Smiling, Frisk got up and went upstairs with Charles, lifting the giant dress out of her way, and on the top step Asriel nearly tackled her to the ground with his hug. "It's just like the one at the hotel!" he exclaimed, giggling, the corners of his mouth turned upwards almost to his eyes.
"Just like that one," Frisk said. She'd had it in mind when she asked Jenkins to get it installed. "C'mon, help me out of this thing." Asriel and Charles changed as well, putting on their signature striped shirts to look like identical twins from different species, Frisk in a matching dress with blue and pink stripes all the way down. Asriel's ears perked up and he started laughing, gesturing to the door, and even Frisk could hear the visitor after a little bit:
"...and you can get arms just like mine and then we can play video games together, and toys, and all this neat stuff, and we can meet Princess Frisk and Prince Asriel and Charles, oh, um, I guess he's a prince too but Undyne says he's mean, and the King and Queen, and Sans and Papyrus, and... Hi, Your Majesty!" Kid called out as Toriel opened the door. Gaster had two right hands on Kid's shoulders and two left hands on someone who looked very much like Kid but had a bright yellow bow on the side of her head and was somewhat more muted in color, as if she'd survived a close encounter with Murky and Lurky. Hopping down the stairs and feeling the plush carpet between her toes, Frisk watched the Royal Guardsfish pick up the monster girl, giving her a big hug. "Hi, Frisk! This is my sister, Kim! She's really good at hide and seek!" Frisk looked up at Gaster, suspecting where he'd found her, and wondered exactly how long that game had lasted.
"Geez, Undyne, you can put me down now," Kim said, and Undyne gently set her on the floor. "Hi, everyone. Look at him," Kim said, rolling her eyes. "Isn't my brother the biggest dork ever? And now he's got arms, so he's, like, twice the dork. Now I need to get some just to undork his dorkitude."
"Hi, Kim," Asriel said. He'd never gotten to greet her before. "There's two dorks who are much dorkier," he said with a playful smile. Frisk thought he meant the bone dork and the anime dork, but he could have been poking fun at the time dork and the devil dork, or possibly the ear dork in the mirror.
"I have to tell you guys something," she said, looking at the royal children. "No dorks allowed!" she shouted at her brother. Intrigued, the Dreemurr kids walked back up the stairs with Kid's sister, and when Asriel closed the door Kim started whispering conspiratorially. "Okay, listen. I'm really, really glad to see my brother again. You guys should know that I'm not, like, ungrateful or something. But don't you ever tell him that or he'll get even dorkier."
"You sure?" Charles quietly asked, shrugging. "I told Azzy how glad I was to see him again and his dorkiness hasn't changed at all." Asriel stuck his long tongue out at him.
"This is serious," she insisted. "Promise me you won't tell!"
"If you want us to make a promise like that," Frisk said evenhandedly, "doesn't that make you the dork?" Her brothers were nodding.
"Gawwwd," she said, rolling her eyes. "Dorks everywhere." In a huff, she bit on the doorknob to open it and left the room, stomping down the stairs.
"What were you talking about?" Kid asked.
"Cool kid stuff, you dork!" Kim answered. Asriel started giggling and bleating, and then Frisk joined in, clutching her sides so they wouldn't escape, and then even Charles' full-throated laughter was bouncing off the walls. And then there was yet another small commotion downstairs as Asmodeus and his daughter came in with the skeletons.
Of course they had to repeat some of their Christmas activities, for Victoria's benefit if nothing else; while she'd already received her presents, she still hadn't spent Christmas with the Dreemurrs. Neither had Kid, who gleefully helped the young witch and his sister with the Lego and Play-Doh, putting on a pair of large, waterproof gloves to prevent it from getting in his mechanical hands. The rest of the group sat together sitting on the couch to play the newest version of Super Mario Brothers, which with so many players made for a crowded screen and a lot of laughter. (At least nobody could take multiple mushrooms in that one.)
Undyne still considered Charles' presence an affront to monsterkind, his casual mirth a knife in her belly, but His Majesty had ordered him protected and she was determined to endure it. Kid, on the other hand, was quick to forgive, especially after having gotten his sister back, and the little monster treated Charles like just another kid who happened to have supreme, world-altering power, the same way he treated Frisk. Alphys arrived just in time to receive Gaster's distilled Christmas spirit, and it was slightly less effective after being passed around to so many people, but it restored the rest of Kim's coloration, and even Undyne's troubled soul was given joy and contentment and she sang along as Papyrus tried to shove the lyrics of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" into the iconic Super Mario tune. Charles was extremely resistant to most magic and barely even felt it, but he accepted that as his place in life and eagerly followed along in the merriment. Sans was just being Sans.
Sitting between a large ball of warm goat fur to her right and a smaller one to her left, her twitch reflexes on autopilot, listening to skeletons, goats, a lizard, and a fish shout and cavort and stutter, Frisk needed no magical effects to feel a deep and thorough sense of well-being. She felt like she wanted the moment to last forever, but that was beyond even her. If Grigori was right, the vast resources and influence of the Dreemurr royal family (and, depending on how her father's negotiations went, the resources of the United States) would lead to a forever of moments instead, even long after the Earth's oceans had boiled away. Perhaps a billion years might change my mind, she thought, noticing her brother's mouth open wide as Luigi narrowly avoided falling down a pit, but perhaps not. It would have been so easy to not have any of this, she knew, to have chosen a path of death and misery or to have walked away from Asriel in that fateful moment and so have doomed him and possibly herself. She had chosen this happiness, which made it the most savory and fulfilling of all, and her main worry was that being attached to her brother until the end of time wouldn't be long enough.
Charles' face occasionally twitched, just a little, enough to remind Frisk that so many others did not have that choice, whether from circumstances or innate problems. One day, everyone will be able to choose happiness. That, she was determined to accomplish. His face twitched again- Mario didn't- and abruptly he asked, "Hey, Mom, you have enough food for everyone? We have... three more people than last time." Frisk was suddenly, absolutely sure that someone with EXP had just died of hunger.
"Easily, my child," Toriel said, her eyes on the screen. "There is enough in the larder and the local repository for this entire community to last through the winter, if need be." You can take the Goatmother out of the seventeenth century, but you can't take the seventeenth century out of the Goatmother.
Alphys piped up. "Oh! I know what we should get you! A devil's food cake! Um, get it? Because you're, you know..." Charles laughed. "Oh, that was... that was funny?"
"Sans told the same joke before Frisk went back, but you weren't there anyway," Charles explained, his fingers blurring across the controller to do a sophisticated series of jumps. In his opinion, the supposedly challenging levels needed a bit more challenge.
"Um, I know, Gaster cast the memory spell on me," she replied, almost throwing Frisk off her game. "And then I cast it on Undyne." If Frisk hadn't just been holding right, Princess Peach would have plummeted to an embarrassing death. Asmodeus, who had been playing very casually in an armchair, sat up abruptly, his countenance regaining the dark effect that really did make him look like the Fantasia sorcerer. He chose continued silence.
"And why didn't the Captain of the Royal Guard and the Trump School's athletics instructor get it right away?" Undyne asked, annoyed.
"Blame me, I said not to," Frisk volunteered. If this Christmas was going to go pear-shaped as so many Sholeas Christmases had, she'd rather have it be her fault instead of just watching it happen. "I thought you'd go nuts having things unhappened!" she protested, noticing Undyne's scowl. "I seriously thought it'd be too much of a burden on you."
"I can endure a lot of burdens," she replied, looking at the screen instead of anyone on the couch. "And a good friend would ask these things."
"Sorry, Undyne, you're right. And if we'd've known you could, we would've invited you to the first party."
"That's fine. Alphys and I needed to spend a bit more... quality time." Frisk cringed, trying not to visualize anything and failing. Charles shuddered in revulsion, his skin erupting in gooseflesh. Humans were bad enough.
"Oh, is that the same thing you were doing in the Lab a few weeks ago?" Asriel asked. "Because I heard a lot of-"
"Azzy," Charles suggested, "please stop." Asriel stopped. Alphys, her character having splashed into lava, was holding her face in her hands, her knees clutched close to her chest, rocking back and forth next to Undyne in embarrassment. Toriel gave her children a brief, concerned look. Frisk had been the one to warn her about the Internet, Charles was tuned into thousands of channels at once (some of the nicer ones were late-night HBO; the not-nice ones were unspeakable and would be even worse if he couldn't affect them), and she would never, ever ask all that Flowey had done, although it fortunately didn't appear to be all that much.
Christmas went mostly the same way, and Toriel knew very well how to stretch a fresh meal with stored foods, and of course there was more than enough chocolate for everybody, even Charles, especially after they baked the cake again. Victoria seemed quite a bit more at ease this time as well, since she had a new friend to play with (Victoria was too young and too powerful to be called a dork) and since Charles had terrified everyone in the world rather than at the table. Asgore came home halfway through, a tremendous grin on his face, and he welcomed Kim back to the land of the living before he explained that the Dreemurrs' choices of charities had nothing to worry about for the foreseeable future.
Toriel declared it to be bath time once everyone went home, and the three Dreemurr kids got in together, all of them expecting the others to say it was weird and none of them actually caring. Frisk showed Charles how she did her brother's fur, and Charles carefully followed along, being sure not to use strength when applying the shampoo, enjoying Asriel's soft, contented bleating but unable to really enjoy the feeling of a bubble jet against his too-solid skin. Then it was time to dry them off, and the whirling winds fluffed out Asriel yet again, his fur standing on end, and Frisk picked him up and hugged him because he just looked huggable.
Her phone rang that night and she got a request to SAVE within a half hour. She chose to SAVE right then (I bet they were expecting me to do that), pressed the button for doing it, and went back to sleep. It was only after she'd done it that she realized what she'd done and how dangerous it was: she'd SAVEd right next to the most lethal person in the world, the same person who'd tried to take her SOUL. Yet Charles remained quiescent, his arm around his brother, and Frisk breathed a sigh of relief before going back to sleep.
"So what are we going to do today?" Charles asked brightly, just as Frisk and Asriel sat up together.
"See if Mom keeps coffee in the house," Frisk suggested, rubbing her eyes. "Then go... oh. We could go back to Disney World, maybe? I was going to say hang gliding's better, but I don't think that glider will work with three."
"Actually, wait," Charles said, thinking. His face lit up, and Frisk could almost see a light bulb appear over his head as his grin grew wide. "No, you two go ahead. I'll be working on something. I need to get a bunch of people together and it'll take a while, but it'll be great."
"You sure?" Asriel asked.
"It's fine," Charles insisted. "You two deserve to have fun together. When I'm done, it'll be all three of us, and it'll be even better. Promise." Charles' smile was so innocent and happy that it was easy to forget who and what he was, which was just the way he liked it.
After a breakfast involving syrupy oatmeal, bananas, and coffee, the Dreemurr kids decided that they wouldn't go out completely unprepared, reading instructions and watching all sorts of educational videos on the subject. Frisk changed into her full set of snow gear, jacket zipped up to her chin and goggles over her face, and Asriel made sure his ears were properly in their warm holders. Deep winter is not the usual season for hang gliding. The two of them carried the glider gently out of the garage and up the hill, examining the complex system of straps and buckles that was to keep them in place. There was a catch to release the two of them together, after which Frisk could pull a cord to release the chute on Asriel's back. It made sense. It was safe. They'd be fine.
"Frisk, do you think we're prepared for this?" Asriel asked as they walked. It was a good day for flying, at least. Minimal wind, clear skies, exceptional visibility. There probably weren't any thermals to speak of, nothing that all the sites said that gliders needed but Frisk was happy to do without on her first flight.
"Not really. Do you?" Frisk belatedly thought that it might have been a good idea to read the instructions a bit more carefully, possibly watch some more videos, or maybe, just maybe, get someone else to help.
"Nope."
"We're all set then," Frisk said, because she was sick of worrying and full of energy and DETERMINATION and, if anything went wrong, Asriel would be able to lift them out of it. "Let's just make sure we can unfold this thing right." That turned out to be the easy part; there were a couple of struts that snapped readily into place, unfurling the bright blue and pink stripes with the Delta Rune prominently in the center, and once the kids figured out how to get Frisk's legs up into the cocoon while Asriel had himself strapped to her back, Frisk pointed the nose of the glider forwards, her feet awkwardly struggling to stay on the ground. "You ready?"
"Ready," Asriel replied, his snootle right next to her ear.
"Push us- let's go!" Asriel's magic gave them a mighty heave and abruptly the two of them were airborne, sailing horizontally over the hillside, looking down at their house, the icy air blasting into their faces and whipping Asriel's ears back and forth. Sans, sunbathing outside in the frigid weather, waved, and so did a lot of other people monsters and a few soldiers, but Frisk didn't have the guts to wave back as both of her hands were tightly clutched to the control bar, trying to keep the glider in a straight line, terrified that any deviation would result in something she'd need to LOAD out of. Gingerly, she tried to bank to the right, and it took pulling in a way that she wasn't familiar with. Suddenly, they were pointing too far downwards, a direction she wasn't ready to go quite yet. "Azzy, can you-"
"Got it," Asriel said, pointing the nose back up. Frisk sighed in relief. How did anybody ever do this without magic? She pulled back around, familiarizing herself with the way things worked, looking down and this time daring to give a brief wave before slapping her hand tightly on the bar again.
"Think we can make it to the mall?" Asriel asked loudly, because the glider happened to be pointed in that direction.
"Sure, let's try it," Frisk said, doing her best to point the glider in the right direction, following the highway she knew would take them there. Cars blurred beneath them (here we go changing traffic patterns again) as they neared the town, and she was so focused on not running into anything that she barely noticed when they got there, Asriel loudly pointing it out, and then she gradually dipped the nose down, but she was still going too fast to land in the parking lot and Asriel put his force into slowing them down and letting Frisk touch down on the mall's roof.
"Blublugurghugh," Frisk said, shaking her head, exhausted. She and her brother unstrapped themselves and carefully folded up the glider. It struck her that a mall's roof probably wasn't a welcome place to be, and then it struck her that hang-gliding down a highway may or may not be illegal, and then she remembered that she didn't have to really care. "Let's jump off the roof," she suggested, and Asriel, laughing, briefly transformed, held on to Frisk under her armpits, and glided down, carrying her under his GOD OF HYPERDEATH wings.
"Let's just hang out," Asriel suggested as he turned back, completely ignoring the various patrons staring at them, and Frisk readily agreed. The locals stopped staring after a bit, a couple making comments and pointing cameras, but none of them seemed particularly afraid of the Dreemurr kids, although Frisk was dead-sure that every one of them had watched Charles' speech, and the commentary about that speech, and the analysis of the commentary, and so on until it was all picked apart by late-night comedians. She gave them a friendly smile, posing for the cameras with her brother before going inside. She was kind of surprised that she wasn't getting more obvious attention, but it was nice to just be able to go out in public and do what she wanted, whenever she wanted, without the presence of bodyguards or minders. All the religious nutjobs who might go after the Devil's sister and her monstrous brother had either killed monsters or vacated the shadow of Mt. Ebbot long ago. Nobody was left who would seriously mess with her. It had all finally died down, and Frisk couldn't be happier.
Or so I thought. A couple, presumably married, was walking straight towards the Dreemurrs, the woman carrying a three-year-old and her husband pushing along a well-used double stroller.
"Prince Asriel, Princess Frisk, just a moment, please," the woman called out. "We were watching your brother's speech," Oh boy, here we go. "and we have to ask you:" He killed somebody they knew, didn't he? "What can we do to become better people?"
Frisk laughed gaily, not expecting that in the slightest, prompting more pictures and video. "I have absolutely no idea," she said, smiling. "Do what you're good at, I guess."
"What do you do for a living?" Asriel asked.
"I fix cars," the man replied.
"Stay-at-home mom," his wife added.
"Fix more cars," Asriel suggested. "Help your kids become better people. Just help people, in general, whenever you can."
"Just things like that?" the woman asked, surprised.
"Small? Yeah, but if everybody did things like that, humans would be less messed up. I mean, if you want to donate money, there's stuff that we're donating to, but you've got kids, spend it on them." Asriel didn't say how he knew that the couple wasn't rich, that he'd heard their conversation even before they turned the corner and spotted the Dreemurrs. Frisk could tell just by looking at them, from their old clothes to the beat-up yard-sale stroller to the fact that they were buying Christmas gifts just after Christmas to save a few bucks, that the family was almost certainly on government assistance even if the husband worked full-time. And they're coming to us, the most powerful kids in the world, for moral advice. Frisk vaguely thought it could or should be the other way around, and she seriously considered the ramifications of opening her wallet to hand the woman a fat stack of twenties before the husband and wife agreed that Asriel was right and walked away giving thanks. Thanks for what? Your lives are still screwed up.
They hung out at the mall for a while, laughing and talking to monsters they'd seen before, and they grabbed some Chinese food that few people in China actually ate. Chewing on some long-dead general's chicken, they met Bethany and Christine, who were a year or so older than they were, and Frisk recognized Bethany from math class. Sitting in the food court together, Bethany explained that due to family circumstances, Christine had missed the application date for the Trump School, and so the two long-time friends were hanging out while they had the chance. Kind of like what we're doing, only we can't not have the chance. Frisk wasn't sure whether to offer help, because it'd be terrible nepotism, but Asriel agreed to talk to his mom. He even let the two of them cuddle his floppy ears, right there in the middle of everybody.
"Frisk, are you jealous?" Bethany asked, smiling.
"Nah, even my not-parents taught me to share my plush toys," Frisk replied with a grin, even though they hadn't.
"Frisk!" Asriel shouted, prompting laughter from all three girls and a few passers-by.
"They're still on TV sometimes," Christine said. "They really hate your brothers. I mean, if Charles isn't evil anymore, then they should just leave him alone being not evil so nobody else gets hurt, you know?" Frisk happily nodded, her thoughts exactly. "What's he doing now, anyway?"
"We have no idea," Frisk replied. "We'll find out."
But Frisk and Asriel did not find out what he was doing, not that afternoon after they realized that they'd have to glide uphill to go back home (and, embarrassed, called Sans to come pick them up), not that repeated day or any others that week because Charles simply told them to be patient just like he was being patient. Frisk only had to make an extra war-caused repetition once, an act for which Donald Trump paid her a small personal check of a million dollars. Frisk had considered asking for more just because she could, but her father had been clear that he'd been very successful in his negotiations with the President and so she decided not to upset things. She had other things on her mind, like having endless amounts of fun. Sledding, snowboarding, gliding; the Dreemurr kids were always on the move, living every day like it was their last, even though it very decisively wouldn't be.
On New Year's Day the first time around, prepared with extra facial coverings and a fanny pack loaded with mall-bought fudge, they'd just begun their flight when they noticed a very small plane with four propellers on its wings, painted in Dreemurr purple, taking off from the local airfield, and Asriel's first words on seeing it were "I can't hear the engine!" Electric, maybe? Frisk gradually brought the hang glider down to earth, not wanting to share the same airspace as whoever that was, and Asriel only needed a little magic to make the landing gentle as feathers. The plane had switched from wide banks and glides to more impressive aerobatics, the pilot doing a loop and then a barrel roll- but then the plane started moving around erratically, turning and gradually spiraling downwards. A small green-and-yellow figure flung open a door of the aircraft and jumped out, plummeting straight down. Charles pulled a cord on his chest, and the parachute fully opened at once, causing a sudden stop that would have been painful for an ordinary human. The aircraft, with nothing in it, slowed down in its glide and did a few loops before hitting the snow in one piece.
"Friskreverseit!" a man swore, clenching his fist in frustration and running to the crash site with five other engineers, and Asriel grabbed Frisk to catch up. Alphys and Gaster were part of the group, and Asriel could hear Alphys muttering "Oh me, oh my," with every rapid step.
"I may or may not reverse it," Frisk called from behind the man, not about to tell him that this day wouldn't count. His whole body was covered in thick work clothing, from the heavily used welding gloves to the steel-toed boots, and he stank of metal and sweat. He turned, and his bearded, lightly scarred face recoiled for a bit before he realized he should have expected the other Dreemurrs; one of the other engineers saluted, one bowed, and most of them kept running to Charles, who had unbuckled his harness and left the parachute to someone who knew how to repack it. "Princess Frisk, Prince Asriel! Noel Scent, aerospace engineer. Project head. Your brother is giving us a rather unique challenge." There was something in his voice that suggested that he'd leapt at the chance just because it was a unique challenge: that he was being called upon to create something that had never been created before, something that couldn't exist until the universe got broken. "What happened?" he asked Charles, who was marching towards him with an Undyne-like scowl.
"Steering cable snapped. I told you I was stronger than your materials," Charles said, annoyed. "But your materials should still be able to handle it."
"You're entirely right, Prince," Noel said. "We'll make the cables a little thicker for next time. Just to warn you, if you're going to be carrying passengers, one of them might black out if you're going to make turns like that." He glanced at Frisk.
"Wait," Frisk asked, totally confused, looking at the various engineers' faces. Some seemed anxious, some seemed frustrated, and a lot of them seemed glad that Charles' siblings were there to save them from his wrath. Gaster's expression, as usual, was unknowable. "Why would you need to pull hard? Isn't there a system?"
"Not on this plane!" Charles gloated smugly. "No engine, no motorized anything. Just some lightweight parts fused together, some basic airplane meters, some moving parts, and me. And you." He grinned. "Let's hope you don't black out."
Noel looked at Frisk and Asriel in turn. "Your brother's potential thrust-to-weight ratio is insane. He can accelerate a propeller aircraft like a rocket engine. We designed the frame and the entire propulsion system to handle it, but apparently we misjudged his strength in other places. Apologizes, Prince."
"It's fine, I knew there was going to be problems," Charles said, clearly still annoyed. "I didn't know it would take so long either."
"We're breaking records, actually," Noel said. "Usually, just getting these parts takes weeks. But since it's well, you, people are bending over backwards." All three Dreemurrs just nodded, Frisk having gotten used to it despite thinking that she never would. "And the magic welding thing helps quite a bit."
"I can help with that," Asriel said. Knowing what was coming, Frisk opened up her pack on the way back to the hangar, pulling out large cubes of fudge. Charles' eyes lit up, and Frisk gestured with the open pack; Charles pulled out the entire plastic bag and began feeding his face one large cube at a time.
"Calories in are calories out?" Noel asked, as Charles tried not to be too greedy and failed. Frisk, snagging back a bit of her own fudge, regretted not simply buying the entire supply and carrying a bigger pack.
"I think so," Charles said with his mouth full. "For simple strength, anyway." He looked around at the clearly envious faces. "Don't any of you ever kill any monsters to get this. I'm serious. You do and I will mess you up." There was some nodding of heads. There wasn't anyone there who hadn't heard Charles' speech.
"We'll all just have to make do with combustion engines," Noel said, getting some laughter.
"Charles, why do you need all these people anyway?" Asriel asked. "I thought you could just ask, well, the people you've..."
"No, they're too good," he said, smiling and looking around. "Very few engineers killed any monsters at all. And none of these kind did. Very few doctors, very few pilots, a pretty small number of cops, believe it or not. A bunch of lawyers, though." General laughter, in particular from one of the engineers, who had started walking to his flatbed truck to go pick up the damaged plane.
"Okay, I know this day isn't going to really happen," the man said, glancing at Frisk, "because your brother didn't warn us of any problems and Gaster didn't give any suggestions. So it's not like I'm wasting time sharing a joke." The Dreemurrs waited for it, Frisk rolling her eyes. "An engineer who was supposed to go to Heaven accidentally went to Hell. The engineer livened the place up, used the fire to power some engines, got some air conditioning going. 'You shouldn't have that engineer,' God yelled. 'I'll sue!' The Devil laughed, and said, 'Go ahead, but where are you going to get a lawyer?'" It took a bit for Frisk and Asriel to get it, but Charles cackled. "No offense to you or your, ah, what's his... Papuhrus, that's it."
"Puhpierus," Asriel corrected him. He nodded and went back to his truck.
"There's probably no such place as Hell, and Heaven isn't for humans or monsters," Charles said, walking towards a side door to the hangar and holding it open for his siblings. It was nicely heated inside; frameworks, failed prototypes, slabs of aircraft-grade aluminum, computer systems, and welding equipment littered the room. "We only get this universe, here, to live in. Anywhere else? Nobody really knows. Not even Dad. So, well, I'm the Devil; I hired the engineers."
"With Mom and Dad's money," Asriel pointed out.
"With ours, actually," Charles said, smiling. "Don't look at me like that, I checked. The three of us, well of course it was just you at first, get so much cash just to play around with, and a lot of these guys work for cheap just because they don't have anything better to do. Oh no, I'm spending a fraction of your annual fooling-around budget on something that'll beat the pants off of that hang glider. And we can go anywhere. Even to places where I don't have anybody. Even where there aren't any people."
Frisk didn't understand, but Asriel realized what Charles really wanted to do. "But no matter where your body is, you can't escape them," he said, and his brother's hands clenched in frustration.
"No," Charles sighed, "no, I can't. But I can at least pretend. Even if that is like... a bunch of fake stars on a cavern roof. Forget me. You two will enjoy this, and if I can at least make you happy, or I guess happier, that's... something." He needs to make up for what he did to Az, Frisk realized. Even despite all the other lives he's taken, all the other evils he's done and the good he's tried to do to compensate, his worst crime will always be getting Asriel killed. "Besides, these people are all having the time of their lives. Especially Gaster." Gaster was about to reply when the hangar doors opened, and the small aircraft, lashed to the back of the truck, was immediately set upon. Two ordinary people effortlessly picked it up and set it in the center, and Gaster eagerly oozed his way to it, altering the metal and slowly punching out the largest dent, his other hands going over it.
"I got it," Asriel said, and Frisk felt slightly lightheaded for a while as Gaster guided him through restoring the plane. Gaster, his mask in a grin, floated towards Frisk and held out a hand; being careful not to drop it through the hole in his palm, Frisk handed him a piece of fudge and Gaster squeezed the fudge into his face.
"Your brother is quite right," Gaster said as the Dreemurr kids gobbled up sugary chocolate. "I had never imagined that simple, non-magical physics could lead to such wonders, even if we are using a diabolic power source and not a piston or jet engine. Airflow, lift, turbulence, the fluid dynamics of gases... I have learned so much today, new insights, new... ideas." Gaster's blobby form rippled in what could have been ecstasy or euphoria. Asriel ate some more fudge, and Frisk ate some more, and Charles ate some more, and then Gaster helped himself to another piece, and then there was no more.
"Alphys and I will share everything we have learned today," Gaster said. "In point of fact..." He looked around at the group of engineers. "On one hand, I do not find any of you untrustworthy. On the other hand, I believe it would cause institutional friction if one of us were to allow you to remember. On the gripping hand, you may qualify, but there is a judgment process and you must meet requirements." Frisk and Asriel looked at each other. Institutional friction, indeed. The obvious position of the American government, and probably all the reasonably civilized governments of the world, was to keep the entire business under strict control while appeasing the one who made it work. 'You don't upset the applecart, and we keep giving you and your family everything you want, forever.' Frisk had no intention of usurping the system if doing so would reduce the steady Count.
A few of them looked at each other, but the man with the truck was getting livid. "You can just do that, huh? That's something you can just make happen, any time you want." Gaster nodded while Alphys shrunk back from his anger. "Oh, yeah, your judgment and requirements. What if we tell you that we'll just walk out of here if you don't?"
"Then we will never have made the offer," Gaster replied, and the man's eyes opened wide and he drew in a breath. Frisk wondered why they were having this conversation now, after several days' worth of work, but then realized that it probably wasn't the first time they were having it and Gaster was probably trying to bring an inevitable conversation to a relatively quick end.
"Chad..." Noel said, putting a hand on his shoulder, but the man slapped it off.
"C'mon," Frisk gently said. "You've got a plane to build. You're smart, you know what'd happen if we made everyone who asked a rememberer. I'm turning eleven in a couple of months and I know that." Asriel abruptly looked at his sister, realizing that she'd never before told him anything about birthdays or age.
"Fine," Chad said, knowing a no-win situation when he saw one. "Just one last thing. If I took those bracelets off, would you die?"
Asriel was getting sick of this guy and abruptly transformed, looking down at him. "It would be extremely painful..." he started.
"You're a big goat," Chad sputtered out.
"...for you," Asriel finished. Retreating, Chad went back to the friends he brought to talk about plane crashes.
"I hope you aren't terribly angry," Noel said, looking at Charles and glancing at Asriel as he changed back. "He really is a good guy."
"Unless you interfere with what I'm doing, I'm not going to get angry no matter what you say," Charles said reasonably. "I've got people, good and bad, cursing and worshipping me all day long. There's one guy on his knees thanking me right now because the Marines just emptied out the prison camp he was at. He thinks I sent them." Charles smiled. "This was actually doing pretty good until the cable broke. Fix those, and we can try it with passengers." Frisk couldn't help but grin. It did look fun.
"That's up to you," Noel said. "I'd send someone else up first. If you have to go back early, or however it works, I take no responsibility."
Frisk smiled wider. "I'm light, I've already got a parachute, and we've got Az."
Replacing the steering cables took surprisingly little time; they'd brought thicker ones for other things, and the Dreemurrs patiently watched the group work, the three of them sitting on a nearby table, legs swinging. Alphys took a leading role in installing systems, using her limited magic to create thorough seals and strengthen connections. Human engineers went over the plane for damage, and one of them took a small rubber mallet and gently pounded on various parts, listening and occasionally calling Gaster for magical analysis and repair.
The inside of the plane was cramped; it was exactly as big as it needed to be, so Frisk and Asriel needed to climb over seats to sit down on them. "We can always make it bigger when we grow up," Charles said as Frisk squeezed in behind Asriel, who was right behind Charles. Frisk looked past her brother at the cockpit; it seemed surprisingly simple, more like a bicycle than an airplane. A few dials occupied the front, and there was a compact radio system, but Charles' main controls consisted of a pair of separated handlebars on the front, and he buckled his feet into the pedals and strapped himself into his seat with bands of thick steel. Noticing his siblings' confused looks, he reminded them that while he could push down on the reinforced pedals very, very hard, he'd be pushing himself up just as hard. Frisk and Asriel buckled themselves in with racing harnesses, the sort of thing people put on when they expect to be tossed around. Here we go.
A man to the side of the plane started waving a glowstick, and Charles started cycling furiously. At once, Frisk was shoved back into her seat, feeling like an elephant was on her chest and seeing patterns in her vision, Asriel's ears flapping to the sides of her head. The acceleration let off, Charles yanked the landing gear up, and she looked out the window once her brother's ears got out of the way. She could see her house, of course, and it was blurring past with everything else. "You ready for some fun?" Charles asked gleefully.
"I'm still just human!" Frisk reminded him.
"No more than 4 G's. I promise." Charles yanked the handlebars for another two and a half barrel rolls, and this time the cable didn't break, and Frisk was left hanging upside-down in her harness, the blood rushing to her head. Asriel was giggling joyfully, his ears brushing against the plane's ceiling. Before Frisk could say anything, Charles gave them a gentle nose-up loop.
"Wooahhh, land, just land for now," Frisk said, pinching her nose and mouth shut.
"You really didn't have fun?" Charles protested, and Frisk didn't reply as he dived the plane downwards, gently pulling it back for the landing. The wheels touched down with casual softness, Asriel using his magic to make things even gentler as Charles tapped the wheel brakes. He felt what was wrong with Frisk and would rather not have the inevitable happen all over him.
"No, it was awesome," Frisk muttered, climbing over her brother and staggering out the door, her hand on her throat. "We'll go back up, it's just... fluggggggghhhh." And the air was alive with the smells of bile and fudge.
