When we last left our beloved Frisk, she was trapped in the past trying to figure out what her point and purpose were in being there. Step by step, she was getting closer to the dark mystery that Chara feared so much. Everything is about to change. Be ready.

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Chapter 5: The Ballroom

Frisk arrived at a massive doorway, clearly designed so that even some of the larger monsters could fit through it. She'd never even seen this part of the palace before, but there was absolutely no doubt. The music and merrymaking was coming from the other side. For a moment, she found herself hesitating. She could still turn back, right? She glanced behind her at the threatening fog. Or, well, she could always just stay right here. She didn't have to go inside. Didn't have to see whatever anguish was no doubt waiting for her on the other side of the door. No. That wasn't an option. When one couldn't go back, they had to go forward. Swallowing, she pushed open the doors.

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Chara wouldn't let herself be taken in. Wouldn't let her mind lose control. Her secrecy inside of Frisk's head couldn't handle such pathetic instability. Tipping Frisk off to her reawakening at this point would screw up all of her plans. So as uneasy as she felt, she forced her signature smile to return. It was impossible to remove it from her eyes though. Just a few more minutes, the seconds counting down one by one in her head, until the tragedy would occur that had changed everything.

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The room was a flurry of excitement, happiness, joy. There were splashes of color everywhere, moving around in a flowing beautiful motion. They were dancing, doing nothing but dancing. It only took a second or two to catch sight of Sans and Chara. The girl was laughing, laughing! And in such an innocent and sweet way. It still didn't compute in her head. The girl in front of her simply could not be the same one who had convinced her that killing everybody was the way to go. It simply didn't make any sense.

Chara spun around, and Sans lifted her into the air, a brilliant and blinding smile on his face. Then blood, his body covered in blood. She choked, rubbed her eyes, and he was back ton normal. Slowly lowering Chara the beautiful to the ground. Frisk turned away from that couple, feeling like she was going to puke. Why did she have to visit the Underworld when she had? That wasn't fair! If she'd arrived here then everything would have been different.

There would have been no Flowey. No genocide. No runs. No despair. No reason to lose hope. She could have laughed with Sans and been friends with Chara. Instead, she had to arrive at some unknown later time when hell had clearly taken over.

As this thought ran through her head, another one intercepted it. What exactly were they celebrating? I mean, everybody seemed to be in such high spirits. She spotted the guards, dancing and moving in the crowds. I mean, they were still trapped underground. They were in the palace after all. Clearly they couldn't leave… but now they were partying anyways. Considering the situation was the same as always, it begged a simple question. Why were the monsters seemingly ok with it during this party, when they clearly were not during her time?

And then there was the other issue. This was a party! Everybody was having a good time. There appeared to be anything at all to be concerned about. For a third time, she glanced back towards Chara's room. The grey mist had stopped approaching at the doors to the ballroom. Apparently there was no leaving the room…which meant that she was supposed to be seeing something here.

Around her, monsters were munching on food, eating pie, talking, and laughing. Periodically, some audacious male would walk up to one of the females and ask her out onto the dance floor. More often than not, the girl agreed, and Frisk found the small crowd of eaters consistently shrinking while the part of the room that constituted the dance floor grew progressively larger. Soon, only three remained; an adolescent werewolf girl in a long blue gown, a girl who looked like a younger version of Grillby, and a large duck similar to the one she'd ridden periodically in her runs.

"Hey, Red!" A voice that carried a clear western accent reached her ears. "I was wondering if you would care for a dance." Frisk assumed he was talking to the flame girl, and watched to see her reaction. But the girl didn't bother to react. She simply continued chatting with the werewolf girl as if nobody had said anything! How rude.

"It would be impolite for a gentleman like myself to ignore such a beautiful girl standing all alone at a ball." Frisk's face instantly crinkled in confusion. The girl may not have been with a guy, but she was clearly not alone. Maybe there was a reason flame girl was ignoring the guy. The was about to turn around and see who it was, when… "Red, will you give me the honor of this dance?" And a hand was set on Frisk's shoulder.

Her heart froze. Who? What? How? It then proceeded to start beating really fast as she reached up and gently pushed the hand off of her shoulder. It moved. Ever so slowly, Frisk turned around. She wasn't sure what she expected to see, but considering where she was, her chest felt somewhat knotted. She was just a little bit terrified.

The dude was a human. That was the first thing that entered Frisk's head. This person standing in front of her was beyond a shadow of a doubt, human. The second was his outfit. He was by no means dressed as if he were going to a ball. Rather, he was dressed like his destination was a rodeo. He looked like a cowboy who had jumped stepped out of the Wild West. Cowboy hat planted firmly on his head, jacket, pants, boots. Heck, he even had the pistol at his side.

Her mind then looped back around to the initial dilemma. He was looking straight at her. She tilted her head to the side and watched his eyes follow it. There was no denying it. He'd touched her, and he was looking at her. A quick glance around the room made it clear that he was just as invisible as she was. So, was he a ghost like the Megan she'd met earlier? If so, he was quite a bit less creepy. Plus, he still had color. His entire outfit was bright yellow after all.

The cowboy tilted his head as she had done a couple of seconds ago. "You are Red, are you not?" He motioned towards her chest a couple of times, as if that was somehow supposed to explain what in the world he was talking about. She glanced down at her chest though, and saw absolutely nothing red there.

With raised eyebrows, and an perplexed look on her face, Frisk replied. "Who are you?"

He chuckled in response. "Not too bizarre that you wouldn't recognize me in this body." Like that was supposed to make any sense at all. And it sounded like, super creepy. Had she seen him in a different one or something? The cowboy smiled a winning smile, and extended his hand. "I'm Yellow. It's a pleasure to finally be able to meet you like this."

"Yellow…?" That was a nam…? Her eyes darted down to her chest and then back up to the cowboy. "Red… OH!" Realization dawned in her eyes. "OH! SOULS! YELLOW SOUL!" Her eyes instantly darted to the cowboy hat and the gun. How had she not noticed that before? She'd used both of those items countless times in her runs. She'd also gotten help from him many times while fighting Demon Flowey at the end of most of them. 'Course she'd only seen him as a yellow heart with a cowboy silhouette at the time.

"What in the world are you doing here in person? Why do you have your body?" She paused, glanced around, and whispered. "Not to be offensive or anything, but shouldn't you be in Asgore's capsule thingy?" She found herself wondering how well he remembered the runs. Clearly he remembered something, because he'd recognized her. "Why are you here?"

Yellow simply smiled a good natured, yet nonetheless slightly irritating, smile. "No spoilers. You'll find out for yourself soon enough." He glanced back out at the ballroom, and moved his stretched out hand ever so slightly so that Frisk's attention was drawn back to it. "I came to offer you a dance." He bowed his head. "Will you do me the honor?"

Frisk's eyes darted back to the party. Her eyes locked once more onto Sans and Chara, dancing happily in what she appeared to be a monster dance style semi-similar to the waltz. As she looked at them, it struck her that her original assumption seemed a bit off. Sans didn't look any younger physically. That was true enough. But that didn't mean he didn't appear younger. The weight she'd gotten so used to seeing in his eyes, never completely hidden behind his laziness and bad jokes, simply wasn't there. Without that weight, he seemed far younger.

It begged a question. She'd always believed his nihilistic tendencies were simply a result of the knowledge that time kept resetting. She winced at the thought, as she did every time it came up. She was in a large part responsible for those. Standing in this ballroom, unable to leave, she began to wonder if there was more to it than that. Perhaps the reason she was here was to learn a little bit about what turned Chara and Sans from THIS to… the ones she knew.

She had more pressing matters to deal with at the moment though, so she turned her attention back to the yellow soul. She doubted his name was actually 'Yellow' any more than her name was actually 'Red'. His story was unbelievably fishy. "So you somehow managed to escape Asgore's soul container, despite not being able to do it for… how many hundreds of years? Regained the ability to use your body, or at least a ghost-like version of it. And then ended up… wherever we are now. And you are telling me you did it, just to ask me for a dance?"

The yellow soul was silent, and appeared to be deep in thought as he listened to Frisk's long-winded question. Concluding that he wasn't going to say anything, she took his hand. "Sure I'll dance with you. My name is Frisk, by the way. I'd really prefer not being called 'Red'." It was only after she said this that she saw him close him mouth. She instantly reprimanded herself. He'd been about to tell her something!

Apparently her acceptance to dance with him had changed his mind however, as he escorted her out to the dance floor without another word. Considering how they could simply move through the other dancers, they soon ended up in the middle. That was when Yellow stopped and turned back to her.

He reached out and set one of his hands on her shoulder, the other on her waste. "Considering your mother was Toriel, I assume you know at least one kind of dance." He motioned to Toriel and Asgore, dancing nearby them, in a crazy elaborate tango/cha cha combination. "She was always the life of the party, or so I've heard. Which do you know?"

Frisk didn't answer at first. She was a little overwhelmed by all of this. Yellow was absolutely nothing like she'd expected the yellow soul of Justice to be. On second thought, people probably would think the same thing about her if they found out that she was the red soul of Determination.

Plus, she hadn't ever really stopped to wonder what the souls had been like before Asgore captured them. It was rather embarrassing to admit, but she'd thought little about them. She'd just accepted that they were helping her to fight Flowey without a second thought about who they were as a person. The sort of thing Chara would do…

She shuddered at the thought, and once more pushed Demon Chara from her mind. "I know the waltz best," she said with confidence. She followed this up with uncertainty. "What in the world are you doing here, really? And why do you keep calling me 'Red'? Do you have a weird habit of just calling humans by their soul color or something?"

"There are rules to follow, Red. Ancient rules that have been around as long as the barrier that keeps the monsters in the Underworld. I, for one, am not going to break them. After what happened to Gaster, anybody who attempts to follow his example would have to be more than just an idiot. They'd have to be totally insane. So, I am Yellow, you are Red, and the others are Orange, Green, Light Blue, Blue, and Purple." His eyes darkened. "That's what we are all going to be calling you, and what you are going to be calling us in return. For your own sake."

He glanced towards the door and frowned at the fog. "You really should have gone to Chara's room, Red. We suspected you wouldn't, but life would have been so much simpler if you had. So much could have been avoided." He sighed and shook his head. "You should have gone to the bedroom."

That was it. Frisk had had enough of his cryptic remarks. She broke out of the dance, and crossing her arms. She frowned at him, attempting to look as determined as she could. The soul of determination attempting to look determined… How pathetic was that? "Look, 'yellow' or whatever your name really is, You obviously know what is going on here. I want to too. I'm not dancing with you, or doing anything else, until you tell me what you are attempting to hide!"

Yellow sighed and stepped back. He frowned, as if searching for the right words to say in response. He'd already told her that he wasn't going to be giving any spoilers, but Frisk was determined to make him give her something. When he spoke, it was with a rather peculiar statement. "Chara is upset."

Frisk's eyes instantly darted out to the dance floor, and she frowned in bewilderment. Chara was laughing, just as she had been doing the last time Frisk had looked out there. She wasn't… unless… no… he couldn't mean… She fiercely shoved the thought from her mind. She turned back to where Yellow had been standing, but he was no longer there. Her eyes darted around, and then she spotted him standing next to the ominous fog.

"You chose the wrong path, Red, and your options are going to make things far, far worse. Watch your back. Your creepy, smiling friend will return, and things are going to get far, far worse." Then he turned around abruptly and strode confidently into the mist, disappearing from view.

Then, an eerie unsettling sound echoed out of the darkness. It sounded like a cry of despair. Frisk was about to call out and make sure Yellow as ok, when she realized that the figures around her had stopped dancing. Instead, all of the monsters were staring in the direction of the ballroom doors. Whoever had made the sound WASN'T Yellow. Something was very, very wrong.

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Frisk wasn't taking it well at all. Her heart started beating fast, and her eyes darted back and forth, back and forth. The apprehension and fear had instantaneously taken over the face of every single monster. The music had shut off. This was more the kind of emotion that Frisk was used to, but witnessing the sudden drop in mood from heaven to hell was throwing her mental instability all over the place. In any other situation, this would have been the perfect time for Chara to take back over. It was what she had been waiting for for five years.

Unfortunately, her mind was not on manipulation at this moment. The appearance of the yellow soul was a very upsetting development, and he was right. She was upset, VERY upset. Worse though, she knew exactly what was happening. She knew what was on the other side of the door. This was that moment when heaven and hell switched places, when the dark side of the Underworld began to take control. It had never let go. And nobody had been more victimized as a result of it than her.

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"WHAT'S THE HECK IS GOING ON!?" Frisk screamed at the top of her lungs. She wasn't quite sure what she was expecting. Maybe that if she screamed loud enough the monsters would be able to hear her? Maybe Yellow or Ghost Megan would return? Perhaps the person who had sent her here would finally reveal himself. What she got was nothing, from anybody. No response.

Then a small group of monsters stepped out of the fog. These were clearly from the other dimension, though, as the monsters in the room stared at them in a short of shocked silence. They walked in a straight line, solemnly, silently, faces low. At the back of the pack came another young version of Megan, this one in a lab coat, and with biological arms. Frisk knew who it was instantly, Megan's much older sister, Alphys. Beside Alphys, a child version of Papyrus walked. They would have looked far more adorable, however, if both of them didn't have tears streaming down their faces.

Frisk swallowed, eyes locked on Papyrus. He looked so broken, so shattered. She'd always felt that there was something painful behind Papyrus' stupidity. She'd suspected for a long time that he was a lot brighter than he pretended, that it was merely his coping mechanism, as corny jokes and nihilism were Sans'. If that was true, this was the pain that he was attempting to hide not only from the world, but from himself.

She found herself walking step by step towards what looked to be a funeral procession, despite the fact that there didn't appear to be a jar for ash or a coffin. She reached out for Papyrus, but her hand went right through him. Swearing under her breath, Frisk began to move her hands in and out of young Papyrus repeatedly. There had been a time when she could keep her cool in any situation, but that had changed after the genocide attack. That was the first time she had ever felt… powerless.

Toriel and Asgore made their way through the crowd, everybody moving aside numbly as they did so. Asriel, Chara, and Sans were right behind them. The first person to speak was Sans, and he sounded frantic. "Pap? Alphys? Where's Gaster? Where is my dad?"

Frisk nearly choked. The pain in his eyes, the worry. She'd seen it once before, during her countless battles at the end of genocide. It was one of the things she'd been running from the most. Why did she have to end up here? Why did she keep ending up in places like this, powerless to do anything to fix the situation, nothing more than a spectator to other people's pain. It wasn't fair…

Father. He'd said Father. And called him Gaster? But, she glanced at the funeral procession in bewilderment. She'd seen him in the snowstorm during her time though. There was no way he could be…

"Gone," Alphys said, choking out the words and staring at the ground, unable to look up. "He's gone, Sans." Sans' froze as a look of grief took over his face. Beside him, clearly at a loss for words, Chara squeezed tighter on Sans' hand. She appeared to be sending him a message, probably that she was there for him. Asriel tried to step forward, but was stopped by hands set on his shoulder. One from Toriel, and the other from Asgore.

"Gone," Papyrus repeated. He said it in a somewhat hollow tone, as if his mind wasn't all the way there. As if… he hadn't allowed himself to come to terms with the truth. And he never would, Frisk thought to herself, as she looked at him. Several hundred years later, he still hadn't come to terms with it. "Something went wrong, and he was just… gone."

Gone. That was a relatively strange way to put it. Four times in a row. Didn't they mean dead? Or did he really just up and disappear into thin air? Her mind began to cycle through everything that she had just seen and learned, attempting to find the logic in all of this chaos.

Gaster was Papyrus' and Sans' father who had disappeared about eight hundred years ago. Yellow also mentioned him being a bad example, not sticking to some universal "rules" like using colors instead of names. Or was it a different one that he had broken? That had actually been unclear now that she thought about it. GAH! Why did everybody have to be so freakin' cryptic?

Anyways, Gaster was the one who had led her here. She'd seen him in the snowstorm. He'd led them right to the building. Then he'd left. Why? Why hadn't he let his sons know he was alive all this time? Was it possible this was the only way he could communicate? She looked towards Papyrus and Sans. She understood what that was like, being unable to reach out to the ones you cared about when they needed you. And he wanted her to know what Chara was hiding in her bedroom. All of that was guesswork, but if it turned out to be accurate, it would mean she had wasted all of Gaster's efforts.

A scream suddenly split through the air and all eyes turned in its direction. It was Chara. She looked shaken, way more so than Sans or Papyrus had been. She looked somewhat… horrified. Slowly, the monsters began to realize that it wasn't the news that had made Chara shriek. It was Sans.

Some… strange… thing… had come over Sans. It was something that Frisk had seen many times, but that it appeared none of the monsters here had seen before. One of Sans' eyes was glowing a dark blue, and the other eye was simply… gone. He pushed his way through the crowd, or at least through those who didn't scramble out of the way fast enough, and stormed out of the ballroom, slamming the doors shut firmly behind him.

Chara, and the monsters, simply stared after Sans, the entire room silent.

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Hope you enjoyed the shocking events that have been unveiled in the latest entry of our adventure. As always, your fanship means a lot to me. Hope to hear from you.

~ Xanatos Stones