"ow!" you yell in pain as one of your summoned bones hits you squarely on your nasal cavity. If you had a nose, it might've been broken.

"ow ow ow ow..." the echo flowers around you repeat. You grin ruefully at how they're emphasizing your mistake even more. They sound amusing though, making you laugh at yourself, so you don't mind.

"Sans?"

Papyrus peaks out at you from around the entrance to the cave where you've been practicing alone in Waterfall. You've thoroughly explored these caves and found the best places to practice your magical attacks...or cry alone, when you're haunted by worry over what is going on with Gaster. The truth is, you're scared. But you can't let him see that.

"Are you practicing? Can I practice with you? I want to do magic attacks like you can!"

"sure, bro," you answer. "we gotta be careful tho, ok? i don't wanna hurt you by accident."

"I know you'd never hurt me," he answers softly. "You're WAY too careful and smart!"

"just hurt myself tho," you answer. "i'm really not that good."

"Yes you are! You're stronger than anyone! I just don't get why...you never show anyone but me." There's admiration but also bittersweet sad notes in his voice. "Ever since you talked to dad the last time in Waterfall, you're always practicing...but you don't talk to people as much as you used to."

You flinch. You've grown increasingly reclusive, not sure how much you should tell him. He's several years younger than you, after all. A child shouldn't have to deal with what you'd seen and heard, let alone felt, in your last conversation with Gaster. You know you've hurt Papyrus's feelings by not telling him everything. You've been vague, trying to tell him what you could. But your own feelings make talking about what happened pretty painful, and sometimes you think you're making excuses to yourself that he's too young, just to avoid talking about it.

He's a little older now though. Maybe you can tell him something.

"I have to be stronger than him," you say, your voice getting rougher with emotion.

"What?" He looks incredibly confused, and a little scared.

"you know how something wasn't right with...with him? before he left home?"

Papyrus hesitates. "He got meaner. Why? I could never understand why! He was mean to us both! Did we do something wrong? I tried so hard to be good! Did I do something wrong?!"

"No." you say very firmly. "You never did anything wrong."

Trying to lighten the mood, you hug him and tell him, "who could ever think you're anything but genuinely great and awesomely special and fantastically cool? If they did, that's a sure sign something's wrong with them."

You let him go and he pulls back enough that you can see his expression. His eye lights are burning orange, showing a depth and strength of emotion he doesn't often display. He's clearly touched by your words, but still determined to find out some answers from you.

"Was he sick!? Should we have helped him?"

You're not sure how to answer him. You shuffle your feet awkwardly and put your hands in your jacket pockets.

"i mean...yeah. sort of."

"Why haven't we helped him already?"

"we can't."

You lead him over to one side of the cavern, his face falling at your inadequate answer.

"stand here, ok? i'm gonna try to hit you with harmless bones and you gotta dodge or block them with your own."

"Ok..." he mumbles.

You back up, and target him with a serious albeit harmless attack, readying bones in the air. Before now, it was always just a game. Gaster trained the two of you to fight, but he made it fun, back before he changed. You never really believed you'd have to fight for real.

You imagine Papyrus is Gaster instead, and imagine actually hitting him with an attack.

But every part of your being resists it. You can't stand the idea of actually attacking another monster with the intention of hurting him. When it was a game, when it was just sparring, then you could attack, because you knew your intention was not to harm. But hurting someone for real? It's unbearable to even begin to consider doing that.

If it was a human, would you feel different? You try imagining a human is standing there instead, but your soul still fights you at the idea of harming anyone intentionally.

"I almost wish that you had answered in the affirmative..."

How could he want you to attack him? The reality of what a battle with him would've been like sets in, and you shudder. You drop the attack, letting the bones dissipate. Papyrus sees you give up and runs over to you, noticing the distressed look on your face and the way your soul and eye lights are burning intensely from your emotions.

"Sans?" Papyrus asks plaintively, clearly worried about you.

You take a deep breath, calming your soul's blue fire, and lead him to sit down next to you on a rocky ledge nearby. He looks up at you innocently, waiting for you to explain.

After awhile, he hesitates, and asks more thoughtfully, "Sans, did you try to help him? Is that why you and dad had another argument?"

You pause. That's close enough to the truth, you think. You don't have to give him every frightening detail, like the way Gaster has been hurting himself.

"yeah. something is horribly wrong with his soul." Papyrus's face tenses up with worry, and his eye lights are wide and intense.

"How? How did that happen? When?" The questions flow from him like a river.

"i'm not sure but i think something might've happened to him in the lab. maybe they were doing some kind of dangerous experiment. ever since he stopped letting me be his assistant, he started to change."

"Did he um..."

Papyrus looks down for a moment and then back up at you, hesitating.

"it's ok to ask," you let him know.

"I heard people talking and saying bad things were happening at the lab...and I told them they were wrong and I didn't believe it until he hurt you downstairs the night he left. That wasn't right! He shouldn't have done that to you!" He sounds heartbroken, trapped between the image of the old Gaster who loved you both and would never do anything like that, and the cruel person he started to become later.

You close your eye sockets briefly.

"no, he shouldn't have," you reply, looking back up at him. "he also should've treated you better when you took the time to draw something for him. he should've acted proud and actually appreciated it when you gave it to him, the way a parent is supposed to."

"Did he actually...do something bad?" Papyrus asks quietly.

Gaster as much as admitted that he did something bad and that's what caused all this. But how bad? It doesn't seem like a responsible surrogate parent should be telling Papyrus everything here, about what Gaster told you.

"he made a mistake," you fudge. "it...might've been something bad. it might've weakened his soul and made him vulnerable. i don't know for sure. but i do know that something...maybe someone...used his mistake to hurt him even worse."

"Someone? A monster? Or...a human?" Papyrus looks freaked out by the idea. Who could possibly be a threat to your father, someone so big and strong and so good with his magical abilities?

"i'm not sure. it's like some kind of...entity. something that's not physical, but has a personality and can think for itself. it's seriously damaging his soul. i'm not sure how. i'm still trying to figure that part out."

He looks uncertain but seems to accept that as the best answer you can give him right now. He nods with an expression like he still doesn't really understand the situation, but he appreciates you telling him this much.

You give him a sad half-smile. "i didn't want to tell you because of how awful his condition is, but you're old enough now that you should know. i think i might be able to help him, but only if i'm stronger than him. i have to practice until i can beat him."

"You have to be able to beat him?" he asks, and you see him thinking, like he's putting the puzzle pieces together in his head as you talk. He's probably remembering Gaster's strange behavior before he fled home.

"yeah. i have to capture him." You chuckle drily. "s'not an easy task, i know. he trained both of us to fight humans, before he started...ignoring us. we know exactly how powerful he is. he's one of the strongest monsters in the underground."

"Capture him?"

"yeah. i think he might seriously hurt himself if he keeps this up. i tried to talk him into getting help, but it didn't go very well. then i tried to sneak up on him and tie him up, but he saw through it. i think i'm gonna have to just overpower him first."

Papyrus is looking a little panicked. "Won't it be dangerous? He might hurt you! I can't stand that! I heard him attack you in the living room on the night he left home! Your bones cracked against the wall!" He's almost hyperventilating now. "I'll protect you, no matter what! But then we might hurt him, if we fight him for real! I don't want us to hurt him! I don't want to hurt anyone!" he cries out.

Instinctively, you put your arms around him again, waiting for him to calm down a little before letting him go. You talk to him very seriously, looking him straight in his eye lights with your own.

"i don't want to hurt anyone either. i really, really don't. listen. i know it's scary, but if we don't do something, and he ends up..." You swallow heavily, not wanting to finish. Luckily, Papyrus catches on. He shudders and his expression tightens, but he keeps listening without interrupting.

"if we don't do anything to help him, and something like that happens, he'll always be like an empty space in our souls. we'll always wonder if we could have done something. it's tough, but we gotta be brave, and at least try. i think he wants to be helped. one part of him does, anyway. i'm absolutely certain of that. but another part of him doesn't. that's why i have to be able to fight him, to stop the part of him that's...mean. i have to stop the part that's hurting him."

Papyrus still looks sad and scared, making himself small by hugging himself. You try to think of something he can do to help, so he feels useful, and the two of you can think more positively.

"i really don't want you fighting him, unless it's the absolute worst case scenario. but maybe you can help me make traps to capture him with? that would be a huge, enormous help. you're really good at that kind of thing. you know some of those creative bone shapes you make sometimes? maybe you can help me figure out how to form them into something that can hold him without hurting him. it'll probably take a lot of practice, though."

Papyrus thinks about it for a few moments, and then his expression clears and his eye lights brighten as he stands up. He widens his stance, makes fists, and pulls them back quickly in a ready to fight kind of way.

"Then let's practice! We'll practice until we can help him! We'll never stop until we're strong enough! And I'll help you make the best traps ever, so we can capture him without hurting him! They'll be positively splendorifically effective! And then we can all go home together!"

"well. sometimes we'll have to stop. you know, to eat and stuff."

"We'll NEVER stop!" he trumpets out loudly. "We WON'T EAT OR SLEEP UNTIL WE'RE STRONG ENOUGH!"

The echo flowers agree with him in a chorus of determined yells, giving you a burst of motivation and making you grin, proud of him, getting yourself ready for more exercise.

You spend many hours that night, sparring with gravity and bone attacks with him. There's a certain look of resolve in both of your expressions. Papyrus starts to form bones into crude box like structures, and you try to do the same. You worry they'll never be strong enough to contain Gaster's soul, but at least this gives you some kind of option besides just attacking him until he hopefully falls unconscious without dying. You realize that it's not going to be an easy task to knock him out without seriously hurting or killing him, given that monster souls are fairly delicate by nature.

You're happy Papyrus is getting his spirit back, as shown by his volume, but you have to temper his enthusiasm before you both collapse with exhaustion. You make sure the two of you get a quick snack and some sleep that night, despite his protests that he doesn't need sleep, although he does eventually admit that good food helps keep your bones strong and healthy.

In the days after that, Papyrus never gives up and he keeps pushing the two of you to keep practicing. He tries putting together bones in many different ways creatively, and eventually manages a square kind of bone cage. He grins proudly at his accomplishment and you grin back. It's not nearly enough to capture Gaster with, but it's a start. If you can weaken him a little first with other attacks, maybe then you can capture him without killing him. You work on creating a very special type of blue magic bones meant to stop him from moving. If he moves, the blue bones will damage him, so hopefully he won't try and will let himself be captured.

Occasionally Papyrus asks if the two of you are strong enough yet. It's frustrating, but you have to answer honestly, "no, not yet. we're doing good though. i'm sure we'll make it eventually. we just can't give up."

He answers, "NO! WE'll NEVER, EVER EVER GIVE UP! WE'LL NEVER GIVE UP ON HIM! WE'LL PRACTICE AND PRACTICE AND PRACTICE! UNTIL WE'RE BOTH STRONG ENOUGH TO HELP HIM!"

You wonder how long that will be, but for now it's enough that practicing gives both of you hope.