It felt good to crush Frisk in his arms. They were confused for a moment, but hugged him back tightly. They stood together like that for a long moment.
“You okay?” Frisk asked, but Sans didn’t answer.
He just couldn’t. Funny how hard it was to speak, when the words seemed important, and would be remembered.
They relaxed in his grip and let him take his time. After a minute, he teleported them both to his Snowdin living room.
“as much as we’ve been coming here, i’m beginning to think i might need to do more with the place,” he said wryly as he sat on the couch. “i was just here with toriel, but i don’t know anywhere else to go if i want privacy, y’know?”
Funny how much easier words were when they weren’t important.
“Didn’t really need it before?” Frisk asked, snuggling up next to him.
“when we were living underground, i didn’t talk to anyone,” he said. “not for real, anyway. like, i’d go to alphys’ lab if we wanted to talk about timeline or amalgamate stuff or whatever, but for me, if i wanted to be alone with my thoughts, the snowdin sentry station was the best place for it.”
Frisk shivered.
“I’m glad you’re not taking me there for chats,” they said. “This is much nicer.”
“yeah, it is,” he said. “since coming to the surface, haven’t spoken to anyone for real, either, other than the last few days.”
“It’s good that you’re doing so now, I think,” they said. “I take it the conversation with mum was kind of hard?”
“she was being extremely nice and supportive and i was being an ass,” he said with a sigh.
He looked down at them appraisingly then leaned back and closed his eyes. Saying that reminded him… there was something he felt like he should say.
“hope i’ve judged things with you right. that you’re right about how you feel about things,” he said. “‘cause it occurs to me to mention something and normally i’d, uh, not want to.”
“Because you’re afraid it would hurt me?” they asked.
“yeah,” he said.
They smiled and hugged him.
“I always want to know,” they said.
“you say that,” he muttered.
Still, he wasn’t a cheater. And as such, he felt like hiding this from them wasn’t right. They’d said they’d be happy with him loving someone else, so it should be okay to be open about what he’d said to Toriel. And if it wasn’t okay, then it was important to find out. Confessing to a Toriel that would soon not exist wouldn’t have any impact on his relationship with the real Toriel, so he hadn’t done anything yet - but hiding things might be too much.
Even if that wasn’t really the sort of relationship they had. He didn't think? He didn’t understand what they were, not really, but at least if he were honest, it took away the uncertainty.
“but, uh, i sorta confessed to her,” he said. “about being a little in love with her, and that’s, uh, kinda complicated feeling, considering, uh, things with you and stuff.”
They leaned up and kissed his cheek, smiling warmly. He studied their face and didn’t see a flicker of pain or upset. Only joy, love, affection. It really was actually okay. Somehow.
“That doesn’t hurt me at all,” they said. “What did she say?”
“a few things,” he said, swallowing. “i asked her to tell me the truth about where she stood, and she said that who i was, and who i am, she couldn’t love, but who i’m becoming, maybe.”
“Ouch,” Frisk said and Sans laughed in agreement. “I’m guessing you told her some stuff about your past, for her to say that?”
“not much,” he said. “and i was being a dick about it.”
“Hard to imagine that,” they teased and he grinned at them. “Still, it tells me one thing for sure.”
“what’s that?” he asked.
“I’ve got better taste in partners than she does,” they said with a giggle.
He could have fake laughed to join them, but after his conversation with Toriel… he wasn’t feeling like that sort of artifice.
“i dunno,” he said, as lightly as he could manage. “she’s got a point.”
“Then clearly my judgment is superior to both of yours,” they said, leaning up to kiss his cheek again.
“yeah, yeah,” he said. “you’re really not bothered by all that?”
“I want you to be true to yourself,” they said, their voice rich with warmth. “I’m glad you could tell her how you felt. I know you have a hard time with that.”
“i only could ‘cause she’s not…” he said, and then cut off with an awkward swallow.
Frisk smiled sadly, in understanding.
“Because she doesn’t feel fully real,” they said.
“i don’t want to think of it that way,” he muttered.
“I understand, Sans,” they said, laughing. “Trust me, I really, really understand.”
“i know,” he said with a sigh. “what about the fact that she’s your adopted mom, though? i mean, that’s, uh, awkward.”
“It definitely is,” they said with a giggle. “If there’s nothing sexual between me and her, just between you and her, I wouldn’t find it a problem at all. I would totally want to tease her about it, though, because I bet she’d find it horribly awkward. Still, I could behave myself.”
He grinned at that.
“And also… if you wanted me to join in, you’d just have to say the word,” they said. “As you know.”
“i get that you’d obey me if i told you to have sex with her,” he said. “or anyone. or anything. heh, now that i think about it, it might be fun to give you some interesting orders in public sometime…”
Frisk squeaked at that, their eyes wide in horror.
And intrigue.
He grinned. Yeah, that was going on the list.
“but that aside,” he said. “i can’t believe we’re actually talking about this. we’re not… it’s nothing like that.”
“And if that changes, know I’m cheering you on,” they said with a grin.
Still, he’d seen their face when they offered to join in - it would be legitimately awkward for them. And yet, they weren’t completely repulsed by the thought…
He was going to think about something else now.
“it’s not likely to change,” he said. “it wouldn’t be fair to her to even approach the idea if i’m not willing to tell her some things, and i don’t see that happening.”
Frisk gave him a speculative look.
“Does anyone know those things? Anyone at all?” they asked.
“no,” Sans said.
“It’s possible that it’s not as bad as you think,” Frisk said. “I mean, I’ve definitely hated myself for what I’ve done more than anyone else has hated me for it. I keep thinking you all just… don’t get how awful it was, but…”
“the fact that you care so much and hurt so much from what you did takes a lot of the edge off,” Sans said.
“You care, too,” Frisk said. “I bet you cared when you did your own dark things, didn’t you?”
“less than i care now,” he said. “but well… you know how LOVE is.”
They nodded.
“But there was still something inside it all, inside you, that cared, right?” they asked.
“sort of,” he said. “again, you know how it is. you can hang on to some things, but that’s it. i cared about papyrus, and… a few others. and while i knew i should care beyond that, i just didn’t feel it.”
“I understand,” they said.
“anyway. toriel said a few things,” Sans said. “about, uh. lots of stuff. including how i should think about you, and how with the timeline thing, we’re together forever now. and no matter what happens between us personally, we should think long term, kind of thing.”
They hugged him and smirked.
“That sounds remarkably distant and practical, coming from mum,” they said teasingly.
“it’s not how she put it,” Sans said.
“Uh huh,” Frisk said. “How did she put it?”
It is a binding more extreme and long lasting than any marriage. And, for now as well as hopefully into the future, you are bound by mutual love.
If you are bound together eternally, then perhaps it would be wise to embrace that.
“differently,” he said dryly and they chuckled, giving him a knowing look that he chose to ignore. “also about papyrus. same deal - long term thinking. like how we should tell him about the timelines, because we can’t keep it a secret from him forever without wrecking stuff between us.”
“That… makes a lot of sense,” Frisk said, looking a little sheepish.
“tori’s good at that,” Sans said and Frisk laughed in agreement. “so, uh, in light of both of those things… and also, what you’d said before, about me maybe needing some help to tell papyrus things. uh…”
“You’re thinking you should tell me something?” Frisk prompted when he hesitated.
“my past and stuff, yeah,” he said awkwardly. “i should probably try to make a habit of it, ‘cause there’s a lot to tell, and i don’t wanna say it all at once. but piecemeal, we’d get there eventually, and i think i’ll need you to know stuff to help with papyrus.”
Frisk smiled brightly at him.
“I am extremely on board with this plan,” they said. “Just, so much, I can’t even tell you.”
“i figured,” he said dryly.
He looked up at the ceiling.
“it… won’t surprise you that there’s a lot of dark crap in my past,” he said and they laughed lightly in agreement. “it’d surprise anyone else. anyway, the thing about it is… i kinda like the idea of you knowing some things.”
They shifted on him, stroking at his chest soothingly.
“‘cause i think you might actually understand,” he said quietly. “no one else would, but with the stuff you’ve done… maybe you’ll get why i didn’t find it hard to forgive you for it.”
“Are you worried that I’m going to judge you?” Frisk asked, their tone as soft as his.
“... yeah,” he said with a little laugh. “part of me’s certain you won’t, for lots of good reasons, like your devotion maybe not letting you see things that way or something.”
“But part of you is afraid anyway,” they said with a sad little smile.
“can’t help it,” he said. “this world’s so peaceful compared to the one i knew. and, uh, i contributed to that.”
“No matter what you’ve done, I promise I’ll love you anyway,” they said solemnly and he hugged them. “So what’s the first story going to be? And maybe right now?”
He couldn’t help but laugh at the barely restrained eagerness in their voice.
“nothing too heavy right now,” he said.
“Maybe the story of how you came to this world?” they suggested.
“that’s one of the heaviest, actually,” he said and they nodded. “something relatively light… maybe the first time i killed someone.”
“Wow, that’s light?” they said.
“your first kill was, too,” he said and they sheepishly acknowledged the point. “it’s not like there’s anything important to tell you about, i dunno, trying to teach papyrus to read.”
“That sounds adorable, though,” they said and he laughed.
“it was, but it’s not like that kind of story is weighing on me,” he said.
“True!” they said. “Alright, tell me, tell me, all about your first kill!”
“you’re so excited for such a morbid topic,” he said with a chuckle and they just beamed at him. “anyway, it was when i was in reaper training…”
“Hold on, am I allowed to ask questions as we go along?” Frisk asked.
“uh,” he said. “i guess, yeah.”
“Okay, because I have no idea what a reaper is,” Frisk said.
“which i was gonna mention as i was telling the story,” he said.
“Right, so maybe I’ll save questions till after,” they said sheepishly.
He smiled at them.
“sure,” he said. “let’s see… i’d been in reaper training a few months, covering some basics, like theory on how to handle human souls…”
----------------------------------------
“First up, Sans,” Instructor Moreth said.
Sans nervously moved forward.
“As a reminder, if you don’t think you can kill him yourself, I will do so and you can simply practice soul absorption and wrangling,” Instructor Moreth said, then smiled at him. It wasn’t the kindest smile. “But you’ve been hand-picked, haven’t you? I wonder if you’ve got the stomach for it.”
“i can handle it,” Sans said, trying to sound tough.
“We’ll see,” Instructor Moreth said. “Not many can kill a prisoner if they’ve never gained LOVE.”
“doctor gaster wants the best, and that’s me,” Sans said with all of the trembling arrogance that only teenagers can manage.
“Of course it is,” Instructor Moreth said with a laugh. “Alright, then. Prisoner number 72B. Captured during a raid on the village of Riverbend. His LOVE is seven, which suggests that he’s killed in the range of a few dozen people. Considering they’re not at war with anyone else, that'd be our people.”
Sans stared at the man. A bag was over his head and he was propped up in a chair, probably drugged out of his mind. He raised a hand to summon his bones and he hesitated.
“shouldn’t i, uh, see his face or something? or know his name?” Sans asked.
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“Knowing personal details makes it harder to kill,” Instructor Moreth said.
“i can do it,” Sans insisted. “i just, i dunno, i wanna do it right. killing him like this, it seems wrong.”
“Should we bring you to a battlefield, where they can fight back?” Instructor Moreth asked blandly.
The rest of the class was dead silent, even though they’d normally be murmuring at an exchange like that. He knew what the instructor was saying. Monsters couldn’t fight against humans, not in a straight contest. Human intentions could rip through magical defenses, and they could resist magic, to boot. Monsters needed human souls to have any chance at a fight at all, and it was the reapers’ job to get those souls. And use them.
There were plenty of monsters who were trained in using souls in combat, sure. But only reapers who were trained in acquiring them.
“no, i get that,” Sans said. “but i mean, if it’s not a fair fight, i should at least know his face and name.”
“If you’re sentimental enough to want to know, then you’re too sentimental to kill him, and we shouldn’t be wasting our time,” Instructor Moreth said.
“i said i can do it,” Sans said. “i will.”
“Fine,” Instructor Moreth said. “Prove to me you have what it takes to be Doctor Gaster’s pet project.”
“hey, i’m training to be his personal reaper and bodyguard,” Sans said.
“Like I said, his pet,” Instructor Moreth said and Sans glowered at him. “We didn’t learn this human’s name, and we aren’t going to let him wake up enough to ask. But go ahead and take off his hood if you think it’s necessary.”
Sans’ hand was trembling despite himself as he reached for the hood. He pulled it off and met the glazed eyes of the man. He was a lot older than Sans - probably in his twenties. He had a beard that looked lovingly maintained, and long black hair. His face was slack and he blearily met Sans’ gaze.
“he’s conscious?” Sans asked.
“Yes,” Instructor Moreth said. “It’s difficult to knock a human unconscious but keep them alive. He’s harmless, for now, but he’ll be waking up more as time passes. So you might want to be quick about it.”
Sans heard a choked sob and some sniffling behind him. One or two of his classmates were really having a hard time with this.
So was he.
He swallowed and raised his hand again. He had to do this. His parents were reapers, and they were good people, so it couldn’t be evil to do this. He’d done so well on his tests that Doctor Gaster himself, the Doctor W.D. Gaster, had taken a personal interest in him and put in resources for Sans’ training. He’d be trained both in the spacetime sciences that Doctor Gaster specialized in, and reaper training, so he could be a direct source of souls for Doctor Gaster’s research.
Everyone was counting on him to live up to all these expectations. And who knew, maybe he could make a real difference in the war.
And this human murderer was in his way. He’d have to kill lots of humans as a reaper. This was only different because it wasn’t on a battlefield.
He could do this.
He summoned a swarm of bones. He could manage a full five at once, which was really good for a fifteen year old. All he had to do was launch them and he’d prove Instructor Moreth wrong about him. Prove his parents right, and Doctor Gaster right. They’d all be proud.
It felt wrong, but it wasn’t. It was a good thing to kill this human.
This is the right thing to do, Sans thought to himself, over and over as he tried to draw on his magic.
“Just going to stand there all day?” drawled Instructor Moreth.
“i’m going to do it,” Sans said. “i said i will, so i will.”
His heart ached. It hurt more than he thought it would. Why would it hurt so much just to kill some human soldier?
The man groaned a little and his eyes seemed to grow more focused.
“There’s not a lot of time left,” Instructor Moreth said. “If you can’t, it’s fine, Sans. I’ll kill him and you can just practice with his soul.”
“no,” Sans said and took a breath. “it’s time.”
He’d made a decision, he’d said he would do it, and Sans always followed through.
The bones launched forward, driving into the man. He jerked at the impacts, sounds of pain escaping him.
“It’ll take more than that,” Instructor Moreth said. “A lot more.”
“then i’ll give him a lot more,” Sans said, gritting his teeth and refusing to tear up.
He could do this, it was the right thing, and he wasn’t going to cry.
Another swarm of bones was summoned and he managed to launch it without much delay this time. The man had awakened a little more and had started to cry out and blubber something.
The human still wasn’t dead.
A third swarm was summoned and this time, Sans couldn’t stop the tears. He didn’t want to do this, he hated the sounds the man was making, he hated this…
But it was the right thing to do. He could trust in that. His parents, Doctor Gaster, everyone, it was definitely the right thing, no matter how it felt.
Tears fell from his face as the third swarm impacted the human. A scream came from him this time, and Sans recoiled from the sound of it, the pain of it.
“Well done,” Instructor Moreth said, sounding pleased. “Get into position, his soul is appearing.”
Sans stumbled those few steps forward and reached out. A purple light that wasn’t quite visible appeared at the human’s chest. He touched it, willing it to become his, and it seemed to jump out of the man’s chest, rushing him. He staggered back, but the soul rushed through his hand and flooded him with power.
His body surged and the sensation was incredible. The magic of it, the intensity, it felt good, amazing, in ways he couldn't have hoped to describe. Everything shrunk around him - he was even taller than Instructor Moreth, now! His clothes had changed, too, as he looked down at his changed form.
It was also pretty intense in his head. He’d been trained on what to do, though. His type of magic was the best for reapers - death affiliated magic numbed and relaxed a soul more than any other kind. He tried to mentally bathe it in his magic and it settled, the ripping terror and hostility fading into a painful ache in the back of his head that he could reasonably ignore.
“You’re wearing a reaper uniform?” one of his classmates asked, and Instructor Moreth laughed.
“You’ll need to control the transformation better in the future,” he said. “But you really do want it, don’t you?”
“told you so,” Sans said, trying to put on a fake grin.
“That you did,” Instructor Moreth said proudly. “Excellent work, Sans. You’ve got five minutes to practice moving around with the soul, and then hand it off to one of your classmates. Next time, we’ll see if someone else can manage the kill.”
“sir,” Sans said. “if no one else can, i’d like permission to handle it myself, instead of you.”
“Oh?” Instructor Moreth said.
“i’m not one for doing the bare minimum,” Sans said smugly. “i’ll have the highest LOVE that any reaper graduates have ever had.”
“You just might,” Instructor Moreth said. “Well then. Let’s get to it.”
----------------------------------------
Frisk was staring at him.
“i did it, too,” he said. “highest LOVE at graduation in history - though, admittedly, i’ve never heard of anyone else who tried. it was rare enough to graduate as a reaper in the first place. my academy only had about an eight percent graduation rate, and almost all of the failures were from monsters finding they didn’t have it in them to kill. kill that much, anyway.”
“I’m really having trouble with this,” Frisk said.
“uh… really?” he said. “i didn’t think it’d be too much… i mean, i know he was a prisoner of war, but…”
“No, not that,” Frisk said dismissively. “Sans… you’re a skeleton.”
“you only just noticed?” he asked playfully. “and here i thought you were observant.”
“Oh my god, Sans,” they said in an exasperated tone, covering their face with their hands. “No! I mean, you’re a skeleton and it was your job to reap souls.”
“actually, that’s a regular reaper’s job, but my actual job was a litt-”
“Oh my GOD, Sans,” Frisk said, and he grinned, holding back laughter. “That was part of it, though, right?”
“yep,” he said.
“You’re telling me you were the grim reaper,” they said.
“it was pretty grim,” he said.
“SANS!” they yelled and he started to crack, barely restraining his laughter.
“but saying i was the grim reaper just doesn’t work,” he said. “i was more funny than grim. ‘humerus,’ even.”
“OH MY GOD,” Frisk said.
He couldn’t help it and just laughed as they yelled.
“on that note, remember a few months ago when i got those souls?” Sans asked.
“Ye-” they started to say and then abruptly cut themself off, staring at him. “No. No, Sans, you didn’t.”
“i felt like the whole costume might be too much, but i did bring a plastic scythe with me,” he said.
“Oh my god that is amazing,” Frisk said, and just fell back laughing.
“i do kinda want to know your thoughts for real, though,” he said.
“Nope, sorry, you’ll have to wait,” Frisk said. “You’ve killed my brain and now my brain has to reload. That’s how this works.”
He snorted at that.
“I can’t believe it,” Frisk said. “Just… wow, Sans. I can’t even.”
“but can you odd?” he asked and they lightly slapped at his arm.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” they said.
“good thing i’ve got so much experience at that,” he said and they giggled.
“Damn right you do,” they said admiringly. “And speaking of, your instructor was cold. I find it surprising - he was a teacher, not a reaper, wasn’t he?”
“there were minimum LOVE amounts for anyone instructing reapers,” he said and they boggled.
“Minimum LOVE? Seriously?” they repeated. “And it was measurable?”
“i don’t want to get into all that right now, but yeah,” he said. “it can form up to twenty distinct layers on the soul, so twenty’s the max. once you hit that point, there’s no going back - it’s complete dissociation of the mind from the soul, and regaining yourself is impossible. though maybe not with reloading, i dunno.”
Frisk stared at him in horror.
“the mechanics of LOVE are more complicated than you might think, but again, trying to keep it brief for now,” he said.
“You don’t have to keep it brief. I am curious,” Frisk said.
“i wasn’t wanting to keep it brief for your sake,” he said dryly and they grinned.
“Worth a shot,” they said and he laughed.
“the point is, if i remember correctly, the minimum LOVE for an instructor at reaper academies was eight,” he said. “moreth was eleven, i think.”
Frisk nodded, looking thoughtful.
“The idea being that they needed the emotional disconnect to coerce students, children, into murdering people?” they asked.
“heh,” he said. “harshly put, but fair, yeah. though i was unusually young - that’s a whole story in itself. most monsters didn’t go into reaper training till they were older. usually going into it from other military roles.”
“So a lot of them already had LOVE built up?” Frisk asked.
“not usually,” he said. “pretty much the only monsters who actually killed anyone were those with soul training. and most monsters who went for soul training tried to be reapers first - it was generally reaper dropouts who took those roles.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Frisk said. “So pretty much all of the kills in your war were from a small number of soldiers?”
“yep,” he said. “the rest of the military was built as support for reapers and soul-wielders of other kinds. defensive actions, evacuations, trap setting, healing, that sort of thing.”
“That is really cool,” Frisk said. “But, as far as my thoughts on what you did - you were doing what you thought was right. Really, that’s the key thing, isn’t it?”
“killing prisoners of war is considered a war crime in this world,” he said. “i’d make jokes about it, but i’d joke about anything - it’s kinda serious.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you guys were killing them because you were dismissive of the value of life or whatever,” they said. “It’s because their deaths provided a necessary resource. I just realized, though - I’m curious why you’d have needed large numbers of souls. Couldn’t you just reuse them?”
“probably should have mentioned that,” he said. “you can hold a soul without fully absorbing it, and transfer it safely, like into a container or whatever. but, once a soul is properly absorbed, and it loses this… uh, sort of buffer thing, it’s basically on a countdown. it becomes unusable after a while. depends on a lot of factors, but anywhere from five minutes to maybe five hours.”
“I see,” Frisk said. “So, it’s like using consumables in games. Yuck.”
He laughed at the scrunched look of disgust on their face.
“yeah,” he said. “reapers were critical to the war effort. very few monsters could handle being reapers, and we weren’t able to put up a fight without souls.”
Frisk nodded seriously.
“I dropped in without a lick of combat training or LOVE, and had I been a little more violently inclined… and maybe a trifle less panicky about magic… I probably wouldn’t have died even once, outside of Flowey’s soul absorption stuff,” Frisk said. “Monsters without extra souls… I can see that being really one-sided.”
“that sums it up pretty well,” Sans said. “it’s what happened in this universe - they never managed to get a single human soul. i’d guess someone killed a human at least once, but you have to get to the corpse within about thirty seconds or it’s too late.”
“So is your universe otherwise like ours, except for that one difference?” Frisk asked.
“i think so,” he said. “we had king asgore, too, but no queen. i didn’t pay huge attention to history class, so i don’t know if it was toriel, but i do remember that the queen died during the early days of the war, and in his anger, asgore got the first human souls.”
“I can see that,” Frisk said quietly. “We know he can be… violently driven by grief.”
“yeah,” Sans said. “but also, the year doesn’t match. war had only been going on for about eighty years, in my universe.”
“So it’s not only a different universe, but also your future,” Frisk said.
“that’s what we figured, yeah,” Sans said.
“We?” Frisk asked. “Do you mean this Doctor Gaster person?”
He smiled.
“i do,” he said. “but let’s save him for another day.”
“Can I ask other questions, though?” Frisk asked.
“sure,” he said.
“I’m not really clear on why you didn’t just completely kick ass, when you had the souls,” Frisk said. “I know they’re temporary, but even so, you should have been able to slaughter people, get souls, and just wreck your enemies.”
Sans gave them a bemused look.
“you really think we’d have been able to do that?” he asked. “that we could make ourselves do that?”
“With a high enough LOVE, yeah,” Frisk said.
He laughed bitterly.
“fair point,” he said. “like i said, the mechanics of LOVE are more complicated than you might think. but, as to your question, there’s a few major things you’re missing.”
Frisk nodded.
“one, even if our reapers could manage to do something like that, our population wouldn’t be able to handle it,” he said. “some would, but if they really wrapped their minds around it… that would have destroyed us as a people. here, people would say stupid stuff like being hyped for the destruction of humanity, but i’ve seen how upset the population got whenever reapers got souls from civilians.”
“Did you ever do that?” Frisk asked.
He sighed.
“we weren’t supposed to,” he said. “but, there was a time or two when gaster insisted that he needed a few souls right away and wasn’t willing to wait for the next military engagement that i could poach from. sometimes i was successful at sneaking into human lands and just getting bandits… and sometimes i wasn’t.”
They squeezed his hand.
“anyway,” he said. “the next major issue you’re missing is with human magicians.”
“Oh right,” Frisk said. “I forgot about that.”
“as a rule, magicians leveled the playing field with reapers,” he said. “they could collaboratively cast, combining their magic. two magicians working together was the equal of a reaper with two souls, five magicians to a reaper with five souls, and so on, roughly speaking. individual skill level counted for a huge amount, naturally. and their power was more consistent - they didn’t need ‘consumables,’ as you put it, which was a major advantage against us.”
“That makes sense,” Frisk said. “So you fought a lot of magicians?”
“we were the mutual high priority targets,” Sans said. “our whole war effort was completely contigent on reapers continuing to gather souls - to use the souls ourselves, as well as to hand them off to other soul-trained monsters. every reaper that died was a massive blow to monsterkind. or retired, i guess.”
“Makes sense,” Frisk said. “Magicians were the same way?”
“yeah,” he said. “they took ages to train and not many humans had the knack for it. any magicians we killed, it’d be crippling to humanity. well, not humanity, really - just the enemy nations. we weren’t enemies with all humans.”
“Did you ever kill any magicians?” Frisk asked.
“a handful, but mostly they’d retreat when the going got tough,” Sans said. “we would, too. general rule of thumb, we weren’t supposed to engage with magicians unless we were bringing more souls to the table than they were. like, i could fight two magicians at once if i had three souls, but if i were only cleared for two souls, i was supposed to do a defensive holding action, or back off.”
“Wait, you needed clearance for using more souls?” Frisk asked.
“yep,” he said. “it’s… a whole thing. they’re dangerous to use. straining. i ended up getting clearance for all seven, eventually.”
“Is seven special somehow?” Frisk said. “I thought it was seven souls because that’s how many magicians happened to be involved in putting up the barrier, not because there was something inherent about that number.”
“for some reason - and soul interactions wasn’t my area of expertise, though i did study it some - seven is the maximum number of collaborative souls in magic,” Sans said. “doesn’t matter if it’s a monster absorbing souls, or if it’s human magicians combining their magic, seven’s a hard limit.”
“What happens if you try to go past it?” Frisk asked.
“you can tell while you’re holding them,” Sans said. “you just can’t absorb any more, it feels sorta… complete. i’m guessing there was leeway with flowey’s absorbing of the monster souls, since they sort of didn’t take up space in quite the same way, but that’s just a guess. i’d be able to swap souls easily, or grab an extra one to put into a container or whatever, but not fully integrate one. not truly absorb it.”
“Huh,” Frisk said. “And magicians?”
“never saw them try to combine more than seven in a collab cast, but it’s not like they’d try new things mid combat. they probably tried it at home and found that it wasn’t possible.”
“Cool,” Frisk said. “Flowey was incredibly powerful when he had all of the souls. It seems like it’d be fun. What was it like for you, absorbing seven souls?”
“maybe that’ll be a story for next time,” he said. “i’ve only absorbed seven souls twice before, and the first time was a pretty epic story.”
“I can’t wait,” Frisk said.
“i bet,” Sans said. “but let’s do something else for now. when’s the last time you’ve said screw it and ran off to just do something fun?”
“I… kind of don’t do that?” Frisk said. “I mean, I’ve taken some small vacations before, but never just… ditched things, or went wild. I can’t screw around much in the true timeline, what with my job and stuff. And I never felt like it was… uh… okay to take advantage of dead timelines for personal pleasures?”
“then i have to apologize for being a dick,” he said. “again. i recently realized that i kept you from having fun with this power, and it’s not like you’re reloading just to screw people over or anything. let’s make up for lost time.”
Their eyes were shining.
“Really?” they asked, their voice small and hopeful.
“absolutely,” he said. “let’s go waste some money and be weird tourists somewhere. what do you think?”
“I… god yes,” Frisk said. “Where do you want to go?”
“wrong question,” Sans said. “where do we wanna go first?”