Chapter Text
They saw a monstrous evil thing. The reflection in the “water”.
They looked into their red eyes, their blue skin. The body that caged them.
They had finally done it. They had finally been set free of the chains that had been on them ever since they remembered. And yet they still weren’t done yet. Kris would wake up soon, and Noelle would too, then they would be back at square zero.
The Angel grabbed their hair… Kris’s hair and took a deep breath. They sighed, this feeling would… take a while to get used to. This was the first time they had felt something since they were trapped here. They haven’t gotten used to senses; touch, taste, hearing, smelling, even physically seeing was all new to them. They still had their eyes in the sky sure… but this was the first time they had been in Kris’s body while they were unconscious. The Angel now understood why, out of the many saves they had gone through, they were not once given this freedom.
There was a massive elephant in the room however… where were they? They had explored every nook and cranny of Hometown. But they had never seen this place before.
The Angel rose up from where they lay, a dark reflective… material, not quite liquid, not quite solid, but enough to grasp and stand on. They look far as the eye can see in any direction, and… there was nothing. Last they remember they had forced Kris out of bed and brought them to and into the lake with Noelle.
It was something they felt bad doing, they weren’t heartless. Bringing a crying teenager to their demise was something they did not gain joy in. But they had been here for so long, they HAD to try everything to get out. It wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things anyways. They could always reset.
They took a look at their hand, Kris’s hand, bawling it into a fist. Kris had pretty long nails, nails that marked on their own hand, it was an interesting feeling to the newly arrived Angel.
Then, they noticed a light emitting from their, no, Kris’ chest. They instinctively touched the light. In an instant a golden thread burst from their chest: a small glowing strand that lit up and flew into the unknown dark.
That was… weird.
The Angel looked around, no color, sound, or smell around him besides the wet unconscious body of Noelle Holiday.
The Angel opened up their save panel. The screen flashes right in front of their eyes. The Angel was horrified at what they saw. The screen was pitch black besides some white text on the top right.
“Insert Chapter 7 Side B”
The Angel kicked the ground, the dark liquid creating small waves on the ground. They won’t be able to use their saves for the time being. It seems their actions have caught up to them.
The Angel stared at Noelle. If push comes to shove, they would probably need her. She could be a suitable vessel, and plus they had spent precious time and effort in… crafting her. They wouldn’t let her go to waste in this desolate place.
The Angel crouched down and grabbed Noelle by the back collar. They dragged her along as they followed the golden light. It was time to get going.
…
The Angel walked for a long time. But the Angel never got tired. It felt like time passed by in the blink of an eye here. Eventually, the Angel finally saw something.
It was a tall grey tower. It reached for the heavens. When the Angel first saw it, it looked like a solid line of grey in the distance. But ultimately it came to view.
The tower was made seemingly out of grey colored brick. There were no windows from the outside, just a cylinder of brick with the occasional vines (which too was grey as well).
The Angel finally arrived at the doorstep of this tower. The Doorway was unwelcoming. A singular stone arch stood in between the Angel and the inside of the tower.
The Angel touched the walls out of curiosity. It was the only thing they had touched besides Noelle’s clothing or themselves, and even the Angel knew it felt… dull. The bricks were surprisingly soft, like plastic, yet not elastic. The touch felt like a placeholder for something else.
As soon as the Angel touched the wall, the exhaustion finally hit. It was like they were in a long dream and finally reached reality. The Angel stumbled in their step but still moved forward.
The Angel eventually built up the courage to enter the tower. What else was there to do in this place really.
When they entered the tower, they were greeted into a quiet room. There are chairs ordered around, yet there are no desks. There are a few short tables scattered around. One of which lay a box, inside were a bunch of grey children’s building blocks. There were also boxes which the Angel assumed to be board games. They could not read the text on the box, it seemed to be gibberish, but on one of the boxes illustrates a doctor cartoonishly removing the heart out of one of their patients. The Angel ignores the room and passes through the only other door within the room.
Inside they see a grey figure, their back to them behind a desk. Transparent glass separating them. At first the Angel assumed the figure to be a mannequin, yet the figure turns around anyways. The Angel jumped back, dropping Noelle on the ground. This is the first time they have seen something else move since they got here afterall.
The entity is monochrome, similar to the rest of the building. They are a lanky figure, slouched down carrying an egg shaped object. They have no face, or a face that the Angel can tell. They look like someone the Angel used to know.
“… WELCOME” The egg shaped object speaks. Blank eyes stare and create eye contact, not at Kris’, but the ones above, the Angel’s. “… WE’VE BEEN WAITING”
“W-what?” The Angel noticed how the mouth of the monster was delayed in comparison to its voice. The sound wasn’t coming from them. It was from something else. “What do you want?”
“DO NOT BE AFRAID… I KNOW YOU… AND YOU KNOW ME”
A jolt of realization hit the Angel. This… this entity talks like the person that brought them here.
“You- You’re that voice. From the beginning”
“SO YOU REMEMBER…”
Of course the Angel remembered. They would remember the day where it all went wrong.
“Of course I do! You stole my vessel. You trapped me here! You-”
“… YOU SEEM TO BE MISTAKEN… I AM NOT THE ONE… WHO TOOK YOUR VESSEL… I DO TRULY MEANT TO HELP”
The Angel paused. They wouldn’t believe them immediately, but… this thing is their only lifeline out of this place.
“… then who did?”
“… THAT I DO NOT KNOW”
The Angel rolled their eyes. Of course! No one has helped them and no one will.
“You really are of no help…”
“PATIENCE… LITTLE ONE… IF IT IS… A VESSEL… YOU… TRULY SEEK… THEN I MAY BE OF… HELP”
“… little? I’m not-“ The instant the Angel blinked during their little retort, they had come to the realization that they were no longer in the tower, rather in a grassy landscape, in a field of tulips stretching organically far into the horizon.
“Where-”
As the Angel scratched their eyes, then realized they, in fact, had no eyes, they were no longer Kris. They’re hands were a glowing red, body and chest the same. They wore no clothes, bearing a plain humanoid silhouette. They lost all the senses they had gained from being Kris.
“THIS IS… AN APPLICATION… AN EXPERIENCE… I MADE FOR… YOU”
The Angel looked around, they tried to find the source of the voice to no avail. But the Angel wasn’t afraid.
“…Why do I look like this?”
“THIS IS… BUT A TEMPORARY… VESSEL”
The Angel couldn’t help but ask yet more questions.
“Did you bring me here? Why?”
“THERE IS A LESSON… I MUST TEACH”
The Angel took a metaphorical sigh. A Lesson? Really? They learned all of life’s lessons already. They didn’t want to waste time on such things. They wanted to get out of here.
“YOU DESIRE A VESSEL… CORRECT?”
Okay now they were interested.
“… yeah?”
“I CAN… HELP YOUR PROBLEM... YOU… AND ME… ARE NOT TO DIFFERENT”
“I promise you. We are two different people”
The voice ignored the remark. The Angel wasn’t particularly eager to work with this being, but they had no choice. Though, if they were to give them a vessel they would be all ears.
Suddenly a white light flashed in front of the Angel’s eyes. They blinked a few times. In front of them was a white panel. It was a flat white text box that appeared in front of them. Inside the box laid out a choice, a black text reading:
“<???> Has Invited you to Collaborate”
Below was a green box that said accept, and white box that said decline.
The Angel took a seat on the grass. Collaborate? Collaborate on what? Are they going to force them into employment? Damn it might be better than being trapped in Kris but the Angel was good off of that.
“IT IS ONLY FOR… YOU… TO ACCESS… YOUR INNER… POTENTIAL”
“Oh… okay.” The Angel flinched. “Wait… can you read my thoughts?”
“…“
“So… did you hear what I thought earlier or…”
The voice didn’t answer. They knew what that meant, but they didn’t dwell on it for too long. They got up and stared at the panel. The voice was truly their only way out, and they seemed to have good intentions in mind for the Angel. So the Angel took a risk. They hovered their hand over the accept button and tapped.
The screen disappeared.
“… is something supposed to be happening”
“EXCELLENT… TRULY EXCELLENT”
The Angel started to regret pressing that button. Isn’t that what totally someone would say after buying someone's soul? The Angel had been taught to read the fine print. From where they did not know.
“Uhh… what exactly is excellent?”
“CLOSE YOUR EYES”
The Angel reluctantly did what they were told.
“Is something supposed to happen?”
“…CLOSE YOUR REAL EYES”
“I… how am I supposed to do that?”
“…CLOSE YOUR EYES”
The Angel struggled to do so. They hadn’t even thought of it, nor had they ever actually done so. But, after some serious straining, the Angel indeed closed their eyes.
When they closed, they didn’t see black as they expected. They saw lines dotting across a sky of green, colored lines, from the darkest of reds to the lightest of blues. On these lines were flat shapes: squares, stars, hexagons. The shapes followed where the Angel looked.
It was hard for the Angel to keep being here. Keeping their eyes open felt like keeping them open in a chlorine pool. The Angel did not know how they knew that feeling.
When the Angel closed their eyes they were back in the field. They scratched their physical eyes.
“What… was that?”
“…EVEN I DO NOT KNOW”
Great… more questions. No answers.
“GO BACK... FIND THE… WHITE HEXAGON… AND CHOOSE”
The Angel didn’t need to hear them twice. They closed their eyes once more, bearing through the pain and tracking down the shape they were looking for.
Nope. Nope. No… There
They had found the white hexagon. It was quite inconspicuous, the lines charting out of the shape creating a colorful web around it, much more so than the other shapes.
The Angel reached out, not physically as they had no body in this realm, but either way they felt themselves touch the shape.
In an instant a window quite similar to the one when they had asked to collaborate had formed. There were two folder looking shapes that appeared in the panel. One read “Light World” the other “Dark World”
The Angel instantly questioned what possible could be sorted into those categories, but the Angel wanted out. They quickly reached out and grabbed the Light World object, and as they did a sphere of squares surrounded them.
The Angel flinched at first, but then closely looked into the squares. In each of them contained a separate image. The Angel looked more closely…
Holy shit.
It was… people from Hometown.
The Angel focused on one square in particular, it stood out almost instantly. Kris… their cage, the only human here.
The Angel took a look closer, there was some text on the bottom.
“kris.png”
Whatever that meant.
The entity told them to choose… choose for what? … Oh…
I just hit the jackpot.
I could put two and two together. The entity asked them if they wanted a vessel and the entity told them to choose from the people from Hometown. Were they… asking for what vessel I wanted? If that was the case then I would have to choose wisely.
I’m feeling the same excitement as when I first got here, infinite possibilities, familiar faces…
They took everything from me…
But guess who might have the last laugh?
…
The Angel narrowed it down. They chose to only choose Lightners since it wouldn’t be particularly good if they were stuck in a Dark World. Adding onto that, they unfortunately could not find the images of their Discarded Vessel, Asriel, or December.
And one candidate stood out to the Angel.
… it was Berdly.
He has abnormally strong Dark World stats. He’s likely to be easy to manipulate. And the best part? Nobody cares about him.
Oh the forgettable blue bird… If only I had just possessed him before. We would’ve gotten whatever we wanted. I would be real. Wouldn’t that be just perfect?
The Angel looked around and found his blue hue sticking out like a sore thumb. The Angel could be wrong about this whole thing.
But The Angel reached out anyway. No use thinking about these things.
…
The Angel was back in the field.
The Angel looked down on their hands. It was just as they thought. Their hands feathery, their legs that of a bird, and the most noticeable feature: their newly obtained beak.
Still, there was no new color on their body, a similar red painted over their entire form still. It seems no matter what they will never be able to hide their true self.
It is no matter though, they could make use of this.
“WELCOME BACK”
“…yeah.” The Angel paused for but a moment.
“If this does work in reality. This is… actually really helpful. Thank you mysterious guy-man-entity… whatever you are.”
“IT IS NECESSARY… FOR YOUR UPCOMING… CHALLENGES”
“Upcoming challenges?”
“THERE IS ONE… MORE THING… THAT I MUST TEACH”
The Angel took the hint. They were not getting told what was in store for them in their seemingly frightening future.
They couldn’t be too mad. They were taught something new and useful. But The Angel was still seriously pissed. This entity wouldn’t tell them what was upcoming and kept rehashing the same damn lines.
“Are you a parrot?”
“NO”
“… okay”
It was an awkward few seconds.
“…WHEN YOU… CLOSE YOUR EYES… TOUCH YOURSELF”
“??? I don’t even have a-”
“FEEL YOURSELF… SHAPE YOURSELF… MOLD YOURSELF”
“Oh… like… contact… not the… other thing”
“WHAT OTHER THING?”
“Nevermind…”
The Angel once again closed their eyes. Again it felt… troubling, but the Angel carried on.
Now inside their mind palace, they had their own body. It was the same red Berdly form they had out in the garden.
The Angel looked at their hands. The Angel moved their right hand instinctually and touched the base of their forehead. It was surprisingly soft, like rubber, and had no texture.
The Angel pulled away from their forehead… and their feathery skin pulled out in a soft pyramid of flesh and feathers.
The Angel flinched, was this what the entity was talking about? They had to… form themselves…
If the Angel was right… they really did hit the jackpot today.
To the Angel… the pyramid looked… really ugly. They used their palm to force it upwards in a sharp angle, pushing the sides in and removing the feathers.
The Angel now had a short sharp horn on their forehead. The Angel was pleased.
They had opened their eyes once more, immediately looking upward. And just as they expected, the horn was still there.
The Angel pumped their fist in celebration, they had gone to touch their new horn… and… it felt fatty. Gross.
“…FACING… DIFFICULTIES?”
“… yeah. Can I only make flesh?”
“YOU CAN FORM… ALL SORTS… JUST IMAGINE… THE TEXTURE… THE TOUCH”
“… okay”
The Angel closed their eyes for the third time today. Again the feeling of the ocean swarmed their eyes.
The Angel moved upwards… they imagined the feeling of scales. The scaly skin of a lizard, of a dragon… of Susie. They could work with this.
The Angel moved their hand over the tip of the horn, and ran down from the top. As they moved down, waves moved across their skin… something was changing.
After a few seconds. They opened their eyes once again.
They slowly raised their hand… and touched the base of their horn. Luckily this time… it felt scaly, just as intended.
“…IS EVERYTHING WELL?”
“Yeah… thanks. I really mean it.”
“…EXCELLENT… NOW YOU MAY… EXIT”
“Uh. How-”
In an instant the Angel was now in a new location. Looking down they saw a deep blue floor, and a darker deep blue in the air around them.
While looking down, they noticed they were back in Kris' body — Something they wanted out of immediately — and that Noelle was still laying on the floor next to them, at least that was good.
Slight problem though… they were losing feeling in the body.
Kris was waking up. Uh oh.
Kris’s hand sprung out. The Angel was no longer in control. Kris extended their hand and instantly started digging into their own chest.
Kris’s Red Soul… My SOUL… was pulled out.
Kris threw the SOUL to the ground.
The Angel knew what to do, they immediately closed their eyes and looked at their body. It was the same feather biped they were previously. How convenient.
The Angel instantly opened their eyes. They had no time to waste. They had to explain EVERYTHING to Kris here and now.
The Angel sprung out from their heart shaped soul into root like lines that looked like Nerves. Their body started expanding rapidly, first forming bones around the nerves, the organs, muscles, skin, and finally feathers.
They had finally had their own… real body.
But… a problem.
They were taking the form of one of Kris’ friends… in front of a VERY angry and sword wielding Kris.
This will not end well.
“Hey… Kris… I know this looks bad bu-“
Before The Angel could blink, a slash blurred in front of them. The Angel attempted to dodge, their only good skill, yet faced with such a force, all they could do was to minimize the damage.
The slash cut deep into their left forearm which they used instinctually to block.
As soon as the Angel registered they had a gashing wound, the Angel felt the pain rushing in.
“FUCK!”
Is this what pain feels like? Am I going to die? Bleeding out in the middle of nowhere.
I looked at my forearm. There was no blood seeping out. I guess I never was living to begin with.
“Why… why… Kris why”
It was pathetic. I was groveling in the face of my cage.
“You know exactly why. Stop holding back, hiding like a coward.”
“I never wanted this! I-I just wanted out! I-“
Before I could explain anything. I felt a tingle in my left eye. I knew what that meant.
Before I felt the pain… I saw black… nothing.
“AH SHIT! Kris you-“
“Don’t act like you don’t deserve this”
I grabbed onto my eye with my right hand as I fell to the ground. I started to cry. No tears fell.
The pain was too much. I couldn’t form my thoughts… only beg.
“K-Kris please! Hear me out! Please! I ju-”
I felt a foot kick into my chest. I coughed but no blood came out.
“Just what? Just tried to kill MY friends? Force me to do your bidding? DROWN ME? DROWN NOELLE?”
Kris stomped my ankle on the ground. It hurt.
“TELL ME. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE YOUR EXCUSE?”
“I- I tried! I tried to be good! I t-tried to help everyone! I really did! It’s just… Whenever I did, I would be forced to go back! To-“
I couldn’t explain it that well through the pain. I did not lie of course, Kris would notice if I did, but even if I told the truth would they trust me?
Kris chuckled.
“You think I believe that?”
Suddenly, an X marked my right forearm. In the next moment it fell onto the floor.
My voice cracked. Sobs echoing through my voice.
“Kris…. Please…. You NEED ME. Y-You’ll die without me…. You know that right?”
“...Like I care. You ruined everything already. The only good thing in you can do in your life is to die quietly.”
“…”
Dammit Kris.
Why why why why WHY!
Why can’t you just listen, Kris?
Y’know we could’ve worked TOGETHER! Gotten out of here TOGETHER! Then, have gone our separate paths! Lived our separate lives.
Things were finally looking up y’know? I got a vessel, we’re not dead.
But no no no! Kris has to come here and ruin everything!
So what if I ruined a few things in one timeline, one save. I’ve done countless good things too! I deserve freedom! I deserve to live!
But it’s alright…
At least I have one person who actually listens to me.
“PROCEED”