Welcome, this is just a quick warning that this chapter dips a bit into darker territory (Sans gets pissed) and major head canons abound (Including W.D. Gaster, so if you don't know about him... Let's just say Undertale fanfics probably aren't for you, eh?). Other than that, enjoy~!

.(^u~*)

"OH MY GOD SANS NO!" Yelled... Sans?

Alphys was confused.

.(^u~*).

"B-but, wait, what, huh?" Alphys stuttered. "S-sans?" She questioned, pointing to who she thought was Papyrus. He nodded.

"What h-happened?" Alphys asked, flinching when the brothers turned their gazes on her.

"we don't know," Sans said.

"WE DID JUST WAKE UP LIKE THIS. IT WAS QUITE STRANGE," said Papyrus.

Alphys nodded thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry to say this, b-but, I don't know what happened. I-I don't think I could figure it out without my equipment either." Sans nodded.

"makes sense," he murmured. "well, let's go to your lab then!" Papyrus was quick to agree.

.(^u~*).

The skeleton brothers trailed after Alphys to the dock.

"Tralala," the River Person greeted them. "Where are you going today?"

"H-hotland please," said Alphys, and the River Person hummed as the three boarded.

"Tralala, words shape our world, so be careful what you say~," the River Person hummed mysteriously. The boat pulled up at Hotland dock. Alphys thanked the River Person, and they were on their way to the lab.

.(^u~*).

Alphys slid a key card through the scanner next to the door to unlock it.

"W-well, here we are," she said. "F-feel free to l-look around while I g-get the right equipment." With that, Alphys disappeared up the stairs.

Sans flopped into a chair, stretching out until his now-longer legs smacked against the table leg. He had less space than usual.

"seriously pap," he muttered in his brother's general direction. "how the hell do you manage being so frickin' tall." Sans continued on this vein of grumpy muttering until Alphys came back down with a device that looked like a cross between a barcode scanner, a laptop and a fax machine.

"A-alright," Alphys began. "I'm going to n-need you to stand exactly two f-feet apart, and then I'll activate t-the scanner." Papyrus and Sans complied. Alphys hit a button on the scanner.

Beeps and whirs filled the lab as the scanner did its job. A complicated series of images filled the screen, and the fax machine bit printed them out. Alphys would take the printouts off the machine almost immediately after they were finished, and scribbled notes on them in her nigh unreadable chicken scratch.

.(^u~*).

"W-well, I have, um, good news and b-bad news," Alphys said once the scan was finished.

"AND?" Papyrus said, looking at the scientist expectantly.

"T-the good news is that I should be able to figure out a way to get you back to normal."

"and the bad?" Sans asked.

"I s-still can't quite figure out what happened, since there's these weird s-symbols essentially etched onto your souls. I don't know what they mean, but I can tell that they're intrinsically c-connected to this problem, and that just getting rid of them wouldn't fix the issue, it would j-just k-kill you both. So I have to s-spend that much longer to t-translate and w-work around the symbols, rather than j-just erase them." Alphys said. "Although," she said thoughtfully, "these symbols k-kind of look l-like his notes. M-maybe I could check those!"

Sans blanched, somehow making his already pale bones even whiter. Neither Alphys or Papyrus noticed, both poring over the notes.

'if he is involved, there's probably no way we're gettin' back to normal.' Sans thought, grinding his teeth together with a slight growl. Burnt orange was starting to suffuse the harsh fluorescent lighting of the lab. A shadow formed behind Sans, the hovering demonic skull he summoned for battle. The mere thought of the prior Royal Scientist filled him with hatred and DETERMIN- the skull creature nudged his shoulder, making a whining sound that only he could hear, since it was still between worlds.

Sans could feel the rage drain away, along with the dangerous levels of DETERMINATION that had concerned the blaster in the first place. Sans looked back at the blaster he had inadvertently semi-summoned.

'ah, it's castellar, that explains why she stopped me," Sans thought, his snarl morphing into a faint shadow of his almost permanent grin. Castellar had been the first of his blasters that he had summoned, and had since then been very protective of him. The others, Century, Candara and Cambria, were slightly less protective, but still tended to stay pretty close.

'ah yes, speak of the devil,' Sans thought as the other three appeared to the same level as Castellar to nuzzle him. He rested his hand on Candara and then dismissed the blasters, considerably calmer.

Alphys and Papyrus didn't notice this interaction, still poring over the notes, Papyrus with his usual enthusiasm and Alphys with a careful touch.