You and Chara back away from Dr. Gaster simultaneously, in opposite directions, and you're quite glad his gaze is not on you.

Chara holds their hand up to their chest, just over their stolen Soul, a grimace crossing their face. "No. No! I took this! This is my Soul!"

Dr. Gaster's voice, that horrible cacophony of noises buried in static, seems to come from everywhere at once. "🙂✝️💧❄️ 👌👈👍✌️✝️💧👈 ✡️🏴✝️ ❄️🏴🏴😐 💧🏴💣👈❄️👇✋️☠️👆 👎🏴👈💧 ☠️🏴❄️ 💣👈✌️☠️ ✋️❄️ ✋️💧 ✡️🏴✝️☀️💧📪 👎👈💣🏴☠️📬 ❄️👇✋️💧 ✋️💧 💣✡️ 👉✋️☠️✌️☹️ 🏴👉👉👈☀️📬 👆✋️✝️👈 💣👈 💣✡️ 💧🏴✝️☹️📬 ☠️🏴✝️📬"

Chara starts to get that insane look, blackness crawling over their eyes. "How are you even here?" They screech. "You can't be here! I have your Soul!! You can't be here!"

"👌✝️❄️ ✋️ ✌️💣📬 ✌️☠️👎 ✋️ ✌️💣 ❄️✌️😐✋️☠️👆 ✡️🏴✝️☀️ ✌️👎💣🏴☠️✋️💧👇💣👈☠️❄️ ✌️💧 ✌️ ☀️👈👉✝️💧✌️☹️📬" Dr. Gaster lowers his hands back to his sides. "✋️ ✝️✋️☹️☹️ 💣✌️😐👈 ✡️🏴✝️ 👌✝️☀️☠️📪 👎👈💣🏴☠️📬"

Then with one sharp motion, he jerks his hand upward, and black tendrils, much like those that had frequently destroyed the machine, burst from the floor, flailing at Chara, who dodges, a look of concentration on their face.

And then the battle is on. Dr. Gaster fights like no monster you've ever seen. Sure, he uses attacks, like tendrils of Void ooze, seemingly half-melted bones, Blasters like Sans' but much more draconic, and even hands he can apparently summon at will, but he also fights with his own two hands. He doesn't hesitate to move forward (how
exactly, you're not sure, as he doesn't seem to have legs) and deliver a swift punch to Chara's gut, or grab their head and smash them into the floor.

Chara fares much worse against Dr. Gaster than they did against Sans.

Speaking of Sans, he's still down and out. Papyrus is kneeling next to him, eyes closed, hands splayed across Sans' ribs, pouring healing Magic into his brother, despite his own broken arm. You can't tell how well it's working. Alphys is tending to Undyne with considerably more success.

When you look back to the fight, you see Dr. Gaster's got Chara pinned down with his Void ooze tendrils, and is prying the knife from their hand. Once he's got it in his own grip, he raises it above his head, then plunges it into Chara's chest.

Their scream makes you cringe, your hands rising to your ears. It only gets worse when Dr. Gaster drags the knife downward, cutting Chara open.

It doesn't matter that the liquid oozing out isn't blood, but more black stuff of the Void. It still makes your stomach upset.

And then Dr. Gaster shoves his hand into the wound. He sticks his hand straight into Chara's chest.

For a moment, they sit like that. Then Dr. Gaster yanks his hand backwards, something white and glowing in his palm, tearing his Soul away from Chara despite Chara's... internal Void organs...? trying to hold on to it.

Then he stands, the Soul grasped between both hands, and steps back. For a moment, he and Chara just look at each other.

You could swear the gaping crevasse of Dr. Gaster's grin gets bigger.

And then he shoves the Soul into the gaping wound in his own chest, which immediately starts to seal itself up.

In fact, all of Dr. Gaster is changing. You can see it as he stumbles back a little, twitching and convulsing, strange groans and cracking sounds filling the air. His hands are no longer the same smooth, white surface, but become more skeletal, bones taking shape. His head becomes not the smooth white... shape, but more of an actual skull, though still with the large vertical cracks, his right eyesocket still half closed. His strange body shifts, becomes a long black robe of sorts, then a black coat, draped over quickly straightening shoulders. Beneath the coat, he wears a grey sweater and cargo pants.

Suddenly, you can see very much of a familial resemblance to Sans and Papyrus.

Once the shift stops, Dr. Gaster stands for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath. Then he turns to Chara, who scrambles to their feet, still bleeding black Void ooze from the wound in their chest.

Chara looks scared.

And Dr. Gaster grins, a wide, dark grin that reminds you so much of Sans. And when he speaks, and you understand it, his voice is deep and powerful, with just a little rumble in the chest.

"Ah-ha-ha... That feels much better." He nods a little to Chara. "Demon. I do believe I said I would make you burn. And I am a man of my word."

He takes a step forward, one long stride, and Chara scrambles back. Just looking at Dr. Gaster's face, you could swear he's enjoying this.

Dr. Gaster pauses for the barest moment. Then he confirms your suspicions. "This is gonna be fun."

With just a twitch of his fingers, he summons a pair of hands to lift Chara into the air by their collar, then slam them into the floor. Then he lunged forward and solidly plants a foot into their chest before dropping down to slam his other knee into their gut. Then he's lifting them up again, with his own two hands, and he throws them across the room.

You don't even blink, not like Sans' shortcuts. Dr. Gaster is merely in one spot one second, then he's beside where Chara landed.

And he doesn't hesitate to continue the brutality. He continues kicking, punching, and generally beating Chara up. He even drop-kicks them once.

The few hits Chara attempts to throw in edgewise are easily dodged, blocked, used against them. They don't stand a chance.

And then it's over. After yet another toss across the room, Chara lies still. The color bleeds from their body, back to black, and then their body melts into a puddle of black ooze, which quickly vanishes.

Dr. Gaster gives one sharp nod, and with a few twitches of his hands, the machine is shut down, and the black hole of the Void vanishes.

And then a change comes over the returned Royal Scientist. His shoulders relax, his hands hanging at his sides. The dark, almost maniacal grin that had adorned his face softens into something a little more gentle, though still just as firm. And the darkness of his undamaged left eyesocket gains a pinprick of light, a white pupil just as Sans has.

Said pupil quickly skims across Dr. Gaster's eyesocket as he takes in the room, his gaze eventually settling on where Papyrus is still trying to heal Sans. Papyrus is trembling and sweating and sobbing, and you can hear him murmuring to Sans to please wake up!

Dr. Gaster crosses the room in a few quick strides, crouching down on Sans' opposite side to Papyrus. You step a little closer and hear him say, softly, to Papyrus, "Papyrus, let me see."

Papyrus protests though. "I- I can't! If I stop, Sans will die!"

"No." Dr. Gaster's response is soft and gentle, but contains seemingly an entire world of authority. "I won't let that happen."

Dr. Gaster sets his hands over Papyrus's and tries to lift Papyrus's hands off Sans.

But Papyrus actually fights him, his incoherent cries of protest rising in volume as he pushes against Dr. Gaster's hands, even with his broken arm.

Dr. Gaster let's go of Papyrus's hands, which quickly fall back to Sans' broken ribs, green light flickering across his fingers.

Now, Dr. Gaster reached for Papyrus's chin, carefully tipping Papyrus's head up to look at him. "Papyrus. Listen to me. Sans is still alive, and so long as his Soul beats, I can save him, I promise. But you must let me see him."

For a moment, Dr. Gaster and Papyrus just look at each other.

Then, slowly, Papyrus lifts his hands off Sans' chest.

Dr. Gaster's hands fall immediately to take Papyrus's place, his fingertips just barely ghosting across Sans' broken ribs. You hear him mutter a few things under his breath that you don't think you should tell Toriel about.

Then Dr. Gaster straightens up a little. "There's not much I can do-"

"But you said you could save him!!" Papyrus is in hysterics. "You promised! You PROMISED!!"

Dr. Gaster doesn't lift his hands from Sans' ribs, but one of his Magical hands appears, settling gently on Papyrus's shoulder. "Papyrus." He says firmly. "Let me finish."

Papyrus calms down just a little.

"There's not much I can do here. I just have to take Sans back to my lab. It will be easy to get him stabilized there; he's been through much worse and survived it. Understand? Sans will be okay, I just have to take him back to my lab."

Sniffling, Papyrus nods a little.

"Good. I can get there much faster, but if you'd like to follow, I can do something about your arm after I've taken care of Sans."

With that, Dr. Gaster carefully scoops Sans up, stands, and turns toward the door.

"W-wait!" Papyrus calls, still on the floor.

Dr. Gaster pauses, looking over his shoulder at Papyrus. "Hmm?"

"Where- where's your lab?"

You could swear that Dr. Gaster smiles, just a little bit. "Why, Hotland, of course."

And then Dr. Gaster and Sans are just gone. Again, it's not even like Sans' shortcuts where you see a moment of blackness when he disappears. Dr. Gaster is just gone, Sans gone with him.

For a long moment, you just stare at the spot. Then you glance around.

Alphys is helping Undyne sit up, and Papyrus is still kneeling on the floor. He looks like he might be in a little bit of traumatic shock.

So you walk over to him and grab his unbroken arm. "Come on, we've got to get to Hotland!"

§

A/N

First off, for anyone translating the Wingdings, u, v, and w all use the same ✝️ symbol, because that's the only cross symbol that iPhone emojis has.

Then, remember how a while back, I asked if you guys would rather see two nigh-invincible superpowers battling, or weird old men being weird? Well, this was referring to Gaster's introduction scene. So, I'm sure you can see it's the battle. The weird old men option was gonna be Gaster just kinda randomly showing up at Frisk's house and being weird until Sans shows up, but I realized that wouldn't work because Frisk's seen Gaster in the grey room so they would immediately call Sans.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and votes are my Favorite Things, and every notification I get makes my day!