The timeline was distorted again, another hard RESET initiated by another human interloper. Whoever did bring themselves back to the ruins, and woke up in the same buttercup bed every human fell in since the First Fallen did.
The human who Gaster met on his way to the CORE was certainly not a full-fledged killer but was without a doubt a vulnerable being. He was mistreated in far more ways than he ever confessed, believing that bringing those up will destroy him and the bond he had with the previous demon host. The human was far too attached to her, as she gave him the love he yearned for so long.
A love that misled him into despair.
The despair in turn made him choose termination.
The moment Gaster saw the human, he also saw in him a savior, he did not why or how at this very moment. All he saw was that the SOUL he yielded possessed so much determination, it would end up choosing Monsterkind no matter what.
Even if the boy had to pay the price of his sanity for that.
Gaster has also forsaken his kin, much like Chara. He disappeared once, and nobody ever looked it up properly. There was no way someone would solve the mysterious puzzle he entangled himself in, but he hoped he would at least be remembered.
The demon he freed decided otherwise.
People liked to call him Gaster, but his real name was Aster, W.D. Aster, monster father of two boys he never knew and husband of a wife that was constantly on the battlefield. Arial was tall as Papyrus and had something charming Aster never really had.
A knack for jokes.
She would crack a pun, much like sans, on every occasion she saw as opportune to do so. Her lightheartedness contrasted well with her job, where she excelled nonetheless. As Vice-Captain of the Royal Guard, she was dispatched for the incoming battles against Humans. The two then cohabitating species went to war after some humans saw themselves threatened by Monsters. While it was true some of King Asgore's subjects went rogue and killed humans, their motives were unclear and they had hardly anything left of a monster's SOUL.
Their upside, the magical compassionate heart was now blackened with an unknown black seed
Aster had climbed up the Monster Royal Scientific Association ladder until he was at the head of it. He was ordered by King Dreemurr to investigate the recent incidents and identify the motives of those rogue monsters. Aster worked day and night, listening to deeply hurt families and performing experiments on some of the retrieved bodies. He extracted human traits, using a machine he designed, after figuring out the cause of these awful transformations.
It was simple: Fear, Hate, Pain. Emotions monsters rarely knew or felt, as they were made of magic, hopes, and dreams. Most monsters never laid a hand on humans, but were rather appreciative of them and cared for their well-being. Humans were not that compassionate, and their nature to shun being that looked or behaved differently eventually waged war.
Both the Human and the Monster king received scarce reports of small incidents, involving humans throwing pebbles at monster kids or the occasional fight where humans were injured. Those were dealt with in a joint court and sentences were impartial, both to human or monster culprits. Both species never knew the seeds of hatred grew with SOULs, but a succession of bullied monsters or injured humans offered grounds for suspicion and worries.
None ever knew it would end up in a bloody conflict, not even Aster.
He despised Monsterkind for being so weak the moment they could not bring Arial home. She has been ambushed by humans, at the end of the long tragic war where Monsters were overpowered. She ensured the retreat of a convoy of citizens back to the deepest parts of Mt. Ebott, a place where fleeing monsters gathered. Her unit encountered enemies trying to kill passing monsters, prompting her to charge into the fray and push the invaders back. She went too far trying to save a rabbit family of three, isolating herself. She saved the refugees at the cost of her life, being bludgeoned to death while the three monsters fled through a narrow passage.
Before passing away, she branded her skeletal hand up, as if she was bidding farewell to her own family. One last magical blast scattered her SOUL and dented Aster's
He knew his wife was dead.
He could not face his children again.
Never again.
Not before he figured out how to bring her back.
And there, in his effort to reach the abyss of magic through researching "determination", he fell into the Void. Aster chuckled at those long-gone memories, before going back to observe the humans that were there waking up in the Ruins.
"Chara", as she called herself, woke up groggily in a flower patch. She scoured the area with difficulty, her head hurt a lot and she had a hard time moving her limbs. Something was off about this place, no ... the anomaly here was "Chara" being alive. She palped for a pulse, and her eyes widened when she heard a heartbeat. She was taken aback when a SOUL pulsed in her, and it made her cry uncontrollably. She never had a SOUL of her own, and that only meant one thing.
"Did I ... kill somebody again?"
She dreaded the familiar comeback of her dark self but heard an unknown voice instead.
"Chara."
"Who's there?"
Chara frantically looked for a presence, but it was all silent. Nothing moved except the wind, brushing on flowers.
"I am glad."
Glad? Why would someone they hardly knew ever be glad to see them? It angered the Fallen, so much that they shot daggers at their invisible interlocutor.
"Show yourself."
"I can't."
Whoever this was seriously getting on Chara's nerves, but she was not making a move as long as she could not see them.
"I will kill you if you do not show yourself this instant."
"You can't do that either."
"Why is that?"
Her SOUL pulsed vividly, and a loud thump resonated in all of her beings. She suddenly saw a boy her age, with a striped sweater, beautiful chocolate eyes, and a giggle that her melt. She unconsciously went to hug him, but the apparition phased through her.
"Who ... are you? Why ... do you make me feel ... like this?"
Love?
Chara loved this boy, a human she never met. One of a kind she despised, and devised a plan involving killing them? The same humans that made her lose everything trying to SAVE monsters and remain SOULless for most of her life?
The voice remained silent for a while, Chara heard someone crying, but there was still nobody around. She assumed that boy was tearing up, and she felt miserable for not being able to comfort him. It made her feel even more awkward, everything felt wrong about this timeline.
The voice sniffled, then finally able to speak up.
"We used to know and love each other ... and I gave you my SOUL so you can live."