Chapter Text
“SANS…”
“...”
“WHY DIDN’T YOU LISTEN TO ME?”
“i.. i didn’t mean...”
“IT… IT’S FINE. IT’LL BE FINE. DO YOU TRUST ME?”
“of course i do pap.”
“THEN. CLOSE YOUR EYES PLEASE. DO NOT OPEN THEM, OK? I PROMISE THAT EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE.”
“is this about… that thing? i thought it was a human, but…”
“CLOSE YOUR EYES, SANS.”
“where are we going? don’t you have to- to fight that thing?”
“IT CAN WAIT. JUST. SO LONG AS THIS WORKS.”
crrrrACK! VWORP!
“hey, uh, what’s happening?!”
“NONONO NO! DON’T YOU DARE!”
“Papyrus!”
“I HAVE YOU, IT’S GOING T O B E F I N E…”
*LineBreak*
“alright guys, ready?” A hand hesitates over a button.
“nyeh he, nothing should happen this time, coms. think we finally figured out that energy problem.”
“assuming it was the energy consumption that was the problem…”
A slightly worried look passed between the three currently working in the basement, but experimental science can’t exactly proceed without taking some risks. So the button was pushed. The machine lit up, powering to full capacity. For the first time, it seemed like it was running smoothly.
“OH! IT SEEMS LIKE YOU GUYS MADE PROGRESS! I WAS GOING TO CALL YOU ALL TO LUNCH, BUT IF IT CAN’T WAIT I CAN JUST BRING DOWN SOME SANDWICHES…”
“heh, thanks blue. But we should probably power this down before…”
CRASH!
“Again?!” Phalanges poking out of fingerless gloves frantically tried to shut down the machine without getting into the potential blast radius as the skeleton grumbled to his comrades, “we haven’t even done anything beyond turn it on, yet.”
“hey bro,” the tallest of the trio resignedly trying to shut down the machine called out, “do you think that you could give out a warning to the others before the machine completely blows?"
“THAT IS WHY I HAVE MY PHONE OUT,” Came the cheerful voice of the older, but smaller, of the two brothers, “AND, OF COURSE, I AM STAYING HERE BECAUSE NONE OF YOU HAVE GREAT DEFENSIVE CAPABILITIES.”
“heh, fair,” said the most tired looking skeleton in the room, “we may need some backup, blue.”
A hum of acknowledgment sounded as a pair of blue gloves were pulled on, “PYRUS SHOULD BE HERE SHORTLY TO HELP.”
“IF BY SHORTLY, YOU MEAN NOW, NYEH HEH HEH!” A red scarf, trailing back almost like a cape, seemed to ripple as though in a particularly heroic breeze.
“that’s good because i think that we’re…”
VWORP!! CSHHHhhhh…
“about to have company.”
*Line Break*
Curling his body around the much more fragile and tiny form of his brother, both to protect him from the crushing darkness and to prevent them from getting seperated, Papyrus was scared. Could it be that, in trying to prevent the human from killing his brother again, he’d doomed them to a worse fate?
Papyrus didn’t know. He couldn’t even hear to check if Sans was screaming, or see to check if he was injured. All he could do was clutch at his little brother and hope that they would get out of this.
Right as he was about to give up, or lose consciousness, a light appeared in the void. It got bigger and brighter, expanding rapidly, until…
...
...
“...ONLY SEE ONE…”
“...papyrus… real armor…”
“MAYBE… ROYAL GUARD?”
“wait… babybones?!”
And Papyrus, his senses coming back online from the nothingness of the void, realized that he was in an unfamiliar room, with monsters he had never met before who were talking about Sans, so he did what came naturally. A thick shield of bones sprung up around him as Papyrus lurched upwards and placed himself firmly in front of the still dazed form of his baby brother. A growl, deeper and more dangerous than most monsters would expect from their kind captain of the guard, rumbled through the room to the now on guard skeletons (Papyrus only paused for a moment at the fact that these were skeletons, a race that he’d thought only him and Sans were members of).
“DON’T YOU DARE TAKE A STEP CLOSER.”
*LineBreak*
Comic was very much done with this whole situation. Was it to much to ask for the machine to not malfunction and not set back their progress while spitting out an alternate version or two of him and his brother? Apparently.
Not that Comic regretted meeting with all of his alternates, of course. They were all surprisingly good for each other. It figured that it takes seeing his own mistakes in action to actually get his act together. Though Comic now had a much more immediate problem than even the machine to work on.
A Papyrus was in full on fight mode in the lab. Normally, even with alternates from more violent universes, the Papyrus was quicker to placate than the Sans. Even Stretch and Slim had been surprisingly easier than their brothers to get to lay down arms (Though, that may just be because the people who work more often on the machine are Sans’ and wore their brother’s faces). Comic knew though, that this Papyrus wouldn’t be so easily talked down. After all, Comic still remembered how protective he had been of his brother when Paps had been a babybones. And this Sans… this Sans was knocked out cold and couldn’t be any older than thirteen considering the striped jacket wrapped around his body.
Hopefully, Comic and the others could prove to be non-threatening long enough for this Papyrus to recognize their similarities. Otherwise…