Disclaimer: Hello Fanfiction! It is I, AngelPines! So I know I just finished writing another Undertale story, but creativity happened, and… this story was born.

I've been all over this site, and I have yet to see many stories that involve a main character of the game interacting with the real world while still residing in their own dimension, and vice versa. So I decided to make my own, and see what would come out of it.

Also, because I forgot to say this when this story first started months ago, I would like to say now that this story came to me after reading The Reply by Lusewing. While my plot is different, the start of theirs was what got me my idea on how ours and Undertale's dimensions interacted.

I don't own Undertale, only Hope.

"Speaking"

Thinking

Typing

"Reading"

Edited: Aug. 19/18


You know, this wasn't exactly how she had pictured spending her Saturday. Originally, it was going to be spent playing a simple 10 dollar video game she had bought online, not going on an emotional feels roller coaster with her laptop. But hey, beggars can't be choosers. Though, this is what I get for hearing people talk about it in class. Curse my curiosity.

A sigh escaped her lips as she directed herself back though Snowdin, towards her last stop before having Frisk leave the Underground forever. How much she had put this child through in the last several hours, and to finally have it all end was overwhelming. What a feels trip, she thought, relaxing into her chair, before frowning.

How was it that a video game could leave so much of an impact on you? Even if you've only played it once, Undertale could be stuck in your head for weeks on end. Hope gazed at the screen, seeing Frisk was now standing in front of the skeleton's house. She had just about finished the true pacifist ending, but after reading online about several secrets such as the different fun values and the secret laboratory, she wanted to go back and discover all she possibly could.

Going full-on pacifist wasn't entirely easy, with how many times she died at Undyne's hands, but Hope swore to herself she wouldn't pull a 'no mercy' run. Doing so would damage any future playthrough, if she ever decided to do such; she didn't want to watch characters being slaughtered either. There was that… and Chara's jump scare made her fall out of her seat screaming after seeing it online.

The soundtrack also didn't help. The well-crafted music could make anyone tear up after hearing it, especially track 71. So after listening to countless people who've played the game, Hope had gotten the true ending. The true lab was downright disturbing, seeing all those innocent monsters in so much pain, forcefully fused together. And after fooling around with the fun value through a few loads at the very start before approaching Waterfall, she managed to unlock Gaster's secret room, which was both intriguing and creepy at the same time.

The last thing Hope had wanted to do, besides seeing Asriel off one last time at the beginning of the whole journey-it was painful to see him so content with never seeing his parents again-was Sans' secret laboratory. One video had shown her that if you reloaded your save file at the judgment hall, Sans would give a secret code word, and if you did this multiple times, he would give you the key to his bedroom.

So, Hope did just that. Giggling at the silly code phrases the skeleton would give you, Hope finally received the key, which let her retrieve the other key to the lab from his dresser. Smiling softly, she went around to the back of the house, and unlocked the door to the basement.

It wasn't much; a couple drawers, some blueprints written in an odd language, and an unknown machine hidden under a tarp. Frisk checked each drawer, and Hope couldn't help but give a small gasp at what she read. "There's a photo album inside the drawer. There are photos of Sans with a lot of people you don't recognize. He looks happy."

He looks happy. That one, simple line was enough to make one's heart ache, even if it was just a game. After everything she'd been through, Hope knew that Sans was a lot more than what he showed to the other monsters. It's only in the genocide run do you really see how much he knows about the resets, and how much they've harmed him. Essentially, the player had forced him to that lifestyle. To no longer be interested in getting to the surface, and basically into hiding his depression from his friends and family… from Papyrus.

This was one of the main reasons why Hope flat out chose not to commit genocide. Sans had gone through enough already, and although it took her two tries to get the happy ending-because you had to go back after fighting Flowey to get to the lab-that was all she planned on doing. She couldn't rip away their happiness, over, and over again. It wasn't fair for them. It wasn't fair for Sans and Frisk. And I usually only play a game once anyway.

Then there was that machine in the corner.

Hope had Frisk walk over to it, out of sheer curiosity. Clicking at it, she watched as the same the message she'd expected read that it was broken. But… what exactly was it? The fandom never had a clear answer, and now she didn't either. "Well, I guess that's i-AH!"

Hope was cut off by a loud, electronic shrieking. Covering her ears, she watched in confusion as her laptop suddenly blacked out. "Wha-what? Are you serious right now!? I still need to save!" Forget the game! I had other tabs open! She rushed to the power button, only for the screen to hum back to life. Everything still, for some odd reason, was still open. Frisk was still in the lab, just as she had left them, except…

The unknown machine's blanket was flung to the floor, revealing a large gray machine with a dark green screen and several red knobs. Well… this is new. Hope had Frisk walk over to the machine, and clicked it. The image began to distort for a few seconds, with the kid's sprite shifting back and forth and the same shrieking sound faintly playing in the background. The text box appeared underneath, as it normally would after clicking on an item or character, but the text itself was a different matter entirely.

The series of symbols flashed across her laptop, shaking as if they were being spoken by someone… or something. Wingdings…? Hope remembered that the unique font held a special place in Undertale, but was this… some sort of Easter egg? A glitch?

Hope's eyes widened, and before the text box closed with the random font, she snapped a picture of the screen with her phone. Just in time too, as the wingdings vanished a few seconds afterwards. "Okay then..." she nodded slowly, and cautiously took the controls again.

Once she brought the game finally to a close after giving the character's their happy ending, Hope opened up her search engine, and brought herself to a translator. Glancing to and from her phone, Hope carefully typed the random wingdings into the filter.

"Now, let's see what happens." She clicked enter. "Oh my… hehe. That's what that glitch was?"

The translated text on the other side of the screen both confused and astounded her. comicsans; along with a series of numbers attached at the end that resembled an email address, making her blink in bemusement. "What the font? What sort of Easter egg is this?" Hope stared at the laptop, puzzled and trying to make sense of the newly given information. "Okay, this is… weird. So… my game all of a sudden wants to give me a random email address that supposedly belongs to Sans. That's… that's-oh who am I fooling. This is freaking weird as heck." She sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.

Think Hope. You have an obvious glitch on your hands. What do you do with it? She lowered her hand, and stared at the email address, mentally debating on what she was going to do, until…

"Ugh. Forget this." She opened another tab, and brought up her email account. "It's probably fake anyway." Hope typed in the email address, and paused at the message board. What do I say? She closed her eyes in thought, before breaking into a grin. "I got it."

She smiled as her fingers dashed across the keyboard, the clicking echoing in her quiet bedroom. It was short, but it was a perfect message. Hope wanted some way to say goodbye to the wonderful game, and the odd glitch had given her a wonderful opportunity. A chance to voice her thoughts to the game, possibly the game creator himself, on how the game had affected her. Even if it is through the idea of it being Sans I'm speaking to, it's still pretty clever.

Now… how should I sign this? Hope thought over what to end it with. Her name seemed a little too simple, but what could she possibly put? Should she put the name she used for herself in the game? Nonetheless, the perfect conclusion popped into her head, and Hope smirked as she formed the last few words on the email.

Sincerely, the Legendary Fartmaster. Hey, this is his fault for using that as a code.

Hope brought the mouse over to the send button, and hesitated. Why am I… so nervous? I mean, it's just a glitch, right? Nodded in affirmation, she clicked send; the popup indicated it was sent. "And that's… that."

A few weeks flew by, and Hope continued life as normal, not giving one single thought to the unusual glitch Undertale had provided her. Life went on, with preparations for the end of high school fast approaching, and trying to hunt down her prom dress. Scholarships were sent, and the wonderful joy that came with application form after application form tagged along with it. After all, a video game was the least important thing to her, and so it was pushed to the back of her head.

It wasn't until one day, in the evening after running through calculus problems, she found herself hovering the arrow over the Undertale icon. "Not today, guys. You're not being forced to reset under my watch." She smiled in remembrance, before moving on to check for any new messages in her email. "Let's see if any letters have been received yet." However, instead of what she had hoped to come across, there was a certain sender that stood out from the rest. Is that…?

Hope quickly clicked on the link, and found herself gaping at the screen. The message took up the left side, as it should, but… but why should she have been given a response!?

Right below the sent email to the glitch, was a reply written in… "c-comic… sans!?"

so… you think this is some kind of sick game, do you?


How smothered Sans had felt in the Underground, when compared to life on the surface, was unbelievable. Humans, despite the initial fear they'd shown in the beginning, were more than welcoming to the monsters. Of course, there were those ones who wished they remained down under the mountain, but he didn't care much more for any heated stares. It was only a few weeks after the kid had destroyed the barrier, and freed everyone once again. Frisk was extremely pleased with themselves, and how well they had handled the reset this round. No fighting, no trouble. Everything went as peaceful as it normally would on a pacifist run.

But still… Sans couldn't help but feel nervous.

The pain of remembering the past resets and timelines weighed heavily on the short skeleton. Frisk had personally told him that they were done with playing with the timelines, and that they were perfectly happy with what they had achieved this time. A strange thing, coming from them. They had never promised to stop before. Yet, seeing that it was so long ago now, he almost could say the kid was being truthful.

It was also no surprise to Sans. He sometimes would hear the child's screams for help from down the hall where they slept. It was no wonder that Frisk wanted to stay in the present. Frisk would occasionally sneak into his room, and curl up next to him in tears. The poor child thankfully never was a bloodthirsty killer, thank goodness. At least… as far as they could remember. However, they still suffered from nightmares about murdercup, the demon child, and the idea of having to leave the young prince in the Underground alone.

Of course, that was only sometimes. Frisk had gotten a lot better at dealing with their night terrors, and after talking to Sans about it, felt a lot better. He could relate. After the first couple resets, he would have trouble sleeping too, in fear that he would wake up… and not have Papyrus alongside him.

But according to the kid, he no longer had to worry about that. "It's alright, Sans!" They had replied, hugging the skeleton with their face buried in his hoodie. "I promised you that there'd be no more resets, remember?"

He did remember. Frisk would continue telling him that whenever he showed any sign of apathy. Still… he wanted to try at least something to get his mind off the timelines, and now… he finally had the perfect distraction.

Sans stood in his lab, staring down the old machine he had lugged up with him from his old home. Papyrus and him had brought most of what they owned with them when they moved into the new house they shared with Toriel and Frisk. The taller brother was ecstatic to see the final outcome of his finished room, while Sans only brought with him a few basic materials. Moving up to the surface, after being down there for so long, material objects didn't hold so much worth to him anymore. Although, without his brother's knowledge, he did sneak a few pictures and blueprints from his old lab with him. Papyrus didn't need to know though. Nobody did.

The machine itself to Sans, was one of his greatest hopes, and disappointments. Besides the resets, Sans could remember a lot of over things that most monsters weren't even aware of. Such as LOVE, EXP… and the old royal scientist.

W.D. Gaster. The name brought a small bittersweet grin to Sans. His father was one of the most brilliant monsters in the entire Underground; from manufacturing the Core, to the initial experiments with determination alongside Alphys. Though, this was all before he had accidentally fallen into his machine all those years ago, wiping the memory of his existence from everyone's memory except Sans'.

Sans shook his head, trying to clear away the depressing thoughts. Why was it him? Oh, just the painful fact he was present when it happened, and heard his father's screams as he fell to his demise. How he had cried-no. Sobbed, for days straight after that had happened. Papyrus couldn't get a word out of him for a week, and he had left his job working with Alphys right after that. There was no need to return there. Not after that.

He quickly shook his skull again. It always hurt to think back on those times, and he didn't need to distract himself. Not when he was so close. "no time to think like that now. time to get to work." He grabbed the blanket covering it, and yanked it off. The machine quietly hummed to life once Sans pressed a few buttons, and began his work once again.

What the machine did exactly, was something only he and Gaster knew. While Alphys was an assistant at the time, same as him, even she didn't know the true extent of the experiments. Gaster had built it to send out signals throughout the void; a black abyss where nothing existed… or at least, that's what everyone else thought. Gaster was determined though that his machine would get a response from somewhere in the void, to prove that there was something else that existed out there besides them. Sadly, his dream did not come to pass, as he soon fell into the Core just weeks after building the machine that stood before Sans, and was lost to the void himself. Dying doing something he loved… that was how he had wished to go.

But now, Sans had fully repaired the machine after they were freed from the Underground. Having been broken for so long, the warmth from the keyboard under his hands brought another smile to him. Sans knew that deep down, it was a long shot in his attempts at reaching the old royal scientist. But he was determined that it would work, no matter what.

The signals that were emitted were still in Gaster's signature font: wingdings. Sans had asked him why he insisted on using those weird symbols, but all he had gotten was:

"It'll be more fun to whoever receives the signal then, wouldn't you agree?"

Ah, he had nodded in understanding. Good ol' Gaster.

It was a gamble, in actually getting a reply. So when the machine finally loaded, what a surprise to Sans when he had found the green screen displaying-

"a reply?" He said in disbelief. "can it be?" Sans leaned forward in his chair, looking at the writing scrawled across the dusty projector. "gaster?"

Hello, Sans. You may perhaps be wondering, who exactly is it that has contacted you out of the blue? Let's just say… I'm one of many, many anomalies. I guess that's the accurate term, so I'll roll with it. I won't bother you too much, as you probably have a lot on the go already. So I'll just get straight to the point.

Thank you. Thank you for everything you have done for the entire Underground. I know that the kid is mostly responsible for freeing you all, but you deserve a hand too. After all, you were the one watching out for them the whole time. Through the good… and the bad.

I may not know if you even remember all timelines, but I can assure you, that I am not responsible for any genocides Frisk had committed. As I said earlier, there are many anomalies. I am just one of the few who are willing to show mercy, and only reset in order for everyone to get their true happy ending.

Don't sell yourself short, Sans. You don't deserve so much pain. I know that your brother and Frisk would not want to see you hurting so much. I just wanna know thoughif you're happy now. The nightmares, the pain… is it all gone? I just wanna let you know, that if there was ever any pain it caused, I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Whatever it was, I did it to bring you to the surface, for good this time. After all… why would anyone want to remain in the dark for the rest of their life?

I believe I've taken up enough of your time. I wish you the best of luck, Sans.

Sincerely, the Legendary Fartmaster.

"oh… my god."

Sans gaped at the screen in shock. The fact his super secret password was added at the end more than confirmed that this message was from the anomaly, but… there was more than one of them?

He could also see that whoever this specific anomaly was, they didn't appear to be malicious in their actions. They actually thought they were doing him a favor, in fixing the timeline so that they could all reach the surface. True, it did work all out in the end, but who's to say that they wouldn't reset again? And who's to say they weren't lying? The message however, did say that they had only reset to get their happy ending. That being said… Sans wasn't quite sure what to think. He squeezed his sockets shut, trying to come up with an answer. How could someone who would constantly destroy their memories and lives, feel so much guilt towards them? And who's to say that they weren't lying to him?

"so that's how you wanna play, huh?" His sockets darkened, and his left eye flashed a bright blue as his fingers ran along the keyboard. The fire from the hole waved past his head, as he thought out exactly what he wanted to say. "hehehe. well, two can play at that game."

so… you think this is some kind of sick game, do you?

you really think you didn't want to cause us any harm? to rip away our freedom over, and over again? but Sans paused, the blue blaze lowering for a moment. What if this person was… really who they said they were? Should he be tempting fates, on someone who could alter their timeline and boot him back to the Underground? aw, screw it. but if you really are who you say you are…

then prove it.


So, there you go! It's perfectly natural to have Sans doubting Hope, seeing how he's been played so many times in the past. But, I would think that after everything he's been through, it would make sense that he's just a little curious in finally getting an answer.

AngelPines OUT!