Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You are not a good person.

You know this implicitly, explicitly, and all the ways in between. You know because of everyone else’s whispers, how they murmured about your blood-colored SOUL bringing ruin, just like the last one.

You remember when your trait first became strong enough to manifest, a red glow coming from your chest as your very being itself hovered gently in front of you in the middle of class. Jealous looks from the yet-unmarked quickly turned to horror once they all remembered what red meant. Everyone knew what it meant. Determination, yes, but also DETERMINATION. Power over reality itself, a once-in-centuries manifestation that commanded fear and respect—and the last one to have it tried to kill them all.

(No one mentioned how they all tried to kill the child first.)

Naturally, you were no longer allowed in school anymore. Or the store. Or the park. Or anywhere else besides your room while your parents decided what to do with you.

You decided they weren’t your parents anymore, not really. They clearly hated you as much as everyone else, burdened with a cursed child that could only bring misfortune.

You had a lot of time to think. You absorbed the anger shot at you like bullets and made it your own, twisting like a knife in your heart and then your hand. You grew resentful of those who were supposed to be your friends, your family, your people. You grew hostile, and not only to others. You didn’t choose this SOUL, after all.

You can feel your heart drop when you overhear one of the suggestions. “Force them to the mountain,” the mailman suggests. “Worked for the last one. Less risk, too—this one’s smaller, younger, weaker. They’ll get killed by a monster within a day and their abilities lost with it.”

You clench your shaking hands into fists as you listen to your “parents” seriously consider the suggestion. Easy, hardly any risk, no blood on their hands.

Fine, fine! They want you gone so badly? You’ll do it yourself. But you won’t die. You’ll make it through the whole underground and prove them all wrong. You’ll kill all the monsters and become a hero. They’ll have to accept you after that.

You grab a small pack of band-aids you stashed in a drawer at some point as one last thought and smash the window’s lock, shoving it open with crude force. For once, you feel lucky; your room is on ground level and the fall is no issue, just ending up with a slightly-scraped knee. One of the bandages is no issue for that. You pick up a stick while you stand.

With one last breath, you look towards the horizon. Everyone knows where Mr. Ebott is. Everyone is taught never to go to the mountain, lest you fall into certain death.

You run towards the mountain without a second thought.

—————

The fall doesn’t hurt as much as you expected it would. Or maybe it does and your DETERMINATION spares you from the worst of it.

You sit up, sneezing a flower petal off your nose. You lay upon a bed of golden flowers… wait, aren’t these poisonous flowers? Really setting the mood, you think bitterly, dusting off your shorts as you stand.

Trudging through the door, you see a flower, similar to the numerous ones you just trampled but malformed in an indiscernible way, grotesque in its uncanniness. Your disgust is proved right when it sprouts a face.

“Howdy! I’m Flowey the flower!” It says in a sickly sweet, patronizing tone. You are immediately reminded of some of your old teachers. You decide you despise this flower already.

Space seems to warp as your SOUL floats out of your body without any command. There is something in the flower’s eyes, a hunger only a kindred soul like yourself could identify. You’re getting a bad feeling.

“Just run into the ‘friendliness pellets!’” It tells you. You direct your soul out of the way, a movement that feels as easy as breathing.

The flower’s eye twitches slightly. The pellets continue to fly. You continue to dodge.

You can’t hide your look of unsurprised disgust as the monster’s face morphs into a grim horror of an expression, a bloodthirsty grin adorning its features as bullets surround you. You grimace, preparing to use your DETERMINATION.

But you don’t have to. A ball of fire sweeps away both the monster and its bullets. You look up to find the head of this hulking goat-like beast, a distinctly feminine tinge to its features.

It tells you that it comes here often to see if humans have fallen. You resist the urge to scoff. You won’t become an easy meal. You nearly trip as it takes your hand in its much bigger one, practically dragging you further into the Ruins.

Eventually, you stop actively trying to fight its grip. It doesn’t seem to be hurting you for now, at least, and you need to take advantage of anything you can get down here.

You let it walk you through asinine puzzles before coming across a training dummy. The monster encourages you to… talk to it? Which is too stupid to even consider, you are fully aware. You take your stick and smack it as hard as you can. The monster drags you away again with scoldings on its tongue.

You itch to fight the monsters the two of you encounter on the unknown path, yet the goat-beast insists on scaring them off. You need to become stronger before the real deal—maybe that’s its plan. Starve you of any chance to improve while assessing them to best determine how to kill you.

Somehow, you find yourself with a phone in your hand and instructions to wait. You do not wait.

Almost eagerly, you rush further into the Ruins, stopping to SAVE and steal some candy along the way. It’s not good food, but it’ll do. You continue on with only the occasional interruption from the monster’s phone calls. You don’t really listen to them, anyway.

It becomes an easy cycle. Solve puzzles, get ambushed by monsters, ambush the monsters. You kill every monster you come across, every monster you can find. It makes you stronger. It sends adrenaline pumping through your veins and something akin to euphoria in your SOUL. It makes you more comfortable in your skin. It becomes easier with each one. Eventually, nobody comes.

Well, except that one ghost. But you can’t kill something that’s already dead, you suppose, as hard as you tried.

At some point, you stumble upon a nearly-empty overlook. You have to look at the barren kingdom for a moment before tearing your eyes away, catching on the glint of something sharp. You pick it up, inspecting it. Only a toy, but far better than your measly half-broken stick. You throw away the ash-covered branch without much thought, dusting off your hands.

You spot a dead tree, red leaves at its roots, right before the goat-beast spots you again, running over with faux concern. You slap away its hand. It seems hurt—the slap wasn’t that hard, so maybe it’s weaker than you thought—but leads you just up ahead to an admittedly quaint house.

It tells you to make yourself at home while a pie bakes. You scour the place for anything useful, but nothing turns up. You huff, locking the door to your “room” behind you—it locks from the inside this time—and opting to get some rest. You’re sure you’ll need it for what’s to come.

It is strange waking up to the scent of fresh pie. You narrow your eyes, inspecting it for any sort of monstrous trickery, but despite all odds, it seems legitimate enough. You stash it away for later. Now… how to leave.

You figure the goat-beast might know. You ask how to continue. It changes the subject. You ask again. It stalls. You ask again. It gets up and leaves. You follow.

“I’m going to destroy the exit,” it says in a mournful voice. “I won’t let you leave. Not like the others.”

You feel the now-familiar disconnect of your SOUL leaving your body. You see conjured orbs of magical fire.

You slash your knife.

—————

The annoying flower shows up again but leaves before you’re able to take care of it. You emerge in a cold, snowy place. You don’t understand how it can snow underground.

Two skeletons insert themselves as fixtures quickly. The tall one is especially irritating—stupid to boot. It’ll be easy to take down when the time is right. The short one…

You don’t like the way the short one looks at you when you’re not supposed to be looking.

You find an abandoned glove made of firm material in a strange box and feel the knowledge of the remaining amount of monsters pour into your SOUL. It is strange, though not necessarily unwelcome. It makes it easier.

Like before, you fall into a rhythm. Killing the monsters, getting stronger, dealing with annoying puzzles all the while. You’re able to just walk through most of the latter, luckily.

The dog-like monsters make you hesitate a bit. Then you remember their armor, their weapons, their unnatural stance and their ashy souls.

You don’t feel as bad after that.

The town of Snowdin is deserted when you finally arrive. You don’t particularly mind. You take what you can get your hands on.

The tall skeleton finally challenges you in the midst of a raging snowstorm when you try to continue, though oddly enough the short one is nowhere in sight. One foe is far easier, though, so you don’t think all that much of it.

“I will spare you, human! We can still be friends!” You don’t spare him.

By the time your punches shatter enough bones to make the monster disintegrate, you remember the ghost. As the skeleton turns fully to ash, you wonder if only the ghost counted as dead—you killed this undead monster, after all.

The other option is that the skeleton was well and truly alive. You dismiss that quickly. You move on.

—————

This underground seems intent on being formulaic and utterly irritating. Puzzles, a tag-along monster kid, an armored monster intent on gutting you accompany the almost soothing feeling of dust on your hands and a bloody countdown.

Your breath does catch at the sight of the faraway castle, glittering like a thousand stars in the distance, the fantastical made real. You pause for what feels like the first time in years.

“Pretty cool, huh?” The monster kid says, nudging you. “It’s beautiful. I gotta wonder what it’d be like under real starlight.”

You know it would somehow be even more dazzling. Shame the architecture wouldn’t be reusable on the surface.

You’ve collected a ballet outfit by this point. It’s embarrassing to wear for a second before you remember that all that surrounds you is monsters, not people. You feel fine in the surprisingly effective outfit when in battle, anyway.

When the kid finally leaves you, you’re thrust into the sewers by the armored monster. At least it probably thinks you’re dead now. You notice the same golden bed of flowers as from your initial fall. You didn’t realize they could grow in a sewer.

You trudge forth until you come across a training dummy, reminiscent of that one from the Ruins. It is certainly sentient, though, as it explodes into a raging frenzy before somehow placating itself in the span of a minute.

It’s no loss to you. One well-placed kick lets it join its kin.

Eventually, the monster kid gets in your way one too many times. It calls you a monster. You bite back a response of hypocrisy. It’s not worth dignifying with a response.

“I will strike you down in the name of my king and my people!” The armored, fish-like monster claims, pointing its spear directly at your SOUL. You dismiss it as another baseless farce like that skeleton you killed before.

You did not realize monsters could utilize DETERMINATION.

(They can’t. Not really.)

The knight refuses to die. This is the first battle you are forced to RELOAD on so many times. You do not like the feeling of RELOADING. But you bear it anyway.

It feels like an eternity before you survive for long enough to cause the knight to melt from the power of DETERMINATION, a trait unsuited for the body of a monster.

You spare a glance as you walk by the knight’s remains. Perhaps the knight could have been a formidable warrior on the surface. But neither of you are on the surface, not anymore. It doesn’t matter anyway.

—————

By now, you’re not shocked at the sudden change in climate, but you are mildly surprised at the weird lab robot’s news of an evacuation. You’re that much of a threat, you realize. You’ve made that big of an impact.

Still, you find the lingerers and slaughter them. You take down those in your way while navigating the hellscape. You come across a nifty little frying pan, perfect for blunt force.

Somehow you get trapped in the giant web of a giant spider. You’re able to evade its arachnid kin and monstrous “pet” by navigating the tightrope threads, SOUL in tandem. All the fighting before has prepared you for even unexpected circumstances such as this.

You can see the spider growing exhausted and that is when you strike. The bug is frail and takes only a few hits before going down.

You peel off tangled, sticky webs as you find yourself at what once must have been a bustling tourist attraction. It’s largely empty now, though. Except the monster at the resort’s store, for some reason. You just give a weird look as you pass by.

Through the resort is a sprawling mechanical complex that supposedly supplies energy all around the underground. You wonder if you could make use of that energy. Perhaps it is helping fuel your growing SOUL as you wipe out the remaining monsters in the area.

The boxy robot from the lab transforms in front of you into a far more humanoid form, though clearly still electrical and artificial. Still rather odd.

“I will stop you,” the robot says. “For the sake of humans as well.”

Your eyes narrow. As if you’re not already doing this for their sake.

(Well, you were.)

For the robot’s insolence, you strike it down with but a single hit. Pathetic, really, with its lofty goals, claiming to be all life’s savior. At least the knight had put up a fight.

At least there’s no ash to wipe off after this one.

—————

The path forward is disturbingly monochrome, silent except for your own footsteps. The atmosphere isn’t helped when you find a house eerily similar to the one you left behind in the Ruins.

You’d almost thought you’d been able to escape the sentient flower when it started to pop up again. How annoying. You don’t listen to any of its words. You just raid the house for anything useful, which you do actually find. The protective locket and proper knife are both well appreciated.

So you continue, reaching an enormous corridor, reminding you of a cathedral. There is a similar weight, but it feels denser, more real. You take the time to SAVE.

Across from you stands the short skeleton, lounging between the grand pillars of the hall. You didn’t expect to see him again, let alone here. Your guard is forced up.

“hey kid,” the skeleton calmly says. “do you think even the worst person can change? that everyone can be a good person, if they just try?”

What stupid questions. You hold your breath, knife at the ready. The gravity of the room seems to have tripled in an instant, shivers running down your back. The skeleton chuckles.

“welp. this is why i never make promises.”

You RELOAD after only the first attack. The first time you’ve had to do that.

“back already, huh?”

Not the only first, it seems.

If your fight against the knight was a war, the fight with the skeleton is an eternal waltz. You dance around each other’s attacks, learning and only growing stronger. You RELOAD countless times. The skeleton’s words begin to find roots in your thoughts. You wonder if burning in hell would be easier than this. But your DETERMINATION keeps you going.

“i can’t afford not to care anymore,” the skeleton says. How are you this strong, you wonder, if you can’t even care?

The karma weighs heavily on your shoulders, your sins on your SOUL.

“there’s a glimmer of a good person inside of you. the memory of someone who once wanted to do the right thing,” the skeleton says. I was never a good person, you think, but I did want to do the right thing.

You don’t bring yourself to spare him.

“i don’t even know why i try,” the skeleton admits. “you never gave any of them a chance anyway. won’t change for a guy like me.”

You die again.

And again.

And again.

You are forced to think about the skeleton’s words in the space between time. You can feel your DETERMINATION crumble.

You never did give them a chance.

You remember the goat-beast’s gentle touch and soothing words, her motherly nature and genuine kindness.

You remember the tall skeleton’s drive and sincerity, his humor and attempted puzzles.

You remember the knight’s fierce defense, breaking her body to defeat you and protect her kind.

You remember the robot’s virtuous goal, flashiness hiding a real desire to guard the sanctity of life.

You remember this short skeleton, the final guardian to a civilization, forced to finally act.

You drift for a while in the nothingness. You search your memory. You cannot find any mention of their names.

You RELOAD. You ask one question. The skeleton cracks a smile.

“the name’s sans. don’t wear it out.”

You give a toothy grin. You can fix this. You can learn to be better.

You die one more time. Your SOUL emerges from your body. You allow yourself to be lost to the darkness.

You RESET.

Chapter Text

You wake up in the same bed of flowers as before. They feel softer this time, brighter. Almost welcoming.

Your SOUL feels strange as well. It is weaker yet stronger at the same time, smaller and lighter. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling.

You bring yourself to stand, glancing up at the light from which you originally fell. You don’t know if you want to go back. You turn away and step back into the Ruins.

Just like the first time, the flower is waiting for you. This time, there is no stalling.

“Really?” Says the flower, a look of disappointment on its face. “Well, do what you will. I’ll be waiting for you!” It returns to the earth. You don’t know how to feel about what it said.

Right after, the she-goat enters the room, a shocked look upon her face as she lays eyes on you.

“You’re the first human to have come here in a long while,” she says. “I am Toriel. Allow me to guide you through these Ruins.”

You let her take your hand and walk along. Toriel’s hand is soft, gentle, caring. You squeeze back.

Toriel leads you through the corridors, walking you through the puzzles. You already know how to do them, but you notice how she has painstakingly marked everything. You wonder if the writing is at all recent.

Once again the two of you come across the dummy. You remember how easily it folded under your stick’s weight. You clench your fists.

“Strike up a conversation,” Toriel encourages. “Act and talk until I can come help you. But do not fight. Nothing is ever solved by fighting.”

You have to take a moment before figuring out how to ACT, the action foreign. You always knew it was an option, deep down, but you just… never chose it. It seems harder than FIGHTing, though. At least with that, you didn’t really have to think or feel.

Talking to the dummy is more than a little awkward, and you stumble over your words more than once. But Toriel seems thrilled, so you do it anyway. It’s nice to have someone be proud of you.

You are led away from the dummy and you notice again how Toriel scares off the monsters that try to come your way. It was once irritating, but now appreciated. She doesn’t do it in a back off, this one’s mine way, when you observe further, but in a protective way, almost motherly.

She seems guilty when she runs off through the unusually long hallway, which is empty. You can see her trying to hide behind the pillar at the end; Toriel is many things, but subtle is not one of them.

You are told you’ve passed and are handed a phone, which, upon proper inspection, looks about two decades older than the current ones up on the surface. Where did these phones come from..?

Toriel tells you to wait while she runs some errands. You’ve never been very good at following directions.

You spot a froggit to your left when you enter the next room. Your SOUL almost floats out on instinct, but you shove it back in and try to talk to the frog. The monster is surprisingly nice and actually gives some tips. SPARE, huh? You’ll look for the yellow glow.

You go back to the candy room. Upon actually reading the sign, it says “please only take one” and while you don’t entirely empty the bowl this time, you still take two pieces. No one will know.

You begin to encounter monsters at that point. They’re all distinct, surprisingly so. Your hand itches for your branch, but you keep it away. It’s especially a struggle at first, when you don’t know how to ACT to SPARE these creatures. Flirting with the living mold thing is slightly uncomfortable, but you deal with it. At least the whimsun is already perfectly happy to leave right upon encounter, so those are easy.

(You remember they were easy to kill, too.)

Toriel calls you and asks whether you like cinnamon or butterscotch better. You don’t remember this happening before, but maybe you just ignored it. You tell her that you like both. She seems relieved.

The puzzles are all the same, so you deal with them quickly. That’s a relief.

You come across the ghost again. You ACT your way through the battle, but once Napstablook starts making his silly hat, you can’t help but smile. He smiles back before floating away.

The room to the right has some sort of a bake sale, it looks like. You remember the same sort of thing last time just before the spider battle in Hotland, so you buy one of the donuts and store it away. Maybe she’ll be kinder if you’re supporting her business.

You keep making your way through the Ruins without much trouble. You glance over and spot the overlook where you first picked up the toy knife. Your stomach churns.

Luckily, you run into Toriel in front of her home soon after. She takes you inside, and you feel the weight of your exhaustion in full force. You don’t have to ask where your room is, and you fall asleep quickly.

Waking up to the scent of fresh pie is wonderful, you decide. You can’t bring yourself to eat it right now, though, and you stash it away alongside the donut.

Stretching as you walk out, you consider just staying here. Not facing the dangers in the rest of the underground. It’s so very tempting just to stay here with Toriel, to enjoy pie and peace with her.

But you can’t. You know you can’t. You still need to give the rest of them a chance. You still need to be better.

And so with a heavy heart you approach Toriel, saying that you need to leave the Ruins. It gets harder and harder to prod each time she evades, but just like last time, she eventually stands up and heads down to the basement. Just like last time, you follow her.

It’s harder to fight her this time. You’ve grown to care, but you also just have to wait it out. It’s frustrating, not being able to do anything. But after an eon she relents.

Toriel reaches down and scoops you into a hug. It is warm and gentle and loving and everything you ever wanted. You have to hide the tears when she unwraps her arms from you.

“I love you, my child. Be safe.”

—————

The flower taunts you again. “Pretending to care, are we?” it’s not pretending, not anymore, you want to say. You don’t get the chance before it’s gone again.

Predictably, you find yourself back in Snowdin. Then you remember what comes next. You grimace, bracing yourself.

You are not expecting the fart joke or casual greeting. You know Sans remembers, though. Perhaps you’re being given a chance, too.

You hide behind a conveniently-shaped lamp and learn that the tall skeleton’s name is Papyrus. He’s very earnest, it seems. You can’t let yourself be captured, though, like he seems to very much want. You have other things to do.

The monsters in Snowdin feel vibrant, too. You learn their quirks and patterns until it’s no problem to SPARE them, too.

You had already learned about the blue attacks last time, so the sword-wielding dog is no issue. Petting him without him knowing is actually a little funny. You wonder if that’s mean.

Along the way, you are given a piece of a snowman so he can travel the world with you. You put it with the donut and pie in your inventory for safekeeping.

You run into the skeletons brothers again and again, Papyrus continuing with his puzzles eagerly and Sans contributing his dry wit. It probably would have been more entertaining without last time’s events on your shoulders.

The most fun part is probably the snowball game. It’s basically golf and it’s great. Extra cash, too.

You encounter puzzles and dogs and more puzzles and more dogs. At one point, you get startled by a dog monster and accidentally fling your stick. The dog runs after it. You take the chance to slink away and chuckle about it afterwards.

It’s pretty intimidating when you’re threatened with numerous weapons and objects of death on a rickety old bridge, and you’re very relieved when Papyrus calls them off.

Snowdin town is actually pretty nice when it’s not empty of people. Well, you do have to actually pay for stuff, but the snowball game gave you enough funds for it.

You once again get through the snowstorm and meet Papyrus, though this time you have to endure his attacks instead of just quickly getting things over with. When he’s tired, you tell him you’ll be his friend. He lights up after that. You do, too, though you think you’re better at hiding it.

You’re only a bit into Waterfall when you run into Sans at a booth. He invites you to Grilby’s, and you accept. The two of you get there faster than you should.

Both of you order some food, which is surprisingly good. You don’t make the first move.

“you really seem a lot happier,” Sans says without looking at you. “good for you, kid. no dust, either, so i guess we’re both happier.”

You only give a stiff nod, unsure what to say.

“just keep doing what you’re doing and it’ll work out in the end,” he assures, looking up towards the restaurant’s namesake. “put it on my tab, Grilby,” Sans says before walking out, not giving a glance back. Grilby sighs, muttering something.

You leave not long after and run into Papyrus outside of his house. One thing leads to another, and suddenly you’re on a date with him. You end up awkwardly encouraging him, and it works out, but you have to wonder how he hides the entire second set of clothes all the time. He gives you his number and you leave, only slightly embarrassed when he shouts after.

“DON’T BE AFRAID TO CALL, HUMAN!”

—————-

It feels good when Papyrus vouches for you to the knight, who is apparently named Undyne. It feels less good when she nearly spears you. The monster kid is there too, for some reason.

You deal with the monsters you encounter with MERCY and the bridge seeds with some pushing, getting the occasional call from Papyrus. It’s nice to hear his voice every so often.

Floating along the docks, you suddenly have to dodge a magical spear heading towards you. Then a few more. Then a lot more. You run across the dock as Undyne continually summons spears to launch at you, eventually finding a familiar safe even among the reeds. You quite are glad you learned to stay so silent as a younger child.

You continue on, growing to appreciate Waterfall’s beauty. Soft blues and the water’s gentle hum making for a rather soothing journey, monsters notwithstanding.

You find a forgotten statue at some point, umbrellas not long after. A moment’s impulse has you giving the statue one of the umbrellas. You smile, enjoying the tune it sings afterwards.

Again you are met with the breathtaking sight of the castle in the faux starlight alongside the monster kid. It feels as if you had never seen it before, the awe is still so great. And yet you press on.

You better anticipate this time when Undyne guns for you again. Spears form beneath your feet constantly as you sprint forward, navigating your way through the maze-like twists and turns of the tiles. You skid to a halt at a dead end, turning to go back, but Undyne corners you. There is a spear and then you are falling.

(You hear a voice with aching familiarity. You can’t remember it later.)

For the fourth time, you wake up in a soft bed of golden flowers. It’s more appreciated every time.

You rummage through the piles of garbage for anything good before coming across the dummy, who quickly comes alive. You don’t really get much of a chance to do anything before you’re being attacked. No fit of fury this time, you suppose, just a battle.

It’s annoying not being able to do much on your own besides just redirect his attacks, but it doesn’t matter by the time Napstablook comes along and helps. You thank him as he leads you up to where his house is, inviting you in. You accept.

One failure of a sandwich later and you are both laying on the ground to a custom tune. You try your hardest to space out, and you almost start to sit up before the world distorts around you. It doesn’t feel entirely different from the space between timelines and RELOADs, but it does not feel so apathetic and lifeless. The swirling galaxies are inviting, not intimidating.

You’re not sure how long you stay there, laying on the ground alongside Napstablook, but eventually your bones protest and you stand up. You ask if the two of you can do this again.

“Sure… if you really want to…” Napstablook responds timidly. You wave goodbye as you leave.

You continue making your way through Waterfall, accidentally getting lost. That turns out to be a blessing in disguise, though, when you stumble upon the previously-unseen Temmie Village.

You are utterly confused by the whole place, but the weirdness is delightful in its own odd way. Every temmie is very kind and very funny. You decide to come back here later if you gather enough money for the shopkeeper’s education, unlikely as it seems.

Upon a narrow passageway, you find yourself facing down Undyne as the monster kid hangs off the sheer edge. You get over your fear of a fight—you don’t know if you could handle the undying, DETERMINED knight a second time—and haul the kid up. Undyne seems surprised, but she leaves. You head the same direction.

You make your way to the mountain pass to Hotland, Undyne perched atop it. She leaps down and you accept her challenge.

“I will take your SOUL for the king and free monster kind!” she exclaims, weapon at the ready as the fight begins.

The battle is not nearly as difficult this time. There is less vitriol in her attacks and certainly no DETERMINATION, but that didn’t make it easy, either. The spear in your hand is unfamiliar, only a rudimentary shield, and you run yourself ragged as you flee. It seems you’re not the only one, however, when Undyne passes out soon after entering Hotland.

You hesitate, glancing at the water cooler. With a sigh, you get a cup of water, dumping it onto her head. It takes a moment, but Undyne twitches and springs up, looking at you strangely for a heartbeat. With a huff, she turns around and leaves. For some reason, you follow.

You end up finding Papyrus in front of a house that resembles a fish. Clearly, it’s Undyne’s, and he invites you in for a hang-out session. Predictably, Undyne is also there. You have to stare at each other in silence for a moment before Papyrus exclaims that he has to go and jumps out the window.

Reluctantly, you go along with the “lessons.” You snicker under your breath at the intense cooking, though the “fight” is mildly worrying at first. You don’t really want to FIGHT her. She then decides you’re a wimp, but maybe that’s okay. You stand up and begin to leave for Hotland again.

“Don’t forget to practice!”

—————

You frown at the stifling heat of Hotland, but continue on nonetheless. You make your way to the lab, finding it unusually dark and yourself upon a screen.

The lights suddenly flash on and you have to cover your eyes from the light, squinting as a yellow lizard-like monster begins to greet you. She introduces herself as Alphys, the royal scientist. She has also apparently been stalking you. You wonder why you never met her before, but she is awkward and weak and so perhaps that was for the best. She offers to help you through Hotland, which you accept, but mentions a certain problematic robot.

Said robot, of course, then creates a massive hole in the walls and bursts in. You are forced into a weird quiz show, which Alphys luckily helps you with until the end, before the robot—Mettaton—leaves. Alphys seems apologetic, at least, and upgrades your phone and signs you up to social media for messaging purposes.

Status updates and monsters both are frequently seen, but it’s nothing new. At least, the monsters aren’t. You don’t really know what to do with the status updates.

You handle the puzzles and obstacles, occasionally with Alphys’s help, before you find yourself in another unusually dark room. You joke that Mettaton will show up again, like last time at the lab when it was dark.

Mettaton shows up again.

Suddenly you’re on a cooking show where you’re the main ingredient then using a jetpack to evade death. You are very sure this didn’t happen last time.

Mettaton leaves once you succeed and you do as well soon after, still reeling. It’s almost painful in its irony when you find an old apron to wear as armor. The apron smells faintly of burnt sugar.

At some point, you end up helping the love lives of two royal guards. That’s great and all, but that didn’t make it very comfortable for you. You continue on.

Once again, there is darkness, and once again, Mettaton has you unwillingly starring in a television show. Somehow, every object placed there is a bomb, and you are very grateful for Alphys installing a bomb defuser on your phone somehow. Mettaton seems especially disappointed that this show didn’t kill you as he leaves.

You keep trudging through Hotland, encountering more puzzles and the spider bake sale, just like you remembered, suddenly glad you’ve kept the donut when you spot the current price tags.

While the donut does help when you encounter the spider, named Muffet, it still isn’t exactly done quickly. Spiders have telegrams, apparently, which saves your skin from the web-filled fight.

You may be saved from the web, but not the terrible robotic singing of Mettaton. You cover your ears from the electric screeching which sounds vaguely like one of those over-dramatic soap opera songs, which only stops when you’re dropped down into a hole. Your stomach drops when you see the seemingly-endless tile puzzle in front of you, fire closing in.

You do your best, but you’re very lucky that Alphys steps in to help. You’re also very lucky that Alphys also somehow installed a gun on your phone, not only the messaging and bomb defuser. You now understand why she is the royal scientist as Mettaton flees.

In front of Mettaton’s Resort, Sans takes you aside. He tells you about the promise he made to someone who sounds suspiciously like Toriel. Both of you already know what would happen in the wrong turn of events. The threat is unneeded.

You spend a bit of time in the resort, noting the continued presence of the aptly-named Burgerpants, before making your way to the Core.

…

When Alphys tells you about the Core, it’s mildly terrifying. A juggernaut machine that powers the entire underground, designed by the former royal scientist who went suspiciously missing out of nowhere, and an endless void awaiting any of those unlucky enough to fall in.

Safe to say, you take the numerous battles cautiously as Alphys guides you through the hallways, even if the guidance is rather poor.

The two of you eventually reach the end, but you’re cut off from her when you enter through a doorway and encounter Mettaton. You fight, and while you have no success initially, even with your gun, Alphys is eventually able to reach you, encouraging you to flip the switch on his back. With no reason to do otherwise, you flick the switch.

“OH YES~” a robotic voice filters through, smoke filling the stage as a somewhat familiar humanoid form appears.

Suddenly, the battle with Mettaton EX turns into idol survival. You have to swiftly dodge attacks on a moment’s notice while managing your gun and appealing to the audience. The last part’s the most fun, especially when your boasts pay off and the crowd goes wild. The attention feels nice, the praise.

Everything is a blur until the ratings grow to a staggering 10,000 and Mettaton receives a call. You can’t really hear it, but the viewer seems to have said something that got to him.

The fight ends and Alphys arrives, relieved that neither of you are dead.

You don’t have time to waste though, and you tell her that you need to continue to the castle.

“Be careful. Just… don’t lose heart, even if it’s hard, okay?”

—————

You never met Asgore, never made it that far. So you’re not sure how to feel when Alphys says you’ll have to kill him to return to the surface. You’re not sure about any of that. You don’t know if you even want to return to the surface after all the people you’ve met down here, let alone kill for it. You’re not that person anymore.

(You’re trying not to be, anyway.)

As you travel to the house that looks like Toriel’s, the monsters you met along the way tell you the tale of a king, a queen, and their two children, a human and a monster. The story is a tragedy, but it’s familiar all the same.

You find yourself in the Last Corridor all too soon. The place where you met your end countless times and RESET, giving up everything you had worked for in order to be better. You’re sure that it’ll be better, this time. You are better.

With a deep breath, you step forward with a purified soul, no knife in your hand or dust on your clothing.

But Sans is not there. Perhaps you have nothing to be judged for, after all.

You continue forward. There is a coffin with your name on it alongside six others. You notice the colors of the SOULS on their covers. You don’t stay there long.

You can hear birds chirping as you enter the throne room, the floor covered in a field of golden flowers, a looming figure caring for them. He does not seem like the intimidating king of monsters that you’ve heard about, but appearances can be deceiving.

Even when he turns to greet you, he is reluctant, perhaps a bit awkward. He does not launch into battle, instead giving you the opportunity to turn back, or at least prepare.

When you are ready, you step forward, finding yourself in front of a pulsating, echoing barrier, a rainbow assortment of SOULs gathered. Yours would be the last. You won’t let it be the last.

You enter the battle. Before you can even react, shards of the metaphysical tear through the world, and deep inside, you can feel the absence of MERCY. How, you wonder, did he take that away? But you can’t think for long before the fiery onslaught begins.

You’re forced to FIGHT for the first time in a long time. You hate it, you hate the way violence feels on your fingers, but you endure it, for what other choice is there?

You wear down his defenses, his attacks, and have to eat Toriel’s pie—that seems to bring melancholy to Asgore—but eventually you’ve dealt enough damage. Asgore concedes. He offers you a life with him and his wife. You’re about to take it.

Then Asgore is killed. Then there is laughter. Then reality shatters.

…

You wake up to darkness before the shadow of an impossible abomination, defying the universe’s laws and spitting on their shoes. Its whole, disgusting form is the revealed, grotesque wires intertwined with thorny vines circling a horrific creature. “Flowey the flower” is clearly no more.

You are given but a second before it attacks.

You are constantly on the move, bullets and fire and thorns and lasers grazing you as you barely evade the array of attacks. You attack desperately and infrequently, despite how little it seems to affect the creature.

But then there are moments of calm. The SOULs of the other humans steal you away from the monster’s reality for just a moment. You help them and they help you.

You don’t always manage to escape the hellfire. You’ve been RELOADed multiple times, though not by your own will like before. It seems your power of DETERMINATION has finally been outmatched.

With each SOUL you aid, your attacks begin to do more and more, boosts appearing through the chaos. Eventually, you’re strong enough to do more than a scratch.

Just when it seems to be about over, you feel time and space shift. The world has been RELOADed again. The creature is once again perfectly healthy.

You feel yourself die over and over again. Your SOUL is torn into pieces and obliterated as your body keels over from the strain each and every time. The monster is laughing all the while.

“You really thought you could defeat me? I am the god of this world! And you are just a coward, failed killer who couldn’t even finish the job, and so you’ve doomed them all.”

Is this worse, you wonder, than what I would have done? Did I give them all a chance for nothing?

You feel your DETERMINATION waver. You feel ready to give in.

But you are not the only one here.

The SOULs emerge from Flowey’s depths. He seems unconcerned until they begin to act together, harmonizing into an iridescent assault that overpowers the monster and blinds you until reality stabilizes.

…

You come face-to-face with a withered, decrepit Flowey, turned away in shame. You are given the same two options as you have always been given.

You know what you have to do.

With a pained, confused look, Flowey runs away.

…

Your friends try to call you. You don’t understand what’s happened, not really.

—————

You haven’t fought Asgore yet, but you turn tail and make your way back to Hotland towards the lab. You don’t feel ready to do any of that again.

You’re midway through Hotland when your phone rings. You’re mildly surprised to see Undyne from the caller ID, but you pick up anyway. She’s asking for some sort of favor and she’s over in Snowdin at the skeletons’ house. You shrug and accept. You might as well.

Apparently Undyne needs you to deliver a letter to Alphys. You have no issue with doing so, though it feels a bit more ominous when Undyne threatens you with death if you dare open it. You know you wouldn’t be able to even if you tried.

The Riverperson ferries you back to Hotland with the usual cryptic messages and you find yourself in front of the lab again. You briefly inspect the area for any sort of mail slot or mailbox, but there doesn’t seem to be one. You accept your fate and slide the letter under the door, though you wonder how Alphys is supposed to open it if you weren’t able to.

You hear some muttering from the other end of the door as you awkwardly stand there, waiting for… something. The door suddenly opens, Alphys staring at you with wide eyes.

There is a sinking feeling in your stomach. Did Undyne sign the letter?

Apparently not, as Alphys is fully under the impression that you asked her on a date. Why. This is not what you wanted. But you go along with it anyway.

Both of you are incredibly relieved when you explain that, no, you did not write the letter, it was actually Undyne. You help her practice dating skills—mostly stuff you read in books back on the surface—before Undyne arrives for the date proper.

It’s very sweet when they meet. Until Undyne reveals that Papyrus is here as a coach and that Alphys needs to get some self-confidence. Fair enough.

Now left alone, you don’t really know what to do. A feeling leads you back to the lab, though it’s empty this time, minus a note, telling you that the truth can be found in the above door. You glance over to the open elevator door. Something about it exudes disturbance. You step into it anyway.

It seems normal at first, until the elevator experiences a loss of power. You hold tightly to the wall as it plummets downwards, crashing to the ground loudly. You’re lucky you’re not really hurt from it.

You shove open the elevator’s doors and find yourself in a dim, musky old laboratory that smells of abandonment and death. You grimace. Guess you have to look for a way to restore the elevator’s power.

This place gives you the chills. The flickering entries on the walls don’t make it better. An attempt to break the barrier using SOULs… feasible in theory, but in practice?

You think about it as you absentmindedly turn on the sinks, testing their water. If you’re going to be stuck down here for a while, having drinkable or at least usable water is a must-have.

Instead of water emerging from the third sink, a white ooze drips from the faucet, bodies distorted, with too many eyes and too few limbs, curled into an unnatural form. Every movement, every sound, is static, a ringing buzz that doesn’t feel like something you should hear.

You manage to SPARE them and they fizzle away, a glimmering red key in their place. You’re hesitant to take it, but you do anyway, placing it in its designated spot in order to continue onwards.

You find the yellow key beneath the covers of one of the beds, shining innocently despite its location. It makes your skin crawl.

One of the rooms is filled with smoke, fogging up the entire area. You find the switch to turn on the wall full of fans, which clear the haze, but leave in its place another creature.

The amalgamate is certainly an animal, but it’s not like any animal should be. It has an excess of unnaturally-bending legs and a void where its face should be. But it is still an animal, and with that knowledge, you SPARE it.

The scientific records only get worse. Experimenting on SOULs and the near-fallen… it seems you’re not the only one who has desecrated the dead.

(You try not to think about the DETERMINATION-injected golden flower, especially when the entries reveal its escape.)

You luckily don’t have to fight a morphed creature for the green key, instead find it in a rather gross shower that you swear was running a moment before. You suppose you must have been seeing things.

Soon after is a room with an enormous skull-like machine. It is apparently called the DT Extractor. You can guess what DT stands for. You can’t guess why the object resembles the laser-shooting weapons that Sans used against you. That seems like it was months ago by now, you realize. You wonder how long it’s actually been.

Above is a room filled with old VHS tapes, remnants of outdated technology. Yet on them are innocent scenes of a once-happy family and a child that shares your name. You have to turn it off suddenly when the child enacts their suicidal plan.

You leave the room, but find another mutated monster. Bulbous growths emerge from a strangely-muscled feminine figure, a faceless but not featureless head atop it, stalks adorning its surface. You SPARE this one, too.

The room full of refrigerators is immediately suspicious, but it’s not the moving fridge that ends up leading to another encounter.

This monster is a sad imitation of a Snowdrake, melting at the ends with faces and limbs where there should not be limbs and faces. The monster looks very, very sad.

You joke for a little. The creature seems to cheer up. You give MERCY, the blue key left behind.

You walk through a hall with a wall full of mirrors, your reflection clear. Then a shape begins to morph in the corner of your eye, your own figure distorting into an elongated form, a spindly avian-like creature meeting your eyes. You SPARE it like the others.

Finally, you find your way to the power control room, returning power to the elevator. You hear noises break the silence, though. The pale, fused figures begin to inch towards you. Your heart rabbits in your ears.

You hear a shout to stop, and Alphys enters the room, the creatures turning to face her. She apologizes and says how they’re just hungry, but admits something.

“I don’t want to keep hiding from everything,” she decides. “I want to let them go back to their families.”

(At least their families would be happy to have them back.)

You head back to the elevator, and it works, thankfully. But instead of finding yourself back in the lab, you are met with the monochrome landscape of New Home. You can sense something is wrong even before you see the vines blocking the doors. There is no option but to continue.

The way to the castle is eerily silent, no storytelling or run-ins this time. The pit in your stomach only deepens.

You find Asgore again in the throne room. He doesn’t seem surprised. Neither are you. Both of you are surprised, though, when Toriel bursts in, stepping between the two of you, scolding the king. Your other friends come in, too.

Why are they here?

“A TINY FLOWER HELPED ME GET EVERYONE HERE!!” Announces Papyrus gleefully.

You and Alphys share a look of horror before vines sprout from all sides, ensnaring your friends as Flowey pops up from the flower field, blending in with the rest of the golden petals.

He thanks you for helping him slide every piece into place and that he’s absorbed the other six human SOULs again. You take a step back, shaken.

“We’ll keep playing this game forever,” Flowey says with a morbid grin. “For all eternity.”

His white bullets strike at your SOUL again and again. You expect to feel the familiar feeling of it shattering into pieces, but barriers of fire and bone and spears block the final blow again and again.

You can hear their encouraging words, joy rushing through your veins as you stand up, facing Flowey proudly. Every other monster in the underground joins them. No longer are they faceless monsters that you turned to dust. Each and every one of them is unique. Each and every one of them is your friend.

But it doesn’t last.

An earth-shattering boom rings out as Flowey laughs maniacally, a torrent of gray souls swirling in a vortex around the flower. He absorbs the entire underground in an instant, returning to his true form.

—————

A child appears in front of you, small and resembling Toriel and Asgore. The child smiles, greeting you like an old friend before there is a flash of light and the child is no more, replaced by a larger goat-like monster.

Asriel Dreemur has returned. The final fight begins.

Reality has shriveled into itself as rainbows surround the empowered monster, starlight shimmering through the air, prisms incarnate before your very eyes.

The attacks are nothing to scoff at. You dance around lasers and lightning and blades and stars and more. It’s so very difficult. You haven’t felt this way since the previous timeline.

But you won’t give up. You have something to fight for now. Friends who love you and cherish you and make you feel like you’re worth something. So when your body gives out, your DETERMINATION doesn’t give in. Your SOUL refuses to die.

You HOPE and DREAM, remembering the kind words and actions of the monsters trapped inside of Asriel’s SOUL, rejuvenating and strengthening yourself. Asriel grows increasingly frustrated, but you only get better.

Eventually, Asriel has had enough. He calls upon a skull-like attack, a black hole that sucks in everything that may be left, including your SOUL. You can barely resist its pull.

When the attack ends, you can feel yourself wavering. It took everything you had to keep going after it. In front of you stands the God of Hyperdeath, a fused creature of beating hearts and shifting wings. His true power is revealed.

You can’t move. You struggle to face the pressure, push against the invisible weight, but your limbs are too heavy, body remaining still. You can only just manage survival against Asriel’s next few attacks.

You can’t go on like this. You can’t give up, but you can’t do anything as is. You can’t ACT and you can’t SAVE.

Wait a minute.

Maybe you can’t SAVE. But you can still save.

There is a flash and your ACT is no longer ACT, but Save. You reach out into the depths of Asriel’s SOUL, among the thousands of beating hearts, until your friends come to you.

There is Asgore. You remind him of the loveliness of a nice chat and the boons of MERCY, talking of being a king and a father. He comes back to you.

There is Alphys. You remind her of her interests and what she still has to do, encouraging her to be honest with herself and others. She comes back to you.

There is Undyne. You remind her of your lessons that have gone uncompleted, cooking and fighting, of her desire to protect her kind. She comes back to you.

There is Papyrus. You remind him of puzzles and becoming popular, his brother and mentor, telling him that he still has things to do. He comes back to you.

There is Toriel. You remind her of pie and mothering, gentle touches and warm words and loving hugs, that she can still be there for you. She comes back to you.

There is Sans. You remind him of his apathy yet strength, his care for his brother, how you’ve changed from the chance he gave. He comes back to you.

Asriel seems unable to handle this. The SOULs are resonating with him and he can’t suppress the feelings any longer. He yells at you to stop, but you don’t. You keep calling out to the SOULs within him as tears drip down his face.

You feel Asriel’s strongest attack rain upon you, a rainbow laser more powerful than anything else that could have been. By all means you should be dying, your SOUL and body unable to bear it, but you refuse. You’re pushed to the absolute limit, infinity turning towards zero with every second that you endure it, reality being crushed under your will.

“Just let me win!” he cries. You don’t.

It stops. You know that there is one more person you have to Save.

You reach out to Asriel Dreemur. He reaches back.

…

Asriel apologizes to you. He lost sight of himself, never able to let go of his human sibling, forcing that pain and name onto you even when they were long gone.

He’s let go. You should, too.

You tell him your name is actually Frisk. That you just took the first human’s name because that’s what everyone on the surface saw you as. You figured you might as well be that, if both humans and monsters said you were. It feels freeing, like a weight is lifted off your shoulders.

He says how all the SOULs inside him felt so strongly towards you until he couldn’t bear it anymore. He doesn’t expect you to forgive him.

You do anyway.

Asriel seems surprised, but gives you a smile. He tells you to stand back before lifting into the air, a symphony of SOULs emerging from him, working together to play their song as the barrier shatters once and for all.

He lowers down, looking back at you. He tells you how he’s just going to turn back into a flower soon without everyone’s SOULs maintaining this form and that you should just forget about him and leave with your other friends.

You want to tell him that’s ridiculous. Instead, you just pull him into a hug.

You’re both crying when the world fades to black.

“Thank you, Frisk…”

—————

You wake up surrounded by your friends, who don’t really remember what happened but do know your name. They tell you that the barrier has been broken and that you can all leave when you’re ready.

You say that you want a bit of time to go back through the underground first. You leave to travel back through.

You see everything again. New Home, the Core, Hotland, Waterfall, Snowdin, the Ruins. Nostalgia pangs in your heart as the familiar landscapes emerge out of each other before your eyes.

You see everyone again. Every monster you may or may not have met, everyone you SPAREd and talked to. They’re all so happy. Even the monsters from the True Lab are all thrilled now that they’re back with their families.

But something still feels like it’s missing.

You make your way back to the very beginning of your journey, the connection between the surface and underground, where you first fell down.

You didn’t expect someone to already be there.

Asriel seems surprised to see you. You try to convince him to come back with them, go to the surface with everyone. He keeps shaking his head sadly, saying that he can’t come with you.

He smiles, a painful, shaky smile.

“After all, someone has to take care of these flowers.”

…

You make your way back through the underground again. Your steps echo as you walk through the grand Last Corridor. You halt when you find yourself face-to-face with Sans.

“i gotta admit, kid. when i told you to do better, this isn’t what i had in mind,” he says with his constant smile. “but it’s amazing what you’ve done. you’ve really turned yourself around. went from killing everyone to saving everyone.”

You thank him. He says the gratitude is unneeded, that you did this all of your own accord. That he just had to give you a little push.

You give him a smile. He smiles back, just a little bit wider.

…

You finally find yourself back with the rest of your friends. You tell them that you’re ready. They smile, and you all walk out of the underground together.

The sunlight blinds you as you step forward into the surface for the first time in ages. It’s a strange feeling, and yet it feels right.

Your smile is as blinding as the sun.

“I’m so glad…”