AN:
GiratinaBeelzemonblaster369: Well... technically, it was actually Slayer who killed Papyrus, so...
[…Why, Chara?] Frisk asked me. They sounded sad. Disappointed. Betrayed. Afraid. Maybe a bit angry.
Whatever.
I didn't care what promises I'd made, and I didn't care what I'd decided before. If someone killed my friend, I wasn't going to just let them go.
Besides, even discounting that, Slayer had to be taken care of, one way or another. He was Par's hitman, after all, and certainly no stranger to murder. If I hadn't done something, he would've killed more and more and more people – and somehow, I doubted I'd be able to talk him into stopping. True, perhaps killing him wasn't the only choice, but it was the only one that actually had a good chance of working. Besides, if I tried to figure out some other way, that just gave him the time to kill even more of the people I cared about.
But all of that, really, was just me lying to myself. Yeah, I supposed my actions were justifiable – but I hadn't killed him for the right reasons. I hadn't killed him to save people. I'd killed him because I wanted revenge for Papyrus. Plain and simple, and probably completely immoral.
Ah well. That just meant I could spit in his face down in hell.
I shrugged. [Papyrus is dead,] I told Frisk. [I'm not letting his killer get away.]
[But…] Frisk said, [you'd won already. He couldn't do anything at that point.]
[Yeah,] I conceded. [But how long would that last? The only reason I even managed to kill him was because his magic couldn't regenerate him fast enough to avoid spilling out. If he managed to get back to Par and get fed some more magic, he could heal pretty damn easily. It'd be like nothing had ever happened.]
Frisk looked to the side. [Yeah,] they muttered. [I guess. But…]
I glanced over at them. They looked anxious, and conflicted, and worried. The anger fled me, and I felt like a bit of an idiot. [Still feels wrong?] I asked.
[Yeah,] they nodded, glumly.
[Mm.]
I started walking. I wasn't entirely sure where I was walking, or why. But I didn't feel like being here anymore.
[Ugh,] Frisk eventually moaned from behind me.
I turned to the side. [Hm?]
[Mm… it's just…] they said, and paused for a moment. [You just killed someone. Like… forever. I just…]
I looked at them. Dammit. I knew Slayer had to go, but to see the effect it had on Frisk… argh. Now I felt like a bastard.
[I…] I said, and then paused. Apologizing wouldn't change anything, not really. Slayer would still be dead, I'd still have killed him, and Frisk wouldn't feel any less awful about it. But… I still had to. [For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry.]
They paused for a moment. […Yeah. Okay.]
We stood like that for a while, neither of us saying anything. Finally, I said [Let's go. And I promise I'll try not to kill anyone else.]
Frisk looked to the side. [Alright.] And on that note, we set out once more, though I still didn't know where I was going. But if I was going to challenge the bird, it seemed logical to take out his support first. Slayer was gone, now – so I just had to take care of Gaster.
I thought back to our conversation in the Core. God, I hated him. At least Slayer – whatever exactly he was – seemed to be every bit as emotionless as that flower (whose preferred name I couldn't remember, though I knew well enough who he really was), judging from his voice. At least he had an excuse. Gaster? Gaster wasn't emotionless or anything, not from what I could tell. And while I'd thought before that he was just serving the bird unwillingly, our conversation had proven that false. So really… it seemed he was just plain evil.
But that was a nebulous term. From his perspective, I could almost see how his actions made sense. Par had been his savior from a fate so horrible I couldn't even imagine it. True, he was evil himself, but to Gaster, that couldn't have mattered at the time. He would just be so unimaginably glad to finally be free of his torment that… I could see him just throwing himself at his savior's feet. Hell, in his situation, I might've just ended up doing the same. And while I hated his seemingly complete lack of empathy, I could understand that, too. After that long of just watching everything and not being able to do a thing about it, I imagined it'd be pretty damn hard to keep caring.
In my mind, I made a decision. Gaster was a bastard, yes, but he wasn't impossible to reason with. If I could help it, if there was any other way at all, I wouldn't kill him. I'd broken my promise once already, but that was no reason to make it a habit. Especially not when I knew what I could still become oh so easily were I to do that.
So, how was I going to get him to stop helping Par? Well, that, I didn't know yet. But I'd figure something out.
[Hey, Frisk,] I said, though I felt a bit bad pestering them while they were still trying to recover from what I'd just done. Although, I supposed that maybe it'd take their mind off of things for a while. [Got any ideas on how we could find Gaster?]
[Uh…] They thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. [No. Sorry.]
[It's okay,] I said. Still, though, that was frustrating. I knew way too little about my enemies, and they would find it way too easy to just avoid me if that was what they wanted to do. Hell, I didn't even have any clue where to start searching – I didn't even know where their hideout was. I didn't even know if they had one.
Though, on how that could be found out, at least, I had an idea. I turned to Frisk. [Oh, and by the way…]
[Yeah, Chara?] they said.
[I've been wondering where these guys have been hiding out,] I said. [I don't really know any place in the Underground that would work for them, but… maybe you do?]
[Um…] they said, and paused in thought.
[It'd have to be secluded,] I said.
[Eh?] they asked.
[You know… hidden,] I clarified. [Where people wouldn't find them.]
[Yeah,] they said. [I guess.]
[So… you know any place like that around here?]
[…No,] they said. But after a few moments, they seemed to have an idea, and they looked to the side. [Well…]
[Mm?] I asked.
[I… maybe,] they said, nervously. [But…]
I arched an eyebrow. [But what?]
[But…] they said, [I… don't really wanna tell you.]
My face fell. I felt like I had a pretty good guess as to why, and if I was right, I didn't really want to pry. But… [It's something private for someone,] I guessed. [Right?]
Frisk looked down, their cheeks red. [Yeah.]
I looked down, too. I didn't want Frisk to feel bad. I didn't want Frisk to feel like I was forcing them to divulge something they didn't want to divulge. But… I sort of had to beat the bird, and that meant I needed to know where he was hiding. [I'm… sorry, Frisk,] I said. [But, please. This is important. You know that.]
[Y-yeah…] they stammered, their voice ashamed. [But…]
[I know,] I said. [I know. But… we need this. The monsters need this.]
Frisk looked up at me, seeming even more mortified. [I… yeah,] they said, trying to be resolute. It wasn't working very well. [Yeah. The monsters need this.]
And honestly, that just made me feel even worse.
[Alright,] they said. [But… uh…]
[Yeah?] I asked them. [I promise I won't tell anyone.]
[Thanks,] they said. [But I was going to say something else.]
[Oh,] I said. [Okay. What is it?]
[U-uh… i-it's kinda silly,] they said, [but… can I whisper it in your ear?]
I blinked at them.
[I-I mean, I know no one can hear me anyways, b-but…] Frisk frantically explained, [i-it just makes me… makes me feel better. You know.]
I shrugged and tried to smile reassuringly at them. [Okay.]
They floated up to me and leaned towards my ear. It felt weird, knowing that they were right there and being able to see them yet not being able to feel them at all. But I was already asking them to do more than I could rightly expect from them. I wasn't going to deny them this.
[I-in Alphys' lab…] they said, [t-there's a door. It's… it's locked, but… behind there…]
My eyes widened in surprise. Alphys? Of all people, her? I mean, I knew she'd already fooled me once, but… I just couldn't see her hiding some dark secret.
[I-it's nothing bad!] Frisk yelped out, as if they'd been reading my thoughts – though, I supposed, they'd probably just noticed my eyes. [W-well… it… it sort of is, but…]
I looked at them. [There's a good explanation?]
They looked to the side again, embarrassed. [Yeah.]
I nodded. [Okay. I'll keep that in mind. And I swear I won't touch anything I don't need to.]
[Okay,] Frisk said, and somewhat hesitantly nodded. And with that, we set off towards Alphys' lab. I could see Frisk's nervousness on the way, and it made me feel terrible. I'd just forced them to tell me something that was clearly dear and important to someone they knew, and the worst part was, I'd almost manipulated them into it. I'd told them it was for the monsters, after all, and while that was true… I'd known that that, more surely than anything, would get them to tell me. And that was why I'd said it.
Dammit. I needed to find this out, and I had to do what I had to do, but… I just wished I didn't have to hurt Frisk so much in the process. Hadn't they already suffered enough at my hands?
The trip to the lab didn't take long – we were already pretty close. Unfortunately, Alphys was there.
"Ah!" she gasped when she saw me, and ducked beneath the table. "U-um… hi…"
"Hey, Alphys," I said. "I'm... sorry for what I said before. I overreacted. Both times."
"U-uh…" she stammered, "okay…"
"I shouldn't have acted like that," I continued. "I shouldn't have threatened you. I shouldn't have yelled at you. And I'm really, really sorry for that."
"Uh…" she muttered, again, and rose from underneath her table. "S-so… you won't…"
"I won't do anything to you," I said. "Please calm down."
"O-oh!" she said. "Th-then why are you here?"
I thought for a moment. But… there was no good way to answer her. I knew that whatever was behind that door, it was dear and precious to her – or at least, its secrecy was. I didn't have any clue what sort of effect it might have on her if I told her I knew. But I sort of had to, didn't I? Frisk had said the door was locked. Even if I got her away from the lab, I wouldn't be able to get in on my own.
I glanced to the side, pointedly avoiding making eye contact with her. Damn it. Why is it that so many of my plans lately were starting to involve hurting others?
"I…" I said, and swallowed nervously. "You know the bird, right? Well, him and his friends?"
"Uh, yeah," she said. "P-Par, right? The one that hates you."
"Uh-huh," I nodded.
Her eyes darted around. "Y-you mean… it's about that? I… I can help with…" Her voice grew somewhat cautiously excited. "…That?"
"Um… yeah," I said. "But… you probably won't like it."
"Uh, no, it's alright!" she said. "If, if I can help you with that… just say the word!"
I swallowed, again. "Okay," I said. My head was starting to hurt, probably from the stress. "I… uh… here's the thing. I don't actually know where he's hiding, not yet. But it'd have to be someplace secluded, where no one ever went.
"And… uh…" I continued, my brief burst of confidence suddenly lost, "you know about Frisk, right? I mean, I told Toriel, so if you were watching me…"
"Um… yeah?" she said, apprehensively.
"Well," I said, "I talked to them about it, and…" I let that hang there for a few moments.
Alphys sat there for an instant, seemingly still unsure of what I was talking about. And then her eyes grew massive, and she froze to the spot, staring blankly ahead.
"Don't worry!" I quickly added, trying to reassure her. "I don't know what's inside. And I won't look around any more than I have to. And I won't tell anyone what I see."
Still she stared at me, unblinking, sweat pouring down her forehead.
"A-and," I hastened to say, "I won't judge you for it, whatever it is. Hell, I'll forget about it the moment I leave. It'll be like I'd never even been there."
"U-uh…" she stammered. "Uh…"
I walked over to her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and looked in her eyes. I let her see the stress in my face, the worry, the anxiety, the desperation. "Please," I said. "I swear. I'll never mention it again. Ever."
She blinked at me a few times, tears in her eyes. For a few moments, she just trembled, unmoving. Then, her hand shot somewhere, she threw some sort of keycard onto the table, and she stood up and ran off and out of the lab.
I blinked after her a few times. "Well," I said to myself. "That happened."
Then, I took the keycard and stashed it in my pocket. I took a deep breath. No matter how much I didn't really want to, I was about to discover something, and I felt like there was every chance it would be something I didn't want to know. Well… I supposed I'd just have to do as I said I'd do. Go in, get out, forget about whatever I see.
I indicated the one door in the lab that I could see hiding something secret with a wave of my hand. [That one?] I asked Frisk.
[Yeah,] they nodded.
I walked up to the door and inspected its smooth surface. [So, uh… you got any idea how to actually open it?] I asked.
[Um,] Frisk said. [No.]
I sighed. [Do things ever go our way?]
[Nope.]
It took a bit of fiddling around, but I eventually managed to figure out how to get the door unlocked. What was behind it seemed to be some sort of elevator. I looked at the buttons. [Uh, Frisk?]
[Lowest one,] they said, quietly. They seemed apprehensive, which just worried me even more. But I'd made my decision. I pressed the lowest button and the door closed behind me.
The elevator descended for a little while. Frisk paced nervously, seemingly waiting for something. Then, the elevator stopped and its doors slid open. Frisk stopped, and I could see their eyebrows shoot up.
[What's up?] I asked them.
[This… isn't how it normally goes,] they said. [Normally, whenever I went here, the power went out and the elevator crashed.]
[Well, guess we got lucky,] I said. [This isn't exactly a normal run, after all. A few differences are to be expected.]
[Yeah,] Frisk said, [I guess. Can we start searching now? I don't want to be here any longer than we have to.]
[Mm-hmm,] I nodded. [Let's go.]
And with that, I stepped out of the elevator. The doors opened into a long corridor, the walls tinged a dull blue, the floor tiled in the same color. The whole place reeked of neglect and disuse, and the moment I took a sniff of the air, I suddenly wished my nose could just close up or something. It didn't look much better, either – the entire building was covered in dust (mundane dust, thankfully), the paint was peeling from the walls, and cracks spread out sporadically on every surface I could see. I could see a few screens, seemingly untouched by the havoc time had wreaked upon the rest of this place, attached to the walls of the corridor, but they were the only beacon of light in this whole place. It was a far cry from the cheery, bright lab above.
But I promised I wouldn't pry any more than I had to, and that meant not asking any questions, either. Whatever this place may have once been, it didn't matter for my purposes. I just set off down the corridor, looking around for any signs of the bird as I walked. Of course, I didn't expect to see anything so early on, but it was never too early to start searching.
The place seemed, so far, quite similar to many of the Underground's locations in terms of layout – a mass of corridors with a few bigger rooms interspersed. But it wasn't half as cheerful as most of the places in the Underground, and walking through it felt depressing, and even a bit scary, even when I didn't know what exactly had happened here. Thankfully, at the very least, Frisk was right – this place was deserted. I didn't encounter a soul as I passed through.
And then, something appeared.
It looked, at first glance, like the head – just the head – of one of the monsters I'd seen back in Snowdin. But it looked like it was… melting, almost. And there was something else there too, something… attached to it…
And then it moved closer, and… and…
It was so cold.
I shuddered at the sight. I couldn't help myself. It was horrific.
It inched closer. My body wouldn't move. Nothing would move. There was just me and it.
I couldn't beat it. I couldn't do a thing to it. I knew that much.
I couldn't move. I didn't want to move. What would even be the point? It'd all be over soon, anyway.
Why did I ever think I could do this? Go into some ancient, long-forgotten place with some horrible secret? Did I really think I'd come out unscathed?
And if I did find Gaster, what then? I'd only beaten Slayer by luck, and I'd had to break my promise to do it. What was I thinking? Was I really thinking I could be a hero?
It was almost funny, now that I thought about it. Me, a hero. I was the one who'd killed everyone. I was the one who'd forced them all to suffer time and time again. And now I wanted to be a hero?
I should've just left it to Frisk. Frisk was kind. Frisk was good. Frisk was so much better than I was. And they were more determined, too. They would've found some way around this. They wouldn't have just stood there, frozen, at the sight of this thing.
They shouted something. I might've vaguely heard it, but I couldn't make any of the words out. I was starting to forget what words even were.
The thing moved a bit closer. I shuddered, but not from fear anymore. There was no point feeling fear when there was nothing that could be done anyway.
I just shuddered because it was so. Cold.
My eyelids drooped, my vision blurred, and I let the chill consume me.
…
Something I could barely make out happened, and the thing flew away from me.
The world snapped back to focus suddenly, a million thoughts suddenly rushing through my head as if they'd been held back by some dam that was now broken. What was I thinking?! When the hell had I ever given up before?! And so easily… what the hell was that thing?!
[-ara?!] Frisk shouted, the sound suddenly loud and crisp once more. [What's happening?!]
[I'm fine,] I said. [It… did something to my mind. I think.]
But that still left the question of why it'd just flown away from me. I narrowed my eyes in the direction it'd gone. There was nothing there that I could immediately see, but I looked anyway, and I looked carefully. I had to watch out, clearly. This place wasn't safe.
The thing itself seemed to be pinned to the wall of the corridor by some unseen force. It looked… confused, though it was hard to tell on its excuse for a face. But it wasn't struggling, and it didn't look scared. It just seemed… resigned, almost.
There were two people I knew who could pin something to the wall like that. And I was pretty sure I'd only find one of them here.
My hand went into my pocket, closing around my knife – just in case – as Gaster stepped out from the shadows. With a gesture from his hand, the thing flew down the corridor, disappearing into the shadows.
"I see you found our base," he said. "Are you happy with yourself?"
"What the h-" ell was that thing?! was what I was about to ask. But I figured it was probably connected to this place, not to Par and Gaster, so it wouldn't be right to pry. Even though I was curious. "Never mind. Why'd you save me?"
Gaster shrugged. "I suppose it seemed like the correct thing to do. I cannot deny that you have made some effort to treat me with kindness, and though you continue to oppose us, I suppose I still feel a certain amount of respect towards you for that. I could not let you die like that."
He looked me in the eyes, and his face was hard, cold. But not the peaceful, lethargy-inducing cold that that… thing… had used. The frost in Gaster's eyes was a bitter, merciless thing, the sort that stirred up the deadly winds of winter and threw snowstorms and sleet against the walls of civilization. "But make no mistake," he calmly said. "Should you continue to interfere, I will not hesitate to kill you."
I glanced towards the direction where he'd sent the thing. "Current evidence suggests otherwise."
Gaster narrowed his eyes at me, and I suddenly regretted saying that. "As I have said, I could not let you die like that. Were the means of your potential death less ignoble, or if I had not happened to be passing by anyway, I would not have done the same."
I didn't find that very convincing. I, myself, had spent a while lying to myself and telling myself that I didn't really care about others, and what Gaster was doing seemed damn similar. But I didn't press. Something told me that would be a terrible idea. "Alright," I said.
"Leave," Gaster said, in a tone which left no room for debate. "Now."
"No," I said.
Gaster sighed deeply. "You came here to find me and Par, did you not?"
I had a bad feeling about where this was leading, but I answered anyway. "Yeah, I did."
"Then it strikes me as foolish," he said, "to forget about the fact that I could simply teleport us both away the moment I wished to do so. Or were you expecting my magic to stay drained forever?"
Oh.
Now that he said it, I realized I had, actually, forgotten about that. There wasn't a thing keeping him from just taking Par and leaving. And I couldn't exactly stop him from doing so, either.
"Oh," I said, "right."
"Leave."
"Hold on!" I said. "It isn't like I could hurt either of you anyway, so… could you just answer a few questions for me? I'm just curious about a few things."
If I knew anything about Gaster, he wouldn't be able to resist the chance to educate someone he saw as less intelligent than himself.
A few moments passed, and even with how sure I was this would work, I still started getting tense. But finally, Gaster sighed and said, "As before, that depends on what you want to know."
Well, I'd managed to stall for a while, at least. Now I just had to think of some questions. I thought back to everything I knew about the bird and his friends, and more importantly, to what I didn't know. I thought of all the little unanswered questions, of all the mysteries surrounding him.
One in particular stuck out, because Frisk had mentioned it a while ago. They'd said, I recalled, that I shouldn't be asking how he could block my resets – I should be asking how he knew about them in the first place. From there, they reasoned, it would probably be a lot easier to figure out how he could stop them. They were probably right. And now, I had someone right in front of me who could tell me how the bird knew – assuming, of course, I could get him to.
"Alright," I said. "Let's start with this: How does Par know about my resets?"
He turned his nose up at me. (Well, he didn't have a nose. But that was basically what he did.) "You expect me to tell you that?"
"Uh… sure," I said. "I mean, how would that information help me?" Quite a lot, of course. But he didn't need to know that.
Of course, any smart person wouldn't have told me anyways, just in case. And I'd bet that was what Gaster knew, deep inside, was the right thing to do. But I was counting on the fact that I'd always known him to be an arrogant bastard – a person who could never resist an opportunity to show off how much smarter than everyone else he was. I was just hoping that desire was strong enough to override his better judgement.
"…I suppose you have a point," he said, grudgingly. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but… here's an analogy. Think of your resets as something like a broom – used to sweep everything in the world back to the way they were a while ago. But a broom can miss certain things, especially if they're small enough – and the shards of my soul still flying around the Underground are certainly small enough. So, when you metaphorically sweep everything under the rug, the shards of my soul are unaffected, and retain the memory of the previous timeline. And since they are still part of me, I have all the memories they have."
"Huh," I said, raising an eyebrow. "So, Par doesn't actually remember the resets? It's just you?"
"Not quite," he said. "There is, at present, a small shard of my soul attached to Par's."
"I thought monsters couldn't absorb each other's souls," I interjected.
"They cannot," Gaster said, annoyed. "But there is no absorption happening in this case. That single piece of my soul merely, effectively, hangs on to Par's – and through it, I can, if I so choose, share my thoughts and memories with him. Normally, the effort is quite taxing, particularly to the mind – directly influencing the memories within someone else's mind is no small thing, and not the sort of thing any living being's mind was intended for – and so I take care not to overuse it. But since his memories from the timelines before are still in existence, and merely dormant, reawakening them is much easier. Hence why he can recall all of your resets every bit as easily as I can."
"Huh," I said. "That's interesting." And then, I went to the logical conclusion. "So, you're the one blocking my resets, too?"
A shadow passed across Gaster's face, and his expression twisted in frustration. "It seems I have told you too much," he said.
I grinned. "I'll take that as a yes. And it's got something to do with the pieces of your soul everywhere, right?"
Gaster hissed. That was all the confirmation I needed.
"Good to know," I said.
"Enough!" he shouted. "Have you come here just to pry all you can from me? I had thought you were here for vengeance, or justice – whichever of those you wish to call it. Are you going to leave without that, you coward?!"
"Well, you said it yourself," I said, smiling. "You can just take both yourself and the bird out of here whenever you feel like it."
"True," he growled through clenched teeth. "But…"
And that was when I knew I'd won. At least, I'd won the first half of the fight.
Thanks to what I'd just done, Gaster was really, really angry at me now. Before, I knew he'd be content to just sit back and let me meet my end when Par decided I should – but now? Now, he'd want to kill me. And he'd want to kill me himself.
"I will give you one last chance to walk away," he said, clearly forcing his voice to remain calm. "But if you wish to throw your life away, meet me near the entrance to the Ruins, one hour from now."
"I'll be there."
