Chapter Text
That slow, methodical beep was engrained in the back of my head now. I wasn’t anywhere near the room anymore, sitting in Papyrus and Sans’s living room, but I had been in that hospital enough for the memory to remain.
Two weeks. It had already been two weeks since the Battle of New Home. Since Chara found someway to get its claws on Frisk’s body and wreak havoc. Two long, arduous weeks, and neither Frisk or Sans had waken up. We were certain they would eventually. The monitors we had hooked up to them just showed a severe deficiency in DT and magic, respectively. They would wake up as soon as their bodies stabilized those levels.
I looked up, hoping to not lock eyes with any of the room’s occupants. On my left, Asgore and Undyne were taking up the rest of the couch’s space. To my right, Papyrus had settled down next to Mettaton, just coming down from checking on Sans. They tried making small talk, but it didn’t work too well. Everyone here knew it was only a matter of time before the person right across from me worked up the energy to start asking questions.
There was Toriel, and she, well, she had seen better days. There were deep bags under her eyes, giving away her recent lack of sleep, and her fur was somewhat crooked, I guess. Not outright messy, but you could still feel there was something wrong. It was fortunate for her that the teachers didn’t mind filling in for her principal duties while she was on leave. Eventually, she was able to look me in the eye and ask what had been on everyone’s mind for a while.
“So, Alphys, you know something about all of this, correct?” Her voice was off, too. She was lacking that motherly tone she usually took with those who were close, instead using an exhausted pitch that held no patience for arguments. Even if I couldn’t blame her, that voice still sent shivers down my spine.
It was well known that I had been hiding in the lab for most of this time, using the excuse that I was running numbers on the residual magics floating around the Underground. And that is part of what I was doing, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out I was dodging something. I usually just slipped by to keep an eye on Frisk’s condition while Toriel was sleeping, which mostly consisted of a few short hours in the middle of the night, and Undyne was usually right there with me. The only reason I was here now was because she promised to support me during the confrontation. All I could do at this point was accept my fate.
“Where should I start? There’s, uh, more than a few things you all don’t know.” Asgore had already set Greater and Lesser Dog at the door, just incase someone wanted to snoop on us. I didn't have to worry about accidentally spreading the secret to anyone who didn’t need to know.
“We should begin with… with Chara, if you don’t mind.”
“You see, that’s what I mean. Just getting to them will take us through most of a can of worms.” When I didn’t hear any changes to the request, I took it as a sign to go on. “How much are you all aware of Determination?” Undyne was the first up to bat.
“It’s the stuff in a human that lets their Souls last more than a few seconds after they kick the bucket, and what made the Amalgamates. Not to mention what lets the punk do all their magic.”
“Yes, now what else?”
“There’s more?” I removed my glasses, wiping them off with the bottom flap of my coat.
“When it was discovered during the Determination Experiments, I described it as the ability to keep going, to change fate. Most only focused on the first statement, completely ignoring the second. Under the pressure of enough DT, the path time was meant to follow can be distorted, if not outright broken. Those who wield it can change events, seemingly at a whim.”
“THIS ALL SOUNDS… VERY CONFUSING.” Yeah, it would be. Good thing Papyrus gave me an idea.
“Okay, here, I want you all to watch this.” I uncovered my watch, going to the classified videos folder. It was, of course, password protected.
UNDYNE ROCKS…
She blushed a little at the complement. I really had to make these things less obvious.
“This footage was taken directly from Frisk’s mind when we were running our more recent Determination Experiments. You should be familiar with it, Pap.”
The surroundings were a blinding white, snow taking up the majority of the picture. A small square had been cleared, where Frisk was standing with a word search. Papyrus and Sans were only a few feet away.
“HUMAN! YOU CAN HELP US SETTLE THIS. WHICH IS HARDER?”
“Junior Jumble.”
Papyrus picked it up in an instant.
“WAIT, THAT IS NOT HOW IT WENT!” All eyes were on him, waiting for an explanation. “I HAD GIVEN SANS THE TASK OF SETTING UP A PUZZLE FOR FRISK. HE, OF COURSE, JUST SET THAT LITTLE PIECE OF PAPER ON THE GROUND. MEDIUM LENGTH STORY SHORT, WE ENDED UP ARGUING OVER WHICH WAS HARDER, JUNIOR JUMBLE OR CROSSWORDS. THEY WERE A THIRD PARTY, SO I ASKED THEM TO SETTLE THE DISPUTE. TO MY SURPRISE, THEY ACTUALLY PICKED CROSSWORDS!”
“Yes, that is how it went, in this timeline. In that timeline, they chose Junior Jumble.” I ignored the silence as it set in, going through the folder for another example. “Okay, Mettaton, remember the fake bomb stunt we pulled?”
A bomb painted like a basketball rolled across the dry, red soil of Hotland, Frisk in hot pursuit. The ticking of a clock grew louder and louder as the scene went on. Just as they were about to reach the last explosive, the alarm blared, signaling Mettaton to announce his intentions to ‘detonate’ the big bomb in the back.
“But, they diffused them all, with well over a minute to spare.” He was speaking at a whisper, still trying to figure out what was going on. Papyrus beat him to it.
“SO, FRISK IS A TIME LORD!? NEATO! DO YOU THINK THEY COULD TAKE ME BACK TO A MONTH AGO, WHEN I LEFT THE OVEN ON FOR A WHOLE DAY? THOSE CHARRED FLOOR TILES TOOK AGES TO REPLACE!”
“Sorry, but it doesn’t quite work like that.” It took the others about half of a second to realize that I hadn’t denied his claim. Toriel took the news rather quietly. And Undyne…
“That. Is. Wicked.” Yeah, that was what I expected. Asgore chipped in shortly after.
“The way you worded it makes it sounds as though you know how it works. Would you kindly let us in?” I nodded, holding up a hand with two claws up.
“It consists of two specific abilities, Save and Reset. You can think of Save as a sort of temporal bookmark. It lets them temporarily pinpoint a place in space and time that they can go back to should the need arise. With it in place, death is a nonissue so long as there isn’t anyone else around with the same access to space-time.”
“Death?” Toriel sounded even more distant than before, and it scared me. “That is an awful specific thing to mention.” And now she was onto me, staring me directly in the eye. I instinctually tried to avoid it with a long sip of coffee, though I should have known it would only draw more attention. “How… how many times?”
“W-what do you mean?” Playing stupid really wasn’t effective.
“You know as well as I that all of us but you have fought them, for a variety of reasons. I need to know, how many times have we ‘won?’” The room grew tense, to the point that even a prod in the wrong spot could set off the dynamite. I would have been quaking in my skin if Undyne hadn’t scoot a little closer to me, offering her moral support. It only somewhat worked, a glance showing that she didn’t like the implications any more than anyone else. I sighed, closing my eyes.
“I lost count after the first forty recordings. I just couldn’t stomach watching them after that.” The drawstring snapped, letting everyone’s hearts drop at once. “If you need to know the specifics, you’ll have to ask Sans. He has all of Frisk’s confessions on record under the heaviest cyphers he knows. Good luck getting him to talk, though, he’s sworn to an even tighter code of silence than me.”
“that really doesn’t count for much at the moment. you already spilled the beans, so what’s the point of pretending they aren’t all over the floor?” That cool, collected voice was one we were all sorely missing, jumping from our seats to find its source. Leaning over the upper level handrails, looking down at us with a tired smile, was Sans.
“BROTHER!” Papyrus used his vastly superior speed to his advantage, reaching him before we could blink. “YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW WORRIED I’VE BEEN! DON’T GO DOING THAT AGAIN, YOU HEAR?! YOUR EIGHT TO TEN HOUR NAPS ARE BAD ENOUGH ALREADY!”
“hey, i was just tired.” That glimmer in his eye was an obvious sign. “dead tired.”
“THAT WAS NOT FUNNY FOR SO MANY REASONS!” Didn’t stop him from laughing a little in relief, though. It was proof that Sans would be fine. I made a little more room for him on the couch, letting him take a seat in the midst of the conversation.
“Are you feeling alright, Sans? Comas aren’t exactly known for positive health effects.”
“m’ fine, gore, just gotta wipe the sleep from my sockets.” There was quite a bit of it sitting there. It was beyond me how a skeleton could have bags under his eyes, but I stopped questioning their biology a long time ago.
“So, how much did you hear?”
“been eavesdropping since you played that last clip. don’t think i could’ve explained things any better.” While it was clear Toriel was happy to see him up and about again, there were still questions to be answered.
“Then I suppose you already know what I’ve asked.” His expression (somehow) drooped even more, but he still tried to keep up his smile. From his pocket, he produced a simple lunchbox, its color shifting from silver to pitch black as lights ran across its surface. He popped it open, snatching a little, black, leather bound journal from within before slamming it shut. I knew from experience that he kept things in there that shouldn’t be seen just yet. He opened directly to the appropriate page, as though he had memorized its contents.
“tori, one.” I could see the regret slithering down her back as what he said sank in. “papyrus, zero. undyne, thirteen. alphys, zero. mettaton, including traps gone out of control, twenty-seven. excluding, ten. sans, zero. asgore, sixty.” He let his wrist drop, book dangling weakly in his grasp. “those are the sum totals of deaths caused by those present in this timeline in order of possibly violent encounters. i’ve tallied and double checked these numbers from every chat the kid’s had with me about the topic.”
He let the information stew for a while. It was no surprise that most of us had a chance of killing Frisk back Underground, of messing things up on the road here, but it looked like they had all let those possibilities lay buried in the past. I was the same way, too, until they let me in on the secret.
“this time junk’s a big old pain in the tush, isn’t it?” The lights in his eyes had dimmed, letting the waves of memories long passed roll over him. “trust me, it gets worse.”
“Does… Does it have something to do with this Reset Doctor Alphys told us of?” I nodded, and was about to force myself to explain, but Sans stopped me with a wave of the hand.
“if we’re going with Saves being a bookmark, then you can call Resets yanking it out and forcibly forgetting what page you were on. the kid picked up their little trick in the deepest part of the ruins. you can call that the start of the book.” He put his journal closed, face up, on the coffee table.
“this is where things get tricky. you know how if you come back to a book after a long time and reread it, you’ll still know big points about it? well, that’s where the analogy falls apart. if the kid Resets, everything gets wiped. they won’t know us, and, for the most part, we won’t know them. the only way those memories are coming back is if you get lucky with a vision.” Toriel’s eyes shot open, remembering something.
“What do you mean visions?”
“they’re probably exactly what you’re thinking. you ever had a bad dream, one that you think might have been real, but was just so ridiculous that you just let it fade away in the back of your head until the next one?”
“WELL, YES, YOU KNOW I HAVE. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO HELPS ME SHAKE THEM OFF WHENEVER THEY HAPPEN!” There was some general muttering around the circle, all to the same conclusion. “IN MOST OF THEM, I SEE FRISK, OR SOMEONE VERY MUCH LIKE FRISK, WALKING TOWARDS ME AS I SPEAK. IT USUALLY ENDS… RATHER POORLY FOR ME. I’VE JUST ASSUMED THEY WERE SOME MAD FANTASY I HAD ABOUT WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE IF MY SPEECHES WEREN’T PERFECT. THERE’S NO WAY THOSE DREAMS COULD BE…”
His assumptions were ended as Sans pulled a red scarf from his box. He struggled to keep his eyes from latching to the flakes of dust staining the fabric.
“and this is why you never trust that possession-happy brat.” He spat the words out, like they were burning his throat to keep inside any longer. “i’ve wanted to tell you this for a real long time, toriel. you, too, asgore. but the kid wanted me to shut up about it. well the cat’s out of the bag and i’m in no mood to pet sit. that first human of yours, chara…” He let his gaze shift back to center stage, where we all saw that his eyes had gone pitch black.
“IS NOTHING BUT A DIRTY MURDERER.”
“That’s enough!” Toriel had sprung from her seat, Hell’s anarchy burning in her stare. “We know exactly how horrible they were, and we don’t need you reminding us of that! Of almost killing Asgore, or of taking hold of Frisk that day.”
“you think that’s all they did?” The cold edge in his words syphoned the last of the fire from her veins. “don’t you think it’s real convenient that asriel knew how to take their Soul when they died, giving them access to a body with the combined power of a human and a monster Soul? or how about asriel supposedly almost going on a blood rage despite not having a violent bone in his body? and how do you suppose they knew how to take control of frisk so easily? face it, what you thought you knew is only the tip of the iceberg.” It looked like all those coincidences were too much to deny when lumped together. Toriel had gone pale, the truth finally taking hold.
“Sans, I…”
“heh heh…” He buried his face in his hands, hiding the rest of his head with his hood. “every time that thing got its hands on frisk, right there in the ruins, it always spelled out ‘hell’ for us in bright, shiny letters. time and time again, they’d come through with a knife. time and time again, i’d turn around to find mY BROTHER DEAD. then undyne. then mettaton, and everyone between, till it was just me in the middle of the judgment hall.”
“i remember it all, but i don’t want to. this power…” His eye lit up, as though pointing out what exactly he meant. “this Determination. it’s what helped me hold on so long, which i’m thankful for, but it makes just how hopeless it all was too clear. it’s a blessing, AND A CURSE.” It’s like he wasn’t even in control of his mouth anymore. Like someone had opened a freshly shaken soda can before letting it foam all over the carpet. Papyrus had him locked in a sibling hug, trying to calm his frayed nerves.
“You have Determination?” Asgore was never the hasty sort, but I can see why he’d want to cut straight to the point this time. “How is that?” Sans shook his head a little, wrangling in the scraps of self control he let go of with his outburst.
“c’mon, i’ll show ya.”
-
On the way to my lab, I told them more. About the original Determination Experiments, headed by Gaster. I told them everything about him up until the initial trial, where I said the reason no one seemed to recall him was hidden. Alphys trailed along right behind me, clearing things up if they were a little fuzzy on my side. At first, I was afraid my memory was finally starting to fizz, but then I realized it was just that I had been out cold for two weeks. Not exactly good mind training.
When we got to the wall behind our shed, everyone was glancing around as though they were missing something. Most of them couldn’t see the door thanks to my little space shifting trick. The illusion vanished as soon as I grabbed the doorknob, making it seem to them as though a door had popped out of nowhere.
They were even more confused when I pulled it open to a deep, dark stairwell. I hurried on down the familiar steps, hearing them all follow me a second later. By the time we got to the bottom, I’m sure they were all curious as to how I had hidden such a long corridor in plain sight. That would be for later. For now, though, I directed their attention to the main attraction.
“and this thing here is what all that work led to. the DT Enabler.” It was a strange device, no doubt. The bulk of it was one pillar of time-proof metal. Gears on its surface were woven into a mad quilt, silent due to the lack of power running through it. At its base, a little podium rose up with a simple glass orb stationed on top.
“when we booted this thing up, gassy was just so excited. that gleam in his eyes is something i’ll never forget. He thought he’d finally get to use magic, like us, and actually feel like he belonged among us. too bad it took twenty more years and frisk stumbling on it to actually get it to work right.” I set my hands over the orb, just like he had so long ago.
“it started up, things were fine. then he started overloading on the junk, and everything went haywire. i tried pulling him off, but just ended up flat on my back, with a surge of DT in my system and the durability of a wet tissue. i got lucky, ‘cause all gaster got was a one way ticket to being erased from our timeline. thank goodness the lab had time-proof metal walls, otherwise alph and i’d be just as clueless as the rest of you, if not worse” A hand fell on my shoulder, its red glove giving away the owner.
“SANS, I HAD NO IDEA…” Oh no, don’t go getting all guilty on me.
“not your fault, pap. not anyone’s, really. just some scientist sticking their noses where they didn’t belong, that’s all” Not like that would dissuade him, anyway. His hand clenched around my shoulder. A meep of surprise told me he had the same grip on Alph.
“NOW THAT I AM IN THE KNOW, I SWEAR TO NEVER LET MY SIBLINGS DOWN AGAIN! I DON’T PLAN ON LEAVING YOU ALONE LIKE THAT A SECOND TIME, NEITHER OF YOU. AND THAT’S A PROMISE! NYEH HEH HEH!” The meep turned to a hiccup, which led smoothly into a sibling hug. I gave into his happy mood, glad that the three of us were all on the same ground again.
Gore and Tori, though, had seen better days. They had both plopped on my couch, staring at the ground. Finding out the kid you used to raise pretty much killed the other kid you used to raise before going on to kill you in another timeline couldn’t have been easy. When the hug ended, I walked that way, past Mettaton who was still standing in the doorway, and stopped at the opposite side of the break lounge.
“i know this is a lot to swallow, but i’m here if you need me. trust me when I say i’ve got as much investment in keeping frisk safe as you. not letting history repeat itself around here on my watch.” They sluggishly managed to look at me, a small smile on each of their mugs.
“Thank you, Sans, for letting us know just how much we have been mistaken about. We will need a little time to digest it all, though, so please be patient with me if I get so… snappy again. Okay?” I nodded, understanding where she was coming from.
“it’s a promise.”