HybridTale (Hiatus)

#17 Puzzels and Ruble

"Sans! Sans! You have to stop! You're gonna hurt yourself!". Papyrus is yelling at the Monster to stop, running and panting at his side.

     Sans has already run down three darkened corridors, tripping and stumbling all the way. His soul is on the brink of shattering. It's hard to keep moving his legs, but he's terrified. He was almost killed less then ten minutes into the Underground. Not even Papyrus can calm him down.

     Soon, Sans runs into a tunnel that's much more brightly lit. A broken paved path runs down the middle, and the Monster sprints across it. It becomes a bridge at one point and goes over a small river. Sans only stops running when he sees the trap.  Spikes jut up from the ground and block the way forwards. The Monster nearly skids into them when his boots slip on the slick path.

"I-It's blocked?", Sans's voice shakes just as much as his body. He whips around to look behind him when footsteps echo down the tunnel. The lady is running after him.

"Sans! Come here and hide!". Papyrus has to yank on Sans's arm to get him moving again. The Human pulls the Monster off the path and behind a large boulder. There's just enough space between the rock and the wall for Sans to duck behind. He's still disoriented from having his HP dropped so low. Papyrus sits up next to him and peeks over the rock. He sees the tall Monster rush into the room and look around for them. She looks worried, but after their encounter with Flowey, neither of them are willing to come out. The lady looks around again before walking over to the wall. She pulls down a lever, making the spikes in the path sink back down. She then quickly rushes off, looking for the terrified child.

"Is she gone?", Sans asks after a while. Slight tremors are still working their way through his body.

"I think so. The lady lowered the spikes and went down the next tunnel", Papyrus explains, twisting around and letting himself slump against the rock. Both of them flinch when the spikes burst back out with a sound like scraping knives.

     "That means she won't come back, right? We're safe?", Sans asks, but he's talking more to himself then his brother.

     "She probably thought you got ahead of her", Papyrus answers anyways, but he quickly turns his attention away from the strange Monster lady. "What about you? Are you ok, Sans?".

     The skeleton wants to tell Pappy that everything is okay, but another tremor through his body gives him away. Sans just glumly shakes his head. His chest and soul really ache. Now that he's not so scared, Sans doesn't know if he'd be able to hop up and run away if he had to. Papyrus frowns at this. Being careful to jostle his brother as little as possible, he carefully pulls the backpacks straps off Sans's arms. Papyrus then unzips the top and pulls out one of the magic injections. Doctor Gaster was right: not even the long fall broke the glass. The doctors always gave Sans one of these after training with Santos, so it should be the right thing to do now.

     "P-Pappy? Are you sure you know how to do that?", Sans asks, surprised. He wants to do it himself, but his hands are shaking too badly.

     "Don't forget that I was there, too! I've seen lots of people do it, even before we met. I should be GREAT at it by now". Papyrus masks the nervousness with false confidence in his voice.

       Sans trusts Papyrus more than he even trusts himself. If Pappy says he can do it, it's true. The Monster still looks around before drawing out his soul. Flowery went crazy when he saw it. The soul comes to hover when Sans lets his arm drop. The surface is covered in small hairline fractures. They both wince. Papyrus sticks his tongue out in concentration when he raises the needle. He's holding it wrong, but Sans isn't scared by that when it's his brother crouched down in front of him.

    When it's done, the effect is almost immediate. Sans has seen his magic rise up and quickly fill cracks in his bones before, but that was physical damage. The soul is something else entirely. The cracks knit themselves together until there's no sign that it was ever damaged. It makes Sans feel stronger when the shaking stops.

     "Better?"

     "Better. Thank you"

     Papyrus smiles and puts the needle back into their bag. He doesn't want to litter, and will hang onto the needle until it can be safely disposed of. Sans sits up and pulls the straps back onto his shoulders before standing up. He's tired after all that's happened in such a short time, but when isn't he exhausted? Papyrus would be annoyed if he laid down on the cave floor for a nap, too.

     "Did you see how that lady got over the spikes? I wasn't looking". Sans nudges a spike with his booted foot, deciding that they do indeed look sharp.

     "Oh! The goat lady? She pulled a lever over on the wall", Papyrus perks up, heading over to where the lever rests.

     "Goat lady?"

     "Yeah! She looked like a goat, but she walked like a person. I'll draw one for you soon"

     Papyrus is a little too short to reach the lever. Sans tries not to laugh when his brother pouts. He has to walk over and lift the little human a few inches higher since he insisted on pulling the lever. Both boys walk through the passage once the spikes are down. The tunnel opens back up into a small room. It's empty except for a worn training dummy in the corner. Sans recognizes its similarities with the dummies in the lab. Papyrus grabs his sleeve to hold onto, and the pair quickly move on to the next tunnel.

This room is long and narrow. There's a path down the middle that Sans walks down. Everything is so different here. At the lab, he had to wait in his room until a doctor came to get him. There are no doctors here. Sans has to keep moving forward, like Gaster told him, but it's up to him and Papyrus to decide how they do it; it's up to them to reach the Barrier on their own. It's all a little overwhelming.

"Hey Sans! Stop walking! You've gotta pay attention and not be so lazy!", Papyrus suddenly shouts, yanking back on the Monster's hood. He had stopped walking when he saw more spikes in their path, but Sans was so deep in thought that he kept going. Sans nearly impaled his booted foot on a spike before Papyrus pulled him back.

"Wh-What? Oh, no. I'm sorry. Thank you for saving me, Pappy, again", Sans stutters out. He feels bad for not paying attention to his surroundings.

"You don't have to thank me, I just wish you'd be more careful", Papyrus sulks. He doesn't want his brother to get hurt. Papyrus looks back down the hallway for another lever, but frowns when he doesn't see one. "I don't see another lever. Do you know how we're supposed to get through?".

"Umm, maybe it's just well hidden? Will you help me look? The lady came this way, so we must be able to get across somehow". Sans shrugs his bony shoulders. Curious, he inches a foot forward to tap the spikes. It shoots down with a metallic scrape. Sans and Papyrus both jump away. The spike shoots back up as soon as Sans's foot moves away.

"Do it again! Do it again!".

Sans does what his brother says, putting his foot back down and watching the spike slide back down.

"OH MY GOD SANS! It's a PUZZEL! It's all PUZZLES!", Papyrus does scream this time, but in joy. If he were a skeleton, Pappy's eyes would have turned to stars.

     "What's a puzzle?"

     "That's right! You've never done one! A puzzle is something 'that you have to fix with your smarts'. That's what Daddy told me", Papyrus nods his head, "Before I met you, Mommy didn't let me go outside or run very much. She said I was too sick. She'd give me puzzles instead! Some had words, and some were made of pieces, but I've never seen one this GREAT before!".

    Papyrus's excitement makes Sans happy. His forced smile turns genuine. The Monster listens intently to everything the human says about puzzles. Pretty soon, Sans shuffles another foot forwards. He didn't know that he could drag his feet like that, but Pappy says it's the best way to get through. Sans shuffle forwards inch by inch until he gets to a row of spikes that won't go down. The path behind him has already disappeared. Papyrus makes Sans shuffle his feet in each direction until they find the one where the spikes give way. In this manner, the two of them slowly make it across the spikes and into the next room.