Guess what time it is?
*cue groans from audience*
Welp. I just wanted to thank you guys for your support so far. Honestly, I had no idea how this was going to pan out. There may not be many of you, but you're there, and that matters.
I may have school again *groan* but that won't stop me from publishing!
Apart from exams. That problem's like the battle against Sans, but I'll cross that bridge later.
Enjoy!
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The cool breeze whipped at Sans, causing him to lower his speed. Because of his low HP, travelling at speeds exceeding 200 Kilometres per Hour was dangerous as the wind speed could reach damaging levels, unless he expended more magic to form a protective shield. He estimated that he would arrive at the house in a minute. For a mind like his, it was enough to dwell on his next move. So far, they only knew about his nightmares and magic attacks. That was okay, as he could find something to explain it. The tricky part was his low HP. Sans clenched his fists at that thought. There was an obvious reason for not telling them about his HP, along the lines of 'overprotectiveness', especially from Toriel. Although, he thought in hindsight, that didn't seem like such a bad thing. Shaking the thought from his head, he reflected on what they didn't know, like the RESETs or about...
The experiments.
Without warning, his magic stopped. Gravity pulled him down at an incredible speed. Sans tried to engage Flight of Blue, but he couldn't. Thinking fast, he tried to summon a Gaster Blaster. Next to him, a large draconic skull appeared, staring at him in worry. He commanded it to come towards him, matching his exact speed. The blaster obeyed. The ground was coming closer, and Sans knew he didn't have much time. When it was close enough, Sans grabbed hold and made it fly upwards in a gentle curve. The skull executed the order flawlessly, removing the velocity Sans gained from the fall. Suffering no damage, Sans returned to the skies. He let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Thanks bud." The skeleton spoke, patting the blaster affectionately. It grinned at him in a surprisingly adorable way, making a cute 'yelp' in reply.
"What just happened?" He asked himself, activating his eye. He summoned his Blue Magic, targeting it so it enveloped his hand. He made a few mental tests on it, studying it thoroughly, and came to a result. It was all to do with his mental capacity. Flight of Blue was an ability that required immense mental concentration, as well as physical manipulation of the technique at all times. Henceforth, if there were events that affected Sans greatly, such as past memories that were especially painful to him, it could break his concentration, as he had just learnt about, the hard way. He may be a genius with a Ph.D., but he wasn't invulnerable, a fact he painstakingly knew. Thinking about those sorts of things was liable to getting him killed. He chuckled.
"You really know how to make things dramatic huh?" Sans said, facing the author.
*************
*cracking sounds appear*
Author: What the Rune?
*sees a huge crack in The Fourth Wall*
Author: *panics*
Author: WHERE'S THE DUCT TAPE?!
*runs out*
*pops back in*
Author: Yes. I meant Duct Tape, not Flex Tape.
A few minutes later
Author: Done!
*Fourth Wall is covered with Duct Tape*
Author: Let's hope that doesn't happen again!
Inner Author: It's going to happen again.
*************
The small skeleton broke away from his thoughts. In front of him, the house was visible.
"That was fast, as expected." He remarked, noticing the lights visible inside. He thought back to when they had officially purchased it. Frisk had suggested that naming the house would be cool. Make it feel sound 'homier'. Asgore had considered calling it Surface Home. Everyone had had a good laugh at it, but surprisingly, the name stuck. So 'Surface Home' was now the new name of their residence. Sans's permanent smile lessened, knowing the deep history he had with the King. He knew that he would have to tell them someday.
Sans landed at the door. He thanked the Blaster, before sending it back to the pocket dimension. He pondered opening the door, but it was locked and his spare key was inside. He chose to teleport inside, careful to land quietly on the carpet...
And nearly had a skull-on collision with Papyrus.
Luckily, with his well-honed and finely-tuned reactive senses, Sans was able to dodge out of the way at the last second, while simultaneously catching his brother with Blue Magic to prevent him from crashing through the door like the last time.
"Whoa Paps! I've heard of leaping into someone's arms, but's that's ridiculous!" He joked, but stopped upon seeing the look on his brother's face. He removed the hold on his brother, and was immediately tackled into a hug.
"BROTHER! YOU'RE OKAY!" He held Sans close to him, the latter feeling lucky that he didn't need to breathe, otherwise he would have been choked to dust. Papyrus released him from his grasp, hearing footsteps behind him. Sans noticed the huge figures of Toriel and Asgore first, then saw Undyne carrying Alphys, who was half attempting to resist but still didn't really want to. Frisk had also come, with Flowey in their arms.
"SANS! There you are, punk! Where the heck have you been?!" Undyne demanded, her usually dark-blue face looking red from anger. Sans raised his arms, as if trying to calm the fish down.
"Hey, calm down. At that rate, you might get a really high tempura-ture!" He joked again, trying to defuse the situation. It worked about as well as pouring gasoline on a fire. Undyne's face became even redder, steam visible from her face. She opened her mouth, but stopped as a small yellow hand covered it. Undyne faced the small, adorable monster in her hands, her face returning to its usual blue. Undyne's heart started to beat a little faster? Alphys smiled, a sight so cute that Undyne's heart melted ever so slightly at it. Sans looked at the two, his perma-grin widening at the sight, then noticed the worried expressions on the two goats. It reminded him that they all knew about his stats. He sighed internally, deciding to keep up his 'punny' attitude for a little longer.
"What? You look like someone just said they're going to 'bleat' me up!" he punned, but he may as well be telling knock-knock jokes to the door to the Ruins again for the same reaction, or rather lack thereof.
Asgore made a move to say something, but Toriel beat him to it. Sans was faster though.
"Yeah, yeah. You want to know where I went, am I right?" He asked in an effort to prevent them from saying something. "Well, the short form is, I went for a walk."
Flowey and Undyne both shot similar exasperated glances as him, unable to believe that he would give out such a lazy answer at a time like this.
"SANS PLEASE! BE SERIOUS RIGHT NOW! WE WERE ALL VERY CONCERNED FOR YOU!" Sans turned to look at his younger brother, a thought striking him.
"How did you know I left in the first place?"
Earlier, when Sans had teleported away from the couch, Papyrus had been grasped by the sudden need to go check on his brother. Instead of his brother, the Annoying Dog had been sleeping in his place. Sans called him Fox, but he would always be The Annoying Dog to Papyrus, considering that his 'SPECIAL ATTACK' had been stolen again. Papyrus first thought that Sans had turned into the dog and started shaking him, then realised the silliness at that. He then proceeded to metaphorically flip over the house looking for his brother, while the others had tried to simultaneously help and prevent him from breaking anything. Frisk suggested that Sans may have gone outside, so a worried Papyrus, with the speed of an Olympian runner had charged to the front door...
And nearly tackled Sans into said door.
Sans knew how much his brother cared for him, but he was still touched by his compassion, and felt guilty about not telling him. In his mind, he felt shocked by that. Was his mind finally recovering from the endless cycle of lies and falseness caused by the RESETs? He heavily doubted it, but he was unable to come up with a better solution.
"Paps... Heh, I'm sorry about worrying you. All of you." He said, gesturing to them all.
"Come on," he continued, making his way to the kitchen table. "You guys deserve some answers from this bag of bones." Before he did, he mentioned the fact that he had listened to their conversation earlier, and left after they checked on his SOUL.
That meant that he did not hear about the True Mage or the Infinite Soul, Toriel thought. To her left, she could see that Asgore was having similar thoughts. He probably already knew about it though, considering his nature and startling level of intelligence.
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A few minutes later, the kitchen was occupied once again. Sans sat at the head, a cup filled with his 'Ketcoffee', which, as the name implied, was coffee mixed with ketchup. He took a large sip from it, the liquid disappearing through his closed teeth.
"If you're answering questions," Undyne started. "Mind explaining that?" Sans tilted his head to the side in response.
"That! How can you eat with your mouth closed? It makes no sense!" Sans nodded, boarding Undyne's train of thought.
"Absorption." He replied simply without making a pun or trying to edge around the question. Understanding dawned in everyone's eyes save for Papyrus, as the long-pondered question was finally answered.
"W-What about the nightmares?" Alphys piped up to Sans, making everyone alert and ready to listen. Sans sighed at that, and prepared his excuse. They weren't ready for the truth just yet.
"By now, you know about my infinite magic, right? Well, the excess magic tends to affect my sub-conscious and create nightmares for no obvious reason. Masochistic huh? Anyway, it does amplify my nightmares greatly, resulting in magic attacks. I can't control it, and I usually forget them right afterwards. I've been lucky to not hurt anyone."
Undyne studied him carefully. His body language, combined with his tone of voice, seemed to indicate that he was telling the truth. She looked in his eyes, but he had turned away from her, seemingly knowing what she was attempting.
Hmph. I can't read anything that suggests he's lying, Undyne thought. At that moment, she recalled the whole stats thing with Sans.
"There's something that doesn't make sense though," she started. "You have crazy huge power in your SOUL, but you only have base stats of ONE ATK and DEF? With so much SOUL power, shouldn't you be stronger?" Sans puzzled that one over, then came to a good explanation.
"Imagine it this way. Think of a water tank. It has an endless amount of water. If you broke it, it wouldn't stop leaking water. That's my SOUL. Now, imagine that the tank has a rusty tap that only pours a slow and small amount of water. That's me." He finished, satisfied with the analogy.
"That doesn't really answer my question though. Why are you a rusty tap?" She pushed on.
"Because if I said I was a well polished, fully functioning tap, my analogy wouldn't make sense." He replied, shrugging. Undyne groaned, knowing by now that he was 'BS-ing' her. Flowey and Frisk turned to face each other, their expressions revealing what they were both thinking. Sans saw this, and activated his Freeze Frame ability. Time stopped, halting everyone in place except for Sans, Frisk and Flowey. The duo turned to face the skeleton, confusion evident on their faces.
"Listen. You both know that whatever I just said sounds wrong because of our many clashes, usually ending with me victorious." Sans partly explained.
"Rubbing salt in that old wound huh?" Flowey asked with loathing. " We killed you eventually, so don't act all high and mighty!" Sans stiffened a bit, the light in his eyes momentarily fizzing out. Time started up again, but moved at a snail's pace. The eye sockets of Sans regained their brightness again, and time was forced to a halt again.
Then it started up, moving at different speeds. Sans started shaking, taking short, quick breaths. His eyes weren't glowing yet, but he was muttering gibberish, making weird motions with his hands.
"Sans?!" Frisk asked, worry evident in their tone. "What's wrong?! Say something! Please!" Frisk's SOUL started to glow its bright red, making them immune to the time irregularity of Freeze Frame. Flowey lacked enough DETERMINATION, and was unable to resist the ever-changing tempo of time.
Sans's own SOUL started glowing, a brilliant white illuminating from it. Time then froze, but released the other monsters from Time Paralysation. Sans started hovering again, but his eye sockets were replaced with a blinding light.
"It appears that Sans is reluctant to reveal the truth to you all." A light contralto voice boomed from Sans's mouth. "But I do not blame him. The truth is a heavy burden to reveal."
"WHO ARE YOU, MR MYSTERIOUS VOICE SPEAKING FROM SANS?! AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!" Papyrus quickly asked. The voice chuckled not unkindly in reply.
"Ah Papyrus, polite as always. I wonder, wager a guess?" The voice asked in a joking tone. Toriel's face clouded in disbelief, an expression that did not go unnoticed by the voice.
"It appears that Toriel has figured it out. That's to be expected from someone very knowledgeable about history. Gerson would have immense trouble keeping up with you." It responded, a cheerful tone accompanying it. Asgore's face, first with bewilderment, also changed to disbelief. Papyrus was still very puzzled.
"I-It can't b-be," Toriel stuttered. "Yo-you're-"
"Yes indeed."
"I..."
"Am the Infinite Soul. But you can call me Myriad."
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Hah! You thought it was a chapter continuation, but it was me, a cliff-hanger!*evil laughter intensifies**Stops laughing because throat has been overused. Swallows a lozenge*Anyways, I know that you've been waiting a few weeks for this chapter. Yes, it sucks, but trust me on this, the next chapter will be huge. I hope that you will stay with me until the end. Thanks for everything!
See you in the next chapter!
-T-Dude