Chapter Text
The Underground a wide and vast place that Monsters call their home. Dozens of years have passed since the last human has fallen, so naturally, one would expect everyone to be ecstatic about the fact that this short human tumbled down and that their death would finally set everyone free.
But do tell, if that were the case, why are they currently running through Hotlands with multiple glass containers hugged tight in their arms, the same containers that Asgore once kept in his castle for the moment that Frisk would fall?
The same glass containers that kept the six human souls stable…?
Monsters can not explain it to anyone, of course, only they can.
“You know you don’t have to run, right? Nobody will take those from you—” well. Maybe two of them— Frisk, of course, who had the wonderful idea to try to save their ghosty partner, and said ghosty partner, Chara.
After Chara reminded them, Frisk came to a full stop — right. Better to go easy this time around, they wouldn’t want to drop these again.
They were so used to it — the past three timelines, Frisk didn’t manage to convince Asgore of their wishful plan and had to steal the souls. This time around, their wishful thinking somehow managed to reach Asgore, many thanks to the help of Chara, of course.
Frisk nodded. With no reason to rush, they continued their journey to the lab.
Even if they didn’t know if this would work for certain, at least this time they had everyone on their side — Alphys was waiting for them at the lab’s door, waving with one hand when she saw the human closing in.
Toriel, too, should be somewhere inside. If it was anything like last time, Papyrus might be there as well, or Sans, it was never the same with these two. Or at least they would anticipate hearing from Alphys.
“Did he actually listen?!” When Frisk was within arms-reach of Alphys, they came to a stop and raised their head just enough to look at her past the containers in their embrace.
Frisk nodded, Alphys huffed and Chara simply shrugged as they hovered in the air above the two — one could call it listening, others would say that Chara making Frisk recite the last few words of their deathbed’s monologue made him break down to the point that Asgore had no choice other than to listen to them.
But Alphys didn’t have to know that right now. What mattered is that they were here with the souls, and Chara — somewhat.
After the door swayed to the side, Frisk hopped inside, glaring through the containers to see Toriel practically jumping from the cushioned couch she sat on. “Frisk!”
She wore her usual purple robe with white sleeves, with more folds in them than usual — most likely thanks to the heavy wooden box that she had carried with her, which was now left behind on the couch.
Walking up to Frisk, she kneeled down, one hand clenching her robe while the other reached out to fix Frisk’s hair — which was quite the mess after having fought with Asgore.
“Are you alright?” Another quick nod from Frisk eased the worries, even if she knew that it wasn’t the truth.
“Well, if you say so“—her eyes shot past Frisk to look towards Alphys, who just shut the door and took slow steps into the conversation— “do we…want to begin?”
“Yes! Of c—course, follow me!” Alphy’s voice hitched for a second, before she bit down the nervousness.
It’s only natural. ‘Alph, I have the dead royal human from hundreds of years ago following my journey since I am here. I died like a hundred times; can you help me revive them?’ No one in their right mind would listen to such lunatic-rambles.
But when a human who has only been Underground for a few hours knows about the sins she had locked down far under the lab without ever having been there, at least it helped her and Sans’ past studies on these awkward déjà-vus monsters kept having.
With Alphys as the guide, Frisk followed close behind, clutching the soul-containers to their chest, while Toriel got the wooden box from the couch before joining them in the elevator.
The box was made of wooden planks carefully tied together with rope, barely giving any breathing room between the panels; though neither of the three could see inside, everyone held their breath, knowing what’s inside.
The ride took a while where neither spoke, not Toriel, not Alphys nor Frisk, only Chara made noise — happily whistling away to drag Frisk’s attention to the elevator’s roof, where only their head stuck through.
Frisk let out a sigh — but it lowered their shoulders, helped them remember that this isn’t the only shot they have, that they can always restart to try something else. Alphys bit down her anxiety, Toriel couldn’t help but to look over to Frisk at that — to her — random sigh, but neither said a word, until the elevator came to a stop and the door opened wide.
“…Are we sure this is…safe?” Toriel spoke up as she moved, one hand on the elevator’s steel, the other clutching the wooden casket to her torso as she took a step outside before anyone else.
The dark green walls, cold temperature, dust lingering in the air and absolute silence of the true lab sent shivers down her spine. With Alphys slipping out between floor and Toriel’s arm to guide the way, she hesitated to answer at all.
“I…wish I could say yes?” Alphys let out an awkward chuckle that did not help anyone. “But… we’ll only know once we tried…”
She looked over her shoulder to see Frisk slipping past Toriel as well and following in the middle of the three. Dragging out a long sigh, Toriel finally let go of the elevator and followed the other two…three, if you count Chara floating on their back, one leg on the other knee as they are dragged after Frisk.
“I hate this place.” Frisk turned their head when Chara spoke, just enough to look up to them with one of their eyes, but not enough to pull Toriel’s attention to them. “It’s so boring.”
Frisk shrugged — maybe now that the Amalgamates weren’t here anymore, true.
Pressing on, everyone turned their head to look to Toriel when the wooden box creaked from her suddenly hugging it tighter with both her hands — Frisk came to a stop, causing her to bump into them.
“A—ah. I apologize, dear.” Quickly she took a step back — eyes drifting away from the beds she was focused on and back to Frisk in front of her.
Frisk turned to look at the beds. Pillows and blankets all neatly stacked on a singular bed, while the pillows remained one puffed up on every single bed.
Frisk raised their head to share a smile with Toriel who mimicked the same — even if a little wonky.
“You’re right…we will be out here, soon enough…” Catching a glimpse of Alphys’ worrying face, Toriel took a deep breath, before flicking her head to gesture everyone to move on, which they did.
But as Alphys left the room to the hallway ahead, Chara chirped for Frisk’s attention.
“Hey, fartface.” Frisk turned to look their way — the SAVE point in the corner hovering above Chara’s head, who sat down on the floor below.
Looking back to Toriel, she tilted her head at Frisk’s sudden sidestep to nudge the SAVE point with their elbow.
Of course nobody but them could see it, which only irritated Toriel even more.
“…Is everything okay?”
Frisk nodded again, while Chara floated off the floor towards the safe-file to store their current progress.
When Frisk didn’t explain any of their actions but hurriedly skipped over the floor after Alphys, Toriel was left lingering in the room, looking down to where Chara hovered and looked up to her.
For a few seconds, they locked eyes, before Toriel shook her head and moved on. Chara floating right behind her this time.
When the three arrived at the room with the determination extraction machine, Alphys had already made the floor underneath it reappear, for everyone to be able to safely walk closer to it.
Both Toriel and Frisk came to a halt two metres behind Alphys, who pressed a button on the machine for the top half to open, presenting a seat that could fit someone of the size of an adult human, but not much larger. After tapping on the metal a few times with her crawls, Alphys turned to look up to Toriel. “My majesty, could you…”
“Please… call me Toriel, but…” She nodded instead of finishing the words. Alphys nodded in acknowledgment before taking a few steps back.
Her, Frisk and Chara just watched Toriel put the box down in front of the machine. Both hands pressed on the edges of the wooden container, clutching it tightly as she leaned onto it, her back buckling as she dragged out a quiet growl.
“Why are we making her do it?” Chara brought up — giggling at the absurdity of it.
Frisk looked up to them hovering over Chara, but they didn’t have an answer. Good question. But when they offered it, Toriel shook her head.
“No. No it is okay…” She let out another sigh, before finally opening the wooden lid by pulling a few ropes apart.
At first, she looked away when letting the panel drop to the floor, before she reached into the box to pick it up — Chara’s corpse, held in tact by a protective spell since the day it was buried in the Ruins.
Toriel held the body in the air by under its armpits, staring at it as she held it out in the air, like a mother holding her child up when picking them up from school…but with shivering arms and a face that was seconds away from bawling out.
“I don’t know what’s weirder. That she’s holding me like that, or to see a century old corpse with skin.” Chara popped up behind Frisk’s shoulder again, resting their chin on top as they bugged the other human with their observation.
“Both.” Frisk’s reply to Chara made both adults look their way…but with a corpse in Toriel’s hands, there were more disturbing things distracting the two, to the point neither saw reason to answer.
Toriel took a step closer to the machine and put the body onto the seat — propping up its hands on its lap, before fixing the body’s hair as if it would annoy them.
Chara rolled their eyes — they would push their bangs down again, anyway, not understanding why Toriel saw reason to move the hair from their body’s eyes.
“Okay. What now?” Toriel’s voice hitched — she was trying her best to stand tall but seeing her lost child like that was for sure taking a toll on her.
“You don’t have to do anything else, F—Frisk can you come?” Alphys replied, and Toriel tried to hide it, but a long sigh of relief pushed both her shoulders and chest down.
When Alphys and Frisk walked up to the machine, Toriel moved out of the way, letting the two move around as they had to.
Frisk only stood in place — holding the soul containers, which Alphys carefully took one by one, inserting them into circular slots all around the machine, perfectly fitting the size of the holes for only the container’s souls to face towards everyone watching.
“Can you tell me…what exactly happens now?” As Alphys pushed the machine’s roof down to shut closed, Toriel spoke up again, not letting her eyes wander away from the machine’s center piece, with Chara’s body inside, but no longer visible to anyone.
“Well, if everything works as i—intended, the souls should share some of their energy with the body and Chara.” She looked up to the air — not on any fixated point, as her head moved around a lot. When she did coincidentally look towards Chara’s way, they quickly moved away to hide behind Frisk while stretching their tongue out.
“And hopefully this binds enough determination for them to…reconnect…with their body?” Though Toriel didn’t look her way, she raised both her hands to grip her upper arms, crossing them over her chest with a tight grip.
“…Okay.”
“Why the hell would that work.” Chara intervened, but as only Frisk could hear, they simply shrugged.
“No idea,” Frisk whispered.
“…No idea, what?” Alphys looked their way.
“…Uh, Chara asks why that would work.”
Alphys stared blankly at them, blinking a couple of times before turning her head to look up to Toriel, who stared back to her with a worrying face.
“Uhm… can you ask them to go in?” Alphys didn’t know how to answer that question — so she moved on.
Frisk looked to Chara by their shoulder, who quickly moved forward, rolling through the air as they phased into the machine without a word said. Frisk turned their head back to Alphys. “They can hear you.”
“Oh, o—of course. Can you…go in?” Alphys looked into the air as she tried to talk to the invisible Chara, only for their arm to push out of the extraction machine with a thumbs up.
“They’re already in!” Frisk replied, holding their stomach as they snorted.
“Ah.” Alphys and Toriel turned their attention to another again, blinking a couple times as their glances jumped from the other to Frisk, then back again.
“W—well. Here goes…nothing?” Alphys walked to the door of the room, shutting the door with a button press before pulling down a lever right above said button, making the machine roar as the gears behind the metal covers started turning.
Toriel took a few steps back, while Frisk stood in place in front of the machine, looking up to where Chara should roughly be. Soon, a weak glow shined from each of the slots where the soul-containers were plugged into the machine, each in its respective color and pulling the attention from everyone to them.
When the machine got louder and louder, Frisk suddenly felt a tug as Toriel stood by their side one hand on top of their hair — Frisk raised both of their smaller hands to rest on top of the furry ones from Toriel. Emotional support human, or something.
It didn’t take much longer for the machine to go quiet again — still some whirs and gears turning, but most of the noise vanished into the background.
When Alphys walked up to the machine to pop the upper half open again, a lot of smoke emerged from the machine, making everyone step back.
While Toriel and Alphys waited for the smoke to move out of the way before taking a look under the cover, Frisk stood further away and looked up to the machine, noticing the glow from one of the slots didn’t calm down.
A yellow glow that projected a faint ring to the roof with a similar color, and every so often, the top of the container would jump a little, showing an inch of the glass before sliding back into the slot.
As the machine’s upper half was lifted all the way back, Frisk finally stepped closer as well, squeezing in between Toriel and Alphys as the former carefully grabbed Chara’s body under the arms again.
The same as before, Toriel held Chara up in the air — holding her breath as she prayed for any kind of movement. Eyes opening, chest heaving, fingers twitching — really, anything at all.
She carefully took a few steps back, with both Frisk and Alphys closely following and looking up to the Chara, everyone overhearing the repeated clanking from one of the soul’s containers as the anticipation grew larger.
Until suddenly.
Chara threw their arms in the air and screeched in a high pitch: “YAAAAAAAH”, immediately Toriel dropped them as she screamed in turn. Thankfully, Chara’s fall was softened. To Frisk’s demise, it’s because Chara was dropped right onto them.
Alphys jumped back, too — but caught herself by a bundle of cables of the large machine. Her eyes shot up to Toriel who was clutching her chest with both hands, as if her soul has stopped working, while Alphys could only shout out — “IT WORKED?? IT REALLY WORKED. MISS TORIEL, IT WO—”
But just as Chara pushed themselves of Frisk to look up to their monster-mother, everyone’s attention was dragged towards the machine again as one of the containers busted — glass shattered, the metal-lid shot through the entire room with the yellow soul soon after.
But unlike the lid, it didn’t fall to the floor. It aimed for the metal door behind Alphys and shot clean through — leaving a circular hole as it disappeared out of everyone’s sight in the blink of an eye and made both Alphys and Toriel topple to the floor onto their buts.
“W— t…th—…” Alphys stuttered, much more than usual, hands on the floor behind her keeping her from flopping to her back. “That’s. Dozens inches of s—solid steel…”
Everyone looked up to the hole, a yellow trail of dust lingering in the air, which slowly fainted into nothingness…before everyone was reminded that Chara was right there. Alive.
“Wait. IT WORKED?” Now Toriel shouted out as well, quickly finding herself on both her feet, only to fall over onto her knees with both hands on the floor right in front of her long-lost child — who stared at her blankly.
Not because they didn’t feel anything — the exact opposite. Fingers curled, legs spread far from another at the uncomfortable feeling of brown shorts touching their skin, they didn’t dare to move an inch as they were met with the teary face of Toriel. Only when Toriel reached out with a hand to their head did they move — away. Immediately taking a step back as they turned their head to check if Frisk was still in the way — they weren’t. Frisk has bundled up to Alphys, leaning against her as they watched.
Chara blinked, once, twice, before turning back to Toriel who couldn’t decide between a worried look, or a smile. A mixture of both found itself plastered on her snout as she spoke, “your…your eyes, were they always…red, my child?”
Chara frowned, before turning their head, looking to the machine as they looked for some flat surface that could maybe reflect their face. One of the metal panels did the job as they took a step closer, immediately jolting their legs to spread even further as they touched their own clothes too close for comfort.
They blinked a few times while watching themselves, before turning their head towards Alphys…who quickly turned her head to avoid staring. Frisk on the other hand raised a hand and gave them a thumbs up and a fat smile, softening the worries.
Seems that they didn’t return exactly the way that they left.
“Mhm. No,” they replied, before facing Toriel again. “Hi…” They turned their head and muttered the word ‘mother’ too quiet for anyone to hear against their shoulder, before a shudder jerked their head as far up as their neck allowed.
Due to Chara’s earlier twitch, Toriel didn’t reach out another time, even if it was hard to resist, she kept her hands resting on her robe, eyes jumping between Frisk and Chara, before ultimately landing on Alphys.
“… Thank you. And… welcome home, Chara. It has truly been… a while.”