Alphys got up from her seat, adjusting her glasses. Oh my gosh, her and Undyne had fallen asleep! Alphys silently leapt off the couch and made her way downstairs to the machine, bringing her phone with her. Alphys quickly checked her phone to see if there were any messages, but there were none to be seen. She let out a hefty sigh of relief.
Sans must have fallen asleep as well. At least he got the machine onto the CORE, judging by the readings the machine was getting. Alphys felt slightly uneasy, however. Wait..
"..wouldn't want me falling asleep right into the core."
That was a joke, right? Alphys let out a nervous laugh, and checked the machine's findings, when she heard a knock on the door. "U-Undyne I'll be right there-" The door burst open. "I CAN EXPLAin... Oh, i-it's just you." Said Alphys to Frisk, letting another choked laugh escape her lips. That child had the strength of ten monsters.
Frisk tugged at Alphys' coat, a bead of sweat trickling down the child's forehead. "What's the matter?" Questioned Alphys. Alphys leaned over and Frisk whispered into her earhole. "Papyrus went to go find Sans? T-this can't be good." Frisk whispered more things into Alphys' ear, and her expression quickly changed from worried to dreadful.
"They haven't returned? Oh no..."
Everything was cold. Cold and dark. Endlessly so, an expanse with seemingly no end.
It was a big jump, to go from being with Papyrus, falling into the searing CORE, to being in this desolate place. From warm to cold, from together to alone. The change was apparent the second time-space split open between the two. The rest was just darkness for who knew how long, until Sans finally came to his senses. The Void was empty and lifeless, a place of loneliness, not just from people, but from the universe itself.
Sans was used to being alone. It was a constant of the more... murderous runs. But here, it didn't feel like he was alone. No, every step of the endless void seemed to probe at him, and though he knew there was no intelligence behind this empty void, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.
Sans got to his feet, stumbling for the first few seconds. Every movement he made sent a throb of pain through his bones, spiking near his forehead, where all the pain was condensed into a splitting headache. Sans raised a hand to his head, feeling wet beads of perspiration falling from his skull. Yet, he felt something incredibly wrong, the source of these terrible headaches.
A splintered crack in his skull reached from the top of his head to his right eye, reaching a slightly droopy black socket. Sans ran his finger along it, feeling every crack that formed, before a sharp pain hit his head again. The crack wasn't fatal, but it hurt like hell.
Forcing himself to keep walking, Sans eventually reached a point at which he was too tired to continue on, and he collapsed onto his knees. How far was The Void? Did it continue on forever? As he was pondering, Sans eventually felt a skeletal hand touch his shoulders, and he flinched, turning around in fright.
Was that Gaster!? Sans nearly had a heart attack, falling over backwards. He prepared to charge up his magic, before he realised-
It was just Papyrus. Yet the resemblance was uncanny. Papyrus' eyes were rounder, hollowed out, with a similar splinter to Sans running from his left eye to his mouth. Papyrus already looked like Gaster enough as it was, without half of his iconic markings. Putting two and two together, Sans realised that his splinter was also half of Gaster's markings. How ironic.
Sans pulled himself together, channeling down his magic.
"papyrus, you have to stop scaring me like this."
"SORRY! I'M JUST SO HAPPY YOU'RE OK!" Said Papyrus. "I WOKE UP WITH THIS REALLY BAD HEADACHE AND I HAD A CRACK IN MY SKULL AND THEN I REALISED YOU ONLY HAD ONE HP SO I GOT SUPER WORRIED. BUT YOU'RE OK, RIGHT!?"
"i've been better." Said Sans, rubbing the side of his skull. The headache had begun to die down, but his bones still ached, especially his legs (most likely from all the walking). "i'm really tired."
"COME ON SANS, STOP BEING SUCH A LAZYBONES AND LET'S GO FIND OUR WAY OUT OF THIS PLACE!"
"ugh, sorry, nope, can't get up... too lazy." Sans got up, walked two steps and promptly slumped back onto the ground.
Papyrus let out a sigh, picking up Sans on his shoulders. "WORRY NOT, DEAR BROTHER, THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL CARRY YOU THROUGH THE DARK VOID WITH NO END! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!"
It was about 20 seconds before Sans fell asleep.
"So you're telling me that there was a time machine in the basement all along!?" Said Undyne, poking the machine and scouring through notes. "What's all this nerd stuff anyways?!"
"W-well, have you ever gotten, um, an odd sense that you've done anything before? Have you woken up from any really realistic dreams lately?" Said Alphys, to which Undyne did a quizzical nod. " It's because you have done those things before. DT, ahem, ah, determination, has many impressive powers, among which one appears to the ability to stop, reset and change timelines to their will. Sans built this machine to track the timelines, and influence them, back when the resets were frequent, until he found the source of the resets, Frisk. Frisk thankfully reached an agreement with us to never reset again, so we reworked the machine to.. uh.. travel through the timelines created by these resets. "
"FRISK!" Undyne picked up Frisk by the head, the young child trying to squirm away. "YOU LITTLE PUNK! WHY DO YOU KEEP HIDING IMPORTANT STUFF LIKE THIS!?"
Frisk giggled, breaking free from Undyne's hand. She let Frisk go, but quickly turned from an expression of playfulness to one of worry.
"So, what does this have to do with Sans and Papyrus going back to the underground?" Undyne said, crossing her arms.
"Nobody knows about the royal scientist before me. Not even I know much about him, aside from what Sans told me." Said Alphys. "He fell into the CORE, and was lost among the timelines. Sans called him Gaster, and s-said he was his and Papyrus' father. Honestly, I don't know anything else about him, aside from the odd blueprint. Me and S-Sans repaired the machine's timeline travelling features, and Sans planned to retrieve him from The Void, a space outside of any timeline. Sans went to the CORE to figure out where The Void was in time-space, b-but, he's been gone for a long time, as well as Papyrus. O-o-oh, this is all my fault, I never s-should have gone along with this ridiculous plan!" Said Alphys.
"Hey, Alphys, it's not your fault, I'm sure we can fix this. The machine appears to still be working." Said Undyne.
"B-but without Sans' help in operating the machine, it could take days or even weeks. He's the one who built it, and I'm still deciphering all of these blueprints." Said Alphys, pulling out several pages of a disorganized binder. The time machine displayed several numbers from the cubical machine, though scrambled by the distortion of time-space inside The Void.
"We'll have to tell Toriel and Asgore about this, they'll find out sooner or later." Said Undyne, gritting her teeth. "They're already wondering where Sans and Papyrus are and it's SIX in the morning." She appeared a bit frustrated, probably about being woken up so early.
"I-I know. J-j-just give me a moment." Whispered Alphys, running a claw down a blueprint. "I-I can't do this. I keep messing up, a-and this will be another one of my pathetic failures. They'll hate m-me."
"Alphys, don't hide things from them, they won't hate you for this, I promise. I know Asgore, he's a nice guy, and Toriel seems really kind too."
"You're right. I promised myself i wouldn't lie anymore. Let's go tell the truth." Said Alphys, tucking a blueprint under a shelf before heading out. As she went out, Undyne gave her a kiss on the forehead, making the short dinosaur blush.
"And don't hide things from me either. I can handle it!" Said Undyne, giving her trademark grin, although it was faltering at the edges.
Papyrus finally collapsed. After walking for over three hours in a straight line, holding Sans in his arms, he was ready to fall. With a thud, he hit what he assumed to be the ground of this seemingly infinite place.
"SANS! I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE!" Said Papyrus, trying to get back up. Sans let out a snort as he awoke.
"still in the void i think." Said Sans. Black over there, black here, black underneath. Yup, it's still The Void.
"OH, WHERE IS THE EXIT?! I WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE FRISK TO SCHOOL AND COOK WITH UNDYNE AND- OOOOH..." Papyrus was quite visibly freaking out.
"hey, now that we're in the void, we have all the time in the world, or.. uh, rather outside of it." Said Sans with a shrug. Papyrus didn't have the power to complain, so he just nodded lightly. "i should probably tell you about gaster."
"WHO?"
"he-" Sans was cut off by the noise of distant static, before he felt a familiar presence behind him. Gaster materialized behind Sans, sending the smaller skeleton running backwards into his brother's arms.
"Now, now, it's rude to talk about someone who's listening."
