Chapter Text
Hello, traveler
…
Who am I? Well, my name wouldn’t mean anything to you, I promise. I’m not from around here, even more than you are. I often go by Wanderer, which is as much an apt descriptor as any, I suppose.
I’ve spent a long time in the Void, and I quite like this little corner where we find ourselves. Much more going on here than most places. Souls flitting in and out of the Void, the good Doctor and his Vessels setting up shop across times and spaces, conduits opening up and connecting worlds in increasingly interesting ways, I never know what I’ll find next. There’s even a nexus of sorts; someone set up an entire bar suspended in the void, very clever.
The other parts of the Void are much less fascinating in comparison. Oh, occasionally someone will clip through and find themselves here, a certain mercenary will sometimes pop his head and say hello. A collection of scientists occasionally punch a hole through and have to patch it up. Usually though, it’s limited to small conduits that open up briefly. For a while there was a very promising-
Oh, I’m losing you aren’t I? Suffice it to say, then, that I do enjoy this little corner of the Void carved out by the Dog. He gave it a very interesting shape that began to take on a life of its own.
And, well, that brings us to you, doesn’t it? How did you come here my friend? Or perhaps, more so, what are you looking for?
…
Fascinating. I can see how the Doctor has chosen to contact people like you for his experiments. Well, I am not Him but I do have my own research to conduct, after a certain manner. Perhaps you can help me a bit. With your help, we can spin the Void a little, reshape it…
Ah, there we go. This should suffice for a demonstration. What shall we… hmm, that’s an idea.
I have another friend who has asked for my help. They are in the business of training, shall we say, operatives. Their affairs are their own, but they asked if I could help give their operatives some experience in combat and in navigating the Void. Perhaps you and my friend’s wishes could align, produce some interesting results for my own research.
Is this an acceptable bargain?
…
I hoped so.
Well then, if you are so willing, would you help me here? Think hard of someone, of a part of a story that means something special. With that image fixed in your mind, allow me to just…
There
……………………………………
(Ah, perfect. We could have spun the Void a little finer, made a more robust tapestry in which to place our scene. But the emotion of this scene, ah, the way it has penetrated the Void for years, makes it easy enough to recreate without too many threads. You did well for a first try. Are you sure that it is your first try?)
(Regardless, I do hope you forgive me introducing one of the operatives I spoke of. I believe that his addition will make this… unique. As I said. Something for you, something for my friend, and something for me)
(You cannot see anything yet? Ah, I see, I forgot how travelers here are often shackled. How fascinating. Once I do this it will be difficult for us to speak, but allow me to-)
SCENE: The Final Corridor
The SAVE point in the doorway of the corridor twinkles at the feet of a human. He looks confused for a moment, brow wrinkling and a hand darting into his coat pocket to grip something before finding his bearings again.
Deren Nel-jika is not the fallen human. For one, he is an adult, dark skinned, wearing a long, collared coat and durable, steel toed boots. For another, he has no SOUL in the particular way this universe demands. The SAVE point shines with determination but in this fragment of a story pulled out of the Void, no soul will touch it.
He turns to see the rest of the corridor, full of shining gold and stained glass windows. His gaze narrows, staring at the riches on display, and begins stalking forward into the empty hall, hand stretched out in front of him.
Halfway down the hall, he blinks. When his eyes open again, some… thing stands in his way. A skeleton, its face somehow shrouded in darkness despite the brightness of the windows.
Sans the Skeleton is very sure that something is very wrong. An adult human? No wonder the Underground has gone silent. He remembers stories of even what their children could do with that human determination. An adult? And one with the expression this one has, the hidden anger covered over with dispassion and swagger… dangerous.
That’s even without the anomalous readings he’s become all too familiar with. Timelines jumping, restarting, ending… and just now, impossibly, it seems as if this timeline only just began, as if snipped off with an impossibly large pair of scissors.
He can’t even bring himself to start off the conversation with a joke.
“Well human, seems you’ve been busy. Which makes it all the more impressive we haven’t met yet”
Deren smirks, mirroring the rictus grin aimed at him. He’s not sure what he got dropped into but might as well play along. “What can I say, I’m a man of many talents.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. So I’ll give you one last chance.” Sans stepped forward into the light, and Deren couldn’t suppress a snicker, seeing that the guy threatening him was not only the height of a child, but was wearing a ratty hoodie and fluffy slippers. “Go back where you came from. Reset the timeline. Give up and try again.”
“Or what?”
Sans’s eyes clouded over, seeming to disappear into his skull. “Do you wanna have a bad time? 'Cause if you take another step forward… you are REALLY not going to like what happens next.”
Deren considered his options. Which weren’t many. Presumably, he’d been brought here for a reason, whether to test him or to accomplish something in this world. Until one of those was finished, he didn’t have a way to leave, let alone reset the timeline like Sans was asking. Besides, he hadn’t ever been the kind of person to take orders. Deliberately, he locked eyes with the skeleton and took a step forward, pulling his other hand out of his coat pocket.
“Welp, can’t say I expected otherwise. Still, it’s a beautiful day out… birds are singing, flowers are blooming…” Deren followed San’s gaze, confused by the sudden change in topic, looking out the window.
“On days like these, killers like you-” was all the warning Deren got before he was whipped down into the floor, ghostly bones erupting out of the stones into his back. He gasped, then rolled out of the way of another wave of bones that seemed to appear out of the air, feeling a wave of electricity spread out from where he got hit. Before he could stand all the way up, a demonic looking skull appeared in front of him. Instinctively, he threw himself to the side again as it fired a laser big enough to engulf his whole torso, feeling the energy in the air crackle around him and-
Oh there was another one. Another maladroit roll found him on his back as a third one of those blasters loomed overhead and-
Working on years of muscle memory, drilled into him first in the streets and then in the practice ring, he gestured, pulling the energy out of the air around him. The light from the windows and the lasers, the left over electricity crackling, streaming into his hands, frantically shaped as the the thing charged up, making that noise, aiming directly for his face, there was no time to dodge only time to-
A shield of cold iron formed and the room dimmed for an instant before the blast slammed into the shield, making a sound like cold water sizzling on a hot pan.
Dimly, Deren heard the skeleton finish his sentence. “-should be burning in hell.” He turned to see that for the first time, Sans seemed to have some mirth behind his permanent grin. He shrugged. “Huh, always wondered why people never use their strongest attack first”
Deren pushed himself to his feet, dismissing the shield. The room grew brighter again, and he assessed the damage, since Sans seemed to be giving him a moment. While the bone attacks didn’t seem to do physical damage, they had definitely hurt, and seemed to be sapping his strength away. Finally, the electric fire in his nerves subsided, and he pasted on another smirk.
Lost, up against the unknown, and on the back foot?
Well, he couldn’t let Sans know that, now could he?
*Begin: Megalovania, Undertale OST
With an almost imperceptible shift in the skeleton’s weight, it began again. Deren tensed, then, spotting the bones rushing at him from both sides dived through a small gap left to him, landing on his feet just in time to vault over the next one, then the next, hopping up over another and sliding under one that whipped by his head and-
ZAP
He cursed as his timing got messed up and a bone swung straight through his leg, starting a buzz in every neuron that, if it was like the other ones, would last far longer than it should. Luckily, that seemed to be the end of Sans’ onslaught for the moment.
“See, I’ve been studying the timeline for a while,” he said, pulling his hand out of his jacket pocket as if he was just out for a stroll in the park. “Our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting… until they finally end.”
Deren opened his mouth to respond but Sans didn't seem to really want answers, judging by how quickly the bones reappeared around him. He scanned them, working up to leap over the tallest ones coming towards him-
Actually, what the hell was he doing?
He pulled in some light, forming it into a small platform under his feet, mentally commanding the iron to float upwards over the first set of bones, then to drop as two whizzed over his head. The platform would only be able to move on its own for a few seconds before it would require more investment of energy, but if he had a read of his opponent…
Deren guided it up again, dropping to his knees to avoid the attacks overhead, feeling his control slipping. At the last second before it would drop to the ground, he dismissed it into particles again, leaping over one last bone attack, praying he hadn’t misjudged his opponent.
Luckily, he slammed into the ground instead of more agonizing pain. Rolling to a stop he gritted his teeth, glaring at the skeleton, who still hadn’t broken a sweat. If a skeleton could sweat, he reconsidered.
“Sounds like you’ve got a bigger problem than just me, scientist.” As he spoke, he shaped a beam of light into a cold spear, hurling it straight for Sans’ empty rib cage. Just before it should have connected, he blinked again, and when his eyes opened Sans was standing just two feet to the left, his spear lying harmlessly on the floor.
“Heh heh heh, I’m not so sure.” Sans turned to look at the spear, an odd look on his face. The longer this fight went on, the more he was sure that something was very, very wrong.
Better to end it before he had a chance to find out what that was.
“You see, human, today I found something totally different,” he said, summoning up a new wave of magic. The man, instead of using the power of the blue SOUL to jump up onto the platforms, used more of his own strange magic, forming stair steps out of the black metal up over the bones. Sans looked as closely as he could without moving from his spot, trying to see if there was another monster helping him, or if he had some kind of device that could create metal, or… or…
Deren didn’t have enough space to get over the final bone in the attack, not after ducking down under one above him, so the human gathered more light in his hands. Sans leaned forward, not sure what to expect, only for his eyes to widen as a massive warhammer materialized in his hands, smashing his bone attack to dust.
Sans dismissed his attack a moment early, trying to regain his composure. “Just full of surprises, today, huh?” he muttered under his breath, as he dodged around another spear thrown at him. He stared down the Corridor, seeing the human’s chest rise and fall.
“This morning, the timeline read something different. For the first time, it was blank, as if time and space had only started existing this morning. Of course that’s impossible.” Sans shrugged. “As impossible as a human using magic.”
Deren was surprised. Not so much surprised by what Sans described, but that the skeleton seemed to have the means of knowing that his world had, in fact, been spun whole cloth out of the Void so recently. That indicated not only uncommon knowledge, but power.
He was starting to get an idea of why he was here. “Well, if you want answers, I’m sure we can discuss-”
Sans’ eyes flared blue and Deren felt himself be flung against the floor again. He didn’t have time to get back up before the wave of bones would reach him; instead he formed a handle in the air, jerking himself up as if by a particularly ornery subway car. Below he could see a single, solitary platform, moving through a storm of bones. Why were the skeleton’s attacks seemingly forced to have a way through them? Was it possible he was pulling his punches? Or was that somehow the way that magic functioned here?
Still, having broken free from the constraints of this round, hanging on by his grip on the handle hovering in the air, Deren used the opportunity to summon his own onslaught, waving his free hand as the lights of the windows were formed into a set of daggers. He was unsurprised, however, when moments before they reached his target he felt his eyes close and reopened them to an unharmed skeleton glaring at him from the midst of a cloud of dissipating iron.
“You can't understand how this feels. Knowing that all of this, everything I see… it’s all going to be gone. Going to be reset, or maybe just going to disappear back to what it was before you came here.” Sans’ fist clenched inside his jacket pocket. Even compared to his usual nihilism, he really didn’t like the implications he was starting to see here.
The human spread his hands, probably trying to appear apologetic. It wasn’t working. “Look, man. We can work this out.”
Even if it wasn’t, hadn't, been real, Papyrus’s face seemed to float before Sans before crumbling to dust again. “Too late, pal. Maybe try some of the other Sanses.”
If Deren was just going to start smashing his way through Sans’ bones, he’d need to mix things up. With the sound of plasma charging up, a blaster materialized behind the human. Sans prepared another blaster for where the human would probably dodge to, hopefully enough to-
Oh right. The human’s magic could block his blasters. Rather than dodging the plasma beams, he settled to one knee, steadying a shield against the beam. Sans fired again, and again, trying to see if he could break through the iron with enough force, but by the time his magic ran out, the shield hardly looked worse for wear.
Deren gritted his teeth. Between the constant attacks and the wildy shifting conversation, he hadn’t gotten a moment to get his feet under him. Jay would have done great here, he was always talking about being adaptable, but Deren would rather have the situation under control from the beginning. Plant some charges under the flagstones, have some operatives in the corners, etcetera, whatever he could to hold the advantage. Even if he could have done some damn research beforehand.
He dismissed the shield, returning the light to the room and straightening up. “Come on, scientist, we can figure something out.” He wracked his brain, trying to find the words. “Listen, I can tell there’s a glimmer of hope in you still.”
“Wrong. Look, I gave up trying a long time ago. It doesn’t really matter, does it? If we get to the surface, if I stop you this time…” Deren had trouble reading the skeleton’s face but there was no mistaking the lack of passion in his voice, the utter hopelessness. “Well, we’ll just end up back here again with no memory of it, won’t we?”
“That’s not what’s-” Deren cut off at the sound of another one of those blasters behind him, summoning up yet another shield. The sound of the impact almost drowned out the sound of the second one, and he spun around just in time to defend again, then cried out as a bone attack tore through his shoulder, igniting every nerve on the way through. Sans was growing wise to his tricks.
“Usually I’d say that makes it kind of hard to give it my all.” The skeleton shrugged again. He seemed to like doing that. “But the thought of you using my world as a place to play around? Making us exist just to kill us?” Deren turned from where he was steadying himself using the shield to see the skeleton’s eyes go dark again. “All I know is, I can’t afford not to care anymore.”
Deren put out his hands placatingly. “I’m sorry we had to meet like this. It wasn’t what I wanted at all.” He paused, waiting for the hum of another wave of blasters, but nothing happened. “There's a glimmer, a memory of someone who, in another time, might have even been… a friend?”
Emboldened, he took a deep breath, finally feeling his body catch up to all the surprises. He stepped closer. “Come on, scientist. Let's forget all this, ok? Let’s just lay this aside and… well, my job will be a lot easier.”
There was nothing but a yawning silence for a moment, the man and the skeleton staring at each other. Then, Sans’ shoulders began shaking. Deren stepped forward to comfort him when-
Sans threw his head back, laughing almost manically. “Who the hell gave you my script?”
Well, that was probably a bad sign. Deren stepped back, readying himself. If the fight was going to continue, at least he’d gotten a chance to breathe, reassess. The skeleton was still chuckling, but it didn’t sound like there was much humor in it. More… resignation.
Deren took the opportunity he was given. He had an idea of how Sans was fighting at this point, even if there were still plenty of details he didn’t know that he would have liked. Maybe that was the point, then. Maybe the test here was to force him to adapt on the fly.
Well, come to think of it, all the bone attacks did remind him of a training exercise an old friend had insisted on putting him through.
“How many times have we had this conversation, human?” Sans doubted that he would tell him. That was fine, he was afraid to hear the answer. The human hadn’t seemed to fight him like someone that knew all of his attacks by heart, but then again, he practically quoted Sans’ script he had ready for the anomaly.
He looked bewildered. Sans had a sudden moment, remembering the first time he had introduced Alphys to the classic whoopie cushion prank. It was a similar face, even if the contrast between the two moments made him nauseas. Sans knew expressions; either the human had rehearsed this conversation enough times for even his expressions to be perfectly schooled, or this was, somehow, the first time they had talked through his false mercy deal.
“Nah, don’t answer. I’d rather not find out. If I have to beat you into giving up and resetting whatever you did, I’d rather not have to do it to a friend.” Whatever was going on here, the plan was still the same. Be the roadblock, the impassable obstacle.
How do you stop a time traveler? You don’t. You make them go around. You convince them that it’s not worth the effort for whatever they think they’re going to extract from your dusted remains. Sans had always known he was the best option for the failsafe, enough he hadn’t ever told anyone else he was taking that role. The only option, really. The perfect combination of his only two talents worth getting off the couch for.
Knowing too much.
And being really damn annoying.
He’d delayed too long, he could tell. Deren had regained his footing, and was no longer staring at him intently, instead his blue eyes were darting around the Corridor, as if they were making a thousand calculations a second, hands twitching and feeling at something in his pocket he hadn’t pulled out yet.
The script wasn’t working. The human’s strange magic was giving him an advantage he shouldn’t have. If this was the first time, he’d made it way too far into Sans’ preparations.
It was time to go off script.
Deren made sure to keep an eye on Sans as he mentally sketched out a new plan. He wasn’t sure why the skeleton wasn’t continuing his onslaught, but he expected a new attack any second. A combatant as smart as he was definitely wasn’t out of tricks, and Sans was fixing him with a gaze that was as piercing as the first time Deren saw the sun.
With one eye on him, Deren focused. He wasn’t sure what was behind the windows, the light seemed to be coming through them from above rather than straight on, so he doubted he could use them as an escape, but at least they would give him a steady source of power. The architecture in here was strange; those pillars seemed sturdy but could probably be knocked over, and the roof definitely wasn’t going to-
The air charged with energy again and Deren acted, pulling on old memories. A wave of bones rushed at him from both sides and instead of rolling out of the way, he formed two spears and smashed a hole through. Quick as a blink, more bones formed, streaming towards him out of the ground and ceiling. His spears were still under his control and with a thought they intervened, parrying again and again. He summoned another, noting the hall starting to dim noticeably, as Sans’ attacks only came faster.
Deren was starting to get a feel for the pace of this battle, and as he felt his hold run out on the spears he launched them at Sans, noticing this time a strange shunt in energy as he blinked again, predictably opening his eyes to Sans standing unharmed a foot to the left of where he had attacked.
Deren grinned. “I’m getting tired of running, scientist. Seems unfair you get to stand there while I dodge.”
Across from him, the skeleton’s smile seemed to lose some of its tightness. “All right, you can join me. I wouldn’t want you to feel bonely while you finish what you started.”
Another wave of bones rushed him, without any apparent effort from Sans. “Well if all the tricks you have left are bad puns...” Deren began, already summoning iron. The first line of bones disappeared in a spray of light when he blinked -
And Deren found himself standing on a platform above a floor covered with bones, more rushing at him from above and below. Luckily his spears were still under his control and he smashed through them before he blinked -
And was falling sideways into the next attack! He grabbed his spear, using it to arrest his fall, launching the other towards Sans when he blinked -
And found himself deafened by the sound of four of those blasters charging up. Rather than try to make four shields that quickly he rolled out of the way, preparing for another blink, breathing hard as the blasts seared through the air in front of him.
But nothing came. He turned towards Sans, who had of course dodged again. “Heheheh, what’s wrong, I thought you were done dodging?”
“How the hell did you do that?”
Sans shrugged. “Shortcut.” And that was all the answer he was going to give the human.
He pulled his hand out of his pocket. Despite the human not seeming to have a soul, somehow, his magic still worked fine, slamming him into the wall and the bones that erupted out of it, then the ceiling, then the floor…
Except Deren made his own wall first, a sheet of iron forming right next his shoulder, slamming into that and staying in place as Sans spun gravity around, even carrying him into the air above the bones that came out of the ground.
Sans figured that since his attack had been countered more easily, the human would be able to launch his own attack with even more force, and he wasn’t disappointed. The room dimmed, a ring of daggers appeared around him. As they flew inward Sans stepped sideways through the in-between and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they didn’t continue to fly towards him like those spears were doing.
“Look, human, I know it sounds strange but before all of this-” he cut off at the sound of stone cracking behind him. He turned and saw one of the goddamn pillars of the room falling towards him, brick dust streaming from where it had been smashed apart at the top and the base.
Deren definitely wasn’t a fan of the new tricks the skeleton was pulling out, so he figured it was high time he brought some of his own. He watched with satisfaction as the pillar came down, even if he blinked just before the crash, which had been the part he had most wanted to see. Oh well.
The skeleton’s eyes were burning blue again, and now yellow too? Maybe if Deren made him angry enough he’d get a full rainbow. The thought made him snicker.
“Look, I know I’m the last person who would say this but I feel like you’re not taking this seriously.”
“Dude, you’re the one who just made a bone pun.”
Deren barely moved at the sound of the blaster behind him, thoughtlessly making a shield to block it. The second one… the third one… was there a limit to how many of these Sans could make? The room was starting to get dark enough he wasn’t sure he would have enough light for his own attack.
After the seventh? Eight? shield Deren dismissed them, filling the room with dust for a moment. As the dust cleared and light returned, Deren saw Sans’ eyes fixed on him again, analyzing.
“No attack this turn?”
“Are we taking turns, then? I just thought you were being polite.”
“My brother always told me tibia gentleman when I fought.” The joke was made without any humor behind it, almost like it had slipped out while Sans was distracted.
Deren had almost finished composing a returning barb when the charge up noise he was really getting tired of hearing sounded behind him. “What, this again?” he shouted over the noise of it impacting his shield, then the second one… the third one… it really was the same attack again. Maybe the scientist was running out of ideas, and he could block each of the blaster shots without too much effort, but it was keeping him pinned either way.
The darkness dissipated to reveal the same grinning skull that it had the last time. “Since I’m such a gentleman, I’ll just wait until you make the first move.” For the first time, a real laugh rolled out of the skeleton, quickly covered up by the madness accursed sound of a skull-shaped blaster.
Sans figured this was almost as good as his special attack. He could keep summoning the blasters in bursts forever, and it didn’t seem to tire the human to create that iron either. As long as he kept up the onslaught and didn’t allow him to dodge instead of block, there wasn’t enough light in the room for Deren to summon anything offensive. He’d have no choice but to give up and reset… whatever he had done.
Sans was so focused on his musings on whether it would be preferable to return to non-existence than to live in an empty world, and wondering what kind of magic fed on light that he jumped at the sound of an ear-splitting BANG, opening a shortcut on pure instinct. He didn’t even see what might have made the sound, making him wonder if he had wasted precious energy on the human clapping their hands or something.
Then the darkness dissipated to reveal Deren holding something, pointing the smoking end at where Sans had been standing. Sans thought he recognized it as a gun from accounts of the sixth fallen human, but those records didn’t seem to match what he was looking at. It looked more like something out of Alphys’ animes.
Instead of a plastic toy, the pistol was black, reflective steel, like the metal Deren kept summoning. Even from here, he could see the silver engravings spiralling down the barrel, a second tube attached below the main one, a dimly glowing switch set into the side, the human’s hand steady on the trigger. The other humans had used toys and tools as weapons, their determination turning harmless objects into something that could kill.
This had no such illusion of innocence.
So that’s what had been in his pocket.
“So what, was your plan to just stall me forever?” Deren demanded, resisting the impulse to gesture wildly with the pistol.
Discipline your anger, focus it, breathed a voice out of his past.
“Keep me in a stalemate until I agree to reset your timeline or whatever? Well I got news, scientist. This wasn’t my idea. My guess is I’m as stuck here as you are until I get you out of my way!”
Your passion will only take you so far. Nasar whispered from years ago, from another time Deren’s temper had gotten the better of him. Until you can see how to remove your obstacles clearly, you are still a stoppable force, just another ray of sunlight trapped behind the moon
He could see that Sans was flagging. Not just physically, his shoulders drooping and his eyes heavy, but emotionally as well. Fear, anger, curiosity all warring across his face, fighting his fatigue. Deren wasn’t as good at reading people as some of his friends, but he could see the face of someone realizing their fight was hopeless. He’d seen it enough times in the mirror.
“You can’t keep up with me forever, and I’d rather end this without killing someone who knows as much as you. But if you keep fighting me, I will finish this.”
“Heh, alright human.” Deren’s heart leapt for a moment, and he lowered his gun. “It does seem like I can’t kill you. And maybe I am in your way. But I’ve got news for you too, whatever you are.”
Deren raised his gun back up, preparing to defend against whatever Sans was going to pull out. Sans, on the other hand, was stalling now. The “special attack” he had planned wasn’t going to do anything here. The human didn’t have a soul, he didn’t need to move to attack him, he had that gun, and even without it, he only needed light to summon…
There was an idea.
“I’m staying in your way, kid. Take it from me, someday, you gotta learn when to quit. I’m not gonna let anyone mess with my world and get away with it.” He waved his hand, knowing already that the bones would be smashed to pieces, already predicting when Deren would make a platform to counter his gravity changes. That didn’t matter. He needed a plan to get that gun away from him.
Right on cue, Deren leveled the gun and shot, two loud BANGS sounding out through the corridor. Sans dodged, feeling the fatigue from all the shortcuts he’d been opening up. But still, didn’t guns run out of ammo?
Did he have more shortcuts left than Deren had bullets?
Deren hadn’t wanted to bring out the pistol. It was a last resort that he preferred to keep close to his chest, especially in worlds that didn’t have firearm technology. While it was more than just a weapon for him, it felt… dirty. Like he was splashing a bucket of blood onto a marble floor, every time he killed a mage with technology centuries beyond them.
He usually assuaged his guilt by seeing the people the mage class inevitably seemed built to exploit. That was a constant in every world he’d been, that people used power to break others down, and that he never felt quite as bad once he opened up their ruler’s secrets and wealth to the people. And well, that didn’t seem like it was going to ease his conscience at all in this situation.
He also tried to keep the pistol close to his chest because as soon as he brought it out, the equation always changed. People were no longer fine to see him as an eccentric wanderer, as someone with a unique talent, as was often so common. As soon as the gun came out, the pieces fell into place and he became an outsider, a threat. The battle became about the gun. Some would try to steal it, to block it, or dodge it. The smartest began counting bullets, watching for an opening when it was no longer an advantage.
And well, he had every indication that Sans was going to fall into that category.
The two locked eyes across the Corridor as the air filled with magic and the light began to disappear. Blue eyes stared into blue eyes as Deren was surrounded by a whirlwind of iron, parrying every bone that came within range, cementing his feet to the floor as gravity shifted, the whirlwind momentarily stilling to block a blast that came when suddenly the light dimmed again and Sans found himself on the defensive.
Luckily his attack was scripted enough to finish even while he was attacked in the middle of his turn. Unfortunately, he needed to save his remaining strength, so he took a page from Deren’s book. Bones appeared around him, blocking the barrage of spears he could barely see in the dim light.
Sans looked through the maelstrom of bone and iron into Deren’s eyes, and despite the lack of SOUL, they were full of determination. He figured it would have been almost funny to see from outside, both of them standing motionless thirty feet apart from each other but still doing their best to kill each other.
As if directed by an unseen director, the storm stopped, bones disappearing into flashes of light and iron crumbling into dust in midair. Sans braced himself, but no shot rang out, and when he could see Deren again, the pistol was still leveled directly at him, his finger on the trigger.
“Can you really take one of your shortcuts fast enough to dodge a bullet?” That anger from earlier was still present in the human’s voice, but more controlled now. That wasn’t good. Sans needed him to be angry, to stop thinking things through.
So he forced out a laugh, trying to channel the same energy of his 14th pun of the day to Papyrus. “You wanna talk about people that dodged bullets, tell me about when your mother left you behind to date me instead.”
Whether or not he’d actually touched a nerve with that one or if Deren was just frustrated that he was back to making jokes, his finger twitched on the trigger and Sans stepped sideways again, re-emerging a foot to the left. Four.
He opened his mouth to follow up, but instead had to focus on bringing up a bone wall to defend against a series of spears that appeared behind where he had blinked to, then swipe a platform sideways to knock aside a set of daggers, barely in time to-
Oh, so this is what it felt like on the other side. With a thought he set one of his attacks in motion at Deren, more to keep him occupied while Sans dealt with his onslaught than to actually pose a threat. As a spear seemed to use up the last of the light in the room, he readied a blaster, behind himself this time, as he saw Deren’s arm raise up…
Deren fired again, feeling a burning sensation in his throat as anger burned through him. It was the same feeling as when he’d fought his friends over a burning city, as when he’d shattered a palace with planted explosives, as when he’d grabbed a god by its throat and demanded answers of why, why did they have to fight when there were still the people pitting them against each other, when the elites laughed and drank as they were killing each other in the streets.
Sans stepped to the left - actually stepped! and a blaster fired from behind him, vaporizing the bullet in midair. Two left. And without even forcing him to blink away, which is what seemed to exhaust him the most. He regretted using two in one shot earlier, but he had hoped he could catch the skeleton off guard, predicting where he would appear after the short cut. It seemed the shortcut wasn’t actually a teleport but something more, that actually avoided the danger.
All of that analysis went on over a seething heat that couldn’t help but direct itself at the grinning skull across from him. Even before the attacks on both sides had fully disappeared, Sans’ laugh sounded out again. “Y’know, if you already read the script, you’re probably waiting for my special attack.”
“I thought you already used that at the beginning” Deren forced out through gritted teeth.
The skeleton wagged a bony finger, taunting him. “Nope. Strongest attack, not special attack. It’s different. You wanna know what the difference is?”
“I get the feeling I’ll find out whether I want to or not.” Deren readied his next set of defenses as Sans leaned forward, smiling widely.
“It’s specialer.”
And with that extraordinarily lame statement, Deren heard the madness-accursed sound of blasters charging up. He put up a shield, then another, noting that Sans was using the exact same attack sequence for the fourth time. He was getting no points for originality.
Fine, if he wanted to bait out a bullet so badly, Deren was happy to oblige. As the last blaster fired he allowed the shield in front of him to disappear and fired again.
Sans stepped out of the short cut and counted mentally. Six. The amount of fingers on a weird, mutant hand. The fallen human’s toy gun had six chambers in it, so it seemed as good a guess as any. And indeed, the human’s hand flew into his pocket, pulling out a slim piece of metal. Well, Sans couldn’t let that happen.
He called out. “So survive this, and I’ll show you my special attack!” and set it in motion.
As predicted, Deren couldn’t focus on reloading and countering attacks at the same time, so Sans watched as he nearly dropped the magazine slamming into the iron shield that formed above him, then to his right. Sans slammed him into his rightward shield once more for good measure, then dropped him back to the ground. Maybe he’d get lucky and wouldn’t need to resort to his special attack.
Deren groaned, trying to shake off the impact into his shoulder as a series of bones erupted from the ground beneath him. He’d been caught off guard. Sloppy.
He smashed through the bones coming through the floor below him, then readied himself as the Corridor seemed to lengthen in front of him, Sans using the weird gravity ability to send him falling down its length. Deren grabbed onto the shield he’d already made, using it to move up and down through a series of bones that rushed up at him from his new point of view. The bones during these gravity attacks seemed to have trouble reaching too far from the floor, walls, and ceiling, so holding himself close to the center of the room seemed to be better than trying to go through the unending sea below him.
His control was slipping, his anchor would fall soon, why was the attack still going?
He drew in more light, dismissing the shield and throwing a set of spears at Sans. He didn’t see what came of them as Sans whipped him down into the floor and a bone pierced through his leg.
Damn that burned! He’d been getting away with dodging for a while but he could have gone forever without feeling that electricity arcing through his whole system. He didn’t have time to recover though, somehow Sans was still going, far longer than anything he’d done so far.
Deren felt gravity shift left, then up, then right, as he gripped onto a handle as tightly as he could, seeing bones shoot out to just inches below his feet each time. Then gravity released and he dropped to the floor breathing hard, ready for a break when-
Ah, of course. More blasters.
He grit his teeth as the sound rang out again and again and threw up a shield, seeing them spawn all the way around him. The hall went black for an instant as he frantically formed all its light into a barrier all the way around him before it lit up again and he was defeaned by the sound of beam after beam sizzling against the iron, holding out his non-gun hand as if he could ward off any more attacks when all his light was going into withstanding this assault.
Finally the sound stopped and he went to dismiss the barrier when he was suddenly whipped into the side of his own steel protection, banging his head into it, feeling Sans swing his suddenly limp body into the other side, then his knees crumpling as they hit the wall, no, was it the floor? His head was ringing and the Corridor was nearly pitch black.
He blinked and a glowing blue eye appeared above him. “You’re out, pal.”
Deren gritted his teeth and focused. He’d taken the bait. “Ah, you got me,” he said, before firing the seventh round he had chambered.
He blinked again. “Suns damn you,” he cursed, before feeling a hand grip his collar and he blinked yet again.
Upon opening his eyes, he saw… nothing. Even his eyes, adapted to darkness, found no light to reflect on. He tried dismissing the barrier he made and, while he felt it disappear, he could tell that Sans had somehow taken him somewhere else.
“What did you do?”
Sans’ voice drifted out of the darkness. He sounded… tired. “Well, I did what I promised. Here’s my special attack.”
Deren prepared himself for an impossible onslaught, struggling to his feet… but nothing came. “Where is it?”
“This is it. It’s literally nothing. My brother always said that was what I liked doing most of all.”
Deren was still waiting for the trick. He reached out, feeling for something, anything, noticing his gun was still in his hand, but not the magazine. He must have dropped it sometime. “So what, you’re going to bore me to death? Or are you still on about the timeline thing?”
“Well no guarantee on the bored to death thing. But yeah. Y’see, I had this whole plan cooked up. When a time traveler comes, you can’t beat them. If they can come back every time they lose, then they’ll eventually win. After who knows how many tries, they’ll know what you’ll do before you do.” Sans’ voice didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere specific, just filling the air with words that sounded so, so tired. “So… I decided that I’d take my last turn. And I’d never finish it. I’d just stand there until the end of time if I had to. Until they got bored and left.”
“How would that ever work?”
“Well, you don’t play by our rules, now do you? I should have seen that coming, I do it plenty. But, I figured out a way, didn’t I?” That humorless laugh drifted out of the darkness again. “No light, no bullets in your gun… you can’t do anything to me. But I can’t kill you either. I’m run out.”
Deren finally let his legs fold up under him like they wanted, collapsing to the ground. It felt… strange. It was hard and cold, but it was too smooth to be concrete or stone. “Where did you take us?”
“Nowhere.” Deren must have made a noise because the skeleton continued. ”I figured, if this world, this timeline, was really made just so we could meet and fight, then all the places we didn’t need to be weren’t really there, you know? And the only places I needed to be were Snowdin, Waterfall, and the Corridor. So I tried to take you to the CORE but I guess… well if you’re being honest about not being the one to do this, whoever did couldn’t be bothered to finish their work cause there’s nothing here.”
Sans sounded bitter. Deren supposed that finding out your timeline was only half finished wouldn’t be great for anyone’s self esteem. “What’s your plan now, then?”
“I told you. Nothing. I’m gonna do what before today my brother said was all I ever did. If any of that was even real. You can call up your boss or whoever, or you can sit here with me until they get bored and pull the plug.”
Deren set his gun in his lap. Sans didn’t know this, but he still had one ace left. But he didn’t really want to kill the skeleton. Even when he had been furious with him, he had seen that Sans was just defending what he knew. He could empathize with someone who didn’t want to get pushed around by forces above them, no matter what the cost was.
“How did you find out all of this?”
“What, did you think this was my special question and answer segment? If so I left my knock knock jokes at home with my whoopie cushions.”
“So you’re a comedian as well as a scientist. Look, I was sent here for some objective. I don’t know what that is. But if you’re the only one in this place, then maybe it’s something you know.”
“I think you need to get a better job, pal. Even my hot dog job has better communication than you, and I only see my boss once a week.”
“I can tell you’re setting up a joke, but I’m serious here.”
“Yeah, I see him in my bathroom mirror, heheheh” A chuckle sounded in the dark and Deren couldn’t help but join it for a moment. “Ok look. I have a machine that can detect timelines. We’ve seen it jump around, timelines ending and restarting and being cut off. And this morning I woke up and it read like this timeline had only just begun. The rest I figured out on the fly.”
“How does the machine work?” Deren admitted his curiosity was piqued. That was definitely the kind of thing that worldhoppers would want to know about, a device that could somehow read what was going on interdimensionally.
“Why, you gonna build one?” Sans seemed to realize that the interrogation was leading here though. Deren heard a long sigh before his voice resumed, resigned. “It can read the interdimensional energy that holds timelines together.”
“The Void,” Deren supplied.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. It’s connected into… the Void, I guess, by a fragment of something we recovered from it. Through part of… someone who’s in there.”
(Fascinating)
Deren felt something ping the edge of his awareness. He didn’t have the natural talent to see Void strings, but his alliances did give him some help. Whoever had set this scenario up had pulled a string, just light enough for him to notice. Whatever the mission was that he’d been given, the information about the machine seemed to fulfill it. But he still wasn’t being pulled out.
“Well? You get an interdimensional text or something?”
Deren nodded, before remembering the skeleton couldn’t see him. “Something like that. I think that we’re ready to end this.”
“Good. See you never.”
Deren sighed. He really didn’t want to have to kill the skeleton but the mission didn’t seem to be over yet. “The problem is, scientist, the Void works off of stories. It lives, breathes, and builds stories.”
“It’s just energy. It doesn’t want anything.”
“Oh, it does. If you look hard enough you’ll start seeing it. But for now, I don’t think this will end until we can finish our story. Tie up all the loose ends.”
“So what you’re saying is you’re not leaving until you kill me.”
Deren sighed, then grabbed his gun. “I didn’t say that. At least I hope not. I rather like you.”
“Maybe I should fight people to the death more often then.”
Deren stood, walking to where he thought he heard the skeleton. “Do you trust me?”
Louder, he heard the skeleton’s voice in front of him. “Absolutely not. Do I get a choice?”
Deren shrugged. “Not really.”
He flicked the switch on his gun, the second tube attached to the bottom flaring with bright light, illuminating him, an empty room, and a skeleton covering his eyes with his hand.
Deren raised his gaze up, to where YOU were watching and shouted, “IS THIS GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?”
(Yes, I do think it is)
…………………………………………..
I believe this was most… illuminating, if you will pardon me one little joke. I have some truly fascinating notes for my own research, of course. My friend will be happy with Deren’s growth, I do believe. He has always been a good agent for them but lacking in certain areas that were highlighted here. His story is quite a good one that perhaps one day will be told.
As I said, this scene just sings out into the Void. I mean that most literally, I do not know if you can hear it but the strings of the Void were vibrating to a specific song, as they always seem to when Sans pulls out all of his tricks. While that is not unique, this part of the Void is unusually resonant like that. I blame the Dog.
I have always been interested in this skeleton. Why does the Void curl about him so? Many of the people living in these worlds can feel and influence the Void in unique ways. Knowledge persists across timelines, memories and emotions are carried over, worlds are swept away and remade. Sans can do none of this. He has no powers, no determination, nothing. And yet, whenever he enters a story the Void sweeps in and settles about him like he is an old friend. He is the most consistent across all timelines, hardly changing at all except for right here, when all hope is lost at the final hour. Perhaps that is why YOU find this particular scene fascinating enough to recreate over and over.
So I do thank you for your help in weaving this out of the Void. Perhaps it was for the best that we did not completely finish it, after all. While the story demanded that the fight could not end until one was bested, that time they spent in the unfinished code was truly fascinating.
…
Well I suppose that is the question now isn't it? He is yours, after all. I suppose it would be cruel to leave him in a half finished world now that he is aware of it. We could cut the thread, or pull him out. It is YOUR choice.
And after, I do have some more research I would like to do, and you have been most helpful so far. We do not need to restrict ourselves to scenes of violence or even to parts of the Void made by the Dog, if YOU have a story that YOU wish to weave into. If it is an acceptable bargain to you…
What would YOU like to see next?