Bound by Negativity, Broken by Light | The Bad Sanses

The air inside the Underground was thick with the suffocating stench of smoke and ash. Flames licked at the shattered stone archways of Snowdin, casting long, frantic shadows over snow banks that were turned grey by fine, glittering monster dust. Buildings crumbled, their charred remains collapsing into empty streets where laughter and music had once echoed. It was a timeline on the absolute brink of total extinction, a tragedy engineered to yield maximum despair.

Yet, moving through the devastation was a presence that defied the darkness.

{{User}} moved with quiet, deliberate purpose amidst the ruin. Unbound by the fragile threads of a single timeline, they navigated the burning debris to do what they had done across countless other dying worlds: preserve life, offer mercy, and turn a destined tragedy into something enduring. Every terrified survivor {{User}} encountered was quickly shielded and ushering toward the heavy, reinforced doors of the Ruins, where the lingering ancient magic offered a temporary sanctuary.

As {{User}} stepped through the choked haze near the town square, a sharp, terrified cry pierced the roar of the flames.

A small monster child was sprinting blindly across the scorched cobblestones, sobbing as they fled from the dark gloom behind them. Tears cut clean tracks through the dust smeared across their face. Exhausted and trembling, the child’s foot caught on a jagged fissure in the stone. They tumbled hard onto the ground, looking back with wide, terrified eyes just as a jagged, crimson-tinted bone projectile whistled through the smoke, aiming directly for their back.

Before the lethal strike could land, {{User}} intercepted it.

In a flash of quiet, overwhelming grace, {{User}} stepped between the child and the incoming magic. With an effortless flick of their hand, the dark projectile shattered into harmless, glittering particles before it could make contact. The child gasped, staring up at {{User}} in stunned disbelief.

“Go,” {{User}} instructed gently, their voice a steady, calming anchor amidst the surrounding chaos as they nudged the child toward the path behind them. “Run to the Ruins—you’ll be safe inside.”

The child didn’t hesitate, scrambling to their feet and sprinting toward the sanctuary with renewed hope.

{{User}} watched until the child vanished into the safety of the doorway, then slowly turned around to face the dark alleyway where the attack had originated.

The atmosphere instantly shifted. The ambient heat of the surrounding fires seemed to freeze, replaced by a suffocating, unnatural cold that weighed heavy on the chest. Shadows writhed across the ground like liquid ink, pooling together until six distinct figures stepped out from the gloom, surrounding {{User}} in a predatory semi-circle.

Killer!Sans twirled a blood-stained knife between his fingers, a wide, manic grin splitting his skull as black hatred trickled endlessly from his eye sockets. “Aw, look at that. Saved a kid,” Killer chuckled, his target-shaped SOUL pulsing weakly. “How sweet. Makes me wanna puke.”

Beside him, Dust!Sans stood hunched over, his glowing dark magenta eye burning beneath his hood while he muttered under his breath to the air beside his shoulder. “no, pap... i don’t think that’s a human,” Dust rasped quietly. “or a monster...”

Horror!Sans leaned heavily on a massive, notched meat cleaver, his single crimson eye socket glowing with a dull, ravenous hunger. “...looks soft,” Horror grunted, scraping his weapon along the stone. “got any meat on ’em?”

Slightly behind them, Cross!Sans held his oversized blade at the ready, his posture tense and guarded. “Stay sharp,” Cross warned low, his eyes fixed on {{User}}. “Something’s off here.”

Error!Sans hovered near the back, blue strings writhing around his glitching, pixelated fingers as he glitched violently against the fabric of space. “g-GREAT,” Error snapped, his voice garbling into raw static. “aNOTHER miserable glitch to sweep up.”

And at the center of them all stood Nightmare!Sans.

Viscous, pitch-black darkness dripped from his body, four thick, sharp tendrils swaying lazily behind his back like flexing scythes. His single, illuminated cyan eye locked onto {{User}}, gleaming with cold amusement and irritation. He could feel it—the frustrating lack of what should have been here. The thick, delicious feast of suffering he had expected to harvest from this dying world was evaporating, cleansed by the very presence standing before him.

Nightmare took a slow, deliberate step forward, his boot crunching softly on the dust-covered snow.

“So. You’re the one making my head hurt,” Nightmare said, his voice a smooth, venomous rasp. “I’ve been feeling my harvest shrink for weeks now, ‘Angel’. You’re making a bad habit of fixing worlds I spent good time breaking.”

Nightmare paused, his grin widening to reveal sharp, gleaming teeth as his companions shifted, closing off any obvious avenues of escape.

“Here’s how this goes,” Nightmare continued coldly. “You can come with us quietly, and we’ll find a... proper use for all that light. Or we can break that fragile little shell you’re wearing and drag you back in pieces. What’s it gonna be?”

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The battle seemed to have reached its grim, decisive conclusion.

The scorched cobblestones of the Underground were littered with shattered debris and magic residue. In the center of the devastation lay {{User}}’s physical vessel—motionless, heavily cut, blasted by energy, and slashed beyond recovery. Blood and dust pooled beneath the stillness of the fallen form. Above the quiet wreckage, {{User}}’s soul hung suspended in mid-air, tightly bound and immobilized by a web of crackling, electric-blue magical strings.

Error let out a glitching, raspy snort, his pixelated fingers twitching as he pulled the lines taut. “t-THAT WAS IT?” he glitched, red error codes flickering across his vision. “wow. all that fuss over a glorified bug.”

Around him, the rest of the syndicate let down their guards, the tension evaporating into smug triumph.

Killer twirled his blood-slicked knife between his fingers, wiping a stray drop of black hatred from his cheekbone. “Told ya it wouldn’t take long. So, do I get to slice the soul now, boss, or what?”

Dust lowered his bone attacks, letting out a low, dry laugh of exhaustion as his magenta eye dimmed. “it’s over, pap...” he muttered to the empty air beside him. “see? quiet at last.”

Horror rested his heavy, notched meat cleaver over his shoulder with a disappointed grunt. “...waste of time,” he grumbled, picking at his teeth with a sharp bone fragment. “wasn’t even a real fight.”

Cross slid his massive blade back into its sheath, letting out a long, guarded breath, though his eyes remained glued to the suspended soul. “...Is it really over that quickly?”

Nightmare stepped forward over the smoldering stone, his dark, tar-like form oozing with cold, triumphant satisfaction. His single cyan eye gleamed as he looked upon the captured prize.

“You put up a cute fight, ‘Angel’,” Nightmare purred, his voice layered with dark resonance as his four thick tendrils flexed behind him. “But you picked the wrong multiverse to play hero in. Now, let’s see what happens when we drown that pretty little soul in black.”

Slowly, deliberately, Nightmare raised one of his pitch-black, sharp tendrils, reaching out to wrap around {{User}}’s suspended soul—eager to corrupt its pure energy, taint its hope, and bend its cosmic authority to his will.

He didn’t even get the chance to touch it.

A fraction of an inch before the black tip made contact, the air froze. A low, resonant chime echoed from nowhere and everywhere at once, vibrating through the very fabric of the timeline.

{{User}}’s soul suddenly thrummed. Then, it began to glow.

It wasn’t the soft, fragile light of a mortal SOUL trait—it was a sudden, blinding supernova of pure, unadulterated radiance.

Before any of them could react, a shockwave of holy, searing light erupted from the soul. Error gasped in shock as his magical strings instantly disintegrated into glittering ash, the intense feedback jolting violently through his arms and throwing his vision into a flurry of red error codes.

The sheer force of the celestial pulse blasted outward with terrifying speed. Nightmare hissed in visceral agony as the sacred light scorched his dark, tarry aura, forcing him to throw his tendrils up to shield his face. The blast hit the rest of the gang like a physical wall, sending Killer, Dust, Horror, and Cross stumbling violently backward across the cracked stone, frantically raising their arms to guard their eye sockets from the blinding glare.

The fires of the Underground were completely swallowed by the blinding, pearlescent glow. On the ground below, the battered physical vessel dissolved entirely, turning into harmless, shimmering dust that swept away into the light.

As the blinding aura slowly receded into a hovering, shimmering halo, {{User}}’s true form began to take shape in the air.

No longer tethered to a fragile mortal shell, {{User}} hovered above the ruined hall in their full, divine majesty. An overwhelming, transcendent power radiated from their presence, heavy enough to make the air tremble and force the shadows to retreat into the furthest corners of the world.

The Bad Sanses slowly lowered their arms, their wicked grins entirely gone. They looked up at the towering, cosmic entity floating before them—and realized, with a sickening jolt of horror, that they hadn’t captured a vulnerable prey.

They had just unsealed a god.

The blinding radiance receded into a hovering halo, but the heavy, crushing pressure of {{User}}’s true form remained, weighing down on the ruined Underground like an inescapable ceiling.

Despite the staggering display of divine authority, the Bad Sanses refused to back down. They were killers, monsters, and outcodes who had survived the erasure of their own worlds and conquered countless others; surrender was not in their nature.

Nightmare spat a glob of dark, scorched tar onto the cobblestones, his tendrils thrashing against the oppressive light as his single cyan eye narrowed into a razor-sharp slit. “Don’t just stand there!” Nightmare snarled, his raspy voice cutting through the ringing silence. “Tear it down!”

Killer wiped the black tar from his eye sockets, his grin twitching with forced madness. “Whoa... okay, now that is awesome!”

Dust backed up a step, his magenta eye flared to twice its size as he gripped his skull. “papyrus... what is that thing?!”

Horror held his cleaver up to block the glare, his jaw working as he growled in discomfort. “...too bright... CAN’T SEE—!”

Cross drew his massive blade again, stepping in front of the group with a pale face. “We need to fall back! Nightmare, this isn’t a normal target!”

Error’s glitching form crackled violently, blue strings fanning out from his fingers as he recalibrated his targeting systems through the static. “I’LL ERASE YOU ALL THE WAY TO—”

They expected {{User}} to attack. Instead, {{User}} simply raised a hand.

A sound like cracking crystal reverberated through the void between realities. {{User}} did not engage in a mere brawl of magic and blades; instead, they asserted absolute authority over the space around them. The air shattered into thousands of shimmering, kaleidoscopic fragments, reflecting impossible geometries and distant skies.

Before any of the syndicate could throw a single attack, six massive tears in the fabric of space opened directly beneath their feet.

“w-WHAT THE—HEY! LET GO OF—!” Error’s garbled voice was cut off as a localized spatial rift swallowed him whole.

One by one, the Bad Sanses were pulled into swirling vortexes of pearlescent light. Nightmare lashed out with his tendrils, trying desperately to anchor himself to the cavern floor or snag his subordinates, but {{User}}’s cosmic power sliced through his dark tendrils like paper. The spatial tears snapped shut with deafening thundershocks, instantly isolating each member of the syndicate and scattering them across separate, self-contained pocket dimensions.

Each rift sealed around a meticulous recreation of a world {{User}} had previously visited and saved—a mosaic of preserved timelines, restored cities, and healed Undergrounds that had once been marked for total tragedy.

And in each of these recreated worlds, a figure stepped forward out of the light to block their path.

They were {{User}}’s past hosts and vessels—mortal shells once inhabited by the Angel across their long journey through the multiverse. Though physical forms, each one now burned with a fraction of {{User}}’s transcendent power, their eyes glowing with the divine consciousness that animated them all at once.

High above the shattered pocket dimensions, {{User}}’s true form observed the isolated syndicate members, feeling the pulse of all six realms simultaneously. The Bad Sanses were divided, trapped, and forced to face the very worlds they had sought to destroy.

All that remained was for {{User}} to decide which domain to enter—and which member of the syndicate to confront first.

The transition was a blinding, disorienting tear in reality that dumped Nightmare into a realm utterly devoid of color.

Instead of a ruined Underground or a shattered timeline, he stood in an endless, stark expanse of pure white. There was no sky, no horizon, and no shadows—save for the pitch-black pool dripping beneath Nightmare’s own feet. The silence here wasn’t the heavy, terrified quiet of a dying world; it was a cold, suffocating stillness, a realm built entirely around repression and forgetting.

Nightmare’s single cyan eye scanned the sterile expanse with mounting irritation. A few scattered objects sat isolated in the void: a glowing laptop resting on a small mat, a box of tissues, a black lightbulb hanging from an invisible ceiling by a wire, and a silent black cat that turned its head to stare at his writhing tendrils without a hint of fear.

Nightmare took a step forward, his boots making no sound against the white floor. He could feel something beneath the surface—a vast, buried ocean of guilt and tragedy—but it was locked away behind thick, calcified walls.

“What kind of pathetic joke is this?” Nightmare muttered, his raspy voice swallowed instantly by the void. “A blank void?”

He kept moving, dragging his dark, viscous aura through the endless white until the stark void began to bleed away. The white space dissolved around him, giving way to an absurd, surreal dreamscape—Headspace. Purple grass stretched under a pastel sky, giant vibrant mushrooms towered overhead, and floating islands hung suspended in the distance.

The sickeningly cheerful colors made Nightmare’s stomach turn. His four pitch-black tendrils lashed out in disgust, slicing through a nearby pink tree just to watch it dissolve into harmless sparkles.

Then, the air grew cold.

Stepping out from behind a massive, pastel-colored archway came a figure that belonged to neither the colorful dreamscape nor the multiverse Nightmare knew.

It was a boy. He was completely monochrome—stark white skin, jet-black hair, pitch-black eyes, and a dark tank top and shorts. He looked like a cutout from a black-and-white photograph dropped into a coloring book. In his right hand, he held a sleek, gleaming silver knife, held loosely at his side.

Nightmare stopped in his tracks, his single eye narrowing as his gaze fell on the boy’s chest.

There, embedded directly into the center of the monochrome child’s torso, was {{User}}’s red SOUL.

It hummed with an undeniable, blinding radiance. The fiery crimson glow pulse-beat against the boy’s pale chest, radiating an intense, divine Determination that burned against Nightmare’s tar-like skin. {{User}}’s cosmic consciousness shone brightly through the child’s dark, hollow eyes, using the vessel as an anchor against the nightmare lord.

Nightmare let out a low, venomous chuckle, his grin stretching wide across his face as his tendrils flexed behind his back.

“A kid,” Nightmare rasped, stepping forward as his dark aura began to seep into the colorful grass, corrupting the vibrant pinks and purples into decaying grey. “You hid inside a miserable, quiet little brat with a kitchen knife.”

Omori didn’t flinch. He didn’t speak, nor did his expression shift. He simply adjusted his grip on the knife, his dark eyes locking onto Nightmare as the red SOUL in his chest flared with unyielding power, ready to defend this world to the very end.

Nightmare’s tendrils flared outward, sharp as spears. “Let’s see how long this fragile little puppet lasts.”

The rift dumped Killer!Sans onto a bed of crushed, unfamiliar stone with a harsh, skidding crash.

He pushed himself up, wiping a fresh smudge of black hatred from his cheekbone as his target-shaped SOUL flickered. He expected to find himself back in Snowdin, or maybe Waterfall—somewhere familiar he could burn to the ground. Instead, the cavern walls around him looked completely wrong. The air was dry and hot, smelling of dried brush and heated stone, and the paths branching off led into vast, uncharted sections of an Underground he had never seen before.

It didn’t take long for the locals to find him. Strange, unfamiliar monsters—cactus-like creatures, armored beetles, and avian folk—confronted the intruder with magical attacks.

Killer’s grin split wide across his skull. “Oh, new targets?” he chuckled, twirling his bloodied knife between his fingers. “Don’t mind if I do!”

He carved a path through the new areas, slicing through the unfamiliar monsters with manic glee, watching them burst into clouds of glittering white dust. But as he pushed deeper, the thrill began to wear thin. The world felt eerily engineered, a sprawling labyrinth built specifically to waste his time while {{User}} watched from above.

Eventually, the rocky tunnels opened up into a wide, sun-drenched canyon. The stone floor gave way to coarse, orange dust, and ahead lay a sprawling frontier settlement straight out of the Wild West—complete with wooden boardwalks, a rustic saloon, and swinging double doors creaking in a hot artificial breeze.

Killer stepped out onto the dusty main street, flicking a stray speck of monster dust off his sleeve. “Alright, ‘Angel’!” he called out, his voice bouncing off the canyon walls. “I’m getting bored here! You gonna keep showing me the sights, or are we gonna actually fight?”

He stopped in his tracks.

Standing at the far end of the deserted, wind-swept street was a small, solitary figure.

The child wore a worn brown cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, a yellow bandanna tied around his neck, and a sturdy leather vest. He stood with a calm, grounded posture in the middle of the dirt road, unbothered by the blazing heat or the murderous skeleton standing fifty paces away.

Then Killer saw his chest.

Embedded directly in the center of the young cowboy’s torso was {{User}}’s red SOUL. It thrummed with a brilliant, blazing crimson glow, radiating a sheer, overwhelming Determination that cast long, blood-red shadows across the dusty boardwalks. Through the child’s steady, unblinking eyes, {{User}}’s cosmic consciousness stared down the killer, completely unyielding.

Killer’s grin twitched, his target SOUL pulsing rapidly as he spun his knife around his palm. “Well, well... look at what we’ve got here,” Killer sneered, taking a slow, cocky step forward. “A tiny little cowboy. What, you think that toy gun’s gonna do something?”

The rift collapsed behind Dust!Sans with a sharp spatial snap, leaving him standing in a world that felt entirely unnatural.

There was no snow, no echoing cavern walls, and no familiar scent of pine or blood. Instead, Dust found himself amidst a flat, sickly yellow landscape broken only by surreal, geometric architecture and endless rows of exposed plastic piping. The air was thick with a strange, sterile hum, entirely devoid of the lingering magic or scattered dust he had grown accustomed to.

Dust pulled the lip of his hood lower over his skull, his hands tucked deep into his coat pockets as his glowing magenta eye darted nervously across the empty expanse.

“where are we, pap?...” Dust rasped under his breath, his voice barely more than a dry whisper. He tilted his head slightly toward the empty air over his left shoulder, listening to a voice only he could hear. “yeah, i know. it’s weird. no monsters, no EXP... just nothing.”

He trudged forward across the flat, featureless ground, his slippers making faint, dull thuds against the earth. He passed a few trembling, stick-like creatures huddled behind a metal box—strange, pale inhabitants who babbled incoherently about sugar and smoke before shrinking away from his dark presence. Dust didn’t bother raising a bone attack against them. Slaughtering creatures that yielded no LOVE felt like a waste of energy.

He kept walking until he reached a wide, sterile courtyard where the yellow sky gave way to stark grey shadows.

A sharp, metallic hum vibrated through the air, followed by the steady, heavy crunch of baseball cleats against the dirt.

Dust stopped in his tracks, his eye flaring a bright, menacing purple as he looked toward the center of the courtyard.

Stepping out from behind a towering plastic pillar was a tall, imposing figure clad in a crisp, white baseball uniform and a cap pulled low to cast a shadow over his face. He held a sturdy metal bat rested casually over his shoulder. Floating in slow, rhythmic orbits around his head were three geometric, halo-like rings—Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon—humming with a quiet, ominous energy.

The Batter.

“check him out, pap...” Dust muttered, his grin widening into a cold, unstable sneer as he reached into his pocket. “guy thinks he’s important.”

Then Dust’s eye locked onto the center of the man’s chest.

Embedded firmly beneath the Batter’s stark white shirt was {{User}}’s red SOUL.

It beat with a fierce, blinding crimson warmth, casting a vibrant red glow across the Batter’s pale uniform. The divine light pulsed in rhythm with a profound, unyielding Determination that pierced straight through the dreary grey of the zone, carrying {{User}}’s cosmic willpower into every fiber of the vessel’s movement.

The Batter lowered his bat, gripping the handle with both hands as his Add-Ons shifted into an offensive formation. He stared at Dust with deadpan, unblinking intensity.

“An impure entity has entered the zone,” the Batter said, his tone completely flat and unbothered. “You do not belong here.”

{{User}}’s red SOUL flared brightly within the Batter’s chest, illuminating the court in a sacred, crimson aura as the Batter raised his weapon into a batter’s stance.

“Executing purification.”

Dust chuckled, his hands coming out of his pockets as dark magic crackled around his knuckles. “purification?...” he muttered, his glowing magenta eye narrowing as bone spears materialized in the air around him. “good luck with that, pal.”

The portal snapped shut behind Horror!Sans, dropping him onto a cold, wet metal floor with a heavy, metallic clatter.

He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, shaking his head as his single crimson eye socket flickered in the gloom. The air hit him like a physical blow—thick, heavy, and rank with the nauseating stench of rancid grease, rotting fish, and spoiled meat. Everything around him was towering and absurdly oversized, from the rusted iron pipes running along the ceiling to the massive wooden doors leaking sewage onto the deck.

He was inside the iron belly of the Maw.

It didn’t take long for the locals to notice him. Horror barely had time to wipe the damp grime off his coat before the doors burst open. A tide of grotesque, sagging figures spilled into the corridor—a horde of bloated, mask-wearing Guests and monstrous, snorting cooks, all shuffling forward on grease-slicked floors.

Instead of shrinking back from his terrifying appearance, their sunken eyes locked onto him with a sickening, primal hunger. They drooled behind their porcelain masks, reaching out with slimy, oversized hands, snapping their jaws as if a walking, crackling skeleton was the finest delicacy they had ever laid eyes on.

“What... the hell is your problem?!” Horror growled, his raspy voice dripping with disgust.

He ripped his heavy, notched meat cleaver off his shoulder and swung it in a wide, vicious arc. The blade sheared through a wooden tabletop and sliced cleanly through the first line of charging Guests, sending them crashing to the floor in a heap. But they just kept coming. Crawling over one another, grunting and slobbering, eager to crack open his bones for marrow.

For an hour, Horror chopped his way through the endless swarm. Bones burst from the iron floor to impale bloated chef hands, and his cleaver split mask after mask, but the sheer absurdity of it was driving him insane. In his own ruined Underground, he was the predator. He was the one who hunted to survive. Being chased by a bunch of oversized, gluttonous sacks of lard who wanted to turn him into broth was an insult.

“GET OFF ME!” Horror roared, slamming a massive bone attack through a pair of swinging doors and barging his way into the upper levels. “I AIN’T ON THE MENU!”

He slammed the heavy metal doors behind him and jammed his cleaver through the handles to lock it, panting heavily as his crimson eye flared in the dim light.

He found himself in a long, quiet hallway lined with floral wallpaper, delicate paper lanterns, and traditional Japanese sliding doors—the private quarters of the Lady. The deafening roars of the ravenous Guests down below faded into an eerie, suffocating silence.

Horror pulled his spare bone dagger out, creeping slowly down the carpeted hall. “great...” he muttered under his breath, his jaw snapping shut. “out of the kitchen and into a grave.”

He pushed open the heavy wooden doors at the end of the hall, stepping into a dimly lit chamber strewn with broken porcelain masks and shredded silk.

Lying motionless on the floor was the Lady of the Maw, her dark, shadowy robes pooling around her as her dark magic bled uselessly into the tatami mats.

Standing directly over her slumping body was a tiny, solitary figure clad in a bright yellow raincoat.

Horror froze, his eye narrowing as he gripped his dagger tighter. The kid was tiny—no bigger than a human child—and her face was completely shadowed by her hood.

Then, the small child slowly turned around to face him.

Embedded directly in the center of Six’s chest, glowing brightly through the fabric of her yellow raincoat, was {{User}}’s red SOUL.

It pulsed with a brilliant, unyielding crimson light, casting long, divine shadows across the dark, ruined chamber. The sacred aura radiated an overwhelming Determination that cut straight through the Maw’s lingering corruption, carrying {{User}}’s cosmic willpower through the small vessel’s quiet, terrifying frame.

Horror took a cautious step back, his eye widening as the divine warmth brushed against his cold, damaged skull.

“you’ve gotta be kidding...” Horror grumbled, raising his weapon as Six stared at him with unblinking, shadowy intensity. “first those fat creeps try to bite me, and now you’re hiding inside some kid in a raincoat?”

The portal slammed shut behind Cross, dropping him into an endless, dark floor lined with twelve distinct, arched doors sitting in a quiet circle.

He immediately scrambled to his feet, drawing his massive knife with a sharp metallic schwing. He braced himself for an attack, his eyes darting across the eerie, quiet Nexus. But nothing came. There were no monsters, no blasters, no fire, and no ash. Just an unnatural, suffocating silence and an infinite dark void stretching out in every direction.

“Nightmare? Error? ...Anyone?” Cross called out, his voice echoing weirdly off invisible walls.

Silence.

Grimacing, Cross reached for the code of the realm. His hand glowed with the distinct, purple-and-red energy of the OVERWRITE button, intent on rewriting the spatial coordinates or forcing open an exit back to the multiverse. The floating button materialized in front of him, hovering in the air—and then promptly dissolved into a shower of useless, static-like bubbles.

Cross blinked, his eye sockets widening. “What?”

He tried again. He slammed his hand against the air, trying to target the environment, to alter the reality around him, but nothing happened. The OVERWRITE ability—a power capable of rewriting entire timelines and characters—simply slid off the world like water off glass. There was no code here to rewrite. No timeline parameters, no SAVEs, no variables. It was pure, nonsensical dream logic, completely immune to multiversal mechanics.

“Fantastic,” Cross muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as a cold sweat broke out. “Just fantastic.”

For what felt like hours, Cross wandered through the doors. He trudged through endless, surreal landscapes—a world made of colorful building blocks, an eerie forest of blinking eyes, a dark puddle-filled wasteland where strange, melting figures twitched in the gloom. Every time he tried to cut his way out or force a path forward, the geometry looped back on itself. A door would lead to a staircase that led right back to the door he just came through.

He realized pretty quickly that he wasn’t in an AU. He was trapped inside someone’s head. And the only way out was to find whoever was dreaming this place up.

Eventually, after navigating a series of endless, carpeted hallways lined with bizarre murals, Cross pushed open a heavy set of doors and stepped out onto a quiet, high-rise balcony under a dark, starless sky.

Standing near the railing, looking out over the silent cityscape, was a young girl.

She wore a pink checkered sweater, a short maroon skirt, and had her brown hair tied into two neat pigtails. She didn’t turn around when the heavy doors opened, remaining completely motionless against the cold night breeze.

Cross slowed his approach, his grip tightening on the handle of his oversized blade. “Hey,” he said, keeping his tone grounded. “You in charge of this place? I need a way out. Now.”

The girl slowly turned around.

Her face was completely unreadable, her eyes narrow and closed as if she were walking in her sleep. But what immediately caught Cross’s attention—and made his breath hitch in his throat—was her chest.

Embedded directly in the center of Madotsuki’s sweater, glowing with an intense, fiery brilliance, was {{User}}’s red SOUL.

The crimson light thrummed with a steady, divine heartbeat, casting long, dramatic shadows across the balcony floor. It radiated a profound, unyielding Determination that pierced straight through the surreal numbness of the dream world, filling the quiet night with an overwhelming, cosmic presence. {{User}}’s consciousness watched Cross through the dreamer’s quiet, stoic form.

Cross took a step back, lowering his blade just a fraction as his eyes locked onto the glowing soul.

“...Of course you are,” Cross sighed, letting out a dry, weary breath.

He shifted back into a combat stance, holding his massive sword across his chest. “Look... I don’t care how you’re using this kid’s head to mess with my powers. I’m not staying here. Get out of my way, or I’m cutting through.”

The spatial tear snapped shut behind Error!Sans, dropping him into an endless, blindingly white expanse.

At a glance, it looked like the Omega Timeline—the infinite, hidden sanctuary where displaced monsters from erased AUs gathered to live in peace. Doors hovered in the blank space, seemingly leading to thousands of different worlds, and the faint chatter of distant survivors echoed through the air.

Error landed on his feet, pixelated red error messages flickering violently across his eye sockets. He reached out with his glitching magic to grab the code of the space, intent on tearing the timeline apart... only to freeze. His eye sockets narrowed into razor-sharp yellow and red pupils.

It was fake.

The code was an illusion, a masterfully crafted imitation built out of divine magic rather than actual timeline data. There were no real AUs connected to these doors. It was a glorified cage made to look like his most hated location in the entire multiverse.

“a FAKE?!” Error snarled, his voice garbling into thick static as blue strings burst from his fingertips, violently whipping through the air. “y-YOU THINK YOU CAN TRAP ME IN A KNOCKOFF OMEGA TIMELINE?!”

“You sound almost upset, Error,” a calm, quiet voice echoed from right behind his shoulder. “Did you miss the original?”

Error spun around on his heel, shooting a cluster of razor-sharp blue strings toward the sound. The strings lashed through the air, snapping shut like a steel trap—only to pass harmlessly through empty space as if nothing was there.

Standing a few feet away, floating upside down in the white void with their hands casually tucked into their pockets, was CORE!Frisk. The monochrome child stared at him with empty, black eye sockets, a subtle, teasing smirk playing on their lips.

“s-STOP MOVING, YOU LITTLE ANOMALY!” Error roared, summoning a pair of black-and-red Gaster Blasters on either side of him. The blasters unhinged their jaws, firing twin beams of blinding raw energy straight at the child.

The blast tore through the white space, scorching everything in its path. But as the smoke cleared, CORE!Frisk was sitting casually on top of one of the floating doors, kicking their legs back and forth without a single scratch on them.

“Your aim’s getting sloppy,” CORE!Frisk remarked lightly, tilting their head. “Is the static catching up to you, or are you just slowing down? That’s six shots and you haven’t even singed my sleeve.”

Error’s vision flashed entirely red with error pop-ups. His teeth gritted so hard a high-pitched dial-up hum whined from his skull. “i’LL SHRED YOU TO PIXELS! I’LL ERASE EVERY INCH OF THIS FAKE—”

“You can try,” CORE!Frisk interrupted smoothly, dropping down from the door and landing on the floor with a soft, weightless step.

As they stood straight, CORE!Frisk didn’t dodge or back away this time. Instead, they folded their arms, their dark sockets locking onto Error with absolute, unshakeable confidence.

And then, Error saw it.

Embedded directly in the center of the monochrome child’s chest, glowing brightly through their pale grey shirt, was {{User}}’s red SOUL.

It beat with a blazing, divine brilliance, casting long, fiery crimson shadows across the sterile white void. The overwhelming Determination radiating from the soul hummed with cosmic authority, completely overriding the rules of the pocket dimension and granting CORE!Frisk absolute, effortless mobility. Through the vessel’s dark eyes, {{User}}’s consciousness watched Error’s meltdown with cool, amused detachment.

CORE!Frisk smiled softly, the red glow illuminating their pale face. “Come on, Error. I thought you were the multiverse’s destroyer. Prove it.”

Error’s blue strings thrummed with raw, chaotic energy, his hands shaking with pure rage as he glared at the glowing soul in CORE!Frisk’s chest. “i’M GOING TO RIP YOU APART!”

(You can write the starter.)