Sans wasted no time as he unleashed a barrage of sharpened bones, all flying from different directions towards the genocidal child. They took several hits as this was not the starting attack they were used to. Their face was proof enough of this fact. Sans almost wanted to redirect one at himself for falling into the reset trap. They had fought so many times before that he didn't even realize that he was using the same attacks repeatedly. His small self-scolding moment left him vulnerable.

They saw the opening and immediately lunged towards the monster, teeth bared like a wild animal. Sans hastily took a step back as they swiped at him with their knife.

Swipe. Another step back

Swipe. Another step.

Swipe. This time he teleported behind them.

They lost their footing as their momentum caused them to fall forward, just as he had hoped.

Sans' eye sparked as the child's soul turned blue. With a sharp raise of his arm, Sans inverted the pull of gravity on their soul and sent them crashing into the ceiling, only to then shift gravity back to normal and have them slam into the bones that were now waiting on the floor. A sickeningly wet squelch was heard as the bones penetrated their body.

'that was too close...i'm getting distracted.' Sans thought as he tried to regain his breath. Sans glanced over at the body skewered by bones and shivered at the sight. He turned away, clutching at his brother's scarf and sighed. "sorry you had to see that paps..." A few seconds passed, before the familiar world stutter shifted everything back to the way it was before the confrontation. Sans was in his original position, facing the entrance, while the bones, body, and cracks in the ceiling were gone. Sans jerked his head up, frantically looking around until it hit him. They had re-loaded.

Sans sighed, the resets he could handle. All they would do is just send him back to the same place (his room) after an extended period. It was slow and gradual. First the flash of white, then a black void, one in which he would often catch a looming figure that made his magic flare up deep within his soul, then the fade in back to his room.

The re-loads however, were a completely different story. It was instantaneous and mostly shifted him to a different position in the same room, and it was more than just a little disorienting. Sans had found himself walking into a wall more times than he'd like to admit because of them.

Ragged breathing brought Sans out of his small haze as his eyelights locked onto the child. They were hunched over the dim light as they clutched their stomach, breathless.

Sans eyed them carefully 'was it really that bad?' he thought as his eyelights wandered over to the dim light they were practically about to fall on.

A dull throbbing began at the back of Sans' skull upon looking at the dim light. He felt something stir within his soul. Like a new will of sorts. He kept staring. The feeling was intensifying. He began to feel incredibly resolute and ready to face the child again.

He had felt like this before, it wasn't adrenaline...no this was much stronger. He was filled with something, beyond his default soul traits of Patience and Justice. He felt...He was filled with-

"-Determination. It is a very powerful soul trait that naturally belongs to humans. It gives the wielder the ability to perform reality and time bending abilities such as-" "save reset and load, i know all this stuff already dad, now what was the point of dragging me back here at two in the morning again?" A young Sans groaned, sleepily rubbing his eye sockets as he looked up at his father. "The point, Sans, is that I've finally found a way to harness it!" Gaster explained giddily. "Behold!" Gaster dramatically ripped a cloth covering a jar on the table. "The Determination pills!" Sans almost fell off his stool. "woah...those are pretty..." he said as his eyelights took the form of stars. "can i-ow!" Sans' hand was slapped rather harshly by his father for trying to reach out for the jar of red capsules. "Absolutely not! They are untested and could be very dangerous!" Gaster boomed, making Sans clench his teeth in fear. That was the thing with Sans' father, he could go from deadly serious to overly excited and then right back to serious in a matter of minutes. "alright then...who's going to test them?" Sans' asked, suddenly wide awake and ready to learn about the pills. Gaster, suddenly realizing the mistake of bringing his rather inquisitive and nosy son to a makeshift lab at the back of his house at two in the morning to show him what might as well be considered illegal drugs, began to panic. If Sans knew that he was taking the pills himself to see the effects on the monster body then surely, he would want to take them as well or try to stop him out of concern for his safety. He had to play this cool. "Erm...I haven't quite found a test subject yet but I'm not looking for one now...It's far too early in the development. I'm just running DNA tests to see what effect it has on monster bodies." Gaster wanted to slap himself. He said that so quickly and 'Sans please don't ask questions'-like, not cool at all. An awkward silence fell over the two as Gaster hoped his son would be too tired to put his scientist-like mind to work to call out his bluff. "that was bad." Sans remarked flatly. "I know..." Gaster grumbled. "so when can I start taking the pills?" Sans said casually eyeing the bottle. "I thought I just told you-" But Gaster's yelling was cut off by sans lifting the jar into the air and removing a pill via magic. "dad, if i know you then you're most likely testing the pills out on yourself, and you're not dust yet are you?" Sans spoke calmly as he caused the lone pill to fly about the room. "besides, if any monster is capable of handling this stuff it would be skeletons." He got off the stool and strode over to the chalkboard, levitating the chalk and began to write with it. "my theory is that it would probably cause monsters to melt, seeing as this stuff is so strong and we don't have as much physical matter as humans to handle it. now, one would think that this would be worse for skeletons, as we have less physical matter than any other monster 'cept ghosts. Buuuuuut since you haven't melted, then there's only one explanation..." Sans flipped the chalkboard to reveal the word the chalk wrote on the back. "magic! Since skeletons contain more raw magic than any other monster species, it would only make sense that the magic acts as a sort of sponge and soaks up the determination, having it be a part of our soul!" Sans was enjoying the look on his father's face so much that he kicked his scientist mode into overdrive. "which is why, dear father..." Sans' eye glinted a light blue as he extended his hand towards his father's chest bringing out his soul which had a small swirling red hue in the center. "your soul now looks like this!" Sans was breathing heavily as his father clasped his hands together with tears brimming at his eyesockets. "That's my son..." he said, voice full of pride.

"All right Sans...you've proven to me that you're ready...let's just hope you can handle it..." Gaster spoke worriedly as he gave Sans the pill and a glass of water. They were in Gaster's True Lab to have the right equipment on hand, lest something go wrong. "ok dad...you can let go of me now..." Sans said, eager to try the pill. "Oh...right... sorry." Gaster fumbled with his words as he backed away. "Three...two...one!" Sans swallowed the pill in one gulp. Big mistake. The pain rushing through his body was immense. He collapsed on his hands and knees, shaking violently and coughing harshly. Gaster was by his side in a matter of moments but it didn't last very long, for he had crumpled to the floor unmoving aside from small spasms that rocked his body. Sans had blacked out.

Sans woke up in his bed, a dull pain lingering in his bones. He slowly looked around his room. One sleeping Gaster, a get well soon card on his bedside table, a few presents in the corner and a balloon tied to his wrist. However, the thing that caught his attention the most was a dim yellow light in the corner. It was very compelling. He slowly slid out of bed, stumbling a bit with the wave of nausea that washed over him. He made his way over and bent down to pick it up. It phased right through his hands. He tried again. The same thing happened. After a bit, Sans gave up trying to hold it and begun to fiddle with his magic. He tried to grab it with his telekinesis. That failed as well. Sans ended up just staring at it. It filled his soul with a funny feeling as he continued to gaze upon the light, slowly getting closer and closer until-

Swipe. Sans could feel the blade of the knife barely graze his ribcage as he frantically stumbled backwards in fright, being rudely jolted from his memory.

His eylights locked onto the child as they snarled in irritation from his narrow escape. He took several deep breaths that he didn't really need and stood, keeping all of his attention on the child. "woah...ok then..." He spoke breathlessly.

"violent much?" Sans grumbled, brushing himself off. "alright alright...let's just get to the point." The child then proceeded to spring at Sans once more, wildly slashing in every direction he moved in.

Sans on the other hand remained calm and made small precise movements from side to side as to not tire out so quickly. He was learning.

After another miss the child threw their knife at the skeleton in agitation. Big Mistake. It zoomed right past Sans' skull and clattered on the floor. They were now weaponless.

Sans had a feeling that something about that was familiar but didn't dare take the time to ponder anymore.

The child groaned in annoyance and ran for it, dodging all of the bone attacks to the best of their ability.

Sans created a layout in his mind for the next wave of bones. "this one's for you paps...hope you like it" It was a bone maze. The child almost came to a stop to stare at it in confusion had it not been for the bones tearing up the floor behind them.

They continued to run, blindly through the maze, suffering serious damage when they hit a dead end and were forced to climb the bone wall or risk getting skewered again.

They were just about to make it to the end when they heard a low charge. Their stomach sank as the familiar whirring sound increased in volume.

They made the final wall jump they needed to get out of the maze. They were almost there, just a few more steps! They could make it. They could make it! They could-they crashed into something big and it sent them reeling.

The sight that greeted them made them wish they were back in the bone maze. " Y. ' G." Sans stood atop one of his terrifying blasters, equally terrifying with his eyelights snuffed out as he spoke down on the quivering child.

He then slowly extended his arm and made a gun shape with his fingers. "bang." He said playfully, conjuring his tongue and poking it out between his teeth.

The next thing the child saw was blinding white as they cried out from the hot plasma magic enveloping them. Forcing their soul to break and shatter.

Sans got off of the blaster and absentmindedly rubbed its head while he spoke. "i think i'm enjoying this a little too much, huh paps?" He sat on the floor while the blaster lowered itself with a small purr like sound. "this whole revenge thing...plus, all these memories keep re-surfacing...I keep getting distracted...oh paps..." Sans clutched the scarf around his neck tightly "what are we gonna do?"