Genre: Angst
Thanks to my beta reader, VolcanicPizza.
Welcome to Underfell.
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"Is this thing working?"
Two taps can be heard, it sounds to be a mic test.
"Alright, good. It's… been a while. We were freed from the mountain nearly two months ago, but I never bothered to make these… stupid journals."
A creaking is heard as the voice goes silent, and when it resumes, it sounds distant.
"Since the incident… I haven't been the same. Everyone around me says that I'll be okay eventually."
"They know how it goes with monsters. As we lose hope, we can fall. I don't have far to fall, sure, but that doesn't mean I can't. It just means that I'll hit the ground sooner."
It goes completely quiet for about a minute.
"What can I say? It's been hard."
A mute buzzing fills the gap afterwards, and a tiny thud can be heard, followed by a loud sizzling noise.
"Ah, nuts. I need to be careful. I just burned another hole in the table."
"Man, with no other journals to add to this for context, it seems kinda random. Maybe I should fill it out a little…"
Another creaking can be heard as the voice goes quiet, and the scraping of something being pushed across a floor follows.
The loud sound of a heavy object being dropped comes nearly three minutes later, and the scraping can be heard again.
"Alright, I've got everything here that I'll need to make my first and last audio journal."
Papers are shuffled over the silence.
"I guess the best place to start would be just before the barrier broke, a few minutes before that weed surprised us."
A sigh can be heard.
"Here goes nothing. We were standing in the Judgement Hall, and I was about to judge the kid…"
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"...That's then. Now. Now you will be judged. You will be judged for your every action. You will be judged for every EXP you earned."
The kid comes closer, and Sans pauses.
"is there something you wanted to say, bucko? if so, make it quick, i gotta finish judging you."
"The surface isn't as good as you all expect it to be. The instant you go up there, you'll be exploited for all the power you have. You can't go up there."
"i'm sorry, kiddo, but what do you mean? the surface is what we've all been striving for for years, some of us our entire messed up lives!"
"I don't want any of you to get hurt. And… there's more reasons that I don't want to go to the surface."
Frisk mumbles something unintelligible.
"sorry kid, what was that?"
"If I return to the surface, it's likely that I'll get killed."
Sans takes a step back.
"i… uh… what? that doesn't make any sense. why would humans kill each other? and children at that?"
"The world I came from isn't what you probably know, Sans. In this world, my people are killed just because we aren't trusted."
Sans eyes go completely black, much like the void inside a shortcut.
"is there anything we can do?"
A silent shake of the head from Frisk.
"Short of the monsters staying underground until the end of the war, there's no way to get the best ending for everyone."
"kid, you know all the damned monsters down here would shred me to angry bits if i dared mention them staying down here."
"Then let them live their fates. I refuse to return to the surface, but I can try to free you all."
"jeez, that's oddly prophetic for a child."
Frisk lowers both eyebrows.
"And you're oddly wide for a skeleton."
"ouch kiddo, low blow, although you would expect that kind of thing from someone your height."
Frisk crosses their arms.
"alright, alright. you've been a good kid, alright? sure you're a bit of a smartass, but you've done better than nearly everyone else here."
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"At that point, I just teleported behind one of the pillars and watched them walk by, and they were followed a few minutes later by a goat lady, who turned out to be Toriel, the former queen for cryin' out loud."
A pause follows.
"And my former joke partner."
"That's a complicated story… that maybe I'll share later. Anyways, not long after, I saw Papyrus run into the throne room, and figured I should follow."
"The sight I entered the barrier room to see was a show, to say the least…"
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Sans follows his older brother into the throne room, and further to the barrier room, to find Toriel pinned to the ground with her neck in between the prongs of a crimson red trident.
The sight higher up was funny to look at, with Frisk trying desperately to gain a hold on Asgore's neck, while scrabbling to keep their balance on his shoulders.
Asgore huffs, and snatches the small form off his back, and throws them across the room, into the barrier.
"Excuse me, your Majesty, but could you please hold on-"
Papyrus was cut off by an angered snarl, which came from the figure pinned to the floor.
Toriel grabbed the two prongs on either side of her neck, and snapped them, her eyes glowing bright red. She then grabbed the trident, minus two pokers, and smashed Asgore across the face with it.
"now, that's what i call a royal rumble."
Papyrus fades a dark crimson, and wheels on Sans.
"How fucking dare you make an idiotic pun in front of the King!"
"hey pappers, how dare you swear in front of the king."
Papyrus goes silent, and even more red than before.
"Would you two shut up while I deal with this child murdering mongrel?"
Toriel's eyes still glowed a faint crimson.
"I've seen all seven humans leave me in hopes of getting back to the surface, and I know that none of them are alive n- What is that noise?"
Loud footsteps fluttered through the air, progressively getting louder.
"STOP IT! NO MORE FIGHTING IN HERE!"
The new arrival is Undyne, and she's completely set for battle, armor donned and spear in hand.
She takes in the sight of the king holding his face where the trident made contact, and the fierce woman holding his damaged weapon.
"What the hell did I walk in on?"
Papyrus looks up to her, and his normally set scowl becomes even deeper.
"Hello, Undyne. Former Captain of the Royal Guard."
She scoffs at the emphasis on 'former.'
"You mean the innocent child murder committee?"
"the really shitty murder committee."
Papyrus glares down at Sans, who smiles back defiantly. Undyne just giggles a bit.
"c'mon paps, you didn't even manage to kill anyone."
"For your information, brother, over the course of the past two years of me being Captain, I gained two levels."
Everyone went silent at that.
Sans starts laughing.
"seriously bro, that's it? i'm level seventeen, and four of that's just from the same time frame as you."
"Where are the other thirteen levels from, then?"
"me defending you while you were younger."
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"The silence that time around was rather stifling, to say the least."
"As the judge, I can see people's levels innately, so I knew when Papyrus had killed someone. He wasn't just level two that day, he was level eight."
A sigh follows that statement.
"I didn't need to defend him later on, hence the other six levels. He killed a few people to get to the top, and then he did something nobody had ever done."
A pause.
"He spared Undyne! Like, c'mon! He says he spared her because the shame would have been higher instead of her just dying, but I know for a fact that he respected her for having been holding the position for so long."
"He lost that respect when the shame he put on her set her to drinking, and wallowing in her own self pity."
"After that mild experience, Alphys decided to show up at the barrier, and then the weed popped up out of the ground, startling everyone, and then he screeched something about everyone hurting Frisk, and tied us all up in massive vines."
"I got a close look at the weed after he trapped us, and I noticed something mildly startling."
"His eyes had been gouged out."
"After that… everything kinda just went white."
"We all woke up, at roughly the same time, I think… anyways, I watched the kid walk back into the throne room, and I assume the rest of the Underground."
Papers are shuffled, and a brief exclamation bursts from the speaker.
"Ahah! There we are. These sheets detail the testing done on both me and my brother, and our place in the war."
"I was placed as the only specialist assassin, due to my abilities, and he was placed as a commander, due to his abilities, in commanding and such."
"They forced him to use as much magic as he could, for as long as he could. I watched him summon and direct over a hundred bones a second for nearly forty minutes."
"My session was a little more… intense. We started out with me throwing large amounts of bones, roughly double the rate my brother managed, and then they discovered my blasters."
"Oh boy, then we had fun."
"They had to bring a sheet of titanium out for this part, as anything else they used was decimated, and even then, with sixteen blasters focused for thirty seconds melted it."
"And yet they weren't done. They brought me to one of their tunnels, and told me to fire at the wall, which I did, and we had to stop after about six hours because the molten rock was causing problems."
"And after that, we were sent out to the frontlines."
"None of that matters, although me and my brother function exceptionally, according to the general. It's the mission we did two weeks ago that changed everything."
"Me and my brother were planning out the attack in our command center…"
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"See this knoll over here? We can stage the defense there, without worrying about the sides."
"alright, but what about here."
Sans points at an area just south of the knoll.
"Actually, yes. That might very well work, Sans. Since when were you a good war strategist?"
"since the world decided i needed to be."
Papyrus opens his mouth to speak, when a bullet grazes past his face, and all of the glass around him shatters.
Papyrus ducks to the ground, and Sans follows less than a second later.
"the bullet came from the north, directly from the knoll we were talking about."
"It appears that even the enemy thought that was a good defensive position."
"actually, from the sound and velocity of the bullet, that was a sniper. which means-"
"Enemy troops, invading our position, call defensive protocol."
"what are we gonna do, paps?"
"We'll hold this position. I'm not too worried about defense, as we've proven to hold out well."
Papyrus moves to a crouch, and a shot goes through his chest.
As soon as he hits the floor, the door bursts open, and enemy troops fill him full of lead.
"wait, no! papyrus!"
Sans immediately teleports, suddenly the entire room fills with white, and nothing remains when the light vanishes.
Sans is blinking around, blasters firing wildly, and suddenly, he collapses.
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"I had gone unconscious. When they checked for l vital signs of anyone nearby, I had been the only living thing that survived."
"Afterwards, I had woken up with odd thoughts in my head. I needed to see what enemy cities looked like, and I couldn't convince myself otherwise."
"I had to leave at a strategic time, when nobody would notice me leaving. After the incident, all human officers had been equipped with magical monitors, basically early warnings of possible magical attacks from the Monster infantry."
"They had to retest all of us so the monitors could tell what would happen, but they didn't expect any of us to sneak the system."
"Instead of doing my magical attacks, I summoned the more lethal attacks of my brother, to fool the system and stop it from detecting me before it was too late."
"So, when we were heading home from the next battle, I teleported eight thousand kilometers to the capital of our 'enemies.'"
"What I saw was pure freedom. In our current place, we're forced to sit and stay locked up for hours at a time, before they deploy us again, just like toys."
"With our side, it's all militia and properness, with theirs… it's all laid back and free."
"I made my way through the capital, ignoring the amount of looks I was getting, I was wearing a hood, after all."
"Asking around for awhile, I eventually found what I was looking for. A recruitment center, I needed to find a leader of some sort, and stop this war more senseless than the madness down below."
"I entered the center, and the lone secretary looked up at me, and with the lights from indoors, he saw what I was, and immediately panicked."
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The door jingles as it opens, revealing the figure in the black hoodie standing in the doorway.
The figure at the desk looks up, and the light reflecting off of the tile floor reveals what the lone figure is. The secretary jumps and reaches for the microphone by his face.
"I need support in the entry room, a monster has entered the city!"
"hey, bucko, slow down, i don't want to hurt anyone. i just need to talk to someone with a lotta sway."
"I'm afraid we can't let you do that, monster."
"jeez, tough crowd. where are you going to take me?"
The man at the front, obviously the one in charge of the group, lowers his eyebrows.
"Well, we're actually going to take you to him, as you've intruded on our lands."
"this is a lot more simple than i was expecting it to be."
"Shut up and move."
They move to a back room, and eventually, stairs. After going down more than five floors, they find a hallway at the bottom, with a smooth spruce door at the end.
"can i make a request?"
"No."
"shoot me if i do something stupid, alright?"
"If that were the case, I would've shot you already."
Sans looks down, and smiles to himself a bit. He looks up, and the doorway is suddenly right in front of them, and the doors stand at an imposing height.
The lead guard knocks on the door, and makes a report.
"We have the intruder here, sir."
"Wonderful, bring him in please."
Two of the lesser guards lean on the doors, and struggle to push them open.
Sans lights his eye, and merely moves the doors on their hinges with little to no effort. Both of the guards trying to open the doors fall to the floor.
"Careful, monster. You're already on dangerous ground."
"dude, i opened a door."
"Both of you, stop. Commander, please take your troops and guard the door."
"Are you sure? I don't want to leave you in here with this beast."
"hey, c'mon, the name's sans."
"Just go, I'll be fine. As for you, Sans, tell me what you need to say so badly. I saw what happened in the entry room."
"i can end this war for you."
The man at his desk stops completely, his entire body frozen in place.
"but there is one and a half catches."
"What are they, Sans?"
"my species gets to go free, and one human is allowed to go free with us. i can convince many monsters to stop attacking humans, but some won't, and i'll personally take care of those select few."
"I can let you all go free, but I can't guarantee for the human, unless you can tell me about them."
"they're a small kid, with a complexion kinda like yours, looking at it better, who refused to leave the mountains with us, and instead chose to remain underground to survive."
"Wait, was she wearing a red and black sweater?"
"looking back, that's exactly what they were wearing. horizontally striped."
"That's what my daughter was wearing before she was captured by the enemy forces. I thought for months she was dead."
The man places his face in his hands, and starts shaking.
"If you could bring her back, I'll do everything I can to give you all the freedom you deserve for ending the war."
"i can completely destroy the enemy forces before they even know what hit them."
"Please, just bring Frisk back before she gets hurt."
"hey, as the judge of monsters, i gotta help our saviour as much as i can. be proud that your daughter freed an entire species from their underground prison."
Sans teleports away, leaving the man staring at his hands, and letting tears drip from his face.
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"I made it back, and immediately started recording this in preparation. My plans revolve mainly around getting the Monsters out and then completely destroying this place, to open up the path for me to find Frisk."
Loud yelling is heard in the background, and the chair squeaks as the person sitting on it moves backwards.
"What the… It looks like everything is moving faster than I wanted it to. I'll have to finish this later."
A loud click comes as the recording stops.
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Sans runs down the hall, following the noise, until the debriefing room comes into view, and a group of people standing on the platform at the front.
Up front is the leader, holding a gun to a small figure's head, surrounded by his guard unit.
Sans takes a look at the guards surrounding the group, and notices how many of them are smiling viciously at the fate of the short figure.
He looks closer at them, and sees black and red stripes, and a small, round face.
"oh hell."
The leader starts speaking, and his voice echoes all over the room.
"And who do you think you are, huh, you little spy? Now I've got more reason to kill you than just your origins."
His arm tenses as he prepares to take the shot into Frisk's head, but he never gets the chance to take the shot.
The entire darkened room lights up red as bones fill the skull capacity of every guard in the room, along with the vicious leader.
Everyone of the people in the room are Monsters, and nearly all of them are scared.
Sans takes a deep breath in, and uses the power of the Judge of Monsters to make his first announcement to the Monsters.
"Monsters, we have been held captive by these people too long, now, we shall live free. As your judge, I demand that no more of what we called the enemy forces are harmed, and any of you who dare challenge me shall fall. Queen Toriel, please take Frisk outside while I clean up in here. Everyone else, get out or get shredded to dust."
The large procession of monsters cleared out, and soon the building was free of monsters, but certainly not humans.
Sans waited in the large room as several sets of troops entered, and looked at their fallen compatriots. Nearly all of them raised their weapons to the single skeleton.
"As the Judge of the Monsters, I make my judgement upon all of you, as guilty. Now, you shall face your sentence."
The room falls dark, and nothing is visible. A loud squelching sound fills the room, and when the light returns, everyone in the room is dead. Sans is gone, and white fills the building.
Outside, the Monsters all cheer on the destruction of the base they were once held prisoner in.
Sixteen Gaster Blasters circle the facility, shredding through concrete and steel alike in the prospect of violence.
Less than a minute later, the entire foundation collapses.
Sans appears next to Toriel and Frisk, who both smile happily.
"hey, kiddo. someone important wants to see you. toriel, do you mind if i take them for a small trip?"
"Feel free, Sans, just make sure nothing happens to them, or you get the Asgore treatment."
"trust me, i don't have the guts for that."
Toriel snickers, and Frisk takes Sans' hand, and they shortcut to the recruitment building in the Capital.
They walk in, and Frisk runs up to the secretary, and waves to them.
"Hey, John! How've you been?"
"Frisk? Oh my lord, your dad has been mourning his loss of you for three months! What happened?"
"I had an adventure in the underground, and I freed a species from their prison!"
"I… uh, what?"
At the his confusion, Sans walks up.
"she isn't kidding. she freed my kind from our underground imprisonment, and then stayed down there so the enemy forces wouldn't kill her."
"And that's why I'm proud of my daughter. Frisk, are you alright?"
"Dad? Dad! It's so nice to see you again!"
Frisk runs to her father and hugs him tightly.
"jeez, kid. you were just about killed and you're acting like this is a small family reunion."
Sans looks at the ground, and up at the General holding his daughter with a look of pure happiness and relief on his face.
"i killed dozens of your men, and you killed my brother. i don't know who took the hit from karma there, but i won't hold a grudge against anyone, as the people who killed my bro are rather dead. just call me or toriel if you ever want to visit us, kiddo."
And Sans walks out, and vanishes.
Frisk's father looks at the people in the room, and says one thing.
"The war is finally over."