((A/N: Howdy! This is another one of my UT fics that I've posted here on FF, and trust me when I say the others will update soon! But first, I have some things to mention:
* UNDERTALE SPOILERS. PLEASE PLAY THE GAME IF YOU PLAN TO.
* Follows Pacifist route.
* Possible mentions of abuse and bad relationships. Violence is also expected.
* This will go through the events prior to falling into the Underground, then possible timeskip to directly after the Barrier is broken.
* The protagonist is a nonbinary young (20) adult, often mistaken as female.
* It is heavily supported that UT takes place in a single day (courtesy of nochocolate on Tumblr). This is DEFINITELY not following that theory, much apologies.
* This fic-AU is not completely original, and is a twist on EeveeChick10's fic-AU. Read theirs if you like, but it also contains heavy spoilers for Undertale. I have lovingly dubbed this AU UnderReal, thanks to "rucksfavnucka" and "someargentiniancreep" on tumblr! Thanks guys.
* Here is my final warning to play Undertale now if you plan to in the future. You won't regret it.
Now that THAT'S out of the way, let's get on with the show, DARLINGS!))
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It was just another day in the life of a college student. Classes were over, Summer Break was in full effect... On days like these, people like Frisk...
Were going to play video games.
They were the type of person to love fictional characters more than actual people, and they tended to keep to themselves at parties and fantasize about being at home.
Of course, that went for everyone that didn't have their boundaries respected: it took 18 years to get out of their parents' connections, but even in college there was no escape from the criticism and ridicule. It's been decades since a law was passed that introduced a new genderless honorific, and it seemed no one but Frisk's online friends cared about it.
The student wasn't even a fan of the honorifics -Mx.; it sounded like a disgusting placeholder- but it was the thought that counted, they supposed.
Even if absolutely no one used it around them.
Whatever. They weren't going to hear anything about it for a while.
The only reason why Frisk would leave their empty dorm room (their roommate ditched college early with his girlfriend on a cruise, as scribbled out on a used napkin that he left behind) is to shop for some more food and occasionally wash their dirty clothes in the laundry room downstairs.
Plenty of time to waste the days away on video games.
Frisk took no time in grabbing a family-size bag of Popato Chisps and a chilled can of soda, diving straight for their plush office chair and kicked up their legs in full-reclining mode, the chair swiveling back a few inches from the action. They practically punched the power button on their junky old PC tower. An obnoxious beep and seconds of the whirring of small fans in the computer engine later, and the computer screen finally showed signs of life.
After clicking through several of the icons on the grassy desktop screen, they finally got to RPGamingList, a forum-based gaming community that also was a main provider of the numerous indie games Frisk collected and -shamelessly- bought; one of those games being Undertale, an RPG that the college student had come to love over the few months it had been released. They often found themselves doodling the characters in their class notes, imagining them in scenarios, even becoming a hobbyist writer of a few ship fanfictions they posted online- with positive reviews, thankfully.
They flinched a bit as the good old UNDERTALE title screen popped up with its surprisingly-deafening SFX (Frisk immediately turned down their volume, how did it get that high up?), and they clicked "Continue" to pick up where they left off. Hotland, Left Floor 1. They were going Pacifist this run.
When they first played the game, they were surprised that the protagonist shared their namesake: Frisk. It was interesting, but the adult realized that it was probably so there was no dispute on the pronunciation of the character's name.
Made sense.
Frisk pressed the keys on their keyboard to move the character -and occasionally, their SOUL-, all the way up to the Core. Mettaton did his thing, Alphys admitted to her manupliation; it was all re-seen dialogue, nothing special. And yet, Frisk found themselves moved to tears as Alphys dashed away:
"A human SOUL isn't strong enough to cross the Barrier alone. It takes at least a human SOUL... and a monster SOUL. In order to leave, you'll have to take his SOUL.
You'll have to KILL ASGORE.
...I'm sorry."
It always pained Frisk to hurt the monsters in UNDERTALE; even in the Kill-All run they managed to complete just prior to this Pacifist run, they reset their game right after defeating Sans (grand death total of 35, better than expected). Their game SOUL was not taken by Chara, as Frisk read that happened in one of the game's forums. Luckily it didn't happen, as apparently Chara controlled the protagonist's SOUL across timelines.
Frisk boredly took a sip of their soda and finished off their bag of Chisps. When they checked their pink heart-shaped clock next to the computer screen, pale green numerals read 9:42pm.
Time for a break.
They wondered what they would do during the hour of break time they scheduled; eating wasn't the best option, since they'd do that the moment their break is over, doing the laundry was a good idea, but it sounded busy (why is that lady yelling down there?)...
How about a walk?
A walk sounded nice. There weren't that many people out on the streets at this hour, might as well see the sights while they could.
They grabbed one of the many pull string bags from their closet and went to the kitchen to stuff a water bottle and some granola bars into it, then wandering back to their desk to snatch up their phone, checking it one more time before stuffing that in the bag as well.
After changing into more "socially-accepted" clothing (and wearing the nice heart locket that they mysteriously found hanging on the coat rack on their way out) they headed out the door on their regular route to Mt. Ebott.
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It was always interesting to know that Mt. Ebott existed in Frisk's immediate area and not just in their favorite RPG, as well as finding all the nooks and crannies of the game itself- it was pretty quirky, to say the least.
It was almost a satire of real games, while still being a game itself.
Frisk always found that kind of humor funny.
Although it was always a little curious how in the Pacifist ending, before the FINAL "The End" words fully scroll up the screen, a message saying, "Free us from our torment, fulfill the prophecy..." flashes for a few frames on the screen between television-like static before disappearing and letting "The End" take its place.
Maybe it was just a final jab at the ability to reset the game. But in the back of their mind, Frisk was curious if that really WAS just another part of the game...
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They decided to wander off their usual path around the base of Mt. Ebott, opting to climb up a bit more at the opportunity of a great view of the night sky.
And so they went.
While charging through the underbrush and wayward tree branches, Frisk longingly wished they brought some sort of knife to cut through all the flora.
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Eventually, they reached the large, gaping hole in the mountainside that was supposedly created in a meteor shower thousands of years ago. If there wasn't any scientific evidence that supported that theory, Frisk would have chosen Undertale's storyline to explain it instead: that monsters were trapped down in the mountain's pit by powerful human magicians after the War.
Unfortunately, if there was any sort of magic still in existence back then, it's not around anymore.
It, heh, magically disappeared.
Frisk would have loved to study up on the science of magic rather than how computers worked, but they supposed it was for the best. Magic, while very practical, could have been a much bigger threat than technology had become, given the time.
They wiped beads of sweat from their forehead after they got to a flat part of the mountainside, digging through their pull string bag and gathering up their water bottle and snacks. They hadn't gone this far up before, and lines of shiny yellow police tape hung up a little ways upwards from where they were. They gazed down into the mouth of the abyss below them with curiosity, but knowing better than to blindly jump into it and expect to survive.
Checking their phone, it was past 10:00pm, with no connection signal. They should probably go back after they finished their resting for another round of Undertale.
Standing up quickly, they turned to wipe the dust from their pants, but their left heel stepped on something that curled around their leg and-
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They barely even had time to register they were falling before they fell off the face of the Earth, down into the abyss below.