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Gaster let out a long yawn, smacking his lack of lips as he squinted a bit before noticing his glasses had fallen off...and that someone had put a blanket on him. Hand-knitted, warm, fuzzy and with a big, distinctly grinning smiley face on the top. He blinked a bit, feeling over the soft texture with his hands before a nice cup of hot coffee was put down next to him, and another human sat next to him, looking cheerily at him.

This human appeared to be mixed blood, an Asian American. The skin color and shape of the face indicated a rich Asian heritage, though it was difficult for Gaster to place whether it meant Chinese, Japanese or perhaps even Korean or Taiwanese. The hair color though was a distinct brown color, and rather long, and they were wearing and overly large blue and purplish-striped long sleeve shirt, rubbing their own eyes with one hand, the other holding a cup of hot cocoa.

"For you." the human said. Gaster wasn't quite sure whether they were a boy or a girl. He supposed they looked more like a boy, but their features were rather androgynous. It was difficult to guess. "Sista Christa told me you liked coffee. Strong coffee."

Gaster raised an invisible eyebrow up, looking the mug over. It had a "World's Best Dad" label upon it, and he wryly chuckled, reaching out with his skeletal hand to sip from it.

About fifteen seconds later, he'd been propelled up into the chrystal chandelier light fixture that hung above his head, the brown-haired human cringing. "Sorry, she said to make it STRONG."

"I had no idea my fingers could still grip like this." Gaster squeaked out, clinging to the chandelier with his eye sockets bulging, his entire body quaking, bones a-rattling as the human giggled.

"Awww, you're rattlin' your bones! You skeletons are so cute when you do that. Also, I loved hearing about how you and Sans and Papyrus have tiny little hair atop your heads. Fuzzy skulls. So can I ask you a question?"

Gaster's teeth kept chattering as he SLOOOWLY let go of the chandlier, and flopped back into the chair below, moaning as he picked himself up. "A-A-Ask a-away..."

"Do you know what a skeleton uses for his hair?"

"...what?"

"Conditio-nyeh." (Conditioner).

Gaster stared at the human, who grinned sheepishly before Gaster distinctly BLUSHED, and covered his face with his bony hands. "Ohhhhhhhh. That is as terrible a pun as anything HE'S said." He groaned, thinking back to Sans. "You've most definitely been spending a lot of time with them if you've already picked up on...SANS'S horrible sense of humor. Then again, part of that must also come from me..." Gaster confessed with a sigh.

"Actually, that one came from Papyrus. Which made it really funny, he's usually the one who gets annoyed by the puns Sans makes." The human said with a chuckle as Gaster dusted himself off and rose up. "But ol' "Dunkle" Sans still has a few good ones."

"Dunkle?"

"Yep. Because if he feels up to it, he'll dunk on you. He likes doing it to me with ketchup a lot. I've learned the hard way to NEVER take any bottles whatsoever from him. Name's Frisk. Frisk M. Dreemurr!" he said, holding out a hand.

"Dreemurr?" Gaster looked confusedly at Frisk as he shook the human's hand nervously. "How? Did the king and queen adopt you as they did with Chara Vardalos?"

"Oh, they're not king and queen anymore, but yeah. They adopted me! My original mom didn't mind. I mean, she WAS dead and all and she knew Ms. Toriel was really sweet and Asgore was a sweetheart deep down."

"Who's your mother?" Gaster inquired, now a bit concerned and confused.

"Oh, you might know her as the Soul of Justice. Bonnie Hatfield-McCoy?"

Gaster flinched at this. He did know about her. He had been on his way to talk to Asgore, and had been thinking about Sans and Papyrus. He'd begun to feel the pangs of guilt sinking back into him, he'd had a sleepless night, Sans having stuck a hot knife of truth into his very gut.

The truth that he thought HE had no choice. That he HAD to keep hurting Sans and Paps, had to keep making them stronger through pain, molding them into weapons. He did have a choice. He just wasn't brave enough to make them. That thought kept digging into Gaster's mind.

But then it dissolved when Gaster walked into Asgore's room and saw the yellow soul floating in a capsule in Asgore's hand.

All his guilt had turned to horror and pity as he looked at Asgore's face. His old, dear friend who had turned a thousand years older in just a few minutes, and looked even more frail and pathetic as he stared at the floating human soul in his grasp.

"OH NO..." Gaster had murmured.

"They were so small, Gaster. They didn't even want to fight." Asgore said, his voice breaking, his body shaking, Gaster dropping the clipboard he'd brought with him. "Just a CHILD. A child, like my..." Asgore trailed off.

"L-Let me look at it!" Gaster said quickly, taking the capsule away, peering at the container, at the Soul of Justice. He flinched. Inside his own soul, he could faintly see a brown-haired young teen who had been very clearly weakened from constant assaults by other monsters...and finally, at last, had her heart and chest crushed by a swift blow from the blunt end of Asgore's trident. For a brief moment, he saw her eyes...and they were as sunken and dead as Asogre's was right now.

Gaster had been disgusted with what his dear friend was being driven to. All in the name of setting monsterkind free. This was killing him. This was dissolving Asgore's very soul.

He had sworn, then that he would not fail. And so he'd come up with another possibility. Looking into not just simply breaking the barrier...but breaking through space and time. If he could only go back in time...keep the barrier from ever going up...

It hadn't worked out that way. And now he was standing in front of that young teen's child?

"I...imagine you must hate monsters."

"Monsters are people, and people make mistakes." Frisk said with a sigh. "I mean...a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Me included. Nearly everyone in the Underground took a swing at me at some point, and I died a WHOLE bunch of times, but...well, when you have DETERMINATION, when you can go back and fix what went wrong, you can either become two things." He said as he led Gaster towards the door to the library.

"What are those?"

"Very kind, because all the pain you endured made you open your heart, and feel for those who hurt, to want to make sure others don't hurt, to do things right...or you get very cruel, because you feel nothing matters, and its all just a game, so...do whatever you want. You can just RESET it. Doesn't matter if it's all changed back to the way it was at the end." Frisk confessed. "I ended up being the first thing. I didn't want to kill, and I didn't want to be killed."

"You can't be more then eleven years old." Gaster said, looking Frisk over. "That must have been traumatic..." He mumbled, looking slightly away, feeling the faint jolt of past horror rising, and for a second, he was a little babybones again, and his brother's dust was sifting through his fingers.

"Which is why Sans and Frisk have much in common." Gaster heard Christa's voice ring out as he stared, seeing Christa adjusting her glasses, and gesturing at a glittering road that led towards what appeared to be an enormous courtroom off in the distance, with a roof made of the soft starlight of the night sky. Rays of light were beaming down all around them from a beautiful sun as tender classical music filled their ears, and Christa escorted the two towards the courtroom. "When one's confronted with a horrible situation, there's only two reactions that make sense. Laughter, or tears. And laughter, after all, is nature's anesthesia..."

"Because tears hurt too much." Frisk finished, slightly hanging his head as he put his hands in his pants pockets, Gaster slightly turning to look away.

"You two are very OLD...for ones so young." Gaster finally said at last as Christa smiled a bit and patted Frisk's shoulders.

"We have a lot in common. Perseverance and Determination are like brother and sister. Both involve striving towards the future, a sense of not wanting to give up, similar in a way to Justice. Justice always wants to do what's fair and just and keeps trying no matter what. Peseverance always wants to do what's smart and intelligent. And Determination is always about doing what one thinks is right." Christa said with a smile. "We've had so much time to talk up here and we think we've got a good defense for you. You're going to need it, since Chara is the prosecutor."

"CHARA?!" Gaster exclaimed.

Chara. Yes, indeed. Inside the pearly walls of the courtroom as Gaster sat at the defense table, the prosecution on the other side, there she stood. A brown-haired young girl, wearing a long-sleeve green shirt with yellow stripes running through it, her face so rosy red, and with eyes...eyes so deep brown they were almost red with such a "delightful" smile on her angelic features. Such a little cutie. Such a little...angel...

"...hello, Chara." Gaster grumbled a bit, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses as the many, many throngs of people in the gallery sat watching, Chara cheerily grinning at Gaster before turning to the judge, Gaster gulping nervously. There was absolutely no mistaking who this person was. He knew exactly who it was. The greatest judge of all.

"Your honor."

"Is the prosecution and the defense ready?" The Judge remarked softly, calmly laying his hands on his beautifully sanded wooden podium as Gaster turned to Christa, who had Frisk give her a snazzy metal clipboard, Chara holding up her own.

"Yes, your Honor!"

"The prosectuion may begin opening remarks."

"It's simple, your honor. Very simple. This is a waste of a life. An abysmal waste of a life. Gaster had chance after chance, day after day to do the right thing, and he failed miserably. He tortured two children for months, even years on end. He lied to his friends, and almost broke open the space-time continuum with his foolish experiments. This man does not deserve your Mercy. He lost that right a long, long time ago." Chara said, slamming the metal clipboard down onto the table before her. "GUILTY. That's all I have to say!"

Christa rose up, clearing her throat, as Gaster nervously kneaded his hands, then looked over at the Witness box, seeing Papyrus, and the fear and nervousness and terror he had seemed to faintly dissolve at the soft smile of his "firsborn's" face.

"Wing Ding Aster, better known as Gaster, is a victim himself. A former human tragically murdered at a young age, taken in and raised as a monster in a time of war. Taken from his first family, then from his second, all he had left to hold onto, his only rock, were Asgore and Toriel, and then, after that, Ms. Alphys. He wanted his people to be freed from the Underground, and to alleviate the agony of his dear friends, to spare them the cruel task of continuing to murder humans in the name of claiming their souls and breaking the Barrier! All that he has done has been in the name...of Love. Love for his friends, love for his "family", love of the life he once had that he wanted so badly to reclaim. There's a tiny flower, a little speck of green, a tiny piece of Love within his soul, and it should be nourished and encouraged, not just stamped out. Give him a second chance. Not Guilty!" Christa proclaimed, bowing her head as the Judge softly nodded at her the way he had at Chara.

"Your first piece of evidence?" He inquired, turning to Chara as she held up a notepad and brought it over to Gaster.

"Will the witness please read the top?"

"...A Comprehensive List of Pros and Cons Analyzing The Viability of My Project."

"Your project being what you intended to do with the children you called Subjects S and P, aka Sans and Papyrus?"

"Yes."

"How many...say...CONS did you think up?"

"...fifteen." Gaster said, aware that everyone in the audience was staring at him, a deep, deep blush coming to his features as he nervously tugged at his deep grey sweater. "One per page, all heavily detailing why the project was a terrible idea."

"Such as?"

"...there being no guarantee that the subjects would be able to break the Barrier, that even if they did, they'd not be able to defeat a human determined enough to harm them, that Asgore, Alphys and Toriel would despise me forever if they found out what I was doing, that I was employing the same sort of "ends justify the means" tactics that the humans used to justify their imprisonment of monsterkind, that Asgore might gain enough human souls to break the barrier and thus making the project pointless, that I might make the subjects so strong they'd kill me-"

"I think we get the gist of it!" Christa moaned, sinking into her chair and shaking her frizzy hair about, making it bounce around as Frisk gave her a gentle pat on the back, and Chara smirked.

"No further questions regarding this piece of evidence." She said, putting it down as Christa picked up the list, and then turned to the very last page.

"...Gaster, read out the only page left. The Pros." She intoned, as Gaster cleared his throat.

"Asgore will never have to kill anyone again." he said in a faint whisper of a voice, covering his face with one hand.

"Well. I can see why the pros had it." Christa remarked with a sigh. "You see, your honor? Even then, all he could think about was his best friend, and how he didn't want Asgore to be shouldered with murder on his soul."

"Well then. Shall we begin with our first witness? Papyrus?" The Judge said kindly as Christa approached him, pacing slightly in front of him.

"So, Papyrus, what can you tell me about Gaster?"

"I think he's very sad." Papyrus admitted. "He had told me about how he lost his family, and I think he never stopped blaming himself for that. I think he always feels that he needs to do harsh things because he wants to make up for the time he failed, and he wants to stop failing the people he cares about." The tall skeleton confessed. "He's not bad, really! He saved my brother's life when he accidentally blew his head open, and he taught us to cook and stuff like that!"

"So you think he's kind?"

"Yes. Because I am." Papyrus said with a big smile. "Everything my brother and I are, we got from him. So that must mean kindness came from him too. He just..." Papyrus sighed sadly. "Hid it away because he thinks if he's "strong", he'll help the people he loves. That's why he can be mean. He thinks he's being "strong". But I know he really cares about us, its just hard for him to admit that, because he thinks if he DOES admit it, he's not being strong."

Christa nodded as Chara rose up. "May I ask the witness then, a little something? Is that why he screwed those HANDPLATES into you?"

Papyrus flinched. He slowly took off the gloves he had, the big, fuzzy, reddish/orange gloves...and set them down on the witness box edge, showing off the metal handplate that read "1-P" on his slender skeletal hand. That's why he...screwed the handplates into us. Because he felt he had to be cold to be strong."

"And how else did he hurt you?" Chara inquired, now rising up and approaching Papyrus, looking a little intrigued. "Did he not..." She rushed back to her table, then got the clipboard, reading off of it. "Try to force you to kill a monster or he'd hurt your brother with Blue Magic? Blue magic he also used to beat you around?"

"...yes." Papyrus sheepishly murmured.

"Did he not crack your skull several times over JUST to force Sans to heal you, in the name of finding out how good Sans was at it?"

"Y-Yes..." Papyrus squeaked out.

"And all! ALL in the name of a so-called "greater good"." Chara remarked aloud, spreading her arms wide. "SO much cruelty, all in the name of the "GREATER GOOD". Isn't that the rallying cry of ALL monsters through history? Oh, we have to do this, it's in the name of the "greater good", we have to think about our people, who CARES what happens to others? We've got to save our country, and damn it, who cares if we lose our SOUL to do it? Who CARES if I'm drilling holes in little kids? Who CARES if I'm funneling a laser into their eye sockets? Who gives a SHIT about CUTTING INTO A CHILD WITH A ROTATING SAW, as long as I'm working for the greater...good?!"

Papyrus nervously quivered and shook, his eye sockets bulging, and he covered his face in his hands, Chara smirking over at Christa, as Frisk turned to Gaster, who was looking at Papyrus, his facial expression a blend of horror and regret before he looked down, slowly, at the table in front of him, and closed his eyes, his features looking now like someone who had died inside. Not much...but enough. Enough.

"No more questions for this witness." Chara remarked, the Judge gently looking down at Papyrus, and quietly nodding.

"You can leave the stand, my child." He offered, Papyrus sniffling a bit as he rose up, Christa looking over her notepad, taking in a deep breath before rising up anew.

"The Defense calls Garamond the Skeleton to the stand."

Gaster immediately shot up, eye sockets bulging, mouth agape as Christa turned to him, and whispered "The judge, the Heavenly Host need to understand what made you what you are. He's going to talk about the war. And how he died. Can you handle it."

Gaster took in a deep, long breath. He cringed. "I..."

But he knew he couldn't lie.

"I don't know." he finally muttered out. "I don't."

"...it'll have to do." Christa said softly, quietly, as she put a hand on his shoulder and he slightly flinched. "Hey. Don't worry. I am not going to give up on you."

"I know you won't. I know that much." Gaster muttered, quietly sighing as he shook his head. The longer the trial went on, the more he was coming face to face with what he knew, deep down, to be the ugly, hateful truth he didn't want to speak of.

That he didn't believe he deserved mercy either. And he hated himself for wishing what Papyrus said was true. That despite everything Gaster had done...that Gaster had really cared about him.

Description
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Gaster let out a long yawn, smacking his lack of lips as he squinted a bit before noticing his glasses had fallen off...and that someone had put a blanket on him. Hand-knitted, warm, fuzzy and with a big, distinctly grinning smiley face on the top. He blinked a bit, feeling over the soft texture with his hands before a nice cup of hot coffee was put down next to him, and another human sat next to him, looking cheerily at him.

This human appeared to be mixed blood, an Asian American. The skin color and shape of the face indicated a rich Asian heritage, though it was difficult for Gaster to place whether it meant Chinese, Japanese or perhaps even Korean or Taiwanese. The hair color though was a distinct brown color, and rather long, and they were wearing and overly large blue and purplish-striped long sleeve shirt, rubbing their own eyes with one hand, the other holding a cup of hot cocoa.

"For you." the human said. Gaster wasn't quite sure whether they were a boy or a girl. He supposed they looked more like a boy, but their features were rather androgynous. It was difficult to guess. "Sista Christa told me you liked coffee. Strong coffee."

Gaster raised an invisible eyebrow up, looking the mug over. It had a "World's Best Dad" label upon it, and he wryly chuckled, reaching out with his skeletal hand to sip from it.

About fifteen seconds later, he'd been propelled up into the chrystal chandelier light fixture that hung above his head, the brown-haired human cringing. "Sorry, she said to make it STRONG."

"I had no idea my fingers could still grip like this." Gaster squeaked out, clinging to the chandelier with his eye sockets bulging, his entire body quaking, bones a-rattling as the human giggled.

"Awww, you're rattlin' your bones! You skeletons are so cute when you do that. Also, I loved hearing about how you and Sans and Papyrus have tiny little hair atop your heads. Fuzzy skulls. So can I ask you a question?"

Gaster's teeth kept chattering as he SLOOOWLY let go of the chandlier, and flopped back into the chair below, moaning as he picked himself up. "A-A-Ask a-away..."

"Do you know what a skeleton uses for his hair?"

"...what?"

"Conditio-nyeh." (Conditioner).

Gaster stared at the human, who grinned sheepishly before Gaster distinctly BLUSHED, and covered his face with his bony hands. "Ohhhhhhhh. That is as terrible a pun as anything HE'S said." He groaned, thinking back to Sans. "You've most definitely been spending a lot of time with them if you've already picked up on...SANS'S horrible sense of humor. Then again, part of that must also come from me..." Gaster confessed with a sigh.

"Actually, that one came from Papyrus. Which made it really funny, he's usually the one who gets annoyed by the puns Sans makes." The human said with a chuckle as Gaster dusted himself off and rose up. "But ol' "Dunkle" Sans still has a few good ones."

"Dunkle?"

"Yep. Because if he feels up to it, he'll dunk on you. He likes doing it to me with ketchup a lot. I've learned the hard way to NEVER take any bottles whatsoever from him. Name's Frisk. Frisk M. Dreemurr!" he said, holding out a hand.

"Dreemurr?" Gaster looked confusedly at Frisk as he shook the human's hand nervously. "How? Did the king and queen adopt you as they did with Chara Vardalos?"

"Oh, they're not king and queen anymore, but yeah. They adopted me! My original mom didn't mind. I mean, she WAS dead and all and she knew Ms. Toriel was really sweet and Asgore was a sweetheart deep down."

"Who's your mother?" Gaster inquired, now a bit concerned and confused.

"Oh, you might know her as the Soul of Justice. Bonnie Hatfield-McCoy?"

Gaster flinched at this. He did know about her. He had been on his way to talk to Asgore, and had been thinking about Sans and Papyrus. He'd begun to feel the pangs of guilt sinking back into him, he'd had a sleepless night, Sans having stuck a hot knife of truth into his very gut.

The truth that he thought HE had no choice. That he HAD to keep hurting Sans and Paps, had to keep making them stronger through pain, molding them into weapons. He did have a choice. He just wasn't brave enough to make them. That thought kept digging into Gaster's mind.

But then it dissolved when Gaster walked into Asgore's room and saw the yellow soul floating in a capsule in Asgore's hand.

All his guilt had turned to horror and pity as he looked at Asgore's face. His old, dear friend who had turned a thousand years older in just a few minutes, and looked even more frail and pathetic as he stared at the floating human soul in his grasp.

"OH NO..." Gaster had murmured.

"They were so small, Gaster. They didn't even want to fight." Asgore said, his voice breaking, his body shaking, Gaster dropping the clipboard he'd brought with him. "Just a CHILD. A child, like my..." Asgore trailed off.

"L-Let me look at it!" Gaster said quickly, taking the capsule away, peering at the container, at the Soul of Justice. He flinched. Inside his own soul, he could faintly see a brown-haired young teen who had been very clearly weakened from constant assaults by other monsters...and finally, at last, had her heart and chest crushed by a swift blow from the blunt end of Asgore's trident. For a brief moment, he saw her eyes...and they were as sunken and dead as Asogre's was right now.

Gaster had been disgusted with what his dear friend was being driven to. All in the name of setting monsterkind free. This was killing him. This was dissolving Asgore's very soul.

He had sworn, then that he would not fail. And so he'd come up with another possibility. Looking into not just simply breaking the barrier...but breaking through space and time. If he could only go back in time...keep the barrier from ever going up...

It hadn't worked out that way. And now he was standing in front of that young teen's child?

"I...imagine you must hate monsters."

"Monsters are people, and people make mistakes." Frisk said with a sigh. "I mean...a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Me included. Nearly everyone in the Underground took a swing at me at some point, and I died a WHOLE bunch of times, but...well, when you have DETERMINATION, when you can go back and fix what went wrong, you can either become two things." He said as he led Gaster towards the door to the library.

"What are those?"

"Very kind, because all the pain you endured made you open your heart, and feel for those who hurt, to want to make sure others don't hurt, to do things right...or you get very cruel, because you feel nothing matters, and its all just a game, so...do whatever you want. You can just RESET it. Doesn't matter if it's all changed back to the way it was at the end." Frisk confessed. "I ended up being the first thing. I didn't want to kill, and I didn't want to be killed."

"You can't be more then eleven years old." Gaster said, looking Frisk over. "That must have been traumatic..." He mumbled, looking slightly away, feeling the faint jolt of past horror rising, and for a second, he was a little babybones again, and his brother's dust was sifting through his fingers.

"Which is why Sans and Frisk have much in common." Gaster heard Christa's voice ring out as he stared, seeing Christa adjusting her glasses, and gesturing at a glittering road that led towards what appeared to be an enormous courtroom off in the distance, with a roof made of the soft starlight of the night sky. Rays of light were beaming down all around them from a beautiful sun as tender classical music filled their ears, and Christa escorted the two towards the courtroom. "When one's confronted with a horrible situation, there's only two reactions that make sense. Laughter, or tears. And laughter, after all, is nature's anesthesia..."

"Because tears hurt too much." Frisk finished, slightly hanging his head as he put his hands in his pants pockets, Gaster slightly turning to look away.

"You two are very OLD...for ones so young." Gaster finally said at last as Christa smiled a bit and patted Frisk's shoulders.

"We have a lot in common. Perseverance and Determination are like brother and sister. Both involve striving towards the future, a sense of not wanting to give up, similar in a way to Justice. Justice always wants to do what's fair and just and keeps trying no matter what. Peseverance always wants to do what's smart and intelligent. And Determination is always about doing what one thinks is right." Christa said with a smile. "We've had so much time to talk up here and we think we've got a good defense for you. You're going to need it, since Chara is the prosecutor."

"CHARA?!" Gaster exclaimed.

Chara. Yes, indeed. Inside the pearly walls of the courtroom as Gaster sat at the defense table, the prosecution on the other side, there she stood. A brown-haired young girl, wearing a long-sleeve green shirt with yellow stripes running through it, her face so rosy red, and with eyes...eyes so deep brown they were almost red with such a "delightful" smile on her angelic features. Such a little cutie. Such a little...angel...

"...hello, Chara." Gaster grumbled a bit, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses as the many, many throngs of people in the gallery sat watching, Chara cheerily grinning at Gaster before turning to the judge, Gaster gulping nervously. There was absolutely no mistaking who this person was. He knew exactly who it was. The greatest judge of all.

"Your honor."

"Is the prosecution and the defense ready?" The Judge remarked softly, calmly laying his hands on his beautifully sanded wooden podium as Gaster turned to Christa, who had Frisk give her a snazzy metal clipboard, Chara holding up her own.

"Yes, your Honor!"

"The prosectuion may begin opening remarks."

"It's simple, your honor. Very simple. This is a waste of a life. An abysmal waste of a life. Gaster had chance after chance, day after day to do the right thing, and he failed miserably. He tortured two children for months, even years on end. He lied to his friends, and almost broke open the space-time continuum with his foolish experiments. This man does not deserve your Mercy. He lost that right a long, long time ago." Chara said, slamming the metal clipboard down onto the table before her. "GUILTY. That's all I have to say!"

Christa rose up, clearing her throat, as Gaster nervously kneaded his hands, then looked over at the Witness box, seeing Papyrus, and the fear and nervousness and terror he had seemed to faintly dissolve at the soft smile of his "firsborn's" face.

"Wing Ding Aster, better known as Gaster, is a victim himself. A former human tragically murdered at a young age, taken in and raised as a monster in a time of war. Taken from his first family, then from his second, all he had left to hold onto, his only rock, were Asgore and Toriel, and then, after that, Ms. Alphys. He wanted his people to be freed from the Underground, and to alleviate the agony of his dear friends, to spare them the cruel task of continuing to murder humans in the name of claiming their souls and breaking the Barrier! All that he has done has been in the name...of Love. Love for his friends, love for his "family", love of the life he once had that he wanted so badly to reclaim. There's a tiny flower, a little speck of green, a tiny piece of Love within his soul, and it should be nourished and encouraged, not just stamped out. Give him a second chance. Not Guilty!" Christa proclaimed, bowing her head as the Judge softly nodded at her the way he had at Chara.

"Your first piece of evidence?" He inquired, turning to Chara as she held up a notepad and brought it over to Gaster.

"Will the witness please read the top?"

"...A Comprehensive List of Pros and Cons Analyzing The Viability of My Project."

"Your project being what you intended to do with the children you called Subjects S and P, aka Sans and Papyrus?"

"Yes."

"How many...say...CONS did you think up?"

"...fifteen." Gaster said, aware that everyone in the audience was staring at him, a deep, deep blush coming to his features as he nervously tugged at his deep grey sweater. "One per page, all heavily detailing why the project was a terrible idea."

"Such as?"

"...there being no guarantee that the subjects would be able to break the Barrier, that even if they did, they'd not be able to defeat a human determined enough to harm them, that Asgore, Alphys and Toriel would despise me forever if they found out what I was doing, that I was employing the same sort of "ends justify the means" tactics that the humans used to justify their imprisonment of monsterkind, that Asgore might gain enough human souls to break the barrier and thus making the project pointless, that I might make the subjects so strong they'd kill me-"

"I think we get the gist of it!" Christa moaned, sinking into her chair and shaking her frizzy hair about, making it bounce around as Frisk gave her a gentle pat on the back, and Chara smirked.

"No further questions regarding this piece of evidence." She said, putting it down as Christa picked up the list, and then turned to the very last page.

"...Gaster, read out the only page left. The Pros." She intoned, as Gaster cleared his throat.

"Asgore will never have to kill anyone again." he said in a faint whisper of a voice, covering his face with one hand.

"Well. I can see why the pros had it." Christa remarked with a sigh. "You see, your honor? Even then, all he could think about was his best friend, and how he didn't want Asgore to be shouldered with murder on his soul."

"Well then. Shall we begin with our first witness? Papyrus?" The Judge said kindly as Christa approached him, pacing slightly in front of him.

"So, Papyrus, what can you tell me about Gaster?"

"I think he's very sad." Papyrus admitted. "He had told me about how he lost his family, and I think he never stopped blaming himself for that. I think he always feels that he needs to do harsh things because he wants to make up for the time he failed, and he wants to stop failing the people he cares about." The tall skeleton confessed. "He's not bad, really! He saved my brother's life when he accidentally blew his head open, and he taught us to cook and stuff like that!"

"So you think he's kind?"

"Yes. Because I am." Papyrus said with a big smile. "Everything my brother and I are, we got from him. So that must mean kindness came from him too. He just..." Papyrus sighed sadly. "Hid it away because he thinks if he's "strong", he'll help the people he loves. That's why he can be mean. He thinks he's being "strong". But I know he really cares about us, its just hard for him to admit that, because he thinks if he DOES admit it, he's not being strong."

Christa nodded as Chara rose up. "May I ask the witness then, a little something? Is that why he screwed those HANDPLATES into you?"

Papyrus flinched. He slowly took off the gloves he had, the big, fuzzy, reddish/orange gloves...and set them down on the witness box edge, showing off the metal handplate that read "1-P" on his slender skeletal hand. That's why he...screwed the handplates into us. Because he felt he had to be cold to be strong."

"And how else did he hurt you?" Chara inquired, now rising up and approaching Papyrus, looking a little intrigued. "Did he not..." She rushed back to her table, then got the clipboard, reading off of it. "Try to force you to kill a monster or he'd hurt your brother with Blue Magic? Blue magic he also used to beat you around?"

"...yes." Papyrus sheepishly murmured.

"Did he not crack your skull several times over JUST to force Sans to heal you, in the name of finding out how good Sans was at it?"

"Y-Yes..." Papyrus squeaked out.

"And all! ALL in the name of a so-called "greater good"." Chara remarked aloud, spreading her arms wide. "SO much cruelty, all in the name of the "GREATER GOOD". Isn't that the rallying cry of ALL monsters through history? Oh, we have to do this, it's in the name of the "greater good", we have to think about our people, who CARES what happens to others? We've got to save our country, and damn it, who cares if we lose our SOUL to do it? Who CARES if I'm drilling holes in little kids? Who CARES if I'm funneling a laser into their eye sockets? Who gives a SHIT about CUTTING INTO A CHILD WITH A ROTATING SAW, as long as I'm working for the greater...good?!"

Papyrus nervously quivered and shook, his eye sockets bulging, and he covered his face in his hands, Chara smirking over at Christa, as Frisk turned to Gaster, who was looking at Papyrus, his facial expression a blend of horror and regret before he looked down, slowly, at the table in front of him, and closed his eyes, his features looking now like someone who had died inside. Not much...but enough. Enough.

"No more questions for this witness." Chara remarked, the Judge gently looking down at Papyrus, and quietly nodding.

"You can leave the stand, my child." He offered, Papyrus sniffling a bit as he rose up, Christa looking over her notepad, taking in a deep breath before rising up anew.

"The Defense calls Garamond the Skeleton to the stand."

Gaster immediately shot up, eye sockets bulging, mouth agape as Christa turned to him, and whispered "The judge, the Heavenly Host need to understand what made you what you are. He's going to talk about the war. And how he died. Can you handle it."

Gaster took in a deep, long breath. He cringed. "I..."

But he knew he couldn't lie.

"I don't know." he finally muttered out. "I don't."

"...it'll have to do." Christa said softly, quietly, as she put a hand on his shoulder and he slightly flinched. "Hey. Don't worry. I am not going to give up on you."

"I know you won't. I know that much." Gaster muttered, quietly sighing as he shook his head. The longer the trial went on, the more he was coming face to face with what he knew, deep down, to be the ugly, hateful truth he didn't want to speak of.

That he didn't believe he deserved mercy either. And he hated himself for wishing what Papyrus said was true. That despite everything Gaster had done...that Gaster had really cared about him.