"GOOD TRY. FOR ONE WITH ONLY ONE ATK, AND ONE DEF."

Flowey raised in anger, its face twisting in uncontrollable rage as the pain settled. "BUT THAT IS ENOUGH. YOUR TURN IS OVER…"

"IT IS OUR TURN NOW."

And with that a vine was raised, whacking the small skeleton on the side of his temple as Sans was sent careening off to the side. "ungh!"

CRACK!

"aaah!" The skeleton cried out when skull met solid, hard quartz. He was barely aware that blood started to leak out from the brand new fissure that appeared as he slumped over, bones trembling and shivering in agony.

"NOT MAKING JOKES NOW, ARE YOU, SKELETON?" The flower grinned in cruel amusement, the sound of skull cracking and fracturing like music to the flowers nonexistent ears.

"Sans!" Frisk cried, watching helplessly as she watched Sans being sent flying into a pillar and smacking his skull against the corner of one of them, causing him to slump onto the ground in pain.

"NOW, NOW. THINK OF IT THIS WAY. YOU ARE HELPING A WORTHY CAUSE..." The flower said, feigning care as a vine slowly slithered it's way towards Sans who was still moaning in pain as he felt his HP drop down to a trembling 0.46.

Sans was so out of it, he didn't even notice as one of Flowey's vines began to slowly slink towards him, wrapping around Sans wrists, and gathering them to the front of Sans chest, then the other and slowly began to lift him up off the ground. The voice reverberated within Sans's throbbing skull like a mallet.

"JUST IMAGINE. AFTER ALL THIS TIME. WE CAN ACCOMPLISH OUR TASK. THE TASK YOU FAILED TO DO."

"NO!" Frisk cried, struggling against the vines as she reached a hand forward, pleading.

"YOU HAVE BROUGHT THIS UPON HIM, CHILD. YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN IN. A SHAME REALLY. WE WERE WILLING TO SPARE HIM BEFORE, DESPITE HIS FAULTS."

Sans winced, as he tried to struggle away, his skull aching, but it was too late, breathing harshly as he was hoisted up by nothing but his wrists.

"HIS MISTAKES."

His hands were bound high over his head, and Sans was left completely defenseless, held up by his wrists, his feet just barely capable of touching the ground to get some sort of purchase to alleviate his weight from his shoulders and arms. "y-you keep saying i didn't do my job r-right...as j-judge. if this is w-what your idea of justice i-is..." Sans stuttered, trying to fight through the pain that still ached his throbbing skull as he dared to look up at the flower holding him hostage now too.

"th-then i don't think i did half as bad as i thought i d-did." He said firmly, trying to look braver than he was even though fear was threatening to sink in to his fragile body.

The flower cooed, looking down at the small skeleton from Frisk, "WE DOUBT THAT. BUT THAT IS ENOUGH. YOU ARE TIRED, ARE YOU NOT? YOU ARE TREMBLING AND WEAK."

Sans breath hitched the slightest amount as he tried to control his trembling, skull still aching and feeling like someone had just took a jackhammer to his head.

"YOU NEVER DID HAVE MUCH FOR STAMINA." The flower continued to coo, as pain laced through every inch of Sans body, from bruised bone to cracked skull to the feeling of bone about to be shattered as he felt the vines slowly begin to tighten.

"MM, AFTER ALL YOU HAVE ENDURED, YOU CAN BARELY KEEP GOING. ARE WE NOT CORRECT? THAT IS WHY WE BELIEVE YOU DESERVE..."

CRACK! 

"A BREAK."

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!" Sans screamed, his hands reflectively flexing as he felt the vines tighten enough to snap the bones of his wrists.

"NOOO!" Frisk cried out, tears streaming down her face as she could only watch helplessly as her friend was beaten.

"OH, YOU DO NOT LOOK SO WELL." The flower teased smiling.

Sans was now dangling, all his weight focused as he hung by his shattered wrists, grinding the bones together. There was nothing else besides it, just the sensation of burning pain and that all-consuming voice. The fibers of the plant material encircling his injured bones ground together was like torture, shifting the broken bits of bone into one another, increasing the agony almost to the unbearable.

Sans always had a rather high tolerance for pain, an oddity, given his low HP. But everyone had their limits. And this creature, this being, had finally found his.

"SO FRAGILE. HEHEHE... SOME JUDGE." the voice cooed, and Sans felt sick at the tone of amusement hidden underneath. He wished for unconsciousness, even though he knew he couldn't give in to it. He couldn't pass out and leave Frisk to this demon's mercy. That child was determined, but there was a difference between standing up for your beliefs and standing up for your own life. Frisk had proven time and again her willingness to put down her own safety if that meant getting things right. Frisk would die. She would stand true to her morals and she would die; and there was no coming back from that, not this time. Sans had watched Frisk destroy the reset button himself; watched it shatter into pieces in a flash of red blinding light. She had done so as a means of gaining his trust and now here they were, suffering for it.

All because he just couldn't trust her without her giving up the one thing that could keep her safe.

He was such a-

"THAT WILL MAKE THIS ALL THE EASIER."

Sans jolted awakened from his thoughts. Shuddering as something began to slither upwards beneath the hem of his shirt, lifting the fabric slowly to reveal his bare now fully unprotected ribcage. He realized Flowey's face was close to his own now, although it hardly even looked like the flower that he remembered. The red, glowing eyes bore into his own dim, white, quivering eye lights. An impossibly wide, thin smile curled all along its face. Even at his cruelest, Flowey hadn't ever looked like that.

The skeleton squirmed, gaze locked with his torturer's, as he tried to move away from the unwanted touch. His wrists protested in sharp, thundering shocks all down his arms, adding to the ache in his shoulders from them being restrained above his head. His feet were barely touching the floor, giving him no purchase whatsoever. He was completely at this monster's mercy.

It had him right where it wanted him.

And all Sans could do was just stand there and take it.

Somewhere in the background, behind the agony and fear raging through him, Sans was aware of Frisk's small voice crying out to him. Begging, pleading for the being to let him go; not to hurt him. Some torment-drunk part of his mind almost laughed at that request. He was already so, so hurt. His HP must be impossibly low at this point, not that it was very high to begin with, it being only a 1 and never succeeding any higher past that point. Plus, he hadn't even been in the best of conditions when this whole mess had started.

The vine tugging his shirt up his ribs was joined by a second vine, this one was solely focused on sliding right on in between the sensitive bones, causing the captive monster to whimper and try yet again to shift away, but it was useless.

He was useless. 

The vine curled around his spine and explored, moving much further in and causing Sans's back to arch as his breathing quickened to strained stutters, eyes snapping shut tight as he flinched a bit, unable to do much of anything to even save himself, much less Frisk too.

"SOME THINGS SHATTER MORE IRREPARABLY THAN BONE."

Again the vine shifted, and this time it brushed up against something else in there. Something, by far, the most sensitive one of them all. Sans could almost feel that cruel, ruthless intent to hurt radiating off of the demon in front of him the moment the vine made contact.

Something by far, was far more sensitive than anything else. So sensitive that the moment the vine brushed up against it, Sans could just feel the intent to harm radiating off the demon in front of him. Sans's sockets widened, his eyes snapping open again. Little eyelights now very sharp, trembling little pinpricks and his soul had nearly stopped as the being's words slowly processed in his mind.

"d-don't," he begged, and he didn't even care that he was pleading with this devil. "p-please! s-stop…!"

The vine was now poking and prodding and poking at his soul, slithering around it in an almost teasing matter, touching the very edges of the very culmination of his being. It was wrong, invading, and so, so, so horribly, terribly, unbelievably horrific that he almost shut down entirely.

His struggling had officially come to an abrupt end, Sans instead not even breathing, lest he move the wrong way and that vine inside of his ribs could merely just squeeze and that would be Sanses end. But it would be so slow and torturous for him. Sans then began to think about trying to relate that he would do anything other than let this sick freak tear him apart at the core. He shifted his gaze down to the terrifying sight of those vines leading inside of his ribcage. "please..."

"A SOUL IS THE VERY ESSENCE OF A MONSTERS BEING, IS IT NOT? EVERYTHING THAT MAKES THEM WHO THEY ARE, CONTAINED IN ONE... SMALL, VESSEL. WE WONDER... WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO HAVE THAT MIRACLE, THAT BEAUTIFUL EXISTENCE, CRUSHED. AND TORN? "

The vine wiggled around as it slowly wrapped around his soul, slowly moving to twist around its side and constrict it.

"LET US FIND OUT."

"s-stop…!" Sans's voice was too weak to hear now. Hardly a breath as he accepted his defeat, just like he always had. Only this time there would be no coming back. He would die, and he would die permanently.

"Stop! Stop it! STOP!"

Frisk's cries broke the air like a gunshot. Sans wasn't sure if she was just yelling now, or if she had been for a while and he just hadn't heard it. He was quickly falling numb to the pain in his wrists, hanging on to consciousness by a thread.

"Please, stop hurting him, please!" Frisk begged. "Leave him alone!"

The being in Flowey's body twisted around toward the human with a look of amused interest. It moved like a serpent, shifting its focus and stilling the vines in Sans's ribs for a blessed moment. Sans could still definitely feel the vine around his soul and barely breathed for fear of reminding the demon of his presence. He needed this moment of reprieve. He needed to gather himself together or he would lose it. He still had Frisk to protect; he still had to figure this out.

"NOW, NOW CHILD... CALM YOURSELF." A thin vine moved to rest under Frisk's chin, lifting her tear-stained face to meet that of the Forgotten being. Vines around her arms held her firmly in place, taut between their pull. "THIS CAN ALL EASILY BE AVOIDED." The vine left her chin, reaching up to brush away a tear.

"ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GIVE IN. GIVE UP. IS THAT SO HARD? TO ALLOW US OUR JUSTICE IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR DEAR FRIEND'S LIFE. "

Sans felt sick once again. It was using him against Frisk. It was giving the kid a choice; an impossible choice! The shock of that brought Sans a little out of his numb state. Pain and fear rocked through him once again as he moved, the vine slightly jostling at his soul the vine gently squeezing at his soul in warning, but this time he ignored it, focusing all of his strength into struggling to stand up just a little bit straighter. His sesamoid bones and toes nestled on the floor with what little purchase he could gain, as he tried not to look like the victim that he was.

Frisk's eyes slowly shifted to meet Sans terrified ones and her emotional distress was shining in them like he had never even seen before. He could see her asking him, begging him for some conclusion that ended with them both alive and safe, but Sans was quickly realizing that could never be the case.

Frisk couldn't give in. She couldn't give up, because that was exactly what this thing wanted. And if there was one thing in this life that Sans had come to understand. It was that 'you should never give over willingly that which the villain wants.'

Strung up as he was, with his glowing soul visible for all to see through his bare ribs beneath his crumpled up shirt, vines posed and ready to dive in, Sans steadied his eyelights, staring back at the kid that he suddenly realized he trusted far more than he thought he did. She had become someone he cared so much about without him even noticing. Which was surprising, to say the least, as there was hardly any reason for him to even attempt to care about most people, the resets having wounded him so deeply…except his brother, and Toriel to an extent.

He couldn't stop his body from trembling, or the tears and sweat from glistening on his skull, giving away his fear; but even so, nothing could stop him from damn well speaking out his mind as he'd tapped his toes on the floor, summoning a wall of bones between the kid and demon, catching the Forgottens attention as both now was turned to face him.

The vine surrounding his soul had squeezed more, not to crush but as further warning to Sans to stay out of it. "d-don' gh-! d-don'y you do it, k-kiddo," he strained. Each word was a struggle to say through the pain and the fear that he felt as self-preservation began to kick in telling him to stop, but he would be damned if he wouldn't say his piece. "whatever it w-wants...don'...don't give it to 'em, g-got it kiddo? i-i'll be f-fine..."

A lie in a lifetime of lies. He would die a liar, and he was okay with it.

So long as it meant Frisk would live through this.

Frisk still looked undecided, but Sans could see she had come to the same conclusion that he had too, even before he said anything. The utter change in expression confirmed it, she knew she couldn't give up...even if that meant losing him. She had to stay determined. She just needed confirmation Sans wouldn't hold it against her.

The child closed her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks, before she opened them again and gave the Forgotten a glare that would have curdled milk from fifteen miles away.

"N O." She spat making sure to bleed liters of contempt at the demon possessing Flowey.

The Forgotten's smile grew into a lone, thin and curling line. "AH, WE SEE... VERY WELL THEN."

Sans gasped, slamming his eye sockets shut as the vines pushed in, far more firmly this time; going in for real. His wrists burned as he instinctively tried to lower his arms, only succeeding in pulling his feet a little further off the ground before his strength gave out and he fell back down, hanging limp and breath now violently ragged. Fear, pain, and an all-swallowing panic was all he knew besides that terrible voice.

"FEEL FREE TO...CHANGE YOUR MIND AT ANY TIME," it crooned to Frisk. It then laughed and Sans could feel the jostle of it all through him. "THIS IS, BUT ANOTHER JUSTICE LONG INCOMING."