As he lay down in the cool, damp grass, staring up at the sky, the feeling of the sun warming his bones, he couldn't help but be wistful.

This is reality, he thought to himself. The thought was comforting, but also... hollow.

His boney fingers grabbed a handful of grass. It felt real. As he let go, the dew remained on his hand. It shined in the light of the sun, and he could see a rainbow of colours on his hoodie.

It felt real - too real. The colours were too vibrant. The sun was too warm, and the dew was too wet.

It was with that thought in mind that the sudden deceleration and eventual stop of the ambient sound came crashing around him. The feeling of warmth the sun had provided ceased, and the dew crystallized before vanishing completely. As he watched, the sky zipped off into the horizon, followed by the ground beneath his feet, vanishing into a single point until he was alone, trapped in a black void of nothingness.

"... Sans... Sans..."

Slowly, he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a flashing, neon red scarf. Then, he got a better look at the grinning, boney head above it.

"Ugh, my head... Good morning, Papyrus."

"Morning?" Papyrus questioned, his scarf flashing as he spoke. "Sans, it's 3 in the afternoon?"

"Oh," Sans responded as he sat up, rubbing his eye sockets. "Good afternoon, then."

Papyrus gave a small 'nyeh' of disapproval as he tossed something onto the coffee table next to Sans' favorite sleeping couch. It landed amongst a collection of paper plates stained red and empty bottles labelled 'SoyChup'. Sans made a mental note of it as he reached up and removed the metallic headband he had strapped around his head. He grabbed the smartphone-looking device sitting beside him on the couch, and unplugged the headband before tossing it onto the table a well.

"We were supposed to be at Grillby's an hour ago, brother," Papyrus stated as he went to the curtained window. "If I hadn't been in the middle of crafting my Underground-Famous spaghetti, I would have woken you sooner."

"Just an hour?" came Sans' response as he walked over to his brother. "We've been later than that. Hell, we leave now, and Grillbz will probably be shocked at how early we arrived."

"Be that as it may, the Great Papyrus loathes to leave a potential employer hanging when they require our particular brand of problem solving," he said as he reached up and threw open the curtains.

As the window was exposed, the apartment was bathed in the glow of a thousand neon lights. As snow softly fell around the dozens upon hundreds of ceilingscrapers that dotted the city of Snowdin, an advertisement for TemShop floated past the window, advertising body armors.

"I think the advertisements are losing their touch. I saw the exact same one last week," Sans mused aloud.

"Or maybe they think your shirt is broken, since you never wash it," Papyrus replied, a tinge of annoyance in his words.

"Hey," Sans protested with mock-indignation, looking down at his off-white sweater and its tiny smiling Temmie Badge, "it's taken me quite some time to give this hoodie the character it has now."

"I agree," Papyrus retorted as he moved towards the apartment door. "It has so much character that it's on the verge of walking away on its own."

Sans chuckled as he followed Papyrus towards the door. "Well, you can't blame me. The chip that tells me when it needs washing broke."

"It broke because you smashed it when you were getting sick of the constant commlink messages it was sending you telling you to wash it," Papyrus shot back as he grabbed a blue trench coat lined with discreet metal plates.

"Oh darn," Sans responded, "here I was hoping I could make a clean getaway."

Papyrus shouted in frustration before letting himself out.

Sans was about to follow suit when he remembered his brother's disapproving toss. Heading back to the table, he looked among the empty bottles and dirty plates. Sitting there was what his brother had thrown; a small computer chip. Reaching down, he grabbed and slipped it into his pocket before making his way out of the apartment.

As the brothers emerged onto the street, the smell of smog lay thickly in the air, and the hum of neon lights mixed with the sounds of distant traffic.

"Alright, I have the Thundersnail parked out back. You good on your own, bro?" Sans asked as he scanned the street.

"Way ahead of you, brother!" Papyrus said, jogging in place. He pulled out his commlink to check the clock and placed a finger to his neck. After a few seconds, he recalled he didn't have a pulse, and took his finger back. As he jogged in place, his legs slowly moved faster and faster until they became a blur, a golden haze emanating from them. "Race you there?"

Sans shook his head. "Nah. I'd never beat you, bro. You're too fast for me. I'll catch up, alright?"

Papyrus sighed. "Very well. I shall save our spot," he responded, before setting off down the street at the speed of a moderately moving truck. He ended up running into traffic, and the sounds of twisted metal and car alarms rang down the street.

A buzzing in Sans' pocket caught his attention. He pulled out the commlink he'd been hooked into earlier. He pressed the screen a few times, and a familiar message flashed up.

I'M ALRIGHT!

Sans let out a small laugh before pocketing the commlink and making his way towards the back of the apartment building.

The alleys between the ceilingscrapers of Snowdin were narrow by design. The buildings needed to take up as much room as possible to keep up with the exponentially rising population of the Underground. Sans was a wide guy, and it was unlikely that he could have walked shoulder to shoulder with himself through the alley without getting stuck. But he was alone, and so a leisurely stroll down the alley was viable.

It wasn't until he started hearing the sounds of clanks and crashes behind a trash can further in that his pace quickened. Narrowly squeezing by the garbage, his annoyances were realized.

Two monsters wielding baseball bats and wearing leather vests were going to town on his vehicle. The vests were emblazoned with a purple muffin with eight spindly legs - the symbol of the Spyderz Gang.

"Hey, boys. What's going on here?" Sans called out over the sounds of metal on metal banging. In an instant, the clanging stopped, as both monsters turned to look at him.

"None of your business, jackass," one of the monsters spat at Sans, brandishing his baseball bat in his direction.

The other chuckled deeply. "Yeah, jackass, none of your business."

"Well, it seems like my business, as you two gentlemen seem to be going to town on my bike there."

"Oh, you mean that hunk of metal?" the first one asked, pointing over his shoulder at the dinged up moped behind him. "Well, too damn bad, sunshine! You shouldn't have left it in Spyderz territory."

"Yeah," the other one responded. "This is Spyderz territory. You shouldn't have left it here."

"Oh my, is that an echo I hear?" Sans condescendingly remarked, his snarky tone only serving to infuriate them further. "Guess your empty heads must make a good echo chamber."

"Hey, watch your tongue, buddy!" the first one snapped, pointing his baseball bat in Sans' direction. "Do you know who we are?"

"A couple of idiot kids who think they're tough for beating up a defenceless moped?" came Sans reply, as his hand reached up to adjust the zipper on his sweater.

"Oh, that's it!" the monster shouted as he and his friend marched at Sans, brandishing their bats with their intent clear: his first mistake.

"Come on now, boys," Sans responded, still fiddling with his zipper. "No need to get violent. How about you two scuttle back home to your mommy, and I'll pretend this never happened?"

The first monster responded by swinging wide at Sans head: his second mistake.

Without missing a beat, Sans ducked with almost supernatural speed, the swing going over his head and colliding with the other monster's stomach.

"Augh!" the gangbanger shouted as he keeled over, clutching at his gut in pain.

"Wait, what the..." the first one spluttered out. His thought, however, was interrupted by a loud clicking from behind. He instinctively swung his bat around behind him, only to end up missing as Sans quickly stepped back. After his inept flailing, the monster was greeted by the source of the earlier clicking; a massive revolver aimed right between his eyes.

"You're clearly new to town," Sans spoke with a firm grip on his weapon of choice. He looked over at the other monster, now on the ground grabbing his stomach, before looking back to the first, who had a look of shock and terror in his face. He closed his eyes as he continued. "I'm going to give you some advice. There are plenty of folks around this town that would gladly roll over to your tough guy shtick. But you can never really tell who they are at a glance. Maybe they're just your average joe on the street. Maybe they're some corporate executive, out for a nice smog filled stroll.

"Or maybe..." Sans spoke, opening his eyes to reveal a blue, glowing left eye, "They're something else entirely. Folks who get their kicks fighting Royal Guards, or corporate security, or all manner of twisted and powerful things that would make you crack at the mere thought of them. Guys who walk into heavily fortified corporate instillations as a day job. Folks who consider little gangbangers like you not even a warm-up.

"You want some advice kid? Grab your little buddy and leave. You don't know who you're messing with. And if there's one thing to take from our little exchange here, it's this:

"Never mess with a Shadowrunner. Or you're gonna have a bad time."

With this, Sans pulled his gun back, aiming at the sky, and fired a shot into the air. The explosive bang echoed through the alley. The gangbanger went white and grabbed his friend, running blindly down the alley as fast he could carry him.

As a grin of satisfaction plastered itself across his face, Sans slipped the gun back into his sweater, tapping it affectionately as it slid into the sweater's concealed holster. He placed his hands in his pockets as he walked over to the bright red moped that leaned against the building. It was banged up, sure, but didn't look any worse than it had when he'd bought it used.

Straddling his Thundersnail, Sans grabbed the handle. It glowed, reading his handprint, before the bike itself sprang to life. A small screen in the handle flashed the Dreemurr Corporation Logo, before a map of Snowdin popped up. A small voice spoke.

"Please state your destination."

Sans leaned down and spoke back" "NavGrid, take me to Grillby's, would ya?"

"You have requested... Chillby's Restaurant."

Sans looked at the screen with a bit of agitation. "No, I said take me to Grillby's Bar. Can you do that?"

"Affirmative. Now plotting course for Filby's Used Cars. Please sit back and relax, and allow our NavGrid assisted automated driver to..."

The request was stopped by the sudden slamming of Sans' hand into the screen. A few similar slams and the screen went dead, hanging limply from a few wires. A sigh came through Sans' teeth as he revved the engine by hand.

"Guess I'm going there the old fashioned way," he mused to himself, before the moped took off down the alley, the sound of an electric motor that sounded like a hair dryer being the last remnants of his presence.