A/N: Hello everyone, sorry this took a while.

I didn't expect this story to get as popular as it did. So I guess I'm committed to finishing it now, god knows I left too many to just rot, unattended. Might even start up a few of my old stories, but that's a matter that's neither here nor there. They're not great, anyways.

Oh actually I just thought of something. The Undertale soundtrack. I thought it would be great to play that during the chapters, you know, set mood-appropriate tracks for each little segment since that soundtrack is at least half the reason why the game is great, but this website doesn't really *do* links, and it would be a little jarring to go from reading to suddenly 'click here for music'. So that's a pipe dream. Well if you're feeling up to it, play something from the OST in the background that you feel is fitting, or don't. It's a fanfic, not a movie.

On to more pressing matters, it's time for our local lunatic of a protagonist, The Courier, to go through Waterfall. As always, your feedback is processed, considered, triaged, and above all else, it is highly appreciated. Hope you like the chapter and have a good day!

PS: If you're at all squeamish, there are some parts of this chapter you may not want to read. At all. Just a heads up.

Waterfall

(Ring, Ring…)

(Ring, Ring…)

"…"

(Ri-)

*Beep*

"HELLO! YOU HAVE REACHED THE NUMBER OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS! WHILE YOU HAVE NO DOUBT CONCLUDED THAT THIS IS MERELY A RECORDING MADE IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT I CANNOT ANSWER THE PHONE, DO NOT FRET! SIMPLY LEAVE A MESSAGE, AND I SHALL RETURN YOUR CALL WITHIN 1-2 BUSINESS MINUTES. HAVE A GOOD MESSAGE!"

*Click*

"…"

*beep-beep-beep-beep*

(Ring, Ring…)

(Rin-)

"Oh! H-hey, Undyne, what's-"

"Alphys, are you at your lab?"

"W-why do you ask? And, um, yes, yes I am."

"Good. I need you to listen to me very carefully."

Waterfall in a word: wet.

It wasn't hard to see where it got its name. Small but steady streams of water fell from cracks in the ceiling, on either side of a path that bordered a flowing river. There was nothing of note aside from another wooden stand like the kind I had seen in the area outside the Ruins, and a glowing blue flower nestled against the wall.

None of it held my interest, which meant it was time to press on.

I waded across a river. Made my way through narrow corridors illuminated by glittering geodes and bioluminescent fungi. Tall grass that looked suspiciously like a land-based form of seaweed parted before me, and I refrained from cutting it down. If what Sans said was true, he told that town near me to evacuate. Evacuation implied guards, guards implied search parties, and I didn't want to give them anything to work with. Even if the guards I had dealt with seemed lackluster, at best. I was effectively alone and up against an unknown force who had magic on their side, time was of the essence.

So why had I stopped?

"Anomaly."

Sans' words replayed in my head, making less and less sense each time. I wasn't lacking in the department of the sciences. I could reprogram any military-grade robot, hack any security system, and could even give the scientists of Big Mountain a run for their money in most subjects. Understanding the basic theory behind timelines and such was easy by comparison, but what did that have to do with anything? Unless I had missed something, the monsters here only had rudimentary technology, certainly nothing on a level that would indicate an intricate understanding of spacetime. And while there was no denying how dangerous I could be, a threat to time itself is a little bit of an overestimation. So why did he-

I shook my head and felt like maybe I should have gone back to find the kid. All their chatter and moodiness aside, it was still nice to have them around. I didn't tend to go on endless goddam monologues as much in their company. I wish they were here.

Then I almost thought that for once, my wish had been granted. I heard a voice.

"Yo, dude!"

I tensed, turned, but this time I didn't immediately go for a weapon. Whoever it was sounded… young.

The not-seaweed shivered noisily—before depositing a monster on the ground that almost made me kill it on reflex, childish voice or not. It looked like a golden gecko on account of, you guessed it, golden reptilian skin, but that's where the similarities ended. Spikes protruded from its back, it lacked a pair of arms, the eyes were wide with white sclerae, and to my knowledge, no breed of golden geckos had stripes.

Hang on, was it wearing a shirt?

"Hey dude! Man am I glad to see you!" the thing- no, monster, which was definitely a male child, exclaimed with a grin. He dropped the smile and started looking puzzled once he met the expressionless gaze of my helmet. "Uh, even if I don't think we've met before?"

"We haven't," I responded while casting a critical eye over him. Short, hopping from one foot to another, and with what looked like an impressive pair of black eyes. He must have fallen down a lot, and often. Some part of me felt a stab of pity, but I couldn't take care of everyone who came up to me.

I could try and help, though.

"Should you be here? I thought they were evacuating Snowdin," I said noncommittally.

"Er- well, no," the monster kid admitted. "I was out playing when the Royal Guard rounded everyone up to leave, so I think they just forgot… about… me. Ha ha."

Chara might've had a point when they said I was easily sidetracked, because I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like paying a visit to whoever was in charge of the Royal Guard. What kind of incompetent brand of law enforcement just left people behind like that? Granted, they left in a hurry because some paranoid skeleton thought I had something to do with destroying time itself, but come on. I'm not that dangerous.

"…So I might have missed the instructions on where to go," the kid mumbled at the ground. Then he looked up, bright-faced, as if he hadn't been written off as collateral or forgotten. "B-but yo! You're here and… and maybe you could help me find out where to go!"

I sighed. I was never good with kids. Christ, what did it say that the only one I had talked to for longer than a few minutes was a fucking ghost? "Look, this place is fairly linear, or so I've been told. I'm sure you can make it on your own. Besides, didn't your parents tell you not to talk to strangers?"

"Well yeah, but they also said to ask an adult for help, and you're an adult, right? I can tell 'cause of your lack of a striped shirt!"

I opened my mouth to protest, but got distracted by his logic. Come to think of it, between him and Chara, every kid I had met here so far had a striped shirt while Toriel and Sans- wait why the fuck did that matter?

"And I can make it through here on my own, dude. I've been through here plenty of times to watch Undyne train! I… I just need some help with some of the puzzles is all."

Something about that name caught my interest. Hadn't Papyrus said it before? "Undyne?"

The monster kid's eyes almost bugged out of their sockets. "Dude! How can you not know who Undyne is? She's the leader of the Royal Guard! She's probably the strongest monster in the Underground, and she's definitely the coolest! I bet she could stop whatever it was that made everyone leave Snowdin! Even a human!"

You would be surprised, kid.

But now I was interested. Undyne definitely sounded like someone to watch out for, especially if she was as hostile to humans as Chara made out Monsterkind to be.

And someone who knew the way forward was never a bad thing to have…

"C'mon, dude, how 'bout it! I can guide us all the way to Hotland, and you can do whatever puzzles are in the way! The bridge seeds always trip me up…"

Hotland. I don't think Chara mentioned it, but it couldn't be behind me, which was good enough. I nodded. The kid cheered.

"Awesome, thanks dude! Uh, I mean, sir! Um, or ma'am?" he asked, getting more and more puzzled at my lack of a response. I didn't bother to correct him though, just beckoned and started walking. A few seconds later, a yellow monster was at my side and talking as fast as he could about anything and everything.

Lose a kid, gain a kid. I guess it's my destiny to be a babysitter now. At least this one was like Chara; he knew his way around the place and didn't ask too many questions.

"These are the bridge seeds! You just put four in a line, and they bloom into a bridge! Pretty cool, right?"

"Yep."

I picked up the flowers and started pushing them into the water.

"Yo, where you from, anyways? Since you haven't been here before, I mean."

"The Ruins."

Sure enough, the bridge seeds sprouted into an ad hoc bridge, like a road of lily pads. I pressed down on one with my foot, but it held firm. A lily pad with a high load bearing capacity. Huh.

"No way, really? Dude! You gotta tell me all about it!"

"Sure. But first, why don't you tell me more about Undyne?"

I walked across the bridge and paid a little attention to the sound of the kid talking as fast as he could about his idol.

And that's how it goes for quite a while. The kid went on and on about Undyne (who was probably a pretty big threat if even half of what he was saying wasn't hyperbole), while I went trudging through puddles and solving puzzles that probably weren't meant for the armless. It left plenty of time to make a few more observations about my surroundings.

Maybe I was a bit dismissive about the cave at the start, so let's go into more detail.

Waterfall in several words; dark, mildly humid, lots of groundwater, and devoid of intelligent life.

In other words, it was exactly like the majority of caves I had seen before, which was honestly more comforting than Snowdin and its forest. At least a cave was more understandable than an artificial underground environment sustained by magic. It was something I was familiar with, you know? I could deal with it.

Or you know, that's what I thought.

The kid ran ahead, babbling something about 'echo flowers'. He disappeared around a corner.

I followed after him, and came this close to bumping into someone that didn't show up on the Pip-Boy's motion tracker.

I stared.

You could almost mistake it for a human, you know? Two arms, two legs, a head with a shock of full hair, could have passed for some teenage kid at a distance. The only things that set it apart from one was how frozen and… grayscale it was, like something out of a still frame from a working television had been placed into the real world.

And also it was holding a tiny head in its hand. That was a pretty big indicator that whatever was in front of me, it wasn't a monster. And it sure as hell wasn't human.

"Oh hello there, Courier. I guess it's true then, you're headed for the barrier," the head stated.

The… thing holding it stayed where it was, other hand glued to its head, frozen in a permanent expression of grief.

I didn't move either, for entirely different reasons. I took a brief glimpse at my Pip-Boy, noticing something that had never happened before. The compass was spinning wildly in both directions, as if it was trying to compete with an electromagnet. And there was a sound coming from its external speakers. Something like radio static and something else, this low droning noise that wasn't coming from the audio system, a noise that didn't seem to come from anywhere at all. It was in my head, it just- it was something indescribable.

What the fuck was wrong with this place?

"That's the question, isn't it?" it asked in response, and I wasn't even surprised.

The head kept talking. It had a singsong quality to its voice that felt off in some weird way that was almost familiar. Like hearing your favorite song in a dream, there was something uncertain, something hazy about the melody just wasn't right.

"The doctor tried to answer but failed in spite of all his wit.

No matter the calculations or the projections he ran.

He found he could scarcely keep track of where time ended or even began."

I almost stumbled over nothing at the mention of time. Did this thing know what Sans was talking about?

It must have read my mind again, because the little head tilted to look at me like it was amused, smug, before it changed tunes.

"But that is neither here nor there, I suspect.

Danger lurks in the one place you least expect.

The guard, the demon, and the child await you on the road ahead.

But only you will determine who is alive and who is dead."

Then it disappeared with an electronic chirp, as if sharing vague prophecies was all the world had meant for it do before departing, leaving me to stare blankly into the cave that seemed infinitely more foreboding than it had been a minute ago. A big rocky maw, daring me to tread further.

I hesitated for a second. I could have gone back to look for Chara, or asked the kid if he knew about strange gray figures showing up out of nowhere, or I could have done literally anything other than keep moving.

"Dude, come on! You gotta check out the telescope puzzle!"

But I didn't. I kept going, further into the tunnel and the sound of water on rocks.

I had to.

"Hello?! Courier?" Chara shouted, eyes scanning the snowy horizon and failing to find anything new. The child sighed.

"God dammit."

They shook their head—a futile gesture that accomplished little—then reviewed what they knew.

One, Courier Six was missing. And since their determination seemed to sustain the spirit, it was of utmost importance to find their traveling companion as quickly as possible.

Two, Sans had whisked away Six, two dogs, and himself. Only the living, they thought with a scowl.

And three, if the Courier's determination really was holding the spirit together, then they were probably ahead of them since the snowy forest behind the spirit seemed almost… subdued. A quiet darkness blanketed itself over the world behind them, like a black cloud that smelled like permanence and the not-quite fever dreams they had experienced in the grave beneath a bed of flowers.

Chara shivered. Fuck that, they had no intentions of finding out what happened when a spirit drifted too far from what anchored it to the world, so they floated in the opposite direction of the encroaching shadow. Hopefully, there was some sign of where the Courier had been, a way of pointing where specifically to go besides 'further into the Underground'. They passed puzzles that had never been solved, entire banks of snow poffs, floated over a rickety rope bridge, but didn't find a trace of the Courier.

All the while, the blackness behind them started to whisper in white noise and a babbling voice that reminded them of something they couldn't quite place, something from the past-

"I can't believe it. The human really did this?"

Chara felt a twitch. That wasn't a memory. In fact-

"Heh. Haha. Hahahaha! What a joke! See you later, Smiley Trashbag! Hahahaha!"

-it sounded like it was coming from the town.

Chara cast a quick glance behind them, half irritated and half frightened at the encroaching wall of nothing that was fast approaching. No time to waste, the child edged towards the sound of high-pitched, mocking laughter that they had definitely heard somewhere before. They hovered past the Snowdin welcome sign, and were well into the town proper when they saw it.

A flash of yellow and white. Two vines had burrowed out of the snow, holding a pair of pink slippers that rumbled back and forth with rambunctious laughter.

"Flowey," they growled to no one in particular. Of course that weed would show up now.

"You're gonna have a b-a-d t-i-m-e," the flower singsonged, laughing uproariously at his own impersonation, unaware of the spectre a few feet away. "Ha… ha… wow. And to think I was almost worried for them."

Suddenly, the pieces clicked into place. Chara's eyes widened in realization. Sans was dead, and the Courier had killed him. Which meant they couldn't be too far behind-

"I never thought I'd see this day," Flowey continued to no one but himself, using one of the vines to wipe a tear from his eye. He turned almost wistfully towards the town, and for a moment the spirit almost thought he looked at them.

"…I only wish you were here too, Chara."

WHAT?

They did a double take. Flowey was still staring off into space as if he hadn't said what he just did, and Chara stormed up to him. A sea of emotions churned within them, casting iridescent shadows of onyx on the snow around them as they tried to ask where the hell had he learned that name?

What gave him the right to use that name?

They screamed at him soundlessly, and accomplished nothing. They pounded their fists against the flower only to hit nothing but air, tried to throttle him by the stem, and started seeing black at the corner of their vision as anger turned into-

Chara's vision flickered, and they dared to look behind them.

Too late, they realized where the spectral fog settling over them was coming from. Flowey and Snowdin disappeared beneath a pitch-black roiling sea as Chara shook off their reverie and tried to run.

The child wasn't fast enough. The void caught up with them in an instant, and so did the past.

This time, it was someone else's.

"The War of Humans and Monsters," I murmured, inaudible to anyone but myself.

"Yo! you've never read this before?"

Correction, inaudible to anyone but myself and the monster kid. Although maybe he just caught me staring.

I shook my head. "We don't have these in the Ruins."

"Wow, I don't think I've ever met a monster who hasn't heard the story at least once. Didn't you go to school?"

"We didn't have that either," I said, making the kid's eyes widen. At least it wasn't a total lie. "Back to the story you were saying though…"

"Huh? Oh right, sorry dude! So a bunch of teenagers put these ornaments on Gyftrot, right? And then Undyne shows up outta nowhere!.."

With him occupied, I turned back to the stone tablets in the wall and continued to read them, making sure to keep the kid in the corner of my eye. I had heard the abridged version from Chara before, but I hadn't bothered to ask them for the full story since. Somehow, I got the impression they wouldn't give it to me. Not at all of it, anyway.

'…Humans are unbelievably strong,' the inscription read. 'It would take the SOUL of nearly every monster just to equal the power of a single human SOUL.'

Huh, guess that explained why Toriel knew she couldn't have stopped me. But if this was common knowledge, why did Sans think he could fight me?

I kept reading and tried to brush those thoughts away.

'But humans have one weakness. Ironically, it is the strength of their SOUL. Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death.'

Better question, why did they keep writing 'soul' in all capital letters?

'If a monster defeats a human, they can take its SOUL. A monster with a human SOUL… A horrible beast with unfathomable power.'

Speaking of souls, I think mine just retreated back into my body. I brought both my hands to my sides and reaffirmed I was still armed. Nothing in here had so much as the capacity to put me in danger, I told myself. There was no reason to worry.

But I still worried.

At that point, I barely spared the last stone tablet a glance, but you know me. I'm the Curious Courier who can't keep from sneaking a look at a chiseled drawing of some weird monster-

Wait.

I stopped, looked at the drawing, and I mean really looked at it.

It looked like a poorly-drawn winged creature but what got me were the eyes. They were photorealistic and bored straight past my helmet and into my mind. As if whoever made it wanted to draw only that spotlight-like gaze and the rest of the body was an afterthought.

I blinked.

It looked kind of like a screaming face made out of red fog, or maybe a fetus, shrouded in warped static-

I blinked again.

It looks like Toriel's rusted skull like some terrible machine that could snap you up with those jaws in an instant it looks like it looks-

"Yo dude, you okay?" the monster kid asked, his yellow face scrunched up in concern.

"Fine," I ground out, realizing for the first time that I had been standing still and holding my breath for at least a minute. I took one last look at the picture.

Just a drawing of a weird monster.

I turned away, forcing myself to walk to the end of the docks. A raft bobbed gently in the shallow, murky water. "This is the only way forward?"

"Well yeah, unless you can swim!"

I didn't remark that the only way to proceed through the place was via a tiny raft barely big enough for me. Truthfully, it wasn't a detail I cared about. I brushed past him, muttered that I'd go first, and pushed off into the water.

A minute or two passed, and I almost felt calm when I arrived on the other side's pier and pushed the raft back.

I sighed, but still felt a little jittery. Somewhere, in that image hewn into the rock, something made me feel almost…

The wooden board in front of me exploded from a laser impact.

I threw myself back, just enough to keep from being speared by blue light. I didn't know what the fuck was happening but someone was trying to kill me and that was something I could understand, something I knew the response to. All my fear was gone, replaced with adrenaline. I drew my weapons and darted my eyes everywhere, searching for the attacker.

And sure enough, there it is, silhouetted against the stone pillars that ring this side of the docks. It gleamed in the quasi-moonlight reflected off the water. Almost as tall as a super mutant, and about as broad. Thick armor plates that looked like it could give T-45D power armor a run for its money. A big plume of red hair poked out of the helmet, like the Legate of the Legion reborn. There's only one monster it could possibly be, god knows I've been hearing about her exploits for the past year.

Undyne.

Her helmet flashed and a trio of electric-blue spears, actual fucking spears and not lasers, appeared above her shoulders before they screamed towards me, even as I tried to shoot her.

You ever seen what a .45-70 super wadcutter round does to someone? Because I can promise you it's not pretty, and I don't care how much KE your armor is rated to absorb, or even how thick the plating is on your medieval-steel replica armor. A direct hit with a round like that, from the handcannon I favor, at close range? You're nine flavors of fucked, taking the express trip to the cemetery, and not coming back.

The bad news is, all of that means precisely nothing if you don't hit anything. I squeezed off a couple rounds, creating two very expensive craters in the stone pillars. Soot and rock were blasted across the room, but the monster was no worse for wear.

If anything, she seemed even more determined to skewer me.

But the good news is, Undyne couldn't get a bead on me either. Spears impaled everything in the area except for me, splashing into water or throwing mulched bits of wood into the air, but none of them connected. I only stopped to try and fire at her two more times, and both times I didn't even get the chance to pull the trigger.

Her helmet kept flashing with light, this brilliant blue color that was close to blinding, especially since she was standing in the dark. Maybe it was chance, or maybe I should have given her tactical sense more credit. Undyne raced from pillar to pillar, always staying in the open only long enough to summon another three electric spears, and always opening with that blinding move. Never even gave me enough time to aim.

Holy shit, I was fighting someone who actually fought and used their environment creatively.

More spears came for me. I sidestepped them all. I fired three more times, each time hitting nothing but rock and air when I got blinded each time.

It's stalemates like these that raise the age-old question we all know, "who would win between the agility and dogged persistence of Courier Six and a literally endless supply of high-velocity magic spears?"

I didn't want to find out, so it was a relief when I saw more of the seaweed-like grass up ahead, with just enough distance between me and it to make my play. I rolled, came up on one knee, and emptied all five rounds into the pillar in front of Undyne. The old rock exploded into a dusty fog, obscuring me just long enough to sprint for one, two, three seconds uninterrupted before more spears chased after me but it was too late. They whistled into the grass, hitting nothing at all.

I stayed low. Out came the knife, and on marched Undyne. Boots clanked against stone, edging closer.

Yes, that's it. I was completely still, knife ready to tear her in half. Get a little closer…

Undyne brought a hand up, I got ready to slice through her femoral artery, and then she grabbed something to my right. It made a sound not unlike a squeak, and-

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Peeking between blades of dark blue grass, I could see Undyne holding the kid by the head.

"Oh, my, god," he whispered in unconcealed reverence for his idol.

How the hell did he even get here in time?

"You…" Undyne started, this guttural growl that seemed to echo off her helmet's grille before she stilled, paused. Her voice softened by an inch. "…you are not safe here. Let's go, kid."

"Uh, w-wait! You're not gonna-"

"Now."

Then she dragged him through the grass, away from where I lay hidden. I barely caught the kid saying "-tell my parents about this, are you?" before they both disappeared from sight. As if the search for me no longer held any interest at all.

I was free to continue on my own again.

Which I did, lamenting the fact that I couldn't have stabbed Undyne in the neck without hitting the kid all the while. One quick check of the area later confirmed what I already knew; both of them were long gone.

Pretty soon, so was I.

And as I walked down twisted paths that wound through ponds and rivers, I thought of a new description for Waterfall.

Empty.

Not totally, I found another telescope, a metal cart of some sort, and even an old pair of slippers you might see on a dancer, but still no monsters. I loitered for a while, enough to realize that some of the stuff in here had been abandoned in a hurry. Sans had been more on top of things than he let on, if everyone in Waterfall had already gotten the word to flee. The place was as quiet as a tomb.

Don't get me wrong, some people just don't have an appreciation for silence, but I was starting to wonder if Chara was right after all. Back in the snow of the forest, when they asked why we hadn't encountered any monsters. I know it was a sarcastic remark at the time but…

Could I have been right when I said they were too afraid to approach?

Water dribbled off the ceiling in little rivulets, pooling into the ground as I contemplated the question, taking my time.

And believe me, I had time.

I even had enough to learn a few things about monster souls from more of the engravings on the walls. Humans feared monsters and their ability to take their souls, humans can't take a monster's soul, and only a certain type of monster could have their soul taken by a human, which was a big 'maybe'.

I walked past a cracked statue that lay beneath a constant drizzle and gave it a fleeting glance. Was it supposed it be under the one spot where water was constantly leaking?

(*The statue has been eroded from time and water. It reminds you of something you lost.)

Oh how fucking specific of you, that gave me a real epiphany, I thought to myself before moving on. Just another useless memorial. The next room wasn't any better, containing only a muddied sign and an empty bucket.

Water fell from above. A drizzle at first, but pretty soon it was a genuine subterranean rainstorm. The inquisitive part of me looked at the worn path on the ground, eroded by years of rain, and wondered how the caves sustained a perpetual downpour. Underwater reservoirs, maybe. I didn't care enough to pursue that train of thought. The rain splashed across my helmet and just made me more determined to leave. I had seen enough of this place a while ago.

"Yo! You couldn't find any umbrellas either?

I didn't bother to look. Hidden in an alcove sheltered from the rain, there stood the monster kid. I didn't even ask how he got there if Undyne had carried him in the opposite direction.

"Why are you here?" I settled on at last.

He shuffled his feet and looked down. "I uh, can't go home right now. Undyne said it wasn't safe. And she's too busy to help me right now, just said to stay put, you know?"

I sighed. Somehow, this wasn't surprising.

"But um, hey, since you're here again, is it cool if I walk with you?"

It really isn't. I couldn't look after him and fight Undyne at the same time. Not if she's going to fight with actual cunning and skill.

But like before, I didn't say no. Just walked on and let him follow me. (Cool, thanks! Let's go!)

And just like before, it didn't take long for the very one-sided conversation monster kid was having to turn to our resident spear-summoner.

"Man, Undyne is sooooooo cool. She beats up bad guys and never loses!" he said, the same way you might see a kid bragging about how his superhero could beat yours. "If I was a human, I would wet the bed every night, knowing she was gonna beat me up!"

I scoffed. She was competent and fast, I'd give her that much. Definitely not someone to be underestimated like back in the docks, but I had killed plenty of people like her before. If it really came down to it, I wasn't going to put money on her in a fight against me, and not because I'm biased.

"Hey, so did I ever tell you this one time," the kid continued, "that Undyne came to Snowdin? It was awesome! She was mostly talking to the guards and stuff, but before she left she stopped by and gave everyone a big speech about how there were heroes in all of us. And I was thinking- Yo! You think she's right, dude? That I could be like her someday?"

"You shouldn't," I stated flatly, then tried to sound a little gentler about telling a kid not to pursue his dreams. "I haven't been around for long, but frankly? You shouldn't try to be like her. Undyne's just… arrogant. And a bully."

You never realize how much you need to censor yourself around a kid until you have to do it yourself. I'm not going to say what I was thinking of calling her, you're probably too young for that sort of thing. Use your imagination.

"What?! No way, dude! She's awesome!"

Yeah, awesome enough to leave you alone in a cave with a dangerous, unknown element on the prowl, I thought. Seriously, I wasn't going to hurt the kid, but Undyne clearly thought I would. What kind of irresponsible excuse for a guard just left someone unattended if they thought they were in danger of being killed by me?

I didn't say that, of course. But the monster kid must have gotten some of the unspoken message, because he didn't speak up until we passed a big stone archway and gazed at a castle, the king's, if the kid's commentary is anything to go by.

(*The sight of the castle… it reminds you of how far you've come, and how much more you have to go. You are filled with determination.)

For once, the voice gets it right. There's a lot of ground to cover, and I am ready for it.

"Uh-oh, uh, how are we gonna get over this ledge?"

I jumped. Dug my fingers into grooves in the rock—and hoisted myself up. I turned back and offered the kid a hand.

He looked at me like I had just done a magic trick, before shaking himself out of it. "Nah, man. You go on ahead, I know another way around. I'll catch up!" he called, already running away. He tripped, I almost jumped down to help him, but he pulled himself up and took off.

I wondered if that was going to be a thing with him; running off in the opposite direction and somehow ending up in front of me.

More walking ensued. The story of the human-monster war got wrapped up in a final pair of inscriptions on the wall and I entered a cavernous chamber, crisscrossed with wooden walkways. The room wasn't Snowdin-sized, but considering how hard it was to see even a few feet in front of me, it may as well have been. Several muttered 'goddammits' and a lot of dead ends later (seriously who the fuck built a bunch of walkways that led to nowhere), I finally found the right tracks. One long path that went on for so long it had to be the way out. I took a few steady, measured steps.

The floorboards creaked, and I had all of two seconds before it dawned on me that the creaking noise came from behind me, not under me.

Blue light, familiar blue light came bursting out of the platform and into the ceiling. I connected the dots and realized what happened far too late as the ancient and dilapidated wood started to splinter and give way. If I'd reacted sooner, there might have been enough time to make a dash back the way I came but one glance told me everything. Whatever support struts were holding up the walkway had fallen into the darkness, and I was about to join them. Undyne had pushed her spears clean through the floor a good fifty yards away.

Clever bitch.

For the second time in the same day, I was in an uncontrolled freefall into the dark. Oddly enough, right before me and the ground got reacquainted, I saw a flash of yellow.

Then I landed. Headfirst.

"You're awake… how about that."

The light of the gunshot was blinding, but it was fading fast. Chara felt themselves blink several times, enough to make out the ceiling fan overhead along with the paint that threatened to peel itself off the walls. They tried to sit up, but someone admonished them for it. A doctor, if the medical equipment near him was any indication. But why would they need a doctor?

And then the memories came rushing back. The delivery. The package.

The grave.

'The game was rigged from the start.'

They felt anger, their fists curling. They didn't even realize the doctor had been speaking to them until a lengthy silence echoed through the room.

"How about your name? Can you tell me your name?"

Chara felt their lips move without any action on their part.

I… no. No, I can't… can't remember… The Courier trailed off. The doctor gave a pitying look.

"Huh," he said at last. "Well shoot, far as I can tell, the bullets didn't give you any major brain damage. The kind that leaves you with amnesia, anyway. 'Sides, you've been through a lot. I'm sure you'll remember if you just give it a while.

Right, they said, privately doubting his words.

Chara couldn't tell if it was them or the Courier who spoke. It didn't sound like either of their voices.

"Well, I'm Doc Mitchell. Welcome to Goodpsprings-"

Then the house stripped itself away to nothing, as if the walls had grown so old they decided to skip a step in the decaying process and stopped existing. A sickly crimson sky hung above them, stretching forever in every direction. It was as though the air itself was coated in a thick poison.

Chara breathed it in, and remembered the unfamiliar taste. An aroma of copper and gold, mixed with something that might have been sulfur.

No, that was wrong. It was a scent they were intimately familiar with, one they had encountered numerous times throughout the wasteland. The air did not smell like copper. It smelled like corpses and half-congealed blood.

They remembered now. A mysterious radio signal had drawn them to a bunker, they had been dragged across the desert to some hellish pre-war casino in the middle of nowhere, and there was a bomb collar around their neck.

But that did not concern them. It had been days of crawling through the not-quite deserted streets of the Sierra Madre's Villa with nothing but the bare minimum of food, water, and the plans of a madman to guide them. A pair of ghost people emerged from one of the buildings and Chara felt their hands tremble, though not out of fear.

They just felt so hungry…

The ghost people lunged. Chara parried the first one and brought their spear down, into the second one's neck. The ultra-sharp knives cleaved straight through the hazmat suit and flesh in an instant, slicing the creature's head off. The other threw a punch that Chara only narrowly dodged, the hit coming close enough they could see the crude bear trap fashioned around its fist missing them by inches, snapping at the air.

They rolled back, twisting the knife spear to slash at its limbs. The ghost person put up a fight, even struck them once or twice, before succumbing to its wounds and collapsing. Chara wasted no time in severing its arms. The fight was over, but they didn't turn to leave.

They were so goddam hungry. Anything would be welcome at this point, even…

Chara stared at the thing's corpse, at the pair of stumps where its arms had been. The mutated green flesh seemed to hiss and bubble outwards, as if pressurized gas was trying to escape.

Their stomach growled despite themselves, and they couldn't ignore it any longer. They tore a knife off their spear and started to eat.

The Courier felt sated at last.

Chara felt sick to their stomach-

And as the blood-red sky disappeared, a dilapidated concrete room took its place. One of the walls had a door and a large glass window, but their attention was on the room's only other occupant. A man in faded red armor was tied down to a chair in the center of the room and regarded them balefully.

Silus. A Centurion in Caesar's Legion.

"What now, then?" he asked venomously, as if speaking to Chara was the worst thing he could think of doing. "I've told you everything of consequence, and you know what? All the information in the world won't save you or the NCR. In a month or two when the Legion rolls through this place, they'll burn you alive at the stake for-"

You do it wrong, the Courier said.

Silus stopped his tirade. "What?"

The whole burning people at the stake. That's not how you do it.

When Silus failed to react, the Courier sighed and elaborated.

Look, I didn't want to say this before the interrogation, but I feel safe in saying it now that I have everything I need. While I may work against you, the Legion is actually one of my favorite factions in the entire Mojave. Do you know why?

Silus looked at them oddly. "…You're a sympathizer? I fail to see-"

Chara laughed. No, nothing like that. You are my favorite precisely because of what you are, what you do.

They took a step forward.

If it was anyone else, people would have run from me in fear. They wouldn't look at me and decide I was the Messiah, or the Savior of the Damned, or whatever the fuck people are calling me these days.

They took another step, reached into their armor, and retrieved two things: a knife, and a nailgun. Silus's eyes flicked to it for a moment, and his face flashed with fear.

But you? Allow me to let you in on a little secret, Silus. I adore people like you. You slave-owning, disgusting murdering piece of shit. I love meeting people like you, because you give me the kind of release I could never get from anyone else, because no one judges me for what I do to legionaries. You give me the greatest gift of all, and it is not just my obligation to pay you back, it is my pleasure to make an example of you.

They took another step forward, and this time they were close enough. The Courier's knife flashed—cutting the ropes that restrained the centurion before grabbing both his hands in one fluid motion. He tried to struggle but it wasn't enough, their grip was like a vice. They raised the nailgun and-

Silus screamed. His hands were pinned to the floor. They grabbed his legs and nailed his feet to the wall. Someone had started yelling to be let in outside the door, for the Courier to stop.

Don't worry, they can't help you now, the Courier promised. Anyways, we're a bit off topic. See, I saw Nipton, that town that got hit by your spies. What do you call them? Frumentarii? Anyways, the town was a mess. Vulpes—that's the guy who was in charge of the whole thing—burned the mayor to death by throwing him on a pile of tires and setting them on fire, did you know that?

Silus tried to struggle in vain as blood ran down his limbs. He shot them a look filled with- fear? Hate? Probably both.

They put away the nailgun and drew something else. A tin canister that they splashed over Silus, drenching him in a rancid-smelling liquid.

He did it wrong too, so I'll tell you exactly what I told him. If you just set someone on fire, they'll inhale too much smoke, go unconscious and die too quickly, less pain. That's why I said you guys do it wrong. But if you string them upside down, set only the 'upper' half of their body on fire, the smoke goes up, away from the face. They only die when the fire's burnt everything important away. Takes a lot longer to die, believe me.

"You're sick," the centurion managed at last. "You goddam degenerate, y-you're a fucking psychopath! When the Legion gets here, you'll-"

Oh come on, Silus, they said exasperatedly. First off, I expected more from a centurion. At least Vulpes had the nerve not to get choked up before he got burnt to a crisp. And second, don't call me that. I'm not a psychopath.

There was a crack and hiss as they lit a match.

"Psychopaths don't know what they're doing is wrong."

They flicked the match, and the room lit up in blazing orange. Silus started to scream. Someone else started to laugh, and it took a few seconds before Chara realized they were joining in.

Then they woke up.

In hindsight, I'm actually kind of grateful to the Think Tank for sticking several kilograms' worth of cybernetics and reinforced trauma plating into my skull without asking permission. I'm pretty sure that without it, between constantly getting shot in the head or being knocked unconscious, I would probably have a lot of brain damage by now.

But I was fine, enough to push myself to my feet and take a look around.

Now that I think about it, it was actually a lot like the first time I fell into the Underground, when I first stirred myself awake at the entrance to the Ruins. Surrounded by flowers, minor damage to my armor but nothing that couldn't be fixed while I got my bearings. The only major difference was the water and trash instead of the wreckage of old architecture.

Well, and my legs weren't broken this time. That was a plus.

I looked up and tried to assess how far I'd fallen and if there was a way back up when I saw something familiar on the water. Something misty and-

"Chara?"

There was no mistaking it. I almost thought it was just fog hovering over the water, but fog doesn't turn when you call its name. I saw the soft red glow of the kid's eyes in the dark, and gave them a wave. It really was just like the first time I fell.

"…Hey," they said after a moment. They looked me over but didn't make any move to come closer. "What happened to you?"

Oh, it's a whole fucking story. To give you the short version, I killed Sans and there's a guard chasing me. Also, I don't know the way out of here.

"Straight through this path," they said automatically, switching into 'guide mode'. "Just a little bit further and you'll get to Hotland, I still recognize this place."

Well that sounds great because I don't feel like sticking around. Anyways, what happened to you after we got separated, how'd you get here? I feel like everyone I meet has the tendency to appear in front of me despite walking in the opposite direction the last time I saw them.

Chara darkened, literally. The gray stormclouds of smoke that surrounded them turned black and churned anxiously. "I… don't know," they admitted. "I passed out and when I woke up, you called my name."

Something about the way they said that seemed slightly dishonest, like they were omitting something.

But I was pretty sure prompting them for more information would yield nothing at best, and the wrath of a moody kid at worst. So I just starting walking and pretended not to notice that unlike before, Chara walked behind me and not to the side of me. Whatever. They were a kid, they were a ghost, and maybe whatever happened while we were away had spooked them more than they let on, since they didn't feel the need to converse other than give me directions.

We trudged (and floated, I guess) out of the murky water and garbage piles without incident. "Go to the right up here, then straight," Chara instructed at an intersection, and I obeyed. Neither of us felt like lingering, though I'm pretty sure it was for different reasons.

We didn't even say anything to each other that wasn't about where to go until we reached a bridge that connected two cliffs. A rickety, wooden bridge. With only darkness below it.

Fuck me.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Chara said dismissively. Then again, they weren't the ones who had to worry about a guard destroying the thing under their feet.

I was a little more than halfway across when I heard it.

"Yo!"

Ah, shit.

Chara was on edge immediately. "Who's that?"

Just… some kid.

And there he is, in the flesh. Monster kid walked across the platform, a lot more bravely than I would have expected of someone who had exactly zero arms and tripped often.

"You know him?" the kid- my kid, asked.

Yeah I know him, though I haven't seen him in a while.

"Hey, dude!" he came to a stop and greeted me, but his smile seemed to waver and I found out why. His next words made my stomach drop.

"Listen, um, I need to ask you about something."

It seemed like a good idea at the time, though now Monster Kid was starting to have doubts.

On the one hand, Undyne had specifically told him to stay away from the human. She said it was the most dangerous thing he could be near, that he should wait for her to return for him. He'd been half-tempted to agree with her, because it was Undyne, and she knew best. But really, what was there to be afraid of? He hadn't seen the supposed 'human' anywhere. And even if they were around, why was Undyne worried? There was nothing she couldn't beat in a fight! Well, except maybe the king, but that was a different story.

He looked up at his friend. The guy was a little weird, what with the red eyes and the tendency to stay quiet, but Monster Kid refrained from making any judgements based on his appearance. He seemed pretty cool as far as adults went, but something was nagging at him about the dude. An idea that made slightly too much sense when paired with Undyne's warning about some kind of strange creature that was supposedly in Waterfall.

Just ask, then, he told himself. Just ask, what's so hard about it?

A lot, as it turned out.

"Should you be here?" His friend asked before he could work up the nerve. "This place isn't exactly safe."

"Well uh," he faltered for a second. "You're here, aren't you? So it can't be that bad. Besides, I uh, can't go home. I don't think anyone's back in Snowdin anyways."

The guy tilted his head, as if talking to someone else, and didn't respond. Now's my chance, he decided, and cleared his throat.

"So like, there's something I wanted to ask you," he began, as those glassy red eyes stared back at him. He thought the guy was just a weird monster but now…

"I know the doors to the Ruins haven't been opened in like, forever, not since the last human fell down here. And Undyne was warning me about a human wandering around in here, she said that they were the reason we had to leave town in a hurry, that they hurt people."

She had said more than that to him, even if she seemed to pause and choose her words carefully while explaining it to him. Monster Kid had seen Undyne multiple times. He had watched her break up fights, start plenty, train until even she was exhausted, and it had been awesome every time.

But today had been the first time he had seen her angry, and it was definitely not as awesome as any other time.

The other guy was still as a statue, something that was a little off-putting, but not enough to stop him from continuing.

"Can you just… tell me the truth, dude? Are you… did you do what she said you did?"

His red eyes stared into Monster Kid's, but somehow he got the impression he wasn't meeting his gaze. As if he was trying not to answer.

"…Well… come on, dude. Say something! I don't- I don't want to believe that…"

He broke eye contact and looked to the side. The guy still didn't say anything, and the silence stretched on, long enough for him to feel uneasy at the suspicion in his chest that more and more seemed like the truth.

"You shouldn't be here," he- the human said in a voice that almost seemed detached, like he was bored out of his mind. "This place isn't- look, you should leave, alright?"

"You-" he tried, then started to backpedal as the first touches of horrifying realization settled in. "You really- Undyne was right about…"

As if he had summoned her, Monster Kid heard the distinctive clatter of her armored footsteps. The bridge shuddered for a moment, just enough for a loose floorboard to bump up against the back of his foot and make him lose his balance.

He tripped.

Chara and I stopped our debate on how to answer the kid in an instant. I don't even know if I was thinking for what happened next, because everything seemed to happen in a slow-motion blur.

No, wait, that's just more GRX kicking in.

I bounded forward. The kid was frozen in an expression of shock as he fell, Undyne was still several yards away, and that was just about all the information I needed.

I dove and fell hard on the bridge, feeling it shudder but hold—then shot my arms out.

He was almost out of my reach when I grabbed him by the shirt. It pulled him back, and I almost thought the fabric would have ripped and sent him plummeting into the dark, but it didn't.

I set him down and got to my feet as soon as I could, making sure I was between him and Undyne. If the kid said anything, I couldn't process it. Drugs that mess with your perception of time do weird things to your senses, and sound is no exception. But eventually, the effect wore off and garbled noise gradually became words.

"Y-yo, dude, you just- y-you…"

And he must have realized that Undyne was still there, actually she was a lot closer now, and I quickly made a decision. No one should have to watch their idol get beaten within an inch of their life.

"Get out of here, kid," I said in my best commanding voice. The gas mask helped a lot with that.

"But-"

"GO!" and this time he didn't argue. He sprinted away.

I turned around to face my nemesis of the past two hours or so. "Undyne?" Chara guessed, and I gave them an affirmative. This is her, all right.

I've seen her before, sprinting between pillars and breaking the bridges I was walking on, but this was the first time I really looked at her. Aside from the armor, the one detail that wasn't really clear from a distance? She was tall. Just as much as me, and she approached with a glowing blue spear in one hand.

"Human," she greeted coldly.

"Undyne."

"This is so dramatic," Chara whispered from the sidelines, settling in to watch. I rolled my eyes then returned my attention to her. We stared each other down, mask to mask, not saying anything like a bunch of assholes.

Then she did something I would never advise if you're about to get into a fight. She took off her armored helmet and glared at me.

She looked a lot like a lakelurk, come to think of it. A vaguely fishy-humanoid face with blue scales, two fins where ears would normally be, and an impressive scar and eyepatch that covered on eye. Oddly enough, the red ponytail poking out of her head was her strangest feature.

"Six," she said at last, her mouth flashing teeth like razors. For a second I blinked and thought she was calling me by name before she continued. "We have six souls. We need seven, and King Asgore can destroy the barrier, can free us all."

"That's… not new information," Chara commented offhandedly. I didn't say anything, but I agreed.

"Do you understand? By taking your soul, we can shatter the barrier. We have been imprisoned here for far too long. Killing you isn't just going to set us free, it's an act of justice."

Anger welled up within me, and I suddenly wanted to shoot her in the face for that remark.

Justice?

Was she fucking serious?

I stared at her, as though looks could convey how stupid she sounded. Take it from me, you retarded fucking fish. I've killed more people than you've ever met, more than you could even think of. After the battle of Hoover dam they had to dig mass graves so big you could see them for miles, so many bodies you could see them from the top of the Lucky 38 tower. And even I wasn't dumb enough to think that everyone had died for the right reasons. At least I knew that on some level, despite the fact I never killed anyone who didn't deserve it, what I did wasn't justice.

If she had just skipped straight to fighting, I could have accepted that. But this pompous asshole, this ceremonial guard dog had the gall to preach about how what she was doing was justice?

What did Undyne know about justice?

"…No," she said at last, as if in answer to my question.

Chara and I looked at her. She sighed and stopped glaring. She almost looked kind of resigned.

"I had a friend in Snowdin. Did you know that?"

I didn't even know people like you could have friends.

"We trained together. And I tried calling him earlier. Look, for everything he did, all the things people say about him, he never misses a call. It doesn't matter what time it is, day, night, whatever. He always answers in the first two rings. I've never even heard his voicemail before."

I wondered why she and Sans knew each other. Her face twisted back into a glare, but there was something different about it. Something sharp in her good eye that wasn't there a few seconds ago. I tried to place where I had seen it before.

"But now he's gone. My friend is gone, and you…"

Hate. That was it. Her eye was shining with hate, and I disliked her a lot less. People who hid behind excuses for their violence disgusted me, but this?

"…I don't care about what you just did for the kid. You can say whatever you like, but it's not going to help. Make no mistake, human. I'm going to kill you for what you did."

Chara grinned in my peripheral vision. "I kind of hoped she'd say that."

I could work with this.

In the next moment, Undyne didn't think, she acted.

Her body surged forward, skirting both edges of the bridge and feinted with her right, then left, and summoned a spear with her left and brought it down in a wide arc.

The human simply dodged every strike, backing up each time or raising a hand to parry her fists. She snarled and summoned a barrage of spears even as the human fell back until neither of them were on the bridge. Light skewered the ground around them as she drew back for a punch-

Then the human brought their hand at her face, and for once in her life, Undyne was too slow. She raised an armored gauntlet up to block, and didn't make it in time.

Stars flashed across her vision—and then Undyne's world suddenly flipped to an angle it shouldn't have. She was vaguely aware of a gloved hand wrapping around her neck as she struggled to breathe. The world seemed to flicker, like a light during a blackout.

She heard a bone-rattling snap.

Then her vision came back, and the sight left her confused.

She was looking down, at the smooth dark metal of her breastplate. Only, her arms weren't in front of her. Disconcerted, she tried to put a hand to her head and only felt a tugging sensation in her lower back, then nothing. There wasn't even any pain, and it was the lack of discomfort that made the realization sink in. She couldn't feel her back. She couldn't feel anything.

"No," she tried to say, and only felt her lips twitch and throat gurgle in response. Undyne tried to move her hands, her legs, something, but nothing happened. The human had wrenched her head and broken her neck in an instant.

A dark shape casually stepped over her broken body and walked into view. Undyne managed to blink the dirt away to catch a clear glimpse of two red eyes in the shadows. The human.

The human.

Nerve damage or not, Undyne could still feel hate. She made to summon a spear, but even her magic failed to respond. Fingers twitched against the dirt, but the action was more from neurons firing automatically rather than on purpose, and Undyne didn't take notice.

"That was good," the human said at last, in their mechanical drawl. "I could see your hits coming from a mile away, but you were still pretty fast. Really liked your honesty about why you tried to kill me. It's something I can appreciate."

Were they… complimenting her? Undyne almost felt disgusted, and then-

"Besides, you were a hell of a better fighter than that skeleton back in Snowdin."

-and then Undyne realized she didn't know what hate was until that moment. All she knew was that the human was going to fucking die for that. Her vision swam with red and tears, and she felt her jaw lock as she commanded herself to get up, to rip the human's soul from their battered body and- and…

"Well. Goodbye, Undyne."

And the human barely gave her another glance before walking away without another word, disappearing into the cavern.

Undyne still fought to get up and give chase, even as her limbs failed to respond. She blinked, and a hazy darkness started to settle in on her vision. It wasn't the kind that appeared whenever her eye was closed, or when a room was too dark. It was a lack of vision entirely, creeping up around the corners of her world and stealing it away, piece by piece. Undyne took a labored breath, then heaved with effort. It was an unfocused, undirected plea at her muscles to obey, and the nothingness around her receded for a moment she was paralyzed and alone and dying and barely slowed the human down.

They were headed for Hotland next.

Alphys was in Hotland.

Suddenly, Undyne felt a burst of determination. She grit her teeth and forced herself to move, and by some miracle of random muscle spasms, she managed to dig her phone out of her pocket where it fell onto the ground. Undyne almost, almost succeeded in picking it up before even her nerves gave out, too frayed and burnt out to continue. The plastic slipped out of her gauntlets and clattered once on the ground, and this time was no stopping the feeling of death, growing closer, colder, and refusing to back down.

As she stared at the phone while her broken body finally started to shut down, Undyne felt like she had failed to protect other monsters. She felt as though she had broken the only promise she made that had truly mattered in her life.

Then Undyne was no more.

You gained 500 EXP

EXP to LV 51: ? / 193,750

A/N: A few lines in this chapter may have sounded familiar. Can you spot the references? Eh, I'll probably mark them in a later edit.

Also, I've read the guidelines, but I still have to wonder on what, specifically, the statute of limitations are for a T-rated story, considering I just wrote about someone getting paralyzed from the neck down, having just enough time to reflect on their failures, and then dying. Not even counting that whole bit before any of that.

Oh well, no one's ever seriously read a Fallout story and thought to themselves, "I'm sure this will end well!"

But since we're on the subject, if you feel at all uncomfortable with themes that are rather serious and painful to deal with, such as serious mental illness or death, you may not want to continue. I take no responsibilities for any adverse reactions.

Anyways, longest chapter yet. Maybe I should start splitting these up into smaller segments instead of deciding to do one whole area at a time… ah well, too late. Anyways, let me know what you think in the reviews, thanks for reading!