When it was done, Sans' head was crowded with noise. Voices and thoughts not his own assaulted him, and when he crashed to his knees it was a long way down.
It wasn't just voices in his head, it was memories. Every life of each of the children crammed into his mind, all the days they had lived and died and lived again. He saw himself in their memories, not just as lazy, good-for-nothing skeleton that had managed to screw everything up, but as the father and friend and protector he had been to these children.
Sans stood, and knew that he wasn't alone.
The rocks around him helped little in the way of knowing what he looked like, but Sans supposed that was irrelevant. What Sans could tell without a mirror was that he now stood far taller than he had any right to, every part of his body stretched and warped. When he took a step, everything around him advanced faster than he was used to, the length and speed of his strides increased with the power of seven souls.
"Not a bad way to end this," he mused, wondering if the souls within him could hear his words.
Judging by the affirmative sounds that followed, they could.
Now there was only one thing left to do. They were equal in power now; Chara was finally going down, for good. It was time to find her.
Even without the judgement hall, Sans knew where the barrier would have been. He half-expected to see another, there was only a heavy metal door where there'd once been magic. The cold steel did not yield beneath his hands. It was supposed to keep the humans in, but it had obviously not been designed with monsters in mind. With seven human souls rattling around in his ribcage, Sans had no trouble summoning a few Gaster blasters to smash through the door.
Whatever the guards on the other side had been expecting, it wasn't a monster with seven human souls bursting through the door. They faltered, summoning and pulling out weapons, but the brief hesitation was enough. Sans swept them aside with a wave of telekinesis and stormed out of the room, heading for Chara.
Just like in New Home, the throne room sat in front of the barrier, facing away. As Sans burst in, Chara leapt out of her throne, and the children in Sans' mind went mad. The throne was knocked aside, and Sans saw that it was larger than even Asgore's, and upholstered in blood red. Behind Chara, a pile of dust lay on the floor, scattered across a lab coat. Gaster.
There wasn't time for that now. Sans had a monster to face.
Chara was terrifying. Sans hadn't had time to stop and think what she might look like with seven souls, and in that moment he was glad. The nightmare before him was far more terrifying than anything Sans could've dreamed up.
She had four extra pairs of eyes, the two above her own clearly Asriel's, and the other six belonging one each to the humans she'd slaughtered. Her hair was longer, and she was taller than Sans even with seven human souls of his own. Her own eyes were blood red, glowing with determination. It seemed to drip from her fingertips, dark red and eerily like blood. If not for the faint magic it was giving off, the difference would have been impossible to determine.
Sans caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective tiles of her throne room. Too tall, too many eyes, too much magic coursing through his bones.
"You can't stop me!" she screamed, hands curling into fists.
"Why? Why are you doing this?" Sans yelled. He threw a conjured bone at her, but she blocked it easily.
"If I can't be happy, no one can! He killed my family, he murdered them and no one stopped him! And now, no one can stop me." Chara's eyes flashed red, all of them.
A moment later, the room around them burst into flames. Asriel's magic. Sans jumped forward, his bones singed, but it was what Chara had expected. A beam of magic shot out of her hand, more of Asriel's influence, and the voices in Sans' head screamed as it hit him square in the ribs. His skull collided with a burning wall, sending stars across his vision.
"What're you talking about?" Sans wheezed, pushing himself back up. He wasn't going down. He had the kids, he could do this.
"My father," Chara spat. "Nobody cared when he killed his entire family. Humanity is pathetic and weak, and monsters are even worse. None of you deserve to live."
She stretched out her hand, fire shooting from her palms, but this time Sans was quicker. He ducked out of the way as a torrent of flames blackened his hoodie, but the move sent him crashing to the flames at the edge of the room.
With a wave of his hand, Sans forced bones up from the floor of the room. For a moment, he thought Chara was trapped. Determination and blood mixed where the bones had nicked her skin. She stood in an awkward pose, bent around the bones. But as Sans was pushing himself up, Chara shattered every single bone with a sweep of her arm.
Sans tried to use his telekinesis. He felt the force reaching out to Chara, hurtling towards her, but it reached an immovable wall at her body. No matter how hard Sans pushed, Chara didn't move, and the exertion was beginning to take its toll.
Chara didn't seem to have that problem. A flick of her wrist, and Sans was lifted up, hovering in the air for barely a second before he was slammed into the wall. He cursed at the pain, and he heard at least one of the kids whimpering in his head. Then it happened again, and again, Sans' bones crunching and cracking with each impact against the wall, the floor, the ceiling. Chara threw him like a ragdoll, her manic laughter echoing and disjointed past the ringing in Sans' skull.
He tried to manifest more bones, another wave of telekinesis, anything. Nothing came. His magic was running low, he was burnt and broken and exhausted. Chara released her mental grip on his body.
Sans collapsed to the ground, shaking. Magic seeped from the burns and cuts on his bones, cyan seeping through his clothes. He tried to stand, get up and keep fighting, but his body refused.
Chara had spent the past 100 years preparing for this fight. She'd had every opportunity to be better, faster, stronger. Sans had done nothing. He couldn't possibly win. It was over.
Chara advanced, a sinister grin carved into her face. She was reaching for his soul. The children had gone quiet.
And then, "Don't give up, Sans!" Frisk's voice ran out from the silence in his head.
It was like a damn breaking, the children's voices booming one after another.
"Kick her ass, dad!" Valerie chimed in.
"We know you can do it," Percy and Tegan said in unison.
"Good always wins," Alistair added.
"Keep fighting," Eric said.
And suddenly, Sans was filled with determination.
He knocked back Chara's hand, gritting his teeth and pushing himself to his feet.
"Give up already," Chara growled. She threw her hand out, magic gathering in her palm, ready to strike-
Sans grabbed her wrist, wrenching it back. "Never," he said, and the children's voices chorused with him. "You shouldn't have messed with me. Because now-"
His eyelights flared, his soul pounded. He grinned.
"You're gonna have-"
A bone manifested between them, one end broken and jagged. As Chara tried to wrest herself from Sans' grip, he stared into her eyes and drove that bone straight through her stomach.
"A bad time."
Chara went still. She stopped trying to pull away. Blood dripped to the floor. Her mouth dropped open, eyes wide. As the bone vanished, she fell back, crashing to the tiles.
"No…" she whimpered, hands clutching at the hole in her chest. And then her eyes rolled back into her skull; she was gone. Not just dead, gone.Whatever part of her had been hanging around all these years had finally moved on, and it wasn't coming back.
The voices in his head had gone quiet. The children knew what had to happen next. They shared his memories now, after all. In the end, Valerie broke the silence.
"This is goodbye, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Sans said, "it is."
"What happens now?" Percy asked.
Sans sighed.
All he had done was use these children. First, in an attempt to save Frisk. Now, to defeat Chara. And each time had led to the inevitable conclusion of their deaths.
"I'll release your souls. And once Frisk resets, I'll release them in the true timeline too."
"Well then," Valerie said, and Sans could hear the wobble in her voice. "You'd better get to it. There's no use in us staying here anymore."
"Valerie-"
"C'mon, dad, just do it. This isn't goodbye, after all. You still have to set us free in the main timeline."
There was an affirmative chorus from the rest of the children.
Sans reached into his own ribcage and ripped out six souls. Tegan screamed. Alistair groaned. The rest gritted their teeth through the pain, silent. When he released the souls into the air, they shimmered, almost glitching, before cracks spread across the glowing surfaces. Then they shattered to dust, and Sans was alone.
Almost alone. There was still one other soul cradled beside his.
"Let's go find your body, kid. I think you should reset this time," Sans said, already moving for the door.
"Wait!" Frisk shouted in his head, and it was so unlike them that Sans froze.
He could feel Frisk trying to direct his attention, and he let them, relinquishing control so that Frisk could turn his head towards Chara's body.
There was a faint white glow coming from the flesh on her chest, where her jumper had been torn. It reminded Sans of Toriel, and he knew what Frisk was asking.
Sans moved across the room, crouching beside Chara's body. Her eyes were open, unblinking and unstaring, empty. She was dead and gone, the determination of her soul seeping to the floor around her. But someone was still clinging to life in her body.
Sans placed a hand on her chest, feeling the warmth radiating from within. He drew it out, cradling the warmth of a soul in his hand. It wasn't human, its colour was pure white. It was a monster soul. It began to crack, unable to remain stable without being contained in a body.
Lifting the soul to his own chest, Sans nestled it in amongst the eight already there. He waited for Asriel's voice in his head, but the soul was weak. It would take time before he was strong enough to speak, Sans supposed. With the beating Chara had taken, he wasn't surprised.
"You ready to go?" Sans asked. He could feel their gaze lingering on Chara's body.
"I'm ready," Frisk said inside his mind.
In the chaos, Sans had almost forgotten about the others. When they returned to Frisk's body, it was still surrounded by the lifeless forms of the other six. He shuddered, averting his eyes from where Valerie's form was slumped beside Justina's. Bravery and justice; in the end, those traits had only gotten them killed faster.
Frisk's body accepted their soul readily. They came back slowly, life spreading through their veins until Frisk was alive again, and once more filled with determination. Sans' soul was back to its normal cyan. The power he had stolen had been returned to its rightful owner. Frisk brought up the RESET, staring at the button. Sans squeezed their hand.
"Come on, kid. One more go around."
Still, Frisk's hand hovered over the button, hesitating.
"I know you'll get it right this time," Sans said. "She's not in your head anymore."
And then Frisk nodded, pressing the RESET button before they could stop themselves.
And this time, Sans felt nothing.
