W. D. Gaster - An Undertale Story

Chapter Nine

   Gaster heard gasps from the crowd of monsters outside the castle as he ran past them. Some were gasps of fascination. Some were gasps of surprise. Some were gasps of fear. It had been a week since Chara arrived in the Underground. But now... she was dead. Dead. Asgore had killed her, hoping to find a soul of some kind within her. He was hoping that if he found a soul, it might help him start to break the barrier between the Underground and the Surface. And indeed, there was a small soul. It was, for some reason, not fully developed. Asgore had showed it to the monsters outside his castle.
   Gaster pushed monsters aside as he ran to Asgore. He was holding the hands of Sans and Papyrus. Toriel was behind Asgore, her hand covered over her mouth, scared of what Asgore had done. Alphys was behind the crowd, concerned with everything that was happening, observing it all carefully. It was quiet as Gaster made his way through the crowd, but became louder as more monsters saw him dashing past them all. Asgore looked at the crowd and noticed him running.
   "Gaster, what are you doing?", he asked as Gaster came to the front of the crowd. Gaster gripped both of his sons's bony hands and glared at Asgore.
   "Why did you... take the human's soul?!", Gaster asked, disgusted by the fact that Asgore had killed a sweet, innocent child. "Why would you kill her?!"
   Asgore looked confusedly back at Gaster. "Why, don't we all want to get to the Surface? This might help.", he said. He held the soul and looked at it, then back at Gaster. He chuckled slightly. "But then again, it's not a complete soul, so maybe I should just give the soul to you so you can do experiments."
   Gaster widened his eyesockets. Sans and Papyrus looked at their father. "Why would I experiment on an innocent child's soul?!", Gaster yelled. The crowd looked from the Royal Scientist, then to the king, then back to the scientist.
   "Because. You're the Royal Scientist. I'm sure you can't be that emotionally involved with a child.", Asgore replied. Gaster became surprised. He felt that Asgore was implying that Gaster wasn't emotionally involved with Sans and Papyrus, his own children.
   Gaster opened his mouth to speak, but Toriel cut him off. "Asgore!", she said angrily. "How can you say that? You're the one who just killed a child for their soul!" Asriel hid behind Toriel, gripping his arms around her, tears beginning to form in his eyes. Sans and Papyrus brung themselves closer to Gaster, almost crying as well. Asgore stared blankly at Toriel. Gaster watched them carefully. Alphys began to walk closer to the scene in the crowd of monsters.
   Toriel looked at Asriel, holding his hand tightly. She looked back up at Asgore. "Me and Asriel will leave. I can't be with a monster that will kill a harmless creature.", she said. Asgore gasped. Toriel and Asriel walked back into the castle. Gaster looked behind him, where Alphys was. He looked back up at Asgore, just like every other monster in the crowd was. Asgore stared back at them, then became angry.
   "What are you looking at?", Asgore asked aggressively. Monsters started to leave the scene out of fear. Gaster, Sans, and Papyrus turned around to leave, but stopped once they heard the king's booming voice. "Except for you, Royal Scientist." Gaster looked worriedly at Asgore, who was still holding the soul. All of the monsters had left by this time, wanting to go home and forget what had happened.
   Asgore waved his hand in a "come here" motion. Gaster and his sons walked up the castle steps to Asgore. "Yes?", Gaster asked. Asgore held the soul up to Gaster.
   "Here.", he said, lifting Gaster's hand and placing the soul in it. "Do whatever you want with this. I'm hoping that you, as a scientist, use it carefully and intelligently." Gaster examined the glowing soul. He felt that if he did experiment on the soul, he might be betraying Chara. But Chara was dead. She wouldn't know.
   Sans tapped on Gaster's waist. Gaster looked down at him. Sans wiped away a tear of his. "Dad... can we go home?", he asked with a strained voice. Gaster could tell he was holding back tears. Gaster looked at the soul in his hand then back to Sans and Papyrus. He placed the soul in his pocket.
   "Of course.", Gaster replied. Asgore turned back to the castle doors and opened one. As he went inside, he called for Toriel, hoping to reason with her. Gaster turned away from the castle, holding both of his sons's hands. He walked down the steps with them and began to walk towards their house. But Alphys got in Gaster's way, hoping to get his attention. Gaster looked at her questioningly.
   "Dr. Gaster! Now may not be the best time, but I have an idea!", Alphys said quickly. Gaster became curious. He looked at Sans and Papyrus. Sans shrugged, not seeming to care that she wanted to talk. Papyrus waved his hand, as if to say they had the time.
   "Okay then.", Gaster said. "What's your idea?" Alphys smiled. She reached into Gaster's pocket. "What are you...?", Gaster started to question, but then realized that she was grabbing the soul. She pulled the soul out of the pocket and held it.
   "Okay, so, this isn't a fully developed soul, correct?", Alphys started. Gaster nodded to confirm her statement. "But it is a soul of Determination, correct? Because it's red?" Gaster nodded again. "So, maybe with this soul, you could figure out what exactly Determination is and why monsters don't have it. Maybe... create a machine to take Determination from the soul, turn it into a substance, and do a few experiments with it?", Alphys suggested. Gaster was impressed by the idea.
   "That's... actually not a bad idea!", Gaster said. Alphys smiled, happy to inspire Gaster. Gaster immediately began to think of designs and how the mechanics would work. Sans tapped on Gaster's waist once more.
   "Dad. Paps and I really want to go home.", Sans said. Gaster looked at Sans curiously. They seemed to want to go home so bad, but they weren't tired or hungry. They had a long night of sleep, and before what had just happened, they are breakfast. Gaster kneeled down to Sans's eye level.
   "Why is it you want to go home so bad?", Gaster asked. Alphys looked over Gaster's shoulder to Sans. Sans glanced at her then back to Gaster.
   "I'd rather not talk about it in front of her.", Sans said. Gaster earlier thought that maybe Sans had wanted to go home because he was upset about the human soul and Asgore. But if it was that, he wouldn't have a reason not to talk about it. No, this was something different.
   Gaster looked at Alphys. "I'll be at my house if anything happens. I'll work on the designs and if you need help, you've got my house's phone number.", he told her. Alphys nodded and placed the soul back into Gaster's pocket. Gaster walked to his house with Sans and Papyrus. He opened the door and let his sons walk through the doorway. He closed the door behind him and placed his hand on Sans's shoulder before Sans could walk away.
   "Okay, now, please tell me what's wrong.", Gaster said, desperately wanting to help his son. Sans sighed. He took his blue jacket off. "What are you doing?"
   Sans breathed shakily. "My soul... it's cracked, dad.", he said. Gaster widened his eyesockets.
   "C-cracked? Wha- how?", Gaster stuttered. He lifted Sans's white turtleneck shirt to see Sans's white upside-down cracked soul. It was a crack directly down the center of the front of it. Gaster touched it lightly, and Sans hissed at the pain from the touch. Gaster pulled his hand away quickly. "Sorry, sorry.", he apologized.
   "It's fine.", Sans replied.
   "What happened?", Gaster asked as he examined the backside of the soul, which wasn't cracked. It was only the front side that was.
   "Honestly? I don't know.", Sans admitted.
   "Well, when did it happen?", Gaster asked, letting Sans's turtleneck shirt fall back to it's original position.
   "A week ago. When you were at the castle working with Asgore. When I told you I had a nightmare.", Sans replied. Gaster widened his eyesockets again.
   "Why didn't you tell me right then and there?!", he exclaimed. "Maybe then, I could have helped you!" Sans gripped his father's hand to make him stop asking questions. Gaster looked at his sons confusedly. Sans glanced at Papyrus, who was behind Sans.
   "Can you go upstairs, Paps?", Sans asked. Papyrus nodded and ran up the stairs and into his bedroom. Sans looked back at Gaster, who was staring at Sans, glaring almost. "I don't know how it happened. In my dream, I was in a dark place. I thought you were dead, but then I saw you. But at the same time, you weren't you. You were... different.", Sans explained. Gaster looked at him questioningly. "You had cracks in your face and your right eye was... limped, I guess you could say. You were wearing all black except for a white turtleneck under your black, buttoned up jacket. And...", Sans trailed off.
   Gaster pulled his hand away from Sans's grip and wrapped his arms around Sans. "And what, son?", Gaster asked. He felt Sans grip onto Gaster's black shirt.
   "You were trying to kill me.", Sans said in a low voice. Gaster pulled away from Sans.
   "What?", Gaster asked. This dream seemed to be very detailed, as if it were a vision. Like when Raven wrote the letter about her having a vision.
   "Yeah. You were summoning all of your six floating hands and trying to choke and kill me with them. And then I saw some of your... blaster things and you tried to kill me with them, too. But as you kept trying to kill me, you kept whispering in some kind of language that you were trying to save me from the truth. And then when I was hit by one of your blasters in my dream, I woke up and my soul was cracked.", Sans explained. Gaster looked at Sans worriedly. If it was a true vision, or at least a true vision of the void, he had to know the answer to a question.
   "Were there... screen-like things in there? Like something you would see on a TV?", he asked. Sans looked up at Gaster with a surprised look on his face.
   "Yeah. How did you know?", Sans confirmed. Gaster gasped. "What's wrong?", Sans asked.
   "N-nothing.", Gaster replied. "So, you woke up and your soul was cracked?" Sans nodded. Gaster tapped on Sans's chest. "Can I please see your HP? It could be damaged. Last I checked, it was at 10 HP, as it should be for a four-year-old skeleton." Sans nodded again and summoned the screen out of thin air that would show his HP. Gaster gasped at what it had dropped to.
   1 HP.
   Gaster looked at it, back to Sans, then back to the screen. "Sans, will you go into my lab and get the HP box?", he asked. Sans nodded and quickly went outside and into the backyard where Gaster's lab, which looked like a shed, was. He grabbed the box labeled "HP" and ran back into the house.
   Sans handed the box to Gaster and said "Here ya go, dad."
   "Thank you, Sans.", Gaster replied. He grabbed he box and opened it. Inside it was code. There was code that read "[lower HP.file]" and [increase HP.file]. But Gaster searched the box until he found "[repair HP.file]". He pressed the code into Sans's HP bar, hoping it would work successfully as it did any monster. But suddenly, the coding broke into pieces and disappeared. Gaster pulled his hand away. A worried look grew on Sans's face. Gaster looked at Sans.
   "Your soul must have had quite a crack.", Gaster said, looking worriedly at Sans. Sans chuckled slightly.
   "I'll be fine, dad.", Sans said.
   "But Sans, living your whole life with only 1 HP can be harsh. Being hit by a hard rock could kill you!", Gaster explained.
   Sans began to walk away. "I guess I'll just have to be careful and not make anyone mad.", he said. He walked up the stairs, leaving Gaster downstairs. Gaster held the HP box and stood back up to his normal height.
   Sans will be okay, Gaster thought, he won't get hurt. And if anyone kills him, I will get revenge.