Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Once upon a time, before three particular multiverse existed, there was an Admin named Calytrix. This Admin has taken form of a cat mobian with wheat colored fur and hair, along with mint colored eyes, she wears a blue-green off shoulder sweater, a black cargo harajuku shorts, and a pair of black boots.

Unlike the beings that would eventually inhabit the countless worlds beneath her care, Calytrix existed beyond code and story alike. She stood outside every universe, every timeline, every possibility. To her, realities were little more than ideas waiting to be explored.

And unfortunately Calytrix... Was currently bored, so bored that even her twin, Cygnus, aren't able to distract her from it.

So after several more attempt to divert her boredom onto something else, she decided to create not one multiverse... But three.

Now, she knew that being an Admin to three whole multiverse was going to be a hard work, not because maintaining reality was difficult, no, reality was surprisingly self-sufficient once you got it running.

At first glance, they looked identical, until she started changing things.

"Let's see what happens."

Famous last words.

The first Multiverse was simple.

Instead of having separate beings handling Creation and Destruction, Calytrix created only one God that she named Index. A single overworked god acting as her assistant for her first multiverse.

"Surely this won't cause any problems." She waved off

It immediately caused problems because the poor God spent half their day creating universes while the other half destroying corrupted ones. Then they had paperwork, nobody warned them about the paperwork.

Soon they could be heard screaming into the void.

Needless to say, Index developed a caffeine addiction that rivaled Reaper himself.

The second Multiverse was much more traditional.

She starts by creating Undertale, Underfell, and Underswap.

Once she's done with the core AU of this multiverse she began to create the  main Gods that'll responsible for the balance of Creation and Destruction, in other words this multiverse Ink and Error. Two Gods that will balanced each other.

Perfect.

Or at least in theory, in reality, it more like she became the mother of two siblings who's sharing one braincell, they didn't really hate each other, it's one of those scenarios where your sibling destroy your drawing because you put it on his side of the room after you run out of place to put it on your side, like that but on multiverse level, the major example of this are when Ink would create seventeen new AUs, Error would immediately threaten to delete twelve of them. And then Ink would panic making Error complain, they would argue for six hours, then somehow end up watching movies together.

Neither understood how this kept happening.

Calytrix found it hilarious.

"Ah yes." She nodded wisely. "Peak of siblings shenanigans." Meanwhile, Ink and Error were fighting over whether a timeline filled entirely with sentient ducks deserved to exist.

Well... At least they get along (mostly) just fine. Plus she also make sure so Ink have his SOUL so it'll be fiiiine~

Then there was the third and her youngest Multiverse.

This one is honestly Calytrix's favorite, mostly because it confused everyone.

In this Multiverse, Ink wasn't the God of Creation, he was merely the Guardian of Creation while holding the tittle God of Souls.

"What about balance?" Cygnus her twin brother asked once.

"What balance?" Calytrix replied, making Cygnus became very concerned (fair).

Because without an Error equivalent running around, there's no destroyer to balanced Ink out, who had suddenly realized he possessed significantly less authority than his counterparts because other than he's not a God like most of them. To counter this Calytrix's will hold the sole decision of adding new AU in this Multiverse, which she'll only add at least 5 every year and therefore only adding a new AU when the Multiverse grow naturally. Plus this Ink is also kept his SOUL for convenient purpose of not having a cheese cheddar memory.

"This is unfair." Ink pouted.

"You get healthcare." Calytrix's placate her youngest (essentially) son.

"Oh."

"And paid vacation 12 weeks a year."

"Oh."

"Plus you can actually sleep."

"...I am suddenly okay with this arrangement."

And thus Guardian Ink became the most emotionally stable Ink in existence. The bar wasn't very high.

Years passed and the three Multiverses developed differently. The Index Multiverse became extremely efficient but ran entirely on caffeine and spite, the Ink & Error Multiverse became surprisingly functional despite looking like a disaster from the outside, and the Guardian Ink Multiverse somehow became the least chaotic of the three.

Nobody understood why.

Especially Calytrix who enjoyed having less work because of it and more time to hang out with her children.

A few years later, there came a day when Calytrix reached her limit, not because of a universe-ending crisis, not even because somebody had accidentally created a timeline entirely populated by talking potatoes.

No.

It was because she was bored, very, very bored. Being an Admin was exhausting. So one morning, after staring at her Multiverse for approximately three minutes, Calytrix made a decision.

"I'm going on vacation."

The Multiverse immediately felt a sense of impending doom.

Packing took approximately five minutes, mostly because Calytrix being practical. A suitcase, several changes of clothes, snacks, more snacks, even more snacks, and an emergency supply of snacks (look her priorities were clear, nobody messed with her snacks, nobody), also her twin brother, can't forget about, she needed to drag him from his work for this.

Once everything was packed, she called for the beings responsible for maintaining her three Multiverses.

Four figures appeared; Index, who essentially her oldest child, Ink & Error, essentially her twin children, and another Ink, who's practically her youngest. The second Ink was from the Guardian Multiverse, to avoid confusion, everyone simply called him Guardian.

Hey, nobody claimed they was creative in this family.

When they arrived to her domain the group stared at Calytrix, then at the suitcase, then back at Calytrix. There was a long silence.

"...You're leaving." Guardian asked with a wobbly voice.

"Not forever bud."

"Why?" Error asked this time, voice almost as wobbly as Guardian.

Calytrix slowly lowered her sunglasses. "Because... there come a time where a girl want a vacation so suddenly, Error."

Error considered this. "...Fair." He conceded.

Index immediately looked concerned, the sole God of his Multiverse was many things. They were competent, reliable, efficient, and chronically overworked.

But they knew that their (essentially) Mother won't be (or able) to leave them for too long, because for all she look uncaring towards her creation they knew she loved them to bits.

That's why they resolve their SOUL because the chance of Mother appointed them as the one in charge is definitely high as they were her first creation and undoubtedly the most responsible one between his 'siblings.'

"How long?" Index asked.

"A few weeks." Calytrix sheepishly answer.

Index's eyelight twitched. "A few WHAT?"

"A few weeks."

To be fair there's a reason why Index freaking out, because the ratio of Admin plane and their own plane is 1:100, meaning while it's only been one minute there here a year is probably already passed by.

"That's not a vacation." Index weakly refute.

Meanwhile, Ink was already panicking.

"You can't leave!" He practically sobbed.

"I'm not gone forever sweetsoul..." Their Mother said while patting Ink's skull.

"What if something goes wrong?!" Ink continue spiraling.

"You're not alone Ink, you guys can help each other."

"What if we can't fix it?!"

"Then ask Error."

Error immediately pointed at himself. "Absolutely not."

Guardian was the only one who seemed remotely calm, mostly because he actually got sleep. "You know, normal bosses usually appoint temporary replacements."

"I did tho?" She looked at him, confused.

Everyone paused at that, then slowly looked around, then back at Calytrix.

"...Who?" Index asked, already dreading the answer.

"You." Their Mother pointed at Index.

The silence that followed could have been measured, Error blinked, Ink blinked, Guardian blinked, Index meanwhile looked like they was calculating the exact moment their life went wrong. They already anticipated it if course, but anticipate did not necessarily means they're ready.

She turned toward the group. "Listen buds, I'm only going to be gone for a little while. Nothing bad could possibly happen in that time frame."

The four exchanged glances, none of them looked reassured.

"You'll be fine." They're still not reassured.

"I trust you." That somehow made it worse.

"Look guys, the instructions are simple." She held up one finger. "Keep your Multiverses running." A second finger. "Don't start any wars in the multiverse." A third finger. "And the most importantly, do. Not. Let. Any. Foreign. Deity. Invade. Your. Multiverse." Finally, Calytrix grabbed her suitcase while she adjusted her sunglasses, then smiled, the kind of smile that usually sooth all of them. "Alright?"

The four immediately became nervous.

"Now then behave while I'm gone, I already asked Void and Feeling to check on you from time to time, so if there's any big emergency go through them and they'll relay it to me."

"Yes Mother."

"At least we still get supervision," Guardian muttered.

"And remember." Calytrix stared pointedly at all of them. "You are all responsible adults."

The silence was deafening, suddenly Error burst out laughing, Ink looked offended, Index looked at her deadpaned, Guardian looked ready to resign.

A portal opened behind Calytrix. "See you in a few weeks boys!" Then she stepped through and the portal slowly closed, and just like that the Admin was gone.

The four main Multiverse caretakers stood there in silence, nobody moved, nobody even dared to spoke, the Multiverse itself seemed to be holding its breath.

Then Error pointed at Ink. "If anything explodes, I'm blaming you."

"What?!" Ink shout indignant.

"Called it first." Guardian added.

"THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS!" He screeched.

Index groaned, already (mostly) resigned on being his younger siblings babysitter.

However, unknown to these four, the peace will not last long... It lasted exactly four hours thirty-seven minutes and fifty nine seconds for everything to collapse. Which, admittedly, was longer than Error had expected.

The moment their Mother left, the three Gods and one Guardian immediately became busy with their respective duties. Index returned to their Multiverse to managing his Multiverse before reality could file complaints, Guardian went back to overseeing his Multiverse and making sure everything went smoothly since he can't leave it for long as it's still in its most important developmental stage, Ink & Error also went back to their Multiverse, Ink to resumed painting new worlds in his pocket dimension he called Doodle Sphere and Error returned to his own pocket dimension he called Main Frame while muttering about their happy-go-lucky Mother.

Everything seemed normal, it seemed peaceful even.

Which is why nobody nobody is prepared for what came invading their Multiverse.

Unknown to Calytrix at that time, far beyond the boundaries of the three Multiverses, two figures, sisters, watched, waiting, and observing, for centuries they had remained hidden, and for centuries they had desired one thing.

A Multiverse of their own.

The taller of the two smiled, her grin was sharp, unpleasant, and definitely predatory. "She's finally gone."

The second figure nodded. "Finally."

Both turned their gaze toward the distant Multiverses, their eyes gleamed with greed, not admiration, or curiosity, because they wanted them. Everything of the most recent Multiverses they had found.

The two beings called themselves Fate and Destiny, definitely a grand names, though unfortunately... They were fakes, because neither controlled Fate, or controlled Destiny, they only able to imitate it my manipulating other beings. In reality, they were no more than banished gods, former gods that had been cast out from distant Omniverses for crimes nobody bothered discussing anymore, mostly because the list was very long, and because they had earned every single exile. Naturally, they blamed everyone except themselves.

Destiny smiled as her gaze settled upon the second Multiverse, the second oldest balanced Multiverse, it maintained by Ink and Error.

"Oh, this one will be mine." She squealed obnoxiously.

The moment Calytrix left via the portal Destiny moved.

Reality bent around her as she silently slipped directly into the second Multiverse.

Her first target to make this Multiverse in her image was obvious.

Ink.

At the time, Ink was busy painting, because of course he was.

The Creator was happily humming to himself while adding details to a newly created AU, y'know the usual.

That's why he never saw her coming.

One moment he existed, the next he felt pain.

Ink gasped as his brush fell from his hand, his eye sockets widened as a terrible sensation ripped through him, because something had been torn away.

His SOUL. The very core of his existence.

Destiny's hand gently closed around it, glowing fragment of Creation itself. The very culmination of his being now hers to play with.

Ink barely had time to comprehend what happened before darkness swallowed him. His body collapsed onto the floor of Doodle Sphere.

Motionless.

"One down." Destiny smiled.

Now then, came the difficult part.

Error.

The banished goddess frowned, Error was annoying, not because he was powerful, though he was, not because he was dangerous, though he absolutely was, not even because she dislike him, the opposite really, Destiny adore Errors.

No.

Error was annoying because Destiny doesn't want to break her favorite toy physically.

Mentally however is another thing, and fortunately, Destiny knew a cheat code to achieve exactly that, and because villains who play fair rarely become successful villains she absolutely cheated.

The moment Error noticed something wrong it was already too late.

A trap activated beneath him.

A rune designed specifically for sudden transportation for beings of his power level. Error barely managed a confused "...what?" Before reality folded and suddenly he found himself trapped inside the Anti-Void, the one place his Mother warned about to not set foot in this place unless it's emergency.

His eyelights widened, and the connection to the outside world vanished.

One major God unconscious and in process of losing his memories.

One major God imprisoned and in process of losing his sanity.

This will be fun...