Dust and Shards (Steven Universe X UNDERTALE)

Pilot

Note: This story begins two years after the True Pacifist ending of UNDERTALE and directly after the ending of Bismuth in the Steven Uni-verse. 

Everyone was moving kinda fast, and Steven was having a bit of trouble keeping up. Of course, this was just par for the course at this point, but he wished that the Gems would at least pause what they were doing for a second, just long enough to explain what was going on.

"Hey! Could you guys slow down for a second!"

No one paid any attention.

"C'mon, guys! What's going on?"

Despite Steven's pleading, everyone just kinda kept going. The Crystal Gems continuously moved back and forth, in and out of the temple and their rooms. Steven decided he'd had enough, and walked over to the temple gate, sitting down in front of it. When the door reopened and Pearl tried to exit, she almost tripped over the half-gem.

"Steven! What are you doing? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Yes, I can! Which is why I need to know what you're doing!"

"Ugh. Steven, I..."

Pearl was silent for a few seconds before deciding that Steven would almost definitely just keep bothering her and the other Gems until somebody explained what was going on.

"Listen, Steven, it's not very important, but... it's complicated. The simplest way of putting it is that a whole lot of Gem technology has been acting up in ways that... we can't quite explain. The malfunctions extend to the equipment here in the temple as well, so we've got our hands full trying to get everything in control."

"That sounds kind of important. How can I help?"

"Right now, Steven, you can help by staying out of our way and letting us finish this. You're a capable fighter and a valued member of this team, but... you couldn't know less about Gem technology, and to be honest... we both know what happens when you try to interfere with magic."

"Eh. True enough. But you have to tell me when you figure something out!"

"Of course, Steven."

Frisk was worried. Sans had been spending a whole lot of time in his secret lab recently, and he seemed to have less and less energy every day. It also heavily weighed on Frisk's conscience that they knew what was going on, but they couldn't tell Papyrus. They had to fight their own DETERMINATION to keep lying to the poor skeleton. It went entirely against their nature to keep secrets like this.

But they'd promised Sans they wouldn't tell anyone, and they couldn't go back on that. They knew how important promises were to Sans. They knew from experience, and they could never forgive themselves if they betrayed his trust.

But it still hurt. Even though Sans liked to be alone as he worked on the machine in his lab, Frisk decided they should visit him. All things considered, it seemed like a pretty bad idea. At any time, they could head down there with him when no one else but the two of them were in the entire Underground. Unfortunately, the time they'd chosen to visit the lab was the same time that many of the monsters, as well as their half-human ally Iram, were visiting Ebbot for old times' sake.

Which meant that they were risking Sans' secrecy by visiting him. Nonetheless, Frisk was determined, and nothing was going to stop them from doing something they set out to do.

As Frisk stepped down into Sans' lab, they loudly announced their presence. 99.9% of the time, Sans was always on his guard, but when he was working on his machine he could be surprised, and he hated to be surprised.

"heya, kiddo. watcha doin' here?"

Frisk said that they were just there to check up on him, and to see if he was doing alright.