"Holy shit!" ten-year-old Mander yelled, looking up from his phone and briefly scrambling backwards on Michelle's bed. He was the only one in the room, Michelle noticed; apparently someone had thought to post him as a lookout in her room. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor right where she'd vanished right out of them, although they'd all come back in through a portal that had become a permanent fixture on her wall. Mander flew out of the room through the open door. "Mom! Everyone! Shelly's home and she's with Dad and some other people and they just came out of a slaughterhouse!" Michelle tittered briefly- her littlest brother's childish demeanor was refreshing- but she was interrupted by Sheila gasping slightly and stumbling, leaning on her trident for support. Oh, right, the gravity. She'd envisioned supporting Sheila with her own power, but she didn't have any of that left, and neither did Sheila. Charles understood the problem at once and Sheila started floating, gently dropping the trident. Michelle realized that she was still clutching the Gluesword in a death grip and willed her hands to open.
The entire Dreemurr family crowded into the hall in a rush (they all came home, they're all home because of me), Gaster and the master mage Asmodeus hanging back along with Abe, a representative of the Department of Transdimensional Exploration. Sans was not there, which was just as well; if he'd been there to make a bad pun, Charles might have shattered him. The adults were shouting relief and some of the kids were shouting questions (while Sheila stared at Gaster, an actual Gaster back there and people treating him like he was normal) but Charles held up a hand. "Frisk," he said in a boosted tone, "get the ampoules. All of them." Michelle blinked. A single emotion-transference ampoule, which Frisk used as an aid in treating psychiatric patients, was to be used in the Dreemurr household only when absolutely necessary. Surely, Mom wouldn't- but Frisk did not even take a second look at her before immediately flying to do just that. We must look like absolute hell. "Mom, food. You know which kind." Toriel did not hesitate either. "Bath time for you three. Az." Charles effortlessly put Sheila into Asriel's white, fluffy arms as he immediately stepped forward, and Michelle caught his startled look on seeing Sirale. "Everyone else, we'll talk again in an hour. There's stuff I need to clean up." In multiple senses of the word. "Don't follow me, and do not mess with their artifacts." Right, she still had the Glowshard in her pocket, the token, even their clothes were artifacts of the 34(b). And like that, Charles was gone, back through the portal.
"Are you injured anywhere?" Asriel asked as he led them to the spacious hot tub, running the water at just the right temperature, the powerful, wide nozzle filling it quickly.
"No, there's healing," Michelle said, knowing that that fact was of world-shattering importance, particularly to Asriel, but not able to marshal her thoughts enough to explain why and instead just letting him help her out of her clothes. The dress wasn't nearly so sticky when she got it. "Wait, is my back all right?" She remember getting hit by Darkner bullets at one point but could not for the life of her remember if or when it was healed.
"I took care of that," Sheila dully rasped. Michelle vaguely worried about her not wanting to be undressed by Asriel, but she didn't seem to care at all, and Asriel slipped off Sirale's robe without even a bleat of protest from the little goat. Michelle stepped into the tub just as Asriel lowered Sheila into it next to her, and it turned a light shade of crimson even before Asriel brought out the powerful disinfectant soap.
"I need to know what kind of healing this is," Asriel said gently, washing Michelle's hair, which she'd just noticed needed a lot more washing than usual, trying not to pay too much attention to the color of the water. "Is it regenerative, wound sealing, Platonic ideal?" His voice raised slightly on that last one.
Michelle didn't know how Asriel would define it. "They don't have aging, sickness, or cancer where she's from, and their technology is from the Dark Ages," Michelle said.
Asriel looked deep into the humans with his chirurgical sense as he washed them, feeling their inner workings at the cellular level, noticing the absence of the natural, tiny imperfections that he'd noticed years ago but couldn't have removed from Michelle's body. Whatever was powering the magic healing was obviously a much smarter process than the fundamentally basic-physics 'console commands' that were the spells of his world. "Well, there goes my job," he said casually, choosing to focus on the three kids in front of him rather than worrying about long-term concerns, and abruptly Michelle began to laugh spasmodically, Sheila quickly following suit.
"Why is this funny?!" Michelle and Sheila asked at the exact same time, and that made them laugh harder, Sirale completely confused and still silent.
"Endorphin rush," Asriel replied. "Enjoy it while it lasts." He turned to Sirale. "I don't know if you know this, but you're like me, so you don't get it." Sirale vaguely nodded and Asriel's brow furrowed in worry.
"Ampoules," Frisk called, opening the bathroom door, getting a good look at Michelle and her friends, recognizing the parallels. "Is everyone all right?"
"The girls are fine for now," Asriel said, picking an ampoule out of Frisk's box. "It's my counterpart who needs help. What's your name?" he asked the little goat.
"Sirale," he said, and Michelle felt a sharp pang of guilt, remembering how happy and exuberant he'd first been, before he knew what heroism could really involve.
"Sirale... Oh, of course. Right." Michelle was mildly pleased with herself for figuring it out faster than he had. "Sirale, I want you to focus on all your bad emotions, all your fear and tragedy, can you do that for me?" Sirale nodded and Asriel gently reached into the water and touched the ampoule to the little goat's midsection, rather than the head where he would have touched a human. It filled with black, tarry gunk immediately and Asriel set it aside, his eyes wide- he was surprised the little goat hadn't started melting a while ago. "Okay, we're going to do a little bit more." He took three more ampoules, which would be overkill for most humans and an insane amount for a monster, leaching out all the horror and disillusionment that risked corrupting or damaging Sirale's pattern. "Feeling better?"
"Yeah, a lot better!" Sirale chirped. "But that was..."
"Whatever happened, don't think about it right now," Frisk advised, gently kneeling down to the tub and petting the little goat's wet, floppy ears, the way she still did with her own goat brother, and Sirale bleated softly. "Just relax. All of you. We'll have lots and lots of time to worry about everything later, or whenever you want. Never's fine too." It was her husband that she was going to interrogate. There were, after all, no coincidences in interuniversal travel.
"Later," Michelle agreed. She felt like her brain was going to fall apart.
"Children, your snacks are here," Toriel said, walking in with a bright grandmotherly smile despite her actual feelings. She'd brought in doubly rich chocolate fudge with hints of butterscotch and cinnamon, a nutritionist's nightmare of sugar and fat, the sort of thing Charles ate to recharge his own power. She fed all three of them directly, as much as they wanted, which wasn't much; the idea of wanting to eat didn't quite cross Michelle's mind, Sheila had never eaten anything so rich in her life, and Sirale was still just a monster. Even as she fed them, Toriel wasn't quite able to conceal her horror at what they had gone through. It wasn't that bad for us, Grandma, and we were there, Michelle thought, but then realized that maybe it had been that bad. She couldn't tell.
But Toriel didn't know the story and was probably worried about all sorts of things that didn't happen, so Michelle decided to ease her burden in as few words as possible. "We killed a really evil monster, and then we met a universe creator who'd been influenced by a Gaster and we got a reality hack and we used that to kill a Chara in a bunch of bodies," she explained.
"And they're really good at dealing with consequences!" Sirale piped up, and Sheila started laughing to herself.
"That runs in the family," Toriel replied without missing a beat. "Are you named Shelly as well?" she asked Michelle's counterpart.
"Sheila," she rasped, and Toriel simply nodded. Michelle wondered if someone was going to have to explain the way Sheila talked, but that didn't happen; her mother simply stroked her fluffy hand over Sheila's wet hair instead as if she were the other girl's grandmother as well. Sheila smiled at Michelle, saying everything in a moment's glance: Thank you so much for bringing me here. Michelle smiled back and closed her eyes; before she knew it, she drifted off to sleep.
She did not dream.
She woke to a soft, fluffy hand gently pressing on her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she laughed a bit; Sirale was floating in the tub, sleeping face-up. Sheila was half-dozing and glanced in her direction. Her skin had gotten a bit wrinkly. "How long...?"
"About an hour. Dinner's ready," Asriel replied. Dr. Asriel Dreemurr would never let anyone fall asleep in a tub of water without supervision, and she realized that he would have, without question or complaint, watched over them all night. He'd even slowly cycled the water. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I can think again," Michelle answered, lifting herself out of the tub, adding a bit of lift to Sheila to make the gravity easier on her. The ampoules were still in the room, mostly unused; Michelle still wasn't in the mood to freak out about anything and neither was Sheila. The walk-in hair dryer- a favorite of the goats- was adjacent, and the three of them luxuriated, taking seats in the middle of the hot, blowing air. An old but well-maintained robe of Asriel's was sitting nearby, the right size for Sirale, and two identical sets of Michelle's purple Dreemurr-fur pajamas were in neatly folded piles.
"What kind of spell is this?" Sheila whispered, and Michelle couldn't stifle her giggle.
"It's technology, works everywhere. Just assume that everything we do is technology, except when it's magic," Michelle replied, lifting a Dreemurr hairbrush and proceeding to brush the little goat. He was very much like his counterpart in the shedding department, and soft, black Dreemurr-equivalent fur rapidly covered the brush. "Oh, yeah. Hey, Az, make sure she gets a dose of the magic gene," she said conversationally even though Asriel was in the other room, but of course he heard her and cracked the door to tell them it was already on its way. "Also, Sheila, try singing something, make sure the rules here didn't change." She was fully aware of what she was asking: Please test to see if the laws of metaphysics in this entire universe are the same as they used to be.
Sheila sang something that Michelle didn't recognize, and the acoustics of the room echoed in strange ways, and everyone in the whole house (even the ones without superhuman hearing) must have heard the clear, full tone. She shook her head; it was totally ineffective. "It's worse for you in my world," Sheila said in her musical accent, remembering Michelle's awkward movements.
"Yeah, but this gravity's worse for you," Michelle replied, stopping with Sirale's fur and starting on her own hair, Sheila following suit. "It's all right, with our magic it shouldn't be too bad. I'll teach you how to use it."
"You'd have me stay here forever?" Sheila asked, a bit confused.
"Do you want to go back?" Michelle replied, more confused. "I mean, if you really can't handle the gravity or maybe our sun's too bright or something," Michelle continued, considering Sheila's half-translucent skin, "then we could probably set something up to make travel quick, but that place'll have to be fortified because there's no DETERMINATION there and there's a massive power vacuum." Sheila shook her head, signifying a lack of understanding. "Chara's not King anymore, so who's in charge?" Sheila nodded and Michelle heard faint, deep chuckling, and then Michelle realized how she was being silly as the fog continued to lift. "Actually, we need to protect your world's side of the portal anyway, because there's a tunnel straight to my room." Michelle would have been very surprised if there weren't already well-paid, top-tier soldiers there doing just that. Military forces didn't generally like taking direct orders from the Devil, so Dad had started his own PMC.
"But, no matter where I lived, you would have me protected."
"Do you now understand what the word 'princess' means?" Michelle asked, putting on the soft pajamas along with her alternate. She heard more chuckling and wondered what Asriel found so funny.
"I think I do," Sheila replied, opening the door.
"I wish I could be half the royalty you are," Sirale said wistfully as Michelle pocketed her phone, and both of the girls were glad that he did not blame them for the violence that they had done.
Downstairs, the rest of the Dreemurr family waited, an uncommon sight. Despite Toriel's general wish to have family dinners, the conflicting schedules and occasional unforeseen obligations associated with being Dreemurr royalty meant that all eleven of them were present for dinner a couple of times a month; Charles was, by far, the most likely to be absent. This evening's meal was a feast of buttered potatoes, garden vegetables, cheese, and an actual pig with an apple in its mouth sitting in the center, right out of a movie or a cartoon. There were a total of thirteen seats, nine of them filled with Asriel halfway down the stairs, and Michelle realized that her family was, in fact, waiting for the three of them, a position that she was absolutely not familiar with and certainly not in favor of (and one that Mander was obviously in disfavor of as well). Sheila had seen feasts like this before- she must have, living with a Chara- but the idea that she was going to participate in one clearly struck her, and that combined with the still-unfamiliar gravity nearly caused her to tumble down the stairs before Michelle stabilized her alternate.
Her family sat silent and expectant as she arrived; it was unnerving, but she realized that this, too, was for her benefit; if somebody started talking, everybody would start talking, and someone (probably Grandma) had decided 'food first, talk later', and Charles had answered all of the important questions anyway. Sirale hopped up on his chair between the girls, while Michelle wasted no time in sitting down and Sheila pulled herself up with Charles' gentle telekinetic help, not sure what the family's rituals were or if anyone was going to say anything or if she had to use her utensils in a specific way. That was a bad thing to do to her, Michelle noted- you didn't give someone whose business was mimicry no idea what she was supposed to be mimicking. She'd soon discover that without their magic powers, she couldn't eat the way rambunctious Dreemurr children ate.
Often, when they were all at the table together, Charles would use his powers in a rhythmic, orderly way, making conductor-like gestures while reality-slashing through portions of food and sending it to his family's plates. Tonight, he had very little regard for such ceremony; he simply glanced at the food, first neatly slashing apart the pig into well-cooked pork cutlets, then moving foods around the table as efficiently and rapidly as he could focus on them, serving Michelle and her friends first. Michelle'd regained her appetite after that hour in the tub; she was really, fiercely hungry as the various magics had depleted various chemical reserves, and porcine protein went down her throat almost as soon as it hit her table. She glanced over at Sheila and Sirale, pointing with a very simple message: If Dad hadn't intended for us to start chowing down, he wouldn't have put this on our plates right away. They got the message very quickly.
Food tastes different when you're actually, really hungry; this Michelle knew from having burned through her reserves many times before, in the service of a performance or just seeing what she could do. Most magic-wielding kids went through it in the formative years of their lives, running themselves to exhaustion, discovering their bodies' limits. Michelle had the tendency to probe at them, test them, see what she could do- a tendency that had ultimately served her very well an hour ago. Whenever she ate lame store candy to compensate, it tasted wonderful; Grandma's and Gary's home cooking was beyond divine, and she was annoyed that she'd earlier had sweets without being able to taste them properly.
"Are you doing okay?" Frisk asked after a more or less continuous stream of food-down-throat. Michelle knew which kind of okay she meant.
"I'm fine, I just don't feel like thinking about it right now," Michelle replied, and her mother smiled and nodded in reply. The idea that she and her father had mutilated a bunch of Charas to death while innocent Darkners had been slaughtered was there, still in her memory, but the truth was that she was kind of procrastinating on emotionally reacting to it, and her mother had explicitly told her that never getting around to that was fine. She wondered whether that was an ability that other people, even her own family, had, and figured that she really didn't want to deal with that right then either. Sheila, the mental shapeshifter, simply nodded, obviously being of a similar mindset.
"You two should expect calls tomorrow," Charles said. Teaching Sheila how to use a phone was on the immediate to-do list. "Who you let in there is up to you, but it's research." Michelle stopped chewing for a second as she realized what had happened: Abe from the DTE (probably along with Gaster and Asmodeus) had asked to send teams in to gauge just what sort of universes had become connected to this one, and Charles had told him that he'd need her or Sheila's permission- or preferably both- before the US government began poking around in the girls' 34(b). (Michelle realized, in a storm of insight, that arguing would not have crossed Abe's mind, as a matter of national policy and common sense - and that she and her alternate owned a private universe.) Charles' voice was methodical and regular, as he intended to absolutely be understood. "Sheila, after committing regime change in other universes, our society's policy is, whenever possible, to place our favorite members of that universe's society in positions of power, in general accordance with its existing traditions of governance as far as that's sensible." Charles had shredded enough ruling Charas- in the worlds where the Chara didn't simply kill everyone- that this was familiar to him. Michelle's eyes widened, and she looked to the rest of her family, who had all either known or, like her, had just figured it out. She'd have imagined that Chara's former heaven would be colonized outright, given that it had healing magic and a lot of other things, but Earth's marginally united forces were spread thin as it was. Putting locals in charge with a minimum of interference was clearly the least-bad option.
The society's existing traditions of governance were total autocracy. And the favorite members of that society? There was only one of those.
Her Majesty, Queen Sheila Dreemurr, looked around the table, thrust into a role she really had no idea how to play. "Do not be alarmed, my child," Toriel patiently said. "You will by no means be left to rule without aid." Sheila kept right on looking around the table, weirding out Michelle's siblings, trying to work out why everyone was being so nice to her.
The first, of course, was that Sheila was an alternate version of Michelle. The second was that both the Dreemurrs and the American government were almost certainly better off this way (greater freedom of action, less risk of political backlash), and the difference between 'puppet government' and 'stalwart ally' was very much fluid. Grandpa had talked enough politics for Michelle to know that, and Sheila would probably learn realpolitik just as quickly as she learned magic. But the third, the all-critical third, was that Dreemurrs helped people when it was appropriate to help people because that was what they did. The back-of-the-envelope calculation was 50 people to dream up one regular, non-boss monster and five hundred of those monsters to make a full-powered Chara, so with fifty-odd Charas, that was somewhere around 1.25 million people in Chara's Heaven (they would have to think up a new name, and soon) who could very much benefit from a stable governance structure that forbade people from coming to take advantage of them.
"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job!" Sirale chirped, and that was when the dam finally broke - Mander could no longer contain his curiosity, and the other Dreemurr kids tag-teamed a storm of questions, all about the adventure part and none about the misadventure part (Charles had headed those questions off by telling them) and a heck of a lot of questions about who and what Darkners were, particularly Sirale, and then all five of them, even the notably patient Nomie, had wanted to go in and explore. Michelle smiled, the sort of tolerant smile she'd learned from the adults in her family, realizing that she had her own duty to fulfill. A Dreemurr princess was, after all, expected to share.
She just wondered if she'd have time to finish her biology homework.