Quick disclaimer before we begin; I have not played Deltarune, despite hearing from all my friends and their mothers that it's amazing. I know it's free, but my computer is pretty bad, and I don't think it could handle much more weight. Also, I'm kind of lazy, so there's that. Might get to doing it someday, but that day has not come yet. But if there's anything that might conflict with the continuity of Deltarune here, then you'll know why.
This is kind of a follow-up to my other Undertale story, the Yellow Soul. You could go read it if you don't know what's going on, but all I think you'd need to know from that was that I introduced a lot of new characters there and then killed them all off one by one, so if there's a character here you don't recognize, it's probably because they were introduced in that other story.
I was just going to have this as a one-shot and have a follow-up story somewhere down the line, but after I finished writing this, I realized it kind of reads like a prologue, so I might just stick that follow-up story to the end of this. I'll just cross that bridge when I get to that, but for now, it's a one-shot. That probably won't receive any continuation for a while. At least until I finish a few of my other things.
(I don't own Undertale. Read at your own risk)
All she could ever remember was the void. A pitch black empty space was all she could recall watching. And it was fine by her.
Then the light came back into the world. And she became aware of the throbbing pain in her head. She just wanted the pain to go away, she wanted the light to go away.
"Hey. Hey. Anyone there?"
She opened all five of her eyes to meet the gaze of a strange, feline-like figure looming over her head. As she slowly sat up, the figure moved out of the way but continued to stare at her.
When her head cleared, the first thing out of her mouth was, "Qui suis-je?"
"What?" the cat monster said in confusion.
"I'm sorry," she replied. "Who am I?"
"I've been asking the same thing," the cat monster said.
"So you have no idea who you are either?" she asked.
"Nah," the cat monster replied. "I just had no idea who you were, and from the looks of it, neither do you."
"Wait. I think something is coming back to me." The feline monster stiffened, and curiosity seemed to spark in her eyes.
"What is it, then?"
"I think I was... something like the princess of spiders."
"So it's like Quantanius's whole 'lord of insects' gig?" the cat monster said with a huff. "Did you steal that from him?"
"Who?"
"Nevermind."
"I mean," the spider monster said, "even if I did, I don't think I would have remembered, dearie."
"Gee, you think I wouldn't have figured that one out?" the cat monster growled.
They sat in silence, sitting over the edge of a red sea of lava. Underneath them, the fiery ocean bubbled and brewed, smoking up into the vast dark sky of the cavern above. Crystals twinkled down onto the ground below like the real stars in the night sky that hung over the surface, and the spider girl suddenly seemed to recall something about seeing the stars with her own eyes, despite not being able to remember what the stars were.
"Hey, you want a cigar?" the cat monster called out from beside her, pulling out a fat box of cigarettes from a pocket.
"Désolé, but I don't really-" the spider girl mumbled, slowly backing away.
"It might help jog your memory."
The spider girl remained hesitant for a moment, before she finally caved and took the cigar. The cat monster nodded approvingly, before she took two round items, and struck them against each other. The both caught ablaze, and the cat monster pressed them against the cigar in the spider girl's hands, lighting it as well. She tossed the two items back into the lava, and they both went off in a small explosion, that sent lava splattering all over the rock beneath.
The spider girl watched as the red hot liquid lapped away at the stone under her dangling legs, when the cat monster said, "My name's Lilac, by the way."
"It's nice to be formally introduced, then," the spider girl replied. "My name is..." She paused as she racked her memory for her name. She could feel it on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't seem to coax it out.
"Muffet," she finally said, as a name came rushing back to her. "My name is Muffet."
"What'd I tell you?" Lilac said, punching Muffet in the shoulder. Muffet, not expecting the blow, nearly fell off the side, only for Lilac to catch her by the scruff of her neck.
"Thanks," Muffet said as she steadied herself.
"Just don't go swimming in lava any time soon and we'll call it even," Lilac replied.
And so they just sat there, watching over the vast sea of lava dipping into the endless blanket of earth beyond.
"What do you mean sealed?" Sewmurr, a monster in a thick hide of burlap, growled as he tapped his needle-like digits on the table before him. "And by extension, what do you mean sealed again?"
"Well, darling, seems like you've been out of the loop," Mettaton said with a certain air of smugness. "What, have you been dead for a hundred years?"
"Actually, that's exactly where've I've been for the past few centuries," Sewmurr replied, narrowing his one large eye. Mettaton stopped, unsure of how to reply.
"If I may," Incinerate, the other monster with a shell of metal, called out from the corner of the room, "I may not be an expert on these matters of science or magic, but I am well versed in the functions of energy, and, as I accompanied Mettaton here to the barrier, I noted that the air seemed to have a trace of some kind of energy."
Sewmurr seemed to consider this. "Now that you mention it," Mettaton added, "I do remember tasting something like that in the air."
"Anything else you could find?" Sewmurr said, turning to Incinerate.
"The energy residue seemed to share properties with the traces of energy left behind in the wake of certain memory alteration spells, or to be more specific, the memory alteration called upon by the King after catastrophes of great volume," he said, his voice ringing out from inside of his metal mask. "If you'd recall, Shandryll has told us once before that the spell works by reverting the minds of those affected to their state before the incident, before warping the memory stream around the more problematic memories."
"So you're saying this has something to do with that?" Sewmurr asked.
"Something of the like," Incinerate replied.
"Sounds like something you'd hear in a movie," Mettaton mumbled to himself.
"And you're suggesting this has something to do with this?" Sewmurr said gruffly.
"The state of the underground seems to have been reverted to their exact state before..." Incinerate trailed off, and a thin stream of smoke rose out from the back of his helmet. "I checked for any visible signs of age, but everything, but everything seems to be exactly how it was then. I'm having Alow do a more extensive examination, but I don't believe he would come up with any different conclusion."
"But who do you think is responsible?" Sewmurr asked in response. "Things like this don't just happen by themselves, can they?"
"I'm not sure," Incinerate replied. "This action would take an incredible amount of magical energy to pull off. No conventional source of energy would be able to sustain it, save for a collection of human souls. Since we do not seem to have a surplus of those lying around, however, I believe the responsibility would fall onto an outside party, and this may only be a precursor to a larger conspiracy."
Asriel awoke to a feeling of warmth on his back. When he opened his eyes, he was immediately taken aback by a sudden spike in his senses. Everything seemed all the more vivid, brighter, and stronger than before. He blinked a few times to get acquainted with his newly heightened senses, when he felt something course through his body.
Power. That was what it was.
Asriel was no stranger to power. He remembered everything he had done as Flowey, and he had attained godhood multiple times in that form, but this time it was different. It wasn't as overwhelming as his God of Hyperdeath form; it wasn't as chaotic as his Omega Flowey form. It just felt harmonious, in a strange sort of sync. It felt natural to him as the magic that flowed in his blood.
Slowly, he got to his feet and straightened his usually disheveled clothes. As he set his gaze forward, he cast his gaze over that familiar entrance to the Ruins. To his home.
Here we go again.
Same route, same places.
Back to square one.
But we'll get through eventually.
And we'll do it better this time!
...
New and old faces lay behind the gate. Foes to be met, friends to be made. Battles to be fought, obstacles to be overcome. An unfamiliar journey in a very familiar place. All it took was for him to step through.
And so Asriel Dreemurr brought himself forward, and stepped through the gate into a new life.