#echoes transcribed

I suppo~ose you could call me new, though I suppose you may not as well! It's all a matter of perspective! Who might you you you you you be? I certainly haven't seen you around the last time I walked around on the surface.

‖ː‖Hi!‖ː‖

@chaos-harbinger

*Of course, Jester being Jester, immediately matches Mac's cocked head perfectly, without much apparent strain*

Rating: T

Prompt(s): "I chose you"

Warnings: Loss of a good parent

When the core began to crumble the doctor went to fix the problem. That was what he did after all.

While many like to think his unchallenged brilliance and intellect were indeed flawless, these many were most certainly misguided.

Yes, he was smart and he had achieved much in the several centuries he had spent as The Royal Scientist but he was far from flawless.

His second finest creation was about to, in a sense, kill him after all.

Not that he was aware of that just yet.

No, right now he was hurrying down the hall away from his office to comfort his finest creation.

Well, creations technically.

Opening the door he was greeted with a very small and frightened whimper.

Stepping into the room, he allowed his vision to adjust from the harsh florescent to the soft glow of the the star lamp on the bedside table.

"Sans?" He called softly.

He closed the door in an attempt to muffle the alarm sounding in the hall. It helped a bit.

Another whimper and the softer voice of his eldest answered.

Crossing the the room, the doctor knelt by the bed and running his hand fondly over the fleecy rocket ship sheets, dipped his head to look underneath.

There, from the farthest corner against the wall, two pairs of trembling eye lights stared back at him.

"Dad, what's happening?" Asked Sans.

He and his younger brother were curled up holding one another securely wrapped up in Sans favorite blue hoodie, the one from the dump. The doctor kept telling himself the boy would grow into it and that his decision to let Sans keep it was, in fact, just as practical as it was sentimental.

He reached out a hand letting it rest palm up. The action making the angle at which he was kneeling a bit more awkward than before.

"It's the Core. I am going to fix it now, will you come out and go back to bed?" He smiled in a way he hoped translated as reassuring.

The alarm meant that things were serious. A just barely bridled anxiety was rising up behind his ribcage.

Very carefully he helped the two little skeletons back into bed. He handed Papyrus a small binky, being the youngest the boy found it soothing, though to an outside eye it was logistically confusing. That was part of the fun of being skeleton monsters in the doctor's opinion. While perfectly logical, his anatomy and now in turn his sons' proved to be a proper conundrum to many of his fellows. The possibilities for a good jape were seemingly endless.

The youngest boy snuggled into the pillows , the tension in his little bones easing, though not completely. His small hands raised to clutch the blankets to the side of his skull.

"The alarm will stop soon, Papyrus." The doctor lifted a finger and took this rare opportunity to boop his son's nasal ridge. The indignant Nyeh, was well worth the extra second wasted.

"I will be back as soon as I can. Sans, stay here and keep an eye socket out for your brother, alright?" He stooped to hug each of his little boys before rising to his proper height. The magic in his joints cracked.

You accidental a couple of kids and suddenly you get old. He chuckled internally at the thought.

Accidental, maybe at first but certainly deciding to be their father had been deliberate.

"I love you, my little funny bones." He said, his soft tone still rivaling the sounds of growing chaos outside the door.

Leaving the boys, he quickly made his way to the core. The energy surge had left it unstable. A few calibrations and he'd have it back to normal and operating smoothly for the next two hundred years.

When the catwalk collapsed he tried to hang on. He certainly wasn't through with existence and if the little blue bundle by the core entrance was any indication neither was his family.

Family. That was what they truly were.

He'd never get tired of that.

From where he was supended now he could just reach the final computer panel. A minute more and he could have this all sorted.

A shame that his phalanges were slipping and a minute would cost him the ability to climb back up to safety.

A shame Sans had, unsurprisingly, snuck out of his and Papyrus' room and would have to see it happen.

A shame that physics didn't have the capacity to care.

The doctor looked up at the too small figure in the doorway.

Ignoring the heat and the deadly gravitaional pull from beneath him, he smiled at the two people who meant the most to him in this world.

"I chose you." He said, though he doubted they'd hear him.

Letting go of the bent metal railing with one hand the doctor finished fixing the problem. He was good at that, it was what he did after all.

He pressed the final key and the blaring alarms cut off instantly.

Swinging his hand back up to grip the railing there was a sickening lurch as the metal finally gave out against the core's gravitational pull.

The doctor felt his grip fail and then he was falling.

Falling

Falling

And falling still.

YOU ALSO LIKE CLIMBING TREES?

( @osha-stairs-department time 4 pandemonium)

YEAH. WHY ARE YOU A FRUIT?

Rating: T

Prompt(s): "I know what this looks like."

Warnings: An argument

"Wait! Now, hold on-" Villian begins, only to have you turn so sharply he nearly runs into you.

"What?" You snap.

Your hands clench by your side. You're tired, and this latest stunt has you on the edge of spontaneous combustion.

"I know what this looks like." He starts quickly, "I know, but she wouldn't let up. Just kept cornering me the whole fight. She's got one hell of a punch, you know and I was off balance and I just-"

"You just what? Accidently kissed?" You spare him none of the venom that you can currently feel twisting your insides

Why did all of this feel like a betrayal?

It shouldn't even matter!

You are enemies. This guy literally attempts to take over the city on a regular basis.

Your minds keeps replaying the scene along with every moment in your shared narrative that you now suddenly find painful in the the face of it.

The day of the Metro tunnels collapsed and he pulled you out, could have escaped if he had left you, but no.

That time you teamed up against the city's Supervillain and put them safely behind bars?

Now these stupid little truce moments where you both pop in at random just to taunt one another or make sure that latest brawl didn't finish the other off?

None of this should have been happening to begin with.

You have fought one another at almost every turn for years. The whirlwind chases, your daring captures and his last minute get aways. You had done it all and more with him as your main opponent.

Just the two of you in an unending game of cat and mouse.

So maybe that was why seeing him with the city's newest up and coming vigilante like that hurt so much.

"Just go before I get you arrested." You huff.

You turn away from his exasperation.

He protests, because of course he does, but you aren't listening.

"Just get out of here." You say, there's a tremor in your voice that you hope comes off as anger.

Finally he recieves your message and falls silent and you ridgidly wait for the familiar rustle of fabric and the click of a window latch.

After a moment, both sounds reach your ears, but so does his voice.

It's quiet, hardly in character for him.

The last time he'd been this quiet was at the top of the city's tallest highrise. It was New Years. You had watched the city count down together. His voice had been too soft then as well. Too...vulnerable to be the guy that caught you in the occasional overly elaborate trap.

The sound of your name and a gust of wind chilling your skin, returns you to the present.

"I didn't kiss her back."

You resist the urge to turn around.

You know he's already gone.

Standing in the now too empty room, an uncomfortable swirl of emotions, conflicting and messy fill your every molecule.

The fireworks that year had been the biggest and brightest the city had ever set off.

*The hole is very deep... it seems like it leads down quite far. Though it should be easy to climb back up... looks like a small animal dug into an opening in the ground, and the rest crumbled away...

The hole leads down into a surprisingly large area, loose dirt having clearly fallen away from the enterance Tanager just jumped down. It mostly looks like a regular cave, save for the fact that there's no other enterances... and it looks like there is a circle of large runestones in a circle in the middle.

@solarosha

*The Jester seems quite pleased with the room, blank as it is. They flop onto the bed, happily.*

This is the biggest room I've ever had! I love it!