When the prosecution had informed Undyne that they'd be playing back video of every single fight she'd done with Frisk, she'd naturally asked the question 'How'? She was, after all, pretty sure Alphys didn't have a camera directly in the area that she'd fought the kid.
But then HE had appeared, making his way down the court hall and approaching the Judge's bench. Long, flowing black alchemical robe with the symbol of the Monsters on the back, lines running up and down his deep black eye sockets, hands with holes in the center of his palms...there was no mistaking him. Here in the Heavenly realm, all was made clear, and all secrets were told. This was WingDing Aster, or, as he was better known, Gaster, kin to Sans and Papyrus.
He gave Sans a quiet, sad little smile before bowing before the judge. "Your Lord."
"Please, no standing on ceremony, W.D. I trust you're going to demonstrate how you've been able to record everything in the Underground?" Jesus had calmly asked, resting his hands in his lap as Gaster tapped the side of his own head.
"Much like you, I see everything and know everything that happens in the Underground. I was everywhere and nowhere. And I could hear you telling stories about me to Frisk, Sans. You know...it's rude to talk about someone who's listening." He then smiled a bit more warmly and put a hand on his bony chest. "Of course, it's also rude to eavesdrop, so who am I to judge?" He laughed.
"Would you please just show us the footage?" Chara remarked with a groan, rolling her eyes as Gaster nodded, tapping his head as a screen was wheeled out in front of everyone to see, sitting right below Jesus's podium as he calmly nodded, not caring if he saw the footage. He had, after all, already seen everything. This was for their benefit. Focusing intensely, rays of light shot forth from Gaster's eye sockets and like a projector, a scene began to unfold on the screen.
Frisk stood there, below an immense rocky hill, looking up at almost blood-red skies as the red-haired form of the dark-blue skinned fish woman that was Undyne pointed accusingly at him. "You know what would be really helpful to everyone!? IF YOU WERE DEAD!"
"Well that's not very nice." Frisk had said with a pout, Undyne blushing from the witness stand, sinking lower and lower into her chair as more of the footage played out, Gaster's voice calling out
"If any of you have weak constitutions, I recommend you close your eyes, because the next ten seconds get...unsettling." He remarked.
"No more running away! HERE I COME!" Undyne had roared out then, leaping down, spear held high and...
Impaling Frisk clear through. Undyne had stared in shock, scarcely able to believe the kid had seriously not even TRIED to take a step back or run away or anything. She looked down in shock, the spear having shot right through Frisk's head as she cringed, mouth hanging open a bit before...
"...well, shit. That was easy."
And it only got more and more damning from there. The grin on Chara's face was the work of demons as time and time again, Undyne would attack Frisk in the footage. Pleas for mercy and attempts to spare her went unheeded. Over and over, her spears would shoot through Frisk, forcing them to their knees. Time and time again they'd be impaled through the chest or stomach, sometimes even the head, making the gallery all collectively cringe. And just when it looked like it couldn't get any more vicious, then Frisk had said this.
"I don't want to fight you. I don't want to fight ANYONE. We don't have to do this."
Undyne had gripped her spear tightly, Frisk's battered and bruised form staggering back and forth before her, flimsily clutching the green spear she'd tossed him before she spat on the ground, slightly "harrumphing". "UGH. I thought that if I fought you like this, it'd show how powerful monsters really could be. But that's it! I'm done playing fair, done going easy on you! I'M NOT YOUR KINDERGARTEN TEACHER!" She roared out before racing over to the side of the mountainous hill...
Grabbing hold of something that made Frisk "eep".
"That is, unless your Kindergarten teacher does THIS!" Undyne had proclaimed, tossing a boulder right at Frisk's frail form.
"Then came the boulders. So...so many boulders." Gaster murmured, cringing as Undyne was now totally sunken into her witness stand, barely visible as Chara sniggered with delightful, devilish glee.
"You realize this looks INCREDIBLY bad for you." Jesus quietly asked of Undyne as he sighed, pinching the space between his eyes and shaking his head. "You were hurtling boulders at a ten year old boy that you KNEW was a ten year old boy, who was refusing to fight back and begging you to stop. How can you justify a duel with a child?"
Undyne moaned from the witness stand as Chara wagged a finger back and forth. "It got worse."
Indeed. Because now Frisk had decided to actually try to wear Undyne down in the hopes that she'd tire herself out. Timeline after timeline was being played out of him waiting for her to get pooped. In fact, an entire hour passed by in one very notable timeline, and now they were watching a kind of real fighting match unfold. Sans was selling tickets made of toilet paper as huge swathes of monsters had come to watch the kid continuously dodging Undyne's attacks, her spears being chucked through the air with the ferocity of a whirlwind, suplexing boulders and kicking them at Frisk as he leapt away. Time and time again he'd avoid her attacks as people whooped and cheered, Sans soon handing out hot dogs. Or rather, a water sausage in a bun.
HEY. Vegetables are good for you.
But then Frisk had opened his mouth and said "Maybe we should take a break". That had made Undyne snap. She started to hyperventilate, picking up a boulder, body shaking back and forth...dropping the boulder on her foot. Bouncing up and down, howling in pain, the various monsters in the crowd found it hilarious that after all this time, the only thing she'd managed to hit was herself. Wheeling on them with a dark glint in her yellow eye, she'd screamed "I'LL KILL YOU BITCHES".
"we all thought this was hilarious." Sans admitted.
"Oh, it was. But you know what wasn't? When she tossed a boulder at the crowd and flattened Jerry." The judge sighed.
"Speak for yourself, we STILL thought it was hilarious."
Undyne was now so deeply sunk into her witness stand that she was flopped onto the floor below, curling up and almost sobbing. But even now? Even now it was going to get worse. Because Frisk, in his desperation, FINALLY decided to fight back.
With the steel-binder notebook he'd picked up, a memento from one of the previous children who'd come before, he had rushed forward at Undyne, whacking her across the face, knocking her back as the crowd gasped in shock. Frisk had held it high, panting a bit. "I told you to STOP! Just STOP!" He yelled out. "I don't wanna hurt you, but I won't let you keep hurting me!"
Undyne's smile had been horrifying. Now she felt vindicated. Now she saw the warrior in Frisk come out. And she'd launched herself at him. But even now, it wasn't enough. When Frisk wanted to, he could be a combat beast. He ducked and dived, dipping below her strikes, whacking her again and again with the binder, just trying to wear her down. He KNEW that many monsters, if you hit them hard enough, would run away. He'd done it once or twice with some of the more jerky ones, giving them bops on the nose or kicking them in the rear. A good whack would make them go running off, meaning he could Spare them. He didn't do it often, and in many timelines, he didn't do it at all. But he knew it worked. And why wouldn't it work here?
But then disaster. A critical strike made her armor crack, and she'd flopped to her knees, her body shuddering and shaking, her voice a throaty, pale whisper as Frisk reeled back, the monsters in the crowd now silent as the grave.
"You may be stronger than I thought, but...no. I...I won't let this be where it ends. I...won't...die." Undyne said, as an unusual color began to drift over her singular good eye, an unusual, almost otherworldly color. The pupil became a powerful, burning red, the iris pitch black as she laughed in a fashion that was psychotic. "NO! NO, I won't die! Alphys...Papyrus...Asgore...everyone is counting on me to protect them!"
"Undyne..." Frisk had murmured softly, his Soul turning green before him as Undyne swiped her spear and she grinned.
"So you're! You're gonna have to try harder than that!" She laughed. "Humans might be determined, but I'm determined too! Determined to end this!"
"...Undyne, you..." Frisk murmured, twisting his body around, the green spear in his hands twirling as he blocked the flurry of magic, icy-blue spears that launched his way...seeing Undyne's feet were beginning to shimmer and shake. A distinctly melting quality was coming over them.
Anthony stared at her, looking mournfully at her. "You aren't gonna survive if you keep fighting me."
"I won't die! I WON'T DIE!" Undyne exclaimed, smiling as though nothing was wrong, more spears shooting forward, her body wavering...the spears now getting slower and slower. "S-See how strong we monsters are when we believe in ourselves?!" She demanded, more and more of her body fading.
"Undyne..." Frisk whispered, his tormentor's form almost utterly gone. Nothing but her head was...
And soon even that was beginning to fade away, only a single, tiny little spear racing towards him so...so slowly. Frisk bobbed the thing away, the monsters in the crowd watching in hushed tones, Frisk's expression one of horror and regret as Undyne struggled to stay erect. "Miss, please, s-stop, y-you're sick, you you need HELP..."
"...Alphys...this is what I was afraid of..." Undyne murmured out. "This is why I never told you..."
"Miss Undyne, please, you need to get help." Frisk had begged, trying to take a step forward before Undyne rose up, her form shifting, turning more solid as she let out a pained roar.
"No! Not yet! NGAAAAH! I WON'T DIE!" She snarled, holding her arms up high, fists clenched...
Frisk gasped in horror. She was MELTING. Her form was drizzling down, sloughing into nothingness, dissolving away before his eyes.
"I won't die! I won't die...I...w-won't...die..." She gurgled out, as if speaking underwater. "I...won't..."
And with that...she dissolved into dust, leaving behind a sobbing Frisk as he collapsed to his knees and openly wept, the monsters in the crowd silently looking on before, one by one, heading away. Sans quietly hung his head, then put up his hoodie, walking down the road as the footage ended, and everyone in the court turned to look at Undyne, who had risen back up and was now covering her face with her hands.
"All this...because you wouldn't accept mercy from a ten year old." Chara quietly asked. "You could have literally done nothing. But you chose to keep attacking and you forced them to defend themselves. Remind me again who, in your species's mind, is supposed to be the true monster?"
Undyne had nothing to say. Frisk bit his lip, seeing Chara smirking in pride before Gaster "he-hemmed". "Um, I do believe that the Defense has a character witness to bring forth in regards to Ms. Undyne, who can speak about her past just as I can?"
"Oh, yes, that's right. You knew her as a child, did you not? And you knew her mother?" Chara inquired. "Where IS Undyne's mother?"
"I CAN ANSWER THAT." Papyrus's loud, rather high-pitched voice rang out as he strode into the court, smiling happily, racing over to Undyne and giving her a big, ol, noogie. He knew she liked it, and the smile on her face that slowly stretched across her mouth made it clear it was working.
"Heh. You always know how to cheer me up." Undyne whispered, Papyrus then patting her on the back.
"THE GREAT PAPYRUS ALWAYS STRIVES TO BE COMFORTING AND PLEASANT. PAPYRUS. HE SMELLS LIKE THE MOON." He added, putting a hand on his chest as Undyne let him sit in the witness chair as she made her way back to the defense table, their lawyer standing up and clearing his throat.
"Papyrus, tell me. Why was Undyne's mother and father never around?"
"OH, HER FATHER HAD DIED DURING A SKIRMISH BACK BEFORE THE WAR REALLY STARTED. HE NEVER GOT TO KNOW UNDYNE. AND FROM WHAT I REMEMBER, GIVING BIRTH TO HER KILLED MS. MELUSINE." Papyrus confessed with a nod of his head. "SHE HAD HER MOM'S EYES. WELL, SHE'S ONLY GOT ONE OF THEM NOW BECAUSE MS. CHARA TOOK THE OTHER ONE OUT DURING A PRACTICE SESSION."
"That's riiiight, Ms. Chara had been asked to do practice dueling with Undyne because Asgore thought it was a good idea she learn to defend herself, correct?" Remiel the angel inquired politely as he paced back and forth in front of the witness stand. "However did it happen?"
"SHE SWUNG TOO HIGH AND...IT WAS VERY STICKY." Papyrus confessed, cringing a bit. "ASGORE KEPT SAYING THAT. VERRRRY STICKY. BUT SHE NEVER ASKED TO HAVE IT HEALED."
"No. It only made me cooler." Undyne said, pointing at the eyepatch she now had over her left eye before opening it up and plopping out something onto her open palm. "Plus I keep things in there. Mint?" She added, giving Alphys a Wintergreen candy as several of the people in the gallery cringed, a few almost vomiting into nearby wastebaskets.
"Was growing up without a mother...hard for you?" Remiel asked as Undyne immediately flinched and looked away and to the side. "After all, even Frisk had a mother for a short time before she was tragically taken from the world. Even Chara had parents, as neglectful as they could be. What was it like?"
"I...I got what I needed, I...I was fine." She muttered. "Or at least, I thought I was. What I remember was I had a lot inside me and I wanted to get it out. So I'd go picking fights with people. But even Gerson, at his age, could clean my clock in ten seconds cuz I was so hotheaded."
"That's understandable." Remiel insisted as he walked over to Undyne and gently took her hand as she looked into his deep, DEEP green eyes. "When you were born, you essentially claimed your mother's soul. You inherited her drive, her passion, and unfortunately, a great deal of her anger problems. It's common among your species for the mother to die giving birth, and the father's meant to manage the child's inherited traits so that their own personality can gleam forth. But you were left to manage everything on your own, with a streak of violence you couldn't control, and didn't understand."
He let go of her hands, turning to Papyrus. "Was she angry at Chara for what happened?"
"OH, SHE WAS SOOOO MAD. I DON'T THINK SHE EVER GOT OVER IT."
"So you have a girl with violence and anger issues, growing up without any parents, being taught every day in schools about how terrible humans were and how they'd sealed her kind away, and the one human she got to know took her eye out." Remiel reasoned. "Don't you think, all things considered, it's amazing she didn't become a serial killer?"
"Oh, c'mon." Chara snorted. "Are you trying to absolve her of all responsibility? No one put a gun to any of the monster's heads and made them try to kill any of the children that fell down. Not to mention the war was pretty much the monster's fault. As Gaster can attest to. Were you not, after all, the Royal Scientist of the Monster Kingdom? And did you not absorb human souls even BEFORE you were assigned to investigate the phenomenon?"
Gaster cringed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Y-Yes." He admitted. "It-it's complicated. We skeletons aren't...natural monsters. The truth is, all of us used to be human...and used to be from another world."
Everyone in the gallery, save for the judge, Jesus, gasped. Chara smirked a bit, nodding her head. "Go on."
"A world that sees everything that happens in this one. A world where many are as authors writing a book, and you are all the characters in a story. We found a way to inject ourselves into these stories and we tried to guide them towards happy endings." Gaster admitted. "But doing that turns us into...this." Gaster confessed. "So much of a change that we don't even remember where we came from. But I remembered because I wasn't ONE person but...two. Two made into one. Both of us had wanted to try and have a big impact on this world and to make things right, to do wonderful things. We disagreed on how to do it, but we wanted to help people."
Soon HE was the one sitting in the witness chair as he rested his hands in his lap and hung his bony head. "So I came into this world not as one soul, but two, two as one. Merged into a singular being. Because of that, I had these lines, as evidence of the two human souls that were used to "make" me." He said, pointing at his face, and the line that ran up from his right eye, and the one that ran down from his left. "The King, Asgore's father, had one of his own. He'd claimed it was a scar, but after he'd ordered me to do tests on human souls to learn if the old legends and hushed whispers about absorbing them were true...I realized his true nature and that of my own. The lines are a symbol of absorbed human souls."
"So there were hushed whispers...was absorbing human souls so commonplace in the olden days?" Chara inquired.
"We had history plaques detailing what a monster with human souls absorbed into them looked like." Gaster sheepishly confessed. "Humans didn't want to believe it at first, but then my...they found out about my experiments." He remarked quietly, hanging his head in shame. "My long research on humans and what happened to me when I killed them and took their souls, it...it led me to uncover EXP and LV. And me having near-godly powers was the only thing that saved me from being utterly erased from time and space and instead, just got me scattered across it. If I'd had one less soul, I would truly be gone."
"So the humans had feared monsters had been absorbing human souls to gain power, and the fear was true." Chara accused coldly. "King Asgore's own father had been ordering tests to prove it so? It wasn't mere scuttlebutt, old wives tales?"
A shake of the head "No. It wasn't." Gaster confessed. "And it haunted me every day I was underground. I wanted to go back!" He insisted, and they saw tears springing to his hollow eyes. "To prevent that from ever happening! It's why I began studying the time-space continuum with Alphys and Sans, I wanted to go back in time, make it so it never HAPPENED. We all would have been so much happier, but then there was the accident and..." He held his head in his hands. "...a doctor, a scientist, needs to have integrity. They need to own up to the terrible things they've done, and the mistakes they've made. I had been ordered to experiment with souls, and I should have said no. If you're going to blame anyone for what happened, blame me. Had I not done that, the humans would probably have never learned of our sins, and the war wouldn't have happened."
"They would have learned eventually. My father never got over losing his wife the same way Melusine lost her husband." King Asgore confessed from the defense table. "He couldn't let go of that. He couldn't forgive. Had you said no, he probably would have done it himself anyhow."
"Now, now, aren't you the one insisting the humans bear no responsibility? They did after all seal the monsters away Underground! A horrific, bloody war occurred and many innocent lives were lost!" Remiel protested angrily. "How can you insist the monsters bear responsibility for what they did, but not the humans?"
"What would stop someone like Sans or Undyne from walking into a bank vault?" Chara asked, Sans shrugging.
"dunno about Undyne, but I'm too lazy to walk in. would probably shortcut my way in, but still...I think the security guards and the guns might do that?"
"We have guns NOW, of course, so it's more even. What would stop you from entering a normal human's home in the times when you were living among humans in dual kingdoms? What would stop you from entering a castle and killing every member of the royal family? Yes, surely the humans would be able to stand up against beings that can throw boomerangs of ice, fireballs and laser cannons with their...SPEARS." Chara said, sticking her finger in her mouth, gagging. "They would have stood no chance. Nothing would have stopped you from slaughtering them."
"You can't blame people for what they MIGHT do." Remiel insisted.
"No, but that doesn't mean you don't take precautions. With great power there must also come great responsibility. They had all the power and none of the responsibility. There would have been no recourse for humans if monsters lashed out. The only thing humans had on their side were numbers and the seven human magicians." Chara reasoned.
"BUT TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT." Papyrus spoke up, everyone turning to him. "YES, WHAT WE DID WAS WRONG, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WHAT THE HUMANS DID WAS RIGHT EITHER. HURTING OTHER PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU'RE HURT IS JUST SPREADING MORE PAIN. YOU CAN'T FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE, YOU JUST SET MORE THINGS ON FIRE."
"It ain't like humans are an utterly innocent species either." Undyne muttered. "I've read up on stuff like the Holocaust."
"Th-that isn't really accurate." Alphys confessed, everyone astonished as she spoke up. "It isn't like animals don't do terrible things. Do-Dolphins will rape each other. Ant colonies enslave other ant colonies. The cuckoo bird, sh-she'll put her baby in another bird's nest, and that chick will PUSH the other baby birds out so it can get all the food! Animals are pretty awful to each other. And besides, we've been pretty mean to other monsters. Gryftrot kept getting vandalized, the teens in Snowdin were always acting awful to the adults and bossing folks around, and of course we can't forget JERRY."
"UGHHHHH. JERRY." All the monsters groaned at once, save for the UFO-shaped, three-legged monster himself who "harrumphed" as he looked away and folded his arms over his chest.
"We do kinda treat him really badly." Alphys admitted.
"And I've treated Alphys very poorly myself." Mettaton confessed as he spoke up now, putting a hand on his chest and bowing his head. "My behavior towards her once she built my body was quite rotten indeed! If I spent less time looking myself over in the mirror, remarking how I'd LOVE to make love to myself, and more time just talking with Alphys, she probably wouldn't have tried to commit suicide after that issue with the Amalgamates."
"Ohhh yes. Can't forget that." Alphys sighed as she cringed. "I was stupid and foolish and...I hurt so many people by accident. I didn't THINK, I just injected Determination into monsters and...and it turned them into those THINGS. I feel awful about that. It was an awful mistake."
"So why is it you can so easily forgive her for trying to do the right thing for your race, but you can't forgive humanity for trying to defend itself from what it saw as a dangerous, soul-stealing race that looked down on humanity?" Chara inquired.
"IT WAS EASY FOR US BECAUSE SHE'S OUR FRIEND. WE KNOW HER HEART. IF YOU GET TO KNOW PEOPLE, YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THEM." Papyrus reasoned. "I'M SURE IF I'D BEEN A BIT OLDER AND HAD JUST TALKED TO THE HUMANS ALL THOSE YEARS AGO, THEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS WOULD HAVE BEEN A WONDERFUL AMBASSADOR TO HUMANS!"
"That, unfortunately, didn't happen. What DID happen was six innocent children died, and Frisk here died many times over." Chara remarked, as Frisk realized there was an opening.
"If you're going to say that what happened to the Six Souls is a big reason for why we're having this trial, shouldn't they be here along with and Mr. Asgore?"
Remiel realized this was a good idea. He cleared his throat. "Your honor, before the Prosecution calls Toriel and Asgore Dreemurr to the stand, we'd like to call upon the Six Souls to be brought to the court so they can testify as well!"
Jesus gave a small smile, Chara turning pale. "I'll allow it. The court will recess so that you can go and speak to them, and bring them here."
"You're sure they'll speak on our behalf after all we did?" Toriel wanted to know, Frisk smiling warmly back.
"I know at least ONE of them will without a doubt." Frisk said. "After all...she's my mom. And she didn't have a mean bone in her body."