A/N: Originally I had something else planned for this chapter, but then realized that without exploring the past of this AU, nothing moving forward will make any sense. I am not revealing everything, but I am revealing bits and pieces that should, hopefully, make some things understandable. I will point out that much of the italics here are dreams(or are they?) rather than thoughts as I have been using italics for thus far. There are some places where italics is used for thoughts instead, but I'm fairly certain that which is which will be obvious.
Disclaimer: I don't own Undertale or the cannon characters and concepts. I own only the plot of this AU and my OCs.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy!
Chapter Two- Of Nightmares and Dreams
I ran urgently through the snow, ignoring my wounds that had left me unconscious for a while. Why hadn't the kid killed me when I confronted them after they slayed Toriel? I didn't know or understand, but I knew I had to stop them before anyone else was injured.
Unfortunately, it seemed I was already too late as the deeper I went into the forest the more dust piles I found, the dust being slowly blown away by the wind. Everywhere I turned there was the dust of fallen monsters and puzzles either solved or left ignored. I followed the trail of death, growing more and more angered as I did. I had trusted this kid and in return they killed everyone?! How dare they! Who did they think they were that they could play god?! Just like them!
I growled as I ran through the small town, noticing how empty it was. No dust. Good. That meant it was evacuated before the kid could kill everyone. At least, I hoped that's what happened. Eventually, I came to a very misty area just beyond the town and stopped in front of a pile of dust upon which laid a red scarf. I sniffed at it, smelling bone, a scent similar to my joke friend Toriel and I spoke to through the door. I whined at the knowledge this poor soul must've been Papyrus, his brother.
Footsteps brought my attention up to the approaching skeleton. He kneeled on the other side of the pile and picked up the scarf, cradling it in his boney hands as if it was the most precious thing he had left, tears at the edges of his eye sockets. He looked up at me, one eye glowing blue and the other pitch black.
"Someone's gonna have a bad time," he said, voice deadly serious.
I growled my agreement and let out a howl that was full of mourning at first, but turned warning by the end of it.
I shifted in my sleep, trying to get myself to wake up as I vaguely became aware that I was dreaming. I needed to wake up before this got any worse. I was about to lose the battle when I heard the sound of another's sleep being disturbed. Screams came from the bed where Frisk slept and I was immediately awake and leaping to my feet. I rushed over to Frisk's side and placing a hand on his arm, shaking him gently.
"Frisk! Frisk, wake up! It's just a dream!"
It took some prodding, but I was able to wake the child before Toriel was disturbed, or at least I thought she wasn't disturbed. When he woke up, he immediately buried himself in my arms as he sobbed. It turned out he had been dreaming something similar, except from his point of view and he was killing everyone no matter how hard he tried to stop himself. Some force was making him do it, like what I imagined would happen to me if I lost control over my body. Brokenly, he told me stories that made it sound like the events of his nightmare had actually happened, though that didn't make much sense.
"It was just a dream," I told him, holding him tightly. "No one's dead, Frisk. We're here. Toriel's fine. I'm fine. The other monsters of the Ruins are alive and well. It's okay and it will remain so, I promise. I won't let anything happen. Neither will you. Or Toriel."
Frisk continued sobbing, muttering out apologies that I felt he didn't need to be making. They were just dreams, right? ...Weren't they?
Eventually I was able to distract him with some puzzles and it was when his attention was successfully diverted that I realized Toriel had been listening in at least for part of it, because I saw the hallway light on and heard footsteps leaving. About half an hour later, when Frisk and I were hard at work trying to solve a rubik's cube, Toriel walked into the room with three mugs of hot chocolate along with pie and joined us on the floor to share jokes and stories of a happy nature.
"YOUR LIFE IS GOING DOWN A DANGEROUS PATH!" Papyrus was telling me.
Wait, what? Dangerous path…? What's happening? Wait, why am I moving closer to him so menacing-like? No, stop! I don't want to hurt him! He's Sans's brother! He's my friend! He's…..He's….
"HOWEVER, I, PAPYRUS, AM YOUR FRIEND AND I BELIEVE IN YOU!"
I took another step forward against my will. Oh no. Oh no no no no NO! I don't have control. I can't stop myself. He kept going on about how everyone could be good if they tried and I kept moving forward in a menacing fashion, circling him as if stalking my prey as I moved closer and closer. Peripherally I noticed my paws were no longer their usual purple. They were black and covered in dust… The dust of monsters. Oh no. How long had I been gone? Who had I killed? How had I lost control like this? How far gone was I that I could not stop even this?!
"I KNOW YOU HAVE IT IN YOU! YOU WERE GOOD BEFORE! REMEMBER OUR JAPES AND PUZZLES?!"
Inside I was screaming for this to end, for the monster who had control over my body to stop. To not kill Papyrus. But it was to no avail. I leapt upon the skeleton, sinking my teeth into his ulna and shaking my head viciously, tearing the bone away from the rest of his body. I tore and ripped at him no matter how much I fought to stop or how much he fought to free himself. I cried out for help, for someone to come and stop me.
But nobody came.
Before long Papyrus was nothing but dust and I was walking away, moving on to my next victim. Moving toward Snowdin, where a bunch of unknowing monsters were waiting for me to ruin their day. Inside I cried. I had become the monster they had worked so hard to turn me into.
I jolted awake to the feeling of cold water being poured over top of me. I shouted in surprise and looked around with wide and terrified eyes to find Toriel and Frisk hovering over me with looks of concern. Toriel still held a bucket up in the air in the position it had to have been in when the water had fallen from it to land on me. My panicked and fear-filled eyes landed on them and almost immediately I was out of my bed and in Toriel's arms as I sobbed, clinging to her.
Frisk stood by as added support as Toriel kneeled on the floor to hold me close as I collapsed. His hand gripped my nightshirt and held on with a grip I was sure no one would be able to break as his other hand rested on one of my hands.
Toriel assumed it had been a nightmare about my captivity. Frisk, however, looked like he knew it was something else. Perhaps I had mumbled something in my sleep that told him what it was. Perhaps he knew something I didn't. It was impossible to know, but his look of understanding and forgiveness was enough for me to be grateful to him. When Toriel went to get me some hot chocolate, he hugged me and I held him close, apologizing for reasons unknown to me. He managed to get me to reveal the dream during the time Toriel was out of the room.
"I-I can't let it happen…." I mumbled through my tears.
"We won't," Frisk told me, holding me tighter. "Not again. Never again."
If I had been in a better state, his words would've given me pause. They would've had me questioning why he spoke as if it had actually happened. They would've had me demanding answers as to why he acted like our dreams were memories rather than mere dreams. But I was too messed up to question it. I didn't want to question it. Knowing it was real… Knowing would only destroy me even further.
I hung from my shackles that suspended me from the ceiling, new tail hanging as limp as the rest of me. I glared from underneath half closed eyelids as the man in a lab coat stood in front of me, nonchalantly taking notes on the readings from the monitors around me.
"Why are you doing this?" I growled out.
"Because we can." Was the answer given. "Someone has to put a stop to all the evil."
"By turning me into an experiment?"
"But my dear! You are the key! When this is over, you will be our pawn."
"And how do you plan to end all evil?"
"By wiping out not only the entire Monster race, but also the entire Human race as well. As long as the two exist, there will always be evil. So we must...start over."
"Oh yeah? And who will be left to start over? You?" I could laugh at the idea. "You plan to destroy evil and start over with evil people?" It was ridiculous. Ludicrous even. As ridiculously stupid as Team Flare's plan in the sixth generation of Pokemon.
"You only think we're evil," the man said, not even looking away from his notes. "You have no place to speak of things you don't understand."
Before I could say anything else, the man nodded to someone else and they pulled a switch. All I knew for hours after that was pain. Intense pain.
I woke up in a cold sweat and sat up to check to see if I had disturbed anyone this time. It seemed I hadn't, but I knew if I went back to sleep it would only be a matter of time before I did. Instead, I got up and left the room, heading for the kitchen as I reflected on the dream. These dreams of the past were a new concept to me. Prior to my captivity, I only dreamed of weird and randoms things, nightmares of things that never happened and sometimes even the odd dream of the future, never of the past. My unconscious mind didn't dwell on the past, only my conscious mind did that. So the fact it was now was….well, it was concerning to say the least.
I made it to the kitchen undisturbed from my thoughts and upon finding it empty, I set about fixing myself a mug of hot chocolate. Preemptively, I also made one for Frisk and returned to the room to find him sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. It seemed he was also woken from a nightmare in a not-so-noisy fashion tonight. I walked over silently and handed him the mug before settling down on the bed next to him. He cuddled up to me and I draped a blanket over the both of us.
"Want to talk about it, kid?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Yeah, me neither," I agreed.
So we just sat there, cuddled up together as we drank our hot chocolate. By the time Toriel came in to tell us breakfast was ready our hot chocolate had long run out and we had built a rather impressive pillow fort. She found it amusing in any case.
I gnawed viciously on the trident that was being used to hold me at bay as I simultaneously clawed at the armor covered forearms attached to the hands that held it.
"I don't know who you are…." Sans said as he grabbed hold of my soul with his Blue Magic and ripped me away from the King. "But you will release your hold on my friend now! Or else you'll be having a bad time."
I growled as my soul glew, visible as souls were when Sans was using his Blue Magic, the monster's soul more prominent, black upside down heart consuming the green one that glew dimmer by the minute. The green soul was visibly trying to fight for control, but due to its weakened state it was not succeeding.
"Hechhechhech," I, or rather, they laughed with a twisted grin. "You really think you can save her, don't you? You don't even know her real name! Hechhechhech! She didn't even trust you with that! What makes you think you can reach her?!"
Sans's expression grew dark even as Asgore slammed his trident down, trapping the wolf underneath its prongs to make double sure it didn't escape. Sans kneeled in front of the wolf monster, shadow covering his face. "You clearly don't know everything, dog breath," he said. Then his expression shifted into a gentle one. "Crystal? You in there? Come on! You're making this old bag of bones worried."
The green soul pulsed in response to his words and for a brief moment it seemed to fight harder.
"You wouldn't want me to become just a chew toy, would ya? You know I've put a lot of backbone into getting this far."
The pulse grew stronger and the wolf growls viciously, trying to escape from the hold the monsters had over him. "What are you doing?! STOP! NO!"
"NO! YOU STOP!" I screamed, spirit momentarily exiting my body to deliver a hard punch to the wolf's head.
I didn't even regret the intense headache I had as I regained control. The wolf form returned to its appearance it held when I was in control as my green soul forced the black one back into the background, though it remained cracked beyond what it should be to be able to hold control. I shifted into my human form as I was released, albeit hesitantly, from Asgore's trident. I sat back on my knees and faced Sans, tears streaming down my face.
"OH my god, Sans….what did I do?!" I asked, breaking down. "Everyone's dead! Pap….Tori….I...I killed them!" I wailed, falling to the ground, a broken soul barely holding control. My soul, still visible, wavered as I struggled to maintain control even as it cracked even more with the realizations I was coming to.
"It's not your fault, Crystal," Sans told me, kneeling and pulling me into a hug.
I hissed as I pulled away. "N-no," I quivered. "Sans you can't….you've got to…."
"Don't worry, we're gonna fix it," Sans told me. "The kid should be resetting any moment."
"Resetting?" I asked in confusion, giving him a perplexed look. I looked over to Asgore, who was watching me closely, clearly prepared to put an end to me the moment I lost control again. I looked back to Sans with a look that must've screamed pain and suffering with the way he his expression fell. "How are you going to fix this?! Everyone's dead! And it's...it's my fault!" My soul cracked again and black started oozing out. "Cause I couldn't….I couldn't…."
"It'll be okay."
And then everything went black.
I woke up with a shout that startled Frisk out of sleep so much his little body flew about a foot off his bed. He landed in a daze with his blanket falling back on him, covering half his face as he turned to look at me. I just sat there, head in my hands as I replayed the events of the dream in my head. I had killed everyone in the Underground except for Sans and Asgore. The kid must've escaped too from Sans's words, but everyone else….everyone else was killed by my own paws. The images wouldn't leave my mind's eye and I kept feeling like I was missing something here. Something was telling me these weren't just dreams. But they were, weren't they?
They had to be.
Dreams of the future. The monster taunted me in my head and I closed my eyes as tears rolled down my face, trying to block him out. You know it's true. You can't hold me back forever. The more your soul cracks, the easier it will be for me! And your soul is already quite cracked.
Small hands gave me something to focus in on and I looked to Frisk as he looked at me worriedly. Without a word, he left the room for a couple minutes and then returned, climbing onto my bed and just cuddling up to me.
"It'll be ok." Frisk promised in the same determined tone Sans had had in my dream.
I was silent as I just sat there, allowing him to cuddle me and accepting the hot chocolate from Toriel when she came in without a word. I wondered who were those people in my dreams. It seemed like they were important to me while I was dreaming, but I couldn't think of having met them before. Sometimes I was on a crusade to rescue them and other times I was the one they needed rescuing from. I didn't understand any of this. Ever since my captivity I had dreamt of nothing else but the past. Was I supposed to believe these dreams were also the past? Or that they were the future? It seemed very logical the ones where I was the murderer were manifestations of my fears. But what of the ones where the kid was the murderer?
Not a word was spoken the rest of that night. Neither Frisk nor Toriel left my side, though, and that helped soothe me somewhat.
"What do you mean the kid's not in control?" I asked Sans as we sat in Grillby's empty bar, not even the fire monster here to serve us. Something about the place allowed Sans to relax enough to have these talks that we both desperately needed.
"He's got the soul, or spirit at least, of another human inside his soul," Sans explained. "Apparently he's been calling the shots this whole time."
I blinked, grip tightening on the glass of water I had until the glass cracked underneath it. "How did I not notice?" I wondered.
"Why would you have?" Sans asked.
"Because I have a similar issue, Sans," I told him, shadows spreading across my face as he looked at me in surprise. I clutched at my chest. "Have you not taken a look at my soul? I know you can, so why haven't you? I'm in control now but that doesn't mean I can maintain it indefinitely."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Sans asked, though he sounded like it wasn't entirely directed at me.
"When have I had time?" I asked. "We've been chasing Frisk every which way the wind blows ever since he killed Toriel and Papyrus. I haven't had time to think of my own issues. Hell, this is a double-bind type of situation for me, Sans. If I don't stop Frisk, he'll kill everyone and I won't be able to live with myself knowing I failed. But then if I don't deal with my own issues…." I swallowed as my lip quivered. "I'm going to be the one you will have to stop… This monster inside my soul….Sans, his purpose...his goal… is to wipe every living being off the face of the planet…. Humans and monsters… I...I don't know what to do anymore! Every time we catch up to the kid too late and someone else dies I can feel my soul cracking! The more it cracks, the harder it is to maintain control! I don't know how much longer I can do this! Before I just end up failing like I have at everything else."
"You should've said something!" Sans shouted, standing up. He looked as if I had betrayed him.
"Funny for a guy to say who I've known all of a few days!" I shouted back, staring at him with tears in my eyes. "Unless you know something I don't and my memory is crap! Which, hell, it's possible my memory is gone, I'm already losing grip on reality, with these weird dreams that seem so real, I can't even tell what's the dream and what's real anymore, why the hell should I remember anything clearly at this point?" I was breathing heavy between sentences now and my voice got quieter as I spoke. "I haven't even…." I panted, clutching my chest as I looked away. Then I shook my head. "No, it's my responsibility to deal with my soul, that's why I haven't told you. It's not your burden, you have enough to worry about."
"Crystal," Sans said firmly and I looked to him in shock.
"H-how do you know that n-name?" I asked cursing my stuttering.
"It doesn't matter," Sans sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't expect you to remember." He looked away. "Come on, we better find the kid. I have an idea to stop him…. If it works, maybe we can try it on you as well."
I stared at him in confusion as he waited for me to take his hand. What did he mean? What was I missing? I mean, those dreams were just...dreams, right?
I woke slowly, a little dazed by the fact my dream hadn't been terrifying. I looked around the room, almost not believing that I was awake until I noticed Frisk was being disturbed by his own dreams. I pushed my own dream to the back of my head as I moved to his side to wake him. It didn't take much and before a full moment even passed, the kid was clinging to me as if he was afraid I was going to disappear.
"Come on, kid," I said as I held him gently. "I'm here. I'm not leaving. It's going to be okay."
As I held the kid, letting him cry his eyes out onto my nightshirt, I thought about my dream. I felt strongly that I was missing something about them. Something that I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see or not. I was afraid that if I had my slight suspicions confirmed then it would destroy me too much to maintain my control.
You can't keep hiding from truth. The monster taunted me. You will see it in time and when you do, I will be waiting to devour your soul completely.
Shut up, you foolish beast.
I'm not the one hiding behind a mask of sunshine and daisies.
No, but you are the one who wants to kill everyone. You do realize God would never let you, right? Even as I thought this, I was hit by a sudden realization. Even if he did take control of me, there was no way he would fully succeed. God would place someone into the situation who could stop him. Maybe, even if these dreams were real, He already had.
While that thought made him growl in disgust, it filled me up with Determination and I hugged Frisk slightly tighter.
"It will be ok," I said firmly.
Frisk looked up at me with surprise on his face. When he saw the determined look in my eyes, he smiled and nodded in agreement. With that, we high-fived and laid down to get some more sleep.
This time it was more peaceful and I dreamed that we had nothing but good times with the denizens of the Underground that littered my dreams.
