Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gaster had learned first hand that it was very easy to lose track of time when you were focused on something. Though, in this case, perhaps “focused” was too kind of a word. Nowadays, with the current timelines, he was fretting every moment of the lives of those on in the Underground, constantly in a state of worry. He knew people would most certainly get killed, but the murderer always liked to switch things up, make people suffer in different ways, just so they wouldn’t get bored. It was sickening.

He knew that timelines existed before entering the Void; that’s what brought him there in the first place. He had always hypothesized many things about the power of determination, one of those being if humans had enough determination to manipulate time. He tried to build a machine and insert artificial determination inside it to test this hypothesis, but while creating it he managed to fall into that same machine and scatter himself across time and space, erasing himself from existence. He managed to trap himself in the Void.

The Void was less of a horrid vacuum of nothingness and more of an infinite dark room. It was seemingly endless in every direction, and from every direction came comet-like lights that followed the line of what would be the wall and floor. Those, Gaster had learned quickly, were timelines. The current timeline was always the largest, and the older they got, the smaller they were. Unless of course, the former Royal Scientist had saved them. Then they stayed roughly the width of his foot and trailed behind him wherever he walked.

Saving timelines meant he could access them at any time, not just if they were the one everyone was currently in. Though he saw every timeline, they tended to repeat often, so he saved the unique ones, the ones worth analyzing over and over for some sort of clue.

He had six full timelines currently saved. The first, and by far his favorite, the timeline where Frisk first fell into the Underground, changing things forever. They made his sons so happy. They changed things for the better. They freed everyone from the Underground. It filled him with hope that things might get better, but that was without mention of the other saved timelines.

The next one was the timeline immediately after Frisk first reset after reaching the surface. Their intentions were good, he could tell; they wanted to meet their friends and make everyone happy again, but that’s not what ended up playing out. He knew Frisk wouldn’t dream of killing anyone. They wouldn’t hurt a fly, but they had made a horrible deal with a manipulative, soulless child before Flowey even showed in the Ruins.

“Please, Frisk… I just… I just want to see my family again. I want to talk to them. Will you let me be in control, just for a little while?” Chara had said, faking emotions that her soulless vessel couldn’t properly show, striking pity within Frisk. They of course agreed, wanting to make everyone happy. Little did they know that was the worst decision they would ever make.

Then, the genocide started. Chara had possessed Frisk at that moment, her power and determination growing so much with every single kill. And the more powerful Chara was, she could stay in control easily without having to worry about Frisk taking the reins. Ever since then, Chara was in control, finding new ways to kill and hurt everyone.

The next was unfortunately another genocide run as well, only, Queen Toriel and King Asgore were spared because, for a moment, Frisk’s soul allowed Chara to retain the small bit of care she had for them… but once they saw what the child had done, they immediately rejected her and killed her. After that, Gaster concluded that no more genuine feelings ever surfaced.

The next timeline that followed was a genocide run as well, except, well… Sans, his son, somehow knew about the timelines. With the information he had, he stopped Chara in Snowdin and fought her there, only to lose once more and turn to dust… and that meant that he couldn’t fight them later on in the Judgement Hall. Interestingly, however, in this timeline Chara spared Papyrus, and she seemed rather surprised to come face to face with him in the golden entranceway.

Gaster actually had two versions of this scenario saved. One where Papyrus had hardly changed, still optimistic, still hopeful that the human could be good…

“Human… I’ve seen what you’ve done… All the people you’ve killed… But still, I believe in you. You can change, I know you can! Drop your weapon, Human, please. I don’t want to fight.”

The other however… He had never seen the typically happy-go-lucky skeleton so… angered and somber. It was rather disturbing, actually, and he hated to watch it over and over, but such was necessary to dissect it.

“Human… That's what I used to call you before, when I thought you were human. When I thought you could change. But you killed everyone! Undyne… Alphys… S-Sans. B-But… But I refuse to let you kill King Asgore!

“I no longer believe in you.”

The last timeline he had saved was one where Chara shockingly let Frisk take control. Frisk tried to make everything right, make up for their mistakes and tried to spend as much time with everyone as they possibly could. They especially made sure they spent time with Sans, who they knew Chara had emotionally hurt more than anyone. And finally, after Frisk thought they finally achieved their happy ending once more, Chara killed them. She didn’t even need Frisk’s soul to do so. With the soulless vessel of her old body, she killed everyone right in front of them.

Frisk was so relieved when they saw everyone alive and well, laughing happily in the living room of their new home. For that while, they all had to live under the same roof until Asgore could get a peace treaty settled with the humans. Finally, they thought, I have my happy ending back. Of course, that was before Chara showed up, and when she did, Toriel gave a gasp.

“Chara, my child… is that… really you?” she said, her hand covering her mouth in disbelief.

“Chara…?” Asgore repeated, looking at Chara, hoping that it was actually his adopted child.

“Hey, Frisk, this a friend of yours?” Sans asked.

“Oh, we’re great friends!” Chara answered, not allowing Frisk to deny the statement. Her brown eyes suddenly turned red, causing confusion from all over the room. Confusion from everyone but Sans, whose eye (or the skeleton version of such) gained a cyan iris. But Chara knew his power all too well, grabbing a kitchen knife and throwing it at the skeleton, and that easily took away his one hit point.

It was only chaos from there.

“Sans?! B-Brother?!”

“C-Chara! You never… Oh, dear… what happened to you?”

“Does it MATTER? That little hell spawn just killed Sans!”

“I never thought it would come to this…”

“D-Don’t fight! The probability of e-either of you winning is very s-slim!”

“Chara, please! I’ve already seen you kill them before! Just let me have a happy ending for once!”

Gaster had grown to hate watching the saved timelines; he hadn’t watched them in a long time. He had all the information he needed from them.

He walked up to a light string of light, the current timeline, and tapped it gently with his finger. Suddenly, the light split open to reveal the current timeline… another typical genocide run. Watching the timelines was like watching a television show... a sick, twisted television show, for it looked like he was viewing them from a screen. But as Chara went on killing monsters as usual, Gaster noticed something… The sky above (though it was really the interior of the mountain they were trapped under, it was much simpler just to call it the sky) seemed to be… glitching.

“No... no, this is not good,” Gaster said. He closed his view of the timeline, watching all the older timelines shoot off around him. He hadn’t noticed it before, but they were starting to glitch as well. “It shouldn’t be this soon.”

He stood, contemplating the situation. Too many resets. The universe had a limit to how many times it wanted to be reset, and they were so close to that limit that everything was starting to glitch. And when that limit was finally breached, timelines would start smashing into each other, mixing with… or worse, destroying each other. “I can’t let this happen…”

He paused to think once more, sighing once he finally reached his inevitable decision. He tapped the light of the current timeline with his finger again, causing it to split open once more. Only this time, he stretched out the split light until it became less of a television and more of a list of the sequence of events. He went to the continuous growing end and shoved it into the beginning, causing the timeline to collapse into oblivion and the light to fade.

A forced reset.

Gaster never liked to interfere with the timelines, even if he didn’t like the events that took place in them; doing such was far too risky, but this time, it was worth the risk. His world as he knew it was in danger. He was the only one who could save it, the only one who could make things right.

As a new bright light began to grow, Gaster tapped it and watched the new timeline slowly create itself. Once he saw that it was stable enough, he placed both of his hands on the split light. He felt the energy of the light consume him, engulf him. And before he knew it, he was hurled out of the Void and fell onto a small patch of golden flowers.

Chapter Text

A patch of golden flowers. He fell onto a patch of golden flowers.

Gaster slowly raised his head to look around, seeing the purple brick walls of the Ruins. Considering the small flower bed he was currently laying on, he figured that he was in the area where the humans fell into the Underground. The skeleton almost couldn't believe his eyes.

He made it. He was out of the Void and into the new timeline.

Though this wasn't without consequence. When he lifted his head, he suddenly felt a lingering ache that was present throughout his entire body. He couldn’t move without feeling some sort of sharp pain somewhere, but comfort wasn’t exactly that high on his priority list at the moment. He tried to persevere through the pain, but it proved to be difficult, as his attempts to stand (or at least sit upright) were met with sharp twinges that made him immediately lay back down.

As he was forced to lay down again from pain, he suddenly heard footsteps. His mind immediately went to the worse-case scenario. He thought that the person walking towards him would be Chara; he thought that he was just a tad too late to make things right.

The footsteps just continued to grow louder, and all Gaster could do was listen, given his current state. They almost sounded rushed…

After a few moments, Gaster saw a tall, goat-like monster standing in the entrance to the room, shock present on her face. It wasn’t Chara, much to his relief, it was the former Queen Toriel, now caretaker of the Ruins.

She stared at him, her mouth opened to say something, but no words came out. “D-Dr. Gaster?” she eventually managed to stutter, her voice small and unsure. “My heavens… is it really you?”

In response, Gaster gave a small chuckle. “Yes, Toriel. It is really me,” he replied. “If you would be so kind as to help me stand… I’m having trouble doing so.”

Toriel warily approached Gaster, as if she was dreaming and one wrong step would wake her up. She grabbed his hands, pulling him up as gently as she could. Though the sharp pains seemed to go away when he actually stood, the ache still lingered.

“If I may ask,” Toriel started slowly, studying the former Royal Scientist as he dusted himself off, “how did you return? You fell into your own invention, did you not? The current Royal Scientist, Dr. Alyphs, said that you were likely scattered across time and space.”

“Ah, yes, you could say that,” Gaster replied. Of course Alyphs would’ve figured out that detail. He could tell from analyzing the timelines that she was an extremely intelligent monster, a good choice for his successor. “Though, as with most things in science, it’s not that simple. Let’s get to your home. I will explain on the way.”

Gaster knew that statement would confuse Toriel, because he had never visited their old house in the Ruins before. As far as she was concerned, he didn't even know they had a house there. When he was appointed Royal Scientist, they had already moved into New Home, and he was immediately assigned with the task of building the CORE. But nonetheless, Toriel agreed, figuring she would gain an answer on the way.

As they exited the room, Gaster began his explanation, “When I fell into my machine, I felt like I was being ripped apart. When I finally felt pieced back together again… I saw I was in a dark, endless room. I guess one would call it the time and space I was scattered across. It was empty at that moment, so I named it ‘the Void.’ Though it wasn’t much of a void for long.”

He paused to let Toriel process the information. He knew the former Queen was smart — when he was the Royal Scientist, Toriel often asked a multitude of questions about his experiments out of curiosity — but he wasn’t sure if the concepts he was attempting to explain would make much sense to her, especially because he hadn’t reached the part he knew would confuse her. As she led him through the Ruins, Toriel gestured for Gaster to continue.

“I saw a bright light. When I approached it, it suddenly split apart, showing the scene of what was going on in the Underground. This light stayed open for a while, showing the events that took place. In fact, it was likely open for multiple decades. I saw the events of all the humans that fell. Their entrance, their journeys, their deaths… everything. I found it all fascinating. I was watching the current timeline.

“At that moment in time, there was only one timeline. Beings with enough determination, typically soulless vessels or humans, have the power to manipulate time. They can go create a ‘save point,’ so to speak; go back to such ‘save point’; or completely reset the timeline, create a new one. Just after the seventh human fell into the Underground, the light of the current timeline dimmed. A soulless vessel created by Dr. Alphys completely reset the timeline, and a new one was created.”

Toriel suddenly stopped in her tracks, turning to Gaster. “Dr. Alphys created a living vessel with no soul?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

Gaster hesitated for a second. He made the split second decision to tell her the truth. He had to get this right; the universe depended on it. He didn’t have time for sugarcoating.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “she injected determination into a flower in Asgore’s garden… A golden flower that…” He couldn’t help but avert his eyes from hers. How do you tell a mother that her dead son was revived as a soulless, murderous flower? “That… had… Prince Asriel’s dust on it. Prince Asriel was resurrected as a flower with no soul.”

“Asriel?!” Toriel exclaimed, woe and shock evident in her tone. “But… I thought…” She paused to collect her thoughts. “How can something with no soul feel… anything? Whether it be positive or negative?”

“Dr. Alphys wasn’t aware at the time that soulless creatures didn’t have the ability to feel emotion. Asriel, renamed Flowey, began to reset timelines to work out every possible outcome. He appeased everybody, and then…” Another pause. “He couldn’t feel remorse. He couldn’t feel guilt. I saw it myself: he knew what he was doing was wrong, but curiosity stepped in and took over. He… He killed everyone.”

Toriel just stood, staring at Gaster, shocked. He didn’t even want to try to guess what was going on inside her head.

“Then,” he attempted to continue, looking at the end of the corridor. “An eighth human fell into the Underground. Their name was Frisk, and they heeded your instructions to not fight any enemies. They were very merciful, and they broke the barrier. Their determination was greater than Flowey’s, therefore he could not reset, but Frisk could. They reset after reaching the surface to make everyone happy again, but…”

He paused. “Being soulless is a horrible experience that drives people into insanity and unethical situations. Please keep this in mind, Toriel. Someone manipulated Frisk and possessed their soul to kill everyone time and time again… They reset over and over just to kill. This time, right now, they haven’t fallen into the Underground yet. This is before their ‘save point.’ When Frisk, possessed by a soulless… a soulless Chara, wakes up on those very same flowers that I did, all they are going to want to do is kill. They killed you and everyone else in the Underground. I came back because all the resets are causing damage to our universe, and if they continue… if Chara keeps resetting to kill everyone, then the universe may end. I came back to stop that from happening.”

He was met with silence. She was likely overwhelmed; the information alone was mind-boggling enough, but being told that both of her dead children were resurrected as bloodthirsty, soulless beings must’ve taken an even larger toll on her.

“I… I need a moment,” she said quietly, looking down at the cold, stone floor. “You’re an intelligent man, Dr. Gaster, I trust you can solve these puzzles on your own.” With that, she began to advance through the Ruins by herself.

Gaster watched her walk into the distance, slowly disappearing from his eyesight. Seeing her reactions to his explanation caused him to wonder… had he done the right thing? Did he really do the right thing by telling her such horrifying information about the fates of her long dead children?

“Do you really think you can save everyone?”

It was a high-pitched, cunning voice that came from behind him. Gaster turned around to see a flower, a golden flower with a face. It was a soulless flower who had been in control of his fair share of timelines… a flower who seeked thrill in causing pain in others. It was Flowey. Flowey the Flower.

“Long time, no see, Prince Asriel,” Gaster said, peering down at the flower. “Don’t you know how to greet an old friend?”

“Don’t try to get friendly, Gaster. I know your plans. They won’t work,” spoke Flowey with an almost condescending undertone. “Chara won’t listen to you. Toriel wouldn’t dare hurt her children. You’ve set yourself up for destruction! And Chara will just reset time and time again, until this universe has perished.”

“You’re underestimating me, Asriel. I’ve studied countless timelines, including some that you likely don’t remember. There’s more to my plan than you know,” he responded. “I’ve calculated things you haven’t even accounted for.”

“What, you mean the fact that you only have half a soul?” Flowey responded, his face twisting into a creepy grin. That statement caused Gaster’s face to fall, caused his eyes to narrow at Flowey. How did he know? “It’s obvious, old man. Getting from the Void cost you a little something, and the price was a part of your soul! That’s why you hardly showed any emotion while telling Toriel about the fates of her children! And I bet the only reason you’re not speaking in your strange language is determination . But even that determination isn’t enough to stop Chara from resetting! You’re doomed!” Flowey gave a sadistic chuckle.

“There’s still more than the issue of my soul,” Gaster said, prompting Flowey to stop laughing instantly. “I’m a new variable in this timeline. Everything isn’t as set in stone as you think.”

Flowey glared at the skeleton before him, not speaking.

“You are an idiot,” he insulted, managing to burrow in the cold floor of the Ruins and disappear.

Gaster knew Flowey was going to be a thorn in his side. It was a pitiful situation, he thought. Asriel was such a nice boy before he became Flowey. But he said it himself just a few moments ago — “Being soulless is a horrible experience that drives people into insanity and unethical situations.”

And boy, was that true.

He didn’t have time to dwell on such things now, however. He needed to comfort Toriel, even if he wasn’t as empathetic as he could be. Unfortunately, Flowey was right… not having part of his soul came with disadvantages, and one of those was not having the ability to feel intense emotion or empathy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help Toriel, even if that help was small.

Chapter Text

Toriel. He had to get to Toriel.

Gaster proceeded through the Ruins, staying on the path until he saw a plaque on the wall that read, “The western room is the eastern room’s blueprint.” The scientist looked left, the direction he came from, and then to the right to see tiles of spikes over a small lake of water. He continuously looked back and forth from the two sides of the room until something clicked in his mind.

The western room is the eastern room’s blueprint. The path on the left (west) was the pattern Gaster had to follow on the spikes on the right (east) to complete the puzzle. He studied and even went back to walk the path on the left until it was imprinted in his mind. Then, when he walked on the spikes, the sharp objects disappeared upon stepping on the correct tiles. Soon enough, Gaster had completed the puzzle.

As he stepped off the last tile, Gaster felt a small sense of pride. Of course, he had seen the puzzle solved beforehand (multiple times), but after a while, Gaster stopped watching Chara go through the Ruins altogether. Needless to say, he forgot the solution to some of the puzzles.

Not only that, but being able to do puzzles gave him a certain sense of joy. After being cooped up in the Void for who knows how long, finally being able to test his mind outside the simple dissection of timelines was a thrill.

But not a big one. Nothing seemed big anymore. Every emotion was slight, mild at most, and it left him feeling like something was always missing. Of course, small emotion was better than no emotion at all — half a soul was better than none — but he wasn’t used to it. He didn’t think he’d ever be used to it.

He looked back at the puzzle with a satisfied smile. That was until he noticed something in the distance that wasn’t there when he first traversed through the room. He sighed and rolled his eyes. Of course. Flowey. Just as he had guessed; it wasn’t going to be any different than when Frisk did their pacifist route. Flowey would follow him around until, hopefully, he set everything right.

No, not hopefully. He had to keep reminding himself that he had to get things right. He wasn’t in the Void anymore. He was in the Underground, the Real World, where time was a ticking bomb. He had to take Toriel and everyone else of the Ruins before Chara appeared at the beginning of her endless loop. He couldn’t let Chara kill anyone else. And he only had one chance to do that.

He turned around and swiftly made his way to the next room. Walking up to another plaque that was on the western wall of the room, he saw it read, “Three out of four grey rocks recommend you push them.”

Simple enough, he thought. He went up to the first grey rock and pushed it onto the white tile with the inside of his foot. It easily slid to where it was supposed to be. A barrier of spikes were then deactivated, disappearing into the grey tiles they rested upon.

“So… you still think your plan’s gonna work?” he heard a voice say.

He didn’t even have to turn around to see who it was. He didn’t want to turn around. It was just Flowey.

“I thought someone like you would be less stupid.”

Gaster simply just walked on, pushing the other rocks to complete the puzzle, ignoring Flowey to the best of his ability. But that didn’t stop Flowey from following him.

“You just broke Toriel’s heart; there’s no way she’ll listen to you now! Chara will just come through and kill her again! You won’t even be out of the Ruins by the time this backfires on you! Then Toriel will be dead forever, considering this is the last reset, right? It’ll be all your fault.”

Gaster wanted to simply continue, brush off the words of the manipulative flower, but he somehow found it difficult. Flowey’s words seeped into the inner reaches of his mind, threatening to replace all rational thoughts. He knew they likely weren’t true, but it stuck in his mind as a grim possibility.

Yet, he moved on, finally managing to sluggishly slide the last rock onto the white tile. The other barrier of spikes disappeared beneath the bridge, and Gaster then crossed over into the next room.

There was a pathway of cracked tiles. Gaster studied them for a moment. There was no plaque or sign he could read this time, nor were there any obvious clues. He placed his foot on the first cracked tile he saw, and to his surprised, he fell through the floor and landed on a pile of leaves.

He stood up and brushed himself off, looking at his new surroundings. Leaves covered the floor, except for a pathway where the ground was clear. The stretch of room that the leaves were on looked exactly like the room where the cracked tiles were.

Then, Gaster noticed another plaque. He walked over to it, careful not to track any leaves, and saw it read, “Please don’t step on the leaves.”

Clever, he thought. The cleared pathway within the leaves mirrored the path he had to take on the cracked tiles.

Suddenly, however, he heard the voice again. “But I bet even then, after Toriel is dead, you’ll still try to save everyone else.” He attempted to ignore him, but this again showed difficult. “And you know who’s right outside of the Ruins, don’tcha?” Flowey continued, popping out of the ground on a pile of leaves with a smirk on his face.

Gaster stopped in his tracks. He did know. He knew all too well. In Snowdin, the human always met two skeletons. Two brothers. Two monsters that Gaster had only hoped to see again while in the Void… God, it had been so long… It was his two sons.

“And you know what Chara will do to them, don’tcha?” Flowey pressed. His face once more twisted into a creepy grin. “She’ll kill them. Papyrus will try to spare her again, believing that he can actually change her, the naive idiot. Then his dust will be scattered across the snow!”

The words made Gaster’s blood boil. He became more angry than he thought he could with half a soul. Hearing that damn flower speak ill of Papyrus, his son… There was nothing to describe his level of anger.

He’s just a boy himself, Gaster reminded himself in an attempt to calm down. Asriel was just a boy, corrupted by the means of a soulless mind that he didn’t ask for. I shouldn’t be getting this angry at him.

“Then there’s the smiley trash bag… Only one hit point, but he puts up a hell of a fight. But Chara’s defeated him so many times… he’ll be easy to catch off guard. Next thing you know, his soul will be lost forever. Good thing, too. The guy’s nothing but a useless, lazy smartass, if you ask me.”

“Don’t you dare speak another word against my sons!” Gaster exclaimed angrily, turning to Flowey. His mind almost immediately strayed from his mindless emotion to think about the words that he just emitted… They weren’t English, no. They were… how were they in Wingdings…?

This was Flowey’s plan all along, he thought, glaring at the flower. To get me angry enough so my determination was focused on my emotions and not my speech. Now Toriel can’t understand me, and Chara will likely kill her.

He didn’t say anything else in his native tongue. That would be giving Flowey what he wanted. He simply returned back to the above floor, completely ignoring the soulless vessel. His mind was cluttered with puzzles and endless thoughts.

No… No, I refuse to let that happen. I must find a way around this… Did Toriel ever understand Wingdings? Goodness, was it so long ago that I’m having trouble remembering?

Gaster spent the rest of the journey attempting to remember simple things from the past, occasionally pausing his thought process to wrap his mind around puzzles. Suddenly, right in the middle of pressing a switch, memories came flooding back.

“Will he be okay?” he heard a young Sans asked someone. He couldn’t tell who. There was no visual, just voices.

“He should be fine, little one, don’t worry,” an unrecognizable voice responded. “But, er… King Asgore, Queen Toriel… I believe it would be in your best interest to at least attempt to learn Dr. Gaster’s native language. Wingdings, I believe... Though this certainly won’t last forever, for a while, he won’t be able to speak English due to his injuries.”

“How horrible!” Toriel gasped.

“We will try our best,” Asgore said. “Anything for a friend.”

Gaster stood for a few moments, trying to think through the short memory that just played in his mind. Toriel definitely knew the language at some point in the past, but that didn’t necessarily mean she remembered it all these years later…

But she didn’t necessarily live through all the timelines, either. The timespan from when he disappeared to now had been much shorter for her than it was for him. He suddenly felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time… Something that almost felt knew to him… He felt genuine hope.

Gaster reached the porch of Toriel’s home. He hadn’t seen Flowey for the rest of his journey through the Ruins, which he found suspicious… but he had other things to focus on at the moment. He knocked on the door.

From the other side of the door, he could hear footsteps. The door was opened, revealing Toriel. Her face was serious, almost distraught, though she appeared to brighten slightly upon seeing the skeleton.

“Oh, hello Dr. Gaster. I was beginning to worry. I didn’t expect you to take so long,” she said.

Gaster hesitated to speak at first. What if she didn’t understand him… if her ears only heard him speaking nonsense?

There’s no time for hesitation, he reminded himself.

“My apologies,” he responded slowly, seeing Toriel’s eyebrows raise. He didn’t know what that signified, but nonetheless he continued, “I’m sorry Toriel, but I must ask: can you understand me still?”

She stared at him for moment. “...Ah, you’re speaking in Wingdings, are you not?” He nodded. “Yes, Dr. Gaster, I can understand you, though not completely. Forgive me if you have to say the same thing multiple times for me to understand. Please, come in.”

Gaster simply smiled and entered Toriel’s house. It looked exactly like the house within the castle in New Home. The former Queen lead him to the den, where the dining table was.

Toriel sat down, gesturing for Gaster to do the same. “Dr. Gaster, I have been thinking… a-about what you said earlier,” she started as he sat down. She looked at her folded hands. “Dr. Alphys said there’s no way to recreate soul energy artificially, correct?”

“Likely not with the research she’s been using,” Gaster stated simply.

In his lab at his old (likely abandoned) house in New Home, the former Royal Scientist had old discoveries from long ago that wouldn’t have a chance of being published in the modern day. There was a way to recreate soul energy artificially, as well as determination. He knew it worked… he’d done both before.

“What do you mean, Gaster?” Toriel asked.

“There are ways to artificially recreate soul energy, but they are near impossible to find today. And I know why you ask the question, Toriel. It’s apart of my plan. I will find a way to give Asriel back his soul.”

“...What plan do you speak of?”

“A plan to save the universe… a plan to stop Chara from killing everyone… to hopefully separate Frisk from Chara, and perhaps even give Chara her own soul. But it’s a treacherous process. I fret failing at any moment, because there are too many possibilities…”

Toriel stayed silent for a moment, inferring words she could not understand and processing the response. “Whatever it may be,” she finally said, “I will help you, Dr. Gaster. For the sake of the universe. For the sake of my children.”

Gaster gave her a small smile. He wasn’t alone. She wouldn’t die. Before he could tell Toriel his plans to stop Chara, there was a terrifying thud that came from deep inside the Ruins. Immediately, both monsters stood up and hastily traversed back through the Ruins, all the way back to the bed of golden flowers.

And there stood Chara and Flowey, in the middle of a fight.

Chapter Text

Chara and Flowey. The two soulless vessels were in a fight.

When Gaster entered the current timeline, he didn’t think much would surprise him, if anything at all. Analyzing so many timelines and outcomes gave him a sense of what everyone would do, say, feel… It was as Flowey had told Chara: people grew predictable.

Then again, he thought, this is not a typical timeline.

Variables. That’s often how Gaster thought of the events in the timelines: variables. Changing one variable tended to create a domino effect of changing even more variables. Changing one event could change many others. The more variables that were changed, the different the outcome of the timeline would be. These small shifting events made all the difference between (what Gaster had dubbed) a pacifist or a genocide run.

He knew that he would be a new variable in this timeline, that things would be different, but he never expected those things to change outside of his direct influence. He never expected a fight between Chara and Flowey to commence… not in the Ruins, at least.

But nonetheless, even against Gaster’s predictions, there they were. Chara and Flowey were in the middle of a battle. They stood mere feet from each other. Flowey’s “friendliness pellets” were floating behind him; Chara clutched her knife tight in her hand. A fight.

Toriel gasped at the horrid scene. Given the scientist’s explanations, both of her children were engaged in combat. Her biological son was a flower… her adopted daughter had possessed another human child. She took a step backwards, not wanting what she was seeing to be true, what Gaster had explained to be true.

“Why are you protecting him, then?!” Chara exclaimed, not noticing the arrival of the two other monsters. Her back was turned to them. “Why are you fighting on his side?!” She stepped forward and slashed her knife in Flowey’s direction, only for him to burrow into the ground and pop back up a foot or so away. She growled. “That bonehead is the only thing that stands in the way of finally getting rid of this stupid place! I thought that was what you wanted! To delete everything, remember?!”

Flowey looked… scared? It was peculiar, more peculiar than the fight itself. How could something without a soul become frightened? How could something who was incapable of feeling display such emotion? Then, Gaster suddenly remembered. The first genocide route.

“Why am I telling you all of this?” Flowey asked Chara as she made her way through the final corridors of the castle to get to Asgore. To get to a monster she called ‘Dad’, though now that word meant nothing to her. Nothing had meaning anymore… “Delete, I said it before. Even after all this time… you’re still the only one that understands me. You won’t give me any worthless pity!” She moved a few steps before he showed again, continuing his discourse. “Creatures like us wouldn’t hesitate to kill each other if we got in each other’s way.

“So that’s… so… that’s… why…” His face suddenly dropped; his whole being started to shake. “...ha… ha…” He looked up, tried to act as if it was nothing, but it proved to be difficult. Impossible, even. “...what’s this… feeling? Why am I… shaking?” He looked at Chara directly, trying to regain his lost composure. “Hey… delete… No hard feelings about back then, right?” He nervously smiled, transpirating sweat drops.

Chara walked forward, slowly raising the hand in which she held her knife. Flowey, though still shaking uncontrollably, gritted his teeth. “H-Hey! What’re you doing?! B-Back off!”

Chara say the flower burrow into the ground. She glared at the spot he was just a moment ago. “That coward… He just betrayed me,” she muttered to herself under her breath, but nonetheless went onwards towards the Throne Room. She should’ve guessed that he would just stand in the way of victory.

She walked a decent distance across the lonely hall before Flowey reappeared. Apprehension clearly showed across his face. “I… I’ve changed my mind about all this… This isn’t a good idea anymore… Y-You should go back… Delete… This place is fine just the way it is!” She just stared at him, lost in thought, supposedly, an emotionless smile on her face. “S-S-Stop making that creepy face! This isn’t funny! You’ve got a sick sense of humor!”

But she simply tore her eyes from the vessel of her old friend walked on.

Soul remembrance. That’s what he named it while he was stuck in the Void. It was the ability for a soulless being to feel emotions just as someone with a soul would (if only for a time) after an intense scenario. He knew what it was, and he experienced it before, in a sense… When Flowey had insulted his sons, overpowering anger returned. It disrupted his speech, focused his soul energy on his emotions... Though, that was different. Gaster at least had part of a soul. Flowey did not.

Timelines served a great research source.

Though it seemed to be Flowey’s turn, Chara kept berating her old friend’s strange new intentions. “What, do you think it’s because the old man’s actually going to help you?!” she asked. She gave a small, hysterical chuckle. “Do you actually think someone like him is going to want to help someone like you?!”

Despite his obvious fear, Flowey sent bullets soaring in her direction, though she dodged them fairly easily. The same, emotionless smile was still present on her lips. She jabbed her knife in the flower’s direction, but only slight damage was made. “Why would anyone want to help soulless beings like us? It’s all just worthless pity! You said it yourself! So why—” swing “—do you keep—” swing “—defending—” swing “—this—” swing “—guy?!”

Flowey never answered any of Chara’s questions. Instead, he simply just looked down and sent a large barrage of bullets towards her, an undodgeable amount. Chara shielded herself with her arms, but that didn’t stop her HP from draining with each impact. She had not yet had the chance to kill anything, so she was still what she considered ‘weak.’ After all the bullets disappeared, she fell to the ground on all fours.

One hit point left.

Flowey looked at the human. He looked at Chara… or at least it looked like it. Really, he had looked past Chara’s disheartening eyes and into the hopeful eyes of someone else… someone who hadn’t been in control for a long time. “F-Frisk… Frisk, please… This is the timeline where everything can be set right. Don’t let C-Chara win,” pleaded Flowey.

Gaster studied the situation. Chara’s outbursts… Flowey’s actions… They all didn’t line up with his projected outcome. If everything he was viewing was genuine… then where did Flowey’s sudden change in alliance come from? Why did he suddenly distrust Chara so much as to fight her?

Chara suddenly looked unresponsive, as if she was more concerned with something internal than what was going on around her. Her eyes stared blankly at the flower, not processing anything he was doing.

“Stay determined, Frisk… This timeline is different than the others, I swear… There are people… m-more like someone... who knows about what Chara has done to you… He’ll give you mercy.”

He overheard something. He had to have overheard something, something about him gaining a soul, Gaster presumed. Being soulless, he wouldn’t have tried to do something like this if it didn’t have some sort of personal gain...

...or perhaps it was soul remembrance...

Suddenly, the human’s soul began to glow, though it wasn’t red as Gaster expected it to be. No. It was drenched in pitch black, only small patches of bright red showing here and there, a spiritual illustration of Chara’s control over Frisk’s soul. However, the black started to slowly seep onto the ground in between the human and Flowey. The human (who was in control now, Gaster was not certain) began to cough as the dark substance separated itself from the pure red of Frisk’s soul. Once it was completely independent from the soul, it percolated into the stone floor of the Ruins, echoing a whisper…

“If the old man can mix things up, then so can I.”

Thud. The human, undoubtedly Frisk, collapsed onto the ground. Toriel, no longer hesitant to intervene or too shock to move a muscle, ran over to them, Gaster quickly following. He watched as Toriel searched under their jaw for some sort of pulse, a sign that they were breathing. Slowly, she retracted her hand from the child, picking them up in her arms.

“Luckily,” she said slowly, “they seem to just be unconscious, but they are still alive. We need to bring them back to my house… and, I believe then, we can explain what happened.”

With that, they ventured back through the Ruins and back to Home, where Toriel laid the child down on the bed.

“...so, what do we do now? Chara’s out there somewhere. Who’s to say she’s not going to kill everyone else right under our noses?”

Once Frisk had finally awoke, Toriel had introduced Gaster and translated his explanations. They obviously caught onto the situation very easily, having had experienced all of Chara’s resets and genocide runs… all the deaths, the kills, the pain… They even started to profusely apologize for the actions, even though they had not done any of it.

“We leave the Ruins,” Gaster answered. “We gather your friends. We tell them about the situation, and we find and stop Chara.”

“We will be leaving the Ruins, and telling your friends about the, uh, predicament we’re in.”

And that’s precisely what they did. They all went downstairs, through the long hallway and to the towering door, the one-way exit to the rest of the Underground. No one really wanted to the leave; Toriel’s home provided cozy comfort that would likely be hard to find once they left the Ruins… but, there was no time for comfort. Flowey was gone, Chara had disappeared… the two threats could be anywhere.

The Real World was a ticking bomb. They had to complete this mission; the universe depended on it. Thus, Gaster opened the door, and almost immediately the cold air of Snowdin hit.

Snowdin, the town where Sans and Papyrus… where his sons resided. As the coldness brushed over him, he could only wonder…

What will their reactions be? Are they ready to see me so suddenly, after all this time?

Am I ready to see them?

Chapter Text

Sans and Papyrus. They had to find Sans and Papyrus.

Gaster lead Toriel and Frisk through the cold, barren wilderness of Snowdin Forest, walking a few feet in front of them. He knew what was coming. He knew who they had to see, what they had to do, but he just wasn’t prepared. He didn’t know how he even could prepare. He was a new variable. He didn’t know, he couldn’t know how they'd react. He didn’t even see their initial reactions to his disappearance: he was too focused on the nature of the Void to do such a thing.

Sans… Papyrus… his sons… Oh, it must’ve been so long. He could hardly remember the last time he saw the two outside the timelines. And even then, in those timelines, Chara just killed them over and over and over…

He would finally see them face to face again. He would finally see them alive.

In watching the current events of the Underground, Gaster quickly learned that there was no such thing as a satisfying timeline. Ever since Chara took control, nearly everyone was dead, slaughtered by who they thought to be Frisk. And if they lived, they were constantly plagued with the murders of their loved ones until there was yet another reset.

But this time was different.

“Dr. Gaster,” Toriel spoke, knocking the scientist out of his thoughts. He stopped walking for a moment and turned to her. The woman was holding Frisk’s hand as they walked through the cold. “I know you emphasized the importance of time for your plan,” she started somewhat slowly, “but… you seem very anxious, Dr. Gaster… I don’t blame you either.  You’re seeing your sons for the first time in who knows how long, but I don’t think you’ve given yourself enough time to… ah… emotionally come to terms with the tasks ahead.”

Gaster sighed, letting his head hang slightly before looking back at the woman. “Your concern is appreciated Toriel, but I believe many lifetimes stuck in the Void has emotionally prepared me quite enough,” he said aloud, but inside he knew it wasn’t that simple. He knew it wasn’t true.

Originally, he thought that without a full soul, he wouldn’t be able to completely feel or convey emotions. He thought he wouldn’t be dealing with the constant nagging in the back of his mind telling him that they were going to react negatively, or the fact that he could face the dreaded possibility that Chara had already killed them. But all thanks to Flowey, there he was, anxious with hardly anyone being able to understand his words.

Her face almost twisted into a stern stare. “As a mother who has lost her children, I can assure you that no amount of time would stop me from worrying about them, especially when put in the situation you were.” Seeing Gaster stare back at her for a few silent moments, likely gathering his thoughts, she continued, “You need time to gather yourself, Dr. Gaster. You’re walking so fast due to your nerves, I imagine… Frisk can hardly keep up.” Frisk gave a small, somewhat confused smile as Toriel chuckled slightly.

Gaster sighed once more. “If only there were time,” he said. “With my presence and the disappearance of Flowey and Chara…” Another sigh. “...there are too many variables. We have to be as precise as possible.”

He paused. Perhaps Toriel was actually right. Perhaps all he needed to do was stop for a moment and collect himself… After all, he couldn’t save the universe while in his current state, right? “Maybe I do need... just a small break.”

Toriel smiled, but after only a few seconds her expression faltered once more. And Gaster needn’t ask why.

“Heya, you know town's thatta way, right?”

Gaster almost immediately turned around upon hearing the voice. He saw the smile on the other’s face fade in disbelief as he took a step back. Gaster just analyzed him. It was actually him, oversized coat and all… There was no monster dust, no cyan iris, none of that. It was just him. It was just his son.

“Sans...” Gaster said quietly as his son continued staring at him with an astonished gaze. The memories suddenly came flooding back.

The memory came clear as day, as if it had just happened a few moments ago. He was walking through the swamps of Waterfall (he had to venture to Snowdin to get a few supplies and was then on his way back to New Home). He was in a rush, hoping that he could make it back to his lab with fresh ideas on his mind. But, as fate would have it, what happened didn’t line up with his predictions.

He heard a cry. The cry of a baby, the pleading of a child… “Please… will you…? We… We need help! We were just left here! We don’t have a home! Please… someone help…”

It was a young skeleton child who couldn’t have been older than six or seven with his baby sibling in his arms. Gaster’s face fell at the sight. They were two abandoned children, crying into the darkness for a helping hand, yet no one would even offer it to them. Monsters walked by as the child continued begged for any sort of assistance but continued to get none.

He couldn’t bring himself to walk on like the others. He couldn’t just leave these two out in the dark of Waterfall… Thus, Gaster approached them, the boy’s face brightening slightly as he stopped and knelt down to their level. “What brought you two here?” he asked softly.

“Our parents didn’t want us anymore,” the kid replied hesitantly.

How horrible! Gaster thought. “Well, my name is W.D. Gaster, and it appears since you have no home, you can come with me to live in my own,” he said.

The child perked up at the words. “R-Really?! You’ll let us live with you?!”

“Of course.”

The kid stood up, careful not to drop his baby sibling. He followed Gaster through the rest of Waterfall. Just before they reached Hotland, the boy said, “Oh! My name’s Sans! And this is my brother, Papyrus.” By then, Papyrus was already asleep.

Sans and Papyrus. The boys seemed so sweet… how could anyone just abandon them like that?

Another memory soon overpowered the current one. Both Sans and Papyrus were older, Papyrus finally being old enough to speak. Given that he didn’t necessarily have anyone to watch over the two while he went into work at the King’s Castle in New Home, he decided to take them with him.

“Your bosses are the King and Queen?” Sans asked curiously as they entered the castle. Stone floors and walls surrounded them as they passed by many rooms; some that were off limits, some that he’d been in before, some that he constantly was in and out of.

Gaster chuckled slightly. “That’s why I’m called the Royal Scientist.”

“Will we get ta meet them?!” Papyrus asked excitedly, tugging at Gaster’s lab coat. He was about to answer, but the sound of footsteps coming from another room cut him off.

There they stood at the end of the corridor, King Asgore and Queen Toriel. Toriel smiled upon seeing the two boys that accompanied the Royal Scientist. “Good morning, Dr. Gaster,” Toriel greeted. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting these two before.”

“Good morning, Queen Toriel, King Asgore. These are my adopted sons that I’ve told you about. This is Sans, and this is Papyrus,” Gaster said, gesturing to the boys when he introduced them. Papyrus waved enthusiastically at them, prompting a small chuckle from Toriel.

“Howdy!” Asgore said, walking up to the boys. “My name is Asgore Dreemurr, and I am the King of the Underground.”

“And I am Toriel, the Queen,” Toriel said moments after. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you two.” She smiled at the boys before turning to Gaster once more. “Dr. Gaster, are you sure you want to bring them into your lab? From what I’ve observed your experiments can yet rather… dangerous at times.”

“I can assure you, Queen Toriel, I’m not even performing any experiments at the moment. I’m simply figuring out some calculations and drawing blueprints,” Gaster replied calmly.

“But you have previous experiments and inventions in there, do you not? I’m just concerned for the safety of Sans and Papyrus. You’ve gotten critically injured in your lab before, and you knew what you were doing!”

He paused for a moment to think, looking down at the floor. “I suppose, if you’re truly concerned, then perhaps you could watch over them. If that isn’t too much to ask, of course,” he said.

“Nonsense, Dr. Gaster!” Asgore said somewhat gruffly. “Go to your lab. We will watch over your boys.” Toriel smiled and nodded in agreement.

Gaster smiled back. “Thank you, your Highnesses.” He then knelt down to his sons. “You two behave for the King and Queen while I’m working, alright?”

“Yes, Dad!” Papyrus said while Sans gave a simple nod.

“Well it’s settled then. Thank you again,” he said as he walked off to his lab.

The stone of the castle then seemed to morph into white of the Castle Hospital. It was as if  he had just opened his eyes after a long sleep, a long span of unconsciousness. “Dad!” he heard two monsters exclaim. He tried to sit up and turn to face them, but he felt a sharp ache all throughout his body.

“Dr. Gaster, please, lie down. You’re going to experience sharp pain if you don’t. It appears that something in the CORE malfunctioned and left you with a few permanent, uh, scars of sorts… that we could not fix,” the Royal Healer said. “I’m not sure whether or not you noticed… You have a cracked skull, swollen eye, and holes in the palms of your hands. We’re not sure whether or not your magic will heal these injuries overtime…”

“As long as I can keep my position, I’m sure there will be no problems,” Gaster replied, pain clear in his voice as he struggled to speak.

“Yes, yes, of course. I’m sure these injuries will show no effect on your work,” the Doctor assured. “You will have to stay hospitalized for a small while before you can return home.”

“He’s not going to come home with us?” Gaster heard Sans ask, clearly upset.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Sans, you can take care of Papyrus while I’m here, can’t you?” Gaster asked, trying to hide the fierce ache he felt. He didn’t want to worry his sons anymore.

“Yeah,” he replied with a bored (perhaps disappointed) tone of voice.

And that hurt Gaster more than anything, knowing his sons were upset. From the first time he met them in Waterfall to then in the hospital, every drop of sadness he heard in their voice made him tense. “I will be fine, boys. There is no need to worry.”

“...How?” Sans asked, obviously not yet ready to accept that his father had somehow miraculously returned. Gaster could almost read it on his face. “How are you… here ?”

Little did Gaster know that he was speaking just after a memory, much like what he had just experienced.

He heard the doorbell ring. His father (adoptive father, anyways) W.D. Gaster got up from the couch in the den and walked over to the door. He opened it to reveal a flame elemental standing in the doorway.

“Ah, Grillby! Long time, no see, hm?” he said.

“It’s been at least a few months, hasn’t it?” the monster, Grillby said as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The moment the door closed, Papyrus came running up to them; Sans had looked up from his joke book. “Hey! How’re the best little skeletons in the Underground doin’?”

“I lost a tooth!” Papyrus announced, opening his mouth to show Grillby the gap.

Grillby’s flame suddenly retreated slightly for a second, showing slight concern. “Uh, that grows back, right?” he asked slowly.

“A new one takes it’s place,” Gaster replied nonchalantly as Papyrus and Sans both chuckled. “That’s normal for young adolescent skeletons.”

“Well, I didn’t spend nine years in college studying the anatomy of every monster in the Underground,” Grillby replied, his flame returning to normal. “I need to know how to prepare food, not examine my future customers.” He adjusted his glasses. “So, is there any reason you invited me?”

Immediately, Sans saw that Gaster’s face grew grim. “Boys,” he said, “why don’t you go to your rooms?” At that, he saw Grillby’s flame recede again.

Without question (though there was a small pout from Papyrus) the two went to their respective rooms. That didn’t stop Sans from pressing his ear against his door in attempt to hear the conversation between his father and his old college friend.

“Was it really necessary to make the boys leave?” Grillby asked.

“I didn’t want to worry them,” Gaster said. “Grillby, I asked to come because I’m about to start a very… interesting experiment.”

“Don’t tell me—”

“Yes, Grillby, this time the outcome could be fatal.”

“W, you can’t do that! These kids’ parents already abandoned them once; they can’t lose the only other parental figure they’ve got!”

“This experiment will help me better understand the nature of human souls. The more I understand the nature of human souls, the closer I am the figuring out a way to destroy the barrier.” Gaster sighed. “I’m taking this experiment very cautiously. Of course I don’t want to leave them. The boys mean the world to me, but the everyone down here is counting on me to get us to freedom.”

“Freedom means nothing if you’ve lost those you care about.”

“I have to do this, Grillby. I’ve already notified Asgore and Toriel and my lab assistants have agreed to report to the lab for the experiment. Please, if anything drastic happens to me, bring the boys to Snowdin with you. Just… please.”

There was a long silence. Sans heard no voices, no shuffling, nothing. Not until Grillby broke the silence with a drawn-out exhale. “Alright, alright… fine. Just promise me you’ll be as careful as possible?”

“...I promise.”

Days seemed to whizz by in seconds. No return of Gaster. Days turned into weeks, seconds turned into minutes. No sign of the Royal Scientist.

They did, however, see Grillby. Though he wasn’t as enthusiastic as usual, and after what had happened, he never was. “Hey Sans, Papyrus. Pack your things! Uh… your dad says you’re going to stay in Snowdin with me until he… gets back from vacation.”

“Wowie! Where’s he at?” Papyrus asked from his room as he began to gather his things.

“...Hotland,” Grillby answered, though he seemed unsure of himself.

But Sans didn’t believe it. He knew what happened to Gaster; everyone in New Home was talking about it. He couldn’t escape it. Every citizen, visitor, and shop owner was talking about how the Royal Scientist fell into his invention, how his molecules split apart as if he were turning to dust, how he had died. But he just simply went along with Grillby and Papyrus to Snowdin, his brother never knowing any news about Gaster’s disappearance.

Gaster saw Sans staring straight at him, likely analyzing him. “I didn’t disappear,” he said slowly. Sans’ expression changed slightly, becoming softer. Thank goodness, he can understand me, the scientist thought. “ When I fell into my machine, I was suddenly in a new state of being. I was in a dark void that showed the timelines, some of which I believe you remember. I saw many lifetimes, many alternatives to the original. But… I left that void. There is a horrible consequence that will happen if I let another timeline be created… Sans… Sans, my son, does that make sense?”

There were no words, but no words were needed. Gaster saw his son’s smile return, tears forming at the edge of his eye sockets. In one sudden movement that Gaster saw to be almost out of character for Sans, the shorter skeleton wrapped his arms around Gaster.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

“And you have no idea how happy I am to see you.”

Gaster was beyond happy, beyond joyful… It was actually Sans. It was actually his son… but there was something more than that. Maybe, with his return… he would have hope in leaving this place… have hope for freedom.

Chapter Text

Finally, after all those years, decades, lifetimes… he finally saw his son again.

Gaster had taken a moment to briefly explain the situation the Sans (who caught on to what was happening quickly), and they continued their journey through Snowdin Forest. Though they were in near sub zero temperatures, it didn’t necessarily feel cold. Perhaps that was the effect hope had on people.

“So, one more reset and everything’s gone, huh?” Sans asked Gaster as they made their way to the town of Snowdin.

They already traversed through a few of Papyrus’ puzzles, and Gaster’s mood lifted with every quirky solution and jape written on a small note. Just the thought of seeing Papyrus again brightened his mood, but seeing actual creations of his just reminded him that it was a reality, not just some fantasy that he could only hope would come true.

“Our universe as we know it will likely end, yes,” Gaster confirmed.

He pointed upwards with a deformed hand, causing the others to look in that direction. The interior of the mountain the loomed above, though it wasn’t as it normally was… It was as Gaster saw it in the Void, glitching.

“These resets Chara has made have had a massive effect on the universe, though the effects are just now starting to show. If Chara resets once more, timelines will start mixing and destroying one another, most likely until nothing’s left.”

“Chara,” Sans repeated aloud, returning his focus to the path in front of him. “So I fought a soulless demon possessing the human instead of the actual human in all those timelines.”

He paused for a moment, then turned around, walking backwards, and looked down at Frisk. “Heya, Frisk, could you still see everything while that demon was in control? Do you still remember everything?”

They nodded.

“...No hard feelings from back then, right?” They just looked down in an attempt to avoid the question, not answering, causing Sans’ seemingly permanent smile to fade. “Ah, don’t sweat it, kid. I wouldn’t forgive me, either.”

He faced forward once more after the nonchalant statement, his smile returning to his face.

Toriel’s face fell, however, a perplexed expression replacing her usual smile. Her grip on Frisk’s hand tightened slightly.

“What do you mean, Sans?” she asked curiously. After a brief moment of thought, she gasped. “Did you kill them?!”

Sweat seemed to form on Sans’s skull, his eyes suddenly disappearing from his eye sockets. “Punchline’s not that important,” he responded hastily. “Let’s just say a fair amount of these resets that got us in this situation were my fault.”

“He was only trying to stop Chara from getting to King Asgore,” Gaster said in defense of his son. “She killed all of his friends and his brother multiple times. It’s only understandable that he would want—”

“Sans, you lazybones!” said a loud and powerful voice from a few meters away. Gaster, Sans, and Frisk recognized the voice right away. The crunching of snow grew louder and louder. “You’re supposed to be at your station!”

There stood a tall skeleton, dressed in a costume of sorts (deemed his “battle body”). Papyrus looked frustrated at first, staring at his brother disappointedly. “But instead you’re just walking around with—”

His eyes travelled to the three standing around Sans. For once, he was left speechless. Was that a human? And… Asgore (did he shave)? And… and…

“...Father?!”

Papyrus vaguely remembered the man, even if it had been so long ago. He knew that the man took care of himself and his older brother, Sans. He knew that the man used to be the Royal Scientist before Dr. Alphys. He knew that the man was very kind towards him and his brother. He knew that the man had gone on vacation in Hotland and was long overdue for his return.

“Papyrus, every time I leave to go to my lab...”

Gaster smiled at the confounded skeleton, his confounded son. The last time he was in front of him, the small skeleton was only up to Sans’s shoulder, but now he stood only a few inches under himself.

“It’s me, Papyrus,” he said, almost hysterically, but Papyrus only appeared more confused than before. However, it didn’t take long for him to regain his bold composure.

“...I will always return, no matter how long it takes.”

“My apologizes, foreign-speaking stranger!” he said surprisingly enthusiastically, causing Gaster and Toriel to frown. Frisk cocked their head to the side slightly. Papyrus put a gloved hand to his chest, striking a somewhat dramatic pose. “It appears that I, the Great Papyrus, have accidentally mistaken you for someone else!”

“You promise?”

Though the others looked concerned, Sans seemed amused by his younger brother’s antics. He gestured to Gaster with his head. “Uh, Pap, I think you had it right the first time.”

“I promise.”

“Really?!” Immediately, Papyrus’s face brightened. He turned to Gaster with a smile stretched across his bones. “Wowie! You’ve finally returned from your suspiciously long vacation in Hotland!”

Right, Gaster thought to himself, slightly irritated at his former college friend. He huffed slightly. I suppose Grillby had to come up with some excuse for my disappearance.

“... Yes, Hotland,” he replied, only to belatedly realize that Papyrus couldn’t understand him.

“He said it’s great to see you again,” Sans incorrectly translated, obvious sweat forming once on his face once more. “Pap, do you remember back when one of Dad’s experiments backfired, and he was stuck speaking Wingdings for a few months?”

“Of course I do! The Great Papyrus has the keenest of memory!”

“Well, he’s kinda in that situation right now.”

Papyrus gave Gaster a look of sympathy after he processed Sans’s statement. “Fear not, Father, for I, the Greatest Son Papyrus, will make an effort to understand your words! Or, at the very least, I can rely on Sans for translations!” he confidently exclaimed. “How about we go to Snowdin? I can show you me and Sans's house!”

“Uh, actually, Pap, I was thinkin’ about taking Dad to Grillby’s. It’ll only take a second,” Sans said.

Gaster’s eyes widened at the mention of Grillby’s. He’d nearly forgotten that the flame elemental had made his own local bar in Snowdin.

Papyrus huffed. “Fine, but only for a second! I don’t want either of you smelling like that greasy place when you get back! I will guide…” He looked over at Frisk and Toriel with narrowed eyes before turning back to Sans and Gaster. “...these two to our house instead! Maybe along the way I can figure out who they are!”

“Thanks for throwing me a bone, Pap. I owe you one,” Sans replied, earning a chuckle from Toriel and a frustrated groan from Papyrus.

“Toriel,” Gaster said, causing the former Queen to turn to him, “please, explain our situation as vaguely as possible to Papyrus. He needs to at least have some understanding to what’s happening and who you two are, but I don't want him to bear the burden of the full truth.”

She hesitated for a moment before replying, “I will do my best.”

Papyrus led Toriel and Frisk towards Snowdin Town, chatting loudly along the way.

When Sans knew they were out of earshot, he turned to Gaster. “Don’t worry, I know a shortcut.”

He grabbed the sleeve of Gaster’s coat, and before Gaster could even comprehend what was going on, he saw the door of Grillby’s appear right in front of him.

He’s certainly not what he seems, the scientist reminded himself as he followed his son into Grillby’s. There, he saw a collection of monsters gathered inside the small, cozy pub.

There were dogs who were sentries sitting around a table: Dogamy, Dogaressa, Doggo, ‘Lesser Dog’ and ‘Greater Dog.’ On the other side of the pub sat what appeared to be a drunk bunny and a large-mouthed monster in separate booths. Near the front sat two grungy monsters, a red bird and a rather ugly fish, who were leaning against each other. On opposite ends of the bar was another sentry dog playing poker (against itself, and losing) and a punk looking hamster that stood next to the jukebox. Gaster recognized all them from the many timelines he had observed.

“Pretty neat shortcut, huh? Though I bet you’ve seen it before,” Sans said to Gaster. He lead his father to the bar, where they sat down a stool away from the bird and the fish.

They red bird lazily opened his right eye, glancing over at the two skeletons. “Grillbz should be back in a minute,” he informed Sans, not necessarily bothering to ask about his plus one. “Those Royal Guard Dogs over there practically ordered a feast.”

“Let’s just hope he doesn’t have his hands full when he gets outta there,” Sans replied, a hint of humor in his tone of voice.

The red bird gave a coarse chuckle at the statement. “Yeah, I’m sure the moment he steps out of that kitchen they’ll be jumping all over him.” Though, Gaster knew that wasn’t what Sans implied.

Seeing Sans and Papyrus again already tugged on his emotions enough in the past hour, how would he fare seeing Grillby? He knew the flame elemental was never the same after he disappeared. He saw the easily enthusiastic man be drained of his life, saw the man who always had something to say hardly speak.

There were a lot of things that took a toll on Gaster while he was in the Void… seeing his sons grow up without him, seeing the harsh end of Toriel and Asgore’s relationship, seeing all the deaths of the multiple genocide runs over and over again… The abrupt change of his best friend definitely fell in that category.

Suddenly, the door to the kitchen was pushed open, revealing a monster made of fire with five plates on a tray. He calmly made his way over to the table full of dogs and set down the tray, quickly taking away his hand as the hungry dogs dove to devour everything. Gaster didn’t like the sight. He found himself in a state of denial of something he knew all too well to be true.

That is not Grillby, he thought. That can’t be Grillby. Grillby is not a calm monster, not in any way, shape, or form.

But there he was, calm as ever, not speaking a word. He walked over to the bar, standing where he usually stood. He picked up one of the used shot glasses and started to wipe it clean. Though when he looked over at his new pair of customers, he dropped the glass almost immediately, causing every head in the pub to turn to him.

It wasn’t Sans that caused him such shock. He was a regular; he came to the pub so often, he had his own tab. No, it wasn’t Sans… It was the skeleton sitting next to Sans. His attire, posture, and injuries made him stick out like a sore thumb, and he never thought he see any of that ever again.

“W...” Grillby said hesitantly.

There were many raised eyebrows (or something equivalent to such) in the room; many of the regulars had never heard him speak before.

“...You died,” he stated simply, the two words drenched in disbelief.

The skeleton he was talking to stayed quiet for a moment, recovering from shock as well. “Not necessarily,” he replied slowly. He knew Grillby would be able to understand him. “It’s a long story, Grillby.”

“Care to tell it in the kitchen?” The flame elemental gestured towards said kitchen.

Gaster almost hesitantly stood, following his old friend into the back room of the pub. There seemed to be no other workers. The only employee was Grillby, the owner.

“You have some explainin’ to do, W,” Grillby reminded him sternly. Gaster nearly flinched. He hadn’t heard him speak in such a tone since…

“Don’t tell me—”

“W, you can’t do that! These kids’ parents already abandoned them once; they can’t lose the only other parental figure they’ve got!”

“Freedom means nothing if you’ve lost those you care about.”

Gaster gathered himself. I don’t have time for hesitancy.

“I presume you know how I disappeared. I fell into my machine, but it didn’t kill me as a thought it would. Rather, I was sent into a place I called the Void. It was infinite and seemingly empty. Though, there was a light. Within the light, I could see the events of what was going on in the Underground. Though, one day, that light dimmed… and a new light formed. A new timeline was created; someone had reset the timeline. That exact same thing happened, the resets, countless times. If they reset one more time, the universe could end. That’s why I’m here now.”

He was met with silence (likely Grillby processing the information), so he continued. “I should’ve left earlier, but interfering with time is risky work.”

“Don’t get too deep into your science bull, W,” Grillby interrupted. “That’s all my fiery mind needs to understand.”

He seemed back to what Gaster deemed to be ‘normal’ for him, prompting Gaster to smile slightly. That smile was quickly wiped off his face as Grillby continued, “...Guess since you could see the timelines you saw how, er, not ‘myself’ I’ve been…” His flame receded slightly. “Truth be told, W, you’re really the only one who thought I could actually do all this,” he said somewhat sadly, gesturing to the entire kitchen, and by extension, the entire pub.

“Hey, W! I think I’ve finally settled on a major!” Grillby said, rushing into his college dorm to inform his reclusive dorm mate, who was (as usual) at his desk, studying.

“You said that the last three times you switched it,” Gaster replied. He flipped the page of his notebook.

“No, but I mean it this time! I’m going to start my own pub! Business major, culinary arts minor!” He paused for a brief moment. “My folks don’t necessarily think I can do it. Neither do the teachers… They don’t think I’m that much of a businessman.”

“Any man can be a businessman if he so chooses,” Gaster stated, looking up from his notes. “Opening a restaurant is definitely not outside the realm of possibility. If anything, I’ll probably still be in this dorm by the time you open it. If, of course, you don’t change your mind again.”

“Nah, I got my heart set on this! I’ll prove them wrong! You got my back in this, don’t ya, W?”

“Always, Grillby. Always.”

“So when you left, the only support I had was gone. Sure, Sans and Papyrus were great encouragement, but I don’t think they really understood the situation,” Grillby continued. “We all managed to survive before I got it open. It was pretty hand-to-mouth, but we got by. All your accomplishments were way better than I could ever dream mine to be. Hell, you personally knew the King and Queen! You were the Royal Scientist! But despite that, I knew if you were there to see the all of my customers on the opening day, you’d be prouder of me than anyone else I knew. Guess that was when the realization that you were gone really hit.”

He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “Heh… After that, I hardly spoke. Nothing seemed that exciting anymore. I tried at first to cover it up. Trust me, I really did, but it grew harder and harder. Eventually, I just… gave up.”

That seemed to be a common theme for those close to him, Gaster noticed. Giving up. Sans gave up on trying to go back to the timeline were Chara wasn’t in control; Grillby gave up on trying to pretend to be his former self.

“Grillby,” Gaster said after a moment of awkward silence. “All of that is understandable. You should know that I was proud of you the moment I saw how hard you studied to get this. I was proud in the empty Void when I saw how hard you worked to turn this old shack into an eatery. I was proud when I saw the first customers walk into this place, when I saw you and only you running it with a full house. It was impressive. That was something my stiff bones couldn’t do after being cooped up in a lab all day. But I’m also proud of how well you raised my sons, even with your own business to run. I couldn’t even do that, and I didn’t have to interact with other monsters from dusk till dawn. I saw the timelines, Grillby. I know no one ever said those words. But I’m proud of you. I always have been.”

Grillby’s flame returned to normal, signifying that his mood had been lifted. “You always were the best friend I’ve ever had, W,” he said.

The sound of many footsteps and clanging armor could be heard from the pub, getting quieter and quieter. “Well, I guess I have to get back to work.”

The two walked towards the door that lead back into the main area of the pub. “You’ve always been the hero type, haven’t you? First you saved the boys, now you’re saving the universe,” the elemental stated without a shred of jealousy in his voice.

Gaster chuckled. “I suppose so,” he responded.

Grillby opened the door, and both he and Gaster left the kitchen. The pack of Royal Guard dogs had left, leaving their messy dishes on the tray that the food had been delivered on. Grillby went to go retrieve it, bringing it back to the bar where both the fish and bird seemed to be asleep. Sans looked between the two, guessing that they had reconciled. Grillby’s first statement after leaving the kitchen seemed to point in that direction...

“I couldn’t think of a better savior for the universe.”

Chapter Text

Sans’ and Papyrus’ house. They had to go to Sans’ and Papyrus’ house.

Both father and son could hear the crunching of the snow once they exited the small local pub. Gaster looked over at Sans with a slightly bemused smile.

“Sans?” he asked.

“Hm?” Sans replied lazily.

“You brought me to Grillby’s just for that reason, did you not? To talk to him?” Gaster questioned, referencing the conversation he had with Grillby in the kitchen just moments ago. He knew his son remembered Grillby taking care of him and his brother; he could tell from the timelines.

Sans replied with a short, hiccupy laugh. “Heh, guess you can see right through me, huh?”

Gaster chuckled slightly, partially out of amusement and partially out of contentment. “It seems so.”

The two walked the short distance from Grillby’s to Sans and Papyrus’ house. The somewhat small, two-story cabin was left unlocked for them, so Sans just opened the door.

The two skeletons noticed Toriel and Frisk sitting on the couch in the den, while Papyrus was standing near the television. Immediately upon seeing their entrance, Papyrus ran up to Gaster and posed in a heroic manner.

“Father! The Former Queen has told me everything!” Papyrus exclaimed excitedly, causing Sans to subtly grow concerned.

“What’d she tell ya, Pap?” Sans asked, trying to hide his nervousness with a nonchalant tone. Luckily for him, it was good enough to fool everyone, everyone but Gaster and Frisk; they both had seen the act too many times, but Sans wasn’t necessarily concerned with that.

“Father’s elongated stay in Hotland was a consequence of science! He made a groundbreaking discovery had to stay to study it! The Former Queen said that he discovered the universe will end if we don’t capture a certain evil human and a talking flower who are loose in the Underground! And the evil human is not the human currently sitting on the couch beside me!” Papyrus announced, reiterating what Toriel had told him moments earlier. He pointed to Frisk without taking away his gaze from Gaster. Sans noticeably calmed down in finding out exactly what his brother was told.

Gaster gave a nod of gratitude to Toriel. “Thank you for informing him while Sans and I were at Grillby’s,” Gaster stated. “But I'm afraid we must get going if we ever hope to catch said ‘human’ and flower.”

“We must get going if we wish to catch the human and the flower,” Toriel translated a few moments after comprehending what was said. She got up from the somewhat unsturdy couch, Frisk soon following.

Both Papyrus and Sans looked disappointed at their decision to leave so soon, but they both had somewhat of an understanding why. After seemingly endless years without their father (with those seemingly endless years being repeated seemingly endless times), only to see him for a short period of time… It seemed almost unfair.

“Hey, Dad,” Sans finally stated after a short moment of silence, “want some cheese for your journey?”

Gaster furrowed his brow. “Cheese?” he responded slowly, confused.

“Yeah, cheese. I hear it’s gouda luck.”

Toriel burst out laughing as Papyrus clearly expressed frustration with the pun; Frisk giggled along with Toriel while Gaster just gave a simple amused smile.

“I refuse to let you three make this journey alone!” Papyrus exclaimed over the guffawing, which quickly died down after the statement. “You need someone like me to help capture the human!”

Toriel looked over at Gaster for a brief moment before turning her gaze to his younger son. “Papyrus, your offer is appreciated, but I’m not sure Dr. Gaster wants—”

“It’s alright, Toriel. I believe Sans and Papyrus may bring light to this otherwise grim journey,” Gaster interrupted. Sans looked slightly skeptical and Frisk appeared worried, clinging onto Toriel’s purple robe while glancing over at Papyrus with distress in their eyes. “Trust me when I tell you I’ve thought this decision through.”

There was another split second of silence. Frisk didn’t look entirely convinced that it was a good idea, but they showed no immediate opposition to it. Sans, however, actually seemed content with the decision.

“Hey bro,” he said, “how would you like to capture a human?”

Papyrus gave a delighted gasp, his bones configuring into a ginormous grin. “Really?! Wowie!!”

He continued to ramble on about finally being a member of the Royal Guard, how Undyne would be proud of him, how Asgore would trim a hedge in the shape of his head, among other things. The new group of five began to walk towards the end of the small, cold town of Snowdin so they could enter the damp marshes of Waterfall.

One thing was for certain: Gaster was right about Sans and Papyrus making the adventure much more entertaining. Father and sons talked a great portion of the way to Waterfall, reacquainting themselves well. Toriel and Sans had shared a great amount of puns and other various horrible jokes (which Papyrus of course despised immediately, though he was smiling anyways). Papyrus had even tried to guess multiple times what exactly Gaster was planning, though most of the guesses were wild and completely inaccurate.

The group could tell immediately when they reached Waterfall. The air grew very humid, the snow turned into slightly damp, rocky ground. The light of the small town dimmed once they were inside the dark cave-like area. Crystals, lanterns, and echo flowers were the only things lighting the way.

“Did you hear the news from Snowdin?” one echo flower said, repeating a passing conversation from sometime earlier.

“Noteworthy news? From Snowdin? Humor me,” said the next flower with a different voice.

“They say the old Royal Scientist has returned!”

“You mean the one before Dr. Alphys? The one that fell into his machine? He died, didn’t he? How could he have returned?”

“Maybe he never died.”

“They found his dust on the machine! He’s dead!”

“You’re the stubbornest person I’ve ever met.”

“What, am I just supposed to believe a monster randomly came back to life? Not happening!”

“Whatever. I think he’s back. You’ll see I’m right.”

“Looks like you're famous,” Sans said to his father after echo flowers stopped emitting the last conversation, though the ones they passed seemed to have different variations of the same topic.

“My lab assistants always were loyal,” Gaster stated.

He recognized a few of the voices. In fact, he smiled upon hearing them. It was relieving to hear them in such calm, even defensive manners… Anything but the screams he last heard them emit before entering the Void…

“Though word of my return does seem to be going around quickly.”

Everyone stopped in their tracks, varying degrees of shock painted on their faces. English. He had spoken English, if briefly. Not Wingdings. Those last two words were not in Wingdings. They were in English.

...How? Gaster thought. The scientist grew so lost in his own contemplation that he lost touch with the environment around him.

“Peculiar,” he mumbled to himself. English. “It must be something psychological…” More English. He shook his head. “Nevermind that, I can figure such about later.” He ignored the hypotheses forming in his mind and looked straight ahead once more.

“Nyeh heh heh!” Papyrus laughed, breaking the eerie quiet as they continued their journey through Waterfall. “Just being around me has caused Father’s speech to return to normal! Now I will finally be able to understand him!”

“Now I won’t have to translate,” Sans said, amused. “Which is good, because I love doin’ absolutely nothing.”

“Sans, you have been doing ‘absolutely nothing.’ I have been translating nearly this entire time,” Toriel stated.

“Oh, right,” he responded. “I forgot. I’m a bit of a bonehead sometimes.”

Though Papyrus was somewhat angry about the pun, it subsided quickly, for he recognized the area they were in.

“Undyne’s house is just up ahead!” he exclaimed. “We should go greet her! I’m sure she would be delighted to meet all of you! Except for Sans, who she has already met and finds slightly annoying.”

“It’s mutual,” Sans added.

Gaster opened his mouth to remind everyone that they were are against the ticking time bomb of Chara, that they didn’t have time for this, but before he could they all followed Papyrus to Undyne’s house, which was only a few feet north. He sighed. I suppose this is a good way to start gathering everyone…

Though, before he could follow them to Undyne’s house, he heard an all too familiar voice.

“You’re still trying to save everyone? Don’t you know that this is all in vain? Chara’s going to kill them anyways. You don’t stand a chance against her.”

Flowey. He was noticeably less hysterical and condescending than when he last talked to Gaster. Matter of fact, he still looked… scared, like he was when fighting Chara in the Ruins. He didn’t seem to be attempting to psyche Gaster out, either…

“Perhaps not alone,” Gaster said. He turned to see Flowey, poking out of the moist soil in front of Napstablook’s house.

The flower seemed slightly shocked upon hearing his speech, but quickly brushed off the feeling. “She’ll kill all of them if you bring them along! Don’t you understand? She’ll kill every last one of them. Right. In. Front. Of. You. And you won’t be able to do a thing about it! ...Just stop this now. The only thing you’re going to do is delay the inevitable,” Flowey said.

“Chara’s only so ‘unpredictable’ by your standards because she acts on impulse and sadism. Pleasure from the pain of others… That’s the only type of emotion she can feel, so she kills again and again because she’s scared of feeling empty, feeling nothing. You know what that feels like, don’t you, Asriel?” Gaster replied.

“Y-You don’t know that! You can’t know that!” Flowey paused for a moment, gritting his teeth. “You think you know everything, but you don’t! That’s why this plan is going to fail! That’s why you need to stop before it’s too late!”

Gaster kneeled down to get closer to Flowey’s height. The vessel cowered away slightly, afraid the skeleton would do something to him, but to his surprise, Gaster’s tone actually grew somewhat gentler.

“You really think my ego is that big? No one can know everything. I know what I know from years of research and study. I studied in college for nine years, finding out as much about science as I could. Geology turned out to be essential in finding out how to convert geothermal energy into electricity. Biology helped me grow an understanding of magic that allowed me to recreate a monster soul. From biology stems psychology. Psychology allowed me to analyze the decision of those in the Underground and figure out why they did such things… That’s how I know how Chara feels, that’s how I devised my plan. It’s not a byproduct of my ego. It’s a byproduct of science. I do not know if it will work, Asriel, but I have hope that it will. Believe me when I say I’m here to help everyone, not just to have glory stuck on my name.”

Flowey’s eyes darted towards the floor in guilt only for a slight second before peering back up at Gaster with a glare. “I know you’re not the sage you pretend to be, Gaster,” he spat. “Even that stupid riverperson knows. ‘Beware of the man who speaks in hands.’ ‘Beware of the man who came from another world,’” he mocked the voice of the monster who had said the words in the first place.

“I know my mistakes and regret them as any other monster would,” Gaster replied simply, standing upright once more. He was just a boy… He’s just a boy… “Please understand, Asriel, that in trying to save the universe I am trying to help you. I’m trying to set everything to the way it’s suppose to be…. where everyone in the Underground is happy and full of hope.”

After a few moments of only listening to the uncanny sound of rushing water, Flowey burrowed back into the ground without a word. Gaster looked at the small hole the flower left in the soil before turning about and making his way back to Undyne’s house.

The situation there didn’t look much better.

Hues of warm oranges and fluorescent blues could vaguely be made out through the windows of the house. Gaster hastily opened the door to see what he feared… another fight.

Toriel stood protectively in front of Frisk, fireballs in the palms of her hands. Undyne, a fish-like monster stood a few fair feet away, grasping onto one of hear spears with a disgusted look on her face. Sans looked tired, more tired than usual, and Papyrus was screaming incoherent pleas to get them to stop fighting.

“Ngah! Why do you keep protecting the little punk?! Don’t you want to get to the surface?! They’re the last soul we need to break the barrier!” Undyne exclaimed, throwing a spear.

She actually aimed behind the Former Queen, aimed for the human, but Toriel easily shielded Frisk from the attack.

“They’re just a child! They have done nothing to deserve death!” Toriel yelled back, sending fireballs in intricate patterns towards Undyne. Toriel didn’t want to kill her, just hurt her enough to where she would stop… Undyne agilely dodged the fire rushing towards her.

“That doesn’t matter! Humans trapped us under here for years! Their kind killed most of us! It’s karma! It’s justice!” Undyne replied.

“You cannot blame the wrongdoings of an entire group of people on an individual, especially when that individual is an innocent child!”

The two sent more attacks flying towards each other… More spears, more fire, but all of them were caught in a purple hue. Both looked confused.

“There is no need for anyone to fight anyone here,” Gaster stated, causing everyone to turn to him.

He had a mauve iris in his left eye socket, matching the color of the bubbles the attacks were caught in. The skeleton clenched his right hand into a fist, causing the attacks to fizzle into nonexistence along with the bubbles. The fight ceased.

“Father! Thank goodness you arrived! I was sure the Former Queen and Undyne were going to kill each other! The Former Queen has a really caring opinion of the human! Undyne’s is rather… murdery…”

“This is your dad?” Undyne asked, widening her eyes.

The iris slowly disappeared from Gaster’s eye socket as he turned to the Head of the Royal Guard. “Yes. My name is W.D. Gaster. Papyrus has said much about you,” Gaster introduced himself.

Undyne raised an eyebrow, but nonetheless managed a toothy smile. “Nice to meet you,” she said, semi-reluctantly. Papyrus gestured for her to continue. “My name’s Undyne, Head of the Royal Guard!” she exclaimed passionately. “My friend Alphys told me about the old Royal Scientist—”

“I was the Royal Scientist before Dr. Alyphs, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve heard she’s a bit reclusive these days, but I need her help… I also need your help as well. Perhaps you could lead us to her lab in Hotland?” Gaster cut in.

Undyne looked like she was easily ready to decline the offer, still skeptically studying Gaster, but in seeing Papyrus’ eagerness for them to know each other, she said, “Sure! Why not?”

“Ngah! All of this is just fake, nerdy crap!” Undyne exclaimed once just a few steps away from Alphys’ Lab. “You can’t be the old Royal Scientist! That guy’s dead! This all has to be an act!”

“Well, you haven’t known him most of your life, have ya?” Sans said nonchalantly.

Undyne glared at Sans before sighing. “That annoying little punk is smarter than he looks,” she said more to herself than anyone else. “This guy would still be in Snowdin being forced to listen to a barrage of stupid puns if he wasn’t really their dad…”

She looked back at Gaster. “Look, I trust my friend and his brother, so I’m going to take the risk of believing you. But if Alphys says you’re fake, you bet I’m going to beat you into the ground! Got that?!”

“Understood,” Gaster stated simply. Undyne didn’t intimidate him very much.

She immediately went up to the of doors Alphys’ Lab, knocking on them loudly. Gaster walked up beside her, Sans and Papyrus not far behind them, and Toriel and Frisk stood in the back of the crowd.

“Hey Alphy! It’s Undyne, open up!” she yelled.

There was a lot of nervous shuffling and obscure noises to open the doors, but soon a short, yellow lizard wearing a lab coat stood in the doorway. She opened her mouth to greet her friend, but she found her eyes travelling to Gaster instead. “N-No… N-N-No way! I… I thought that my c-cameras were hijacked… but… b-but y-you’re actually…”

Gaster smiled. “W.D. Gaster, the predecessor of your position? Yes, that would be me. It is truly a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Alphys.”

Alphys stood there for a moment, speechless. She was scanning and studying him, mentally telling herself that it was real, that right in front of her was the greatest scientist of all time. But then, if the live camera footage wasn’t hijacked...

“Y-You need to c-come in immediately! T-T-There are th-things we need to discuss!”

Chapter Text

Alphys. The current Royal Scientist had matters to discuss.

Dr. Alphys had lead the group of six into her laboratory, nervously scrambling to clear as much of her mess as possible as they entered. She had quickly started bombarding Gaster with a barrage of questions, asking about everything from his past experiments to his current plan to save the universe. The others chimed in on this conversation at a few times. Most of the time they stated irrelevant comments that had no scientific context, but every once and awhile Toriel and Sans would give small input that seemed related to what the two scientists were discussing.

“B-But I thought it was impossible to r-recreate soul energy artificially!” Alphys stated in response to hearing that Gaster planned to give Flowey (a.k.a. Asriel) a soul.

Many of the things the former Royal Scientist had explained were things she thought to be impossible. His presence alone was supposedly impossible enough, but giving a soulless being (a soulless being she accidentally created, mind you) a soul? Her experiments said such shouldn’t be possible… couldn’t be possible...

“Difficult, yes, but not impossible,” Gaster responded, leaning slightly on her cluttered desk. “It requires massive amounts of magic, potential energy, and small doses of various elements and chemical compounds, but it is in no way impossible.”

“How did you... I-I mean, h-how did you figure out…”

“I was what one would call a ‘mad scientist’ in my earlier years holding this position,” Gaster explained, the others listening intently. “After finishing the CORE, I was assigned to study soul energy and find out how to manipulate it in such a way so we could be free. Many experiments followed this, and in those experiments I found out many things, which were fascinating if not useful to the larger task at hand… Almost every monster soul is equal to one human soul; human souls had the power to persist after death, being able to due so because of determination…”

He paused for a brief moment, quickly deciding what was best to say now and what was best to say later. “Artificially mass producing monster souls came as a possibility to break the barrier, so I set out to see what could be done. It was a rigorous process that landed me many enemies, but in the end, after the collecting of many chemicals and elements as well as the dissection of many monsters, I created a monster soul.”

Toriel tilted her head slightly. “Do you still have the materials to do so... to create a monster soul?” she asked after a brief moment of thought.

“If my lab in the castle has remained untouched, then I believe I should,” he responded, recollecting vaguely what his old lab looked like.

“Yes, of course. We only went in there to dust, and did so with caution… We left it untouched out of respect for your work,” Toriel stated, her tone of voice heavily reminiscent.

“I suppose we should all get going. We still have a ways to go before we reach the castle,” she added quickly.

“W-Wait, before you go--!” Alphys said as she saw the others start to leave. “Dr. Gaster, the timelines you described… There had to be many variations for them... for our entire universe to, u-uhm, destroy itself if another timeline is created… W-Was there ever a variation where the h-human who caused all those g-genocide timelines… didn’t k-kill everyone?” she asked timidly.

Gaster glanced down at Frisk and smiled. He looked back at Alphys with the same happy expression. “Dr. Alphys, why don’t you accompany us? We’ll save time if I explain on our journey.”

After a bit of convincing (...a lot of convincing), Alphys finally agreed to join the group to traverse through Hotland and go to the castle. Everyone exited the lab and followed the former Royal Scientist to the rest of Hotland.

For the most part, the parts of Hotland full of puzzles of all sorts seemed to be more or less abandoned. There were a few monsters here and there (a few of which Gaster could’ve sworn were his old lab assistants, but he hardly paid the thought any mind), but none of them dared to go near enough to cause any delay.

With everyone there, it was certainly much more entertaining than if Gaster were simply making the journey alone. In seeing Frisk’s fun-loving and caring nature, Undyne seemed to be slowly warming up to them. In fact, the more Undyne overheard Gaster and Alphys’ conversations, the more Undyne showed to be more friendly towards them. (Friendly in a fierce way, of course!)

Sans and Toriel stayed near the human, chatting about various topics. Along the expedition, the two were often seen laughing at bad jokes or conversing with Frisk. Undyne and Papyrus mostly stuck together throughout the journey, talking to one another as well as the others, and Alphys stayed near Gaster as he answered the many questions she had for him.

“The first timeline that Frisk appeared in is what I called the ‘pacifist’ timeline,” Gaster started, responding to the question Alphys asked earlier before they left the lab. Frisk looked up at the scientist upon hearing their name, and the others stopped their individual conversations to listen.

“Frisk has always been kind. They were broken-hearted when they had to leave Toriel in the Ruins. They grew to be good friends with Sans and Papyrus, even though Papyrus had his heart set on capturing a human. They befriended Undyne despite the fact that she tried to kill them. They were friends with Dr. Alphys and helped her through insecurities. They even went to the castle in New Home with the intention to spare King Asgore.”

“Asgore didn’t take the punk’s soul?” Undyne asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Of course he didn’t! He’s a big fluffy pushover!” Papyrus stated.

“No, no, Asgore didn’t have the chance to take their soul. Toriel stepped in before a turn could even be taken,” Gaster responded. “But, ah, the flower stepped in and absorbed the six human souls as well as the souls of every monster in the Underground, transforming into, well, I believed he called himself a ‘God of Hyperdeath’… But even then Frisk refused to fight and saved everyone… They even saved the one who was fighting them. He used the souls he absorbed to break the barrier, and returned to souls. Everyone made it to the surface.”

Most of everyone could guess who “he” was. For a moment, only the swooshing of the vents and the rushing of river of lava below could be heard.

“Why then... did they leave such a happy ending?” Toriel asked curiously.

“They only wanted to feel the joy of improving everyone’s lives again, for it took a while for humans to accept monsters back into their society,” Gaster answered, looking at Frisk. They nodded in agreement to his statement. “...but such showed to be a mistake.”

The skeleton then turned to look at the path ahead, avoiding the eyes of everyone else. It grew painfully obvious that he tired of talking about the genocide timelines. In noticing this, no one pressed the subject anymore.

Does Chara deserve the same mercy as Asriel? Gaster thought as conversations started around him. I could rationalize her actions the same way I did Asriel’s, or perhaps how I did when ‘explaining’ such to him… No. No, she’s just as horrible as she was before her death…

He glanced back at Toriel, recollecting how much she loved the child. He remembered meeting Chara for the first time, not thinking they were much more than just a mischievous, confused human that had fallen into the Underground. Back then, he would’ve believed Chara actually loved her adoptive family the same as they loved her.

But if I wish to set things right, perhaps I have to push aside my own bias and look at her from some else’s viewpoint…

“D-Dr. Gaster, are you alright? You haven’t spoken i-in a while,” Alphys said, looking up at who she was addressing.

“Yes, I am fine. I’m simply… modifying my plan.”

With the puzzles being inactive, the journey was shorter than usual. They made it to the MTT Resort relatively quickly.

The large hotel was colored with golds and pastel pinks. In the lobby, there was was a light red carpet that went from the entrance, around a fountain (where a figure of Dr. Alphys’ robot Mettaton was spewing water onto the the floor), and to the exit, to the CORE. The lobby itself was crowded, as the elevator to the capital of New Home was broken. As the multitude of people started to notice their entrance, they started to converse about them, much like in the exchanges overheard by the echo flowers in Waterfall.

“Is that Undyne, the Head of the Royal Guard? Why would she be here?”

“Mom! Mom! Mom, look! It’s Undyne! It’s really her!”

“It’s the Royal Scientist! Dr… Dr. Alphys, right? No one has seen her in ages!”

“Oh my god! Look, it’s Queen Toriel! Is she returning to the kingdom?”

“Dr. Gaster… … ...That’s actually him, right? I… didn’t think he’d ever come back.”

“Is that… the Royal Scientist? And the old Royal Scientist, who like died or something? I’m so confused…”

“A… They… There’s a human with them!”

“H-Human! There’s a human!”

“My, my! Look at the crowd we have here!”

The last voice caused the rest of the chatter to slowly die down. Nearly everyone recognized it; he had the entire resort named after him. Alphys covered her mouth in shock as he emerged from the crowd.

A humanoid robot came into view, holding a microphone. He had black hair that covered his right eye, a pink chest plate, black shoulder guards, and pink high heeled boots. He approached them with a cat-like employee from MTT-Brand Burger Emporium that held a camera.

“Isn’t this just fabulous? Darlings, why don’t you introduce yourselves? The Underground is dying to know about this clique!” Mettaton asked.

Variables.

It took everything Undyne had to keep Papyrus quiet, to not answer the  questions, for she knew he would definitely attempt to. Gaster opened his mouth to speak, but Alphys quickly went to the front of the group, muttering apologies as she bumped into her friends.

“Mettaton, w-we’re b-busy with something right now! M-Maybe… Maybe when we’re finished you can get an i-interview!” she said, the statement seeming partly pre-meditated. She tried to ignore the camera pointed directly at her.

Mettaton raised an eyebrow. “Alphys, Alphys, Alphys,” he said, bending at his waist (rather seductively, as per usual) to get face-to-face with Alphys. “My audience simply desires the drama! Surely you can spare a few moments.”

“I-I’m s-s-sorry, Mettaton, bu—”

“We’re on a timed schedule,” Gaster cut in, causing Mettaton to stand upright once more and look at him. “Surely you know how important that is, given the show you’re currently hosting, so perhaps we could postpone the interview as Dr. Alphys suggested.”

“Oh my! Look at who we have here!” the robot said to the camera while walking towards the former Royal Scientist. “Could this be the brilliant and thought to be late Dr. W.D. Gaster? I’m getting goosebumps just standing near him, folks!”

Mettaton turned and gave a smirk disguised as a smile in the direction of his employee holding the camera.

“As much as it pains me not to dig deeper, I have respect for both of these fantastic innovators. Let this be a lesson to those of you at home from yours truly. Stay tuned, my fabulous viewers, this world-changing interview is coming soon!”

Alphys sighed in relief, muttering a timorous “thank you” to Gaster as she watched Mettaton shoo off the MTT-Brand Burger Emporium worker before leaving the scene himself. Everyone quickly exited the resort while everyone was distracted. In the distance, they could see the CORE.

“One of your finest works,” Toriel complimented, smiling at Gaster as they entered the technological center.

Metals of blue and cyan surrounded them with flashing buttons of red here and there. Gaster smiled in thanks and walked up to the elevator, pressing the button. There was a delightful ding! that sounded as the doors opened.

“D-Dr. Gaster, don’t you want to explore through the CORE? I-I agree with Toriel that’s it’s one of your finest works! S-Surely you would want to see it again,” Alphys said as the others started to pile into the elevator.

“I can do so later,” he replied. “For now, it’s vital we get to the castle. We’re against a someone unpredictable enemy. Every small delay could have disastrous consequences.”

Alphys nodded, showing that she understood, and went into the elevator with the others, Gaster following.

Undyne, having been to the castle recently, pressed the button labeled “NH” for “New Home.” Suddenly, the elevator seemed to shoot upwards, playing calming elevator music.

“Nice touch,” Sans commented.

The music was very serene. Everyone was chatting as the elevator ascended higher and higher. New Home, the capital, the castle… none of it was far now. Their journey was truly near it’s end. All there was left to do was…

BANG!

The elevator suddenly slammed to the right, causing everyone to lose their balance. Frisk and Sans, the most unprepared, actually fell over. The music grew more and more distorted as the lights began to flicker. The elevator seemed to be stuck, unmoving.

“Hey! What gives?!” Undyne exclaimed angrily, kicking the side of the elevator.

The lights of the elevator suddenly turned off completely, leaving everyone in complete and utter darkness. Outbursts of worry soon followed, but Gaster knew exactly what had happened. It was the only cause that made sense. Just as a small cyan light appeared (and disappeared just as fast), the music was replaced with a daunting voice,

“You really thought you could save them all, old man! You really did! How cute.”

Frisk whimpered slightly when they heard the voice, the trauma of the past returning to their mind.

“Chara...” Toriel whispered in disbelief. She had never heard her child sound so… malicious and malevolent. It seemed so unreal, like it was just a bad dream.

Sans gave an annoyed grunt that only Frisk seemed to notice.

The lights flashed on, showing the worried and angered looked of the groups.

“But no one is safe. You can’t stop me, you fool! I’m still going to kill everyone. Just because you’re here doesn’t change anything! Everyone in this world will get to suffer my wrath before I finally reset and erased this place for good! And don’t worry, old man. I’ll make sure I kill your sons right in front of you.” Chara gave a sadistic chuckle. “But go ahead. Try. Try and stop me. It’ll be entertaining.”

There was a sound similar to one of a chain snapping. Everyone let out a gasp or a scream as the elevator fell at an unruly speed.

“Congratulations! You’ve reached the point of no return.”

The staticy, distorted music returned. Everyone began screaming, most messages being drowned out by the horrid amount of noise in the small compartment. Though, there was one voice that could barely be picked out, given how loud and boisterous he normally was… When he raised his voice it was unbelievably deafening. And he only exclaimed one thing as they fell,

“I BLAME UNDYNE FOR THIS!”

As they continued to fall, the lights began to dim. They dimmed more and more. The darkness, it grew more and more… dark… darker… yet darker… The darkness just kept growing, the shadows cutting deeper… deeper… but deeper… until finally, they were submerged in a pitch black that would not disappear.

A high pitched scream stopped sharply. Alphys stopped screaming. This was followed by others as they fell into unconsciousness. Sans. Frisk. Undyne. Toriel. Papyrus.

It was eerily quiet for the situation. Typically, Gaster was used to quiet. He had to learn to be used to such or otherwise he would’ve gone insane, lost his mind. The timelines were horrible background noise in the Void. He could hear the sharp hitches of breath, the sound of a knife penetrating flesh, cutting through bone…

She will not win, Gaster thought. No… I shall not let her.

He knew what was to come, something that Chara nor Flowey ever knew or calculated. Thus, he let himself fall into unconsciousness. He let the shadows, the darkness… He let it consume him.

The events that would unfold… They would be very, very… interesting.

Chapter Text

“Entry Number Seventeen. Darker, darker, yet darker. The darkness keeps growing, the shadows cutting deeper. Photon readings negative. This next experiment seems very, very... interesting. ...What do you two think?”

“Fuhuhu! I can’t believe that is Sans and awake and Papyrus isn’t! This is so weird!”

“Well, I don’t think being knocked unconscious counts as ‘sleeping.’”

“A-Are we s-sure th-they’ll wake u-up? Wh-Wh-What if th-they’re d-d-dead?”

“Then they’d be dust and so would we. Hey, kid, want to help me wake up everyone?”

Shuffling. Footsteps.

“Papyrus, you bonehead! Get up!”

“Psst, Tori. Wake up.”

“D-Dr. Gaster, wake up! W-We need you to t-tell us wh-where we are!”

Gaster eyes cracked open. Darkness. He could only see darkness. He could only hear the voices of those who had already awoken.

“We need you to tell us where we are.”

Blindly standing, Gaster brushed himself off. He could hear the others beginning to wake and mutter amongst themselves (perhaps “mutter” didn’t exactly describe Papyrus’ volume level very accurately).

“Be careful where you step,” was the first thing he said, causing the others to slowly quiet down.

Where they were… Hardly anyone had explored it in the timelines, and if they did, they were one of his old lab assistants. For the most part, it had been abandoned, only known to an elite few.

“I’m not sure how disorganized this place is. I haven’t been here in years.”

As if the mysterious place recognized his voice, the lights turned on immediately after he finished speaking. As everything came into focus, they noticed they were right in front of the permanently open elevator, which was too damaged to be of any use anymore. Only meters ahead of them was a door that had automatically opened with the lights as they turned on. CORE Lab, read a sign above the opening.

“You built a lab down here?” Toriel questioned with raised eyebrows.

“Nothing in science goes unquestioned,” responded Gaster, leading the group through the opening.

Through the opening stood the transparent inner walls that allowed the group to see a marvelous contraption, a part of the machine that took geothermal heat and converted it into electricity for the entire Underground. The outer walls of the room were littered with many blueprints and graphs that showed to be slightly burnt and faded.

“I figured that since the CORE would take quite a long time to construct, building a lab down here only seemed reasonable,” Gaster explained, though he was slightly distracted. That map has to be here somewhere...

The others marveled at various things in room as Gaster searched for a vital piece of parchment, the thing that would allow them to escape this place. He tried to recall memories from so long ago, but nothing clear or helpful came to mind. The astonished mutters of those behind him didn’t help, either.

Where would I leave such a thing? he kept asking himself. Surely if it was that important I wouldn’t forget…

It seems like it should be obvious…

He simply stared at the weathered material used to create the walls, as if they held some sort of clue.

Perhaps Chara took it…? No, no… if she knew this lab was here she wouldn’t have acted so condescending…

Did they hold a clue? A riddle, perhaps? A puzzle to lead them out of this place? A solution that would bring them one step closer to correcting the wrongs that took the lives of too many monsters across too many timelines?

If so, then why didn’t he remember it?

“Dr. Gaster… do these markings mean anything important?”

Markings. A light bulb suddenly went off in Gaster’s head. Clues.

He walked over to the others, who were all gathered around something that had been written on the wall. They all made a small hole in their huddle so the former Royal Scientist could analyze the markings…

“Those are not markings,” Gaster said simply upon first seeing them. Faint words in Wingdings were written on the wall.

Of course, they would appear to be markings in their eyes, he thought. They cannot read Wingdings… He glanced over at his eldest son, whose eyes were narrowed at the words on the wall. At least, majority of them can’t…

Gaster himself then turned his attention to the words, trying to make even the smallest sense out of them.

His eyes widened. He knew what this was. He knew what the “markings” were. He knew there were many more of them scattered around the CORE lab. He could make sense of the faded symbols.

Maybe we don’t need the map… Perhaps the entries will tell us where the exit lies, he thought, staring at the coded words.

He paused for a second, trying to recollect his memories of building the CORE, trying to see if there were any faults in his thinking.

No. No, that’s ridiculous. We would just spend hours down here going through my old experiments. The entries were used to document my work, not give directions. Every delay we face, the closer Chara gets to destroying this universe.

But if we wish to stop her… what other choice do we have? They hold the only source of direction that I remember…

“...Entries, I believe would be a better word,” Gaster finally said.

Alphys gave a small gasp. She quickly turned her head to Gaster. “Entries?! You mean there’s more of these that explain your experiments?!” she exclaimed hurriedly. He smiled slightly and nodded. “What do they say?! ..Oh — u-uhm, I mean… You don’t have to sh-share if you want to. I mean, I understand w-why… I’m just curious and I-I…”

“It’s alright, Dr. Alphys,” Gaster interrupted, clearly amused. “I figured you all would want to know what this means anyways, for one reason or another.”

He turned to the faded words on the walls, the weathered documentation of his past experiments.

“Ahem,” he said, catching the attention of those who had started side-conversations.

“‘Entry Number One. There does not seem to be a way to technologically produce these entries yet, so I unfortunately have to improvise. For those who will read these entries, my name is W.D. Gaster, the current Royal Scientist of the Underground. Much of the population has migrated to what the King has dubbed “New Home.” However, the path from Hotland to New Home is very treacherous, and there’s not much light in the new capital, or anywhere else in the Underground for that matter. Therefore, the King has assigned me the task of creating a machine that will simultaneously create electricity and act as a passageway to New Home. I have already built this lab with the help of a few friends. The blueprints for the rest have been drawn and I have already hired lab assistants. This will certainly be an interesting project.’”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence after Gaster had finished reading his first entry. “So you’re the one built this big hunk of metal?” Undyne questioned with a raised eyebrow, breaking the quiet atmosphere.

“With the erasure of one’s existence comes the erasure of their accomplishments,” Gaster replied with a hint of sorrow in his tone. “Some know the CORE was built by the old Royal Scientist, and only the smallest fraction of those monsters actually know my name. Most, I’ve noticed, simply just assume Dr. Alphys built it or that it was always there.”

He remembered very clearly looking into the timelines, watching his legacy fade to dust, watching it morph into something unrecognizable, intoxicated by muddy fables told by those who barely knew him.

He remembered very clearly seeing the years drag on, seeing the inevitable change that he couldn’t stop. He remembered very clearly watching his accommodating imprint turn into a nasty scar.

“It’s so strange. Grillbz isn’t as, well, you know, fiery as he used to be.”

How could I have done such a thing?

“I know you’re not the sage you pretend to be, Gaster.”

If I had just been more careful…

“Sans… When will Father return from his business trip? It’s been forever!”

“Dunno, Pap. Dad’s pretty smart and useful in his field. It could be a while.”

...none of this would’ve happened…

“Beware of the man who speaks in hands.”

This is all…

“What kind of loser with that many years of experience just falls into his own machine? Talk about pathetic!”

...my…

“That asshole mad scientist? I’m glad that guy died. He was messing around with things he had no business messing around with.”

...fault.

“Citizens of the Underground, we have terrible news to share with you today. Dr. Wing Din Gaster, the Royal Scientist, fell into one of his machines… We cannot find any trace of him. The kingdom has lost a great mind and a great soul. Help us mourn the memory of Dr. Gaster, for even though we don’t know what exactly happened, one thing is for certain:

He is dead.”

Gaster felt a pang in his heart, like his fragile soul fragment was ripping into multiple pieces, like his last grasp on this reality was destroying itself. Time was running out. How could he have done such a thing? How could he have set up such evil, such suffering? Breathing grew difficult. Time was running out. Precious seconds were slipping away, for in those seconds, the single slash of a knife could doom the universe as he knew it. Time was running out; the darkness was growing. Time was running out. How could he have let things escalate this far? Time was running out.

Time was running out, and the shadows just kept whispering the faint reminder that there was nothing he could do.

Gaster was met with darkness when he returned to consciousness. He was met with the concerned cries of his family and friends.

“Wake up,” they said. “Wake up!” And he wanted to desperately, but his limbs did not comply.

History is doomed to repeat itself in many ways, he thought, thinking back to how it was troubling for him to stand upon rewriting his existence in the Ruins. But this was different. He could actually move his limbs then, if barely, but now he felt like he was in a state of paralysis.

“Let’s just find the next entry,” he heard Sans say clearly though the muffled calls. “Shouldn’t be that hard.”

Everyone’s pleas disappeared abruptly. “Without that guy’s guidance?! Are you insane?! We’ll get lost down here!” came the voice of Undyne. “No one else can read those random symbols, anyways.”

“We don’t haveta read ‘em, just haveta find ‘em. It’s like a puzzle.”

Only Frisk and I, Gaster thought, and Sans himself know that’s not true.

“A puzzle?! Wowie! I love puzzles!” exclaimed Papyrus.

“What about Dr. Gaster?” Toriel asked. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“Alright. Then we won’t.”

Suddenly, something grasped hold of Gaster’s weakened soul fragment. There was only light pressure applied, but his soul still ached nonetheless. He felt the ground disappear beneath him.

What was going on? He tried to piece together things — sort the rational thoughts from his cluttered mind — when something clicked. Sans’ powers. Sans had the power to grasp onto his soul to move him around safely.

He has the potential to, at least, he thought upon remembering the countless battles his son fought against Chara, using that same magic to destroy her again and again.

Sans is my son. He doesn’t hold hatred for me as he does for Chara, he reassured himself, though somehow, even with the prior knowledge and memories, there was a lingering fear that in someway that statement wasn’t true.

As the others chattered on through their exploration of the CORE lab, Gaster was left to wonder what had happened. Why couldn’t he move? Why were his eyes only met with a pitch black hue? What caused him to be in this state?

The entry, we were reading the entry…. My very first entry, he recollected as he heard Sans reading Entry Number Nine to himself.

“Exit isn’t that way,” Sans spoke. “That will lead us to a fiery pit of doom.”

“And how do you know that?” Undyne asked skeptically.

“Guess it just boils down to instinct.”

“Sans! If you’re going to model after the Great Papyrus and lead everyone, than you can’t tell your ridiculous puns!” Papyrus exclaimed.

“Sorry, Pap. Didn’t mean to fire you up.”

Though the puns seemed to be an annoyance to some, they apparently trusted him, Gaster noted, as he heard no screams of someone being burned alive, which was always a nice thing to note.

He knew what Sans had mentioned: a small door that when opened revealed the intense magma that lay deep below Hotland’s surface, which was used to rid of scrap metal, but he couldn’t focus his attention on those things. Not now.

I read the entry aloud, and Undyne asked, well I suppose more of stated that I was the one who built the CORE, he thought as the others continued their journey. But why did the answer to that one questioned cause such self-deprecating thoughts? Why did those thoughts cause him to actually lose consciousness?

He thought and he thought and he thought. Why? The answer didn’t come to him. His thoughts were almost too cluttered to make any sense of anything, anyways. Eventually, hours into the search for the exit, the search for an answer, he let his mind wonder.

Luckily, where it wandered caused an epiphany.

The pressure on his soul, his weak, broken soul. It grew. For what reason, he wasn’t certain. Maybe Sans came in contact with one of his machines and wanted to make sure history didn’t repeat. Whatever happened, the action caused him to think.

The only reason I’m able to exist here is because of determination. My half of a soul alone would not be able to handle creating such energy and supplying magic. Loud conversing surfaced around him. Reminiscing about the change of my legacy must have subconsciously lowered my determination. My soul couldn’t create enough energy to keep me conscious, thus, I lost that consciousness.

As if finding the answer caused it, the world started to fade back into view. He could hear the faint sounds of city noises, smell the faint odor of light smog. In front of him was a small house just outside of the capital of New Home. Luxurious for one person alone, just right for a small family.

They had found an exit: the passageway Gaster created from the CORE lab to his house, his own little shortcut. That’s what the chatter was about.

It looked more rundown after being unoccupied for an unfathomable amount of time, but one word still came to mind when he saw the place, even if it wasn’t the same as when he last saw it.

Home.

It was his first home outside of college. It was where he worked on many experiments after his hours at the lab in the castle were done. It was where he brought Sans and Papyrus after meeting them for the first time. It was where he raised them as his own. It was where he last saw his old friend before unintentionally entering the Void.

Home.

Likely out of his own surprise and nostalgia, Sans suddenly let go of Gaster’s soul, causing him to drop to the ground. But Gaster paid no mind to it. He simply stood back up, and walked over to Sans and Papyrus. He uttered one simple sentence.

“We’re home, boys.”

After everyone got over the initial shock of Gaster’s return to consciousness (and stopped barraging him with questions, which he simply answered, “It’s just my weak soul. Nothing disastrous.”), Gaster lead everyone inside. He was smiling, grinning in fact. He couldn’t wait to see his old house again. He wanted to relive old memories, momentarily go back to a time where he didn’t have to worry about saving the universe, or a soulless sadistic child killing his family and friends.

Plus, his notes and experiments on soul energy were done at the lab in his house, so that could help along the way. If he needed anything right now, it was a boost in determination.

That’s exactly what he didn’t get when he opened the door.

Chapter Text

His house. What had happened to his house?

Everything was ruined. Everything. It was all destroyed and he knew who had destroyed it. The couch, the carpet, the walls, the pictures… everything looked like it had been penetrated with a knife. Artifacts were broken, furniture was destroyed, messages were carved into the walls.

Out of all the possibilities, all of the variations to this situation, this was the one he needed least. His soul was already weakened to the point where he couldn’t maintain consciousness; at this rate, he would never be able to stop Chara. This world would disappear, this reality, his reality would be gone.

...

...No. He couldn’t let that happen. He knew that wasn’t an option. Somehow, someway he had to do this. Even if it meant…

“Father, you really are horrible at home decor!”

Gaster turned around to Papyrus, giving him a sympathetic smile. Of course he didn’t remember this house very well. He hardly had memories here, if any at all. He was too young to form those memories.

He was too young to remember first catching a glimpse of the house, to remember Sans’ young voice pleading for help, to remember any sort of memory with him in it. He only knew what Sans and Toriel had told him. Perhaps it was for the best; he wasn’t suffering.

Everyone started to walk around, looking at the damage, leaving Gaster still gazing at everything in the doorway. His eyes became fixed to the walls, the messages. He squinted at the unclear lines, walking closer to make sense of them.

“You can’t hide forever.”

The message was most definitely left by Chara; he figured that out quickly. Peculiar… How was she able to get in his house?

That’s not important at the moment, Gaster thought.

The former Royal Scientist noticed that there seemed to be an abundance of messages carved all over the walls in the broken house. He followed them curiously, reading them as he went along.

“I know you’ll try to save him.”

“But as soon as I get rid of you.”

“ He’ll be the first to go.”

“ Then next will be his ex-wife.”

“Then the numbskull Head of the Royal Guard and her stupid scientist girlfriend.”

“Then all that will be left will be your sons.”

“I’ll be GLAD to see all of them turned to dust.”

“I’ll be in the castle waiting for you.”

He furrowed his brow. So that’s what she had been planning all this time as he journeyed her all the way from the Ruins. That’s where it all had to end; the castle in New Home, his old workplace.

The location wasn’t too far away. They were in the outskirts of New Home already, and the walk to the castle wouldn’t take that long…

Was he ready for this? Low determination, half a soul, hardly any hope left…

He put his punctured hands in front of his chest, focusing his energy on a certain task. Under his closed eye sockets, his pupils glew a bright mauve color. After a few seconds, something then appeared in the palm of his hands. His soul.

Typically, monster souls were white, upside down hearts, but this was not the case with Gaster’s soul. He only had half of his soul, and the other half was partly filled with some mauve substance. His determination. That same substance seemed to be stitching the two parts together, causing for a very bizarre looking soul. With this, he had to manage to conjure the magic to defeat a soulless child whose empty vessel was filled entirely with determination.

“Havin’ trouble?”

Gaster turned around, seeing his son Sans right behind him. He immediately allowed his soul to enter his body again.

“What? Did you see a monster or somethin’?” Sans said, jokingly looking around before turning back to his father. He was wearing his usual grin, which wildly contradicted Gaster’s panicked expression. “I’m just messin’ around. Already saw your soul, anyways.”

“I’m fine, Sans,” Gaster stated immediately, lying right through his teeth. The last thing he needed was for the others to worry, for them to lose as much hope as he had in these short few hours.

“Don’t think that broken soul of yours signifies that you’re ‘fine,’” Sans replied. He glanced up at the wall for a second, reading the last message Chara left before the carvings stopped. “Don’t see how anyone could be fine in times like these.”

Sans proceeded to put his hands in front of his chest like Gaster had just a few short moments ago, which summoned his soul forth. Though he had a full soul, it appeared that there were stitches of blue and red holding it together. Natural and artificial determination.

“Yanno, they say monsters with stitched souls are the strongest, no matter what their stats may be,” he said, looking down at the little white heart.

“I don’t believe in legends, Sans,” Gaster responded, a small amount of irritation in his tone of voice.

“Well, then take evidence from a primary source.”

Gaster looked at his son, both curiosity and confusion written on his face. Sans hid his soul from sight, putting it back where it belonged before explaining.

“Think about it. There's been hundreds of thousands of timelines, and only a handful of ’em have actually been Frisk as Frisk, not killin’ anyone. The others were when Chara was in control, killin’ everyone. At the end of the road, in the judgement hall, she always met me. Mr. Funny Guy, only one health point, the easiest monster to beat. Yet, I killed her countless times, causing her to reset over ‘n’ over ‘n’ over again. How did a guy so weak manage to defeat a ruthless megalomaniac like her?”

Sans smirked as Gaster’s face brightened in realization. “Hey, if I can defeat her a hundred times over, you can surely defeat her once, no matter what variables there may be.”

Gaster didn’t necessarily believe what Sans was trying to say, but it sparked an idea in his head. A plan started to formulate.

He looked around at his broken house; the torn furniture, the broken glass, the vandalized walls. It was all her doing. She needed to be put in her place, but he couldn’t do it alone, or as straightforward as his son had. No, he needed a completely different approach. A plan was starting to come together, and surely with it they’d be able to stop Chara from destroying everything.

Eventually, Gaster managed to gather everyone in the den of his old house, informing everyone of his new plan to stop Chara. He elaborated on every last detail: what they were to do when they entered the castle, what to do when they encountered certain people, how they were handle mishaps and mistakes of all kinds, ranging from misreading notes to death.

Not everyone was content with the plan. Toriel, of course, had an objection to violence being used, and Alphys was afraid she’d just completely mess up everything.

“At this point, there’s not much more we can do,” Gaster had said somewhat woefully. Whether it be reluctantly or not, everyone agreed to reenact the series of events that were described.

Thus, they made their way to the castle. Going there seemed to be second nature to Undyne and Gaster, who were the ones leading the group. Both Toriel and Alphys vaguely remembered the way, while Frisk wished they could forget the path.

It wasn’t a long walk, not in reality, but with the dangerous task ahead, that journey might as well have lasted a lifetime. No one was sure the plan would even work, not even Gaster, but they all knew it was worth a shot. It was worth more than that; the entire reality of their universe was at stake!

There it was, right in front of them. The final destination. The castle. After seeing the likes of those who held or previously held high status, the group was let in immediately. (Frisk was conveniently hid in the middle of everyone so the guards wouldn’t question why they had a human with them).

The place had not changed a bit since Gaster had been there last all those timelines ago. Bright yellow stone and pillars, purple tapestries hanging from the walls, and golden buttercups everywhere.

It wasn’t very surprising to Gaster that one of those buttercups had the ability to communicate.

Flowey appeared in a small vase on a shelf near the former Royal Scientist’s old lab. This time, he looked more scared than he had the previous times. There was no anger, just a look of pure fear.

“So, you’re really going to do it, old man?” the flower spoke. Maybe it was supposed to sound threatening, condescending even, but it just came out soundlike like a nervous ramble. “Y-You’re actually going to risk your life just to save people that don’t even care about you?”

There was a silence as Gaster pried open the long-shut door.

“Just turn back now. It’ll save everyone a lot of trouble. I’ve told you before! All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable.”

“Delaying a harsh inevitable future is better than not doing anything to stop such a fate,” Gaster replied, watching Alphys nervously enter his lab. “Grab as many chemicals as you can find. I’ll tell you if they’re necessary or not,” he said, turning his attention to the timid lizard. “There are three chemicals you must find, however. Dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. They are essential for what you must do.”

She nodded and began to search through his lab, Sans following to lend a hand.

Flowey narrowed his eyes, not sure of what Gaster was planning exactly. “Save the universe, huh?” the flower said spitefully, causing the scientific skeleton to turn around to face him once more. “All you want is the glory. That’s how brainiacs like you work, Gaster. That’s how they’ve always been! You’re just like the others! Predictable.”

But the scientist wasn’t paying attention to his taunts, his pitiful last attempts to get him to let Chara destroy the world for good. He had turned back around, sorting through chemicals that Alphys and Sans were bringing him, saying which ones were needed and which ones weren’t. (“Sans, I know you know that’s sulfuric acid. Put it back.”)

Why wasn’t he listening?! Surely someone as intelligent as him would know this was all for nothing, that he was fighting a lost cause…

“Asriel…?” The flower turned at mention of his na— his old name. He looked to see Toriel looked up apprehensively at him.

Resentment. In any normal timeline (eh, as normal as genocidal timelines could get), that’s what he would have felt upon seeing… her. Could he really even call her his mother anymore? She didn’t know what he’d done. All of his hatred, his sadism, his sins.

For some reason, however, this was different. He didn’t know why — maybe Gaster explained it earlier, but he didn’t remember — but he felt… something hysterical. Not in the malevolent way, however. It was new and he didn’t know if he liked it or not.

Variables. Soul remembrance.

She took a breath. “Asriel… I know what you have done—” Why did that sentence fill him with so much… anxiety? “—and I’m not proud.”

Why was her disappointment having such an adverse affect on him? He just kept growing more and more… anxious.

“But I am not mad.”

...What?

“Dr. Gaster has explained much to me on our journey here from the Ruins. I understand why you did what you’ve done in the past. Trust Dr. Gaster, Dr. Alphys, Sans… Trust me, my child. Trust what we are doing is right.”

Tears seemed to be brimming at her eyes. Why did that make him feel so… so… bad?

“My child, do you trust me?”

“...What’re you going to do?” Flowey asked slowly.

“Oh, the specifics are far too complex for a little old lady like me to understand, but what I do know is that due to Dr. Gaster’s research, he can give you a soul. You will no longer have to suffer through this in your soulless vessel,” Toriel explained, gaining a weak smile.

Flowey immediately started to protest, saying that it was impossible, that he couldn’t possibly do that, but she cut him off with a single sentence. “I know you don’t think you need anyone, Asriel, but please, just this once, trust us.”

He was silent, noticing that it was much more quiet in the corridor. He looked around Toriel, seeing Papyrus curiously studying the viles of synthetics and Frisk helping Alphys carry those many viles she got from Gaster’s lab. Gaster, Sans, and Undyne were nowhere to be found.

“Where’d Gaster go?” Flowey asked, an unintended sharpness in his tone appearing.

“He went with Sans and Undyne to go… ah, deal with Chara, but that has nothing to do with what I said. I said for you to trust us. Dr. Gaster knows what he’s doing, and Dr. Alphys is heeding his instructions. Please, Asriel, I will ask you once again. Do you trust us?” she asked.

He looked around nervously. Oh, Chara was surely going to kill them all. He knew it. He saw her kill them many times over in countless timelines… Gaster didn’t know what he was doing. He thought he knew what he was doing, but in all actuality he was just leading everyone to certain death. Why couldn’t they see that?

But maybe the old fool was right. Maybe this timeline was going to be different.

Flowey sighed.

“...I trust you.”

Chapter Text

This was it. This was the end. This was where he had to face the one who caused all the resets, the one who put everyone in this dire situation. There was no turning back now.

He was filled with determination.

Dr. W. D. Gaster took a step into the Judgement Hall. Light from the city crept through the high windows, making the many columns leave shadows. He could see small flurries of dust particles floating around.

Years ago, he had known this place simply as “the corridor to the throne room” in his time working at the castle, but after watching the timelines, he felt that “the Judgement Hall” was a more suitable name. Especially considering what was about to happen.

She wouldn't reset. She wouldn’t be able to reset. The world wouldn't end. It couldn’t. Or perhaps it would; Gaster had no way of knowing. What was about to take place in this long corridor would decide the fate of everyone and everything in the Underground, as it had in countless timelines. Yet he wasn't scared. He was hopeful, prepared, confident. He had to be, for her determination outnumbered his by a landslide. He knew she would stop at nothing to destroy this place.

But he would stop at nothing to save it.

He took another step into the golden corridor. Then another. And another. The sound of his shoes against the checkered tile echoed. Standing in the middle of the long, long hallway, he peered into the shadows near the door of the throne room. At first, she wasn’t visible, hidden in the darkness, but her figure became present quickly.

If he hadn’t known any better, he would’ve mistaken her for Frisk. The two looked very similar. Their haircuts were similar, they had similar facial and body structure, and they were of roughly the same height.

However, Gaster had learned to tell the difference between someone with a soul and a vessel without one timelines ago. Black. There was always black somewhere. Typically, it was to show corrupted dust, but with her, it was something different. And as she walked into the light, it became very prominent. Fiddling with her knife, he saw that under her skin, the veins were coated black.

There was a certain philosophy to it, he supposed. She spoke, breathed, moved. She lived. Yet, she was dead. Her heart was cold. The blood in her veins was clotted by a horrid, oozing black substance that only magnified her atrocious desires. She appeared living, but inside a cold truth presented itself, the truth that her appearance of sentience was simply a mask to a soullessness that lead to her being, in a sense, dead.

Thus, the skeleton found himself merely meters away from Chara, the one who caused this entire mess in the first place. The girl who caused the resets, the essence of a child that mercilessly killed everyone over and over again. A creepily wide grin spread across her face. She was staring at him with blood red eyes.

“I can see behind your schtick, you know,” she said condescendingly, skillfully twirling her knife between her fingers. Her tone of voice was enough to send chills through Gaster’s bones. “Asriel’s told me what you’ve done. Killing monsters for research. Just to know how to create a single weak soul.” He visibly cringed at the accusation, only causing her grin to somehow grow even wider. “And somehow, I’m the vile one in this room.”

Seeing the scientist’s hesitancy to respond, she continued. “They all have so much faith in you, you know. It’s ironic. They carry all that trust for a man who does nothing but lie. You lied to your sons, to new friends, old colleagues. Even Asriel trusts you! Such a pity that they’ll only know the truth after your dust is on the floor in front of them.”

He stared at her eyes, her dead eyes that lead to nowhere, and sighed. “It’s ironic, you say?” he said calmly, interrupting her manipulative monologue. He had regained a solemn composure somehow. “While I, like most others, am in no haste to admit my wrongdoings, I will say that such events did occur. And like most others, I regret it deeply. I find it ironic, however, that someone like you, who has slaughtered countless monsters countless times, still has the respect to call your old childhood friend by his true name, instead of his, ahem, chosen one.”

Immediately, her smug grin had faded into a pouting frown. She slowly moved closer to Gaster, and as she did so, he focused his attention to the knife grasped firmly in her hand.

The world around them faded to darkness, Chara’s agitated face was outlined perfectly in the heightened contrast of the battle scene. She had pulled him into a fight.

“You’re not worthy to save this world,” she spat childishly. “You’ve spent timeline after timeline in that Void without so much as a single attempt to leave until now. Do you really think this place is going to be saved by such a coward?”

“Personally, for a ‘coward,’ I believe this will work rather well in my favor,” he simply responded, which only irritated her more.

The former Royal Scientist moved backwards a few steps so Chara wouldn’t have the liberty of just simply stab him.

“It’s redundant to mock me for my past when the number of casualties you’ve caused is far, far larger. It's ridiculous to find irony in my lies when I've told so little, when you've told so many. I can see through your manipulation, Chara. I've been able to see through it far before I exited the Void.

“This is all senseless.”

He stretched out his right arm, a small, indescribable light filling the hole in his palm. Chara stared at him for a second, confused, for the light grew and continued to grow until Gaster was completely immersed in it. She held her weapon tighter, stepping back as the strange light started to grow brighter and brighter. Behind the luminance, the soulless child saw something strange. She couldn’t describe what it was. It was simply just… strange.

“You made a mistake by thinking you’d be able to simply turn me to dust,” Gaster spoke, his voice booming throughout the Judgement Hall. The light suddenly turned mauve, quickly spreading throughout the corridor. “You want to reset? To turn this world to dust? To fight? So be it then. Let us fight.”

Chara suddenly couldn’t see anymore. The light was far too bright to do so. She shielded her eyes as the light emitted a blast that shook the entire castle.

Darkness started to take over once again, the battle scene returning, but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t feel the same. It couldn’t be the same. She could hardly describe it. It was just strange… weird…

Impossible, almost.

A small little voice appeared inside Chara’s mind. It was faint, almost nonexistent, hard to hear over her cluttered thoughts and an eerie static that played throughout the area. She knew what it was. She had heard it over and over and over in numerous battles. It narrated her thoughts and actions as well as those of her opponent, offering some sort of flavor text to the battle. Sometimes, it articulated her thoughts better than she could.

“Time seems to be simultaneously speeding up, slowing down, and stopping.”

“Space is breaking all around you. You’ve lost all sense of direction.”

“Lights rush past at incomprehensibly fast speeds.”

“An uncomfortable static fills the room.”

“A strange monster emerges from the shadows.”

Chara spun her head to a certain light that appeared. She recognized the figure immediately. It was the damn scientist, though something, like everything else, seemed off. The cracks in his skull were wider, the holes in his hands larger. Over all, he looked like he was melting, glitching. Somehow, he was more threatening this way.

His head was pounding. The shadows cut into his deepest scars, the darkness around drained his energy. Everything drained his energy. Dematerializing, creating such an illusion for a battle… But he had to be strong, act strong, keep it together. She couldn’t know he was weakened. He just had to stay strong until Sans and Undyne arrived… He had to stick to the plan.

“WElCoMe tO ThE vOiD,” he said, causing her face to drop. Somehow, she understood. “haVe YoU evER wOnDEreD WhAt thIs pLAcE waS liKe? AN eTernAL PrISoN wItH no UNiVersAl lAWs of ScIENce to GuIDE iT?

“if yOu WISh tO FigHT, We wILl do So iN mY DOMaiN. ThIS woN’T bE yoUr tyPiCAl baTtLe, i GuarAnTEE yoU.”

That small, frail voice entered his head as well, because surprisingly, instead of attacking on her first turn, Chara had chosen to check him, to act.

“W.D. Gaster. Attack, 6666. Defense, 6666. A mad scientist who yearns for the past.”

Her face scrunched up into a sort of scowl after hearing his stats, making it obvious she wanted to attack him, but her turn was over. Gaster took a deep breath. Now, it was his.

“yOU havE bEEN enJoYINg yoUrseLf, haVEn’T yoU?” he spoke, his voice nearly matching the static noise all around the room. He internally winced at it. It reminded him of his first days in the Void, hopelessly watching timelines while trying to piece himself together. All of this reminded him of then.

“ReSetTINg thIs mEAgeR PLACe MAnY tiMEs OVer JUSt TO aCHIeve aLl tHE pOsSiBle enDiNGS, to kiLL evERyoNe For YoUr perSonAl AMUseMEnt.”

He used a fraction of the small amount of power he clung onto to conjure an attack, a weapon that bore his name, one Chara had seen countless times. Roughly five gaster blasters, with their bony faces and all, surrounded Chara. She smirked, having seen and dodged the attack many times before.

“it’S siCKEnIng.”

The skulls opened, all blasting relatively narrow beams in her direction. Gaster watched solemnly as she skillfully dodged all of them as if they were lazers.

She looked at him smugly, thinking this would all be easy. She would just have to treat it like Sans’s battle, right? Ha. The soulless child did not take into account how things would be different from that time. Much, much different.

Glitching.

With one small glitch, she was sent right in the line of fire.

“Gah!” she screamed, watching her own health bar drain from the meek thirty it was at to twenty-two.

Twenty-two out of twenty health. She underestimated him so much as to not kill any other monsters in this timeline, thinking she’d only need the twenty health points she was given in the Ruins. Then again, that attack was supposed to yield far larger damage than what was done, for some strange reason…

No, it wasn’t a strange reason at all, he realized once the gaster blasters had returned to his side, once his turn was over. Monsters’ magic was tied to their souls; he remembered such a fact from his research. The more murderous their intentions, the more damage they would inflict on their opponent.

Perhaps it was the journey, or something subconscious that he couldn’t quite decode, but he apparently felt more mercy for her than intended.

...But did she deserve that mercy? Killing an uncountable amount of monsters over the course of who knows how long wasn’t exactly the merit of a good person. The same could go for him, he supposed, given the monsters he had killed. Even then, the public didn’t attempt assassination. They gave him mercy.

But Chara’s murders had different intentions, different numbers. Despite it all, however, the more the thought on the subject, the more he thought she should be spared. But that would mean creating an entirely new plan… That was something he didn’t exactly have time for, considering…

Swing.

A direct hit. He looked at his glitching, unstable body to see a distinctive scar in the middle of his torso. He had allowed Chara to stab him, or whatever he was at the moment. However, Gaster was not surprised.

Though his crazed illusion of reality stayed put, he felt himself slipping away. He didn’t dare to even look at Chara, to let her know he acknowledged her victory, but he knew she had a complacent smirk on her face.

A small swirl of blue light showed behind the soulless child. From the shortcut appeared a short, stocky skeleton and a fish-like monster dressed from shoulder to toe in armour. It didn’t take long for the two to notice what was going on.

“Go ahead, do what you must. I can handle her, stall for time. Trust me.”

Chara turned around at the sound of the portal disappearing, grinning sadistically at them, seeing their terrified expressions.

“Look at your saviour now,” she taunted, but her voice seemed far away, as if it were fading.

“Heh, heh… Guess you really like to cut right to the chase, huh kid?” Sans said, attempting to lift his face into a neutral expression. His voice too seemed distant, his gaze never meeting Gaster’s.

“You… You killed him. You little… Why, you little hell spawn!” Undyne summoned one of her spears, an angry, vengeful look on her face.

She slung her arm back and prepared to throw it at the child with no tactic whatsoever, but Chara calmly raised her hand.

“It would be disrespectful to fight when a monster has, aha, fallen down,” she said, causing Undyne to begrudgingly put away her spear.

Gaster knew his time was running out. The stitches could no longer hold together his weak soul. They were unraveling.

He hoped his plan would work, that he would not actually die in this process. But it was all experimental. Everything was. He did not know. He could not know. No would could know everything.

He lost feeling in his hand, which was clenched to the gash across his chest. He looked down at it curiously, watching as it turned to dust. He watched the rest of his arm disappear as well, his other hand, his other arm… the rest of his body…

He had turned to dust.

W.D. Gaster, the one who had journeyed all the way from the Void to save this universe, had crumbled into nothingness. He was dead, and it was all Chara’s fault. There was no stopping her now. To her, this would just become another genocidal timeline, the genocidal timeline where everything would finally be put to an end, a permanent way to erase this world.

They watched as the scientist’s original soul fragment appeared above his dust. It floated carelessly, just for a second, until, like the souls of other Boss Monsters, it appeared to break into hundreds of tiny pieces and disappeared.

All according to plan.

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But...

Sans stared where the soul had floated for the longest amount of time. He stared at the dust that lay on whatever seemed to be the ground in this strange place. That dust… He couldn’t help but remember some vague flashback from an old nightmare… an old timeline that he knew wasn’t that long ago.

“W-Well, that’s not what I expected… But… St… Still! I believe in you! You can do a little better! Even if you don’t think so!”

She killed him. She killed him, and yet she was laughing. Why did that surprise him? He fought her before. Sometimes she spent the whole battle taunting him, others she was dead silent.

But this wasn’t like the other timelines. He knew what was going to happen. She would fight them to the death. Even with only twenty-two health, with the “practice” she had in the other timelines, somehow she’d find a way to defeat them… She’d kill the others. She’d backtrack and kill everyone. Then she’d reset, because then, her work would really be done.

Unless…

“Guessin’ you’re not gonna stop there,” Sans stated, causing her to stop laughing maniacally and turn around to face him. She grinned sadistically. “Guess he was the only monster you hadn’t had the pleasure of killing, huh? Some sort of rare monster that only appeared when you went way too far.”

“She went way too far a long time ago,” Undyne growled. She pushed her red hair out of her face, once more summoning a fluorescent blue spear. She grabbed it with her right hand, pressing it against her arm, and pointed it at Chara. “You went too far when you killed your first innocent creature! I don’t know everything you’ve done, but what you just did… killing him … is enough to show me who you really are!”

She wound her arm, releasing the spear. It sped in Chara’s direction, and she readied her knife, cockily placing it in front of her, ready to slice it in half.

Only, she never had that opportunity. Without warning, her knife disappeared from her hands right as the spear reached her. She was hit straight in the chest, a black substance oozing from the wound. She grimaced at the two, seeing a cyan light around the knife that was floating just above her head.

Fifteen health points.

...it...

“That’s unfair!” she exclaimed angrily, trying to jump up to grab her knife. Sans was putting it up higher and higher, watching the scene with an amused grin. It was much like watching a dog jumping to get a toy. “You can’t do that!”

“Says who?” Sans taunted.

“Says me!”

“Without a weapon, you’re pretty much powerless, buddy,” he responded. “Though, I guess if you really wan’it…” He started to slowly lower the knife from it’s high elevation. “You can have it.” He dropped the knife right in front of her, a grin still on his face.

“Sans, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Undyne yelled at him, turning in his direction swiftly, a look of ire written on her face. “You just gave the enemy an advantage!”

Chara started to chuckle hysterically to herself, picking up the knife. Undyne continued to glare at Sans while also getting in a battle stance, summoning a spear, preparing for the worst. Sans simply stood there, his hands in his pockets, doing nothing as Chara began to charge towards them.

“Yeah, it’s an advantage all right,” he said, slowly taking his hand out of his pocket and putting it in the air. His left eye gained a cyan iris; a fiery light of the same color appeared around his hand. “An advantage for us.”

The knife was suddenly engulfed in a blue flame just as the child was within feet of the two monsters. With her tight hold on the weapon, she was sent flying upwards. In mid air, the knife left Chara’s hand and stabbed her straight in the back. Since the knife was coated in blue, the soulless vessel was drained of health points after that one, seemingly insignificant attack.

It continued to drain and drain like she had seen it before. Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven… Her health continued to deplete on it’s own. Ten, nine, eight, seven… She couldn’t believe she was tricked so easily by that damn comedian. Six, five, four, three, two…

One. She had one health point left.

...refused.

“Ugh…” she said, slamming onto the ground.

She thought that was it, that even if the impact didn’t kill her one of them surely would, but there was no further damage. She jerked the knife out of her back, finding it coated in the black substance.

She needed to find her save point in this hell… If she saved, then she would have full health back. Then she could finally show these two the reality of her. She could show them the child who butchered hundreds of people thousands of times and felt nothing. No guilt, no sadness, no remorse. Absolutely nothing. And then, she could that same save point to reset everything.

And there it was, her save file. Right over the scientist’s dust.

She quickly rushed in its direction, trying to get to it before the other two could do anything to her. She was running after the star-like figure, the small object that allowed her to control this world. It brought her this far, to the brink of the end, and it was going to cause such. Termination of this timeline, the world. All of it was right in front of her.

She stretched her arms outwards, ready to be filled with determination, health, power…

Until she stopped.

Out of all the strangeness of this room, all the weird, abnormal, unordinary, odd, mysterious things… This had the be the most peculiar. Something was resonating within the dust. It looked like it was shaking, glowing… but it had to be a glitch. He was dead. She killed him. Nothing too out of the ordinary could be happening to the dust… right? It was just the weird room being weird.

Yet it continued to shake. It shook and glew and started to float off what seemed to be the ground. Each individual speck of the old man’s dust started to float off the ground, placing themselves quickly in seemingly random spots in the air. It took more than a few minutes for anyone in the room to realize what was going on as the dust specks continued to stick in a certain shape. The shape of Gaster’s body.

Once they were done assembling, a bright white upside down heart appeared. A full, healthy, powerful soul.

The dust combined with the soul began to glow. Brighter, brighter, yet brighter, until it eventually died down, allowing everyone to see what had become of it.

It was W.D. Gaster. No longer dead, no longer dust. His skull was unscathed, both of his eye sockets completely open and alert. He yielded a light grey turtleneck, a professional black jacket, dark grey pants, black dress shoes, and a lab coat. A metal name tag was pinned to the coat.

He smirked at Chara, holding the save point in his hands. “That is enough,” he spoke.

With the simple motion of his hand, the entire illusion of the Void was torn apart, leaving the four spread out across the Judgement Hall.

“B-But… But I killed you! I won! I was about to destroy these nuts and then reset! I’m the one who’s victorious here! You can’t be alive! You’re dead! I killed you!” Chara argued childishly, taking steps back in disbelief, shaking her head.

“You can’t kill an illusion,” Gaster said simply. “You see, the only way I can exist in the Void, even in just a masterful illusion of such, is if I am in a different state of being. Simulating a higher dimension meant I had to use magic to exist in such simulation. Energy, a different state of being. When I created the illusion, I managed to focus my soul energy on twisting all my atoms into massless particles. And it worked. You did not even destroy the particles, just an illusion. My particles turned into the dust in reaction to your fatal swing of the knife. My true soul, my unfull, weak soul was actually recombined with it’s other half in this wild process. It’s a complicated method to explain, filled with magic and photons and quarks and a little bit of determination here and there, but I assure you, I am as alive as I appear. Atoms, mass and all.”

Chara had a crazed grin on her face, speaking words in between hysteric giggles. “S-So this was all just an illusion? Some sort of trick to stop me?” she asked, still stepping back away from the man.

“Science is the greatest magic trick,” Gaster responded.

He noticed that she was too busy trying to reason through his return to notice that she was about to walk straight into Sans and Undyne. “Sans, Undyne,” he said with a nod, “as we discussed.”

Before Chara could step any further back, her back hit something. She turned around to see a tight weaving of spears and bones that she could hardly see through. It was all around her, and she didn’t know what to do. She tried poking and slashing the interior with her knife, but to no avail. She was trapped.

“Will you two go down to the lab and see how the others are faring with Mr. Dreemurr? I have a few words I’d like to say to Chara,” Gaster said, giving a thankful nod to the two.

“Got’cha, Dad,” Sans said, one hand pointing at him with a lazy finger gun.

“Yes, sir,” Undyne said respectfully, still in awe about the situation. She couldn’t wait to tell Alphys! Thus, the two left the Judgement Hall, leaving only Gaster and Chara.

“You know as well as I that the actions you’ve done are immoral,” Gaster started, earning an annoyed grumble from Chara. “And I know that with your soulless mind and tainted determination I will not be able to change your ways. I know that your hatred of humanity is what started this all. I’ve seen the timelines. Every single one with you in it. Despite all of that, despite the fact that you ‘killed’ me and despite the fact that you’ve almost caused the end of the world, I am willing to give you a final chance.”

“I’m not going to change, no matter how many chances you give me,” she responded from within the cage.

“Perhaps not like this. But remember that vain research you mentioned? The one where I killed all those monsters, just to find out how to make a monster soul? You won’t be powerful enough to reset, and you won’t hold such intense hatred. You will simply just exist happily with a monster soul, like you once did before all of this,” Gaster stated. “I am willing to give you another chance, Chara.”

“Ha! For a man who created that stupid trickery, you think I’m just going to believe you?” she retorted.

“The mercy I offer is not my own,” Gaster stated immediately afterwards. “It is the mercy of your mother. Your adoptive mother, Toriel. It is the mercy of Asriel Dreemurr, the mercy of Asgore. The mercy of all of those who cared about you. I am willing to give you one final chance. Either accept the offer, or accept death.”

“I would rather die than trust you.”

Gaster sighed. “...Then so be it.”

He put up his hand — no holes in it whatsoever — summoning a single gaster blaster. He extended his arm towards the cage, and a small sound was heard as a beam left the blaster and hit the spears and bones, incinerating them.

Gone with the cage, the only thing that remained of Chara was a black, empty heart that was used to substitute for her missing soul. But even then, it shattered. Gaster still held onto her save file, so she would not be able to return.

He stared at where the cage used to be, where she used to be. It was just another person he had killed. 

Chapter Text

He gave her a chance. He tried to offer her mercy, but she refused. In hindsight, he really didn’t have a choice. After all she had done, after all she planned to do... why did he feel guilty about this?

He stared at the tiles where the cage once stood, where Chara last stood. For some strange reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off that one spot. A heart wrenching feeling plagued his soul.

Was that the wrong decision? Was killing her truly the only way to stop everything? ...Should he have just let her live regardless of her reluctancy? Wouldn’t she just have reset anyways? Surely she would still have the most determination, even with a monster soul. No matter what he tried to do or think to rationalize the situation, he could not shake off that uneasy feeling.

He, unlike Frisk, could not save everyone.

Gaster sighed. “At least the potential of destruction and further suffering has ceased,” he muttered aloud to himself.

He finally teared his eyes away from the checkered tiles, slowly turning away and exiting the Judgement Hall.

Above anything, he supposed he was very proud of himself for executing his plan so perfectly. He could finally look down at his hands again and not see through the holes in his palms;  he could see everything clearly from both eye sockets again.

His mind went back to those few moments ago. Of course, he didn’t tell Sans or Undyne the fact he himself would be an illusion; their emotions needed to be genuine for Chara to believe he had actually died. But that split second of horror on Sans’ face… The concern he saw in Undyne’s eyes… It still sent chills down his spine.

At least it was over… All the horrid things were over with. The last things left to do were to give Asriel back his soul, find Asgore and inform him on the situation, break the barrier, and leave the Underground…

Then everyone would finally have their happy ending again. No more resets, no more deaths… just happily living on the surface as they did in the first timeline. Then, Chara’s game would finally be over.

He walked through the castle corridors back to the unclosed door of his laboratory. Outside, he saw Undyne passionately explaining what happened in the Judgement Hall to Papyrus, and Sans telling the gist of it to Frisk and Toriel.

He looked at the scene happily. No one was dead. No one was hurt. It took a moment for them to notice his presence over the chattering and rattling noises from inside the lab.

Sans was the first to look up. “Oh, hey Dad. Think you’re just in time. Alphys just about has things figured out,” he said nonchalantly, which caused the others to turn their heads as well.

Toriel’s eyes widened when she saw Gaster. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw him unscathed. That’s often how she identified him in her last memories with him; his melted, half open eye, the scars etched into his skull, the holes in his palms… They were gone now. It was odd, yet it was refreshing. Seeing a clearly mentally and physically scarred man look like his old self was a nice change from the bizarre, mysterious things they had been seeing. She smiled at him.

“Father! Undyne was just telling me about what happened with the human!” Papyrus announced upon seeing his dad. Gaster grew weary for a split second (how much had Undyne told him?) before his son continued, “Using an illusion to trick them… How devious! It must’ve been the perfect puzzle!” The energetic skeleton make exaggerated motions while giving his father a proud look. Gaster smiled.

“Hey, wise guy, you took care of the ‘human’, didn’t you?” Undyne asked, leaning against the wall. Her cladded armour clanged against the marble, the sound reverberating every time she moved.

“Yes,” Gaster answered simply, almost as nonchalantly as Sans, refusing to elaborate further.

Her last words kept ringing in his head — “I would rather die than trust you” — and he didn’t need anymore flashbacks to that moment of fate. He just wanted that moment to stay in the past.

Just as Undyne raised an eyebrow, opening her mouth to question him, there was a bright light that shone from the laboratory. It was bright, though not quite as bright as the light Gaster emitted when creating the Void illusion.

Immediately, Gaster spun around on his heel, dashing to the nearby doorway to his lab. That light... it meant Alphys got the machine to work.

He looked straight at the scene, squinting due to the luminosity. Though, through his squinted eyes, he could see shadows of the two in the room. Alphys was nervously standing by the machine, presumably looking at the other shadow… At first, it was simply Flowey in a vase, but has a bright upside down heart appeared through the light, such shadow began to morph into something else, a new form. Or, rather, an old form.

As the light began to dim, the details became clear. The others began to crowd around Gaster. Just a few feet away on the broken pieces of an old vase lay a small goat-like monster. He slowly picked himself up off the ground, dusting off his striped sweater. As he looked around, his face grew more and more apprehensive.

“Asriel,” Toriel said softly, growing increasingly concerned as her son began to scurry to his feet. He grew more and more fearful, backing up and accidentally knocking over lots of papers and random gadgets Gaster had lying around. Eventually he hid behind a dusty cabinet, trying not to look at any of the others.

Gaster stepped into his lab, slowly making his way over to the frightened boy. Alphys looked at him from beside the machine nervously. “W-Why is he like th-that? D-Did I do something w-wrong?” she asked.

“You did perfectly fine, Dr. Alphys,” Gaster assured, his eyes darting over to the current Royal Scientist. “I understand why he’s like this, and it’s not your fault. If you would all just give me a moment.”

Alphys quickly walked out of the room, her footsteps echoing in the hall as she paced back and forth, trying to calm herself down. Undyne quickly followed her. Sans, realizing the situation, managed to distract Papyrus and leave as well. Toriel was the last to leave, as she stood in the doorway with a concerned expression for a while before reluctantly deciding Gaster knew what he was doing. With the others out of the way, Gaster made his final few steps over towards Asriel.

The child looked away from the skeleton when he approached. “Of all people, I thought you would realize why you shouldn’t have done this to me,” he muttered, only barely audible.

“What? You mean giving you a second chance? Why do you propose that decision was so wrong?” Gaster responded calmly, kneeling down so he could meet eye to eye with the scared child.

Asriel seemed to cower away when Gaster got closer. “You’ve seen what I’ve done,” he said, his voice shaking. “You know who I’ve hurt. You know I’m just going to hurt more people. I’m just going to hurt them all over again…” He looked up, finally looking Gaster in the eye. There were a few tears going down the young boy’s cheeks. “...I’m just going to hurt you even more, just like I did in the past. And there’s no excuse for it.”

“You will not hurt anyone, Asriel. You only hurt people when you lost your ability to love,” Gaster stated, a small smile on his face. “You have regained that ability. You have nothing to worry about.”

Asriel mumbled something to himself, something incoherent that Gaster couldn’t understand. The two stayed in silence for a few long moments.

“But… after all I’ve done… will they forgive me?” the young boy eventually uttered. “I-I mean, I understand if they can’t forgive me… I’ve done so many horrible things… I’ve hurt so many people. Friends, family, bystanders...” He trailed off, turning his head to the dusty wall of the abandoned lab.

“I assure you, Asriel, they will come to an understanding sooner or later,” Gaster said. “You know Frisk is a very forgiving person. They forgave you once before and I’m more than certain they will not hesitate to do it again. I have explained everything to Toriel, though I’m sure she’ll just be happy you’re, ah, ‘yourself’ again. Alphys was the one who put you in such a situation, so given her nature I believe it’s reasonable to expect profuse apologizing. And I have already forgiven you, my dear boy.” He paused to think for a moment.

In that brief moment of serenity, Asriel piped up, “But what about Sans…? And Undyne?”

“Ah,” Gaster said, furrowing his brow in thought. What about them? “They may take a bit longer to let the past timelines go. Both can be rather stubborn. However, most of their torment was caused by Chara. I’m sure they will come to an understanding soon.”

Another eerie pause. In seeing that Asriel still looked timid, the former Royal Scientist quickly added, “Though, who really knows? This is all conjecture. They may forgive you a lot quicker than I assume. I am known to have inaccurate predictions from time to time.

“This is a new beginning, Prince Asriel. We now live in a place with that will soon regain hope. You are apart of that new hope that has been brought to this kingdom. Learn from the past, but to not dwell on it. Nothing gets solved by letting anxieties overrule you. Do you think this reality would be secure if I hadn’t pushed away my fears and left the Void?”

“Bu-But you’re a really cool scientist!” Asriel interjected almost immediately. Gaster smiled at his sudden positive change in energy (and the compliment). “You make these awesome machines that help everyone in the Underground! I… I just end up hurting everyone…”

“You’re assuming I’ve never been afraid?” Gaster asked curiously.

“Well, no,” Asriel answered sheepishly, “I know you’ve been afraid about a lot of things.”

“And yet, I never let that stop me. You shouldn’t let it stop you either. Despite what you may think, in this form, you are not going to hurt anyone. The very fact that you’re afraid of hurting anyone is proof of that! You have the ability to feel again, to love again. Asriel, you have nothing to fear. Believe me at least when I say that.”

Asriel sat silently, blankly staring at Gaster, trying to recall a memory to explain how this man was so persuasive. Could he even remember anything from so many timelines ago? Surely he could… The genocide timelines tended to mush together considering their destructive similarities. Whether it was to satisfy curiosity or to calm himself down, he concentrated diligently on trying to remember something, anything, from before his dust was scattered across the garden.

Perhaps it was because he was in the lab himself, or maybe it was because of pure determination, but a certain memory flooded to the front of his mind. He was accompanying his parents to check on the Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster's progress on the CORE. He was told not to go near the edges, that it was dangerous, and he obeyed. Who would want to fall into a fiery pit of death, anyways?

Asriel watched from afar as big chunks of metal were combined and nailed and wedged together. He was mesmerized by everything. The warm, heated atmosphere of the surrounding area, the joyful chatting of his parents and Dr. Gaster, the clanging and clunking and other various machinery noises that rang throughout the broken section of Hotland.

After who knows how long (it could have been hours or minutes, he couldn’t really decipher it) Toriel called out, “Asriel! It’s time to leave!”

The young boy stood up, but instead of walking towards his parents, he pointed towards the unfinished contraption. “Can’t we at least wait until Dr. Gaster finishes his machine?” he begged.

Gaster gave a small chuckle. “Prince Asriel, the CORE won’t be finished for a while,” he stated from afar, simultaneously making sure everything was going well with the construction. “At best, it will be completed in a month or two. That’s quite a long time to wait.”

“But this thing is so cool! I want to see it once it’s finished! I’d wait for a year if I had to!” Asriel stated somewhat defiantly.

“We will bring you back to see the CORE once it’s completed,” Asgore assured his son.

With that, Asriel reluctantly returned to the Ruins with his parents, bidding goodbye to Dr. Gaster, who had too said his farewells, but also added something different, which seemed more directed towards himself than anyone,

“Ah, if only I had a child.”

Asriel chuckled to himself at the irony of the memory, happy from what it contained and that he was able to recall it. As he grew aware of the room around him once more, he realized there were arms wrapped around him. It didn’t take long for him to realize it was his mother, Toriel. The warmth of the hug was everything he needed right now.

He took a deep breath, followed Gaster’s advice and (even though he was still rather scared) slowly hugged her back. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“You, my child, have nothing to apologize for,” she gently responded, holding him closer. “Curiosity with no sense of morality to guide it is dangerous, I’m aware, but none of it was your fault. Everything is alright now.” She let go of the hug and smiled at her son. “We will have time for a more proper reunion later, but, there is one last person we need to inform about everything.”

She stood up, dusting herself off. It was then he noticed Gaster was not in the room anymore.

Asriel knew who “he” was immediately. Chara mentioned him in her carvings, in her monologues against Gaster. The thought of him... his mother mentioning him brought a realization to mind.

“So,” he said slowly, “guess you and Dad are… finished now, huh?”

Toriel’s face suddenly turned shocked, before eventually growing solemn. She didn’t answer, just simply started to make her way out of the lab.

“You forgave me, Mom. You forgave me and I did much worse things than he did… ...He was scared. I was scared. He grew angry. I grew angry. We both thought that the end justified the means. What he did may not have been the best way to deal with the barrier… Killing all those humans… But in so many timelines I killed everyone. I killed you. I killed him… Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys… everyone! How come then you can forgive me, but not him?” he pressed.

“...What you and Asgore have done are entirely different situations,” she responded sternly, continuing to walk out of the lab and into the corridor.

“Exactly!” Asriel exclaimed instantly afterwards, following his mother. “And my situation was much worse than his! It can’t be that hard—”

“Asriel, drop it.”

“—to forgive him! He was just trying his best to give people in the Underground hope! He knows his mistakes! Timeline after timeline I’ve seen it! He misses you! He misses me! Can’t you at least try—”

“Asriel.”

“—to understand where he’s coming from?! I don’t want to have this form knowing you two haven’t at least tried to mend things...”

“Asriel, I said drop it,” Toriel warned, her tone harsh.

He finally obeyed and looked to the floor. The two finally met the others in the Judgement Hall after a short, awkward journey filled with silence.

Everyone was chatting away rather quietly until they noticed the two. Gaster smiled, stepping forward so he could address the small group, the ones who he had travelled to this castle with (for varying amounts of time). It didn’t take long for them to turn their heads in his direction once he cleared his throat. Once he knew everybody’s eyes were on him, he uttered only two words,

“It’s time.”

Undyne had taken off her armour, leaving it behind a column in the Judgement Hall. She thought it would be a bit too suspicious if she just walked in there as if she had just returned from a battle. With Alphys, she stood outside the Throne Room.

Gaster had explained that the two of them were to go in first to try and explain everything to him, given the fact that they were around him more in recent times. He would be used to seeing them; it wouldn’t be a big shock to try and comprehend the situation and the return and sudden appearance of so many people.

“Ready, Alphys?” Undyne asked, turning to her apprehensive friend with a smile. Of course, she had her own fears about the situation, but she would never let them get in her way! She would never let them stop her! What kind of heroine would do that?

“I guess… I-I mean, y-yeah! Let’s d-do it!” Alphys responded with a small, timid smile.

“That’s the spirit!” Undyne praised, earning a smile from Alphys.

With that, the head of the Royal Guard opened the doors to the Throne Room, revealing a large Boss monster, the king, humming to himself as he tended to the flowers that grew all around. The room was rather dimly lit, the only light present shining through a window with the Delta Rune on it. The King seemed to lift his head slightly upon hearing the doors forcefully slam against the walls.

“Just a moment,” Asgore said in a gruff yet kind voice, “I’ve almost finished watering these flowers.”

After a few moments, he set down the watering can and turned around. “Oh! Undyne, Dr. Alphys, what a surprise! Howdy!” He smiled, walking towards them. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“O-Oh, it’s a long story, actually,” Alphys said, her voice trailing off.

“Go on, then! I certainly have the time!” Asgore encouraged.

“I- uhm… Well, it starts off with, uh, the l-late Dr. W.D. Gaster…”

After hearing Gaster’s name, Asgore immediately grew both interested and a bit less cheerful, focusing on the story itself. Alphys started explaining at first, having seen the first part of the journey from her cameras and heard what had happened directly from Gaster himself. She told about the Void, the resets…

“No… no, this is not good. I can’t let this happen…”

...the genocide timelines, Chara, Flowey the Flower…

“Do you really think you can save everyone? … You are an idiot.”

...Gaster seeing both Toriel and Frisk…

“If I may ask, how did you return? You fell into your own invention, did you not? The current Royal Scientist, Dr. Alphys, said that you were likely scattered across time and space.”

...seeing both his sons again…

“...How? How are you… here?”

“My apologies, foreign-speaking stranger! It appears that I, the Great Papyrus, have accidentally mistaken you for someone else!”

...catching up with old friends…

“You have some explainin’ to do, W.”

…meeting and gathering some new ones…

“Ngah! All of this is just fake, nerdy crap!”

“N-No… N-N-No way! I… I thought that my c-cameras were hijacked… but… b-but y-you’re actually…”

“Isn’t this just fabulous? Darlings, why don’t you introduce yourselves? The Underground is dying to know about this clique!”

…and that’s when Undyne took over. By this point, Asgore looked beyond shocked, and Undyne’s passionately storytelling didn’t exactly help. In fact, it only made everything seem more real, made things more confusing. She started from the elevator incident in the CORE…

“You really thought you could save them all, old man! You really did! How cute.”

...going to Gaster’s underground lab, as well as his soul mayhem…

“With the erasure of one’s existence comes the erasure of their accomplishments.”

...visiting the man’s old house, which had been torn apart…

“Father, you really are horrible at home decor!”

...the genius illusion that he had managed to create…

“Heh, heh… Guess you really like to cut to the chase, huh kid?”

“You… You killed him. You little… Why, you little hell spawn!”

...to the death of Chara…

“Then so be it.”

...and why they were in the Throne Room at that very moment.

“Asriel...”

Asgore gave them a blank stare as they retold their journey. It was mind blowing, mind boggling, hard to comprehend. His mind was all over the place.

The former Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster, who was thought to be dead was technically never even dead and came back to save the world from ending. His wife, Toriel, and his newly revived (or newly reformed, rather) son were in this very castle, along with Gaster himself and Sans and Papyrus and even a human. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know whether to be excited or scared or happy or all of those emotions at once.

“I… I see,” was the first thing he managed to utter once the story was completed. He walked over to his throne, sitting down upon it. He put two fingers on his temple, leaning against the armrest. He needed to think. He needed time to think all this through…

Though, as fate would have it, that is exactly what he did not get.

“Undyne! Alphys! What is taking so long?! Surely our journey doesn’t take that long to explain!” the voice of Papyrus the skeleton exclaimed, clearly agitated.

“It takes only so long to explain to an outsider, but more than twice as long to understand,” replied someone who Asgore hadn’t heard in a long while. Somehow, the timespan seemed even longer than he felt it should… His eyes widened once he recognized the voice of the old Royal Scientist… his old friend.

Asgore pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why not just send them all in? I can’t possibly be more overwhelmed,” he stated somewhat reluctantly, not exactly in the most serious tone.

What a horrible mistake.

First, in came Sans and Papyrus. He had seen the two while walking through the Underground, and had even talked to them before. Their appearance wasn’t necessarily startling (unless one were to count Papyrus’ refusal to use a quiet voice and Sans’ eerily familiar puns). The brothers quickly started chatting with Undyne and Alphys, leaving Asgore to look in the doorway once again.

There he stood. The former Royal Scientist, the man who spoke in hands, W.D. Gaster. Unscathed, not dead. It was definitely a sight for sore eyes. The king stood from his throne, weakly smiling, slowly making movements towards his old friend. But then he stopped in his tracks. Someone else… two others… had walked up beside the skeleton.

“T-Tori! Asriel!” he exclaimed in shock. “You… I… You’re back,” he added softly, still stunned from all the craziness.

To his surprise, Asriel immediately ran up to him and hugged him tightly. His son… He could not believe his eyes. It was actually his son! The only thing stopping him from picking up the boy and swinging him around was the fact that he was so stunned and shell shocked by everything. And it didn’t help the matter when Toriel walked over and glanced at him with a somehow sternly happy expression.

“So many things have happened as I journeyed here from the Ruins, though I trust you’ve been told about such things,” she said. “I… I will attempt to understand why you have done the things you have in the past. While your reaction to Asriel’s death was rash, so was mine to your declaration of war against the humans. But, as Dr. Gaster has proved, the past can be mended if you try hard enough.” Eventually, Asriel pulled his mother into the hug as well, which she accepted.

Asgore didn’t quite know if what was going on was a dream or reality. He was overwhelmed, indeed, but he was happy.

Chapter Text

Finally. Everything was as it should be… peaceful.

Near the steps of the castle stood Asgore, dressed in formal attire that was all straightened and cleaned. He was in front of a camera, which currently had a piece of paper taped to the lens that had the words “Please Stand By for an Announcement from King Asgore” written on it.

Alphys had the idea of getting Asgore to announce the returns of everyone as well as a few other things on television — with the relatively large population, it would be the best way to tell such things.

Everyone had helped prepare in some form or fashion. Electrical and technological necessities were handled by both Sans and Alphys, with Gaster lending a hand whenever he could, though he mostly just observed. He had not seen such complex devices in person before going into Alphys’ lab for the first time. Frisk and Asriel both helped Toriel make Asgore look presentable, like a king, and Undyne and Papyrus hauled the supplies from Alphys’ small, unused laboratory in the castle, which acted more as a storage room than a ground for scientific research.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Asgore asked Alphys, who was behind the camera. She looked up from a laptop that was set on a small table beside the other equipment.

“Oh! D-Don't worry, King Asgore, I've gotten everything set up!” Alphys reassured as confidently as she could. She looked back down at the laptop, double-checking everything as she continued. “This live broadcast should be transmitted to every electronic device in the Underground. Phones, TVs, computers… After that news about it will l-likely be published in newspapers and on websites. I'm c-certain it will reach everyone!” She began to fiddle with a few things very carefully around the camera and laptop to make sure things were in order.

Undyne, who had been standing near Papyrus and Frisk out of the way, walked over and nonchalantly grabbed a small gadget from the table, going over to Asgore with it. “You're gonna need this, big guy,” she said, pinning the gadget, a microphone, to the collar of Asgore’s suit jacket. “Otherwise no one will be able to hear ya.” The fish gave him a toothy grin, which was thanked by a warm smile. She then stepped out of the way.

“Alright,” Sans said, looking at the laptop screen, “I think everything’s up ‘n’ runnin’. You ready, Asgore? Remember everything you haveta say?”

“I believe so,” Asgore responded, straightening his posture.

“Then,” Sans said, lazily ripping the paper of the lens, “we’re live.”

The camera zoomed in on Asgore, who was looking into the camera per the instruction of Alphys. It would be as if he were looking every citizen in the eye, she said. He wouldn't know of such things; Toriel had always been the more technical one.

“Howdy! Thank all of you for being patient as this broadcast was being set up,” he said, and Sans nodded as a sign that he was doing good, to keep going. “I have a few very important announcements that everyone in the Underground must know at once…

“As some may already know, Queen Toriel and the former Royal Scientist Dr. W.D. Gaster have returned, both taking on their former duties once more.”

With the camera, Alphys zoomed out slightly, allowing the entire Underground to see Toriel and Gaster, who were both now standing near the king.

“The Queen has a few new policies that will be put into place, all of which will be discussed more in depth on a later date. The one policy she has asked me to introduce here is one regarding humans. If a human falls into the Underground, they are to be treated not as enemies—” With the camera pointed at Toriel, the broadcast was zoomed out even more to show Frisk standing to the left of her, smiling. “—but as friends. After all, as I have learned, you cannot blame the fear and wrongdoings of a small group of people on an entire race, much less an individual.”

Asgore gave a deep chuckle, allowing Alphys good timing to zoom in again and turn the camera back towards him. “Dr. Gaster will be working with Dr. Alphys to find a way to break the barrier without taking any more human lives. With that, I am also very excited to announce that since his return, Dr. Gaster has brought about the return of my son, Prince Asriel.”

Once again, Alphys zoomed out, this time with the camera pointed at Gaster, showing that Asriel was happily bouncing on the balls of his feet beside the skeleton.

“Citizens of the Underground, today marks a new era for monsters. A new era full of kindness, acceptance, and hope. Light of day, I assure you, is not far. Peace between humans and monsters is finally beginning, which will allow us all to co-exist on the surface. Thank you.”

As Alphys ended the broadcast, beginning to terminate the programs she had opened, Sans gave a thumbs up to show that things were no longer streaming.

“W-Was that okay? Did it look okay? I couldn’t really tell… I-I was too focused on not screwing up…” Alphys asked as she closed the laptop, looking over at Sans and Undyne, who were the only ones who watched the entire broadcast.

“Looked great,” was Sans’ minimalistic reply.

“Great? That was amazing!” Undyne exclaimed energetically, nearly pushing Sans over (“Hey!” he exclaimed, annoyed) in order to get to Alphys. “Your camerawork and Asgore’s speech… There won’t be a person in the Underground who isn’t left baffled by the news!” She gave Alphys a hard pat on the back, causing the Royal Scientist to blush and have to reach over to get her glasses off the ground.

Gaster smiled at everything going on around him. Everyone was finally getting along. Asriel ran over to Asgore, complimenting his speech, and Toriel walked over and gave a small commendation as well. Papyrus and Sans were talking to Frisk; Papyrus had complimented their “professional standing skills.” Undyne was talking to Alphys, reassuring her that her technological skills were perfect for the broadcast. Everything was finally at peace, and there was a newfound hope. A new era for both monsters and (unbeknownst to them) humans.

Everyone was filled with hope. Hope that the barrier would break. Hope that relations between humans would strengthen. Hope that they would finally be free after being trapped in the Underground for generations. All because of the small journey of one person.

Since that journey, life in the Underground had improved, whether it be by new policies Toriel had put into place or small acts of kindness monsters performed just for the heck of it, out of hope. Thanks to some of these small actions, Gaster’s house had completely been remodeled with the help of his sons and an old friend.

“I could have done this myself. None of you owe me anything. If anything, I owe all of you. Especially you, Grillby,” Gaster stated, looking at Sans and Grillby as they stood in front of the newly refinished house. The exterior looked practically the same, only polished. The same could not be said for the interior, which had to be completely renovated as a result of Chara’s destruction.

Grillby looked over in Gaster’s direction, simply giving a shrug. “Hey, you saved the universe. This was the least we could do,” he responded.

The former Royal scientist still found it strange that he seemed so reserved; it wasn’t something he was used to. Perhaps he will open up with time, or I will simply adapt, he thought. Sans, on the other hand, just thought it was strange the fire elemental said so many words in a row without pausing.

“No, no. I don’t wish to call myself a savior. I am a humble man, and calling myself that seems to imply I was only person that had a hand in saving this sacred timeline, which is in no way the truth,” Gaster explained stubbornly.

“Well, you’ve earned the right to be a little less humble. None of us would be here if you weren’t,” Sans said.

“And I would not be here if you weren’t, Sans. Or Toriel. Or Papyrus. Alphys. Undyne. Even Asriel. You all helped in some form or fashion on the journey, and without that, I would have failed this timeline a long time ago.”

“Heh. Well, fair enough, I guess.”

“Father! Sans! Grillby! I have expertly made pasta prepared for consumption!!” Papyrus exclaimed from inside the house. The sound of clattering and clashing kitchenware followed the statement, causing the three outside to cringe.

“..Eh, hope you weren’t too attached to that kitchen, Dad.”

When there was time, Papyrus and Sans would always made a trip down to New Home to visit their father to attempt to make up for lost time. And when they visited, Frisk was always with them. They were now a resident of the brothers’ home, and Gaster was always happy to see them.

“What? Nah, kid, I think it’d be better if you stayed roommates with Pap,” Sans said in reply to Frisk asking if they could sleep in Sans’ room. They pouted, crossing their arms and huffing overdramatically. “C’mon, you don’t wanna sleep in my room, anyways. ‘T’s messy and all I got to sleep on is a worn mattress.” They still protested. “Hey, let’s compromise, alright? We can both sleep out here on the couch. That okay?” Frisk nodded.

A good portion of the time, however, both Sans and Gaster were at the castle, working on ways to break the barrier. When they went to work, though, Gaster quickly noticed that Toriel had not only reclaimed her title and duties as Queen, but she also lived in the castle with Asgore and Asriel as well.

“I can’t truly understand him if we only see one another every once and awhile, hm?” Toriel stated. She and Gaster were eating lunch together while Sans and Alphys tinkered around a bit more.

“Do you enjoy living here?” Gaster asked.

“Well, of course! I am warming up to Asgore again after past events, and having Asriel around makes things so much easier. It’s almost as if he is the adult between us both when it comes to our conflicting emotions towards each other. But he is such a little bundle of joy as he’s always been.” The last statement seemed a bit forced, which didn’t go unnoticed by Gaster.

“Certainly after what the poor boy’s been through, he wouldn’t be as he’s always been,” the scientist pressed nonchalantly, taking a bite of his sandwich.

Toriel sighed, looking down blankly at her home made meal. “He gets nightmares often,” she said quietly. “He wakes up crying. When Asgore and I make it to his room he’s just muttering how he doesn’t want to be ‘Flowey’ anymore, how he continually kills monsters in his dreams. The poor boy just wants to escape from his mistakes that he could hardly control.” She sighed. “At least… At least it’s getting better. They aren’t as frequent, and I believe Asgore helps him calm down considerably.”

Gaster couldn’t exactly blame him for having nightmares, especially after what he had been through. The skeleton himself had had similar nightmares, his mind plaguing him with visuals of Chara killing Sans and Papyrus right in front of him, just as she had promised to do in the elevator. There were visuals of himself killing monsters for research... It wasn't an easy thing to subconsciously push away.

“Have you attempted to get him some sort of doctor? Consular? Psychiatrist? Therapist?”

“He refuses to have one, for whatever reason.”

“Well, I do hope he gets better.”

“I do too.”

Typically, when Gaster, Alphys, and Sans were at work, they were undisturbed unless one of them left the door open accidentally (which was almost always Sans). Though, occasionally, Undyne or Toriel would stop by.

“Hey, nerds!” Undyne shouted upon entering the lab.

She expected to see only Gaster and Alphys, but when Sans showed to be tinkering with the Artificial Soul machine, the energetic woman was left frozen in her tracks for a few moments. She stared blankly at the short skeleton until he turned to her.

Sans smirked. “What, surprised my brain can do something else other than create great puns for every situation?” he asked, cockiness notable in his tone.

Regaining her composure, Undyne cracked a smirk on her face as well. “No. I’m surprised to see you actually working. Every time I’ve checked your sentry stations you’ve been asleep,” she retorted, crossing her arms.

“That’s because here I actually have something to do,” Sans replied calmly, looking back at the Artificial Soul machine. “You’d be surprised what I can do when I actually care.”

Undyne frowned slightly, then shook her head to wave off the conversation. “Whatever. I just came here to say hi.” She walked over to Alphys and kissed her on the cheek, causing the lizard to turn a bright red. Undyne then grinned, waved, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

“I didn’t know you and Undyne were in a relationship, Dr. Alphys,” Gaster stated with a smile.

“N-Neither did I… She never formally asked me out…”

With everything progressively getting better, there was no way anyone could give up hope. Something disastrous would have to happen before hope began to even drain once more.

Gaster’s lab in the castle had been cleaned, old inventions and projects of his being shoved in the corner to allow for more space. There were four main workspaces: one for Gaster, which had new and old photographs alike all over the walls as well as newspaper clippings; one for Alphys, which was littered with trash and anime merchandise; one for Sans, which had the bare essentials and a taped, small old drawing that had the words “don’t forget” written on the bottom; and one that had the Artificial Soul machine, ready for modifications and tinkering. Little progress had been made in weeks, and whatever progress had been made was because of Sans accidentally cutting a wire. But they refused to give up hope. They had to do this, break the barrier, for the future of humans and monsters.

Gaster stared at the various notes that were scattered around on his desk. Old blueprints, determination results, chemical testing… He studied the pages, trying to draw just one connection that would move this project on further. Was more research needed? Did they need to study the artificial soul more closely? Did he need to redraw the blueprints of the machine and adjust accordingly? He just couldn’t think of what was missing, what he wasn’t getting right. Was this even possible, artificially creating enough monster souls to break the barrier? Would they have to use the human souls?

What wasn’t clicking?

He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Just study them, he told himself calmly. Small realizations are still realizations, helpful roadmarks on the path to an epiphany… He continued to dart his eyes back and forth between the papers,  reading over the words and analyzing the sketches… Something had to come to mind.

The skeleton sighed, turning around in his chair. Perhaps more collaborative works would help them move forward. Alphys knew a lot more about determination, after all, and Sans definitely knew a thing or two about souls and machinery. Gaster scanned the lab…

No one else was there, neither Sans or Alphys. Gaster furrowed his brow in confusion, standing up to search around the room. Was he really focusing on his work for that long? He could’ve sworn he at least heard them in some form or fashion, whether it be by the scratching of a pencil or the creaking of a chair...

THUD.

Gaster jumped, turning his head to the direction of the noise. What on earth was that?!

SLAM.

He opened the door to the lab. The way that noise echoed… It most definitely came from the Judgement Hall.

The skeleton fixed his lab coat, walking out of the laboratory and to the location of the strange noises. Who in this castle would be causing such noises? Asriel is too well behaved, Toriel is a rather quiet monster, Sans…

He froze when he entered the Judgement Hall. Was what was in front of him real? Was it actually happening? He didn’t want to believe it was, if that were true… It didn’t make any sort of sense. Was it caused by being in the Void for so long, perhaps? A side effect of seeing and analyzing so many timelines? He just couldn’t put his finger on it, not that fast. It was so bizarre…

If he were comprehending the situation correctly, it seemed like there was a battle taking place, almost a reenactment of sorts. That wasn’t the confusing part; fights seemed to happen in this hall frequently over the course of many timelines, including this one. The confusing part was who was fighting.

Sans and Frisk.

The two were fighting just like Sans and Chara had in nearly every single genocide timeline. Frisk carried Chara’s malicious smirk. They wore her precious heart-shaped locket, held her knife. Sans appeared as though he were trying to keep a calm composure, but such was failing miserably. He looked angered and upset, beyond angered and upset, and he used his powers to send Frisk hurling into a nearby column, skillfully blasting them with a Gaster Blaster in such a way that the column was hardly harmed.

Frisk had dodged the beam from the Gaster Blaster, quickly running up to Sans as if they hadn’t just been brutally slammed into a column. They slashed their knife, aiming for the skeleton’s chest, but Sans simply stepped aside, causing them to only cut through air.

“You'll keep consuming timelines over and over, until... well. Hey, take it from me, kid. Someday... you gotta learn when to quit,” Sans said, panting slightly, before sending another attack towards Frisk that they skillfully dodged.

Gaster’s brows instinctively furrowed upon hearing his son speak. He kept spitting out the same dialogue that he had heard timeline after timeline, reset after reset. It was almost as if he had been programmed to say it.

But the seemingly rehearsed discourse made Gaster realize something… It was exactly like it had been in every single timeline. He could recall clearly watching nearly that same sequence of events multiple times. This wasn’t reality.

Whatever was happening… It had to be some sort of universal glitch, for that wasn’t really Frisk. That wasn’t really Sans. It was an old, lost version of them that somehow made its way into the current timeline.

There was a horrid noise that brought Gaster’s attention back to the fight, and he hated to say that he immediately recognized it. He hated to say that it was all too familiar. The sound of a knife cutting through bone. Frisk — or some old version of them where they were possessed by Chara — had managed to slit Sans’ chest, ridding of his one health point by a long shot.

Though, after that, both of them seemed to return to their normal selves. Frisk dropped the knife, horrified. Sans looked down at the cut, confused.

“Heh… Thought my dad killed you, you little brat,” Sans said almost alarmingly apathetically.

Then everything just… glitched away before Frisk even had a chance to react to Sans’ words. All of it was simply gone in the blink of an eye. Both of them had disappeared, any damage that had been done to the Judgement Hall during the fight vanished. It was as if it hadn’t even happened.

How odd, Gaster thought. Though he was still mildly confused, he supposed it was reassuring that he was right about one thing: the glitches. Of course, there were small glitches before that didn’t affect anyone, like the “sky” having a glitch or two here and there, and the glitching of the light-like beams that were the timelines in the Void. But this… this was different. This affected people greatly, in strange ways. He had to go back to his lab and record these events immediately.

He turned on his heel to make a small journey back to his lab, only to see a large series of broken colors, just for a split second, before his lab appeared right in front of him. No journey was needed.

Only, it wasn’t the newly refit lab he had accustomed himself to seeing. No, all of his machines were not in the corner; there was just enough room for one workspace, his workspace, though there were others in the lab as well. His old lab assistants. He wanted to look around, ask what was going on, but he couldn’t control his movements or his speech anymore. He was glancing around involuntarily, as if to make sure everything was running smoothly.

He didn’t understand… was this what Sans and Frisk had been through just moments ago? Not being able to control yourself as you reenacted a certain moment in time from a previous timeline? This had to be from a previous timeline, he knew it had to be. With everyone that was in the cramped room and the placement of the machines, this had to be something from many, many timelines ago, before the resets even started. It was his old lab from before he fell in the Void.

Right before he fell into the Void.

“Dr. Gaster, are you certain you know what you’re doing?” one of the lab assistants, a lanky man that insisted on wearing a jacket under his lab coat that had nubs for his ears at the end of the hood, asked. He adjusted his glasses. “This could be dangerous.”

“I am well aware,” Gaster responded, just like he had when this event actually occurred. Though, he didn’t actually consciously say the words. They just came out of his mouth without any warning.

He took a few steps — steps that he did not wish to take — forward towards the machine, his lab assistants moving out of the way. “Just allow me to—”

He was cut short by his own silly mistake. By the clumsy misplacing of a foot, he had fallen into the machine. It was painful, going through the experience again, both mentally and physically. His entire body felt like it was melting, being ripped apart molecule by molecule. In a way, he felt like he was being slashed with a knife just as Sans had, only instead of a single knife, there were a billions of microscopic ones that were a hundred times sharper…

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he could hear their screams again, the belated cries of his lab assistants. Oh, how he hated remembering their screams, much less reliving them as he was now. But as much has he despised it, all he could do was keep falling, keep listening. And that’s what he continued to do. Though, his velocity kept increasing more and more, which only made his experience that much more painful.

Until suddenly, he wasn’t falling anymore.

He was back in the lab, the new lab, where there wasn’t screaming assistants and Void summoning machines. Gaster stayed frozen for a second, not allowing himself to move in any sort of way, for he believed it would not work. Was he still in that glitch?

He began to look around, and the very fact that he could control doing so meant it was over. For that small moment, the glitches had stopped. In their respective workspaces, he saw that Sans and Alphys were back in the lab, still as shell shocked as he was and shaken from likely their own glitches. Sans still had cyan iris from his fight with Frisk (or, more likely, some simulation of Chara), and Alphys was physically shaken.

Sans looked over at Gaster, trying to keep a calm demeanor, and he looked rather calm externally, but Gaster knew his son better than that. No one, not even the comedic skeleton himself, could go through something like that and not be affected.

“I’m guessing you two had a similar experience?” Gaster asked, a certain uneasiness in his voice. “Experiencing something from the past that you wish you’d just forget?”

Alphys was the first to give a response, nodding slightly. “T-Th-The am-malgamations,” was all she said timidly.

Alphys had returned the amalgamations to their families and apologized a few days after Asgore’s broadcast, and the families were very forgiving. They were happy to have their family members back, even if they had become one with other monsters.

Gaster put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He remembered seeing her become more and more reclusive as the timelines went on because of her previous determination experiments, and reliving that same immense guilt and insecurity must’ve taken its toll.

Gaster turned his head towards his son. “Falling into the Void,” he said, which he knew would be interpreted as what he had relived.

“...Fighting that demon,” Sans said somewhat bitterly.

There was a tense silence. No noise from in or outside the lab occurred. “H-How’s that possible? Us reliving p-past events? In s-such a weird way, t-too…” Alphys piped up. “I-I mean, you guys couldn’t really c-control yourselves, c-could you?”

“Well, I think if we could control ourselves it’d be an entirely different situation,” Sans commented, giving a slight shrug.

“I believe other timelines are starting to leak into ours somehow, causing these… ‘glitches,’” Gaster thought aloud, looking at Sans and Alphys.

At first, he thought he was just seeing things due to being stuck in the Void for so long, just a small coincidence, but now... He had to admit, he was slightly confused. This was in no way a coincidence, but what he just stated was simply a theory with no sane way to test it. (After things he had done in the past, he found it better to stay with sane testing.) Perhaps it was because of his very presence in the timeline, or the power he had to conjure to create the illusion when fighting Chara. Or perhaps Chara herself had caused this, actually resetting unbeknownst to everyone else before her death, triggering these glitches of sorts.

But he had no real way of knowing, not now.

Chapter Text

“Mushroom dance, mushroom dance, whatever could it mean?

...

It symbolizes my inner torment, trapped here by my hyphae. My struggle to pull away. My struggle to escape. But alas, to no avail…”

Nothing seemed to be wrong. Not horribly wrong, to Toriel at least. She felt thoroughly adjusted to everything that had taken place over the last several weeks. Moving back into the castle, seeing Asriel everyday like he never died, seeing Asgore everyday like he never killed, supervising all the Royal facilities once again… It was strange at first, definitely awkward at moments, but she had quickly learned to adapt. It was nice. They were finally a family again. Nothing at all around her was out of the ordinary.

So, when Asriel burst into the Throne Room that morning, panicked and frightened, she thought it was simply because of another nightmare. That was what it had always been recently, much to her dismay. That was ordinary.

But that was before she assessed the situation properly. Her eyes widened in shock, maternal instincts kicking in. Her jaw seemed to drop involuntarily; almost immediately she rushed over to her son. Asgore, who was tending to the flowers a few feet away, ran over as well upon hearing the doors slam open and his wife’s hurried footsteps.

“Mom… Dad…” Asriel said tearfully, putting his arms out in front of him. His parents looked down at them and gasped.

There were rips and tears in his pajama shirt with thorns sticking out of them. Small wounds were all over his cheek and even a few places on his arms from where he had presumably accidentally pricked himself with the thorns. Upon closer inspection, Toriel found the thorns stemmed off of vines.

Vines. Why vines, of all things? she thought, before her mind was brought to a bitter realization of sorts, thanks to Gaster’s stories of previous timelines...

“I’ll hold victory in front of you, just within your reach… and then tear it away just before you can grasp it! Over, and over, and over!”

All the poor boy wanted to do was forget. He wanted to forget the pain he had caused in past timelines, to put it all behind him. He wanted to forget that damn weed he once was. He wanted to forget Flowey. But this… oh, this was just going to make things worse…

Everything was finally turning around, she had thought… Everything was finally going to be alright. She wanted to believe everything was going to be alright. Whatever this was, however it came… it meant that a happy ending wasn’t going to come soon.

Asgore stood with his mouth opened for a good few moments, staring at his son’s entrapped arms. Finally, he turned his shocked gaze to Toriel. “I… will go get Dr. Gaster,” he informed, quickly rushing off to go find the Royal Scientist.

Toriel nodded as he left the Throne Room. Asriel whimpered slightly and glanced back down at his arms woefully.

“Don’t worry, Asriel,” Toriel assured calmly, causing her son to look up at her. “Dr. Gaster is a smart man. You know this. He should be able to figure out what’s going on.”

“You mean… none of you have a clue as to what’s going on?”

Toriel gave an exasperated look to the three scientists, the only three she trusted to have some small idea as to what this situation was. She had hoped that at least one of them, that at least Dr. Gaster knew what was happening, but alas, none of them did.

Sans, with his messily thrown on lab coat replacing his typical fluffy-collared jacket, stood almost sheepishly and gave a shrug. Alphys, who seemed oddly shaken up, gave the meek response of, “M-M-Maybe it’s a glitch or s-something…”

“A… glitch you say? What do you mean?” Asgore asked, both out of curiosity and in the hopes that it could give at least an explanation to the strange vines around Asriel’s arms.

Both Sans and Alphys turned to Gaster for an explanation, but he seemed to be paying little to no attention to Toriel’s questions. He was kneeling down, examining Asriel’s entangled arms very closely.

“It is interesting,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Asriel eyed him strangely, as if he had grown two extra heads. The man was talking to himself, after all, and in such a vague way. “Very interesting indeed…”

The scientist paused for a second to think before looking up at the child. “Prince Asriel, have you had any… strange nightmares? Anything at all that didn’t seem to recur, but still left a lasting imprint in your mind?” he asked slowly.

The Prince hesitated. “...No, sir… When I have nightmares, everything just… repeats itself… over, and over, and over…” Asriel responded, looking to the side and trailing off. “It’s bad things from other timelines… Bad things that… that I did…” Tears appeared to brim his eyes. He closed his eyes tightly so the tears didn’t fall.

“Bad things that Flowey did,” Gaster corrected immediately, standing upright. “You and Flowey are not the same person, and what he did has nothing to do with you now.” He adjusted his lab coat, dusting it off briefly.

“It was still my mind,” Asriel countered a little too fast, throwing off everyone in the room. It wasn’t like him too so hastily shoot back a response, in such a tone… It almost seemed more like... “It… It was still my dust on that flower! …So, it was still me.”

“It was a corrupted, soulless mind so different from yours that it at least deserves the right to be called something different than you,” Gaster replied sternly, narrowing his eyes at the young boy. He sighed. “That mind may still hold your memories, but upon losing your soul, you lose yourself.”

“Ha, and what would you know about that?” Asriel’s face seemed to become disfigured, just for a second, before it warped into a scowl. No one seemed to notice this but Gaster, who had raised his brow.

Toriel’s face grew disappointed and stern, Asgore simply grew even more concerned and confused. Sans continued to smile, as if he actually had a guess as to what was going on, and Alphys stood by timidly, not wanting to believe what she was thinking. That sentence was so out of character for Asriel. He would never say anything of the sort, and certainly not to Gaster. It was almost like...

“You never even lost your entire soul! You have no idea what it’s like! You just have stupid facts and figures, no experiences.”

...almost like...

...like Flowey.

“Asriel Dreemurr!” Toriel exclaimed in a horrified voice. Asriel blinked a few times, looking at everyone. His personality changed back to normal almost as quickly as it changed before. “You will not speak to Dr. Gaster in that way! Do you understand?” Asriel instantly cringed at his mother’s shrill, nodding.

“I-I’m sorry, Dr. Gaster… I don’t even know why I said those things,” Asriel apologized sheepishly after receiving a pointed look from the Queen. His voice seemed strained; he was scared and confused. Why did he say that? It was so rude, so much more like Flowey than himself… …Was he becoming Flowey again…?

The loose ends were finally tying themselves together in Gaster’s mind. The vines that were wrapped around his arms, the small second of disfiguration, him acting so much like his soulless counterpart… How could it not have come to mind before? Alphys was right; all of this must have been apart of a strange glitch.

“It’s quite alright, Prince Asriel. I know you didn’t mean them.”

He gave a reassuring smile to the Prince before turning to the King and Queen. “I have both good and bad news,” he started, causing the two the perk up in curiosity. “The good news; I know what’s causing Asriel’s strange behaviour and why there are vines wrapped around his arms. I’ve been calling them ‘glitches.’ I believe they are old timelines somehow seeping into our own. All of us—” he gestured to himself, Sans, and Alphys “—have experienced these glitches, though in a different way. We disappeared from our current locations to somewhere else, reenacting something horrid from another timeline that we, in Sans’s words, just want to forget. We couldn’t control our actions, and that’s likely what happened to Prince Asriel when he spat at me. He couldn’t control his actions. The vines around his arms is likely a representation of Flowey, something he wants to forget. However, this is all conjecture.”

Both Toriel and Asgore nodded slightly, understanding the situation to varying degrees. They paused for a moment to comprehend. “And... the bad news?” Toriel asked gingerly.

“Ah, that would be—”

Just in the middle of his sentence, he saw it right in front of him. A glitch. Both Asriel and Asgore were covered in the broken colors for the smallest fraction of time, the same broken colors that Gaster saw just before he experienced his glitch. The colors seemed to be layered over them, making them appear almost two dimensional before they disappeared.

Toriel gasped, her hand immediately flying to her mouth. “Is this… Is this a glitch?” she asked quickly, frightened and confused.

“That’d be it,” Sans replied in a surprisingly solemn tone.

Panic soon showed evident on Toriel’s face. “Where did they go?! What are they going to do?!” she exclaimed, worried.

Gaster’s thoughts were racing at this point. Where did they go? What were they going to reenact? He pondered this quickly, knowing Toriel would not want to be left without an answer for too long.

Since this was from a past timeline… What did Flowey and Asgore do? How did they interact? If he wasn’t mistaken, almost every time it was at the barrier, and due to all the genocide timelines, it almost always ended…

Everything in his world seemed to pause.

It almost always ended in Asgore’s death.

“Follow me,” the scientist said, rushing through the corridor.

Thoughts of all kind were tearing at his mind. Should he have told them to follow? Surely they would have anyways… But that didn’t matter nearly as much now. If Asriel, acting out Flowey’s actions from a previous timeline, was going to kill Asgore, and he turned to dust… Would he glitch back to life? Would he stay dust, stay dead? Or would something even more bizarre happen? He didn’t know, and the only way to know would be to observe.

He dashed through corridors and past Royal workers as fast as his old bones would take him. He had no clue when in time the glitch would start, or how long it would last. He just needed to get to the barrier. That’s all he was focused on; that was all he needed to be focused on. He rushed through the Judgement Hall, he avoided the nicely kept flowers in the Throne Room, he went through the doorway to where the glitch was likely occurring.

His suspicions were proven correct.

A strange light filled the room, giving it an eerie feel. Twilight was shining through the barrier, the same way it did the countless timelines before. Toriel and Alphys ran up behind Gaster, watching the glitch unfold.

Frisk, or at least it looked like Frisk, swung their knife a final time, causing Asgore’s health to deplete to nearly nothing, relatively speaking. The Great King fell, now kneeling on one knee and clutching his chest with his right hand. His trident lay abandoned on the ground.

“Ah,” he grunted, looking down at the floor. “...So that is how it is...”

There was a moment of silence before Asgore continued, not daring to look the human in the eye. “I remember the day after my son died. The entire Underground was devoid of hope. The future had once again been taken from us by the humans. In a fit of anger, I declared war. I said that I would destroy any human that came here. I would use their souls to become godlike… and free us from this terrible prison. Then, I would destroy humanity, and let monsters rule the surface, in peace. Soon, the people’s hopes returned. My wife, however became disgusted with my actions. She left this place, never to be seen again.”

He paused, giving a great sigh. “Truthfully… I do not want power. I do not want to hurt anyone. I just wanted everyone to have hope. But, I cannot take this any longer. I just want to see my wife. I just want to see my child.” Frisk’s usually solemn expression turned sad, sympathetic. “Please… Young one… This war has gone on long enough. You have the power. Take my soul, and leave this cursed place.”

Frisk, forgiving and merciful as they were, chose to spare Asgore, despite his wishes. They dropped their knife, going over to hug the poor man. This took him by surprise, as he WAS hesitant to return such a sudden kind gesture.

“...After everything I have done to hurt you… You would rather stay down here and suffer than live happily on the surface?” They nodded.

Asgore smiled, wrapping his large arms gently around Frisk. “Human, I promise you… for as long as you remain here, my wife and I will take care of you as best we can.”

Toriel put her hand over her chest. Did he really think she would comply to that in whatever timeline this scenario was from? Nonetheless, she could not deny the sincerity of the gesture. “We can sit in the living room, telling stories, eating butterscotch pie. We could be like… like a family.”

Frisk let go of the hug, stepping back and grinning widely at Asgore. He grinned back, but only for a short period of time. Frisk, as well as those watching the glitch from the outside, gasped as a circle of bullets surrounded Asgore, closing in quick and draining the last of his health. His dust scattered the floor, one final bullet utterly destroying his lingering Boss Monster soul.

And right in front of the ashes appeared Flowey the Flower. Gaster hated knowing that poor Asriel’s mind was stuck in the replaying image of that being, not being able to control or change his horrid actions.

The flower smiled at the little pacifist, spouting out the words, “You idiot. You haven’t learned a thing.”

The souls of the other humans… cyan, blue, purple, orange, yellow, and green… had all broken out of their small prisons and surrounded the soulless vessel.

“In this world. It’s kill or be killed.” Flowey then gave off a maniacal, creepy laugh as he absorbed the souls, the entire room turning a bright white.

And just like that, the glitch was over.

Frisk had once more glitched back to wherever they had glitched from, as they did not appear near the barrier when the brightness faded away. Why Asriel and Asgore did not do the same and glitch back to outside of the laboratory was a peculiar thought… though it was nothing of extreme importance.

Asgore looked around, shocked as to what just happened. One moment, he felt this life slipping away from him as the bullets hit, and the next, he was standing right where his dust previously laid. It was certainly odd.

Asriel, on the other hand, was looking down at his limbs, moving them slightly. He didn’t like the feeling of being Flowey again… No limbs, no soul, no mercy… Not only that, but he could feel that there were more vines around his arms as well. This combined with what had happened earlier, he honestly thought he was becoming Flowey again, and that thought terrified him.

Asriel stared blankly ahead, horrible possibilities and thoughts consuming his mind. He could feel tears threatening to come, threatening to fall.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a shaky voice, breaking his gaze and looking at his father. “I… I just couldn’t… I couldn’t control myself... I swear, I didn’t mean to do any of that… I didn’t want to be… Flowey again… I don’t know what happened, I just... I’m sorry; I’m sorry; I’m sorry...” he profusely apologized, tears now streaming down his face.

Asgore gave him a tenderhearted smile. “My son,” he said, walking over to Asriel, “it’s alright. As Dr. Gaster said, it was some sort of… glitch. I could not control myself, either. Besides, I’m back to normal now, see? Only a little sore.” He embraced his son, who quickly returned the gesture.

Toriel, who hadn’t peeled her eyes from the scene since she entered the room, finally turned her attention to Dr. Gaster, who appeared to be analyzing the situation in front of him.

“If I’m not mistaken,” she started, catching his attention as well as Dr. Alphys’s, “that was a glitch, was it not?”

“It was,” Gaster responded simply.

“And… do you know how to stop it?” she asked.

“No.”

The Queen’s eyes widened, darting them from her two family members to the Royal Scientist. “You mean you don’t know how to stop it?”

He shook his head, only partially paying attention. The other part of his mind was stuck in his thoughts. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, all just repeating some personally traumatic scene that should just be left in the past… This can’t be just a coincidence. This can’t just be a simple side effects of too many variables or some overuse of power… Not with the vines, not with the scenes that have shown thus far… All of that seems to orderly to be merely a coincidence.

“Do you even know how this is happening?” she asked. He shook his head again. “But, you seemed to know what was going on when explaining the situation with Asriel…”

The sentence drew Gaster out of his mind, causing him to turn his head towards the Queen. “As I stated then, all of that was simply conjecture, just thoughts and theories that make scientific sense, but hold no scientific ground. I can think I know what’s going on, but in reality, I know no truth,” he explained, watching the Queen’s expression turn doleful. “But I assure you, I will find a way to stop these glitches, no matter what it takes.” She nodded, though no significant change in her expression occurred.

Just as Gaster made his first steps over to Asgore and Asriel, a rough rumbling sound accompanied by a small earthquake-type disturbance caught him off guard, as well as the others nearby. Everyone looked over to see a small, shaky, blue glowing portal appeared just outside the entrance to the barrier. Though no one else knew what it was, Gaster recognized it instantly. It was a shortcut. One of Sans’s shortcuts. He had left without so much as a notice!

Frisk was the first go through the unstable shortcut, quickly running through. They appeared frightened, like Asriel (though to a much lesser extent), anxiously waiting for others to come as well. Undyne went through next, nearly stumbling over a few flowers. She gave a frustrated groan, but immediately appeared to calm down once she saw Frisk and how scared they were. Papyrus came through afterwards, nearly toppling over Undyne by making the same mistake she had.

Lastly came Sans, who showed to be wearing his signature blue coat once more. The shortcut closed violently behind him, though he managed to keep his footing. He looked around, seeing those near the barrier giving him strange looks. He looked over at them, giving a smile that could barely be picked apart as apprehensive.

“Heya. Any of you care to notice my absence?”

Chapter Text

“Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Sans!” Alphys and Toriel exclaimed in unison, though only Toriel ran over to the bunch that had just arrived.

“Where did you go? Are you okay?!” she asked worryingly, darting her eyes between all the new arrivals.

Sans looked at Gaster, who was giving him a curious stare (What was he doing? the old skeleton thought), before giving the Queen a small shrug. “‘M fine. Just thought it’d be a good idea if we had everyone here, so we could keep up with ’em after the glitches instead of just worrying about ’em,” he explained nonchalantly.

Toriel gave a relieved sigh accompanied with a nod, while Gaster simply continued to stare. He knew his son better than that. While what he said was true, he himself was likely worried about them — especially Papyrus — so he brought them to the castle before anymore resets could potentially scar them.

“Are you all alright?” Toriel asked the others, mostly directing the question towards Frisk.

“We’re all perfectly fine, Your Highness!” Papyrus exclaimed. Though, he glanced over at Frisk and Undyne, whose expressions seemed to contradict his statement, as Undyne was still noticeably frustrated and Frisk was visibly frightened for one reason or another. “Perhaps a little less fine than I first thought…” he added. “I cannot say I’m surprised, however! We’ve all been through a rather strange experience!”

Sans’ eyes seemed to disappear out of his eye sockets, a sign of worry. “A strange experience, ya say? What d’ya mean by that, Pap?” he asked. He didn’t want “a rather strange experience” to mean what he thought it meant.

Papyrus’ eyes seemed to light up immediately, and everyone could guess what that meant. He had a story to tell. “Well, it all started this morning after I invited Undyne over! She showed up at my doorstep before I even realized I had invited her!” he started energetically. “I decided to cook my famous spaghetti for her and Frisk, who looked upset! But that’s when things began to grow… unordinary...”

“C’mon, Papyrus! You have to cook with more force! More passion! I know you can do better!” Undyne instructed loudly, slamming her fists on the table.

Frisk, who was sitting right next to her, jumped back at the sudden movement, but was smiling slightly anyways. Just seeing the best friends up to their usual antics made them feel better.

Papyrus let out an incoherent noise (something that wasn’t quite a “nyeh!”) in response to Undyne, fiercely turning a knob to increase the heat on the stove. Frisk thought he nearly broke it off. The skeleton then turned his entire body to dramatically grab the spaghetti noodles.

That’s when Frisk gasped aloud. Right when Papyrus turned, they could just barely see the pot quickly become covered in broken colors. Unfortunately, they knew all too well what that meant… Though neither Undyne nor Papyrus noticed this. Both were too immersed in the intense cooking session — or trying to make the cooking session more intense, to be exact — to really notice anything out of the ordinary.

So, when Papyrus turned back around to throw the raw noodles in the pot of boiling water, he didn’t realize that the pot had already glitched away, and with full force threw the noodles (and his gloved hands) onto the heated stove. He gave a scream of surprise and immediately retracted his hand. Undyne started laughing, given she knew (or thought she knew) it wasn’t anything serious.

“Sans, I swear, you better not be skipping work to prank me across time and space again!” the skeleton exclaimed accusingly, immediately leaning over to inspect the stove. How could the pot just have… disappeared?

Frisk gasped again, and tried desperately to get Papyrus’s or even Undyne’s attention, but this showed to be ineffective. Undyne was too busy laughing, and Papyrus likely couldn’t hear them over the roars of laughter. The pot had just reappeared over Papyrus’s head, landing right on his skull, pressing his face against the stove. Though, Papyrus was a strong monster; only a few health points were taken, and only a small crack was left in his skull. Undyne was still roaring with laughter.

But Frisk noticed something even more concerning that Undyne couldn’t because she was doubled over… Instead of on the pot, the colors had started to appear on Papyrus.

But it was too late to even attempt to get their attention again; Frisk’s field of vision was covered in the broken colors before they knew it. A whimper involuntarily escaped their mouth before they entered a corrupted reality in which they could not control themself… They had already experienced it three times that morning, they really did not want to experience a fourth.

“Frisk, we later learned, was not so humored by the pot incident, but rather mortified!” Papyrus described dramatically. “And rightly so! Next thing I knew, I was just outside Waterfall, even though I was just inside my own home!”

The faces of those who had been in the castle dropped. They knew what that meant. A glitch.

Both Sans and Gaster outwardly showed concern to where this story seemed to be going, though Gaster’s seemed to be obviously more noticeable. Sans was good at hiding his emotions.

“You couldn’t control yourself?” Gaster asked rather nervously, looking between Papyrus and Frisk.

“Precisely!” Papyrus responded. “Though, I could still think freely!”

Undyne walked up next to her best friend, still seemingly annoyed that the whole situation happened in the first place. She somehow seemed to be calmer and less rambunctious than usual.

“It didn’t matter whether or not you could think freely… Actions speak louder than silent thoughts, and what happened shouldn’t have.” She grumbled something to herself, before continuing the story. “After I managed to get ahold of myself, I noticed Pap and Frisk disappeared. I ran all around the house looking for them, couldn’t find them, and then ran outside. I could see them just near the town border! I went over as fast as I could, but when I came, it’s like they didn’t even notice me at all…”

Undyne stopped in her tracks when she saw the two. She could hear Papyrus’s voice echoing from a mile away.

“Finally!” she yelled out exasperatedly. “There you two dorks are!”

She was met with no response. Frisk, or who she thought to be Frisk, just seemed to slowly and creepily move closer to Papyrus. She noticed right away that something seemed off.

“It feels… like your life is going down a dangerous path,” Papyrus stated in an oddly quiet voice (relatively speaking), continuing what he was saying before Undyne arrived, not even so much as giving a glance to the fish monster. She muttered to herself… This wasn’t Papyrus. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t just flat out ignore her. “However! I, Papyrus, see great potential inside you! Everyone can be a good person if they try! And me, I hardly have to try at all! Nyeh heh heh heh heh heh!”

Frisk inched closer to Papyrus, prompting Papyrus to immediately tell them to stop, but they did not comply. Undyne narrowed her eyes at the scene. Something was definitely wrong. There’s no way Frisk would act like that. The former head of the Royal Guard sneaked towards them to get a closer look. She was practically invisible to the pair, what harm could it bring?

Papyrus continued to blabber on about how Frisk — or whoever this was — was a good person at heart, and could show that if they just tried. Undyne walked in between them (just as she thought, they didn’t even notice) and analyzed the human. Their head was down, but beneath shadows and hair she could see annoyed, dark red eyes accompanied by a bored expression. Their shirt and weapon were covered in dust… monster dust.

This wasn’t Frisk. No. Undyne grew increasingly more angry when she realized who it really was, when she realized what was happening.

“Chara!” Undyne exclaimed in rage, trying to grab onto her, but her hand went right through that demon’s arm. She blinked a few times, confused, before letting out a livid scream.

As Papyrus welcomed the “human” with open arms, the world around them went dark. A fight had been initiated. Undyne’s eyes widened, and she got in front of the oblivious skeleton, in hopes that somehow it would help, even though she had her doubts. But she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t at least try to stop the inevitable…

Chara ran straight towards Papyrus, phasing straight through Undyne and lopping Papyrus’s head off with one quick slash of her knife. Undyne felt a coldness rush through her that she couldn’t quite describe. It made her feel sick to her stomach, and her heart felt like it plummeted in her chest. Despite how she felt, she turned around to see Papyrus, just in time to see his head turned to dust, dead.

Undyne was unbelievably mad, unbelievably upset. Tears pricked at her eyes as she stared at the dust that used to be her best friend, one of the most loyal monsters she had ever known. She turned to gaze at Chara, who was already well on her way to Waterfall, but before she could even think about following her, she suddenly found herself back in Sans and Papyrus’s house.

“Papyrus had an unreadable expression when we got back, believe it or not. Frisk just looked guilty, scared. Pap suggested that Frisk had an evil twin, but I knew it had to be that little hellspawn, Chara. Whatever the hell that was, she’s behind it. I know it. Then Sans decided to come out of a ‘shortcut’ or whatever he calls it and said we needed to follow him to the castle through that unstable thing. And here we are,” Undyne finished, her arms crossed.

There was a silence after Undyne finished the story, an uncomfortably long silence. Gaster, still appalled that Papyrus, his son and likely the most innocent person in the room had to go through a glitch, and such a nasty one at that. He was still appalled that Frisk had to continuously kill their close friends without their control, that Undyne had to witness her best friend turn to dust. He was appalled by the glitches. ...If Undyne watched Chara die and believed she was behind it all…

“What you went through is an event called a glitch,” Gaster explained out of the blue, causing everyone to turn to him. “Likely old timelines leaking into ours. We cannot be certain what is causing these glitches, however, at this point, Chara being responsible for them is just as likely a possibility as any other. ...I believe all of us here have been through at least one glitch as well.”

“I have not,” Toriel stated rather awkwardly after a second of hesitancy.

After witnessing what Asgore and Asriel went through, and after hearing what had just happened to Papyrus, Frisk, and Undyne… She didn’t want to go through such a terrible thing. She hated that those she cared about had to go through such a terrible thing.

“Then you’re lucky,” Undyne stated rather bitterly. Gaster gave a response in agreement, though more politely, quickly telling Toriel that she should be prepared to glitch away at any time. This quickly sparked a conversation between the three monsters, mostly trying to calm Toriel’s nerves around the situation.

Meanwhile, Frisk plucked the courage to look up after reliving the guilt of their most recent glitch through Papyrus’s and Undyne’s storytelling. They noticed Sans trying to explain to Papyrus that Frisk did not have an ‘evil twin’, while Undyne, Gaster, and Toriel were discussing the frightening nature of the glitches. Asriel appeared to be cowering behind the Mighty King Asgore, but the father was trying to calm Asriel’s nerves.

“They won’t hate you for those vines, my son,” they overheard Asgore saying. “They’ll be just as concerned as the rest of us, I assure you.”

Frisk furrowed their eyebrows (what vines?), making their way over to the scared boy. They didn’t have to walk that far to see the rips and tears in Asriel’s shirt, the thorns. They walked a little closer, causing the bright green vines to become more visible.

Asriel tried his best to hide his arms as Frisk slowly drew closer, but his attempts were simply met with him accidentally pricking himself with the thorns multiple times. Finally, the human was near enough to see Asriel’s vines more closely. They gasped.

Asriel’s face quickly turned into a scowl. “Mind your own business, will you?” he snapped, but then his face fell as if he just realized what he had said. “I-I’m sorry, Frisk, I didn’t mean to— I just— these glitches—”

He was cut off by Frisk engulfing him in a hug that seemed to say, “It’s okay. I understand.” As much as he wanted to, he didn’t hug back in fear of actually hurting Frisk with the thorns.

He started to cry, as much as he tried to hold it back. Tears fell down his cheeks. “I just…” He closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the floor. “...want to leave it all… in the past… I want to leave him in the past… But everything that keeps happening… Everything I do… He just comes back! These glitches just keep bringing him back and I want him to go away! I don’t want to be Flowey anymore!”

Frisk hugged Asriel even tighter as he tried to the best of his ability to choke back a sob. This inconsolable cry caught the attention of the others in the room; the poor child was only met with looks of sympathy.

“Prince Asriel,” Gaster said, causing Frisk to let go of said prince. Asriel himself just barely made eye contact with Gaster, wiping away his tears with a small hint of embarrassment written on his face. “We will stop at nothing to rid of these glitches. They are causing everyone here, and I fret to think perhaps even the citizens, great distress. This is not something that can or should be simply adapted to. We will get to the bottom of this issue. Then, you can truly start to become content with your past.” He gave a kind smile and a small nod, and Asriel returned both gestures.

Everyone luckily had a small moment of peace in the midst of the utter chaos the glitches caused. No one could live like this, constantly experiencing the traumas of their past over and over again, being able to do nothing to stop it… Knowing that Gaster, Sans, and Alphys would (most likely) be working as hard as they could to stop the glitches was a rather comforting thought. Though, knowing that at any time they could just suddenly disappear into the horrid scenes of the past was something else…

As everyone made their way back into the Throne Room to return to the main corridors of the castle, Gaster noticed something felt… off, and he certainly wasn’t the only one. It was obvious. Toriel’s throne was back in the corner, covered in the same sheet it was hidden under in the past, and no light from the barrier was emitted through the windows. Monster dust and human blood covered the buttercup flowers, an all too familiar knife wedged in the middle of them.

This is not how this room was left, Gaster thought, a horrid possibility creeping into his mind.

Broken colors. Variables.

The broken colors started to appear on everyone, everything. They all knew what was coming, their unfortunate fate. A glitch. Dread filled the quiet atmosphere almost instantaneously. Unlike the other glitches, they were not in a new place in the blink of an eye. Darkness just filled the room, and all they could do was watch it grow darker, darker, and darker still.

Instead of reliving scenes, they were forced to hear old voices, past lines that had once echoed in the room.

“Asriel… Asriel, p-please… Take me… to the flowers… Take me to the flowers of my village. T-That’s all I ask…”

“Look at what they’ve caused! Look at what the humans continue to do to us! This can not be negotiated! This is war!”

“Killing all of these humans…. these innocent children who have done nothing wrong! I can’t believe you would do something like this!”

“What? Do you really think you can stop me? Hehehe… You really are an idiot.”

“I can feel it... Every time you die, your grip on this world slips away. Every time you die, your friends forget you a little more. Your life will end here, in a world where no one remembers you…”

“Now, now… There is no need to fight.”

“I can help! I can… I can… Please don't kill me…!”

“It takes only so long to explain to an outsider, but more than twice as long to understand.”

“Mom… Dad…”

Darkness.

Variables.

Silence.

…

...Laughter…

“Bold claims and empty promises don't erase the past, old man.”

... Her.

Gaster was confused, beyond confused, as was everybody else in the room. To their knowledge, Chara was dead. She was dealt with, gone for good. Something felt wrong, something besides the glitch situation… It was something involving her that made everything feel so… strange.

...How? How is this even possible? That’s her voice, I'm sure of it. I’d recognize that voice from anywhere. But… she is dead. I… I killed her myself… How is she…? Surely, I’m imagining it… But, then again, these glitches… Could it be…?

“...Chara?” Asriel was heard murmuring.

“That brat! I knew it! I told you she was behind it all!” Undyne shouted any other noise.

Commotion started to fill the darkness, everyone rambling on about Chara, that voice, the demon that comes when people call its name. All of it was quickly cut short by maniacal laughter.

“So naive… So careless… So willing to believe I was gone,” she spoke, not caring about any of the blabbering or shouts from just a few moments ago. She made a tsk noise. “You really are something else, aren't you, Gaster? Masking your lack of common sense and morals with intelligence and cliche wise words that mean nothing … And they all believe you. Everything, through it all… Your lies, your past, your trickery… They believe you. They still believe you because they cling to the hope that you know the answer. ‘Oh, Dr. Gaster, what do we do now?’ ‘Oh, Dr. Gaster, save us, please!’ ‘Oh, Dr. Gaster, you can figure this out, can't you? ’ How pathetic.”

Gaster was about to make a simple disregarding remark, but she didn't pause her little monologue. She simply giggled and carried on, as if even through the darkness, she could still sense his facial expressions and utter distaste for her words.

“It was your own pride that was your downfall, old man! Don't you see history repeating? Your clumsy mistakes and hollow head… That's what landed you in the Void. You tore yourself away from everyone you loved and cared about because of one dumb mistake! Even in the Void, when you could've done something earlier to prevent this… you didn't. You could've saved your sons then, saved the Underground then. But you didn't. You were too selfish for that, weren't you?

“You’re no father. You're no friend or partner or colleague or employee. You are nothing.”

“I don’t really think you exactly have enough of a moral compass yourself to be sayin’ those things,” Sans responded nonchalantly (though somewhat smugly) before anyone else had the chance to utter a word.

She giggled hysterically once again. “Don’t be so phlegmatic, Sans. You were there in those timelines and couldn’t muster up the courage to save your worthless brother,” she said. “You let all of your hope and sense of purpose slip away just because you couldn’t be bothered to risk your own life.”

“You’re just trying to get under our skin,” Undyne spat harshly. “I know these monsters better than you. Sans would always try to save his brother, or at least avenge him. Gaster always knows what he’s doing. And Papyrus is nowhere near worthless.”

“Funny. You didn’t seem to think that when you told Frisk you could never let him into the Royal Guard.”

Undyne could be heard scowling at her.

Gaster, who at this point was hardly paying attention, managed to pull himself out of his muddled mind. He gazed into the darkness, gazed in the direction of Chara’s childish yet sadistic snickers. He searched his thoughts for something to say, but all he could manage to ask was, “How did you survive?”

It’s not that the question was the worst in a world… It was actually rather fair, only Chara wasn’t one to give fair answers. The demonic girl paused before giving the more than unsatisfactory answer of, “Hm… Let’s just say… It was like your own little incident with your machine. I didn’t die, but was rather sent somewhere else.”

“Enough of these stupid riddles! Enough games!” Undyne shouted angrily at Chara. “Admit it! You’re the one causing these… these… glitches!”

Silence.

The room started to fill with the broken colors once more, brightening the darkness. They didn’t disappear this time, just eerily stayed wherever they happened to be. Alphys stood close to Dr. Gaster, and in the darkness, Sans had apparently moved closer to Papyrus, who was standing next to Undyne. Toriel and Asgore both stood close to Asriel, prepared to do anything to protect him. The Throne Room itself was mostly the same as it had been. Well, it was the same except for the fact that the knife that was once in the middle of the flower garden was missing.

Instead, it was in the hands of an unknown figure. Their form was completely compiled of an oozing black substance that dripped slowly onto the floor. Fine lines marked distinguishing features, like a creepy smile and dead, unblinking eyes. Submerged deep within the dark matter glowed a bright purple heart. A human soul.

It was Chara.

“Heh… It’s amazing what you can do when you have the power, hm?” she spoke, her voice echoing throughout the room. She twiddled with her knife. “These glitches are only the beginning. If you think it’s bad now… Ha. Just wait. Things will get increasingly more painful, so painful that you won’t even know what to expect. Then, I can finally erase this pointless world, and move on to the next.”

Variables.

And just like that, just like a glitch, everything had returned to normal. Light shone through the windows and onto the graciously standing thrones and the peaceful well-kept flowers. Though, the ambiance of the room was much more tense than before.

Chatter arose quickly, as everyone was trying their best to piece together what just happened. Well… Gaster was a little less concerned with that.

Undyne was right, she does tend to use riddles when speaking… but what do they mean? Where could she have gone to escape death? Why did she have that human soul? How?

He pondered this, trying to remember her words while also attempting to pick apart the meaning behind them… until he was suddenly hit with an epiphany.

“We can not be certain what she will do,” he spoke loudly, though absentmindedly, slowly catching the attention of everyone in the room. “We can, however, at least attempt to prepare for what will become of this place as she continues to control it.” He paused. “I do believe I have an idea to stop this… Though, it’s extremely risky and borderline insane… but I believe it’s our only option.”

“W-What do you mean, Dr. Gaster?” Alphys asked, almost scared to hear the answer.

Dr. Gaster looked out at everyone, their faces hopeful and intrigued. He knew that would be shattered in an instant when he voiced his idea that he almost didn’t want to say or even do. But what choice do we have? He took inhaled deeply before breathing the words,

“I will have to return to the Void.”

Chapter Text

“Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road.”

There it stood, the infamous machine. The very one that lead him into the Void all those timelines ago. He almost didn’t want to remove the sheet that had been placed over it, for removing that sheet removed a barrier he had set in his mind to forget the memories of that day. And ever since his first glitch, he had been extremely wary of falling into it again.

Well, that’s what he was about to do, he supposed, except this time it wouldn’t be an accident. Perhaps that was even more frightening.

Stripped of his lab coat, Dr. Gaster stood in front of the unfinished machine, the others crowded around him. He stared down into the hole full of wires that had blasted him into a different plane of existence, a seemingly endless hole that forced him into a place of darkness where he was barely put together, both physically and mentally. Horrid thoughts and memories filled his mind, yet he still stared. It gave him a distraction, a small way to stall time. He didn’t want to return to that cursed place. He didn’t want to leave his friends and family again, but there was no choice.

“Are you sure this is the only way, Dr. Gaster?” Toriel asked, causing the skeleton to turn to her. He could see the prominent worry shown on her face. Her eyes practically screamed, “Don’t leave!” She gave a small sigh before continuing. “Certainly you can do more research… and find some other alternative. There has to be another alternative.”

“Chara is the one behind these glitches. She has to have some sort of way to cause them, to change the timeline in such a way, and the only place she’d be able to alter timelines is in the Void. Returning there will be the only way to defeat her,” Gaster responded, attempting to stay professional, but this proved to be difficult. His voice wavered in a way he couldn’t control, no matter how hard he tried. Though, this was a difficult decision; of course he would be second and triple guessing himself. Of course he would be nervous.

Undyne walked up beside Gaster, staring down into the machine like him instead of looking him in the eye. She seemed unaffected by the constant violent sparking of the wires.

“So you can beat her there?” she asked quietly. The question seemed uncomfortably calm, but there was an obvious undertone of anger. “You can destroy this hell spawn once and for all?”

He gave a small nod. “I will have more control over the Void than her. She’s hardly scraping the surface of what she can do in there, the power she has… After all, that dreaded nothingness is my domain. I know it far better than she ever could,” he said, uncertain of the words coming out of his own mouth. They sounded confident, however, confident enough to keep the smallest bit of hope instilled in everyone.

There was staticy silence that followed, allowing everyone to become enveloped in their own thoughts. Sure, it was supposed to be peaceful. No one was currently experiencing a glitch, but there was simply something unsettling in the atmosphere. They knew the events to come would decide the fate of the universe, whether or not they would make it to the surface or crumble into nonexistence with everything else.

Nonetheless, the quietude remained all the same, fueling the tense silence. That was, however, until a voice had cut through. A usually upbeat voice was tainted with despair, a loud voice turned suddenly quiet…

“Father… what if you don’t make it back?”

Everyone turned towards Papyrus, who was standing next to Sans near the doorway. His eyes shifted somewhat nervously from the machine to Gaster.

“It feels like… you just got here,” he said awkwardly. “Your return made everyone so happy. It made the Underground even greater! And if you don’t make it back…” He gave a sigh, looking his father in the eye. “...all of that will go away.”

There was no immediate response. Gaster’s mouth was open, trying to form some sort of intelligent reassurance, but no words, intelligent or otherwise would come out. He simply locked eyes with his son, seeing pure sadness in his once bright pupils. Disappointment. Fear. Emotions that he should not be feeling, that no one should have to feel, especially not Papyrus. Especially not anyone in the room.

This was supposed to be a good timeline. End the resets, stop Chara, save the universe, reach the surface. That’s how everything had to turn out. After all, Chara could still be killed, the glitches could still be stopped, they could still have their happy ending.

...Right?

Even Gaster did not know.

“If I got out before, surely I will be able to get back,” the scientist finally spoke uneasily, ending the silence. He turned to face everyone. “But, if this experiment proves to be… unsuccessful… then this task of destroying Chara will rest in your hands.”

He paused for a moment, letting the thought resonate as he gathered his own. “And if I am trapped in the Void once more… I’m not certain what the outcome will be. You all may forget my very existence. I will be erased from this world once more, but in a bigger sense. If that is the case… then I would like you to know that I’m sorry in advance, for not being the savior I’ve promised to be.”

“Hey!” Undyne bellowed loudly, causing Alphys and Asriel to jump. “You’ve done way too much for us to being saying that! You’ve stopped at nothing to get things how they’re supposed to be. That itself is honorable enough, and that’s not to mention you already killed that little beast once! You sure as hell can take her down again!”

She slapped him on the back hard, a toothy grin on her face. He stumbled forward slightly, but they were both far enough away from the machine that he still remained in the same state of existence.

“She’s right, ya know,” said Sans, stepping forward towards his father. He was covering up his anxieties as usual. To anyone else, he would seem completely careless and calm, but Gaster knew otherwise. “Never thought I’d admit it, but she’s right. Course you can beat ‘er. And even if recent events have been gettin ya down—” a smile grew on his face “—we believe you can do it.”

Asgore nodded in agreement, a smile too spread across his face. “You just have to stay determined,” he stated in his deep-toned voice.

Determination. That was something monsters didn’t have a lot of. Too much would cause their physical forms to melt; weak monster souls couldn’t handle something so strong. That much Gaster knew. But monsters could still be determined, in some ways at least. Perhaps Gaster wasn’t as determined as he could be, but he felt determined all the same.

A smile grew on his face as he gave a brief nod. “Then, I suppose, for now… this is farewell,” he said.

“Good luck, Dr. Gaster,” Toriel said, the wavering in her voice contradicting the small smile she held. The others gave similar messages.

Gaster turned to stare into the machine once more, preparing to meet eye to eye with someone he had to confront in a place he wanted to forget. He was going to destroy Chara. He was going to enter the Void. Slowly, he went head-first into the faulty, open, wiry machine, letting the darkness consume him as he fell. It just grew darker. Darker, darker, and darker still.

And thus, he was gone. He had completely disappeared from the lab.

The machine gave a loud hum that echoed throughout the otherwise silent room. It was mesmerizing, enveloping them quickly. It was something to distract them from the current events, if only for a brief moment. Gaster had returned to the Void; a glitch could happen at any moment… any moment of peace — true, unstressful, unworried peace — was like a gift.

The machine began to grow quieter, causing everyone to slowly drift back into reality, whether they wanted to or not. It grew quieter and quieter… until they were left in silence.

Thud.

Everyone turned their heads to the source of the noise. Asriel had backed up against Sans’ desk, knocking over the framed picture. His paws clutched the ends of the table, his face flooded with pain.

“Asriel!” Toriel yelped as she saw tears escape her son’s eyes. She rushed over to him, but Sans hand on her sleeve stopped her from getting too close. She could do nothing but watch.

The pain he felt was unbearable. Thorns pressed deep into his fur, almost gouging out his skin. They scraped his arms as the vines creeped around his body. The green ropes entrapped his hands and wrapped around his stomach.

The poor boy started to cry. The pain was too much… He dreaded the thought of the vines being visible. It just reminded him of him… He wasn’t him! He wasn’t him anymore! ...But everything that happened and all he did… it reminded him of what it was like when he was that stupid little flower. He didn’t want to become him again…

Become him. Him. Flowey.

His thoughts grew cluttered, so cluttered that it was overwhelming. A burning headache filled his head quickly. He began to sob, especially after he managed to realize what was happening. His worst fear was becoming reality.

As Asriel’s sobs began to lessen, Toriel slowly stepped closer to him. She was scared. She didn’t know what to expect. How could she? As far as she knew, this could be some sort of strange glitch.

Asriel looked up at Toriel with different eyes. They were much more hateful than the one’s he previously held, the ones filled with fear.

“Get away from me!” he shouted in the tone of someone else. He looked just as shocked as the others, looking down at his hands just as he did many timelines ago…

“How… how am I…?” he muttered to himself, examining the vines as if all of this was new to him. “How am I… back? But… why do I not feel like…”

He looked up, his eyes widening as he saw the two monsters directly in front of him: Sans and Toriel. Why were Sans and Toriel in the room? And… And Asgore, Undyne, Alphys… Frisk? Why were they here? Where even was ‘here’? What was going on? He backed up against the table again, creating another loud thud.

“Kid,” Sans said calmly, slowly approaching him. Contradictory to his demeanor, a small blue and gold glow appeared around his left pupil, which caused the boy to act instinctively. Numerous bullets rushed towards Sans. Both of their souls flickered in front of their chests, as if a fight was trying to be initiated.

Sans was caught off guard; he didn’t expect Asriel to do anything, except maybe yell at him. That’s all the glitches caused, anyways. He thought it was just another glitch… The bullets bolted towards him so fast that he had no time to react.

Bones shot up in front of Sans, protecting him from the bullets which had smashed into the barricade. Sans blinked, his damaged soul sinking back to where it had been summoned. He looked over at Papyrus, the only other one who could summon that sort of defense. His hand was still high in the air, holding the bones up, his face still panicked. He seemed to be shocked that he did such a thing.

Undyne glanced over at the younger skeleton, surprised. It wasn’t his reflexes, no… She already knew those were as sharp as a spear. It was just unexpected. This entire situation was too strange for her liking.

“Hey! What’s your deal?!” she shouted, causing Alphys to cower slightly. The fish’s face was full of anger.

“There’s no need to shout or fight. It’s likely just one of those… glitches,” Asgore said, resting his hand on Undyne’s shoulder. His voice sounded calm, but he showed to be visibly tense.

Alphys began mumbling to herself, mostly out of nerves and the realization that she was the only one able to give proper scientific analysis on the situation, given that Sans was a bit busy with Asriel and Gaster was trapped in the Void.

“Oh no…,” she muttered as Papyrus made the bones disappear. “N-No… No, it’s not a glitch. It can’t be... Those end faster, and none of Asriel’s behavioural glitches have l-lasted this long...” She started to pace in the small amount of free room she had. “Then… w-what could it be...?”

She pondered for a moment before letting out a gasp, remembering something from just a few moments ago, something that had caused Gaster to go into the Void in the first place. Something she had said.

“These glitches are only the beginning. If you think it’s bad now… Ha. Just wait.”

Alphys was quickly broken from her mind due to harsh screams in a childish voice. She looked up, seeing that Sans had lifted Asriel up in the air by turning his soul blue. Everyone stared intensely, varying levels of horror written on their faces.

“Let me down! Let me down, you smiley trash bag!” Asriel screamed, clearly angry.

Sans simply shrugged at the demand, holding up his hand to keep the hysteric child airborne. He shoved his other hand in his jacket pocket. “Calm down kid, I’ll let ya down, if ya answer a few questions,” he said.

At first, the air was filled with yells of protest and bullets, but after Asriel found he had no other option but to comply, he quickly grew quiet. He crossed his arms, staring at Sans coldly, his eyes drained of the youth they had just seconds before.

“Glad we could reach an understanding,” Sans said. Asriel rolled his eyes. “Now, what’s the last thing you remember?”

There was a brief moment where Asriel was reluctant to answer. His expression had quickly changed from harsh to apprehensive.

“Genocide,” was the only word he said, and he said it rather quickly. The mention alone was enough for Frisk to attempt to hide themself from everyone else and the horrible memories alike. Remembering the genocide timelines was never pleasant.

“Hm…” Sans paused, quickly glancing at the others in the room. “So you don’t remember anything of what just happened? The journey it took to get here? Gaster leaving the Void? Anything?”

Asriel gave him a blank stare, trying to recall. “The last thing I remember is… i-is being killed! B-By her!” The boy cringed, as if so much as mentioning Chara’s horrible deeds would summon her. His fists were clenched, and he bit down on the side of his cheek to stop himself from creating another outburst. “I remember being a damn flower!”

The skeleton simply stared at Asriel (though it seemed more fitting to call him “Flowey”, given his current attitude), half-expecting him to revert back to how he was before and start apologizing profusely… “This has to be some sorta glitch,” he muttered under his breath, but as it was the only sound in the room, everyone heard.

“S-Sans…” Alphys spoke nervously, causing the skeleton to turn his head in her direction. She was fidgeting nervously, messing with the sleeves of her lab coat. “A-As much as I want i-it to be a g-glitch, too, I d-don’t think it is… This has gone on a-a lot longer than a-any of the other glitches any of us h-have faced… And… C-Chara… Chara said the g-glitches were o-o-only the beginning.”

“Then it’s somethin’ else she’s causing…” Sans said, staring at the floor.

The cogs of his mind were turning. What could else could Chara possibly cause? He mind went through reset after reset, timeline after timeline…

He raised his brow in shock once he realized, before quickly twisting his face into his normal relaxed structure. He somewhat carelessly let down Asriel, who scampered as far away from everyone as possible.

“She’s turning us into… well, I guess you could call ‘em Lost Souls, some bleak form of our former selves…” he said loudly so everyone could hear, though his voice was directed towards the floor since he still had his head down.

“Uh…Oh, uh... oh dear… U-Uhm, S-S-Sans,” Alphys started to say, grabbing at Sans’s jacket sleeve.

Sans opened his mouth to continue, but upon feeling Alphys pulling his jacket, he finally left his thought bubble. While the two scientists were distracted with Asriel’s current state, the others were slowly drawn into “phase two” of Chara’s plan.

Sans ducked as a spear was sent flying in his direction. Both Undyne and Papyrus were attempting to get ahold of and damage Frisk, who they saw as a human, a threat to monster kind. Toriel was in front of Frisk, guarding them from the bones and spears whizzing by. Asgore stood, confounded, looking like he desperately wanted to intervene and say something, but he couldn’t find the words. Just looking at the scene was giving Alphys and Sans a burning headache.

They had forgotten how they had grown, the journey they had just taken. They’d forgotten everything about the current timeline. They had become Lost Souls.

The brutal headache Sans and Alphys were facing just grew worse and worse as the seconds drew on. Thoughts and memories clumped together. Where they were, who they were with, what they had just experienced… Everything smashed together to where they couldn’t tell anything apart. They were losing their memories, themselves.

They too were becoming Lost Souls.

Geez, Dad… I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Sans managed to think despite the madness going on in his head. Though, that too became apart of a cluster of memories that faded from his mind.

.

.

.

.

.

“Ha. It’s too easy to mess with this bunch. Now the stupid old man gets to suffer . Serves him right… Once he’s dealt with…

...then I can finally erase.”

Chapter Text

“It's not long now. Dr. Gaster will let us go. Dr. Gaster will give us hope. Dr. Gaster will save us all. You should be smiling, too. Aren't you excited? Aren't you happy?

You're going to be free.”

It just grew darker. Darker, darker, and darker still.

As the sensation of falling left his body, Gaster slowly began to feel something else strange, but it was a feeling he knew all too well. The Void was flowing around him, through him, and with him. It filled him with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia.

He was back.

The emptiness guided him to stable footing; he was no longer falling. As the environment settled, small comet-like lights — timelines — began to shoot past the scientist. They were smaller than before, and glitching. Everything felt smaller than before…

How strange, Gaster thought. Could it be that the Void was shrinking? Was it disappearing?

Though he never exactly liked the Void, the thought of it vanishing frightened him. It held the timelines, the fundamental mechanisms that kept the universe together. It held time and reality themselves. If it were to disappear, all of that would disappear as well. There would be no universe, no timelines, no reality. No Underground, no surface, no humans, no monsters. Nothing. Just the Void, which itself would be compressed into a small, dense singularity with no use.

The glitching timelines that shot past gave light to the otherwise dark nothingness, allowing things around Gaster to become visible to him.

“Ah, I suppose this should’ve been expected,” he mumbled to himself upon noticing he had regained his old dematerialized form, somewhat. Nothing looked melted together like before, but old scars and deformations, such as the scars on his hands had returned.

Nonetheless, he started towards the brightest light in the room — the current timeline. Just by simply looking at it he knew his hypothesis of Chara being in the Void was correct. There were many slashes, empty gaps, and pieces of other timelines poorly forced into those empty gaps. The sight gave him a sick feeling. Everyone he cared about was in that strained, battered mess of a timeline, and she was destroying it purely out of her own anger and sick sense of humor... It was disgusting.

“I thought you’d be smarter than to come here.”

Gaster recognised the voice immediately. It was her. He knew it was her. After a few more paces, she came into view. She was glitching, just like the timelines that soared around them, and her eyes were a soulless pitch black. A wide, creepy smile that stretched from cheek to cheek spread across her face once she saw the scientist.

Chara raised her knife just enough to where Gaster could see it. “I suppose you did figure out that I was here, but then again, you're not like the rest of that pathetic bunch, are you?” Somehow her smile grew even more as she let out a high-pitched chuckle. “...No, no, you’re something else. You’re not like them. You're not supposed to be here. You're a glitch in your own timeline and can’t even save the ones you love. You're just — like — me.”

Chara slowly took steps towards Gaster, her crazed grin prevalent on her face. She gestured towards the current timeline with her free hand. He didn’t look. He didn’t want to know what she’d done, the pain she caused.

“There’s no hope for them now, old man. You’ve already lost! The only thing there’s left to do is erase this damned place once and for all.” She pointed her knife at his chest, prepared to kill him at any moment. “I just need to know how.”

Gaster raised his brow, a seldom expression on his face. “And you expect me to tell you?” he asked rather nonchalantly, looking down at the knife.

Her grin quickly twisted into a disgruntled frown. “You have no choice,” she spat, putting more pressure on his chest with her knife. “I can so easily destroy the lives of everyone in that timeline. You wouldn’t want to be the cause of that, would you?”

He paused for a second, knowing full well she had the ability to do that. But he wasn’t afraid, not in the tension of the moment, for he knew he had the ability to stop her. He did, after all, know the Void better than her.

“Don’t amuse me,” he responded sternly, using his blue magic to steal the knife from Chara’s hand and throw it onto the “ground” without batting an eye. It slid endlessly until it was out of sight.

“My insubordination to your wretched plans has no correlation with your willingness to enact them,” Gaster said, staring down at Chara, who was furious about the disappearance of her knife. He walked towards the timeline, as if to show he was here to protect it, to save it; however, his focus stayed on Chara. He couldn’t let himself become distracted.

“I will admit, the deeds you’ve done are rather impressive. Escaping my blasters, stealing a human soul...” He gestured to a purple heart-shaped glow coming from her chest. He furrowed his brow. “Sickening, but impressive all the same. Curious as well. Someone once human absorbing a human soul, clinging to life… How much determination do you truly have to be able to stay alive even after an attack like that?”

He stopped his speech as he noticed a complacent smirk grew on Chara’s face. “I’d be a little less worried about this stupid soul and a little more worried about your precious timeline,” she said smugly.

Gaster turned around, and for the first time since he reentered the Void, his mind registered just how unstable the timeline truly was. He took large steps backwards, analyzing it. He almost didn’t want to… but he knew he needed to. It vibrated unrulily, not so much to where he couldn’t tell what was happening, but enough so to be concerning. It was almost as if the timeline was about to reset itself.

His eyes widened as he continued to examine the timeline. There wasn’t some big epiphany about its current state, no. His mind had drifted to watching the ongoing events in the timeline, the unkind events that she had caused.

He could hardly distinguish the individual events unfolding. It was complete and utter chaos. He saw Toriel appeared worried and stern at the same time, standing protectively in front of Frisk with her fire attacks in hand. He was confused as to why until he noticed both Undyne and Papyrus were attempting to  capture the human. His brow furrowed instinctively.

He couldn’t help but let his mind wander back for a brief moment… It was almost like what happened all those months ago during the initial journey to the castle. It was almost like...

“Ngah! Why do you keep protecting the little punk?! Don’t you want to get to the surface?! They’re the last soul we need to break the barrier!”

“They’re just a child! They have done nothing to deserve death!”

“That doesn’t matter! Humans trapped us under here for years! Their kind killed most of us! It’s karma! It’s justice!”

“You cannot blame the wrongdoings of an entire group of people on an individual, especially when that individual is an innocent child!”

It was almost like…

“I don’t care who you are!” Undyne shouted in the current timeline. She had a spear in her hand, and in not even a second it could take a dangerous amount of Toriel’s health if thrown. “I don’t care what position you used to hold! You don’t have it now! That human’s soul belongs to King Asgore! It’s the last soul we need to break the barrier! It’s the last soul we need to get to freedom!”

She twirled her spear behind her head and into her left hand, nearly hitting Sans in the head. She was fully prepared to get violent to get what she wanted — no, what she needed for the sake of monsterkind.

Sans dodged the spear with reflexes that seemed to shock his brother. “Hey, I think if the King wanted the soul, he’d’ve taken it by now,” he said, standing upright again. This caused both Papyrus (who had been unhelpfully and unsuccessfully attempting to jape the human) and Undyne to pause for a moment.

Gaster shifted his gaze over to Asgore, who looked both upset and confused at the same time. He looked preoccupied with attempting to control Asriel, who was trying to “give” Alphys some “friendliness pellets.” Alphys herself looked more terrified than anyone, trembling behind her desk in fear.

“Son…? Son… If that’s… why are you? How are you…? Please, A-Asriel, calm down…” Asgore said rather frantically. He appeared to grow scared. For what reason, Gaster could not decipher. Maybe it was his own son’s actions that was frightening him. Maybe it was his own confusion. Maybe it was the entire situation in general…

Or perhaps that’s why Gaster was scared instead.

Everything was chaotic, strange, wrong. It was almost like a glitch. But it wasn’t. He knew it couldn’t be. This had never happened in any of the timelines. Either everyone was already dead by the time the human reached the castle, or they were all kind to each other. And Asriel had certainly never stayed long enough in the very few pacifist timelines for this scenario to happen.

He stared at the timeline, trying to piece together what was happening as the timeline continued to grow more and more unstable. It took a few long moments, but it finally struck his mind.

“They’ve lost their memories,” he muttered to himself. He blinked, slowly turning his head towards Chara. “These glitches are only the beginning. This is the action behind those words? Erasing their memories of this entire timeline?”

Chara chuckled condescendingly. “Finally starting to get it, aren’tcha old man?” she asked, slowly stepping closer. He could see her sinister, unnatural smile very clearly. “Reset reality, reset their minds, reset the timeline, erase. That’s been the plan since I arrived in this miserable place. Funny how I can do more in a mere day than you can over the course of — what was it, nineteen years? Hmph. Pathetic.”

“I chose not to intervene until absolutely necessary because I didn’t know the consequences of disturbing the timeline. My reasons weren’t malicious, as you often keep twisting them to be,” he responded as he turned to face Chara completely.

They locked gazes, and only then did Gaster care to notice how soulless she truly was, even with a stolen human soul. Her eyes led into a black nothingness much like the Void itself. She was empty. She was heartless. She was broken.

“And look where that got you,” she sneered.

She gestured to the timeline, which caused Gaster to break eye contact and turn his attention to it. He gasped involuntarily. The strained and broken timeline looked like it was starting to dissolve… It was so unstable that it was about to reset under it’s own pressure to stay together.

He started to panic, frozen from fear of a horrible evitability. I have to do something… I have to do something now! he thought hastily, trying to think of a way to save the timeline, a way to save his family and friends and the innocent citizens of the Underground. He promised to save them. He promised to return. He needed a way to fix the timeline Chara had broken. He had promised.

But how? His initial reaction was to use his magic to help hold it together and mend it, but common sense told him otherwise. If he so much as touched it, the entire thing would collapse. Then, Chara would succeed; Gaster would fail. Everything and everyone would die.

His panic intensified as he saw the timeline was growing closer and closer to collapsing. He felt the Void swaying, pulling and pushing his dematerialized body as the nothingness attempted to keep the timeline together, but even it was losing the battle against Chara.

Oh, there had to be something! There had to be something in this nothingness that would help. He searched around him, seeing Chara’s grin grow wider at his desperate attempts to find something, anything. But alas, his search was to no avail. The Void was a void, after all. The only things that naturally occurred and were stored in the Void were the timelines, and…

Wait.

“You’re no saviour,” Chara’s voice echoed throughout the ever-shrinking Void. “Just a vain main who can’t accept failure.”

Ignoring her taunting remarks, Gaster stomped his right foot hard, twice. He felt the disturbance rush throughout the Void, and he was afraid that ripple alone would cause the current timeline to fall to pieces, but thankfully that was not the case. Instead, two bright lights appeared in front of him, small enough to fit into the holes in his hands. The two saved pacifist timelines appeared in front of him.

Despite not having a stomach, he felt nauseous. This was more likely to save everyone, but there was still a chance Chara’s agenda would triumph. But he didn’t have time to overthink, just act.

Quickly, he pushed the two timelines towards each other, and though they repelled like magnets, a huge burst of light appeared, showing the timelines had merged into one. He didn’t know how that would affect everything… he could only hope the good parts of each timeline were saved.

“What? What are you doing?!” Chara exclaimed, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the combined timeline. Somehow, some emotion other than fury and cockiness appeared on her face. Though for the wrong reasons, it showed the human side of her soulless vessel. She was afraid. “You couldn’t have possibly found a way to fix that mess!”

It’s more like testing a hypothesis… This is an experiment, unfortunately, not a conclusion, Gaster thought, but he couldn’t find the right words to actually say. I’m losing time. There’s no sense in this meaningless banter!

He hastily hurled the combined timeline towards the current timeline. They danced beautifully, like two galaxies combining to form one. The Void quickly became enveloped in a bright light.

Gaster began to grow lightheaded, and he could only assume it was the same for Chara. He didn’t know if everything had erased or if he had succeeded and he was entering his mended timeline. He had no way of knowing. His consciousness was slowly fading. He felt like he was endlessly falling again.

Suddenly, the bright light filled his vision, and that’s all that existed in the Void. White.

Chapter Text

“I cannot fight. I cannot think. But with patience, I will make my way through.”

A strange noise echoed around when his consciousness began to return. He couldn’t discern it right away. It was almost like the dripping water in Waterfall… pitter, patter, pitter, patter, pitter, patter... but he knew it was different. It was much faster, much harsher than the pleasant thumps he heard in the Underground marshlands. It was rain, pouring rain.

Rain. He hadn’t heard the word in ages. He hadn’t heard the sound of it in ages. It wasn’t a simple pitter-patter; it was a pounding that connected with his soul, like the constant beating of a drum. He felt somehow nostalgic, memories he never realized he forgot were coming back...

...or rather, glitching in.

Broken colors filled his view, and suddenly he was in a muddy scene. Nostalgia was automatically replaced with fear.

How…? Why? I don’t believe I ever returned to the Underground… Are glitches able to happen outside of the Underground? Has the universe been altered that much?

More and more questions filled his mind, but he had no time to reason through them. The glitch around him, the memory, took his attention.

Thanks to the glitch, he was running, mud splashing everywhere. He had to shield his face from the raucous drumming rain with one hand, and with the other, he held someone’s hand. His mother’s hand, he quickly identified. He felt his soul beating in his chest. The longer he ran, the more he felt like he was being dragged rather than voluntarily doing the action. Why was he resisting? He couldn’t exactly remember.

His hearing was still his strongest sense, though the fierce drumming of the rain and the panicked stomping of fleeing monsters drowned out any words or directions others were attempting to give. However, there was one voice that caught his attention. It seemed louder than the rain could ever be as it continued to pour. The voice was familiar, but to his frustration, he could not place a name to it right away.

“Ro! Ro! Wing! Wing!”

He turned around involuntarily, and a horrifying sight met his eyes. Something in his mind connected; he knew exactly who that voice belonged to. A monster with a sword pierced through his skull showed in the distance, getting farther and farther away the more he was dragged. Strangely enough, instead of trying to heal, instead of calling for help, the monster was calling, pleading for his family. He looked so pained, both emotionally and physically.

But they couldn’t turn around. Even if Gaster wanted to, he was bound to the glitch. He had no control over himself. All he could do was watch as he did in the forgotten past.

In all honesty, he wished he had never remembered. A horrible sense of dread filled him, and it only got worse as he travelled farther away. He hated the feeling with all of his soul, but he couldn’t break away from it, as much as he so desperately wanted. Only watching. Only listening. No change.

“Go with your mother!” shouted the voice, his father. It sounded extremely distant, though the words were extremely clear in his mind. “Go! Go! You’ll be safe! Just go!”

He heeded the instructions, whether he wanted to or not. He felt the ground disappear beneath him. He felt the air blow through his bones. He felt a sickening feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t really tell if the glitch was responsible for. He was entering the Underground, and at that moment, his father was probably dead.

The dread returned as the realization hit him, hard. He is dead.

Gaster closed his eyes as he fell into the Underground, trying to block out the terrible sounds that filled his ears. Stomping, screaming, crying, rain.

Rain. Harsh, harsh rain. It’s strange that something so nostalgic and pleasant can turn so sour.

But suddenly, there was no more rain. There were no more horrified screams or stomping or dread. The atmosphere had completely morphed into something much more warm. Still shaken from reliving the trauma of the glitch, Gaster didn’t want to open his eyes. He just wanted to simply exist in the pleasant atmosphere and not have to worry about the unearthed thoughts that now plagued his mind.

But, as fate would have it, he had no control over that. All he did was transition from one glitch to another; thus, against his strongest will, his eyes opened.

A notebook appeared in his immediate field of view, a planner of sorts. There were many scribbled wingdings all over the paper that were so sloppy he couldn’t decipher them right away, but just by briefly analyzing the format he guessed it was a checklist.

SLAM!

THUD!

Gaster snapped his head towards the sudden noise, his soul beating faster. After the last glitch, he didn’t know what to expect. The door was wide open, a strange crackling noise filling the silence. Though, it was much more reassuring than he expected it to be.

Grillby.

Something clicked. He suddenly knew where he was and what was going on. He remembered, the memories beginning to flood back.

The fire elemental turned towards Gaster rather gingerly. “Ah, I’m sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you!” was his chipper exclamation. “It’s just a little bit of a heavy box. Apparently I forgot something bringing in my stuff the first time around.”

Gaster’s heart began to beat faster. He felt overwhelmingly nostalgic as he unwillfully turned towards Grillby. His friend never acted like that anymore. Everything about him was more… reserved, which contrasted his former personality shown in the glitch. A simple “Oh, sorry,” would’ve been said in the present-day.

That is, if his planned worked, if there still was a “present-day.”

“Oh, no need to apologize,” Gaster found himself saying. He stood from the chair the glitch had placed him in. “Do you need any help?”

“No, thank you!” Grillby said, bending over. “I can get it!” Instead of picking up the box and attempting to carry it in as he did before, he simply just leveled himself with the box and pushed it into the dorm. He jumped back up victoriously, looking back over at Gaster as he adjusted his glasses. The elemental’s flame receded slightly. “I don’t think we’ve formally met.”

A small moment of silence lingered. Gaster found himself analyzing Grillby, scanning him up and down, while also trying not to make it obvious.

“No, I don’t believe we have,” he finally said.

Was I really that skeptical? And that pretentious, of all things? the skeleton thought. He knew now Grillby wasn’t dangerous by any stretch of the word, at least to those who haven’t greatly wronged him, but he just couldn’t shake an irrational, vigilant nagging in his head that told him to seek caution around this individual.

Though it was bothersome, he decided just to let the glitch happen, feelings and all. Surely some interaction with Grillby, even if it was simply reliving some past experience, could help him shake off some remaining emotions from the previous glitch, he thought.

Grillby, his flame shrinking ever so slightly until it burst back to full intensity, stuck out his hand in attempt to keep a pleasant atmosphere. The sudden surge of fire and energy scared Gaster ever so slightly (both in the glitch and otherwise, for he was scared out of his thoughts into paying attention to the glitch). It was enough to cause him to shift into a defensive stance momentarily. However, he did eventually (though cautiously), shake the other’s hand.

“Name’s Grillby Flamesman,” the elemental introduced.

“W.D. Gaster. Pleasure,” the skeleton responded, letting go of the grasp.

Grillby looked startled, shocked. He appeared confused almost, as if he was trying to process something. It was strange, and Gaster couldn’t exactly remember why it was so.

“W.D. Gaster?” he repeated quietly, cocking his head.

“Yes…?”

Another burst of energy. “Man, so you’re the one everyone’s talking about! Mr. Science Guy, highest IQ in the Underground!” Grillby explained with extravagant hand gestures.

Gaster felt his brow raise, a sign of confusion. “There is obviously someone smarter than me, and I highly doubt everyone in Snowdin was talking about me,” he responded skeptically.

“This small snowy town isn’t all that big, you know. ‘Everyone’ isn’t exactly a lot of people.”

“Yet it acclaims an extremely credible college.”

“A town doesn’t have to be big to hold some importance here, Science Guy.”

“Please, don’t call me that.”

“Hm... Alright then, W.” Grillby turned around, opening the heavy, forgotten box he had brought in moments before. “You know,” he talked over his shoulder, “I think years we’re both cramped together in this small dorm are going to be pretty interesting…”

Grillby’s words faded as the cozy dormitory and the warm atmosphere did as well. Static noises and broken colors had replaced them, but this time Gaster knew what was happening. He braced himself for whatever glitch was next, whatever part of his life he’d be forced to relive.

But what happened next was not a glitch. At least, it wasn’t like any glitch he had experienced before. A spiral of various noises circled in his head. The pitter-patter of the falling water, Grillby’s laugh, countless conversations with lab assistants… Arguments, jokes, demands, machinery… The sound of a thankful child’s voice amidst the city sounds of New Home.

“Thank you, sir, for taking care of us.”

“Oh, there’s no need to call me ‘sir.’ Such formalities aren’t necessary.”

“...Can we call you ‘Dad?’”

“Heh. I suppose, if you wish.”

Suddenly, all the noise collapsed itself into silence. A vision of darkness flashed before him several times, only to be interrupted by a boundless white flash, just like the one he saw before experiencing all the glitches. Familiar voices began to fill the silence, voices from all different points of the journey to save everyone. They circled in his head much like the previous voices did before.

“This is the timeline where everything can be set right.”

“I refuse to let you three make this journey alone!”

“I-I’m sorry, Dr. Gaster… I don’t even know why I said those things.”

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

“You cannot blame the wrongdoings of an entire group of people on an individual!”

“It’s karma! It’s justice!”

“This war has gone on long enough.”

“L-Let’s do it!”

The voices ceased, a never ending blackness replacing the promising white cover. A broken timeline appeared in front of him, glitching beyond anyone’s control. Screams of monsters, loved ones, friends, and the fallen child filled his ears, but they were quickly drowned out by an all too recognizable voice.

“You’re no savior. Just a vain man who can’t accept failure… Did you really think you would win, old man? Ha! Pathetic.”

Her voice echoed for what felt like ages, sending a chill down Gaster’s spine. Still, her voice eventually died out, and so did the screams. The endlessness and the glitching timeline both faded away into white.

Unlike the others, Chara’s voice also said something else, but it was something of a wildly different essence, something not from the journey. Her voice was much more meek, hardly audible, sounding almost like Alphys’. For a moment, Gaster didn’t think it was her that said such a thing, and even if it was her, he didn’t believe the words were genuine… But regardless, the voice was still identifiably Chara’s.

“All I really wanted was the flowers of my village… They were the only things that kept me happy there. That desire was perverted into some chaotic form of revenge.

“I know it’s too late, but… Dr. Gaster… I’m sorry.”

Grey. The white that dominated his vision for long so had been replaced with grey. He blinked a few times, wondering if it was just some strange transition into another glitch of sorts… But still, the grey remained. It remained no matter where he looked in his peripheral vision.

As he walked forward to analyze the strange grey room, he realized something. He could move on his own accord. As if the realization was only a theory, he outstretched his hands in front of him to test if it was true. The motion felt awkward, for since he left the Void, he had either moved according to a glitch or been stuck in a state of paralysis.

He looked around. Everything around him was grey, but he could tell it was finite. He was in a room with walls... a very small room with walls that were almost uncomfortably close. Upon slowly turning around, he saw a door.

He stared at the door for a brief moment, trying to process everything that had just happened.

Combining the timelines must have worked, he thought. Assuming such, I must be in the new, merged timeline… But to get here… Why would I have gone through those glitches? Is Chara still in the Void? Surely, after failing to execute such a long, elaborate plan (twice) she would have given up. Well, I do suppose her determination is very great, and along with the perseverance of that human soul…

He inched closer towards the door, something nagging his mind that he just couldn’t resolve.

Rationally, she wouldn’t have given up unless she realized what she was doing was wrong… But the odds of that were nearly impossible. Even when faced with a chance of redemption in the beginning, the chance to return to a happy life with a happy family…

“You know as well as I that the actions you’ve done are immoral. And I know that with your soulless mind and tainted determination I will not be able to change your ways. I know that your hatred of humanity is what started this all. I’ve seen the timelines. Every single one with you in it. Despite all of that, despite the fact that you ‘killed’ me and despite the fact that you’ve almost caused the end of the world, I am willing to give you a final chance.”

“I’m not going to change, no matter how many chances you give me.”

“Perhaps not like this. But remember that vain research you mentioned? The one where I killed all those monsters, just to find out how to make a monster soul? You won’t be powerful enough to reset, and you won’t hold such intense hatred. You will simply just exist happily with a monster soul, like you once did before all of this. I am willing to give you another chance, Chara.”

“Ha! For a man who created that stupid trickery, you think I’m just going to believe you?”

“The mercy I offer is not my own. It is the mercy of your mother. Your adoptive mother, Toriel. It is the mercy of Asriel Dreemurr, the mercy of Asgore. The mercy of all of those who cared about you. For them, I am willing to give you one final chance. Either accept the offer, or accept death.”

“I would rather die than trust you.”

“...Then so be it.”

…she refused. What would make this time any different?

He froze, his hand on the doorknob, preparing to leave the room. He looked down at the grey floor, furrowing his brow. Her voice rang through his mind, just as it did simply moments before…

“I know it’s too late, but… Dr. Gaster… I’m sorry.”

He pondered for a moment. The question still remained: what would make this time any different? Was his soul simply trying to recreate something he wanted to hear, trying to make a symbol that reflected the goal of his journey being reached? Or was Chara actually trying to communicate with him through those glitches, attempting to apologize for her horrible actions?

Gaster sighed, mentally shaking his head to dismiss the thought. I suppose I shouldn’t dwell on it too much. It seems she has either given up on her malevolent plan or is completely cut out of the equation… Unless I see more prevalent evidence, I should not worry about it. Unfortunately, I know what that leads to. With that off his mind, he went on to open the door.

A palette of blues and purples filled his field of vision. An environment of purple, marsh land with dark cavern walls appeared. Soft noises filled his ears: the sound of water dripping from the ceiling splashing gently into the puddles below; pitter, patter, pitter, patter… the sound of luminescent blue flowers whispering conversations to each other. Waterfall.

He out stepped onto the moist ground. For a brief moment, he felt… lighter. And stiffer. And more nauseous. But those feelings quickly went away; thus, he gathered himself, closed the door to the grey room, and began to analyse his surroundings instead of admiring them.

The overall environment was familiar, yes; he could easily identify the place as Waterfall. However, he hadn't been through this passageway before… Perhaps it was just a road less travelled, or perhaps it was an anomaly of his plan…

It’s not important, he reminded himself.

He proceeded to walk out of the unknown hallway. As much as his curiosity told him to go the other way, he quickly decided finding the others, or at least someone involved in the previous madness, would be a better plan. He had to tell them that everything went as planned… The Underground was safe!

He followed tuffs of the marshland grass and the echo flowers to a peaceful boat dock. He remembered there being a ferry somewhere around… Or maybe the Riverperson would stop by to lend a ride. He continued down the dock, looking around the murky water in attempt to find either of those things.

Though he didn’t find what he was formerly searching for, something else came into view that was much more interesting. Two figures at the edge of the dock appeared in his field of vision. The closer he got, he could discern the figures as Frisk and… a grey form of the Monster Child?

...Grey…

Gaster watched the scene as he slowly approached.

Frisk reached their hand out to the Monster Child, the human’s face full of concern. Before contact was ever made, however, the Monster Child quickly bowed his head, gazing wistfully into the dock with pain in his eyes, pain a child should not have.

“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same,” said the Monster Child suddenly, “except you don’t exist?” Frisk retracted their hand, simply staring at the adolescent monster. Gaster did the same. “Everything functions perfectly without you…” He paused, cracking a forced, sad smile. "Ha, ha…” His smile quickly faded as he took a shaky deep breath. “The thought terrifies me.”

Frisk stared for a little longer, letting the quiet sound of the moving water fill the silence. For Gaster, however, the silence was filled with his racing thoughts. He couldn’t remember if this scenario had previously happened in a timeline or not, for he felt a striking sense of deja vu. He knew he had at least heard those words before, somewhere. He knew; he remembered having that same destructive train of thought...

The Monster Child lifted his head, but he did not look back. He simply stared at the swaying water.

“Please forget about me,” he said softly. “Please don’t think about this anymore.” Frisk took one last glance at the Monster Child, but eventually obeyed. They turned around, making their way to exit the boat dock.

Gaster glanced at the human child as they walked off, and then turned around to examine the suspicious grey Monster Child. Only, the Monster Child had disappeared. The skeleton blinked, rubbed his eye sockets, then looked again. He was still gone. Strange…

Was all of that just apart of his imagination?

He assumed such, as to not let himself get distracted anymore than he already had. He took the long route to Hotland, hoping he could simply go through it without anymore peculiar occurrences happening like the ones in Waterfall. But fate wouldn’t let things be so easy.

Once in the hot land, Gaster went west towards the nearest elevator. Upon entering it, he selected Right Level Three. Nothing happened. He furrowed his brow, trying again, but nothing happened. The doors automatically closed after many attempts, however, but upon their opening it revealed a different location, Left Level Three.

He sighed, deciding to walk through the rest of this level to get to the CORE (and, by extension, New Home). But he was stopped by an electrical barrier, one he remembered putting into place all those years ago while constructing the CORE. How was it still active…? Who had the access to turn it on…?

He glanced past the blue sparks, seeing Frisk once more. With them appeared a stocky, greyed monster who stared off into space with wide eyes. His arms appeared to be glued to his sides, as if petrified by some sort of incident.

Gaster immediately recognized who the other monster was. It was one of his lab assistants, one of the three who were present the day he first fell into the Void.

“Doctor—!” the skeleton started to call, but the assistant cut him off, as if the former weren’t even there.

“It makes sense why Asgore took so long to hire a new Royal Scientist,” the assistant said, still staring off into the fiery distance. There was so obviously pain present in his voice, but at the same time, there was a hint of nostalgia as well. “After all, the old one... Dr. Gaster…” He gave an almost uncomfortable chuckle. “What an act to follow! They say he created the CORE. However, his life... was cut short. One day, he fell into his creation, and…”

The assistant trailed off, shifting his gaze for the first time, glancing away from Frisk. “Will Alphys end up the same way?” he added thoughtfully.

Gaster stared at the scene in disbelief. “Dr. Sucif!” he called, but the assistant did not speak or even turn his head. He had returned his gaze to the abyss of lava in the distance, not even paying attention to Gaster. The assistant didn’t care to acknowledge that Frisk had left, either.

“Dr. Sucif!” the skeleton repeated multiple times, but there was still no response. He even tried his best to manually turn off the electrical barrier from where he was, but alas, there was nothing he could do.

Gaster took a deep breath and glanced for a second longer at the assistant he could not contact. He made his way back into the elevator, again selecting Right Level Three a ludicrous amount of times, only for the doors to once again shut automatically. When they opened, he was unsurprisingly not where he had selected to be. When he exited the elevator, he noticed he was on Right Level One.

Well, I suppose that’s closer than last time.

In front of him was another electrical barrier, as well as Frisk with another one of his lab assistants. Why was the elevator bringing him to these scenarios?

The lanky assistant stood, peering down at Frisk in an almost creepy manner. Though, Gaster could hardly see his face due to it being covered by the hood of his jacket. However, by the jacket alone, he could identify who it was.

“Alphys might work faster, but the old Royal Scientist, Dr. W.D. Gaster?” he spoke, sounding out of his mind. “One day, he vanished without a trace. They say he shattered across time and space.”

He laughed and laughed and chuckled for an awkward amount of time, glancing down at some sort of knick-knack he was holding in his right hand. Gaster recognized that as well; it was from his laboratory.

“Haha... how can I say so without fear? I'm holding a piece of him right here.”

Traumatized, insane… Is that what became of his assistants when he fell into his machine, when he entered the Void? He wanted to desperately to be able to communicate with them, to tell them that he had made it out, to say he had survived. But he knew he couldn’t. They couldn’t hear him, for whatever reason… It was like he had been completely cut out of the picture.

If he was going to be visiting all the assistants who were present during the incident, he knew there would be one more. He sighed, stepping back into the elevator.

With a certain mundaneness, he pressed the Right Level Three button a few more times, before the elevator doors once more closed and brought him to a completely different level.

Stepping out of the elevator onto Left Level Two, Gaster saw his final lab assistant with the human child Frisk. The assistant was no more than a simply a face that seemed to sprout out of the ground, but she was very intelligent. At least, Gaster remembered her to be so. He stepped up to watch the final scene unravel, to see what she had to say about his disappearance.

“I understand why Asgore waited so long to hire a new royal scientist,” she spoke worriedly, which sounded alien to Gaster. He had only heard her speak confidently and smoothly, but this was not the present case. “The previous one... Dr. Gaster. His brilliance was irreplaceable. However, his life... was cut short. One day, his experiments went wrong, and…”

She gave a nervous chuckle, and did something none of the others did. She looked Gaster dead in the eyes.

“Well, I needn't gossip,” she said, her tone growing very serious all of the sudden. “After all, it's rude to talk about someone who's listening.”

After she completed her sentence, she diverted her gaze, pretending like she never looked at him at all.

It was all very strange, and Gaster could not exactly decipher how and why. Despite attempting to unravel these mysteries, Gaster found his attention on Frisk, who looked back, just then realizing they had gone to the wrong level. They turned around and walked straight through Gaster, as if he wasn’t there at all.

The skeleton clutched his stomach, an awful feeling spreading throughout his entire body. Had Frisk just… phased through him? How could it be? His thoughts started to go crazy as he felt his knees grow weak.

How could this be? What happened? Why did they just… walk through me? Am I truly dematerialized? Am I truly...

In that moment, doubled over and scatterbrained, everything seemed to stop as the realization dawned on him.

In a way, Chara did succeed in erasing something. No, it wasn’t the timeline as intended, but instead it was the memory of the person who saved it. Gaster himself had been erased from the timeline, the only remnants of him being the lost souls of his former lab assistants.

The doctor sat on his knees, staring at the rocky ground. He hugged his stomach with his arms.

As if the words he spoke finalized the situation, he said, hoping someone would hear him and prove him wrong, “I… no longer exist.”

Chapter Text

“Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same, except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you. Ha, ha…

“...The thought terrifies me.”

Gaster had accepted his fate long ago. Erased. The ability to interact with the physical world around him, every wisp of his memory… all of it was gone, all in a small instant. No one could see or remember him in any way. He had no way to interact with his colleagues, his friends, his sons…

He’d concluded long ago that everyone’s memories were completely back to zero; a true reset had occurred. It was all so horrifying to watch from the outside, seeing friends revert from their good terms back to sour ones, as if they had never reconciled once upon a timeline.

Yet, they still made peace with one another eventually without his intervention whatsoever. Everything had worked so perfectly without him. It worked better without him. It was almost as if everything he’d done was for naught…

Sure, he accepted his fate, but it forever haunted him.

This was almost worse than being trapped in the Void. Being in that black nothingness allowed him to watch the timelines as they unfolded, meaning he could analyze everything from every part of the Underground as it occurred. He didn’t have that luxury anymore. He was subject to a limited perspective, only being able to view the world that went on around him, nothing more. Unless he followed the human, he couldn’t know what was going on.

Not being able to intervene was frustrating as well. He couldn’t necessarily do that in the Void either, but it was always an option (if not a risk). In this state of incorporeal dematerialization, it wasn’t. He couldn’t change the course of the timeline, no matter how much he tried or wanted to. If things started to go south, if some sort of unprecedented genocide route started, he wouldn’t be able to stop it. That thought ached his soul more than anything. If everyone he knew was murdered and he was powerless to stop it, he felt it would weigh on him, that somehow it would be his fault. After all, it was his fault he was stuck in this sorry state, not being able to do anything.

He couldn’t bare to stay outside the mysterious grey room for long. Sure, he supposed he was thankful that the route playing on the other side of the door wasn’t one of genocidal nature; those death-filled timelines were perhaps some of the worst things he’d ever seen. But the fact that everything could be better still bothered him greatly. If the glitches hadn’t occurred, everyone would have reached the surface by now. He was certain. But that was not the case. He was stuck in a timeline that took everything away from him in a peaceful way, damaging only his mind and soul, and fortunately no one else’s.

Yes, it was good that Chara was gone. Yes, it was good that the universe was not in danger of being destroyed. Yes, it was good that the timeline seemed to be following the nature of the few routes he had categorized as “pacifist routes.” But even so, he couldn’t help but wonder… if he hadn’t fallen into his machine, if he hadn’t entered the Void all those timelines ago, could all of this had been avoided?

Hmph, he thought bitterly. Of course. But I am not the one who killed everyone. That was Chara, and her actions do not affect my goodwill.

It was often that he had to argue with himself to stop the guilt formulating from hopeless “what if”s. He went outside of the grey room regularly just to escape his own thoughts. Perhaps his own mind, he frequently pondered, was more destructive to him than Chara’s words ever were. Or perhaps that was a part of her plan, to manipulate his self-confidence and warp it into a paranoid habit of second guessing himself.

It hardly made a difference now, of course, but it seemed that was all he could do. Ponder. Ponder and watch. It drove him to the brink of insanity. Maybe he had already crossed that blurry line… It was impossible for him to tell at this point.

Much like his mind, his physical form (or some incorporeal illusion equivalent) was wearing away as well. The cracks in his skull and the holes in his hands had returned. His torso and legs had begun to amalgamate together into a puddle of a body. He didn’t know if he had proper legs or arms anymore or if they were just stuck in the melted mixture of his physique.

Quickly after all this started occurring, the doctor concluded that his magic couldn’t gather itself properly, as he did not truly exist to the outside world. It was tragic. Even if he wanted to leave the grey room, the entire experience would be throbbing, so what was the use?

However, one day, Gaster decided to deal with the pain that came with every movement of his malformed body. He left the grey room. He himself wasn’t exactly sure why he did, but he had the strongest urge to do so. Where would he go? He didn’t know that either, but he seemed to know where, in his soul.

He wandered not quite aimlessly. Before he knew it, the moist grounds of Waterfall turned into the hard bedrock of Hotland, and that soon turned into the pristine concrete of New Home.

The capital city was rather vacant and quiet, especially when compared to the more suburban areas of the Underground that he had just passed through. From what he remembered, the city used to be teeming with people at every moment, but he could only see a noticeable few. The barrier always provided a static background noise as well, though that too had disappeared. It was strange.

Gaster continued to walk to the castle, trying his best to ignore the aching pain that seemed to engulf his being. A striking sense of determination had struck him. He had to move on, he thought, in spite of the pain. He still couldn’t piece together why, but that was in the back of his mind at the moment.

He entered the mighty castle, feeling a wave of bittersweet nostalgia as the noble atmosphere consumed him. Oh, what he would give to be working there again. What he would give to still be living in New Home, to still have his sons, to still exist.

Oh, what he would give to undo his mistakes.

Slowly, he entered the Throne Room, the silence of the barrier rather strange. At first, he expected to see the tragedy-stricken King Asgore either watering the numerous flowers growing around the room or sitting pensively on his throne.

When the King was shown to be absent, he then expected the room to simply be empty. That too, however, proved to be a wrong assumption.

There was a small figure standing cloaked in the shadows of the naturally lit room. They were sitting down, a look of distraught all over their face as they stared at the flowers.

It didn’t take much analyzing for Gaster to realize who it was. Even still, it confused him. If what he thought was happening was actually occurring in the timeline, then shouldn’t the boy be a flower?

“Asriel,” the skeleton said, partly out of surprise and partly to catch his attention.

The child looked up at Gaster, taken aback by the latter’s melted form. Gaster tried to search the prince’s eyes for any sort of recollection or remembrance, but alas, there was none.

How selfish, he berated himself. I should be thankful he can even see me…

It took a small moment for him to realize what was off about that thought. He furrowed his brow. How can he see me?

“Sir, shouldn’t you be leaving the Underground?” Asriel asked, causing the doctor to snap out of his thoughts. Ah, yes. His speculations were correct. The true pacifist route had seen completion, and the barrier had been broken.

“Shouldn’t you, my boy?” Gaster countered. He knew it was a dumb question. Surely the boy would turn back into a flower at any moment, but he felt it was polite to pretend he didn’t know of the poor boy’s unfortunate fate.

There was a small chuckle, followed by a sad smile. “Heh, I wish I could. But, I wouldn’t stay long…” Asriel’s sad tone echoed throughout the room. He looked back down at the flowers sorrowfully. Gaster knew there was an unspoken “If I go, I’ll just hurt everyone” at the end of that phrase.

“Well, I do believe the sun is a sight to see. Even if you don’t plan to stay, I think you should see it, at least once,” Gaster stated, walking slowly towards the opening that led to where the barrier used to be. He didn’t take his eyes off of Asriel.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m going to have to pass,” the boy said without looking up.

There was a small pause as Gaster gave Asriel an empathetic glance. What he would give to give this boy a better life …

The scientist sighed. “If you insist. I wish the best for you down here, Prince Asriel,” he said, a certain guilt noticeable in his tone.

Asriel looked back up at Gaster for a brief moment, before looking down again in what Gaster could only assume was embarrassment.

“Thank you, sir, but I’ll be… fine. Don’t worry about me, sir.” Another wavering moment of silence. “Uhm,” piped the boy just as Gaster was about to leave. “Good luck on the surface.”

Gaster smiled. “Thank you.”

“No problem, sir.”

Gaster went through the opening in the back wall that lead to where the barrier used to be. As much as he wanted to feel proud that monsterkind had finally been freed, his mind was completely somewhere else. How did Asriel see him? How was he still Asriel, and not Flowey? And why was he just sitting around in the Throne Room? It was curious, to say the least.

But there were more pressing matters.

Gaster shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind. He looked over at an archway that he knew had to lead to the surface. Briefly, his mind flashed back to when those who ruled the surface, the humans, shoved him and his entire race under this cursed mountain, killing countless others (including his father) in the war. But that was lifetimes ago… Would this be the same surface? Or would it be something entirely different, entirely new?

He took a deep breath. He would worry about such things whenever proved necessary. He wholeheartedly believed that everyone (that being, everyone from the journey in the previous timeline) could handle such dangers if they arose.

He took one last look back. Though his eyes only landed on the opening to the Throne Room, his mind travelled back through so much more. This little cave was where they had all been trapped for longer than they would ever know… It provided him with so many opportunities. The opportunity to prove his genius and work for the King, to help improve the life of those underground and to be a father… the opportunity to save the world.

He couldn’t lie, he was going to miss this place. However, he knew the surface would provide more opportunities, at least for those he cared about. And that, he decided, was the most important thing.

Thus, he climbed out of the Underground and entered the surface.

Rising sunlight nearly blinded him as he gained his footing on the dirt above. His melted eye sockets adjusted rather quickly, however, and he noticed he wasn’t alone. In front of him stood the others from the journey, who looked like they had just climbed out of the Underground as well.

Asgore had stepped up to the edge of the mountain, admiring the sunlight. Undyne was helping Alphys get the dust off of her lab coat, maybe paying too much attention to a few areas... Papyrus was talking to Toriel and Frisk about what he thought the surface world would be like. Both the former queen and the human were listening bemusedly as they too walked up to the edge of the mountain. All of that was to be expected, of course. Nothing really seemed out of the ordinary.

That was until Gaster laid his eyes upon Sans.

Sans was still near the exit of the Underground. In fact, he was only a few feet away from Gaster, and the scientist was surprised he hadn’t noticed him sooner. He looked down wistfully at something Gaster couldn’t identify immediately. Soon enough, however, his eyes did catch glimpse of two words written in a familiar font upon a strikingly wonted picture.

“Don’t forget.”

Gaster couldn’t help but stumble back slightly when he saw the small piece of paper. It was a photograph taken ages ago, timelines ago. Sans still had it in his possession to this day, hardly damaged. In the picture was the both of them as well as Papyrus, all young and undamaged by the burden of timelines and evil, determination-filled entities. He kept it all this time…

The short skeleton turned back, unknowingly looking where his father stood. At least, that’s what Gaster thought, until something strange happened, something so strange he almost didn’t believe it actually occurred.

Sans winked. Sans winked at him.

This caught Gaster off guard. For a split second, he didn’t know what to think. How in the world…?

Before he could confront Sans, however, the stocky skeleton walked up to the edge of the mountain like all the others and proceeded to spout lines of predictable dialogue the former recalled from the few other pacifist timelines there were.

It was a rather curious situation. …Could it be that his son actually remembered who he was, even after he was wiped from his memory? Did he truly remember? For the first time in a while, Gaster smiled. He sighed, looking at the glorious sunrise, the coming of a new dawn, a symbol of the new life that all monsters would be able to live.

Perhaps the journey wasn’t for naught after all. Perhaps this is where the journey was supposed to lead to all along. And maybe, just maybe, Sans’s acknowledgement of his existence was just the beginning of something greater. Maybe others would also come to see him, remember him…

Maybe there was hope after all.

Chapter Text

Perhaps the journey wasn’t for naught after all. Perhaps this is where the journey was supposed to lead all along. And maybe, just maybe, Sans’s acknowledgement of his existence was just the beginning of something greater. Maybe others would also come to see him, remember him…

Maybe there was hope after all.

He hummed to himself as he watered the New Home flowers. No one lived there anymore, on account of everyone migrating to the surface, so the task wasn’t necessary. He just thought the flowers looked nice. If he was doomed to stay in the Underground forever, he figured he should be surrounded by some nice scenery.

Dr. Wing Din Gaster saved the universe, not that anyone knew.

Lifetimes ago, Dr. Gaster fell into his machine and landed in the Void, another plane of existence where he watched timelines as an outside observer. He didn’t dare intervene, even as his colleagues, friends, and family were brutally murdered time and time again. See, timelines were fickle things. One wrong move and everyone would cease to exist. It was only when the sky glitched and the universe threatened to collapse that Gaster threw himself back into reality.

One more reset and it was all over. Chara, the serial killer she was, knew this all too well. As Gaster gathered allies, she plotted their demise. A mind like Gaster’s was not to be underestimated, however — he knew just being in the timeline changed a great deal of variables. He thought up a plan, conjured a mighty illusion to destroy her, but it wasn’t enough.

She grabbed the purple soul. She clung to life. She entered the Void. She hacked and slashed the last extant timeline, causing glitches, forcing everyone in the Underground to relive their worst memories from previous resets. Then, she warped everyone into something unrecognizable, forcing them to forget their comradery, the journey that bonded them together. “Lost Souls,” Sans had called them.

“Finally starting to get it, aren’tcha old man? Reset reality, reset their minds, reset the timeline, erase.”

Gaster chased after her, reentered the Void. He took his own saved pacifist timelines, merged them, and saved the dying timeline. He saved his family, his friends. He saved the universe. 

In doing so, he resigned himself to an eternity where no one remembered him.

Now, instead of being trapped in the Void, Gaster was trapped in a strange grey room in the middle of Waterfall. Compared to the mind-numbing endlessness of the Void, it was suffocating. Sure, he could leave the room and go into the real world, but leaving for long periods of time hurt, and he was more of a puddle than a man these days.

But monsters made it to the surface once more, and it didn’t seem like Frisk would reset any time soon. So long as everyone else made it out, he was willing to accept his fate.

So, Gaster committed his not-quite-life to making sure the Underground didn’t fall apart, even though his interactions with the world around him were limited at best. It meant he couldn’t be noticed by anyone, but he could fix machines and leaks.

He could tend to the flowers.

Thus he hummed, and he watered.

Speaking of flowers, Gaster would occasionally see Flowey, Prince Asriel’s tragic alter ego. The poor boy was also trapped in the Underground after breaking the barrier. Gaster didn’t know what Flowey did with his lonesome days, but with little determination and no one to manipulate, any evil plans were laid to rest long ago. Gaster would ask, if he could, but Flowey couldn’t see him.

Both were alone, it seemed. Until one day…

Amidst his humming, Gaster heard footsteps.

The sound echoed off the cave walls, rattling around his skull to cause quite the headache. Honestly, it sent his heart racing, too, because who would be in the Underground at this point? No one had ventured beneath Mt. Ebott in a long time.

As the footsteps approached, Gaster heard two very familiar voices.

“SANS? SANS! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” shouted Papyrus through the static of a phone. Even though the phone wasn’t on speaker, his voice was clear as day.

“Yep,” responded Sans the Skeleton, holding his phone a good foot away from his skull.

Gaster dropped his watering can.

He hadn’t seen anyone from… before… in years, including his precious adopted sons. Briefly, he thought he was hallucinating from being outside the grey room for so long. But no, Sans was there, and he was real, and he was sauntering down the abandoned streets of New Home. Gaster dared to step closer. 

Not much had changed. Sans still sported his signature blue jacket and athletic shorts, but he had at least swapped out his slippers for slip-on sneakers. His shirt, while still white, now had text on it. From what Gaster could tell, it read Monster-Human Alliance, holding photoshopped pictures of skeletons, goats, humans, and spaghetti. Made by Papyrus, if he had to guess.

Speaking of Papyrus, he continued to yell over the phone, “HAVE YOU MADE IT TO NEW HOME?!”

“Yep,” Sans answered again.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST REMEMBERED YOU LEFT SOMETHING IN SNOWDIN!! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR?!”

Against all odds, Sans turned and made direct eye contact with Gaster. 

“Yep.”

Gaster forgot how to breathe.

The gaze reminded him of something. When monsters finally made it to the surface, Gaster ventured out of the grey room. He travelled the rest of the Underground and, through great pain, climbed to the top of Mt. Ebott. He caught a glimpse of the setting sun, that beautiful light of day, but strangest of all, he caught his son’s eye.

And his son winked.

It gave Gaster hope that maybe he wouldn’t be stuck underground forever. 

As the years passed, though, any thought of leaving felt more and more like a pipe dream. He was convinced that Sans’s wink was a coincidence, a trick of the light. Or, worse yet, maybe Sans forgot about him while adjusting to life on the surface.

That discarded hope bubbled in his chest. Sans was here, actually here, staring Gaster straight in the eye and refusing to look away.

Was it time?

“AND YOU’RE SURE YOU’RE SAFE? DR. ALPHYS SAYS THE UNDERGROUND MAY BE UNSTABLE!”

“Yep,” Sans said, taking measured steps towards Gaster who stood in awestruck disbelief.

“SANS, YOU BONEHEAD, ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!”

“Yep.” 

An arm’s length away, Sans stopped. “Hey, you wanna say hi to my friend real quick?” he asked Papyrus, holding his phone out towards Gaster.

“WOWIE, A FRIEND!” Papyrus exclaimed as Gaster widened his eyes. What was Sans thinking? “OF COURSE! I’M SURE THEY’RE KICKING THEIR FEET TO TALK TO THE GREAT PAPYRUS!”

Gaster gave Sans a skeptical look, but Sans simply gestured to the phone, smile unwavering. 

If Sans could see him, maybe Papyrus could hear him. Sure, the theory went against all logic, but was it so wrong to want to talk to his son, even knowing it could lead to disappointment? With hopes and dreams swirling in his chest, Gaster was willing to take that risk. He stepped closer. 

“Hello?” he spoke meekly into the receiver, his voice gravelly and distorted from years of forced silence. 

Contrary to Gaster’s expectations, Papyrus gave an immediate response. “HELLO, SANS’S FRIEND!” 

He… He can hear me. Gaster gaped at Sans, and for his part, Sans just shrugged. No recognition, but he can still hear me. Unbelievable.

Papyrus, his son who could hear him, continued, “I’M SURE SANS HAS TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT ME!”

“Yes, I’ve heard a great deal,” Gaster said, wet and wobbly. He can hear me. Even as tears pricked his eye sockets, his face broke out into an uncontrollable smile. He can hear me. “It is a pleasure.”

“LIKEWISE, SANS’S FRIEND!” Papyrus yelled. “MAKE SURE SANS DOESN’T GET INTO ANY SHENANIGANS ACROSS TIME AND SPACE! THE UNDERGROUND HAS BEEN ABANDONED FOR MANY YEARS — NO ONE KNOWS WHAT AWAITS!”

“Of course,” Gaster said.

Satisfied, Sans took his phone back. “Well, I dunno how the signal’s gonna act as I go further underground, so I’m gonna hang up now. Call me in two hours if I don’t call you first.”

“FAREWELL, BROTHER AND FRIEND, AND BE CAREFUL!!” 

“Got it,” Sans said. “Bye.” 

He hung up the call, turning back to Gaster with his all-knowing grin. “Wow, I can’t believe that actually worked.”

So many thoughts and emotions swirled in Gaster’s mind. He hadn’t seen anyone in years. No one had seen him for some years more. He wanted to sob. The fact that the first person he saw was his son multiplied that feeling tenfold. 

Even so, there was a lingering fear that this wasn’t real, that nothing would come of it, that he would be stuck in the Underground forever. He’d been trapped for so long, it felt like there was no way out. Or maybe that feeling was because he’d been away from the grey room for so long. 

He was overwhelmed with love, with fear, with… questions.

Ever the curious mind, Gaster pushed past all his conflicting emotions and asked, “My son, how could Papyrus understand me?” 

“Sorry, can’t hear you,” Sans admitted, “but I can see you, for some reason. Here, maybe this’ll help.” 

He dug in his pocket for something. “Ta-da!” he sang, revealing another phone. He thrust it in the space between them. “Hopefully your cool new melted look won’t eat it up.”

Gingerly, Gaster reached for the phone. He could almost feel his body try to reject it. He was supposed to be erased, forgotten — this amount of acknowledgement was unprecedented and therefore unacceptable. His unstable form tried to phase the phone through his hand, but there was a certain magnetism keeping it in his holed palm. 

Fascinating.

Again, he swallowed down the hope climbing up his throat, and he dialed Sans’ number, still memorized from days long past.

Gaster took a deep breath. He exhaled, “Sans? Can you hear me?” 

Sans’s smile grew wider than it was in most timelines. “Yeah, I hear you. Heya, Pops,” he said. 

Gaster lit up. He could easily ignore the pain of his malformed body if it meant he could talk to someone, especially if it meant he could talk to his son.

He can hear me. He can hear me. He can hear me.

“Sorry it took so long,” Sans continued. “Human materials don’t have the same magical oomph, y’know?”

“My son, I am just glad I can talk to you.” Gaster paused, briefly taking the phone away from his skull to examine it. It didn’t look different than a normal phone. “How did you figure out how to talk to me?”

Sans shrugged. “It was easy. I figured you were dematerialized again, like you were when you fought Chara?” He visibly soured at the name, but covered it up quickly. “Only this time it wasn’t a choice. Just tweaked the phones so they tuned into another plane of existence, and here we are.”

Gaster beamed with pride — his wonderful, brilliant son figured this out for the chance to talk to him again — before another thought sobered him.

“And… how do you remember me? Not that I am ungrateful!” he quickly added. “Sans, I am more grateful than I can express, but I…” He swallowed thickly, an arduous task for his malformed body. “I reset everything.”

Sans faltered slightly, giving a mirthless chuckle. He quickly regained a small smile. “Tibia honest, I dunno. Guess I just felt it in my bones, you know?”

It was a nonanswer — Sans was good at those. At that moment, Gaster didn’t care. Despite everything, he laughed, probably harder than the puns deserved. Oh, he had missed his son!

As his laughs died down, Gaster smiled at Sans. “Thank you,” he said softly. In this state, without the ability to hug his son, it was the best he could do to show the immense gratitude and joy and love he felt.

“It’s no skin off my back,” Sans said nonchalantly, though his eyes held the sentimentality his voice lacked. 

He glanced back at the distant castle. “Wanted to ask you somethin’, though,” he continued. “Care for a field trip to your old lab?”

Gaster furrowed his brow. A sharp pain shot through his melted skull. “Whatever for?”

Sans flashed that all-knowing grin of his and said, “We’re bringing you home.”

The words echoed in his head. We’re bringing you home. We’re bringing you home.

Gaster couldn’t agree fast enough. 

It was time.

“SANS! WHAT A SUSPICIOUSLY QUICK CALLBACK! DID YOU FIND WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR?”

“Yep. Don’t think I can lug it to the surface all by myself, though. Can you bring some help to the castle?”

Chapter Text

Gaster didn’t like to go to the castle. It was the last place he saw everyone before diving back into the Void, and that was not a hopeful last meeting. Tired and frightened by the glitches, everyone wanted answers that Gaster could not provide. They had so much faith he would return. 

“We believe you can do it.”

“You just have to stay determined.”

“Good luck, Dr. Gaster.”

He didn’t. 

The memories were almost more painful than being outside the grey room. Because of this, he had only been to his old lab once after resetting the universe, just to ensure all the machines wouldn’t go haywire. It was a short affair — he wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. 

Now, Gaster found himself stuck to the floor as he stood face to face with his old machine, the very one that sent him to the Void. Unlike most inventions in the dusty room, it was uncovered, emanating a horrible aura, though perhaps that was Gaster’s fears permeating his senses. 

And of course, it was this machine that Sans so casually approached.

Sans put his phone on a nearby table, pressing the speaker button before pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. Blueprints. He proceeded to unscrew a large panel from the side of the machine. Dozens of wires popped out, and Gaster flinched.

“I’ve been thinkin’ — which is always dicey, right?” Sans chuckled, even though Gaster didn't. “Even a hard reset shouldn’t erase you if you existed in the first place. Otherwise, how am I seein’ you right now?” As if to prove a point, Sans turned to look up at Gaster. “Pretty sure the universe is treatin’ you like an anomaly because the start point of previous resets is after you got trapped in the Void.” 

Gaster peered down at his son, wondering again just how much he actually remembered. 

“I guess when you fixed everything, the universe took you not being in previous resets as you not existing at all,” Sans continued, “but obviously you’re still here. So…”

He thrust his blueprints in front of Gaster. “Instead of bringing you to the Void, we’re tryna bring whatever’s left of you here. Kinda like that illusion you did that reunited the missing pieces of your soul. Think that’ll bring you back?”

Gaster gazed at the blueprints, which were covered in Sans’s barely-legible scribbles. Luckily, many of Sans’s notes followed Gaster’s racing thoughts as he mulled over calculations and magical engineering. 

“It’s certainly plausible,” Gaster muttered, his voice echoing between the phones. “You are proposing reconfiguring this machine to pierce the veil between our reality and the Void to find the tattered pieces of my soul?”

“Sounds fancy when you put it like that,” Sans said. “I was just gonna yank some wires.”

Gaster chuckled, knowing full well that Sans had a more intricate plan than that. 

“Well, in theory, your blueprints should accomplish that goal,” Gaster said. 

He glanced into the heart of the machine where he fell so long ago. Then he quickly looked away. If he stared for too long, he could still feel himself falling.

“There is one problem,” he sighed. “I’m unsure if there is any soul left to find.”

Sans took his blueprints back. “Well, you gotta have something.” He began to tinker. “Again, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“I suppose that’s true.” 

Gaster leaned over his son to analyze the blueprints again. They were sound, but extremely experimental. Even with all his soul research, even with all his lived experience, Gaster could not guarantee the desired outcome. 

“Sans, you do understand the risks here, correct?” Gaster asked, voice weak and shaky. “If this goes wrong, I could be trapped in the Void again. Or I could be erased entirely.”

Again, Sans didn’t answer directly. He instead stated in a faux-easy tone, “I wouldn’t be down here if you were just gonna disappear again.”

Gaster didn’t know what to say to that.

Sans was usually… passive. He had an eerie ability to read people, so he was always quick to see right through Chara in every timeline. Still, even in most genocide timelines, he did not intervene until the very end. He was never proactive in his protection. 

This, however — fixing a machine after what must be years of research and trial and error, going through the trouble of climbing back Underground to find him — was unusual. Sans actively sought to bring Gaster back, actively worked towards that goal. 

Perhaps the surface was better than Gaster thought if it pushed Sans past his nihilistic tendencies.

It gave him hope.

Sans fiddled for a little while longer, and Gaster dutifully watched. Soon, though, the pair heard distant chatter that quickly grew louder. Through his throbbing head and troubled thoughts, Gaster could make out every single voice in the muddled noise. Papyrus, Undyne, Toriel, Alphys, Asgore… 

It was his friends and family from another life. They were all here.

Sans must be certain if he invited an audience.

“Sans?” called Toriel through the noise.

“In here, Tori!” Sans responded, then turned to his father. “Gonna hang up,” he whispered, “but give a ring if I’m about to blow something up, ‘kay?” He winked.

Sans didn’t wait for Gaster to answer before ending the call. He shoved his blueprints out of sight, but continued working with the wires. All fine by Gaster. He was far too focused on the footsteps growing ever closer.

He froze as a crowd of people appeared in the doorway. 

…It had been so long.

Toriel was in front, dawning a purple dress and cardigan. Her name tag, revealing her to be a school teacher, was still clipped on. She wore her glasses all the time now, it seemed, as they still sat at the edge of her snout, chains dangling past her ears. 

Alphys and Undyne weren’t far behind. The work day must have ended recently, as Undyne also wore her own name tag pinned to a school jacket. Alphys had her ID attached to a lab coat, bearing the name of some monster-affiliated research institution.

Asgore entered behind them. His pink florals stood out starkly against his fur and yellow hair. He notably lacked his elegant crown, and Gaster guessed that meant he gave up his title as King of Monsters.

The last one was his younger son, the Great Papyrus, who rushed in, distracted from the rest of the castle. He made a quip about a flower pot that knocked itself over, and Gaster didn’t know whether to attribute that to Papyrus himself or Flowey. 

Papyrus had evidently ditched his “battle body” within the last several years. He, too, wore Monster-Human Alliance apparel, though he had a bright red sweater, specially made to match his signature boots. 

Gaster’s hands started to shake as the group settled in the entryway. Almost instinctively, he moved towards Papyrus, yearning to hold his youngest son who he’d abandoned twice now, but Gaster quickly stopped himself in his tracks. That horrible truth rang in his head — to all but Sans, he was nothing, less than nothing. A figment of a forgotten figment. 

It was tortuous, not being able to reach out, and it was easy to feel invisible as everyone looked right past him and focused a certain stocky skeleton.

“Heya,” Sans greeted.

“I didn’t know you knew where this room was, Sans,” Asgore noted as he ventured inward. “It has been untouched for some time.”

Alphys agreed, “I didn’t even use this lab when I was the Royal Scientist.”

“Don’t think there’s enough dogs in here for this to be a lab,” Sans joked.

Toriel chuckled. While Alphys usually enjoyed Sans’s punnery, she seemed more transfixed on his haphazard wire work. “Woah, S-Sans, do you know what you’re doing?!”

Sans, without looking, connected two wires. There was a buzz of electricity from the machine, and he smiled as it crackled. “Nope.”

Alphys grimaced.

Undyne squeezed her girlfriend’s hand before cutting in, “Is this the thing you need help getting to the surface? I could lift that by myself!”

“This hunk of junk?” Sans shook his head. “Nah. I’m just messin’ around.”

He gave Gaster a quick glance before returning his attention to the exposed machinery. 

“So, does the name W. D. Gaster mean anything to you guys?” Sans asked, seemingly out of the blue. His voice was light, like he didn't know Gaster was in the room at all.

Gaster looked out to the crowd, some naive part of him willing them to remember. Alas, there was no recollection on their faces. The silence wasn’t promising, but not unexpected, either.

“Oh!” Papyrus interjected with a snap of his fingers. Gaster and Sans looked at him hopefully. “Is that your friend from earlier?”

And deflated just as quickly.

“Yeah, it is,” Sans all but sighed. He continued to fiddle with the circuits. “Fun fact — he was the guy who built the CORE.”

Something sparkled in Toriel’s eyes, akin to recognition but not quite. “So he was the old Royal Scientist?” she asked.

“Yep.”

Alphys balked. “Sans, you’re friends with the old Royal Scientist?!”

“Yep.”

“I thought he died,” Undyne said, unconvinced.

“Perhaps Sans befriended his ghost!” Papyrus suggested.

“Something like that,” Sans dismissed before turning to Asgore, who stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Old Royal Scientist. Ringing any bells, Your Highness?”

Asgore shook his head. “I’m afraid not. It’s been quite some time.”

Longer than they knew.

Sans, for his part, just shrugged. Apparently a universal reset didn’t take away his ability to appear nonchalant in any situation. 

“Anyway, this is his machine. Thought I’d test it out for him, y’know?” He ripped out one last wire, looking briefly at his blueprints before turning to Gaster. “This look about right?”

“Who are you talking to?” Toriel asked, concerned. Sans didn’t answer.

Gaster analyzed the circuitry, briefly glancing at the blueprints as well, and then nodded. Even though he knew no one could see him, he felt the weight of everyone’s gaze. The concerned looks were actually aimed at Sans, but he seemed to pay no mind. 

“Welp,” Sans said, “guess it’s showtime.” He gestured for Gaster to approach the machine.

“Sans, what are you doing?” Papyrus asked skeptically. “You’re acting more mysterious than usual!”

“I think he’s finally gone crazy,” Undyne stage-whispered.

Sans gave his signature smile. “I get that a lot.” 

Their chatter quickly faded into the background as Gaster moved in front of his machine, the very one that twice ripped him from his family. Now, with fiddling from Sans, it was supposed to be his savior.

He trusted his son, he did, but it was hard to look at that scrap of metal as anything but the harbinger of pain.

Sans turned on the machine, breaking Gaster out of his melancholic stupor. It whirred uncontrollably, a chaotic hum that quickly grew more intense. Gaster had no choice but to stand in its wake. All those horrible memories were shoved to the forefront of his mind — the screams, the falling, the melting, the terror.

The line between his worst experiences and the current reality blurred as the others grew increasingly panicked. 

“Hey, uh, what did the bird say when he overthrew the ball?” Sans asked as he backed away from the machine. 

“Sans, what is—?!” Toriel started, but Sans summoned a shield of bones and shouted, 

“DUCK!”

FLASH.

A beam of light burst from the machine, engulfing the former Royal Scientist.

Gaster screamed as energy seeped through his mangled body. It tugged his amalgamated form every which way, and he felt as though every single quark was set ablaze. Surely, he thought, surely this was his end. His matter strained against itself, morphing in ways it hadn’t for quite some time. It stretched. It coagulated. It materialized.

Then, all of a sudden, the pain stopped.

Peace.

Next thing he knew, Dr. W. D. Gaster existed, suspended in space. 

It… worked, he thought, gingerly stretching his legs. Oh, to have legs! It worked!

Gaster felt reborn. His solid bones had no holes, and his skull no scars. 

He gazed at his creased lab coat, recognizing his attire from the day he went to confront Chara in the Void, the day he wanted so desperately to forget. And then he immediately tried to stop thinking about that, because it was time to move forward, time to go home.

He tried to “swim” to the ground, to a new life, but against all logic, he slowly floated upward. 

…What?

Apparently, the universe did not take kindly to being overwritten. A forgotten static filled his newly-formed bones. His body started to glitch. He became covered in broken colors, like those on a television that lost signal, like those on the ones being glitched away during Chara’s mutilation of the timeline.

The brightness of the machine died down, fading into the corners of the lab. The shadows cut deeper, and a chill whisked its way through the room. He was… was he going back to the Void?

No. NO! He looked over at Sans, his brilliant son, who coughed under his broken bone shield. He worked so hard… It’s been so long. It can’t end like this! They don’t deserve this. I do not deserve this!

But the dark grew.

Darker, yet darker.

There was nothing he could do.

…

…

…

Through the darkness, ever-growing, a hand grabbed his own. 

He looked down, seeing the trembling paw of Toriel. Her fur was damp with tears, and even as the broken colors travelled from his arm to hers, her grip never faltered.

She could grab him. She could see him.

“Dr. Gaster,” she breathed. Recognition graced her eyes. “It is you, is it not?”

She knew him.

His voice threatened to fail as he croaked out, “Yes.”

“You saved us,” she said softly. “You risked everything to save us.” She sniffed, a small smile overtaking her features. “And you’re back.”

Suddenly, a bony hand grabbed his wrist, and Gaster turned to see Sans. He had a bit of debris on his jacket, but he otherwise looked fine. The broken colors traveled farther still. 

“You’ve been through worse,” Sans said. “Bringing yourself back from nonexistence? Should be a piece of cake.”

Two gloves grabbed his other hand, tugging him valiantly down to this plane of existence. 

“You are a hero, Father!” Papyrus announced in his ever-confident voice. Though, as he squeezed Gaster’s hand, he looked every bit the child he was when Gaster first entered the Void. “Fear not! I will not forget you again!”

“None of us will!” Undyne shouted. She fiercely latched onto the lapel of his lab coat. “Hey wise guy, if you think we’re giving up on you after you saved all our butts, THINK AGAIN!” 

Alphys grabbed his sleeve. “Though it seems scientifically impossible, y-you always managed to do the impossible. S-So you… You can do this!”

Then, a hand planted firmly on his shoulder. Gaster turned to see his old friend, the former King of Monsters, staring at him with a creased brow and tentative smile. Wistful, yet resolved.

“Dr. Gaster,” Asgore began in his low, regal rumble, “we are deeply indebted to you. All we ask is that you stay determined.”

Gaster could feel all their souls beating as one, working towards one goal: bringing him back. 

Still, that power, all that hope and determination… It wasn’t enough. He continued his slow ascent upwards, even with six monsters tugging him down to Earth. 

Gaster let the tears flow freely, willing himself to stop floating, trying so hard to believe this wasn’t the end, but Gaster knew he did not attain such victories anymore. It was becoming increasingly apparent that his role in the universe was to be erased, just a mystery man in a strange room, a forgotten line of code to the game of this world.

He opened his mouth to say his apologies, his goodbyes, but he quickly closed it.

One last hand touched his arm, small and hesitant. 

Gaster didn’t notice Frisk when the group first entered the lab. They were older now, taller. Their hair was slightly longer, tied in a loose ponytail atop their head. Though they still dawned a blue and pink striped sweater, it was slightly covered by short-overalls. 

Frisk had been through more than Gaster could ever imagine. All those timelines where Chara slaughtered the entire Underground, it was Frisk’s body she puppetted. Frisk had a front row seat to the deaths of their friends, over and over — their last pleas for mercy, their final hopes and dreams. He wouldn’t be surprised if they could recall every word from those horrible resets.

Frisk didn’t say anything, but their smile was worth a thousand words. Maybe it was their determination that made all the difference.

As Gaster gazed down at the human child, one who had overcome such adversity and made it out the other side, he thought, Perhaps I will make it, too.

Another bright flash filled the room, and Gaster fell, dragging down everyone attached to him.

Groggily, Gaster blinked his eyes open. Despite fear gnawing at the corners of his mind — what if it didn’t work? — he dared to look down. Impossibly, thankfully, he was met with a complete, if not dirtied, corporeal form.

The broken colors were gone. His aches from straying from the grey room were gone. 

He was… alive. He existed.

He had returned.

Gaster cautiously wiggled his fingers, then moved to grab his phone. There was no magnetism this time, no feeling of his body trying to phase the phone through his melted bones. It felt… normal. Gaster hadn’t felt normal in a long time. He couldn’t help but laugh.

Slowly, he lifted his head, looking out at his family and friends as they all regained their bearings. 

A wide grin spread across his face. They saved me.

“Is everyone alright?” he asked. 

They froze, slowly turning to look at Gaster as if what just happened was a dream. Honestly, Gaster wasn’t completely convinced himself, but as he registered that his friends and family were staring at him , seeing him , recognizing him , it all felt more and more like reality.

Papyrus was the first one to break from this spell, enveloping Gaster in what must be the world’s tightest hug. Sans was quick to follow with his own bone-crushing embrace, and Gaster relished being in the arms of his dear sons. God, when was the last time they hugged like this? It must’ve been before the resets, lifetimes ago…

“I love you both,” he whispered. “So much.”

Somehow, their holds tightened even more.

The tender family moment was quickly disrupted as Undyne scooped all three of them up in her arms. “Fuhuhuhu~! I knew you could do it, you nerd!”

“I owe it to all of you,” Gaster said. “Without you, I would have surely gone back to the Void.” The name of that empty place, with all its terrible memories, felt like acid on his tongue. 

Toriel, some few feet away now, shuffled closer. “You’re back?” she asked. “For good this time?”

Sans removed an arm from around his father and knocked on Gaster’s skull. “Seems pretty solid to me.” Gaster would’ve shoved Sans’s hand away were Papyrus not effectively pinning his arms to his sides.

Sans gave a small nod to Toriel, and that seemed enough to convince her. She joined the group hug. Alphys awkwardly put her arms near his shoulders, and Frisk effectively climbed on top of Papyrus to sling their arms around Gaster’s neck. Asgore enveloped them all. Gaster could feel the deep rumble of his carefree laugh before it escaped his lips.

Frisk, close to his ear, muttered two words: “Welcome back.”

“The surface, is it nice?” Gaster asked, dusting himself off.

Sans gave a true, genuine smile. “Trust me, you’ll love it.”

“Well, then. Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

They journeyed through the castle at a slow pace. For everyone else, the Underground was nostalgic, despite it being a prison of sorts for all of them. But they became a family in these walls — it was hard not to reminisce. 

Besides, Gaster felt a little weak, emotionally and physically. He wasn’t about to say “no” to taking it easy, even if it meant staying in this prison a little longer. 

At least this time, he had his sons, his friends. As they traversed the endless halls, Papyrus held one of his hands, his other arm around Gaster’s shoulder to keep his father upright. Sans lagged behind, outwardly stating laziness, but his darting eyes betrayed him.

The group’s chatter was mundane at first, mostly about various memories from the castle and immediate stories about the past few years they thought Gaster needed to know: Sans worked at the same scientific nonprofit that Alphys did, though in a different department. Toriel’s school was slowly but surely getting more human students. Frisk, when not in school, worked as ambassador to various human governments with varying success, and Asgore and Papyrus jointly took up the role when Frisk was busy with their education. Alphys and Undyne were engaged and getting married soon. 

A burst of laughter that erupted between the group began to die down, echoing through the halls. What a joyous sound, Gaster thought. 

As it rang, Alphys hazarded a glance at the undead skeleton. “D-Dr. Gaster?” she called.

“Yes, Dr. Alphys?”

“Uhm, it’s been a-almost a decade since we’ve made it to the surface.” She nervously rang her hands together. “Wh-Where were you?”

Gaster faltered slightly. The others slowed, turning to face the old Royal Scientist.

He supposed he should have expected the question sooner or later. 

If he let his mind wander too long, it was like he could feel his body melting back into that amalgamated mess from just moments ago. (And how strange that it was just moments ago. His new reality still felt like a dream.)

“You don’t have to answer!” Alphys quickly backtracked.

Gaster gave a somber chuckle at that. “Dr. Alphys, for ages, I’ve wanted nothing more than to talk to you all. Of course I will tell you.” 

He took a deep breath, turning his gaze to the many glorious windows lining the walls. Wanting to talk about it and actually talking about it were two different things, unfortunately. Maybe it was his son’s hand in his own, maybe it was the fact they could actually hear his voice, maybe it was the miraculous human ahead of him, but Gaster told his story.

“I’ve been here,” he said, “in the Underground.” 

He tried to stay strong, neutral, but his voice still warbled. Papyrus squeezed his hand. 

“The universe was seconds away from collapsing when I confronted Chara in the Void. I, well… I merged two previous timelines, ones with better endings, and combined that with the unstable, existing timeline. In essence, I reset the universe, but in doing so, I was essentially erased from existence. I remained a figment of sorts, unable to interact with others or even inanimate objects if others could see me using them.” 

The atmosphere readily grew uneasy. “So as we continued with our second chance…?” Alphys interjected.

“I was trapped,” Gaster finished. He disliked the silence that followed, and opted to fill it with his own footfalls. Papyrus shuffled alongside him. 

“I spent most of my time in a small grey room in Waterfall. I could leave, but it… hurt,” he said, taking a measured breath. “I can only assume the universe conjured it because it did not quite know what to do with me, someone who clearly existed but had no evidence to prove it besides some inventions and a job title. 

“But I left, despite the pain, when Frisk embarked on their journey one last time.” Gaster gave the human a small smile. “I witnessed them reset a few times after difficult battles, but they went through with kindness, as always. After they achieved their happy ending, they did not reset again.” His smile soon faltered. “And then… everyone left the Underground, but I remained.”

His mouth suddenly felt all too dry. “For eight years, I have been alone.”

They came upon the Throne Room. It was as it was left — covered in buttercups. They were in full bloom, overtaking every inch of floor. The golden hour light reflected off their dew.

Gaster let go of Papyrus’s hand, leaning down to gently cup the yellow petals. “I spent most of it tending to the flowers.”

“What a lonely experience,” said Asgore from some yards ahead.

Gaster kept his gaze fixed on the buttercups. “It was.”

He felt someone kneel beside him. A purple sleeve crossed his eyeline, and soon, Toriel squeezed his knee in reassurance. “But… Sans could see you,” she offered.

A small laugh escaped his mouth before he could stop it. “Well, Sans’s trans-timeline abilities elude even me,” Gaster said. He smiled softly, peering up at his eldest. “I owe a lot to you, my son.”

Sans smiled at the praise, but like most other things, he shrugged it off. “Eh, you’re a smart guy. Bet you coulda figured it out. I just gave you a hand.” His smile broke into a grin as he stuck his hand out towards his father.

Gaster’s smile faded into a dubious expression. He quirked his brow, unimpressed. “I know there is a whoopie cushion, Sans.”

“See? Can’t get anything past you.”

Toriel chuckled, and the thick atmosphere became slightly more breathable. Papyrus took to dramatically grabbing and inspecting Sans’s outstretched hand. 

“Sans!! You brought a whoopie cushion underground to save Father?!”

“Woah, no need to blow up, bro. I always have an emergency whoopie cushion on me. Never know when you need to clear the air, you know?”

Gaster shook his head, turning his gaze back to the flowers as playful bickering filled his ears. Something caught his eye — a rustling further in the buttercups. Gaster searched in the sea of yellow, and though he tried to hide, Gaster locked eyes with a strangely sentient plant.

Gaster was hoping they would stumble upon him.

Flowey the Flower froze. His stem shook as his face contorted to show a storm of emotions. Angry. Sad. Hopeful? It was odd. Soulless beings couldn’t feel emotions, after all. Perhaps it was soul remembrance. Chara felt it too, in her final moments. 

Then again, if everyone else remembered the universe before it reset, then Flowey likely did too, and that meant he wasn’t actually Flowey.

Gaster chuckled to himself. It always came down to variables, didn’t it?

“Don’t laugh at me,” the trapped prince spat.

Gaster recognized a different emotion in Flowey’s eyes: fear.

“I would never laugh at your misfortune, my boy,” he said, ignoring Toriel’s startled gasp from beside him and the sudden lack of conversation from behind. 

The conversation was off to a rough start, so Gaster shifted where he was sitting cross-legged. Hopefully it would feel more level than Gaster looming over him. “You did a brave thing, all that time ago. Breaking the barrier, even though it meant you would return like this,” he said gently. “Monsterkind owes you a great deal.”

“But not as much as they owe you, huh, old man?” Flowey snapped back. “What is this all really for, huh? You come back so they can, what? Chant your name, give you riches? Do everything you ask because you saaaved them?”

Gaster gave a somber smile. Both of them knew the harsh words weren’t true, just a feeble attempt to bat away unwanted soul remembrance. 

“All I want, Prince Asriel,” Gaster said, “is peace. For me. For my family and friends. For monsters. For you. Eight years is quite a long time to be alone. I unfortunately know the feeling.”

“You know NOTHING!” Flowey screamed. He burrowed away, and briefly, Gaster thought the boy had run away for good, but he quickly shot up closer to the scientist. “Oh boo-hoo, the old man can’t be seen by anyone! SO WHAT!? At least he gets to somehow, IMPOSSIBLY keep his soul! He doesn’t have to deal with feeling nothing! He doesn’t have to deal with not being able to grieve his family, his life! And worst of all,” Flowey painfully chuckled, “he doesn’t know what it’s like to deal with the reality that determination can’t give him an out, that all that’s left for him is rotting in a soulless husk. You may have been stuck, old man, but you aren’t empty like me!”

“I’ve given you a soul once before, Prince Asriel,” Gaster asserted. “I can do it again.”

“It doesn’t erase everything I’ve done!” Flowey barked, sounding halfway to tears. “How I’ve hurt people. Even if they don’t remember, I DO! I remember every horrible thing I’ve ever done! I will always be Flowey, no matter what science bullshit you use!”

Gaster frowned and firmly responded, “You forget that I, too, have done irredeemable things.” He squeezed his eye sockets closed, and he was met with the faces of those he killed for research. They were innocent monsters with their whole lives ahead of them, slain mercilessly for data. “These terrible things we’ve done, the terrible things we’ve been through… They leave us with a heavy burden of guilt. And that is quite frightening. Where do we put all this grief, for us, for those we’ve hurt?” 

Gaster breathed out, and the phantom faces disappeared. “We disperse the load, Prince Asriel. The ones who love us help us heal, help us move forward.” He looked over to Toriel, who still held a shaky hand to her mouth. 

“Asriel,” she mumbled. She shuffled closer, and Flowey cowered.

Asgore, who had taken a few steps closer himself, stopped in his tracks. He swallowed thickly, instead kneeling close to the buttercup garden he nurtured for so long. 

“Let us help you, son,” he said, his low baritone trembling.

“You don’t want a son like me,” Flowey retorted.

Toriel gave a soft, maternal smile. “My sweet child, who wouldn’t want a brave, selfless, wise boy such as yourself as a son?” 

Flowey’s bite all but dissipated. “I-I’m not…”

“You are, Asriel,” Asgore assured. He, too, smiled. “That is how we know you will survive whatever the future has in store.”

Toriel dared to inch closer, and this time, Flowey did not run. “Dr. Gaster will give you a soul. It will not solve everything, but it will take away the emptiness,” she assured. “Will you let him do this for you?” 

Gaster, too, gave a soft smile. “It would be an honor. A gift to a friend.”

Flowey didn’t answer. Instead, he silently shook, his petaled face slowly morphing to mirror his goat one. It was an admission in and of itself, a willingness to be vulnerable enough to accept his past self.

There was ruffling in the flowers. A few feet away, Frisk set down a pot. It was an offer, Gaster knew, to accompany them back to the surface. 

Flowey seemed to surmise this, too. The boy, regaining a measured expression, turned to the scientist. “You can do what you need to do on the surface?” he asked, voice somewhere between hopeful and skeptical.

“We will have to come back for the Artificial Soul Machine, but after I have recovered, I will personally retrieve the needed materials. You will not have to wait long,” Gaster promised.

Flowey’s goat snout scrunched in thought, prompting Toriel to remind him, “Dr. Gaster needs to rest, son. He just came back himself.” 

The prince gave a relenting huff. “Fine.” 

The Dreemurrs brightened, and Gaster couldn’t help but smile with them. They were one step closer to a true happy ending.

From another room, Undyne shouted, “Hey losers! We’re burning sunlight!” 

Gaster looked around, and sure enough, both Undyne and Alphys had left for the barrier. Papyrus bounced up, practically running towards the bright room.

Sans lagged behind. He stepped away from the buttercups, but his eyes darted between Flowey and his father, calculating something. He seemed to reach a favorable conclusion, because he simply said, “Don’t wanna miss the sun on your first day back,” before following his brother.

Gaster smiled at this, turning to the floral prince himself, who now sat in the pot Frisk held. “Do you remember when I recommended you see the sun, Prince Asriel?” he asked.

Flowey turned to the scientist with narrowed eyes. “...Yes.”

“What a privilege it is to witness it with all these wonderful people, hm?” 

Gaster winked, and he followed his sons through the barrier.

His eyes adjusted, and… wow.

The sun was larger than he remembered. It seemed brighter than it was when Gaster was here last, all those years ago. He could actually feel the sunlight now — it was pleasantly warm, unlike the heat of Hotland. The warmth was accompanied by a wonderful wind that gently blew his clothes, coolly traversing through his bones. 

His eyes trailed to the mountains that stretched into the distance, bounding westward. Greenery, free from snow or swamps or scaffolding, engulfed the cliffside. The city lights glimmered, dancing with the natural sunlight.

What a gorgeous picture; he couldn’t take his eyes off it. There was inextricable beauty in the world around him, his new reality. He was so excited to experience it with the ones he loved.

They stayed there for a while, standing in peaceful silence as Gaster took it all in. The sun continued to sink below the horizon. It was a sign from the universe, an apology maybe.

He gave one final look at Mt. Ebbott, and then decidedly looked forward. 

“Well,” said Dr. W. D. Gaster, brilliant scientist, savior of the universe, father and friend, “lead me home.” 

Every step meant he was further away from his past, the suffocating isolation. 

At last, he could leave the Void behind.