Aftertale
Chapter 2: Practice

Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale or any of the characters involved except Arin.

Toriel opened the door of their home, leading Frisk and Arin inside. Once they crossed the threshold Frisk and Toriel let go of Arin's hands. He felt something leave him, but quickly pushed the thought aside.

"So Arin, welcome home," Toriel said with a smile as she put her arms up to indicate the house.

"Ah, Toriel, Frisk. You're home," A rumbling voice called from the other room.

Arin turned to see a large, male goat monster walk into the room. He was wearing a pink flower shirt and brown cargo shorts.

"Oh, we have company," He said with a smile, "Hello there, my name is Asgore,"

"You-you're the king of monsters!" Arin exclaimed.

"Well, yes, that is true, but these days I should probably be called the King of Flowers," He began to laugh loudly.

"Yes dear, " Toriel sighed.

"So, what's your name?" Asgore asked Arin.

"My name is Arin," He said with an affirmative tone in his voice.

"Arin is going to be staying with us for a while actually," Toriel told Asgore.

"Ah, well then make yourself at home. I hope you enjoy your time with us," Asgore said with a grin, he looked to Toriel who shook her head as if saying "We'll talk later,"

Frisk tugged on Arin's sleeve, drawing his attention.

"What's up Frisk?"

Frisk led him through the house and out a backdoor leaving Asgore and Toriel to discuss things.

"So, mind explaining what's happened?" Asgore asked his wife.

"Arin is an orphan, I had no idea until Frisk told me today. I thought we could take him in and help him get back on his feet. I'm afraid he's been getting picked on at school and he was beaten severely today,"

Asgore nodded as she explained, "I don't see any problems. We'll have to do some re-arranging but that shouldn't take much. I'll have Undyne and the Skeleton brothers come over and give us some help later,"

"Thank you for understanding,"

"It's not like I'm a heartless creature you know, I understand I made mistakes in the past but I'm trying to move past them," Asgore stated.

Toriel nodded and left him to go check on Frisk and Arin.

The pair had gone outside into the fenced off backyard. Frisk led Arin to the dead center and turned around and smiled at him.

"What's going on Frisk?" Arin asked.

Frisk held her hands in front of her chest and a large red heart appeared. Arin looked at her expectantly.

She frowned a little, confused.

"Were you going to show me something?" He asked.

Frisk tilted her head and held her hands up with her soul inside.

"My child," Toriel said from the doorway.

The two turned to her and she began to walk over. As she got close she put her paws on Frisk's hands and her soul disappeared.

"Not all humans can see souls my child," She explained.

"Souls?" Arin asked.

"Yes, Souls, the thing that makes up your essence. Your likes, dislikes, personality, hates, and loves. It's what makes you, you. Every living creature has a soul, monsters and some special humans are able to manifest and see their souls and those of others," Toriel explained.

"Is that what Frisk was trying to show me? Their soul?"

Toriel nodded.

"Is there a way I can be trained to see souls?" Arin asked.

Toriel went to say something but was cut off as Asgore walked out the back door.

"You want to see souls?" He asked Arin.

He turned to the larger man and nodded.

"Well, there's one of two ways you can learn to see souls: I can forcibly open your soul to the input of others, allowing you to see and manifest your soul and others, or you can train at it and open your soul on your own. The first option has a few dangers, but they are great. The second option is safer but might take some time,"

Toriel looked to Arin who contemplated for a minute. "I guess the safer route seems the better option, how do I begin?"

Asgore went to answer when the group heard a car door out in front of the house.

"I'll explain later, we should see who's here," Asgore said with a small smile.

He led the small family back inside and to the door where a few figures were waiting. Asgore opened it to reveal a fish-woman wearing a police uniform, and two skeletons: Papyrus and one shorter, broader skeleton.

"King Asgore, what can we do to help?" the fish woman asked.

"I didn't expect you to get here so early Undyne,"

"Well, I was just getting off my shift at work and…" Undyne stopped mid-sentence when she saw Arin in the back of the group.

"You!" She shouted.

"You know him?" Asgore asked.

"Yeah, I've seen him on patrol a few times, he always runs away when I get close," Undyne said.

"It's not a nice sight to see a police cruiser barreling toward you," Arin explained.

"I was just checking on you kid," Undyne told him a little aggressively, "I see some random human walking around town like he has nowhere to go and I feel obligated to check on him,"

Arin shook his head and tucked his hands into his pockets, "Whatever,"

Undyne glared at Arin before turning her gaze to Asgore and softening, "So, what's the deal Asgore?"

"Arin here is going to be living with us for a while, and we needed help re-arranging things," Asgore said putting a hand on Arin's back.

He jumped slightly as the large, furred hand touched him, but he quickly relaxed and that warm feeling returned.

"What is this?" He thought to himself.

"Yeah, that shouldn't be too hard," Undyne said with a nod, she and the two skeletons entered the house and Asgore showed them to a room upstairs leaving Toriel, Frisk and Arin down in the entryway.

"I'm afraid I need to get to grading homework my children, feel free to explore Arin, just try to avoid getting in the way of the others," Toriel said.

Frisk nodded and Arin shrugged, "yeah, sure,"

Toriel reluctantly left them standing in the entryway as she went upstairs too. As soon as she was gone Frisk turned to Arin and tugged on his sleeve again, showing him into the living room. He noticed it was pretty basic: A large couch on one end was aimed perfectly at the TV and a large bay window gave them a lot of sunlight and a view of the street outside. Frisk walked over to the bay window and pulled a yellow flower in a pot off the sill and showed it to Arin.

"That's pretty cool Frisk," Arin said a little confused, it was just a flower…

"I'm not cool!" A voice barked at him.

Arin jumped and immediately started looking around.

"Down here,"

Arin eventually looked at the flower and realized it had a face in the middle of all the petals.

"A… talking flower? Are you some kind of monster too?" he asked.

"Yep, I'm Flowey, Flowey the Flower," It told him.

"Whoa…" he held his hand out to attempt to touch Flowey but then something happened suddenly.

Flowey leaned away from him, "You want to see something even 'cooler'?" Flowey asked

"Sure," Arin said in disbelief.

Flowey looked at Frisk who nodded and set him down. She had been working to rehabilitate Flowey so he wasn't as evil, she knew it would take time before he was even tolerably nice, he'd been especially good lately and she figured he was going to show Arin his pellets.

Arin stepped back a little before Flowey grinned evilly.

He looked at Arin and his eyes widened as he stared at Arin's chest. This made Arin feel a little weird before a sudden pain burst from near his heart.

"Ah!" He dropped to his knees and clutched at his chest.

Flowey's eyes had returned to normal as he watched Arin clutch his chest and gasp in pain. Frisk looked at Flowey with a disappointed look.

"Oh, I'm just getting started," Flowey said he summoned his pellets, "See kid, there's a thing you should know about monsters, we're not all as 'nice' as the King and his wife, some of us are just looking for a little Friendship," Flowey's voice took on an unsettling echo as he said the last word.

Arin looked up at him, sweat was beading down his forehead as he saw small pellets appear around Flowey, they spun in the air before stopping to aim at him. Frisk ran in front of Flowey and put her hands out to protect Arin.

"You're going to defend him?" Flowey asked.

Frisk nodded.

Flowey glared at Frisk for a moment before sighing and returning the pellets to his flower pot. She walked over and picked him up before putting him back on the sill and closing the large curtains, blocking out the light and Flowey from sight. Arin was catching his breath now as he stood up.

Frisk came over and looked at his chest, seeing what Flowey had done to him, his gasping eventually settled and he looked down at Frisk.

"What was that all about?" He asked.

Frisk shook her head and shrugged, she looked to the spot where she had sat Flowey back on the windowsill and then back to Arin, as if she was confused.

Arin just shook its head, "Whatever, I seem fine now so no harm done. Don't you think it's kind of dangerous keeping something like that in your house?"

Frisk looked back at Flowey again through the curtains and she remembered when she had to fight him in the Underground after he had absorbed all the monster's souls. She knew couldn't leave him down there alone and so had brought him to the surface.

Arin noticed Frisk was just staring off into the distance. He waved his hand in front of her face but got no response, he eventually shrugged and wandered upstairs, leaving Frisk in her daydream. He reached the top of the stairs and noticed it turned right into a small hallway that ended in a plain, white door, with doors to the left and right, on the left side he saw the open doorway, on the right was a sign that read "Frisk's room". He walked into the left doorway and stopped shock.

A bed was floating a few feet off the floor, a blue aura surrounding it. The bed eventually set back down on the floor in the corner of the room.

"Ah, Arin," Asgore's voice snapped Arin out of his fixation on the bed.

He looked away from the piece of furniture to see Undyne was putting a bookshelf up against the wall as the shorter, broader skeleton closed his eyes and looked toward the floor.

"We're almost done, just give us a few more minutes," Asgore said as he got down off a ladder, he'd been screwing in lightbulbs in the room as the others set up the rest of the furniture.

"No problem, so uh… Frisk introduced me to Flowey just now and he did something weird," Arin explained.

The whole group stopped and turned to look at him.

"What did that flower do kid?" The short skeleton asked.

"Well… I don't know exactly, he looked at my chest and I suddenly felt this immense pain, it went away and I feel fine now, but I just figured I'd want to check with you guys and see if that was normal,"

As Arin explained he watched the monster's faces grow worried, when he finished Asgore walked up to him and knelt down so they were seeing eye-to-eye.

"Arin," he said as he put his hand on the boy's shoulder, "I'd like to ask you something,"

"Sure,"

Asgore lifted his other hand and took his first hand from Arin's shoulder, he cupped them underneath where his heart would be on his chest and a gray heart appeared. Arin's eyes widened.

"So you can see it?" Asgore asked.

"Yes," Arin replied, "Is that?"

"My soul," Asgore told him before removing his hands and the heart returned inside his body.

"Now you try," Asgore told him as he stood.

Arin nodded and made the gesture himself, he felt a force, like something was trying to break free from his ribs, he relaxed and the pressure stopped, and a small, silver heart emerged from his chest.

The group gasped and Asgore lowered his head, casting his eyes in shadows.

"I'm sorry Arin, we were going to work to bring out your ability to see souls, but Flowey forced it out of you,"

"Was that it?" Arin asked as he pushed the heart back into his chest, "You said there were all these risks involved with that way,"

"There are, although I suppose it would be better if I explained: You see, Humans normally cannot see or manifest souls. It takes something to open their eyes; training or a monster. Monsters you see, can force the soul out of a human to harm them. This was the danger associated with forcing your ability. If you were to meet a monster that wanted to harm you they could force your soul out of your body, and as you experienced that can leave you with a severe sense of pain, while you are in pain you likely didn't see it but your soul emerged from your body, at that point a harmful monster could take the opportunity to kill you," Asgore finished explaining.

"Well, how do I defend myself if that happens now? I guess since I can see souls it's a little easier to fight back but… there's gotta be a way right?"

Asgore looked to the others who all looked away from his gaze.

"Normally, if you were a monster, there would be: Magic, but humans haven't shown the capability to cast magic since we've returned to the surface," Asgore explained.

"But, Humans could cast magic before?"

Asgore nodded, "the Humans of years ago gathered their most powerful spellcasters and wove the barrier that kept us sealed underground,"

Arin nodded now, "Well, maybe it's a dormant trait? We learned about them in school: A part of a being that didn't need to be used anymore but wasn't entirely wiped away. Since the humans didn't need to fight monsters anymore they didn't teach their kids how to do magic. This doesn't mean we can't, just that maybe we've forgotten how,"

Asgore thought about this for a moment, "I suppose you could be right, there's one way to check and make sure," he said.

"What would that way be?" Arin asked, having an idea of the answer already.

"We'll need to fight you," Asgore said as he summoned a red flame in his hand.