Sans stared at the Sage that faced him down as the others fought their battles. He'd deliberately delayed his own confrontation with the last of the seven sages, so that his first face to face meeting was after each of the others had engaged in battle. The light blue soul had waited with him, confused at his hesitance, but it had nothing to do with fear. He wasn't afraid of the sages, any of them. When he'd been created, his father had gifted him with a great deal of knowledge, only some of which was coming into play now. None of the others knew who they were fighting when they went up against the Sages, but they'd find out when they did.
He knew exactly who the seven they'd be fighting would be. And like this Grey Soul he faced, he had held back to ensure he would handle the one who was the true cause of it all. Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, and Toriel each faced one of the four Knights of the Realm that had led the armies of humans against Monster Kind in the war. Muffet had faced off against the King's Champion, the Reaper. Asgore faced the King himself. And Sans now faced down against the Vizier, whose guilt was far greater than any others.
"bet you didn't expect the king to insist you be part of the barrier, did you?" Sans taunted the 'Sage' as he stared him down. "bet you thought you could just take what you wanted and leave us trapped down here...like a battery." The 'Sage' flinched back in surprise. "what, you think pops didn't know what you were really after all along? after the artifact was made, oberon explained to your king what it was, and it's purpose, with you in the room...and not a month later, hysteria of how dangerous monsters could be, and the idea that a monster could absorb a human soul, had whipped humanity into a frenzy, where war was the only option. you even arranged a few atrocities committed by 'monsters' against humanity to force the king's hand...all so you could steal the soulstone for yourself. all so you could use it to enhance your own power."
The Grey Sage drew itself up, silent laughter echoing. Spreading its arms, fragments of human soul began to gather to it.
"oh, i see. you put a safeguard into the barrier when you put yourself into it. the souls awakening wasn't in response to an attack on the barrier. it was in response to the soulstone being used, so you can steal it and turn the barrier into a new magical body for yourself. you don't care if you're human or monster, just so long as you get power. isn't that right?"
As the Grey Sage expanded into immensity, all sense of distinguishing features vanished. The Amalgam Sage glared down at Sans from a bulbous, spherical head, the only sign that it was actually a face the black, pointy shades upon its face. It towered over Sans as it gathered its power.
Sans stared up at his massive foe as the light blue human soul hovered over his head, and chuckled. "ya know, i'm sure everyone watching from out there expects something super flashy, like going all memelord or ultra sans or something like that from merging with this little guy. at the very least, they expect me to unleash the same force i would on a human who killed everyone down here. you, at least, would certainly deserve it." He grinned up at the behemoth before him. "but that's not what we're all about, any of us. yeah, this is gonna be epic, but here's the thing."
He lifted his hand. Far above, a tiny dot of light appeared. "i've only got one attack power. no matter how i fight, i can only ever deal one damage at a time. my strength comes from knowing the rules, and knowing how to get away with breaking them. if i beat you that way, it'd just prove i'm a better cheat than you, and what would that teach woona? instead, i'm going to make this a straight up fight of numbers."
The Amalgam Sage reared in silent laughter, deriding what it saw as Sans' pathetic attempts at being intimidating.
"you think one can't do very much, huh? well, you're right. one alone can't do much. but one is never alone, if you aren't afraid to ask for help." More dots of light began to gather around the tiny dot far above, and the Soul above Sans began to speak as their combined power called on the aid that was offered.
One for every parent who gives their child a night light.
One for every child without, who faces down their fright.
One for every unsung hero, who stands against the wrong.
One for every lowly bard who puts their glory in song.
One for every soldier who does battle on some far shore.
One for every civilian who supports the soldier and not the war.
One for every hard choice that's more than what it seems.
One for every selfless act of Gimilut Chasadim.
One for every victim who stood up and said no.
One for every leader who said 'Make it so'.
One for every determined soul that helped the troubled youth.
One for every enlightened ruler who embraced the truth.
One for every courageous one who did not give in to fear.
One for every wise one who sought to bring good times here.
And one for every watcher who from beyond does see,
Our titanic struggle, and wants us to be free.
Sans grinned widely as the Amalgam Sage stared up at the sphere of light that had taken shape far above, gently grasped by his single hand. "so...you think you can stand up to every one that's gathered to stop you? well...go ahead and try." With that, he threw his arm forward, and vanished.
The sphere of light slowly began to descend, and the Amalgam Sage felt the pressure of its approach. Gathering all its strength, it prepared to destroy the upstart skeleton's last, pitiful line of defense against the inevitable.
As the sphere expanded until it appeared the size of a basketball, the Sage began to realize there was a lot more power there than he'd anticipated.
As it expanded until it appeared the size of a beach ball, he began to wonder just how much power a simple monster could gather.
As it reached the size of the Amalgam Sage's spread arms, he realized just who the skeleton was calling his father, and fear gripped the soul at the center of the construct.
As swirling arms of light specks became visible around the central mass, the Amalgam Sage realized just how fucked he was.
The Galaxy of Light descended onto the Amalgam Sage, slowly and inexorably with the force of space-time itself, the spiral arms ripping into the beast even as the weight of the ones bore down, crushing even the monstrosity's last despairing scream into nothingness.
Sans reappeared, the light blue soul bouncing happily over his head. "heh," he mused as he stared down at the soul fragments that were all that was left. "and there it all goes." He paused as the light blue soul nudged him repeatedly. "what? ...aw, do I have to? i just got through saying i'm more than that stuff!" The soul continued to nudge him. "fine. I guess it does fit here."
As he watched the fragments of the Seven Sages - just enough between them to make a single human soul - vanish into the ether, Sans extended his hand and presented a thumbs down. His voice completely serious, he spoke.
G e t D u n k e d O n .
That was definitely not what I was expecting, but Sans hit the nail on the head. That was freaking epic!
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Wasn't it Asgore?
Agreed Sans, Agreed!
in the end, we saw the light of things.
guess everyone must've had a ball with this chapter.
welcome to the slam.
Oh. Ooooooohhhhhhhh. I know what that's referring to. Star Trek: TNG. Picard always says that to give the go ahead on a movement or action of the crew. Nice.
Think you're missing, like, most of the sentence there.
Also, Goku ain't got nothin' on Sans.
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Asriel stepped in when he was about to lose, so I guess you could technically say that Asriel was the one to beat the Human King.
That... Was beautiful. I feel like I've heard it before, especially with the fact you wrote "Gimilut Chasadim", if I recall, is Hebrew for 'Act of Goodness'. Please tell me where it's from, I really want to know.
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'Gimilut Chasadim' is Hebrew for "Acts of Loving Kindness", referring to the highest order of Tzedakah, or giving acts.
As for the recitation of 'One's, I made that up myself specifically for this story.
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Just the last word 'vanished' went missing.
7427951 Heh, I get it
So, after reading this, I automatically scrolled up the page to hit the favorite button... and then realized that I had already favorit-ed this story in one of the first chapters.... Seriously though, I wish I could favorite this multiple times!
7427907 It's better to slam than to be jammed.
This is the perfect sound for this chapter
Spirit bomb, huh? That works.
I was expecting him to say "I got 1-Up on you."
I opened this chapter expecting dank memes and a dragon ball super level fight. what i got instead was far far better. amazing chapter, perfectly written and timed. think i may actually be a bit sad when this story ends
...
It's always the vizier, always... well, except in The Magic Voyage, but no one likes to talk about it.
You could, but where's the fun in that? As a certain draconian dignitary once said (in the second person):
Besides, if you really think about it, Sans getting some kind of power boost... is just stupid. I mean, getting Dr. Andonut's Rage and Vriska Serket as backup is one thing, turning into some sort of Sans Serif(im)? Ridiculous, he's Sans, he'll use the bone cage and multiple-shot the mofo.
Hm, that's a technical rhyme, but who cares?
Huh. Alright then. Looks like my comment will take longer than I expected to make for reasons that shall become apparent soon.
Second Verse.
Little did anyone know, Sans died a little inside by doing that. He then went on to star in a variety of roles, including the Horned King from The Black Cauldron, and Lord English from Homestuck. When asked why, he merely said he wanted an excuse to troll with the lives of adolescent children. Go figure. Anyways, see you.
Super hope galaxy Crusher.
7428131 More like a million tiny Spirit Balls, but the end result is the same.
WOWIE! THAT WAS AMAZING! YOU TOTALLY OWNED THAT SAGE, SANS!
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Cool!
Much more low-key than I was expecting, but you made it work, Tatsurou!
This whole chapter was perfectly in character, and I like it quite a bit.
A great chapter. Well done.
7427950 Gevalt, I was close! Still, HUGE props to using that in this story, Tats. Hats off to ya.
7427907 Wow that was a ... Sans-sational chapter.
Hey, I'm now going to Dunk-on donuts.
Now it's time for the monsters to barrier the hatchet.
Well, that's it everyone.
best. f***ing. line. in the whole. story.
symbolism aside, im kinda disappointed with this chapter, there wasnt even a battle, oh well, there is allways one of "those" chapters in each good story
Awe man, no flashy shist. ┐( ̄ヮ ̄)┌ Oh well, its not really like Sans to do that anyway. BUT HOLY HELL, THAT FREAKING SPEECH. THAT FREAKING BACKSTORY. IT FILLS ME, (and woona and everybody else), WITH SOME GOOD FOOKIN' D E T E R M I N A T I O N
Basically, all I got from this is that Sans can use the Spirit Bomb.
And, you know, it actually works when he uses it.
Great chapter, and from what I can gather, a great end to the last of the sages of the barrier.
Oh-ho-ho-ho, YES.
Imagine a mountain. Now imagine a mountain-sized parking lot created by a single punch. That's what a power-boost of 50 will give to negative 12 atk for a net atk of 38. Now imagine that same mountain stacked on itself ~240 times, and subsequently being reduced to rubble in a single hit. That's the power boost Sans got just by those watching from beyond, not including the boosts he got for every other person he mentioned.
Just a little perspective.
Well, I guess that concludes the fight with the sages, and presumably the barrier is going down next chapter. All fun and good, I suppose.
I'm trying to like this. It was fairly well written, Sans was a joy, and it was pretty epic seeing the sages responsible for the barrier go down, but...
This isn't what Undertale or hell even MLP is about.
You claim that Sages are the equivalent of post genocide humans-yeah, no. If they were like that, every monster alive would have been killed. And, it takes a special kind of person to be willing to sacrifice themselves for a fate that could potentially last thousands of years if not more and would result in the slow loss of self. Sure, hatred could potentially be the driving force behind their willing sacrifice, but for all of them? I doubt it-loyalty to the king, a single minded determination to protect loved ones from the potential threat of monsters (sentiment remains even if the threat was false), hell even love could all equally have been driving forces of their sacrifices.
So, just killing them all off-even the ones who seemed hesitant-feels like a punch in the face.
Honestly, I can understand killing some of them off-most of the fighters were hardly saints, after and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that they'd kill their opponents. Descent evidence of this includes teh fact that Mettaton wanted to kill Frisk and get their soul to be fucking popular in the above word and Alphis, while she doesn't want Frisk dead, lies repeatedly to make herself look good and puts Frisk's life in danger, Muffett is hardly the paragon of goodness- in the game, she willingly tried to kill Frisk for money and because she believed someone told her Frisk hated spiders despite having absolutely no evidence for it, Undyne tried to kill Frisk, a bloody child, because they needed one more soul, and in a pure pacifist run there has been absolutely no killing on Frisk's part to justify Undyne's assault, and Asgore has murdered six children and likely remembers these sages killing his people, and this latter reason goes for Toriel as well, so those two are understandably angry. So, yeah, some of the sages being killed with no attempt at mercy is justified. And Sans...the only reason Frisk is even alive in the pacifist and genocide route is because Toriel made him promise to look out for any human that came through, so him not sparing the one responsible for the barrier and the monsters' imprisonment doesn't surprise me in the least.
But, what really irritated-borders on pissing me off really-is Papyrus and Luna. Papyrus, who was willing to offer friendship to a human in the genocide path who has clearly murdered almost everyone in their path through Snowdin, and doesn't even offer a token of resistance even if it's abundantly clear Frisk is a murderous psychopath. And, unless I was reading that chapter incorrectly, Papyrus was in communication with Luna, who had tried to spare everyone up to this point and befriend them.
So, the fact that Papyrus doesn't even seem morally troubled beyond by having to choose between sparing the human sage and saving Luna is...troubling, irritating, and borderline infuriating and prompted this entire rant, actually. He doesn't even try to look for a third option, or kindly ask the soul to disengage or leave the barrier. Yeah, it might not be possible, but he don't even fucking ask! He just murders him-and that's what it fucking is. The sage was defeated, and pretty much begged for mercy, Don't even get me started on the fact that Luna was apparently aware of his battle and in communication and didn't do jack shit.
Hell, on that chapter you missed out on a potentially interesting and heart wrenching choice and development for Papyrus-does he save Luna, or forever stain his hands with the blood of someone who was at his complete mercy and could no longer fight back and was in all likelihood not a completely evil person, who had his own hopes and dreams.
....
So, yay, everyone's a fucking murderer now, and rake in all those delicious execution points, hell, maybe they'll gain a some lovely Levels of Violence or two.
i let these chapters pile up because I had been enjoying this story immensely, but I found the individual chapters too short to really be satisfying, so I thought having five or six at once would be nice, but now I'm just disappointed.
...
That's it. I'm done.
Edit: I should clarify in particular, out of the past few battles, it was only Papyrus's fight that irritated me. The others frankly seemed plausible, but it's just the way that his battle went that troubles me. And, now that I'm thinking with a moderately cooler head, it occurs to me that, assuming Luna is not fully aware that all her friends just killed the sages, she's likely going to be horrified once she finally gets what they've done. So there's that.
no whats funny? out all of the seven sages the king was the only one that did not want to fight? lol
I want that poem/incantation dubbed, it almost made me cry from the feels it summoned. good job.
So, Sans just used the spirit bomb, then? Cool. Out of curiosity, which soul helped which monster in these battles? I'm pretty sure that the little cowboy sided with Undyne (or maybe Papyrus?), but I'm not really certain beyond that.
7428928
I just matched them by color.
7428753 Makes sense, and I would prefer Papyrus being that way. Right now I can see Luna/Woona getting upset with him. But that may not happen, the future holds many secrets.
I'll sound nitpicky, but isn't this story rated E? Just was surprised to find the swear here. Even though it was hilarious
And yep. This was certainly epic. Don't mess with Sans. You'll have a bad time.
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I usually like to leave comments when I downvote(unless it's true shit, but this fic merely inane), especially for larger/ongoing fics that have authors who may care about it. It's criticism, and if you aren't leaving any then that's just rude. If an author wants to know more about what I thought or has a legitimate thing regarding my reasons, it can(and has) been reversed.
Ending that note...why would you respond at all except to grab my attention?
you fooker now i have to leave this here knowing you were referencing it
7428935 Ah,okay then.
I'm a bit happy. That did feel like true Sans style.
Aw, I was hoping to see the Glitchtale version of Sans going to town on this bastard, especially after you tied the war into him. And if you don't know the Glitchtale version of Sans, he's the one that absorbed Frisk's soul and became a freakin' juggernaut, with both his eyes glowing blue. He whooped Chara's butt like a drum, as well as a soulless Gaster's.
I suppose the only question now is what's going to happen to Asriel and Woona. And maybe Gaster. Wouldn't be the first time you pulled a curve ball like that.
Awesome chapter. Nice little "Spirit Bomb" kind of attack.
Darn. I really wanted him to do a cool flip.
Awesome work, none the less, Tatsurou.
That was such a short battle... but it was so freaking epic in my head, I loved it!
Glorious work well done man, well done!
7429577 The heavens opened and rained knowledge upon thee.
...is it weird I pictured Sans speaking that little poem/incantation thing with the Voice of the Universe behind him? Like, Sans had the main voice, but behind his you could hear the echoes of countless beings across that universe, and beyond them you could hear the voices of the next universe over, and so on and so forth as every Sans ever used the same attack at once on ever Sage Amalgamate ever, breaking every race of Monsters ever free from every Underground across every universe, finally putting an end to the torment of their imprisonment.
7429124 Everone's expression when Sans is dancing:
Papyrus: The F*$k.
Frisk: This shit is going on Facebook.