Vivaldi and Verdana emerged with their mother and Sans in the middle of the judgement hall, sitting together on the cold, polished tiles. Thick columns supported the high ceiling and cut swaths of darkness across the vast room, sheltering them in their shade. Immediately, however, Sans vanished and reappeared beside Alphys. The reason was clear: an Alphys double her size loomed over her, but then backed off at Sans' approach. The twins felt Frisk's hands pull them closer.

Just then, directly opposite the twins appeared a giant skeleton who wore thick sneakers and a star necklace that dangled against his enormous red sweater, glinting like his razor sharp teeth. Curiously, a child with a purple striped shirt sat on his hulking shoulders and latched onto his neck.

"Daddy!"

The moment this Sans materialized, he teleported the short distance to his family's side as red tears streamed down his cheekbones. He dropped to his knees while the human child offered the twins a gentle smile and hopped off Sans' shoulders onto the golden floor, making room for Vivaldi and Verdana to scramble to their feet and fling themselves at their father. Sans threw his arms around them, caressed the twins' weeping faces, and then kissed his wife deeply, over and over, as if he had found a desert oasis.

In the shadow of a neighboring column, the giant Alphys scowled.

"Fantastic. Now we're all trapped in your world," grumbled Alphys, wearing a black and red striped sweater beneath her lab coat. This Alphys snorted at the affectionate display, adjusted the thick glasses on her crooked nose, and then glanced to her side, staring down her meddling other self with a sneer.

"Dunno, Other-Alph," said the Sans of this world, plucking a bit of plaster off his blue hood before lifting it to cover his skull. He shuffled closer to his Alphys, who was busy curling into her dirty lab coat in a flimsy attempt to disappear. "Seems this room's a nexus."

"'Seems' you pulled that idea out of your assbone," said the giant Alphys with a grunt, looking over this Sans' pink slippers with disdain. "Always a lazy oaf."

"Good thing for you, huh?" he replied, his eye sockets going black. The darkness of his hood made him look like death itself. Without diverting his gaze from the hostile dinosaur across from him, he said, "Hey, Other-Me. I see the human kid never leveled. How'd they do?"

"Better'n me. If not for them, I woulda dusted that bitch," said Sans, keeping his wife and children secure in his arms as he aimed a flaring red glare at the Alphys of his world. Holding them tighter, he added, "Thankfully, the kid reminded me of someone. Three someones."

Fidgeting by his side, the human child shivered despite the warmth of their purple sweater. "There's a barrier here, right? That means King Asgore wants my soul."

"Wish I could help ya, kid." With the thick, red cuff of his sweater, Sans dabbed at the beginnings of the little human's tears and ruffled their hair with his enormous, skeletal hand. "Thing about you? You're kind and brave. You don't quit." Then, turning to gaze at his wife, he chuckled and said, "No matter what, you're too damn stubborn."

Frisk wiped their own, happy tears from their shining red eyes and nudged their husband playfully. Then, with a sweet smile, they nodded at their child self and said, "Stay determined, okay?"

"Yeah." The little human smiled back.

"Wait a minute!" growled the Alphys in black, stomping her foot with a ferocity that smacked the walls. Annoying as it was to be sucked out of her dimension, the way things now stood, those twins were well out of her reach forever. That was salt in her scales. "There is something here that belongs to me."

"You are not getting back those crystals!" cried Alphys, standing up as straight as possible though the other Alphys still dwarfed her. She clenched her jaw. "How many innocent humans and monsters died to make these?"

"Innocent? What the hell do you know about that?" said Alphys, crossing her arms over her striped shirt and chortling. She arched her eyebrow. "Look at you acting so high and mighty. I know how our mind works." Smirking, she stepped closer to the demure, shivering Alphys and locked eyes with her. "Know what I think?" she said, dropping her voice low. "You dirtied your claws just enough to understand how I formed these crystals but lacked the guts to do it yourself. You are wasted potential."

Suddenly, her nostrils flaring, the giant Alphys gave her right arm a shake, unlocking an attached gun that she then aimed at her shorter self's chest. "You won't waste my invention."

In a flash, she found herself sandwiched between both versions of Sans and surrounded by a slew of bones and blasters, blue and red, aimed at every point of her weathered body.

Vivaldi and Verdana teleported to shield Alphys—their Alphys. They breathed heavily; that had taken all their effort to accomplish with their own power. "Stop!"

Both Sanses halted, their dual array of bones frozen in place.

Both Frisks gasped, the older swallowing hard and turning pale.

"Get away from her!" said Alphys, holding the crystal barrettes close to her chest and wrapping her lab coat around her small, shivering frame. "She—she wants to—!"

"We know," Verdana said, looking over his shoulder at his Alphys. Whether that Alphys trembled from the threat of instant decimation or from the twins' close proximity was anyone's guess.

"But please don't fight," said Vivaldi, her arms spread protectively alongside her brother.

"We just—"

"—want to go home."

Silence hung in the air. Once more, the twins joined hands. Weak magic or not, they were determined.

"Think really hard before you answer, Other-Alph. I've got all the time in the world. Because here?" said Sans, his left eye glowing blue in the darkness under his hood. "You're the anomaly."

"If you think I'm gonna cover your ass on his turf, or let you ever touch my kids," Sans said, looming beside her with his eyes blazing red, "you're dead wrong."

Alphys rolled her eyes, squeezed her feet onto a single floor tile between the skeletons, and shifted uncomfortably. "Fine. If the Frisk and Sans from my reality hold the barrettes and the twins at the same time, it should prevent the crystals from reattaching but increase the twins' magical potential enough to bring us home. Satisfied?"

Under his blue hoodie, Sans yawned. "Yup."

Across from him, Sans' gold tooth sparkled. "Works for me."

"Thank you, Dr. Alphys," said Verdana and Vivaldi, stepping back, bowing, and giving her their pair of pointy-toothed grins before dashing across the room to their mother. Only after they reached the pillar where both Frisks waited did Sans' red bones dissipate.

Sans' blue magic stayed on guard between the Alphyses, and the small skeleton did not hesitate—despite being half her size—to stare down the foreign Alphys for as long as necessary.

Reaching the younger Frisk, the twins filled them in on the adventures that they and their mother had experienced in the child's place. With their heads huddled together, the kids looked like triplets. At that, Sans admitted to his wife that the queen's cover story for their museum disappearance was that the twins had peed themselves and needed to change clothes. After that, the child Frisk had posed as Viv or Ver several times with mixed results.

Meanwhile, the twins told little Frisk that, despite the need to avoid a certain talking flower or the boxy Mettaton, they should go hang out with a cool monster kid, their super cool Uncle Papyrus, and their Aunt Undyne in Waterfall. They pointed out a gold save star in the far corner of the judgement hall that only the three children could see and mentioned that, if Frisk was hungry, there should be plenty of Cinnamon Bunnies in the neighboring storage box.

Upon hearing this, the adult Frisk smiled. Crouching to meet their younger self, they handed them Toriel's cell phone and said, "Here. You'll need it."

"What is that?!" cried both versions of Alphys. As the larger Alphys was guarded by the smaller Sans, only the smaller Alphys crossed the hall and grabbed Frisk's brick of a cell phone in shock. "This doesn't even have Undernet access!" She beamed at the child Frisk and assured them, "I'll upgrade it in a jiffy."

The other Alphys snorted, but knew enough to keep her mouth shut.

"We ready?" Sans asked his twins, giving his smaller self across the hall a knowing look. Neither Sans was about to take any chances.

"Uh huh," said Verdana. Giving Vivaldi a boost, he then, with his mother's help, climbed onto Sans' broad shoulders. Both twins grasped their father's neck and finally felt safe.

"Wish I could just leave your slimy ass here," the giant Sans then barked as he crossed the room and grabbed the Alphys who caused this mess by her thick wrist, "but the other me needs a good week and a half to sleep off your bullshit."

"Yup," replied the Sans in blue, yawning again. He was too wiped out to bother telling himself to watch his language around the kiddos.

Once the travelers had formed a circle, Vivaldi snuggled against her father's skull and asked, "What if Ver and I can't do it?"

"You will, sweetpea," he answered, as Frisk reached up to touch her small hand. "We both gotcha."

"Sorry for the trouble," Frisk then said, turning toward this world's much kinder Alphys to accept the barrettes.

"Just glad I could help," the dinosaur said, smiling broadly. Her eyes sparkling, she continued, "Oh, hey! In your world, is there a dating sim called—"

"Uh, Alph?" said the Sans by her side, opening one eye. "They gotta go."

"Hmph. Bet you drool over those sugary, magical girls and their so-called power of friendship," said Alphys, wincing at her Sans' viselike grip on her wrist.

Securing the twins on his shoulders, Sans looked down at his smaller version. "Hang in there, pal."

"Yep." Still smiling, Sans drifted into a light snooze.

Then, as Vivaldi and Verdana held their father tightly, Frisk waved goodbye to the small, hopeful human. Knowing the child's burdens and the rough journey still ahead, Frisk's soul ached for them. But then, they thanked whatever had formed this world that the flower curse was not a part of it. No child should ever endure that.

Giggling, the young Frisk smiled and waved back.

Not wishing to risk the twins reattaching to the crystals, Sans and Frisk grasped the hair clips while the four of them embraced. With their arms wound around each other, his monster soul, their human soul, and the hybrid souls of the twins shone brightly. Together, they all thought of one place.

Home.

Frisk, Sans, and Alphys watched as their strange friends vanished, leaving them alone in the golden hall.

"W-well, that was certainly something. Guess there are alternate universes out there!" Alphys said. Then, she squirmed and scratched the back of her neck. "Not like we can tell anybody."

Nodding in a daze, Frisk surveyed the stained glass windows. The emblem they displayed, a winged angel floating above three mountains, looked familiar, but this was way too much for one day. The child's head was full.

"Welp, I'm going to Grillby's," said Sans, grinning. A fraction of normalcy was better than nothing. He glanced sidelong at both of his companions and held out his bony hands to them. "Howzabout it? I know a shortcut."

Days later, Vivaldi and Verdana oohed and ahhed together, marveling at the Museum of Monster History's restored throne room with its pair of massive, carved seats. Though this room felt imposing from its sheer size, cheerful light streamed in and played atop scores of buttercups in a sprawling, but delicate flower bed. Toriel plunked the twins onto Asgore's lap while he told them stories about the first royal proclamations given in this room so many years ago.

Nearby, Sans tugged Frisk's hand to lace his fingers through theirs.

Alphys' plan to put the twins in her control had backfired spectacularly. With her violent experimentation exposed, the scientist was going nowhere near the twins or anyone else from now on. Undyne had to suffer penalties, too, including a lengthy suspension; though she had been clueless about the barrettes' power, she was still responsible for the security breach. Frisk had begged for more leniency toward Undyne, but accepted that Asgore, Toriel, and Sans refused to take any more chances.

Holding Sans' hand tightly, Frisk let their fears melt away. It was still hard to believe that an alternate Underground existed, an Underground that, although dangerous, was filled with friends and free of poisoned flowers. Thanks to the warmth and mercy of the monsters they had met on their way, their twins now rested safely and happily on their grandfather's knee.

Frisk smiled, knowing hopeful memories would remain with Verdana and Vivaldi. And that was a treasure far greater than any crystal.