Sorry about not updating until now, guys! I was having trouble writing this chapter, plus lots of schoolwork. I'll try to do better in the future! ^.^


In the aftermath of the monster Ambassador's sudden reclaiming of lost memories, it seemed prudent to prepare for the worst possible scenarios. While Artemis sincerely doubted that Frisk would actually declare war themselves, or actively encourage the monsters to do so, it didn't hurt to be cautious. It was entirely possible that the monsters would decide to initiate conflict themselves. And so, immediately following his last conversation with Holly before the elfin captain was required to return underground, Artemis had set about gathering as much information on the magical and technological capabilities of monsterkind as he could find.

Normally, such a task would not present any difficulties for him, and at first, it had not. Monsters were fairly open in their usage of magic, and so was Frisk, who had recounted their journey through the monster Underground in intensive detail. Monsters were capable of anything from throwing fireballs to healing, summoning spears to throwing bullets of pure magic, and were even capable of the manipulation of gravitational fields.

However, it was when analyzing the young Ambassador's close-knit group of monster acquaintances that he came across a very frustrating lack of information on one particular monster.

Artemis leaned back in his chair with a frown, studying the screen before him.

While it was true that most monsters were open in their usage of magic, and seemed to have little to hide – Undyne with her spears, Toriel with her frankly impressive use of fire magic, Alphys with her equally impressive combinations of magic and technology (he really would have to pick her brain on the matter again, if he got the chance) – one monster, the skeleton Sans, seemed to have hidden much of what he was capable of. There were no records of him using offensive magic anywhere in Frisk's account of the Underground, and hardly more than a few hints of what his powers may or may not have been. While it seemed reasonable to guess, based on his own previous observation of different monsters over the past few years, that Sans and his brother Papyrus used similar forms of magic, that didn't mean that their magicks were identical. And indeed, their magic seemed not to be identical, as he had yet to observe Papyrus teleport.

What with their attention drawn to the agitation of the monsters following Frisk's kidnapping, and the risk of an extremist group of human terrorists possibly finding out about the People, the fairies hadn't taken the time to properly consider this particular ability. Artemis, however, had had considerably more free time to analyze what information the fairies had managed to gather, and that information was concerning.

Sans had teleported from miles away from the police station, right onto its doorstep. He had done so seemingly instantaneously and with very little effort, simply stepping out of thin air with the flowerpot of a certain floral monster in his arms. The other monsters hadn't so much as batted an eye at his sudden appearance, either, implying that Sans did this quite frequently and had quite a great deal of practice. Instantaneous travel across at least several miles' worth of distance could prove a disastrous ability for the fairies to face, if it did come down to interspecies warfare. The short skeleton could quite literally appear from nowhere, carrying supplies or staging a very successful ambush, if he did indeed have some form of offensive magic as his enthusiastic brother did.

These worrying implications had prompted a fervent search through several internet sites and a couple of government databases in order to uncover the specifics of what Sans was capable of, only for Artemis to come up with almost nothing. Sans had barely any presence in any databases unless you counted his atrocious puns. The only thing he had uncovered that even so much as hinted at any more unusual abilities the skeleton had had been a very short post on one of his brother's social media accounts, where Papyrus had complained about his brother "pranking him across time and space."

That statement, said so casually, had given Artemis shivers. Teleportation, that was one thing. But time?

The unnerving implications of Sans having some sort of power over time had sent him diving back into trawling databases with even greater urgency than before, but so far, he hadn't found a single iota of useful information in human databases or monster ones. He could only hope that Foaly would have more luck on the fairy side of things, once the Council had been dealt with and Foaly was, pardon the horse analogy, given free rein.

It was at this moment that Artemis's fairy communicator buzzed gently on his finger. With a sigh, Artemis twisted the ring around to rest in his palm and held it up to his ear.

"Foaly, please tell me that you've had more luck than I in your pursuit for information."

"One of these days, Mud Boy, I'm going to figure out how in Frond's name you keep doing that without a caller I.D. feature on that old piece of junk."

Normally such a comment would have made him smirk. This time, however, there was an audible note of worry underneath Foaly's usual flippancy, and so Artemis pushed his amusement aside for a later date.

"You have found something, then? And, judging by your tone of voice, not something particularly pleasant."

A gusty sigh rushed through the tiny speaker. "Not pleasant, definitely, but apart from that… I don't know what I've got, exactly."

Artemis's eyebrows jumped up. Foaly had just admitted he didn't know something. "Foaly, are you well?"

"Oh hardy-har, Artemis. Go ahead and rub it in later. Mind taking down your latest encryptions? I've got some files I'd like you to look at."

Foaly was asking Artemis to give him access to a human computer. And he didn't sound any more upset about it than he did about whatever it was he'd discovered.

Now greatly concerned, Artemis turned off the communicator, and with a series of deft keystrokes, he disabled his most recent firewalls. As soon as he did, two windows appeared on the screen – one showing the visage of an extremely worried centaur without a single sign of a bruised ego, and another a window of what seemed to be video files.

"These are copies of memories recorded during the little Ambassador's mind-wipe," Foaly said. "During the wipe, I noticed some… unusual patterns in their memories. After the Commander sent me to have a little talk with the Council, I decided to have a look through them, to see if I could figure out what was going on." The fairy shook his head. "There are several series of memories over the past few months that repeat. The techies thought that they were just glitches in the system, but I wasn't too sure, so I started going through them."

The centaur moved a hand off screen, and one of the folders in the other window highlighted itself in bright orange. "Least confusing thing first, I'm pretty sure I figured out how Frisk got over the mind-wipe so quickly."

Artemis clicked on that folder, bringing up several new video files. One video thumbnail showed what appeared to be the inside of some form of eatery, decorated with a spiderweb motif – Muffet's Bakery if he wasn't mistaken – and, one eyebrow raising, he clicked on the file. A first-person view of the front counter and the spider monster behind it appeared, and the Ambassador's voice was negotiating a lowered price with her.

He was about to ask why this memory had been deemed important – it seemed fairly standard a memory, all things considered – when another voice with no discernible origin suddenly spoke. A child's voice, one that wasn't Frisk's and was incredibly distorted.

Artemis's other eyebrow rose. Foaly would not leave an audio distortion in any of his files unless he was incapable of fixing it.

"What on Earth?"

"That voice," Foaly said with a frown, "turns up in a vast majority of the memories I've gone through so far. It doesn't belong to anybody around the Ambassador, and the few times they speak at the same time as another person, that person acts like the voice isn't there. On top of that, at times it almost seems to be having a conversation with someone that we can't hear, and the few times that Frisk has spoken aloud in response to something it says, they seem very familiar with whoever the voice belongs to. They even know them by a name – Chara."

Artemis considered this, frowning. "The fact that no one else reacts to it seems concerning… my first impulse would be to think it is a symptom of mental illness, but mind wipes cannot record thoughts, simply events, correct?"

"Right. Which means that this voice comes from an outside source. My best guess, going by these files here," several files began glowing orange, "is that this voice belongs to some sort of spirit."

Artemis clicked on one of the highlighted files. A video of a restaurant and a table populated by a pair of humans and two birdlike monsters appeared on the screen. The monsters and humans alike were rising from their seats, talking amiably, and as he watched, the Ambassador approached the door to the eatery. However, unlike the previous memory, where the voice had seemed reasonably light-hearted, this time it was considerably tense, and apparently attempting to reassure Frisk of something.

Then Frisk reached out, grabbing the door handle, and as the door opened, Frisk's point of view was suddenly wrenched out of their own body, hovering over their own shoulder and watching as their body side-stepped right into the path of a bullet.

Artemis felt an involuntary chill run down his spine. If Frisk is not the one moving their body, then something else is. Possession.

"A spirit," he said, carefully. "I can't help but agree with that theory, seeing this…"

Foaly snorted. "That's not the only time this Chara voice has done this, either. On several other occasions where the Ambassador was in physical danger, or the monsters were, they've taken over the Ambassador's body and either gotten them into or out of harm's way. And the transition between being in their own body to hovering over it is ridiculously smooth – they've obviously had practice."

"Symbiotic possession," Artemis murmured. He steepled his fingers with a frown. "I see. So that's how Frisk regained their memories. Doubtless, the spirit is capable of observing the world around them, even when not in control of Frisk's body. This Chara would know just as much about the People as Frisk does, but would not be affected by the mind wipe – and if Frisk trusts them enough to let them take control of their body, then they would undoubtedly trust Chara's word in other extreme situations, as well."

"Exactly," Foaly said, with a nod. "Chara tells them about the People again, and boom, lost memories have been returned."

Artemis closed the file, his brows furrowing. "If this is the 'least confusing thing' you've found, Foaly, then that means you've found something else, as well?"

The centaur went quiet, scowling and tapping a few keys off-screen. "Yeah, I've found something, but I'm not sure what. A lot of these memory repeats I've seen so far seem to more or less repeat the same sequence of events, as in what's actually physically going on, but… there are differences in all of them. Sometimes it's as simple as Frisk moving their hand a different way, or their ghostly friend saying something different than what they did in a previous version in the memory. But in others…"

Another file highlighted itself. "Well, see for yourself. And I'm warning you right now, it's not pretty."

The video file opened up to the same scene as the most recent file he'd viewed, the inside of an eatery. Frisk was reaching out towards the door handle, preparing to open the door, and their ghostly acquaintance seemed much more light-hearted than in previous memories.

Then the door opened, there was a loud crack, and Frisk looked down to find a bullet hole in their chest, already rapidly bleeding every drop of blood out of their body, and then looked up in time to find the assassin aiming the gun between their eyes and firing once more.

The memory went black, and Artemis found that his hand had gone up to his own chest, a chill running down his spine.

"That wasn't what happened in the initial assassination attempt," he whispered. Foaly grunted in agreement, looking rather pale himself.

"No kidding. And… this isn't the only time that Frisk has died in their memories. The second assassination attempt? There're two other copies of that, and in both of the memories that didn't match the sequence of events as we know them, Frisk and the monsters went to the hotel. First time? Frisk and that Papyrus skeleton got shot. Second time? The monsters managed to take out some of the gunmen, but Frisk still got hit. It was only in the third copy of the memory that they went to the police station instead of to the hotel."

"Are these visions, or actual memories?"

Foaly grimaced, stomping one hoof. "… I don't know. Prophetic magic isn't exactly something that the People have on record. We have no idea how it would actually work. And on top of that, there are some memories that just plain don't make sense." Another file turned orange, and Artemis clicked on it immediately. A video still appeared on screen, an image of what he presumed to be taking place during the gala, judging by the gloves on Frisk's hand in the picture. They seemed to be in the middle of the fairy roses, reaching out one hand towards a glowing golden star-like object that hovered in the exact center of the rose spiral.

"Every time Frisk has one of those memories of dying, their next chronological memory is of this object here." Foaly jabbed a finger at something to the side of his screen, presumably another screen with the same image pulled up. "Whatever this is, both Sans and the flower know about it. Frisk told Sans about it in a text conversation later that night in one of the memories, and they called it a save point."

The furrow between Artemis's brows grew deeper. "A save point? Why on Earth do they call it that?"

Foaly grumbled. "I don't know! It doesn't make any sense! I can't think of a single kind of magic that would use whatever this is – only Frisk, Chara, and maybe Flowey and Sans seem to be able to see it, by the way – or a reason for them calling it a save point if they have prophetic magic of some sort!" The centaur was practically tearing out the hair on his head at this point, scowling at the screen.

Artemis stared at the save point. Even in a still image, the object seemed oddly… animate, for a lack of better words. As if he could reach out and touch it through the screen.

Frisk has memories of dying, and then shortly afterward, their memories contain this object. A save point -

A thought hit him. A save point as in a save point in a video game?

"Foaly," he said, the idea whirling through his head at speeds that would make light jealous, "you said that this save point only appears in Frisk's memories after they've died, yes?"

"That's what I said, Mud Boy!"

In a video game, save points save your progress and prevent you from having to do previous events over again in the event of your character's death. They also allow you to load a previous save if you want to go back and do something differently…

Frisk's memories repeat, but they are not perfect copies. In some of those memories, Frisk died, and in chronologically later memories, they found a means of avoiding dying again. It could be a vision, but…

"Foaly, in each of these memories that followed their deaths, did Frisk act as if they'd just literally experienced something traumatic? Did they show signs of nausea, or being disturbed?"

"Yeah, several times. One of those times was during the gala when they acted like they were sick. That was right after the memory where they got shot in the chest."

Frisk acts as if they actively experienced those memory repeats, including the deaths. Which means that in their mind, these "save points" act exactly as they do in a video game. When Frisk dies, they get a chance to do things over, to change something for the better.

That is NOT prophetic magic. They're not seeing something in the future. They're experiencing it for themselves. And if the save points send them back to some point in time before whatever happened, then that means…

"Foaly, are you still in the Section Eight labs with the warlocks?"

The centaur squinted at him suspiciously. "Yes… why?"

"Is No.1 or Qwan still there?"

"No. 1 is. He's messing around with some orange ray beams of some sort. Why, Artemis?"

Artemis took in a deep breath. "Has he tried matching the unknown energy signature on the Fowl estate, which now I can only presume is this save point object, with the energy used in a time travel spell?"

Foaly stared at him uncomprehendingly. Then, after another long moment, his eyes widened in realization.

"No," he breathed. The centaur disappeared from his screen with a clattering of hooves. Then voices began speaking off screen – the actual words were unrecognizable, but he recognized one of them as Foaly's and the other as No. 1's.

Several minutes later, Foaly reappeared in the screen, this time with a familiar gargoyle-esque little face accompanying him. Both fairies had expressions of wide-eyed astonishment – Foaly looked like his entire world had just started falling apart around him, and No. 1 looked somewhere between excited and worried.

"It's a match!" The demon warlock blurted out. "It's not identical, there are some parts of the energy that don't quite match, and the magic is generally more… solid, more stable, but it's the closest match we've gotten yet!"

Foaly collapsed back into his chair. "Closest match we've got is time travel. Which means –"

"Which means," Artemis finished for him, quietly, "that we're not dealing with a prophet, but a time traveler."

In that moment of stunned silence, there was the soft ping of a notification from Artemis's anonymous email account.


Minutes before, in a similarly stunned moment silence several miles away, Frisk waited with bated breath. They and the monsters were sitting around a conference table in one of the rooms in the police station, with the window blinds pulled down and the door carefully locked. There were no humans in the room save Frisk themselves, just the monsters, and every single monster in the room except Flowey and Sans wore an expression of shock on their faces.

Then the silence was broken by the scraping of a chair, and Undyne leaped to her feet.

"THAT'S IT, I'm going to Tara, breaking down their STUPID moonbase door, and then I'm going to kick some fairy creeps' ASSES!"

And just like that, the entire room seemed to descend into chaos.

"Take me with you!" Flowey screeched.

"UNDYNE NO!" Papyrus yelped. He bolted after the angry aquatic monster, grabbing her by the arm and digging his heels into the ground to keep her from going any farther. "DOING A VIOLENCE WILL NOT HELP!"

Alphys rushed up as well, grabbing her girlfriend's other arm. "U-Undyne, calm down!"

"LIKE HELL I'M GOING TO CALM DOWN!" Undyne roared. "THEY SPIED ON US! THEY TRIED TO ERASE FRISK'S MEMORIES! THEY TRIED TO MESS WITH FRISK'S SOUL!"

"U-Undyne, humans don't store m-memories in their souls like we do -!"

"I DON'T CARE! THEY STILL MESSED WITH FRISK'S MEMORIES! THEY COULD HAVE HURT THEM! SO I'M GONNA SHOW THEM A WORLD OF HURT RIGHT BACK! IF THEY'RE SCARED OF US GOING TO WAR, THEN I'M BRINGING IT RIGHT TO THEIR TINY DOORSTEPS!"

"Undyne!" Frisk yelled over the noise. "Stop!"

Thankfully, the monster listened to them, turning to look over her shoulder at Frisk with a wide yellow eye. "But Frisk -!"

"Just stop." Frisk took in a deep breath, let it out. "You have every right to be upset, but it's not fair to declare war on the fairies if some of them didn't want to erase my memories in the first place."

"But –"

"The centaur that mind-wiped me said something about a Council, Undyne. He was just following orders. And Lieutenant Crane, the fairy that got me out of HuRg's hands in the first place? I could tell she felt really guilty about the whole thing."

Toriel, who up until this point had been very, very quiet, finally spoke her mind, her voice stern. "And regardless of whether or not it is fair to these fairies or not, Undyne, I will not force monsters who have never seen war to experience it for the first time because you lost your temper."

*… she's using her Queen voice. I don't think we've heard her use it since…

Frisk grimaced. Since she scolded Asgore in the Underground for not using a single soul to get the other six… *

Undyne gulped. "But – Your Majesty -!"

"No, Undyne. War is nothing to wish for. I will not have my people suffer again, I will not let them lose hope again, not when we've come so far." Toriel's eyes narrowed and then darted to Flowey. "Besides, from what Flowey has told us about the appearance of fairy souls… it is entirely possible that their souls are stronger than monster ones, just like the souls of humans. It could very well end up a repeat of the monster-human war."

Undyne opened and shut her mouth a few times, then grimaced. "But –"

"They could have killed me," Frisk said quietly. The monsters all turned to look at them, eyes widening, and Frisk frowned and continued. "They wiped my memories because they were worried about HuRg finding out about them. There were easier ways to stop me from talking – they could have killed me, and placed the blame on HuRg, and no-one would have even known they were involved. But they didn't do that. They staged a rescue. They showed me Mercy."

They took a deep breath, letting it out in an unhappy sigh. "And no matter what people have done, they deserve a second chance, don't they?"

*Even the fairies? They could have sparked another Genocide Run, Frisk.

… Even the fairies. After all, it wasn't as if the fairies had known what could happen if Frisk's memories were erased.

That didn't mean they were happy about it, though.

"Indeed they do," Toriel said softly. She looked around the room at the other monsters. "We shall not declare war on them. They may have attempted to alter Frisk's memories, but in the end, they meant no harm. If what Frisk says is true, then these fairies could very well have simply been acting out of fear, and no one is at their best when afraid."

Her red eyes turned sharp. "That being said, we will not allow them to get away with what they've done so easily. I will not allow us to declare war, but that does not mean that we cannot find some way of contacting them, and making it very clear that they will not do this again."

That seemed to satisfy Undyne. The fish-lady sat back down in her seat with a reluctant huff, and Papyrus and Alphys followed her lead, looking relieved. The only monster that didn't seem happy about this was Flowey, who scowled angrily in his pot.

*He was probably hoping he'd get an excuse to kill someone.

Frisk ignored Chara's comment for now – they weren't completely sure that was true, in any case. "That might be more difficult than it sounds, Mom. The fairies might have been keeping an eye on us, but unless Flowey can sense them, we have no idea where they are, and Flowey's roots can only go so far."

Flowey glowered at them, and Frisk patted the top of his head apologetically and continued. "On top of that, if they're as scared of the monsters as I think they are, then they're going to be keeping their distance. And humans don't know about them right now, and letting them know the fairies exist might not be the best idea right now, so we can't exactly go around shouting at thin air that we want to talk to the fairies. Unless we stumble across one by accident and get lucky enough that they'll stick around to listen..."

"Actually," Sans interrupted from his chair, "there might be another way, kiddo."

Frisk blinked. "What?"

Sans sighed and leaned back in his seat, eye sockets narrowing. "While you were kidnapped 'n all that, we kept getting emails from that Anonymous person that's been helping you off and on for a few years now. They told us they had a contact who was keeping an eye on things in HuRg, who passed on a warning to us about keeping monsters under guard, and then later they claimed that contact made a move and got you out." His brows rose pointedly. "And you were rescued by a fairy."

It almost felt like a lead ball had dropped into their stomach. "You think that Anonymous… is in contact with the fairies?"

"THAT SEEMS A BIT OF A STRETCH, SANS!" Papyrus piped up. "IT WOULD INDEED BE VERY CONVENIENT, BUT IT ALSO SEEMS VERY UNLIKELY!"

Sans shrugged. "Not as unlikely as you think, if Anonymous is who I think they are."

Frisk's eyes widened. "You think you know who Anonymous is."

"I have a theory at least, yeah." Sans held up one hand and began ticking points off of his fingers, one at a time. "Think about it kiddo. Anonymous lives somewhere in Ireland. They're not exactly one hundred percent moral, they're a hacker, and have lots of political knowledge at their fingertips that sometimes isn't even in the public eye yet. And they only stop contacting you when they have some other means of knowing what's going on behind the scenes with the monsters, right?"

*Huh… good point.

Frisk nodded in agreement. Yeah…

Sans paused for a moment and then continued.

"We've met someone who lives in Ireland and is of high political standing here. Someone whose family supposedly has a history of criminal activity. Someone who used to live on an estate with magically discolored roses that have been around since before the monsters ever reached the surface. Someone who's experienced magic enough to be able to react to my CHECKs, when no other human ever has."

*Oh… Oh shit.

No. No. He couldn't mean -

But he did. They could see it in his expression, his furrowed, worried eye sockets. He knew exactly what he was talking about, and now that the facts were being laid out before them, it was obvious to them, and not even unbelievable. After all, they'd thought a certain Irishman could be Anonymous as well.

"Artemis Fowl the Second," they whispered.

Sans stuffed his hands back into his pockets and closed his sockets. "Can't think of anyone else, kiddo. I could be wrong but..." he shrugged again.

Frisk took a few deep breaths, struggling to calm themselves down. They didn't know for sure – it seemed likely now, all things considered, but they didn't know for sure…

Except they did. Maybe it wasn't concrete evidence, but somewhere deep down, Frisk was absolutely certain that Sans was right.

"… Does someone have a phone or computer I can borrow?" They asked quietly. "I need to send an email."


To Anonymous

From Frisk Dreemurr

You're Artemis Fowl, aren't you? I suspected for a while, but… now I'm sure.

I know about your more unusual contacts. I remember them.

We need to talk. Fairy roses, 9 AM tomorrow.


Artemis looked up from the message, looking more weary than he'd looked in years.

"I believe the correct invective for this scenario," he said quietly, "would be D'Arvit."


Well the monsters know about the fairies now… and Artemis and Co. have figured out one of Frisk's little secrets… this is gonna be FUN… :3

The whole "humans don't store memories in their souls" thing that Alphys mentioned is a personal headcanon of mine. The way I see it, monster souls serve a double purpose, both as the culmination of their beings and as a central nervous system of sorts. Souls allow monsters to move, think, learn, store memories, and do everything that a sentient being is able to do via the magic that makes up the monsters' bodies. Human souls can do something similar, but instead of being the conscious mind of the human, they're sort of a backup, in case something happens to the conscious mind that makes it forget something important – or, in the case of a Determined human caught up in the Resets, the soul will continuously make sure that the human's memories of the different timelines are up to date by directly inputting them into the human's physical memory storage, aka their brain. This is why Frisk's memories of the different timelines were able to be recorded by the fairies, because their soul always "uploads" memories of the different timelines to their brain.

*Toriel scolding Asgore for not using a single soul: Wow, look at that, an asterisk that has to do with Undertale canon and not Artemis Fowl canon! Amazing! Anyway, this is referring to the scene just before the True Pacifist boss fight (with Asriel), when Toriel stops you and Asgore from having to fight. She tells Asgore flat out that once he'd had one human soul, he would've been able to exit the Barrier and get the other six needed souls peacefully, instead of having to kill children as they kept falling down. Instead, though, he just meekly waited underground, hoping that another human would never fall.

And now, worldbuilding: Someone called Chaotiquill asked me: "I guess my question is, whether their parents may have wanted a boy a little too much, which may have resulted in them suppressing their, er, feminine traits in order to please them? They DID live in a somewhat abusive household, so I could definitely see it happening. I was just wondering whether there was an actual reason for the gender neutralness other than 'Oh, it was like that in the game, and now it's a pop culture staple, so I can't change it.'"

There IS a reason for that, actually! The way I see the monsters is that they're much more flexible about the whole gender thing than humans are. I mean, look at how many different types of monsters there are! Goat boss monsters, skeletons, living jello molds (hi moldsmals), bedsheet ghosts, lizard and fish people, creepy four-legged deer creatures, dogs... with so many different appearances for their kind to have, and all so very unique, how are you supposed to tell what gender a monster is just by looking at them, like humans generally do? So instead of relying on physical appearances like humans, monsters just let people decide what gender they want to be known as, and are okay with them changing the gender they identify as, as well.

While aboveground, Frisk never quite felt right being called a girl, even if they sometimes liked wearing dresses, but their parents never even introduced them to the possibility of there being people who are different genders from the ones they were born as. So, when Frisk fell into the Underground and noticed how the monsters viewed gender, they finally realized that hey, there were more options for them other than being a girl! And because the monsters were so okay with it, they had no qualms about deciding that they were genderless (as they didn't feel like they were a boy or a girl) once they'd been through the Underground enough times and gotten comfortable with monster views. Chara did much the same thing after they first fell into the Underground, too.