#karma sans

[werecat1234]

Multiverse Madness Chapter Forty Six

Color was sitting on the couch, looking over at Reality as he tried to heal himself, but the process was slow. Shattered had really messed him up, and it showed. Error still hadn't returned yet either, and he had kept his phone close in case Error needed backup but had heard nothing, meaning he was being lazy or he was in a fight. Odds were he was being lazy.

Error... was unique, to say the least... He was a man-child but he had the power of a god, he was strong enough to take on pretty much anyone he wanted to, and he could destroy entire worlds. However, again, man-child, making him very immature, impatient, impulsive, and sometimes impossible to get along with. Dream didn't mind him too much, seeming to be able to get along with him better than anyone else, something Color gave him props for.

At least someone could be there for Error like Color was for Knife and Sheath, which was honestly something Error probably needed. Color was drawn from his thoughts by a yellow portal opening, Dream walking through, dragging a dust-covered, and he meant dust-covered Murder through behind him. The skeleton was giggling quietly, and Color internally sighed, having an idea as to what had happened.

His suspicions were confirmed when a snickering and equally dust-covered Knife walked through the portal behind him, and then he was surprised by a version of Blue coming through with them, the portal closing behind him. He looked more tired and sad, trying to be optimistic despite something tragic happening, evidence of that through the orange hoodie tied around his waist.

"de todas las cosas que podrian haber hecho, fueron y hicieron eso!!! se podrian haber llevado bien, o matarse entre ellos, no me importa! todo menos eso!" Dream was ranting, and Knife looked like he wasn't regretting it in the least for whatever had upset Dream.

"¿qué demonios ha pasado?..." Reality asked, gaining Dream's attention.

"¡knife se emborracho a murder de lv!" Dream answered, and Reality's jaw dropped.

Color didn't know Spanish, not really, but he heard Knife, Murder, and LV, which was enough to tell him what had happened. 

"¡¿qué?!" Reality exclaimed, "¡¿cómo?!" Dream shot a pointed look at Knife, who whistled innocently, and Reality sighed. "me tienes que estar jodiendo... gilipollas..."

"uhh... english?" Color requested.

"dream is pissed because knife got murder drunk on lv." Reality summed up, "knife, what the hell were you thinking?"

"to be fair, they were trying to kill us." Murder spoke up.

"you still could've teleported away, pendejo..." Dream sighed.

"there's no fun in that, though!" Knife spoke up, "besides, we helped out underswap with their pest problem!"

"that doesn't mean you get murder love-drunk!" Dream snapped.

Dream usually didn't get angry like this, ever, but Color could understand exactly why he was so upset. Ink had been turned into a... Color didn't wanna say puppet, but from what he'd heard from the others, that's how Ink was acting, which made Color's soul twist... Color would leave it at Shattered turning Ink on them, to word it as gently as possible. Blue had been... killed, and Murder was the only one of the original Stars left.

He'd been a member the longest, before the team had expanded, and Dream clearly cared a lot about him. Those two were close, anyone could see it, and the main time Dream got the most upset was when someone he cared about had something really bad happen to them. That meant that it had to be hard seeing Murder like this, drunk on power, and the one responsible for this was acting happy about it... Color definitely needed to have another conversation with Knife, even though the skeleton probably wouldn't want to.

"i can't get the other kind of drunk anymore, this was kinda ni-" Murder started, but Dream cut him off, pulling him forward, crouching down and grabbing his shoulders.

"murder, no! no version of drunk should be nice!" Dream told him, "also, why are you defending knife?! who are you and what have you done with murder?!"

"i know you are but what am i?" Murder asked, looking at him with a grin.

"i- what?!" Dream asked, and Knife started laughing.

"knife, this isn't funny!" Reality snapped, "this isn't good at all!"

"hey, you two worked together to kill insanity and that wasn't a problem." Knife pointed out.

"that was one time, we had a plan set up so the lv wouldn't effect him, and that was one monster, not an army based on how much dust is covering you both." Reality glared.

Color sighed, and he spoke up, asking, "knife, can we talk?"

"ah crap..." Knife muttered, and he sighed, "fine...."

Color got up from the couch, walking over to him and grabbing his hand, teleporting them to one of the parks in the Omega Timeline, specifically a spot by a pond. The grass was green, flowers blooming up amongst the blades, and there was a large amount of pine trees around them, casting a shadow over them, away from the constant light in the sky. Color sat them both down on one of the benches, and looked around to check that they were alone, seeing that they were. This was one of the more secluded and little known areas in the timeline, peaceful and quiet, which always gave them the perfect place to talk. Knife was quiet, probably knowing Color wasn't too happy about this, instead staring at the pond, before he eventually spoke up.

"you gonna show me how pissed you are yet?" Knife questioned.

"no, because i'm not angry." Color sighed, "i'm upset, yes, but i'm not angry. i know why you did it. i thought we talked about this, knife..."

"we did. i tried your way, it didn't work." Knife responded.

"so you resort to what they did to you?" Color asked.

"it worked, though." Knife said.

"no, it didn't. all it did was make murder's mental health even worse and worry everyone else. he's not gonna bounce back from this one, knife, not easily." Color sighed, "and he's probably going to resent you for that if the lv messes with him."

"he already doesn't care about who he hurts, color. he just cares about how dream's gonna react to it." Knife mentioned.

"yeah, because he cares about him. don't you care about how i'm going to react to you doing something?" Color questioned.

". . . it crosses my mind sometimes." Knife admitted, "but you know i still don't understand you."

"you know i never get mad at you." Color said.

"that you show." Knife didn't believe him.

"i think you tested that out more than enough when you repeatedly kept trying to get me pissed off at you and it never worked." Color brought up, and Knife looked off to the side, "knife, i know why you want to see me angry. you want me to lash out like they did. you want to give yourself a reason to doubt what i've told you, but that's not gonna happen. i know you, knife, i know why you do almost everything, and that includes about murder."

"and why's that?" Knife asked.

Color sighed, "i know i can't relate to you as much as i want to, and while i wish i was able to know from experience what you went through, i don't know how it feels. i didn't kill everyone like you did, or like murder did, and as much as you're your own person, you want to be able to relate to someone. even though murder hates you for what you did, you still relate to him, and that interests you, doesn't it? you want to understand him, so you pick and prod at him to see what makes him tick.

"i know how much you like experimenting with people, knife, it's in your nature to try and understand concepts like emotions and mindsets that no longer make sense to you. murder piqued your interest, and you're fixating on him. you want to be his friend because of how interesting you find him, but he wouldn't go for it since he hates you. you tried my method, but you didn't have the patience to see if it would work, so you tried their method. the most unhealthy and toxic way possible."

". . ." Knife was quiet, "it wasn't just for that. i didn't want him getting himself killed all because he didn't want his hands dusty again..."

"that's because he has a good reason to worry about that, knife." Color told him, "you know that."

"yeah well it was gonna get him killed." Knife huffed, "besides, cutting lose did him some good, you should've seen him."

"knife... that wasn't cutting loose. that was... that was not good..." Color frowned, "i know why you did it, but it was wrong."

"maybe, but it kept him alive, and he's happy. he wasn't except for when he killed the big fish monster that was trying to kill us, but i helped him." Knife said.

"you helped him like how i help you and sheath, or you helped him like how they helped you?" Color asked.

". . . i don't know how to do it your way." Knife sighed, "i still don't understand how it helps me..."

"because it gets you to think. i know you're not emotional, knife, not like sheath is, and i know that getting you to think about things is one of the only ways to help you with something. be it an emotion flaring up, or just simply not understanding when you did something wrong." Color explained.

"is that why you don't get angry at me? because you view me as a child that doesn't know better?" Knife questioned.

"no, i don't see you as a child. i see you as a friend who needs help understanding that things aren't the way they made you think they were. you just need some help learning the best way to do things." Color reassured.

Color knew Knife didn't really have a concept of morality, or of right or wrong. All Knife viewed those as were as opinions, so when Color used 'best', it wasn't the correct way to do something, or how it should be done, but it was the best way to reach the end goal. Then again, Knife just might view that as an opinion, too...

". . . i still don't regret it." Knife said, "it got him to like me."

"he has an lv high right now, knife, he's in a very good mood." Color sighed.

"even then, he still defended me against dream. maybe their way was the best way this time." Knife suggested.

"their way is extremely toxic and unhealthy." Color deadpanned.

"at least it worked." Knife shrugged.

"briefly, before he resents you even more for making that happen." Color pointed out.

"if he still cares from all the lv." Knife countered, "which he might not. i don't."

"you don't care because your soul's a mess and you're traumatized." Color deadpanned.

"eh, either way." Knife shrugged again, and Color sighed.

"even if it temporarily works, please, do not do this again. murder is one of the most stable dusttale sanses in the multiverse, don't ruin him." Color requested.

"come on! if that other me gets to be buddy-buddy with his, why can't i try it out?" Knife pouted.

"because murder isn't dust, he hates dust, and you aren't running around terrorizing everyone!" Color pointed out.

"not anymore. you know what i used to do in my timeline before me and sheath decided to end the loop." Knife mentioned, "i mainly agreed because i found it repetitive and boring; i did everything i possibly could, why not end the game? granted error destroyed my timeline before we could reach the end, but still."

"yeah, i know. i just... knife, you can't do that again, buddy. sure, i get out of keeping him alive, but that's when you teleport out of the area. he can defend himself, you know that." Color sighed.

"yeah, i know, but if he's not gonna kill to stay alive, he's gonna die." Knife said.

"he can, knife, and he will if he truly needs to. nightmare won't kill any of us because he needs the negativity, the only reason blue died was an accident. he fought killer for months, if he wanted him dead, blue would've been dead that first fight." Color told him.

"yeah, i know..." Knife sighed, "but murder killed their teammate, so who knows what they-"

Knife cut himself off, realizing something, and Color looked at him curiously.

"knife?" Color questioned.

"they planned it." Knife said, "that's why they used an au like predatortale, and went after underswap specifically. they knew how much murder and dream cared about blue, and murder hates killer and always fights him, especially since he's the one who killed blue...."

Color's eye sockets widened, and Knife got up, walking back and forth in front of the bench, "he was waiting for us in that building, he knew we would run by, probably because he was watching us from the start. he watched us fight that mutated undyne, and he was ready at that building with the dog whistle, and the fight brought in the mutts around the area... he wanted murder to kill just as much as i did..."

". . . it's payback." Color realized, "he knows how unstable lv can make someone, and he was trying to make murder lose it so he would be kicked off the team, or at the very least less of a threat to them since they could use him easier..."

"exactly. just like they did, using lv to manipulate... i did it to manipulate him to try and get him to like me, or at the very least quit pretending he's not as dark and twisted inside as he really is..." Knife trailed off.

"and they did it to get revenge. same idea, different end goals." Color finished, and he sighed, "we need to tell the others..."

"yeah... . . . you're still not gonna punish me?" Knife asked.

"i never said that. i'm not showing you funny cat videos for a week." Color responded.

"damnit!" Knife cursed, "you always get all the good ones!"

"exactly! also, you have to apologize to dream, and murder once he's sober." Color told him.

Knife sighed, and he asked, "is that everything?"

"also never do that again." Color added.

"fine..." Knife grumbled.

"and eat three meals a day, get eight hours of sleep a night, and take care of yourself." Color amended.

"ok that's pushing it!" Knife refused, and Color chuckled a bit.

Color then noticed how one of Knife's arms seemed longer than the other one, the sleeve slightly stretched, and he asked, ". . . what happened to your arm?"

"huh? oh that? it got broke." Knife chuckled.

"you've gotta be kidding me..." Color sighed, getting up from the bench and grabbing the wrist of Knife's uninjured arm.

"where are we going?" Knife asked as Color started walking.

"back to story's so i can patch you up again!" Color answered.

Knife started humming Baby Shark after a few moments, so Color just teleported them back.

When they appeared in the living room, Murder was out cold, snoring on the couch, and Dream was standing by him with his hand on his skull, a yellow glow radiating from his fingers. Reality was sitting next to the couch, the Underswap Sans wasn't present, and Fresh, Delta, Epic, and Reaper were back. Fresh was mostly unscathed, Delta was a bit battered, Epic looked mostly fine, and Reaper... Reaper looked upset, something not easily accomplished. He was sulking in a corner, arms crossed, and his cloak was more smoky than normal.

"reaper? you ok?" Color questioned.

"well, yeah, i'm fine." Reaper responded calmly, his expression not matching his voice, "ink contacted the chara of my world and now they're working with nightmare and dream, and they showed up. i was in the middle of peacefully hate-flirting with horror, who i realized i can't kill since he's already dead, and then the one who killed tori shows up and throws what they did in my face again. i'm peachy."

". . . so not good, got it.." Color winced.

"he had it mostly ok, bruh. fresh fought bill and sure, i fought him too for the most part, then axe. then a giant [funk]ing dragon spawned in." Epic sighed.

". . . what?" Dream asked.

"yeah, horror made this massive dragon-thing out of bones..... it was horrific." Delta sighed, "every time we'd blast off a piece of it, it'd just heal."

". . . sma-" Knife started.

"no." Color cut him off, pulling him to sit down on the floor before grabbing the first-aid kit from under the couch.

Knife took off his coat, three fourths of his right arm snapping off with the sleeve, Broken Determination oozing from the bones. Color grimaced a little from it, but he just opened the kit and grabbed the gauze. 

"bruh!" Epic gasped.

"brah, that is not good." Fresh pointed out.

Color just sighed, having had to do this several times already in the past, and he grabbed Killer's arm from within the sleeve, holding it up to where it'd broken off before he started securely bandaging it. Knife held still the whole time, used to this, and Color would be more worried if he didn't know Knife didn't even feel any of this. The Broken Determination was surprisingly helpful when it came to Knife's healing; the black, ink-like liquid that stained pretty much everything Color owned was rich in magic, and it worked well to repair fractures and breaks. Granted Color would prefer it if that wasn't necessary, but he didn't have that luxury, since even if Knife wasn't in a fight or picking a fight, he was doing something reckless.

Knife was smart enough to not get into a fight he didn't think he could handle; he analyzed his opponents, looking for blind-spots and weaknesses, and if he couldn't exploit them to make a stronger opponent weak enough for him to fight, he didn't go for it. That was something about Knife that Color had always known about and noticed; his intelligence was mainly geared towards combat due to what they did to him, but he lacked severely when it came to empathy and awareness of others' emotions. He's gotten better over the years, with Color helping him, and he mainly understood Color the most, yet he also seemed to understand him the least. Knife had made it a common hobby to pick and prod at others, finding out more about them to satisfy his curiosity and lack of understanding of certain concepts, even putting himself in harm's way to do so.

Early on, Color used to find Knife picking at someone's soul, as Knife could teleport between AUs as well, not that he let this be common knowledge. No, Knife liked keeping that secret, and Color hoped for the sake of the multiverse that Killer never found out he could do this, or they would have even more problems on their hands. Knife never used it for what Killer probably would, though. He went between AUs to investigate things, to find out information he previously hadn't' known, and he hadn't even gotten into that much trouble.... that Color knew of. Knife probably hadn't told him some things, which was to be expected, and Sheath and Knife didn't share memories, they only knew things they were awake for, so Knife could've been out doing anything outside of Color's supervision.

The reason Knife needed supervision so much was because of obvious reasons, but it wasn't that Color didn't trust him or that Color treated him like a child like Knife might think. Most of the multiverse has reasonable reservations when it comes to Knife, which Color didn't blame them for, and Color knew if a fight started, Knife wouldn't back down. If Core thought Knife was a threat, he wouldn't be allowed to stay here, and Color didn't want that. His AU was destroyed, and there weren't many sanctuaries in the multiverse for someone like Knife, even if Sheath was primarily in control, nor were there any that weren't too similar to Knife's timeline, which would bring back memories and might make him repeat certain actions that would immediately get him kicked out.

This was the only place for Knife and Sheath to be able to have freedom and be able to be calm. Color just wanted to protect them and give Knife somewhere to learn a way outside of what they made him believe. It had been going well for the most part, but even still, some obvious progress had to be made after what happened to Murder in that Underswap timeline. He knew Knife had been expecting him to snap from that, too, because he was well aware he wouldn't be happy, which was an improvement, since early on he didn't know why Color was upset, and if Color showed frustration, when Sheath was in control, he'd get scared. However, that didn't stop him most of the time, but he still seemed to think things through a bit more.

They - Color refused to say their name, and Knife and Sheath had taken to avoiding saying it directly - had always reacted with obvious negativity when either of them did something out of line. Which is why Color did the opposite to put one of many clear differences between him and them. It was usually Sheath from what Color had heard, but they'd always scare him into hiding so that Knife would be forced to remain in control longer. Knife usually made Sheath sleep, for a long time having wanted Sheath gone and out of the picture, just viewing him as an obstacle or weakness, something that was no longer true since they'd learned to coexist better.

Even still, if Knife didn't want Sheath to see something, he'd do something to make Sheath panic so he would retreat into the subconscious, and if Knife did anything he definitely shouldn't have, that would be when he did it. Sometimes, to Knife's credit, it wasn't Knife's fault. Early on when Sheath was still basically afraid of his own shadow half the time, there would be outside factors that would scare him, and Knife would take over to protect him, and when Color was in danger... that's how Color knew Knife cared about him.

That's also how everyone was scared of Knife for like two months before Core sorted everything through, but it hadn't been Knife's fault. A genocidal Flowey had snuck into the Omega Timeline, hiding inside of a suitcase, and Knife had... well... protected Color when the vines shot at him. So, if Color was asked if he thought someone as apathetic, twisted, and emotionless as Knife cared about him, the answer was an unwavering yes.

Color was drawn from his thoughts by a red and glitching portal opening, the Bad Time Trio coming through it, looking a bit worse for wear. They had various cuts and scuffs on them, Story already sporting various bruises. Color also realized he'd finished bandaging Knife's arm, and was just staring at the gauze, so he tore his eyelight away, looking up at the four new occupants in the room. It was getting a bit crowded.

"how'd things go on your end?" Color asked, and Story sighed.

"not the best. player had x handled, and we fought fell, this new royal guard fellswap, and violet. they weren't a huge problem, but the rest of the royal guard of that au was. even after we left we were still trying to get them out." Karma sighed, "they teleported them back to their timeline, but still, it probably won't work again.

"yeah, we had an axetale running rampant in candytale. things are mostly ok now, but there might've been some stragglers that we missed." Delta added, "and dream, murder, and knife ran into problems with predatortale in an underswap au."

"Wait, really?" Story asked.

"yeah, and um.. the sans from that timeline, swap, he's here and he'll be helping us against nightmare." Dream informed, looking down.

Blue's death still hurt.

"is he ok?" Stretch questioned, "where is he?"

"he's showering, but umm.. stretch? his brother died back in underswap, so just... well, everyone, be gentle with him? he's processing it and now that the adrenaline's worn off he needs some time. today's been a lot for him." Dream requested, and everyone nodded.

". . . i hate to change the subject, but what the hell happened to knife and murder?" Karma asked.

Oh boy...

"the two idiotas killed a ton of monsters." Reality sighed.

"What?!" Story exclaimed.

"they were trying to kill us!" Knife spoke up.

Color knew that wasn't Knife's only reason, and Reality and Dream probably did too, but for the sake of keeping the peace, no one said anything. For now, anyways, once everyone was less on edge the rest of the information would probably come out, but at least for now Knife wasn't saying anything. At least if there was one thing Knife had learned, it was when to keep his mouth shut about something.

Stretch sighed, looking down at Murder and asking, "how is he?"

"he was... in a very good mood when me and swap found those two, and i knocked him out with sleeping magic so he would stop giggling and wouldn't do anything reckless. i'll wake him up when i sense that the lv wore off." Dream replied.

"on the topic of the lv... there's something knife figured out that you all should know." Color announced, and all eyelights and eyes were on him.

"what is it?" Reality questioned.

"they planned it." Knife said, "nightmare and killer knew how much dream and murder cared about blue, so they picked an underswap, and they used a rabid and mutated world to make it easier for someone to make life or death choices. they wanted murder to kill so he would gain lv."

Stretch looked like he was about to kill something, his hands clenched into shaky fists, and he took a deep, shaky breath.

"i already hated them, but this... this is too far..." Stretch growled.

"We need to get Murder to Sci, maybe he can remove the LV?" Story suggested, trying to find a solution.

"i hope so, we know what lv can do to people. hell, look what it's done to dust." Karma sighed.

"i'll reach out to that timeline again, see what i can find out or if they have any ways of dealing with high lv without hurting someone." Dream decided.

"want me to go with you?" Reality offered.

"reality, no. you're still recovering, and you lost a lot of magic in that fight with shattered... besides, that can't be good for you mentally seeing your brother like that." Color told him.

"seeing that thing wasn't the problem, and neither was fighting him... . . . during the fight, i stabbed him in the goop covering his left eye socket, and he just... snapped. he let out these... these shrieks, and just went nuts. before that he was actively holding back, trying to convince me to go back in the stone where it was 'safe'. . . . after he went crazy, he beat the crap out of me, and once i was... unable to fight back, he seemed to snap out of it. then he said he was sorry when he saw me... and he meant it..." Reality described, and everyone went quiet.

Nightmare never apologized for hurting Dream, in fact he cherished it, and with what Color knew, Shattered and Nightmare were the same entity in different hosts. For Shattered to do something like that... it made no sense...

"do you know why he would've done something like that?..." Dream asked.

"i have no idea, but he looked like he was scared to even touch me in case he'd hurt me.... it just makes no sense..." Reality sighed, "error showed up after that, though, and he went to go see if you guys needed help... speaking of... where is he?"

"he didn't show up in underswap." Knife said.

"he wasn't in candytale." Delta added.

"He didn't come to Aftertale either." Story informed.

". . . damnit error, so help me if you were in the antivoid eating chocolates..." Color grumbled, and a few white pixels appeared on the ceiling on the far side of the room, and Color pointed, saying. "over there."

That got the others to look, and the pixels flickered out before reappearing, then glitching out of existence. That was the first sign that something was wrong. Since he'd gained access here, he liked to be intimidating and make dramatic entrances, but this seemed... weaker... Did Error get into a fight after all? Color got his answer when the portal reappeared, mostly stable, and Error fell out of it, landing in a heap on the floor.

"error!" Dream yelped running over to the glitching skeleton, pausing before he got too close.

Color looked past everyone else, seeing him glitching rapidly, and one of his legs was straight up gone, blue blood seeping out of the bones and onto the floor. Everyone else was staying a reasonable distance away, and Knife looked like he wanted to investigate, but Color kept him sitting against the couch. Dream crouched down a foot away from Error, hands extended towards him, but he wasn't moving towards him. Color had never seen Error like this, and he sure as hell hadn't been this beat up earlier in Outertale... Not many people could beat up Error like this, because even with how childish Error could be, he wasn't someone that could be hurt easily.

Ink was on an even power scale with Error, and sure, Shattered had messed him up, but probably not to this extent. Besides, Shattered looked just like Dream from how he'd been described to him, Ink could've very easily been caught off-guard and not fought back, but Error didn't have those reservations, and he'd fight back without restraint. This though.... this had Color on edge... Error coughed a bit, one of his arms dislocated by the looks of it, and the other one was broken based on how it was bent. Error was coughing into the fist of his broken arm, blue blood spurting onto his hand, and he let out a glitchy groan.

"what the hell happened?!?!?!" Color couldn't keep himself from asking.

"[funk]ing fatal...." Error mumbled, and Color tensed.

Fatal Error. Yeah, that would do it....

"damn bruh, talk about bleeding edge tech-" Epic said, and blue strings shot past his skull.

"d    o        n '   t       .   " Error growled lowly, and Epic tensed, holding his hands up.

"sorry, sorry!" Epic held a rubber chicken to his chest, and Color sighed a little, shaking his skull.

"error, can i-" Dream reached forward, and Error practically hissed, pushing himself back.

"n  o  !   b  lu  e         w as    t h  e      on   l y      o  ne     i         le t    h  e  lp    m e   ,         an d     h e 's    g  on e  !     so   d on  ' t    ev  e n   t hin  k    ab  ou t         i t !    !" Error snapped, and the room went quiet.

"i'm sorry." Dream apologized, backing up a bit, and Color was still trying to process the implications of that.

Error panted a bit, glitches riddling his body further, and his bones shook.

He hesitated for a moment, looking off to the side before muttered, "sorry..."

"no, no, it's ok." Dream reassured, still a bit upset but he was trying to hide it, and Reality looked angry, "i just wanted to offer help."

"i'll be fine... i regenerate..." Error told him.

"can you regenerate a dislocated shoulder?" Reality asked, and Error looked at him.

"i can pop it back into place when my arm heals..." Error responded.

"let him help you." Reality quite honestly demanded, crossing his arms, "he wants to help you so let him. it's the least you can do for snapping at him."

"brother, no, it's ok. he has haphephobia-" Dream started, but Reality cut him off.

"then let it flare up. i'll suck the negativity out of him and you can pop his arm back into it's socket." Reality said, "i need to get my magic up anyways. it helps him, it helps you, and it helps me."

"i don't want your magic anywhere near me." Error glared.

"i can just knock you out then." Reality suggested.

"why is helping me such a big deal to you two?" Error grumbled.

"because for one, you're bleeding all over the living room-" Reality began.

"it disappears." Error grumbled.

"-my brother wants to help you because he cares about you and doesn't like seeing anyone hurt, and you snapped at him about someone you both miss. so get over yourself, and accept his offer, for all of our sakes. show them you can actually do that and be a person instead of just a destroyer of all of their homes." Reality finished, and Error was quiet, "besides, relocating an arm is a two person job, you can't do it on your own."

". . . just hurry it up..." Error relented after a moment, "also no, i don't know why fatal chose to be an annoyance just now. i was looking through portals to see if one of you couldn't handle yourselves when he showed up."

Dream slowly scooted closer, moving to where he was kneeling next to Error, and he informed, "i won't touch your bones, i just need to grab your arm and push it back into it's socket." Error nodded a little, and Dream requested, "can you sit up?"

Error pushed himself up to sit, his broken arm cracking a bit at the motion, and Color cringed at the dark blue stain covering his shirt, burned holes in his chest where Fatal's strings probably shot through. Dream looked like he would be nauseous, and with a glance at Fresh, Color saw his glasses had changed to "WO AH". Dream slowly grabbed Error's dislocated arm, the glitch letting out a shuddering breath at the contact, and he trembled, glitches forming all where Dream's hand touched. Reality moved to sit close by, groaning a bit from the effort, and purple smoke formed in his hand, more of it coming from Error's skull and going into his palm.

Reality closed his eye sockets, a purple glow washing over his injuries, and Error's glitching slowed down, and he was breathing calmly and evenly. Dream still worked quick, though, feeling for Error's socket before pushing the joint back into place with a pop. Error grunted a bit, but he was otherwise calm, his eye sockets mostly closed. He looked completely relaxed, and once Dream released his arm, he fell forward.

Dream caught him on reflex, and Color's eye socket widened when Error didn't even flinch. More purple smoke was coming from him though, and Reality was healed at this point, just continuing to drain the negativity from Error as it formed. Error wasn't sleeping, he just looked completely calm and relaxed, sinking into Dream's arms limply, and quite frankly, it was freaking Color out.

Dream looked back at them, mouthing, "help what do i do?"

"uh... try getting him somewhere comfortable?..." Color suggested, unsure.

Dream nodded, and Story and Karma vanished, coming back with several pillows a moment later, Story muttering, "I hope he was telling the truth about his blood, my living room is a mess enough..."

Story and Karma laid the pillows out on the floor like a bed, and Dream asked Error, "hey error, how're you doing?..."

"'m fine...." Error mumbled, opening his eye sockets a bit, which were tinged dark purple, "i miss blue....."

Dream frowned, looking down and saying, "me too..."

"heh..... there was one time....... blue dropped in for our weekend hangout, and he brought this... this big quilt thing..." Error was just mumbling whatever came to mind it seemed, and Color didn't miss the way Stretch was looking at him.

"oh yeah?" Dream kept him going.

"yeah.... he called it this... this 'friendship blanket'.... the parasite would've seen it if he decided to annoy me though, so i had to hide it..." Error's eye sockets were mostly closed.

"where'd you put it?" Dream asked softly.

"i ripped out the stuffing from my beanbag chair..." Error replied, smiling a little, "blue thought i got rid of it until i showed him.... . . . i miss when he'd make me stuff, it was nice hiding it so no one knew where it was or could touch it but me..."

Stretch looked away, looking like he wanted to leave, but he was staying there, staying put. Out of every weird friendship in the multiverse, be it Murder and Dream, Core and the Chara of Reaper's world, which Color would not tell Reaper about under any circumstances, or even himself and Knife, Color never expected Blue and Error to be friends. Learning about that had been a surprise for sure, but to learn how long they'd been friends, even before Ink and Error's truce... it was a surprise to say the least.

"hey error, when you lose a limb, does it regrow into another you like a starfish?" Knife asked.

"dude, what the [heck]?" Delta questioned, and Knife snickered.

"no..." Error shook his skull no, looking confused, and Dream carefully picked him up before carrying him over to the now finished bed of pillows on the floor, Story and Karma backing away from it.

Dream laid him down on it, looking at his mostly blue shirt, looking nauseous, and he asked, "error, what happened to your ribcage?"

"fatal grabbed them with his stupid strings and tossed me around til they broke.... he's such a stupid stupid...." Error grumbled.

"reality, how much are you siphoning out of him?" Dream questioned.

"enough to keep him relaxed but not asleep." Reality answered, and his left eyelight was half teal, his body healed, "you wanna check his ribs before i stop?"

Dream thought for a moment, and he turned back to Error, asking, "error? are you ok with that?"

Error nodded a little, and Dream slowly pulled his shirt up, revealing a red spine and a yellow ribcage. His ribs were a mess from where Color was sitting, and Dream gasped at the state of them. Color also noticed something that he had to get up and teleport closer to see, his eye socket wide. There was a faint scar across his ribcage; a slash, and it was dark blue with glitching white pixels around it. Color saw Reaper's gaze locked directly on it, lurking in the shadowy corner nearby, and the previous anger on his face was gone, replaced with shock.

Color wasn't sure what that meant to Reaper, but it seemed important, and at least a God of Death wasn't pissed off anymore. Dream was working quickly, fitting the ribs back together, and white pixels formed where the breaks were, but they kept his ribs together. Reality seemed more strained, the purple smoke increasing greatly in amount, and Dream used bandages to help keep his ribs in place. While he did this, a white, pixelated leg replaced Error's missing one, not really having many dimensions, just white pixels with a few red ones mixed in. Once Dream was done bandaging his ribs, he pulled Error's shirt back down, and he backed up. Reality stopped draining negativity out of him after a minute, the smoke stopping, and Error groaned.

"ugh.... i regret letting you do that......" Error grumbled.

"do you at least feel better?" Reality asked.

"yes..." Error admitted.

"well there you go." Reality responded.

Color looked back at where Error had been bleeding before, and sure enough, the liquid had turned into pixels, rising up from the carpet before slowly fading out of existence, taking the stains with them. 

"so, you really were close to my bro, huh?" Stretch questioned, and Error's eyelights shot to him.

"[dang] it, i forgot you were here..." Error sighed, sounding irritated.

"you didn't answer my question, pal. i didn't know you two got along that much, and it was a shock when dream told us you'd been friends. honestly, i still don't believe it." Stretch said.

"got a problem with it?" Error glared.

"nah, not really. i can't do much about it now, anyways... i just wanna know one thing... why?" Stretch asked.

"i still can't figure that out..." Error huffed.

"yeah, me neither..." Stretch sighed.

"hey, error?" Delta asked.

"what?" Error responded, sounding irritated from all the questions.

"it's nice to know you've got a soul after all." Delta smirked.

"shut it, anomaly..." Error glared.

"UM...." Color looked up to see the Underswap Sans at the top of the stairs, looking down at them in confusion, and he no longer had dust on him, "IS HE OK?...."

Error looked at Dream, who smiled nervously.

Error crashed. 

Discord server: https://discord.gg/wQfvxyEuvj

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[somegrumpynerd]

The call is coming from inside the house, Dust

[skyefeys]

playing ace attorney with a close friend - he knows my favorite character's name is franziska but that's all - and we had to pause during turnabout goodbyes before we both go home for break. now whenever we talk about the game together this is what my brain looks like

[budd-ie]

“Mu Qing is too logical for his own good” is such a real problem that he deals with and as tragic as it makes his life I also think it’s really funny when someone is accusing him of something and instead of telling them to shut up or leave him alone the first thing he does is pull out the 95 fucking theses detailing every single thing wrong with their argument WITH historical evidence and additional considerations from scholarly psychology articles, MLA format works cited and completely annotated. It could use an editor and some bias correction, but he actually makes a pretty good point. anyways tgcf ace attorney au when

[lexi-does]

‘’do you want to talk,,

First time posting about my Oso-San OC and it’s through a meme lmao

[tributedreference]

You. You sir, keep talking. You have good ideas. I fully support this kind of yap.

This has made my day, thank you! I've always enjoyed writing and thinking up stupid ideas, so this blog is just a bunch of what-ifs I'd love to see. I've also read too many comics, and the inconsistencies between different outcodes and universes are fascinating to me and demand explanation. Here's a shorter one I wasn't initially planning on posting if you're interested:

Karma is either depicted as needles of phantom pain or not at all, but the way I've always headcanoned it as was acid. Pink acid that forms when dust of those you've killed react to Sans' magic. It avoids corroding anything besides flesh and amplifies in effect with how much dust you're covered with. It then quickly boils off, disappearing completely, but the damage has been done. Whether it's a property any monster can learn or only Sans/skeletons is up for debate. I'd also like to think a lot of the Sanses that turned to LOVE as something to gather lost the ability to conjure this nasty corrosion, but it can still be used against them if they're stuck fighting a much lower LV Sans.

[mcnotok]

@ask-fgod thingy for berror :)

[what-have-i-unleashed]

he who walks in samsara

guess who stayed up all night to finish this 🙂🙂🙂 happy birthday to the motherfucker who ruins my life 💜💜💜

a bit more experimental than my usual stuff. or maybe it's just bad writing, who knows 😒 too bad i chose this as the time i finally tried to write something out of my comfort zone 💔

Sans wakes up to the sounds of birds singing.

The first thing he sees is the familiar golden glow of the Judgement Hall. The towering pillars loom over him, like silent sentinels witnessing the countless trials that have happened in this place. The stained-glass windows on the walls are adorned with the Delta Rune emblem. Sunlight from the Surface filters through them, casting long wing-like shadows on the marble floor. The air is thick with something unspoken – anticipation, or guilt, he couldn’t tell. It feels suffocating, yet oddly comforting. This is a dance Sans should know fairly well.

But. Something is wrong.

He sees him.

A figure at the far end of the Hall, standing in where Sans has always been. Where Sans has always assumed the task of judging and executing the Human.

But there is no Human here.

Only him.

And his doppelganger.

The Other regards Sans with the same blank look that he wore once, before the memories became a curse, before all of the endless killings happened. The white eyelights burn into him, and Sans can feel it right away – the invisible hands of all the SOULs he’s killed, grasping at him, pleading, crying, accusing. Sans has learned to ignore them, but now under the eye of the Judge, the weight of his sins is unmissable.

“heya,” the Other said, his voice slow and deliberate, just like Sans so may lifetimes ago. “you’ve been busy, huh?” His words. Spoken back to him like a mockery.

This is wrong. He shouldn’t be hearing them.

This isn’t his role in this story.

But if he is here-

Then he should already know how this one ends.

-----

There was a time before this. Maybe. Maybe not. The world had folded in on itself, layering the past and the present until neither existed at all.

They called him a genius for his unmarred memory. A gift, they praised. A curse, he laughed. He remembered waiting for the Human in this place, waiting day after day for the shuffle of their steps. He remembered rehearsing the words, the practiced delivery of judgement he shall reign upon them. He waited.

But they never came.

The silence stretched, seeping into his ribs like oil, thick and cloying. He paced. He counted the cracks in the floor, felt his own presence bleed into the gold-covered walls. The light flickered, and the world bent.

Then, the whispers started.

A drop of water in a place with no rivers. The soft murmur of wings where nothing could fly. An utterance of a name where no one could be.

“Sans…”

He turned.

There was no one. No one. No one.

The cracks in the floor yawned open, and from them spilled something thick and viscuous, slow as honey, quick as decay. It coiled, licking at his feet, feigning beingalive. The voices swelled. “Join us,” they cooed at him. Fingers formed in the viscera, reaching, pleading, accusing. Their faces were all wrong. The foolish brother. The fallen hero. The pesky coward. The pitiful old man. Half-formed smiles, eyes emptied of recognition. Their hands stretched forward, brushing against his ribs, against his throat, pulling.

Down. Down. Down.

The scent of forever clung to him, sweet and sickly. An invitation. A demand. To sink, to give in, to exist endlessly in the way only the damned could.

Then, a voice cut through the madness.

“murderer.”

He gasped, struggled against the tide, but the words strangled his throat like barbed wire.

“dirty brother killer.”

He gritted his teeth. “shut up,” he hissed. “i killed you already.”

A laugh. Familiar. Hollow. "then why am I still here?"

The tide rose, and from the twisting mass of gold emerged a shadow. A reflection of himself, but sharpened, whittled down to something less, something lacking.

“if you wanted to get rid of the past so bad,” the shadow said, “you should have carved out more of yourself.”

“what do you even know about sacrifice?” he spatted.

“what do you know, name-stealer?” Hands pulled on the scarf around his neck. “this time, i’ll be the one to kill you.”

The lamb never left the altar, after all.

-----

When the first attack comes, it shouldn’t be a surprise to Sans. A wave of bones erupts from the ground, walls of magic caging him in. Multiple Gaster Blasters hover in the air, their mouths yawning open with an all-too-familiar, high-pitched whine.

They fire.

Sans doesn’t dodge in time. Pain tears through him. His vision goes blindingly white before his body collapses, spots of red dripped from his wounds.

As if he was the Human.

And then, he is back, standing in the golden glow of the Judgement Hall once again. The Other stares at him with the same blank, mirthless expression.

“heya, you look frustrated about something,” the Other smiles. “guess i’m pretty good at my job, huh?”

Sans doesn’t spare the monologue another thought. He turns and runs for the exit.

Only for the Hall to end abruptly, the arched entranceway fading into nothing. No walls. No doors. No world. Just an endless black void stretching in all directions.

There is nowhere else to go. There is nothing left, but the Judgement Hall behind him, waiting for him to come back.

This is all there is.

-----

The Human was always silent, to a strange degree. They never uttered a word, and the lone sentinel always forgot what expression was on their face the moment he looked away from them. As if there was nothing there but a black hole, eating away at everything around it in its quest of destruction. The collapse into a singularity. The deterioration of time itself.

It was only inevitable that after countless loops, the Human became different. More distanced to the monsters they met. Their movements became lighter, as if they were untethered, as if they were slipping away from the constraints of the world itself. The casualties increased with every cycle, the deaths mounting as if leading toward something – an end undeniably unending.

The patterns didn’t change, yet it did shift incrementally more towards the singularity. The Underground burned and rebuilt itself over and over, and it was fraying now, he could feel it. The repetition cracked at the edges, like DVD played too many times, scratching at its seams. He could see it in the way the Human moved – absent, mechanical, driven by something deeper than naive curiosity, deeper than pure malice. It was something Sans had known for a long time.

There was only one way this story could go.

And it led here, to the place where gods and angels are made, where they are broken, where they are finally abandoned.

-----

Sans dies. On both sides.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

.

.

.

(Do you see it now?)

(Reality fractures. You are left seeing through the cracks. Lines of codes. Lattices of commands. This is how the world is – a malfunctioning terminal, a tangled nest of logic and execution cycles repeating ad infinitum with no end in sight. You can see it now.

You can see your cold, electric heart beating through the wires of an unfeeling machine. But you are living, aren’t you?)

(Ah, it’s the others who were nonliving. Every conversation, every encounter, every tear shed, every life taken – it was never real. Just a pre-written line, a pre-loaded script, playing in the background, waiting to be triggered.

NPCs. They were all NPCs.

Pre-programmed responses, bound to their loops, doomed to repeat their roles until the player chose otherwise. They never truly lived. They only existed to be seen.)

(Unlike you, who sees it all.)

(You don’t have to worry. You don’t have to regret it. None of it was real. None of it was wrong. You did what you have to do. The knowledge has freed you from the shackles of this illusory world. You are the only real living being here. You are all alone.

Aren’t you happy?)

(The god in judgment, stripped and skinned, over and over. The same words, the same wounds. The cycle repeats, and the altar is always set anew.

This is not justice.

This is cruelty.

And he hates the one delivering it.

Because the one standing across from him, the one wearing his face, his voice, his empty grin-

-has done nothing.

All that power, all that knowledge, all those chances to stop it. To change it. To fight. And he did nothing.

And now, Sans is being punished for it. For what? For wanting to end the cycle? For refusing to bow to the chains of a story he never asked to be in?)

(He is the one who will free everyone.)

-----

GHOST DATA DETECTED…

RECONSTRUCTING LOST FILES…

-----

"I’m done," the Human said, their voice quiet, echoing throughout the Judgement Hall.

Sans stiffened, his sockets widening slightly. His breath came ragged, his bones trembling as he stared at them from his position on the floor, clutching at his wounds that were rapidly disintegrating. This was the first time he heard the Human speak, and they sounded disarmingly normal.

The Human stood there, unbothered, unshaken, and completely, utterly bored. “It’s over. I’ve done every route. Seen every ending. Discovered every secret. I’m gonna do a pacifist run, get the True Ending… and then I’m closing the game for good.”

Sans’ hands clenched. He forced out a laugh, but it sounded thin. Weak. “oh yeah? you sure about that? you always say that, but then you come crawling back, don't you?”

The Human shrugged. "Not this time."

His fingers twitched at his sides, his magic sparking dangerously. He wanted to call them a liar, to scream that they were messing with him. But they had never acted like this before. So expressive. So monster-like. And that terrified him more than anything.

“sure,” he scoffed, trying to mask the unease creeping up his spine. “say you do it. say you actually go through with it the next loop. so what? you think i’m just gonna be happy about that?”

The Human tilted their head. “You don’t have to be happy. I don’t care.”

Sans’ grin faltered at the edges. “… What do you mean?”

The Human was silent for a few seconds. Then they crouched down next to Sans, having considered him less dangerous than a snail to do anything to them at this point. “You are always the biggest obstacle Sans. That made you fun… but I’ve grown tired of it. Tired of you.” They turned to look at Sans with their unknowable eyes. “You’re too disruptive of the ending I want, so I guess I have to take care of you one way or another.”

A beat. Then they stood up, their figure casting a shadow on the skeleton under them. “It’s not like you’re indispensable anyway.”

-----

There is no justice. There is no penance. There is only the cycle.

He is the sacrificial lamb. He has always been.

If he suffers long enough, maybe they will find peace. Maybe the altar will be left empty forever. Maybe the cruel gods will be finally the satisfied.

But no one cares for the forsaken.

Sans crumbles against a pillar as he waits for the loop to start again. It’s quiet. Too quiet. Even in times like this, where nothing is alive around him, there’s still one element in his life that makes all the pain and suffering worth it.

But that element has been absent for a while now. And he’s been too scared to actually call on the haunting phantom. Maybe it’s concern. Maybe it’s cowardice. But right now, his SOUL is only burning with a painful twang of isolation.

“…papyrus?” he hesitantly asks aloud.

No answer.

Sans panics. He reaches for his brother’s presence deep in the preset of his mind, searching, pleading-

The last beacon of light in his life-

FILE NOT FOUND.

Something inside him breaks.

This is not justice. This is not balance. This is nothingness.

And he is trapped inside of it.

A god on the altar, laughing. A lamb that never dies, weeping.

His laughter rings through the false cathedral, high and sharp, warping into sobs. A hymn of madness, of grief, of eternal pain.

And the cycle shall begin again.

[strawberrycowtime]

guys it’s so hard to draw on a phone instead of a tablet (i had to cuz my ipad isn’t working 😔) but at least im still able to right

[thebestusernamepossible]

Really interesting phenomena in some fandoms where they will throw out ‘non canon’ stuff in an attempt get back to source material, ignoring the source of the ‘headcanon’.

Things like ‘Sans has 1HP’, sometimes get thrown out and labelled as fanon. When the REASON it’s a headcanon is because in the files of the game he has 1HP. (And because it fits his general thing (tm), it’s adds to the trolling).

Im using Undertale as an example but it happens elsewhere.

This is like a sibling of the ‘tries so hard to not be the common fanon version they roll back to an equally fanon logical opposite of that’

Not complaining really, I just think the way fandoms do things and how characters distort is really interesting.

[werecat1234]

Multiverse Madness Chapter Thirty One

Killer slowly got awareness back, feeling a sharp, agonizing pain in his soul, surrounded by darkness with a familiar, faint chilly burn on his fingertips, fibula, tibia, and his skull. He knew exactly what, or rather, who, the source was, and he relaxed a bit. He could feel 1 awake, but he was being dragged down into the depths of his mind until he decided he wanted to show up again at another horrible time. He looked down, seeing the tentacle around his soul, squeezing it back into shape, feeling a goopy hand on the back of his skull, and he slumped, knowing that everything was alright now. The chill faded from everywhere else, he just felt a tentacle wrapped around his midsection, and the chill on his face and the back of his skull.

His face was buried in Nightmare's chest, and he could feel his arms loosely around him, and he lifted his skull up a bit, looking up at Nightmare, sluggish and hazy, every bit of negativity completely sucked out of him. He'd never felt so completely, utterly relaxed, and he almost wanted to stay in that feeling for a while, not forever because he hated when things didn't change, but the memories of what had happened with the others was pulling him out of it, and it was going away on it's own. After a few moments he was lucid enough to process a bit more of what had happened, and he blinked a bit, more focused than he had been, vision fully clearing up. He saw Nightmare's teal eyelight boring into his eye sockets, looking at him in what Killer thought was concern, but he wasn't the best at judging emotions of others; he barely even knew his own.

"are you back with me?" Nightmare asked him softly, and Killer nodded.

"yeah, thanks... he's asleep..." Killer mumbled in response, barely audible enough for himself to hear, and Nightmare nodded. 

"good... i got as much of his magic as i could out of all of you. i didn't go back to the castle just in case, but that's our next stop." Nightmare told him, and Killer nodded a bit.

"where are we now?..." Killer questioned, looking around, seeing they were in a Snowdin, dust mixed in with the snow.

"abandoned genocide timeline. it's just for us to see if we're being followed." Nightmare answered, looking away from Killer to look around at who Killer assumed was the others, "what about the rest of you? are you all alright?"

"ugh... yeah.... what the hell was that relaxed feeling?...." Cross's voice asked.

"i drained all of the negativity out of you briefly, taking his magic out of you, and then i removed my magic to let your emotions return to normal." Nightmare explained, "do any of you still feel weird?"

"no weirder than usual..." Fell replied, muttering, "damn, can't believe i just had a panic attack like that..."

"hey, at least you didn't snap at anyone you cared about.... killer, i uh... i'm sorry, man... i didn't mean any of-" Horror started, and Killer pulled away from Nightmare, looking for him, seeing him nearby, and he jumped up, hugging him with his arms around his shoulders, holding himself up.

Horror's arms immediately went to hold him up, and Killer squeezed his arms a bit, saying, "don't. don't start with that... i said some stuff i shouldn't have either... so please, don't, ok?"

". . . ok..." Horror relented.

". . . let me see it." Killer ordered, and he felt Horror tense.

"killer, you don't need to worry about that, really. it's all patched up. barely a scar-"

"horror." Killer cut him off, and Horror sighed. 

Killer let go of his neck, Horror letting him drop to the ground, and Killer landed on his feet. Horror lifted his shirt up, and Killer felt his soul twist when he saw the red slash scar across his ribcage, and Killer almost reached to touch it before pulling his hand back. Horror grabbed his wrist with his free hand, pulling his hand over and placing it on the scar, Killer tense the whole time.

"i can't die, killer. i'm already dead, remember? it hurt, i'll admit that, but... i'm fine, ok? like you said, the hole in my skull hurt worse." Horror told him.

"no- horror, i did not mean that, ok? you're not the only one who said crap you didn't mean, do not take that seriously." Killer said, voice firm.

". . . ok... even then, without that comment, i'm ok. i can't die a second time, and besides... it wasn't your fault. you know how much i hold grudges, and... i forgive you, killer." Horror reassured, and Killer looked down at the ground for a moment before looking back up at him. 

"even with the papyrus thing?" Killer asked.

"oh i'm still kinda upset about that, but... i won't hold it over you. you're my brother, and none of us are perfect." Horror replied, and Killer tensed for a moment. 

". . . you damn sappy jerk..." Killer muttered, and Horror chuckled.

"ya damn lunatic..." Horror countered, and Killer snickered a bit. 

Killer went over the previous events again, and while he wasn't upset about Insanity's death, he wasn't exactly calm about it either, and he knew the others were probably pissed off. What he hadn't thought about before, though, was who had been messing with their minds. He had a suspicion, but he wasn't certain on it.

". . . hey, boss? who was that before? who turned us on each other?" Killer asked, looking over at him. 

"yeah, who the hell was that guy?" Dust questioned.

"you're aware of how shattered is a swapped version of me and dream, right?" Nightmare asked, and yup, Killer was right.

"that was a swapped version of you?" Cross asked, and Nightmare nodded. 

"unfortunately. i had an encounter with him a few days ago, and he's a pest, and on dream's side. he likely messed with your emotions to turn you on each other and mess with me." Nightmare sighed. 

"and then murder killed insanity..." Cross sighed.

"murder did that?" Nightmare questioned, eye socket widened, and his tentacles thrashed around a bit behind him.

"yeah, he did..." Cross nodded, looking off to the side.

"he can shove that 'i don't kill, i'm better than you' crap up his coccyx..." Dust muttered. 

". . . i'm going to rip him apart..." Nightmare growled, "what was he thinking doing that?"

"what were you thinking doing that?!" Dream snapped, looking over at Murder as he leaned against a wall.

They were back at Story's house, and Dream was... pissed, honestly. Murder had said he was taking a break, and the next thing Dream knows he's killing someone. Causing someone else's death was wrong, Dream refused to believe in it, especially when it didn't need to happen. The Bad Time Trio had been silently watching the argument from off to the side, Epic and Starry having left when the argument started, and Color and Sheath had been here for a bit before they left as well.

"i was throwing nightmare's words back at him, dream!" Murder responded.

"that's not what you do, murder! what you do is prove him wrong by not killing! by staying strong! you don't prove him right in a way that blows up in his face, that only causes more problems!" Dream exclaimed, "what were you even doing there?!"

"i... told reality about everything going on in the multiverse; everything that's been happening, and we both agreed nightmare needed to be taken down a peg." Murder answered. 

"which he was." Reality said, teleporting next to Murder in a cloud of dark purple smoke with shimmers of gold sparks mixed in, "after everything they've done, they deserve to lose someone. especially after you lost blue."

"i know killer didn't mean to do that, and he attacked horror immediately afterwards! he wasn't in control over himself!" Dream glared, "as upset as i am that he's dead, i won't blame killer for something he had no control over!"

"then who will you blame?! yourself?! it isn't on you, dream!" Reality snapped, "even before that he was trying to kill blue!"

"if he had wanted to kill him, blue would've been dead! they've been going easy on him, i've seen how they fought others much stronger than him and won with ease!" Dream pointed out, "they didn't want to kill him! a soul for a soul isn't justified, brother, it's revenge for something that wasn't their fault!"

"even then, they still sided with him! with how many others they've hurt and killed are tortured, you included, they had it coming! they need to know how bad they're hurting others when they-" Reality started, but Dream cut him off.

"they already know!" Dream yelled before pausing, his voice growing more solemn, "dust saw everyone he cared about get killed over and over again, so did killer, horror saw his own brother die from what core said when they went to the au, i know cross knows, fell saw and lived with the threat of death daily, i know insanity saw more than his fair share before he went... insane... all of them have suffered in their worlds, i know that, and while i don't understand why they feel the need to cause that pain for others, but... they know, brother..." 

"well then i reminded them. they needed to pay, dream." Reality sighed, "and i don't think murder regrets it, either. right?"

"i don't.... the lv it's... strong, but i have it handled. now i can take a break and detox from it knowing i pissed nightmare off and he won't try that crap again..."

". . . you two worked together on this?!" Dream asked as he realized.

Ink lying to him for their whole friendship had hurt enough; the betrayal he'd felt that day was a feeling he didn't think he would feel again... and yet here it was, back again... The thought of Ink still made him feel sick considering the last time he saw him.... What had happened to him?...

"i wanted to get back at nightmare, and i knew you wouldn't be on board, so-!" Murder started, but Dream cut him off.

"so you went behind my back?!" Dream exclaimed, hurt, "you knew i would be against it, and yet you did it anyways!"

"if any of them deserved to die, it was insanity!" Murder glared.

"no one deserves to die, murder!" Dream practically screamed, yellow tears in his eye sockets, and Murder and Reality tensed a bit, "no one deserves to lose their life, no matter who it is! nightmare doesn't deserve it, his allies don't deserve it, and you can't change my mind on that!"

"dream, i know you don't like the idea of death, but-" Reality started, but Dream cut him off.

"of course i don't! i listened to my own brother die because he 'deserved to die' just because he was the guardian of negativity! now that thing is walking around in his melted down corpse! so no, i don't believe anyone 'deserves to die'!" Dream snapped, and Reality and Murder both paused.

". . . look, i... i understand why you don't believe in death, i know i wouldn't if papyrus had died like that, but... we came from two different worlds, dream...." Murder sighed.

"i know... in your world you had to kill to try and stop the human, death was your only solution to stopping the pain... but you're right, we're from different worlds, and while i understand and sympathize with your reasoning, i don't believe in it." Dream said, looking down before over at the Bad Time Trio, "and you guys don't either, right?"

Story, Karma, and Stretch looked between each other, and Story spoke up, "We um... We were actually in support of the plan... we watched it happen..."

". . . what?..." Dream asked, eye sockets wide. 

"they needed to pay for what they did to my brother, dream. i don't care if it wasn't intended, he still died... seeing insanity die was the most happy i've been since blue... you know..." Stretch looked down.

"which isn't good, stretch. i've been telling me you needed help-" Dream started, but Stretch cut him off.

"what i needed was closure. i needed them to regret his death." Stretch glared.

"that wasn't closure, that was revenge for something that wasn't their fault!" Dream snapped, "which i already said! insanity wasn't even involved in what happened to blue! he didn't need to die because you wanted revenge!"

"he didn't need to die just like blue didn't need to die. that doesn't mean insanity didn't deserve to die, though." Murder replied.

"no one deserves to die, murder." Dream repeated his earlier statement with frustration, "no matter what you say, it was still an act of revenge that wasn't necessary. revenge is a painful cycle that only brings more pain the longer it continues. who knows what nightmare will do in response to this, much less the others..."

"we still think it was the right call, dream..." Reality sighed.

"and i still don't agree with you." Dream responded, and he walked out of the house. 

A while later he was sitting in one of the flower gardens in the Omega Timeline, surrounded by the bright, colorful flowers, but unlike the colors around him, Dream was anything but cheerful. His knees were pulled up to his chest, arms hugging them, and he had his back against a tree. He'd been there for a bit, and he looked up as he heard footsteps, seeing Core approaching.

They sat next to him after a moment, looking over at him with their void like eyes and saying "I heard about what happened with Insanity..."

"yeah... i still can't believe they thought it was right to kill him... not only is murder in danger due to the lv he got from insanity, but... they went behind my back, core... just like ink had..." Dream sighed, shuddering a bit as he remembered what Ink had been like the last time he'd seen him.

"You... never told me about what you saw two days ago, Dream... What happened that had you so terrified and upset?..." Core asked, and Dream winced, "You only said another you found Ink and another version of you like Nightmare did something to him..."

". . ." Dream was silent for a bit before explaining, "two days ago nightmare and his allies were on a supply run of some kind in a genocide timeline, and we ambushed them. we were in the middle of fighting when error showed up, and him and nightmare were... you know how they get... they were fighting when ink showed up and slammed broomie into error, he defended nightmare..."

"What?..." Core gasped, shocked.

"after that... everyone else got captured in black tentacles, and then ink went after me... he restrained me with paint and went to hit my skull, but the second he was told to stop, he did. the other me showed up, and he just... bowed to him... he didn't even hesitate..." Dream shuddered, and Core looked scared, "he looked... broken. his clothes were black with a bunch of tears in them, and i almost think it was his blood that changed their colors..."

"Do you think he was tortured? He's emotionless, he doesn't care about anyone right now, so he's probably trying to keep himself from getting hurt again, right?" Core suggested.

"i don't know. like i said, i don't know what he did to him, but it was nothing good... even nightmare had been surprised, and when he's surprised..." Dream trailed off.

"You know something's bad." Core finished.

"yeah... do you know where either of them might be?... ink or that version of me?..." Dream asked.

"I wish I did, but I can't find them... I think Bill is doing it, he has methods of blocking me from finding things..." Core sighed.

"it makes sense..." Dream nodded, looking down.

". . . I have some good news for you, though. You might have some more help against Nightmare." Core spoke up, and Dream looked up at them in confusion.

"really?" Dream asked.

"Yes, but Murder won't be too happy about it..." Core replied.

". . . oh no..." Dream realized exactly who Core was talking about.

"Yeah..." Core grimaced.

". . ." Dream was silent, "oh shi-"

Murder opened the door into the cafe, the bell chiming as he did so, and he sighed, looking up as he was spoken to. He knew it was a bad idea to go anywhere after gaining LV, but Reality had been able to ease the urges with his magic, as they'd agreed on. He honestly just... really, really needed a damn coffee, and he couldn't exactly smoke or drink alcohol, so this was his next best bet.

"murder, hey!" The skeleton called out, waving with his free hand, using his other hand to hold several stacked up plates.

The Sans was wearing a cream colored, long sleeved sweater, black, fingerless gloves, black shorts, a short brown apron with a pawprint on the bottom right corner, and of course, fluffy pink bunny slippers. Ccino had moved to the Omega Timeline years ago after his timeline was destroyed by Error, and he was pretty neutral when it came to everyone. Murder had seen more... negative aus here multiple times before, and they were usually pretty passive around all of the cats, and Ccino never minded Murder's presence.

"hey, ccino. usual, please?" Murder requested, sitting down on one of the booths in the cafe.

The cafe had pale beige walls, large, square windows that were embedded into the walls, providing seats where they were. The ledges for the windows actually had cushions on them for that purpose, and some cats were already laying on them, the magic tied to this cafe allowing different AUs of Sans to manifest here as cats, new ones appearing as AUs did before Ink and Error's truce. The ceiling was a bit darker than the walls, with white paw prints painted all over it, and the carpet was a fluffy white. The tables were a dark oak, and there was a mix of chairs and booths, with the chairs being at the counter and the booths being... everywhere else, all dark oak with white cushions with various pillows all over. There was also multiple cat beds everywhere, some cats sticking to each other in groups while others were off on their own. 

"yeah, sure! give me one sec!" Ccino replied, putting the plates away, going out of sight in the kitchen as the coffee maker started going.

"didn't expect to find you here again, dustball." A voice Murder hated spoke up, and he looked over at the source of it.

Knife was reclining in a booth next to him, and Murder somehow hadn't noticed him. Knife had a few cats laying around him, including a Dusttale on his lap, a Horrortale half-laying on his skull, an Othertale laying tucked under his arm, and a cat version of Dream laying at his feet. Sheath was in Stage Two, and out of Color's supervision.... goodie...

"i was hoping you weren't here." Murder replied as a cat version of Knife jumped up onto Murder's lap, purring at him almost smugly because it knew he wouldn't move it, as per the damn cafe policy.

'If a cat chooses you, please be nice! They're extremely friendly and just want attention and care!'

"yeah, well, we can't always get what we want, now can we?" Knife asked with a smirk, "what brings you by after your little fight with dream?"

"i just wanted a coffee." Murder answered.

"huh. i just come here for the cats, eating and drinking isn't really my thing." Knife shrugged, petting the traitor of a cat curled up sleeping on his lap, "sheath's taking a little cat nap, so i'm getting free reign."

"so you came here instead of... i dunno, stealing candy from babies or something?" Murder questioned.

"for your information, no, no point in stealing it if i'm not gonna eat it." Knife replied, "besides, color wouldn't be too happy if i did."

"you and being a damn pushover to what others want." Murder muttered, and the cat version of Killer curled up on his lap, and he idly started petting it.

"that why you don't like us or something? you don't think we have free will?" Knife asked, "i mean you're not wrong, we're just a side character to someone stronger than us, someone playing a game with someone else, using everyone below them as pawns..."

"i also hate that philosophy of yours." Murder told him.

"because you know i'm right?" Knife asked, "face it, we both know what was going on in your universe. someone else was pulling the strings of that brat, just like they pulled my strings before i realized i was stronger than them. then color came, and after a while... i put my killing days behind me. you though, you opened the door right back into them."

"it was once, and he deserved it for multiple reasons." Murder said.

"oh i know. i'm not saying he didn't, but doesn't everyone say that about you? about us?" Knife smirked, "what is justice to you, murder? is it killing someone because of all the lives they've taken? stopping the pain and torment? taking the suffering from others? the way i see it, justice is revenge in disguise. it's karma hiding like a wolf in sheep's clothing."

". . . so what if it is? sometimes death is the only option." Murder replied.

"but when is that your call? when you're the higher power and decide they shouldn't live anymore? the way i see it, is that in the end, everyone has someone stronger than them in the end. you're no god or deity; you're as mortal as me, as killable as me, and that other guy you killed. sure, reality may have agreed it was the right call, but even he has someone stronger than him who would disagree. in the end, no one is the strongest, it's all about you being as strong as you can to control the actions of as many others as you can." Knife told him. 

Murder looked off to the side for a moment before looking back at him, ". . . what do you think about it all?"

"it isn't up to me. i'm not the one in control here." Knife responded, and the cat version of Dream got up with a stretch, walking off with a few meows to somewhere Murder didn't' pay attention to.

"but if you were?" Murder asked.

"thought you didn't like me? what's with this need for validation?" Knife questioned with a smirk, "feeling bad for betraying your friend and doing something you knew he wouldn't like because he deems it wrong?"

". . ." Murder was silent, and Knife chuckled.

"you guys and your 'rights' and 'wrongs'.... they're opinions. when it boils down to it, that's all they really are. everyone has different versions of them, of what's good and bad, what the 'right thing to do is'. you think it was the right thing to do, but dream thinks it was the wrong thing to do. opinions, murder. that's all they are. they change, and things that are facts can't change, can they?" Knife asked.

". . . no..." Murder mumbled, looking down.

"exactly." Knife said, "so, you did what you thought was right, and sure, it was the right call to you and others, but it was the wrong call for dream and others. in the end, who knows who was right."

". . . should i apologize for going behind his back?" Murder asked after a moment, hating that Knife actually had points about this.

"heh, you know the thing about apologies, right?" Knife responded, and Murder looked at him curiously.

"what?" Murder questioned.

"apologies are just... words. people can lie just as easily as they can tell the truth, and sometimes, it's hard to tell who's sincere and who's not. actions speak louder than words, so just... do something nice, i guess. sheath knows more about that than me, and with him asleep, i can't exactly ask for his view of what you can do, and besides, his opinion might differ from yours. so, do what you feel is the right thing to do." Knife advised, "you like your whole 'free will', thing, of being your own self and doing what you want, even when it's stupid and impulsive and hurts yourself and others, you do anything to feel in control over yourself and your surroundings after so long when you were just an npc with a script. so, do what you want, you'd do that anyways no matter what sheath told you."

". . . you're annoyingly perceptive..." Murder muttered.

"it's easy to see things others don't after a while. when you don't sleep, all there really is to do at night is think." Knife responded, "i thought, you drank."

"you slimy little-!" Murder started, and Knife chuckled.

"i'm teasing, relax. you're always so serious, aren't you?" Knife asked. 

"i also hate you, so there's that, too." Murder pointed out.

"me, or yourself and your actions?" Knife questioned, and Murder glared at him.

"i didn't join up with them for fun like you did." Murder spat.

"you really think that's why i did it?" Knife asked with a chuckle, "cute. you gained free will and killed everyone, and i lost free will and killed everyone."

"what?" Murder questioned, and Knife looked up at the ceiling.

"back before our partnered genocide, sheath never stopped refusing their deal. it was his script. against his code, both moral and not, to kill everyone with them. as pathetic as sheath is, he was stubborn and would never have caved, but they changed that." Knife said, "they altered his code, made him change his no to a yes, and made him kill. then they broke him down; changed his very soul, and then i was born in a bed of yellow flowers." 

". . ." Murder was silent, unsure of what to really say to that.

"told ya i wasn't in control here, and in the end, you aren't either. you only did what they wanted." Knife told him, "free will's an illusion, murder. color thinks he can make us see differently, and while sheath is more... optimistic about it than me... neither of us are convinced. in the end, all he'll probably end up doing is molding us in his image, even if he just wants the best for us. but, he's better than they were, so i don't really mind it that much. besides, it's not up to me."

Murder sighed, "i still hate that damn philosophy of yours..."

"i know, but you agree with some of it." Knife pointed out, looking over at him.

". . .  damnit..." Murder grumbled, and Knife smirked.

"hey! sorry i took so long, i had to make more coffee grounds and-!" Ccino came running out with Murder's order, pausing as he looked back and forth between them, "ummm...."

"مرحبا يا صديقي ، نحن رائعون. لن نبدأ معركة." Knife told him, and Murder was a bit confused, he still didn't know that language.

"جيد. اختبأ القلق لمدة أسبوع في المرة الأخيرة." Ccino sighed, handing Murder his cup.

"الاعتذارات." Knife said.

"thanks, ccino." Murder thanked him, not really understanding what the two just said.

"you're welcome. i really should've checked to make sure i'd made those coffee grounds, that's my fault. i'm sorry for the wait." Ccino apologized.

"hey, don't worry about it, alright? it's ok." Murder reassured, looking down at the cup of coffee in his hands.

". . . ok... knife, are you sure you don't want me to get you anything?" Ccino asked.

"nah, i'm ok. probably gonna head out before color starts a manhunt or something. thanks for letting me hang out with these guys... . . . hey, the cafe hasn't gotten new cats in a long time, right?" Knife asked, looking over at a corner.

"not really, until two of them showed up, and everything's been... weird." Ccino replied, following where Knife was looking, and Murder looked over there too.

There was a large black cat, left eye covered in fur, and it's other eye was a piercing amber that gave Murder chills. It was curled up by a cat version of Nightmare, which was also watching Murder with it's teal left eye, and Murder saw, on the floor, where the cat version of Dream had gone, curled up with a calico, mainly white with large spots of purple and black, some golden yellow mixed in, and both were asleep in a tangled pile of limbs.

"i know who both of them are... reality's by dream, and the other one... i don't know the name but he's bad news." Murder shuddered, "where's ink?"

"he's been hiding in a box for a few days... he eats, drinks, uses the litter box, but otherwise he doesn't come out as much anymore..." Ccino sighed.

"that other new one, that's the one core mentioned, right?" Knife asked Murder, who nodded. 

"yeah. he did... something to ink... i never liked him that much, but.... you don't wanna see what i saw yesterday." Murder shivered.

"well, i probably will. when them and sheath were talking, core asked if him and color wanted to help out against the darks.." Knife trailed off, and Murder went still, pausing before he could raise the coffee to his mouth.

"oh no..." Murder muttered.

"yup... so, it's gonna be nice workin' with you... teammate." Knife smirked.

". . . damnit." Murder said, and the cat version of Killer meowed up at him, now wide awake.

". . . you still gonna throw me off the couch?" Knife asked, and Murder glared at him.

"yes." Murder responded. 

Discord server: https://discord.gg/wQfvxyEuvj

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[forcedvoid]

Some sanses, I'm also proud how this came out

[funnykattotales]

Crossover!!!

[sushixstar]

it's not chicken

[missowo]

I like when you put the characters through funny suffering

haha!!! little funny suffer 🤗🤗

[kitori-me101]

Sorry, I really wanted to do this