Sans was moving before he even understood what was going on.

He was writhing and screaming and clawing at the table. He howled and roared unintelligibly, straining with all the power he possessed against the thick, Magic-resistant straps that held him down.

It wasn't pain that made him do this, but an indescribable rage, a raw, unbridled fury that they should do this, that they should starve him when he was so desperately hungry.

He screamed, pulling at every thread of brutally capable Corrupt Magic in his being, his power strengthened by whatever the Corrupt had done, were still doing.

He heard panicked shouting, and resolved to drown it out with his own voice, or even silence it with his Magic if necessary.

And he fought, both with voice and Magic, drawing on every ounce of strength he controlled.

He felt a strap, the one around his right wrist, begin to give way. He poured more Magic into it.

More shouting. Something on his arm. Stopping his Magic.

No. Ǹ̨o̷̢͞t̶́ ͡͡à҉̵͘l̡ĺ̷͝͏o͠҉͢w͡e̷͝d̛̀͟.̶̀̀̀ ̷̀͘͡

He roared, his own voice reverberating in his skull and making his bones tremble, and forced everything into his hand.

And suddenly, the restraint snapped, and so did the one over his right shoulder. He thrust his hand upward, sending out a wave of Magic with a concussive explosion of noise that left his own nonexistent ears ringing.

With a growl, Sans started tearing at the restraints with his free hand. First he freed his skull, then released his left arm, then undid the strap over his chest.

Gaster had regained his feet. Sans knocked him down again with a well-placed blast. Not a horribly damaging one, but hopefully strong enough that he got the message: stay down.

Sans clawed away the remaining restraints and hopped off the table. He sprinted for the door, snagging his jacket off Gaster's desk on his way out.

~o0o~

When Sans bolted for the doorway, Papyrus followed. He raced after his brother, and only just managed to lunge into the elevator before the doors closed.

Sans hissed, surprised. When he spoke, there was an odd hitch in his voice, almost like he couldn't quite speak normally. "yoų̡ s̸̡͠hoúl͢dn'̛t̴ ́̕h̕à͢vę f̶̢̨ol̨͢lowed ́͢͠me̢̕͘.̕"

Papyrus, who was on the floor, due to his epic lunge through the door, looked up at Sans. "But I couldn't just let you eat-" he gagged on the words.

Sans looked at him a moment, expression unreadable. ".̨͏.̛͜.̨́ ̢mu͏c͟h̀ a͜͢s i̢͝'͠d ̛͝l͜͠ike̡̕͢ ̕tò̸͏, n͞ǫ͝w ͘i̕s̶̷̷ ͠͏n̶̕͝ot̴͏̨ ͟͝t́he ţ͠i͘͠m̡e̢. ì ̸go̵ ҉̢͢to̸̧͏ r̢̀͘é̵̕j̧oi͏̶͞n̸ m͘͘y ̀͟a͟͏r̷̢̛m͡y̧͏.͏̢ "

Papyrus climbed to his feet. "You mean you're going to leave the lab and go back to the Corrupt?" He asked, surprised.

Sans just grinned and nodded towards the keyboard. Papyrus saw the button for the first floor was lit up, had been pressed.

"No! I won't let you!"

"a̶n̷d̴ ͝wha͝t ̢ar͝e̡ ͞y͜o̢u going͏ to ͏do ̡to̕ stop̷ ̸m̨e?"

That was a good question, one Papyrus didn't know the answer to. He had already tried to calm Sans down when he had gone into his furious-screaming-and-breaking-everything frenzy, and if it had done anything, it had riled him up more.

Then the elevator stopped moving upward. Sans swore.

"...͠ stưp̡i̴d́ ̛e̵mer̛genc̕y ͝śtop̷..̷. gon̷na hav̕e͟ ̨tò cl̶imb t͞h̶e͠ s͞h́a͞ft...̢"

"You- you're climbing up the elevator shaft?!"

Sans ignored him. In one swift movement, he thrust his hand upward, a Corrupt attack blowing out the ceiling of the elevator box. Sans leaped upward, catching the edge of the hole and pulling himself up through it, and quickly disappearing from Papyrus's view.

"Sans!" Papyrus cried out. "Wait!"

Sans stuck his head into the hole. "͝wha͝t?"

Papyrus held out his hand, putting as much fear and emotion into his voice as he could manage. "P-please, brother. D-don't leave me here. Please-"

Sans sighed, loudly and rudely. But, after a moment, he stuck out his hand, which Papyrus eagerly grasped. Sans pulled him up and onto the top of the elevator box.

Papyrus looked upward. They were probably around the eighth floor, meaning Sans was planning on climbing up seven levels.

That was a lot.

Sans scooped him up and pressed him to his chest. "hơ͝l͜͠d́ ̨òn."

Papyrus did so, wrapping his arms around Sans' neck and burying his face in Sans' shoulder.

He felt Sans stretch, heard the shhhwff of an attack. A clang of metal. He was jarred by some impact.

And then it repeated.

Papyrus kept his face pressed into Sans' jacket, eyes tightly closed. He had no desire to know how high up they were, nor how Sans was progressing upward.

Eventually, Sans stopped. Papyrus looked.

There were chunks of the wall gouged out, where Sans was holding on. When he looked down, he saw similar marks going down the elevator shaft.

When he looked at where they were, he saw the elevator door next to them. The black, sticky-looking liquid congealing between the door panels said Sans was forcing it open.

Papyrus looked down again, and paused.

Gaster was climbing through the hole in the top of the elevator shaft, closely followed by Toriel.

"Dad!" Papyrus shouted.

Sans' head snapped downward, and he snarled in the Corrupt language.

Gaster and Toriel looked up at them. "Don't worry, I'm com-"

The rest of his sentence was cut off as the door by which Sans clung to the wall grated against it's mechanisms as Sans forced it open.

And then Sans was racing out into the True Lab lobby, out into Hotland, towards Waterfall and the Corrupt.

~o0o~

Gaster watched his sons disappear through the elevator door, lost for words.

Sans had just-...

After just managing to run into the hallway to see Papyrus diving after Sans into the elevator, Gaster had immediately run for the elevator emergency control station, and hit the emergency stop button.

From there it was only a matter of getting into the elevator shaft, through the maintenance door, and climbing up to the elevator box. But Sans had already escaped the elevator box, and made his way up to the first floor.

Seeing the chunks of wall missing, making a ladder, Gaster immediately went to climb after Sans. Only the Queen's strong grip stopped him.

"My friend. If you were to pursue your sons now, you would not succeed."

Gaster thought about that. She was right, of course, he was horribly underprepared.

So Gaster nodded, and climbed back down into the elevator box, and pulled out his phone to call an assistant to get the elevator moving again.

A short while later, he strode into his lab, and paused.

Undyne had woken up about an hour ago, and appeared to be cursing her inability to move. A few of the machines were still sparking after Sans had blown them up, and one had a small flame flickering out of a vent.

Gaster thought for a moment. What would he need to infiltrate the Corrupt base, and save Papyrus?

Well. Weapons, for one thing.

He already had his natural attacks, the bones, and his hands. He also had Blasters; he had made those long before he had created Sans; Sans just had an upgraded version.

But, Gaster suspected, that would not be enough. Especially not with his somewhat dilapidated stamina.

That was another thing. His stamina.

It was still in prototype stages, but it would have to do. It was a vial of concentrated Magic, essentially the monster version of a five-hour energy.

But then, that was that, so back to weaponry.

He had the cannons, those were almost ready, but they were clunky and hard to carry, and he didn't have time for a proper integration, so it would need to be something small enough to carry and hold, quick aim and fire, not a high Magic use-

Like a gun. Yes, something like that would be simple enough. With a bit of duct tape he could convert-

"Doctor, what are you doing?"

Gaster ducked under Asgore's arm, ignoring the just-arrived bossmonster completely as he went on his way, collecting various objects and tearing apart then rewiring things as needed.

Asgore tried again, reaching to set a hand on Gaster's shoulder. Gaster again dodged.

Asgore wasn't entirely sure that Gaster was even consciously aware of the king. Asgore knew that sometimes the Royal Scientist got so wrapped up in his planning that he paid little attention to his surroundings, and just let his subconsciousness work his feet.

That certainly seemed to be what was going on now as Gaster tore open a cabinet, tossed a few objects aside, and pulled something out, then continued on, completely ignoring how he had almost hit Asgore with one of the discarded objects.

But then Asgore was completely convinced of Gaster's total absorption when a few extra hands with holes in the palms appeared, summoned at various locations around the lab, preforming small tasks and gathering up nearby objects.

This went on for one hour, two, three, many more. At some point, Asgore had joined his ex-wife, sitting next to the still incapacitated Commander of the army. They quietly conversed, as to not disturb the Scientist (although it probably would have taken something akin to a small but loud explosion to avert Gaster from his work), and Asgore learned of the events leading up to that point.

That is, until a muffled but loud and cheery ringtone sounded through the lab. Gaster dropped what he was doing, head snapping upright.

"... That's Papyrus's ringtone."

He patted at his pockets, searching for his phone. "That's Papyrus's ringtone!"

Not finding his phone in any of the numerous pockets, either in his pants or lab coat, he turned to his desk, digging through the pile of stuff that had accumulated there. At some point, his repeated insistence that that was Papyrus's ringtone slipped into Hands, but there was still no doubt of what he was saying to the others in the room.

Eventually, he found the phone and answered the call.

"Papyrus! Are you alright? Where are-"

"Dad! Shhh!" Papyrus hissed through the phone. Gaster shut up.

"Listen!" Papyrus whispered. "I'm alright, I'm not hurt, but I think I'm in the Ruins! I don't know, Dad, but it's all purple! There are Corrupt everywhere! I'm in some sort of cage, I think they're planning on hurting me if Sans disobeys, but Dad-" for a moment, there was a rustling, and then silence.

"Papyrus?" Gaster whispered.

"I- one of them almost saw me with the phone- ... Dad, I see Sans sometimes- he does everything the Corrupters want him to- but he's hurt, Dad! He's in so much pain- you gotta help! Hurr-"

Gaster heard a muffled shout. "Hey! What's that?!"

"N-nothing!" Papyrus squeaked, over the rustle of cloth as he presumably attempted to hide the phone in his pocket.

"give it to me." That was unmistakably Sans' voice.

"Sans, wait- no!"

There was the sound of a brief scuffle. Papyrus cried out.

And then, "hello?"

"Sans?"

"heh. yep."

"Sans-"

"lemme guess. you're comin' to rescue me 'n' pap. a quick warning though- that's a  b a d   i d e a. you're a scientist, not a soldier, and you'll just be killed. b'sides, as my dad, aren'cha supposed to want me to be happy? i don' wanna be rescued."

And then he hung up.

Gaster knew Papyrus was right, then.

Despite how cold and hard Sans' words had been, despite how well it was buried, the sorrowful, hurt, pleading tone was still there, barely perceptible. Sans was, whether he knew it or not, in agony, the Pure part of his Soul begging for help.

Gaster had to help.

He had to.

He realized he had just been sitting there for some time, holding the phone still to his skull. He stuffed the phone into his pocket and lunged into action.

For a moment, he was occupied with gathering up his supplies, downing one or two or four of the concentrated Magic solutions, packing stuff into his inventory, leaving the lab-

This last thing was stopped, as Asgore and Toriel, both predicting his plans, had taken up guard at the door.

"Move, please." He told them.

"Doctor, as your friend and queen-"

"No. Move."

"I cannot understand-"

"You're right." He snarled. "You can't understand. You can't understand what it's like to lose your children not once, but twice. Sure, you lost Asriel and Chara, but I got mine back, and now they're gone again. You have no idea how it feels to have it all threatened again. So move."

"Gaster-"

Gaster's eyesockets went dark. "G E T   O U T   O F   M Y   W A Y ."

When Asgore took a step forward, intent on saying something convincing, Gaster splayed out his hand.

In the space of half a second, a light purple film overlaid his vision, mixed with orange on the right and light blue on the left, and both Toriel and Asgore slammed to the side, crashing together into the wall.

Gaster didn't wait to see what would happen from there, he simply strode out of the lab, and into the elevator.

§

A/N

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