Chapter 22: Dark yet Darker
Toriel came up from behind Sans and Aster.
"Oh they're guests. Why don't you invite them inside? They must be so exhausted."
"They were just le-"
Asgore sighed.
"Alright."
He opened the door and invited them inside.
Toriel who had been carrying her son handed him to Asgore.
She took some chairs and set them up next to her bed.
She smiled.
"Sit down and make yourselves at home."
Asgore handed the baby back to her.
"Have you figured out what to call him yet?" Aster asked.
Toriel sighed.
"Not yet, I've already crossed out Andrew and Michael."
"What about Asriel?" Sans asked.
Toriel blushed.
"T-that's a nice name."
"The best part is it's just a fusion of your names."
"Haha, thank you so much," she said.
Sans stroked the back of his skull.
"Don't mention it."
Aster whispered in his son's ear.
"Say Sans isn't this around the time you used to come by for your training?"
"What?" Sans stammered. Interracting with himself in the past was the last thing he wanted to do. Without knowing the risks he could be putting himself in danger.
"What's the matter?" Toriel asked.
"Uh, your majesty sorry to interrupt you like this but I gotta go," he said.
"What's the hurry? You just got here."
"I have some things I gotta do."
Sans headed out the door next to their room.
"Oh dear I hope he isn't late."
There was a knock at door some 15 minutes later.
Sans came in.
"Sans!" Toriel stammered. Her face was flushed. "Why are you here?"
"I was lookin' for my father. He ran out of the room before my mother could say a word."
Sans looked to the other skeleton.
"Here you are. Do you know how worried mom was? She told me to look everywhere. She had me goin on a wild goose chase."
Aster's face heated up.
"Look I'm sorry. I just panicked. I need to talk with the king. Tell Arial I'll be back before dinner alright."
Sans sighed and shook his head.
After he left, Aster felt Toriel's eyes on him.
"So why's your wife mad at you in the first place, hmm?"
Aster groaned.
"She wanted me to pick up Papyrus from school but I forgot."
Whilst here, his past self was probably taking Skelesus out for a spin in Waterfall. He used to ride them alot before the king had hired him as the royal scientist.
"Is that all? Well you're not helping anyone by coming here."
Aster sighed.
He headed out stepping outside the castle.
"I think we can settle here," one of the spiders said from around his neck.
"We wanted to thank you for everything that you did. Is there anyway we can repay you?"
"I don't know. Maybe someday."
"We'll never forget you, Dr Aster."
All the spiders crawled down his bones and headed towards Hotland. Aster met up with his son at the ruins.
"I think we should head back," he said. "Chara isn't here."
Sans nodded.
The next day Suzy walked in on Sans who was lying on his bed with a book held out in front of him.
He had the book in one hand and a pen in the other.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked.
"A word search."
"Can I see?"
Sans showed her the one he was working on.
She took that time to find other words that he hadn't found.
He swiped the book away with an impish grin on his face.
"What was that for?" Suzy asked.
"You just wanted to look right? I want to finish my puzzle sometime today."
Suzy stuck her tongue out.
"How long have you been working on that?" she asked.
Sans shrugged.
"Maybe one or two hours."
Suzy chuckled.
"That long? I already found them all."
Sans' pupils shrunk.
"Haha, you only looked at the puzzle for about a minute."
"And you saw it for about two hours."
His face turned blue.
"Well knock yourself out," he said handing her the book.
In less than a minute she had completed the puzzle.
"WOWIE, HOW DID YOU DO THAT? YOU MUST BE A PUZZLE SOLVING MASTER."
"Papyrus, what makes you say that? She only solved one puzzle."
"SHE SOLVED THE PUZZLE IN THAT CAVE TOO. IT WAS A VERY DIFFICULT BLOCK PUZZLE. HOW DID YOU GET TO BE SO GOOD AT THEM?"
Suzy smiled.
"My mom is very good with puzzles. She has a good friend who was very nerdy."
"CAN YOU TEACH ME HOW TO BE AS GOOD AS YOU?"
"Um, sure."
When the next day came around Sans saw Suzy showing Papyrus some small toy figurines.
"This is Ness, he's the lieutenent of the space pirates. He's also the second most powerful piece. My favorite character is Roil, she's the captain of the pirate rangers."
"What are you two doing?" Sans asked.
"Reenacting the art of war," Suzy said. "Roil leads the space pirates while Tatem leads the space patrol. The two are always at odds but Roil tries to stop the machines from overthrowing the space patrol but no one ever knows that the machines are controlling everything."
"Mom wants you two to come to dinner."
"I WAS JUST GETTING THE HANG OF IT THOUGH."
"Papyrus!"
"FINE."
He sighed and all three headed to the kitchen. Suzy glanced around the table.
"Where's Doctor Aster?" She asked.
"I think he's still in his lab. Suzy, can you be a dear and fetch him for me?" Arial asked.
Suzy stood up with a grin and nodded eagerly.
"Of course."
She walked to where Dr Aster's lab was. As she was about to knock, she heard soft voices.
"There's no need to worry your majesty. You can't be held responsible for their disappearances."
"That may be true but it doesn't hide the fact that I'm responsible all the same. I'm standing by while everyone forgets that we're stuck here with barely enough food to survive. I never have to worry about these things and neither do you. As long as no one asks everyone remains ignorant of how to survive in this place."
"We do it to survive. Surely it's justified."
"Only monsters who can afford it survive. You and I both know this. That's why we need the human souls."
Suzy chose that moment to knock on the door.
"Who's there?" Aster hissed. "That you, Sans?"
"No, it's Suzy. Arial wants you to come down for dinner."
"I'll be there in a minute."
Suzy headed back to the kitchen.
"He said he'd be down in a minute," she said before sitting back down in her seat.
Sans noticed she was oddly silent, picking at her food with her fork. Her eyes were lit in pensive wonder. Wherever her thoughts were headed, it wasn't pretty.
That evening, Sans heard a knock at the door of his bedroom.
"Come in."
He was surprised to see Suzy standing there her hands behind her back, a light blush on her face.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure."
Suzy sat on the corner of his bed.
"Why is the king capturing human souls?" she asked.
"You didn't know about that? I'm surprised seeing as you have an uncanny resemblance of a human."
"Is that what you think? I may look human but I didn't lie about being a monster," Suzy snapped.
Sans snorted.
"He's collecting them to break the barrier?"
"How many has he killed?"
"Directly or indirectly?" Sans asked.
"Both."
"Four."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"You sound bitter."
"You would too if you knew the whole story."
Sans told her about the first human and the dead human bodies he had to retrieve after that.
"If you're so bitter about it why don't you stop him?"
"It's only a matter of time before they die. If I put the effort in commiting treason against the king, it's a law punishable by death. It's not something I wanna experience."
Suzy scoffed.
"It's hardly an issue as long as you survive. Are you so wrapped up in yourself that you don't even think to question how you have survived for so long? The food of the underground is made of magic right?"
Sans nodded.
"I've been wondering where do you get the magic? It's impossible to conjure food with magic. I should know I tried." Suzy said.
"What are you tryin' to imply?"
"I'm just sayin' it could be a possibility that the real reason you survive down here is because you're not someone's next meal."
Sans looked puzzled as if he had never thought of the idea.
"Welp there's certainly nothing I could do about it now."
"What about that device in your left eyes? You said it could bend time and space right? So can't it theoretically send you back in time?"
"Wow, I've never thought about it."
"Really? You're a scientist working for your father who's built a time machine and you never thought to experiment with that eye of yours."
"The thought didn't interest me."
"That's time travel you're talking about. People have longed for that power. Think of what you could do if you can go back in time and discover the true culprit of a decade long murder mystery. For someone who's into science fiction you don't seem all that interested in it."
Sans sighed, avoiding looking into her eyes.
"What makes you say that? A flimsy answer to your question?"
"Exactly."
"Unfortunately using this device is more trouble than it's worth. If it didn't expend all my energy to use it for anything other than teleportation I would do so."
"I'm not buying it. The time machine is only a practical means of getting somewhere but even you are clever enough to know that you'd be stranded if it broke down."
"I'm flattered."
"So either you didn't consider it because you weren't interested or you didn't want anyone touching that device in your eye in the first place. You're completely blind in that eye, aren't you?"
Sans snorted.
"Well you're partially right but honestly I've never had a really keen interest in sci-fi. I have other reasons for doing this. The reason is very personal. Ever heard of revenge?"
"Revenge?"
"There was a human with the ability to travel throught time and he'd go back in time just to kill me over and over even had a sick pleasure from doing so. He was also the king's son, not by relation of course but if I could kill them before all of that happened maybe I could prevent it from happening again. If I used their soul, I could break through the barrier, kill seven more souls and break the barrier for good."
"The humans wouldn't like you though. Have you wondered what you would do after that?"
"I can't say it's really crossed my mind. Before that human fell down here I was just going to school. My father made these machines from parts he had found in the dump. It made show and tell interesting to say the least. I talked alot and made lots of friends. I'd always get good grades. It's what is expected of me. I tried everything. Nothing's really held my interest though."
"So what will you do then?"
"I've never liked contemplating the what-ifs."
'There's no reason to contemplate it if it won't happen.'
"Even if we make it to the surface there is no guarantee it will be any better considering everything we have done."
Suzy sighed.
"I'm sure one day you'll find that interest that has a purpose for you. Give it time."
'I doubt it.'
Weeks passed by when Dr Aster ushered Sans downstairs. Alphys was already standing there. A large crack stood in the midst of the time machine.
Smoke was leaving the top.
"What's that?" Sans asked.
"That Sans just might be our ticket out of here. I accidentally discovered it while running experiments on the time machine. A crack in time leading to that."
"I've done some light readings. There is life there but when I tried to speak to the monsters they told me something strange that they've been there for over 500 years yet all of them retain their youth. This place suspends time for monsters who stay there. I have yet to perform more experiments. There is no source of light. It's dark."
He motioned for the two to follow him to a big screen. It was scanning the darkness.
"I've been trying to find an exit to the place for a while but there's nothing. Oh dear."
The video started to slowly turn to static.
"Dark yet darker. Photon readings negative. This experiment just got interesting. What do you two think?"
"It's strange," Alphys said. "A temporal disturbance must have caused this to happen."
"But why?" Aster asked. "Don't you wanna know who created this place?"
Sans shrugged.
"We wouldn't have to worry about food, shelter or co-existing with the humans."
"Still don't you think it's kind of weird that the footage from the video turns to static when you go to far?" Alphys asked.
"If we could find out a way it'd be a perfect place to live."