S1-174
Late night troubles

2:51 AM
07/03/3273

Planet Vez-2 - Suburban Cul-de-sac
Aran-Johnson residence

Music
Chibi-Robo: Plug Into Adventure - Night Play

It was late at night in the Aran-Johnson residence, with no missions scheduled for the next four days, and everyone was asleep... except for Glitch Frisk, who was in the kitchen for unknown reasons.

As he quietly opened the fridge, Glitch Frisk heard a synthetic, mechanical voice. "{Can't sleep?}"

He turned around seeing a single, small, blue light, floating in the dark of night. The eye of a Ghost, looking right at him. "Sorry, Rocco."

"{I'm not Rocco. I'm Axel, Jenny's Ghost.}" The Ghost moved out of the dark and into the light being cast by the light bulb in the fridge, revealing his green shell.

"Oh." Glitch Frisk closed the fridge, watching Axel's blue eye light blink and look around.

"{Why don't we head into the living room so you can tell me what's been keeping you up?}"

"OK."

They went to the living room, and Glitch Frisk turned on the lights before sitting on the couch. "{So... Tell me what's been bothering you.}"

"I just... I don't..."

"{Homesick?}" He nodded. "{From what I could gather, my Guardian's father felt the same way. The Frontier was just... demolished during the Collapse. From a recording Samus found, it was the Fallen House of Kings. The IMC just... weren't prepared. Servitors were draining their power, leaving the defense systems inoperable, and some of the wiring was fried. I'm getting ahead of myself. We rebuilt. His home was once the IMC HQ, but he's been moved to this Cul-De-Sac. All his belongings were brought here too. He's settled in. Sometimes you need to hold on, and sometimes you need to let go. Don't let the past hold you back. Don't focus on what you've lost. Focus on what you've been given. Fate has given you a new home, a new life, a second chance. We remember the past, but we still keep going toward the future. What would they want you to do? What would YOU want you to do?}"

"They..." Glitch Frisk thought on it. "They would want me to move forward."

Axel then floated back up to the second floor, returning to his Guardian's room, leaving Glitch Frisk in the living room, alone with his thoughts.

"Should I just move on? They're still in so much danger with Betty roaming freely. And Asriel... I'm so sorry... I shouldn't have said that to you..."

It was then that the voice of another Ghost was heard. "{Hey there, Glitch Frisk.}" He looked up, seeing a Ghost with an orange shell dotted with green lights. It was Samus's Ghost.

"Who are you?"

"{My Guardian hasn't decided on a name for me yet, but I'm sure it'll come to her. Anyway, why are you up so late?}"

"I couldn't sleep..."

"{Troubles from your world still bothering you?}"

"Yeah, and I'm homesick."

"{We'll figure something out. Trust me.}" With that, Samus's Ghost departed.

Glitch Frisk remained seated on the couch, a worried feeling still very much present.

Out of nowhere, one more voice was heard, and it wasn't a Ghost this time. "Glitch Frisk? You OK down there?" It was Michael.

Deciding it best to come clean, Glitch Frisk let out a truthful answer. "No..."

Michael headed down the stairs, then sat beside Glitch Frisk on the couch. "You wanna talk about it?"

"I've already talked to Samus's Ghost and Axel about it tonight."

"Is that what my daughter named her Ghost? 'Axel', huh? Not a bad choice." He nodded in approval.

Music
Deltarune - You Can Always Come Home

Getting back to the topic at hand, Michael turned back to Glitch Frisk. "Listen. I kinda know how hard it is to lose everything. You may have been incidentally rescued from oblivion by the World Gate, but that just means you have another chance at living out your life. Think of it this way: Glitchtale became too unstable, and it needed to... 'free up space', so you rewrote Glitch Chara into your place, allowing your world to... settle a bit. So you know, the World Gate remotely downloads information about any new dimension we get a Key for, pulling data from any locally available sources on their side of the rift. But when you applied the changes that would replace you with Glitch Chara, it caused a malfunction, and for a few short moments, I believe the reality code of your world entered its most datatronic form, thus allowing the World Gate to pull you out... along with a load of random other things."

"What other things?" Glitch Frisk wondered.

"According to Rocco's previous analysis, there was... half of pre-Golden Age San Francisco, Pluto's inner core, three gelatinous pink-colored entities, a volcano, a large chunk of stone, a portion of Saturn's rings, a Mars Rover, black sludge, NASA landing gear, some sort of cat-dog hybrid thing, and a piece of pre-Golden Age Mercury."

"Can you put all that into one of the Sim Pods?"

"That might be a possibility. Anyway, you should get some shuteye. It's past midnight." As Michael got up off the couch to head back to bed, he saw an image on the PDA Glitch Frisk had on him. It looked like Glitch Frisk and Glitch Asriel, obviously pulled from the teen's memories through the Sim Pod. He missed his friends, his family, everyone he ever cared about... He would never see them again, and they would have no memory of him because of what he did.

Michael felt sympathy for the young boy. "Glitch Frisk, whatever you do is up to you, but always remember that you won't be alone anymore."

HOLY HELIUM! I actually felt tears form in my eyes while writing this!

Camila Cuevas declared him dead, which was something I would not and COULD not allow to become true, and as a result, here he is. But I never wanted him to silently cry himself to sleep every night, knowing that he was about to be erased from ever existing, only to be pulled into an entirely new dimension set DECADES into the future of a completely different world from his own, and that the world he once called his home would no longer recognize him.

Cami, we will take care of him. You have my word.

See you all next time, guys.