Look at me, updating just at the two week mark. Another update is finally underway! The only reason this one is so late is because I managed to distract myself with other personal projects that I'll likely never publish. (One of them I don't think I even could publish on here even though it's a fan fiction? Idk. I'd have to read the rules again.) So sorry again for the slight delay, even though I guess this is becoming my normal updating scheduleish, ha.
*You have now entered FILLERVILLE. There is no turning back. You will be stuck here for this chapter and the next. I mean, I guess they're not complete fillers because there's still small plot stuff in there, but yanno.
This chapter kind of seemed all over the place for me, and it's not nearly as long as the last three chapters have been (it's about 1k words less), but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

~Emily Believes, who is wondering when her author's notes became so long xoxo

PS: Thank you guys so so so so much for over 12k readers! That's insane guys! I can't even begin to fathom 12k people in a room together. There are also nearly 100 follows, over 70 favorites, and over 40 reviews for this story! I can't thank you guys enough for all the support you guys have left me! Just thank you sooo much, because it truly means a lot! I love each and every one of you, whether you've started reading since I first published it or read it later on in the updates. xoxo

"Mushroom dance, mushroom dance, whatever could it mean?

...

It symbolizes my inner torment, trapped here by my hyphae. My struggle to pull away. My struggle to escape. But alas, to no avail…"

Nothing seemed to be wrong. Not horribly wrong, to Toriel at least. She felt thoroughly adjusted to everything that had taken place over the last several weeks. Moving back into the castle, seeing Asriel everyday like he never died, seeing Asgore everyday like he never killed, supervising all the Royal facilities once again… It was strange at first, definitely awkward at moments, but she had quickly learned to adapt. It was nice. They were finally a family again. Nothing at all around her was out of the ordinary. So, when Asriel burst into the Throne Room that morning, panicked and frightened, she thought it was simply because of another nightmare. That was what it had always been recently, much to her dismay. That was the ordinary.

But that was before she assessed the situation properly. Her eyes widened in shock, maternal instincts kicking in. Her jaw seemed to drop involuntarily; almost immediately she rushed over to her son. Asgore, who was tending to the flowers a few feet away, ran over as well upon hearing the doors slam open and his wife's hurried footsteps.

"Mom… Dad…," Asriel said tearfully, putting his arms out in front of him. His parents looked down at them and gasped. There were rips and tears in his pajama shirt with thorns sticking out of them. Small wounds were all over his cheek and even a few places on his arms from where he had assumably accidentally pricked himself with the thorns. Upon closer inspection, Toriel found the thorns stemmed off of vines.

Vines. Why vines, of all things? she thought, before her mind was brought to a bitter realization of sorts, thanks to Gaster's stories of previous timelines...

"I'll hold victory in front of you, just within your reach… and then tear it away just before you can grasp it! Over, and over, and over!"

All the poor boy wanted to do was forget. He wanted to forget the pain he had caused in past timelines, to put it all behind him. He wanted to forget that damn weed he once was. He wanted to forget Flowey. But this… oh, this was just going to make things worse… Everything was finally turning around, she had thought… Everything was finally going to be alright. She wanted to believe everything was going to be alright. Whatever this was, however it came… it meant that a happy ending wasn't going to come soon.

Asgore stood with his mouth opened for a good few moments, staring at his son's entrapped arms. Finally, he turned his shocked gaze to Toriel. "I… will go get Dr. Gaster," he informed, quickly rushing off to go find the Royal Scientist. Toriel nodded as he left the Throne Room. Asriel whimpered slightly and glanced back down at his arms woefully.

"Don't worry, Asriel," Toriel assured calmly, causing her son to look up at her. "Dr. Gaster is a smart man. You know this. He should be able to figure out what's going on."

"You mean… none of you have a clue as to what's going on?"

Toriel gave an exasperated look to the three scientists, the only three she trusted to have some small idea as to what this situation was. She had hoped that at least one of them, that at least Dr. Gaster knew what was happening, but alas, none of them did. Sans, with his messily thrown on lab coat replacing his typical fluffy-collared jacket, stood almost sheepishly and gave a shrug. Alphys, who seemed oddly shaken up, gave the meek response of, "M-M-Maybe it's a glitch or s-something…"

"A… glitch you say? What do you mean?" Asgore asked, both out of curiosity and in the hopes that it could give at least an explanation to the strange vines around Asriel's arms.

Both Sans and Alphys turned to Gaster for an explanation, but he seemed to be paying little to no attention to Toriel's questions. He was kneeling down, examining Asriel's entangled arms very closely. "It is interesting," he muttered, mostly to himself. Asriel eyed him strangely, as if he had grown two extra heads. The man was talking to himself, after all, and in such a vague way. "Very interesting indeed…" The scientist paused for a second to think before looking up at the child. "Prince Asriel, have you had any… strange nightmares? Anything at all that didn't seem to recur, but still left a lasting imprint in your mind?" he asked slowly.

The Prince hesitated. "...No, sir… When I have nightmares, everything just… repeats itself… over, and over, and over…" Asriel responded, looking to the side and trailing off. "It's bad things from other timelines… Bad things that… that I did…" Tears appeared to brim his eyes. He closed his eyes tightly so the tears didn't fall.

"Bad things that Flowey did," Gaster corrected immediately, standing upright. "You and Flowey are not the same person, and what he did has nothing to do with you now." He adjusted his lab coat, dusting it off briefly.

"It was still my mind," Asriel countered a little too fast, throwing off everyone in the room. It wasn't like him too so hastily shoot back a response, in such a tone… It almost seemed more like... "It… It was still my dust on that flower! …So, it was still me."

"It was a corrupted, soulless mind so different from yours that it at least deserves the right to be called something different than you," Gaster replied sternly, narrowing his eyes at the young boy. He sighed. "That mind may still hold your memories, but upon losing your soul, you lose yourself."

"Ha, and what would you know about that?" Asriel's face seemed to become disfigured, just for a second, before it warped into a scowl. No one seemed to notice this but Gaster, who had raised his brow. Toriel's face grew disappointed and stern, Asgore simply grew even more concerned and confused. Sans continued to smile, as if he actually had a guess as to what was going on, and Alphys stood by timidly, not wanting to believe what she was thinking. That sentence was so out of character for Asriel. He would never say anything of the sort, and certainly not to Gaster. It was almost like..."You never even lost your entire soul! You have no idea what it's like! You just have stupid facts and figures, no experiences." ...Almost like...

Like Flowey.

"Asriel Dreemurr!" Toriel exclaimed in a horrified voice. Asriel blinked a few times, looking at everyone. His personality changed back to normal almost as quickly as it changed before. "You will not speak to Dr. Gaster in that way! Do you understand?" Asriel instantly cringed at his mother's shrill, nodding.

"I-I'm sorry, Dr. Gaster… I don't even know why I said those things," Asriel apologized sheepishly after receiving a pointed look from the Queen. His voice seemed strained; he was scared and confused. Why did he say that? It was so rude, so much more like Flowey than himself… …Was he becoming Flowey again…?

The loose ends were finally tying themselves together in Gaster's mind. The vines that were wrapped around his arms, the small second of disfiguration, him acting so much like his soulless counterpart… How could it not have come to mind before? All of this must have been apart of a strange glitch. "It's quite alright, Prince Asriel. I know you didn't mean them."

He gave a reassuring smile to the Prince before turning to the King and Queen. "I have both good and bad news," he started, causing the two the perk up in curiosity. "The good news; I know what's causing Asriel's strange behaviour and why there are vines wrapped around his arms. I've been calling them 'glitches.' I believe they are old timelines somehow seeping into our own. All of us-" he gestured to himself, Sans, and Alphys "-have experienced these glitches, though in a different way. We disappeared from our current locations to somewhere else, reenacting something horrid from another timeline that we, in Sans' words, just want to forget. We couldn't control our actions, and that's likely what happened to Prince Asriel when he spat at me. He couldn't control his actions. The vines around his arms is likely a representation of Flowey, something he wants to forget. However, this is all conjecture."

Both Toriel and Asgore nodded slightly, understanding the situation to varying degrees. They paused for a moment to comprehend. "And... the bad news?" Toriel asked gingerly.

"Ah, that would be-"

Just in the middle of his sentence, he saw it right in front of him. A glitch. Both Asriel and Asgore were covered in the broken colors for the smallest fraction of time, the same broken colors that Gaster saw just before he experienced his glitch. The colors seemed to be layered over them, making them appear almost two dimensional before they disappeared.

Toriel gasped, her hand immediately flying to her mouth. "Is this… Is this a glitch?" she asked quickly, frightened and confused.

"That'd be it," Sans replied in a surprisingly solemn tone.

Panic soon showed evident on Toriel's face. "Where did they go?! What are they going to do?!" she exclaimed, worried.

Gaster's thoughts were racing at this point. Where did they go? What were they going to reenact? He pondered this quickly, knowing Toriel would not want to be left without an answer for too long. Since this was from a past timeline… What did Flowey and Asgore do? How did they interact? If he wasn't mistaken, almost every time it was at the barrier, and due to all the genocide timelines, it almost always ended…

Everything in his world seemed to pause.

It almost always ended in Asgore's death.

"Follow me," the scientist said, rushing through the corridor. Thoughts of all kind were tearing at his mind. Should he have told them to follow? Surely they would have anyways… But that didn't matter nearly as much now. If Asriel, acting out Flowey's actions from a previous timeline, was going to kill Asgore, and he turned to dust… Would he glitch back to life? Would he stay dust, stay dead? Or would something even more bizarre happen? He didn't know, and the only way to know would be to observe.

He dashed through corridors and past Royal workers as fast as his old bones would take him. He had no clue when in time the glitch would start, or how long it would last. He just needed to get to the barrier. That's all he was focused on; that was all he needed to be focused on. He rushed through the Judgement Hall, he avoided the nicely kept flowers in the Throne Room, he went through the doorway to where the glitch was likely occurring.

His suspicions were proven correct.

A strange light filled the room, giving it an eerie feel. Twilight was shining through the barrier, the same way it did the countless timelines before. Toriel and Alphys ran up behind Gaster, watching the glitch unfold.

Frisk, or at least it looked like Frisk, swung their knife a final time, causing Asgore's health to deplete to nearly nothing, relatively speaking. The Great King fell, now kneeling on one knee and clutching his chest with his right hand. His trident lay abandoned on the ground. "Ah . . . ," he grunted, looking down at the floor. "...So that is how it is..." There was a moment of silence before Asgore continued, not daring to look the human in the eye. "I remember the day after my son died. The entire Underground was devoid of hope. The future had once again been taken from us by the humans. In a fit of anger, I declared war. I said that I would destroy any human that came here. I would use their souls to become godlike… and free us from this terrible prison. Then, I would destroy humanity, and let monsters rule the surface, in peace. Soon, the people's hopes returned. My wife, however became disgusted with my actions. She left this place, never to be seen again." He paused, giving a great sigh. "Truthfully… I do not want power. I do not want to hurt anyone. I just wanted everyone to have hope. But, I cannot take this any longer. I just want to see my wife. I just want to see my child." Frisk's usually solemn expression turned sad, sympathetic. "Please… Young one… This war has gone on long enough. You have the power. Take my soul, and leave this cursed place."

Frisk, forgiving and merciful as they were, chose to spare Asgore, despite his wishes. They dropped their knife, going over to hug the poor man. This took him by surprise, as he hesitant to return such a sudden kind gesture. "... After everything I have done to hurt you… You would rather stay down here and suffer than live happily on the surface?" They nodded.

Asgore smiled, wrapping his large arms gently around Frisk. "Human, I promise you… for as long as you remain here, my wife and I will take care of you as best we can." Toriel put her hand over her chest. Did he really think she would comply to that in whatever timeline this scenario was from? Nonetheless, she could not deny the sincerity of the gesture. "We can sit in the living room, telling stories, eating butterscotch pie. We could be like… like a family."

Frisk let go of the hug, stepping back and grinning widely at Asgore. He grinned back, but only for a short period of time. Frisk as well as those watching the glitch from the outside gasped as a circle of bullets surrounded Asgore, closing in quick and draining the last of his health. His dust scattered the floor, one final bullet utterly destroying his lingering Boss Monster soul.

And right in front of the ashes appeared Flowey the Flower. Gaster hated knowing that poor Asriel's mind was stuck in the replaying image of that being, not being able to control or change his horrid actions. The flower smiled at the little pacifist, spouting out the words, "You idiot. You haven't learned a thing." The souls of the other fallen humans - cyan, blue, purple, orange, yellow, green - had all broken out of their small prisons and surrounded the soulless vessel. "In this world. It's kill or be killed." Flowey then gave off a maniacal, creepy laugh as he absorbed the souls, the entire room turning a bright white.

And just like that, the glitch was over.

Frisk had once more glitched back to wherever they had glitched from, as they did not appear near the barrier when the brightness faded away. Why Asriel and Asgore did not do the same and glitch back to outside of the laboratory was a peculiar thought… though it was nothing of extreme importance. Asgore looked around, shocked as to what just happened. One moment, he felt this life slipping away from him as the bullets hit, and the next, he was standing right where his dust previously laid. It was certainly odd. Asriel, on the other hand, was looking down at his limbs, moving them slightly. He didn't like the feeling of being Flowey again… No limbs, no soul, no mercy… Not only that, but he could feel that there were more vines around his arms as well. This combined with what had happened earlier, he honestly thought he was becoming Flowey again, and that thought terrified him.

Asriel stared blankly ahead, horrible possibilities and thoughts consuming his mind. He could feel tears threatening to come, threatening to fall. "I'm sorry," he said in a shaky voice, breaking his gaze and looking at his father. "I… I just couldn't… I couldn't control myself... I swear, I didn't mean to do any of that… I didn't want to be Flowey again… I don't know what happened, I just... I'm sorry; I'm sorry; I'm sorry...," he profusely apologized, tears now streaming down his face.

Asgore gave him a tenderhearted smile. "My son," he said, walking over to Asriel, "it's alright. As Dr. Gaster said, it was some sort of… glitch. I could not control myself, either. Besides, I'm back to normal now, see? Only a little sore." He embraced his son, who quickly returned the gesture.

Toriel, who hadn't peeled her eyes from the scene since she entered the room, finally turned her attention to Dr. Gaster, who appeared to be analyzing the situation in front of him. "If I'm not mistaken," she started, catching his attention as well as Dr. Alphys', "that was a glitch, was it not?"

"It was," Gaster responded simply.

"And… do you know how to stop it?" she asked.

"No."

The Queen's eyes widened, darting them from her two family members to the Royal Scientist. "You mean you don't know how to stop it?" He shook his head, only partially paying attention. The other part of his mind was stuck in his thoughts. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, all just repeating some personally traumatic scene that should just be left in the past… This can't be just a coincidence. This can't just be a simple side effects of too many variables or some overuse of power… Not with the vines, not with the scenes that have shown thus far… All of that seems to orderly to be merely a coincidence. "Do you even know how this is happening?" she asked. He shook his head again. "But, you seemed to know what was going on when explaining the situation with Asriel…"

The sentence drew Gaster out of his mind, causing him to turn his head towards the Queen. "As I stated then, all of that was simply conjecture, just thoughts and theories that make scientific sense, but hold no scientific ground. I can think I know what's going on, but in reality, I know no truth," he explained, watching the Queen's expression turn doleful. "But I assure you, I will find a way to stop these glitches, no matter what it takes." She nodded, though no significant change in her expression occurred.

Just as Gaster made his first steps over to Asgore and Asriel, a rough rumbling sound accompanied by a small earthquake-type disturbance caught him off guard, as well as the others nearby. Everyone looked over to see a small, shaky, blue glowing portal appeared just outside the entrance to the barrier. Though no one else knew what it was, Gaster recognized it instantly. It was a shortcut. One of Sans's shortcuts. He had left without so much as a notice!

Frisk was the first go through the unstable shortcut, quickly running through. They appeared frightened, like Asriel (though to a much lesser extent), anxiously waiting for others to come as well. Undyne went through next, nearly stumbling over a few flowers. She gave a frustrated groan, but immediately appeared to calm down once she saw Frisk and how scared they were. Papyrus came through afterwards, nearly toppling over Undyne by making the same mistake she had.

Lastly came Sans, who showed to be wearing his signature blue coat once more. The shortcut closed violently behind him, though he managed to keep his footing. He looked around, seeing those near the barrier giving him strange looks. He looked over at them, giving a smile that could barely be picked apart as apprehensive. "Heya. Any of you care to notice my absence?"