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Chapter Text

The ground shook, the machine looked ready to fall apart as the quakes seemed to only get bigger with each passing second. The two beings in the room- one a skeleton monster and the other a human woman- grabbed onto what they could as they rode out the tremors. After a few seconds they started to die down slowly, though parts of the building began to fall and a large machine set against the wall began to make a screeching noise, the two grabbed the sides of their heads at the dizzying sound.

"Sans!" The woman yelled over the noise, "We should get out of here!" Sans looked to the machine. "i gotta turn it off, you should go on ahead out migisi" He yelled back only slightly loud enough that she could understand him. Migisi grunted as she saw him head toward what she assumed was the control board shakily and began to follow him, she'd drag him back kicking and screaming if she had to, the building seemed like it was about to collapse any minute now! What on earth was this machine anyway? Was this what Sans had been hiding from everyone this whole time? She finally managed to grab at his hoodie and he jolted backwards in surprise, it was still shaking just enough now that they both lost their balance and almost fell to the ground.
Sans snapped out of his daze and pushed the human away, he glared at her and started to say something to her when the noise got so high pitched that Migisi couldn't hear it anymore, although she did feel it's affects as her stomach churned. Sans began to sweat, "shit!" he mumbled and grabbed the now disoriented woman and headed to some sort of pod off to the side of the machine. Migisi, thinking he was finally cooperating and feeling too sick to notice he was heading in the wrong direction, followed his lead. Sans shoved her inside and closed the hatch and as Migisi turned around to see him the skeleton just gave her an apologetic look before turning back to the machine. She turned around and yelled his name and began to pound on the glass but then stopped, the terrible noise didn't reach inside the hatch so Migisi knew it wouldn't do any good to yell at him through the thick glass and so all she could do was watch.

Sans was quickly trying to type into the terminal but began looking increasingly frustrated, a light on the side of the machine turned on and started flashing and Sans began to have a terrified look on his face. Time seemed to stand still as he looked over at his human friend, they stared at each other for what seemed like hours until Sans finally looked away with a defeated expression on his face and tears at the corners of his eyes. The worry Migisi felt for him didn't last long though as the world turned to a blinding white. 'Wha- did I just go blind?! What's happening? Is Sans okay? Am I okay? Did we... die?' Migisi thought, 'No, I can still feel my body and I must be awake. What's going on?' After a few minutes her vision began to clear up, blinking away the last of the blurriness she was finally able to take in her surroundings, the room looked vastly different now, much more cluttered though somehow less messy with no machine in sight.
Panicked, she looked around for Sans but couldn't find him 'Is this that reset Sans was talking about before?' It was a little dark, but she could still make out most of the objects- boxes with stacks of papers in them, various different tools hung up on some work bench, large machine parts, broken computers and a few things covered in a tarp at the corner of the room. Migisi started fiddling around the pod trying to find a way to open it. 'I should've done this sooner, I'm such an idiot!' Despite her search she found nothing and started banging on different parts of the hatch hoping for a weak spot. 'I feel like such a caveman right now' She snorted to herself. 'Wait, no I've got to be serious here, I can't be stuck in here. Maybe if I try hitting right here... ' From her crouched position, she caught movement in the corner of her eye and she looked up, maybe it was Sans or, if this was indeed a reset, another monster that could help her. Smiling, she stood up and, momentarily forgetting that no sound could pierce through the barrier, started to yell for help but froze.
Standing there was what LOOKED like Sans until she noticed the big crack in his skull and a glowing red eye 'Did he injure himself that badly?!?! Oh god!' Sans was looking around the room slowly when something caught his attention from the left side of the room. Migisi, who had been trying to wave at him to get his attention halted again as she saw ANOTHER Sans, this time covered in dust with his hoodie drawn up, Migisi ducked down trying to hide herself the best she could so she could observe them without being seen.
The two looked at each other and seemed to be talking, though with their mouths closed it was hard to tell. The one with the cracked skull summoned some sort of huge axe with a wild look in his eye. The two seemed to get distracted by something and it seemed as though there was someone else in the room. Whoever it was they were blocked from Migisi's view. 'Is there another Sans?!?! I don't think I can take THREE Sanses.' Migisi smacked herself 'Stop drifting off into other thoughts Migisi! I need to be serious here and focus!' Whoever else was in the room must have done something because the other two leaped out of her view and some trash started flying around. 'Are they... fighting?' She tried to angle herself to get a better view but could only make out a few body parts flying around here or there. There were some flashes of light off and on too, but nothing told her what exactly was going on.

Suddenly, a body flew across the room and landed fairly close to her pod, the fighting continued though and you supposed no one else noticed the injured monster. Looking at the monster, it was yet another Sans 'Yep, I knew it.' who was wearing a different coat, black with fluffy fringes on the hoodie and lower part of the coat and wearing fluffy slippers. 'Huh, kinda looks like a cloud.' Migisi gasped as she noticed the bad damage he was in, he had plenty of scraps and a few dents on him, but his entire lower jaw was missing, save for a tiny part of the hinge just barely hanging on. Migisi could also see that this Sans had two rows of teeth, one his usual blunt row and the other looked more like spikes than teeth. 'I've gotta help him! Gah! I NEED to get out of here!' She tried once more to find some sort of way to open the hatch, but still found nothing. The fighting had stopped and it seemed that whoever else was there had left. She rested for a few minutes before standing back up to try again, when she heard a beep that startled her. There was a whir and then the hatch started to open. 'I guess it was on a counter or something.' She stepped out and rushed over the new skeleton monster. He flinched when she picked him up but didn't move otherwise. After setting him down on a one of the slightly comfier looking boxes with a tarp draped over it to get him out of the floor, she looked around and saw the pieces of bone lying around. Grabbing a pan from one of the piles of junk, she started picking up every last piece she could find.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the void

Sans's P.O.V.
i groaned and lifted my hand to my head, i had a splitting headache, i guess i drank too much or something? i whisky could remember what happened last night. hehehehe ow. okay, what happened? i remember calling it a night with migisi and reading pap his bedtime story... and then i teleported to gaster's old lab and....

"the lab!" i snapped my eyes open, but was met with darkness. i tried looking around but didn't find nothin', i started to panic. this must be the void, is he here then? but even if he is, how will we be able to get back?

"Sans?" i turned, recognizing my big bro's voice. despite my initial panic, i was elated! it worked! "gaster!" when i saw him i froze, he was a gloopy mess, a gloopy mess that didn't look too happy to see me.

"Hmmm... looks as though you've found me. Impressive, but rather annoying." he said to me. what-what happened to my bro? he seemed too cold, no warmth in his eyes and looking bored.

"Oh, that trash you like seems to be in trouble." he pointed behind me and upwards. looking where he was pointing, there was this... window? i started to head towards it but when i reached it it turned to static. "If that had worked, I would've done it a long time ago." he said in an unimpressed tone. geez, is he really my brother? "I'd think you'd want to see what is going on with the human trash you find so appealing." i blushed and turned to glare at my brother wait, how'd he know who she was and that i had a thing for her? i turned back around and looked at the window again, actually looking at it this time, and saw migisi. she was still in the pod i shoved her in but she wasn't trapped, had it on a timer, but i stiffened when i saw these different versions of... me?

"what the hell?" i said and got closer. i knew that alternate timelines probably existed, but seeing that theory confirmed just felt like i got hit with a bucket of cold ice water, well if i could feel the cold, hehe. my sockets darkened as the me's- there were about 7- started fighting. shit, migisi might be in danger! one of the me's who had tried to escape but then panicked when one of the others got too close and started to open his jaw, got smack by the big me and his jaw fell apart entirely, he ended up getting thrown all the way over to where migisi was but luckily the others didn't seem to notice.

after a few minutes, the fight got taken somewhere else and only migisi and the now jawless alternate-me were the only ones left in the room. the hatch to the pod opened and migisi rushed over to him. heh. stupidly kind as always.

now that i didn't have to worry about her safety for a minute, i turned to my brother who looked back at me and gave me this weird, creepy smile. "Welcome to the Void, my dear Sans."

i feel a shiver go down my spine.
~~~~~~~~~~
Day 3 since fall
Migisi walked out of the ruins and ate happily on the pie Toriel had just given her. Maybe making it to the barrier wouldn't be that hard? Having fallen a couple of days ago, she had been thrown into a world of monsters and while she was scared at first, she was able to make friends with a few monsters. She did end up scaring Toriel though, who had never seen an adult human before, but she quickly got over her fear and told Migisi about the underground. When Migisi told her she needed to get back up to see her family, Toriel tried to talk her out of it, but ended up letting her go. She wasn't a kid, after all.

After Toriel had explained about the barrier and gave her a piece of pie Migisi left to explore on her own. Walking towards a branch, she hopped over it and as she landed she heard something to her side. Turning, she saw a skeleton who was a little shorter than her grinning up at her. Jumping back and dropping her pie, she took off screaming "AHHHH!!!! HOOOOOLLLLYYYYY SHIIIITTTT!!!!"

The skeleton man suddenly appeared in front of her and she tripped, falling face first into the snow. Quickly rolling over to try to get away, she paused when she heard his voice.

" h e y h u m a n, i s t h a t a n y w a y t o g r e e t a n e w p a l?"

Chapter Text

The present

Since she didn't know if monsters could recover from such a terrible injury, Migisi set about the painstaking task of piecing the jaw back together as she sat in the dark and dreary room. The monster glue that she found worked perfectly as the jaw was close to being complete again. 'Monster glue... wonder if it's made from Aaron' She snorted and looked over to the skeleton. How would her Sans react to this? She let that thought go as he started to stir. Setting the jaw down, she rushed over and grabbed his shoulder.

He didn't like that.

Turning to her direction he lunged for her, but she was able to back away enough that his teeth left a cut that wasn't deep. She fell into some of the clutter and knocked over some boxes, she got up hastily and she managed to put one of the boxes between her and the Sans who had hunched up into a corner. His eyes, which had been darkened, had a flash of blue and yellow before flickering back out. The Sans scuffled his way to the door while facing her, knocking things over and nearly tripping a few times. Migisi started to open her mouth to say something but the skeleton ran.

She stayed frozen in her spot until finally she jumped to her feet to give chase, but just stood there. 'he was so scared. Maybe I should give him some time?' She shook her head. 'No, the other Sanses out there could hurt him and he's already injured, I've got to help him.' She thought back to the axe one Sans had and shivered. 'But, maybe I should take a weapon first? Looking around, she found metal tube that looked good enough to use as a bat if she needed it. 'I hope I won't have to.'.

She picked it up and swung it before looking towards the open door and going outside. She looked around the room that acted as the entrance to Waterfall. She looked towards Sans's post and gasped. One of the Sanses, who looked to be wearing clothes that mafia members wore in the prohibition era, was leaning back in the chair with his arms behind his head and hat tilted in a way that shadowed half his face, watching her. His smile got bigger as he took his feet of the counter and standing up straight, shoving his hands into his pockets as he made a beeline towards her. Migisi's grip on the pipe tightened.

"heya dollface," he lazily waved at her, "saw you back there. was gonna free ya but some o' the other me's, i guess that's what they are, took up my time and after the fight got taken outside the door just vanished." He shrugged, "figured if i waited out here maybe it'd appear again and lo and behold it did." Migisi stood there thinking over his words and loosening her grip a little on the pipe. "Who exactly are you?" She questioned, "are you... Sans?"

This Sans's eyelights went out and came back so fast that Migisi thought she imagined it. He tilted his head down slightly so that a shadow covered his face. "yeah, i am. question is, who are you and how do ya know my name, dollface?" his voice got a little lower and Migisi stepped back, "whoa there tex, don't get angry at me! I don't know what's going on either." The gangster Sans lifted his head back up and chuckled. "tex? i'm wearin' a trillby, not a ten gallon." Migisi blushed and stammered "Well, you, it looks kinda like something a Texan would wear. Maybe. Actually I've never been to Texas so I wouldn't know, but- I- you- you look like a Tex, so there!" she huffed out, her face completely red and her hands on her hips. Mob Sans looked ready to explode into a fit of laughter as he put a fist to his mouth and an arm around his stomach and bent over.

"you've got one weird train of thought, girlie." He straightened back up, his eyelights brighter and full of mirth. "like the name. looks like i might be havin' to use it here while i'm here." The atmosphere was much more relaxed now, so she lowered her weapon. "I'm Migisi and I really don't know what's going on."

"you said my name before, does that mean you know one of the other me's?" She shook her head. "Well, I haven't seen MY Sans since that big flash of light happened and all of you showed up." She waved her free hand around as she explained. "Before the flash of light, I was trying to find my Sans when this door just just suddenly appeared. I go in and he's there but there's this big ass machine- er pardon my language," she apologized but Tex just shrugged "don't bother me any, keep going." "Right, well anyway this machine that I guess he was working on was going haywire. I tried getting him to come out when the thing started shaking everything, and that was when Sans- er, my Sans, shoved me into that pod and then everything turned white and the room changed and the machine was gone." She shook her head as she looked down. 'And now I don't know if I'm in the same world anymore, I might not ever get a chance to apologize and explain things to him.'

"i see, well that sucks. i think that machine musta pulled us into your universe." Migisi raised a brow "but how do you know it's my universe and not someone else's?" Tex looked a little uncomfortable and averted his eyelights as he explained, "that pod, it's- uh, covered in void magic so it should've protected you when the machine went off." His eyelights landed on her again as his smile broadened. "sounds like your version of me's a bit of a hero."

Migisi nodded and smiled back before frowning. "I hope he's alright, I'm about to go look around for one of the other Sans's, did you see where he ran off to?"

Tex pointed toward the direction of Snowdin before saying, "saw 'em go that way, but you should stay away from everyone else for right now." He lowered his hand, "i could go with ya if ya want, haven't seen any other monsters besides me, myself and i." Migisi giggled. "heh, ya like that? i'm guessin' your sans must have a funny bone too." He winked at her. "Indeed he does." She said.

"well i'll be sure to be just as punny." She groaned and he chuckled.

They began walking.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the void

Sans studied his brother trying to figure out what exactly he wanted to say. His brother didn't seem to really be anything like his old self. "so, uh, how ya been hangin'?" He flipped himself upside down to emphisis his floating. Gaster gave him an unimpressed look. "heh uh, yeah that one was pretty bad. i just," Sans looked off to the side as he started to rub his head. "why did you make such a risky move? you coulda just stayed with me and pap, you wouldn't have been stuck here for who knows how long."

He heard chuckling and looked back up to his brother. "Sans," He started in an icy tone, which caused Sans to stiffen, "family is worthless to me, it always has been." Gaster leaned closer to Sans's face as he still hung upside down, causing San's sockets to darken. "You took upon the task of raising our damaged brother when our parents fell, you fed him your magic to grow in place of them and stunted your own growth and potential like a fool. And for what reason? You could have been so much more." He leaned back as Sans was beginning to sweat and glaring daggers at him. "My time in the void has provided me with more then I could ever have received, had I joined you two."

"you-!" Sans righted himself. "how can you say that? i know you used to care! why else would you have worked so much to make sure that paps got his magic supplements so he didn't suck every last bit of magic out of me when i was raising him?"

Gaster's face twisted into a disturbing smile. "Because pawns do better alive and well," Sans summoned a bone in his hand and tried to strike Gaster but he easily dodged the attack. "It is unfortunate that you wasted your life on our damaged brother, you could have helped me to break the barrier." He laughed as Sans swung and missed him yet again.

"Instead, you hide away in that pathetic town and caught yourself in a loop fighting a human child that will never die." Sans lunge again, Gaster moved back. "And that wretched lizard took my place when you could have. While her work on the amalgamites was impressive, you could have continued my work if only you had forgotten our brother." Swing. Miss.

"And that human filth you adore so much has even surpassed you! She at least has been able to keep the underground from having to face starvation." This time, Gaster caught his arm. "You couldn't even be bothered to take her soul, you let her words weaken you." He dropped his hand like it had burned him and moved away.

Sans lowered his arm and huffed. "killing her ain't worth getting out. she's way better then you'll ever be. paps too." Sans turned to the window and saw Migisi putting the other Sans's jaw back together. He felt warmth as he looked at her, though it was replaced by a heavy feeling. 'migisi, wish i coulda said sorry, i acted like such an ass before.'

Sans closed his eyes, feeling tired.

~~~~~~~~~~

Day 5 since fall
She had been staring at the wall for awhile, looking at it from every direction. After realizing that the Underground had a food shortage problem, Migisi set about looking for anyway to grow food that no one else was able to see before.

And she just found the perfect spot. It was moist, it had just enough light that peaked out from some cracks in the wall, the only problem was that the water was freezing so getting to the wall on a daily basis would take a lot of planning, but if she did it just right...

She stopped looking to write in her notes, as she looked back up she noticed the residents of Snowdin giving her looks of confusion and amusement. 'Oops, I probably look crazy concentrating on this wall so much.' She put the notes into her bag and started walking around while she thought. 'I know that the rocks are perfect for the moss samples I have to grow, they can be edible for humans so hopefully monsters can eat it too. They have lettuce down here as well, but it's only able to be grown in Waterfall along with the rest of their food. If I could get a platform built over the water, I could use a water mill to create just enough electricity that I could use it to power daylight bulbs that could both warm up the facility that they'd grow in and provide extra sunlight for the plants, I could also use vertical farming in order to maximize the amount of food grown.'

"uh, hey, that looks like fun and all, but you've been circling that tree at least twenty times now. i'd leaf you alone but you've kinda made a trail." Migisi looked up to see Sans. "Huh?" She looked down and realized he was right. Blood rushed to her checks as she tried to explain herself. "Crap, sorry, I didn't mean to do that, I just get distracted when I'm thinking and I was on a breakthrough thinking about farm stuff and- oh wait that sounds so lame. What I meant to say was I'm on a breakthrough to saving the Underground from lack of nutrition!" She posed, trying desperately to hide her embarrassment as Sans was rolling on the floor laughing.

"oh my god, you're the best human i've ever met!" He laughed. She blushed, turning away from him with her arms crossed. "Well whatever! I'm going to the king to tell him my plans." Sans stopped laughing and gave her a serious look. "i don't think that's such a good idea. asgore wants to get one more human soul so that he can break the barrier, and you're the first adult human to ever fall down here. the guy's killed kids migisi, he's not gonna hesitate killing you."

Migisi's eyes softened, Sans was a pretty caring guy, when he wasn't trying to rip out your soul. "I know, but I'm still going to take the chance that he may fight me. We actually don't have much of a choice anyway, the food here is running out." Sans shook his head "alright, but don't say i didn't warn you."

After he said that, Papyrus came bursting through his front door, just about kicking it down. "SANS! I HAVE ACQUIRED THE THING THAT WE NEED FOR OUR PUZZLE!" He blinked when he saw the surprised human standing there. "OH! MS. FARM HUMAN, HOW ARE YOU TODAY?" She laughed at his nickname for her. "I'm fine Papyrus, I was just about to head out to see the king." Papyrus gasped. "MS. FARM HUMAN, YOU CAN'T GO TO THE KING WITHOUT AN ESCORT! THAT WOULD JUST BE RUDE!"

"I think I'll be fine Papyrus."

"NONSENSE!" He said as he posed. "YOU NEED AN ESCORT AND I'M JUST THE SKELETON TO DO IT! HERE SANS, TAKE THIS AND FINISH UP THE PUZZLE, I'LL BE BACK SOON FROM MY TRIUMPHANT ESCORT MISSION!" He tossed Sans what looked to be a toy bird, which Sans caught.

"i canary wait to hear about it bro." Papyrus groaned and and turned to Migisi. "WELL, LET US BEGIN OUR JOURNEY!" Migisi sighed and smiled.

As the two walked, they discussed Papyrus's battle scenarios. "...AND THEN YOU HAVE TO GET BEHIND SO THAT YOU CAN NEUTRALIZE THE ENEMY WITH A HUG OF DOOM!" "But wouldn't it make more sense to use the bullhorn tactic in that situation?" "I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW A MALE BOVINE'S HEAD SPEARS WOULD HELP?" "No, it's a tactic that was used by the Zulus." "ARE THE ZULUS BULL PEOPLE? I DID NOT KNOW HUMANS HAD COW HEADS!" "No, Papyrus, listen! It's not-" "HEY, IS THAT UNDYNE?" The two paused to see Undyne finishing up training with some of the guards. Papyrus ran up to her smiling and Migisi had no choice but to follow.

"UNDYNE! HAVE YOU FINISHED YOUR TRAINING SESH?" Papyrus yelled to her as the two of them neared. She turned around smiling, but her face instantly changed to that of guilt when her eye laid on Migisi. She rubbed the back of her neck and averted her eyes. "Oh, uh, hey Paps, hey human." "Hey Undyne, are you okay? Why aren't you looking at me?" Migisi's voice was filled with concern which made Undyne blush.

Finally, she looked up at the worried human and nervous skeleton and sighed 'Well, now or never.' Undyne thought. She took a breath, and then let it out. "I'm sorry!" She barked out, which made the other two flinch at the sudden outburst. "F-for what?" Migisi stammered. Undyne rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips "Ugh! You're really gonna make me say it aren't you?!?! Fine, I'm sorry for the way I acted before, I thought about what you said and you're right. I'm planning on talking with king Asgore to change the policy we have on hunting humans." Migisi's eyes widened and Papyrus gasped.

"Undyne, you're really-"
"Shut up, I wasn't finished" Migisi snapped her mouth shut as Undyne continued, "I'm also sorry for hurting you so bad. There, finished." Migisi took a minute, fearing that she wasn't actually finished before she spoke, though Undyne noticed that she had grabbed the left side of her stomach unconsciously. "Undyne, you don't need to apologize to me when you were just doing your job, and the fact that you were able to stop and question your orders is amazing, it's not something a lot of people- er, monsters, can do." Migisi looked to Undyne and they both smiled until- "YOU TWO KNOW EACH? AND HAVE ALREADY HAD YOUR FIRST FRIENDSHIP SQUABBLE? WHY DID YOU START FIGHTING?"

The two women started to panic. "Uh Paps," Undyne started, "how about we have our cooking lesson now since training ended early?" Papyrus shook his head "I WISH I COULD, BUT I MUST ESCORT OUR FRIEND TO KING FLUFFY PANTS AT ONCE! WE'VE ALREADY BEEN DISTRACTED BY THE ENTRAPPINGS OF PLEASANT CONVERSATION, I CANNOT BE STOPPED BY THE ALLURE OF THE CULINARY ARTS!" Migisi raised a brow at Papyrus's word choices while Undyne burst out laughing, slapping her knees. "YOU are gonna see king Asgore? You've got some balls on you human! I like ya!" She slapped Migisi who stumbled from her strength. "Good luck!"

Undyne walked off laughing as the two resumed their journey. Migisi tuned out Papyrus as he ranted. 'Am I being selfish?' A heavy weight set itself on Migisi's shoulders.

Chapter Text

The present

Migisi's P.O.V.

Where... is everyone? I get a sinking feeling as I see that not one of the normal Underground residents is around, in fact I haven't seen a single ant and those things infest the damn place. At least Tex is here, even if I'm not totally sure whether or not to put all my trust in him. Speaking of which...

I turn to look at him and... holy crap, has he just been staring at me this whole time? "Uh, Tex?" He blinks at me and turns his head away. "hm? what do you need kiddo?" He's not acknowledging that he just point blank stared at me for who knows how long. It's okay Migisi, it's okay, I probably never fell down here in his universe so he must be curious about a weird human girl who has a major crush on his counterpart.

"...I didn't say that out loud, did I Tex?" He looks at me confused, thank god. Wouldn't do if my idiot self blurted that out. "blurted what out?" I slap my forehead. "Never mind, just forget me."

"...okay?"

Goddamnit, why do I have to be such a space case? I avoided eye contact and instead concentrated on my search.

About two or three minutes later I spotted another figure in the blizzard walking towards us. I had to reign in my desire to run over to the person the moment I laid my eyes on them, and it's a good thing I did too because it was another one of the Sanses, and boy did this one look VICIOUS. He had on a black jacket and shorts, a red shirt underneath and black tennis shoes, he also had sharp teeth, one of them was glistening a golden color. His pupils are blood red and he sports a frown, his whole appearance is what I would call gruff and sloppy.

I hadn't realized I had stopped and was staring at him until he snarled at me, "who do ya think you're lookin' at bitch?" My eyebrows furrowed as I started to respond, but Tex beat me to it, "i could ass you the same question, bud." His left eye flashed a grey color in warning and I jumped a little at that. I guess Tex does have my back, wasn't exactly expecting him to defend me after all.

The gruff looking Sans snapped his head towards his other self. "shut tha fuck up ya weirdo, i had enough of ya when you slogged me in tha face and walked off!" Wow, Tex has game. "'sides, tha bitch an' i need to have a little chat." He glared back at me and I raised my hands in defense. "Don't know a thing, already discussed that with Tex here."

The punk Sans scrunched his face up in confusion, "tex?" At the mention of his nickname, his smile somehow got bigger and his eyelights returned to normal. "you've got that right, figured i'd need a nickname so no one would have a cow. douche you think you should get a nickname for yourself, edgy me?" The other Sans didn't look amused, but Tex got a mischievous look in his eyes. "actually, that's the perfect name. douche."

Oh crap. The mean looking Sans's eyes shone brighter and he started towards Tex. I put myself in between them without thinking. "Look! Let's just use the name Edge, alright? And Tex, stop provoking him."

Edge grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to him which made Tex tense. His grip is surprisingly strong, it feels like my blood has been cut off and like my arm's about to snap in half from the intense pressure he's put on it. He leaned up to me and despite his small stature his presence was enough to strike fear into me, freezing me like a statue.

"if you ever get in my way again, i'll snap your neck, got it?" he tossed off my hand and began to stomp past us. Tex, I noticed, had his eyelights out again as he kept his eyes on Edge, and Edge his eyes on Tex. It's hard to breath. They've said something, but I can't hear, it feels stretched and slowed, it's hard to breath, one has left and I don't know which one, it's hard to breath...

....

....

"-gisi. migisi. migisi!" I snapped my head up- wait, when did I sit down? My breathing is returning to normal, everything is okay. Did I almost faint? I felt like I was about to and I don't know why. "migisi." Tex's look of concern sobered me up. I stood so he didn't have to give me that worried look anymore. "I'm fine. Sorry, I don't know what that was." I wiped at my eyes and realized they were wet. He's still looking at me with worried eyes. No, I won't allow myself to be a burden. "Really, I'm fine. I don't know why you'd even be worried about me when we've only known each other for an hour."

A look of realization crossed his face, and it seemed to twist into something else for a second before morphing back into concern. I guess it's just in any Sans's nature that when they're concerned they stay like that for a while trying to pick out what's wrong. It's both a sweet and an annoying trait. The only way to get him to stop is to try to distract him, I try to think of something when I realize something, "hey, why did the other S- er, Edge, not teleport? Can he not?" Huh, I wonder if they have different powers since their from different universes. I wonder if one of them has ice powers.

"... ice powers?" He gave me an impressed yet almost bored look. Guess he's getting used to my sporadic mind already. "...Yes?" I gave him a sheepish look. He sighed and shook his head in possible amusement. "icey, well anyway edge and the others, myself included, did teleport but only a very short distance." He stopped to yawn. "while i beam me-self up," I cringed at the forced pun, briefly noting his universe had similar cultural references apparently. "i noticed that we all seemed tired from our arrival here, being ripped from our universes seems to have sapped all our energy." He shrugged.

I mull over this new information, if that was the case then they all will need to eat something, and soon from the sounds of it. I forced a smile as I came to my conclusion, which seems to have baffled Tex. I nervously laughed and grabbed at his jacket with my good hand, I can just see the question marks forming over his head as I lead him. "If that's the case I know just where to go!"

~~~~~~~~~~

In the void

Sans jolted when the window suddenly closed. He had been watching the altercation with Edge, only further worrying him that he wasn't there to protect her now that she was the only one left. He turned to his brother looking for answers and Gaster only shrugged. "Any window opened will only be available to be observed for a brief moment, it will be able to be opened again after an indeterminable amount of time."

"you don't know how long, so we just gotta sit in the dark starring at each other for who knows how long?" Dark laughter came from the short skeleton. "just my luck."

"Windows to other worlds can be accessed in the meantime."

"i'm not interested in lazin' around, funny enough. i'm going to find a way home." Gaster chuckled. "You think I haven't tried, Sans? As alleviating as it is, the darkness can drive even the greatest of minds mad." Sans's eye twitched. 'but it looks like it didn't damage your ego.'

Sans floated away from his brother to try to find something, anything that could bring him back to his world and undo the damage. He had hoped that Migisi would get support from his alternate selves, but now he wasn't sure she'd even be safe. 'if she can't find a way to undo this then i have to, just hope she can hang in there. god i hope that paps is still alive. what everyone was erased? what if he never comes back?'

Dread filled him at that thought. 'no, he'll be fine. i'll make sure he's fine, i've always made sure of that.' Before he even realized it he came right back to where he started. "uh... hi again?"

Gaster barely looked at him. "Fool." Sans felt his eye twitch again. "The void is both infinite and yet circular." "i always disk-liked geometry." The look on Gaster's face could only be described as one of exasperation. "While it is standard for you to be hiding behind your... -humor- it would not improve the situation either of us are in." He waved his hand dismissively at Sans.

'heh. i forgot how much he hated my jokes. looks like maybe the old him could still be in there.' Sans calmed a little at that thought, though his agitation still showed. "have you found anything that might have some possibility of taking us back? seeing as how i just got here there could be some remnant of the portal that should've formed."

Glad his brother had stopped joking, Gaster finally fully turned to Sans. "Perhaps, but we won't know until we can reopen it." His eyes became distant as he lost himself in though for a moment, a smirk appeared on the doctor's face.

Thinking his brother was starting to warm up to him, Sans tried to find something else to talk about with his older sibling while abstaining from making more jokes. "you said other windows could be opened? what about the universes that the other me's come from?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Month 2 since fall

"I SAID TO PUT IT OVER THERE! PUT MORE OOMPH INTO IT! NO, NOT LIKE THA- GAH!!! LET ME DO IT!!!!" A piercing voice demanded.

Alphys and Migisi twisted their bodies around to see Undyne lifting six rather huge bags of cement mix that she'd taken from the others helping to make what has now been dubbed by the underground residents as "The Farm". Greater Dog, R1 and R2 went to go get more bags and tried to put more "oomph" into it this time.

Migisi turned to her lizard friend, "I'm glad Undyne volunteered to help with the final part of the construction now that Cat's recovering, but man is she intense." She shrugged. "oh well, beggars can't be choosers and Undyne's not too bad of a choice to begin with huh?" She looked to her nervous companion.

Alphys blushed and stuttered, "y-yeah, I knew sh-she'd be a big help. I'm g-glad I asked her." Migisi chuckled, "you got that right! I think that if we ever get to the surface then she'd make a good cop or a construction manager." Alphys nodded and looked to her friend. Migisi's smile started to lower and she mumbled something Alphys couldn't hear.

"Mi-Migisi, are you alri-right?" The human shook her head. "I'm fine, just though of something a little sad." Migisi finally faced her friend. "You know, I'm surprised you and Undyne are so close. I mean, I knew she had a really friend she talked about all the time but I didn't think it was you!" Alphys' blush burned even brighter. "Sh-sh-she ta~lks about-about m-m-m-m-me? A-a-a-all-all th-the t-t-ti~me?!?!" A goofy smile plastered itself on to her face. "Geez, h-ho-how embarra-embarrassing!" Migisi stared at her for a moment before she realized, her smile growing with each word, "you like Undyne, don't you?" Alphys no longer had a trace of yellow left, as her body now resembled a cherry. Migisi crossed her arms and nodded to herself. "That's a yes."

"D-d-d-d-do-on't t-t-t-el-tell her-r!" Poor Alphys watched as her friend had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from laughing. "Oh god, you two are so adorable- not wait! Adorkable! That word now describes you, it's in the dictionary and it's toatally going to circulate!"

Alphys gasped, "NO! D-d-d-don't ciru-ciru- spread it a-around!"

"Aw okay, but people'll be wondering why a page is missing when they go to look up that word." She winked to the blushing lizard woman, who shook her head and frowned.

"C-can we stop? The inter-interviews will start soon!"

Migisi sighed and the two left for the Grillby's. In the restaurant there were already a few people who had gathered to be interviewed, over by Grillby was Burgerpants who seemed to be trying to apply to the restaurant too incase things didn't go well, Charles was close to the jukebox 'I guess he got laid off again.' The two women thought, sitting at the table was Whimsun, Parsnik and a Temmie who seemed to be a business Temmie, and finally the infamous Snowdin teenagers Snowdrake, Ice cap, Gyftrot, Chilldrake and... ugh, Jerry.

They sat down at the table by the back door and began the process, about two hours later and they narrowed it down to Temmie and the teens (minus Jerry) and started to pack up when a tall skeleton carrying a smaller one burst into the restaurant. "FARM HUMAN! ALPHYS! PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR MY BROTHER AND I'S TARDINESS AND SPECTACULAR GRAND ENTRANCE, BUT MY LAZY BONES BROTHER WOULDN'T GET OUT OF BED AND THIS ANNOYING DOG ATE THE FLYER BEFORE WE COULD FIND OUT WHERE WE WERE TO BE ASSESSED!"

The two women, now ducked behind the table at the surprise appearance by the skeleton brothers, looked to each other and then back at them. Sans waved a lazy hello and Papyrus tried to hide his jitteriness by striking a pose.

"Er, th-the in-interviews are over, P-P-Papyrus." Alphys stuttered as the stood up from the table. Papyrus looked crestfallen. "O-OH, I SEE... WELL-" "You're hired." Migisi interrupted. Alphys gave her a stunned look. "B-but," she whispered to her friend, "you sh-shouldn't make such a q-quick decision, Migisi. Not to m-mention the interviews are o-over."

"Alphys, we don't have enough workers and we'd just be wasting time with another interview process."

"Right, b-but Papyrus is kinda... tough to handle a-and Sans isn't exactly very moti-motivated."

Migisi smiled, "Paps has passion and I think with the right direction he could do wonderful things, and Sans isn't as lazy as you might think."

"i shush have seen this coming, but you gossip-rising me every time." Alphys yelped and jumped back, Migisi's eyes widened and she blushed heavily but otherwise stayed still. "S-Sans!" "Sans!" He had teleported in between them while they were distracted talking to each other. Papyrus dramatically slapped his face, groaning, "SANS! NOW WE'LL NEVER GET THE JOB ALL BECAUSE OF YOUR JESTING!" "whoops, sorry bro, but you know i can't help that i've got a funny bone." He winked to the human, which didn't escape Alphys attention as Papyrus continued scolding his brother.

"It's fine guys, I said I'd hire you and that's what I'm gonna do." Papyrus hugged her. "Okay, okay settle down. You two are all good, I just gotta tell you the rules."

As she talked, Alphys observed the interactions between the soon-to-be farmer and the short skeleton and came to a conclusion; the blushing, the casual touches, the corny jokes and the way the two looked at each other... 'I think I just found my new OTP." She smiled brightly at the thought.

After it was over and they returned to the construction site, Alphys began her teasing. "Y-you two are so adorkable."

It dawned on Migisi that her friend now had as much ammo as she did.

Chapter Text

The present

"you've got some sorta death wish, don'tchu girlie?" Tex asked as he and his companion arrived at the farm. "It's Migisi, and I doubt ALL of you are bad." She trudged up to the to the planks that lead to the main building. "And I plan on remaking that machine- or ya know, something. The residents are gone, including my Sans..." She blushed and started waving her hands around as she tried to defend herself, "I-I-I I meant my UNIVERSES Sans, not my, I mean- crap I don't know what I mean!" He started laughing. "your sans, huh?"

Blushing an even deeper, Migisi turned her head and huffed. "Shut it, I've had an intense day! And here you are... picking... on... me..." She trailed off. Confused, Tex looked around to see nothing unusual. Without warning, she ran towards a sloped wall that was covered in moss and just stared at it much to the confusion of Tex. He went up to her and noticed that she started sweating.

"uh, girlie? what's-"

"There's no buds on this." This only confused him more, so she continued. "This moss- it grows this flower called the snowflake rose that takes about five months to grow once it's planted..." She faced Tex fully, "they were in full bloom before, but this is... this is only two months old."

Tex took a minute to absorb that information. "so, we've been sent back in time three months? way to clock a guy over the head with that info." The joke went over Migisi's head as she started to pace around. "Everyone's gone, a bunch of different versions of my best friend show up, and we've been sent back in time..." A light bulb goes off in her head. "Gaster!"

Tex tensed up, but Migisi didn't notice as she suddenly grabs him with her good arm, smiling brightly. "That's what he was doing! He was looking for Gaster!" But her expression soon turned sour. "Wait, but I thought... he said he was over it... why did he lie to me about that?" She threw her hand up. "Ugh! He STILL doesn't trust me! How could he just do that!"

She started muttering some things to herself about a "stupid boneheaded jerk off" as Tex readjusted his suit. "you uh, know who gaster is?" She nodded as she went back to the doors of the main building and opened them, had she turned around she would've noticed the conflicting emotions flickering over Tex's face. "My- this universe's Sans I got to open up and tell me things," She fiddled around looking for a light switch. "But I'd rather not talk about that, you are essentially a stranger to me, even if you are still a Sans-ah! There it is!" Luckily the electricity was still working. The lights turned on and Migisi realized that they weren't alone.

At the top of one of the high walls on one of the moving platforms for farming was a new Sans, one that wore an orange long sleeve sweat shirt and shoes, a grey hoodie vest, black shorts and a red bandanna. The left side of his head was cracked and the eye devoid of light despite the right eye socket's light boring into her. He grinned down at her, "isn't talking to yourself a sign of insanity in humans?" Migisi jumped, realized that she'd been gawking at him and when his words registered, she whipped her head around to look for Tex, only to realize he'd vanished.

Migisi turned back to look at the new Sans, opening her mouth to speak, before realizing that he was now in front of her, holding a handful of blue honeysuckles. He popped one in his mouth, chuckling at her as her eyes bugged out and her mouth hung open. Seeing an opportunity, he tossed one into her mouth which she started choking on.

When she finally managed to unlodge it, no thanks to the laughing skeleton beside her, she swiped the berries from him and grabbed one of the nearby baskets that the monsters used to carry their food in, throwing them inside. She didn't take her eyes off of him for a second. "Why does every skeleton I meet try to kill me?" He laughed harder at that. 'What a prick.' Migisi's eye twitched at the thought.

"you meet a lot of skeletons if you're unfazed by it all." He stuck a hand in his pockets and grabbed a few more berries, "so, mind telling me why you've been able to meet so many." His right eye vanished, and his left appeared as a golden one.

Migisi twitched, but didn't allow it to bother her any further, figuring that just like the other Sanses so far he only wanted answers. She told him what she knew, he stopped smirking for a brief moment at the mention of Gaster's name but regained his composure quickly. "-and there's at least seven of you that have been brought over, though so far I've only met four, which includes you."

"i'm guesing that one in the trillby was one of them?"

"You saw Tex? Wait, then why did you act like you didn't?"

His grin widened, "it's hilarious seeing monsters and humans make fools out of themselves, of course." Migisi stared at him, her mouth open again. The apparently manipulative Sans tried throwing another berry into her mouth, but she closed it just in time. "Stop that!" He chuckled, "so do i get a nickname as well? should make things a bit easier."

She sighed and thought for a minute. "Goldie." He raised a browbone. "Your magic is gold, it was the first thing to pop into my head. And I'm Migisi, in case you were wondering."

"i wasn't"

She resisted the urge to sigh again, "Anyway, I was going to get food for the others since they're weak-" "that's a stupid idea." "-SO if you don't mind I'd like to get back to doing that." Goldie's smirk hitched up just a little higher. "i'll let you get to it then. have fun." He waved and teleported himself out. Migisi stood there staring at the spot he was at before going to fill up the basket.

~~~~~~~~~~
In the void

The window showed a disparaging sight, monsters starving, dust everywhere, the dog couple feeding on a torn off human leg, one of the rabbit people holding a knife and threatening a child to give up their food, the bear bouncer dusting a beggar who annoyed them, and the worst to Sans- a twisted version of Papyrus with crooked blood smeared teeth calling for his brother. Sans was lucky he didn't have a stomach, because he felt that he would've thrown up at the sight of this horrid world. He clutched his teeth regardless.

"Ah, this universe is rather astounding." Sans looked to his brother to find him genuinely interested in what was going on, it was the look he used to give when he was observing some experiment of his. "This universe was once like our own, until Frisk left the barrier. It seems that the negative emotions clouding the underground in combination with starvation has changed the very way that souls function, resulting in insanity and aggressiveness not normally known to monster kind."

"that doesn't make any sense, how could monsters ever become like this? how could paps become like this?" Sans started to shake as he returned his gaze to the screen, tearing up at the sight of his beloved sibling's doopelganger. The twisted Papyrus stopped to help up a small monster child, at the sight of it he couldn't hold on any longer and burst into tears. He was still so much like the Papyrus he knew. Would they have ended up the same way if Migisi had never fallen down and Frisk never reset again?

Gaster gave him an annoyed look before reaching out and touching the window. It become static like last time, but much worse.

"The magical interference from your world is unusual, it seems that window is much closer now that I think about it. Perhaps the window could be opened?" Sans sniffling died down slowly as he listened, "but no, the assistance your counterparts would still be needed to pull them just a little closer." Gaster drifted off into ramblings about calculations, leaving Sans to his thoughts once again.

Though he had been grateful for being able to live in a decent home in a nice town, he'd never realized how good he's had it. Of course his counterpart from this universe would be driven to madness, he couldn't imagine how he'd even be able to take care of his brother let alone himself in such a situation.

He wiped away at his tears and plastered on his fake smile, 'another thing i've taken for granted, i haven't had to fake as many of these ever since 'gisi showed up.' He waved his hand toward the window to observe the static since he couldn't get a proper look before. 'he's right, the connectivity to this world is so much more faint.' a thought dawned upon him, 'will we be able to send the other me's back to their worlds with such a weak connection? i don't think gast would care enough to try, but maybe whatever he's able to come up with to make a portal i can try to recreate.'

He crossed his arms and furrowed his brows. 'i hate to say it but gaster's right about that too... i'm not as capable as i should be, i can only recreate what he makes.' he closed his eyesockets, 'but if i hadn't... no, i won't finish that thought.' he opened them again, purposely looking away from the window. 'need to stop that negativity, i'm sans, i'm supposed to make others femur better. heh. yeah, there we go.'

No longer a crack in his mask, he went to where his older brother was.

~~~~~~~~~~

Week three since fall

A bellowing laugh rose from the bulky mata-mata monster. "You ain't never even seen a blueprint before, have ya?" He joked at Migisi as the two hunched over the table looking at the plans for the farm's construction. Migisi puffed out her cheeks, "well of course I have, just not when it comes to an actual building, I'm more about equipment then anything else. That's why you're even here Cat, so shut it!" He laughed even harder at her face, "ya know I'm just messin' with ya! I don't expect some Abovegrounder to know how we have to build things down here anyway. Now you sit your scrawny human butt down, you've been workin' too hard."

She smiled up at him, "thanks, but I haven't done anywhere near enough to warrant a break of any kind. Besides, I've gotta keep you and your crew in line, you guys can be pretty reckless sometimes, what with Aarron starting random flexing contests and you bursting into drunken streak dancing." Cat blushed at that, "hey, that was one time! We'll be fine without cha, ya've been helping my crew all day, so get!" He shooed her away.

Migisi rolled her eyes but complied. She sat over by one of the stacks of wood to be used, waving at a passing Aarron as he carried bags of cement mix, and picked up her lunchbox. Reaching inside, she picked up snail-lettuce-tomato sandwich and took a bite out of it...

"...."

She spit it back out and lifted up the bread to find nothing but ketchup. "Saaaaans!!!" She looked around for the jokester only to find him trying his hardest not to laugh behind some sort of weird mini dozer type equipment. She went over and flicked his forehead. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up you jerk."

His grin widened and she just knew he was about to make a- "don't you mean numbskull?" She let out an agonized groan and flopped down next to him. "Now I'm never gonna get to eat, and after working all day!" She pouted at him. His cheek bones turned a little blue at the expression. Reaching into his jacket he handed her the real sandwich.

Breaking into a smile, she snatched it from him. She tore off half and handed it over which surprised Sans. "uh..." "Just take it." Handing it over to him, their hands brushed and Migisi felt her heart pick up speed. 'Geez calm down, we barely touched.' They ate in silence for a little while.

...

"What's the skeleton equivalent to a booty call?" Sans sprayed chunks of the sandwich out as he burst out laughing. "god i love your random thought process." He said after finally calming down. She blushed and started her explanation.

"But, I, well, you don't even have an ass! Wouldn't you use a different phrase or something? Or wait, you wouldn't even ever be able have a booty call because you don't have a... uuuuhhhh... So! Snails right?"

After getting over another fit of laughter on Sans's part, he leaned over towards her with lidded eyesockets and stuck out a long blue tongue. "don't have a what?" He said in as husky a voice as he could manage. Migisi's face turned one bright shade of red as she tried to find her words. Sans snickered to himself and pulled away, his own face a bright shade of blue.

He decided to spare her and change the subject, "i'm surprised you've done so much already, tibia honest i couldn't be more plowed of you." He winked at her. She started pouting again before she stuck her tongue out, which Sans of course grabbed. "Haih! Leb doh o mi tonbph!" He let go and chuckled while she glared at him, pink staining her cheeks.

'heh, she's so cute when she gets mad.'

'He's actually pretty cute when he laughs.'

The two jump a bit in shock, blushing madly as they spring to their feet.

"i uh, i gotta get back to sentry duty-"
"I think I just heard Cat call me-"

They stumbled a bit over their words and nearly knocked into each other trying to leave before taking off to their own duties, all throughout the day they denied what they thought.

Chapter Text

The present

The skeleton brother's house seemed so much bigger and drearier then before. Migisi felt a chill go down her spine as she stood in front of it, and it wasn't because of the cold. 'There's got to be at least one of them in here.'

Stepping up to the door, she put her ear up to it. No sounds could be heard, so she tried opening the door just a little to peek and though it was dark inside could still tell no one was there. She made her way over to the light switch to turn it on and then headed to the kitchen but found nothing there either. Her next stop was Papyrus's room and as she started to push the door open it yanked forward, making her stumble and fall to the ground. Looking up, she saw what looked like her version of Sans... Except...

She quickly try to stand up, but he managed to grab her hair with his dust covered hands and threw her to the other side of the room, hitting Papyrus's desk and knocking down his computer. She grasped at her side and hissed in pain as she heard foot steps come towards her.

And then, they stopped

"whoops, sorry paps." Migisi's head snapped forward to see this new Sans facing away from her and looked as if he was just talking to thin air. "guess that -shattered- my expectations." He chuckled "nah, didn't mean to break it, bro, you know that." He calmly turned back to her as she tried moving to the window. "i know, i know. jus' gotta take care of this human first." He raised a hand, ready to snap his fingers. "then you'll get it back."

SNAP!

A scream broke out as a bone lodged it's way into Migisi's leg. She fell to her hands and knee as she tried not to hurl. As the dusty Sans bent down to her level, their eyes locked and the dusty Sans wore a confused expression as he searched her face. He reached out to touch her but stopped when she flinched and lowered his hand. "there's never been another human before."

Migisi tried focusing on her breathing as he studied her. "and i don't see chara." He shook his head as he stood back up. "oh well, looks like it's your unlucky day." He got ready to snap his fingers again and Migisi knew she had to act quick.

"JAM CAN BE MADE WITHOUT BERRIES!!!!"

......

Well, at least her random train of thought stopped him, in fact it looked like his brain had crashed trying to comprehend her sudden outburst, the only movement he made was continuous blinking. "I-it's true, it can be made with, uh, seeds and tomatoes and even kale! Well I think it's kale, maybe it was basil?" She briefly forgot the peril she was in until a sharp pain shot through her leg. "Ow!" Noticing that he was still in a stupor, she decided that addressing his concerns about Chara might be a good idea.

"Chara isn't here anymore, no one is except you, me and a few other versions of you that were brought here, to my universe." A bead of sweat rolled down to her chin, her leg felt like it was on fire. "A-and my Sans is gone too. I came here-" she took back her thoughts of asking this Sans for help, it certainly didn't seem like a bright move. "I came here to uh, give you some f-food because Tex, I-I mean one of the other Sans mentioned that all of you might be hungry."

His eyelights moved to the basket that had been tossed around in the scuffle before returning to her trembling form. "Chara's gone, you can relax, sh-she won't huuurt you." She felt lightheaded and was to preoccupied with not passing out that she didn't see the rapid change in his expressions, startled, confused, worried, panicked, REALLY panicked.

The bone vanish and Migisi's leg dropped painfully on the floor. She saw him stumble backwards into the door. "Sa-er, Dus- no, Hoodie? Whatever I should call you, are you alright?" His eyes shifted back and forth as if he was trapped and his magic started to go haywire, bones began emerging out of the floor and walls and she knew she'd have to make a run for it. Getting up on both legs, and flinching from the pain, she saw that she couldn't get to the door since he was blocking it, so she had only one option left.

She jumped straight out of the window.

Even though the snow cushioned some of the impact, the fall brought on a new wave of pain. She cried out, her tears falling freely as the edges of her vision blackened. She could just make out a towering figure before her vision cut out.

~~~~~~~~~~
In the void

Gaster had opened up a new window by the time Sans found him. He was looking into a new world that seemed to be less violent, but still very strange. In it, he saw a version of Alphys that seemed much crueler talking to a pink version of Mettaton, in the back was a giant liquid filled tube that had Undyne in it hooked up to some wires. Sans would've been a bit more shocked to see this, had he not just seen such a hellish version of the underground in the first place. Even still, it was a little on the disturbing side to see Alphys experimenting on the person that in his universe had just married them.

As he got closer, he could see Gaster moving his hands around at the bottom of the window, very nearly touching it and making the window a little fuzzy. Following where he was looking, he realized something was moving over by Alphys's desk, it looked to be some small device that she had previously been working on that he was now fixing. Sans tried squinting to see it better but had no luck. "so, uh you wanna tell me how you're doing that?"

Gaster flinched and dropped what he was doing to turn to his brother, he'd been so focused on his task that he didn't notice that Sans had approached him. Sans felt the tiniest bit of glee at that.

"By touching the borders of the window, I am able to briefly interact with the world displayed." Sans's eyesockets widened a bit, "however, I only have a limited time to work with most of these worlds as the anomaly is normally able to reset before my plans can come to fruition."

"so wait, you could do that this whole time? tibia honest," Gaster scowled at the pun. "it woulda been nice if you told me that before."

Gaster rolled his eyelights as he returned to his task. "If you must watch, I would inquire you to be silent, daunting as that task may be for you." The shorter skeleton's smile hitched up further as he decided to comply.

...

"Sans, stop blocking my view and cease making such senseless faces." Sans, who was currently pushing his two cheek bones together and crossing his eyelights chuckled at him and floated off. Knowing that the former scientist wasn't about to talk further or indulge him in his antics, he began nodding off to pass the time.

He started to dream about him, Papyrus, Migisi and Gaster, who had returned to looking like his old self, all at Grillby's, which was funny since his brothers always hated greasy food. They were all enjoying talking to each other as they set by the bar and Grillby joined them in conversation, the five of them started throwing fries at each other and laughing. It was a nice dream. That meant it was about to become much worse then his normal nightmares.

Gaster began to melt until he disappeared, Papyrus, Grillby and the rest of the monsters at the bar were suddenly trapped into bubbles that floated away, each of them screaming at him to save him or trying to reach out to one of the others who were trapped but couldn't, and Migisi started yelling for them, asking where they all were, as if she couldn't see any of them. Then the monsters started to vanish and they panicked more. They flickered in and out as they all tried to reach out either to him or Migisi. Gaster appeared again in his slimy form and grinned at Sans just as the monsters vanished fully. "They still have eyes." He said to the panicking, confused skeleton.

He looked back at Migisi and saw 7 shadowed figures that all looked like him. They approached her and scars began to appear on her skin with each step they took. Finally, one of the figures lunged at her and the other six seemed to be trying to stop them. Then, everything went white and he heard a voice, many voice infact, speak up. "fOrGiVe mE."

Sans jolted awake when he heard a sudden, loud noise. Looking over to his brother, Gaster was very upset and grumbling, but he thought it was better to ask what was going on rather then dwell on his dream any longer. "bro, what's going on? what's gotten under your ski-" Gaster shot him a look of warning. "uh, i mean, why were you yelling?"

Gaster sighed, "The anomaly reset again. I normally wouldn't have raised my voice, but I was rather close to a break through." Sans nodded. "cool, so uh, what time is it?" The voidster looked as though he wanted to dust him right then and there, but settled for floating off instead.

Sans sighed and rubbed the back of his skull. 'oh well, so much for bein' able to get some answers outta him.' Huffing, he decided to experiment with his new-found knowledge, 'was hoping to get some tips, but i'll figure it out.'

Remembering the way that Gaster had opened up a window before, he raised his hand to try making one appear himself.

~~~~~~~~~~
Month 1 since fall

It had been a long day for Migisi, so her regular meet-up with Sans at Grillby's was something she looked forward to as she headed towards the familiar bar. After greeting Berry the brown bronx bouncer bear (Migisi could never help giggling when she thought that), she headed over to her usual spot next to the stool Sans always sat on. Surprisingly enough she arrived before the skeleton, so she ordered their food and some booze and got out some paper and a pencil while she waited. She tapped thoughtfully at her chin, thinking of what to write. Lately, Papyrus had been down because he had discovered, much to the dismay of Sans, what the royal guard ACTUALLY did. It seems that Undyne had finally broken down and couldn't hide the truth from him anymore, after that Papyrus had quit and has been depressed ever since. It had all happened only a couple of days ago, but she wanted to try cheering him up with 'fan letters', though she wondered how well it would work.

Without warning, someone smacked her back, breaking her concentration. The sight of the shit eating grin she'd come to know told her it was Sans. He plopped down at his seat just as the food arrived.

"aw, you already ordered for me? and here i was about to mustard up the courage to try something new." She rolled her eyes at that. " Serve what? All they have is burgers and fries." He chuckled and grabbed a ketchup bottle "i guess it sipped my mind." He proceeded to make obnoxious slurping sounds as he chugged the bottle.

"ANYWAY," Migisi looked away from the disgusting sight and started picking at her burger. "I wanted to ask for your help on something."

He blinked and set down his bottle. "really? you're gonna ask the laziest guy in the underground for help?" he laughed as he started eating some fries. "Well," She started as she cut her burger in half and set a piece on his plate. "It has to do with your brother." He paused putting some of his fries on her plate and his mask almost broke before he put it back on. "what about him?" He was cautious, Papyrus was already in a fragile state of mind, he didn't want him getting hurt further.

"I wanted to try writing him a fan letter," Sans's smile became genuine at that. "But I don't know what to write, I know your brother wants to be a hero so should I try writing it like it's a little kid or should I try pretending it I'm someone older? Maybe I should put stickers on it, I bet he'd love that!" She continued on listing ideas for what to write, not noticing the fond look her friend gave her.

Sans felt a rush of warmth in his chest as he watched her worry about his brother. 'heh, she's so stupidly sweet.' He chomped down on his burger as he listened to her go on about the letter, briefly detouring the conversation about how Grillby should sell mango pie.

After some back and forth suggestions and questions, the letter was finally finished. "Alright, let's read it." She cleared her throat before she began reading.

"To the great, amazing, totally spectacular Papyrus,
I am your greatest fan, for you are the coolest monster in the underground.
One day, I want to become as cool as you, to be able to stand up and protect
everyone, even if that means giving up your dreams.
- Signed, your biggest fan."

She finished. "sounds good. i'll put it in the mailbox for you later." He said as she stuffed it in an envelope. Hopefully, the message would help bring him out of his funk, but she doubted it. Even the ever cheerful Papyrus wouldn't just bounce back so quickly, the poor guy wanted to prove himself to Sans, Undyne, and everyone else that he could help the underground, to be a hero. Migisi was aware that Papyrus wasn't quite normal and that he suffered from some monster version of autism and that he knew he wasn't the same as others. She stared at her empty plate for a moment, deep in thought.

"I'm an older sister you know." Sans stopped drinking the beer he had ordered, setting it down and inclined his head toward her. "Chuchip's fifteen, Kinta's eight, and yes we're each seven years apart from each other, I don't know our parents did that." She chuckled, "Kinta's really bright for her age, she's sassy and determined and has even skipped a grade because she's so smart." Her smiled dipped a little and her eyes became watery and at this, Sans put his hand over hers in comfort. "But Chuchip, he's got this disability call dyslexia. It- he has trouble reading, it's like he sees the words but they can't connect... and-and even though he's like this natural born leader *hic* h-he thinks he's stupid and that he can never a-accompl-lish anything." Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I worry so *sniff* much about him, I know he can take care of himself, but he doesn't s-seem to think so, and if-if he thinks it then he might *hic* make it come-come true."

Migisi tried to wipe away her tears as Sans rubbed his thumb over her hand, "sorry, sorry, it's just that I understand what you're going through, having to worry about your sibling's future and all... I just-" She got cut off as he hugged her. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart started to pound wildly as she hugged him back. She held onto him tightly as she closed her eyes and allowed herself to cry, knowing she'd never be able to help make sure her brother knew he was worth the world to her, knowing that her little sister might have that burden shifted onto her when she was already so busy with school, she'd never get to see them again...

Sans moved his hand up and down her back to soothe her, but he also needed this as well. Monsters rarely developed disabilities, they weren't made of matter like humans after all, so he'd never been able to find anyone to relate to. His phalanges touched the paper that he had slapped on her back when he greeted her. He had written 'I am a dork' on it as a prank but now he didn't find it as funny. He took it and crumpled it before continuing to embrace the human that seemed as lost as him.

Chapter Text

The present

???'s P.O.V.

was that a thud? i was planning on just surveyin' this house since the (skeletal) structure of this place seems to be the same as where i'm from (different universe? maybe, it is possible) when i noticed somethin' had fallen out of the window. heh, a little rabbit to mess with maybe? or dinner, if i had a stomach it'd be growlin' non-stop. but when i looked i was surprised to find an adult human woman, and one that's still alive at that, given the sounds she was making and her chest movin' up and down (that means they're breathing, right?). meh, i shouldn't be so lateral with my diagnosis.

i knelt down to get a closer look, and man are humans just as weird looking as they are alive than they are dead, bein' squishy and all that shit. i wiped away some of the blood and licked it off my fingers... mmm tastes sweet. heheh. she whimpered in pain, poor thing, guess i don't have the heart to hurt little rabbits. heh.

taking pity on the weak and pathetic girl, as well as wantin' a skeleton of questions answered, i lifted her up and started to carry her in the house but... wait, that's probably not a good idea to take her there since something obviously just happened up there. whatever, i'll just go into this library. was planning on headin' there next, anyway. it was light up, for whatever reason the electricity is still working here. i set her on the table and looked at her. this human's skin is a little darker then most that i've seen, though i've seen darker, her hair's black and curly and she's got this roundish long face.

from what i can understand of humans, her injuries don't seem too bad, head's still on and she ain't full of holes. i do know they gotta keep all that blood in them though, so i threw some cloth from her shirt around her leg. good enough.

i then took a moment to look around the library, maybe there's some books about humans in here that i could use? i looked around a bit, eyeballing the spines, and something caught my eye-socket, monster history. i skimmed through the book and found a recount that sounds similar, yet different to the monster history i know.

...uh, shit, i AM in a different universe aren't i? i looked at a few more books, coming across one that claimed to be about human biology but i could patella that they clearly knows less then my universe(?) does. guess these monsters are a bit nicer and less curious to tear open a body to see what's inside. must be nice living in this place then, they must fart sparkles here too.

tossing that trash to the side, i went back to looking at a femur books and found a pretty weird one called Migisi's manual to horticulture and underground farming. man that's got to be the most boring shit ever, but my universe never really had much in the way of farming since we mostly just ate humans and animals anyway, so i was curious. first thing i noticed when i opened it up was that there was a picture of the human, a different version of alphys, a different version of a turtle guy i'd seen before and this universe's version of papyrus. i stared at the photo for a minute and started to sweat a little. uh, shit this is way weirder then i was expecting.

when i heard movement and mumbling i turned to find the little rabbit waking up, so i abandoned the book to head towards who i now know is migisi. i sneaked around behind her so she wouldn't see me as she lifted up her head to look around. "well, guess i can't eat you just yet." i said, and she whipped her head around and stared at me wide eyed. i smirked trying to hold my laughter in a her expression and how she took that threat so seriously. she's gonna be fun as hell to mess with. "but as tempting as it is to drink all that delicious blood in you is," i said as i grabbed the makeshift bandage and lifted it slowly, which apparently caused her pain which made me want to laugh even more. i dipped two phalanges down into her wound, making her squirm and nearly cry, and scooped a little blood on them. "i got some questions you're gonna answer me." i enjoyed the look of terror on her face as she watched me lick my fingers clean.

but then she relaxed. "Oh wait, so you're not planning on killing me? That's good, and sure I'll answer some of your questions." i stood shocked at her sudden change in demeanor, is she ribbin' me? ...and partly because i'd never heard such a kind and gentle tone of voice before, though given this universe seems like it's much less violent then mine it shouldn't have been too shocking. suspicious, i took a step back and straightened up to look more menacing, but she didn't pay any attention to that as she looked at her leg with a pained face. "Man this isn't good, really hurts." she looked back up to me smiling brightly, though i could tell she was still in pain. "You helped me... thanks."

i... feel weird. i turned my head intending to ignore her comment. "You don't know how grateful I am to see another friendly face around here." friendly? i just threatened to eat her! she's got some nerves, makes my non-existent blood boil. my face grows warm with anger. "shut it, just tell me why i'm in another universe."

she flinched and her smile dropped but she still gave me a curious look. "You already figured that out, huh? I think my universe's Sans wanted to find Gaster. Oh wait, you do have Gaster in your universe too right?"

gaster? that name sounds familiar. makes me feel unsettled. i snarl and she subtly curls in on herself a little. "don't you go skulking on me now, i wanna know how." she seemed exasperated by my pun, "hey now, that joke took a lot of guts." she tried really hard not to laugh. cute.

"What's your name?" she asked me. scowling, just to get my point across that even if i make jokes i ain't some-body you wanna mess with. "you didn't answer me, human." i tried to say menacingly, but she apparently has gotten it into her head now that i won't hurt her (which i probably won't, but still...). she gave me this cute smile and had the non-existent balls to ask me again. "I will, as long as you tell me your name. I'm Migisi." she held out her hand, though i didn't take it.

this rabbit is making me nervous, i tried to make myself look more menacing in response... but for whatever reason i, like a numbskull, told her my nickname instead. "it's teddy."

~~~~~~~~~~

In the void

When Sans opened the window, static burst forth and knocked him back a bit. The static began to settle down and the short skeleton was finally able to see what he had opened up. In it, he at first saw only some purple cloth and hear someone familiar humming. The cloth started to move away from the window and that's when he noticed it was Toriel... as a plushy.

Sans burst out laughing, "oh man, I was not expecting that at all!" After calming down he watched as she approached Frisk, who was still a human apparently, sewing on another monst- dol- monster doll? He had no idea what to call them. Plushy Toriel bent down to Frisk's level and the human turned around to smile up at her before going back to sewing up a toy Froggit.

Sans shook his head and reminded himself he needed to practice. His eyelights landed on the bottom of the portal and then to his hands. Lifting them up slowly, his bony fingers grazed the base, he began to feel a strange tingling throughout his body and his vision started to blur, causing him to panic and dropped his hands like they had been burnt. "uhhh... nope to that." Sans swiftly turned around only to find an amused, though still irritated Gaster. "Weak." Was all he said before turning his back to him.

Sans grew a bit irritated by his brother's action, but took it as a sign that he shouldn't have stopped in the first place. Trying again, he allowed his vision to be engulfed he soon found himself much closer to the two he was watching. 'wait, i'm IN the universe? gee, thanks for telling me this bro.' silently fuming, he went up to speak to them "heh, hey um, yarn knot gonna believe this bu-" "You're doing well my child, I will leave you to care for Froggit here while I tend to Vegetoid." Plushy Toreil interrupted and walked right past Sans, as though she couldn't see him.

"tori?" Still no response, he looked to Frisk. "kid?" they didn't hear him either. "geez, tough crowd." He nervously chuckled, trying to not panic. He kicked his feet towards a pebble, when he did this it managed to move slightly, as though he barely touched it. At first he was confused, but then it dawned on him. "so this is what he was doing." He broke out into a smirk. "what a rockin' idea."

Noticing that Frisk was low on thread, he looked around the area and spotted a spool that was a few feet away. He tried grabbing it with his hand but it would begin to fall out of his grip as though it had a slick surface to it and no matter how hard he tried to hold it it would still slip. But he found he could push it ever so slightly over towards the human. He managed to push it just barely into their reach. "heh, there ya go kiddo" he said as he tried to ruffle their hair but only managed to tickle them a little. 'let's see if i'm still able to leave.' He tried focusing on his hands, seeing if maybe his body was still in the void. It took a minute, but he could start to feel his actual hands again and made his body lower them.

Back in the void, he blinked away the last bit of haziness in his eyes and saw that the window had returned. Frisk was just running out of thread and was looking around for the spool and seemed shocked to find it right beside them. They shrugged of their surprise and went back to helping patch up the monster, while Sans's mind went a mile a minute with what he could do next time a window was opened into his world.

"guess i'll have to toy around with more of these windows, sew many things i can do." He chuckled

~~~~~~~~~~
Month 8 since fall

At the farm, the plants were in bloom and everyone was getting ready for the very first harvest. Migisi had her hands full taking the expected inventory and how precisely to spread the food in the underground. She was at her desk, quite literally the ONLY desk there, shifting through boring papers and trying her hardest not to fall asleep after having to stay awake for almost two consecutive days. ' I should really hire more help, what was I thinking only hiring seven people? Am I insane?!?! Insane in the membrane... Insane in the brain! Something about Louis Armstrong! Dododo- OHMYFUCKING GOD I NEED SLEEP.' She slammed her face on the desk.

To busy mumbling to herself that wooden desks really ought to be softer, she didn't notice her teenage part-timers coming up to her until Snowdrake slammed his wings onto the desk "Knock kno-" "GWAAAHH!!!" Migisi screeched in surprise, throwing her hands up in the air. The teens jumped back, not quite expecting that reaction. "Uh, boss, are you okay?" Asked Chilldrake.

Migisi blinked, arms still in the air, before slamming them right back down. "Spiky pineapples, what are all of you doing here? Scoooooch out, yo! I got work I gotta get done!" She whipped her head towards Gyftrot and pointed a finger at him, not saying anything for a minute as the boys started to sweat, waiting for her to say something. Finally, she opened her mouth. "I forgot what I was going to say but I know you didn't do something and I'm mad but I don't know why." She slammed her face back on the desk again.

After a moment of stunned silence, Gyftrot was the first to speak, "Is this a bad time?" Lifting up her head reluctantly, Migisi finally looked at them and noticed Ice cap and Snowdrake holding bags with fish she had seen sometimes in waterfall. She raised her eyebrow and pointed at the fish, silently asking what they were planning. Ice cap beamed and stepped in before the others had a chance to say anything.

"We wanted to start helping the underground too by breeding fish!" Chilldrake butted in, "Yeah, and like, our lame parents think we can't do it, " Snowdrake continued. "Yeah, they left us out in the 'cold'!" Gyftrot finally explained more. "The fish are big and nutritious but they're hard to breed, which is why they think we can't do it."

It took a minute for Migisi's tired mind to piece together what everyone was saying, but when it did she felt like sighing, 'why can't I get a break? Wait, no, don't be selfish, think about what they need. They might get discouraged later if I don't help them now and they seem pretty passionate about it... I can get sleep later...' "Alright, I'm gonna make us some tea, you guys sit down and tell me more about your plan." Chilldrake sprung up at that. "No way, I'm gonna make it boss!" He took off to make the tea, leaving no room for argument which Migisi was okay with.

From what she had gathered, Snowdrake was the one to come up with the idea, which made sense since his own house often had problems with rats and insects, probably because he often got rotten food thrown at him for saying too many ice puns and probably dragged some of it into his house. She also gathered that they had been trying to start up their own fish breeding business without really understanding what that meant, well Gyftrot and Snowdrake understood some after months of helping her out, but they still had trouble figuring out where in the world to put the fish, much less how to breed them which was another problem all on it's own. It seemed the fish were rather uninterested in breeding and had little motivation, which they were trying to figure out how to combat. Migisi felt a bit of pride that the teens had however tried experimenting with ways to encourage breeding, they had shown quite a lot of ambition that she hadn't realized they had. Regardless, nothing worked, which wasn't a surprise since they tried things like giving them gum or trying to flip the tanks upside down, which made no sense but when in doubt, she always resorted to 'magic' for every answer.

Sipping from her sea tea that had been over boiled, she tried fighting down a grimace again and got ready to address their concerns. "I don't know about how to get them to multiple, but I do know a thing or two about management. I'll try talking to Cat to see what he thinks about space, I mean where to put the fish." She looked to Gyftrot and smiled. "Gyftrot? I want to train you so you can manage this group." He blushed and the Ice cap gave him a pat while the drakes gave him a thumbs up. Turning next to Chilldrake, she addressed him next. "And Chill? I want you to learn some as well, I think your rebellious attitude can help balance out Gyftrot's tendency to be rather reluctant." Gyftrot playfully rolled his eyes while Snowdrake laughed, Chilldrake crossed his feathers trying to look tough and Ice cap bouncing and saying, "yeah! You go!" "And Snow, I think you do surprisingly well with animals, always figuring out when and where the slugs, ants, and bats will try to eat certain fruits and vegetables are planted and setting up traps, so I think you should probably get in contact with Napstablook about raising animals." Snowdrake brightened at the attention, "It's 'snow' problem!" They all groaned, with Ice cap having the most dramatic reaction, one that would rival Papyrus's.

After recovering from the cringe-inducing pun, Migisi continued, "You should all work on your roles for right now, and I'll help you anyway I can. For now, let's set up a date where we can meet Blookie and Cat." She went to get her phone, not noticing Ice cap pouting a little. "Yeah, but what about me?" She blinked and set the phone back down. "Oh, right... what about... hmmm.... Oh! You could ask Alphys if she could help you research and experiment with breeding techniques and probably some other stuff too."

Ice cap, always wanting to be the center of attention, smiled and proclaimed; "Heck yeah, I'll be the best scientist ever!" He took his cup of tea and poured it right into one of the bags, much to Migisi's horror who rushed to put the fish in the other bag. "What are you doing?!?! You could've killed the fish!" She roared at him. Ice cap shrunk a little, "b-but... I'm supposed to experiment, right?" He shrunk more at the murderous look she gave him.

The fish, however, seemed to be invigorated and started pestering the other fish, clearly wanting a certain type of attention from them. Their jaws dropped and Ice cap beamed. "Hey, it worked!" the icy monster proudly puffed out his chest. Migisi stood stunned while the other teens suddenly cheered on their friend. "Woah, who knew tea made fish wanna get kinky?!?!" Chilldrake laughed. "What an 'ice' idea!" Snowdrake punched his fist into the air. "You go!" Cheered Gyftrot. The three lifted up their friend, and carried him out, no doubt to celebrate. Snapping out of her stupor, she laughed at the boys and felt a surge of energy wash over her, motivated by their passion that seemed to have grown after helping her for so many months.

That is, until she noticed that they had quite literally dropped everything to celebrate, which meant she had to clean up their spilled drinks and put the fish in a better container. But even still, it was worth it to see everyone happy. She didn't mind postponing her nap a little bit longer.

Chapter Text

The present

Teddy tapped his chin in thought as Migisi explained all the details she knew. He hadn't really seen the lab since he was just trying to get away from the fighting before his rage overtook him and he smashed all the other skeletons before getting answers, he tended to be blind to everything when he went into a rage. "that sans sounds like a brainiac for having such an empty skull." Migisi snorted and tried to keep her balance on the table she was on, she was applying new bandages that were luckily stored behind the librarian's desk.

"Oh yeah, he's a handful" She lifted her head to glance at him again, she would've continued to have been frightened of him had she not noticed his stiffness when he threatened her. It was very subtle, but it reminded her of the time when her Sans had...
She shook her head and went about continuing the task of re-bandaging the wound. 'It was nice that he cared but man is he bad at first aid.' She tied it up and looked to the kit, 'why do they not have nice cream in these? Ice cream makes everything better, granted it melts usually but somehow the monster version of it doesn't.'

"so, i gotta ask..." She snapped her head up to look at the giant skeleton. "you got anything other than your shit salads? i don't mean to hit a raw nerve but i'm meaty hungry." Migisi let out an aggravated huff. "Gee thanks, what a compliment." Teddy's grin grew wide, "didn't say i was a nice monster."

She rolled he eyes but smiled back, which seemed to make him sweat. "If you say so, there's a fish ranch up by Waterfall if you're meaning your on the Atkin's diet." He gave her a perplexed look. "Surface reference." He shrugged and picked her up, causing her to squeal and cling to him. "fine, but you're gonna show me where." 'i can't let the rabbit try to walk on her own, she's injured and apparently stupid.' He grunted and swung the door open.

"This seems an awful lot like one of those crappy romance novels, the way you're carrying me." His soul stuttered at that and he almost tripped, after his quick recovery however he tossed her none too gently onto his shoulder. "Ow ow ow ow ow!"

Teddy smirked at her distress. "that better, sweetheart?" She stayed silent for a minute while the pain subsided before speaking again. "Alright, alright I'm sorry if that was annoying, but maybe be more gentle next time?" she huffed. Teddy slowed his walking before picking back up speed. 'i was kinda expecting her to be more pissy and start complaining more.' As they edged towards Waterfall's entrance they noticed a figure standing by the sentry station. Adjusting her position and her eyes, she recognized the figure.

"Shits and shats, it's Edge."

Teddy tilted his head and mumbled to himself, "he looks like an asshole." Migisi blinked at that, "uh, did you just call yourself-" "i can drop you like a sack of potatoes if you finish that sentence." She shut her mouth as Edge, who had just noticed them, start to head in the other direction but stopped, seeming to consider something. Teddy, not really caring to way any more attention to the smaller skeleton, kept walking. Migisi on the other hand cautiously watched the other skeleton, having to painfully twist her body this way and that to be able to keep an eye on him.

Finally when they neared Edge spoke, "hey bitch, you've been givin' the others food right?" She grimaced at the nickname and the fact that he decided to follow her, 'I hope he didn't notice that.' "We're going to get some meat for Teddy here." Edge burst out laughing, "what the fuck, teddy?!?! what a pansy-ass name!"
Said monster whirled around and scowled at his counterpart. "ya sure ya wanna be testin' me when you're already injured?" Edge's eye sockets widened and he began to sweat. "what, ya didn't think i'd notice that limp ya got there? you're good at hiding it, i'll give you that." Having said what he wanted, he turned around and continued on. Edge glared at the back of his head, before turning his attention to the now anxious human who seemed to be having a difficult time figuring out what to do with herself in this situation. "Uh... so wanna talk about embroidery or something? Do punk-goth skeletons like that sort of thing? Wait, maybe I should've thought that through before I said it."

And now the two angry skelemen became two baffled skelemen, granting Migisi at least some peace before the two proceeded to call her an idiot and for Edge to make fun of her the rest of the way.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the void

Sans stared mesmerized at the amazing scenery all around him, all around him were stars, asteroids and galaxies! Everything seemed to have a dash of red or black to it, giving off a beautiful but deadly aura. While he stared in awe at his surroundings, a little twinkle out of the corner of his vision caught eye. Glancing at it's direction, he spotted what looked like Frisk talking to a... star? He squinted.

No, that had Flowey's face on it.
He could hear them as he got closer. "F-frisk, Undyne's too powerful!" He heard the star say. Frisk smiled, "We'll be fine Twinkly, I'm sure of it! She's got to have a good side after all." They then skipped away from 'Twinkly' and over to where Sans assumed this universe's version of Undyne was, a fretting star soon following. Sans chuckled at this version of Flowey's name before losing himself in thought. It was strange to think that he hadn't seen Frisk for several years, the last time he saw them it wasn't even them, but Chara. 'and now i've seen two alternate versions of the kid.'

He scratched the back of his skull 'glad to see their kindness is universal. i still wonder what happened to them... at least chara's not around anymore but i still miss the kid.' Sans walked around to see what he could try messing with and spotted an edgy lion-like monster talking to an equally edgy bird-like monster, apparently trying to flirt with her.

"So Tucana, what do you think of my new hat? I used some crystals or whatever from that meteor that landed yesterday." The lion puffed out his chest. Toucana tapped on her beak and smiled mischievously, "you mean that meteor that landed in Mettaton's hotel? Gee, seems like he'd be angry if he found that out, good thing I'd NEVER do anything like that!~" She leaned toward her companion, causing him to sweat. "By the way Leo, you have any money on you? Cygnus is holding a concert and I just HAVE to be there!~" Leo pouted, but grabbed some coins from his pocket. "Ugh, you're such a bitch sometimes. Fine, here." Tucana's grin grew wider. "Thanks, sweetheart!~"
Sans took this opportunity to try grabbing the coins, startling the two. "Wha-what? Why're the coins floating?" "I-is there a ghost somewhere?~" Sans was able to mostly hold onto them, though they still tried to slip through his grasp. Giving up trying to keep a hold on them, he flung them in the other direction as he laughed at the two's reactions. "What! That ghost's trying to steal my hard earned blackmail money!~" Tucana ran off trying to find the coins with Leo trailing after her. "Wait up, don't go hurtin' yourself you bird brain!"

Sans chuckled and followed them to see if he could mess with them a little more, but stopped as something in the sky caught his eye. He wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been so strange. A star kept flickering in the sky, but the flickering didn't seem natural for whatever reason... more like morse code? Sans shrugged "eh, i'm just imaging it probably. guess i'm just gettin' too starry-eyed."

He left without another thought to the occurrence.

~~~~~~~~~~

Month 7 since fall

Sans' P.O.V.

"uh, pardon?" i paused sipping my ketchup to side-eye(socket) undyne. she rolled her only visible eye at me and huffed as if i was supposed to have known this already. "Ugh, would you actually listen to me you bonehead?" my smirk hitched, which undyne seems to have noticed. "Wait don-" "sorry, i'll lend my ear to you. i just canal believe you knew that, audio-n't know how you figured it out."

"DO YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU MORE OR NOT!?!?!"
"heheh alright, i'll stop." ...saying it outloud, anyway.

the fishwoman sighed and leaned further onto my sentry post. "It's this Thursday, I wouldn't have known had Napstablook hadn't mentioned it to Alphys, she's gonna be... uh... 23 I think?" the fins on her head flapped a little bit, trying to remember more i think. "Anyway, Alphys and I wanted you to know so you can prepare. DON'T MESS THIS UP!" i blinked at that. "mess... what up?" she pushed herself off my sentry post and stomped her foot, i guess paps was rubbing off on her. "NYGAH! Her birthday gift, what else?!?!" how was i supposed to know she meant that? "It's the perfect opportunity!" i gave her a bored look. "to....?" "To impress her! Even though you're a lazy nerd and she could do better, we still ship ya!"

my face felt 50 degrees hotter. "wha-what? pfft, c-come on 'dyne there's nothin' goin' on between us." i defended myself, but i could tell the fishsticks got it into her head that she was gonna get us together somehow. "Bullshit. I've seen the way you two look at each other, you just need my help 's all." she slammed her hands onto the table, nearly knocking my condiments out of their hiding spots. that would've been bad if she'd seen 'em. "You gotta get her the best present ever, then you'll be swimming in the poontang all you want!" goddammit undyne. "So what does she like?!?!"

i shrugged, trying to push my blush down. tibia honest i don't think she'd want much of anything i'd have to present. I told voiced this to her.

"One, stop with the puns. Two, thank me for being an awesome friend 'cause I've got the best idea ever! If you don't know what to get her than just take her to Waterfall's weekly market tomorrow! You can see what she's interested in and get a date out of it!" she crossed her arms and gave me a smug look. "Alphys isn't the only genius." i had to resist the urge to pinch between my nose cavity. "and why not the capital's marketplace?" she shrugged, "so I can spy on ya of course!" she said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "okay, but won't migisi be suspicious of why?" fishsticks shook her head. "Nope! All you have to do is say you're looking for something for a friend and she won't know." she's not gonna budge on this is she? i sighed and slipped out of my station. it was break time anyway. "i'll think about."

"Don't think, do!" she yelled at me as i walked away.

it would be nice if undyne were right, but there's no way it'd happen, she was a human and just too amazing to consider a guy like me. sure she had her flaws, but her benefits far outweighed them. i felt myself blush, can't get myself feeling too blue or else paps'll know something up... maybe i will ask her, it's not like it'd actually be a d-date or anything.

~

i nervously checked the time on my phone... i'm not too early, right? crap, my shirt's wrinkled... she won't mind right? shit... why am i acting like this is a date?

"Hey Sans! You didn't wait long did you?" her voice made me jump out of my thoughts. sh-shit she looks cute in that top... okay, just play it cool. "sup 'gisi, nah- i bought myself some time playing a game on my phone." uuuuuugh that was lame, but she laughed anyway. stars, i could listen to that laugh all day. "Good, let's get lookin' then!" she practically skipped to the first stall she sees.
oh yeah, she told me before she loves going to marketplaces, she just doesn't usually have the time now that she has to run that farm all the time.

"Think you can describe your friend to me?" she asked me as i came up behind her. "he's nice but a little on the distracted side, he's a hard worker, practical and helps everyone he can, even if he gets hurt doing so. he's a bit too kind to others that he sometimes kinda get himself used by others, and he tends to beat himself up if he thinks he's not doing good enough though." she nodded, "anything else? What are his hobbies?" how do i word this one without her figuring it out? "well, ever since you've been here and startin' up the farm he's been gardening." she broke out into a beautiful smile, making me nearly trip on my feet. "That's so awesome, I didn't know that! You should've told me." "y-yeah, sorry." her eyes brightened and she started to rattle off different things that we could buy.

"Are they still a beginner, we could get him some tools if there's anything he's missing."
"pretty sure he's got everything he needs."
"Oh, then what about decorations for his garden?"
"maybe, but like i said he's practical. i have gnome idea what his preferences are anyway."
"Manure maybe? I bet he'd like that!"
"oh yeah, give him a bag of shit delivered from a bag of shit."

it went on awhile and i named other things i knew about her to try and find something, but it was always something that she'd already had or that wouldn't make sense as a gift in the slightest. eventually she went into her more spontaneous side which made things even more hectic, though surprisingly fun.

i noticed that she'd stopped talking about... what was the topic right now, something about pillow forts? to look at a surface book that looked a bit beat up, though any book being able to survive being dragged down here is a near miracle. "Oh, I've read this before!" the ram-monster that ran the stall smiled. "Really? I guess it is about your culture after all." the way he said that sounded pretty condescending, but if migisi noticed, she didn't let on.
"Yeah, I was pretty young and didn't understand all of it, but it's about Mesopotamia and the rise of human civilization. Did you know that the Natufian culture was the first permanent settlement? Oh, and that humans used flutes as some of their earliest instruments?" me and the ram monster were surprised by that. "you like ancient human history? didn't know that." she turned to hide an obvious blush, causing one to rise out of me as well. "Er, sorta. I was mostly interested in studying the history of music before I, uh, got into horticulture." hmmm, so she liked music and history?
the annoying ram monster tried to hide a snort that came out before opening his mouth. "Haha, well monsters have been creating music for at least 600,000 years, maybe even 700,000! You're not sure that isn't monster instruments that you humans found?" i twitched. while migisi considered his words, i didn't. no one knows much about monster history outside about 3,000 years ago so there's no telling who invented what first or if monsters and humans invented the same things independently of one another, it was stupid propaganda like that that made him nervous about going to the surface, it's clear that both species have their own stubborn biases.

migisi shook her head and put down the book, "well, I don't think it's what your friend would be interested in anyway, better keep looking."

"yeah," i mumbled and follow after her. when she finally got distracted by another stall i backtracked to get the book, holding my tongue while the exchange happened and went back to her looking through various different gadgets. "What about this one?" she held up a clipboard, i guess still thinking about my comment that my 'friend' needed things for management. she sighed "I don't know, I'm running out of ideas."

of course, i'd already gotten her real present so it was fine by me, i agreed to buy it so we didn't waste any more time and get board. she made the funniest face when i said it was in-fax the perfect present.

as we headed back to snowdin we talked about a lot of different stuff going on like Alphys and Undyne finally going out, pap's fan letters, those weird teens that we work with and napstablook getting the courage to put out his music to sale.

"ya know, there's some cd i found just recently with human music on it, you could always with me to listen. it'd uh, keep you outta treble for a while." i wink at her, lucky that she laughed at the crappy pun. she shook her head, "sure, sure. I'm sitar lucky- no wait, that one's not quite right-um, you sure are sharp... witted? Naw, not good enough... Hmm..." i tried biting my laugh back but couldn't stop it from spilling out at her adorable attempts to make the perfect pun. "hehehehe, come on, it's note problem, i'd give you a hi-fife for effort, but it lutes like i beat you too much in being thepunniest." she rolled her eyes and throw up her hands. "That's it, I'm done." i laughed even harder as i tried to catch up to her. "aw, don't be like that, i'm sure you can duet too!"

maybe i should give her that clipboard as an apology present for enduring me all day...

Chapter Text

"ugh, my nose is gonna fall off from this smell. oh wait. hehehe." Edge's comment rung true, the fish farm was the worst smelling part of the underground ever since it had been built. The bulkiest member of their group, however, didn't seem to mind. Instead he set down the human and went right over to one of the tanks, grabbed the biggest fish in it and unceremoniously tossed it right into his mouth. Migisi's jaw dropped. "Oh my god that's disgusting!" Teddy glanced in her direction, another fish already in his mouth. His browbone raised as he somehow pulled the fish back out, revealing only it's bones. 'Kinda wonder why he ate the first one full, Sans would've had a field day with that.' Teddy went back to eating more of the fish, not concerning himself with the others' disgust.

Grimacing, she turned to the other skeleton in the hope that he'd agree with her... only to find that they both preferred to simply chuck raw fish down their faces. 'Is this gonna be a thing with these two? Are the others gonna be the same? Oh stars I feel like I'm gonna barf.' They weren't exactly concerned with any form of manners either, as the two allowed the water and blood to simply drip all over the floor and on their shirts as they tore into the fish.
Of course, that was a very Sans-like thing to do as her friend was never interested in having table manners to begin with, much to the chagrin of his brother and her. She cringed in empathy at the pain she knew the fish were experiencing in their final moments with their rough handling, yet said nothing as it was clear that they hadn't eaten. Getting up, she somehow managed to waddle to a nearby chair without fall over. Unbeknownst to her, Edge was watching her movements. When she'd finally gotten comfortable he headed over to her, grabbing a few more fish along the way. When he neared her she paled a bit.

"so." He started, "ya said ya want to gather everyone to rebuild the universal anchor?" Migisi tilted her head trying to figure out what he was talking about, getting the message he huffed but elaborated; "it's what alph called the machine in my universe." Her brows shot up at that and even Teddy, who had been listening in on their conversation stopped eating. "You created one of those machines in you universe?!?! The same one that brought you all here?!?!"

Edge rolled his eyes at her, "naw it was a fuckin' ice cream machine, you gonna answer my question or no, dumb-ass?" The sides of her mouth twitched downwards at the insult but she decided to against saying anything and turned to Teddy, realizing his eyes were already on her, watching intently. 'Okay, kinda creepy there.' Edge's sudden snort indicated she must have said it under her breath, but Teddy either didn't notice or didn't care, so she continued. "Did you work on one too in your universe?" He shook his head and shrugged, Migisi waited for a minute for him to say more but he only continued to stuff his face while not breaking eye contact. 'WHY ARE SKELETONS ALWAYS SO DIFFICULT?!?!'

"i dunno about him," she returned to looking at Edge as he spoke again. "but in my universe me and the cold-blooded bitch worked on findin' a way out, couldn't stand bein' there for a second longer." He bit into one of the fish's head as he looked off to the side, completely ignoring the woman's gagging as the blood splat all over her face and shirt. "*munch*we was lookin' to fix up ga-these blueprints *smack* for a machine but since it was never finished it was *crunch* takin' awhile." He gulped the rest down, but before he could bite into another and further drench her Migisi spoke up quickly, "does that mean you'll help?" Edge lidded his eye sockets, his smirk grew and flipped one of the fish back and forth in his hand absentmindedly, looking almost like he was fanning himself with it. "sure, but if ya want my help then we're gonna have to make a deal." She nodded for him to continue. "when i fix up this machine youse gotta agree to let me and my bro... and i guess the scaly bitch too, live here. i ain't goin' back there except to get them." He leaned closer towards her and held the fish to her like it was a mic. "we gotta deal?"
Migisi blinked at that. "Is that all? Of course you can stay!" Her smile became genuine and bright, causing the two skeletons to become a little nervous. "I thought you were gonna ask for my soul or something, or for a boat load of money... though I don't think the underground has enough currency to fill up a boat." She put a finger to her chin in thought. "Well I guess it would depend on the boat." The two skeletons gave her a perplexed look before Edge shook his head and snorted. "we're gonna need a place to stay too but that's it. i won't ask for anything else, i ain't heartless after all." She laughed at that one, and Teddy joined in snickering in the background. "Okay, that was pretty funny."

He stuck out his left hand towards her. "deal?" She started to take it with her left hand before switching to her right to avoid whatever she knew was in his metacarpals. "Deal." He gave her a surprised look before chuckling. "you actually ain't too bad for a human, most of youse aren't as clever." She pursed her lips at the backhanded compliment. 'This is really starting to get annoying.'

"That's kind of rude to say stuff like that, you know." Edge scoffed and swallowed the last fish whole then lazily wiped his hand over his shirt. "whatever, i'm headin' out, be back over by the lab in a couple of hours." And before she could say anything, he teleported out. Migisi sighed and leaned back in her chair, it didn't take long for Teddy to finish and go over to her. "Are you gonna help us too?" He nodded. "yeah, as shitty as my universe is i still want to head back." He bent down and turned his back to her so she could grab on. 'he kinda seems more... gentle now.' She stared in awe.
He huffed after a few seconds when she didn't grab on, so he turned his head slightly to peek at her, a small teal blush forming on his cheekbones. "you gonna grab on or sit there trying to catch flies with your mouth?" She finally snapped out of it, her own cheeks getting a little hot, and complied. "...Thanks." She mumbled as she nuzzled into his jacket. He stiffened, but didn't say anything as they headed out the door. Migisi briefly wondered why he didn't just teleport and was just about to voice this question when a dusty hooded figure appeared before them right as they exited. Teddy tightened his grip and Migisi shrunk in on herself at the familiar figure.

"what happened to chara? who. are. you."

~~~~~~~~~~

In the void

Establishing a connection to another world was getting easier for Sans, he didn't cause any more bursts of static that he couldn't handle and he no longer flinched at the strange sensation of touching the edges of the window. He looked around at the setting for this one, a lab.

"haha, that's supposed to be a monster?" Sans whipped his skull around, surprised to find himself ('dang i look young') and an adult Frisk in a giant test tube. 'what's going on here?' he started to feel a little sick at the thought of possible experimentation being done, but continued to watch. It seemed they were playing some sort of charades, Frisk made a biting motion, her brows furrowed and hands out looking like it was supposed to be claws. "okay, so what's this monster going to do?" his alternate asked.

Frisk switched looking like they were riding something. "they're... riding a motorcycle?" She shook her head furiously, making alternate Sans chuckle. "a horse then?" She smiled.
Sans set down to observe 'i'll practice another time,' he told himself. 'this kinda... reminds me of old times with the kiddo.'
Frisk made a series of motions next, returning to the monster pose, yet swimming around the small tank as if to imitate a serpent until she stopped and blew bubbles from her mouth as if she were trying to breath fire, then switched to face the opposite direction, pulled one of her bandages over her head to make a hood and look as if she were cowering. Both monsters blinked. "...a bubble breathing monster with ebulliophobia?" Sans burst out laughing while Frisk slapped her forehead, she did the same thing again but omitted the last part, choosing instead to point to a fire hydrant on the wall. "oh, a fire breathing monster?" Frisk gave a "meh" face and motioned her hand as if to say so-so, meaning it was close enough. 'probably meant a fire breath-' "fire breathing dragon?" She smiled and gave the other monster a thumbs up.

This continued for a while, Sans just enjoyed the show, reliving the good memories he had of his universe's Frisk. This other Sans didn't joke as much, though he was still quite playful and purposefully guess wrong just to annoy the human. The story appeared to be a typical fairy tale story of a knight riding to a castle to save a princess. 'that sounds like the kind of thing my frisk would like.' At the end of the epic battle scene between the dragon and the monster knight, which Sans had to admit was actually pretty damn well done and really pulled him into the story, she reverted to playing the part of the princess, which was signified by the bandage being placed over her head, and beckoned the alternate over to her. Giving her a questioning look, he did so.

As he set his hand on the glass, she lowered herself to eye level and kissed the glass. The other skeleton gasped and blushed a purple color, giggling nervously he leaned his skull closer and closed his eyes. Sans was baffled by the sight, in his universe Frisk was still a child so the thought of any romantic relationship was disgusting to him... but then he wasn't in his universe. That got him thinking, 'i guess every universe could have different relationships, i'm gonna bet there are some universes where paps isn't even my bro...' The other Sans stepped away and accidentally tripped over his feet, landing on his butt. 'oh stars, he really is me.' Sans thought as he remembered all the times he did something stupid like that in front of Migisi or used some of his worst, badly done jokes on Toriel, back when he was still able to feel something for her before the resets numbed him.

His alternate jumped back up and stuttered something about needing to report to Gaster as Frisk laughed at his antics. 'wait-gaster?' he hadn't thought about it before but he guessed his version must be the only one to make it to the void... right? He shook his head and glanced back at the human who though seemed bored now, was also content. He sighed and dragged his eye sockets away again, ready to get back into the void and rest for a bit, the realization that relationships could change so drastically depending on the universe threw him for a loop.

It was then something caught Frisk's eye. expecting nothing, he glanced down and noticed that on the desk she was looking at, on top of some papers, was a pen that started to move a little on it's own. Sans sucked in a breath when he realized nothing else moved, why was it moving? He headed towards it, reaching out to touch it when the door his other self had exited slammed back open, startling him and loosing the connection. It occurred to him that the monster that had interrupted his thoughts looked an awful lot like Gaster, though somehow came of as way more annoying than the one he knew.

When he entered back into the void, the window fell and his brother glanced up from his own window. Sans just shrugged, not feeling up to explaining anything at the moment and decided to simply float on his back for a while, contemplating what had happened.

~~~~~~~~~~

Year 1, Month 8 since fall

PAPYRUS'S P.O.V.

AS USUAL I LEAPT OUT OF BED, AS IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO SO AFTER 8 HOURS OF STARING AT THE CEILING. 'SLEEP' IS RATHER BORING AND I DON'T GET IT BUT UNDYNE SAID IT'S NEEDED TO MAKE A BODY STRONG, AND I WON'T DISAPPOINT HER! I SLAMMED MY DOOR OPEN QUIETLY, WHICH IS TO SAY I ONLY RIPPED OF ONE OF THE HINGES THIS TIME AND WENT DOWN THE HALL. "GOOD MORNING SANS, WAKE UP!" I SAID, KNOCKING ON MY LAZY BROTHER'S DOOR.

"just a few minutes paps, i'm just bone tired." I HEARD HIM CHUCKLE, HE'S JUST SO INFURIATING SOMETIMES! I HUFFED AND HEADED TOWARDS THE STAIRS WHERE I SLIPPED ON A CONVENIENTLY PLACED BANANA PEEL CAUSED ME TO DRAMATICALLY TUMBLE DOWN THE STAIRS, BUT LUCKY FOR ME I HAVE LIGHTENING FAST REFLEXES DESPITE MY LACK OF MUSCLES. I PULLED OF THE PERFECT FACE PLANT TO SAVE ANY OF MY ARMOR FROM RECEIVING DAMAGE, WHICH IS WHAT I DEFINITELY MEANT TO DO. HOWEVER, A CONVENIENTLY PLACED CHERRY PIE SAVED MY FACE FROM MAKING FULL CONTACT WITH THE FLOOR.
AS I SAT BACK UP AND WIPED AWAY THE MESS, CAREFUL NOT TO GET ANY WHIPPED CREAM ON THE NEATLY VACUUMED CARPET I HEARD CHUCKLING FROM MY LEFT. "i see you had a nice fall." I ROLLED MY EYES AT THE LAZYBONES AND GOT UP. "THAT ONE IS VERY OVERDONE SANS, I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU."

"aw, did that not a-peel to you, bro?" I STARTED TO LECTURE HIM ABOUT IMPROPER USE OF PUNS WHEN I REALIZED... "YOU PRANKED ME!" SANS REACHED DOWN TO PICK UP SOME OF THE PIE'S INNARDS, THEN CAME BACK UP WITH WHIPPED CREAM AND CHERRIES IN HIS HANDS. "you caught me red-handed." MY EYE MUST HAVE BEEN BULGING OUT, WAIT I DON'T EVEN HAVE EYE.
"SAAAAAANNNSSS!!!"
"paps."
"NO!"
"yes."
i DECIDED TO GIVE SANS WHAT MIGISI CALLS THE 'SILENT TREATMENT'. I'M GLAD SHE TAUGHT ME THIS NEAT TRICK, THOUGH IT'S SURPRISINGLY HARD TO DO. I WALKED PAST SANS TO GO INTO THE KITCHEN TO FIX UP SOME BREAKFEAST.
"aw, c'mon paps, i'm sorry." I TWISTED AROUND TO LOOK AT HIM, IT WORKED ALREADY! I KNEW I COULD MASTER THE ART OF NOT TALKING! "WOWEE, REALLY?" "sure thing, i'll even help ya get all that stuff off your face." I BEAMED AT MY BROTHER, "THANK YOU SANS." SOMETIMES MY BROTHER CAN BE RESPONSIBLE AND I'M SO VERY GLAD HE'S BEEN SHOWING MORE MATURITY LATELY, WHY IF HE KEEPS THIS UP HE MIGHT EVEN START PICKING UP HIS SOCKS! "there ya go, perfect." HE HELD UP A MIRROR TO SHOW ME, WHAT A WONDERFUL KIND, STUPENDOUS, THOUGHTFUL BROTHER I HA-

"Sans, you put clown makeup on me." BEFORE I COULD EVEN REACH HIM HE BLINKED TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM, CURSE HIS STRANGE ABILITY TO TELEPORT! "but you look so beautiful, bro. i'm only clowning around." I SHRIEKED IN A VERY MANLY WAY AND CHASED AFTER HIM.

~

THREE HOURS LATER I MADE IT TO MIGISI'S HOME/FARM. SHE DIDN'T NOTICE WHEN I MADE MY GRAD ENTRANCE AS SHE WAS TOO BUSY WRITING SOMETHING DOWN, SO I SNEAKILY HUGGED HER FROM BEHIND WITH ONE ARM. "NYEHEHEH, I'VE CAUGHT THE HUMAN! AGAIN!" SHE SMILED AT ME. "Heya Papyrus, something come up? You're kinda late." I DROPPED MY FRIEND AND BOWED SLIGHTLY, MAKING SURE THAT MY PRESENT WAS EXPERTLY HIDDEN. FOR SOME REASON SHE LOOKED DOWN TO WHERE I HAD HIDDEN IT, BUT SURELY THAT CANNOT BE THE CASE FOR I AM A MASTER AT SNEAKINESS. "YES I'M SO, SO SORRY! MY LAZY BROTHER HAS BEEN PRANKING ME ALL DAY BUT I MANAGED TO GET AWAY, HE CAN'T FOOL THE GREAT PAPYRUS AN 8TH TIME!" SHE SNICKERED AND HER CHEEKS BECAME A LITTLE RED AT THE MENTION OF MY BROTHER, WHICH MADE ME SMIRK.

"ANYWAY, I WANTED TO SHOW YOU..." I BROUGHT OUT THE PACKAGE FROM BEHIND MY BACK. "TA-DA, THIS!" I HANDED OVER THE PRECIOUS CARGO AND WATCHED AS SHE OPENED IT UP. SHE PICKED UP THE POTTED PLANT AND HER EYEBROWS CAME TOGETHER. "I've never seen moss like this before, or it's flowers, where did you get it?" I STUCK OUT MY CHEST PROUDLY, "NYEHEHE, I BREED IT! YOU TOLD ME ABOUT HOW NOTHING IS QUITE SWEET ENOUGH IN THE UNDERGROUND, THAT IT TAKES A LOT TO SWEETEN ANYTHING, WELL I TOOK THAT PINK PERISH MOSS AND PAIRED IT WITH THE MORE EDIBLE GRANTS MOSS AND THEN CROSS BRED THAT WITH THE SLIGHTLY SWEET BUT DEADLY ARIES MOSS AND GOT THIS! TRY IT!" BEFORE SHE COULD REPLY AT MY AMAZING GARDENING TALENTS, I PLUCKED ONE OF THE PETALS AND PUT IT QUICKLY IN HER MOUTH... OH NO, SHE'S COUGHING! "AHHHHH, MY APOLOGIZES!" I STARTED TO GET CLOSER TO HER TO HELP.
SHE WAVED MY HOVERING HAND AWAY AND SWALLOWED. "I'm fine Paps, it's just that I wasn't expecting you to do that all of a sudden." SHE LICKED HER LIPS, MAN I WISH I HAD THOSE, AND THEN GAVE ME A THUMBS UP. "Holy- wow Paps that's sweet." I STARTED TO PANIC A LITTLE, WAS IT TOO MUCH? "OH NO, DID I MAKE IT TOO SWEET?!?!" SHE LAUGHED, "Oh no, that's a good thing if you're planning on using it for cooking." THE HUMAN PICKED THE PLANT BACK UP AND EXAMINED IT. "This is- this is really good Papyrus... I didn't even think to mix those up and I've actually studied this stuff." I STRUCK A HEROIC POSE AT THE PRAISE, OF COURSE I'D DO GOOD, I'M THE GREAT PAPYRUS AFTER ALL! "Actually, this is some pretty advanced stuff you're doing.." SHE PLACED IT DOWN ON A NEARBY TABLE AND GAVE ME AN AWE-STRUCK LOOK, NO DOUBT FROM MY AMAZINGNESS.

"I want you to be my student." I ALMOST LOST MY BALANCE, STU-STUDENT? "B-BUT YOU SAID YOU DIDN'T WANT TO TEACH ANYTHING BUT THE BASICS!" FOR SOME REASON SHE FLINCHED AT THAT, MIGISI SEEMS TO DO THAT A LOT ANYTIME SOMEONE MENTIONS THAT SHE HASN'T DONE SOMETHING OR SAID THAT SHE DID SOMETHING WRONG. IS THAT A HUMAN THING? I'LL HAVE TO ASK ALPHYS ABOUT THIS LATER."Yeah sorry, I'm always so busy... but Papyrus, you've got a lot of talent. If we don't let that talent grow then it's just gonna wither away and die." I GROANED, "OH NO, YOU'RE MAKING PLANT PUNS, PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!"
SHE BLINKED AND THEN CHUCKLED. "I meant that metaphorically, sorry. But Papyrus I'm very serious about this, I'll make room for you somehow so I can teach you." MY SOCKETS WIDENED, I PLACED MY HANDS ON MY CHEEKBONES AND SQUEALED, "REALLY?! I THOUGHT MY BROTHER WAS JUST STARTING TO RUB OFF ON YOU AND YOU WERE DESPERATELY LOOKING FOR PUNS! THAT OR YOU WERE SAYING STRANGE THINGS AGAIN!" SHE GAVE ME A NERVOUS LOOKING SMILE AT THAT. "I WILL BE THE GREATEST STUDENT YOU WILL EVER HAVE, AND BECAUSE YOU'LL BE THE BEST TEACHER, AFTER UNDYNE OF COURSE, I'M SURE I'LL BECOME THE BEST HORTOCOLUNGIST EVER! LET US BEGIN THE ADVENTURES OF MIND EXPANSION!"

THE HUMAN SNORTED, CLEARLY TRYING TO HOLD IN HER GLEE. "I'm sure you will Pap, but let's start horticulture class tomorrow, we've still got some work that needs to be done afterall." "OF COURSE, HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN! SKIPPING WORK IS NEVER A GOOD THING!" I WENT OVER TO THE SUPPLIES AND PICKED UP WHAT I NEEDED FOR THE TASKS OF THE DAY.

Chapter Text

The present

Hoodie's P.O.V.

i could feel my magic buzzing and sparking, ready to strike at the two in front of me.

the human froze in her spot and her dark skin paling, clearly fearful of me as she should be. my doppelganger glared at me and tightened his grip further. my patience started to thin as the two said nothing in response so i asked again. "where. is. chara." the human finally got back to her senses and answered me. "Ch-Chara isn't around anymore, neither is Frisk."

i could feel my anger only rising, how dare she lie to me! paps loomed over my shoulder, placing his hands on either side of me, "BROTHER, STOP BEING LAZY AND CAPTURE THE HUMAN," i grumbled "hang on paps." the two in front of me flinched, my doppelganger squinted his eyes at me as if to see something, sorry pal but all you'll see is the bare bones. he looked like he was gonna say something to me but decided against whatever it was he was gonna say.

"i'm not gonna ask you again, where's chara? where's that brat hidden themselves? i've got a bone to pick with them, don't make me have one with you too." she flinched and the doppelganger growled. "better step back pal," he snarled at me. the woman glanced at him nervously before looking back at me, "I'm not lying, I've told you already, they're go-" my temper flared "i told you not to lie to me!" i summoned my bones and stood ready to attack, my doppelganger quickly summoned his own. i could feel the air thicken and get much heavier. heh. hehehe. welp, was nice seeing someone different for once.

"Stop!" the human doesn't seem to realize just how boned they really are. paps chuckled at her action, "SILLY HUMAN, DOESN'T SHE REALIZE THAT THEY WILL BEHEADING TO HELL VERY SOON?" ha! i chuckled, paps didn't make puns too often afterall. "then i'll just fire up my attacks, i'm just brimming with stone-cold determination." i couldn't help but crack up at pap's frustrated screeching. out of the corner of my eye, i could see my doppelganger quirk a browbone and the human shiver. "BROTHER, MUST YOU?" i gave him a cheeky smile, "oh, i must paps." i said before fully facing the other two again. my doppel stiffened and gave me a confused look, "paps? why are you acting like he's here?" i stopped smiling and gave him a heated glare, papyrus twitched and started to ooze and drip as if he were made of liquid. poor bro. "ARE YOU IGNORING MY GREATNESS?!?!" i waited for a minute before telling them that they didn't answer his question. something snapped in me, "paps is here! right here! don't you dare ignore him!!!"

as my temper started to flare again, the human spoke up again calmly, though i could see her hands shake a bit. "Teddy, I think Paps is um... invisible to us?" she gave off a shaky smile and i felt myself relax very slightly, when "teddy" gave her a look, she whispered something to him. guess he got whatever she was saying since he nodded his head at her, he then turned to me and puts on a hard, skeptical face. i scoff, "MY GREATNESS MUST HAVE BLINDED THEM." i smirk and tell them exactly what he said which got only a nervous chuckle from the human. she thinks i'm crazy huh? well fuck her, i know she's holding back on telling me something! "now, you gonna stop lying to me?" teddy suddenly growls very deeply, funny that he thinks he can intimidate me. "she told you she's not lyin'!" i manage to dodge a sudden bone attack, sidestepping it, i quickly sent out my own. he starts to dodge, but since he has a human on his back...

THUNK! i managed to hit his leg. he curses but tries to stay standing, i don't know why he didn't throw her off. "GOOD JOB BROTHER, FINALLY DOING YOUR JOB!" paps gave me a wide smile. "heh. thanks bro."

chuckling, i start to prepare another attack when the human yells, "Stop!" i'm surprised to see her start to try to wiggle out of teddy's grasp, though he tries keeping her there. i watched in amusement when he finally had to relent because of his leg and had to set her down. "migisi, what the hell do ya think yer doing?" i hold in my laugh as she ignored him and he acted like a kicked puppy because he didn't listen to her, apparently these two are beauty and the beast or something and she's clearly tamed the beast already. ha! she tries to get up but can only manage to crawl over to me, halfway between where me and teddy are standing, she sits on up on her knees though clearly grimaces. i was tempted to attack while she was doing this, but i was pretty interested in what this human called "migisi" was gonna do. she was clearly frightened of me, yet i was interested in her... determination.

i sneered at that word. she started speaking, telling me about how all this supposedly happened, "I know you're confused and you're having a really hard time excepting this, but my version of Sans created a machine that brought you here by accident and somehow made everyone else vanish. I don't know how, but he did it. The only reason I'm around is because I had accidentally stumbled upon lab when this mysterious door had just appeared, oh I guess I should mention that door has never appeared before. Anyway, the he shoved me into this container thing that I guess blocked the effects of whatever happened." she shifted a little, probably because of her injures. i wanted to ask her how she thinks this'll convince me that she's not lying when she continued, i think mostly to herself as she had a far off look in her eyes. "We'd been fighting before, he'd distanced himself from everyone and now I might not ever talk to him again." she caught me by surprise when she clenched her fists and gave me a hard glare, "and I maybe sad but I'll accept that might be a possibility, I can't just deny it but instead I'll force myself to work towards fixing everything even if it kills me. Why the hell can't you accept the reality? Why can't you stop being so..." she shook her head and let it drop whatever she was gonna say.

i quiet for a moment, i could feel paps's fingers digging into me "THEIR GUARD IS LOWERED, LET'S ATTACK NOW!!!" i'd normally listen to my bro and desecrate anyone i wanted, but for some reason i felt tired... she's not lying is she? "BROTHER, DON'T LISTEN TO HER, SHE'S HIDING CHARA, SHE HAS TO BE. BREAK EVERY ONE OF HER BONES, RIP OUT ALL HER SQUISHY PARTS SLOWLY UNTIL SHE TELLS US. YOU WOULDN'T IGNORE YOUR BROTHER, W O U L D Y O U?" i grabbed at my arm and shivered, curling into myself. n-no, i can't doubt paps, i can't, if chara isn't around then that means everything that had happened before... meant nothing... "What did Papyrus say?" i lifted my head to peek at her. she gave me a small, tired smile and for a minute, i felt something i hadn't felt in a while, sympathy. i didn't show it, but instead told her what paps had said. she didn't flinch this time, though i could still see some fear in her eyes. teddy stepped closer to her, ready to put his hand on her in order to teleport out of here which part of me wanted. but migisi, without turning towards him denied him, "please don't Teddy, I still want to talk." funnily enough, he hesitated before stepping back and mumbling about human women being crazy. i'd have to agree.

"Hoodie," she mumbled, i'd forgotten she'd given me that nickname for some reason. i tilted my head to let her know i was listening. "Why does Papyrus think I should be hurt? What could I or anyone else here have possibly done that he thinks you should hurt them?" something seemed to have dawned on her and she went wide eyed, "you've been acting like Chara is the only other person to exist... you haven't asked about the others... did something happen to them?" no one spoke for a minute, it was just the sound of rushing water and an occasional tweet from some birds. i'm sure that my hood obscured my eyes as i gave her a wide, sad smile.

"i had to get stronger to protect everyone, those endless resets... they won't suffer from them anymore if i can just stop chara." migisi gave me a questioning look, but teddy seems to have gotten what i was saying right away. i could feel him looking into my soul, i let him. let him know what i've done, i won't waste any energy hiding it.

teddy instantly flew into a rage, he teleported over to me and grabbed me by the collar and snarled, i gave him a glare and snarl right back. "you fuckwad, what did you do to your world, to your papyrus?!?! this chara kid really worth it to kill your own brother over?!?!" i grabbed his wrist and started to crush it, as soon as i managed to loosen his grip, i kicked off of his chest, he summoned some gasterblasters (is he really me?) while i was in the air and as soon as i landed ii darted to the left. he teleported behind me, but i quickly ducked and tried to swipe a leg under his own but he was also just as quick and jumped away in time before summoning some bones right where i was standing. emphasis on "was standing" as i teleported further away.

i was so wrapped up in this fight that i'd forgotten about the human until she managed to lunge at me and grab onto my ribcage just as i was about to teleport away again. i stiffened,"I'm sorry about Paps." she started, paps appeared next to her and loomed over her. "I'm sorry you had to live thinking like that, I'm sorry that you're hurting." i could feel her tears, wh-why did she feel sorry? i noticed paps summon a bone dagger. "But you don't have to worry anymore, because Chara's not around anymore."

SHUNK!

the bone knife went pretty deep into her arm, she made a choking noise but rather than let go, she kept holding on. paps pulled the knife back out and quickly thrust the knife back in again and again. teddy screamed the human's name and tried telling her to let go of me. just let go. "You're supposed to be better than this- ah!- please be better than this." even with her arm full of holes she managed to hold on.

i felt a boney hand grab my wrist and i realized i was holding a knife... why am i holding a knife? i didn't get to ponder that for long as my doppelganger managed to yank migisi away and then socked me right in the face. i stayed there, ignoring the other two.

"please be better than this"

"EVERYONE CAN BE A GREAT PERSON IF THEY TRY!"

"Chara isn't here anymore, no one is except you, me and a few other versions of you that were brought here, to my universe."

"BROTHER, BROTHER? ARE YOU ILL?"

"You might've been my friend, but as captain of the royal I can't let you continue-"

"AND WHERE HAS EVERYONE GONE?"

"St-st-stop!!! M-metta-mettaton, h-help!"

"WAIT SANS, WHY ARE YOU SO DUSTY? UGH, MUST YOUR LAZINESS EXTEND TO YOUR HYGIENIC ROUTINE?"

"I'm gonna stop you, even if the greatest, coolest guard captain couldn't!"

"WAIT, WHAT DO YOU HAVE BEHIND YOUR BACK? *GASP!* IS IT A PRESENT?!!?!"

"How much EXP did you get this time, SANSY?"

"OH, ARE YOU SHEDDING TEARS OF JOY BECAUSE YOU REALIZE YOU HAVE THE BEST BROTHER EVER?"

"No! Dogressa!"

"....ARE YOU OKAY SANS? ...Sans?"

"So you've finally done it, how's it feel to be a dirty brother killer?

"paps..." i could feel tears rolling down my cheekbones as my memories played out, i didn't even know i could cry anymore. my brother hovered over me and smiled at me in such a weird way. "COME ON DEAR BROTHER, YOU MUST FIND CHARA AND END THEM. IT'S WHY YOU KILLED ME, ISN'T IT" an inky black substance dripped out of his sockets and mouth as he hovered down to me and blocked out anything else from my vision. i felt my breathing getting shorter and started to shake... no wait, someone's shaking me?

the human slowly replaced papyrus, the world began to come into view again. "-just a panic attack. Just breath in and out slowly, yes, there you are!" she beamed at me. i didn't even think, i just grabbed onto her and hugged her tightly to me. i could feel her tremble... she was trying to move her arms but gave up. i could tell teddy, who was inches away, wanted nothing more than to grab me and punch me again but i couldn't bring myself to care. she seemed to though as i felt her turn her head and heard her address him, "I'm sorry, I can't leave him. You don't have to stay if you don't want to."

he muttered something and sat down on a nearby rock, watching my every move. paps floated back into view, he didn't look too happy. i clutched even more to the human and as i did so i thought i saw him flicker but i probably just imagined that. i must've. oh, the human's still talking.

"-so what do you think about that?" i furrowed my browbones. "...what?" she chuckled but repeated herself, "I said that if it'd make you feel better we could do puzzles, read Paps a bedtime story, debate about which 80's actors had the best hair, whatever you want." i snorted at the last part, "just... calm down okay? You're not in your universe anymore, you don't have to worry about Chara ever again, and when we bring everyone back you can stay and be a big brother to this universe's Papyrus." my doppelganger scoffed, but i ignored him.

i closed my eyes as i heard her rattle on. she reminded me of paps right now and that thought alone helped to ground me. maybe... maybe she is this universe's papyrus. or if he died from whatever experiment was going on that supposedly ripped everyone out of this universe, maybe a piece of his soul ended up in her? regardless, and i might be going a little crazy here but... maybe, just maybe, paps isn't real. it's hit me like a ton of bricks and i felt a fresh set of tears coming. migisi shushed me.

as she mumbled encouraging words to me, i began to smile genuinely as i started to pet my new sister's hair.

~~~~~~~~~~
In the void

Gaster's smirk widened cruely, watching the unstable skeleton pet the head of the human woman. The other, larger skeleton was barely keeping a hold of himself so that he didn't go into a blind rage. It amused him to no end that had things turned out differently, the version of Sans he now resides with could've reached a point where he'd be so broke down that he'd resort to wrapping his hands around his own brother's neck.

He looked over to said skeleton, he was looking into another window where every monster was playing basketball and... everyone had the face of some human man for some reason. Alright then. Sans was cracking up at the absurd universe, completely unaware of the window he'd been wanting to look into all this time. Gaster had debated telling him but decided against it he wanted the skeleton to focus on the occurrences happening in so many different universe right now. He'd already figured out what it was and wanted to see how long it would take his brother to realize that it was his key to getting out of the void... if he acted fast enough.

He closed the window, it would be a while before it opened again, maybe in a few days? He continued to study his brother as he hummed to the strange music that was being played in that universe. Gaster felt a pang in his chest and rubbed at it in an attempt to rid himself of it.

Finally, Sans closed the window, bursting with laughter at the insane universe he was just partially in. "oh man bro, you should've seen it!" He spoke as soon as he spotted Gaster, "it was such a ball, great music too!" He chuckled, then stopped abruptly. Gaster... looked a bit different for a moment, like his old self. The brother he swore he knew before. Gaster noticed and turned away from him.

Sans sighed and decided to just ignore it. For now, he had to figure out why he was seeing strange things going on in every universe he was visiting so far. He was certain that either each of the universes he had been visiting recently each had a ghost problem or... he shook his head, it was such a kooky idea. There's no way someone was trying to reach out to him, how could anyone travel to different universes with him? And why wouldn't he have seen it before?

He criss-crossed his legs and placed a hand under his chin. Though he couldn't figure out what was going on, he might just be able to communicate back. He didn't know morse code though and apparently ghosts were weak. In the universe he just visited, he swore he heard an occasional backwards voice in the songs he wasn't sure who it belonged to, but it sounded very familiar to him.

He realized the only way to find out was simply to look for anymore strange occurrences like those. Deciding to skip a nap, Sans prepared another portal to test his theory.

~~~~~~~~~~
2 days after fall, continued

"h e y h u m a n, i s t h a t a n y w a y t o g r e e t a n e w p a l?" Migisi didn't have time to think as the strange skeleton man suddenly grabbed at her shoulder and she felt herself surrounded by darkness for a brief moment before realizing she was in a new place. Confused and disoriented, she dropped to her knees and dry-heaved. Luckily, Toriel's cooking was quite literally magic so she didn't have to worry about wasting any of it.

Not paying attention, she didn't realize that she was in someone's house, the house of a perplexed but very dangerous fishwoman. "WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!" Undyne jumped from the piano she was playing and summoned a spear instinctively.

Sans meanwhile was continuing to glare down at the woman. 'who the hell is this? where is frisk?' It had been a couple of days since the reset, which wasn't unusual for Sans since Frisk did occasionally spend more time with Toriel before continuing into the rest of the underground. But now that a new human, an ADULT human, made their way underground with no bored resetting kid in sight? He wasn't about to pass up this opportunity.

"I can't believe you did it, Sans." Undyne smirked as she got her senses back, then sneered at him before continuing, "you could've warned me though before breaking into my house, you bonehead!" When Sans didn't reply she turned to the human who had finally stopped gagging to stare up at them. Having the human's attention, Undyne cleared her throat.

"Seven... Seven human souls and King Asgore will become a god. Si-" Migisi didn't let her finish, she ran right out of the house. "NYGAH, YOU STUPID HUMAN!" She chased after her. Migisi didn't get a chance to go very far however, she screched to a halt when Sans appeared right in front of her again. "What the hell!" Undyne marched forward, the human realized this and tried running again but only caused herself to back up into a wall. The fish woman lifted her arm and tried to pull her soul out but Migisi kept her from doing so, having learned how to do so from Toriel.

Undyne grunted, "how the hell are you...? GAH! SCREW IT!" She stopped and instead started to stab at the human. Sans stood shocked at Undyne's aggression, though he did nothing to stop it. But he didn't need to as Migisi managed to grab at the spear after a bit of struggling. "Stop! Stop! Why are you attacking me?!?! You're freaking me out, stop!" She managed to hold back her tears, but couldn't stop shaking. Her attacker huffed and kept trying to push all her weight on the spear, lowering it closer and closer to the human's neck.

"That was what I was trying to tell ya, punk! Asgore needs one more soul and the barrier will break! Monster will finally be free! I don't care how you feel, this is for the greater good!" Migisi managed to move the spear back and to the side a little. And glared at her, "the greater good?!?! You don't think that was the exact same logic ancient humans used to justify locking you all under here?!?! So why are you doing the same!" The spear shot out of her hands and managed o hit the rock wall behind her. Undyne gave her the fiercest glare she'd ever seen, causing her to gulp.

"The same?!?! THE SAME?!?! This is not the same! Your kind locked us all up, even our women and children!" Undyne reeled back to punch her, but she managed to get out of the way in time, causing Undyne to punch the wall instead, leaving it cracked. Migisi was shocked, but wasn't about to shut up, "and now you're killing human kids and trying to kill a human woman, none of whom had anything to do with that stupid war! Did you stab the children like this too? Probably caused them to run all around the underground, scraping their knees as they tripped and getting their faces smashed into the ground by someone chasing them!" Sans felt himself flinch at the accusation, Undyne stalled her next punch. It was a good thing Toriel decided to tell the human about monster history.

"You're acting no better than the ancient humans..." Migisi's eyes started to droop, she'd lost a lot of blood from Undyne's attacks. "I feel sorry for you, but there's a better way, isn't there?" She blacked out. When she awoke later, she met with a lizard woman named Alphys, no skeleton or fishwoman in sight.

Chapter Text

Things seemed to feel a bit calmer now, though the air still felt a little heavy. Migisi had trouble staying conscious, the pain was too much but she had to concentrate, she stamped down her lingering fear of the skeleton holding her since it wouldn't do any good for her to get upset now. 'Just breath Migisi, in and out.' At least the petting had a calming effect making it easier to relax, but she didn't want to sit out in the cold for too long so as soon as she felt comfortable enough she decided to speak up. "H-Hoodie, I really need to get back to the lab." He didn't pull away, frowning in thought for a moment before realizing she was injured. 'uh, whoops. did a number on 'er.' Without even thinking, Hoodie swept his 'new sister', causing her to yelp in both surprise and pain. "sorry, sorry." Hoodie felt Teddy approach him "we need to get her over to that farm thing so she can recover." Hoodie glance over his shoulder to eye his doppelganger, with his skull covered in shadow, his eye shone eerily with pulsating magic, causing Teddy to stop for a moment. The manic skeleton's eyes never wavered as he started to pet his new sister's head again in an attempt to calm her down.
Teddy wasn't easily frightened but... he was absolutely unnerved by the man in front of him, his disgust and hatred beat out his fear, at least. The two finally stopped their heated staring contest when Migisi managed to speak once her pain subsided enough. "No, we need to go to the lab. Need to get started on the machine. I'll be fine." Teddy could feel his jaw drop, not literally of course, but it just about would have. 'what is wrong with this woman, I get she's determined but she can't even use any of her limbs!' "we should get you healed." He stated simply, he wasn't one for putting his foot down to anyone outside maybe his brother, but apparently she was out of her mind right now. "you've got to have damaged your head pretty hard to think you're okay." Hoodie on the other hand rolled his eyes, like he'd listen to his doppelganger. The two blinked out of there and after quietly cursing to himself, Teddy did the same.

When they arrived, they surprised to find someone else there. "Tex?" Said skeleton slowly lifted himself from the box he was looking through. "ah, looks like you're doing... okay?" He started to sweat a little when he noticed her injuries. "well, shit." She thought briefly about telling him off for leaving her alone with Goldie, but she stopped when she realized he had no obligations to her in the first place.
Hoodie on the other hand had tightened his grip finally, debating on whether or not to attack what he perceived as a new threat, he sure as hell didn't trust this doppelganger either, or any of the other versions of him. He started to hear Paps again, telling him of how he could kill the others in the room. His magic tried to act up but he was luckily able to tame it down some by scratching at his sister's head again.
Teddy felt his alarm bells go off at the sight of this skeleton. There seemed to be something... off about him. What was he doing here anyway? Teddy didn't ponder for much longer before noticing Migisi flinch in pain out of the corner of his eye. Cursing under his breath again, he teleported away to get her some food to heal up her wounds.

"What are you doing here?" Migisi asked tiredly. Tex tilted his head at her before stepping over to the two of them, reaching into his pocket as he did so. Hoodie growled as he came nearer,
so Tex put up his other hand in a bid for peace. "woah didn't mean to set off the guard dog." He brought out a berry granola bar, one of the ones that the bunny shopkeeper always sold at her shop and the second the human saw it her stomach growled. He chuckled as he handed it to her. "didn't mean to leave you behind, had some... personal issues going on. no hard feelings though, right?" He asked as she ate, "but it looks like you didn't die so good on you." She tried to pout but it was a bit hard to do with food in her mouth, swallowing, she turned to her captor "Thank you so much Hoodie, but can you uh... let go? I feel much better." Breaking his glare at the other skeleton, he turned his head towards her. "i don't think you're that healed up, just let me carry ya for now." He squeezed her even tighter, possibly enough to cause a bruise. She twitched in discomfort before asking again, "I'd really rather get to work on the machine if that's alright with you. " Tex chuckled as Hoodie finally relented and set her down. As he did this, he spotted Papyrus across the room. When he met the eyes of his brother he felt a sudden guilt wash over him, he averted his eyelights.

"so, are you working on the machine now?" Tex asked, after testing to make sure she could walk properly and flex her arms, the exhausted woman finally answered him. "Yeah, we've got quite a lot we need to do, I think anyway, but we should really start now so we can get you guys- er, the ones who want to anyway, home" her eyes darted to Hoodie for a moment, though he was too busy watching Tex to notice. "And to try to bring back this universe's monsters. Would you mind helping out too Tex?" He didn't say anything for a moment, and it honestly felt a little bit creepy to her. "of course, i'm always happy to help. i was just here looking through all the equipment." Migisi could feel Hoodie's magic sparking, so in a panic she grabbed at his hand without thinking to hopefully calm him down, and it surprisingly worked. "Thanks Tex, hey Teddy, do you think you co- uh..." She looked around the room to find he wasn't there, "looking for someone?" Tex asked, Migisi nodded. "Yeah, I thought Teddy had followed us here. I guess he didn't?" Hoodie snorted, at least he didn't seem to be on the verge of killing everyone right now. "good, way too many of you already." She hoped anyway. "Well, let's keep doing what you were doing."

Tex shrugged and went back to one of the many boxes, apparently taking inventory in his head as there weren't any pieces of paper that she saw. Noticing that Hoodie's probably not gonna let go of her hand, she'd already devised a plan to distract him so she could go search for Teddy. Whispering to her overly attached companion, she requested, "hey, do you think you could watch Tex? I just need to go get something over there." She gestured to a dark corner of the room. "It'll take a little while to find what I'm looking for and I'd appreciate it if you kept an eye on him, he's a bit of a trouble maker after all." Hoodie gave her a questioning look, feeling a little reluctant to let go of her hand before sighing, "okay paps, just don't take too long." When he left to go do as he was asked, Migisi stiffened up, 'd-did he just call me Paps?' She debated in her head whether or not it was a good idea to leave them be, but she decided to go on ahead and search for Teddy, he's probably still back where they left him anyway.

After about 20 minutes of searching the fish farm and not finding him there, she took the path back to the lab as she didn't want to leave the crazy skeleton alone for any longer, it wouldn't have surprised her if he didn't already try to kill Tex multiple times already. She had reached the door finally, thankful that it didn't sound like there was any fighting going on, but just as she was reaching for the door knob she heard a faint noise off in the distance. It sounded like yelling maybe? Since it didn't seem like there was any fighting going on inside the lab, she decided to go to investigate the noise. It seemed to be coming from the direction of Snowdin and whoever it was hadn't stopped yelling a barely intelligible string of curse words.

Passing Snowdin and heading into the woods, the yelling didn't stop and it was honestly pretty loud. She finally spotted a hole that had blue bones over it just off the pathway where the screaming was coming from. She started to look down the hole when whoever was down there must have attacked the wall because it caused her to lose her balance and almost fall into the hole herself. After steadying herself, she saw that Teddy was apparently the one trapped down there. 'Holy shit, I didn't think he could yell like that, he always just mumbles.'

"Teddy?" She tried yelling down but was drowned out by his screeching, "motherfuckingassbitchpissingmeoffsomuchi'llkillyoukillyouKILLYOUwhenigetouttaherethesewhywon'tthesewallsbreakalready..."
"TEDDY!" She tried once more, but didn't get a response.

She did however, hear loud laughing. Looking around she spotted in one of the trees Goldie, who was laughing so hard that he looked like he would topple down from it at any moment. "...Goldie?" Said skeleton waved at her as he managed to choke down some of his laughter. "hey, you're that crazy human. see any more invisible monsters?" Oh right, she'd forgotten how annoying this one was. "Uh... it's Migisi, anyway do you know why Teddy is down there?" This got another round of raucous laughing, "teddy?!?! what a stupid name! hahahaha! with that face i'm shocked anyone would call him that, ha!" Migisi tapped her finger on her arm in impatience, with the screeching and now this jerk laughing at her

"So why exactly is he down there?" She yelled over the screeching skeleton. Goldie chuckled darkly, sliding down the branch he sat on and landing on the ground easily with the help of his magic. "got the bonehead here to fall for one of my amazing pranks of course, it's always hilarious to trick idiots like him." He shrugged, not offering to elaborate on what the hell his prank was supposed to be. "he's been smashing those walls for almost half an hour now, i'm just waiting to see how long it'll take the dumbass to remember he can teleport." He winked at her before looking down at Teddy yet again.
"You- you're doing this for some stupid prank?!" Migisi was fuming now, why the hell would he waste everyone's time like this? Goldie looked back at her, his amused grin growing as she tried to calm her nerves and continue, "look, we need to work on the machine so everyone who wants to can go back, could you please let him go?" He placed a hand on his chin to look as though he was think before answering, "nah, think i'll wait and see where this goes."

"You are such a dildo!!" She couldn't contain her anger and frustration any longer, realizing this she slapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening. For Goldie however, it was apparently comedy gold as he let out a loud laugh. "a dildo huh? well you can use me all night then, hot stuff!" Migisi's face couldn't have been any redder, what the hell had she gotten herself into?

~~~~~~~~~~
In the void

When the window opened, the first thing he saw another version of Sans sat with his back turned to him, he appeared to be wearing office clothes, a simple white button up with a bowtie and brown dress pants. He was hunched over a desk reading over some papers, the monitors that were in front of him casting a glow on his face. Sans had at first barely paid attention to him, trying to look for anomalies, until the alternate version of him shot up and looked around, causing Sans to also jump a bit. 'sheesh, he scared me right outta my skin.' he thought, deciding to observe him now. His doppelganger looked back to the paper. He raised his left hand and waved it, then his right before picking up his coffee mug and then setting it back down and then spinning around once in his swivel chair.. Sans narrowed his eyes, 'what in asgore's name is he doing?'

The doppelganger finally sighed, leaning on his desk with his hand resting on his cheek. "i'm actually in this aren't i?" He looked back at the paper in his other hand. "yeah, i'm really starring in a fanfiction, of course." Sans tilted his head in question, "so you're trapped in the void, looking for your s/o? that's gotta suck." Although he wasn't exactly sure what an 'S/O' is, Sans would've thought that this alternate version of him actually knew he was there, if he didn't know any better. "i do, you're a version of me who's been opening windows into other dimensions trying to find a way to get out with your brother and set everything back the way it was before."
"you can hear me?!" Sans questioned his doppelganger. "i'm not a doppelganger stop calling me that, my name's ship." he flipped to the next page of whatever he was reading. "if you can hear me, can you build a machine to get me out of here? if you're me then you must be able to." Ship shook his head, "i'm pretty sure that would go against regulations. look pal, i can't help you, it's literally impossible for me to get involved." Sans's shoulders fell having thought that, for a moment, he might've just found a way home. He looked around, trying to see if there was anything that could convince his alternate self to help him. "have you at least seen anything unusual? any anomalies?"

"you." Ship said, not missing a beat. Sans snorted a bit, "yeah, okay, fell for that one but i'm being serious for once, no fibula. have you seen anything weird in your world that doesn't usually occur, like floating objects or tears in reality itself. you know, that kind of thing?" Ship grabbed his cup again, "again, you're the weirdest thing i've seen in a while, kinktober's a pretty long ways off after all." Feeling his smile twitch in annoyance at the lack of answers he was getting, Sans debated whether or not he should give up on this timeline if nothing was happening and this odd version of him was only going to give nonsense answers and not help him.

While Sans distractedly thought about his predicament, Ship took the opportunity to look further ahead into what he was reading while he sipped his coffee- "5 hour energy, it's not coffee" -5 hour energy drink when he started to choke on his drink. "sans," he started in a surprisingly more serious tone, said skeleton looked at him, "get gaster to open up a window to underfell, he knows what that is so just ask him. he's holding back information from you."

Sans stepped closer to him, "why? what's underfell? how do you know all this?" Ship turned his back to him, tucking the paper into a folder and placing them in filing cabinet. "i'm not answering you, so you might as well just get back to your world." Sans decided to take his advice, he can always try to figure out how to come back to this world if he needs to, but for now the other skeleton was acting like he knew something, and if whatever was going on was urgent enough then he'll address that situation first.

Sans closed the window, vanishing from the universe with the odd Sans in it. Ship rolled his chair over to his computer to begin typing his notes and catalog the latest chapter he just read. "this fandom just gets weirder every day."

~~~~~~~~~~
3 years after fall

Migisi's POV

I anxiously sat on the skelebro's couch, waiting for Sans to get his bearings. He'd asked me to come to his house to talk about something but was so nervous that I have to wonder if he's ever going to tell me, I'm half expecting him to drop the whole thing, he'd made sure to get Paps out of the house so we could be alone though so I'm guessing that he won't if he took the energy to do that.
He looked at his hands, not saying anything just yet which made me even more nervous but I ignored the feeling and pat his shoulder to get his attention, he jumped but the smile I put on seemed to calm him down. I didn't expect that my action would cause him to calm down so quickly and it made me a little bit flustered for some reason.

But uh, nevermind the reason Migisi, he's talking!

"so i guess you're wondering why i called you here..." He scratched the back of his skull, looking abordab- NERVOUS, HE WAS LOOKING NERVOUS. "so... remember last year when you told me about your time on the surface?" Oh God, I don't want to remember that horrible time, and it seems the look on my face conveyed that feeling as he continued, "sorry, i know that it was hard for you to tell me about that and i didn't really respond too well to your feelings... i can be kind of a bonehead ya know?" He gave a shaky chuckle, I shook my head at that. "I think that it was a normal response." sans waved his hand as if to dispell my assertion, "no it's not.... i shouldn't have judged you because i'm not any better..." I tilt my head at this, silently asking him to go on.
Finally he let out a breath he was holding and looked me in the eye. "'gisi, what i'm gonna say is gonna be weird but i need you to listen..." He started wringing his hands, "so you remember the times i'd tell you about time travel? specifically time loops?" I nodded my head, wondering where he could possibly be going with this. "uh, well, here's the thing, what if i told you it's not just a theory?"

Sans POV

i did it, i finally told her. about the resets, the different timelines, about frisk and... chara. i told her about the good times and the bad, even about how i killed the kid even though i knew they weren't in control, everything. i watched her as she mulled over the information, completely in shock. my phalanges are covered in sweat, i'm terrified that she might not want to talk to me again or think i'm insane... 'course i probably am by now, heh heh.

even if i'm crazy though i really don't want to lose migisi, she's become my best friend, someone i feel comfortable to be around and to talk about anything and everything and yet i feel scared that all this might be too much for her... but i needed to tell her this eventually. there's no telling if the kid'll come back or if there's going to be a restart again, so it's best she knows.

finally, after a long agonizing wait, she answered me. "This is... you're not joking around are you?" she gave me a suspicious look. well, at least she doesn't seem to hate me. "i know i'm a pretty humerus guy, but i'm not lying right now." she giggled at my joke, that's a good sign at least, "you've used that one too many times already. Anyway, it's hard to believe, I'm not completely sure if I believe it but..." migisi placed her soft hand on my shoulder, giving me a warm smile. stars, i feel like if i had a heart it would burst right now. "I do trust you, plus you're a lot smarter than I am anyway so you're the expert." she gave me a quick hug before letting go. w-wow, i'm sure my face is burning right now. "smarter? you're the one who's running the farm that's saved us monsters and i'm petrea sure you know more than anyone else about plants, even got me to learn more so i can add to my terrific humor, this trollius been on a roll lately." that got a really good laugh. "Oh my god Sans, I feel like I owe all of the Underground an apology."

"aw don't feel bad, everyone knows you didn't mint to." oh my stars she snort-giggled, that's so damn adorable. "Okay, okay," she fanned herself to calm down, "that's pretty good, but back to that thing we were saying. Sans, I'm really glad you trust me enough to tell me all of this," she smiled brightly at me. i wonder if i should tell her about gaster too, i'm thinkin' about fixing his universal anchor machine to get him out soon anyway. but it's probably best not to, don't know if i can even get it working just yet. "Thank you for telling me all of this Sans." she gave me another hug, making me realize i'd rather not stress her out. i know she'd work herself to the bone if she could and she's already got her hands full working the farm.

yeah, i think i'll wait.