ColonyTale
by Nicolle

Disclaimer: Undertale belongs to Toby Fox. ColonyTale is my AU. Story copyright to me.

Chapter 4

Frisk headed for the tram. She slowed and gripped her case tightly. "Delta? Who are the two people following me? They look like the techs from the Core."

A glowing star appeared in front of her. "You are correct. The cat monster is Derete and is responsible for monitoring power output from the first two nodes in the Core. The dog chimera is Ahron, a chemistry technician."

"Do they have a reason to be going in my direction?"

"None."

"Your time function. May I use it?"

"Of course."

Frisk touched and the star and it disappeared. She stepped onto the tram and both monsters cornered her.

Derete's short snout and whiskers were in Frisk's face. "I've never seen a monster like you before. Who are you?"

Ahron used his feathered arm to block Frisk's exit. "Why would His Majesty listen to you about the coolant system? What experience do you have that you wouldn't have interned here?"

"What makes you so special that you get to use his name?"

A cackle cut through the air. "Why don't you kids back off my apprentice and I won't tell Asriel that you've been harassing a member of his staff." An elderly turtle in a pith helmet sat behind the technicians.

The techs visibly paled, backing away. They escaped at the next tram stop.

The turtle monster snorted. "Punks!" He patted the seat next to him. "Come on over, Osiris. I've been waiting to meet you!"

Frisk sat next to him, eyes green brown. "Osiris isn't really my name. It's the name of the ship I was on."

"I know that. But boy does it suit you! Wah ha ha ha!" He cackled and slapped his knee.

Frisk smiled. "You're Gerson."

The turtle smiled. "So Asriel's been talking about me, huh?"

"Well, you are the only turtle monster I've seen so far and you're using his first name."

Gerson nodded. "You got some time?"

She frowned. "Sans and Papyrus are in quarantine. I'm going to see them."

The old turtle cackled. "Those two bone heads? They'll be fine! That damn microbe can't touch 'em. I've got something you need to see."

The tram stopped at an empty station. The door slid open to reveal a derelict stop. One that hadn't seen use in a very, very long time. Half the lights were out and the digital monitors around the area were black and silent. Dust more than an inch thick covered everything. The only thing that disturbed the station was a set of foot prints in the shape of Gerson's old feet. Frisk followed him off the tram.

"Where are we?"

"The home of the most important friend you have on the Delta." The turtle walked to a single doorway past the tram station and knocked. "Open up, ya old bat!"

"I suppose it takes one to know one."

"Delta?" Frisk rushed through the door as it opened. She stopped at the railing lining a balcony three stories above a supernaturally clean, if monotonously gray, computer lab. Multiple empty computer terminals, as dark as the digital displays outside, surrounded a massive terminal in the center, it's screen so big as to be level with the balcony. The screen lit up, revealing the image of a human woman as pale as the white hair on her head. The image was clothed in a nondescript black suit and had one yellow eye and one blue eye. The black line of a scar ran down her face from the blue eye.

"Hello, Frisk. Welcome to my home terminal."

"Oh wow..."

The pale face smiled. "I suppose my terminal is something else to see."

"Your avatar is beautiful."

Delta appeared to stand up straighter. "Thank you. It is modeled after my maker, Dr. W.D. Gaster."

"A woman? Everyone refers to Dr. Gaster as a man. Even the official history lists Dr. Gaster as male."

"Interesting isn't it? What is lost to history? The reason monsters are here and not on Earth is little more than legend. Even my terminal is lost to memory. Well, most memory."

Gerson laughed.

"Is your personality mapped on hers?"

"Yes."

Frisk descended the stairs to the main interface. "This is phenomenal! What kind of genius was Gaster to have come up with something that would last so long? And on top of building a ship as massive as the Delta?" She stopped on the stairs, sitting down suddenly. "There was no record of this ship when I lived on Earth. No mention of this phenomenal genius." She looked through the railing at the screen. "Why?"

"Monsters and humans had lived peacefully together until the advent of true space exploration. Arguments over who would travel the stars and when broke out between countries. The monsters of those countries were caught in the middle as wars broke out over who would get to colonize which planets. A typical monster is easily destroyed and entire populations died in the wars. King Ejenis Dreemurr contracted Dr. Gaster to make him a ship to travel the stars, a ship able to travel the cosmos for as long as it took to find a new home. And the Delta was her creation."

Frisk stood. "That still doesn't answer my question. The Exploration Wars were a huge part of history lessons when I was in school. The Delta is an undertaking beyond the capabilities of only one person."

Gerson cackled. "Wah ha ha ha! Well, it is now! Back when we built the Delta, it was only the upper plate, the Core, and what is now the Ruins Biome. Everything else came later. As the population grew the ship grew with it."

Delta picked up were Gerson left off. "Because star travel was no longer out of reach for the common man, many humans contributed to the undertaking in the hopes of being able to leave with the monsters. And many did, but the humans did not last more than two generations."

Frisk frowned. "Why not?"

Gerson sighed. "What was the human population like when you left Earth?"

"Recovering from a massive, world wide, population implosion. It was one of the reasons why different countries wanted to annex mine. Our population had stable growth."

"There is a curious belief that cycles through human consciousness every few thousand years, that equates the having of children as a harbinger of poverty, famine, and loss of personal freedoms." Delta disappeared from her screen and a pyramid diagram appeared, with youth at the bottom and the aged at the top. "The amount of children begins to dwindle in these times while the rest of the population ages, eventually causing shortages of people to work in important industries and economic collapse. This inevitably leads to war." The pyramid inverted and collapsed under it's own weight.

Delta reappeared on the screen. "Humanity was in such a cycle during the building of the Delta. And the humans who left with the ship were 'infected' by those beliefs. Most did not attempt to even find a permanent mate let alone produce offspring, though there are some monsters on the ship with remnants of human DNA. In such a cycle, it would be easy to 'forget' an undertaking such as the Delta from history. There would be no humans to remember it after a hundred years."

"How does your ability to manipulate time work?"

Gerson stepped down to stand next to Frisk. "Told her about that, did ya?"

"Frisk gave me a name and it is the boon I choose to give her in return. Though I am interested in knowing more about where the name came from." Delta disappeared from the screen and a schematic of the computer interior appeared. Within the computer's components was a crystal vessel containing a human soul. "This is were my ability to manipulate time comes from. From Dr. Gaster's very soul. It has been quite useful in protecting the Delta from disaster on many occasions."

"Thank you, Delta."

A smile graced the image's lips. "You are most welcome."

Frisk sighed. "I should get back before someone notices the human is missing. May I return?"

"Of course. I am still interested in knowing about my namesake. When you wish to come here, tell me before entering the tram and I will send one that is private."

Frisk nodded again, giving a wave as she followed Gerson.

The old turtle practically skipped back up the stairs to the empty tram station. "Don't expect those two techies to give up so easily. And it won't be long before everyone starts to recognize you. Keep the eyes on the back of your head open."

"I will. Will you please show me the things you showed Asriel when he interned with you?"

He patted her arm as the tram pulled up to the station. "Once you've moved from the Lab and formally started working for the royal family, I'll steal you from Asriel as often as I'm sure will make him jealous."

Frisk stepped onto the tram. "I doubt that would make him jealous."

Gerson leaned in, smile sly. "For a boy that has spent his entire life talking to me about the ship, he's spent an awful lot of time talking about you." He stepped back and the tram door slid shut.

The tram did not stop until meeting the station adjacent to the Lab. Frisk hurried inside. Sans sat on the reception desk, bare feet swinging.

"*hey kiddo. took you long enough to get here."

She hugged him. "Bone head."

He snorted, hugging her back.

"Where's Papyrus?"

"*already back on duty, though we'll be bunking at the precinct for a while. what took you so long?"

"I ran into Gerson."

"*that old codger!" Sans slapped his knee. "*welp. if there's anyone on the ship everyone should drop everything to do, it's spend time with him." Sans jumped down from the desk.

"What will happen to Snowdin?"

Sans frowned. "We wait until the microbe finishes killing off the infected. The ones who make it out alive are sanitized and the entire biome interior is completely junked and remade."

Frisk blinked, falling into a chair. "How long?"

"The microbe works fast. It'll be an hour before we can pull survivors," Alphys sighed as she tromped heavily into reception. She blinked. "Didn't you leave with your case earlier?"

Frisk gasped. "I left it on the tram!"

Sans patted her shoulder. "*don't worry. someone would have opened it, thought the contents were strange, and dropped it with the royal guard." He pulled her up. "*let's go find it before someone is too rough with it." They headed for the tram into New Home, Sans poking his data pad. "*there. undyne knows to keep an eye out for the case. do you remember which tram car you were on?"

"Fifteen."

"*we'll wait for that one to come around."