Chapter 11: Passengers

Shortly after her breakdown, the former monarch had been taken away to be put into custody by Rebel and Sans. (The latter with a magical death grip on the other's soul). Not that she was putting up much of a fight. She'd ultimately been broken after Papyrus had helped her remember who she was and what she'd done. They'd still taken every precaution anyway since she was more powerful than even Rebel and had killed Doctor viciously (twice).

Flowey had disappeared sometime after, having slipped through Sans' bone cage during the distraction. With no more power he was sure not to cause any more problems though.

After things had calmed down, there was still the whole matter of getting the universes to stabilize. Rebel had been quiet and sitting motionless in the chair at the desk while Alphys worked by herself, the former obviously broken up over Doctor's death. Not to mention she'd had to put down an Undyne who had betrayed them all. Dinah had tricked them but she was one of them. There used to be four of them in the beginning but now there was just Undyne and Rebel left.

No one wanted to look in the places where they knew two piles of dust were sitting. Sans looked like he wanted to say something but he kept his mouth closed.

"A-alright, I think I fixed all the d-damage Dinah caused." Alphys finally broke the silence. Dinah hadn't destroyed all the notes entirely, but she'd done a decent job of trying. Alphys had also made backups of a lot of the information and had to get it all together.

"We should start immediately in c-case this doesn't work. Once we g-get rid of all the extra DT in your system it sh-should heal the anomaly and set everything right again, as well as re...reset this universe."

"Reset?" It didn't make much sense to her but she'd decided to just go along with it all a long time ago. "Does that mean everyone's going to forget?" Alphys nodded sadly. Rebel sighed at the revelation.

"That sucks. Besides certain things happening I could say I had a good time. Especially not having to watch my back constantly. I'd stay here if I could."

"I know," It was impossible but still nice to hear. "I'm sorry you have to go back." She was more than grateful that her world wasn't like Rebel's but that didn't mean she'd wanted to see her hardier counterpart return to that.

"Ah, don't worry about it." She slapped Undyne's back hard. "My Papyrus is overdue for some Indian burns anyway." Papyrus blanched at that, as much as a skeleton could. He'd never complain about getting noogies again.

"HOW DO INDIAN BURNS EVEN WORK ON SKELETONS?" He asked, something he'd regret later. "WE DON'T HAVE SKIN."

"Wanna find out?" A mischievous grin grew across her face.

"...NO." He yelped as suddenly Rebel took off, chasing the lanky skeleton down the hallway and out of sight. Undyne laughed as she heard faint shouting from them both.

"L-let's get started." Alphys said, tugging on the edge of the human's shirt.

"Lead the way," Undyne replied, the joy dropping from her face.

The two were completely silent on the elevator ride downstairs. As they stepped out into the basement lab, Undyne felt the sudden need to speak up. After all, there was no guarantee that she'd survive this.

"I forgive you, you know." Alphys jerked so hard she dropped the manila folders she'd been holding.

"Wh-what!?" She exclaimed, thinking she must have misheard. Undyne immediately bent down to help her pick up the fallen papers.

"I said I forgive you. For what happened. Even if you don't remember doing it, I know you must be torn up about it." Alphys was quiet for a few seconds, waiting to speak until all the papers were back in her hands.

"I have been." She said quietly. "I haven't b-been able to st-stop thinking about it."

"You did it for the good of everyone. And if you had succeeded and taken the DT, you would have been really badass." Alphys let out a little laugh, seeing Undyne's attempt at lightening the situation.

"R-really?"

"I know it. Believe me." Silence again. "Can you forgive me too?" The little lizard's eyes widened at that.

"For what? From what I...what I hear, I was the one in the wrong. I took away what should have been your j-job. I got Mettaton to knock you out and tie you up. I be-betrayed you."

"Because I acted irrationally. We could have solved it together. I took a substance knowing it would kill me and let you go through all that traumatic crap of watching me do it." Alphys looked up at her for a full ten seconds before nodding.

"Yeah. I for-forgive you t-too." Undyne smiled and they shared a moment before Undyne stood up, staring in the direction of where the Extractor was. The two of them began walking again until Undyne was standing in front of it, staring up and contemplating. It didn't seem to loom over her like she thought it would. Maybe she'd been through too much.

Maybe she'd found herself again.

Or maybe she was just ready for all this to be over.

Alphys came up and stood next to her. Undyne noticed her claws were shaking. Huh, seems her doctor was more nervous than she was about all this.

"I-I'm sorry b-but this is really gonna h-hurt." So, Dinah hadn't been lying after all. At least about that.

"That's okay." Undyne replied, not removing her eyes from the Extractor.

Yes. It was time.

It hadn't just hurt. It had been excruciating. It had been all she could do to keep herself from screaming as all the red signaling determination in her soul was drained out slowly until her justice soul could take over safely.

Alphys watched over everything carefully, measuring her vitals and making sure it was going smoothly. There had been a scare for a moment at the beginning when the machine had started taking determination too fast. But Alphys in all her skills and knowledge had righted it quickly enough.

Even though it was more dangerous, Undyne had asked that no one else be there, knowing the trauma of having her soul outside her chest would be considerably less. Thankfully Sans readily agreed and Rebel hadn't wanted to be there anyway. Papyrus had to have a little convincing since he couldn't see the downside of his support but he'd relented, seeing how much she'd needed it.

Within an hour it was all done. Undyne felt ready to faint but she still stared up in fascination at her soul floating above her chest. It was now a vibrant yellow.

Alphys wasn't joining her though. Instead she was looking at the jar where her determination had gone. Undyne jerked as she heard her gasp.

"What, what is it?"

"Oh! Sorry, sorry here." She put her soul back in her chest and helped Undyne off the examination table. Undyne's eyes immediately went to the container where her DT had been put into.

It was...it was taking shape. It was turning into its own soul.

"Fascinating," Alphys muttered as she scrambled for a pen and paper to write all this down.

Undyne meanwhile couldn't take her eyes off the human-shaped heart taking form in front of her eyes. She'd had enough determination to make a whole other soul? Or was this actually the human's soul? The one she'd absorbed just before death, back in the Judgment Hall, so long ago? She had so many questions and none of them could be answered now.

Twenty minutes later the new soul had been brought upstairs, much to the shock of everyone. Sans was busy checking to see if the walls between universes were stabilizing now but he'd taken a few minutes to watch with the rest of them. Except for Alphys who was coming up with her own theory, using data she'd collected while extracting the DT and Undyne's own account of what had occurred before all this happened.

"So that was all in you? Your soul is all yellow now?" Rebel asked, cocking her head as she gazed at the red heart. Undyne nodded, her chin resting on the table, her eyes still on the magical container.

It felt like it was calling out to her, telling her to do something. What exactly that was she wasn't sure yet. So she decided to wait. She also opted not to tell anyone else of the vibes she was getting off the soul. She couldn't quite explain it, plus she didn't want the others to think she was crazy.

Finally, after what felt like forever Alphys finally had her theories on what had happened.

"This soul isn't part of you, Undyne. It never was." Her stutter was gone entirely now that she was in 'scientist mode'. "It's fully human but it's different enough from your DNA that I can determine that it's from the human you fought in the other timeline. It must have merged completely with yours. Your combined determination sparked a reaction that threw the timeline into chaos, trying to reset. It also changed your DNA to help you survive the ordeal.

But the universe tried to fight back by erasing your signature from existence. The reset coupled with that caused this sort of mishmashed timeline and made a sort of 'magnet' that attracted all nearby Undynes in order to destroy them." Undyne's head had started to spin halfway through the explanation but she forced herself to attempt to understand. She scratched both sides of her face absentmindedly. Why did it itch so much all of a sudden?

"Something's trying to destroy us?" Rebel had been listening more intently and she cracked her knuckles in anticipation. Of a fight? What the hell was she expecting to fight against? Undyne noticed Papyrus' winces at the noise each of her fingers made.

"Not like something was actively trying to kill you, more like a reaction to the universes collapsing. Like antibodies trying to expel a virus. It deemed 'Undyne' the source of the problem and it's not going to stop until she's gone. You're all gone that is."

"I'm not a virus." She growled, making Alphys' eyes widen with slight fear.

"Don't take it personally, that's not what she meant." Undyne said, finally sitting up. Suddenly she understood it now.

"I get it now. It was my fault. I caused all this and the reaction has only been the universe trying to fix it all. But it's time I fixed this."

"Wha? How?" The others could only watch as Undyne stood up, grabbing the container with the red soul and heading towards the door.

Before exiting she turned back, knowing in her heart exactly what she had to do now.

"I'm sorry I caused everyone so much pain. You've all been so supportive and so nice to me, but no one can help me now. It all started with me and it's my duty to end it all, before any further damage is done." She looked at each of her friends staring at her either in confusion or sad knowing, in Sans' case. "Alphys. Rebel. Papyrus. Sans. Thank you." The left side of her mouth turned up in a grin.

"Goodbye punks."

It was a long walk through Hotland, the Core and finally to New Home, where the King's castle loomed in the distance. She knew the way so well she could do it in her sleep. No monster dared to bother her as she moved through the King's home, quickly unlocking the gate and letting herself through. She could go all the way through to the throne room where she knew her old friend would be at this time but that wasn't why she was here.

After what felt like forever but was in reality only a few minutes she reached the Judgment Hall, where all of this had started as well as ended.

Her mind didn't know why she was doing this but her body felt like it was moving out of its own accord. Moving to the middle of the room she set the container housing the soul down on the floor, stepping back and waiting for something to happen.

A full silent minute went by, just long enough for her to start thinking she was crazy until the image of a familiar human child flickered into existence just to the left of the container, wearing a pink and blue sweater. They were transparent, like a ghost, only partially there. A few more seconds went by and another child appeared beside the first, to the right of the soul. This one was clad in a green and brown shirt.

"Hey Undyne," The first child signed, their brown eyes filled with sadness. The second child didn't say anything as they approached Undyne, reaching a finger up to place on her forehead.

And suddenly Undyne remembered everything. The reset before all her friends had been killed ruthlessly. Five resets ago, to be exact. Befriending Frisk, that's what their name was. Making spaghetti together, chatting with them on the phone with Papyrus, having Frisk deliver her letter, standing with everyone together on the Surface...

"Why?" She gasped out, her hands curling into fists. She felt like her eyes should be filling with tears, seeing the image of that beautiful sky over the human city above. But she could feel the human emotions start to ebb away. The grief over the loss of her earlier happiness was quickly replaced by anger. "We...we had everything. Why did you take it away from us? I thought we were friends." She strode forward, planning to knock some sense into the child when she noticed they were crying. Their hands were shaking, equivalent to stuttering in their sorrow.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry." it was hard to hear anything else but their broken sobbing. "I th-thought it was all a g-game. Since nobody remembered I thought I c-could have a little f-fun."

"A...a game?!" Undyne was flabbergasted. "You think our lives were a game? How dare you?!"

"Undyne, stop!" The other child interrupted her by speaking out loud, holding out a hand.

"And just who are you?" Undyne snapped. She had more questions than she had answers and it was pissing her off.

"My name is Chara. I am the first human that fell. Long story short, after my death, Frisk found my soul back in the Ruins. I was confused though and didn't understand what was going on. I let Frisk reteach me how the world worked. When I learned it was a 'kill or be killed' kind of world I let Frisk take my power, making them strong enough to kill everybody Underground. The hatred changed me though, making me into an evil and twisted thing." Their unnerving red eyes were too familiar and Undyne lowered her eyebrows.

Was she imagining things or was her left eye starting to go blurry?

"But then you stopped us," Chara continued. "You reminded us what monsters stand for, how important life is. I didn't remember how much everyone down here loved me, how accepted I was, much more than my own kind had. We're sorry. We truly are. We want to help make things right again."

"How?"

"Now that the two of us have separated from you, we can use our combined might properly to do a complete RESET. The strength of the three of us should be enough to fix any damage we caused."

"But Sans said any resets were too dangerous with the walls in as much decay as they are."

"There is still a danger," Chara agreed. "But me an' Frisk are confident that this'll work. Right?" They turned to the other child, who could only nod through their tears. Undyne realized something.

"It...it was you two. In my head. Making me emotional and causing me to do things I normally wouldn't do." Like running away to the dump just because of a few hurtful words or not seeing Dinah's deception straight away. Chara nodded.

"Sorry about that too. Our personalities tended to...bleed over a bit. We couldn't find a way to make you aware of us, something like this has never happened before. That we know of at least." The three of them were silent, watching each other. The gravity of everything they'd done, what they'd gone through and what was coming next was running through all their heads. Undyne's eyes steeled in determination and she clenched her fists even harder. She didn't even notice the skin on her knuckles changing to a blueish tone, like someone was dumping paint on them. The blue ran slowly up her arms like a meandering river, enveloping all her skin gradually.

"I'm ready." Chara nodded, nudging the other child. Frisk wiped the tears off their face and the two children held their hands out towards her. Undyne took their hands in her own as a bright light appeared behind them in the hall. The tall human took a deep breath, saying goodbye to all that she'd learned these past few weeks.

The trio gripped hands as they walked together into the light, the power of their combined RESET overwhelming even the darkness of the entire Underground.

Just the epilogue left! Thanks for everyone who supported this story, I love you all *blows kiss*