Multiverse Saga/Taken!Altertale/Chapter 5

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Location: AlT-113

Time: 62 hours after emergence

Sans and Papyrus stood silently in the courtyard, six rectangular holes surrounding them. At the bottom of each hole lay a grey coffin.

"Say, Papyrus..." Sans said after a few minutes. "did you... ever learn the names of these kids?"

Papyrus shook his head. "Did you?"

Sans remained silent.

The two skeletons returned to giving a reverent silence for the bodies they now buried.

"Hey bro, go ahead and head back to Elysium. I'd... like a moment alone." Sans said.

"But what about replacing the dirt?" Papyrus asked.

"I'll take care of it, don't worry."

Papyrus considered his brother carefully. After a minute, he sighed.

"Alright. See you soon." Papyrus walked back along the street, back to the Mount Hot tramway.

Sans continued to stand in the middle of the courtyard for a few minutes more. Eventually, he brought up his hands and, using magic, moved the six great piles of dirt back into their holes, entombing the coffins. Once done, he stepped over to a nearby bench and took a seat.

"May you all find rest, wherever you may be now..." Sans mumbled. After a few minutes, he himself found rest.

Sans shot to attention as a great, thunderous noise engulfed him; a noise quickly followed by a color-inverting wave that shot through him as well. After a few seconds, color returned to what it was. Sans stood up from the bench only to be brought down to his knees by a sudden and great pain within his head.

Clutching his head tightly for what seemed like forever, his pain was cut through by the sounds of bells ringing from above. Craning his head, Sans caught sight of the great floating rock hovering near the crest of the mountain.

"The bells!" he said. "But why... why are they ringing? What's going on?"

Carefully, Sans got to his feet, the pain in his head still gnawing at him.

"I gotta... get to Elysium." he said, stumbling forward.

It wasn't any good. It felt like, with every step, a great pressure was somehow squeezing the air from his body. A few more steps and he collapsed back to the ground.

Laying there, a thought occurred to him. Propping himself up a bit, Sans focused his magic into the air around him. In the next moment, he grabbed the air with his magic and thrust it towards him, which had a similar effect to taking a fresh breath of air after lying at the bottom of a pool for a few minutes.

"What?" Sans said, staring at his hand. "I haven't had to do this in... centuries..." his thoughts then drifted to the pain in his head. "No way... has the Curse been... reversed? That must mean this is..." he placed his hand against his head. "this is hunger."

The sound of bells re-entered his mind. Refocusing, Sans took another breath and stood back up.

"A mystery for later. Now, I need to reach Elysium. I need to know why those bells are ringing."

Sans stood back up and began running through the city. Along the way, he passed many people who were clutching their gut in pain, wandering the streets trying to figure out what happened, or both. After nearly an hour of navigating the streets and getting lost more than a few times, he finally managed to get to the street that would lead him to the Mount Hot tramway; a lifting station that would take him up the face of the mountain.

Looking up towards the summit when he reached the station, a tiny speck seemed to be drifting from the summit, past the brick of Helios Station, and up towards Elysium.

*What was that?* Sans thought as he stepped into the car.

Speeding up towards the MTT Resort, the car quickly managed to lift Sans from the base to the top in no time, safely latching to the bay within. When the door opened, Sans simply froze with horror of the sight of the lobby. Blood caked the floor, walls, and ceiling as though some deranged painter wanted to redecorate.

Stepping into the lobby, his eyes quickly caught sight of a familiar form.

Undyne, or at least her headless corpse. Her head lay nearby, its singular eye contracted tightly. The smell that permeated the room was nauseating.

Approaching Undyne's limp form, Sans saw a black smudge nearby, along with smeared blood. Following the trail of smeared blood, he quickly found bloody footprints leading all the way from the back entrance from the MTT Resort to Helios Station. Taking a closer look at the footprints, he saw that they were made by a creature with paws of sorts. Definitely plantigrade, though with pads and fur.

"Toriel?" Sans muttered. "No... please tell me these aren't Toriel's."

Sans followed the footprints into Helios Station, through the teleporter, across the control room, and into the Elysium elevator. Sans's mind raced horribly, torturing him with what might have happened. When the elevator arrived in Elysium, he exited the car and followed the footprints again, all the way to the Judgement Hall, where there was a smear and more blood. Next to the puddle decorating the center of the Hall, Sans spotted a small, white, bony something. Seeing it, his heart sank, and he ran past the puddle, following the rest of the footprints, completely unaware that there was another set following the first.

Reaching the throne room, Sans first spotted his brother, Papyrus, sitting on his throne with his skull sitting in his lap. Down at his feet was what he sought.

Toriel; lying in a puddle of blood at the foot of the throne.

"TORIEL!!!" he shouted, sprinting to her, and picking her up, shaking her in a feeble attempt to awaken her in the process.

"Tori, come on, wake up." Sans continued to say, carefully shaking her body.

Just as despair took hold and started to burrow within Sans, Toriel's pink eyes cracked open.

"Toriel!" Sans said, instantly filled with relief, hugging the smaller goat-Monster.

"S... Sans...?" Toriel worked out.

"I'm here, it's okay." Sans consoled.

"N... no... no it's not okay." Toriel broke from Sans's embrace. "Sans, you need to run."

"Wh... what? No!"

"Sans, please. Get out of—" Toriel spotted a sickly figure standing just behind Sans, then screamed in terror.

Sans turned to look at what had frightened Toriel so greatly when a sudden pain shot through his skull, and everything went dark.

Sans's body collapsed to the ground, the upper half of his skull flying through the air, throwing viscera and blood all across the throne room.

The bloody Sans laughed maniacally at the fountain of scarlet liquid that spewed from the lower portion of Sans's skull.

"BEAUTIFUL!" Sans shouted, still laughing.

Toriel crawled back towards her Sans's corpse, dumb-struck at his new appearance and the blood that soaked the tile floor of the throne room.

"No..." she mouthed, unable to find her voice. "No, this can't..." tears crawled out of her eyes. After a few more seconds, the laughter of the bloody Sans once again reached her ears. She glared up at him.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" she demanded to know. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!?!"

Sans's maniacal laughter ceased, and he looked, menacingly, back at Toriel. A grin stretched even more across his skeletal face.

"I am Infected." he declared. "Lord of Madness!"

Toriel's defiant will broke as she glared at him, and she began to crawl away. Infected caught up with her in just a few strides and stabbed Toriel in the leg with the corner of his axe.

Toriel screamed as a wave of pain engulfed her leg, the cold metal of Infected's axe burning the greatest of all.

Infected, with his free hand, grabbed Toriel by the throat and pinned her to the ground.

"They were friends of yours, weren't they, Toriel." Infected said. "Undyne. Papyrus. Sans." he laughed again. "All your friends. All now dead."

Toriel struggled against Infected's grasp, but Infected quelled that with a twist of his axe. Infected laughed again as Toriel screamed in agony.

"You." he said. "You're *perfect*." Infected licked his teeth upon saying that.

Toriel, seeing this, was completely and utterly filled with fear. Fight kicking in instead of flight, she moved to summon another skull to blast the skeleton with, but before it could fully manifest, Infected hit Toriel over the head with the butt of his axe, knocking her out cold.

Continuing his laughter, Infected picked the goat-Monster up by her throat and dragged her back across the throne room and, eventually, out of Elysium itself.

Hours later, Toriel awoke, finding herself strapped horizontally to a cold metal table, completely naked. Looking down at herself, she saw that even her fur had been shaved off, leaving her white skin completely exposed. Rattling against the leather that bound her, she eventually moved to use magic as a means of escape. Almost as soon as she tried, a great burning pain erupted within her.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." the familiar raspy voice said from the surrounding darkness.

Toriel looked around the room. It looked like an operating room, one below Alphys's laboratory, in fact. The rest of the room was dark, but Toriel could tell that her table was directly in the center. While searching, she found her captor—Infected—watching her from nearby, walking around the table. Remembering her nakedness, she looked away.

"If you're going to defile me, why don't you just get it over with." she said.

Infected stopped moving and looked down at her. Toriel expected him to say that he already had.

"I may be a murderer, a torturer, a *villain*, but I have *standards*, thank you very much." Infected spat at Toriel's face.

"Besides," Infected then said, "raping you wouldn't be as fun as what's *truly* in store for you. But before we get to that, I brought somebody who wanted *desperately* to see you."

Toriel's eyes widened a bit.

"Who?" she asked.

"Your brother."

"Gory is here!? Where? Let me see him!"

Infected raised his arm and dropped Asgore's head onto her chest. The point at which the neck should be attached to the rest of the body was sealed off, so it didn't ooze blood onto her chest.

Toriel stared down at it. Asgore's eyes were still tight with shock. Suddenly, Infected's bony hands grabbed the sides of Toriel's face and slammed her head back down, his face directly over her's.

"YES!!!" Infected shouted. "THAT'S PERFECT! THAT'S THE FACE I WANTED TO SEE!!!!!" Infected laughed maniacally again. When he calmed back down, he looked her right in the eyes again.

"What say we find out what other facial contortions we can work out of you, yes?" Infected said, pulling a scalpel from a nearby tray. "Does right now work for you, because right now is *perfect* for me." he brought the scalpel right over Toriel's right eye. "Now, don't move, or this will hurt a *lot* more."

Seeing the scalpel, Toriel began breathing heavier and heavier. Doing her best to keep her eye as still as possible, screams overtook all sounds in the world when the tip of the blade pierced her lens.