"I need to get you home before Ink finishes whatever anime he's watching now," said Error, glitching heavily as he looked at the smaller skeleton.

"I don't want to go back," said Blue, meeting the other's colorful eyelights with his own steely blue ones.

"Why not? It's your home... just be glad you have one," said Error, frowning sadly.

"My brother will probably kill me if I go back," replied Blue, his eyelights dimming. "He kicked me out of the house, and I was running for my life when I ran into you, glitchy-skeleton-whose-name-I-still-don't-know."

"Well. That's probably an issue. And my name's Error, or at least that's what the voices call me. And given that I don't remember what my real name is, I just go with it."

"Could I... stay with you? My Soul is telling me that I can trust you, that you're safe."

"Heh. Me, safe? I'm the destroyer of worlds, pal. I'm the opposite of safe."

"I still want to stay with you!" Blue said stubbornly, his eyelights like chips of blue ice.

"There are other worlds I could take you, you know," Error told the smaller skeleton. "This place... it messes with your head after a while. You start to hear voices, and then you begin to lose memories, and eventually your body starts to glitch... it's not a nice place, Blue. Please, don't try to stay here. I beg you."

"I'm not listening!" Blue chirped in a sing-song tone, covering where his ears would be, if skeleton monsters had such organs.

* Let him stay, my little weaver. He will not be harmed by this place, I promise you. He, like you, is under my protection now. And as Fate has not yet gotten her claws into him, I can protect him from this place.

"Fine," Error grumbled, replying to both Blue and Destiny. "You can stay."

"Yay!" Blue chirped, before a wicked grin appeared on his face.

Error shivered. That smile definitely wasn't ominous, not at all...

"So, what do you think about pranks?" Blue asked.

"Pranks?" Error asked.

"I guess I'll have to show you... it's basically playing a trick on someone for fun. One time, I... wait, what? I remember doing that... but not? How could that same thing happen more than once?" Blue wondered.

"Resets, if I had to guess," Error muttered. 'Destiny, are you behind this?'

* Yes, my little weaver. To protect him from this place, I had to give him a touch of Determination- although he will not be harmed by it, it will have some side effects- such as slowly remembering the resets.

"Resets?" Blue asked.

"The human- Frisk? Or is it a different one for you?- who fell into the Underground has the ability to turn back time due to their Determination. If they die, they can undo it, and if they want, they can return to the start and go through all over again, and nobody will remember except for a few- the Judge, and the lost children. It's almost like a game, in a horrible way- but nobody should have that much power, so it comes with a steep price."

"What kind of price?" Blue asked curiously.

"In exchange, every couple of times they die, a different being will be in control. An anomaly," Error growled angrily. "And the anomaly is a murderous being that will go through the Underground on a path of genocide, killing everyone and everything it can find, for no reason other than that it can."

"What happens then?" Blue asked.

"When it reaches the Last Corridor, also known as the Judgement Hall, the Judge of the Underground will battle it. And hopefully, they will manage to kill it enough that it gives up... but it is a stubborn creature, and by that point, it has reached a LV of 19. And if it can kill the Judge, then it reaches LV 20, and goes to fight the King-."

"In my world, it's Queen Toriel, I think," interjected Blue.

"Or Queen. It can bring them down with a single blow, but before it can take their Soul, the lost child stops it by destroying the Soul. And then, the first fallen child offers them a choice. To erase the timeline and its horrors, or to remain there until they get bored, and then agree to erase the timeline."

"That's... that's scary. I wouldn't want that kind of power, especially not with a price like that."

"Blue, do you mind if I look at your code? I need to figure out your original AU so that I can force a reset before your brother notices that you're missing."

"He won't care if I'm there or not... he pretty much kicked me out, and I still don't know why. He just started drinking and seeming to be going insane all of a sudden, and I don't know why."

"Probably the resets again. If he can remember them, it probably is driving him mad.

— There aren't a lot of things that scare Blue... but even in the future as Hope, Papyrus frightens him, even other AUs' versions. His brother pretty much traumatized him for life, poor bean. That fear isn't as bad around non-Swap Papyri- he can learn to live with them- but Swap Paps is someone that he'll never be able see without fear.