Sans struggled to keep up with the long strides of Gaster as he walked through the camp. The doctor had never been particularly considerate of the skeleton's needs, but he would usually slow down a little so Sans could keep up. Now, though, the man seemed too lost in his thoughts to remember he was being tailed by the short skeleton. As much as Sans wanted to say something, it would probably just upset the human more or the humans all around him that were giving murderous looks. So he clamped his jaw shut, bowed his head, and ran to keep up with the doctor.
Gaster left the camp without any hassle this time, the pale-faced guards not saying anything and keeping their heads down. Seemed the Arch-mage had already spoken to them.
The short walk to the practice range passed in the blink of an eye and Sans found himself standing behind Gaster as the man stared down the Arch-mage. The Arch-mage, for his part, couldn't have looked more disinterested if he tried. He waved his hand in the way he did, and instantly the caked sand became dry and free once again. All the water pulled into a sphere above the lot and was cast off to the side unceremoniously, landing with a crash in the grass. The Arch-mage stepped forward to stand near the middle of the lot, and Gaster did likewise. Sans took several steps back, settling down once he had to watch the fight.
The Arch-mage said, "Begin."
Too many things began happening at once, Sans could barely follow. Their souls flared with magic that Sans could just barely feel through the tarp on his soul. Gaster's eyes flared green as the ground of the sandlot gave way to blocks of green magic that rose and fell in unpredictable patterns. He summoned four green bubbles around himself, the one on the outside skinniest and the rest slowly becoming thicker. The Arch-mage had likewise summoned a green bubble around himself, a single incredibly thick one. He launched into the air, ringed in a halo of blue. With a start Sans realized he was flying with his blue magic. Not even he had the kind of control required for that, magic used on yourself was too unstable.
Not once did they stop moving. Gaster darted about as his blocks rose and fell to his whim, a master of the ground. The Arch-mage zipped back and forth in the air as the wind around him began to pick up and dark clouds began to form.
Gaster attacked first, before the Arch-mage conjured up a suitable storm. Chains of purple magic shot up from all around while purple spears tinged with yellow rained down from above. The Arch-mage scowled slightly as he successfully dodged most of them, though a few did bounce off his shield. Sans grinned, waiting for the shield to be eaten away by Gaster's Karmic Retribution. His grin slipped away to a frown a moment later when it wasn't, and continued to block attacks.
Gaster's soul was yellow, wasn't it? If it was, he should have the Justice ability. But even though his attacks had yellow supporting them, no Karmic Poisoning was apparent. Had Sans been wrong about the doctor's soul type? No, as he watched he could see where the tips of the spears and the chains tapped the shield. He could see the shield start to erode, then stop and repair itself. Was that the Arch-mage's doing? He shouldn't be able to resist the Poison, but he was anyways. Or maybe it wasn't the Arch-mage; maybe it was Gaster. If he was too unsynced with his soul type, not only could he lose HP, but he could lose access to his ability. It was rare among monsters, but not unheard of.
Sans' attention snapped back to the battle as thunder rumbled overhead. It was the Arch-mage's turn to attack, and he did with brutal intensity. Lightning struck at Gaster's shield with frightening accuracy. Sans yelped, scrambling out of the way as the attack spun at an odd angle, reflecting off the doctor's shield. Sans squinted at the man's shield, abruptly noticing how each layer was connected to each other and each was spinning in different directions. The shields would support each other and reflect attacks. The accuracy of those attacks might not be the greatest but it was something to be wary of, at least.
The Arch-mage paused his onslaught as he had to concentrate not only on dodging Gaster's attacks but his own directed back at him. Gaster took that moment to summon a small army of spectral hands, each one carrying an orange weapon of some sort, whether it be a sword, mace, club, axe, or some even carried longs katanas and heavy claymores. Magic hands weren't restricted by weight, after all, only what would fit in their palms. They rushed at the Arch-mage, weapons primed.
"Sans!" Lytle's voice from behind. He ignored her, watching the battle intently. The Arch-mage roared, his shield expanding outward and colliding with Gaster's magic, shattering the spells. Gaster flinched as the magic particles from his spells drifted down, his eyes abruptly losing their other colors and resorting to the green of his still shifting ground.
"Sans, what's going on? Is Gaster fighting someone?" Lytle appeared beside him, hair whipping around her face as the Arch-mage's magic blustered around them.
"The Arch-mage!" Sans shouted back, trying to be heard over the fight. He didn't bother looking over, his gazed transfixed on the battle, so he didn't see Lytle's reaction. Suddenly, he felt the human's hands wrap around his arm as she began dragging him away. "What are you doing?" Sans snapped, ripping his limb from her grasp. "I'm trying to watch!"
"No, Sans, you don't understand!" Lytle shouted, her eyes wide with fright. "This is going to get really dangerous really fast. We need to get out of here!"
A resounding crack to their left brought their gazes back to the battle. The Arch-mage had begun attacking with lightning again, and this time shards of ice speared down from the summoned clouds above. Gaster dodged as best he could, but the lightning was too fast and kept reflecting off his shield. Lytle and Sans dove out of the way of the magic, covering their heads as if that might offer some protection. Sans peeked out just in time to see Gaster summon more hands that reached out and grabbed shards of ice as they fell, throwing them back at the Arch-mage. It was child's play for the Arch-mage to dodge them, but it did take some of his attention away from attacking.
Sans felt the blanket on his soul melt away as Gaster focused on the battle and left the skeleton to his own devices. Sans hurriedly summoned a green shield over him and Lytle. The healer sat up in awe, tentatively tapping the magic. She glanced at him, taking in his glowing green sockets.
"This is yours?" Lytle asked, voice still loud as she tried to adjust to the new noise level. Sans' shield wasn't very thick compared to those of the mages fighting outside, but it did block enough of the sound of the battle.
"Yeah." Sans said, settling back again to watch safely. "What are you doing here? How'd you find us?"
Lytle bit her lip, gazing at the shield as if gauging how well it would do against a stray strike, before raising an eyebrow at the skeleton. "Are you kidding me? It's kind of hard to miss an entire bloody thundercloud just appearing during the middle of the day."
"Oh." Sans said a moment later as he belatedly processed the information. Gaster was steadily working the Arch-mage toward the ground with his purple attacks and slowly chipping away at his shield. The Arch-mage was no slacker either, hitting Gaster from every angle with ice, lightning, and now he had added some fireballs to his array of attacks. "Okay."
"I went to the lab looking for Gaster because he was supposed to teach me some magic, but he wasn't there and you weren't there and I thought that maybe you were going to be..." Lytle trailed off, sniffing harshly.
Sans tore his attention from the battle, looking at the healer in concern. "I'm fine, Lytle. The Arch-mage just had Gaster bring me along to watch. So I take it you and Gaster made up?"
"Yeah," Lytle said, wringing her hands. "Sans, I'm worried about this fight."
"Why? Look, Gaster is winning!" As much as Sans didn't like Gaster, he was starting to doubt whether or not he truly had ill intentions. And besides, no matter how he felt about Gaster, the feelings were multiplied several times against the Arch-mage. He could wish a death by burning on the stake onto this man and not feel even a little bad about it.
Just as the words left his mouth, Sans regretted saying them. In that instant, the Arch-mage released the spell he had been building up. The wind turned from a noisy nuisance to a full out deadly force. It swirled around and around, picking up all the sand, ripping up grass and dirt, sweeping away Gaster and all of his magic. The doctor was tossed all about in his shields as the Arch-mage's spell blew him around and around. The Arch-mage was suspended in the middle of it all, grinning cruelly. Fire rippled out from him, entering the storm and instantly turning it into a spiral of hungry, red fire. Even through the shield and his own insensitivity to temperature, Sans shrank back from the heat. Lytle hissed, scooting back until her back was pressed against the back of Sans' half bubble.
Sans couldn't see what was happening anymore, but he could feel it. Inside the storm, Gaster's soul swelled. He wasn't out of the fight yet.
Gaster sighed as his bubble was engulfed in flames, nursing several bumps and soon-to-be bruises. He should have seen that coming, after all, he had sparred with this man enough times to know which spell combos he favored. The moment the wind had moved past annoying and becoming stumbling, he should have expected this and rooted himself down. But no, he had kept attacking when he saw the Arch-mage approaching the ground. Though he had tried, Gaster had never managed the kind of control required for blue flight. In its place he had learned how to stay on the ground and bring his opponents down to his level. Not that he had ever successfully done it against the Arch-mage. Still, the Arch-mage knew never to set foot on the ground for Gaster had too many traps to count to keep him there, and Gaster knew to never enter the air otherwise he would basically be at the Arch-mage's mercy.
Well, too late for that. Time to try something else. First, Gaster had to escape the fire still eating at his shields. It had broken through the first on and was working its way through the second. Gaster expanded his second shield, giving himself room to work. He steadily started building up magic in that space for when the fire broke through the second shield while strengthening the durability of the last two layers with yellow magic.
It was time to wait.
Sans frowned as he felt more and more magic building up inside, which didn't make any sense. He should feel more magic being used, not magic powering up. What was Gaster thinking? If he didn't do something fast, that fire would eat up his shields and burn him to a crisp. It was a struggle to maintain his own shields, and the fire wasn't even directly touching it!
"What's going on?" Lytle hissed, wiping her forehead as sweat accumulated. She couldn't sense their souls after all, she wasn't a monster or a freak like Gaster. "Where's Gaster?"
"He's in that," Sans paused as he tried to find a word to encompass the awful majesty of the spell, "thing."
She gawked at the fiery storm. "You're kidding."
"Nope."
"Is he alive?"
"Yeah," Sans replied, "Though I'm not entirely sure what he's doing in there. Or what he possibly could do to combat that."
Lytle frowned, gathering her hair from her the nape of her neck and pulling it in front of her shoulder. "Do you think he'll be okay?"
"I don't know. He's preparing something big, I just don't know what." Sans squinted his sockets, searching within the swirling flames for a visual hint of what might be going on, but nothing revealed itself. Inside, the magic inside never stopped building, never stopped growing. Sans' frowned, wondering if he should be doing more. His soul swarmed with magic, after all, and Gaster seemed like he needed help. Then again, if he intervened he could definitely count on the Arch-mage killing him. It was probably best if he just stayed here with Lytle and kept her safe.
He would just have to settle down and wait.
Gaster curled up in his shields as the storm continued to toss him around haphazardly, waiting as patiently as he could. He knew that although this would work, the Arch-mage hadn't been sitting idle while he could feel Gaster preparing an attack. He vaguely sensed the man laying traps and strengthening his defenses to counter whatever spell the doctor had in store.
Good thing Gaster had always kept some items in the back.
The moment the fire broke through his outermost shield, his spell unleashed itself, a dark purple wind that roared all around. It wrapped up the Arch-mage's storm and snatching it from his control, turning the storm from red to lavender as it became trapped by Gaster's spell.
Gaster had to make spells for the human army, this much was true. So long as he met the quota each week, he didn't have to give them all the spells he made. After all, they never asked for the extras, so he never felt compelled to hand them over. This was one such spell. A kind of trap magic that targeted an enemy's spell rather than the enemy, granting you control over whatever spells the wind swept up. Lucky for Gaster, it didn't just make the Arch-mage's storm turn traitorous, but all the trap runes he had set up on the ground below them.
The Arch-mage glared up at the doctor from the ground below for one moment before the entire sandlot went up in flames. Gaster summoned a flat shield below himself to watch, as the storm no longer affected carried him inside it. Sparkling orange magic particles rained down from all around, and Gaster felt the Arch-mage's soul draw away a bit. Gaster couldn't help but smirk; the man had not escaped unscathed.
The doctor created a green half bubble to cover the ground before dropping the shield below him and plummeting to the ground. He caught himself with a net of hands before he hit the ground, releasing them once they had slowed his fall to a tolerable speed. He snapped his fingers and a small gust blew across the field, carrying away all the particles in the air so he could see.
The sandlot had been rendered just short of charred, black earth, or what was left of it anyways. Most of the sand had been blown away to reveal the hard stone below, and much of that had been scorched by the explosions. The Arch-mage stood among the wreckage, straightening his singed purple robes and fixing the cuffs.
Gaster splayed out his hands, giving his mentor no reprieve. If he could kill this man, he could go back home. The deal still stood, and Gaster was never going to hesitate again. He etched dozens of traps into the ground, and summoned dozens of floating green bubbles with traps on them. He strengthened the bubble above with yellow magic while summoning more spectral hands, these ones with holes in their palms. The Arch-mage had never seen this type of hand before, and didn't know what to expect. Gaster wasted no time in sending them forward, the air buzzing with magic energy as each one drew in magic and magic particles from the surrounding air, firing pure magic bolts at the Arch-mage. The Arch-mage responded quickly, darting this way and that all while remaining conscious of where he put his feet and where the green bubbles were overhead. Gaster may have had a hard time tracking his mentor's extraordinary Time Warp when he was younger, but so much exposure to it had sharpened his senses. His Patience was no match for Gaster now. Gaster precise aim soon had him stepping into traps as he tried to avoid the bolts, assaulting his shields with piercing purple magic that steadily broke through them. The Arch-mage could do nothing, the ground was not safe, what he could reach of the air was filled with traps, and his defenses were quickly weakening.
Gaster might actually win. His soul swelled at the thought, and he increased the caliber of his attacks.
The Arch-mage roared, a furious, frustrated sound that ripped over the sound of magic gathering and firing. His eyes burned turquoise as he summoned a long spear of light blue magic, thrusting it at his son. Gaster tried to stop it with a couple attacks but it zipped around them to burrow its way through his shields and into his chest.
Gaster froze as the magic punctured his soul, gasping. Light blue magic was not attack magic, not defense, not augmentation- it was a magic, much like blue magic, that affected the soul directly. That targeted the emotions.
Gaster choked back a sob as crushing sorrow and hopelessness encroached his soul. Oh God, he couldn't go through this again. Light blue attacks only worked on emotions already present in the soul, emotions he had already lived through for so long. He could never beat the Arch-mage. He would never get home, never see his mother again. He would do as the church wished, make magic, fight if they needed it, kill if he had to. He didn't have a choice. He never had a choice that was better than what he had. He would be responsible for the death of scores of monsters, but at least his mother would live. At least he was protecting the lives of innocent humans, if there were such a thing.
His magic faded away as his concentration did, leaving him completely defenseless as he sunk down onto his knees. Part of his mind was screaming for him to get up, to fight, and to keep trying. But the other part, the louder part that seemed so very sincere, told him there was no point. Nothing he did would ever have any point. His life was not his own, and when he died he would be forgotten by the world, an insignificant detail in the grand scheme of human cruelty.
Panting, the Arch-mage stopped, straightening slowly. He took his time strolling across the ravaged ground, purple robes billowing behind him. He was taller than Gaster while the doctor was kneeling, head bowed, and mind racing with thoughts that had plagued him for years.
The Arch-mage regarded the broken boy for several long seconds, though Gaster was hardly paying attention to him.
You're such a failure. The thoughts hissed. Gaster could only squeeze his eyes as the voices in his head picked at him again. The same voices that had ridiculed him after every mistake, belittled him after every victory, kept him up at night, and sometimes just insulted him to remind him they were there. He was such a fool to believe he might have ever escape them, just as he was a fool to believe he might ever escape the Arch-mage. He dug his fingers into the sides of his skull as they swarmed him, each promising what they said was true.
You're so pathetic.
You're so weak.
You're such a disappointment.
You can't do anything right.
You deserve to die.
You'll kill her.
You don't deserve her.
Gaster looked up as he felt the Arch-mage lay his hand on his shoulder. White glowing eyes met white glowing eyes. "I win again, Boy. Nothing ever changes. What a disappointment."
Gaster's hand twitched as he thought of maybe defending himself before deciding it wasn't worth the effort. The Arch-mage tsked, summoning an orange spear and running the doctor through.
"Oh my God." Lytle and Sans watched the exchange in shock, Lytle nicely verbalizing what Sans was thinking.
The Arch-mage pulled his weapon from the doctor's stomach, blood flicking away and dripping from the weapon before he dispelled it and the dark red liquid dropped to stain the stone. He stood looking down at Gaster for a moment before the doctor toppled over, blood streaming from his mouth and wound.
"Bloody hell." Lytle cursed, scrambling to her feet, but was stopped by Sans' shield. "Sans, your shield!"
The skeleton tore his gaze from the form on the ground to the frantic healer on his right. Hr blinked, his mind spinning as he processed what had just transpired. He jumped to his feet, lowering the shield and following Lytle as she pelted to Gaster.
The Arch-mage watched impassively as the healer slid to her knees, eyes flaring green and hands reaching for the scientist. He looked up when Sans skidded to a stop beside her, cocking his head. The skeleton found himself shuddering under his gaze again, but refused to back down. The Arch-mage suddenly smiled, and faster than Sans could react slammed a light blue dagger into a space between his ribs and into the monster's soul.
Sans knew what light blue magic did. It worked off his emotions as much as the caster's magical ability, amplifying whichever emotions the caster chose. For Sans, the Arch-mage had apparently decided to amplify the monster's despair, probably just as he did with Gaster. Sans felt stinging tears form at the corners of his sockets as the emotion set in, merciless and unrelenting. It was pointless, all of it. Lytle would never find a way out of this hell, she would probably turn on him at some point just as her race demanded. He would never get to go home and see his mother again. He might as well die now.
It was a struggle to stop his HP points from decreasing. He fought past the emotions, clinging onto what he knew rather than what the emotions told him. He had a chance, he just had to keep holding on. He had nothing else but his hope, and he was determined to keep that.
He glared at the Arch-mage as he turned to Lytle. "Be careful, girl. The church has its eye on you, and so far it doesn't like what it's seeing. Don't screw up. My son is quite fond of you, and it would be bothersome if he lost any HP due to your death. The church is already annoyed by how low it is."
Lytle scowled, opening her mouth to say something, but the Arch-mage just turned and walked away. Lytle's expression only darkened further, her hands curling into fists on Gaster's chest. Sans looked away awkwardly as she spat several uncomplimentary sounding phrases in English. She quieted after several long minutes, breathing heavily as her green eyes brimmed with tears.
"Did he say son?" Sans asked, his voice detached and his sockets black.
Lytle didn't look up. "Yes, and you better not give Gaster a hard time about it, Sans. I think he had a hard enough time with it already."
Sans slowly let out the breath he was holding, closing his sockets. "You're right, you're right. Is he going to be okay?"
Lytle bit her lip, her hands loosening on top of the man's chest. "I don't know."
"What?" Sans furrowed his brow bone in concern, kneeling down beside Gaster opposite of Lytle. "How can you not know?"
Lytle's hands tightened again until her knuckles turned white. She silently showed him Gaster's HP points; they were at forty and slowly declining. Then she moved a hand from his chest to show him the wound the Arch-mage had inflicted. It was wicked, a harsh, jagged gash, but it was rapidly closing as green magic worked on it.
Sans frowned in confusion. "So his wound is closing, but he's still losing HP? Why?"
Lytle shook her head. "I don't know. This has never happened before, in my experience at least. But his soul feels weird."
"Weird? How so?" Sans asked, keeping any hint of skepticism out of his voice.
Lytle made an exasperated grunt. "I have no idea, Sans! It just doesn't feel right."
Sans bit his metaphorical tongue, staring at the numbers above the doctor's soul. He sat for a moment, glancing at Lytle, but she wasn't paying him any attention. He quietly flicked on his Eye, gazing into the doctor's soul.
There was so much darkness. It surrounded Sans, filled his skull, his rib cage, engulfed him its vastness. Sans thought this must be what is was like to drown, to choke and feel like you're dying, to be unable to get even one breath in.
Something amidst all the darkness caught his eye, a soft twinkle. As Sans watched, it drew closer and the darkness retreated a bit. Inside was a young, smiling child reading a giant book. A child, Sans realized when he saw the glowing white eyes, was Gaster. The child put the book down as a dark-haired woman approached, scooping the child into her arms as he squealed with delight.
Another speck flitted closer, and inside he found the woman and the child outside in the woods. She was signing in that strange language Gaster knew, and the child watched attentively, holding a plant. Sans realized with a start that this woman must be the doctor's mother.
Another speck. They were sitting under a starry sky, the woman holding the child in her lap and pointing out constellations. Another flicker and they were watching a stunning sunset that looked like the sky was on fire.
Another speck came, and this one had events that were more recent. Gaster was an adult in these ones, and he had begun his experiments on monsters. Sans watched as the human grew close to the monsters he worked on, talking with them, feeding them, protecting them from harm. Sans watched as the monsters changed over time, reminding the skeleton that these monsters still died.
More specks came closer, these ones burning a bit brighter than the others. Lytle handing him breakfast. Lytle puzzling over the coded message and talking to the doctor. Gaster talking to the drunk healer, revealing all the horror, all the darkness he had experienced.
Sans stopped as something caught his attention in the side of his vision. He turned just in time to see a speck of light vanish. All around him, the lights were disappearing one by one until there were only a few left.
Sans had been wondering what was going on. After all, nothing like this had ever happened when he looked in someone's soul, but now he understood. He was watching the doctor lose Hope.
He withdrew from the man's soul then, finding the cause for the phenomenon Lytle was stressing over. The healer was still desperately trying to heal the doctor as his HP headed toward the single digits, hands trembling. Sans gently grasped her hands, pulling them away.
"W-what are you doing? Let go of me, Sans, I have to heal him!" Lytle weakly struggled against the skeleton's grasp, but she has spent too much energy already to escape.
"Gaster is losing Hope, Lytle. Look." Sans motioned with his head to the doctor's HP bar. Now that green magic wasn't being shoved down his throat, Gaster's max HP points dropped, but his current HP stopped falling.
Lytle bit a quivering lip at the numbers displayed. 18/27.
"Oh God," Lytle said breathlessly, "what did the Arch-mage do to him?"
Sans released the girl's hands and they fell limply to rest at her sides. "He attacked him with light blue magic." Sans quickly explained how the magic worked, adding, "That man's magic was especially strong because that's the base of his soul."
Lytle pursed her lips, absorbing the information. She let out a sigh, slowly climbing to her feet. "Well, we can't leave him out here. Come on, you get the legs."
"I could just carry him back with magic, you know." Sans said, following suit and standing.
"Well, you could," Lytle said, putring her hands on her hips, "but I think the soldiers back at the camp would maul you like wild bears."
"Oh," Sans replied lamely as the healer lifted up Gaster's torso, wrapping her arms around his armpits, "Forgot about that part."
Lytle smiled slightly, motioning to Gaster's legs. Sans obediently lifted them up, and together they shuffled their way back to camp. Lytle had done well in healing Gaster's wound, at least; the edges of the gash were bright pink and the rest had scabbed over. Sans focused on the movement of his feet and definitely not all the humans around that looked like they might actually kill him. Only a couple actually said anything, though, and Lytle quickly silenced them with a dark look.
Sans found himself recognizing the path they were taking. "Lytle," he hissed, causing the healer to turn from looking over her shoulder and stop, "where are we going?"
"Gaster's lab." she said as if that was the obvious answer. "Why?"
"There's no bed in there." Sans replied, shifting Gaster's weight slightly. The look people gave them as they passed as turned from hatred to bewilderment.
Lytle blinked. "Does Gaster even have a bed?"
"Well, he has to sleep sometime." Sans said, exasperated. "Don't you know where he lives?"
"I thought he lived at his lab." Sans gave the healer a look. "I'm sorry! I've never seen him anywhere else, really."
Sans sighed. "I guess we take him to the lab, then." Lytle pursed her lips, looking away as her face turned red. They arrived at the lab shortly to find an agitated soldier pacing in front of the building. He looked up as they stopped in front, blanching at their package. Sans thought he looked familiar, and he realized it was the man that had brought Gaster to meet the skeleton on the first night.
"God, what happened?" The man asked, drawing closer and opening the door to the lab.
"The Arch-mage." Lytle replied tersely, helping Sans bring the doctor inside.
The captain eyed Sans as he passed, but didn't say anything to the monster. That's right, the man still didn't know the monster spoke English. Sans figured Gaster thought this would safeguard the monster, so he would keep his mouth shut this time around.
"I know the where Gaster's quarters are, if you would like me to take him there." The captain offered, crossing his arms.
"You do? Yes, I think that would be best." Lytle said, sweat trickling down the side of her face.
"Very well, then." The captain splayed his hands out in front of him, brows furrowed in concentration. His eyes slowly bled into a dark blue color as he lifted the doctor with weak blue magic. Lytle stepped back, pulling back her arms, and Sans let go of Gaster's legs. Sans had no muscles to get tired, but the same could not be same for Lytle as she began rubbing sore arms.
The captain left, precariously pulling Gaster along behind him with his magic. Gaster, for his part, had not stirred once during the entire ordeal, his face stuck in a contort of pain. Lytle shared a look with Sans before they followed after the soldier. The entourage only received more confused looks, but at least Lytle made it a point to walk behind the skeleton so no one would try doing something to him.
The captain glanced back, grunting at the sight that greeted him. "Should you really be bringing the monster with you?"
Lytle was quiet for a moment before saying, "Gaster would not want me to leave him alone, since in his current state there is no one dampening his magic."
"I see." If the captain thought there was even a grain of untruth in the statement, he did not express it. "Then keep him close. I would offer to keep an eye on it, but if the doctor wants you to do it then I'll keep my mouth shut. Lord knows he would become angry because I tried to show a lady some chivalry."
"The sentiment is appreciated, captain, but I believe you are right. I'll look after the monster, don't worry." Sans glanced at Lytle once the captain had his attention focused anywhere but them. Her gaze was frighteningly vacant, her feet dragging as she walked. Sans turned back around, but kept a socket on the healer as they trekked the rest of the way to Gaster's quarters. The captain led them into a tiny, unassuming building that might have once been a peasant's shack. The captain set the doctor on his bed, a straw cushion too short for the man's lanky form, and turned to regard Lytle.
"Look after him and inform me when he's ready to begin working again." He said, clasping his hands behind his back. "I will inform the Duke not to expect a new spell this upcoming week, but I will need to know when he is fit again. Good day, cleric." The captain took his leave, closing the door behind him softly.
Sans caught Lytle as her sways turned into a head first tumble. He looked around as the healer grasped onto him, but there were no chairs in the room, the bed the only furniture present. He led her to the wall and helped her sit against it. She sighed, muttering, "Thanks, Sans. I think I overdid it a bit. Would you look after Gaster for a little while?"
Before he could utter a response, she was asleep, her chin sunk down to rest on her chest. Sans smirked, and moved away to let the girl rest.
Sans found himself standing next to Gaster, watching the doctor's chest shallowly rise and fall. The thoughts crept back like ghosts of the past, whispering in his skull.
You'll never escape, Sans. The Arch-mage is too strong. You only have one chance to make your death meaningful. This is it. An opportunity like this will not present itself again.
Sans stared at the doctor's face, hands twitching. The doctor was the one responsible for why he was here, why he was going to die. He and his magic were responsible for the deaths of countless of monsters, some of them the skeleton's friends. He deserved to die for what he had done. If he didn't, he would only make more magic, cause so many more to die.
This was all Sans could do. He had to do this. He raised his hand, summoning an orange dagger. With how low the human's HP was, it would only take one strike to end his life. Sans might even be able to take the human's soul and become more powerful than imaginable. He might even be able to escape then, though he still doubted it.
"'I don't think Gaster is evil.'"
"'He's rough around the edges, but that's only because he doesn't get out much. He is a good person.'"
"'You've heard the rumors going around. That you've been meeting with monster spies.'"
Then there was what Sans saw inside the man's soul. Inside that darkness where so little light survived. It wasn't the darkness that Sans was accustomed to seeing in humans, the hungry, gnashing darkness that strove to consume the world around it. It was a soft, clinging darkness. It was the darkness that Sans was becoming more familiar with. Despair. Hopelessness. Hatred, mostly for yourself. The deep-seated desire to just be happy, but not daring to be selfish enough for that to happen. The horrible, aching, desperate hope to die because the pain might stop then.
Sans couldn't do it. The weapon dissipated, sparkling apart into magic particles. Tears pricked at the corners of his sockets, his hands curled into fists. He couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to kill a defenseless man who had only gotten the short end of the stick all his life, who had so few lights in his life, who hated what he was and what he was doing.
If only Sans' LV was higher! He might have been strong enough then, strong enough to do what needed to be done. Did he want his mother to die? His father, his baby brother? Of course he didn't, but killing Gaster didn't seem like the way to keep that from happening. Or maybe he was just making excuses for himself.
Whatever the case, Sans couldn't kill the doctor. He shuffled away, sliding down the wall and sitting next to the door. He buried his head in his arms and wept. Escape was within his reach, but Sans couldn't, wouldn't, grasp onto it. He would just be stuck here until he died.
(A/N):I don't know what happened guys. I just... wrote. And wrote. Literally the majority of my free time I just decided to write. Yeah, the chapter could be better, and one day I might be able to write a good fight scene. But I actually liked how this came out so I'll keep it and post it.
As a sidenote, if you checked the tumblr, I said light blue magic didn't do much, which was a filthy lie, I just couldn't remember what I had decided to make it do. So apologies for that, but, uh, surprise!
Also, if you didn't put it together, Lytle remembers what Gaster talked to her about. Just so you know.