The Anchor of a Lost Soul - Undertale - Chapter 3

~~Mystery and Magic~~

Gaster stepped out from the elevator and into the foggy laboratory. He began to cautiously prowl through the dark depths of the true lab, keen to avoid any unnecessary confrontations with its monstrous inhabitants.

He stopped before a wall that housed a line of lockers. The lockers were all painted a light emerald green, much like the rest of the lab and retained much of its original colour, although the paint was beginning to gradually flake off if brushed against. He pulled one open with an ear-aching screech of metal on metal and hastily stripped himself of his long black trench coat and placed it inside on one of the hooks.

The doctor snatched a different white lab coat, dotted with patches of other colours, evidence of previous use, and slipped it on with practised ease. He grabbed a notebook and pen, positioning the pen in his breast pocket and the notebook in one of the inner pockets. Having everything he needed he forced the stiff door closed once more before setting off deeper into the labs.

His shoes quietly clicked as he walked down one of the long hallways. Although he was trying to be reasonably quiet, he was by no means hiding from the Amalgamates. In fact, it would seem to be the opposite way around. Every time Gaster rounded a corner, the sound of scurrying could soon be heard as some creature darted off back into the shadows and out of his way.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to see through the thick fog that appeared to have descended due to the lack of proper ventilation. Fortunately, Gaster had already seen to restarting the extractor fans the previous night. Perhaps even more, fortunately, he had not run into Endogeny during either of his ventures below. He had clearly heard the canine barking off in the distance but had yet to come across its path.

Gaster passed through a doorway and into a large room, he barely even recalled walking over to the room, he had done it out of habit alone. The only feature that made the room stand out from the others was the large machine mounted on its far wall. The machine, better known as the determination extractor, had a thick layer of dust that coated it from top to bottom, implying it had been scarcely used since the last time Gaster was in the labs. He took a moment to frown at its sorry state before making his way towards another, smaller, machine.

He stopped just before it and gazed down at the dust ridden surface and couldn’t help letting out another sigh. He fought down the urge to fetch a pale of water and cloth, and simply settled for brushing off the keypad to the best of his abilities. He pushed one of the many buttons adorning the control panel and listened as the machine whirred to life with a series of beeps and flashes.

He dusted off his hands while waiting for the device to reboot. Finally, the screen flickered into existence, displaying a mainly white screen. Seeing the main section of the machine was in working order, Gaster reached over to another section of the machine and switched it on. It took a good long moment, and for a split second Gaster thought it would not work, but eventually it too reverberated to life with a slight fizzling sound accompanying it.

It was quite obvious how old and neglected all the machinery had become. The skeleton knew that he would need to give everything a good fine tuning. There were parts that required replacement, and other parts that had never worked, to begin with, and would soon find their way to the dump one way or another.

Gaster quickly took a glance at the computer screen, noticing several figures appearing in contrast against the mainly white image. They were all set at zero for the moment, but other than that seemed to be in perfect working order given the machine’s age and lack of use. He moved to a smaller compartment of the machine, a strange glass cylinder with several wires and tubes attached to its top. At the base of the cylinder was a detachable side, through which a soul could be inserted.

Deciding it was time to get to work, Gaster summoned forth his soul for the first time since he had been pulled back into the land of the living. Back into the plane of existence. With a slight tugging sensation his soul was pulled from his ribs. The very sight of it unnerved him greatly.

The soul was its usual vibrant violet colour, but its surface was littered with deep cracks. However, the cracks were not the only worrisome thing about the doctor’s soul, no, the thing that really caught his eye, was the bright green glow it was emitting. With every pulsation, the soul began to shine with green rather than its usual purplish colour, and it wasn’t just the overall soul glowing green, the cracks also emitted the odd tone.

As it would appear, somehow Gaster had managed to absorb the human’s soul when he was pulled back into the normal realm.

Quickly reaching into his pocket he produced the notebook and began flipping through the pages in search of the page that detailed souls and their colour. While all human souls contained a vast amount of DETERMINATION, the personality of each human affected and essentially shaped their soul, down to its very colour. Each different colour had a different meaning and represented a different core strength. It identified each soul’s very nature.

He had recorded many details on the nature of souls, many of which were written in the book held in his grasp. He had found the book while cleaning through the upper level of the lab the previous evening, and truth be told, he had not decided to just give the place a little ‘spring-cleaning’, but he had in fact been searching for his old research notes.

When he had fallen into the core and supposedly ‘died’, Gaster’s equipment and research had been passed down to the next Royal Scientist, in this case, Alphys, save for a few certain projects which were claimed by Sans.

Unfortunately, many of his notes were thrown away due to his writing being impossible to decipher except for a select few. Sans was one of those few, and as luck would have it, he managed to hang on to a fair amount of documents. He felt a slight pang of melancholy deep within his chest thinking about Sans, he truly wished Sans was there.

Ever since Sans was a mere toddler he had, had a large fascination with Gaster’s work. Of course, at that age, he had no idea what he was doing, but for some reason, Sans seemed to aspire to do everything his father was capable of. It was because of this, the moment the young skeleton could read he was attempting to understand advanced chemistry and physics.

Many a time Gaster would come home to be asked any series of questions ranging from “Why is the combustion enthalpy of alcohols connected to the length of their carbon chains?” or “How does the mass of an object contribute to its gravity?”, one time he even asked Gaster for the theoretical definition of a Black Hole. In short, it was a real mixed bag of questions that depended on whatever book Sans happened to be reading. Gaster was hard pressed to come up with all the answers to the young monster’s questions.

It seemed no matter how many questions he answered, no matter how many books he provided, Sans’ curiosity and need to know more new things was almost unquenchable. Fortunately, however, Sans’ curiosity was mostly theoretical… Unlike Papyrus, who was more of a kinesthetic learner, which was not always a good thing. There were more than a few holes in the wall of their old home from Papyrus running a few experiments with his magic under the so-called ‘supervision’ of his older brother.

Of course, Sans would always deny having anything to do with the large bones sticking out of the walls and floorboards.

Before Papyrus came along, Gaster found another was to sate Sans’ curiosity. He began bringing Sans with him to work, allowing him to act as his assistant. Despite his age, the young skeleton acted very mature when in the labs, excluding the occasional double entendre here or there. Although, he never really grew out of his witty puns, did he?

Gaster couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his jaw as he thought back on the memories. He really couldn’t wait until he was back home.

Finally, he came across the page he was looking for. Down the page was a list of seven human souls they had collected thus far, and beside them the core trait associated with each colour; Light Blue – Patience, Orange – Bravery, Blue – Integrity, Purple – Perseverance, Yellow – Justice, and Green – Kindness. So, as it would seem, his soul had become imbued with the strength of kindness.

Gaster could have argued that kindness wasn’t exactly a dangerous trait to have, but quickly recalled that Undyne, the aquatic captain of the Royal Guard worked solely with green attacks, and she was certainly no monster to be trifled with. Perhaps because he now had a green soul mixed in with his purple one he would gain the ability to master some form of green effect much like Undyne’s, the ability to freeze a foe in place.

Giving a shake of his head the rid himself of those thoughts, Gaster gently guided his soul to the open cylinder and nestled it inside securely. He closed the container, feeling a slight strain on his soul from it being partially cut off, but other than that he was fine.

He flicked through the book until he came across a page that was blank. Under normal circumstances, the doctor would have summoned a pair of hands using his magic to write notes for him but decided it would be a bad idea to place too much strain on his soul for the time being and instead thought writing with his actual hands would have to suffice.

Gaster keyed in several different commands into the computer, and it gave another whir as scanners activated and began running diagnostics on the soul located within the glass cylinder. They continued for several minutes, with Gaster occasionally wincing in discomfort, before all the scans had been completed and the results were calculated and displayed.

Before checking up on the results Gaster removed his soul from the glass compartment and willed it back into his chest. He gave a soft sigh of relief, feeling the soul back in its rightful place. He quickly turned back to the computer screen.

He set the notebook open and pulled the pen out of his front pocket, giving it a click and began scribbling down all the information portrayed on the screen. His LV and HP levels were all normal, set on 166 and 11,666. While most monsters would be disgusted by such a high LV count, it really wasn’t Gaster’s fault. To fight in a war, a certain Level of Violence was required to survive, and by the end of it, both victims and victors acquired plenty of it.

Gaster opted to not think overly about it and continue with the next set of values. His magic levels were higher than normal, and that was dangerous considering he was an LV 166 monster.
He mumbled incoherently to himself about the values of LV and how they could possibly be affecting his magic level. “Perhaps a D.T. test is in order,” he stated to himself. If his determination levels were fluctuating then it would have a definite effect on his magic levels.

Tentatively he called out his soul once more and inserted it back into the tube. He inched back to the computer, setting the command to test for DETERMINATION, and clicked his pen out of habit, ready to jot down the results. The average level of DT for a monster, was approximately twenty percent, with a maximum of thirty before monsters began to lose their form. The structure of their cells would rapidly begin to shift and change, unable to remain together, causing a monster’s form to shift with it, and in the simplest of terms, they would begin to melt.

And so, when the machine had finally finished making its rather concerning grinding sounds, Gaster had the fright of his life upon seeing the results. “No,” he breathed disbelieving, “No, that-that’s impossible,” he continued, staring at the screen, his mouth opening and closing like some beached fish, with no sound coming out.

DETERMINATION LEVEL – 82%

Something was very wrong. Monsters couldn’t have that high a DT level, it was physically impossible on all accounts. Ninety percent was the average DT level of a human, so it was impossible that his levels were so high. He began to gently massage his temples, feeling a soft pain in his skull, generally a precursor to a nasty migraine.

He groaned, the damnable machine must have been faulty, he decided with an irritated groan. After another moment of giving the computer screen a rather condescending glare, he gave the pen a click and placed it into his pocket, followed by the notebook. He powered down the device before retracting his soul and pushing it back into place.

Gaster pivoted on his heel and began walking back towards the elevator. He wanted something to take his mind off the new revelation.

By the time Gaster reached the locker again and heaved it open, he had decided to go and buy some much needed new glasses. As it currently stood, the skeleton didn’t want to go to the city, that could cause some unwanted and unnecessary trouble. Perhaps Gerson, in Waterfall would have some glasses that he could wear, at least until he managed to find a proper pair.

It was worth a shot. He needed to go somewhere he could have a good think to himself, and Waterfall was as peaceful a place if ever there was one.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sans calmly stepped out the front door. He was met with a sudden rush of icy air and several tiny particles of snow that were blown in his direction. The stout skeleton couldn’t help but smile a little at that. Snowdin was such a quiet and placid town it was hard to stay down for too long.

Several minutes prior, Papyrus had left for Waterfall. As per usual, it was time for him to meet up with Undyne for their private training. Now, it was time for Sans to head off to his post by the RUINS to begin his vigilant watch.

With such a strange feeling about the air, Sans normally would have been reluctant to allow Papyrus to go off by himself, but he would be perfectly safe with Undyne. What’s the worst that could happen?

Sans gave a soft chuckle, his breath steaming up the air before him, this was Undyne and Papyrus he was thinking about. Their cooking wasn’t exactly the safest he had ever seen.

He didn’t bother locking the doors, it’s not like there was much crime, especially within the small township. Here, everyone knew everyone. Sans began trudging through the light layer of snow on the ground, some of the ice dampening his rather inadequate footwear.

As he walked through the town, Sans would occasionally return the gesture of a wave at the odd person, or the occasional “Morning,” here and there.

Once he was clear of the town, he decided it was just about time for a shortcut. It was nice to walk through the icy landscape, but in truth, his sentry outpost was rather far away.

The only person other than himself that knew of Sans’ little shortcuts was Papyrus, and he preferred to keep it that way. He ensured he was alone before he began to focus his magic. There was a reason Sans called his shortcuts, well, shortcuts. Because that’s exactly what they are. Not to be confused with teleportation.

How it worked was rather innate and was difficult to explain. In essence, Sans would select a point, somewhere he knew or had been before and picture its exact location in space. From there, with a large amount of focus and a fair amount of magical power, Sans could bend the space between the point at which he was located and his destination, pulling the two points closer and closer until they were side by side. Then, he would break the thin barrier between the two points in space, and could simply step through from place to place.

However, the moment he was through, the space that had been stretched would rebound back, which meant that it was both physically and mentally draining, as every time Sans used a shortcut he was stepping through his own personal wormhole, and the moment he was on the other side space would crash back into place. It was no wonder the first few times Sans tried it he fell unconscious under the weight of the universe snapping back into its rightful position.

Nowadays, Sans was used to the sensation, it had gradually become less and less of a pain with each time he did it until now it was only a slight irritation at the back of his mind. The only exception was when he travelled extreme distances, the further he travelled, the more space he had to bend, the worse the implications.

Sans cast aside the thoughts and focused on his destination, just outside the RUINS would do he decided. He felt his magic locate his exact destination and quickly pulled the two sections of space directly next to each other. From there he could walk from one place to another as the walls between the two places were so thin.

And without further thought, Sans stepped through.