Wow, I'm getting pretty good at writing lengthy chapters now, huh? 4k words on this one.
I would like to thank everyone who reviewed on last chapter (WHAT THE BIMS [guest], MechaSniper51, Anon [guest], MaydayMarbear [guest] and Sunfreckle). I would also like to thank everyone who has ever read this story, because Leaving the Void has over 9k readers! That's insane, guys! Thank you all so, so much for your continued support on this story! It really means a lot to me!
As for this chapter, well, as of right now when I'm posting it, it's 4am. It may not consist of my best writing, but hey, I had inspiration that lasted until 4am and I was not going to let that go to waste! I hope you enjoy this chapter! (It has a bit more sadness than intended, but I feel it gives an overall happy vibe.)
~Emily Believes xoxo
He gave her a chance. He tried to offer mercy, but she refused. In hindsight, he really didn't have a choice. After all she had done, all she planned to do... why did he feel guilty about this?
He stared at the few tiles where the cage once stood, where Chara last stood. For some strange reason, he couldn't take his eyes off that one spot. A heart wrenching feeling plagued his soul. Was that the wrong decision? Was killing her truly the only way to stop everything? ...Should he have just let her live regardless of her reluctantcy? Wouldn't she just have reset anyways? Surely she would still have the most determination, even with a monster soul. No matter what he tried to do or think to rationalize the situation, he could not shake off that uneasy feeling.
He, unlike Frisk, could not save everyone.
Gaster sighed. "At least the potential of destruction and further suffering has ceased," he muttered aloud to himself. He finally teared his eyes away from the checkered tiles, slowly turning away and exiting the Judgement Hall.
Above anything, he was very proud of himself for executing his plan so perfectly, he supposed. He could finally look down at his hands again and not see through the holes in his palms, and he could see everything clearly from both eye sockets again. His mind went back to those few moments ago. Of course, he didn't tell Sans or Undyne the fact he himself would be an illusion; their emotions needed to be genuine for Chara to believe he had actually died. But that split second of horror on Sans' face… The concern he saw in Undyne's eyes… It still sent chills down his spine. At least it was over… All the horrid things were over with. The last things to do were to give Asriel back his soul, find Asgore and inform him on the situation, break the barrier, and leave the Underground…
Then everyone would finally have their happy ending again. No more resets, no more deaths… just happily living on the surface as they did in the first timeline. Then, Chara's game would finally be over.
He walked through the castle corridors back to the unclosed door of his laboratory. Outside, he saw Undyne passionately explaining what happened in the Judgement Hall to Papyrus, and Sans telling the gist of it to Frisk and Toriel. He looked at the scene happily. No one was dead. No one was hurt. It took a moment for them to notice his presence over the chattering and rattling noises from inside the lab.
Sans was the first to look up. "Oh, hey Dad. Think you're just in time. Alphys just about has things figured out," he said nonchalantly, which caused the others to turn their heads as well.
Toriel's eyes widened when she saw Gaster. She couldn't remember the last time she saw him unscarred. That's often how she identified him in her last memories of him; his melted, half open eye, the scars etched into his skull, the holes in his palms… They were gone now. It was odd, yet it was refreshing. Seeing a clearly mentally and physically scarred man look like his old self was a nice change from the bizarre, mysterious things they had been seeing. She smiled at him.
"Father! Undyne was just telling me about what happened with the human!" Papyrus announced upon seeing his dad. Gaster grew weary for a split second (how much had Undyne told him?) before his son continued, "Using an illusion to trick them… How devious! It must've been the perfect puzzle!" The energetic skeleton make exaggerated motions while giving his father a proud look. Gaster smiled.
"Hey, wise guy, you took care of the 'human', didn't you?" Undyne asked, leaning against the wall. Her cladded armour clanged against the marble, the sound reverberating every time she moved.
"Yes," Gaster answered simply, almost as nonchalantly as Sans, refusing to elaborate further. Her last words were already ringing in his head, - "I would rather die than trust you." - and he didn't need anymore flashbacks to that moment of fate. He just wanted that moment to stay in the past. Just as Undyne raised an eyebrow, opening her mouth to question him, there was a bright light that shone from the laboratory. It was bright, though not quite as bright as the light Gaster emitted when creating the Void illusion.
Immediately, Gaster spun around on his heel, dashing to the nearby doorway to his lab. That light, it meant Alphys got the machine to work. He looked straight at the scene, squinting due to the luminosity. Though, through his squinted eyes, he could see shadows of the two in the room. Alphys was nervously standing by the machine, presumably looking at the other shadow… At first, it was simply Flowey in a vase, but has a bright upside down heart appeared through the light, such shadow began to morph into something else, a new form. Or, rather, an old form.
As the light began to dim, the details became clear. The others began to crowd around Gaster. Just a few feet away on the broken pieces of an old vase lay a small goat-like monster. He slowly picked himself up off the ground, dusting off his striped sweater. As he looked around, his face grew more and more… apprehensive.
"Asriel," Toriel said softly, growing increasingly concerned as her son began to scurry to his feet. He grew more and more fearful, backing up and accidentally knocking over lots of papers and random gadgets Gaster had lying around. Eventually he hid behind a dusty cabinet, trying not to look at any of the others.
Gaster stepped into his lab, slowly making his way over to the frightened boy. Alphys looked at him from beside the machine nervously. "W-Why is he like th-that? D-Did I do something w-wrong?" she asked.
"You did perfectly fine, Dr. Alphys," Gaster assured, his eyes darting over to the current Royal Scientist. "I understand why he's like this, and it's not your fault. If you would all just give me a moment."
Alphys quickly walked out of the room, her footsteps echoing in the hall as she paced back and forth, trying to calm herself down. Undyne quickly followed her. Sans, realizing the situation, managed to distract Papyrus with a question about spaghetti. Toriel was the last to leave, as she stood in the doorway with a concerned expression for a while before reluctantly deciding Gaster knew what he was doing. With the others out of the way, Gaster made his final few steps over towards Asriel.
The child looked away from the skeleton when he approached. "Of all people, I thought you would realize why you shouldn't have done this to me," he muttered, only barely audible.
"What? You mean giving you a second chance? Why do you propose that decision was so wrong?" Gaster responded calmly, kneeling down so he could meet eye to eye with the scared child.
Asriel seemed to cower away when Gaster got closer. "You've seen what I've done," he said, his voice shaking. "You know who I've hurt. You know I'm just going to hurt more people. I'm just going to hurt them all over again…" He looked up, finally looking Gaster in the eye. There were a few tears going down the young boy's cheeks. "...I'm just going to hurt you even more, just like I did in the past. And there's no excuse for it."
"You will not hurt anyone, Asriel. You only hurt people when you lost your ability to love," Gaster stated, a small smile on his face. "You have regained that ability. You have nothing to worry about."
Asriel mumbled something to himself, something incoherent that Gaster couldn't understand. The two stayed in silence for a few long moments. "But… after all I've done… will they forgive me?" the young boy eventually uttered. "I-I mean, I understand if they can't forgive me… I've done so many horrible things… I've hurt so many people. Friends, family, bystanders..." He trailed off, turning his head to the dusty wall of the abandoned lab.
"I assure you, Asriel, they will come to an understanding sooner or later," Gaster said. "You know Frisk is a very forgiving person. They forgave you once before and I'm more than certain they will not hesitate to do it again. I have explained everything to Toriel, though I'm sure she'll just be happy you're, ah, 'yourself' again. Alphys was the one who put you in such a situation, so given her nature I believe it's reasonable to expect profuse apologizing. And I have already forgiven you, my dear boy." He paused to think for a moment.
In that brief moment of serenity, Asriel piped up, "But what about Sans…? And Undyne?"
"Ah," Gaster said, furrowing his brow in thought. What about them? "They may take a bit longer to let the past timelines go. Both can be rather stubborn. However, most of their torment was caused by Chara. I'm sure they will come to an understanding soon." Another eerie pause. In seeing that Asriel still looked timid, the former Royal Scientist quickly added, "Though, who really knows? This is all conjecture. They may forgive you a lot quicker than I assume. I am known to have inaccurate predictions from time to time.
"This is a new beginning, Prince Asriel. We now live in a place with that will soon regain hope. You are apart of that new hope that has been brought to this kingdom. Learn from the past, but to not dwell on it. Nothing gets solved by letting anxieties overrule you. Do you think this reality would be secure if I hadn't pushed away my fears and left the Void?"
"Bu-But you're a really cool scientist!" Asriel interjected almost immediately. Gaster smiled at his sudden positive change in energy (and the compliment). "You make these awesome machines that help everyone in the Underground! I… I just end up hurting everyone…"
"You're assuming I've never been afraid?" Gaster asked curiously.
"Well, no. . . ," Asriel answered sheepishly, "I know you've been afraid about a lot of things."
"And yet, I never let that stop me. You shouldn't let it stop you either. Despite what you may think, in this form, you are not going to hurt anyone. The very fact that you're afraid of hurting anyone is proof of that! You have the ability to feel again, to love again. Asriel, you have nothing to fear. Believe me at least when I say that."
Asriel sat silently, blankly staring at Gaster, trying to recall a memory to explain how this man was so persuasive. Could he even remember anything from so many timelines ago? Surely he could… The genocide timelines tended to mush together considering their destructive similarities. Whether it was to satisfy curiosity or to calm himself down, he concentrated diligently on trying to remember something, anything, from before his dust was scattered across the garden.
Perhaps it was because he was in the lab himself, or maybe it was because of pure determination, but a certain memory flooded to the front of his mind. He was accompanying his parents to check on the Royal Scientist's, Dr. Gaster, progress on the CORE. He was told not to go near the edges, that it was dangerous, and he obeyed. Who would want to fall into a fiery pit of death, anyways?
Asriel watched from afar as big chunks of metal were combined and nailed and wedged together. He was mesmerized by everything. The warm, heated atmosphere of the surrounding area, the joyful chatting of his parents and Dr. Gaster, the clanging and clunking and other various machinery noises that rang throughout the broken section of Hotland. After who knows how long (it could have been hours or minutes, he couldn't really decipher it) Toriel called out, "Asriel! It's time to leave!"
The young boy stood up, but instead of walking towards his parents, he pointed towards the unfinished contraption. "Can't we at least wait until Dr. Gaster finishes his machine?" he begged.
Gaster gave a small chuckle. "Prince Asriel, the CORE won't be finished for a while," he stated from afar, simultaneously making sure everything was going well with the construction. "At best, it will be completed in a month or two. That's quite a long time to wait."
"But this thing is so cool! I want to see it once it's finished! I'd wait for a year if I had to!" Asriel stated somewhat defiantly.
"We will bring you back to see the CORE once it's completed," Asgore assured his son. With that, Asriel reluctantly returned to the Ruins with his parents, bidding goodbye to Dr. Gaster, who had too said his farewells, but also added something different, which seemed more directed towards himself than anyone,
"Ah, if only I had a child."
Asriel chuckled to himself at the irony of the memory, happy from what it contained and that he was able to recall it. As he grew aware of the room around him once more, he realized there were arms wrapped around him. It didn't take long for him to realize it was his mother, Toriel. The warmth of the hug was everything he needed right now. He took a deep breath, followed Gaster's advice and (even though he was still rather scared) slowly hugged her back. "I'm sorry," he muttered.
"You, my child, have nothing to apologize for," she gently responded, holding him closer. "Curiosity with no sense of morality to guide it is dangerous, I'm aware, but none of it was your fault. Everything is alright now." She let go of the hug and smiled at her son. "We will have time for a more proper reunion later, but, there is one last person we need to inform about everything." She stood up, dusting herself off. It was then he noticed Gaster was not in the room anymore.
Asriel knew who "he" was immediately. Chara mentioned him in her carvings, in her monologues against Gaster. The thought of him... his mother mentioning him brought a realization to mind. "So," he said slowly, "guess you and Dad are… finished now, huh?" Toriel's face suddenly turned shocked, before eventually growing solem. She didn't answer, just simply started to make her way out of the lab. "You forgave me, Mom. You forgave me and I did much worse things than he did… ...He was scared. I was scared. He grew angry. I grew angry. We both thought that the end justified the means. What he did may not have been the best way to deal with the barrier… Killing all those humans… But in so many timelines I killed everyone. I killed you. I killed him… Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys… everyone! How come then you can forgive me, but not him?" he pressed.
"...What you and Asgore have done are entirely different situations," she responded sternly, continuing to walk out of the lab and into the corridor.
"Exactly!" Asriel exclaimed instantly afterwards, following his mother. "And my situation was much worse than his! It can't be that hard-"
"Asriel, drop it."
"-to forgive him! He was just trying his best to give people in the Underground hope! He knows his mistakes! Timeline after timeline I've seen it! He misses you! He misses me! Can't you at least try-"
"Asriel."
"-to understand where he's coming from?! I don't want to have this form knowing you two haven't at least tried to mend things..."
"Asriel, I said drop it," Toriel warned, her tone harsh. He finally obeyed and looked to the floor. The two finally met the others in the Judgement Hall after a short, awkward journey filled with silence.
Everyone was chatting away rather quietly until they noticed the two. Gaster smiled, stepping forward so he could address the small group, the ones who he had travelled to this castle with (for varying amounts of time). It didn't take long for them to turn their heads in his direction once he cleared his throat. Once he knew everybody's eyes were on him, he uttered only two words,
"It's time."
Undyne had taken off her armour, leaving it behind a column in the Judgement Hall. She thought it would be a bit too suspicious if she just walked in there as if she had just returned from a battle. With Alphys, she stood outside the Throne Room. Gaster had explained that the two of them were to go in first to try and explain everything to him, given the fact that they were around him more in recent times. They would be used to seeing them; it wouldn't be a big shock to try and comprehend the situation and the return and sudden appearance of so many people.
"Ready, Alphys?" Undyne asked, turning to her apprehensive friend with a smile. Of course, she had her own fears about the situation, but she would never let them get in her way! She would never let them stop her! What kind of heroine would do that?
"I guess… I-I mean, y-yeah! Let's d-do it!" Alphys responded with a small, timid smile.
"That's the spirit!" Undyne praised, earning a smile from Alphys. With that, the head of the Royal Guard opened the doors to the Throne Room, revealing a large Boss monster, the king, humming to himself as he tended to the flowers that grew all around. The room was rather dimly lit, the only light present shining through a window with the Delta Rune on it. The King seemed to lift his head slightly upon hearing the doors forcefully slam against the walls.
"Just a moment," Asgore said in a gruff yet kind voice, "I've almost finished watering these flowers." After a few moments, he set down the watering can and turned around. "Oh! Undyne, Dr. Alphys, what a surprise! Howdy!" He smiled, walking towards them. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"O-Oh, it's a long story, actually," Alphys said, her voice trailing off.
"Go on, then! I certainly have the time!" Asgore encouraged.
"I- uhm… Well, it starts off with, uh, the l-late Dr. W.D. Gaster…"
After hearing Gaster's name, Asgore immediately grew both interested and a bit less cheerful, very focused on the story itself. Alphys started explaining at first, having seen the first part of the journey from her cameras and heard what had happened directly from Gaster himself. She told about the Void, the resets…
"No… no, this is not good. I can't let this happen…"
...the genocide timelines, Chara, Flowey the Flower…
"Do you really think you can save everyone? … You are an idiot."
...Gaster seeing both Toriel and Frisk…
"If I may ask, how did you return? You fell into your own invention, did you not? The current Royal Scientist, Dr. Alphys, said that you were likely scattered across time and space."
...seeing both his sons again…
"...How? How are you… here?"
"My apologies, foreign-speaking stranger! It appears that I, the Great Papyrus, have accidentally mistaken you for someone else!"
...catching up with old friends…
"You have some explainin' to do, W."
…meeting and gathering some new ones…
"Ngah! All of this is just fake, nerdy crap!"
"N-No… N-N-No way! I… I thought that my c-cameras were hijacked… but… b-but y-you're actually…"
"Isn't this just fabulous? Darlings, why don't you introduce yourselves? The Underground is dying to know about this clique!"
…and that's when Undyne took over. By this point, Asgore looked beyond shocked, and Undyne's passionately storytelling didn't exactly help. In fact, it only made everything seem more real, made things more confusing. She started from the elevator incident in the CORE…
"You really thought you could save them all, old man! You really did! How cute."
...to Gaster's underground lab, as well as his soul mayhem…
"With the erasure of one's existence comes the erasure of their accomplishments."
...visiting the man's old house, which had been torn apart…
"Father, you really are horrible at home decor!"
...the genius illusion that he had managed to create…
"Heh, heh… Guess you really like to cut to the chase, huh kid?"
"You… You killed him. You little… Why, you little hell spawn!"
...to the death of Chara…
"Then so be it."
...and why they were in the Throne Room at that very moment.
"Asriel..."
Asgore gave them a blank stare as they retold their journey. It was mind blowing, mind boggling, hard to comprehend. His mind was all over the place. The former Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster, who was thought to be dead was technically never even dead and came back to save the world from ending. His wife, Toriel, and his newly revived (or newly reformed, rather) son were in this very castle, along with Gaster himself and Sans and Papyrus and even a human. He didn't know what to think. He didn't know whether to be excited or scared or happy or all of those emotions at once.
"I… I see," was the first thing he managed to utter once the story was completed. He walked over to his throne, sitting down upon it. He put two fingers on his temple, leaning against the armrest. He needed to think. He needed time to think all this through…
Though, as fate would have it, that is exactly what he did not get.
"Undyne! Alphys! What is taking so long?! Surely our journey doesn't take that long to explain!" the voice of Papyrus the skeleton exclaimed, clearly agitated.
"It takes only so long to explain to an outsider, but more than twice as long to understand," replied someone who Asgore hadn't heard in a long while. Somehow, the timespan seemed even longer than he felt it should… His eyes widen once he recognized the voice of the old Royal Scientist… his old friend.
Asgore pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why not just send them all in? I can't possibly be more overwhelmed," he stated somewhat reluctantly, not exactly in the most serious tone.
What a horrible mistake.
First, in came Sans and Papyrus. He had seen the two while walking through the Underground, and had even talked to them before. Their appearance wasn't necessarily startling (unless one were to count Papyrus' refusal to use a quiet voice and Sans' eerily familiar puns). The brothers quickly started chatting with Undyne and Alphys, leaving Asgore to look in the doorway once again.
There he stood. The former Royal Scientist, the man who spoke in hands, W.D. Gaster. Unscatched, not dead. It was definitely a sight for sore eyes. The king stood from his throne, weakly smiling, slowly making movements towards his old friend. But then he stopped in his tracks. Someone else… two others… had walked up beside the skeleton.
"T-Tori! Asriel!" he exclaimed in shock. "You… I… You're back," he added softly, still stunned from all the craziness.
To his surprise, Asriel immediately ran up to him and hugged him tightly. His son… He could not believe his eyes. It was actually his son! The only thing stopping him from picking up the boy and swinging him around was the fact that he was so stunned and shell shocked by everything. And it didn't help the matter when Toriel walked over and glanced at him with a somehow sternly happy expression. "So many things have happened as I journeyed here from the Ruins, though I trust you've been told about such things," she said. "I… I will attempt to understand why you have done the things you have in the past. While your reaction to Asriel's death was rash, so was mine to your declaration of war against the humans. But, as Dr. Gaster has proved, the past can be mended if you try hard enough." Eventually, Asriel pulled his mother into the hug as well, which she accepted.
Asgore didn't quite know if what was going on was a dream or reality. He was overwhelmed, indeed, but he was happy.
*You realize the story is finally coming to a close.
*Everyone is happy, and everything is resolved.
*Gaster has reunited with his sons.
*Asgore has reunited with his family.
*Asriel has returned, and Chara is gone.
*The citizens of the Underground are safe.
*There is really no way to continue from this point.
...
*...Or is there?
...
...
*You feel like the story is not over just yet.
