Reaper stared out at the emptiness as if, at any moment, it might hold something again. The emptiness in the fabric of the Multiverse had not always been so. Up until a few hours ago it had held an AU. Reaper had never seen anything like what had happened there before.

He had been hanging out with his brother and his son when a huge wave of deaths had ripped through him. They were sudden and violent, so that meant they were Reaper's business. Besides, Grim had been working so much lately. He deserved a break. Reaper had stood up, said something to his family that he didn't honestly remember, and opened a portal to the scene of the devastation.

At first it had just been an AU full of dust and ghosts. Then, with a speed that would have scared Reaper if he didn't know he couldn't die, the remaining ghosts had been turned into dust. Reaper had taken their souls into his possession and waited for the RESET. It didn't come. Instead he had felt a whole new kind of death sweep over him. He had been thrust into the Void, the fabric between universes in the Multiverse that few could survive in. There were islands of safety in it, like the Gaster house, the Doodle Sphere, and the Save Screen. None of them were nearby.

He clung to the souls of the former ghosts and watched in shock as the whole AU they had come from… disintegrated. He'd seen the husks of AUs that had long since been abandoned, but he had never seen one die. Now he was forced to stare at the soul timer of an entire AU. It looked… large. Empty. Resigned. Forlorn.

Reluctantly, Reaper got out his scythe. The AU's soul didn't appear to be refilling as he would have expected from a RESET. It just hung there, waiting. He didn't disappoint it. He swiftly cut through the center of it, hearing that heartbreaking shatter of glass that he dreaded more than any other sound. The scattered pieces of the soul timer drifted apart into the Void and then dissolved into the little ones and zeros that he could only assume were code. The Void was soon filled with the shattering of soul timers as Reaper worked his way through the lives of the ghosts. There was no point in holding onto them. They had nowhere left to go.

That left Reaper in his current state: floating listlessly in the Void and watching the emptiness that had once held an AU. He was stuck on one feeling that made no sense - this felt good for the Multiverse. Why would the death of an entire AU feel good for the Multiverse? He needed to investigate more.

His reverie was broken by his phone's beep. Reaper quickly pulled it out and opened the text.

Grim: Goth thinks that you're mad at him because of his crush on Palette. Get back here and reassure him. I can't stand the tears!

Reaper grunted and opened a portal back to his living room. Goth was clinging to Grim and bawling his eyes out. Reaper gulped and knelt on the floor, closing the portal to the lack of an AU behind him. "gothy, it's me. can you look at me for a second?"

Goth turned around, tears still falling out of his one good eye.

Reaper smiled sadly. "thank you, goth. now, what makes you think i'm mad at you? i'm really not, you know."

Goth sniffed. "But you said you had to go and didn't give me any time to hug you goodbye!"

"oh. sweetie, i'm not mad at you, i just… there was a big bunch of deaths, okay? a lot of them. so i had to go deal with it. i'm sorry for upsetting you. why did you think it was because of your crush on palette? i'm not upset about that, i'm just a little sad and surprised that i didn't see it before. your first crush is special. can you tell me a bit about it?"

And just like that a smile came back to Goth's face. "Yes! I'd love to tell you about it. It all started when…"

Reaper listened to his son with a combination of shock and happiness. How could his son remember all these things about Palette? It seemed like a lot, especially when Goth went into details about every snack and drink they'd ever had when they got together. Reaper didn't even remember stuff like that!


Error tried to roll when the portal he'd made spat him out into the dusty snow of a new AU, but he didn't really succeed. The dust joined the remnants of the ghosts in his lungs. He coughed hard to try to clear it out.

Ew, gross! Don't swallow that stuff! That's like cannibalism!

Error ignored the voice. When he finally could breathe without choking, Error sat up and looked around. The landscape was vaguely familiar, but, then again, so had the forest with the ghosts. Error knew that every world would be like that. The basic shape of the Underground seemed to have been copied in every universe he had even been in. It made navigation easy, but… something felt too familiar about this Underground. He looked around, desperate to try to understand what it was. That was when he saw them. He froze.

Red and Edge were towards him, engrossed with talking to each other and playing with their phones. Crap. He couldn't hurt them - they were his brothers! He'd been friends with them for as long as he'd known Reaper. Wasn't this world supposed to be locked, too?

Oh, no, not this world. This is one of the most popular Underfells out there! Why would Fate want you to destroy this world?

Error stiffened his spine, stood up, and threw a quick portal onto the ground. It hurt! It felt like the magic was being torn out of him by a handful of lemons sprinkled with salt, but he powered through it. He'd lived on the edge of death for hundreds of thousands of RESETs. He could handle this much pain.

And what do you think you're doing, Destroyer? The painful voice of Fate rang like thunder in his head. He ignored it, and her, and dragged his screaming body full of pain through the portal.

As he turned his head, unable to resist looking back as the portal closed, Error saw Red and Edge staring after him, calling out. He tore his eyes away from them and closed the portal. It hurt, doing that. He wanted nothing more than to run over to them and cry. He wanted to know what had been happening with everyone in the picture of his, the one from that summer day, but he especially wanted to know about Goth and Reaper. How were they doing? Had Reaper finally found out about Goth's little crush?

He couldn't do it, though. He could already feel the pain building in the marrow of his bones. He had defied Fate. She had wanted him to destroy that world and he had not. There was bound to be a price. He was just thankful that it didn't involve his family. He would do anything for his family… including enduring any amount of pain.

Next time it will be them, Destroyer. I do not take disobedience lightly.