Chapter Text
…stepping back out he–
With another death, he made haste for the door, to make that human suffer for everything. For good.
So, stepping back out he–
With another… what happened?
Sans paused as he sat up once again, he didn’t remember dying this time.
Over and over, he’d blink and be on his mattress again.
Over and over and over and over and over and–
(is this my reality now? no, no, no, no… this can’t be it… can it?) Sans thought to himself.
The loop began to gradually slow down. Three seconds. Just enough for him to teleport to the Ruins, the place the human always came from, and right at the flower bed he saw that wretched small body he loathed fall onto… bones? And he was back in his bed.
And…
It’s sped up again.
Sitting up in his bed, Sans reached for the d–
Sitting up in his bed, Sans re–
Sitting up in his bed-
Sitting up in–
Sitting up–
(what is–)
Sitt–
S–
…
Sitting–
With a–
For–
The–
…it stopped.
“Nah.”
(wha–)
Aga–
With a–
Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again–
Through the void of endless RESETS…
Sans teleported to the point to see… another skeleton, just like himself, wit–
With featur–
WITH FEATURES… he couldn’t make out through the migraine.
But with just enough resilience, he was able to teleport to and grab hold of the skeleton by the neck.
“please… stop. w-whatever you are…” His voice shook as he slumped to his knees in front of the… creature.
A hand reached down to pat his head gently… Before slamming down.
CRACK!
Back in his bed.
“Alright… Are you tired of trying yet…?”
Looking up, Sans saw the newest item of hatred, a being sharing the same appearance as himself, but there was something wrong. A black ichor poured from its eyes, dripping onto the floor with a steady plap. A coat of fur and a black turtle-neck sweater. But what caught Sans’ eye the most was the red and white orb in the center of its chest.
No words.
“Don’t look at me like that. You heard me.” It chuckled.
“I stopped trying to go back a long time ago. Sound familiar, murderer? Look at what you’ve done. Just like them. A fucking coward, too afraid to admit where they went wrong.”
Sitting in his bed, Sans scrabbled back into the corner at the words alone, flashes of his actions haunting his mind. He couldn’t breathe, the room having shrunk down to just the two skeletons. No one had ever… confronted him about these things. Who could?
“who… why are you here? i-i- you’re wrong, i didn’t… stop it. just… stop! i don’t know who you think you are, but… but…” He trailed off.
Stepping ever so slightly closer, it held out a hand.
“You’re crazier than I thought. You need care. I mean, heh, you’re more of a…”
In a blink, it was standing right in front of Sans, faces almost touching.
“Problem. One that… No one wants to fix. Who would want you? You’ve killed about… heh, heh, heh… You’re scared… As if YOU have any right to be. I could never make a joke that funny.”
Sans raised a hand up to push it off him, only for it to grip his wrist and shove it back down forcefully.
“You wanna see something funny? I know you’ve heard this one before, but…”
It blinked away for two seconds, coming back with a red scarf wrapped around its neck, marred by white dust and frayed at the ends.
“Its been a while since I did that… For you, on the other hand… You’ve killed him countless times, you lost sight of what was important, didn’t you? Or did you not… care about him anymore? Heh, heh, heh. Y’know, you don’t have to do this. Although, I bet you’d LOVE to continue. Ah… LOVE… I’m practically made of it. But you can’t even keep it. Are you good at… anything? Anything at all?”
“who… are you…?” Trying as he might to hide himself, tears began to spill from Sans’ eyes, unable to meet its gaze.
“I’m glad you asked… ‘cause I’m not Sans. I’m more of a… Killer. You’re a Murderer. You murder your fellow man, equals if you will, although I do have my doubts. Hey… Sans… Look at me. Look. At. Me.”
Killer’s hand shot up, gripping Sans by the jaw, tilting his gaze upward with ease.
“Sans… Y’know, the name still suits you, doesn’t it? ‘Without’, you’re without friends, without a brother… without… heh. The human, Frisk, is coming. I’ll give you an ultimatum, pal. You still got that machine?”
The tarp flew off the machine, falling to the ground with a flap. The workshop was covered in dust, the tarp looking more like a furry rug than a tarp. Chuckling, Killer took a gander at the pool of wires on the floor, some torn, some tangled, some not even connected to the correct components. Effectively useless.
“so… what is this about? i… haven’t had time to fix it… the human always–”
“Ultimatum time.” Killer said, sitting on the workbench while swaying its legs back and forth.
“So, if you couldn’t tell from me sitting on your workbench, there are other worlds out there. Worlds filled with all sorts of different versions of us, your friends, the human… brothers. Something new, you’ve lived in this loop for… at least a few years now. But what if I told you, there’s a way of moving to a new one? To leave this one behind, it's… faulty.”
“wait, what? i… i can actually leave…? what do you want from me? i’ll do… anything.
“That easy, huh? Welp, you can stay here and suffer for all of eternity, OR… well, let’s fix this machine and you can find out.”
“hey, wait… i’m not gonna help you with this if i don’t know what–”
Killer hopped off the workbench to completely face Sans, two dots finally appearing in the black pools of its eyes as it closed the distance between them, placing one hand on his shoulder. Forcing him to his knees.
"I don’t owe you an answer, murderer. I need those schematics from the CORE. Go get them.”
Sans simply nodded, teleporting to the CORE.
Feeling along the walls Sans thought to himself about everything he’d been through up until now, ever since that first death, that slash across his torso, he’s been on a downward spiral. Killing innocents all just for a taste of heroism, in a meaningless, yet relentless attempt to save his brother, his friends, all for nothing. The crushing weight of his curiosity, of whatever the human truly was, never went away either, but now he might be free. Being free to a world where he may even be happy with Papyrus. If all it took was helping this… version of himself, he was ready to do it.
Staying in this hell he’d been forced into was worse than any permanent death he could imagine. No matter what, he was bound to go along.
His fingers brushed against a seam on the wall and with a sharp pull, the panel fell to the ground to reveal a folded up sheet of paper in a corked bottle. Grabbing it tightly, the bottle cracked and shattered into pieces, leaving the paper in hand.
Unfolding it revealed schematics for the CORE, exactly what was asked for.
Blinking back to the workshop, Sans held out the schematics with a steadier hand, now resolute in his cause.
Snatching the sheet from Sans’ hand, Killer laid it out on the workbench to reveal the complex mechanics of the machine. Thousands of wires, hundreds of circuits, all wrapped in a tangle of loose wires and cables.
“Oh, this is just perfect… I know why you had this, Sans… But I think we both know that’s not possible.” Killer said, pointing at the title of the blueprints: Dimensional Traversal Machine
“A simple name. We could go anywhere, anywhere but home. Let’s get this done. We only have… three hours.” Killer said.
[2.5 HOURS LATER…]
Removing the welding mask, Sans exhaled heavily, sweat pouring from his face and rolling down his chin. The work on the machine was long and arduous, every component needed to be applied and repaired repeatedly, rust having gathered deep within the machine from age. There was no point in trying to clean it, there was simply too much dust. He’d remembered every little thing he studied about the phenomenon, including the newer things he knew about his repeating reality all just to construct this machine.
“huff… huff… there… it’s done. now, tell me the whole deal… please.” Sans said, wiping his brow with a dirty rag, smearing oil faintly across his forehead.
Uncrossing its arms, Killer grabbed the on/off switch, a large red lever, its eyes once again appearing in those soulless, dead sockets.
“You stay here, burning in hell… Or you can help us destroy the multiverse.”
The switch flicked down, and with a loud boom the portal swirled around rapidly, swallowing all the energy in the room, illuminating it in an iridescent glow like a sunset, Killer’s pupils having become shaky pinpricks.
“The choice is yours, Murder.”
“what? wait, no, i… no. no, i won’t. what would the point of that even be?”
“Wrong move.”
Grabbing Murder by the jacket, Killer head-butted him hard, making his vision swim around before slinging him through the weak wall and directly into the snowy ground outside. The chilling winds soothing the heat induced nausea.
The pain was immense, but to Murder’s own surprise, not enough to kill him. Still severely concussed, he attempted to stand, only to be pressed into the ground with Killer’s boot on his back, imprinting himself deep into the snow.
“I really don’t think you understood me. You can BURN IN HELL, or end it all for good. No more problems. Think about it, will ya? How about a joke? The past, present and the future all walk into a bar. It was tense... Was that bad? Yeah, forget I said that. Whoa! Are you struggling?”
Stepping off Murder, Killer walked around in a tight circle before settling right in front of him, staring down at his weak body shuddering on the floor. It let out a breathy sigh before drawing its leg back, slamming its boot into his skull with a crack.
“Stay down, dog.”
A punched-out whimper squeaked out of Murder, hitting the ground on his back with a new crack in his skull, spreading slowly across his face, which he claws at immediately.
“For someone with only one HP, you sure as hell can take a hit, can’t you? That’ll make this all the more fun. You’ve gotta learn at some point, right? On second thought… Get up.”
“huff… ugh… you wanna fight…? let’s… let’s fight.” Murder said, blood dripping from the cracks in his skull, dying the snow.
Taking a few short steps backwards, Killer scoffed while shaking its head, a smile growing ever more genuine.
“Heh, heh, heh… I don’t think so. Come by when you figure out just how wrong you are, Murder.”
And, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.