Who Says You're the One in Control?

Goals

Being captain was hard. He had to be up to take care of midnight complaints, he walked all the way across the Underground at least once a week, he was in charge of all scheduling, and on top of that he still had to help Gerson train the recruits to fight. Asgore had been right, too. Paperwork was an absolute pain.

The past few months had been exhausting. Sans couldn't help thinking about all the union regulated breaks he was missing just because he had so much stuff to finish before he could take a break.

Today had been no different. He had no one to take the morning Hotland/CORE route, and the afternoon Snowdin route had been given to a specific ice throwing wolf who had gotten sick because he had slept outside the previous night.

Sans gulped down two cups of coffee before leaving the house. Heading for Hotland, he passed his old sentry station in Waterfall. Monster Kid was waiting for him.

"Yo! I heard you have patrol today!" The kid ran to walk in step with Sans.

Sans had let the kid come with him every time he wanted to. Sometimes, he would ask the kid questions, sometimes they played games. Today, all Sans wanted was to listen. The kid picked up on that immediately.

"Remember when you first became captain? And everyone hated you?" Sans flinched a little. What a nice way to have put it.

The first few weeks had been hard. The unchecked tension had boiled over several times, resulting in fights. Sans had had to work extra hard to keep on top of them. Things had settled down as people found Sans more and more reliable. Now, drunken bar fights and noise complaints were the most Sans dealt with, and they were much more sparse.

"Well, mom said that her friend told her that Bratty had the hots for you." Monster Kid finished.

Sans snorted. "Bratty has the hots for anyone who can even remotely be counted as male."

The kid laughed. "Yeah! Catty seems pretty into Burgerpants, though."

Sans didn't even want to get started on that. Catty and Burgerpants had a huge drama going on in the Guard. If the guardsmen werent talking about it in their spare time, Sans knew something huge had happened in the Underground.

"Did you know they went as a couple to Leo's concert?" Leo was a lion monster. He had been a big fan of Mettaton, and Sans could still remember him dressed up in the dress Mettaton had given him during Frisk's first few runs in the underground.

"I bet they're dating. I wonder if they'll get married. I bet they will once we finally go to the surface!"

That shocked Sans. Most monsters refused to speak about the surface.  "you wanna go to tge surface?" Sans interrupted Monster Kid's thoughts.

"Well, yeah! Once the Royal Guard gets stronger, we're going to make peace with the humans, right?" The kid was bouncing with excitement.

"yeah." Sans couldn't help but smile. He was so close. The training had been intense the past few months, but Sans was seeing results. "let's hope we can get there next summer, okay?"

Monster Kid gave Sans the biggest smile he could manage. "Yeah! Next summer!" He looked around. They were almost at Hotland. "I'm gonna go home and tell my friends!" He ran of with little regard for saying goodbye. Sans didn't mind.

Finishing his route as quickly as possible, he headed back to the training room. Looks like today was strength and endurance training. That meant, for the most part, Gerson was only semi-occupied.

The old turtle couldn't much set the pace in this training. He got tired too quickly. Instead, it was a competition. The loser would have night patrol scheduled for the next week. It was a pretty good motivation.

Sans sat next to the elder monster and watched the guardsmen run. "how's the training?"

"They're getting there." Gerson chuckled.

"yeah? you think they can be ready by next summer?" Sans glanced at Gerson, hopeful for a yes.

The turtle leaned forward in interest. "You planning a trip?"

Sans shrugged. "Monster Kid and i were talking, and he seems to think its time. i think i agree."

Gerson threw back his head as his signature laugh escaped his beak. "Well, now. Aren't you ambitious."

"the barrier is down. i mean, why stay down here, cramped and bored, when the whole world is finally open to us again?"

Gerson sighed. "Knowing humans, history is just bound to repeat itself."

Sans agreed. Humans would probably one day start another war. They might kill hundreds of monsters. "but shouldn't we try to have the best life we can while we're here?"

Gerson gave a short laugh. "Asgore thinks the same thing." Relaxing again he added, "Maybe you're right. After all, hiding underground hadn't helped much when Chara came, now had it?"

Sans turned to watch as the guardsmen ran laps. He wanted to get his mind off the topic of Chara. Normally, he would be out working with them, but he felt he hadn't had time to discuss anything with Gerson in a while.

Watching the runners, Grillby was in lead, as usual. His stronger physical build gave him a larger lead. Burgerpants, in second, surprised everyone by being an extremely hard worker. He was socially awkward, and not nearly as capable physically or magically, but with hard work and encouragement, he was getting past that.

Temmie was at the other end of the scale. Sans couldn't even see her amongst the runners. Looking around, he found her messing with a glowing mushroom. Sans still didn't understand why she was here. She forgot her strongest attacks most of the time, she wandered off all the time, and her reports were absolutely awful to read. Not only did they make no sense, but each letter was cut out of a different font of newspaper. It probably took her longer to make up the report than it did to actually do the route.

Most of the others were pretty average. There was little trouble with them, just a lot of training. Sans was glad they all worked so hard. He was sure they could make it to the surface with enough work. Passing it by Asgore was the biggest hurdle he could forsee.