Chapter 31
The reason Chara was the only human who couldn't reset while alive was a question to which Chara himself wanted the answer. When Frisk had come back from the dead that first time, Chara couldn't believe what he had seen. He was aware of all kinds of magic and the things it did and the things it could but shouldn't do, but he had never seen anything such as days resetting before she came around.
Now learning that every human but him who had fallen Underground was able to reset left Chara with even more questions than when he believed Frisk was the only one with this strange ability.
Sans studied Chara, possibly trying to find answers within Chara's body language.
Joke's on you, Chara thought. I don't know any more about this than you do.
Arms crossed, Chara tried, "Well, it was not as if I died anytime before my actual death. There is no knowing if I had died before that day whether I would have stayed dead or come back."
"But why didn't you come back after that first death?" Sans asked. "If we assume the other humans only reset after their deaths and this wasn't something they could control, at what point did they lose this ability and not come back again?"
Staring off into the distance, Chara tried to find the answer. He thought back to when Frisk told him about her battle with deathlust. For the longest time, Frisk was trapped in a cycle of dying, resetting, and dying again. It wasn't until she lost the will to fight that she finally died.
Only . . . she changed her mind and came back.
How Frisk had the ability to come back after deciding she didn't want to stay dead was a mystery, but there was still something she did to grant her that "last" death.
She gave up on life.
Just as Chara had done the day of his execution.
Probably what the other humans had done after dying one too many times, their determination only going so far.
"Determination," Chara whispered, the word feeling like a large piece in this giant puzzle.
Sans cocked his head at the word but said nothing, choosing to let Chara think it through.
Frisk wasn't the only human Chara had seen die. She was just the first he saw come back. There were two others Chara vividly remembered watching die.
A child who wasn't afraid, and a young man who so easily gave up. One made sense, but not the other. Chara examined the files again, saw what he assumed was a connection, and put the knowledge aside to ponder at a later point.
"So," Sans drawled after a few minutes had passed, "you think determination has something to do with it?"
"More or less." Chara committed the files to memory and took one last look at Frisk's smiling face before turning away. "It is just a wild guess, but I think every human's determination to live was what caused the resets. They did not want to die, so their determination brought them back."
"How? I don't need to be told that's not how it works on the surface."
"Your guess is as good as mine. It could have to do with all the monster magic trapped together under the mountain, or it could be a result of a human being trapped within a spell meant for monsterkind."
"So you think magic's at play here?"
"Magic is always to blame for bad things that happen."
"That's not technically true," Sans said, and Chara didn't argue. Chara had his own issues with magic, and he had no intentions of getting into it with Sans.
"Either way," Sans continued, shrugging away what Chara said and waving away the files, "this information is extremely interesting."
"What do you plan to do with it?"
"Nothing for now. This isn't exactly the type of stuff you want just floating around."
Chara frowned. "Are you worried about it getting into the wrong hands or something?"
It wasn't possible for Sans to sound as if he could care less as he said, "More or less. I'm not exactly sure how the other Sans-es would react."
Grunting, Mew Mew pulled the large cardboard box from the top shelf of the closet and had to keep from dropping it to the floor. Dust flew everywhere upon impact, and Mew Mew sneezed. She wiped her nose as she knelt beside the box and opened it.
"Are you kidding me?" she muttered, ears pressed down. "More anime DVDs? Why didn't Mettaton label these? Hmm?"
Mew Mew picked up a DVD with her face on it. The words Mew Mew Kissy Cutie were written in bold, colorful letters above the picture of her face. Out of curiosity, Mew Mew turned the case around and read the description on the back.
"What a lame, childish premise," she said, throwing the DVD back into the box and closing it. She ran her fingers down her unbound dark pink hair. "At least the design looks great."
After she pulled the marker from behind her ear and labelled the box, Mew Mew returned the marker and pushed the box towards the others. She had been through seven boxes by that point, but so far no files or anything useful. Just anime DVDs, anime posters, anime comic books, and anime action figures. Alphys sure loved anime. Only anime was not going to help the situation.
"Any luck, dearie?" Muffet asked just as Mew Mew was retrieving another box from the top shelf. Muffet had a plate of spider-free spider cookies in two hands, a glass of lemonade in another, and two classes in a hand each. With her free hand, Muffet closed the door behind her.
"If we're talking about luck in hitting the anime jackpot, then you bet," Mew Mew answered as she opened up another box. She groaned loudly. "More action figures, too. And these girls are barely dressed!"
"I told Mettaton we should probably give this stuff away." Muffet set the snack and drink on the empty table. "It's not as if either of us watches anime, but he doesn't want to part with any of Alphys's belongings."
Mew Mew labelled this box Half-naked Cat Girls. "They were really close, huh?"
"More in the end and the beginning than in the middle, but yes." Muffet grunted as she retrieved three boxes with all three sets of her arms. "How many are there? And how deep back does this closet go?!"
"It's Mettaton's closet, dearie," Mew Mew teased. "You should know your boyfriend has at least seven outfits for every day of the year."
"I know you're exaggerating, but I hate that you're probably right." Muffet set the boxes down and opened all three. "Comic books. Pin ups. Oh! Some files!"
In a heartbeat, Mew Mew was up and standing next to Muffet. "Are any labeled 'Core'?"
"It seems not." Muffet held a file in each hand and looked at the titles Alphys gave them and the dates she used.
"Well, maybe something of use will be in one of them. I'm going to set them aside."
"Why not relax first?" Muffet suggested. "I have news to share."
Sitting at Mettaton's desk while Muffet sat on it – Mew Mew was sure Mettaton had a desk for decoration and not because he actually used it – both girls drank their lemonade and looked out the window. Of all the rooms in the mini castle Muffet built into the cave she and her fellow spiders lived, Mettaton's was one of the only rooms with a window. Not that there was much of a view save boiling lava.
"You two are lovers but you have separate rooms?" Mew Mew questioned, not all that interested but wanting to take her mind off her mission for a few minutes.
Muffet nodded. "We couldn't agree how to decorate a shared room, so we have our own with our personal belongings. Sometimes I sleep with him in his room, and sometimes he sleeps with me in mine. All in all, it works out."
"Don't you plan on ever marrying?"
Rolling her eyes, Muffet said, "Oh, that will be the day! He would want to broadcast it everywhere. I don't want that. Not really something we can compromise, but we're not making a big deal towards marriage anyway."
Before Mew Mew could ask another mundane question, Muffet grinned and asked, "Are you really suddenly interested in my love life, or are you trying to avoid the news I need to share with you?"
"More like I needed a break to pretend everything is normal for a few minutes," Mew Mew answered. She ate her cookie in one bite. "Okay, break's over. What's the news?"
"The human wants to go to the Core," Muffet said. She smirked as she watched Mew Mew sink in the information. "That's where it's going right now. We don't have to waste resources trying to capture it. All we have to do is wait for it to deliver itself right to us!"
"Now that is some very good news," Mew Mew replied, her fingers drumming against the desk. "We'll prepare an ambush. Nothing too crazy, but enough to disorient them with a surprise attack and to keep Sans and Undyne busy while you take the human for yourself."
"There are . . . others with the human and its bodyguards." Muffet picked up a cookie and inspected it. "Papyrus, and two teenage girls. Why they're letting children get involved, I don't know."
"As a ransom of sorts, maybe? Like, 'Hurt us and we will hurt them'?"
"Perhaps." Muffet dropped the cookie. "Mettaton and I get the human, and you get Sans and Undyne. What about the others?"
There was no need for Mew Mew to think about it. "Bind them separately. I'll see to it the girls are returned to their home. Papyrus on the other hand . . . He's dimwitted and incompetent enough that I don't think he truly understands what's going on. I can't hate a guy for not knowing better. Him I'll need to think about."
Muffet frowned. "So, I can't feed any of them to my pet?"
"No, or at least not yet anyway. I'll get back to you on that one."
It was then Muffet's phone blared out some outrageous pop song.
"Hello, love," Muffet said as she answered the phone and set it on the desk. "You're on speaker."
"Hey, Mettaton," Mew Mew called out.
Mettaton's voice came from the other line. "Mew Mew, darling, how are you doing?"
"I'd be a lot better if you labelled Alphys's boxes."
"I forgot to bring a pen that day. Moving on, Muffet, dear, the set is nearly ready!"
"That's wonderful!" Muffet exclaimed. "I so miss having you at home."
"Soon we will be living in a grand home under the sun! It will all come to pass very soon."
"As long as this home has a secret underground passage."
"You're living under a mountain right now. Are you telling me you want our future home to have access to more underground?"
"Preferably Underground," Muffet said. "King Asgore did promise me the entire mountain in exchange for the human." Silence, then, "I'm a spider, sweetheart. I love my shadows and dark corners.
"Anyway, this is a discussion for another time. I have been coming up with a foolproof plan to capture the human!"
"Oh, do share!"
"And do help," Mew Mew cut in. "You know a lot about subverting expectations and surprising an audience. I think that knowledge will really help us all get what we want in this situation."
After everyone had gone to bed for the night, with Sans and Chara still absent, Frisk stayed up after the others. Frisk would wake Undyne after Sans returned or after a couple of hours passed. Whichever came first. Despite her heavy limbs from the workout, Frisk was too restless to sleep. After a brief argument, Undyne agreed to let Frisk take first watch.
Resting against the mountain wall, Frisk threw her head back and searched for Sans. Regardless of what had happened between them and all the things he did, Frisk started to find she couldn't totally fault him. She wasn't yet ready to forgive him, but she was ready for them to have some sort of normal relationship nonetheless.
With a heavy sigh and the reluctant acceptance that Sans would probably not be back until morning, Frisk opened the history book and began to read. In her initial pursuit to learn who Chara was, Frisk read the book in search of answers. Now that she didn't want them, she kept reading out of genuine interest. Monster royalty was not the dull topic she thought it would be. It probably helped that monsters had more lively and entertaining writing styles even on boring topics than most humans did. Frisk kept reading, and she learned a lot about monster history far back as before they were sealed Underground.
This book did nothing to hide the ugly truth, either. Frisk appreciated it. There were wars where monsters were in the right, and there were wars where humans were in the right. No biases from the writer to be found. At one point Frisk tried to learn about the author, but she had no luck finding proof that he ever existed. Either way, Frisk kept reading.
When she got to the last section of the book, her heart stopped. It was on King Asgore, the very king who wanted her soul. With shaky fingers, Frisk turned the page and read.
The early chapters of the section painted King Asgore to be a kind-hearted king. Frisk knew it was the death of the princes – well, one prince killing the other and being executed for the crime, Frisk now knew – that hardened the king. Getting a glimpse of who he was before the tragedies put a heavy weight in her chest, making breathing difficult.
Asgore Dreemurr had just become king when the last war broke out. Skimming the pages of the war with the mental promise to go back and properly read the chapters later, Frisk skipped to the beginning of life Underground and read sections that caught her eye. Life in Home, which later became the Ruins. King Asgore's marriage to Toriel. Migrating further into the mountain until they came to New Home, the capital. The birth of the crown prince, Asriel.
As what had to be more than two hours passed, Frisk picked and chose what to read. She digested the birth of Asriel slowly, finally verbalizing it to herself that Toriel, her adopted mom, had a biological son she had lost. Squeezing her eyes shut, Frisk tried to understand the impossible.
With a shake of her head, Frisk flipped to the next page. She didn't even have to read the title of the chapter. All it took was one look at the picture on the page for her breath to catch.
There was no mistaking the picture was of a human. At first glance, the human appeared to be a girl. Yet Frisk didn't need to read a word to know the human was a boy and what his name was.
Board straight chin length hair. Cheeks so rosy that they were visible in the sepia tone of the picture. Eyes that hid a lot more than any child should carry.
The boy looked angry, as if he was upset his picture was being taken.
He couldn't have been more than ten years old at the time, but Frisk recognized him instantly.
Chara.