"Gasty?! What's wrong?!" Sans tried (and failed) to ask calmly as he swung open the lab door, making Alphys jump. Gaster turned to Sans, looking confused.
"What are you talking about? Nothing's wrong." Gaster assured. "In fact, I only have good news."
Sans took a second to absorb what he said before deflating, falling against the wall and sighing in relief.
"Jesus, I just had a heart attack." He grumbled, dragging his hand across his face. "Why does Papyrus make everything sound like a national emergency?"
"Ah… Uh… W-we…" Alphys stuttered.
"We've finished building the machine, Sans." Gaster finished for her.
"What?! Already!?" Sans stood up straight, looking between them both to check if they were serious. Alphys was nervously biting her claws behind Gaster, who was in his usual state of his hands behind his back, standing tall and confidently.
"Yes. Alphys is immensely more talented than I had originally thought." Gaster said, forming a small smile of approval. "We should have let her help us earlier. We would have finished much sooner!" She blushed heavily and hid her face in a textbook that was upside down. Sans felt his face twitch.
"... Are… Are you serious." He mumbled. "She probably could have cut our time in half if you had let her." Alphys squeaked in embarrassment behind her textbook.
"But she was still in school, Sans." Gaster said as he placed a hand on Sans's head. "It was also a very valuable learning experience for you. You were taught a lesson about responsibility and hard work."
"Oh, I learned a lesson alright." He mumbled under his breath as Gaster returned to his desk. He thought he might have heard Alphys whisper "Sorry".
"I called you here so that we can perform tests." Gaster announced as he gathered papers. "Are you ready?"
"Uh… I guess? Where is it?"
"This way." Gaster gestured as he walked towards the door. Sans gave Alphys a "What the fuck is going on" look as she lowered her textbook. She nodded towards Gaster, indicating to follow him. He sighed, turning around and shuffling in the direction of Gaster was headed.
Gaster stopped just before the door and took a hoodie from the coat hanger that Sans had never seen before. It was blue, fuzzy and way too small for Gaster. Before Sans could ask about it, Gaster turned back around and handed it to Sans.
"Here, take this." He asserted.
"Uh… Thanks, boss." Sans said as he took it. "But, what's this for?"
"I know you don't really feel much in the sense of pain and temperature." Gaster said as he put his hands behind his back. "But… I'm still concerned about you getting hurt. This is going to be extremely dangerous, and you could easily-"
"C'mon, Doc." Sans said as he put it on. "You don't have to worry about me. You think I'm going to forget the literal years of training you put me through? The powers that you gave me?"
Yeah, he was being passive aggressive. But he kinda deserved to. Do you know how fucking hard it is to learn telekinesis? To summon blasters? Literal years. Granted, Gaster gave him the powers when he created him. Although it was almost easy to do now, learning how to use them was almost fucking impossible. Papyrus, who had started learning three years ago, could barely even do basic telekinesis; let alone blasters.
When the hoodie slipped onto his shoulders, he was surprised at how comfortable it was. It fit his shape perfectly. Too perfectly.
"Did… You make this?" Sans asked, putting his hands in the pockets.
"... Yes." Gaster said. "I felt… Guilty. Guilty because of how much stress I put you through in past months."
"Wow." Sans said. He found himself suddenly feeling bad about his douche comment. "This Is awesome. Thanks, dude."
"You're welcome, Sans." Gaster nodded. "Now, come. We've work to do."
Well, it wasn't pretty. That much was true. It was basically the size of a small elevator. With no paint job, and mechanical wires sticking out everywhere, it looked like something the Terminator shit out. But hey, it wasn't supposed to look good. It was just supposed to work, right?
But the inside. Holy shit. Imagine your stereotypical sci-fi machine, with all the glowy buttons completely covering the walls and the ceiling and levers sticking out everywhere, you'd think that it was a movie prop.
Gaster showed him what each group of buttons were. Alphys had designed them to be clustered together based on coordinates, spatial alteratiors, and time alteratiors. Each lever activated a different part of the machine. This one started the motor, this one activated the spatial manipulator, and so on. It looked like a lot, but Alphys had designed it to be as efficient as possible. It was actually pretty easy to figure out. He had to give her credit, she thought of all of this in only a month? She really could have helped them out.
"Now, we're only going to be testing with small inanimate objects today." Gaster said as he pulled out a bucket of toys from behind the machine.
"But… how will we know it works?" Sans asked. Suddenly, he felt something appear on his head. Not fall onto his head, not crawl onto his head, but just appear on his head. He froze.
"Gaster." He said quietly. "What. Is on. My head."
Gaster's face brightened.
"Progress." He said, taking a toy truck off of his head and showing it to Sans.
"Wait." Sans slightly sputtered as he took it. "What?" The truck was a little cold, but completely undamaged. It was probably the most polished, brand new looking toy he had seen in a while.
"Did…" Sans trailed off as he squinted at it from every angle.
Gaster sifted through the bucket, eventually pulling out an exact copy of the truck. Sans watched in awe as Gaster put the truck into the machine and pushed about thirty buttons. He activated each lever, one at a time. With each one, the machine got louder and louder until Sans dropped the truck and covered his ears because of how frickin' loud it was. Gaster stopped on the last lever, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.
"Sans, please back away!" He yelled over the machine, gripping the lever harder. Sans took about two steps back.
Gaster breathed deeply again and pulled the lever. The machine suddenly made a really loud, really sudden clunk that made Sans jump. Gaster ran out quickly, slammed the heavy door shut, literally picked up Sans, ran to the other side of the room, and gripped Sans in a hug to protect him with his body. Suddenly, there was a really bright flash of light, a blast of heat that was so hot even Sans was uncomfortable, and a blast of cold that made him shiver. The motor sound finally started to die down slowly. Gaster waited until it had gone completely quiet before he breathed a sigh of relief
"Uh… Gasty." Sans said, wiggling a little bit underneath him.
"Oh. My apologies." Gaster said as he let go of him and stood up slowly.
"What was that all about?" Sans asked as he lifted himself off the ground.
"I… I over reacted." He said, avoiding eye contact and straightening his glasses.
"Uh… It… It's cool." Sans said awkwardly. He was a little shocked at how... Intimate that was. Gaster wasn't the kind of guy who openly displayed affection like that. Then again, neither was he. Sometimes Sans forgot that Gaster created him, and was essentially his father.
Alphys suddenly burst through the door, looking terrified.
"Are you guys okay?!" She cried. "I-I f-felt that from all the w-way from upstairs!" She froze, her eyes drifting to the machine. Sans followed her gaze behind Gaster, only to find two huge bone attacks blocking off Gaster and Sans from the machine.
"Jesus Christ." Sans gawked. He had only been able to make a bone attack that big… Maybe once? And he just made two like it was nothing.
Gaster closed his eyes, brought his hand up, and slammed it down, pushing the bone attacks back out of existence.
"You… You really thought I was gonna get hurt." Sans said quietly.
"Are… Are you h-hurt?" Alphys asked nervously.
"No… I'm fine." Sans said, absentmindedly brushing off his shoulder. "Gasty… You really don't need to worry about me… Really. I can protect myself."
"... Once again, my apologies. I don't doubt your abilities, Sans." Gaster said cooly, straightening his lab coat. He approached the machine and opened the door. A stereotypical cloud of smoke came wafting out like someone had thrown a chunk of dry ice in there. He began searching all around the inside of the machine. The toy truck was nowhere to be found.
"Did… Did it work?" Alphys asked timidly.
"... Yeah." Said said, realization just now hitting him. "Holy shit… Holy shit it worked!"
"Indeed." Gaster said nonchalontly as he walked out of the machine. "But don't get your hopes up. That was a small, artificial, non-sentient object. And that was only sending it back. We still need to test if going forward will work." He paused for a moment before letting his excitement finally show.
"But, I must say, we accomplished the seemingly impossible today." He said proudly, nodding at them both. "Fantastic work, everyone."
"Welp, I say we take a break." Sans stretched. "After all, we deserve it, right? We've been working… Down to the-"
"Sans, for god's sakes you've made that joke at least five times in the past week." Alphys moaned.
"C'mon, it's so fitting!" Sans teased, elbowing her in the arm.
Gaster pondered Sans's request for a moment before responding.
"I suppose. But I expect you here again tomorrow for more testing. Understand?"
"All right, Frankenstien. I got ya." Sans acknowledged before turning back to Alphys.
"Yo, what's that cutie show you were talkin' about earlier?" Sans asked. "We've both been workin' hard, how 'bout we take a load off and watch that?" Alphys literally squeaked in excitement.
"Oh my god! Ohhhh myyy god! I'm so glad you asked! I'll get us nice cream, okay? I'll meet you upstairs in a few minutes!" She dashed away before Sans could even react.
"Heh." He hummed. "I gotta go, she's not going to wait for me very long… Congrats, Gasty."
"Don't forget Sans, this is your success as well. Take pride in it." Gaster reminded him, putting a hand on his head.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, boss." Sans said as he pushed Gaster's hand off of his head. "But I got some Anime to watch."