The Mountain East (An Undertale Fanfiction)

Chapter 30

"alright. what the hell is that?"

Sans followed Alphys into a dark room. Suspended and in front of them was a large, looming, mask-like contraption completed with churning gears, metallic pipes, loose wires. The head looked almost like a pincer, its two empty eyes bearing down on its target, and with a single clamp and pierce, squeezed the living daylights out of any poor soul who stumbled into its vicinity.

In other words, the machine terrified him. It looked like something that incarnated straight from the depths of Tartarus.

"Uh, I, I s – studied the old b – blueprints left behind in the t – true lab, a – and, uh, this is the result! T – the DT extractor!" Alphys gestured in the vague direction of her intimidating creation. She was clutching the mentioned blueprints tightly, waving them around wildly as their presence was cited.

"i can see that." Sans nudged Alphys at the green panel stating, 'DT extractor'. Alphys turned red and apologized for her forgetfulness, Sans waving her remarks away. "so. does it do what it does? also, nice of you to use my name for it. i guess 'determination' just has a nice ring to it, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah, it d – does, right?" Alphys stuttered. "What p – puzzles me though is how I found these blueprints. I – it's almost as if they just a – apparated from thin air. One d – day there was nothing, the other these just k – kind of s – showed up in my cabinet."

"hmm. can I take a look?" Alphys offered him the blue sheets of construction paper, in which he took swiftly. It took him a while to position the square piece of paper the right way, the illegible handwriting already on it clashing with Alphys' assortment of notes rendering the print almost indecipherable.

"hey, al?" Sans inquired after a fair amount of time studying the blueprints. Alphys was indirectly chastising Sans for taking his time, beads of sweat rolling down her neck as she constantly checked the time on her watch. "what's this?"

He pointed at what seemed to be a crudely erased, barely readable sign that was underneath the readable font. It was so obscure you would need the eyes of a cheetah to even begin seeing the gray outlines of its erased past. It looked like it had been forcefully ripped off and substituted for normal language.

"Uh, huh? W – what's that? I – I don't know, Sans. L – like I said, t – this is very old science. I – I'm talking pre-war o – old." Alphys kept on glancing at her watch, and Sans finally took notice of it.

"ah. i see you're a bit short on time. is it the royal guard recruits again?" Sans questioned, not looking up from his work.

"Y - yes, I – I still need to do the c – checkups for their ph – physical strength and things. I – I'm also going to m – meet the youngest recruit today!"

Sans raised an imaginary eyebrow. "oh, trust me, i've heard all about her. papyrus keeps saying that he found a sparring partner. i was happy for him at first, then I realized he was trying to skewer a kid, and he was losing. by a considerable margin, actually."

Alphys' voice fell soft. "Yeah." She sighed. "Yeah. D – Do you w – want to keep that or w – what?" She pointed at the blueprints, who was still being studied intensely by Sans with a magnifying glass he seemingly conjured out of thin air. He seemed deaf to the world around him as he tried to make out the intricate details, despite having no ears.

"hmm? yeah, alright. i'll be heading out soon. when d'ya want these back?" He curled up the blueprints and stowed them under his arm, his feet already making attempts to escape the confinement of the laboratory.

"N - no, you can k – keep them if you want! I've a – already finished with the machine. O – oh, and can you tell C – Chara to come by tomorrow s – so she can preview it for herself? I – I don't want to force anything onto h – her." Alphys turned into a stuttering mess at the mention of the human. Sans couldn't blame her. Even with their prolonged exposure to her presence, humans just feel... different. They radiate a stronger, sturdier aura than monster souls, a less manipulatable, rougher around the edges type. Despite her obviously sour experience with her own kin, there was something human about her that could never be ridden of. Not by force, not by will, not by mind.

"aight. i'll see you around, al." Sans walked backwards slowly, his head still facing Alphys before swiveling back to a more customary position. When she and her lab was out of sight, Sans immediately unfurled the blueprints from their closed environment and developed an unquenchable addiction to the marks underneath.

"Tra la la. Where to?" Sans had unknowingly bumped into a familiar place. The sudden voice startled him enough for him to glance upwards from his deciphering, revealing the recognizable blue hood of the river person.

Although Sans was planning on taking a shortcut, since he was here, might as well.

"snowdin, please. thanks, buddy." He hopped into the boat, careful not to soak his newfound hobbies in water, propped his pink slippers and feet against an oar and lay still. It was almost entrancing, the soft rocking of the wooden boat as he watches time and space unfurl above him at an astonishingly rapid rate. It was like the night sky, had he ever seen a real one. Just traces of comets and streaks of stars accompanied by the occasional placid waters that resembled the northern lights. The jagged, yet tranquil cliffs of waterfall. The slightly luminous nightlamp that was the magma of Hotland, its upsurge of heat billowing slowly, circulating around and presenting itself as a gentle, warm wind.

It wasn't soon enough that with such tranquil environments almost begging him to go to sleep, he did.

His sleep was riddled with thoughts of his newfound diversion.

What was that symbol? Why was it erased? And, more importantly...

Where did he see it before?

...perhaps it is better to not know.

"psst."

"Psst."

Sans woke up with a start, his right leg dangling haphazardly off the side of the boat. The snowy coasts of Snowdin greeted the two as they docked next to several floating ice obstacles floating down, on their way to waterfall.

The river person cocked his head slightly. "There is no need to be startled. I wished only to announce our arrival."

Sans nodded and reached for his blueprints. His hands only grasped cold air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the familiar navy background sticking out from just behind the driver's seat. The river person made no note of it, but inanimate objects simply do not traverse the length of an entire boat going at a maximum of three kilometers per hour.

"uh... those are mine." Sans quickly snatched the blueprints back. He tried not to make a scene out of it. That was the last thing he wanted to happen. He hid his scowl behind a polite grin, which, for him, was just status quo.

He began to climb out the boat, but not before a deep, graveling voice behind him called out. His words, or rather, rhymes, bound him in place with a ball and chain, the heavy link the boundaries of observation, and the key the craving for knowledge.

"You wish to uncover a font buried deep, the lost man consumed by the void so steep. Does a black ring of your own spark a fire? Your past's one and only desire?"

Sans turned. "what?"

He seemed almost agitated now. His cloak billowed in such a way that gave him an impression of limbs, yet whatever consciousness that lay inside the fabric remained in its stately keep. Yet, despite his tone of voice, he remained oddly still, his robes billowing of their own accord, neglecting the supposed body that donned it.

"You wish to know the matter at stake, so much so like your past mistakes. Go no further, I would warn. I yearn not for family to be torn. As a man of science, you are thorough and through. Yet I am the only one who can see through you. Decades of lies, a timeline's reprise. A retribution's guise, afraid to rise. Times are changing; lines are wavering. Her prayers to forget are not answering. The first will fail in her efforts to be free. The last, in trust, will offer all mercy."

Fear tugged at the sides of Sans' mouth. His last sentence was eerie, the snow in the background almost enveloping the still pair. A foreboding warning, perhaps, that times were changing. That the void crept ever so closer.

Ever so closer.

"Your answer, my master, comes at dawn of the full moon. He will fulfill the prophecy of Delta Rune."