Underearth/Book 4/Chapter 11

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The Snowdin Province was just as bitterly cold as always. As the cold embraced Frisk as he stepped from the Citadel, he instinctively summoned a small fire in his hand to help keep himself warm.

Walking through the freshly laid snow, the sounds of explosions could still be heard clearly from the City of Home.

*Sounds like they don't know I've left...* Frisk thought as his pace hastened.

Approaching the gate that towered over the bridge, Frisk suddenly heard a familiar voice from behind him.

"Human." it said.

Instantly, Frisk flipped around, shooting an arc of fire away as he did so.

"Heh, you seem rather *fired* up, huh." Sans said, once again behind Frisk.

Frisk flipped around again, spotting Sans standing on the gate. As he glared at the skeleton, Frisk noticed Sans's ever-present smile waver for a split-second before returning to normal.

"So," Sans started saying, "when'd you learn to use magic?"

Frisk was taken back at that question. *How does he know I couldn't use magic before?* he thought. As a few more seconds passed, Frisk presented his own question. "What are you talking about? Who even are you?"

Sans's expression remained as unreadable as rock at these questions. "Don't play dumb..." he said, the lights in his eyes having extinguished. "... I know what you're capable of."

At that moment, Sans's crotch began glowing light blue. Unlike in Frisk's second World, he simply ignored it this time. After about a minute, the light faded.

"Why?" Sans asked.

Frisk raised an eyebrow. "Why what?"

"Why do you keep slaughtering us? Is it because you're unhappy? Or maybe because you *need* to know if there's more to it all?"

When he had stopped speaking, his crotch began glowing again. As soon as it happened, Sans's eyes started glowing blue. The light from his crotch began moving upward to one side until out from one of his pockets came a stone. As the stone landed in his hand, it instead glowed a darker blue. A voice then started coming from the stone.

"Sans, what are you—"

"Not now." Sans interrupted the voice.

After a few seconds, the voice began speaking again. As it spoke, Frisk strained to hear the voice, try and recognize it, though nothing came to mind.

"Where are you?" it asked.

"Outside the Citadel, staring at the murderer."

"Damn it Sans." the stone said. "We had a plan—"

"You had a plan. Snowdin still isn't entirely evacuated yet, I plan to at least buy them some time. You just focus on distributing the SOULs."

Before the voice from the stone could respond, it stopped glowing, and Sans stashed it back in his pocket.

"Now, where were we?" Sans asked.

"We were at the part where I kill you." Frisk said.

As soon as Frisk finished his sentence, he threw the fire he was holding in his hand at Sans. Sans simply vanished out of the way.

"COWARD!" Frisk shouted upon seeing him vanish.

"Heh, is it cowardly to not want to die?" Sans said, now standing on the bridge itself.

Frisk pulled the dagger from the scabbard and charged Sans, who simply started stepping backwards.

As he swung, Sans would just step out of the way, continuing backwards. Despite his eyes being closed, he continued to walk as though he could see perfectly. Continuing to swipe away at the skeleton, Frisk continued forward, trying to land hit after hit, missing each and every time.

As Frisk continued his flurry, he could feel the muscles in his arms and legs begin to ache, though he didn't dare give Sans even an inch out of fear that, given the chance, Sans would launch him away.

"You really like swinging that thing around, huh?" Sans said calmly.

Frisk didn't answer, he simply pushed himself harder to end the skeleton as fast as possible.

This charade continued for the next few minutes, each passing minute seeming to last longer than the last with the constant barrage of attacks. Eventually, however, Frisk's body could no longer keep up, and after another swipe from the dagger that missed, he collapsed to the ground.

"Heheh... I'm impressed, Human. I wasn't entirely sure if you could keep that up all this way." Sans said.

Frisk looked up. Sans was slowly walking backwards down a long bridge. After a few more seconds of looking at it, he recognized it to be the final bridge before Snowdin.

"I'm glad you made it, though." Sans said, bringing his arms up. "Now I can make sure to put you down."

In the next moment, Sans's eyes began glowing a deep blue. When this happened, entire chunks of the cliff behind him pulled away, massive sawblades floating up from below. Massive orange tubes appeared from below as well, along with a great many metal spears. Finally, a cannon elevated from the ground at the end of the bridge just as Sans stepped from its surface.

"This puzzle may belong to my brother," Sans started, "but it works just as well as an anti-Human weapon. You try and cross this bridge, I'll activate it. Cannons will fire. Spears will swing. Blades will slice. Your chance at victory... won't exist."

Frisk stood up, careful not to over-exhort himself again. Once back on his feet, he simply stared at the Gauntlet of Deadly Terror.

"Well? What's the holdup?" Sans asked. "Don't you want to cut me open like you've done many times before?"

"I can't believe you'd stoop this low, Sans." Frisk said.

Sans raised a brow at his statement.

"I mean, honestly, don't you have standards? At least Papyrus recognized that it would be too easy to defeat me with this."

Sans's eyes flared up at the mention of Papyrus's name. "Why don't you come over here and tell me all about the standards I'm supposed to have." he spat.

Frisk looked back at the Gauntlet. As he stared at it, he felt a vibration in his leg. Reaching for the source, Frisk grabbed the Pocketwatch. Looking down at it, the front of the case opened; blocky text was glowing on the glass.

"ROTATE TOP DIAL COUNTER-CLOCKWISE TWICE THEN WALK FORWARD. PREPARE FOR DISORIENTATION." it read.

Immediately, Frisk rotated the dial at the top twice then approached the bridge. Just before stepping onto the bridge, however, there was a sudden gold flash of light in front of him. Next thing he knew, he was standing in front of Sans.

Sans shot a look off to his side, straight at Frisk, shock enveloping his eye-lights. Frisk, on the other hand, took just a few seconds to register what had just happened before grabbing Sans's skull and channeling fire magic into it. After just a few seconds, Sans's head exploded as the objects of the Gauntlet fell back into the chasm below. Soon after, the rest of Sans's body turned to dust.

With the immediate threat gone, Frisk pulled out the pocketwatch and spoke to it.

"What was that?" he asked.

Inside his head, Frisk could hear the voice of the machine.

"TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT. YOU WERE ADVANCED BY A FEW SECONDS."

"I see..." Frisk said, pocketing the pocketwatch.

"DO NOT RELY ON ME TO GET YOU OUT OF EVERY SITUATION YOU RUN INTO. REMEMBER THAT I AM MY OWN ENTITY. IF I WISH TO NOT USE MY ABILITIES, THEN I SHALL NOT USE THEM."

Frisk thought on this as he began to walk towards Snowdin. "I understand." he said, approaching the welcoming sign.