Chapter 13

Sure enough, Gaster was standing outside his house waiting for him. He stood, arms crossed and one eye cocked in a scolding expression. As Sans walked up to him he said, "You really shouldn't project such a menacing aura. You driven off every god within a mile."

"Well, I really can't help myself right now," he replied. "I'm a little ticked off."

"About what?" Gaster asked.

"Not out here."
Gaster let out a long suffering sigh. "Fine," he said. "Come in and we'll talk."

Sans walked into his house and took note of the place. Literally nothing had changed. He thought about heading to his favorite spot on the couch, but he firmly decided to stay standing. He wanted Gaster to know he was serious about this.

Taking note, Gaster said, "If you're so upset you won't even sit so we can talk like civilized beings, then you might as well spill it already."

"Civilized beings, huh?" Sans replied. "Funny, I would've thought that a civilized being such as yourself wouldn't be keeping secrets from his fellows. Especially when they directly involve him."

"Just what secret are your referring to?"

Softly, Sans said, "My birth."

Gaster went motionless. The two of them stared at each other for the longest time before he spoke again. "I see."

"I see?" Sans said. "That's all you have to say!? You deceived me! Kept me in the dark about my own birth! You betrayed me!" he half shouted.

Gaster didn't move. This was the first time he'd ever heard Sans raise his voice. "Sans…" he began.

"Not one word unless its for the purpose of explaining yourself," Sans said. "I trusted you. I thought of you as a friend." After a brief pause he added, "Hell, I thought of you as my father. And now I know that my own father didn't even tell me the truth about my creation. Try to imagine what I feel like right now, cause I'm pretty sure you can't."

Gaster, for the first time in years, was stunned. He had no idea that Sans had felt that way. He took a brief moment to scold himself. After all the lecturing he had given Undyne and the others about trying to understand Sans, he had ignored his own advice. He'd blithely assumed that he knew everything about him.

"I'm sorry," he finally said aloud. "It was never my intention to cause you any distress. You said you think of me as a father, and I am glad you do so. I have always thought of you as a son, but it is clear to me now that, as a father, I have failed you. I will tell you whatever you want to know."

Sans felt his rage begin to recede. He could feel the sincerity behind Gaster's words. He crossed over to the couch and sat. "Alright. Then start talking. I know that you and all the other gods are made of Light, and I've discovered that I might not be. So tell me exactly how I was created."

Gaster took a seat himself and said, "Though I'm not sure how you discovered it on your own, your suspicions are correct. You are not made of Light like myself. You were born from Darkness."

"Why?"

"I suspect you already know the answer. To counteract Life, which was a power given by Light, we required an opposite force. Thus, we had to use Darkness when we created you. Otherwise, you would be incapable of becoming a God of Death."

"But how did you do it? I thought only Chaos could wield the powers of Darkness."

"True. However, while Chaos was beyond our reach, his power had already infiltrated our world before you were created. Do you remember the story of how I found the corrupted human?"

"Yes…" Sans said. He was putting the pieces together now. "So when you cleansed him, you didn't just destroy the Darkness you extracted? You saved it."

Gaster nodded. "Yes. Originally, I had hoped to study it as a way of learning more about our enigmatic foe, but then we realized that I could use it to create you."

"So I really am made from his power."

"Yes, but that is the only thing you have in common with that monster. Isolated from its master, the Darkness I extracted from the human changed, becoming less like a hostile force and more like a free entity. Your powers may be derived from Chaos, but your soul is your own. You are a god who wields Darkness as an ally, and you have dominion over it. It cannot control you. And you use it everyday to keep Chaos out of our world." He smiled. "The irony never ceases to amuse me."

Sans sat there, thinking about what Gaster had said. "If that's true, then why bother hiding this from me?"

"We were worried about your reaction. You have to understand that your creation was something of a historic moment. No one had ever attempted to create a god before, and we weren't sure how it would work. Would you have memories? Feelings? How much would you know about the world you were being brought into? There was extreme risk involved, using the Darkness the way we did. For all we knew, you could have be born as loyal servants to Chaos. Luckily for us, that didn't happen."

"Okay, that explains why you didn't tell me then. Why didn't you tell me when it was apparent that I wasn't evil?"

"I didn't want you to feel alienated. Asgore, as well as myself, believed you would feel more comfortable and accepted thinking that you were of the Light as we are. Of course, there was also a more pragmatic reason."

Sans rolled his eyes as Gaster paused. Was he really going to have to pull the truth out of him one word at a time? "What reason?" he asked.

"How much do you know about our war with Chaos?"

"Not much. It never seemed relevant to my job. And you're dodging my question."

Gaster smiled. "Not really. It just takes some background to answer it properly. I won't go into all the details, but the main point you need to understand is that we did not win that war as we are now."

"Wait, what?" Sans asked. Where was he going with this?

"There's a reason Chaos was so feared. He possessed enough power to wage war against all of us at once. Honestly, we spent most of the war running from him, trying to figure out a way to fight him on even terms. We stood our ground a few times, but it only resulted in casualties. Eventually, however, we found a solution: the inner Light."

"Inner Light?"

"Yes. You see, our powers and status as gods comes from the Light that dwells within our souls. While we were running from Chaos, we, meaning myself, Gerson, Asgore, and Toriel, realized that we could directly tap into that power. By unleashing our Light, our powers were magnified immensely, giving us the edge against Chaos."

"Just how powerful did it make you?" Sans asked.

"None of us know for certain, but I would wager that we were at least ten times as powerful."

Sans raised his eye-sockets at that. Gaster, not to mention the other gods he'd named, was powerful enough as he was to do quite a bit of damage to the world should he ever snap. Multiply that by a factor of ten and…

"I guess I can see why you'd be worried. That much power is dangerous," he said.

"More than you know," Gaster replied solemnly. "You see, tapping into the Light requires incredible skill and focus. Not to mention a complete certainty of one's purpose. The process is also a risky one. Light, like Darkness, is a force of nature and is not something we can control completely. To date, only five gods have managed to unleash it successfully: the four of us I named earlier and Undyne. There were several other gods who attempted to unleash the inner Light, but for one reason or another they failed to keep their power in check. Ultimately, their Light destroyed them, disintegrating their souls."

Sans nodded. "And since I'm made from Darkness…"

Gaster completed his thought, "We have no idea what would happen if you tried to tap into it. Though I cannot be completely sure, my own hypothesis is that should you ever lose control over your power, your inner Darkness would consume you. The destruction you would be able to unleash would be a significant threat to the world's balance."

"I see," said Sans.

"Simply put," Gaster continued, "we didn't want you or your brother to experiment with your abilities beyond what was necessary to perform your duties. We were afraid that if you pushed the limits of your powers, it would result in catastrophe."

Sans sighed. Things were finally beginning to make sense. Now he understood why most of the lesser gods feared him the way they did. To them, he probably seemed like a miniature version of Chaos. Most of them were probably terrified that one day he'd unleash his Darkness on the world. To top it all off, there was nothing they could do about it either. They had to take Asgore's word that he was necessary to keep their realm stable, but who knew how many of them harbored secret doubts about him?

"All right," he finally said out loud. "I'm not sure I completely agree with the reasoning behind the decision, but at least I understand it now." He paused, and then looked Gaster right in the eyes. "However, this is the last time I want to have a conversation like this. If there is anything else you're keeping from me that I should know, you better tell me now. If I find out later that I'm still being kept in the dark, you are really not going to like what happens."

"I understand," he replied. "And again, I'm sorry this caused you the pain that it did."

Sans didn't answer right away, he was still processing everything he'd been told. Gaster seemed to be telling the truth, but there was something off about the whole story. As if there was a missing piece.

"There's still one thing that's been bothering me," he said. "How did you know what to do?"

"I'm afraid you've lost me," Gaster replied.

"How did you know how to make me? You said that it had never been done before, and that you didn't know what would happen. If that's the case, how did you even know how the process worked? Better yet, how did you and the others figure out how to tap into your Light? It all seems suspiciously convenient to have happened by chance."

"Ah, of course," Gaster said. "I forgot, but there is one other secret we've kept from you, although it does not directly concern you."

Sans eyes narrowed. "Well, I don't care if it concerns me or not. No more secrets. What is it?"

Gaster stood. "It will be easier to show you. Meet me at the throne room in the palace."

He disappeared with a flick of his cloak. Sans sighed. Why did he always have to be so mysterious about everything? He stood and teleported to the palace.

When he arrived in the throne room, Gaster was in the middle of some sort of spell. He waved his hand and Sans felt him unleash a small portion of his magic at Asgore's throne. The throne began to move backwards, revealing a staircase hidden underneath. Sans began to walk towards it, but Gaster reached out and stopped him.

"Not yet," he said. "Give me a minute to take down all the wards. If you try entering before I'm finished… Well, let's just say you'll have a bad time."

Sans shrugged and let Gaster work. It gave him time to think anyway. First of all, why was there a secret passage here? And why was it guarded by magical wards? Wards weren't unheard of, they were routinely used by many gods to safeguard personal items, but they were usually just simple warning systems. No one ever set up wards that could be harmful, if only for the sake of keeping good relations with anyone that might accidentally trigger it. Besides, it would take an enormous amount of energy, not to mention a great deal of killing intent, to craft a ward that could legitimately threaten a god. Although, now that he thought about, Gaster was probably capable of cooking up some real nasty stuff. He focused his magic into his eye. It shouldn't hurt to take a look.

He regretted the decision immediately. The moment had he begun to examine the magic making up the wards, he was struck with a psychic impulse that almost drove him to his knees. The impulse was designed to inflict pain and confusion, startling anyone trying to figure out how to bypass the wards. He focused, clearing his head and bringing out more of his magic in a defensive shield around himself. The mental attack faded away, allowing him a good look at what Gaster had built.

"Wow," he said softly. Gaster had not been joking. The defense he had created was vast and complex. Sans couldn't even figure out what most of the wards did, let alone how to take them down.

After a few minutes, Gaster cast another spell, one that was far more intricate than anything Sans could have ever done, and the wards faded. They didn't disappear completely though, and Sans got the sensation that they could be snapped back into place at a moment's notice.

"What's so important that it merits all the security?" he asked.

"You'll see soon enough," Gaster replied. "Follow me."

He started down the staircase, with Sans walking a few paces behind. As they descended, Sans felt a growing apprehension fill him. He couldn't place the feeling, but he knew that something wasn't quite right. It was as if the space around him was different somehow.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and entered a medium sized room, empty except for a large object that stood in the middle. It stood at least eight feet tall, and was covered in some sort of cloak. As they walked closer to it, Sans felt the strange sensation he'd been feeling abruptly intensify. Whatever it was, it was the source.

"What is this thing?" he asked.

"This is our kingdom's greatest secret. Only the original royal council knows of its existence, and now you are the fifth god to learn of it. It is the secret to how we created you, and how we came across the knowledge to defeat Chaos. Gerson and I believe that, like Chaos, it came from outside our reality."

Despite the tension of the moment, Sans rolled his eyes. Would it kill him to give a straight answer?

"Yeah, I guessed all that already. What is it, exactly?"

"This," Gaster replied, "is The Mirror."