Chapter 14: The Time Machine
After they ate at Mettablook's house, Napstablook dropped by.
"oh it's you two," he said with surprise.
"Skelesus is in the back. He looks like he hasn't been clean in ages," said Mettablook, who chuckled to herself.
"oh sorry."
"Don't worry about it, Blooky. I'm not mad at you or anything."
"oh you just looked very upset about something."
"If you're cleaning Skelesus these two want to help too."
"oh."
"Can you be a dear and show them to the supplies?"
"oh they should be in a cabinet by the door just continue outside and at the end of the stables should be the door."
When the two had left that was when Mettablook finally spoke.
"I talked with the talent agent and they rejected me. At this rate no one will accept a second rate ghost like me. You know what they said? A ghost like me wouldn't stand out amongst the other talents. The nerve."
"it's alright, mettablook," Napstablook said trying to comfort his cousin.
The two ghosts headed to where the other two were. They saw there were holed up in a corner.
"what's the matter you two?"
"That horse tried to stomp on us," Snowdrake said.
Stephanie tried to explain.
"We tried to get closer to the horse to brush him but-"
"oh you got to let him sniff your hand first."
Stephanie walked closer to the horse gathering all her bravery and held out her hand for Skelesus to sniff.
It snorted.
"you can brush him now."
Stephanie ran the brush over it's bones and it neighed happily.
After they had finished cleaning the horse, the two ghosts thanked their guests as the two said their goodbyes.
"Thanks for everything."
Once Sans had returned with Papyrus and Arial had reprimanded him, he had remained in his room for the remainder of the week.
"Never in my life have I seen such reckless behavior. What if you had fallen down?"
Needless to say his mother hadn't been too happy with him fraught with worry. The next day the Font family had received a hesitant knock on the door.
"Who could that be?" Arial said with wonder. "Papyrus can you get the door? I'd ask your brother but he's been confined to bone rest.
Papyrus walked to the door and opened it.
A yellow reptile stood with a frilly purple dress. She was wearing round spectacles on her face and her eyes seemed to be looking everywhere other than at Papyrus. He face was flush.
"Oh...er hi."
"Who's at the door, Papyrus?"
"EM WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"
"It's uh er...Alphys?"
"SHE SAYS HER NAME IS UH ER ALPHYS."
"No, it's just Alphys."
"ALRIGHT JUST ALPHYS."
Arial chuckled before she ran to the door.
"Oh you're here. This is unexpected," she said.
"I-I could come some other time."
Arial's grin grew wider. She hoped it soothed her anxious guest.
"It's a welcome surprise," Arial insisted. "I know it must have been a long journey. Come in."
Alphys headed inside and took a look around.
"You have a nice place."
Arial blushed.
"Thank you. You can sit on the sofa in the living room if you like. I have to fetch my husband I want to introduce him to you."
Alphys took a seat on the sofa which was situated in front of the television. Papyrus joined her, sitting right next to her.
"So your name must be Papyrus, huh?"
"NO I'M NOT PAPYRUS. I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS."
Alphys chuckled.
"That's cute."
"IT'S NOT CUTE. IT'S FABULOUS."
"Ha ha oh."
Alphys laughed and cringed when she noticed Papyrus wasn't looking at her.
"Say do you like anime?"
"WHAT'S ANIME?"
Alphys sighed.
"How about I show you later."
Just then Arial returned with her husband in tow.
"This is my husband, Wing Ding."
"Uh hello," Alphys said holding out her hand.
"Darling aren't you gonna say hello?" Arial asked.
Aster chuckled sheepishly and turned towards his wife.
"I'm a little shy," he said softly.
"Just shake her hand it's not that difficult," she whispered.
"Ahem."
Aster held out his hand to accept Alphys. She noted his hand felt clammy to the touch. He must have been as nervous as she was.
"I-It's nice to finally meet you. You're an inspiration to all of us monsters. Ooh there's something I have to show you."
She dug out the phone from her chest.
Aster felt his face heat up.
"Oh, I'm sorry I forgot you were there. H-how embarrassing. I must have looked like such a fool. I don't understand how the women pull it off. They always look so sexy when they pull something out of their bra. Cash, money it's just awesome almost like a magic trick."
She handed him a cellphone.
"What's that?" Aster asked taking it from her hands.
"It's my phone. I took apart one of the cameras you built and I figured out how to implement it in a phone so that the phone could take pictures."
"Impressive."
Aster pressed the on button on the phone.
"You're just saying that."
"Can you show me how it works?"
Alphys showed him how to work the phone.
"Wow, this is really great. No, it's really good. I imagine you're quite capable of doing great things."
"You think so?"
"I know so. Would you like to work for me?"
Alphys laughed nervously.
"I couldn't do that."
"It'll be fun."
"Well if you put it like that how can I refuse?"
Alphys left feeling very satisfied with her visit. The followed days, Alphys was introduced to the lab and the experiments he was working on. In the lab there was a machine on the left side of the room holding a vial harvesting a red heart.
"That heart in the machine, is that a human soul?"
"I use it for experimentation purposes. Only recently was I able to discover how humans were able to travel through time through an element known as determination."
"So why don't you just inject it in a monster?"
"Believe me I want to but the stuff is highly unstable. I don't know how it'd react to monster souls."
"Aren't you the least bit interested on how it's used. If all humans had this ability you'd think they'd cancel each other out."
Aster stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"Are you saying that only certain humans might possess this ability?"
"Er yeah, I guess I am."
"That opens up so many possibilities. It means that there is a chance this ability could be replicated and might have been created by humans. Now the question is whether the memories of the timelines are implanted in the human soul and if it could retain memories even after it's body's demise."
All through the week they performed experiments on the human soul. One of Aster's machines had been built to detect activity within a soul. He had established this device to determine whether a monster was sleeping or had fallen down. He found that with a few adjustments the device could read memories of a soul and the secret ability of determination which radiated a foreign energy seemed to be at it's core the equivalent of a magical core for humans.
Reading the energy through the machine. It held images of possible ability seemed to have a basis on the human's intent though none of the humans had recognised it's potential.
If he could make a device that could harness the determination of a soul all he'd need to fuel it is the intent of any living creature. It took a week to build.
On the second day he had received a visit from a couple of future colleagues, Clam and Pearl according to what they said.
"We're here to help with the machine."
By the following week Sans had sufficiently recovered from his ordeal and made his way into the lab unaware of the good news.
"I DID IT. I FINALLY DID IT!" Aster exclaimed loudly with excitement.
Sans stepped inside the lab just as he arms were dancing in the air and his feet kicked off the ground jumping in giddy glee.
"What's the occasion?"
"What do you mean? I finally built it."
"Built what?"
"The time machine of course."
"Really?"
"Well aren't you excited. We could finally go back in time and save the king's son. We may even be able to prevent this war from even happening."
"Well there is that."
"Oh Sans don't be such a party pooper."
Sans chuckled.
"How could I be when the results were so explosive."
Aster walked up to his son and glanced at his left eye.
"How's your eye?"
"It's much better."
"Does it work?"
"If you mean I can teleport from point A to point B then yeah it works."
"FANTABULOUS. Come along Sans."
Aster showed him the time machine in the the back. It was large and circular.
"Does it work?"
"If my colleagues had anything to say about that matter then yes, it works."
"Colleagues?"
"They traveled to help me from the future."
"How'd you get it to work?"
"I simply extracted the determination from a human soul using that extraction machine."
"Didn't you use that to put that teleportation device in my eye?"
"It's a machine with many purposes."
"Determination? You mean that's the component that they use to travel through time. It's so think it'll work?"
"It should in theory. Want to give the time machine a whirl. I could tell the idea rattles your bones."
Aster took out a remote and pressed a button. A u-shaped crack formed in the circle and moved up revealing it to be none other than the door to it's interior. Machine consoles were lined all around the inside with four chairs north, west, east and south bolted to the middle to the floor.
Aster headed inside. He turned and saw the bright sheen on his son's skull.
"There's no need to be so nervous. Your skull is the shiniest I've ever seen it."
It only shined when they sweat.
"Come in, don't be shy."
Sans headed inside and took a seat in one of the chairs staring agape at the complex interior.
Aster pushed some buttons on the console and the door slowly shut."
"I'd recommend you put your seatbelt on the ride can get a little hectic."
"Sounds like you're talking from experience."
"So what time do you want to visit?"
"The future sounds nice but it'd be interesting to see how it was like before the monster/human war."
After Aster had pressed some buttons the machine began to shake and the lights began to flicker from inside.
"What's going on?"
"It's always like this. I don't think I got the kinks worked out yet."
Suddenly the shaking ceased.
"I think we're there."
The door opened and the skeletons went outside. The land was covered in snow but Sans can also see a strange yellow orb in the sky.
"What's that?"
"According to what my father told me that's the sun. He used to tell me that when I was a little boy."
"There's a building in the distance."
"That's a castle," Aster explained. "I've only seen them in books but it looks even better in person."
He walked in the direction of the castle.
"Where are we going?"
"I think that's obvious. We're heading to the castle. You want to see the monsters don't you? We won't find answers by just standing here boning around."