That tasted a bit too sweet for me."

Sans chuckled, then leaned over to drink his own. “You hungry, I'm no master chef but I think Paps left some leftovers I can pre--?”

Before San could finish, Fatal opened his inventory and pulled out a plastic container of perfectly heated food—some kind of noodle dish with a shimmering glaze— from behind him.

“I keep stuff for emergencies,” he said matter-of-factly, handing it to Sans.

Sans blinked at the food. “...That’s actually really good-looking. Do you always carry meals on you or is this a one time thing”

“I keep anything and everything that could be useful at all times”

Sans gave a low whistle and took a bite. His sockets widened slightly. “Okay. Damn. Either this is the best emergency food ever, or I’ve been eating garbage too long.”

They sat on the couch, eating. Not awkward—just Silent. Fatal didn’t talk much unless prompted, but when he did, it was like he was taking more from observation rather then actually living through something.

He told Sans about stealing from the Royal Castle in an “empty world,” then described hiding in the rafters above in a lab, or fighting a bunch of guards that wanted to kidnap him.

Sans responded in kind, telling him about Papyrus’s over-the-top spaghetti dinners, the time he replaced his shampoo with glitter glue, or the time he spent stuck in an elevator with Mettaton and a karaoke mic.

Eventually, Fatal leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

“I might try sleeping tonight, If I can find a safe place anyway” he said casually.

Sans, mid-bite, paused. “Try?”

Fatal turned his head slowly. "Yeah. I don't really need to sleep. But I do. Sometimes."

There was a beat of silence.

"...Dude," Sans said flatly. "What the hell does that mean?"

Fatal shrugged. "I just go until I remember to stop. Or until my magic throws a tantrum."

Sans blinked. "Wait. You're tellin' me you don't sleep?"

"Not unless I want to."

"When was the last time you did sleep?" Sans asked, fully leaning over the table now.

Fatal blinked, honestly trying to remember, then shrugged. “I don’t know, probably a week by now.”

Sans just stared at him, jaw slightly slack, like he was staring at a person that had no idea they were living wrong.

Which... was kind of true in this case.

"Nope. Nope. That's it," Sans stood up with a groan and walked over. "You're going to bed."

Fatal raised an invisible eyebrow. "Uh. What."

"You. Sleep. Now. Guest room. This is not a debate." Sans repeated, shoving him down the hallway without actually touching him. “This is a ‘you’re sleeping tonight whether you like it or not’ situation.”

To Fatal's surprise, he didn't resist. Just let himself be dragged down the hallway like a confused shopping cart.

Sans opened the guest room door with his foot and gestured dramatically. "There. Bed. Soft. Use it."

Fatal just blinked at the room. "You sure it won't explode?"

"It's a bed, not a bomb," Sans deadpanned. "Though with you, who knows."

Fatal, too confused to argue, followed. He entered the room, glancing around as he walked to the bed, muttering, “I mean, I guess I could try, but you didn't have to do all of that”  He slowly sat on the edge of the bed, looked at the blankets, and then—

Thunk.

—collapsed sideways without even pulling the covers over himself.

Within seconds, his eye sockets dimmed. The constant background static that had always surrounded him began to fade.

Sans, still standing in the doorway, watched the guy go completely limp in one go.

"...The hell," he muttered under his breath. "If you hadn't laid down, I would've thought you got shot."

He didn’t even adjust his position. He just awake one second, then was unconscious the next.

Sans stepped in, gently pulled a blanket over Fatal's still form, then backed out quietly and closed the door with a soft click.

Back in the hallway, he rubbed the back of his skull and sighed.

"Weirdest skeleton I've ever met," he muttered.  “There aren't supposed to bee any skeletons other then me and Paps any way."

It was weird. The guy didn't seem hostile, but there was something about him—something buried deep beneath the static and that frozen smile that never quite matched his tone.

 He didn't talk like someone raised around people. More like someone who learned conversation through observation and physically remembering he could.

Still. He hadn't hurt anyone. He even made jak run with his tail between his legs. That alone earned him some points in Sans book.

Chapter Text

The house was quiet.

Well—quieter than usual, considering one guest had a passive hum of TV-static-on-a-fried-router wrapped around his bones like a blanket.

But right now? It was finally... calm.

Sans stood in the hallway just outside the guest room, arms crossed, debating.

It wasn't like he meant to be nosy. Not really. But something about the guy sleeping inside—bones cracked with glitches, eyes like busted terminals—just didn't sit right.

It wasn't fear. It was uncertainty.

And Sans didn't like uncertain things. Not after what he'd seen in this world.

"...Just a quick look," he muttered, stepping  back inside.

Fatal lay sprawled awkwardly across the bed, one arm hanging off the side like he'd been dropped there by gravity itself. The static had dimmed, but faint trails of glitch fuzz still danced along his fingers, curling with every breath.

Sans raised a glowing hand and let it hover over the guy.

"Check."

A soft blue ripple passed through Fatal's body. Then, glowing letters—slow and jagged—began to rise from him like smoke curling into shapes.

Sans tilted his skull, squinting.

Ṅ̷͈A̷̬̅M̵̟͗Ę̷̅:̷͇̓ ?̴̤̐?̷̯̕?̸͖͂?̴̙͐
L̷̼͝V̵̪̎:̷͓́ ̶̯̋?̴̱̋
H̸̖̋P̵̮̚:̶̜̕ ̸͚͝[̴͕̈́3̶̠̈́8̷͕͘/̶͚̚?̷͇̑?̷̱̕]̸͖͐
Ḁ̶̛T̷̬̉K̸̼̔:̸̟̈́ -̴̰̏-̶͎̈
D̷̗̈E̷͕̓F̴͎̏:̸͈́ -̷̞͊-̷͓̅
S̷̥͛T̶̞̏A̷̳͐T̷̛̪U̵͕̽S̶̼͊:̷͈̋ ̷̛̟"̶̞͌C̵͇̈́Ṟ̶͊Á̵̤S̵̥̈́Ḧ̶̤E̵̛̱D̸̙͗.̴̥̓ ̶̘͐Š̶͉T̸̺͝A̴̝̾T̸̠͌I̸͇͌C̴̮̓_̷̰͌Ṟ̷̑E̵͖̿C̷̪̓Ö̵̮́V̷͇̅E̴̞̍R̷̰̀Y̶̙͠_̶̖͝Ḯ̴̟N̶̜̅Ḯ̵͔T̶͚͗I̴̟͂A̸̼͛T̶̤͝E̴̛̟Ḏ̴̽.̷́͜.̸̛̻.̷͎̆"̴̪̽
S̷̝͘O̶̦̍U̷̢̐L̵͕̿ ̴̜̾T̶̬̓Y̴̱͒P̶̞͑E̸̘̐:̶̮̐ U̷̦̐N̶͚̾K̸̡̈́N̷̜̓O̷̢͛Ẅ̷͎́N̴̰̓
Ȇ̶͙R̵̰̍R̵̯͘O̴͝ͅR̴̞̾ ̷̜̐T̷̤̾Ṟ̶͂A̷̲͒C̶̮͝E̶͓̽:̴̳̒ [̷̢͗Ỳ̵̞/̶̛͜N̷̤͛]̵̢͂
P̷̯̎R̴͔͋I̷̻͑M̷̞͠A̸̻̔R̸̳̕Y̵̳̾ ̸̻͂F̸͇̚U̷͙̅N̴̻̾Ć̴̨T̶̲͐I̷̺̍O̸̟͋N̵̞͝:̶̪͒ [̸̨̿R̴͕̚E̸̔͜D̶̬͐A̷̦͗C̴̠̚T̴̲̀E̵̞͗D̷̢̓]̵̲͂
Ĺ̶͈Ǒ̸̺C̸͓̕Ą̸̉T̷͍̄I̴̳͝Ő̵͓N̵͍̅ ̷̟͒I̴̯̿D̵̬̋:̷̮͠ Ư̶̲N̴̙͐S̸̮̍U̶̦͛P̸͓̈́P̵̢̅O̸̢̾R̸̬̓T̷͕͘E̸̦̓D̶̲́
T̸̥͠I̵̼̓M̷̨̐E̷͕̽ ̷̖̐T̴̜̓H̸̪̍R̴̰̄E̷̞͐A̶̱̕D̶͎͝:̶͎́ N̵̲̐O̴̙̅N̸̻͒-̷̜̒A̷͎͌Ǹ̷̠C̷̹͑H̴̖̒O̶̤̎R̷̻͆E̵̼̿D̵̯̿
M̶̝̏É̸͈M̷̠̎O̷̝͠R̸̞̅Ÿ̵͕́ ̶̦͑I̸̻̾N̴̖͘T̷̲̑E̷̟̅G̶̝͠R̴̻̒I̷̮̿T̵̜̿Y̴͓͌:̸̞̆ 9̴͙͗%̶̬̓
C̶̛̹O̶͎͌D̷̖́E̶͔̎ ̴̝̒S̶͍͗T̶̳̿A̶̯̕B̸͇̈́I̷̞̾L̴̠̿I̵̼͋T̵̪̕Ÿ̵͉́:̶͒ͅ 4̵̨̏2̴̱̋%̵͈̕
B̵̖̓E̵̖̿H̸̥̒A̴̝̅V̵̯̚I̸͍̾O̵̜̎R̶̞̋ ̶̹̌C̵̻͠O̸͕͝Ŕ̵̩Ë̴̲́:̶̰̎ A̷͙̓Ư̸̯T̸̻̎O̷͖͂N̶̡̈́O̵̱͌M̴̼͂Ǒ̵̠U̴͖̎S̴͈̿
**C̵̖͝O̶̤̚M̶̰̔M̵̹̿E̸̻̋Ń̵̼T̷̳̽:̶͇̐ "̴̢̋H̸̤̔E̶̛̖ ̵̤̽Í̵̠S̴̘̃N̷̼̎'̴͙͝T̸̤̈́ ̶͕̑S̴͇̚Ư̷̼P̸̻̽P̵͕̔O̶͓͂S̴͎̾E̵̖͗D̶͚̏ ̵͖̾T̴̤̐Ő̶͖ ̶̞̀B̶̬̓E̵̫̐ ̷̟̐H̵͙̅E̴͕̅R̷̜̍E̷̯̚.̶̳̾"̷̢̓

"...What the hell," Sans whispered.

He expected weird. He didn't expect undefined.

The Check kept going, flickering between rows of static-filled text before giving one last readable line "honestly this looks like someone jammed a ghost into a glitched-out USB stick and hit RUN."

Sans just stared.

"That's not a description. That's a crime against metaphors," he muttered, leaning against the railway of the stairs, hand rubbing the back of his skull.

Even asleep, Fatal's check was unstable, which meant they were usually even more unreadable if he was awake. Not malicious... but twitchy. Like he was made of pieces that weren't designed to be friends, barely held together by raw willpower and whatever that  was leaking from his eye sockets.

Sans sighed, leaned back, and muttered to himself

"...you really weren't made for this world, huh?"

He didn't expect an answer. But the static hummed a little louder, like it agreed.

There was two skeletons in the house now. For the first time in... what, mouths? There was someone else in the house. Not Papyrus. Not some overly eager suitor. Just... some half-crashed, glitchy, otherworldly skeleton who apparently robs castles and hoards Cinnabunny like a squirrel with anxiety.

Sans exhaled through his nose and shuffled back into the living room, bones aching from the quiet tension in his chest. He'd already put away the leftovers. No need to waste good food, especially when someone's inventory apparently had perfect heat regulation. Weirdly impressive.

And there it was—left sitting on the coffee table.

That journal.

The same one Fatal had pulled out so casually earlier. Bound in dark synthetic leather, split down the middle with one half deep red and the other electric blue, the same shades that glitched through his sockets.

He hesitated, fingers hovering over the cover. He shouldn't snoop. Not after Fatal had opened up to him. But curiosity and caution were old bedfellows in Sans' world. He picked it up, slowly flipping it open to a random page.

Messy handwriting. Tangled thoughts. Notes like were what he found

"Possible teleportation linked to fear response?"
"Avoid summoning blaster again without better control—detonated self."
"Still don't know what I am."
"Inventory: 13% full. Need to test upper limits. Found four microwaves today."

Sans blinked. It read like someone documenting the most random stuff with out context.

He flipped a page to the blue side. That's when things got stranger.

Notes on timelines. Universe labels. Mentions of "AU anchor strings," and "differences in code recognition." There were sketches of timeline maps, thread-like connections linking bubble worlds together. It was wild. Like something Alphys might've scrawled if she'd gone on a weeks-long marathon.

But the way it was written... it didn't feel academic. It felt desperate.

The ink scratching at his eyes with a kind of manic desperation. The handwriting started neat, but gradually became jagged. Lines scribbled in margins. Notes stuffed into corners. Pages torn out and taped back in backward. This was a book full of knowledge a scientist would kill for.

And boy, did this dude have lore.

Alternate Universe

Definition:
A self-contained system functioning with its own laws of physics, magic, morality, and logic. Universes may be parallel, mirrored, corrupted, reversed, or unique.

Observation:
Each universe has a visible "signature," which can be identified and tracked. Like a fingerprint, no two are identical. Most universes seem to mirror a "base" structure, but warp depending on anomalies, key events, or narrative forces.

"Universal Catalog System"

Each universe has a "core thread" visible through code. The thread leads to others, sorted by thickness (how similar the universes are), color (tone/energy), and speed (temporal activity).

"Timeline Branching"

Timelines splinter from key events, especially around SAVE and RESET points. Not all universes allow timeline manipulation, but most fractured timelines exist like ghosts—unseen, unwalked, but still recorded.

"Portals"

Using focused magic and code manipulation, one can create a temporary gateway if the target universe's string is close enough. Portals do not last forever. Stability depends on intent, accuracy, and magic reserves.

"Main Cast Theory"

Some universes have stronger anchor points—people that shape the universe's flow. Their code is stronger, thicker, and deeply embedded. Universes tend to orbit around them, regardless of their awareness.

Notes:

They tend to remain consistent across universes: someone like a "Sans," "Papyrus," or "Frisk" usually appears, albeit with differences.

Story Plot

Definition:
The general flow or "timeline pattern" a universe follows. Often reacts to emotional and moral weight of decisions made by the main cast or timeline manipulators.

Details:

Most universes have "set rails" at first. Deviations begin when someone gains access to SAVE/RESET/LOAD.

Some plots repeat endlessly. Others branch and fracture.

Certain universes have static plots (Undernovela, Dancetale), while others are flexible (Outertale, Undertale).

Sans blinked hard. That last sentence was underlined seven times.

Sans rubbed his sockets. This was too much.

And somehow... not enough.

What stuck with him most wasn't the sheer data dump, or the paranoia-threaded conclusions. It was how Fatal seemed less like he was writing to understand, and more like he was writing because if he stopped, he'd be desperate to do something else.

Like if he didn't label everything, it would all fall apart.

Like he'd already fallen apart once.

And hadn't finished putting himself back together.

Sans closed the journal gently and set it down.

"...the hell kinda spaghetti are you made of, pal?"

He looked toward the hallway where Fatal slept in the spare room, sounding more like a speaker hissing static.

Sans didn't know what this guy was.

But tomorrow?

He was definitely buying him some damn pie.

And maybe getting himself a helmet.

Just in case the guy woke up and invented time travel by sneezing.

Chapter Text

He woke up feeling better than usual—his side was also feeling a lot better as well.

Blank static fuzzed at the back of his skull, softer this time but still there, like a TV left on an empty channel. For a moment, he just sat there in the bed Sans had shoved him into, the sheets rumpled and lopsided beneath him. The house was quiet.

No alarms. No yelling. No science guards chasing him, no hands on him tryna make him forgot who he is.

 again Just quiet.

He slid off the mattress, got out of the room and padded toward the able where his stuff on the wardrobe lay, on it was his scarf and a mirror with a cracked frame.

He put his scarf on and looked into the mirror.

The reflection stared back. A skeleton, he did look a lot like sans—but not like him at the same time.

One of his sockets glowed red and was also seemingly melting at the bottom. The other, soft blue, which looked a bit wider then the other. Text spider-webbing across in his eye lights, a faint hum of static could be heard from his body.

He looked like a walking computer failure.

He reached out with his metaphorical 'hands', and looked within himself. That part of him that saw everything in code.

Lines unfolded in his mind like a terminal window opening.

And above his reflection, hovering faintly over his shoulder—his name tag.

[Identity.Tag = "???" ]
[Error: Undefined Label Detected]

Blank. Or maybe not. It flickered, unstable, with fragments of broken letters trying to form. Maybe a name from Before. He didn't know and he didn't care. He made his piece with not knowing who he was, and he wasn't going to try to figure it out now.

He stared at it. Then typed something in it.

[Identity.Tag = "Fatal Error" ]

The change was instant. The code around him pulsed with a light distortion, like a small ripple in a pond.

The name flickered once more...
Then locked in solid.

[FATAL ERROR]

It hung there now, permanent. Branded above him like a player in a game.

He tilted his skull slightly and looked at his new name in the mirror.

"...Huh."

There was no dramatic music. No sudden flash of memory. No grand awakening of identity.

Just him. In a guest room. In someone else's house.

............He was honestly expecting more impressive then that, with the fact his been ignoring that he didn't have an actual name for months now.

"Fatal Error," he said to himself, testing the weight of it on his tongue. Then, more casually "...Guess that fits."

He stepped out of the room like it nothing happened.

But inside? It made him a lot more happier than he wanted to admit.

Fatal stepped away from the room, boots clicking softly on the hardwood floor as he wandered into the hallway.

The scent of something faintly spicy lingered in the air—cinnamon and something else... maybe hot sauce? Definitely leftover from dinner last night. His eye sockets flickered faintly as he walked, his static quietly pulsing over his form more calmly now that it had settled.

The stairs led him back toward the living room. Light filtered through the blinds unevenly, striping the walls. Sans wasn't around. He could still hear the faint hum of something in the kitchen, maybe the fridge or a microwave.

Fatal stopped just outside the guest room and glanced around. This house,  it was so.....weird.

The walls were painted in soft pastels. A slightly crooked picture frame hung beside the couch. There was a throw pillow that had the word "Chillax" embroidered in sequins. Everything felt lived-in, normal, homey. Not something he ever expected to experience.

He slowly padded into the living room. His gaze scanned over the shelf near the door. A few small trinkets—an old snow globe with Snowdin in it, a dusty photo of Sans and another skeleton that must've been Papyrus, both grinning like idiots.

Fatal paused, eyeing it. His fingers hovered over the glass.

Papyrus... that name felt familiar. Not just because of what Sans had said. Something deeper. Like a memory that wanted to appear but no longer had any importance to him anymore.

He turned away from the photo before he could poke it too hard.

Instead, he drifted toward the couch and plopped himself down like he owned the place. For a moment, he just sat there, leaning back with one knee propped over the other, arms behind his head.

His gaze flicked lazily toward the coffee table.

His journal sat there, right where he left it.

Red and blue sides, with his eye-socket icons shaped stamped on the front and back. One side stuffed with messy notes he made about himself. The other, a growing library of knowledge about the multiverse.

He reached over, cracked it open to the middle, and began scribbling.

[Date: ???]
[Location: UL-Snowdin (Active)]
— Assigned identity: "Fatal Error"
— Integration complete
— No hostile encounters post-arrival
— First extended conversation: UL-Sans (local variant)
— Not hostile. Cautiously curious. Hospitality level: High
— World is emotionally loud. Population unusually expressive. Clothing choices... questionable.
— Observational priority: Core cast behavior patterns. Local timeline stability.
— Personal status: HP fully healed. Inventory stable. static buzz seems... quieter than usual?.

He tapped the pen against his teeth, thinking.

Then added a small note to the side of the last one.

Possible theory is that sleeping helps, need more tries at sleeping again to confirm. No static this time could be a fluke.

He closed the journal gently, flipping the band over it to seal it shut, then let it disappear back into his inventory.

He tapped the side of his skull. "Alright, let's see what I swiped off that skeletal bastard anyway."

With a flick of his fingers, the air in front of him shimmered—a screen of data unraveling  in the empty space in front of him. Unlike the usual blue-tinted interface he used for most object code, this one was a deep obsidian gray, lined with white script. Every line danced, jittered slightly—like the code didn't like being looked at directly.

[File: W.D. Gaster - Incomplete Copy (Error-Synced)]
Integrity: 64% (Unstable Fragments - Secure Lockdown Engaged)
Overview: Classified.
Access Level: Fatal Error

He rolled his eye lights. "Wow. Thanks, past me. Very helpful."

He slid his pointer finger up, causing the entire screen to scroll downward—line after line of raw code, compressed data, identity fragments, and layered subroutines. His sockets narrowed. "No wonder it almost fried me when I yanked it out, this is way too much info compared to just regular objects."

He swiped sideways and filtered the code into different tabs to try and make it easier for himself.

[Abilities] | [Structure] | [Personality Strings] | [Timeline Fractures] | [Causality Locks] | [Active Scripts]

He tapped on Abilities.

The section blinked, loading... then expanded in a much more legible format—cleaner than he expected.

Gaster's Abilities (Condensed Extract)

1. Chroma Hands

Independent magical appendages linked to user's soul trait  and magical matrix.
Functions: Grasp | Crush | Teleport anchor | Mind tap | Soul interference
Notes: Used primarily for experiment control, interrogation, non-verbal magic.

2. Gravity Magic

Allows manipulation of local gravity fields in a set radius.
Commonly used to pin targets, reverse terrain, or compress air space.
Uses a steady drain of magical stamina.

3. Force Beams (Gaster-Blaster)

Concentrated energy bursts shot from beastly formed skull, similar to bone attacks but hollow to let the magic form.
Often shaped like angular spirals or jagged waves of violet and black.
Pierces magical shielding. Deals direct soul pressure.

5. Barrier magic

Defensive magic used to form semi-transparent walls.
Strong against magic-based attacks, weak to brute force.
Often layered multiple times in battle for longevity.

Fatal blinked as the file stabilized into readable shape. "Huh," he muttered, voice static-laced. "So the old man wasn't that big of a fighter, just a scientist with hands."

Fatal let out a low whistle. "So...that means I nearly lost my freedom to a nerd."

He leaned forward, elbows on knees as he thought it over.

The Chroma Hands... he remembered those. Felt like someone had jammed there own thoughts straight into his skull when Gaster tried using them on him. Useful? Definitely. Comfortable? Absolutely not.

He dragged one finger across the air, tapping the Chroma Hands segment.

The screen pulsed faintly, giving him a brief simulation—outlined diagrams of how the energy was formed, where to draw the force, what posture helped anchor the manifesting.

He leaned forward, slowly forming one hand in the air. A single skeletal hand formed, it looked a bit wider then his actual hand but was still stable other then its edges jagged and glitching with red-blue static

Fatal tilted his head. "Weird. That's... actually doable."

It was shaky. Not perfect. But it was his.

He could feel the drain—not code-drain, but from his magic reserves. Real, heavy energy deep in his bones.

He closed his hand, and the construct did the same.

He stopped feeding it his magic. Letting it flicker out into nothing.

He had it stored. Not all of it. But a little bit of everything that made Gaster... Gaster.

And the scary part?

He could probably recreate him, and change anything he wanted about the one he made.

"Eh maybe," he muttered aloud, leaning back again and cracking his neck. "If I'm that bored."

Fatal's glitch-flickering form was slumped on the couch, staring at the air like it owed him rent.

He swiped the file closed, the screen fizzling out as he stood. His bones creaked as he rolled his shoulders.

"Okay," he said with a slight smirk summoning the skeletal hand in front of himself, "Lets go test this bad boys out."

Time to test this stuff in the field. See what parts worked... and which ones might blow up on him.

Again.

Chapter Text

The magic in the air was a soft pink haze, sugary-sweet and almost annoyingly warm. Snowdin, in this world, looked... off. The familiar snowy pines remained, but they were twinkling in colors no tree should ever twinkle in. Candy-colored lights draped every branch like seductive vines, and the snow sparkled more like glitter than ice.

Fatal was already walking away from the house, hood up, scarf covering a part of his face, the coded magic hand construct shifting idly around his head like bored ghost. His hands  — his actual ones, were busy logging more info into his journal. The world itself was an anomaly. He could feel the difference in its structure, in the way its code helped the magic sing with flirtatious loops and overly affectionate connections made him want to question why.

Behind him, the door creaked open.

"Hey!" Sans called out, jogging to catch up. He held something in one hand, tucked under his arm. Fatal didn't stop writing, but he slowed his pace just enough to let Sans walk beside him.

Sans, of course, was dressed like he hadn’t read the weather report.

A sleeveless  purple jacket, elbow-length gloves, and far too much bone showing for a place named Snowdin.

“You’re seriously wearing that?” Fatal finally muttered, static buzzing slightly with each step.

Sans turned, walking backwards with a grin. “What? I’m fabulous.”

“You’re freezing,” Fatal deadpanned. “You’re also insane.”

Sans gave him a wink. “Babe, when you’ve got a body this fine, it warms itself.”

Fatal stared blankly. “That’s not how thermodynamics works.”

“You quoting a science book at me, Glitchy?”

“I’m quoting survival instinct.”

As they passed through the market street, Fatal's eye sockets darted around—everywhere he looked, monsters wore outfits that made him feel like he’d stepped into the wrong genre of a messed up book.

Short shorts. Sheer tops. Fur coats without the coat part. One cat monster was wearing a mesh crop-top and fishnets. Another—a bear monster—was lounging in a sleeveless tank that did nothing against the cold.

He looked to his left. A lizard in lingerie under a see-through coat.

He looked to his right. A dog monster with glitter on their abs.

He finally turned to Sans, irritation peeking through his usual neutral face.

“…Is there a radiation leak in this town causing everyone to lose the concept of insulation?”

Sans snorted, arms folded behind his head as he strolled. “Oh Fatal, sweetie, this is just how we roll here.”

“In hypothermic confusion?”

“No, in confidence. You’ve got static all over you and I’m the one getting called overdressed.”

Fatal opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked up at the snow gently falling onto Sans’s exposed skull.

“...You’re lucky monsters doesn’t follow standard biology.”

“Flirting with my luck now, are you?”

“I’m insulting your immune system.”

“You’re kinda cute when you’re judgy.”

“I’m always judging.”

They turned a corner as the snowfall thickened, and Sans threw his arm over Fatal’s shoulders—not out of affection, but because the skeleton seemed perpetually one mental glitch away from wandering into traffic.

Fatal looked at the arm.

Then at Sans.

Then back to the arm.

“…If your goal is to warm me with body heat, I recommend increasing your surface area by at least 50%.”

Sans grinned. “Careful. Say stuff like that and I will take my jacket off.”

“Please don’t.”

“Why? You scared of seeing something you like?”

“I’m scared of seeing another snowflake evaporate in shame.”

Sans wheezed with laughter.

“You’re lucky you’re broken, glitchy,” he said between chuckles. “Because if you weren’t, I might think you were flirting back.”

“I’m broken because I have to respond to that with words instead of violence.”

“You’re my favorite glitch.”

“You’re my least favorite heatstroke.”

Sans then saw what Fatal was holding, now realizing why he seemed so preoccupied by the whole time they were walking.

"You should really keep that journal a secret" They said to him once they walked a bit away from the common populace of Snowdin

"I don't see the point," Fatal replied. "If someone wants to learn, they'll read it. If they want to judge, they're wasting their time."

Sans paused for a moment, removing his hand from Fatal and staying silent for a moment before asking.

"So... you mean all that was true, that there are different worlds?" Sans said as they gently grabbed the book, Fatal made no move to stop them as they started thumbing through pages lined with handwriting that glowed between ink and computer text. "You've seen... a lot."

"I've learnt a lot of things ," Fatal corrected gently. "Seen? Sure. But I don't stop at seeing."

They passed under a lamp that flickered from pink to indigo to a color that Fatal didn't know the name of. Their shadows growing larger as they stood under the light.

"...Mind if I ask somethin'?" Sans began, leaning against the lamp, arms crossed. "Like where you're from, or what you're even doing here? I mean, I don't exactly get a lotta glitch skeletons falling outta the sky."

Fatal didn't do anything at first, then did that thing—the one Sans was starting to recognize. Where he paused too long, then moved with deliberate purpose like he was looking through his own head.

"Oh," he said, tone suddenly more interested. "You wanna know about that stuff?"

Before Sans could even nod, the guy reached behind him—space flickering—and pulled out a second thick, hardcover book from thin air. It looked hand-made, almost stitched together. The cover was black, but in the center were two glowing shapes—each the shape of an eye socket. One red. One blue. They looked similar to the one Sans was holding, if not for the fact it was much larger.

The lights on the journal shifted faintly, like they were breathing.

"Red side's timelines," he said, pointing to the front. "Blue side's... everything else."

Sans blinked, confusion visible. "Everything else?"

"Other universes. How portals work. magic behaviors. Species variance. That kind of thing."

"...Huh."

Fatal opened the book to the red side first.

The pages were a mess of scribbled notes, diagrams, glitchy sketches, and coded text Sans couldn't even begin to understand. Some pages were burned at the edges. Others were sticky-noted to hell with mismatched scrawling's like "DO NOT TOUCH", "THAT'S NOT HOW BONES WORK", or simply "why?"

A few pages were clearly self-observation logs. Notes about his physical state, about how his magic felt. A bit of theorizing about his origins—mostly crossed out and rewritten.

Then, Fatal flipped the book over, upside-down.

The blue side began.

And it was... meticulous.

"Been traveling for a little while now," he said casually. "Didn't realize at first what was going on. Then I figured it out: there's a whole web of worlds. All similar, but different. Some are loud and flashy. Others are quiet. Some have no one in them at all."

Sans squinted at a diagram. Strings. Universes. Some with labels. Others crossed out or surrounded by warning symbols.

"I call them cables," Fatal continued. "They connect all the universes. The thicker the cable, the more similar the worlds. I can follow them now. Like wires."

Sans felt his eye lights widen a little. "You... travel universes?"

Fatal nodded, like it was no big deal. "Yup."

"You write all this yourself?"

"Course I did," he replied smiling an actual smile, flipping another page. "Who else is gonna do it?"

He smiled.

And that's what unsettled Sans.

Not the smile itself—but how proud and casual it looked. Like a kid showing off their scrapbook. Not a dangerous Harmless, glitch-covered Friend anomaly casually explaining that he jumps  to different realities.

"You wrote about versions of me," Sans said, still keeping his voice level, as he got rid of that thought. "It says here about worlds where I'm not like... this. Worlds where I'm someone else, and since you look an awful lot like me, does that mean your.... ?"

Fatal saw the expression on Sans faced and calmed down. There was some small text in his eye sockets this time, passing with a more steady pace.

"No," he said. "Every version of someone is there own story. Another life." He looked up. "The multiverse isn't too repetitive. It's curious. Like me." Sans raised an eyebrow.

"So... you're not a me?, dang that's an actual bummer" Sans seemed to be disappointed by the news.

Fatal looked at there pout then let out a sound between a sigh and a static pop, his sockets dimming for a moment before flickering with faster text. He didn't look directly at Sans when he spoke—his voice was calm, a little dry, like someone saying something they'd already accepted too many times.

"Technically."

That word—technically—dragged out of his mouth like it tasted bitter.

"Same core template. Same base magic. Same shortcuts, same bone structure, same plan on paper." He paused. "But... my existence looks more like I've been copied, crashed, patched, glitched, overwritten, corrupted, deleted, and taped back together with half duct tape and a halo."

He finally looked up at Sans, and that bone-white smile never quite matched the tone behind his words.

"So yeah. Technically, I'm a Sans variant, a different version of you. But I'm too busted to count. I don't got the same soul anymore. Hell, I didn't remember I didn't have a name till you brought it up."

Sans was quiet for a second, watching him rant.

Then—

"...Wow. That's really sad."

Fatal blinked.

Sans held up a hand. "I mean, not like cry-in-the-shower sad, just... y'know, existential horror with extra steps kinda sad."

Fatal stared for a beat. "...Okay. Yeah. Fair."

Then Sans smirked, leaning forward again, resting his chin on his palm.

"Still gonna call you 'Sans' sometimes, y'know. You kinda talk like me. You defiantly sulk like me. You're just a me but with more static and a killer resting skelly face."

Fatal made a static-laced snort.

"Just don't expect me to pun."

"Pity," Sans grinned. "Bet you'd have a great delivery."

"So, that was way too much of a mood downer, how about that tour I've been teasing you with." Sans said, doing a little hop away from the lamp and handing the first journal back to Fatal.

Fatal taking back the two journals back into his inventory, decided that taking a break would be a good idea anyways.

"Sure, but I will warn you. If anyone tries doing something I don't like, I'm framing you for there death that I may or not be the cause of."

"Haha, and you said you didn't have good humor"

"......."

"Fatal, you were joking right?"

"........."

"Fatal... you were joking, right?

"Fatal?"

Chapter Text

A bar turned club loomed ahead, its neon sign pulsing like a heartbeat: "Grillby's — Now Hotter Than Ever." Purple and red light spilled from the windows, casting wild shadows on the snow. Music thumped behind the glass, muffled but rhythmic—low bass, soft moans?, and the occasional suggestive giggle threading through the air like incense.

Fatal approached slowly, eye sockets narrowing.

Beer cans littered the snowbanks by the door like fallen soldiers. A pink feather boa was draped over a lamp post like someone had lost it mid-romance. And through the giant glass window, he could make out dim silhouettes writhing under colored lights—monsters in questionable poses, on questionable furniture, doing very questionable things.

A bra slapped against the window from the inside. Someone cheered.

Fatal stopped mid-step.

"...Is this a battlefield?"

Behind him, Sans caught up, visibly excited.

"There it is!" he beamed, clapping his gloved hands. "Grillby's, baby. Home sweet chaos."

Fatal turned his head slowly. "This is a...restaurant?"

Sans shrugged. "Club. Bar. Love nest. Depends on the night."

"There is a piece of clothing hanging from the ceiling fan."

"That's called décor."

"There's someone showering in glitter in the corner."

"Art is subjective."

"There's—" Fatal squinted. "—that wolf from before using whipped cream as face paint."

"...Okay, that one's new, but you gotta respect the creativity."

Fatal turned to face Sans fully, his voice unusually flat—even for him. "I will not be entering that building."

"Aww, come on. It's not always like this."

"There is a slime monster doing something to a pole on a chandelier."

"Okay, but the drinks are great!"

"No."

"But—"

"I will sit on the roof and attempt to turn myself into a chair before I set one foot inside that den of chaos."

Sans pouted. "You're really no fun."

Fatal tilted his head. "Is fun supposed to be naked?"

"Sometimes."

"I'll  just be depressed."

He turned on his heel and started walking in the opposite direction.

Sans sighed dramatically, but followed. "Alright, alright. But one of these days, you're gonna learn to live a little."

"I'll add it to the list."

"And what's number one?"

"Destroying you for trying to take me here."

Sans laughed again, brushing snow off his shoulders. "Still worth it."

Fatal turned on his heel towards where he knew the Libraby was. "It really wasn't."

"This used to be a library," Sans said with a grin.

Used to be. Now it was filled with... books. Big, suggestively shaped books. The walls had posters of anatomy diagrams that were definitely not medical, and in one corner, a feline monster was reading out loud in a voice that should not be used to readout a cookbook.

Fatal blinked, backed out slowly and kept walking, muttering, "This is not reading. This is a threat."

They passed the Inn, where the sign now read, "Rest up... in pleasure."

There was moaning. Not pain.

Fatal kept walking, making sure to ignore everyone and everything, while Sans just kept laughing next to him.

And that's when it happened.

One of the dog monsters — pink fur, hearts in their eyes — bounded up and launched at him like a horny cannonball.

"CUDDLE POUNCE!!!" it howled.

One of Fatal's eye socket flared blue — the air snapped with force as the dog froze mid-leap, its scruff was grabbed by a ball sized skeletal hand. More skeletal hands spiraled around it like snakes as Fatal yanked the thing away with a sharp wave of his hand and launched it straight into a nearby building, where it embedded to a wall like a dart.

He exhaled through his teeth. "No."

Sans was trying very hard not to cringe. "Okay okay — that was fair."

They kept walking towards the forest.

Eventually, Fatal looked over to his guide. "...You live like this?"

Sans shrugged. "More or less. Everyone's just kinda... open about everything."

Fatal frowned. "Feels like the Magic in the air is based around it. Like this place was made to be like this."

"Probably was."

"Huh."

He didn't say more. But the next time a monster waved flirtatiously at him, Fatal just snapped his fingers, and a large hand popped into existence was enough to ward them of them this time. 

After the dog Incident, Sans gave up on dragging Fatal anywhere with flashing lights or anything that looked vaguely sticky. Instead, he led them further out, past the edge of town, to where the snow softened and the wind grew quieter. They walked in silence for a while, save for the crunch of boots on frost and the occasional buzz of static from Fatal.

Eventually, they reached a clearing.

A frozen pond stretched across the landscape, smooth and pale blue under the trees with snow dusted edges. A few wilted lanterns hung from crooked wooden posts, casting a gentle amber glow over the surface.

No clubs, no noise, no weird monsters doing interpretive lap dances with jellyfish.

Just cold, quiet air and the creak of ice shifting beneath them.

Sans had led him here, away from the noise, away from the swaying hips and perfume-drenched air of downtown. Fatal wasn't sure if it was a mercy or a trap. Probably mercy.

They sat on a worn bench beside the ice. The old wooden seat creaked beneath Lust's dramatic sigh as he leaned back, arms stretched along the backrest. 

Sans glanced sideways. "You're thinking real hard for someone with such pretty sockets."

Fatal remained standing for a moment before sitting beside him, a few inches apart. He didn't say anything for a long while, eyes tracing the cracks in the pond's surface.

Then he simply asked
"Why is everyone like that?"

Sans blinked, caught off guard. "Like what?"

"...Revealing. Flirtatious. Obsessively romantic. Touchy." Fatal's voice was flat, but not judgmental. More curious than anything."...Like they're constantly stuck trying to mate."

Sans snorted. "Well... yeah. That's kinda cause of what happened a bunch of years."

Fatal tilted his head. "Explain."

Sans winced slightly. "Okay. Yeah. Guess it's time for the Talk."

He pulled off his pink sunglasses and wiped the lens on his glove, voice quieting. "A long time ago, monsters started dying out. Couldn't have kids. One day, some human with a... very specific SOUL fell in. Lust Trait. Real bad situation. But after they died, monsters thought: hey, maybe we can use that trait. Boost our fertility, y'know?"

Fatal turned his head slightly, watching him.

Sans gestured vaguely. "So... they pumped everyone with it. Injected the whole Underground. The adults, anyway."

Fatal stared for a beat. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Sans laughed softly. "You're not wrong."

"No one thought of long-term consequences? No trial testing? What kind of idiot—"

"Gaster," Sans said. "Our version. He did it first. To himself, too."

Fatal stopped. Then blinked. Slowly.

"...Oh, well he should be executed then.."

It was the only reaction he gave. But inside, something twisted. The memory of Gaster's hand on his skull—the echo of his voice, smug and annoying. Fatal hadn't met this variant of the man yet, but his betting there similar enough for him to still be pissed.

"Yeah maybe, Sans added with a crooked smile, "It's why you'll see so many monsters out there acting like walking pickup lines in crop tops."

Fatal turned his gaze back to the pond. "...That's not evolution. That's decay."

Sans gave a tired smile, resting his head on one hand. "We get by. Some better than others."

There was silence between them. Soft snow drifted from above, settling on the pond's frozen skin. Fatal watched the flakes fall. His jaw clenched just a little tighter.

Now that they were sitting still, the silence opened was getting a little awkward.

"You seem," Sans said lightly, watching the flickers of static that pulsed under Fatal's eye sockets, "confused. Or maybe overwhelmed?"

"I've observed a few of universes, mostly to know how they worked" Fatal muttered, voice glitch-cracked and distant. "This place?. Has to be the weirdest so far."

He looked over to were Snowdin is, eye sockets narrowing as static pulsed in them. "This is most defiantly the weirdest one."

Sans laughed softly. "That's sayin' a lot coming from you, glitzy."

"I don't understand how this society functions," Fatal continued, tone just shy of clinical. "The architecture's fine. Infrastructure—average. But every biological marker? Off. Body language, interaction norms, territorial distance. Every single adult I've passed in Snowdin has acted like they were seconds from—"

He paused, blinked slowly, searching for the right word.

"—initiating reproduction."

Sans burst into actual giggles at that. "Initiating?! You talk like you're reading from a textbook."

"I read a lot of textbooks," Fatal muttered, pulling his knees in. "Most of them didn't prepare me for this level of... pheromone-based society degradation."

Then Fatal said, flatly "Your Gaster is still an idiot though."

"Yeah," Sans said with a bitter little smile. "He was."

"And now the entire Underground is caught in the psychological fallout of one man's reckless hope."

Sans didn't answer right away. Then softly, "Isn't that always how it goes?"

Sans leaned back, arms draped lazily across the back of the bench. "So. You keep saying you're from somewhere else. Like, really somewhere else."

Fatal didn't respond at first. He was watching the snow fall, eyes glowing red and blue beneath his hood, a silent storm of static buzzing faintly around him. Then he spoke—low, his voice glitching only slightly as he tried to keep it steady.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure I know which universe I came from," he said flatly.

Sans blinked slowly. "Okay... that's a sentence. Wanna unpack that a bit?"

Fatal tilted his skull, thinking for a second before speaking again. "Picture a library," he said, voice even now. "A giant one. Infinite."

Sans raised a brow. "I like libraries."

"Each shelf in this library is a category. A theme. One's labeled Fell, another Swap, or Lust... whatever defines a universe's baseline."

Sans perked up. "So we're on the Lust shelf?"

"Yes. Now imagine every book on that shelf is a different version of your world. Some barely change—just the color of your jacket. Others flip everything—maybe Papyrus runs this place, maybe you're the king. Maybe you never got the injections, but that would mean it no longer counts as a lust-verse."

Sans's expression softened. "Huh..."

"But that's just one shelf. There are thousands of them. Other genres, other foundations. Entire universes where no one's heard of Sans or Papyrus or monsters. Books about timelines based on machines. Or paper. Or ink."

He paused. "And I can jump between them."

Sans stared, stunned. "You serious, I thought you were just joking about that.?"

Fatal nodded once. "I can 'walk' the aisles of that library. Open books I'm not supposed to. Some were blank. Some were burning. Some were... too loud."

"...Loud?"

"Metaphor," Fatal said quickly, glitching as he looked away. "But yes. I can jump between worlds."

Sans leaned forward, curiosity lighting up his eyes like starbursts. "So... there's more of me out there?"

"Yes," Fatal muttered. "But different. Some mean. Some stupid. One of them could be a puppet instead of a skeleton."

Sans snorted. "Rude."

Fatal didn't smile, but his intent buzzed gently like he was almost amused.

"And what about you?" Sans asked. "Where's your world?"

"...Don't think I have one." Fatal's tone went quiet again. "I'm like a torn-out page someone left in a random book. Not part of any shelf in particular."

The tone he said that in made Sans pause.

The lamp above them flickered, casting long shadows across the snow.

"...I think I like the library metaphor," Sans said.

"I figured you would."

Chapter Text

Sans had been relentless for the past half hour.

They were still sitting by the frozen pond, snow falling lightly as lamplight glimmered off the icy surface. Fatal sat hunched, hood low, eyes fixed on some nonexistent point in the snow.

Sans, meanwhile, had leaned closer, practically bouncing with curiosity.

"So... you can actually open a portal to another world? Like, boom, blink, we're somewhere else? Just like that?"

Fatal didn't even look at him. "Yes."

"Show me."

"No."

Sans pouted. "Why not?"

"It's dangerous. It's draining. It's not for sightseeing."

"You saying I can't handle it?" Sans tilted his head, a sly grin curling across his face.

"I'm saying it's not a trick for showing off."

Sans leaned in more. "Ohh, I get it—you can't do it."

That made Fatal twitch.

Sans smirked. "It's fine. I mean, I get it. Maybe it's too advanced. Maybe you need a recharge or, y'know, a big ol' nap. I just figured someone who claims to travel the multiverse would've—"

A heavy static hum built up around Fatal before Sans could finish.

"No," Fatal said, cutting him off with a flat, static voice. He stood up slowly, brushing snow off his lap. "Fine."

He raised his hand—and space in front of them split. A jagged crack of red and blue pixels tore open space with a sound like glass shattering and magnets grinding.

The cold air of Snowdin was swept away in an instant.

The portal shimmered, parting to reveal rolling green hills, asphalt roads stretching toward a skyline, and—most stunning of all—a sunrise. Gold, pink, and orange spilled across the clouds, casting light over a quiet surface town that shimmered with morning dew.

Sans had been half-joking, half-testing when he pushed Fatal to open the portal. But the second it appeared—clear, stable, real—something in him dropped. He stepped closer without a word, mouth slightly parted, sunglasses now pushed up to rest on his head.

"...Is that the surface?" he whispered.

Fatal tilted his head slightly, arms crossed. "I said I could do it, and I did."

Th swirling portal edges were smooth and oval like a mirror, but inside was sunlight. Trees. A bright, clear sky. The surface.

Sans's jaw dropped slightly. The sheer contrast from the underground's soft lamps and cavern walls to this glowing, open world made it feel like it's was a dream.

Fatal glanced at him, eyes flickering with dim static. "Happy now?"

Sans stepped forward, peering into the portal like it might hurt him.

"Whoa... this is real?"

"Every bit of it."

"Which world is this?"

"Surface AU, a different timeline where the Barrier was broken."

Sans tilted his head, still staring at the world in front of him. "You ever been there before?"

"Not personally," Fatal said calmly. "Plan on going there. It's safe if that's what your asking. No one looks twice at a monster, well at least around cities near mount Ebott."

Sans turned, clearly trying not to bounce in place. "You're actually letting me go to another universe?"

"I'm letting you peek," Fatal corrected. "We're not walking through."

Sans didn't respond. He reached out with a slow, trembling hand and passed it through the portal. There was no resistance. No pain. No barrier. Only warmth.

And before Fatal could stop him, he stepped through.

The first thing he felt was the breeze—actual wind—cool and light, brushing through the tall grass and over his exposed bones. It carried the scent of damp soil, distant flowers, and something warm he'd never smelled before—sunlight.

And above it all: the sky.

Open. Endless. Nothing above him but clouds and color.

He stared.

Then collapsed to his knees in the grass, hands over his mouth, shoulders trembling as quiet sobs began to shake his frame. Large tears rolled down his cheeks, glinting violet in the morning light.

He didn't even seem to notice when Fatal stepped through the portal behind him.

"Told you I could do it," Fatal muttered, trying to play it cool—until he caught sight of Sans's face.

He froze.

Sans, who had spent the last day dropping flirty remarks like confetti, Sans who walked with practiced confidence and flirty charm, was crying like a child seeing something he'd only dreamed about.

"I..." Sans choked out, laughing softly between the sob, trying to choke out a confession.

"Uhhh, Why are you crying" Fatal didn't why sans randomly started breaking down.

"You wanna know something funny..... when me and pappy were younger, we used to stare at the ceiling and pretend this existed."

Fatal stayed silent. This wasn't something he was prepared for, he didn't know if he should something about this or brush off.

"I always thought," Sans said, voice cracking, "if I ever made it up here, which by the way I always so as a big if—I'd be with Papyrus, or Grillby, or someone I loved. I didn't think it'd be with some glitched stranger that looked just like me, who doesn't get my jokes..."

Fatal looked away awkwardly.

"...But stars, it's real. It's real, I'm on the surface, I'm looking at the sun."

He laughed again, wiping his face, but the tears kept falling.

Fatal stood stiff in the grass, his hands twitching, fingers flexing like they were searching for something to write in. His smile—usually locked into place—had cracked ever so slightly lower. His eye sockets flickered red and blue in rapid static bursts, almost like his skull was overheating from too much emotion being in the room at once.

Sans was still on his knees, crying—crying. Real tears. Real feelings. Real vulnerability.

Fatal had no idea what to do with this.

He wasn't trained for this. Wasn't ready for this. Wasn't built for this. His whole existence had been data scavenging, hiding, watching, cataloging. Not comforting. Not hugging. Not dealing with someone else's emotions without a path to follow.

So... he panicked.

He did the best thing he could think of.

He opened his inventory, fumbled through his crates like a raccoon in a dumpster, and pulled out—another bag of cinnamon bunny.

He held it out stiffly, like a peace offering, arm locked, eyes still twitching with static.

"...uhh... here," he said, voice flickering like a scratched-up record. "This usually... helps?"

Sans paused, still sniffling, and turned to look at him.

Fatal was just standing there, frozen, holding a still-warm bag of pastry with the same intensity one might offer a legendary sword to a chosen hero.

Sans blinked through his tears. Then a choked laugh slipped out of him -he could tell from Fatal's intent they had no idea how to help, but they still were sincere in there actions —soft, amused, and strangely warm.

He reached up and took the  bag cinnamon bunny's from Fatal's hand, still kneeling in the dew-covered grass. His voice was hoarse as he said

"...You're so weird."

Fatal looked away. "You're the one crying."

"You're the one carrying pastry in your pocket like it's normal."

"...Emergency food," he mumbled.

Sans smiled, even as another tear slipped out. "Thanks... Fatal."

That name hit a little harder than expected. Fatal flinched—just a bit—but didn't comment on it.

Because for the first time... it didn't feel like just a name.

It felt like someone saw him.....and that gave him an idea.

*Snap*

BZZZ

The static buzz of raw magic built in the air as red and blue glitches pulsed along Fatal's fingers. Behind him, a shape condensed in the space next to him —magic warping and folding into a solid shape that clicked together.

A blaster emerged slowly. A large, jagged skull with razor-lined edges and luminous eyes—the same corrupted red-and-blue hue that shimmered in Fatal's own sockets. But unlike the ones he formed before, this one had a larger shape, and was formed much more cleanly.

Fatal tapped the side of it like someone patting a stubborn engine as it's formation slowed down. "C'mon... don't fizzle out on me this time."

Sans blinked, stunned. "Uhh... Fatal? That's a Gaster blaster. You do know I'm not the one in crisis, right?"

"Wasn't gonna fire it," Fatal said flatly. "This one's mine. Custom made. Also, I'm not calling it a Gaster blaster for obvious reasons... It's not his. I'll call it a....... Fatal Blaster."

Sans looked from the hovering skull to Fatal. "Right. And summoning it in the middle of a vulnerable emotional moment is...?"

"You wanna see the surface properly or not?" Fatal asked. "Get on. It flies."

"...It what?"

"It flies. It can be used as a ride, Just hold tight."

Sans hesitated only a moment before cautiously stepping onto the back of the massive blaster. It gave a static rumble of acknowledgment but held steady, shifting only slightly under the weight. He instinctively wrapped his arms around one of the horns—if a little tightly.

The blaster twitched at the contact—more from surprise than discomfort—but didn't do anything else.

"Alright, Blaster... up."

The hover began with a soft thrum of static and rising air. grass was beneath them, then faded away completely as it lifted, smooth and slow, into the cloudy sky.

Sans gasped audibly as the entire mountains landscape shrank beneath them. The woods stretched for miles, lit by the pale gold of an early surface sunrise breaking over distant hills. The air smelled cold, moist. 

From up here, the world looked endless.

Sans leaned into the blaster just a little more, eyes wide with wonder. "This... this is unreal."

It was breathtaking.

Sans barely noticed how tight they were gripping the blaster, until the it shook itself in discomfort.. Still, they didn't care. It was worth it.

Minutes passed. The blaster hovered quietly, steady despite its nightmarish design. The view was incredible.

Eventually, Sans was brought back down.

“...Hey, why didn’t you come up?”

Fatal looked up from the ground, hood low over his sockets.

“…Never summoned one that worked before.”

The silence that followed was heavy.

“I didn’t wanna risk falling.”

Sans stared.

“…So you made me get on it first?”

“I figured with your personality you’d just bounce.”

Sans snorted. “That’s messed up.”

Fatal just shrugged, quietly looking at the clouds in the sunrise.

"I still can't believe I'm looking at The sun, babe," he sighed dreamily. "She's real. And she is gorgeous. I've missed her like she was my ex I actually liked."

Sans turned to Fatal, striking a pose. "Alright, mysterious multiverse man, show me the city! The shops! The culture! The cafés where brooding strangers buy you coffee!"

He looked back and caught Fatal just staring.

Not impressed. Not admiring. Just...Deadpan, staring at Sans outfit.

"What?" Sans asked, brushing imaginary dust from his jacket. "Too much for the surface?"

"...Yeah," Fatal said flatly. "Way too much."

Before Sans could respond with something about charm, Fatal reached into his inventory.

The air was filled with static for a brief moment, until a bunch of furniture landed.

First, a massive wardrobe slammed into place with a flash of blue static. Then another. Then a third. All of them mismatched but neatly arranged. Their doors opened on their own—one full of coats, another packed with pants and boots, and the third filled with accessories and undershirts

Finally, with a dramatic whine of static a three-piece full-body mirror slammed down into the ground in front of Sans. The glass shimmered with sunlight.

"...What in the hell?" Sans blinked. "What is all this?"

"Outfits," Fatal replied, rolling his shoulder like this was just normal Tuesday stuff. "I collect... stuff. Sometimes that stuff is clothing. It helps to blend in. Or stand out. Or look like you didn't crawl out of a dumpster."

Sans turned slowly, taking in the wardrobes with growing delight. His reflection sparkled in the mirror, shining slightly due to the sunlight—but still flattering.

"You mean to tell me," Sans whispered, touching one of the jackets almost reverently, "you've been walking around with a portable closet?"

"Technically it's an entire warehouse I sto- I got from that empty universe I told you a while back," Fatal muttered. "But sure. Closet."

Sans cackled. "Fatal, baby, you've been holding out on me! I was gonna wear that ratty hoodie you gave me, but now you expect me to ignore a full-out fashion studio?"

"You've got five minutes," Fatal said, folding his arms. "And don't pick anything that looks like it came from your world."

"Too late," Sans whispered, already elbow-deep in one of the wardrobes with gleaming eye lights.

Chapter Text

By the time the five minutes were up, Sans had just picked out a snug, layered black turtleneck under a long violet coat, paired with stylish boots that somehow screamed "fashion icon" and "I could steal your date" at the same time. He turned, holding the outfit up with a sparkle in his eye.

"Alright, Baby," he purred, "gonna get changed real quick. Hope you don't mind a little show."

Fatal didn't react. He was still standing there, arms crossed, His ever present static was gently fluttering around his face like butterflies, staring at nothing.

Sans smirked and took a step closer to him.

"Unless you want to watch. I charge extra for dinner and a show, y'know."

Nothing. Fatal blinked once, but didn't look away.

Sans pouted. "No reaction? Not even a twitch?" He tilted his head, now unbuttoning the jacket slowly, theatrically. "C'mon, you've got that look—like a confused little puppy trying to figure out where the laser dot went."

Still. Nothing. Fatal just tilted his head.

Sans raised an eyebrow. "What, are you waiting for a formal invitation to blush?"

"...What, you say something" Fatal asked.

Sans deciding to humor him repeated themselves.

Fatal blinked slowly, eye sockets buzzing their unique red-blue.

"You said... 'hope you don't mind a little show'—implying an undressing performance, not a metaphorical demonstration," he murmured, processing it like it was a foreign language. One hand under his chin, while the other was folded below it.

"You charge extra, meaning it's something you're willing to do, which implies this is intentional."

He paused. "...Dinner and a show."

There was a beat of silence as Sans could see the pieces click into place in Fatal's head.

"Oh."

His eye sockets widened  just slightly in realization—just a flicker, but the static that surrounded him seemed to pick up speed around him.

"Oh no."

And then, at last, he turned around. "I'm—not looking. You can—change now. I—uh—yeah."

Behind him, Sans let out a laugh so bright it could've been bottled and sold as joy.

"You're lucky you're cute when you panic," Sans called out as he started changing, clearly reveling in every moment of it.

Fatal muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "This universe is broken."

The shortcut out was smooth—much smoother then his.

One moment, Sans felt the cold bite of mountain wind on the back of his skull, the next he was standing before the towering remnants of this world's Barrier. Crystal fragments like glass stained with magic hung in the air, humming faintly. Shattered. Dead. But beautiful.

Then the wind hit again, clean and open and free.

And there was Fatal, already walking a few steps ahead, hood up, scarf billowing mist like static behind him.

Sans caught up quickly, falling into step beside him as they started down the old, winding road leading down the mountain an into the city. The way was cracked in places, dotted with patches of grass, faded welcome signs, and long-dead streetlights. Graffiti of both humans and monster together on broken guardrails.

"I could just shortcut us the rest of the way," Fatal muttered, arms tucked into his sleeves.

"Nope," Sans said with a grin, arms behind his head, walking backward to look at the open horizon. "You don't just skip this kinda thing. This is... new. Fresh air. No ceiling. Real sky. Actual birds."

He paused to watch a plane buzz overhead, then blinked at it. "...What the hell is that thing?"

" A giant Flying metal bird, called a plane" Fatal replied looking right at it even with the sun blocking his view. "Hollow in the inside. Lots of humans inside of it, used as transport. Very loud."

"Wild," Sans whispered, mesmerized, before spinning back into stride.

After a few silent minutes, Sans gave Fatal a side glance. "So... how do you know all this?"

"Trade secret," Fatal said dryly, not missing a beat.

"Trade secret, huh?" Sans leaned closer. "You sure it's not just—you're secretly some cosmic hoarder with a billion souvenirs from other universes?"

Fatal didn't answer. He just kept walking.

That was most defiantly a yes.

Sans grinned. "Okay. Alright. Lets test what you have, I'll say random stuff, If you have it. point to you, if not point to me.

Uh... beach ball."

Without even stopping, Fatal flicked his hand to the side. Pop. A perfectly inflated beach ball, bright red and blue, thudded into Sans's chest.

"Okay, wow," Sans said, hugging it.

"Waffle iron."

Pop. Waffle iron, still warm, still humming. Smelled like cinnamon.

"Rubber chicken."

Pop. Squawk.

Sans laughed. "Okay, okay! Uh... foot cream!"

Pop.

"...Ew."

"Your fault," Fatal muttered, not even looking. "You asked."

"You carry all this stuff?"

Fatal shrugged. "Not really. Stored. Kind of a subspace of my inventory system but tied to my own internal magic matrix. Dimensional compression with space-exempt threading. Holds more than it should."

"Translation: magic garbage bag."

"...sure lets go with that."

Sans was cackling now, trying to juggle the beach ball, waffle iron, and rubber chicken while still walking, they threw the cream away into a bush.

Then they crested a hill—and there it was. The city.

Bright. Alive. Cars rolling past. Billboards flashing. Neon blending with sunlight. Buildings that stretched upward like hopeful fingers, and people—humans and monsters—walking side by side.

Sans stopped walking entirely. His eyes widened.

"Holy hell," he whispered. "You weren't kidding..."

Fatal, standing beside him, just nodded. "Told you. Surface."

Sans gripped the chicken a little tighter. "...Best walk of my life."

The city buzzed with energy—cars rolling by, monsters and humans walking together like it wasn't a big deal, the occasional flash of a camera from a monster. To Sans, it was like stepping into a dream. To Fatal, it was a ticking clock of unknowns, risk, and possible opportunities for data collection.

They didn't rush. Sans made sure of that with how much sight seeing they were doing.

Every building, every window display got his attention. Street performers casting harmless spells, a newspaper stand with headlines about monster–human integration, and the scent—the scent of real food everywhere.

Eventually, the growling of Sans's stomach became the deciding factor.

They turned down a quieter side street and found a clean, stylish café tucked between a bookshop and a florist. It had actual windows—not magic projections, not enchanted crystal glass, but real sunlight pouring through real windows. The sign outside was modest, simply reading: "Muffet's."

Inside was quiet jazz, potted plants, velvet-backed chairs, and the faint smell of lavender and roasted beans. And behind the counter—polishing a tall glass with two of her many hands—was Muffet.

Sans did a double take.

"Wait. Is that—?"

"Yep," Fatal said casually, already walking toward the counter.

Sans gawked. "She's in a suit—like, like, a real one. Buttoned vest, tie, sleeves rolled, and is that a slicked-back bun? back home, Muffet ran a bakery on the side and gave people pastries shaped like butts."

Fatal stopped short. "...Excuse me?"

"Don't worry about it."

Muffet looked up and offered a calm, professional smile—nothing like the coquettish, teasing flair Sans remembered. She took one look at them—two skeletons, one somehow glitching faintly at the edges and the other dressed like a dream—and gave a nod that screamed, I've seen weirder.

"Booth?" she asked.

"We need somewhere with privacy," Fatal said plainly, voice low and even.

She didn't ask why his voice was like that, but you could tell it spooked her. So she just gestured with an arm toward the far corner was an built-in booth, tucked half into an alcove with some curtains drawn half aside.

"Coziest one's yours. Menu's already there, just tell one of the spiders and your order will be brought to the table."

"Thanks," Sans chimed with a wink.

Muffet only raised one brow in return.

The two of them made their way to the booth. Sans dropped into his seat with a sigh of dramatic flair, while Fatal slid in across from him, already scanning the table with his blue eye socket glowing.

The quiet here was nice. Muted. It felt separate from the hum of the city. Safe, even.

"So," Sans said, lacing his fingers together. "Now that I'm on a real surface, and we're not being stared at by a spider in slacks—what do you think about showing me more of what your multiverse has to offer?"

Fatal just exhaled slowly and leaned back into the booth.

"First," he said, flatly, "I'm ordering a milkshake. Because the universe owes me something sweet today."

Sans smiled. "Fair."

A spider appeared before the two, crawling on the table to get there attention, seeing the little spider, Sans placed an order for a strawberry and chocolate milkshake.

The spider, after confirming their orders, crawled away from the two. Sans sat across from Fatal in the booth, his expression kept twisting somewhere between awe and visible confusion. He kept glancing around the café like it might shift back into something more familiar at any second. His fingers tapping against the table.

"I don't get it," he finally said, voice low, more serious than usual. "Muffet's wearing a suit. She's not flirting, she's not selling anything sticky, and she just handed me a menu with prices. Why is this world so different?"

Fatal paused mid-scan of the menu, lowering his hand and sighing through his teeth.

"You understand the concept of a swap-type AU?"

Sans blinked. "Swap?"

"Yeah," Fatal leaned forward, lacing his fingers together on the table. "Whole worlds where roles are flipped. Personalities shift. Sometimes it's a one-for-one switch—sometimes it's looser, or less of a swap and more of a shift. In this one?" 

"The you here acts more like there brother, but they probably still have some stuff that made them them, mostly. But everything around us? It's been... swapped."

Sans furrowed his brow. "So... like who is who?"

"For starters," Fatal said, pointing lazily upward, "the queen is the one who stayed behind. She leads. Asgore was the one that left to the Ruins years ago."

Sans blinked. "What?"

Fatal nodded. "Toriel's the ruler here, and as you can see, Muffet over there replaces grillby, and this world's Sans and Papyrus are swaped as well."

Sans sank slightly in his seat, trying to wrap his head around it. "So... what, this is a 'cleaned-up' version of my world?"

"Sorta. More like a mirrored one." Fatal's voice was static but steady. "Your world fell one way. This one spun the other. Same people, different momentum. Like a dance where everyone took the opposite step."

Sans looked down at his gloves. He flexed his fingers, then glanced toward the front of the café again, where a bunch of bunny monsters seemed to be playing cards.

"No LUST injections here?" he asked, not accusatory—just distant.

"Nope," Fatal confirmed. "This place never went through that desperation. They didn't try to fix their problems with soul traits. They never had the birth rate problem. Clean slate."

Sans sat with that for a moment. "And what, you just travel to places like this? Watch 'em? Catalog them?"

"I go where I land," Fatal muttered, eyes flickering with faint red and blue glitch light. "Sometimes I stay. Sometimes I leave before they notice."

A silence settled over the booth.

"...It's weird," Sans said finally, voice soft. "I don't know anyone here. But I do. It's like... my world's playing backwards. I half expect someone to recognize me."

Sans smiled faintly. But before he could respond, Fatal spoke again — this time, more focused.

"But you should know... Someone might recognize us."

Sans tilted his head. "Huh?"

Fatal turned his mug slowly in place, watching the reflection of the soft light from his eye sockets ripple across the surface.

"We're still a 'Sans'. Doesn't matter how different we act or dress. The base design? It is similar across every AU. Same build, same height. Same eye sockets." He paused. "And in most worlds, there are only two skeletons — not four."

Sans blinked.

Fatal looked up, gaze steady but empty. "So even if no one here knows who we are, they might stop and wonder when suddenly two new skeletons show up with no backstory."

Sans sat a little straighter. "You're saying we stick out."

"I'm saying," Fatal said evenly, "you're the only one here wearing violet coat, a heart belt, and a feathered scarf. And we both have the same build as this world's Sans. That's two red flags and a half."

Sans slowly sank down in the booth, pulling his coat's collar up a little higher as he gave an exaggerated groan. "Ugh. I hate it when you're right. It's like being scolded by a haunted computer."

Fatal shook his head, then looked out the window again. "Don't get too comfy. Even good timelines can notice when something doesn't belong."

"Gee, thanks," Sans muttered, sipping his shake. "Real comforting."

"You're the one who begged me to open the portal," Fatal said, sipping his drink with a satisfied tilt of his head. "I just provide the windows. It's up to you not to break the glass."

Sans snorted. "Fair. But maybe next time, we both wear hoodies. And you don't summon a war machine just to fly me across the skyline like it's a date."

Fatal glanced at him. "I didn't say it wasn't a date."

Sans choked on his shake, eye lights expanding wide in shock.

Fatal blinked once. Then tilted his head, as Sans started coughing out their milkshake.

"...That was a joke, why did a joke cause you physical pain....I thought I got humor down."

Sans exhaled softly, laughing against the rim of his mug. "Stars above, It's because your sense of humor is broken."

Chapter Text

The soft jingle of the café door broke the rhythm of their quiet back-and-forth. Sans glanced over lazily, expecting another monster or the rare sighting of a human.

Instead, the energy in the room shifted.

"Chara!!" called a muffled voice from behind the counter, followed by a wave of cheers, claps, and a few monsters excitedly waving with both hands.

Sans blinked as the small human stepped inside, bundled in a slightly oversized hoodie, striped with green and yellows. Their face was warm with rosy cheeks, smile — the kind that had seen too much and somehow still managed to shine.

Everywhere they looked, monsters grinned, waved, or nodded in silent thanks.

"What's... with the sudden fanfare?" Sans leaned in, his voice low.

Fatal was already standing.

"That's the seventh? fallen human," he muttered. "The kid that freed this worlds Monsterkind from the underground."

Sans blinked again, glancing toward the child who was now giggling as a spider monster handed them a fresh slice of pie.

"Wait. That's the human?"

Fatal didn't respond. He was already pulling his hood higher and moving toward the far side of the booth, body tensing in a way Sans hadn't seen since they arrived.

"...We should go."

Sans raised a brow. "Uh, why? They look like a cinnamon roll with legs."

"They personally know the Sans and Papyrus of this world," Fatal said, voice quiet and clipped. "And if they see us—two skeletons who look just like this worlds Sans—they'll come over."

"And?"

Fatal turned to look at him fully now, static flaring faintly at the edges of his sockets. "And I don't have a story that'll hold up under scrutiny."

Sans's smirk faltered, nodding slowly.

"Alright. Alright, I get it."

Together, they slipped quietly from the booth. Fatal kept his head low, scanning every angle of the room. Sans followed with a more casual stride, one hand tucked into his coat, eye lights flitting once toward the kid — who was now distracted chatting with Muffet.

Outside, the sun had now reached its highest point in the sky falling again

===========

Chara stepped into the café with their usual casual slouch, brushing off their shoulders. The warm, roasted scent of pastries and fresh spider cider hit them immediately, and their fingers twitched toward their worn hoodie pocket where some spare gold jingled.

"Charaaa!" shouted someone from behind the counter. A cheer rose up from the regulars scattered through the place. A few monsters raised their mugs, some waved excitedly, and Muffet gestured them over with a smile.

They offered a small wave, eyes scanning the room automatically.

It was always like this. Everyone happy. Everyone safe. Everyone thankful.

"Smells good in here today," Frisk's voice rang softly near Chara's ear—though they weren't visible at the moment. Not unless they wanted to be. Just a slight shimmer of heat next to Chara's shoulder.

Chara gave the faintest nod. "Yeah, not bad."

They stepped away from the counter, but Frisk's voice suddenly dropped. "Wait."

Chara paused mid-step. "What?"

"There." A pale, translucent finger pointed toward the corner booth near the door. "Those two. You see them?"

Chara followed the line of sight and saw something they have never in all off their journeys of going through the underground.

A pair of skeletons, that weren't Sans and Papyrus. One wore a fashionable fur-lined coat and seemed to ooze charisma even from a distance. The other— was hooded, twitchy, with a weird  effect distorting their silhouette like a tv.

As soon as the two unfamiliar skeletons stepped out of the café, Chara leaned back in their booth and blinked.

Chara's brows furrowed. "Two new skeletons."

Frisk blinked. "Yeah...?"

"There's only supposed to be two," Chara whispered, eyes wide, practically vibrating in place now. "Sans and Papyrus. That's the rule."

Frisk hesitated. "I don't think that's an actual rule—"

"No, no, it totally is!" Chara slapped both hands on the table and stood up. "They told me! Back when we made tacos in Snowdin—Sans said it himself! Only two skeletons in the entire Underground!"

"They're leaving," Frisk whispered,  voice cutting through there rant.

Chara didn't hesitate.

They spun around and slipped through the café doors, the soft chime drowned out by the rush of cold air. Eyes scanning the street, boots crunching against the pavment, breath already fogging in front of their mouth.

"There!" Frisk hissed again, voice close.

Chara spotted the figures cutting through the street toward the edge of the district. The shorter one—wearing that dramatic coat with the bright fur—was gesturing playfully, while the taller one moved in half-steps, walking at a quick pace.

Chara's head throbbed when she looked at him for too long.

"There they go!" Frisk pointed—just ahead, Fatal and Sans were strolling casually toward the edge of the street, mid-conversation, completely unaware of the whirlwind coming for them.

Chara grinned, eyes sparkling with excitement. "Time for a side quest."

Frisk groaned. "Can we not chase strangers without any plan—?"

"NOPE!"

Chara took off at full sprint, the bandana Sans gave them as a gift flapping behind them, boots crunching in snow with every determined step. "NEW PEOPLE MEAN NEW ADVENTURES!"

"Chara, you're yelling again—"

"THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!"

They tore through the street, dodging monsters, tripping over a knocked-over objects, and jumping back into pace with unreasonably heroic flair. In the distance, one of the skeletons—The static covered one—glanced over their shoulder, blinking straight at them.

That's when Chara finally had a good look at the taller one.

"...Did someone just yell about something?"

Sans blinked, smirking. "I think we're being followed, darling."

Fatal Error blinked once, then twice, already glitching slightly at the corners. "Oh stars. It's that small child again."

"How bad can it be?"

Fatal stared behind them. Chara was coming at them like a heat-seeking missile of energy and unfiltered curiosity, arms flailing wildly.

"Very," he muttered. "Very bad."

As soon as Fatal saw the kid leap from the street towards them, he felt a familiar spike of anxiety twist in his core. His sockets narrowed, a pulse of static flickering across his form.

"Nope," he muttered.

Before Sans could even turn to ask what was wrong, Fatal's hand landed on his shoulder.

SHNK—!

With a brief surge of magic and the sound of pure static, the two vanished from the sidewalk—and reappeared back in front of the cafe, just far enough away that they wouldn't be seen doubling back.

Sans blinked at the abrupt shift, straightening his jacket. "Okaay~ rude, but efficient."

"Didn't want to play tag with a hyper gremlin today," Fatal muttered, already turning on his heel and walking the opposite direction from the cafe. "Let's go before they loop the block."

"But what if they're friendly?"

"I don't do friendly. I do quiet. I do 'no child-shaped problems'."

Sans chuckled softly but fell in step beside him. "You know, for someone with infinite access to the multiverse, you sure stress about random kids."

"I don't stress because I don't know how" Fatal said, tone flat. "So I evade."

=====================

The phone buzzed loudly on the coffee table, vibrating between two empty honey packets. This worlds Sans—jittery and wide-eyed as ever—who was busy cleaning the living room of there new house, leapt over the couch and scooped it up with a big grin.

"WOWZERS! THIS IS THE MAGNIFICENT SANS! WHAT CAN I HELP WITH LITTLE HUMAN?"

On the other side of the line, Chara's voice crackled through: excited, breathless, and slightly dramatic. "SANS! There were two more skeletons in the café. Two! Not one—two!"

 Sans blinked. "HUH? YOU MEAN LIKE... COSPLAY? OR LIKE ACTUAL BONE SKELETONS?"

"They looked like you and Paps, but way more like you! But like, different. One was wearing weird hobo clothes and he was covered in STATIC, and the other was... super cool looking."

 Sans scratched his head. His eye sockets lit up with curiosity. "THAT'S... ODDLY SPECIFIC. WHAT WERE THEY DOING'?"

"Running away! Well, they didn't run exactly. The staticky one put his hand on the shiny one's shoulder and they just vanished! Like—poof!  like Pappy's Shortcut!"

Now fully intrigued, Sans stood upright, a rare flash of seriousness crossing his boney face.

"SO... TWO NEW SKELETONS, LOOK JUST LIKE ME AND PAPS, but MORE SO ME. YOU THINK THEY'RE LOST RELETIVES?"

Chara gasped. "Do you have secret long lost cousins?!"

"NOPE, I'D REMEBER THAT KINDA THING. BUT HEY, MABYE SIR ASGORE KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT THIS? OR QUEEN TORIAL."

"Should I chase them again if I see them?" Chara asked, bouncing on the balls of their feet in the middle of the street.

"NO, IT WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU WAIT THERE FOR ME, BUT DO LOOK AROUND TO TRY AND SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT THERE TRAIL."

"Got it. Tactical hunting, not reckless chasing."

Click.

Sans stood still for a moment, looking out the window from there new house on the surface. The wind rustled lightly through the trees nearby.

"Huh... new skeletons. This day just got a whole lot more interesting."

Then he heard it—His brother's voice, faint, from the kitchen.

"Wait, slow down, kiddo. You said... two skeletons?"

A click of a phone call ending followed, and then a flurry of footsteps.

Papyrus stepped into the hall just as his brother was about burst out from the living room, his orange hoodie worn in that usual haphazard way.

"Bro!" Sans beamed, holding up the phone like it had just delivered the secret to eternal life. "You're not gonna believe this! Chara just saw two new skeletons around Muffet's café!"

Papyrus blinked, unmoved. "Same, just got off the phone with 'em. So two new skeletons. What, like... cousins we forgot existed?"

"Maybe! Or long-lost family! Or maybe aliens in disguise who look like us—ooooh! Maybe they're from a secret underground underground! A double underground!"

Papyrus took a cigarette out and stared at it, debating if this conversation was worth lighting it for.

"That's ridiculous," he muttered. "We're the only skeletons. Always have been. We've got no cousins, no weird uncles, no clone army hiding in the Hotland steam vents."

"Or do we?" Sans raised his brows dramatically, wiggling his fingers like he was casting a spell. "Look, all I'm saying is, we should check it out.  I'm always telling you to leave the house more anyways."

Papyrus tilted his head, skeptical. "And what? Just knock on doors and ask if any skeletons came through town recently?"

"Nope." Sans grinned, wide and mischievous. "We follow the trail. Chara said they were near the area. That means we start at Muffet's and go full detective from there."

Papyrus gave him a long, silent stare, then sighed and put the cigarette back in his hoodie pocket. "Fine. But if it turns out to be someone playing dress-up, I'm blaming you for wasting my sleep opportunity."

Sans gave a playful salute. "Blame accepted!"

And with that, the two skeletons prepped anything they needed for the day—well, Sans did, Papyrus just pulled out a new hoodie—and stepped out into Sans car, which was a real life replica of his race car bed. 

Chapter Text

The city had gone into full swing by midday. Cars sped down the main roads, shops opened with the clatter of keys and bells, and the people along the sidewalks had turned into a mob of busy footsteps. Fatal and Sans walked side by side, Sans was still throwing glances at every billboard, bird, and bouquet like they were national treasures, while Fatal kept his hood low and his gaze down to avoid anyone seeing his eye sockets.

“Oh my stars, look at that!” Sans exclaimed, pointing to a flock of birds gliding overhead. “Are those pigeons? They’re just... flying! They’re not anyone pestering me every second! And that food cart actually has food that's not drugged!” He twisted around so fast his coat ruffled. “And that kid just waved at me—like, not in a ‘flirty’ way, just—friendly! This place is so—alive!”

He bounced in place like his SOUL was physically vibrating from joy. “And the sky, stars above, the sky! It’s so wide it’s terrifying—like I could fall upward forever if I looked too long, y’know? I swear, I’m gonna cry again.”

Fatal didn’t answer immediately. He was leaned forward, still walking as Sans tried to look him in the eye sockets, which were half-lidded behind the white veil of his hood.

Sans finally turned to him, the sharp contrast between their moods hitting him like a snowball to the face.

“Hey,” he said, nudging him lightly with an elbow. “Why aren’t you freaking out like I am? Don’t tell me this isn’t amazing to you.”

“It is,” Fatal said simply, his tone was to flat for sans to tell if he was joking or not. “It’s... breathtaking. Unreal, even.”

Sans tilted his head. “Then what’s with the gloomy stare?”

Fatal sighed, his voice rasping with the faint static of overused code. “Because I, unlike you, can see it anytime I want.”

That took Sans off guard.

“I can come here anytime,” Fatal continued, glancing upward toward the glowing clouds. “Ten thousand versions of this place. Slightly different cities, skies, people. I could blink and be in one with purple clouds or floating streets or talking vending machines.”

He paused. Then continued in the same tone of voice, “But you... this is your first time. It’s new. Real. To me, this is just another world. To you, it’s probably a miracle.”

Sans went still.

He looked out at the sun again—yellow light, blue sky—but now with a flicker of something heavier behind his eye lights. pity?, almost. Or sadness? Fatal couldn't tell what emotion Sans was feeling. He let the silence stretch between them, the only sound being those of the city around them.

“…Then maybe,” Sans said patiently, “you should stop looking at it like it’s a window.”

Fatal turned to him confused. 'What the hell does any of that even mean'?

“And start looking at it like it’s a chance to live.”

' Again, what does any of that mean'?

For a brief moment, the glitching around Fatal’s skull sped up. His sockets softened—not with warmth exactly, but more like some kind of stillness.

“…Maybe,” he said. “But that kind of perspective’s harder to summon than a blaster after being by yourself for so long.”

Sans smirked. “Good thing you’ve got me now, huh?”

Fatal snorted once. “Lucky me.”

They turned a corner past a bookstore—and nearly collided head-on with a very startled female fish monster.

“A-Ah! Sorry—!” she yelped, clutching a wrapped bouquet of bright flowers to her chest. She stepped back in reflex, nearly bumping into the shoulder of a yellow lizard monster, who looked up from her phone with a blink.

“Oh. Huh. Hey, you two lost?” the yellow one asked with a casual grin. “Don’t think I’ve seen either of you around.”

Undyne? squinted between them, her brows lifting.

“Wait… you guys are… skeletons?” she asked slowly, tilting her head. “Like… Sans and Papyrus?”

Sans paused mid-step, blinking. “Uh. Yeah? Last I checked.” He smiled in that slow, coy way of his. “Unless you’re gonna say I’m just bone-afide charming.”

 Alphys groaned. “Okay, that pun makes it confirmed.”

Undyne stepped closer, eyes scanning them curiously through her large glasses. “That’s so weird… Sans and Papyrus always said they were the only skeletons down here. Like, biologically unique or something.”

Fatal’s eye sockets buzzed faintly, but he kept his tone neutral. “Huh. Must’ve been misinformed.”

There was a beat of silence, then Alphys narrowed one eye.

“…You guys related to Sans and Papyrus?”

Sans glanced at Fatal.

Fatal didn’t skip a beat. “No.”

Alphys raised an eyebrow. “You sure? You kinda look like if Sans got dipped in purple glitter.”

Sans laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Undyne, ever the curious one, fumbled with her phone. “Maybe I should tell Sans we saw you—”

“No!” both Sans and Fatal said at once, startling her.

Fatal cleared his throat. “I mean. No need to bother anyone. We’re just visiting.”

Alphys blinked. “...Are you two tourists?”

Sans jumped in with a dazzling grin. “Absolutely. Full-on sightseers. You should see how impressed I was by birds this morning.”

Alphys scratched the back of her head, still looking at them suspiciously, but eventually shrugged. “Alright, well, if you are related to those boneheads, tell ‘em we’re still waiting on them to join a movie night.”

Undyne nodded. “It’s My Mew Mew 3: Super Galaxy Battle! tonight.”

Sans’s mouth opened. “That sounds—”

Fatal grabbed his shoulder, gently but firmly, and tugged him down the sidewalk.

“Nice meeting you,” Fatal muttered over his shoulder, already walking to a different street.

As the two walked away, Undyne leaned over to Alphys and whispered, “...They’re totally hiding something.”

Alphys nodded rapidly. “Definitely.”

Back down the street, Sans was grinning.

“Well, that could’ve gone worse.”

Fatal gave a long sigh. “Give it time.”

Undyne's phone buzzed just after the two skeletons had left—an eager, persistent ring that almost startled her into dropping it. She glanced at the screen and perked up immediately.

"It's the kid."

Alphys, arms crossed and watching the direction the skeletons walked off in, grunted. "Put him on speaker."

Undyne answered with a tap. "Hey! You'll never believe who we just bumped into—"

"—Two new skeletons?" Sans said brightly from the other end. "One of them kinda twitchy?"

"Y-Yeah! One was well put together, super confident, dressed like a pro—"
"And the other was taller," Alphys added, “Dude walks like someone’s got a sword to his back 24/7.”

Alphys picked up on it the moment he stepped into her field of vision. Her eyes were squinted in thought.

“There’s something really wrong with his magical frequency…”

She didn’t know what he was or where he came from, but his emotional output was like listening to a scrambled distress call on repeat. It made her instinctively cautious. Not afraid — just aware that this guy wasn’t as together as he looked. If she had the chance, she’d have already CHECK'ed him.

She could feel the nerves under his poker face-that she was sure had to be frozen since he didn't react even as his panic spiked when sans was afforded to be called. Almost any trained monster could sense the sheer intent leaking out in the spaces around him. And she respects that he’s clearly holding it together anyway — but part of her is on guard. If he snaps, she wants to be ready. 

There was a moment of silence on the line.

"Whoa," Sans muttered. "See Paps, told you I was right."

Papyrus's voice chimed in from the background. "Alright alright you win bro, there are actual other skeleton monster's other then us, happy now?."

Alphys glanced down the path. "They were heading north—toward the fountain park. Probably still nearby unless they could teleport or something."

"Got it," Sans said, and then came Chara's voice yelling in the background: "TO THE PARK!"

 Undyne hung up as Alphys gave a toothy grin. "Think we should've stopped them?"

"They didn't seem dangerous," Undyne muttered, squinting in the direction they'd vanished. "Just... scared. Especially the taller one. He would have probably gone ballistic if we tried."

Alphy's smile dropped into a slight frown. "Yeah. I noticed that too."

About five minutes later, the crew arrived—Sans, Papyrus, Chara, and an unseen Frisk, slightly out of breath from the light jog.

Alphys waved them over. "You just missed them."

"Figures," Papyrus sighed, putting his hands in his hoodie pocket. "That's what I get for trying to finish my corndog first."

"Where'd they go?" Sans asked, bouncing on his toes.

Alphys pointed. "Fountain park—just keep heading straight until you hit the first bridge. They were walking, not teleporting."

Chara immediately turned and bolted. "Let's move, people! I've got questions!"

Frisk floated after them.

Sans saluted. "On it, science friends!"

Papyrus lingered a second, then looked at Alphys. "Anything weird about them?"

Alphys answered first. "Yeah. The Taller one gave off bad vibe. Not evil. Just... very ready to through attacks if threaten."

Papyrus nodded once. "Then we'll keep our distance. But keep an eye out—just in case his not as stable as he looks."

He turned and ran walked after the group.

A giant mall loomed ahead like a glittering monolith of surface civilization. Sans, all smiles and awe, was busy pointing out every window display and tall glass door like he was walking through heaven's gift shop.

"Ohhh Fatal, look! That one's a beauty store! And that's a place where they customize clothes. And—wait—is that a shop that sells pretzels the size of your head!?"

Fatal kept a slow, steady pace beside him, hands in his pockets, hood up. "This is weird," he muttered. "But... fine weird."

Then it happened.

Across the street, just as they reached the glass entry of the mall, Chara's voice rang out like thunder

"THERE THEY ARE!!"

Fatal stiffened instantly.

He turned and caught sight of Chara bolting full speed, with a Swap Sans and Papyrus variant close behind.

His soul nearly dropped into the pavement.

"Nope. Absolutely not."

Without another word, Fatal grabbed Sans by the arm, ignoring their confused "Wha–hey!" and dragged them straight through the rotating mall doors.

They disappeared into the crowd, the automatic glass doors sliding shut with a hiss just as Chara skid to a stop in front of them.

"Shoot! I almost had 'em!"

Ghost Frisk floated up beside her, frowning. "They went inside. Should we follow?"

Papyrus caught up next, puffing slightly. "They seem... skittish. Let's not spook them into running forever."

"Too late for that,"  Sans said, peering into the glass. "They're in full 'stranger danger' mode now."

He adjusted his blue bandana and grinned. "But if they're in the mall, that means they can't just poof outta here, right?"

"Unless they shortcut through the wall or something," Papyrus muttered.

Chara pointed toward the entrance with sparkling determination.

"Okay, split up. Check the stores, food court, the weird fountain with the animatronic duck. We're finding those skeletons."

Meanwhile...

Fatal was speed-walking through polished floors, ducking past kiosks and avoiding eye contact. He still held onto Sans's wrist, who was stumbling behind, their shoes clacking against tile.

"Fatal! You can let go, I have legs—"

"Too risky," Fatal muttered, turning a sharp corner, the pressure that's been on him was growing every second he stayed out in the open. "Too many people. Too many eyes. Too much everything."

"It's a mall! Not a battlefield!"

"You'd be surprised."

They slipped into a side hallway—near the bathrooms, supply doors, and janitor closets—finding momentary cover in the shadow of a tall vending machine.

Sans pulled their arm back gently. "Hey... You okay?"

Sans could tell from the sheer intent Fatal was letting out the fact that that were most defiantly not okay,

Fatal didn't answer at first. Then ignored it entirely as he just stared down the hallway.

"They shouldn't have followed us, There not supposed to follow us, why were they following us"

Sans had seen it before.

He might wear the smile of a flirt and speak in innuendos, but years of living with his own spirals—and pulling Papyrus out of one or two—had tuned him to certain signs. A certain stiffness in posture. A too-long pause between steps. A kind of silence that wasn’t thoughtful… just empty.

And Fatal was showing all of them, at the same time.

At first, it was hard to read him. His face was stuck in that casual almost smug grin — something stuck, mechanical, so reading him just of that was always a challenge. But what made it easier to read him was his intent. That instinctual sensation every monster gave off, that gut-level emotional aura most barely noticed in others. Fatal’s was… something else.

Most monsters whispered their feelings.
Fatal was screaming his, without even knowing it.

That usually ever-present static — was crackling behind his magic — had grown louder, harsher, the screech was just slightly off. Not enough to make others flinch, but enough for Sans to feel it in his teeth. It grated. Not because it was aggressive — but because it was so raw. So anxious. Every second that passed

Fatal himself couldn't tell, but Sans saw the signs enough times to now when some one was spiraling, that only was made easier to see when Fatal's intent was conveying the sheer anxiety the other was experiencing, though his grin hadn't moved an inch, but the static that was always around him seemed to get louder and more agitated then ever.

Chapter Text

Fatal hauled Sans through one last shortcut and stumbled out onto the mall rooftop, boots skidding against the gravel. Static flickered unstable behind them, a crackling buzz in the air before going back to a dull buzz. He didn't move right away, just stood at the edge of the roof, staring down at the maze of streets below.

Every exit looked wrong. Too many people. Too many eyes. Too many places to be cornered again. His grin didn't waver, but his hands trembled just slightly where they clenched and unclenched at his sides.

Sans, still catching their breath, brushed themselves off and gave a shaky laugh. "Oooookay, sweetie, I know I said this was fun, but, uh... you good? 'Cause I'm gettin' some real bad vibes off you right now."

Bad vibes was an understatement.

Fatal didn't know what was happening to him.
He never did, not really. One moment he'd been fine—well, fine enough—and then something inside him started to tangle?, it felt like threads pulling tighter and tighter until they felt like they'd snap. His chest felt like it was collapsing inward, his thoughts were skipping like a broken record, and the static in his head had gone from background noise to an all-consuming roar.

But outwardly? Nothing changed.
The grin stayed plastered on his face, same as always. His movements didn't twitch or shake. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was perfectly calm.

For most monsters, intent was like background music: subtle, easy to ignore unless you were really paying attention. Anger hummed sharp and hot, joy glowed soft and steady, fear came in little flickers that could be tucked away if you didn't want anyone to notice. Adults learned to fold it neatly into their souls, like keeping your voice low in a crowded room. Kids... well, kids were loud. They broadcasted whatever they felt without meaning to.

Fatal wasn't loud. Fatal was a storm.

He didn't even know it.

To everyone else, standing near him was like having someone shove feelings not theirs's directly into your skull—except those feelings were dense. he was anxious, it wasn't just a nervous hum; it was like sinking into cold water with static in your ears. When he was curious, it felt jagged, electric, like being wired into something too big to process. And underneath it all, no matter what emotion he sent out, there was always that static—a warping, scraping noise to the mind, as if something was fundamentally wrong in the way his soul carried emotion.

Most Monsters felt it before they even realized they were reacting to it. The air seemed heavier near him, charged like a thunderstorm about to break. His intent wasn't just spilling out anymore—it was pouring, an unfiltered wave of raw panic drowning in jagged static. It wasn't fear like most monsters knew it; it was a kind of fear that made you feel lost, like you were plummeting through endless dark with no ground to hit.

By now, even Sans's normally resilient nerves were starting to fray. Fatal's intent had gone from a jittery background hum to something heavier—thicker, like walking through air that hurt to breathe. It wasn't just panic anymore. It was static layered over static, a feeling that pressed against your ribs and whispered you shouldn't be here.

And then the others arrived.

The door to the roof burst open, and this worlds Sans, Alphys, Undyne, and Chara poured out like a wave. But even they slowed as they crossed into the field of Fatal's intent.

Chara froze mid-step, their usual bright grin faltering. "...What is that?" they muttered, voice small. It was like tasting metal in the back of their mouth, like fear that wasn't theirs seeping into their bones.

Even Swap Sans, ever the optimist, hesitated for the first time. His smile wobbled as he tilted his head. swallowed hard, eye sockets wide and scanning Fatal like he was seeing something dangerous but also hurt. "He's not—he's not attacking. That's not aggression. That's—oh stars, he's panicking...Buddy? You okay?"

Fatal didn't answer. He just kept scanning the edges of the roof like a trapped animal looking for a way out that didn't exist.

Sans stepped closer, their usual playful toned down to something simpler. "Hey," they said softly, almost gently, "whatever's happenin' in that head of yours... you're gonna burn yourself out if you keep it up."

Fatal twitched at the words, static snapping louder around him, though he didn't seem to notice. He didn't even know this was happening—the intent, the spiral, how it was bleeding into everyone else. To him, this was just thinking. Just problem-solving.

The wind howled between the buildings as Fatal and sans stood at the edge, his grin fixed but his body trembling in jagged twitches. His magic was spiraling out of control, Two glitchy skeletal Hands sparking into existence behind him, distorting the air with static.

They could all feel it.

Even Chara—who didn’t quite understand magic the way monsters did—felt it. The air itself was choking, thick with panic and static that clawed at the edges of their mind. Swap Sans stumbled back a step, clutching at his blue bandana, his normally cheerful aura flickering with unease.

“HE’S ABOUT TO BLOW—!” Undyne shouted, voice higher than usual.

Alphys grabbed Undyne’s arm, her usually fierce bravado slipping. “If he releases that here, everyone below is done—”

But Fatal wasn’t listening. He wasn’t seeing them at all. His sockets were wide and unfocused, his breathing shallow, though his grin didn’t falter. His magic kept building,

His magic wasn’t angry. It wasn’t malicious.
He was spiraling and he didn’t even know it.

Then, all at once, Sans moved.

In one decisive step, he closed the distance, shoving his own fear aside. “HEY—HEY, LOOK AT ME!” he barked, voice sharp enough to cut through the static. Fatal didn’t react, still lost in his overload.

So Sans did something bold.(It was still incredibly stupid that you did that)

He grabbed Fatal’s face. Both hands, firm but not rough, forcing the other skeleton’s glowing sockets to lock onto his own. Sans’s eye lights flared brighter, his intent sharpening like a focused beam straight into Fatal's own sockets.

Sans’s POV

The moment Sans’s hands clamped onto Fatal’s skull, it was like shoving his palms into Tv static.

Static wasn’t just sound with this guy. It was everything. It thrummed up through Sans’s fingers, down his arms, and into his ribcage like a thousand broken radios screaming on different stations. Images—half-formed, glitching, wrong—flashed at the edges of his thoughts: a golden corridors with no ends, hands that didn’t belong to him, a sick feeling like nails dragged across glass.

For a heartbeat, Sans almost let go. His own intent wavered, threatened to crack under the sheer weight of what Fatal was broadcasting. Most monsters leaked emotion like a smell, easy to sense but easy to ignore if you wanted to. Fatal’s wasn’t a leak—it was a flood. A storm that didn’t care who it drowned.

And underneath all that noise, he felt it:
Not rage. Not cruelty.
Just panic.
Raw, suffocating, animal panic.

Oh, baby, Sans thought, sockets narrowing as his grip tightened, you’re not scary—you’re drowning.

So he did the only thing he could think of. He shoved back.

Pushing intent wasn’t something Sans usually had to try at. It came naturally—flirtation, charisma, confidence, all the little currents that made people look at him and think, “yeah, he’s got this.” But this wasn’t a crowd he was charming. This was… like trying to drop an anchor into a black hole.

Still, he focused. He scraped together everything solid he had—the warmth of a good joke, the steady hum of self-assurance, that stubborn part of him that refused to ever back down—and he forced it outward, a blazing thread of violet cutting through the static.

Feel this, he thought as hard as he could, teeth gritted. Safety, Warmth. Protection

For a split second, he wasn’t sure it would work. Fatal’s static bucked against him, jagged and cold, threatening to chew his intent up and spit it back out in pieces. But then—
A flicker. A stutter in the storm.

Sans caught it,  the tiniest hesitation in Fatal’s magic, like it didn't know what to do when not threatened. His sockets focused for the first time, staring at Sans like he was something solid to hold onto instead of another hallucination.

The longer Sans held on, the more he realized he hadn’t even scratched the surface.

Panic had been the loudest thing at first, sharp and choking, but now—forcing his intent deeper—he started feeling the layers beneath it. And holy hell, it was worse than he expected.

It wasn’t just fear. Fear had an edge, a shape, something you could grab onto and talk down. Fatal’s mind didn’t have shapes. It was like stepping into a house where every room was collapsing at a different speed. Some walls had caved in years ago, others were just starting to crack, and under all of it was this awful, buzzing foundation that felt… wrong. Like it had been poured crooked and left to rot.

And the static—Stars, the static wasn’t random. It meant something. Little fragments, ugly flashes of understanding slammed into Sans like debris.

Isolation. Not just being alone. Being convinced that was how the world worked. Fatal’s soul had never wrapped around the idea of “someone else.”

Pain. Not the clean kind you could point to and say, “that hurt.” This was the drawn-out kind, the kind that soaked into everything until you forgot it was even pain.

Detachment. Entire chunks of who he was supposed to be felt… gone. Like someone had cut pieces out of his mind with a dull knife and left the edges frayed.

Sans found himself gripping harder,-Though he knew that Fatal was too out of it to actually feel any of it,- sockets narrowing in something that wasn’t flirtation, wasn’t pity. It was just—Shit How are alive?.

This wasn’t a guy who’d been “through some stuff.” This was a guy who had no idea how bad off he was, because he didn’t even know what “okay” was supposed to feel like.

The strangest part? There was no malice in it. No sharp edge that screamed danger. Fatal wasn’t a bomb about to go off. He was more like…
…a kid holding a loaded gun and realizing it was pointed at himself, but saw no problems with it.

Sans drew in a slow, steady breath, grounding himself, pushing more of his own intent through the mess. Confidence, warmth, the stubborn certainty that he could hold the line.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he muttered under his breath, voice low but firm, “we’re not doing this today.”

And for the first time since grabbing him, Sans stopped thinking about what he wanted out of this encounter—the jokes, the names, the thrill of a new world—and locked onto one goal, Keep this idiot from shattering himself by filling him with as much care as he could.

POV RESTORE

The scene had gone still in a way that made no sense.

One second, The skeleton who was called Fatal by there companion, had been a walking storm, Magic crackling so violently in the air that it made Undyne’s teeth ache and Alphys’ claws twitch. His intent was so loud, so raw, that even Chara—who didn’t usually notice that kind of thing—had frozen mid-step with Frisk whispering nervously in their ear. It felt like standing too close to a collapsing star.

Then The skeleton that looked very similar to Sans grabbed Fatal’s face. No hesitation, just palms pressed firmly against his skull, forcing those wild, empty eye sockets to meet there own.

For a moment, nothing changed.

Then everyone felt it.

The static didn’t vanish, but it shifted. What had been sharp and suffocating softened, the edges curling inward like a tide pulling back from the shore. Alphys grip on her axe eased without her meaning to. Undyne's breath hitched, then slowed. Even Chara blinked, their stubborn determination faltering as the suffocating panic in the air gave way to something they didn’t quite have a word for. Hope, maybe.

And then Fatal made a sound none of them had ever heard before.

It was like metal grinding against itself. Like a hard drive seizing midway. A stutter, then static, and then a sharp, jarring pop—the kind of noise you’d hear right before a computer screen went black.

His grin didn’t change. It never did. But his whole body jerked once, violently, as if some invisible string had been cut.

Then he collapsed, making both himself and Sans look alike fall to the ground, Fatal's head landed into the others arms as they tried holding the both of them up.

The sound of the both of them hitting the rooftop was almost drowned out by what followed: a distorted, digital crash that seemed to echo from nowhere and everywhere at once. Like an entire system shutting down in real time.

And just like that, the static was gone.

The rooftop felt empty without it—so empty it was almost unsettling. The oppressive weight that had pressed down on their souls evaporated, leaving behind a ringing kind of silence that made Sans’ soft gasp and the other Sans sharp inhale feel deafening.

There hands were still on Fatal’s skull, now trembling just enough to be noticeable as he held him upright. Swap Sans kept staring, wide-eyed, his usual optimism caught somewhere between relief and shock.

Alphys’s axe lowered to her side. Undyne’s claws flexed nervously against her coat. Even Chara, who never really let anything rattle them, was frozen, watching the skeleton who had been a storm seconds ago now lying completely still on the ground.

For the first time since Fatal had appeared, there was no static to feel.

No intent.

Just… nothing.

For a few long, heavy seconds, nobody moved.

Then the silence broke all at once.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” 

Chapter Text

The rooftop was quiet except for the hum of the city far below. Fatal lay sprawled on the floor, Sans beside him, still holding his head gently in there hands. The two looked like they’d simply collapsed there, entirely undisturbed—at least until Alphys voice ripped through the calm.

“What the hell just happened?!” she bellowed, the force of her voice alone enough to send a few nearby pigeons scattering into the air.

Sans looked up at her, his expression calm but his hold on Fatal’s head was protective. “We were… talking. And then he just fell asleep on me.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Alphys stomped forward, her boots cracking against the floor. “We all felt that—that spike in intent. Like someone was about to throw down in the middle of a public space.” Her single eye narrowed. “I don’t know who you are, or him, or where you come from, but I want answers.”

Before Sans could respond with their own witty remark, the faint scent of smoke drifted in. A dry voice cut through the tension.

“heh. so it wasn’t just me who felt that.”

They turned to see Papyrus, this worlds Papyrus, standing a few feet behind them, one hand tucked in his hoodie pocket, the other holding a cigarette already lit and lazily glowing in the dim light. He looked between at Sans and Fatal with half-lidded eyes, like someone watching a sitcom unfold.

“mind explaining,” Papyrus said, letting the smoke drift from his teeth, “why i felt a large attack forming in the middle of town? cause, you know… people tend to get nervous when they feel that sorta thing.”

Alphys crossed her arms but didn’t take her eye off Fatal, who still lay there with the same faint smile on his face, looking more like he was enjoying a pleasant dream than the center of two very suspicious stares.

“Uh… m-mind if I… you know… just check something?”

Undyne stepped forward nervously from behind Papyrus. “Just to be sure…can I CHECK your stats.”

Sans tilted his head, curious but unbothered. “Knock yourself out, sweetheart.”

The CHECK pinged, lines of information appeared in front of her. Her brow furrowed almost immediately. “Wait… what?”

Alphys glanced back towards her. “What’s wrong?”

Undyne adjusted her glasses, squinting at the readout. “I—I think my system’s bugging out… it says…” She hesitated, then read it aloud.

[NAME: SANS]
[LV: 1]
[HP:10/10]
[ATTACK: 1]
[DEFENSE: 1]
[This has been the best day of their lives.]

Undyne’s hands trembled slightly. “It… it says his name is also Sans.”

There was a beat of silence. The only sound was the faint hiss of Papyrus cigarette burning in the background.

Swap Sans, of course, was the first to speak up, his voice bright with bafflement.
"WE CANNOT SIMPLY CALL BOTH OF US SANS! THAT WOULD BE TERRIBLY CONFUSING! WE BOTH MUST HAVE A DIFFERENT NAMES IN ORDER TO SEPARATE US!"

Undyne adjusted her glasses nervously. "M-Maybe, um, a nickname? Something short?"

Alphys crossed her arms. "Yeah, Boneboy #2, but Sans you sure, that is YOUR Name though."

"DO NOT WORRY DEAR FRIENDS, NO MATTER WHAT NAME I HAVE, I WILL STILL ALWAYS BE THE MAGINIFCANT SANS.

Sans tilted his skull, pretending to think it over as he ignored the him and Alphys talking to each other. His sockets narrowed slightly as his gaze drifted to the unconscious skeleton in his arms.

A flicker of memory came.

The two of them, sitting side-by-side on Sans couch trading stories, the night air still and cold. Fatal, speaking in his usual disinterested tone, scanning the room as if looking for something invisible.

"Your eyelights," Fatal had said suddenly, without looking at him. "They’re… different. Purple’s… a nice color. Stands out."

He’d said it normally— no flirty undertone, no lusty expression — It had been so long since anyone said anything nice to him without any plans to try and woo him over. And the fact that it came from someone as emotional starved as Fatal made it all the more nicer to hear.

Back in the present, Sans smirked.
"Alright then… call me Violet."

Papyrus raised a brow. "that’s it? violet?"

"Mmhm,"  Violet said. "Short, easy, and…" he glanced down at Fatal with a faint chuckle, "…memorable."

Sans clapped his hands together. "VERY WELL! VIOLET IT HAS A NICE RING TO IT!"

Alphys muttered, "Sure, works for me… still creepy, but works."

This world's Sans jogged over with the kind of enthusiasm only he could radiate. He stopped directly in front of Violet, towering over him with wide eyes and an even wider grin.

“I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS!” Swap Sans declared, gesturing wildly with his hands. “ONE—DID YOU PERCHANCE COME FROM A SECRET UNDERGROUND BELOW OUR UNDERGROUND? A DOUBLE-UNDERGROUND, IF YOU WILL??”

Violet blinked slowly. “…Nope.”

“SECOND—ARE YOU PERHAPS… A SECRET CLONE? CREATED TO FULFILL SOME MYSTERIOUS PURPOSE??” Sans leaned in dramatically, his voice dropping to a whisper. “IF SO, I PROMISE NOT TO TELL… UNLESS IT IS IMPORTANT, IN WHICH CASE I WILL TELL EVERYONE!”

The others looked mildly exasperated, but Violet wasn’t even listening to the words anymore. His gaze lingered on Sans excited, cute expression.

This is the cutest damn skeleton I’ve ever seen, and that saying something since he is me.

Sans was still talking, gesturing so much his bandana flared like a banner in the wind. “—AND THUS, IF YOU ARE A CLONE, I SIMPLY MUST KNOW WHICH OF US IS THE ORIGINAL! IT’S FOR SCIENCE, YOU SEE!!”

Violet stared at him for a beat… and then, internally, thought: This is the most adorable thing I have ever seen. I must keep him.

Alphys slapped her forehead. “Sans, focus. We still need to decide what we’re doing with these two.” She jabbed a thumb toward Fatal’s limp form.

“could just bring ‘em back to the lab,” Papyrus muttered. “let Undyne poke ‘em for a bit.”

“Uh—p-poke?!” Undyne squeaked. “N-no, no, I’d… run diagnostics, not ‘poke’…but do you really think that's a good idea?”

 “S-So, um… maybe we could t-take them to the new lab? Or… uh… the old one back in the Underground? I mean—” she glanced at Papyrus “—it’s still got most of my original equipment.”

Papyrus took a slow drag from his cigarette before replying. “Underground’s better. New lab’s too exposed, and the old one’s got more privacy.”

Sans, meanwhile, had stepped up to Violet. Without warning, he scooped the skeleton up in his arms — bridal style — despite Violet already carrying Fatal in the same way. “COME ALONG! WE MUST MAKE SURE YOU AND YOUR FRIEND ARE SAFE!”

Violet blinked down at him, caught somewhere between amused and baffled. “Uh—”

Papyrus walked over, hands in his pockets. “look, you don’t got a choice. we’re takin’ you both in. underground’s safer, and Undyne just wants to run a few checks. nobody’s here to hurt ya… unless you give a reason.”

Sans leaned in, his voice earnest. “PAPYRUS, PROMISE ME YOU WON’T DO ANYTHING BAD TO THESE TWO.”

Violet glanced from Papyrus to Sans, then back, Papyrus just stared at his brother and sighed. “…Fine. I promise.”

Undyne stepped closer, already mentally running through the list of scans she’d need to run on Fatal. “I’ll just do some… basic medical checks on him. Y-You know… make sure nothing’s… uh… unstable.”

With that, the group began their slow trek back toward the Underground — Sans proudly carrying Violet, who was still holding a very unconscious Fatal like some bizarre nesting doll of skeletons.

Chapter Text

The hum of old machinery filled the air, punctuated by the soft clink of Undyne setting up her equipment. The lab smelled faintly of dust, coolant, and if a member of the dog squad was there, faint traces of ramen.

Fatal lay motionless on one of the beds, his form twitching with static every so often. Undyne hovered nearby, scanning him with a handheld device and muttering quiet diagnostic notes to herself.

Sans or blue as he temporarily wanted to go by, had gone to fetch a fresh set of blankets and pillows "FOR OPTIMAL COMFORT!" — leaving the lab unusually quiet.

That was when Papyrus made his move.

He stepped over to Violet, who was leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed. The blue glow of the old lab lights caught the edges of Violet's violet eyelights, casting them in a strange half-shadow.

Papyrus kept his voice low, his usual lazy drawl holding a sharper edge.
"so... you're not from here."

Violet tilted his head slightly, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "What gave it away?"

"Your Friend not knowing how Intent works." Papyrus shrugged. "The only plausible idea is multiverse theory or Timeline Intrusion, always figured it was just a thought experiment. but you—" he gestured lazily toward Violet, then to Fatal on the bed "—kinda blow that theory wide open."

Violet said nothing at first, just watching Papyrus with that unreadable gaze. The silence stretched, broken only by the faint static coming from Fatal's form.

Papyrus stuffed his hands deeper into his hoodie pocket, still keeping his tone light — but his eye sockets were locked on Violet's.
"so... how real are we talkin', here? infinite versions of everyone? different timelines stacked on top of each other? or just a couple weird branches?"

Violet shrugged casually. "Probably, I don't really know all this myself, if the first interpretation of the multiverse theory's right, there might be a version of you who's a lot taller... or a lot angrier... or even one who actually tries at his job."

Papyrus gave him a deadpan look, choosing to ignore the jab at his laziness. "...If you don't know, then how are you even here in the first place."

"Most of what I know is second-hand from him." Violet tipped his head toward Fatal. "Guy's like a walking archive of... everything. Well— a glitchy filled archive."

Papyrus tilted his head. "what kinda name is 'fatal' anyway?"

Violet blinked, then frowned as if genuinely offended. "Excuse you — I came up with that. 'Fatal Error' is an incredibly good name."

Papyrus just stared at him, expression flat. "...Fatal. Error."

"Yeah." Violet smirked like it was self-explanatory.

Papyrus squinted. "...how am i supposed to believe you guys aren't bad news when his name is literally 'fatal error'?"

Violet just grinned wider. "That's the fun part — you're not."

Papyrus was still staring at Violet, the lazy smirk of his almost slipping into something a little more amused.

Before either of them could say anything else—

"FEAR NOT, EVERYONE!" Sans/Blue's voice practically exploded into the lab. He came marching in with an armful of mismatched blankets, clearly raided from every possible storage closet. "I HAVE BROUGHT THE SOFTEST, WARMEST, AND MOST HUGGABLE BEDDING IN THE UNDERGROUND!"

Violet raised an eyebrow. "...You gonna fight me for that title, tall guy?"

"WHAT? NO!" Sans/Blue immediately began layering the blankets over Fatal, nearly burying him. "OUR GUEST MUST BE COMFORTABLE! ESPECIALLY SINCE HE SEEMS TO BE... UH... SLIGHTLY UNRESPONSIVE."

Undyne peeked up from her scanner, stammering, "H-he's not... unresponsive, j-just in some sort of—uh—low activity state. It's fine. I'm, uh, just running... some quick medical checks, n-no big deal."

Papyrus gave her a sideways glance. "uh huh. 'no big deal' and you're sweating through your coat."

"I—uh—w-well, there's just... a lot of unfamiliar magic interfering and, uh—"

Violet waved a hand lazily. "Relax, doc. He's not gonna explode." Beat. "...Probably."

Undyne immediately froze mid-scan, clearly not reassured.

Sans/Blue, oblivious, was already patting Fatal's head through the blanket pile. "SEE? HE LOOKS COZY! WE SHOULD GET THEM SOME NICE HOT SOUP NEXT!"

Papyrus sighed. "...yep. nothing says 'welcome to the underground' like soup and suspicion."

Sans/Blue's gaze flicked between Papyrus and Violet. He was leaning against the wall, eyes half-lidded, clearly watching every movement. Violet, meanwhile, was still talking to Undyne about something.

Finally, Sans/Blue slapped his hands together.
“ALRIGHT! YOU TWO—” he pointed at Violet and the still-snoozing Fatal, “—KEEP… DOING WHATEVER THIS IS. I NEED TO BORROW MY BROTHER FOR A MOMENT.”

Papyrus frowned. “Bro—”

“NOPE. THIS ISN’T OPTIONAL. COME ON.”
Before Papyrus could slip into one of his lazy disappearing tricks, Sans/Blue grabbed his sleeve and started towing him toward the exit.

Violet blinked, amused. “Ooh, trouble in family paradise?”

“STAY,” Sans/Blue barked over his shoulder, already halfway out the door with Papyrus in tow.

The heavy door to the lab shut with a clunk as Papyrus stepped outside with Sans in tow. The hot air of Hotland was a welcome break from the tight atmosphere inside.

Sans crossed his arms, leaning upwards so his tall frame almost reached papyrus's height.
"BROTHER... I HAVE NEVER SEEN YOU THIS—THIS... UNAPPROACHABLE! OR MOODY! OR... OR JACKASS-LIKE!"

Papyrus frowned faintly, stuffing his hands deeper in his hoodie pocket.
"don't swear, bro."

Sans/Blue rolled his eye lights. "BROTHER. I RAISED YOU FOR YEARS. I'M THE ONE WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO SWEAR."

Papyrus shrugged, smirk tugging at his mouth. "yeah, and look how that turned out. maybe we should've stuck with 'golly gee' and 'darn'."

Sans groaned. "BROTHER. THIS IS NOT ABOUT LANGUAGE. THIS IS ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE OUR... GUESTS... A CHANCE."

Papyrus glanced toward the door, his smirk fading just a fraction.
"look, i'm just saying—two people drop in from who-knows-where, one's literally named 'fatal error,' the other's acting like he's auditioning for most fashionable mysterious stranger of the year..." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "you seriously think that's nothing to be worried about?"

Sans straightened, his voice firm. "I THINK THAT UNTIL THEY PROVE OTHERWISE, THEY DESERVE OUR KINDNESS. THAT IS HOW YOU MAKE FRIENDS, BROTHER."

Papyrus tilted his head, eye sockets half-lidded. "or enemies that just take longer to stab you in the back."

"YOU'RE IMPOSSIBLE." Sans threw his hands up. "SOMETIMES I THINK YOU WANT TO BE MISERABLE."

Papyrus gave a dry chuckle. "...nah. just realistic."

"FINE. BUT IF YOU KEEP GLARING AT THEM LIKE THAT, I'M MAKING YOU BAKE THEM A FRIENDSHIP TACO"

Papyrus smirked again. "...guess i'll have to perfect my death glare, then."

The hum of equipment filled the air. Fatal lay motionless on the exam bed, faint static-like glitches flickering across his form. Undyne adjusted her glasses nervously, clipboard in hand.

Violet sat on a stool nearby, idly shifting Fatal's position just enough to keep him comfortable, his violet eye-lights flickering in the dim lab lighting.

Undyne glanced at him.
"Um... so, y-you don't mind if I ask a f-few questions, right?"

Violet tilted his head, smiling faintly. "Ask away. Doesn't mean I'll have all your answers."

"O-Okay... uh—" She flipped a page. "First off... where exactly are you from? Is it... like... here? Or..."

Violet gave a soft laugh. "Not here. Not your here, anyway. Fatal talks about it better than I do, but... yeah. The multiverse thing? Real. You've got different versions of yourself, Sans, Papyrus... probably even your human too."

Undyne's eyes widened. "So... it's not j-just a theory—?"

"Not unless you think I'm a hallucination." Violet smirked, then shrugged. "But I'm not your tour guide to all of reality. This is the only other place I've been too, and most of what I know is second-hand from him, by the way didn't you say you were gonna check him over." He jerked his head toward Fatal.

Undyne blushed, looking away quickly. "R-Right, um... I'll just... check his vitals again—" She shuffled over to the monitors.

"So," Papyrus said casually, as if he didn't appear from nowhere "I don't know much, but I know a little more than she does. All theory, but... you might find it useful."

Violet raised a brow. "Oh? Finally deciding to share, Lazy bones?"

Papyrus ignored the jab. "Theory goes... if you're here, then this place is part of a bigger web. Different realities, different outcomes. Some parallel, some branching... all tangled."

Violet tilted his head, still smiling—but now he was listening.

Papyrus leaned one elbow on the edge of Fatal's bed, his voice still somehow coming of as lazy.

"Picture it like this," he began, "every choice, every little accident, every random 'what if'—it all branches off. Some timelines are tiny variations. Same people, same places, just... maybe you had cereal instead of toast one morning. Other times, the split's so big you might as well be on a different planet."

Violet hummed, idly tracing circles on Fatal's  bed. "Mm, I know the song. Infinite worlds, infinite versions of us. Some better, some... not so flattering."

Papyrus snorted faintly. "Yeah. But here's the kicker—most universes? They don't even know the others exist. And if they do... they don't last long after finding out."

That made Violet's smile falter a fraction. "...You think that's what we were gonna do?"

Papyrus shrugged. "Dunno. But, hypothetically—if something or someone could jump between those branches—" his gaze flicked to Fatal "—that'd be a game changer. Not just for 'em, but for anyone they ran into."

Violet's eyes narrowed, but his tone stayed smooth. "And here I thought I was the only one who enjoyed thinking about this stuff."

Papyrus gave him a long, knowing look. "Nah. Just most folks aren't ready to hear it. I've seen enough to believe it can be possible."

Then Violet grinned again, leaning back. "Well, guess you're not entirely out of your element after all."

Papyrus rolled his eye sockets. "Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment."

The sound of frantic typing was the only sounds after that as Undyne sat at her console, her glasses sliding down her nose. She'd been running scans on Fatal for the past several minutes, but every time her monitor tried to display results, the data warped into blocks of scrambled symbols and static.

"Uh..." she adjusted her glasses again, frowning at the screen, "o-okay... so... I'm definitely not used to this."

Violet cocked his head. "Not used to what, doc?"

Undyne squinted at the monitor, face scrunching up in frustration.
She tapped a few more keys, ran another diagnostic, and frowned harder.

 “Uh… everybody? You… you might wanna see this.”

The sound of chairs scraping and boots scuffing filled the lab as Papyrus, Violet, and Sans stepped over.

On the screen, lines of data jittered and warped, whole chunks of it flickering in and out as if the machine itself didn’t want to acknowledge Fatal’s existence.

Undyne pointed at the monitor, where the usual neat soul stats were now just jagged lines and unreadable text. "Whenever I... uh... CHECK him—whether it's magical or through my equipment—it's all just... glitchy text. No HP, no ATK, no DEF... not even a soul type reading. Just... this."

The screen flickered violently as if in response, making her jerk back. "And—uh—why is a person even glitching in the first place?!"

Violet glanced at Fatal, then back at her, still wearing that easy smile. "That'd be because Fatal isn't exactly your standard model monster."

Undyne looked between them nervously. "...The implications of that are... horrifying."

Violet just winked. "And yet, here he is. Still livin his best life.....I think'."

Fatal shifted slightly on the bed, a distorted crackle rolling off his form—like the sound of a TV changing channels too fast.

CHECK – “???”
Name: F̴̼̩̗̼̲̖͖͉̗̲͋͊͒͒̓̈́͋ȧ̷̢̗̜͙̞̻͙̻̿́͐͛̽̈́̈́̈́ͅt̶͍͛͛̎͂͐̍́͊͘å̸̢̢̹̹͓̗͈͙̈́͐̀̏̈́̽͆͘͜͝͝ḻ̶̫͓̿̐̓̿͋̎̋̀̓ ̷̡̛̩͙̫̝̤̗̖̫̩̬̰̎̔͗́̎̌̀̋̕͝͠ͅE̶̳͎̤͍͉̽̋̉̈́̑̒̈́͒͛̈́̄ͅr̸̢̢͍̰͙͚̲̦̬̬̦̅̀̾̔̋͐̐̏̕͜r̷̗̲͇̈́̍̎̾̈́̅̿̓̈́̓͌̚ö̴̢̢̦̫̹̮̬̳̯̯̬́̈́͒͌̓́͑̿̈́ͅr̷̯̦͈̞̘̤̟̻͎̪͒̐́͐͊̀̾̌̓̍͠

ATK: 9̵̡̢̢͉̪̰̼͙̯̗͓̫̤̎̈́́͆̅̽̓̆̓͜͜͜͠ͅ9̵̢̨̨̰͚͖̙̻̠͙̟̤͚̰͍͎͍͎͍̍̎̒͗̀̇̄̽̒̿̊͛͗̓͜%̴̢̼̼̜͉̬̗͎̤̤̻̹̜̳̲̜̫͇͚̗͍͂͆̅͆̒̈́̔̓͋̇̋̾̈́̄̇̎̌̽̅̏͒̓̈́͂͘͝͝͝͝ͅͅ

DEF: Ư̵̹͔͍͈̭̻͚͖͔̗̬̹͔̙͌̈́͌̿̈́̈́̓̍̐̉͋͌͒̋̀̅̅͋̽̔̐͗̚̚͠͝n̸̳̟͎͎̬̫̩͍͔̬̼̹̰͍̻̠͆̆̽̐̈́͋̊͗̀̽̍̎̎̚̚͜k̴̨̛̬͈͖̟̮̬͔̬̰̗͈͈̓͒̆̏̇̋̄̎͒̈́̈́̓͒̀͛̒̐́̾́̆͝͝n̴̡̰̗͍̓̿̍̀̏͒̐̌̀̓̈́̓̅̓̕͘͘͝͝͠͝ő̶̯̼͓̻͖͔̠̯̟̜͖̏̓͛͗͊͆̐̓̏̐̎͂͛̋̽͆̅̐̌͒͝ẅ̷̛̛̟̟͉͚͚̠͚̪͖́͆͋̉̅̀͐͗̇͘͝͝ͅn̵̢̢̦͉̯̙͖̘̱̒͗͊̅̅͛͒̋͌͗̒̒͌̿̿͂̑͗͋̽͂́͋͘͘͜͜͠͝

HP: [█̷̡̛̦͈̳̯̤͓̤͔̦̯̫̰͉̯̗̓͗̽̿̈́̓̄́͂͒͒̽̿͊̈́̕͝͠] ̴̨̢͈͇̪͍͉͉̤̼̘͍̪̳̭̗̑̒̈́̊͋̏͒͊̿́̇̈́͒̇͊̆̇̊͒̈́͋̽̈́͂͌͝%̵̢̛̹̖͔̝̦̼̗̯̰̤̹̫̦̲͍̻͎̯̹͎̠͗̊̏͂̓̄̏͐͂̍͒͗̓͒̎̈́̒͋͑͑̾͘ͅ

MAG: È̶̢̢̛̯̗̖̩͇̩͈̝͖̯̬̗̤̤̼̮̼̝͚͖͙͚̀̇̊̓̅͗̇̿̄̔̈́̈́̓̈́͐̾̾͒̅̋̄͛̚͘͜͜͠͝͝ͅR̵̢̡̢͔͚̦̩̯̼̝̗͍̩̤͉̩̝̪̼͔̗̖͉͎̪̯̤̮̼̓͋̏̎͆͛͊̋̎̅̎͌̓̏̇̈́̿̇̆̽̏̋́̓̔͌̄̚͝͝R̴̡̹͓͍̘̤̟̪̆̈́̍̊͗͋̽͐̒̄̑̿͒̒͒̑́͗̎͘̚ͅƠ̴̢̢̛̠̜̟̬͎͔͈͔͚̖͉̖͉͙̩̤̯͈͓̳͍̙̯̤͓͗̈́͌̋̍͛͊͂̽̈́̓̔̾̇͂̿̀̐̋̄̈́͘͝͝͠ͅͅR̶̢̢̟̮̤̲̳̼͉͉̦̬̤͈͖̪̠̓̽̓̎̓̿͊̃͛͂̈́̆̋̇̓͌̊͋́̋̇̈́̏̚̕͜͠͠͠͝

A FATAL ERROR HAS OCCURED :C̴̨̢̢̡̛̛̻̬̗͓̫̲͚̰̩̯̲̙̘̜͎̩̫̝̬̼̩͉̗̻̗̟̤̤̩̻͉̠̩͓̓̿̏̿͒͂̈́͛̒͗̇͗͌̍̈́̿̽͆̚̚̚͠͝ͅERROR NOT FOUNDO̸̢̢̢̢̯̖͖͔̯̯͖̞̯̪̯̻͈̤̞̘̯͓̙̦͖͇̪͍̦̤̮̖̻͖͉̜͓̲̠̓͂̋̔̉͛̎̿̍̿͊́͊̓̊̍̄̎͋͒̑̀̊̎͌̚̚̕͜͠͝ͅͅR̸̢̢̩̤̟̦̯̮͓̦͌͆͌̒͆͐̋̾͌̈́̉͆̈́̄̈́̿̾͂̍̒͌̐̚͠͝͝͠͝͠R̷̨̢͙͖̼̲̤̘͔̜̼͇͉̗̖̜̾̍̅́͛͂͋̓̄̏̅̔͗͌̍̋̔̽̿̊̄̅̐̈́̈́͑̏̊̽̓͊͋̅̓͘͝͠͠Ơ̴͓̬̲̼̻̝̳̦̠͖͓̜̜̬͛̊͐̒͋́̈́̋͊͗͌̏͗̓̐̓̊̏͐͛͂̄͌͐͑̊̅̅͊̽̊͑̈́͆̏̈́̔͘̚̚͝͝͝͝R̶̢̡̯͙̻̗͖͈̯͍͙͉̠̯̫̦̽́̄̍̎͂̈́̏͋́͋̎̆̐͋̾̊̓͒͂̎̅̐̒͝

Chapter Text

Fatal tried blinking, all that happened was make the static dripping from the corner of his vision fade a bit. "...huh, This is new'."

The  dream(?) Fatal's was having wasn't the usual static he was used to.
No, It was just darkness, but the sound of static still remained so that was something.
It wasn't loud or violent as it usually is — just an endless hiss, like a TV left on an empty channel. White specks drifted and dissolved across an infinite black nothing. In the middle of it all, Fatal floated, limply drifting across the darkness.

He tilted his head to look  up. "never had this happen before. guess getting knocked out by choice and not by choice don't count as the same thing, huh?"

Above him—so far above it hurt to look—hung two shapes. Round. Hollow. Red and Blue respectively. They looked to be what he thought must have been his own eye sockets, seeing as how the red one looked melted like his own, massive as storm clouds, blotting out the dark sky.

 They were most likely his eye sockets, so that means he must be in his own head right now.

"This must be what happens when I fall asleep unwillingly, some kind of safety setting?" Fatal muttered to himself. "All the times I've tried sleeping, I did it willingly, except now that is."

Through them, he saw Undyne hunched over a terminal, her face pale with panic, her glasses reflecting endless streams of text. Her hands shook as she typed, trying to force sense out of nonsense.

Later, he caught Violet. Still near him even as Sans brought what looked to be a bunch of blankets and Papyrus lean against the wall.

He tried moving his sockets but they didn't move, didn't shift. But he could still watch the lab he wasn't awake in. Watch what violet and this worlds Papyrus seem to have a conversation he couldn't hear.

Fatal's fingers twitched, his usual static buzzing around. His constant smile seemed to brighten even with the tension in his body returning, looking around in the void he was in, he decided  it was time to investigate.

"Wonder what else I can do in here."

He shifted a bit upwards so he was sitting, trying to see what worked in this void, to summon anything—his blaster, his bones, anything. But nothing happened in here. Instead, he felt a faint pull, like he was trying to summon his magic in a different room.

"ok. so that's not happening till I'm at least... half awake." His voice echoed flatly.

He obviously noticed the darkness behind him ripple at first. Darkness didn't usually ripple. Which made it easy to notice a figure emerge, half-faded at first, before sharpening into focus.

He was a skeleton monster, similar in shape and size as [HAND_PLATES] Gaster, but not. His form was taller, rounder. He was wearing a lab coat trimmed with pale orange, a soft blue scarf tucked underneath, and there's something undeniably warm about his posture. His smile is as bright his orange and blue eye lights, almost disarming—strangely casual for someone standing in this void of Fatal's head.

The static hums around them. Fatal narrows his eye sockets, instinctively trying to summon another blaster. He feels the weight of it, heavy and present... but it again doesn't appear here.

The figure lifts his hands in a relaxed gesture, almost like a father trying to calm a spooked child.

"Whoa there. Easy. I'm not here to pick a fight."

His voice is light, cheerful, yet it sounded like an echo. He floats closer, tilting his head, studying Fatal as though he were an old friend he just bumped into.

"You're a tough one to find, you know that? But lucky me—I like challenges."

If Fatal was scared by his presence, he didn't show it. His head lolled slightly with the slow roll of the static, eye sockets suddenly bighting from there previous dim state. The stranger, on the other hand, looked around with fascination, the way a tourist might admire some strange new art installation.

"Well now," he said — it wasn't loud, but with the sort of projection that filled the air whether you wanted it to or not. "This is quite the space. Minimalist. refreshing compared to where I've been coped up in."

The orange-and-blue stranger floated at his side, tilting his head upward. His sockets squinted, then brightened as he stared through the sockets and into the lab.

"...Ah. They're talking about you."

Fatal didn't say anything but still floated a few feet back.

"Let's see... hm. That one's easy. 'What... is... happening?'" He traced each word silently with his fingers as his jaw worked, mirroring the mouth shapes outside. "Now... that one—'glitch'? 'Why?' Heh. Guess they're as confused as you are."

Fatal shifted his hand slightly behind his back. He felt the pull of his blaster, felt it try to follow his call, it seemed agitated. But when he tried to drag it forth—nothing. Just empty static. Like reaching for a weapon in a dream.

His sockets narrowed. Pathetic.

"...You're not listening, are you?" the stranger asked lightly, glancing sideways at him. His stare seemed to softened. "Or maybe you are. You just don't like the translation."

Fatal's gaze never moved away from him.

"Oh, don't give me that look," the stranger chuckled, still cheerful, still maddeningly casual. "I know what you're thinking. 'If I could summon my blaster, you'd be gone.' Am I right?"

Fatal didn't answer—but his silence was enough of an answer.

The stranger tapped his chin, pretending to think. "Mmm. That's fair. But unlucky for you, this area holds your consciousness, it would be pretty bad if you could accidently blast your self in your own head. Guess that means..." He gave a dramatic shrug, scarf swaying in the not-wind. "...you're stuck with me."

Above them, the socket-shapes flickered again. The blurred figures outside leaned closer to Fatal's body, their movements frantic, voices unheard.

The stranger's eyes narrowed, his grin fading just slightly as he focused. "...They're worried. All of them. One of them is even petting your head, the one named Violet I believe. Which... I have to admit, is one of the most adorable things Ii have ever seen, well except my boys, they were incredibly cute when they were small little baby bones.

Fatal blinked once he registered the new name. Slowly. He returned his gaze to the sockets above.

The stranger smirked. "...You're really not gonna say anything, huh? Alright. Guess I'll just keep talking until you respond, one way or another."

Another long moment of silence. Fatal kept drifting, repeatedly breathing slow in the pattern Violet told him too.

But the stranger didn't seem to mind. If anything, the silence was an open invitation. He began to walk — or rather, pace — in lazy circles around Fatal, speaking as though they'd been mid-conversation for years.

He talked about his boys first. About Papyrus and the strange little bottlecap collection he once insisted was sacred. About Sans baking disasters and the time the kitchen had looked like a snowstorm from the flour. The words flowed easily, spilling into the static until the hiss almost seemed like background music.

Fatal didn't respond, but his eye sockets twitched occasionally as they followed him— small, involuntary flickers that told the stranger he was listening, whether or not he meant to.

"And the questions!" He continued, a warmth creeping into his voice. "Endless questions, from morning to night. 'Why do lights twinkle?' 'Why can't we keep a pet human?' ...Ah, I used to make up answers just to see them smile."

Fatal had let out a slow, almost imperceptible sigh.

"You strike me as someone who missed out on that sort of thing," The stranger said softly now, no longer pacing. "Someone who never had the noise of a home to fill the quiet."

Fatal's hands curled into fists. Static flowed from his eye sockets like smoke.

"...You never shut up, do you?" His voice was flat, drained, but the weight of irritation finally cracked through.

The stranger's grin widened. "Oho, he speaks! What's the matter, tired of my charm already?"

"I'm getting sick and tired of your crap."

He lifted his palm. Fueled by sheer spite and annoyance, his pulled at his magic—not in him, but forcing it too him.

For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of static.

In the darkness surrounding the two, Static seemed to slowly seep into it and spread across the entire area, it seemed to originate from Fatal himself

His hand trembled. The static seemed to warped to him and around his arm until finally—

POP

A  red jagged bone popped into existence, he held the sharp piont in his hand while he had the blunt point to his face. The static seemed to hissed louder, his red socket glowing as he checked over the construct.

The stranger tilted his head, smirking faintly. "Oh? you managed to summon one in here. You gonna throw that at me, or—"

Fatal interrupted, his voice a growl ".... Shut the hell up."

He gripped the summoned bone with both hands—turned it—and swung it down on his own skull.

WHAM!!

Outside, in the lab

Fatal's body convulsed. His magic flared, and his constant buzz returned into the room. And then—out of nowhere—a single red bone appeared above his head in the waking world and SLAMMED down on him with the exact same force.

B O N K

It smacked right onto his forehead with a hollow bonk.

Everyone in the room jumped.

"WHAT THE—???" Undyne squeaked,  glasses sliding off in her panic.

Violet, suppressing a laugh, tilted their head as they walked to the still waking Fatal. "I think he just hit himself... with his own magic... to wake up?"

Sans/blue seemed little put off by the method but other wise found it a funny sight. "THAT—THAT'S NOT HOW ONE SHOULD WAKE THEMSELFS UP!!!"

And then—Fatal's sockets snapped open. Static fizzled across his body as he groaned, sitting up like a man dragging himself out of quicksand.

"...Worth it to not listen to his constant bullshit" he muttered under his breath.

Fatal slowly sat up on the bed. His fixed smirk didn’t change, his sockets didn’t blink either— just that constant stare. The static that hissed off him filled the silence as he slowly got of the bed. While maintain full eye contact.

Sans/Blue leaned towards Papyrus and whispered loudly — far too loudly to actually be a whisper “B-BROTHER… HE’S JUST STARING… I THINK HE’S STARING INTO MY SOUL.”

Papyrus didn’t move, just muttered back through gritted teeth:
“shh. don’t… point it out. you’ll make it worse.”

Undyne hunched her shoulders, voice trembling as she whispered into her hands “Is he… analyzing us? No, no, wait—no readings, no signals… h-he’s not even blinking—”

 Alphys crossed her arms but her tail twitched against the floor with nervous energy. She leaned to Undyne, whispering sharper than intended “He’s not doing anything now, but he might be preparing to start throwing attacks.”

Across the room, Violet tilted his head and smirked, completely unbothered. He leaned closer to Fatal’s form and said loud enough for everyone to hear “Oh, c’mon. You’re all acting like you’ve never been stared at before. He’s probably just… vibin’....mabye.”

Nobody else laughed. The silence doubled down.

Sans/Blue whispered again, shifting from one foot to the other, hands fidgeting with his Bandana
“IS… IS IT RUDE IF I STARE BACK?? MAYBE HE’S TRYING TO START A STARING CONTEST—”

“Bro—” Papyrus pinched the bridge between his eye sockets.

=======

The sttatic around him seem to finally calm down and disperse back to thier usual level as Fatal’s sockets opened. He sat up slowly, rubbing at the side of his skull, then noticed all the eyes on him. Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys and Sans had gone dead quiet, staring like he was a ticking bomb, while he felt San- Violet try to check his head for any injuries he might have caused himself.

He squinted back at them. “…The hell you guys looking at?” His tone was flat, it still had that radio effect but was now more understandable then his eldritch screeching back at the rooftop.

Nobody answered right away. Sans fidgeted, Violet kept twisting Fatal's head in there hands. Fatal let out a small sigh. “Figures. You guys look like you’d never seen someone wake up before.”

That broke the tension a little, though not much. Violet finally let go of his head, only to then place they're on head on his “You… were out cold for a while. We weren’t sure w—”

“When I would've woken up?” Fatal cut nodding, causing Violet to rise a bit with the motion before falling back down. “Nah. Takes a lot more than that. I could still… see you guys anyway.” His voice dipped,. “Even when I was knocked out, somehow?.”

Violet blinked, tilting his head downwards to see Fatal better. “See? You mean… like a dream?”

Fatal looked up at him, his red and blue sockets buzzing faintly. Then he said in the most calm and direct tone “No. I mean I could still tell what was going on since I can still see around me. But I couldn't hear anything you guys said.”  While his tone was still it's usual monotone, it still managed to convey his surprise at the development

“So I’ll ask straight—did they do anything to you while I was down?”

Violet's eye sockets widened. “No! Nobody did anything. They’ve been nice.”

Fatal studied him for another beat, then nodded. “Alright. Good.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, shaking off static sparks like dust. “So… can we leave now? I don’t like staying put longer than I have to.”

Sans/Blue gasped. “LEAVE? YOU CAN’T LEAVE YET!”

Fatal arched a brow. “…Why not?”

Sans/Blue planted his hands on his hips, deadly serious. “BECAUSE YOU HAVE YET TO TRY MY LEGENDARY TACOS!”

Fatal paused, then asked. “…The hell are tacos?”

The following scream of despair and agony that came from the Sans variant, made Fatal regret Not leaving immediately when he had the chance 

Chapter Text

The skeleton’s house was warm with sunlight. The smell of something frying drifted in from the kitchen, where Blue was humming to himself while putting together tacos. The sound of pans clattering mixed with his excited muttering about “the perfect seasoning.”

On the couch, Fatal was trying to get himself eaten by the cushions while Violet chatted with Human-Chara, who had taken the seat beside them. Their conversation was playful, with Violet teasing them about something.

In the corner of the room, Alphys stood with her phone pressed to her ear. Her voice carried easily, even though she was trying to keep it quiet.
“Yeah, Toriel. I’ve got Chara with us here. No, nothing dangerous… at least not yet. But you should probably come.”

Violet shifted in their seat, glancing toward Chara. “So… how have the monsters been treating you?” he asked.

Chara gave a large smile. “Amazing. Mom and Dad are still a bit mad at each other, but everyone else has been really nice to me.”

Fatal looked over at the two, his voice carrying its usual radio effect. “Makes sense. You’re their savior — you gave them their freedom, so of course they’d all like you. Though I still want to know why we were brought here just for… tacos? I don’t see the point of eating food when you’re already fully healed.”

Chara’s face scrunched faintly in confusion, though they said nothing.

From the kitchen, Blue shouted back, “YOU’LL LOVE THEM! THEY’RE A TRUE DELIGHT!” followed by the sound of something sizzling loudly.

Violet looked toward Fatal, lowering his voice. “Are you sure you’re doing alright? After… all that?”

Fatal gave a faint nod, making a point not to look at Violet. “I am perfectly fin—”

ALERT! ALERT!

Fatal’s vision flickered, a sharp snap of awareness forcing itself into him.

Then, all at once, something hit him. A sharp tug inside, like something was tearing loose. His hands twitched and he froze, his head lowering as the room seemed to blur around him.

He didn’t know what it was. He had never felt it before.

Most likely because of the pain, his vision shifted. His eye sockets flickered into lines of text. In the middle of it, a bright red warning flashed across his left socket:

ALERT: Beacon in Code of Universe [7070507#.A.T] has been destroyed.

Fatal stared at it, his mind blank for a moment as more information poured directly into him.

[Beacon:001 has been destroyed due to damage taken to core code]

He hadn’t thought about his Beacons since he first left that world. Before leaving, he had made one deep within the world’s code — an anchor point, in case he ever needed to find his way back. A backup plan more than anything.

But now it was gone. Destroyed.

His hand lifted to his face, fingers pressing against his skull as if that would ease the pressure.

Why did it hurt? It was just code. He wasn’t connected to it. At least… not in a way that should cause this.

He gritted his teeth, shifting through the data again, trying to find a trace of what happened to the beacon. But all he saw were empty lines. Gaps where a trail used to be. 

Fatal leaned back into the couch, still trying to ride out the pain. He couldn’t understand how it could just fall apart. Or what could even cause it.

That didn’t make sense. Universal beacons didn’t just vanish — they were lines of code, tethered into place. They couldn’t be stolen. And no one had even been in that universe when he left it.

He wasn’t angry about it; he didn’t even care that much. But the fact that the beacon — his beacon — was gone left him reeling. It shouldn’t have been possible. His mind tried to reason it out, but he had nothing to compare it to. He hadn’t even known code could… fall apart.

“…what the hell happened?” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, as the red glow from within his left socket brightened.

Fatal leaned forward and focused at the code that appeared before him, ignoring everything else around him. The living room disappeared as it was overtaken by the color of his blue eye socket until all that was left were streams of white numbers and text of varying size. He reached into his saved files, pulling the beacon’s record forward.

[Beacon ID:001
A.T. ID: 7070507#
Status: Destroyed
Error: Reference not found
Location: MISSING]

Fatal frowned, fingers twitching as he tried to peel more data out of it's records. But the code was shredded — like someone had taken the entire anchor and deleted it, line by line, until nothing was left.

“…this doesn’t make sense.” He muttered, eyes narrowing. Code didn’t just erase itself. They weren’t tied to anything physical. They were supposed to be permanent markers in realty, like nails hammered into the foundation of a house.

Yet here he was, staring at an alert telling him his nail had been yanked out — and the wall it was stuck in had gone down with it.

The script blinked again, spitting out another piece of information

Trace End: universe integrity compromised.

He scrolled through in silence, zeroing in on the line that had tripped the alert.

Anchor: 7070507#.A.T [not found]

The code was empty. No root, no layers, not even corrupted fragments. Just a hole. It wasn’t stolen. It wasn’t blocked. It was gone.

The anchor should have been immutable. Even if the universe collapsed naturally, the anchor point would still be traceable in the void. But here—there was nothing. Like tearing a page from reality itself and burning the scraps.

Fatal stared, static crackling faintly around him.

“…What?”

Shock ran through him — not the kind tied to fear, but to raw confusion. Universes didn’t just vanish. At least, not in any way he’d ever theorized. Not in any way he’d thought was even possible.

His sockets flickered with cascading strings of error text as he tried to parse it again and again. The conclusion didn’t change.

The universe is gone.

Fatal tried looking deeper into the code, static buzzing harsher now. “…How?”

He zoomed outwards, pulling up a small scale map off the first few worlds closest to where his universe was.

Underfell. From here it looked stable, glowing red with a steady pulse. That meant whatever happened didn’t originate there or spread from it.

Next, he swiped his hand and all the code shifted left, bringing another into view. Mafiatale. It gave off pale gray light, dim but orderly, its code scrolling tight around it. Also looked stable.

He looked further, leaning toward another universe. Epictale. Bright, strong, practically glowing in purple light. The code clung solidly to its surface — but some of it seemed to be… sliding off?

He stopped at that one, while it showed almost no connection to the destruction of his universe, it was defiantly a clue.

His destroyed one, though… it was nothing now. A hole. Like someone had ripped the picture off a puzzle and left only the empty backing.

He wasn't really that sad about it, but realizing that an entire universe could just disappear like that put him on edge. 

Fatal muttered, “…But still how the hell does a universe just stop existing? No way it just… vanished. Not clean like that. Gotta be scraps… something.”

He turned back to the nearby universes. Nothing looked wrong with them. The only hint of anything unusual was Epictale — its felt different from the rest.

=====

Fatal was speaking, his usual but still strange radio static filter he had when speaking was more understandable now that he’d calmed a little. He shifted on the couch, sockets faintly glowing to emphasize the point.

Then he stopped.

His words cut off mid-sentence then he leaned forward slowly, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the empty space ahead. His sockets burned red for a moment, then flickered with something the others couldn’t understand — like a flashing error screen filled with impossibly small text.

“Uh… Fatal?” Violet tilted his head, frowning. He waved a hand in front of him. “You okay?”

No response.

Chara glanced over, their expression unsure. “…Is he okay.”

Fatal didn’t move. To everyone else, he looked the same as always — his default expression being that casual almost smug smile, stuck, but not exactly robotic either. But somehow, it felt different now. It was less like he was spacing out and more like his focus was locked into a thought process that was taking a lot of thinking power, like a computer running something far too heavy.

Violet sat back, uneasy. “…Maybe?.”

Suddenly Fatal’s hands moved on their own, pulling a book from inside his jacket and flipping it open and pulling a pen from nowhere.

The pen scratched across the page. Faster than anyone could normally write.

Chara frowned, speaking first. “…Uh, is he broken?”

Violet waved his hand in front of Fatal’s face. No response. His expression didn’t change — he didn’t even twitch — but the steady shk-shk-shk of the pen filled the quiet room.

Blue peeked his head out from the kitchen, holding a spoon dripping with taco meat. “What’s going on out here?”

“Your guest just shut down,” Chara said, pointing at Fatal slowly speeding up writing speed.

Blue walked out, spatula in hand. “Fatal, buddy, you—uh—gettin’ lost in thought there? Or did the word taco break your brain?” His tone was light, but a nervous edge slipped through.

“I think his okay, he did something simmiler to this when we first met.” Violet muttered, eyes narrowing. “Look at what his writing.”

They leaned closer. The pages filled with neat, careful lettering — records of things that made no sense to them.

“Beacons… code signature… fallen… Timelines… what the hell does any of that even mean?”

Nobody had an answer. They were too busy watching Fatal’s pen fly like he was possessed.

Chapter Text

The scratching of Fatal’s pen stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Then just as suddenly he stood. Both of his eye sockets were blue, glow flickering like high beams. His book stayed open in his hand, pages filled with neat static-script, his movements stiff, almost mechanical in the way he was moving.

When he finally blinked back into the room, his sockets steadied, there usual colors settling back to normal. He snapped the book shut with a dull clap and muttered, almost to himself with how low he said it

“…I have to leave.”

Violet perked up, their eye lights narrowing a tad.

“Leave? What do you mean leave?”

“Something’s wrong.” Fatal’s voice buzzed with static as always, but flatter than usual.

“Wrong how?” Violet pressed, rising from the couch.

Fatal shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Just… something important.”

“No,” Violet shot back, stepping closer. “Tell me. I know that look—you’re not just saying this because you feel like taking a walk. What happened?”

Fatal hesitated. His static flickered white, then blue, then back again—it looked like he was weighing the risk of speaking. Finally, he sighed.

“…One of my anchors is missing.”

The words meant nothing to the others. Violet frowned.

“Anchor?”

“It’s… complicated,” Fatal said, rubbing at his temple. “Think of it like making something so you can leave a marker on it so I know where I’ve been. Only, it’s gone now. And it shouldn’t be. At all.”

“So what?” Violet tilted their head. “Someone stole it?”

“Impossible.” Fatal’s tone left no room for doubt. “It wasn’t physical. You can’t just take it. Even if the area around it collapsed, the anchor would still be there. Unless…” His words cut off, unfinished.

Violet didn’t understand the details, but they understood enough—Fatal was shaken, and that was rare. “…Then I’m coming with you.”

Fatal blinked. “…No. Too dangerous.”

“I don’t care.” Violet’s voice was firm. “If it matters this much, you shouldn’t go alone.”

Blue, who had been standing with his spatula the whole time, finally spoke up. Arms crossed, grin wide.

“Well, if we’re volunteering, count me in too. Sounds like an adventure—and I’m not about to let my guests dive headfirst into danger without backup.”

Fatal looked between the two of them. For once, his constant smile seemed strained. “…You don’t understand. This isn’t your fight. It could be—”

“Friends don’t let friends fight alone,” Violet cut him off.

“And brothers-in-universal-spirit don’t, either,” Blue added proudly, tapping his chest. “Whether you like it or not, you’ve got company.”

Fatal turned, sockets narrowing at the quiet skeleton that was sitting in the corner the while time.

“…Papyrus. Please tell me you’re not letting this happen. You’re really okay with your brother walking off with two strangers—” he tapped his chest, then pointed to Voilet, ignoring their shouts of being harmless “—into other worlds? Places you don’t know? Where he could get hurt?”

The room went silent. All eyes shifted to Papyrus as they waited for his answer.

He sat there, then exhaled, cigarette smoke flowing as he pulled it from his mouth. Smoke curled up between them. His eyelight flickered from Blue—still grinning confidently—back to Fatal.

“That’s my brother you’re talking about,” Papyrus said evenly. “And I have full confidence in him. Whatever comes his way, he can handle it.”

Blue puffed out his chest. “See? Even Papyrus believes in my magnificent prowess!”

Fatal tried one last time to convince them that this was a bad idea. “Listen. Universes aren’t just copies stacked on each other. They’re systems, each with their own rules, their own scripts. Some are friendly. Some are hostile. And when you travel, you don’t just walk through a door.”

He snapped his fingers. A jagged shape of static appeared in the air before fading.

“You disconnect. Get lost. Anchors—beacons—are how I don’t get in lost in some random void.”

Violet tilted their head. “…Like dropping a pin on a map?”

Fatal’s smile twitched a bit higher. “…Close enough. Except my pin just disappeared and so has the entire map, Anchor’s gone. Beacon’s gone with it. That should never happen.”

Blue leaned in curiously. “So what was your plan?”

Fatal lifted his arm and open the book again. The pages of the book unfolded into a map of glowing dots, each marked with faint, colored text.

“[Swapfell#74896]

[Mafiatale#45787]

[Epictale#234890]

They’re the closest to where the anchor was. I’ll check each one. See if anything leads me to answers.”

Silence lingered, broken only by the faint hum of his constant static.

Violet tapped their chin. “So basically… we’re going on a multiversal road trip.”

Fatal’s head snapped toward them so fast the others flinched.

“We?” he repeated.

“We,” Violet confirmed.

“WE!” Blue shouted, slamming his hands together with a grin.

“This is a very important MISSION! To protect the balance of existence itself! You’ll need all the help you can get!”

Violet chuckled, jabbing Fatal’s side. “Guess your warning speech just fired him up more instead of convincing him huh?.”

Fatal didn’t move for a moment. Static flaked faintly from his scarf. Then he leaned back against the wall, rubbing his temple like it physically hurt. “…Unbelievable.”

But everyone could see he didn’t say no yet.

After a long pause, he exhaled, static crackling in the sigh. His shoulders sagged.

“…Fine. You win. Guess I’m dragging into this mess.”

Blue pumped his fist in triumph. Violet smirked as he joined with Blue in truimph. Papyrus leaned back, looking odly smug for some reason.

Fatal pinched the bridge of his nose.

“…Regretting this already.”

Chapter Text

== A few hours later ==

This lab was nothing like the cramped one back in Hotland. It was bright, polished, and filled with the sterile scent of machinery. Steel walls gleamed under fluorescent lights, screens glowed with data, and heavy machines hummed steadily—some brand new, others clearly dragged over from the old Underground lab.

Fatal stood near the main console at the back, shoulders hunched, sockets darting around like he didn’t trust a single thing. With his short track record with labs, he had opinions. Blue had convinced him Undyne wasn’t the sinister type—Fatal didn’t quite buy it, but Blue wasn’t one to lie.

“So… why are we here again?” he asked flatly, eyeing Undyne.

She was typing furiously at the console, strings of formulas filling the screen. At his voice, she practically leapt out of her chair, shoving her glasses higher as she tried to calm herself. Excitement trembled in her hands.

“B-because—! You’re going to different universes! D-do you realize what this means?!”

She slammed a button, and the screen behind her lit up with strings of numbers, eerily like the code that flickered in Fatal’s sockets.

“It’s the most groundbreaking, historic, scientific thing possible! I have to record it! To document everything! If I don’t, it’s practically a crime against progress!”

Across the room, Alphys was hunched over a duffel bag nearly bigger than Blue. She stuffed it with food packs, medical supplies, tools, extra clothes, and a shield polished so clean it sparkled.

“Alright, Sans!” she barked. “First aid kit—check. Energy bars—check. Water filter—check. Portable cookware—double check! You might be heading into literal WAR zones, so don’t take a single step unprepared!”

Blue waved from his seat beside Papyrus, grin wide. “Don’t worry, Undyne! I’ll bring back EPIC stories!”

“War stories,” Alphys corrected, slamming the bag shut hard enough to echo.

Undyne wheeled over a bulky harness rig with blinking lights, dangling wires, and a camera bolted to the top. She held it out toward Fatal like a prize.

“A-and with this,” she stammered, grinning nervously, “I can record your data in real time! Imagine—energy readings of another universe, the way foreign magic fluctuates, how it reacts to foreign bodies—”

Fatal didn’t move. His sockets stayed blank, his frozen grin unchanging.

Undyne’s words faltered. “S-so… you’ll wear it, right?”

“…No.” His voice crackled like broken radio. “Hard no.”

Silence.

Violet immediately broke into laughter. Blue tried—and failed—to hide his behind his scarf. Even Papyrus let out a chuckle, while Alphys was too deep in her bag to notice.

Undyne flushed scarlet, fumbling the harness away. “O-okay! Plan B! It—it was always Plan B!” She strapped a smaller wristwatch device onto Blue instead, showing him how to unclip it if needed.

“Alphys, look!” Blue puffed out his chest. “I have the cool watch thing from those human spy movies!”

Alphys came over and smacked him on the back with the duffel bag, nearly knocking him over. “Perfect! You should totally cosplay that James-something human when Halloween comes. I’ll even be one of the villains.”

On the far side of the lab, another conversation heated.

“C’mon, Mom, Dad, please? I can go!” Chara’s arms were crossed, their pout on the verge of tears.

Toriel folded her hands, voice firm but gentle. “No, my child. It is far too dangerous.”

Asgore crouched down, stroking his beard. “You are brave, little one, but our friend has made it clear this journey is not a game. The risks are—”

“I know the risks!” Chara snapped. “That’s why I want to go! I can handle myself just fine!”

Toriel’s eyes softened but stayed firm. “No. You are our child now, and we will not send you into danger willingly.”

Asgore added gravely, “Your journey through the Underground was monumental. But Papyrus and his friend have made it clear—this is a different level of danger entirely.”

Chara groaned, throwing their arms up. “Ugh! You never let me do anything!”

Papyrus, leaning nearby with his cigarette conspicuously missing thanks to the Queen’s orders, muttered, “…Pretty sure they just got grounded from the multiverse.”

While the Dreemurrs’ argument simmered down, Fatal pulled Blue and Violet aside. His dial-tone voice buzzed with unusual seriousness.

“…Which of the three universes should we go to first? Once we enter, we’ll stay until I’ve found what I need. Unless it becomes unsafe.”

Blue straightened his scarf dramatically, hand raised high like he was making a grand decree.

“As the most MAGNIFICENT Sans— or Blue, as I am now called— I say we must go only to a world as magnificent as myself. Therefore… EPICtale!”

Violet tilted their head, curiosity flickering in their eyes. “Epic…tale, huh? What even is that universe supposed to be like? Just… everything bigger? Stronger?”

Blue blinked, then tilted his head. “Oh! Right! Fatal, friend, you never actually explained this place to us. You said it was called EpicTale, but—what’s it like? What should we be expecting?”

Fatal, standing in his usual slouched posture, blinked his mismatched sockets. “Hmm? Well.”

His voice was flat as usual, like the question hadn’t occurred to him until just now. “From what I’ve seen, it’s… different. Way more impactful. Everyone there is basically dialed up to eleven. Big fights, flashy moves, over-the-top stuff. Like someone took the world and decided to make it louder.”

Blue’s eyes sparkled. “Stronger? You mean like—everyone everyone?” He started bouncing on his heels, already picturing it. “Wowie! I can’t wait to meet their Alphys! Maybe she’ll be even stronger than mine!, shh don't tell her I said that. ”

Violet rubbed their chin. “I don’t think that’s how it would work, Blue…” Then they shot Fatal a look. “And you. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you’ve been holding things back. You said this was where we’d probably find whatever you’re looking for that you still haven’t told us. Why here? Why this universe, of all places?”

Fatal tilted his head, as if weighing whether to answer or not. Then, with the same deadpan tone as always, he said, “Because it feels… different? If that makes sense. Like something’s off. Don’t know what yet. Could be nothing. Could be everything. Guess we’ll find out.”

Blue leaned closer, curious. “Different how? Like… the people? Or the magic?”

“Maybe both,” Fatal admitted, shrugging. “When I poked around before, the magic there felt… weird. Stronger. Wilder. Like it wants to break free of something. But I didn’t look too long. Didn’t want to… mess it up. This was before you two strong-armed me into making me bring you with me.”

Violet frowned, crossing their arms. “So you’ve already been there and didn’t say anything until now?”

Fatal just gave a slight shake of his head, his frozen grin somehow conveying his annoyance. “No, just looked at its surface-level info I could find. Didn’t think it mattered, since I’d get better info once I entered. But hey, maybe you’ll see something I didn’t.”

Blue puffed out his cheeks, torn between excitement and worry. “That sounds… dangerous. But also exciting! Still, you could’ve told us sooner, pal!”

Fatal just blinked at him, then raised a hand with a single finger raised into Blue's face. “Well, I’m warning you now.”

Violet just giggled as he saw Blue swat away Fatal's hand. “Of course, let me ask more formally. Ahem Would you please grace us with more of your all-knowing knowledge.” They then winked dramatically at him.

Fatal didn’t even bother with a remark and just continued.

“Well, from what I can tell, their universe is still locked by the barrier. They all seem to still be stuck in their version of the Underground.”

Violet tilted their head, Straightening as their curiosity finally started making them take this seriously. “Locked in? As in… still sealed? They haven’t reached their surface yet?”

Blue raised his hand to ask something, before just deciding to ask anyway.

“Friend Fatal, if what you say is true and you haven’t even entered this specific world, how do you already know this much info?”

Fatal looked over to him and answered. “Mm. It’s… kind of like looking at the synopsis of something. I don’t see the deeper info until I’m actually inside it. It was the same once I stepped here—the info I already had became clearer.”

Violet leaned forward, clearly interested now. “So what are they like, then? That world’s Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, everyone? Are they totally different or…?”

Fatal tapped a finger idly against his head. “They’re not swapped like they are here—” (Fatal ignored Blue’s sudden shout of confusion). “But they’re more like… altered. Some keep their original roles, mostly. The same person, the same paths. But their personalities, their pasts—little differences are stitched into them. It’s like the same story told again, just with a new way to tell it.”

Blue’s eye lights had become actual stars at this point. He was practically vibrating with joy at the chance of possibly meeting variants of friends his always known.

“WELL THAT SETTLES IT, WE ARE GOING TO THIS UNIVERSE FIRST! ADVENTURE AND NEW FRIENDS AWAIT US!”

Violet chuckled, resting their chin on their hand as they looked at him. 'Damn, his cuteness is definitely going to be the death of me. And I don’t think I have a problem with that.'

“Well, who am I to deny the wishes of such a cute monster?”

Blue blinked. His grin faltered in confusion.
“F-Friend Violet, I am the most magnificent Blue! I am not cute, I am cool! Also—Fatal told us we are technically the same person, so by that logic, you are also cute. Which means we are BOTH magnificent!”

He beamed again, puffing his chest out before suddenly gasping and turning toward Fatal.
“Oh! My apologies, Friend Fatal! I nearly forgot to include you!” Blue spread his arms wide, as if announcing something grand to the heavens.
“You can also join us in this most magnificent duo. We shall be a TRIO of greatness!”

Violet had stopped moving the second Blue called them both “cute and magnificent.” Their usual smirk softened into something quieter. Compliments weren’t rare in their life—people said things all the time. But this was different.

Fatal’s honesty came from his inability to lie. And Blue… Blue’s words carried such raw integrity and warmth that it was impossible to hear them as anything other than sincere.

For a moment, Violet just stared at Blue, caught off guard in a way they couldn’t hide.

And Blue, oblivious to the weight of what he’d just said, stood proudly with his arms crossed, waiting for Fatal’s answer.

Violet’s blush flared instantly at Blue’s words, a mix of surprise and genuine warmth making them act before thinking. With a sudden burst of energy, they leapt forward and wrapped their arms around Blue in a tight hug.

“You are so… cool! Though that doesn’t change the fact you’re still so cute,” Violet exclaimed, their voice muffled slightly against Blue’s scarf.

“Damn him,” Violet thought, pulse quickening. “How does he just say stuff like that—and actually mean it?”

Blue froze for a brief second, his usual confident composure faltering. Then, almost instantly, it snapped back brighter than ever. “WOWIE! A SURPRISE TEAM EMBRACE! Truly, nothing could be more MAGNIFICENT!" he wrapped his arms around Violet in return. The hug tightened, and before Violet could pull out of it, Blue dragged pulled Fatal into the embrace as well.

Fatal didn’t return the hug at first. His arms hung limp at his sides like he was waiting for instructions.

He didn’t get hugs—the intent, the closeness, the way monsters pressed together as if that meant something. Comfort? Celebration? He couldn’t tell. His sockets flickered, running the moment through like a puzzle with missing pieces. But since neither Violet nor Blue seemed ready to let go, he just stayed there holding them as well, a feeling blooming in him he didn't not like.

Now, Violet was sandwiched between two much taller figures—Blue above and Fatal looming just behind—but he didn’t feel  the Underlying intent of lust he always expected. It felt... safe, grounding, and strange in the good way.

So the three stood there, a strange little trio, wrapped in a moment of unintentional but sincere connection. Two of them silently acknowledging that, somehow, this was exactly where they wanted to be—at least for now.

While the last one just wanted the other two to let go of him and stop constantly hugging him.

Click!

The sound of a camera. shutter snapped. Everyone froze.

“UNDYNE!!”

Undyne peeked from behind the wall—Alphys right beside her, grinning ear to ear as she held up her own camera.

“I’M SORRY, BUT THAT WAS TOO CUTE NOT TO CAPTURE! YOU GUYS LOOK LIKE THE POSTER FOR THE MEW MEW KISSY CUTIE SEASON FINALE!”

Fatal’s sockets flickered. His frozen grin didn’t move, but it suddenly looked more menacing then it had any right to be.
“Blue… how much would it take to convince you to let me blow up this lab?”

Blue’s own smile grew a tad bit menacing as well. He straightened, Bandana fluttering with mock gravitas as he thought it over with mock seriousness, then with full sincerity replied.
“USUALLY, FRIEND FATAL, I WOULD BEG YOU TO RECONSIDER. HOWEVER… CERTAIN FACTORS HAVE LED ME TO BELIEVE I WOULD RATHER JOIN YOU IN THAT ACT.”

Chapter Text

Everyone had gathered in the center of the lab, gear strapped on and supplies tucked neatly into their Inventories. Blue bounced on his toes, Violet fidgeted with their sleeve, and Chara sulked near the door under Toriel's sharp eye.

At the far end of the room, Fatal stood perfectly still. One hand hovered in the air, sockets shut tight, as though simply thinking about opening a portal rather than doing it.

Faint static was curled around his arm, sparks of white and blue flickering at his fingertips.

Alphys crossed her arms and tapped her foot beside Undyne. "Pfft. Don't tell me you're a faker. You've been standing there forever and—"

A  sudden sound cut her off. Everyone froze.

shhkshhhhhh—chkchkchk—

The noise was like an old radio trying to tune in. Lights flickered across the lab as space rippled in front of Fatal, folding in on itself before tearing open from the center outward.

A jagged circle ripped into existence. Its core flickered between white and blue static, edges jagged like broken glass. Beyond it lay nothing but shifting, empty white.

The hum filled the room. Alphys's eyes went wide, her mouth snapping shut. Undyne on the other hand was busy taking pictures and attempting to scan the portal with an odd device that was going off.

Fatal turned his head toward Alphys. His smile was as fixed as ever, though there was something smug in it now. The static in his voice buzzed sharper as he spoke.

"...Still think I'm faking?"

Alphys bristled, but no words came. For once, she had no comeback-

"Buzz off."

It seemed she still had a comeback.

The portal hissed and flickered as it finally stablized, static edges licking the air like flames. At first no one moved.

Then Violet stepped forward without a word. No hesitation, no second thoughts—just straight through the frame. Their figure dissolved into the static and vanished.

Fatal tilted his head, sockets narrowing faintly. His voice crackled a bit as he muttered to himself.

"...Why the hell does he keep doing that? No hesitation at all..."

He sighed and followed, his form vanishing in a ripple of red and blue distortion.

Blue lingered, staring at the buzzing gateway. A bone had slipped into his grip without him realizing. He turned back to the group—Queen Toriel's worried eyes, Asgore's tense jaw, Undyne ready to move, Alphys leaning forward like she wanted to grab him. Chara was still sulking in the corner. But Blue's gaze lingered longest on his brother.

He straightened, puffed his chest out, and spoke loudly enough for all to hear

"GOODBYE, MY FRIENDS! I PROMISE, I'LL BE BACK!"

His eye lights wavered only when they met Papyrus's. He rushed forward and hugged him tight. Papyrus patted his back, quiet, but his eyelights softened.

Blue pulled away before the moment could stretch too long. He gave one last wave, then sprinted toward the portal. Without slowing, he leapt through—and was gone.

The portal buzzed, its edges flaring bright for a moment before folding in on itself and vanishing.

========================

[EPICTALE]

The three skeletons stumbled out of the rift, bones clattering against snow covered stone as the portal sealed shut behind them.

The cavern air was thick with Magic. Violet froze almost immediately, sockets widening as if they were tasting it, while Blue's gaze darted every which way.

Blue spoke first.

"...Wowie. This place feels......diffrent ." His grin widened, though his eyelights were brighting in response to the magic.

"It feels like regular battle magic is everywhere—just way more condensed in the air." He twirled the bone in his hand, savoring the prickling energy that was pressing on his bones.

Violet stayed quiet longer, grip tightening on his scarf. Back in Underlust (or whatever Fatal had called it), the magic was usaully sickly sweet, warped by indulgence. Here, the very air felt like it could cut him in half.

"...It's way heavier than Blue's, that's for sure," Violet muttered. "Every breath feels like I'm about to fight the King himself."

Fatal just blinked, his tone suddenly monotone as ever. "...Feels like air to me."

Both Blue and Violet turned to him immediately.

"HUH—what do you mean air?!" Blue barked, nearly tripping over his own feet. "This is like walking into a room where someone left twenty battlefields running at once!"

Fatal could only just shrug. "Yeah. Dunno. Just air."

Violet dragged a hand down his face. "...Either he's broken, or we are."

Still, the three needed to press forward, the crushing magic of Epictale was just going to take some time to adjust to.

Snow crunched underfoot as they wandered through the quiet forest. Blue kept close to Fatal, eyes scanning everything. Finally, he tugged his bandana down just enough to speak clearly.

"Alright, Friend Fatal... what's the plan?"

Fatal suddenly stopped. His hood shadowed his face, the silence stretching with only the sound of wind through the trees. Then he groaned.

"...Shit, that's what it was that was annoying mee"

Blue gasped. "Language! Friend Fatal, there are better words to use. You should be setting an example!"

Fatal pinched the bridge of his nose. "...I just realized. I never thought of a plan."

Violet snorted into their scarf, amused. Blue looked scandalized.

"What do you mean you don't have a plan?! We're in a whole new universe!"

Fatal tilted his head back, staring at the sky before shrugging. "Fuck it. We'll make it up as we go."

Blue gasped again. "Language and recklessness?! Friend Fatal, you're in desperate need of my guidance."

Yet Violet caught the twitch of amusement in Blue's face before he suddenly crouched down, scratching circles in the snow with his bone.

"These represent the three universes we'll search!" he declared, jabbing the middle one. "And these dots—represent us! The magnificent trio!"

Violet chuckled, scarf muffling the sound. Fatal just folded his arms.

Blue leaned back proudly. "Since Friend Fatal abandoned his duties, I shall take up the burden of planning!"

He trailed off, bone hovering. His brow furrowed. "...Actually, wait. Now that I think about it... I don't even know why we're here. Other than to 'look for something.'"

He stood, brushing snow from his knees, and faced Fatal.

"Friend Fatal... what are we looking for?"

For some reason, the forest around them went silient. Fatal tilted his head as he stared deeply into Blue' eye lights.

"...Do you really want to know?, as this information may be very bad for you to know, can you handle it."

"Obviously! I AM NOT JUST ANYONE, I AM THE MAGNIFICABT BLUE, VICE CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GAURD. IF ANYONE CAN HANDLE VITAL INFORMATION ITS ME." Blue struck a bold pose.

Violet smirked and leaned in, striking one of their own. "You heard him, tell us, O Grim Smiler of Secrets~."

Fatal stared at them both for a long second—Blue glowing with earnest praise, Violet playful pose. Then his voice cut through, heavier than before.

"...The entire universe I woke up in is gone. Not damaged. Not corrupted. Gone."

The words cracked across the snow. Blue's heroic stance faltered. Violet's smirk froze.

Both suddenly toppled sideways into the snow due to how close they were standing, a tangle of limbs and shock.

"...Gone," Fatal repeated, grin steady though his hollow sockets flickered with something unreadable.

The two just lay there, stunned. Fatal loomed over them, static buzzing faintly.

"This is why I didn't want you coming along," he said flatly. "My goal is simple: find who—or what—did this. How they did it. And then, preferably..." His hand flexed. "...Beat them up or something."

The wind whistled through Snowdin's trees.

Blue scrambled upright, brushing snow away. "Worry not, Friend Fatal! I'll shall help you hunt this villain down and apprehend them! But, uh..." He rubbed his neck sheepishly as he had started sweating a bit.

"...Maybe let's not learn how to destroy universes, okay?"

Violet smirked faintly,but it was strained, still they held that pose while sitting in the snow. "Revenge doesn't suit you, sugar. Stick with your confused puppy vibe—it's cuter."

Fatal just sighed through static and turned away, his coat trailing in the wind as he muttered under his breath."...People too kind. So kind it makes them stupid."

Blue and Violet exchanged very worried glances to each other then scrambled after him.

Fatal spoke again. "Every world has patterns. Even if details change, constants remain. This place? It's Snowdin. Almost every universe with an Underground has one. But it's never the same. The design's familiar, but the story is different."

Violet raised a brow. "And that helps us how?"

Fatal's smile twitched faintly. "It means keep your eyes open. We're not here to sightsee. Look for what doesn't belong."

Blue frowned. "...But if every world's different, how do we even know what 'doesn't belong'?"

Fatal's sockets flickered faintly as he looked up at the carvern roof above them all  "...I have no idea. So were just gonna have to look around and hope for the best."

Fatal kept walking as he ignored the confused screams from behind him.

Chapter Text

Snow crunched softly under their steps as the trio slipped between the trees at the edge of Epictale’s Snowdin forest. The air was crisp, quiet, broken only by the rustle of branches and the faint crunch of their careful movements.

Blue held his scarf close, whispering as he ducked beneath a snowy branch.
“Feels just like my world… but not. Familiar, but uncanny.”

Violet tilted their head, voice low and amused.
“Feels homey enough to me. Warm. Nice… and without all the lust in the air.”

Blue nearly tripped on a root, whisper-shouting back.
“Lust?! Why in the—”

“Story for another time, sugar.” Violet smirked as they placed a finger in blues face, motioning for him to keep quiet.

Before Blue could press further, Fatal suddenly yanked them both by the collar and shoved them behind a towering pile of snow by the tree line.

"Hey—!" Blue whispered, muffled by scarf and snow. "Why are we—"

Before either could scold him further, Fatal stiffened. His head snapped toward the snowy trail ahead, sockets shifting into static. Text flickered faintly in his sockets, layered with a growing pulse of magic.

“…Something’s coming,” he muttered, voice low and radio-like. “Strong marker. Heading straight for us.”

Violet’s eye lights buzzed While Blue’s grip tightened on his bone.

Moments later, a figure emerged down the snowy path. Small horns. White fur glowing faintly in the dim forest light.

The trio ducked behind a different mound of snow, hearts thudding. Fatal’s sockets flickered red-blue, scanning the figure with lines of code text spilling across his vision

Blue blinked, tilting his head. Violet’s eyes softened, widening just slightly. Fatal stayed frozen, his aura spiking unconsciously higher the longer he stared.

There, in the open, a figure walked calmly down the snowy lane. They had small horns, a soft glow clinging to white fur, and a green semi poncho on them.

Blue tilted his head while Violet frowned. Neither recognized him.

Fatal, though, kept his gaze locked foward, his vision opening up to more information—half his vision was suddenly covered in a code overlay spilling across his sockets. Letters and numbers flickered over the figure's body.

[ASRIEL DREEMUR.]

Fatal's intent grew heavy, pressing the snow around them just slightly. He didn't move. Didn't blink. Just watched.

"That Persons is Asriel Dreemur. Son of Toriel Dreemur and Asgore Dreemur." [Flowey—possible alternate form noted in the code history] Wonder what the hell that means?

Blue blinked, tilting his head. "Asriel? Never heard of them."

Violet's eyes widened, then softened. They glanced at Fatal, then to Blue. "Asriel Dreemur... there was someone with that name in my ...universe?, Gosh Ii still cant belive how wierd that feels to say, But anyways as I was saying. There was someone like that in my world too, sugar. But..." Their voice dipped. "He died before he was even  few hours old. just after being born. Never even got to take a breath."

Blue frowned, looking between them both. "Strange. In my world, nobody with that name even existed. Not in the Underground, not in any story. Toriel and Asgore were... just Toriel and Asgore. they never had any biological children."

Fatal didn't respond right away. His grin stayed, but his sockets flickered with unreadable static. He was still locked on Asriel, code vision scrolling nonstop. The air around him hummed with the weight of his focus.

Finally, he muttered "Different worlds. Different outcomes. Same names... same patterns. No two are the same, but every one's a reflection of something else."

Blue sweat dropped a little as he leaned in closer to Violet, whispering: "So... from the cryptic jumbo he is saying, I guess we just stumbled into a world where this guy exist and didn't die."

The trio crouched low, breaths hushed, as Asriel passed along the snowy path. His steps were slow, deliberate, but after a few moments, he stopped. His head tilted slightly, his gaze flicking toward their snow mound hideout.

Then, in a calm but pointed voice, he said
"...Uhhh, you do know I can sense you, right?"

Blue's jaw dropped. "Wait—he's only talking about one of us."

Violet's brow twitched, realization hitting at the same time as it did for Blue. Both had instinctively lowered their magic and dulled their intent, blending into the snow and shadows without even thinking about it. But Fatal—

His body practically hummed with both intent and static. His magic leaked like a faulty faucet. His intent wasn't even subtle—it was sharp, dense, and loud, practically slapping the air with its presence.

Blue's thoughts ran hot and fast By Queen Toriel! Does he not know how to stealth? We're supposed to be hiding, not waving a flag!

Violet's thoughts were quieter but held frustration of realization. He doesn't even realize he's doing it. All that raw energy—like he never learned the basics. He's powerful, but... clueless. Like a big dangerous child.

Fatal, meanwhile, tilted his head, sockets glowing faintly under his hood, as if he was the one confused by their looks.

"What?" he muttered, his voice crackling like a radio tuning between stations. "I'm sitting still."

Blue slapped a hand over his face. Violet sighed. And Asriel... began to walk closer to there hiding spot.

Asriel's footsteps grew closer, crunching snow under his boots.

Behind the snow mound, Blue was glaring at Fatal, whispering furiously.
"Do you even know what stealth is?!"

Fatal tilted his head, voice crackling low like static.
"I'm... sitting still. Isn't that enough?"

Blue nearly fell over. "NO! You suppress your magic, you hide your intent, you blend! That's the whole point of stealth!"

Fatal blinked. "...Wait. You can do that? Like... actually? How?"

Before Blue could blow up, Violet smacked both of them upside the head with his scarf Boa.
"You two idiots—he's right over the wall. He can hear you."

A shadow fell over them. Then, Asriel's young fluffy face popped up over the snowbank, his expression deadpan.
"...Your friend's telling the truth. You guys are really bad at stealth."

Before he could say more however, Fatal summoned a single skeletal hand. It shot forward, clamping onto Asriel's poncho and yanking him up. In one motion, it spun him around and flung him down the snowy street like a ragdoll.

Blue didn’t need to be told twice. He bolted, cape snapping behind him. 

Violet stayed behind for a heartbeat, pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering, "These two..."

Then, with a sharp flick, he shortcut ahead of them, reappearing right in their path.

He smirked, hands on his hips.
"You boys look like you could use a shortcut."

Violet's smirk widened as he opened her mouth for another witty remark—

But before the words could leave his tongue, he yelped.

Fatal had grabbed his under one arm, Blue had grabbed the other, and together the two sprinted down the snowy path, hauling them like he was nothing more than a bag of flour.

"Hey—!" Violet wriggled, feathers flaring, scarf fluttering in protest.
"You—You can't just—!"

"Correction, friend Violet!" Blue shouted triumphantly, legs pumping as he ran. "We can! Because we are!"

Fatal didn't even look at her, static-laced voice flat and matter-of-fact.
"You were slowing down after gaining ahead of us, that was ineffiecient. Solution: carry the problem."

Violet's protests died in there throat as he realized this wasn't slowing them down—they were running at a breakneck pace, snow kicking up behind them in a wild spray.

Still dangling between them, he finally muttered, half annoyed and half impressed,
"...I hate how efficient this is."

Blue just laughed, louder than the crunch of the snow. Fatal stayed quiet, his grin unmoving as his intent burned ahead of them.

Asriel had tumbled through the snow, rolled to his feet, and dusted himself off all in one smooth motion. His expression shifted from surprise to exasperation.
“…Seriously? I didn't even say or do anything threating”

Leaning down he then broke into a sprint, boots crunching snow as he gave chase. His voice echoed after them, frustrated but not angry.
“Wait! I’m not trying to hurt you!”

Violet glanced back from where they were being carried, eyes widening as Asriel gained ground.
“He’s fast! He’s REALLY fast!”

They then shot a look at Fatal. “This is your fault!”

Fatal’s grin didn’t waver. His sockets flickered as he pulled into his own shortcut ahead, dragging Blue and Violet with him. They reappeared farther down the path in a spray of snow near the end of Snowdin region.

But when Violet turned to check behind them again, Asriel was already there—closing distance like the shortcut hadn’t mattered. His magic had flared around his legs, boosting his speed.

“Stop running!” he called out, frustration edging his voice. “I just want to talk!”

Blue nearly tripped again. “That’s what people say right before they ATTACK!”

Blue just laughed, his voice carrying loud through the forest. Fatal stayed silent, his aura leaking brighter with every step, Asriel’s voice still chasing them through the woods.

“STOP RUNNING!”

Running past the beginnings of the waterfall caverns, the trio kept running through the caves and tunnels till they past through a smaller sized entrance compared to the larger carven ones

The trio burst into the tunnel, their frantic footsteps echoing over the shallow pools. Mist curled in the dim cavern light, glowing faintly blue from bioluminescent moss. Their breaths came quick, their boots splashing against the wet stone.

Fatal skidded to a halt just past the entryway, his sockets dual colored tone brighting with magic. Without hesitation, he raised a hand-

A sound like cracking glass echoed through the chamber.

With a violent lurch, a massive wall of bones erupted from the stone floor, slamming together like iron gates. The bones gleamed a deep blue, with the occasionally red bone, but flickered with static or text, some flashing red or blue as they locked into place. Their jagged edges jutted upward, forming a barrier that pulsed faintly in the dim light.

THUD

Something hit the wall of bones from the other side right after it was put up.

THUD

The entire cavern seemed to shiver from the force of the blows.

Asriel’s voice carried through, muffled but firm.
“You can’t just keep running!” '=

THUD

“I’m not going to hurt you—” CRACK “—but It's not like this wall is gonna hold me forever!”

The bone wall flickered faintly at the impact, red flashes streaking across its surface in a flash of static after time the wall is hit.

Blue glanced nervously at Violet, then at Fatal.
“…Sooo. How long till he smashes through?”

Fatal tilted his head, the silence being occasionally disrupted by the sounds of magic attacks hitting the wall filling the pause.
“…Depends how much power he wants to use. My Bones…they are set to a scale to a certain limit. If he pushes harder, they grow harder. Equal and opposite reaction, up to a certain point.”

Violet gave him a flat look. “…So you made a wall that responds to his strength? You’re not stopping him—you’re  just making him look for a different route to get here.”

For the first time, Fatal blinked, the static flicker behind his sockets hesitating.
“…Oh.”

The bone wall shuddered again, harder this time, cracks starting to spider across the surface.

Blue threw his hands up.
“Oh, great. Fantastic! Friends I do believe we make our exit post hast as I do not want to witness the limit of what Friend Fatal's bones can stop!”

Fatal looked at where the wall was. After thinking of a solution, then thinking it over some more, he decided to say his idea out loud. After thinking of all the pros and cons of the solution, and believing it to be a good idea—

The look he got from both Violet and Blue was what made him reconsider—

“NO, WE ARE HARMING AN INNOCENT MONSTER JUST TO ‘MAKE THINGS EASIER’!”

“But would it not solve—”

“FATAL.”

—Scrap the idea altogether

Chapter Text

The forest was quieter now.
Too quiet.

Asriel's boots crunched softly over the thin crust of snow as he followed the tracks deeper into the woods. Each step took him further from Snowdin's warm lights and closer to something that hummed in the air—low, distorted, and restless.

The trail forked once, then twice. He paused at the second turn, eyes narrowing. The energy he was following was clearer here, easier to feel against his soul like static crawling over his fur.

He could sense them now.
A distinct presences, or it could be three. He wasn't fully sure, but the trail of three different sets of foot prints told him heir were three.

One was bright, energetic—like a flame that's attempting to stay steady, but not putting thier all into that.
The second was smoother, lighter, with an odd sweet scent to it, it was the weakest but its unique scent made it easier to spot.
But the third—That one was... indescribable?

It wasn't just magic—it was noise.
It buzzed, warped, buzzed against his senses like those old radios the guards used to use. Every time he tried to focus on it, the magic seemed to rewrite itself—its texture, its density, even its rhythm—like it was prepared to rush out, but had no clue what to do.

Another thing to mention was that it was loud.
So loud that it nearly drowned the other two out completely.

Asriel kept walking through the forest, he was still following the foot prints and the wierd magic. The tracks led straight into a clearing—fresh snow covering everything, meaning he lost there tracks. He squinted, letting his magic stretch outward, .

He leaned out a bit more. And then he saw them.

Three people.
All of them close enough to each other.
All of them were also skele—

"Wait. Skeletons?" he muttered under his breath, blinking. "Three skeletons? Seriously?, I thought Paps and uncle Sans were the only ones left."

Two of them looked... mostly normal, except that they had an extreme resemblance to sans, but the only difference he could make from them was thier outfits.

The shorter one wore soft purple and voilet, While the taller one wore something resemblingg Papyrus old battle body, both talking about something, voices muffled by distance and snow. 

But the third—

"What the hell?" he whispered.

That one wasn't normal. Not even close.
It looked like reality was having a panic attack around him.

His outline shimmered and bent like heat haze, pixels crawling up his ribs and arms. Every few seconds, bits of him would skip, like frames. Not all of his bones were white—they were tinted in shifting shades of red and blue, and weird glowing text scrolled faintly across his eye sockets, too fast to read.

And the sound.
Even from here, Asriel could hear it—a faint crackle, like a dying radio signal buried in the snow.

He blinked hard, wiping his eyes to make sure he was still seeing things right. "Okay. Nope. That's not normal. What even—how does someone glitch in real life?!"

The static figure turned its head slightly, almost idly, and Asriel felt every bit of fur on his arms stand up.
It wasn't just looking around. It was scanning. Searching.

He ducked back behind the tree, heart thumping once, twice.

"Okay okay okay..." he muttered, pressing a paw to his chest. "Calm down. Just three skeletons. Three very weird skeletons. You've handled mom when she was pissed, you can handle this."

He took another careful step, lowering his magic signature even further—barely a whisper of intent. He wasn't about to spook whoever this was.

But that plan didn't work when the instant his foot touched the snow, the glichted skeletons head snapped in his direction.

Asriel froze, standing still on the path.

There was no way—
He was far enough, quiet enough, hidden behind a drift thick enough to block sight and sound. Even his magic was barely flickering.

Yet that thing—no, that skeleton—was staring directly toward his spot.

The flicker of red-blue light from its sockets burned brightly through the snowfall, his eye sockets the only thing he could see from his spot.

He shouldn't be able to sense me.

He looked again.

The static one was still looking in his direction. Directly, but had draged the other two to a large mound of snow to hide behind. As if he'd just yelled across the snow at them.

 "How—? I didn't even—" He looked down at his hands, checking his hold on his magic. It was dim, quiet, nearly invisible. He was completely suppressed.

"How in the hell did you even sense me?" he whispered, almost offended. "That shouldn't be possible."

Asriel walked foward to thier hiding spot, he needed answers.

For a moment, the glitching skeleton didn't attemp hiding their magic or intent. So when he got close enough to them to feel it, a tiny flash that felt way too much like... acknowledgement.

Asriel blinked again. "Oh, great," he muttered dryly. "He can see me too. Fantastic."

He stepped forward, deciding to keep his tone casual — nonthreatening.
After all, whoever they were, they didn't feel like danger.
Just... lost.

oh who was he kidding, he wanted answers, and this has been the most non boring and new thing that has happened to him in ages

He got within earshot — and heard them.....arguing with each other?.

From behind the mound came muffled voices, so they were arguing.

"Do you even know what stealth is?!" one of them hissed — high-pitched, but with a low base, with that kind of energy only someone who's trying way too hard to stay quiet can make.

Then another voice — by the stars, their voice sounded like it came from a broken machine then an actual person, it was rougher, staticky, broken between the words and had some sort of an echo.
"I'm... sitting still. Isn't that enough?"

The first one groaned. "NO! You suppress your magic, you hide your intent, you blend! That's the point of stealth!"

The other one paused. "...Wait. You can do that? Like... actually?"

Asriel blinked, a small laugh escaping before he could stop it. "Oh stars," he whispered. "They're arguing about stealth—while hiding."

The third voice, smoother and tired, broke through — thier one was low as well, but a pleasant vocal range. "You two — he's right over the wall. He can hear you."

Asriel grinned now, shaking his head. Finally, someone with sense.

He took the last few steps forward, his boots crunching softly through the snow until his shadow stretched over their hideout.
All four of them froze instantly.

Asriel's breath caught, what he was planning to say left him.

The glitchy one was real. They were actually glitching in real life
Every flicker of his form sent lines of distortion through the air, a low hum vibrating in Asriel's chest like feedback through a speaker.
And yet... his expression wasn't hostile.
If anything, he looked confused.

Deciding to make something up on the spot, Asriel went with a joke to try and lower the tension

"Your friend's telling the truth," Asriel said, tone calm but amused. "You guys are really bad at stealth."

Three pairs of sockets snapped toward him.

The sans lookalike wearing Blue just stared, thier smile seemed to be growing.
The purple one sighed, but Asriel could tell they didn't feel too bad about being caught.
And the glitchy one just tilted his head, But Asriel swore he saw actual text flashing faintly across his sockets.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Suddenly—before Asriel could say anything else—a skeletal hand, bright with static, shot out of the snow and clamped onto his poncho.

"What the—?!"

Before the sentence could finish being said, he was yanked forward with impossible force. The world spun white and blue; snow exploded around him as he was flung through the air like a discarded toy. He hit the ground, rolled twice, and slammed into a snowbank hard enough to leave an imprint.

Groaning, Asriel sat up and brushed snow from his face. His heart hammered, his magic had reflexively flared around his body to dampen the force of the landing, while the snow itself, made sure he didn't take any actual damage.

"Okay," he muttered, blinking hard. "Did... did he just throw me?"

When his vision cleared, the group was already bolting away—three figures tearing through the snow.

For a moment, all Asriel could do was stare.
Three skeletons his never seen before.

One looking like Sans but blue,

The other also looking like sans, but violet

—and that one.
The glitching one. His outline flickered like a broken projection, parts of his body phasing between colors, static seemed to be spilling faintly off him like smoke.

"What in the world..." Asriel murmured. "How is he even standing like that?"

He got to his feet, dusting snow from his sleeves. His mind was racing—there was no hostility in the magic used on him now, The skeleton also didn't  have any malicious intent in them, which actually was why he was blindsided when the skeleton did do that.

But that reaction... It wasn't defensive. It was.. not instinctive either, defiantly not reflective as well. Like that skeleton had no idea what to do and decided throwing him was a good idea.

Still, Asriel wasn't about to let them vanish into the forest before he got his answers.
He took a steadying breath, focused his magic into his legs, and sprinted after them—his boots punching deep into the snow with every push.

The forest blurred. His breath came in quick bursts of white fog. He could see them ahead now—three blurs of color weaving between the trees, snow flying in their wake.

"Wait!" he called out, voice echoing through the cold air. "I'm not trying to hurt you!"

They didn't slow down. If anything, the static one looked back—and for a fraction of a second, Asriel felt something strange. That skeleton's eyes—which was dual-toned, glitching—flickered right through him, like they were scanning his very soul. Then he turned away and ran faster.

"...You've got to be kidding me."

Asriel pushed harder, golden magic crackling around his boots. He was catching up now, every step closing the distance.

"Stop running!" he shouted again. "I just want to talk!"

The blue one almost tripped; the violet one yelled something he couldn't quite hear. And then, in a flash of distorted light, all three of them vanished.

A shortcut?. 
He skidded to a stop, eyes wide. "They can shortcut? All three of them?"

He didn't stop to question it further. Channeling more magic into his legs, Asriel leaped above and over the canopy of trees that separated him from them, his own short-distance jump, the world froze for a heartbeat as he was in the air, before snapping back—

—and landing just in time to see them again, farther down the path near one of the tunnels leading into waterfall.

They looked startled to see him already there, hen ran faster into a different set of tunnels.
"Persistent, aren't you," Asriel muttered under his breath.

Before he could speak again, the glitching one raised a hand—and suddenly, the ground trembled. Bones erupted from the earth, fusing into a massive, bone-lined wall that glowed with static.

Asriel crashed into it before he could react, shoulder-first. The impact shook the cavern. He staggered back, glaring at the barrier as red and blue flashes danced across it.

"You can't just keep running!" he yelled, slamming his palm against the bones. "I'm not going to hurt you!"

He drew in a breath, energy rising. "But it's not like this wall's gonna hold me forever!"

A pulse of golden fire surged from his hands, cracking across the barrier like lightning. The bones flickered again, repairing themselves almost immediately—but he could tell. It had reacted to his own force.

Asriel rolled his shoulders, exhaling a puff of mist. "Okay," he muttered, smirking faintly. "You wanna play hard wall? Fine. Let's play hard wall."

He cracked his knuckles, then clenched his fists—gold magic flaring bright around them.
With a single step forward, he drove his fist into the wall.

THUD.
The bones shuddered.

Another hit.
THUD.
Static flickered through the barrier, red and blue sparks flaring like alarms.

Then he really got into it.

"ORAORAORAORAORA—!"

Each blow hit faster than the last, a blur of golden fists hammering the barrier in a storm of impacts. The bones vibrated, their glow flickering erratically as fractures spiderwebbed across the surface. The air shook from the sheer force of it.

Pieces of rock from the ceiling fell in small cascades. The ground trembled beneath his feet. The wall was holding, but barely—its colors strobing wildly between red, blue, and white.

Asriel took a step back, breathing hard, sweat glinting on his forehead despite the cold. "Alright," he panted, "you're tougher than you look."

He raised a hand, energy swirling into his palm. In an instant, fire bloomed from his fingertips—dozens of small, searing orbs lighting the cavern with blinding golden light.

He threw the first volley.

FWOOOM!
Fireballs slammed into the wall, bursting in waves of heat and static. The explosions filled the tunnel with shockwaves, shaking stalagmites fell loose from the ceiling.

He backflipped, landing lightly on his boots, and fired another barrage mid-air, each shot detonating in bursts of flame and smoke.

The wall began to crack, visibly now—bones splintering, energy flickering violently between stability and collapse.

But as he landed again, the cavern groaned. The vibrations crawled up through the stone. Cracks spread—not just across the wall, but across the ceiling.

Asriel froze, eyes darting upward. Small chunks of stone rained down. The bioluminescent moss dimmed as dust began to fall.

"...Oh, stars."

He stepped back fast, letting the magic fade from his hands. The realization hit instantly—if he kept hitting the barrier, the whole cavern was going to come down. And it wasn't the bones that would give out first.

He exhaled through his nose, lowering his stance. "You win this round, wall."

The static barrier pulsed faintly, almost smug.

Asriel exhaled, shoulders sinking, electricity rising faintly from his fur. The bone wall flickered with static but refused to fall, even with cracks spiderwebbing through it.

He sighed, muttering to himself,
"Okay. They win. I'm not wasting the rest of my magic punching drywall made of bones."

Kicking a bit of dust off his boot, he pulled his phone from under his poncho. "This day just keeps getting weirder."
He angled the phone and snapped a quick picture of the massive wall — half for evidence, half because... well, with out any proof was he gonna get Chara going to believe this?

Then, with a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, he scrolled through his contacts until he saw the one labeled 'THE GREAT PAPYRUS 💥'.

The phone rang once.

“ASRIEL DREEMUR! MY SPARKLING FLUFFBALL OF FRIENDSHIP! HAVE YOU CALLED TO CONFIRM OUR NEXT TRAINING MONTAGE?!”

Asriel chuckled. “Not exactly, Pap. I just… ran into something strange.”

“STRANGE, YOU SAY?! IS IT A NEW FORM OF EXERCISE?!”

“No—well, kinda. More like… three skeletons.”

“THREE!?” Papyrus gasped so loudly Asriel had to pull the phone away. “THREE TIMES THE UNKNOWN! THREE TIMES THE BONES! PERHAPS… SECRET RELATIVES!?”

Asriel blinked. “…Relatives?”

“YES! THINK ABOUT IT, MY FLUFFY FRIEND! IF WE ARE IN AN UNDERGROUND, THEN THERE COULD BE AN UNDERGROUND UNDER THE UNDERGROUND, WHERE EXTRA SKELETONS TRAIN IN SECRET UNTIL THE TIME IS RIGHT!”

Asriel stared at the bone wall. “…You’re serious?”

“OF COURSE! HOW ELSE DO YOU EXPLAIN BRAND-NEW SKELETAL STRANGERS!?”

“Papyrus, one of them was glitched. Like a computer.”

“WELL, OBVIOUSLY HE’S BEEN TRAINING HIS BONES TOO HARD! I MYSELF HAVE ALMOST ACHIEVED A DIFFERENT FORM IN THE PAST!”

Asriel snorted. “What does that even mean?”

“IT MEANS MY BONES SHIMMERED SO FAST THEY PHASED BETWEEN FRAMES OF COOLNESS!”

He couldn’t help it; Asriel laughed, shoulders shaking. “You’re ridiculous, Pap.”

“I PREFER THE TERM VISIONARY!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Asriel smiled. “Still, one of them used shortcuts like Sans. Just blinked away with the others like it was nothing. You ever seen anyone else do that?”

Papyrus hummed dramatically. “ONLY SANS CAN DO THAT HERE! BUT IF THEY CAN TOO… THEN PERHAPS THEY ARE HIS LONG-LOST COUSINS! WHICH ALSO MAKES THEM MY LONG-LOST COUSINS!”

Asriel raised a brow. “Cousins?”

“WE SHOULD INVITE THEM FOR SPAGHETTI! EVERY FAMILY REUNION NEEDS A BANQUET!”

Asriel sighed, smiling despite himself. “I’ll keep that in mind, Pap. They’re probably just spooked. I’ll try again later—without getting thrown this time.”

“THEY THREW YOU!? OUTRAGEOUS! YOU SHOULD HAVE UNLEASHED YOUR BURNING HEROIC JUSTICE, BUT MAKE SURE NOT TO BURN ANYTHING TO MUCH, QUEEN TORIAL BARLYE LET YOU OFF THE HHOOK THE LAST TIME WE TRAINED!”

“Yeah, maybe next time, Ill take you up on that sparing lesson.”

“GOOD! BUT REMEMBER—MERCY BEFORE MAYHEM! AND TAKE A SELFIE NEXT TIME! FOR THE FAMILY ARCHIVES!”

Asriel laughed softly. “Sure, Pap. Talk to you later.”

“FAREWELL, FRIEND ASRIEL! MAY YOUR BONES BE EVER STRONG AND YOUR SOUL BURN EVER BRIGHT!”

The call ended with the usual Papyrus echo of enthusiasm lingering through the dead signal.

Asriel stared at the quiet, cracked bone wall one more time. The faint static shimmered through the air, fading like snowflakes in the dark.

“…Skeletons from the Underground under the Underground, huh?” he murmured, smiling. “Yeah. That sounds like something Papyrus would believe.”