Ryan's limp body fell to the ground with a wet smack as the blaster let him go and disappeared back into the air. The hall went still, and something about the space around him seemed to shift as it did. sans found himself relaxing before he realized it and quickly drew his guard back up. He looked around.
The hall was less destroyed that he would have guessed from all that had happened. The majority of the columns still stood, and only a couple of the windows were destroyed. He found several of the large gashes in the ground he remembered putting there himself missing, but he dismissed the thought as irrelevant and turned his attention back to his friend.
Blood was pooling around his body, running into the cracks in the stone and staining it with its crimson hue. He could see the glow of red light filling the wounds made by the fatal bite; they were already starting to close. "that's a scary trick you can do, kid," sans said as he took a step closer. A bone appeared in the air next to him. As it spun, one of the ends sharpened to a point. "honestly, i can't say how bad i'd feel if someone with that kind of power were no longer around."
The bone flew at his friend. A vine as thick as one of the columns shot up from the ground making the whole room shake with its intrusion. The bone embedded itself within the plant before disappearing as sans let go of the spell. "but i guess that's not really up to me, is it?" he finished.
The vine then turned its attention on him. It shot at him faster than an arrow. sans summoned his helper again. It caught the vine in its massive jaw and tried to tear it from the ground, but it only succeeded in pulling more of it from the ground which wrapped itself around the creature. sans could hear the sound of bones cracking as the vine crushed its victim. He let that one go back and brought out the other two. More vines crawled out of the ceiling and ground as they tore into the first. sans shifted his attention for a split second; the third would need half a minute before it was fixed, but the other two seemed to be handling things fine for the moment.
As he turned his attention outward again, he noticed that more vines now surrounded Ryan like guards. They writhed back and forth waiting for any interloper to get too close. He saw his friend at the center of them begin to twitch on the ground; all of his wounds were closed now.
sans watched his mental clock tick down. It was too early still, but it would have to do. He summoned his third helper again, only partially this time. The head appeared directly above Ryan's body as the beam began to charge. The vines were too quick, however. They recognized the threat and converged over the human's body, taking the brunt of the blast. It was alright, though, he had not really expected that to work.
When the light faded, he found his friend was on his feet again, looking no worse for wear than when they had begun. For a brief instant, sans's eyes went to the light in his friend's chest. It glowed fiercely beneath the stone he wore around his neck. He looked back up. His eyes were dull by comparison. For some reason, that reassured him.
His helpers had finished with the rest of the vines. They loped back over to him and let out a growl as they looked down at Ryan. sans waved them off with a gesture of his hand and they fell away. Regardless of their ferocity, they were nothing if not obedient. "give up yet?" His friend still said nothing. "i warned you, didn't i? bad times and all of that?"
He let out breath. "i feel like i should be getting tired of saying that…"
The humor was lost on his friend as he attacked again. sans promptly sent him flying into the ceiling again. "this is getting a bit old with you just charging in head first every time, don't you think?" He looked up to see Ryan getting back to his feet. He was upside down, standing on the ceiling, looking back down at him with not less anger than he had had before. He seemed completely unfazed by that part of his power. Darn, he was hoping to throw him off with that.
"why don't we make things more interesting?" sans asked more than a little deviously. His friend's response was to strike once more. sans switched gravity back again for him with a thought and his momentum sent him cascading into the ground at his feet.
As Ryan got to his feet, sans was no longer in front of him. In his place was another solid wall of bone. He looked around and saw the rest of his surroundings had been replaced by bone as well. The skeleton's voice came from somewhere far off. "you've done something like this before, right? good, then i don't need to explain what's goin' on. i should warn you though; i play this game a bit differently than my brother does."
A part of one of the walls in front of Ryan slid into the floor. He walked up to it, but as he approached it snapped shut again. "what? should i have been more specific?" the skeleton went on. "by differently, i meant that i don't exactly play fair. why should i? there's no point in giving you a chance to win. so seriously, why don't you just give up so we can all work this out? it'll save you a heap of trouble."
Ryan crashed his fist into the wall and the bone shattered, opening a hole for himself. He stepped through before it had the chance to close again and began to run down a length of hall beyond, searching for the skeleton.
"i'm afraid it won't be that easy," his voice came again from everywhere at once. Ryan felt something within him change and looked down to see the light of his soul had turned blue again. A moment later, the world seemed to spin until the end of the hall was beneath him. His feet left the ground and he fell forward head first.
For a moment he let himself fall, unafraid of crashing into the 'ground' below him, until the end of his fall began to resolve itself. A pit of spikes waited him below to skewer him. He reacted at once, spinning so his feet faced 'down' and reaching out for the wall. His hand ripped into the bone of the wall, which splintered as he tried to slow his fall. Finally he caught, and with a strong jerk his fall ceased. He looked up momentarily. Catching himself had worked to shred his hand to a bloody mess, so he waited a moment for it to heal while he looked over the rest of his surroundings. There was another path just below him, he saw. When his hand was healed enough for him to manage, he kicked off of the wall to try to jump over to it.
But as he jumped the world shifted again and he fell away from the other path. He landed back on the wall he had caught himself on, now the floor, so that the other hall was now above him. "i really don't get why you're trying," sans chimed in. "there's no way out of this maze, and i'm not in it for you to find. but, if you want me to wait until you're tired of running around in circles, that's fine by me. i feel like i could keep this up all night."
As he finished talking, Ryan saw the spike trap in the wall to his left recede. Then, the wall opened to reveal one of the creatures standing behind it. "don't think that means i'm going to let you lounge around the whole time though," the skeleton added. "what kind of friend would i be if i did that?" The creature bounded towards him, barely able to fit in the narrow passage yet its speed was unhindered by the tight space.
Ryan didn't spare time for it. He jumped up into the path above him, but the creature was barely a beat behind, snapping its massive jaw at him. Ryan reached out to the wall but felt world shift again before he could grasp it. He hit the wall beneath him as it took its turn to become the floor, immediately rising and spinning to catch the mouth of the creature as it crashed on top of him. He twisted the head, hearing the satisfying sound of bone breaking and seeing spark fly off of broken machinery.
Pushing the creature back, he got to his feet. He spared it one more glance before turning to move on. He made his way to the end of that hall without any further difficulty. At the end, the hall split off in two directions. Pointing down each way were signs on the far wall. The one pointing left said, "This way!" while the one pointing to the right said, "No, this way!"
Ryan glanced down both paths. They both looked the same to him, just more endless white bone. He was quickly growing sick of this. He turned back to see the signs had changed. One now said, "Seriously, it's this way." While the other said, "Dude, c'mon! Would I lie to you?"
Deciding he would not play that game, Ryan turned back the way he came. As he had suspected, the path was a different one. The creature's body was gone and it was much shorter this time. He walked to the opposite end where he was met by another sign. "You're not a very good listener, are you?" it said. Another, directly beneath it said, "Whatever you do, don't look down." Ryan immediately looked down at his feet where a third sign looked back up at him. "This isn't down" it read.
The world spun again, and Ryan found himself flying up into the air. He spun in time to see the three creatures below him, each with their mouths open and light building within them. The walls shot away from him as soon as he had the thought of trying to avoid the blasts. There was no escape.
That's quite enough of that.
Suddenly vines burst from the walls of bone, shattering the maze. They wrapped themselves around the creatures, redirecting their beams to slide harmlessly away from Ryan.
Ryan took advantage of the distraction. He spun himself to catch one of the vines and looked about the now open hall again. He spotted the skeleton below. If he looked at all nervous, he was too far away to see.
The vine twisted and launched him at the skeleton, who must not have been paying attention for he did not dodge that time. Ryan's hand tightened around the skeleton's neck as he landed.
