A/N: Well, here it is. After about… (checks notes) ten goddamn months, I bring you the last chapter of this saga. I'd advise that you buckle up though. This chapter will punch you in the face three separate times.

…Metaphorically, of course.

The Book of Job

One angel descended to free her people.

One Angel transcended to free her in turn.


Quiet. Serene. Expansive. The trees stretched on seemingly forever. He couldn't help but smile, knowing he was that much closer to ending this journey, and with a determined fire burning passionately but controlled in his heart, he walked forward.

No time to waste. The End was coming. Destiny was calling.

Frisk breathed that cold air in, and it felt like the freshest water running down his throat. He sighed and let the feeling linger before he reopened his eyes and marched ahead. The trees rose up into the darkness of the cavern above the kingdom, but by now they felt like a second home to Frisk. Or maybe he was just too giddy for his own good. After a few minutes of walking, he heard a familiar twig snap. He didn't look back, but he felt his smile get wider. The forest sprawled out ahead of him, greeting him with open arms (or branches, more accurately), and Frisk kept walking, right up until he passed through a tight grove of trees and approached a rickety wooden bridge. He heard footsteps crunching through the fresh snow, and he turned around to greet whoever it was, and held out his hand. Sans' silhouette reached out and took hold.

PPPFFFFFFFPPTHPTHTHTHTBPPPpppptt...pfrt.

Frisk stifled a laugh, the joy of something so old becoming so new again, and if he played his cards right, it would stay that way. Sans was smiling, as he usually was, and retracted his hand without another word. The two of them stared at each other for a moment before Sans chuckled and closed his eyes. "so, uh...i know i've never met you before, but my old man tells me we have a kind of...history together. the weirdest part is, i think he's right."

Frisk squinted at Sans before he realized what he'd said and hesitantly asked, "Your...dad…?"

"yeah. used to be the royal scientist, but he retired some fifty-odd years ago," Sans explained. He paused and then continued, "he said he found something that 'changes everything about everything,' and wanted to devote more of his time to researching it. uh, his words, not mine."

Frisk stared at Sans for a few seconds before he glanced away and rubbed his left arm. "I...I knew your dad, yeah," he muttered after another minute. Frisk looked Sans dead in the eye and asked, "Tell me, did...did something happen to him in the CORE?"

Sans raised an eyebrow, and then his pupils went black. "...How do you know about that?"

"I…" Frisk stammered out, "I-in...in nullSpace. I met him. E-eventually, you and Alphys got him out, but that was...before." He kept his eyes locked on Sans, beginning to dread what might happen if he looked away even for a second. "What happened?"

Oddly enough, it was Sans who seemed to shrink back and lose most of his bite. He looked...scared, for a minute. "dad…" he began, "dad jumped...into the core. i didn't tell anyone else about it, but two days later, he...showed up at the door to our house. perfectly fine, as if he hadn't even left." Sans looked back up and met Frisk's gaze again and explained, "he said it had something to do with quantum rubberbanding, but honestly, he could probably explain it better than me." They both went quiet, Sans staring down at his slippers and Frisk looked from him to the trees around them for several minutes, both unsure of what to say to proceed. Then, finally, Sans looked back up and asked, "you haven't told me why you came back here, all the way to the start. i mean, really, i told you all the juicy details of how dad decided he didn't want to cease existing, the least you can do is return the favor. what happened?"

A sudden chill gripped Frisk's spine, and it deflated him like a shabby tire. He turned away from Sans and rubbed his arm for a few moments before looking back up, opening his mouth, and closing it again. The silence stayed for awhile longer before he admitted, "...Yeah. I...I screwed up and I...I RESET because everything had gotten really, really crazy."

Sans just kept staring at him for a few more seconds. But not the kind of stare that happens for two seconds and then leaves, no, it was the long type of stare. The type that continues on until it gets uncomfortable,d and Frisk began to look at the part as he nervously looked away, grimaced and began fidgeting with the hem of his sweater. He felt pretty bad and definitely more than a little nervous.

This turned out to be nothing when compared to daring to look back at Sans and feeling his SOUL almost forcibly eject itself out of his mouth as he saw Sans' face a few inches away from his own and his eyes completely black. Frisk yelped and recoiled, reflexively shielding his face but when he didn't get attacked, he cautiously looked back. Sans was still in the same position, leaning forward and staring at him, but he slowly leaned back and stood up straight. He was taller than Frisk remembered; must have been a side effect of constantly slouching his shoulders. Sans tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "guess it doesn't matter now," he sighed. "what's done is done." Before he could get a word in edgewise, Sans looked back down and placed his hand on his shoulder and was looking him in the eyes again. He looked tired, more than usual. He muttered, "look, kid...frisk, right?" Frisk nodded slowly, automatically, and Sans continued in a low voice, "just promise me...no more, okay?"

He forgot how to breathe for a moment, but Frisk eventually found the strength to meet Sans' gaze, and after steadying his breathing, he whispered back, "...Promise."

It seemed to assuage Sans a bit, as his expression softened and he took a couple steps back and shoved his hands in his pockets. His shoulders sagged a bit as he sighed deeply, and they were quiet again for a minute before Sans looked back up at him. "then i got one last question before i let you pass: do you still have it?"

"Have wha—" Frisk cut himself off and sighed a gentle, "Wait…" He reached under his shirt and felt around for only a second before he felt something on his chest. It felt like a smoldering coal, and despite his reservations, he curled his fingers around the edges and tried to peel it off his skin. It came off easier than he expected, so easily he was scared he'd tear it, but just like before, he felt the SOUL stick to his skin. When he pulled it out from under his sweater, he saw that it seemed to almost meld with the tips of his fingers, and despite the fact it was still severely damaged, it didn't look like it was getting worse; the pieces that had broken off simply floated in place; getting out of the Ruins had taken almost all his attention away from checking on it thoroughly. With a relieved smile, he held up his arms so Sans could get a good look. The skeleton's eyes went wide, but he quickly tried to hide his shock by forcing his eyesockets to return to a neutral expression and he bent forward slightly to get a better look. Sans went silent for several minutes; eventually Frisk's arms started to get tired, but, of course, he tried to have more tact and subtlety than just ask if he could put the SOUL back. "So, um...does it...does she look okay?"

Sans' pupils snapped up to look Frisk in the eyes, then quickly back down at Asriel's SOUL. "this soul's been shattered, crushed, dunked on, and overall put through the wringer, but honestly...yeah," Sans replied as he stroked his bony chin. "doesn't look like it's in any danger of shattering anytime soon, because boss monster souls are the only ones humans can absorb, since they persist for a little bit after the owner dies. at least i can say for certain it's not because of your, eh...deviant genes." Frisk stared down at Sans with wide eyes, but all he did in response was wink. Gaster must have told him more than he was letting on. "still, i can kinda sense it's still weak, but i bet G'll know what to do." Sans paused and glanced up at Frisk again. "...if you'll let him."

He stared at Sans for a moment before an involuntary chuckle forced its way up and out of his throat. Sans looked a bit surprised as he leaned back and away from Frisk, who took the time to place Asriel's SOUL back under his sweater as carefully as he could as he stammered, "Y-you kidding…? I...I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Da—Gaster. If any-anyone knows how to fix Asriel's SOUL again...it's gotta be him, y'know?"

All Sans did was stare at him with his hands in his pockets and he blinked a couple times as he looked Frisk up and down before he commented, "...you sound pretty tired, kiddo."

The only thing that really upset Frisk more than Sans insinuating he didn't want to give Asriel's SOUL to Gaster was the fact that honestly...he was right. The nap he took while still in Toriel's house was fine, he didn't feel tired, but...well, maybe he was more mentally tired than anything else at the moment. Frisk coughed and straightened himself up, trying to make himself look tough and less exhausted than he felt. "Yeah, but...but I still got some way to go! A-and I don't want Flowey catching me, I mean...who knows what she'll do if she figures out I've got this?" he said as he gestured to his chest.

"well, don't push yourself, kiddo," Sans replied with a shrug. He lifted his head slightly and tilted it as his grin got a bit wider and he quipped, "don't want our best hope to break under sternum-uous activity."

For a second, time stood still as Frisk tried to process what he heard. But he quickly digested the words, connected the dots, and another chuckle left his mouth, which turned to stifled laughter, which turned into a few loud guffaws, and Frisk let himself laugh. It helped undo some of the stress, helped ease some of the fears, and when he was done, he smiled at Sans. The skeleton nodded once and turned around to walked back the way he came with a wave of his hand as he said, "be seein' ya."

Frisk waved after him and watched him go. Sans walked back down the path he'd just come until he made a sharp right and entered the tree line. Even from where he was, Frisk could see his stocky silhouette against the trees. Sans kept walking until even that was obscured by the many trunks of the firs of Snowdin Forest, and Frisk turned around too, and kept following the open path. It wound around, unlike what he remembered from before, a straight shot to the guard post. He meandered through the pines, sometimes walking in circles; not because he was lost, but because he wanted to (even though he also knew that wasting time like this made it more likely he'd run into Flowey). It helped ease the excess anxiety some. But Frisk walked down that path for several minutes, perhaps about twenty, until the path became a little bit straighter, and feeling in his gut that he was getting closer, Frisk picked up his pace and began to jog through the trees.

After only another minute, Frisk found the bridge across the crevice that Papyrus had constructed. It somehow looked worse now that he wasn't perceiving the world according to the Underground's magic: the bridge itself looked in danger of snapping apart at any minute, and the "portcullis" across it was chipped and the wood was so old by now that it was sagging. Frisk passed over it as fast as he could before he entered the same clearing with Sans' sentry station and the convenient lamp. He stopped and spun around to marvel at it; since he was so busy before, he'd never really had the time to come back and see just how it all looked from a new point of view. He couldn't help but smile.

"SANS! SANS, IS THAT YOU OVER THERE!?"

Frisk stopped short and whipped around to look at the entrance to the north side of the clearing. He smiled wider as Papyrus came into view through the snow and thickets of trees, just as tall and proud as ever. As soon as he saw Frisk, though, he came to a halt and his eyes widened. "OH! WELL, HELLO THERE! I HAVE NEVER SEEN YOU BEFORE, WHICH IS STRANGE, BECAUSE I KNOW ALMOST EVERYONE IN SNOWDIN!" Papyrus paused and shrugged as he added, "UNLESS YOU ARE NOT FROM SNOWDIN, IN WHICH CASE, THAT WOULD MAKE MORE SENSE."

Frisk smiled brightly and exclaimed, "Hi, Papyrus!"

Upon being referred to by name, the skeleton beamed right back down on him. "NYEH-HEH-HEH! I SEE MY REPUTATION PRECEDES ME!" Papyrus daintily placed one of his gloved hands on his breastplate as a light breeze blew his cape in the wind heroically. "AS IT SHOULD!" He paused and looked back down on Frisk and began to scratch his chin. "HMMMMMMMM...THAT'S STRANGE. I FEEL AS IF I KNOW YOUR NAME, BUT! TRAGICALLY...! I CANNOT PLACE IT."

"Frisk," he replied with a small scoff.

"AH, YES!" Papyrus exclaimed. "THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN MY FIRST GUESS!" He paused a moment and looked around before he asked, "TELL ME, LITTLE FRISK, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED TO SEE ANY HUMANS TODAY, WOULD YOU…?"

Frisk opened his mouth and was going to say no...but then a better idea crossed his mind. He closed it and pretended to think for a second before he said, "Actually...yes."

Papyrus immediately did a spit take, looked around, looked down at Frisk. "WHAT!? YOU…" He crouched and put his hands on his head. "THERE'S A…" Papyrus held that pose for another minute before he started to jump for joy. "A HUMAN! THERE'S A HUMAN IN THE UNDERGROUND! AND I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL BE THE FIRST ONE TO FIND THEM! HUZZAH! A THOUSAND HUZZAHS!" He kept jumping up and down for a moment (to Frisk's endless amusement) before he settled down and seemed to recall one important detail. Papyrus cleared his throat and asked, "WELL, THEN IN THAT CASE...WOULD YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW WHAT THIS HUMAN LOOKS LIKE?"

Frisk nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, yeah! They were about this tall," he said as he held up his hand, flat and palm facing the ground, at about head-height, "and they had long, dark brown hair. And I think they were wearing these leather boots or something, and they were wearing blue shorts and a sweater with two pink stripes on it."

He then put his arms behind his back and waited patiently as Papyrus stared off into the sky, clearly trying to build a picture of this human in his head. After another minute, he looked back down at Frisk. "HMMMM...THAT HUMAN YOU JUST DESCRIBED...IT SOUNDS LIKE THEY LOOK VERY MUCH LIKE YOURSELF...THAT CAN ONLY MEAN…" Papyrus snapped his fingers in a sudden epiphany. "...THAT YOU HAVE A CLONE!"

It took a lot of willpower for Frisk to not break out laughing right then and there.

Just as suddenly as Papyrus had smiled in triumph, his grin faltered and he went right back to scratching his chin. "WAIT, THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT. MONSTERS CAN'T HAVE HUMAN SIBLINGS." He paused and looked back down at Frisk. "UNLESS…" He removed his glove from his face and continued to scrutinize Frisk. "UNLESS…" The silence passed like molasses flowing uphill, but then, Papyrus cried, "UNLESS YOU HAVE A TWIN! WHICH MEANS YOU'RE BOTH HUMAN!" Papyrus stuck his hands on his hips and posed triumphantly for having solved this riddle for two seconds before his eyes widened and he yelled, "OH MY GOD! SANS! SANS! WHERE ARE YOU!? LAZYBONES! GET OUT HERE, QUICK! QUICK!"

As if on cue, Sans came waltzing out from behind his sentry station. He yawned and scratched under his arm. "mornin', bro. what's up?" Frisk smiled at him, especially since he was sure Sans had discretely shot him a wink.

Papyrus, instead of giving his usual spiel, grabbed Sans by the collar of his hoodie and began dragging him off. "SANS, THERE'S A HUMAN HERE! COME ON! WE NEED TO GET THE PUZZLES READY! HAVE YOU RECALIBRATED YOURS?"

"huh…?"

"GAAAAHHH! YOU LAZYBONES!" Papyrus screamed as he pulled his brother away. He didn't seem put-off enough by Sans' laziness for it to spoil his good mood, as he turned around to call, "HUMAN! DO NOT MOVE FROM THAT SPOT FOR A COUPLE MINUTES! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL CAPTURE YOU THROUGH THE USE OF MY INGENIOUS PUZZLES! ONCE THEY ARE SET UP! NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!"

Frisk watched them go, but he didn't hang around for long. He had a lot of work ahead of him, and for the first time in a long time, he really couldn't wait to see what the future had in store.


The path ahead was very similar to what Frisk had expected; mostly linear, perhaps some extra distance between Doggo's station and the maze, but it didn't take much brain power to find his way there (after picking up a snow piece from a very optimistic snowman). When he parted the tree branches in front of him, Frisk saw a wide open space on the edge of a sheer cliff. It was much larger than he remembered, but he was glad to see the two skeletons talking to each other were the same. "CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, SANS?" Papyrus crowed, "A HUMAN! A REAL, LIVE HUMAN! HERE IN THE UNDERGROUND! AND I SHALL BE THE ONE TO CATCH THEM!"

"pretty lucky break, bro," Sans replied.

"INDEED…!" Papyrus grinned triumphantly, but it seemed to fall after a second. "BUT, YOU KNOW...IT'S FUNNY," he said. Sans perked up, or at least seemed to, and he continued, "WHEN I SAW THEM, I COULD HAVE SWORN I KNEW THEIR NAME. IT WAS ON THE TIP OF MY NONEXISTENT TONGUE!" Papyrus straightened up and stared off into the distance, across the tops of the trees dozens of feet below and into the black horizon. After pondering for a minute, his brows furrowed and he glanced back down at Sans and asked, "DO I KNOW THEM, SANS…?"

He didn't say a word. All Sans did was stuff his hands back in his pockets and remain quiet for a few seconds before he glanced off to the side. Then, when he caught sight of Frisk standing there, he shrugged and said, "dunno why you're askin' me when the human's right there," as he pointed across the field to him.

Papyrus snapped around to look at where Sans was pointing, and when he saw Frisk, his face lit up. However, he was quick to downplay it as he flourished his arm outward in front of him and exclaimed, "AHA! YOU HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED, HUMAN! EXCELLENT! NOW IS THE TIME! THE TIME FOR US TO ENGAGE IN A BATTLE OF WITS AND INTELLECT THE LIKES OF WHICH THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN BEFORE!" he monologued. "BUT IN THE END, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL BE VICTORIOUS! OBSERVE!" Frisk was observing, all right. It was much bigger than before, but he was almost certain the pathway out was the exact same, so he started walking. "THIS...IS THE INVISIBLE ELECTRICITY MAZE! SHOULD YOU TOUCH THE WALLS OF THE MAZE, THIS ORB WILL ADMINISTER A HEARTY ZAP!" Papyrus explained, holding said orb up above his head. "NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH! I HOPE YOU HAVE RACKED YOUR BRAINS, BECAUSE THIS PUZZLE REMAINS ONE OF MY FINEST, AND IT WILL TEST EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT MAZE NAVIGATION! EVEN SOME THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW! NOW THEN! LET'S SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO, LITTLE FRISK!"

Papyrus finished his speech by pumping his fist into the air and holding the pose for a few seconds. When he relaxed his stance and looked back down, Frisk was standing right in front of him. He was trying not to let his smile get too cheeky. They kept their eyes locked on each other for a moment before Papyrus bent down and loudly whispered to Sans, "...SANS, THIS HUMAN IS GOOD."

"i'm just thankful the human didn't run into the electric fence holding that orb. it would've got re-volt-ing pretty quick," he commented.

Papyrus' reaction was immediate and severe. He clasped his hands over the sides of his cranium and yelled, "ARGH, SANS!"

"Well, watt did you expect to happen?" Frisk fired back.

This, unfortunately, seemed to break Papyrus. His eyes went wide, almost cartoonishly, and he slumped forward letting his arms hang limply at his side. After a minute of staring, dumbfounded, he clenched his fists and yelled, "NO! IT CAN'T BE! YOU'VE ONLY KNOWN MY BROTHER FOR A CUMULATIVE TWO MINUTES AND HE'S ALREADY BECOME A TERRIBLE INFLUENCE ON YOU!" He stomped the ground, shook his fist, and continued, "GAH! IT DOESN'T MATTER! YOU MAY HAVE BESTED THIS PUZZLE, BUT THE NEXT ONE WAS MADE BY SANS! AND HE MAY BE LAZY, BUT HIS PUZZLES ARE STELLAR! YOU'LL SURELY BE CONFOUNDED!" As he turned and ran across the field and the plateau it was connected to, he called back, "I KNOW I WAS! NYEH-HEH-HEH!"

Frisk watched Papyrus' outline disappear over the horizon and in between the large snow poffs before approaching Sans, still smiling. "well, nice to see my brother's gettin' along with you. i think you impressed him...or, uh, he at least wants to try and 'match wits' with you," Sans sighed. Frisk just exhaled happily and bowed his head. They were both silent for a moment before Sans said, "hey, did i tell you about where papyrus' outfit came from?"

"Yeah," Frisk replied. "Sorry to spoil the surprise."

"ah, don't sweat it," Sans said. "just thought it'd be polite to ask." He waved his hand as a kind of salute, and Frisk gave him another big smile before he turned to leave. As he took a few steps away, Sans spoke up again. "just keep doin' what you're doin', huh, frisk?" He swiveled around to see Sans was still standing there, watching him go, so Frisk smiled back and gave him a thumbs-up before he turned back to keep walking.

He walked away from the field, across the plateau. From here, it seemed to slope downward, but only slightly. Frisk could see there was a small wooden bridge a few steps in front of him; beyond that was a familiar ice-cream stand. Frisk approached it, and the Nice-Cream Salesman's eyes lit up when he saw Frisk come closer.

One exchange later, and Frisk finished off two Nice Cream sandwiches in record time.

Next, he came across a familiar open space, and unlike before, could clearly see down the hill and where the hole was. Only a few paces in front of him was a snowball. It didn't take long for Frisk to pick it up with the toe of his shoe and send it flying toward the hole. It hit the ground and rolled, but by then, Frisk was already behind it and he kicked it toward the hole again, and as soon as it was airborne, he was already calculating where it was going to land. Frisk bolted a couple feet forward and to the left, and when the snowball landed, he kicked it again. It went up, into the air for just a few seconds, then hit the ground and rolled into the hole. He saw the Red Flag pop up and smiled to himself as he approached it, but it rapidly disappeared and was replaced with a frown as he read what was on the flag itself.

"Bravery. Justice. Integrity. Kindness. Perseverance. Patience. Despite the hardships, you kept your friends in mind and sought a better tomorrow."

You have been awarded 500 G.

True enough, when he looked in the hole, there was a satchel with a lot of gold inside it. Frisk retrieved it and put it in his pocket, and then he stared back up at the flag. His brow furrowed more the longer he looked at it. Frisk knew for a fact that text had never appeared before when he played the ball game. "It...knows I changed something. Somehow," he muttered to himself. "But what does that mean?"

He received no answer to his musings, so after reading and rereading the text a couple more times, Frisk sighed deeply and kept walking down the sloped path, closer to Snowdin Town. He had some friends he needed to catch up with.


The fog settled heavily on Frisk's shoulders, but he carried on without hesitation. The road out of Snowdin was a bit longer, and above him, he could see a massive rock wall that marked the natural border between Snowdin Town and Waterfall. It towered over him, over the rest of the town, and though it was obscured by heavy mist, Frisk knew there was a cave entrance further beyond.

He had a more urgent matter to attend to first, of course.

When he took a few more steps, he made out a shape in the fog several feet ahead of him. That shape got a bit clearer as he got closer; tall, lanky, definitely wearing some sort of armor. The figure spoke in his familiar, high-pitched, almost nasally voice. "SO…" he began. "IT SEEMS WE MEET AGAIN. AT THE OUTSKIRTS OF SNOWDIN TOWN. WHICH IS HERE." The figure shifted, bringing his hand up to his shoulder to adjust his cape. "YOU HAVE BESTED MY PUZZLES...AVOIDED MY TRAPS...YOU ARE QUITE TENACIOUS, FRISK, AND VERY TALENTED, FOR A HUMAN…" He paused before his shoulders straightened up and he continued, "...IS WHAT I WOULD SAY, IF I WASN'T ABOUT TO CAPTURE YOU!" before he swung around and pointed at him. The fog began to dissipate. "I KNOW YOU ARE IN AWE OF MY ABILITIES—I CERTAINLY WOULD BE!—BUT YOU ARE A HUMAN! AND I AM AN INCREDIBLY TALENTED SKELETON! THERE IS NO OTHER WAY THIS COULD END! FRISK! I WILL CAPTURE YOU! I WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE CAPITAL! AND THEN, FINALLY, MY DREAMS WILL BE REALIZED! I WILL BECOME THE NEWEST MEMBER…" The fog disappeared entirely. Unlike every other time Frisk could remember, Papyrus was facing him directly, pointing like an anime protagonist. "OF THE ROYAL GUARD!"

Papyrus has a bone to pick with you!

The skeleton proceeded to throw out a few bones that were laughably easy to dodge. In fact, Frisk didn't dodge them as much as he stepped out of their way. Papyrus only responded with a triumphant "NYEH-HEH-HEH!" confident that Frisk wouldn't be able to get around his blue attack. This, of course, left him enough time to pull out his ace-in-the-hole.

Double finger-guns and a wink.

Never leave home without'em.

"WH-WHAT…!? WAS THAT...ARE YOU FLIRTING WITH ME!?" Papyrus recoiled slightly and seemed to blush a little bit. "SO, YOU FINALLY REVEAL YOUR ULTIMATE FEELINGS! BUT…!" he interjected, trying to keep his cool, "I AM A SKELETON WITH VERY HIGH STANDARDS!"

Frisk blinked a couple times and then tilted his head, staring off into space above him. Then he said, "I don't know when to quit."

"OH, NO! YOU'RE MEETING ALL MY STANDARDS!"

Thank God that line hadn't changed.

Then, more bones that were a joke to avoid, but like many, many other times before, Frisk made no move to attack. "NYEH…! SO YOU WON'T FIGHT?" Papyrus questioned. Frisk didn't get any opportunity to answer before he continued, "THEN LET'S SEE HOW YOU HANDLE MY FABLED 'BLUE ATTACK!'"

He knew what was coming. Frisk had known what was coming every other time before; blue colored bones materialized behind Papyrus, and he threw them at him, one after the other. He tossed about fifteen bones before the barrage stopped, and then Frisk felt it. This time, he even saw it, too. He felt his ears pop and the air around him displaced, exploding outward. He looked down to see his SOUL had been drawn out of his body and turned a deep shade of navy blue. "YOU'RE BLUE NOW," Papyrus declared. "THAT'S MY ATTACK! NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!"

And almost immediately, the rest of the bones came out. The first one was short, only coming up to Frisk's knees, but when he jumped over it, he felt different than before; heavier, perhaps, and despite the fact he felt his movement was no longer limited by rules the gestalt of the Underground had placed on him, for one reason or another, the sheer volume of bones that were coming at him were enough to keep him jumping and dodging and moving left to right, and ducking down to avoid getting clocked in the head. But he didn't get hit, his muscle memory served him well. The bones stopped appearing, and he stopped moving. "NOT BAD, FRISK THE HUMAN! BUT CAN YOU GET THROUGH THIS?" Papyrus called before more bones appeared behind him. With a wave of his hand, he threw several of them at Frisk, who lunged forward and under a few, then he jumped over the rest. Another hand wave, another barrage of bones that Frisk dodged around, though one clipped his ankle when he tried to vault over it. It knocked him off-balance and he stumbled when he landed on the ground and nearly fell over.

"I CAN ALMOST SEE IT NOW! 'PAPYRUS: HEAD OF THE ROYAL GUARD!' 'SPAGHETTI AFICIONADO EXTRAORDINAIRE!'" Papyrus declared as he spread his arms out to the sides. Bones appeared over his shoulders and flew at Frisk, who jumped up and dove forward. He felt his SOUL shudder as it was encased in magic, and a line of bones appeared and flew at him. He jumped over all eighteen of them in rapid succession, his reflexes having yet to dull. "UNDYNE WOULD BE REALLY PROUD OF ME, I BET, AND THE KING WOULD PROBABLY BE REALLY HAPPY TO HAVE A NEW MEMBER OF THE GUARD, TOO! AND I'LL HAVE LOTS OF FANS!" Another bone attack expretly dodged by running off to the left, ducking and weaving between them and sliding under the last one. Papyrus paused and began to stroke his chin thoughtfully. "BUT...WILL THEY EVEN COME CLOSE TO THE AFFECTION YOU HAVE SHOWN ME?" Another barrage of bones came flying out from behind Papyrus, and Frisk ran back the way he came, jumped over seven, ducked down once, then veered to a sharp right to dodge one that slammed down into the ground in front of him. "SOLVING MY PUZZLES...NARROWLY AVOIDING MY TRAPS...IT'S AS IF...YOU KNOW ME BETTER THAN I KNOW ME! I DON'T KNOW IF I SHOULD BE FLATTERED OR TERRIFIED!" Papyrus exclaimed as he threw more bones at Frisk. It didn't take much to dodge them, but Frisk knew he still had a way to go before he could end this fight. "YOU SEEM TO BE INTENT ON NOT BEING CAPTURED," Papyrus noted, "WHICH WOULD BE ADMIRABLE IF YOU WEREN'T A HUMAN! IF YOU KEEP GOING, I WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO USE MY SPECIAL ATTACK!" Frisk narrowed his eyes, then his lips curled into a cocky grin. Papyrus must have seen it, or he had an exceptional sense of timing, because he threw dozens of bones to try and hit Frisk; he dodged around all of them. "I'M CHARGING IT!" He threw more bones; Frisk avoided them, though one of them managed to nick him by feinting going right and changing direction at the last second. "JUST A BIT MORE!" Papyrus called. Frisk only furrowed his brow and kept concentrating on dodging his attacks. Papyrus exclaimed, "LAST CHANCE BEFORE MY SPECIAL ATTACK HITS YOU!" as he used more bones on Frisk, who kept running around them and came out with barely even a scratch. Finally, Papyrus balled up one of his fists and shouted, "NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH-HEH! BEHOLD, MY SPECIAL ATTACK!"

Frisk remained confident for all of two seconds before he realized the annoying white dog was nowhere in sight. His stomach dropped a little when he realized Papyrus was actually going to use his special attack.

An entire halo of bones surrounded Papyrus and began hitting each other rhythmically, each one swinging up, then down to hit their neighbors. Then, one by one, starting from the top and working its way down each side, the bones took on a bright orange glow. It only got brighter. And brighter. It was so bright, Frisk had to shield his eyes and look down to keep most of it out, and then…

There was a very familiar sound of a laser cutting through the air right above Frisk's head. He could only imagine one of those draconic skulls had appeared. He could feel the light fading, so he looked up, but there was nothing there. One by one, the bones around Papyrus began to shudder like leaves in gale-force wind and they fell to the ground, the sounds of impact deafened only slightly by the snow. Frisk could only stare in shock as his brain raced to try and explain why Papyrus hadn't shot him with his "special attack." He had been completely still the whole time; he had wanted to move, but when Papyrus started, he found himself too entranced. He questioned himself, silently, in his own head, for another few seconds before he remembered Undyne's own words: "He's just...well...I mean it's not that he's weak. He's actually pretty freaking tough! It's just that...he's...he's too innocent and nice!"

Papyrus had missed on purpose. It was a scare tactic.

Speaking of, when Frisk got a good look at him, he looked...pretty tired. He was sweating (again...how do skeletons sweat?), bowed on one knee, and it looked like he was trying to breathe as deeply as possible. "WELL…" he gasped, "IT'S...OBVIOUS...YOU CAN'T...DEFEAT ME!" He heaved himself up and pushed himself up on both legs, though he staggered a little from the force he exerted just to pull himself up. "THEREFORE...IT IS...ONLY SPORTING...THAT THE GREAT PAPYRUS...GRANT YOU MERCY! I SHALL SPARE YOU...FRISK."

Frisk slowly righted himself, his arms still shielding most of his head before he stood up straight. He shifted around so that his hands were clasped together, held in front of him at his waist, and he closed his eyes and bowed slightly.

You spared Papyrus.

There was a moment of blessed silence before Papyrus sniffled, rubbed his eyesockets and bawled, "NYOO HOO HOO...I CAN'T EVEN DEFEAT YOU! AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO FIGHT ME! UNDYNE WILL NEVER LET ME JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD NOW, AND MY FRIEND COUNT WILL REMAIN STAGNANT!"

Frisk's brows furrowed and he stayed still only for a second before he ran over to Papyrus...and flung his arms around him in a hug. This only got a surprised and confused "NYEH!?" out of him, but Frisk held on. Papyrus stared down at this small human, who had walked a gauntlet just to get here, and kept staring when he said, "It's okay, Papyrus. I'll be your friend, if you want."

"YOU...REALLY WANT TO BE MY FRIEND?" Papyrus replied slowly, as if he couldn't believe the words he'd just heard and believed his own even less. Frisk nodded vigorously, and in an instant, confidence swelled up and his smile and optimism were restored. "WELL, I GUESS...I GUESS I CAN MAKE AN ALLOWANCE FOR YOU, FRISK HUMAN," he said. "WOWIE! WE HAVEN'T EVEN DATED YET AND I AM ALREADY IN THE FRIENDZONE!" Frisk gave him a big grin, and then released him from his grip. As Papyrus stood up to full height and Frisk stepped back, he said, "THANK YOU, FRISK. YOU TAUGHT ME A LOT. LIKE THE BEST WAY TO MAKE FRIENDS! ALL I NEED TO DO IS GIVE THEM AWFUL PUZZLES AND TRY TO CAPTURE THEM! IT WAS EVEN EASIER THAN I EXPECTED!" Papyrus cleared his throat and clapped his gloves together to dust them off. "BUT! AS OF NOW, I GRANT YOU PERMISSION, AS A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GUARD IN-TRAINING, TO PASS! IF YOU WANT TO GET TO THE KING'S CASTLE, I'LL GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS!"

Papyrus took a step forward and bent down to Frisk's height so he could point to the massive cliff that separated Snowdin from Waterfall and explained, "JUST GO INTO THAT CAVERN AND GO NORTHEAST UNTIL YOU FIND THE EXIT. THEN, YOU'LL BE IN HOTLAND, AND YOU'LL NEED TO GO UP AND PASS THROUGH THE CORE. FROM THERE, YOU'LL BE ABLE TO GET TO THE CASTLE! YOU CAN'T MISS IT, BECAUSE IT'S REALLY, REALLY BIG!" He stood back up quickly and spread his arms out to illustrate just how massive the castle was, but alas, he had only long, spindly skeleton arms, and they were unable to convey the sheer scale of the royal castle. Papyrus continued, "ONCE YOU GET THERE, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS CROSS THE BARRIER...IT'S THE MAGICAL SEAL KEEPING US ALL DOWN HERE! BUT YOU CAN ONLY CROSS IT IF YOU HAVE A POWERFUL SOUL, WHICH, SINCE YOU ARE A HUMAN, YOU MOST CERTAINLY HAVE! THAT'S WHY THE KING WANTS US TO CAPTURE HUMANS; TO OPEN THE BARRIER WITH THE COMBINED MIGHT OF SEVEN SOULS! AND THE KING IS…" Papyrus trailed off and started scratching his chin for a second before he laughed, "WELL...HE'S REALLY NICE! ALSO KIND OF A PUSHOVER, BUT EVERYONE LOVES HIM! I BET IF YOU JUST SAY, 'EXCUSE ME, MISTER DREMURR, CAN I PLEASE CROSS THE BARRIER AND GO HOME?' HE'LL TAKE YOU RIGHT TO IT!" There was a flourish as Papyrus flipped his cape and it billowed in a breeze that came in immediately when he started moving. "ANYWAY, I'D BETTER GET BACK HOME TO BE A COOL FRIEND AND GET THE HOUSE READY FOR OUR DATE! SEE YOU SOON, FRISK!" Papyrus suddenly dropped his heroic pose, crouched down, and then bounded toward Frisk. He didn't really have time to recoil before Papyrus vaulted into the air, high over his head, and flutter-kicked before landing behind him and continuing to run back into town.

Frisk stayed behind to watch him go, and once his outline faded and disappeared back into Snowdin Town, he turned to face in the direction of Waterfall and began walking. The path was longer than normal: Frisk walked about twenty extra feet just to get to the cave entrance, but once he was inside, he was greeted with a much wider space than ever before, inhabited by two monsters, an echo flower, and a sentry station in the far corner. This time, it wasn't to his left upon entering, but all the way on the right, up against the wall. Sans was already there, leaned back in a chair with his slippers kicked up on the table and his arms behind his head. He must have heard Frisk plodding in, because he saw Sans' left eye open blearily, stare for a couple seconds, then close again. All Frisk did was smile and walk over to Monster Kid, who was standing at the edge of the room, where it dropped off a dozen feet into a shallow pool of water that stretched on for what looked like miles. When Frisk got close and leaned forward over the edge slightly to look closer, MK turned his head and exclaimed, "Yo! Are you sneaking out to see Undyne, too?"

"Not really, I'm just trying to get through Waterfall. I'm going on an adventure," he admitted as he pointed his thumb at himself.

"Wow, seriously? What're you looking for?"

"...Uh..." Frisk droned. He had to come up with a believable lie. Or plausible half-truth. "I'll know it when I see it," he said after a bit.

"Ha ha. Man, I don't think I've ever met someone looking for something they couldn't explain," MK chuckled. "Yeah, but like I said, I'm just here to see Undyne. I heard some rumors she was coming out here to get a status report, and I've never seen her before! My parents say she's a 'bad influence,' or something, so they've always kept me home when she comes around, ha ha." With that said, MK turned around and began running off, deeper into Waterfall. Before he was completely out of earshot, he called back to Frisk, "Yo, if you see me again, we should totally try and meet her! And tell me if you find that thing you don't know about!"

He just waved goodbye until Monster Kid had disappeared around one of the many corners that lay ahead, and then Frisk made his way to Sans. Once he got close enough, Sans seemed to hear him and took his feet off the desk and sat up straight. He nodded once and asked, "how you doin', frisk? heard a lotta commotion coming from the outskirts of town. saw that bright orange light, too." Sans rolled his shoulders and sighed. "haven't seen papyrus use his special attack in…" He trailed off for a moment, and actually looked genuinely thoughtful as the corners of his lips turned down slightly. "uh, ever, now that i think about it."

Frisk just shrugged. "I'm fine. We're gonna date later."

That seemed to get Sans back to his usual disposition. He grinned and said, "hey, congrats! you better not break his heart, though, or we're gonna have problems."

"I wouldn't worry, Sans. If anything, he just ends up breaking mine," Frisk sighed melodramatically. He placed the back of his wrist on his forehead and leaned away for effect.

Sans didn't seem too broken up about this revelation, as he chuckled quietly to himself. "ah, dang. i was hoping he'd finally get someone else to share his hopes and dreams with." He paused a moment, giving his expression enough time to shift from "amused" to "amusedly confused." He pointed at Frisk and asked, "wait, aren't you a bit young to be dating?"

Time seemed to freeze for a moment as Frisk pondered the deeper meaning of Sans' question. He was thirteen, which meant he wasn't a little kid anymore...but he didn't even have a driver's license. How could he date anyone if he didn't have a way to drive them around to dates? Nevermind having a job. If anything, saving the Underground had become his job...and the pay was awful and the hours sucked. Still, Frisk had to answer Sans, and he stammered out, "...Y-yeah? No…? Maybe..."

If Sans had any extra comments about Frisk's minor existential crisis, he kept them to himself. "heh. sounds like you'll have to be bonely for a few more years, eh?" he commented as he stuffed his hands in his jacket's pockets. Frisk devolved into a fit of minor snickering and Sans looked back down at his watch (that he seemed to have drawn onto his wrist), then glanced back at him and said, "hey, since i'm supposed to be on break now, you wanna grab some food? have to imagine facing off against paps was a tiring experience."

Frisk blinked and then smiled wide. "Lead the way," he offered.

Sans nodded and walked out from behind the sentry station, and turned as if to walk deeper into Waterfall. He looked back, held out his hand, and said, "awesome. stay close, i know a shortcut."

Frisk paused only a second before he reached out and took it, and Sans' grin got a little wider before he kept walking. They walked a little ways into Waterfall before Sans abruptly turned a corner and Frisk felt the air around him speed up as if there was a strong wind blowing in his direction, but it stopped just as abruptly, and in less than an instant, they weren't in Waterfall anymore. They were both standing in front of Grillby's and Frisk blinked a couple times before he looked over at Sans. The skeleton just looked back at him, grinned, and said, "quick shortcut, huh?"

He didn't wait for a response and stepped forward and pushed the door open, and Frisk followed him inside. The place was packed, as usual, and Sans took a few steps forward before he greeted the Dogi ("hey, you two. try not to get too lovey-dovey with each other, there's kids present."), Greater Dog, who just barked at him (Frisk thought he heard Sans bark back, very, very quietly), the drunk bunny ("hey now, i know i'm hot stuff," Sans said as he pointed to Grillby, "but seriously, watch the hands."), and the other patrons before he sat down at the bar. Frisk followed close behind and took a seat after him. No whoopee cushion this time. He was rather surprised and also slightly disappointed. Was it possible for someone to grow attached to a practical joke?

"ah," Sans sighed, "nothin' like a quiet break at grillby's to keep your skull clear, huh, kid?"

"Nope."

Sans nodded and picked up the menu, and Frisk did likewise. There was only fries, burgers, water, and one type of soda. "so, what'cha thinkin'?" he said at length.

"Burgers," Frisk replied.

"perfect." Sans waved to Grillby, and the fire monster glanced up from cleaning one of the glasses. "grillby, mind getting us a double order of burg?" In response, the terse bartender put the glass down, nodded, and walked into the back. They were quiet for a couple minutes, the only sounds being the dogs at the other table playing cards and one instance of Sans scratching his butt. Soon enough, he asked, "am i right saying you think my brother's pretty cool?"

Frisk snorted and turned to Sans and said, "He can be kind of weird sometimes, but that's what makes him cool."

Sans stared at Frisk, his expression remaining unchanged. For a couple seconds, Frisk wondered if he'd been a little too harsh and began to shrink away when chuckled. "...heh, heh." He turned back to his menu and gave it another once-over, probably just to fill out the time. "you can't deny nothing interesting happens when he's around," he said. Not long after, Grillby came out from the kitchen holding two platters of hamburger (or whatever the monster equivalent of hamburger was) which he placed in front of Frisk and Sans. Sans leaned back when Grillby placed his order down and slid both platters into place as he muttered, "nice." The both of them took their food and began to eat, Frisk chowing down a whole lot faster than Sans. They remained quiet, simply focusing on eating before all else, until Sans noticed something. He could see Frisk making sideways glances at him every so often as he ate, but once he turned to look, Frisk quickly snapped his eyes back forward and pretended he wasn't doing anything. This went on for several minutes, and Sans was content to let it slide, but not after he caught Frisk doing it seven times within the span of ten minutes. Eventually, he turned his head to look down at Frisk. "something…" He glanced down at the half-devoured burger in Frisk's hands. "eatin' you, frisk?"

Frisk bent forward a bit and tried not to laugh, because he was sure he'd blow bits of hamburger out his nose, but he recovered rather well and shot back, "I thought you'd be grilling me more?"

Sans stared at him in astonishment before his grin came back and he chuckled a bit before turning back to his food. "nah," he said. There was barely a pause before there was a *snap* and the world around Frisk and Sans went dark and froze in place. Frisk instinctively flinched and curled up to protect himself from whatever came next, and he saw Sans' pupils disappear from his eyesockets. "That comes later," he deadpanned as he glanced over at Frisk.

Another snap and time continued flowing as normal. Frisk thought his heart was going to explode and he clutched his chest. Sans kept staring at him, watching Frisk try to regulate his breathing and get his heartbeat under control for a moment before he looked away and muttered, "sorry. didn't mean to freak you out, just...it's important. thought i'd warn ya ahead of time."

Frisk's acting must have garnered some attention, because one of the other monsters at the bar called, "What'd you do this time, Sans? Poor kid looks like they've seen a ghost!"

He turned around to face them and shrugged. "showed'em a bug i found while i was outside. guess they didn't think it was as cool as i thought it was." He hopped off the stool, turned around and nodded to Frisk once before he looked at Grillby and stated, "and grillbz...put it on my tab." After a few seconds of cleaning a glass, Grillby turned his head up slightly and nodded. "...see you soon, kiddo," Sans said before walking out the door.


So here he was, flat on his stomach on the floor of Papyrus' room, piloting Captain Maximus Gloriousus after another date. Papyrus had considered he was a bit too fanatical (just by playing along with what Papyrus had planned, as usual) and shot him out of the saddle. Of course, this was something Frisk could easily live with. He walked the brave captain up to his hated enemy, Master Cosmos, and positioned him in the most opportune place to strike. Papyrus was watching him intently as he posed Showstopper, who bore a striking similarity to a prime-time robotic diva. After their "date," Papyrus had invited Frisk to help him with a few theoretical battle scenarios, and Frisk wouldn't admit this to anyone else for as long as he lived, but he really wished he could play with all those action figures before, so accepting was really a no-brainer.

After a few minutes of silence, Frisk looked up from his work and asked, "Did Santa get you all of these?"

"WHILE I COULD CERTAINLY SAY YES, I WOULD BE LYING! PROBABLY. MY DAD GOT ME A FEW, BUT I SUSPECT HE WAS FEEDING INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT I WANTED FOR CHRISTMAS TO SANTA!"

Frisk lifted his head up slightly and looked at the door. "Where...is your dad? If you don't mind me asking…" he questioned.

Papyrus looked at Frisk, thought for a second, and replied, "HE HASN'T BEEN HOME MUCH FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS OR SO. AND BOTH HE AND SANS ARE NEVER IN THE HOUSE AT THE SAME TIME, WHICH ONLY LEADS ME TO BELIEVE...DAD IS WORKING SANS TO THE BONE, AND HE WON'T EVEN RISK BEING HERE WHEN DAD'S AROUND IN CASE HE ASKS HIM TO HELP WITH WHATEVER SCIENCE PROJECT IT IS HE'S WORKING ON!"

Frisk smirked. "He sounds pretty mysterious. I'd like to meet him."

"I WILL CERTAINLY PUT IN A GOOD WORD FOR YOU! EVEN THOUGH I CAN NEVER TALK TO DAD WHEN HE'S AT WORK," Papyrus said. "I TRIED CALLING HIM, SEVERAL TIMES! BUT THE PHONE JUST RETURNS A MESS OF GOBBLEDYGOOK, SO I STOPPED TRYING AFTER A WHILE!"

"Do you know where he goes off to...?" Frisk inquired.

"YES! HE WORKS SOMEWHERE IN THE CORE! NO ONE'S EVER SEEN WHERE, OF COURSE, BUT THAT'S WHAT HE TOLD ME AND SANS!" Papyrus exclaimed as he made Showstopper lean back and stand on one leg, kicking the other out as far as it could go.

They both fell into comfortable silence again for several minutes, during which time Frisk grabbed a nearby figure of the inscrutable Spazzmechatron and began his diligent work of finding a suitable pose for the comically deranged machine. Eventually, however, he glanced back up and asked, "Papyrus…?" The skeleton raised his head, and Frisk continued, "This'll sound kinda random, but do you think your dad would want to meet someone like me?"

In response, Papyrus just gave him a big smile and declared, "HAVE NO FEAR! BASED ON THE AMOUNT OF TIME I HAVE KNOWN YOU, I THINK DAD WOULD LIKE YOU A LOT!"


The cavern stretched on for what looked like forever; it faded away into the darkness on the horizon, but Frisk couldn't really bring himself to care. He kept walking, sometimes staring up to look at the ceiling. There wasn't much to see except gems and crystals that twinkled softly in the eternal night like stars.

The first encounter with Undyne hadn't been very different, much to his dismay. Minor differences in dialogue, and he was able to hear Undyne talking to Papyrus clearly this time. So, with the path set before him, he journeyed deeper into Waterfall, and now it seemed he'd found the Wishing Room. Just as expected, there were Echo Flowers everywhere, no longer only relegated to just five. He approached one, just out of curiosity, and heard it whisper, "A long time ago, monsters would whisper their wishes to the stars in the sky. If you hoped with all your heart, your wish would come true...Now, all we have are these sparkling stones in the ceiling…" He sighed and moved around the room, and he heard many things: wishes for strength, wishes for love to find someone, wishes for that new set of silverware now being sold at half-off. Wishes for anything and everything under the sun. He wondered if, once Toriel and Asgore had come here to wish for deliverance, or wish for Asriel to find a friend, someday. Or, perhaps, to wish for their children back.

Frisk didn't know. He never would, so he walked through the room, through what seemed to be an entire field of echo flowers. He stuck to a cave wall when he found it, but as he walked and kept his hand on the rock in order to activate the hidden door, he didn't feel anything click or move in any way. However, as he kept walking he saw something appear on the horizon, a bridge chiseled out of stone that was slotted between two walls. Looking over the edge, Frisk saw an underground lake, several stories below. He turned back to look at all the echo flowers, still whispering their hidden desires to whoever or whatever may pass them and deign to listen, but all he did was sigh. He had no wishes to make. He couldn't think of any. Maybe he could come back here, one day far into the future, or maybe come back if he couldn't save Asriel. He would wish for strength to accept the loss and move on, maybe.

He crossed the bridge and continued forward.


Frisk watched the water's surface distort and then slowly calm as Onionsan sank back into the shallows. He breathed in, turned around and left the small lake behind. He passed through the rocky corridors, following the same path he remembered specifically from last time. He had to know. He had to see what had changed, if anything. After a few twists and taking a few too many turns, backtracking, and second-guessing, Frisk found a hallway with an alcove on the left. He ducked inside to find the piano in the same place as before, nestled off to the side where very few people would pay it much mind.

Frisk walked over and bent over the keyboard. He barely needed to look down at it to play it. The ivory keys felt warm under his fingers, despite how cool the surrounding temperature was. There was a loud crashing noise and the sound of rock grinding against rock, and Frisk got up and quickly turned the corner just in time to see the wall split and open up. The passage was still incredibly narrow, but Frisk drew on his previous experience and sidled through the hallway until he came out into the artifact room, almost wholly disconnected from the rest of Waterfall. And the most surprising thing was, it was right there. Red and round, sitting on the plinth, as if it had always been there (because it technically had). He didn't plan on using it, but Frisk was curious. He walked forward, slowly extended his hand toward the orb, and then finally, after a minute of reaching, he touched it.

The silence was obliterated with the sound of shattering glass layered on top of each other to cacophonic, almost ear-bleeding levels. Frisk instinctively slapped his hands over his ears to try and drown out the sound, but it was so loud it did very little to alleviate the physical discomfort it caused. But it was over in an instant, and when Frisk looked back up at the pedestal to see what had happened, it was just in time to watch the sphere's surface become covered with cracks and crumble into a million fine little shards.

Nothing else happened and nothing else moved until Frisk rolled his eyes and grunted, "...Subtle." He turned around and left the artifact's resting place and the alcove behind, and continued forward. After another couple turns and a quick descent down a slope, Frisk found that familiar statue. It was still hunched over, water dripped down from the ceiling and splashed on its head. He passed it by and hurried forward until he found a bin full of umbrellas. He grabbed one, ran back to the statue, and gently placed it in the monument's hand.

The music box begins to play.

Frisk stood there for a few minutes. He'd done it in every timeline before; he felt like he owed it to the statue, to Asriel. To stay close by so she'd know she wasn't alone. After several minutes, he went back to the bin and took another umbrella, and kept walking, eventually meeting up with Monster Kid. Once the little monster saw him, he ran up to Frisk's side and exclaimed, "Yo, you got an umbrella! Awesome, let's go!"

Frisk just nodded once and started walking with MK following close behind. They walked on in silence for awhile, to Frisk's surprise. They wound around a few bends and eventually came to a cliff overlooking most of, if not the rest, of Waterfall, and in the distance, Frisk could make out the outline of the CORE. In front of that was jagged volcanic obsidian and the fiery reds and oranges of hotland, shining like a beacon. And further back was Asgore's castle, on the top of a great mesa, surrounded by buildings. He had to stop to marvel at it, just one last time before he possibly left it all behind forever. MK joined him, and after another few moments of silence, he said, "I always kinda wondered how it'd feel to live in a big castle like that. Like, having all that space to yourself doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The king doesn't really leave, but I've heard from older monsters that he used to come out a lot more often. Nobody knows why though." He turned to Frisk with a thoughtful expression and then concluded, "Yo, I bet that's why Undyne lives in Waterfall, because there's more people around than in the castle! And also because you have to get through Hotland to reach New Home, ha ha."

Frisk just scoffed lightly and turned to walk the rest of the way, Monster Kid following behind him. They entered a cavern that went back inside the massive rock formation Waterfall resided in and passed through natural corridors drenched in rain. It wasn't long until Frisk saw a ledge in the distance and a bin to the left. He walked over, tossed the umbrella into it, and then kept walking toward the ledge.

They both stopped once they got close enough, and after a minute, Monster Kid looked over his shoulder and said, "Yo, this ledge is...pretty steep." He turned back to scrutinize it a bit more, and after studying it, he observed, "Wait, I bet I could boost you up there! Climb on my shoulders."

Frisk tried to look skeptical as he replied, "You sure about that?"

"Yo, I'll be okay! Just don't go looking for Undyne without me!" MK chuckled. Frisk smiled and did as his friend instructed, and just as before, the little monster supported him as he clambered up onto the ledge. Frisk stood up and then turned around to look down at MK. He would have offered his hand, but...well, Monster Kid didn't have any. The little monster noticed, and before he ran back the way they came, he called, "I'll be there in a bit! I'll find a way!" MK got about two steps before he tripped, faceplanted into the ground, and then pulled himself up again. Frisk watched him go, and then remained sitting on that ledge for a few minutes, just to feel the rain on his body. He stood up eventually (didn't want to catch pneumonia), and walked away.

Eventually, he found himself in a spacious cavern with glyphs inscribed on the walls, massive murals made of sharp edges and straight lines. When he looked closer, he found they were murals, the same ones he remembered that told of how humanity had sealed monsterkind underground. It seemed that now that his limits had been removed, he saw that they were not simply a written story; instead, they were a mural that showed the monster's struggle in words and in art.

He passed through this cavern quickly, and came out to find it led to a massive, empty space in Waterfall dotted with raised formations of stone, crisscrossed with wooden walkways. Frisk looked around a bit more and saw there were several levels of those walkways, about five, that went all the way down to the ground far below. Frisk took a deep breath and started walking. The wood under his shoes creaked with each step, suffused with water and years, if not centuries, of rot. They still held him up just as well as usual (he really wasn't that worried), but after just a few steps away from the cave he just left, he heard magical energy begin to hum behind him. Once he spun around, he saw a blue glow appear in front of the threshold to the cavern, and a second later, blue spears shot out of the ground, accompanied by a massive figure clad in jet black armor landing between him and the spear barrier. Frisk gritted his teeth and stumbled backward, but managed to keep his balance. Undyne slowly stood up from the kneeling position she had landed in, and looked upward for a few seconds before she brought her gaze back down. Frisk could practically hear her smile when she growled, "End of the line, human."

The spears came lancing out of the ground immediately and Frisk yelped as he jumped back, away from where they had appeared, directly under him. He didn't need to stick around to see if anything else changed, he just ran. Frisk ran away from Undyne, but the heavy clanking from behind him and the intermittent appearance of spears popping up out of the boardwalk told him she was hot on his heels. He made lefts and rights, trying to dodge around the circles that appeared under his feet. Very often, he got lucky and they were only inches from grazing him. After a few minutes of running, he heard Undyne's footsteps stop and she grunted. He learned what this meant when a dozen spears came flying at him from his back and one managed to pierce his chest, damaging his SOUL. Frisk cried out and staggered, but he wasn't badly hurt enough to trip and fall.

More circles appeared in front of him, arranged that when they came up, they'd trap him if he ran into the center of the formation. Thinking quickly, Frisk glanced over to the side and jumped to an adjacent boardwalk and kept running. A cursory glance back revealed Undyne leaped almost two stories into the air and came down on his side. There was a loud crash, and the pathway began to crack and shatter from the sudden impact. Undyne rushed ahead as the pathway began to crumble away behind her; either she was more focused on catching him or was confident in her ability to outrun gravity.

Frisk, on the other hand, was not.

But he pushed himself harder anyway, trying to force his legs to move faster than they ever had before just to stay ahead of Undyne. She began throwing more spears, casting more magic. Frisk sucked in a breath as he skipped forward in a knee-jerk reaction when he heard the unmistakable drone of the spear barrier directly under him, a split second before said attack came thrusting up out of the floor. "Just stop running and make this easy for both of us!" Undyne yelled from behind him. Frisk ignored her, and just continued running; ahead of her and ahead of the rapidly crumbling boardwalk behind them. The sounds of snapping wood and the distant splash of water far below them was getting more recognizable, more cacophonic. Frisk spared another glance behind him and desperately wished he hadn't. Everything was coming down, and Undyne was still chasing him by moving faster than gravity, apparently, as she stepped on the boards of the pathway as they were breaking apart and falling.

Frisk grimaced and whipped back around and despite his whole body burning, he pushed himself even harder, running forward and letting his body work on autopilot. Left and right, jump up and crouch down, but don't look back. Keep moving forward. Luckily, after only a minute of running like the devil himself was chasing him, Frisk saw one of the many flattened stone pillars just ahead, and that was where the boardwalk ended. His thighs still burning, Frisk pushed harder. He heard the crackling hum of magic behind him. He heard the boardwalk's death throes increasing in speed and proximity. Just a couple more steps and...

He felt the boards falling out from under him and acting on pure survival instinct, he jumped. Frisk sailed through the air. For a moment, he felt like he was flying, especially since he seemed to be further up in the air than what would have been possible for him, but eventually he had to come down, and he landed roughly on the stone pillar and tumbled forward a couple feet, rolling over until he came to a stop. Frisk quickly pushed himself up and stood on shaky, tired legs, and it was at that point he looked around and didn't see Undyne. Then he looked up to see her flying through the air too, most likely having jumped after him. She landed directly in front of him, the weight of her armor shaking the platform they were on and throwing small chunks of rock and pebbles out of the place where she landed, leaving a small crater. Frisk took a cautious step back. Undyne took a confident step forward. He looked behind him to see there was a small extension of the boardwalk, but it dropped off into the darkness below. Frisk turned his attention back to Undyne and started backing up. They repeated their little tango; Frisk took one step backward, Undyne took one step forward.

It didn't take long for open space to become scarce. He was backed up onto the small catwalk, oblivion behind him, certain death in front of him. Undyne held up her right hand out to the side and a spear formed in her grip. "Just lie down and I'll make this quick," she said. Passing through her armor, it made her voice sound deep and it reverberated more than usual. "You've got nowhere left to run, human."

Frisk sucked his breath in through his teeth. There was only one way he was getting out of this. He might not survive, but he'd have to trust fate. He'd have to believe in himself and in the natural course of time. "You're right," Frisk replied as he slid his left foot backward slowly. "Nowhere left to go…" He kept his leg moving until he felt it: the distinct absence of any solid form under his heel. He looked up at Undyne and couldn't help a grin form on his face as he concluded, "But down."

In one swift movement, he pushed himself backward enough that he jumped a few inches away from the end of the boardwalk. Undyne realized what he had done and charged forward, the spear in her hand dematerialized and she reached out with her other, metal fingers grasping, her one good eye burning with Determination.

But she was a second too slow.

Undyne clenched her fingers and it scratched a single fiber of Frisk's sweater, cutting it in half while he kept falling. He watched as, in the span of three seconds, Undyne's form against the ceiling of the cavern shrunk so much he could frame her with his fingers if he so desired, but he couldn't. The fall, the strain of running from Undyne, and the g-force all made him black out long before he hit the ground.


Somewhere,

deep down

in the hidden recesses of your mind,

memories once sleeping

begin to stir.

Zerachiel?

What?

Are you sure about this plan?

Yes.

You're going to die. You're gonna kill yourself.

Zerachiel...

I'm not gonna die. I'm gonna go...away. Just for awhile.

Here, use this.

...A knife?

Yes, a knife. Cut your hair, you idiot! It'll help you adjust to your new
identity if you don't look the same coming out of the Confluence Forge as you did going in.


I still don't know about this plan.

It can't be that hard. Fall down, find some monster who hates humans
as much as I do, die, leave, kill six more, shatter the Barrier...it's fool-proof.

Didn't we just save humans and monsters from the nepharii?

Yeah, and look at where it got us. Laughed at, chased out, homeless.
Hiding in the city we ran away from in the first place.
Right back to where we started. Humans are bastards,
Zadkiel. Six out of, what…? Seven billion? May as well be pissing into the ocean.

That still seems...unnecessarily cruel.

Look, whether you like it or not, we have no other options.
We can't BEND time like Enoch and the High Chaplains did. If there's any chance
of using the nepharii's own tricks against them, erasing them,
and...and getting things back to the way they were without
them around to fuck it all up, we need to take it. We need to do whatever it takes to succeed.
Do you understand?

Whatever it takes?

Whatever it takes.

And what if it doesn't work?

What if it doesn't work…?

It'll work.

How far forward are you sending me?

Five-hundred years, give or take. Should be long enough
that nobody'll care if a temporal blip appears on their radar. Might just think it's
another nepharii, doing nepharii things.

F-five hundred years!?

Zadkiel…

...Wha...what?

Do you trust me?

I...yes, of course.

Then don't worry. Everything's gonna be okay.

I...I guess this is goodbye.

For now.

But I won't be...me when we meet again. If we meet again.

Will you shut up and let me worry about the plan?
You do what you do best: win people over with those big, dumb eyes eyes
and your big, dumb smile.

Fine.

...

Will I get my memories back one day?

Will you want them back?

Yeah, I didn't think so.
Alright...close your eyes and count to five.
When you open them again...you...you won't be Zadkiel anymore.

Wh...what should my new name be?

...Hell if I know, it's your name, you tell me.
Think of something. First name that pops into your head
and I'll put it in the Forge.

"Frisk?"

...Yeah. That's a nice name.


Frisk's eyes shot open, alarmed, confused, and when he propped himself up on his elbows to look around...he was alone. No one nearby, no voices speaking in his head. He looked down to see he was laying on a raised patch of ground, covered in sourgrass flowers. Looking up revealed a cavern so massive, the ceiling disappeared into the dark.

He had to pause to take it all in, but only for a moment. He pushed himself to his feet, rolled his shoulders, and wrung out his sweater to get rid of any water that had soaked into it during his brief period of unconsciousness. Of course, the whole time he did, he was busy thinking, mostly of the memory he'd just experienced. Frisk grimaced. If Gaster hadn't shown him his mutant genome in the last timeline, he would have thought it was simply some fever dream concocted out of a mishmash of rivaling factors, but then again, every time he landed on that patch of flowers before, it was Asriel's memory that was fed to him. He couldn't help but wonder why he saw...that instead.

As he finished squeezing the excess water out of his shirt and shorts, Frisk glanced back up at the yawning darkness above him and let his head clear. Then, after a few minutes, he sighed and decided whoever he was back then—whoever Zadkiel was and whatever he did—was not him anymore. It was merely a discarded persona much like his earlier self when he first fell into the Underground, and the self that had tried to eradicate the entire kingdom. If he discovered more, then so be it, but right now, he had an adventure to complete and a friend to save.

A new resolve found purchase in his chest, Frisk turned around and ventured deeper into Waterfall, searching for the garbage dump.


Another bridge over troubled water in a vast underground cavern. One of the many staples of Waterfall. Frisk had crossed the whole thing, but knew what was coming next, confirmed when he heard a tinny voice call after him "Yo!" He turned around to see Monster Kid running at him full sprint, and Frisk stopped to give him his full attention. He tried not to let any worry or apathy seep into his expression and voice. "Yo, so, uh...you're a...human?"

Frisk couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm surprised it took you so long to figure it out,"

MK laughed weakly and flushed a little bit as he replied, "Ha ha, yeah. My sister says I'm, uh, kinda dumb."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Frisk said. He brought up his hand and stared at it for a minute before he continued, "I managed to fool a lot of people into thinking I wasn't a human."

MK looked away, out across the massive expanse of the cave. Frisk could see in his eyes he felt uncomfortable with the subject, but eventually he turned back and said, "Undyne said I'm supposed to hate you, but man...I suck at hating people." MK glanced away again, back out to the empty expanse before he turned back and with a resigned smile, suggested, "I, uh...guess I'll see you later, huh?"

"I guess," Frisk replied with a shrug.

"Yeah, ha ha. See you." MK turned around, but by then, Frisk was already starting to slowly, very slowly, step forward. Just enough to keep pace behind MK, waiting. His body was tense, ready for action. When MK broke into a sprint, it happened just like it had before: about halfway to the edge, Monster Kid tripped. He tried to keep his balance but ended up stumbling to the side and falling over the ledge. The only thing that kept him from plummeting into the ground below was quick reactions and quicker footing; he managed to sink his fangs into the rock pillar that was holding the bridge up and his legs quickly found purchase in cracks in the rock, but they were narrow, and he wouldn't be able to hold on for long. He made it known when he called out, "Y-yo! Help! I...I tripped!" And just like before, Frisk saw Undyne emerge from the corridor they'd left.

But this time, Frisk was ready. With the precision of a neurosurgeon, he dashed forward and dropped down when he got close to Monster Kid, sliding like a practiced baseball player, and he quickly rolled over in the direction MK had fallen, reached down, and grabbed the hem of his shirt. Monster Kid's head shot up to look at Frisk as he pulled him up. After a second, MK registered what was happening and began scrabbling his feet to try and hasten the process, but Frisk got him back up on solid ground. There was a brief pause in which all sound stopped; Frisk and MK were still sitting down, though Monster Kid was the one having the most trouble, trying to come down off an adrenaline high, and Undyne had stopped advancing.

Eventually, they both stood up, and Monster Kid stared at Undyne. She stared right back at him through the eye sockets in her helmet. Sometimes it shifted with a high-pitched, metallic squeak to look down at Frisk, but after what felt like hours of standing in a high-tension staring contest, Monster Kid took a step forward.

Frisk held out his arm to keep him back.

When MK grunted in surprise when he collided with his arm, he looked up at Frisk and opened his mouth, but Frisk turned his head back to look at him. His eyes were unnaturally stoic, and MK seemed to get the message, so Frisk lowered his arm and took a couple steps forward instead. "...Well?" he asked, his voice echoing around the spacious cavern. "Here I am. Are we gonna fight, or what?"

Undyne didn't move. Frisk wondered if she had even blinked, but it was impossible to tell as long as she was wearing her helmet. The silence continued, thick and heavy, over all of them. And then, Undyne shifted her posture, sticking her chest out slightly, dragging her shoulders back a bit. "...The entrance to Hotland is just ahead." She raised her arm and pointed behind Frisk and MK, who was the only one out of the two to turn around. "Go alone," she intoned. Then, she slowly lowered her arm, took two steps back, then turned around completely...and left.

Frisk and Monster Kid were stuck staring after her as the heavy, thudding footsteps of her armor faded into the distance, until only silence remained yet again. Then, as if weights had been lifted from the both of them, they breathed out sighs of relief, Frisk going so far as to fall backward and sit down. Despite the fact he had done this before, despite the fact he knew all these people, he still found his hands shaking a little. And then, he slowly stood up and faced Monster Kid with a calm smile. He still seemed a little shaken up but after a brief moment, MK smiled back and stuttered, "Y-yo...thanks, dude."

"Relax. It's what friends do."

Monster Kid's eyes bugged out and he blinked a couple times before he softly repeated, "Friends…" Then he looked down at the ground, but Frisk could see him still smiling, light mist forming in his eyes. Then, the little lizard looked back up and said, "Ha, ha. I oughta get back home, I've, uh...I think I've had enough excitement for one day. Mom and dad must be worried sick about me." He stepped around Frisk and took off back into the main area of Waterfall, and this time he made sure not to run so fast, lest his trip over his own heels. He still looked back over his shoulder and called, "Later, dude!" to Frisk, who watched him go with a smile and a wave, and then he was gone.

Frisk sighed and turned back toward his original destination. After this, he was halfway done, or close enough, so he marched forward.

It didn't take long to get to the area before Hotland, contrary to what Frisk was expecting. In fact, the area looked very much the same going in, but Frisk made a left and kept walking where Undyne usually would have stopped him to monologue, and this time he passed through a rocky arch. On the other side was a large, blasted field of dry rock, dotted with stalagmites poking out of the ground, some of them as tall as the buildings in the Ruins. And they stretched on in every direction, though Frisk noticed that the rock formations behind him formed some sort of wall between this wasteland and Waterfall. After a few more steps forward, Frisk heard something. Heavy, metallic. It sounded like something was taking massive strides, but he could see it clearly after a minute.

Far, far ahead of, the dull orange glow from Hotland rose above the tips of the pillars and stalagmites. It cast all the rock in shadow, and Frisk could see something jumping from the top of each pillar to the next, higher and higher, until it came to rest on the apex of the formation in front of him, at least five stories high. Even with the shadows being cast, the outline was unmistakable; Undyne was here.

The wind is howling.

"Seven." Undyne brought her right hand up and curled it into a fist. "Seven human souls are needed to destroy the barrier. Seven human souls are standing between us and freedom," she monologued. Frisk let her talk; something told him she wouldn't listen to him anyway. "We have six. But with all seven, King Asgore will become a god, and deliver us from this nightmare." Undyne turned around to face him fully and stared down at him and said, "Normally...I would tell you the tragic tale of our people...How we were sealed away unjustly because humanity feared what they didn't understand…" And then, the image of a mighty, learned warrior cracked apart as Undyne yelled, "But you've been making my life such a living hell that I don't think it's worth it! You're a slippery little human, but you're not getting past me! I'm not gonna leave this up to chance! TODAY, YOU DIE! NGAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Undyne clenched her fists and screamed to the heavens. Her determination manifested as a bright white light that, once it had disappeared, revealed she'd taken her helmet off. She looked over her shoulder and down at him before turning around fully, revealing her face. Frisk smiled when he saw her. She was still the exact same crazy fish he remembered; he just hoped she didn't see him grinning and start needling him about it, though. "Alphys told me a lot about humans...About their flowery swordsmen and giant robots…" she began as she looked pensively down at one of her clenched fists. "She told me there were some humans who had a lot of grit and bravery. That some humans had faced challenges and enemies bigger than they were and came out on top! But you?" Undyne's head suddenly snapped up and a manic grin crossed her face. "You're nuts!" she declared. "Only King Asgore's got the strength and the guts to keep up with me! I should know, he's the one who whipped me into shape!" She raised her left arm up dramatically and suddenly snapped it down to point at Frisk. "And let's not forget!" she continued, "You seem to think being nice and hugging everyone's gonna make their problems go away! You know what would be useful…? If you died and someone sent your SOUL to the king!" Undyne grit her teeth and spread her arms and legs out, standing as if she was about to receive some diving gift from Heaven. "I can feel everyone's hearts...beating as one! All monsters, everywhere...but they aren't afraid. They know the end is near. They know our imprisonment will be over! They know we're this close to freedom!" she yelled as she stuck her fist in the air. Undyne remained like that, almost as still as a statue, save for her hair billowing in the wind. After a minute of silence, she lowered her gaze to look at Frisk. Their eyes locked. Wielders of determination meeting their match. Then, she slowly lowered her arm and a spear materialized in her palm. "So come on," she said at length. "Let's see what you got, punk."

Frisk just stared up at her. The wind whipped around him. Undyne's overbearing gaze beat down on him…

…But you are still Determined.

He took a couple steps forward, and immediately heard Undyne launch herself off the stalagmites she was standing on. He looked up to see her soaring through the air, holding her spear at the ready. "This is it!" she screamed. She started coming down. "No more games!" She was getting faster. "No more running!" Frisk braced himself. "HERE I COME!"

The sound that followed after her battle cry was not one of a spear smashing into the floor where Frisk had been only moments earlier. It was also not one of a spear piercing Frisk's chest and killing him instantly. Instead there was a sound that resembled a loud, electronic screech, detuned and made fuzzy, almost muffled. In the span of a couple seconds, just before Undyne came down on Frisk's head, he'd raised up his hands, his SOUL appeared, and it morphed into two katars fitted perfectly over his hands. It took Undyne a moment to realize what had just happened and to look closely at the SOUL weapons with their Delta Rune inscriptions, and the fact this small human child had stopped her spear from coming down on him with an X-block.

Her jaw went slack. Her good eye went wide. Then she looked down to see Frisk's head raise to meet her...and he grinned cheekily before he deflected the blow to one side and jumped in the opposite direction. The only reason Undyne stumbled a bit was simply because she hadn't expected a human, an adolescent human, to know soul magic. She quickly regained her balance, and turned to face him. He was settled into a fighting stance, that smirk still on his face. After a few seconds of tense silence, he said, "Well? The 'crazy human' is waiting. Let me see what you got…punk." In all honesty, throwing Undyne's words back in her face was probably the worst idea he could have ever had...but, oh, was it satisfying.

Frisk had expected a comeback. Maybe with something along the lines of "It's gonna take more than that to keep up with me!" but instead, her brow furrowed so much she started to look forty years older than normal and she charged right back in with a scream. "NGAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH...!"

Undyne, the heroine, approaches!

He barely had any time to duck before her first swing came out, then another, then two more and a jab to his chest. Frisk brought his left hand up to deflect the blow, and this time it wasn't as easy. Undyne knew what he could do now, and she wasn't going to make any errors easily. He had to focus, and focus he did. In the span of only two seconds, the battle between Undyne and Frisk had become less of a fight and more of dance: Undyne would strike at Frisk and he would dodge out of the way, making use of his smaller size to try and minimize any vulnerable areas. She'd swing her spear at him to try and cut his side open, and Frisk would either jump back or duck down to get out of harm's way. A jab prompted him to hop to either the left or right, usually the right. This made it so that he slowly circled around her like an exceptionally deadly maypole. Not once did Frisk attempt to strike back, at least not to Undyne's body; her spear magic was fair game, but it was tough since, again, she knew Frisk could use a SOUl weapon. Every time she struck out and Frisk made the decision to block or parry, knocking her weapon away felt like lifting a monster truck tire, except instead of suffering fatigue normally, the feeling seemed to pass after a few seconds...but with repeated strikes, it seemed to build up more and more. Eventually, Frisk felt his arms and legs getting tired and he cast a glance toward the glow of Hotland.

Maybe he should start running.

From where he was, he didn't have a straight shot: he was on the left from the archway he came in, and he could see there were rock formations that were blocking where he imagined the entrance to Hotland was. But he'd have to make a run for it anyway and trust fate again. So, the next time Undyne tried to skewer him on the tip of her spear, Frisk parried it as hard as he could. This force of desperation combined with Undyne's ignorance of his plan caused the spear to be flung out of her hands, and Frisk didn't wait around to see how much time it would buy him. He just ran.

"Gyaah...!" Undyne yelped as the spear was thrown out of her grip and dissipated before it could even hit the ground. She quickly turned to see Frisk running away. "Hey! Why you little…!" She bent her knees, and leaned to the left as another spear appeared in her hand before she kicked off and chased Frisk down. They only ran for a few seconds before Undyne caught up to him and jumped into the air, coming back down with the spear pointed at him. With a quick glance behind him, Frisk leaped to the right and rolled, right before Undyne came crashing down from the sky and slammed into the ground hard enough to leave another crater, but Frisk didn't look back to check. He kept moving, and Undyne pulled her spear from the rock and kept chasing. Frisk made a few more turns, weaving around and in between the stalagmites separating him from Hotland. Unlike before, he never engaged in a battle with Undyne that forced him to block spears, which he supposed was one thing to be thankful for at least.

But as he wound around another cluster of sharp rocks, Frisk saw ahead of him another stone archway that seemed to tunnel into the side of a massive plateau of volcanic rock. All at once, his eyes lit up, but in his moment of surprise, he stopped checking for Undyne and was only saved from death's cold embrace when he heard the armored footsteps rushing up behind him. Undyne was almost on top of him, brandishing her spear. She was charging forward and holding it like a bat in an attempt to knock his head clean off his body. Frisk's eyes widened even more and he ducked down.

Undyne swung her spear and it slammed into a rock formation to their left so hard, it blasted the whole thing to smithereens. There was the sound of an explosion and chunks of stone flew up and away in all directions; Frisk yelped and covered his head before he whirled around and kept moving, trying to shield himself from anything that might come for his face. He could hear Undyne right behind him, despite the noise echoing around the basin; he guessed she wasn't as worried about getting nailed with a rock due to her armor.

Small matters at the moment. He had to keep running away from Undyne until he could make it to Hotland. That was easier said than done, of course, but he'd done it before and he could do it again. So he pushed himself, he pushed his legs to keep running even when he felt them start to burn. He kept running even as his heart hammered away in his chest, struggling to deliver oxygen to tiring muscles that his lungs were barely absorbing. But he ran, through a long, narrow, pitch black corridor, trusting fate, believing that he could, in fact, run away. He heard Undyne still chasing him, her armored footsteps reverberating through the room. Frisk tried not to think of it and kept moving. He barely noticed there was a sign to the left lighting up. He knew it said "Welcome to Hotland." He had no time to look at it. Then he heard his phone ring. This time, he could actually ignore it. Sorry, Papyrus, was the first thought that popped into his head. And it was at that point he reached a realization: somehow, he was outrunning Undyne.

By the time he was fully grasping what this meant, Frisk felt a blast of heat hit him as he came out of a massive hallway, hard enough to ruffle his hair, but he kept running. They came out onto a plateau that housed a lone sentry station. It didn't take much scrutiny to notice there was no short, lazy skeleton manning it, but out of curiosity, Frisk looked back when he passed it and saw Undyne (whom he noticed had a lot of sweat on her brow) stop in front of the post and look around. He was pretty sure she gasped, "Where...the hell… is that lazy skeleton!?" Frisk couldn't help but chuckle; even when he wasn't around, it seemed Sans could bring levity to any situation. Still, when he heard Undyne come after him again, Frisk double-timed it across a bridge dangling precariously over an entire sea of lava and quickly made it to the other side.

When he made it to the land on the other side, he slowed to an unsteady jog, then doubled over, braced on his knees, panting like a dog on an August afternoon. He was hot, tired, and his clothes were soaked through with sweat. Pretty standard, all things considered. This was nothing compared to Undyne, who arrived a few seconds later, and as usual, it looked like she was about to fry herself in her armor. She was hunched over, almost dragging her knuckles across the ground, but still glaring at Frisk. "So...hot...But...I...can't...give...up…" she hissed, mostly to herself. Undyne took a couple more steps forward...and then collapsed with a cacophonic clattering of armor. Frisk covered his ears until the noise died down, and then looked over at Undyne. It didn't take him long to get to work, despite how tired he was and how sore his muscles felt. Frisk ran up to the cooler, procured a cup of water (remarkably, it was still cool, despite being set up in the middle of an ocean of magma), and he returned to Undyne. He stretched out his arm and was about to overturn it and let the liquid splash on her head before he paused...and reconsidered. Then, after another few seconds, he knelt down, placed the cup to Undyne's lips and then got her to drink. Well, he got her to drink as well as he could, since he couldn't exactly tilt her head back much further, what with the angle it was at and the mantle of her armor blocking any movement backward. He got most of the water into her mouth, though and then he went back for another cup and filled it.

That one, he dumped on her head.

And just like before, it seemed to do the trick. Undyne coughed once, then shook her head slightly and slowly rose to her feet. Frisk remained where he was; he wasn't scared anymore, but he figured he needed to show that to Undyne again. Once she stood up to full height, Undyne opened her eyes and looked around, sweeping them from one edge of the sea of magma to the other and then she finally, slowly,. Brought her gaze down to Frisk. He just stayed there, looking up at her. He did his best to retain a neutral expression, though he couldn't help but smile slightly. A calm smile. An innocent smile. An "I'm-happy-I-was-able-to-help" smile. Undyne kept her eyes locked on him for a moment longer, and he saw her expression shift from rage, to confusion, to defeat, to uncertainty, to stoicism. Frisk raised his eyebrows; all five stages of grief in less than thirty seconds. That had to be a record.

Then, without another word, Undyne glanced down at her armor, and then pivoted on her heel and started walking away. Frisk watched her go this time, until the color of her armor blended with the darkness of the entry hallway to Hotland. He thought he saw her stop and turn back to look at him once, her silhouette lit up by the neon lights of the tunnel, but he couldn't tell from this distance.

Frisk sighed after another minute and turned around. He walked over to the water cooler and took another cup and began pouring himself some water as well. He held the cup to his lips, tilted it back and drank it all down in the span of fifteen seconds. And oh, it felt good.

So good, in fact, that when he decided to get another drink, he ditched using a cup and stuck his head under the nozzle and drank directly from the tap. Frisk didn't stop until the cooler was at about one-eighth of its full capacity. As he slowly stood back up, making sure not to smack his head, Frisk was pretty sure he was going to throw up later.

It was totally worth it, though. That water had never felt so good going down.


He had to go back after that and talk to Undyne at her house. That was blessedly much the same as every time before: Papyrus skimped on his cooking lesson, Undyne offered him the choice of golden-flower tea (and golden flower tea only), and then she taught him how to make spaghetti. It went far smoother than the last time, though. The pot didn't catch on fire, and Undyne deemed this a success. The house still burned down, though, because he'd been such an excellent cook, Undyne decided to teach him how to play the piano, and…

Well, her performance gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "hot ivories."

But once that was all sorted, Frisk found himself outside the Royal Laboratory after a hop, skip, and a jump. It was still perched on the precipice of a cliff that led directly into a sea of magma, but far more impressive was the structure of the CORE looming in the distance, and cresting its top were the lights of a city. New Home.

His last destination.

Frisk continued to stare upward for another minute before he wrenched his gaze away and focused on getting inside. He approached the sliding doors and they opened up automatically, allowing him to step inside and out of the oppressive heat. The first thing he noticed, before he even entered, was that it was dark. As in, almost pitch-black. Everything in front of him seemed like a giant black blob that merged perfectly with the background until it was too late for him to get out of the way before he walked into it, but he relied on his memory to get him around most of the obstacles and it worked out fine, aside from one instance of him tripping over a trash can and nearly breaking his ribcage on the floor.

But after walking almost the entire length of the room, he heard something new over the low droning of the lab. An elevator, coming up. Frisk stopped in his tracks and less than a second later, the "bathroom" door opened and he saw a hunched figure step out and turn on the lights. He was blinded a little bit, and turned away and squeezed his eyes shut.

The movement he made must have caught her eye, because Alphys muttered a confused grunt to herself and glanced in his direction. Once she did, her eyes expanded to the side of a dinner platter and she slapped her hands on the sides of her face and started looking around the lab in terror, trying not to make eye contact with Frisk. "Oh. My God. I-I didn't expect you to show up so soon!" she stammered. She started panicking more, and started rambling, "I haven't showered, I'm barely dressed, this whole place is a mess, and…"

Frisk cut her off with a happy smile and he waved to her. "Hi!"

This got Alphys to freeze solid for a few seconds. Then, slowly, she turned her head to look at him. It was jerky, as if she was forcing herself to move every single inch. But once she locked eyes with him, she smiled back (weakly, nervously) and waved to him as well. It was very hesitant. "Um...hi!" she exclaimed. "I'm...I'm Doctor Alphys, King Asgore's Royal Scientist!" She turned to face Frisk fully, but once she had introduced herself, she suddenly panicked and took a step back, holding her arms out in front of her, as if trying to stop Frisk from coming closer. "B-but, um, I'm not gonna try and stop you! B-because I've, uh, I've actually been observing you throughout your whole journey…!" She explained as she pointed behind him, to the massive video console near the lab entrance. Frisk turned back to look, and then quickly faced Alphys again. She must have thought the snappiness in his movements was because of some perceived incredulousness, not because he was used to this speech. Alphys shrunk in on herself and she flushed red. After a moment of awkward silence, she asked, "Th-that...that doesn't sound weird, does it…?"

He just shrugged in response. "I've heard weirder," Frisk replied.

"O-okay! Good! Um, not being weird...as weird as I c-could be is good!" Alphys stammered. More awkward silence, with Alphys tapping the claws on her index fingers together as she looked left and right, still trying not to make eye contact with Frisk. She eventually worked up the courage to speak again, saying, "A-anyway, this whole time I was observing you, I kinda...kinda started rooting for you? Seeing your triumphs...your hardships...w-well, it was kind of hard to not get attached, you know?" Alphys gestured around, and close to the end she got a bit more excited. "So now, I want to help you! With my knowledge, I can guide you through Hotland and get you to Asgore's castle no problem!" She paused and there was another moment of awkward silence. Alphys looked left, then right, and then deflated. "...Okay, maybe there's...one problem," she admitted. "See, years ago, I made this robot named Mettaton. I-I originally built him to be an entertainment robot. Y'know f-for TV? Th-there really isn't much to watch down here, s-so I thought making a TV star for monsters would be a great idea…" She trailed off and coughed into her fist. "But recently, I decided to make him more useful, s-so I installed some, um...a-anti-human...combat features…?" she stuttered. Frisk tried to look concerned to get her to continue, and it must have worked, as she quickly added, "B-but, of course, when you started getting closer, I thought, 'Oh, shoot! I have to get rid of those features immediately!' But I, uh...maybe...made a teensy-tiny little mistake while doing so? A-and now he may or may not be..." She swallowed, and made another pause before she smiled sheepishly and hesitantly continued, "An unstoppable killing machine with a thirst for human blood?"

With a sudden surge of confidence, Alphys straightened up and crossed her arms and declared, "But we shouldn't run into him! Nobody knows his programming better than me, and if we do, I'll have a plan to get out of it!" The two of them stayed there for a minute in silence. It was quiet enough that, over the droning noise of the lab, they could hear something whirring, and it gradually grew louder. Upon hearing this, Alphys' eyes widened again and Frisk began to search for where the noise could be coming from. And then, as suddenly as it had started...it stopped. "What was that?" Alphys asked.

This question was rapidly answered by the sound of...something...slamming into the wall. This, in turn, caused the lights in the lab to flicker and rapidly fail, plunging everything into total darkness again. And then, someone called out. The voice was muffled, but it was still loud enough to make out the words of a robotic voice calling, "GUESS WHO, DARLINGS…?"

All Frisk could hear Alphys say was a quiet, "...Oh, no." Before he heard screeching next to them and saw some sort of power saw slicing through the laboratory wall in a shower of red-hot sparks. Then, abruptly, the sparks stopped flying and the lights turned back on to reveal Mettaton standing in the massive hole he'd left behind. Said lighting was accompanied by disco balls and multicolored spotlights, along with a bright neon sign being lowered down over Mettaton's head that simply read, "Game Show."

"OHHHH, YEEESSS!"

Frisk had to admit, he kind of missed this.


He'd almost been eviscerated by a chainsaw, had to outrun a strict time limit of sixty seconds, and had "thwarted" Mettaton's nefarious schemes yet again. The "Cooking With a Killer Robot" slot of Mettaton's show had improved the ratings by four points. All in all, another glowing success.

Now, Frisk was back out in the heat, convection blasting him every step he took. He supposed he should be thankful it wasn't humid as well, but really, it was so hot, it made no difference. Frisk cast his gaze upward. The CORE was closer now, looming over him like a massive statue; instead of walking alongside it, like he'd done in previous loops, his unshackling from the constraints of the Underground showed he was making his way towards it. He was so caught up in the majesty and scale of the machine he almost didn't notice his phone ringing. He shoved his hand in his pocket and fished it out. "Hello?" he answered.

"Hey!" Alphys replied. "So, my, uh, cameras and tracking equipment says you're, um, approaching the CORE?"

"Yeah," Frisk replied.

Alphys explained, "It's that building way out there. U-um, hard not to see it, I guess. It powers the entire Underground by converting geothermal energy into magical energy by...uh…" She trailed off and her confident attitude died completely. She went right back to a slight stutter in her voice when she continued, "I-it's where you need to go,"

As he kept walking, Frisk prodded, "Do you know who built it?"

"Um...yes." They both went silent. Alphys didn't seem to know what to say (or maybe didn't want to), but Frisk remained on the line and remained silent. He even stopped just to show he wouldn't move forward without getting an answer, and he had to admit, it was playing dirty...but it worked. He heard Alphys sigh on the other end and she explained, "It was...it was th-the Royal Scientist before me. He was, um…" She trailed off for a second before she hastily continued, "H-he was quite the character! Hah ha ha!"

"What happened to him?" Frisk asked as calmly as he could.

Alphys went silent. She stayed that way for so long that for a moment, Frisk thought she'd just hung up, but after a long pause, she started talking again. "...I, um, well, I worked under him for a few years, but one day, he just...disappeared. He left a note on his desk and that was it. He was just gone." More silence. Frisk was about to hang up and let Alphys off the hook before she added,"I've, uh, I've heard r-rumors that he went into the CORE, deep into the CORE, to keep his research going on...something...b-b-but nobody knows what. H-he never t-talks about it and b-b-barely ever seems to leave. He's so reclusive, some people don't even think he exists."

"Oh," was all Frisk could reply.

"Yeah." Alphys let the conversation die for a minute before abruptly resuscitating it against its wishes. "B-b-but more importantly, there's an elevator in there that can take you right up to the king's castle, and from there...you can go home," she said. Frisk could hear the mix of longing and melancholy when she finished that sentence, and was so very tempted to say that everything would work out, and that he had an idea. But that idea still might not work. Best not to get her hopes up. "Th...that's all I can really say about it. Um, bye," she said before hanging up.

Frisk sighed and put the phone away, continuing his march forward in silence, save for the burbling magma below, and the whistling of hot wind swirling around him.


The Nice Cream Guy's stock was sold out, but that was fine with Frisk. He could see the MTT Resort just ahead of him, standing on a massive outcropping of rock and shining like the crown jewel of a king's treasury. Frisk took a deep breath as he climbed the stairs to the front entrance. In contrast to the muted earthen hues and fiery reds of the rest of Hotland, the front of the hotel was a welcome splash of color. It looked just like it usually did, except Frisk could tilt his head back, look up, and if he really strained, he could see the top; beyond it, the faint sliver of light that accented the plateau New Home stood on. Frisk approached the front doors, and as the heat and red lights of Hotland faded and got drowned out by the vibrant blues coming from the signs on the building, he could see a skeleton standing around on the left side. Frisk grinned as he approached, and said monster glanced up from a light doze (leaned up against a wall, no less) and smiled back. Sans nodded his head and said, "hey, kid. nice seein' you again."

"Nice seeing you, too," Frisk replied. "Any real reason you're out this far?"

"not really, i was just standing guard at my post, as you do, when i heard the call of the wild beckoning me away," he recalled as he swept a hand out over the horizon like some grand storyteller. He stuffed that hand back in his pockets, paused, and then added, "plus, papyrus was talkin' my ear off about how you seemed to be dancing around undyne when she decided to fight you, and i took the opportunity to dip when he got really invested in recounting it. where'd you learn how to do that?"

Frisk's eyes widened and he looked away before hesitantly answering, "Uh...I...took some classes when I lived on the surface?" with a sheepish grin.

Sans just stared at him for a moment, and then scoffed. "yeah, and i'm the premier of Lyevingrad. seems you made yourself a regular renaissance human before you reset," he retorted. While Frisk looked away in embarrassment, he crossed his arms and let his shoulders sag. "still, pretty impressive stuff, i gotta say," he added sincerely.

Frisk was still looking away, but after a couple quickly glances at Sans, Frisk hesitantly replied, "...Th-thanks, I guess."

"no problem, boblem," Sans said with a good-natured chuckle. "but lemme tell you; all that walking to get me here? it's got me famished. how 'bout dinner?" He pointed behind him with his thumb at where the MTT Restaurant was, and Frisk couldn't help but call upon his experiences with Toriel to copy her accusatory look, complete with skewed posture and hands on his hips.

"My treat, I'm guessing?" he questioned. He couldn't really be angry, or disappointed, if the slight smile on his face was any indication.

Sans waved dismissively. "nah, don't worry about it. mtt sells primo stuff, and it's not every day i get to forage this far from home." Sans turned around and made his way down the alley on the left side of the resort, but he stopped after a couple steps and turned back to Frisk, who stared at him for just a second before he smiled brightly and joined Sans' side. He regarded Frisk warmly and added, "c'mon. i know a shortcut."


The restaurant was empty, as usual. The customers always cleared out before Snowdrake's old man got up onstage; it was practically a sixth sense for them, or at least, Frisk believed it to be, but Mister Snowdrake's act didn't bother him much. His jokes basically faded into background noise, and provided him and Sans time to look over the menu, which they did for five minutes before Sans took a deep breath and began, "so…" as he set his menu down. Frisk did likewise and stared at him expectantly. "this is it, huh?" Sans continued. "you're almost home-free."

"We're almost home-free," Frisk corrected.

Sans quickly held up his hands and waved them slightly. "woah now, kid. don't go counting those dogs before they've barked."

Frisk rolled his eyes. "That's not how the saying goes."

"sentiment's still the same," Sans replied as he waved his hands around a bit more. "anyway...you've been flipping scripts," Sans observed after a few more minutes.

"Hmm?" Frisk muttered as he lifted his head.

Sans shrugged and elaborated, "like i said, i heard you've been changing things up every time you've met someone new. like with papyrus, undyne, now doctor alphys..."

He trailed off and Frisk kept looking at him for a few seconds before he shrunk down in his chair and muttered, "I...don't mean to, it just kind of...happens."

"never said i was complainin'," Sans replied as he waved his hand dismissively. "heck, I think it's pretty good. always nice to shake things up, live a little." They stayed quiet until a waiter came by and took their orders. They stayed that way, the only other talking being Snowdrake's father onstage. Minutes passed. The waiter came back with their orders. They ate. For once, it felt good to not talk and just...exist for a few minutes. Frisk made sure to eat slowly, to savor every bite; from what he could guess, Sans felt the same way. Or maybe he was just too lazy to even put much effort into eating? At this point, Frisk wouldn't be surprised, but he refrained from asking. Eventually, the food was gone; Frisk's entire plate, and a very small portion was left on Sans'. The skeleton sighed in contentment and stood up to stretch. "welp, that's about all the time i got," he announced. "gotta get back home, help papyrus set up more puzzles…" As he started to walk around the table, he wondered aloud, "maybe i should get him a souvenir?"

Frisk just watched him and lifted his hand to wave goodbye. "Bye, Sans."

Sans turned his head to look at Frisk and his skeletal grin softened and got wider. He closed his eyes and said, "see ya, kid. i'll be waitin' for you." Frisk just watched him go for a moment, and then jumped out of his chair just in time to see Sans walk up to the restaurant counter, place some gold on the desk, and glance back. He just winked again before he turned around and turned the corner to the left. Paid for himself and Frisk, he guessed. He'd have to find a way to pay Sans' tab as a "thank you" someday. Either way, Frisk didn't need to hurry after him to know he was already gone, so he stretched his arms up, twisted his torso around to work his spine and then he left the restaurant as well.

The lobby of the resort was the exact same as it had been before, a veritable mess of organized chaos. The elevator was down and the hotel was packed, so Frisk didn't bother sticking around long. He left out the back door and found himself on the bridge connecting the resort to the CORE. From here, the monolithic structure blotted out everything above him, but he knew his destination was there, and all he had to do was get through the CORE. He walked about halfway across the platform before he realized something:

Undyne hadn't called him.

It got him to freeze in place and whip out his phone. No new messages, no new texts. He frowned and looked it over. Had Alphys messed something up when she upgraded it? No, he thought as he shook his head, there was virtually no way she could have missed something that would cause his phone to malfunction. He checked his messaging system and found no new messages from Undyne, or anyone else within the last two minutes. Had something happened to her? Frisk figured that was unlikely; she was the Captain of the Guard, she knew how to handle herself.

And then his phone started ringing and Frisk nearly dropped it. He squeezed and the phone popped out of his hand, and he quickly reached out to grab it again. It slipped out of his grip three more times before he was able to grab and cradle it like a baby, and the thing was still ringing. He quickly answered it with a tentative, "Hello...?"

The voice that greeted him on the other end was familiar.

"GREETINGS, ESTEEMED GUEST. WE HAVE NOT SEEN

EACH OTHER IN A

VERY, VERY LONG TIME.

PERHAPS A DAY,

PERHAPS A CENTURY.

IT MATTERS NOT. PLEASE, DO COME IN

AND PARDON THE MESS. I HAVE NOT HAD

MUCH TIME TO MAKE MY LAB PRESENTABLE."

Before he even had the chance to respond, the line went dead.

Frisk was stuck there, staring at his phone for a minute, before without really thinking, he charged ahead and into the CORE.

The first room was exactly like he remembered it being, to his surprise; a square area with an elevator in the middle and two archways off to each side that led to different rooms. He heard his phone ringing again and picked up to hear Alphys say, "Ready? Take that elevator up to the top of the CORE! After that, you just need to get to the king's castle!"

Frisk approached the elevator and hit the "call" button. It buzzed an error tone and Alphys spoke up from the other end again. "Wh-what? It's not working?" Alphys piped up over the receiver. She paused a second and then instructed, "Um, th-that's okay! Just try going to the right!" Frisk went through the entryway on the right as she told him to and was greeted with a massive empty room, save for the fires that seemed to be in a controlled burn on several plates for no real reason he could think of. Alphys spoke again. "Okay, now just—" She trailed off. Frisk guessed her audio and video feeds had finally picked up on what was inside the room. "That...pit...isn't on my map," she muttered smalley. Alphys went quiet, but before Frisk could prod her into talking she exclaimed, "Okay! Um, j-just go to the left side, then!"

Frisk did as she instructed again and went into the left entryway. "Okay…" Alphys began for the third time, "You should be able to—" On the other side were panels and diodes just as he remembered...except there was no walkway forward. Just a sheer drop into the darkness below. Alphys cut herself off and Frisk came to a sudden stop. They didn't say anything else; the left hallway never dropped off into a pit. "To...uh…" Alphys was desperately trying to formulate sentences in her head, try and explain away why the path forward just...wasn't there. "This…" She began. Slowly. Hesitantly. Fear shaking her voice. After another minute of Alphys trailing off, she declared, "This...is okay! This is fine. Perfectly fine. I can just hack into the CORE's mainframe and force it to reconfigure itself into a hallway that you can—"

Alphys' voice was suddenly cut off and the only thing that kept coming through the phone was garbled static.

And then the platform Frisk was on began to shake violently. He yelped and tried to keep his balance, but in the end, there was no point to it. Not when the platform descended so fast it left Frisk in freefall. He didn't know how long it lasted; he blacked out long before he landed.


When he came to, Frisk found himself face down on a single platform and he pushed himself up to look around. On all sides, he saw walls with bright, neon lines crisscrossing them like enlarged circuit boards. They emitted pulses that traveled along their length, bathing the entire space in lime green and bright blue. The walls themselves were made of solid metal, and looked like they were comprised of interlocking plates, and they extended up high above Frisk's head by about thirty feet. Positioned all over the ceiling and upper walls were video monitors, streaming out data, strings of numbers and letters Frisk didn't understand, along with cameras (for security, he guessed), and speakers. He marveled at the scale for a moment before he brought his head down to look at the single hallway that led deeper into whatever facility this was, and kept walking forward.

The hall was very similar to the room, aside from the many devices hanging above his head and the techno-chic lines on the wall. The corridor extended so far ahead, Frisk still couldn't see the end, and since he found he didn't have much else to do, he fished his phone out of his pocket. Frisk made his way to his contacts list and touched Alphys' name; he figured he should at least let her know he was alive, but after ringing twice, all he heard from the other end was garbled static, so he frowned, turned it off, and put it away.

After about fifteen minutes of seeing nothing but bright lights and the ominous monitors above him, Frisk finally saw something up ahead. It was more light, but so bright that he couldn't tell what, if anything, was around it, and without thinking, he picked up his pace. As he got closer, his eyes adjusted, until he found himself at the threshold of a large, circular room with an opening in the middle that dropped into the abyss. Inside it was a massive pillar of off-white light, and on the other side of this strange phenomenon was a large control center that took up almost half the perimeter; there were giant monitors placed on the walls, all displaying more data streams and seismographs. And standing over one of the many, many keyboards of the console was a tall, gaunt monster dressed in a jet-black overcoat, slacks, and a turtleneck sweater. He was bent over and furiously hammering away at the keyboard, infrequently snapping his head back up to look at the monitors. Frisk blinked a couple times, still not entirely sure if what he was seeing was real, but as he slowly crossed the floor and moved around the pillar of energy in the center, the monster punctuated the silence with a curt, "THERE YOU ARE."

Frisk froze on instinct, and the monster stood up to full height and turned around to reveal the previous royal scientist himself, and he looked exactly the same as he used to, cracked skull, warped grin, and all. "HELLO, FRISK. IT IS QUITE

A RELIEF TO SEE YOU AGAIN,

AND A RELIEF TO SEE

YOU HAVE NOT CHANGED

SINCE YOU WERE LAST HERE.

PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR YOUR ROUGH LANDING," Gaster explained, "IF I SIMPLY

INFORMED DOCTOR ALPHYS

OF OUR ACTIVITIES, I IMAGINE

SHE WOULD HAVE MANY QUESTIONS

THAT CANNOT YET BE ANSWERED,

AND I MUST KEEP UP APPEARANCES...

AT LEAST FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER."

He stood there for another second before Frisk felt the sides of his face start to hurt. He didn't know why for a scant few seconds before he reached up and touched them to find he was smiling. Before the doctor got the chance to speak again, Frisk had rushed up and threw his arms around the lanky monster in a hug. This made Gaster grunt and take a step back to keep his balance, but he smiled back down at Frisk all the same and placed a gentle hand on the top of his head. Frisk held him in a hug for a little while longer before a question popped into his head and he suddenly jumped back, staring up at Gaster with wide eyes. "Wait...how are you still...here?" he asked in awe. "Like, how are you still in this universe and not in the void, or nullSpace, or wherever?"

"AH, YES. MY PREVIOUS DEATH

AT THE FALLEN PRINCESS' HANDS.

I WAS AWARE OF IT, EVEN WITHOUT

WITNESSING THE PREVIOUS TIMELINE

THROUGH MY TEMPORAL ARCHIVES," he said. He stepped off to the side and turned around with a wave of his hand. "COME, LET US WALK. THERE IS SOMETHING

YOU MUST SEE;

I SHALL EXPLAIN EN ROUTE." Frisk watched Gaster take a few steps before quickly falling in line behind him, and they walked out of the room. The hall they entered looked very much the same as the one that came in, but it was angled downward, leading them deeper into Gaster's laboratory. They walked through the same halls through doors outlined in neon green, and down a couple flights of circular stairs as Gaster explained, "THERE WAS ALWAYS

A FEELING OF DREAD

HANGING OVER ME,

AN AIR OF DISCOMFORT FOLLOWING WHEREVER I WALKED.

BUT WITH MY EQUIPMENT,

I WAS ABLE TO CONFIRM MY SUSPICIONS

WHEN I SAW IT HAPPEN ONSCREEN,

RECORDED FOR POSTERITY'S SAKE.

THE REASON,

HOWEVER,

THAT I HAVE NOT RETURNED TO NULLSPACE

DESPITE MY PREVIOUS 'DEATH'

IS SIMPLY THE FACT THAT NULLSPACE

IS BEYOND THE FLOW OF LINEAR TIME;

WHEN I FIRST CAST MYSELF

INTO THE CORE...OR RATHER,

A PREVIOUS INCARNATION OF MYSELF...

I BECAME SEPARATED FROM THE UNIVERSE

BOTH PHYSICALLY

AND METAPHYSICALLY.

ALL THE RELATIONSHIPS I FOSTERED

BEGAN TO DETERIORATE, FOR I

WAS NO LONGER THERE TO REMIND THEM THAT I HAD,

INDEED,

EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

THUS, WHEN YOU...OR YOUR PREVIOUS INCARNATION...

ESTABLISHED A LINK BETWEEN THIS REALITY

AND NULLSPACE,

AND I RETURNED THROUGH IT,

IT RESTORED MY RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE TIMELINE,

PREVENTING ME FROM BEING TRAPPED IN NULLSPACE

IN THE EVENT OF A TEMPORAL RESET.

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?"

Frisk shook his head. To his surprise, Gaster only laughed a bit. "THAT IS UNDERSTANDABLE.

DO NOT FEAR, ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

IS THAT I AM BACK..." He reached out and gently patted the top of Frisk's head, and in response, Frisk stared back up at him as a warm smile crossed his still-crooked mouth.

"AND I WILL NOT BE LEAVING AGAIN

ANYTIME SOON."

And just like that, Frisk found himself smiling back at the doctor himself. Gaster kept his hand on Frisk's head for another second before giving it one last pat and standing back up and walking forward at a brisk pace once again. "QUICKLY NOW," he said, "I MUST SHOW YOU

MY LATEST CREATION

BEFORE YOUR INEVITABLE MEETING

WITH THE KING." Frisk only lagged behind for a second, but quickly kept pace with Gaster, and they walked forward; through more long, neon hallways, up a few ramps, through more doors. They walked, to Frisk at least, in random directions until, finally, down one long hallway lined with a few doors, Gaster stopped in front of one and opened it. He lingered on the threshold for a second, just enough time to glance back and gesture for Frisk to follow. A few more steps and Frisk stepped into a large room, somewhat similar to the hallways outside, though maybe slightly dimmer, and there weren't any monitors or speakers on the ceiling, just more computer consoles, some odd widgets he recognized from the True Lab that must have been moved over in this new timeline, even a few large containment cells set up against the walls (possibly for SOULs? Who knows). But what stood out the most, and what was the obvious point of interest that Gaster was leading him towards, was a massive cube sat in the middle of the room. From far away, it didn't look all that special, but upon closer inspection, Frisk realized it bore a striking resemblance to the medical machine he'd previously used to heal Asriel's SOUL, but it looked far more complex than its previous incarnation. It was constructed of metal, and seemed to be composed of interlocking plates much like the entire laboratory was. There were lines of colored magic running across the surface, sometimes slipping into the machine and appearing elsewhere in a different color. Just as Frisk expected, Gaster stopped in front of the machine and held out his arms in front of him like a preacher. "BEHOLD…" he extolled, "A MACHINE COMPOSED OF MAGICAL FOCI AND STEEL,

BUILT TO INTERFACE WITH LIVING SOULS.

MY FINEST CREATION TO DATE.

FIRST, I HAD BEEN ENTIRELY FOCUSED

ON BUILDING THE CORE, HOPING IT WOULD GENERATE

ENOUGH ENERGY TO SHATTER THE BARRIER

WITHOUT THE NEED FOR HUMAN SOULS.

WHEN THAT PROVED ITSELF UNFEASIBLE,

I SHIFTED MY FOCUS

TO STUDYING THE HUMAN SOUL

AND THE POWER CONTAINED THEREIN.

BUT DURING MY RESEARCH, I DISCOVERED SOMETHING NEW,

SOMETHING THAT TURNED ALL MY PREVIOUS RESEARCH

ON ITS HEAD…" He trailed off and slowly lowered his arms until they had returned to their usual place behind his back. After another second of silence, he slowly swiveled his head around to look down at Frisk with only his right eye. "SOMETHING YOU

ARE ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH, I ASSUME?" he asked dramatically.

No sense in playing coy, or playing at anything, really. Gaster was using that tone of voice when he'd stumbled upon something groundbreaking...or at least, Frisk imagined that's what his tone meant. "Yeah," he admitted.

The doctor perked back up and lost his dramatic edge in an instead as he gently clapped his hands together and said, "AH, EXCELLENT.

TRULY EXCELLENT.

THEN I WILL ONLY NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS MACHINE.

IT IS BASED ON AN ANGELIC DESIGN

THAT I HAVE EXTRAPOLATED

FROM DESCRIPTIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF OLD,

SIMILAR ARTIFACTS FOUND ON THE SURFACE,

THOUGH THOSE ARE INOPERABLE,

OR OPERATE AT A REDUCED CAPACITY

BECAUSE HUMANITY CANNOT COMPREHEND

HOW TO USE THEM. THE ORIGINAL DESIGN

IS REFERRED TO AS A 'FORGE,'

AND THAT IS WHAT I HAVE NAMED THIS ONE." Gaster looked back down and asked what Frisk knew was a rhetorical question even before the doctor answered it himself. "ITS PURPOSE? IT CAN INTERFACE

WITH A SOUL,

MONSTER OR HUMAN,

AND CHANNEL RAW MAGIC

TO EXTEND ITS LIFE.

AND WITH THE CORRECT

CALIBRATIONS, IT CAN, IN FACT, HEAL A

SOUL THAT HAS SUFFERED FATAL DAMAGE,

AND BRING THEM BACK

FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH."

Frisk's eyes widened and he felt his heart stop, and for a few seconds, he couldn't even bring himself to talk because what Gaster just said sounded far too good to be true. But eventually, Frisk stammered out, "It can? That's...that's amazing!"

The doctor nodded once and then knelt down. Once his eyes were level with Frisk's, he said, "DO YOU WISH TO KNOW

SOMETHING FAR MORE INTRIGUING?" Frisk stared at him for just a second and then nodded vigorously. Gaster's smile softened as he stood back up and paused for a moment. He turned around to face the Forge and then bowed his head. The words that came out of his mouth next didn't sound sad, but it did sound like he wished had had better resources to utilize in his pursuit of knowledge. "THIS MACHINE...IS WOEFULLY INCOMPLETE.

I HAVE STUDIED ENOUGH TEXTS, OLD ANECDOTES,

AND MAGICAL THEORY THAT I AM REASONABLY CERTAIN

THAT, WERE AN ANGEL,

OR ONE WITH THE CORRECT RESOURCES

AND MAGICAL EXPERTISE, TO BUILD A FORGE,

IT WOULD BE ABLE TO DO FAR MORE

THAN SLOW THE PROCESS OF DYING." It took Frisk a moment to register what Gaster was saying, and then another to fully comprehend what that meant. It seemed almost like wishful thinking, a machine that could kill death itself. But then, the doctor kept on talking. "THE FORGE COULD,

IF COMPLETE,

CHANGE A VESSEL'S PHYSICAL MAKEUP,

GIVE THEM NEW MEMORIES

OR TAKE THEM AWAY,

CREATE ANY MATERIAL IMAGINABLE FROM NOTHING,

CREATE NEW SOULS ENTIRELY...

PERHAPS EVEN RESURRECT THE DEAD,

IF THE CORRECT PARAMETERS

ARE ENTERED AND THE FORGE

IS ACTIVELY LINKED TO A SOUL

TO RECREATE IN THE EVENT OF THEIR DEATH.

PERHAPS YOU MAY CALL IT

A MAGICAL 'BACKUP PROTOCOL.'"

Now that...that was almost too fantastical to believe, even in a world of magic, and SOULs becoming physical weapons, of talking skeletons and robot drama queens, of monsters below the earth and the story of two children whose wills were so strong that they never truly died. But in truth, Frisk hadn't really listened; not too closely. Sure, he understood the Forge could basically put an end to human and monster suffering in the right hands, but he sort of tuned out after Gaster mentioned that a Forge could recreate memories, delete them, or make new ones from scratch.

Suddenly, he felt his new experience in Waterfall looming over his shoulders, and yet again, for what felt like the billionth time in a row, he didn't know what to do or what to say.

So he said nothing. It was probably for the best that those memories had been buried anyway. "Zadkiel" seemed keen on erasing them in the first place. But it was at that point Frisk realized he'd been staring off into space for two minutes, specifically at a small spot on the wall that, to the outside observer, he must have found very interesting. Worse yet was that Gaster was staring at him, his head tilted to the side quizzically. "FRISK...ARE YOU QUITE ALRIGHT?" he asked.

It took Frisk a second to realize what question Gaster had asked, but he tried to nod his head as casually as he could, and he answered, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine...just...y'know, a lot to take in all at once, is all," with a small shrug.

"HM, YES. PERHAPS IT IS," Gaster said as he turned away and scratched his chin with his fingers. He quickly straightened up and continued, "IN ANY CASE,

I SUPPOSE I HAVE BORED YOU ENOUGH

WITH MY EXPLANATIONS AND RESEARCH.

I KNOW WHY YOU HAVE COME HERE.

THE TWO OF US WOULD NOT BE HERE OTHERWISE." He turned to look down at Frisk again and slowly bent downward. Not as much as he had before, but enough that he was still looming over Frisk. "WILL YOU LET ME SEE IT? WILL YOU LET ME SEE HER?" he asked. Despite how intimidating it might have looked to anyone else, it felt more to Frisk like the doctor was waiting on him, not the other way around. So, with nothing to lose, Frisk slowly reached under his sweater...but suddenly froze as he remembered what happened last time, and he began to snap his head in every direction, looking for a flash of yellow and the signature high-pitched cackling that usually heralded Flowey's arrival. Despite the panic in his movements and the fact he knew about what might happen if Flowey breached the lab, Gaster only straightened back up and chuckled. "AH, DO NOT WORRY OVERMUCH

ABOUT ANY...INTRUDERS.

AFTER REVIEWING THE PREVIOUS TIMELINE,

I DECIDED IT WOULD BE PRUDENT TO TAKE SOME PRECAUTIONS.

IF THE FALLEN PRINCESS

DOES DECIDE TO ENTER THE LABORATORY,

WE WILL HAVE AN EARLY WARNING," he explained. As Frisk stared at Gaster wide-eyed, he stood back up to full height and gestured with his hand. "PLEASE, CONTINUE."

He blinked a couple times, but quickly complied, trusting the doctor at his word. Frisk resumed reaching under his shirt, to the space over his chest where Asriel's soul was stuck and once more, he carefully retrieved it, trying to keep his grip pressure even as if the slightest deviance would cause it to shatter again. He held it up, carefully, and Gaster bent down to get a closer look. He tilted his head. He observed the soul from all angles as if it were a rare animal in its natural habitat, and he, the faithful ecologist taking notes on its behavior. After a minute of study, Gaster surmised, "AH...YES. SHE STILL TEETERS

UPON THE BRINK OF LIFE...AND MERE EXISTENCE." He stood up and approached the Forge and simply touched one of the panels. It glowed a bright, off-white cream color for a second before there was the sound of a loud electric drone and all at once, the panels on the cube began to shift as Gaster looked back and added, "BUT I BELIEVE I CAN CHANGE THAT," with a coy grin.

They separated, moved apart, floated in open space before recombining themselves, and did so naturally; it was less like watching an autonomous machine reconfigure itself than it was watching a living organism of flesh and blood change shape. In a matter of seconds, the Forge was open, and in the space now left in the center was a small dynamo of bright white like, much like the main room of the lab. Surrounding it were small metal hands and rods. They moved around on their own accord, it seemed, buzzing with life, communicating in a droning language only they could speak.

One of the metal hands that had busied itself with pushing some of the excess panels around to reconfigure the machine stopped its work and hastily flew out toward Gaster and Frisk, but stopped abruptly just a scant few inches in front of them. Frisk recoiled and clutched Asriel's soul closer to his chest, but Gaster barely reacted at all; he simply took a quick glance down at Frisk before he resumed watching the Forge. And then, as if a command had been sent once one hand had been sent out, several more appeared from in between the shifting metal and made their way in front of the two observers. And when they stopped, they all turned themselves over, palms up, all pointed in Frisk's general direction. At first, he was confused and wondered why they stopped, but the reason became obvious rather quickly:

They were merely supplicants. They were asking if he was willing to give Asriel's soul to the Forge.

He stared at them for a moment, then blinked and looked up at Gaster. The doctor met his gaze after a second and then his smile softened and he gestured toward the Forge as if to say, "at your leisure."

And so, after he turned back to the waiting hands and looked them over, one by one, he held out his own. Asriel's soul still glowed brightly, despite its weathered state. He kept it hovering over the many hands of the Forge and slowly, almost agonizingly slowly, he lowered it down, down into their waiting palms. When it was over the closest one, it snapped up, a mechanical fish taking the bait, and once it had the soul, it flew backward into the Forge and all its little friends followed it.

Frisk couldn't do much but watch as the hands placed her soul in the center of the open space in the Forge. In less than an instant, the metal plates began to rearrange themselves again and this time, it built itself up. Higher and higher, until the machine had almost extended itself to fifteen feet tall, and then there was a flash of light as the center of the Forge lit up. Frisk and Gaster watched as energy began to trickle in from the top of the Forge and work its way down like a raging waterfall. It started off white but quickly morphed into a rainbow as it showered down, bathing Asriel's soul in color. The many hands and instruments began to buzz around the center. The sheer brightness and color obscured the soul, but Frisk knew it was there, and he had to hope—and trust—that whatever was happening, it would work. The rods stuck themselves into the blinding nexus of light and color, the hands dived into it completely and came out the other side (maybe...it was hard to see, after all) while others made hand signals to each other, or maybe it was sign language. Frisk didn't know. After a couple minutes that felt like an eternity of watching the Forge work, the light and color began to intensify even more; and while it started to actually hurt to look at now, Frisk found he couldn't keep himself from looking away, though he could squint to try and lessen the strain on his eyes. There was a rising noise, white noise, but concentrated and raw, and it manifested itself as whipping wind. The same noise Frisk heard and felt when he threw himself back in time by using the Artifact.

The noise of the raw magic cascading into reality and channeled through the Forge got louder and intensified to the point that the wind around them almost became strong enough to push Frisk and Gaster away. But then, the light and color exploded out and both onlookers shut their eyes and turned away. When the noise and wind seemed to reach its apex, there came a loud crash followed by the sound of tinkling glass having just been shattered into a thousand pieces. The light dimmed and it was enough to entice Frisk to look back at what the Forge had wrought, and he was just in time to see Asriel's soul still being held in the center of the machine. The rods that had been flitting around like moths snapped into action, aligning themselves to point at the soul and they quickly surrounded it. A blue force field appeared, encircling it, and the hands quickly zeroed in on a rod and grabbed it. They pushed it out of the Forge, toward Frisk, and they stopped right in front of him to present their offering. He looked at it closely, now that he'd blinked the stars out of his eyes and the wind wasn't ringing in his ears, and he saw…

It was whole.

It was immaculate. Not a crack or blemish to be found.

Frisk suddenly found it very hard to breathe. He had to force air down his throat and into his lungs as he stared at it. All this work, all this pain, it had paid off. It had actually paid off. But as he reached out, he suddenly stopped when the force field flashed for just a second and he glanced worriedly back at Gaster, but to his surprise, and relief, the old monster smiled and bowed his head, urging Frisk on. So, he turned back and continued to reach and as he did so, he felt something. Something familiar. A bright spark lit up under his skin as his fingers passed through the force field and closed in on the little inverted heart. Closer still, and he felt his body growing warm; and when he finally could touch it, he felt that same sensation again, that feeling of warmth. It was no longer burnt to cinders. Instead, that sensation was like that of a fire, burning brightly, but controlled under the mantle of a hearth. Frisk nearly choked and his fingers flexed involuntarily as the emotions flooded him; relief, anxiety, elation, hope...He gripped Asriel's soul, and it stuck to his skin, just like before. Frisk quickly tried to correct his grip and tried to lessen any excess pressure. After a moment of simply staring and marveling at how far he'd come and how calming it felt to just touch her soul, Frisk began to retract his hand. The rods parted as he pulled Asriel's soul from the force field, and slowly, gently, cradled it in his hands. It did not shudder. It did not crack. Gaster picked up on this and said, "FOR AS LONG AS YOU KEEP HER SOUL CLOSE,

THERE IS NO DANGER OF IT BREAKING AGAIN."

Frisk snapped his head around to look at Gaster in alarm when he spoke, but when he heard no bad news, as he had been expecting, his shoulders sagged and he went back to staring at the SOUL. He remained like that, allowing himself to simply...feel. There were emotions in there. Compassion. Curiosity. Hope. He let these emotions work their way through his body until, finally, he carefully lifted his shirt and replaced Asriel's soul on his chest and sighed deeply, letting go of all his doubts and fears.

It was finally time.

"YES. EXCELLENT," Gaster began as gently as his eccentric voice would allow.

"TRULY EXCELLENT.

AND NOW, WITH THIS ACTION COMPLETE,

YOU MAY CONTINUE DOWN THE PATH

YOU HAVE WORKED SO TIRELESSLY

TO ACHIEVE." He placed a hand on Frisk's shoulder and he looked up to meet Gaster's eyes for a moment before the doctor walked past him and to the room's door. Frisk knew he had to follow. He led Frisk out of the room and they continued down the hall for twenty feet before they took a left and walked up a short flight of stairs, then turned right. The next corridor was a straight shot to a large room with a couple computer screens set up on the walls, but on the opposite side was the distinct steel door of an elevator. Frisk stopped abruptly when he saw it, which gave Gaster time to place his hand on Frisk's head and point with the other. He explained, "THAT ELEVATOR WILL TAKE YOU BACK UP

TO THE ENTRANCE OF THE CORE.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD

WILL BE CALLING YOU

ONCE YOU STEP OUTSIDE.

I TRUST

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO?"

Frisk whipped his head up to stare at Gaster for a moment before he blinked a few times to try and clear light tears that were forming, and he did his best to put on a brave face as he nodded once. Then, without any other words, he marched forward and hit the elevator's call button. He waited only a few seconds before the doors opened up and let him inside. As he turned around to enter the main floor of the CORE on the control panel, he saw Gaster wave casually to him, and he, of course, waved back. He kept waving until the doors closed completely.


Alphys had gotten the Amalgamates off his back again. Frisk thought, offhandedly, he'd have to make her a thank-you card once everyone was settled in on the surface. He walked down the corridor, ignoring the two monitors that lit up with red, smiling faces, and at the end, he found another elevator. Without any hesitation, Frisk strode inside. His phone didn't immediately ring, which allowed him to walk over and lean on the wall. It remained quiet, deathly quiet, for another minute before he felt the phone vibrate in his pocket, and Frisk pulled it out to listen to its ringtone before he put it to his ear. Someone began speaking on the other end.

It's a voice you know very well.

"Chara…? Are you there?" Frisk said nothing; in fact, he had to bite his lip to keep himself from talking. "It's been a long, long time, hasn't it? But thanks to you...everything's falling into place." A pause, then the voice continued, "I'll be waiting for you at the Barrier. You should be excited. You should be happy. You're going to be free." Another pause, longer than the first one. Maybe she expected him to talk back? Frisk didn't know. He never got the chance, because she said,"I'll see you soon," and the line went dead.

And then, the doors to the elevator shut and the alarm he'd heard a thousand times before started blaring and the elevator began to shake. Frisk stumbled, dropped his phone, and fell back against the wall, spreading his arms out to brace himself. The elevator started moving a second later, rocketing up at almost breakneck speed. The alarms kept blaring, the walls and floor kept shaking violently enough that Frisk would have thought they'd shaken themselves apart by now.

And then, it all abruptly stopped.

The alarms turned off and the elevator practically stopped on a dime, which, in accordance with the laws of physics, threw Frisk a few feet into the air. He yelped and came back down by unceremoniously slamming face-first into the ground and stayed there as his mind spun a bit from the force of impact. He managed to shake them away, and luckily he hadn't broken his nose, so Frisk picked himself up and looked at the elevator door. Everything was still silent. He took one step forward. Then another. Then two more. Then the doors slid open automatically and he staggered out onto a walkway high above New Home.

There was the sound of rustling leaves and creaking metal. Frisk whirled around just in time to see a plethora of vines snake out from in between the mortar in the walls and the small openings around the elevator door to hold it shut. He stared at it for a second before his gaze hardened and he nodded once; a gesture meant to reassure himself that he was ready, no matter what happened. He walked around the catwalk, took a left, and found himself in front of another elevator, which he took down. When he stepped out, he found himself on familiar ground, despite the changes in scenery and direction. While normally he had to walk south to enter the golden hall, now it was directly to his left. Just beyond and above, he could see the throne room, set under the rocky ceiling, regal and painted light grey. Frisk stared at it for another minute before he entered the archway, and was immediately bathed in the golden light of late afternoon of borrowed sunlight from the surface and the natural light from the city below.

Frisk paused a moment after he had walked forward about ten feet to look outside. From here, he could see the entire city on its plateau. All the houses and apartments that rose above each other and almost blotted out the streets, the tiny silhouettes of monsters going about their lives were almost imperceptible. So lost in thought was he, that Frisk didn't even hear the sound of footsteps approaching him in the near-silent hall until they were a scant few feet away. When he did hear them, however, Frisk jumped and spun on his heel to see Sans, shadows melting off of him on his left side, leaving the right lit up by the light. Just like before. Always like before. And then, he spoke.

"It's time. The end of your long journey is coming." Frisk took a step backward before he steeled himself and put on as neutral a face as he could. Sans watched him, then shuffled around a bit and continued, "In a few moments, you will meet the king...and after that...destiny." Sans bowed his head before he glanced back up. His pupils were missing. "But that comes later," he stated. "Now, you will be judged. But not for your EXP. Or your LOVE." Frisk's eyes went wide as Sans finished, "You will simply...be judged."

And then...silence. Only the sound of a light breeze weaving its way through the room and between the granite columns. Sans had bowed his head again and closed his eyes, and remained so quiet, Frisk thought he'd fallen asleep before he looked up at him and made Frisk involuntarily step backward again. "gotta say, you're one of the toughest cases i've had to argue for. and i've had lifetimes of experience," he said with a wink. "i'd say you're only human, but we both know that's not true…" He trailed off and shoved his hands in his pockets before briefly taking them back out to raise his index finger to point out, "oh, yeah, and it excuses you from responsibility. you're an 'angel,' sure, but that doesn't mean you're innocent, what with rewinding time over and over, dragging monsters out of the sunlight and back down into the dark." He brought his hand down, and Frisk looked away, and closed his eyes. There was no denying that, and there was no excuse. "and yet…" Sans began again. Frisk slowly turned his head back to look at him as he drawled, "you keep making friends. you keep trying again because you want to give one kid a happy ending to make up for everything that went wrong in her life. if i looked up the phrase, 'it might not be your problem, but it is your responsibility,' your picture would be right next to it." Sans nodded a couple times before he continued, "no doubt, you're probably wondering 'well, i've done some stuff wrong, so how am i gonna pay for it?' that's the million-gold question, ain't it?" He adjusted his stance by shifting around on his heels. After a pause, Sans explained, "hate to break it to ya, kiddo, but you can't pay for this with money. you can't pay with favors. you gotta pay for it the old-fashioned way…" Frisk swallowed, dreading what "the old fashioned way" was, until Sans looked up at him, and he saw his eyes soften. "you gotta pay for it...one day at a time."

One day at a time. Five words that held an entire novel's worth of meaning in them. Frisk stared at Sans wide-eyed before he quickly squeezed them shut and bowed his head, trying to hide the sudden emotional gut-punch Sans had just landed; for his part, Sans at least pretended not to notice. "but, yeah. that's my two cents on the matter. any questions you want me to answer before i send ya off? anything about life? death? the universe in general? how to solve a crossword?"

At first, Frisk was about to say "no," there were no questions. He had a goal and he was going to accomplish it, then worry about whatever consequences it incurred. But then, a nagging thought. Something he'd asked himself once before, a long time ago, and something he'd buried in pursuit of his goal. But now that the end was drawing near, that question came writhing to the surface and its rotted hand burst through the graveyard soil. Frisk lowered his head and muttered, "Sans…" Sans kept his trademark smile on his face as he looked down at Frisk, who still hadn't lifted his head. And then, the tidal wave hit.

"Am I a bad person?"

The skeleton's eyes went wide and for the first time in a long time, his head came up blank. Just to stall for time, he swept his hand over his scalp. "...heh. sheesh. you, uh, sure know how to ask all the loaded questions, huh, kid?" Frisk finally looked back up, stony expression written all over his face. Sans' grin faltered a bit. "should look into a degree in philosophy or politics when you get to the surface. you sound like you know enough about logical fallacies to shred other people who make a living peddling that stuff."

"And speaking of fallacies, that's a non-answer." Frisk pointed at Sans, and after a moment, he let his arm fall and the both of them tried to avoid eye contact with each other. Still, it didn't stop Frisk from adding, "Don't sugarcoat it, Sans. I'm a big kid. I can take it."

Silence again, reigning with an iron fist, as it usually did. Then, after some thought, Sans' voice cut through the air. "i think now's a good time to ask what brought this on."

"You already know," Frisk remarked. "I'm a...a mistake of nature. I've had something inside me that rewound time back to where I first came down from the surface, and I did it...more times than I can count. I kept taking away the futures of everyone who lives here, and took their happy endings hundreds of times over. I've been chasing one goal so much, I forgot to consider everyone else. I'm...I'm not even human." He coughed and tried to blink the tears out of his eyes. Then, a sniffle, and he bravely soldiered on. "All those times...or those futures...all those happy memories don't...they don't exist anymore. Because of me, and...it's because...Because I was too selfish to be...to...I just couldn't leave her behind!"

And then, he finally broke. Frisk gritted his teeth and slapped his hands over his face to try and muffle the sound of crying while Sans just looked on awkwardly. And that's all he really could do for a couple minutes; he just let Frisk work it out, but he formulated a basic response in his head, and then, when Frisk's sniffling began to die down, he spoke up. "y'know how dad and i have been workin' on studying time since...well, long before you got here?" he asked. Frisk looked up at him, but paused a moment before nodding. Sans nodded back and continued, "well, one day, he calls me up, says he's got something i need to see. so i toss my coat on and head down to the lab and all, and he takes me to the main observation chamber and he looks at me and says something like, 'i want to show you something,' and he tunes the tachyon relays, primes the temp-recorder, you know, the whole shebang. and he turns the monitor on and starts playing a timeline that was…" He trailed off again before he rolled his eyes and lifted his right arm up above his head. "whoo...that rosenberg angle was, like, vertical, lemme tell ya. and we can see the door to the ruins, you know the one, and i see them slowly open up and close behind somebody. and into the cold, hard wilderness, i see this little shrimp of a human walk out. this poor kid was wringing their hands, picking at their scalp, practically jumping every time a snowflake so much as grazed their cheek. god, they were a nervous wreck."

Sans waved his hand dismissively and turned away for a couple seconds before his pupils flicked back over to Frisk and he leaned forward to mention, "that was you, by the way. dad had us watch you all the way from snowdin to new home, and he somehow managed to get us a first-person seat to your fight with the weed's god-form. dad called it, uh, 'omega flowey.' and when it was all over, i said, 'cool, pops, i'll keep running some diagnostics,' but he tells me that wasn't what he wanted me to see. you can probably guess i was confused, so he starts up another temporal home-movie. it was one of the earlier ones, too, where you were running away from some monsters 'cause you didn't know what their spare conditions were. we watched it to the end, and i thought, 'okay, is that it?' but nah. G pops in another film, and we watched it. then a few more. then we closed up shop and came back the next day. that was when we got to see your first pacifist run...you have no idea how proud i was, by the way...and then, to save you the deets, we watched a bunch more of them. some of'em, you fought omega flowey. some of 'em, you fought goat princess. but after about five days of watching this stuff, i'd gotten pretty invested, and the next time i come into the lab, dad's standing there, already got a movie up, but paused. he turns to me and says, 'this is what i wanted to show you. so you would understand.' and then he played the movie, and, uh…"

The last vestiges of Sans' voice died as it echoed around the hall and he bowed his head. Frisk blinked a couple times and hazarded the thought of taking a few steps closer until Sans brought his head back up. His grin was a bit more strained. "...well...i ain't gonna spoil what happened, i get the feeling it's a...sore subject, puttin' it mildly. but i understood. you were angry. trying to get the world to move for you when nothing else was working, in the only way you knew how. and after watching it, i was pretty upset. not like, 'mad' upset, but like, 'disturbed' upset, but when i finally got over it, one line past-me said kinda struck a chord. and i'm glad i remembered it, because i think it applies pretty well."

"...Which was…?" Frisk ventured tentatively.

Sans didn't talk immediately. He just stared at Frisk for a minute before he sucked in a deep breath and tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. "'do you think even the worst person can change? that anyone can be a good person, if they just try?'" he repeated.

Frisk's heart almost froze mid-beat.

"yeah, that look on your face says just about everything i needed to know. before you start going into your whole motive rant, lemme talk," Sans appealed. "the way i see it, there's two types of bad people in the world…" He held up his hand with his index and middle fingers up. "bad people who could change...and bad people who choose to change. well, after that whole episode, dad showed me the timelines after...that one. and i saw a scared, broken kid slowly try to piece themselves back together. slowly learn to love again. slowly try to shake things up by telling more bad jokes instead of letting'em die. so, in conclusion, yeah, you're a bad person."

Frisk hung on Sans' every word, and when he said that line, he hung his head in defeat. But it was true; if Frisk hadn't RESET so much, if he'd just let it lie, he wouldn't have tried to murder every single monster in the Underground. And then, before he got deep into the well of self-pity, Sans continued, "but you're a bad person who's slowly getting better, and more importantly, making yourself better." Frisk's head shot up, but he didn't speak. It was for the best; Sans just kept talking. "trust me, it'd be one thing to just...go on a rampage, reset, and...i dunno, do it all again? close yourself off?" he pondered aloud, "but it's a whole different snowball game to go numb and then try to shock yourself back to life by going for a swim in freezing water. it takes a lot of guts to try and make things right again. even more guts to face the people you hurt...even if they don't remember. even if it theoretically never happened. and if i'm gonna be totally honest with you, it's cool to be a good person; absolutely nothing wrong with it, obviously. but a bad person who deeply, truly, wants to change themselves around to become better than they were before? i like that. it means they still have hope."

In that moment, it felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders, and Frisk felt tears pricking at his eyes again. He bent forward, cupped hands over his face, and he started crying. He felt himself crying until his nose was completely congested, his eyes stung, and his voice was weak, and it was then he felt a familiar presence. The feeling of soft polyester pressing into his neck, sharp, but not uncomfortable hands on his back. Sans had walked forward to hug him, and Frisk returned it. At some point in the last thirty seconds, he had sunk to his knees; a sinner in a church of gentle sunlight and buried memories. Not absolved...but perhaps forgiven.

The minutes ticked by, but Frisk had no idea how long they had spent like that. He wasn't about to ask. All he knew was that, after awhile, the cloud of sadness was gently blown away, and he found the courage to lift his head and look Sans in the eyes, and Sans looked back into his. Frisk didn't think Sans had ever cried before (if he did, he couldn't remember) but he thought he saw mist on the edges of Sans' eyesockets. The skeleton nodded solemnly, and stood up, helping Frisk up along with him. "welp. that's about all the time i got. maybe when this is all over, i'll take you to grillby's and we can yuk it up like old times. heck, i wouldn't mind if you stayed with us after we get to the surface, but right now...there's some folks on the ground floor i gotta catch up with, so i'll see you later," he said.

Frisk blinked in surprise a couple times before he smiled back and said, "I'd like that, too."

Sans nodded. "heh, heh. gotta keep an eyesocket on you somehow," he said with a sly wink.

Frisk just chuckled and took a few steps to the left and walked around Sans, but before he could go too far, he heard him call, "hey, frisk…" So, he stopped and turned around to look, and Sans continued, "i dunno if you need it...honestly, i'm pretty sure you don't...but good luck."

He paused before he replied, "Thanks," and kept walking down the hall. The quiet conditions made it incredibly obvious when Frisk heard Sans take a shortcut out of the room, but he didn't stop to look back; Frisk just kept going until he passed through an archway that led back outside. And in front of him, at the precipice of a stone stairway that went dozens of flights up, was the throne room. He stopped to stare at it for a minute, suddenly enraptured by its grandeur; he'd never truly noticed just how magnificent it was. The stairs leading up and the rock ceiling hundreds of feet above him and how there were some holes that let light from the surface filter down were significant, but even from here, he could see the doors to the throne room were wide open. But now, all that was left was to climb those stairs...

And see where fate took him.

He began moving forward. Step by step, Frisk walked toward the stairs and when he reached them, began to climb. Each step upward made his heart beat faster. Each time his shoes clicked on the stone beneath him, his SOUL pulsed with energy. Every breath he took, he felt more alert and alive than ever before. In what felt like no time at all, he had reached the peak. The doors were, indeed, wide open. The garden inside was empty, save for one monster, towering over Frisk like a monolith. Frisk drew in a deep breath…

And crossed the threshold.

All that lived here was sourgrass and birdsong. Where they were coming from, Frisk didn't know. He walked over the grass and the flowers, toward the king of all monsters. He could faintly make out the sound of water in a watering can sloshing around, and the sound of liquid gently pattering on the ground below, and the sound of Asgore humming to himself. "Dum-dee-dum…" Frisk walked a couple more steps before stopping in front of him, and just like before, the king heard his footsteps and perked up. "Hmm? Is someone there?" he asked. "Just a moment! I have almost finished watering these flowers." In contrast with everyone else, with all the other times he had met a friend for the first time all over again...Frisk said nothing. He let Asgore work, gently swinging his watering can back and forth until he straightened up and exclaimed, "And...done!"

And then, the eight-foot titan of a monster turned himself around, his cape flowing regally behind him. Asgore was smiling jovially as he said, "Howdy! How can I…"

As soon as he caught sight of Frisk, it was gone. Asgore stepped back in shock. "Oh."

Despite how awkward the situation was, Frisk felt like he needed to do something he had never done before, and that was to bow his head...and kneel. He said nothing, and neither did Asgore; he just stared at this small child who had showed up unannounced in the throne room for a few minutes until Frisk slowly rose back up to his feet and finally looked him in the eye. Another pause. Then he murmured, "...Hi. I'm Frisk."

"Ah." Asgore pursed his lips, nodded solemnly, and stared off to his right. "I see." They didn't speak again. Asgore continued to stare out the window, down on New Home below them. "I desperately want to say, 'would you like some tea,' but…" He trailed off, still staring out the window absentmindedly. "Well...you know how it is." Another pause. Asgore strode over to the windows to get a clearer look out of them, then after tapping his foot a couple times, he returned to his throne and placed a thoughtful hand on one of the armrests. Frisk just watched him patiently. Expectantly. Then, in a low, rumbling voice, Asgore mused, "There is no avoiding it, I suppose," He turned away, his cape flowing in the air, and without looking back, he continued, "Shall we?"

Frisk was about to nod, momentarily forgetting Asgore wasn't looking at him, but he quickly snapped out of it and replied, "Yes."

More silence. Asgore's voice hung in the air after he stated, "...Then come with me," and began to walk toward the entryway. Despite the apprehension in his heart, Frisk took a deep breath and followed diligently. "You wish to return home, and I wish to liberate my people. In order for one of us to accomplish their goal, the other must…" He trailed off. He didn't need to finish his sentence. They walked under the archway; it was large enough that Asogre didn't have to duck down to avoid smashing his horns into the ceiling. They walked through the Barrier's antechamber with very little else said, except at the tail end, right before they crossed the threshold to the Barrier's room. Asgore slowed his pace and took in more of the Barrier as it bounced light across the walls and floor. After a moment, he muttered, "In truth, I am not ready."

"Neither am I," Frisk replied as he fell instep beside him, "but this is something that's gotta be done, I think."

Another long pause. Then Asgore sighed, "I suppose you are right," as he picked up his pace again and strode into the next room with Frisk at his side. It was just like it had been before; the previous timeline, the previous hundred. Asgore took a few steps forward and explained, "This is the Barrier. This is the reason we are all trapped underground." He let his words hang in the air for a moment, right up until he realized Frisk wouldn't respond. He continued, "If...if you have any unfinished business...now would be the time to go."

Frisk stared up at the king of all monsters for a few minutes. Maybe an hour. Time lost all meaning here, where light was warped and shadows were cast from nothing. Then, he said, quietly, "I'm ready."

Twilight floods through the Barrier.

Asgore bowed his head, and nodded solemnly again. "Very well." Then, he spun around to look back at Frisk.

Finally, all Monsters will be free.

"Frisk…" he said. "It was nice to meet you."

All of them.

He closed his eyes and whispered, "Goodbye."

Before he could retrieve his spear, a light grew in intensity behind Frisk and it sailed over his head. He caught a glimpse of it. It was a fireball, bright yellow-orange and headed straight for Asgore. He became aware of it just in time, as he raised his head and his expression suddenly became...very unbefitting of a monarch. He proceeded to duck down as far as he could, in spite of his stature, and the fireball shot right between his horns and kept flying until it hit the Barrier and dissipated with a loud *pop* (three points!).

Frisk whirled around and Asgore stared over him to see Toriel standing in the entrance to the room. If looks were magic attacks, Asgore would have been lucky to dodge it and the Underground wouldn't have a Barrier problem anymore. "Do not lay a claw on them!" she yelled, her voice managing to drown out the Barrier's droning song.

Frisk had to cover his ears, but despite how harsh she sounded, Asgore's face lit up and he exclaimed, "Tori…? You...you came back!"

Her response was immediate, swift, and left no room for doubt to her intentions. "And do not 'Tori' me, Dremmurr. I returned because I wanted to make sure Frisk remained safe," she chided as she took Frisk by the hand, knelt down, and began to look him over. She wrapped her fingers around his chin, squishing his cheeks as she turned his head side to side, ran her other hand over his own to check for cuts. She asked, "He did not hurt you, did he?"

"No, Miss Toriel, I'm fine, I'm fine!" Frisk protested as he tried to wriggle out of her clutches.

"Hmph. He is lucky." Toriel did another once-over of the small human before, satisfied with his physical condition, she rose to her full height and said, "...And...I am lucky to have arrived just in time."

Frisk stared up at Toriel and she met his gaze with a calm smile until he was smiling, too. This happy silence was utterly wrecked as the sound of screaming slowly faded in and added on top of the noise the Barrier made. As the seconds ticked on, it became obvious that someone was screaming, and when the three people gathered turned around, they saw Undyne barrel through the archway, still screaming her lungs out. "NNNGGGAAAHHHHHH...!" Her voice was full of passion and drive, but it slowly faded out and petered off until she was standing in the middle of the group, glancing from Toriel, to Asgore, and back to Frisk awkwardly. After another few seconds of silence, she asked, "Oh. Did I, uh...Did we miss the butt-kicking?"

"Um…" Frisk stuttered, looked around, and then looked back at Undyne. "No."

Before Asgore or Toriel could add to the conversation, Alphys' hunched figure trudged through the door and over to Undyne's side. "I, uh, I think we're...early?" she commented.

"NNYYEEEEEHHHH…!" Alphys jumped, but Undyne, Frisk, and Toril snapped their heads around to see Papyrus race into the room, jump up, and stomp on the ground in front of everybody and declare, "NOBODY FIGHT ANYONE! IF THERE IS ANY FIGHTING AT ALL! THEN I! WILL BE FORCED…!" He thrust his hand in the air and pointed to the sky, but after a second, he seemed to lose some of his bluster. Papyrus looked away from the group and finished, "TO ASK UNDYNE FOR HELP!"

Frisk couldn't help but smile and wave at the skeleton's antics. "Hi, Papyrus!"

Papyrus almost immediately returned his bright smile and waved back. "HELLO, FRISK! I'M GLAD TO SEE YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY FIGHTING!"

Upon seeing several new faces, Toriel immediately held up her hand and waved to them with a joyful, "Hello!"

Papyrus was the first to reply with, "HELLO, YOUR MAJESTY!" And one second later, he had sidled up to Frisk and bent down to whisper in his ear, "PSST, FRISK…! DID THE KING SHAVE?" He glanced back up to squint at Toriel who was now introducing herself to Alphys and Undyne. "AND ALSO...CLONE HIMSELF…?"

Frisk pushed himself up on the balls of his feet to whisper back, "That's Toriel. She and Asgore used to be married, but don't call her the queen, though. She probably won't like that."

"AH, I SEE! I SHALL ENDEAVOR TO UPROOT THE LONGSTANDING TRADITION OF CALLING ROYALTY BY THEIR HONORIFICS, THEN!" Papyrus cheered. Once the silence had settled again, another noise drew the small crowd's attention. A sucking noise. It was, naturally, quite confusing for everyone involved, except Papyrus, whose previous happy expression melted away and shifted to annoyance. He slowly turned around to look at the entryway, as did everyone else, to see Sans meander in drinking something bright red, in a plastic cup, through a straw. Somehow. He wandered up to his brother as he finished slurping down the rest of the concoction and let out a satisfied sigh. "...SANS, WHAT IS THAT?" Papyrus asked pointedly.

Sans just shook the empty cup and then pulled out another, this time with cream-colored liquid in it. "a ketchup slushie. i bought two, want it?"

"NO, THANK YOU."

"it's spaghetti-flavored," he said as he shook the other one lightly.

Papyrus immediately held out his hand and declared, "I WILL MAKE AN EXCEPTION."

Toriel had been listening to the skeleton brothers intently; Frisk could see her ears twitch every so often, but once Sans handed the cup over to Papyrus, she murmured, "Wait…" and took a few slow, cautious steps over to them. When she got close, Sans turned his head to look at her (while Papyrus proceeded to squirt his smoothie into his mouth like an athlete drinking water during a big game. None of it spilled out), and Toriel stared down at him. "Hello," she said after a pause. "I am Toriel. I believe we may...know each other…?"

Sans blinked a couple times, then nodded. "yeah, i recognize your voice. you must be that lady behind the big door that leads to the ruins." He held out his hand, which Toriel quickly shook, now sporting a smile on her face. "nice meetin' ya. my name's sans. i told you about my bro, papyrus."

He motioned at Papyrus with his head and Toriel turned to face him. "Indeed, you have!" she gushed.

This got Papyrus to freeze up for a moment as he tried to process what he heard. After a moment, he got this solemn look on his face and glanced down at his boots. "WOWIE…" He trailed off, and then, just like lightning, he exuberance came back tenfold as he jumped in the air and exclaimed, "THE KING'S EX-WIFE KNOWS WHO I AM? THIS...THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"

"well, look at that," Sans began. "the human knows you, and my brother knows you." He lifted his head to look her in the eye...and gave her an expectant wink. "how do you feel, toriel?"

Toriel kept staring at him for another few seconds before she seemed to get his unspoken message. It made her break into a wide grin as she held up her hands, wiggled her fingers, and giggled, "Why, with my hands, of course!"

Then, there came the sound of shattering glass. Somehow, Papyrus' eyes bugging out and him freezing on the spot was a sign for the universe to shift into comedy mode. "I TAKE IT BACK!" he yelled. "THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE! EVERYTHING IS AWFUL!"

Sans started laughing, not very loudly or forcefully, but he laughed all the same. One the other hand, Toriel proceeded to throw her head back and cackle like a madwoman. She sounded like the proudest comedian of bargain-bin jokes in the world, but Frisk couldn't help but laugh along with them. Of course, the king of monsterkind looked upon this display with tears running down his face; it would have been sad if Asgore didn't look so comical, with abnormally large pupils and solid waterfalls of tears cascading down his cheeks. Luckily, Undyne noticed quickly and strode up to Asgore's side to playfully punch his shoulder. "Aw, don't be too hard on yourself, Asgore," she consoled him. "There's plenty of other fish in the sea."

"Y-yeah!" Alphys chimed in. She followed Undyne over to Asgore and continued, "Sometimes, you just gotta, y'know...um, st...stop going after...I mean, you gotta give up the fuzzy boss monster and, uh...go for the...r-really cute fish instead…?" She trailed off into a nervous smile. Asgore and Undyne were both staring down at her like she'd suddenly sprouted wings. Alphys withered under their gaze a bit, but unlike before, she didn't devolve into nervous stuttering or attempted to hide her face out of embarrassment. She just looked away, pursed her lips for a moment, and then half-sheepishly said, "It's a metaphor."

Undyne cast a quick glance over at the king before she glanced back down at Alphys and her gaze softened. "Well…" she intoned, "I think it's a good metaphor."

And then, the calm silence was broken again as a robotic voice called out from the entryway, "THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! DRAMA! SUSPENSE! UNRESOLVED ROMANTIC TENSION! AUDIENCES GO WILD FOR IT!" When everyone turned around to see where the voice was coming from, all they saw was a video camera and a single leg with a hot-pink, high-heeled boot sticking out from behind the wall. "ALL WE NEED NOW IS A BIG KISS AND THE RATINGS WILL BREAK THE SCALE!"

"Will you shut up and get outta here!?" As soon as the words left Undyne's mouth, the camera and Mettaton's leg disappeared behind the wall completely; Undyne kept staring at where he'd been before, once she was sure he was gone, rolled her eye and looked down at Alphys, who was by now, blushing profusely. "Sheesh. The nerve of some people, huh, Alphys?" she said.

Silence. Alphys wasn't looking at her. Undyne blinked in confusion a couple times. Just as she opened her mouth, Alphys snapped her head up and cut her off. "No," she said. There was determination burning in her eyes. "He's right." Undyne's eyes widened enough that she could have seen anything in a pitch-black room and her lips shrunk until they looked like they were barely even a line on her face. Alphys proceeded to suck in a deep breath and squawked, "Let's do it!"

"Uuuuuuhhh…" She glanced from side to side. It was surprisingly easy to ignore the odd looks from everyone else; as far as Undyne was concerned, the only other people in the room now were her and Alphys. After another moment, she stammered, "Okay? I guess? If you want to?"

Finally, it was time. Undyne leaned forward and down; Alphys tried to stand on her toes and lean up and slowly, very slowly, they began to close the distance and they had both puckered up in anticipation. A wide grin crept across Frisk's face; he was so excited to finally see the two of them kiss until Toriel slapped her hand across his eyes, which got him to yelp as she muttered, "Do not look, my child."

But then, right as their lips were about to touch, there came the sound of shoes on the stone floor, and an eloquent voice called out, "EXCUSE ME. I HOPE I AM NOT LATE?"

The two lovebirds broke away from each other to look at the monster who had come to visit, and saw a tall, lanky monster dressed in a black suitcoat and grey turtleneck standing at the threshold with his hand clasped in front of him. Everyone did. Toriel's eyes widened and she removed her hand from Frisk's eyes, to cup both of them over her mouth in shock. "M...Mister Gaster…!"

Sans and Papyrus' smiles got wider, and the taller of the two himself broke rank and ran up to Gaster and threw his arms around him in a hug. "DAD! YOU FINISHED WORK EARLY!" he exclaimed as he led him into the group. "YOU SAID YOU WEREN'T GOING TO BE HOME UNTIL NEXT WEEK!"

Gaster smiled at him, and when he got close, looked down at Frisk for a moment before he replied, "I HEARD THE HUMAN WAS APPROACHING THE BARRIER,

AND SO I PUT ALL MY WORK ASIDE

TO COME AND SEE THEM."

As they talked, Asgore, after getting over the initial surprise, strode forward toward Gaster and stopped in front of him; for his part, when the doctor noticed him coming, he stopped conversing with Toriel and gave him his full attention. "Well, it is...a pleasure to see you again, doctor," Asgore began slowly. "But are you certain you can put your work on hold? You have always been very...diligent with your research."

Gaster bowed his head for a few seconds, then lifted it again and proclaimed, "IT IS TIME TO WITNESS THE BARRIER'S DESTRUCTION," as he turned and gestured to said obstacle keeping monsterkind imprisoned. "I WOULD NOT MISS

THIS MOMENTOUS OCCASION

FOR THE WORLD." He turned back to the gathered crowd. For a moment, he met Frisk's eyes before he added, "BESIDES...I BELIEVE...

I AM FATED TO BE HERE."

"But sir...the Barrier can only be broken with the power of seven human SOULs…" Toriel interjected, "And I do not think Frisk wants to give theirs up. Certainly not yet. Not with all the friends they have made, am I correct?"

Frisk opened his mouth, but paused to look around. Asgore, Sans, Papyrus, Toriel, Undyne, Alphys, Gaster...and then, he smiled. Really, what kind of question was that?

He nodded vigorously.

"Yes, I thought so." Toriel took a couple steps forward and knelt down to look him in the eyes. "I am sorry, my child. It seems you must stay here for awhile...but perhaps, with all these friends…" She paused to look over her shoulder. At Sans and Papyrus, smiling brightly. At Undyne, with her arm around Alphys' shoulder, and her arm around Undyne's waist. At Gaster, who had his fingers tented against each other with his trademark pensive grin. And even at Asgore, who, while still somewhat removed from the group, smiled warmly at his ex-wife and the little human who held the key to his people's freedom. It must have looked very familiar to him. Then, Toriel slowly turned her head back to Frisk. She was smiling, too, the laugh lines folded calmly. "...It will not be so bad."

There was silence as Frisk looked around at everyone. At his friends. And for a moment, he felt himself getting misty-eyed again. Despite everything...

He was still loved.

Sadly, the magic was kind of lost when Papyrus shouted, "WAIT A MINUTE…!" Everyone flinched, Toriel covered her ears, Alphys yelped and her head snapped around to look at him. Then, Papyrus began pointing at everyone in rapid succession. The muttering under his breath tipped them off that he was counting them up and eventually he got everyone. "SEVEN, EIGHT...HMM...THERE'S ONLY EIGHT PEOPLE HERE! THE VOICE SAID THEY WOULD BE HERE, TOO!"

Toriel stood up and tilted her head quizzically. "'The voice?'"

"YES, THE VOICE ON THE PHONE! THEY TOLD ME TO CALL ALL OF YOU AND TELL YOU TO MEET THEM HERE!" Papyrus explained.

"Did this mysterious voice tell you their name?" Asgore pressed as he stepped closer to Papyrus.

"NOPE!" he replied as if this mystery caller's identity didn't need to be resolved. And it didn't, really. Not to Frisk. "THEY JUST TOLD ME THE HUMAN HAD TO BE HERE, TOO!"

Frisk knew what was coming next; the vines. The vines that would erupt from the ground, wrap all his friends up, and hold them in the air, just out of reach. It was one of the parts of this adventure that would not change.

What he didn't expect was for one vine to shoot out of the ground behind him, wrap around his neck, and pull him up a few inches off the ground. Then came the other vines that burst from the floor and constricted everyone else. There were cries of surprise and anger, of Toriel and Asgore trying to reach for him to set him free before they were captured, too. Then, there came more vines to bind his arms and legs and hold him aloft. Undyne's arms were bound first, and Asgore was wrapped up in almost no time at all; they were the bigger threats. Sans, Papyrus, and Gaster were wrapped up in vines next, and then Toriel and Alphys. And finally, a small yellow flower poked out of the ground where they had all been standing.

"Golly…" she drawled, sugary malice dripping from her tone. "You're all really stupid." Normally, this was no reason to panic; Frisk had been here dozens of times, hundreds of times. He had seen everything the Underground had to offer and then some. This should not have made him nervous.

But Flowey had never tangled his arms and legs before. She'd never wrapped a vine around his neck, threatening to snap it if he so much as breathed the wrong way. And this time, he couldn't RESET even if he wanted to. "While you were all busy hugging and kissing and crying into each other's shoulders, I took the human SOULs!" she declared in triumph. "Now, not only are they under my power, but so are the SOULs of your little idiot friends, too!" She grinned up at Frisk maliciously and continued, "And that's not even the best part." The ground next to her began to shift and break. Another vine slithered out from between a fresh crack in the stone, holding an empty syringe. Frisk felt his heart rate increase and he desperately hoped it wasn't what he thought it was. "See this? I managed to work some of the machinery in the Lab after you left. Turns out, there's a lot of DT residue left over from the good old days. More than enough to give me a boost."

Frisk's grimace morphed into a look of pure, unfiltered terror. That wasn't what he wanted to hear."Oh my God, you gotta be kidding me," he moaned to himself, hoping Flowey wouldn't hear him. "It's always something. Of course it's always something, why would it be easy? Why would anything be easy? It's never freaking easy."

She must not have, because Flowey leaned forward, that same sickenly-sweet evil grin spread across her face. "You wanna know what the funniest part of all this is? If you had just followed my advice...don't get attached, don't make any friends, and kill everyone you meet...you wouldn't be having this problem! But you didn't listen," she jeered in a sing-song voice. "And now all your pals are gonna pay the price. Because you made them care. You made them love you. And thanks to you…" Her eyes went black and her grin widened vertically to show off her two rows of teeth almost half the length of her stem. "I can achieve my true form." The panic was setting in. Frisk looked around wildly for anything he could use to cut himself down. Everything was starting to go wrong. "That look in your eyes…" Flowey began. Her sudden addition to the conversation (if it could really be called a conversation) got Frisk to whip his head down to stare at her in wide-eyed horror. "You wanna know why? Why am I doing this?" she guessed. He didn't get a chance to correct her, as she immediately shouted, "Moron! Don't you get it? This is all a game to you! And if you leave the Underground satisfied, you'll 'win,' and then you won't wanna 'play' with me anymore! But if you never leave…" She trailed off into a small chortling fit that he could almost barely hear against the sound of his pulse, hammering away in his ears. "This game between us will never end, and I'll keep holding victory just out of your reach...so I can snatch it away when you get close!" she cackled. In a flash, a circle of bullet seeds appeared around Frisk, held aloft five feet above the ground. "I'll keep you down here even if it means killing you a hundred-million times...!"

In the next instant, his world was rocked by searing-hot pain as the seeds shot out and pierced his body, running clean through them and hitting his SOUL. He didn't even have time to scream as another ring appeared around him and the process repeated again. Cuts opened up on his skin, blood came seeping out. He managed to yell in pain just before the third barrage shot through him, and finally, the fourth ring appeared around his body. Despite feeling like he'd been dipped in molten iron, Frisk started to struggle. He thought he knew what was coming next, but the sudden shift in the paradigm scared him too much to think straight, and he could only focus on getting out of his bindings as fast as possible. But with his movement so heavily restricted, he couldn't cut the vines holding him fast, he couldn't even hope to fight back. The bullet seeds were getting closer and his struggling increased and got more and more frantic with their proximity. Then, right before even one of them could make contact, Frisk saw something out of the corner of his eye. Toriel made a small motion with her hand.

And just in the nick of time, tongues of fire burst to life around him, burning the bullet seeds away. It took Flowey by surprise, as her evil grin stayed on her face for a second before reality set in. "...What?" was her only reply.

"My child…" Toriel lifted her head. She spoke slowly. Flowey's killing intent had injured her, injured all of them, but she remained undeterred. She smiled and said, "Do not be afraid. We are here to protect you!"

Baring her teeth in a frustrated grimace, Flowey turned back to Frisk and threw more bullet seeds at him, which was stopped by a bone and spear shield, one on either side. "YOU CAN DO IT, FRISK!" Papyrus cheered. "JUST...BELIEVE IN ME...BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN YOU!"

Undyne snapped her head up and called, "Hey! If you beat me, you can do anything! This punk's chump change!" with a big grin on her face.

More bullet seeds flew in before she'd finished talking, and Frisk had been so engrossed with his friends' rescue, he almost didn't notice it, but a sudden electrical shield vaporizing the seeds pulled his attention away. "I-if she just injected herself with...with DT, there's virtually no chance you can beat her…" Alphys stated. She picked her head up and looked Frisk in the eyes, and a smile crossed her face. "But you...I know you'll do it, somehow!"

The second one wasn't so much deflected as it was simply...sucked into a black hole. Or at least, Frisk thought that was it; he only caught a fleeting glimpse of what had saved him, and the bullet seeds had been blocked off by a deep violet void appearing in front of him, and when they disappeared, so were the seeds. He snapped his head back around to look at Gaster, who added, "IT SEEMS WE ARE AT AN IMPASSE…" He looked up and stared right into Frisk's eyes. "YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE."

Again. Bullet seeds flew toward him, and again, they were deflected. Another bone shield, and another wall of fire magic. Sans lifted his head with no small effort; one of his eyes was squeezed shut and he was sweating. It must have been taking a lot for him to hold himself together. "giving up? now? c'mon kid. you got this."

Finally, Asgore looked up at Frisk. Despite the sweat forming on his brow, he looked jovial, as if there was no mortal peril nearby at all. "Frisk…For my people...and for the future of this world..." He inhaled deeply, and spoke the words Frisk had heard many, many times before. "Please...Stay determined!"

And then, the sound of a stampede. Frisk twisted and shifted himself to see that behind them, monsters were pouring into the Barrier room, and leading them was Monster Kid. Every type from every province, Vulkins, Whimsuns, Madjicks, Froggits. Guards One and Two, Shyren, Muffet, Gyftrot (even Mettaton came back!). They had all come back to help. Frisk's heart swelled and he felt his SOUL knit itself back together. He was ready. He was ready for…

The joy he had been feeling shifted right back to fear in a split second. They didn't know what Flowey was capable of.

He was.

And with a fresh dose of DT, God only knew what she could do now.

Frisk wriggled around, looked down at all the monsters who had come to their rescue and shouted, "N-no! No, run away! You don't understand, she's gonna…!"

The words froze in his mouth. Literally. Time stopped flowing, and unlike when Sans did it, he was not allowed to move. But he still lived, despite not breathing, despite the flow of time around him ceasing to be. And he was at the perfect angle to see Flowey's sinister grin, complete with fully black eyes, and he heard her say the words that would unmake the world itself. "I can't believe you're all so darn stupid!"

The wind went from completely still to a violent maelstrom as time snapped back on itself and resumed flowing. The monsters around him panicked immediately; this time, he could see their forms slowly being unmade as Flowey wrenched their souls out of their bodies and their control. He lifted his head back up, his friends' expressions had all switched to horrified shock in less than a second. He called out to them. With the wind being so loud, he didn't know if they even heard him, but the last thing Frisk could hear before his vision went white was:

"ALL YOUR SOULS ARE MINE!"


The air went silent.

There was no echo.

The Barrier was lightyears away.

Frisk was on one knee, his ears were still ringing from the cacophony of roaring wind and maniacal laughter from just a few seconds before. He squeezed his eyes shut and placed his left hand over his forehead and pressed on it, hoping some of the pressure would relieve his headache. Luckily, it went away very quickly, but then something else took its place.

Panic.

Frisk knew what was coming and he shot himself upright faster than thought he could manage. The only thing that was waiting for him…

Was a little monster in a green and yellow striped sweater.

She was facing away from him. She tilted her head slightly, ever so slightly, to look around at the brand new reality she had created. Born of desperation and loneliness. An infinite black void. She lowered her head again and flexed her fingers, still not used to the sensation of having a full body. Then, her shoulders shook, silently laughing. "Finally." Her words echoed off the walls that were no longer rock. Were they still even walls now? "I was so tired of being a flower."

Frisk tried to steady his breathing. He placed his hand over his chest, where her SOUL was and slowly took a step forward. No reaction. He started to reach down to the hem of his own shirt with his other hand, intent to lift it and grab the soul, but then she turned around so fast that he jumped back. She didn't seem to take note of his previous actions, as she just waved and chirped, "Howdy!" Frisk took another step back, his left leg angled so that he was ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. She took it to mean he was scared, so she stepped forward after him and held out her arms to invite him back. "Chara, it's been so long. It's me, your best friend..."

Then she closed her eyes and in a flash of white light, the world was remade again. Now, they were standing on a massive chunk of rock. It looked like one of the giant stone pieces that got broken off of the ground in an anime where someone gets punched through a mountain or something, and all around them were bright neon lights that shifted and danced so much it was hard to tell how far away they were. There was no distance, but there was space. Of course, all this paled in comparison to the new being that hovered over the center of this platform. She was dressed in golden armor, a long, violet cape hung over her right shoulder and trailed in the wind. Her jet-black eyes had been closed, but when they shot open, she reached up and curled her fist. A pure white, double-edged spear materialized in her grip from nothing. In the center of one of the three prongs on each end was a heart. On her head, a crown of hearts, color-coded to each human SOUL. Around her neck, a heart-shaped necklace. On its back was inscribed "Best Friends Forever." She swung the spear to the right, her cape billowing majestically from the motion. Frisk could barely see her mouth moving, but the words echoed around this pocket dimension loudly:

ASRIEL DREEMURR

She raised her hand and cast fireballs at Frisk, and he immediately set to action dodging around them. But this was different. They were faster. He jumped over a few, wound around several more, and he still got burned on his arm when one caught him off-guard before he could change direction. It singed his skin, he felt it burn away his SOUL. Frisk cried out and fell to the ground and tried to get his bearings. Clutching his left arm, he heard something else and looked up to see Asriel raise her other hand to the sky, draw it back as if she was throwing something, and then shoved her arm out in front of her. Frisk stared intently, and then looked up when he noticed that there were lights coming from above him and getting stronger.

That was when he saw the stars falling.

He jumped backward even though it just agitated his arm even more. Several of the stars exploded just as he got out of the way and sent smaller versions of themselves in every direction. He dodged most of them, but not all; his SOUL got hit a couple more times. The stars still weren't done. He wasn't used to Asriel's attacks being this quick, nor this damaging. And then, to top it all off, she started gloating. "When I defeat you, and regain total control of the timeline...I'll reset everything," she declared. "Your progress...your memories...I'll reset them all back to zero!" Frisk looked up. The largest star was still coming down, but it was going to explode in seconds. Unlike all his movements before, he ran away. As far away from the star as he could possibly get; he'd run about twenty feet before he heard a loud, magical explosion and saw a few preliminary stars whizz past him. The light was far too intense for him to look back and not go blind, so Frisk had to rely on instinct, and in this situation, that was not something to be relied on. He juked left; several stars flew by him. He sidestepped left again, because, why not, and also, his brain was working in full panic mode. He got lucky and a few more stars went by, and then for good measure, Frisk went back to the right and he managed to dodge more stars. He kept up the dance as he ran away, but it was inevitable he'd trip up at some point; he tried to go left again after dodging more or less successfully, and this time he got nailed in the back with six stars. It felt like stardust had been shot through his body, but not the good kind. This stardust was pure hydrogen and helium with a dash of iron and carbon and superheated to inhumane levels. He cried out and fell to the ground, and in his panic, in his sheer desperation to stay alive, he dragged himself to the side and found the ground sloped upward. Frisk raised his head to see he'd fallen near a raised section of rock...tall enough for him to hide behind. He stared at it for a second, then grit his teeth and pulled himself behind the terrain completely, and tried to prop himself up with his back to the rock. Frisk sucked down air and tried to think. This...was not good, and he really didn't want to risk dying just to see if his soul would refuse. If it didn't...well, to say he was in trouble would be the understatement of the century. To make it worse, Asriel's taunting came at the worst time. "And then we can do this all over again," she said with malicious delight.

He didn't reply; Frisk was too busy trying to get his breathing steady. He must have been silent longer than he thought, because Asriel spoke up again from somewhere in the center of the arena. "Hiding?" she asked. She swiveled her head around to look at the area and stayed quiet, in hopes that Frisk might answer. It was a long shot that missed the mark, of course, and she pressed a finger to her chin, just to let the oppressive silence press down on him. "Hmm...Well...Isn't this delicious?" she chuckled. She turned on her heel and leveled her spear at one of the many raised areas of rock and held it steady. A small point of light flared to life at the tip and it quickly grew. Frisk could hear it thrumming with energy, but he didn't dare poke his head out to see what it was or what would happen in case Asriel saw him. Then, the light grew into a ball, the thrumming got louder and then…

A beam of magic energy shot out from the ball, streaked across the arena, hit the rock, and exploded. Violently. The sound and shockwave shook the entire arena, and Frisk squeaked as the ground beneath him rattled and sounded like it was about to shatter under him. But it didn't, and when the smoke cleared, Asriel saw Frisk was not hiding behind that outcropping. She turned to look at another raised piece of terrain and aimed her spear again. Just like before, the small point of light appeared, grew into a sphere, and then turned into a laser beam that vaporized the rock she'd been aiming at, but Frisk hadn't been behind that one either. Asriel turned around again and called, "You don't seem to understand your place here...I am a god. The Goddess of Hyperdeath, in fact, and you…" She aimed her spear at one of the other rocks and when the beam hit, the explosion was so massive that the dust and debris rose up five stories into the air and the sound almost deafened Frisk from the other side of the arena. "You're nothing but a supplicant," she hissed. The quiet returned and settled this time, at least for a few minutes. Asriel's eyes shifted from one end of her field of vision to the other, looking for even the slightest trace of movement. After another couple seconds, she sneered and raged, "So quit delaying the inevitable and get out here so I can kill you, Chara!"

Across the arena, Frisk was still keeping himself hidden. His breathing had returned to normal, but he was still hurt and he knew it. At this rate, there was no way he'd beat Asriel now. The situation was...it was looking a lot more hopeless than usual. Frisk sunk down to the ground and while he didn't feel defeated, he really had no idea what to do. His melancholy must have...awoken something, though. He didn't know what it was, exactly, all he knew was that he felt his heart jump. At first, it was a little disconcerting until Frisk realized what it was; that little spark, the fire that had stuck itself to his chest. The little SOUL that was still clinging to life, despite all the odds stacked against it. Frisk felt his soul swell and the fire that determination once birthed was lit anew. He looked up, steely gaze and clenched fist. He knew he had to try. If not for himself...then for Asriel. For the person he remembered her to be.

So, against all good sense and judgment, Frisk took a deep breath, stood up to his full height, and turned around to leave cover in one fluid motion. Asriel picked up on this movement immediately, despite facing an angle perpendicular to him. She stopped short and her head snapped around to stare at him for a second before her lips formed into a grin and she said, "There you are." Asriel hefted her spear around and pointed it directly at Frisk and readjusted her stance to puff her chest out in triumph. "Any last words, Chara?"

There was a pause. And then, Frisk spoke. "...When I first fell down, I wanted to leave. I didn't care about monsters, I didn't care about being a hero. I was just some kid who wanted to get out and go home. Then I met my friends, and they showed me there was more to the journey than the destination. And then…" He lifted his gaze to look Asriel dead in the eyes. There was Determination swirling there; it was tangible. Motes of golden light, small, barely noticeable, began to rise from the ground under Frisk's feet. "And then I met you. And you showed me there was more to strive for than freeing monsters."

You are Determined.

Asriel had to process what Frisk said for a couple seconds. "You...Wait...you sound like you've...you've done this before?" she exclaimed in shock. She blinked rapidly, trying to understand the logic, but it didn't get her anywhere, and after a few moments of trying to wrap her head around what Frisk was doing and failing, she shook her spear at him and yelled, "What are you, some kind of freak...!?"

The motes of light kept rising. In time, they had formed a circle of golden light under Frisk's feet. His heart hammered in his chest. For the first time in his life, he felt...powerful. Not the kind of power derived from deciding who lives and who dies at the end of a knife. This was a power unlike he had ever felt before. It spurred him onward. "But now...I'm here, and I don't have the Underground's rules holding me back anymore! I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise. I just couldn't let go. But I've come too far to back down now, and you won't die down here! You won't be forgotten!"

Your Determination is welling up inside you.

Frisk clenched both his fists and held them at his hips. He let the words flow from his heart. "I'll make it up to you! I swear I won't leave you behind again! Do you hear me!? This time..."

The light had risen and intensified to make all of Frisk's body glow, an aura that encompassed his very being. And it just kept getting brighter.

"This time," he shouted, "I'll save you, too!"

Your Determination…

Is shining through

A flash of bright yellow light lanced out from Frisk's chest and he was brought a few inches off the ground, hovering in the air, as the light expanded and encompassed his whole body. Asriel turned away and shielded her eyes and face, in case it was some sort of attack, but while the light intensified, nothing really came of it. Not for several seconds as the light grew so bright that it turned Frisk from a glowing human, to a glowing silhouette, to an indiscernible pillar of light. But then, just like that, the light flashed again and was gone. In its place was Frisk, just like before...but he was changed. Changed like Asriel was changed. Changed through sheer willpower.

He was still in the same pose he had been in, but when he felt different, and when he opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and looked down, he confirmed it himself. He couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. "Oh, right on." Frisk took a good look at his new form. Almost six feet tall, average height for a human adult, his face had grown a bit more angular, and he was wearing the Royal Guard recruit uniform. After looking over his hands, his boots, and running a hand through his hair, he raised his left hand. Above his palm, a soul sprung to life and Frisk grabbed it. In a flash of red light, katars bearing the Delta Rune materialized on his hands. He flourished his arms, clashing the blades together and causing a small shower of sparks to jump out before he settled them at his sides and grinned up at Asriel. "Alright...how about we do this thing for real?"

Asriel stared at him, dumbfounded, before she found the strength to move again. With a flourish, she scowled and spun around, moving away from him and re-aimed her spear. She leveled it at his body, and the magical laser shot out faster than the naked eye could process.

Frisk jumped out of the way long before it reached its target.

There was a brief panic in Asriel's eyes as she seized up, but the fact that Frisk was charging toward her got her to try firing the attack again. And again. And again. Frisk dodged out of the way each time. She began to backpedal for a few steps before she hovered over the ground and started flying backward instead. The laser beams weren't working, so she held the spear aloft and it morphed into her Shocker Breaker. Asriel grit her teeth and took aim. The bullets came flying out in rapid succession; she swiveled her aim to the left and right, back left, up and down, to throw Frisk off and perforate him, but he was moving too fast. Perhaps, if he was still in his normal form, Frisk would have had trouble, but Determination had replaced his blood, his breath, his very bones.

With a defiant yell, Asriel charged the cannon's full power and let it loose as soon as the last volley of bullets had been sent flying. It flew forward, and missed. Frisk had managed to almost stop on a dime and he vaulted into the air, high enough that he could have easily jumped over a single-story house. Asriel watched him sail up and over her, and land directly behind her. She twisted herself around and swung her spear, but Frisk also turned around just as quickly and swung his left arm. The two weapons collided, magical sparks went flying. Though surprised, Asriel quickly swung the spear around and tried to hit him again, and Frisk brought his right arm up and parried the blow. They continued this deadly dance, Asriel trying to find an opening and connect, Frisk managing to block her almost each time; she did nick his shoulder once and he wasn't relegated specifically to blocking with his katars. When she swung high, he ducked down, and when she thrust forward, he jumped up and over her head again. When he landed, she was ready; as soon as his boots touched the ground, Asriel's arm shot out and she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Frisk grunted, choked, and before he could retaliate, Asriel was already flying toward the edge of the arena, making sure Frisk couldn't get a foothold or regain his balance, and once they were a couple feet away from the edge, Asriel grit her teeth and threw Frisk as hard as she could. Needless to say, he tumbled over the ledge and began falling, and Asriel barely had to wait to watch him go before she jumped down after him.

They were falling and flying at the same time, through time and space and a myriad of color and sound at the end of the universe. Frisk eventually stopped flipping over himself to look back down (or up) at Asriel coming after him. He didn't get much chance to take it all in as she gripped her spear with both hands and swung it rapidly. It created magical waves in the air and they were coming right for him. Frisk's eyes went wide and he did a backflip to dodge one, twisted himself to the right to dodge another, and then saw his chance; they were passing by another large chunk of rock floating in the endless void, so he punched with his left hand and stuck the katar into the stone, using the momentum to fling himself to the left. The magical waves seemed to be able to soft-follow him, but he had moved too fast for them to catch up. Then, Frisk was falling back through endless space again, but as he flipped around, he could still see Asriel was still above him and still coming after him.

She didn't look too happy.

Asriel placed the spear on her back and stuck her hands together. Multicolored light began to shoot out between her fingers and she slowly pulled them apart to reveal a crackling ball of prismatic lightning coursing between her palms. Frisk got a good look at it and then he grimaced in fear; a second later, Asriel pushed her hands forward and the ball of energy split apart into several pillars of lightning, lancing downward toward Frisk at an alarming rate. Without thinking rationally, Frisk flipped himself over and tried to kick as if he was swimming through water. To his surprise, it worked, and he went flying downward and forward faster. However, he didn't expect how fast Asriel would make the lightning, so while he managed to avoid one strike, two more slammed into his back and sent him spiking downward that would make a meteor look like it was traveling at a snail's pace. Frisk was tumbling over himself, spinning forward like the clumsiest gymnast on the planet. Another lightning bolt struck, but miraculously, this one missed completely on its own. It got Frisk to kick himself into action and he kicked himself downward, but he did a few flips until he was upright. "Upright" in the sense he didn't need to tilt his head downward to look at Asriel, who was still following him.

He was just in time to see her charge another ball of lighting; this time he was ready. When she shot it and the pillars of electric magic came bearing down on him, Frisk began twisting himself around. He dodged one, and kicked at the air to fly forward, the next lightning strike missing him by inches. More spinning and flipping; Asriel waved her hand to direct the attack. The next few strikes still missed him, and once they were depleted, Asriel scowled, baring her teeth, and she grabbed the spear off her back before throwing it into the side of the nearest chunk of rock. She flew after it, landed on the side, and gripping the spear, she called, "You're proving to be highly resilient, Chara...A lot more resilient than I remember!" Then, Frisk watched as she grabbed the haft of the spear again and strained. After a moment, she pulled backward and allowed herself to float in the air again, and pulling on the spear caused the entire landmass she had stuck it into came with it. In a matter of seconds, she was holding the massive chunk of rock over her head. That was when she screamed, "So let's see how you handle this!" and promptly swung the spear over her head. There was an explosion of magic from the end of the spear stuck in the rock, and it was sent hurtling at Frisk like a makeshift meteor. Frisk only watched as it got closer to him; in a matter of seconds, it would hit him and would either keep traveling through the void forever, or it would collide with another mass of stone and he'd be crushed.

"Can't move out of the way fast enough," Frisk hastily muttered to himself. The mass of rock was close to slamming into him. "The only way around…"

He trailed off. Distantly, the sound of the stone Asriel had thrown at him rumbled as it sailed through space. "...Is through." A massive shadow fell over him and drew him out of his thoughts; he looked up and saw that even if he had a better option, he wouldn't have any time to act on it, so Frisk steeled himself, drew his limbs in, and willed himself forward. He must have been getting the hang of moving around in a space where physics didn't apply, because he rocketed forward, directly toward the landmass. Frisk grit his teeth, wound his left arm back, and yelled as he punched.

The katar made contact and sent a shower of stone off of the cosmic debris. Frisk didn't stop to take in that this plan was working so far, he just moved his left hand back and punched with the right. Again, stone came flying off the greater whole when his katar made contact. And then he settled into a rhythm of left, right, left, right, left, right. In seconds, Frisk had tunneled into the center of the massive chunk of rock, but he knew he still wasn't done. He kept punching, even though he felt his arms starting to get sore, he was compelled to keep going. How long had he been in there? He didn't know; the stone just kept breaking away with each jab and it let him keep moving forward unimpeded, so he kept working his arms, faster and faster.

Until finally, he hit the stone one last time and saw color and light flood into the hole he'd dug through the rocky island. He'd punched his way through an improvised projectile and came out the other side. For a moment, he couldn't believe it himself, the fact that he'd actually just done something that sounded like it came from an anime.

His elation was quickly brought back down when Asriel slammed into him and the two of them began to fall downward, grappling the whole time. She punched and kicked him; at first, she succeeded in landing a couple blows on his head and stomach, but Frisk quickly regained initiative and began blocking her attacks, almost as if it was second nature. She punched with her left hand, he blocked right; Asriel jabbed with her right knee, he grabbed it and knocked it away. They kept at this while still falling, spinning around, and trading blows. Asriel reached out and a ball of magic sprung to life in her hand, and she tried to push it into Frisk's face; he shoved her hand away, and her arm ended up right next to his head. The ball was shot out and flew off into the distance, growing smaller until it simply faded from sight.

Asriel grimaced and scowled furiously at Frisk before she grabbed his collar, curled her legs up, and kicked off of him and flew into the air. Frisk was left spinning around but he quickly righted himself and Asriel yelled, "That's it! I'll purge this timeline once and for all!" as she raised her spear into the air. "Say your prayers!"

She vanished and the world around him grew dark. Dark enough that even the rocky floating islands faded away. In its place, a massive goat's head, very familiar to him. Frisk's eyes widened and he turned himself around and willed himself to move away from it, and just in time, as Asriel's attack began sucking in air that no longer existed, matter that had been erased. In its place were white dodecahedrons, placeholders for the very fabric of the universe. It drew in all this toward itself, hoping to devour Frisk with it, but he struggled, he struggled harder than he remembered struggling against the Hyper Goner attack before. Frisk juked the placeholder matter, moving from left to right, over and under, scrabbling to keep away, but he was slipping. Its power was too great, even for him, and it kept drawing him closer, not helped by the fact that sometimes Frisk would smack into the white polygons and be sent a couple feet backward, into its waiting jaws. It kept going, seemingly ignorant of just how much matter was being absorbed and destroyed, and its gravitational pull reached its zenith. Frisk's hair was being swept around as if he was in hurricane-force winds and the sheer amount of matter and power pouring into the thing's mouth intensified, more and more until...it all disappeared in a flash of white light. The pull was gone and the world was restored to its rightful place and Frisk's hair now looked like a seagull had made a nest in it, but otherwise, he was fine. He took a cursory glance around, and Asriel reappeared above him a second later. "No…!" she exclaimed in disbelief, "How…? You...You're still alive?" She stopped to catch her breath, shoulders heaving, chest shuddering from just how much Frisk had been testing her. Then, she lowered her head, and stopped moving. Frisk could only watch, anxious of what would happen next. After a minute, he slowly reached out...and Asriel snapped up straight, a wide smile across her face. Frisk recoiled, his own eyes went wide as she cried out in triumph, "Then I'll show you my true power!"

Asriel spread out her arms and screamed. But even that was soon drowned out by the sheer cacophony of the universe and everything in it being broken down and unmade by a single being with godlike power. Frisk clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and shielded his face. The noise got louder and the universe broke down even faster, faster still, until finally…

Everything stopped.

Frisk opened his eyes. He was floating in a black void. This was beyond a small pocket dimension at the end of the universe. This was the edge of reality itself. And above him…

The angel. The one who had seen the surface.

The Absolute Goddess of Hyperdeath.

She didn't look any different, but Frisk could feel the power radiating off her body like heat. She hadn't been lying before, and she wasn't lying now. She lifted her gigantic head and a wicked grin split her mouth, revealing two rows of fangs that were probably as long as Frisk was tall. "Urah, ha, ha, ha, ha...Here's something that should alarm you..." She raised one of her arms. Small balls of dark energy appeared above her palm. "I wasn't using my full strength before." Asriel raised her arm up and the small orbs shot out. They plunged down toward Frisk, antimatter trailing in their wake.

When Frisk saw them coming, he grimaced and kicked himself upward. In the absence of gravity and physics, he flew straight up at breakneck speed but the projectiles were right on his tail. Frisk took a quick glance down and hastily veered to his right, and most of the orbs followed before they flew off into oblivion, but before he could even get a chance to breathe, Asriel raised bother her hands again, and more of the orbs spawned and raced out to try and beat Frisk down; he made a quick about-face and began flying in the opposite direction, but the projectiles gave chase. "I can feel it…" she spoke into the void, "You are determined...but still not as determined as I am!" Frisk made several more sharp turns: left, right, down, left, up. The orbs were far more persistent now than they had ever been before. Frisk made another quick dive downward, but hadn't counted for the sheer volume of orbs chasing him, and one slammed into his back. He cried out and was sent spiraling downward for a couple precious seconds before he righted himself and kept flying around Asriel. "I admit, you surprised me, Chara. You somehow managed to keep up with me, despite only having one SOUL to draw determination from, but now...now your luck has run out!" she bellowed at him.

She raised her opposite hand into the air, index finger up, before she swung it horizontally. Frisk only had milliseconds to react before it hit him and he quickly pushed himself backward, doing a corkscrew in the air as faux wind whipped around him, letting him know her attack had missed by mere inches. But unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it; Asriel's claw tore time and space asunder, revealing a cosmos beyond normal space. She called down to him, "You'll die here...In a cold, lifeless void. And no one will remember your name." A second later, beams of blue light came shooting out from the hole it left behind in rapid succession. They were so fast that there was no delay between one laser being fired and another one fading away. Their speed coupled with their sheer numbers meant Frisk couldn't dodge them all. He kept flying backward but brought his arms up to try and block the worst of it as several pillars of magic penetrated his skin and bored through his body. He cried out because the pain was familiar. Burning electricity, feelings of pressure that his synapses couldn't parse. Pure astral energy. The attack pushed him backward, and his only saving grace was that the wound in reality quickly healed itself. Frisk tried to slow himself down, but considering his vision was blurred and his body ached, it wasn't an easy feat. He came to a clumsy stop, nearly tripping over his heels, and looked up at Asriel. She...didn't look amused. "Still holding on? Fine." She pulled her right arm backward, the claw on her index finger poised, ready to strike like a viper. Her mouth quickly upturned into a grin and she narrowed her eyes, locking on to Frisk. "That attitude will serve you well in your next life!" He knew what was coming. Asriel had made it obvious she was going to puncture him with that claw. He sucked in a breath and bent his knees, and kicked himself off from where he was standing and began to fly around as erratically as he could. Up, left, down, around in a corkscrew, he tried everything he could. But Asriel was patient.

And he was injured.

After half a minute of trying to bait out the attack, his movements got sloppy; his turns weren't as sharp, his flying had slowed down, and then...Frisk reached the zenith of another ascent above Asriel, and he had slowed down just enough. Her grin widened...and she struck.

There was a flash of white. The facsimile of air being displaced. Frisk's eyes widened when he realized what was happening, but by then, it was far too late.

Asriel's claw met his chest and it sent him flying backward through the endless dark until he crashed on a nonexistent floor and rolled over himself several times. Amazingly, despite the damage, he wasn't dead, and though it hurt to move he forced himself up to his knees, breath rattling in his throat and lungs. He stared up at Asriel; she seemed to tower over him more than usual. Was it because of his place on the ground? Had it been the power of the DT boost she'd used? He didn't know. His chest felt like it was on fire.

"Urah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" Asriel's laughter rang in his ears. It was getting harder to concentrate, or even stay awake. Frisk was hunched over on the ground, clutching his chest with his right arm. "Don't feel bad, Chara. You put up...a decent fight, I suppose. But now, it's all over. You may have survived that attack, but you're hanging by a thread. Anything else happens to you, and you'll expire." She held up her hands again. More of the dark matter orbs materialized over them, and Frisk could only raise his head up slightly to meet her gaze before he had to lower it again, because the strain on his body was becoming too much in his weakened state. "Just give up and save us both the trouble." Frisk grit his teeth and wanted so desperately to believe he could still pull through. That he hadn't come this far just to die here, so close to the end. But, it seemed, with his head spinning more and more as the seconds ticked away, that this truly was it. He tried to breathe deeply for just a bit longer. In and out. Inhale, and exhale. And he kept breathing. After a few seconds, he found that the pain in his chest had, surprisingly, gone from gut-wrenchingly painful to more of a dull ache. Frisk opened his eyes and lowered his head and moved his arm off his chest and found...

He furrowed his brow. That couldn't be right.

There was no blood.

That was the moment a small flash of gold light caught his attention, and Frisk looked down to see that instead of a deep gash cut into his torso and his gut sliced open and leaking intestines everywhere, there was...a crack. A crack in his chest as if he were a marble statue, glowing gold. It was at that point Asriel could see it clearly too, and her eyes widened in abject confusion. "...What…?" she muttered as Frisk slowly pushed himself further upright. "What's happening to—"

Her words were cut off when the crack suddenly expanded and the sound it made reverberated through the void. It shot up Frisk's chest, bisecting him down the middle, and in response, Frisk leaned back and went rigid, his eyes frozen wide open. And yet, he was still alive, he could still feel his heart beating. He couldn't really think about much after that. The crack in his body spread again, down his arms, making him twitch and throw them out to the side before he began to float up off the ground. The crack continued to grow and spread across every inch of skin until Frisk had been transformed into a golden silhouette. And then, his body itself began to change as his old form leaned back so far that his spine should have been broken and the golden aurora expanded outward from his chest, creating a new form rising off of Frisk. This form continued to rise up, offshoots of light coming out, creating new amorphous shapes around it until very soon, the aurora had reformed his body. There was no child in a striped sweater left behind, nor a man in the robe of the Royal Guard. There was something else left in Frisk's place.

Its skin was a perfect shade of light blue. Its head was crowned by a wild mass of dark brown hair that reached down to its ankles. It wore sandals and a tunic around its waist. But it was not human. No, there were too many eyes on its chest, eyes that were also stuck to great alabaster wings protruding from its back. There were bioluminescent lines etched into the skin of its left arm, terminating on the palm of its hand; the right leg had sections made of a crystalline substance that gleamed with multicolored light. Above its head was a massive golden halo constructed of concentric rings that moved and rotated on their own. Then, it brought up its head and opened the three eyes of auroras and starlight on its face to look upon Asriel.

"Wh...what…?" she stammered in disbelief. Her eyes were wide, white irises flitting about in fear. "What's going on!? How...how did you...That can't be possible!"

Frisk was still very unsure of himself and this form, but he had his suspicions about how it came to be. But for the first time in a long time, he felt calm. And it leaked through into his voice when he said:

"Don't be afraid. I'm here for you now."

Unsurprisingly, the fact that Frisk looked like he'd clawed his way out from the nothing between the stars and the sudden paradigm shift did nothing to soothe Asriel's nerves. She clenched her fists, sneered, and yelled, "What are you!?"

"Asriel...don't you remember…?" Frisk continued, calmly, voice ringing like bells. "It's me." He pressed his hands on his chest and smiled brightly. "...Your best friend."

Silence. Asriel stared at Frisk for a few seconds. In this case, perhaps it did last centuries. "You…" she muttered. Suddenly, Asriel's head snapped up to glare at him and she pulled her fist back. "You liar!" She thrust it forward, releasing hundreds of dark matter projectiles; more than Frisk had ever seen in his life. "You're not Chara! You never were! You...you're some sort of monster…!"

Frisk was frozen, transfixed on the myriad of orbs coming for him. It was enough that it made his head spin trying to take all of them in, and for a moment, he wondered how he was going to be able to dodge all of them. But then, something deep in his soul began to resonate. It was a power unlike anything he had ever felt; not Determination, but something deeper.

You prepare Weeping Shield.

Frisk knew he had to defend himself somehow, and in response, the eyes across his body opened wide. All at once, tears made of a shiny, light blue, metallic substance began to leak out and fly directly at the orbs of dark matter. Frisk just watched in awe as they flew away. When the two opposing projectiles collided, they were both destroyed in a bright flash of light and a cloud of magical dust. It definitely surprised Frisk, but it surprised Asriel even more. "What!?" she yelled. "Aaargh…! Why!? Won't!? You!? Die!?"

She let loose several beams of prismatic magic at him, and Frisk found that, despite how large they were and how fast they were going, he found them easy to dodge. Just sidestep to the left, fly up. Stop. One of them was coming right for him. Frisk concentrated the magic he found he had inside him and in a rush of air, he blinked out of existence before reappearing just a few feet away, completely unscathed. When Asriel saw that, her eyes went wide with fear and she began to spam more of the lasers at Frisk, but by then, he'd already made it halfway to her. Dodging the rest of her attacks was simple. He knew what he had to do next, so Frisk reached out toward that "center" somewhere inside Asriel's SOUL, and he called out to Undyne.

The world around him began to blur as it pulled him in.


Frisk opened his eyes again to see someone standing before him. Her face was obscured by a strange magical cloud.

A Lost Soul appears before you.

She lowered her head and a spear materialized in her hand. "You humans have hurt us for the last time!"

Frisk heard the telltale sound of more spears being conjured and looked around to see them closing in. But a quick look down at himself revealed that he still had his new form, and he could still feel its power, shining in his soul.

The first volley of spears came in, and Frisk turned to the left and swung his fist outward. A normal human versus conjured spears never fared well. This time, he knocked it away with his bare hand. While he was pleasantly surprised, Frisk didn't dwell on it for long and he kept waving his hand around to block more of the spears. He swatted to the left and the right, above him and in front of him, then turned around and kicked away several more spears with his leg before he spun back around to face Undyne. Already, he felt his SOUL resonating with power again, and he placed his hand over his chest.

You cast Animus Maestro.

Frisk snapped his head upward, and despite how new this magic was to him (if this could truly be magic), he intrinsically knew how to use it. He lifted his left hand and concentrated on the will in his heart; he remembered the passion she had for life, and he quickly swiped his hand from right to left. The fog was dispelled in an instant, revealing the wide, toothy grin Undyne was usually sporting.

"You're okay...humans can't be all bad!" she cheered.

Frisk blinked a couple times before he smiled back at her. But before he could say anything, the small dimensional rift they had been in began to implode and it all went white again.


Once reality asserted itself, the first thing that entered Frisk's ears was the sound of a banshee, screeching at the top of her lungs. However, once he regained his senses, he realized Asriel was the one screaming. She was bent over (as bent over as some strange abomination of souls could be) clutching her chest. "Aaauuughh…!" The screaming stopped eventually, and was replaced with deep, labored breathing. After a minute, Asriel muttered,"What did you…" She turned back to look at Frisk. Anger burning in her eyes, but Frisk could see through them and hear it in her voice. There was fear. The fear of coming undone. Her voice raised in pitch and broke for a second as she screeched. "What did you do? What did you do to me!?"

She lashed out again, rending another hole in space and the wall of lasers came firing out at Frisk again. He bowed his head and wound up his arm before swinging it as they closed in, knocking the lasers away like tennis balls before the rift closed up again. Asriel raised her hand to try and fire more projectiles at him, but by then it was too late. She'd lost the initiative and Frisk was already moving in. When he was close, he reached out, and called for Alphys, and from deep inside Asriel's SOUL, there was a response. The world melted away in a flash of white light.


Frisk looked up.

A Lost Soul appears before you.

"They can't ever know the truth…"

Before she got the chance to attack, Frisk did the same motion he did before, drawing his hand from right to left. The fog was dispelled again, and Alphys immediately seemed to come to her senses and exclaimed, "W-wait! I still have my friends! Everything's gonna be okay!"

Frisk smiled gently as the pocket dimension faded out.


Frisk was thrown out of the subdimension, spinning over himself for a moment before he threw his arms and legs out to stop himself and he looked up at Asriel. She was reeling from the pain of letting her emotions in again. She screeched, and despite his new godlike statues, Frisk still had to put his hands over his ears to keep his eardrums from blowing out. Asriel clutched at her head, still screaming as her wings spread out and began firing off more projectiles.

These were different from the ones before, many were simple prismatic balls of light that barely had any trail. They simply shot out in random directions in an attempt to hit him. Frisk would not be deterred. He tensed up and rocketed forward, straight toward Asriel once again. A few projectiles came toward him; really, it was inevitable, but Frisk put up his left hand, and a shield of pure white force appeared between him and the orbs to intercept them. They smashed into the shield and dissipated harmlessly. Several more were coming in from the right, so Frisk did the same thing, and Asriel's attack was likewise rendered ineffective. It didn't take long for her to notice Frisk was approaching, and she recoiled and brought up one of her arms, palm out, to try and shoot him down. "No! N-n-no! Get away from me!" she cried. Frisk closed his eyes, and, as much as he didn't want to hurt her, he reached out and called the names of his closest friends, now what he considered as his family.


Frisk looked up to see two skeletons and their father standing at attention.

Three Lost Souls appear before you.

"why do i even try? nothing ever changes."

"I MUST CAPTURE A HUMAN!"

"THEY NEVER CARED ABOUT MY WORK."

Frisk bowed his head and cast Animus Maestro, dispelling the fog. Papyrus was the first to shout, "NO, YOU'RE MY FRIEND! I COULD NEVER CAPTURE YOU!"

Sans winked at him and said, "good luck, kid. go win this thing."

For a moment, Frisk was so proud, he didn't mind that it was all fading away so fast he almost didn't get to hear Gaster say, "THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS...MY SON."


Thrown back out into reality again, Frisk stopped himself mid-flight and didn't wait for Asriel to launch another attack. Determination was burning in his heart. He was getting closer. But he did look up at her face. She had gone from completely incensed to almost breaking down in tears as she begged, "Stop! Stop it!"

Frisk called the last two names he needed and the world was sucked into a singularity once more.


Finally, Frisk was face-to-obscured-face with the king and queen of all monsters.

Two Lost Souls appear before you.

"It is too dangerous. You cannot leave."

"My people are depending on me. I have no choice."

They both raised their hands, tongues of fire already beginning to jump out, but Frisk quickly raised his hand and swept it across his field of vision. The fog disappeared, and in its place were Toriel and Asgore's beaming faces.

"You are strong, my child. I am proud of you!" she cheered.

"You are our future!" he called.

Frisk smiled back, content to know there was just one last soul to save now.


He was shot back out from wherever that subdimension was and stopped in front of Asriel. By now, she was shrieking incoherently, which just kept breaking Frisk's heart over and over again. But while many things had changed in this timeline, the important things had not. She didn't even stop to say anything, the attacks just started coming out haphazardly. Prismatic orbs shot out of her wings and Frisk immediately started moving, knocking them aside. "GET AWAY FROM ME...! I'LL TEAR YOU TO SHREDS!" she screamed at him after awhile. Asriel raised her hand and let loose dark matter orbs, thousands, maybe millions of them. Frisk took one look at all the projectiles coming for him and his eyes widened and he began flying randomly again. This time, however, he was mostly helped by the fact the eyes on his body cried more tears that shot away and blew some of them up, but it still wasn't enough to stop all of them. As he flew, Frisk was suddenly seized with an idea, and he spun around so that he was facing the orbs while still flying backward. He raised his left hand and willed for something to happen; a beam of bright blue magic shot out of his palm and hit one of the orbs, destroying it.

Frisk stared in awe for a couple seconds before he steeled his gaze and flew upward, using both hands to fire beams of energy at anything that got too close. The tears kept pouring out of his eyes. Tears in space time began to open everywhere, most likely due to Asriel going crazy trying to stop him and the lasers they spawned were being fired from every possible angle. They appeared in front of him, behind him, below, diagonally, nowhere was safe. A few projectiles had hit him, but they didn't hurt as much as before. Eventually, he managed to cleave through most of the attacks, leaving space open again, and as he hovered hundreds of feet above Asriel, he looked down. He didn't know if she was livid or terrified, but this was answered soon enough when she clutched her head again and screamed, "I DON'T NEED YOU! I DON'T NEED ANYONE!" She paused, still panting. Frisk didn't even know she got tired in that form. Asriel continued to gasp for breath, looking around for something to use against him for a few seconds until her head snapped up and she shouted, "I'll...I...I'll vaporize you!" Frisk's eyes went wide and Asriel slammed the hells of her palms together and took aim. "I'll obliterate you, body and SOUL! YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO HURT ME AGAIN...!"

A spark of light flared to life in her hands. It grew bigger, little by little.

Until, with an ear-shattering explosion, it expanded and streaked toward Frisk. It was too large to move out of the way, and Frisk had been taken by surprise so badly he didn't think about testing the limits of his teleportation ability, so he did the only logical thing he could:

He brought his arms up and braced himself.

The beam of magic collided with him a second later and Frisk managed to catch it with his hands. It burned when it made contact, and he cried out in pain. It pushed him back, but Frisk grit his teeth and tried to reassert his position in space, and it worked. He managed to come to a stop. Despite how big the laser was, he could still see Asriel down below "I didn't want to do this, Chara…! If it really is you!" she called. Asriel kept pouring power into the attack and Frisk hissed as it burned his hands more. He couldn't hold her off forever; it was a losing battle. But then, an idea. Frisk opened his eyes in realization, and then squeezed them shut again, craned his neck upward, and called for help.

You cast Loyalty's Embrace.

...But nothing happened.

It was just him, alone, against the blinding light.

"No...It must be you! You're the only one who would be Determined enough to stand up to me in this form!" Asriel called. Frisk couldn't concentrate on what she was saying as he felt himself getting weaker. The beam pushed him back a few inches. Frisk grit his teeth and tried to ignore the pain that was slowly creeping up his arms, but it was hard. The magic was burning its way beneath his skin. "And if that's true, then please! Please just stop!" The pain suddenly spiked and Frisk cried out and got pushed further backward.

But then, he felt it; he didn't need to strain as hard to keep the attack at bay and Frisk snapped his head up and opened his eyes. There was a flash of violet on his right, and he looked over to see Toriel, standing by his side, her arm held out to hold back the laser. He blinked in awe a couple times, and she turned to him and smiled warmly. And then, he felt another presence on the other side; Frisk looked over to see Sans in much the same pose as Toriel. His pupils moved over to look at him and he winked. Then, Frisk felt others close by and he took a quick glance behind him to see everyone else slowly appear, seemingly from nothing. But they smiled as they reached up and he felt their magic add to his own and stop the laser beam from going through. Together, he felt stronger. He felt his SOUL knit itself back up, and his muscles stopped burning. Frisk beamed as he readjusted his stance, and held the beam at bay. This didn't go unnoticed by Asriel. She could see what was happening, what Frisk had done, and she doubled down on focusing her power into the energy beam. It didn't knock Frisk back, but the surge of power burned his hands and shot straight through his SOUL. "Don't you understand? I'm doing this for you! For us!" Asriel cried. The sound of crackling magic was almost overwhelming for Frisk. Despite his newfound power, Asriel was still giving him a run for his money, but he looked back up into the blinding light; down at Asriel herself. Then, he turned his head around to look at his friends, the people who had helped him. Who had always been so kind to him. Asgore and Undyne were struggling a bit with such an outpouring of power. Sans and Papyrus were sweating. Gaster, Toriel, and Alphys were concentrating on holding back the energy beam, seemingly with some difficulty. Frisk snapped his head back around, and knew he couldn't fail them now. Then, Asriel called out again. "I don't want this to end! I don't want you to leave! I don't want to say goodbye! Not again!" She trailed off into shallow, ragged breaths, and then bowed her head and closed her eyes. "So please…"

The energy beam began to grow larger.

"Just."

Frisk's eyes widened. Asriel looked back up at them.

"Let."

He was getting pushed back. The magic was getting stronger, more unpredictable.

"Me."

Frisk quickly dispelled whatever had allowed everyone to help him hold it at bay.

"WIN!"

Asriel screamed one last time and pushed her power to the limit. The energy was no match for Frisk and it enveloped him completely. It forced him to stand up straight, spreading his arms out and letting the energy wash over him, and it seared his very essence, a soldering iron pressing into his very soul. He screamed. He screamed as loudly as he could, and it was still drowned out by the noise the magic created as it pierced the void. Frisk was in there long enough for it to feel like a billion years, but eventually, Asriel's power began to fade. The beam began to dissipate, and it left Frisk behind, stock still but still upright, twitching infrequently for a few seconds, before the pain caught up with him and he fell forward, flat on the ground. Asriel watched him fall, and for a moment, all was silent. All was still. She was about to speak, to say that she would put his soul to good use when…

He twitched.

Asriel's eyes went wide.

Frisk clenched his fist and slammed it into the ground. He pushed himself up. His face was cut. His body was burned and bruised in several places, but his eyes still shone in the crushing darkness. He was still alive.

"How…?"

Frisk hadn't needed to know his stats since Gaster had removed the Underground's constraints from him. He hadn't needed it in this timeline, and in truth, he didn't think he'd ever be able to see it again. But now, he could feel it. In his SOUL, he knew how much HP, ATK, and DEF he had:

FRISK
ATK: 999
DEF: 999
HP: 1,999,999 / 2,000,000

He picked himself up. Stood on his own two feet, and looked up at Asriel. She wasn't moving, still glued to the scene before her in shock. Frisk bowed his head and took a step forward.

There is still one person who needs to be saved. So you raise your arms, you reach out…

And you gently call her name.


Frisk opened his eyes. The world had faded away and changed again. He knew because closing his eyes never did much to block out the light. While he knew the light from the Barrier was still shining through, the first thing he saw was his body; he had been looking down, and he could see his strange, angelic body had disappeared. He was back to being regular old, sweater-touting, denim shorts-rocking Frisk. He pursed his lips and grumbled to himself. He was just starting to get used to that body, and weird as it was, it had looked pretty cool. He didn't know why he'd reverted back to being his old self. Maybe the magic he'd used to sustain the form had finally run out. Maybe it just got dispelled when the world had changed. He didn't know. He didn't have time to think about it, because movement in front of him drew him out of his thoughts. A young Boss Monster in a striped sweater wandered out of the dark. Her face was obscured by fog.

The Lost Soulless appears before you.

"I was too trusting. I was weak." Frisk stared at her as she raised her hand and clenched it into a fist. The ground below him began to shudder, and Frisk whipped his head down to look, he could see something was trying to shatter through the rocky floor. Frisk reflexively jumped out of the way, to the right, and a thorny vine broke through the ground in an attempt to skewer him. Then, he noticed the ground he'd just landed on was also shaking, and he threw himself backward. Another vine broke through. Frisk kept checking the ground, and he dodged around two more vines before he jumped forward and glanced up. Asriel was ten feet away. Frisk put his hand over his heart again.

Her soul was still there. He just had to get close.

"I was an idiot," she said. She raised her other arm and snapped her fingers. Frisk looked around as fireballs spawned all around him. He looked frantically from side-to-side, and then several came flying at him from the right. His eyes widened and he ducked down under them, and then saw a few more fly at him from the left. He backpedaled a few steps, but misjudged his spacing and got hit square in the chest with a fireball. The wind got knocked out of his lungs and he felt it burn his skin and SOUL. Thankfully, due to being more or less insinuated to magical pain at this point, Frisk's recovery time was quick; he managed to keep his balance and keep moving backward until a few more fireballs came at him from the front, which he ducked under as well. The last volley came at him and he weaved through the flames with no trouble.

"In this world, it's kill or be killed." She lowered that same arm. A small pinprick of light flashed on the end of her finger. Nothing happened. Frisk just stared at her for a moment before he felt...something. It was something he felt in his SOUL, something twinging like a gut feeling, but twice as raw. He jumped to the left on instinct, just in time to see the air where he'd been standing vibrate and suddenly whip around violently. The force was so fierce that the ground where he'd been standing broke apart as if someone had slammed a very large, very heavy sword into it, sending little chunks of stone flying upward. Frisk's stomach dropped into his legs and he turned his head back to see Asriel readjust her arm to aim at him again. At this point, any sane person would have predicted the next attack was coming and dived out of the way. A sane person would have tried to avoid certain death at all costs.

And Frisk was a lot of things, but at this point, "sane" was pushing it.

Instead, he stood up straight and said clearly, "Chara wouldn't want this." Frisk was honestly expecting to get smited right then and there, but to his amazement...she stopped. Her arm stopped moving and no attack came. They both stared at each other for a few seconds (if she even could stare with fog taking up her whole face) before Frisk cleared his throat and slowly, cautiously, took a step closer. "If they could see you now, they wouldn't be disappointed, but they would be pretty sad. They'd be sad everything turned out this way. They only wanted to give you the freedom they knew you deserved." He took a few more steps closer, slowly reaching under his shirt. She made no move to stop him; she was still listening, so Frisk looked away and tentatively added, "...A-all they ever wanted was to make monsters...their family...you...happy. And that's...that's all I ever wanted, too. I want you to be happy."

She made no moves, and said nothing more. The silence lingered. It lingered long enough to get awkward and despite knowing it was probably a bad idea, Frisk began to slowly reach out with his free hand...

Suddenly...

The memories came flooding back.

The fog was blown away and dissolved into nothing in seconds and Frisk stepped back in surprise, but he wasn't afraid. He had no reason to be. Now, there was a goat monster with bright brown eyes and an adorable little muzzle staring back at him, and the first word she whispered was, "...Frisk…?" His mouth broke into a smile wide enough to strain his cheeks, but before he could get closer and hug Asriel, her expression shifted straight to panic and she clasped her hands over her mouth. "Frisk, I...I'm sorry! I was...I acted so horribly toward you...And toward friends...A-and my family, and bystanders, and...and everyone else!" she stammered, gesturing wildly for a moment before she lowered her arms. After a moment of rubbing the back of her hands, she let them fall to her sides and hung her head in defeat. Then she glanced up at him, and swiftly mustered the courage to look him in the eye. "There's...there's no excuse for what I've done," she mumbled. "I'm so, so sorry. But if you can't...If you don't want...to forgive me...I understand."

She punctuated her thoughts with a few sniffles, and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. Frisk stared at her for a couple seconds before he grimaced and closed his eyes. "You're right. There is no excuse for what you've done," he stated.

If Asriel had a heart, it would have been broken into a million tiny pieces, but she nodded in agreement and hung her head. But then, there was the scuffling of shoes on stone, of someone coming closer. Asriel had only the briefest glimpse before she had to move her head to accommodate for the human who had quickly stepped forward and hugged her tight. And in that silence, Asriel was almost too overwhelmed to hear what he whispered.

"But I still forgive you."

When she finally realized she had actually heard those words and not imagined them, Asriel quickly wrapped her arms around Frisk's waist and held on as if letting go meant she would disappear. She buried her face in his shoulder and the waterworks started; Frisk wasn't faring much better, tears falling down his face, his nose was already congested. But they stood there, holding on, for many long minutes...and it still wasn't enough time. But, there was something Frisk could do to change that, so after a moment, he slowly pulled away from the embrace, and while she seemed reluctant, Asriel separated from him, too. Her eyes were still watery, her fur was streaked with tear tracts, but Frisk did his best to keep his voice even as he said, "H...hey...hey, Asriel, cheer up. I didn't...come all this way to...I-I've been waiting to give you something." And before she could ask what he wanted to give, before she could even ask why his smile had returned twice as strong as before, Frisk reached down, under his shirt and hastily pulled out the SOUL. Her soul.

Once Asriel saw it, she froze up and seemed to be stuck staring at it, trying to process just what it was and how it got here. She didn't come to a solid conclusion, because she cautiously raised her arm to point to it and feebly asked, "Who...Whose SOUL is that?"

Frisk's smile never faltered. He just held it up a bit higher and held it out to her. "It's yours," he replied.

She stepped back, shaking her head. "N-no, it...it can't be. I'm...I'm dead. My soul was broken hundreds of years ago. The only way...You'd have to k…" She cut herself off and swallowed hard. "Kill someone to get a soul."

Frisk's smile fell and he stared at Asriel for a long time. How could she think this was someone else's soul? The only other way he could have gotten it was by killing a Boss Monster, but the only Boss Monsters around were Asgore and Toriel. He thought for a minute, and then, an idea came to him. Frisk slowly readjusted himself so that he was standing up straight and holding Asriel's soul closer to himself instead of offering it out to her. He bowed his head and took a deep breath before he explained, "Asriel...I'm pretty sure it's yours. I saw it floating away from your body before I nabbed it."

"Before you...before...you…" Asriel stopped herself and looked away from him, down at the ground. The Barrier's warped light danced over them, but Asriel didn't move for a couple minutes. And then, she slowly picked her head back up and her eyes drilled holes into Frisk's. "That...that was you in the throne room. When Chara and I...came back...from…"

She trailed off. With the way her eyes had widened, it looked like she had answered her own question. Frisk just smiled at her gently, and held up the soul offering it to her one more time. She blinked. She stared at it for a minute. Then, Asriel took a cautious step forward. Another few seconds passed. Then, she took another step and slowly lifted her arm up to reach out for the SOUL. Frisk daintily moved his hands half an inch closer; Asriel kept reaching out. And then, just like that, her soul began to move on its own. It floated away from Frisk and out of his hands, and motes of light began to break away from it and form small trails behind it as it moved. Over the next few seconds, more of these trails appeared and it kept moving toward Asriel. Slowly. Gently, as if it knew it was being returned to its true owner. Asriel herself had, by this point, shrunk back a little bit, especially as the soul's trails of light got longer until it finally closed in on its destination. Her soul began to glow brightly, but not overwhelmingly so. The trails of light began to move on their own and wrapped around to touch down on her arms, on the side of her torso, on the top of her head, until it was finally close enough that it pressed into her sweater and began to fade away until all the evidence it had been there was a faint outline of an inverted heart glowing through her shirt.

Asriel brought her hands up immediately and placed them over the area her SOUL had been. She was breathing heavily, tears were welling up in her eyes. Frisk took a few steps closer and she lifted her head quickly to look at him. "It seems that, despite everything…" he whispered, "it's still you."

She just kept staring at him for another minute before Asriel's lips pressed together and she looked away; it looked like she couldn't decide between putting on a smile or a frown. "You...you shouldn't have done that, Frisk" she muttered. Frisk blinked a couple times in disbelief and then decided he was going to do something he should have done years ago. He brought his arms up and slapped them onto her shoulders which made her jump and stare at him wide-eyed.

"Asriel…" Frisk began. "I want you to look me in the eyes and say you don't miss your mom and dad. That you don't miss their love. That you want to look at the people you've hurt countless times over." He kept his eyes open and locked on hers; she kept trying to look away, but Frisk never once moved his head or broke eye contact, even though she wasn't looking directly at him. "I understand, you know I do. I've hurt them all, too." His lips slowly dipped into a frown. His eyes were starting to mist up. "And I'm...sorry. I wish I could heal your pain. If I could, I'd...I'd take it all away in a heartbeat s-so you...so you could be as happy as you were when Chara was alive...but I thought...this would be a decent start."

Asriel turned back to look at him, and despite the clear hurt in her eyes, she smiled at him. Typical. Burying her own pain to make others happy. "Frisk, you of all people should know there's no hope for me—"

"Asriel, there is hope for you," he blurted out. Asriel froze and stared at him, her mouth open slightly. Unlike many, many times before where Frisk had to at least think of an appropriate response before he could put into words, he knew exactly what he had to say this time. "You just need to decide to reach for it. No matter how scary it may be." They settled back into silence, and Frisk relaxed his grip on her shoulders. Then, he continued, softly, "And if you do, then I promise...I'll be by your side every step of the way."

He lifted his head to look back at Asriel, and when their eyes met, they stayed locked. Asriel was searching for the lie in his voice; Frisk was searching for the courage he knew was in there, somewhere. Then, Asriel blinked a couple times and a smile slowly spread across her face. Fresh tears came rolling out of her eyes and she reached up to wipe them away. After another minute, she looked back up at Frisk and pulled him into another hug, and though he grunted in surprise, Frisk made no move to break away. He just reached up and hugged her right back. Her shoulders twitched up and down infrequently, stuck somewhere between quiet laughter and sobbing hiccups. Frisk just held her tighter, worlessly telling her that everything was going to be okay. Another minute passed, and she pulled herself away from Frisk, and met his gaze once again. "Ha, ha...if you can make speeches like that, Dad may pick you to be an ambassador," she said. Then, she took a couple steps back, and Frisk let her go. Asriel walked around him, through the wavering light, until she stood in front of the starting point of the Barrier. She stopped and tilted her head up to take it all in, and then she sighed deeply, preparing herself for the next step. Asriel whirled around, smiling this time, and she declared, "But, I guess, in order for that to happen, monsters…" She threw her arms out to the side. "Have to go free…!"

She immediately began to rise up into the air, and she closed her eyes as she felt the spark of strength light in her soul. All the SOULs she had taken began to slowly filter out, one by one. They circled her like planets orbiting a brilliant star. Soon enough, the six human SOULs appeared around her as well, wreathing her head in a multicolored halo. The wind began to pick up, and in the distance, the light filtering through the Barrier began to twist. The monster SOULs seemed to know that salvation was at hand, as they began to move faster and faster. The human SOULs began to pick up their pace as they circled above Asriel's head. She clenched her teeth and then cried out as she and every SOUL she had began to glow brightly. Frisk remained transfixed on them, this orrery of souls and light, as they circulated around the cavern. The light from the surface fluctuated violently for an instant; the Barrier was going through its death throes. Then, Asriel cried out one more time and her body jerked upward; there was an explosion of light that blinded Frisk, and tremors that rocked the foundations of Mount Ebott. The noise faded away after a few seconds, only to be replaced by the sound of something shattering.

The Barrier was destroyed.

When the light and noise faded, Frisk opened his eyes and looked up to see Asriel still hanging in the air. In a few seconds, she started to slowly come back down, the vestiges of starlight trailing off of her. She gently set foot on the ground, lowered her arms, and lifted her head to look at Frisk, and when their eyes met, they both smiled. Asriel took a couple steps toward him.

And almost immediately, her face twisted in pain and she cried out as she fell to the floor. Frisk's eyes widened in horror and he raced over. He couldn't break her fall, but he quickly turned her over and lifted her back upright just to see his worst fears realized; there were cuts forming on her face and body, leaking silvery dust. "N...No...What...How…?"

"I...I'm sorry, Frisk…" she rasped. "Break...Breaking the Barrier...it took a lot of magic out of me. I...is this...the first time you gave me my SOUL...before I broke it…?" She trailed off into a weak chuckle. "What am I saying…? Of course...it is. I didn't have...a SOUL before, so...there wouldn't have been anything to draw from except...except m-my Determination. But I guess, the strain of trying to use...every monster SOUL and every human SOUL was just...too much. The mages who...created the Barrier must not have...expected a child to do it…" She shut her eyes, and her SOUL materialized and rose up a few inches above her chest. It was broken again, and it kept cracking and pieces kept breaking off in real time. Frisk could only stare at it in shock. There was nothing running through his head; no emotions, he just felt...hollow. Asriel's words managed to break him out of his stupor and he tilted his head to look back at her. "I'm sorry...I should have...I should have told you to...I should have warned you. And now...I've ruined...everything you've worked for." She coughed a couple times, and a few more pieces of her soul began to crack.

Frisk lowered his head and he went silent for a couple minutes, but before Asriel could speak again, he stated, "No." If she hadn't been dying, she might have been scared; his voice was so gravelly and hoarse it was almost unrecognizable. "This just proves it can be done." Frisk lifted his head a bit more. His eyes were red. Tears were already falling from the corners. He sniffled and continued as steadily as he could, "It may take years, but...I'll find a way to bring you back. Without resetting the timeline." He looked away and scoffed, "I probably can't even do it anymore. B-but Gaster's smart...A-a-and if we can work with human scientists and m-magi...we'll find a way to bring you back, I promise. I promise!"

He couldn't keep himself going, he couldn't pretend to be strong anymore. Frisk choked and wrapped his arms around Asriel and held her as close as he could as she lay dying, just like he'd done five-hundred years before. For her part, Asriel tried to lift her right hand and place it on his back, but she was growing weaker. After a couple seconds, she let it slide off, and didn't say anything else. The only sound that echoed around the cave was Frisk's muffled sobbing. But, strangely, after awhile, Asriel noticed something. She had her eyes closed, relegated to death, but when she opened them one last time, she saw something odd. "...F...Frisk…?" she whispered. "L...look."

Despite how much it hurt to know Asriel was dying in front of him again, Frisk lifted his head and he, too, saw the most peculiar thing. There were small balls of a shiny metallic substance, like liquid mercury hanging in midair. Frisk looked at a few of them hovering in front of himself and Asriel, until he saw another one float gingerly into his field of view. And then he looked around and saw there were dozens of them in the room. Maybe hundreds. He started to wonder where they were coming from until he saw one suddenly float up from directly under him, and he snapped his head down in surprise. He didn't see anything, but Asriel did. "...Frisk," she said, "your eyes...They're..."

His eyes were no longer human eyes. They were filled with auroras and starlight, and as he kept crying, what leaked out weren't tears, but instead, the very same balls of liquid metal that now hung in the air. Frisk reached up to touch under his eyes. It dislodged some of the smaller spheres, sending them flying off of him; he looked up to marvel at them as they floated away. Then he tried to reach for one above his head and to the left, and saw it and several others close by move in sync with his hand as it pushed. He stopped to stare at it for a moment and then looked down at Asriel...and noticed something she hadn't yet.

Her SOUL was still floating above her body, but he could see the small spheres were drawn to it, almost like moths to an open flame. They orbited around it, dancing in the air. It was an eventuality that Asriel would notice what had caught Frisk's eye, and she, too, was transfixed. Despite the cuts on her body bleeding dust, she felt some of the pain go away whenever one of the spheres accidentally collided with her soul. "Frisk…" she asked again, "What's...going on…?"

He didn't know, and he was about to say as such when he focused back on Asriel's soul and how the tears would float around it. For some reason, it struck him as important, but he couldn't pin down why until, in a flash of inspiration, he remembered what Gaster said to him. About his SOUL and "vital resonance." Probably also why he turned into some weird, winged abomination, but that wasn't important at the moment. Frisk took a deep breath and brought his left hand over to Asriel's SOUL, and in an instant, every little ball around them came racing towards it...and they latched on. Frisk suddenly retracted his hand and the little spheres quickly dispersed, but remained close by. He glanced down at Asriel, who looked just as shocked as he did, and then back to her SOUL. A few cracks had been filled, and they were both just in time to see one of the balls of liquid metal suddenly fill in another and change color to pure white. For a moment, they both sat there in awe before Frisk looked down at his hand, then at Asriel, then at his hand again, and slowly reached out for her SOUL.

The little spheres swarmed again, but this time, Frisk didn't retract his hand; it didn't look like it was hurting her, he didn't hear Asriel cry out in pain. The spheres continued to seal the cracks, replace the broken pieces, and push them all back together into one cohesive whole. Frisk kept concentrating, he kept his hand close to her SOUL. More spheres kept pouring out of his eyes, rushing to mend the damage, and for each one that stuck to her SOUL, the brighter it got until, after a couple minutes, it was like staring at an infant star. Asriel closed her eyes, but Frisk kept going, until, in a crescendo of light, there was a loud explosion centered on the SOUL and his vision went white.


Frisk had opened his eyes, but everything was still black. Then he realized he was facedown on the stone floor, so he picked his head up to see the archway out of the Barrier's antechamber. Everything still felt so surreal, on the threshold between the outside and the fantastical world of the Underground. He was brought out of his thoughts by a new sound. Voices, talking softly. He rolled himself over to see his friends. They still seemed dizzy, but out of all of them Toriel and Asgore seemed the least affected, already standing up tall; Asgore himself was helping Alphys and Undyne stand back up. Papyrus was sitting on the ground, holding his forehead. Sans was still flat on his back, but whether he was still out cold or just being lazy, Frisk couldn't tell. Gaster was also sitting on the ground, but he seemed more preoccupied with searching the walls and ceiling. He must have been waiting, most likely for Frisk to wake up. "Arrgh, man…" Undyne growled. As soon as Asgore had helped her back upright, she suddenly clenched her fists and shouted, "Who the hell thought it would be funny to hit me with a truck!? How did we even get one down here in the first place!? What did its license plate—" She cut herself off and yelped in pain as she held the sides of her head. Alphys winced and gently grabbed Undyne's. This did nothing to stop her, in fact, it just made her straighten up and yell, "NNNAAAAAAAAGH! You think some stupid headache's gonna slow me down!?"

"I-it might, if you keep yelling like that," Alphys instructed. "It's gonna put a lot of s-st-strain on you if you."

Undyne bent over a bit and turned her head to look at Alphys. After a moment, she grinned. "Right." Undyne stood back up to full height, ran her hand through her hair, and continued, "I don't usually tone down the intensity, but I think I can make an exception. But just this once, though!"

Undyne threw her head back and laughed just as loudly and forcefully as she usually did, which got Alphys to blush like crazy and an awkward, crooked, but happy smile spread across her face. Asgore, meanwhile, had taken to staring through the entryway to the Barrier's room. After another minute, he said, "I...do not mean to alarm anyone, but...I believe the Barrier is broken."

"cool beans." To illustrate his point, Sans slowly raised his arm and gave everyone a thumbs-up. "sorry i'm not jumping for joy, king fluffybuns, i'm bone-tired."

"SANS, YOU'RE NOT HELPING!"

Toriel couldn't help but laugh despite how tired she and everyone else must have felt, but then, her eyes flitted to her left, and she saw Frisk propped up on his elbows. She turned to face him fully, her eyes widened, and she hurried over to him, her arms outstretched. "Frisk!" Upon hearing his name, he pushed himself up to his feet and allowed Toriel to embrace him, and she held him close. Then, after another few seconds, she knelt down to his eye-level and asked "My child, are you alright?"

He opened his mouth, but found his throat was still dry and constricted because of Asriel, so he only nodded a couple times before he froze and remembered. Then, he frantically looked around the room. Asriel was nowhere in sight. "Frisk?" Toriel asked as she leaned backward in alarm. "Frisk, are you certain you feel well? You look terribly pale!"

Frisk wasn't concentrating on answering Toriel. He just shot a quick glance behind him, at the entryway to the antechamber, and then further back to the double doors to the throne room. If Asriel wasn't here, there was only one other place she could be; the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Frisk turned back and gently but firmly pushed himself out of Toriel's embrace. She tried to hold on, a scared and confused look on her face, but said confusion proved to be her downfall. He pushed himself away, though she was still holding on to his left arm, but not very firmly. Frisk looked back at the exit once more, then back to Toriel and at everyone else. Everyone except Sans was staring at him with concern, but he kept pulling away, and as he hastily stuttered, "I-I'll be right back!" he pulled his arm away, pivoted on his heel, and made a mad dash for the doors.

Toriel stood up, took a step forward, and reached out with her arm in some vain hope it would get him to magically stop and come back. "Frisk, wait! Where are you…"

It was too late. He was already out of earshot and jogging down the steps to the throne room as fast as his legs could carry him. Toriel just watched him go and her hand slowly lowered. There was a pause, and then Papyrus decided to take one for the team and break. "WOWIE...THEY TOOK OFF RATHER FAST. IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM, MISS EX-DREEMURR?" he asked.

"I...do not know," she sighed. Toriel's shoulders sagged and she went quiet for a bit before she suddenly straightened up. Her face hardened and went stoic. She looked over her shoulder at the crowd and continued, "But I will find out soon enough." With that, she turned back and marched out of the antechamber and followed Frisk out the doors.

Asgore stepped forward and reached his arm out, too. "Tori?" he called after her. Even if she had heard him, there was almost no chance that she would have stopped to wait, and she, too, disappeared down the stairs. Asgore turned to everyone else and muttered, "I...Perhaps I should go with her. The least I can do is make sure Frisk is safe."

He, too, marched out of the room, holding his spear at his side. This left Undyne, Alphys, Sans, Papyrus, and Gaster alone for all of five seconds before Undyne rolled her eyes, clapped her hands once, and declared, "Welp! No use staying around here!" In the next instant, and long before anyone had a chance to protest, she scooped Alphys up in her arms. This earned her a very high-pitched squeak that Undyne made a mental note of, and resolved to do this more often to hear it. "Come on! Let's go see what's got that little squirt so riled up…!" she cried. With a battle cry, she reared back (which made Alphys curl up like an armadillo) and charged out of the room

"...I SHALL FOLLOW EVERYONE ELSE TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS OKAY! BUT MAINLY BECAUSE I AGREE WITH UNDYNE," Papyrus said as he got up and dusted himself off. "IT'S NOT MUCH FUN TO TALK WITH OTHER PEOPLE IF I GET TO TALK TO THEM ON A REGULAR BASIS! AND BY 'REGULAR BASIS,' I MEAN ALL THE TIME!" He then looked over at Sans and Gaster, the latter of whom was already standing up and ready to go. This left the skeleton who was still laying on the ground to get moving, so Papyrus stomped over to him and called, "COME ON, SANS, GET UP!"

Papyrus was met with Sans' snoring in response.

He groaned, knelt down, and shook his brother's shoulder. "I SAID, GET UP, SANS! MUST I DO EVERYTHING MYSELF!?"

Sans muttered under his breath, then reached up to rub his eyesockets. "...mmf, sorry, bro. you know i sleep like the dead," he replied without missing a beat.

Papyrus froze on the spot for a couple seconds as his mind crashed and tried to reboot itself, and then he groaned loudly and threw his arms up in the air. "COME ON, ALREADY! THE HUMAN RAN OFF AND WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE NOT GOING TO GET INTO MORE TROUBLE!"

He bent over and started to pick Sans off the floor, but Sans instead just calmly wriggled out of his brother's grip halfway through, saying, "okay, okay, i'm comin'."

Once Sans was up, Papyrus stood up straight too, and put his hands on his hips and nodded at Sans once. Then, he turned around and marched out of the antechamber, but Sans and Gaster gave each other quick, knowing glances. Gaster only bowed and gestured forward with his arm. "SHALL WE BE OFF?" he asked.

Sans took a deep breath and stuck his hands in his pockets. He closed his eyes, and after a few seconds, nodded. "lead the way, G."

New Home passed by in a blur. Some monsters were walking the streets, looking around in awe; many of them waved when they saw him, and were subsequently puzzled as he rushed by without so much as a cursory nod. Frisk ran down steps and wound through the halls until he came to one of the earlier elevators, jumped in, and slammed the "down" button. He could barely keep himself still while the lift played its jaunty, if not awkward, elevator tune, before it stopped and dinged. As soon as the doors were open even slightly, Frisk bolted forward and squeezed out and started weaving his way around the CORE; it took a surprisingly short amount of time, and he dashed across the bridge into MTT Resort. A few monsters in the lobby waved to him, but he was too focused to even register they were greeting him. Still, the ones who didn't see him or were too busy talking about the Barrier had much to say:

"C'mon, get your brother out here quick! We gotta get moving and see the surface!"

"Should I wear this when we interact with the humans? Or does it look too tacky?"

"We should wait on orders from the King."

"Nah, we're not going out yet. Everyone else is going, that's why! Wait 'til the traffic dies down. Sheesh."

"As a slime, I'm confused...but quite content."

And he just kept going. He ran outside, booked it to the Hotland elevators, and took them down in succession. Floors three, to two, then to one, from right to left. Jumping across air vents over the sea of magma. It spoke to how narrow-minded he was when he completely passed the riverperson by and just ran to the outer limits of Hotland, through the massive (now destroyed) clearing where he fought Undyne and right on through.

It wasn't until he reached Waterfall proper that his body began to actually register fatigue and forced him to slow down. Frisk trudged over bridges and through a few rooms. He stopped for a minute to stand on the cliff face where he could see Asgore's castle illuminated under the false starlight of the gems in the rock ceiling before he started moving again.

He hastened out of Waterfall and into the frigid air of Snowdin and it actually got him to stop for a second and shiver due to the lingering water vapor soaking into his clothes and chilling him significantly. Frisk wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed vigorously to try and warm up, but despite how cold he felt, he forced himself to keep moving after a few seconds. He had to push through. He hustled right through Snowdin Town and out into the forest. Across the cliffs, through snow banks, in between the trees, he kept running until, finally…

The doors to the Ruins stood before him.

Frisk stopped to stare at them for a minute before he took a deep breath and marched forward. They were shut; Toriel at least had the sense and manners to close them after she left. He approached them and quickly jammed his fingers into the crease in the middle and started to push. Frisk pushed, scrabbled, and scraped at the inside of the door just to pry it open, and after a couple minutes of struggling, he accomplished it at the expense of sore, dry hands. He quickly pushed the massive slab of stone open completely and charged inside.

Toriel's house looked exactly as he'd left it and not a book or trinket was out of place. He didn't dwell on it for long and simply ran through and out the front door, retracing the steps he took to get back to the hole where he'd fallen in. He passed though the massive plaza, down the side streets and through old buildings. He walked across the terraces and down the many, many steps of the Ruins until he found himself at the bottom of the old city, standing in front of its gateway. And ahead, a massive cave mouth loomed, stretching up even higher than the ceiling of the exit to the surface. The way ahead was dark. Frisk looked up, looked back at the miles he'd just run to get here, then turned back and clenched his fists.

And he made his way forward into the new unknown.

The whole time, he felt it, something he hadn't felt in a long time. It had been there as he retraced his steps back to the Ruins, but only now that he'd slowed down could he really be sure it was there. The music that sang in his soul, the music he'd always heard playing in the back of his head. Every other time he'd come back this way, it had always been tinged with melancholy; a reminder that he couldn't fix everything. Now it sounded joyous, almost triumphant that he had managed to persevere, despite the odds stacked against him.

Maybe this was how it felt to be complete. To finally be Reunited.

The darkness of the path to the small clearing swallowed him up, but Frisk could see his destination. It was a dot in front of him that got just a little bigger with each passing step. He walked on, heart still pounding from the running he'd done, but as he got closer, he saw it; someone was there. Standing over the patch of yellow flowers. Her back was turned, but there was no mistaking who it was. Frisk stopped short for a second as he took it in and made sure his eyes weren't just playing tricks on him; at this point, it didn't hurt to be sure, but she didn't vanish, so, slowly, he picked up his left foot and placed it in front of him. Then his right, and he began to walk forward into the open space where the only sunlight from the surface could reach. Frisk couldn't tell what Asriel was doing. She just stood still, facing away, her head bowed. Maybe paying her respects, like she'd always done before...Frisk didn't know.

But when one of his shoes stepped on the grass, it rustled the blades and crunched just enough for her to take notice, and she suddenly snapped around to look at who had found her, and took a worried step away. Frisk did the same, her sudden movement shocking him, but after a minute, they both relaxed. Strangely enough, the words didn't come this time like every other time before. Frisk just stared straight ahead into Asriel's eyes; she met his gaze, but her expression was unreadable, save for the nervousness of her downturned lips and her anxious posture. It became too much for Frisk and he broke eye contact, but tried to play it off by running his hand through his hair. He looked at the ground, the flowers, the rock walls, the pillars, anything, until, finally, he knew he couldn't avoid it any longer. So, sucking in a deep breath, he brought his gaze back to Asriel and took the last couple steps he needed to get close. She tensed up, but stayed in place and kept her eyes glued to him. And then, he opened his mouth. Nothing came out, so Frisk tried again. It still seemed he was reeling from the battle, but he quickly closed his mouth, took a couple deep breaths to ground himself, and tired one last time. It worked. "How do you f…" He cut himself off and had to quickly swallow a lump that had formed in his throat. "How do you feel…?"

His words seemed to surprise her as much as he did. Asriel's eyes widened a bit and she hastily looked away and around at the clearing before finally embracing the inevitable and looking back up at Frisk. "I...I feel complete. I feel like myself again," she whispered breathlessly. Then, she slowly brought up her hands and cupped them together; and in a small burst of white light, her SOUL appeared, floating above them, and it was perfectly whole. No cracks. No broken pieces. It looked brand-new. And then, another miracle happened. It started small, but it eventually became too much to hide. Asriel was smiling; not the self-pitying smile she'd sported before, giving him the speech about why Chara climbed the mountain and how she was eventually going to become a flower again. This was a real smile and when Frisk saw it, he felt it light him up from the inside. Suddenly, all the pain and all the heartache was worth it. It was worth it a thousand times over.

So Frisk lunged forward and dragged Asriel into another hug, which earned him a surprised bleat. Asriel froze for a second, but once she'd processed what had happened, she lifted her arms. Though they were shaking, though the relief and joy she felt was so intense it hurt, she wrapped her arms around Frisk, too. It didn't take much more before the tears started coming.

They stood there for awhile. Time had stopped flowing and the world had moved on without them, leaving them time to cry and come to terms with the reality that it was over. It was finally over.

After some time, Frisk slowly straightened up and Asriel followed suit before they both made eye contact again. Their eyes were red, Asriel's fur was stained with tear tracks, but now, they were both smiling (and in Frisk's case, beaming so much Asriel could almost see her reflection in his teeth). Then, they slowly broke apart, but instead of slowly leading her out like she'd expected, Frisk walked past her and sat down on the mound of dirt where Chara was buried, and then lay down on the ground. She just stared at him in mild confusion for a moment before he rolled his head over to look at her, smiled again, and gently patted the space on his left.

Asriel blinked in surprise, but after a moment, took him up on the offer. And as she lay down next to him, she could only guess it was simply because it had been a long day and he needed some rest, because it felt great to just lay down and not do anything. So that's what they did; Frisk and Asriel just lay there, staring up at the hole where the sunlight came in and listened to the rush of the wind as it passed over the entrance to the Underground, the distant calls of the birds high above them on the surface and the overwhelming silence of the Ruins. Asriel had no idea how long it had been, it couldn't have been longer than a couple minutes, but a question entered her mind, and once she thought of it, it just...wouldn't go away. But she stayed silent. Or at least she tried to, but she was curious. Just to be sure, she turned her head to look at Frisk, hoping that maybe, he'd fallen asleep and she wouldn't have to ask, but to her surprise, his eyes were still wide open and he was gazing up at the surface. Of course, once he noticed she was staring at him, he turned his head, too, and flashed her a big smile.

And she broke.

"Frisk…"

He stopped showing his teeth and answered back with an innocent, "Hm?"

"Did you mean it?" Asriel asked.

That wiped the rest of his smile off his face and Frisk blinked a couple times in bewilderment. "...Mean what?" he replied after a pause.

Asriel opened her mouth, but found the words weren't coming as easily as they had been just a few seconds before. She closed it again and looked away, trying to think. To his credit, Frisk waited patiently before Asriel took a deep breath, made eye contact again and explained, "What you said about...about there being hope for me. That all I had to do was...was to reach out."

He flinched a bit. It was enough to make Asriel suddenly feel completely numb, and after her thoughts had been tossed around and messed up like a stack of paper, she was about to take it all back, just tell Frisk "Oh, nevermind, don't worry about it" before he declared, "Of course I meant it." Asriel was frozen in place, staring at him. He stared back for another few seconds before he rolled his eyes and shrugged. "I mean...look at me. I'm not innocent here, either."

It was hard to believe what she heard, but Asriel knew she had heard it. She quickly shook her head, as much as she could, still lying on the ground and facing him, and huffed, "What? No, Frisk, you're different. You've done all this before, right? Your Determination allowed you to RESET the timeline." She looked away, and then back to Frisk and continued, "The worst you've done is bring us all back to the start and—"

"No, Asriel," Frisk cut her off. Something serrated had made its way into his voice and it got her to shut her mouth instantly. "I...I almost…" He suddenly snapped his head up to the ceiling and squeezed his eyes shut. His breathing got more ragged and Asriel was about to reach out and try to touch him before he confessed, "I got frustrated. I got angry. I wanted to do something to save you, anything. And killing every last monster in the Underground...I hadn't tried it yet. I thought there might have been some secret I still needed to uncover, so I…" He trailed off; Asriel was stuck staring at him in horror, too shocked to even reply. She didn't need to, as Frisk worked up the nerve to continue despite his breathing getting more erratic and his voice starting to crack. "So that's what I did. But not you," he choked as he opened his left eye and looked back at her. "You tried to stop me. In the throne room. You were still Flowey, but...but you begged me not to, and, and...and you...I almost…"

He couldn't do it. Frisk started sobbing, and it echoed off the cave walls. He shut his eyes again and swung his arm over his face to try and dry up all the tears; all Asriel did was watch in shock and dawning horror. "I couldn't do it. I didn't want to…I'm sorry. I'll be regretting it my whole life."

The wind rushed over their heads. The birdsong had gone quiet. The Ruins were deathly still. Little by little, Asriel began to prop herself up on her right elbow and turn over as she kept her eyes glued on Frisk. She started talking, but her voice rose with each passing second, though she never went to outright shouting. "So you...you saved me to try and redeem yourself for killing everyone else?"

Frisk snapped his head over to look at her, horrified and yelped, "What!? No! No. I…" Despite the anger that had suddenly found its way to her heart, Asriel stopped when Frisk cried out and held up his hand to stop her. When he saw she wasn't going to do anything else, he continued mournfully, "I knew I had to save you long before that. I knew when..."

He paused, and then brought his head up to stare into her eyes. His fear was gone, somehow, and replaced with wonder, and then he said exactly why. "When I saw Flowey become Asriel for the first time."

Asriel blinked in surprise and then all the fight and indignance just kind of...went out of her. Though she barely had any fight in her in the first place, all things considered. They kept their eyes locked on each other for a few more seconds before Asriel deflated, sighed, and lied back down on her back. Frisk did likewise, and remained silent for a minute more before he shifted uncomfortably and after a cursory glance to the side, he began, "Look...Look. The point is, neither of us are perfect. But you...that wasn't you. Flowey wasn't you. I think the sooner you accept that, move on, and try to be yourself...be Asriel again, the happier you'll be." He tilted his head to the left slightly. Asriel noticed and tilted hers in return. There was a pause before Frisk continued, "I'm sorry. Just because I was mad doesn't make what I did okay. It'll never be okay, no matter the context. If you want to think I saved you just to...make some sort of play at redemption, that's fine. But you're back, you're alive now, and...and that's what matters."

With his piece spoken, Frisk inhaled deeply and turned back upward to face the ceiling. The birds had resumed singing again, and the wind was gently singing a tune of its own, whistling over and down through the hole in the ground to gently sway the flowers under the two children lying there. Eventually, Frisk worked up the courage to glance back at Asriel, and found her gaze to be...soft. Softer than it was before, he thought. And then, she slowly, almost reverently, brought her arm up and laid her hand out on the ground between their heads, palm up. Frisk looked at it quizzically; Asriel smiled gently in return. He didn't know what to make of it at first, but eventually, Frisk brought his own arm up and laid his own hand on top of hers, and when he did, her fingers curled around it and she whispered, "I forgive you."

Another weight lifted off his shoulders. The memories and the regret was still there, certainly, but...it felt the slightest bit more bearable, now. Tears pricked at the corners of Frisk's eyes as his breath hitched and he sniffled a bit. Luckily, Asriel seemed willing to let him take his time, so he rubbed his eyes with his other hand and quietly asked, "So...still friends…?"

"Best friends," she said.

Frisk slowly let out a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding in, and then...laughter. Light laughter rising up from his throat and leaving his mouth in short bursts. He kept laughing as he laid there, staring up at the rocky ceiling and sky, and eventually, he heard something else join him. A tired, but bright voice that had such a beautiful melody, he couldn't help but stop and follow the sound. It led him down, to his left. He saw Asriel's face lit up in another smile, laughing along with him, but when she saw his head turn on the edge of her vision, she turned her head to meet him and they remained that way for some time. A few minutes, perhaps, but their smiles never faded; if anything, they got wider, at least for a time. As Frisk continued staring at Asriel, he thought he saw something, but at first, disregarded it. But then he saw it again. It was movement. Distant, shrouded in the darkness of the entrance to the Ruins. And when he looked closer, his smile disappeared and he was stuck staring ahead for a second before he hesitantly muttered, "...Hey, Asriel? Can you promise me something?"

Asriel had noticed the sudden change in Frisk's demeanor, but despite her own happy expression fading away, she tried not to let it worry her. Instead, she said quietly, "Um...I guess. What is it?"

Frisk paused, took a deep breath, and slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, but he kept his eyes glued to the cave that led to the Ruins. His eyes swept over Asriel for a second before they darted back to the cave. "Promise me you won't freak out," he said. Suddenly gripped by panic, Asriel sat up too, and though she had opened her mouth and had the start of a question lined up in her mind, the minute she turned her head to see what Frisk was looking at, the words died in her throat and her mind went blank.

Standing in the mouth of the cave, where the clearing met the hall that led to the gateway to the old kingdom, stood seven monsters who had all followed Frisk back down to where it all began. Undyne and Alphys looked from the two kids on the flowerbed back to everyone else; Alphys seemed a bit more nervous than Undyne, who just looked straight-up confused. Papyrus was also scratching his head, looking from the two of them to Undyne, and then at Sans when he noticed his brother was smiling. Gaster only stared at Frisk and Asriel with a pleased smirk, but Asgore and Toriel were staring straight ahead at the child they thought they lost, wide eyed and mouths open. There was a loud clattering sound that reverberated off the cavern walls as Asgore's grip on his trident loosened and he dropped it on the ground; despite everyone around him jumping away or covering their ears, Toriel barely seemed to notice. Her eyes just flicked over to the king for a split second, but she slowly raised her hands to cover her mouth.

Asriel nearly threw herself backward, but the shock kept her rooted to the spot. She had promised Frisk she wouldn't freak out, that was true, but suddenly, she couldn't find the strength to move. Seeing the people she'd tried to kill before was too much. Asriel froze halfway between standing up and kneeling on the ground and began drawing her limbs in on herself in some vain attempt to protect herself from her own emotions. She wanted to do a lot of things at that moment. Run. Cry. Scream. Tear out her own soul. Disappear completely. It was too much to process all at once, but after a couple seconds, pressure on her shoulder lifted the panic from her mind and she whipped her head around to see what was touching her. It was Frisk, now standing by her side, his hands braced on her shoulders. Even though he was smiling, there were already tears slowly making their way out of the corners of his eyes and dripping down his cheeks. He gracefully leaned a bit closer and whispered one word:

"Ready?"

Her eyes darted from him to the group at the mouth of the cave and back. Despite the fear she knew was probably palpable to him and everyone else, she nodded, though it was rather curt and hasty. Still, Frisk decided it was as good a sign as any. He stood back up slowly as he pulled Asriel along with him as gently as possible. Her knees felt weak. She was starting to sweat. Her throat was so tight that it was getting harder to breathe. She felt like she was going to break down at a moment's notice. And yet, as Frisk held on to her, she retained just enough courage to stand up with him and pick up her head to look at everyone else; they were still there, frozen to the spot, watching closely, and waiting for what came next. Then, Frisk took a step forward, which Asriel wasn't ready for. She yelped, quietly, and he stopped short and turned his head to make sure she was okay. When she'd gotten her footing again, she exhaled. Her breath was shallow. Asriel met Frisk's gaze again, and he got that was the sign to proceed, so he nodded slowly and resumed walking, and Asriel fell in step beside him. She was moving slowly, she was shaking, and tears were beginning to eke out of her eyes, but she walked, closer and closer to the people she had known for years and was just now meeting for the first time. Frisk must have sensed her apprehension, because he whispered to her again, though his voice was shaky. He was desperately trying to keep it steady and not let it break. "O-okay. Let's...let's get you h...home."

It was funny.

"Come on. It's alright," Frisk encouraged her.

Despite being nearly petrified, Asriel could remember that day perfectly clearly.

She stopped for a second as doubt entered her mind again, but quickly brushed it away and kept walking, just so Frisk wouldn't trip and fall. "That's it. Baby steps. One foot in front of the other."

When she found an injured human on that bed of flowers and helped them up.

They were halfway there. When Asriel got a closer look, she could see her mother and father's faces, and despite being so blank, she could read their eyes perfectly: disbelief and...hope. Something inside of her lit up. "You're doing great, okay?"

They were bruised and bloody, and despite their initial distrust, they let Asriel walk them back home to be healed.

Ahead of them, Asgore slowly knelt down on one knee and spread out his arms to embrace them both. There was no expression on his face; he seemed to be unable to process what he was seeing. "Just a little bit more, you're almost there."

She had said the same things to them.

They had walked a thousand miles in such a short distance, but now, Frisk and Asriel were only a couple feet away from the group, and away from Asgore's outstretched arms. In that instant, Asriel forgot the pain and self-loathing she'd buried deep inside, and finally, she walked the rest of the way on her own, and threw herself into Asgore's arms. It barely even got him to flinch, considering his stature, and yet, that massive mountain of a monster was suddenly able to reach up and gently smooth the loose hair sticking up on Asriel's head with perfect poise. After a couple seconds, Asriel's muffled sobbing could be heard as she buried her face in his chest. "My daughter…" he murmured, "Is it truly you…? Or…" Asgore trailed off into a bitter chuckle. "Or has my age and grief finally ruined me?"

Almost immediately, Asriel looked up and cried, "No, it's me, daddy...It's me, I swear!" before she buried herself into his embrace again and started crying harder.

"But...but how…?" Asgore asked after a moment of stunned silence. "I...we saw the dust. We saw...their body. Both of our...our children were taken from us. There was no one else it could have been."

He shook his head, but before Asgore could ask any other questions, Toriel took a step over. She didn't seem to mind being in such close proximity with Asgore now, and to his credit, Asgore was still in too much shock to bring it up. Asriel snapped her head up as Toriel bent down, her expression painfully neutral, and gently placed her hand on Asriel's head, gently stroking her fur. "And yet...here she is," she whispered. She continued to rub Asriel's head, and despite how severe the emotions swimming around in her soul were, she couldn't help but smile serenely and try to lean into her mother's hand. After watching Asriel for another minute, Toriel turned to look at Frisk, who was still standing a couple feet away, letting the Dreemurrs have their moment. She studied him for a few seconds and asked, "Frisk...did you return her to us? How…?"

Though he'd been holding onto a weak smile, it all disappeared in a moment and Frisk recoiled as if he'd been punched. It surprised Toriel and Asgore, but Asriel was staring at him with wide, fearful eyes. "That's...that's," he stammered, "Uh, not m-my...I can't...I d-don't think I c-c-can...tell that, um, that s-story." He coughed a couple times, sniffled, and cleared his throat again before he looked at Asriel and said, "And Asriel...Asriel might not...it's not something she wants to...to revisit...or, um, talk about anytime soon, either, I...I think."

Asgore and Toriel looked down at Asriel; she met their gazes, quickly looking from one to the other before she pursed her lips and looked away, stress clearly written all over her face. Asgore sighed and held onto his daughter tight again, and Torie kept her eyes glued to them both before she turned back to Frisk and said, "Well...miracles...miracles usually are not...they cannot be explained, so...I shall not press for details."

He bowed his head, and Toriel quickly hugged Asriel and Asgore both. In contrast to earlier, Asriel allowed it to happen and leaned in. The love was practically pouring out of them like a river and she had been dying of thirst. In time, she even started to smile again, as did her parents. Though they were all crying, it was rather quiet, which made it even easier to hear Frisk when he muttered, "...I'm sorry."

Asgore raised her head to stare at Frisk for a moment before he spoke up, "Sorry? For what? You have already given—"

"I'm sorry I couldn't bring Chara back, too," Frisk blurted out.

Asgore stopped mid-sentence. Toriel's eyes went as wide as dinner plates. Asriel bit her lip, desperately hoping this subject wouldn't have been brought up. An awkward silence settled over the gathered crowd again and remained for some time; whether it was minutes or hours, it still felt like too long. "Frisk…" Asgore began hesitantly, "you have already brought Asriel back to us, and you have destroyed the Barrier."

Frisk looked up and began, "I didn't actually—"

Despite how watery her eyes were and how much she was still shaking, Asriel cut him off with a harsh "Shh!" Frisk flinched a little when he snapped his head down and looked at Asriel, but instead of taking the hint, he just brought his head back up and continued, "I didn't break the Barrier. Asriel did; I can't take credit for something I didn't do."

Once more, Asgore and Toriel shared a shocked glance with each other while Asriel squeezed her eyes shut and wished she could just disappear. Everyone else was also staring at each other in shock, except for Sans and Gaster, of course, but surprisingly, this piece of information went over well. "Even so…" Toriel said as she looked down at Asriel with a soft smile, "do not be sorry. Chara...was an odd child, but even so, they loved Asriel, and they loved monsterkind, perhaps to a fault. You and Chara are very much alike...fashion choices aside. In fact, it is almost as if…" She lifted her head up to look at the raised patch of earth, and then up at the hole to the surface far above them. Instead of growing melancholy, her smile seemed to brighten, just a little. "It is almost as if they never left."

Frisk hadn't followed her gaze. He couldn't really force himself to do much beyond slowly crack another smile. Little by little, more laughter made its way past his lips; it was choked, uneven, and stuttering, but it was laughter all the same. And then, he saw Asriel had turned around and extended her arm toward him, and without really thinking, he reached out and took it. She pulled him in immediately and the next thing he knew, Frisk was right in the middle of a Boss Monster hug pile, Asriel valiantly leading the charge. But it felt right, and it felt like it was where he was supposed to be. Then, after a couple minutes, they broke apart, and though they were still tears in their eyes, Asriel's shone like stars, and Frisk couldn't help but smile along with her. Just for a fleeting moment, there was peace...right before Undyne's voice cut through the comfortable silence.

"...Okay, what the heck am I missing here?"

In that moment, everyone turned to look at her. Her expression was mildly confused, but her good eye looked a little watery. She met each and every one of their eyes before she sniffed and continued, "I mean, don't get me wrong, this is super mushy and all, but seriously! What the heck am I looking at? I don't remember you telling me you had a kid!" as she pointed at Asgore.

Everyone followed her finger to Asriel and then looked back at her. The room went dead silent again as Frisk and Asriel glanced at each other, but once their eyes met, they found the situation had lightened somewhat and a small grin crossed Asriel's lips. Frisk followed suit and that grin turned into chuckling that quickly evolved into laughter, until the two of them were laughing their hearts out. It didn't take long for Toriel to join in, then Asgore, and then everyone else besides Undyne.

It died down after a minute, and wiping a couple stray tears from his eyes, Asgore said, "Perhaps...it would be better to explain this tomorrow. It has been a, ah...very exhausting day, I think."

Undyne just kept looking at him and then her vision darted down to Frisk and Asriel before she shrugged. "Ah, what the heck, you're probably right." She looked away, back toward the Ruins proper, before spinning on her heel and thrusting her finger at Frisk and Asriel and shouting, "But don't think that means I'm letting you off the hook, punks! Once we get up to the surface, you've got some explaining to do!"

Alphys quickly interposed herself between Undyne and the others and exclaimed, "U-Undyne, p-please try to relax!"

"Relax!?" she yelled right back. Undyne drew in a deep breath, stood up to her full height, and gestured out with her hand, palm face-down. "Look, Alphys, I love ya, but we're about to leave the Underground and take some new kid with us that I've never seen before! Sounds like a good reason to get excited and stay excited! Now, c'mon...!" She reached down to grab Alphys, which made her yelp and blush all over again as Undyne hoisted her over her head and exclaimed, "We got preparations to make! Surface world, here! We! Come!" and charged off with another loud "NGAAHHHHH…!"

Everyone watched them go, chuckling amongst themselves, before Asgore glanced down at Asriel. When she noticed he was looking at her, he knelt down once again and held out his hand, which after a moment of deliberation, she took. Asgore gently picked her up and held her in his arms displaying old fatherly instincts long thought gone, and slowly, Toriel walked up to join them. She stopped at their side and Asgore froze up a bit and turned to her. So did Asriel, probably expecting her to start chewing him out again. She didn't, though, and as the seconds dragged on, Asriel looked from her back to Asgore, who had by now looked away. But then, he slowly cleared his throat and began hesitantly, "Tori...I am sorry. I...I have made mistakes. Horrible mistakes that I will never truly absolve myself of, but...could we...at least be friends again?"

Toriel didn't respond. Not immediately. She stood there for a few seconds, her arms crossed, glaring at Asgore who shrunk from her gaze with each passing second. But before Asriel could try to break the silence, Toriel did it for her. "You have ended the lives of seven human children, Dreemurr, and we are about to cross over to their realm." Her stern gaze never faltered, and as it bore into Asgore, he eventually nodded his head solemnly in agreement. Before he could continue walking, she said, "But that also means that now, this problem is under their jurisdiction. While I cannot say whether I will or will not ever be able to forgive you, our freedom means monsterkind can 'start again,' as it were." She glanced off toward the Ruins entrance. "So...perhaps it would be unfair of me to say that we could not also...start again." And then, Toriel reached out and gently placed her hand on Asriel's head once more; Asriel closed her eyes and let her stroke her fur, and Toriel smiled calmly as she murmured, "And for now...I am happy enough to have my daughter back." She leaned in and kissed Asriel on the nose, despite the fact that when Asriel realized what was happening, she tried to lean away with a couple embarrassed cries of "Mom…!"

It at least got the mood to lighten significantly more as everyone left laughed a bit and began to follow Asgore and Toriel back through the Ruins. He still carried Asriel while Sans, Papyrus, and Gaster brought up the rear, but in the time it took for them to start walking, Frisk quietly fell away from the Dreemurrs and in line with Sans. Before Sans could even get a word in edgewise, he threw his arms around Sans' neck and buried his face into his jacket. It got Sans to grunt and stop walking to make sure he didn't lose his balance and fall over, but just as quickly, Frisk picked his head up from the plushness of Sans' coat and whispered, "Thank you."

Sans' eyes widened a bit, but he quickly rolled them around in his eyesockets and embraced Frisk right back. "...don't worry about it," he said as he patted Frisk on the back a couple times. They stayed like that for a minute before Frisk quickly broke away, as he remembered they were supposed to be walking out of the Ruins and he took a few steps forward. But then, both he and Sans got a good look at Papyrus. Sans' grin got a bit wider. "papyrus, you okay?"

Her'd been rubbing his hands together the whole time, and his usual smile was dampened slightly. Papyrus sniffled and quickly replied, "YES…! I SIMPLY...I CAUGHT SOMETHING IN MY EYES!"

"what'ja catch?" Sans asked.

Papyrus separated his hands, his fingers curled, and he cried out, "TEARS!" before he simply devolved into sobbing. Sans sighed and took a step closer to place his hand on Papyrus' back and gently rub it; despite the fact that Frisk was trying not to laugh, he ran up and hugged Papyrus, who hugged him right back. When they finally broke apart, Gaster took a few steps forward and placed his hands on Papyrus and Sans' shoulders.

"I AM QUITE PROUD OF YOU, MY SONS," he enunciated. And then, he looked down at Frisk and his broken smile got a little kinder, a little calmer. "ALL THREE OF YOU."

Frisk only stared up at the ex-Royal Scientist for a few seconds before he felt his face starting to hurt. He didn't need to reach up and feel around to know that he was smiling like a lunatic again; he'd been doing that a lot today. Instead, he laughed, let it flow freely as tears began to fall from his eyes again, though they were a lot less frequent than before. Sans placed a hand on his shoulder, and when Frisk looked up at him, he just nodded and Frisk nodded back after a pause. And then, he turned around and walked side-by-side with his family back to where his friends were.


The castle was quiet. Night had fallen long ago, and everyone was sleeping while the more excitable ones were making preparations to go back up to the surface come morning. It had been decided that perhaps, a little too much excitement had happened in one day, and everyone agreed it might be a better idea to face humanity tomorrow after a little rest. Frisk would have gone back with Sans, Papyrus, and Gaster, but Asgore had invited him to stay at the castle in order to make contact with humanity more quickly instead of hiking all the way to New Home from Snowdin. He had refused politely, but then Asriel repeatedly asked him to stay and gave him puppy-dog eyes.

It was a rock-solid argument and he couldn't turn it down.

And now, here he was, in an old room where memories ran free. Nothing stirred, or had stirred for hours until Frisk shifted, consciousness turning over and over until it finally came back to him. He cracked open his eyes, rubbed them to get the sand out, and finally turned over on his back to look up at the ceiling. He watched the fan above, turning slowly and humming almost low enough to be silent, and then shifted to his side. The room was dark, but he knew Asriel was there and was still asleep. He just smiled and turned back to face the ceiling and remained like that for awhile. Maybe it had been a few minutes. Maybe a few hours. He didn't feel tired, mainly because his circadian rhythm was completely out of whack, but also because...so much had happened within the span of twenty-four hours, although that was being generous, considering he'd never found a way to accurately measure time in the Underground. Coming face-to-face with impossible odds, managing one last RESET, a completely different romp through the Underground (it felt like one last hurrah before ending things once and for all), and a fight with the Goddess of Hyperdeath that was somehow even more "anime" than any other time before. Pure insanity, but it was his kind of insanity and he wouldn't trade it for anything.

Of course, this made it all the more disconcerting when Frisk noticed there was an abundance of excess light coming into the room. It would have been strange, and he would have regarded it as an oddity, but the fact that it was tinted red got him to sit up immediately, and he could see it streaming in from under the door to the hall. It didn't linger, moving away and the brightness subsided until all was dark again. Frisk remained completely still and stared at where the light had been, his thinking kicked into overdrive. Chief among his thoughts was, of course, "what in the world was that?" He glanced from the door to Asriel, the blankets rising and falling steadily, then back to the door. Frisk gently lifted the blankets and shimmied out of bed and he stuck his feet into his shoes that he'd placed on the far left side of the room. He wasn't worried about getting cold, since he was wearing old green pajamas with yellow stripes. Then, he crept to the door, turned the knob, and cracked it open. He glanced back to make sure he hadn't woken Asriel up, and then kept opening the door as carefully as possible, and once it was wide enough to squeeze himself out, he turned and closed it again.

Frisk was met with the darkened halls of the castle, and he quickly followed the direction the red light had gone. He walked down the hallway, and turned to the right at a T-intersection. The next corner he turned was still dark, and Frisk furrowed his brow as he tried to think of what the light could have been before he made his way down. Once he reached the end of that hall, he was about to turn the corner again before a flash of red lit up behind him for a second, and he whipped around in time to see it dim and move the way he'd just come before it faded completely. Frisk immediately retraced his steps in a hurry, but tried to remain as quiet as possible, staying on the balls of his feet to avoid making excess noise. Once he came back to the intersection, he saw the light flare again, this time from around the corner of the hall to the left, and he followed. When he turned the corner, however, there was nothing there. Frisk stared for a moment and couldn't help but wonder what...whatever it was that was casting the light before he slowly made his way down the hall.

When he reached the end, as if on cue, he saw the light appear around the corner of another corridor. He didn't run after it immediately, all Frisk really did was stare at it as it faded and wonder, "What the heck is happening?" After remaining still for a second, he followed it anyway, down the next hall and around the corner. It was at the other end already and disappearing around the next bend. His curiosity thoroughly piqued, Frisk chased after it. It led him around corners and through the halls of the castle, but at one point, they came to a stairwell. Frisk stepped out into the open, and could see the light above him, traveling up the stairs. It was already getting dim, so he followed it as quickly as he could, but what struck him as odd was that it was so much faster than he was. Always seemingly two steps ahead, and he could barely see what it was, but he knew one thing for certain as he climbed the stairs after it and entered another corridor; it was humanoid in shape and it looked to be about his height. All other details were obscured by light's intensity.

The strange red light kept leading him on through the halls and up a couple more stairs until Frisk turned a corner that had just dimmed as the red light passed by, and then saw it again coming from underneath a door. It was a familiar door, a door to the outside, a door that led to the throne room and the surface. Frisk stared at it until the light faded once more and then, gathering his nerves and taking a couple deep breaths, he approached, turned the knob and opened it up. He was up in the castle spires, close enough to see the rock ceiling of Mount Ebbott, but that wasn't a concern for the moment. He knew the red light was up here, and there were very few offshoots to the path that led to Asgore's throne. Whatever was casting that light had to be up here; all he had to do was walk forward. Frisk turned to his left and wound around the spires of the main castle before he crossed the catwalks between the towers, getting a good look down at the peacefulness of the city below. He walked on in silence; the air from the surface was funneled through the cracks in the mountainside, creating a gentle breeze, and in many ways, it helped put Frisk's mind at ease; whatever the light was, he'd deal with it. At this point, there was very little stopping him from believing he couldn't. That meant when he saw the glow from around the corner, obscured by one of the towers, his eyes widened and he picked up his pace, but when he rounded it, he froze.

Perched on the edge of the path, the glow had dimmed so that Frisk could see what it was emitted from. The thing's form flickered infrequently like a candle. They were overlooking New Home, sitting down, legs dangling over the edge, kicking their feet happily. Then, they slowly brought their movements to a halt and turned to look at him.

"...Chara?"

They didn't say a word; they just stood up and turned to face Frisk. Neither of them spoke, because Frisk was too busy trying to understand what he was seeing, and Chara...they had this smirk on their face. They were up to something. What it was, Frisk didn't know, and he couldn't really bring himself to care. After all, it wasn't every day the dead decided to get back up and walk around. The two of them remained still for a moment before Frisk's curiosity got the better of him and he took a single, tentative step towards Chara. When they made no motion to move away or do anything else, he took another step as he began to force himself to stop moving so rigidly. "You're alive…?"

They laughed lightly, seeming to dance between genuine happiness and extremely smug, but for what reason, Frisk didn't know. "Alive?" they repeated, and laughed again. "No, I'm not alive. Of course I'm not alive. But I'm sure as hell not dead."

Frisk blinked a couple times, then furrowed his brow. "Huh," was his only reply, and again, an awkward silence fell. It was only broken when Chara titled their head to the side, indicating they wanted Frisk to follow them.

"Come on. Let's walk."

Without another word, they turned and began to walk down the path. Only a dozen feet away were the steps to the throne room, and Frisk watched them for a moment, wondering what they were after before he decided there was only one way to find out, and tried to catch up. They walked in silence up to the massive stone stairs and began to climb. A look at Chara revealed they seemed perfectly content, but for Frisk, the silence was becoming unbearable. He fidgeted uncomfortably with the sleeves of the pajama top, and eventually stammered, "You, um...sounded a lot different. In my head."

Before Frisk even had the time to mentally facepalm, Chara glanced back at him. "Death does that to you. It's pretty traumatic, apparently. I kind of reverted to a very neutral way of talking," they replied. They visibly preened and stated, "Pity. Almost got robbed of my winning personality."

Frisk just said "Huh," trying not to let his embarrassment soak through. After a dozen more steps, they approached the double doors, which Chara opened with seemingly no trouble. As they passed through the throne room, Frisk made a sideways glance at Chara, but his indecision forced him to keep his questions to himself. The both of them walked through the archway into the antechamber where the Barrier once held fast. Now, all that was there was rock with a cave entrance several feet ahead, with dim blue light gently filtering in through the opening. Once they got a few feet closer to the cave mouth, Frisk managed to gather his courage and ask, "...How?"

Chara scoffed, "Well, you see, the plan was to find a monster who hated humans a lot. I was going to convince them to set out into the great, wide world to farm up six more after killing myself, but damned if I didn't expect them all to be so…" They trailed off, flexing their hands and fingers, trying to search for the right word, before settling on, "Gentle. And, well, since Ree-ree wasn't too big on killing, I tried to push her in the right direction." Upon mentioning this Chara's face became incredibly sullen. "It didn't work...and I'm thankful for that, because...because I realized, after awhile, those crazy old goats were the best family I ever had..." They looked up at the rock as they walked along for a moment before looking back at Frisk with a smile. "Present company notwithstanding. Anyway, after that, monsters were meant to go free, and I had a plan to keep them hidden and more or less out of sight from the human kingdoms of ancient times until you could come along and work some diplomatic magic through your, frankly, maddening kindness and gentle heart."

Finally, the two of them were both outside in the cool night air. A few miles away, the skyscrapers of Ziopolis broke the flat line of the horizon, and Frisk and Chara stared out across the expanse of land for a minute before Chara continued, "Dying and not really accomplishing anything did kinda fuck it all up, though, and then the Confluence Forge spit you out in Ziopolis. And then, through a series of highly complicated events, we finally found each other again under really weird circumstances. And you made your way through the Underground, making friends, sharing laughs, discovering things I hadn't ever found—y'know, 'cause I was dead—and you fought Omega Flowey and the...Absolute Goddess of...of Hyperdeath…" Chara cut themselves off abruptly and turned away, covering their mouth with their arm. Frisk could have sworn he heard them snicker, "God, what a fucking name, holy shit, Ree-ree," before they cleared their throat, turned back to Frisk, and carried on like nothing happened. "Simple, once you get down to it, actually."

Frisk snapped his head around and stared at Chara, who looked back at him a couple seconds later with a smirk. They seemed to delight in his frustrated expression. "...That's not what I—"

Chara cut him off with a laugh. "I know you didn't." They turned away and took a few steps closer to the cliff edge. "Like I told you, I'm not quite alive...not quite dead. There's more nuance to it, yeah, but...it'd probably go over your head." They paused and looked down at their shoes before they shrugged. "I mean, shit, most of it still goes over mine."

"Why didn't you ever do…" Frisk trailed off and then gestured wildy to Chara's whole body. "...This before?"

Chara shrugged again "'Cause I knew you weren't done yet. Wasn't about to separate my consciousness from you just to have us slapped back together in a flash of white light. Counterproductive, and it'd hurt."

"So you're, like, a ghost?" Frisk pressed as he took a couple steps forward, too. "Or a zombie?"

"Oh my God, weren't you listening to me?" Chara stated as they rolled their eyes. They both looked at each other, and then, almost imperceptibly, small smiles began to worm their way across their lips. After another couple seconds, they were both chuckling to themselves, and it would have gone higher into outright laughter, but the bright light of Chara's form flickered for a moment and they abruptly cried out and clutched their chest. The mirth Frisk had earlier disappeared in an instant and he took a frightened step back while Chara seethed through their teeth. They looked left, then right, and then slowly straightened themself back up before taking a deep breath. "Listen, I don't have much time left before I have to...go away," they croaked.

"'Go away?'" Frisk repeated. That phrase was familiar…and still had some negative implications.

Chara placed a finger over his lips and shushed him. "Shh! Just said I don't have much time left, lemme talk." They took their hand away and continued, "I wanted to talk to you privately. Personally. I wanted to tell you...thank you."

Frisk blinked in surprise. He couldn't help but ask, "What for?"

Chara laughed lightly again, and then gestured to the cave entrance. "For...y'know, that," they explained as they gestured back towards Ziopolis in the distance. "For freeing monsterkind. For freeing...my family. For being able to see you in person again." They fell silent, and Frisk did too, as they watched the night sky for a moment. And then, Chara spoke again. Different than before. Gone was the standoffishness and devil-may-care tone. "...And I wanted to say...I'm sorry."

Frisk didn't have to ask why before Chara got started again. "For getting you involved in my own mess. I got it in my head that I could be the one to save monsters. That I had to be the one, because I was the only human that had fallen down there. So I ended up getting my sister killed, and then I couldn't even die right. Twice. And I accidentally had to rely on you to fix it...I swear, I'm only good at making mistakes." Chara glanced up, above Frisk and toward where the mountain's summit was. In a low, remorseful voice, they muttered, "And then, of course, there was everything before the..." They trailed off, their eyes became unfocused. It almost looked like they had turned into a statue, but when Frisk reached out to touch them, to make sure they were okay, Chara suddenly snapped their head around to look at him. Frisk quickly retracted his hand, but to his surprise, Chara didn't look angry. If anything, they looked tired. "...Never mind. I…forgot that you didn't want to remember."

Silence fell and the sound of the wind and small insects took the place of their voices. After a minute, it was broken. "No, I...I'm the one who should be saying sorry," Frisk said, lowering his head to look at the ground.

Chara suddenly whipped their head around to look at him and took a step closer, their previous attitude coming back in full force. "What the hell for?" they asked incredulously.

"Because…" He squeezed his eyes shut as he remembered. Remembered the frustration. Remembered how it felt to use a weapon for the first time in forever. Remembered the dust on his hands. "Because I killed all of them." Tears were already falling.

And then he started crying again. Even as he did, Frisk couldn't help but think he'd been doing that a lot lately, and how it kind of sucked, but before he could get too deep into self-pity, he felt something on his shoulders and quickly looked up to see Chara standing right in front of him, one hand on each shoulder. "Hey, woah, woah…" they consoled, shaking their head with each word for emphasis. "Woah. Okay. Easy there. Look, I know...how it feels. Even before you tried to eradicate an entire species, I knew how it felt to just look around you and wonder if what you were doing was worth it. Doing your best when your best wasn't doing shit. I remember how it felt to just stop caring, because I believed the only way anyone was going to listen and change was with a gun pressed to the back of their head. But that was years ago. And that was a different 'you,' and he's dead now. He's dead and buried, and he's never coming back because you know what'll happen if you let him."

They sighed and lowered their head, and after a few seconds of silence, Frisk felt it get too awkward, so he looked away. And then, Chara raised their head to look into his eyes and sighed, "I will admit, you're not totally innocent here. You did murder the hell out of all your friends. Just because you started over fresh and they didn't remember doesn't change the fact that they were still your friends, and you killed them." They sighed deeply again and let their arms fall to their sides before taking a step back. Frisk found he couldn't look at them. Then, after another few seconds, they added, "But...at least you're taking responsibility for your actions. It means you're growing. And I'm sorry, too. You shucking your emotions would have killed me as you...as you became less and less of a person. Your hate became the only thing I could latch on to, so I did...hoping I could survive. But when you got to Dad's—Asgore's room, and...and Asriel showed up…" They sucked in a deep breath and gritted their teeth for a moment before they admitted, "I couldn't look. I didn't want to look. Seeing her cry like that, seeing her...beg for her life...it...it broke me, she...just like in the village where we..." Chara stopped abruptly, and then Frisk noticed something was wrong with their face. It was warping, but it seemed to only happen on their cheeks. It took a minute to realize that their form wasn't warping, it was because...they were crying. Crying spectral, translucent tears. Frisk breathed in in mild alarm and took a few steps toward Chara and, despite not knowing if it was even possible, he reached out and hugged them.

It felt like he was hugging static electricity, or pure energy. It was a hard feeling to quantify, but he could feel something familiar, something he'd felt in Asriel's SOUL: that little fire, the spark of life. It was there, but it felt...scattered, as if it was in a hundred places at once. He logged it and pushed it to the back of his mind, because his actions got Chara to freeze. After another second, Chara reached up and returned his embrace. It felt like being surrounded by a campfire and all the good memories it brings, but without actually being burned. Frisk couldn't help but smile, but after awhile, he heard Chara sniffle and push themselves away. And when he got a good look at them, they were smiling, too. After another pause, they whispered, "...But you didn't do it. Deep down, you loved her enough to give up and...and do something else." They trailed off and let the subject lie, and Frisk was happy for it...especially since they suddenly looked up at him with a stern glare and swore, "But you better be nice to her now. 'Cause if you're not, I'll know, and long-lost brother or not, when I find you again, I'll turn you into a fucking jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing."

"U-uh, r-r-right! Of course!" Frisk quickly took a step back and his mind searched for something he could do to show he wouldn't try to incur their wrath, so he nodded vigorously, and then his brain decided that wasn't good enough, so he also hastily saluted as well.

This seemed to be enough for Chara, as they stared at him for a bit before they nodded. "Good—achhgh!"

Their form flickered again, distorting horizontally before roughly snapping back into place. Once they did, small motes of light that made up their body broke away and floated upward before fading away into thin air completely. Chara grabbed their chest again and stumbled backward before falling to the ground unceremoniously, and Frisk gritted their teeth in alarm before he ran up to them and knelt at their side, placing his hand on theirs and holding on. "Ch-Chara…!" he exclaimed. "Are you okay…?"

"No, of course I'm not fucking okay," they hissed through their teeth. They didn't try to push him away, and instead allowed him to pull them up to a sitting position and they took a few deep breaths. Chara flickered again, but not as violently as still made them cry out in pain, but softer this time. After a minute of quietly seething on the ground, Chara looked up at him and said, "It's almost time." Frisk's expression fell, but he didn't even get to bow his head and look away before Chara reached up and placed their hand on his cheek and instructed, "Frisk? Frisk, I want you to look at me...look at me, and promise me this: don't tell anyone what you saw. As far as they're all concerned, I've been dead for over five-hundred years, and I'll stay dead until I decide otherwise."

It was such a high ask from them that Frisk barely registered the words. All he did was stare down at Chara, his gaze going right through them, until he eventually managed to come to his senses. He stared down at them for a second. Their gaze was stone, drilling holes through his skull as they waited for his response; he said the only sensible thing he could think of. "There's something you're not telling me."

Chara blinked in surprise. They probably hadn't expected Frisk to choose a third option, but they took it in stride as they glanced off to the side and admitted, "...There's a lot of things I'm not telling you. There's…" They trailed off and finished, "There's a lot of things you wanted to forget...right?" On some level, Frisk knew that it was true, but actually hearing it made something in his gut twist itself up. He didn't dwell on it for long, though, as Chara rolled their head to look back at him and despite their current circumstances, Chara sported a smile and got a twinkle in their eye. Frisk had a feeling they'd worn it a lot when they lived with the Dreemurrs. "But hey, that trick you did? That little 'god form' you discovered? Keep it in your back pocket. You might need it," Chara grinned.

Another flicker. For a moment, Frisk felt the fires fade away and just as quickly snap back, so fast he barely had time to register it. When Chara's form reconstituted itself, the red light began to trail away from them in thick lines like dust. "Argh…" They hissed, clutching their chest again; it looked like just breathing at this point hurt. After a minute of doing their best to buck up and carry on, Frisk remembered his fight with Asriel, how he'd managed to mend a broken SOUL. So, Frisk bowed his head and let his emotions run. It was incredibly easy with all the ordeals he'd gone through the previous day, and he felt tears beginning to eke their way out of his eyes. He thought he'd just have to find a way to get them to change like he'd done before, but he suddenly felt Chara press a hand on his chest and force them back up. Frisk opened his eyes, staring at them in confusion, but Chara had a resigned look on their face. All they said was, "Sorry, Frisk. I know what you're trying to do...and I'm flattered, really...but you can't stop this. There's no soul left to heal. I'm running on sheer determination alone and it's fading fast." They paused to let out a pained breath and continued, "Besides...it's...it's something that needs to happen...ow...anyway."

"...Are you sure it needs to happen?" Frisk wasn't really buying it.

"Yes, it...ergh…! Needs to happen! It was...it was...part of my original plan anyway," Chara countered bitterly. Frisk would have tried to argue, but Chara's voice sounded so...final. It was enough to get him to close his mouth and look away. It seemed, for everything he had accomplished, he was relegated to comforting the dying again.

"Hey…" Frisk snapped his head back to Chara. Despite the obvious pain on their face—furrowed brows, clenched teeth, unsteady breathing—Chara had a wry grin on their face. "Wanna hear a secret?" Frisk just stared at them in disbelief: after all this, they wanted to share some secret with him in their last living moments? And yet...it was intriguing, and he supposed, since they were dying, he should at least humor them. Chara flexed their index finger; the universal sign for "come hither." Frisk sighed and bent down to listen, and Chara propped themselves up a bit more to whisper in Frisk's ear:

"Loyalty."

He blinked in confusion a couple times before he straightened himself up again and repeated, "...Loyalty?"

Chara nodded once with a big grin on their face. "Mm-hmm. Loyalty. Determination's...fine and dandy, sure. Un...limited power at your fingertips, conditional immortality, whatever, but...but it's only one part of the equation. Loyalty...was inscribed on our SOULs so we would obey the nepharii—the Angels—without question, but…" They sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and continued, "Well, you...kick a dog...enough times, and eventually it...it won't...dive in to save you if you start...ack...drowning, you get me...? And Loyalty without Determination...that's pretty powerful. A mage...kneels to a...to a warlord, and kingdoms will fall. Loyalty...between friends...survives until death." Chara stopped abruptly and coughed. It was dry and guttural. "But Loyalty...and...Determination? Such uncompromising devotion...that you will stay...by your friends' sides...that you'll do anything...to save them...?" They trailed off into weak chortling. "...That's the kind of Loyalty...that writes history...or rewrites it."

He just stayed there, stock-still, trying to take all of what Chara had just said in to try and make sense of it, but Frisk was abruptly shunted out of his thoughts when he heard Chara coughing again, and saw them distort. The flame of their life was fading fast, and when they blinked out of existence, their voice seemed to get run through some sort of voice modulator, causing it to stretch out, cut off, and come back abruptly. When Chara stopped phasing, the red light surrounding them was dull and flying away in bigger trails than before. They looked weak. Listless. But they were still strong enough to look over one last time and hoarsely whisper, "Well...my time's up. Goodbye, Frisk." Chara sighed and let their head roll back; for a moment, Frisk watched them in dejection, wondering if they'd already died, before he saw their lips move again. "...And...take care of my family for me. Please…?" With the last of their strength, Chara raised their head one more time, looked Frisk in the eyes, and smiled.

And then, just like that, their body disintegrated. It all melted down into red, self-illuminating dust that rose up into the air and swirled around like a miniature nebula. When Frisk felt all the weight from Chara's body disappear, he couldn't help but watch it as he stood back upright. It kept rising, swirling, until it had gone up about twenty feet above Frisk's head, and then, all at once, it stopped. A second later, all the dust exploded outward and faded away into thin air. There was no sound. Just a dull flash of red light, and then it was gone. Frisk watched it, where it had been, searching for any evidence that it was still there; but there was no more. He kept searching the star-studded sky for another minute before he sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets before he turned around and entered the cave again.

Frisk had a lot to think about as he walked back through the throne room and across the catwalks. It was quiet, quiet enough for him to realize something that made him feel even emptier: the voice in his head was gone.

He had to stop just to fully digest what that meant. The voice in his head—Chara—was gone. To where, he didn't know. They had said they would "stay dead until they decided otherwise." That implied a lot. It implied they hadn't really died and they really had just "gone away." But he scrunched up his face as he struggled to think of where. All Frisk had ever known was an orphanage and the Underground. What scared him was that before, he had assumed he had been too young to remember his childhood. Now...now it looked like Chara had been part of that childhood, and it had been lost to time. As he crept through the darkened halls of the castle, he couldn't help but dwell on what secrets Chara was keeping from him, and what they meant.

He rounded the corner that led back to the kids' bedroom and crept up to the door, which he hesitantly cracked open. Frisk shoved his face up to the opening and peered inside; it was still dark. No movement. He slowly pushed it open a little more, trying to minimize the creaking the hinges made, until it was wide enough that he could slip inside without opening it all the way, and Frisk was about to trudge over to the bed and throw himself down on the mattress and let himself pass out, but he couldn't help but look over at where Asriel was. The covers were still raised, so she was still there. He turned his head, and then, after a couple minutes of internal debate, he crept up to the side of her bed until he could see her face. She was still asleep, the slightest, calmest smile on her face. It seized the breath in his lungs and in that moment, he thought back. Back to Waterfall, and the sound of two children wishing on bejeweled stars. Hearing a voice that was not his own and a voice that was not Chara conspiring on a grand plan. And in that split-second, he decided the past no longer controlled him. He was Frisk. That was what his friends knew him as, and that was all he needed to be for them.

With this revelation, he blinked a couple times to refocus, and then he looked down at Asriel. Then, he lifted his hand and gently placed it on her head. Her fur was soft; he'd never truly noticed it before, caught up in the moment as he was. He couldn't help but crack a satisfied grin, and he sighed before removing his hand and turning around to go back to bed, but hadn't taken two steps when he heard the covers behind him shuffle around and a tired voice behind him muttered, "Hm...Frisk?" He stopped short and looked back in surprise to see Asriel slowly lifting herself up off the mattress with her right hand, rubbing her eyes with her left. She murmured groggily and then asked, "Is that you…? Why are you up?"

Despite the fact he knew he shouldn't...Frisk had decided he owed it to Chara to keep quiet about what he'd seen. "Just got thirsty. Went to get some water," he said as he pointed his thumb behind him, towards the kitchen.

"Oh." Asriel seemed to take his answer at face value, but there was a silence that followed that got a bit awkward. Frisk was about to tell her goodnight, until Asriel beat him to the punch. She looked away and whispered, "Um, Frisk...? Could you...come back over here, please? Just for a moment?"

He just kept his eyes locked on Asriel for a few seconds, but curiosity quickly helped him reach a decision "Sure," he said as he walked back to the side of her bed. "What's—"

He never stood a chance. Asriel launched herself up off the bed and threw her arms around Frisk's neck again, cutting him off abruptly. His arms worked on reflex, coming up to hold onto her so she didn't overpower him and cause the both of them to topple over. As he steadied the both of them, his eyes went wide and he felt Asriel nuzzle her face into the side of his neck, and they held on to each other for several minutes; Frisk wouldn't break this for anything. Eventually, he could feel something wet on his skin; Asriel was crying again. All he knew was that meant he had to hold her tighter. Neither of them talked, but after awhile, Frisk felt Asriel shift her head so that she was resting it on his shoulder, and he heard her whisper, "Thank you."

Frisk didn't say anything. He didn't need to. He just smiled to himself and gently buried his face into her neck and held her tightly for a few more minutes. Eventually, they broke apart and Frisk returned back to his bed; Asriel watched him the whole time, still smiling. He walked backward to maintain eye contact until he felt himself collide with the edge of the mattress, and then Frisk turned around to lift the covers off the bed and jumped in. Once he was laying on his back, he turned his head and even through the darkness of the room, he could see Asriel was still looking at him and still smiling, so he smiled back and whispered, "Good night."

Sleep did not come easily to either of them, surprisingly enough. But after the minutes ticked by, their bodies eventually slowed down enough to let them drop off and wait for tomorrow. In one form or another, the both of them thought, as they drifted off to sleep, was that the most amazing thing was that tomorrow would come.