-chapter start-

Cross' POV

        "And the name's Epic, bruh," the stranger said to me as he scratched his head lightly, almost resulting his hood to fall off. He shut the refrigerator door closed and turned to me, taking out his hand from his pocket. I returned the gesture and we shook hands. At least, there wasn't any whoopee cushion in his hand like the usual Sans you'd meet.

His aura radiated an intense, yet calm power although his behavior being friendly and sociable. I've learned to sense a person's aura from my fellow squad member, Nightmare, but I've also learned not to sense an aura when Lust or someone from his AU was around. I'm glad I'm far from that guy. At least, for now.

We pulled our hands back after the greeting and awkwardly stared at each other for a while until I realized something, exclaiming, "Ah, right! I forgot, dude, that I have to go back to the rest of my gang or they might start a massacre to get me back again." His face contorted into something I couldn't imagine a skull can express so well with disgust. "Bruh, that just sounds yandere material," he inhaled sharply, raising his eyebrow. I still have no idea why the the logic of magical skeletons growing brows out of nowhere exists.

I looked at him with pure confusion and shrugged it off to just get a snort out of him. "It's time for me to go now, dude. Imma see you when I can again," I announced to end the conversation with the Sans. "Ok, boomer. Cya too, bruh," was what he said before I attempted to portal to the Bad Sanses' mansion. Nothing appeared, I tried again, nothing interesting came out.

No. I must've drunk too much at the party that it's affecting my magic. Oh no. Not when we have a safety check today. Oh god no. Not when my phone is currently missing. Yep. I'm screwed. "Uh, bruh, was that supposed to happen," the skeleton in front of me asked the obvious. "Definitely not. I guess I'm stuck here until the alcohol doesn't affect my magic or I find my phone with full battery," I said, disappointed in the aftermaths of the truce celebration party.

"Nah, bruh. Don't be too hard on yourself. Besides, I think I heard that someone dared you to drink a legit whole bottle of booze. Yep, not your fault, bruh," he said, trying to keep me from blaming myself, but with extreme failure. I sat down on the floor, not minding how cold the wood was. My mind raced as I thought of what could happen while I'm gone and their trying to find me. Ok, I give up, that gave me a headache instead. This is exactly what happens when you think too hard for your math test problem solving, but instead have a mental breakdown because algebra isn't really needed in life applications.

Epic looked at me with what seemed to be concern and interrupted my discordant thoughts, saying, "Hey, bruh, in the meantime, you can take a look around my alternate universe, so you can take your mind off of that negative thinking and relax a bit...?" He tried his best, but it just seemed like he was asking himself instead because of the uncertainty in his voice.

I sighed in response and accepted his offer with, "Yeah, sure, dude. But I'll have to find my phone soon after that. Oh, and, I wasn't able to ask before, what's the name of your AU?" He bent down to reach my head level and responded with a grin.

"You're in Epictale, bruh."

~ meanwhile ~

Nightmare's POV (yep, this guy)

I woke up with a start, which was unusual for me, then I remembered that we had a party last night in an empty part of the Doodle Sphere for the successful truce my gang and I had with the Star Sanses. I wouldn't do it, but I credit it to K who somehow got together with Dream, my brother and counterpart. The reason or cause behind it is still a mystery to me although it was since a week or two ago.

I was currently in my corrupted form in my bedroom. It was located at the attic floor of the mansion because I won the raffle for it when we were switching rooms to sleep in. It's just been less than a month, but it was already pretty comfortable for me. For once in my life, I pitied some of less fortunate (that already sounds positive af) gang members.

Horror slept in the room near the kitchen where Dust would horribly sing songs in the middle of the night while drinking our beer. Fell and Error shared a bunkbed, sure, none of them snore, but it's right next to the restroom. The wall that connected the two rooms was thin, so when they're reading a book or something, they would hear all of a sudden someone taking a shit. How that works? Don't ask me, I've read books from my library, but nothing there explains the logic of skeletons.

I sat up and checked if I had any new notifications or messages through the 'multiversal messaging system' Sci (Science! Sans) made with some other smart asses in other universes by tweaking your average Joe of a communication system that can only reach a person who's in the same universe as you and turning it to what you probably already guessed.

'Multiversal messaging' was supported by the god of creation, Ink, so he helped in the making of it. All he did was add a bit of his magic to our phones so it would reach people from really far universes. Well, since there was too much of a long line for the magic and technology infusion, I just did basically the same with with Error because we were gods too. It worked too because, uh, logic.

Nothing was new on my phone but that one text message you get from that one person you're acquaintances with, but they just annoy the hell out of you. Except it came from my twin brother, Dream. To be honest, I actually try to be positive, but it's just bad for my health. Literally. Because I'm the god of negativity, I get stronger from emotions like worry, pain, envy, hatred, and paranoia and I get weaker from emotions like joy, excitement, concern, and all the cliche stuff you hear in romance stories. For example, this person likes this person and that person likes the other, then they 'fall in love, kiss, kiss' and it's the end of the novel.

Okay, back to the text message. His text was just a part of his routine everyday. It was his 'good morning' and 'anything new' greetings. Oh, and there's more than that. He also texts me like the exact same thing every morning, noon, afternoon, night, and even asks me what my dinner was. It's annoying, but Killer back-reads our conversations and makes sure that I text him back. He legit follows me around everywhere and stares at my back creepily until I do.

Once, he just stood right outside the bathroom a few weeks ago when I took a bath and refused to reply. I shivered at the memory and, way too eagerly, texted Dream back with a 'morning, nothing interesting yet'. Before I could place my phone in my pocket, it buzzed loudly, getting my attention. I turned the screen on again to see a text saying 'okay! hav a nice day!' I frowned at the thought of having a 'nice day' with my squad members on safety check day.

I turned it off and left it on my bedside desk. I got up and opened my door, resulting in light getting in my eyes (skeleton logic??). I hissed in response just to hear snorting in front of me. Before my eyes can adjust to the lighting, I kicked whoever was causing the abnormal brightness. Whoever it was, cursed and dropped a huge torchlight on the ground (minecraft in a nutshell lmao).

"Fuck!" was all that I heard from the guy. He wore clothes with the color scheme of red and black and had sharp teeth, one being gold. I glared at him and scoffed, "That's you're attempt in revenge for the room raffle, Edge?" He attempted to get up but slipped on the first try, earning a small scratch on his cheek. When he finally got up, two voices down the staircase holler, "Ohhhhhhh, busteddddd-"

"Shut up, Killer and Dust," Fell screeched back down at them. They went on and on like that for a few minutes until I said with obvious sarcasm, "At least, everything's fine right now! It's so peaceful! Really." They stared at me, noting not to ruin my morning mood. Edge scowled at the duo down the stairs and pointed at them, saying, "They dared me!" His comeback to the two made me want to mentally face palm.

"Let's just get the attendance check done already."

"Okay, boss," they replied as if an answering machine was installed in them. I shrugged off their unenthusiastic response and went down the flight of stairs. Fell followed closely behind, sliding down the incredibly long rail. When we finally got to the ground floor, they went singe file and faced me. I counted five after the check, we were missing one. I frowned and redid the attendance check to see if I just miscounted, I was correct at the first try. Then I realized and asked,

"...wait...where's my boyfriend?"

-chapter end-

1609 words

A/N: Y'ALL THOUGHT IT WAS GOIN TO BE A SMOOTH-ASS FLUFF SHIPBOOK, BUT AUTHOR-CHAN HERE HAS RUINED YOUR EXPECTATIONS WITH A PLOT TWISTTTT-

Btw, if you think I'm going to discontinue this book, IM NOT, I only have these long pauses before updating because:

1) it's not summer break for me yet,

2) I didn't write the NM, and other character POVs (I only wrote Epic and Cross POVs) in my hardcopy draft (my notebook),

3) I get mental block on some words and get writer's block in some scenes,

4) I don't have a phone

5) I can only write on weekends (plus Fridays) in PH time,

6) no wifi currently, I'm only connected to my dad's phone,

7) I let my friends (irl) read my draft first and get their analysis of my grammar and spelling (97% correct (except for that one word called 'psycho' or psychopath' lmao)); and lastly,

8) Im a lazy ass sometimes.