"I just..."

Aofil's brow furrows in thought. They cough one last time to clear the impact of falling flat on their back.

"Why do we think this would end any different?"

The grass in the backyard feels a bit different than the lawn at the front. It's cut a bit differently. The blades of grass have more of an angle to them compared to the more flat slice at the frontyard.

Undyne's face pops into view as she squats down next to Aofil, "You alright?"

"Seriously," Aofil readjusts their focus from the green grass to the blue face, "why did we think this would be different than all the other times I've sparred with any of you?"

Undyne rubs her chin while tilting her head from side to side, "You know," she glances up to Asriel flexing his hands, "sometimes you gotta play the wild card to win the hand. Maybe you learned a bit from watching me slap Mettaton around earlier today?"

"Didn't he catch you?"

"Ha!" Undyne offers her hand, "He only caught me because I started laughing. Like I said, wild card."

"Like you would have enough patience for poker," Aofil accepts Undyne's outstretched hand, "Or the face for it."

Undyne helps Aofil up on their feet, "One of the few cases were I have to give Sans credit," and assists them in brushing off the grass from their back, "You can't read anything on that smile of his," she picks off a small stick from Aofil's shoulder and flicks it away. It lands just in front of Asriel, and he picks it up.

"Pretty sure that he cheats with his magic though. You see him twitch just the slightest and," Undyne glances a slap to get the last pieces of grass off Aofil's back. The pieces flutter in the air, "Whoosh! The cards fly all over the place."

"And then he blames it on the draft?" Aofil guesses.

Undyne nods as Aofil's right on the money, "And somehow he wins the pot, or calls my bluff."

"Well I never."

"Hey!" Undyne throws a friendly bump on Aofil's shoulder, "I'm sure I can fit you in one day! It's always hilarious to see Asgore trying to bluff. He gets very touchy with his beard once he has a good hand, that's his tell!"

Why not? "Sounds nice."

"Yo, Asriel!" Undyne whistles loud and sharp, almost breaking Aofil's eardrum, "How does your old man cope with me always knocking him out almost instantly? Does he wash his beard after I wipe the floor with him? Ngah!"

Her laughter goes straight through Asriel, who's soul focus is on the stick. His eyes are fixed and locked tight on it. He places it in the palm of his other hand, and closes it inside his forming fist. A faint orange glow pulsates in his hand, and when he opens it the stick is no longer there. A pile of ash remains which he sighs at. The small and black particles spread out over the grass. He moves his eyes to Aofil, and with a disappointing shake of his head he walks back to his bench.

Undyne is quick to steal Aofil's attention, "He's disappointed in himself, Aof. Don't worry!" she flashes a reassuring smile. It fades as quickly as it forms though, and she looks over to Asriel to make sure he's busy before leaning in towards Aofil, "He might've hyped it up a bit too much in his head."

"Only he though?" Aofil shoots back with a whisper, "He told me you had been hyping me up as well."

Undyne tilts her head back, "Me?" she asks with a raised brow.

"You in general."

Undyne lets it sink in for a couple of seconds before again whistling to Asriel. Aofil has to throw their hand up to cover their ear quickly as to not become deaf, "Az!" Undyne shouts, "Gotta work on your back a bit now! It'll help your posture as well. Get those toned and thumping so that I can teach you some of my special moves. Ngah! I want to be able to squeeze my orange juice for tomorrow when I come back to your back! Ngahaha!"

Her encouraging and brimming smile again fades away in an instant as she turns back to Aofil, "Should keep the kid busy, let's head inside."

Undyne closes the patio door behind Aofil with a heavy sigh. She sits down next to Aofil with her hand and elbow holding her head up. With another tired exhale she sits up straight, "When you left us, Aof, we..." Undyne has to bite down on her knuckles, "we we're kinda in a panic. You didn't say goodbye to me or Alphys. You just..."

Her fist slams down on the table, cracking it, and almost in two. She lifts her fist up again to her mouth after gritting her teeth through the impact, "You just packed up and left. Not even packed up even. You just…"

"I'm."

Undyne puts her hand up, "No, don't say anything. It's better if you don't say anything. I can't do a back and forth, not on this," she scoffs, knocking away the tiniest of drop from her eye, "Toriel or Asgore can probably explain it better, but I feel like it's better that you hear the sloppy version first before you hear one from someone who's entire job is to explain difficult things. If anything it'll ease you into the royals' explanation, right?"

Aofil's not really sure how to react here. Undyne is smiling at them, yes, but god damn is it plastered. How much is behind it?

"Sure," is the only thing Aofil can muster.

"So," Undyne collects herself for another attempt, "you left us. You abandoned us. I know you didn't, we all know you didn't, but we all felt like you did. We'd known you for so long, and then you just left us! The first human we met on the Surface, the first human for our new chapter."

Undyne snaps her fingers, "Gone! Hopped in a cab and never looked back!"

She's wrong. So so wrong. Aofil remembers wishing that they could never look back. The couldn't though, they were always reminded. The dreams, the thoughts, their arm. Everything! Not to mention the horror they felt when they found about the first wave that would integrate into the human society.

Realizing that what Aofil had tried to escape was following them. Their arm screaming every second a monster was near them. Only stopping once Aofil was exhausted. Only stopping when they…

No! They can't think back, they can't fall back into that void again. They have to stay focused! Undyne's finally gonna explain it all, so they have to listen! They can't fade away in thought like this.

"Aofil?"

Aofil realizes that they're clutching their hands something fierce. They ease their grip, "Sorry. You can continue."

Undyne waits for a moment to make sure Aofil means it, "Suddenly the first human we met was gone. Was it our fault? Can we even live here on the Surface if we scare the humans away? If we drive them away?" Undyne tilts her head towards the kitchen window. She rests her eyes on Asriel doing his routine, "And on top of that, the prince was alive again," she throws a hand towards him, "Just look at him. The reason Asgore declared war against humans is doing back exercises in my home on the Surface. The same back exercises I did during my post down in the Underground. The same exercises I did so that when the time came, I could lay waste to the humans under the flag of monsters taking back what the humans deprived us of. Under the lead of a king turned god, the power of seven human souls bottled up and commanded by Asgore."

Undyne catches her breath, "Yet, here the prince is," she sighs, "making the same shortcuts I did when I was a novice," and stands up from her chair. She opens the kitchen window, "You'll scrunch up your core if you don't do those rows properly! Toriel will have my head if you come home to her looking like a literal question mark! Ngah!"

Undyne closes the window, but keeps herself standing in place, "He's so grown up now. It feels like it was only yesterday that I told him to wait a couple of years for his body to mature a bit more before he could even fathom to survive what I had in store for him."

With her hair whipping against the window sill, and almost knocking of some spices, Undyne turns back to Aofil with a conflicted smile birthed from the contradiction she just realized, "Which is a bit strange," she scoffs and scratches her cheek, "since I feel like it's been ages since you disappeared, Aof."

After seeing that Asriel is doing his exercising properly Undyne returns to her chair, "The shock of you being gone wasn't the easiest to process. What with all we had on our table regarding resurfacing."

"Trouble?"

Undyne shakes her head, "No," but then thinks it over and instead nods with her head tilting from side to side, "Yes? Maybe? I mean, we're building our own city for crying out loud! On the fricking Surface! With humans helping us! To you, living on the Surface might sound normal, but to us it's the craziest thing! There are monster kids that have been born on the Surface, Aofil! That's unbelievable! We have monsters living in human cities," Undyne leans back in her chair with her arms crossed, "Toriel wants me to say just cities," she reminds herself with a whisper before uncrossing her arms and returning her focus to Aofil, "And! We have humans working here in our city. They're all working for that pink postbox, granted, but still. That's a good sign, right?"

"Met one yesterday," Aofil recalls, "A human girl working at the MTT store."

The words don't reach Undyne though, "And the kids back at the makeshift school we had in the Town Hall. They're not kids anymore, but back then... They didn't stop asking for you, Aofil. Never stopped wondering when you would return."

"And so did we…" Undyne looks through Aofil, "Days, weeks, months, and before we knew it had become an entire year without you. Had Frisk not been there for us," Undyne puts her hand over her mouth as her eye starts watering, "That kid, they've done so much for us. Still doing so much for us. Frisk was, and is, the glue holding us together during all these years. Helping us, making us determined beyond our wildest dreams. Is it weird if I think that Frisk made us feel human?"

How could it not? "What do you mean, exactly?" Aofil wonders very curiously.

Undyne chuckles away some tears from her eye, "You humans know determination far more than we monsters do. You're practically swimming in it while we have just a drop, so to speak. With Frisk with us though," Undyne clashes her hands together with an excited grin taking over her face, "I feel like I can do anything! I love that little brat, they're a brat in all the good ways. The lip on that kid is sharper than my spears, let me tell you."

Not that Aofil would know, "They're still the ambassador for you?"

Undyne shakes her head slowly, "No, never was. Toriel might've said that they were between us friends, but never officially. Even I know that, Aof! I mean, Frisk did make headlines about being a human child in the care of the monster royals, but you know, never official."

"Gotcha."

"But anyways," Undyne shrugs carefully and accompanies it with a small sigh, "yeah, things were tough. All the legislation, all the bureaucratic stuff that I had to stay awake for. It was hell, I tell you."

"But it resulted in you monsters getting a foot back onto the Surface, right?"

Undyne nods, but it's reserved. Her eyes lose focus, and drift off into the horizon, "It resulted in that damn riot. Everything we tried to do, it all almost went up in dust right before our very eyes. It was supposed to be where we and the humans came together, but not like that!"

The table cracks under Undyne's fist. Cyan sparks dance sporadically around her fist as she clenches it tighter than ever before. Aofil regains their balance after having the table cave under their arms, "Undyne?"

Her lips expose a set of tortured and dreaded teeth clenching their damnedest to hold in the storm brewing inside, "I..." she breathes heavily through her wall of white, "I almost killed someone."

Aofil puts offers their hand to her, very carefully, "Undyne?"

She doesn't see it, "I was so close to losing control. Had Asgore not spoken up and given me the window to get things under control. To get myself under control."

"But he did, Undyne."

She nods, "He did."

"He did."

"The weeks following the riot. I nearly lost my mind," Undyne sinks down in her chair with her chin supported by her arms resting their elbows on her knees, "seeing everything crumble like it did. Again, had Frisk not been there, I don't know if we even would still be on the Surface."

"I talked with a monster yesterday about this. About the riot," Aofil finally manages to catch Undyne's attention, "He said that it eventually mellowed out."

A small smile on Undyne's lips gives Aofil immense relief, "It did. Somehow it did. I'm not gonna question how, I'm just so relieved that it happened. We could move on, we could make a new home on the Surface."

Aofil taps their foot on the tile floor, "You sure did."

"Dammit!" Undyne rubs her hands on her face tiredly, "Sorry, Aof, here I am talking about me when I brought you aside to talk about you."

"Hard times to talk about?"

She nods while dragging her hands down her cheeks, "Yeah, sorry."

"Alright," Undyne refocuses herself and her thoughts, but it takes a minute or so, "Asriel. From what I could gather from Frisk," she takes a quick look out the window just to make sure Asriel's still busy, "Asriel has been a bit..."

"Under the weather?"

"Yes, to say the least. I've asked Frisk about it, if I can help. Help more than whipping him into the best shape of his life, that is, but once Frisk stops talking there's no determination strong enough to open them up. It's pretty obvious that everything's weighing him down though. He says he's fine, and from what I've seen he is, but seeing how Frisk acts around him, it's pretty obvious. Only thing Frisk has asked me is to keep quiet about it. I'm assuming to Toriel and Asgore, maybe Pap and Sans too, Alphys as well," Undyne lifts an eyebrow, "but I'm pretty sure you should know, because of…well...everything."

Aofil's not entirely sure what she means by that, "Everything? You gotta have to be more specific with which 'everything' you're talking about here."

"You know," Undyne crosses her arms and taps her fingers impatiently, as if she's waiting for a bomb to explode, "with you being the first human we met, a teacher for the kids, a really good friend to all of us. You opened up your home to us, your soul as well, and you saved saved Asriel along with Frisk. You're pretty much a grown up version of Frisk."

Aofil's not entirely sure if they're comfortable with that comparison.

Undyne sighs, "And that's the problem. The adult Frisk left us. The adult Frisk didn't want to stay with us, didn't want to help us."

The adult Frisk isn't at all happy about where this is going. Not at all.

"It's just, you know, made sense for you to be that, you know? For Asriel," Undyne scoffs nervously, "I mean, you kinda did what Frisk did, but on the Surface. We met you and you helped us through some rough time. I'm underplaying you both here, but you catch what I'm saying here, right? It just made sense for you to be the adult Frisk. A human we could all look up to, someone who would help us with this new chapter of ours."

Aofil's conflicted expression hits Undyne like a brick. She scratches her cheek anxiously, "So, now that I think about it, with you being here," she pauses for a split second to come to terms with what she's saying, "you've kinda ruined it."

"I'm..." Aofil leans back in their chair while staring into nothingness, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh my god," Undyne clutches her head as it becomes light as a feather, "I'm not sure if there is a good way of saying this, but yeah, Aofil, you've ruined it by showing up."

Aofil's stunned. What the hell? Ruined it? They never asked it to be built in the first place! That's why they left! What have the monsters been doing?

"Why?" Aofil tries to formulate whatever words they can, but it's not working. They're stunned beyond belief.

Undyne tries to save it by smiling warmly and throwing her arms out, "Hey, I'm not saying that we're glad to see you. Hell, we're overwhelmed to see you, Aof! No one's gonna be mad with you back!" but her smile disappears and her arms fall down when she realizes that there's no saving this situation, "Except, well..." Undyne scoffs in defeat, "Asriel."

"I...I don't know what to say to this," Aofil caresses their chin, but it isn't helping, "What the fuck?"

"I'm sorry," Undyne hangs her head, "Looking back at it now with you here. You just..." she tries to cover her mouth, but it fails, "you just disappeared. Just gone, after all you did for us."

"It was because of all I did that I left, Undyne."

"Frisk talked their way to saving us," Undyne's head snaps up, "So why didn't you talk to us about it? Why did you just leave? We could've worked something out!"

"Because I didn't want to become a fucking hero," Aofil roars back through gritted teeth, "but apparently I became one regardless of my say in the matter!" they sink their heavy head into their exhausted hands, "It was too much for me. I'm not someone special like Frisk. I was just the first human you saw! It just happened! Not for a reason or anything, it just happened. Wrong place at the wrong time."

Undyne face dips into a conflicted frown, "W-wrong?"

"It's what I've been feeling for the past years, Undyne. I don't hate you, or Toriel, or anyone else, for that matter, but..." Aofil grunts hard to let out some anger while they still have some control over it, "as it stands, and as I look back at it, I can only see the horrible things that have happened. I want to see the good things, I want to be happy that it all happened, but I can't! It hurts too much."

An uneasy silence hangs in the air, smothering both Undyne and Aofil. The truth pushes down on them like a thick blanket.

It takes a long while before Undyne muster enough strength to ask. She knows the answer, but she has to ask anyway, "So you're not moving back to us?"

"I'm not sure if you should even be asking that right now. Besides, even if I wanted it wouldn't be fair to myself to even consider it."

Undyne stands up, and makes her way around the broken table. She stops next to Aofil, who also stands up, "I guess," she says with her lips quivering like a recently plucked guitar string, "I guess this time you'll say goodbye though. So that's a plus, right?"

She finally breaks. Aofil catches her as she wraps her arms around them, "Goodbye, Undyne," Aofil wraps her back, "You have no idea how much I want to move here, but I can't. It would be unfair for me to do that to myself."

She squeezes Aofil tightly, pushing them against her, "Promise me you'll work out so that you're strong enough to face me next time. Alright?"

If there even is a next time…

Undyne lets Aofil go. She tries to dry her eye, and then bumps Aofil on the shoulder, "Can you say goodbye to Alphys as well before you leave? I know I'm in no position to ask, but for old times sake? The good old times sake?"

"I'll do that."

Undyne again tries to remove the flooding tears in her eye, "Good. Thank you."

Aofil breaks eye contact, because Undyne would never want to. They hang just inside the basement door for a minute to try and collect themselves. It doesn't work, not in the slightest. They're shattered, even more so than what they were when they arrived. They knew it was a mistake to come here! Why did Aofil think it would end any damn different?

Alphys has to have found something! She has to! Something good needs to come out of this!

Aofil knocks on a piece of plank standing next to the bottom of the stairs. It catches Alphys' attention, but when she sees who it is, she immediately starts to wring her hands, "A-Aofil..."

"Have you found something?"

"Y-y-y-yes-s-s."

Aofil stops in their track.

"I f-found it-t a w-while ag-go act-tually, b-b-b-ut," her breathing increases, "P-please d-don't b-be m-m-mad at m-me!"

"What?" Aofil walks up to her a bit too quickly, "What did you find!"

"N-n-nothing," Alphys wrings her tail until it almost snaps in two, "I f-foun-nd nothing."

"What do you mean 'nothing'?"

Somehow, Alphys wrings her tail even harder, "I-I k-knew I s-should-dn't h-have d-done it-t."

"Alphys," Aofil grabs her shoulders, "What did you find!"

"Y-you h-have n-nothing ab-bnor-rmal w-with y-you."

Aofil hastily removes their arm from Alphys' shoulder and unwraps it, "Then what about this!" they almost shove it right in Alphys' face. Aofil runs their fingers through the white fur, "How is this not abnormal?"

"I m-meant y-you s-soul," Alphys cowers behind her tail and hands, "Y-your d-determination."

Aofil fumbles for something to sit down on. Their hand finds a chair, and they manage to sit down just in time, "My determination?" Aofil grabs whatever paper they can find around Alphys, but they can't understand anything. They look around for anything that's legible for them, and at the bottom of one page they find something scribbled with a barely readable set of letters.

"no difference."

"A-Aofil..." Alphys asks behind her tail and hand.

It tears Aofil from the pages, and they meet her eyes with their own. What does it mean? She has to tell them!

"Y-you h-have n-no c-curse."

The papers fall daintily to the floor.