Chapter 5: Like x Comic x Sans

Gon's boots crushed the flaky snow littered around them, the pure white color, brimming off the snow nearly blinded them as they're eyes were already so adjusted to the Ruin's crude lighting. Naturally, Gon was freezing in the new wintery environment with Whale Island's warm upbringing and naturally, Killua was indifferent to the sub-zero temperature.

"Don't you feel like we're being watched?" Killua slipped in.

His comment made Gon's stomach twist in such a way he hadn't felt before, since fall down into the Underground. His eyes darted back and forth between the clustered rawbone trees enclosing them in. Nothing unusual. "I don't think so…" Gon said, trailing off when he saw a cloud of breath trickling from his mouth.

'No there's definitely someone here,' Killua grabbed Gon's arm, then disappeared into the surrounding forest. Killua nodded to Gon and they watched intently for any signs of movement.

The tense feeling soaking the atmosphere made the ten minutes they waited go by like ten hours. It was, of course, nothing to Killua, he often waited hours, sometime days to find the right time to kill his target, but it became unbearable to Gon. He was itching for something, anything to happen. This wasn't like fishing, no, not with his life on the line in a strange place where he had no idea what to expect.

"Wait." Killua murmured just loud enough for Gon to catch. "It's here."

*crunch

Gon clenched his knees while Killua clenched his fist.

*Crun—

Instead of getting louder the sound stopped completely and a monster appeared right out in the open. Killua's thought process came to a complete halt and he was reduced to just gazing at the new monster. 'It's a….is it really a…'

Unlike any monsters they've encountered so far, this monster had to be the most human looking. It was a skeleton—a rather big boned one at that—animated within the real world like any other human and as disturbing as he appeared, his presence was equally chilling.

"Aw come out, you're hurting my feelings." The monster said out loud. 'Gee, lady you let two go out this time. I was sure you keep at least one, guess not.'

'He's got a pretty deep voice for a skeleton, but he still looks friendly.' Gon thought, he slowly stood up, half expecting Killua to snap at him but Killua kept his focus fixated on the monster.

"It doesn't look like he has an aura surrounding him," Killua commented. 'But then again, I feel like his aura is suffocating me, even from the distance we're at. No, maybe it isn't the fact that he doesn't have an aura, it might be because it's so large that I can't fully see it around him!' "Gon!" He was gone. "Damn, I spoke too soon!"

"Hi, my name's Gon!" He offered his fist to the skeletal monster.

Sans bumped Gon's fist. "Name's Sans. Sans the skeleton." He said coolly.

"Sands huh? Nice to meet you!"

"Sans." He repeated. "Like comic sans."

"That's what I said; Sands!"

"...Forget it."

"Get away from him Gon," Killua said, walking up to them. "He'll only cause us trouble."

"Don't worry, I'm pretty nice." Sans extended his bony hand out to Killua.

'Tch, I really shouldn't get on his bad side.' Killua reluctantly shook Sans' hand just for a loud raspberry sound to erupt upon impact, Killua snatched his hand away and jumped back. "Idiot, electricity can't hurt me."

Sans shrugged, a motion Gon and Killua would soon grow accustomed to, and shoved his hand back into his jacket. "Relax, kid, it's just a whoopee cushion. You know what a joke is, right?"

"Sh...Shut up! Of course I know what a joke is! Gah! Let's leave already, Gon!" Killua exclaimed, visibly flustered to a degree that made Sans lightly chuckle which in return flustered him even more.

"Gon I said…" Killua noticed Gon was staring at his knee-length gym shorts. "What're you looking at?"

"I just realized you and Sands are wearing the same shorts," Gon said.

"Huh?" Killua studied Sans' shorts, loose fitting, jet black with a single white stripe running down the sides, it might of even been the same brand. Killua grimaced. "That's just a coincidence."

"And you both have your hands in your pockets."

Killua pulled his hands from the comfortable vicinity of his pockets and held them clenched to his sides. "Everyone does that!"

"And you're both slouching too!"

Straightening his back, Killua stubbornly shook his head at the uncanny resemblances the two shared and took Gon's arm by force. "We're leaving right now!"

Sans turned to also leave, but not before sneaking in some more 'advice'. "Be careful. My little brother's a lot meaner than me, I'd use Zetsu whenever you're around him or who knows, he might kill you." A lie indeed Sans said in hopes to intimidate the humans, although since he never really considered himself to be that good of a liar, (or at least never cared to put in the effort) he was fairly surprised to see not a drop of aura shrouding their bodies. 'Interesting humans, that's for sure. I'm sure Gon's friendly, but I have second thoughts about the slant-eyed kid.'

OoO

After passing across a bridge with absurdly not a single flake of snow on it, Gon and Killua ended up at a barren sentry station. The area encompassing it was pretty large, having a few lumps of snow here and there, and a small, very oddly placed lamp lodged right smack in the middle.

Killua and Gon being Killua and Gon their curiosity took them behind the sentry station. "Huh, what's this?" Gon picked up an empty ketchup packet from a large pile of them tucked in the back corner. "Ketchup?" He said aloud.

"Like the red stuff that goes in Naporitan, or on Omurice," Killua explained.

"Oooh!"

"Neat, huh?"

The two humans flinched at the uneasy feeling of Sans' heavy voice crawling up their spines. "What the hell is with you?! Don't scare us like that!" Killua barked, grasping the counter.

Sans shrugged in response. "My apologies, but aren't you the ones standing in my sentry station?"

"Wait your sentry station?!"

"That's what I said."

"Sentry station?" Gon asked. "What for?"

"For humans. What else? When I told you to watch out for my brother, I thought you'd be a lot further than this."

"That was only three minutes ago," Gon said.

"I know and it only took three minutes for the last time I warned a human my brother was coming," The small white dots in his empty sockets serving as 'eyes' completely blacked out like a pair of candles in whipping winds. "Until their heads got chopped off."

Maybe it was something about his tone, or the subtle way he said it in as if it was nothing, but it threw Gon and Killua off and they instinctively raised an aura shield around them. "Gotcha, but don't let that happen when you're around my brother, 'kay?" Sans tapped his finger on the counter making a click-click-click sound. "Speaking of...he's coming, if I were you I wouldn't run away, he'll definitely see you. Just duck behind the counter and I'll try to stall for you two."

"Why are you helping us all of a sudden?" Killua questioned.

"I don't know." This time, Sans was telling the truth, he only bothered the two humans in the first place with the intention to prank at least one of them. But now here he was helping a couple of humans simply because he was intrigued. "I guess I didn't make this clear earlier, but I don't care about capturing...I mean killing humans, so it's not like I'm doing a skeleton of work by helping you out."

'Not another one who makes bad puns!'

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Oh...Oh! I get it! It's another skeleton joke!" Gon fell on the ground, laughing kicking his feet up in the air like it was the funniest thing he ever heard. "That's so funny!"

"Looks like I tickled your funny bone, eh?" A long pause followed by another burst of laughter from Gon.

Killua shook his head in anger. 'This is unbearable.' "Your humor is just as bad as the old goat's! Do you guys trade bad jokes or something?!"

A brief moment of surprise flickered across Sans' face, "So she looks like a goat?"

"Yeah, Toriel. You...know her?"

'And that's her name? Toriel? Isn't she the…huh, that's pretty cool.' "Uh...yeah I guess."

'I never took her as someone who would be friends with someone like him.' "Then you probably knew we were coming," Killua put his hands back into his pockets. "That makes a lot more sense."

"So if you know Toriel, then can you tell us why monsters are trying to kill us?" Gon asked.

"Sure, but you probably won't like the answer."

"Why not?"

"'Cause—"

"SAAAAANS!"

"...that's my brother. Remember what we went over." Gon and Killua ducked down behind the counter while Sans strolled out of the sentry station.

Gon dared to take a peek when he heard the crunching snow sound grow louder and louder. What started out as a gray blur in the distance slowly formed into a tall, broad shouldered, high-spirited skeleton. He was nothing like his brother, except for the skeleton aspect, in fact, his aura seemed welcoming to them unlike Sans'. "Killua…" Gon whispered.

"I know," Killua whispered back. "Sans totally lied to us."

"What should we do?"

"Hard to say, let's listen in to their conversation and then we'll act."

"Okay!"

". . .What's up, bro?" Sans greeted.

Papyrus tapped his heavy, red boots on the snow, which soon turned into stomps the more frustrated he became. "What's up bro?" He repeated. "I told you to recalibrate those puzzles like 50 times today, and-and were those two humans you were talking to?!"

"Yep."

/

'Shit! He sold us out!' The countertop shattered from a combination of Killua's inhuman strength and his overflowing distress. "We try plan b now, Gon, get ready."

"Mmh!"

/

"That's great! Where are they?!"

"We're right here!" Killua announced, his hand barely touching Sans' neck. "I'd be careful what you do to us next or your brother's head'll be rolling on the ground."

Gon formed his hands into a gun and held it up to Sans' temples. "Yeah, listen to Killua!" He reinforced. 'Wait...isn't Sands already dead since he's a skeleton, so if Killua kills him, will it still work or...' Steam fizzed out of Gon's ears.

"So you can kill us, got it?" 'Damn it Gon, this is not the time for your brain to get fried, we have to pull through this or else our heads'll be the ones rolling on the ground. We have no idea what the nature of this guy is!'

"...Kill you? Ha, I'd never kill a human, even if it was an important one. I leave that to Undyne, besides, you're just regular humans, can't use Nen or anything so you're pretty useless to us monsters...no offense or anything I mean in a. . ."

While Papyrus droned on and on, Killua tried to interpret his words for himself. 'That's why Sans told us to use Zetsu, only humans who can use Nen are important to these monsters, but why? What is Sans trying to tell us? Does it have anything to do with Asgore's plan? We have to ask Papyrus if we want answers, but not now, not until we can trust him or one of the other monsters. Otherwise he might feed us information that could be potentially life threatening.'

Papyrus finally finished his long speech right as vaults of steam were climbing out of Gon's ears and while Killua was in mid-thought. Papyrus stomped the ground. "You humans better have been listening to me!"

"We were, you said we're basically worthless to you monsters since we can't use Nen," Killua slapped his hand over Gon's mouth. "There's no need to kill us, that's the gist of it."

"You're 44.6% right, but anyways, since you're a basic human I'm happy to become 'friends' with you, we can solve puzzles and eat pasta together like 'friends' do!" He held out his hand to Killua, he shook it and gestured to Gon next.

Killua glared at Gon, giving him the 'just-go-along-with-it' look he knew all too well. 'I'm sorry I have to lie to you.' Gon begrudgingly gave in and finally shook Papyrus' hand, after their hands let go, Papyrus smiled a smile bright enough to melt the very snow around them which merely contributed to Gon's swelling guilt.

"Alrighty! The puzzle's pretty far away, but by the time we get there, we'll practically be out of Snowdin forest and at my house. So let's get going!" Papyrus jogged up ahead, his cherry red scarf bouncing in the wind.

"Thanks," Sans called out as Gon and Killua were beginning to leave. "My brother's been feeling down in the dumps lately, but when he saw you two, he got so happy, maybe keep up the worthless human act a little while longer until you get to Snowdin town?"

"Whatever you say." Killua grumbled, he faced Gon next. "Listen, know it feels bad to lie, but if we tell him we can use nen…" Killua held up a finger. "We'll either die, or," He held up a second finger. "Something worse will happen. We aren't gonna make friends with Papyrus either, that way if he comes time he finds out we can use Nen none of us will feel bad. It's a win for you, me, and Papyrus, we each get out happy. You understand, Gon?"

"..."

"HUMANS, ARE YOU COMING OR WHAT?!"

Gon shuffled faster through the snow. "Gon!" Killua snapped. Gon pulled out a thumbs up which did ease Killua's anger, but it definitely didn't satisfy him.

OoO

". . .there they are, too bad that mess is hovering by."

"Figures, we'll have to separate them in order to get a chance to attack them. . ."

*rustle

*rustle

Gon and Killua's eyes glazed over the plentiful evergreen trees crowding up Snowdin. If they were on the surface such a noise would've been discarded as a mere animal, but here, it was definitely a monster prowling, waiting, for the perfect chance to attack them. Gon moved closer to Killua, whispering, "What should we do if a monster attacks us, we can't use Nen with Papyrus around."

"They won't attack us," Killua reassured. "Not yet, at least, with Papyrus around they're at a major disadvantage if he's anything like his brother. I bet they're planning on how to separate us before anything else."

"So we stick together with—"

Without warning, the two were lifted from the ground and placed awkwardly in between Papyrus' arms. "Nyeh heh heh heh! Now I won't be left out anymore!" Papyrus declared.

"Uh yeah you got us," Killua dryly replied.

Yet again Papyrus droned on about his daily affairs, and yet again Killua kept silent, paying attention to the twitchy evergreen trees rather than what Papyrus cooked this morning. Gon also kept silent, but he mainly focused on the body of sullen water they were approaching. 'A river...aw damn it, I wish I brought my fishing rod with me, that would've been really useful here since we can't use Nen! Too bad it's all the way up in the cave!'

"Up ahead is the start of the Underground's river, it goes all the way to the core, isn't that cool? It's also where I trade messages with this pen pal of mine," Papyrus explained, shifting from instructions on how to prepare delectable spaghetti to bodies of water.

'Ah-looks like I don't need my fishing rod after all!' Gon scooted off of Papyrus' arm and plucked out the fishing rod lodged into the river bank.

"It's pretty sturdy, and firm too, why would anyone leave something like this here?" Gon merely babbled to himself, but Papyrus listened in on him anyways, all his talk about fishing and whatever else immediately sparked his interest.

"What're you talking about?" Papyrus asked.

"Fishing," Gon said nonchalantly, practicing a few reels himself.

"Ooooh, can I try?!"

Gon handed the fishing rod to Papyrus and watched Papyrus repeatedly tried to cast the line into the river—all of which ended up in failure from swinging either too hard or too soft.

As Papyrus went in to cast another line, Killua stood directly in front of him. "Will you give it up?! It's obvious how bad you are at fishing, just give it up already and let's get going!"

"NYehhh! 58th time's the charm!"

"If it's obvious you can't win then just give up! Why waste energy like that?!"

"That's how losers think, and Papyrus isn't a loser!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not, you are!"

Amidst all the arguing, Gon walked up to Papyrus and held his hand out. "Here; I'll help you," He offered, breaking out into a wide grin.

"H-Help me?" Papyrus spit out. "Why would I, the Great Papyrus, need help from a human?"

"You wanna learn how to fish, don't you? 'Cause if you don't, that means a human is better at you than something." Gon smirked because he knew he played Papyrus right into his hands.

"I...I can learn by myself!" Papyrus insisted.

Or maybe not.

Gon went in for the fishing rod, but Papyrus held it high up in the air. Gon grabbed Papyrus' free arm and climbed up his body in order to reach the bone, Papyrus tried to pry the spiky haired human off his bodiless body but Gon clung on like glue.

"Get off me, you human!" Papyrus shouted.

"Not until you give me the fishing rod so I can help you!" Gon shouted back

The fighting and shouting abruptly ended when Papyrus slipped on a chunk of hardened snow and they both fell into the river behind them. Killua watched it all unfold from a distance, sighing heavily, he dragged himself to the river to pull them out. However, his help wasn't needed when Gon came running from out the river hauling Papyrus over his shoulders.

Gon let Papyrus go and plopped down in the snow, his breathing was heavy but elated. Killua plopped right down beside him and gave Gon a kind of half smile half frown. "Idiot," He said, drawing out the I longer than it should've.

"...are you okay, human?" Papyrus asked, snow sliding off his slick body as he propped himself up.

Gon, distraught from Papyrus' surprisingly subtle tone, started staring at the lanky skeleton. He wondered to himself how what was nothing more than a skull could have a face more expressive and endearing than some humans. "Yeah, nothing to worry about," Gon said through chattering teeth.

Papyrus tore his scarf off and wrapped it around his shivering body. "You know, I'm really tired of you humans showing me up, I could've saved myself."

"I guess I'll just leave you in the water next time!"

"You better!" Papyrus exclaimed, his jubilant voice bouncing back. He stood up, then picked up something out of the snow. The fishing rod.

Papyrus shoved the fishing rod into Gon's hand, he looked at it in confusion.

"You are hereby allowed to teach me the fine arts of fishing, I refuse to get shown up anymore!"

"Wha-really?!" He held the fishing rod upright. "Alright, so it goes like this…"

Save in processes. . .

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A/N: Sorry this took so long to upload, I've have no time to write these days, so don't expect a fast update next chapter:/