Epilogue: Paradise

Let your hopes go
And they'll survive
Cause this is the future
And you are alive.

~ Owl City, This Is the Future


There are many legends from before the Human-Monster War, and many stories that came after. But now, the greatest piece of folklore is, perhaps, the story of Asriel Dreemurr.

Once upon a time, a human fell from the surface down into the realm of Monsters. They were badly hurt, and cried out, but expected no one to hear them. However, as it so happened, the child of Asgore and Toriel heard them, and came to see. In her gentleness, he helped the human up and brought them home, where they were nursed back to health. And so it was, that the human and Asriel became the best of friends; one may say like siblings.¹

But after many years of happiness and hope, a great tragedy struck. One day, the human child fell ill. No medicine could cure them, nor could any healing spell. The king and queen were baffled at the potency of this malady...and they were afraid for their child's life. Some say they never left the sick child's side for more than two minutes, but this is only rumor. Finally, after much suffering, the human child passed on. It did not come to light until later that the human had willingly poisoned themselves in order for their plan to work.

This plan, as it was, was to die so that Asriel may absorb their SOUL, exit the Barrier erected to keep them contained, and take six more SOULS from the humans living on the surface. As it so happened, there is a village at the foot of Mount Ebott called Steltos, and there is a local legend that one day, a horrid beast appeared on the outskirts of town. Most of the townsfolk would have been content to simply hide in their homes and wait for it to pass, but one of them suddenly cried out that it had killed a child, and was holding them in their arms. All at once, the villagers grabbed their swords, daggers, crossbows, or anything they could use as a weapon: harvesting scythes, pitchforks, torches, broken bottles and chairs, soldering irons, bricks...anything. They attacked the monster, slicing into its flesh, launching hundreds of arrows, bashing it across the head...watching the dust seep out of its wounds. And yet, the monster never attacked them. Instead, it picked up the child's body and left without a word.

It is known now, that this legend tells of what happened after Asriel left the Underground. However, when she finally stumbled back through the Barrier, her body was too far gone to be healed, and she died kneeling over the golden flowers her father always kept in his throne room.

Details have not been forthcoming about what happened afterward: all that has been said was that the kingdom was hurled headfirst into despair, and King Asgore declared a war of vengeance on the humans who had taken everything from him. It is also known that, after this time of tumult, six more human children fell into the Underground and died down there.²

At any rate, the story goes that this was not the end of Asriel Dreemurr. Instead, after an indeterminate amount of time, she awoke again to find herself in the vessel of a tiny yellow flower, much like the ones the child had ingested to poison themself. However, being that she had died, she had no SOUL; Asriel Dreemurr was cursed to exist without love, without happiness, without anyone who could understand. And so it was she lived this way, but for losing her SOUL, she gained great power. With this power, she would try to help residents of the Underground...until she realized it brought her no joy. Then, she went about torturing them instead, and it seemed as if the Underground was not only doomed to slowly die in the dark, but they would all die at the hands of one of their own.

But then, after hundreds of years, one last human fell down. They were named "Frisk," and Frisk was unlike anything monsterkind had ever seen before. They were calm, friendly, and full of compassion. True, some of the other humans that fell loved the monsters, but it had not ended well for them. But this one, Frisk...held something inside them that brought them friends, no matter the odds. The cursed princess saw them and envied them, for they not only bore a striking resemblance to her long-dead sibling, but under no circumstances would they try to fight. And it struck her equally as fascinating as it was deplorable.

Frisk walked the entirety of the Underground, from the Ruins of the first settlement all the way up to King Asgore's castle that he had built on top of the Barrier. And when they arrived, they were set to battle the king, but soon after, all his friends arrived...and so did Asriel. She trapped them all and taunted the young human, for they had gathered together because they loved the child, and wished to see no harm come to their friend. She continued to jeer, stating that she would take all their SOULs and rule the Underground.

But then, to everyone's amazement, Frisk calmly reached under their sweater, and from it, they withdrew a small, white object in the shape of a heart; a monster's SOUL. They threw it at the cursed princess and in a blinding flash of light, she was restored: her life, her body, her compassion, everything. Everyone who saw this miracle were awestruck, and that day, there was much rejoicing. A lonely lost child had finally come home, and she was welcomed back with open arms.

¹ The true name of the fallen child has been lost to time, and only the royal family and the Ambassador know it. And we, the descendants of those who first locked the monsters away, will let them keep their secret. After taking so much, it's the least we can do.

² King Asgore had, during his appearance in the cities of Ziopolis, Takatoro, Carabanare, Tecmond, and Strahlschafen, expressed his greatest regret for taking the SOULs of these individuals and wished to find the families of those who died so he may pay them recompense. So far, he has only located two living relatives of two different humans, one each.

High Magister Lefwin of Excarius' Order, 14th of Maia, 211C


On a small street on the west side of the monster capital, named Capital (the town's unofficial slogan: "Our Mayor still can't name for beans!"), there was a house. Two floors, no basement, but there was a large shed out in the backyard that served as extra storage quite well. Inside, the lower floor was arranged so that every room was adjacent to the other in a circle, and from the front door, one could see the stairs that led up to the second floor. The upper level itself had four separate rooms, one for each occupant of the house. One of them was currently away, working in the research facility, located several blocks out east. Another was busy in the living room, bent over a small stack of greeting cards, though he was surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands more. Each one had been mailed in from every corner of the world to express well-wishes or simply gushing about the one who was currently writing his name and a quick, personalized greeting on each and every one. The third, however, had just walked in the door. "knock knock," he called.

"SANS, I'M TRYING TO CONCENTRATE!" Papyrus yelled over his shoulder. "CAN'T YOU TAKE YOUR TOMFOOLERY SOMEWHERE ELSE!?"

"orange," Sans replied as if he hadn't heard Papyrus yelling at him. It was met with nothing but silence and a quiet, nearly inaudible moan as Papyrus sank his head in his hands. "orange," Sans repeated expectantly. Papyrus sighed again.

"'...ORANGE' WHO?"

"'orange' you glad to see me...?"

"NYEEEEEEEHH…!" Papyrus screamed and threw his hands up in defeat. "SANS, WHY MUST YOU BE LIKE THIS DURING THIS TIME OF THE YEAR?"

"c'mon, bro, the weather's beautiful, there's a holiday around the corner, business is booming," he explained as walked into the living room. Sans pulled out a bottle of ketchup and put it to his nonexistent lips. "...what's not to be excited about?" he asked before he took a swig.

Papyrus glanced up from the pile of postage stamps and papers to say, "I'D BE FAR MORE EXCITED IF YOU WOULDN'T MAKE A PUN EVERY TIME I TRY TO WORK ON MY FAN MAIL. IT TAKES A SHARP MIND AND A STEADY HAND, WHICH GETS ALL THE HARDER WHEN YOU WALTZ IN SPOUTING TERRIBLE JOKES!"

"have ya considered that maybe autographing and writing a personalized greeting for every single person who writes to you might be a bit much?"

Papyrus gasped. Dramatically. He even placed his hand over his chest for added effect. "SANS! I AM DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, THINKING I SHOULD TAKE A COP-OUT!" He gestured to the massive pile of mail on the table and continued, "MY FANS HAVE TAKEN THE TIME OUT OF THEIR BUSY SCHEDULES TO SEND THEIR OWN PERSONALIZED LOVE AND ADORATION TO ME; IT'S ONLY RIGHT THAT I SEND SOME PERSONALIZED THANKS BACK TO THEM!"

Sans paused and cocked his head to the side before his grin got a bit wider and he chuckled, "huh. never really thought about it that way. i guess that's why you really are the best, papyrus."

"NYEH-HEH-HEH! NOTHING MORE AND CERTAINLY NOTHING LESS!" he laughed in reply as he touched the tips of his fingers to his breastplate, smiled, and let his cape billow in the breeze. After another second, Papyrus cracked one eye open, looked around and quickly settled back down in his chair and leaned closer to Sans to chatter, "ALL THAT SAID, I DO APPRECIATE YOUR CONCERN. IT IS TIRING WORK, BUT! ENTIRELY WORTH IT, KNOWING THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS MAKING HIS FANS' DAYS THAT MUCH GREATER!"

Sans nodded in agreement a couple times, followed by a solemn muttering of "mm-hm." After another second, he looked around the ground floor, obviously searching for something. "is frisk home?"

"YES!" Papyrus exclaimed, "THEY ARE CURRENTLY UPSTAIRS IN THEIR ROOM!"

He flashed Papyrus a thumbs-up. "cool. thanks, bro."

"AND YOU ARE MOST WELCOME, SANS!"

Sans just chuckled to himself as he turned around and headed for the stairs to the second floor. Frisk's room wasn't hard to get to, it was right at the top of the staircase, directly ahead. He trudged up until he reached the door, knocked twice out of courtesy, and then opened it up.

The room itself was nothing special; fairly plain, in spite of the stories surrounding its occupant. On the far end was a sliding door that led out to a small patio, though the drapes were usually drawn. The bed was in front of it, headboard against the right wall; directly opposite of it was the wardrobe, and in front of it and closer to the door was a desk. It was a true gentleman's piece, with several drawers, cubbies to store office supplies, and a cover that could be drawn over the main working space when not in use. On the wall above it was a shelf with two trophies. Frisk had only ever won such awards three times in his life, and on the shelf were two of them with embossments which read, "Student Honor Roll, Capital High, 213C" and "Best Solo Performance, Meridian Hall of Arts, 219C" respectively.

But there was a third. This trophy wasn't as grand as the others. There were no embossments, it wasn't carved in the shape of a triumphant human or monster, no stars, not even a standard cup to mimic the golden goblets that champions of old drank from when they had proven their might in battle, or wit in governance. No, it was a simple slab of marble, kept on the top of Frisk's desk, where he and anyone else in the room could clearly see it and read the plaque: "Nose-Nuzzle Runner-ups, 218C!"

Frisk himself was, indeed, in the room. Long gone was the shrimpy kid who wore a blue and pink striped sweater, denim shorts, and hiking shoes. He'd grown taller in the years since leaving the Underground behind for good, and along the way he switched his old outfit for pink tee shirts, a blue vest covered in pins and badges, and long, polyester gym shorts. By now, he'd turned having messy hair into an art form, keeping it about shoulder length to make him look more roguish, but sometimes, he would wear a custom-made black baseball cap with the Delta Rune sewn into it. Right now, however, he was bent over the desk, scribbling away on notecards. From the look on his face, furrowed brows and pursed lips, he seemed to be so absorbed in his work that he hadn't even noticed Sans walk in. He sidled up to where Frisk was working and after taking another swig of ketchup, he asked, "still workin' on your speech for tonight?"

Frisk jumped in surprise, but when he whipped his head around to look at Sans, he relaxed and sighed in relief. "Uh, yeah! Yeah." He looked back down at his writing and Sans couldn't help but notice his lips curl into a frown. "I'll admit, this one...hasn't been coming to me easily."

Sans paused and then nodded. "mm, yeah. don't worry, kid, i've been there before," he agreed solemnly.

The thought of Sans sitting down to write a book or a speech suddenly made Frisk sit up straight and cast an inquisitive look at the skeleton. "Since when have you written anything that didn't have to do with mathematics?" he asked with a disbelieving tone.

"i mean, i've had a few…" Sans trailed off and before Frisk could register what he was leading up to, he finished, "novel ideas."

Frisk immediately groaned and reeled away from Sans, though it was impossible to hide his smile. "I can't believe I fell for that!" he exclaimed.

"ya kinda walked into it," Sans added.

He hated to admit it, but that was true. Frisk sighed in defeat and then asked, "Well, on a more important note, do you know if Dad's gonna make it to the festival tonight?"

"you kiddin', frisk?" Sans countered. "my old monster may be a workaholic, but he wouldn't miss the exodus day festival for anything."

"Eh, just thought I'd ask." Frisk shrugged as he turned back to the cards on his desk. "He seemed way busier than usual when I went to the lab yesterday to talk to him."

Sans began, "ah, you know how he is; always busy, but he's usually got the sense t—" but was quickly cut off by the sound of the doorbell coming from downstairs.

Both he and Frisk looked up, toward where the sound of the ringing doorbell came from, before Frisk glanced down at Sans for a second and then stood up to walk out his bedroom door with Sans right behind him. "I got it, I got it," he called. It was mostly a courtesy thing, to let Papyrus know he didn't need to get up from replying to his fan mail. Frisk hustled down the stairs, working his feet past each other in rapid succession until he hit the ground floor, approached the front door, and swung it open.

Waiting for him on the other side was a Boss Monster dressed in a dark green halter top and bell-bottom jeans. She was almost seven feet tall, so she had to bend her neck downward to look at Frisk.

Asriel had grown a lot in the interim years, too.

As soon as Frisk saw her, a smile broke out across his face. He beamed as he took a half-step closer and stretched up as far as he could go to give her a quick kiss, which Asriel returned. "Hi, honey!" he exclaimed when his feet were flat on the ground again. His expression quickly turned a bit more curious as he added, "You're here early!"

"I know. I couldn't really wait," she admitted. She turned back to look at Frisk and said, "I-I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

"Nah. I'm not complaining," Frisk said as he took a step back and gestured to the rest of the house. "Anyway, come on in! Want me to get'cha something to drink? Light snack, maybe?" he asked as he turned and began to make his way to the kitchen. "Papyrus has some extra ravioli chips in the pantry."

It was well known by now that Papyrus had "mastered" the craft of making spaghetti and had moved on to more challenging pastas. However, as soon as he began to make his way to the kitchen, Asriel clenched her teeth and her previous content expression vanished completely. She took a couple hasty steps after Frisk and stammered, "Uh, n-no, no! I'm, uh, I'm okay...for now. Saving room for...y-you know, later...tonight. Yeah."

"Well, if you're sure—woah!" Frisk had just begun to turn away from the kitchen when Asriel expedited the process by grabbing his wrist and pulling him away herself. It got him to yelp and stumble backward until she pulled him over and down on the couch in the living room. He grunted when he hit the cushions and then quickly shot a glance at Asriel who still looked a bit panicked. He kept his eyes on her for another few seconds before he smirked and chuckled. Before she could explain herself, Frisk scooted closer to her and swung his legs up and onto the couch so that he was essentially sitting on her lap. "Well, if you wanted to chat, you could've just told me, Ree-bee," he teased.

If they had been a few years younger, Asriel most likely would have gone completely red in the face and wouldn't have been able to stop stuttering for three minutes. But with age comes wisdom and a certain degree of immunity to other people's teasing. She just sighed deeply and tilted her head to gaze at Frisk fondly, which he returned with another big smile. He slung his right arm around her shoulders and leaned his head in to rest on the back of the couch, and Asriel leaned closer to him in turn. They stayed silent for a few seconds, content to just enjoy the closeness until Asriel lifted her head back up and asked, "Hey, I forgot to ask when you got back home...how was the summit in Al'Karit?"

"The summit?" Frisk repeated. He then hummed and shrugged his shoulders slightly. "It wasn't too bad. I talked to Awf al-Minhas and Babak Sayyad, as well as a few local politicians from each of their respective countries." Frisk paused for a second and then continued, "Mister Minhas was more courteous than I had expected, but I'm still pretty sure he doesn't like me. Probably still believes I could use my magical knowledge to curse other people." He sighed. Long and deeply, and he lowered his head. After a pause, Frisk looked back up and moaned, "Still haven't made much forward progress in getting them to open borders to monsterkind, though. Minhas is a hardline conservative and he's still not budging. Sayyad's proven to be a bit more open-minded than most, but the councilors of Shafiq seem to enjoy blocking any proposed laws he makes."

Asriel sighed. "How long have they been trying to keep us out of their countries?" she wondered aloud.

"Too long," Frisk answered. "It wasn't really a surprise, honestly. Their politics stem from a long line of traditions and they're not willing to break them anytime soon." They paused again before Frisk bounced back and tried to steer the conversation somewhere else with, "Anyway...! How's the new album coming along?"

Asriel brightened up immediately and explained, "It's going great! A lot better than I expected, actually. I've written the lyrics for the first three songs and got outlines done for the rest of them."

"Cool! Any time you want me to come over to finish'em off and start working on the melodies and chords?" Frisk asked.

She perked up a bit and rolled her eyes upward to think for a second. After a moment she replied, "Um, yeah, this Friday at nine ay-em? Are you busy?"

That was the cue for Frisk to put on his suave smile and lean forward slightly to croon, "Never too busy for you, love."

Despite how corny Frisk could be sometimes, it still got Asriel to smile. She tried to hide it by rolling her eyes, but still said "Thanks." Frisk grinned back and went right back to cuddling up to her, a gesture she returned in earnest, wrapping her arms around his waist. They stayed on the couch in total silence for some time, listening to the distant scratching of Papyrus' pen on paper in the other room. He was probably so absorbed in his work he didn't even realize there was a guest over, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn't really matter. However, after a few minutes of calm, comfortable silence, Asriel lifted her head and looked around the room, and then she quickly fished her phone out of her pocket to check it. When Frisk took notice, she glanced at him and then quickly turned her phone off and began hesitantly, "Um, Friskie?"

The pet names they'd devised for each other were incredibly basic and probably stupid, but Frisk loved them all the same. Asriel did, too. "Yes, Ree-bee?" he replied.

"I, um…" She looked away and covered her mouth with her fist, obviously looking for the right words to say. After a few seconds, she continued, "I might have come here under false pretenses."

Frisk kept his eyes locked on her for a minute before he tilted his head down to give Asriel the Kubrick stare and a positively shit-eating grin. "Oh…?" he chuckled as he wiggled his eyebrows.

This time, Asriel's face did go completely red. "Not like that, oh my God!" she yelled. Frisk proceeded to devolve into a fit of harsh giggling, after which, Asriel huffed in exasperation and explained, "I, um...I actually wanted to give you your birthday present early."

See, one of the things about being an orphan with no known biological family and a long forgotten past meant that when asked when his birthday was, at first, Frisk had said "I don't know." It was eventually decided that, in absence of a known, concrete date, his birthday would be the same day that monsterkind had been freed from the Underground. So when Frisk heard Asriel say that, his eyes widened, but he blushed and quickly turned away for a second. When he looked back at her, he said, "Aw, Asriel...you really shouldn't have."

"Well, I did," she retorted with a small laugh. "But I can't give you your gift directly. It's special, so…" She began to stand up and Frisk quickly took the hint, swinging his legs off of her to let her get off the couch. Then, Asriel turned around and held out her hand, which Frisk took. "You need to stand up...and close your eyes," she explained when Frisk was fully upright. He blinked in surprise but complied all the same. "And no peeking!" Asriel scolded him, just to be sure.

Frisk shut his eyes even tighter in response, and Asriel kept staring at him to make sure he wouldn't try to crack his eyes open. He didn't, but he did deliver a deadpan, "You can stop making weird faces at me."

"Wha—!" Asriel spluttered as her eyes went wide, "I wasn't making 'weird faces' at you!"

"You thought about it, I bet," Frisk retorted with a wry smile.

All she did in response was groan and reach out to take both Frisk's hands with a firm, "Come here, mister," and led him through the kitchen, to the back door. She went slow so he'd have time to react and adjust his pace and direction accordingly. They both lumbered around the kitchen table to the back door of the house, and Asriel took a quick glance around to see Sans had definitely stuck to his end of the bargain; the door was still ajar. She stopped to open it fully and then quickly took Frisk's hands again and led him outside.

Spring was in full force. The sky was clear, the trees had their leaves back, flowers were in full bloom, and the weather was reaching the point where jackets weren't necessary. After a few more steps, Asriel stopped again and took her place by Frisk's side, placing her arm around his shoulders as she whispered, "Okay, you can open your eyes now."

Frisk did as he was commanded, and while he had expected something interesting by now, what waited for him stole the words from his mind and the breath from his lungs. On the other end of the backyard, close to where lawn from the other houses in the neighborhood converged, was Sans standing to the side of a pulley system holding down a bright red hot-air balloon, primed and ready to go.

All his mouth did for a few seconds was flap uselessly. Frisk wanted words to come out, but his mind was in too many places at once to say what he wanted. Finally, after his scrambled mind got itself back together, Frisk swallowed and murmured, "You...Is that my present?" as he pointed to the balloon. Asriel just hummed back in agreement and nodded once. They both went silent for another couple minutes before Frisk hesitantly asked, "How...Did you remember when I said...?"

Asriel paused and gazed at him out of the corner of her eye. She had a feeling she knew what he was talking about; no one loops time over without it being ingrained into part of themselves, she would know. She didn't really remember if Frisk had said anything about riding in a hot air balloon before, but she placed a finger on her chin before she said, "Mmm...no, not until now. It was…just a hunch." He kept his eyes locked on hers for another second before his smile threatened to break his face in half and he reached up to hug her. Asriel returned it, and after they let go, she led him forward by the hand. This didn't go unnoticed by Sans, still manning his position next to the pulley cables.

"well, well, well. the ambassador and the dreemurr's kid holding hands? now that's a scandal if i ever saw one," he commented.

"Aw, knock it off, Sans," Frisk retorted. He shot a glance at Asriel and continued, "Everyone knows I'm a real goat-getter by now."

Asriel spluttered and quickly covered her mouth with her arm and tried to stifle her laughter. She would do it with company present, but when it was just her and Frisk alone, he made far more puns and she laughed far more openly; Asriel may have taken after her father, but some of Toriel's qualities found a way to shine through. After a minute of letting her work out the giggles, she straightened back up and looked back to Frisk, who was smiling along with her. Asriel then led him forward, toward the basket. The both of them got in and Sans nodded; Asriel nodded back and he quickly untied a couple of the cords anchored to the basket to keep it perfectly grounded while the burner was going, just to be sure it didn't float. She reached up and snapped her fingers; a tiny flame jumped from them and up into the burner, weaving its way through the mechanisms inside and the flame above them burned brighter than before. The balloon began to jerkily lift up into the air, though it grew steadier by the minute. As it got a few more feet off the ground, Sans took a couple steps back and called, "you two behave up there. this setup cost me a skele-ton of cash."

Asriel cackled again while Frisk poked his head over the side of the basket and called back, "Oh, relax already! I thought you were good at that!"

Sans just laughed as the hot air balloon carried them up into the sky, until eventually, the last cord kept in place to keep it from flying away got stretched taut and stopped it. They could see the entirety of Capital from up there: the neighborhood they were in, the school that had been built to the east, the beach to the south, the castle of New Home, built into the side of Mount Ebott as a memorial and reminder of where they all had come from. At this point, however, the most impressive thing was the main plaza to the southwest: it was a massive square surrounded by shops and was most frequented by tourists. With the Exodus Day festival in full swing, the main square was even more crowded. Even this far away, the crowds were obvious, and there were dozens of kiosks set up by monsters and people from the world over. That was to say nothing of the balloons, lights, and other decorations that covered the area. At the north side of the square was a large stage, draped with royal violet curtains. Frisk and Asriel's arms were intertwined by then, gazing across the horizon at the surface world that now held a million futures. After a minute, Asriel heard Frisk quietly singing something and when she recognized what, she really couldn't stop herself from smiling brightly. It was the first song she'd ever written, the one she sang five years ago in Meridian Hall.

The one he later admitted helped him comes to terms with the fact he'd fallen in love with her.

She looked down at him, still smiling, and when he took notice, he returned her stare, and there they stayed, smiling at each other. Eventually, Frisk reached up with his free hand to cup Asriel's cheek and he kissed her again, longer than before. They both smiled through it, and after they broke apart, Frisk held her close and said, "...Thank you."

Asriel placed her arm around Frisk's shoulders and replied, "You're welcome, Frisk. Happy birthday."


The lights around the main square were beginning to light up as the sun dipped below the horizon. Somehow, there were even more people there than there had been a few hours earlier, brushing shoulders and trying to navigate the crowd to get to the kiosks on the perimeter or meet up with friends that had traveled all the way to Capital. Frisk and Asriel were both in the thick of it, talking to tourists and friends alike. They'd left home behind a few hours ago to change into something more fitting for the party; Asriel had put on pressed slacks and a yellow polo, while Frisk had gone overboard by wearing a Royal Guard recruit uniform. But he usually went overboard, because not only did wearing it make him easy to recognize, it was loose-fitting, soft, and incredibly comfortable, too. They were currently engaged with talking to anyone who approached them, which by this point, had been a few dozen tourists and a lot of monsters. Frisk stood up straight from hugging Crystal, the mother of Snowdrake and one of the Amalgamates, and waving her and Snowdrake and Mr. Snowdrake goodbye as they pushed their way back through the crowd. He was just thankful their physical bodies didn't stick to anything. Frisk looked over to Asriel as she shook hands with Mrs. Miller; she had been the mayor of Ziopolis for five years, during which time she and Frisk had grown acquainted with each other, and Asriel by extension. Mrs. Miller retired after those five years, but while age had greyed her hair and slowed her body a little, it couldn't slow her passion and smile. Then when he looked back out to the crowd again, he saw a very familiar pair of horns making their way though the mob of people, as well as the monster they were attached to; Asgore towered over just about everyone.

He leaned over, nudged Asriel and said, "Hey, here comes your dad," with a raised voice due to the noise.

"I noticed," Asriel replied

It took a minute, but eventually Asgore managed to shuffle through the crowd to the three of them. Once Mrs. Miller noticed him approach, she turned to look at him, smiled and said, "Mister Dreemurr," with a slight bow. She turned back to Asriel and shook her hand one last time before she exclaimed, "Well! It's been nice seeing you both again, but since your father's here, I'm guessing it's time for business. Bye, Asriel! And Frisk...good luck!" With that, she turned and walked away after giving them both one last little wave, which the three of them returned until she disappeared into the crowd. Once she was gone, Frisk and Asriel looked up at Asgore. He'd hung up his armor years ago; it now stood proudly in the renovated throne room of the castle on the mountain as a historical display. Tonight he just wore a tuxedo, custom-tailored for his physique, of course.

They didn't stay still for long, as Asgore bent down and held out his arms for a hug, which both Asriel and Frisk accepted. After another minute, he stood up and the three of them broke away. "So…" he began, "are you both having fun?"

"As much as last year, dad!" Asriel replied with a big smile.

Frisk bowed his head slightly. "Always fun when Exodus Day rolls around, Mister Dreemurr."

"Excellent!" Asgore laughed jovially before he glanced around at the crowd. The three of them were boxed in a little, and after a quick sweep of the area, he looked at the stage, and then down to Frisk and said, "Perhaps we should prepare for the commencement now. It may take us awhile to get to the stage with all these people around!"

"I'm ready when you are, sir," Frisk said. Asgore nodded once and turned toward the stage again and began to gently push through the crowd with added calls of "Excuse me," "Pardon me," "Behind you," and other such niceties. Frisk fell in step behind him, but he quickly turned back to Asriel and waved to her. She waved back as he disappeared into the crowd, though keeping track of his progress wasn't all that hard with her father's horns standing head and shoulders over everyone else. Asriel watched them meander their way around the plaza and through the crowd until they both disappeared around a corner of the stage, obscured by the curtains. She was so busy watching, however, that she didn't notice the two other people approach her until one of them was tugging on her sleeve. She flinched and whirled around to see what had become a familiar sight in the neighborhood over the past ten years: a human in a yellow long-sleeve shirt covered up by a studded leather jacket and black jeans. Their left eye, bright red, was usually obscured by a mess of dark brown hair. Next to them was a reptilian monster with purple scales with brown hair even more wild than the human's, and a sports jacket and sweatpants.

Her face lit up again. "Kris!" she exclaimed happily before she met the monster's gaze (rather hard to do, considering the bangs in front of her face were so long). "And Suzy! I didn't think you two were coming! Where'd you go?"

Neither of them said anything, but after a pause, Kris shrugged. "...Got dragged around for a bit," they muttered as they jerked their head to the side.

"Dragged around?" Suzy balked and she snapped her head to the left to look at Kris. "It was your idea to swing by my place and tell me we needed to grab peppers to start on our homemade hot sauce!" In response, they lowered their head and grinned, which Suzy quickly picked up on. She then proceeded to stick her knuckles in their hair and playfully noogied them with a cocky smile of her own. "Oh, you're such a little shi—"

"Oh...Is Noelle around?" Asriel cut her off.

Suzy and Kris snapped their heads up to look at Asriel, and Suzy herself glanced back at Kris, as if urging them to talk. They coolly brought out their phone, and checked it. "Just buying gifts. I think she'll be here soon," they mentioned before looking up and around at the mass of people. "If she's not here already."

"Ah." Asriel followed their sibling's gaze around the plaza looking for a reindeer monster, but there was no sign of Noelle, at least, not yet. "Well, anyway, I'm happy to see you both here! Ten years of monsters' freedom is a big milestone," she said.

Suzy just huffed and crossed her arms. "Speak for yourself. I'm just here for the free sandwiches and caramel apples." The smile still on her face helped indicate she wasn't being totally serious.

It got Kris and Asriel to laugh a little, and some extra small talk blossomed. About school, about friends, about life. It had been ten years since monsters went free. It had been eight years since Asriel, Papyrus, and Frisk had found Kris sitting on the street curb, waiting for someone to find them. It had been four years since Suzy had left her father behind to live with Alphys and Undyne. But it had been six years since four people had been keeping a secret. For six years, four kids had to dance around the subject, which meant that by now, the metaphorical ballroom looked like a tornado had torn through it and blown out all the windows. But this, too, had become the new normal in Capital, or at least it had been for their friends and family; they lied, they always lied about why they disappeared for weeks at a time. But they always came back, and never spoke of what had happened and where they had gone, so it was mostly regarded as an open secret, a thing that was allowed provided they didn't get hurt. Or ended up with them on a government watchlist. Just when the conversation got going, however, a spotlight appeared on the main stage, shining on Asgore as he smoothed out his suit and adjusted the microphone he'd brought with him. When other people noticed, they began to quiet down, and as a hush fell over the crowd, Asriel bent down to her sibling and their friend and whispered excitedly, "Looks like it's time for the commencement!"

Kris just nodded with a murmuring of "Mm-hm," and turned to face the stage. But after just a couple seconds, they felt someone nudging their shoulder, followed by a harsh, "Psst!" Kris turned to look at Suzy. "So, did they send you any messages yet, or…?"

They were quick to fish their phone out of their pocket again and jump into the texting system. They scrolled down the list of chats to the only one labeled with a number and opened it as they said, "Um, yeah. They said, 'Take…the…week…off…Enjoy...the...festival.'" Suzy stared at them for a moment and then shuffled closer and leaned her full weight on Kris' shoulder to get a look at the phone screen. She pursed her lips to read the message, and then Kris continued to whisper the text their mysterious contact had sent. "'Also...bring back...chocolate...pls.'"

Suzy sighed in relief and muttered, "Just bring'em chocolate, huh? We can do that, right?"

"Yeah."

"Guys, Dad's about to speak," Asriel said to hush Kris and Suzy.

On the stage, Asgore straightened out his tie and held up a small stack of notecards. He cleared his throat, which caused the microphone to overload and it began emitting a loud, ear-piercing drone. A lot of people exclaimed and covered their ears, as did Asgore himself as he waited for the feedback to die down before he leaned forward and adjusted a few settings on the mic, and shot a glance at the sound technician, hidden off to the left of the stage. Since Burgerpants was actually okay with working this job for the night, he quickly adjusted a few knobs, and gave Asgore a thumbs-up; he nodded in response and tapped the microphone to make sure it worked before he said, "Hello, everyone. I am pleased to welcome you all to the tenth annual Exodus Day festival. It is a pleasure to see so many familiar faces, um, even though most of them live here already." A few chuckles rose up from around the square. "That being said, seeing so many humans have come to our humble town to celebrate with us greatly warms my heart, and we all hope you will enjoy your time spent here." He shuffled the notecards in his hands and continued, "I do not have much to say this night, so I will turn over the stage to monsterkind's ambassador to get the evening underway. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Frisk Impact."

A round of applause rose up from the crowd as Asgore bowed and walked to his right and off the stage. At the same time, Frisk entered from the left side, modestly waving his hand and he stopped when he reached center stage, bowed, and looked off to the right as he said, "Thank you, Mister Dreemurr." He paused as he held up a stack of notecards of his own and quickly looked them over before he lifted his head back up and put on his best "public appearance" smile; it was one of the few things he rarely had to fake. Frisk took a deep breath, and eloquated, "Ten years ago, a wall was torn down between the human and monster worlds. Monsters came out from the Underground beneath Mount Ebott, and reintegrated themselves into modern society. The subject was divisive with humanity, as most subjects usually are, and the ramifications are still being felt all these years later. One of the positive ones being, of course, this festival of Exodus Day, where the monsters of Capital come together to celebrate their freedom from the Underground. This festival is open to humanity in order to show goodwill and that no hard feelings linger for the act of sealing them away. And as you know, I am chosen to speak at each commencement ceremony, due to my position as the ambassador between monsters and all other human nations. Over the past ten years, I've done my best to try and not make the same speech twice. It's been difficult, and I've definitely slipped up a couple times. But this year, I'm going to do something very, very different…" Frisk paused and looked down at his notecards before he looked back up at the audience and, without breaking eye contact, he started to tear them up. He shredded the entire stack meticulously, each time he tore them in half, he made sure to do so again until each piece was an eighth of the size it once was, and then, channeling magic through his body, Frisk enchanted each piece and threw them into the air. They started to fall and scatter like confetti, but the magic Frisk had used caused them to glow and slowly disintegrate; by the time they hit the ground, there was nothing left except a small trail of fading light. Then, after watching them fall, Frisk looked back down at the audience, still smiling.

"I'm not going to use a script."

Another pause. It allowed most of the people to share surprised glances with each other and whisper about what might be coming next. Frisk took a deep breath and paced to the right as he began, "I...suppose I should start by saying that humans are capable of staggering heroism...and they are capable of the most deplorably vile acts imaginable. But I suppose that's rather obvious, isn't it? Ignoring that, though, they are pioneers and explorers, architects of this world's future." He stopped at the edge of the stage and began to walk the other way, gesturing his hands out as he explained, "Monsters...are pure love and magic condensed into a living being, marvels of the power of the SOUL, but they lack much of what makes humans so hardy: a physical body to inhabit, and the sheer willpower to keep existing, to exert influence on the world long after they're dead. I'm certain you've heard me say all this before, in some form or another, in the previous years of the Exodus Day festival. And I'm aware of that; I went through at least twelve different drafts of this speech, and I hated all of them. Looking back on all my old speeches—" He stopped and leaned toward the crowd and mock-whispered, "This was the exact reason I kept'em, y'know—I found they all touched on humans, monsters, the nature of the SOUL...everything. And I started to get really frustrated, because I wanted to find something new to talk about, to hopefully give you a different idea to walk away with after tonight. And I originally had this script penned out halfway, and I thought it would be decent, until I looked up at Mount Ebott one night, and it just…" Frisk stopped, and held up his hands in front of his face, fists clenched, before he opened them up to mimic an explosion. "Clicked."

"See, over five-hundred years ago, humans sealed monsters away beneath the surface of the earth, and then we left them there," he explained. "Over the years, the warnings of monsters beneath Mount Ebott became hearsay, which faded into rumors, and it eventually became myth. We forgot about them...but they never forgot us." Frisk held up a finger. "Now hold that thought, and imagine, if you will, if the roles were reversed: that humans had been sealed underground while monsters kept free reign of the surface. Take a moment to think about that. What do you think would happen if the Barrier broke in that world?" He paused to let the idea linger, to let people in the crowd discuss quietly among themselves. Concerned whispers rose from the audience, but he quickly continued, "I can't say for certain, but I think those humans would be...pretty mad, don't you think?" Another pause, another round of muttered agreement. "What I'm trying to get at is...monsters...had every right to be angry with us. And some of them were, but mostly, they were just...waiting. Every day in that lightless pit, they were waiting. Hoping. Praying. That one day, the Barrier keeping them imprisoned would be destroyed. That one day, the sun would shine down on them." Frisk clasped his hands and held them over his chest. "That one day...humans would love them again."

He quickly looked up and said, "And that wish, that hope, that dream...came true. And I think any monster can tell you it was even better than they could have ever imagined." Suddenly, Frisk's face fell to something melancholy, and he pointed to himself and noted, "But we...we never deserved that kind of forgiveness. We took away everything from monsterkind, and when the time came for them to walk free...they didn't seek revenge. Instead, they opened their arms, wondering if humanity would still be willing to share this world with them. It's…" Frisk had spread his arms out to illustrate his point, but as he trailed off, he lowered them to his sides and lifted his head to look up at the sky, slowly filling with starlight. "It's something that really hit me hard, when I realized it."

Frisk paused for a couple seconds again, before he addressed some common fears. "And yeah, sure, there's still some humans who think monsters cause bad luck, cast hexes on lone hikers, and eat little children. But for every one person who hates monsters with a burning passion, I've met a hundred more who well and truly love them. I've met little children who have pen-pals here in Capital. I've met old folks who enjoy talking with young monsters about how the surface world was in their time. I've met historians who love learning every scrap of lore they can dig up. I've met people like me who are excited to learn about this new culture. I've met lonely monsters who found their better halves in humans. I've met magi who are thrilled to have monsters back and want to make amends for what their ancestors did. And all this joy each side has brought to the other, all this outpouring of love and support made me realize something: without monsters, we wouldn't know true love, and without us, monsters wouldn't know how to influence the world after death. In essence, humans and monsters are each other's better half. We..." He trailed off as he slowed his pacing and looked up at the crowd. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for; somewhere, slightly off to the right, he could see Asriel standing with her sibling and Suzy, and he stopped to look directly at her. And then, when she realized he was staring at her specifically, her eyes lit up and a bright smile crossed her lips.

"We were made for each other."

So he'd spoken his piece, and he'd spoken from the heart. It was rambling, disjointed, and definitely not his best, but he'd said what he wanted to say, and it had taken a lot out of him. He felt tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes, and he broke the silence he hadn't even noticed as he sniffled and called, "Thank you. Happy Exodus Day, everyone," before he quickly turned and walked off to the left and off the stage and ducked under the curtains that led backstage. There was clutter back here, but it was mostly microphone stands and crates that had originally carried everything before it was unpacked for the festival, though there was also a guitar, keytar, amps, and a compact sound-mixing booth for a performance after the commencement ceremony was over. He began to dab at his eyes with his sleeve and he allowed himself to break down. He'd made a lot of speeches before, and the ones for Exodus Day were always special, but this one had just taken all the wind out of him. He kept sobbing into his shirt and let himself work out all the emotion; he was pretty sure he hadn't cried this much since leaving the Underground for the last time.

And then he heard it; he'd been so lost in his own emotions it hadn't properly registered until he'd calmed down. The sound of applause, whistling, and hollering. He didn't need to poke his head out from backstage to know the crowd was cheering. Frisk's heart shuddered and his breathing hitched for a moment as his eyes misted up again, which he quickly tried to remedy by wiping them with his other sleeve. He listened to the audience for another few seconds when the sound of sweeping drapes got him to hastily turn around to look at the back of the stage's setup. Asriel stood there in the evening twilight. She was beaming at him. She was crying, too, Frisk picked up on the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes; but in one graceful motion, she closed the distance between them, picked Frisk up, and pressed her lips to his. Without needing to think, he wrapped his arms around her and they stayed there for a minute before breaking apart and Asriel set him down. She was still crying, so Frisk reached up (she bent down to get closer, something that was second-nature by now) and gently, reverently, rubbed his thumbs over where the tear tracks were and wiped them away. He lowered his hands, still keeping eye contact; they were both smiling. Even after all this time, her eyes and smile made his heart soar. "I love you," Frisk breathed.

Asriel stepped closer and hugged him again, and Frisk melted into her embrace. "I love you, too," she whispered.

She squeezed him a little, a small gesture he always returned, and they separated again to keep staring into each others' eyes. But eventually, the noise from the crowd and the sound of fireworks overhead drew them out of their little reverie, and Frisk paused to look at the instruments before he skipped over and slung the guitar over his shoulder and piped up, "Hey, come on. We're supposed to be playing another one of Asriel Dreemurr's hit singles like we do every year. Can't skimp out and disappoint the crowd, right?"

Her eyes widened a bit, but Asriel quickly relaxed her posture and sighed, "I suppose not," as she strode over and picked up her trusty keytar.

A minute later, a ghost flitted through the curtains to the backstage, which Frisk and Asriel warmly greeted. "Hey, Napstablook!" he exclaimed. "You ready for tonight?"

"um…yes…i think so…" he replied in his usual hesitant manner, taking his place.

"You'll be fine," Asriel reassured him. "You've been doing this for ten years, haven't you?"

"i guess…"

Frisk stared at him for a moment, then to Asriel, and then back at Napstablook. Asriel quickly walked back over to Napstablook and placed her hand on his head, and the ghost looked up at her in surprise. "Then just keep doing what you do best," she said as she smiled down at him.

There was anxiety and surprise in Napstablook's expression, but after a few minutes, Asriel saw it slowly melt away into a small but confident smile. He quickly floated over to the mixing booth and put a pair of headphones on before he looked back up at the two of them (how he did it without hands, Frisk never questioned. Probably more magic stuff). He gave them a humble nod, and Frisk and Asriel glanced at each other before Frisk pointed to the steps that led back up to the stage, silently urging her on. She smiled at him and quickly turned and ran up the steps and Frisk followed. However, she froze and doubled back, which nearly bowled him over, but he managed to get out of her way in time. Asriel swung the keytar over her shoulder and onto her back completely as she picked up two microphone stands and hurried back to the steps. The curtains were drawn, so she quickly set them down and went backstage again, and by now Frisk had picked up on the fact they'd completely forgotten to set up. He ran over to one of the amps and channeling more magic, he grabbed onto the base and picked it up. Asriel did likewise with another amp, though she didn't really need to channel magic, being a Boss Monster and all. They moved both pieces of equipment to the main stage as fast as they could and quickly hooked up their instruments; they'd checked the settings hours before the commencement had even started, and so only did a quick once-over before they both stopped, nodded to each other and took their places on stage, Asriel on the left, Frisk on the right.

Just in time for the curtains to pull back and reveal the crowd was still there.

Once the gathered throng caught sight of them, they began cheering and chanting their names. It looked like the audience had gotten bigger, or maybe it was just the low light from the sun going down. Asriel lifted her arm and began waving, but when she caught sight of Kris, Toriel, and Asgore, she made sure to catch their attention and smile even wider. And she did that for as many monsters as she could while Frisk brought his patented crowd-pleaser, the old "double finger guns and a wink." He never left home without'em.

After a few minutes of applause and catering to the crowd, Frisk tapped his mic a couple times, grabbed it, and enunciated, "It looks like these folks want a show, hun! Whaddaya think?"

This was met with uproarious cheering from the audience, who doubled down on their chanting. It was almost loud enough to drown her out as she replied, "I think we'd better give them one, then!"

More cheering. Frisk only chuckled. "Well, we still have a problem, Asriel!" He brought his arms up in an exaggerated shrug and comically leaned to the side, closer to her. "What're we gonna play…?"

Asriel paused to glance at Frisk with a cheeky grin. It wasn't something she wore often, but over the years, it had become more common. And Frisk, of course, knew exactly what this meant. It was time for the fan-favorite. The one they always played at concerts, the one that they usually left for the encore because it always hyped up the crowd; it was amazing neither of them had grown sick of playing it yet. Asriel took a step forward and leaned into the microphone to declare, "Ladies, gentlemen, and monsters of all kinds…It's time for 'Hopes and Dreams!'"

Without missing a beat, the corners of Frisk's mouth turned up into a manic grin and he started strumming the backup riffs on his guitar, and Asriel joined in with the main melody on her own instrument. The crowd went absolutely wild, the cheers quickly turning into headbanging along to the rhythm as Asriel and Frisk played their song. They would never know what that song meant to them; they all just thought it was a fantastic rock instrumental, but it was more than that. It was the music that had tied them together.


A human blearily opened his eyes. The light on the ceiling of his room was glowing a bright blue, in contrast to what it had looked like nine hours ago; dull orange and so dim, he could barely even see where he was walking. He groaned wearily and pushed himself upright and out of the bed, over to the dresser and put on some clothes.

This room was odd. It was constructed of stone, but not any kind of stone native to the world he knew. It was dull grey, porous like limestone, but far sturdier; maybe about as tough as carbon steel. It was a grim reminder of the distant past, but it was no longer painful to think about. More like seeing a spider in the corner of the room; scary and ugly, yes, but ultimately harmless if left unprovoked.

Too bad he did nothing but meddle in affairs beyond his position.

Ignoring the alien construction, the room came stocked with all the regular amenities: viewed from the entrance was a bed pressed up the right wall, complete with a bedstand. This was usually where his phone rested, serving as his alarm clock when the light fixture in the room didn't work for one reason or another. On the opposite wall to the door was a window that took up most of the space, and on the outside were frozen mountaintops in the arctic tundra. Sometimes it was a scorching desert, alpine highlands, or even the middle of the ocean. The windows had been enchanted and could conjure any type of environment at will, but it was all fake, something to provide the illusion of reality. On the left wall was a dresser, stocked with clothes that he had fashioned directly in the ghost city he called home, and immediately to the left of the door was a full-body mirror. He pulled open the top drawer and selected an undershirt, a green, pressed, long sleeve shirt, and brown leather gloves. After putting them on, he opened the second drawer, retrieved a pair of tan slacks, a green vest with dark green stripes, and black socks and put those on, too. Finally, he checked the top of the dresser. This was where all his photos were kept, but they didn't really mean much to him. They were all copies of pictures of his family, something that he had left behind. Twice. But there was one thing he still did care for, even though it was a copy of something that he could no longer claim.

On the edge of the dresser, he reached out, picked it up, and placed it around his neck. A gold locket in the shape of a heart with the words "Best Friends Forever" inscribed on the back.

He didn't have the heart or the courage to put the original picture inside, even if it was a copy made by the Confluence Forge like everything else. He didn't deserve it anymore.

Sighing, Chara turned around and checked the mirror. Ten years hadn't done much to his body besides making him taller, lankier, and making his hair longer, but boy, had it done a number on his smile. Especially in the morning. He decided to forgo the usual hair care routine he usually had, as nothing was planned for today, besides delivering a status report...and he didn't have any "distinguished" guests over for the week. With the morning routine out of the way, Chara stepped outside to make his way to the cafeteria.

Opening the door, he stepped out onto a veranda that had steps leading down to a catwalk. Said pathway was suspended miles above an artificial planetoid and all around him were spires of buildings; ugly, drab grey things hewn in brutalistic fashion from the same stone that his room was made of, the same stone the ground far below was made of, the same stone that had built wondrous nepharii edifices that blurred the line between what was arcane and what was divine. But these buildings, these monumental towers, were nothing compared to what hung over Chara's head at every waking moment. Above him, in the sky, was another planetoid, but this one was bigger; he could see its edge and could see the myriad of buildings on its surface, the same kind of buildings on the planetoid where he lived...but the thing was so massive, he couldn't see the entire thing at once. According to the databases on the station, its mass was 7.264 × 10²⁵ kilograms. None of it natural; it was all man-made.

Or Angel-made.

And beyond this massive artificial planet was a galaxy, illuminating the entirety of the planet above and the small satellite he stood on like a supermassive sun. But that light wouldn't last long, Chara knew. It would be gone in a week, replaced by a different galaxy. he'd been here for ten years and hadn't seen all of the celestial objects that passed him by, and he knew he never would. It was part of this little cosmology outside the cosmos.

The research station of Tharsis orbited the angelic capital city-planet of Eminence.

Which orbited the Universe.

His universe.

A cursory glance to his right and out into the pitch-black void revealed glowing dots, the starlight of a starless realm. They were places that could be traveled to, but even from here, distances weren't correct; it would take longer than time could measure to get from Tharsis to those other places without specialized theotech. It was a kind of unwritten law, because if one could get to those places, they could travel dimensions without anything stopping them. All those small dots were other universes. Other Earths with other versions of him, other versions of everyone he knew.

And both Tharsis and Eminence were at the exact center of it all, a nexus for Angelic activity.

But that was long, long ago.

They had used the BEND to throw themselves through time, far enough forward that wherever they landed, they were the sole dominant power in the world, possibly the universe, and thus they could scheme and build up their power in peace. But they'd be back someday, and until then, they were content with being a pain in the ass.

Chara sighed and turned away to walk down the stone pathway that continued on straight for what seemed to be miles. He didn't need to go far, though, there was a left turn he took after five minutes. In the shadows of the massive spires, he looked over his shoulder at stairs leading up to four more doors, arranged in a row.

He was alone here. The station was dead, as was Eminence itself. A planet-mausoleum that had gone silent millions of years ago. It didn't stop Angels, though. Every once in awhile, they decided to send in a scouting party or a few elites and it fell to Chara to clean it up. But there hadn't been any incursions on Tharsis, ever. One reason for that was Chara himself living there at every waking moment; he'd never gone down to Eminence for any reason other than to banish a platoon of Angels to whatever void they first clawed their way out of.

The other was...

Chara shuddered. The other reason was just a theory, that the Angels had seen the ruined version of Tharsis that...someone else had laid waste to. The Angels feared him because he was Semyaza's greatest disciple.

He feared him because some of the things he said made more sense than he wanted to admit.

But Chara quickly shook those thoughts aside as he passed another small row of rooms like his own that had been installed in the building he was walking around. He glanced at the four doors as he passed them, and the name tags that had been custom made and hung on them to denote their occupants. It had been a "team building exercise."

"Kris." There wasn't much of anything in there. Just bedsheets and a couple pictures they managed to nick from old photo albums that his mother...no, Toriel, had forgotten about.

"Suzy." The room had quickly been trashed. Apparently, she was not only used to making a mess of his living space, she thrived on it. Chara went in there once and cleaned it a bit, thinking it would help, only for Suzy to show up at the training hall later and start ranting about "which one of you assholes cleaned my room, I can't find my stash of candy now, it was right under my clothing pile."

"Noelle." She'd moved a bunch of lights she used to have strung up in the bedroom of her house in Capital, along with a small, plastic Christmas tree. Chara didn't mind. He was aware how much homesickness could get to someone.

He slowed down to look at the last door and hurried on his way.

"December." She'd brought her sports gear and managed to convince everyone to play a few rounds of baseball to unwind. She'd also brought pictures of Rudy; Dess was old enough to remember when he died. He had been old enough that if the withering sickness had been located earlier, he might have spent his last remaining days on the surface.

That was half the reason why he and Kris never let her use the Tryphena Index. Seeing her father die all over again would just break her heart.

...Nevermind the fact that linking up to an alternate self that had been confined to nullSpace was a surefire way to go insane.

Chara kept walking past those rooms until he came to a staircase that went hundreds of flights up and down; an Angel could traverse two hundred flights of stairs and barely break a sweat, but being reconstructed as a human twice meant Chara was a little winded by the time he stopped climbing. Still, he got to his destination, the top of one of the myriad towers. he walked across a small terrace covered in lush green trees and grass and pushed open a set of doors that extended over his head by seventy feet. Despite this, they were easy to open, and inside was a large space with three different floors. There was an open space in the center of the room, and the ceiling was so far above his head, Chara could barely see it with light coming in from an opening on the top; there were also vertical holes cut into each wall, allowing everyone inside to look out over the skyline of Tharsis, and there were tables, chairs, and kiosks everywhere. The kiosks were all closed, however, their livery and decor long since degraded away. He just sighed and walked through the plaza in the center, toward one of the kiosks at random and checked behind the counter and at the small shelves under it.

There was a small cube there that looked like it had been built with interlocking slabs of stone. Chara reached out and grabbed it before setting it on the counter. He leaned on the counter and rested his head in his hand and tapped it with his middle finger. The small cube began to shake and lines of bright light began to light up the cracks between the stone plates. After a moment, the cube violently broke apart, shooting plates off in different directions, but they stopped before they could get too far and perforate Chara's face. The light tethered all the pieces back to where the center of the cube was and quickly began to coalesce into a shape. Chara had used these before enough times to know that his food was ready, so he straightened up and prepared to take what had been made. In another flash of light, his meal appeared: a beef kebab. Not exactly breakfast material, but Forge-food tasted about as good as the real thing, so...

He reached out, grabbed the kebab, and began chowing down as he walked over to another kiosk that made drinks. After booting that Forge up, he soon had a glass of fruit juice. He very rarely strayed from using the Forges in this food court that could make chocolate milk and any kind of pie in existence, at least for breakfast. Ten minutes later, all that was left was a skewer and an empty glass. Chara sighed in contentment and walked over to a rectangular stone block with two vertical lights on either side and a hole in the middle. He dropped the trash into the Angelic-pattern garbage can and walked away. The inside was empty, as it usually was; trash was automatically vaporized every couple days to weeks, depending on how busy the area was.

With his stomach full and feeling a little less moody, Chara began to make the trek back down the stairs, but he wasn't going back to his room; he still had one more thing to do on the docket. He had to go down about twelve flights, get off on that level and keep walking until the pathway terminated. On the way, however, he couldn't help but look up at the sky again, at the massive galaxy hanging there. He knew his family was in there, that massive globe that contained an entire reality with all its intricacies, from atoms to supermassive stars.

They were out there, somewhere. Having fun. Smiling, laughing, living life as normal.

Without him.

It was for the best. But he could see into their reality and saw them reminisce about him and sometimes speak his name. It wasn't like he had been forgotten, so that was a small comfort, at least. He was thankful for that much, but sometimes it was hard. Sometimes, he woke up in the morning, swearing up and down he could smell cinnamon-butterscotch pie baking in an oven and then slowly remembered it was just a dream. He'd made Frisk promise not to tell anyone he was still alive when he began to want nothing more than to go home. He scoffed bitterly at the irony. The only reason he hadn't swallowed his pride completely and returned was that he still had work to do, and between being vigilant for Angelic incursions and using the Index to poke and prod one of W.D. Gaster's old experiments, he was booked.

Chara passed through the shadows of more towers until he could see, fifteen feet ahead, the catwalk terminated in a large circular platform. There were a few benches and planters overflowing with ferns there; Chara walked right down the middle and waited a couple steps away from the very edge. From here, it was almost a one-thousand foot drop to the artificial ground of the satellite below. Chara never worried about that, though; he'd had time to train himself, to hone some old Angelic abilities back to working order. He could survive a little fall.

Those personal thoughts took a backseat as, suddenly, the air in front of him was split down the middle, leaving a pitch-black crack in its place. Its frayed edges whipped around like a piece of paper caught in a storm and it slowly began to expand before...something...slowly took shape inside the tear. It began to come closer, its form becoming far more defined before it took full shape.

Its entire body was made of a crystalline substance that glittered in the pale light of the galactic sun. Its head was open, the shattered crystal on its cranium forming a kind of jagged crown and its right arm was completely detached from its body, only kept in place with trails of glowing stardust. The left arm faded to a green color and looked as if the crystalline structure had made its arm a sprouting plant. On its face sat two glittering eyes, above which was a third eye, wide, yellow, and unblinking. It had no mouth, and yet, it spoke clearly. "Your report?"

Chara sighed, "Well, it's Exodus Day, so it's been slow going. Told the team to take the week off, focus on school or whatever the fuck it is they get up to when I'm not meddling with their lives. As for...the experiment…" Chara opened his mouth and slowly, dramatically breathed in and leaned back a bit before slowly exhaling. He brought his hands up to rub his face in exasperation befor he ranted, "Look, I'll be honest; it's kicking my ass. I'm stumped. I've only been able to see into a time frame of about three years, plus the past is completely black, save for the year 201X. And even then, I can't get the full picture. The future is somehow worse. No matter where I look, it's a goddamn kaleidoscope of places and characters swirling around each other like a fucked up piece of modern art conceived in the fever dream of a neo-surrealist with dissociative disorder."

The thing just lowered its head and closed its eyes, deep in thought. After a minute of silence, it looked back up and asked, "Have you located a shatterpoint?"

"Ha!" Chara laughed bitterly, "I sure fucking did! A lot of them! Every time I find one, four more just...pop up out of thin air! For no reason!"He groaned and clutched at his forehead in frustration as he staggered back a couple steps and quickly released his grip. His shoulders sagged and he lowered his head in defeat. When he first found that strange place, that renegade timeline, he had to admit he was more than a little intrigued. The setting was too perfect, the characters, too familiar. It was hard to quantify at first, but over the years that he watched that small place grow, he could see it; there was tension in the air, and it had been building up for years. It was like mortal enemies locking eyes, a rubber band stretched to its limit. One little spark, one extra nudge, and it would all come apart at the seams and descend into chaos. But the more he studied it and the more he sent Kris—the Kris he knew—in to look around and discover everything they could, the more he realized the Angels had something to do with it.

...It was just his luck that it was the faction of Angels that had been labeled heretics and were either exiled or hunted down and exterminated. "There's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to pinpoint just what Semyaza's disciples are going for. They want to free their master, but I still don't know why, and the how is just as confusing! Nevermind all the shit I have to put up with normally!"

Chara threw his arms up into the air in defeat and groaned before he hung his head and began to massage his forehead. His patron (they had never told him their name) only watched him with narrowed eyes. When he saw how they were looking at him that way, he knew they were contemplating their next move. They had an…uncanny knack for pointing him in the right direction with cryptic advice. They were the reason he discovered where Semyaza's mightiest disciple was, and they were the reason he knew the Angels were trying to punch a hole in spacetime large enough for all of them to get through. "Might we offer some advice?" they asked.

He stared at the patron for a few seconds, blinking intermittently. They had good advice and guidance, but every interaction he had with an Angel ended with either Kris or him getting hurt. In the end, however, he relented; he'd been running himself ragged trying to figure out the solution to what he needed to do next. Angel or not, he wanted help, so he rolled his eyes and sighed dejectedly, "Yeah, sure. Hit me."

The patron leaned forward and raised their index finger and instructed, "Your answer lies in impossibility."

Chara froze for a second as he mulled their words over in his mind and then finally, he moved again. He brought his arm up to his chin and scratched it as he turned away and pondered. "Impossibility," he repeated in a low mutter. It took another minute for Chara to connect a few dots and arrive at a conclusion:

The Law of Multiversal Constants. A metaphysical concept he learned very early on, from the most brilliant of nepharii scholars. This law stated that due to theoretically infinite timelines and dimensions, then any and all outcomes existed somewhere; even if those outcomes should be impossible.

Chara nodded to himself, coming to an understanding, before he slowly looked back up at his patron. They were still floating there, resting their head on their hand and watching him intently. He narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, glaring at them. "...I still don't understand why you're helping us," he muttered.

The patron was silent, staring down at him for another minute, before it lifted its head from its hand and turned away and began doing something Chara was used to by now, but still annoyed by: waxing philosophical. "...When Enoch discovered the Final Truth," they began, "he believed it was something to be fought, something that could be changed. Something that must be changed."

Oh, boy, the "Final Truth" again. Chara rolled his eyes. It was a phrase the patron threw around a lot, but never bothered to explain. Although, they had explained the "First Truth," said to have been revealed to the Angels early on: that the Universe they lived in was simply one of many others with similar timelines. That was nothing new. But this other concept, this "Final Truth," was something that Chara was, apparently, not supposed to know, and when asked why, the patron said it would "shatter your world and your preconceived notions of reality," whatever the hell that meant

They continued: "But we saw the Final Truth as well. And all of us, in our heart of hearts, believed it was not something wicked, not a cruel joke played at our expense, but instead, a way to lead us all into a brighter tomorrow. A pathway to creating something beautiful." The patron turned to face Chara and stared directly into his eyes. There was a pause before they said, "And that is what we have done. We have seen this story play out before, in the same tragedies, in much the same way. But we know the truth, and with the knowledge comes the ability to reshape it. To change it. We have seen you. We have seen your friends. We have seen this world and all its wonders, so do not despair. We will write you a hundred happy endings."

Neither of them spoke because Chara couldn't think of anything to say, and his patron didn't need to. But after about two minutes, Chara looked up at the galaxy high up above both of them and then turned back. "Guess I have to trust you, huh?" he asked.

"We suppose you do," they answered with a small nod.

Chara bowed his head for a moment. Silence fell while their little world kept revolving. Finally, he quickly pivoted completely to look away from his patron, but turned his head back to look at them out of the corner of his eye, a wry grin crossing his lips as he said, "Then I'll see you later, partner," before he started to walk away. The patron only nodded again and rose up a couple more feet into the air before they shimmered and faded away from sight with barely any sound. he turned back for a split second, but when Chara saw they were leaving, he turned back and began to walk the long path back to his room.

There were things he should be doing today, checking the Astral Eye telescopes, recalibrating the Tryphena Index, scanning for incursions, but…it was Exodus Day. The freedom he had wanted for his family had come to pass ten years ago, and every year, it was the same thing: wake up, work until dusk, go to bed, repeat. When he finally got to his room, Chara looked out the bay window to see the scene outside had changed to a tropical beach, complete with crashing waves and sunny skies and when he saw it, he made up his mind. Chara sighed deeply, walked over to his bed, and laid down.

It had been ten years. Maybe he could allow himself to be happy and relax, just for tonight.


A/N: "Wait, Admyral, did you seriously write this entire story to push a (half) genderswapped ship?" Fuck yeah I did. 200% worth the pain and suffering.

Yeah, this epilogue is the reason I didn't post the last chapter earlier; I wanted to post this within a day of the last chapter and couldn't do that until I drew out the illustrations for both. So yeah, that's what both chapters 30 and 31 were delayed. Sorry about that, I wanted to make sure to give this story as much of a proper sendoff as I was capable of. But, hey! It's done! It's finally done! And it only took two years when it probably should have taken half that time! Holy shit! Thank you all so much for reading. It was a joy to write, and it was a joy to see so much feedback and support from the readers! But until Deltarune releases in full, I think I'm gonna take a break from Undertale stuff, or at least something as long as this was.

I might drop a clue as to the next project I'll tackle next sometime…this year? I don't want to give a solid date because I'm terrible with deadlines that don't pertain to my livelihood (i.e., my job), sorry. If you liked it, maybe also check out my Pateron at " captainextremis"? There's no perks or tiers; it's basically just my tip jar. You can donate $1+ to help me out while I try and get a job, and if you do, thank you. Sincerely. If you don't, don't sweat it; I get it. Everyone's tight on cash in this day and age.

And now, miscellaneous Fun Facts™ about the project!

1) I originally planned for Frisk to get the artifact and then use a SAVE and LOAD to "dupe" it, and give the second one to Gaster as a power source for fully healing Asriel's SOUL. Instead, I managed to write myself into a wall, which meant I had to rewrite part of the story, but luckily it was only the first chapter that needed to be changed. Also, I think it shortened the whole fic by about 2 chapters, so yippee-skip.

2) The last two chapters went through two significant iterations. Empress' New Clothes was originally going to be titled "Megalo Fight Back" because of I liked the wordplay, and was going to have Asriel throw Frisk into the streets of New Home and continue the slugfest there, but I eventually decided against it because I figured it would just drag the chapter out and get pretty stale pretty quick. The Book of Job's reconciling scene was originally going to have Frisk tell Asriel to meet him in the castle garden, since he was going to release her SOUL and let it go to her; that was shitcanned because of plot-hole related reasons. There was a lot of dialogue I either scrapped or repurposed (mostly scrapped) for the scene as it is now.

3) The epilogue has gone through a lot of changes. Originally, I wasn't even going to switch scenes to the Exodus Day festival. The scene with Chara talking to "the patron" was also not in the first draft. The Fun Gang/Lancer Fan Club/FUCK Squad was also not going to make an appearance at all, which I backpedaled on because of…reasons.

3a) The reason I'm talking about the last two chapters so much is because I more or less had everything planned out before then in advance lol

4) You may have noticed the years are named differently than normal; this was intentional. While I know Toby only meant for 201X to serve as a marker for "any year between 2010 and 2019," I took it...a bit more literally. What I did was have the modern era start at year 0. The letters come into play after a thousand years, replacing the last digit of a four-digit number. For every hundred years that passes, the letter at the end of each number moves closer to "Z" by 1, so, you know, in alphabetical order. Once Z is reached, the order resets. The actual numbered years themselves function normally; every 100 years = 1 century, 1000 years = 1 millennium, and so on and so forth. Does that even make sense? Probably not…

5) I imagine CM!Frisk sounds like Adam Young/Owl City and CM!Asriel sounds like Taylor Swift. Don't ask why, it just be like that sometimes.

6) For some reason, I've become way more invested in this stupid AU than the damn comic I spun-off from. I may just cancel it and...idk, merge it into this? Eeuggghh. feelsbadman. At least I only got four pages in, so I'm not shitcanning a lot of work.

7) This started off bc I wanted a half-R63 ship of Frisk/Asriel and it's slowly becoming its own self-contained AU, pls send help.

8) There may be a sequel in the works? Later, tho. Gotta get a job. Gotta optimize my Blender workflow.

8a) I reserve the right to change satuff in this chapter at-will when the full version of Delatrune comes out no take-backsies