Undyne couldn't help but clutch at the scarf wrapped around her neck. Papyrus was gone. She knew that. She had seen his dust with her own eyes.
And yet there he stood, dressed in black and red and covered in more scars than Papyrus had even been in fights. He was smiling, but it wasn't making it all the way to his eyes. He reached down into the pile of dust at his feet and retrieved the machine Alphys had been carrying. He looked it over for a moment, then suddenly, his voice came out of the machine, causing Undyne to jump back in surprise. "SANS!"
His voice was too deep, too growling. There was an oddly familiar piece of Papyrus in it, yes, but it could never be mistaken for his voice. Once Undyne processed what he had said, however, all of those thoughts were forgotten.
She turned to her companion in confusion, but he looked as surprised as she was. He made eye contact with her for a moment, seeming to weigh his options, then he stepped up beside her to look at the monitor. She regarded him for a moment, ignoring the screen until another voice joined the first.
"Yeah, Boss?" She looked up to find the owner of the voice very suddenly standing next to this murderous version of her friend. He looked like Sans in the same way the other looked like Papyrus. He was covered in scars, and one of his teeth was gold. He was dressed in black shorts much like Sans's, but his shirt was red and he wore a leather, fur-lined jacket in place of a blue hoodie. He was looking at the pile of dust instead of the person he was addressing, and Undyne almost thought she saw a flash of revulsion pass through his face.
"What the hell is this?" Boss asked, shoving the machine into his hands.
The other Sans took it, turning it around and fiddling with the buttons. "Oh!" He said suddenly. "It's a DT Harnesser" His voice was a lot like the Sans standing beside her, if Sans had made a habit out of smoking instead of drinking.
"That doesn't tell me anything" Boss spat, and the other Sans flinched as though he expected to be hit.
"Well, we don't need to talk about it here in the open, Boss. Come on, let's get to camp" he said quickly, pocketing the device and reaching out for the other's arm, stopping slightly short as though waiting for permission to touch. Boss obliged, placing his arm into his reaching hand, and as suddenly as the other Sans had appeared, they were gone.
Undyne stared at the empty spot where they had been for a split second, then cursed and scrabbled at the controls. She panned the camera around the entire area, but they were nowhere to be found.
"What the hell was that?" She screamed at the monitor, resisting the urge to smash something.
Sans hadn't moved since he'd stepped up to look more closely at the monitor. He had his hands shoved forcefully into his pockets as we watched her search fruitlessly.
"You're not going to find them" he finally said, and she turned to face him angrily.
"What, does it not matter if I find them or something? I didn't ask for your input!"
"This other version of me must be able to take shortcuts, too" he said calmly, ignoring her anger.
She looked at him again, grinding her teeth, something that didn't work particularly well when you had fangs. "Fine" she said "I'll bite. What does that mean?"
Instead of answering, he disappeared, much like the other two had. His voice rang out from behind her, and she spun to face him, shocked. "That's what that means" he said, then he was beside her again.
It was like she'd blinked, but she knew she hadn't. He had just...transported. Apparently he was even more skilled than she'd thought.
"Okay. I see. So how can we find them?" she asked, making a conscious decision not to think too hard about what she'd just seen.
"As far as I know, you can't. Shortcuts leave no trace, and it seems to me that they're going to be too well-hidden to find in a more conventional way if they're having to shortcut to it"
"Well then what the hell are we going to do?"
At that, Sans looked down at the place where his hands rested on the table that held the monitor. Undyne was surprised to see his bodily magic spark and tears form, falling softly onto his carpals and staining them blue. "I don't know" he said simply, his voice breaking on the last word.
Undyne was beyond shocked. She had never seen Sans cry. Not even when his father--
She pushed the thought away and laid a hand on his shoulder. He flinched slightly, but didn't make any move to shove her off, so she stayed where she was.
"I-I'm sorry" he said, wiping hastily at his face. "I don't know where that came from, I just...this could mean some seriously bad things. You...you have no way of knowing how bad"
She just looked at him for a moment before speaking. "Well, then, asshole. Maybe it's about time you told me"
X-X-X-X
Undyne eyed the little device warily. "Sans, are you sure about this?" she asked, for about the hundredth time.
"Nah, I'm never sure of anything when I'm wasted"
She glared at him, not entirely sure he was joking, and he chuckled darkly. "Just for the record, I am sober at the moment"
Despite herself, she felt her body relax slightly in relief.
"Well, mostly"
"Oh my god, shut the fuck up and just do it already"
She still couldn't quite believe everything she'd been told, but she figured that with the things she had seen already today, she should really just accept it.
According to Sans, they were stuck in a sort of time loop, caused by an anomaly in the form of a human child. He'd said that they "reset" the timeline every few weeks, killing all different combinations of monsters, sometimes killing no one at all and actually taking all of monsterkind up to the surface to live happily for a few days before starting all over again, and sometimes hunting down and killing every single monster in the underground.
For what equated to years, Sans had been forced to endure this alone, telling no one, living the same stretch of time over and over again with no way to stop it, no way to predict who would survive and who would not.
When he'd told her about the times Papyrus had been murdered for his kindness, offering encouragement and telling the human how much better they could be even as his body turned to dust, she had offered him the scarf back. She'd seen him die once, and Sans had been forced to see it, find his dust, thousands of times. She thought he deserved it far more than she did, but he'd only shaken his head. "I was serious when I said to keep it, Undyne. I've worn that scarf far too many times, and it's always ended with...well..." and he'd rubbed at his sternum through his shirt absently, refusing to tell her exactly what had happened.
He'd continued with the narrative a bit more quietly after that, telling her how he'd started drinking every reset because, as he said with the most mirthless laugh she'd ever heard, he couldn't even kill himself properly, he'd just come back next reset. So he'd needed an escape. In one of the resets, apparently, he'd drunk a little too much and ended up in the labs. He didn't say why he had gone there, but Undyne was fairly certain that she knew.
He said Alphys had found him, and he'd let everything out. Every reset, every death, all of his pain, came spilling out amidst sobs and pleas to just leave him alone to stop feeling it all.
Then, he'd said, the most amazing thing had happened. Alphys had told him that she remembered it all, too. She remembered all of her resets. Everything . And until that moment, she had thought she was alone as well.
Undyne had been confused about this. Knowing what she did about Sans's history, it made sense for him to remember, but... "How did Alphys know all of it? She wasn't--" Sans had shaken his head, cutting her off. He explained about a machine implanted in her soul when she had been working under Gaster, an illegal experiment towards the end of his life that Alphys had, to say the least, not agreed to. A machine that was called a "memory modifier" that allowed her soul to react with disruptions in a timeline and retrieve past memories.
This was why Undyne was here, sitting on a hospital bed, about to be operated on by someone who she was pretty sure hadn't had any real scientific experience since he was about 9 years old (No matter how good he had been at the time).
"This is a terrible idea" she said as Sans picked up some sort of sharp-looking medical instrument and pretended to give it a spit-shine.
He laughed and nodded. "Oh, yeah. But hey, never in my several hundred years of living have either of us ever had a good idea. We've always needed the other two for that"
She shuddered a little at that. As Sans had related the events of his life to her, she had found her opinion of him changing. Yes, he could be a useless asshole a lot of the time, but she couldn't imagine living for as long as he had, through so much pain, remembering every single bit of it. It was half of the reason why she had insisted on this. Although she now realized that he was probably the strongest person she had ever met, she also recognized that he was on the end of his wire. He needed someone else here, during this. He needed someone who understood to help him figure out what was going on. And, hell, even once it reset again, perhaps she could help Alphys and Sans figure out a way to stop all of this.
Undyne couldn't help the swell of hope that accompanied thoughts of Alphys and Papyrus. She would see them again, it would all reset, and she would see them again. It was like they weren't even dead! The practical part of her said that she shouldn't hope too hard, just in case, but screw that.
She was brought back to reality by Sans picking up the device and approaching her cautiously. "Sorry about the whole no-sedative thing" he said, grimacing. She just snorted. It was a common-known fact that operating on someone's soul while they were under a sedative was incredibly dangerous, and, more often than not, ended in that person falling down and subsequently turning to dust.
She braced herself against the bed, the back of which had been raised so that she could sit comfortably. Sans cursed under his breath suddenly, and Undyne made a face. He couldn't possibly have fucked up already, could he? He hadn't even touched her yet.
"What's wrong?" she snapped, more nervous than she would ever let show.
"I don't wear belts, I don't have anything for you to bite down on"
She just crooked an eyebrow at him for a moment, trying not to be concerned that this was going to be painful enough that she would need something to bite down on. Instead, looking him in the eye, she very deliberately unhooked her own belt, which was in clear view since her shirt was just a black tank top that she knew was on the tight side, and pulled it from around her waist. "You mean a belt like this one right in front of you?" she asked snidely.
"Oh, fuck off. I'm nervous, okay? Bite down on it so I can get to the whole 'causing you pain' thing"
In response, she just showed off her multitasking skills by folding the belt and flipping him off at the same time.
She stuck it between her fangs and bit down, then leaned back and closed her eyes, attempting to breathe calmly.
She felt her soul be summoned, and she couldn't help the sweat that started to run down her face. She felt Sans grab it from the air, much more gently than she would have expected, then she heard him take a deep breath. Then he started the incision.
Undyne was suddenly very grateful for the belt between her teeth as she clenched her jaw, her choked-off scream turning into a prolonged groan instead as her eyes flew open and she gripped at the sides of the bed hard enough to cause the metal to bend slightly. It felt as though the cut was being made on every part of her body at the same time, the pain lancing through her in a way that, despite being captain of the Royal Guard and thus having been in her fair share of fights to the death, she had never felt the likes of before.
Then he was done with the cut, and she felt relief the likes of which she had never felt before. The pain almost immediately died down from a sharp burn to a hard throb as Sans poured just enough green healing magic into her so that the cut didn't seal. Then, with a quickness and precision she hadn't known he possessed, he picked up the memory modifier from the table and inserted it into her soul.
She fidgeted at the unfamiliar sensation of having something put inside the very essence of her being, then sighed aloud as he finished healing her and returned the soul to her chest.
"That went well!" he chirped.
Undyne, still sweating heavily, chest heaving and gasping breaths making their way out from her lungs, gave him the look she usually reserved for idiotic teenagers who were attempting to talk back. She wanted, more than anything else in the world right now, to flip him off again, but she couldn't seem to get her hands to release from their cramped position.
He put away the tool he had used and picked up the paper they had found describing how to use the memory modifier.
"Okay" he said "Now you have to concentrate on it and sort of will it to work"
She sighed deeply, finally convincing her fingers to loosen and removing the belt from her mouth. "Yeah, that's real descriptive, asshole" she choked out, her voice seeming scratchier than normal.
"Shut up and concentrate, Undies"
"Do not fucking call me that, 'Sansy Pansy'"
"Shut your--" his voice seemed a few octaves higher than normal, and he stopped to clear his throat decisively. She snickered and he frowned. "Just concentrate" he said, his voice back to normal.
She let her eyes fall closed. "Concentrate"? What the hell was that supposed to mean? She turned her thoughts to her soul, attempting to find and control the foreign object she could feel there. Nothing happened for several long moments, and her eyes opened so she could glare at Sans.
He wasn't looking at her anymore. Instead, he was entirely focused on the portable version of the monitors upstairs. She could see him flicking between cameras, panning the areas they covered and moving to the next one with a level of concentration she hadn't seen from him since they were just kids and he was trying to teach himself theoretical calculus.
Sans had said, earlier, that the arrival of these strange copies, and especially the fact that they now had possession of the DT Harnesser, could mean some serious trouble. Apparently, the machine was used to harness whatever power the anomaly carried and use it to do anything the child itself was capable of, effectively stripping the human's power from them and containing it within the device. With that power, these new arrivals could do anything they wanted. They would have all the time in the world, and nothing could stop them. Everything was depending on finding them, but if the kid reset now and Undyne forgot everything she had learned, she would have no idea they were here and she would be entirely helpless to stop them from starting to kill their way through the underground all over again.
Undyne closed her eyes again. She had to figure this out, and quickly.
She concentrated again, this time focusing, instead of on the device implanted in her soul, on where she thought the memories themselves might be. In doing so, she very quickly discovered a barrier that she had not been aware of until that moment. She prodded at it lightly, almost curious, then, as she tended to do with all things, drove straight into it with all of her might.
To her surprise, she felt the memory modifier click, sending a shuddering sensation through her whole body. Then the barrier smashed, and suddenly, her body locked up.
She clenched her fingers back into the deep dents she had already bent into the sides of the bed, and her teeth clenched together hard enough to make her wish that the belt was still between them.
"Understand, human? This is your only chance at redemption. Give me your soul, Or I'll tear it from your body!"
It wasn't that it hurt, really. It was more the memory of hurt, of being hurt, over and over and over again...
"Undyne! Y-you're hurt!"
"Hurt? It's nothing. Next time, listen when I tell you to leave, okay?"
"Undyne, I..."
"I'll take care of this. Get out of here!
"Heh...'it's nothing'...No...s-somehow, with just one hit...I'm already...already...D-Damn it! Papyrus...Alphys...ASGORE...Just like that, I...I've failed you."
The memory of turning to dust so many times...it was not pain, it was something...other. Something unpleasant. All of the memories she had, coming back at once, hundreds of years worth of death catching up to her...
"So why are you here? To rub your victory in my face? To humiliate me even further? IS THAT IT?
And so many times, sitting across a table from someone she didn't know was a murderer, someone that, she supposed, hadn't been a murderer that time.
Damn it...So even THAT power...It wasn't enough...? Heh...heheheh...If you think I'm gonna give up hope, you're wrong. 'Cause I've got my friends behind me.
Everything was starting to hit her all at once, the memories becoming overwhelming, too many at once to be able to pick anything out, flashes of the memories coming across her vision.
And we all have one goal...To defeat YOU!
She could feel her body shaking against something cold and hard, which conflicted with hundreds of sensations that all seemed to run across her at once.
I can't believe he leapt through the window like that. Normally he NAILS the landing.
Somewhere off in the distance, she could feel someone shaking her, saying her name in a voice that sounded vaguely panicked.
You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT.
She realized her throat hurt. Was she screaming? Or was it the person saying her name? Who was saying her name?
The heroine appears.
Sans. That was Sans calling her name. Why was Sans calling her name? Her mind strained for an answer to the question, pulling away from the rapid stream of memories.
Suddenly, everything stopped.
"Heya Sparks"
She turned towards the speaker, making a face before it broke into a smile. "I thought I told you not to call me that"
Sans sat beside her on the couch, bringing the smell of cinnamon and butterscotch along with him, like he always did these days. "Yeah, but you should know by now that I never listen"
"It doesn't even make sense, I'm a fish monster, not a fire elemental or a pyrope. Why don't you call Grillby Sparks?"
"Because he's not the one with the fairly explosive personality"
"Oh, shut up. I'm calling you lazyass then"
"You do that anyway"
She snorted and half-turned her attention back to the TV. The stuff here on the surface was about a million times better than the never-ending MTT reruns they'd had back in the Underground. Not that she would ever actually tell her fiancée's best friend that. No one needed that stupid robot's head getting any bigger.
"How're the wedding plans going?" Sans asked, stretching slightly.
"I honestly have no idea. Alphys has been handling all of it. I told her that as long as there will be a red velvet cake and I get to wear a pretty dress, I don't much care what happens"
"I didn't much take you for the dress-wearin' type"
"What can I say, there's just something about how powerful they make you feel"
"You can't even properly run away in a dress"
"Hah! As if I would ever run away from a fight!"
He just laughed, leaning forward and propping his chin in his hands. She looked at him for a moment, taking in his hooded eyes and twitching fingers.
"Are you okay?" She asked, concerned for her friend.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it"
She frowned, then reached for the remote and turned off the TV, giving him her full attention.
"Sans, don't do that. You promised you'd always come to me if you ever started to--"
He sat up fully, putting his hands up in front of him in a placating sort of pose. "No, it's nothing like that! I've been a lot better since...since that happened. It was nice to get some help, finally."
"I'm sorry, Sans"
"For what, suplexing me? I already told you that was okay, a little force was probably necessary to get me to--"
"No, not for the suplexing, I definitely don't feel sorry about that" she said, grinning. "I'm sorry that you had to feel so alone for such a long time"
He was quiet for a moment. She just watched him as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt, seemingly searching for something to say. "You know..." he started. "Between you, Papyrus, and Tori, I don't think I'll ever have to feel alone again. I...I can't thank you enough for that"
"You're welcome, lazyass"
"Aw, come on, Sparks, you ruined it! We were having a moment!"
The sound of their shared laughter filled the room, lightening them both to a degree neither of them had realized they needed.
Undyne's eyes opened slowly, and she heard Sans breath a sigh of relief. "Thank god. I didn't know it was going to do that. Do... do you remember it all now?"
He looked like he had then, she realized. Tired, and scared, but with hope in his eyes, hope like she now realized she hadn't seen since that particular reset so long ago.
"We were all so happy, once. We...we all found forgiveness for the things we'd done" she said, her voice breaking slightly.
He just looked at her for a moment, confused, then he seemed to realize what she was talking about and pain filled his eyes. "Yeah" he said in a whisper. "I guess we all kinda were, weren't we?"