I apologize so much for not posting this sooner. It's mostly repeated information to new characters so it wasn't all that exciting to write. Fortunately that's the last of it, so my no-schedule schedule should be a little more frequent than every three months for this point forward.

In the meantime, enjoy.

Chapter 3

Broadcast

"Tra la la. The waters are wild today. That's bad luck…"

Bad luck indeed, Grillby crackled nervously to himself as the River Person took them swiftly down the river towards Hotland. He had a reason to be nervous, of course, as the water would instantly turn him to dust should he fall in. Aquaphobia was natural for fire elementals such as him.

Though, there was more reason to be nervous than that. There was the reason for which he was traveling from Snowdin, as he almost never did due to the dangerous conditions of travel for his kind. He, as apparently every monster capable of combat, had been called to the capital by Asgore for an urgent meeting called for seemingly no reason known to anyone. Not only was the lack of a known reason surprising, but so was the act. Asgore never called urgent meetings, or generally any meetings at all. Chances were high it was something very, very important, and Grillby was not looking forward to it at all.

"Tra la la, here we are." The River person brought the dog-boat to a stop when they reached the landing. Nodding a thanks, Grillby stepped of eagerly and tossed the mysterious monster 5G for the transportation.

However, they did not turn their attention to it as it clinked uselessly off the side of the boat into the water.

"Keep the money rightfully yours. You will need it later."

Grillby cocked his head in confusion, crackling with a slight curiosity, but they did not reply. "Come again some time. Tra la la."

With that, they sailed off in the direction of the Core. Grillby sighed, or as much as a fire elemental can sigh, shaking his head as he headed for the elevator, putting his hands in his pockets only to find the money had returned to it. What? He took them out and examined them, to find they were indeed the coins he had tossed, and they were perfectly dry. He thought he had lost them in the river…? Well, they had said to keep the change, and the price was free.

Grillby shook his head again in confusion, putting them back in his pocket as he called the elevator. That was a strange monster there. He'd have to come back and try and loosen up some of that mystery around the monster later. For now, he had places to be.

Ah, Hotland. It was good to be back home again. He missed his birthplace. Despite having been around since the war, the lava cores of Ebott were actually where he had been created. It was good to be back in his homeland; he felt more at power here.

The elevator arrived, and he stepped inside and hit the button to take him to the very top, where MTT resort and the elevator to the capital were located. Shortly after, the doors opened and he walked the short distance to the MTT resort to once again wait for an elevator.

After some time traveling, he finally ended up in the building at the Capital where the meeting was to take place. Glancing around as he went in, he observed many new and familiar monsters around. Many of the royal guards were around and about, alongside younger retired veterans of the war. Other stronger monsters were around as well, a few of which he caught their names; Muffet, a spider lady who baked goods and had the unique ability to change souls to purple, Mettaton, a robot star he had not known about, and a few others. Surprisingly, he found Sans here. He didn't expect Sans to actually not be lazy enough to visit.

After a few minutes of mingling and meeting up with some old friends he hadn't seen in a while, most monsters expected had arrived, and Asgore stood at the podium and asked everyone to take their seats.

"Good evening, everyone. I am happy you were able to participate today, as this seems to be a very urgent meeting."

"Seems to be?" Undyne questioned, rising slightly from her "Reserved - Royal Guard Captain" seat. "Do you not know the reason that you called this meeting?" She paused. "Don't tell me it was just for tea."

Asgore sighed, shaking his head. "I am afraid that I did not call this meeting myself. I was requested by a few people to call it together for them. They did not say their purpose for it, but I was assured that it was direly important to our future." He furrowed his brow upon saying this, but gestured to several exclusively reserved seats near the podium, of which sat Sans and Alphys. Sans appeared to be holding a flower pot with a golden flower in it. "Those of you who, indeed, do have hands, please give them up for our royal scientist and a retired partner, as well as their experiment: Sans, Alphys and Flowey."

The various sounds of applause were heard as they rose and stepped up to the stage. Asgore stood aside to let them take forth from there.

Meanwhile, Grillby was quite astonished at this active behavior from Sans. He was quite surprised to see him even at this meeting, not to mention hosting it. Knowing him quite well at the bar, he loved slacking off and doing as little as physically possible. This was quite out of his character. Heh, not that that was a bad thing, he supposed. He wondered for a moment what inspired him to up his activity on this matter.

"good evening, everybody. I am very glad that you were all able to participate in this, as we shortly will need all the help that we can possibly get." Before anyone could question, he rose his hand in silence. "we will explain in due time, don't worry. we have some very important things that need to be discussed before we can allow you to fully understand and believe what we will say."

Alphys stepped forward, a little nervous, and Sans stepped politely to the side to let her speak. "One of th-the first things that we need to discuss, primarily, is the subject of determination. D-determination is the desire to persist, the resolve t-to change the fate of the person."

The flower, presumably Flowey, spoke up. "Monsters do not have determination in most cases, as we are mostly made of magic. That is a trait reserved for Human Souls, like many we already know of, such as bravery, kindness, patience, and so on."

"during the time I was assistant to the royal scientist, we had worked to experiment with using determination in monsters, and objects that did not have it at first."

"Is that what I was called for that one day, Alphys? You tried giving me some determination? How come nobody knew about this?"

Alphys blushed, a little uncomfortable to be releasing this information despite the importance. "Th-this was all very t-top secret information that only a f-f-few people knew about for… r-reasons. B-but yes, we did experiment on you after s-some other monsters that h-had fallen down h-had been… t-tested."

"but that is beside our point. our main point in determination is that a person or monster can be so determined to accomplish their goal that they can bring themselves back from a near-death state, or even from the brink of death."

Flowey coughed slightly. "And if a human or monster, or something else, like me, has enough determination, they can even rewind time."

The podium went silent after this, letting everyone consider this new data. Many moments of thoughtful quiet went by before someone spoke up.

It gave Grillby some time to absorb and consider all of Sans's actions recently, and all the feelings he had been getting for quite a while of deja vu. Considering what he knew about Sans, he could see what they would probably saying next. Most of the monsters would be incapable of remembering these time rewindings, and at least one of the three talking would be an exception.

Sans continued. "and, I am sorry to say, there indeed is a human with this ability in the underground. they have been exploiting their power to kill everybody here, rewinding time to do it over again and again for their own amusement. we have brought you all together to put a stop to it."

A monster spoke up. "Flowey, if you said you have this ability, aren't you able to prevent them from doing this yourself?"

Flowey sighed. "Only the soul with the most determination is able to use the save. The human has more than me, and I can't take that control without the six human souls already here. Even then, they have defeated me before and dominated the monstrosity that I became. Individually, they are unstoppable."

"Then why are we all called here, if it's useless?"

"we still have one last hope," Sans said, stepping forward. "every time they have fought someone, it's been one-on-one, or a party of two or three at best. all of them individual sticks, easy to snap and add to the fire, so to speak."

"We've called you here to fight them as a team. Yes, they can reset. Yes, they can try as many times as they wish. But, they have deterred from their paths before. They aren't unshakable. In fact, without their power, they are actually quite weak."

"F-from what I've been told, Undyne, when they f-fought you in your… Your undying form, th-the one given to you through d-determination… It took them at l-least…. Uhm… Uh… F-f-fifty tries."

"what we're saying is, we don't want to defeat them, because that'd be impossible. we're trying to route them onto a better, not-so-hard-to-beat path. so that, perhaps, in another time…"

"Wecan all go to the surface and live happy lives where nobody dies."

They paused, letting all sink in. Grillby was quite surprised at the info of the final human being in the underground. From what he had heard, this task seems extremely dangerous, but critical to the survival of monsters, and possibly the entire universe. Daring himself, he decided to speak in the silence.

"...Where can we start?"

Flowey smiled. "The door to the ruins is the place where we can catch them the weakest. Now, I'd like everyone here to listen very closely. We all are good in different areas of our combat, and I'd like to discuss with everyone how we'll all work together to keep each other alive…"

The chapters are getting progressively longer… That's good, right? It's my goal, so I suppose so. They're almost too short as it is, it's hard to tolerate.

Ah, well. How it comes out is how it comes out. It's not extremely important.

Also, if the view/visitor count is anything to go by, this story has been getting a significant amount of attention. At the time I'm writing this a/n, it's almost at 800 views with just three separate sections. I'm not sure if this is good or normal, but I'm honored and happy that so many people like reading this, despite the absence. Since the repeated stuff is over now, I feel I'll probably be more inspired to write more chapters from this point forward. Thank you so much for taking your time.

Also, don't hesitate to say what you think by writing a review. I take all compliments and criticism to heart, so don't be shy if you're holding back.

OKAY! THAT'S ENOUGH TALKING! I'LL BE AT HOME WRITING A NEW CHAPTER! FEEL FREE TO COME BY AND VIEW IT WHEN IT'S FINISHED! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!