Hello everyone, sorry for being so late with this chapter, I've been doing lots of projects for school lately and haven't had any time to work on this story. Also, I realized I never gave credit to the creator of Reapertale, who is the wonderful Renrink, thank you for not suing me or anything. Next on my list, thanks to the guest who commented a while ago, I like compliments and the such and gives me motivation to continue. Besides these few notes, I hope you enjoy!
"I mean, like, you really do suck at this, don't you?" I asked, opening my eyes. Frisk glanced down at me sharply. I gave them a smirk and drove the transdimensional knife into their gut. Smiling, I pushed them off of me, with the knife still in them. Similar to how Error destroyed timelines, Frisk 'fuzzed' in and out of existence. They looked up into my eyes with fear, probably for the first time in their life.
"Sucks to be you, I guess." With a single swipe, their head fell onto the ground and rolled around. Their body slumped to the ground, blood oozing all over the floor. I took out my knife and was surprised to see that it was spotless.
"H-How did you do that…?" asked Toriel, who surprisingly, hadn't died yet. "You were stabbed… right?" I remembered the knife and looked down at it. It was still stuck to me. I pulled off and pressed on the blade.
"How often did the kid try to stab you with this?" I asked, pushing the blade of the toy knife in and out of the handle. I had seen toys like this in Gaster's workshop from time to time, and never questioned why or how he had them. I suppose he got them from all these different timelines.
"Never… They only slashed downwards…" murmured Toriel. I shook my head at Frisk's stupidity and threw the toy knife aside.
"Hey, quick question, how come you're not dead?" I asked Toriel. "Normally, you're dead after one hit."
"I am a goddess, I do not die so easily," said Toriel, pushing herself back up. "And as Goddess of Life, I am capable of bringing myself, and others, back from the brink of death."
"That's seems cool. Well, I'm getting out of here, ciao!" I pushed open the doors to Snowdin Forest and stepped out onto the warm grass. Then I stopped. Grass… I looked down at the bright, green, lush grass.
"Umm… What the heck is wrong with this place?" I asked, turning around to face Toriel. To my ever-growing surprise, instead of the doors to the Ruins, I saw a large bamboo-like covered doorway. I frowned and knocked on the bamboo. Something green flashed briefly before disappearing. I stepped through the bamboo into a sort of sanctuary or other.
"Hello? Toriel?" I called out, confused. In the center, was Toriel again, except this time, she was wearing green robe or dress things.
"Who are you?!" she asked, whirling around, two fireballs in her hands(?). "And how did you get in here?!"
"Woah! Okay then, um, bipolar much?" I asked. "I was literally here five seconds ago!"
"tori!" Instinctively, I threw myself to the side just as a scythe easily sliced through the ground like it was cheese. My eyes traced the length of the scythe and saw a furious black-robed skeleton with a fiery blue left eye.
"Sans? What the heck are you doing!?" I asked, scrambling to my feet. "Why are you trying to kill me?!"
"tori, are you okay?" asked Sans, completely ignoring me.
"Thank you Sans, but how ever did a human get up here?" asked Toriel, equally ignoring me. "Did someone send him here? Was it Asgore?"
"tch, guess i need to get rid of him," said Sans, turning towards me while spinning his scythe around.
"Ugh, fine." I readied myself for a battle with Sans and toyed with the idea of shooting the God of Death in this world.
"Sans! At least give the him a chance to explain!" scolded Toriel, extinguishing her fireballs. "Other than giving me a fright, they haven't done anything yet."
"...fine, but i'm only giving him ten minutes to explain himself," Sans backed off but kept his scythe ready. Toriel looked at me expectantly and I cleared my throat.
"So, my name is Liam, nice to meet you guys," I started off, "and I'm here to find a universe-jumping alternate version of Sans from a different universe who is bent on the destruction of every alternate universe that exists, including yours." Toriel and Sans looked at each other, then at me with scrutiny.
"are we supposed to believe that?" asked Sans. "i've heard a lot of reasons for me to not kill someone, but that has got to be the most insane one i've heard."
"You don't need to believe me, I just need to tell you," I responded. "Besides, if I don't find this other version of you, everyone here will cease to exist." I predicted that the two monsters would have a jaw-dropping moment of disbelief, and I was right.
"Wait, are you telling us that everyone might die? Because of this… other version of Sans?" asked Toriel, trying to make sense of what I had just said.
"Pretty much, so, if you will excuse me." I walked past the two monsters, looking around. I was in some sort of 'heaven'-ish area, with no way to navigate.
"Does anyone-" I stopped abruptly when a dark, long blade appeared, nearly slitting my throat. "Umm… okay, what do you want now?"
"i want to ask you one question," said Sans. "you don't have any plans against us after you find this... universe destroying being, yes or no?"
"No, I plan on leaving after finding him," I answered without turning around. "Why?"
"in that case… i'll help you look for this guy. you don't look like your lying, and if what you're saying is true, then we have a bigger problem than i thought," said Sans. "but only for now. if you backstab me at any point, i'll make sure you regret it forever." Sans tried to look menacing.
"If you want to," I answered in a cool voice. Sans restrapped his scythe to his back and took a deep breath.
"welp, i'm following your lead now, kid," he said in a typical Sans fashion. Finally, I was the one in the lead, and not the random kid who followed some monster.
"What should I do?" asked Toriel, whom I had completely forgotten about. "I can't just sit here while you two, one of whom is the God of Death, and the other, some stranger from another land, to look for an enemy with the capability to destroy everything."
"You're the Goddess of Life, right?" I asked Toriel.
"That's right." She nodded twice and looked at me skeptically.
"So, if you're the only reason life exists, what do you think will happen if you were to die?" I continued. "I'm guessing that life would just cease, and there wouldn't be any new life in the world, right? This timeline destroyer, has the ability to rip your soul out, and crush it."
"tori, just stay here, for me, 'kay?" asked Sans in a kind and gentle voice I had never heard him use before. Toriel looked conflicted but ultimately gave in.
"Very well, but if you ever need help, then I will be ready," she said, mostly to Sans than to me. Sans thanked her and faced me again.
"ready whenever you are, kid," he said. I smiled and we left the sanctuary-like place, Toriel fading away behind us until we found ourselves in a large plain of flowing grass. It was a very peaceful plain.
"So, Sans, could you please tell me where we are?" I asked, surveying the grassy plain.
"this is the human realm, a place i frequent," answered Sans in a monotone.
"Cool, what's the fastest way to get to wherever the rest of you gods live?" I knew that Error was on a path to kill the AU's, so humans were relatively low on his kill list.
"us gods tend to hang out up there," answered Sans. "why?"
"Obviously because we need to get there," I said, marveling at the sheer naivety of Sans. " what's the fastest way up there?" Sans' smile grew larger.
"take my hand, kid," he said with something resembling enthusiasm. I shrugged and took his hand. There was a moment of silence, then I felt a massive surge of energy while Sans' eyes went black and he fell onto the grass, shivering violently. It was almost like what happened to Papyrus in the last universe, except this time it seemed more… severe, whatever the case was.
"Dude, y'all alright?" I dropped to my knees next to Sans, but I didn't know what to do. I quickly rolled through all the possible reasons as to what happened. At first, my mind was an incomprehensible mush, but I found one thought and it came to me. Monsters were made of magic, as Gaster had told me, whereas humans were more physical. I absorbed magic. Making direct contact with a monster, whose body was made of magic, made me absorb them.
"Maybe I should stop touching y'all…" I waited for Sans to recover. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked up at me.
"what did you do?" he asked me, trying to keep his anger under control. "what are you…?"
"Um… yeah, that was mostly an accident," I tried explaining. "Just don't touch me again, 'kay? Or you'll probably fall over again."
"that doesn't answer my question, but you don't sound like you mean any harm," said Sans, pushing himself off the ground. "however, this means that i won't be able to just teleport us up there, we'll have to go the long way."
"Please don't tell me that this long way involves a dangerous set of trials and, or, a very tall mountain."
"uuuh... that's basically it, we didn't really want your average joe coming to visit us and all, so we made it as hard as possible," said Sans shrugging. "so, we should get a move on."
"Ugh, fine." I restarted my following of a skeleton and let Sans lead the way. It was pretty easy to follow Sans, since he killed the grass as he walked by it, allowing me sight of the short skeleton amidst the tall grass.
"so, uh, kid, your name's liam, right?" asked Sans, trying to make light conversation. "and you're tracking this destroyer who happens to be an alternate version of me, but, uh, does he have some sort of name, or is he still, uh, sans? just so we can differentiate between me and him." Sans appeared more thoughtful than I had originally thought, so I decided to answer his question directly.
"He's called Error!Sans, but most just call him Error for short."
"oh, okay." We were silent for several minutes until Sans put his hand up, gesturing for me to stop.
"What's wrong?" I whispered, trying to look past Sans.
"it's a human village…" he mumbled. "and their fighting each other…"
"What does that mean?" I whispered, debating on whether or not to stand up. Sans got to it before I could, bolting out of the grass. I raced after him and saw a large village with several humans fighting against one another.
"get ready to fight kid, we have unwelcome visitors," said Sans, taking his scythe out while still running. Sitting on the roof of one of the houses, wearing a black dress, was a brown-haired kid with glowing red eyes. She laughed cruelly and looked at us with a smile.
Not much to put down here... meep. So, about the strange beginning transition, when I wrote chapter 20, I hadn't read up on Reapertale like I should have, so I messed up what Reapertale was actually about, so I decided to be lazy and changed it in this chapter. If you thought that it was a bit rough, that's the reason why. Another thing, I was thinking about the overall abilities of Liam, and I realized that I am neglecting several aspects of his powers, so if you scroll down a bit, I'll give a brief description of everything he can physically do. Other than that, I'll see you whenever I post the next chapter, ciao!
Liam is basically the magical Sebastian Shaw from X-Men, with the mind of Sherlock Holmes, with the looks of Accelerator from "A Certain Magical Index", with the weapons of Lubbock from "Akame ga Kill", plus the space-time version of the knife that Angela had in "Eragon", a machete, and a gun. I read and watch a lot of things. That's about it for now. If you want, I can post in the next chapter of exactly what Liam can do, but I get the feeling you don't want me to do that. Whatever. Ciao!
P.S. This chapter has about 1800 words of actual story plus another 300 of Author's Note...