Heyyo! I had a massive spark of inspiration to make this one-shot story randomly, so here it is! Since it's a one-shot, sadly, there's only one chapter. I hope you enjoy, and if you did enjoy, feel free to leave a review telling me how I did or if you want me to make more one-shot stories! By the way, the cover art is from a map port of the Final Corridor to Garry's Mod if anyone was curious.
Change of Heart
A clock strikes the top of the hour and church bells chime across the land of the Underground, an eternal prison that all of monsterkind had been damned into after losing to the humans in the great war a thousand years ago, being sealed there by a magic barrier that can only be shattered with the power of 7 human souls. The bells toll for the souls that have been murdered in cold blooded, heartless genocide, echoing across this dust filled, empty, lonely, cold, silent land that once thrived with joy and happiness despite the grim future outlook for returning to the surface almost all monsters had. Frisk, the eighth fallen human, had chosen to kill everyone for seemingly no reason after having gone through the world many times over to experience all that it had to offer. Abusing the powers of SAVE and LOAD granted to him by his Determination, he was able to kill everyone without issues, simply coming back to his SAVE point anytime he died to an attack. He relinquished Toriel of her motherly duties, destroyed Papyrus' hopes of getting into the Royal Guard with a well-placed blow, triumphed over the incandescent spear of justice carried by Undyne even after she used her own determination to reform and refuse her death, burnt all the uncooked delicacies yet to be cooked by Muffet, closed the curtains on every last show that Mettaton had, and now, had his sights set on whoever would be coming next.
The bells fade out into the distance to allow silence to take center stage once again as the fallen child of man takes a few steps into a beautifully built, yellow-hued hall lined with Greek pillars on both sides and adorned with mosaic windows on the left bearing the Delta Rune symbol, a symbol linked to a prophecy that many monsters believe would bring about an end to their time in this world. The prophecy involves an angel from the surface falling down and traversing the Underground to make it go empty, an ambiguous prophecy that could be interpreted as positive or negative from monster to monster. Today, it is a negative prophecy, as the angel that fell is an angel of death, and he stands at the entrance of this hall that's baked with white light shining in through the windows and a reflective, checkerboard, marble floor below mirrors everything in this room, including the dark figure standing all the way on the other side. They've pulled the gray hood on their blue hoodie up and over their head, further darkening their face as where they stand is much dimmer the rest of the hall, making it difficult for Frisk to identify who it is especially since they also hold their head down towards the ground slightly. Where he stands near the entrance is a SAVE point floating next to an item box that's filled with all of the items and food he's collected during his massacre; he ignores it in favor of the SAVE point, putting his right hand out in front of it, touching it to use his SAVE power since he gets the feeling that he's not going to be advancing forward anytime soon, in fact, he feels something tingling and crawling on his back for some odd reason. "Frisk. LV 19. Time 585:33. Judgment Hall. File Saved." says the white text inside the black text box that appears about a foot in front of his face floating over the SAVE point, showing him what he's saving. He drops his hand to his side and turns his body to the left to face the figure at the end of the hall straight on, intensifying the grip he has on the shiny, sharp knife in his left hand, revealing a few veins under his skin in the process.
He starts walking towards them, walking into the bright white light shining in through the large mosaic window to the left of him, revealing the dust that's on his blue shirt with two stripes running horizontally across his chest and stomach, the dust of over 100 monsters who have been slain to fuel his genocidal tenacity that's been unchallenged by anyone thus far. His medium length, straight, slightly shiny, brown hair gently moves with each step he takes. Around his neck is a golden heart locket with the words "best friends forever" written on the inside along with a spot to hold a picture, but it's empty instead, just like his Soul. He wears shorts of the same color as his shirt and black socks, finished off with brown shoes that carry him forwards into a slightly dimmer section of the hall, bringing him closer and closer to the figure that he knows must be killed in order for him to advance. He keeps walking for a few more seconds, going into more light again before stopping at what could be considered the halfway point of the hall, standing there with an intense yet plain expression and closed eyes. The way the light hits his pale skin toned body makes it seem like half of him is brightly illuminated while the other half is heavily darkened out.
The figure picks their head up and two white pupils look at the face of someone who they used to call a friend before sighing deeply and silently to themselves. Under any other circumstance, they wouldn't have come here to see him as they'd be too lazy to do it, but this is anything but that and they cannot afford to continue being apathetic and indifferent to what's going on any longer. Their hands in the front pocket of their unzipped, blue hoodie, they start walking forwards towards the human. Their black shorts with a vertical white stripe on the side shuffle around with the motion of his legs; his pink slippers move him forwards to get a better look at him with each step they complete. He walks into the bright light, and this partially illuminates his face and body, allowing Frisk to see who it is and when he realizes it's Sans the Skeleton, the right corner of his lip quivers and his expression briefly waivers for some reason. He walks all the way from where he is to stand about 20 feet away from him, his face holding a smile that's quite small and filled with disappointment, an oddity for what a smile usually portrays.
The two simply stare at each other, their eyes perfectly level with each other due to being the same exact height. Little specks of dust float around gently in the stagnant, thick air, revealed by the bright light shining in through the windows nearby. Neither of them say anything, it's nothing more than a tense stare down of two beings in a land that's clinging to its final breath with its killer standing over it ready to end it all. He knows that this isn't going to do anything, and while he's heard of the things that his friends had said to him, it did nothing to thwart his genocide. Deep-down he doesn't want to do this, for he doesn't feel good about killing a mere child. He looks at him, contemplating how he could do such a horrid thing when none of them ever had any sort of malice or hatred towards him. Sure, Papyrus might've been a bit overbearing at times with his puzzles and exclamations of capturing him to get in the Royal Guard, Undyne might've misjudged him initially and thought he was evil and needed to die so she could collect his soul and use it to break the barrier, Alphys might've lied to him to insert herself into his journey by using Mettaton as a puppet of sorts to make her feel better about herself, and Mettaton might've tricked him into being used as a plaything for his TV show only to reveal that he wanted to use his soul to get to the surface and selfishly become a superstar, but none of them, absolutely none of them ever truly wanted to kill him. Every one of them only wanted the best possible outcome from it all, even if it wasn't the best choice of action that they chose to undertake.
His eyes blink slowly, and he takes an audible breath in and out, knowing he must say or do something. "heya." his deep, monotone, slightly depressed sounding voice reverberates around the hall. His pupils look towards the dust on his hands, shirt, and pants. "you've been busy, huh?" his question is left unanswered, not even the echo of his voice is willing to answer it. His pupils shift back to looking directly at his face, noticing an intensity on it unlike any other; he's ready to fight the moment his little spiel is over. He sighs and his shoulders drop a little. "you probably don't want to hear what i have to say, hell, you probably aren't listening. why even bother, it doesn't make a difference, right?" his smile slightly widens when he says this. "this is what happens when guys like me take it easy. i shoulda' stopped ya when i had the chance, but i didn't." He notices his right eyebrow raises itself slightly; it's the most emotion he's shown since he met him in Snowdin. "yeah, i thought that might get a little something out of ya." he looks at one of the pillars to his left. "look, i don't care about the fact that you've killed my friends and my brother…" he looks at him, his eyes becoming black sockets, and his voice gets slightly deep. "actually, i care greatly that you killed all of them." his pupils return. "maybe they mean absolutely nothing to you, maybe you think that they're all worthy of the terrible fate ya brought down upon them. i don't care to know your personal reasons behind killing them." he leans forwards a little and his voice gets deeper. "i do, however, care to understand one thing…" he pulls back and brings his tone back to what it was. "why?"
He's surprised that he of all monsters would want to know that; it matters not if he were to tell him the reason behind why he killed everyone because he thinks that the goal they have is far beyond his understanding. He simply stays silent and tilts his left hand a little, making the edge of the knife catch the light, casting a blinding shine at him but it doesn't affect him since his eyes are not the same as the eyes of a human or other monsters for that fact of the matter. He chuckles lowly for a few seconds in response to this, knowing that he's not going to get a response. "alright, have it your way." he shrugs both of his shoulders. "just like you have your reasons for killing them, you must have your reasons for not wanting to answer me." his eyes close again and his smile widens. "it's like i said, why bother?" Frisk takes a single step forwards to close the gap between the two of them, his step echoing heavily around the hall and Sans opens his eyes in response. That was one shot he had that he gave, it wasn't his most deep hitting question but one that he hopes might be a good enough catalyst for his second question to possibly change his mind. He pulls his right hand out of his pocket with its palm facing upwards. "you know, our reports showed an anomaly in the timespace continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting until everything ends." he puts it back. "i'm not quite sure about it, but i have a feeling that you're the one to blame for this." his intense, plain expression starts to soften up a little as he explains. "ever since you came here, those things started happenin', so it doesn't take a genius to deduce who or what it could be that's causing this." he looks at the window to his right. "our reports didn't tell us what the reason behind these timeline jumps and such were; perhaps these were moments where something happened that was out of your control?" he lowers his head and a shadow covers part of his face as his eyes become black sockets once more. "...perhaps those were moments where you died…?"
His eyebrows, which were low and quite close to his closed eyes, are now far up on his head, giving him a significantly less intense expression compared to before. This revelation is slightly startling to him, Sans knows about his power to SAVE and LOAD without witnessing it in action. He knows that he's died and that's probably what the anomaly of "timelines starting and stopping, jumping left and right" means since when he died, he'd simply be brought right back to his SAVE point unharmed and ready to try again. This makes his slightly nervous for more reasons than this, for if he does fight him, will he do anything he can to stop him from winning since he knows that his ability to come back allows him to learn how monsters fight. This question runs wild in his head and begins weakening the valor that's stood steadfast during his genocide, it even makes him doubt if what he's after is really worth it in the end. He tilts his head to look at the ground to his right for a few moments, then shakes it back and forth a little, trying to put this aside and ignore it in favor of seeing this through to the end.
He sees this and it gives him a little hope; there may be a chance for him to turn this whole thing around without any attacks being thrown at each other. He goes in for a slammer, his tone returning to normal and his head straightening out as his pupils fade in. "that being said… i think it's a probable theory to state that you've met me and the others multiple times before." his tone gets a little deeper. "exactly how many times have you met me, and how many times have we done this song and dance?" his pupils dart to the left. "...don't answer that, i don't care to know. you're really kind of a freak in that regard." he looks back at him and notices his expression, while still plain, has become less intense and is struggling to keep itself that way and it tells him that he's starting to become conflicted on his choices up to this moment in time. "heh… that expression you're wearing…" he shrugs his shoulders. "ah, well… sucks that it's gotta be this way. we could've been so much more than what we are now. c'mon, buddy, don't you remember me?" he pulls out both of his hands and holds them out with his palms facing him almost like he's asking for a hug, but not quite. "we could forget all of this fighting nonsense and make everything a whole lot easier if you just drop your weapon." his smile widens and his tone gets ever so slightly chipper and joyful. "i can take ya to grillby's and we'd spend time eating good food, enjoying humerus jokes, having bad laughs, and be the friends that we once were in another timeline. please… let's just go back to that, okay?" he holds his right hand out for him to grab. "whaddaya say?" he's hoping, praying deep in the confines of his soul that he'll finally let go and end this madness.
The temptation is insane, the desire to forget all of this and go back to what once was is massive, but his determination manages to hold it off once more, albeit, his intense expression gone and a plain, slightly remorseful one replacing it as he looks away once more, unable to face him with all of the heavy words he's thrown at him. His left arm shakes a little for a few seconds before stopping and his left hand further tightens around the handle of the knife, trying to make it appear that he's not listening to him and still wants to fight. To show his defiance, he takes two steps forwards, about 8 feet now separates the two of them and they can both practically feel each other's emotions in the air now with such close proximity. The question of his goal comes back to the front of his mind once more, now tag-teaming with the offer to forget all of this and go back to being friends with him; a deadly combo that strikes his valor once more, making it stumble and fall to one knee, but not quite a strong enough hit to make him give up and abandon his ways. He clenches his teeth hard as this miniature battle takes place in his mind; doubt and remorse trying to defeat every last bit of reason he has to continue this pointless genocide.
He's almost through to him, his expression is telling him that one last, well placed blow will be enough to make him change. He puts both of his hands back in his pockets and takes a deep breath in before laying his most potent words upon him. "listen, i know you didn't answer any of the questions i've asked of you before, but this one i want you to answer even if you think your answer is wrong." he closes his eyes. "do you think that even the worst person can change…?" In response, his right eyebrow goes as high as it can and the grip on his knife loosens greatly; it's almost dangling in his hand now, but it hangs on by a thread. "that said person can go back on everything they worked up to and become a better person if they just try?" His voice echoes around the hall for much longer than before, slowly fading out into silence; he expects an answer from him now that he's posed a question to him that he knows he can't ignore for a fact. The hall is completely silent, nothing can be heard, not even the breathing of both creatures is audible; time is standing still and so is Frisk as he silently contemplates this question.
The silence sentences the last bits of hope he has to the dungeon, his smile slowly shrinking in size until it almost becomes a frown. His last and most potent choice of words has been thrown on the table, his entire deck having been used with no moves left in the department of diplomacy. His shoulders fall and his entire body loosens itself with a mighty sigh of disappointment; he knows what's about to happen next is something that he had hoped would never have to happen, but unfortunately, he wasn't able to-
Clang! The sound of metal resonates and pierces the eardrums with its painfully high-pitched echo. From his left hand, he's released the knife, something he had completely lost all hope of seeing and without any warning, he collapses onto his knees and falls to his hands. His head hangs low and immediately he starts crying as loud as possible. "Waaaahahahaaaahhhh…!" While his hair is now completely covering and hiding his face as it hangs down and all around him, a dam of tears is allowed to finally flow, quickly streaming down his face and cheeks, and dripping off at the very tip of the bottom of his chin. The tears darken the floor below him slightly, and as they fall, the light cascades off of them and gives them a sparkle as they descend towards the ground. All the remorse, all the guilt, everything he had suppressed to kill all the friends he had made in previous timelines pours through, unchallenged by his valor no longer. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" he shakes his head rapidly back and forth as he screams this, his voice broken, tortured, and relieved that it's all over. This sudden and rapid chain of events makes Sans' eyes shoot wide open and his head lurches back a little, shocked that he had managed to get through to him and caused him to have a change of heart.
He bawls, winges, screams, and pours his heart out; it's over, the genocide had been completely aborted and Sans takes his left hand out of his pocket to put over his chest where his heart is, closing his eyes, and exhaling a massive breath in relief. He puts it back in his pocket, opens his eyes, and slowly walks over to Frisk, speaking as he does with a calm, relaxed tone. "hey… i know how hard it must have been to make that choice." he looks up at him, his hair getting out of his face and allowing Sans to see his open, slightly irritated, brown eyes full of tears with cascading shimmers in the light. "i knew the real you was hiding in there somewhere, the glimmer of a good person that i know you were according to all those reports of that timeline anomaly i told you about." he stops in front of him and crouches down to get eye level with him. "that took real guts, kiddo."
He's actually afraid that he's saying all of this as a trick to make him put his guard down and give him a chance to kill him. He lets out a little, panicked scream and falls back on his butt as he tries and struggles in a panic to stand up as fast as he can. "N-no! S-stay back!" he nervously and anxiously crawls back away from him, fearing that he's about to use one of his attacks to kill him. As he hurries to get away from him, his tears are flung and scattered about through the air, sparkling in the light and landing all over, leaving little, shiny dots on the reflective marble floor. He realizes that he came off looking and sounding quite intimidating to him before he chose to lay his weapon down, and his eyes widen a little; he might not have a weapon anymore, but if he attempts to get too close to him now, he might just attack him in self-defense.
He stands up, and changes his expression to that of something less serious and threatening. "i get it, you think i'm gonna hurt ya." he shrugs. "can't say i blame ya, i'd be thinking the same thing. to be kinda blunt… i was considering it, but now, with this choice, we can forget all of this, okay?" he pulls his left hand out of his pocket and holds it out for him to grab. "you got my word, i won't hurt ya." His irises and pupils jitter with fear, tears still streaming down his face and sniffling quite a bit; some of these tears fall and land on his shirt, staining it with the dampness contained within. Even though he has all the reason not to trust him since he had been killing everyone without a second thought and all of them were willing to kill him in the same way, his heart tells him it's okay and he calms down a bit while slowly standing up off the ground, getting to his feet. He immediately averts his gaze, turning his head away as far as possible, not able to look him in the eyes after everything he's done to him and put him through.
He tries to encourage him. "it's okay, baby bones… c'mere, you don't need to be afraid of me." he watches as Frisk brings his right arm up and rubs it on his face and eyes, drying the many tears that've fallen and moistened his skin. He sniffles tons and once finished, he raises both of his shoulders brings both of his arms close to his body, now rubbing his right elbow with his left hand, shy, anxious, an quite tense despite his encouragement. He still refuses to look at him, and Sans decides to take a couple of steps towards him, but before he finishes taking his first step, Frisk forcibly shuts his eyes and dashes off towards the end of the hall from where he originally came from, a few tears being flung as he jerks his body around and runs off. Sans' left hand reaches out and his expression turns sad, too. He whispers under his breath, worried that he won't be able to talk to and ask him a few questions, with one in particular being extremely important regarding the future of him and the others left in this timeline. "kid… you're gonna make me cry if you keep this up…" as much as he wants to console him, he understands that forcibly trying to approach him when he doesn't want to be approached won't make anything better. He shrugs both of his shoulders, puts his left hand back in his pocket and decides to walk over to one of the Greek pillars nearby to prop himself up, leaning his back on it with his right foot planted on it to give him support; he'll simply wait for them to approach him instead and he'll ask his questions then.
A whole hour passes. During this time, Frisk decided to sit himself in the corner near the SAVE point and item box, facing the wall so he wouldn't have to look at Sans while he manages to gather his thoughts so he could properly apologize to him without being all teary-eyed and unable to say it all in one go. He feels miserable emotionally, but physically and mentally as well; the act of suppressing all feelings, the act of gaining LOVE, it put an intense strain on his entire body and left him exhausted in a way he's never felt before. He sits on his legs with them slightly spread apart, his hands held together, eyes closed and looking down at them with a small frown on his face. From the inner and outer corner of his eyes, a trail of tear stains is visible going down his cheek and ending at the bottom of his chin; he cried for nearly 40 minutes straight in silence while thinking about everything he had done, the absolutely horrible choice of action he undertook had left him all alone with only one friend left, one who he was sure he'd have to fight and have a bad time against. He takes his hands away from each other and turns them over, looking at his palms covered in wet dust thanks to all the tears he cried, a permanent reminder of what he's done but it also causes another feeling to well up within him, one that helps him overcome this weary, heavy fatigue plaguing him.
He stands up from his little corner and turns his entire body around, immediately noticing that Sans had propped himself up against one of the pillars near where he was standing when he tried approaching him earlier; it just so happens he ended up falling asleep while waiting for him. He actually allows a tiny smile to write itself on his face for a brief moment in response, disappearing as fast as it came because what he wants to say to him is serious and a far cry away from anything happy. He slowly walks towards him, a resolute force driving his new goal of apologizing to him and revealing exactly why he had decided to kill everyone. He walks into the light shining in through the mosaic window; it glistens off the last few dampened spots on his face and a few moments later, he stands in front of the monster who he had previously thought he'd end up fighting. He raises his left hand up, takes a gentle hold of his hoodie, and yanks on it a couple of times. "Sans…" his voice, mellow, sweet, remorseful, and a little bit shy, squeaks in the hopes that he'll wake him.
He lifts his head up a little and opens his right eye to look at him. He wasn't fully asleep; more akin to a little power nap is what he was taking. He watches as he nervously taps his hands together, having something to say. "heya kiddo. took you a bit to finally come over to me." he shrugs but holds it. "see? no harm done to anyone here." he lowers his shoulders and winks with his right eye. "so, what's up?"
He hums for a few seconds, averting his gaze and frowning strong in the face of what he wants to say to him as he's unsure of how he'll respond to it. "Umm…" he's hesitant, not quite sure of how to word it. "I… I want to apologize."
He stops leaning up against the pillar and opens up both of his eyes, looking at his face intently. "apologize? heh, that's cute, kiddo. i already know you're sorry, so it's not like you have to go through with all this formal apology stuff." his smile widens. "besides, i think you have much more to say to me than a simple "sorry", right?" He's a bit surprised that he's not interested in hearing him say sorry, though it does make sense; all the crying and bawling he did over the last hour is proof enough that he's sorry for what he's done. "that being said, you can tell me all that ya want to say now." he gets himself comfy, standing with his legs spread out at shoulder length.
He's got his chance now and speaks, his tone becoming quiet. "I… I don't know if you'll believe me…" he turns away for a moment, coming back quickly; his voice becoming louder than before, speaking a bit faster. "I killed everyone because I was curious! I killed them all because I wanted to see what they would do or say… I never wanted it to end up like this even though this is what I wanted. I pretended to not care so it'd be easier for me to kill everyone, ignoring my emotions and what my heart was telling me to do in favor of dust and death." his voice starts to break a little, the thought of what he did gets to him once more and tears start to well up in the corners of his eyes. "Sans… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it all… I just wanted to know what would happen if everyone were to be killed… I played with everyone's lives just to satisfy my curiosity, I upset everyone and made such a big mistake…" his head drops down and he sighs, full of sadness. "What am I going to do to fix this? I can't bring them back now, they're dead and gone forever."
He smiles wide. "heh… aint'cha forgetting something?" his right hand comes out and gently puts itself on the top of his head, rustling his hair a bit with his fingers. "kiddo, remember the reports i was talkin' about? i know you have a special power that allows you to control timelines." he rolls his pupils and takes his hand off his head. "it's just me spitballin' here, but shouldn't you have the ability to bring everything back to zero?" Frisk nods slowly in agreement, not completely catching his drift with what that'd mean. "and if you reset everything back to zero, what should happen?"
He stands there trying to think of what this means as his right pointer finger comes up to the right corner of his mouth, though because of his young age, he doesn't quite piece it together. "I'm… not sure…"
He winks his left eye. "kiddo, all the people you've killed will be brought back and it'll be like nothing ever happened."
He stands there for a moment, trying to understand and link all of these things together, but once that lightbulb goes off, it goes off with a smile and then he jumps at him to grab him in a hug. "Sans! You're a genius! Why didn't I think of that!?" The tears in his eyes that've been waiting to fall yet again slowly trickle out of his closed eyes, but these tears aren't from sadness, they're from joy. He glomps him, hugging him as hard as he can muster with his little arms, unable to properly wrap them around his body due to being smaller than him. He's caught a little off guard by this, not expecting him to respond like that but he embraces him and hugs back, chuckling under his breath and closing his eyes. He gently rubs Frisk's back with his right hand for a few moments. They hugging each other and he looks up at him. "Sans, I'm really, really sorry for everything I've done. Besides doing a reset, I don't know if there's anything else I can do to make everything better for you..."
He thinks for a moment, opening his eyes; his pupils glancing up at the ceiling as he ponders what Frisk could do to make everything up to him. "i got an idea, how about we go to grillby's? everyone else might be, well, dead, but that doesn't mean we can't get some good food before it's all truly over aaannnnd you could answer a few questions of mine that i have." His smile persists; in his eyes, this is the best possible outcome that he could've gotten considering all that COULD have happened an hour ago. He couldn't possibly get it to be better in anyway other way, and he holds his right hand out for him to grab and hold onto which he gently grabs. He looks at them. "before we go, i have one last thing to say." he winks his right eye and tilts his head in the same direction a little. "thanks." he opens his eye and the two start walking down the hall, holding hands. "i know a shortcut, so don't let go of my hand, okay?"
Frisk, a beaming smile and rosy, red cheeks, giggles. "Okay, Sans!"
END
