LOUDERTALE

by Superdimentio77

When Lincoln wins a free reservation at a resort, he of course invites all of his family to join him. But when said resort is standing next to a certain mountain, their visit up the mount might extend the Loud Siblings' trek by a little bit. What friendship and trials await them? Look out Underground, here come the Louds.

10. Snowdin, Part 1

LOUDERTALE

Arc 2 : Snowdin

Part 1 : The one you were all waiting for (Now, off my lawn !)

Author's Note : (*Boring crowd hearing a loony guy going on and on about how Lincoln never did anything wrong EVER, until he's pushed away by the door being kicked down. Enters one cool-looking jester.*)

Random reader : It's Superdimentio77, with the first Skelebro chapter !

Le Moi : Hi, kids !

(*High-pitched teen girl screaming*)

Free plate of spaghetti for the first one who catches the reference.

But anyway, hello guys and gals ! Yes, it is time ! It is finally time for the two fan-favourite to make their entrance into the story ! Are you excited ?! (*Shrill adoring screams, some depicting how Sans should use his cartilage to amuse them in a rather suggestive way.*) Yeesh, less excited please, there are children watching !

I'd like to give special thanks to those who reviewed and faved this story. You are the people who keep me going, keep having great ideas, and just being plain awesome.

But enough of those time-consuming words you probably skipped ! Enjoy this chapter !

---

It had been done. At last, the Louds were out of the Ruins. The Underground and its wonders were finally opening up to them. Something so grand, an event so large in importance needed something exciting. Famous words that would forever implement themselves in the history of both Loud and Underground !

"Who the heck left the freezer door open ?!"

Perfect. But back to fictional reality, will ya ?

Our heroes were out of the Ruins, standing by the closed doors encompassed by bright purple structure, and were now totally understanding the need for winter outfits.

A white blanket of snow unfolded under their multicoloured snow boots, not even near Lisa's ankles, but high enough for its crunching effect to be felt by the sibs. In front of them, a dense forest of bare trees with trunks that seemed to go all the way up to the 'sky'. And on the right, a neat little path evenly cutting into the millions of white little snowflakes. The air felt fresh, almost nippy, and nowhere as dry as were the Ruins.

"Can't argue with you there, dudette." Luna nodded at Lynn's comment. "Thank you Tori. If not for her, we'd be feeling fresher than Mick's last album right now."

"I'd say that at the exception of myself and maybe Lucy, it would've been immediate hyporthemia for our small party." analysed Lisa in her usual neutral tone.

"Dang it." Lucy snapped her fingers.

"C'mon Luce, now's not the time to think about that, we've got a quest to accomplish ! Or are you already getting cold feet ? Get it ?" cracked Luan, earning herself groans and a vampire-like hissing from the goth herself, both for the pun and the mockery.

Lori rolled her eyes, and shook her head. "Joking aside, it's nice to see some snow again. Even though last time was litteraly less than pleasant because of a certain school maniac."

Girls and boy pointedly looked at their bespectacled sister, who nervously looked around. "Alright, I do admit that my methods that day were a tad... forceful."

"A tad ?!" uproared Lola threateningly. "I took so much snow in the face, that my make-up cracked and shattered ! I almost wetted myself when I saw it !"

"Yeah, and it took me half an hour to get the snow out of my pants. And then I had to take a hot bath !" pursued Lana, gripping her little sister by the collar of her pear-coloured coat, and dropping her voice into a low hissing. "With lavender-scented soap. Hops was fleeing from me like I wanted to eat him. One day, you will pay the price."

Upon release, Lisa dusted herself and cleared her throat. "Very well, I hit you with the vigor of a driverless bulldozer. But you cannot deny that my intentions were for the greater good of your learning process and cortex developpement. Missing less days of school means a better understanding of your school program, thus less chances of failure at the end of the year, and reducing chances of going to the Summer School you dread so much. Conclusion, I have saved your Summer Holidays. You are much welcome- YEEEP !"

"Oh yeah ? Here's your prize then." slyly grinned Lynn as she poured a nice big snowball down Lisa's neck, who began frantically hopping around while squeaking out of the sheer cold dragging down her back. The sight brought chuckles out of the others.

After finally getting every last trace of snow from her spine, Lisa shot a dark glance at everyone, and grumbled, "T-This was petty revenge, and you know it."

"Oh c'mon, you're not that small Lisa." said Leni, giving the exasperated genius a gentle pat on the head.

"Not petite, Leni, petty. As in childish." explained Lori, getting an understanding "Oh !" from the ditzy blonde. "Alright, we had our fun at Lisa's expense. Now, onward people ! Let's find our ticket back to the Surface !"

"Poo-poo !" followed Lily assertively. With the orders now clear, the kids began to depart. Lincoln though, stopped for an instant. Looking at his left, next to the door, stood a big green bush covered with snow. But the plant itself wasn't what had drawn the boy's gaze. Amongst the little leaves, Lincoln could see something peeking out of them, reflecting the little bits of sunlight allowed... somewhere ?

Lincoln could almost swear he was seeing... a camera's lens ?

"Lincoln ! What're you doing bro ?!" half-scolded Luna, with all the girls adressing confused glances at their only brother. "Don't drag behind, we gotta stay tight !"

Lincoln jolted out of his train of thought, and immediately ran back to his sisters. "Sorry, got distracted for a second." he apologised.

Luan nudged her brother. "What happened ? Was your narrator guy beating around the bush again ? Hahaha !"

With only more groans as general answer, the children departed, leaving the huge door, as well as the bush and its mysterious contents alone once more.

Somewhere far away, a sweating recluse sighed in relief...

---

The path that they followed was quite large, with rows upon rows of trees surrounding them. The sight wasn't very reassuring, and the almost complete lack of noise wasn't making it any favour.

"Man, reminds me of 'ARGGH !''s Christmas Special, 'The Ice Witch's haunted woods'." commented Lincoln to find a way to fill the oppressive silence. "Great episode, especially since it gave some neat character developpement to that old Groucho of the Academy's Director who sometimes appeared at a window from its office to yell at Hunter and his friends."

"Meta." drawled Lucy.

"Huh ?"

"Nothing."

"Empty road, and bare poles all over. It's just like the last Winter Sales, after everything had been taken off. And then, when I found the cutest pair of boots hidden under one of the shelves, hundreds of crazy girls jumped on me, biting and clawing at my poor hair !" recalled Leni in horror, as she hid behind a not much more reassured Luan.

"Those sales can be pure evil. They play on your mind." acknowledged Lola with squinted eyes. "I remember being one of the biters that attacked you, and those boots were not even my size !"

But of course, the boldest of the Louds couldn't help but chuckle mockingly at the fear in her siblings' demanour. "Pssh, you guys are being sissies right now. I mean c'mon, our basement is scarier than this place !"

"You have not seen many 'abandonned woods' movies, have you ?" suddenly spoke Lucy, almost getting a scared yelp out of her roommate. But Lynn-sanity held on strong.

"And until I'm assured that there aren't Canis Lupus in those woods, I choose the wary and more secured state of mind, thank you very much." lisped Lisa, shyly looking left and right. Lily offered one of her dummies for comfort, but Lisa still had a bit of pride to salvage, and politely refused.

"I approve this idea ! If it means leaving another day, then it ain't so much of a foliage !" Silence was shortly replaced by an echo of facepalms over Luan's bad pun. "What, was this joke a little... wooden ?"

*Pomf !*

Such was the sound of Lana having enough and throwing a snowball at her sister's face. Luan tried opening her mouth to follow with another joke, but closed it when she saw Lana The Kid bouncing another snowball in her hand, immediately getting the message.

"Man, c'mon guys !" grunted Lynn in exasperation. "We've just looked Flowey right in the eye ! If any real scary monster comes around, like that ASGORE, I'll just poke him in the eye with a stick !"

"How big of a stick ?" humoured Luna.

Lynn's face scrunched up in thought, then brightened up when she saw something on the path they were trudging on. It was a branch, and quite the big one at that. It was at least as tall as Lori, and a tad wider than Lynn's own arm. It sat there, stiff yet meaning business at the same time. Lynn happily zoomed up to it, and with a bit of traction, hoisted it up in the air.

"How about this one, huh ?!" boasted Lynn, her arms barely trembling despite the strain she was giving them. If anything, the effort only reinforced her will to hold on. "With that sweet baby, monsters won't even think of attacking anymore ! We'll get to negociations for a Spare must faster that way !"

"Yeaaaah, I'm gonna have to say no here." said Lori in a deadpan tone.

"What ? Why ?!"

"Because while the idea does hold up, not only we won't be able to fit it in our bags, meaning you'll have to meaninglessly carry it everywhere we go, most likely annoying people on the way; but this branch is also very huge and pointy, and if you poke our eyes with it, I litteraly don't think it'll be a pleasant experience."

"I'll be careful with it ! Pleaaaase ? C'mon Lincs, back me up here !" pleaded Lynn with her glimmering puppy-dog eyes. However, the boy was showing to be rather imprevious to it. The brunette had already burned down the cute effect by too many uses and way too little payback to it. So except if it was for something very important, no dice.

"No offense Lynn, but you and 'careful' don't really go together. I'm with Lori on this one, sorry."

"I can so be careful !" replied Lynn indignantly, whipping her arm around, and the branch nearly hitting the ducking Loud siblings, who immediately adressed pointed glares. Lynn sheepishly smiled, then relented with a grumble. "You guys are spoilsports, nothing else." she pouted, releasing her hold on the branch.

"I'm sure we'll find something, you know, smaller. And one that's more Lynn !" offered Lincoln. It got a smile and a playful punch to the shoulder from Lynn, and the group proceeded forward.

"Yeah, why not ? Still, it would've taken one buff monster to not be impressed of that stick ! I'd like to meet the guy who could get rid ot it-"

*SNAP !*

Stiff. That was how a good photographer would have described the Louds' poses in this perfect freeze frame. As for their faces, they reflected a perfect mix of cold shock and 'Oh, chocolate fudge sundae'.

The Loud Pack slowly turned around, praying that this sound had only been a collective illusion, or the echo of something very far away from them. But their hopes were promptly dashed away when they saw the crushed bits that remained of the tough-looking branch, as if something huge had just stepped onto it.

"Y'know what ? Never mind. My life will be just as neat if I don't meet that guy ever." nervously laughed Lynn. Odds were something the young athlete strongly believed in, and she just might have taunted them a little too hard.

"I don't think we should be stopping waiting for them either." noted Lori. "Keep walking, you guys."

More tense than ever, the Louds did so. The eleven pairs of eyes were shifting at a most impressive speed, and one could wonder how they could be sweating that much by such a cold weather.

"Luna, I know I'm the nerdy gamer, but don't you have your l-l-little expertise in that kind of g-g-games ?" poked Lincoln through clattering teeth.

"That I do, bro. That's why if I hear any whirring sound, or "Come to Mama...", I'm flipping the lid faster than good ol' Jimmy's solos." whisper-answered Luna with a pale face.

"There's no reason to be afraid, there's no reason to be afraid." repeated Lola in a mantra fashion. She then took a very zen expression. "Just think of your happy place. A nice big beach, with nice white sand, you comfortably sitting in a comfy beach chair, a fresh sundae in your hand-"

*Chomp, chomp, chomp*

The sound of footsteps in the snow once again threw the Louds off-guard, but as they quickly whipped around, nothing. Not even the single trace of a footstep in the snow. Although for a mere milli-second... they could have sworn they'd seen a shadow disappearing behind the trees.

"-And a bright view on the killer coming out of the blood red water with a rusty hook and an icebox with your name on it !" yelled Lola in a hysterical high-pitched tone. If not for her twin grabbing onto her pink scarf, the princess would've zoomed forward like no tomorrow ! Not the smartest thing to do in that kind of situation...

"Get a grip, girl ! Now's not the time to lose it !" berated Lana as she pinched Lola's arm to get her back on her heeled feet. Out of their primal twin instincts however, Lola counter-attacked with a pinch of her own, and the two were soon enough locked into a Slappy Fight, quickly broken up by Lincoln.

"Okay, change of gear. Run." ordered a wide-eyed Lori. The Louds did not need to hear it twice, and ran ahead, with the more fit helping the less sportive to pick up speed. Leni especially got to take Lisa under her arm, much to the prodigy's utter embarassement. A strange pressuring atmosphere was getting more and more thick as they progressed down, sending chills right through their very hearts, but certainly not stopping them in their tracks.

What did manage to stop them though was the coming of a small wooden bridge, one that didn't look very sturdy, and decked of a strange set of big wooden bars, way too wide to have any effect whatsoever. A dark and deep hole stood right under the bridge, one that no one wanted to fall into.

"STOOOP !" shouted Lincoln, as they all skidded down to a halt. "We can't cross the bridge at the same time, it'll break apart like a twig !"

"Who cares about that ?!" retorted Lynn agressively. "I might've not seen a lot of those movies, but if there's one thing I do know, is that you never stop when the killer might be tailing you ! Horror Movie 101 right here !"

"Actually, 'Horror Movie 101' is to never split up." remarked Lucy.

"Hmm, split... banana split... Totes could go for one." Leni connected the dots in her own way. Her comment did not win her any favour though.

"Leni, that was a good one. But this is not the time to be thinking about your stomach !" chided Luan.

A small argument managed to break through the children. Old habits died hard after all, but never had it been in the face of a true danger. So much that for an instant, they had completely forgotten about the very reason they were having that argument.

But it seemed the reason didn't like to be ignored...

*Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, CHOMP*

"Human."

The argument instantly died, leaving only a cold-sweated silence. The footsteps sounds and the proximity of the voice did not lie here. Whoever that worrisome stranger may be, they were standing right behind them.

"Well ? Don't you know know how to... greet a new pal ?"

There was something about the tone employed here that seemed to render the kids' minds and bodies completely numb with fright. The stranger's voice wasn't loud or especially threatening, it held no real animosity. But it held power. Mysterious and oppressive power.

"It's easy. Just turn around and shake my hand."

"Do we really have to ?" squeaked Lana.

"We should. Angering them will only make things worse. Plus, it leaves the killer just the time to get his weapon ready to strike." murmured Lucy with clear fear in her voice.

They all stood in baited breath for a moment, every one of them with dozens of thoughts rushing and swirling inside their heads. They knew something had to be done, but the pressure given by this stranger kept their feet cemented to the very spot they stood. Even Lily didn't dare to coo or whimper.

…

But at last, with a deep breath, Lori decided to take the first step. She had vowed to be the leader they'd need for this adventure, and by Bobby's cute little beard, now was a good time as ever to prove it ! Thus, Lori passed Lily to Luna, and turned around to face the stranger.

Lori could not clearly tell what the stranger looked like, as the figure stood shrouded in mysterious shadows. One thing she could tell however, was that whoever this was, had a rather short and stout stature. She estimated him or her to be about Lynn's size, maybe Luan's. Speaking of which, through the shadows, Lori could almost perceive a grin that was no stranger to the comedienne's own, but came as more than a bit unsettling.

The figure extended an arm, with five quite slim looking fingers. Lori eyed it for a second, then summoned up all the courage she had inherited from Toriel, and reached out the hand with her own for a firm and meaningful handshake.

*PFFRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrtttt...*

Pressure and swirling thoughts left the Louds as if they had been blasted away from a big gust of wind (*Rimshot*), leaving their minds blank. All they could do was blink at the rather odd sound they had just heard. Until...

"It was my shoes !" blurted Lori out of instinct. Her face immediately went bashfully red upon realising what she had just said.

And all hell broke loose.

"WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !" erupted the ten other kids in hilarity, to a level the 'Loox Eye-walker' incident paled to in comparaison.

"O-O-Oh my flippin' gosh ! This was golden !" laughed Lincoln, holding his sides.

"The t-t-timing couldn't have been more exact here !" cracked up Lisa with tears going all over her glasses. "Hahahaha, oh my poor unirary bladder !"

"S-Some people have talent for comedy." began Luan with her big goofy grin, that only meant one thing. "And you, Lori, I can tell that you have a true fla-talent !" The laughs only doubled at that pun, to the point where even Lucy was tearing up.

"hehehe, nice follow-up there, lady." spoke the figure, but covered by the shadows no longer. As the others were too busy laughing their butts off, Lori was the one to take the first good look at him.

The blonde now understood why his fingers looked and felt so thin. The new monster was a living skeleton ! And a rather pudgy one at that. The guy sported a blue hoodie with a white shirt underneath, large black shorts that reached to his ankles, and... pink slippers at his feet ? Other than those few elements, this was a true bag of bones that was standing in front of Lori, alive as can be, but looking a bit odd for a human skeleton. His skull was rather large and round, he had two white dots shining like pupils inside his eyesockets, and he held an unfaltering chesire smile. The big sister didn't quite know what to make of that last element...

"boy, the whoopie-cushion-in-the-hand trick." chuckled the monster in the most laid-back way the Louds had ever heard. It was different from Luna's, which had constant energy behind it. Here however, there was barely any, making it sound as lazy as possibly be. "heh, always a classic, am i right ?"

"Agreed ! It's a comedic fart !" jabbed Luan, renewing waves of laughter from her fellow siblings. All Lori could do was to roll her eyes in silent fury. She just had to remind them of that event, which had in fact never happened.

No really, it was her shoes ! Believe her !

"heh, nice bunch of friends you've got there. not one looking like the other, not even the two who should." piped in the skeleton monster.

Lori, though still annoyed, gained a grin. "What if I told you we're all closely related ?"

The monster's grin stood still, but his eyesockets widened by a noticeable inch. "all of you ?" he asked, to which Lori nodded. "heh, shower time in the morning must be something, huh ?"

"You have NO idea..."

"nope, i pretty much don't. i'd like a morning shower, but there are only so much times a guy can take a nap..." he shrugged indifferently.

"...You're quite the type of guy who prides himself being lazy, aren't you ?" drawled Lori, straight to the point. After that answer, the monster's 'jitters quota' had been reduced to pratically nothing. But the eldest Loud still didn't dare letting her guard down. They had been charmed by a goofily friendly guy once, and the result had left more than a sour taste in their mouths. None of the humans would look at buttercups the same way ever again.

And for what they knew, this guy could be working up a trap to get them all for that ASGORE's plan. Heck, what if he was ASGORE ?! Acknowledging this, Lori immediately turned to her siblings, and whistled through her thumb and index between her lips. The sharp sound got the siblings to stop laughing, even though some were still snickering and snorting, deperately trying not to look at Lori's footwear.

And as they got back on their feet, the ten truly acknowledged the monster's presence with both curiosity and caution, staying sharp but not wanting to seem or sound rude. "Soooo... who are you exactly ?" tried Lincoln.

"hey you're right, manners are important. the name's sans. sans the skeleton." winked Sans rather playfully. (Somewhere, not necessarily in the same place, hundreds of sansgirls rejoiced.) There was a short moment of relieved silence upon learning that the dreadful ASGORE was not standing before them, before Sans cocked an eyebrow and his grin got a little wider. "well ? the polite game plays both ways, you know ?"

The kids blushed and grinned sheepishly. Lori especially, after getting so many 'lady tips' from Goat Mom herself. "Hehe, right. Well, I'm Lori Loud, eldest sibling and leader of our little clique." she advanced to shake his hand, but made sure to look if there wasn't a second embarrassing trap in it. She saw none, gripped Sans' hand for the second time, and proceeded with the presentations.

"So, in order, we have Leni. Our fashion expert and good heart."

"Hello !" Leni waved rather exaggeratedly.

"Luna, our local wise troubadour."

"Jolly good day, eh ?" Luna swiftly went into British Mode with a friendly smile.

"Luan, always with a pun up her sleeves, or even ponytail."

"Excuse my french, but bone-jour !" hit Luan with a good-natured laugh.

"Lynn, fast and strong junior athlete, and Michigan's best sub eater."

"And I still stay fit." boasted the brunette with her usual ego, flexing her slender but strong arm.

"Lincoln, our only brother and usually our man with a plan."

"Nice to meet you !" cheerfully said Lincoln, feeling especially proud for his 'man with a plan' title to have been mentioned, which didn't happen often. His smile quickly diminished when he noticed the intense glance that Sans seemed to be keeping on him. Not only was he not that familiar with being in the spotlight from someone other than his family, with his sisters overshadowing him quite often, but there was just something unnerving in the way the stout skeleton kept looking at him, like he had done something bad. Or was to do something bad...

"Lucy, young poet and friend to all unliving things."

"You seem to be an adept of the eternal slumber as well. Good." dryly said Lucy while doing a courteous little bow.

Sans nodded. "too true, spooky."

"Lana, not afraid of any dirty work, or even of the dirt itself."

"I roll in the mud and can fix up your toilets like nobody !" asserted the tomboy, before scratching her chin in wonder. "Wait, do you even need to go ?"

"Lola, beauty and glitter expert, pageant rising star."

"If you need any beauty tip, I'll graciously give you one, for free ! The second though..." chuckled Lola with a bit of mischevious interest in her tone.

"Lisa, our pocket brainiac, setting aside cube sets for cryptic notes and beakers full of the wildest components."

"Overlooking the crude aspect of my description, I do pride myself of my intellectual skills, and would more than pleased to share them with you." concurred Lisa. "They don't call me Doctor Loud for nothing, you know."

"And last but not least, Lily. The youngest of us, and our main moral support."

"Poo-poo !" cooed Lily with a small wave.

"That's all of us. We're the Louds, a tight group of siblings with a clear objective." resumed Lori with a firm nod. Her gesture was eerily mirrored by her siblings, and Lori went back to them, taking a happy Lily into her arms once more.

'hmm, lively group of humans for sure.' silently analysed Sans, taking a good look at each of their energies. But every time he passed by a certain Loud, his gaze stopped. 'readings like this... no doubt he initiated the load. And yet, it's like he doesn't feed off this energy just from himself. from the others as well, and something else... but what ?'

Sans rattled his brain, trying to make some sense of what he was looking at, but eventually realised it wasn't worth the headache yet. 'hmm, let's put a pin on it for now. they look pretty nice anyway, and not in a fake way like weedy when he first showed up. best to just keep watching them, see how things go, keep hopeful. it's been a good string of new days after all, and i'm sure he'll be happy to see them. might even get some friends out of it. and, well...

'For their sake and mine, let's just hope we don't become enemies.'

"Um, hello ? Like, are you sleeping ?" called out Leni, bringing the monster back to reality.

"He does seem like the kind of guy that takes a nap on the fly." assumed Lola. And she was not too far from the truth.

"i'm up, i'm up." chuckled Sans with a wave of his hand. "just thinking about how to go from there. it's tiring just from thinking about it."

"What's the hussle ? Can we help ?" asked Luna.

"in a way, you can. see, i'm actually a sentry employed by the Royal Guard, and my job is to be on the lookout for any humans that pass here. never expected to find so many at the same time though." earnestly explained Sans. The siblings took a cautious step back, but he was quick to reassure them. "hey, no need to freak out. it is my job to capture you, but... it's just not my thing. too much work in general."

"Then, why did you even take the job ?" questionned Lori, thoroughly confused.

"pays the bills, free coupons for glamburgers, and of course, the mandatory breaks." explained Sans with a wink.

"Man, and I thought Lincoln on a Sunday was lazy." snickered Lana.

"Yeah... hey !"

"So, am I to understand you are not going to drag us into another quirky confrontation ?" tried Lisa with a touch of hope.

"nah. i only fight when i feel like it, and now's just not the time. which is pretty much never." shrugged the litteral lazybones, earning some relieved cheers from the Louds. But... "besides, i wouldn't want to spoil my brother's fun."

The kids stopped cheering. "Your... brother ? What about him ?" said Lincoln with renewed anxiety.

Sans' smile gained cheekiness. "y'see, my bro Papyrus, isn't really like me on humans. he's gotta be the most passionate monster about them. it's his dream to capture a human, and he's pretty much dead set on making it come true."

The Louds felt themselves being nervous once again. A monster that wanted nothing more than to capture one of them ? What if he was dangerous ? Could he be working for ASGORE ? This wasn't looking good. The kids began to frantically murmur amongst eachother to find a quick solution, but Sans managed to pierce through it with a single sentence.

"hey, actually, i think i hear him coming."

The sibs fell silent, and listened closely for any foreign sound. Sure enough, a distinct sound of footsteps could be heard, close to a stomping. The humans' nervosity only doubled from there.

"Oooh, what do we do ?! The situation isn't looking very ice if you ask me !" punnicked Luan. Sans seemed to appreciate it.

"Could our journey be already ending ? Sigh, kinda anticlimatic." monotonedly stated Lucy.

"Panic and defeatism aren't gonna make it any better, so everyone settle down !" firmly ordered Lori, keeping a cool head. (Sans, stop looking at me like this !) "There's got to be something we can do, we just have to think clearly."

"actually, i think i can help ya here." quipped Sans. He knew there was no real danger here, but better make them understand that he was on their side. For now...

"Really ?!" excitedly said the twins with twinkling eyes.

Sans pointed a finger ahead. "first off, go through that gate thingy. don't worry, the bridge's pretty strong, and my bro made the bars way too wide to stop anyone."

"Uh, why ?" asked Lynn.

"he said that it 'wouldn't make humans feel welcome enough'."

"Well, vertical stripes are two seasons ago, it's so better to quickly pass them." tsked Leni dismissively.

Humans and skeleton proceeded to cross the bridge, and quickly followed the path further to a small clearing. In it, stood a small wooden station, with snow on its roof and... condiment bottles of all sorts. A particularly big and bushy tree stood in the upper corner next to them, and next to them, was a lamp. This lamp... uh, Sans got it covered.

"okay, here's what we do : i'll handle paps. lincoln, you go hide between that conveniently-shaped lamp." explained Sans. And conveniently-shaped was about right, as from foot to top, the lamp was the perfect likeness of Lincoln's silhouette, down to his little tuft of hair.

"I have many questions about this." Lincoln raised a finger.

"But no time to get the answers ! Just do what he says !" cut in Lynn while pushing him behind the lamp. Lincoln grumbled a bit, but quickly took his position, perfectly hidden.

"as for you girls, go hide under that very luckily-placed tree." pursued Sans, nodding his head in the tree's direction.

"What if there's poison ivy in there ?" complained Lola, not nature's greatest fan.

"One, we've all got layers of clothing. And two, if having to scratch our butts for hours means not getting captured, then it's a risk we are taking." simply stated Lori.

"He's getting close, dudes ! Cheese it !" beckoned Luna, effectively making all the sisters run into the bushy area provided by the tree. It was quite the stuffed Tetris-like placement, with multiple grunts and small bickering to get everyone to fit ("Get your foot off my face !" "You get your face off my foot !"), but they eventually succeeded, with the bonus of all being able to peek out from the leaves.

Sans flashed a thumbs up, closed his eyes, and opened them when the sound of quick footsteps was as close as can be. His brother had arrived, and Sans gave him the most casual greeting a Sans sibling could give.

"heya bro. what's up ?"

"YOU VERY MUCH KNOW WHAT IS 'UP', BROTHER !" pratically yelled the new monster, who the Louds now knew as Papyrus. He was a skeleton as well, but that was where the similarities with Sans ended. In fact, Papyrus could hardly be any more different than their lazy new friend, even colourwise, with Sans' cool blue jacket contrasting against the tacky orange splashed onto most of Papyrus' clothing.

Where Sans was short and stout, Papyrus was tall and lanky, almost as tall as Toriel. His skull was skinnier, with a large jaw and thin eyesockets that didn't share his brother's pupils, but possessed thin black eyebrows instead, ones that were in quite the frowny mode. His hands were covered by orange mittens, he sported a white chest plate with golden hues, trims and a small orange symbol, blue briefs with a golden belt, and big orange snow boots. Around his neck was a long orange scarf, with the end going down his back like a small superhero cape.

But the biggest difference between the brothers were their natural auras. Sans' felt soothing, completely lax, but also enigmatic. Papyrus' felt earnest, radiant, and gave off such boundless energy, that if he was asked to do five laps around a field, there was little doubt that he would do the triple. On his hands. And on only one during the final lap.

At this moment though, Papyrus' energy was focused into scolding his apathetic brother. "EIGHT DAYS, SANS ! IT'S BEEN EIGHT DAYS SINCE THE LAST TIME YOU'VE RECALIBRATED YOUR PUZZLES ! I'VE FOUND THE LAST ONE HIDDEN UNDER THREE DAYS OF SNOW !"

"hey, you found it. good, i was pretty upset over losing it. it took me days to think of that one." proudly grinned Sans.

"IT WAS A SINGLE RAKE, WITH TWO ARROWS DRAWN ON THE SIDES, AND A SINGLE INSTRUCTION THAT SAID 'FOLLOW 'EM'. WHAT KIND OF A PUZZLE IS THAT ?!" ranted Papyrus, his bones rattling with annoyance. "I SWEAR, ALL YOU'VE BEEN DOING LATELY IS JUST SIT BEHIND YOUR STATION, AND WATCH THE SNOW FALL ! ARE YOU EVEN DOING SOMETHING REMOTELY PRODUCTIVE RIGHT NOW ?!"

"oh y'know, staring at this lamp, looking for pinecones under bushy trees, fun stuff." shrugged Sans carelessly. A humouring glint appeared in his eye. "wanna help ?"

"Oh my gosh, is he ratting us out ?!" whispered Lynn, not too happy at the sudden betrayal.

"It's a little early for accusations. It's not like we can see through him that easily." countered Luan with her usual comedic spirit.

"Shut it, both of you, you're gonna get us caught." hushed Lori with a stern glare. The two muttered apologies, and the sisters resumed their watching. Lincoln, in the meantime, was working hard to keep his position as steady as possible. Thank goodness for all his modeling times with Leni.

"ARGH, NO ! AS FUN OF AN ACTIVITY PINECONE SEARCHING IS, NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR DISTRACTIONS !" stomped Paprus like an ice-creamless child. The sight came off as oddly adorable to the girls watching it. "HUMANS HAVE BEEN SPOTTED, AND COULD BE ARRIVING ANY MINUTE NOW ! WE MUST BE READY ! I'VE GOT TO BE THE ONE TO CAPTURE THEM, LIKE NO MONSTER EVER DID ! IT'S MY DESTINY, SANS !"

A nonexistant breeze apparently began to blow, as Papyrus' cape floated with it. The loud skeleton took a proud pose, one hand on his hip and the other on his chest, and the most self-loving grin settling on his face. The guy was almost glowing with ego and confidence.

"THEN I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL FINALLY GET ALL THE THINGS I RIGHTFULLY DESERVE ! RECOGNITION, FAME, THE ADMIRATION OF THOUSANDS ! I'LL FINALLY GET MY PLACE IN THE ROYAL GUARD, AND RISE AS THE BEST SOLDIER THE UNDERGROUND HAS EVER KNOWN !" His eyes gained a hopeful gleam as he pressed his mittens against his bony cheeks. "FINALLY, PEOPLE WILL ASK... TO BE... MY FRIEND. SHOWERS OF KISSES EVERY MORNING, AND FIELDS OF AWE-FILLED SMILES EVERYWHERE I'LL GO !"

"Looks like the Narcissus of the year won't be for our little princess this time around." sniggered Luna, nudging the adressed.

"I may not get what you just said, but I know it's something bad. So..." Lola meaningfully pinched the rocker's leg, who quieted her yelp to a slight hiss. "Besides, that guy's pretty funny."

"Yeah, he's like one big goofball." added Lana rather joyously. "And did you hear that ? The guy just wants a friend. You know what, I think we were worried about nothing, that monster seems pretty neat."

"Well, we musn't forget that he's still aiming at our capture here, and it remains his prime objective." reminded Lisa, before gaining a small smile. "But I must endavour in the fact that he does seem to be someone pleasant to have around, if a bit loud."

"Like that ever gave us any problem." chuckled Lori, as the others giggled as well. The bossy blonde had to agree here, this Papyrus man seemed rather benign. His boasting and strong voice came as enjoyably quirky, and there wasn't any trace of meanness in his speech. The guy was an energetic man-child, never running low on peppiness. It almost reminded her of... "What do you think Leni ?"

No answer. A strange occurrence, coming from the peppy teen, who was always happy to reply when called by her name.

Lori turned to her oldest younger sis, arching an eyebrow. "Um, Leni ? Yoo-hoo~"

Still not a peep from the blonde. Even more worrisome, was the trance she seemed to be into. Her mouth was slightly opened, her body was stiff as a board, she wasn't even blinking... and had a big pink blush stretched from ear to ear. Her gaze firmly rested on one sole element the scenery had to offer, the most amazing one Leni felt she had ever seen.

The Great Papyrus.

[Undertale OST – For the Fans]

Leni wasn't an expert in matchmaking, even she knew that. If your question was about the right pair of shoes to go with that Summer dress, or the totes best shampoo to make your hair shine like a diamond, she was the expert, no doubt to be had. And in the Loud family, there was no sweetest heart than Leni's, because even if she could be petty at times, true anger was almost foreign to her, and was alwas full of love for her family. But an expert on true love, she simply was not.

Leni had met cute guys before, Hugh to name the obvious, but others at in Middle and High Schools as well. Like the Football Captain in 8th Grade, or the Chess Club President of her Freshman Year, or even that hunky bouncer from that hip new spot in the Mall. She had even met inanimate ones, on posters, on the back of a can of soup, or even with, *Dreamy Sigh* Donny the Dummy...

But even through recollecting of this, none of those guys came close to the effect Papyrus was having on the almost woman-child. His tall perfectly built stature, his simple-crafted yet resplendishing attire, his smile with even pearlier whites than hers, his beaming confidence and powerful style. Everything about Papyrus was making Leni's heart dance the tango, powered even further by the mere thought of the monster perfectly executing said dance with her as her partner. In fact, an even more potent vision of the skele-hunk soon came to Leni.

(Switching to Leni-Vision)

Sitting at her table, in the middle of beautiful Paris, Leni Loud waited for her latte while working on her brand new designs. Ones that would soon invade the Galleries LaFayette, and would sell faster than hot croissants. Nothing less to be expect from the world-famous designer herself.

But suddenly, as she finished her latest masterpiece, a shadow fell over her design, and a strong yet suave voice delicately called. "MY, MY, WHAT IS IT I SEE ? GREATNESS IN THE MAKING, AND I AM LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE A WITNESS OF IT."

With glimmering eyes, the beautiful stylist turned around, her long hair waving like a silky curtain. A soft gasp graced her pink and softer lips, for the man behind her was like no other. A tall skeleton, with a small moustache, a costume that had without doubt the value of a small villa, and an unmistakable cane with his likeness for a knob.

Adding his radiant aura in the equation, doubt wasn't allowed. It was none other than Papyrus Il Magnifico, the ultra-famous Italian billionaire whose face had been on more magazines than any other man before him. Women around him, and even the male waiter, were dropping like flies, enthralled by the mere sight of his sheer magnificence. But Leni stayed awake, feeling as if she needed to keep her eyes open for even just a second more of the beautiful man standing before her.

The moment both of their gazes met, an electric sensation rocked Leni's world, and even Perfection Incarnated, a.k.a. Papyrus, seemed to be delightfully surprised by what he was seeing. "OH, BUT IT SEEMED I HAD YET TO MEET ITS SUBLIME CREATOR. LENI LOUD, IS IT NOT ? I MUST SAY, IT IS MY HONOUR TO FINALLY SEE YOU IN PERSON." he complimented, as he dropped on one knee, and laid a delicate peck on Leni's peach-skinned hand. Even the mark left by the lips he didn't have seemed to shine of his amazing presence. The man then looked at the girl with tender passion, and held her those few words. "WOULD YOU ALLOW ME AT YOUR TABLE ? PERHAPS WE CAN TALK ABOUT INTRIGUING THEMES, SUCH AS YOU, ME... AND MAYBE SO MUCH MORE." He then pulled a small black box, whose obvious contents were making clients all around gasp in elated surprise, not even believing that they were witnessing such a grandiose event. "LENI, SWEET AND RAVISHING LENI... WOULD YOU, ON THIS HISTORIC DAY FOR THE EARTH... EARTH... EARTH..."

(Back to the Real World)

"Earth to Leni, Earth to Leni ! Request to come back on solid ground, pronto !" quietly but sternly ordered Lynn, as she shook her sister like a coconut palm. But to no avail, as not only did Leni still not reply and kept her eyes focused on the still gloating Papyrus, a big goofy smile grew right along the big blush on her face, and her pupils actually took the shape of hearts. The sisters could even swear little pink hearts were rising from her head now and again.

"I knew someday Leni would crash. I just never thought it would happen so suddenly, and before college." commented Lola rather casually.

"Such radiant happiness. Ugh, it almost makes my skin sting." unhappily quipped Lucy, taking a step back from the enamoured ball of sunshine.

Lori scratched her chin in contemplation, observing her ditzy sister as Lily was attempting to squish Leni's cheeks to get a reaction out of her. She then tried with her Blankie 2.0., and was astounded when she met the same result. The comforting power of Goat Mom, ineffective ?! Madness !

"I've never seen Leni like that, not even before 70% off Katie Diamond heels. And yet, this look, it seems so familiar for some reason." muttered Lori thoughtfully.

Luna felt the need to agree on this. "I know what you mean. And why does she keep a laser focus on that dude in particular- Ooooooh." suddenly realised the cool musician, and the others quickly followed in the enlightenment. "Oooh boy, things just got a heck lot weirder. And that's saying something."

'What are they all whispering so excitedly ? I wanna know too !' wondered Lincoln, as his body was starting to ache from the sheer effort of staying merged with the lamp's shape.

*For your sake, you must stay focused. See the lamp, know the lamp, be the lamp.

'Hey, nice to hear you again, BUT YOU'RE NOT HELPING !'

Back to the two monsters, Sans admired his bro being the coolest as usual. Yeah, this was pretty much the reason he woke up in the morning. That, and Grillby's. But big brother code obliged, Sans had to jab once more, "y'know, i've got a feeling this lamp can really help ya."

Lincoln immediately stopped complaining to himself, sweat beginning to pour down his forehead. Fortunately, Papyrus' curiosity wasn't piqued, but his ire was. "ARGH, SANS ! STOP TRYING TO SHOWER YOUR LAZINESS ONTO ME, YOU LAZYBONES ! WHAT AM I EVER GONNA MAKE OUT OF YOU ?!"

Sans looked offended at this. "now that's just not fair, bro. i did a ton of work today."

"OH ? IN THAT CASE, I'M VERY SO-"

"a skele-ton." finished Sans, winking at an invisble audience.

*Ba dum tss !*

Out of instinct, nine pairs of hands flew to Luan's mouth, which included hers. The yellow-clad jokester was doing the best she could to hold in her raucousious laughter, but the call of the bad pun sweetly rung to her ears. The only one not to participate in this common effort was the still enthralled Leni, who was now standing on solid stone after the snow under her feet had mysteriously melted.

Papyrus however, wasn't laughing at all. "SANS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD !"

"ah, c'mon bro. i see that smile on your face." said Sans with the cheekiest of grins.

"THAT IS MY NORMAL FACE, AND YOU KNOW IT !" Papyrus furiously shot back. He then crossed his arms, and sighed wistfully. "WHY MUST SOMEONE AS AMAZING AS MOI, NEED TO DO SO MUCH FOR SOME FORM OF RECOGNITION ?"

Sans' smile immediately softened. If there was one thing the guy couldn't bear to watch, it was his bro losing his peps. "c'mon bro, don't be like that. It's only a matter of time before you become the hottest thing of the underground, even more than hotland."

"YOU THINK SO ?" asked Papyrus with renewed hope.

"absolutely, believe me on that. because..."

Papyrus frowned. "OH NO."

"i can feel it in my bones." cracked the skeleton with another piercing wink towards a certain wall.

*Ba dum tss !*

Luan's cheeks doubled in size, as her contained laughter had just became even harder to control. Still, the siblings were managing to keep it in, but for how much longer ?

"UUURGH !" groaned Papyrus out of pure annoyance, before dropping everything in an I'm-so-done type of sigh. "YOU KNOW WHAT ? NEVER MIND ALL THAT. I SHALL GO BACK TO ADD THE FINISHING TOUCHES TO MY PUZZLES !" He started to depart down the path he came, before turning towards Sans. "OH, AND SANS ? I FEEL LIKE YOUR WORK IS LACKING... A BIT OF SPINE ! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH !" Papyrus proudly laughed, quickly skipping out of view, but not before coming back, dropping one last "HEH !", and then disappearing.

Luan's situation was getting critical now. Her entire face was becoming redder by the second, her bloated cheeks looked ready to explode, and the many hands over her mouth were shaking like the lid of a boiling kettle. Even her eyes were comically inflating. She just... couldn't... hold it... any longer !

Sans blinked, impressed that he had tasted some of his own medicine. But instead of a frown, Sans continued to smile with a gleam of pride, even wiping a non-existant tear away. "his first skeleton pun. i'm so proud." Sans then called the kids out of hiding. "cost is all clear, you can come ou-"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !" blurted out Luan, unwinding all of her canned hilarity at once. For a good moment, she just kept laughing and laughing on the snowed ground, as her roommate sat by her side and gently patted her hand, knowing how much of a strain it had been for her. The other sisters emerged from their hideout, and first went over to Lincoln, who was still posing as a lamp.

"I think I have a cramp in my everywhere..." whimpered Lincoln with a pained expression.

"Alright, I got this. It's gonna hurt for just a second." Lynn cracked her knuckles. She tipped her brother over, sat on his back, wrapped her legs under his shoulders, and grasped his ankles. She then jerked all four limbs back to her, making an audible crack that made both humans and monster wince, and one Lincoln shout in pain. But the action had indeed done the trick, and Lincoln's cramps were but a bad memory.

"Thanks Lynn." woozily said the white-haired boy.

"Don't mention it." replied Lynn with a playful hair ruffle. She then gained a frown as she approached Sans. "And you ! What's the big idea in snitching on us ?!"

"Not cool, Sans." chided Lana with a shake of her head.

"girls, girls... and guy, you've got it all wrong." lazily vouched the grinning monster. "see, i insisted on showing him the lamp and the tree so much, paps thought i was just messing around, and thus didn't give it any second thought. all part of the plan, I tell ya."

"Hmm, worn out the importance of an element by constantly referring it, while it in fact holds more than the subject dare to even imagine. Hazardous, but quite effective psycholigical method you've got there." commended Lisa.

"years of messing with my bro comes with its experience." That, the elder siblings could fully agree with. "besides, even if he had found you out, you would have been alright. my bro tries to look tough and scary, but deep down, he wouldn't hurt a whimsun."

The kids perked up at this. Papyrus had indeed seemed to be nothing more than a goofball with a bit of an ego, and who couldn't bear indolence. If they played their cards right, they could get a good friend and ally out of this. Perhaps a bit more useful than the one they currently had. Far from their minds to diss Sans, but the guy certainly seemed to be the kind of guy to mess around with their expectations. And besides one prank expert, this didn't up their faith in his usefulness. But time could only tell.

It had certainly done that a lot already...

Speaking of Luan, the teen was slowly coming back to her senses, though she still softly held her aching ribs, yet had this same big grin drawn on her face. "Woo, that was... that was some pun-nado you unleashed there. So much that I was gasping for air, and had to unwind for a bit. My good sir, you've got gale."

Luan's siblings groaned, almost out of pain. The clownette was feeling very creative today, and it ravished no one. Some were even contemplating taking drastic action upon looking at the woods... but quickly shook it off. Of course they would never do that, but the girl had better stop trying to force their minds into considering it.

But the worst was yet to come, as Sans' grin grew. "nah, there's no game here, because nobody really winds, as much it would be tempest to admit it. that'd be too much of an airror, so i must deflate your comment immediately. Soarry."

And just like that, unbridled joy brightened Luan's face like a Christmas Tree, while the others' fell into the horror of only finding a bag of black wet coal under said tree. Wet, so that way it wouldn't even be useful to light up a fire.

"By Ace Savvy's lucky undies... there are TWO of them." whispered Lincoln with fearful momentum.

"Of all the ways the Apocalypse could happen, it had to be this way." murmured Lucy in distraught acceptance. "Forces from above and below, you've got a very twisted sense of humour."

"I think humour is litteraly not going to survive this !" commented Lori. Toriel had been a fan of those puns, but had been kind enough to deal them rather sparsely. However, this was something else entirely. Two jokesters of a magnitude that could certainly make entire blocks flee in fear were meeting up, and had already exchanged some puns that only promised thousands, no, millions to come ! And they, innocent children, would be caught into this Pun Hurricane, and blown away like mere twigs, powerless to even be able to walk against it.

Forget ASGORE and Flowey. Those two would be their demise.

Lily whimpered fretfully, and nuzzled Lily's chest almost beckondly. Lori could only pat her little head, and solemnly said, "I'm scared too, Lily. We all are right now."

Completely obvious to the spiral of despair behind her, Luan felt in Under-Heaven. First Toriel, and now their first friend in this new area loved puns ? And not just hearing them, making them too ?! Salty water was now running down the girl's cheeks, while Sans only cocked an eyebrow at her action, still with his easygoing smile.

"um, easy there... luan, right ? i know i'm hilarious, but i can't be moving you to tears yet." said Sans as he offered her a napkin. Luan gracefully accepted it, and quite litteraly honked her nose in the white piece of fabric.

"Sorry, sorry." sniffled Luan with trembling excitement. "It's just... people laughing at my jokes are rare, and those returning them are even rarer ! I've met some of course, very good friends, but it's just so good to meet new faces, even if they have no skin to tickle ! Get it ?"

"oh i get it, but don't worry. you can still tickle my funny bone."

"Ha ! That one's a classic !" chortled Luan with a slap on her knee. But before the conversation could be expanded any further, Lynn and the twins jumped on Luan, with Lynn blocking her mouth while the twins grabbed her midsection.

"Sorry to cut you two short, but you two are really not seeing the time fly by." stated Lynn with a tight and twitchy smile, a pun away from eating her own ponytail. "It's not that your conversation isn't infuriatingly nice, but we need to go if we don't want to spend the night in the snow."

"...m'kay." shrugged the amused monster. He watched as the trio took their squirming big sister back to the group like movers transporting a lamp, while making sure to keep her mouth completely sealed. But as a small argument was beginning to brew, with sentences like "You cannot silence the funny !" and "Hands sterilised. I'm going for the vocal chords.", Sans caught the sight of one Loud that had been keeping particularly quiet. "say, what's going on with drooly over there ?"

Animosity stopped just in time, with the siblings ending in strange positions. Lily had no idea how she had ended sitting on Lana's cap with Luan's earmufs against her face, but it certainly amused her. After collecting themselves, the kids looked where Sans was pointing, and found a still deeply enamoured Leni, who was indeed drooling all the way to her knees. And for someone as precise with her appearance as Leni, that certainly said a lot.

"Wow, what's happening to Leni ?" asked Lincoln, feeling weirded out in seeing her sister like that, especially if there wasn't any math problem involved in the mix. He then adressed a pointy glare at a possible culprit. "Lisa, did you feed her your prototype sleeping pills again ?"

Lisa's brow scrunched up, and harumphed. "Unum, those pills have been destroyed, and I have sworn an oath to our parental units to never reecreate them before the sixth celebration of the initiation of my life. Duo, for someone as perceptive as you, dear brethern, you certainly seem to not see the obvious answer."

Lincoln took another good look at his sweet sister, and finally noticed the shape of her eyes, as well as the goofiest of all goofy smiles. This was a face he certainly was not unfamiliar with. Thank goodness she at least wasn't prone to profuse nose bleeding, just the fact of imagining it on Leni sent shivers down Lincoln's spine, and made him hear a slight gagging noise from his polter-guide.

"Ah, I see what you mean. Sorry Lis'"

"Apology acknowledged, and accepted."

"Geez Louise, Lori. Bobby never did that much of an effect on you." commented Luna, cocking her brow.

"I know, right ? Not even when she showed up as a lifeguard, and that was..." Lori stopped as she sighed dreamingly at the precious memory. Luna quickly snapped her out of her trance with a snap of her fingers. "Wha ? I mean, yeah, Bobby never made me go all lights off like that, and we're litteraly the perfect couple."

"I've actually read about this." quipped Lucy as she arose right behind her sisters' backs, who couldn't fight back a yell of surprise. "It's a teaching from the Buddhist monks. They that if you feel sweaty, akward, and nervous all around, that's not true love. Quite the contrary, you'll feel relaxed and sure of yourself, because it can only work."

"Rad knowledge, dudette." complimented Luna, exchanging a small fist bump with the young Goth.

"Yep, that's me and Bobby alright." Lori contently sighed once again, before turning back to the lovey-dovey mess next to her. "Oh Leni, of all the times to get a silly crush, why now ?"

"a crush ? man, and they said living off ketchup and never working out wouldn't steal any girl's sight ever." cracked Sans with a side-glance.

"Uh, I think she's flashing on your brother, Sans. And no offense, but those guys are right. You could use some exercise." hautingly commented Lola as she still held on Luan's knees.

"yeah, i know. still, paps won't be upset about it. he's pretty much gained his second fan."

"Who's the first ?" asked Lana, to which Sans answered with a wink. The little mud lover immediately understood, and couldn't resist a small "Aaww...".

"Alright, we know the cause. Now, how do we fix... this ?" winced the sole brother. When it came to love, Lincoln knew convulted plans rarely ended well. If there was one thing that Ronnie-Anne had taught him about that sort of thing, it's to just be yourself, and stop taking every sentence for an alarming cryptic message that didn't exist.

"Perhaps some frozen water down her spine might do the trick." proposed Lisa analytically. Luna executed, and slipped an icy snowball behind her lovey-dovey sis' neck. But to everyone's beffudlement and Sans' lack of reaction, the snowball melted in an instant. Even more shocking, Leni remained blissfully unaware of it, her mind still overwhelmed with visions of Papyrus. Her Papyrus...

"Huh... intriguing, to say the least." concluded Lisa, scribbling down a huge question mark on a representation of Leni's atanomy.

"We gotta be more aggressive !" said Lynn vigorously. After he cupped her hands around her lips, and let a yell near Leni's ears. "YO, LENI ! IT'S THE SALES ! FRESHEST HEELS OF THE MOMENT AT THE COST OF A SIMPLE BURG AT BURPIN' BURGER ! THE DOORS ARE OPENING, RUN AS IF YOUR SOCIAL LIFE DEPENDED ON IT !"

The jock's claims were met with more salivating silence. Leni's ears had not even twitched when hearing key words that would normally get her going right through doors, even closed ones. But being hard-headed was both a quality and a default that all Louds shared, and it coud be used in every situation.

"Leni ! That nasty Raven-haired girl is calling you a talentless slob who wears discount make-up and hair extensions !" Lola attempted to call in Leni's inner warrior.

"One of Lisa's experiments litterally backfired, and now your whole dressing closet is burning down." lied Lucy, trying to get some fear out of her.

"Wowzers, is that Hugh and his just as smoking hot four cousins taking a dip with the skiniest of Speedos ? Oh, it looks like they're specifically looking for a platinium blonde to apply glistening solar oil on their perfect bods, and to take a long and physically close swimming session. Now that's one deal to blindly dive into !" beckoned Luan, hoping the dreamy thought would be able to surpass the ones Leni was experiencing. It was certainly taking a huge blush out of her, and almost a nosebleed when the tight swimsuit dream switched to a certain freckled emo teen.

But even as attempts rolled in one after the other, none of them seemed to even get through the first layer of Leni's cotton-candy-coated mind, and the ditzy teen kept languidly looking at one of the pine trees up ahead as if it was Papyrus himself. The sibs sadly gazed at what their kind sister had become, and would probably be like for the rest of her life.

"Alas, poor Leni. We knew her well." solemnly recited Luna, pressing her purple cap against her chest. Sans strangely felt like his skull should be somewhere in this image, but paid it no mind.

But as acceptance was hitting Leni's younger siblings, an idea suddenly came to Lori. The young woman felt a bit stupid for not having thought of it earlier. She advanced to Leni's position, raised her lips to her ear, and softly hummed a very familiar tune. Said tune struck Leni's brain like lightning, and she was thrown back to reality with a euphoric gasp.

"THE ICE-CREAM TRUCK IS HERE !" she excitedly yelled, then was quickly disappointed when all she saw was a bare forest of certainly not mint chocolate-flavoured trees. But she had no time to be mad, as a wave of dizzyness followed, leaving her to guess, "Um, like, what was I doing for the last five minutes ?"

"Never mind that." assured Lori, gently patting her beanie-covered scalp. "It's just good to have you back."

Confused Leni was confused. "Was I gone ?"

"I'd say, yes and no. But like Lori said, don't worry about it too much." chuckled Lincoln with a slight sweatdrop.

"Oh, okay."

"Urgh, can we please go now ?" groaned Lynn impatiently. There was a brand new world to discover afoot, and the jitters going down in her knees were getting unbearable to the girl of action that she was. And her polar opposite on that matter quickly agreed.

"sportgirl's got a point. you'd better get going before my bro comes back. 'cause if you choose to stay here..." Sans playfully winked. "you'll have to listen to more of my jokes."

Luan raised a finger. Her siblings, save for confused Leni, heavily glared at her. Luan lowered her finger.

"guessing that's a no ? eh, that's fine, i'm sure we'll see eachother soon." shrugged the lazybones, instantly bringing back Luan's excited smile and the others' groans.

"Well, bad puns aside, it's honestly been nice meeting you, Sans." warmly commended Lori.

"You're alright, mate. Just tone down the creepy stalker first impression for the next guy." stated Luna with a snap of her fingers.

"ok." simply said Sans. Luna could tell the skeleton wasn't even trying to sound honest, but shrugged it off. She swore, those monsters were getting quirkier at every encounter. Save for Flowey of course.

"Alright, then I guess we'll be going !" concluded Lincoln, happy to finally be able to proceed on their journey. Not just for the thrill of the mystery up ahead, which was still the biggest factor, but also to stop seeing the grinning monster sending side glances in his direction every thirty seconds. Seriously, what had he done to deserve such an unnerving treatement ? Was it his hair ? Natural white hair was something rather rare to see on someone, he had to admit that.

Yeah, had to be the hair. What special thing could Lincoln have that his sisters hadn't ?

What indeed...

"Thanks for your help, Sansy !" Luan gleefully waved. It seemed she had already found a nickname for her pun buddy. "Hope to see ya skelat- uh, I mean see ya later ! Yep, totally what I meant, hehe." she tightly grinned at her sibs, who nodded and let the threatening snow fall off their hands. Close curtain call for the comedienne.

With that said, the children began exiting the clearing to once again follow the path. But before they could even pass the wooden station, Sans called to them. "actually, before you go, mind helping a skeleton out with a small favour ?"

Some, Lynn especially, groaned at the interruption, but eventually gave sign that they were listening to the friendly skeleton's demand.

"see, it's about my bro. he's been a bit on the gloomy side lately, sighing to himself repeatedly at times. but maybe you guys can help him gain back his old dynamism back."

Lola blinked, bemused. "Really ? What we saw was him feeling under the weather ? Wow, does he even sleep ?" Lana elbowed her, which almost sent Lola into a fit, but she thankfully remained calm. "I mean, how can we help him ?"

"well, my bro's never seen any human before. and seeing how much he wants to capture you, could you, y'know, play along ?"

"I must warn you. I mostly do tragedies." monotoned Lucy.

"Hey, how come she gets to say puns, and I don't ?!" complained Luan indignantly.

"Because my pun meter hasn't froze at the maximum level." explained Lucy, taking extra pleasure in that little teasing grin she threw at her big sis, who put on a rare grumpy face.

"Sooo, you want us to get captured, so your bro can be happy ?" resumed Lana, scratching the back of her head. "Not gonna lie, I like the thought, but I'm not really feeling hot about the result."

Sans was quick to put the kids' worries to rest. "you don't need to be captured, you just gotta play my bro's games, follow his rules. don't worry, i'm not asking you to lose or anything, just to play and make paps' day. whaddya' say ?"

The Louds didn't even need a sibling circle to decide on that. Upon looking at eachother, each could tell the other had the same answer as they did. A great way to repay Sans for his help, and a way to make their journey a lot more enjoyable. Grins sprouted on faces all around. How could they ever say no to such a fun-sounding request ?

"You know what Sans ? If your brother is as nice as you say, why not ?" Lori said with an imitation of Sans' careless shrug. The others gleefully agreed, and Sans' grin gained gratitude.

"heh, thanks a million guys. i'll see y'all up ahead. Bye."

Sans indeed departed, but instead of going ahead the path like he had just said, he took the completely opposite way, leaving very confused Louds behind.

"Did he just... when he said..." blabbered Lynn, gears in her head running fierce.

"I must advise that we don't ponder about this too much." said Lisa as she tiredly rubbed her forehead. "I'm already going through quite the migraine just trying to find a rational explanation to his action."

Girls and boy agreed on the matter, and resumed their advance, each step getting them closer to Home.

---

Surrounded by even more pine trees, the kids found the path dividing itself in a fork, with one path going straight ahead, and one path going on the left. The fork itself was far from being empty. On the left corner ahead, were a wooden sign and a little wooden chest. And on the left corner right next to them, was a familiar yellow star.

"Yes ! Finally, a Save Point !" celebrated Lincoln in deep relief. The helpful little light promised not only a further point for the kids to come back to, but also a guarantee to NOT go through their encounter with Flowey again. And in their minds, it rung as right as a plate of chocolate-coated piecakes.

"Go Lincs, touch it !" encouraged Luna with her rock pose. Lincoln quickly obliged, and the instant his hand grazed the Save Point, his eyes lit up with its mystic crismon hue, and spoke in a dual voice once more.

*"Feeling the fresh snow crunch under your boots... Thinking about the convenience of that lamp... it all fills you with determination !"

Lincoln's face reddened a bit afterwards, as he could hear the giggles of his sisters. "What ? You had to admit it was one convenient lamp !" the boy tried to defend himself. Much to his embarassement however, all he got out of it were cheek pinches and teasing pats on the back. Accepting his fate, he quickly pressed the Save button.

LOUDS – Snowdin Box Road

LV1 – 172:02

File saved successfully !

"So, which way do we go next ? Geez, I hope this place doesn't turn out to be a labyrinth." wondered Lana out loud.

"Walls upon walls of eternal wandering. One way to go, I suppose." shrugged Lucy.

"You're gonna keep that attitude through the whole rest of our journey, aren't you ?" deadpanned her eldest sister. Lucy only answered with a slight rising of the edges of her lips.

"Wait, look ! Someone lost their suitcase !" gasped Leni in alarm, bringing her siblings' attention onto the chest on their right. Looking at it closely, the box wasn't as small as they first thought, and possessed an intriguing golden buckle, its shine increased by the small aura rippling over it.

"A chest ?" said Lola. She then elatedly gasped. "I bet there's a treasure inside ! Dibs on anything that shines !" But before her small greedy hands could reach the item full of promises, she was forcefully pulled backwards by her ditzy sister, and ended up face first in the snow.

"You can't peek in other people's propreties ! Like, it's super rude." chatised Leni with crossed arms. Muffled angry growling was Lola's comeback.

"I don't think this is someone's luggage, sis." reasonned Luna as she took notice of the small sign next to the chest. "'This is a box. You can store items, and take them later on. Other boxes will appear on the way, and they'll always contain the items you've placed inside them, so don't worry about coming back. Thievry-proof guarantee ! Sincerely, a box lover.'"

"Dang it ! I could've stored up that big stick after all !" huffed Lynn, stomping her cleated boot in frustration. "Ah well, let's just open the thing already. Maybe there's a prize inside after all."

The brunette firmly grabbed the chest's edge, but stopped when she felt a weird sensation slithering up her arm, taking a turn at her shoulder, and reached her chest. This apparently made her orange SOUL blink into existance for a mere instant, and its vibrant hue was mirrored by the handle just as quickly. Only then did the chest open, revealing emptiness that seemed larger than the box itself. Save for one small item that rested in the top right corner. As she looked at it, Lynn could swear she was feeling it calling to her. And, well, she wasn't one to spit on free stuff, so she took it out for further inspection.

The rather worn-out-looking item was a thin leather glove. It looked comfy, yet sturdy, and gave off quite the manly mood despite its pink colour. The image of two entwined rings rested on its top, with the words 'Suck'em, champ !' written on its palm. Needless to say, Lynn was quite thrilled with her finding.

"Sick ! You were right bro, this is a much more me kind of weapon !" praised Lynn as she put on her new handwear. She immediately tried it by swinging a couple of quick jabs, and was pleased by how easy the handgear flew forward. "Oh yeah, that's good stuff right there ! I mean, I usually avoid pink, but this one's so sweet, I'm giving it a pass."

Suddenly, another weird feeling invaded her SOUL, but only hers. Heart and glove both glowed a bold orange, and Lincoln's inner narrator orated once more.

*"You've equipped the Tough Glove. ATK increases by 5. With its thin-leathered texture, this handgear is very appreciated by sportives with hands."

"Huh, makes you wonder what limbless sport addicts do wear." speculated Lori.

"Bandanas of course ! Even if you're just a headless rock, they do stay pretty stylish !" joke-philosophied Luan, to which the sibs nodded in agreement.

"Oh man, that is so cool ! Now I've got my own way to crack some ribs !" fiercely boasted Lynn. And hearing her saying that rung an alarming bell inside Lori's mind.

"Wow, time out there ! Remember what we said about Fighting ? Or what happened the last time we... I used that option ?" sternly reminded Lori with a slight wince on the last words. The blonde leader was recovering from that fateful vision, but the wound was still a little too sore for comfort.

Lynn likewise lost a bit of her excitement over this, and her smile turned a tad sheepish. "Yeah, I remember. I didn't mean knock out every little mean monster we come across, just that if we need some muscle to weigh in, now I have the tool to help me." Lynn then gasped and dropped to her knees, clasping her hands in a praying fashion. "Please don't take it away ! I'll be super duper careful with it ! I even promise I won't use it to noogie people ! Except maybe Lincoln and Luce." Lincoln's experssion soured, as did Lucy's. I uh, think so at least...

The balance of fate rested solely in Lori's hands at the moment. And she had to decide what direction it should tip towards. The potential usefulness of the glove and her sister's sincere demand, against the knowledge of her usual recklessness and the weapon's dangerous impact reminded to her by that infamous memory. A quite fair match, which left Lori a bit uncertain about her final verdict.

'Hmm, she does seem pretty honest about it.' she thought, starting to mellow before scrunching her brow when a memory hit her.'But last time she made such an honest-sounding demand, it was to swap the leaf raking chore of last Fall for her own gutter washing chore, that she deemed just too boring to bother with. An hour later, I found her plowing through the leaf piles she'd been making to practice her wrestling moves, spreading them even more all over the grass than before ! And we're not just talking about procrastinating here, lives could be on the line if anything goes awry.' Then another thought came back to her. 'But then again, we have that power to go back. It's not like we can't fix that sort of error... Urgh, now I'm talking casually about life-loss in the way Flowey does ! Okay, now's a good time as any to say what's on my mind. Especially because they're probably getting really weirded out at the expressions I'm making.'

"Boy, I had no idea you could scrunch up your face that much at only seventeen." simply commented Lola , earning a nod from her bro and candid-minded big sis.

Lori shook her head to get rid of whatever expression she'd just been wearing, and held a neutral stare over Lynn, who gulped in apprehension. The eldest Loud inhaled and closed her eyes, breaths hitched in suspense... and were released when Lori opened her peepers with a smile.

"Alright Lynn, you can keep it. But hold in mind, I'm trusting you with it, so you better prove yourself worthy of it. Am I clear ?" orated Lori quite flowingly, holding her head high. Her proud stance was broken when Lynn grabbed her into a bear hug.

"YES ! Thanks Lori, you're the best !" celebrated Lynn with joy and a little victory dance of her own, so much that it spured the twins and Luan to join her.

Lori nodded to herself, and felt a nudge from a grinning Luna. "Heck-a good job you did there, sis. Almost thought Tori was speaking for a moment." she warmly complimented. Lori could only smile with swelling pride in her heart, while her baby sister furthered it by cooing and pressing her head against her big sis' shoulder, her own means of congratulating her.

"I'm as jubilant as you all presently are about this verdict, but perhaps we should now proceed." advised Lisa with her usual stoicism. "Now, I must suggest we head North first. I can't help but find this sound of flowing liquid rather intriguing, and feel we should investigate it for any possible roadway. Besides, water tainted by *sigh* magic could provide interesting readings to further my findings on how the Underground functions as a whole."

"Everyone on board with Lisa's idea says aye." regulated Lori. Of course, all voiced their approval. "Motion passed. Now let's get in motion as well." she said with a sly grin.

"Oh c'mon, now you're doing it on purpose !" vented Luan. Her sibs giggled at seeing her getting a dose of her own fizzy water. The optimistic Loud couldn't stay mad too long, and joined in the sound of laughter so sweet to her ears, but inside Luan plotted her revenge, one that would be full of puns and quirky Loony Luan moments. Soon...

The Louds left the fork with hope and curiosity, while Lynn, as she followed, enjoyed her new equipement some more, and wondered. Who could be careless enough to leave this sweet baby in an old chest in the middle of the forest ? Thinking about it... the sign had said this box was thief-proof, which had to mean you couldn't take out items that weren't yours. And yet she found something in it, even though this was the first time she or her siblings were finding one of those. It just made no sense !

The thing was SOUL scanning after all. And hers was pretty unique... right ?

---

Lisa's theories had once again proven to be correct, and the Louds found themselves in front of a river bank. To the dismay of some, the water wasn't looking, feeling, or even being any different than the one you'd find in a regular stream. To add on the lack of expectation fulfillment, both sides of the river were paved with nothing else but snow and pine trees. Not a new soul to talk with, and no new path to explore.

Although, one thing did stand out in this otherwise bland scenery. A lonely red fishing road sitting on their side of the river, with its line in the water, and a little blanket of snow on its handle that certainly showed how long it hadn't been moved.

"Geez, monsters leave junk all around more than... well, we do sometimes." said Lincoln as he brushed some of the snow off the rod.

"Maybe the guy got attacked by a shark ?" theorisied Lana, peeking over the edge to see if she could spot one. She was quickly followed by the most neutral-faced of the bunch. Lisa in hopes of discovering a brand new kind of Selachimorpha, and Lucy for her obvious Lucy reasons.

"I got the feeling our answer's at the end of that line, dudes." reasonned the ever-rocking teen. With that in mind, she took the rod, and used the tips her dad had given to get that reel spinning as swiftly as her windmill guitar moves. A handful of second later, the hook finally showed up with its catch. It was no fish, but certainly looked fishy. As in very strange for even being there.

"...Why is there a picture attached to a fishing rod ?" derped Leni, learning that you apparently could do just that. Was it some sort of modern fishing method ? All she thought she knew about fishing was proving to be wrong ! Which, seeing how little she knew, wasn't that impressive of an achievement.

Lori went ahead, and unhooked the photo to take a good look at it. "Why indeed, Leni. If it's a monster custom, Toriel didn't say anything about JIBBUS !" she suddenly shouted out of sheer disgust, quickly shielding Lily's eyes, who could only wonder who had turned off the sun. Lori dared to take another look, and almost retched on the spot. "Oh my gosh, this the worst selfie I've ever seen in my entire life, and I litteraly mean it !"

Just like the hook in their first fishing experience, the curiosity of Lori's siblings had been piqued, and joined Lori to peek over her shoulder. They immediately and bitterly regretted doing that.

"Aaaah, my eyes ! My beautiful eyes are burning !" shrieked Lola with her hands clasped on her closed peepers.

"I can already taste the nightmares coming from seeing this. And I do NOT like it." shivered the now-even-more-tortured eight year-old.

"I'm no pro of that selfie junk, all I know is that you don't get any of them from below, because it equals maximum ugliness. Like when Lily took some of Lori, making it look like she had a triple chin, heh. But you can't tell me it can get that bad !" Lynn stuck her tongue.

"If my eyes weren't so precious for the adequate accomplishment of my work, I wouldn't hesitate in using some almagation of water and sodium hypochlorite on them, also commonly known as liquid bleach." stated Lisa rather neutrally, though the tint of green on her cheeks said otherwise. "Those plans of a memory-erasing machine of that prospector from Oregon couldn't be more awaited."

"And I thought Dad cracking his skinny jeans with his red speedo underneath would be the ugliest thing I'd ever get to see." gagged Luna.

"AAAAH, now I'm seeing both of them at the same time !" shouted Lincoln with a double feeling of sickness that only increased by the eye-scooping memory.

"Is that red thing his mouth, or his eyes ?" asked Lana. She quickly retracted her statement however. "Urp. Y'know what, never mind. I don't think my stomach can handle either answer, and it costs me to admit it."

"Give the poor sap some credit. He is really desperate to hook up with someone." Luan restrained her usual giggles in fear of puking by accident. What the jokester was referencing was the little writing above the, um, guy, composed of a 'Call me !' and a phone number.

Amongst all the yells of disgust and eye-removing claims, Leni stood as the straight man ! Woman. Child ? She stood as the straight Leni ! "I can't believe you guys ! Why are you so mean to him ? I mean, sure, he's... not a supermodel." she winced, looking away with shake of her head before the picture could print itself in her retina. "But he deserves love as much as anyone ! I'm sure he's just looking for the right girl for him, the one that will make his heart beat ultra-fast, and make a ton of pretty butterflies fly inside his body !"

Lynn rolled her eyes and smirked. "Oh, you mean like you and Papy- hmmf !" she was suddenly gagged by a round of multi-sized hands. But it was too late, the harm had been done. Leni's body stiffened, then softened into the lovey-dovey mess of before. Leni wasn't what you could exactly call sharp, but the giggle she produced was one of a true fried-brain fashion. All her grey matter had turned orange, and all her thoughts had turned Papyrus-related.

"Yes, Papy, I will marry you..." drooled the fashionista. "And I want seven children, one to love each day of the week... I'll write to the stork right now..."

"Alright, enough of that. Wake up !" said Lori, quickly snapping her fingers in front of Leni's face. Fortunately, the simple trick worked this time, and Leni woke up with a start.

"Wha ?! Lori ! Like, I was having an amazingly hunky dream ! Why'd you wake me ?" pouted Leni, wanting nothing more than to return to said handsome dreamscape.

"Dude, you totally crashed on us right now ! Hugh doesn't have that effect on us ! Or his, heh, hella sweet accent..." chuckled Luna with a lick of her lips, before slapping herself awake. "Sorry, had a moment. But seriously, just look at all that drool dripping down your cheeks !"

"Huh ?" Leni patted her wet cheek. "EEK ! I'm worse than Lily when she eats mashed carrots ! No offense, Lily."

Lily answered with a happy coo, muffled by the fist in her mouth she was busy drooling all over.

"Seriously, what is your deal with Paaaaa- that skeleton guy ?" Lincoln sighed in relief. That was one close call. "I mean, he seems like a pretty neat guy, I'll admit that, but I just don't get what is it that makes you completely shut down like that.."

"Yeah, you've had a lot of crushes before, but none as serious as this one, tibia perfectly honest. Hahahaha, get it ?" guffawed Luan. Lana the Kid immediately gave her the stink eye, and the comedienne nervously cleared her throat. "Furthermore, I'm not one to judge about this sort of things, but all your other crushes were, you know... human."

Leni gasped in deep offence. She could not believe what she was hearing. "So rude ! Just because he's not human, that means he's gotta be treated differently ? That's just shampoo ! Wait no, sha... sha... shameful, yeah !"

"That's not what she meant, dude !" Luna attempted to appease her big sis. "It's just, y'know, he's lacking a load of stuff you usually like about a guy."

Leni sulked still. "Well, I still like him ! I mean, have you seen the way he talks, so full of passion ? The way he lightened up those woods just by being there ? His totes classy armour ?! And... all the rest." she sighed languorously. "His shiny eyes, his statuesque physique, his long toned legs, and those abs... you could melt chocolate on those... *Hungry drooling noises*"

*Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap !*

Such was the sound of Lily playing a quick bongo tune on Leni's cheeks. The slaps were light and benign to the teen, but were enough to once again pull her back to the real world. When she did so, all Leni could see were rather curious expressions on her sibs' faces.

"While I can see why his quirky vestments and passionate spirit could infatuate you, I must draw a line over 'all the rest'." air-quoted Lisa matter-of-factly. "You do realise that this dear fellow possess none of the physical attributes you've just described ? At all ?" Leni angled her head to the side with a lost expression. Lisa understood that she needed simpler vocabulary. "He is a skeleton. He does not have eyes, or muscles, or even skin for that matter !"

"And yet, I could still see them. He was just that much of a gem." swooned Leni, her arm dramatically pressed against her forehead.

"Nice one." Lucy broke into a tiny applause, always a fan for some improvised limericks.

While the siblings argued over this new developpement while keeping Leni from falling into another Papy-coma, Lincoln approached Lori. "Do you think she's gonna be okay like that ?" asked Lincoln with clear worry in his voice. "If she fritzes every time she even hears Papyrus' name, it's gonna make things a lot harder for us."

Lori agreed with her brother's claim, but she also knew that an intense bout of love wasn't something to easily trifle with. "But we can't exactly break what she has. Do you remember what happened last time we had a sad Leni on our arms ? And I litteraly mean a sad Leni."

The boy winced. How could he ever forget that unfair review some jealous critic had given over Leni's own summer collection in the High-school paper ? It had taken days for the poor girl to smile again. And with someone like Leni, it had certainly dealt a blow on the Loud House morale as a whole. Though they had gotten a slight kick over finding that guy and 'kindly' make him 'reconsider' his judgement. Yeah, they had been 'kind' enough to spare his hands so he could write another review, more objective this time around.

But yeah, seeing a broken Leni once in his life was enough of an experience, and Lincoln had no will to deal with it again. "I see what you mean. Well, on the bright side, it's not some tatooed jerk she's falling for. You know, the kind of guy that would turn Leni into a punk."

Lori snorted at the image of Leni looking like a bad girl, asserting her style before looking in the mirror, and screeching in pure horror at her shaved hair. "This Papyrus guy is odd, but he does remind me of Leni on certain points, and kind of in a good way. Maybe letting this ship flow wouldn't be that bad of an idea, as long as she doesn't go overboard and wish to stay with him forever." rationalised Lori with a nod. She then turned her head to consult the infant in her arms. "What do you say, Lily ? Do we let your big sis fall for the monster of her dreams ?"

Lily's thoughts on Papyrus was that his overall presence felt warm and pleasant, reminding her of a certain teddy bear she owned. And that was a crucial good point in her book, so she joyfully clapped in agreement.

"That's that then." concluded Lincoln with an excited grin. "We just keep an eye on them both, and make sure it doesn't hinder our progress too much. Heck, maybe it'll help Papyrus and Sans to become our friends, so that they'll vouch for us to the other monsters, making them stop raining magic assaults our SOULs the moment they see us !"

"Now that's a plan I like to hear." replied Lori with just as much enthusiasm, ruffling her bro's albino-coloured hair. With this in mind, she whistled to get everyone's attention. "Alright guys ! The day isn't getting any younger, so let's bounce !"

"What about Leni's weird crush ?" asked Lola earnestly, making Leni scowl.

"We'll put a pin on it for now. We keep our rule over another sibling's crush as it is, meaning it's not our place to decide, but we get to kick their butt if the crush does something hurtful to said sibling. End of the story." concluded the Loud leader.

"Does that mean me and Papy can be a thing ?!" asked Leni with her body shaking with brimming excitement. Luna and Luan immediately went for a soothing arm rub, while Lynn attempted to massage out the fireworks exploding inside the fashionista's head.

"Yes, you can. BUT, only as long as it doesn't get in the way of our main objective. Getting back home. Is it clear ?"

"Yes yes yes yes !" Leni broke into a dance of pure joy, accidentally knocking her three sisters down. The platinium blonde paid it no mind, imagining that she would name them as her bridesmaids as excuse. Lincoln would be her ringbearer, Lori would organise everything, Lana would pick up fresh flowers to lighten up the room, Lucy would master the organ, Lola would be her wedding dress designer, Lily would be the flower girl, and Lisa would do the priest stuff with all the complicated vows she'd remember by heart. Even Toriel would be there, making the yummiest wedding pie everyone would have ever seen !

And she, Leni Loud, beautifulest bride ever, would gracefully march down the aisle, joining arms with her magnificent skeletal husband. Flowers would spin in the air along their path, everyone would cheer for the newlyweds, her father would shed more than a few gallons of tears, and the bells would... the bells... making such a familiar sound... She knew that sound.

"ICE-CREAM TRUCK !" Leni yelled, breaking out of her stupor to find the holy vehicle. But of course, it was just Lori humming the charming tune to her ear again. Leni blinked and looked around to see her sibs wearing deadpan and annoyed expressions, prompting her to grin a tad guiltily. "Oopsie, get what you're saying. But I'm gonna work on that, I swear, hope to fly and all that."

The siblings weren't exactly convinced, but seeing Leni's hopeful smile made them realise that they just couldn't dampen her spirits. Once again, they simply would have to go on with Leni's wacky mindset. But then again, that's how they all worked with eachother.

"So what are we waiting for ? Let's get moving, so we can find Paaaaaaaaaath that will take us back to the Surface ! Yep, totes what I meant." Leni's eyes shifted left and right in a totally not suspicious manner, then she broke into a grin. "Let's go !" And she quickly returned to the fork area, leaving her siblings with ranging expressions that had only one common point : a twinge of worry.

"Welp, that's one fine mess waiting to happen right there." concluded the little queen of messes herself. A small grin then graced her lips. "And I can tell it's gonna be a funny one too."

"Yeah, at worse, it'll be funny to see. And at best, Dad will realise that no, he couldn't think of every type of boyfriend his daughters could hook up with." cracked Lynn with the same eerie smile.

"Ha ! That one was genius !" Luan laughed, giving her a most deserved high-five.

Once they had filled their giggling quota over this pun, and put the photo back in the river by pushing it with a stick, our heroes dashed away to catch up with Leni.

Too bad really. Had they waited a little longer, they would've made a most mysterious encounter passing by this quaint little river. As they usually did.

"Tralala... Will eleven surpass the strength of one ?.. Or will Determination be stretched in all sides and ripped apart ?.. Hmm, I am appearing very early in this little piece, and with so little to say. A strange character behind the keyboard indeed..."

---

"Sis, wait up !" Luna called out to Leni, who was beginning to put some distance as she strutted down to the other path the fork offered, her step energised by the thoughts of finding the lanky skeleton of her dreams.

Those did not make her deaf though, and she turned her head to look back. Unfortunately, her legs were a bit slower to receive the order to slow down, and as such, the distracted teen blindly struted for a second or two. Which was just enough for a collision with something too soft to be a tree.

"Hey ! Watch where you're going, dude !" was what Leni heard as her entire body toppled to the ground. The fall wasn't too harsh due to the layer of snow allowed by the borders of the path, but left her a little dizzy until her siblings arrived.

"You okay ? This could've really messed up your head." said Lincoln, as he and Lynn helped Leni back on her feet.

Lisa eagerly opened her mouth... then closed it, shaking her head. "Too easy, no flavour to it. I'll let this one fly by."

"Woah, you better say that again." softly gasped Lana as she took a good of the person Leni had slammed into. It was of course another monster, but a more impressive one this time around. Aside from one Goat Mom, monsters in the Ruins had been pretty small, never bigger than Lucy. But this monster was something else, standing as tall as Luna, and larger than her due to all the skyblue feathers puffing his body up. The monster seemed to be a very large bird, with a bit of lizard-like features, in the form of his slightly scaly yellow belly. He stood on his two talons, had bright round yellow eyes, and a stout beak full of small teeth. However, his main trait resided in the shape of his blue face, which adorned a large white five-branched snowflake in the middle of it, separating his eyes and beak and giving him the true appearance of a winter bird.

Said bird monster was presently patting his wildened feathers, grumbling to himself in a young-sounding voice. "Seriously, even that hyperactive skeleton watches where he goes. What's your ex... cuse ?" he spoke, then slowed down as he too took a good look of the people in front of him. People, as in non-monsters.

The sibs didn't quite like the wide-eyed look that the guy was giving them. So, wanting to defuse the imminent conflict before it happened, they tried to sympathise with him, sporting tight and toothy smiles. "Yoooo, nice to meet ya. H-How are things going in Winterland, eh love ?" greeted Luna nervously.

"A rather unforgivly cold day, wouldn't you say ?" attempted Lucy with a chilling remark. (*Spooky Rimshot*)

"I really like your... feathers ?" said Lola, tempted to ask Lisa how sweating in such a cold area was even possible.

The bird monster kept gazing at the pack of humans, blinking ever so often to prove that he was still conscious. Once he remembered a certain rumour about a bunch of humans having appeared in the Underground, plus a rough drawing of what a human looked like, the cables in his mind connected. His brow turned into a frown, his plumage puffed up, and a familiar glint passed through his eyes. "Humans !" he crowed while taking his stance.

The Louds felt their SOULs appear, and realised that just like that, their first fight outside of the Ruins had just started.

*"Snowdrakes flutters into battle !"

Fight engaged !

"Alright girls, we've litteraly dealt with this before, so let's just do our best like always." asserted Lori, to which her siblings made a saluting sign. "Lincoln, show us what we're dealing with here !"

"Aye aye, Lori !" said Lincoln, like a soldier to his sargeant. 'Time to get eloquent again, narrrator person.' he thought jokingly. They did not respond, but Lincoln could feel approval in the back of his head, and hit the Check option proposed by the trusty ACT button.

*"Snowdrake. ATK 12, DEF 7. This teen comedian fights to spread out his chilly jokes. Feathers not as soft as they first seem."

There were two details that caught the Louds' attention in there. First, besides Toriel, this monster had the strongest attack they had seen thus far, even exceeding Nastablook's. This showed them that monsters were getting stronger as they progressed, and their attacks would probably become trickier to dodge too, meaning they'd have to be on their toes at all time.

Secondly, to their unanimous dismay minus one, the Loud siblings were facing yet another comedian. Wasn't it enough that they already lived with the Queen of Puns ? The hammering of bad jokes just today had already been hectic, couldn't they get a little break ? But oh well, they thought, perhaps this one was in something else than bad puns.

(*Ironic Rimshot*)

The above-named Snowflake seemed a tad fiddly as his turn began, not even looking mad anymore. He actually took a second to lick his wing, and pass it through the feathers atop of his head. His beak curved into a toothy smile, and began his act.

"Well, what's up with you smashing into me without even an apology ? Not very ice if you ask me." Snowdrake akwardly winked. (*Just as akward Rimshot*)

A couple of sentences was all it took to dash the siblings' hopes of finding a decent humourist in the winged monster, leaving them with nothing but a soul-crushing feeling. Or as Lucy liked to dub it, Monday. The kicker though was that not even Luan had laughed at the pun, not even a teensy snicker whistling through her braces. Instead, she focused an unusually serious gaze on the monster with a certain intensity, as if judging him.

Snowdrake was a tad put off by the lack of laughs, and looked to the side while flapping his wings. But as he did that, feathers flew out from the apendages, and instead of hitting the floor like gravity usually implied, they instead kept afloat in mid-air. And because this was still too normal for comfort, the feathers then folded themseles into the form of a crescent, turned completely white, and began to spin like buzzing saws. Not quite as fast, but they certainly had become quite sharp-looking.

Seeing this, the kids put their present feelings aside to focus their attention on the incoming feather attack. Said projectiles piled themselves into little columns, and shot out at the colourful SOULs in succession like snakes. Their approach was not straight forward, but in an angle instead, and were coming from all sides, increasing the dodging challenge significantly. The kids did their best to do so, with side-stepping, rolling around, and even a couple of skillful saltos over the sharp disks. A couple found their target however in Lola, who struggled a bit at running correctly without heels, and Leni, who was still a bit groggy from her crash. Both fashion lovers lost 4 HP, but fortunately didn't lose a leg or arm from the attack, and even more fortunately, their precious haircuts were spared.

"Dang, this guy's got moves." commented Lana as she rubbed some snow on one of the cuts that had appeared on Leni's leg.

"But he doesn't have much of a sense of humour." dryly replied Lucy, still doing so quietly not to hurt Snowdrake's feelings even more. There was a fine limit to bluntness that even she didn't dare to cross.

Leni attempted to defend the monster. "Well, at least he tried, and um... yeah alright, it was pretty bad."

"Even his delivery was messed up ! At least with Loons', you can feel the comedian trying behind it, but here, it wasn't even there." put down Luna criticall), but felt the need to add, "But hey, maybe it's his first gig. Ain't uncommon to mess it up on the first try."

"Hmm..." Lori scratched her chin in contempation. "The ghost inside Lincoln's head – still can't believe I'm saying this so casually – did say something about him being a teen. Maybe it really is his first time in the spotlight."

"And maybe we can make it an enjoyable experience for him." grasped Lincoln with a snap of his fingers, smiling at the feeling of a fresh idea popping inside his head. "If we help him improve, he'll be so grateful he'll Spare us immediately. All we have to do is to respond with some jokes of our own, and this battle will be a quick wrap."

"Urgh, do we reaaaaaaaaaally have to ?" Lynn groaned loudly.

"I do not like it more than you, my dear sportaholic sister. But the action that our male sibling unit has imagined does seem to hold some meat to it, in the contrary of the last comedian we've met." concurred Lisa with a tweak of her glasses.

"Atta girl, you're already doing it !" praised Lincoln with a chuckle, that was shared amongst the group, except for the less inclined in laughter, and Luan, who still hadn't taken her gaze off the nervous Snowdrake. "Okay guys, let's unleash our inner Luan !"

With that said, the ACT button was pressed, and the new option, Joke, was chosen. There was silence for a moment, only filled with the imaginary sound of cogs, hamster wheels, and a busy hardrive, all hard at work to find good jokes amongst the ocean of puns drilled into their heads by their buck-toothed sis. It wasn't that she couldn't land a decent joke from time to time, but they knew she didn't like her material being stolen so casually. Those had to be from the heart, not just off their minds.

"Ooh, I got one !" bounced Lana, arm in the air. She cleared her throat. "A plumber was called for a leak in a kitchen. Once he took care of the problem, he told the family that it was already water under the fridge !"

(*Clunky Rimshot*)

Lana's fair try and jazz hands didn't quite get the impact she hoped for, as the Snowdrake merely squinted his eyes at her, and flapped his wing dismissively. "Meh, already heard that one."

*"Your pun didn't meet Snowdrake's flow."

"Okay, my turn ! I heard that one from Margo during last training session, and it's a rib-buster."asserted Lynn with a puffed chest and her usual assurance of ending victorious. "I play a lot of sports, but I don't do archery. There are just too many drawbacks to it."

(*Pumped Rimshot*)

Lynn guffawed at her own joke, and a couple of giggles came out of her sibs. However, Snowdrake was far from amused, and had the gall to scoff at the brunette. "C'mon, a sport joke ? That one's a no-brainer."

The thought of fried chicken wings did pass Lynn's mind for an instant, but she swallowed it down, just like she'd do when some punk would try making her angry to pin a foul on her. Still, it wasn't the muscle she used the most, but she had a brain, and was quite proud of it ! Her brother was kind enough to pat her tense shoulder, which lessened the blood fluctuating in her seething cheeks.

*"The ball was on a roll, but the goal wasn't reached."

"Okay, this one has to work." said Lori, belief strong in her voice. After all, if a joke from Toriel herself couldn't crack this tough nut, she had no idea what would ! "A fire broke out at a barber shop. It was a close shave, but they all got out by a whisker."

(*Polite Rimshot*)

Somewhere, a pun-adoring lady started chuckling for no reason at all.

This time, all the siblings were cracking up, with even the still serious Luan's lips curling upwards. Lisa allowed herself on the fun, as this joke took a pretty sharp mind to fully grasp the punchline. So did Lucy, as the pun had cut deep into her dark heart that ironically shone like a Marigold. Aaaand, the Rimshot guy just went on strike. Excuse us for the shortage of drums in the following of our story.

For Snowdrake though, there seemed to be nothing hilarious to find. Quite the contrary, the monster actually seemed to get aggravated at it, a heavy frown plaguing his winter-themed face. "Okay, now you're just quoting my Dad !" he hissed through his beak, a certain venomous anger lacing his voice.

*"Congrats. You've discovered hot waters in a winter wonderland."

Snowdrake's turn began, and he once again flapped his wings to draw out his razor-sharp feathers, but with a different pattern this time around. Instead of curved train positions, single crescent-shaped shots came from all sides in a straight lines. And while they weren't as fast, the attacks quickly piled up around the humans, leaving even less room for them to move around. A detail that got to Luna, Lincoln, and Lisa, slashing them all in their backs. Not the most pleasant of feelings.

"Urgh, bogus ! Both the attack and how stubborn that guy is !" hissed Luna through pain, appeased by the snow that Nurse Leni quickly applied on her back. "Oooh, that's real good that. Just a little bit to the left."

"Huh ?"

"Your good side, love."

"Oh, got it !"

"This isn't looking good. It seems your idea has met a cold wall. As we all will someday..." ranted Lucy, making Lincoln shiver, and not just from the snow being put under his coat.

"I don't understand why though. We give him new material, and he rudely flicks it away without a second thought. Where did it go wrong ?" mulled the sole brother, scratching his head both in thought and in hope to get the narrator person to make themself useful for once, but to no avail.

"Perhaps, instead of providing new wordplays to him, our Gallus gallus comoedius think that we are provoking him, by stealing his short stay in the limelight." analysed Lisa. "After all, people in general are often not too thrilled to see someone impromptly mimicking the field in which they excel the most, thus badly damaging their ego. I know I wouldn't be much enthralled if someone took over my work station, and mixed my beakers to 'show me how it's done'."

Lincoln, as well as the others, had to agree with the young prodigy. There was nothing fun about someone taking what you loved the most, and shoving into your face how much better they were at it. Lynn especially knew what it meant to be on the poker end of the stick, and how much annoyed reactions it could get you. To think she had almost ended Board Games Nights, her favourite non-sport weekly event, made her seriously reconsider her way in how to win, and also how to lose. She hadn't abandonned her love for winning or her victory dance over it, but she'd certainly been learning going on.

"Maybe we should just do it the goody-goody way." sneakily proposed Lola. "We let him tell some more jokes, and no matter how bad they are, we laugh like it's the funniest thing we've ever heard. He feels better about himself, and we are free to go !"

Lana grimaced at this, and tapped her primpy twin's shoulder. "Um, Lola ? That's called pretending and lying. Not sure if that's the really the goody-goody thing to do."

"Pshh, nonsense. Nearly everyone that lives here likes bad puns !" answered Lola matter-of-factly. She began to count on her gloved fingers. "Goat Mom, Sans, the guys who made up the puzzles in the Ruins, that creepy voice we sometimes hear out of nowhere." Hey ! "Even the sad little blanket Lucy is friends with likes them !" The temperature suddenly dropped around her, and she immediately flipped her tape. "I mean, the most estimated spirit skilled in various forms of art that Lucy has befriended, hehehe."

"Good answer." the Princess of Darkness breathed in her jittering sister's ear, as she silently slid back to her brother's side, keeping a hidden glare that sent creeping shivers down the glitter-lover's back.

All eyes, minus Luan's, fell on Lori, who was once again weighing the good and the bad of the idea, and came to this conclusion. "It's not the most moral plan we've ever devised down here, but it's still worth a shot. All in agreement ?" The siblings left a collective "Aye !", some sounding more reclutant than the others. One peppy voice seemed to be missing however, prompting Lori to turn to her in curiosity. "Well Luan ? Are you in or not ?"

"Yeah yeah, don't worry." Luan gestured loosely with a flap of her hand, not even bothering to turn around. "Do your thing, I just need to see something."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "Mind telling us more ?"

"As I said, don't worry about it. Nothing that'll ruffle your feathers or anything, hahaha !" the comedienne guffawed, collecting her usual dose of exasperated groans, before reengaging Serious Luan mode.

"Alright, here goes nothing." said Lincoln, selecting the newest option avaliable in their ACT menu, Challenge. He then put on a challenging smile, quickly followed by his nine sisters. "Okay Snowdrake, hit us with the best you've got !"

"I thought you wanted him to tell us jokes !" said Leni in a bout of panic.

"He meant hitting us with puns, Leni." explained Lynn with a shake of her head.

It unfortunately didn't help much. "You can hit with words ?"

"Indeed, leaving you with even deeper scars than a beating could ever provide." Lucy threw in her two Lei. (Not a typo, look it up.) With a deadpan look, Lynn punched Miss Spooks' shoulder, who didn't budge, but still rubbed the sore spot.

Despite the feeling of coldness his appearance suggested, a small fire ignited itself in Snowdrake's eyes. At last, a receptive audience ! Soon, he would drown those humans in pure hilarity, and he'd finally prove to everybody, especially to him, that he so did have what it took to be a comedic master ! And most important of all... she would be proud of her little Snowy.

Adredaline pumping through his veins, nippy wind passing through his feathers, and jokes overflowing his mind, Snowdrake scratched the ground for good luck, and prepared himself to dazzle the crowd !

"Y-You've got game, humans. Keep going, and don't snowflake out on the way !" Snowdrake exageratedly winked, so much that a broken snowflake jumped out of the corner of his eye, and crashed onto the floor in a pitiful manner.

A rather fitting metaphor, was the Louds' general thought.

The ten youths wanted to respond positively to the comedian, as they could feel he was trying ; even a simple fake laugh would do here. They wanted to laugh at the joke, they really did. But laughter simply couldn't come out of their throats, no matter how much they willed it to. The akward delivery, the lack of pacing, and the joke's nature that had since long dried out of any casual fun factor after being hammered on them for years. All of that combined made for the epitome of anti-humour in their eyes, and filled them with nothing but dry dread. Their lips showed just that, as their edges plummeted as if being dragged down by 2 ton weights. As for the Punsionnate Loud, she merely tapped her chin thoughtfully.

"Lucy ? Like, is this how you feel everyday ?" asked Leni, trying as had as she could to get her lips back to normal, only for them to fall into cringe once more.

"On Mondays. Or back in Kindergarten, when they used to sing all those happy songs, over and over again." she recoiled from those horrendous memories, filled with smiles, soulless kitten hand puppets, and worse. "If there was one thing I learned from this place, it was to despise rainbows with everything I had."

If put off before, Snowdrake was now shocked to see the expressions the members of his small audience were giving him. Alright, so he wasn't the best at improvising. But it couldn't be that bad, right ?

Undeterred, Snowdrake accentuated his efforts. "C'mon g-guys, don't gimme that cold shoulder, 'c-cause Icey what you're doing there."

"Aaaargh, make it stop ! There are just so many jokes my ears can take, urgh !" Lola pleaded to the heavens, regretting having ever come up with that ill-thoughted plan. Even her makeup didn't hold a place in her mind anymore, as she shoved her head under a pile of snow just to keep any more of those puns to hit her. Luan had already ruined dolphins for her, she was not going to lose the pleasures of Winter too !

"Thank goodness for Monster food..." mumbled Lori, on the verge of heaving from a bad joke overdose, only halted by the lack of content her stomach held.

"Poo-poo..." approved Lily, now not only sharing the same SOUL colour as her oldest sis, but also the same shade of green their cheeks were highlighting.

As she was trying everything she could to get those last puns from her head by throwing in every stupidly catchy song she had seen on commercials between matches of the Super Bowl, the freckled athlete suddenly clasped a hand around her arm with a bewildered expression.

"Man... that joke was so bad, I think it physically hurt me !" she said out of disbelief. Her HP bar wasn't showing any damage done to her orange little heart, but the pain she was feeling in her elbow was telling her otherwise.

But the pain coursing through the young teen's arm was nothing compared to the state Snowdrake's own SOUL was currently experiencing.

Broken. Few words could get a better description of how the monster was feeling. His spirit had been thoroughly pierced, so much that his combative spirit was in a poor state too, making him only produce a couple of his sharp spinning attacks, ones that didn't even aim at the humans, hitting trees instead. Snowdrake didn't care. He didn't know what he cared about anymore. Only damp and cold failure was on his mind right now, and not even the wordplay got his spirits to rise by a iota. The monster plopped on his butt, and looked down at the ground with all the pity a sad clown could muster.

And that was Luan's cue.

Without a peep, Luan passed her cringing and gagging sisters and brother, hit the ACT button, and chose her own option in the menu : her name, written in, what else ? comic sans. "Hey buddy, wake up. The curtain hasn't dropped yet."

Luan's call proved effective, as Snowdrake blinked himself awake, and looked up at the human now standing next to him. Was she talking to him ? He was honestly confused, and even more so when she brightly grinned at him.

"Yes silly, I am talking to you. Now get up, because nobody likes people sitting on the job !" the comedienne jovially slapped her knee, then held out this same hand to the monster, who hesitated, but, seeing no harm in the action, took it. "Alright, you're now one step closer to the success of stand-up ! Hahaha, get it ?"

Snowdrake let out a small chuckle, but gloom quickly returned to his features. "Yeah, I get that you have ten times the puns I could ever think of, and you dish out on the fly like that." brooded the broken comedian.

"Oh c'mon, Drake ol' chum, I'm not the one who's supposed to be the best at this fly part, you know ?" said Luan while showing him his wing. Snowdrake's mood didn't improve this time, making the blue-hearted human realise she had to go back to business. "Alright then, Drake- Can I call you Drake ? No ? Yes ? Let's say that's a yes. Anyway, let's talk comic to comic. This is your first gig, am I right ?"

"Uh, yeah ? I-Is it that noticeable ?" asked Snowdrake with a wary tone.

Luan put a hand on Snowdrake's shoulder, and sighed. Here came the hardest part of her job. "Drake, I'm not gonna sugar-coat it, because I like you. Everything you just did was off. The setting, the pacing, the delivery, we gotta cover all the basics again. The only good thing, I'd say, are your puns, I can feel the thinking you put into those. But you could have the best joke in the world, if you choke on it, it's over, you've killed the fun, and going straight to akward jail, without touching those 20,000$."

Snowdrake had no idea what a dough-lard was, but he had gotten the overall message. "Man, it's true then. I really suck at comedy." muttered Snowdrake, dejectedly kicking a small patch of snow. "Should've stayed home and work at MTT-Burger, like that cat guy..."

"Woah there, no need to sell yourself short ! Or anyone else for that matter, because that's pretty cheap, hehe. Sorry, couldn't resist." Luan quickly apologised. "Drake, this is your first time ! It's more than okay to mess up on your first try, it's even recommended. Trust in auntie Luan, ine was such a bust, I almost gave up on comedy as a whole. For two weeks, I lashed out at everyone letting out even a tiny snicker."

Snowdrake winced sympathically. "That bad ?"

"Worst. And yet, I still hold on that memory. Not the going wild part of course, I'm still trying to forget that." Luan shuddered at those dark visions from the past. That poor, poor clown. Never would his jolly red nose squeak to fill the kids' hearts with merriness again. "But it's from that failed performance, those bored frowns hammered on the audience's faces that day, that I've built my will to spread joy and smiles through the power of laughter. Each time, I look back to see how far I've come, and how far I can still go to bring happiness to the people around me ! And look at me now !"

Luan brought her mitten inside on of her coat's inside pockets, fished out a calling card, and handed it to the monster. Snowdrake observed the quirky drawing of Luan sitting at a desk as if she was a businesswoman, while sporting her signature Groucho Glasses and a booby-trapped pen spraying ink by the wrong end. Behind her, in bright letters, surrounded by detonating confetti popers and balloons, stood her company name. "Funny Business Inc." read the Giant Bird, pursuing his lecture by flipping the card over. "Birthday animations, 3 to 15 year-old. 'Your fun is our business'. Wait, you've got your own birthday planning company ?"

"Second best in all of Michigan, I might add." smirked Luan, trying not to gloat too much. "It makes my week-ends and holidays a bit tiring, but you can expect that from my trusty monocycle, hehe. Not only that, I have my own website as well, with all the videos I post on EyeTube. A week ago, I finally pushed open the gates of 100,000 subscribers !"

The lower part of Snowdrake's beak dropped. Hard. "A-A-A... a hundred thousands ?" Not only did that call his thought on the total number of humans that lived on the surface into question, but it also made him realise that this was no mere comedian that was offering him advice. He was in the presence of a celebrity ! A star desecending from the firmament of fun ! The funmament if you would !

And one that was waving her hand inches away from his face. "Yoo-hoo, anyone home ? Don't tell me the weather's got you stuck in there ?" called Luan with a good-natured grin.

A chill ran down Snowdrake's spine, but it was no longer a starstruck one. No, his entire being was reacting to the true call hidden in the human's awaking words. The call that any self-respected comedian would, and should take.

"Well, you are in Snowdin." Snowdrake blurted out. There was a moment of tense silence, as Luan stopped grinning, and gained a far-away gaze. Snowdrake immediately assumed the worst, and looked to the side to avoid seeing the appearance of that same look of sickness over his atrocious brand of humour. A shameful screw-up to the very end, it seemed-

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA !"

Laughter ? Why was someone laughing ? Could it be that...

Snowdrake mustered all his courage, and turned back to Luan. He was greeted by the sight of the buck-toothed human holding her ribs and laughing to her heart's content, demonstrated by her blue SOUL shaking with hilarity. Snowdrake gaped at her, confused. Had he done that ? Had he finally made someone laugh ? The mere possibility made a ray of hope pierce through the dark clouds of his brooding.

Luan laughed for a few more seconds, before finally getting a hold of herself. "Wow, I usually smell those joke opportunities from a mile, but I didn't even notice that one ! It was practically gift-wrapped to me, but you've ribboned it away from me. Don't worry though, I'm knot a presentful kind of person. But I can tell, you've certainly got a gift, kiddo."

The string of puns did the trick, and it was Snowdrake's turn to laugh merrily. He was quickly joined by the young jester, and both of them simply laughed. They let laughter overtake their minds, their SOULs, and all their problems. For now, they just wanted to laugh.

The siblings, despite their shared little breakdown, had followed the entire exchange between the two pun lovers with open ears. At first, they were confused by their sister's action, then got annoyed by the flurry of puns that she unleashed, although those were ones they could actually stomach. But in the end, it was both warmth and guilt that wormed their way into their colourful little hearts. Warmth at seeing their sister bond over the thing she adored the most, and that despite always groaning at her acts, they truly respected from her. Guilt at the hopelessness they'd seen on the monster's face, who wanted nothing more than to give them a good time, ignoring the attacks he had thrown their way.

"Am I the only one who thinks we messed up a bit here ?" said Lincoln, his cheeks and SOUL glowing an embarrassed red. He was after all one who had endured mockeries criticism in the past, and it seemed he had forgotten that not everyone possessed a skin as thick as he did. As for the only other person who knew the results of that little sleuthing adventure, her pale cheeks were gleaming an even more ashamed crimson.

"Brah, we earn this dude another shot." Luna earnestly proposed. There was nothing remotely cool about shooting down someone's first time in the spotlight. The teen could only imagine Mick Swagger looking down on her with great disappointment.

"We most certainly do." agreed Lori, already on her way towards the pair of cackling comedians, who slowed down upon witnessing her approach. "Hey. First off, we'd like to apologise about how we treated you just then. Our reactions were litteraly uncalled for." Lori bowed her head apologetically. "So, on a second point, and to get a fresh start, how about we do this again ?"

"You mean... you want to hear my jokes ?" crowed Snowdrake with growing excitement, that only got more intense when Lori nodded and the siblings began to cheer encouragements.

"Sno'ake ! Sno'ake !" Lily began the supportive chant.

"Heck yeah, Lil'ster !" praised Lynn, gleefully following in the chant. Her participation quickly rallied the others to it, and ten voices were now loudly echoing through the snowed woods. "Snowdrake ! Snowdrake ! Snowdrake !"

The monster quivered, facing those expectant humans. But it was not out of fear or worry anymore. At least not entirely; anxiety was still part of it, but was mere rubble compared to the thrill that was rushing through his veins and feathers. The bird monster almost took a step back, but was stopped by the encouraging hand of her puntor, whose wise nod spoke a thousand words, and somehow cramming in a hundred different jokes. She was known to always think ahead.

Snowdrake, who had begun to think about his A-game material, was struck with enlightenment. And just like that, an old joke came to him, one he had heard from the one who had always believed in him, ever since he was but a cute little Snowy chick. Joke engraved in his mind, Snowdrake spoke without missing a beat.

"Okay, this one's a family inheritance. In the coldest region of Snowdin, a little Snowkid approaches his Snowmom, and says, "Mommy, I think I'm adopted." Naturally, the Snowmom is shocked by her son's statement. "But son, why do you say that ?" responds Snowmom. "You're a snowman, me and your father are snowmen, your grand-parents are snowmen, your aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone from your family is a snowman ! Therefore, you are not adopted." But the kid persists, "I still think I'm adopted." "But why ?!" presses on Snowmom with increasing frustration, to which her son meekly replies. "Because I'm so cold."

(*Rimshot*)

Yep, he's back. Took a lot of negociations, but he promised to keep doing his job, as long as he gets to appreciate an hourly Taco Break. I said fair enough, as long as he shares.

But back to the story, our heroes handed down their verdict.

And a success it was ! While Luan laughed out loud at what she considered to be a classic, the others all chuckled at their own natural volumes, with Leni and the twins laughing the hardest, and Lisa and Lucy snorting in rare amusement. They even threw in a small applause, and a couple of cheers from both rocker and athlete.

And while it was not a standing ovation, it certainly roused up one inside Snowdrake's SOUL, who mirrored it through his face seething in pure ecstatic joy. "HAHAHA, I knew it ! Suck on that, Dad ! I CAN make people laugh !" he boasted, loud and clear for everyone on a mile radius to hear with the help of the echo. The siblings chuckled some more at seeing the monster flap his wings in unbridled happiness.

But at this moment, none of the humans was prouder than Luan herself. "Sorry Mom. Looks like I didn't understand what you really meant about the emotion of seeing your little birds finally leaving the nest. But now, I certainly get it." she said while banishing a stray tear. It was one thing to deliver those knock-knock jokes and place those buckets of water on top of doors. But to pass down this knowledge to a newcomer was truly something else. It held its spot on the awesometer, right next to the unforgettable time she'd first heard an earnest laugh come from a professional brooder with a big heart, and the loveliest shade of dark grey one's hair could provide.

Luan's daydream was interrupted when she felt two wings grasp her hands, and began to heartfully shake them. "Thank you, human Luan ! You've showed me the light, and I just might blindly follow it !" Snowdrake cracked, then gained a softer tone. "But really, thanks. I-I've been through some issues, and you were just what I needed. I swear your teachings won't go to waste. This guy is not gonna stop before the entire Underground knows and laughs through my jokes."

"Hahaha, I'll look forward to that !" chuckled Luan. "And who knows ? One day, we could meet up on the Surface, two ultra-famous comedians, and go on a human-monster duo tour through the country ! We'll widen our path in Broadway, bring novelty to New York, and make it on top at Los Angeles. Bringing jokes everywhere, and leaving happy smiles in our way. Because that's what comedy's all about. A good time. As long as you remember that, Drake ol' pal, your jokes will have the same things my sis Luna's christmas songs hold : A great flow, a sucessful delivery, and a jolly smile on everyone's faces, including yours."

"Aww, Lulu..." Luna almost teared up at the compliment. The others awwed as well, glad that such a sour string of events and jokes had ended on such a sweet note.

*"It smells like a wet pillow... and success."

"That guy's always there to put in his two scents, ain't he ?" was Luan's last pun, once again meeting a mixed reception from her family and a guffawing one from her new friend, before Lincoln could finally press the salvaging Spare option.

*YOU WON ! You've gained 0 EXP and 12 Gold.

Fight over.

As the eleven colourful SOULs once again took their rightful places, Snowdrake shook hands with his newly appointed mentor one more time, before spreading his short wings, and took off in the air. "Bye humans ! When we'll meet again, you'll have VIM seats (Very Important Monster) for my show, on my word !"

"We'll hold you on that one !" shouted the primpiest of the twins, as she was not one to part with such an interesting offer, that involved comfy seats and all the apple juice a princess could gorge herself with.

"Sorry for bumping into you !" apologised Leni with a wave. "I know a guy in Royal Woods who'll smooth your feathers even cozier than before !"

"And remember, as long as you have fun and keep your heart into the game, you'll always have an audience, and the time of your life will need no calendar to be remembered !" added Luan encouragingly.

"Do I look like a birdbrain to you ?!" yelled the monster back, earning a rowdy laugh from the comedian, before disappearing in the distance, most likely to rave about his success to his friends like any teen would.

"Welp, that was litteraly something. Not the worst fight we've been into this far." Lori sighed in relief, as she bent down to collect the little coins on the cold ground. "Wow, twelve coins for a single monster ? If this keeps up, we'll have enough to finally build that swimming pool in our backyard, and then some for our weight in chocolate !"

"Aww, but why our weight ?" surprisingly complained Leni. "If my weight is what I think it is, I won't have a lot. And if it's not, I'll freak out like never before ! For my Papyrus, I must be perfect and thin as a fiddle !"

"It's fit as a fiddle, Leni." corrected Lisa with an eye roll. "But I'll give you this, your faulted analogy had the adequate theme, thus preserving the comprehension of your thought."

"Lisa, my throat is still dry from the first puns this guy unleashed on us. I do NOT need a headache as a bonus." grumbled Lana a bit tiredly, aggravating her as she knew this was only the first of many confrontations with funny, but still aggressive monsters. Her brother noticed that, and began patting the top of her head, making the little tomboy sit on all fours, and contently whine out of instinct.

"Well, we're in a new area. In games, the level of difficulty always increases as you progress through the levels, but so does the rewards you get from winning them. I mean, when the little green goblins, who could barely get a hit straight, make way for humongous lava golems who can destroy you with a single flick, your wooden spoon and crumbling coat of mails just might not be enough anymore, am I right ?" said Lincoln with his nerdish analogy, a smile on his face as he enjoyed this calm after the storm. This time, Luan was the one who had saved the day. In a way that was proper to her goofy attitude, but a fine job nontheless. He could see his sisters acknowledging that by offering Luan their own set of compliments, and the comedienne drank it up with gusto.

'If we all stay on track, nothing's impossible.' happily thought the boy, giving a little wink at the camera.

But perhaps not at the one he was thinking about...

"Alright guys, time to move out !" Lori clapped her hands, with Lily pointing ahead with an endearing "Poo-poo !".

The Loud group obliged in an unanimous action, solely leaving behind an empty brown chest, and the faint sound of laughter still reverberating amongst the pine trees. Save for a couple of them, that had lost all their needles out of traumatisingly bad puns.

Remember kids. Keep your jokes green, and meme with caution. Unless you've made shortcuts through reality. Then you can turn them blue as much as you want.

---

Taking the time to relax from their fight, the siblings came to a straight path, once again flanked at both sides by rows of nearly identical pine trees. But while the snowy road held nothing special, it wasn't quite the case for a familiar duo standing in the middle of it.

"FLAMES TRAILED AROUND THE ROOF LIKE HUNGRY SNAKES, AND A FOUL STENCH EMANATED FROM IT, THE STENCH OF DEATH ITSELF !" counted Papyrus with a dramatic shaking hand. Somehow, a just-as-melodramatic was playing in the background, then stopped when Papyrus' grin came back. "AND THAT IS WHY I AM PROHIBITED FROM MAKING LASAGNA FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS."

"sounds fair." shrugged Sans, nonchalant as ever.

"BUT ANYWHO, AS I WAS SAYING ABOUT UNDYNE, YERSTEDAY SHE- NYEH ?"

Papyrus' speech abruptly ended when a certain something caught his nonexistent eye. Or rather, eleven certain somethings. He gasped, and immediately turned to his brother. But as he did, the shorter skeleton turned to look at the humans, giving them a friendly wink. Papyrus imitated his rotating action, and almost like clockwork, Sans turned to look at him again.

The duo repeated this string of actions, always looking back and forth, and missing eachother every time. The more they did, the faster they got, to the point where they instead spun full circle, forming two mini twisters. A short moment passed, and the two stopped, facing the already amused humans, their bodies jiggling like rubber sticks. They both turned around, and Papyrus bent down to whisper in Sans' earhole. Well, Papyrus-whisper anyway.

"OH MY GOSH, SANS ! AM I SEEING THINGS ?! ARE THOSE... HUMANS ?!" the taller skeleton almost squealed.

The brothers turned around, and looked ahead to spot their young and fleshy targets. Or so the Louds thought, but they quickly noticed that Sans' pupils were shifted a bit to the left.

"uh, sorry bro, but those are just a bunch of rocks." assessed Sans with a cheeky grin.

Confused, the Louds looked to their left, and indeed found a group of eleven rocks, all of conveniently different sizes. Perhaps too convenient. Heck, some those rocks even had small details that linked them to the Louds, such as the fifth smallest being darker in colour, and the second smallest having two little shiny spots on its 'head'.

"Were those always there ?" Lynn discreetly asked. She only got unsure shrugs from her brother and sisters.

"OH." sighed Papyrus with clear disappointment.

But Sans was quick to lift his spirits. "but hey, what's that standing next to the rocks ?"

Papyrus took another look, and produced a second gasp. "OH MY GOSH !" He then stooped to his brother's level again. "SANS, THOSE ARE HUMANS THIS TIME, RIGHT ?"

"yep." Sans whispered back.

"OH MY GOSH !" raucously yelled Papyrus. "AT LAST, I'VE FOUND A HUMAN ! LOOK AT THEM SANS, IN THE FLESH THEY STAND ! I HAD NO IDEA THEY CAME IN ALL THOSE SHAPES AND SIZES. ONE OF THEM IS EVEN LACKING EYES !"

"No, I do have eyes. My hair acts as a curtain, but they're here. They see. They watch. They know." recited the spooky eight year-old, her usual spookiness making her siblings shudder. Papyrus' mood on the other hand, lit up even further.

"THEY CAN EVEN READ MINDS ! HUMANS TRULY ARE FASCINATING ! AND NOT JUST THAT ONE, LOOK HOW MANY THERE ARE ! SO... SO VERY MANY OF THEM. NYEH..."

Sans arched an eyebrow at the uneasy sweat forming on his bro's forehead. "bro, everything alright ?"

"UM, WELL, THAT IS TO SAY..." said Papyrus, twiddling his thumbs.

"bro... don't tell me you're getting cold feet ?" teased the grinning bonehead.

"WHAT ?! THE GREAT PAPYRUS DOES NOT GET COLD FEET ! MY COZY AND FEARLESS BOOTS SHOULD TELL YOU THAT !" snorted Papyrus with great indignation. "I-I WAS MERELY SURPRISED, THAT'S ALL ! WHEN I HEARD THAT HUMANS WERE COMING, I HAD NO IDEA THEY WOULD BE SO NUMEROUS ! CAPTURING ONE, EASY AS SPAGHETTI ! TWO OR THREE, A LAUGHABLE TASK ! BUT ELEVEN ? THAT'S QUITE THE DAUNTING CHALLENGE, EVEN FOR ME."

"hmm, you got a point there." nodded the jokester, then raised a bony finger. "but you know, that could play in your favour."

"OH ?"

"think about it. if you capture one human, your place in the royal guard's assured. but what if you were to capture eleven of them ? quantity and quality, meaning a heck of a better reward. just imagine."

And imagine the lanky skeleton monster did, colourful images passing through his skull. And the more he did, the bigger his toothy smile got, along with a slow but elated intake of air. "GREAT SAFFRON, SANS ! IF I SUCCEED, I WON'T JUST BE NAMED A GUARD. I'LL BE A CORPORAL ! NO, A CAPTAIN ! NO, A GENERAL ! NO, I'LL BE... GENERALISSIMO PAPYRUS !" gushed the monster, imagining himself wearing a fierce-looking golden armour, the dozens of medals on it resplendishing as much as his proud smile. He of course didn't leave out his 'official' sunglasses, and his awesome great helm, bearing the great name that was his. "CAN YOU SEE IT, SANS ? I'LL BE SO POPULAR, EVERY MONSTER IN THE UNDERGROUND WILL WANT TO BE MY FRIEND ! I'LL BE EVEN GREATER THAN I ALREADY AM !"

"so, the greatest papyrus, eh ?" chuckled Sans good-naturedly. It was just nice to see his bro smiling in a way he hadn't seen for some time now.

Papyrus' bony cheeks parted, as his already huge smile somehow grew even shinier. A muffled squeal of pure delight emanated through his teeth, his clenched fists shook with elation near his face, and he began hopping on the spot like a certain teen would when hearing her Boo-boo Bear had a surprise for her. In fact, his joy was such that it went to a point where he just left the floor, levitating a couple of inches or so above the ground, his boots flapping like little wings. The monster couldn't have looked more cartoonishly happy if he had tried, and was a fairly funny sight for the humans, half of them already doubling over.

"I really don't get what Goat Mom was on about. This isn't really one of the 'Unmerciful, bloodthirsty beast' I was expecting. The guy's just a big kid on a constant sugar rush !" sniggered Lynn.

"Yeah, he's even dorkier than Lincoln !" guffawed Lola. Surprisingly, Lincoln didn't take an ounce of offense from that.

"Funny c'own, hehehe !" giggled Lily.

"I think at this point, every monster is a little off their hinges, save maybe Tori." concurred Luna with a smile of her own. "But hey, as long as it's just a bit of wonkiness, and not 'Murder and stalking children is fun, golly !', then no prob bob, I dig it. And it looks like I ain't the only one..."

"He can fly like an angel. Aaah..." swooned Leni with her lovestruck grin, dramatically falling backwards, and caught by Lori, slightly amused to see that what she'd always believed only happened in sitcoms was happening right in front of her. If her phone battery wasn't so important, she would already be recording all of this.

The mirthful laughter pronounced by the humans reached Papyrus through his daydream of pure awesomeness. Upon remembering that he still had an audience to impress- nay, to bedazzle, his feet regained the ground, he engaged into some throat-clearing – that he probably had – and pointed a dramatic finger in the Louds' direction.

" HEAR MY WORDS, HUMANS !" he loudly began his speech."YOU MAY HAVE VENTURED FAR, BUT YOUR QUEST ENDS HERE IN SNOWDIN ! PREPARE YOURSELF FOR PUZZLES, ENIGMAS, AND OTHER JAPPERS THAT WILL LEAVE YOU STUNNED, AND YOUR MINDS IN SHAMBLES ! THEN I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL SWOOP IN AND CAPTURE YOU ! AND THEN, I WILL PERSONALLY DELIVER YOU TO THE CAPITAL ! AND THEN ! AND THEN..." Papyrus scratched the top of his skull, and seeked advice from the smartest person he knew. "SANS, WHAT COMES AFTER THAT AGAIN ?"

"dunno. lunch ?"

"PERHAPS. A GREAT SUGGESTION NONTHELESS ! NYEH HEH HEH !" chortled Papyrus to the ceiling. He then adressed a cocky smile to his future catches. "SHAKING IN YOUR BOOTS YET, HUMANS ?"

From behind his bro, Sans winked at the children, who caught it, and immediately put on their own challenging grins. "Bring it on ! I've never turned down a challenge, and it ain't gonna start today !" boasted Lynn with a little one-two.

"I certainly hope that your mazes and riddles will be of optimal level. I have been yearning for a challenge since I've got here, but never came across anything extraordinary." lisped Lisa rather pridefully. "So as a strange popular saying linked to quirky images splattered across the depths of the Internet would put it : Show me your moves !"

"You better have game, 'cause we're ready to make your jaw drop !" jested Luan. "Get it ?"

"Don't go easy on us just because we're kids, buddy ! Monsters didn't stop the Louds before, and you won't be an exception !" bellowed Lana as she hit her chest like a gorilla.

"The only lunch we'll be having is the one of your surrender ! We don't take anything less than victory !" Lola took a pose as she brought her best bragging, without getting into trash talk. She had after all, made grown men cry because of it, and she really didn't wanna know what Sans would do if she was to make Papyrus weep.

"Well ? Are we gonna play, or is making wind all you've got ?" smuggly jabbed Lincoln, prompting his sisters to "Ooooh !" in support. But far from deterring him, Papyrus took all those challenging words to heart, fuelling his excitement.

"OHO, WHAT FEISTY SPIRITS YOU HAVE, HUMANS ! I LIKE THAT ! I PREDICT A LOT OF ACTION AND FUN IN OUR FUTURES." said Papyrus, bringing his scarf before his face like a cape, only letting his eyes and wriggling eyebrows peer over it. " NOW COME ! ONLY IF YOU DARE..." he tauntily wriggled his gloved fingers. And with a boisterous "NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH !", the monster eagerly zoomed ahead.

Sans watched his brother quickly vanish in the distance, then turned back to the humans. "welp, i'd say this went pretty good. thanks for playing along."

"Who's playing along ? I'm really pumped to see what your bro's got for us !" said Lynn, a broad grin on her face.

"And you're absolutely sure he's not dangerous ?" asked ever-cautious Lori, once again tasked with bringing her scatterbrained roommate back to reality. "He seems nice, and I'm sure he is, but he does still want to capture us."

"don't worry, boss. If there's one monster you'll ever be safe with, it's paps." chuckled Sans.

Lori groaned internally. 'He's already found us nicknames. Wonderful.'

"besides, i'll always be near, always keeping an eyesocket out for you kiddos." continued Sans. "there, feeling better ?" The flat look on most Louds' faces said it all, but had no effect on Sans' laidback grin whatsoever. "welp, see ya soon."

With that, Sans walked away, this time in the right direction. After reviving Leni's brain, the Louds followed the same trail, and arrived in front of what looked like the little wooden station they'd seen next to those contiently placed hiding spots. But the resemblance was by a huge stretch, as the structure was entirely made of cardboard, pieced together by glue that was spreaded well over the gaps, and even then, it looked like a mere breeze would be enough to make the whole thing topple over.

"Yeesh ! I think nothing screams more Amateur, than this." cringed Lana, sticking her tongue out. The little handygirl felt her stomach churn just by looking at the very poor craftmanship.

"It's frail and fake-looking. Like life itself..." recited Lucy, before catching herself. "Sorry, this dark forest and icy weather are inspiring me more than I first thought."

"Gosh, you're totes right Lana. Whoever did this could use some major crafting tips." approved Leni as the expert crafter that she was. "I mean, who uses cardboard and glue ?"

"Papyrus, apparently." stated Luna, kneeling near the bumbling station as she read the sign imprinted on it. "Yep, it's got his signature all over it.

"Then it's the best thing made in the history of ever..." drooled Leni, her heart-shaped pupils now only seeing, in the clunky structure, a magnificient station made in the purest Butternut wood, where everyday sat the Great Papyrus himself, eyes whimsically staring at the sky, his scarf floating in the breeze, and his heroic aura giving those shady woods a new shine.

"Oh brother..." groaned Lynn, as she rolled up her sleeves and approached her gawking-at-air sis for some much needed body and brain rattling.

"What does it say ?" asked Lincoln curiously.

"The writing's a bit weird, so here's about the bulk of it." Luna cleared her throat, and read out loud. Caption marks on LOUD. "YOU OBSERVE THIS VERY WELL-CRAFTED STATION, AND CAN'T HELP BUT PONDER WISTFULLY. 'WHO COULD HAVE EVER BUILT SUCH A GREAT-LOOKING STATION ? IT MUST'VE BEEN THAT INCREDIBLY POPULAR GUARDSMAN !' (NOTE : NOT YET AN INCREDIBLY POPULAR GUARDSMAN !) PHOTO COST : 0 GOLD. GREATNESS IS PRICELESS. -THE GREAT PAPYRUS, (ALMOST) ROYAL GUARDSMAN, 20-SOMETHING."

"Why are you reading this in his voice ?" questionned Lori, a bit weirded out at Luna using such a high-pitched tone out of the blue.

"Because it's litteraly how he wrote it, dude !" answered Luna with a small chuckle.

Lisa approached the signto give it her own expertise, and gasped at the results. "He wrote in a fashion where you can't help but read it in his voice. It's... baffling, yet expression 'Words leaping out of the page' have never been more real here ! Whatever ink or calligraphy he's using, I must find out. For science !" the little scientist unleashed her war cry, that made Leni snap back to reality.

"Well, it's all a matter of inking right, and you're the smartest squid I know !" cracked Luan, taking a side-glance at the camera. "Just because we're in a winter land, doesn't mean all my jokes have to be ice-related. Gotta keep the content fresh, hehe."

The siblings sighed in dismay, but couldn't fight a small chuckle at the end. "We're in for a lot more of those, aren't we ?" Lynn rubbed her forehead with a grin.

"It wouldn't surpise me in the least that whatever force made monsters loved puns very much." mused Luna. "But when you live with Luan, ask yourself this. Is it really gonna make a difference ?"

"Nope." said the sibs in unison, even Lily, prompting them to laugh some more.

"I guess it'll just be another trial this place throws at us." Lori shook her head. "Let's go see what else that place has in store for us, shall we ?"

All approved, and quickly resumed their advance with light hearts. Already the monsters seemed promising, fueling both their determination and curiosity. As they marched, they kept wondering just who and what else they would find in this strange world. How long would it be till they reached the exit ?

How long would it be until ASGORE found them ?

---

Author's Note : Have I stressed the name ASGORE enough ? No ?

ASGORE.

Welp, there you have it folks, the first Snowdin Chapter. What do you think about the Skelebros ? Was it worth the wait ? Am I butchering their characters ? And most importantly, what would you like to see them doing ? Write on, my lovelies ! Just, keep it G-Rated.

But anyway, this chapter took some hard work, and I can only guess the rest of the Arc will be like that. Coming out with those puns is way harder than it seems, and I don't wanna just rip off what the game already offers. I strive for originality, darn it ! Even though the events of the story are pretty much identical to the core story of Undertale. Like, 90% exact.

Sans : and i thought i was the lazybones here.

Sans, for the last time, get out of my closet !

Sans : aw c'mon, double-seven. don't wanna buy a dog ?

...Maybe.

Anyway, this is once again Superdimentio77, giving you warm greetings from this brand new chapter, and hope it'll inspire you just as much as it did to me. Cheerios !

Sans (winking) : what they said.