-BittyTale #4-
Fresh 404 steps out of his portal closing it behind him, mildly amused at finding Fell frozen confronted by a pair of Boss bitties demanding he release Edge immediately and Edge looked stunned and close to crying at their protective behavior.
Sans walks out of the clinic hearing the commotion out front. "Fresh 404 good timing their first nebulizer treatment is complete and Moonlight is cranky because you left without telling him first."
Fresh 404 nodded, "we apologize for leaving unexpectedly. We are afraid uncle Dream's health remains fragile as does his emotional state. Edge and Fell are council members. I am required to have someone with me from the council when working. Please convince the Boss bitties not to cause too much damage even if they are right."
"Where the heck are we? And what the heck are those?" Fell demands peering down at the bitties.
Edge wipes his sockets. "BittyTale, we are in a BittyTale and those are bitties. Fell type Papyrus bitties also known as Boss bitties."
"Very good sounds like you know a few things about bitties." Sans smiles down at Edge.
Fresh 404 steps over Edge on the way to the clinic leaving the fell brothers to sort themselves out. "Fell you are on notice if you hurt even one bitty we will make you wish we had just hurt you."
Fell watches them walk away before looking back down at the bitties. "So they are like tiny versions of me?" He squints, "why are they fussing about the lazy pile of garbage?"
Edge looks away, his jaw clenched in a fixed grin that showed none of his thoughts. "Bitties thought very much like, their AU counterparts do not always react the same way."
Sans smiles and bends down offering the Boss bitties his hand. While looking over Edge. "Probably because they have standards especially when it comes to the treatment of Edgy or Cherry bitties. Your brother looks like the AU equivalent of an Edgy. If you were another bitty treating him like that when he was already in that condition." Sans shakes his head. "The kid would have had to rescue you instead of warn you."
With some grumbling about Fell the Boss bitties accepted a lift up to a walkway that tunnels through the wall behind the counter. "Keep him away from ours or he is going down." It was hard to tell which one spoke but they both nodded before walking away.
Fell starts for the door Fresh 404 went through. "What ever I couldn't care less what some weak useless copies think. I have work to do."
Edge just stared at the floor grumbling that they weren't so weak that they had to put others down. Maybe if he had been looking he would've seen it coming he might have even protected Fell like he always had.
The bone attack that pierced Fell's wrist causing him to drop Edge seemed to come out of nowhere. As did the mini gaster blaster's that rammed him in the back of the knees knocking him down to his knees. But the blue bone attacks that keep him in place most definitely came from the local Sans. "Now council member Fell let me make something clear. That kid, the one you voted to feed to a parasite, is my friend's kid and if you ever hurt him you will learn just how much damage a real judge can do."
"Sans! Get in here! Something is wrong with Starlight!" The doubled voice of Fresh 404 rumbled through the building demanding action.
Edge rolls over and jerks upright in time to see the local Sans shortcut out in response to the kids call leaving Fell hurt on the ground. "Well funk I thought HorrorTale was going to be the difficult AU today."
"Shut up and get these attacks out of me." Fell turns his head to glare at Edge.
"I am not sure I should. I think the kid will keep that promise if we make trouble. I think we should just wait for the kid." Ignoring his own advice Edge got up and started freeing Fell.
"What is going on?" Fresh 404 walked out of the clinic and frowned at them. "How does one get into trouble in a place as wholesome as a Bitty Center?"
Fell looked away unwilling to admit he got taken down by bitties before the local Sans pinned him like a bug.
"Eeh luck I guess." Edge finished shattering the blue bones so Fell could get up without taking damage. "Just a few scratches, only real damage is to our pride."
Fresh 404 just sighed clearly frustrated. "Whatever, we have to reshuffle our work plan. Edge, stay here and do whatever Doc. Sans needs. Fell we are going to UnderTale # 9728"
"What? Why are we separating?" Fell frowned pulling the small bone attack out of his wrist.
Edge looked towards the door longing in his eyelights at the prospect of being free to hangout with the bitties.
"I don't need both of you to fulfill the contract and Doc. Sans has over twenty sick bitties on his hands, one of them critical with an overprotective partner. You have trained Edge quite well in the arts of groveling, misdirection, and making those weaker than him feel they have the upper hand. So I am delegating." Fresh 404 opened a portal and walked through, leaving Fell to follow.
Fell followed looking confused, the portal closing after them leaving Edge standing there with wide sockets, something inside of him feeling warm but shaking with terror.
"Scary ain't it. Ta have somebody look at ja and see you down, ta ya core." A horror bitty watched him from an elevated walkway munching on a breadstick. "Doc. Sans is through the door down the hall clinic is the first right. Good luck with the Nightmare bitty so far only the kid has gotten him to put the hostile stuff aside."
-UnderTale #9728-
Fell looks around as he steps through the portal looking around to see Fresh 404 kneeling in the snow examining something.
"Thank Fox they haven't reset from the last genocide run it shouldn't be hard to finish this one." Fresh 404 stands and look over at Fell. "We are glad you are the one with us. Edge has to kind a SOUL for this copy."
"Are you calling me insensitive?" Fell starts to stalk over only to freeze when he realizes that the powder kicked up by his footsteps wasn't acting like snow.
Fresh 404 stands dusting his hands off. "Come on Fell you have seen monster dust before."
"I have, I just thought you said this was an UnderTale copy. You don't typically see this much dust in one even at the end of a genocide run." Fell looks around uneasy in the quiet.
"Yes well the first DustTale was just an UnderTale copy until it was so different that it broke from the AU chain and became its own original. This one is close to achieving that but it has to be terminated. It is really too bad it crossed into the buffer zone. Natural originals are rare." Fresh 404 started walking, talking to put Fell more at ease.
"What is so different about this one?" Fell felt watched and scanned their surroundings constantly.
"Oh in this one the last fallen human is a complete pacifist every time. It is the Sans that is the genocider. After seeing Frisk get injured and killed load after load reset after reset he snapped yandere and started killing everyone who was a threat to her. Only that list expanded with every reset to include anyone that isn't them." Fresh 404 picked up a stick and used it to set off a trap.
"What does yandere mean?" Fell grumbled while dodging traps or springing them so he could move through the area.
"It is a term to describe someone who is crazy in love, possessive, controlling, obsessive, and violent. Such people are willing to go to any lengths to be with the objects of their affection. Including killing anyone who gets in their way or is viewed as a threat either to the relationship or the loved one. Unfortunately they also tend to become abusive in trying to make someone love them or control them. Personally I think they are sick twisted beings that can't tell love from LOVE." Fresh 404 stopped and eyed a long section of snowy terrain before using their strings to form a web a foot above the ground and stepping up on it to walk above the area.
"That actually sounds messed up even by UnderFell standards." Fell tries to follow them and ends up nearly falling.
Once they are off the web Fresh 404 tosses a stick into the area they just bypassed and the snow collapses into a pit trap with sharp stakes at the bottom. "While we have you alone like this we think we should have a word with you about Edge."
"If you are going to tell me he is weak and pathetic I already know." Fell pears ahead at the edge of Snowdin trying to figure out what feels off.
Forming one a single long sharp bone attack and holding it like a sword Fresh 404 moved to a ready stance. "Not at all. On the contrary, I plan on stealing him at some point. In his own rude, vulgar way, he is a diplomat of the highest order. The kind of people who will end up on my team are going to be stubborn, and broke. Having someone like Edge would be useful."
The first bone attack came almost without warning just a flight of sharp bones accompanied by the swell of boss music. It would have been impressive if they weren't ready for just such an attack.
Fell formed a bone glave spinning it to deflect the attacks like they were nothing only to nearly take a hit from below.
Fresh 404 actually laughed catching them in his strings and flinging the bones back even as he jumped and landed on his on rainbow strings a particularly maddening trick of Error's he had clearly picked up with his strings for footing terrain, height, gravity, and orientation no longer mattered to him anymore than a spider. "Hello Sans, welcome to the end of the world. We will be your friendly guide to the apocalypse."
"Really this is when you decide to have a sense of humor kid even Edge doesn't joke about this kind of thing." Fell glares at the Sans who had shortcut in front of them. He looked like Classic only instead of slippers he had on combat boots.
"Fell, are you going to whine the whole time? You do know this is the first time we have done this right? Why not at least be polite?" Fresh 404 didn't bother waiting for a response just ran across his web and jumped down with a powerful slash several feet to the right of where he appeared to be aiming, decapitating the Sans.
Fell looks away uncomfortable with that, reminded of losing his head on genocide runs and most neutral runs too. "Are you done here?"
"No we have to find Frisk before I can delete this AU." They sigh and head to Snowdin. "The question is do I just take away the reset and send her to the Omega Timeline as a lone survivor. Take them home as a lone survivor. Add them to a non resetting surface AU. Or if it would be kinder to add their SOUL to the emergency backup."
"What emergency backup?" Fell trailed after him looking slightly lost as the Sans's dust swirls in the wind.
"Mom's SOUL collection is not a twisted form of decoration like Inky likes to claim. The strings keep them in stasis if the Multiverse ever tips so far that too many AU crash and the balance swings hard to destruction, it will shake the anti-void and wake them triggering a mass rest to restore the balance and keep the multiverse from falling. But it takes centuries to build up an emergency backup like that so it will only work once every thousand years at best." Fresh 404 skipped to the side as a trap just misses them.
"So is this a thing just picking up people from AU that are about to be destroyed? How do you decide who lives and who dies." Fell springs a few more traps to make a path.
"How should we know just because we know it is an option? Normally lone survivors are from genocide runs. Core Frisk or mom picked them up in the course of work. We know sometimes mom would dust them, or put them in stasis." Fresh 404 bends down, make some snowballs and throws them to spring traps.
"You are very open about how all of this works." Fell finally steps onto the porch of the skeleton brothers.
"That is one of the mistakes that happened mom couldn't tell Inky directly and even if he did Inky didn't believe him or couldn't remember long enough to change things. Dad didn't really try to break uncle Dream free from the DreamTale codes. Trying to protect him from what is happening now. If the truth had been spread far and wide things would be different. Not everyone would have listened, not everyone would have believed, but maybe enough would have doubts that things wouldn't have gotten so bad. Maybe mom and dad could have had a little peace maybe there wouldn't have been such an emphasis on blocking change. Maybe the AU could have helped each other instead of one needing to be a criminal to step forward and say something is wrong." Fresh 404 shrugs then kicks the door off its hinges.
Fell looks away unwilling to admit he was impressed he always had trouble kicking in doors. The Frisk huddled on the couch in a frilly dress with bandages under the manacles on her wrists just looked resigned.
Fresh 404 approached her slowly and crouched just out of kicking range. "Hello there. We wish we could say we are here to help but this AU needs to go. Do you know what an alternative universe or AU is?"
"S- Sans r- read me a b-book w- with the th-theory." She shook tears sliding down her cheeks.
Fell looked away wanting to snatch up the weak bit of fluff and run away. Which was completely unlike himself.
"That makes this easier. This AU is on a collision course with another one. It is our job to remove it. Your Sans had to be eliminated as he couldn't mingle safely with others. You have some choices. We could place your SOUL in stasis and tuck it away safely with others. Or we can just take away the rest and you can follow your Sans if you wish." They open a code panel and move some things about. With a soft fizz and pop the manacles fall off.
Fell gives Fresh 404 a startled look noticing the three options that involved keeping her alive hadn't been mentioned.
"Normally we would have more options but after seeing your codes we can't allow it." Fresh 404 sighs softly, clearly upset at the lack of choices.
She sniffles wiping her tears away. "I.. I n-need m-my S- Sans." She curled into a ball on the couch sobbing.
Fell barely kept from snarling his eyelights going out. Confusion, washing through him why did he suddenly want to kill the already dead local Sans?
Fresh 404 hummed softly working in the code panel for a few minutes. "We will do our best, being separated from those you love is never easy. Please pull up the rest so we can deactivate it."
Frisk instantly pulled up her rest button wiping her eyes again. "I know you probably think I am stupid. I know there is something really broken inside him but I love him anyway. I need him."
Fell steps out on the porch and leans against the wall listening while taking deep breaths of the cold dusty air.
"You don't seem stupid to us, you are quite aware of you situation. Listen you can't help who your SOUL is called to. At least you are not moving forward blindly." Fresh 404 carefully removed access to the reset and locked it.
"Th-thank you.... y- you are kind." She pulls her legs up and hugs them pressing her face to her knees.
Fresh 404 takes out his phone making a call. "Hey uncle Geno can I borrow Reaper for a bit?" Fresh 404 listened for a bit then hummed. "Uncle Geno you can tell him we will let him play with dad's super fancy coffee maker while you are keeping me company tomorrow if he comes and lends us a hand." After a short pause Fresh 404 hums and opens a portal.
Fell looks through the door at the sound of a portal opening. In time to see Reaper fall through and land on his face.
"Why? Geno I was having a nice nap. Why kick me out when I am not even bothering you yet?" Reaper whined without even looking up.
"He made it thanks Uncle Geno we will meet you at the council HQ at nine tomorrow morning. Do you have a preference for drinks and snacks so we can stock the fridge? Lemon? Okay see you then." Fresh 404 hangs up and looks down at Reaper.
Frisk watched them trembling her eyes wide as she clutched her skirt. Fell gripped the doorframe to keep from rushing to her rescue.
Reaper finally rolls over and looks up at them. "Kid why did I just get thrown through a portal when Geno wasn't even mad at me?"
Fresh 404 nodded at Frisk. "She wants to go with her Sans. You can keep them together right." Fresh 404 smiles slightly, "you can come with uncle Geno tomorrow. We will let you play with dad's super fancy coffee maker."
"Wow you are not even going to pretend you aren't bribing me?" Reaper sets up and looks at Frisk before taking out a list and checking it. "Fine she is on the list I can keep their SOULS together."
"Why would we pretend we both know we despise everyone on the council for what they have done with the exception of our family. We will work with and treat you all well but we will not forget ever even if we someday forgive. So this is business. On a personal note if you ever hurt our uncle we will make you wish you could die." Fresh 404's sweet smile and glowing eyelight and SOUL made Fell and Frisk flench back.
Reaper just closed his sockets, "I see family is a deathly matter for you kid, but don't threaten me with something I would do myself."
Fell looks away his sins crawling up his spine. The kid was anything but weak, and rather than despising his so called uncles for being weak or what they had done to people he actually liked. Fresh 404 treated them with care and even threatened death himself for one of them.
Fresh 404 smiles at Frisk. "Take a deep breath and close your eyes you will have your Sans soon."
As soon as Frisk closed her eyes Fresh 404 struck with the same sharp edged bone attack they used to decapitate the local Sans they removed her head ending it before she could feel pain or fear.
Reaper immediately summoned his scythe and absorbed her SOUL into it. Before he got up with a sigh. "Why does this AU even exist?"
"Let's just be glad it hasn't become an original yet. As much as organic originals are wonderful we don't need copies of this mess." Fresh 404 stands and offer Reaper a hand up. "We terminated the Sans outside of Snowdin."
Fell watched in complete shock as Reaper took their hand and let himself be pulled up and the kid didn't dust.
"Kid I can't tell if you are the kindest or cruelest person I have ever met." Reaper smoothes down his robe.
"Says the incarnation of death. We know as well as you do that some of us have to be both to do our jobs." Fresh 404 moved their attention to the open code panel. "Call us when you are clear of the AU."
Fell gets out of the doorway clearing the way for Reaper. "The whole place is trapped, might want to stay on the path we cleared or not touch the ground."
Reaper nods slipping out and floating just above the snow. "Sure, Fell try to avoid looking at the Frisk she is a yandere trap. You are old enough and single." With that Reaper floated off to collect the Sans SOUL.
Fresh 404 pulls up the delete button while waiting for the call. "Open a portal to BittyTale #4 we need you out of here as soon as we push the button we can only add a ninety second delay."
Fell opens a portal right on the porch. "I hate this AU, I hate this Frisk, I hate coming along on this job!"
"Learn something uncomfortable, Fell?" Fresh 404 smirks and answered their phone. "Okay see you and uncle Geno tomorrow." Hanging up Fresh 404 slammed the button and hurry out pushing Fell through the portal and stepping in behind him just before it snaps closed.