Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been the usual routine for the small, gender-ambiguous child. Slash, swing, dodge and save. Their adventure through the underground, once a scary yet exciting odyssey, was now a tedious chore. Even the genocide route they were on felt empty to them.

Currently, they were finished with Sans' whole battle segment. All that remained of him was a pile of dust and a frayed blue jacket. Despite his death, which once was met with satisfaction after the herculean task, Frisk only grew more frustrated. The pale ash-grey pile was in the exact same formation as always, with the jacket splayed out. Frisk memorized every stain, every fold that the jacket made when it had fallen down with the skeleton's remains. The child gave the pile a small kick, scattering the dust into a small cloud that settled on the scuffed and burnt tiles.

A laugh sounded from their side. "He never dodges fast enough on that one!" Frisk sighed, turning around to Chara.

"It's getting boring," they signed to the ghostly figure, who was currently hovering over their shoulder. "This is the fifth route in a row, and nothing's changing at all."

"Well, maybe if you didn't just stand there silently, they'd actually change!" Chara mocked, rolling their eyes. "Maybe kill one of the guards right in front of Undyne. That'd get a rise outta her."

The dead child only grated Frisk's nerves more. "You know that wouldn't work," They lumbered over to the exit of Judgement hall, towards the grey halls of the throne room. Not taking time to stop at the coffins, they hovered their hand over the sparkling save point and felt the determination rush over their body. "It's almost impossible to get them to Waterfall without missing a few monsters, and that'll only lead us to a Neutral run."

"Oh come on, you know you want to do it. It's fun to try something new, isn't it?"

Frisk ignored the rambling ghost as they walked up to King Asgore, not even bothering to listen to his request for a cup of tea together. One smooth swing of their real knife, and the hulking figure of the monster they once called "dad" collapsed into a kneel. White friendliness pellets pelted him on cue, and his body finally dissolved into that smoky dust his soul lingering but shattering as more pellets barraged the fragile thing.

Flowey popped up from the ground, his stem trembling as he addressed you as Chara. The ghost scoffed at that, but Frisk could see the spark of uneasiness in their eyes. Even after all the resets, and all the times they had helped kill the weed, there was still a part of them that saw him as Asriel, their old brother and best friend.

The buttercup continued to stammer on and on until breaking into tears, begging Frisk not to kill them. It was no different than before.

Once Frisk had finished hacking at the body, the flower was almost unrecognizable. A green pulp and some sliced bits of yellow petals were all that remained of the former prince, and they closed their eyes, embracing the void that always swallowed them after every genocide run.

Chara was now ten paces in front of them, hands at their side. Their form was no longer transparent, this time with rosy cheeks that contrasted with the deathlike pallor of their corpse.

"You know what happens now." Frisk nodded. Straight to the point then - their partner knew them well. No need for the usual speech or choice on whether or not to erase the world, as it was pointless. It always resulted in the same thing.

The corpse's eyes widened as brownish-red blood caked their cheeks. "Good," Chara commented, and rushed towards Frisk, knife now in their hand instead.

Getting stabbed wasn't as painful when you've felt it hundreds of time before.

And so, the world around Frisk rearranged. The apathetic time-warper considered doing a neutral run as their partner suggested. It would be interesting to see how the hot-blooded captain of the Royal Guard would react to the death of her soldiers. Or better yet, they could use Papyrus as the bait. Frisk had once been the most hesitant to kill the skeleton, but they had gone numb to the idea once they knew they could just bring him back to life in another reset.

Frisk hurled down as the void faded into a lighter grey and brown color, reminiscent of Mount Ebott's grounds. Closing their eyes, they waited for the silky smooth petals of buttercups to soften their fall.

Only, they were met with the warm yet hard feeling of flesh and cloth.

Chapter Text

Frisk hadn't seen humans other than Chara in a while. The main reason why they constantly reset was because of the monsters eventually being attacked by humans. Whether it be from a legal team sent by their biological parents or a military force, their friends were often put in stressful and unpredictable situations. Both Frisk and Chara knew what their kind was capable of, and it wasn't as easy to deal with humans as it was with monsters.

So when they landed straight onto a solid surface that was decidedly not monster skin, they had panicked. Curling up into a ball, they rolled down the considerably tall tangle of limbs and plopped down onto the edge of the grassy patch.

"Ouch!"

"My glasses!"

"Shit!"

Various expletives came from the pile of moving bodies, people trying to untangle themselves from the top to the bottom but only succeeding to flail around a bit. From Frisk's view, they lifted their head up to see who exactly they were dealing with.

A ridiculous amount of humans met their eyes. While the dogpile they had landed on was considerably tall, perhaps three to four times higher than themselves, more humans were crowded outside of the pile themselves, trying to regain their bearings. There were hundreds of people crammed into the space, enough so that Frisk could discern a few of them being pressed against the walls in discomfort. Well, "humanoid" was a better term to coin the group as a whole, because while a large percentage of the crowd were normal humans, a few had irregular features and some even looked more like monsters.

Frisk's eyes were often closed due to them remembering the paths in the underground by pure memory, but now, the golden irises were open wide, darting from person to person in the crowd. The time-warping pacifist could see a lanky two-toned monster skittishly hanging around the edges of the group, wearing a gold crown and a business suit. Elsewhere, a Cherry-headed monster stood next to someone who looked almost identical to Alphys and a brown-haired human. Said human was wearing a shirt with the symbol of the Delta Rune, which definitely raised alarms. How'd he get the shirt if the symbol was only known to monsters?

The final straw that broke the camel's back would be the small group of women that stood huddled together at the base of the pile. Brightly colored hair, cat ears, and cutesy dress, Frisk instantly knew that Undyne would be convinced that anime was real from the sight of these girls alone. One of them, a shark-tailed girl with white hair, was gripping a blue trident that seemed much more intimidating than Asgore's.

The sheer diversity of the crowd overwhelmed Frisk. Taking a deep breath, they saw Chara's ghostly form slowly fade in, similarly confused and disoriented from the noise.

"What the fuck? Frisk, what happened?" Chara hissed, definitely not liking the change. "How the hell did you get all of these people here?"

To both of their surprise, a kid Frisk's age nearby turned around and stared directly at Chara. It might be the fact that they could hear and see them that scared Frisk, but what followed was much more panic-inducing.

"Yo! I found them!" The kid was waving their arms around, their gray hoodie bouncing up and down as they hopped. "Frisk and Chara are here!"

"Holy shit??? Frisk, as in THE Frisk???"

"Epic."

"YOOOOO!!!"

The reactions of the crowd around them varied, from shock to excitement. A small amount of the crowd was chanting Frisk's name, while other people were commenting on how small Chara was and how they expected them to be taller. The demon had seethed at that, demanding to be taken seriously. The other kid wasn't taking it so well, pulling their body inwards to make themselves much smaller.

"SILENCE!" Chara's voice echoed throughout the hollow mountain. Any normal monster underground wouldn't have heard it, but the crowd slowly died down to a hushed mumble. "I don't know who you guys are, but you're making Frisk upset! And nobody, nobody else, gets to mess with them except me!"

At least most of the people had the decency to look ashamed of what they had done. After a few minutes of clearing out a space for the small pacifist and their partner, along with untangling the last of the people within the dogpile, Frisk had calmed down to the point where they could communicate with the other people and Chara.

"So, who are you guys," Frisk queried with their hands, wanting to know more. "And why are you here?"

They should have thought that out more. Asking a question? In a room full of rambunctious people? It only led to more disjointed chattering and overlapping words. Frisk could only make out the words "game" and "reality". Chara had to scream for them to calm down to get things in order again.

Instead of asking all of the people at once, Frisk decided to choose just a handful of them to explain what was going on. Their first choice, an orange pony monster with a purple mane, stuttered out their reply. Apparently, all of the people in the room, including her, used to be human. What changed was that they all were affected by a phenomenon in their home dimension, apparently a shift in their reality that made it possible to travel worlds by accident. The people in the room were all once fans of a game called "Undertale", which depicted Frisk's journey through the underground.

The ambiguously gendered kid would have been surprised if it weren't for the fact they already had video game mechanics on their side. Heck, it wasn't that much of a stretch to assume their life was a game in another universe. What was a surprise, however, would be the omnipotence and limitless potential the players held. Chara's ghostly form nearly stopped floating and fell to the ground when one of the humans popped a gold-plated boombox into existence and began playing a kazoo version of that accursed Megalovania as a joke.

Once tensions between the two protagonists and the crowd fell, it was obvious what was going to happen next. After all, they were capable of altering the underground, and Frisk still had access to the save system. It was only natural that chaos was unleashed upon the unsuspecting denizens of the Underground. Only a few rules were set into place: this run would be a true pacifist run (the players would have gotten upset and violent if it had gone any other way) and they had to not mess up the flow of events to an extent where major events couldn't happen. Other than that, it was free game.

With gleeful smiles and an army of overexcited fans, Chara and Frisk set off on their first changed timeline.

Chapter Text

Crowds always posed a problem when it came to Frisk, especially when they were in confined spaces. You know, like the Underground.

The next room always contained Flowey, who would definitely pose a problem later on in the pacifist run. Frisk would have tried to come up with a plan that involved careful talking and sneaking the players one by one away from the weed. Sadly, that was not the case when a room full of uncomfortably crowded people spot an entryway into another room. Before they could do anything, several of the people had already either rushed into the next room, and they could hear the confused scream of the buttercup. Frisk jumped up immediately and ran over, making the rest of the crowd follow the impromptu leader.

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU HUMANS?" Flowey wiggled around in both aggravation and confusion, "WHY ARE YOU HERE? THIS HASN'T HAPPENED BEFORE!"

"Yo calm the fuck down weed." and "Lmao funny," were one of the more neutral reactions that the genderless child could deal with. Heck, even the guy holding a boombox playing "Your Best Friend" could be explained as him having enough determination hear the soundtrack. It would be hard to clean up their remains after Flowey had pelted their soul with friendliness pellets, but at least it wouldn't make any major changes in the timeline. What would, however, would be the dumbass that didn't use their single braincell, calling Flowey "Asriel" while insulting them.

This only made the flower much more hostile. "BACK OFF! HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?" Friendliness pellets started to dot the ceiling of the room like stars, and the more level-headed players began to panic. Chara noticed the cherry guy from before push up his sunglasses and prepare to sprint.

It would only take one more minor inconvenience to set him off and make him hurt the crowd. The younger players were huddled in the center to ensure that they wouldn't be hurt first. "Nevermind that! The only thing that's good about this is that I can finally get more than 7 souls! With that power, I'd be beyond a god!" Flowey did his best to shift into a cocky and manic demeanor after his panic, but the ghostly demon could see that he was just as confused as before.

The bullets came hurtling towards the players, ready to hit them. Some players took the hit, their HP above the usual for a person with a LV of one. Checking their souls, Chara paled to see that the camo pants weren't just for flexing their strength. It made sense though; out of the millions of players that could play Undertale, at least some of them could have been in the military. Their LOVE definitely spoke of that.

Flowey definitely sensed it as well, his face contorting into a menacing scowl. "You freaks really think that'll help in the long run? Ha!" He spun a friendliness pellet next to his face, as if spinning a revolver to taunt the players. "I'm going to love breaking you idiots!"

"Joke's on you, I'm into that shit!" The former prince scowled at the nerve of the human in the back who had said that, sending a single bullet their way. To his disgust, they actually moaned when their HP lowered. (Unbeknownst to him, and luckily for the players, he was only joking.) "You guys are really some sick fucks, huh?"

The second wave of bullets surrounded the large crowd, and with little space to dodge, they braced for another hit.

Toriel always walked through the Ruins daily to check if any humans had fallen down. After the loss of her children and abandoning Asgore to his own punishment, she had loyally guarded the ruins of Home and sheltered any human children that had fallen through.

She found it strange that it was always children that fell down, and never adults. Toriel's previous memories of the child with the purple soul made her recall that the existence of monsters had faded into legend after centuries of their imprisonment. Only children believed in the tall tales, she said, and adults often scoffed at the notion of actual monsters existing.

Which is why the sight of so many humans, both children and adults, huddled into the small room that contained that accursed talking flower made her gasp and hide behind one of the pillars. The first few were a diverse group; probably in their teens, poking at the weed's temper and mocking him. As more and more humans began to trickle in, the motherly goat was paralyzed at the sight of adults. Had the humans finally learned of their existence, and sent an army down to finish the job? She held her breath with anticipation.

It seemed that the adults were only interested in stalling the flower, standing beside the younger humans and warily eying the talking flower. Good, she thought. They weren't going to be taken completely off guard. A teen holding a boombox and wearing a grey hoodie swiped at his phone, and the encounter music for the blasted weed played through the speakers. It wasn't a surprise that the human could hear it; she remembered a few warriors from the human-monster war that had enough power in them to hear the music. What struck her was how ingenious his plan was though - if the music changed with the flower's intentions, then he could broadcast it to the rest of his allies.

Toriel almost cooed at the sight of younger children filing in, clinging to the sides of the older humans. She could spot one with a purple-and-blue striped sweater - why were they so familiar to her?

The room was finally full, with a few others trickling into the back. The ex-queen could finally make out the full extent of the crowd; there were numbering in the hundreds, all equally diverse. What was odd, however, was a few monsters that stuck out here and there. A blue wolfman was on the outskirts of the crowd, trying to block the flower's spinning pellets. A good amount of catlike and doglike humanoids with colorful fur were squished together in the tight space, and a neon-blue dragon was busy jamming to music on his headphones in the back with another reptilian monster.

Did some monsters escape the barrier or avoid getting trapped in the first place? And how did they manage to reintegrate with human society? Toriel was trying to make sense of it all when she suddenly found the flower's bullets hurtling towards the humans. Some had bravely used their own body to block them, while others just huddled in the middle to not get hurt.

When the second round of bullets rained down towards the humans, the queen pushed aside her nervousness and summoned all of her might.

A split second before the bullets even touched one of the players, a blazing hail of fireballs dissolved them with ease. Flowey, understanding what had just happened, ducked underground before the next one scorched the earth he was planted in.

The players knew exactly who had done it. As boombox guy changed the music from Flowey's theme to "Fallen Down", the air was filled with cheers, some of them shouting Toriel's name in excitement while others decided to call her "goat mom". Somebody almost shouted "goat MILF" but was smacked upward in the head by the exasperated fan behind him.

Toriel's surprise was clear to see; she'd been caught unaware of the fact that the humans actually knew her name and even more by how they were enthusiastically welcoming her. The crowd was definitely happy, asking if they could have a tour of the ruins or stay for some of her butterscotch-cinnamon pie.

"W-well, I don't think that I'll have enough supplies for that many pies, my children!" She looked over at the horde. The queen doubted that even all the butter in the Underground could supply that much people.

People just brushed it off, saying that they could "just summon it", and gave a small demonstration by popping a plastic bag of groceries into existence. Toriel nearly stumbled at seeing the display, exclaiming it was impossible due to the limitations of magic itself. The human only laughed. "We live to defy the impossible, after all!"

Frisked had sighed in relief. She hadn't heard that comment on Flowey being her dead son - good. That would have messed up the timeline beyond their knowledge. Instead, they trailed behind the warm goat as she led the crowd of people through the ruins of Home. Right ahead, the players crowded around the save star, doing a little chant of "De-ter-min-a-tion! De-ter-min-a-tion!" Pushing past the comedic group, they hovered their hand as the screen popped up and they saved, a rush of determination filling them. The small group did a cheer of victory, causing nearby players to chuckle.

There was a small struggle to get hundreds of people up the stairs with lots of pushing and shoving. In the next room, the cherry guy had speedily solved the puzzle and thanked Toriel for helping him out (despite the fact that she didn't really do anything except stare at him in wonder). How he knew the answer in the first place was unknown.

The next hallways were filled with even more easy puzzles. The speedrunners dashed ahead, flipping the marked switches for both Toriel and their friends. Since the water-filled canals were shallow and the players didn't want to break the wooden bridges by having too many of them standing at once, some decided to wade in the shallow waters. A few of the more childish players splashed each other.

The next room over, the players encountered the dummy that was supposed to have Napstablook's cousin possessing it. The first few people in the room tried their best not to scare the spook, but later on it became impossible while the rest of the players showered hordes of compliments onto the dummy. If Frisk squinted, they could see the area around the cloth dummy's cheeks turn pink.

Toriel gave a heads-up that there was another puzzle in the following area, to which the players only replied with a cryptic "we know". Walking past the vines, the first encounter popped into existence for Frisk, their soul popping out as they met with a small Froggit that had been crossing the path. The small child complimented the frog monster, to which the Froggit blushed despite not understanding them. A glare from Toriel and the crowd of humans t-posing around the poor thing led it to hop away in a nervous manner.

Finally, they had reached the spike bridge. Some players were too lazy to cross properly, again jumping in the shallow waters and wading out the other side. Others, with much more puzzle experience, confidently walked on the path where they were supposed to. In the end, most of the players had soggy clothes, dripping water all over the tiles.

The next room was supposed to be the trust-test Toriel usually gave Frisk in their normal runs, but taking a look at the crowd of rambunctious players, she must have decided to skip it as the next room. Instead, she decided to give out her phone number just in case they needed to call her. After a bit of scrambling to put it in, everyone was satisfied. The motherly goat told the players that she had some errands to run, and quite a few humans piped in that they wanted to follow her. Shaking her head sadly, she commented that the place she was going wasn't that friendly towards humans.

And so, the players were left to wander the ruins with Frisk.

The candy bowl was soon raided by many of the humans and former humans, emptied out in minutes. Some who didn't get the candy complained, but then realized that they could just materialize what they wanted - they were players, after all. They could mess with the limitations of reality.

Another one of those impromptu cult circles was formed around the second save star, with the players cheering both Frisk and Chara along as they saved. More encounters popped up here and there, but none of the monsters were hurt, just given really strange and ominous compliments such as "You'd look good in a sweater." or "I absolutely love your fanart!". Solving the puzzles was a breeze for the more dedicated players running ahead.

"Hey Frisk?" Chara looked at their partner with a bit of trepidation. "Don't you think it's a bit too... easy?"

Frisk nodded and proceeded to battle with the Moldsmal in front of them, wiggling their hips and sparing the jello-like monster. Players all around her were helping out the monsters in the ruins, whether it be sparing the Whimsuns or talking with the Vegetoids about healthy meals. It was funny how the sheer amount of players just randomly walking in that one large falling puzzle was enough to show the path alone. It took long enough for the rest of the hundreds of players to file in room after room.

And then, they reached the room with the three rocks. One of the - ahem - bustier anime girls from the group Frisk had glanced at before approached the third rock, cooing out praises about how they were "so handsome" and "absolutely breathtaking". Well, that was one way to get the rock to listen. The protagonist was sure that rock was messing with them every reset. After the woman convinced the rock to stay in that one place, the hundreds of players poured into the next save file room.

Immediately, someone had tried to eat the cheese stuck to the table, only to be interrupted by another kid who looked eerily like a Frisk clone. Stopping by and summoning a dull butter knife, the player cut chunks of the cheese and pushed it in the mousehole. Small squeaks of happiness could be heard, muffled by the purple wall.

At this point, the save star cult was expanding, slowly but surely. At first, there was only 6 people doing the chant, but now, there were eight. A ninth player stared at the group, contemplating if they should step in. Frisk, snickering at the joke, saved once again to make sure their playthrough was alright.

It was time. The familiar form of the bedsheet ghost, donning the ever-present headphones, laid on the autumn leaves, blocking the way. The players exploded with a shout of joy, immediately summoning vinyl CDs and papers. From where Frisk was standing, the papers contained absolutely stunning works of art depicting the shy ghost. Someone even managed to summon a ghost cake, complete with ghost strawberries and caramel drizzled on it. The sheer love pouring out of the players for Napstablook was thick in the air.

"oh... what's-" Napstablook opened his eyes to be greeted with a mountain of fanwork and a crowd of enthusiastic humans and monsters. "o-oh! thank you, but uhhh... i think you have the wrong ghost? mettaton's in-"

One of the gifters, a similar bedsheet ghost with a tophat, a tie and similar headphones, cut in. "No, no! We have the right person!" Several other people in the crowd nodded to prove their point. "I'm your biggest fan! You're the reason why I got into remixing!" A chorus of "Yeah!" and "Me too!" was heard from throughout the room.

"w-well, i can't accept all of this." Napstablook curled up in embarrassment. "i can't carry it to my house in waterfall..."

"No problem! We'll just teleport all of it over!" The crowd in the front poofed out in a flash of fog, and reappeared a few seconds later. "There!"

"I hope you understand that we love your work!" A player made a heart with their hands. "You're absolutely stunning!"

"Yeah!"

"Keep on remixing! We'll love to hear it!" Someone whooped in excitement. "Tell me when your new spooktune remix is out!"

The poor ghost, unused to all of the attention and praise directed at him, started tearing up. "t-thank you... can i show you something?"

The crowd cheered, willing to see what was about to happen. A few of Napstablook's tears floated up, coalescing into a watery, ghostly tophat. "i call it dapper blook. do you like it?"

Everyone went even more wild. A frenzy of "YES!!!" and "So fashionable!" stirred. The ghost finally de-summoned Frisk's soul, joyful to see that he met nice people. "i usually come to the Ruins because nobody's around... but today i met sombody nice... a lot of somebodies..." With those parting words, the ghost faded into the air and disappeared, freeing the path.

Sprinting straight ahead, Merg materialized a bag of gold coins for every speedrunner and no-hit person. "Alright guys, you know the drill!" He gently tossed all his coins into the web, filling the web with gold. The spiders on them seemed to be absolutely shocked at both the amount of gold and the amount of humans present, and hastily scuttled to get a large jug of spider cider and spider doughnuts. Distributing it to his team, the fellow human laid out his plans.

"We'll be helping spare every monster in this run! Every trap, every puzzle must be solved for the younger players, do you hear me?"

The group was filled with "Yes sir!" and "Alright!". One person, however, decided to intervene. "Hey, if this is gold, and you're materializing it, isn't it going to overinflate the economy later on?"

Merg only let out a chuckle. "Don't worry," he nonchalantly drawled. "I didn't manifest it. It all came from Jerry's wallet." Although stealing was wrong, as agreed by all of the players, they'd turn a blind eye to that particular monster.

In Snowdin, the aforementioned guy sneezed.

Jerry was satisfied after a good day of annoying the residents of Snowdin town, and headed towards the Nice Cream cart. The bunny vendor cringed subtly when he went forward. "One Nice Cream, strawberry flavor please." The Nice Cream salesman put the wrapped product in front of the UFO-shaped monster.

Shuffling around in his magic subspace, Jerry pulled out a raggedy wallet. After jingling it around and ruffling for a minute, he realized something very important.

Where the FLIP is my gold?

The players traversed through the next few rooms, talking to the dialogue Froggits and sparing the other monsters. The next switch puzzle was completed as the cherry man Merg himself and his team of explorers fell down each hole to find the switches and spare the monsters. Perspective switches were easy now since everything wasn't on a 2D screen, and the team quickly made it to the entrance near Toriel's house.

After all of the players converged around the tree, they could finally see her: Toriel was quickly moving towards them, fretting as she checked their health stats. After a while, she invited them into her own personal home.

The crowd followed goat mom into the house ahead.

Chapter Text

Toriel's house was much nicer in person. To the players, it reminded them of those stock photos of warm, cozy cabins in the middle of the woods that you wanted to just jump into and live the rest of your life there. Though the stars to the exit were right in front of them, most of the group unanimously agreed to not even touch them until they got acquainted with mama goat and reassured her about their safety.

Some of the crowd went left of the entrance and huddled around the fireplace, chatting about themselves and how they had gotten into this situation. Frisk could hear laughter and snippets of conversation coming from the large group bundled together in warm blankets that they had summoned. To the right, most others were checking out their new appearance in the mirror; the anime girls were quite happy with their change while the player monsters were much more inquisitive. The determined duo saw one of the players, a robot with what appeared to be a massive pair of scissors on his head, run one of his metal fingers on them to test their sharpness. Come to think of it, that guy reminded them of one of the enemies in the Megaman franchise. What was his name, again?

The ex-queen was supposed to give Frisk their own room, originally Chara and Asriel's own room. However, one measly room wouldn't be enough to house a hundred humans. Toriel was clearly underprepared, and was running back and forth trying to remedy the problem and check up on the pie she was already baking.

"My children! I'm so sorry, but I do not think I have enough rooms to house all of you." She wrung her paws in stress, sorrowful that she couldn't help out the humans. "I only have one room."

One of the players, a red-and-brown haired man, spoke out. "Don't worry about it! We can summon anything, remember?" With that, the gamer snapped his fingers, summoning a handful of sleeping bags. "We'll just sleep on the floor!"

She was less than pleased to hear that they would be sleeping on the uncomfortable ground, but gave up on trying to argue with it. And so, a group of players set off organizing the sleeping bags around the living room (and anywhere there was free space, really), trying to make sure that people were as warm as possible. The rest of the players, too bored to help the others with it, followed Toriel towards the kitchen.

Only a few of them could actually fit into the small area without making the place a hazard, so it was decided that the best bakers would be the ones to help out. After a small tussle, it was finally decided who would be responsible for the food. Rosanna Pansino, a plain-looking human wearing an apron and a chef's hat, marched into the room with a burly guy with a fork-spoon sword logo on his chef's clothes.

Rosanna cleared her throat, looking at Toriel. "Do you need any help, ma'am?"

"Oh no! I am perfectly fine with the baking process of the pies, I just need the ingredients!"

"We can just duplicate the pies after making a few to properly know the recipe you use." The young chef spun a lock of her hair as she talked. "We've heard of your pies and tried to replicate the recipe from description alone, but it wouldn't compare to the original. Do you mind if we learned to make it as well?"

Toriel blinked in surprise, and let out a hearty chuckle. "Of course! Come, let me give you a tu-toriel on how to make it!"

The kitchen was filled with the sounds of whisks clicking against glass bowls and the crinkling of packages being opened. Butterscotch powder, flour and cinnamon dusted the tops of the counter messily as the humans rushed about trying to compare their recipes to Toriel's.

"Oh, so you used butterscotch powder and chips for the filling! I get it!"

"You even use the flavors in the pie crust? That's why it tastes so sweet!"

"We were supposed to bake it at 400 degrees for 35 minutes? My recipe only did it at 350 degrees, but I guess that's cool as well!"

In the end, the team of two humans and one monster managed to create a sample of the best butterscotch pie that Toriel had ever baked. The man had told her the reason why her pies often burnt and cooked unevenly was because of the distribution of the pie crust and filling. The way to remedy this? Wrap a circle of aluminum foil on the outer edges to cover the braiding on the crust.

Rosanna helped Toriel sprinkle some cinnamon on the top of the pie, then added whipped cream to the edges. Finally, it was done. Toriel took a nearby kitchen knife and gently sliced out three pieces for the humans and herself to taste-test.

The moment the pie entered her mouth, Toriel was hit with a trainload of flavors. It was the same savory-sweet taste she always remembered, but this time, there was a slight shift from sweet to highlight the savory of the pie crust. The extra egg yolks used really made the consistency of the filling much more softer, and by handmaking the pie crust, they had adjusted the flavor from being mildly crispy to an extra layer of richness onto the dough. The ex-queen's opinion? It was the best pie she had ever made.

Looking towards the two humans, she could see their eyes light up in happiness as they tasted the fruits of their labor. "This is amazing!" One of them exclaimed, still chewing on the crust. "It's so... homely. Reminds me of when I used to cook with my family!"

"Must be the spices we used in conjunction with the pie crust's cinnamon-butterscotch combo. I tell you, it's the cinnamon that has to be more prevalent there." The chef tapped on his plate. "Sometimes it isn't a balance of the two; you need to have one dominate the crust, and both dominate the filling. It's what makes the flavor stand out."

After finishing up their plates of pie, the two chefs scribbled down some notes in a pad they had summoned. A snap of the fingers, and the living room beside the kitchen was filled with a gleeful chorus of "Heck yeah!" and "Pie!" as the table filled up with slices on paper plates.

Most of the players were too eager to taste the pie itself than save it for later, even the notorious speedrunners themselves. Everyone paid their compliments to the chefs, commenting on how good it tasted and how "It's exactly as I imagined it to be!". There was a second round of pie slices, which people stored in their inventories for much later.

Frisk, along with Chara, were busy sitting in the corner eating their own slice as the players talked about what exactly they did in the fandom. the blue dragons from before, apparently named Kamex and Retrospecter, gladly let the silent protagonist listen to their remixes of each of the boss battle themes. They had to admit; Megalovania would sound nice with drums in the back. Chara only shuddered to think of what their encounter with Sans might be if he was more powerful.

They noted how the pie was definitely much more different. It wasn't as burned as it was in their previous resets, and the flavor of the crust was slightly more... tangy. Chara, feeling what Frisk could taste, interjected that they liked the new flavor, and that they guess the players weren't so bad after all.

Tired, Frisk began heading to their room to begin sleeping. The players, sensing their own weariness, began to de-summon the paper plates and crawl to their sleeping bags. The conversations slowly died down to whispers, then nothing. It would have been a very relaxing sleep.

Sadly, with a crowd of more than a hundred, complications are expected.

In another room, boombox guy was pulling up some different soundtracks to listen to. Since there was no need for a battle yet, the guy did what bored teens usually did when they had a phone and speaker: blast out annoying music. Several players nearby winced as the bass boomed from the other room and lyrics were shouted from the top of their lungs.

"I GOTTA COUNT UP, COUNT UP, COUNT UP, COUNT UP THESE RACKS I MADE TODAY! IF YOU AIN'T TALKING 'BOUT MONEY MAN, GET OUT MY DAMN FACE!"

The door to the room was banged on violently by one of the other players. "YO SHUT UP JEROME! WE'RE TRYIN' TO SLEEP HERE!"

Boombox man, also known as Jerome, wisely decided to lower the volume by several decibels until it was only audible to him. "Damn, nobody appreciates the classics anymore."

Toriel's life was turned upside down that day. The large group of humans and monsters huddled together in sleeping bags on the floor of her house reminded her of the first refugees of the human-monster war. Only that time, it had more monsters sleeping among the humans. Exhaling a shaky breath, she turned around to sit in her chair and reminisce.

It had been so long since Home had that many people wandering the halls. It felt like centuries ago that her children had slept in the very room that the group of children was laying in now. She knew they would want to go back to the surface. She could only hope that her ex-husband took only one soul, and didn't kill the others.

The motherly goat stood up, carefully weaving around the bodies laying on the floor in peaceful slumber. Stepping over a thin tail, she made her way over to the stairs only to be stopped by a small whisper.

"Going to see your friend?"

Toriel whipped around to see one of the adults, a guy with red-dyed hair, leaning on the wall as he slumped in his sleeping bag. He raised a finger to his lips as of to shush, motioning to the people around him. "It's alright. I know this is probably really weird for you."

"Tell me about it." She went over, sitting beside the player. "I just don't know how you humans know all of this."

It took a while, but the player explained the concept of the fandom. How millions of people all around their world played one game and all heard one story. How she had guided millions, both children and adults, in the mechanics of the game and taking care of Frisk, the player character. He told her about how in those millions, at least a few hundred thousand of those players were children, and how in those hundred thousand there were tens of thousands of children who saw her as a better mother than their own parents. She had made such a colossal impact on thousands of lives, giving hope to people who needed it most, and she had done nothing but existed.

The queen's cheeks were streaming with tears now, trying to stop herself from heaving out sobs of happiness. The man had thanked her, and she had deflected it, thanking him instead. Toriel wiped her tears, and gently laughed. "Here I am, not even knowing your name, and I am already crying in front of you. How rude of myself."

The man simply shook his head and smiled. "Please, ma'am, just call me Markiplier."

The man, Markiplier, urged here to talk to the skeleton on the other side of the door. "His name is Sans, and he'll be a great help." Toriel listened carefully to his words. "The guy's great. Keeps a promise no matter what. If you see him, tell him thank you."

After tucking himself back into his sleeping bag, the youtuber began to snore and Toriel went back to her previous goal. Each step down the creaky stairs felt brand new, as if the world around her was changing. The purple hallways felt much more inviting than before, now that she knew that her child would survive their journey.

The imposing double-doors engraved with the Delta Rune stood tall on the opposite end. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on it.

"who's there?"

"Dishes."

"dishes who?"

"Dishes a very bad knock-knock joke."

From the other side, Toriel could hear the rattling of something hollow as the deep voice laughed. Knowing that "Sans" was a skeleton monster, the sound made much more sense now. Taking a deep breath, she decided to give the promise out.

"Dear friend? I have something very important to tell you." She could hear the deafening silence as the mood changed drastically. "sure. go right ahead."

"I... have been told that you are very good at keeping promises." The motherly goat heard the sudden shifting of snow, as if the monster had jumped in surprise. She continued anyway. "I have also been told that your name is... Sans, is it not?"

A long pause. "well... yes."

Toriel let out another sigh. Yet another piece of evidence that the players were omnipetent. "There is a promise I would like to make with you. One that the same person said will be very different than before." Another sound, this time more quickly shifting snow and a gasp.

"There will be many humans coming through the door. Some of them have monster friends. I want you to make sure that they are kept safe and sound." She paused, searching for the correct words. "They may not need the protection, but I feel that they would appreciate it."

More silence, and the skeleton finally spoke again. "alright. just... give me a minute. this is new."

The ex-queen hummed in agreement. "Before you go, I have a message from one of them."

"and that is?"

"They said thank you."

Frisk was the one to wake up first, and went to tap on the shoulder of the player closest to them. The guy was wearing a black shirt and a ripped scar that was oddly similar to Papyrus' own scarf later on in their journey. The guy groggily woke up, grumbling that he hadn't slept like that in ages ever since his Youtube career started.

Others started to wake up one by one because of the racket being caused. The rooms were soon filled with groans and groggy yawns. People began to tidy themselves, summoning new clothes onto their body to avoid changing in front of everybody. There were still some problems, though.

"Yooo, I need to piss badly my dude."

"Just teleport somewhere else! The bathroom's already in use!"

"Oh my god, does anyone have some mouthwash? My breath smells like shit."

Chara floated around in annoyance, not needing to sleep due to their ghostly nature. With even more grumbling, she told Frisk to ready up and organize all of the players so that they could confront Toriel on how to exit the Ruins. Unwillingly, Frisk sat up and stretched, slowly moving towards each person to fully wake them up, when suddenly they had an idea.

Running over to the hallway, they found Jerome asleep beside his boombox. After a bit of poking and prodding, they had awoken him and whispered in his ear their plan. The hooded teen chugged a cup of manifested coffee and reached over to his side. It took a bit of fumbling for his phone, but when he finally had it in his hands, a sharklike grin filled his face.

The first few notes of Megalovania started of fairly normal, waking up the people next to boombox guy. Chara glared at him in annoyance, asking how this would help. Jerome only responded by widening his grin and told them to wait for "sixteen more seconds". After a bit of buildup, it became clear what he had planned.

Bass blasted out of the speakers as the highly compressed and eardrum-shattering melody of Megalovania burst through the whole household. Complaining and screams to "shut up" filled the air, to which the teen only told them that it was time to wake up. Frisk really didn't like the method, but it did wonders on making the more experienced players jump up in fear.

Once everyone had woken up and cleaned themselves off, the two protagonists gathered as many people as possible next to them, telling them that they would have to confront Toriel in a fight if they were all going to leave. Instead of agreeing with them, some of the players had a much better idea.

Toriel had expected the humans to gather around her, with the purple-and-blue striped sweater-wearing child in front. Signing out their words, they said that they would have to leave the Ruins.

The motherly goat closed her book on snail facts. "I knew this time would come soon. Follow me, my children."

Players of all ages shuffled behind her as she descended down the stairs and into the hallway. Instead of giving the expected speech, however, she didn't stop to talk to the players. Toriel just walked forward, going onward to the end of the Ruins.

Finally, the players stopped where she had. The double doors leading to Snowdin, and by extension, the rest of the Underground, was laid bare to everyone's eyes. The ex-queen, sensing everyone's apprehension, turned around to face the crowd of humans and monsters.

"Normally, I would stop you from traversing the dangerous Underground." She paused, soaking in all their expressions. "I even planned to destroy this place once and for all. I've lost far too many of my children ahead."

"But this... this is a different case. You have proven yourself to be able to defy all laws of magic. You have more than enough in numbers and power to eradicate all of the underground. And yet, you help the residents of the ruins. You help me cook, and you gladly follow me."

"You all know what lies ahead, yes?" The crowd chimed in with affirmations. "Good. You know what to do for my husband, Asgore."

"And so..." Toriel took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I will let you all leave, and go back home."

A few of the people stepped ahead before she could press her paws against the stone doors and open them. "But... Miss Toriel, what if some of us want to stay?"

"Huh?" Toriel opened her eyes in confusion. "You... want to stay with me?"

"Well, yes! Some of us are too fragile to go ahead in battle." The monster who spoke, the two-toned monster from before, gestured at his own body. "Like me, for example. I can't touch water; it burns me. My friend over there has asthma, and some of the kids here are way too young for battle."

Another person chimed in. "And some of us just want to stay to help you out! We care about you too Goat Mom!"

"Yeah!"

"We'll help you feel better!"

She hadn't expected this. A handful of the group wanted to stay in the Ruins, with her? An old lady? "I - I'm honored. But are you sure of this? You would be staying behind, without your friends."

One of the players waved their hand dismissively. "Don't worry. There's enough of them to take care of themselves. Besides, we trust you with our lives!"

Toriel looked at the group, now split off from the main one. They were in the back of the hall, eagerly waiting for her. Blinking away her tears, she gestured to the door. "If anyone wants to stay, you can go to the living room for now. I will open the doors." The smaller group retreated back to the top of the stairs, chattering excitedly all the while. Toriel was so... happy to know that the Ruins would once again be filled with people that would visit her.

The group planning to go was planning out how to go ahead for the encounter with Sans. Toriel, now much more confident in their ability to survive, pushed open the stone door.

Chapter Text

Sans woke up again to the shouting of his brother, Papyrus. He was going off about how Sans had slept for "too long" and that the puzzles had to be recalibrated since yesterday. The lazy skeleton could recall word for word how his brother's spiel went.

The last five resets were nothing but absolute pain for him. He couldn't exactly remember, and his mind was sent in that horrible limbo of remembering clearly and an ominous feeling of deja-vu that always followed him. However, the sharp, searing phantom pain of the real knife raking through his ribcage and sternum was unmistakable. Every time Sans woke up in a cold sweat and felt that, he knew that a genocide run had been committed. The more painful it was, the more obvious that the run had been going on for several resets.

And today, it had burned. How many times had the freak killed him and his friends? Five? Six? It wasn't always sure, and that uncertainty in just how many times it had happened made Sans panic. He hated how he was powerless to change anything.

Dragging his body out of the messy mattress in the corner of his room, the skeleton monster threw on his ketchup-stained hoodie, lumbering over to his door. Sans was met with the familiar sight of the plain living room. He made sure not to trip on the stairs, and headed to the kitchen to grab himself another bottle of ketchup. It took only a few seconds of fumbling around to finally get what he wanted. Chugging the bottle, Sans went outside of his house and took his usual shortcut to the sentry station near the doors of the Ruins.

His routine usually consisted of falling asleep and not waking up until he felt like it. After all, Sans' deja-vu always made sure he would be punctual to his little meetings with Toriel. With that, he tucked his own skull into the soft fabric of his hoodie and dozed off.

It took exactly four hours for him to finally wake up. He had known the time from that one reset where he tried to measure the exact time she would make her promise. Of course, he ended up forgetting about that timeline, but since he had repeatedly done that little experiment, he could now remember in a hazy way.

Shuffling through the trees and the cold snow, Sans headed towards the stone doors at the dead end. In the nearby bush, he could see the glint of Alphys' camera, on the lookout for when a human eventually exited the Ruins. The jokester patiently waited for the familiar knocking on the other side.

Only... that didn't happen. Sans started to sweat. this... was different.

His internal clock screamed that this was the exact time he was supposed to hear the corny "dishes" knock-knock joke from Toriel. His own memories were certain that this wasn't supposed to happen. Even if Frisk had started yet another genocide run, the ex-queen of the Underground wouldn't have been killed yet.

Sans pressed his skull as close to the door as possible to know what was going on. He may be a skeleton, but his anatomy combined with his own magic allowed him to "hear" by passing vibrations made by sound waves directly into his cochlear bone. It was much to muffled to make what was going on, but he could hear what sounded like conversations from far away.

After thirty minutes or so, the murmuring of voices of died down, only to be replaced by the brief booming of music before someone who was definitely not Tori screaming at "Jerome" to shut up, and that "they" were trying to sleep. Sans let out a shaky chuckle. Looks like the Froggits and the other monsters were becoming much more rowdy, huh? He had to say, he didn't expect that to happen at all.

Even more time had passed before Toriel finally knocked on the doorway separating the Ruins from Snowdin. At that point, Sans was already half-asleep, and had to jolt himself awake as he heard the noise. Her soft voice delivered that same old knock-knock joke, and Sans, despite hearing it hundreds of times over already, still laughed as best as he could.

And now, it was time for her promise. She had started off normally, telling the jokester that she had something important to say. Sans, already knowing what she would ask of him next, prepared his lines.

It was another change that made him jump in shock and land right next to the snow poff he had made while resting nearby the door. This time, it was something he couldn't dismiss at all. Toriel had known his name, and that he would keep the promise.

That hadn't happened in other resets. Frisk usually didn't tell the guardian of the Ruins who she was talking to. Maybe it was from their fear of ruining the timeline, or maybe it was from them not caring about her; it didn't matter. The human didn't do this. 

His non-existent heart raced as she said that the promise that she would make would be different from before, implying that she now knew about the resets. Sans was fully listening now, hearing how Toriel mentioned many humans instead of "a human", along with the term "monster friends". The way she said the latter made him realize that those monsters mentioned weren't from the Ruins. Sans had never recalled seeing any monsters on the Surface prior to breaking the barrier on Pacifist routes. If they hadn't come from the Ruins, and they weren't on the Surface...

Before he could leave, Toriel left him with a message from one of the humans, just as cryptic and panic-inducing as her own words. "Thank you."

Sans never knew that those two words would cause him so much confusion and trouble.

All of the players knew what laid ahead of them. All of the players also knew that some of them were just plain dumb and rush ahead without thinking.

So, the plan was hatched much before Toriel would even walk over to the exit of the Ruins. The brightest minds in the group, also coincidentally the famous theorists, spent the night chugging mugs of summoned coffee and whispering the vague outlines of their plans.

"Alright, so Flowey's already off the list. We can deal with him easily enough; all he does is monologue." The Alphys lookalike brought his cup of expresso to his mouth and took a small sip. "Anything bad, and we'll just have to summon some rudimentary weapons to scare him off."

"The hard part is Sans." His nametag, a metallic rectangle emblazoned with his channel name "Underlab", gleamed in the fireplace's soft light. "He's probably going to react less than pleasantly at the sight of us."

A guy, sitting next to the steadily dozing form of his wife and son, was scribbling messy notes on a clipboard. "That's definitely going to be a problem in the long run." Matthew Robert Patrick, the legend himself, was working overtime trying to think up of various situations in which to slowly introduce the players to the Underground without causing mass hysteria. "You know that Ness himself isn't going to be so happy with that."

Underlab groaned in playful annoyance. 'You still insist on calling him that?" MatPat could only let out a chuckle and continue brainstorming.

The next day (or, well, what the players thought was a day at least) was spent on the organization of all the players. They had the notion of the plan, dubbed "Operation Sans" because the players were much too disorganized to properly name something. PewDiePie, one of the leading gamers, still had a headache for trying to break up an argument between the memers on whether or not they should name it "Operation Boner".

It was simple: trail Frisk and Chara as they confront Flowey. If he decided to act up, the shock troops in the front would procure flamethrowers and blast them in the area around him to prevent accidentally starting a Neutral run. Once the weed was gone, the protagonists would go ahead as the players would turn  follow them from the trees. More experienced players would be closer to the front, and the younger travelers would be hiding behind them.

Getting their attention wasn't difficult. When only one guy was known for keeping a boombox, it made it much easier to broadcast loud announcements through the halls of Toriel's house.

"ATTENTION ALL PLAYERS!" Chara's voice boomed from the speaker, microphone held right in her face. Her voice couldn't be heard by anyone but them and Frisk, making her the perfect nominee for an announcer. "YOU KNOW THE DRILL. GET IN SINGLE FILE LINES AND WALK CALMLY DOWN THE STAIRS!"

People, when yelled at by a slightly homicidal child, tend to listen. So all the hundreds of players who wanted to go ahead crowded themselves as best as possible into that exact formation in fear of being stabbed. Chara had let the players planning to stay at Toriel's house be an exception; they were only going to be telling her the news and heading back up the stairs.

Once they had followed instructions and faced Toriel at the end of the hall, the plan started.

And so, the first set of double doors to the rest of the Underground opened up to reveal the accursed weed. Toriel, busy caring for the players who decided on staying, retreated far before she could notice her former son pop up in the middle of the sunny patch.

"Clever. Verrrryyy clever. You think you're really smart, aren't you?" The flower's mouth stretched into a sarcastic grin as Frisk defiantly stood in front, gripping the wooden stick with a clenched hand and Chara spectating by their side. Hulking figures, both human and monster, loomed over the both of them.

"In this world, it's kill or - HEY, THAT'S MY LINE!" Flowey irately shouted at the humans snickering somewhere throughout the crowd, saying his iconic line before he could. "CAN'T I FINISH TALKING WITHOUT YOU IDIOTS INTERRUPTING ME?!"

"No!" The same guy that had moaned before (and had almost made the MILF joke) spoke up, taunting the weed once again. Flowey, knowing that attacking him wouldn't do anything, decided to ignore him.

Inhaling and exhaling, Flowey did his best to continue monologuing. "I see that you have made some new friends, Frisk. Normally, I would tell you that you've only spared the life of a single person." His grin quickly turned from sarcastic to sadistic, showing oddly human-like teeth. "But it looks like you're not the only fool with that laughable philosophy."

Friendliness pellets sprung up in the air, spinning around him as he menacingly spun them in circles. The players behind Frisk fluidly pulled out cobbled-together guns with tubular attachments leading into a can slapped in hazard symbols. The weed seemed to realize the true extent of what could happen. "Don't worry, my little monarch. My plan isn't genocide."

“This is SO much more interesting."

And with that, Flowey de-summoned the pellets and curled into the grass with a cackle as the flamethrowers seared permanent soot marks into the area around him. What was left was an empty clearing, with only nothing but a circular pile of ash and some untouched green in the center. The players, now knowing that he wouldn't be back soon, de-summoning their weapons and proceeded towards the last doorway, flanked by marble columns and engraved with the Delta Rune.

It took only one of the stronger players to push the double doors far open, making a semicircle of ground plowed free of the cold snow. Instantly, the cold wind of the underground forest hit them.

The more sparsely dressed players shivered from the chill, summoning jackets or sweaters to wrap themselves up. Frisk had never gotten used to the temperature, despite traversing the place hundreds of times. They could handle Hotland, no problem. But Snowdin? If it weren't for the local houses in Snowdin Town, they would have frozen to death in their first run. Noticing the slight trembling in the gender-ambiguous child's frame, a green-haired gamer wearing headphones summoned a familiar blue jacket into his hands and handed it over to Frisk.

They put it on instantly. Sans; jacket was something they never really had the courage to wear, despite seeing it on his couch many times on the Surface. This one looked quite different; instead of the usual grey-lined interior, the hood was fluffed up with warm wool. Heck, even the interior of the thing had wool on it. Chara wasn't sure if they wanted to laugh at the irony or cringe at wearing anything close to resembling the smiley trashbag's clothes.

Some of the players dug around at the beginning of the area, looking for something. One of them yelled out that they had found it, and pulled back some branches of a bush to show a camera.

"That is Alphys' camera, right?" The player tapped at the lens, unsure of what to do.

"Yeah. It's not worth avoiding or blocking, since she has them everywhere later on. Might as well not try to hide the secret." The player kicked at some snow nearby in boredom. "Whaddya want to do then?"

Some players gathered around the device, squatting around it in a semicircle. "Wait! She likes anime, right?"

"Well, yeah! It's one of her main things!"

"Amane! Houshou! You mind getting the Hololive girls here?"

The Japanese VTubers had converged around the camera, curious as to what it was. "That is... a camera? From the lab?"

"Yup! You mind giving Alphys your most 'anime' poses?" The first Hololive VTuber to be called, a healer angel, nodded in affirmation and struck a pose, giving a "v" hand sign. Once she had finished, Houshou Marine pulled out a pirate's cutlass to match with her outfit and dramatically angled herself at the cavern's ceiling far above. The rest of the VTubers did their respective poses, sometimes signing out positive messages towards Alphys such as "anime is real" and "keep on going".

While some players were busy trying their best to impress the royal scientist, most were following the plan to a T. The shock troops from before were right next to Frisk and Chara as they encountered the large branch on the snow. Inhaling, Frisk walked past it, waiting for the inevitable crack.

It was all going to plan, until it wasn't. Just as one of the curious players went forward to see what would happen, it had happened. You see, Sans usually didn't hide in the trees when Frisk arrived. The skeleton was far too lazy for that; instead, he teleported a few feet above the branch stick to gain enough momentum to crack it. He usually stuck the landing.

So when a human that usually wasn't there before showed up below where Sans would instinctually teleport, it went as well as one would expect.

"holy FUCK-" A thump was heard as both Frisk and her ghostly companion spun around to see Sans prematurely appear before the bridge sequence, freaking out from something he definitely did not remember happening.

The rest of the players also snapped their eyes onto the spot that he had landed. It took a few seconds to fully process what had happened.

Jerome raised his boombox and lifted his phone as the chorus of incredulous and excited shouts rang out throughout the forest.

When Toriel had mentioned "many" humans, Sans expected five or six of them, and maybe ten at most. He had also assumed that they would be children - they had been the only type of human to fall for the last few centuries. Sans, despite being a former lab assistant to both Dr. Alphys and Dr. W. D. Gaster, didn't expect the change in the timeline to be monumental despite the warning signs.

He was reminded of his false assumptions when he had tried to be lazy and shortcut his way into meeting the human - well, humans. The prankster already had his whoopie cushion strapped to his left hand and his coordinates set to the branch.

Sans had only a second to process the new human below him before he landed straight on his back. The poor kid let out a yelp as the both of them hit the soft snow. Alright, so it was only one human. That wasn't so bad, now was it?

And then Sans decided to finally look at his surroundings. Frisk was right in front of him wearing a hoodie, there were footprints in the snow, the door to the Ruins was closed -

Wait, what?

The skeleton monster did a double take on the human. Where had they gotten that sweater? It looked way too fresh, and there was no way Toriel had that laying in the Ruins. His confusion turned towards the footprints. Wait, why were there so many of them? Wasn't there only two-

Sans jerked his head to the nearest trees. There was a large blob huddled behind the shadows, just... standing there. He could suddenly feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on him as he quickly realized the blob was a crowd.

And then the shouting started.

"Holy fuck, it's Sans Undertale!"

"No you dumb shit, don't you see? It's clearly Sans from Smash Bros!"

"LMAO it's fingers in his ass guy."

From somewhere, "sans." started playing as Jerome finally heard the music start up. Frisk sighed in relief. Thank god; that had meant that Sans wasn't going to hit them all with Gaster Blasters. Sadly, their relief was short-lived as others decided to call him the "funny bone man" and pull out a kazoo. The protagonists spent long enough around the players to realize what was going to happen, and sure enough, those filthy memers decided to throw caution to the wind and play Megalovania.

The two of them winced as the skeleton's eye sockets went dark, and the familiar charging sound of the Gaster Blasters echoed throughout the forest.

Have you ever had someone pull up bass-boosted audio using a large speaker, and thought, "Man, my ears hurt"? Think of that noise, but amplified by a hundred. That was what made everyone stop their joking and realize how hard they fucked up the plan.

Despite being players, they still had souls. They didn't know what it meant, but they all had different colors and shades, just like normal souls. So when the idiots who decided to play Megalovania on kazoo were hit, everyone had a slight panic attack at the thought of dying. What made them calm down, however, was that when the laser beam fizzled out, the guys were perfectly fine. A bit charred, smelling like ash, but still fine. At that moment, all people had the collective thought of "Oh, right, we're players. We're technically immortal."

Sans' grin was still there, but it looked he was smiling from shock. The fact that he was standing stock-still, bony hands outside of his pockets, helped confirm that. One of the more brave souls in the crowd, someone with an electric guitar strapped to their back, stepped out and tapped his shoulder.

"Hey dude, you alright?"

THUMP.

Chapter Text

It was moments like these that made Frisk panic. Sans was currently fainted, a fuck ton of players were shouting in confusion and it was just generally chaos. Worst of all, they didn't know how to fix it. The pacifist was shrinking into themselves as Operation Sans went to hell. Chara, having at least a modicum of common sense, decided to think on the go.

Dashing over to Jerome, they grabbed the microphone plugged into the boombox and yelled out orders. "EVERYONE, CALM DOWN! WE'VE STILL GOT SOME TIME BEFORE PAPYRUS COMES, SO LISTEN TO ME!"

Excited and intrigued by the possibility of meeting the cinnamon roll of a brother, most of the players shut up and listened. "YOU THREE! SINCE YOU CAUSED HIM TO FAINT, YOU'LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HIDING HIM!"

The kazoo players sheepishly rubbed their heads and nodded, hauling Sans' body by his hoodie and feet. Chara then proceeded to reassure that the monsters of Snowdin (aside from Papyrus himself) wouldn't really know what a human looked like, so they were good to go as long as they rolled around in some dirt to confuse the royal guards. Everyone who didn't want to be immediately skewered dropped to the snow and rubbed themselves with as much dirt and ice as possible until their body odor was masked by grime. Frisk winced; that would take a long time to clean up, even for a player.

Once everybody was finished, they knew what was about to happen. Papyrus would be quickly entering the area to look for his brother in the sentry station. The guys responsible for transporting his unconscious body just buried it under some snow behind his sentry station, leaving his face clear in case he needed to breathe. One of the more monster-like players, a white dog resembling the Royal Guard in Snowdin, threw on a metal breastplate and summoned herself a spear to make herself seem much more like one of them. Everyone else just ducked into the shadows of the trees and watched as a tall, lanky figure strolled into the area.

"SANS! ARE YOU THERE, LAZYBONES?" Papyrus' nasally voice rang out throughout the forest, echoing on the walls of the cavern. The furry player winced, not used to her enhanced hearing. "YOU THERE! HAVE YOU SEEN MY BROTHER? SHORT, LAZY, WEARS A BLUE HOODIE?"

"Sorry, haven't seen anyone like that." The false Royal Guard would have been sweating in nervousness if they were human. "Have you checked anywhere else?"

"HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT HIS STATION! I BET HE'S OUT AT GRILLBY'S AGAIN, ISN'T HE?!"

"Not sure. You can check for yourself if you want to; I'm assigned to this place for a patrol." The player swept her spear in a circle, gesturing to the Ruins. "Undyne wants me to see if there'll be a human today. You know, for extra safety."

"WELL, IF YOU SAY SO." Papyrus turned to go find his brother, but stopped. The doglike player started to panic again. "SAY, WHAT'S YOUR NAME? I'VE NEVER SEEN YOU WITH THE OTHER GUARDS IN POKER NIGHT!"

"Uhhhhh..." Shit, shit, shit! Say something, you idiot! "I'm... uhhhhhh... I- I have asthma! Yeah!" She did her best to casually look around to hide the fact that she was looking to the other players for help. "Grillby's smoke kinda makes me sneeze a lot, so I avoid the place! My name's... Cheems! Cheems Borger!"

"OH NO! THAT'S A SHAME, THE POKER NIGHTS ARE ALWAYS FUN! SANS TOLD ME SO!" Papyrus seemed to buy her explanation. "SEE YOU LATER, CHEEMS!" And with that, Papyrus headed off, leaving a relieved Cheems and the hidden players behind.

"Really? 'Cheems Borger'?" One of the other players elbowed her, finding it hilarious. "You're just the same as usual, dummy."

The next area was a fork in the road, with a save star to the left and a box on the right. The save star twinkled in the middle of the snow, casting a warm glow on the ground. Like clockwork, a bunch of players circled it, squatted, and began to do the determination chant. One had even summoned a ghostly bar of chocolate to keep Chara from complaining again; they hadn't expected that, but still accepted the offer, grabbing the bar from the player's hand and immediately chowing down. Frisk saved, and the crowd pulled out some of those small party poppers and pulled the string, showering them in colorful paper confetti.

Reaching the box, Frisk decided to look through their inventory. They didn't really have anything worth moving into there besides the butterscotch cinnamon pie, so they waited for the rest of the players to mess around. A few of them looked to the road on the left, dialing the number on the fishing rod only to get silence.

All of the players knew what was normally up ahead; Papyrus would have normally met Frisk with Sans and run off to set his puzzles up. Now, it was uncertain if the skeleton would ever show up at the place. With bated breaths, the humans and monsters of the group stepped forwards into the path in the front.

The great Papyrus, despite usually being prepared for everything, was having such a weird day.

First, his big brother Sans goes missing out of nowhere. The lazybones didn't have to shortcut everywhere, but he did. And that made finding him a lot harder, especially when he didn't tell Papyrus where he was going beforehand. All the slacker told him today was that he would get to work. Sans didn't even specify which station he was going to be at!

There was also the lingering feeling that some where, in some way, it was all wrong. Papyrus had thought Sans would be at his sentry station near Snowdin, and he was sure of it. When he was met with the sight of one of the Royal Guards instead, the world seemed to spin a bit for him. What? He hadn't expected it. Not only was Sans usually too lazy to shortcut to the farther stations, but Papyrus' (pardon the pun) gut instinct was screaming at him to run away, and that something had changed.

The tall skeleton and pasta extraordinaire was too polite to just leave without asking the dog monster, and ignored the feeling of confusion welling up in him. She had only responded that no, Sans wasn't there, and that she had been assigned to patrol near the Ruins in case a human walked past.

Papyrus accepted that explanation. After all, most of the able-bodied dogs in Snowdin signed up for patrols here, especially those who couldn't handle the heat of Hotlands due to their long fur. He hadn't remembered another female dog in the Snowdin Royal Guard aside from Dogaressa, and so he questioned why she hadn't been there during the poker nights at Grillby's.

The next answer from the dog, named Cheems Borger, made him worry for her health. A smoke allergy? He was sure that most monsters were immune to magical smoke like the fire elemental's, but he guessed he was wrong. Giving a brisk goodbye to Cheems, he headed off back towards Snowdin to check around Grillby's instead; most likely, Sans had skipped yet another shift of his.

Sans wasn't there.

Papyrus was running in circles as he hurriedly asked the residents of Snowdin Town if they had seen his dear brother.  The bunny shopkeep, the monster kid and the librarian hadn't seen Sans enter or leave Grillby's bar. Similarly, the owner of said bar, Grillby himself, was similarly worried as Papyrus had explained the situation. His brother not being anywhere near Snowdin Town was extremely rare, and the only advice the fiery bartender could give him was to check back at his sentry station and house.

Taking the advice to heart, Papyrus decided to retrace his steps to the sentry station. Crossing the trap bridge, several of his famously difficult puzzles and the nice cream vendor, Papyrus finally reached the last stretch before he could see his brother's sentry station. He could make out Doggo's station and his own pseudo-station from where he was standing.

It was only a few minutes of walking before Papyrus stopped. He could remember the training pamphlets that Undyne handed out (and later destroyed in a fit of passion). On them, he made sure to remember what humans looked like: bipedal, with various neutral skin tones ranging from dark brown to peach. Not a lot of monsters looked humanlike, except skeletons like himself, who resemble the human skeletal structure.

The crowd ahead of him perfectly highlighted the illustration he recalled. Almost all of them were human; only a few were full-blown monsters, like the two dragons huddled together on the side and the cherry man near the front.

Papyrus blinked, and whooped in joy. This would have been much better if Sans was around, he thought. After all, he would know what to do.

And right as he thought that, he noticed something else. Three of the humans were carrying the knocked-out Sans, with doodles made on his skull as his poor, oblivious brother was snoozing away. Looks like his brother was being held hostage now.

"HUMANS! I SEE THAT YOU HAVE CAPTURED MY BROTHER BEFORE I COULD CAPTURE YOU!" The humans, stunned into silence by his magnificence, stood there as he continued to monologue. "VERY CLEVER. YOU NOW HAVE A TACTICAL ADVANTAGE OVER I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"

"HOLY HECK IT'S HIM!"

"CINNAMON ROLL!"

"YEAAAHHHH!"

The crowd began to... cheer? What? Papyrus hadn't expected the sheer amount of positivity and praise being thrown his way, with several of the players throwing themselves at him acting if they can be his friend. Someone even had the time to play his battle theme from a speaker during the while thing. "WOW?IE, YOU REALLY LIKE ME THAT MUCH? THIS WAS... UNEXPECTED!" The taller skeleton struck a pose, his scarf blowing in the wind. "HOWEVER! I CANNOT BE YOUR FRIEND WHEN YOU HAVE MY BROTHER HOSTAGE. MAY I PLEASE HAVE HIM BACK?"

The cherry monster in the front rubbed his chin. "Hmmmm... maybe if you let us pass the puzzles ahead. We'll gladly wake him up and give him back to you if you let us through."

Papyrus seemed conflicted at that. On one hand, he could capture all of the humans and finally be in the royal guard. But on the other, he would have so many friends! His brother would be back, and they'd have such fun hanging out together!

"YOU DRIVE A HARD BARGAIN, BUT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, ACCEPT!"

Sans had woken up in strange situations before. One time, he had slept at Grillby's for an entire day. His brother had yelled at him for that, worried that he would hurt his back on the uncomfortable counter. Another time, he straight up fell asleep while standing up at his station.

Both of those times wouldn't even compare to how he woke up this time. He'd had a weird dream about the timeline changing and a bunch of humans coming from the Ruins that played his battle theme from the Genocide route on a kazoo. Sans was sure nobody could survive his Gaster blasters; that was what clued him in to it being a dream. Sadly, that notion was shattered when a painfully loud, bass-boosted melody played right next to his skull and made him jump up in the air.

"HUMAN! ALTHOUGH I APPRECIATE WAKING MY LAZY BROTHER UP, PERHAPS YOU COULD DO IT IN A MORE... GENTLE WAY?"

"No can do. He wouldn't wake up when I tried the airhorn sounds," The human with the boombox shifted his sneakers across the snow. "This was the last resort."

"WELL, I GUESS THAT SETTLES IT. SANS! I'VE GOTTEN SO MANY FANS!"

oh fuck no. No way were those weirdos going to even touch his brother if they posed that much of a threat. "hey papyrus? you sure you wanna be around these guys? i mean-"

"NONSENSE, SANS! I AM VERY SURE THAT THEY ADORE MY PRESENCE! AFTER ALL, THEY PEACEFULLY RESOLVED THIS CONFLICT!" And with that, Papyrus sped off, announcing that he was going to deactivate his puzzles.

Sans, now fully awake, turned around to face the players with darkened eye sockets. "now, where were we?"

Frisk stepped forward, signing to Sans that they didn't know that would happen, and that the players were new to them as well. He still didn't relax; on the contrary, it made him even more tense. If the main source of the resets didn't know what was going on, then what only followed could only be unfamiliar territory.

"you  f r e a k s  seem to know about the both of us, if your little musical performance told me anything." The slacker was uncharacteristically paranoid, ready to strike if anything went south. "so, mind explaining what you mean to do in the underground?"

Most of the replies he got were expected: some apologies for scaring him from the kazoo players, and a bunch of others doing the same for overwhelming him. What did surprise him, however, was how sincere they were about it. Some of the humans even pulled out a slice of cinnamon-butterscotch pie to share with him, and others straight-up materialized bottles of ketchup as apology gifts. The blatant disregard for the laws of magical energy conservation would have made his brain short circuit if it weren't for the fact that he saw three humans tank one of his Gaster blaster shots with no damage whatsoever.

"We're really sorry that you had to deal with these idiots." One of said idiots interjected. "Hey! I know what we did was kinda stupid, but at least admit we had some musical talent!"

Another player, this time a cat monster, spoke. "Believe me, the last thing we ever wanted to do was to freak you out that hard. By the way, did you clean off the marker yet?" Sans paused. what marker? The cat winced, summoning a small mirror and holding it up to his face. It was covered in marker sketches, from a mustache under his nasal bone to several playful insults to him. The same player summoned a wet rag and gave to him, watching as he frantically scrubbed it away.

Sans had finally finished cleaning up, and looked towards the small mountain of gifts near his feet. Holy fuck that was a lot of ketchup bottles. Along with that, he had a small collection of art dedicated to himself, another blue hoodie, and a bag full of gold. "wow- uh- you guys really go all out on apologies."

"Well, we don't want you to be mad at us. That, and we really don't want you trying to kill us at the Judgement Hall. So, if you're alright with us, do you mind letting us through Snowdin Town?

The skeleton paused. Just to be safe, he checked the stats of the crowd. Most of them were still had a LOVE of one, and no EXP. The very few ones that did have a higher LOVE, he checked individually. Having human soldiers roam the Underground made him nervous, but he was hoping that the other humans would hold them back. At best, he hoped for a neutral run.

"looks like you're all in the clear. just... don't cause any trouble." The humans agreed with his instructions, shouting that they intended to do a pacifist run anyway. Taking the small offering pile in his arms, Sans shortcut straight to his house to put all of it away. He was going to need a long drink after this.

After their little scuffle with Sans, the players decided to just push forward straight to Snowdin Town; some of them were impatient and wanted to teleport there immediately, but the others wanted to wait for Frisk and Chara. They couldn't really teleport the people in the Underground, only themselves and objects.

And so, they passed Papyrus' sentry station nearby. One of the players, a 3D modeler, decided to summon up a proper wooden sentry station nearby, complete with a steel plaque on the front that read "Papyrus - Royal Guard Sentry Station". Other players began to take notice, and left their own little gifts there before moving on with the rest of the crowd. Soon, the wooden station had a box full of art inside, a small statuette of the spaghetti maker extraordinaire placed on the desk, and a spare boombox with several tracks (courtesy of Jerome).

Frisk would occasionally encounter Ice Caps and Snowdrake, all while the players were trailing behind them. The sheer number of people, along with the random compliments and gifts, were enough to confuse the enemies into being spare-able. Snowdrake was ecstatic when the crowd actually laughed at his puns, happily exclaiming that his dad was wrong for calling him a bad comedian. The players even went to comfort him, despite knowing that his attacks would hurt.

Their next road bump was the sentry station up ahead and the sign that was there. Obviously, a crowd of people would make way too much movement to actually pass a blue attack. After some careful deliberating, a second plan was made: Cheems would pose as one of the dog guards (just in case Doggo was aggressive towards Frisk), engage in battle and pet him on the head. Taking in a deep breath, the false guard prepared to fight again.

As soon as she moved in front of the sentry station, Doggo popped up and began the battle sequence. The blue attack phased through Cheems as she flinched from how cold the feeling of the magic was. Reaching out, she pet the black-and-white dog monster as he began to panic. "WHAT? IV'E BEEN PET?" Doggo began to bark out several variations of "pet" and "pat", eager to receive more. After a few more turns of petting, the former human spared Doggo and he went back to go smoke a dog treat. In the small amount of time that passed, the horde of humans and monsters rushed ahead to avoid being caught by Doggo.

Sans was standing ahead, chugging from a bottle of ketchup. There were several other empty ketchup containers on the ground, indicating that he had spent most of his time drinking.

"i bet you all already know about blue attacks, right?" The crowd let out several affirmative answers. "great. now, if you see my brother, just make sure he's happy, alright?"

"We wouldn't even dream of hurting that cinnamon roll!"

"How could anyone hurt him? He's way too adorable for that!"

"Hey, can we still date your brother or something for the run?"

Both Sans and Frisk started to sweat at the sheer amount of happiness the players had at the notion of meeting his brother again. "uhhhhh... alright? just... keep it on the down-low, ok?" The crowd erupted into a cheer and trampled ahead.

One encounter with Lesser Dog later and a lot of patting, they were at Papyrus' electric maze. Some of the humans, a bit disappointed they had to skip the skeleton's puzzles, completed it anyway by memory. Papyrus wasn't there, probably busy deactivating another one of his puzzles.

The Nice Cream vendor was dejectedly leaning on his cart, not able to sell any of his Nice Cream bars. It had been a slow day at work, just as usual. Nobody really wanted to buy any of his goods. It was rare that he get even five customers to walk up to him and buy something. Even his regular, Jerry, didn't cough up enough cash today. Said that he forgot his money at home or something.

Suddenly, the blue bunny looked up to see a ridiculously crowd quickly approaching, almost tripping over each other. They were headed straight towards his cart, and were digging through their pockets to bring out handfuls of gold.

"Hey, do you have any Nice Cream left? We've got a lot of people wanting them!" The vendor shook himself out of his shock. He had thought he was dreaming from the amount of customers willing to pay; turns out it was the best day of his life instead.

"I don't think I have enough for all of you, sadly. But I do have a lot!" The people at front of the crowd perked up, saying that it was alright, and that they only wanted enough to give to the younger kids in the group. On closer inspection, a lot of them weren't wearing striped sweaters, which meant that only a few (like that oddly familiar child in the front) were actually kids.

The Nice Cream Vendor left that day with an empty cart and a very full wallet.

It took a while to distribute all of the nice cream to the younger players, but everyone was satisfied. Since the Nice Cream vendor was the one selling his goods, it made people more reluctant to actually duplicate the nice cream and eat it for themselves.

The next area had a large patch of ice and a snowball that the players pushed around for fun. Sans was also on the side, trying to sell the players some fried snow. Sadly, they just said that they didn't have the money to buy it after making the Nice Cream vendor sell out. There were even more encounters here and there, with Ice Cap and Jerry showing up one time. Most of the humans had to physically hold themselves back from punching Jerry.

Walking past Dogamy and Dogaressa's station (and leaving a few treats at the desks), the players advanced into the clearing with Sans' puzzle, the word search. Papyrus was arguing with Sans on whether or not crossword or junior jumble was harder. It... definitely was something. As a joke, Merg decided to summon a pen and actually finish it, laying it back on the ground.

Papyrus then turned to the crowd, asking if Junior Jumble or the crossword was more difficult. An overwhelming amount chimed in that junior Jumble was harder, despite some of them actually finding crossword to be much more difficult. Papyrus, overjoyed to see that he was right once again, bid farewell to the players as he rushed over to deactivate the next puzzles, Sans staying behind.

A save star twinkled in the distance. This time, eleven players circled the shiny star and started doing what seemed to be a weird squat dance. What exactly did a penguin club have to do with it? Frisk wasn't sure, but they did their thing and saved anyway, Chara scoffing at how the players in the save star cult childishly started bowing as a joke.

More people, however, were focused on Papyrus' spaghetti, trying to get the microwave to work. While JackSepticEye read the note in the tall skeleton's voice, the rest of the players summoned a small power generator and plugged the microwave into it. Frisk's ghostly companion tried their best to make them hurry on, but the players kept insisting on tasting his food. Finally, after someone summoned a crowbar to pry off the spaghetti, the crowd watched as the plate with the questionable food rotate around the now-working microwave, whooping in joy and imitating the irritating humming.

After ten minutes, the spaghetti was defrosted, and a small portion was cut up for the mousehole nearby. Again, the Frisk lookalike (joined by a few other young players) pushed the portion into the hole in the wall, and tapped the surface. A bit of scuttering later, the players could see the noodles being dragged away into the inky darkness.

One of the more curious players, the chef that heled Toriel with her pies, took a bite out of the hot mess. His face scrunched up in slight disdain and incredulity. He didn't know what Papyrus used to make the dish, but it sure as hell didn't taste like spaghetti. More of like... soggy bread that had a hint of tomato, a faint ghost of seasoning and some ungodly indescribable substance thrown in.

More of the players decided to take a bite, and had similar reactions. One of the gamers even dubbed it the "sparkling water of the culinary world". They decided to move on, encountering some more enemies by random and peacefully sparing them. The speedrunners went ahead to press the switch hidden in the snow, and the players rubbed themselves in the dirt one more time, just in case their encounter with Dogamy and Dogaressa didn't go well.

Before they could go to that area, however, Lesser Dog bounded towards the crowd and engaged Frisk in a fight, pulling their soul out and starting the encounter. It wasn't hard to dodge the jumps and spear being swept across the battle box. What was hard, however, was to stop the players from petting the dog as much as possible. Before long, Lesser Dog's neck was astronomically long and breaking through the barriers of the battle box. Sparing him was absolutely easy at the point.

Finally, they reached the encounter area. Two dogs, both carrying intimidating axes and wearing shirts with their lover's face on it, stepped forward to sniff the area. At the sight of the crowd, the dogs bounded over to them and started sniffing.

"Puppies! So many puppies!" Dogamy happily wagged his tail at the thought of more friends. "We haven't seen you before!"

Dogaressa followed behind him, similarly excited. "You must be new to Snowdin!"

"Wait, we smell a different smell!" Frisk tensed up. They knew they had forgotten something, but what? "You have a weird smell! That smell makes me want to eliminate..."

"Eliminate YOU!" Ah shit. It hit Frisk as Chara facepalmed once again. They had forgotten to roll around in the dirt like the players from the sheer shock of dealing with Sans. And so, the battle began with the Dogi summoning their soul and throwing large axes. The players fled to the sidelines, making sure to guard the younger ones while also doing their best to throw Frisk healing items that they had summoned. The protagonist was sure that they could see several Legendary Hero sandwiches being tossed into their inventory as the axes thunked on their sides harmlessly.

Quickly, after their turn had ended, Frisk dropped to the snow, rolling on the ground as best as possible to cover up the smell of their sweat. Another onslaught of attacks, this time the duo barking blue and white hearts, filled the battle box. The genderless child rushed over to the two dogs, making them resniff their scent.

"What! Smells like a..." Dogamy paused mid-swing as he sniffed closer, his wife doing the same. "Are you actually a little puppy!?"

Frisk, dodging their next attack, went ahead and patted both of the dog guards in rapid succession. The players, seeing that the threat was neutralized, decided to help pat the dogs as well. At this point, the dog couple were melting under the sea of pats, happily exclaiming that they didn't know that dogs could pet other dogs, and that a new world had opened up for them. It took another twenty minutes until Chara could get Frisk to hurry up and spare the two, leaving them to run off into another place to patrol and the players disappointed.

Papyrus was waiting for them down in the next path, with both of his other puzzles deactivated, per agreement.

"HUMANS! IT IS NICE TO SEE THAT YOU HAVE GOTTEN PAST THE GUARDS, AND MY DELICIOUS SPAGHETTI DIVERSION!" He posed dramatically, and some players decided to swoon in order to make him feel better about himself. Papyrus definitely appreciated the sentiment, blushing at how popular he was. "WELL! DID YOU LIKE MY COOKING?"

"It was pretty good! Needed some improvement in the spice category, but overall, a great start!" The cook gave a small thumbs up.

"WHY THANK YOU! NOW, LET ME DEACTIVATE THE NEXT TRAP AS WELL!" The taller skeleton sauntered over to one of the trees nearby the next puzzle, the one that was made to look like his face. After flipping a switch, the spikes retracted and Sans stepped over them from the other side.

"heya." The crowd returned his greeting with lots of vigor, one of the fans even throwing over another ketchup bottle. The lazy bonehead caught it with surprising dexterity, and began to chug it.

"SAAAANS!" Papyrus got a mildly annoyed look on his face. "PUT DOWN THAT BOTTLE!"

"nah."

"YOUR HABIT IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING! IT'S BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH!"

"you got a bone to pick with me for that?"

His brother let out an irritated "NYEH!" and picked up a snowball, throwing it at Sans. It knocked the bottle out of his hands, and Sans, for the first time in forever, didn't dodge the playful attack.

It was also the (debatably) wrong thing to do in front of a bunch of chaotic players. "SNOWBALL FIGHT, COMMENCE!" With a fearsome war cry, both the humans and monsters began crouching down, forming small snowballs and throwing them at every moving thing. Frisk even joined in on the fun, being given a few bits of ammunition by the other players to pelt Sans with.

It got even more out of control when one of the humans, the one with the boombox, pulled up a ridiculously loud version of Bonetrousle. From Snowdin, the peaceful residents could hear the echoing of battle music and a loud "NYEEEEEH!". That poor guy ended up getting pelted by a hailstorm of snowballs and requests to kindly shut the fuck up.

The whole scene ended in a mess. Snow was lumped in random places and gouged from some places in the ground, and everyone was covered in white. Jerome was now playing the trap remix of the "Shop" OST as a way to not get immediately attacked anymore and to pacify the group.

"THAT WAS A FUN BONDING EXPERIENCE FOR ME AND ALL OF MY NEW FRIENDS, RIGHT SANS?" Sans could only groan out a response, being buried so far under the snow that he now looked like a snow poff. "NOW, LET US CONTINUE!"

Despite Papyrus' and a few of the players' enthusiasm for the next puzzle, the tiles one had to be skipped due to time and the agreement that was made. Sans was still slightly embarrassed that he was captured, despite the players insisting that he was one of the most powerful monsters in the game. For some reason, he kept on being hounded by an Alphys lookalike and a middle-aged man demanding to know more about his past and summoning corkboards filled to the brim with theories. The skeleton only held up a hand, telling them that they could interview him after they reached his house in Snowdin Town.

Lesser Dog's sentry station was surrounded by broken snow statues of itself, trying to build to the sky. The players left their usual gifts at the sentry station: some dog treats, squeaky toys and fanart. The save star cult huddled around the star, building a small wall of snow around it that Frisk had to step over to save. Again, they were met with small celebratory claps. They rather liked their new companions; the players added a bit more life through their usually monotonous journey and definitely made them feel less lonely with only Chara around.

The ox-like monster on the sidelines was a bit skittish around the players, and was even more confused after being offered tons of sweets and compliments to his Hawaiian-print shirt. Again, the players mysteriously moved on to the next puzzle, which was already solved. Some decided to just fall down for fun to look at the snow figures of Papyrus and Sans. One of the players actually built a Sans sculpture out of snow next to Sans' lazy pile, saying that he "deserved more than that".

The next area, the players split up in teams for the first time in their journey. One group went to help Gyftrot with his decorations, while the others began to search through the snow poffs for Greater Dog. They were so close to town.

Snowdin won't know what hit it.

Chapter Text

Snow poffs, despite seeming much smaller in the game, were actually pretty large in comparison to the size of a human. This was what the players who decided to face Greater Dog learned, as they quickly got distracted by jumping into the soft, snowy piles. The last one yielded about 30 g, which was given to the speedrunners to handle. It was time to face the last mini-boss guarding Snowdin Town. Everyone braced as the cherry-headed leader approached the last snow poff blocking the way. As expected, the smaller form of Greater Dog popped up, barking in an adorable fashion. Slowly, the canine rose and rose until he towered over everyone, revealing that he was wearing intimidating iron armor.

Instantly, the closest person (which happened to be Frisk) was pulled into battle by Greater Dog yanking at their soul. Chara readied up their display, and the fight began. Dodging the spear with a doggy face on it, the gender-neutral child sprinted forward with several other players to pet him. Ten people in total ended up running their hands through the soft fur of Greater Dog, and he flopped around happily waiting for a game of fetch.

Pulling out the stick from their inventory, Frisk waved it in front of him and threw it behind them. The guardsman barked in glee, chasing after the stick and jumping directly in the crowd. Several people were knocked down, and gave his head a little pat as he trotted back to Frisk, dropping the stick. After a bit more patting, Greater Dog was spared. The dog proceeded to jump out of his armor, lick Frisk's face, and jump headfirst back in, tail wagging as he marched off in his ridiculous suit.

At that point, the second half of the team returned, and everyone decided on how to cross the bridge without collapsing it. MatPat made the brilliant suggestion of just teleporting over after Frisk finished going first, and so the players stood at the other side while the protagonist traversed the rickety bridge with their ghostly companion.

Papyrus was on the other side, not activating the trap as promised. "YOU KNOW, HUMANS, YOU CAN JUST GO THROUGH!" He gestured to the supports of the bridge after Frisk had passed through. "THE BRIDGE TO SNOWDIN IS PRETTY STURDY. IT'S REINFORCED BY MAGIC, AS WELL!"

The players all made sounds of disagreement. The ground below the bridge was much too far for their liking, and most of them had a healthy fear of heights. With consecutive "poof" sounds, all of them dropped to the other side safely, cramming themselves as close to the center as possible to avoid the edge.

Papyrus' jaw dropped as he saw the humans and monsters shortcut like his own brother. Didn't only mages have magic? And did that mean that all of the humans were mages? Sans wasn't even fazed at this point, taking another sip out of his ketchup bottle and sighing in resignation. "this is fine."

After making it through the bridge by essentially bending the laws of the universe, the players followed Papyrus over to Snowdin Town, eager to take a break.

The shopkeeper of Snowdin Town, a welcoming rabbit monster, was cleaning up her wares for the day. Since this was the only general store in Snowdin, it meant that the inhabitants of the cozy little town always came there. Most of the stuff was bought in bulk by her cousin in New Home and sent here, where she could either sell it or use the materials to make more products.

She was going to clean the shelves of cleaning utensils nearby the window when she suddenly saw movement from the other side of the curtain. Lifting it up, her eyes bulged out.

In between the front of her shop and her friend's inn, there was a crowd of monsters circling an empty spot, cheering and whooping as someone went in the middle, held out their hand, then slipped back into the group. Everyone went ballistic at that, some even jumping up in joy only to fall down on another monster by accident. Those were definitely visitors, as she didn't recognize any of them. After the little ritual, the monsters split up, some of them heading to the front of her door and knocking while others went to the Snowed Inn nearby.

The bunny shopkeeper took a deep breath, then went back to her counter just in case. "Come on in!"

As soon as she said that a bunch of monsters flooded in, quickly trying to organize themselves in a single file line in front of her counter. In the front was a small child wearing a yellow and white striped sweater, tiptoeing as they tried to reach the counter.

"Hello! Um, what would you like?"

The small child peered over the counter at the menu. "C-can I have five Cinnamon Buns, please?" They then plopped a sack of gold onto the counter, patiently waiting for the food. It made the shopkeeper squeal at how cute and polite they were being, and she quickly gave them the five baked sweets. "Thank you, ma'am!"

They proceeded to exit the store, leaving the bunny shopkeeper to work with the rest of the customers.

Later, she was sweating at her desk after going through all of her products. She had made a hefty sum selling all of her sweets and items, but she couldn't help but wonder why all of the monsters seemed so... enthusiastic to her. Some of them actually tried to slip a few more gold coins into their purchase as a tip, but she gratefully gave it back saying that her prices were already perfectly fine. That made the rest of the customers find loopholes around that, pulling out stuff out of their pocket dimensions to gives as gifts for her.

This left the bunny shopkeeper with a high-quality camera, some new hats, and a whole lot of carrot-related products. She didn't really take offense to that; carrots didn't have any nutritional value for both normal rabbits and monster rabbits, and acted like a sort of junk food towards their species. She could taste the healing magic laced in them, though.

Flipping the sign at the window, she went outside of her shop to check in on her friend and how it was going for her own family. What she didn't expect, however, were the pop-up tents surrounding the place and the loud snoring coming from each of them. Some of the monsters were awake outside, looking around as if they were guarding the sleepers. Quietly padding along the road, the shopkeeper opened the creaky door to be met with an equally frazzled friend.

"Same customers?" She quipped, already knowing the answer. The innkeeper nodded, burying her face in her elbows in exhaustion.

"Your guess is good as mine! I don't even know why there's so many visitors here!" She threw her paws up in the air, completely giving up in her theorizing. "And they can't be from the Capital, either; my sister said that they came from the direction of the Ruins!"

"You don't think..." The rabbit shopkeep leaned in towards her friend, her voice now a whisper. "They might be... humans?"

The innkeeper rabbit gasped incredulously. "No. No way those are humans. IF they were, wouldn't they be leaving a trail of dust behind? Besides, there are some monsters there, I'm sure of it!"

She paused. "That- that actually might not be the case. Haven't we been underground for what, decades? Centuries, even?" The rabbit monster gestured to the sleeping humans in the rooms. "The humans might have calmed down after a while. They even gave me some carrot cake after buying my wares - can you believe that?"

"Oh! Let me see!" At that, the shopkeeper pulled out the large carrot cake in her inventory, placing it on the receptionist desk. "Hang on, let me get a knife to slice this up. Your children would love this."

For the players, it was a bit more tricky. Since they numbered in the hundreds, most of them couldn't fit within the small inn. Most had to summon tents and plop themselves around the whole town to sleep.

It took a while for most of them to doze off, including the ones who stayed up all night at Toriel's house. The abundance of locals stopping by to look at the tents curiously made some players paranoid, so the ones who had already taken a good rest were stationed in the snow. Jerome, who had already slept at Toriel's, had learned his lesson and was listening his obnoxiously loud music using headphones instead of his gold-plated boombox.

His tent, filled with the resting forms of his high-school friend group, was the farthest from the center. Because of that, he decided to turn off his music but keep the headphones, discreetly making it seem as if he was distracts. While he was an inconsiderate dolt at times, he was the kind of person to prioritize his friends and family.

Jerome was startled out of his thoughts by a nearby "Yooo!", and turned to meet the source of the sound. It turned out to be Monster Kid, trotting up to the tent curiously but falling face-flat in the snow. The boombox player strode over, picking him up by his striped sweater and placing him back on his feet. "You ok there, buddy?"

"Yeah! I'm alright!" Monster Kid tilted his head over to the tent, as if to point to it. "Just wanted to know what's inside there!"

"Ah, some of my friends decided to travel over to Snowdin, but they didn't have that much gold. Decided to just camp here instead," Jerome sat down on a nearby stump, setting his boombox beside him. "The name's Jerome, by the way. Anything you wanna tell me?"

"Well... the other guys at Snowdin have been nervous about how many of you newcomers have been coming by." The sweater-wearing dinosaur monster looked down sheepishly. "This might be rude but... do you know why exactly?"

Boombox guy needed to think of an excuse, and fast. He didn't want to lie to the poor kid, either, so he came up with an explanation.

"Oh! It's because we wanted to visit Snowdin. it's a pretty chill place, if you know what I mean." Monster kid chuckled at that. "Hey, icy that you like my puns, huh?"

"You might even beat Sans with them!" Jerome blinked. Him? Beat Sans in a pun war?

"You know, shortstack? You just gave me a pretty cool idea."

Finding Sans wasn't hard when you could teleport anywhere at any time. Jerome found him on his first guess, popping into the skeletons' house next to the couch. The shorter skeleton had scrambled and summoned an enormous Gaster blaster when he realized someone was in his house, and it wasn't his brother. It took a while to explain his idea to Sans, but it paid off. The skeleton was much more interested, but wary of him at the same time. Of course, he was wary of all the players, not just Jerome.

Hours later, when the rest of the humans and monsters had woken up from their sleep, they crowded around a small stage that was definitely not there in the original game. On the left side was none other than the boombox guy himself, leaning calmly on some wooden crates. Sans was on the other side, grinning all the while. And thus, the Great Pun War began.

Jerome started off, lazily gripping his microphone. "Y'know, I expected this tibia challenge, but I guess a numbskull like you can't beat me."

"hey kid, you've got some spine saying that. but i gotta admit, that sure was a rib-tickler."

"You found that humerus, then?"

The crowd now consisted of the Snowdin locals mixed in with the normal players, eagerly watching the show. Most of the crowd was chuckling at the antics of the two comedians. It was an hour later before the two could call it a draw, exhausting all their pun reserves. Both human and monster shook hands on that stage, and the whole thing was cleaned up and dematerialized right after.

Grillby, in all his years of life, had never seen that many humans in one place at a time. Even though he was a young soldier who had seen the horrors of the human-monster war, the human troops would always have fifty or less soldiers to deal with the monsters. After all, it didn't take many humans to defeat one monster; they had the advantage of having stronger, physical bodies when monsters were only made of magic.

So when hundreds of humans poured into Snowdin, Grillby had panicked. He had rushed into the backroom of his bar and pulled out his old standard-issued sword, ready to defend himself and everyone in the bar. But instead of massacring every monster in sight like he expected, the humans just... went about peacefully? It shocked him that most of them just bought from the Snowdin general store and slept at the Snowed Inn. The ones who couldn't afford a night even decided to sleep outside in tents instead. The whole sight of it made him nervous, but he finally decided to hide his sword under the counter, just in case anything happened.

Thankfully, the royal guard division of Snowdin came to his bar for poker night this time. None of them were missing, and Grillby let out a sigh of relief. Even though he was retired, it didn't mean that he didn't worry for the newer recruits of the royal guard. Sans lumbered in as well, ordering some fries and drowning them in a deluge of ketchup.

The flame elemental decided to listen in on the gossip this time. His job as a bartender meant that he heard many stories from people who were drunk enough to share everything, and with everything going on, he needed all the information on the humans he could. Grillby could hear Lesser Dog barking happily, wagging his tail. Greater Dog seemed to be in a similarly playful mood.

Doggo was the first to speak up in the middle of the poker match. "So, you run into anything new today?" Greater Dog let out a yip of affirmation, barking his answer out. "And they played fetch with ya, too? Now, would you look at that."

Dogamy and Dogaressa were huddled together, sharing glances their poker cards. "We met a ton of helpful puppies today!" She paused to place down another card. "Showed us that dogs could pet other dogs!"

"Woah, now really? I gotta try that!" One petting session with Lesser Dog later and a hole in the bar's ceiling, Doggo was kicked from Grillby's. The former soldier continued to polish his drink glasses and went back to the counter. Sans was nowhere to be found, but he had left a whoopie cushion on the seat.

The bar was similarly filled with rumors flying about. The bunny sisters had gotten gifts after their apparently human customers made them sell out of their Cinnamon Buns. The town's atmosphere was much more energetic as well; the library's sign that once read "Librarby" was now correctly spelled, and the librarian was grateful, if not a bit freaked out. The boxes under the Giftmas tree were also piling up into a formidable tower, as well.

Everyone went silent, however, when the door opened to reveal a huge crowd of both humans and monsters. Slowly trotting up to Grillby, a cherry-headed monster plopped down a large bag of gold. "Ten burgers and fifteen fries, please."

The bartender cautiously backed over to the door of the employee's room, then hastily slammed it shut after he entered it. Quickly whipping up some more fries and burgers, he kicked the door open with a doorstop and slid the trays of food onto the table. Both the monsters and humans of the group were sporting sheepish looks on their face. "You know, it's kinda getting awkward. We're sorry if we scared you or something, it's just that-" The human speaking was cut off by Dogamy. "So... are you all humans or...?"

Most of the crowd shifted, taking a few steps back. The blonde human speaking glanced at the patrons of the bar, who were tense and ready to bolt. "If you want me to be honest, yes. We are human. But we've got some non-human friends in our group." He proceeded to sit down at the bar, fidgeting with his hands. "We don't want to fight. It's just that we want to escort ourselves to the barrier. There's enough of us to break it, we hope."

The atmosphere in the bar quickly went from tense to being filled with disbelief. For all the monsters inside, it just dawned on them that they only needed one soul to break the barrier, and that hundreds of humans would maybe be able to do so. Some of them rushed outside to tell their families while others just sat there in shock. Grillby, who had finished pocketing the gold, decided that right there and then was a good time to drink some liquor.

He hadn't seen the stars in centuries. He didn't even believe that he was well over three centuries old, as well. Was it finally time for monsterkind to break free of their prison? The blonde man from before gave the crowd their food, and most of them exited. Some, however, decided to stay in the bar, sitting down on empty tables and making small talk with the other monsters.

From his conversation with the man, Felix Kjellberg, he learned how the surface had changed. No more magic had remained on the surface from what he could remember, and the world moved on to progressing with technology instead. The Undernet used by the denizens of the Underground was far too outdated for the humans' cell phones, and so Felix pulled out his phone to show some photos of what the surface looked like.

A few of them were more personal, like one of himself and a woman standing at an altar, clearly overjoyed at their wedding. But Grillby was more focused on the images showing the surface.

Sprawling cities that towered over the clear blue sky. The rolling of ocean waves and pink cherry trees blossoming in front of a shrine, tucked in between some woods. Felix had explained that the photo was taken in Japan, when he went on a trip with his wife. Soon, it was time for the man to leave, and he tucked his phone back into his pockets. Giving a wave, the Youtuber known worldwide as PewDiePie said his goodbye to the former soldier.

The flame elemental wondered if humans had changed enough to accept monsterkind. Back in the day, he could remember the captured soldiers hurling out vitriolic insults towards him, calling him demon-spawn and other unflattering adjectives. These humans, however, were the exact opposite: much kinder, and definitely more merciful. Outside, Grillby could hear the cheering and laughing of people, and curiously peeked outside the window.

It was a surprise to see the usually lazy skeleton engage in any activity, especially around crowds. But having a pun battle with a human? Now this, this he could watch.

After everything was done (and the players were pried away from further interacting with the monsters), Frisk turned to them with Chara by their side to interpret their sign language.

"You all know who we'll be fighting next." Choruses of whoops and happy exclamations filled the air. "However, keep in mind that this time, he might act differently. We'll need to have Papyrus peacefully surrender, so do NOT, under any circumstance, summon any weapons. We don't want to hurt him."

"Got it, captain!"

"We're ready to help out that absolute cinnamon roll!"

With that, the crowd of players marched into the path ahead, aware of the blizzard that engulfed their vision in white and the shadow of Papyrus standing in the center.

Chapter Text

"HUMANS. ALLOW ME TO TELL YOU ABOUT SOME COMPLEX FEELINGS."

Papyrus stood in between the exit of Snowdin to Waterfall, blocking their path. "FEELINGS LIKE... THE JOY OF FINDING MANY OTHER PASTA LOVERS. THE ADMIRATION OF ANOTHER'S CLEVER TACTICS. THE DESIRE TO HAVE A COOL, SMART PERSON THINK YOU ARE COOL." The crowd filled the air with comments at this, saying that Papyrus was the cool one there, and that they were the ones honored to be his friends. The taller skeleton's face lit up at that.

'THESE FEELINGS... THEY MUST BE WHAT YOU ALL ARE FEELING RIGHT NOW!!! I CAN HARDLY IMAGINE WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE TO FEEL THAT WAY." Papyrus struck a pose at that, his red scarf flowing in the wind. "I DON'T EVER WONDER WHAT HAVING LOTS OF FRIENDS IS LIKE."

"I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL BE YOUR..."

Papyrus stalled at that, remembering something. He quickly (but reluctantly) stepped back. "NO... NO, THIS IS ALL WRONG! I CAN'T BE YOUR FRIEND!"

The players, wanting to either stall the battle or change his mind, shouted out some affirmations and tried to plant the idea that , yes, they could be friends despite them being human. He shook his head, and went on. "MOST OF YOU ARE HUMAN! I MUST CAPTURE YOU!!! THEN, I CAN FUFILL MY LIFELONG DREAM! POWERFUL! POPULAR! PRESTIGIOUS!!! THAT'S PAPYRUS!!! THE NEWEST MEMBER... OF THE ROYAL GUARD!!!"

Instead of Frisk's soul being yanked into battle, Papyrus targeted someone right next to them. A blonde-haired girl, even younger than both them and Chara, defiantly stood in the middle of the battle box with her soul out. It burned with an orange light; both the protagonist and their ghostly companion knew that the player must be someone filled with BRAVERY.

The player instantly went to the MERCY button instead of flirting. Papyrus, upon seeing that, was unwilling to fight but proceeded to do so anyway, flinging rows of bones towards her. Without even trying, she just moved her soul in the middle of the battle box, not caring to dodge. The second round of bones was even easier, with her doing nothing but staring into Papyrus' eye sockets.

Both the players and Papyrus were intimidated by her gaze. Why was this little kid so... bored, especially in her first fight? "W-WELL, IT LOOKS LIKE I HAVE TO USE MY FABLED 'BLUE ATTACK'!" With that, the taller skeleton watched as her soul pinged into a dark shade of blue, hopping around as the next small bone quickly sped towards her.

That attack had hit Frisk on their first ever run through the Underground. It was easy to dodge once they expected it. So, it was a surprise that the small player decided to grin and proceed to gracefully backflip over the thing. Papyrus' jaw was on the ground, and the players snapped out of their silent awe to cheer on their friend. It was then that the little girl decided to speak her first words in front of everyone.

"Finally, an actual challenge." She pressed the mercy button once again. "Mr. Papyrus, if I manage to dodge all of your attacks, you're going with us as a hostage. Deal?"

The taller skeleton pondered for a while, then agreed. "ALRIGHT. LET THE TRUE BATTLE COMENCE!"

The bones flew in front of her, easily dodge-able in comparison to Sans' attacks but still a challenge for anyone doing it without experience. The child sped through the thing easily with a touch of grace, even reaching the left side of the battle box to wait. A combination of blue and white bones whizzed over, and the player knew exactly where to slip through the cracks.

Even as the attacks went on, she still preferred to press the MERCY button after every turn. Papyrus congratulated her on how she stuck to that, and the small kid only shrugged. The difficulty quickly increased, with bones she had to duck under and weave. Still, the player seemed to be enjoying the battle, dashing through the gaps and jumping exactly where her soul wouldn't hit the top bones.

"ONE MORE ROUND, AND I'LL USE MY 'SPECIAL ATTACK!'" Papyrus threw out some more shifting bones that changed their heights and ridiculously tight stairs. Frisk and Chara could only watch in utter disbelief as the player easily danced through them, even managing to do a 360 degree spin in between one of the jumps.

"BEHOLD...! MY SPECIAL ATTACK!" The taller skeleton chucked a small bone to the ground, and watched in dismay as an ever-familiar white dog caught it. "WHAT THE HECK! HEY YOU STUPID DOG! DO YOU HEAR ME!? STOP MUNCHING ON THAT BONE!" He dashed in front of the dog, who swiftly evaded him with no avail. The players beholding the scene were much too excited to do something about it.

"JESUS CHRIST, IT'S TOBY FOX!"

"Can I have an autograph, Mr. Fox?" One person whipped out a small notebook and pen. "You're my biggest inspiration!"

"How's Deltarune Part 2 coming along, sir?"

Those answers were enough to make the dog pause in shock, barking out incredulously. To Papyrus' and everyone else's surprise, it began to talk.

"Please, for the love of god! Stop bothering me!" The dog held out one paw to gesture to the background. "I'm still tryna' fix the damn bugs all around here, don't ya see? And I gotta be here for the lore!"

"Wait, you're a player too?"

"Whaddya think, pal!? I'm tryna juggle my job and my enjoyment as well, alright?" He dropped the bone in his mouth. "Fine! If you wanna have your 'special attack' back, go ahead! I'm too busy for this!"

And with that, the creator of Undertale himself ran off to god knows where. MatPat chimed in that he might be at the dog shrine underneath Papyrus' sink, and most of the players agreed. They didn't want to bother a guy holding reality together, though; them being there was already messing with the timelines.

Papyrus himself was still a bit shocked that the Annoying Dog could actually speak, and that he had a name as well. "WELL... I GUESS IT'S FINALLY TIME. MY SPECIAL ATTACK... IS READY!" And with that declaration, the players waited in anticipation to see what his true power was.

Today was full of surprises. First was the pleasant impromptu pun war in the middle of Snowdin Town. The second would have to be the appearance of the man... err... dog, himself, Toby Fox. Now, the third surprise was what exactly popped up with Papyrus' special attack.

Players had a good scale of what Gaster blasters in-game looked like, seeing that Sans had hit three of them with the attack. They would be twice the size of Frisk and Chara, and slightly taller than the average human. In total, the draconic skull would be comparable to a small car. Papyrus' Gaster blasters were much bigger, being at least a couple feet taller and wider than Sans' own. The design was also slightly different, with the snout being wider and the outer mandibles being shorter than the top part of the teeth. Overall? It was intimidating, and with knowledge of the sheer power that Sans' blaster hit with, the players braced for impact.

The little girl who was dodging his attacks with ease was finally beginning to seem a bit off-put, staring down the blaster as she pressed the MERCY button one more time. Her soul pinged back into the normal orange she was used to, and the battle continued. The 'special attack' in question was a wall of bones on the top and bottom of the battle box creating a winding path, similar to Sans' genocide run attack. That section was laughably easy in comparison to the onslaught that came next.

A resounding boom echoed as the Gaster blaster shot a wide beam obscuring half of the battle box. The player was lucky enough to be on the other side, but when it moved again, it took all of her speed to rush to safety.

It was a constant back-and-forth in the middle, with the young player being cheered on by the others and Frisk themself. Chara just kinda stood there, still in shock about Papyrus also having Gaster blasters, and apparently being stronger than his brother as well. It took another excruciating five minutes of just weaving around the lasers and bones for Papyrus to finally collapse onto his knees, panting from exhaustion.

"WELL...! IT'S CLEAR..." Papyrus let out a huff. "YOU CAN'T! DEFEAT ME!!!" The player just felt bad for making him overexert himself, and decided to not correct him. "THAT IS WHY... I AM GIVING MYSELF TO YOU AS A HOSTAGE! BECAUSE... IT WOULDN'T BE FAIR!"

"Wait, Mr. Papyrus, you don't have to, that was a joke-" Papyrus waved the kid off. "NONSENSE! THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I- I MEAN, YOU HUMANS, WILL ACCEPT DEFEAT!"

The player held out a hand, knowing that he would be too stubborn to accept defeat on the new terms. "IF that's the case... I accept our defeat."

And thus, the taller skeleton was made the impromptu hostage of the players.

Seeing that Papyrus had used way too much energy in order to even use the Gaster blasters, some of the players helped him up and let him lean on their shoulders. Sadly, most of them were much too short for that, including the smaller child. It had to take two of the adults in the group to help him towards his house and knock on the door.

Sans was less than pleased to see that his brother had overworked himself, but was relieved to see that other than that, Papyrus wasn't hurt. The players dropped him off on the couch and gave him a slice of Toriel's pie as compensation. It was awkward trying to fit so many people into the house, so most of the players had to huddle outside and wait a while. The little girl that fought with Papyrus, Frisk, Chara and a few others were patiently sitting around the couch waiting for the tall skeleton to finish eating the pie.

Papyrus seemed to light upon seeing that his friends were at his house. "WOWIE! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE GIVING ME THIS MUCH AS A HOSTAGE!"

"We're not really holding you hostage, per se, but uhhh... I guess if you want us to?"

"OF COURSE! I'D... WELL, I'D REALLY LIKE IT IF WE WERE JUST FRIENDS INSTEAD!"

One of the players, a pink-and-white human ghost, looked at him weirdly. "What do you mean, we're already friends, of course!" She gestured to the crowd outside. "Heck, it's the whole reason why we stuck around during your battle!"

Papyrus, forgetting his momentary exhaustion, whooped in joy and jumped up from the couch. Sans tried to settle him down, bit it seems like he was too preoccupied at the thought of having so many friends. "I'M- IM SO POPULAR NOW! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"

"Of course you're popular! Who wouldn't be with that kind of personality?"

"You have noooo idea how many more fans there were in 2015! Man, I miss those days..."

"You've always been awesome, pal!"

The small crowd was happily showering him with compliments, absolutely loving his response. The player who beat him stepped up, giving him a congratulatory thumbs up. "You're pretty cool, you know? I'd love to be like you when I'm older!" She shifted her yellow-striped sweater to warm herself up.

"I ALMOST FORGOT! HUMAN! WHAT IS YOUR NAME EXACTLY?" Papyrus sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed that he didn't even remember to learn the players' names. "I WANT TO KNOW WHO EXACTLY BESTED ME!"

The small child, filled with BRAVERY, grinned. "The name's Darlene, and don't you forget it!"

Everyone decided that yes, the hangout needed for a True Pacifist run would not take place in the skelebros' household. Not only would it get wrecked after a few hundred people try to squeeze in, but the usual hangout sequence was already memorized by most of the players. No, they wanted something different, something much more memorable.

And so, people picked out a decently nice small clearing. Since some of them wanted to check up on the Ruins to see how Toriel and the other players were doing, the spot chosen would be the path Sans had met them on. Not only was it wide enough to set up a few canopy tents and tables, but they could also introduce Sans and Papyrus to the other players. Nobody would miss out on befriending anybody, and so that would (probably) ensure peace between the two. They were planning on one hangout to be different, so why not another? Why not go off the rails and make things absolutely chaotic?

The canopy tents were set up near the trees, and the plastic folding tables underneath them were filled with plates of food. Of course, a trashcan wasn't needed when you could just de-summon it out of existence. Soon enough, the buffet was piled high with spaghetti and other tasty treats. Someone had brought the cheesy chips mix complete with small pretzels, while another person just opened up a family size-bag of Takis. There wasn't just food; someone had the idea to summon ice coolers filled to the brim with Capri Sun packets, soda and iced tea. Just in case, someone slapped sticky notes onto the hidden cameras' lenses. The players eagerly dug into the food while others went to go fetch the ones at Papyrus and Sans' house.

Jerome was in charge of the music, as he always had been from the beginning. Summoning up an iconic triad of speakers, he seated himself in the middle and proceeded to chug a small can of Diet Coke. A curious fan strolled up to it, plopping themselves down as they munched on a hotdog.

"Hey, isn't that-?"

"The speakers from FNF? Yeah. Huge fan of the game."

"Well, why didn't you go there instead?" They look a sip of their cold Gatorade and continued. "You know we can't leave until the timeline's over or we do an emergency eject."

"Already did. Saw BF's weeks and helped cash in for some of the gifts for the Mid-Fight Masses folks, too. Just wanted to try out something new." With that, he pulled up his phone with one hand, scrolling through a playlist. "You got any requests?"

"Yeah. Can I get the uhhh... lo-fi remix of 'Hip Shop' by DJ Cutman? The guy's got some good tracks."

"No problem."

Papyrus' day kept on getting better and better. Despite losing the battle and becoming a hostage, he couldn't be happier - who wouldn't be, after gaining hundreds of friends? Sans was paranoid as usual, but he reassured his younger brother that the "players" were harmless.

Suddenly, the door to his house swung open as a group of humans stood panting at the doorway. Apparently, they had rushed all the way from the exit of the Ruins to tell Papyrus and Sans that they wanted to hang out, but since their house was too small, they would be doing so at the road where Sans had met them. Papyrus, eager for the hangout session to begin, rushed over to Sans and told him to get ready. The shorter skeleton was considering actually moving for once, but shrugged it off and said that he could just take one of his shortcuts.

His younger brother had a fit at that, whining that if Sans didn't walk to the place, he would take matters into his own hands. Before Sans could teleport away, Papyrus slung him over his shoulder with an "oomph!", speeding off to catch up with the other players. One of them, a short man wearing an electric guitar, casually struck up a conversation, sharing about how he, Caleb Hyles, had gotten into singing. Others went on and on about how the surface was, and how they would help the monsters break the barrier.

It took a while, but when Papyrus reached the area, his non-existent eyes bugged out of his sockets. Sans was dropped to the floor in shock, and was about to complain until he saw the mountains of food.

"ALL OF THIS? FOR ME?" Players from both groups began noticing him, giving him cheery waves and inviting him over to try some spaghetti. "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!"

"Of course! We're even bringing along some other friends; just wait a bit!"

That particular player trotted over to the stone doors of the Ruins, opening them up to reveal Toriel surrounded by the players who decided to stay with her. Everyone there was overexcited, poring out as they tried to both talk to Papyrus or get some food. Toriel herself walked up to the skeleton brothers to introduce herself as the former queen of the Underground, and the taller skeleton almost exploded in excitement at that.

The two of them seated themselves on one of the empty tables, chatting with the humans about what the surface was like and how it changed. The motherly goat was brought up to date about the technology of the Surface, but Papyrus was not. Turns out, the tech Alphys used was all improved from the 80's and 90's; it didn't have as many features as human tech but had magic woven into it for compensation. The taller skeleton was baffled to see the sleeker cell phones that were filled to the brim with music and photos.

Papyrus was eager to learn what the surface was like, and wanted to know what places the humans had visited. From talking with the players alone, he could learn about each and every one of their favorite spots. A man wearing military gear loved the beautiful national parks in Alaska, where he used to sit down under the cold night sky to enjoy the absolutely stunning northern lights. One of the other fans, a microwave-headed humanoid, fondly described how the coastal cities in California changed from place to place, and how one of them had a long pier that you would walk along and fish on.

While his brother and Toriel were busy interacting with the players, Sans hastily went over to the hot dog plates, pulling out one of his ketchup bottles and drowning the hot dog in it. The shorter skeleton then proceeded to messily eat it and sat with the theorists as promised. The Game Theorist and Underlab themselves were scrambling to summon paper and pens for their notes.

"so. you said you wanted answers? alright, hit me up."

MatPat was the first to raise his small clipboard and pen. "Alright - this might be a really loaded question, so I'll ask if you're willing to answer it first."

"ok. not like i could hide anything from you guys."

"Who exactly is Dr. Wing Dings Gaster? Like, we know he's the former royal scientist and something happened to him, but wha-" Sans spat out his ketchup at that question, clearly not expecting it. MatPat had the decency to look apologetic. "Ah, is that too risky? Um, I'll just-"

"no, no. it's fine; just wasn't expecting it, that's all. nobody's really asked about him after the accident."

"Well, we're curious about how exactly he was erased from reality, and how exactly he's related to you. Do you know him?"

He scoffed at MatPat, clearly finding amusement. "know the guy? he's my father; of course i'd know him," Sans let out a wry chuckle. "what? can't your 'all powerful' powers see that he's a skeleton like me?"

"The game sprites weren't really that clear, and-"

"wait. hold up. game sprites?"

Underlab was now the one blinking away confusion. "Wait. You didn't figure it out yet? And I'd thought you stalked us the whole damn time."

"no??? you guys-" Sans let out a sigh of defeat. "look, if you 'players' think i'm that much of a creep, no. in fact, you're the ones creeping me out more. i didn't follow the kid this time because you gave me a migrane and i'm trying to still figure this all out."

The Alphys lookalike felt sorry, and decided to break it all down for the poor skeleton. He starred in a video game featuring all of the Underground, with Frisk as the protagonist. Their game world didn't affect this world, but it did allow them to slip themselves into one of the timelines. Sans was slowly having the biggest existential crisis of his life with ketchup spilled all over his jacket and a hotdog in hand. It took Papyrus' concerned scrambling and players cleaning the mess up with paper towels to get him snapped out of it.

Nearby, he could hear some of the players, including the same old boombox guy, chatting along. One of them sneezed, and his friend proceeded to ask a question that sent everybody into a panic.

"Hey, isn't Papyrus supposed to give his daily report to Undyne at this time?"

Down in Waterfall, the very foundation of the stone cavern seemed to tremble with fear. In one of the many caverns, and on top of one of the many damp outcroppings, the captain of the Royal Guard herself was violently pummeling the wall with her blue spears.

The nearby guards, Royal Guard 1 and 2 respectively, heard the enraged screams of their boss and wisely decided to moonwalk back to their post in Hotland. Undyne was unhinged with both fear and burning hatred. Why, you may ask?

It had started with small whispers along the inhabitants of Waterfall. Humans had fallen down, they had said. More than one. The accounts only described three or four humans maybe, and floated around. That wasn't anything new; Undyne knew that monsters such as Bratty and Catty loved to spread rumors about that kind of thing. Everyone ate it up; after all, being locked underground for centuries meant that they clung to any sort of hope, especially with only one last soul being needed.

Those small whispers, however, grew into taller and taller tales. No longer were the monsters quietly speaking about it in fear of being labelled as foolish, as by now, the rumors were common news. There has been activity in the Ruins, some Froggits claimed. The Temmies were bouncing off the walls from the mere mention of the humans. They became much more unbelievable: hundreds of humans marching through the underground, not killing everything in their path? Undyne scoffed at the notion. If there were that many humans, the Underground would have been eradicated. Purged.

She didn't believe those tales, not even when monsters from Snowdin started to rush to their families to frantically exclaim that they would be free soon. Just a bunch of loonies, she had thought.

It had all come crashing down after her brief visit with Alphys in the lab. Her poor crush was hyperventilating in the middle of the lab, looking as if she had a heart attack. Undyne had asked her what was wrong, and the lizard monster pulled up the past recordings from her cameras.

At first, the doors to the Ruins opened. Only a single human came out; a small child dressed in blue and purple. Then came another one, a teenager with a boombox slung over his shoulder. Then another human. Then another. Undyne's heart was lodged in her throat as she made what could only be described as a choking noise when a metaphorical dam broke. A huge wall of humans flooded through the gates, all different ages and appearances.

What was confusing was the few monsters peppered within the crowd. She could make out a six-limbed dog monster that looked eerily like the sentries stationed in Snowdin, a microwave-headed being and some more animalistic monsters. There were mostly dog and cat monsters, with a few more abstract ones rolling in such as the cherry-headed guy and a male twin of Alphys.

This... this changed everything. Undyne's heart dropped once again when she realized who exactly she was supposed to meet at the previous hour. Someone who lived in Snowdin, and had been pestering her to be a Royal Guard for years.

Oh no. No no no no no- If Papyrus was late, it could only mean one thing. Her scream of rage and despair echoed throughout both Hotland and Waterfall.

In Snowdin, Jerome sneezed. Damn, somebody must've been thinking about us.

Chapter Text

While on the surface, it looked like the players were invincible gods, the reality was that even they had their own limits. The reason why was to prevent the game and it's alternate universes from collapsing onto itself with the humans within it, effectively killing them. Because of this, there was an extent to which their summoning power didn't function, like summoning up living people or animals. This was also the main reason why they couldn't use their powers to break the barrier immediately; the game's code only would weaken it after Asriel's battle.

This was the reason why multiple worked on dematerializing the feast and others began to panic. A huge change in the timeline? Sure, they could fix that. But Undyne was notorious for being one of the hardest bosses in the game, only behind Sans. Her spears would definitely be one of the biggest hassles, as they wouldn't kill but cause unimaginable pain, especially to the younger players. The players did the only thing they knew they did best: they schemed.

Task Force Fishstick was formed that day. Consisting of the twenty-three top combatants in the human and monster groups (and Frisk), they would be responsible for taking the hits and trying to talk Undyne down. They were either ex-military or martial arts practitioners, and help protect the other players. This would have to mean that the rest of the humans, including the semi-humans, would have to stay back. The more monster-like players would blend in easier, so they could go behind the team with Papyrus.

Every human player was staying in tents near Snowdin Town at this time. It had taken a bit of convincing for the more stubborn children to stay behind with the others, but eventually, everyone who wasn't on Task Force Fishstick was comfortably staying with the rest of the town residents. The militaristic group trudged forward into the blizzard, their vision clouding with white until it finally faded back into a more sparsely covered landscape. Snow was only dusting the stone floor, and the trees faded into stone as the river's sound became much more apparent.

People glanced around. No sign of Undyne; only the occasional ice block from Snowdin's Ice Wolf, the small waterfalls streaming down the cavern walls and specks of crystals. The next room was small, with a save star and three other faces there. Sans lazily eyed him from his sentry, and gestured to the star. "you might wanna save. i could hear 'er screaming from over here."

Frisk, looking at Chara nervously, decided to save as Task Force Fishstick tapped their distributed riot shields in a circle. The monster who usually explained the echo flowers looked at them with an odd, scrunched-up expression as if to question their sanity. Merg could only shrug in response. "Hey, it's tradition, right?"

From behind, the human-monster task force could hear the pitter-patter of small feet. Dammit. The kid didn't listen. Darlene was trailing behind Monster Kid as he eagerly went towards them.

"Yoooo! Don't forget us!" Everyone let out a frustrated sigh. "Kid, you're twelve. A spear through your gut ain't going to be pretty, even if you're immortal like the rest of us."

"But- I know my way around a battle! You saw me with Papyrus!"

"THAT'S RIGHT, HUMAN DARLENE! WE BOTH LOST TO EACH OTHER!"

"We saw you, all right. But this is Undyne. She's someone who's less merciful and more violent. And that was BEFORE Papyrus was captured, pal!"

Monster Kid looked aghast. "Wait- YOU'RE the humans going through the Underground? And what do you mean by IMMORTAL?" The smaller human child cut him off, irritated. "Yes, I know she's dangerous. Besides, you act like it's the first time I was ever stabbed!"

"It ISN'T??? You're basically a toddler, for fu- err... heck's sake!"

Darlene proceeded to facepalm. "I know what fuck means, sir. And are any of you into Madness Combat?" Only one guy out of twenty raised his hand shakily. "Yeah, I was the person that decided to broadcast DOOM music and blow up one of the cloning facilities for Hank."

"Wait wait wait, that was you? Holy shit, and I thought that was the man himself from how many bodies were in there!"

"Yeah. Didn't really do it myself though. I even have a souvenir!" All the monsters and humans in the rooms stepped back in both awe and fear as a small twelve-year old proceeded to pull out an enormous shotgun, four times her own size. "This baby even uses supermagnum 20k slugs!"

"Alright, alright! You can stay! Just... remember, this is a pacifist run, alright?" Darlene huffed and stuffed the big fucking gun back into her inventory. "That's what I thought. Pussies."

Both her and Monster kid were placed in the middle of the group, in between Task Force Fishsticks with Frisk and Chara themselves. It was a cautionary measure in order to protect them just in case Undyne noticed them.

Up ahead was a longer hallway that had one-third of it as a part of a large waterfall. Two players entered the watery veil and returned with an old tutu, which was offered to Frisk for defense. Everyone knew that up ahead, the fish lady would be normally there for Papyrus' daily report. None of them would be able to hide in the tall grass. Taking a deep breath, a braver player stepped ahead.

Nobody was on the top outcropping. Cheems, being a centipede-dog furry, was much taller and worked well as a sentry. She didn't see even the slightest shadow that Undyne might have been there. Heaving out a breath of relief, the team surrounded the next save star and prompted the silent protagonist to save once again. This time, no fun little rituals - it was much too serious for that. Frisk's body shivered as they were filled with DETERMINATION.

Papyrus had asked what his oddly familiar human friend was doing, and one of the players explained. What they had was a soul made out of pure DETERMINATION, hence the red color. That power allowed them to see small stars that could "save" them in snippets of time. Just in case they died, they could come back with that power.

"WOWEE! SO THAT'S WHY THE HUMAN LOOKS SO FAMILIAR!" The taller skeleton gave a little flourish with his scarf as he walked. "DON'T WORRY, AS THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL PREVENT YOUR DEATH FURTHER ON!" Frisk felt a twinge of guilt. They had killed him on countless genocide runs, turned away his mercy... and yet he still wanted to protect them? Chara leaned over their shoulder, sensing their discomfort. "Let's not think about that. We've got a whole new timeline to explore."

The next room didn't even require the bridge seed puzzle to be solved. Taller, older humans just slung Frisk and Darlene over their shoulders into a piggyback ride and plopped them down on the other side after they finished wading through the mildly deep waterfall. It was then that they had their first encounter. Aaron was the one to run into the group, flexing his muscles to show off towards the humans. Flexing back was the only way to spare him, and boy did the player flex back. Shaking off their jacket to reveal a plain tank top, the military enthusiast flexed until Aaron copied them and flexed himself out of the room.

After wading into the next area, Papyrus had the feeling that he was supposed to do something by now. The cheery skeleton brushed it off as something from the previous load that their friend Frisk had died from. Going into the door revealed the wishing room, filled to the brim with echo flowers. The players silently walked through the cavern, taking in the sights as the wishes of monsters echoed throughout the room.

Suddenly, Woshua stopped by and pulled one of the other players into battle. It was absolutely appalled at the state of Cheems' fur, which was now matted with grime and dirt. She dodged the first attack and decided to ACT, asking for Woshua to clean her. The next attack had some green magic sprinkled within it, and she managed to get two of the healing bullets. Thanking Woshua, Cheems Borger ended the battle using the MERCY button.

Task Force Fishstick advanced towards the empty wall at the end of the wishing room, and it shifted up to reveal an entryway into the next room. A whole wall of plaques were lined up along the hallway, lit by their glowing text. It wasn't legible by human terms, but everyone knew what it meant. They had been through this room countless times to know that it detailed the history of the monster-human war. The topic only served to make the atmosphere even more tense.

At the end of the hallway, one of the humans turned around to address everyone else. "Friends, it was an honor to meet the denizens of the Underground and help them out. However, we have yet to encounter our first truly hostile monster."

The ex-soldier continued, gesturing towards the next room. "This will be our first encounter with Undyne, and with our numbers and crowding, I doubt that we won't get hit. So," He drew out his riot shield from before, and the task force did the same. "Let us protect everyone behind us, and go forward. No matter the outcome." A small cheer rose from the group. Despite all of their differences, they were DETERMINED to get through Undyne. Monster Kid was nervous that they would hurt his idol, but kept it in. One of the monster-like players saw his unease and comforted him, saying that they weren't intending to hurt her anyway.

And with that, they marched on the plank walkway towards the next room.

It was quiet; too quiet, as well. Undyne was supposed to appear at this very hallway and throw spears, was she not? Instead, all the players were met with were an empty hall and nothing else. Everyone aimed their riot shields at the outcropping above, using the small glass window to check for any sign of the captain of the royal guard.

One of the humans lowered their shield. "Hey, man, where do you think she is?" His friend responded, unsure. "I dunno man, isn't she supposed to-"

The guy's voice was cut off by the whizzing of a spear and a scream from his side. Looking to his left, his face quickly paled as he held back the urge to gag. His friend was screaming in pain, a glowing blue spear fizzling out of his body and revealing the gory hole that it punched into his midsection. Blood was pouring out onto the wooden hallway and staining it, now that there was no spear to block it's flow. Undyne was seen perched on one of the walkways. 

At that, it was absolute pandemonium. The monster players tried to huddle together behind the shields of the human players, which were slowly cracking due to the barrage of spears. Not only was the amount of spears significantly increased from the game, but the players had to slowly move towards the other side of the area. Frisk doubted that the tall grass would be enough to hide all of them as well.

More and more people were being stabbed and sliced by the flying spears, bleeding out as they tried to advance. The more hardened warriors were left to fend off the spears, and the riot shields were slowly beginning to flimsily crack at the sheer barrage of magic. Instead of dying, the players ripped out the spears before they could disintegrate and used them to block the other spears, sending them to the side in order to not hit Undyne herself. The only people untouched would be the players that looked like monsters, Papyrus and Monster Kid, though the two latter were unseen by the captain in her fit of rage.

Papyrus was the first one to speak out. "UNDYNE!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

Shocked, Undyne stopped mid-throw, nearly topping out of her spot. "PAPYRUS???"

"YES. IT IS I! THE GREAT PAPYRUS! AND THE MONSTER CHILD IS HERE TOO!"

All of the players either winced and bled out or stared awkwardly at the scene. Undyne lifted up her visor to see if she was dreaming or not. "I thought you were dead, Papyrus! Why are you WITH the humans???"

"OH! ONE OF THEM WON AGAINST ME, SO NOW I AM A HOSTAGE! ISN'T THAT FUN?"

"Yo, don't look at me! I'm just here to tag along!"

Undyne blinked once, then twice. A weary yet relieved sigh was breathed out. "Just... DON'T do that again without contacting me." She turned to deal with the human players, only to realize that when she was distracted, everyone except Papyrus and Monster Kid slipped out of her grasp. "DAMMIT!"

The players were quick to teleport back to Snowdin once they had run into Undyne. Most of them were filled with holes that bled out into the snow, turning it an ominous shade of red. The monster players had to be the ones to carry them to safety, where the tents near the Snowed Inn were.

Players that stayed behind were starting to take notice. It took several people throwing up for them to realize that they needed lots of monster food, and quickly. Rushing to the general store, players dumped as much gold as they could into getting bucketfuls of cinnamon buns, then sprinting back to the injured players to feed them. Players could normally heal themselves at a quick rate, but wounds as large as these took four to five days to actually close up.

Frisk came running back a few minutes later with Chara, annoyed that they had to go on foot back to Snowdin. Their annoyance faded when they saw the absolute chaos that was unfolding, and it wasn't the good kind of chaos the fans loved.

Everywhere they looked, they could see splotches of red across the place. The puddles were slowly evaporating with a strange mist, filling the air with a smell that could only be described as the olfactory version of sparkling water and blood. Medical tents were propped up, and inside, they could see players full of holes being bandaged up and fed monster food in order to regain their health. Even Chara had to turn away at some of the injuries; they may have been hit by the spears once, but they weren't immortal like the players. That immortality served as a detriment when they could suffer over and over again from fatal wounds.

Although Darlene's injuries were mild in comparison to the other players, a gash in front of her face from a stray spear was still painful. She was the youngest player in the task force, after all. Wincing as she bit into the Legendary Hero she summoned, she felt the wound slowly close and mend itself.

Everyone was too tired to go on. They had cleared the most dangerous area, and Undyne wouldn't be much of a problem until later on. The players decided to rest in their tents for the day and not go back until next time, when they could properly traverse Waterfall.

The residents of Snowdin Town were no longer nervous at the players. Of course, the occasional human popping by spooked the monsters, who were taught from a young age that humans were bad.

However, it didn't mean that they weren't terrified of them at some times. Like now, where several humans popped back with gaping holes in them. The more docile monsters ran off to throw up in the safety of their homes and later have nightmares about the walking corpses. Grillby had it much worse; he had known that those wounds could only come from Undyne, and that they should have immediately killed the humans.

There were two reasons why the bartender was so unsettled. Monster magic, as you can see in the game, usually only hurts the soul. It may manifest on the person's body as small bruises or cuts, depending on the size of the attack. Fatal attacks, like Undyne's spear, don't leave a lasting impression on the human body since they instantly kill the person and bring out their soul. It was impossible for humans to get those kinds of wounds; for that to happen, their body must be made up of their entire soul. The second reason was that while Grillby was a soldier, the human casualties in the human-monster war were rare. The most traumatic injury he had witnessed on a human was an arm being sliced off, and that was nothing in comparison to a chest injury.

Those two factors made Grillby do something he hadn't done in years; he closed his bar. Heading to the royal guards of Snowdin, the flame elemental tracked down every one of them and asked them to help out the humans. His reasoning was that if they couldn't be killed, and if they weren't harming anyone, might as well help them out. The royal guard ended up stationed a few feet away from the humans, unable to bear the metallic scent of blood.

While Grillby was busy trying to protect the humans, the rest of Snowdin was gossiping over the humans. None of them had seen any humans get past Undyne and survive with those kinds of wounds. Sans had teleported in after a while, confused as to what was going on until he caught a glimpse of one of the injured players. After that, he immediately teleported back to his house, and the sound of disgusted retching could be heard. How a skeleton could throw up without a stomach was lost on everyone except the skelebros themselves.

Meanwhile, Undyne was left to escort Monster Kid back to their parents in Waterfall. They had been panicking all over, looking for their son just in case the humans had run into him. The captain of the royal guard didn't want to stress out the poor folks any more, so she left out the part where he was found in the middle of her attack against said humans.

Recalling the whole ordeal made her shudder. That spear was supposed to summon their soul so that she could hold them in place to pummel them with more spears. Undyne did not want to rip a bloody hole into someone's midsection. How was that even possible, as well? Weren't humans made of icky biological stuff instead of magic? That would have meant that the group would have sustained mild injuries, but no. So why exactly were they bleeding out trying to protect other monsters?

Undyne had almost hit one of the monsters huddled in that group: a hulking, four-armed dog that reminded her too much of the royal guards in Snowdin Town. The fish lady had wisely directed that spear into the shoulder of another human, making them scream in agony.

She shuddered. She had never known humans held that much blood until that day.

Papyrus, the poor sap, was also shivering beside her, eye sockets wide. Undyne knew the reason why he decided to walk behind her a few steps away. the silence between the two friends was thicker than the barrier separating the Underground from the surface.

The usually jovial skeleton rubbed the back of his skull. "UNDYNE... TODAY, I THINK... YOU WENT A LITTLE TOO FAR."

"I KNOW that, Papyrus. I thought you were..."

"UNDYNE. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU THOUGHT I WAS DEAD OR NOT, WE SHOULD BOTH AGREE THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER, AND I MEAN NEVER, GO THAT FAR AGAIN."

The fish lady stalled, turning to him with an incredulous look. "Are you trying to tell me, the captain of the royal guard, how to do her job?"

Papyrus hesitated, then spoke up. "NO. I'M GIVING A SUGGESTION TO A FRIEND."

Even more silence between them. They were now at the outcropping they were supposed to meet in for his daily report. It didn't really matter now, as the both of them were too preoccupied with the matter at hand to deal with that. After more internal deliberation with herself, Undyne finally gave up with a sigh.

"Fine. I'll go easy on them next time. But DON'T expect me to be friends with all of them, alright?"

Papyrus finally seemed more relaxed at that, his trademark grin slowly fading in. "INDEED, UNDYNE!"

Chapter Text

The next expedition towards Waterfall included all of the players this time. It was a matter of necessity: nobody wanted to get hurt, but everybody wanted to go ahead. Players knew that ever since they typed in the words "Undertale" and used the modified Steam engine, they were in for a long, long journey.

What Frisk and Chara didn't know was that the smaller yet dedicated fanbase of Undertale exploded after the utilization of reality-travelling engines. Ever since the first rudimentary communication was established with the characters of the popular Friday Night Funkin' at the time, people had slowly began working into integrating a safe travel system into the worlds. They had first appeared as ghostly figures that could do little but guide the protagonist and give them stuff. They had wanted more.

Undertale was used as the first test for the physical-body transferal into a franchise. Previously, people could only interact with the characters through computers and slowly build their presence and power through there, like Twitch-like interfaces and hacking intercoms. With the help of a stabilizer, the first hundred people sent through Undertale were able to merge their soul and their physical body together in tandem so that they could travel through the fabric of reality. It had taken a year after the reality-breaking events in 2020 to create that sort of technology.

By that time, players figured out how they were so docile in comparison to how fans usually were. if there was proof of a divine entity, then they looked no further than to the brain-altering properties of said reality distortions. With that, the more toxic players were more reluctant to hurt the characters or other players, and few incidents occurred between them and the realities they were in. In contrast, their docile nature only applied to not hurting the characters and people; not causing chaos was another thing entirely. It was human nature to mess with anything and everything, and the realities gave them a world of possibilities.

Pain was nothing in comparison to the desire for more.

Frisk stared in complete shock as a few of them decided to go on, despite the aches in their body still being there. They had asked one of the soldiers why exactly they wanted to go back again, and the man only laughed. "It's not a matter of if it hurts, kid. It's about the prize at the end, and that prize is this experience." He unwrapped the bandages from his arm, revealing a few puncture scars that had healed. "Can't have rainbows without the rain, and I bet you know that too."

Of course they did. They were DETERMINED, after all, but it still was surprising to see others hold the same mindset as themselves. Both Frisk and Chara had grown up around people who didn't give a damn about the long-term rewards and just went for the instant satisfaction. Their biological father, a drunkard that would have put the bunny monster in Grillby's bar to shame, took a bottle over spending time with his child any day. He didn't hit them, per se, but it still was a pain in the ass to even talk to the man when he was inebriated. Chara's human parents were much, much worse, to the point they avoided telling even Frisk about them.

The self-proclaimed demon looked to the humans and monsters crowded together, happily chatting and blissfully innocent in comparison to the Surface. If that was what their world was like...

Chara let out a sigh, leaning next to Frisk. "Wish I could live in their world, instead. Looks a lot more appealing than the pure drivel on our Surface." A barking laugh exploded next to the nonbinary child, making them jump.

"You really think we're that perfect?" Chara hesitantly, slowly, nodded. The player laughed even more, elbowing the guy next to her. "O-oh my god, Jake! This kid ACTUALLY think we have it easy!" Jake burst out laughing as well, causing a domino effect with the players around them.

"What do you mean - what? But - you guys seem so accepting, and-"

The woman held up a hand to stop them. "I'm gonna cut you off there, kiddo. This place is an escape from the world back at home, and you're gonna see why. Jen! Get the introductory whiteboard and projector!"

Someone summoned a large whiteboard with some black and red markers, along with a projector on a stand. The machine turned on, and Jake flipped through the first slide. "As you can see here, it's a riot between some protestors and the police. See anything interesting?"

"All the signs... they're protesting the police?"

"Yup." The woman circled a few of those said signs. "Some shit came up about cops abusing their power. It's not only your place that has crazy bastards. Onto the next slide!" This time, a landscape with a violent reddish hue was displayed, fire licking at the bottom of the screen. "Now, where do you think this is?"

Frisk thought back to what one of the players said. "Nevada?" They signed, not really sure.

"Surprisingly, no. It's California. The buggers try to be all eco-friendly, but the rich ain't listening and always end up causing this kinda shit, whether it's unintentional or not." She gestured to her friend, and Jake flipped to another slide.

This one had the most impact. It didn't depict anything brutal, no nothing. It just showed a ruined landscape, littered with scorch marks and some bullet holes. Besides it was a date, smudged out of recognition. Chara sucked in a breath.

"Wait, wrong slide. That's my visit to the Fallout universe. Next slide, please." The correct slide, it turns out, was much more tame. That didn't mean it was better though. It was a collage of newspapers detailing the heinous crimes committed by common people after "reality broke apart", and the panic and hysteria that ensued.

"As you can see, we're not perfect. Heck, the fandom used to be a hot steaming dumpster fire before every bad person moved on to another interest." She took out a cigarette, inhaling for a long time before breathing out smoke that smelled suspiciously like berries. "You're lucky this is 2021. People haven't changed, and time's a flat fucking circle."

After the impromptu presentation, the players huddled together to march back to Waterfall. Water sloshed around the place, and it was surprisingly devoid of any monsters except Sans. The skeleton was seated at his usual sentry, slacking off.

"undyne warned everyone that humans would be here. they're still nervous, but your little stunt with woshua and aaron made them hope for some peace, ya know." Sans took a bite of his hotdog, chewing. "they wanna meet their exit ticket to the surface."

Some players waved to him, but most of them were too nervous looking out for Undyne just in case she showed up again. Rumors circulated around the Snowdin Royal Guard that she was keeping Papyrus nearby her now in order to protect him. People wanted to go look for him, but self-preservation instincts and the general dislike of being stabbed kept them from doing anything stupid.

This time, Task Force Fishstick had disbanded to dissolve back into the main player group. The agents were still at front, following the notorious speedrunners like Merg around in order to protect them. The youtubers were put in the middle with the younger players due to their lack of experience, and Darlene was (reluctantly) one of those kids. Stepping towards the bridge where Undyne was, everyone raised their summoned shields and waited. Nobody came.

A brave soul walked ahead, testing the path and looking up. The captain of the Royal Guard wasn't even hiding from the shadows, according to the summoned night vision goggles. The path was safe, for now. People lined up cautiously and began the trek to the other side. Nobody talked. Nobody rushed. Everyone let out a sigh of relief after coming into contact with the small grass. It was apparent that the grass wouldn't be enough to hide the hundreds of players.

Frisk and the others knew what was on the next room. The crystallized cheese sat on the table, stuck to the wooden surface. Looks like the players couldn't give it to the mouse after all. Instead, they just summoned new cheese and shoved it in the front of the mousehole, leaving it so that the mouse could store some for later. A few seconds in, and the whole cheesy mass was mysteriously dragged into the pitch black. The save star nearby was surrounded by people trying to lift the mood up, doing weird squat dances and chanting out Frisk's name. The silent protagonist slipped through two of the players, and held their hand out once again for another save. Exclamations of joy rang out as they praised them for doing what they normally did. Frisk, unused to all the positive attention, shyly backed into the crowd.

Instead of seeing Sans again in the next room, everyone was met with the sight of a grey door. The mood instantly skyrocketed as people excitedly clamored all over the place.

"HOLY SHIT IT'S GASTEEER!!!"

"THEORY TIME! WHOOHOO!" The theorists were trembling in anticipation as they fumbled for more writing utensils and a recorder.

The players crowded around the grey door, wanting to go in. But before anyone could actually do anything, Chara made them settle down by barking out a few orders from Jerome's microphone. "Finally! Now, before you go in, let me remind you that GASTER DISAPPEARS IF YOU TOUCH HIM!" They gestured to the door. "The best course of action would be to leave your gifts and notes to Frisk, and they'll shove it inside. We CANNOT interact with Gaster or he'll fade away from the timeline. You hear me?"

Disappointed, the crowd had to settle for just leaving gifts for the former royal scientist. A mountain of paper and miscellaneous items piled up, and was one-by-one shoved into the room without looking at who was inside. It hurt to even glimpse the monotone void within, and Frisk was similarly uncomfortable near it. It took half an hour to finally get the rest of the fan letters and art, and by then, people were lounging around the hallway, sitting down on the floor or leaning on the walls.

"Alright, that should be the last of it. Let's go, guys." Some players looked longingly towards the door and continued with their journey, encountering Sans and his telescope on the other side of the room. For them, the world looked just a little bit brighter.

Dark, darker, yet darker.

The darkness kept on growing, photon readings in the negative. Doctor Wing Dings Gaster was barely cognizant of his own surroundings most of the time. The void was an in-between he hadn't meant to get stuck in, and it messed with his mind in the worst ways possible, slowly stripping him of his once shining intellect. He was reduced to a bubbling pile of goo with only a skull on top, his hands detaching from his body in a way that made him scream the first time it happened.

On days like these, on timelines like this, he could think clearly for the first time in which it seemed like eons. Time was warped for someone who knew of the resets but couldn't do anything to forget them. Contrary to what you might think, he hated these types of days. Hated that he could even manage a single coherent thought, hated that he could understand the memories flitting through his mind.

With a clear mind, he could comprehend his sons being turned to dust in a swing of a knife. Gaster could count every second that passed to no avail and he could wallow in his own self-pity and despair while unable to cross the boundary.

This time, however, he felt that something had changed. Not enough for him to actually see out of the void, but enough to form that hallway with little to no ease in comparison to the three other times he had done it before. The door was also a tad shade brighter, making the grey room feel a little more bearable on his eyesockets. Someone was approaching the door. A lot of someones, apparently.

The former royal scientist could hear people excitedly shouting his name. What? They - they knew about him? He had thought - nevermind. It was fruitless to hope, after all; he still wasn't able to escape the prison. Gaster flinched as he could hear hundreds of footsteps sliding across the cavern. That... was more than he expected.

His door to the void opened, just not enough to see what was on the other side. He could view shifting colors from the clothes that whoever outside was wearing. A flash of tan and a familiar shape greeted him. Ah, humans. Wait, humans? As in multiple of them? Doctor Gaster recalled there was only one human with time-manipulating DETERMINATION traversing the Underground. So why exactly was there more?

Gaster's thoughts were interrupted by a shifting sound in the front. Whoever was out there had shoved in a small pile of papers, along with a basket full of food and supplies. Crawling ahead using his melted lower torso, he grasped the papers and flipped through them slowly as even more were shoved into the void alongside him. Most of them were letters praising his work and all he did for the Underground. Others were curious, wondering what had happened to him and how his relationship with Sans and Papyrus was before he had passed.

The most flattering of them were simply just well-made drawings of himself, either in his lab coat or his currently melted form. He didn't have anywhere to store them except this room, pushing the papers and everything else to the corner in a neat pile. A small laptop had caught his eye, and he opened it to see that it functioned perfectly well, connecting to the Undernet. Ecstatic, he tried to post, but huffed in frustration once he realized that he could only see, not interact. Instead, he clicked on a camera icon.

A screen popped up, detailing all the places in the Underground with surprising quality. Quickly, Doctor Gaster tapped on the one outside his door. Sadly, the screen showed an error message, saying that the location was "out of bounds". Instead, he clicked on the one where his former home was in Snowdin. Success. He could see the quaint little house in the neighborhood, surrounded by snow. Inside, neither of his sons were there. Scrolling through the feeds, Gaster finally saw Sans in his station at Waterfall, and he stalled.

Having faint memories of your son dying could only made him get a decent outline of what Sans looked like. He knew his son looked older, but he didn't really see him clearly until now. Gaster could recall his oldest son enthusiastically following him around the lab in "Bring Your Child To Work Day" and how small he was. Now? He had grown into a fine young monster, capable to taking care of Papyrus and himself. More searching came up with Papyrus, who was currently helping the captain of the royal guard cook. What was her name again? Oh, yes, Undyne.

Papyrus' growth was much more prominent. Gaster didn't even recognize him until a few seconds later, dumbstruck by the sheer change. He used to be able to fit the babybones in both of his hands. His son was now around his height, happily working with Undyne to cook.

Gifts had stopped flowing in after a while, and the players were now leaving. He could tell from the pitter-patter of shoes on the stone floor. After that, he could feel the hallway fading along with himself, stuck back into the void again with his gifts. Doctor Wing Dings Gaster knew his mind would scatter once again over time, and that he'd forget what happened this day. He wasn't reluctant this time; after all, he got to see his sons for the first time in ages.

Despite it getting dark, darker and yet darker, he couldn't help but feel that the world around him was brighter than it had been before.

Chapter Text

The telescope prank was met with muted enthusiasm. Sans seemed to physically sense the players' disappointment, and asked what exactly happened in the room before.

It shouldn't have shocked him that the players had encountered his long-dead father. After all, he'd seen them break reality, shrug off fatal wounds and mess up the timeline, but the smallest chance that Gaster was still around made him hope for the first time in ages since Frisk's first reset. The short skeleton was disappointed to know that the hallway with the grey door had disappeared, and that nobody got a good look at Doctor Wing Dings Gaster. Only Frisk, Chara and himself knew what he looked like at this point.

Sans shortcutted away from the players' sight, and everyone went along their way exploring Waterfall even more. The box next to Sans' station was soon filled with extra food, the normally empty pocket dimension stuffed to the brim. All of that was for Frisk, just in case they needed a quick pick-me-up.  Naturally, some players went to the doorway left out of curiosity. They found the Nice Cream vendor leaning against his cart, seemingly asleep. Camila, one of the humanoid players, tapped on his shoulder and held out a bag of gold.

"Uh- huh? Oh! You're all back here! That's a surprise!" He straightened himself up and took the gold coins. "Alright, that would be enough for... twenty-two nice creams! What flavors?"

"Vanilla!" "Chocolate!" "Any is fine."

The animator looked back at the small crowd in the room listing off the flavors. "I guess... five vanilla, eleven chocolate, and six strawberry?"

The blue bunny dug out the flavored bars from his cart, passing them over to the hands stretched out towards him. "Alright! have a nice day!" The small army proceeded to scuttle back into one of  Waterfall's main rooms, and the vendor sighed. "I swear, my life keeps on getting weirder and weirder."

Meanwhile, the rest of the players were just taking in the sights of Waterfall as Camila Cuevas herself bought ice cream for them. It was crazy to see that so many youtubers had come out of the woodwork to revisit Undertale once the world-travelling technology was developed. Fans were too nervous to even approach the big trio. After all, who wouldn't be excited to sit next to Markiplier, Pewdiepie and JackSepticEye?

Everyone was quietly chatting, not wanting to ruin the peaceful atmosphere of the falls. The water below them glowed with magic, illuminating the cavern alongside the small crystals peeking through the walls. The false stars on the ceiling were not just reflecting that glow, but were bioluminescent as well. Combined, the two made for an absolutely stunning view of the place. A decent amount of players were gathered around the raindrop-shaped monster on the right of the entrance, rambling on about what a star was.

"What's a star? Can you touch it? Can you eat it? Can you kill it?" They glanced over at the humans. "Are you a star?"

"Well, actually, stars are actually enormous spheres of plasma held by their own gravity. They're so huge, in fact, that you can fit more than a million earths inside them. They're billions of lightyears away, so you can't interact with them other than just viewing them. Stars can die by running out of hydrogen to convert, but it takes millions of years to get to that point."

The monster, satisfied with Underlab's explanation, nodded along and continued staring up at the crystal-dotted ceiling. The humans and monsters around them sat down and did the same, waiting for all the Nice Creams to be distributed and eaten.

Before anyone else could progress, they would have to get the ballet shoes for Frisk. One by one, the players trotted over the bridge or waded in the waist-deep water to a darker part of the cavern. There, the vegetation glowed with an otherworldly hue, and the glow of the water seemed much brighter in the darkness. Jerome, sensing the need for a soundtrack, pulled up "Waterfall" on his phone, the haunting music filling the air.

The group ran into two Moldsmals, both of which were spared by Frisk through the power of wiggling their hips. After a decent amount of walking, Frisk and Chara saw the dead end, a small patch of tall grass flanked by luminescent mushrooms. The ballet shoes would be useless in a pacifist run, of course, but it did make the genderless child feel much safer. Embarrassingly, their legs felt too sore to continue on. They don't know if it was from running all the way back to Snowdin, or if it was just their luck, but now they felt reluctant to move with the steady ache.

One of the players, a gamer by the name of ManlyBadassHero (Frisk thought that would describe Undyne to a T), noticed their dilemma. "Hey, you alright, kid?"

Sighing, Frisk shook their head to say "no". In response, the heroically clad Youtuber shouted to the rest of the group that Frisk was tired, and that he'd help carry them. In one swoop, the usually short child was on his shoulders, their hands in his soft hair. "Just hold on, alright?"

The trek ahead was... different, to say the least. Their new height made them realize how pretty Waterfall was when they could view all of it higher up. Is this what taller people feel like? Chara had to agree with their partner on this one. Things seemed so much smaller once you were a few feet taller.

Halfway ahead, Frisk's dinky mobile phone rang, the caller ID reading as Papyrus' number. They picked it up.

"HUMANS! ARE YOU THERE?"

"Yup." "Hey, it's Papyrus! Hello, Papyrus!" "Yeah! He's back!"

"WELL HUMANS, I WOULD REGRET TO TELL YOU THAT I HAVE TO STAY WITH UNDYNE. SHE'S PLANNING TO HUNT ALL OF YOU DOWN, BUT I'LL MAKE SURE SHE WON'T HURT YOU AS BAD AS BEFORE." People cheered at this, thanking Papyrus for his concern. Some were worried that Papyrus would get hurt as well in the process, but the skeleton brushed it off, saying that he could handle himself. Nobody really doubted this after his little stunt with his special attack.

Saying goodbye to Papyrus, the players stroll ahead to continue their journey. On the way, Woshua and Aaron run into the group, pulling ManlyBadassHero into battle mode. To Chara's surprise, his soul was just as red with DETERMINATION as their own, but much less saturated. Slipping though the attacks, the gamer made sure to flex as hard as he could to trick Aaron into flexing away from the battle, then let Woshua clean his scuffed clothes with a bit of green magic. It took only a few minutes to spare the both of them.

The players headed up towards the next hallway. The bioluminescent grass brushed their shoes as they stood in front of the next plaque detailing the monster-human war. Finally, they reached a room with only one stone pathway surrounded by deep water that seemed more inky black than blue. From below, tentacles whipped up, flailing at the sides of the crowd, before a large mass rose from the middle of the water.

"Hey... there... Noticed that you were... Here..." The onion-like octopus monster shyly ducked a bit more to accommodate themselves.

"Yoooo! It's Onion-san! We've heard of you!"

"That's so cool! Aren't you the guy who wanted to start a band? Go for it!" Caleb Hyles and The8BitDrummer were encouraging the flustered Onion-san, telling them that learning how to play an instrument wasn't really that hard, and that they could do it.

"Ummm... thank you! I- didn't expect this really, but it's nice to know you're happy about it!"

It took a hell of a lot of handshakes from the octopus monster and a lot of nagging from Chara for the players to leave the monster alone and continue on with the journey. Waving goodbye to Onion-san, the players progressed to the next room. On their way there, Shyren was spotted in one of the corners singing to herself. She was overwhelmed by the sudden influx of people cheering her on, and nervously pulled Frisk into battle right off of ManlyBadassHero's shoulders.

There was no need to battle her or do any actions - Shyren was able to be spared from the get-go. But Frisk wanted the experience to be special, and so they twirled around the music note-shaped bullets that the shy monster spewed out. Cheers erupted from the crowd as the battle music was paused for Shyren's singing. In the end, Frisk spared her after a long performance, the clapping of the audience rising above the rushing of the waterfall curtain. Some people even tossed a few sheets of fanart to the confused yet flattered Shyren.

After the encounter, Frisk and Chara trudged ahead as the people trailed behind them, looking at the plaques with glowing text on them. It was undecipherable to the humans, but Chara made sure to narrate what they said about humans not being able to absorb boss monster souls. The mood faded back into a more quiet, somber tone as boombox guy put on the ambience of Waterfall's music again.

The next room was completely silent aside from the pitter-patter of leaking water, the shuffling of footsteps and the unusually quiet boombox. An all-to familiar statue sat in the middle of the room. Whether it was meant to depict Asriel, Asgore or some other horned monster, it was unclear, as the erosion of the stone from the dripping water made it impossible to discern the face. Silently, the players walked over to the next room. They knew exactly what to do.

Swiping an umbrella from the lone stand, they went back to the statue and lodged the umbrella into its two hands. The gentle melody of the music box rustily started up, filling the air with a sense of nostalgia for the players and Chara.

A few minutes later, everyone decided to keep on going. Monster Kid was most likely in the next room over, shivering from the rain. Instead of grabbing another umbrella, players decided to summon their own, filling Waterfall with vibrant colors that popped off the usually dreary blue. In the next section of the hallway, the leaking from above began to pour down exponentially harder, making it seem like the rainstorms back at home. The whooshing and splattering of the water became much louder, and people's shoes got wet from the puddles below.

Monster Kid was found huddled underneath an outcropping, shivering from the cold. "Hey! It's you humans again!" He noticed that everyone was carrying their own form of protection from the rain. "Yo, you got some umbrellas? Awesome!" And with that, he huddled underneath the crowd, hiding from the cold, wet water. "Let's go!"

Along the walk towards the Capital, monster kid began to the players. His dialogue was wildly different, and his face was more of a disappointed look than a cheery smile like in the game. "Man, I used to think Undyne was so cool. She beats up bad guys and never loses." He looked to the humans that were hit by the spears previously. "But... I think that's not always a good thing. This time... I think she beat you guys up too much."

Someone decided to speak up. "Kid, it's alright. None of us are gonna die as long as we're here, but we appreciate you for caring."

"Yeah. Undyne is cool, kid, she just... got scared of us, like you did when you found out that we're humans. She's never seen this many in one place; we can forgive her for that."

Monster Kid looked at the players. "Humans are... so weird. Like, if I got hit by a bully, I wouldn't be so chill!"

The player just shrugged. "Don't know why we're so chill either. Hey, do you need any help at school? Any bullies ?" Monster Kid hesitated at that, then nodded. "Ah. Don't worry kid, just keep on going. Stand up to them and don't back down, alright? And most of all, fight them with words, not fists."

The kid scoffed at that. "As if I had any hands to hit them with."

"Oh god no I'm so sorry kid-"

It took a bit more walking to get out of the caverns of Waterfall. It was all worth it, however; the view of the city below and the Capitol itself was absolutely breathtaking, with the star-like crystals dripping from the ceiling of the Underground itself. The players spread out at the edge of the cliff, soaking in the view as they stopped for a rest. Monster Kid couldn't help but sit down as well, taking a break from the short walk. People summoned drinks and small snacks to enjoy themselves, staying for a moment before movign on towards the end.

Everybody de-summoned their umbrellas as they reached the large step. The older adults could lift the smaller players, including Frisk. Monster Kid was warned that Undyne was planning to attack again on the next room, and that she might break the bridge. He was reluctantly sent off another way, and was caught before he slipped and fell on his face.

The save star in the room was flanked by two more glowing plaques. Everyone knew that Undyne would be attacking soon, so they only silently surrounded the star as Frisk saved. At this point, the save star cult had fifty people in it, all having fun as they kept Frisk and Chara company. They couldn't just teleport out of this one, since that risked a reset from Frisk if they died.

The speedrunners went ahead, testing the waters. Merg had just taken a few more steps when a blue spear shot out from below, barely missing him but enough to be intentional. Their eyes all turned to the angry captain of the royal guard, who was on the platform below. Spears shot up and blocked the exit below, preventing the crowd form backtracking. From there on out, it was total chaos.

People scrambled not to get hit, and surprisingly, they didn't. At the same time, they tried their best not to harm Undyne by making the bridge collapse form their weight; the hundreds of people filled up the entire bride, all while magic spears shot up at them. Nobody knew where to go or how to get to the end, all they knew was that they had to survive. The spears didn't do damage, but stuck players in a battle box for a few seconds. Luckily, Undyne could only focus on one trapped player at a time, and even then, her throwing seemed to a bit more hesitant.

The players all sprinted after the speedrunner, not caring if they got hit. Undyne seemed to get the idea of what they were doing, and followed them with a burning DETERMINATION. With the help of Merg and the others, hundreds of players were crammed into the dead end of the bridge, broken off from the rest of the Underground. This caused the wooden bridge to bend under the stress, and a few of the players to slip and fall off the edge Despite the futility, they sighed. They knew what would come next.

Undyne stood in front of the crowd, either cowering in fear or protecting the people behind them. She slammed three spears onto the end, and the whole bridge section snapped, collapsing into the wet void below.

She didn't understand why Papyrus wanted her to go easy on the humans. Heck, she didn't know why he didn't apprehend them to begin with. Was it because they tricked him? Was it because she didn't do good enough of a job on warning him about the dangers of a human?

Whatever the case, she did her best not to hit any humans with the spears from before. Instead, she went for the paralyzing magic in her arsenal, though it caused a few of the players to escape without any damage. She could only focus on one trapped player at a time, barraging their soul with careful, calculated strikes. To her relief, they didn't bleed as much as before, though there were a few nicks here and there.

There were much more humans than before. Undyne now knew why the expression "like shooting fish in a barrel" came to be (despite it being slightly offensive to her. Was that supposed to be a threat?). She counted at least twenty hit by her paralyzing spears, and she felt a twinge of fear whenever that happened. Undyne was no scientist, but she could see that the bridge wouldn't have been able to hold much more. Letting the humans take the plunge was for the safety of the Underground and themselves, she told herself. They would have fallen anyway.

Behind her, she could hear footsteps. Papyrus was staying with her, to ensure that he wouldn't get captured again. It didn't matter if his brother rang her up a hundred more times; she wouldn't let him out of her sight. IF Papyrus were to get hurt, she wouldn't be able to forgive herself.

"UNDYNE. WHAT DID I SAY?"

"You know very well that the bridge was going to collapse anyway, Papyrus! If I didn't do that-"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT UNDYNE, AND YOU KNOW THAT." The tall skeleton planted his legs one at a time, walking up to Undyne in an intimidating way. The captain of the royal guard noticed his right hand twitch, and started to worry not for herself, but her friend.

"Hey, Papyrus, are you-"

"AM I ALRIGHT? NO, NOT AT ALL, UNDYNE." He angrily gestured to the broken bridge. "THE ONES YOU HURT BEFORE WERE TRAINED, UNDYNE. YOU JUST ATTACKED NON-COMBATANTS. THE ONE WHO BEAT ME WAS TWELVE, UNDYNE. TWELVE!!! YOU OUT OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW NOT TO HURT CHILDREN!!!"

Undyne tried to defend herself. "The previous humans were all children, too! What makes it different this time?"

"THE DIFFERENCE, UNDYNE, IS THAT THERE IS A CHOICE! YOU COULD TAKE THE SOUL FROM ONE OF THE OLDER HUMANS! THERE WAS NO NEED TO ATTACK A CHILD!"

The fish lady was quiet from shock. "YES, UNDYNE, I DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS! I KNOW WHAT TAKING A SOUL FROM A HUMAN ENTAILS! I AM NOT THAT NAIVE, AND I'VE BEEN PUTTING UP WITH YOUR BABYING!!! I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!

And with that, Papyrus stormed off, leaving Undyne to think about what she did wrong.

Usually, only Frisk would fall, and they would land safely on the small patch of buttercups. Now, hundreds of bodies were limply falling onto the watery stone floor with various sickening cracks. The ones unlucky enough to be in the bottom did not die; rather, they were in tons of pain as their bodies tried to heal the bruising.

Frisk didn't go through the vision that they had the first time they fell down. After all, they didn't need to be introduced to Asriel's past. They already knew it like the back of their hand. Instead, they were lucky enough to be one of the last people to fall, landing with an "oomph!" on some other unfortunate player. People started untangling themselves from the pile slowly, making sure to re-set any dislocated bones. It was slightly terrifying to hear the small cracks and pops of bones mending from the players.

It didn't matter if they were hurt or not now. All they had to do was rest for a while near the end of the dumps. The more fortunate people began to look around at what was in the piles of trash carried by Waterfall's currents. Frisk took the lead, since they were the one with the most experience. The clanking and shifting of garbage filled the air as the humans looked around for what was in the trash pile. Now that they could see it with their own eyes instead of through a computer screen, there were some brands that they recognized.

"Ayyy! That's an Adidas shoe! Wonder who threw it away, it looks perfectly fine!" Someone waded closer to check. "Holy shit, Joe, you're right? Do they have anything else?"

"I think this is... huh, a broken IPhone. Looks like an IPhone 7, but I don't think it's fixable anymore." The tech enthusiasts in the crowd winced. The state of that mangled brick was more painful to look at than falling down here.

More and more relics were dug up and placed back. They could see an old racing bike, a few broken computers, and funnily enough, empty anime cases with claw marks over them. Everyone knew who made them. The farther they got from the area where they fell, the more that they could see a training dummy ahead. It wouldn't be a surprise for Mad Dummy to pop out after a few of them go forward. Merg, eager to test that, sprinted ahead and was met with the sensation of his soul being pulled into the battle-box.

The dummy's expression changed from blank to enraged, vibrating quickly. It popped into the water with a splash, reappearing in front of Merg and the others.

Mad Dummy screeched, his voice echoing through the waterfall. "Hahaha... Too intimidated to fight me, huh!?" Merg rubbed the back of his head. "Well actually, we expected you to pop up. We didn't really bother interacting with you because of that."

"Wait, really?" The ghostly dummy looked to the crowd, which either seemed excited or bored at his reveal. No shock. "Well, in that case! You all must know why I'm here! My cousin used to live inside a dummy just like me, before you schmucks had to ruin that!"

He took in a deep breath. "You all scared him off! And that, that I don't like! Well then. Well then! WELL THEN!" Mad Dummy turned frontward with a snarl. "Humans! I'll wipe you away with the dainty handkerchief of vengance!"

Merg checked Mad Dummy as he was monologuing. 7 ATK and -40 DEF. Physical attacks won't work on him, so all they could do was stall for Napstablook to come in. Magic cotton fluffs spewed from miniature versions of himself, some of them hitting Mad Dummy. Merg had easily dodged them with his experience in the game, but a few still whizzed too close to his cyan soul.

"OWWWW, you DUMMIES! Watch where you're aiming your MAGIC attacks!" The cherry-headed player continued to dodge attacks as fluffballs rained from all sides, the crowd hyping him up. Jerome was busy playing the miniboss music for Mad Dummy, as well.

He kept sparing and sparing as Mad Dummy rambled on about his dreams of being on a storefront display. Cotton was now everywhere, hitting the dummy as he fought. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Dummies. Dummies! DUMMIES!" The mini-dummies seemed to be worried now. How that worked, Merg didn't know. "Remember how I said NOT to shoot at me? Well..." Mad Dummy began to flail around in anger. "FAILURES! YOU'RE FIRED! YOU'RE ALL BEING REPLACED!" The small dummies awkwardly shuffled out of the battle box, flying off in different directions. If players looked closely, they seemed... disappointed.

Maniacal laughter rang out from Mad Dummy. "Now you'll see my full power: Relying on people that aren't garbage!" Mechanical whirring filled the room, and metal rockets form the dummy bots began to home in on the cherry-headed monster. Merg still managed to dodge the attack, redirecting it. Mad Dummy was hit with even more of his own attacks, getting more and more agitated as time went on.

"Who cares. Who cares! WHO CARES!! I DON'T NEED FRIENDS!!! I'VE GOT KNIVES!!!" A single knife was thrown at Merg, who looked at the dummy with an "are you kidding" me face, then stepped out of the way and the knife harmlessly bonked itself on the ground. Jerome even had the audacity to stop the theme music and put in the echoey fart sound effect. Mad Dummy started to sweat. "I'm... out of knives. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER!!! YOU CAN'T HURT ME AND I CAN'T HURT YOU!!! YOU'LL BE STUCK FIGHTING ME... Forever. Forever! FOREVER!"

Someone from the crowd booed as Mad Dummy began to get so mad that his body began to violently separate and flail around. "BOOOOO! SANS DID IT BETTER!" "YEAH! HE DID!" It didn't matter. Mad Dummy was now uncontrollably laughing, looking as if he had a stroke. Suddenly, water droplets began to fall, making the hit sound. This could only mean...

"YOOO! It's Napstablook again!" The crowd rose in applause as Mad Dummy confusedly looked around. "Ergh! Acid rain!?! Oh, FORGET IT! I'm outta here!" And with that, the Mad Dummy flew away in a rage, Jerome playing that sliding sound effect as he launched himself to the ceiling. Napstablook materialized and took his place.

"... sorry, i interrupted you, didn't i?" Players began shouting their praises. "No! We would've been toast without you!" "Thank you for saving us!"

"o-oh. um... it's no problem? well... i'm going to head home now... oh... um... feel free to 'come with' if you want... but no pressure... i understand if you're bu-"

"Of course we have time to visit your house! We'd love to meet up with an old friend!" The crowd chimed in with various levels of agreement. Floating up ahead, Napstablook led them to a room with four pathways and a save star in the middle. "hey... my house is up here... in case you want to see..." He floated up, phasing into the house walls. People circled around the save star, this time summoning weird tube instrument things and banging them on the floor. Despite the disharmony, Frisk and Chara could still hear the rudimentary tune of Megalovania. they didn't know when the players would let that joke go, but here they were.

The chaos of the players and the new game ahead filled them with DETERMINATION.

Chapter Text

Waterfall had a reputation for being a calm place. Emphasis on the word "had".

The whole misconception was the reason why Napstablook and his cousins decided to reside in the damp and dreary place. It had the perfect spooky atmosphere, and it made the place really feel like home to the ghosts. Eventually, Hapstablook took on the mantle of being Mettaton and left for Hotland, where he quickly rose to popularity. His other cousins slowly moved out and inhabited training dummies as bodies, either moving to the Ruins or roaming Waterfall.

It was lonely now, with only himself inhabiting his house instead of his brother living next door. That loneliness was what led him to visit his cousin in the Ruins one day. What he didn't expect was the horde of humans and monsters crowded into the halls of the Ruins. They had known he was sleeping, and instead of moving him forcefully, decided to encourage him as he battled the human in front. They had unexpectedly showered him with gifts and teleported to his house to give them, stating that he had been their inspiration for making music.

That day was a good day. He had went to the ruins expecting to be alone, but met amazing people instead. Now, those amazing people were eager to hang out at his own house. The poor room couldn't handle all hundreds of players at one, so Napstablook, embarrassingly, had to make some people wait outside instead. They had brushed it off, saying that "it was fine" and that they could hear his music from outside. One of the humans wielded a boombox, and asked if he could play Napstablook's music. The ghost shyly agreed, and the sounds of Spookwave wafted through Waterfall.

"Hey, I like this one!" "It's really spooky! Fits the vibe, too!" Compliment after compliment kept pouring in, making the shy ghost blush from all the praise his music was receiving. Some of the players were happily racing snails against each other, skillfully egging on the snails at the perfect pace so that they could go quicker. Not too much praise, not too little, but enough. Napstablook felt like a snail being pelted with compliments at this point, and wanted nothing more but to stay still.

"hey... wanna lie on the ground and feel like garbage? it's... a bit too much for me to handle. do you want to join me?" A chorus of agreement rose up from the crowd, and Napstablook proceeded to lay down on his hardwood floor. "okay... follow my lead..."

And that's how a good portion of Waterfall's pathways were blocked by humans laying on the ground. Later on, some claimed to have unlocked the secrets of the universe just by doing that.

While most of the players were with Napstablook, others were scurrying around Waterfall, causing chaos. Someone figured out that teleportation bypassed locked doors and areas, leading to a series of break-ins. The first room, or rather house, to be broken into was Mettaton's house. Nobody really knew what to do with it except dump a ton of gifts on the floor, including copious amounts of journals and fanart of the ghostly machine himself. They had to admit, the home decor was very tasteful.

Next up on the break-in list was the basement in Sans and Papyrus' house. The theorists were the ones to plan this out, and easily breached the premises without alerting any of the skele-bros. To their excitement, the blueprints were indeed written in wingdings, and the machine underneath the tarp was similar to a heavily modified console from the 90's, like the ones they had in nuclear launch facilities. MatPat managed to snap a few photos of the blueprints for analysis before anything else happened. Unfortunately, they had heard the door open behind them and spun around, The small team of theorists were met by the surprised, then annoyed expression of Sans himself. They quickly teleported away after that.

What occurred next was a series of home invasions in Snowdin. The monsters were understandably taken off guard by the amount of people popping in and out of their houses just to say sorry and drop off gifts. The door-knocking guy was left very satisfied after tons of people began knocking continuously on his door as an apology for breaking in.

Other players had the great idea to just lay down in random places around Waterfall, sleeping on the grassy floor or just straight-up vibing on the stone outcroppings. Many monsters were left annoyed and confused by the inconvenience of random bodies blocking paths. It took several impromptu battles and water being splashed on various people for the message to get across, and so the players decided just to sleep in the less tight spaces.

However, the best idea came from Darlene herself. She gathered a small community of people from the main group, made them summon tons of baguettes and other bread-related products, and walked over to the small bird that carried people over a disproportionally small gap. The players didn't want to tire the bird since they could just wade over the water, so they avoided contact with them until now. Darlene and the players left the bird happily tweeting out as it jumped into a ridiculously large pile of bread crumbs, chowing down on its snack.

Sadly, all things must come to an end. The players had to get to Undyne sooner or later, and so they grouped back up and collectively said their goodbyes to Napstablook, leaving him back at his own house. They decided to take the path on the right, just so that they could stop at both Gerson's shop Temmie village. It wouldn't be that hard to walk over to the two places; in fact, Gerson's little shop was right around the corner. Above the stone doorway on the right was another unreadable sign, but the players needed no translation for what it stood for.

A small delegation of both human and monster players were sent in Gerson's shop while the others crowded behind them. The old snapping turtle turned around at the noise, and dropped his magnifying glass in shock.

There was a tense silence for a few seconds between both of the parties before one of the humans pulled out a warm packaged meal and placed it on the counter. "Uhhhh... I'm just going to... leave this here. I hope it's not too awkward for the both of-"

"No no, sonny, it's perfectly fine! I know that you're humans, it's just- I've never seen so many of them at peace with monsters!" Gerson barked out a dry-sounding laugh. "Undyne's already talked to me while sulking around. I don't know what you did to make her so conflicted, but she's been off lately 'bout something. Muttered something about it 'not being her fault'."

"We... apologize for what our ancestors have done in the past. You were in the war, right? Gerson, the Hammer of Justice?"

Another laugh. "Yes, that's me! They still teach about good ol' me up there in the surface? What did they have to say, huh?"

"Well, we're... not the usual humans. The ones back up there are completely oblivious about our existence. We're-" The player was cut off by Darlene strolling into the shop, carrying a huge cake. "Heya, Mr. Gerson! I'm a huge fan of yours; you're right behind Undyne!" She set the cake down on the counter, making herself comfortable right in front of the crowd. "And since she's given me a nasty gash on my face, I'm definitely going to get back on her for that. No cake for you, Undyne! How do you like that?" The little player giggled in mock maliciousness.

Gerson looked at the mango-flavored cake, then back to the kid. "You know what? I like your thinking! You remind me of little Undyne; she was just like you when she was smaller!"

"Oooh! Tell me! Tell me! What was she like?" The players gathered around her and the wizened old turtle, eager to hear his stories. They ended up staying far much longer than they anticipated, happily indulging in Gerson's recollections and the lore of the world around them.

Players bought loads of Sea Tea and Crab Apples from the shopkeeper, bidding him their reluctant farewells as they ventured on to the next room. The next area was a long hallway with the continuation of plaques talking about the nature of the barrier. The waterfalls that gave the area their fitting albeit unoriginal name lined up neatly, splashing water around the stone outcropping and drowning out the area in white noise. Jerome's boombox playing the tunes of Waterfall had to be turned up higher for it to actually be audible.

Players followed behind Frisk and Chara as the two paved the way for the others. The dark room at the end of the hall was illuminated only by sparse bioluminescent grass, glowing a steady blue. A squeaking noise rang out as Frisk walked up to a mushroom and tapped on it, lighting up another path.

This continued on for several more minutes, with the crowd awkwardly squished in a single-file line as the silent pacifist proceeded to work on the puzzle. The sudden shifting in noise and the encounter SFX blared out as a white silhouette rushed towards Frisk and sent their soul right into battle. Temmie vibrated much more than usual, absolutely overjoyed at the abundance of humans.

"hOI!! i'm TEMMIE!!" The crowd squealed at how adorable her squeaky voice was, and that adoration turned into confusion and slight horror as her legs began to extend and walk in order to trample Frisk. One of the players remarked that it wasn't the most cursed thing he had seen but it was up there on the list. Some other guy asked what exactly was the most cursed thing he had seen, and he just shuddered and said "Half Life speedrun".

Frisk fed the Temmie some Temmie Flakes, and spared the small cat-dog monster. With another "hoi!!", the small thing bounded away and scuttled out of view. The players, now extra eager to go to Temmie Village, encouraged them to hurry up and finish the puzzle. After tons of squeaking and a very hurried stampede of players, everybody was in the quaint Temmie Village.

Instantly, a floodgate of humans and monsters rushed forward the Temmies, giving them a series of head pats and hugs. The little dog-cat monsters vibrated from an overabundance of happiness, absolutely adoring how cute the humans were. People even wore gloves for that one Temmie that was allergic to humans.  Bob was taken to the sidelines since he initially declined the hugs, and instead was talking to several other humans about the rich history of Tem.

"You see, the mural on the wall symbolizes the beginning of the Temmies as a whole. Our founder, and first Temmie, was godlike in her powers. She had defeated a dragon all by herself and saved several monsters and humans from that dastardly beast." Bob took a deep breath and continued on. "Alas, when the monster-human war broke out, her love of humans made it so she was neutral during the war, only helping the monsters as a medic of sorts. And when the barrier was brought up... she disappeared."

MatPat was jotting down notes on the clipboard while Underlab recorded his conversation. "So fascinating! That would actually explain the Temmies' infatuation with humans and their similar appearance! It doesn't really account for their odd speech patterns, though. Is there an explanation for that?"

"Of course. The original Temmie could separate herself in a process similar to mitosis, creating clones of herself. However, these clones had a chunk of their intellect missing, and when those clones cloned themselves, the intellect only dwindled even further. The Temmies you see here are around the thirtieth or so generation of clones." Bob pointed to himself, anticipating their next question. "I myself differ from them because I am not a full Temmie. If I recall, my father was one of the dog monsters in Snowdin that died from old age after he had me."

"That would explain your heightened vocabulary, after all! Thank you for the interview!" Bob nodded politely, happy to talk to fellow intellectuals. "Any time, my friends."

Other players, including Frisk and Chara, were planning on visiting the Tem shop in order to help Temmie herself raise enough money for college. A small group was huddled in front of the shop, anticipating the small, adorable monster to pop up.

"hOI! welcom to... da TEM SHOP!" The crowd cheered, filling the air with several exclamations of "It's Temmie!" and "Take my money!". Overall, it was general chaos, people shoving bags of gold to the counter in order to pay for her college tuition. Instead of responding as usual, the cat-dog monster did something unexpected.

"Oh- uh... that was a joke, guys! I know you're players, alright?"

"Wait... you're... Temmie Chang? Artist for Undertale?" The apparently body-swapped Temmie rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Yeahhhh... It's kind of awkward having to go to college again. It'll be nice if you help out the actual Temmie that works here, though." She snapped her finger, the gold going back into her counter. "Looks like I'm stuck here maintaining the code with Toby. He's dropped here a few times panicking over the state of the reality distortions, but it's going to be fine."

Frisk and Chara didn't really know what to say to someone who was technically a creator deity in their world. The players awkwardly said their goodbyes and didn't bother her. They didn't want reality to collapse, after all.

While the players were frolicking around Temmie Village, Undyne was doing more important business. Her nerves were fried from her previous encounter with them and her argument with Papyrus.

I- I'm not in the wrong, right? She began to question if she was actually doing the right thing. I'm the hero! I've got to be, for the hopes and dreams of all the monsters in the Underground! But... why DID I attack those kids when there was no need to? The captain of the royal guard looked at her gauntlet-covered hands, clad in intimidating black and splattered with a few drops of blood from her first meeting with the humans. Why... why did I go so far?

She pushed those thoughts to the side. No. There's no more time to waste. I've got to report this to Asgore. Hastily splashing in some cool water to prepare for the journey ahead to the Capitol, she marched onwards toward Hotland, where she would normally avoid due to the sheer heat making her a fried fish. So, Undyne took off her armor and slipped it into her hammerspace. The lava surrounding her from all sides made her stomach churn in a csickly way, but she endured it and pushed on, completing the puzzles in her way. The laser puzzles were deactivated, courtesy of Alphys.

The thought of the cute lizard scientist made her blush. Undyne waved at the two guards she stationed near the She didn't think that her body could get more sweaty, but here she was, trekking through Hotland, into the MTT resort and then the CORE. Finally, the air conditioning of the resort hit her sweltering skin, and the captain couldn't help but let out a sigh in relief.

It took a few more minutes to dash throughout the core, careful not to slip and fall. Luckily, the railings installed made sure that nobody would fall in by accident. There used to be none, but they seemed to have popped in overnight. Undyne wondered who must have fallen in for them to be put in place. Must not be someone of importance.

Sprinting through the grey halls of New Home and Asgore's house, Undyne panted in exhaustion when she finally reached the door to the throne room, knocking on the doorway just to be polite.

A booming, gentle voice responded. "Come in!" The fish lady dragged her feet over to the room covered in greenery and golden buttercups, forcing herself to stand tall with a spear in hand in front of King Asgore himself.

"Your Majesty-" Asgore cut her off with a chuckle and a wave. "It's alright, Undyne. You've trained with me for years; you get to use my name, after all. No need for formalities."

Undyne looked at him with a tired expression, and continued on. "Asgore, there's been a problem. Humans."

"Haven't they always been a problem?" The bearded goat finally got the message, his shoulder slumped. "I guess it's finally time. One more soul to deal with."

"No. Not one more. Many more."

Asgore's head snapped up in a way that was shocking for a monster his age. "What?"

"You heard me, sir. There's multiple humans roaming the underground. Not just one." The king of the Underground, the leader of all monsters... looked lost. He hadn't anticipated this- hell, he didn't even anticipate that there was going to be a human on this fateful day.  The fact that there were multiple of them made him worry. Had they harmed his subjects? Did anything go wrong?

"Undyne, listen to me carefully and answer me. Did any of the monsters get hurt?" After a moment of silence, Undyne shook her head. "No, sir. In fact... it- it was the complete opposite." She looked down on her hands and the edge of her mouth twitched into a conflicted frown. "They've- they've been doing nothing but helping the denizens! Giving them hope! I- I don't understand!" She gestured to her spear. "Hell, I even stabbed a few of them! I don't know how they survived, but- but they didn't even try to attack me the next time! They just ran! There was hundreds of them, they could easily overpower me, but-"

Asgore's eyes widened in fear. "HUNDREDS?" Are you really sure?"

"They crowded the rooms in Waterfall! I'm SURE!"

This... this was something new. Asgore didn't know what exactly he could do to respond to this. On one hand, none of his citizens were hurt. On the other, hundreds of humans. There hadn't been that many since he faced them down in the war. They could easily defeat everyone if they tried. And there was the dilemma of getting the last human soul, as well. None of them would be willing to sacrifice their own kind for the barrier, he was sure of it. His job of picking a soul out of hundreds was something he didn't want to do.

For the first time in centuries, the King of the Monsters issued a warning to his people.

Chapter Text

The players had left Temmie village with mountains of Temmie Armor, a considerable dent in their savings and lots of Dog residue. Honestly, the players weren't sure of what to do anymore. Undyne was obviously up ahead, and Monster Kid would try to stop her, of course. Then there was the dilemma with the bridge scene. Nobody knew if they would be quick enough to save Monster Kid, and they wished that the worse-case scenario didn't happen.

Well, the faster they progressed through the underground, the more monsters they could save and the quicker the barrier could be broken. Leaving the Temmies behind, the crowd once again traversed through the bioluminescent grass. Most people were stumbling over the smallest of things in the darkness, unable to see where exactly they were going.

"Hey! Watch your step, bitch!"

"Well excuse me, I have to carry the backpack full of rations! It weighs more than your mother, which is saying something!"

The player huffed in mock outrage. "Of course you'd say that about my mother, Jen! Eat ass!"

Small, playful arguments like these popped up everywhere, filling the air with profanities, "your mother" jokes and laughter. It helped lessen the tension between the players after knowing that they would have to meet Undyne again.

Light faded in and out as the speedrunners and Frisk dashed ahead, trying to go past as many lights as possible. It was fortunate that the rapidly shifting light levels weren't quick enough to induce epileptic seizures, or else some of the more light-sensitive players would have suffered greatly. Players, when their body is damaged beyond comprehension or their mind is affected by any forces within the game world, are immediately ejected back out into the real world with little damage. The drawback was that they could not go in afterwards for a time period depending on the damage they sustained.

One of the people of Task Force Fishstick experienced this. The players were scared shitless, wondering if someone had died right in front of them, but the guy had popped up an hour later complaining of his real-life body being moderately sore. He was the slowest of the soldiers, and had more than twelve spears pierced right though his body at the time. Everyone unanimously agreed to be careful, despite their immortality.

Finally, the glowing-grass path faded into a hallway. The human players huddled together, while the monster players stayed in the back to check out the surroundings. A single echo flower was in the middle of the dead end.

It said only one thing. "Behind you."

Humans who turned to the flower quickly whipped around to be met by the sight of intimidating black armor. Undyne was even taller up close, but she was dwarfed by the sheer numbers of the players. If they wanted, they could easily sweep her up in a wave of bodies and tear her to shreds. For some reason, they didn't. Undyne was trembling, cursing herself for putting them in this situation with the advantage of numbers. The only thing that she could do now was monologue and take a wild shot into the crowd.

The captain of the royal guard took a step forward. then some more. "Seven. Seven human souls." She whipped out her electric-blue spear, and a few of the smaller humans whimpered, tucking themselves into the crowd further. "With the power of seven human souls, our king, King Asgore Dreemurr, will become a god. With that power... Asgore can finally shatter the barrier. He will finally take the surface back from humanity and give them back the suffering and pain that we have endured."

"Understand, humans?" It was awkwardly silent, with looks of either fear or awe shot at her. "This is your only chance at redemption. Give up one of your souls... or I'll tear it from your bodies."

And with that, Undyne launched herself forward, spear pointed at a nervous red-headed man. Just before she could properly pull his soul out, a rustle from the tall path of grass nearby was the only warning she had before Monster Kid flew in front of her. Her eyes widened behind the helmet. She was going way too fast to stop now, and if she hit him...

Just before Monster Kid could be hit with the brunt of killing intention, her target jumped forward in front of her path, and a meaty thud-schlick could be heard as her spear hit the skin of the man and lodged itself between his ribs.

"Wha- HUMAN! You're-"

"The guy only smiled, then coughed up some blood. "Don't worry. Immortal, remember? I'll be fine. You, on the other hand..." The small monster shook his head frantically, trying his best to avert his eyes from the wound. "It doesn't matter! That's gotta hurt!"

He stood up tall, shaking from the sheer nervousness at standing up to his hero. "Undyne! I- I won't let you hurt them!"

Undyne... didn't know what to do anymore. Her target was just... willing to die for their kind? And every human here was immortal? This- this needed to be thought over. She couldn't deal with them at the moment, but she could deal with the child. Grabbing Monster Kid as gently as she could, she dragged him back to safety. He squawked in surprise. "H-hey! You aren't gonna tell my parents about this, are you?"

She let out a huff. The time to think was later. It didn't matter if the humans were unkillable or not. Hell, it didn't matter if they managed to get through her. All she needed to do was get information on them and send it to Alphys, and she'll figure it out. She always did.

Oh Alphys . What would I do without you?

Everyone looked awkwardly at the spot where Undyne had stood, and back to the wounded player. Markiplier hadn't intended on taking a spear to the chest today, but he knew how life was. It was full of surprises. This surprise... not as pleasant, but at least he saved Monster Kid. Undyne had looked like she was going to hit him if Mark didn't step in.

That didn't matter now. He took out a duplicated slice of butterscotch cinnamon pie and crammed it in his mouth, the hole in his chest healing faster than anticipated. JackSepticEye, standing by his right, was hunched down looking at him with a worried expression. "Oi, Mark! You look like ya need a rest!"

"It's- hssssh - perfectly fine! Just- just a little hole! Nothing I can't handle!"

The players and youtubers around him gave him that look. "Mark, everyone can see the fucking hole in your chest. Settle down, move to the back, and heal. We'll go on the frontlines."

"No, no, it- agh, shit - it'll be fine. Don't worry, it's going to heal quickly. Don't want you guys to get hit."

"Markiplier, don't worry! We're strong enough!" "Yea, you should really rest! It'll be useless if you're gonna get hurt!" Markiplier, after lots of complaining, had to be dragged into the middle of the crowd so that he could be protected from all sides, despite the wound already being gone. The sores were still there, though. And so, the players took the next path to Undyne's final aggressive confrontation with them.

Thankfully, after wading in the water, they found the path lit with bioluminescent grass. And it wasn't a puzzle path, as well! That was a relief to Frisk and Chara. No more rushing to lampposts and back. That relief faded into silence as people were quickly reminded why Waterfall was considered to be one of the most beautiful places in the original game.

Miniature fireflies that looked like little golden stars floated throughout the air, their wings making little to no sound. The dark room was dotted with even more grass and the echo flowers, giving an ethereal vibes. The whispering of monsters filled the air as people strained to listen to what they said to the flowers, to no avail. Wading through the dark water canal, some echo flowers were sprouting in the path. People decided to give them a listen, despite knowing what they already said.

"... hmmm... if I say my wish... you promise you won't laugh at me?"" A reply was found in the next flower. "Of course I won't laugh!"

"Someday, I'd like to climb this mountain we're all buried under. Standing under the sky, looking at the world all around... that's my wish." Laughter soon followed after that, cut off and faded away. "... hey, you said you wouldn't laugh at it!"

"Sorry, it's just funny... That's my wish, too."

The conversation echoed throughout the chamber. There was no need for music, no need for talking. Just the silence alone was enough to hammer in what this meant for the humans. There were real, living people, living lives as best as they could. They all had their own hopes and dreams, and they wanted to break the barrier after centuries of imprisonment. It was so, so much more different in person than through a computer screen.

Ahead, a plaque shone a ghostly blue, detailing the prophecy. The players made a right turn, and stopped. A precarious, thin wooden bridge connected one side to the other, and nobody wanted to go use it.

"Hey, we'll just... teleport across?" Someone suggested, "No. Definitely not. Monster Kid's gonna fall, and someone's gotta be there to catch the dude."

"Well, why not... let Frisk pass! They can go with a smaller group of light people!"

And so, the rest of the players teleported to the edge on the opposing side. It made a few people topple over and nearly fall off into the stone chasm below, but quick action from the others made sure that they didn't fall in. No need for unnecessary pain, after all. Frisk took a tentative step on the small bridge, scared what would happen if they were to add too much weight onto the flimsy wood.

Chara egged them on. "Come on, scaredy cat! You've faced Sans before, and heights is what you're afraid of? Come on!" Frisk took another step, not looking down but at the players ahead.

When the genderless pacifist was about to finally cross the bridge, it finally happened. Monster Kid's voice rang out through the place, and a chill went down everyone's spine. Oh no.

"Yo! Wait for me!" His taloned feet pattered on the wooden bridge, and Frisk rushed back to the middle where he was. "I know I'm not supposed to be here, but... I've got to thank you for saving my life. I've been told to hate humans, but..." He shifted to his side, looking at the crowd. "I just can't do it. I'm going to have to pretend, alright? I- I hope that's alright with you." With that, he turned around. "I'm.. gonna go home now."

Sprinting from where he was, Monster Kid tripped exactly where he was supposed to. "Yo, w-wait! Help!" Frisk was already scrambling to help him, but the creaking of the bridge made them trip themselves, almost falling the same way Monster Kid did. They dashed forward, grabbing his sweater in time as he let go of the bridge's edge. The sound of heavy footsteps ahead made Frisk remember Undyne, an they prayed to whatever deity was out there that she didn't attack any of the players while they were distracted. Their waist slipped from the wooden edge for a bit.

No. No no no no no- They hadn't ever fallen at this point before; well, on purpose at least. They had flung themselves down there out of boredom one time, and they knew that all that was down there was stone. They had fallen to their death just for entertainment. This time, it was much too risky for them to reset. Would the players even be there next reset? 

Frisk suddenly felt strong hands grip their sweater, pulling them and Monster Kid up with tremendous force. Looking up, they could see the faces of several players, all panicked and worried.

"Hang on!" "You're almost there, stay determined!" "Keep on pulling, guys!"

Within a few seconds, the bodies of both Monster Kid and Frisk were finally hauled onto the bridge, and onto the other side as quick as possible. Undyne had backed off onto the other cliff face, unwilling to step forward. Chara actually looked scared for the first time in what seemed like forever, now wanting Frisk to die that sort of death.

Monster Kid, recovered from his slip and near death experience, huffed out a breath as he stood in between Undyne and the humans. "Yo, dude! If... if y- you wanna hurt my friends... You're going to have to get through me, first." Undyne looked at him, then backed off slowly, slinking into the shadows with surprising stealth for a monster of her stature.

"She's gone... Yo, you really saved my skin- and twice, too! I-" He looked back at the humans. "Man... I should REALLY go home... My parents must be worried sick about me!" With a final goodbye, Monster Kid carefully made his way across the bridge and jogged away once he was back on solid land.

A single question from a player broke the silence. "He really was some kid, huh?"

Frisk looked at where their friend had disappeared off to. They signed back. "Yeah, yeah he was."

It was time. Undyne would meet them for one last battle on the miniature mountain ahead, and choose one of them to properly chase and kill. The players all had the same idea: teleport to the end of the chase sequence in Hotland, and leave Frisk with some of the strongest and quickest of humans so that Undyne's focus would be on them.

While hundreds of players ported away to the lava-filled area, Frisk was left with their ghostly pal and a few other players that wanted to stay behind and face the captain's wrath along with them. Merg, the cherry-headed man from before, was eagerly stretching and preparing for a quick sprint. It would be unlikely that Undyne would choose him to fight, but it wouldn't hurt to overprepare. Next to him, Jakei was grumbling about something unrelated as he twirled a pen in his Hands. Frisk didn't know why the players were a bit conflicted around him and Camila, but they chalked it up to the usual human infighting.

While there were a few other notable people, the more surprising addition was the shark-girl from before, wielding the shimmering blue trident in one of her hands. Her thick shark tail seemed cumbersome, flopping on the stone floor as she waddled along with her human legs. Gawr Gura, descendant of Atlantis and mistress of the seas, didn't look like she earned the title. Not yet, anyway.

Shuffling ahead, the small group crossed another small bridge leading up to a miniature mountain. The players chuckled, finding it funny that there existed a mountain within a mountain. Mountain-ception, if you will. They turned to the left, craning their heads to look at Undyne, facing away from them.

"Seven. Seven human souls, and King Asgore will become a god." She turned to the side, looking over at the residential area of Waterfall, as if watching over the people of the Underground. "Six. That's how many we've collected thus far. Understand?" Undyne finally turned around, her stygian black armor gleaming against the crystal-dotted cavern ceiling. Gura span her trident and tapped it on the ground, her eyes gleaming. Frisk finally got the message: she would be the one facing her off.

"Through one of your seventh and final souls, this world will be transformed. First, however, as is customary for those who make it this far... I shall tell you the tragic tale of our people. It all started, long ago..." Undyne peered at the humans and monsters, then changed her mind. "No. You know what? SCREW IT! WHY SHOULD I TELL THAT STORY... WHEN ALL YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!?!" Her gauntleted hands wrapped around her helmet, throwing it off with a resounding "CLANG" as she screamed into the air.

Undyne's appearance definitely changed people's ideas on her. For one, she looked more piranha-like than shark-like contrary to what the fandom thought. A glowing yellow eye blazed as it regarded the group below them, and her red hair whipped in the wind. If the players looked closely, they could see three sets of gills on each side of her neck, a dark velvet color that blended in with the dark.

"YOU! You're all standing in the way of everybody's hopes and dreams! Alphys' history books made me think humans were cool... with their giant robots and flowery swordswomen." Someone in the small group yelped in protest, complaining that they were not flowery and in fact very badass, thank you very much! With that, the terrifyingly robed swordsman pulled out a ridiculously large sword, an amalgamation of feathers, flesh and metal that seemed to radiate destruction. Undyne could only stare in horror as the player continued to ramble on about how hard it was to obtain, cutting off her speech.

"Do you KNOW how hard it is to obtain Twilight here without dying? I had to break into Facility X-394, sneak past ALL the fucking guards, and break out the three birds! And that's not even getting into how they tried to kill me, too! It took a fucking MONTH to plan this out and properly execute it, and this isn't even the best armor in Lobotomy Corporation!" The ranting player was stopped by a hand to his shoulder.

"Hey dude, I know you like to brag about your grinding, but we're in the middle of something here?" She gestured to Undyne. "We've got to focus on this, alright?" Reluctantly, the swordsman dematerialized Twilight and muttered about "damn ALPEHs". Undyne re-composed herself and tried to forget that had happened. She had a sinking feeling that she'd bitten off more than she could chew.

"But YOU? You all are a bunch of cowards! Not even fighting back! And that's not even counting your wimpy goody-two-shoes-schtick!" She mockingly raised her voice to a smarmy falsetto. "Oooh! I'm making such a difference by hugging random strangers!"

"Hey, hey hey! Hugging is absolutely better than what some of the other fuckers are doing! I swear, at least half of Snowdin's houses are filled with gifts after the break-in fiasco!" "The WHAT?" The player slapped a hand over their face and sighed. "Dammit."

"You know what would be more valuable to everyone? IF YOU WERE DEAD!!! That's right, humans! Your continued existence is a crime! Your life is all that stands between us and freedom!"

"Well, technically, the barrier is, but-" Undyne cut the player off. "Right now, I can feel everyone's hearts pounding together! Everyone's been waiting their whole lives for this moment! But we're not nervous at all." The captain of the royal guard pounded her chest, the armor clanging together. "When everyone puts their hearts together, they can't lose! Now, humans, let's end this, right here, right now! Send up a delegation! I'll show how determined monsters can be! Step forwards when you're ready!" She chuckled, and summoned up a spear.

Frisk knew there was no time for the funny save star dances this time. They held out their hand over the save star and filled themselves with determination, then tapped on Gawr Gura's shoulder. The shark girl nodded, and stepped forward to Undyne, raising her fist and shouting. "I'm ready! I, Gawr Gura, descendant of Atlantis, challenge you!"

"That's it, then! No more running away!" As the fish woman plunged forwards to meet the VTuber, the rest of the players backed away and began to sprint to the destination. "HERE I COME!!!!"

Gawr Gura's soul shone a deep, indigo hue as she was slapped into the small battle box. Undyne swiped at her with the spear, turning her soul a verdant green and anchoring her in place. "En guarde!"

The spears flew at her from all sides. What she did next was definitely unexpected: Gura threw the spear Undyne summoned in her hand and replaced it with her own small trident, spinning it around in quick, rhythmic circles. The spears were easily deflected onto the ground around her as the captain felt the cool water on her neck rise in anticipation.

"As long as you're GREEN, you can't escape! Unless you learn to face danger head-on... You won't last a SECOND against me, pipsqueak!"

The shark-human hybrid only chuckled at that. Her small giggles evolved in full-blown laughs after she heard the threat. Undyne was offended by that, demanding to know what the human was thinking. "WHAT!? WHAT'S SO FUNNY ABOUT GETTING THRASHED, HUMAN!?"

Gawr Gura wiped the tears from her ocean-blue eyes, composing herself. 'I-I'm sorry, it's just..." She raised her tail up, and the trident in her hands crackled with power as it grew to twice her body size. Undyne's eyes boggled as she saw the tidal wave rise above the small humanoid. "I find it funny that you decided to fight an ocean deity near water!"

Oh crap oh crap oh crap-

Undyne was currently spitting out the water that splashed onto her face. The huge wave had crashed directly into her, stunning her for a moment and breaking her concentration on the player. While she was distracted, Gura had already jumped out of the battle box, surfing on the aftermath of the wave towards Hotland. She wouldn't do so well there; in fact, she theorized that her body would react worse to the lack of water and sweltering heat  than Undyne's  would. That didn't matter; all that did was getting her down and helping her back up.

Hopping of the summoned surfboard, Gura sprinted as quick as she could (which wasn't a lot) towards the hall. The sign reading "Welcome to Hotland" scrolled on the metal display to her left when suddenly, her phone rang. Picking it up, she was met with Papyrus's voice. "HEY! WHAT'S UP!? I WAS JUST THINKING... ALL OF YOU AND UNDYNE PLAN ON RECONCILING, RIGHT? WE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME! I THINK, DESPITE YOUR DIFFERENCES, YOU AND UNDYNE WILL ALL GET ALONG!"

"Yes, yes, Papyrus, but maybe later? She's chasing me at the moment, and- YIP! I don't wanna get caught!"

"OH ALRIGHT HUMAN! SEE YOU LATER!" And with that, Papyrus hang up the same time as Undyne picked her up by the scruff of her hoodie, tossing her and her soul back into the battle box. "YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD GET AWAY, HUH!? Well GUESS WHAT!?" Another swipe of that damn spear, and Gawr Gura was trapped again. This time, she could feel the temperature rising. "I'M NOT MAKING ANY EXCEPTIONS TO... WHATEVER YOU ARE! ALL I KNOW IS THAT YOU HAVE A HUMAN SOUL, AND WE NEED IT!!!"

Her trident once again flickered, this time weaker. The spears went a bit too close to her small body as she tried her best to block them while sluggishly moving in the heat. Another small splash of water in the face left Undyne sputtering, and Gura once again scurried away.

Sprinting away from Undyne and past a sleeping Sans in his guard station, the shark-girl was left out of breath right behind the bridge, where Undyne could catch up. Both of them were teetering precariously form the heat emitted by the lava, and couldn't properly fight. Still, Undyne managed to trap her in the battle box, and Gura was hit by a few of the spears. Luckily, they too seemed to be weak, only grazing her soft skin.

Finally pulling herself out of battle and onto the other side, Gawr Gura was left crawling to the crowd nearby from the heat. The players huddled around the water station rushed forward in a hurry, spilling water on both Gura and Undyne as an attempt to wake them up. It didn't work; the both of them were knocked out cold and rapidly sweating.

"GUYS! WE GOT A CODE RED!" The hundreds of players rushed forward, careful not to fall in the lava. Lifting both Gura and Undyne, they headed back to Waterfall.

Undyne woke up passed out in the middle of one of the puddles in Waterfall. Holy hell, her armor felt sooo relaxing, for some odd reason.

The cool air of Waterfall brushed past her as she stood up, taking in her surroundings. Looks like she must have stayed up late with Alphys watching anime again, and decided to go dumpster-diving. It was embarrassing that the captain of the royal guard was sleeping on the job. That was something only Sans did, not her! She shuddered to think of how he would react if he found out. Probably a lot of puns, especially about "sleeping with the fishes".

She decided to go back to her house. It wasn't far, after all. And she had the craziest dream, too! That she had found not one, not ten, but hundreds of humans in the Underground and chased them off! And that they had weird powers, for some reason. She laughed at herself. Really, multiple humans? That was unheard of.

Marching up towards the three-road intersection, she stopped at the one in front of her house. Huh, that was odd. Why was there so much chatter? Did Aaron invite his friends over again?

Undyne was greeted with the sight of hundreds of humans meandering around her house with Papyrus, either eating snacks or chatting with each other. One by one, they awkwardly stopped and turned around to see her.

There was only one explanation. "God dammit, Papyrus!"

Chapter Text

The players awkwardly watched as Undyne seethed and tried to calm herself down; Papyrus had an unusually sour look on his face as he eyed his friend, subtly placing himself between her and the large crowd in front of her house.

"UNDYNE." She visibly flinched at the almost-angry tone that graced her ears. "DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF LIKE LAST TIME?"

"ALRIGHT, alright." Undyne de-summoned the spear pointed at the humans behind the tall skeleton. "But you know VERY WELL that we gotta deal with them in some way! I already told Asgore about them, and I'll be damned if I let down the hopes and dreams of everyone here!"

"I'M NOT TELLING YOU TO DO THAT, UNDYNE. BESIDES, THE HUMANS... THEY'RE NOT REALLY THE HUMANS WE'RE AFTER."

"WHADDYA MEAN!? THEY'RE-"

Some brave idiot from the crowd behind Papyrus piped up. "Actually, yeah, uhhhh... That... isn't the case?"

She scrunched up her face in bewilderment. "EH??? I'M PRETTY SURE YOU'RE EITHER BLIND OR LYING, AND I'M NOT SURE WHICH IS WORSE!"

"No, no... here, lemme show you." The vest-wearing human proceeded to snap his fingers. Nothing happened for a while, and the only sound was the distant wooshing of the wind.

"Wh- what was that supposed to achieve???" Undyne was still highly confused and wondered if all the humans here were either brain-damaged, insane, or a combination of both.

"Just wait for it." The wooshing became louder.

"I don't really see wha- OH MY GOD!" People around the poor guy leapt out of the way as a heavy iron anvil landed on his head and proceeded to crush him onto the stone floor. Instead of his soul popping out of his body (which usually happened when humans died abruptly), the blood caking the surface around him evaporated and the guy stood up, seemingly oblivious to the mess around him.

"Yeah. That's it." The fish-lady's jaw was on the ground, gasping for breath like, well, a fish. "We're... all immortal? Like we said before?"

"WELL YEAH, NO SHIT! I THOUGHT YOU GUYS WERE LYING!" The players around Undyne seemed to take offense to that. "Why would we lie to you about that???" "You literally saw our guts get rearranged last time we met?"

Unable to take the sheer chaos around her, Undyne did what she did best. "NGAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

It took a ridiculously long amount of time for her to calm down, mostly due to how grossly incompetent most of the players were in leaving the characters alone when they needed to. The whole thing was like when kindergarten teachers try to calm down toddlers during playtime, or when store employees try to get shoppers to stay in line during Black Friday. So basically, it was sheer pandemonium.

Papyrus was the one holding all the people together. With his loud voice, Frisk's oddly good skills in leadership and Jerome's boombox, the players managed to form a decent amount of space around Undyne to really explain what was going on.

"So..." Undyne heaved a sigh of exhaustion. "What you're saying is... I can't kill you. Or take your souls."

"Uh huh." "Yup." "That's definitely right."

"And... We're all stuck here." Her shoulders sagged as she realized monsterkind's fate. "It's- This- this makes all of my efforts useless. We can't see the surface again? Truly..." Her scaled hands raked over her hair. "I can't- But I promised to-"

The Captain of the Royal Guard, one of the strongest monsters in the Underground... squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her teeth, and took a shaky breath. Everybody's hopes, everybody's dreams... They'd all have to be delayed for another hundred years? Were they truly damned?

Would they ever get to see the surface?

Undyne felt a soft hand on her shoulder. It was small, barely the size of her own fist; she looked up to see a human child in a purple and blue striped sweater. it... was oddly comforting, to see them there, like she'd met them before. A sense of deja-vu, perhaps.

Their small hands drew back as they signed to her. Don't worry. We have a plan.

"What can you really do, huh?" The fish lady held back a sob. Don't cry in front of them, don't cry in front of them, dont-

We're here to help. The barrier will be broken. The small kid furrowed their brow in determination. We promise.

"How do you know? WHAT MAKES YOU THINK WE HAVEN'T TRIED!?" Undyne, half-mad at the realization that she had failed, pulled Frisk's soul right into battle as the players either darted back or reached out to help them. "YOU JUST WANT TO SEE US TRAPPED, LIKE ALL THE OTHER HUMANS!"

"Wait! Undyne!" "We'll explain, just-"

"SHUT UP! JUST- JUST HIT ME ALREADY, PUNK!" She threw a spear at Frisk's foot, nearly hitting them. If she really wanted to kill them, she could. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered. Undyne closed her eyes as the human wound up their fist and hit her.

-1

The battle faded out as Undyne registered the weak hit.

"UNDYNE!" Papyrus rushed to her side, despite her sustaining only a small scratch in her skin. Smaller than a papercut, the wound was barely felt by the captain as she looked back at Frisk. "UNDYNE, ARE YOU OK?!"

"I'm fine, ya dolt. Just... You really don't hate me, huh?" The genderless protagonist nodded intensely, stepping closer. "You can't even muster the intent to kill me. Heh."

"That's what we were trying to say!" "We DO know how to break the barrier, Undyne! We've got magic!" Undyne let out a hiss. "So. You're all fuckin' mages! You think you're so much better than us!"

"No! We're BETTER than those shitty mages!" The humans summoned their own weapons, the crowd becoming a sea of oversized swords, scythes wreathed in auras, and miscellaneous niche weapons. "And we promise all the monsters 'll see the sky again!" A cheer erupted, the ragtag group of players raising their weapons in the air. Undyne wasn't sure if she could be surprised anymore, but lo and behold they proved her wrong. With that power, they could've wiped us all out in hours- no, minutes! And... She looked at the crowd, their eager eyes all focused on her. They used it to give me hope? To give us hope?

"Heh..." The captain of the royal guard chuckled. It gradually grew into a full-on laugh as she clutched her abdomen, addressing the players.

"What can I do now? You're all much more powerful than me, and right now, I'm sure I could've been wiped out." She dropped her armor back into her inventory, meeting the eyes of hundreds of players crowded around her house. "Guess I can't capture you now. What are you going to do, take me hostage like you did with Papyrus?"

People began murmuring. "Well, if that'll stop you from attacking us... I guess we'll do that, then!"

It was settled then. The players had added another person to their "hostage" list, and they'd have to settle with that. Fortunately for Undyne, the players wanted to explain their powers to her to keep her worries at ease.

"You're saying that this is a game to you?"

"Well, yeas, but also no. Your universe is just one of the many in the multiverse, and we're connected to you by the game. Just... here, let me explain." MatPat pulled out a few sheets of paper from his inventory, and made them float on top of each other in midair. "Your universe is on one of the bottom papers, like a... dot! Yeah, like a dot in a sea of dots, connected by lines. That's your multiverse!"

With that, the papers were filled with dots connected by lines. The theorist pointed to the paper on the top. "Our universe is on one of those dots in the top, and we usually wouldn't be able to access yours. However..." He pulled out a pen, and punched a hole down to the third paper. "We're able to interact with you because of the naturally-occurring anomalies in our world. Presto! You've got interdimensional travel!"

Undyne hummed in though as she walked to Snowdin with the group. They had decided that Waterfall was way too crowded to "hang out" in, and wanted her to experience the "epic gamer experience". What they meant by that, she didn't know. "What was supposed to happen then? In the game?"

Another player beside her popped up, eager to answer. "Oooo! Oooo! I know!" They skipped alongside her as she crossed from the cold stone of waterfall to the even colder snow of Snowdin. "You were supposed to have a cooking lesson with Frisk! They're the protagonist, you know! You'd make them tea, cook spaghetti with them after Papyrus jumps out the window, burn down your house..."

"Wait WHAT"

"Yeah! It has a cool cutscene and all that! We didn't want to burn down your house so we already planned for you to have the lesson back at Snowdin instead, and..."

"Hold up, slow down! I BURN down my house???"

The TV-headed child (were they human? monster? Undyne couldn't tell) cocked their head quizzically. "Uhhh... you turned up the heat too high on the stove?"

Too busy contemplating the meaning of life and how small she seemed in the grand scale of the multiverse, Undyne could only make one comment.  "Remind me to replace that thing once I'm not a hostage anymore." "Sure!"

The crowd reached a clearing in one of the more isolated parts of Snowdin, at the outskirts of the city. From there, there were rows of foldable tables already set up, each one of them with a portable stove, pots and pans, and cooking utensils. Undyne and Papyrus were placed at one of the tables, and the players filed in, filling the tables around them. Undyne spotted a familiar face lazing about the edge of the group.

"SANS!?! YOU'RE HERE!?" The shorter skeleton winked at her, giving a small wave. "yeah. papyrus made me come. these guys throw some banger parties."

"You're VERY lucky I'm a hostage now , or I would've fired you on the spot."

"you wouldn't." His stupid grin was still plastered on his face.

"Yeas I WOULD!"

"nope." Sans resumed to chugging his ketchup as Undyne pouted next to Papyrus, who patted her back. "THERE, THERE. I KNOW, HE INFURIATES ME TOO."

The tables were now filled to the brim with players donning aprons of all sizes and colors. Most of them were plain or patterned, but some had the usual "Kiss the cook". Others had offbrand MasterChef logos and nameplates, and others just didn't bother with the aprons. Undyne and Papyrus were handed plain aprons in their respective colors, blue and orange. 

In front of everyone stood a sturdy wooden table. A player must have summoned it in, as it had a build-in stove, an oven, and a ridiculously tall pile of materials on the side. Behind the desk was a small collection of players, two of them being the same ones who helped back Toriel's signature butterscotch cinnamon pie. Rosanna Pansino, one of the best chefs in the crowd, decided to call for a little backup; the air around her became snowy with static as a stern man in a white uniform stepped up to the plate.

"HOLY SHIT ITS GORDON RAMSAY!" "Oh god we're going to die aren't we..."

The British chef and cook extraordinaire raised his fist in the air. "Now, are you idiot sandwiches ready to learn to cook the best damn food in the world!?"

Undyne watched in awe as the normally dysfunctional crowd of players yelled "YES CHEF!" in sync, standing at attention just as good as her best-trained guards. Whoever this "Gordon Ramsay" is, he's really respected on the surface! As Head Chef Ramsay barked out instructions on how to make the best damn chorizo omelettes, the players summoned the chorizo sausages, eggs, onions as they chopped away on the wooden boards.

Papyrus, on the other hand, was being guided by the players beside him, a green-haired guy and a chicken monster, both wearing glasses. His lessons with Undyne were much more... enthusiastic, yes, but he knew how to tone it down a notch. It was difficult cutting the ingredients as quick as the chefs in the front, so his new friends gave some pointers.

"Hey, try rocking the knife back and forth on the edge instead of up and down?" The enthusiastic skeleton shifted his grip on the knife, doing exactly what the guy beside him was showing. "It really helps with speeding up the process, and you're less likely to cut your fingers if you put your fingers- uhhh... finger bones?"

"MY DISTAL PHALANGES?" The chicken blinked. "Yeah, those. Sorry, not good with anatomy."

"NO PROBLEMO! IT'S NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL; NOT MANY MONSTERS KNOW OUR PARTS AS WELL!"

Besides Papyrus, Undyne was sprinkling salt and pepper into the mixture, copying the humans in the front as best as possible. Unsure of how much olive oil was needed, she just popped off the cap and was about to pour the whole thing in when she was interrupted by a panicked player on the side. "Woah, woah! Hey there!" The white dog from before held up a teaspoon and wiggled the bottle out of Undyne's grip, carefully pouring it into the measuring equipment. "Only a teaspoon! We don't want an oily omelette, eh?"

Undyne pouted. "But where's the passion? The fighting spirit!?" Cheems took a bit of butter on the side, plopping it into both her mixture and Undyne's. "Ey, it's not always that way! You can't just rush into battle, right?"

"But-" "No 'but's, Undyne. You gotta do a lot of planning. Cooking's like fighting for you, right?" Undyne, still salty from being cut off, just nodded. "Well. You gotta prepare the ingredients with care. Passion's great and all, but with prep? You gotta take your time, gotta make sure you know all about the enemy before ya fight them." The monster-like player dumped the mixture into her already-hot pan, gently tossing the veggies and meat with the rest of the players on the sidelines as the air filled with the sound of sizzling. A beautifully savory scent wafted from the area all throughout Snowdin, and some monsters sat nearby the cooking congregation, mouths watering from the human food.

In some rows, the players who burnt their vegetables either restarted or "revived" the ingredients, determined to get it right. It took a while for the first parts of the omelette to be finished, but soon, a ton of bowls were filled to the brim with savory meat and caramelized onions. Gordon summoned some parsley, shouting at the players to add some to the finished filling. The clinking of spoons against bowls sounded out as players stirred their mixture.

"Alright, butter on the pans again!" The ever-familiar sizzling started up again as players cracked their eggs into the bowl. "Four to five eggs! This is a LARGE recipe, so we're eating a meal, get it!?"

Papyrus quickly sprinkled in salt and pepper within his egg mix, with a touch of butter and olive oil according to the British chef's instruction. "Let's go, let's go! I've got to check out Hyrule later for it's cuisine on 'Gordon's Great Escape' in the next hour or so!"

The players muttered among themselves at this. "They've already improved the transport system? And Gordon Ramsay plays Breath of the Wild???"

Eggs were poured into pans and swished around with vigor as the players shook, both from anticipation and the cold weather. "Let's get going! Put your filling in the center so you can fold it better! Season the inside!"

Pans clanged as they were set down on the table, and omlettes were folded gently as the players chattered about. Papyrus was ecstatic as Undyne took a begrudging bite out of the egg. Her eyes shot open, and she shoveled as much of it in her mouth as possible, almost choking in the process. "Holy shit Papyrus! This is the best thing I've ever cooked!" Papyrus decided to try and sample a bite of his own, and his nonexistent eyes bulged.

"WOWEE! YOU'RE RIGHT, UNDYNE!" Cheers erupted from Sans and the players as they realized that he finally cooked edible food that wasn't some form of pasta.

Gordon Ramsay, tight on his ridiculously crowded schedule, bid the audience a quick goodbye as he faded back into reality. The players duplicated as many chorizo omlettes as possible, sharing it with those who were either too young to cook or just chilled on the sidelines.

"SO, UNDYNE... WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE HUMANS NOW?"

The captain of the royal guard, former hater of humans, grinned with a maw full of sharp teeth. "I'm beginning to see what you like about 'em!"

The aftermath of the impromptu cooking class with the Captain of the Royal Guard would become a widely known tale in Snowdin in a matter of minutes. The extra omlettes were given to the residents in tupperware as the players readied themselves to go to Hotland. They had to free the residents of the Underground, after all.

"Hey, we're heading over to the lab, Undyne! Got anything you want us to do?" Undyne, who was busy hanging out with Papyrus in front of his house and admiring all of the gifts the players piled on her (she really loved the anime sword replicas, especially the one of the Dragon Slayer's sword from Berserk), looked back. They're going to Hotland? But that means...

"You know what? Yeah, I do actually need you to do something! Mind giving this letter to the royal scientist?" She drew a white envelope from underneath her jacket and handed it to Frisk, eye fixed on the crowd. "You'll recognize her immediately. Yellow lizard wearing a labcoat with the cute- I mean, with the glasses?"

One of the players in front sighed. "Undyne, you do realize we know you in the videogame, right?"

"Yeah, what's that supposed to mean!?"

"Like, we know everything about you?" Undyne scratched the back of her head. "Kinda creepy, but I don't get the point-"

"We know about your crush on Alphys."

A single twitch from her good eye. The poor guy in the front was lifted from his jacket and tossed into a neaby snow poff with a violent "NGAAAAAHHH!"

Chapter Text

It was surprisingly easy to get back from Snowdin to Hotland in a matter of minutes. The key to it all was the Riverperson.

Frisk was beginning to like riding on someone else's shoulders. Their journeys throughout the Underground got easier and easier once they reset more and more, but it was surprisingly spacious for a place that was, well, underground. Currently, they were perched on the shoulders of one buff blue wolf with a title that made it seem like Asgore named him. Super Eyepatch Wolf assured Chara that yes, his name was completely fine for a Youtube channel, and that yes, he actually had over a million subscribers.

"Are you suuuure of it?" Chara floated around in a circle around the buff furry as he grumbled. "I did not go here just to be insulted by a fucking murder-toddler."

Currently, the players were crowded around the small river that connected almost all of the Underground's main habitats, pacing around and generally making a ruckus as they talked amongst themselves. Not long after, the splashing of water heralded the ever vigilant Riverperson, their dog-shaped canoe running on the water. The sound of excited voices became louder and louder.

"Ayyy! It's the Riverperson!" Jerome made sure to turn off his jukebox to mimic the silence that came with the Riverperson's usual appearance, taking in the sloshing sounds of the dog-boat. "how's it going?"

"The man who speaks in hands is pretty chill, you know! Don't know why you said we should 'beware'..."

More and more people sent their regards to the cloaked monster, and some were bold enough to try to look up into their hood. Sadly, the same game logic that hid their face did it's job well, and the disappointed theorists backed off in surrender. Instead, the players just summoned gifts and fanart for the Riverperson, who seemed slightly flustered under their cloak. They took all of the memorabilia in their shadowy hands (which looked a tad bit like dog paws crossed with human fingers), placing it under their cloak.

"Tra la la. Care for a ride, little one?" The Riverperson motioned to their boat, being patted by several players on it's mahogany head while wagging it's tail joyfully. "There is room for one only."

Frisk nodded, sliding off the back of the blue wolf player and gently stepping onto the boat as it rocked side to side. They looked back to the players, who waved at them and Chara. "No worries, we'll catch up to you! Teleporting's easy, anyway!"

Riverperson nodded, and the boat raised itself, sprinting to the east, where Hotland was.

Riding on the Riverperson's boat was always one of the more interesting things that happened in whatever timeline Frisk and Chara were in. They couldn't access them at all during Genocide, but the few neutral and pacifist run encounters with them were odd, to say the least. Not only did the cloaked monster know about Gaster, they also seemed to be aware of all the resets but didn't acknowledge them. Every time Frisk took a shortcut on their boat, they would have something new to say in the middle of their ride.

"Tra la la." Chara shifted onto their stomach as they floated, wondering what the Riverperson would say next. "The second chapter of their journey has arrived."

Chara was just as confused as Frisk at the Riverperson's comment. "What?" It didn't seem like they were talking about the determined duo. But what exactly did it mean?

The air around them got warmer and warmer, the blue walls becoming coated in condensation from the heat. Panting, the dog-boat slowed down to the outcropping ahead, where a bunch of players were either sitting down patiently or standing up, trying to see where Frisk and Chara were. Lots of pointing and shouting happened when they saw the protagonist in the distance.

Frisk stepped down from the boat into the gravelly soil of the dock. "Come again some time. Tra la la." And with that, the Riverperson stood on the sidelines, watching the players get up and prepare for the journey ahead. Gawr Gura waded into the water next to them, unwilling to go back into the heat and suffer another bout of fainting.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be waiting here with the Riverperson for anyone who needs a lift!"

"So, how exactly are we going to get past the guards on the front? They're out looking for us, remember?" Jerome was slouched over on the side of the crowd, looking across the crowded platform.

"No worry, just... uhhh..." Jake was slapped over the head by his twin sister Jen, slightly annoyed at his stupidity. "Ya dolt. Unlike you, I know it's not going to be a problem."

"What do you mean, it's not a problem!? more than half of us are human!"

Jen grinned, taking control of the microphone for a while. "They don't know what humans look like, remember? They're only looking for people with striped shirts!"

"Ohhhh, oh yeah." "Good point." "If that's the thing, alright."

Players rushed forward into the reddish-brown environment. de-summoning the jackets they wore for Waterfall and Snowdin. Some commented that they felt "right at home" with the heat, chattering amongst themselves about their homes in Florida, Texas and Australia. Others popped ice packs or cool towels into existence, wrapping them around their bodies to get some reprieve from the heat.

Cheems was one of the mammalian monster players who made herself a makeshift ice vest, panting from the heat. "Wait, if we're literally only a few feet away from lava, how are we even alive? Isn't the air hot enough to fry us to a crisp?"

Underlab, comfortable with the heat due to his reptilian cold-blooded anatomy, scratched his chin. "I'm guessing this is an effect of the residual magic left over by the monsters living here. Also, we're right next to Waterfall. Maybe the magic kinda seeps over and lowers the temperature into a habitable range."

The dog monster shivered in discomfort. "Eugh. No wonder it's so hot; if we weren't players, we'd be toast."

One of the monster players, a Grillby lookalike, canonballed himself straight into the lava below, splashing a bit of the lava onto other players.

"Watch where you're- wait, it doesn't hurt?" The same player who was splashed, a catgirl wearing all black and a band t-shirt, sat herself on the edge and slid down, plopping into the lava. "Holy shit, lava doesn't hurt us!"

Some of the more adventurous players jumped immediately into the not-so-dangerous-anymore lava. "Yo, what does it feel like?"

"Kind of like- mac and cheese? The warm kind? Although it's a bit uncomfortably warm..."

"What do you mean!?" Markiplier, who was floating on the lava, swam closer to the edge of the cliff face. "It feels like beans! Baked beans!"

More players began to argue about the exact feeling of the lava, temporarily forgetting about who they were supposed to meet next until Frisk began walking the path to the Lab by themselves and Chara, being followed by the shyer players.

Alphys didn't know how to feel. On one hand, ANIME WAS REAL!!! She couldn't believe it; the human "history" she picked up at the dump was actually more accurate than she thought, wasn't it? But on the other hand, there were too many humans for her or Mettaton to deal with. Far too many humans.

She'd watched them for a decently long time, but couldn't properly see their faces or features. The camera quality always dropped whenever they were around. She could only see the human with the blue-purple striped sweater clearly for some reason, and they seemed heart-wrenchingly familiar. Why are they so familiar?

There was a small noise on the other side of the lab hallway, one that sounded like... the door opening? And footsteps? The sounds got louder and louder until they were halfway across the room, to which Alphys stepped outside of the door she was in and...

Oh. Oh my god.

So many humans! And there were monsters, too! A good amount of them were out of breath and dripping lava, and Alphys' mind blanked as she realized that they must have fallen in and didn't get hurt, something that was impossible for humans and most monsters.

The light flicked on, and the small army was face-to-face with her. "Oh. My god." She spun around, looking around her messy lab. Why didn't she clean up earlier! Oh no, this was a mess!

"I didn't expect you to show up so soon! I haven't showered, I'm barely dressed, it's all messy, and..."

"Hell yeah, it's Alphys!" "Holy hell, we get to actually meet her! Doctor, I'm such a fan of yours!" "it's her! It's really her!"

Praises and exclamations of joy filled the air as the crowd formed around her, randomly setting down gifts such as anime figurines, manga and... dear god was that fanart of her? The lizard blushed and covered her face in embarrassment, stuttering out an "o-oh" as her head blanked once again.

Focus, Alphys! You're Asgore's royal scientist! You've got to get your head in the game!

"A-alright! It seems you know me, uh, and you're really, really glad to see me? I'm not one of the "bad guys", I swear-"

One of the players piped up. "We know! Great job hiding the cameras by the way, we couldn't find all of them!"

"Wait you know about them what what what-"

Jacksepticeye stepped forward, careful not to freak her out. "Yeah. Sorry if we're a bit, uh... unsettling? But we're just here because we gotta explain to you how we're here."

"Oh my god I'm so sorry it must be so embarrasing-" Alphys was still stuttering and nervous from all of the players and the fact that they saw right through her hidden surveillance.

Just before the charismatic Irishman could further calm her down, the wall made a clang sound. Knowing who exactly was going to show up, the players huddled back into the formation as the sound of Mettaton approaching got louder.

"Did- did you hear something?" The royal scientist cocked her head to the side. The metallic clanging god louder and more frequent, stopping right outside the pale green lab walls.

Under her breath, Alphys muttered. "Oh no, not now-"

"OHHHH YES!" The wall between them bust open with a crash! as the lights abruptly cut out. "WELCOME, BEAUTIES..."

A drumroll sounded out in the dark, then the spotlight landed on Mettaton's boxy form. "...TO TODAY'S QUIZ SHOW!

Someone in the crowd quirked an eyebrow at the reveal. "Huh, he really does have a skull on his screen."

The music started up from the speakers in the lab, canned cheering filling the room as dim lights and disco balls lit up the room. The "Game Show" sign hung from the ceiling with sturdy steel wires, swinging back and forth from being dropped down so quickly.

Mettaton looked to Alphys, then to the pile of gifts she had, then to the large crowd (which was actually cheering and clapping enough to overpower the recording). "HUH. WELL, DOCTOR, YOU CAN SET YOUR PRIZE ASIDE FOR NOW. CHOP CHOP!"

Alphys hurried to the side, panting as she carried the humongous pile of anime and merch to the top section of her lab. "NOW, ON WITH THE SHOW! I CAN ALREADY TELL IT'S GONNA BE A GREAT SHOW!"

A large stagelight fell on the crowd, highlighting all the human and monster players within it. "EVERYONE GIVE A BIG HAND FOR OUR WONDERFUL CONTESTANTS!" The green-haired human, who was at the front, did a small bow as the players whooped and hollered at the prospect of being on TV.

"NEVER PLAYED BEFORE, GOREGOUS?" Mettaton stuck the microphone in his hand towards Jack. "Yup! Top of the mornin', lads! My name's Jacksepticeye, and we're the ones who'll break the barrier!"

"HOW AMBITIOUS! BUT LET'S GET STRAIGHT TO THE POINT!" And with that, the youtuber's soul was pulled into battle, shining with a fittingly green hue.

Jack, already knowing the robot's stats, instead opted to spare them on the first term. A screen dropped in the middle of the fight, displaying the question, "What's the prize for answering correctly?"

"D, more questions!"

"RIGHT! SOUNDS LIKE YOU GET IT!" Mettaton waved the flashcard in his hand as congratulations. Instead of progressing onto the next question, his soul was ejected back out of battle as another player was pulled in, this time a messy-haired guy with an orange soul. "AND WHAT IS YOUR NAME, CONTESTANT?"

"Just call me XQC."

"FANTASTIC!" The new question flashed on the screen. "What's the king's full name?"

To make it seem believable, the streamer paused for a moment, then pressed C. "Asgore Dreemur".

"CORRECT! NEXT HUMAN!" Again, XQC was pushed out with a surprised yelp as a random player was pulled in. This time, it was someone people recognized. "Hey, it's Darlene!"

"MY OH MY! IT LOOKS LIKE THIS HUMAN HAS A BIT OF FIRE IN HER!" The blonde was currently chewing on some wires to fix a drone, awkwardly eyeing the audience. "Uhhhh..."

"ENOUGH ABOUT YOU. LET'S TALK ABOUT ME!" The screen changed into the next question, "What are robots made of?" Darlene, still a bit off-put from the fact she was literally shoved into the spotlight, stopped the drone maintenance to answer the question. "B. Metal and magic."

"I MAY HAVE MADE THAT ONE A BIT TOO EASY, HUH?" Darlene, instead of being booted off, stayed for the next question. Wait, isn't the next one-

"Two trains, Train A and Train B, simultaneously depart Station A and Station B. Station A and Station B are 252.5 miles apart from each other. Train A is moving at 124.7 mph towards Station B, and Train B is moving at 253.5 mph towards station A. If both trains depart at 10:00AM and it is now 10:08, how much longer until both trains pass each other?"

Darlene blinked, and turned her sight beside Mettaton. Shit. Alphys wasn't there, and she couldn't just talk to the players behind her. Summoning up a paper, she did as much as she could in 20 seconds.

Ok, Station A is there, and Station B is there... The timer ticked on as the crowd was tense. No, not that, it would mean dividing both of those miles per hour by sixty, then multiplying by eight minutes....

"TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK! THE CLOCK IS RUNNING!" Mettaton tapped his wrist to pantomime a watch.

Fuck, what did dad teach me again? Draw a number line to visualize it, subtract A and B from the miles apart to get the time they'll cross each other, then subtract that time with 10:08... convert into minutes by multiplying 60...

"FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO-"

"D! 32.058 minutes!" Darlene shook her hand, trying to get rid of the cramp.

"ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING, FOLKS! LET'S SEE IF THE NEXT CONTESTANT IS JUST AS BRILLIANT!" The player let out a sigh as she was put back into the crowd, tired from the rapid-fire calculation.

This time, the scarf-waring youtuber was drawn from the lot, his red soul doing little circles in the battle box. Mettaton gestured towards him. "AND WHAT IS YOUR NAME, DARLING?"

"Manly."

"STRAIGHT TO THE POINT, EH? LET'S SEE YOU SOLVE THIS NEXT QUESTION!" The screen flashed, and Mettaton held up a jar of flies. "How many flies are in this jar?"

Without Alphys to help him, this question would be impossible. Bracing for a shock, ManlyBadassHero took a wild guess. "Uhhh... C? 55 flies?"

A torrent of electricity hit him as his hitpoints dropped down to fifteen. "SO CLOSE! ONLY ONE OFF! I'LL LET YOU HAVE THE NEXT QUESTION AS A COMPENSATION!" Again, the screen flashed to reveal 1/4th of a Froggit along with the question, "What monster is this?"

Manly knew about this trick. "D. It's you, Mettaton."

"I'M SO FLATTERED YOU REMEMBERED! NOW," Mettaton threw his soul back into his body, propelling him into the crowd. "THIS QUESTION IS FOR ALL OF THE CONTESTANTS!"

The screen changed to the next question. "Would you smooch a ghost?" The crowd was a mixed bag, but most of them cheered on with a "HECK YEAH!"

"GREAT ANSWER! I LOVE IT!!!" Mettaton threw another soul into the fray, which coincidentally happened to be Frisk. "How many letters in the name Mettatonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-"

They signed their answer before it could get even longer. "C. 59."

"OF COURSE THAT WAS EASY FOR YOU! NOW, TIME TO BREAK OUT THE BIG GUNS!!" Frisk stepped out of the battle box to be replaced by the last player, a cat-girl wearing a baby blue hoodie. As her cyan soul appeared, Alphys shuffled down just in time to see the new question. "Oh! Oh! I know this one!!! It's snail ice cream! In the fourth chapter everyone goes to the beach!"

Everyone awkwardly stares as Alphys as she continues to ramble on and on about Mew Mew Kissy Cutie. "Ummm... Alphys?" The cute catgirl tapped her shoulder, making her snap out of it and stutter.

"ALPHYS, ALPHYS, ALPHYS. YOU AREN'T HELPING OUT THIS CONTESTANT, ARE YOU?" The royal scientist was nervously grinning, shaking her head. "OOOOOOOH!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME. I'LL ASK A QUESTION YOU'LL BE SURE TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO!" Alphys was now full-on biting her nails and shaking her hands to say "no".

Of course, Candy took it as an opportunity to hook the royal scientist up. Shifting her patient soul up to choice A, she proudly announced her answer. "Why, it's gotta be Undyne!"

The crowd behind her chimed in agreement. Alphys was now vibrating and blushing a strong scarlet color. Mettaton smugly turned to her. "SEE, ALPHYS? I TOLD YOU IT WAS OBVIOUS. EVEN SHE FIGURED IT OUT!"

"YES, SHE SCRAWLS HER NAME IN THE MARGINS OF HER NOTES. SHE NAMES PROGRAMMING VARIABLES AFTER HER." Players felt like kids in a cafeteria looking at a prom proposal, oooing in approval and interest.

"SHE EVEN WRITES STORIES OF THEM TOGETHER... SHARING A DOMESTIC LIFE." A few of the players congratulated the fellow fanfiction writer, while other let out fake scandalized gasps. "How lewd! Just as raunchy as hand-holding!"

Mettaton turned to the camera in front. "PROBABILITY OF CRUSH: 101%. MARGIN OF ERROR: 1%."

"Yo, wouldn't it be easier to just say a 100% probability and no margin of error?"

"Don't question it, Joe."

The glamorous robot straightened up, and the screen in the middle of the room retracted upward. "WELL WELL WELL. WITH DR. ALPHYS HELPING YOU..." He gestured to her. "THE SHOW HAS NO DRAMATIC TENSION! WE CAN'T GO ON LIKE THIS!!"

"BUT. BUT!!! THIS WAS JUST THE PILOT EPISODE!" He posed for the audience, and if the players strained their hearing, they could hear the cheering of monsters from throughout the underground. "NEXT UP, MORE DRAMA!!! MORE ROMANCE!!! MORE BLOODSHED!!! UNTIL NEXT TIME, DARLINGS...!" With that, Mettaton's limbs folded inward, and he blasted off into the air, destroying the roof of the lab in the process.

Some players were hit by the debris, but quickly recovered. Mettaton's debut was exciting, yes, but he sure as hell was a pain in the ass during his non-battle sequences.

Alphys was still in the middle of the lab. "Well that was certainly something." She was still a bit shaken up from the encounter, and especially from the last question. The players resumed directing their attention to her, brushing themselves off and trying to explain who exactly they were.

"As you can see, we're a pretty diverse group, and you might be wondering-"

"yo the last royal scientist was bangin', you're doing great tho"

"Dimensional travel is real, and we're proof of that!"

Jerome's boombox screeched with Chara's voice telling them to calm down. They immediately quieted, much to Alphys' confusion, and tried to make things orderly once again. It took a while to get Alphys on track and understanding what exactly they were going on about, but they managed to make the explanation work.

"You're saying you all have the power to just... change reality? And that I'm famous back in your world?" The yellow lizard looked like she was about to faint at the revalation.

"That's a gross oversimplification, and we can't do a few things because of the universe's limitations, but yes!"

Alphys curled in on herself, not wanting to continue. "If I'm a character in a videogame that you know, then you'll know everything about me, and you all know about that, and, and..." She broke down sobbing. The players tried their best to calm her down, giving her space and providing the best kind of consolation they could.

"Hey, you tried your best, and we're here for you, alright?" One player patted her shoulder as she kept on crying. "If it makes you any happier, we know for sure you and Undyne hook up when you get to the surface."

"B-but, I'm- I'm-" A player beside the both of them shushed her. "You're not a failure, and you sure as hell aren't trash. You didn't get the title of royal scientist for nothing."

More and more affirmations poured in until Alphys' calmed down into a more managable state, sniffling into her labcoat. "That's it, keep on going. You're doing amazing, you know that?"

"Y-yeah. Just- just a bit tired. Guess my plan with Mettaton isn't going to work." The royal scientist chuckled, still unsatisfied with the outcome. "I haven't even informed him about... this."

One player looked at the gaping hole in the lab wall, deep in thought. "You might... not have to change anything about the plan.”

Chapter Text

The deal was set: Alphys would continue helping them along and playing the role of a good guy, while the players would send different people for each performance Mettaton threw at them. It was kind of creepy that the players knew everything about her, from the Amalgamates to every step of her previous plan, but that didn't matter now. They had to move on, to fight the robot entertainer and beat him at his own game.

Frisk waited in the bottom floor of the lab, swinging their feet up and down as they sat on the computer desk full of papers. Around them, players meandered around as they too were patient, wanting to see how the royal scientist would upgrade the protagonist's flip phone.

Several whirring noises, a drill, and a... chainsaw? Dear god, was that a scream? Well, whatever the case, the noises came from the right of the lab as the lizard woman rushed to and fro, modifying the phone like there was no tomorrow. At last, she wiped her brow, and skittered back into the crowd, handing Frisk the phone.

“Alright! It finally has texting, and items and a key chain…” Alphys rambled on and on about the specs of the newly-updated phone, as the tech enthusiasts scrambled to write down as much as they could on notebooks, scraps of paper and anything they summoned.

”Yo, how’d you manage to get a jet pack in there?” One of the players gestured to the phone. Frisk tapped their phone’s screen, and it’s form expanded into a miniature panel. They were ever-familiar with the click and whir of the miniature engine built into the surprisingly sleek design. How exactly that worked still eluded them after many, many resets.

”Well, it’s really interesting, yeah, uh…” Alphys unrolled a blueprint within the pocket of her lab coat that had looked bigger on the inside. “Most- much of the new tech that’s made for research purposes needs a lot of hardware to account for all of the calculations, files and programs. So, uhm… we use spacial magic!”

A guy with a Linus Tech Tips shirt and a notebook messily filled in chicken scratch blinked. “Wait, that exists? Isn’t it, well, hard to perform that kind of magic?” People around him nodded. “You’re literally bending space itself to do that.”

”N-no, no! Spacial magic may be kinda, maybe sorta, difficult to pull off, but it’s like- it’s, well…” Alphys rolled in a green chalkboard filled to the brim with mathematical equations, wiping it down messily with her lab coat sleeves to clear the board. “Different types of magic, to us, are like… uhhh-subjects! Like math, english, science- well, you get the point. Spacial magic is like taking advanced calculus, or theoretical physics! It requires high brainpower and planning ahead to know how exactly to fold space and not mess with reality.”

The lore enthusiasts drilled over the new knowledge, practically ripping their paper with how fast their pens and pencils flew across the notebooks. “Aha!” Someone shouted, finally making a connection. “So that’s how Sans gets around so fast!”

”Holy shit you’re right!”

”Why didn’t I think of that before! Of course he’d be able to do it, he works with her; dammit, I’m such an idiot…”

”W-wait, how did you- oh, uh, um, right. You’re players. You know every- everything.”

After a miniature magic lesson from Alphys and a fuck ton of conversations, the players had to be pried away from staying there even longer by Chara. Their head was beginning to spin from the amount of techno-babble that was spewed out.

Alphys couldn’t really use the “bathroom” excuse anymore. She straight up explained that yes, the amalgamates had to be fed and that the players were more likely to stress them out than help, so she had to go alone. A few of the players lamented that they couldn’t get to visit the goopy monsters (“There’s a dog-pile over there! A literal dog made out of other dogs!” Joe had shouted, bemoaning the missed opportunity of petting Endogeny).

Mountains of instant noodles and fan art were stacked next to Alphys’ messy desk. Chara swears that every time the players visit one of the monsters, their gifts keep on growing and growing.

Everyone except the players from hotter climates complained about the heat as they went outside of the lab, some jumping back into the lava to quickly traverse the areas without puzzle-solving. Funnily enough, Alphys didn’t update her phone every few steps that Frisk took. Chara hummed in interest, noting how this was different, but in a good way. “I’ve always hated that notification sound.” Frisk, slightly tired of Chara’s sarcastic remarks, decided to pull a joke that they were taught by one of the players.

”Ok boomer”

”Wh- Frisk! I’m NOT a boomer! I died when I was like, ten, and even If you were going off how old I am, I’m MUCH older than-

“Ok boomer”

”FRIIIISK! They’re a bad influence! Stop!”

The players, seeing a way to capitalize off the chaos, began to join in. “Oi, Chara, remember to take your old person pills!” “Yeah, lemme help you across the street!”

Chara could only groan in exhaustion. This was going to be a loooooong walk.

Along their path to the CORE, the players met a Vulkin or two that wanted to get huggy with Frisk. Problem was, it was difficult to hug someone spewing out lava, and the players had to step in as mediators. Their lava invulnerability helped a lot, and many of them described hugging the Vulkins as “like hugging a really cozy rock”.

The pipes below them hissed as some arcs of blue flame spewed out from the side. Conveyor belts were much more fun when they were going at fifteen miles per hour, and more than once the players either slipped onto their ass from the speed or went another round to feel the wind cool their skin.

A save star glistened in the distance, and Frisk rushed up to meet it. They hadn’t saved for a while, and it always made them skittish. No longer scared half to death or incredibly tense, the players began to do what they did best. One of them, a plain-looking office worker, materialized a white shirt, khaki pants and the sleekest loafers he could find. The rest of the save star cult followed suit.

Chara, knowing it was best not to question the players lest it lead to more questions, did so anyway. “What… exactly are you doing?”

The office worker turned to her, twining his hands together and placing them at chest level. “We had to do it to ‘em.” The rest of the group followed suit, grinning like divorced, middle-aged real estate salesmen.

”That- that doesn’t even answer my question???”

”We had to do it to ‘em!” The group echoed his simple yet confusing sentiment, further perplexing Chara as Frisk saved. A round of applause bloomed from the save-star cult.

Everyone followed the determined child and their ghostly companion, trailing them like ducklings. Small islands and vents dotted the landscape as lava bubbled beneath their feet, while Jerome’s boombox played the haunting, electronic soundtrack of the Core.

Merg was the first one to try the vents, rushing north and jumping onto the clearly-marked arrow. A whoosh! of air shot him up into the air, where he remained for a few seconds before quickly falling onto the next island, striking the iconic Iron-Man landing pose.

Players at the front went wild, whooping and hollering at the epic move as others rushed to try out the vents. One of the YouTubers, a man with slicked-aside hair and a grin on. His face bolted to the right instead, but was met with a large white object flying by him and nearly hitting his arm. 8-BitRyan was pulled into a battle as the ever-shy Tsunderplane circled around him, whipping the wind into a frenzy.

Ryan pulled up the menu, choosing to act and edged near the plane monster. “Eeeeh? H-human?” The bow on their head twitched as Ryan dodged their dives, only grazing the green magic coating their body. People were around him, cheering him on as he lunged left and right to avoid the barrage of wing strikes. It didn’t take long for him to spare Tsunderplane and roll back out of the battle.

Players were occupied with the air vents now, using them to launch themselves into the air and fall back down into platforms. “You know,” some guy joked, after taking a dive into the lava. “The vents, they’re like those big trampolines in backyards.”

”Oh my god, don’t remind me. I keep seeing compilations of them flying off into the wind on Youtube.” Hearing this, one of the more monster-like players had an idea. Spreading their feathered wing-arms, they rocketed into the air, gliding around the area while flapping.

”Wait, holy shit, we can fly?” “Well, yeah, now that I think of it, we’re players. We can do anything, right?”

With that confirmation, levitating or winged players soon dotted the cramped airspace, circling the area or scouting ahead for Frisk and Chara. The now-pacifistic duo had reached an island within the lava with one of the most important healing items in-game. Picking up the burnt pan, they were surrounded by curious monsters and humans.

”Pan? Burnt pan?” Someone poked the cast-iron cooking utensil, hissing from the unexpected warmth. The players quickly copied the item and slipped it into their inventories, while Darlene took a few practice swings at the air. “Not bad. A bit hefty; definitely unbalanced, but gives a good wallop.”

”This is a pacifist run, dumbass.”

The players dashed through the upcoming puzzles with relative ease. The hall of blue and orange lasers put them off at first, as they were much more spread-out in comparison to what was hinted in the game. Alphys had called Frisk, explaining the function of the lasers, but the players beat her to the call.

Merg was in competition with one of the flyers, after a bet against who would reach the off switch faster. The cherry-headed man dashed into the fray, halting himself whenever a blue laser phased into him. The rainbow-winged player was surprisingly slower, their wings struggled to cross the horizontal distance, and they crashed into one of the blue lasers, hissing as it clipped their arm. The speedrunner had to drag them up from their fall and bring them towards the end, sighing in relief as the switch clicked into place.

”Try not to get hurt again, alright?” He patted the now-sheepish player on the back. “Guess having wings doesn’t mean you know how to use them…”

Chara and Frisk leisurely strolled ahead, grateful they didn’t have to do the puzzle. The small shock of the laser hurt, especially for small children like them. The vents ahead were arranged in a cross, to which Darlene snickered and whispered something into one of the other player’s ears. They scoffed, giving her a slight whack on the head. “Not every cross-shaped thing is Madness Combat, dumbass.”

“Amogus.” The player raised a finger to counter, but thought for a second. “You make a good point.”

Two of the players stepped forward to complete the shooting puzzle. The plain-looking human with a lab coat and a black shirt went to the vent on the right, while another Frisk went with the robotic one on the left, the one who looked like a Megaman villain. The rest stayed behind and crowded at the door like high school freshmen minutes before class ends.

The player introduced him as DJ Cutman, the scissor-like blades on his head snapping open and shut in agreement. (“So that’s who he is!” Chara shouted, facepalming at their own stupidity. Of course they forgot the name of a villain who could’ve been named by their dad.) Frisk’s phone rung again, Alphys shutting off the blue laser in their way. “T-that should do it!”

Cutman greeted the two high-schoolers in sailor uniforms with a slight wave. The green flame monster perked up. “Finally! The laser’s off! We can finally… uh…” She looked over to the horned monster next to her, who was fidgeting disinterestedly with her red skateboard. “You won’t get on our case fro skipping, right?”

”Nah. Just don’t do it again.” The player waved his hand in dismissal. “School’s important, but you might wanna skip today.”

The schoolgirl blinked, a bit surprised that he didn’t tell them off. “Um, what’s…?”

Cutman gestured to the crowded vent intersection behind them. “Humans. They’re gonna be on Mettaton’s show soon.”

”Wait, really? Holy smokes, we gotta see this!” DJ Cutman winced as he saw them pull out painfully outdated Nokia phones with 114p resolution and stellar sound quality.

”Wait, wait wait. You can’t just use those old hunks of junk.” The player pulled out sleek models of the newest iPhones, shoving them into the hands of the star-struck monsters. “Here. It’s the latest stuff on the surface; I don’t know if its configured to the Undernet but it’ll be much better than those dinosaurs.”

Leaving the two monsters to gush over their phones, Cutman went into the puzzle room, flipping the switches on the control panel below to move the boxes above. After methodically solving the first part, he tapped on the button, seeing the yellow arrow light up and hit the white indicator after two bolts.

Rumbling sounded from behind them, the central door opening dramatically. A small cheer erupted from the crowd as players tried to squeeze into the gaps or teleport past.

”There. That should do it.” Frisk signed “congratulations” to the robot, who only blinked in confusion but took it as a good thing.

The players bunny-hopped onto the consecutive vents as others floated above them. Frisk’s feet touched the linoleum floor as they were gently set down by a winged, orange pony. When asked why they were there instead of the My Little Pony universe, the player with Scootaloo’s appearance blushed and told them to shush.

People crowded around the heavily darkened room, stumbling as they crashed into each other. Alphys’ ringtone blared somewhere in the dark, and Frisk picked up. “H-hey, it’s kind of dark in there, isn’t it?”

Just as planned. She was on script, and Mettaton didn’t suspect a thing. “Don’t worry! I’ll hack into the light system and brighten it up!”

As lights flickered on, people blinked to adjust to the sudden change. Huh. The cooking show set was definitely bigger than normal. There were even more tables with ingredients set up.

”Oh no.”

Mettaton slowly rose up from the head table, a chef’s hat perched on his boxy frame. “OHHHH YES! WELCOME, BEAUTIES, TO THE UNDERGROUND’S PREMIER COOKING SHOW!” The neon signs above them flared into life with some glitter, reading “Cooking with a Killer Robot”.

The host waved his arm, shouting(?) into the microphone with definite vigor. Chara blinked. He’s definitely more lively than before. “PRE-HEAT YOUR OVENS, BECAUSE WE’VE GOT A VERY SPECIAL RECIPE FOR YOU TODAY! WE’RE GOING TO BE MAKING…”

Mettaton gestured excitedly to the eggs, flour and milk on his counter as the players stood behind their stations, definitely confused at the new layout. “A CAKE!” They waved their arm to Frisk, who backed off from all the attention.

”OH? A BIT CAMERA-SHY?” Mechanical laughter echoed throughout the studio. “NO WORRIES! WHO WOULD LIKE TO VOLUNTEER?” Now it was Frisk’s turn to be taken aback. Usually, Mettaton wouldn’t take no for an answer. Maybe it was because he had more humans to choose from?

Whatever the case was, two humans raised their hands in the group. The man and woman were wearing matching aprons, grinning like they had won the jackpot. “We’ll do it!”

”LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE OUT LOVELY ASSISTANTS! COME ON UP!” The duo jogged over to the front, high-giving and overall having a good time. “NOW, WHAT ARE YOUR NAMES?”

“This is Jimmy, and I’m Ashley! We’re Feast of Fiction, and we recreate food from animes, video games, and cartoons!” Mettaton only seemed to light up even more as he realized that he had actual professional chefs at his disposal.

”WELL, COLOR ME SURPRISED! WE’VE GOT SOME SEASONED VETERANS HERE! I’M HONORED.” He gave a curt bow in respect.

”No need for that. Now, what cake are we making?” Jimmy clapped his hands, eager for a challenge. “NORMALLY, I WOULD BE MAKING A SINGLE SOUL-INFUSED CAKE, BUT THAT’S OUT OF THE PICTURE NOW.” The chefs became even more bewildered. “WE’LL INSTEAD BE MAKING MULTIPLE OF THEM!” Mettaton lurched upwards, pulling a comically large chainsaw from behind himself as the players backed away. Wait, he’s not supposed to do this yet! We were supposed to get the ingredients first!

The robot was about to swing at Ashley with the blade until a buzzing noise came from his general direction. “HELLO…? I’M KIND OF IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING HERE.”

”W-wait a second!” Alphys’ voice rang throughout the studio, the microphones catching it clearly. “Can’t you make a- couldn’t you use a substitution in the recipe?”

”…A SUBSTITUTION? YOU MEAN, USE A DIFFERENT, NON-HUMAN INGREDIENT?” The robot lowered his chainsaw. “…WHY?”

”Uhhh, what if someone’s- I’m… vegan?”

”YOU’RE... VEGAN?” He seemed floored by this revelation, a bit too on-the nose with his performance. Even the cooks seemed to wince at how awkward the delivery was.

”THAT’S A BRILLIANT IDEA, ALPHYS! I HAPPEN TO HAVE AN OPTION RIGHT HERE!” The music started up again as Mettaton excitedly waved towards the camera. “MTT-BRAND ALWAYS-CONVENIENT HUMAN-SOUL-FLAVOR-SUBSTITUTE!”

”Wow, that sure is a tongue twister.”

“THE CAN’S RIGHT OVER THERE!” Cameras pinned to the ceiling swung right, where a single red can conspicuously sat on a suspiciously empty counter. “WELL, DARLINGS? WHY DON’T YOU GO GET IT?”

Both Ashley and Jimmy tentatively stepped forward, waiting for the can to rocket up in the air. They inched closer and closer, their hands almost reaching the counter when it happened. Jimmy yanked his arm back right before the counter exploded upward into a tower. “Holy shit!”

”LANGUAGE! THIS IS A KID-FRIENDLY SHOW!” Mettaton got up from behind the counter and rolled over beside the two.

”BY THE WAY, OUR SHOW RUNS ON A STRICT SCHEDULE. IF YOU CAN’T GET THE CAN IN THE NEXT ONE MINUTE, WE’LL JUST HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE ORIGINAL PLAN!”

Jimmy was nervously passing now, muttering under his breath. “Oh my god, we can’t fly well enough, how are we gonna-“ Ashley jumped up next to him, her arm in the air. “Mettaton! Can the other contestants help us as well!”

He seemed to mull the idea over for a second. “SURE! WHY NOT? AFTER ALL, THIS’LL MAKE FOR GREAT ACTION!”

A grin split across her face as Jimmy’s face brightened in realization. “Well? What are we waiting for?” She gestured over to the players, who were already getting up in anticipation. “Let’s do this!”

Someone dressed in a hard hat and goggles pulled out a small plate of metal and threw it below their feet. It clicked and whirred to life, expanding until it looked more of like the previous vents in their journey across Hotland, but with a cyan-blue glow. “Here! Took a bit of time to build this up, but it’ll give ya a good boost!”

Ashley hopped onto the vent and yelped as it rocketed her up into the air about one-fourth of the tower’s height. Even Mettaton seemed taken aback at how quickly she managed to make it, and couldn’t react as Jimmy followed behind. The rainbow-winged player from before took the vent as well, flaring their wings outward at the zenith and throwing the two players further up.

Someone below decided to take an alternate route, putting on heavy black boots and blasting the floor with a rocket launcher to gain altitude. “Whoever gets there first gets the first slice!”

At this, more players either decided to help the cooks or bring themselves up through conventional means. The sound of jetpacks, lasers, and shouting filled the air as a miniature battle royale was waged in the airspace. Mettaton could only watch in amazement as the players duked it out, taking out his microphone and attempting to provide a hilariously fast-paced commentary.

”IT LOOKS LIKE ASHLEY IS IN THE LEAD, BUT OH! CONTESTANT NUMBER 45 IS GOING HAND-TO-HAND WITH NUMBER 37! OH, WAIT, NO, THAT’S A GUN. AND 106 SEEMS TO BE USING A JETPACK MADE UP OF ONLY SODA BOTTLES AND MENTOS, ISN’T THAT A SUPRISE!” The robot winced as an explosion ripped through the air and more chaotic laughter came from the fray. “I DON’T KNOW HOW MICROWAVES CAN DO THAT, BUT I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.”

Frisk and Chara were still on the ground with Mettaton, who was definitely too distracted to continue the show. Frisk signed to their partner. “You think he’s gonna like the ratings?”

Chara rolled their eyes. “Knowing the Underground, I’m saying that this’ll be a big hit. Trust me.”

It took a while, but Ashley managed to get on top of the counter, pulling Jimmy up. Jerome had to use his boombox while hitching a ride on one of the flying players to shout that the match was over.

The studio (surprisingly) wasn’t damaged a lot from the scuffle. There were slight burn marks around the base of the tower, and some debris that littered the floor, but it was mostly isolated to the right wing itself or strewn about the lava.

”WELL, LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A WINNER! ASHLEY, SINCE YOU’VE DONE SO WELL, YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE ONE COOKING THE RECIPE!”

“But, uh… the can’s stuck to the counter.” The players sheepishly went back to their counters, giving out handshakes and declarations of “good game” to their opponents. IT looks like things are going back to the normal cooking-show segment.

”IS THAT THE CASE? IF SO, YOU’RE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHOOSING THE NEW RECIPE!” The duo pulled themselves aside, whispering for a minute before deciding on the next course of action.

Ashley held up a whisk she materialized from behind her back. “Today, we’ll be making…”

Somewhere in Hotland, the schoolgirls were excitedly chattering about the ongoing show.

”Have you seen those humans? They looks so cool battling it out!” Her horned classmate was in a similar state of enthusiasm, twirling the skateboard in her hand. “Yeah! And they didn’t get hurt! If you look closely, none of the attacks do any damage when they hit!”

”You think it’s special effects or something?”

”If it is, then it’s really good!”

In Snowdin, Papyrus could be seen whooping and holllering on his couch while Sans watched the screen with interest. “OH MY GOD!!! SANS! THEY’RE SO COOL!! I CAN’T BELIVE I’M FRIENDS WITH SUCH FAMOUS HUMANS AND MONSTERS!!!”

”yeah bro.” Sans had to admit, some of the things the players used were fascinating. The sleek portal gun that fired orange and blue doorways remained his favorite, but he wouldn’t lie: the improvised supercharged vent was impressive. How’d that guy get the schematics for them?

Undyne was also by Papyrus’ side, in a similar state of shock. She knew the players were powerful, heck, she’d fought one of them and saw one of them revive, after all. But none of them wanted to fight her. Sure, there was Gawr Gura, that shark-human lady, but she only wanted to run away.

Now? She could see their combat potential. Weapons summoned left and right that were shot and swung with deadly accuracy, quick evasion techniques and terrifying control over the damage of their magic was on full display for her to see. For magic to hit that hard but not leave a single scratch on anyone required an impossible amount of control.

The only thing she could do was watch the cooking segment and trust them not to hurt Asgore.

Throughout the Underground, monsters were frantically chattering about the news. The rumors about hundreds of humans were true! And they’re all mages? How were they not dead yet?!

Grillby’s bar was filled with the sound of barking and howling as the Snowdin royal guard watched the chaos all unfold on their phone screens. They were one of the few monsters realizing just how screwed they might have been if the humans didn’t want to be pacifistic.

“Oh dear lord I’m so dead. I’m so, so dead.” Dogggo was smoking a mountain of dog treats, worrying about how he had met a human before. The rest of the dogs were either shocked still or intensely relieved.

Far from the commotion, Flowey was pulling his hair out in frustration. It was nearly impossible to get behind the group and spy on them.

A large amount of humans and monsters meant that at any moment, one of them had eyes on where he would appear. And that wasn’t counting their apparent knowledge of timelines??? What?

None of the humans before, excluding Frisk and Chara, had any recollection of the timelines since they didn’t have enough determination! And in no point in history did multiple people have a clear recollection of those timelines, since being the most determined meant that there was only one person remembering and controlling those timelines!

Flowey didn’t even know if they even had the power to save and reset, because Frisk didn’t die yet! The sheer amount of manpower and number of humans and monsters meant that they barely any chance to die. Great. Just great.

And that wasn’t even getting into Flowey’s failed attempts to keep tabs on them.

He couldn’t do jack shit in the Ruins; that place was now off-limits with the amount of people staying there. The first time he had tried to trail them was right after the damned comedian left. He’d popped out of the snow-covered ground, spitting out snow that was in his mouth.

The group was too far away to spy on, but he couldn’t get closer without being easily noticed. At times like these, he really hated the fact that he was a golden flower.

Hearing some snow crunch behind him, Flowey spun around to see a pair of shears right in front of his face, a toothy grin right beside it. Yelping in suprise, he popped back down right before anything could happen.

That didn’t bide well for his plans. Looks like the humans were less pacifistic then he made them out to be.

The next time he’d tried to trail them, it was after most of them had crossed the long bridge into Snowdin. Most of them were sleeping in the town, so it’d be the perfect time to gain information, right? Right?

This time, it was one of them who messed up. The wolf-like monster was one of the few insomniac players roaming the town, looking for something to do. Flowey froze as their ears twitched and their head snapped 360 degrees with a crack, like one of the ghost movies he’d seen from a tape in Waterfall.

They got on all fours, dashing onto the bridge. Flowey was about to duck down again but stopped as he saw the wolf stumble and slip, careening off the bridge with a howling shriek. The flower could see its heavy form fall into the snow-covered stone with a meaty thud.

Huh. Flowey had seen death before; he’d even shoved some monsters off the very same bridge. Their deaths were all the same, and the only difference with this one was that the body didn’t poof into dust the moment it hit the floor. They’re not coming back from that. Good riddance.

The wolf monster was definitely dead, and he was about to finally leave-

Wait. Was that a twitch?

Oh no. Oh no no no. Flowey finally decided to get the hell out of there when the corpse got up and began crawling on the wall like a spider with ridiculous speed. He wasn’t going to stick around to see what would happen.

Waterfall was a pain for him to traverse. The ground was too moist and cold, it wasn’t good for golden flowers to grow in. The only upside was that the tall grass and stone outcroppings helped provide many hiding places. He’d managed to stalk them for a good thirty or so minutes before anything happened.

It was getting much too easy to hear stuff. The caves had great acoustics, enough to hear almost everything they talked about.

Flowey now knew they were “players”. He now knew that they, somehow, out of all odds, could break the laws of magical transmutation and summoning. It was… exhilarating. With that power, he’d be more than just a god. He’d ascend beyond this reality.

He’d let down his guard daydreaming about power, giggling maniacally at the idea of getting one of the should for himself. The familiar sound of Sans’ blaster charging up behind him made him swivel around straight into the jaws of a larger-than-normal Gaster blaster.

He yelped in fear, throwing himself down into the soil. Flowey could feel the sheer force crackling above the ground from the blast. Smiley trash bag isn’t supposed to be here! Who-

Flowey popped up a few feet away from where he was, in the outcropping next to the echo flower room. There, he could properly see what nearly hit him.

The balster’s anatomy was all wrong. It looked much more angular, much more boxy yet streamlined in the front compared to Sans’ or Papyrus’ blaster. The eyes were also glowing a vibrant red instead of the usual white. However, the most shocking aspect of the weapon was its user: a slim, tall human with enough edge in his outfit to cut paper.

Flowey was done with this shit. He’d probably deal with the players later, just… not now.

Chapter Text

Mettaton's cooking show was reaching it's highest-ever ratings. Hell, it was the biggest amount of viewers he'd ever hosted before; more than half of the underground was watching the players rush around while competing to make a cake.

The duo running Feast of Fiction decided to let people have free reign. It was now less of a cooking show and more of a baking competition, with players split into teams of five busily rushing back and forth to collaborate. The craftsmanship varied from team to team; the luckier players with experienced bakers on their side managed to make more creative designs and more delicious concoctions, while the others... didn't fare so well. Their failures resulted in blackened cylinders of flour, fiery messes, and gravity-defying cake that splattered on the top of the Underground's cavern. How they managed to do that was a mystery.

Rosanna Pansino, one of the best cooks in the competition, managed to make a tiramisu cake with a glossy star-like frosting. Mettaton rolled up to her team, which was carefully constructing a semi-realistic starship out of fondant. "MY OH MY! NOW WE'VE GOT AN ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS CAKE HERE! TELL ME, HOW'D YOU MANAGE TO MAKE THIS?"

"Oh, it's quite difficult if you don't have the time! Starr over here managed to speed up the process of freezing the tiramisu and the base frosting." She gestured to an overexcited mini-robot next to her, holding a pocket watch that she furiously spun the hands of. Mettaton and the crowd watched with wonder as the frosting in the bowl rapidly turned pink with cherry extract, which would have taken hours to prepare. "We needed gelatin, water, corn syrup and sugar to make the glaze. Then we mixed it in with white chocolate, separated it into colors, and poured it over the base."

A second layer to the cake was added, which was only a blank white canvas. The player nearby took the mixture of dark blue and black, slowly spilling it across the new layer while drizzling purple and cyan into the mix. After that, he pulled out some edible glitter using his powers, sprinkling it over the finished product. The fondant spaceship sat on the double tier cake as the players on her team let out a collective sigh of relief. "Looks like we're finished."

The flamboyant robot then turned around to look for more players to report on, when his jaw dropped. A huge cake towered over him, as the players working on it were either floating or using a ladder to add the details to the top. It was more akin to a wedding cake than what the competition was going for.

Quickly composing himself, Mettaton boosted himself up to one of the players using his rockets. ”NOW WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?”

”Oh! Hello! This is our deluxe tower wedding cake!” The overexcited player wagged her tail as she worked on the frosting of the second tier’s base. “We’re making it for Joe’s mom; she just got her wedding vows renewed this weekend! Say hi to her, Joe!” Joe, who was busy placing the vanilla and chocolate shavings on the top, waved towards one of the cameras on top. “Look am, I’m on TV!”

”WELL! GOOD LUCK ON THAT!” He floated down towards other teams, watching them work on the cakes. “NOW FOLKS, WE’VE GOT A TIME LIMIT TO MEET! THIRTY MINUTES LEFT UNTIL SCORING!”

With that, the players rushed to finish their cakes as the timer ticked down.

Once the timer reached zero and the buzzer sounded, all of the players were satisfied with what they had. Even the more inexperienced teams could just conjure up cookbooks and speed up the process using their reality-defying powers.

Mettaton was now pacing the rows and rows of counters, judging the cakes that sat on them. Most of them were normal, everyday cakes he would expect from humans and monsters who didn’t quite grasp baking yet. The frosting was spread hastily, the food dye was mixed a bit unevenly, and the insides were slightly soggy from fruit juice or milk.

Then came the decently creative cakes. Those pastries looked like the prim, proper cakes on display in the bakeries of the underground, with not much to say. The players were slightly disappointed that they didn’t get to stand out, but still had cake to eat. Few would complain if they had decent cake.

And there were the really notable cakes. The galaxy cake and the deluxe wedding cake were only two of the examples that fit in the category. Mettaton could see a cake that had a rune made from frosting applied to the sides and the top, serving as both decoration and a power source for the levitating cake. The top was designed to look like a grassy island, with even a chocolate-mint tree sitting peacefully in the center.

Another would have to be the cake that was sculpted to look like him. Mettaton had to admit, he was kind of self-centered from time to time. But who wouldn’t appreciate a nice, detailed cake made in your likeliness? He wasn’t sure how they managed to balance the whole thing on his one wheel (perhaps more of that impossible magic), but still.

Of course, Mettaton declared that one as the winner. There were some complaints and groans from the contestants, but they ultimately knew that yeah, this was expected.

Straightening up his chef’s hat, Mettaton turned to the cameras. “AND THAT’S ALL, DARLINGS! I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE OF “COOKING WITH A KILLER ROBOT”! TA-TA!” He blasted off into the distance with his built-in rockets, leaving the players behind to enjoy their cake.

The players, as courteous guests on the game show, were left to clean up the messy cooking supplies. It didn’t really matter that they had to wash the bowls and whisks, when they could just de-summon them. After a surprisingly brisk session of clean-up, the players took their mountains of cakes and lifted them onto some commercial work tables with wheels.

Everyone decided to take another break after the competition to eat the spoils of “war”. Carting the many cakes off the tiled floor onto the rocky path ahead, some players rushed to the nearby save star and crowded around it. Frisk and Chara had to power walk through the mob of humans and monsters, wondering what would happen next.

Not much, surprisingly. It was the usual save-and-congratulate, with Chara snarkily providing their flavor text about the “ominous structure” looming in the distance. The heat of the core could be felt even miles away, and the players were in awe of how large it actually was.

The lava below casted a menacing yet ethereally beautiful light on all of them, the complete opposite of Waterfall. MatPat and Underlab summoned some generators and fans to cool down the area, while players laid down blankets or unfolded the lawn chairs they created. Chefs from before cut the cakes evenly and distributed them to whoever wanted to eat.

”Holy shit this is good!” The rainbow-winged player from before was happily chowing down on a slice of strawberry shortcake, waving a fork at the chef. “Whaddya put in it?”

”Strawberry, whipped cream, flour…” They whipped out a piece of paper and a pen, intently listening to him ramble on.

In another case, the theorists were busy sketching down the design of the core while facetiming Alphys on a cheap tablet. Their notebooks were full of scrawled notes on real geothermal energy and nuclear power plants, and the amount grew exponentially every second Alphys talked.

Chara, who was chewing on a triple chocolate cake and sitting peacefully next to Frisk, decided that this was the best timeline.

On the farthest end of the path was a dead end, and an elevator. The blinking yellow light reading “R1” was slapped by some of the taller players like a freshman slapping the tops of door frames in school. Frisk winced at the realization that the players would have to either follow them into the elevator or teleport to the next floor.

Neither they or Chara liked the prospect of being in a cramped metal box filled with other people. Luckily, the players found a compromise.

”We’ll take the short route, no worries.” Everyone, busy wading in lava or teleporting onto their next destination, left Frisk and their partner to ride in the elevator alone. The metal doors gently slid shut, and for a moment, it felt like they were doing the same old timeline again, just the two of them.

”It’s… quiet,” Chara noted, fiddling with their hair. “Let’s get to them.” Frisk nodded, flipping the switch that was labeled “Right Floor 2”. The elevator shook and whirred to life as they slid down the wall, gingerly crouching on the tiled floor. They weren’t sure if they liked the silence, or if they’ve become too attached to the sounds of the players.

What… what did they feel about the players, anyway?

On the surface level, they were definitely appreciated the change in pace. All of the timelines seemed so boring, most of them ended in some sort of tragedy. Pacifist timelines were ironically sometimes worse than genocide ones, with Frisk emerging from the underground with their friends only to find the world on the brink of another war. They didn’t even need to wipe out the monsters in a genocide run; other humans did that just fine enough.

Genocide wasn’t really pretty either, but not in the way the both of them anticipated. Their determination only carried them so far in the surface with other humans; turns out when you’ve only been fighting monsters, you tend to underestimate the power of a well-timed bullet to the head. Time travel had nothing in comparison to human armies knocking at their doorstep, and everyone had determination up there.

The only routes that allowed them and Chara to properly enjoy freedom were the neutral ones. Ones where they scavenged around dumpsters and the backs of the storefronts, one where they never answered Sans’ call (because face it, they already knew how it all ended), one where they died homeless and of old age long before their friends would ever get a chance to reach the surface again.

These players - as annoying and mildly concerning they may be - might be the way to end Frisk’s eternal cycle of living and dying, of being forever trapped in their little bubble of time. Maybe… maybe they’d actually get a happy ending.

Maybe they’ll finally stay dead.

After the philosophical contemplation of their freedom and death, Frisk and Chara felt the elevator jerk to a stop. The doors opened to a crowd of players t-posing around a worried Heats Flamesman (yes, they remembered his name).

”H-heh. I’m-“ A player menacingly moved forward, slightly levitating so that they didn’t have to take a step. “Heats Flamesman.”

If it was possible for a fire to blanch, Heats managed to pull it off. ”H-how do you know my name.”

”We remembered lol”

Frisk, feeling sorry for the panicked monster, tapped on the shoulder of a catlike player. Whipping their head around, they wagged their tail and shouted that Frisk was here. The players went to crowd around them instead, Chara snapping at them to keep their distance.

”Whoops, sorry.” Cheems was one of the people to get a bit too close to Frisk during the shoving match, using her large stature to back up and push other players away from them. “We’ll get going, right after we try something out. Jake!”

Jake, a human wearing a yellow hazmat suit, whipped out a can of pressurized airspray. “Yo. You ok with this?” He gestured towards Heats Flamesman.

”What- ok with what?!” Jake shrugged, and made a motion with his hands to signify spraying the monster’s head flame with the hairspray. “I- I don’t even have hair, but ok…?” Those who knew what was going to happen backed away, not wanting to be caught in the literal line of fire. Adjusting the visor of his hazmat suit, Jake aimed the nozzle and pressed down on the valve.

The remaining players instinctively leaped into the lava or onto the side as the impromptu flamethrower spewed in their direction. Markiplier was one of the few people who remembered they couldn’t get hurt; still, he suppressed a wince at the flash of light that’s came with the fire. “Well, looks like that worked.” Beside Jake, the theorists were writing down more notes. “Flammable items… work on… monsters… alright!”

Most of the players decided to move west onto their next destination, leaving poor Heats Flamesman with more questions than answers. Frisk, shuffling down the rocky path with sweating players, saw them dumping bags of gold onto Sans’  sentry station while waving their hands around.

”hey, i know you’re all burning to get some ‘dogs.” Merg, busy handing out the hot dogs that they bought, exhaled through his non-existent nose at the pun. “Yup. You can even say we’re… stoked?”

”good one.”

In one of the corners, players chatted with an avian monster with mint-colored feathers about the quality of the hot dogs and hot cats. “I mean, these are pretty good for 30G! Adjusting for inflation, this is cheaper than the hotdogs at Costco!”

A Swedish player blinked owlishly. “What the fuck’s a Costco?” The equally confused monster agreed.

”Department store, not important. Point is, this hotdog’s hella cheap and really good.” He paused to take a bite of the food. “Sans can actually cook! Might hire him for a barbecue or something…”

Other players were also expressing wonder at the cheap price of hot dogs, especially the ones who were from places with sky-high taxes on food and other commodities. Someone was also contemplating the hot-cat, cooing over how the “ears” and the ketchup face was absolutely adorable.

Just for old times’ sake, Frisk and Chara weaved their way into the crowd and towards the front of the stall. A nearby human visibly perked up, scarfing down their hot dog and slamming down their own gold. “Everyone! The- the hotdog tower!” Jerma, renowned streamer and certified sussy baka, waved his hands towards the duo. “We gotta do it!”

Lost of people around the kids enthusiastically agreed, putting their hot dogs and hot cats into their inventories. One decided to object. “Hey, don’t we need the gold for later?”

”nah. this one’s free of charge.” The same player, an anthropomorphic Sylveon, sputtered in indignation at the thought. “No! That’s basically robbery! Here, lemme just-“ She pulled out a bag full of duplicated hotdogs, shoving them into the skeleton’s arms.

”Here, stack ‘em. It ain’t the same when we do it.” Sans, who was at this point used to the tomfuckery that was the players, shrugged and began teleporting the hotdogs one by one onto Frisk’s head. They stood stock-still, only wobbling a bit to balance the sheer number of bread and sausage on their noggin.

Everyone around them gave a clear berth to the hotdog stack-ee, chanting and counting up every time a hotdog fell onto Frisk. The Vulkin nearby stood next to the bird monster on a hoverboard, taking in the sight of an overexcited mob crowding the hotdog stand, chanting as food was stacked on the human’s head.

Frisk, wanting to keep the tower as tall as possible, stood stock-still. The tower was now nearly halfway to the ceiling of Hotlands itself, visible to all of the Underground. Sadly, Sans placed a bun slightly to the left, causing the tower to teeter precariously.

”EVERYONE, SCATTER!” The players bolted to the sides as the tower came crashing down, flinging hot dogs all across the Underground because of the janky physics engine of the universe. Sans, along with the two bewildered monsters and Frisk, were buried in hot dogs.

Somewhere in Snowdin, Papyrus narrowed his eyes. “SANS IS UP TO SOMETHING.” Undyne, who was standing outside of his house, screeched that it was raining hotdogs. Papyrus let out a long, suffering sigh. “OF COURSE IT’S HIM.”

It took a while for the players to clean up all the hot dogs. The good news was that they could just dissolve the things. The bad news was that they had to see the hotdogs.

Chunks of players erratically teleported all across the Underground, cleaning up their mess and sheepishly apologizing to whoever was subject to hotdogs beaning them on the head. A particularly irate Grillby had to be talked down from setting fire to a few players for absolutely covering his bar in cheap hotdogs.

Once the official hotdog cleanup had finished, the players moved on with their journey, helping Frisk up as Sans was mysteriously never found after being buried alive (everyone knows he just teleported away though). Jerome hoisted up his boombox and began to play the ambience of the core once more as Frisk skipped along the way.

Of course, it was inevitable they would run into some more monsters. A pyrope, still muffled about being buried under hotdogs, yanked an unfortunate human into battle. The guy in the grey shirt screeched uncontrollably as he ran back and forth between the orange flames in order to not get hit, so much that even the Pyrope was worried. The mildly concerned monster let the player spare them without the need of ACTing and turning up the heat.

While the poor guy was screaming his head off in fear of being hit, the players were busy chattering over Alphys’ and Papyrus’ posts on the Undernet. Most of them felt sorry for his loneliness, wincing at his “friend” being a reflection of him with shades photoshopped into his biceps. Pewdiepie was the player that suggested that the humans made Undernet accounts in order to help Papyrus get as many followers as possible. Catching on to this idea, the players grinned in anticipation at their new plan.

The first step was to actually figure out how their phones worked in the Underground. Luckily, through some interdimensional bullshittery, their phones already had access to it in the form of an app.

It took some questionable usernames, such as poopshitters69 and Mike_CoxOfficial, for the players to get settled into the Undernet. Somewhere not so far away, Alphys was rushing to upgrade the servers of the Underground as it sparked and groaned from the strain of so many users.

Everyone decided to go to Papyrus’ page, spamming the “friend” button as the number shot up from somehow-negative to hundreds of followers. To sweeten the deal, most of their first posts were shitty edits of them standing next to Papyrus or lauding over his excellence.

All the way from Snowdin, they could the excited screaming of Papyrus as the taller skeleton received dozens of pings from his computer, watching his friend count rise higher and higher. Turns out, other monsters were curious after seeing him gain so many friends in a short amount of time, they decided to send him a request as well. Merg reckoned that Papyrus would have to click so many times to accept them all.

Of course, they decided to flood Napstablook’s friend inbox as well with requests. It didn’t work out the same way, as the poor ghost kept on rejecting their endorsements and friendly gestures. Most of the people respected their boundaries and left him to chill alone.

They then decided to shitpost all across the Undernet, posting indecipherable memes and confessing to minor crimes such as trespassing into random monster homes and taking too much candy from the candy bowl. What followed was the equivalent of Twitter blowing up after the reveal of Steve Minecraft for Smash Bros. Monsters were flocking left and right online to gawk at the humans posting online.

One particular meme blew up because of how it clearly showed some of the surface, a guy dressed in a banana suit and parading on the streets of New York. The comments section overflowed with monsters gawking over how blue and wide the sky was, and how tall the buildings were.

COMMENTS

mewmew2fan_17: the surface is so pretty!!!💓💗💖

——— MTTfroggitfan: so many humans that i’d be nervous, but i’ll still go

——— bluebird2: The sky’s so big- i can finally stretch my wings there

——— Treefrogger: whats with this meme blowing up??? It’s not even that good???

flaminhot187: Is it always so… big, up there? Like, I can’t even see where the city ends!

==== Poster Comment from BlixerBlast: yeah lmao its just new york city

——— joemama_420: jsfghkdsh they think ny is cool???

——— ballsinyojaws: if you like rats, noisy places, and taxes then yeah, i guess New York is cool

——— Mets4ever: At least we’re not LA

CoolSkeleton95: THE SURFACE LOOKS SO COOL! CAN’T WAIT TO GO THERE!

——— CoolCatgirlX3: WAIT WHAT THE BARRIER’S BROKEN?

—————— ballsinyojaws: no not yet, we’re working on it

—————— GatorGirlX3: WHAT??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WORKING ON IT???

——— FUNKY_FRESH: so happy for my homie paprus

—————— FUNKY_FRESH: whoops typo

—————— engiSonic: paprus

—————— YAY: paprus

—————— Ollitree3: paprus

—————— FUNKY_FRESH: stfu bro

The players, while messing with the monsters on the Undernet, were also progressing through the Underground as intended. Frisk took the path south and went to a little isolated side-island in the lava. Laying there on the floor was a small apron with a heart sewn on the front.

The players duplicated their own aprons and donned them, preparing  for what was ahead. And what was ahead but an annoying rhythm-based switch puzzle. It was easy when it was on a computer, but not so much when the switches whizzed by them. It took some flying players to press the two switches in tandem with Alphys quieting them through their phones.

”Alright! Those two should be pressed, and…” Electricity that once crackled ahead of the path suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing but the smell of ozone in the air. “Done! Ask me if you need help with anything!”

“Uhhhh… yeah, that’ll be fine. The vents ahead can be skipped if we fly and most of us can. Thanks for asking though!”

That unbearably annoying vent puzzle that Frisk and Chara hated was a breeze, with players either throwing themselves to the other side or simply flying as they planned. Sure, they knew the answer by heart, but that didn’t mean that the process was annoying to an ungodly degree.

As expected, some chaos happened with the large puzzle. Some people liked the vents, and just supercharged them to jump to the end. This messed up the aim of the mechanisms, and those players ended up crashing into each other, into lava, and face-first onto the floor. A rat player actually got herself stuck in one of the trusses underneath the vents and had to be rescued.

Finally. The whole group of players got through the other side (even though they could have just… teleported?) and the next save star was ahead. A group rushed ahead of Frisk, circling the save star and slowly rotating around it with linked hands. The kid had to duck under them and reach out, saving their progress.

Chara, used to the shenanigans but still amused nonetheless, decided to narrate. “Knowing the mouse might one day hack the computerized safe and get the cheese… it fills you with determination.”

”YEAHHHH!!! THAT’S WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT!!!”

”You do realize we can just… break the safe for them, right?” An Australian in flips flops and oddly pink jorts pulled out a wielding torch. The players nearby immediately chastised him for not wearing anything for safety, complaining that he’d be “a bad influence for Frisk”.

”Did- didn’t we all break into random houses though? We’re already a bad influence on them.”

”Breaking and entering isn’t a direct threat to our health. This is!”

Groaning about how it was unfair, the guy slipped on some gloves and a welding mask, cutting a hole into the safe and extracting the cheese. He pushed it into the mouse hole nearby, hearing a small squeak as it was dragged into the darkness.

The hundreds of players spilled out from behind Frisk and Chara, following their steps as they stepped ahead and waited for their encounter with the royal guard couple. Well, couple-to-be.

”Hey! You!” The players turned their heads to the voices behind them. “Stop!” Everyone cleared a path as best as they could, letting the two armored monsters walk to the front. The two monsters eyed the crowd warily, afraid that they’d actually fall of into the lava.

”We’ve, like, received an anonymous tip about some humans in striped sweaters and shirts.” The other hard shuffled closer to his partner, as if he was afraid for his safety. “They told us they were wandering around Hotland right now… I know, sounds scary, right?”

”Uh, yeah…” Sounds of sheepish agreement rose from the crowd, the human players whistling and eyeing the floor and walls of Hotland. “Humans…”

The bunny guard raised his hands as if to try calming the crowd down. “Well, everyone, please stay calm! We’ll help you evacuate the area, OK?” Most of the people nodded, letting both of the Royal Guards pass through the crowd with Frisk.

They managed to go ten whole steps before the dragon monster turned to the bunny monster in confusion. “What is it bro?” Frisk tensed. How? How did they get caught, didn’t all of them remove the sweaters-

Oh no. Oh no. They forgot to change their striped shirt underneath their striped sweater, did they? Frisk and the players panicked as the group began diving into the lava or clinging to the green trusses of Hotlands. Both Royal Guards lost their calm demeanor and tried their best to worriedly save them, a useful distraction for Frisk to begin bolting the other way.

Unfortunately, Frisk and Chara forgot that both Guards had swords, and that they weren’t just for show. A flying sword nearly missed a nervous player and hit the sleeve of Frisk’s shirt, ripping it and making them lose balance. They fell onto the floor, quickly getting up as a battle commenced.

”Human! Get away from the citizens, and turn yourself in!” Frisk, familiar with how to pacify them, they reached out to the ACT button and tried to clean RG 02’s armor. However, he swung his sword at them in response, catching Frisk off guard and making them take their first unintentional hit in ages.

Chara was similarly off-put by the new event. “Oh god oh fuck oh shit- They must’ve thought we’d attack the crowd!” They ducked under a star bullet and weaved around some players in the narrow path, narrowly missing another sword to the shoulder. “I don’t think they’ll let us clean armor! How the hell are we going to pacify them now?”

Frisk was unfortunately just as out of their depth as Chara was. The only time they fought these two was in a genocide or neutral run, and their LOVE made them strong enough to one-shot the guards. They wanted a pacifist run, dammit! A few more slices and star bullets whittled their health down to a sliver. Frisk didn’t want to use a healing item, and RG 01’s sword came whizzing down and-

The blade landed on someone else’s shoulder with a ssshck-thunk! and buried itself deep into their collar bone. They looked up to see a furry player wincing in pain, paw on the Royal Guard’s face as he tried to get the attacker as far away as possible.

RG 01’s face under the helmet shifted from confusion, to realization, and finally to shock and horror. “A- I’M- “ He couldn’t get a single coherent word after realizing that he’d hit a monster with the deadly attack instead of the human. RG 02’s expression was similar, dropping his sword in shock (and in fear of hitting another “civilian”).

The ram-cat hybrid player shifted under the blade, and headbutted the bunny monster, his horns clanging on the helmet with enough force to cause a concussion in any human being. He was knocked back a few feet away from Frisk as his sword dug into the player, making him scream and whimper in pain.

More players realized the situation and snapped out of their panic, knocking RG 02 back safely next to his partner and swarming them to prevent the two from causing more harm. It escalated into a dogpile, where Cheems was busy using her four paw-hands to keep them on the bottom.

”You’re not harming a single hair on Frisk’s head, ya hear me?”

”L-look, I didn’t mean to harm them, I- I was only going for the human!”

”Dumbass, half of the people here are human! We were trying to get out of this without a fight!”

”I- huh? What?”

Frisk, now standing up, was busy trying to help the player who took a hit for them. He was far from one of the combat-ready players, and couldn’t handle pain as well as them. A doctor rushed over to their side, dabbling the fur around the wound with a wet cloth.

”We’re going to have to pull out the sword so that you can automatically heal, alright?” He nodded, wincing as the blade was slightly jostled. “Alright, I’m going to…” The doctor grasped the handle of the curved blade, and smoothly yanked it out of his shoulder. He screeched like a dying cat, paw flying to the wound in a pitiful attempt to stop the pain.

Frisk and Chara had seen players heal before, but not up close. They watched in wonder as the angular hole slowly folded up and went from red to a staticky pink, then closed up completely, leaving behind pristine fur and some scarred skin. The blood on the player’s fur slowly sizzled out of existence, leaving the spot untouched as if the accident never happened.

The ram-cat sighed, the pain finally subsiding as they rubbed the sore spot. “It’s… alright now. I’m fine.”

They looked back over to the Royal Guards, who were currently being held hostage by the players. The monsters were nervously sitting in the center of a very crowded, slightly hostile mob. “H-hey, back off! We’re royal guards, ya hear me! Undyne’ll hear about this!”

”Call her, then.” He stepped closer to the duo, staring at them with a look that said do it.

RG 01 fumbled with his cell phone, and punched in a few numbers. It rang twice, then stopped.

”Undyne here! How’s the daily shift treating you two?”

”UNDYNE! HUMANS! HUMANS EVERYWHERE!” RG 02 warily scanned the crowd as RG 01 panicked into the speaker. “WE’RE OUTNUMBERED!”

”Relaaaax, they’re fine! Just as long as you didn’t-“

”AND WE HIT A CIVILIAN!”

”WHAT?!?!?”

Undyne couldn’t go to Hotland herself, she’d get heat stroke like before. That left the Royal Guards at the mercy of the players, eagerly eying them like a pack of piranhas.

”OK, alright, as your captain I’m ordering you to stay still and nagotiate with them, alright?”

”But- the souls-“

”DAMN THE SOULS!” Undyne slammed her first down on Papyrus’ table, making both Royal Guards flinch. “THEY’RE STRONG ENOUGH TO BREAK THE BARRIER BARE-HANDED!” RG 01 shivered as her yelling somehow got louder.

The captain of the Royal Guard stopped herself, then sighed in exhaustion. “You’re completely at the mercy of them. Players are pacifistic, but their power…”

”No worries, Undyne. We won’t dare hurt ‘em. But…” The hybrid player rubbed their paws together, grinning mischievously. “We will be taking them hostage for a bit!”

”EH?!?!”

”No worries, we’ll- hmmm.” He whispered something to Jerome, and the boombox guy perked up a bit.the player then leaned away from the Royal Guards wanting to whisper into the receiver.

”We’ll be setting them up for a date with each other.”

On the other side of the receiver, Undyne blinked. “Ohhhhh. Well! That seems harmless enough!” Undyne cackled. “Give the phone to RG 01, will ya?”

The player followed her instruction. “Hey! For now, you two seem to be hostages! Stay safe, and listen to them, ya hear me?” The two guards were petrified now, wondering how powerful the players were if they got their captain Undyne to let them go. “See ya!”

Royal Guard 01’s bunny ears drooped, and he pocketed his cell phone. “Looks like… we’re totally screwed.”

His partner pressed closer to him and the players descended with smiles that seemed more maniacal than friendly.

Chapter Text

Standing in between the horde of humans and monsters, both of the Royal Guards nervously followed them to wherever they were going. Royal Guard 01’s ears twitched, catching the sound of whispering and slight giggles. All of the puzzles ahead were either already solved or jumped over; both of their eyes boggled as they saw some humans sprout wings and fly over the vents with ease.

The bird monster holding RG 02 tapped his shoulder pad with her claws, creating a small click-click! that made him look to her. “We’re getting you over the vents.”

”Ah-“ Both him and RG 01, who was being watched over by a burly human, shared a glance. He made a small gesture. Any moment, we’ll run.

The bunny guard hissed gesturing back at his partner. No. Too dangerous.

”A-hem!” Their monster captor cleared her throat, eying the two. “So, are you ready? We’re going to carry you.”

Royal Guard 02 paused. “… Alright.”

The sudden feeling of being grabbed from behind and hoisted in the air made RG 01 yelp, kicking his legs aimlessly. When he looked down, he balked as he realized the jetpack-wearing human who lifted him was only a third of his size. How old are they, anyway?!

As if reading his mind, they responded with a nonchalant, “I’m twelve.” The literal child then proceeded to bench-press the royal guard wearing iron armor while flying to the other side of the puzzle and setting them down gently. RG 02 was in a similar state of shock, being gently thrown over to the other side and landing on an unfortunate player.

The two of them were led to Waterfall, discreetly stretching out their muscles as the climate transferred from overwhelming heat to a soothing coolness. If it were any other circumstance, RG 02 would have loved to bring his partner there to hang out and maybe even declare his love.

Their captors led them down a narrow path and into a nice clearing, blanketed by grass and some spares echo flowers on the side. The ceiling crystals twinkled gently above them all. However, the middle of the area was set up perfectly for what could only be described as a romantic date.

Royal Guards 01 and 02 were awkwardly shoved on seats as the players hurriedly moved around and prepared the table, throwing on a white tablecloth and setting some flowers in the middle. Somebody on the sidelines tried to light tea lights, but ended up catching on fire and rolling on the ground.

Turning to his partner, Royal Guard 01 tentatively brushed his claws with his own paws. “This… what do you think they’re doing?”

”… I don’t know.”

A brown-haired human with green headphones set down a plate of cooked vegetables for RG 01 and a platter of medium-rare steak for RG 02. The bunny monster felt a twinge of appreciation for the players; they actually accounted for his vegan diet. Not sure why they though carrots were the best idea for him, though.

The royal guards tried their best to look casual, playing along with their captor's little game. "S-so! Nice weather we're having, huh?"

"... yes?" Royal Guard 02 shifted in his seat, taking off his gauntlets to better poke at the food he was given. His partner blushed at the sight of is muscled arms, then quickly snapped his head up to look him in his eyes through his helmet. "Yeah! Uh- yeah! Very... moist! Yes!" RG 01 sweated buckets under his armor, both from being in a romantic situation with his crush and from the looks of all the other players.

He could see one of his captors, a tanky dragon monster, hissing at some of the others to hurry up and set the mood. They ran around, summoning candles and flower petals that were strewn around the floor. In minutes the entire area in Waterfall gently smelled of roses and vanilla.

"This... is getting oddly romantic! Ha ha ha..." The bunny monster couldn't keep eye contact with the other royal guard, and decided to take a bite of the carrots. If they were poisoned, oh well. He was going out with a bang. To his surprise, he didn't taste anything off with the dish. Heck, it even tasted really good! RG 01 scarfed down the food, motioning for his friend to join in.

Royal Guard 02 sniffed at his steak, then took a tentative bite. He then quickly proceeded to sink his teeth into the meat, savoring it's rich taste. "Why isn't this poisoned?!"

Royal Guard 01, working the courage to face his captors, decided to demand for answers. “What- what are you doing to us?! Is this a trap? A hoax?!”

The human waiter blinked, whispering to the player next to him. “Are… are we supposed to tell them?”

”They looked kinda freaked out, might as well.”

He turned back to the two guards, taking a deep breath. “Okay, you might not believe this, but you two are going on a date.”

”What?”

“Yeah, we got tired of you two skirting around each other and not confessing, so here you are.” Two more waiters set down some drinks for the Royal Guards, snickering at their embarrassed confusion. “Why I- RG 02! Tell them you’re not into me!”

Royal Guard 02 could only stay silent. His partner picked up on it. “No… It can’t be- RG 02! You’re actually into me?”

”… yes.”

”So you’re saying I could have asked you out at any time?” His partner was blushing wildly, picking at his steak with a fork. Turning back to their captors, the both of them were surprised to see that all of them were either gone or running the other way.

”We can still see you, you know!” RG 02 shrugged. “At least we have some privacy.”

Most of the players wanted to give the two lovebirds room to continue their date, dashing back to Hotland with Frisk and Chara following them. Besides, they wanted to get on with the game’s plot. No need to watch the two when they’re perfectly fine together.

Markiplier and the bigger YouTubers were busy chatting with heir fans, walking at a slower rate than the other players to help the group. Others decided to rush ahead, teleporting back to the place where they left off.

The reality-bending humans and the pacifist soon reached their destination at a record time. It helped that they were being competitive again, racing against themselves with creative ways to get around the puzzles. Now that they didn't have to transport hostages, they could just backflip over the vents. Or blast themselves into the air. Or just wade in lava. Summoning a bunch of platforms reminiscent of the American Ninja Warrior show, bouncing from side to side on the quintuple steps and attempting the infamous cliffhanger, only to fall into the lava and let out a playful scream.

Bolting over to the darkness on the right, the cramped group waited for Mettaton to show up. And, as planned, Alphys called Frisk's cell phone.

"A-another dark room, huh? I've got you covered! With my hacking skills!" The lights flipped on as the players were pushing and shoving to get their face in the square hole of the cardboard cutout.

"Hey look Ma, I'm on TV!"

"Has anyone seen Candice? I hear she's sick with ligma!"

"Are you serious?"

Mettaton, on the other side of the cutout, straightened the obnoxiously yellow tie on his velvety-red suit. "OHHHHH YESSS!!! GOOD EVENING, BEAUTIES AND GENTLEBEAUTIES!" The humans were still waving and hollering as the flamboyant robot continued on with his report. "THIS IS METTATON, REPORTING LIVE FROM MTT NEWS!"

He gestured over to the horde of adoring fans (and Frisk). "AN INTERESTING SITUATION HAS ARISEN IN EASTERN HOTLAND!"

"LUCKILY, OUR LOVELY CORRESPONDANTS ARE OUT THERE, REPORTING LIVE! BRAVE CORRESPONDANTS, LET'S ALL FIND SOMETHING TO REPORT! OUR... WAIT..." Mettaton seemed to look to the side, surprised by something that they couldn't see. "FORTY-NINE VIWERS! THEY’RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU!”

The players pushed and shoved, all thinking of the same target. One annoyed bark later, a man who looked like Jesus himself held Toby Fox up Simba-style. The audience cooed at the sheer fluffiness of the Underground’s creator.

Toby Fox was less than pleased with all of the attention. ”Put me down! Is this how you repay me for finishing Deltarune Chapter 2?!”

”WAIT CHAPTER 2’S FINISHED???”

”Yoooo, I’ll check it out after this run! Don’t spoil it for me!”

Wholly indignant, the game dev yanked the fuse prop from his tail-fur and stalked off, sticking his tongue out at the players and Mettaton. Before disappearing into the void, he threw the present on the right towards the players, making it flop open and reveal a lit bomb.

”OH MY! IT SEEMS LIKE THE EVER-SO-ELUSIVE DOG HAS TOSSED A BOMB TOWARDS OUR CORRESPONDANTS!” The players ran around, tossing the bomb back and forth like a game of hot potato. “BUT DON’T PANIC! YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE REST OF THE ROOM YET!!!”

Cardboard and plywood fell away to reveal the players to the cameras Mettaton had set up for the act. Everyone watching could see the miscellaneous object-shaped bombs littered on the platform. “OH MY! IT SEEMS EVERYTHING IN THIS AREA IS ALSO A BOMB!” Cue more panicking.

”THAT BASKETBALL’S A BOMB! THAT CUP IS A BOMB! EVEN MY WORDS ARE…!” The text box, out of view from the players, fell down and crackled like mini-fireworks, causing those around them to jump.

”BRAVE CORRESPONDANTS, IF YOU DON’T DIFFUSE ALL THE BOMBS…” Mettaton’s screen flashed red, and he jettisoned to the huge metal shaft, where a ridiculously large bomb was planted. “THIS BIG BOMB WILL BLOW YOU TO SMITHEREENS IN TWO MINUTES!”

Somehow, some way, a player was ballsy (or possibly suicidal) enough to make a joke. “Stanley Parable moment?” His partner hissed at him to shut the fuck up and start defusing the bombs with the other players. The robotic host gleefully watched the players fumble to open the bombs’ panels. “HOW TERRIBLE! HOW DISTURBING! THE VIEWERS WOULD LOVE THIS!”

Bidding them a sarcastic “good luck”, Mettaton flew past the bombs and far away enough to escape the blast radius. The protagonist and their ghostly friend stayed calm, though. Frisk picked up their phone as it rang, expecting Alphys to give them the bomb defusing program.

A frantic scrabbling of claws on the other side. ”F-frisk! Bad luck, I forgot to get the bomb-defusing program on your phone!”

Okay, maybe they could panic now.

Chara screamed that they didn’t have the defusing program, causing the crowd to frantically try to save themselves by defusing the various bombs by hand. Frisk and Chara settled with huddling in the middle of a group, hoping to be shielded from the upcoming blast. The Royal scientist blubbered her apologies on the other side as they tried to calm her down.

At the bottom left platform, Jerome and his friends threw random stuff at the lasers to disable them while other players rushed in to defuse the game bomb. Unlike in the game itself, the bombs didn’t automatically send them into a battle to defuse them, and instead behaved as normal bombs.

MatPat raked his hands through his hair as he saw the jumble of wires in the case. Jaiden Animations, who was standing beside him, decided to guess. “Maybe try the red wire…?”

There were five red wires. Of course, nobody in the gaming group had bomb defusal experience, and someone eventually got impatient and cut the wrong wire. The bomb’s beeping got exponentially faster, and before anyone could run, one brave soul threw themselves on top.

It went off with a bang, causing the ground underneath them to poof up a cloud of soil that made players sneeze. The player, wearing a monochrome baseball uniform, coughed out a mouthful of ash and shook themselves clean as they got up unharmed.

”Wh- how???” MatPat squinted, lost in thought for a moment, then facepalmed. “The bombs! They’re not magic, only normal tech, so they won’t harm us!” With the rest of the crowd having that realization, they ran off to assist the other players.

The player dressed as Batter from OFF sprinted alongside Jerome, who gave them a brisk high-five. “Nice save, dude. Name?”

”Call me Zaravan. Ain’t safe givin’ my real name in dis’ simulation.”

”Aight, you do you.”

On the conveyor belt, the players attempting to defuse the script bomb were faring no better than the others. Underlab kept slipping on the side and falling harmlessly into the lava, as the person trying to defuse it was belly-flopping on the thing to keep it from moving quickly. That didn’t do much.

”GUYS! THE BOMB’S FULLY MECHANICAL- IT WON’T AFFECT YOU!”

”We know! It won’t- eugh, dammit- stay still!” The same player changed their appearance from a human to a bulky Aggron, stomping on the bomb disguised as a pile of papers. It cracked, then fizzled out. “Yes! Finally!”

Beside the Pokémon fan, ManlyBadassHero threw himself into the lava once again, narrowly missing the bomb disguised as a cup of water. He hissed in frustration, jumping back up to the platform and angling himself a bit lower.

By some miracle, the human player managed to slap down the bomb, sending it careening into the lava as the metal melted out of existence. The gunpowder, superheated by the lava, ignited and blew a hole in one of the nearby platforms. Manly nervously glanced over to the biggest bomb, then sighed in relief as he saw that it counted as a “defusal”.

The present bomb was surrounded by most of the players, who were desperately untangling components and yelling suggestions to themselves. It took a player screeching that the bombs could be destroyed for them to finally make some leeway.

None other than Minecraft Steve (or the player that chose to look like him) stepped up and saved the group, slamming a pickaxe into the present itself and miraculously destroying the bomb without setting it off.

Instantly, the players began messing with him. "He is the messiah!"

"Are you even listening to me! I am not the messiah!"

"Praise the lord Steve Minecraft!!!"

Closest to the main bomb, basketball players were playing with the basket bomb, dribbling it across the stone floor and attempting to steal it for one another.

Finally, after some back-and-forth, a furry in a Lakers Jersey summoned up a hoop, then dunked the ball straight through it and into the lava below. The small crowd went wild, with some players cheering while others let out a sigh of relief as they saw the bomb hiss and melt.

The last bomb was finally defused. Thank god.

Mettaton floated back in with annoyance dripping all over him. Apparently he didn't expect the bombs to defused so... unusually.

"WELL... DONE, DARLINGS!" If it was possible for his boxy form to grit his teeth, he would have done it. "YOU'VE DEACTIVATED ALL OF THE BOMBS! IF YOU DIDN'T, THE BIG BOMB WOULD HAVE EXPLODED IN TWO MINUTES."

Wringing his gloved hands, Mettaton let out a chuckle. "NOW IT WON'T EXPLODE IN TWO MINUTES!" The glamorous robot whipped his arm to point at the rather large, definitely activated bomb.

"INSTEAD IT'LL EXPLODE IN TWO SECONDS!"

"HOLY SHIT!" The players, once again panicked, clamored over to the true final bomb. Sure, they're immune to the blast! But not Frisk. What would happen if they died and were forced to reset? Would they even be here?!

"GOODBYE, DARLING!"

Right at that moment, the annoying dog came back, wearing one of those tourist soda-hats. The creator of the universe bounded over to the large bomb, climbed on it, and gave a little yip.

"AHAHAHA- WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU-"

Toby Fox proceeded to sever one wire with a swipe of his tiny paw, making the analog display flash red, then turn dark. The constant "eeeeeeee" of the timer made the players surrounding the bomb freeze.

One second. Two seconds. Nothing happened.

Toby Fox sniffed, taking a sip of his cola. "You're welcome, by the way."

In a not-so-far corner of Hotland, a certain purple spider lady was humming the Spider Dance song to herself, closing up her little stand. Sadly, she hadn't made any money today to send too her relatives in the Ruins; oh the shame.

Muffet wasn't exactly dirt-poor, but she'd starved herself every few weeks to feed her pet and her smaller relatives. They had to resort to cannibalism in the form of the spider donuts and spider cider. It wasn't taboo for their species, but she still felt a twinge of discomfort when sinking her fangs into one of the pastries and feeling a crunch.

"HEY! YOU THERE!" Muffet turned around to see an oddly familiar yellow flower. "YES, YOU! SPIDER LADY!"

"Ahuhuhuhu... don't you know it's rude to address a lady in that manner?"

The flower growled, clearly frustrated. "Fine! It's just that I've got a job that I want done, and I've got the gold to back it up!" One of his vines surfaced, slapping a sizable bag of gold onto her empty stand.

Muffet leaned forward. "I'm interested."

Flowey grinned. "There's some humans trampling around in the Underground. Lots of them." He put on his best pitiful face. "And they were so cruel! Stomping all over the little spiders in the Ruins! Tearing their legs off!"

The spider lady paled at the thought, hissing in shock. "No!"

The flower cackled inwardly. "Yes! And they even went after other monsters, too! Those humans..." Flowey did his best "scared shudder" impression. "They'd wipe us all out if thy had the chance..."

Muffet had made up her mind the moment she thought her family was in danger. She grabbed the bag of gold with one hand while using two others to hold the folding table. "Leave it to me."

With a quick pull of her string, she scuttled up into her web.