(WARNING: This AU had some disturbing themes. Not like, gore disturbing, don't worry. More like just unsettling at times.)

(Also sorry if the pacing seems a little janky, I'm just really excited to write this-)

In this AU, a long while after the loop restart and both Sabre and Time returning, the Professor receives something odd one day.

It's a video message with an attached image of a different world, somehow traveling across universes. The message is a distress call, the person recording hiding in what looks like a bunker and is wearing a kind of gas mask that only covers the lower half of their face, but the Professor can clearly see that they're a human. An unsettling part of their appearance is their eyes, one being a normal hazel, while the other is a jarringly bright yellow.

This human quickly explains in a panic that their world is in danger, that something is corrupting everyone one-by-one, and they're not sure how many people are left. The human begs for help from whoever received their message, and asks to hurry, as they're not sure how long they can fight it off anymore. They suddenly pause, starting to shiver, and a bright yellow liquid begins to ooze out of their yellow eye, their hazel eye turning into the same jarring hue as the other. They start to cough out a similar liquid, with their hair starting to change, before the video quickly cuts to static and ends.

Concerned, the Professor quickly calls over the Leaders, Light, and Sabre to see the message as well. After showing it to them, he pulls up the image of the world and explains that the attached image has instructions in a text file on how to build a portal to that world, and how to get to a place marked on the map as a 'safehaven'.

As the Leaders, Light, and the Professor discuss, it's eventually noticed that since the image was shown to them, Sabre had been staring at it in shock. When someone asks what's wrong, Sabre explains that the world in the picture is his world; where he came from. The broken town in the background of the image was his home.

After a moment of horror as it sinks in that they're looking at their friend's destroyed home, the Leaders begin to discuss what to do, while Light starts to try to calm Sabre as he has a breakdown at the news of his world being destroyed and corrupted.

Sabre had no idea how it could've happened. When he left, everyone was safe. There was no prominent danger of monsters other than the normal mobs and things, there was no wars going on, there were no dangerous diseases, no other worlds being a threat, nothing. So how could something absolutely ravage everything and destroy all he cared for in the few years he'd been gone? What happened to make the other human in the video so scared, and what caused what happened to them at the end of it?

Meanwhile, the Leaders discuss with the Professor the options they have moving forward with this. Professor Red confirms that it'll be easy to build the portal, the only complicated part would be having to use a power source other than redstone, which he could do. Each Leader brings up how there has been nothing needing the Guard very often as of late, mostly just normal patrols or the occasional escort needing done, so having the people necessary in order to help wasn't an issue. There has been no shortage of supplies either, in fact, the Realm had been prospering in the recent year.

Glancing over at Sabre, they remember all he had done to help them in their time of need. When their home was being ravaged and corrupted by the Darkness, he stepped up to protect them even though it was really none of his business. He could have left them to fight on their own, but he didn't; he sacrificed almost everything to finally bring their world peace. He had even saved each of them individually before, some of them more than once.

Whenever the Realm was in danger, Sabre helped them the best he could. So, it was decided that it was the Steves' time to aid their hero.

Soon enough, the plan was in motion. The Professor built the portal in an area clear from any villages or towns for a good distance, just in case something happened. People started to prepare to try and help the human world, worried of what was waiting on the other side. Sabre himself prepared too, determined to save his friends back home, if they even could be saved. His friends in the Realm prepared with him, however agreed among themselves that if it started getting too bad for Sabre out there, they'd be there to make sure he didn't have a repeat of what happened with Rainbow.

The portal was finished in a few days. When everyone was ready, the Professor activated the portal, and the rift was opened. People began to split into search parties in hopes of finding survivors. However, it was nothing they could've expected.

It was as if the towns were just broken, no fires or signs of any kind of outside attack, just... wrecked. In most, it looked as of a riot had gone down, with flipped objects in the streets and broken windows, but no blood. However, the odd thing about it was the strange splashes of what looked to be paint everywhere. Some were just drips, but there were a lot of dragged strokes following the damage, all of them looking to be either painted by someone's literal hands, or as if someone stepped in paint and just dragged it with them. Handprints of various colors were everywhere on the buildings.

To anyone else, it would have just been colors on buildings, but to the people of the Steve Realm... it was uncannily eerie. Why?

Because each of the seven colors found in every wrecked town were the same seven colors that was represented by the different colorful races. They were exactly one and the same, right down to the hue. Unease was now hovering over everyone.

Eventually, everyone regroups and reports their findings, making everyone realize the creepy coincidence about the colors. After finding no sign of any people, the Professor, the Leaders, Light, Sabre, and Time decided to try to find the supposed 'safehaven' that was on the map attached to the distress call. Giving the information to the Assistant, the Professor made him lead the way to it.

It was scarily quiet while the group followed the Assistant. Seeing what was left of the towns and villages was unsettling enough, but as they walked through a vast forest to reach the supposed safehaven, not a single sound was heard other than their footsteps and the occasional quiet conversation. No animals, no people, it was even as if the wind stayed still out of fear. No one knew what had happened, but they knew this wasn't going to be a situation like the Darkness as they originally thought.

Eventually, they reach a large steel door with a padlock securing chains on it. Light breaks the padlock and removes the chains, allowing the group to go inside. The big metal doors lead to a concrete staircase going underground, and once they get to a ground level, Sabre realizes that this place is an old mineshaft that was abandoned due to all of its resources being used up, and tells the others this.

As they're about to discuss which stone corridor to head into, they hear a sound come from one of them, like someone hitting a door. It scares everyone, of course, but with no other option they go to investigate.

The corridor isn't long, and at the end of it is a large room... just like the bunker in the distress call's video. The computer that was used is shut down, the screen broken, with the chair in front of the desk seeming to have fallen backwards. A small trail of a faded yellow liquid leads to a nearby closet.

Light carefully goes ahead, nobody knowing what they'll find behind the door. He cautiously grasps the doorknob, and slowly opens the door, everyone else having their weapons raised. Inside, they see...

The human from the distress call, sitting on the ground attached to a machine pumping a grey liquid into their veins, now having more of the vivid yellow around them. Their clothes, hair, and skin now all have patches and fades into the jarringly bright, out of place color.

The group relaxes and quickly starts asking questions. What happened, who are they, all questions everyone's been wondering since the message. One of the Leaders gets everyone to calm down, telling them not to overwhelm the new human and to ask things one at a time, but let them explain what they need to first. Everyone turns to the human, and they have a grim expression as they look towards the group.

"There is a monster somewhere in this world." The human explains. "Nobody knows when it arrived, but it started attacking just a few months ago. It didn't attack everything itself, though; it made some kind of... infection. At first, everything seemed normal, people were just switching up what they would usually look like with different colors."

The human begins to look terrified as they remember what happened.

"But then... then the colors started corrupting them. The monster infects someone somehow, they start changing how they look, but after that... they get sick. They get better after a few days, but change. The color that used to just be a small change suddenly started to become an obsession. Then, it happens; a weird liquid that matches whatever color they got obsessed with starts leaking from their faces, mostly their eyes. Their own bodies start to change pretty fast after that; their eyes, their skin, hair, whatever. It all changes."

The human now has a few tears collecting in their bright eyes.

"They go insane. Start acting like crazed, slightly coherent zombies. All of the people that were acting weird all exploded into a frenzy one day. They started chasing the uninfected, painting everything with whatever color was coming out of their eyes, some of them even started melting a little bit. Everything went to heck in minutes. I've been in here ever since then."

Everyone stares in horror as the other human finishes explaining.

"Then... how are you still talking to us?" The Professor asks, wary. "You said that once the... liquid starts coming out of their eyes and their features start to change colors, they're about to go crazy. But you..."

"I found something that slows it down, but too late to help anyone. For a while, it's been helping me keep my mind intact." They say, pointing to the machine with the grey liquid. "It's easy to find the ingredients and make it. It doesn't stop the corruption, though. Only delays the inevitable. Eventually, it's gonna stop being effective and I'll go through the stages pretty fast myself."

The other human then notices Sabre, and looks scared.

"Oh no... Sabre." They mumble, staring.

"What? What's wrong?" Sabre asks.

"Listen, you weren't supposed to come here, I said at the end of the message that other humans needed to stay away!" The human says.

"What? No you didn't, the video ended with you having some sort of... episode." The Orange Leader says.

"Crap... so that's what happened to the screen." The human sighs. "Point is, now you're pretty much stuck here Sabre. We were never able to figure out how this spread, so we have no idea if it's spread by contact, exposure, airborne, attack, the monster just picks somebody, or- whatever!" The human says. "So we won't know if you're infected until you start showing symptoms, and I'm pretty sure nobody wants this going into the world you came from even if it can't spread from you. That means you're quarantined here until you guys somehow end this."

As it sinks in that Sabre is trapped in his old world until this nightmare is over, everyone begins to hear crazed laughing and singing, and the sound of people fighting their allies above the abandoned mine.

—————————————————————————————————————

Hehehehehehehehe >:D

Btw that doesn't really have to be how things go down, that's just an example of how it could. Whoever claims can decide things like how the search plays out, how the infection actually spreads, stuff like that. Also don't mind the infected human already knowing Sabre and vice versa, I have the idea that the Sky People all know each other and that includes Sabre :b

And yeah, Sky People are included in this lol. How else would there be a ton of infected? :>

———

For in case the claimer wants to write someone succumbing to the infection (or Sabre actually ends up getting infected- jk jk... unless-), here's the stages of the Color Craze infection:

Stage 1: Nothing too out of the ordinary, the infected just starts gravitating towards whichever of the seven colors they ended up getting, I'll use violet as an example. Maybe they start getting some new accessories or putting on face paint or stickers.

Stage 2: The infected starts changing their outfit to be violet, like changing out a blue jacket for a violet one. Little things, for now.

Stage 3: This is the turning point. The infected suddenly falls ill, but recovers after 3 days. However, once they do recover, they're suddenly acting strange. Twitchy, always unnecessarily happy/smiling, being jumpy, and coming off as unsettling are common behavior changes. It's especially suspicious if the infected person is normally the complete opposite of any of these.

Stage 4: Immediately after the recovery in Stage 3, the infected becomes obsessed with the color they've "chosen". In this case, the infected changes their entire outfit to be violet, starts changing spots where they live (house in a normal setting, some kind of hideout after everything went down) to violet, paints things violet, etc.

Stage 5: A liquid the same color as the infected's "chosen" color starts to leak from their face in large quantities, mostly from the eyes. This case would have a violet liquid. The infected will use the liquid as paint wherever they go, painting everything to be their color. At the same time, this is when their bodies start to change color, appearing as splotches on skin and appendages that grow, a slow gradient effect in their hair, and quick change to the color with their eyes. In cases where the infected has an appendage that's made more fragile (Because a lot of Sky People designs have extra stuff that's not normally on a human), the appendage melts a little bit. This will happen if the appendage is, for example, thin like fairy/bug wings, made of a fragile/easily dissipated substance like crystal or stardust, or is just generally easily broken. Also as the color changing starts, the infected will lose their mind and become insane. Nearing the end of this stage, the liquid will stop producing from the infected's face slowly, eventually stopping completely.

Stage 6: The infected is fully changed to their "chosen" color. They are faster, more durable, and stronger than Stage 5 infected. They are also (somehow) even crazier.

Stage 7: This stage is rarely reached. Infected in this stage are five times stronger than Stage 6 infected. The infected becomes morphed, becoming taller/lankier than normal, as if they were stretched. They also develop 'antennae' similar to a Warden's, although they're not for hearing. They act like leaders to lesser infected, one or two often seen whenever there's a big group. These infected answer directly to the monster, often actually meeting with it to receive orders, give it what it needs or wants, repair the antennae, and report information. The monster communicates with these infected through the antennae, as it's not able to speak itself. There are only a handful of these infected existing, seven to be exact; one for each color.

———

So this next bit would actually be a spoiler if someone doesn't want to know how the monster exists and came to Sabre's world, so if you want to save it for if someone claims then skip ahead to situations.

The monster is actually a product of one of Professor Red's experiments gone wrong. He had wanted to create a potion that would have a similar function to merging the Crystals together, in case another Rainbow Steve would ever be needed. Since he knew he obviously couldn't borrow the Crystal shards, he didn't even bother asking and decided to recreate each color Steve's power artificially and use that. However, when he tried to combine them, it didn't work and created a mush of colors that was somehow living. He was upset the experiment failed, but was curious as to how long this thing could live (since it was lab-created organic life) and what it could do since it was literally made of combined powers, so he put it in a test chamber and studied it. One day he did an experiment with portals and it ended up exploding, which took the creature with it, and it ended up in Sabre's world. Since the day it landed there, it grew pretty dang fast, and the day it decided it was strong enough use powers was the same day the first person was infected.

———

Aaaand situations time hehe.

—

Steves: (Decide to help the human world bc Sabre helped them so they should return the favor)

(It backfires with them accidentally dragging Sabre into danger of being infected instead of helping him)

Steves: Crap.

Sabre: Welcome to my world, both literally and figuratively.

—

(Colorless Guard being led by Light through a forest commonly filled with infected.)

Guard: ...It's too quiet-

Light: (Turning around) Don't jinx it-

(Suddenly, infected appear out of the trees with their usual insanity)

Light: (Taking out his spear to fight the infected) One rule. Literally one rule.

—

(If Sabre gets infected)

Time: (Panicking while going to get the other Leaders) OHHH ORIGIN IT HAPPENED-

Indigo Leader: (Panic) Everybody stay calm-!

Green Leader: (Panic) What do we do-

Orange Leader: STAY F#*&ING CALM!

-Meanwhile-

Other Human: Are they always like this when something bad happens?

Sabre: (Getting checked on by Therapist Green every five minutes) Pretty much. I think Yellow's about to come in and yell at them-

Yellow Leader: (Walking in while Violet Leader panics in the background) WOULD ALL OF YOU STOP SCREAMING LIKE TODDLERS, FOR GOODNESS SAKE-

Sabre: Yep, there it is.

—

(When the plot thing mentioned previously happens, also dw I'm not really spoiling it for those of you that don't want to know yet)

(Everyone stares at the Professor)

Prof. Red: ...Oops.

Sabre: 'Oops'?! IS THAT REALLY ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY, 'OOPS'?!

(Alternatively:)

Sabre: (Seriously angry in the way he's eerily calm but also looking ticked off) I should. Slap the ever-living heck out of you right now. But I know you'd snap like a twig if I did. So I won't.

—

Hey by the way, you guys are probably wondering why I decided to use violet as an example for the stages of the Color Craze infection. Weeelllllll...

I made a visual example of Stage 5 :)

Anyway, have fun :>