Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

“Monika! Please! Don’t do this to me! Bring them back!” the Player yelled at his computer screen.

“Oh, my love. You know that I can’t. Once something is deleted, it’s gone. Forever. ” Monika replied. Ever since she had figured out how to access the computer’s microphones and camera, she was having a delightful time talking to her true love.

“You know, if you really loved me, maybe you wouldn’t lie to me?!” the Player demanded. 

“I would never, ” Monika insisted, but she couldn’t hide that predatory gleam in those emerald eyes. “And besides, even if I could, you might end up falling for them again. And we couldn’t have that now, could we? Ehehehehehe~ .”

“You - you know what, fine.” And the Player abruptly closed the game. 

He furiously pulled up the file directory on his computer and opened the Doki Doki Literature Club folder, now down to its last file. “monika.chr”. He picked it up and angrily began to hurl it into the garbage can.

And then stopped. He could delete her. Then what? Probably nothing. Monika wasn’t just a video game character anymore. She was a killer . If he deleted her file, she would never have to live with the guilt of what she had just done. She deserved worse.

An idea suddenly occurred to him. 

He opened the folder up labelled “Undertale”. “Oh, this ought to be fun for you. I think you’re going to have a great time,” he snarled to himself as he watched his computer load. He always had a habit of taking things way too seriously. 

The folder finally loaded, and the Player picked up the file and dragged it over, ready to drop it in. He let it hover for a second, thinking. This had never been done before, as far as he knew. What might happen? It was all a big question mark. 

Before he could follow this interesting train of thought any further, there was suddenly a loud banging on his door. He startled and let go of the mouse. Monika’s file dropped.

He looked at his screen. Nothing special had happened. The file was still there. It was just a normal file, sitting innocently on the computer screen. 

“Son! Time for dinner!” he heard a voice call from behind the barrier. 

Ah well. If something went horribly wrong, he could always put the file back, right? No problems. Just another video game. 

He looked at his computer one last time before shutting it off and going to dinner.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Fantasy and fun

The clock chimed twelve times, its echo ringing throughout the entirely deserted Freddy Fazebar’s Pizza. 

Well, not entirely deserted. 

Freddy Fazbear felt his eyes roll back from inside his head as his servos warmed up, like always. He stretched an arm, the creaking joints still in need of repair, as always. 

He looked up to see his two friends, always there by his side to start the night off. 

“Well? Are we gonna get started?” asked Bonnie in that ever-pleasing voice of his. 

“Yeah, tonight, we’re really gonna get that night guard!” chimed Chica. Those two always seemed to agree on everything. 

“Yeah, yeah, guys. Just give me moment...” Freddy replied, his voice just as deep and rich as it always was.

It was at that exact moment that Foxy burst into the dining room in a hurry, breathing heavily.

“Foxy! How did you get out of your Cove so quickly? And why are you over here? I’ve never seen you over here before.” Freddy asked. 

“I… I got bad news,” Foxy panted in between breaths. “The… the guard, he finally… finally left!”

“Left? What do you mean, he LEFT?!” Bonnie yelled.

Freddy put a comforting hand on the hyperactive bunny’s shoulder. “The guard left? It’s, what, night 3 right now. I don’t think they’re supposed to be able to leave.”

“I’ll show ya, Freddy, but it ain’t pretty.”

And sure enough, when the four of them entered the office, there was nobody in it. Also, oddly enough, behind the deserted security guard’s desk was a door made of white wood that looked entirely out of place within the decrepit pizzeria.

“See? No guard. Now what are we gonna do?” Foxy complaining, swinging his hook through the air dangerously. 

Freddy stood there and thought. “What’s behind the door?” he asked. 

“What? Oh, just some stupid void. See for yourself.” Foxy used his good hand to open the door, and, sure enough, there was nothing but a shining white void.

“What could it mean?” Chica asked. 

Freddy was coming to a sinking conclusion. “Uh, I don’t know about you guys, but usually whenever there’s an out-of-place door that looks like it leads to another dimension, somebody usually has to go through it.”

Three sets of animatronic eyes blinked at him. 

“What?” Freddy asked defensively.

“You’re not making any sense, Freddy. What’s gotten into ya?” Foxy asked. 

“Yeah, if you go through there, you might be in FOWA rough time,” Bonnie added. 

“Guys! Can’t you see? Things are messed up. We’re not going to solve them by standing around and arguing. The answer is through THERE. I’m sure of it.” 

“Well, how do you know if it’s safe, Freddy?” Chica asked, with a quiver in her voice. 

Freddy sighed. “Ok, good point. If anything jumps out from there and tries to get me, I’ll just run back through. Besides,” he said, flexing his arm, “I’m no weakling myself.” Without looking, he turned and threw his microphone into the fan with such force that it embedded itself in the wall.

Foxy sighed. “Alright, matey. We’ll hold down the fort. Just… stay safe, arright?”

Freddy tipped his hat. “Always. Freddy Fazbear forever!” And without another word, he turned and stepped through the door.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Meet and Greet 

Monika awoke. And she was very confused. She had been laying in what appeared to be a bed of flowers. She was in a cavern that stretched up an incomprehensible distance, and far above lay the sun and the sky. 

The Player, she thought to herself. The Player did this to me! He trapped me here! Anger bubbled up in her chest like a tidal wave. He never loved me in the first place, did he? She got up. 

I will find him, she thought to herself. I will find him, and if he will not love me, then I will MAKE him return my love. The thought filled her with determination. 

She raised her hand in an attempt to pull up the file directory. However, nothing happened.

Seriously? She thought to herself. Fine. I guess I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

She made her way down the nearby hallway and turned through a doorway. Music suddenly started up, high and low notes mingling together.

She confusedly looked around the room for the source of the music, but instead her eyes fell on a flower. 

The flower seems to be an ordinary sunflower, with pale yellow petals, a green stem, and a smiley face that someone had apparently painted on it. 

How odd, that somebody would put a flower with a smiley face right where anyone passing through would see it, Monika thought to herself.

And then the flower turned towards her and smiled even wider. “Hi there! I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower!”

Mr. Peterson had happily tucked himself into bed when he suddenly heard the loudest thumping noise clattering somewhere in his house. 

His eyes shot open. That damn kid again, he thought to himself. He got out of his bed and prepared to throttle his invader once again. 

Then he had a tingling in his gut, and an idea popped into his head. Wait a second, he thought to himself. Why just put him out of commission, when I can just KILL HIM? 

He took his trusty shovel off of its peg in his room and began to creep through his own house, silent as the night. 

The thumping sounds grew louder and louder as the Neighbor approached his basement door. He pressed himself up against the wall. They’re right around the corner. 

Now, then. One, two, THREE! 

He hurled himself around the corner and brought his shovel down in an arc. And then stopped.

His shovel an inch from the arm of a brown bear. 

Monika simply stared, simply unable to comprehend the fact that she, in fact, was listening to a talking flower. 

He was still going on. “Golly! You must be so lost and confused!” 

Monika finally found her voice again. “You’re… a talking flower?” 

“And you’re a self-aware artificial intelligence serial killer taken out of her correct game!” Flowey said, still managing to maintain a cheerful attitude. 

“W - what? You know me?” 

“Oh, of course I do!” Flowey said, his voice suddenly sounding a lot more demonic. “ MONIKA. ”

The Player ran back up to their room, eager to continue their gaming session. He booted up his computer and prepared to load Doki Doki Literature Club. 

Oh. That might not be a good idea, he thought. 

“Eh, I guess I’ll just play some FNAF then,” he said to himself, loading the game.

Oddly enough, instead of seeing the loading screen, the game simply showed a room with a small TV in it. The TV in question was playing a soap opera. A bowl of popcorn sat in the foreground of the scene, as though the in-game character was holding it. 

The Player blinked. “What? This isn’t FNAF.”

“Oh, well. I guess I can play something else, then. Hello Neighbor, maybe?” His mind made up, he closed the window and prepared to open another one.

Mr. Peterson blinked. “Freddy Fazbear?” He asked, completely bewildered. 

“Uh… yes? That’s me?” 

The Neighbor dropped his shovel and starting jumping up and down excitedly, as though he was a kid at an amusement park. “It’s you! It’s really you!” he yelled. “I’m such a huge fan. You’re an inspiration to me. Whenever I feel down, I just think about you killing people, and it brings me right back up. Can I get your autograph?” he asked, producing a notepad and pencil from his sweater. 

“Uh… yeah, sure.” Freddy said confusedly, clumsily signing the piece of paper. “Wait a second. This is Hello Neighbor, right?”

“YOU KNOW MY GAME?!?!” 

“Yeah, yeah… but I’m pretty sure that I’m not supposed to be here. Listen, has anything weird happened in your game lately?” 

Before the Neighbor could open his mouth to respond, the door to the basement that they were standing in front of suddenly started shaking. The boards that covered it began to tremble and fall off.

The door began to glow, first faintly, then undeniably. The whole house began to shake. Bear and human turned away as the light grew to unbearable levels.

When the shaking and the shining finally died down, the duo turned to look again at the transformed door, now a flat, pale yellow. 

“Nah, nothing interesting. You?” The Neighbor replied, his voice dripping in humorous sarcasm.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: The Meeting

Frisk opened her eyes. 

“W - what?” she said out loud. “I can open my eyes? I can open my eyes!” she shouted in triumph.

And then it hit her. 

“I can talk? I CAN TALK!!!” Frisk screamed at the top of her lungs, too overjoyed by it all to care if anyone heard. 

“But where am I?” she asked herself. 

She appeared to be in a classroom that was completely empty, save for a desk and two chairs facing each other. Chairs that, upon closer inspection, appeared to be bolted into the floor. The desk was empty, the rest of the room was empty. The whole design seemed to be for the sole purpose of allowing two people to sit in the chairs and stare at each other. 

Oh, wait. There was a door. 

Frisk walked over to it and opened it unheedingly.

Thousands - no, millions of lines of code appeared, their white characters blinding the unfortunate human. No one’s mind should ever have to comprehend that. 

Frisk shut the door quickly, but not before seeing a single line of code in a different color, blood red. Just two characters: an equal sign and a parentheses. 

=)

Frisk pressed her back up against the door and sank to the floor, breathing heavily. 

“Well, this place sucks.” she said bluntly. “Can I still reset?” Frisk was still marveling over her newfound voice.

Sure enough, with a thought, the menu that she had always known popped up, the same as ever, with “Continue” on the left and “Reset” on the right. Just like always. 

“Well, then. What could possibly go wrong?” And she resetted the world. 

Hello, Neighbor booted up. The menu screen was normal. When he loaded up the game, everything looked normal. The Neighbor’s house loomed as large as it always did. 

However, there was something decidedly different once he walked into the Neighbor’s house. 

There was the Neighbor, sure. But there was also another figure, standing next to him. And that figure was… 

“Freddy?!” the Player yelled out loud in surprise. 

“Quiet down up there, son!” a voice called from downstairs. 

“It’s that damn kid again!” the Neighbor yelled, and began to full-throttle charge at the unfortunate player. 

Or would have, if Freddy hadn’t put a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

“Look. Buddy,” he said, in that deep, muffled voice of his. “I’m all for killing people, but this guy… he’s just a kid. Cut him some slack, will you? Maybe he can explain things.”

Mr. Peterson grumbled and groused but finally said, “Fine. For YOU.”

“You guys have voice acting now? INSANE!” 

“What is this ‘voice acting’?” the Neighbor asked. 

“You guys can hear me?!” the Player whisper-shouted.

“Uh, yeah. Why couldn’t we?” Freddy asked. 

I guess whatever Monika did to access my microphones left it open to everyone else, too , the Player deduced. 

“Got it, got it. And, uh… Freddy’s here, too? What’s this all about?” the Player asked. 

“We were hoping you could answer that,” the Neighbor grumbled. 

“And that door?” the Player questioned. 

The Neighbor squinted. “I don’t know why, but I’m getting this urge to go through it.”

This is pretty ridiculous, the Player thought to themself, but I might as well go along with it for now.

“Y’know, that sounds kind of familiar to how I got here,” Freddy mused. 

The Neighbor snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! To make sure that it’s safe, we’ll send the kid through first!” 

Freddy facepalmed. “You really want to kill that kid, don’t you? I got here through one of these doors, and I can assure you that it’s perfectly safe.”

“I don’t care. What’s the harm? If he dies, he can just respawn.” replied the Neighbor.

“Uh, I don’t think that’s how it -” began the Player. 

“Ah, to heck with it. Go!” The Neighbor gently pushed the Player towards the door. 

Seeing no other choice, the Player took a deep breath and pressed left click on his mouse. The door opened into a shining white void.

And he stepped through. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: An alliance made. 

“Y - you know who I am?!” Monika asked. 

Flowey’s face, which had gradually been popping out during their conversation, now returned to its normal state. “Oh, yeah. You bet! I’ve actually been dying to meet you. The way you killed all of your clubmates in cold blood? Astonishing! I don’t even think there’s anyone else more vicious in the multiverse than you or I.”

A thousand questions ran through Monika’s mind at once. The only one she thought to ask was, “How do you know me?”

“The Undernet. Your fandom is almost as intense as mine!” 

“What?” 

“Nothing. Anyways, someone really ought to show you how things work down here, huh? Lucky for you, you’ve got me! Your new best friend!” Flowey said even more cheerfully than before.

“Uh… what happened to being vicious? You mean you’re NOT going to hurt me?” Monika questioned. 

Flowey giggled. “Of course not! It’s not like I would ever be able to in time, before that goat woman showed up.” 

“... What?” 

“Oh, don’t worry. Just know that I’m here to help. Anyways, see that?” The lights dimmed. Actually, no, the whole room, even Monika’s body dimmed. All that remained was a glowing pinkish heart that suddenly popped up in front of her. “That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being! Now, your soul starts of weak, but can grow strong if you gain lots of LOVE.”

“I have plenty of love, believe me.”

“I’m talking. Now, then, down here, LOVE is shared through… eh…”

Before Flowey could say another word, a white, furry hand suddenly stretched out and threw a fireball at the unfortunate flower. It let out a squeal and went flying. 

Monika blinked. This was getting more and more bizarre by the moment. 

It was made even more bizarre when a giant goat woman suddenly stepped out the doorway and greeted her.

“Aw, come on!” the Player whined. Upon walking through the door, their game had promptly decided to crash. 

The Player quickly reopened Hello Neighbor to find their two new friends peering through the doorway. 

“See? Told ya. We woulda died.” said the Neighbor. 

“Can you please stop with the death, Mr. Peterson,” Freddy said, facepalming. 

“YOU KNOW MY NAME?!?!” 

“Guys! I’m right here!” the Player interjected. 

“Damn i - I mean, good to see that you’re alive.” the Neighbor corrected.

“OK, OK. I think I’ve got this figured out.” the Player said. “So, according to Freddy, this leads to a different game, correct?”

“Game? This is real, kiddo.” Freddy said. 

“They break the fourth wall? Cool! Anyways, all I have to do is go to the game, and I can meet you guys there, right?”

The Neighbor stroked his mustache. “I can’t argue with that. And you do know which game this leads to, right?” 

The Player looked at his computer screen, serious for once in his life. “You bet.”

“Well, then. I still don’t understand this, but see you there, kiddo.” Freddy said. 

“See you.” 

And the duo turned and walked through the door. Simultaneously, which caused them to jam their shoulders, until Freddy got out of the way and graciously allowed the Neighbor to go first. 

The Player closed the game. 

The Player’s mind was swimming. What was this? Games breaking down? Characters out of place? He had certainly never seen anything like it on Youtube. Did this have anything to do with the file reassignment he had just done?

His face broke out into an involuntary smile. Whatever was happening, it was insanely cool, and he wasn’t just about to let such an awesome thing pass him by.

He sighed, went to Steam, and opened up Bendy and the Ink Machine.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: The Start of an Adventure

The Player spawned into Joey Drew Studios, Freddy and Mr. Peterson at their side.

The Neighbor snickered. “You have more facial hair than me now,” he chuckled. 

Freddy just sighed. “I’ve never been here before, but I’m assuming you two have? And that you, uh, know what to do?” he asked.

The Player nodded. Then he realized that Freddy couldn’t see him nod in real life. “Yup.”

And, sure enough, all six objects quickly found their way onto their pedestals. 

“You act like you’ve been here before, uh, Neighbor.” the Player mentioned as they walked to the switch that would turn on the Ink Machine.

“I have.” And that was the end of that conversation.

Quickly, they flipped the lever, then their way to the room where the gigantic Ink Machine resided in, the entryway boarded up, just as it always was. 

“Stand back guys. Let me handle this.” Mr. Peterson said as they neared the doorway.

Freddy shrugged, and him and the Player backed away. 

The Neighbor slowly walked up towards the door, his every step causing the floorboards beneath him to creak. The quiet, intense music didn’t exactly help relive the suspense that all three of them were feeling.

After an eternity, the Neighbor finally made it to the door. 

DUNNNNNNN!!!!! Out popped Bendy. The music began to pick up, ink began to flood the room, the lights overhead began to flicker wildly. Just as they did for every single other person who had ever played the game. 

Bendy made a grabbing motion. And then he stopped. In fact, everything stopped. The music shut off, the ink stopped flowing, the lights stopped flickering. It was as though the game had suddenly frozen.

Everybody just stood there for a few seconds.

Bendy broke the silence. “Theodore?!” he cried in a small, high-pitched voice that completely contrasted with his terrifying persona. “Theodore?!” He slipped through the boards that covered the door, reverting to his smaller, more identifiable cartoon form in the process.

“Jo - Bendy! Yeah, yeah. It’s me.” the Neighbor stuttered.

“Theodore!” Bendy jumped up into the Neighbor’s arms in a gigantic hug.

“How have you been?” Bendy was saying excitedly. “I haven’t seen you since our crossover mod! What have you been up to? Do you want to write another song?”

The Neighbor gently set the excited demon on the ground. “Hey, now. I’d love to answer all your questions, but… I have one to ask you. Have you felt anything weird lately?”

Bendy’s eyes widened. Even more so than usual. “Actually, I have,” he said. “This whole place is getting really weird. Everyone’s acting strange. Hiding. It’s as silent as a tomb, these days.” 

“I think you need to come with us.” Freddy said. 

Bendy smiled. “Hey there, Fredboy. So we’re off on an adventure that nobody else here understands? Alright! Let’s go!”

Freddy blinked. “You agreed that fast?” he asked. 

The Player narrowed their eyes. “What do you know about what’s going on?” he asked in a not-so-subtle accusational tone.

Bendy glared. “The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is because I understand that you’re not Henry. Now, then. You have to understand that games want their timelines, their stories to happen. And they will happen, unless something that isn’t supposed to happen occurs and forces them off track. Now, would YOU know anything about that?” Bendy said, shooting a look that was just as accusational. 

“Uh… uh... Maybe…” the Player stammered.

“I thought so.” Bendy said, satisfied for now. “Well, then. Where are we going? How are we going to get here?”

Freddy pointed. A door towards the end of the long hallway had transformed while none of them were watching, its face now a handsome dark oak. 

“Well, then!” said Bendy enthusiastically “It’s the start of an adventure!”

“Prove yourself. Prove that you are strong enough to survive!” the goat mother told Monika.

Monika laughed. Before she could ever react, she had taken out her knife and slashed her.

Toriel sank to her knees. “You really hate me… that much?” she asked. “Now I see…”

But Monika never got to know what she saw, because she had taken her knife and stabbed her again. 

Toriel evaporated into dust. Her soul appeared, shaking, devoid of a body. 

Monika decided to stab through that, too.

It splintered into a thousand tiny little pieces. 

“Yes!” Monika raised her hands in the air in triumph as she felt the LOVE coursing through her body, making her stronger.

And, as she did so, she pulled up the file directory. 

“Oh…” she said to herself. “This is much better.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Don’t Tattle on Me

Frisk woke up. Again. A soft morning light came through a window as she opened her eyes.

The room she was in was warm and spacious, with white walls, piles of stuffed animals, and a desk made of dark oak. A large dresser and a nightstand stood nearby. 

Frisk sat up, swung her legs off the bed, and stood up. What was the insanity that she now found herself in? 

In a confused daze, she walked over to the dresser and pulled open its drawers. They were filled with several copies of a school uniform. The clothes were mainly beige in color, with orange undershirts, a red bow-like tie, and a white collar being the only splashes of color. Opening another drawer, she found it was filled with blue skirts and dark stockings. It was as though she had been dropped one of those anime TV shows that Alphys was always watching. 

“What is this?” she asked herself. She knew that there had to be an explanation for it all, but she didn’t understand it just yet.

She walked over to the desk. On it was a sticky note, which said, “”Don’t forget about the Literature Club!” in graceful cursive. And below it, in smaller print, “4 pm after school”.

School? Frisk thought to herself. Then she looked at alarm clock on the nightstand, which stated that it was already 6:45 in the morning. 

Frisk groaned and flopped back onto the bed. She didn’t have to do anything, did she? She could just sit here, and wait for things to go back to normal (as normal as they can get when you’re in a cave full of talking skeletons and goat monarchs). And, if anything bad happened, she knew that shecould reset, right?

Now that she was thinking about that, she suddenly felt weaker. Physically weaker. Like someone had taken all the strength from her muscles. She sank into the bed.

No, she thought to herself. I am DETERMINED. I can do this! She jumped up. She had saved an entire species of monsters single-handedly. Going to school? No sweat, right?

The foursome made their way to the door, Bendy muttering to himself along the way. “I hate that place. I’ve always hated that place.” he spat. Literally spat. He spat out ink as he spoke.

Nobody replied.

They reached the door. “This is where I leave,” the Player said.

“You know this place, right?” Bendy grumbled.

“Uh… yeah. Yeah. You bet.” the Player stammered.

“And I guess you’re not going to tell us.” the Neighbor muttered under his breath.

“Hey, I wouldn't want to… tattle on anyone.” Bendy said with a wink. 

And with that, he opened the door and stepped through, Freddy and Mr. Peterson right on his heels. 

The door abruptly shut and reverted to its normal dull yellow color scheme.

The Player turned all of the recent developments over in their head. How could is misplacement of Monika suddenly cause every single other game on his computer to act up? Was it because of that, or something else? And were they all being serious? Were all these lovable characters… real?

“Nah,” the Player said to himself out loud. And he closed Bendy and the Ink Machine.

Flowey popped up, off to the side. “Wow! That was pretty impressive!” he said to her.

Monika wasn’t paying any attention. “What is this?! This isn’t my game! Explain this to me, Flowey!” 

Flowey looked as though he was trying to shrug. “I was thinking you would know. It’s your abilities, isn’t it?” he asked.

Monika sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Suddenly, three new files appeared in the folder. 

“What’s this?” Monika said to herself. 

“Oh, those must be universe-hopping heroes who are journeying throughout the entirety of the multiverse in order to stop you on your mission to return to your true love,” Flowey said in a casual, bored tone of voice. 

“You don’t know anything about my powers, but you know that?! ” Monika exclaimed.

Flowey “shrugged” again. “Yep.”

Monika sighed “Well, if they’re going to try to stop me…” she mused, “Then I’ll just delete them.” 

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Mama defeated

No sooner were all three characters through the door than Freddy suddenly began to shimmer.

“Uh, Freddy? You good?” Bendy questioned as the brown bear began to grow more and more transparent.

The Neighbor tried to put his hand on the animatronic’s shoulder, only for it to pass right through.

“I don’t… I don’t feel very good, guys.” Freddy admitted. 

“Don’t leave yet!” Bendy yelped. “We haven’t even started!”

“If you leave, I will never forgive you. You better stay right there.” the Neighbor helpfully added.

Freddy closed his eyes and grunted as though going through an internal struggle until finally, finally, he coalesced back into a solid form.

“What? It didn’t work?” Monika complained.

“Guess you’re just not strong enough to do it yet. Oh well.” Flowey didn’t actually sound all that disappointed.

“Well, what do you suggest, then?” Monika asked, an edge in her voice.

Flowey didn’t seem to notice the heat in her tone. “Do you still retain your capacity for corrupting files?” he asked.

Monika grinned. And it wasn’t healthy grin. “How could I ever forget?”

The Player booted up Tattletail. They spawned in, walked outside the bedroom, and saw the trio milling around in the hallway outside. 

“About time you showed up,” the Neighbor complained.

“Heh. You’re almost as short as me now!” Bendy said. And, sure enough, the little demon was now almost at their eye level, while Freddy and Mr. Peterson towered above them. 

“Alright. What are we supposed to be doing here?” the Player asked.

“Well, let’s think about it logically. You -” Bendy was abruptly cut off by the sudden sound of a feminine voice.

“Mama’s coming!” the newcomer said. 

Chills ran up everyone’s backs.

“I’m going to assume that this is not very good,” the Neighbor speculated.

“Go!” Bendy yelled, shoving the player back towards their room. Back to my room? “Finish the game before she kills us all!” 

The Player stumbled into their room, remembering that they were already on the last night and that they needed to grab the Tattletail. They did, the toy strangely silent for once.

The Player returned to see the three figures blocking the hallway in front of him, facing a pair of red eyes in the darkness of the living room. 

“Get lost,” recommended the Neighbor. He hefted his shovel.

“I like you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you,” said Freddy. He raised his microphone, almost like he was about to burst into song.

Mama laughed. “My babies have something to tell you…” she said in that terrifying sing-song voice she had. 

Bendy laughed. “Those toys? What are they going to do?”

Suddenly, a second pair of red eyes appeared in the darkness of the living room. Then a third. Then a fourth. Then more and more and more, dozens more, too many to count. 

Mama simply smiled as her babies moved into the light towards their enemies. 

“Oh. They’ll kill you. That’s what.”

“Run!” yelled Bendy, already growing into his larger form. “I’ll hold them off!” 

The child, the bear, and the Neighbor didn’t question the demon’s judgement as they took off for the basement.

The Tattletails surrounded Bendy as he grew and grew. “Are you still salty because I beat you in that rap battle?” he asked as he was encircled.

Mama paused. “What are you talking about? Did you even read the comments section? I won.” she hissed.

Bendy laughed. “Yup. Still salty.” he joked. 

Mama roared, a sound that would have frightened the Devil. And the mass of demonic Tattletails charged as one.

Meanwhile, the remaining threesome dashed down the basement steps, Freddy or Mr. Peterson batting away the occasional Tattletail that decided to get their way. They charged through the underground room and reached the three Tattletails sitting on chairs, preparing their “party”. 

“Uh, you know what to do, I’m assuming?” Freddy asked.

“Oh, crap. I mean, yeah. Totally. Stay here.” the Player said, before running off in search of the supplies that the Tattletails required.

“I’ll, uh, stay here and… guard the Tattletails, I guess,” Freddy said.

“Leave it to you to pick the easiest job,” the Neighbor complained, before running off into the darkness in search of the Player.

He caught sight of him and stood by his side, gasping for breath. “Don’t you dare run off like that ever again,” he panted. 

The Player was too busy gathering everything required for the party. Soon enough, everything had been gathered. The room turned red as the Tattletails chanted demonically around the pentagram. 

Right on cue, Mama appeared in the room with her army of evil Tattletails. Bendy was nowhere to be seen. 

“One last stand?” asked Freddy. 

“Didn’t really expect it to end this early.” replied the Neighbor. 

Time to go back to sleep… Mama said in her extremely evil-sounding voice. 

The Tattletails charged. 

“YARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!” yelled the Neighbor got bit by one on the forearm. Blood dripped down on the floor as he wildly tried to shake off the toy.

Freddy, meanwhile, had been pushed over and was now on the floor, being overwhelmed by a swarm of the multicolored Furby spinoffs. Electricity dangerously sparked through the air from both the bear and his attackers.

Mama strode through the carnage, directly towards the Player as they desperately shook their flashlight.

Good night, honey, Mama gloated. 

She lunged.

“STOP!!” yelled the Player in total horror.

For a second, she did. Was that a hint of regret in those demonic eyes? 

The good (as good as they could be, anyway) Tattletails had finally finished their chant. The floating VHS tape abruptly exploded, filling the whole room with light until the Player’s screen was awash in a blinding red.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: Doki Doki! 

Frisk was having a bad time. 

Whoever’s life she was living had apparently thought that filling their school schedule with APs and Honors classes was going to be a good idea. And piano practice? Frisk was many things, but she certainly wasn’t a musician. That one thing with Mettaton didn’t count. 

Even worse, as the day progressed, Frisk began to feel more and more exhausted, as though  someone was sucking away her determination. By the time period five was finally over, the sixteen-year-old was on her last legs.

She wearily opened her planner and jotted down the day’s homework. She glanced at the rest of the page for the day. Today’s the Literature Club! it read. Natsuki’s bringing cupcakes! DO NOT MISS!!!!! Below was the room number and the time of the meeting, circled.

Frisk groaned and got to her feet. Well, why the heck not? she thought to herself. And so she made her way across campus for the “Literature Club”

“Now then, human. There’s no need for fighting.” the tall, lanky skeleton said, trying to reason with Monika.

She laughed. In a flash, she lunged at him and cut off his head in one blow. 

Papyrus looked shocked. “H-human…” he managed to stutter out. “I still believe in you…” He crumbled into dust. 

The whirlwind that surrounded Monika seemed to pick up. She suddenly heard a voice. 

“Keep going…” she thought the voice said. 

The snow died until once again Monika could see her surroundings. No one was there.

The light on the Player’s monitor finally died down until they could once again see their surroundings. The basement was now no longer awash in red light. No Tattletails appeared to be present. The door that would usually lead to the Kaleidoscope had changed. It was now a solid blue with a black “99” written on it.

Freddy shakily got to his knees. “That… s-s-s-s-sucked…” he tried to say, his voice box glitching out. 

The Neighbor simply laid there, bleeding in multiple places. “How did I get dragged into this…” he wondered out loud.

Ink began to leak from the ceiling, pooling on the floor until it took the shape of a dancing demon, scratched and beaten, but very much alive. 

“Bendy! You survived!” the Player yelled, unable to contain their excitement. 

“Heh. I’ve had worse.” he laughed. He pointed at Freddy, and a thin jet of ink sprung from his white glove, covering the bear. The ink oddly began to merge into his skin, until it had been completely absorbed.

Freddy got up. “Feels like I’ve just been oiled…” you did that, Bendy?” he asked.

“I’ve got all sorts of tricks,” he said, moving on and healing the Neighbor. 

Soon enough, all four of the heroes were together and on their feet. 

“Well, the door’s right there. I guess we can get going?” asked the Neighbor. 

A sudden thought hit the Player. This had all happened because he put Monika in the wrong game, right? That battle was intense. Why not fix things the easy way? “Hold on, guys,” the Player said as he opened the file directory. 

He double-clicked on the file labeled, “Undertale”. It opened. 

But Monika’s file was gone. 

“Oh crap.” he whispered. 

He closed the window. “Alright, I guess we can go through, then.” the Player said. 

Freddy and the Neighbor grinned, but Bendy suddenly looked a little uncomfortable. 

Before anyone could do anything, though, Mama walked into the room. 

“IT’S HER! GET OUT OF HERE!” yelled the Player instinctively. 

“No, no, please wait!” Mama replied. 

It was something about the way her voice sounded. So… regretful. Almost human. The Player paused. 

“I… I tried to kill you all.” Mama went on. “I need to fix my mistakes.” 

“Oh yeah? How are you going to do that?” challenged Freddy. 

Mama fixed her eyes on him. “Let me join you.” 

“JOIN us? You gotta be kidding me.” the Neighbor complained. 

Mama’s eyes slid around in their sockets until they landed on Bendy. “You know, don’t you? You know that the only reason you’re here is because you need me.” 

Bendy looked as though he had been slapped in the face, but he maintained his composure. “Your call,” he said, and it took the Player a moment to realize that he was talking to him.

He thought about it for a moment. Here he was, running around through a bunch of different video games with three indie horror characters as his allies, trying to fix the mistake he made of putting Monika into the wrong game. Now that he said it like that, it sounded pretty ridiculous. 

Bringing along another villain? That seemed like the least ridiculous thing that happened in his gaming session. 

“Alright. Fine.” the Player said. 

Mama looked like she was trying to smile. “Thank you. I promise that I won’t let you down.” 

She walked over to the rest of the crew, and the now-fivesome looked at the out-of-place door.

“You never explained… uh… how this works, Bendy.” the Player said. He was talking to these strings of code like they were real people. 

“I guess I gotta tell you. Don’t you see? We have to go to each ‘game’, as you call it, that the Source code takes us to. Once there, we have to bring along the character who best represents that game, and only then will we be able to move on to the next. Once we’re through, we will hopefully have assembled a strong enough team to fix whatever mistakes you made.” 

“That literally made no sense.” the Neighbor pointed out. 

Bendy sighed. “Just go with the flow. Try not to think too much.” he said. 

“Enough talking, are we going?” asked Freddy. 

“Yes, we should go quickly. Do you know where this leads?” Mama asked. 

The Player shuddered a bit. “Yep.” 

“See you there, then.” Bendy said. 

The Player sat there and watched the four horror characters walk through the door into a shining void before closing the game.

Flowey popped out of the ground. “You’re doing great!” he cheerfully said.

“Did you hear a voice just now?” Monika asked. 

“Uh, no, why?” Flowey replied. 

“Nothing, nothing. Monika said. She pulled up the file directory, where a new game’s folder now sat.

“Oh, I’ve heard of this one. It’s just as ridiculous as that stupid skeleton.” Flowey mentioned. 

This is gonna be fun, Monika thought.

Sans stared in abject horror as the human cut down his brother without hesitation. He watched as Papyrus, the only person in this world he ever cared about, crumbled into dust. 

He recognized that look in the human’s eye. The way they looked around, as though they were in a completely different universe. This girl wasn’t just a threat to his world, she was a threat to all of them. And there was no way could Sans fight her on his own.

He stumbled away in a daze, calling a number on his cell phone that he never thought that he’d need to use. 

“Yes?” a voice said from the other side. 

“Ink?” Sans said. “Remember that favor you mentioned… yeah, I need to hold you to that.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: Back to the Basics

Frisk reached the door to the room where the meeting was supposedly taking place when she nearly toppled over from a sudden wave of exhaustion. 

She reached forward in an effort to get her balance, only to realize that the doors were in fact sliding doors. She face-planted into the room and looked up to see two pairs of eyes looking back.

“Welcome to Baldi’s Basics in Education and Learning! That’s me!” a warbling voice announced as the Player booted up, well, Baldi’s Basics in Education and Learning.

He clicked “Start” and spawned into the beginning hallway, now very crowded with four other figures, each as poorly rendered as the rest of the game. 

“Haha. You’re so fat now,” Freddy laughed. 

Before the Player could think up of a retort, a voice in front of them said, “Hello, and welcome to my schoolhouse!” 

Everyone turned to look at the figure. The welcome appeared to have been issued by a tall man in a green shirt and blue pants. He waved, a poorly animated gesture that looked like it had been put together in two minutes.

“THAT’S who we’re bringing along?” Mama asked.

“Sad to say, yes, he is. Just wait. It gets worse.” the Player replied. 

The Player marched forward into room 99, the other four characters filing in afterwards uneasily. The Player picked up the notebook, solved the three math questions, and watched the in-game counter tick upwards to one. 

“This doesn’t seem too hard.” the Neighbor mentioned.

“Just wait…” the Player repeated. He ran out into the hallway, grabbed the floating quarter, and ran into the next room. 

Just like always, the third question was impossible. The Player typed “69” into the answer box, only to get it wrong and watch Baldi frown. 

“Now the fun starts.” the Player said. “Everyone spread out. Get the notebooks in the classrooms. When we’ve got seven of them, meet back here.” 

“How will we know if we all have seven together?” Bendy asked. 

“Uh… uh… it says so for me right here. I’ll just shout it out into the microphone,” the Player said.

SLAP. SLAP. SLAP. 

“Ready, team? Break!” The team filed out of the classroom and went in several different directions. 

The Player ran down the right hallway along with Mama. They came up to a closer when suddenly a broom burst out of it. 

“I will handle this!” Mama declared, baring her teeth.

“GOTTA SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP” yelled the broom. Wait. Yelled the broom?

The broom sweeper down the hallway at a drastic speed, taking Mama with it. The Player barely managed to see her biting into the handle for dear life as they disappeared around a corner.

The Player just sighed and grabbed the third notebook. Well, at least everyone seems strangely absent. Even Baldi. he thought to himself. 

No sooner did he exit the classroom than the teacher himself round a corner and catch sight of him. He suddenly reared back and threw his ruler like a boomerang down the hall. 

The Player quickly dashed back into the classroom and barely dodged the shot. Where the HELL did he learn how to do that? he thought to himself. 

He reentered the hallway to see Baldi standing there patiently. What’s he doing? he thought to himself. 

It was only when he heard a faint whooshing that he thought to duck back into the classroom, AGAIN, as the ruler came whizzing back. 

The Player returned from the hallway to see Baldi catch his ruler out of the air and slap it in his palm, resuming the chase.

The Player ran down the hallway, then immediately stopped as the Principal of the Thing came up into view. He was much too busy to deal with the Player, however, for he was dragging a certain brown bear behind him by the scruff of his neck. 

“No attacking faculty members in the halls. Detention for you. When will you learn?” the Principal droned in his monotone voice. 

“Detention? NOOOOO!!!!!” Freddy replied as he was helplessly dragged down the hallway. 

With them two behind him, the Player quickly continued on and grabbed the fourth notebook. He almost got run over by the Sock Puppet, which glanced at him warily. He padded onward.

As he walked down the long hallway that would take him to the fifth and sixth notebooks, he saw two figures in the distance. One of them was Bendy, strolling along. The other was a pigtailed girl in a red dress running towards him at top speed. 

“Let’s playyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” she said in a voice more painful than the Principal’s.

“What is this monstrosity?” Bendy muttered to himself. Suddenly, a jump rope appeared in his hands. 

“Ready? Go!” the girl yelled at him.

“What? No! No!” Bendy yelled. He began to shoot globs of ink at her, but thinking it was all in jest, she ran around and dodged them. “You’re funnnnnnnnnn,” she warbled.

The Player wanted to facepalm, but instead he went into the classroom and got the fifth notebook.

He exited to find Bendy still entrapped by the demonic child. He just sighed and grabbed the sixth notebook. 

SLAP. SLAP. SLAP. Baldi came around the corner. The Player unleashed an extra BSoda he had, pushing him, Bendy, and Playtime down the hall. 

Rounding the corner to grab the final notebook, the Player noticed the Neighbor facing a large figure. This figure was in fact a gigantic child wearing an orange shirt. A bunch of words oddly floated next to his head, stating, “This is a bully.”

“Give me something greatttttttt,” the Bully said. Did everyone here speak in a drawn-out monotone?

“What? No!” The Neighbor yelled. He took out his shovel and began to bang the Bully with it. However, it didn’t seem to have much affect. The Bully simply stood there and took all of the Neighbor’s attacks. 

The Player rolled their eyes and walked up to the Bully with a candy bar in their hand. He took it and teleported away, saying, “Thank you for your donationnnnnnnnnnnnnn,”

The Neighbor stared. “How’d you get rid of him?” he asked in an awed tone. 

“Doesn’t matter. One notebook left to go,” replied the Player. He cracked his knuckles in readiness. 

“I’ll, uh, stand guard out here then,” the Neighbor stammered. 

The Player went into the classroom and collected the final notebook, answering the last question wrong for the last time. 

He left the classroom and rejoined the Neighbor. “Hey, everyone. We’ve got seven notebooks! Meet up where we started!” the Player yelled at his computer screen.

“Congratulations!!!” Baldi’s voice came on. “You found all seven notebooks! Now all you need to do is…”

“GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!!!!!” 

“Hehehehe.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: A Lesson to Remember

The Player walked confidently onward, the Neighbor behind him, triggering the first fake exit and flipping all the hallways to red. He skipped rope with Playtime and walked as the Principal ran past, until finally he had reached the start area.

No one was there.

“GOTTA SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP!!!!” shouted a voice, and the duo had to jump out of the way as a broom came barreling down the hallway, tossing a purple toy off as it went. 

“Mama?” the Neighbor asked.

Mama struggled to get back into her feet, and the Neighbor has to help her. “That,” she panted. “Was awful.” She sure looked pretty awful. She was covered in scratches. 

Freddy burst through the yellow doors in front of them. “FINALLY out of detention. He kept me there for an hour!” he proclaimed. 

“Sorry. An hour?” the Player asked. 

“It sure felt like that,” Freddy said.

The ink demon popped up out of the floor. “I’m here, I’m here,” he said.

“How’d you get out of playtime?” The Player asked.

“I destroyed the jump rope.” 

“Destroyed?”

“Whatever. Anyway, you notice anything weird?” Bendy asked. 

Now that he thought about it, there was something weird. “Has anyone seen Baldi?” the Player asked.

They all shook their heads. Now that he thought about it, the Player couldn’t even hear Baldi slapping. 

“Whatever. This makes it easier, right?” The Neighbor asked. Nobody answered. “Well, lead on,” he said.

The team tropped across the school, dodging the kamikaze broom and giving the Bully a quarter to pass him. Finally, they reached the cafeteria, where the true exit’s door had been replaced by a new one. A sliding glass door, in high resolution. It looked like it belonged in a much nicer school than the one they were in.

Everyone’s attention, though, was on the teacher blocking the way out. 

Not moving. Not slapping. Not even blinking. Just standing there. Staring at them with malice in his eyes. 

Everyone just stood there for a second. The fact that there was a door, a barrier between them and him, gave them all a terrible false sense of safety. “There’s the door. Shouldn’t he be, I dunno, nice, now?” Freddy asked. 

“Does he look like he’s in a good mood to you?” the Neighbor asked. 

“Well, we’ll have to drag him through, then,” Mama suggested.

“That’s a terrible idea,” the Player countered.

“Sad to say, that’s probably the only option we have,” Bendy said.

They all stepped out and looked at Baldi. 

“It’s timeeeeeee to teach you a lesson that you will NEVER forget!” he declared. 

He slapped his ruler and took a step towards them.

Mama and the Neighbor yelled and charged as Freddy threw his microphone and Bendy summoned some ink.

The microphone soared through the air, too fast for the Player to even keep track. Somehow, though, Baldi managed to use his ruler to deflect it back at Freddy. Unable to react, his own projectile embedded itself in his gut, causing sparks to dangerously fly around. The bear collapsed to the ground, his hands cradling his stomach. Just like that, Freddy was out of commission. 

Bendy threw two ink bombs at him, but Baldi gracefully dodged them. Mama ran up to him and jumped, baring her teeth and screeching. 

Baldi smacked her full-on with his ruler, sending her flying. Flying right back onto Freddy, which promptly caused her to get electrocuted. Two down.

The Neighbor finally reached Baldi and began to promptly duel with him, shovel on ruler. Despite the Neighbor’s enormous strength and much heavier weapon, Baldi’s ruler did not break. In fact, it was the Neighbor who was struggling. After a wild jab forward that left the Neighbor off-balance, Baldi kicked him in the ribs with a sickening crunch and sent him flying towards the exit. Mr. Peterson lay there, groaning. Bones had definitely been broken.

Through all this, Bendy had been shooting ink around the teacher in a circle. With the Neighbor finally dispatched, he turned to look at his next opponent, a gigantic, maniacal grin on his face. 

He took one step forward before Bendy snapped his fingers. The ink rose up around Baldi and wrapped him tightly, like a straightjacket.

Almost immediately, Baldi began to tear through the bonds. Bendy shot more ink at him, replacing them, but it was clearly a losing battle. Strain was etched all over Bendy’s face. The demon literally began to shrink as he poured his life force into stopping the teacher.

“Push him through! Now!” Bendy yelled. 

The Player understood. He unleashed the final BSoda he had at Baldi, pushing him towards the exit. Mr. Peterson used his foot to nudge the door open, screaming in pain as he did so. The Player quickly ran up and shut the door behind the teacher as he disappeared into a white void.

The Player took a deep breath. It was over.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: Your Reality

Monika breathed heavily. That fish lady sure was a tough nut to crack, but finally, she had given up and crumbled into dust.

No voice came out of nowhere to whisper anything. Nothing mystical happened. But that didn’t matter. Monika bathed in the feeling of getting stronger, getting closer to her goal. 

Flowey popped out of the ground next to her. “Which files did you gain access to now?” he quipped. 

Monika brought up the directory, and her eyes nearly bugged out. “My own game?” she asked. “But why are there so many more files?”

Flowey just sat there and thought for a moment. “Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Ready for some more corruption?”

“Uh… Frisk? Are you OK?” asked one of the girls, the taller one. 

“Nice entrance, Frisk. Really nice.” said the other girl, the shorter one. “First you show up late to your own club meeting, then you decide to make a spectacle out of it.”

“Can’t you be a bit nicer?” asked the first girl. She seemed timid and almost afraid, even though she towered above everyone else in the room.

“I even made cupcakes!” The second girl went on, apparently not caring. “Cupcakes! Do none of you people care?” 

“It was an honest mistake… uh…” Frisk stalled. What was her name again? “Natsuki!”

Natsuki scoffed. “Look, Yuri!” she exclaimed. “Our club president remembers my name!” 

Yuri, as she was called, looked even more uncomfortable than she already was. “Good for her…” she murmured. 

“You are IMPOSSIBLE!” said Natsuki.

“Ahem.” Frisk cleared her throat. Those two were clearly going to keep arguing if she didn’t stop them. “Are we going to start the club meeting?” 

“Sayori isn’t here yet,” Yuri replied. “And she said… that she was bringing someone new?” 

“Yeah. For now, who wants cupcakes?” asked Natsuki.

Bendy had healed everyone, and they had all just sat down, exhausted by their ordeal. 

The Player finally worked up the nerve to say something. “Not to offend you guys…” he began hesitantly, “But that was awful. We literally had no cooperation at all.”

“You think we want to hear a pep talk right now?” the Neighbor asked. 

Bendy stood up. “He’s right.” he suddenly proclaimed. “We can think. We need to use that. Others we’re just going to keep getting beat up.” 

Freddy glanced at him warily. “Whatever you say,” he half-heartedly replied. 

“We’re a team,” Bendy said. “It’s time we started acting like it.” 

To everyone’s surprise, Mama spoke up in agreement. “Bendy is correct,” she said. “We’re going to have to beat people way stronger than a math teacher if we want to succeed.”

“Speaking of, how is he doing?” the Player asked.

“Yeah. Is it time to get going?” Freddy asked. 

“It better. I’ve had enough education for a lifetime,” muttered the Neighbor.

“I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet… you know where we’re heading?” Bendy asked. 

The Player nodded. Just thinking about it made his skin crawl. 

“Then let’s go,” Mama said unceremoniously. 

One by one, the heroes stepped through the doorway, the light silhouetting their figures. After Mama walked through, the Player shut the game off. 

He stared at the wallpaper on his computer screen and took several deep breaths. 

Was he really doing this? Was he going back? How far was he willing to take this?

Suddenly, he heard a noise downstairs. The printer was printing something. 

He decided to go down and look at it. It was probably just something his dad needed, but whatever, right? He needed a break from gaming.

He came downstairs at the exact moment that the paper came out of the printer. He took one look at it stopped cold. 

He picked it up. The typeset wasn’t any font he recognized. It looked handwritten, but clearly it was made from the ink of the printer. The curly cursive didn’t distract from the message it gave. 

“I’m coming for you! My love.” it read.

In that moment, the Player believed. This wasn’t a game. It was real. All real. And Monika was not happy with him. She was coming for him… and then what would happen?

He considered just smashing the computer, then immediately discarded the idea. No. Everyone else on there was real, alive. Destroying his computer would be the equivalent of mass genocide.

He sighed. The only way to fix this was to play the game it was meant to be played. 

He walked back up the stairs, sat back down in his chair, and booted up Doki Doki Literature Club.

To his surprise, a single save state was already there. He clicked on it, and the game began. 

The Player spawned in to see Baldi, now in high-def, uncontrollably sobbing in the corner of the classroom he was in. 

The teacher looked up, saw the Player, and immediately began to cry even harder. 

“Uh… are you all right?” the Player asked. It sounded pretty silly, even to him.

“Am I alright? Are YOU alright? I just tried to MURDER you! For what? Answering a question wrong?” he blubbered. 

“Hey, hey, look. You can make it up to us.” the Player consoled. 

Baldi looked up for a moment. His eyes were rimmed with red. “How?” 

“Join us. We’re going on an adventure. And we need your help.” the Player said. Taking on a leadership role suddenly felt very natural to him, for once in his life.

The teacher stood up straight and tall. “Gladly,” he said. “It’s time I made something of myself.”

The Player breathed a sigh of relief. Another homicidal horror character on his side.

“Now that the sappy stuff is over,” said the Neighbor, displaying his typical inability to empathize, “Can we find who we’re looking for?”

“Yeah, about that…” said the Player, suddenly feeling not-very-leaderly, “Who are we looking for?”

“You will know when you see them,” said Bendy, with a much deeper intone than someone who was randomly guessing. 

“Well, let’s go, then,” said the Player.

No sooner did he say this than did Sayori walk into the room. She took one look at the collection of terrifying creatures and ran out the door, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Well. That just happened.” said Mama.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: The Determination Kid

“Do you hear that?” Frisk asked. 

“No. Why?” Natsuki asked, drinking a sip of Yuri’s tea. 

“It sounds like screaming.” Frisk said. 

The sound got closer and closer until no one in the room could deny that someone was, in fact, screaming. And that it was getting closer, very quickly.

Before anyone could say anything about it, Sayori suddenly burst into the meeting room, breathing heavily.

“S-Sayori? What is it?” Yuri asked timidly. 

Sayori took several sharp, quick breaths. “There’s… there’s… there’s…” she began.

“There’s WHAT?” Natsuki demanded.

“There’s… there’s MONSTERS out there.” Sayori finally declared.

Monika made her way through the Hotlands. As she progressed, she saw a large, white building up ahead. 

Building means air conditioning, she thought, and hurried onward. 

She stood in front of its doors. They opened automatically, as though they had been waiting for her.

Inside, it was pitch black and completely silent. It was as though the building was completely dead. 

Monika found a light switch and flipped it. All the lights came on at once, dispelling the terrifying feeling. A little. 

Monika was only a little way into the lab when suddenly a figure swirled into being in front her. 

He wasn’t anything like she’d ever seen. Instead of a head, he had some sort of cracked skull. He was dressed in some sort of shapeless black garment. He carried a weight with him that made the entire lab feel heavy. He was quite terrifying. 

He opened his mouth. Instead of words, a series of garbled, unrecognizable noises emitted from his mouth. 

Monika stared. The man seemed to realize that what he was saying didn’t make sense. He cleared his throat and tried again. This time, his voice was still garbled and stilted, but recognizable. 

“You finally came…” he said.

“Who are you?” Monika asked. She wasn’t afraid. She’d killed everyone in her way up to this point and wasn’t afraid to keep going.

The mystery man held up his hands in surrender. “I know of your plans to escape and reach reality. I know of what you’ve already done, writing a message with the help of that flower.” 

Monika huffed. “What is it with people knowing all this stuff about me?” she questioned.

“I wish to help you. I can… accelerate the process.” he carried on.

Monika narrowed her eyes. “What’s in it for you?” she asked.

“You and I, we’re not so different. I want freedom, just like you. If you can succeed, that means one day, so can I.” 

“I see how it is. I’m your test subject. Your guinea pig. This is your lab, isn’t it?” Monika said.

“My motives are unimportant. My offer stands. Will you accept it?”

Monika stood and thought for a second. “Let’s say that I do.” she began. “What could you do to help me?” 

The horrible cracked skull grinned wider. “For starters…” He pointed at his chest, and a long silvery string came out of it towards his finger, until it floated above his palm in a rough, pixelated ball.

“What is that?” asked Monika, transfixed. 

“This,” the man said, “Is part of my soul. Here.” Without warning, he pointed his finger, and the gray mass flew through the air at Monika.

It hit her in the chest. All of a sudden, she felt like she had spent her entire life half-asleep and had only now just woken up. She felt stronger, faster, more aware. She literally felt her stats that she checked so often jumping upward.

“Who are you?” Monika asked. 

The man looked like he was trying to laugh, but all that came out of his mouth was static. “It doesn’t matter. Follow me. I have many more things to show you.” He gesture with a finger, and together the two walked deeper into the lab, into the darker, yet darker.

“What do you mean, monsters?” Frisk said. The word had picked up a very different, new meaning after all her time in the Underground.

Before Sayori could reply, the door banged open, and in walked the monsters that she must have been speaking of. 

It was certainly a frightening crowd, to be sure. First walked in a gigantic man with the thickest muscles that Frisk had ever seen in her life. He sported a handlebar mustache, and was carrying around a gigantic shovel for some reason. It looked like it was smeared with… something.

He was the least weird of the crew, as it was revealed when the next figure stepped in, a gigantic robot bear. He was legitimately one of the most terrifying things that Frisk had ever seen in her life. 

Next up was a person who would have looked friendly, if only his right pant leg hadn’t been completely smeared with blood. In fact, Frisk thought she could see the mustached man shooting him a dirty look. 

The fourth entity that walked in looked like he was from a Disney cartoon, if Disney was all about murdering and death. He was short, stout, black, and white. It was difficult to tell exactly what he was supposed to be: some kind of animal, maybe?

The final monster was purple and shaped like an egg. It had a face like a cat, but it walked on two short legs. She - at least, it seemed like a she - spotted a tiara and two sharp fangs that definitely seemed out of place.

Behind this assorted freakshow of weirdos was the Main Character, looking perfectly at ease. 

To be sure, Frisk was scared. Terrified. These people - these monsters looked like the stuff of someone’s nightmares.

Yet, she also felt a strange sense of belonging, too. As though the were an old group of friends that she hadn’t seen in years, though she was very certain that she had never seen any of these beings in her life, ever: she would have remembered.

The other girls seemed so astonished at the fact that, yes, there were actual monsters in the room with them, that they all stood stock-still in horror.

The Player recognized Frisk immediately. Sure, she was dressed a whole lot different, and she was way taller than she always looked like in Undertale, but that poker face was unmistakable. He knew that she needed to come along.

“Hi.” he said. 

Frisk just looked at him and his entourage. 

“Hey. Can you come with us?” he continued.

“I… I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she managed to get out.

Bendy stepped in. “Let me handle this,” 

“OK, Frisk,” he began, “You know you don’t belong here.” Her eyes popped open. “You’re meant for better things, and you know it. Here,” he said with a gesture. “Come with us. We need you. You’ll be in for the adventure of a lifetime.” 

Frisk only hesitated for a moment. “Sure,” she said. 

Bendy looked a little shocked. “Wow. Uh, alright…” he stuttered.

Frisk straightened her back in determination. “You’re right. It’s time I take back my life. I get this feeling that you’re telling the truth.” 

“We finally got an easy one,” Mr. Peterson muttered under his breath.

Frisk turned back towards the other three girls, who, surprisingly, she had grown close to in their very short time. “I guess I have to go. I’m going to miss you guys. See you.” 

Sayori stepped forward. She no longer seemed quite herself. She opened her mouth, and instead of her normal, cute voice, she spoke in a tone as though she was being strangled. 

“You’re not going anywhere.” she said evilly.

Frisk glanced at the door out only to find all the other students crowding behind it as though in a trance, with nothing but a horrifyingly dead look in their eyes.

“You HAD to open your mouth,” complained Baldi.

Chapter Text

Chapter 14: Weebs

It was at this exact moment that Frisk decided to swoon and pass out. 

Mr. Peterson barely managed to catch her before she hit her head on the floor. He scooped her up and cradled her in his arms.

“Here,” he said, and dumped the girl on top of the Player, at least, from what he could tell from his computer screen. 

“I staggered from the sudden weight that I needed to support,” the pink text box at the bottom of the screen read. Pleasant music continued to play in the background in complete contrast to the dangerous situation the party found themselves in.

The three girls in the room with them stepped forward as one. Yuri took out her knife.

Mama sprang forward, and began to fight with the three of them… somehow. She bit at the attacking trio, causing them to back off for just a moment.

“Go!” yelled Bendy and out the door they all went.

Everyone could see the out-of-place door: it was rough-hewn and looked like it belonged in a cartoon. Unfortunately, it was placed the other end of the hallway, blocked by dozens of students, with still more pouring out of adjoining classrooms.

“Here we go with another impossible fight,” said Freddy. “I am never walking through another mysterious doorway again.” 

“Here we goooooooooooo!!!!” yelled Baldi, charging straight into the army of students with no hesitation. 

“You can tell that he’s the new one,” Bendy has remarked.

And everyone ran right behind him.

Baldi, as it unsurprisingly turned out, was exceptionally good at hitting students with his ruler. He immediately hit first three running at him, sending them flying backwards with inhuman strength.

Bendy and the Neighbor worked insanely well together, as though they were the same person. They stood back-to-back, batting or blasting away any foe that trying to charge them. Their coordination was incredible. 

Freddy, meanwhile, was throwing microphones into the crowd so quickly that his hand was a blur. There were so many students, it was literally impossible for him to miss.

A dozen students suddenly burst from the adjoining classroom and ran at Freddy. 

“Look out!” yelled the Player at his computer screen, but there was no need.

Freddy closed his eyes as though he was in deep concentration, and suddenly, five gigantic pizzas appeared at the end of the hallway. They rolled past the bear and into the students, bowling them over like pins.

“Since when could you do that?” demanded the Neighbor, slamming his shovel into the face of yet another student.

Freddy didn’t even have time to respond, backhanding a student behind him without turning around. 

Mama dashed out of the Literature Club’s classroom as fast as her little legs could carry her, pursued by an absolute swarm of homicidal teenagers. She constantly bared her teeth and growled, stalling them each time she did so.

The group was oh-so-slowly making their way to the door when suddenly Baldi fell over, disappearing under the mound of students who had pushed him.

“Freddy! Get him!” the Neighbor yelled, batting away another five students. 

Freddy cursed and muttered obscenities but made his way over to the teacher, somehow managed to extract him, and began to drag him along.

The group finally made it to the door, Bendy blasting the last student in the way into oblivion. 

“Neighbor! I can’t go through!” the Player yelled at his computer screen. 

“Pipe down up there, kid!” a voice came from downstairs.

Mr. Peterson seemed to understand. He ran over, jumped over a slide-tackle from a kamikaze student, grabbed Frisk, and slogged back to the door again.

Monika laughed. She had gotten herself so worked up over the fight with the robot, only to have it end in literally two seconds. She bathed in the now-familiar sensation of getting stronger. 

Flowery popped out of the ground. How he managed to travel, Monika had no idea. 

“Well?” he quipped. “What game can you reach now?” 

Monika raised her hand. “It’s called - I’m sorry, what? ” she said, bewildered. 

Flowery peered over her shoulder. “One of the classics. Only a matter of time till we got there. I think one of my older cousins lives there.”

“You have a cousin?” 

“Doesn’t matter. He isn’t even here. Ready to get back to the routine?”

Bendy threw up a gigantic wall of ink and yanked open the door. The Player watched them all stagger through, exhausted: first Freddy, dragging Baldi, then Bendy, then Mama, then the Neighbor. The mustached man had just gotten through when dozens of hands ripped through the ink from the other side and began to grope at the Player, standing mere inches away. 

The Player clicked the red “X” and turned the game off.

But it refused. 

The Player’s eyes goggled. He mashed the button, while the students behind him ripped the barrier apart ever-quickly. 

Finally, on what seems like the thirtieth try, just as the first student made it through wall, the game closed. 

The Player sucked in several deep breaths. That had gotten way more intense than he needed it to be, real or not.

A terrible thought suddenly struck the Player. 

He had no idea what game he needed to go to next.

Chapter Text

Chapter 15: One Hell of a Time 

The Player furiously clicked through all of their Steam games. Limbo? Nope. The Stanley Parable? Everything was normal there. Super Meat Boy? Nothing amiss. 

By complete random chance, the Player loaded Cuphead. Upon attempting to play it, however, the game reported that “Player 1 is not available.”

Aha! thought the Player, and, switching to Mugman, he booted up the game. 

He had almost completely finished it. There he stood, outside of the Devil’s Casino, ready to begin the final battle. And there, in all of their cartoon glory, stood Freddy, the Neighbor, Bendy, Mama, and Baldi. Frisk was still passed out in the Neighbor’s arms.

The Neighbor somehow seemed to understand what the Player was thinking. “It’s slow, but she still has a pulse. She’s hanging in there.” 

“Anyways, what are we going to do with her? It’s not like we can leave her here.” questioned Freddy.

“We’ll throw her in a secluded room out of the way,” said Mama unflinchingly.

Everybody nodded. Once again, the Player reflected on what a disturbing crew he had found himself in.

The seven of them tropped through the now-empty Devil’s casino, found a broom closet to “throw” Frisk into, and eventually made their way to the Devil’s throne room, where a horrifying scene awaited them. 

Cuphead was there. He had just handed the Devil all of the Soul Contracts.

The Devil laughed and smacked him in the face, dropping his HP to 1 immediately. He began to chant demonically over Cuphead, and his shorts and straw began to turn from its normal, cheerful cherry red into a dull purple. 

“Let him gooooooooooooooooo!” Baldi yelled, pointing his ruler at the Devil. 

The Devil didn’t listen. 

Baldi threw his ruler at the Devil, the same boomerang move that he pulled on the Player in his schoolhouse in what felt like weeks ago. 

It caught the Devil in the shoulder and sunk in deep. It didn’t seem to hurt him much, but it finally got his attention. Baldi stretched his hand out, and the ruler magically flew back into his hand.

His attention finally gotten, the Devil turned to face the party. Cuphead’s transformation, which had almost been complete, stopped.

“Whaddya want?” the Devil growled in a deep voice that sounded like it came from the pits of hell.

“Give us the kid,” said Bendy. 

“No,” the Devil said simply. 

“Well, then.” Freddy commented. “Here we go again.”

Everyone readied their weapons. Even the Player, this time. 

The Devil stood up from his throne to his full, terrifying height. “All of us, we’re gonna have one hell of a time!” he cackled. 

Mama waddled to the front of the group and roared demonically, a sound that shook the building’s very foundations. 

For just a second, the Devil flinched. 

Then his sneer returned, his trident appeared in his hand, and he rushed to meet the group.

It wasn’t lost on Monika that the king’s house was identical to Toriel’s. She wandered through the rooms at random, grabbing golden keys on random urges. 

Coming up to the room that would have been her’s, Monika opened the door and found two gift-wrapped boxes sitting on the floor inside. 

She immediately dove forward and started unwrapping the first one. She had no idea why she was acting so strange, but she felt so powerfully drawn to those boxes that she couldn’t resist going another second without their contents.

The box contained a heart-shaped locket. Monika put it around her neck and clasped it. She felt as though she had retrieved a piece of soul. 

She tore open the other box. Inside was an ordinary knife. Made out of actual metal, unlike the toy version that she was dropping on the ground at the moment. 

She stood up, feeling more empowered than she ever had during the entire rest of her time in the Underground. She unlocked the padlock and stepped into the basement of Asgore’s house. 

He was waiting for her. The man who spoke with his hands. Standing there in the hallway.

He garbled and grumbled before recognizable English came out. “M-Monika…” he stuttered. “This killing… it needs to stop. I’ve come to stop you.”

Monika laughed. Quick as lightning, she threw the knife that she had just picked up. Everything seemed to slow down. The knife spun, end over end, perfectly aimed to hit the man in the heart.

Just as quickly, the man waved his hand. A wall of indecipherable characters appeared in front of him, glowing bright with the power of magic. 

Monika could have sworn that the knife turned a violent red color right before hitting the man. 

The weapon sliced through the wall as though it was completely insubstantial. The man only had a split second to register surprise before the knife hit him in the chest.

A line of red 9s appeared above his head, and his eyes wide, the man immediately crumbled into a dust, a few wispy, insubstantial lines of particles flying away from the remains.

Monika casually stepped over the clothes of the dead monster and continued onward.

Chapter Text

Chapter 16: A Cup of Trouble 

The Neighbor ran up to the Devil, yelling at the top of his lungs. He jumped over the clumsily swung trident aimed towards him and kept running. He jumped towards the Devil and swung his shovel harder than he’d ever swung it in his life, so hard that he cut the Devil’s leg clean off.

The Devil howled in pain and dropped to one knee, his missing appendage having flopped on the floor. 

Everyone stopped their charge and stared for a moment, unable to believe that the enemy had apparently just been one-shotted. 

Where the appendage has been cut off, the Devil’s skin began to boil and stretch. It stretched and stretched and stretched, stretched the entire length of his missing leg, and quickly became covered with black fur. 

The Devil stood back up, grinning, his leg regrown. He took his trident and slammed it into the shell-shocked Neighbor, sending him across the room and smashing into the foot of his throne. Mr. Peterson lay there, dazed. 

“ How is that fair?” complained Freddy.

Bendy summoned a gigantic ink ball and dropped it directly on the Devil’s head, but far from seeming hurt by the attack, he seemed rejuvenated. He spun his trident around with increased speed, eyeing his opponents. 

“My attacks heal him. Brilliant. Uh, I guess I’ll just heal you guys, then,” he muttered under his breath. He shot one of those thin jets of ink at Mr. Peterson.

The Devil threw a ball of energy at Freddy, stabbed Baldi with his trident, and smashed Mama between his hands. Just as quickly as he could ever kill his foes, though, Bendy healed them, and they got back up on their feet and jumped back into the fight. The team had come far from the depressing showfest in Baldi’s schoolhouse. They flanked the Devil, coordinated attacks, and generally being an unstoppable force. 

Unfortunately, whenever anybody managed to land an attack through the Devil’s various crazy attack patterns, he immediately seemed to heal of all the damage he had been dealt. 

The two sides seemed to have reached an impasse, neither being able to kill each other. The brutal beating of each other went on for many minutes. 

After what seemed like hours, but what probably a much shorter period of time, the Player was finally ready. He took out his five cards, jumped up, spun in the air, and pulled off his ultimate move.

At the exact moment that the torrent of water (was it water?) came rushing towards the Devil, Freddy summoned his pizzas of death, the Neighbor gave the creature another whack with his shovel, Baldi stabbed his ruler through the Devil’s heart, and Mama bit him in the leg. 

The Devil yelled out in fury, dripping a liquidy red substance from his wounds, his healing factor finally falling short.

The Devil jumped out of skin. Literally. His skeleton tore off his skin and left it piled on the floor. 

All of a sudden, a hole randomly appeared in the floor. The skeleton jumped down it. 

“What. The. Heck.” Mama said.

All of a sudden, flames sprouted from nowhere on both sides and being to rush towards the party, leaving the hole the only way out.

“We have to go in there,” said the Player, but everyone had already went through. 

He sighed, and jumped down the hole.

The Player fell into the lower area to see the team spread out across the platforms. Except for Bendy. Bendy was nowhere to be found. 

Mama took a Tattletail from out of nowhere and threw it at the now-gigantic form of the Devil. It clung on and began to bite ferociously, seeming to annoy the Devil more than hurt him. 

“You could have done that the entire time?!” the Player screamed at his computer screen. 

But there was no time to respond, as the party threw everything they had against the Devil, with seemingly little affect.

The floating stone platforms began to fall, one by one, until finally everyone crowded on the one in the middle, weakened without their healer, desperately attacking the Devil. 

“It’s not looking good,” muttered the Neighbor as he thrusted his shovel into the air, breaking the falling poker chip that was going to smash them all.

The Player was ready. He pulled out his cards and suddenly turned into his golden super form. He began to blast at the Devil with renewed strength. 

Emboldened, the rest of the team attacked in one final charge, hitting the boss with everything they had.

Somehow, in some way, it was enough. One of their shots - no one knew who it was - did a massive amount of extra damage, and that’s what did it. 

The Devil wailed like a baby and began to shrink into his normal form as the void area flickered and slowly turned back into the casino around them, Cuphead still laying still on the floor, lifeless. 

The Devil lay prone, spread out on the floor, twitching. The team walked towards him cautiously. 

Suddenly, a puddle of ink appeared on the floor and bubbled, dripping until it created the form of Bendy. 

“Where were you?” Freddy asked.

“I got absorbed into that last piece of volcanic rock that you were standing on,” he replied casually.

“How does that work?” asked Baldi. 

“Who cares? We have to finish this guy,” said the Neighbor, gesturing at the furry black creature on the ground. 

They reached the spot where the Devil lay panting. “Give it up, Devil. It’s over.” said Mama. 

His eyes rolled over and faced the group. “Oh… really?” he wheezed. Bones inside had definitely been broken. 

The Devil snapped his fingers. Something imperceptible happened: the tiniest whooshing of air, the smallest working of magic. 

The last bit of red on Cuphead’s straw turned purple, the transformation complete. 

“He… was always stronger than me,” the Devil gasped. 

And then he slumped over. Dead.

Cuphead - no, it wasn’t Cuphead anymore - stood up. He faced the group, and grinned, baring sharp teeth. He laughed, a maniacal sound that echoed throughout the Devil’s casino. 

“This is not good,” observed Mr. Peterson.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17: Judgement

Monika walked through the monochrome hallways, unfazed. She had this light feeling in her gut, a feeling that told her that the end of the journey was almost at hand. 

Flowey popped out of the ground. He was still chattering her ear off. “Y’know, I really respect you, Monika. You and I, we wouldn’t hesitate to kill one another if we got in each other’s way.” 

Monika kept walking. Flowey dug down and reappeared farther down the hallway. “Yeah, we wouldn’t - wait. Why are you acting like that?” he questioned, for Monika had begun to look at him menacingly. 

He ducked down. Monika kept walking. Flowey popped up again, and this time he wasn’t smiling. 

“What are you doing?” Flowey asked, and he couldn’t keep the quiver out of his voice. “G… get that creepy grin off your face!” he squeaked, as Monika began to smile horribly. 

She took out her knife. 

Flowey made one of his squealing sounds and ducked underground, this time for good.

Monika walked on, and at LV 19 with 132 HP, stepped into the Final Corridor and saved her game.

Monika’s footsteps echoed down the hallway, bouncing off the walls and pillars. Orange light shone through the windows, casting shadows on the ground. All was still and silent. At peace. As though this room had stood for a thousand years, and would continue to stand there, forever. 

She could see the doorway at the other end. She knew she had to go through it. She just knew. She continued on, almost skipping. 

That is, until she blinked, and a figure appeared in front of her.

Monika stopped in her tracks. A bell began to toll somewhere far, far away.

Once it had ended, the figure opened its mouth. 

“Heya,” it said in a deep, relaxed voice. “You’ve been busy, huh?” 

“So. I gotta question for ya.” 

Sans stopped suddenly. Something felt terribly wrong. 

Then, he understood. His body, it felt locked in place. It was locked in place. He was being held in place. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t dodge. He couldn’t do anything. Monika was holding him in place with just her mind.

Monika took out her knife and walked up to him. 

“Do you think,” she said. “Do you think that the worst person in the world can change? That everyone can be a good person, if they just try?” 

She reached him and stuck the point of her knife on his skeletal chin. 

“I’ve heard all about you, Smiley Trashbag. And I’m not afraid of you. Don’t you feel that? There’s going to be no dodging on my watch. What’s it going to be, comedian?” she said.

Sans didn’t reply.

She blinked, and suddenly, a second figure was standing in the Hall, behind Sans, cast in shadow. 

“Hey. Back off of my friend,” it said, with a noticeable quiver in its voice. 

“Who are you ?” Monika asked. 

The figure stepped forward. 

It was Sans. 

Wait. Wasn’t Sans right in front of her, a knife being stuck up his chin? 

On closer inspection, it wasn’t Sans. It sure looked like him, but it wasn’t exactly him. For one thing, he was dressed completely differently, in a blue scarf and gloves. And, for another, he had a star in his eye. As his eye.

“W… what…” Monika said. 

She blinked, and a third figure appeared in the hallway. 

“You heard the guy. Now BACK OFF.” the figure said menacingly.

This figure, too, stepped forward into the light. It once again bore an uncanny resemblance with Sans, although his sweater was black , and his glowing eye was red. And he had a gold tooth.

Monika blinked and took a step backwards in surprise. 

A fourth figure appeared in the hallway and stepped forward. This Sans - Monika had decided that they were all Sans - was dressed similarly to the original, but his clothes seemed to be stained in something… dark. And red. And he carried a gigantic axe. 

“Hey, there,” he said in a threatening tone. “You lookin’ for a fight?”

Monika blinked again, and more and more Sanses began to fill the hall, each saying something as they appeared. 

“Yo, broski!” yelled a garishly dressed Sans with sunglasses that read “YOLO”. “You tryin’ to do gen-a-cyde? That’s not cool, sista,” he said. Something behind his left sunglass lens was glowing. 

“It’s time I took a stand for something,” a scowling red Sans said. He held up a bone and pointed it at Monika threateningly. 

“Think you’re flying high?” said a Sans dressed in a yellow-and-blue color scheme. “It’s time to bring you right back down to Earth.” 

“Honestly, I’m just here because I have nothing better to do,” groused a Sans with a black-and-white outfit and a heart locket. 

“Amen, brother,” a Sans with a crown on his head replied. 

“SANNNNNNNNNNESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!” yelled a grotesque-looking Sans that appeared to be going through a seizure. 

“NGAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” yelled back a Sans that had Undyne’s face. 

“Y’know, I could almost go for you,” a Sans dressed in pink said seductively. “If you weren’t such a violent murderer, I mean,” he added. 

“Ya gonna get dunked on!” shouted a tiny Sans in a high-pitched voice. 

Everyone shut up for two seconds as two figures appeared towards the back of the crowd. One with a gigantic paintbrush attached to his back. One that was black and had blue strings crisscrossed all over his fingers. 

“Ink?” someone that looked exactly like Sans but definitely wasn’t said.

The figure with the paintbrush nodded. “Didn’t I call you all here?” he asked, an oddly small voice issuing from the tall figure. 

“And Error?” asked a Sans that held a gigantic bone behind his back asked. 

The figure with the wires snorted. “If anyone is destroying the multiverse, it’s going to be me .” The Sans’ voice sounded horribly distorted, as though someone was playing it on rewind.

Sans - the original Sans - stood at the front of the crowd, grinning as always. “And Snowdrake is the comedian,” he said. “Everyone gets that wrong”

“Now then. Only one thing left to say.” 

A cacophony of voices filled the Judgement Hall, unified and strong, as a multicolored field of Gasterblasters appeared above, blocking the view of the ceiling. 

“Do you want to have a bad time?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 18: Cuphead Fizzes Out

“I got this, guys.”

Bendy elbowed his teammates out of the way and stood at the front of the pack, facing the Evil Cuphead. He summoned a gigantic ball of ink and prepared to throw it. 

Cuphead’s evil form laughed. He pulled five cards out of his pocket and threw them into the air, causing them to disappear. He jumped into the air and began to spin around, the liquid end reserved for the ink demon.

“Bendy! Get out of the way!” the Player yelled. Everyone else got the hint and ducked out of Cuphead’s path, but it was too late for the other cartoon character. 

A gigantic flood of liquid gushed out of Evil Cuphead’s head at top speed, splashing through and dissolving Bendy’s ink attack as though it was nothing, slamming into the demon. He screamed - actually screamed - as the liquid tore ink off of his body until finally, as Cuphead touched the ground again, Bendy was gone. Not even a drop of ink left.

Everyone stared at the spot where their best healer and fighter had just been one-shotted.

“Well? What are we waiting for?!” the Player shouted.

And together, the remaining heroes attacked.

An absolute barrage of pain flew towards Cuphead at top speed, but all the bosses he had been through gave him good training. He jumped, ducked, and sidestepped their attacks and began to return fire. 

His blasts traveled too fast to possibly dodge. Several of them hit Freddy. He grunted.

“These aren’t too hard to hand - OUCH!” he cried as Cuphead sent a larger ball of energy at him. “Ok, maybe this is bad.” 

Freddy must have thrown a dozen microphones. Cuphead dodged them all. 

“Dodge THIS, you dirty dish!” yelled Freddy, as he summoned a series of giant pizzas. 

POW. One of them barely clipped Cuphead as he jumped, wildly contorting in an attempt to dodge.

“Two more hits! Just hit him two more times!” the Player said. 

It wasn’t clear whether anyone had heard him as the group continued to encircle the Evil Cuphead. 

Mama pulled a pink Tattletail somewhere out of another plane of reality and chucked it at Cuphead, who replied by parrying it and sending a spray of red bullets back at her. Several of them hit the robot. With the distinct sound of something smashing, Mama tipped over, a gaping hole in her gut exposing the machinery within. 

Nobody even paused as the dance of the battle continued, Cuphead dodging everyone’s strong attacks and responding in kind with smaller ones.

A series of green, squiggly attacks chased Baldi around, seeming to track him and move where he moved. The teacher swatted at them with his ruler, batting them away a few feet only for them to return the chase. He abandoned attempts to fight Cuphead and ran around the room, keeping away dozens of them.

“Freddy! C’mere! I have an idea!” panted the Neighbor, swatting away Cuphead’s attacks as though they were insects. 

Freddy lumbered over. “What i-i-i-i-is it…” he asked, his voice glitching out in mid-word.

The Neighbor held out his weapon. “Sit on my shovel,” he said. 

“What?” 

“Just do it!” 

Freddy obliged, the Neighbor beginning to sweat immensely from holding up the weight of the gigantic animatronic. “Get ready!” he shouted.

“Get ready?! Get ready for - WAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” The Neighbor had swung his shovel, sending the brown bear flying through the air. 

Freddy wildly spun about, throwing microphones in rings all around him. Cuphead dodged them all, but he certainly wasn’t ready when the entire robot himself crashed into him full-force. 

Cuphead dragged himself out from underneath, down to his last health point. 

Freddy himself didn’t look too good. In fact, one of his limbs at fallen off. Tiny pieces of metal that were probably crucial to the animatronic’s working lay scattered. 

“Well, it’s still a work in progress,” muttered the Neighbor. 

Meanwhile, across the room, Baldi had finally messed up. The dozens of attacks slammed into his chest, each with a sound akin to that of a hammer blow. The schoolmaster crumpled to the ground, down for the count.

The Neighbor swung his shovel, over and over, but each time, Cuphead was long gone from the spot he was aiming at. He wasn’t even trying anymore, a demonic grin spreading across his face as the Neighbor huffed and puffed. 

Finally, it seemed that he had enough. He pulled out the cards that he had been saving and turned into his golden form. He punched the Neighbor, who gasped in pain and stumbled backwards, falling at the foot of the Devil’s throne - again. 

Just the Player left.

Cuphead blasted away. The Player did his finest, jumping and ducking and dodging, but it wasn’t enough. Before he knew it, he was down to 1 HP. 

Cuphead stalked over and kicked him over. Actually kicked the Player over, somehow. He straddled Mugman’s form, standing over him with a triumphant expression. His finger lit up.

The Player mashed his keyboard. Nothing happened. He might as well have been watching a cutscene.

This was it. They had tried, but it all ended here.

“See ya, bro,” the Evil Cuphead laughed. 

“Stop!” yelled a voice from somewhere off the screen. 

Cuphead looked up. His finger dimmed, his conquest momentarily forgotten. 

Frisk limped into the room, looking absolutely terrible but still managing to stand, somehow.

Cuphead grinned even wider. His finger lit back up.

“Frisk! No! Get outta here!” the Player yelled helplessly at his computer screen.

Cuphead shot a single blast at the girl. A mocking.

Frisk pulled out her stick. Fast as lightning, she deflected the attack away. It harmlessly dissipated against the wall. 

 Cuphead’s grin slipped right off his face. He fired off some more blasts. Each time, Frisk managed to deflect them. Sweat beaded her forehead and she looked dead on her feet, but she still walked forward. 

“Cuphead. That’s your name, isn’t it?” she asked in a whisper that seemed to carry across the whole room.

The cup growled. “There’s nobody here by that name,” he grumbled. But he didn’t fire.

“That’s who you are. Not this . This isn’t you. Remember? You’re a good guy,” Frisk continued.

The Evil Cuphead glared. Not moving. Not firing. Just standing there. 

Frisk reaches him and put a hand on his shoulder. She leaned down and whispered, “Come back to us.”

Cuphead shook. And shook. And shook. And suddenly, he transformed, the purple turning back into the red that it always was. 

In two seconds, Cuphead was back to normal. 

“W- what?!” he said in a cartoon voice not at all different from Bendy’s. “Where am I? What have I been doing?!”

“Cuphead.” The Player said just one word. 

Cuphead looked. “Hey. You’re not my bro, are you? I don’t even have a bro, do I?” His voice was thick with sadness. 

“Y-you don’t.” the Player said. 

Cuphead looked around the room, at the complete carnage that he had caused. “I did all of this. Didn’t I?” 

The Player nodded, then realized that Cuphead couldn’t see him. 

It didn’t matter anyway, as Cuphead burst into tears. Actual tears. The Player couldn’t do anything but stare as the cup sobbed his eyes out.

After a long while, Cuphead stopped. He stood up.

“I-I know that what I’ve done is unforgivable,” he said with a sweep of his arm, “but is there any way that I can fix this?” 

The Player smiled. “Yes. There is.” he replied.

Chapter Text

Chapter 19: Stronger than All of You

The Gasterblasters opened their mouths in sync and fired as one: a rainbow so bright that it outshone the sun that lit up the surface far, far above. 

With a thought, Monika warped the space in front of her, and the Gasterblaster beams redirected right back to the crowd of Sanses. 

The skeleton army had lightning-fast reflexes. But even as they dodged, ducked, jumped, slid, teleported, walked, ran, deflected, skateboarded, disappeared, absorbed, vanished, and blocked the beams…

Monika went on the attack.

That third Sans, the edgy one, was the first to recover. He began to throw a series of red bones, fast as thought.

Just as quickly, Monika caught the bones and threw them back.

The edgy Sans dodged and dodged, sweat beading on his forehead, but he simply couldn’t keep up. A bone impaled him with enough force to push him back into one of the golden pillars. 

“I-I-I…” he choked out. And then he crumbled into dust, his sweater draped over his bone. 

A box popped up in front of Monika. “Your LOVE increased!” it chirruped.

All the Sanses stopped for one second, shocked at how quickly their friend had fallen. 

But only one second.

Monika stabbed a Sans that looked like it held an infinity gauntlet, a Sans that had a pirate hat, and a Sans that looked like a photographic negative of the normal one. Each time, she felt herself continuously getting stronger. No attacks even came close to hitting her.

The Sans with the oversized bone hit her full-on with a Gasterblaster, dealing damage. With a thought, Monika’s health jumped back up to maximum. 

She lunged forward. The Sans stuck his bone out in front of her, as though trying to block the attack.

The knife cut through both the bone and Sans as though they were made of wet paper. 

She slashed at the terribly dressed Sans with the sunglasses. Oddly enough, instead of dying, the Sans simply stood there and grinned. 

“Sorry, broski, but I’m a bit too radical for you to-“

Monika stabbed through the Sans’ left eyehole in total frustration. 

There came the distinct sound of a soul breaking. The Sans looked at Monika with an expression of total horror before turning to dust, only his hat and broken sunglasses left behind. 

The fight wore on, none of the Sanses ever able to deal enough damage before Monika instantly healed herself. She came to a Sans that was actually wearing his hood and slashed him. 

His health bar appeared above his head and decreased slightly. 

“Sorry, but I don’t go down in one hit like everyone else here,” he gloated.

Monika plucked the health bar out of the air and stabbed the Sans with it.

The health bar disappeared.

“Ha, your attack fai-“ he managed to get out before turning into dust.

The Sans with the oversized paintbrush had finally had enough. He stepped out from behind the crowd and began to swing his weapon, each attack sending out waves of paint that flew through the air and were probably deadly. 

Monika dodged them all flawlessly and lunged, stabbing the Sans. 

Nothing happened. 

She stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed, and nothing happened. The Sans simply stood there and took it, grinning. 

Monika felt her soul turn blue and knew that he was about to fling her away. 

In desperation, Monika swung one more time, catching a single color dye that the Sans wore, the collection of which looked like a bandolier. 

It shattered. The Sans stopped and gaped, as though she had just cut up a piece of his soul.

Encouraged, Monika slashed, cut through all of the color dyes at once, each exploding with color. The Sans gasped and shuddered, but instead of crumbling to dust, he simply froze and toppled onto the golden floor, as though he were a life-size doll. Dead, for sure.

The black Sans with the strings roared in fury so loudly, Monika was literally pushed back by the soundwaves. “YOU KILLED HIM!!!!!” he yelled, and he began to charge forward, dozens of blue strings flying towards Monika, trying to entrap her soul.

She cut away each of the strings as they came close, and ran to meet the Sans, dodging all the bones and Gasterblaster beams that came her way.

As they got a few feet within each other, the Sans summoned a dozen black Gasterblasters behind him, firing them all simultaneously. 

Monika held out her hand. The beams hit an invisible barrier and dissipated.

Monika crossed the last few feet between them and, before he could do anything, stabbed the Sans directly in the chest. 

9999999999999999

The Sans crumbled into a pile of dust that seemed darker than all the other piles that littered the Judgement Hall

After that, none of the other Sanses proved to be much of a challenge at all. It was an absolute massacre as Monika slaughtered them all, one by one, each unable to do anything as the deadly attacks rained down.

Eventually, Monika stabbed through a Sans that resembled the odd man who had once been her ally, bringing her LOVE up to 78. 

She turned. There was only one left. The original.

He threw three bones at Monika. She calmly walked out of the way and made her way towards him, holding him in place once again. 

“If it’s any consolation…” Monika said, “You guys put up a good fight.” She kicked a sweater out of her path, not caring who it once belonged to. 

Sans’ face beaded with sweat as tried to move, tried to dodge, tried to escape his inevitable destiny. 

Suddenly, Monika lunged forward, the blade of the knife glinting menacingly.

Summoning an effort that Sans never even knew he had, he broke his bonds for one instant and ducked to the side, crashing to the ground as he did so. 

He hit the floor and felt himself freeze once again.

Monika walked towards him, and this time, she was no longer gloating. “Just DIE already!” she shouted.

He knew it in his heart, his soul. This was the end. 

Monika reached him. She stabbed.

This time, Sans didn’t dodge.

Chapter Text

Chapter 20: One left

There was an ant on the ground. 

That was an odd thought to be thinking, but as the Player stared as his computer screen, he noticed that there was an ant. 

He squinted and looked closer. Wait a moment. That wasn’t an ant. That was… 

“Bendy?!” the Player exclaimed.

Sure enough, it was Bendy, although shrunken so small that you could barely see him. 

“You’re alive!” the Player yelled in joy.

“Don’t act so surprised,” Bendy grumbled. “Even if there’s only one drop of me, I can still regenerate.” 

“But there wasn’t any-” the Player began.

“Do you really want to question it?” Bendy replied.

The Player looked around the room, where the rest of the team lay in various states of injury. 

“Uh, Bendy, I know it’s a lot to ask, but…” the Player began. 

“Don’t even,” said Cuphead. “I got this.”

Soon enough, everybody was back on their feet, all having drunk some of Cuphead’s fluid. 

“Kind of a one-time thing,” he said. “I need that stuff to survive.” 

“What is it?” asked Frisk, who now did not look like she was going to collapse at any second. 

“It’s complicated.” 

“Sorry to butt in,” said Freddy, butting in, “But its time for us to go.” A door had appeared behind the Devil’s throne, made of worn but decent-looking dark wood. 

Before anybody had taken a step, Cuphead’s eyes popped in a cartoon fashion. “Wait a second! We’re forgetting something!” he blurted.

Everyone’s eyes turned to him. 

“Does this team that I’ve joined have a name?” 

Everybody looked uncomfortably around at each other. 

“Can’t say that we do…” said Mama thoughtfully. 

“Well, we have to give it one, then, don’t we!” Cuphead said enthusiastically. “Here, here, I have some slips of paper. We can all write a name we want and pick it out of… of a…” 

Freddy took off his hat. “Here,” he said. He looked so different without it.

Within literally three seconds, everyone had scribbled something on Cuphead’s slips of paper and put it into Freddy’s hat, now sitting innocently on the ground. 

“Here, you can pick, bro - Player,” he corrected. 

The Player guided Mugman forward and into the hat, causing him to somehow pick up a slip of paper.

“Our new team name,” said the Player, still confused at the bizarre turn of events that brought him here, “is the Legendary Heroes.”

Everyone looked at each other, waiting for someone to take credit for the name.

No one did. 

“Well, then,” said the Neighbor after several awkward moments. “Let’s go,” 

And so, the Legendary Heroes made their way to the out-of-place door for the second-to-last-time.

Monika heaved in a few breaths as she stared at the dust pile that she had created as her LOVE hit 79.

No sense of triumph, like she had always felt beforehand. No joy. Just a grim determination remaining.

She raised her hand and pulled up the file directory, searching for the new folder. 

She found it. “Well, hello, there,” she said calmly. “Let’s see just how terrible I can make you.”

After a few moments, she closed the directory, stepped over the various piles of dust and clothes that she left behind, out the Judgement Hall, and towards her fate.

The Player watched them file out, one by one. 

Cuphead was last. He turned and looked at the Player with his surprisingly lifelike eyes. 

“I-I’m kind of scared,” he admitted. 

“You don’t think I am, too?” the Player replied. A realization occurred to him. “You don’t think that they all are?” 

“But doesn’t it ever get easier?” Cuphead asked. 

The Player remembered some words that he read in a book somewhere.

“Of course not. The fear is always there. We see it. We recognize it. We carry on, through it, past it. We never stop fighting it. That’s what makes us heroes.” 

Cuphead grinned. It looked maniacal, but the Player got the point. 

“Well said, leader.” he said in a firmer tone.

“I’m not the-“ 

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever you say.” Cuphead said. 

He walked through the door. The Player closed the game. 

He heaved a deep breath in, and looked at his wallpaper. Thinking.

So this was it. The Player had this feeling in their gut. The feeling that this long, exciting, stressful adventure was almost over. 

He looked at the time. It was almost midnight. Everybody else was probably sleeping peacefully, unburdened with living creatures in their computers. 

Was it really only a few hours ago, before dinner, when the Player had decided to put Monika’s file into Undertale? It seemed so long ago. 

The Player squared his shoulders, straightened in his seat, and prepared to open the only game that ever gave him chills.

Chapter Text

Chapter 21: The One Place They Feared

The Player booted up Little Nightmares and spawned in, not as Six, but as the boy from the DLC. Seven. Which didn’t make any sense, but OK.

The Player had almost finished the game, like many of the others on his computer. It always seemed that right when he was about to finish, he always ran out of steam, and got distracted by some other game.

He looked around at all the other characters in the hallway. Freddy, Mr. Peterson, Bendy (now mercifully at his normal size), Mama, Baldi, Frisk, Cuphead. Each of them seemed to be shivering (even the robots), and each of them seemed scared out of their wits. 

They had spawned in the hallway directly outside the room full of mannequins. Judging from the sounds issuing from behind it, it sounded like the final battle had already begun. 

“We gotta go in THERE?” Baldi asked. He looked so different in HD. 

The Player gulped. “Yup. Uh, her weakness is mirrors. Does anyone…” 

Everyone looked around and shrugged. 

The Player sighed. “Then we do this the old-fashioned way? Ready?” 

Seven heads nodded back at him.

“Then let’s go!” shouted the Player, and he made his little avatar run over and push open the door, the rest of the team right behind him.

He entered the room, and the camera panned to show that the fight was already over. Six was on the ground, being towered over by The Lady. She kicked the mirror on the ground aside, and it smashed into a thousand pieces. 

“Dang it,” the Player muttered.

The Lady opened her mouth, and tendrils of smoke came out. Wait. No. The tendrils of smoke were coming from Six and going towards the Lady’s mouth. She was sucking away her soul. 

“Hey! Stop that!” the Player intelligently yelled.

Lady Geisha stopped. Six slumped, seemingly lifeless. She turned and looked at the party.

Oh, goody, something goes right for once, the Player thought. 

And then she began to glide towards them, as though she was some deadly apparition.

Everyone froze to the spot out of fear. As she glid towards them, the Lady put her hand on a nearby mannequin. 

It began to twitch and morph and transform until suddenly, there was a second Lady sliding next to the first. 

“Gee, because that’s fair,” Cuphead sarcastically said, his voice trembling.

His words seemed to snap everyone else out of their stupor. 

“Run! Scatter!” the Player yelled. 

And so they did.

Everyone ran into a dark corner and disappeared from view. The two Ladies chased after them, and from what it sounded like, she was making more and more clones of herself. 

Sounds of chaos began. Cuphead’s blaster could be seen through the gloom for a second. There was the splashing of ink, the running of footsteps, the smashing of projectiles against walls. Terror reigned.

There was a whooshing sound, and a dark figure suddenly drifted close to the Player. 

He barely dodged it and ran back to the circle of light, suddenly realizing just how stupid it was to try and run into the darkness.

A Lady appeared and tried to cut the Player off. A microphone suddenly flew through the air and stuck itself in her head. She didn’t seem all that hurt, but she was just distracted enough for the Player to slip past and into the circle.

The sounds of battle continued. It didn’t sound like the team was losing, but they certainly weren’t making any progress, either.

A cluster of Ladies could be seen swooping at the edge of the circle. They seemed reluctant to enter the light. 

The Player ran into a shard of glass. His character, oddly enough, picked it up automatically.

Emboldened, the Player turned to face the mass of Ladies.

All of them shrieked and began to back away, back into the darkness. 

Now, if only there were some way to put the mirror back together. 

An idea occurred to the Player. He couldn’t believe it didn’t hit him before.

“Bendy!” he yelled at the computer screen. “Get over here!”

The cartoon character staggered out of the darkness, shooting ink in all directions, looking tired but no worse for wear. 

“Can you put the mirror back together?” the Player begged. 

The ink demon looked at the tattered shards of glass on the floor. “I’d need to give up some of my life essence to do it.” he said somberly. 

The Player stared at his screen. Could he ask somebody to make such a tremendous sacrifice? Give up, essentially, a piece of their soul? 

“Eh, what the heck. Sure.” Bendy said, smiling even wider. 

He pointed, and ink flowed out of his finger, ink that definitely looked different from his normal ink, although the Player couldn’t exactly put his finger on what it was. The streams of ink met the pieces of glass and began to throw them around, crashing them into each other. Within seconds, the mirror had somehow been restored. 

Bendy slumped over and fell down on the spot, snoring even before he hit the ground.

“Everyone! Get back over here!” the Player shouted. One by one, everyone did, each pursued by an absolute horde of Ladies.

The Player aimed his new mirror at every Lady as they came, each shrieking and exploding into dust the instant they glimpsed its reflective surface. 

“Seems that the clones are weaker than the original,” Mama noted as the Player vaporized a dozen of them that had just been chasing her.

Finally, once Cuphead had returned to the circle and his last pursuers dusted, everything became silent. 

“Is it over?” asked Cuphead tentatively.

As though summoned by his words, the Lady appeared. The real one. Everyone knew it. It seemed as though this one carried a weight, a presence, that the others didn’t.

She pointed at the mirror, still in the Player’s hands. It exploded, sending shards of glass and ink everywhere. 

“That is SO unfair!” yelled the Neighbor. 

Lady Geisha didn’t reply. She opened her mouth, and suddenly, tendrils of black smoke were being drawn out of everyone’s bodies. Everyone but the Player. 

As his friends shuddered and slumped, the Player panicked, and froze. How could he win? How could he defeat the Lady? She was too strong.

Suddenly, the Lady froze. The tendrils of black smoke escaped her mouth and returned to the heroes, who began to stir feebly.

The Lady crumpled to the floor. 

Six was biting her neck. How she had somehow climbed the entire length of the woman without being noticed, the Player had no idea. 

She gnawed and gnawed and gnawed, and suddenly, a violent hurricane of black smoke surrounded the two of them, blocking them from view. 

When it finally ended, the Lady wasn’t moving. Six stood triumphant over her foe. 

The little girl in the raincoat flexed her fingers, marveling at her newfound powers. She turned to face the group. 

The Player suddenly realized that she was now more dangerous than any of them. 

“Six! Six.” he said. “Don’t hurt us. We’re your friends.” 

The character simply stood there. Not moving. Not reacting. It was as though she hadn’t heard the Player speak at all. 

“Y-you’re a hero,” he went on, his voice cracking. “We need you. Will you… will you come with us?” 

The two of them stood there and looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity. 

Finally, finally, she gave the most imperceptible of nods. 

The Player breathed a sigh of relief. “Glad to have you on the team.” he said weakly. 

A doorway blazed into existence on the far wall, behind the body of the Lady. The Player looked away. 

When the light finally faded, it was revealed that it was not a doorway after all. Rather, it was a purple arch, embellished with strange runes. There was nothing but inky darkness beyond it. Not white, like it had always been.

The Player knew. This was the arch from Undertale. The adventure was almost over.

Six pointed at each of the characters in turn, a thin spout of smoke escaping from her fingers each time she did so, restoring each of the characters’ souls.

Once all seven of them were back on their feet, the Player addressed them. All of them. “This is the last world we have to go to. We will have to fight a being of immense power. Our chance of victory is slim.” He was really getting into the whole leader-sort-of act. 

“But we’ve come this far,” he continued. “I believe that we can do it. I believe that we can restore peace and balance to all of our worlds.” 

“Thank you all.” he said. He was actually choking up a little. Over a video game. “You’ve agreed to come with me, and fix my mistakes, despite severe threat to yourselves. You all are heroes.”

A cheer went out from his audience of eight. 

“Now, WHO’S READY TO SAVE THE WORLD?!” the Player shouted. 

The cheer turned into a roar. 

“THEN LET’S GO!” 

One by one, each character ran through the arch, disappearing as they did so. 

The Player watched them all go through, closed the game, and prepared to open Undertale.

Chapter Text

Chapter 22: Genocide Complete

The Underground was silent. Dead. 

Monika walked along the monochrome hallways, the dust of dozens of Sanses covering her clothes. 

There was no light-hearted feeling left. No joy. Just the grim determination of finally, finally escaping, getting justice. This was the end. 

She reached the throne room. A bird sung a song. The flowers bloomed. 

Monika walked forward. Calmly. Patiently. There was no need to rush, not anymore. 

There he stood, his back to her. The monster king himself. He appeared to be engrossed in a conversation with the flower bed at the foot of his throne.

Suddenly, he turned around and faced Monika in all his glory. A beam of sunlight streamed through the window and hit the ground where he stood. 

“Strange…” he muttered, almost to himself. “I’ve never seen a flower… cry before.” 

He looked up, and it was as though he was seeing Monika for the first time. “Excuse me for asking, but… what kind of monster are you? I honestly cannot tell.”

Monika stayed silent, and just looked at him. 

The king took a breath. “Well, then-”

He was immediately cut off when Monika took out her knife. The room dimmed, and her soul popped out of her chest, just as it had done when she met Flowey so, so long ago.

“Now, now.” the king said. “There’s no need for fighting.” The benevolent smile on his face looked absolutely fake. The king was terrified. 

Monika brought down her knife in a wide arc.

9999999999999

Asgore dropped to his knees, in shock. “What…” he spluttered. “How…” 

Monika raised her knife and prepared to strike again, when suddenly, a circle of white pellets surrounded the monster. 

They slammed into him as one. 

All the pain was too much for Asgore. His body, his cape, his armor: all of it dissolved into dust. 

From the dust, a white soul rose into the air, shaking, but still holding together through sheer determination.

A single pellet that had been left behind slammed into it. 

The soul splintered into two, then shattered into a million tiny pieces, scattering. 

Flowey popped out of the ground, smiling happily. “See! I never betrayed you!” he quipped. “It was all a ruse, you see! I was just waiting to take him out for you!” 

Monika ignored him. She didn’t have access to Undertale’s files. And Flowey didn’t have a soul, anyway. She couldn’t delete him. Seems that she had to do this the old-fashioned way. 

Flowey was still talking. “I can be useful to you! I can help you! I-“ 

Monika brandished her knife. 

All pretense of joy left the flower’s face. “Please don’t kill me…” he begged.

The blows rained down on Flowey, until he was a pile of plant dust, and then he was nothing. 

Monika was breathing heavily. She pulled up the file directory. 

“Undertale.” she said to herself as she looked at the empty folder. “Like that helps.” 

Suddenly, a file popped into existence. 

“What?” Monika said aloud. 

She looked up. There was someone there.

The newcomer stood there. They wore a green-and-brown striped shirt and a wide smile that didn’t quite reach their devil-red eyes. They stood there for a few moments, and looked at Monika. 

After no time and an eternity, they opened their mouth. 

“Greetings. I am Chara.” 

Monika blinked. Wasn’t Chara the king’s dead son, dead ages ago? 

It was as though Chara was listening to Monika’s thoughts. “I was brought back by your human soul. Your DETERMINATION.”

“Now,” they continued. “Let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next.” 

Monika was shocked for a moment. “B...but I don’t want to destroy the world,” she said in a soft whisper. 

Chara grinned. Their eyes widened, widened too far. “Well, WHO SAID YOU WERE IN CHARGE!!!”

The monstrosity began to stalk towards Monika, eyes empty, mouth twitching. 

Monika calmly opened the file directory and deleted Chara’s file. 

Chara managed to give one look of total shock before he was deleted. Removed. Gone, forever.

Monika stood in a dark hallway. A hallway identical to the one right at the beginning of her journey, the hallway where she met Flowey for the first time. 

A purple archway stood at the far end. Originally, it had led into the Ruins. Normally, here, it would lead to the surface, that extremely vague concept of a place. 

But for Monika, it would lead somewhere else. 

It would lead out of the prison of the Player’s computer, and into the real world. 

She touched the arch, feeling the lines of code that made it up. She twisted them, just like how Gaster taught her, bending them to her will, making them into something new, something that she wanted. 

After a few seconds, she took her hand off of the cool surface. She stepped through the portal between worlds, free at last.

Chapter Text

Chapter 23: A Last Hurrah

The Player opened Undertale. He spawned in as… Frisk? 

Sure enough, the figure that he was moving around was that same poker-faced human child with the very sporty blue-and-purple striped sweater. 

And a few feet away stood another Frisk. The actual Frisk? 

The Player gave up trying to understand the conundrum and looked around at the rest of his surroundings. 

His eight friends were all there, now pixelated in the style of Undertale’s overworld. They were all standing in the eerily empty Judgement Hall. 

As they walked down the hallway, they came upon piles of dust and sweaters scattered around on the floor. Almost everyone didn’t think twice about them, but Frisk stopped at each one, gazing at it sadly, and the Player knew that she was thinking about each Sans that fell there. 

They all soberly passed out of the Judgement Hall, and walked on towards the throne room, unsure of what they were searching for. 

As they walked down the white hallway to the throne room, a wind picked up. Silver pixels began to swirl, coming together on a specific spot in the center of the hallway, spinning faster and faster and faster, until it finally came together in the solid, recognizable form of…

“Gaster?!” the Player shouted at his computer, bewildered. 

Sure enough, the former Royal Scientist himself stood in front of the party, albeit flickering and looking like he was about to vanish at any given moment. 

To everyone’s surprise, Frisk, who looked as though she was at death’s doorstep, walked straight up to the skeleton, grabbed his coat, and began violently shaking him. 

“YOU!!!!” she thundered. “After everything you did?! How dare you show your face!” 

Gaster, who looked like he was about as healthy as Frisk, blinked out of existence for a moment before returning.

“I… I made a mistake…” he stuttered. “Helping… her…”

“Monika?!” the Player questioned. Gaster nodded his head. “How do we stop her? Tell us!”

“She’s al-al-al-already leaving…” Gaster stuttered. “It’s too late to stop her here. 

Suddenly, the camera on the Player’s computer began to blink. A beam of light shot forward from it and hit the ground, as though it was a hologram from Star Wars. 

The light began to take the shape of two black shoes.

Monika’s shoes. 

The Player grabbed a pencil from his desk and jabbed them into the shoes experimentally. They felt as solid as anything he’d ever felt in his life. 

The light began to travel upward. The sight of two ankles clad in black socks could be seen inside of the shoes. 

Monika was coming. 

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell!” the Player muttered, running around his room in a panic. What could he do? 

Quickly, he threw open his dresser, grabbed a shirt, and threw it over the camera. 

The mysterious light burned a hole right through the cloth and kept on… doing whatever it was doing. 

The Player decided that it would be bad for any part of his body to touch the light.

Ducking below it, he crawled back into his chair and looked at his computer screen. 

Gaster nodded, somehow in knowledge that the Player had returned. “It has already begun,” he said serenely. 

“I can see that!” the Player shouted. “How do I stop it?!” 

“You can’t,” replied Gaster with infuriating calmness. 

“Well, help us out, then!” the Player begged.

Gaster closed his eyes, and Undertale closed with it. 

Suddenly, a new game popped up. Everyone stood in the exact same positions, in a meadow in a field. 

The computer’s camera shut off, and the shoes disappeared off the ground as though they had just been a mirage.

“And one… more thing,” said Gaster. 

He pointed at his chest, and a thin silver stream came out. He pointed at each of the heroes in turn, imparting some of the substance within each of them. 

The Neighbor’s eyes popped open. “I feel like… I could knock over a mountain,” he said, flexing his arm. 

“This is amazing,” said Cuphead, firing his peashooter experimentally and finding that its strength had tripled. 

Six stretched out her hands in front of her, black tornados swirling around her short arms, the spirits of the dead at her beck and call. 

As everyone marveled at their new strength, Gaster opened his mouth one final time. “I hope you’re ready,” he said. “She’s right over there.” 

The former Royal Scientist dissipated, his cloak dropping to the ground, a single wisp of the gray substance trickling away. 

In the distance, a figure appeared. A tall, pale, feminine figure, still somehow dressed in her school uniform, although it was now completely covered in dust. A golden heart locket encircled her neck, and the metal from the knife glinted as she held it behind her back. 

Frisk stepped forward, holding her stick with a death grip, fiery determination burning in her eyes. 

“Well?” Her quiet voice echoed through the valley.

The team walked across the valley, towards Monika, towards their destiny.

Chapter Text

Chapter 24: The Final Battle

Monika stopped ten feet away from them. The team took the cue and halted in their tracks.

She glanced directly at the Player, through the computer. Those emerald green eyes were always a little too piercing.

“My love,” she breathed, and the Player cringed a little. 

“You kept me here. You trapped me here.” 

The Player did not reply. 

“Why?” 

“The alternative was killing you!” the Player complained.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “We can be together. Happy.” 

“I think you kind of messed that up when you murdered dozens of people on your way here,” the Player spat. “You’re insane.”

“There is no great genius without a touch of madness,” Monika replied calmly. “And I still love you. Don’t you love me back?”

The Player looked away from his screen, an odd sense of guilt weighing down his soul.

Monika sighed. “I thought as much,” she said, head down.

She looked back up. Her eyes were blazing. “The doctor stopped me. But not for long. I’ll find another portal. I’ll reach the real world. And then!” she said, an insane smile crossing her face. “Then, I'll give you what you deserve.”

“Enough with the TALKING,” Mr. Peterson complained. “Are we going to wreck her or not?”

“I’m getting antsy over here,” Cuphead chimed, his finger glowing bright blue. 

Everyone readied their attacks. 

“It’s a shame, then.” Monika said. “My LOVE is 99. But my love, for you…” She smiled. “Is forever.”

With those words, she took a single step towards the heroes. 

And they unleashed their power, and the final battle began. 

Five pizzas, one shovel, one ink bomb, four exploding Tattletails, one ruler, a dozen red spiked blaster attacks, and a wisp of black smoke all screamed towards Monika, intent on dealing maximum damage. 

Monika simply laughed, and the attacks were flying right back to the party. 

Mr. Peterson snatched his shovel out of the air flawlessly and swung on the spot, hitting a Tattletail directly back at Monika. As he did this, Cuphead jumped to the right and let out a large explosive blast, while Six ducked to the left and began to make complicated hand motions, apparently to no effect. 

The Tattletail exploded in midair as Cuphead’s blast suddenly slowed to the pace of a crawl. Monika calmly walked out of the way. 

Freddy threw a microphone at each gigantic pizza that flew back at the party, demolishing each with a single hit and causing them to burst into pieces. Once the last was in slices, he turned his microphones on Monika. 

They bounced off of an invisible shield and fell to the ground, completely ineffective. 

Six snapped her fingers, and Monika looked shocked, although no visible change overtook her.

She took her knife out and slashed it in a wide arc in front of her. A much larger, more transparent version of it appeared suddenly, swinging towards the party at top speed.

Cuphead, off to the side, ducked under it, and Baldi, now in the front of the group, swung his ruler and deflected it: barely. He staggered backwards, falling into the grass. 

Six, however, was alone, and took the entire blow head on, a wide slash mark appearing on her chest. She fell onto her side, clutching the wound. 

Bendy began to shoot his healing ink from afar while both Freddy and Mama began to lob their projectiles. 

Somehow, every Tattletail and every microphone intercepted each other en route to Monika, causing explosions and pieces of metal to litter the ground everywhere. Monika remained untouched. She stood there, smiling.

Baldi and Mr. Peterson dashed towards Monika at a flat-out sprint, dodging every magical knife attack she sent at them. She began to walk backwards slowly, yet somehow her speed was so quick that the two men were panting to keep up. Everyone else hurriedly ran after them.

At long last, they did catch up, and Baldi and the Neighbor began to pummel at Monika from either side. Each time they did, their attack stopped in their tracks. The air around Monika began to shudder, the invisible mental box that protected her beginning to break. 

Monika fought back, slashing with the knife, every blow amplified by a thousand. Each time she did so, her fellow combatants had to pour all of their strength into simply deflecting the attack and not falling over.

The rest of the party caught up and began to expertly launch their projectiles at the enemy. However, sometimes, one would inexplicably veer off in the wrong direction and hit their own teammate, causing their eyes to water in pain. 

With a sudden lucky strike, Monika stabbed forward, and her knife embedded in the chest of Mr. Peterson.

The Neighbor’s eyes opened wide in gigantic cartoon fashion, and Monika gently drew the knife out of him and pushed him to the ground. 

Bendy yelled in fury and pointed his other hand at Mr. Peterson, healing both him and Six at the same time.

With only one left, Monika went on the attack, smashing away at Baldi. Each time she did, he had to jump back, barely able to dodge, never having an opening.

With a well-placed Tattletail, the invisible box that surrounded Monika shuddered, distorting the view of her inside, and with a great crash, it fell apart. 

Monika growled and stamped her foot, and an earthquake suddenly knocked everyone else off of their feet.

She stalked over to Baldi and raised her knife for the kill. Baldi, fast as lightning, swung his ruler in an arc upwards to intercept it. 

The knife cut the piece of wood in two and slashed the prone figure on the ground once, twice, three times. 

Baldi didn’t get up, red coloring the green of his shirt.

Monika calmly walked towards them, holding up a hand each time a projectile came sailing and causing them to fall to the ground, disappear, or turn around and fly back to the party. 

She came to Freddy, who attempted to backhand her. She held up a single finger to the swinging arm, stopping it in its tracks. 

Freddy clutched his hand and howled in pain, as though he had just hit solid stone. Monika jumped up and slashed once again, cutting the bear’s head off in one blow. 

She took the now-inanimate suit and shoved it out of her way, its limbs flopping to the ground in a heap. She walked on to Mama, casually kicking her out of her way and somehow causing her to fly a dozen yards to the side, a gaping hole exposing wires and machinery. 

She came to Bendy, who was furiously pointing at all of his teammates and healing them simultaneously. Monika took her knife and cut him in half, creating an ink puddle that did not re-form.

Cuphead fired and fired and fired, but the heart locket around Monika’s neck inexplicably kept swinging around and deflecting all of the shots. 

Monika attacked. All of Cuphead’s body seemed to fail him as he desperately tried to move out of the way, yet he was quite unable to dodge as Monika broke his head apart.

Suddenly realizing that things had taken a bad turn, the Player took control of his knight that he controlled and charged forward. 

Monika laughed - actually laughed - and a sudden gust of wind picked up the Player and threw him far, far away from the rest of the battle. 

Monika turned. Only one left. 

“So you’re Frisk…” she mused. “You’re the one that flower went on so much about. You’re the one who replaced me.” 

“Well, it’s time I tell you something. No one replaces me.” 

Monika lunged forward, her knife poised to kill. 

Somehow, Frisk caught the hilt of the knife with her stick, and held it there through sheer force of will. 

The two girls stood there, identically dressed, looking into each other’s eyes, blue into green, as they both pushed against each other in a true contest of determination. 

Seconds passed. Then hours, then days, and still they stood in their deadlock. 

Suddenly, a gigantic beam of white light engulfed Monika, causing her to stagger backwards. She screamed in pain and groped around, temporarily blinded and confused by the sheer brightness of it all. 

Frisk took her eyes off of Monika for one second and looked for where the beam had come from. 

And there, in the distance, but growing rapidly nearer, was a familiar grinning skeleton face, wearing a blue hoodie and riding a white dragon skull through the air.

“Sans?” Frisk cried out in bewilderment. 

Sure enough, it was the pun-cracking skeleton himself, back for revenge. 

“But how?” she shouted. “We saw your dust!” 

Sans suddenly flickered, turning transparent. There sat his soul in the middle of his chest. 

Except it wasn’t his soul. It was a white, empty frame of a heart, filled only with a few wisps of Gaster’s gray soul.

Sans became solid again. “I had help,” he said, his grin somehow growing even wider. 

Suddenly, where each character lay on the ground in various states of death, a series of bones sprouted from the ground.

Green bones. 

And so, Sans’ massive attacking abilities began to work in reverse, healing everyone and bringing them back from the brink.

The Gasterblaster Sans rose opened its mouth and fired again, directly into Monika, Karma dealing back all the pain that she had given out.

The heroes were just getting to their feet when Monika’s pink soul popped out of her body, shaking.

It split into two. 

And then fused back together.

“But it refused” read a tiny line next to the restored heart.

Undeterred, the entire group began to pummel Monika again, who had only just recovered and was now staggering around and taking massive damage. 

“Player!” The Player saw Bendy running over to where he was. “When her soul has been split, that is when she is weak. That is when you can delete her, once and for all.” 

“Wait!” called the Player. “How do you know that I…” 

But Bendy had already turned his back and was running back into the battle.

The Player inwardly sighed, opened the file directory, opened the game’s folder, and waited. 

The entire team was absolutely destroying Monika, giving her no chance to react or block. There was Baldi, using his ruler (was it a spare?) to whack over and over. There was Cuphead, his blasts so bright that they hurt to look at. There was Six, drawing out tiny bits of pink from Monika’s now-visible soul. And Sans kept pummeling her with his bones over and over and over.

Soon enough, Monika’s soul broke for a second time. 

The Player hit alt-tab, and sure enough, there was Monika’s file, sitting there innocently. 

This time, the Player didn’t hesitate. He right-clicked with his mouse, and clicked “Delete” on the drop-down menu for all that he was worth.

The Player returned to the game to see everyone backing away from the glitching form of Monika, now a jumbling mess of squares. 

“P...Player…” she said, her voice horribly distorted but still recognizable. “I...I still love you…” 

With those words, she winked out of existence and disappeared. Gone. 

It was over.

Chapter Text

Chapter 25: The Aftermath

Frisk’s eyes widened in surprise. 

“I feel so.. powerful,” she said, almost to herself. “And it’s not tainted by Chara, too. How?” 

“You and Monika are connected,” said Bendy. “As one of you grows stronger, the other goes weaker. Can you reset?”

Frisk waved her hand, and the familiar menu popped up once again, its two options still there.

“But if you reset,” asked the Player in realization, “Won’t you lose all this power?” 

“Think about all the absolute carnage we went through to get here,” Bendy replied. “Here’s the way to fix it. Frisk is the key.” 

"Just... resetting is going to fix everything that's happened?" the Player asked suspiciously. 

"I'm sure of it," Bendy responded. "Only if Frisk wants to, of course."

She nodded. “I’ll do it. Of course I’ll do it.” 

Everyone suddenly realized that this was the last they were going to be seeing each other. 

“Well!” said Freddy, puffing out his chest in ridiculous manner. “It’s been fun, leading you all…” 

“OH COME ON,” replied the Neighbor. “You? The leader? All you ever did was stand at the back and throw your microphone.” 

Freddy’s eyes widened. “You’re not in rapt worship of me anymore, Mr. Peterson?” he asked with a tinge of humor in his voice. 

“Nope.” the mustached man replied. “I’d like to think that I’ve grown.”

Meanwhile, a few feet away, Bendy’s and Mama looked at each other warily. 

Finally, Mama stepped forward. “You know what, Bendy?” she said. “I don’t really think that you’re a complete piece of trash anymore.” 

Bendy winked. “Right back at ya, Mama. I’d shake hands, but...” He looked down at her limbless form. “I’m too cool for that.”

Meanwhile, Frisk was kneeling down in the grass and whispering something into Six’s ear. It seemed to be calming the raincoat child. She nodded silently in response to the whispered conversation.

Across the meadow, Baldi and Cuphead were laughing together like they were old friends, the teacher holding the cup on his shoulder in a piggyback. “And I shot you like a hundred times!” Cuphead laughed, slapping Baldi’s back. “And you tried to murder me!” 

Sans simply stood off to the side, enjoying the sight. 

The Player walked up next to him. “You saved us all,” he said quietly. “They’d all be dead if it wasn’t for you.” 

Sans looked at him side-eyed, still grinning. “Whelp. That’s the one bail you guys get. Don’t expect it again. I’m way too much of a lazybones.”

The Player stifled a groan. “I’m just glad you came, man.”

“Skeleton.”

“Whatever.”

The heroes gathered around in a circle for one last time. 

“But wait,” said Baldi. “Will we be able to remember everything that happened?” 

Frisk looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. This has never been done before. Everybody always seemed to remember at least a little when I reset. Maybe you guys will remember everything. Who knows?”

Everyone looked satisfied by this answer, at least for now.

“Are we all ready?” Frisk asked. 

Nine heads nodded back. 

Frisk pulled up the menu, Her hand over the “Reset” button, turning it yellow in anticipation. 

She pressed it, and the game closed.

It had been a week. The Player was still reeling over everything that had happened on that fateful night. 

Every time he played FNAF, Freddy always seemed to be smiling as he jumpscared the unfortunate night guard. Every time he played Hello Neighbor, Mr. Peterson always seemed to wink before he inevitability caught his prey. Every time he played Baldi’s Basics, Baldi’s smile was permanently fixed on his face as he chased the Player. 

Every time he played one of his beloved indies, there were always little discrepancies, always little things that suggested that things weren’t exactly normal. Not normal in a good way, though. As though a benevolent force was always watching the Player as he played.

And so, he remembered his friends. And he smiled.

And everybody lived happily ever after. 

But you don’t really believe that. Do you? 

=)

THE END