Learn When to Quit
Act II — That's Your Fault

Scene 5 — Something to Ketchup on


Grillby's was pretty close to what she initially had in mind. Whether those images and memories came from the game or from most fanarts or even comics she had seen about it, she could not have noticed any major difference. Well, this seemed obvious, but considering the recent divergences… It still was worth mentioning.
The restaurant was already one of those places she loved in that fandom's universe, if only because of its design; and she was glad that the 'real' version of it definitely had kept that heart-warming convivial ambience – should it be only because of the local temperature. So upon finally entering this little realm, Dawn immediately felt like she had just fallen in love with the setting for the second time.

When Sans had teleported them a few steps away in the shadows of a corner, she had discovered with surprise that for some reason, the Underground still had some kind of night and day system— because apparently the streets were somehow much darker by now. The skeleton had simply pointed to her the –pretty high– ceiling, and even though her eyes weren't sensible enough to distinguish anything, she trusted him when he simply stated that they could afford some minimal lighting all around the Underground— well, mostly the Ruins, Snowdin and New Home, at least. Waterfall was too vast and tortuous for electric installments to really be worth the effort –which was why the locals had just invested in lanterns, and only kept electricity for the town and little villages themselves–, and Hotland was already providing its own natural lighting system anyway, no matter day or night. Anyways, they could afford all that lighting thanks to the CORE's energy, and they had decided to still imitate some night-and-day pattern, for the sake of general convenience and economy.
Sans had been surprised at first when she had said she could not see anything at all, but he quickly remembered that indeed a few monsters, and mostly humans, couldn't see in the dark as well as some others did— especially him. Apparently skeletons just didn't see the difference at all, or had some kind of night-vision or something? Well, he didn't even have eyes in the first place, so that was tricky.

Anyways— right behind the next corner, there it was, and there she got through the window a glimpse of what it was like— and from that point she had only one wish, to just get in as fast as possible and admire the place from the inside. She didn't care if it was just supposed to be some fast-food or anything, at the moment it just appeared to her as one of the loveliest places she had ever seen since she arrived— and, granted, the rest of the Underground was pretty impressive too.
She was not sure to know what exactly made this place so special to her — surely she would be even more excited by the magic of the light tricks in Waterfall —, but this little incidental location had just… this little spark of conviviality that was so rare and yet so subtly omnipresent everywhere else in the Underground; but there was no other place than this little restaurant, where this sentiment had ever been so obvious and warm, and… shared with that many monsters.

Toriel's home was definitely and objectively the most welcoming place in the Underground— for a human at least. But… Between its long clean white walls, there still was that overwhelming sensation of… loneliness. Her home was just so big for one person— even for two.
Would she have been in Frisk's place… Maybe she would have eventually wished to leave and meet new people, actually. This was a really weird feeling, now that she was thinking about it— weren't most fans just thinking the very opposite?

But she wasn't in Toriel's home, and here she had before her wide sparkling eyes quite the reverse: a whole town gathered into one single room.

There, it was it. In the end, Grillby's was just that— the very embodiment of the monsters' bonds and friendships— across a whole little snowy town. And this was just beautiful.

And then, just as she was absorbed in her admiration as she and Sans were waving cheerfully at the others and walking towards the counter, just as everything seemed to go just as expected…

"Good evening, Sans." a low voice greeted calmly. "We haven't seen you all day… And now you're showing a girl around?" he chuckled.

Grillby had just talked.

Grillby had just –freaking– TALKED.
And oh God didn't he have a handsome voice just to match his handsome outfit and seriously this was just too much she didn't care if she looked stupid right now with that overly nervous dorky grin on her lips this was just too much oh gosh that was so awesome.

Alright, now she understood why that guy had a few fangirls on the internet.

She slightly turned her bewildered face towards Sans and from the corner of her eye, she saw his tense firm look of that disapproving 'whatever it is that you were about to say, DON'T say it.'

Breathe in. Breathe out. Whatever you do, don't let that overly high-pitched fangirlish scream get out and shatter all the glassware in the restaurant. Grillby wouldn't like that and maybe he'd even get mad and you don't want that.

"she's… just a new visitor." the skeleton said hurriedly, trying nervously to stray the fire elemental's attention away from the creepy teenage weirdo. "we'll take two burgs."

It was even harder to guess Grillby's emotions than it had been until then for Sans— and even then, she actually had by now got used to deciphering the skeleton's tiniest twinges even on his supposedly stuck smirk –which could actually really move, if only very subtly— too subtly for his pixel-y depiction to really show any noticeable difference.
But now, with the barman's complete lack of face, that would be quite something else. She remembered that in some comics the artists would use his glasses as some sort of means to give away some hints of expressions by slightly altering their form, as if the glasses could narrow or wide their lenses similarly to eyebrows— but that wasn't the case here, those glasses were just regular ones. Now that she was staring enough she could actually distinguish through the firestorm some little brighter dots that would probably be his eyes, but the contrast was so weak that she could hardly see any more details about them.
Maybe the intensity of his flames would be a way to read his emotions…? Ugh, that would take a while to learn to do that.

In any ways— although he had seemingly nodded, she still felt –not saw, felt– that overwhelming stare he had given her for a split second, before leaving wordlessly –and actually pretty hurriedly– for the kitchen.

He… probably knew what a human was, uh?

"Sans, you think he…?"
"he's not stupid, kid. and he told me once that… he's actually seen humans before." he simply shrugged. "but don't worry, you're with me. he won't do anything." And he turned a joking glance at her while winking playfully: "i mean, you should know that, right?"

And yeah, indeed, she could perfectly remember that Grillby would never do anything to Frisk in any run, and especially not during that little meal they would have with Sans at some point during the game.
… But in the game, he would not talk either.

Hey, did that mean that Frisk would talk too, if given the chance?

"hey, now that i'm thinking about it." Sans continued after a silence. "you said something about receiving texts on your phone or something?"

She jolted back to reality, but immediately nodded and showed him the little white rectangle. As he apparently couldn't use it himself either, she simply tapped a few buttons before showing him some random messages—

"you haven't read them yet?" he uttered right away in confusion, seeing the little icons indicating that the 'new messages' in question were… still marked as being 'new.'

She bit her lips guiltily.

"… I-I… didn't feel like reading them yet." she simply muttered awkwardly. "I can't answer them for now, so I just… couldn't bring myself to just read and feel bad when I know that I won't be able to reassure them about anything…" She chuckled weakly: "Stupid, I know. B-But I just… A-Actually I wanted you to know about them first. So that you'd tell me if there'd still be some way to contact them… I-I'd read them if I could find a way to answer back, I mean. I-If that makes any sense to you."
"… i see." he merely retorted in a low and thoughtful tone.
"But, if my phone still managed to get those messages to begin with… That must mean there'd be some way to contact them back, right?"

Yikes. Her tone was so full of hope.
And yet, if it really was what he had in mind… That would just mean nothing at all, sadly.

[Jocelyn — 05/02 — 06:33 AM]
Hey, where are you? We're still waiting for the livestream, you know?

06:33 AM… Yeah, definitely what he had thought.
Sorry, kid.

He would still need to check the other texts maybe, but who would send such message at six in the morning? And just coincidentally, it was matching with the time he had been using his machine to visit a little more their network— no, really, it was more than obvious that it was by that time that her phone, by just being there in the same room at the same moment, had been able to get back some connection to the internet and telephonic systems, allowing it to receive all those messages all at once. It was the most obvious answer and it made perfect sense on and of itself… Even if it meant that there would be no more hope to ever do that again, since the only machine able to do such thing was now gone forever.

Really, if he was trying to keep reading and look for hints to refute this theory, it was just because he was so not eager to tell her the bad news.

[Jocelyn — 05/02 — 06:34 AM]
What's the holdup, you got a game over just by typing your name or what?
(You didn't type "GASTER", did you? Just in case you'd be trying to stall us with the infinite loop troll. I already know your tricks, buddy ;))

Wait, what the—
… Alright. Alright, alright, all right he would not ask for now but if he could afford to still go back on one of those websites, he would be so eager to go and check everything they knew and ever found about him.
But— for now this was not the main problem. So reluctantly he simply gave her the phone back and acted as if nothing was wrong.

"you… did have some friends back there." He uneasily tried to change the subject, uttering some random obvious fact in order to clear his own mind from all those dark memories. His statement was so obvious that he couldn't help but let go a little nervous chuckle that almost cracked.
"… Yeah." And she cracked along with him. This could only go oh so well…
"you miss them, don't you…" he added awkwardly. well, no duh.

He chortled somberly, and she followed in a slight smirk that was just as genuine as his— that was to say, not to the least.
She took her cellphone back and merely glanced at the screen and the little conversation visible on it…
Fortunately, she didn't seem to notice anything special. Good.

"Joss…" she merely said, hardly repressing some sad smile in the corner of her lips. "She'll never change."

She sighed silently, going back to the list of her contacts. She saw that Amaryllis had sent twelve of them and… her traits suddenly hardened, as she lost her smile and bit her lips, narrowing her eyes.

"is… something wrong?" Sans couldn't help but ask. Well, once again he was just stating the obvious, but it's not like he could really find any subtler way to bring such topic smoothly.

She sighed another time, just turning off her phone and digging it back into her jeans' back pocket.
So she really would not even look at that specific girl's messages, uh…

"No, it's… alright." But expectedly, she had just turned her eyes away while saying this in a tone that was a little too hesitant for really being genuine. "I guess I'm just… good at holding grudges."

He gave her a puzzled look, but she didn't look back.
Well, here came back just some random deduction and this time his thoughts lacked so much evidence it was just some wild guess, but… Looking at her expression, maybe it still was worth a shot.

"she's one of the reasons why you're here in the first place, isn't she?"

She shrugged in a somewhat detached manner, but then merely nodded.

"You're really good at that guessing thingy." she giggled almost jokingly. "What gave it away, this time?"
"nothing. that one was just some rambling thought, really." he shrugged along, giving her an almost sheepish smile.
"Well in any ways, you really are awfully good at it." She merely laughed it off. He was not sure to know whether or not that was a good or a bad thing.

There suddenly was some silence, as she slowly quietened her chortle and started to actually look lost in thought. Or maybe even… remorseful?

"Sans, I… I-I think I should tell you something."

By that overly uneasy attitude she was giving right now, it had to be something relevant— at least relevant enough so she would… Yeah, she definitely was afraid that he would potentially get mad at her if she ever told him what she had in mind…
And yet there would be no more turning back, now that she had said just that.

"alright kid. go ahead." he uttered calmly, shrugging humorously and trying to sound comforting. That couldn't be that serious, honestly. She was probably just dramatizing it a little too much, just as usual. "i can promise ya i won't get mad, if you want. not like i intended to or anything anyway."

He winked at her. At least that would be a promise he could easily keep, and it didn't even matter anyway. Well… not as much as the other one.
In response, she chuckled uneasily— even though it did seem to lift a weight on her guilt-ridden back.

"I-It's… About the hard mode. Actually I-I k-k-kinda lied to you." She took a deep breath, forcedly closing her eyes: "It… really wasn't an accident."

Oh. If it was just that.
Well, then she really had been an actual 'Player' then, uh? He had… This was still some kind of betrayal in the end and he indeed didn't like that because he had trusted her when she had said otherwise and it was frustrating to know that he had actually been tricked so easily, but— not like it would ever change anything, by now. That was just the past.

So she really could be a pretty good liar when she really felt like it, huh.

Looking at her face right now, the stare he had unintentionally been giving her was probably a little too frightening and angry for her to keep her calm and before he realized it, she was already cutting him short in panic:

"B-But it really was the first time I ever played, I s-swear!" His look was now that of two wide puzzled eye-sockets eager to hear the rest of the story, and it seemed like she (somewhat) started to calm down and sigh once more, as she ran a hand on her burning forehead. "P-Please let me explain."

They had all the time they wanted right now, so sure he could just listen to her why not. Not like they had anything better to do right now, and besides— he was curious to learn how all the pieces of the puzzle would assemble… If only because it would maybe help him to further understand that unpredictably unstable weird girl.
If everything else she had ever said was true, then why would someone like her ever want to try the hard mode, when she supposedly was not even interested in playing at all?

"W-When I said my friends made me play it… Well, at first they were just like 'Yeah, that's a great game, besides you're already a fan so why not?' and all. Lys made me register to an Undertale forum around five months ago just because, while I wasn't even that much fond of the fandom back then— but that was actually a very good idea to do so because I met awesome guys there… I-It's just that I just really wasn't interested in playing, at all. I would watch videos and Let's Plays, but since I just sucked at videogames, I didn't even try myself since it just wouldn't be worth it and I'd just give up, like, a few minutes later." She sighed deeply. "And n-now I'm glad I never did. I'm sure I would've bothered you with loads of Reloads every ten seconds while I'd just still be stuck in the Ruins or something and you wouldn't even know what'd be happening there for Frisk to die that much. Heh eh."

Sans chuckled along lightly, shrugging but apparently taking the joke along and somewhat genuinely laughing as he was probably imagining what it would have been like.
Well, on the other hand, he would probably just interpret that as the upcoming run to be completely harmless for him and his friends (at the very least, he would guess that she wouldn't get too far if she ever tried to do things the wrong way), and her (astoundingly legendary lack of) video gaming skills would be memorably laughable, even from his own perspective. Heh, what if she had eventually made it past the Ruins and met him and got some annoying-yet-hilarious remark from Sans himself? That would have been priceless.

Creepy too maybe, but she had been known for being so bad at videogames that she could always find some improbable way to bend the rules and get some allegedly impossible outcomes by still playing normally. Reaching — and immediately dying in supposedly unreachable places, getting marks that were so low that no one was even aware that such results existed in the first place, and so on. If that had ever happened actually, maybe her friends and she would have just interpreted that as some ultimate troll from the creator that no one had ever heard about ever before because never the world had ever been meant to bear Players that hopeless.

"A-Anyway— that never happened. I-I mean, you'd have noticed if that had been the case, right? P-Probably. B-B-But that's besides the point." she mumbled clumsily. "Some of my closest friends there – mostly Joss, actually –, would then just start to try to persuade me to do it. At first it was just some recurring private joke between a few friends, and then it just began to become some kind of dumb competition between whom of them would be the first one to finally make me start a game." she chuckled weakly and shrugged, even if her look appeared to be… nostalgic? "I was just playing along since that was just, you know, some kind of running gag between us. Harmless and all."

Well… He could understand that. Would he have been part of that crowd and all, under the same circumstances, from the point that it really would be just some 'normal' videogame or whatever and from the point that it was just a prank— yes, he would definitely have played along, added some bad puns to the arguments and everything. And while saying this, she really meant it when she genuinely said that she, herself, was actually enjoying the joke as it was…

And yet a strange spark suddenly lit in the corner of her eye, as she continued her tale:

"… Until Lys actually made it."

Well… If she was here sitting next to him, it had been obvious that at some point, she had been at least trying to play. That was how his plan had worked after all. Catching the 'Player' during the exact moment they would be certain to be just in front of their keyboard by typing and confirming the Fallen Human's name. No mistake could have been made there— the one he would be grabbing had to be the one about to play.

But the way she was saying it… Well, at this point this was fairly obvious:

"she didn't really convince you the right way, did she…" he simply stated.
"That's… a good way to sum it up." she silently and weakly nodded, looking away with narrowed hurt eyes. "In any ways— she… Let's say she convinced me to make some kind of livestream on Star— I-I mean, on some chat online. You won't know Starpe right? S-So all I had to do was start a livestream on the group chat we already had, with the screen sharing thing and all…" Her tone had continuously lowered as she seemed to mourn in guilt and embarrassment. Sans was doing his best to give her a reassuring look, but it was no use since she would not even look at him. Her last sentence was now no more than a faint whisper: "And that's how I got the idea to play the hard mode instead."

Just by hearing her tone and studying her expression… Whatever it was that 'Lys' had done to change her mind, that had been deeply maddening her ever since.
But under such circumstances, the next part was beyond obvious:

"The whole point was to get my butt kicked publicly. So I just… wanted to make sure to get them some good show."
"heh… makes sense, i guess." he gravely nodded.
"It's just that I… After what she did— e-even if she probably didn't do it on purpose, I just… I-I just didn't want to play along. She hadn't played by the rules, so… I j-just wanted to return the favor, somehow. By just finding some loophole in the deal or something."

Yeah. He could understand that… Even though that didn't sound like some real serious matter and merely was meant to be just some boring childish argument, the fact that none of them had known anything about the actual consequences had completely changed it all.

"A-Anyway— I… I didn't tell you right away because—"
"because it would've been too long and complicated to tell, and i probably wouldn't have believed you at the time. i get it." He shrugged and sighed calmly, giving her a nice and relaxed comforting smile. "that's alright."
"… I-I was scared, Sans. I really was. I-I just… did the first stupid thing I thought of that could potentially save my life or whatever."

Heh. He… really had scared the crap out of her at first, indeed. That was fully understandable and just as he had thought… Well, it didn't even matter anyway.

One thing was still bothering him about all this, though.

"and now you're putting all the blame on your friend, huh."
"Lys… I had never been that close to anyone before. S-She used to be my best friend since fourth grade and she would just always protect me against everything— I-I thought she'd always have my back, and now… I-I just don't know. I'm sure she didn't even do it on purpose to begin with, but…" She sighed bitterly, closing her narrowing eyes and lowering her head shamefacedly. "After all that… I-I just can't bring myself to forgive her."

Sans was tempted to ask her what exactly that friend of hers had done— and yet judging by her look and tone, she would probably not want to talk about it.
And yet he started to chuckle uneasily.

"What?"
"no, it's…" He paused, sighing and trying to think about the best way to bring up what he had in mind: "you say you can't forgive your best friend, and yet you're not even mad at me for bringing you into all this mess. i just find that… odd."
"S-Sans, t-that's not… I-It's different." she awkwardly stuttered, looking away once more. "Y-Y-You had your reasons."
"and she did too, didn't she?"
"Well, yeah she did, but—" She suddenly stopped, then frowned and face-palmed. And then she started to both laugh clumsily and groan at the same time: "… Uugh, I hate it when you're right. I really am not making any sense, am I…"

The skeleton paused and closed his eye-sockets thoughtfully, but he eventually uttered some mumbled retort:

"i… i think you're making sense, kid."

She gave him a lost and puzzled look, and yet he could see from the corner of his eye-holes that her hands were still trembling— very slightly, they were more being tense than really shaking at all… But that was just another piece of evidence for what he was about to say, and he hated it.

"that's not what i wanted, and i guess you don't want that either, but…" He sighed, turning slowly his skull towards her and giving her two sad and guilt-ridden white pellets. "you're still scared of me, aren't you?"

She hurriedly opened her mouth and gasped for air, as if she were about to utter as fast as possible some random retort to refute his sayings… But it only took her a split second to realize that just this last reaction was exactly confirming them— just the way it had been enough to fully convince him that he had been right.

She lowered her look and tried to mouth some apologies, and yet her throat was completely dry and her voice turned mute.

"that's why you won't let yourself get mad at me, isn't it? i don't know if it's your phobia or if it's just because you'd be scared to get me to get mad at you in return or something, but… you just don't want to show how mad you really are because i screwed up and that because of that now you're stuck here. am i right?"

She waited for a few seconds… but merely nodded in the end.
She was not really fully convinced of that herself but that did sound a little bit like that and even if she wanted to disagree she just could not find the words to say otherwise.

"So you mean it's your fault if she's here, then? Well, isn't that unexpected."

They both jerked their heads up and faced Grillby with shock. Since when was he back on the counter…? F-For how long had he been listening to them?!
The fire elemental simply put two plates in front of them with two very nice-looking hamburgers. The scent was wonderful and they were still warm and somewhat fuming. Just the way she liked them most.

But now that she was thinking about it— it had taken him a while to make just two hamburgers. What had he been doing otherwise during all this time…?

"Sorry I ended up eavesdropping." the barman apologized in a low tone, even though for some reason no particular emotion such as, let's say, sincerity could be found in his voice. She didn't like that. "I just wanted to tell you that the Canine Unit did catch your human smell and some members were getting suspicious, so I had to cover up for you and find some reason to make them leave for now. You're welcome by the way."

Sans and Dawn turned around by reflex, and noticed that indeed more than half of the other seats in the restaurant were now empty, leaving now only some harmless civilians – half of whom almost seemed to be either sleepy or drunk, even.
… Could monsters get drunk?

Anyways… They really had been a little too absorbed in their conversation then, huh.
The teenager, still under the shock and her mouth still gaping in genuine awe, barely managed to mumble some awkward "T-T-Thanks."

I can't believe this just happened am I dreaming is that even possible this is so cool I don't wanna wake up that's so sweet oh my God he's so awesome.

And yet now the fire monster leaned a little more towards her and— she didn't like the heat coming from him. He didn't look amused and it scared her. What exactly could he do? Or rather… what would he do?

"But you still owe me an explanation, human." he retorted dryly. "I trust Sans so I'll help you too for now, but I would still prefer to at least know why I'm betraying the King's policy."
"Oh, uh…" She quickly gave Sans a lost questioning look, silently asking him what to answer— but the skeleton simply gave her an approving shrug. "… S-Sure. It's… a very long story, though."

Apparently her uneasy and scared attitude was enough for him to calm down immediately.
That… surely was quick. Had it just been an act before?

"It's okay, miss." the fire elemental chuckled, already back to his usual relaxed tone. "I'm a barman: that's my job to listen to my clients' tales." he shrugged jokingly. "Especially when they are likely to be fascinating."

Heh, no wonder he and Sans were getting along that well. They seemed to share the same tricks and… maybe the same sense of humor, even?

In any ways— while gladly enjoying their delicious meals, Sans and her just started to both tell their story from the very beginning, and – very surprisingly –, even though he was obviously skeptical at first, he was actually pretty quick to believe them— to believe Sans, at least.
Dawn was also secretly surprised to see how Sans was not so secretive anymore and how it had been actually so easy to make him talk— but two main reasons quickly came in her mind to justify such behavior.
Firstly: that was Grillby, and it really wasn't hard to guess how Sans was apparently used to talking to him as a friend about pretty much anything. And looking at him right now… He actually seemed to fully enjoy this moment as it was— as if it had been a very long time he could not have actually had a meaningful conversation with that monster.
And second… If he was right, then it soon would not even matter whether or not he told anyone— since the next Reset was likely to come any time during the night.

She shuddered. How could he ever get used to everyone else regularly forgetting about just everything he would tell them?

Ironically enough, the barman would always chill out and keep his cool in every occasion— even when Sans brought the 'videogame' part. She had never expected him to ever tell anyone else about that, and yet she was both surprised to hear him not only bring up the topic, but to see Grillby actually believe him and shrug as if it were nothing. Even if Sans was not very precise with the details and even if he deliberately lured him into believing in some kind of alternate version that was close enough without being truly real — "what, you think there could be an actual connection between this game and our world…? naaah, just a coincidence." —, but… Honestly, could anything ever surprise that guy?

After a few longer minutes, the monster would have some more questions; but they were much more casual and actually coming from some deep and genuine curiosity. About the human culture, about how 'that other Surface' looked like, and he even asked some questions about the game as if it were just some real, completely normal, videogame.
Sans would even eventually start to come along and ask his own many questions, and the human started then to shyly feel embarrassed over it as those questions started to get a little too personal.

"Uuh, w-we've been talking a lot about myself 'till now." she mumbled sheepishly. "H-How about you two, then? Sans, you're a lot into science stuff and you are good at it— I mean, I'm just proof enough of that, don't you think? So how come you are now a sentry and doing odd jobs like that instead?"

The skeleton awkwardly looked away in unease, and she actually evilly enjoyed that. Even better, Grillby actually chuckled along and raised a thoughtful hand to jokingly rub his nonexistent chin.
Oh, he could be laughing now. Sans was first, but his turn would come too eventually. Now was time for her revenge, and she would show no mercy to any of them.

Her only regret was that the common rumor about skeletons blushing blue (or blushing at all, for that matter) turned out to be entirely untrue. She was now sure that if Sans had ever been able to do so, right now he would have had his skull at least partially colored with some deep azure of embarrassment.

"oh you know, there's really nothin' important to it. i mean, you already know all of it in the game anyway, so—"
"Oh no you won't. You've been tricking me into telling all about myself all along for the past three days. Now it's your turn."

Until then, he had somewhat kept his joyful and joking attitude— and yet now for some reason he was not amused anymore. Well, it wasn't hard to guess from the game that he had had somehow some kind of awful tragic past or something, and the fans had been very creative with piecing together dozens of theories of all sorts and all, most of them being just sad or even horrible…
But he had it coming.

"i just happened to study science in hotland 'till college and then i stopped because i lost interest so papyrus got me a job in the royal guard, the end. there, satisfied?" he rolled his white dots inside of his frowning eye-sockets, and if she didn't have her necrophobia to make her slightly shudder upon seeing that, she would just have thought it to be cute and funny.
"Nu-uh. No way out of it." she yet chanted evilly, shaking her head in some ridiculous childish dance. "This is backstory time. Yours. Right now."
"I must admit Sans, the human is right." Grillby came in with a light humorous chuckle. "I am very curious too. It's been almost three years and you keep coming regularly, but nobody ever learned anything about you or your brother's origins. You could avoid my questions until now, but I would really like to know you a little more. What brought you here?"
"oh geez…" the skeleton face-palmed, laughing uneasily. "if you're teaming up now then i really don't stand a chance, do i?"
"Nope~!" Dawn giggled, a wide proud grin of victory on her face.

Oh she was so eager now to dig into the spoilers and finally get the final truth about all those fan theories. So now that someone finally had this unique chance to directly consult the Word of God himself, which story was canon?

"Come on, Sans. There must be a reason you're not a scientist anymore. What happened?"

Still face-palming, the monster was now rubbing his skull with his still gloved hand as he sighed deeply.

"let's just say… i've actually never been an actual scientist. really. i studied and all and i spent weeks in my father's lab and sometimes i'd even help him and follow his research— i mean, i got my master's degree there —, but i was too young to officially take part in the real stuff by that time, so…"
"Woah-woah-whoa. Wait." she immediately interrupted. "You mean that… Gaster really was your father?"
"wait, how did you…"

Just by reflex, he had widened in shock his eye-sockets— but as he had straight away remembered who had uttered such name and how that person could possibly have connected the dots, he just face-palmed and sighed once more.

"… ugh. i mean yeah, he was."

Maybe he could take advantage of this opportunity to directly ask her about the details…
And yet, for some reason, her reaction was not really the one he had expected.

"Haha, YES!" she suddenly cried in victory to no one in particular. "Take that Steven, I was right!"

The two friends – along even with some of the other remaining monsters behind that just heard such cry of victory for no apparent reason – stared at her in shock and bewilderment, and upon seeing this she coughed uneasily.

"… uh. S-S-Sorry. I g-guess I got a little carried away there. K-Keep going."

And yet he would not answer, now burying his head into both of his hands and grumbling some inaudible meaningless grunts.

"Hm. I see someone's even more popular than they seem around here." Grillby mused, laughing jokingly after a short silence.
"Well, it's not my fault if you've got tons of fangirls back there, and that since you're still so mysterious about everything and all that, there are dozens of theories about you."
"yeah, i can guess y'all've been speculating an' stuff about that, huh." Sans eventually stared at the ceiling for an instant, before closing his eye-sockets and chuckling lightly. "heh. i suppose i'll regret asking but, what else did you guys have in mind otherwise?"

The girl coughed uneasily. Should she really…?
Oh well. She wanted her revenge and making him uncomfortable was hilarious. Especially if Grillby himself was here to support her. So why the heck not?

"Well let's just say, one of the most common theories are that he was either your brother or your father— sometimes some people even compared him to some 'Grandpa Semi' or something? I think that's cut content but maybe it still rings a bell?"
"well, that guy surely wasn't my mother." the skeleton shrugged and winked, and she could have sworn that if that scene was from the game's perspective, she would somehow have heard a rimshot, even without a pun.
"But… One of the most popular theories is that you and Paps are just some experiments he made for various reasons."

She had never thought before that it could have been possible for a skeleton to do such thing, but Sans somehow managed to choke upon his ketchup drinking and kept coughing for a few longer seconds.
Bingo~
Well, he had seen it coming and he deserved it. It was all his own fault, and his face right now was just priceless.

"who the hell came up with ideas like that?" he muttered to himself, now back to his awkward embarrassed face-palm.
"Dunno." she shrugged carelessly. "Some people think that he was trying to build weapons against humans, others speculate that he was toying with Souls for the sake of science or whatever… In most depictions, Gaster was kind of some sociopath jerk, though. And that after a while he went too far and careless and had an accident with the CORE or something."
"but he… what… kid, this is not just some random lame scenario for…"


Oh, yeah. Of course.

Yeah, it was, after all. Haha. Hahahahaha.

Wait.
Did that mean that they could have ended up with such origins?!

Grillby was literally dying of laughter right now.

"seriously, though, t-that's just ridiculous. we were working in the physics branch, not in… whatever you had in mind that department doesn't even exist." Sans sighed. "the closest thing would be the natural energies section. random soul shenanigans and other biological stuff, that's alphys' area. and even though sometimes we were collaborating, that'd never be to do such things."
"Yeah… That's why I wasn't fond of this idea. Well, at least that's one of the reasons." Dawn uttered uneasily. She held her breath for a few moments, hesitating before asking her next question: "He wasn't a bad guy, was he?"

She heard the skeleton laugh quietly. He sounded so sad, and yet… nostalgic, probably.
Ugh. Now she was feeling bad for asking.

"he was the best dad ever, kid." he eventually said in a soft tone. "plus he got to be not only the brightest mind in the underground, but the brightest teacher too. he taught me everything."
"I… see." She couldn't help but look down… and somehow her hamburger leftovers didn't look as appetizing as they were until now. "There's still… something I don't understand, though."

Sans jerked his skull up slightly and shrugged.

"sure. go ahead."

She noticed Grillby had stayed silent too for a few minutes, probably just listening by now… Maybe he just didn't dare disturb their conversation with meaningless questions.

"From what we know, he was scattered through space and time or whatever after his accident, and somehow every trace or memory of his very existence disappeared or whatever. So…" Judging by the deep and somewhat confused yet smart look on his face, she deduced that he already knew what her question would be; and yet she still felt the need to ask it openly: "How can you remember about him? Is that connected to the fact that you can remember Resets too?"

He sighed once more as his left hand started to scartch the back of his skull, seemingly about to answer—
And yet a bang from the door cut him short before he even had time to utter anything.

They barely had the time to turn back and see for themselves what was going on that one large loud female voice resonated in the room and made the wood walls tremble as she stepped inside.

"SANS! I can't believe I'm seeing this!"

The monsters had just frozen to her sight, and judging by their attitudes and the voice… The human was quick to put two and two together.

Undyne.

… That was not good.

Sans was the first to react, jumping out of his seat and carefully standing before her— but he obviously looked stunned, as he had definitely not expected her to ever come here by herself. He quickly checked his hoodie's pocket, but Papyrus' phone was still there. So… How? What was she doing here?!

"uh… hey, undyne." he chuckled nervously. "what brings you here so late?"

The fish monster grunted in contempt.

"I was worried, Sans. You realize that?" she hissed. "Papyrus didn't come for his usual report all day, he was not even answering his phone, and you weren't at your post at all. And now I see this."

Finally Dawn dared to perk one glance at her, succumbing to her dying curiosity—
The one first word she could find was that she was… beautiful. There was some majesty in her confidence, so much dignity in her attitude— this first impression surely was impressive, to say the least.
Through her red messy hair she could find the hurry of some deeply worried friend, and her tough yet still cold blue scales dropping with anxious and determined sweat all over her forehead were betraying her genuine rush as she had probably ran all her way from Waterfall until here, hardly wearing some warm jacket and a scarf instead of her armor— she was not expecting at all what she was seeing here, that was obvious. And now she was seeing that not only were they fine, but that they had also betrayed her and were talking with the enemy… She could not help but understand, somehow.
According to the current circumstances… Deep down she knew who was right.

"… yeah. whoops. uh, sorry. but i can assure you that there's a perfectly logical explanation to all this and that you'd really wanna listen to it, so…"

She clenched her fists, and the teenager swore she was seeing some… light emitting from them? A little like some green halo, and…
For some reason she was so terrified she would not even feel her own fear and somehow she was serene and could not turn her eyes away from her. This radiant hypnotic glaze… Somehow she could understand such honesty. Such sense of justice.

"Wait, not in the—"

Grillby was suddenly cut short when, just as he had pleaded not to, a spear drove near the human and barely reached her— wouldn't it have been for Sans' quick reaction to grab her arm and open a shortcut, making them both disappear completely in an instant.

The teal glowing lance reached the counter, but no one actually cared at the moment: all eyes were staring in shock at the very spot the two intruders had been standing just seconds ago.

"Did Sans just… really do that?" Undyne eventually uttered in deep confusion.
"Can Sans really do that?" Grillby simply retorted, giving her a suspicious look.

They were both here… and then— not here anymore.
What was that supposed to be? No monster had ever heard of such… phenomenon before.

"I… I think Alphys told me once something about him being able to teleport, but I never… I-I mean, that's ridiculous…" the fish monster uttered uneasily.

Well, that did explain how he could be nowhere and everywhere at the same time, handling dozens of jobs at once anywhere and everywhere in the Underground… She could never actually catch him slacking off because he always happened to be at a different station whenever she was around one of them and expecting him to be sleeping on the counter. So no matter how absurd such idea seemed…

He had hardly used his magic to do such thing— she, along with the other monsters, would have felt it if it had really been the case. She had seen his left eye glow blue for a second, but that had been all.

That was just pure nonsense. No more, no less.

And yet she would not stop here. That human… She had to understand what was going on, and whatever sort of enchantment it had plunged Sans into— she had to find a way to snap him out of it. That simply was not the lazybones she knew and that simply wasn't the type to randomly protect a foe from his own kind.

Undyne was about to dash back out of the restaurant and look for wherever they could have teleported to, but she was suddenly stopped when she heard some exaggerated coughing.
She turned around towards the fire elemental and groaned.

"What?"

Grillby gestured a quiet finger towards the broken wooden table and the spear still slicing its surface pretty badly.

"… You're still paying for that counter."


~ Reviews & Feedback ~

Well, once again this chapter was supposed to be just some random non-important filler at first, and now here we are with something much longer and much more intense than expected. So here comes back the splitting, and next chapter will be a Scene 5². For once the splitting felt natural, at least.

About the multiple Gaster theories, I was just toying with you, though. I myself am fond of most of those random stories, but I just thought that just the normal Dadster theory was the most "realistic" one- kinda.
And it's just that I wanted to imagine how Sans would react in such situation. I dunno. *shrug*

Also, yeah, I'm the type to believe that not that many people actually know about Sans' shortcuts. Just because. Alphys knows for spoiler reasons, Mettaton learned by accident when Sans would've just teleported in the lab while he was there similarly to (II,4²), and Sans would voluntarily show Frisk/Chara/the Player so that they'd have an idea of what he really could do, in case of need. During a fight, for example.
But meh, doesn't the game mention sometimes that the others are supposed to also have... at least heard of it? Well, looks like that's just another inconsistency here. Just for the sake of it.

Anyway. You guys still didn'see nuffin' yet. See ya for the next part and the real Act Finale. :/
Let's just say... It's gonna be a blast. Badum-tss.

And now the reviews:

#madmaliciangamer : Thank you! And well, here's one more then. Hope you liked it ;D