Everything seemed normal at first.
When Bane was young, nothing much happened. He woke up in the morning and ate breakfast (what it was, he wasn't really sure; It was just called "paste") before being lead into a stark gray room, where his four other friends were. There was Fierce, a thin, orange, frog-like monster with long, sharp teeth, Neuro, a red monster that looked like a giant floating rose, Shift, a yellow blob-like monster, and Error, who looked like Shift except he had red vines growing off one side of him. Bane's friends meant the world to him.
After a whole day of being with his friends, Quercus, a tree-like monster who wore a white lab coat, would lead them to the other room to eat more paste before they went off to sleep. Sometimes, he would dream of doing the same thing. Playing and eating. He never knew there wasn't anything beyond these two rooms. He didn't care if there was. Bane was perfectly content with living in these two rooms, playing and eating. Playing and eating.
One day, everything went differently. When Quercus woke them up, he didn't lead them into breakfast. He instead called Error over and lead him into the breakfast room. Bane looked inside, however, and couldn't find either of them anywhere. Soon, the wall in the breakfast room opened up, and Quercus and Error stepped out, holding hands. Quercus then called Fierce, and they disappeared in the wall, leaving Error behind.
Bane crawled over to Error. "What happened?" he asked, eyeing the wall in austonishment; who knew there was more than one room? When he glanced at Error for an answer, however, he didn't answer. Error instead looked as confused.
It wasn't long until Fierce was brought back and Shift was called into the strange new room. Next was Neuro, and, finally, it was Bane's turn to enter.
The room was dark. In the center was a metallic desk with a rusty desk lamp and stacks of paper, lacking in even the slightest hint that they were crumpled up and ready to be tossed into the playing room. On either side of the desk was a chair. Quercus sat on one side and motioned with his wooden hand for Bane to do the same. 'You stand on two legs,' Bane thought as he awkwardly sat down. 'Sitting in a chair is easy for you. I stand on four legs.'
Even so, it was hard for Bane to muster any bitterness towards his caretaker.
"You may be wondering why I've been asking your friends, and now you, to come into my office, right?" Quercus asked, taking off his glasses and setting them on the table. Bane nodded. "Well, it is because you five are ten years old, and, thus, are able to start fighting."
Bane nodded. He didn't know what fighting was, but it sounded fun.
Quercus smiled. "You're supposed to be the strongest one here, hopefully stronger than all the other monsters put together. You'll be our greatest weapon when we're free from our underground prison,' he told Bane.
'Weapon? Prison? What?'
"The best part is that you aren't defective, like some others," Quercus continued on, and Bane grew more confused by the minute. "You'll start training tomorrow. Enjoy today, for it'll be your last day of nothing but romping around. Please call Fierce and Error here."
Bane left the "office" and headed towards Error. "Quercus says you and Fierce has to go see him," he told his friend. Error smiled, thanked him, and ran over to Fierce. As Bane watched the two of them leave, Neuro floated over to him.
"What did Quercus say?" they asked, staring at Bane with eyes, which shifted into multiple colors
Bane tried his hardest to remember all he heard. "He said we'll be fighting and that I was the strongest, and that I wasn't defective, or something like that."
Neuro sighed, staring towards the office. "He said the same, except he said I wasn't strong, but I had a 'unique ability'. I wonder what it is..." they glanced at Bane, who was also glancing towards the office. "I also hope Fierce and Error finish talking quickly, since we can't play without them."
They watched the door eagerly, taking little notice when Shift slithered over and stared with them. Bane was confused, and so was everyone else, when Quercus exited his office alone. "Where are they?" he asked, crawling over to his caretaker.
"I put them in a different room. They won't be training with you, and you won't see them for a while. Now, I have important work to do."
With that, Quercus left the three monster children there, sad and confused.
(Timeskip)
It had been three years since then, and the three of them learned a lot. They learned that fighting was like playing except more painful. They learned that there had been a war between monsters and another creature they never heard of called a human. They learned that they were sealed underground for losing the war. They learned they were in a lab. They learned no one was supposed to know they existed until they were ready to fight in the next war. They learned that Fierce and Error were dead. They never learned what dead was.
All Bane knew was that he couldn't see them again. Constantly, he would ask Quercus to visit his friends, but Quercus would always mutter that he couldn't before rushing off to "do paperwork", even if there was no paperwork to do. When Quercus was gone, they were expected to do something useful, so they always practiced fighting since it was a lot more fun than reading the books that Quercus brought.
Bane quickly found out he was faster and stronger than he thought as a result of being pushed to fight the best he could. He could out speed even the speedy Neuro and, when presented with what was called bricks, he broke them easily. Bane also found out that it was game over if Neuro touched him. Quercus taught them that Neuro could control another monster's mind if they grabbed onto their head. He also taught them that Shift could change shape into what she wanted, as long as she was the same size as them. Thus, whenever Shift tried turning into Neuro, she looked more like a toy model of them.
After one training session, Quercus read them a book about a place called the Waterfalls, occasionally mentioning the names, "King Asgore" (who was apparently bad at names), and, "Prince Asriel" (who was King's son). After that, Quercus gave them something he called, "chisps" (which were delicious) alongside something called a, "salad" (which wasn't delicious). Bane was glad that Quercus had decided to start giving them something else to eat every day, even if some of them tasted bad. Once the three of them finished eating, he sent them all to bed.
They laid down on old mattresses together, and, like every night, Neuro struck up a conversation between the three. "We fought well today, huh?" they said. Bane nodded cheerfully. Shift stared blankly ahead, something she never did. Both Bane and Neuro noticed and turned towards her, worried. "What's wrong?" Neuro asked.
Shift glanced at both of her friends, worry clouding her eyes, and sighed. "I don't like fighting," she uttered, wincing as if she was clawed.
Bane and Neuro were confused. "What's wrong with fighting?" Bane asked.
"I don't know, it's just... we're hurting each other, and I don't want us to hurt each other," Shift answered, glancing to the side. "You understand what I'm saying, right guys?"
Neuro nodded. "Of course, and we understand. We'll try to talk to Quercus about it. How about that?" they said reassuringly, patting Shift on what resembled a shoulder. Shift quickly cheered up, which was expected from someone like Shift.
Smiling, they settled back down on the mattresses, lying in silence for a long moment. Finally, Shift perked up. "Don't your scars hurt?" she asked Bane.
Bane felt for the claw marks that went across his nose and touched them. "Yes, but not that much." he answered.
"They look horrible."
Suddenly, Bane realized something. "I can't see myself."
Neuro snickered. "Of course. If you could, that'd be nice, though," they said.
"Well, you probably have more scars than me," Bane teased.
The next day, after training all morning, they were given a break. Quercus called Shift over and brought her into his office. When she came out, she looked confused and abut worried. Next, Bane was called.
Bane stepped into the office, seeing far less papers on the desk than usual. Before he could look around to see if anything was different, Quercus quickly herded Bane into another room, which was bare except for one wall, which was shiny. The lights turned on, and Bane gasped.
Fierce was on the other side of the shiny glass wall.
Bane bounded up to the wall, and Fierce did the same. He had slimy skin the color of fire, a frog-like body with long legs, a frog-like head, a thick, lizard-like tail, and a single, large eye on his face that was pure black, except for his red pupil, like always. This time, however, Fierce was covered in scars ('From training,' Bane assumed) and was much more stocky than when Bane last saw him. "Hi, Fierce!" he called out excitedly, but was immediately confused when Fierce opened his mouth and said the same thing, except there was no sound.
Quercus, who was silent during the reunion, finally spoke. "Do you like your reflection?" he asked.
Bane was confused. "Reflection?" he questioned. Fierce mouthed the same thing.
"You're looking at yourself, Bane," Quercus said. "It's a mirror. See? You can see me behind you."
Looking back, Bane saw a tree-like monster with two legs and two arms wearing a lab coat standing behind who he thought was Fierce. Although disappointed, Bane realized that he had accomplished his wish of seeing himself from last night and felt a bit better.
Ever since that day, Bane, Neuro, and Shift would visit the room with the mirror to see how much they've grown, how many scars they've acquired, and just because they enjoyed seeing themselves. Bane was still sad, however, that couldn't see Fierce or Error. Another change that happened was that Shift seemed more determined to train, and yelled, "No!" when Neuro offered to let her stop fighting.
Bane started to dream of the times he spent eating and playing with his friends again. He always woke up crying, but he didn't understand why.
Half of a year passed, and nothing changed. One day, Quercus entered the room with a clipboard and announced he was testing them. Tests always made them nervous, because Quercus would sometimes say that they could move on to learning another thing and he would sometimes subject them to another month of learning the same topic.
The written tests were always the hardest, so when Quercus announced that they passed, they all let out a sigh of relief; the fighting test was always much easier. After a break spent eating fruits (which Bane thought tasted funny) and staring in the mirror, they were called over to do the fighting test. It went relatively smooth for a while, but Bane soon realized that Shift, who had taken the form of a tiny Asgore at the moment, had been growing faster this past month and easily evaded his attacks while prodding him with a yellow trident.
Desperate to not fail the easier test, Bane clawed at Shift, forcing himself to go faster and fight harder. Shift, although she tried her best, could not keep up with Bane. He noticed Shift growing more weak and quickly headbutted her, sending her flying into the air. Mid-fall, she turned back into her blob form and landed on the ground, lying still.
Quercus was nodding in approval.
Bane saw Shift turn over, and expected her to gaze at him with her usual cheerful expression, exclaiming, "Good job! You beat me!", like always. Instead, to Bane's horror, Shift looked scared as her eyes focused on the orange frog monster. She opened her mouth to speak, but she instead coughed.
To Bane and Neuro's confusion, Quercus dropped his clipboard and rushed over to Shift, prodding her, muttering. That was when Bane noticed Shift was turning into dust.
He read about something like this... monster funerals, was it? They would scatter a monster's dust onto something they liked while alive. Bane didn't exactly know what "alive" was, but, from how Quercus reacted, the opposite of alive was not good. It wasn't long until Shift was nothing but a pile of chalk-white dust, scattered across the floor.
Seeing Bane and Neuro's horrified looks, Quercus told them what had happened. The explanation was long, but, long story short, Shift was dead.
Bane realized this was what happened to Fierce and Error and shivered.
"Now, do not worry, Bane," Quercus reassured him. "You have proved yourself worthy of passing this course in fighting. You'll certainly be a great warrior when the next war comes."
"What did I do to her?" Bane uttered, fear spreading through him.
"You killed her. She won't wake up again. You have, however, showed me you are, indeed, the strongest monster ever."
That night, Bane crept into the room with the giant mirror and looked into it. He saw himself, as always. It was him. Not Fierce. He would never see Fierce again. Or Error. Or Shift. Looking into the mirror, he saw a monster. Yes, everyone he knew was a monster, but he was a monster in more ways than one.
(Timeskip)
Bane never forgave himself.
Every day, he woke up, expecting to see Shift standing up above him, cheerfully greeting him, playfully yelling, "Boo!", or shift into Quercus, demanding them to get to breakfast in her best Quercus impression. Every day, he woke up, and the reality of it all hits him all over again.
Every day, he walked to breakfast, ready to happily chat with both Shift and Neuro. Every day, he refused to speak until Neuro told him it was worrying her.
Every day, he wandered to the mirror room, expecting to see Shift already there, admiring her reflection and changing into different forms. Every day, all he saw in the mirror was a monster.
Every day, he laid down on the mattress, expecting Shift to eagerly join in on his and Neuro's conversation. Every day, the room felt too quiet.
This went on until he was around fifteen years old. No, he didn't get over it. Something else happened.
It was another normal training session between him and Neuro (they had nothing new to learn. Quercus just wanted to make sure they didn't forget anything, ever) when they heard a noise above them. Quercus hushed them and walked into his office, where many other doorways lead into many other rooms, most of which were forbidden. Bane itched to go up there and help Quercus, but he knew he wouldn't be allowed.
Quercus screamed.
Bane was worried something bad happened to him until Quercus burst into the training room, carrying stacks of paper and hurriedly locking the door. Sensing something bad was going on, Bane assumed a fighting position.
Someone pounded on the door.
Quercus fingers gripped his stack of papers.
Everything suddenly went quiet.
Quercus turned to Bane and Neuro, and the look he gave them told them one thing: run!
The three of them ran, heading towards a door that lead to a closet. Before they reached it, however, the door handle rattled. Bane made the mistake of stopping and looking behind him.
The closet door shut in front of him, and the door burst open behind him. A gray rabbit monster, wearing what looked like a giant, cut-up sock and a thick, black sweater charged into the room, holding a knife. He was as tall as Quercus and looked much more threatening. Overall, Bane was scared.
"Where'd that tree guy go?" the rabbit monster demanded, threateningly holding up the knife.
Bane didn't answer; fear paralyzed him.
Growling, the monster jumped forward, faster than any monster he'd seen in his life, and sliced at his neck.
The knife broke against his skin, and Bane suddenly remembered he was much stronger than the rabbit.
Before Bane could attack, however, the closet door burst open. "Neuro!" Quercus yelled, but it was too late. Neuro was flying towards the rabbit monster, vines extended and ready to latch onto him.
Unfortunately, the monster had a lighter on him.
Bane watched in fear as the rabbit lit a fire in front of Neuro. With a shriek, they crashed into the monster, got themselves caught on fire, and quickly fled. Before anyone else had a chance to react, Bane pounced onto the monster, growling in his ear. "I can and will kill you if you dare attack any of us."
Whimpering, the rabbit monster tore away from Bane (or, rather, Bane let him go) and fled. Panting, Bane watched as the door closed and the sound of hurried footsteps faded away. After a moment, Quercus put a hand on Bane's shoulder. "You and Neuro did well."
"Neuro!" Bane spun around, shocked to see Neuro's withered, charred body on the ground, fading into dust. "No!" he cried, tears rolling off his face. "Don't go!"
Neuro's color-changing eyes turned towards an empty corner of the room. "Shift," she uttered.
"No!" Bane yelled again, but it was too late. Neuro was nothing but a pile of chalk-white dust, scattered across the floor.
Quercus clutched his papers. "So you're the only one."
Bane didn't answer. He felt sad.
"At least my papers are safe."
Suddenly, he didn't feel sad. "Your papers?!" he shrieked. "Neuro died to protect you and you're concerned about your papers?!"
"You don't know what's on these papers, Bane," Quercus told him. "They have the research that was put into creating you guys!"
"Creating us?"
Quercus flinched. "Y-yes! You weren't born. You were created! Created to fight against the humans! These papers have the information to almost always guarantee perfect results."
"Is that why Fierce and Error vanished? Because they weren't right?"
"N-n-yes, okay?! I admit to getting rid of them because they were mistakes, but-"
"Did you ever care about us?!"
"W-of course I did, Bane! I really did!"
A thought struck him. "Am I the only one you referred to by name, besides when you were calling us over?" he asked, his voice dangerously lower.
Quercus was confused. "Why?"
"Did you actually care about all of us, or did you only care about me because I was 'supposed to be the strongest one here, hopefully stronger than all the other monsters put together'?" Bane screeched. He got into the fighting position.
Quercus was silent, his mouth opening, trying to find the words to respond. Growling, Bane leapt onto his "caretaker", clawing and biting at his wooden skin. Quercus curled and tightened his fingers around Bane's throat, choking him. He desperately attacked Quercus, tears falling from both of their eyes, both shrieking in anger and fear.
All the tactics Bane knew fled his mind, and all he knew was that Quercus was the enemy and that he must be killed. He didn't notice that he was losing air. He didn't notice that Quercus had heavily damaged him and covered him in nasty scars. All he noticed was that Quercus's neck was exposed.
Bane didn't think twice. He grabbed Quercus's head and snapped his neck.
Quercus immediately went limp, falling onto the floor with a thud. Bane nearly toppled over with exhaustion, but a new thought struck him. 'I should tell someone about this place and what happened. I must tell them everything.'
He bolted out the door, and entered the office, looking around wildly for what could be the exit. Noticing muddy rabbit prints going through one door, Bane quickly ran though it, following the tracks to where he hoped was the exit. It didn't take long for him to hear what he would later find out was a waterfall.
He burst out a door, and found himself surrounded by rocks. He climbed all over them before he found himself at the top, looking over a breathtaking sight.
He was above a rushing stream of water, tumbling down to the ground and exploding into mist. Blue stone and blue grass covered the area, and glowing plants were everywhere. Even the stars, which he knew were fake, were beautiful. He then spotted a white slug monster, making her way to who-knows-where, and remembered why he came.
Climbing down carefully to the ground, he jumped in front of the slug monster and made her scream. "Sorry!" he apologized. "I have something important to tell you."
He told her everything he knew about the secret lab, and Quercus, and his friends, why they died, why they were created, and, most importantly, what happened. The slug lady clearly wanted to leave, but she was also clinging onto his every word, gasping in shock more than once.
With his dying breath, he apologized for wasting her time.
(Timeskip)
Bane woke up and saw a yellow blob smiling down on him.
He screamed.
Was he dead? Was he back in time? What happened? He hurriedly asked the yellow blob, who he suddenly recognized as Shift, all the questions rushing through his head. Shift laughed. "Glad to see you, too." she told him, nudging him. "We're alive!"
He spotted Neuro, casually chatting with two monsters he hadn't seen in such a long time. "Fierce! Error!"
They all turned their heads towards Bane, who sheepishly ducked down. Error paid no mind to this and reached out with his red vines, hugging Bane until he suddenly remembered him nearly being choked and screamed for him to stop. Fierce leapt towards him, not unlike a frog, smiling like an idiot. Something caused Bane to charge towards him as well, claws extended and teeth bared. It took both Neuro and Error to hold him back with their vines.
"Bane!" Shift yelled anxiously. "We're okay now! We're in another lab but, this time, we're with a nice caretaker who won't make us fight."
Bane finally calmed down. Looking around, he found himself in a dark, gloomy place full of strange machinery. He didn't want to imagine what the caretaker looked like.
He didn't have to, either, since she walked into the room at that moment.
Bane was shocked; this wasn't at all what he expected. The caretaker was a short, petite, yellow lizard monster. She was hunched over (which made her look smaller) and she looked more scared than Bane. A bit more scared. A bit. "O-oh! You're a-awake," she said, already sweating from nervousness. "We-well, this may be a b-bit of a shock fo-for now, but I promise it-it'll... it'll wear off. For now, y-your friends can help. R-r... Right?"
Everyone else nodded.
The caretaker looked like she was about to speak, but she instead simply handed Bane a bag of popato chisps and turned around to leave. Shift smiled. "Told you she was nice!"
The next few hours (days? Months? Years? Bane lost track) went wonderfully. It was spent playing and eating. Playing and eating. Bane was thrown back to when he was a child and this was all he did. Playing and eating. He missed those times, when he didn't feel guilty of anything and all his friends were there. Then again, he's doing the same right now.
To his surprise, a sixth person came into the room at one point. He was a wooden tree monster with two arms and two legs and had a white lab coat. Quercus stood awkwardly at the door.
Bane shivered.
Neuro froze.
Shift cried.
Fierce and Error clung onto each other, shaking.
After a moment of silence, Quercus left, but not before uttering one word.
"Sorry."
After that, Quercus often came over, watching them play and eat as he either snacked on popato chisps, analyzed the strange machinery, or wept. Whenever he cried, Shift would always slither over to him and comfortingly pat his shoulders.
One day, when Quercus had left to bring everyone more chisps (it was all Alphys could provide constantly. Instant noodles were a rare delicacy), everyone had grown tired of playing at the moment and instead started talking.
As they spoke, Bane thought of how different this place was. It had much more rooms, much more space, and much more monsters. They all referred to them as, "the Lab Monsters". They all referred to Quercus as, "cruel". Otherwise, they were friendly. The caregiver ("I'm a doctor, not a caregiver," she constantly reminded them) was named Alphys, and, as Shift said earlier, she was, indeed nice. Once, Bane asked why she revived all the dead monsters, and she told him that, basically, it was to see if she could break the barrier keeping them underground, but that she also hoped to return everyone to their families soon.
Bane then remembered he didn't have a family and tried hard to keep himself from crying.
Everyone fussed over him when they saw him with yet another tear-streaked face.
Except he was crying for nothing, Bane suddenly realized, looking around at everyone surrounding him. "Sorry if this sound cheesy," he said, interrupting a conversation about whether chisps and instant noodles together tasted good or not. "But I'm really glad you've been here for me, dead or not. You're all my family."
Suddenly, something was wrong.
Fierce shrieked, looking as his arm, which had started... melting? Neuro looked at her red vines and watched as they grew droopier, and Shift looked much gloopier than usual. Error's vines fused with the blob side of his body. Afraid, Bane glanced at his hands.
They were turning into sludge.
He screamed.
He vaguely heard Quercus running into the room, hearing them yelling, and screaming when he saw what was happening to them. He then glanced at his arm and screamed again.
Everyone instinctively huddles together. They were only slightly aware that they were merging together.
Quercus was still screaming, pacing around the room and leaving puddles of sludge behind him, worried.
Shift extended her arm-like extensions as if she wanted a hug. "Quer...cus..."
Quercus turned his head.
Neuro raised her vines as if waiting for an embrace. "Que-Quercus..."
"Quercus..." groaned Fierce and Error in unison, doing the same.
Tears formed in his eyes.
Bane realized he was the only one who hadn't done this. He thought about all the bad things Quercus done, creating them only for war, allowing them to die one by one... He then remembered Quercus presenting him the mirror, Quercus awarding them with chisps whenever they did a good job, Quercus laughing at Shift's jokes, Quercus, standing before an angry Bane, faced with the possibility of being killed by his own creation, and refusing to lie. 'What if he really cared about us?'
Slowly, Bane raised his arms. "Please, Quercus."
Crying, Quercus ran towards them and embraced them. They were only vaguely aware they were merging.
(Timeskip)
'What happened?' Bane thought to himself.
To his surprise, he heard someone answer him, not from outside, but more like from his mind. 'Like always, Bane is the last one to rise.' Neuro's voice answered.
'He was supposed to be created to be able to stay awake much longer than normal, but I guess I messed that up, too.' Quercus said.
'Oh dear, everyone can hear each other's thought?' Shift though. 'Oh no oh no oh no everyone can hear everything I'm saying. Don't think about how I once took half of Bane's food!'
Error started mentally laughing.
'This is freaky...' Fierce thought.
Bane was slightly aware that he was not himself anymore, but, rather everyone else as well. He-no, they-tried walking forwards, but their steps were wobbly and they almost tripped. 'I guess we'll have to get used to this. Together,' he thought. 'Man, that also sounded cheesy.'
'No worries,' Error thought. 'We'll get through this.'
Never in his life would Bane have thought his life would lead to this, combined together with his friends into one big monster.
You know what?
At least he was with his family in more ways than one.