Well, I know I shouldn't be writing yet another story while in the midst of juggling so many. But this one should be shorter than most of my works. And the idea wouldn't leave me alone. The characters, the rather colorful world, and interesting concepts of the game all combined into something that was too inspirational to ignore.
And yes, I wanted to see how a showdown between Pacifist Route Frisk and Genocide Route Frisk/Chara would turn out. The idea filled me with determination.
Quick note for my usual readers. I actually end up using stronger language in this story than I normally use. But that's because I'm quoting Sans near the end of the Genocide Route during his speech. And even then, it isn't really that bad. It would barely qualify for PG-13 by even the strictest rating system. But since I never use any strong language in my writing due to personal preference and my normal readers are probably used to that fact by now, I figured I'd mention it.
Oh, and spoilers. Spoilers for any and all routes.
But Somebody Came
Silence. Deafening and smothering silence wrapped around him. The stupid prophecy was coming true in the most horrifying manner possible. The Underground was growing empty. The Human left behind a trail of dust and silence wherever they went. Even with the knowledge that some force, an anomaly, kept twisting and rearranging the timeline so that no event was necessarily set in stone, he couldn't ignore the countless deaths anymore.
No, not countless. He'd counted them. He stood by and counted every single life lost. Neighbors… Friends… Family…
Sorrow and despair filled his Soul as he fought back the tears flooding his eyes sockets. It hurt. His brother still believed and hoped the Human could be saved right until the end. And the child, already barely recognizable as human even then, killed him without a word. Papyrus dissolved into dust and Sans just let it happen. And something inside him just broke.
It didn't matter. Sans tried to tell himself that a hundred times, trying to embrace the exhausting apathy that he was drowning in before. The anomaly would Reset everything. He couldn't remember the other timelines, but he was smart and he could detect the alterations with the partially-broken machine hidden at home. Sans knew the Human didn't cause all the changes since those started before their arrival, but Sans also knew they had the power to Save. And if they could Save, then they could Reset. All those deaths wouldn't matter because they would Reset and no one would remember. Nothing but a few nightmares would carry over. Sans told himself that as more monster were lost. It would all be undone soon enough.
But something told him that things were approaching the point of no return. If the Human didn't Reset soon, there would be no going back. If the Human didn't stop, all those deaths would remain permanent. Papyrus would be gone forever…
He tucked his hand into his coat pocket and rubbed the scrap of red scarf between his fingers. Sans pushed down all his fear, despair, and hopelessness at the situation. It was so much easier when he felt too tired and numb for events to affect him like this. He couldn't win a fight against the Human. They could reload their Save and try as many times as necessary. He literally couldn't beat them. The best he could do was throw as much power as he could and hope it would frustrate them into giving up. Otherwise… he'd die too. He'd die and they would reach that point of no return.
This was the only chance left. He couldn't stand idly by this time. Everything could be reversed and rendered meaningless, but that's what Sans wanted. He wanted a better timeline.
The Human was in New Home now, probably searching for any monsters left to slaughter. There was time before they reached the corridor before the throne room. He would face the Human there, giving them all the chances possible to Reset first. He knew a shortcut there. He just needed to wait.
He hated this. He hated everything about this. He hated the promise he made that stayed his hand for so long. He hated that the Human refused to take the second chance Papyrus offered, throwing that Mercy aside to kill him. He hated how he could only bring himself to care when things had gone too far.
Sans closed his eyes. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Something deep in his Soul, not quite a feeling and not quite a memory, told him this was wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to go for all of them.
Life on the surface with all the freed monsters was never boring. Case in point, magic.
Humanity knew they once used magic and kept trying various methods to reawakening that power. They couldn't remember how to use their magic. People had been trying for centuries. The closest they could manage was sometimes items in certain people's possession would pick up power and traits, but that mostly happened to children for some reason. And even when people gathered the children suspected to have the greatest potential for magic and tried everything they could possibly imagine to get a positive result, none of them succeeded.
Though maybe the greatest minds on the surface should have reconsidered keeping the children "donated" or "discovered" for their studies within sight of a cursed mountain that no one dared to approach. Escaping children with no other options or plans might see the appeal of disappearing or at least going somewhere no one would follow.
Frisk didn't encounter magic, real magic, until they fell down the opening of Mt. Ebott. Monsters were mostly made of magic, so they would never forget or lose the ability to use it. Humanity was mostly matter with their small amount of magic stored in their Soul. But since humans didn't need magic to maintain their body, that small amount of magic made their Souls particularly strong. Especially with some Determination.
But the world was changing as humanity and monsters exchanged information again. Humans were learning about magic again, even if most still didn't know how to access it themselves yet.
Frisk had a bit of a head start when it came to being exposed to magic. Their Soul was yanked around and attacked dozens of times during their journey through the Underground. Magic of every color wrapped around their Soul, shifting the attributes so fights became more difficult. But the closest thing to using magic they achieved on that journey was Saves and Resets. And they still didn't know for certain if that power actually counted as magic or something else. They just knew Determination made it possible.
Even after all this time, Frisk didn't know everything about the power. They didn't know why it only started when they fell into the Underground or if the other children who fell could do the same. The late night talks with Sans, the only person who knew about the multiple timelines and wasn't a talking flower, couldn't answer all their questions. Neither of them had all the answers. They knew that it took a lot of Determination to achieve, they could do it even in death, they could remember all the Saves of a timeline, and that the memories of Resets took longer to return and were imperfect. Memories of Resets came back slowly and were usually blurry or fragmented. If it was a form of magic, it was unlike anything else they'd seen.
But they were starting to learn magic since returning to surface; magic that was definitely magic. Toriel seemed eager to teach her new child and Frisk was determined to learn. They'd tried to learn the magic fire spells that Toriel used or even the simplest magic bullet patterns that the monsters could create, though Frisk certainly didn't intend to use them to hurt anyone. Toriel even tried teaching them healing magic, thinking perhaps that the more difficult form of magic would come more naturally with their temperament. But no matter what the child tried, they couldn't use the magic on others or the world. None of the techniques the monsters used worked for Frisk, so they tried something different. Rather than using magic on others, the child focused on using it on their own Soul.
Lying lazily on their bed, Frisk summoned their Soul. They ignored the uncomfortable tug as the red shape floated out. In the Underground, someone else always drew the Soul out at the start of an encounter. Now Frisk could do it on their own. They moved it back and forth a little, feeling their body pulled along by the connection. This part didn't require any practice; they knew how to maneuver their Soul after countless fights. The next part still needed work.
Taking a deep breath, they focused on the sensation of their Soul. Blue. They concentrated on the memory of facing Papyrus in the fog. He turned their Soul blue, the first magic to transform it like that. They focused on the memory of the surprising weight and how it pulled their Soul down. Frisk tried to recreate that feeling now. Blue. They knew how blue magic felt as it coated their Soul.
What did blue magic mean to them? It was gravity and control. It was loud laughter, optimism, remaining true to their beliefs, friendliness, and the smell of bones.
…It was stained glass windows, heart-broken rage, hidden strength, unexpected tricks, and the smell of ketchup and the grease from Grillby's.
Frisk closed their eyes briefly. It took time to remember the other timelines after a Reset and it was mostly fragments compared to the current one, but they remembered enough. Especially in nightmares. Frisk knew what Sans could do, both with blue magic and his other techniques. He could make their Soul decide gravity went in almost any direction rather than just down. But when Sans used his full power to attack the child, Frisk knew they deserved it. He never reached that point in this timeline and Frisk hoped he never would need to.
Finally deciding to take a break, Frisk let their Soul slip back where it belonged and sat up. They weren't sure why blue magic was so difficult. They figured out the magic to turn their Soul green, purple, and yellow. Blue shouldn't be so difficult. And yet it was.
If someone ever needed proof that Papyrus was smarter, stronger, and more skilled than what some people assumed when they met the excitable skeleton, the fact he made the dark blue shade of magic seem so easy would certainly do the trick. Of course Frisk knew Papyrus was actually amazing with magic and had better control than any other monster, able to stop his attack instantly if necessary. Growing up with Sans, with almost no defense and barely any health to protect him, learning perfect control over his magic was a requirement. Accidents could have been fatal otherwise.
Frisk ran their hands over the warm comforter beneath them, letting their thoughts drift. Their room wasn't exactly the biggest or the most impressive. In fact, it was a little smaller than the others in the house since the door opened on the short hallway that held the stairs. But they still loved it because it was their room. It didn't hold the same tragic memories of the bedroom in the cozy house in the Ruins or in the empty tomb-like version in New Home. And it held no connections to the locations of their nightmares of other timelines. This was where Frisk belonged.
So far the town didn't have a lot of buildings. Even with magic, it took time to build. One of the tricks they used to speed up relocation to the surface was to build a few larger structures for monsters to live in together and focus on individual homes later. Frisk rather liked this idea since they ended up with all their best friends and family under the same roof. The main floor was the common area shared by everyone: the kitchen (fireproofed by Alphys), the dining room (chairs of various heights included), a living room with a huge television and three large couches, a library (with the correct spelling on the door), a gym that Undyne used quite often, and an attached garage with space for multiple cars, garden tools, and anything else someone might want to drag in. The second floor held the bedrooms for Frisk, Toriel, Asgore, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys, a balcony that overlooked the living room, and the sole bathroom in the entire building.
Negotiating who got which bedroom was almost as tricky as informing humanity of their new neighbors building a town on Mt. Ebott. Frisk picked the center room, closest to the branched off hallway to the stairs and sandwiched between Sans and Alphys. Sans and Papyrus' rooms were next to each other and so were Alphys and Undyne's rooms. Frisk also knew that Alphys mostly used her room to store her belongs and spent more nights in Undyne's room than her own. And to prevent additional conflict as the pair tried to gradually move forward, Toriel and Asgore stayed at opposite ends of the house from each other. In the end, they managed to find a combination that worked for everyone. Frisk even occasionally wondered if they could continue living together even after they finished building the school, the new Grillby's, a power relay station to channel energy from the Core, and a few other buildings and necessities. It was nice having so many people around who cared about them.
But even in such a full house, their room was relatively empty still. There was a lamp in the corner, a wardrobe for their clothes, and a bed against the wall. Other than their clothes and a few items they collected from the Underground, there was only one other feature in the room. A mirror hung on the wall beyond the foot of their bed. They'd insisted on it.
Their reflection showed an eight year old child with a calm expression. They still wore their blue-and-pink striped shirt, any tears from their journey long since repaired. Their brown hair was at just the perfect length: not so short that they couldn't tie it, but not so long that it was in the way the days they left it down. They still looked exactly like they did when they first fell into the Underground.
Frisk liked the reassurance. They liked knowing that even with everything that happened, they made it through as themselves in the end rather than letting the experiences change them. That thought always filled them with Determination.
Despite everything, it's still you.
A sound simultaneously like the tearing of cloth, the shattering of glass, the screeching of twisting metal, the cracking of wood, and the crumbling of stone all combined with explosive thunder and a hollow echoing rang out, making Frisk fall off the bed. The noise seemed impossible to accurately describe beyond being loud enough to fill the whole house and giving off the impression of something breaking a little and something vanishing at the same time. And it was coming from somewhere below. Frisk heard a lot shouting and crashing as everyone else reacted to the noise in surprise, but they didn't waste time with confused questions. The child grabbed a familiar stick and old bandage from under their bed and ran out the door.
"My child? Did you hear that?" asked Toriel as they dashed past her down the stairs.
Unable to explain much to the large goat-like monster as they raced towards the front door, Frisk said, "Sorry, Mom. Basement."
"Wha—? We do not have a basement," she said, but Fisk didn't even slow.
The basement was a secret, the entrance around back and hidden by Asgore's gardening. No one else knew it existed, but Frisk and Sans didn't keep many secrets from each other. They both needed someone to confide in after everything that happened. The multiple timelines, the nightmares, the Saves, the Resets… Asriel and Chara… and the broken machine in the basement. Guilt and secrets were easier to bear when there was someone to share the burden. Frisk wasn't ready to tell everyone, but they could trust someone with the truth. And maybe someday he would trust them when Frisk told him no more Resets and that this timeline was the last.
Regardless, they knew how to get into Sans' hidden lab.
Flinging open the concealed door, they practically threw themselves down the stairs. As soon as their foot hit the purple tile, Frisk felt something wrong. It reminded them a little of the dark void where time held no meaning, where echoing memories of someone else's life rang in their mind, and where Frisk reached out to when they needed to load a Save or even attempt a Reset. This wasn't the void, but maybe… it was… leaking through a little? That was how it felt to them.
Sans wasn't here. There should be no reason to be surprised by his absence, especially with his shortcuts. But between the loud noise and the fact he left the sheet off the machine, Frisk knew he should be here. This was wrong. They could feel it in their gut. Sans was missing and they knew he needed help.
Somehow more concerning than Sans' absence was the figure next to the machine. Taller than the missing skeleton, the monster's face was white and cracked. Boney hands with holes in the palms floated at the ends of black sleeves with no visible arms, hands that he stared at intensely as if seeing them for the first time. Then he looked at one of the screens for the half-broken machine, reading the changing measurements briefly, before turning his gaze back towards his hands. Dressed in black over what might have once been a white turtleneck or might be bones melded together, he appeared to be caught in the middle of melting. He was partially liquid and dripping, looking a lot like the Amalgamates… or Undyne in that timeline filled with death and dust. High levels of Determination and monster biology didn't mix. He should be dying, but he wasn't.
And Frisk knew the monster. They didn't remember seeing him in most timelines. Only in a few rare instances did they hear even hints about the monster and only in one memory fragment of a Reset timeline did Frisk remember catching a glimpse of him. In Waterfall, in an empty room behind a door that normally didn't exist, they found him briefly before he vanished. Outside of time and space, erased as if he never existed, almost no one could properly remember him. No one except those grey echoes of monsters, a child whose memory extended past time to events that never happened, and the short skeleton who was too close to the machine when everything went wrong and yet too far away to vanish as well.
"Dr. W. D. Gaster," said Frisk carefully.
The monster jerked his head up at the sound, turning his cracked face towards the child. But he didn't vanish this time. He even managed to pull his melting form together a little more, making his shape a bit more distinctive.
"Did Sans fix the machine?" they continued.
He paused a moment, as if gradually growing aware on his surroundings and the situation in general. Then he shook his head slowly.
A voice that defied description responded. The sounds clashed against each other, wavering in and out of focus like a radio signal barely in range. Nothing that reached their ears seemed recognizable as words in any language Frisk had ever heard, even with all the humans they met after the monsters were freed. Somehow the sounds even gave off the impression of something visual in their mind, images of gesturing hands and symbols. And even if Frisk didn't know the strange and grating language the voice used, they understood the monster.
"One of the more pacifist versions, I see. Forgive me. Existing in a single time and place without full omniscience is something that takes a moment to reacquaint myself with. I believe I know which timeline I am occupying now. No, the machine cannot be truly repaired and never will, little one," he said. "It might be best to describe it as… Sans broke it in a particularly unique configuration. It connected this laboratory so that I can interact with the world in a limited fashion, so that I might exist in a linear and coherent state. Similar to what occurred with the room we first met in, but more reliable and stable. It is really quite interesting if it was not the side effect."
As Frisk prepared to ask what side effect, they heard several more footsteps coming down the stairs. Knowing that there would be a lot of explanations involved regardless of who was there, they reluctantly turned around.
"WOWIE! WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THERE WAS ALL THIS SCIENCE STUFF IN THE BASEMENT? …OR THAT WE EVEN HAD A BASEMENT?"
"Oh…M-my goodness. I d-didn't have anything to d-do with this."
The entire household apparently decided to investigate the strange noise. The bipedal goat-like Toriel and Asgore were in the back, trying to avoid the ceiling. Asgore's horns tended to leaves scratches in buildings and rooms not built for him. The taller skeletal monster, Papyrus, and the blue fish-like monster with the eye patch, Undyne, were in the front of the group. They didn't even bother to hide their staring. And partially hiding behind her taller girlfriend, Alphys looked shocked, confused, and worried. The yellow lizard-like scientist probably could understand more about meaning of the machine across the room and the half-liquid monster than anyone else present.
"Hello, Papyrus. It is good to see you again, even in these less-than-ideal circumstances," said Gaster, his partially-melted face managing to shift into a smile.
Tilting his head slightly in confusion, he said, "I DON'T REMEMBER MEETING YOU BEFORE AND MY MEMORY IS NORMALLY SENSATIONAL. YOU ALSO SEEM RATHER MEMORABLE." He narrowed his eyes briefly before admitting, "…THOUGH SOMETIMES I DON'T KNOW WHAT I KNOW. YOU KNOW? REGARDLESS, YOU WILL UNDOUBTEDLY BE PLEASED TO KNOW THAT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS. SO WELCOME TO OUR MYSTERIOUS BASEMENT I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT UNTIL NOW, STRANGE MONSTER."
Maybe it was just how his face was melting, but the smile on Gaster looked a little sadder than a moment before. He just gave the skeleton a small nod.
"Frisk, my child?" said Toriel, watching the unknown monster uneasily. "Do you know this person?"
They nodded and said, "Mom and everyone? This is Dr. W. D. Gaster, a scientific expert on space, time, Determination, and the Core. Gaster? These are all my friends and family. My mom, Toriel, and my dad, Asgore. Also known as the former Queen and the King of the Monsters. Undyne, Captain of the Royal Guard when everyone was in the Underground and probably the town police once we get everything sorted. Alphys, the former Royal Scientist and still really smart. And Papyrus already introduced himself."
They knew Gaster probably already knew everyone's names. Some he would have met before the accident and others he would have observed while scattered across time and space. But it was at least polite to do proper introductions for everyone. Not to mention that being scattered across space and time, simultaneously aware of everything that was, is, would be, and could have been, probably didn't offer many opportunities for socializing.
"It is nice to properly greet all of you. And though returning to a linear, limited, and corporal state is a relief after so long," he said, staring down at his hands with a half-melted expression of cautious hope before shifting to something more serious, "the circumstances are less than ideal. The machine connected to the void between time enough to let me slip out at least partially, but the backlash caused undesired additional side effects."
"You mentioned that. What happened?" Frisk asked. Worry building up in their chest, they met his dark eye sockets firmly. "Where is Sans?"
"The more productive question would be… when is he…"
Alphys, always quick on the uptake, started stammering in a panic. While Undyne tried to calm her girlfriend enough to get a solid word out of the reptilian monster, Frisk stared calmly at Gaster. They had grown experienced at judging emotions on very inhuman faces. Even with his perpetually-melting features and cracked skull, they could tell that he was upset about what happened. But he wasn't hopeless.
"Dr. Gaster, perhaps you could explain what is going on?" suggested Toriel, a slightly dangerous tone to her voice that Frisk considered to be her Queen Voice.
"I can try to summarize the more important and immediate facts, Your Majesties. But if I may request Dr. Alphys' expert assistance, I would like to work as I speak. This matter is extremely time sensitive."
"M-me? B-but I… I c-can't…"
"You are indeed smart enough for what I need. Besides," he said gesturing at himself as his body dripped, "solid hands are an advantage that I currently lack."
Smiling at her, Undyne said, "Go for it, Alphys. My favorite nerd can handle whatever this Gaster guy needs to do. And if the kid trusts him, whatever he wants must be all right."
"BUT WHAT ABOUT MY BROTHER?" shouted Papyrus, focusing on the important part. "IS HE IN TROUBLE?"
"…Yes, he is."
And that sparked off a lot of loud questions from the gathered monsters. The voices clashed and melded with each other until none of the individual words were comprehensible. Frisk just waited patiently until there was a break in the noise.
"He's in the past, isn't he?"
Sliding to the side, Gaster revealed a slight wavering in the air behind him. It reminded them of the rippling effect of a heat wave above asphalt during the summer. The weird overlapping sensation of that dark void seemed to be concentrated near the odd sight. Frisk didn't know if anyone else could notice the void between time, but they could at least see the ripples.
"You have always been a clever human child when you are on a kinder path. Yes, the backlash of the imperfectly-repaired machine tossed Sans into the past… and another timeline."
"Which timeline?" Frisk asked.
"Are you talking about time travel? Isn't that impossible?" asked Asgore. "I… Someone tried to do it… But I can't quite remember."
As the large monster frowned in thought, Gaster muttered something to Alphys in his strange voice. Whatever he told her must have been some type of instructions because it prompted her to start poking around the innards of the machine.
"Physically traveling through time to your own timeline's past is impossible. And mental time travel is only slightly more useful since most people cannot remember a previous timeline beyond vague déjà vu. Sans fell into a timeline that no longer ever happened and replaced the Sans that belonged there. He only possesses the memories of that timeline as long as he's there."
"Which timeline?" Frisk repeated, their worry growing worse.
"This is a lot to take in," said Asgore. "I'm uncertain how any of this happened, but I assume that you have a plan on how to retrieve Sans. Would I be right?"
"Gaster!" Frisk snapped, their voice louder and sharper than normal. They were generally a quiet child and only spoke when they felt it was important, but they had to know. "Which timeline? Which Reset?"
The half-liquid monster gave the child a solemn and tired smile so similar to the ones they'd seen from Sans. His perpetual grin could communicate a wide variety of emotions and Gaster's cracked face shared that trait.
"You already know the answer to that, Frisk. He is waiting in judgment for the one emptying the Underground of monsters. And it is the timeline where he cannot dodge forever."
Frisk felt like the wind was knocked out of them. Even if they only remembered fragments of what happened before Resets, they remembered enough over time to know that Gaster was describing the worst version of events. One of their first runs through the Underground, somehow stopped near the end by something they couldn't remember, Frisk hated thinking about those events. Every decision made was the wrong one. They carved a path of dust and violence, committing genocide against the monsters.
And Sans was thrown back into that timeline with only the memories of Frisk at their worst, about to fight a battle he was doomed to lose.
"HEY, I SEE SOMETHING," shouted Papyrus, pointing towards the strange rippling in the air.
Whatever Alphys and Gaster were doing to the machine, it was affecting the unusual spot near the back wall. The wavering mirage-like thing had changed. Frisk could see colors and shapes, like they were staring out a window that was fogged over. And the longer they stared, the more the image came into focus.
It was the corridor before the throne room. In fact, the angle of the view seemed to be near the door to the throne room. They could see the golden stained glass windows casting their warm light across the place. Tall columns ran along either side of the hall and the tile floor was so smooth that Frisk half-expected to see a reflection in them.
And in the middle, appearing practically out of nowhere, was a short skeleton in a blue coat and comfortable slippers. Frisk almost smiled in relief at seeing Sans. But on the far side of the corridor was a sight that made them tighten their grip on the stick in their hand.
Brown-hair and dressed in a familiar blue-and-pink striped sweater, Frisk stared at a darker version of themselves.
This story should only have about three chapters. Four chapters, at most. The next chapter should have a bit more action. I hope that someone out there likes this story because I'm having a pretty good time writing it. And remember that reviews are always appreciated.