(TN by Fenic)
(TN by Parking_External_182)
“A hungry man can’t see right or wrong. He just sees food.”
Pearl S. Buck
Horror Sans, The Underground psychopathic skeleton.
Starved Eggman, Sonic’s arch-enemy turned mass devourer
Are you hungry? If so, how hungry? Gluttony will consume us all, the endless need to eat. What if we took your favourite character and made them so hungry, they’ll do horrible things? So come along to Saul’s VS blog to find out who would win a DEATH BATTLE!!!!
Before We Go Anywhere
This is going to be super difficult to define given that both are Creepypasta/ Fan Comic characters (It’s partly the reason why people don’t want them on DB). Please give this segment a read before you do anything.
Horrortale canonically takes place after the neutral ending of Undertale, Horror Sans is an alternative version of regular Sans, meaning that we will be giving the skeleton his powers and abilities alongside relevant scaling from Undertale. As for Horrortale-specific canon, we’ll be looking at the Sour-Apple-Studios comic. We’ll also be looking at the game (Which doesn’t have much but does contain content we can make into gifs), and Sour Apple’s Twitter, YouTube, and Deviantart for any possible statements or artwork.
Now for Starved Eggman, this is very tricky as Starved content is all over the place and difficult to even find. According to one of Starved OG's creators, his villain's Wiki page provides a synopsis of his original story. We’ll be using any media that pertains to this specific narrative, we will also be scaling to the events of Sonic 1 as that story canonically happens the same as before Starved. Not only that, we’ll be scaling Starved to the events of Tails Adventure, which canonically happened before the events of Sonic 1.
WARNING
This blog isn’t for the faint of heart. Horrortale has some disgustingly gorey art and some of it will be used for images throughout the blog (For example, San’s strength image) If you don’t believe you can stomach the content (heh) feel free to click away now. I won’t blame you, and I’ll see you soon again, hopefully.
Credit
This section is dedicated to every blog we use in our research, so people are credited properly. Please check out the original work below.
Sans VS The Judge (Ginfinity Matchups)
Asgore vs Rando (DDB Blogs, had direct involvement in)
Background
Horror Sans
UNDERTALE. A cultural phenomenon that you’ve seen, played, or heard of. But what happens after you switch the game off? What happens to the world when you, the player, leave it? Horrortale answers that question, not in the way you’d think.
Horror Sans has the same origin as normal Sans. Nobody knows how he got to Snowdin alongside Papyrus and was known as the slacker of the town. Sure, he worked as a sentry and a hot dog vendor, but he didn’t care for his jobs. His brother? Papyrus? He was loved by all. Sans also met a mysterious woman behind a door known as Toriel, ex-queen to the Underground, and former husband of King Asgore. She made Sans promise to protect any human who would leave the ruins. Sans would agree, although, this was quite possibly the worst mistake of his life. When Frisk fell, they began to kill monsters. Not enough to where Sans would take action, but more in a self-defence type of way. When Frisk got to the barrier and fought King Asgore, Flowey (a murderous flower) appeared and killed the King. It took all six human souls and became Omega Flowey. Frisk fought, defeated, and spared Flowey. Frisk then left the Underground, leaving it without its king.
With a vacant spot in the underground, Toriel attempted to take back the throne but was promptly banished back into the Ruins to let the human survive. Undyne, the head royal guard member, was made into a queen. She wanted revenge, and so did the monsters. If another human fell, they would be killed on the spot, and the barrier would open. Undyne and the monsters would storm, genociding humanity, and reaping the rewards. For a few years, Monster Kind was surviving, until the CORE broke.
The CORE was everything to the Underground. Power was gone, and the air was unfiltered. And most importantly? Monsters would begin to starve. The CORE harnessed and powered all the magic in the underground. Alphys didn’t know how to fix it, so she called on anyone with technological knowledge to fix it. Sans didn’t care, until Grillby began to scream in pain, his face constantly being burnt. He would show up to The CORE with insider blueprints on the machine, giving them to Undyne, hoping she could fix them. But as he left, Alphys stared at him, something that shook Sans to his core. Later on, Sans would hear a convocation from an echo flower between Alphys and Undyne. Alphys knew of a solution. If they removed Sans's eye, it would jumpstart The CORE, saving monsters. Alphys wanted to force the eye out of Sans, Undyne didn’t want to, they were friends.
But do friends matter when people start starving? When a mother watches her child turn to dust in front of her? Undyne began to go insane, developing a version of Alphys to help her through these issues, to convince her that forcing Sans's eye out of his socket was the moral thing to do. When Sans showed up at The CORE, he would offer another solution, but Undyne wasn’t in the mood to hear them. Alongside two royal guard members, Undyne overpowered and cracked Sans's skull, removing his eye. Assuming he was dead, Undyne had her guards take him out back, ready to bury him. But he wasn’t dead. He got up and killed the two guards who tried to bury him, storming back into The CORE, and going to the real Alphys. Alphys showed him that the eye worked, it powered up The CORE, and that she didn’t regret a thing, even if Sans killed her. What did Sans do? Destroy The CORE and make Alphys insane.
Going back to Snowdin, Horror was turned into the monster we know today. He stated that Undyne had placed a new policy in place. They would no longer hunt Humans for their souls but for food. It was a way to spite the Queen, and perhaps, keep them down here. As months went by, Sans became even more sadistic, removing parts of humans that fell into the Underground, working with Toriel to do so. The world now had a new motto. Eat, or be eaten.
That’s when Aliza fell. With the help of Flowey, she made her way through the underground, getting past the now-insane Toriel and making her way to Snowdin. Sans introduced himself with an old gag, the hand-spike handshake. Yeah, he wasn’t a great guy, giving her up to his brother, Papyrus. Sans went along with Papyrus’s puzzles, despite his depression, and watched Aliza die. Luckily, like Frisk, she could come back from death and try again. After dying, eating human flesh, Aliza was led to Grillby’s, where she was cooked on a grill and thrown through the window by some monsters. Sans went into a hunger-induced rage, removing the arm of Aliza and trying to eat her, despite him not wanting to eat humans.
After the Queen showed up, Aliza pretended to be Sans's daughter, and having a brief argument with his brother, Aliza was onto the final test. Sans had to step away, his hunger pains were getting to him, alongside his depression. He sat in Grillbys and lamented on how life wasn’t worth living anymore. Aliza also crawled into an oven and cooked herself alive for the final test, which sent Papyrus into a hunger, causing her to knock him out. Sans arrived back at the house, still as hungry as ever, ready to eat her. Then, Aliza offered her food, something far more organic. Sans was confused, why was Aliza being nice to him? He tore her arm off, tried to eat her, and killed her multiple times, but she was still nice. Despite this question, Aliza was allowed to stay in Snowdin for both standing up to the Queen and solving the puzzle.
Until Toriel left the ruins and went to Papyrus. You see, Aliza had awoken something inside of Toriel, the desire to protect her people. Toriel wants Papyrus to kill Aliza, afraid that Undyne will eventually discover who she is, removing the soul and breaking the barrier. The war against humanity will happen, a pointless genocide, the death of many. Toriel wants Papyrus to create a deadly trap, one that’ll keep her dead. Papyrus then goes down to Sans and….
We don’t know. All we see is Sans in Waterfall with Aliza.
That’s where Horrortale has ended for now (but is still in the works) Will Sans go through and help kill Aliza? Will her act of kindness perhaps spark the loveable jokester back into action? Or will he fall into true despair and consume her flesh? Only time will tell in this horrifying world.
Starved Eggman
“Endure it, Little Fox. Then we can dine on food untainted by sin!”
The Story of Sonic is a classic tale about nature rebelling against the evil force of industrialization. Countless times has team Sonic defeated the evil dr Ivo Robonitk, sending his plans for mechanical world domination to dust. But let's rewind the clock a little, because this time the tale goes differently.
It was after the events of Sonic One, that the infamous blue hedgehog had defeated Robotnik for the first time. The genius Doctor was searching through his destroyed base of operations, trying to put what he could together for his inevitable return. However, while he was searching he noticed something, the dead body of a Flicky on the ground, its body burned from a Badnik encounter. Out of morbid curiosity, Robotnik ate the dead creature and changed forever. He became infatuated with the smell of flesh and grew an obsession with sustaining himself with as much meat as possible.
To complete his newfound task, Robotnik began a new invasion of Little Planet, but this time he did things differently. He modified his infamous Badniks with new mechanics that let them capture and cook Mobians to bring them right to him. This includes a certain metal Sonic model, who was completely remade into a new beast of a bot called Furnace. With his new brutal strategy, Robotnik made quick work of the world, devouring anyone that stood in his way.
Over time, Robotnik's mania started to change him physically, his skin slowly began to rot and he burned himself completely after punching his face into the furnaces he cooked with, however, this couldn’t stop him and his hunger, nothing could.
Eventually, Sonic gets wind of Eggman's plans and sets out to stop him again. Sonic would meet the pink hedgehog Amy for the first time, but their introduction would be immediately darkened when Furnace suddenly attacks. Sonic had to watch as Furnace killed and cooked Amy right in front of him, with no chance of saving her. Much later, Sonic would arrive at Stardust Speedway to confront Furnace again. Furnace would challenge Sonic to a race, one he accepted with pride. Sonic would take the lead against Furnace but was confronted by Starved in his eggmobile. As Sonic taunted the scientist, Starved had Furnace set a trap at the end of the race that killed the Blue Hedgehog instantly.
Having finally defeated his rival after so long, Starved was overjoyed. Starved treated the Blur burr's corpse like a prized trophy, storing it in his lair to eat on special occasions. After this achievement, Robotnik hatched a plan to further his culinary conquest. He acquired the magical time stones and used them to constantly rewind time after he ate something, that way he could just eat it again. It was an infinite cycle of hunger and consumption, one that Starved thought would continue forever. However he discovered one last loose end, the fox Tails putting up a last-ditch effort to fight against him. Starved had one last creature he craved to be his meal, would he succeed? Well, that depends on who tells the tale.
Experience
Horror Sans
Sans has a reputation for being a lazy, no-good prankster back in the normal timeline. But, Sans has far more going for him than that. Even before the events of Horrortale, Sans is one of the few monsters who understand the timeline shifts of his verse. Not only that, but Horrortale shows that he’s had some hand in building the CORE, giving the plans to Alphys after it runs out of power.
Sans is known for dirty tactics and using his strongest attacks first, and as the Underground got worse, Sans became a much more brutal fighter. He’s able to set bone traps and coordinate strikes to kill people who dare step over them. He’s fought and matched Undyne, alongside other Royal Guard members. He even drove Alphys mad.
After he transitions into Horror Sans, we don’t see him fight, although he’s shown to still be capable of many of the same powers. It’s not that Horror Sans can’t fight, it’s that he usually kills anyone who stands against him in one shot or scares them away.
Starved Eggman
Having the same origins as our classic Eggman, Starved has a very similar experience. He's already battled Team Sonic and attempted to take over all of Mobius. Not to mention he’s an absolute genius with an IQ of 300, and he is responsible for the creation of all his robots and technology. After his transformation, he shows far greater success in his plans. He conquered and enslaved all of Little Planet without issue. He also managed to defeat Sonic once and for all by setting up a trap with Furnace.
Equipment
Horror Sans
Hand Spike
As a horrible prank, Sans uses a Hand Spike on Aliza, causing her to bleed
Phone
San’s phone. Papyrus is called Sock Police
Cleaver
Although an iconic weapon, Horror rarely uses it, only when he’s truly hungry have we seen him whip this out.
Starved Eggman
Egg Mobile
Starved retains his classic round vehicle, although he hasn’t used it in conjunction with any other mechs. Regardless, it's very useful for transportation, easily keeping up with Sonic in a chase.
Badniks
Badniks are a robot army Eggman created and used himself since his first invasion. However, after his transformation into Starved, he modified them a bit to capture and cook animals for his consumption. Regardless he should still have access to all the variants of the original game which include the following.
Moto Bug: These round bots with one wheel are known for slowly strolling back and forth, no seriously that's it.
Buzz Bomber: Flying units capable of firing an explosive blast from their stingers.
Batbrain: Bat-like robots that camp on ceilings.
Spikes: Basically just moto bugs but with spikes on top.
Newtron: These chameleon robots can turn invisible, as well as spit energy blasts or shoot rockets depending on their color.
Roller: They look like armadillos and roll at high speeds.
Crabmeat: Crab-like bots that charge up and fire energy projectiles from their claws
Caterkiller: These robots are multi segmented and will scatter their bodies all over the place unless you destroy their heads.
Ball Hog: Pig-like robots that jump in place and lob bombs.
BurroBot: Mole-like bots that dig through the ground with drills.
Chomper: Robotic piranhas that attack in and from the water.
Jaws: Big shark robots that swim around and bite stuff
Bomb: robotic bombs with legs that are definitely not just bomb-ombs why would you think that.
Uni Uni: Weird floating spheres surrounded by several floating spikes to defend itself.
Unidasu: They are just the Uni Uni but a different colour.
Furnace
To satisfy his hunger, Starved created a new hyper-specific version of Metal Sonic. His goal was simple, to trap and cook the biggest Mobians with the large fire contained in his chest. He was eventually tasked with cooking Sonic the Hedgehog himself, which he did succeed in. Much like the classic metal Sonic, Furnace is very intelligent and loyal to Eggman. He also shares some of the same attributes such as flight and sharp claws. The furnace in his chest gives him a limited amount of pyrokinesis, being able to shoot fireballs and even a flamethrower-like stream.
Time Stones
After his conquest, Starved acquired the powerful Time Stones. As the name implies, these gave him the power to completely control the flow of time. Starved used these specifically to rewind time before his meals were eaten, allowing him to consume them again and again in an infinite cycle.
Powers And Abilities
Horror Sans
Monster Physiology
What is a monster? Well, from what we know from Undertale, monsters are beings who are made of magic and lack physical matter. All monsters have a soul, which makes up one's being. When a soul is gone, you die.
Horrortale introduces the concept of hunger. After the CORE shut down, monsters began to go crazy and starve. When a young girl and her mother go to Undyne for help, she physically crumbles to dust in her mother’s arms. Despite this, we don’t know what keeps monsters fed or how long it takes for them to turn to dust.
Although it’s stated that magic is weakened due to the CORE shutting down, this shouldn’t affect anything debate-wise for Sans, as his eye is as powerful as the CORE (see later segments)
Bone Creation
A classic ability of our skeleton friend, Sans can create bones to attack foes. Regular Sans has displayed long rows of bones, bones that randomly appear, and Blue Bones that’ll damage those who move through them (The key is standing still). Not only that, but these bones can affect the text boxes, dealing physical damage to the target. Horror himself has displayed expect Bone Creation, such as sprouting multiple at once after hearing a scream, placing them on an object, and a third example I won’t forget.
An interesting fact about Horror Sans bones is that he can conjure them through walls. When Aliza attempted to escape through the Ruins, Toriel called out to Sans, who activated a trap to impale her. These bones are mighty powerful, implied to have killed Toriel if she didn’t stop running.
They can also reflect attacks. Weird, but, sure.
Teleportation
Horror uses teleportation to get out of tricky situations. Canon Sans describes these as ‘Shortcuts’. The most prominent of these is his taking the player to Grillby’s, showing that his teleportation works on at least one other. But Sans uses shortcuts all the time, here’s a compilation of them.
Horror does have fatal weaknesses with his teleportation, the fact that it can be prevented by someone grabbing him. This Royal Guard was able to stop Sans by grabbing onto him, and he was seemingly unable to teleport when being stabbed by him. Undyne was able to keep him pinned down with her Green Soul attack, which bound the target to the spot.
Gaster Blasters
Dubbed Gaster Blasters, these large skeleton heads fire a concentrated beam of energy that deals high damage. Sans can summon multiple at once (as seen during the end of his special attack) to deal large AOE damage.
Telekinesis
Just like in his original form, Horror Sans can telekinetically throw people, as seen by him blasting Undyne back. He’s not afraid to use this, as seen against guard members who attempt to pin him down. We’ve also seen this demonstrated on objects, such as reflecting Undyne’s spear back into her eye.
When Sans truly snaps, the fight is over before it even begins. He’s been shown to pop heads like balloons when provoked enough.
Karma
Not too dissimilar to his original self, Sans attacks inflict ‘karma’ onto targets. This drains HP slowly.
Madness Inducement
His most mysterious ability, Horror drove Alphys mad. She went from fully conscious, able to explain herself, to babbling out random phrases. How Horror did this is unknown, but we know it took place over a few seconds.
Immortality
Removing the eye was supposed to be a fruitful endeavour that would benefit the Underground. In reality? It was nothing more than a trap. You read that right, folks. As long as the eye is alive, Sans cannot die. The act of removing his eye realistically should have killed the skeleton, but he was able to revive himself after a few minutes of being down.
Fourth Wall Awareness
Sans has strange knowledge on the fourth wall. He’s able to tell how many times Frisk has died and can keep his memories on resets. Horror has displayed certain levels of Fourth Wall Awareness with Aliza’s resets.
Time Stop
His strangest, yet most consistent ability. Sans has displayed numerous examples of stopping time. His most notable example is the convocation in Grillby’s. We can tell time has stopped because Grillby’s flames have stopped moving. There are a few other examples of Sans using his time stop, such as in his final attack.
As for Horror using Time Stop, it’s been pretty debatable if he’s used it. We’ve seen him use something similar in the Waterfall game, where the same sound effect that’s linked with his time stop is used.
Starved Eggman
Cooking Skills
Starved is a master of the culinary arts, having self-taught himself and all his robots to perfectly cook Mobians. Starved makes sure nothing nutritious goes raw or is wasted.
Resistances
Horror Sans
Fire Manipulation: Can be around Grillby for extended periods, who is ever-burning, even having physical drops of fire drip onto his face causes no damage. Not only that, but Hotlands is hot enough to evaporate water.
Starved Eggman
Fire Manipulation: Starved plunged his head into Furnace, eating out of the robot, which is what gave him his burnt appearance. While this has caused his skin to burn, there’s been no other damage.
Feats
Horror Sans
Overall
Prevented Undyne from using his eye to power up the CORE
Went insane after his eye was removed
Tricked Snowdin into eating humans instead of taking souls
Helps Aliza, in his own…special way
Might become a better person thanks to Aliza’s kindness
Still loves his brother
Depressed, more than canon
Power
Takes Aliza’s arm off like a drumstick
San’s power is directly stated to be able to jump-start the CORE, which powers the entire underground. (223.12 Kilotons of TNT)
When this eye is later removed from Sans, we see it power up Snowdin (and the rest of the Underground)
We know that the Underground contains at least 10k residents thanks to Mettaton’s boss fight.
Durability
Survives having his eye removed
Within the game, his defence stat is equal to his attack (See before verdict)
Speed
Blocks Undyne’s spear
Dodges attacks in his fights
Starved Eggman
Overall
Conquered all of Little Planet
Became a master chef
Killed and ate Amy, Sonic, and a massive amount of Mobians
Acquired the time stones and created an infinite cycle of eating
Power
Durability
Can survive plunging his face into Furnace, fully lighting himself on fire.
Speed
Scaling
Horror Sans
Pre-Horrortale Monsters
Before everything went wrong, the Underground was a peaceful place. Sans should be comparable to many of his non-insane peers for a few reasons. He’s shown to match them pre-CORE shutdown, even killing regular monsters with his abilities. He should be comparable to neutral Frisk, who could harm these monsters, etc.
Ice wolf can throw ice blocks (64,383 joules)
Undyne can suplex a boulder
Undyne is pretty fast (Mach 3)
Mettaton breaks through a wall
Mettaton can kick well (0.04 tons)
Undyne can survive her house going up in flames (7 Megajoules)
Post Horrortale Monsters
After the underground lost power and everyone went hungry, the monsters became insane. Sans should still be comparable to them through his fight with Undyne, and scaling to Aliza, who he has physically overpowered.
Undyne can remove Alphy’s flesh (TW: Vomit)
Undyne survived having half her head removed by one of her spears
Neutral Frisk and Aliza
The human who ruined it all and the one who attempts to fix their mistakes, Frisk and Aliza should both be comparable to Sans. Sans has killed Aliza on multiple occasions and tore her arm off during his feral encounter. Neutral Frisk and Undyne should be comparable, with Sans matching Undyne in their fight
This was hard enough to leave a permanent dent in his head
Had her arm removed by Horror
Frisk can push a big rock
Frisk can survive hot lands heat (0.2 Tons)
Frisk can dodge the great dogs barks (187.35m/s)
Frisk can keep up with Tsunderplane (Mach 3-4)
Frisk can stack sea teas to gain a speed boost (Mach 3-6)
Starved Eggman
Classic Sonic characters
Since the events of Sonic One and Tails Adventure canonically happened the same for Starved, he should scale to feats from these games. Starved being able to rip off Tail's tail himself shows he can likely scale physically himself strength-wise. His Eggmobile and army also should cleanly scale in speed.
Tails can react to and weave himself through laser cannons (48% SOL)
Not only are these referred to as laser cannons in both files and game guides they lack force and travel in a straight line
Weaknesses
Horror Sans
After Frisk went through and murdered many monsters, Sans grew depressed, even more so after finding out Alphys wanted to kill Sans to power the Underground. He would go missing for days at a time, scribble on walls, and eventually become crazy enough to be considered psychotic by many of his peers. Or, you know, considered a terrorist by them.
After the instant that caused him to lose his eye, Sans became a lost cause, enjoying psychotic pranks and truly lacking empathy. Sans can also be sent feral by the smell of cooking flesh, which is what happened to Aliza shortly before her hand was torn off.
He also has the classic Sans weakness of getting tired in battle. Regular Sans will fall asleep during combat, which is consistent with his Horror Counterpart. During his fight with Undyne, Sans was unable to teleport away with how tired he was and eventually collapsed.
Starved Eggman
Starved at the end of the day, is merely just a normal human that lost it. As a result, he’s not immortal and can be killed just like any other person. He’s also highly reliant on his tech to get anything done. Without it, he’s a sitting duck with no direct fighting experience.
Before The Verdict
Giving San’s his eye
The most contention behind the blog, should San’s get his eye. From our research, yes. For one, we don’t know what happens to San’s eye when he destroys the CORE. Does he take it? Destroy it? We don’t have a conclusive answer. Given that Sans hasn’t died from his lack of eating, and can take physical hits from Papyrus, it can be assumed the eye is still existing.
Then we also have how DEATH BATTLE and, to a certain extent, my blogs work. We’re looking at a character at the pinnacle of their power. By losing the eye, he would lose access to his most powerful state. Sour Apple confirmed on Twitter that by losing the eye, Sans lost access to his Gaster Blasters.
Not only that, but Sans would be unkillable without it in the battle. Starved wouldn’t be able to destroy the eye, which means that he could just keep coming back from most wounds. So, to create a fair debate, and give Sans the pinnacle of his powers, we will be giving him his eye.
Horror San’s Durability
What can be a little confusing to readers is Sans's durability. Of course, in regular Undertale, he’s the weakest character by his given stats and will die in one hit. But Horror has been stabbed by guards and smacked by Papyrus.
Well, from where we stand, Sans should have relative durability to his peers. He’s more powerful than all of them (see below segment) and tanks some unordinary hits. He shouldn’t scale to his Kiloton's level of power.
Horror San’s Scales Above Everyone?
Yes.
It’s very simple. The CORE powers all the magic to the underground, magic is what’s used for monster attacks. While monsters still can attack when The CORE is shut down, characters are noticeably much weaker than their UT counterparts. Not only that but narratively, Sans's eye is the strongest thing within Horrortale.
Also, he just upscales from Undyne, and is shown to be a match for neutral Frisk and Asgore, the two “top tiers.” of neutral Undertale.
Artwork
“Blogs are too filled with artwork.” - Saul, the random quote he made up but heard somewhere.
This blog is kinda dedicated to Parking External, my great friend who enjoys this matchup. His thumbnails and artwork are truly underrated, so here are some of his thumbnails and comic-style interactions he made.
Here’s a little meme video he made when I made a voting fight script thingy
Verdict
Stats
Not super complicated. For power, Sans destroys. Starved doesn’t have many power feats we can scale him to, the best we can scale him to is Tails tanking small explosions. Horror, however, is packing a powerful 223.12 Kiloton of TNT. We don’t need to calculate a small explosion to tell you that powering up a town is way more powerful. Even if you lose low-tier Undertale feats, Knight Knights's meteors of 6.4 Tons should be more than enough to give Sans the edge. Although it’s important to note that Sans is lacking in amazing durability feats, so Starved could likely still kill him, even with the strength edge.
Speedwise however it's a completely different story. Sans best speed feats would be scaling to Undertales various subsonic feats. However Starved’s eggmobile and his army should scale to Tails adventures, putting them at .48c. This is a massive blitz for Starved and his forces.
So overall, Sans has a major advantage in strength, while Starved has a major speed advantage
Arsenal & Abilities
Arsenal and Abilities is where this debate gets most interesting. Right off the bat, Sans is the only character to have abilities of his own. His telekinesis, Bone manipulation and Karma are very useful powers that Sans can use at any time. On the contrary, Starved’s arsenal and equipment blow Sans out of the water. While Starved can’t do much himself, he has an entire army of highly versatile robots under his command, not to mention the incredibly useful Time Stones. So who has the advantage?, Starved’s support is very useful, but Sans takes this category in a quality vs quantity situation. To start, having actual abilities yourself is always going to be significantly more advantageous than relying on support. If Horror can get Starved on his own he's a sitting duck, and lucky for him he has the tools to do exactly that. Despite the major speed gap, Sans’s AOE with his bones is a way he can get around that. His strength advantage means he’s realistically one-shotting all of Eggman's forces with this, including the Eggmobile itself. Telekinesis could very well be used to hold Starved in place, completely negating his speed advantage and allowing Sans to simply pop his head like a water balloon. That’s not to say Starved doesn't have win cons, he does. With his speed advantage, he could keep his distance and whittle Sans down over time. Sans does have a big weakness in stamina, while Starved isn't running on a time limit. Sans can counter this strategy though. His immortality with his eye guarantees his survival. Starved has no way of reasonably knowing to target the eye, and it's too tough for him to reasonably break quickly enough. Not to mention, Sans resists the fire attacks Furnace and other Badniks would be attacking him with. All these factors mean Sans would be capable of surviving the overwhelming forces he's dealing with. Sans being able to teleport would also counter Starved’s attempts to keep his distance and would prevent Sans from being cornered or held down. “But what about the Time stones?” you may be asking. On the surface these seem like an insane advantage for Starved, being able to completely control the flow of time. Plus with his speed advantage, Starved would have no problems being able to use them. However, this win con has numerous flaws. For one, Starved has never used these stones to fight anyone before, he always uses them specifically after killing and eating someone, just so he can do it again. This makes it highly unlikely he would use the stones in the fight before Horror just kills him. Even if you want to assume he does for some reason, how would these stones help him? He’s only used the stones to rewind time a little bit, which means he’d likely just be undoing some of Sans's actions, maybe even indirectly healing him. This isn't a “Time huh” situation where Starved will go back and kill baby Sans. Starved would never use the stones like that and doesn’t have the control or knowledge to pull that off anyway. The stones don't provide a way around Sans's greater durability or immortality, and Sans has ways to deal with them. His knowledge of resets would likely clue him in on any time shenanigans. And all he has to do is yoink or crush the stones with his telekinesis and they're out of the picture for good. So overall, While Starved's army and equipment are heavily useful, Sans’s immortality and powers would let him survive and deal with them.
Tertiary Factors
The first time this category has been useful.
For intelligence, both parties should be pretty comparable to each other. Sans knows Fourth-Wall occurrences such as resets, and is implied to had a hand in making the CORE. He also had a plan to take apart and remake the CORE, although, we don’t know if it would’ve worked. Alphys seems pretty determined that it wouldn’t have worked, although, she’s just as insane as Sans was at that time. As for Starved, he’s modified his Badniks, made Furnace, and generally has shown similar intelligence to Sans in creating the CORE. Of course, the CORE is on a far larger scale, so it’s a quantity vs. quality situation.
What isn’t comparable is their battle experience. Starved is fully relying on Furnace and his Badniks to fight for him, commanding an army. Horror is a one-man army, able to fight Royal Guard members and Undyne. We also know that Sans likes to go for his biggest attacks first, and would likely do the same against Starved. Not only that, but Sans can use many of his attacks from range, while any Badniks and Furnace are relying on close combat.
We also need to talk about in-character moves. While DEATH BATTLE does remove the moral restrictions on killing, it still doesn’t fully remove how a character would act during a fight. Starved is obsessed with eating and cooking his victims, either turning them into ash or taking the flesh off of their bones. While Sans has no flesh to give Starved, he still could be turned into an ash-like powder to eat. Starved is likely going to attempt to force Horror into his Furnace. When he realises this isn’t working, then he’s likely to go for a more conventional form of killing. Not only that, but Starved loves to bring creatures back with his Time Stones, reversing time to revive them. He could revive Horror and attempt to eat him again, although, he would likely identify Horror as a threat and leave him dead.
Scent, yes, scent. We have to describe the smell of Starved Eggman. Why? Cause, well, he should smell like burning flesh. Burning flesh is a known trigger for Horror Sans, it’s what caused him to remove Aliza’s arm. The smell of Starved Eggman is likely to send Horror Sans into a hunger-style frenzy. His only thoughts are to consume flesh and kill. This would make Sans lose the Battle IQ advantage he has against Starved, and could potentially make him slip up, right?
Well, perhaps, but we need to look at the context. The two times Horror Sans is sent into a hunger-style frenzy is soon after Aliza gets cooked by Grillby, and when she’s being cooked by Papyrus’s oven. While Starved likely smells like burnt flesh, he isn’t newly cooked, which means Sans is less likely to be sent into a feeding frenzy. Even then, Sans fundamentally doesn’t want to eat humans, it’s something that goes against his (fleeting) moral compass. Also, one hit from Papyrus was able to prevent him from entering such a feral state. With all of this being said, Sans is unlikely to enter a feral state during the battle, even if the possibility does exist.
Conclusion
Starved is a foe you shouldn’t scoff at. His speed, instant win-con access with Time Stones, and constant pressure against a foe who gets quickly tired would likely let any other character win. But Starved isn’t like any other character, he enjoys the hunt. He’s going to try and cook Horror, and by the time Furnace can shove that skeleton in, Sans will just be able to crush Eggman’s head. Even in the best-case scenario, Starved still has to destroy Sans and his eye to win, which is unlikely.
Horror, however, has a bunch going for him. Any one of his attacks is likely to be one-shot starved, he has ways to destroy Starved’s Time Stones and can counter the speed advantage by either telekinetically holding him or popping the doctor’s head. Given his combat experience and knowledge that he’ll have to end the fight quickly, Sans is way more likely to just instantly end the fight than Starved is.
With all of this being said, let’s see who our winner is.
Summary
Horror Sans
“Why are you being so nice to me? I just. I just don’t get it.”
Advantages:
Stronger
Has ways to remove or destroy the Time Stones through telekinesis or Bone Creation
Popping Starved’s Head is an instant win option available at any time
Telekinetically holding Starved renders the speed advantage null
Abilities are available to him at any time, isn’t relying on equipment to fight
Only total destination/destruction to the eye will put him down for good
Slightly more intelligent and way more experienced in battle
Resists Furnace’s heat
Starved is way more likely to try and cook Sans than kill him
Disadvantages:
Far slower
Lacks useful equipment
The smell of Starved could send him into a feral state, no matter how unlikely this is.
Has to end the fight quickly, or risk falling asleep
No counter to the Time Stone if used
Outnumbered, with Furnace and the Badniks applying constant pressure to Sans throughout the fight
Starved Eggman
Advantages:
Faster
Has equipment useful for the fight
Time Stones are a potential instant win option
Furnace and Badniks apply constant pressure to Sans
His smell could send Horror into a feral state, making him both easier to hit/less intelligent, although this isn’t super likely.
Sans must end the fight quickly or risk falling asleep, Starved is not on a time limit
Disadvantages:
Way weaker
Slightly less intelligent and lacks experience in combat
Relying on his equipment, he lacks any way to fight back if destroyed
Must destroy Sans entirely or destroy his eye to put him down for good
No counter to Sans popping his head
Time Stone can either be taken out of his hands with telekinesis or destroyed by San’s bones
Likely would want to cook Sans as a winning method
Sans resists Furance’s furnace and can teleport out if pushed in
The speed advantage is null if telekinetically held by Sans
Final Vote
Team Horror Sans: [2] (Saul, Fenic)
Team Starved Eggman: [0]
Winner
One More Thing
Well, thanks to Fenic for working on this short duo blog with me, it was fun. We’ll have some other small-ish projects throughout the year, so expect this to become a (semi) regular occurrence.
Also, Happy New Year. Saul’s VS blog has a bunch of ideas for this year, including my biggest passion project yet. (You won’t be seeing that till, like, July or August time)
Now, let’s sit down and talk about Shifu Splinter. I’ve got some news.
Good news indeed! Our research phase is nearly done, which means the blog is soon to wrap up. By the end of January, you guys should be seeing the release of the project. It’ll be about 25,000-30,000 words by the time we clear everything up.
So see you soon!
Great blog!
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