((Oooohhh BOOOIIIII.))

Sans slowly blinked awake, staring at a wall of bookshelves lined with stories, many of which were slightly damaged and even showed signs of sitting in water for some time. They'd clearly been restored well despite that, but it was obvious they had been found in the dumps.
Then he realized he had never seen a shelf like that in any house he'd visited in his life.

Sans shifted in place, slightly alarmed but not enough to wake up the rest of the way.
That is, before he saw the skeleton face that was freakishly similar to his own staring from across the room. He immediately sat upright, everything rushing back to him as he stared.
"Oh shit, I really wasn't dreaming."

The other with slimmer teeth, slightly more square shaped skull and wider nasal cavity than Sans was studying him.
"Apparently you're my lost cousin."

Rubbing his face to get over his initial discomfort, Sans replied. "Cousins now, huh?"
"Yep. I heard you look more like Calluna than I do."
"Guess so."
"You don't know either?" The other asked. Sans blinked at him.
"Buddy, I don't remember anything about my mom except a few facts."
"What about your dad?"
He shrugged, looking away. "Not much better, he died in a pretty brutal way."

The other hesitated, slightly orange tinted eyelights flicking awkwardly to the side. "Did.. he starve?"
Sans straightened. "No, he just built something to power the Underground- my side, at least- and fell in the magma."
"Magma?" The other asked incredulously. Sans nodded.
"Yeah, the Core generates power from the heat of Hotland's magma pools."
"Dude, we're trapped in a volcano?"

Sans shrugged. "The Core keeps it from erupting, anyway."
"But what is it like?" The other leaned forward, somewhat excited.
He shrugged. "Hot. Whole area is hot. The Core takes up most of the space in it and Hotland is the second largest part of the Underground. And the magma around it specifically is the insta-death. Further off it's kind of just something that starts fires really easily. I stepped in it once. Lost my best shoes." He kicked idly. "I prefer the slippers anyway."

The other snorted at that, then continued. "Are there monsters that can swim in it, though?"
Sans shrugged. "I mean.. a few? You can't really swim in it, it's not water, it's a thick sludge."
"Oh. Gross."
"...Not when it's pulling you apart and melting you at the same time.." He muttered, staring at the 'cousin' while seeing someone else.

After a few seconds, the other shifted awkwardly. "Can you stop that?"
Sans blinked. "Shit, sorry. I was thinking."
"Thinking angrily?"
"Sorry, bud…. Hey, I never caught your name."
"Candara. You're Sans, right?"
"Yep." He held out a hand, the other taking it hesitantly. He couldn't help but notice the broadness of it, something more akin to Papyrus than the others he'd seen so far- not that it was much to go off of, given he'd met two others.

"You're weird, y'know." Candara stated randomly.
"Thanks..?"
"No, I mean like- I've never had any family since I was a little tibia biter."
Sans blinked, the term carrying a vague familiarity, like tail chewer, shin kicker and humans' ankle biter.

He shrugged, filing the detail away. "Pretty much the same here except I had my bro.. and we were the last of our damn kind?" It came out harshly, frustration over the knowledge boiling over again. Candara flinched back, looking away.

"Sorry. This is still new to me."
“I get it. I'm kind of pissed too. I was told that any family I might have is probably long dead all my life but nooo, they were fine along with the rest of monsterkind in the same damn mountain!"

"Well, a lot of monsters still died. All the plant monsters are gone except Vegitoids."
Candara was now the one to look surprised. "Really? Huh. Random. We have a few too, with like a dozen dryads? And Avalon is actually part dryad?"
"Avalon?" Sans queried.
"Yeah. Another one of us, he's one of the elders."
"...Damn."

He slowly slid his feet to the ground, peering around what was clearly the living room, likely Garamond's if that study was anything to go off of. The walls were comforting dark wood boards, a few child's drawings tacked on between shelves.

"You wanna see our side of the Underground before you go back home or something?" Candara asked a little eagerly. Sans shrugged, remembering his phone and fishing it out of his pocket. "I just wanna call Paps, he might be wondering where I went, heh."

Candara suddenly bounced in his seat. "Your brother, right?"
"Yeah, Papyrus is the coolest." Sans smiled fondly before cringing at his phone. He had 25 missed calls from Papyrus, Undyne and Alphys, the last two on the tail end of it. "Oooohhhhhh… how long was I out?"
"... Like five hours?"
"...Damn, they're gonna kill me."

He called his brother, holding it well away from his face.
"Why you holding your phone like that?" Candara asked, scooting his chair over to lean in.
"Trust me, you'll know." Sans chuckled before the other end picked up and a slightly staticy and near incoherent screech rang out from the poor, tortured speaker.
"SSAAAAANNNSSSSS! WHERE AAAARRREEE YOU?!"
"Hey, Paps."

A rapidly approaching voice was suddenly exploding through the speaker as well.
"NNNNNYYYYGAAAAAAHHHHH YOU PUNK! WE WERE SO WORRIED!"
"Oh yeah, I was a bit sidetracked."
"SIDETRACKED?! WE CHECKED THE CAMERAS AND YOU LET YOURSELF GET KIDNAPPED BY PURPLE GIRL OF ALL PEOPLE!"
"Oh, you too? Does everyone but me know about this Purple Girl?"
"SHE'S A WATERFALL PERSON!" Undyne quickly defended. "NOW WHERE'D SHE TAKE YOU?! WE'LL GET YOU OUT OF THERE!"

He snorted. "I think I'm okay, Undyne."
"BUT YOU WERE KIDNAPPED!" Papyrus wailed.
"Bro, she's a kid and I actually told her to show me her parents."
"Wait, why?" He caught Alphys questioning.
"Oh hey Alph. Kid was saying stuff about other monsters being what humans say of us and I had to know who's parents would do that to their kid, and it kinda went from there."

"But why didn't you answer our calls?!" Papyrus demanded in a slightly more manageable volume.
"Sorry bro, fell asleep."
"Of course you would!" Papyrus scoffed- he could hear him stomping on the other end.

"Okay, fine, but did you succeed?" Undyne questioned, now a lot more serious.
"Uh.. some stuff came up. I couldn't even meet the kid's mom." He explained somewhat faintly, glancing up at Candara, who had leaned away but met his gaze.

"Wait, so you are in trouble!" Undyne proclaimed.
"Uh, no." Sans hurriedly replied. "It's just- it's complicated."
"How??" Papyrus questioned.
"Bro, I'm saying that- heck- you got Fluffybuns with you guys? He'd probably know something about this."
"Yeah actually, we called him after we found out you were kidnapped but not really." Undyne explained before calling someone.

There was a dull clatter before he heard Alphys. "You're o-on on speaker now, Sans. Unless you don't want th-th-th that? Don't want that?"
"Oh no, you gotta hear this."
"Okay.."

Finally, the king's voice made it through. Sans glanced up at Candara before setting his phone down as well. "Sans? You wanted to speak to me?"
"Yep."
"What is it? You do not need my assistance, do you?"
"Oh no, I'm fine, just had to ask."

He hesitated, emotions already starting to build up again.
"Do you remember when everyone was first trapped in the Underground?"
"Of course I do, although I do not see the importance of it."
"Was there a cave-in?"
"I- well, yes- I believe this was mentioned once or twice when we had tea, but there were several in the early days."

"You never told me a lot about them though."
"No, I always found them to be a very difficult subject. Half of our people were lost in those collapses."
"Did you ever consider if some of those lost monsters weren't killed?" Sans asked, a little tense.
"...I did, but at the time we had no way of safely rescuing them. I still hope that they did not suffer."

Sans didn't reply for a long moment, staring at Candara, who just shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"Sans?" Asgore's worried voice reached him.
"What if I told you I found something?"
"...I would ask what it was you found, of course.."
"I think you can guess that the Purple Girl showed me a little something."
"She did?" Undyne piped up in confusion.
"Yep. How do I put this…"
"What did she show you, Sans?" Asgore asked in hesitant concern.
"The kid's name is Lucida, and she has the ability to shortcut through walls."

"Wait, are you saying she can move through walls?!" Undyne exclaimed in excitement.
"Kind of. Anyway, she took me through the back wall of the Wishing Room. Wanna know what I found there?" He asked, ignoring the slight tremble in his voice.
"More monsters with epic powers?!" The captain hollered.
"...Sans?" Asgore's voice was oddly fragile.
"No Undyne, I just found that me and Paps aren't as alone as we thought." His voice cracked.

There was a long pause on the line, deathly silent before a faint sob made its way through.
"Whoa, Asgore are you okay?" Undyne was suddenly asking before Alphys shrieked.
"YOU MEAN THERE ARE OTHER SKELETONS!"
"WHAT!" Papyrus shouted.

Sans started laughing, not loudly or jokingly, but in relief. "There's a whole other part of the Underground!"
"This isn't another prank?!" Papyrus demanded.
"No, Paps I would never joke about this. We have a cousin here. He's literally right here."
"Hi, other cousin that isn't dead apparently."
"OH MY GOD! WE HAVE A COUSIN?!"
"Hi, I'm Candara."
"HELLO CANDARA, I AM PAPYRUS?!"
"HOW DO WE GET OVER THERE?" Undyne yelled.

"We should probably work on taking down the back wall of the Wishing Room, or at least create some kind of entrance." Sans explained before hesitating.
"Shit, I never told any of you the Barrier's broken.
"Wait, WHAT." Candara turned to face him, sockets wide and empty.
Sans grinned ecstatically. "It's been only days, but we're free."

There was a long pause as the other line started clamouring to talk about the Surface while Candara stared at Sans.
Then the slightly orange skeleton leapt up, hollering incoherently while running out of the room. The voices on the phone stopped.

"What was that?" Undyne asked.
"Dude ran out of the room screaming." Sans explained while leaning over to look at where Candara had run off to. He heard voices start nearly shouting somewhere deeper in the house before rapidly approaching.

A brief spark reminded him of Napstablook's presence before Candara returned, dragging an alarmingly sized skeleton behind him with a broad jawline and squared skull, heavyset shoulders bearing bones that were thicker than Sans had ever seen on any other skeleton as of yet, exuding a slightly menacing aura as raspberry eyelights landed on him.
"You're saying this kid playing adult is really your cousin?"

"Okay, ow." Sans commented irritably. "No need to make fun of my height, big guy."
"Who is that and why are they mocking you, brother?" Papyrus shouted on the phone.
"Uh." He faced the new one. "Yeah, I don't know your name."

The big-boned stranger sneered slightly at the offered hand. "Tahoma to you." Candara came out from behind Tahoma, scowling at him while bringing in a taller and slender skeleton that was notably wearing a wicker hat made of fake straw and a yellow sleeveless shirt with jeans.
"Sans, repeat what you told me, seriously!"

"...The Barrier is broken?" He hesitantly repeated, bewildered. "How many of you are in this house? I swear it didn't look that big on the outside."

"Oh no, we don't live here, we came over when Garamond called." Candara explained rapidly as Tahoma scoffed.
"The Barrier isn't broken, don't be gullible."
"OF COURSE IT IS, I HAVE BEEN IN THE SUNLIGHT MYSELF JUST EARLIER THIS MORNING!" Papyrus shouted through the phone angrily.

"Calm down, bro." Sans glanced back at the device on the couch, getting a little overwhelmed again. The unnamed woman was suddenly crouching down to look at him.

"Are you alright?" She asked while taking a hold of his arm. "Whoa, lady, I'm fine." He pulled himself out of her grip as the group on the other end of the call started an argument with the thick Tahoma, who was acting standoffish and stubborn as the female started asking questions.

Finally, he had enough of the noise and crowding.
"Alright!" Sans yelled, silencing everyone. The others faced him in surprise as he calmed down.
"Let's not get crazy, okay? We can work on opening up the area between here and everyone else and we'll settle our arguments then. Got it?"

He ignored the glint in Tahoma's eyelights as the others relaxed- except the woman, who grew more panicked.
"Oh no, we can't do that. Absolutely not. I am not having Lucida near dangers like that. We are not letting them in here."

Sans blinked as it clicked. "You're that kid's mother?"
"Yes I am her mother and you will not be putting my child at risk!" Her eyelights flared a more tan color than the usual whitish beige.
"At risk of what?" Sans replied with narrowed sockets of his own.
"The only danger I've ever seen is humans, and now that humans know about us again, there's no avoiding it. Keeping everyone apart just puts everyone in jeopardy. Do you seriously wanna do that, lady?"

"Excuse me? What is this 'know about us again' nonsense?"
"Humans forgot we even existed since the Barrier was raised!" Sans gestured wildly. "Hell, they even lost magic because of the damn thing!"
"Why don't we talk about this civilly?" Asgore suddenly spoke up from the phone, the first time in a while. The woman froze, clearly recognizing his voice.
"... Asgore?"
"Yes. I know your voice, but I cannot quite recall your name. Would you care to remind me?"

She reached for the phone hesitantly as Candara tapped Sans's shoulder, waving him behind the distracted Tahoma.
"Helvetica, Sir…. I had not expected to hear your voice again."

He couldn't catch any more, as he'd followed the younger one into another room, apparently the kitchen.
"She lost her son to someone insane in the war." Candara explained, rubbing his neck vertebrae awkwardly.
"She's been paranoid ever since. Especially dogs. It was apparently a crazed dog."
"...Oh. That's horrible." Sans muttered, glancing back the way they came.
"It was a long time ago, she should get over it."

He faced Candara sharply. "Losing family is a damn hard thing to go through. If she's that paranoid of other monsters that means she has PTSD. That's not something you can just get over, pal."
The other backed away, hands up defensively. "Whoa. Sorry."

"Just don't be so callous to someone next time, man." Sans muttered, somewhat guilty for arguing- if only a little.
"You have a point that she shouldn't be clinging on to this for so long, but just try to not be a prick about it." He stopped himself before he started lecturing.

"Geez, you're sounding like you're gonna go mom mode on me."
"I raised my bro." He explained with a shrug.
"...Oh."

The lapse continued, neither knowing what to say before something occurred to Candara that excited him. "Wanna see our side of the Underground?"
"Sure, but my phone-"
"Don't worry, Corbel will call me if anything happens. He'll figure out what happened."
"Corbel?"
"Tahoma's his second name."
"..Oh. Cool."

"C'mon!" Candara pushed him lightly out of the kitchen, eager to get going.
"Okay, okay, I'm going." Sans sighed, accepting the temporary loss of his phone and following to the foyer Lucida had dragged him through hours ago and outside.

Candara giggled childishly as he started heading the opposite direction Sans had came before.
"How old are you, anyway?" Sans questioned curiously while peering at the surroundings.
"Uh.. younger than you, I guess." The other answered awkwardly.
"...When were you born?"
"Eheh.. like.. 15 years after the Barrier was made?"
"That would make you.. geez, you're still mostly a kid."
"I'm not!"
"I'm a full 30 years older than you, you're basically just out of your stripes."

"Wait, you were born five years before the Barrier was made?"
"..Yeah, but I don't remember much of it. Just a field, really."
"..Still, you lived before the war."
"I feel so old." Sans chuckled.
"What about Papyrus?" Candara asked, blush from earlier fading. Sans paused.
"Paps was.. I think he was born into the war? He's three years younger than me."
"And you raised him!"
"I like to think I did an okay job. He turned out to be the coolest bro out there."
"Still.. crazy."

Sans realized something.
"... You've never seen the sun."
Candara shrugged. "Yeah. Doesn't bother me anymore."
"Bud, you've lived your entire life in darkness."
"Better than living in war with humans. I'm fine. I don't need anyone."

Sans stared at him somewhat incredulously. "Everyone needs kindness and family of some kind in their life."
"Cool." Candara blinked, then smirked. "Looks like I have family." He threw an arm across Sans's shoulders. "My llloooong lost cousin!"
"Haha, very funny kid." He smiled regardless.

They kept walking down the dirt path as Candara snickered.
"What did you even do over there anyway?"
"Oh, I held most of the sentry jobs and did some stand-up. I'd like to think I'm real popular around Snowdin." He popped his hood like a collar.
"Snowdin?"
"Yeah, it's literally what it sounds like."
"..Snow?"
"It's constantly snowed in." He grinned.

Candara stared blankly. "I don't get it."
Sans sighed, the pun failed. "It's got a lot of snow. It's where me and Paps live, right on the edge of the cold and Waterfall."
".... Okay. What do sentries do?"
He blinked, knowing Candara still didn't fully understand but explained on.
"Sentries watch for humans that might have fallen down into the Underground and report them to the Guard and capture them."
"...They actually fall? And you caught seven of them?"

Sans stared off to the side. "...They do."
"Did you ever catch one?"
"...Yeah, when I was a heck of a lot younger. It made me lose joy for the job. Kid shot out Undyne's eye."
"... What? Shot??"

He sighed. "Time on the Surface passed by much faster than it did in the Underground. It slowed down closer to normal as time passed, but even up to the point where it broke we were still a bit slower than topside. Effect of the Barrier on us. It gave humans time to advance at their own incredibly slow pace and fight wars with each other and develop.. weapons. While it was only one hundred years here, for them it was several thousand years."
"I heard the time slippage theory already."

"I didn't know you had. And it's not a theory, it's a proven fact. My dad discovered it- at least on our side. And with our slight encounters with humans, it was easy to see. Guns are their weapons, they operate on controlled explosions through a barrel to shoot a metal projectile. It can be held in one hand, and this kid was panicking and managed to aim it at Undyne's face and now.. she's only got one eye."

"I, uh, oh… I'm sorry for asking?"
"It's fine, kid. You didn't know. Just don't bring it up when you meet her. She's a bit sensitive about it sometimes."

Candara nodded, looking guilty. They strode on in silence for a minute, Sans studying the flora of the region that was so vastly different from the rest of the Underground.
"Hey, where'd all these plants come from? Our side doesn't have nearly as many."

"Oh, we have some dryads on our side. They were a huge help in building a community. They altered a lot of seeds into what we have today."
"Where do they get the energy to glow like that so much?"
"Ambient magic, I think?"
"...Come to think of it, the air here does feel different."

The path was widening as sounds of habitation reached them.
"What light do you use on your side, then?" Candara asked.
"Natural light, mostly. Hotland is constantly glowing with magma and Waterfall has a ton of ceiling stars, not to mention the algae in the water and echo flowers all over the place. Snowdin has a few of the stars, but it's mostly lit up by the Bright trees. They're basically pine that changed to have glowing needles. The snow reflects everything well enough that nothing is ever really dark."

He glanced at the fascination on the other's face with a twitch of a smile before continuing. "In the Ruins, there's mostly reflected sunlight from the entrance there as well as the glowing oaks. The vines there look a lot like these, but they don't glow." He kicked one growing up a tree, watching the ferns in the undergrowth darken and curl up. "And we don't have those plants."

He shook his skull. "The only place with mostly artificial lighting is the Capital, it has thousands of lights hanging from the ceiling that are powered by the Core."
"But how big are these places?"

Sans blinked and stopped walking, peering up at the ceiling and where it met the walls in the distance, except he could only see one wall with how the trees hid his view.

"Uh.. I could compare it to this area if I could see just how big it was."
"You could climb the trees." Candara suggested with a shrug. Sans squinted upward, thinking.
"You don't have to."
"Nah, you asked.. I got a better idea."

He snapped his phalanges and hopped onto a bone attack, floating up above the treeline. Candara chuckled and followed, grinning.
Sans studied another wall that was close by, somewhat impressed.
"I think I can see which regions it's next to."
"You can?"
"Yeah."

He pointed near far right where the top of the wall glittered coldly, ice layered at the top around what looked like it could have been a gap at one time.
"Snowdin."

He now pointed to a vast stretch of wall that had rivulets streaming down the sides, supporting the growth of glowing blue lines of algae. "Definitely Waterfall."

He gestured somewhat behind them, taking a moment. The rocks were a slightly more earthen color, the vegetation much denser, resembling something closer to that of a rainforest, especially one area that glowed a somewhat ominous red-orange near the ground. "Hotland."

From there and closer to the other wall the ceiling drew neared the ground, looking rockier as stalactites and stalagmites lengthened and became enormous pillars, leading to the wall abruptly ending in boulders the size of houses and bigger meeting the ceiling, patches of glowing moss splotching their sides until they reached halfway up.

"...I take it that's the old cave-in?"
"Yep."
"I think I've seen the other side of that. It's bordering the Capital. It looks like the bottom of storm clouds from our side."
"Cool."
"...Why didn't I ever think about that?"
Candara shrugged, glancing back at the other areas Sans had pointed out in curiosity.

"Hmm." He glanced back down near the frozen over area, looking past it to see the darker region that he could only assume was by the Ruins. "It looks like your side of the Underground is bordered by mine."
"And nobody ever knew. Damn."
"Damn." Sans agreed resignedly.

Then he blinked, glancing down to the landscape that was the hidden half of the Underground.
"What powers your side?"
"The river, mostly. And a few geothermal buildings."
"You have geothermal generators and didn't know we lived in a volcano?"
"Hey, all I know is deep in the ground it gets hot."
"We can't dig deep enough for that, the Barrier stops us." He jabbed a phalange behind him to the section near Hotland.

Candara scowled. "How do you know so much, anyway?"
"I used to work in science and engineering."
"Wait, really?"
"Yeah."
"Have you done everything cool in your past?"
"Pfft- no. I just tried succeeding my dad for a while. When I couldn't, I just turned away from those things, y'know? Papyrus was more important."

He fell silent, somewhat thoughtful as he regarded the sprawling city and suburbs stretching on before him, one wall rising up from the outside with several cliffs on one side forming a slightly separate section from the rest near the border against Snowdin, resulting in the lone lake inside being frozen over. Colored lights hung around it, illuminating two skaters on the ice.

Over by the town he could see a reservoir built around the river, clearly made for the water generator Candara had mentioned as lights glittered in the city.
There were so many people down there.
He realized then.
"Is everyone here a skeleton?"

"No." Candara snorted. "Most of us definitely are, but we have some amount of dryads over there in Woodland." He waved at the dense forest bordering the Hotland wall before waving far out to the outside rim. "A lot of air and fire elementals in Sandstorm and waters by Lakeside, there's like.. a couple fish monsters there too? And rock elementals."

He pointed to the other side of the wall protrusion where rows of lights hung over farmland. "Mostly Vegitoids and plant affiliated in the Fields. All our people tend to be in City Square."
Sans chuckled after a minute, staring at the towers, three of which reached the ceiling and spread out in platforms between the stalactites. "The names are marginally better than Asgore's ideas."
".. Asgore? Isn't he the guy that you asked for on the phone?"
"Yeah.. do you not know that he's the king?"
"He's the King? The King of Monsterkind is alive?"

Sans chuckled incredulously. "He is. Both him and the Queen, though they're kind of apart now."
"And you personally know him?! Dude, who are you??"
"Sans the skeleton, no longer one of the last apparently."
"No, seriously!" Candara insisted before the humor set in and he snorted.

Sans shrugged. "Technically have a job with him too, just not supposed to talk about it."
"How did you even meet?"
"Through the science thing. I was petitioning to be the new Royal Scientist, but another path chose me I guess. Alphys got the job. A damn good thing she did, too, she found a way to bring back the dead with Dad's old experiments."
"She what?!"

"Yeah, she had a big help in bringing back the dead Prince Asriel. Doesn't know it yet, though. Her more famous results are the Amalgamates. If she could improve upon that, she can bring back a lot of those that Fell Down."
"Holy shit, man. You guys have all the stuff happening."
"Maybe. You still have plenty enough happening, you probably just have to tell me."
"....We got nothing."

He lowered himself back to the ground, frowning. Candara followed.
"You have a fully functioning city. We just have scattered towns and the Core."
"Towns plural! We have a city I guess, but other than that it's a few villages! Not to mention this Core, it sounds insane."
"Maybe it is with what it did to innocent monsters." Sans mumbled.
"Wait, what?"
"Forget it. Don't wanna talk about that." He started walking again, heading for the rural area he'd seen not far ahead down the path.

Candara followed, confused. "Are you okay, man?"
He sighed. "Honestly? Been better. Been dealing with shock all day it seems…. How many of us have there been all this time? Why didn't I know?"
"...We didn't know either."
"Yeah, maybe. But I should have known. It.. I should have known."
"Don't say that."
He grumbled, but complied. They walked in silence, mellowing out after a few minutes.

"Do you know how many there are?" Sans asked softly.
"..No. I don't. Sorry."
"It's fine. Just.. tell me about things, will you?"
"Uh.. I guess?" Candara seemed unsure what to start with.
"Got any friends?"
"Of course I do! I just don't hang out with a lot of people."
"Why not?"
"Don't really need people."

Sans smiled a little. This was a little upstart of a cousin and it was oddly amusing.
"Tell me about 'em anyway."
"Well.. uh." Candara hesitated.

"Cabana is pretty cool. She's blue like you, but way lighter. She loves fish and tea. She's literally always drinking some kind of tea, she keeps this fishy bottle around all the time for the stuff. She's a really good swimmer, too, and hangs out with some of the elders. It's cool, she's actually gotten Urbane to hang out with us when we needed an adult because rules or something."
"Kid."
"I'm not a kid! You see me wearing stripes?"
"Sorry bucko, you're still a kid."
"You're old!"
"Excuse me, I am a young adult." He held a hand over his sternum in mock offense. Candara elbowed his ribs. "You're the size of a babybones."
"I can fit in cabinets for the best pranks, so?"

He scoffed. "Yeah right. You do pranks."
Now he really did feel affronted.
"How dare you? I'm the biggest prankster and comedian my side of the Underground!"
"Prove it!"
"Oh really?"
"Really! I'm the best pranker!"
"Prankster. And you're on, kid. Shake on it?" He held out his hand.

Candara squinted at him, then took the hand-
The unforgettable sound spluttered through the air. The younger's face immediately twisted in disbelief.
"How did you-"
"I always have the whoopie cushion, kid."
The shock slowly morphed into a dark grin. "Well guess what I always have?"
Sans pulled away to ask- except the cushion was stuck.
"No way." He grinned despite himself.

Candara slowly pulled out a bottle of glue from his pocket, reaching around with his free hand to the pocket under his arm to do so. Sans burst out laughing.
"Oh my God, the pranks we can pull on everyone!"
"That's your first thought? Not the challenge?"
"Oh no, we're clearly starting off with the best tie ever, but imagine the chaos, kid!"
Candara considered the thought for a moment, his approval growing visibly the more he thought about it.

Snickering, Sans let go of the cushion. "Keep it, I have another on hand and at home."
The regret was immediate on Candara's face.
"..You can't remove it, can you."
"No-" He wheezed, tugging on it. Sans snorted. "Okay, give me your hand."
Candara held it out awkwardly, but as Sans tugged on it, it stayed put.
"No, like, give me your hand for a sec."

He gave up and let Sans remove it from his arm, watching as he worked the cushion delicately off the bone, wincing. The cushion came off with the gentle prying of a little bone attack. Sans gave both back, smirking.

"I'd say that's two for me and one for you."
"Wait, what?! That's not fair!"
"Do you want it as one for me and zero for you?"
"Why do you get two points?"
"I had to help you out of your prank."
"I- let's not count these!"
"That'd be unfair."
"Let's just forget the prank war."
"Nope. You can't take back a prank war."
"Why not?!"
"Because them's the rules."

Candara complained under his breath but gave up arguing, pocketing the whoopie cushion angrily.
"How long is it, then?"
"You called the war, so it's up to you, kid."
"Fine…. week?"
"Seven days it is, then."

They stopped talking as they walked into the front yard of a house, the trail turning up to meet with a cobblestone walkway in front. Sans paused when the stepped onto the road, seeing the wide space between houses and a garden in front of a building two houses down.
"Those aren't echo flowers."

Candara hesitated. "Still don't know about those, but okay."
"What are they called?"
"I don't know, I'm not a gardener."

Curiosity now sparked, Sans headed over, speeding up until he was in front of the elegant glowing garden. There was a particular brightly shining white flower with petals that tapered, unlike the mostly rounded ones of echo flowers. It was taller than an echo flower as well, with a completely dark and black stem, two thorny vines sticking out on either side of it rather than leaves.

It wasn't even the only one, there were others like an almost magenta glowing flower with a deep throat, a few dark hummingbirds fluttering around the plants.
"You have birds!"
"Yeah?"

"We don't so much as have even bats!"
"Uh.. there are also bats."
"And bats! Holy crap."
"You should see Snip."
"Snip?"
"Pet bat."
Sans grinned. "That's great." He breathed, gaze lingering upon the entrancing garden before stepping back to the road.

"Hey, do you really wanna walk all the way to Square?"
"Is there another way?"
"We can get there faster if we fly. I can call up a few friends and we can show you around I guess." He kicked a loose stone.

Sans hesitated. "Nappy, up for that?" He glanced to the side to murmur, wondering how the ghost had been taking all this.
"𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚙.."
"Thanks, buddy."
He turned back to Candara, shrugging. "Sure."
The younger grinned, then pulled out his phone. "Okay, hold on a sec!"

As Candara started texting rapidly on a phone model Sans didn't recognize, he turned away, tapping one shoe impatiently. Sans just peered around, amazed at the urban area that existed here. He hadn't thought such a place could be possible in the Underground- it wasn't even considered as a possibility!

Yet here he was, standing in a neighborhood with houses spaced very far apart in comparison to human neighborhoods and was about to head for a city- a city! A city with towers that reached the top of the Underground and had walkways built between the spires up there, using said stalactites as supports for the airy bridges.

As he studied the area up there, he was pretty sure he could see buildings carved out of the particularly massive ones, stores up so high from the ground. He blinked as he noticed winged figures weaving between the bridges. He didn't recognize those monsters.

The facts alone about this were amazing. It seemed like half of all the monster population was cut off from the rest and presumed dead, only to have been thriving and living even better lives than those he knew. They lived like the Surface, but more exotic. He couldn't help but wonder what it would have been like if theses two halves weren't cut off.

Then he wondered.
...Did the Resets affect this place?
.. Did Flowey ever find it, given his tunneling abilities?
Could all of this been lost entirely had it gone undiscovered as his half of the Underground emptied out?

He always had a slight fear that monsterkind would be doomed to be a lost civilization growing up, but he still had the hope of the Barrier being broken and they would be free to walk in the sun again.
But these people.. they were cut off from all entrances and exits.
...How did they cope with that?

Candara got off the phone, having called someone at some point during Sans's musings.
"We're going to LaSalle's Diner!"
"You know this LaSalle?"
"Kinda. She's nice, and her stuff is awesome. You have G, right?"
"...Sure I can't start a tab here?"
"I don't know what that is."

Sans groaned, looking into his pocket. "I have like.. 20G and that's it… the kid paid my tab off, didn't they.." He muttered thoughtfully, trying to recall if Chara had done that this last run or not.
"What?" Candara asked, leaning in.
"Nothing." Sans shrugged. "Where to?"

"Oh!" The younger summoned an attack and sat on it like a witch on a broom. "Follow me!" He took off. Sans was busy snickering at the visual before he started floating off the ground.
The unexpected takeoff caught him off guard, but he managed to keep his slippers on.
"Geez Naps, that scared me."
"𝙸'𝚖 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢."
"It's fine, wasn't prepared yet is all."

He was greeted by a smiling Candara as he caught up, the kid upside down on his floating attack.
"Do you like the view up here?" He called out, righting himself.

"Definitely!" Sans replied in amazement, staring down at the ground of the wide cavern in amazement. This place felt bigger than the Underground he knew. It likely was, the more he thought about it.

They lived in an inactive volcano. When it was active, this had all likely been the main magma chamber, the other Underground just large pockets around the side. It was fascinating to think about.
Previously it had been Hotland that was considered the main magma chamber.
Had no one really stopped to consider the shape of the mountain itself and configuration it's caves?

Candara was dropping down into a more populated area, a few shops around a road in which dozens of monsters walked, including so many skeletons, elementals, mammals, even races Sans had never seen before but heard of. He spotted a griffin wearing a cloak, hood fallen off their face as they laughed alongside a snake monster.

There was a pegasus and a unicorn, both of which he'd been told had died out! A sphinx walking on two legs was talking to an armadillo monster, a fox strutting beside a cat and a strange reptilian kitsune, the three chatting normally. A brown patterned lizard passed a handsome but somewhat spindly minotaur in regular t-shirt, a harpy stopping her rat and crocodilian friends for something, a regular old froggit hopping by.

Another maned cat was making his way through the crowd calmly, grinning foolishly in his clearly new suit. A female peacock monster smiled at a red and black fish, who nodded back with his own, skeleton beside him waving.

Sans landed on the cobblestone beside Candara, somewhat weak with awe. "There's so many…"
"There not so much on your side?"
".... Everyone lives mostly in the capital.. this is like rush hour."
"Dude, it is rush hour."
"...Oh."
"C'mon, everyone's waiting. Except Lauren, she might be staying behind."

"Yeah.." Sans agreed breathlessly, watching a green ghost laugh and smile while talking to a more reserved monster with a bomb for a head. He shook his skull and followed the kid inside.

The restaurant he was greeted with was shockingly beautiful. Cyan walls with teal accents and white window frames were contrasted by dark, reddish booths and vermilion wood whose glossy surface glistened under the hanging lamps the ceiling, wires supporting black and glowing magenta vines. False blue and white flowers stood in cyan pots at the entrance.

More vines crawled up a lattice on the inside wall between booths and the back of them facing the entrance. Sans gaped at the scene even as Candara tugged him to the back.
"Kid, this place looks.. pricey."
"Bunch of my friends work here, it's fine."

He took this information as the youth led him to a back corner with two booths practically filled with skeletons.
Multiple eyelights turned to look at him.

"Whoa Dara, this dude looks like you."
"That's because he's my cousin!"