Scrubbing Out the Stains

Chapter 3

Brim reluctantly toed the portal before resigning himself to his duties. It has been approximately a day since the incident of him temporarily giving up on fixing the first AU he had half-way compressed. Even though he didn't really want to complete the crunching and decimation of unnecessary code, he has to do it for the sake of the sweet sense of accomplishment at the end and for Daddy Dearest he guesses. Now he is back at it again and ready to rage quit.

They entered the Hotlands, with the steep cliffs and distant, hot lava. It was like a sauna for any Monster. Luckily, Brim wasn't just any Monster.

He was a skeleton.

They could have gone back to Waterfall, but why would they want to go back to the place where he had those unpleasant epiphanies about his mediocrity as a young skeleton? Not him that's what!

But... perhaps the place they took temporary residence in wasn't the wisest spot to not deal with confrontation. It was near the CORE.

The center of almost all electricity for the Underground. And because it was the center of such a necessity for all of Monster society here, it was bound to have various entrances and exits to the place. This would mean plenty of chances of future conflict.

...

Okay, he was a fool for choosing to be near the CORE of all places. But what can he say! Second day outside the Void, he wanted to do some sightseeing!

Brim plopped his bony ass down near the edge of the lava and lazily summoned a floating panel to the source code of the AU.

Ooh, looks like the Creator didn't mess around with this AU after his work. That just means he can continue where he left off. Well, all they needed to do now was to just check over the code and fix any potential bugs.

And boy were there a ton of bugs. Good thing he was created by some sort of god to have a specialty in dealing with coding. Thank you Daddy Dearest.

Well, despite being somewhat of a demigod, they had a physical body. In other words, they are prone to physical ailments... Migraines. Just thinking about the pain he went through the first time he tried to compress this AU threatened him with another one. However, he didn't really require any sustenance to continue living. Somewhat thankful Daddy Dearest decided to give him a tough body?

"Who are you?"

Brim startled forwards, grazing the heated air from the lava below and turned his skull around to the offender. He could see the previously summoned panel disappear out of his peripheral vision.

A human?

Green jumpsuit, pale skin, rosy cheeks, and a knife in hand. From the ominous glint of the knife, Brim would have been easily intimidated if the human wasn't sweating buckets while looking like a mucky, pitiful dog.

    "Uh, just mind your business kid. I'm doing something important right now."

    The human furrowed their brows at the dismissal with the unusual voice of the other. They have only seen two skeletons since their time in the Underground, and they were pretty sure there was supposed to only be two.

    Before the human could inquire further, they were interrupted by the janitor dressed skeleton.

    "Just-Actually here."

    The skeleton reached into their pocket and tossed it towards the human. As the human fumbled with the object in hand at the unexpected toss, the skeleton stood up and dusted off their flat ass.

    "Here's some chocolate. That's what kids like nowadays right?"

    He rubbed his chin in thought, as if he wasn't just a few days old.