Darkness. It was all they saw. They swore their eyes were open, but why was there only darkness? Did they escape in time? Could it be. . .?
. . .
This must be what has happened to their home, their timeline, everyone they knew and cared about. It was all gone. All gone with the wind. The wind that blew away all the dust they- no, it- left behind. They remember it all too clearly. They wanted to forget what it did, but they could not. It was. . . horrible. . . and cruel. . .
Why would it do that? What caused it to harm them?
. . .
Power.
It only wanted power. That must have been what it was after. But. . . why would it need to copy and paste a certain timeline and reset? Why not just reset that timeline and do what it did in the now deleted world? They had never seen the option of "copy and paste" on the menu screen before, so why did it just show up in the timeline before the reset, when the entire journey was at its end?
. . .
"Uh. . . Hey Frisk, what are you doing?"
". . . Nothing. Just saving our current progress in this timeline."
"Oh, okay. Well, hurry up, everyone else is waiting for us!"
"Alright. I'll be there in a moment, Ori."
But... when he turned to face this. . . Frisk. . . one last time before he started following the others. . . At the very bottom. . . there was another option. . .
[COPY]
Frisk chose "COPY". What happened next. . .
[PASTE copied file?]
They chose yes.
[PASTED copied file]
They. . . chose and entered the pasted file. . . and. . .
[CONTINUE] [TRUE RESET]
They chose the "TRUE RESET" option.
"Frisk! What are you do-?" he started, but unable to finish, as his voice started glitching. Weird. That has never happened during a normal RESET. Maybe because this was a TRUE RESET. "Frisk!" he tried screaming at his friend, yet his voice was still in the middle of glitching. Soon enough, his body started glitching in certain places, yet staying the same in other areas of his glowing white form.
The last thing he saw of Frisk was them turning their head to look at him, sadness pasted on their face. Then. . . in a split second, their eyes opened and their entire expression changed. Red eyes. Eyes as red as their SOUL. Their mouth had immediately turned to a wicked smile. It was as if they truly wanted to see him suffer during the TRUE RESET. After that second of terror, or at least for him, the entire setting around them glitched to darkness, even he himself glitched out of existence.
When he woke up again, he heard their tall skeleton friend's voice echoing through the snowy forest.
"HALT, HUMAN!"
'He must be talking about Frisk,' the sleepy creature thought.
"HEY, QUIT MOVING WHILE I'M TALKING TO YOU!"
'. . . That's. . . something Frisk wouldn't do. . .'
"I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAY. FIRST: YOU'RE A FREAKING WEIRDO!"
'A. . . weirdo? Is that what Frisk has become?'
"NOT ONLY DO YOU NOT LIKE PUZZLES. BUT THE WAY YOU SHAMBLE ABOUT FROM PLACE TO PLACE. . . THE WAY YOUR HANDS ARE ALWAYS COVERED IN DUSTY POWDER. IT FEELS. . . LIKE YOUR LIFE IS GOING DOWN A DANGEROUS PATH."
'Wait. . . Dust. . . Did Frisk. . .? Kill a monster?'
"HOWEVER! I, PAPYRUS, SEE GREAT POTENTIAL WITHIN YOU! EVERYONE CAN BE A GREAT PERSON IF THEY TRY! AND ME, I HARDLY HAVE TO TRY AT ALL! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!"
'Heh, Papyrus is always so nice,' the snow white creature chuckled.
"HEY, QUIT MOVING!"
'Uh oh. . . Frisk. . . What are you planning?' he asked through thoughts, although that was pointless. He got up and off the bush he was on, just like the timeline before, and followed the echoes of Papyrus' voice through the trees.
"THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT! HUMAN! I THINK YOU ARE IN NEED OF GUIDANCE! SOMEONE NEEDS TO KEEP YOU ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW! BUT WORRY NOT! I, PAPYRUS. . . WILL GLADLY BE YOUR FRIEND AND TUTOR! I WILL TURN YOUR LIFE RIGHT AROUND! I SEE YOU ARE APPROACHING. ARE YOU OFFERING A HUG OF ACCEPTANCE? WOWIE! MY LESSONS ARE ALREADY WORKING! I, PAPYRUS, WELCOME YOU WITH OPEN ARMS!"
As soon as the small being exited the forest, they saw the blue and purple striped sweater of Frisk, but in their hand. . . was the toy knife from the Ruins. . . And the fight had started. Of course, they saw what was happening, and the words on the fight menu screen said "*Papyrus is sparing you."
'Spare? That is when a monster doesn't want to fight you. . . But I thought Papyrus wanted to capture a human, like in the timeline before this one,' he thought, remembering what happened before they fell unconscious.
Instead of selecting ACT, Frisk chose FIGHT. They landed a hit. Papyrus' head fell off.
"W-WELL, THAT'S NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. . ."
His body turned to dust, leaving his constantly smiling face to fall on the snowy ground.
"BUT. . . ST. . . STILL! I BELIEVE IN YOU! YOU CAN DO A LITTLE BETTER! EVEN IF YOU DON'T THINK SO! I. . . I PROMISE. . ."
Then, like his body, Papyrus' head faded and the dust mixed in with the wind and was blown away. The fight had ended. Frisk stood there in the snow, no emotion on their face. As Ori, terrified, stood in shock from what had just happened, Frisk walked away, leaving the bright red scarf that the friendly skeleton always wore on the ground for anyone to pick up. They soon disappeared as they entered the Waterfall.
. . .
A minute or so passed. He crept up to the scarf and picked it up, tears forming at the edges of his dark blue eyes. Just then, he heard a monster approach. Whipping around, he stood in a defensive position, only to see Papyrus' brother stare at the dusty scarf in the small creature's arms.
"what happened?" Sans asked.
". . . The human killed him. . ." came a quiet response. "They. . . they went into the Waterfall. . . I-I think they've been killing everyone that tried to fight them. . . They. . . they're covered in dust. . ."
". . . . . ." Sans said nothing, but his empty eye sockets told silent words. Anger. ". . . come with me. they've already started killing everyone. we can only watch."
"Why can't we stop them?" the now crying Ori holding the scarf questioned.
". . . because," was all he said.
". . . Fine. . . but only because I know you won't try to kill me, like they would."
In the last corridor before Asgore, the three beings fought. Both Ori and Sans fought "Frisk", or what looked like Frisk. Spears were thrown. Gaster Blasters were fired. One knife slashed at the two of them. It missed. Until. . .
It landed a hit on Sans. Ori dashed towards him as he slumped down in defeat. He then said his final words to the. . . former Frisk. . . and left with Ori helping him stand up straight without falling down. He had claimed they were heading to Grillby's when the "human" stared at them, asking Papyrus, who was already gone, if he wanted anything.
As soon as they were out of the hall and the human on the other side, Sans sat down, bits of his skull turning to dust. He started, "so. . . that happened. . . now what'll you do?"
". . . I'm staying with you, even if you fully turn to dust, I'll still be here," Ori replied.
". . . kid. . . why? why would you stay here and watch me die when you can look away and not have to see it?"
"Because you're the only friend I have left in this world."
". . . heh. . . guess this is the end for me. . ."
"Sans."
"yeah ori-? hrk!" he choked on his last few words as Ori tackled him in a hug.
"I'll miss you," the young spirit sobbed.
Sans placed a bloody hand on Ori's back, staining it red. "i'll miss you, too."
Then he faded away, his dust falling to the ground, but before Ori could stop himself from falling forward, a white SOUL appeared, and, surprisingly, Ori's own wisp-like SOUL absorbed the white one.
"ori?" Sans' low voice seemed to echo in the darkness.
The spirit opened his eyes, gasping in shock as the skeleton he thought was a goner stood right in front of him. He jumped up, immediately hugging Sans, crying.
"uh, did you absorb my SOUL?" Sans asked, patting Ori on his no longer blood stained back.
". . . I guess?"
". . . huh. you aren't a monster or a human, so maybe that's why."
"Does it really mean something?"
"not in my opinion. the timeline's gonna be erased soon anyway. and hey, things seem a little different when you're sharing a body, eh?"
"I don't know. . ." he sighed, noticing they were in front of what looked like the area where had Sans died. Dust was still visible in the air. "Is there a way to leave this timeline before it gets erased?" Ori blurted out.
"as in how? like teleport out of the world? how is that possible for the two of us?"
"Well, we do have a lot more magic since we're in the same body. . . Right?"
"maybe."
"Soooo maybe we could, like, combine our power to try to get out of here?"
". . . it could work. . . if we're both crazy enough to believe it."
"We're both crazy enough, trust me."
"fine fine. let's try it."
It was only a matter of seconds before sparks of white light began to appear and dance around them. As the lights grew brighter, the timeline was being erased. The golden pillars behind the two faded, black taking their place. If one were to see the joined body's shadow, the large wing-like appearances were raised and flapped once. Then the shadow was gone. The world soon disappeared right after.
"hey ori, you awake?" came the echoing voice of Sans.
"Yeah, but why is it so dark?" Ori replied.
"your eyes are closed."
"What? But I thought I opened them!"
"yeah. but they're still closed."
Ori sighed, trying to open his dark eyes. Once he did, Sans was beside him, staring at the blank canvas in front of them.
"Is this. . .?" the spirit started.
"nah, our world's long gone by now. guess we "teleported" to this place, whatever it might be."
". . . So. . . this is our home for now?"
"yeah. our. . . new "home"."
I had this idea for a while, so I put it down here. This might be the last "story" for a while :V
The idea was, and still is, a crossover of the games "Ori and the Blind Forest" and "Undertale", two of my favorite games. Technically this is more of the ending of an alternate universe, since I kinda want to make the original timeline into a comic. There are thing that are the same in the comic as Undertale, but since Ori is involved, there will be more. . . different parts to it as well.
If this seems confusing, good. Because as I stated, this "story" is an ending, not a beginning.
So, until next time, have a nice day/night~!
-Ghost