This is an decimal chapter told in Papyrus's point of view!

If you only want Dust's point of view, this is optional!

If you want plot, you should probably read this!

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After our grand distraction, Chara and I returned to Nightmare's house and waited for my brother and the human to return with Error; I hoped we gave them enough time. Once Chara and I were in the house, Chara located the exit they would take on the way out and bid me open a portal; my brother said my portals looked the best, but I thought his were better. He always told me that I was the best, but I knew he was the best; I just allowed him to think that I was in order to make him feel happy! After Chara and I waited for about an hour, we were wondering if they were successful.

"Spec, do you see anything?" Chara groaned. 

"Not yet, but they will come!" I assured.

"They've been in there forever!"

"It has only been an hour, Chara!"

"Ugh..wait! What's that?"

I looked towards the portal, and it was true, they were coming! Error and my brother were running towards the portal; it was not the best sign, but they were coming, nonetheless! I backed away from the portal to give them room for when they came in, since they might have been very much on the run. When I heard feet hit the ground, I waited a moment before closing the portal, but no other feet came; they must have been running together. I closed the portal just in time to stop any others from following and turned to them. I saw Error and the human child. Was my brother behind them? Error seemed confused when I looked around.

"What are you doing?" Error asked. "Who are you?"

"Oh, I am Dust's brother!" I smiled and waved. "Our universe went through a reset, and I am living again! Where is he?"

"He's right he-" Error paused. "Well I thought he was..where is he?"

"He tripped!" The human child giggled. "Told ya he was weak!"

"Why didn't you tell me?! Why didn't I hear it? Oh my gosh, he could be dead!"

I was in shock; so was Error. He dropped the human child.

"You act like you really cared for him." The human child was laughing. 

"I do happen to care for him, and if you want to retain your ability to breathe without struggling for the rest of your miserable life, you are going to begin caring right now." I glared. "Am I understood?"

"Y-yes?" The child was scared. "I-I hope he's all r-right."

"We can rescue him later." Chara was upset, but he knew we had to continue. "Right now, we need something with a lot of magic."

"Yes, we do need a lot of magic." I agreed. 

"How much magic?" Error was intrigued, although he didn't hear Chara.

"Um..how much did Dust say minimum?" Chara thought. 

"My brother said we need at least a suitable about of magic potential to destroy a small shop within five minutes." I reminded; my brother was always good at analogies.

"I can destroy an AU in five minutes; what do you need magic for?" Error wondered. 

"Wait!" Chara had a brilliant idea. "What if we use Error as the power source for Last Hope?"

"That is a great idea, Chara!" I looked to the machine my brother had made, which was next to the remains of his friends. "Error, would you mind being a power source for us?"

"Why do you need a power source?" Error didn't understand.

"Dust has invented this machine in order to revive the others using their dust!" I gestured.

"But isn't that impossible?"

"Of course not! My brother has been researching this for years! It cannot fail!"

"Years?"

"He was attempting to find a way to bring the others in our universe back, using their dust, and he finally made a breakthrough with this!"

"So what if I were to break it?" The human child had a mischievous grin on their face. 

"If you break the machine, I will stalk you for the rest of your pitiful life, ruin your chances at ever becoming successful in anything, break every bone in your body, and leave you in a desolate universe with no escape as you slowly die of starvation."

"I'm not breaking that." The child lost their grin and backed away to the other side of the room.

"So, would you mind?"

"Of course not!" Error seemed excited.

"Very well then! Please place your hand here, and Chara and I will set everything up!"

"This is going to be so exciting!" Chara was very enthusiastic. 

We prepared the machine and placed the samples of dust in their positions. I was very glad that my brother taught Chara and I how to use Last Hope, because if he didn't, this would have been a very difficult situation. When Error was hooked up to the machine, we turned it on and allowed it to run. It seemed to be functioning perfectly, and magic was flowing. I noticed that the dust began to float around Last Hope, just as my brother said it would! After this, Error showed signs of more magic being drained, but he said he was fine. Before long, souls began to form! My brother's machine was working! After the souls had formed, the dust collected around them, and we began to see the figures of our long lost friends, each looking as good as ever! Within ten minutes, the souls and the forms began to link to eachother, just as my brother said they would!

"I've gotta admit something." Error was in awe. "This is almost as good as Undernovella."

At that point, a flash of light flooded the room, which was nearly blinding, but we couldn't look away; when the light faded, there were four figures, linked to their souls.

"Did it work?" Error was hopeful.

"What happened?" Nightmare rubbed his goopy skull.

"Didn't we just die or somethin'?" Killer looked around. "Somebody cleaned the livin' room."

"I-I remember d-dying." Cross stuttered. "W-was that a dream?"

"It wasn't a dream." Error smiled, being unhooked from Last Hope. "I can't believe you're really here!"

"Yer cryin.'" Horror pointed out. 

"You were dead for four years." I enlightened. 

"Where's Dusty?" Killer looked around.

"His Frisk reset after twenty-five years, apparently, and he built this, from what I've gathered." Error shrugged. We did talk for a while while the machine was working.

"So Dusty brought us back? Where is he?"

"He was captured while rescuing Error. You have a lot to catch up on." I sighed.

"Who's this?" Horror gestured to me.

"Oh! When the human child reset, I was brought back to life!" I waved. "I am Dust's brother!"

"Awesome!" Killer jumped.

"You're the scariest skeleton I've ever met!" The human child complained.

"Shush." I put a phalanx to my jaw.

"I'm assumin' this's Dust's kid?" Horror's glare shifted to the human.

"I'm not here of my own free will!" The human crossed their arms. 

"You agreed to it and you know it." I scoffed. "Lying is bad for your soul!"

"Oh please, I have no soul."

"I believe you do." I turned the human's soul blue. "There it is!"

"So c-can we save D-Dust?" Cross requested. 

"Yeah, but there are a few things you should know first." Error frowned. "Like Ink's total takeover."

"What?" The group was surprised by this.

"Without us standing in his way, Ink had a clear path to establishing a dictatorship, and he did."

"There are a few safe places, this being one of them." I spoke up. "The others are Horrortale and Dreamtale, where we should probably check in; they may need help."

"My bro okay?" Horror was concerned.

"If you want to see him first then join the rest of us in Dreamtale, I see no problem."

"Okay."

"What's in Dreamtale?" Nightmare questioned. 

"The secret refuge from Ink." I answered. "He doesn't know about it, or he doesn't care about it; either way, it's safe."

"Then let's go!" Killer grinned.

"This will be fun." Chara wondered how Dream would react to his brother.

"Indeed." I opened a portal to Dreamtale, followed by all but Horror, who went to Horrortale.

When we entered, we were outside the survivors' refuge, and I knocked on the secret door.

"What's the password?" I heard the familiar voice of Outer say.

"I didn't get the password for this week." I said.

"Come in." The door opened, revealing Outer and his brother, Starstruck; the survivors were aware that I was alive again. "Woah..is that Nightmare's gang? Alive? This is amazing! Get inside, quickly!"

Our little group entered the refuge, noticing some out of place monsters, consisting of mostly skeletons.

"Did he say amazing?" Nightmare inquired.

"You were recognized as heroes after Ink took over." I responded. 

"Huh."

"This entire place looks stupid!" The human complained. "There's rubble everywhere!"

"Well excuse us if we happen to be hiding in a facility made almost entirely out of rubble in order to hide from an enemy that can do virtually anything if given enough time." I glared at the human; they were not being very kind.

"Why are you so scary?" The human shivered from my glare. "You're supposed to be the nice one!"

A little further through the rubble, we came to the main area, where we noticed Classic and Dream talking about the food supply, as always. Dream noticed us first, but didn't see his brother immediately, since I was blocking him.

"Hello Papyrus! Who are your friends-" Dream's eyelights widened when I stepped aside. "Brother?"

"My brother's machine brought them back." I smiled; they knew that my brother was working on it, and that we planned to break Error out. 

"You're really alive!" Dream wasted no time in running up to hug Nightmare, confusing him a bit, but he slowly returned the gesture. "I thought you were gone forever! I never want to lose you again!"

"Two things." Classic approached us. "First, I'm sorry for making the mistake of sentencing you to death. Second, where is your brother?"

"He was captured." I sighed.

"What?! Don't you know what Ink will do to him?!" Classic was shocked. "He'll brainwash him, or worse!"

"Um..we-we're still not up-to-date o-on that whole..th-thing." Cross admitted.

"Ink isn't who we thought he was. He called himself the protector in order to gain our trust, and when there was no opposition, he took over. Only a few of us managed to escape. He turned my universe into his base of operations, and he's manipulated the code of thousands of warriors to force them to serve him."

"Always knew somethin' was rotten with him." Killer looked able to battle already.

"We need a plan if we're going to save Dust in time." Dream was still hugging Nightmare. "How did you save Error, anyway? We've tried so many times and failed!"

"Chara and I distracted the guards while Dust and this human sneaked in." I began. "Would you mind telling what happened after that?"

"Yes." The human looked bored. "He wouldn't let me kill anything."

"You're going to wish you were killed in that battle if you don't tell the real story."

"Fine! We went down the longest staircase in the world, beat up some guards, broke this stupid skeleton out of jail, and ran down the longest hallway in the world, where the weakling tripped right at the stupid end! There is your story! Happy?" 

"I regret carrying you." Error confessed.

"I regret saving you."

"Did Dust really have to put up with this little monster every reset?" Killer asked.

"Yes." I replied.

"I don't blame him for goin' insane."

"After meeting this kid, I don't either." Classic shuddered.

"You're all pathetic." The human scoffed.

"Well, we need a plan to get Dust back before Ink can do anything, because if I know Ink, which I unfortunately do, he isn't going to waste any time."

"Then let's begin planning!" Error was all for getting Dust back.

The next few weeks were filled with attempts and failures at rescuing my brother, who we found out was being held in Ink's own room, which made rescue attempts difficult; we were going to save my brother even if it took months, which it looked like it was going to, unfortunately. We paid close attention to news and even got the human child to genuinely worry about my brother, which was an accomplishment in itself; after almost two months, we had a plan that couldn't possibly fail, and we were going to try it.

I knew we would save my brother.

~~~decimal end woot~~~

Dust bean family live yay.

Thanks for reading my hopeful writing!

Bye!