Chapter Text

Sans ignored the shakiness of his hands as he dug through the machinery in front of him. He ignored the smoke billowing out of the top of the contraption. Hardest of all, he ignored the thoughts bubbling up in the back of his mind that they’d never managed to get this thing to work even when it didn’t look like the whole thing was about to explode.

“another fried circuit board,” he mumbled to himself, pulling it gently out of the machine and starting to remove the wires. He had to salvage anything he possibly could from this mess. As it was, he would have to find something to replace the entire bottom of the outer shell. The crash landing had torn it and the electronics around it completely to shreds. Would this place even have the kind of metal he’d need to contain the heat from the power cell?

It didn’t really matter anyway; the power cell was gone. He’d removed it himself, just before this whole thing had literally blown up in his face.

He’d never meant for this to happen. He hadn’t planned on doing anything to the machine today, much less manage to activate it while all power to it—external and internal—had been cut. Honestly, he hadn’t planned on doing anything to the machine ever again. He’d only gone down to the lab in the first place to retrieve his photo album, and maybe his old badge, before he and Papyrus left for their new home on the surface. The blueprints, the machine, everything else down there was going to stay locked away in Snowdin, forever. They couldn’t go back, so they were going to move forward. Together.

Sans roughly shoved away thoughts of his brother as he focused back on the machine. If he let himself think of how he’d abandoned Papyrus, he would shut down entirely. He hadn’t meant to, sure, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Once again, this machine had ripped everything away from him.

Sparks danced past his fingers as he pulled out another circuit board. This one looked much less damaged than the other one, and he set it in his pile of salvageable materials with a sigh. What did it matter? Why was he still trying? Everything was broken, and he didn’t even have the blueprints with him anymore.

The stupid machine hadn’t even brought him anywhere close to where they’d been trying to make it go. It had landed in some abandoned field in the middle of nowhere. The sky above had grown dark since he'd started on his task, and while he was grateful that there at least was a real sky here rather than a perpetually dark cavern roof, a quick glance around was enough to confirm that he didn’t recognize any of the constellations. He had no idea where he’d ended up. Only that he was very far from home, and very, very far from his brother.

Sans slumped back in defeat, fists clenching unconsciously around the short blades of grass at his sides as he knelt there in front of the machine. His smile remained fixed in place, but his eyes had long since gone dark. Papyrus… was he never going to see his brother again? How had he managed to screw up this badly? Again?

“come on,” he told himself softly. “don’t go there. don’t give up just yet. you don’t have anyone to pull you out of it this time, remember?”

But that only made him feel worse. This was all his fault. He was stuck, alone, and what would Papyrus think when he realized he was alone, too?

Gritting his teeth even harder than usual, Sans forced himself to his feet, reaching over and opening another panel on the machine, one that was closer to the top. He should probably figure out what was smoking up there. If something was on fire…

Sudden movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, something flying straight at him. He ducked, jumping away from the machine and reflexively whirling around to grab his assailant’s arm.

“h-hey,” he said shakily. A bead of sweat dripped down his face as he struggled to hold back the force of the attack. “that ain’t nice. is that any way to greet a new pal?”

The person in front of him—a human boy, quite a bit older than Frisk—pulled away from him, yanking his arm free from Sans’ grasp. Nervously, Sans noted that the boy held a long metal sword in that hand, and he braced himself in case of a second attack.

Instead, the boy just stared at him with a flabbergasted expression. Had this human never seen a monster before? There was a very high probability of that. Slowly, Sans slid his hands into his pockets, trying to seem harmless.

“i’m sans. sans the skeleton. you’re a human, right?”

With a quick, sharp movement, the boy shook his head, as though to clear it. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. A skeleton that talks?”

That was an odd statement. “of course i talk. why wouldn’t i?”

“Uh, the lack of vocal chords, maybe?” He still sounded baffled, but at least he no longer looked as aggressive.

Sans chuckled a little. “monsters are made mostly of magic. i guess you could say you’ll never catch me at a loss for words over something like that.” He winked.

“Er, well... None of the other skeletons talk, they just attack on sight...” The boy coughed a little, and thankfully, he sheathed his sword in a scabbard at his waist. “Er, sorry about that. I just figured you were one of them. Actually, I kind of thought you were a zombie when I first saw you. Uh, what are you?”

The words “other skeletons” piqued Sans’ interest. “there are other skeletons here? where?”

“Just about everywhere,” the boy said with a shrug. “They pop up all the time at night. I was just out here looking for some, to be honest, so I could grind for EXP.”

It took a moment for the boy’s words to sink in, but when they did, Sans reeled several steps backward, his defense instantly back up. “you’re doing what?” He’d never heard the word “grind” used that way before, but he definitely knew EXP, and he could guess the boy’s meaning from there.

The boy seemed to realize what he’d just said, and he stammered a bit, raising both hands in a surrender position. “I, uh, wait just a sec. That’s not what I meant. Er, I mean, that is what I meant, but...”

Sans couldn’t believe it’d taken him this long to check the boy’s stats, especially considering he’d started this conversation with a surprise attack. Now that he looked, though, he nearly fell over in shock. LV 23? “just how many people have you killed?” he asked in a pained voice.

“N-nobody!” the boy protested. “I haven’t killed anybody! They’re just monsters! Er, I mean, I guess you’re one, too? But you’re different...?”

It was definitely time to get out of here. The boy didn’t currently seem to want to fight him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind, and Sans had never liked fighting if he could avoid it. But if he ran now, he’d have to abandon the machine.

Maybe he could grab it and take it with him through a shortcut? But then he’d be leaving behind his piles of materials. Besides, where would he go? He could only shortcut somewhere if he knew it was there, and he knew nothing about this place. All he could see was mostly open prairie, with several clumps of trees here and there. No good places to hide. How had this kid even snuck up on him in the first place?

“Look, calm down,” the boy tried to reassure him, slowly moving forward. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Sans backed away, chuckling softly. “sure, pal. tell you what. how about we just forget all this, go our separate ways, and pretend we never saw each other, kay?”

The boy looked almost disappointed at that. He opened his mouth to speak, but was suddenly interrupted by a loud ripping sound that Sans had never heard before. Sans whirled to face the new threat, only to realize in shock that several things were beginning to claw their way up out of the ground.

“Watch it,” the boy warned, and Sans heard him draw his sword. “Here they come...”

Sans could only stare as hands—skeletal hands—appeared, followed slowly by arms, shoulders, heads, chests. Were they... naked? What were they doing underground? He'd never seen skeletons burrow before.

Curiously, Sans stepped towards them, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He winced and pulled away from the boy, who gave him an unreadable look. “Trust me, they’re not friendly. Stay behind me.”

“pretty sure they’ve got more bones to pick with you than me,” Sans pointed out flatly. “why would they attack me?”

His question was answered a second later as one of the five skeletons pulled itself completely free from the ground and immediately lunged at the closer of the two of them: Sans.

Startled, he danced out of the way, getting himself clear of the other monster’s open-palmed swing. Was it trying to claw at him? Another of the skeletons freed itself, and this one went for the boy, but Sans couldn’t pay attention to both attackers at the same time.

Thinking fast, he summoned a wall of bones. They tore up through the ground in a circle around him, shielding him on all sides. “hey, stop!” he yelled at the monster in front of him. “what are you doing?!”

He received no answer, and to his horror, the skeleton went for him as though his wall wasn’t even there, barreling through the bones and simply taking the damage that went with it. Sans side-stepped away, ducking under the monster’s next swing, and moved what was left of his wall into a tighter circle. Did these guys have no sense of self-preservation at all?

Apparently not. With no regard to the obvious outcome, the skeleton continued to throw itself at his defenses. Its eyes were blank sockets, with no life to them at all, and its jaw hung slack, clattering against its ribcage. It managed to tank another two hits before the bone wall simply reduced it to dust.

Sans grimaced as he felt his own EXP go up a small amount. He hadn’t even attacked!

A metallic clanking noise caught his attention, and he realized that one of the skeletons was inexplicably attacking his machine. “hey! get away from that!” He reached out, activating his blue magic in an attempt to yank the monster away, but before he could, it managed to land a solid hit directly to an open, smoking panel, burying its skeletal hand in the delicate circuitry. Something inside squealed from the abuse, and a second later, the top of the machine exploded.

“no!”

Another skeleton shambled up behind Sans, but he didn’t move, staring hollowly at the now completely ruined machine. Smoke and debris billowed everywhere, lightly obscuring the whole clearing. Slowly, he sank to his knees, overcome by a wave of hopelessness. It was over. It was all over. Above him, the monster swung down at his head, but Sans didn’t care any more.

The blow never reached him; the boy leapt forward, his sword coming down to cleave through the attacking monster’s chest. It crumbled into dust without a sound. Sans noted numbly that none of the other skeletons were around anymore. The kid must have killed them all.

A suffocating silence fell over them as the dust and smoke began to settle. Quietly, the boy put his sword away and went to Sans’ side. “I’m... sorry. What... what was it?” he asked, gesturing to the ruined, burning mess.

“... my only way home,” Sans replied miserably, his eyes totally dark. His only way home, and now it was completely destroyed. He barely had to look at it to tell there’d be nothing salvageable left. He’d have to rebuild the entire machine from scratch. With no blueprints. And no materials. “oh, god... papyrus, i’m so sorry...”

The boy awkwardly let him sit there for a minute or so before he reached a hand down to him. “We should go before they come back. Like I said, they pop up all the time at night, and they attack just about anything that moves. And, uh, some things that don’t move.” When Sans didn’t respond, he hooked an arm around the skeleton and physically forced him to his feet. “Come on. We need to go.”

“go where?” Sans asked dully.

“There’s a town just a mile or so east of here,” the boy explained, and he began to shove Sans forwards.

Sans wouldn’t start walking. “why?”

The boy gave a wry chuckle. “I don’t know why people build towns,” he joked. “It’s just there. Come on.” Sans still didn’t move. “Please. I’m not going to leave you out here if you’re just going to let yourself get killed by the next wave of skeletons that comes by.”

“why do you care?”

That seemed to catch the boy off guard a bit, and he stopped pushing. For a moment, he didn’t seem to know what to say, but then his mouth set in a hard line. “Well, someone needs to, and you obviously don’t. Come on.”

Then, to Sans’ mild surprise, the boy picked him up, throwing him over one shoulder, and began walking. The skeleton just apathetically watched the wrecked machine as it got further and further away.

“I’m Karak, by the way,” the boy finally introduced himself. “It’s nice to meet you, Sans. Now let’s see if we can find a way to get you home.”