A Final Boss Awakens!

[Sans]

Well, that face sure was familiar.

The footage caught his attention the moment he saw the individual it was covering: a small flower with six golden petals on a rampage all throughout some place called Coruscant. The deceased littered the metallic, lustrous streets and alleyways as the camera loomed overhead like an epic aerial shot in an action movie. Millions more civilians were fleeing in the background, a bunch of colored specks indistinguishable within the wave of terror, desperate to escape their doom. Squads of perfectly-organized, shiny-armored, expressionless soldiers closed in on the flower and their demise.

Or at least Sans assumed they were heading to their demise, as the footage cut off before he could find out.

He stared at the screen, frozen, stupefied. It wasn’t the slaughter; he could handle bloodshed, no matter how gruesome. It was the flower. He could recall every aspect of it in his memories. Its smile, cheerful and morbid in its sadism; its eyes, glittering and piercing, a demon’s glare; its voice, high-pitched, friendly, false, whispering saintly nothing's as it slowly, to ensure it got every bit of satisfaction it could out of you, took your life away. He could remember all of that like he had met the flower just yesterday. Yet he could not remember its name. He knew it had a name, but he could not remember it.

The combination of familiarity and his utter lack of memories revolving around the most basic, seemingly obvious characteristics of it was what froze him to the spot. Memories were the most treasured, cherished things in the universe, and to be robbed of them, or even just be unable to conjure up one due to factors completely outside one’s control, was something he never wanted to experience. Imagining what it would be like to lose one’s memories, to be unable to recall the name of a face you recognize, knowing you know the name but not being able to put the name into words or thoughts, and despising yourself for such a blatant failure even if it wasn’t your fault to begin with, was an abyss of madness he had always tried hard to avoid sinking in. He rubbed his hand against his forehead, staving off his hangover-induced headache as he grabbed at anything that could allow him to remember the flower’s name.

Thankfully, Desco chose that moment to distract him.

"Anyway, so Underground? Desco has never heard of that Netherworld before! Sans didn't talk about it. What's it like? Hades is a lot of fun! It’s full of lava and demons and Prinnies to play with! Desco likes practicing her attacks on the Prinnies, especially Nemo. Did Desco tell you about him?"

He glanced over at Desco. She spoke really fast when she got excited, apparently. At several points he tried to stop her so he could answer, only for her to just keep going.

“He was a human that God tried to use by forcing all of the evil of humans into him so that he could destroy Earth! But Mr. Valzy couldn't allow that; that would disrupt the natural order! So Desco and Big Sis, everyone helped to defeat him and force him to go to Hades to repay his sins! Besides.."

Holy crap, how long could Desco go without stopping for a breath?

"If Desco let Earth get destroyed then she and Big Sis couldn't conquer Earth. It wasn't very Final Boss-like, but Desco would do anything to help Big Sis."

Once he was more than certain that Desco had stopped talking, he started thinking of how to respond to her spiel. He decided it would be best not to think too deeply into whatever Desco was saying this time around. The mystery that was Desco was a mystery for another time, when a part of his brain was still shocked by the revelation of the vile plant creature existing in some other part of the universe.

“the underground? its, uh... a pretty neat place, i gotta say. we use the lava for electricity and machinery there. we even got a whole facility devoted to doing just that. definitely beats candles, ya know?”

He wasn’t really lying. Sure, he was pretty certain there was no such thing as a Netherworld in his world, but it wouldn’t hurt to pretend he knew what Desco was talking about.

“big sis?” he said. He supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised. Even purple aliens with godlike powers from outer space had loved ones too. But what drew him to the statement was the word “anything.”

anything at all, huh…?

Knowing what he knew about Desco, that word held connotations far too sinister to be ignored. He paused, pondering on his next few words. The last thing he needed was for TWO pissed off purple aliens with godlike powers from outer space coming to tear him a new asshole for whatever perceived slight he would commit.

Before he could respond, however, Undyne made her move. Detailing her intentions to leave, she handed him a post-it note with her number, and a request to have him give her number to Desco as well before she departed. The action was so sudden that, for a few moments, he didn’t quite know how to respond.

Then it hit him. She was going after the flower, wasn’t she?

A wave of dread rushed through his bones.

He excused himself, told Desco her phone number as well as his own, and proceeded to follow Undyne’s trail. He didn’t bother taking notice of Burgerpants, or anyone else for that matter, as he walked past him, past passersby, and out the gate of Ambrosia. The cynical portion of his brain was screaming at him. It was a hopeless cause; he couldn’t stop her even if he tried.

He brushed those thoughts away.

He couldn’t see his friends die all over again.

And with that, Sans takes his leave of the thread! It was very fun writing with all of you! I hope we can do it again some time!