Chapter 3

"Let me get this straight," said Sans several hours later. "There's some sort of really bad and powerful dude named Chaos that wants to destroy us all, and you created me and Pap here to stop him from doing that?"

"Essentially, yes," replied Gerson. "With your creation, our world now has death in it, which should balance out life and keep our universe stable."

Sans sat back in his chair and contemplated everything he'd been told. After eating his first meal and shown around the king's palace, he and his brother had listened to the three gods explain the situation and why they were here. There were a few things he didn't quite understand fully, not to mention several questions he wanted to ask, but he'd come to the conclusion that they were telling him the truth. He couldn't think of a single reason why these people would bring death into their world for no reason.

"Alright. So if Pap and I are supposed to help keep the balance, what are we supposed to do?" he asked.

This time, it was Asgore who answered him. "It will be you and your brother's duty to reap the souls of humans as they die. This will keep the balance of our world stable, and should prevent Chaos from gaining a foothold in our reality."

"Alright, so how do we do that?"

"I will show you," Gaster said. "Come, I shall show you the realm that you will rule over."

He stood and beckoned them to follow. When all three were a few feet from table he turned to them and said, "I was the one who created you, so in addition to your own unique abilities as Gods of Death, you have also inherited a few of my own powers. One of them is the power of teleportation. You will be able to use this power to quickly travel to the humans who have reached the end of their appointed time. Be careful though, it expends a great deal of energy. Overuse it, and you will have to wait till your magic has replenished itself before traveling again. For now, we will use it to quickly travel to the Underworld."

"Underworld?" asked Papyrus.

"Yes, that is the name of the realm where human souls will dwell after they have died. Please, stand close to me."

They stood about an arms length away, and Gaster's cloak flew back and enveloped them. One moment, they were in the king's council chamber, the next they were somewhere else. Sans looked at his surroundings. There wasn't much to look at. They appeared to be in a cave of some sort, but that was all he could tell.

"Nice place," he said aloud.

Gaster smiled. "The ritual we performed accomplished more than just bringing you into existence. It also created a third realm in the cosmic structure. This Underworld is your domain. It doesn't look like much, but it is yours to shape as you see fit. This is where you will keep the souls of the humans you reap. It was designed to hold an indefinite number of souls, so it should remain stable. When a human dies, you simply seek them out, reap their soul and bring it back here to be judged."

"Judged? Who does the judging?" Sans asked.

"You, of course. You posses the ability to review a person's memories to see what kind of life they led. If you find that they were virtuous and low in sinful deeds, you may allow them to enjoy a peaceful existence here. If they chose to follow the path of evil, it will be your duty to punish them accordingly."

"Okay, that all makes sense. How will we know when a human needs reaping?"

"That ability has been given to your brother. All humans now have a designated life span, but I suspect not all of them will survive to die of old age. Whenever a human life is destined to die, your brother will see their name up to a day in advance. Once he has that information, one or both of you will find the human and reap them. As the Gods of Death, once you know a human's name you will be able to envision them and you can use your teleportation powers to travel to them.

"Got it," Sans said.

"I will do my best!" Papyrus said.

"I'm sure you will. Well, I should get going. I have my own duties to attend to. Know that you are both considered full gods and are welcome to visit the heavens any time you wish. Also, though I was the one who created you, you don't have to address me as your father if you don't want to. But if you ever have anything you wish to discuss, you need only ask."

At that, Sans gave him a smile. "I'll hold you to it… old man."

Gaster shook his head and smiled back. "Until the next time we meet." And with a flutter of his cape, he was gone.

"I can't wait to start shaping our new home! Imagine what we could build here!" exclaimed Papyrus.

"Heh, I'm sure you'll do a fine job remodeling the place, bro," Sans replied.

"You mean you don't want to help?"

"Designing isn't really my thing."

"Sans! You lazybones! You're just trying to get out of work!"

"Nah, I just think you'll do a better job without me."

"Oh, of course you-" Papyrus cut himself off, staring intently at something. Sans raised an eye socket, wondering what was wrong.

"Uh, Pap? You ok?" he asked.

"Of course I am! I just saw the name of our first reaping!"

"Already? Well, what's the name?"

"Her name is Chara. Chara Dreemurr. Death by old age."

Sans closed his eyes, and thought about the name. He saw a young girl in a village, talking to several other villagers. Did Papyrus mess up? He couldn't see how someone so young was supposed to die of old age. Sans thought about it for a moment. He better take this one himself, and make sure this wasn't a fluke or something. Besides, he doubted his brother was going to very good at this reaping business. He might be doing Papyrus a disservice, but his brother was a very kind and somewhat naive person. Better let him stay here for now while he went to see how this whole thing would go.

"Pap, why don't you stay here and work on making some changes. I'll head out and take our first customer."

"Ok, Sans! Good luck!" his brother replied.

"Not that I'll need it," Sans thought. After all, he was a god. Nothing should go wrong.

He found the girl in the village from his vision. She was quite the humble young girl. Seemed that she was some sort of priestess or something. He couldn't she a single thing wrong with her though. He focused his power in his left eye, the one that held his magic. He turned his gaze upon her and was surprised when he saw her age over her head. She might look like a child, but she was old, really old. She was older than everybody else around her. She also had a faint aura of magic around her, a spell of some kind. The spell was probably why she looked so young.

"Guess this is what they were talking about. She's a child, but she's lived way longer than she should have. She's supposed to die of old age, but she won't due to the spell keeping her young. That's imbalance if I ever saw it. This'll be tricky though. Since she won't die naturally, I'll have to do the deed myself. Glad I left Papyrus at home."

He spent a few more seconds watching her before he melted back into the shadows. He should wait until she was alone before he struck. If he did it now, things could get messy. He hated messy, because someone always had to clean up afterwards. He didn't mind waiting though. He had all the time in the world now.