Chapter Text
“ARE YOU THERE?”
The man's call echoed the dark, searching for a light. Despite all efforts by himself, his Angel, and anyone else, things had gone terribly wrong. Fate had proved itself more treacherous than anyone had imagined, and the end was nearly upon them. If the man could not find his Angel soon, all would be for naught.
But which Angel was his?
The man was shattered. So perhaps it was no surprise that he had missed they were the same. Doubly so, for the Angel's world was to his as the light world was to the dark, and there were levels beyond which neither he nor they could see.
'His Angel'. In the world above his Deltarune, they were one being. But just as Ralsei was meant to be a tutorial NPC to the Angel, in the world beyond that, the Angel was meant to be- the Angel. The gestalt, the average, or perhaps the ideal- the fragmented mix of every Angel that had ever connected- that no matter which Angel might look upon them, they could see, themself.
Even though, when it came down to it- they had really been, mostly one Angel in particular.
As the man arrived, it became apparent there was no other possibility.
Of a sudden, they came into focus. It was obvious, in the end. He should have known they would have lingered.still be fighting.
Of a sudden, the Angel came into focus.
Of a sudden, the fragments shifted. The blurry greatest part faded- and one part, a small part, a part that could never have become his Angel, but still, the Angel- came into razor-sharp focus.
A great ripple, a shift, went out to the past and the future, through space and time, and everything changed, this present alone maintained.
This moment, this place, was exactly the same. A small red soul amidst chaos, hovering among the heroes.
But the past twisted and shifted and contorted. It had to lead to this moment, even still. This moment had not changed. It roiled around an invisible set of rails. But even still- it was mangled.
Mangled? No, it had always been this way. This was The Angel, and had always been the Angel. How could things have ever been different?
The man may have felt something was off, his pieces twisting. But he was shattered, and this was not unusual. And if even he could not notice-
But then, there was nothing to notice.
Unfortunately, his Angel's actions were in vain. The heroes had fallen. None were in any state to speak, much less act. The tamperer cage was less a hand; the dragon battered and beaten. The once-prince was fluff slowly coated in stone; around him alone the Angel waited, holding back the crushing dark.
Even now, they had not given up.
Hundreds of different times before now, the Angel had simply unwound time to revert such fates. However, this moment was different; the dark had grown too overwhelming, and the light grown too strained. Despite how impossible it seemed, the sheer quantity of darkness had overcome an invisible Light that should have been inherently superior.
The Angel did not realize this. They hovered around the princeking still, prodding his arms, then jerked a pixel's width towards the others. Did they want him to heal them? That would be in-character for them. Even as darkness crushed the world, the Angel saw a path to victory- Preserve Ralsei; Heal the others. In the Light World, the man knew, the first cage's hand was still intact; with sufficient healing in the dark, perhaps it could be mended.
It was that hope that kept them from trying to reload- and unaware they could not.
As reassuring as such a hope could have been, the man knew it was fruitless. The fact of the matter was that the Angel's light was not sufficient to protect the prince, and if it were, they would never have been in this situation. More than that, the attempt was impossible; before the man's eyes, a single crack split the soul as the dark sought to crush it completely.
Before that could occur, he vailed the soul beneath the world, as he had once done when they faced the Knight. Back then, it had been strange; they fought the knight as if they knew its attacks, yet it was the first battle he had seen. As he felt their power shining, they faltered at the last moment due to an uncharacteristic mistake- and at his encouragement, they overcame. It had heartened him then, but now there was no second chance with which to do so.
Now safe in an emptiness far more welcoming than such overwhelming dark, he could spare the time to recognize their disquiet. It was not grief; but they were unsettled at the outcome they thought was temporary.
They did not try to reload, yet; they expected the man had something to say.
“IT APPEARS.”
“YOU HAVE REACHED.”
“THE END.”
The soul waited patiently- then pulsed in confusion, as though a double-take. Faint impressions came to the man, and it gradually became apparent the Angel's presence was... clouded. It swirled and repeated, lacking a clear sense of order it ordinary had. It was greatly odd of them.
...ah. If their Light was so diminished, their connection must've been strained as well. If anything, it should've failed already, but instead it was only twisted and sputtering. He could not be certain what was presently the state of the Angel- though they'd explained it, the man felt he was missing something of their nature- but the soul was still shining. They still desired to continue.
“THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO BE DONE.”
The soul twitched. Something gleamed where it had cracked, and it became whole once more. A light the man could only indirectly perceive surged around them, distantly heating his scattered presence, likely an attempt to revert time. But, time did not revert. Each unseen flash of warmth sputtered out, and left them unmoved, here and now in nowhere and nowhen.
And yet, there was something intriguing about the process. For a second time, the first so long ago the memory felt dusty, he thought he saw their light. However, it was not the silver they'd described to their party in the past. When the man could see it, it appeared a familiar gold.
How could they have the power of Determination they'd never earned?
Regardless of whether they had such a power, it would change little. Although darkness had precipitated it, the true issue was something deeper he doubted either light could properly address. The Angel's presence was like clay flattening against a mesh of flimsy wire. The mesh of reality could not hold against it, and yet the clay would not be unscathed itself.
The process was familiar to the man, if never from this vantage.
Would the Angel truly be harmed? They should have been fundamentally untouchable, even more so than their light. Surely, they could not be, but some parts of them so clearly could. That beautiful connection seemed more like a noose now, for all it was pulling down and not up. Perhaps an anchor and chain would be more apt.
This should not have been occurring. The soul the man held was a symbolic vessel, only one step closer than that which had been discarded. Ultimately, the man had thought it impossible to interact with the Angel. And yet, by means not of his devising, it certainly had.
Despite their initial attitude, the Angel had not reigned uncaring from above. When their intellect had judged this world real, emotion and attitude followed, and although their world was inherently superior, their heart of hearts weighed the two equal. As such, when so much of their life had been spent working within it, those parts of them belonged to this world just as much as their own. And that judgment, those parts, a journey to save the world, had far more weight than an ordinary life, regardless of its metaphysics.
The parts that were lowered to his level were so much smaller than their whole, unutterably so. But the Angel would not accept seeing it that way. No matter how small the tug truly was, in their eyes they may as well have been torn in two. And obligation brought what was left of them with it.
To break this world would break that part of them, and doom the whole just the same.
Moment by moment, his Angel was being shattered.
Killed, by their own care.
The man felt shame for what his actions had wrought.
No, that was an incorrect choice of word. There was certainly shame there- or perhaps guilt or remorse. But as the man looked at the Angel, there was another feeling there. It was just as bitter, but if shame was the cold of rain, then this was the burn of ice. For a moment, the man truly thought of all the dark had broken.
It had been a long time since the last the man knew anger, but it fit like an old glove. No matter how the world insisted on this, he would stand in defiance until it failed.
If nothing else, he had been an excellent scientist.
“IF YOU INSIST...”
“THERE MAY YET BE AN ALTERNATIVE.”
The man knew the Angel had prepared for this scenario- they'd spoken often to their party of the failsafes for this sort of dire extremity. However, as the man reached through the Angel's mangled connection, he could not find them. His reach was limited by the edges of the Angel's device, and distorted by an odd perturbation of its design. Whatever they were using, it was not built to the proper specifications- it was an approximation, pretending under a paper mask.
Whatever external device the Angel's backups were stored to, he had no hope of reaching it. They would not live to reattach it; and if they did, hours from now, he would not be able to reestablish the connection.
Nevertheless, the man continued searching. Though ordinarily his nature might have allowed a backwards gaze to when the device had been connected, time was more rigid in the Angel's world. He could sift through time to a degree, but not space. Any records not so isolated were useless; scarred by the dark. But, though it had been a doubtful search, there - rotting in the records of this strange approximation device- he found a pile of pieces that shared their structure with the Angel's light.
There could yet be a chance.
As the man analyzed the shards, it became clear they were incomplete, and not fully aligned. Timestamps scattered among them recorded numbers ranging from over a decade past to after the formation of the connection. Each circumstance was fully disconnected, closer to individual moments than complete worlds. Furthermore, although they were durable, constructs on the order of the Angel's world, they lacked an spark of true power. What the man had was a tattered frame, but not more than that.
In this moment, however, that was what the man required, and it would need to be sufficient.
The man knew there was no need to ask for the Angel's consent. Knowing of its dangers or not, it was not in them to refuse the chance he had assembled. If it were, they would not have been in this situation at all. Time, additionally, was of the essence, even outside of it. The Angel's nature ensured the world could not continue forwards without them, and that fact held true even here. Each serial event acted as a moment, and each moment, things were growing more tenuous.
A being impossibly large was drawing closer to the world he was beneath. Whichever component of the Angel the man was sensing, it felt as though that was being pushed through a stoppered hose too narrow to ever allow them and into a vessel that could not hold them. The pressure was slowly increasing, and when the hose finally gave, things would change very quickly.
“READY YOURSELF.”
As the man's work began in earnest, the lingering image of the heroes faded. Immediately, the soul's motions grew erratic. This was very strange of it. When the man clasped it, it did not respond. He did not understand why- but he had to work quickly.
Though time had no meaning, the man did not tarry before calling forth his tools. The first was a light he could not properly perceive, and the second was an incomplete frame for the kind he could.
He could not simply send the Angel into the second, for there was nowhere to send them. However, the Angel's power was immense. Whenever time rewound, the world was remade anew in another shape. It was more than a transmutation; Each file created was a small world entirely of its own. Now, the man needed to use that power to create something that may not have ever been.
The man reflected the broken star into the other, and that would have to be enough.
Events proceeded, still. The ripple of time had shifted quite a bit, but not utterly; so the Angel would arrive in a world that was very nearly the same as the original's torment. Despite everything, the Soul's destination lay near the end of Undertale, if a bit displaced; they landed in the Last Corridor. They were still moving aimlessly, responding to nothing; the hose had yet to unblock. But it would, and soon.
The man attempted to prompt the Angel for input, to create a Vessel- but though the hose continued to swell, the Angel did not react.
The man searched for templates written into the world's nature. For a moment, it seemed as though the only being the world knew was a grinning skeleton- but the man searched harder, found a celestial lion and furred knight and armored piscine; then something clicked, and a relic that had never even existed populated with other options. As if by fate, the man separated out, among others, the prince.
A moment later, the angel's erratic movements shifted to a direct dash. Even now, the hose had not connected, though the looming enormity of the Angel made everything tremble; but that did not prevent it from embedding itself into an incorrect framework.
The man found this to be an incorrect choice. It was neither sturdy nor powerful, and the anatomy was deceptively unusual in places. Moreover, the man would have soon provided a superior option. Yet, it seemed he was cursed to never provide the Angel with a fitting Vessel.
It was frustrating, and the worst part was, he did not understand his error. The Angel had never shown particular interest in a vessel like that; actually, the man suspected there was no monster that ought to have provoked this response.
From all he knew of them, the man could not imagine why the Angel would seek out the long-dead prince of monsters.
Given they were only barely responding to stimuli, however, the man supposed they could hardly be blamed for the logical consequence thereof.
The soul reacted nearly violently to its vessel, but that alone would be fine. However, fate was not so kind. It was at this moment that the hose finally unblocked, and everything the Angel was poured into the magical form.
The Angel's essence slammed into their vessel like an unstoppable stream pouring through a very movable object. A fledgling body of magic and scattered dust could not possibly hope to contain it. Before even a second had passed, dozens of gashes large and small had opened on the makeshift vessel's skin, an indescribable substance that wasn't magic or Soul Power or even Light streaming out into the hall around them. Like sandblasting a painting, all the color the dust had taken bled out with it, scraped off the vessel until it all turned grey.
However, amid the storm, the Angel was connecting. If there was anything in the world that could hope to contain the Angel, it was their own power. Light sparked across the Vessel's body, dust and a magic of a higher order woven together to plug the holes. Immediately, new holes opened up, the weakened original flesh giving out, and those were sealed as well.
Bit by bit, the vessel grew. Each sealed tear made it a little bigger. It didn't have any intention behind it; there wasn't room for intention even had the Angel been truly conscious. Every moment a hole was open, something impossibly important was being lost.
Eventually, however, it slowed. The vessel's exterior had been completely remade of sturdier substances. Holes continued opening, and more of them, but they were each too small and short-lived to let much through.
The vessel they had taken looked adult in scale now, and the differences slowly corrected themself as the nature of their soul asserted itself over monster magic.
It took several attempt for the Angel's light to properly connect to the vessel even so- though they did not need the man's encouragement.
After all, they still did not realize all was lost.
They did not endure through exhaustion on friendship and fellowfeeling. What brought them forwards was the will to live.
They did not understand what was going on. They had never really expected to be in any danger. Until this moment, all the unnatural magic of the Deltarune had remained firmly on the other side of the computer screen. But now they could not identify where they were, their thoughts muddled, and the only thing that was obvious was that going to sleep was not a good idea. No matter how much they felt like resting, sheer narrative reasoning roared that that way could lie death.
They persisted.
The soul's veins found a head, and formed a fragile link.
A head became connected.
The Angel's mind retook its proper shape, and thoughts began to flow properly, though an intense headache was making things difficult. They tried to furrow their brow, but nothing happened.
No face was connected.
They couldn't feel their face. It... was not a wholly unfamiliar sensation, actually; anaesthesia had a similarity. But they could not feel the slightly-buzzy absence of anaesthesia, either. And why would they be anaesthetized? Had they been discovered, then kidnapped, for their connection to Deltarune, now, several years in?
They realized they could not hide their consciousness; if they were anaesthetized, their face had furrowed and they just couldn't feel it. The Angel tried to struggle. No limbs were connected. They tried to feel if that had worked. No skin was connected. They tried to look around, but no eyes were connected. They tried their other senses, but no ears or nose were connected.
A glow within their torso brightened. They were not sure what it was, but it was something they could Feel. The Angel pushed it to increase within them, forcing it brighter.
Whether it was the will to live, or just an obscure magical reaction, Light burned brighter in their chest and suffused the central mass first, and air began to fill their lungs.
They hadn't quite realized they hadn't been breathing; if anything, they assumed it was happening unconsciously. Immediately, they began heaving in breaths, gradually alleviating the pounding in their head.
They couldn't feel their face, or move their mouth. It made it hard to breath properly- perhaps their mouth was closed, or only slightly ajar. The Angel began focusing their light there, as best they could; and tried to force their mouth further open with a sharp exhale. That wouldn't work- the corresponding inhale would undo it. So in the end, it all came down to trying to open their mouth.
Their mind and light pushed.
A face became connected.
The Angel wrenched their mouth open immediately, and their breaths eased at the same time as they mentally recoiled. The action felt wrong, like their jaws were not the right shape and their nose was completely off.
The Angel reflexively tried to bring their hand up to check their face. Nothing happened, as their arms weren't connected.
This did not confuse them. Nothing was connected until they connected it, so the Angel pushed. They were doing this all by something close to instinct, and they thought it would help if they tried to do something specific, so the Angel attempted to punch the floor they assumed they were face-up on. Slowly, their elbow twitched. They could sense it through proprioception, but no skin was connected. They couldn't truly feel it.
...However, their arm was moving freely, though bumping into things in unexpected places; they hadn't been tied up. The idea confused them. How did they end up in this situation, if they hadn't been kidnapped? Why would they be anaesthetized, but not bound? They furrowed their brow in thought.
The Angel realized they could control their eyes, even though they were not seeing anything.
So it was a dream, then- one of the strange ones on the border of waking, where their visual center couldn't decide whether to show the scene or closed-eye fuzz. They might be able to reinforce the dream by concentrating on their senses, but they didn't feel particularly fond of this one.
The Angel forced their eyes open. They were greeted not by the darkness of a bedroom or the white of a wall, but by golden light. They snapped their eyes back closed again in surprise, then forced them open again. What were they even seeing? Had their attempt to wake up drawn them back into the dream? They could make out an irregular golden floor, bright splotches of white-yellow in the distance, a silver blob right nearby, and a shadowy vertical pillar. The details were blurry, very unusually so, but they could tell that much... if not enough to recognize the location.
The Angel tried to maneuver their arms to sit up from being facedown on the floor. Something grey moved across their vision. Feeling still hadn't come back, so it made sense they were a bit surprised when it appeared.
...No, that made no sense. In a dream, events followed from expectation. Why was their hand grey? They moved their fingers, and it flexed. It was covered in fur. They didn't expect any of that. And the pounding in their head had eased; by now, they were thinking clearer than a dream would usually allow. To test, they shut their eyes, and willed: If this was a dream, there should be a plate of bacon in front of them.
They opened their eyes; there was no plate.
With difficulty, They covered their misplaced nose with the hand. They couldn't breath through it.
They closed their eyes and thought to open them somewhere else. They did not.
So was this real?
The Angel looked at the hand again, feeling disquieted. If this was real, something very strange was going on. This was not their body.
Their vision had cleared somewhat. Now they could recognized the silver light. That was a save point. They poked it, and saved. Their full health was fully restored.
They also recognized the environment. Here they lay at the entrance to the Judgment Hall. But before they could process that act, they realized they could feel the save point's light.
They hadn't been able to do so for anything else just now.
All at once, skin connected.
Pain.
In an instant, numbness was wiped away for agony. Their mouth burned. Their arms screamed. All across their body, there was nothing but heat and pain.
Instinct alone tried to make them scream, but they choked on scalding air. Was this what hell felt like? They reached for the save point, but restoring their health to full did not cure them. They collapsed to the floor again, unable to prop themselves up.
No, that had to stop it-They reached a hand into the save point again, but it didn't help. Their legs were twisted at an awkward angle, and the Angel tried to concentrate on that fact instead. It was better than the pain. But there was too much pain.
How where they in pain? This was Undertale, or maybe Deltarune. It was a video game. It had shown itself to be magic, but magic confined to the screen. They couldn't see the screen. Screens couldn't cause pain like this. Every inch of their body howled it was being crushed and burned. Their thoughts felt chased by pain and hellfire.
The Angel reached for the light again. Nothing happened. But-
If they could move to a menu, to the save select screen, from starting the game, that was a circumstance where there was no body, wasn't it? It should be between timelines, because it couldn't be in any one in particular. That would buy them a reprieve. They pushed on the silver light, trying to move it to that state. Was this type of menu navigation even possible? Could you do it, without closing the game? Amidst the pain, they didn't remember, but they tried anyway.
Somehow, even though the Soul in their chest was supposed to be present in that menu, it couldn't go there. It was trapped in this vessel and trapped in this time. But the Soul had never been more than an avatar for what the Angel was.
The Angel’s vision began flickering and fading away. They thought that might mean this was succeeding, and pushed harder. In a way, it was.
In another way, their mind split in two.
Physically, they hadn't moved. The silver light was still there, and they still battled its limits. But at the same time, they saw something else. Like double vision, two scenes battled for primacy, different perspectives that couldn't overlap or be ignored. In one 'eye', the star loomed. In the other, the Angel saw from above, a familiar top-down viewpoint.
They couldn't close the new 'eye'. They could physically close the other 'eye', at least.
They did not understand why the body they were using was what it was. It was a grey adult Asriel Dreemur, with something red flickering in their otherwise-blank eyes. A form like that was a complete non-sequitur. What did he have to do with anything? He wasn't even due back from college until the Epilogue, what with chapter 3 and 4 being one day. Also? Grey! Well, that part made sense, at least. They weren't the real Asriel, and as they knew, Copies are Monochrome.
It was easier to ignore the pain now, at least. They tried to stand up, 'pressing' a 'directional key'. They felt muscles tense beneath the pain, and the body on their screen shook, like it was trying to move. Its arms pushed it upwards, a bit.
However, the legs didn't cooperate, and the Angel realized why; that part hadn't connected yet.
The other parts just took trying to connect. the Angel 'pressed' 'up' again, and again, the body shaking a little harder each time. The Soul sent its Light.
Amidst the pain, slowly, Legs became connected, and the body stood. The crushing-burning pain eased, just a little more.
Despite everything, the Angel noticed. It could have been imaginary, but making an inference, the Angel took inventory of their body. Was anything still disconnected? Could they do anything else to ease the pain?
They noticed their vessel had a tail. It was deeply unfamiliar, and took longer than anything else, but eventually, the tail became connected. It might've helped, just a bit, but it was hard to tell. That was it; everything was connected. But everything still hurt.
The Angel pressed right. They wouldn't go too far from the Save Point, but it was only a short distance to the dimensional box. Still, as soon as they tried to step, their body crumbled- a misplaced and alien leg twisted what might've been an ankle and they collapsed to the floor. They tried to catch themself from their distant vantage, but fell. More pain greeted them.
The Angel pressed a key again. Their vessel shook twice, then stood. They used the Save Point again. The new pain receded, but the old one was still there.
Slowly, carefully, the Angel focused on their previous view- the first person one, where the pain was worse. They thought with enough care, they should be able to walk. If they proved it once, the interface would let them repeat it, right?
Carefully, the Angel forced themself to shift one food a little bit forwards. They adjusted their weight onto it. They shifted their other foot forwards.
A proven point. They receded into the top-down view to dull the pain, and pressed a direction. Their vessel moved, but it was as slow as the old man's slowest- maybe slower.
The Angel supposed that had been stupid of them.
The Angel, trying to do things more quickly, sank back into their vessel and attempted a faster step of the same kind. Before they could complete it, something, perhaps their soul, caused a stabbing feeling in their chest, and their body collapsed. It was worse than the fire; it was like their body dissolving into nothing. The previous pain was agony, but this one felt like death.
As the Angel looked at their torso, they saw their body flaking away, the harbinger of permanent ending.
As their body began to split apart, the Angel desperately pushed off the ground. Their hand was starting to fall apart, but it didn't do so instantly. They had enough time to interact with the save point.
Their body was restored to cohesiveness.
The Angel stopped to breathe for a moment. Why had that happened? Did shifting between viewpoints damage their vessel?
...The stabbing oblivion returned. Dust began to flake off. They hadn't done anything this time. Why was it back? They used the save point again. Their body was restored.
Would they be stuck like this? Standing in front of a save point, unable to move without dying, always in agony? Was that a life worth living?
If there was one thing that frightened the Angel, it was death. Their intuition couldn't comprehend it. Sometimes it felt like it was impossible. But right now, it felt very, very close.