"Are you ready, Sans?"
Sans back and forth onto the balls of his feet as he nodded. He was beyond ready; he was pumped. Gaster gave him a long, hard look.
"Now, remember…if you should feel, er, faint…or even nervous, then we do not…"
Sans smiled at the other skeleton, and he signed back, "We been doing this weeks. I be fine."
Gaster managed a weak smile and signed back, "Grammar, Sans. You have not been practicing." The smile died, and he shook his head as his hands whirred, "Regardless. Tell me and we will stop."
Sans gave him a grin, then set himself up to stand solidly, focusing on the wall on the other side of the lab. Gaster picked up his notepad.
"One end of the room to the other, then."
Sans focused hard on one tile on the other side of the room. His left eye glowed bright yellow as he felt the initial surge of power. With a rush of air, he was on the other side of the room, right on the tile he'd been looking at. As his eye faded back to normal, a bright grin spread on his face.
"See! See! It's like nothing now!" His eye glowed again, and he was over at the work table. "Want your tea? I'll get it." He grabbed the mug with a giddy laugh before teleporting back to Gaster's side. "Here you are. I could go get some Crab Apples from Gearson, too, I'll just pop over and—"
"Sans, stop." Gaster set the mug down to rub his forehead. "I understand that this is…that it is…" He grimaced, hand waving but unable to sign the word with his other hand occupied.
"Exciting? Amazing? Life-changing?" Sans hopped up on a nearby stool, grinning from ear-to-ear (metaphorically). "Gaster, I have it under control now! This means I can go anywhere in no time at all! I can teleport into work, I can be here, I-I…"
"Sans." The other skeleton's voice was uncharacteristically sharp, which shut Sans up. Gaster let out a huff and paced the short length of the table beside him. "I understand. I do. But you must think logically." He flipped through his notes. "This ability…I can only think that it comes from your body's instability after your reset. If this is the case, then shifting around like this may be damaging."
Sans shook his head. "But we've been testing this for weeks now, Gaster. I think we'd know by now if it were hurting me."
Gaster grunted, grabbing his mug and finishing the last dregs of his tea as he looked at the notes. "What about your innate powers? Have those been affected?"
Sans shifted in his seat. "Uh…kind of."
Gaster looked up, sockets wide. "Kind of? Why did you not tell me?"
"Well, I just found out about it. Here, throw something at me."
Gaster frowned, then threw his empty mug at the smaller skeleton. Sans' eye flashed blue as he caught it in the air, then flashed yellow as he teleported it to the other end of the room. He repeated this several times, moving the mug faster and faster around the room, until his eye nearly looked green from how quickly the light flashed in it. Eventually, he brought it back and let it drop into his hands. He gave a small smile as he handed it back to Gaster. "So, uh, it's not just myself I can teleport."
The scientist stared at him, sockets wide. "How…interesting," he finally said, looking down at the mug. "How did you find this out?"
"Uh, sparring with Papyrus, actually."
"My god! Is he all right?"
"Oh, yeah, he's fine. He's actually pretty strong." Sans laughed. "He just assumed I'd been going easy on him for years."
Gaster looked at him for a long moment. He shook his head and finally smiled a bit as he sat on the stool beside Sans. "You know, I can tell the reset has affected you," he said quietly. "You are much different than when we first met. Not as…" His hands fluttered out the second half, "tense as you were all those months ago."
Sans half-smiled. "Well, part of that is the teleporting; cuts my transit time down to nothing, y'know. And I did what I wanted to do with my reset." He chuckled. "I knew I was missing a lot of time with Pap, but I didn't know just how much I didn't know about him. Get this, he's started calling himself 'the Great Papyrus' all the time. It's awesome. And he tells me all about how he'll be the best fighter in the Royal Guard after Undyne. And god, the puzzles! He makes so many!" He smiled warmly. "He's the coolest."
Gaster smiled gently. "Well. At the very least, I cannot fault you for your motives. Perhaps one day I will be able to meet him." He looked up at the clock. "I suppose I have kept you long enough for now. I should let you go to see your, er, 'cool' brother."
Sans grinned. "I'll see you around, Gaster." There was a whoosh of air, and the seat was empty. As Gaster stood up, there was another whoosh, and Sans was back, another big grin on his face. "By the way, a week from today's gonna be a big day. Just sayin'."
One final whoosh, and he was gone.
The "big day" was, naturally, the end of the research. Sans had spent the whole week practically vibrating with excitement. He'd managed to keep his secret—despite his frustration at seeing everyone come up with wrong theories—for the past couple months, but these last few days were absolute torture.
But the day finally arrived, albeit with a terrible commotion from downstairs. The first crash was what woke Sans up, but the sound of bones clattering sent him barreling out of the room. "Papyrus!"
He ran down to the kitchen as fast as he could. Had something gotten inside? He stopped dead in the kitchen as he saw that, yes, something had. A Whimsun apparently got in through the window, and Papyrus had clearly engaged in a very furious battle, given how he was monologuing at it.
"And I, the Great Papyrus, will be willing to spare you, but if you refuse I shall have no choice but to use my SPECIAL ATTACK!"
Sans grinned, sitting at the table to watch, though he frowned curiously as he noticed the bottom drawer—the one designated for their bones—was slightly open. Was that a tail?
The poor Whimsun, meanwhile, was hyperventilating too hard for it to leave.
"You leave me no choice!" Very slowly, as if expecting the Whimsun to attack, Papyrus leaned down and opened the bottom drawer. There was a little bark, and a white dog bounded out and skittered out of the house. "Again?"
Sans laughed. "Looks like you'll have to bow-wow-t, Pap."
"Sans!"
All of this was far too much for the poor Whimsun, who flew back out the window, crying hysterically. Papyrus turned and frowned at his brother, who shrugged.
"Hey, that counts as a win."
"You were no help at all! Have you always been this lazy?" He waved his hand at the window. "We had a threat at hand!"
Sans grinned. "I thought you did really well. You were doggone great, actually."
"SANS!"
He jumped down with his seat with a laugh. "Okay, okay, I'm done. I promise. I need to get going, anyway." As he walked out of the room, he stopped. "And, uh, take it easy when you're out with Undyne today. You had a ruff morning." He teleported away with a laugh, but not before hearing Papyrus' wordless scream of annoyance. And to think, he'd been too busy working last time around to really enjoy Papyrus' hatred of puns.
Through some spectacular willpower, Sans managed to get through most of the research session without saying anything. He greeted and contributed, yes, but he didn't mention his reset, not yet. He had to wait for the right moment. He had to make sure everyone knew their theory was correct. This time around, it was Terrin who read out their final theory; he had done it last time, but the anticipation left him unable to say anything.
"All right, everyone, so here's our conclusion…" She was bouncing in excitement. "Since humans are made up of mostly water, they can flow between timelines with the large amount of magic down here. But, it is likely possible that a monster could force their own magic and dust to float to another timeline. But no monster would, because it would…"
"I did it."
It came out a lot softer than he'd anticipated; he'd expected to be shouting about his success now that he could. But after months of keeping his secret, it felt almost…wrong to reveal it now. Nonetheless, every eye in the lab was on him. Terrin lowered the paper she had been reading from.
"What?"
Sans swallowed, then gave everyone a nervous smile. "I did it. I reset." His voice shook as he stood up. "It was…well, it's hard to explain, but it was, uh, tonight? We'd gotten to this point, a-and then that night, I focused on letting myself, uh, get to another timeline…or maybe just back in time, I haven't figured that out yet. So I ended up going back to when we started the group." He grinned. "But I did it. And I'm fine! Monsters can do it!"
There was a stunned silence, then Sans was immediately barraged with questions.
"Did it hurt?"
"Was this timeline any different? Or was it, like, time travel?"
"So that's why your answers were always right!"
"Did you have to fight yourself?"
"Why would you do something so dangerous, Sans?"
"You are leaving something out." The group went silent as Gaster spoke. He looked up at the other skeleton. "You did not mention the, ah, side-effect."
"Side-effect?"
"Oh my god, Sans, what happened?"
"Are you okay?"
Sans held up his hands. "Okay, okay, everyone calm down. It's nothing dangerous or harmful. It just, uh…" He grinned, then teleported to the other side of the room. "Let's just say I know a lot of shortcuts now."
Another silence. And then the room was absolute chaos. There were congratulations, shouts about how they could all reset now, frantic rustlings of paper to see if this was really possible or if Sans was just pranking them. Sans glowed with pride; he was the first to do this, after all. His expression dimmed, though, as he caught Gaster's worried look. He cleared his throat.
"Uh, hey guys, guys!"
Once again, all eyes were on him. He looked around the room at each of his colleagues.
"Uh…I mean, it's not something we should abuse, y'know? The teleporting…I mean, it's really cool, but…it's, uh, probably not good in the long run? I don't know. I haven't really had the resources to look into it."
"But I have." Everyone turned as Gaster spoke again. "I…still have quite a few unanswered questions, but I have been doing research during my off-hours to find out why you were affected in this way. The, er, teleporting, as you are all calling it, is likely a result of the dust you have lost during your reset, not to mention whatever comes with altering time." He let out a breath, looking at the group. "But…I am afraid this does change our theory. Monsters are able to reset, but we do not know what the implications of this are. So…I propose continuing the research." His browbone furrowed. "But we must exercise extreme caution. Time is a delicate thing, as are we. I…cannot forbid you from resetting, but please, only once if you must. If Sans is slightly unstable after one, I cannot imagine what more would do." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "But for now, let us break." He smiled a bit. "I am certain that you all have plenty of questions, and I am not one to discourage questioning." He gave a little wave toward Sans. "As you were."
The group turned back and began hounding Sans again.
"Hang on, hang on! Let a skeleton breathe!" he laughed. "Tell you what, let's head to Grillby's and I'll tell you guys everything." He winked. "Race you all there," he said, then teleported away.
Grillby's was quiet—for now, anyway, he'd have to leave Grillby a big tip after the Q and A session—and he had a moment to think. Things had been nice for the past couple months. He had known what big things would happen, which meant he'd been prepared. There were some little variations from the first time he'd lived through these past months, obviously: more time with Papyrus, more conversations and lessons with Gaster, less worry from his job. But overall, nothing had surprised him since he'd done it before. Now though…now he was going into uncharted territory.
And, if he was being honest with himself, he was more than a little worried about all the possibilities. There was still that thing that launched all this research, and the humans, and a whole host of other potential problems.
But, as he heard the research group come through the door, he relaxed. Twice in a row things had been good. Maybe, if he was lucky, things would keep being good.
A skeleton could hope, right?
