AN: enjoy the chapter!
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It was a beautiful late summer day in gensokyo. Fairies were playing around, and humans were labouring away.
Hidden away from all the activity, rested a short man with pale, ash colored hair. Fitted in a blue jacket, white shirt, and black shorts, the man almost gave off the impression of a teenager if it weren't for his sharp jawline, and the stubble on his chin.
As a gentle breeze passed by, the man awoke with a startle. His black eyes briefly observed his surroundings and quickly adopted a very confused expression.
"And that makes it fourty... Nine... Huh?"
He was surprised to see that instead of the golden hall that he had become so intimately familiar with, he was surrounded by oak trees. Not the pine he had associated with Snowdin, but oak.
"So already, nowhere that I know of. Off to a good start."
Groggily standing up on his pink slippers, he took a couple of steps forward and flinched when he felt warmth on his skin.
Yeah, skin.
"Wha..?"
Looking down at his once boney hands, he was surprised to find them, and the rest of his body, wrapped in what he previously knew as flesh. Pale, white flesh.
"Huh..."
Sans was getting more confused by the second.
"Well then, lets gather the facts."
First, he woke up somewhere other than judgement hall. Time space anomalies aren't rare, especially with that kid around, but this is a bit absurd.
Second, he's somewhere he's never been before. And considering hes been just about everywhere but can't feel any of his shortcuts nearby, it's safe to say he's not in the underground.
And third, he has flesh now. Oddly enough, the least concerning issue.
"All in all, I have no idea what's happening."
In the first place, he's pretty sure he died. The only way he could be standing right now is if the human reset. Which begs the question, wheres the human?
"Shit, don't tell me that while I got teleported to bum fuck nowhere, the kid is still in judgement hall."
That'll cause a lot of problems.
"What's gonna happen if I'm not there? Will Asgore be fine... Sigh, nevermind."
Feeling a headache coming, he decided to stop thinking so hard about the unexplainable.
"Maybe I ought to search for some clues to fully flesh things out. Right now I don't even know where I am."
Seeing an open area ahead, he began walking forward.
"Wherever this is, it's far from home. I have a feeling I'm in for a journey."
Finally reaching an open area, sans looked up, and his newly beating heart stopped.
"...VERY far from home, huh...?"
The unfamiliar brightness of the sun bore down on him.
What now?
.....
....
...
..
.
Sans slowly adjusted to his new body. He had tried a variety of movements and came to a couple of interesting conclusions.
Normally he could only walk for a couple minutes before needing a break. His stamina had always been a weak point of his, which is why physical enhancement magic is his best friend.
But now it was different. Jumping, running, all sorts of athletic movements he would only ever do if his life was on the line, suddenly felt like a cake walk.
"Did I gain the stamina of a human or what? I definitely couldn't go this long before. Maybe there's something up with my stats."
As he said this, his sclera went black, and his left iris flashed blue. Suddenly a screen popped up in front of him, and his eyes widened in shock.
______________________________
*Sans the Judge
*LV : 10
*ATK : 40
*DEF : 12
*HP : 5
*No longer the weakest.
_______________________________
Sans looked at the screen with great curiosity. His stats had never gone up before, no matter what he tried. The fragility of his soul locked all of them at 1.
He was even more confused because his name was always displayed as 'Sans the Skeleton'. This usually never changes, And when it does, its when a monster goes through a significant biological/mental change.
(AN: think 'Flowey the Flower' > 'Asriel Dreemur'
Or 'Undyne' > 'Undyne the Undying'
That kind of Mental/Biological change.)
Sans wondered if the name change was caused by his mentality changing on the brink of death, or his sudden humanization.
Sans, however, was slightly more concerned about how his stats went up. Sans had never killed anyone besides the kid. If his LV rose, it would never last due to frisk resetting.
Did Frisk even reset?
While sans was sincerely hoping she didn't, it just wouldn't make sense. While Frisk was certainly a high LV, gaining so much EXP from one kill was impossible.
The only other way to gain so much EXP in one go is to-
...
His eyes went black.
With laser focus and an unsettling expression, sans summoned his soul.
And his expectations were not betrayed.
His soul looked fine, no cracks, no deformities, nothing. It would have been a normal monster soul.
Had it not been right side up.
Shaped like a human's soul, but white like a monsters, it was quite different from what he expected, but the effect was pretty much the same.
Sans was stumped. He absorbed frisk's soul.
He doesn't remember when, but he did somehow.
And it makes sense. His body, his soul, his stats, there's quite simply no other way to explain it.
Trying to remember when and how this happened nearly gave sans' an aneurysm.
But at this point, it doesn't matter. After all, he still has to live with the result.
So he just accepted it.
Scratching his head, he shrugged and sat down against a tree's trunk.
Clearing his mind of all the clutter, he noticed that the surroundings began to darken.
As sans watched the sun approaching the horizon and the day turned to night, he was once again reminded that he was on the surface.
'Honestly, I can't even be happy about it. There's too much going on, everything is so confusing.' Sans rubbed his temples.
Leaning back against the tree, he could feel his body begin to relax, the stress from earlier and the fear of the unknown slowly lifting off his shoulders.
Sans' guard was up all day. Keeping a constant vigil while deeply contemplating his circumstances was draining.
Yes. He was tired. Mentally exhausted.
But just as the sleepy skeleton(?) began to doze off...
red and gold flashed into his vision.
Sans' eyes go black, and his newfound muscles tense up.
"Sigh..."
He had been trying to avoid thinking about it all day, but now that his head was empty, he couldn't help it.
He had nothing left.
No friends, no family, no home. No one to miss him, and nowhere to return to.
He was dumped on the surface all alone, stuck in the middle of who knows where, and told "go get 'em champ!" With no guidance on what to do next.
His eyes grew increasingly empty as the overwhelming loneliness finally began to set in.
He never got the chance to feel something like this since he was always busy fighting for his life.
But now, even with the little peace he finally managed to get, his past regrets haunted him.
"If you're gonna dump me here with no explanation, then at least send someone with me..."
'if papyrus were here, I'd at least be able to tolerate the circumstances...'
Sans would crack some jokes, and papyrus would get mad at his nonchalance in such a serious situation.
They would keep each other company while navigating the forest, papyrus getting distracted by every little thing that's new.
Even when in danger, his brother would remain optimistic, and sans would help him out of the situation.
It dawned on the skeleton just how much his brother would have loved to see what he's seeing. And how he could have, if sans did what he needed to.
From the loneliness, stemmed guilt, and regret stacked on top of regret.
He could have done ___.
He should have done ___.
None of this would have happened if ___.
"I should've...
...?"
As the dark thoughts started flooding in, a deep rumble echoed throughout his being.
*Growl*
"Ah, I'm hungry."
Sans sighed. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"This is too much, really. My loved ones are dead, I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, and now I'm about to starve to death? Don't I got enough on my plate?"
"Heh that was a good one."
Sans chuckled at the involuntary pun, before freezing.
He laughed.
In a situation like this, he's laughing?
Shouldn't he be a little more serious than this?
Thinking for a second, sans seemed to have come to a realization.
No, no he shouldn't.
In fact, its situations like this that puns are required!
The reason why things seem so dark is because of one trait that he lacks, that his brother has in spades.
It's the reason why he even wished papyrus was here in the first place.
Clearing his throat, sans began to let loose.
"Y'know, I think I'm losing my rind."
"It's really bananas what's happening to me right now."
"You'd think this situation was im-pasta-ble."
"Asgore always egged us on to reach the surface, but honestly this new freedom ain't all it cracked up to be."
"And now I'm bone tired, and just about bready to go to sleep. Pft, bready."
Although sans wasn't usually one to laugh at his own jokes, it seemed his weary mind thought these puns were the funniest thing it's heard in ages.
Holding his stomach in pain due to laughing so hard, sans continued.
"Before, I wasn't peeling too well, but it's honestly not that big of a dill, heheheheh."
"The quality of my puns may berry greatly, pfft, but you have to admit, I'm on a roll, hehehehe!"
"Things are bad, but it could always be wurst, hahahaha. I'll make ends meat somehow, lolololol!"
At this point, there's no stopping him.
The pun master had been unleashed onto this poor world's inhabitants, and there wasn't a thing they could do as he sat there and laughed his heart out.
Optimism.
What he was missing was Boundless optimism. He was only letting himself sink deeper into despair by only thinking about the negatives.
But the reality is, there are bright sides too!
Having fought off the dark thoughts with the power of puns, he remembered where he came from, he remembered the hell he had just been through.
"Compared to constantly fighting in a time loop until my eventual death, can this even be considered a rough situation? Isn't this a massive improvement?"
Even though there's not much to work with, it's still dealt a better hand than before. At least now, he has a chance to live!
There was a path forward that didn't involve shedding blood.
Finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, hope thrummed throughout his very being!
And during this conveyer belt of realizations, he remembered his last thoughts before being transported. He remembered his vow.
Although the context was a little different, the content still held up.
Even if he was lost and confused, he would stay DETERMINED no matter what.
After all, Papyrus would want him to.
At that moment, an odd warmth spread throughout his body, healing any wounds or aches. However, sans couldn't focus on that.
He was completely distracted. Utterly transfixed at the sight of his first ever sunset. The purple and orange blending harmoniously in a way that movies and pictures could never replicate.
Burning that final image into his brain, sans let himself drift to the land of dreams worry free.
Unaware.
That his soul was lit ablaze with DETERMINATION
*File Saved*