Fresh New Antivirus

Ch. 27 - Party Crashers

To say Fresh was surprised was accurate, but that was nothing compared to the panic stricken Error.

"Miss me~?" Snasy asked, facing Fresh with a face splitting smile.

Their cheery smile faltered when they were strung up with blue strings and hung from the ceiling by their purple coded soul. Snasy winced.

Fresh also gave a sympathetic wince, shades stating OW-CH.

Error gave Fresh an unamused look. "I t-t-t-take it this is what you were in the m-m-m-middle of? Fighting a H-H-H-Hacker? And you j-j-j-just left? R-R-R-Really?"

Fresh didn't have the time to explain as shortly behind Snasy, Spiffy, Chara and Frisk exited. Spiffy likewise also tied to the ceiling, but Chara and Frisk got away with just being tied up in the traditional sense and not by their souls. The two fallen human, well, fell at suddenly finding themselves tied up.

Before Error could crush the Hacker's souls (or it got to the point where Fresh would need to prevent that), Gaster called out from the portal, surprising a lot of those present into freezing.

"*Good Luck, children! Feel free to visit again!"

Fresh returned Gasters' wave as the portal closed, then cleared his throat to gain everyone's attention as he moved in front of the captive humans with a flourish. Grandly he gestures to them as if this was all staged and planned for.

"Error and every other radical pal present." Fresh began to introduce, pointing a thumb at the hanging kids. "This here be Snasy and Spiffy, and we've come to a rad deal, so no soul shattering required." Pointing between Chara and Frisk. "And these two swag androgi-bros are survivors from Outertale 567 due to their intervention."

"... you l-l-l-literally just said your job is to fight Hacker's." Error dead panned. "N-N-N-Not befriending them."

"Well, broski." Fresh replied, with a smirk. "This here home boy also never claimed to be particularly good at his gnarly job, as he be new." This got a few face palms. "Sides." Fresh added. "They're not regular Hacker-bros. They're also Player's."

"Uuh ..." Snasy began from halfway to the ceiling. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to be let down now? I'm starting to get nauseous and I doubt anyone wants that while I'm hanging above their heads."

Error narrows his eye sockets in distrust and perhaps confusion. "... I s-s-s-see." Slowly he lowers them down, string still around their souls.

Snasy sighed as they touched solid ground once more.

"Thanks ..." Spiffy said, looking at Error admirably.

"No funny b-b-b-business." Error instructed, as he released them. "We get enough comedians."

"I bet." Snasy said looking around at the various characters milling about.

"Just like that?" Nightmare asked, baffled. "I don't know what a 'Player' is, but it can't possibly be enough to trust them."

"Trust has nothing to d-d-d-do with it." Error said, crossing his arms. "In fact, I'd trust them less for being both. But Players and Hackers share one quality." He looked at the two with a critical eye light. "They can't talk freely. At least not in a way m-m-m-most can understand."

"Oh yeah!" Snasy said as if just remembering something, and turned to Fresh. "We wanted to ask you about that because we could only communicate and see this all as more than what we did after accepting your deal."