Breakfast at Grillby’s.

What a joke.

The bar doesn’t open until ten in the morning. Sans had arrived at its doorstep way, way earlier than he should.

…And he’s too tired to go home.

Should he teleport inside? Use a shortcut? Grillby won’t be alarmed if he trespassed on the premises. They had a mutual trust that stretched a long way back. How else could he keep raking debt after debt without incurring any wrath?

But… he decided to do it the normal way. Sans leaned against the wall, waiting. The moment he stopped moving, his eyelids started to droop.

Though skeletons had no fear of hypothermia, the cold still had its lulling properties.

One blink later and he drifted off into the land of dreams.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a cheeky skeleton boy.

He thought of his mentor as a killjoy and a hard driver.

Why must he be monitored for a week?

Why can’t he go home?

He wanted to sleep in his own bed, eat the meals his parents cooked, and read his science books.

But no, he must stay inside an empty room with only a basic bed.

How boring.

So for the next three days, the boy pretended to sleep. He watched his mentor’s every move. Listened to every sound. Remembered the daily monitoring routine.

A conceivable task for a prodigy.

On the fourth night, he made his jailbreak. All barriers serve no purpose if they crumble upon a single touch.

As the boy soon found out… all supports too will serve no purpose if they crumble the same way.

His powers went wild.

The floor that was once rock solid dissolved into sinking sand, threatening to engulf him whole.

The boy tried to run. Flee. Outpace the rate of his own destruction. But his physique lagged far behind his brain.

He fell.

Cried for help.

Dear mother was first to hear the boy’s cries. She got on her knees and reached her slender, bony arm towards her son.

The boy reached out to her. He grabbed his mother’s hand. To his horror, her bones started to flake.

He remembered how she resisted the pain of having her limb undone.

This shouldn’t be happening.

Mother needs her hands to work.

To cook, to prepare, to serve.

She spoke to him. Strange. Despite being a woman, her voice was clearly a man’s.

His mentor’s.

“Sans, wake up! She’s here!”

“Move!”

* * *

Danger alert.

Sans snapped open his eyes just in time to see the silhouette of a certain ‘aunt’: complete with hat and trenchcoat.

Under conventional laws of time, it was an unavoidable blow.

Too fast, too late.

Except, since when does Sans follow the law?

His left Eye flashed between blue and yellow. Upon that moment, the world around him crawled to almost a full stop.

To the perception of others, this was where seconds clipped away from their memory.

He noticed that Cenna had a slip of paper in her hand. It’s emblazoned in green and violet runes. She’s trying to paste that on his face.

A part of him was relieved that it wasn’t a knife. At least she was not trying to assassinate him outright.

Sans stepped aside.

Time resumed at normal pace.

When Cenna pasted the paper on the wall, the runes glowed. A sticky violet web spread from the contact point and crawled across the bar’s brick walls. That thing would have trapped Sans if he didn’t cheat.

“Lichborn,” thus said the Magus. “Descendants of ‘Liches’, the highest order of the enchanted dead, reanimated from humans who had potential to be Magi.”

A yellow shine radiated from the gaps of her trenchcoat. Her segmented SOUL summoned five mechanical drones made up of light.

“Upon creation of their progeny, that residue of humanity gets mixed together with magic, thus gifting the children with the ‘Seer’s Eye’. Since a Monster’s body cannot contain much ‘Determination’ without destroying themselves, all excess was channelled to a single point to be burned as fuel.”

“How else can they gain power over spacetime without losing structural integrity?”

The drones darted around the skeleton, weaving more silken threads of magic. It was an unholy union of spiders and bees.

Sans teleported out of the web’s scope. In turn, he summoned five Gasterblasters to match her drones. They’re quick: one misfire and he’d be in a literal bind.

His aim was true. In just a split second, the beams obliterated them out of existence.

“You’re more powerful than you look, Mister Sans.” Cenna summoned more drones. The same web-spinning type.

The skeleton realised she’s trying to capture him, but why? To take him as a hostage? Even if so, wouldn’t it be easier for Cenna to disable him with physical force?

Unless… she knew of his inherent weakness. Someone’s been gathering information during her stay in Ebott.

He summoned a wall of shifting bones to draw the line. If she tried to go around it, he’ll just extend its reach. Or inflict a couple of scratches that she won’t forget.

“I wouldn’t touch them if I were you,” warned Sans.

The Magus did not advance. A wise move.

Cenna fixed her hat. She then leaned on one leg with that confident, teasing grin.

“Cyan, the essence of Patience.” She said. “Grants its bearer the stillness to meditate on the information he receives. Never mistake it’s lack of action as sloth, for keen observation is the discipline of the wise.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Yellow, the essence of Justice. Grants its bearer accurate discernment. No illusion can maintain their falsehood. No stain can escape their watchful gaze. Only truth will stand. Exposes secrets to inflict sinners of their rightful due.”

“Purple, the essence of Perseverance. The need to keep going, no matter what, never to stop. Grants its bearer instantaneous access to knowledge and skill from the realm of memories. Long-term, short-term, deja vu, those lost in time and space…”

“But you have a little extra, isn’t it?” Cenna added, “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Such is the final fate of all. Almost as if you’re the incarnate of death. Quite the opposite of your brother.”

Count on this woman to be both annoying and nosy. Where and how did she get all that information?

Sans tucked his hands into his jacket’s pocket. Acted chill to not rouse any more suspicion.

“Heh,” he huffed. “It’s impolite to snoop around. If you wanted a warm reception, you could have just talked to me like a normal person. Not initiate an ambush.”

Cenna raised a brow at his statement. “Oh? From the coldest skeleton in Monster society? You’ve been on guard ever since I arrived. Maybe, just maybe, you’ve killed me before. Multiple times. In a different place, different time. If I don’t try to restrain you, I’d get nuked in the face.”

Sans realised that she was telling the truth. Why else would she take such careful measures around him? Binding him would allow her to talk without the risk of injuries.

He doesn’t know how effective the trap would be, and he’s not insane enough to experiment with his life on the line.

Time to recollect intel. Before he could make his next decision, he must know his opponent.

First, Cenna did her homework on the Seer’s history: to the point where she could recite each individual properties of the SOUL. Considering the founder skeletons’ status as an ‘enemy’, only the most trusted of Magi would be graced with this information.

Second, she’s aware of the timeline problem. He doubted that she remembered the details in full since she doesn’t have a Red SOUL, so it’s possible that their organization had a system to record and process each RESET.

If he had killed her at any point, that system would have recorded his abilities.

Third, her abilities hinted at multiple disciplines. Cenna had a Yellow SOUL, but she displayed tricks associated with other colours. Shields should be Green. Traps and webs should be Purple.

It would make her as Yellow main, with sub-abilities of Purple and Green. Sans noted that her secondary abilities lacked colour. Transparent, even. It’s an indication of weakness, perhaps.

It’s possible that humanity made up for their lack of magic endurance through preparation. For example, that slip of runic paper. He imagined Cenna had enlisted the help of Purple and Green Magi to create that.

Thus ended his hypotheses.

Preliminary conclusion: Frisk’s aunt had to be high up the hierarchy scale. She’s skilled, strong, and knows a bit too much. Rank-and-file won’t have access to such a controversial information.

How high? He doesn’t know.

Feigning innocence, he replied: “I’m in the dark, lady. Mind shedding some light on this situation?”

“I only know what I know,” said the Magus. “Long story short, antagonizing you is a terrible idea. Why don’t we work together instead? A truce.”

“Work?” Sans huffed. “Nah. I hate work. Go ask someone else.” Truth was, he didn’t want anything to do with her.

“Even if it’s on Madam Toriel’s request?”

That was the last straw. His left Eye ignited as intense anger caused a leak in his grip of power.

Sans reached his hand out to her SOUL. Ripped it out of her chest and turned it blue upon nothing more than a thought.

He dragged her body to the revolving bones. Just one more inch and she would have her being shredded to bits.

In a low, chilling voice he asked: “What did you do to her?”

The human’s eyes widened, nervous from the sudden act, but she maintained her cool-detective front despite the pressure.

“Whoa whoa whoa.” She chuckled. “Here I thought you’re a dead man inside. Guess I was wrong, huh? Hey. Relax. Madam Toriel is fine. She ain’t a hostage. Though I did give her a little headache from all the info-dumping.”

Wrong answer. The skeleton slowly pulled Cenna closer and closer to certain doom.

“I told her about the ‘Chara Incident’,” she said.

He stopped upon hearing that cursed name.

Grabbing the opportunity to plead her case, Cenna continued: “A village at the base of Mount Ebott reported a monster carrying the corpse of a human child. It was the first sighting since the Sealing. I’m sure you know that story.”

It was the event that started this chain of madness. No one in the Underground escaped that tragedy. Sans included.

This could be his sole chance to get some insider information from someone on the Surface. Cenna was both ex-police and a high-ranking Magi. That’s double the access.

Still, he’s not ready to let her go. Not yet. While maintaining his grip, he said: “Go on.”

“Well, that village had always been a little… kooky. In a bad way.” She explained. “They’re descendants of the folks who wanted to wipe you guys out. The Magus Association may have the then-monarchy’s support, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s happy about it. There are folks who think we’re just delaying the inevitable.”

“So. They built their little settlement at the foot of Mount Ebott, ready for the ‘worst case scenario’. A village of warriors, you know? ‘Kill or be killed’. They had scaled down the martial arts training during the rise of modernization, but that philosophy continued to permeate throughout their culture. I won’t be surprised if a few dabbled in it more seriously than others. That's the kind of environment Chara had been raised in.”

A troubled child raised in a violent warrior culture, further reinforced by bad human media. Both circumstances encouraged determined behaviour free from the guidance of ethics.

It’s a recipe for disaster.

Frisk’s confession letters described Chara as being particularly skilled with a knife. What if they had some level of training? Papyrus’ panic over the phantom sternum gash confirmed that this kid knew where to inflict a fatal wound.

If they were a little older combined with a proper knife, that strike would have sliced through a human’s windpipe. Their opponent would either bleed or suffocate to death.

Still locking his sights on Cenna, Sans asked, “Tell me more about Chara’s community.”

“They trusted no one,” she replied. “Not any outsider, nor any Magi, and of course not any Monster. We told our guys to stay clear of that village. Lest they want to end up in a hospital bed with a massive medical bill. It happened before.”

Mistrustful. Misanthropic. Insular. Worse still, the community may not be as close-knit as they would like to believe.

The Magus continued: “When the Chara Incident happened… well, they thought the sky’s falling down. To prevent any ‘enemies’ from recognizing their surroundings, the community decided to burn every golden flower in the vicinity. It spiralled out of control thanks to the dry season.”

“And that’s how it all exploded into the Great Ebott Razing. Many perished in the fires, both the locals and their neighbours. The Magi took years to clean that mess up.”

The circumstance that led up to the blaze was bordering on the lines of absurdity. If this was taken at face value as the truth, someone in the decision making board had no common sense. None whatsoever.

It was a downright horrifying thought. Nothing’s worse than paranoid idiots in leadership positions.

Sans had one more question. “How does this relate to Tori?”

Cenna replied, “We’ve exorcised every restless spirit in the vicinity except for one: Chara. Her kid.”

“Chara, however, died in the Underground. We've had no access to ‘down below’ for ages. Adults cannot pass the Barrier, and there’s no Magi kid with the skill required to perform an exorcism. Nevermind making the return trip.”

“It would have been fine and dandy if Chara had moved on after all these years… but you and I know life’s not that simple. Long story short, Madam Toriel wants to give them the last rites they deserve. Make them rest in peace. Eternal sleep. You get the drift.”

Sans clenched his teeth together. If Cenna had no other ulterior motives, she could prove to be a great ally.

But he still doesn’t trust her. Weighing cost had started to burn his long-cold fuse. It doesn’t help that he’s dead tired and cranky either.

“Uh, Mister Sans?” Cenna glanced at the revolving bones. “Mind dispelling this chainsaw wall thingy? I promise I won’t do anything funny.”

“…Get rid of your drones first,” he said. The yellow bee-like magic had been on standby ever since she brought them out.

With a wave of her hand, Cenna dispelled her magic. “Your turn, sir.”

Sans reluctantly released his grip. Her SOUL returned to its usual yellow shade and sank back into the safety of her body.

“Phew.” She breathed a huge sigh of relief. “That’s one close shave. Have you made up your mind yet?”

“No.” He answered. “I’ll go talk to Tori myself. Give me until midnight.”

“Sounds fine by me. I plan to hang out with Frisky during their breaks anyway. Hmm, I wonder if I can buy breakfast from the school canteen.”

More attempts of trying to warm up with the rest of the monster civilization? Nothing much can be done about that. He would like to observe her behaviour in school anyway.

“Welp. You better be good.” Sans shut off the blue glow in his left eye. He stared back from the shadow of his deep-set sockets. “Otherwise you’re in for a bad time.”

Once Cenna left, he teleported himself inside Grillby’s. There’s no way he’d remain out in the open with this suspicious Magus walking around. The owner will understand.

He put on a gamey tune on the brand new working jukebox. Made a playlist too.

It's soothing. Perfect background music for a continuation of his nap.

The short skeleton then remembered there was another reason why he'd rather not sleep in his own home…

It’s quiet.

Too quiet.

When it’s too quiet, a long-lost voice will start to whisper in the air. Sometimes, he could even see the person behind it.

“No thanks for me?”

He ignored the question.

“Well. Suit yourself. Just get some rest, for science’s sake. Do it for your brother.”

“Hey Gaster,” the short skeleton snapped. “You don’t deserve to drag Papyrus into the picture. Not after what you did. Scram.”

There was no reply.

Maybe he’s still watching.

Maybe he left.

Sans preferred it that way.