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entomancy · 3 years

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(Fic) One thing we can agree on

Title: One thing we can agree on (Wattpad)

Setting: The vampire nonsense / Vegas Masquerade

Warnings: Gore. I am having fun with my crayons.

Words: 1401

Summary: Flashback into the 'Moonlight Flush' part of the timeline. Which is the framing of the events of ~twenty years ago in the Vegas Masq. setting (which set up the current ‘rules’) as an urban fantasy police procedural; where Joplin would have been the secondary main / intro to the supernatural world and Belton the Season One antagonist who ended up Sort Of Befriended(ish).

This would have been in approx. Season Three, when bits from Joplin's past come back to bite him (er, again, I guess), and involves the first time he'd actually had to team up with Belton against a larger problem.

The larger problem being: more werebears, but asshole ones.

Indulgent, but I enjoy Belton being a dramatic irritation, and ~27yr old Joplin's permanent state of exasperation. And I wanted to explore an important (?) difference in the way the vampires and were(s) of this setting work.

(Also neither tumblr nor Wattpad has any sensible way to use footnotes, so there's one just... there, in the middle. Like this is FFN cira 2003 or something.)

---

The real difference between vampires and werewolves is how they bleed.

Clearly it isn't the only difference. There are the big, obvious - hairy - ones; and you could spend lifetimes comparing technicalities of characteristic amongst the supernatural set, searching for links or diversions or even a root cause. How magic plays in. How inheritances work, or the fundamental incompatibility of cross-siring. How sunlight, direct or orbitally reflected, could possibly trigger the different effects that it does.

But for Denis Joplin, as he'd scrambled to make sense of the extraordinary left turn his last decade had careened into, somehow the thing that really seemed to underline it all was the way they bled. Maybe because he'd always had such a damn knack for getting into situations that showcased it.

That last round of gunfire had really screwed up his right arm. He'd wedged himself in place against the thick struts of a heavy-duty shipping container - splattered almost as much now with crimson as it was with spraypainted Cyrillic – and tried to breathe quietly. The enormous bastard wielding a goddamn helicopter canon had fucked off to yell 'roided nonsense into a different part of the warehouse, so they probably had a few minutes pause before he realised his targets had dodged.

Not dodged as well as Joplin'd have liked, but there y'go. You worked with what you got.

Most of the bullets had gone straight through – since he wasn't an armour-plated van – but he could feel a few wedged points of pain even within the jellied miasma of broken flesh that hung unpleasantly from his torn shirt.

"Jesustapdancing-" he bit down on the mismatched curse as he grabbed his messed-up limb with his other hand and twisted, pushing it up against himself and the steel wall behind, and tried not to go blind.

It squelched.

"Don't like that," he muttered, then glanced up at the wet snort of amusement from just down the container row. "Hey, he nailed you to the fuckin' wall about as well as I've seen; don't get lippy."

Not that his extremely temporary partner was in much shape to be more actively sarcastic. The brunt of the recent salvo had hit taken Belton pointy-ear to hip, ripping the big grey fuck open like a side character in chainsaw splatter, which – somehow – made the look of dazed amusement on the bits of his face that weren't hanging off even more aggravating than usual. He shifted position, bringing his torn-up arms out in front of him as if holding something narrow and invisible in both hands, and –

Joplin blinked.

Pull... yourself...

"Oh fuck off," he growled – and it was a growl, a sound that started deeper than his chest actually went and brought the pull along with it; a bestial reverb that went beneath his bones. Joplin gritted his teeth – which felt about ready to start moving in his jaw as it was, aching with something beyond nerves – and had another unpleasant feel around where his elbow used to be. It helped if everything was in the right place. Last thing he needed right now was having to rebreak a limb because he'd managed to shift over all wonky.

That'd have to do. Very pointedly not making eye contact with Belton as he did so, Joplin Changed.

There have been a lot of renditions of a lycanthropic* transformations over the years, and there have even been some that have come close to the actual reality of seeing it happen. The exact visuals tend to vary person to person, but however it looks, the world bends – just a little, at the seams – as something that was only ever the thickness of breath away steps forward. Joplin always thought it felt like stretching should do – an all-over, unfurling release of physicality, like every fibre of you stopped hunching its shoulders all at once.

________________________________________________________________

* There's an argument that 'ursanthropic' might be a more technically correct term when the reader is considering Denis Joplin himself – or even the bellowing figure currently firing 30mm rounds into what will turn out to be a container of tinned garlic pallets – but the linguistic side of paraphylogeny isn't a popular field. 'Actually, it's wereBEAR' is only a helpful correction under certain circumstances, and this isn't one of them.**

** Yet. ________________________________________________________________

The arm took a bit more effort. A transformation that added several feet in height, width, and summed-up hair length didn't exactly have a problem fixing a half-mulched limb, but there was clearly an additional process going on. He wondered how people had explained what it looked like before timelapse film had been developed.

It... healed. Torn vessels sealed over; bone shards scraped and swelled together within muscles that bulged crimson-purple as they knitted close. Tissue bloomed, bruise-blossom hues racing through tattered skin and dragging raw pallor behind them; black-bloody tears welled up pink and grey and pink again, threaded with ribbons of tendon herded into place by a lightning flash of sudden scars, gone as fast as they appeared. Then the fur broke surface like desert flowering, and a heartbeat later there was nothing to show for the damage that a slight extra paleness in the iron-grey pelt, as Joplin flexed his bulked-out fingers carefully.

Belton clapped. Just once, with a softness that hands tipped with inch-long claws shouldn't be able to achieve, and it was the most sarcastic fucking sound Joplin had ever heard. He bared his considerable teeth in a silent snarl and waved his own padded hands towards the old bat.

Hurry. Up.

Belton's black eyes crinkled at the edges, and then he pulled himself back together.

The real difference between vampires and werewolves is how they bleed.

Belton's blood was dark, with a strangeness to its consistency that would have baffled splatter analysts on a fundamental level, but it also didn't tend to stay where it landed. None of him did. Metal gleamed naked against the pitted concrete as pools of inky crimson pulled away from the bullets that had torn them loose, flowing back along their own path like a retreating tide - rivulets of reversing gore that snaked and whipped back up their origin form, trailing back into ruptures that folded seamlessly shut around them. Belton stood up, even as his chest cavity was still closing, and gently pushed his hanging jaw back into place, smoothed like fresh clay.

Vampires don't heal – you see – so much as 'rewind'.

He held Joplin's gaze, half a heartbeat longer than he needed to, and grinned.

There was a spotless bullet held between his rows of teeth.

"Oh, fuck off," Joplin repeated – before he was drowned out by a guttural roaring, and the sound of a minigun barrel being smashed through something unfortune enough to be inside its turning circle.

"Little pigs, little pigs! I hear you!"

Both men visibly winced.

"See, someone with that little self-awareness just shouldn't be this much of a problem," Belton muttered, flicking the bullet aside like a cigarette butt. "It's genuinely a bit embarrassing."

"Yeah, well," Joplin whispered back, as he scanned the roof, taking in the environment with an eye to traversal options he hadn't had five minutes ago. "I won't tell if you don't."

Another roar burst the air, and Belton started edging down the row again, clearly doing his own version of the calculations.

"Pity he doesn't take after your side of the family, really."

"This isn't a family situation," Joplin snapped back, readying himself to move when the oncoming footsteps got a bit closer. If he could get around, then maybe he could deke out the...

He glanced back, about to signal a go, and realised the old vampire was still looking at him, one of those impossible-to-read expressions on his weird bat face for a second, before he spoke softly.

"See, that's the thing with monsters. It's always going to come back to blood, one way or another."

A shiver danced down Joplin's extended spine, strong enough to stir the fur. That was a bit close for comfort – and from sodding Belton? He shrugged dismissively, only partly to himself.

"Yeah, well, this ain't gonna be the worst it gets. Try not t'get cut in half again."

Then the shipping container exploded in a nightmare of burning metal. Belton went right; Joplin went up; and everything else went on from there.

----

#Entofic #urban fantasy #The Vegas Masquerade #Knockoff Manbat lookin' bastard #first team up is a bitch #Denis Joplin

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saintheartwing · 4 years

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Undertales of Friendship: Beware the Man Who Speaks in Hands

Frisk was not having very good dreams.

Over and over, he would find himself descending down, down into the dark recesses of the "True" Laboratory beneath the normal place where Alphys had worked in the underground. The walls a dark green, a chill running through the air, a faint fog all around his feet as he nervously stepped past patient chair after patient chair. Over and over again he'd approach the sinks in the back of the room, turning them on to get the key one of them had inside them, hoping to flood the sinks and for the key to either float up, or the pipes beneath to burst open to get what he wanted. Yet that always gave way to the sight of that...THING coming out of the third sink.

A cute little round, cheery face, twisting and bulging and morphing into a monstrosity with a horrific laugh, large black eyes with pinprick white pupils gazing back. A tongue lagging out of one of many mouths, eternally crying and bleeding-black eyes on a whispy, curved tail like a scythe. This...this odd, strange, faintly melted specter of many faces looking back at him, three in a row all rising up from the sinks, mouths opening and closing and all speaking at once, and saying the same phrase again and again.

"LOREM IPSUM DOCET.

LOREM IPSUM DOCET.

LOREM IPSUM DOCET."

Frisk knew what it meant. Sorrow itself teaches. And he knew what these things were. Pieces of what had once been the Royal Scientist of the Underground, WingDinG Aster, aka Gaster, as he preferred to be called. More bestial and darker traits had risen up in this little "Mini-Me" of Gaster, and they were really only interested in one thing.

"Come join the fun."

"It's a real get together!"

"Become one of us! One of us!"

"You'll be with us soon." The Memoryheads intoned, as more heads sprang up around Frisk, knocking him back as they bulged and popped, Frisk shivering as the Memoryhead closest to him intoned in a dark voice.

"Sorrow itself teaches."

"Teaches what?" Frisk asked. And again the Memoryheads would get closer...closer. "Look, I-I don't want to join in the fun!" He insisted. How many times had he done this before, only to be ignored as they leapt on him and-

But now it was different. Now they merged together, popping and squishing into one, growing larger and larger as an enormous black maw opened slowly and a voice faintly echoey in tone rang out.

"I only want what's mine. And you have a part of it."

"Wh-what's that?" Frisk asked, a gigantic head now staring down at him, white pupils gazing deeper and deeper into him as Frisk found himself sinking, going further into the endless black that was engulfing him-

And then he awoke, Fluttershy the Pegasus gently dabbing a cloth over his head as he sat up on her couch, glancing about her little cottage. "Wh-what happened?"

"Oh, Frisk, sweetie, you fainted in the middle of feeding the chickens outside. Is it too hot for you? I don't know why you always wear a long-sleeve shirt." Fluttershy sighed a little, waving a hoof in the air. "I mean, blue does bring out your eyes, but you must get very hot."

"No, it...it isn't that." Frisk muttered, holding a hand to his head as he cringed. "I keep having these bad dreams and I haven't slept well lately."

"...dreams?" Fluttershy murmured. "Hmm. You know, I think I know someone who could help with bad dreams." She offered with a gentle smile, clasping her hooves together and beaming.

And indeed, a quick letter from Spike was sent out, and Princess Luna of Equestria was soon back in Ponyville, happily meeting with Frisk as the tired, ragged-faced, scarcely-able-to-keep-his-eyes-open child moaned, rubbing his head as he laid on the couch in Fluttershy's home. Fluttershy handed him some golden flower tea, another very popular dish brought up from the Underground thanks to the kindhearted Toriel, and Luna thoughtfully looked him over, dark blue eyes gazing intently at him as Sans, who was also there to look after the kid, gave the kid a hot dog. Or rather, a hot cat.

"Ugghhh. I'm sorry, Sans. I don't feel like eating it."

"geez. ain't even hungry enough to have one of my specialties? now I KNOW somethin' ain't right with you." Sans said, shaking his bony head back and forth. "maybe a joke'll cheer you up. what do you call a guy who gets run over? tired."

Fluttershy, Luna and Frisk all slooooowly turned their heads to directly look at each other, then at Sans, saying absolutely nothing. "..."

"...wow, something IS wrong with you. not even a chuckle." Sans commented with a surprised look on his face.

"I can see his soul's aura. It is plagued with bad dreams. Something has a grip on him." She reasoned aloud. "Frisk, I ask of you. Tell me EVERYTHING thou dost remember of thy dreams. It's most imperative."

"I'm dreaming of these...amalgamates. Melted-together things, pieces of a person that used to be. They're called Memoryheads because they're...well, they're like living heads that are the embodiment of a memory of a man." Frisk said, his tone sounding just as exhausted as the child looked. "A man named Dr. Gaster. He used to be the Monster Kingdom's Royal Scientist...and he was Sans and Papyrus's big brother."

"Whatever happened to him?" Fluttershy softly inquired.

"He fell into his machine, into the time/space continuum and now's in pieces."

"what Frisk here means is that he's at a PIECE conference." Sans remarked wryly.

Many, many, MANY miles away, something stirred. A very furious growl turned into a roar as a cracked face snarled out high and loud enough to crack every glass window in Canterlot. Which it DID.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT BONEHEAD SAID THAT!"

"OW. OW. Sans, that joke was so bad it's physically hurting me, OWWW." Frisk moaned out, Luna whacking her head against the nearby wall over and over again, Fluttershy covering her face with one hoof as Sans nonchalantly shrugged.

"maybe you're right. guess I should leave and make sure you get some-"

"DON'T YOU DARE-"

"PIECE and quiet."

"OHHHHH." Frisk groaned, writhing on the couch as Sans exited the house, laughing uproariously as another pained groan echoed out from miles away in Canterlot.

"Ugggghhhhh. How detestible. He should put more backbone into his pu-" Princess Luna began to say before cringing. "Oh sonofa-"

"HA!" Sans laughed.

Unbeknownst to them, it wasn't Frisk who was in the most danger. No, that dubious honor went to Papyrus, who was hard at work in his new job as a guard for Princess Celestia in her palace at Canterlot. Well, "work" is a strong word. Because currently, he was, along with the other guards, enjoying a nice game of charades with her. Celestia was pantomining a clown to demonstrate the circus, though the guards couldn't quite pick up on that, least of all Papyrus. Then again, perhaps the other guards DID realize it, they just couldn't speak over Pap's VERY loud voice.

"OH! OH, YOU ARE A FLOWER! NO, NO WAIT, YOU ARE A PATIENT FROM AN INSANE ASYLUM! NO, NO WAIT! A MAGICIAN! YES, I AM CERTAIN YOU ARE A MAGICIAN! IS THE WORD MAGIC?"

Celestia chuckled a little, Papyrus happily bouncing up and down in the throne room as she cheerily smiled back, some of the other guards jabbing each other in the side, snickering a bit at his childish exeuberance. It was really quite adorable.

But then the room began to get dark and cold, a chill settling in as Celestia realized that she could see her breath right in front of her. She gasped, quickly looking around the room as the expanse all about her began to convert into utter shadows, and she narrowed her eyes. Was this Discord playing a prank? It couldn't be Sombra, he wasn't around anymore! What was going on?

"...PaPyRuS..." A voice whispered, its voice haunting and echoing as Papyrus stiffened in shock, Celestia looking over in his direction before inky blackness began to swell around him, Papyrus struggling to get free of the darkness that was engulfing him. He let out a gasp, trying to push the other guards away so they wouldn't get sucked in, Celestia racing towards him.

"NO! PRINCESS, STAY BACK! I DO NOT WISH YOU HARMED!" Papyrus insisted, the blackness carefully pinning his arms to his sides as a form rose out of the black, its face skeletal, one black crack running up its right eye, another running down towards its mouth on the left as it gazed over Papyrus, bony hand clasping Papyrus's cheek. "DO...DO I KNOW YOU?"

"You don't remember, Papyrus?" It spoke. "I remember everything about you. Everything."

Papyrus's mouth gaped open slightly, Celestia taking a step forward, eyes intently narrowed as her horn glowed. "You release him NOW. I will not allow you to harm an innocent."

"I only want what's mine." The being said. "I need...to make USE of you." It told Papyrus.

And with that, the inky blackness exploded outward like a bomb, Celestia reeling back along with the guards as she gasped, glancing around...

Papyrus was gone.

AN HOUR LATER...

Sans was calmly sitting on a bench in the park, leaning back and doing nothing. Just the way he liked things. Calmly sighing, he looked up at the sky, and the clouds idly passing by as he saw Papyrus approaching off in the distance, dressed in his normal attire and eagerly sitting down next to him. "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?" Papyrus asked Sans.

"well, i like to watch shapes in the clouds. that one looks like a flying dragon, see?" Sans said, pointing with a bony finger up at a draconic-shaped puffy cloud that looked like it was belching out 'flames', Papyrus nodding in agreement.

"OH, YES, IT DOES INDEED."

"and that lil' one over there looks like a mother duck, and the other ones after it are lil' ducklings."

"LIKE THAT CUTE LITTLE BIRD THAT LOVES TO CARRY PEOPLE OVER RIVERS?" Papyrus inquired.

"yeah. we gotta treasure that bird." Sans agreed with a calm, respectful nod.

"MAY I TRY ONE?"

"of course, paps." Sans said with a wink, Papyrus rubbing his long chin before pointing upward with a red-gloved hand.

"OOH! THAT ONE LOOKS LIKE A WOUNDED DERPY WITH SMOKE COMING OFF OF HER WINGS-"

KRAKKA-THROOOOOM! Derpy Hooves crashed hard into the market, a cry of "MY CABBAGES" echoing out through the air as a loud "Sorry' echoed out soon after, Derpy limping by them, angrily holding up an exploded mailbag, complete with the shredded remains of what had been a suspicious package and cake frosting and cabbages all over her body, Sans raising a nonexistent eyebrow as he looked her over.

"what happened?"

"It's a SICK world we live in with SICK PONIES!" Derpy shrieked, grumbling darkly as Papyrus shook his head back and forth.

"WHAT A SHAME. THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER SEND MAIL THROUGH THE POSTAL SYSTEM."

"yeah. i'm guessing that was a Boom Boom Cake of Pinkie Pie's."

"HOW CAN YOU TELL?"

"cuz she's got a real explosive personality."

Silence for a long, long time before Papyrus wryly remarked "...I HATE TO TELL YOU THIS, BROTHER, BUT YOUR JOKE JUST...BOMBED."

Sans stiffened a little, slowly turning his head, as if truly seeing Papyrus for the first time, his mouth agape in surprise as Papyrus put a hand on his shoulder...with incredible weight behind it. "you're not paps."

"NO...I'm not." The being that was not Papyrus said. "You know who I am, Sans. And you know why I'm here. You understand why."

"gaster, come on, he's just a child-" Sans began to say, Gaster's stolen form shaking its head back and forth solemnly.

"I'm not going to harm him anymore than I've harmed Papyrus. Or that I'll harm you. I only want what's mine." Gaster explained."Now come. It's time for all of us to be one big family, Sans. The way it should be." He intoned kindly, as Sans felt a large embrace engulf him, the shadows swallowing his form as he fell deeper, deeper, deeper into the abyssal black around him...

And then, within a few moments, there was only what appeared to be Sans on the bench as he made his way back towards Fluttershy's cottage. "now then...third time is the charm."

...

...Frisk was still on the couch, fast asleep as Luna held a hoof to his head, focusing intently, her lips slightly pursed. Fluttershy stood nearby, biting her lip as the light softly filtered in through the window, bathing over Frisk in soft golden light as Luna cringed.

"This is serious. An immense block is inside his mind. Whatever's inside him has placed a mental barrier that I cannot easily break through. I will need additional help, Fluttershy." Luna sighed at last, removing her hoof from Frisk's forehead before steepling her hooves, lying back in the chair she was sitting on. "He will have to be taken to Zecora."

"taken to ol' stripeybutt, huh?" Sans's voice rang out as they turned, seeing he was stepping out of the closet, Fluttershy gasping as she slightly jumped up in the air. "what? c'mon, Fluttershy. nothing wrong with a couple skeletons in your closet. everybody has 'em."

"I take it you could simply...shortcut your way to Zecora?" Princess Luna mused aloud as he looked Sans over, the skeleton giving a cute little wink, showing off a faintly royal blue glowing eye as Frisk was softly hovered through the air and over towards him. "However are you able to do that?"

"ahhh, blue magic runs in the family, really." Sans the Skeleton remarked with a shrug. "both my brothers got different mastery over it. But Paps's spirit's tied to the trait of Bravery, so his magic comes off more orange. Me, I'm patient, so mine's light blue." He remarked with a shrug, unzipping his blue jacket as the sleeping Frisk was caaaarefully lowered down, down, and soon, was perfectly positoned right in front of Sans's form. With a little smile, Sans zipped his jacket back up, Frisk now warmly tucked away in the jacket almost like a mother kangaroo with her baby joey, as Sans patted the sleeping child on the head. "theeeere we go. all snug as a bug in a rug."

"You've been waiting to do that to him for a while, haven't you?" Fluttershy asked with a smile. "I can tell."

Sans gave her a big grin. "oh, you've no idea." He said, reopening the closet. "i'll see you two later. got a lot to do." he remarked before popping into the closet again, Fluttershy smiling before suddenly stiffening up. Something hadn't been right. What had he said? "My magic's light blue".

...but Frisk had been surrounded in a royal blue light.

"Princess Luna, I think something terrible has just happened." She realized aloud, wheeling around and looking into Luna's eyes. "We need to find Ms. Toriel immediately."

Meanwhile, Frisk was still tucked away inside the jacket as Gaster-Sans calmly walked down the forest path, heading to the abandoned Castle of the Two Sisters, the old castle of Princess Luna and Celestia. The castle was long overgrown, its steeples crumbling and cracked with trees around it drooping and saddened, everything about it giving off the air of dejection and abandonment as Gaster's borrowed form approached the front of the castle and pushed the doors open. Little Frisk was still fast asleep, Gaster's stolen form looking quietly down at Frisk, biting into a lack of bony lip.

He felt guilt. Frisk had been nothing but kind and loving to monsters like him. He'd freed his kind, he'd given his brothers something to live for again. Such a dear child.

"I..." He hesitated, gently stroking Frisk's brown-haired head. He just looked so cute, all tucked away tight and warm and safe in his jacketed body. "...he's just a child..." He murmured.

But he wanted to be whole again so dearly. To just be himself. Before he'd only been able to hold onto the material world in little bits and pieces, barely able to manifest for more than five minutes. But now with Sans and Papyrus sampled...

And soon it would be three with Frisk. Out of everyone in the Underground, four had the strongest physical connection to him. He'd been scattered in pieces across the Underground, and had barely managed to scrape enough of himself together for this wild, desperate plan. He needed four souls, and the pieces of himself within them: Sans, Papyrus, Frisk and Alphys. With Papyrus, his physical form would become more stable. With Sans, his mind would get more stable. With Alphys, he could get back his Soul. And with Frisk would come his heart, his compassion. He needed that. He needed to feel again. To just love someone.

"You're only feeling remnants of a man who once was." He murmured to himself, gently taking Frisk's sleeping form out of his jacket and laying him on a table as his visage began to shift, growing taller and darker. "You don't truly feel guilty. All you feel is a shell. Intellectually, you know you should feel disgusted. But you don't truly feel it. With the child claimed, you will. With the child claimed, you will feel again. Be almost utterly whole again. It's everything you want, isn't it?"

He now stood tall, a large skeleton in a dark cloaked robe with a silver undershirt, his form lean and faintly thin. A black crack ran up his eye, another running down to his mouth from the other eye, his skeletal hands having large holes in the center as he gently laid one on Frisk's head. "Believe me." He spoke softly to Frisk. "I'm truly grateful. With this, I'll be whole again. And you'll never be alone." He offered, shadows beginning to rise around Frisk as his SOUL was exposed...

Gaster flinching as he reeled back, cringing as he clutched at his chest, feeling his remnant of a Soul, his pale imitation flinching. Damn. The soft light of Sans and Papyrus within him were objecting. They were almost utterly overpowering him. Perhaps he couldn't claim the child yet. He'd need more raw power. Perhaps Alphys would do. Her Soul was rather weak-willed in comparison, and would provide the boost needed.

Ah, well. For now he could at least do one thing with the child. Carefully lifting the child up, he placed him between the folds of his coat as he buttoned it up more, the little one nicely tucked away inside him as he softly enjoyed the gentle movements of Frisk turning ever-so-slightly in a peaceful slumber. Sighing, Gaster sat down against a nearby wall, and softly drifted off to sleep himself to join the child in dreamland...

TO BE CONTINUED...

#Undertale #undertales #My Little Pony #My Litte Pony Friendship is Magic #crossover #fanfiction #fanfic #adventure #wd gaster #gaster #Frisk #Sans

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