Notes: I know the premise of this fic is unoriginal, but I'll try to give it the best presentation I can. I just really like "fish out of water" stories, and this idea fits really well in the world of Undertale. Hope you guys like it :)

Chapter 1

Contact

It was another morning in the sleepy little underground town of Snowdin. Sitting at the bar in Grillby's was a familiar customer, wolfing down a burger despite not having a digestive tract.

Sans the skeleton was a face everyone knew, but nobody really knew well. He was a comforting presence in town, always ready with a smile and pun. As he sat at the bar today, however, he wasn't chatting up the clientele like usual. Instead he was holding a metallic looking notebook and pondering the writing inside. No one really bothered him, as everyone else was absorbed in their own lives. That was just fine. He needed space to think today.

Sans was sure he'd done this exact same action over a hundred times already, maybe even more. This day was one that repeated over, and over, and over again (at least according to his notes). In fact, this day was very important. This day was the nexus that connected every timeline's past and future. This day was, in the most absolute sense of the word, the present.

Sans didn't remember what came next, though he had a few guesses based on notes from his previous selves. This notebook was a gift from someone he would never see again, in the old lab where he used to work. He never thought it would be so useful, but thanks to the shifting timelines this technological marvel had become an essential part of his life.

The first few notes told of an anomaly that resembled a flower. It seemed like a benevolent force at first, with each timeline in the notes getting better and better. New opportunities for some monsters, amazing gifts and matchmakings for others. The anomaly seemed to be some sort of cosmic being set on improving the underground. Around the 40th time skip however, things began to change.

The anomaly became a crueler being, killing and torturing innocent monsters, with its goal seeming to be the deposition of the king. Sans apparently killed the anomaly and saved the underground…137 times.

How could something come back from the dead like that? Sans could only assume it had power over the time/space continuum. This anomaly, whatever it was, could bend space and time to its will, and was therefore essentially immortal. That made its actions feel even pettier and more disgusting.

That wasn't the end of the mystery, however, as Sans tried to locate the anomaly earlier in the timeline at one point. He knew it was a flower, so he just had to find it. That was when he saw more new notes from more previous versions of himself.

The timelines were improving. Each new reset brought with it more joy, greater potential. Not only that, but the being seemed to have shifted its form. It was no longer described as a flower, but as a human.

That got Sans to thinking. Did all humans have the power to manipulate time? Was this the true power of determination? If so, then perhaps going to the surface would be a mistake. To provoke such powerful beings might go against common sense. Maybe they should all just stay here and hope the anomaly eventually left them alone to their fate.

Unfortunately, this version of Sans knew better than that, about a few things.

For one thing, one note was more detailed than the others. It seemed to be from a reset somewhere in the 400s. He was too lazy to count the exact one. This particular reset was a special one, however. It was the timeline in which everyone made it to the surface, and it was everything they had ever dreamed of.

Notes from this timeline included this little gem: papyrus bought a sports car. bro is so happy. i built a tricycle that will out-speed it. the look on his face. heh heh heh…

Sans smiled at that timeline's log, able to almost picture it. He wished he could remember it. He wished he could wrap himself in the lost memories of better times that did and yet will not happen.

One would expect the surface timeline to be the one the anomaly wanted. The creature clearly worked so hard for it. They all did. Yet the very next timeline wasn't just worse than that one, it was catastrophic.

The notes from the Sanses in these timelines were terrifying, written quickly and in desperation, as if there wasn't enough time before each reset.

everyone is dead. everyone in snowdin is dead. oh, papyrus…

undyne killed the anomaly. if only she knew…

undyne was murdered. the anomaly heading to hotland. alphys hid many monsters. what's the point?

no…i can't let this happen. it won't stop until i make it stop.

i killed it, but it will be back.

i killed it, sorry old friend. i had to.

it's will must break, it cannot die.

get boned, loser. don't come back.

it came back.

i lost count of how many times it died.

i almost died this time. need to stay focused.

the absolute is upon us…

Sans read each message, wishing that more of them were helpful. Somehow the absolute, the point where the universe simply ends, hadn't happened yet. Sans must've stopped the anomaly last time too, but he knew something would change in the future if nothing changed now. The anomaly could control time, and therefore had an eternity to try to kill him. This cosmic horror could die a million times, but Sans only needed to die once.

The real shame of it was that previous versions of him seemed to like the anomaly and what it did for him, and he could see why. Sans was once a brilliant scientist, but also a bit of an isolated workaholic that had little time for his fellow monster. Once he learned about the time skips however, something inside him shifted. He realized that no matter what he did, none of it was going to matter.

For the first few dozen resets, this was an amazing discovery! If time travel was real, then perhaps his own time machine could work. Perhaps he could go back to…well, needless to say he never managed to repair it in time (so to speak).

Once he realized going back wasn't going to work, he started thinking forward. He never really had time for the important things when he was working, so he just decided to change his perspective. Instead of wasting away at work he spent more time with his brother, Papyrus, as well as getting to know the other monsters around Snowdin. He ate his favorite foods with no care for his health, he slept as much as he wanted, and he wore his bed clothes out in public without care for what others would think of him. Why should he care, right? After all, it's all going to be reset. Humiliation isn't real if it never happened.

The joy of this discovery was soon tempered however by the journal entries becoming more and more grim. He soon realized that his life, his brother's life, and the lives of everyone in the underground had become mere playthings for a being of unknown origin with incomprehensible power.

Sans soon went from being overjoyed by the time loop to becoming depressed about its implications. At first he sunk into malaise, realizing they would never escape. Then he must've had hope at some point, if the surface timeline was any indication. Now, though, a new feeling seeped into his soul and rattled his bones…

Fear.

The anomaly was becoming bolder, more willing to harm not only individuals, but the entire universe. Sometimes it looked like a flower, sometimes like a human, and who knew how many other forms it took! After all, a creature like that surely had a real form that was beyond comprehension for a mere monster.

Sans found himself in the unenviable position of being the only one who could stop a cosmic abomination, and yet was unable to tell anyone of the danger they were in. After all, he didn't actually know what the anomaly was, or who it currently was.

He befriended every monster in the underground, one by one, when he realized that any one of them could be the anomaly. He and his brother weren't the most outgoing monsters by nature, but he had to try. Well, that wasn't true. Papyrus was very outgoing. He just didn't really understand social cues.

Sans theorized that the anomaly was unhappy. If it had a friend, someone that could trust and accept it as it was, then perhaps it would spare their world and its people. Sans knew he couldn't kill it, so he was trying to bargain with it. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be an option anymore.

He racked his skull trying to think of something, anything, he hadn't already tried in a previous timeline. Something that would save them all. Something that would make the anomaly stop.

He couldn't help but chuckle to himself at how ridiculous that sounded, even in his mind. This thing, whatever it was, probably didn't even exist in physical space. It was just using shells, avatars to enact its will. That would explain why it picked an inanimate object like a flower. Why wouldn't it? Anything would do if all it wanted was destruction, after all.

Yet…something still felt off about its actions. If destruction was the ultimate goal, then why start out by being friendly? Why grant all of their wishes? Why make all of their dreams come true? It couldn't be sadism. If it wanted to torture them with unfulfilled dreams, then it would force them to remember their previous timelines as it plunged them into eternal torment.

No, concepts like good and evil didn't really seem to apply to this situation. Whatever it wanted, it didn't have it yet. Whatever this thing was, Sans knew he wasn't truly communicating with it yet. He could see the shell, he could talk to the avatar, but that was all. That shell wasn't the real anomaly. If he was going to save the world, then he had to make real contact with their tormentor.

He needed to reach out and touch someone…

IRL

Amber sat at the computer with a frustrated yet somehow still bored expression as she traced the icons on her brother's computer with her eyes. It was the most cluttered mess she had ever seen! There were icons over icons, and only a single screen for every stupid thing he was doing on this computer. Why did he have so many random games? What was even the point?

"James? Do you delete…anything, like, ever?" Amber asked dryly.

Her little brother, a teenager with messy brown hair to complement his equally messy lifestyle, just sighed sharply and crossed his arms.

"Hey, Jimmy, if you want my help, you need to tell me what I can delete," Amber reminded him.

"I just want the computer to run faster," James huffed.

"Yeah, and deleting stuff is how you get it to run faster. You uninstall the random crap making it go slow," Amber explained condescendingly, but then regretted and said in a softer tone, "Look bro, it's just until we can afford to get you a new computer. That'll take a while, okay? Especially if you want one good enough for streaming. That's the dream, right?"

"A pipe dream right now," James sulked, "Okay, just list off the programs in the app menu and I'll tell you if I'm done with them or not."

Amber nodded and began going over the list.

"What about this Doki Doki Literature Club thing?"

"Nah. I never finished it. Kept going back to the parts with Saori," James smiled sheepishly.

"Seriously? Is this like one of those weird dating fantasy games?" Amber asked slyly, "Okay, whatever. What about Raft?"

"Haven't gotten to the ending yet."

"Dude, it says you've played for 3 hours. You can't care about it that much."

"Just leave it! I'll get to it later!" James snapped.

"Okay then. What about…Sonic Adventure 2?"

"That one doesn't take up much space. Plus I haven't gotten the final ending yet," James explained.

"Man, I took off work to do you a favor! You can at least make this a little easier for me," Amber snapped, "Okay, what about Undertale?"

"Haven't finished the genocide route yet," James told her.

"The what?" Amber asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I never beat Sans. But I will someday!" James quickly said.

"Sans? You mean the guy from Smash Bros?" Amber asked, "I didn't know Nintendo made games for the PC."

"It's not Nintendo!" James shouted, "Do you play any games besides whatever your college friends drunkenly button-mash on? Okay, look, you can delete Solitaire Slam."

"That's like 10 MB!" Amber complained, "You need to get rid of things that take up actual space! At least get rid of No Man's Sky! That thing is a monster."

"But I'm not finished with it yet!" James argued.

"You don't finish anything!" Amber yelled, "Look, just get me a soda. I'll figure out how many of these apps you don't use frequently, and then give you a list so you can choose which ones to delete. Okay?"

"Okay, just don't touch Minecraft and No Man's Sky," James warned her.

As he left, Amber sighed and rubbed her forehead, which was starting to develop a slight pain.

"Of course his favorites are the ones that take up so much room on his stupid dinosaur PC…" Amber muttered to herself.

She pushed her long blonde hair out of her face, and leaned back in the creaking office chair. She should've just worked her shift at Subway today. It would've been boring, but at least there she would get paid to put up with random nonsense. She loved her brother, but sometimes it was hard to be around him. His room was piled with dirty clothes and pizza boxes, his computer looked like it was built with a virus pre-installed, he always walked around smelling weird, and their parents didn't seem to care about any of it.

Amber was lucky enough to move out a couple years ago for college, and now at 23 she just wanted her own life and her own space. Her family still needed her around however, so she found herself spending more time at their house than in her own apartment. Sometimes she considered moving back. It would be cheaper, and the headache would be about the same.

Snowdin

Sans worked his fingers to the bone in his workshop at the back of the house all night. He knew he didn't have a lot of time. The anomaly would show up the next day. He'd never worked so fast in all his life, and even then he had to utilize every teleportation shortcut he could manage. He needed this device to be operational ASAP!

He didn't even know if this would work, but he had to try. This device, a cellphone that sent waves beyond the underground and even beyond physical space, would be his ticket to contacting the anomaly. If he could just talk to it directly, without avatars and without interruptions, then perhaps he could strike a deal with it. He just had to know what it wanted; what would make it stop hurting them.

Sans's hands focused on building the device, but his mind was torn between his work and trying to figure out what he would say once he made contact. What could he even offer the anomaly? What would a being that exists beyond space/time even want?

Sans wasn't a superstitious monster, but something about this mission made his bones chill with apprehension. Was he messing with something that would destroy the world? Were his efforts even worth it? Was this somehow his fault? Maybe he played a prank on the anomaly and it got angry with him. No, that couldn't be it. He wasn't nearly important enough to affect the mood of something so vast and unfeeling. Upsetting the anomaly seemed as ridiculous as upsetting an earthquake. Natural disasters didn't have feelings. They just destroyed without care.

Yet, Sans couldn't truly believe that was the extent of it. It clearly cared. It cared a great deal about this place, because it kept coming back. What was it that the anomaly wanted? Was there a particular monster that it favored? One that it despised enough to kill everyone over its perceived slight?

These thoughts and more reeled as Sans put the finishing touches on his transmitter. Soon…soon, he would make contact with the being he'd killed over a hundred times. The being that held their fate in its clutches…

IRL

Where is James with that soda? Amber thought listlessly as she scrolled his computer for files to delete.

She deleted Solitaire Slam as James had instructed. It didn't make much difference whether it was there or not, but at least it was an icebreaker that might lead to him actually cleaning up his file storage. After this they would need to tackle his actual bedroom. Just thinking about that gave Amber a headache…

One step at a time. He'll feel better when things are clean. Just take it one step at a time…

As she scrolled through programs, the screen started to get a little brighter. Amber groaned, thinking the computer was so broken that the settings were going haywire on their own.

She left the app section and tried to find the display settings. Still, the computer was getting brighter and brighter. She squinted as the light started to overtake the screen, but then a moment later the light level returned to normal.

Amber looked at the screen, and where the settings had once been was replaced with a black box with white comic sans text that read…

[i know you didn't expect me to find you, but i did, and i have a bone to pick with you.]

"Did James download a virus?" Amber sourly asked under her breath, "Of course he did. Why am I asking? Now I have to debug his stupor computer…"

Then, before she could try to click the text box to make it go away, another one popped up that read…

[ok, maybe we got off to a bad start. i'm sorry. guess i'm just tired of acting as a skeleton crew for this world every time you empty it. maybe we should let bybones be bybones and start over, ok?]

"If this is a scam, I don't get it," Amber mumbled as she read the message, "Also their spellcheck is clearly broken. Maybe it's one of James's online friends?"

Amber thought for a moment, and decided she would just leave the message alone until James returned so he could reply to it himself. As she tried to minimize the message and move on however, she realized there was no icon for the app it came from in the start menu. Furthermore, there was no X button to get rid of it.

"It is a stupid virus!" Amber exclaimed, "James!"

James didn't reply however, and Amber blew out air from her cheeks in frustration. She would just have to figure out where the virus was and delete it herself. Why couldn't James keep even one part of his life clean?

She tried to click away so she could get to the app section, but nothing budged. The message then changed to read…

[you don't answer me. that's fine. maybe the signal isn't strong enough.]

The bright light from before then became so powerful that it temporarily blinded Amber, and she had to look away from the screen. As if that wasn't bad enough, the monitor's light seemed to be producing heat that was starting to burn Amber's skin!

"OMG! It's gonna blow!" Amber screamed as she tried to stand up.

For some reason, when she pushed her chair back, a gravitational force was leaning her forward, toward the computer. Amber, feeling like she was on fire now, screamed as she fell toward the computer and disappeared through it.