Out of Reach. An Undertale fanfiction

It's raining somewhere else

Sans was fiddling with the DT extractor, trying to make it do something it wasn't meant for. "* everything good on your end?" The skeleton asked Alphys. At the moment, the duo was experimenting with the idea of making a monster soul. It was risky and highly improbable, but it was a chance they wanted to take. If they could get enough  determination in one concentrated spot, they could, in theory, use it to make a monster soul substitute. If it works, well, they'd go from there. But with enough monster souls, they could technically break the barrier. It was something they had to at least try.

"* Y-yeah. Everything looks good." Alphys answered. "* alright. the calibration's at 1080, power should be 275." Sans informed the scientist. "* O-on it." She replied.

"* okay. ready?" Sans asked, his bony hand on a lever, preparing to flip it. "* Ready." Alphys said firmly. One last exhalation through Sans' mouth and he was ready. Sans flicked the lever, Alphys did the same with her's. Power started surging through the machine, and it's eyes lit up.

"* It-it's working!" Alphys called out excitedly. A beam shot out from the DT extraction machine's mouth-ish region, and onto a target. Slowly, something began to form. Sans' eyes lit up enthusiastically as the light in front of him began to form shapes. Sparks started flying out of the controls, but the machine kept running. Sans looked at Alphys with a worried expression. She had the same look on her face.

The DT extractor started heating up, until it suddenly combusted.

As the machine caught fire it sent out a forceful wave, pushing both 'scientists' back. The fire grew, causing the sprinkler system to turn on. However, the water on the electrical fire only made it worse. Sans stood up, and bolted towards the fire. He used his bone magic to repeatedly pat the flame, causing the fire to die down. As Sans worked, he could hear agonizing shrieks of pain behind him, which Alphys seemed very concerned by. After the lizard scientist turned off the sprinklers, the fire didn't last much longer.

Sans was panting heavily as he assessed the situation. He turned around to see Alphys calming the amalgamates, who were a bit more melted than usual. "* what went wrong?" Sans asked, water shining off his skull. "* The p-power. The m-machine didn't have the power it needed to f-form the s-soul. It strained what it had, but it was already too unstable to tamper with." Alphys explained. What she said made sense to Sans, although it definitely wasn't what he wanted to hear. "* How m-much will this set us back?" Alphys asked rather worried. Sans sighed before answering. "* a few weeks, at least." Sans said. Alphys lowered her head at the news.

The two continued to clean up in silence. This silence was becoming a bother to Sans, but he ignored it, for now. They cleaned up the ashes, the water, the amalgamates' puddles, all of it. Until suddenly, they were back to square one. With a broken machine, and even more so broken spirits. Sans stared blankly at the DT extractor, his smile was long gone from his face. Instead it was replaced by a look of confusion and focus.

"* Um," Alphys started, breaking Sans out of his thoughts. "* I'm going to go get some r-rest. I-it's been a long day and, well, I was hoping to get some more r-research done before the day ends. A-a-and my papers are upstairs, so..." Sans stature stilled, then he started speaking.

"* no, that's fine. you deserve a break anyhow." The skeleton said in his normal upbeat voice. "* 'sides, i wanted to work on the machine a bit more before i turned in." "* A-are you sure?" Alphys asked confused. Sans turned around to face Alphys, his smile back on his face. "* it's the bona fide truth." He said with a wink. Alphys blinked, shocked. Not only had Sans seen the amalgams, TWICE! He also saw the machine explode and knew it would take a while until it would be working again. And yet he wanted to stay?

"* Okay...?" Alphys responded, still a bit astonished. "* Feel fr-free to leave whenever you want." "* alright. thanks al." Sans vocalized calmly. Alphys slowly made her way to the elevator and headed up, leaving Sans alone.