PLDF Chapter 15

> Chapter 15: Finding My Footing. Making Progress. And an Unexpected Family Reunion (Sub-Entries 141-150)
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## Sub-Entry 141: "The First Day of the Rest of My Life":

"...?"

As I opened my eyes I felt both relief and disappointment.  No DeltaRune dream this time.

Conversely...everything around me is as it should be.

This is real.  This is indeed my beautiful house.  Though I have yet to procure a beautiful wife; a gold star if you recognize the song reference.

But yeah.  Every day I wake up, it's to this reality.  Little by little it sets it and little by little I stop trying to expect I'll wake up somewhere...else.

That makes me both happy and sad.  Happy that it feels like smooth sailing for the rest of my days...but I'm not about to get complacent and lower my guard.  Sure our enemies are defeated, imprisoned, still hospitalized; physical aliment, psychological treatment, or both....and some even no longer drawing breath.

But good never rests in the battle against evil, even during peaceful times.

That "understood" checkmark aside...it is a good life.

But...I'm sad that...for no matter how long I get on with my life and live through an unknown but stable future...I'm always going to look over my shoulder and see the wrinkle in time.  I'm going to remember my life took a drastic detour.  And there was just as much good as there was bad and neutral.

I know.  I've pretty much beat all these thoughts into the ground in my last several journal entries.

How do you scratch an itch that has become intangible?  It's all just memories now.

If anything I may not be continuing the fight.  But I'm continuing a fight.  A fight against homesickness.

There are many a people out there who take for granted the very concept of going home.

So...how much more does one appreciate it when he has two?  But he could only choose one?

"Hmm..."

There is no easy solution.  But the only one I've come up with is to fill my life with the things that belong in it.  With the people that belong in it.  Create new memories.  Live moment to moment.  And eventually...those pangs subside and I get caught up in how lucky I am to even have my original family and friends back.  And I'm still meeting new people and interacting with plenty of humans here in Undertale.

So a few hours later into the day...

"Checkmate!"

Violet would be disappointed in me.

"I guess that's another straight loss to you, Mr. Boom."

"Wah-hah-hah-hah!  I think you've earned a first name basis, Prince."

"Well if you insist.  But I'm going to have to insist you cut out that "prince" stuff.  It's just Asriel."

"Wah-hah-hah-hah!  You are a sharp one, m'boy!"

Bunnie would remind me that experience trumps youth in a game of wits any day.  Maybe some day I'll catch up to the old turtle monster's chess-playing level.

Not today.

I guess it was time to drop in on Burgerpants.

MTT Emporium DELUXE Edition.  At least that's what he named it.

By now Burgerpants had been upgraded...or...side graded to not only working the burger emporium but also serve as the hotel bellhop.  His next promotion would probably be receptionist and he'd be expected to do all three to company standards.

Oh boy.  At least put him in a rotation cycle and having him do one job on one or more days and then shift him around duties.

Some things about Mettaton hadn't changed.  And one of those things was making sure Burgerpants pulled triple duty.  Often simultaneously.

"Yikes.  I think I need to carry a Gold Card and a Premium Plus Health Insurance card among other things just to walk INTO this place.  By gods, I don't even think traveler's checks will cut it around here."

Just the sound of the doorbell sounded like money jingling.  But for Mettaton, money was only second to fame.  And boy oh boy could he never get enough of it.  Either, really but more so the fame.

I hung my head for a moment and sighed.  Even time I walked in, I saw it.  Mettaton STILL hadn't corrected that design flaw in his fountain statue.

"Cue Burgerpants being called to the lobby to mop up the water spill in 3...2...1--

"BURGERPANTS!  REPORT TO THE LOBBY AND MOP UP THIS MESS!"

Yikes!  Did Mettaton turn up the volume on the public address system!?  It was like he WANTED to humiliate the poor cat.

And sure enough, there he came in company uniform.  Honestly I hadn't seen a hat that tacky since that fry cook in Bikini Bottom that lives in a pineapple under the sea.  But hey...if that yellow, porous guy is okay with it, who am I to judge?

Right.  Back to Burgerpants.

"Uh...hey."

"Can't talk now.  He'll dock my pay for socializing with the guests on the clock!"  He said hurriedly as he pushed the mop over the puddle repeatedly...to no avail as the water damage was just continuing to persist and spread.

"Burgerpants, it's me.  Asriel.  I’m not a guest at the hotel.  Though I was thinking about dropping in for a bite to eat with you on your break.  He still gives you those doesn't he?"

Burgerpants stopped for a moment and laughed...uncomfortably laughed...laughed to the point of being VERY disturbing as he flung his arms down, fists tightened and did his impression of a hunch-back.

"...a simple yes or no would have been good, dude."

While Burgerpants WAS technically justified in his complaints...it was arguable that he took it too far.  I mean...he wasn't a SLAVE, per se...but there were a lot of people who only wish they had it as good as him.

Never meet your heroes, huh?

Truth be told he had no room to talk about being a burn-out whose life is completely wasted.  Aunt Vi gave the same schtick when she was 18 or so Bunnie claims.  It was at a time before she broke out of the palace and left Al Dente a world away to drop in on Garfield Arcade in Neo Arcadia's UCIAT Central Office.

When he turns at least 67 then he can whine about it.

Still...I did empathize for the guy.  He's just been a magnet for bad luck and it's really made a cynic out of him.

\*cough cough\*  Also, I could have SWORN Mettaton finally made this building no smoking.  Every time I felt guilty about asking him to put out that nasty bent cigarette.  Doesn't he know how DISGUSTING those things are!??  Jeeeze laweeze.  It was sometimes really hard to go out of my way to avoid second-hand smoke.

Burgerpants rollllled his eyes, took it out of his mouth and squashed the butt on his--

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

"Uh...?"

That was when I noticed his shoes in the corner.....soooooomewhat worn out beyond any use.  Was he doing his hotel duties barefoot all this time!?

"That...was not smart..."   I cringed.  "Seriously, man.  Can't you ask the boss to issue you another company work outfit?"

"What?!  And risk it coming out of my pay!?"

Wait.  He pays for his own cleaning supplies, company uniform and...goodness gracious...what ELSE does have to pay for?  Tell me he gets some form of health insurance.  Pretty sure it would be illegal otherwise.

I facepalmed.

This was a conversation that had no safe way in.  If I brought up that he could go on strike until he got some fair treatment...I'm sure that would backfire drastically.  If I suggested he quit and find another job...pretty sure his resume would have a pretty nasty blot on it in Mettaton's handwriting giving him a less-than-stellar recommendation to other employers.  I honestly didn't know how vindictive the Sexy Rectangle could be, nor did I want to end up on his bad side to find out.  And there were infinitely more things I could bring up that he'd shoot down.

He really does believe he's stuck between a rock and a hard place, y'know?

"Do you get that company break or not?"  I put my knuckles to my hip.  "I'm fully prepared to smooth it over with the boss, you know."

I didn't like pulling rank or abusing my reputation.  But if it was for a friend, then it's not abusing it, right?  It's for a good cause and that makes it a good deed, right?

That's being responsible with who I am now....right?

Why am I asking this as if I'm confirming my own doubts?  Just say you're right, Azzy!

You know Frisk doesn't have this much trouble with second-guessing what's morally right.  There really are some things I wish I hadn't picked up from Volt.

After FINALLY getting him away from his duties.

"I take it it's one of those days?"

"I'd pray for death, but I can't afford to go to Hell now."  That cringey attempt at a grin was just AWFUL.

"H...er...Heck is what we make of it."  Really.  I still can't swear?

"And some just have a loooot of help making it."

His back-handed snipes of Mettaton seemed a bit harsh.  Honestly I got a lot of mixed messages from him.  Obviously he doesn't like working for Mettaton...but he still keeps taking the abuse rather than trying to change his life for the better.  Maybe on some level he enjoys this weird relationship between employee and the boss from some place very red, warm and not-good.

Another euphemism for the H-word, Azzy.  Really trying to preserve your clean-cut image, ain't ya?

There's my Flowey moment of speaking for the day........week.......better make it a whole month, lest I tempt Hyperdeath.

It isn't easy keeping this balancing act going.  Yet people still think of me as Mr. Perfect.  I'm far from it.

"Let me give you one piece of advice.  Stay determined."

Ouch.  That's your two cents, Azzy.  And it feels like it had the same impact as when Bill and Ted tried to appease the Future when answering for why they hadn't fulfilled Rufus' prophecy.

I still believed in the credo of "Be Excellent to Each Other and Party On, Dude".

So Burgerpants and I had our conversation and lunch break.  I implied that I might consider investing in stock in Mettton's hotel...see if that greases a few wheels and gets him off his employee's back.  Though...I don't really know if I'm in a position to risk investing.  And really...I don't want to have to explain things if the stock just plummeted out of no where.  I worked hard to build my current nest egg and losing it now would be a huuuge step back toward my goals.

So afterward I bid him farewell and begged him to keep it together.

Poor guy.

So who else was on my list to meet up with?

A comedy club to meet up with Snowdrake.  Snowy's stand up act was improving.  I promised I'd be there to sit in on days that Chilldrake couldn't be there.  And really...Snowdrake was the single greatest source of snow, ice, and winter puns.  I couldn't resist laying a few on Sans from time to time as long as I made sure to credit Snowdrake as their source.  Even now I never forget to cite my references; college practice.

I had a few things to drop off at the refrigeration company where Ice Cap got a job.

And of course it wouldn't be a day without the daily practice of...ditching Jerry.

"The WI-FI in this place SUCKS."

Some things never change.

Then there's the petting of Lesser Dog and seeing how far he can stick his neck out...literally.

What I HAVEN'T figured out is how he retracts it when he's done.  I wonder if he's made of the same stuff as Temmies?

Speaking of...

"HOI!"  "HOI!"  "HOI!"  "HOI!"  "...I'm Bob."

Yeah.   There are some things you never want to change.

I watched intently as one of them safeguarded a soft boiled egg.  Tem is still "proud parent".

A stop inside the Tem Shop to trade away a few items I didn't need any more.  Temmie had long since gone to cool leg...er...college.  So I guess the need for "muns" wasn't as strong but still...Temmie still liked their shinies; be it gold or trinkets.  Honestly, I was envious of a race the most complicated thing for them to deal with was...if they would rather have the shiny objects...or the money?

I did my best to make sure I never heard that I'd regret my choice.  Temmie's were also...inconsistent about their speech patterns.  Most of the time they had a rudimentary grasp of it that I'd put on the same level as Tithius...boy did I miss Chameleon's familiar right now.

But occasionally there would be that rare moment when you'd hear them be VERY coherent.  In fact...I was sure there was one time one even dared to drop an F-Bomb.  Believe me...there's nothing as intimidating as hearing a Temmie tell you to "put them the \*FLOWEY CACKLE\* down...

Volt still left me with the Memory Tube filled with Temmy Flake confetti from the time he tried to neurolize them.

All around town, day to day, week to week, month to month...I was really getting to know them all.  The feeling of belonging to Undertale was stronger than ever and I was grateful I could be a part of this world and not just be a plot device that appears only a few times just to say goodbye to everyone again.  I can't tell you how depressing it is thinking that my life...or my afterlife could have been nothing but emptiness for eternity.  And BOTH paths were my choice.  I chose to punish myself whether I deserved it or not.  I don't want another person to be like me...to have to be in that position.  To hate yourself for something that was beyond your control...beyond your understanding...something that took your innocence at a point you were too naive to know you could even lose it in the first place.

It was who I was.  But not any more.  If there did come another Asriel or another like him...I was fully prepared to step into Volt's role and give them a second chance.  And regardless of an Annoying Dog's role in this...no goddess was going to tell me I could do that.  No one was going to tell me not to risk my own for the sake of another.  I decided what I had to be long ago.

I am hope.  I am dreams.  I am wishes.  I am Asriel Tobias Dreemurr-Arcade.  As the Prince of this World's Future, I am DETERMINED to save them all.  And I'm not alone in my fight.  Am I, Frisk?

Well.  This self-affirmation has been good.  But...it doesn't solve everything for me.

I...still have a very large piece of me missing.  I think I've covered Volt and the others pretty well enough by now.

No...who I was missing was someone before their time.

But I also knew...that we both moved on.  We both had different paths; whether my life or her afterlife.

I did what I had to do.  I did what I should have done.  I did what needed to be done.

I let go.

They were my best friend.  But they were never mine to keep, in the physical sense.

If only I would have understood our bond was the one thing of each others that we could never lose.  Only then would I realize I never really lost a friend.  I just...let them go on ahead.

Now that they have gone on ahead...I've got a long way to go before we can have a reunion--

\*knock knock knock\*

Hold up.  Who's that now?  I'm not expecting any company.  What in the name of--

I know what thought is crossing your mind now.  Because it crossed mine first.

"Vo--"  I started to say as someone went ahead and opened the door.  Honestly I really should lock my own front door but...

My eyes widened and there they were...!

## Sub-Entry 142: "A Visit From...?  But How?"

I bet once you read this entry you were thinking it would be someone from my former life.  You'd be right, yes.  But it wouldn't be any of those you were thinking of.

Still...you could not fathom my surprise when there she was standing in casual clothes and sandals...though it was staring to get a bit cold for that attire.  Chalk it up to her not knowing what point in the year it would be in the World of the Living......oops.  I think I spoiled it.

Yeah...that was a gigai body, already.  And she was most certainly my sister.

"Ch-Chara?  But--"

"No chocolate bar?  You're awful, Azzy."

"Hey, now..."

"Invite me in?  Thanks."  She said with a bit of playful sarcasm as she brushed by me and mad herself at home on my recliner.  "My dogs are killing me."

I could tell she was putting on an act, trying to get my goat...heh...like in the old days.

"Umm...come in, I guess."  I tried to sound underwhelmed like I was getting a visit from a door-to-door salesman.

"You really going to try to match me in witty banter and being aloof?"

"Charaaaaaa..."  I wrinkled my snoot.  "Well I suppose I could keep bantering with you or I could ask you twenty questions.  Like how in Gehenna are you even here."

"You can't swear like a normal person, Azzy?"

"Pretty sure where I grew up in Miranda, Gehenna pretty much IS a swear.  But, frankly I don't care much for having to wash my own mouth out with soap."

"Still naive and clean cut as ever."

"And you're still a ball of punk and rebellion."

"Ooooh.  Channeling your inner Undyne?  How sweet of you to think of me."

"Yeah, well, she's not used to the idea of you being a girl and not a--"

"Serial Murderer."

"Hmmph.  You really had to dig into the old archive to dust that old burn off."  I crossed my arms.  "Really it has about as much bite as no-sting baby shampoo."

"I was aiming for at least a case of poison oak itch."  Chara shrugged nonchalantly with that smug side smile.

"Okay.  Serious talk, sister of mine.  What are you doing here?  HOW are you even here?  I thought that--"

"You can't get rid of me that easily, Azzy."

"I mean...your home is in the Soul Society.  A realm of spirits in a different world, in a different dimension; lightyears away from us in space coordinates.   Pretty sure even our timelines don't sync up all that well. And your location on the Axis of Reality--"

"Neeeeeeerd."

"Compliments now."  I crossed my arms smugly with a grin.

That caught her off guard for all but the few seconds I needed to distract her.

"Before you say anything it's just that the meaning of that word has changed.  It's no longer considered insulting anymore.  So thank you.  You have flattered my intelligence."

I did still know how to suck the fun out of the things she did.  Only now I could do it at will and not be accidental naivety.  It takes skill to troll a troll; or so Aunt Vi would say.

"Alright, alright.  You killed the mood."

"Hope that's the only thing."

That was kind of a lopsided snipe; poking fun at how other versions of me...technically did kill our sibling.  Kind of dark for the one Asriel with no blood on his hands to just casually dismiss.  But...maybe we were both at that point in our life and afterlife, respectively, that we could just laugh at it as water under the bridge.

"Okay, since you’re going to drag it out of me...I did have to badger Mr. Hat-and-Clogs for a bit before he found a way to connect me to other worlds of the living."

"Well that explains how."

"I'm not going to explain why."  Chara stuck her tongue out.

"Could it be you really missed me?"

That got Flowey's attention from the other room.  I think my impression of him was so spot on, he had to do a double take.

"Oh.  It's the other one."  He tried to cover up his moment of shock, thinking that his Chara returned.

"You kept the weed?"

"Manners, Chara."  I scolded.

"Well, he ain't my Azzy."  Chara stuck up her nose.

"So.  He's somebody's."

Flowey growled before snapping at us both.  "I ain't nobody's charity case!  Don't go taking pity on me!  I don't need someone playing the world's smallest violin on my behalf!"

"Hmmm.  In a less crabby mood today."  I jabbed.

He let out a low growl.

"Oh boy.  Someone new to pick on..."  Chara rubbed her hands together.

"Don't even think about it."  Flowey snarled.

"As if I'd turn over a whole new...leaf."  Chara emphasized the last word.

Flowey hissed in response.

"Yeah, you might want to go easy on those.  He really hates puns.  It's hard enough for me to tell them in my own home without getting the stink-eye."  I shrugged with that Hyperdeath closed-eyes, head-shaking, carefree shrug.

That immediately triggered him.

"DOOOOON'T!!!"

"Okay, okay."

I was also tempting Hyperdeath within my own heart, soul, and mind...but I think this was a moment he was grinning in his sleep.

I finally dug into the refrigerator.

"Yes.  I just happen to have a death-by-chocolate iced cake in my fridge for random Soul Reaper guests."

That was a lie.  It was however something I was going to show Mom, Muffet, and the others how far I'd come with Mitzi's cooking lessons.  And I picked the chocolate cake because it was Chara's favorite.

Flowey turned his back on it once he saw it.

"Well now.  Is this a bribe so I won't take your soul back to the afterlife."

"I wasn't born yesterday.  You were no more coming for my soul than I was investing in a collection of knives."

Touché.  That was a stinger.  To this day I still had a phobia of knives on some level and it was thanks to ever Chara that ever wielded a Worn Dagger or a Real Knife.  Or both.

"Dang.  You're no fun now that you're not easy to fool any more."

"We all grow up.  Have you?"

"I don't grow anymore.  I'm kind of dead."

"Yeah yeah.  But wait...can that Gigai Body of yours even eat?"

"Want me to show you want all it can do--"

For a brief moment I was about to tell her to keep it G-rated, but I was the one who needed to keep his mind out of the gutter.  She obviously didn't mean what Violet would have most assuredly assumed she meant.

"You're so boring!"  She laughed.

"Boring people don't offer cake..."

"That a threat?"

"Nah.  Just common etiquette.  Bad little ghosties don't get sweets.   My house.  My rules."

"Dang.  I don't know who you take after...dad or mom."

"Let's call it a split difference and go with that."

"Was that a pun?"  Chara wrinkled her nose as I cut up the cake.

"If you have to ask..."  I smirked.

Well.  Cake and a glass of milk later...chocolate milk in Chara's case, mind you...

"So...you finally did it.  You're captain of Squad 3."

I guess I should have recognized the white haori; that flowing white kimono coat without a belt to tie it shut.  In a way it was also kind of like a lab coat without lapels and pockets.  But looser.  More ornate but still completely white.

"Have you...had contact with--"

"Hey, hey.  There's time to get into serious talk.  Can't we banter for a bit longer?"

I was silent.

Chara's grin faded.

A sigh.

"No.  I'm afraid I haven't even crossed paths with Master Rabbotou.  The Soul Society has been quiet since the fall of Xcution but...something big is on the horizon."

Bunnie's sixth sense had always warned her of a single word to be dreaded...something that might related to what Chara was talking about.  That word was "Wandenreich"...or "Invisible Empire" according to Nikita Lynx's translation.  How she learned German, even I couldn't figure out.

I had a bad feeling that Chara was going to be involved in something that could obliterate the very reality of world she was part of now; both Soul Society and the World of the Living.  Whatever it was, I felt as if it intended to end the cycle of life and death itself and bring about an eternity of entropy.

An enemy after Adonis' own twisted, blackened, sludge-filled heart?  Now that's something to be scared of.

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about work."

"Yeah.  Maybe."  It was one time Chara didn't tease me about being squeamish.  I think it was because she was afraid, too.

"So...how did you get permission from Genryuusai Yamamoto--"  I stopped myself.

"You didn't."  I face palmed.

"He's going to incinerate you when you get back."

"He's going to have to find me first."

I let her think about that for a moment as I crossed my arms.

"...oh."  Then the color drained out of her faux body's face.  "Did not think this one through, did I?"

I shook my head.  Even being within a milk of him when Ryuujin Jaakaa was draw was like being plunged head first, deep into the hottest spot of lava in Hot Land...then multiplying it by a factor of 100,000,000.  Try to image with being in contact with it at point blank was like...and never sleep again.

Awkward silence.

"Azzy...are you...happy here?"

"You asking for yourself or on someone's behalf."

Sharp cookie, aren't I?

"It's corny but...I care about you."

She didn't exactly say either was the case...I guess the UCIAT really wasn't going to be able to visit us like they used to.  I can only imagine the things that got in the way.  That's life.

"Yeah.  Yeah, thanks."  I was sincere but...kind of spooked by how frank she was being.  It was distracting and my mind wasn't all in it.

"Don't sound enthused or anything.."

"Sorry.  Things just got...heavy.  But yeah...I'm happy.  It's great.  I'm back home where I belong."

"Is this home?"

"What kind of a question is that?"

"You know what I'm asking."

"A man cannot serve two masters."

Chara finished her cake.

"I'm not talking about serving a master.  I'm talking about belonging."

"I could reverse this on you and ask if Soul Society is really your home or--"

"There's no other place for me.  It's where I hang my heart.  And home is where the heart is.  So yeah...it's home.  But is this home for you?"

"Yes it is.  Why wouldn't it be?"

"I guess I should be asking...is it the only one?"

Silence.

Yeah.  Right in the bullseye.

"Is it greedy to want the best of more than one world?"

"Not my place to judge.  You know how many times I pranked you by not saving you anything from a box of cookies?"

"Yeah...you really got a kick out of seeing me cry a lot.  Then you'd go and tell me something like "big boys don't cry".  How was a kid supposed to know what he's suppose to do when he gets mixed messages like that?"

"Okay, okay.  I was a doofus to you.  But c'mon.  It's funny now, right."

"Not giving you the satisfaction."  I snorted.

"Look.  It's your life.  And it's got a long road ahead.  Do with it as you will, Azzy."

"Wish I could ask you advice for homesickness--"

"You already know the answer."

"Don't bury yourself in sentimentality.  Yeah.  You didn't.  With all due respect...look where it got you.  My expression fell.

"That's on me.  Don't feel bad because I shot myself in the foot..  I'm...coping with my choices.  Don't go letting yours hold you back.  Don't go letting your choices make you second guess yourself."

"Best advice you've given me all day."

"Hey.  I do have some wisdom to impart."

"Not to mention a poke and a prod or two at my expense."  I rolled my eyes.

"You enjoy it."

"Sure I do."  I stuck my tongue out at her.

"You seem better now, Azzy."

"Yeah.  I think you're what the doctor ordered."

But I didn't admit to myself...the prescription wasn't complete.  There was still one instance of medicine still missing from the equation.

But that would be remedied in due time.

Right now...I had something else more pressing to figure out.

## Sub-Entry 143:  "What Goes Around Comes Around..."

Chara coming back to me was the biggest boost I needed to stave off the homesickness blues.

In the moment, I was thinking to myself...how can I be homesick when I AM home.  And then...I remember my previous month's entry when I wrote about belonging to two worlds and being a bridge...

I suppose if I didn't have this much going for me I would have worked myself into a frenzy trying to make sense of things as my inner monologue argued with itself.

Actually...now that I think about it...

"This...presents a new complication."

How DO I re-introduce Chara to the family now that she's decided to stay a bit.  Hopefully not too long or Commander-General Yamamoto will make her wish Sans HAD made her burn in Hell.  Frankly...there was no Hell hotter than getting roasted by his Ryuujin Jakka.  And THAT'S when he doesn't have his bankai, Zanka no Tachi summoned.  I don't think many people have seen it...and lived to tell about it.  If anyone has...it would probably have been Bunnie.

I'm fairly certain it would easily trump mom, over one billion times over in terms of pyromancy.

I couldn't imagine there not even being dust left.  I think that's the very definition of disintegration.

But wait!

"You're getting off topic, Azzy."

Right.  Sister dearest.

Her presence here on Undertale opens a lot of possibilities...and a lot of complications.  Does it mean that...she's ready to face Mom and Dad again?  Does she feel like she's redeemed herself somewhat?

I know...I've finally forgiven myself for my role in her fate, even if I didn't go all the way through with it.  I may not have brought her the buttercups, now that I can remember clearly...but I still didn't stand in the way of her plan up until I was removed from Destiny and Fate's chess board and put in both literal and metaphorical limbo.  To think one of them was actually counting on her white knight to recover me.

There's just no grasping the magnitude of knowing Volt may have been the chess piece...but I was the big gambit.  I was the risk.  I was the experiment.

No.  I was the hope and the dream.

So here we are in Destiny's granted wish.  What else is there?

"Somehow...I feel Volt's worry is valid.  Somehow...I don't think the goddesses are finished with us.   We may have earned our freedom from their game...but....even without strings on us...they'll make us dance."

I wrinkled my snoot at how Fate must fancy herself as some kind of....of....BIG SHOT.

"Huh..."

That was weird.  Why did those words feel like they resonated with my memory of DeltaRune?

The longer I stayed awake, the more the memory faded.  The more I had to write it down to make sure the details were there when this happened again.  But future planning another time.

How do I arrange everyone to meet the First Fallen Child all over again?  Especially now that they're technically dead.

"I wonder what it cost her to have a gigai delivered here...?"  I rubbed my chin at the thought of doing business with shady Kisuke Urahara.  Mr. Hat-and-clogs.  And the song that came to mind was the theme of Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

"I'm gonna take you for a ride."  I chuckled to myself before shrugging and shaking my head.  Easy there.  Don't give Hyperdeath a reason to wake up.

Actually...now that I think about it...Hyperdeath had gone so dormant, I was coming to the conclusion that...well...maybe our last conversation aboard Dr. Lynx's starship just...broke him completely.

It made me think of the duality within my psyche.  I pondered...what would Harvey Dent be without Two-Face's persona sharing a space inside his own mind?

Cured.

"No.  He's not a sickness."  I crossed my arms, having gone on another tangent.

"He's just...the part of you that was always there.  You gave him form and when you realized how much he resonated with Chara's darkness...you ran from him...tried to seal him away.  Rejected him.  And look where that got you when Adonis shoved Volt's soul into your own..."

A moment of regret.  Careful.  Stay too long on that moment and you'll awaken him again.

I made my peace with my darkness.  My other half.  Let him be at peace.  Let him sleep.

Anyway...back to Chara.

"I can't keep her secret.  I've kept enough secrets."

Really I only kept one big one and that was for Volt's benefit in the long-run after a temporary abandonment.

Never again.

But telling the truth wasn't easy.  It SHOULDN'T be easy.  It should be a challenge.  I need it to be if I'm going to experience growth.  That's an odd thing to say now that I'm a full adult.

Yet, if I were to believe that I can rest on my laurels and pronounced myself a full adult with nowhere to grow?  That would be an unforgiveable arrogance, bordering on hubris.

You never stop growing, learning, and evolving.

Okay.  So I guess I had to plan out how I was going to introduce her to the folks.

Starting with mom.

Nurture vs. nature.  Not sure why I'm making that reference.  But somehow it feels like it weirdly fits.  Where was the balance with just dropping this bombshell on mom...and leading her into it mercifully and gradually.

Dad was Dad.  I know he was one big, toasty molten marshmallow wrapped in fluff and gold armor who let his temper get the best of him once...his own brand of never-again, mind you.  I was sure he'd just accept it.

Undyne....oh boy...I think it best I delay her as long as I can.

The skele-bro's?  Pappy's gonna be easy.  He'll accept her no matter what.  And he can always use another friend and/or fan.  Though keeping her from being sardonic and having fun at his unsuspecting expense was going to be a little challenging.  He was just too easy for her to have fun with when he's that naive.

Sans...oh boy.  Just because he knew she was a different Chara...didn't mean she was completely off the hook.  She did things.  She had crossed him before.  There were things to answer for.

We'd have to have a sit-down.

Alphys?  Well...I just had to hope that I wouldn't break her.

I also had to reign in the scientist in her.  I had nightmares of her possibly succumbing to her inner Captain Kurotsuchi of Squad Eleven Research Core.  I didn't want her putting my sister under a microscope when curiosity got the best of her.  We'd do controlled tests but under agreed upon terms between the three of us.  Who knows?  Maybe there was an answer we haven't looked at to the determination enigma.  Maybe the afterlife holds secrets to bringing stability to the Amalgamates?

Let's not hold our breaths.  We could end up unleashing something worse.

As for the rest?  Give it time.  The world isn't ready to know about life after death for human souls.  I didn't even really know if there was one for monster souls; they just turn to dust and the souls just shatter and disappear.

So to summarize...what goes around comes around.  My sister was coming around again.  She was going to be part of our world again.

That's great, yes?

Well...does that also mean she's made her choice?

No, it can't be that simple.

She can't abandon her responsibilities as a Soul Reaper.  So...she's going to have to go back and forth.

And that calls to mind what I wished for.

If she can do it...why can't we?  Why does the world I left behind have to stay left behind.

I'm not being subtle, am I?

No.

"Azzy, why don't you go out right and say it?"

Because I'm not ready to.

I haven't reached my proverbial half-point.  Maybe then...maybe then I can say it outright.

In the past, Volt has implied or almost said something that might seem obvious to others but waited until the right moment to say it out right.

Me?  I'm struggling to keep the world's worst secret; what I ultimately want to do.

But that's long term.

Short term?

I have to re-introduce my family...to my family.

I have to figure out what to do about Chara.  I haven't even addressed the elephant in the room.

Namely...Chara being Chara.

She's going to have fun with this.

She's going to be mischievous.  I may have said she's a good sister...but she's never going to be an angel.  She's always going to tease.  She's always going to have that amount of Aunt Violet in her.

She's going to shock the heck out of them if I don't put a leash on her.

Well...time to start planning.

"I got my work cut out for me.  Well, sister dearest.  Are you ready for this?  Are you ready to say hi to Mom and Dad again?"

What a series of questions to ask.

Of course she was.  She was waiting all her afterlife for this.  She's gone around.  Now it's time for her to come around.

The goddesses help us all.

Well...maybe not Madam Fate so much.

## Sub-Entry 144:  "Family Reunion":

I made up my mind.  I had to tell the truth about her.  I'd been...slowly explaining the situation about what happened to Chara but...had I given Asgore and Toriel enough of a buffer to drop this on them?

I didn't even have to ask Chara if she was on board.

She wouldn't miss this for the world.  Mostly because it gave her a chance to jump-scare them both.  I didn't approve.  But despite being only two of us and our deliberation was obviously a stalemate...I found myself outvoted.  How did that happen?  Why did that happen?  It's numbers, man!

The lesson is quality over quantity and there's just no arguing with a god of death.  I wasn't about to trump her with an Absolute God of Hyperdeath.  Not that I could, not that I would, and not that there was any chance Hyperdeath might comply for something that petty and insignificant.

Even now I couldn't say no to my sister.  How lame is that?

So.  I drove us to Asgore and Toriel's place.  I wanted them to be surprised but...I wasn't going to be cruel, either.  So I politely asked them in advance that they should brace themselves for what I was about to show them.  And that I would explain very thoroughly what was going on.  I didn't want either of them to suddenly fall down from heart attack or whatever happens to Monsters when the shock is too much for them to bear.

Chara was disappointed.  She wanted the full impact.

Just as a precaution I asked Frisk if she could swing by just to help counterbalance whatever mischief dear sister thought she might get into.  I didn't want her to torment the folks THAT much.

"I suppose I should be glad you can't pull off those things the Maitland’s did in the office of the recently departed--"

I can't believe I was sloppy enough to bring up the Beetlejuice incident and forget Chara had no idea what that was about.

"Ohhhhhh...?"

Now she wouldn't leave me alone until I spilled.

"Just...nothing I'd want you repeating."

"Now, now.  You can't share something like that with me and not expect me to see if it's worth trying."

"No, Chara.  I don't want Asgore and Toriel scarred for life."

"Even thought that's what we are?"

"A bit cynical, sister."  But not wrong.  The trauma of our childhoods ending in a nightmare; one where I lived she died...was something we're never going to get over.  Time has made it infinitely better and more tolerable...but it's just a wound that won't heal.

"If you're that determined, you'll just have to drag it out of me.  But I assure you I'm determined enough to prolong and delay it beyond the point of it being useful to you."

"Challenge accepted."

I did not want to find out if, as a spirt or whatever, if she could wrench her jaws opened after swallowing her own eyeballs and positioning them on top of her tongue.  Or worse put her eyeballs on her fingertips after yanking her nose and head into a demon-looking rooster form.

Though...I wasn't completely against the idea of finding out if she could make people dance the Calypso to the Banana Song, "Day-oh".

Thank-you, Volt for being such a good role model.  But man...sometimes I feel as though Aunt Vi mentored Chara.

"Here we are."

I parked the car and headed to the door.  By the time I thought to check if Chara was right behind me, I'd already rung the doorbell.  And when I did check...I didn't have time to ask what in the blue He--

"Ahh!  Asriel, my sweet angel!  It's wonderful that you find time to visit your old parents."

I was distracted enough to turn my attention away to Mom and get a little sentimental.

"I always have time for you and dad.  No matter how busy I get."

"And how much of a success you become!"

"Aww, come on, Mom.  Don't make me blush!"

Then I remembered too late.  At that moment, Mom turned her attention to.

"Oh my!  You've brought a friend!  But...er...hasn't Halloween Night already passed?"

Gosh darn it, Chara.

I didn't know how to explain why she covered herself with a white sheet with eyeholes and was doing the worst impression of Napstablook.

"Oooooooooooooooh.  I am the ghooooost of an opponent that Asriel defeated in a karate tournament!!!"

"What?  No!  I never--"

"I come seeking my revenge!  You must appease me with an acceptable tribute that honors my fallen memory!"

"What are you doing!?"  I growled at her between clenched teeth.  She ignored me.

"Err...I see...I do not wish to offend your memory.  What is it that you desire?"

"Must you do this...?"  I moaned.

"I am thinking a nice banquet of chocolate bars and chocolate milk would be a starter.  Oh!  And maybe a slice of some butts pie!"

I was this close to face-palming.

You don't get to pick your family...but right now, Chara was making me wish I still had sweet, innocent Gadget as a step-sibling rather than her right now.  Isn't that terrible of me to think much less say out loud?  I mean...she's my sister!  I have to take the good with the bad.

As annoying as the latter is at this moment.

Mom got a strange look as if she remembered something familiar...eerily familiar.  You'd think the voice alone would be a tell.  That the mention of butts pie and chocolate would be a tip-off.  But no...time makes fools of memory.  And memory is usually foiled by denial.

We build our own wall of comfort, trying to dissuade any and all possibility that what we hope in the back of our minds is true; it's just easier on our sanity to move on after overcoming something horrific and traumatizing.

"Okay, enough of this..."  I grumbled, my patience finally giving out.  I was patient but even I had limits to how Chara was pushing my buttons.

No one but her could get me to lose my cool.

"Who is at the door?  Oh my!  Hello, Son!  And who is this--"

I wasn't about to let this double let alone snowball...

"Mom.  Dad.  When I told you to brace yourselves...I meant it.  So...maybe you should sit down in the next thirty seconds..."

And I unceremoniously yanked off the sheet.

"Say uncle...or rather...long-lost daughter."

And then...dead silence.  Incredibly dead silence.

It was like time itself stopped and the shock set in for both of them.

"Eheheheh...you kind of took the wind out of my sails, Azzy..."

"You're not licensed to operate a boat."  I said dryly.

"M...m....my...child...!"  Mom stammered, stepping back and covering her mouth with both hands.  Utterly in shock.

"It's...it's you...!"  Asgore gaped.

"Uh...hi, Mom.  Hi, Dad.  I...uh...I can explain."

"Do so.  We're waiting."  I crossed my arms.  "And make it good.  I have half a mind to let you go at it solo."

"But...this cannot be!  This is impossible!  You...you're the one...!  You're--"

"Yeah, yeah.  The first fallen.  The child nobody on the surface wanted.  The hope and dreams of the whole Monster Kingdom that was going to carry our wishes into the future, etcetera, etcetera."

As Mom approached, Chara suddenly held up a flashlight under her chin and turned it on and did her creepy face with a loud "BOO!!!"

"AHHHH!!!"  Mom fell backward into Dad's arms.

"Chara!!!"  I snapped.  "That wasn't very nice!"

"Oh but it was hilarious.  I used to scare the crap out of you with that way back when!  You were so easy!"

Remind me again, why this Chara was infinitely better than the Evil-Chara male counterpart festering in between the Void within the CORE and the other side where the phantom Wraiths were torturing Adonis?

"You are...!"

"No, mom.  Actually...she's not alive in the tradition sense.  And I strongly encourage her not to--"

Too late.  She already popped the soul candy.

"Darn it!  Why did you do that, Chara!  You know they don't have Spiritual Pressure!  They can't see you when you're in that form--"

An of course she engaged in some juvenile parlor tricks with seemingly levitating the potted flowers and stuff outside the house which of course freaked Mom and Dad out while their body; now inhabited by a mod soul, just grinned with her arms behind her back.

"Chara, get back here!!!"  I chased after her.  "I'm sorry about this..."

I was about to make things even more confusing as I popped a soul candy of my own and let my mod soul inhabited body stick around with Chara's.

"You're having way too much fun with this!"  I chased her all over the yard.  I wasn't about to draw my Zanpakutou and I'm pretty sure as tempted as she was, Chara wasn't about to let it get back to the Soul Society that she was abusing her powers.

While my parents couldn't see it, I assure you...I was playing merry heck trying to keep up with Chara's use of shunpo.

Oh gods...I just realized...she's been taking lessons from the Flash Master herself, Yoroichi Shihouen.  I'd be lucky to stay behind her tail wind much less catch up to her!

And as she "DBZ zwee-fight" dashed all over the place, objects and obstacles were being moved and bushes parting, things flying into the air as our spiritual pressure was disrupting the physical world.

I had no hope of matching her speed.

But then again...there was a world of experience difference between the two of us.  Unlike me...Chara didn't spend intense study of kidou under Bunnie Rabbotou; therefore she didn't know her way around the destructive arts and binding arts as well as I did.  And I was only a substitute soul reaper while she was full-fledged.

"縛道の#15 スローモーション 茶茶時刻 - Suro-mo-shon Chachajikoku <Slow-Motion Time Disruption>!"

Sally's advice about slowing down still comes in handy.

"Now!  縛道の#61] 六除光櫓 – Rikujokoro <Six Rods Prison of Light>!!!"

"Hey!!!!"

And she was down.

"Six-rods Light Prison!?  Seriously, Azzy?  You're going to go with THAT much overkill?!"

"I just wanted to make sure you got my point."  I wasn't playing around.  "You're confusing the heck out of our parents.  Now kindly get back into your body before I have to stuff you in it myself."

"Okay, okay.  Fun's over."

And with that mess cleaned up.

I straightened my outfit once I was back in my own body.

"Sorry about that.  I'll explain everything as best I can.  But...yeah...Chara's a spirit inhabiting a possessed object, like Mettaton.  That body of hers is essentially a life-like doll."

"But...but...!"  Dad stammered.

"How...?"

"Yeah...I'll explain why I can do what she does.  Come on, dear sister.  Inside.  And behave yourself already."

"I got what I wanted."  Chara rested her head in the back of her interlocked palms, elbows outward.  She was enjoying this.

So on VERY, VERY detailed explanation later...

"...I feel very lost."

Toriel sighed covering her eyes with one hand and shaking her head.

"I will try to elaborate on this and use smaller words, Asgore dear.  It seems our First Fallen child has returned to us.  Though...I am still not quite entirely sure how this is possible."

"Well.  It's like I said, Mom.  Chara's been haunting our world since easily two timelines ago.  My timeline where she was so desperate to catch back up to me that she prevented that timeline's Chara from suffering his fate and thus separating him from his Asriel...your Asriel, actually...Flowey, I mean.

Through the Wraith that was possessing her she thought she had an opportunity to get me back...or at least another version of me.  But...she was lied to when she made a deal with Dr. Adonis.  He strung her along, let her terrorize the previous timeline...the one where she possessed many of you...and then he turned her loose, letting her run amuck on VGM-098 where I made my home.  It...caused a lot of problems but...it worked out in the end.

Volt Arcade...performed a soul-burial.  He essentially consecrated Chara's soul to another world where it could rest in an afterlife called the Soul Society.  By doing so, Chara could be free and live out her penance in peace.  This also gave her an opportunity to make amends for her deeds while she was possessed by the great evil that inhabited her.  So...she became that world's version of a god of death.  A soul reaper.  She'd spend eternity ushering the souls of the departed to the afterlife...or to the gates of the...bad place.  You know...H, E, double hockey sticks."

"Goodness!"

"Yeah...it's a living...or non-living.  But who knew the job also came with protecting the souls of the departed from ghost-eating monsters called Hollows.  Y'know...twisted abominations of the spirit world who have a hole in their chests straight through; to represent the heart that they've lost or never had in life.  Yeah, the souls of the dead can become corrupted and turn into these souls which eat other souls to fill the void in their chests.  It's complicated."

That...kind of horrified the both of them.  Rightfully so.

"Five years later...Chara was still in the Soul Society and that's when she made the choice to become said soul reaper...she trained she was issued her Zanpakutou...er...her sword there."

Chara held up the hilt.  I could tell Mom was nervous about allowing a weapon in her house.

"I guess I had my moment of redemption by confronting the other me.  The me that had been terrorizing Azzy for his teenage years.  He almost succeeded but...darned if my prodigy of a brother couldn't one-up me by cheating death itself."

That...I didn't like bringing up.  A near-death experience touched a little too close to home...I honestly was worried that I was just another Asriel and my death was...well...merely delayed.

But then I remembered...every Asriel had one thing in common, regardless of death: we gained determination.  And mine was as strong as Frisk's.  Enough to want to live on and refuse to die.  I couldn't die.  I needed to live.  I couldn't let Evil-Chara get away with this...I couldn't let this injustice stand.  I wasn't about to let him hurt my friends and family.  Adonis could not have our world.

"Chara...don't."  I pleaded.

"So...I broke my evil self.  I wasn't about to kill him, though.  Asriel was right...there's been enough killing.  I understood by then why life is precious."

Chara and I understandably left out the part where...despite sparing him?  Our choices didn't matter.  Adonis ended him...gruesomely so.  It was...such an arrow through the heart I never got over it.  I don't think my sister did, either.

I could tell Mom was proud of Chara's redemption.

"I came back when I was needed during the penultimate battle between the seven AU's...the seven Absolute Hyper Gods and played my role...and then went back to continue my training...continue to advance seats in the third squad.  So here I am as a captain of one of thirteen royal guards, so to speak."

Undyne is going to be SO jealous.  So very, very jealous.  Especially when she sees Chara's bankai.

She wants to know if anime is real?  My sister has the proof.  But I think once she gets a taste of it...Dy-Dy is gonna want more.  A lot more.

"I guess the take-away from this is...after all this time...Volt's vision has come to pass.  His gift is finally at hand and in our laps."  I sniffled.  "Our family is whole again."

Silence.

Only it wasn't an awkward silence or a silence resulting from shock or terror or anything.

It was just a moment of...taking it all in.  Processing it.  And finally...accepting.

This was a quiet moment.

This was the calm after a storm we probably all should have seen coming...but really...I was the only one.  I was its orchestrator.  I was the one who brought it to fruition; even though it wasn't my idea.  I was just fulfilling the role and bringing Volt's plan full circle.

He banked on me making this happen.  Now it has happened.  I have a long way until I see what it is I'm supposed to do next.  There's a difference between feeling and wishing what's next...and actually knowing for a fact that this is what I want to do...this is what I'm supposed to do.  This is my......destiny.

The rest of this day went just like I hoped.  I think with this complicated part out of the way...I could focus on another issue.  Something unresolved.

Something like...!

## Sub-Entry 145:  "DeltaRune Chapter 2.  From the Dark World to the Cyber World"

Back here again.

I felt it creeping up on me in the back of my mind so...I called Frisk in advance to stay with me that night.  So that they'd be ready for when "DeltaRune Chapter 2" went live again.

And as they squeezed my hand as they were finding it hard to sleep...

I was right back at the SAVE STAR with Kris...

Well I followed Kris, who again went off the path, to the right of the entrance, and headed toward the entrance to the rest of the Dark World...and there was Ralsei's training dummy in his likeness.

"(No one's looking.  Hug the dummy?)"

And they did.  Awwwwww.

Nothing wrong with a little extra fluffiness in your life.  This gave me reassurance to their relationship with their brother...their Asriel.

Then...it got a little less adorable when I noticed a Worm eating the doll's clothes.  Guess they don't have mothballs like they did back home.

The door beyond that...it seemed to be locked.  It may never open again.  There's that Delta Rune...my familiar family crest again.

After going down the other wrong branch, Kris arrived at the rubble pile from where they first dropped into town...yesterday?  Huh.  Looks like it's been well-polished and dusted.  Someone must really care about the details."

So...after finally heading back to the shaft of light...

"Whoah!"  I felt myself being pulled back, too.

Back in the school.   This was real...or was it?

A dream within a dream, maybe?  Hard to say.

"Wait."  I noticed once they entered the room to the east of the closet.  This place.  Where they woke up LAST time after sealing the fountain.  Kris rounded up all the junk...familiar...junk...I'd seen this all before.

They gathered it and turned it into a giant dusty ball...and rested it on their head.  Huh...not exactly 29 hot dogs...

Back through the closet...back into town.

The objects scattered into sparks before spreading out.

"Hey, Kris.  Where is every--"

A pause.  "...one..?"

"Guess who's back, clowns?"

Suddenly the city was populated again.  And there was the spade himself...Lancer.

A welcome back could only be sealed with Susie and Lancer sharing a high five before Lancer rolled on his back with laughter.

"Hey, Kris.  Don't know what you did but HELL YEAH!  Everyone's here!  But uh...what happened to Lancer's castle?"

"Allllll gone!"  Lancer replied, sing-songy.

"Gone?"

"Right.  When Kris sealed the fountain, that Dark World disappeared...and turned back into a normal classroom."

"...So where's Lancer going to live, now?"

"Don't worry,  We'll conquer Ralsei's castle as our own!"

Lancer and Susie burst into fits of laughter as Ralsei headed over to Kris again.

"(Kris, as you bring Dark World denizens back here...the power of our fountain will transform this town more and more.  From now on, the enemies we SPARE will be RECRUITED to our town.  So let's keep sparing enemies, okay?  Anyway why don't we all have a look around?"

By that point Susie and Lancer were already off.  Kris started to follow before--

"Are you not going to explore as well?"

I felt my heart skip a beat as I watched Kris slowly turn around...a glint in where I presumed their eye was under their hair.  They'd learn to trust Ralsei's instincts from before.  Of course Ralsei would know that they were being followed...!

Two options.  Run and hide and hope they don't come after you; try to keep this a stealth mission.

Or two...know full well the jig is up and just turn off the SPECTRE function now that it was working again and became unstuck.  Not sure how I knew that since I hadn't checked it.

But wait...two of us goat creatures would really confuse things.  And I was sure Kris would stare holes through me.  And Ralsei would most certainly be confused.

So...the Unitrix it was.  At least I can pretend to be human during this adventure.  Something Volt didn't get the chance to do.

So...one transformation later...and boy I have NOT used this in a while...

I took a deep breath and canceled the SPECTRE function.

"Whoah!  WHAT THE HELL!?"  Susie immediately zeroed in on me.

"You are another Lightner, are you not?"

"Another human!?  I thought you were the only one in town, Kris!"  Susie was going out of her head.

Kris was staring holes through me.  I wasn't sure how I knew...just that they were looking at me like I was "SUS"...to borrow a quote from a recent Indie game.  I sure wasn't an imposter, though.

"Uh...howdy!  I'm uh--"

Think of an alias.

"Are you a friend of Dr. Arcade?"

"Y...yeah, how did you know?"

"I sense your energies.  They are remarkably similar!"

"Whoah!  ANOTHER ALIEN!?"

"Eheh...kinda-sorta..."

"I'm...uh...Asta.  Asta Tobias Arcade.  Adopted family member, by the way."

Imaginative, Azzy.  Pretty sure you're no member of the Black Bulls let alone the kid without magic who vowed to become the next Wizard King.

This is going to haunt me for a while.

"You are welcome to join us on our adventure."

"Sure.  Sure thing."  I shrugged it off as Ralsei was momentarily distracted by Susie and Lancer getting into trouble.  The town was sure...bustling with activity now and filled with shops and such that I didn't recognize from Volt's first trip here.  It looked like the place had really come to life and all those familiar faces were back.

But Kris hadn't stopped looking at me like they...felt something was up.  Like there was more to me than I was letting on.

I was even beginning to think...maybe they recognized a part of me being VERY similar to someone near and dear to them...someone like...my counterpart here in DeltaRune.

Oh boy.  This was for another time...

So.  What to do?

Explore, I guess.  This Dark World was just packed with all kinds of things to see.

From where I stood I could see Ralsei's castle.

It...reminded me of Castle Dreemurr but...so much darker and gloomier.

I remember Miranda City had its own town square...don't know why it's called a "square" when the fountain and the paths around it are circular...ahem...

So did this place.  But...good gravy was it so...so.....Tim Burton-esque...?

The blackness and ominous dark glowing blue neon outlines around everything was one thing.  But no.  It wasn't just black.  It was pure black.  Construction paper black.   Like 2-dimensional silhouettes or shadows; standing Paper Mario style in a circle around what looked like a stone well.  And the street...the path to the palace.  I couldn't quite explain but the perspective of this place was all wrong...all twisted...all distorted.

Why don't I get to the real meat and bones of this place.  Every building was not only like 2-dimensional black construction paper with only outlines and blue windows...but they were also very arrow-shaped...arrow-shaped and unusually curved; the points going outward.

I could see the Dark Fountain...or at least its tower of energy flow stretching to the sky behind the castle.  It reminded me of Optic Sunflower's Tenshouha as used by both Maverick Hunter, Zero and Navigator, Layer.  It was one continuous shaft of ominous black light with shockwave rings encircling it and shooting upward like lightning between the electrodes of a Jacob's Ladder.

And that sky.  It looked every bit as phony as the under deep underground Ebott; like painted glowing rocks that were...very four-pointed......like giant SAVE stars in the sky.

I headed back to the town itself.

Where to look first?

Sweet Cap'n Cakes' Music Room.  Seemed like there wasn't much going on here...though...I had a feeling that this place would have something of interest the further down the rabbit hole I went.  The longer this went on for.

Soo...it didn't take long to figure out Sweet Cap'n Cakes was a music band made up of...robotic beings comprised of boom boxes, speakers, and audio equipment.  I didn't question it.  Not after the things I've seen in my life.  Heck, Conky back in the Z-Vault had more in common with these guys than I would have thought possible.  Also...seemed like they ran some kind of a shop with stuff like "CD Bagels", Glow Wrists, Mecha Sabers, and Auto Axes?

Very...sandbox RPG-like.  I could only imagine this Susie person investing in an Axe.

In the area I noticed someone by the name of Mr. Elegance.  I vaguely recall...did Volt mention something about him in the first "chapter"?

Oh yeah!  That's right.  The Great Door.  Volt said it was standing wide open when he wen through this but now?  It was closed and permanently locked shut.

The Party Dojo........now there was a place I wouldn't have thought to put those two words together to name.  But...there it was.

Distinctly neon pastel in colors. With a distinct logo of a fist punching a disco ball?

I peeked inside to find that it was home to a lot of challenges as hosted by Jigsaw Joe.

"This place is wild..."  I muttered.

Elsewhere, I ran into Seam.  Like a living doll out of Raggedy-Anne and Andy territory but...creepier.  And the button eye wasn't helping.  His place looked very carnival tent-esque and was adorned with buttons and hanging sashes

"That must be Top Chef's place."  I recognized the Top Bakery near immediately even though I hadn't seen it before.  But it's hard to miss a building that has a pastry chef hat on and a two-piece handle-bar moustache and eyebrows.  It totally resembled Top Chef.  Mamma Miba, indeed!

A cafe, resembling a mug with a saucer on top and a tea cup on top of that, balanced precariously.

There were some nearby cliffs; I'd mentioned this but...I really didn't have much to say about Mr. Society.

So.  To Ralsei's castle itself?

Well...what can I say?  The Royal Coat Rack and the Little Ball.  Nuff' said.

I couldn't resist looking inside.  And sure enough, as very wizard-like as my counterpart looked...the fact he had a giant cauldron for cooking wasn't diminishing that image.

There was a second floor which I gathered were living quarters.  Enough rooms for Kris, Susie, Ralsei and Lancer.   Also...a boarded up staircase to a third floor.

I shrugged, not having much to say.  Plus I kind of was exploring on my own while the trio was doing their thing.  I didn't feel like I earned their trust or at least earned my place among the party, yet.

Then there was the basement floor...otherwise known as the Living Quarters for Bad Guys.  And who should I find but...

Two cages with three former kings and circus animals...

And one large hamster cage of a jail cell for the Spade King himself...guarded by C. Round.

I could feel his glare so I backed away and up the stairs without saying anything.  I'm pretty sure he thought I looked...familiar.

So I joined back up with the group, having toured the place.  The others were exploring the place at the same time but somehow we didn’t' bump into each other.  I'm sure I missed out on some great conversation and I missed out on narrating things about spike beds and toaster crumbs.

Not sure how those things popped into my head.

But I made my way back in time to overhear Susie.

"Wait, Kris, we're leaving!?  But we just got here!  Man, I don't want to go do our group project..."

"Oh... you two have homework?"

"Uh, well--"

"Susie!  Kris!  You ought to do it right away!  School's important!"

it was the first time I saw Ralsei knit his eyebrows in a serious expression.

"I banish you from this kingdom until you start your project!"

Whoah, whoah, whoah...wait, what!??  B-B-BANISH!?!

"Ugh, fine!  I'll do it!  Jeeeze!"  Susie took it well........not.  How dated was it that I was using that old 90's turnabout from Wayne's World?

Suddenly, Lancer on the scene.

"Susie!  Don't worry!  I'll go and help you, too!"

"Err, wait, Lancer!  Perhaps you shouldn’t - "

"Too late, kind boy!  Friendship Forme!"

And like that...!

"What the..."  I uttered.  "Lancer was added to your Key Items."

"...what?  Where'd you go!?"

"Don't worry!!!  I just entered your INVENTORY.  I'll just be hanging out in Kris' pocket."

How did THAT work?  Though...he DID take the form of a playing card in the Light World...  Huuuuuh...

"Dunno what that means.  But okay."

"Feare not!  I too, shall Assisteth!"

What?  Roulxs Kaard, too?

"Uh, we're good."

"Ahah, quite!  We, as a Teame - art good!!!

"Rouxls Kaard became a Key Item, even though no one wanted that." I muttered, hoping no one would hear.

"Alright.  Enough, already. Let's get going."  Susie turned to walk away.

"Does this banishment go for me as well?"  I had to ask.

"I am afraid I do not know you very well.  But it would not be fair to make exceptions."

"I understand."

So I was going back to the Light World.  Again.  Now I really wish I could tell Volt all about this.

Kris was the last one to head out.

"Good luck, today, Kris!  See you soon!"  Ralsei bid them farewell, cheerfully.

Into the shaft of light.  And before I knew it...

"Well, damn...GUESS we gotta do our project."  Susie interrupted my thoughts.

\*sigh\*  "At least we got LANCER, right?"

Silence.

I peeked out from the closet door.  They didn't notice me.  Then I noticed my Hazard Card was re-installed in my bracer.  They couldn't see me in the Light World?

Not only that, I was back to Asriel the goat hybrid rather than Asriel the human.

Wait of course...it must mean that the two worlds may be connected but they're still separate.  Somehow I was still outside the Light World's space-time continuum.

Probably for the best.  Might be an advantage I should hold onto until I figure out how the physics in the place work.

"...Lancer?  Where are you?"

Silence.

"Damn.  Guess he skipped out after all, huh."  They headed down the hall.  "Hmm...where should we do this?"

Kris turned to them.  I...didn't hear them talk per se but--

"...what?  The Library?  Ugh...well, alright."  Susie was off.

Kris delayed following them for a bit...only to look over their shoulder.  Did they...somehow still know I was here?

Creepy.

Anyway.  Outside...!

"Ahhh!!!"  I held my ears as I heard the cacophony of honking horns overlapping.  What kind of traffic disaster--

We were at the Library, by then...but it was only a stones throw away at the intersection when I saw all the cars jammed together......and Officer Undyne.....bench-pressing one of them.  What the Absolute...!!!

"Damn, I was just directing traffic as normal...when a little dog drove one of those toy cars...into the middle of the street and started doing donuts."

Gosh darn it, Annoying Dog.  You followed me here, too!?

"In the chaos, all the cars in town got jammed up!!  Thankfully, no one was hurt...but...ordinary citizens like you gotta get out of here.  I've got some heavy lifting to do!"

One of the drivers had his window rolled down.

"I heard a dog was doing "donuts" so I sped over here.  But I just learned "donuts" is actually the name of a special attack for cars.  Why is my life stuck in a loop of doughy disappointment?"

Okay, the word-play was exceptionally punny, if not on accident.  But I still chuckled.

Oh well.

I shrugged it off, following Kris and Susie into the Library.  But my moment of jocular humor was about to come crashing down with something more...serious.

It didn't start that way.  It was as simple as...

"Alright.  We're here.  Now what?  School.  Goddamn.  Project."

What a mouth on this one.

"Books.  God.  Damn.  Crazy about them."  That's a bold-faced lie, Susie.

That's when I sensed something was off.  I know it was a library...but it was TOO quiet and...and...abandoned...?

I furrowed my brow as my mood came crashing down.

"Hey, Kris.  Where the Hell IS everybody?  Something seems kinda...off..."

Not to be rude...but ya' think?

"Screw it, let's just play Space Pinball in the computer lab!"

Okay at one point I would have jumped at the chance to play a pinball sim...and...a familiar one at that?  Didn't Space Pinball come packaged with Windows 3.11 for workgroups, according to Aunt Vi?  How out of date WAS this town?

To be fair, Newest Home was still on internet from the 90's by comparison until Alphys and I started overhauling it.

"You're getting distracted, kid..."  I stuck my tongue out.  "Come on.  Really? Focus, will you?  The sooner we get this started, the sooner--"

I cut myself off as Susie opened the door...with an unusual loudness.  And instead of light pouring out...darkness, instead poured out; as if shadow sucked up the ambient light in the room, in the same of the doorway.

This isn't right.  This is the complete opposite of how physics should work.  This is...!  This is.....!

"Oh no..."  I had a bad feeling.

"It's like...  ...the inside of the closet!"

And the whole room was slowly dimming as the light was sucked in through that patch of darkness.

"Kris, you don't think this could be...another Dark World?"

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking.  I don't know if Kris agreed...but we were definitely all three on the same page.

...wait a minute...I just remembered...where was it that Noelle and Berdly were going to do their project--

"...well.  I guess this means we can't start our project."  Susie grinned devilishly.

"Priorities!"  I whined at her.  "Never mind..."  I sighed.  Kids these days.  Was I ever this much trouble?  No way.

"...unless..."  Hold on.  What's THAT look, Susie?

"You know, Kris.  If there's a Dark Fountain in there.  You can seal it...  And it'll turn back into the computer lab, right?  ...So what's it going to be, Kris?"

Their choices were "LET'S GO!  LET'S GO!"  and "We can use the computer at my house."

As if I expected kids to choose anything else...

"Yeah, let's just drop the act!  Our last adventure was great, right?!  I couldn't stop thinking about having another!"

I wanted to protest but...thinking that it was the only path forward, if I knew my sandbox RPG's...

Let's go.

"I don't know what's in there, but...  We can't live if we don't find out, right?  C'mon, Kris!!"

And so we all got running distance...don't know why...but we all three charged head first into the door...and started falling...falling...falling.

And in mid-air we transformed again...

Back to Asriel...I mean "Asta" the human.  You know, it was just short enough to fit into a name slot for a sandbox RPG.  I knew ones like Final Fantasy Adventure only let you put in four letters.

And right as we were landing...the world around me started fading.

"Really?  Now!?"  I complained.

I still remember touching down, last, in an Iron Man crouch.

The last thing I noticed was...this wasn't the same Dark World we just left, at school.

No.  This was more like...like...

"Cyberspace...?!"  Was all I got out before.

\*gasp\*

I sat up in my bed with a start as Frisk had pre-emptively jumped to my side.  Still fully dressed from the last night.  I let her stay up and watch TV and make herself at home before I hit the hay.

"Azzy!"

I breathed hard for a while, soaked in sweat.

"It happened again.  Just like I knew it would."

"Are you...?"

"I'm fine.  But brace yourself.  I've got A LOT to explain.  And once again...it left on a cliffhanger."

I folded my arms.  It was frustrating.  And I had to know...were the three of us the ONLY ones lost in this...Cyber World that I just got the briefest, vaguest image of before awakening.

Or...were my suspicions right and Kris and Susie's classmates...

"I'm all ears, Asriel.  Take all the time you need."

Yeah.  I think I definitely needed some time to explain it all.

Volt should be here for this.  Or Bunnie.  Or even Mom...Callista, I mean.  Someone who can see into my thoughts, who can serve as soothsayer for my dreams, and compare and contrast notes on what came before with what was unfolding now.

But one thing was for sure, as Frisk held my hand, protectively.

It was great to have an ally in this.

## Sub-Entry 146: "First and Eighth.  Reunion of the Fallen":

Frisk has proven an invaluable ally and a trusted friend when it came to DeltaRune.  Honestly I didn't know who else I could talk to about it but--

"So how long you been keeping this from me?"

"Chara, it's not like that.  This thing just only recently started and you've only rejoined my life like...yesterday.  And met the parents in one swoop.  So...kudos for that much."

"Yeah, yeah.  Don't get all weepy on me."

"Hey.  Criers gonna cry."  I shrugged.

It was about that time Frisk entered the room and about dropped her tea tray.

"...!!!"

"Oh.  Hey, Frisk.  Um.  Chara's back.  The good one I mean."

"...uh...?"

I don't know how, but the first thing out of Chara's mouth was something I somehow knew she was going to say.  I don't quite know how.  I don't quite know why.  Either way...it played out exactly as I felt it would in the very depths of my heart and soul.

"Hey, pretty mirror.  Have you missed me?"

Okay, on that note, that line felt very Peter Venkman-ish somehow.  Did she know something about what was happening in Summerville, Oklahoma some 35+ years after the Manhattan Cross-Rift of 1984?

Speaking of which...this was something gnawing at me that I realized I was pretty powerless to do anything about.  It was all in Volt's hands with handling his Mentor's legacy.  But darn it...I REALLY wanted to be there.  I had to know, too.

I'm sure he's wondering...how it all got started in a parapsychology department in Weaver Hall at Columbia University; an office and lab run by Doctors Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler...a large room next to Volt's own phenomenology department while he was aboard and undercover, posing as human, mind you... ...in a place in New York to several thousand miles away in farmland at a creepy old farmhouse that was falling apart and the power was barely kept on?  What was happening now?  And what was going to happen...soon?

I'd, in all likelihood learn for my self some time AFTER it happened.  If ever at all.

Frisk was in shock.  At least I think she was.

I was about to speak when Frisk approached Chara, examining her...before poking her in the shoulder hard enough to tip her slightly off balance before she easily regained it.......waiiiiiiit a minute...

Okay.  I'm just gonna say it.  Why an I still channeling Egon Spengler?

"Well.  That just happened.  Care to explain yourself?"

"Okay, okay.  You're real.  But...how?  You're--"

"Dead?  Yeah.  Long time now."

"But you're not--"

"A ghost?  Well, I technically am but spirits don't exactly interact with the physical world unless they have a means to do so."

"...Then this is...a possessed object?"

"Bingo."

"You're like Mettaton?"

"Let's not compare me to the boo in a box.  This body isn't made out of scrap parts and things picked out of the junk heap at the bottom of the pier in Waterfall."

"Hey now..."  I protested, feeling Alphys being slighted.

"It's a gigai body.  Azzy knows all about them.  Though in his case he probably relied on soul candies seeing as how he's still alive."

"They technically work on Gigai Bodies, too, you know."

"Yeah, yeah.  I'm surprised they didn't give you a Combat Pass like that orange-haired knuckle-dragger."

"Be nice, sister dearest.  You wouldn't even be in that position without Ichigo and his friends saving the Soul Society in the first place.  Besides...I wasn't about to rely on a Combat Pass.  I'd have to leave my comatose body lying around where someone could rush to judgement that I've "fallen down".  I'm not about to have to re-inhabit myself to find I'm in a coroner's storage locker with a toe tag."

By now Frisk was very, very lost.

"At least stick that soul candy some place useful when you're not using it.  Shove it into the mouth of that old stuffed animal of yours."

"As much as I WOULD find it hilarious to watch Captain Snuffles get up and walk around and talk to me, that would freak people out even MORE than coming across my unconscious physical body."

"Oh, you."

"Chara, can we back it up a bit?  We're confusing Frisk to no end."

"But that was the most enjoyable part!"

"Not for her, in all priority."

"Okay, I'll leave your girlfriend."

"WE'RE NOT--"  We said at the same time before looking at each other.

"Suuuuuure.  You just happen to randomly talk in unison.  Do you finish each other's sentences, too?"

I facepalmed while Frisk crossed her arms and blushed, trying to look away; up at the corner of the ceiling.

Who are we honestly fooling?

"You know what?  Even though one of you doesn't deserve it, I'm going to the kitchen and getting some chocolate milk and some of that leftover chocolate cake I saved from the other day."

"Ohhhh, woe is me.  Scolded and rewarded by my dearest brother with a paltry gift of sugar-filled delight of the cocoa bean persuasion--"

"Yeah, you can stop any time soon.  Or you're not getting any."  I cut her off.

That earned me a brief moment of the creepy face.

"Not going to work!"  I protested.

"You really should be easier on him."  Frisk persuaded.

"And where's the fun in that?"

"You always did have a quirky sense of humor, narrating things while I went on my many, many runs through Undertale."

"We never did have a proper talk about abusing the power of--"

Frisk put her knuckles to her hips.

"Don't take the high road with me on that.  How many times did YOU abuse that power?  And when did you first get it?"

"Well..."  Chara rubbed the back of her head.

"Did you have the power of save and reload during your childhood with Asriel?  Because he's mentioned several times that he was made a...and I can't stress enough the pun isn't intended...scapegoat for mischief.  Incidents which have had...a number of anomalies he can't explain from his memories."

"Do you want the truth or a comforting lie?"  Chara danced around the issue.  She was enjoying it.

"Come on.  I know you loved your brother but did you have to always be so mean to him?"

"Mean is a matter of perspective.  You would prefer I coddled him so he'd grow up a creme puff?"

"Well, obviously, that's a non-issue for him."

"Can you two not act like I'm not in the room."  Flowey finally broke his silence.

"Well, welll....what have we here?  It looks like--"

"Stifle it.  I'm not about to take abuse from a Chara that isn't even mine."  Flowey crossed his vines.

"Ooooooh.  Someone's got a chip on his shoulder."  Chara devilishly grinned with the creepy face.  Flowey was taken aback.

"S-s-stop that!"  He sputtered in horror.

"Same old Asriel.  Brand new form."

"IT'S NOT FUNNY, PHONY CHARA!"

"Now that just hurts."  Chara chuckled.

"I can hear you in here!"  I called out of the kitchen.  "Can you stop tormenting my little brother?"

"I'M NOT YOUR LITTLE BROTHER!!!"  Flowey roared at me.

Frisk just let her face drop into her palm and moaned.  I could sympathize.

"You know, I'm tempted to say...they deserve each other."  Frisk told me as I entered with snacks.

"If I didn't think it was a bad idea and that Flowey would swear eternal vengeance upon me, I'd let Chara take him home with her to the Soul Society.  But I don't know if monster plants can survive in the Seireitei.

Wait...you DO actually live in the Seireitei, don't you?  You're not...still..."

Oh man.

"You DO still live in the Rukon District.  Chara, what are you doing with whatever salary you have in the afterlife!?"

Even now, you can't be responsible?

When I thought about it...it called to mind the third episode of Cowboy Beebop with how Faye Valentine squandered the bounty she stole off of Spike Spiegel until her space pod ran out of fuel and the cockpit was just filled with all the empty food wrappers and squeeze tubes of all the junk she wasted every Woolong on.

Yeah.  That's Chara.  And I thought there were other Soul Reapers who had trouble managing money.

"Hey.  Don't go scolding me, DAAAD."  She was laying it on thick.

I knew she was being sarcastic but the old me would have said the obvious: I'm not your dad, I'm your brother, thus hammering home the face-in-palm cringe factor.  It was already bad but I didn't need to make it worse.

"Okay.  So the four of us are nice and reunited.   What now?"

Flowey just scoffed in response to Chara's cynical observation.  It wasn't what she said, more of the tone.

"Well..."

"Don't get any ideas about us being a lovey-dovey family again.  That ship is sailed, and it might as well have been a Viking funeral."

Huh.  Guess Flowey's not so illiterate.  Someone's been peeking into my old, dusty encyclopedias.

"But why shouldn't we be?  We're all together in Undertale again."

"Riiiiight.  Because it's perfectly natural to go back to normal after you poison yourself dead, fail to stop your brother from indirectly committing suicide when humans are murdering him only to let him get turned into a demon plant from Hell.  Then you spend reset after reset after reset either guiding the eight human in a row to fall down Ebott to either befriend everyone so your soul can rest or convince them to commit indiscriminate genocide with extreme prejudice to end the world only to do it all over again in some variation because some goddesses want to have a do-over; infinity times, in fact!  Yes, now that we've broken the cycle it can all just be a perfect happy ending."

Okay you don't need to crap on Volt's master plan to get us out of Destiny and Fate's game of ultimate good and evil, Chara.

"You really never learned to sugar-coat, didn't you?"  I scowled.

"You don't have to be that blunt about it."  Frisk wrinkled her nose.

"Whatever.  It doesn't matter anyway."  Flowey turned away.

"But I thought this is what you wanted?  Something new, something better--"

"You really think you know what it is I want when I don't even know what I want anymore."  Flowey hissed at me.

"The Weed's getting all angsty we didn't leave him dead."  Chara prodded.

"That's not cool, Chara."  Frisk scolded.

"Hey, if he wants to be mad at anyone, he can take it up with the Weeb Lizard."

"Hasn't Alphys done enough time?"  I defended.

Flowey just growled.  At least it was a step up from him ranting that "She can never be forgiven."

I guess it was just as well that we were clearing the air and washing the dirty laundry.  We needed to get this off our chests, I guess.  But...I just wish we could skip the five steps of grief and go straight to payoff and let the healing begin.

Of course it CAN'T be that way.  No shortcuts.  That's why you have the Patience Virtue, Azzy.

"You know it's not all bad." Frisk volunteered.  "Let's just let bygones be bygones.  We should treat this as a clean slate.  Star over."

"I agree."

"You're wasting time."  Flowey turned away.

"Well, Chara.  You're the deciding vote or the one who makes it a tie ballgame."  I shrugged.

The problem with even numbers wen you deliberate..  There's always three possible outcomes.  Choice A, Choice B, and stalemate.

"Y'know what.  I'm gonna eat my cake and sleep on it."

And then there's Chara who makes her own rules and lets us all chomp at the bit while waiting for an answer.  She just enjoys observing our tension.

Well.  I opened this door.  No closing it now.

Which means there are several, lesser doors to open.  The rest of Newest Home will eventually be let in on this.  And it'll change a lot of minds about the very nature of the afterlife.

Oh boy.

We were not ready to open this can of worms.

But, alas...the matter at hand.

There was...something about this, while feeling very final...also felt incomplete.

And I knew what it was.

There were eight fallen.  But only two souls present.

It was a matter that I hadn't found an answer to.  What happened to the six other souls?

With Undertale saved and the Barrier broken...was the unfinished business in life that kept them all tethered to the world of the living...completed?

Did this mean they crossed over?  Were they gone?  Were they not coming back?

I felt...like if this was a reunion between all of us...then all of us should be here.

Some times there is no 100% completion.  Sometimes the game is just too hard for your skill level.  I was speaking in gamer metaphor but that was the gist of it.

Some things don't have answers.  But I'd like to believe some things do have solutions.  Even temporary ones.

"Can we just steer this conversation back to civil?"  I pleaded.

"Yeah.  Seconded."  Frisk added.

"Fine."  Flowey begrudgingly agreed.

We all looked at Chara as the final vote.

"Fun while it lasted.  Okay.  You got your civil conversation.  Let's just talk about other things."

"Like?"  Flowey felt like something was coming.

"Like branching out and finding our roots?"

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

You just had to poke the bear...er...flower with a pair of bad puns.

Oh well.

Frisk and I both had trouble muffling our laughter.

"Well. It might not be a happy family...but it's still a family."  I observed.

"Yeah."  Frisk agreed.

## Sub-Entry 147:  "Worry"

This feeling I had.

I was worried about them.  I was worried about people I couldn't confirm even exist.  I felt like a part time hero at best...and just someone on the sidelines at worst.  Sure I took part in a few battles without getting particularly rough; I'd always searched for the least violent approach to things.  Ralsei and I were as much soul twins as Bunnie and Bunnette were back in Miranda.

And with this worry came a feeling of guilt.  A guilt that I couldn't help them except when the fates decided they'd allow me to.  And even so...if I did help...what would I accomplish?

Was this world STILL based on the concept that "your choices don't matter"?  Was I just...hanging onto the rope while the speedboat was yanking me forward on water skiis?

Not my best metaphor.  But not my worst.

"Why worry, Azzy?"

Chara wasn't exactly as supportive as Frisk.  I don't really think she believed.  And that was rich coming from someone who was a literal grim reaper who worked with other grim reapers and fought ghost monsters that eat the souls of recently departed.

It wasn't that she thought I was lying; she knew me better than that.

It was more that if she had any faith in dreams at all...a lot had happened to her; even before we first met long ago, to shatter that faith and break her faith in humanity.

Granted...Frisk was helping her believe again.

But it still wasn't helping my frustration factor.  This was just too much for her.

"You're taking it rather well for someone being confronted with the possibility of an amalgamation of you and Frisk...one who keeps manifesting the Real Knife.  And really...shouldn't it be a little more traumatic with how this second chapter opened up.'

"It opened up with a fake-out, Azzy.  That other Toriel isn't dead and the knife in question was just a dull kitchen knife left in an empty pie tin left out in plain view.  Other Toriel just had a face-palm moment over their kid leaving a mess.  Honestly, this Kris is a gender neutral after my own heart.  I don't mind that they're naughty, I just hate that they're sloppy."

"Missing the point, Chara."

"Don't you have any shame?"  Frisk asked.

"Yeah, but that's what clothes are for--"

Oh my GODS.  Did she just pull a Violet?

"Chara, Chara, Chara..."  I facepalmed and shook my head.  "That would earn a thwapping from sensei."

"Come on.  Be serious."  Frisk put her knuckles to her hips.

I was okay with the idea of us becoming a trio of besties.  Really, I think this was just the natural progression of Undertale if it were allowed to take the training wheels off, remove the restrictions, and go off script of our maker's vision; whatever that may be.

In fact...I dare say I dreamed of this.  It...just didn't happen quite they way I thought it would.  At least Chara could be with us, even though they were technically dead and walking around in a Gigai Body.

You know, now that I think about it...something similar happened to Chara and me in another universe.  I think it was that AFAC one...the one where the fourth wall was so thin everyone habitually answered questions from an outside internet looking inward.  Pretty awesome concept, but in the UltraVerse that would just be TOO much self-awareness.  We were already borderline as it was.  It was better this way, anyway.  I figure if we are to have an identity as an AU, we might as well NOT copy someone else's.  But sharing some details by coincidence was okay, right?

But yeah...their version of Chara came back as a possessed skeleton, using their own remains.  While my counterpart got his soul back but Flowey's influence left him with branch-like horns with buds that I guess would grow into leaves?

Getting used to all these variations of us was slow but I think it was finally making progress.

"What do you want me to say, Azzy?  It's not like we can actively go there.  We don't even know where THERE is?"

"Nice grammar."  I prodded.  "But you're right.  That's the frustrating part.  We can't do anything but it's just going to keep manifesting until it runs its course.  And in all probability, it'll probably go dormant again and come back with another chapter."

"How many chapters do you think there could be?"  Frisk asked.

By all means this should have left us all to shrug and say something like "who knows" or question if there even was going to be a third chapter to this DeltaRune and even beyond.

But out of the blue I just simply blurted out:

"Seven."

"S...seven!?"

"Okay, Azzy.  You suddenly psychic or what?"

"No.  Just following the over-present pattern.  Seven souls.  Seven colors of the rainbow.  It's been seven years since--"

"Okay, okay.  I didn't really want you to start listing all the coincidences."  Chara rolled her eyes.

"Chara.  Really.  By this point you of all people should understand...there are no coincidences, only the illusion of them.  Though...you're not wrong.  I do have this feeling it's all connected.  Even to us."

"So what now?"

"I don't know.  But..every time I dive into this dreamscape, it leaves me with a feeling.  A feeling like I could see how it's all connected.  Like I could see one long line stretching back even before there was an Undertale.  Like I could see what has happened...what is happening...and what's going to happen."

That caused a hush to fall over the room.

"Soooooo...you're suddenly psychic."

"No.  Just a feeling."

"Do you know what's going to happen?"

"No.  Like I just said.  Just a feeling, Frisk.  But...I can guess."

"Hmm?"

"With all this building chaos pressurizing beyond the veil of the Lightner World...something's eventually going to lead to a breaking point.  And when it does...Kris is going to be the lynchpin.  They're going to trigger something major.  They're going to have to decide who they represent.  Does the soul that inhabits them intend to save everyone?  Or is their soulless body going to continue to be some unseen hand's puppet.

I had no idea what I was in for when I went back.  Just that it was leading to something bigger and more intense.

And now more than just Susie and Kris were involved. Now Berdly and Noelle were wrapped up in this.  How many more were going to get sucked in and...what's going to become of it?

How will this story manage to keep itself secret like it did in Volt's run through the first chapter?

"Hmmm..."

"Why so serious, Azzy?"

"Is...this really the next phase for us Undertale...ers?"  I didn't really know what to call us.  People from Earth were called Earthlings.  People from Mobius were Mobians.  People from Hyrule where Hylians.  Pretty cut and dry.

"Are we even involved in this or...just over glorified Watchers?"

That got stares from both of them.

"Sorry.  I keep forgetting you both don't have my encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel and DC Comics.  But yeah...for what purpose are Volt and I seeing this other world that may or may not even exist?

Walter J. Peck would dismiss it as being the product of sensitive nerve gasses induced by consummate snowball artists who conveniently show up with a fake electronic light show.

"You're not going to ask me sit in with you and hold your hand next time you have a bad dream, Azzy."

"You COULD be a little more supportive, Chara."  Frisk scolded.

"It's okay.  It's not like we can expect her to have sympathy when she never experienced what I keep going through.  What Volt went through."

"Oh sure.  Backhand guilt trip me into agreeing with you."  Chara rolled her eyes.

"Just because it's not visibly affecting our world doesn't mean that it's completely isolated from it."  Frisk lectured.

"And suddenly you're a medium who knows these things?"

"You have a better explanation about why Undertale and DeltaRune are so similar?"  Frisk glowered.

"Girls, girls!  Please!  Can we keep it peaceful!?"

Okay this was classic Asriel.  Even for me.  Didn't matter what version of Asriel we were talking...we really were pacifists at our core.  It's just...things like the trauma of losing our best friend to death, taking their soul and becoming a god, then wasting all that power tanking wave after wave of lethal hits kind of puts us into a bad place...especially when being revived as a soulless flower....tend to make us flip our lids and become someone we're not by trying to emulate someone we're not in the hopes it'll help us hold onto them.

That was a mouthful.

To put it simply.  Yeah...the Joker was right.  Just.  One.  Bad.  Day.

"Typical Azzy.  You're always trying to put something it its place; always looking for that nicey-nice guy path to that happy ending."

"Isn't that what you tried to lead Frisk to in multiple timelines?"

"Touché, Asriel.  And keep in mind, not all of them were my soul specifically.  There's been millions of Chara's and Frisks...and you."

"Of everyone, duh."  I shrugged.  "We're one in millions of Undertale copies throughout all of our reality and countless others.  That's how it works.  To be honest, I don't think any Undertale universe knows who our real maker is.  Just that in some way, something or someone manifests us in this quantum computer existence.  You're the only two I don't really have to explain that to.  All three of us--"

"AHEM!"  Flowey interrupted.

"...four of us have touched the plane of existence beyond what the rest of our world knows.  We' understand that it always HAS been a game.  And now that the game's broken, we don't know what to do with ourselves, subconsciously.  We're just going through the daily routine of life and pursuing our hopes and dreams like we always thought we were.  But now we're free."

"Free for how long?"  Chara crossed her arms.

"Yeah, goat boy.  How long til' those gamer girls we call goddesses start all this up again and bull-crap some way to plug us all back in."

"Jeeze...you're giving me serious Matrix: Resurrections vibes, Flowey."

"Stop dropping those references on me!  NOBODY GETS THEM BUT YOU!"

Blunt...but true.  Violet and Volt had made a super media nerd out of me.   It wasn't just a habit, it was a reflex.  A defense mechanism.  Just part of my upbringing.  How many other Asriel variants across AU's could make that claim?  How many could spent hours connecting one celebrity actor to another through a complex string of seemingly unrelated movies in a barrage of lightning rounds?

In no way did they help a world which had completely different peoples, history, and cultures.  Similar but different.  Different movies.  Different TV.  Different comics.  Different music.  Different everything.

"Flowey...!"  Frisk snapped.

"No.  He's right.  Nobody gets them..."

I hesitated.  "Yet.  Like everything else, it's just one of many seeds.  We're planting them...and eventually in time...they'll sprout and knowledge that was obscure will become mainstream.  Kind of like anime."

"Really.  The fish-lady's obsession is mainstream?"

"You have no idea."  I grinned.

I got back on task.

"Look.  We've gotten way off point."

"The point is, Azzy and you've made it obvious.  You're worried."

"Asriel...it's okay.  I get it.  I don't fully understand it but I'm willing to try."

"That's all I can ask."

Chara rolled her eyes.  "Alright, little brother--"

"I'm the same age as you.  Counting the 100 years of me being in limbo and you being dead."

"Always with the technicalities."

"Chara."  Frisk scolded.

"Fine.  I'm in, too."

We all looked at the flower.

"Count me out of your stupid club."  Flowey pulled himself into the pot.

"We'll...give him time to think, yes?"  Frisk asked.

"Yeah.  Let little brother sulk."  I shrugged it off.

"Wow, even now he can be such a baby."

"DON'T ACT LIKE I CAN'T HEAR THAT!"  Flowey's muffled voice came from the pot.

"How DOES he hear anyway if he doesn't have ears?"  Chara prodded.

The pot vibrated a little.  I had a feeling he was shaking with rage.

"Girls, let's just leave him alone.  We've tormented him enough for one week or month.  Whatever."

"Agreed."  Frisk was in.

"Tempting.  What's in it for me?"

"Umm...our gratitude and the feeling of doing a good deed daily?"

"Boring."  Chara sneered.

"Please?"  I begged.

"Since you asked so nicely."

Talking it out did help a lot but it didn't change the fact that I was worried.  I could see a future ahead of all of us but I couldn't tell what it was at this point.  I still hadn't formally set a goal even though this journal was making it PAINFULLY obvious what I wanted to do.  But the only resources I could throw at it was time and effort.  When I was ready, I would be ready.  And even then there would still be a lot of work to do in our town.  A lot to brief a whole population about.

Yeah...this was a genie that was going to be tricky to let out of the bottle.  And there was no putting him/her/it back once out.

This would change worlds.  Not just ours.

For now...the only thing I could do was rely on my family, friends, and myself to keep the faith.  Distract myself with the things that were in the now.

Then when I was ready to come back to all these things on my mind...hopefully time would open the doors up for me.

Yeah.

Why should I worry?  Why should I care?  It's just a doo-wop relation.  I got street savoir fres.

Man did I miss that.  Thank you, Billy Joel.

This may not be Oliver & Company...but I sure felt like a stray who found his home...even if that home was my actual home.  Now I just needed the other one back in my life.

But all things in time.

## Sub-Entry 148:  "A Moment of Quiet to Wish My Best Friend Happy Birthday":

It was November 20th again. Simple as that.

How do you wish someone a happy birthday from another world, another timeline, and another dimensional A.U. cube away from...from wherever it is in the Axis of Reality my other home exists?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's pondered this question.  When did people; human or monster, or otherwise at that....start the practice of celebrating an entire year of being alive?

When did birthdays really start as an annual acknowledgement?

Well...I could probably look it up online with our world's version of the meta-crawler and search engines that VGM-098 have.  Ones that Violet herself probably coded.

But how would knowing the answer change things?

Really...all it did was scratch an itch called curiosity.  Knowing wouldn't really help me in the long run.  I'd just have another useless trivia fact to add to the pile.

It was quiet this very day.

No one was scheduled to visit.  I had a rare day off from all of my forms of employment.  And I probably wouldn't see Frisk all day.

It was a time to enjoy the quiet and be home alone.

Heck.  Even Flowey kept himself up all night trying to watch horror movies and such.  He was still trying to prove himself to be a big boy despite he was never going to get his Chara's approval...or even acknowledgement.  How the heck would he when he was trapped in the void?

So what was he trying to prove?  And to whom?

Maybe to himself?  He sure didn't care about my opinions so...what did it matter?

Either way...he left me alone.  Easy to do when you're still sleeping at this hour.

"Tried to warn you."

Even I had my limits when staying up for Movie Night back in Miranda City.

So how do you celebrate a person's birthday when you're a world apart and they'll never know you're thinking of them?

Honestly...I only had one shot-in-the-dark idea to pass the message along.  If Chara still had to periodically return to the Soul Society, then maybe they could use a senkaimon gateway to land in Miranda City and....yeah.

Though...was it fair to ask my sister for a favor when she barely knew my adopted family?  Sure we had many times we'd meet and greet and discuss matters.  But it's not like she was close to Volt and Bunnie.

The code was broken, so even if it weren't,  decompiling and recompiling it somehow to send a message that would trip S.T.C.'s flag system through A.E.O.N. was just as much a long shot as the first idea, if not MORE so.  I at least could have faith in the messenger by asking Chara.

This way also involved a level of programming that I'm not even sure Violet and Nikita had collectively.  How would I even go about hacking Undertale's own code without getting a visit from Sans and a scolding that involved the phrase "dirty little hacker".  I didn't need to end up in his crosshairs.

While I'm sure he'd find it amusing that I of all people would get into trouble...no, I don't think I'd want to risk crossing a line with him now that he put the RESETS and ERASES behind him.

Let's not open an old wound.

"I can at least celebrate privately to put my own mind at ease, put my heart at ease, and put my soul at ease.  I could at least do some activities for him.

I would honor him in memory at least.

Earlier this year, I invested in a couple of saxophones.  It took a bite out of my finances to get more than one but I figured I might as well be versatile.  Pretty sure I impressed the music shop owner, too.  Not to mention help put her kids through college.  At those prices, I wouldn't be surprised.  But still...worth every GOLD.

Was there any more song appropriate than to open on the alto sax with "Those Were the Days" as once performed in the 70's by one Boots Randolph.  Yeah, the guy who did that rendition of the Benny Hill Theme, "Yakity-Sax".

Man it was good to be in the know on things before my time.

Just as a bonus I ended with Fiery Nights.  It was still my mom's favorite song.  I even thought of calling it the unofficial Toriel Dreemurr song.  But I still knew, somehow, that she would always be associated with "Heartbreak" as I was always associated with "Hopes and Dreams".  Dad would always have "Bergentruckung" and Undyne would always have "NGAAAAAH!" while Papyrus had "Bonetrousel" and Sans........as much as it brought terror down my spine...would always be intertwined with "Megalovania".  That song you never wanted to hear if you were a dirty brother killer on a genocide run.

Eesh.

Being familiar with your own theme music was very meta.  And honestly, I often confused myself with trying to explain how our personal theme music manifested themselves on this world.  Was it just playing in the background for the Twin Goddesses?  Did it just occupy sheet music?  Did we just subconsciously whistle or hum our own songs to ourselves?

Who even wrote them and why?  I guess it connects back to our mysterious, unknown true creator.

Goddesses know that the Annoying Dog wasn't going to be saying anything any time soon.

I worried if someone got too close to the truth, he'd run them down in the street repeatedly in one of those mini smart cars.

I guess I went through the checklist of things Volt loved a lot.

Like for breakfast...a nice stack of chocolate-chip and peanut butter chip pancakes; drizzled with chocolate syrup and topped with whipped creme.  Like something you'd find at a Denny's or IHOP.  An order of very crisp bacon put between two pieces of toast and topped with ketchup in a sandwich.  Like a BLT without the lettuce or tomato.  Or anything else but the bread and ketchup.  And a nice tall glass of chocolate milk with a smaller glass of orange juice.

Breakfast of champions, yes?

A goof-off day, playing video games sparingly while working on stacks of circuit boards I took home from the lab while interfacing them to my home computer's assembler and terminal emulator wired up for microprocessor programming and development.

And maybe time to study the P.K.E. meter a little.  Only thing it was good for on this world was knowing when Napstablook, Mettaton, Mad Dummy, or Mad Mad Mew-Mew were around.  Using it as a parlor trick to make them all think I had psychic powers never got old.  Yet, some day I'd have to come clean and tell them the truth.

Blame it on Chara.  Actually, now that I think about it, I could tell when she was coming around whether in her gigai body or Soul Reaper form.

So lunch of course had that great shaved roast beef sandwich piled high on a sesame seed bun and topped with that one-of-a-kind barbecue sauce.

I think on Earth this kind of thing was served at places that no longer exist like Rax or Roy Rogers.  I think Arby's still has them.

Though, that was only if Grillby's was closed and I was sure Papyrus was watching me like a hawk.  There were times I couldn't get away with it.

A nice movie often seemed like the way to go before a rare expensive dinner.

I think one instance of barbecue deserved another.

Either way I felt no shame about getting a full slab of ribs at that one place in town.  It was like this one location on Earth by the name of Old Hickory BBQ.  Great place.  The Best Ribs.  Hard to argue with the slogan.

With all that out of the way a simple anime night.  If Alphys could make it over, that was cool.  If not...a night alone sure wouldn't kill me.

Well...eventually I did break down and ask Chara to deliver the message.

I didn't expect a response from her the same day but...

"No way..."

I opened the letter.

"Dear, Asriel.  I...know we gave you your freedom, and I don't want to seem like a sponge or clinger.  Yet, there you go thinking of me on my big annual day.  I've never had a friend as great as you.  Jeeze, can anybody say the same?  Alright, disregarding to reference to Stephen King's "Stand By Me", things are...quieter now days at home.

If I know you, you've celebrated in the appropriate fashion that I probably have.  If I were Dad, I'd be having lasagna at Hestia's before sneaking back on a plane to Neo Arcadia City before Arlene found out.  But that's just him.

As for me...you know everyone that can spare a moment of their days were in on wishing me a happy birthday.  Even when you're immortal, each one of these is always something special.  Rest assured, I can't say for sure how many of these I've racked up thanks to time travel and the UltraVerse's unique space-time continuum such that it never causes a major paradox.  Emmett is still trying to reverse-engineer it even now.

Maybe one day we'll go through enough of these time loops to have an answer.  But that said...

I don't know what you're doing, I don't know where exactly you are, and I don't know how happy you are...I only hope it's everything you wished it to be.  As long as that much is true, then I know my efforts weren't wasted.  I know that I wasn't wrong to go against the Council.  I made the right choice giving you a second chance.

This UltraVerse needed an Asriel.  One with a future.  Not a tragic ending in the midst of a true pacifist run.  No one should EVER forget you after all you've done and accomplished.  How much you've grown, how many you've befriended, just......everything.

So thank you, my friend.  Thank you for thinking of me this November 20th.  Thank you for the lone oasis in this desert that I call peace time.

Really, I should not describe it that way.  Peace is what all true warriors should strive for.  Yet...despite my infinite level of patience?  Meeting you has let me make one conclusion.  Peace time...is boring.  But at least it's a stable future with calm.  With order.  With happiness.

With hope, dreams, and wishes...thank you for thinking of me.

Your friend, Dr. Volt Alessandro Arcade."

I smiled and wiped my tears.

"This is just what the both of us needed.  Isn't it?"

With this simple note...I could go on for a lot longer now before the homesickness returned.

I hope he could say the same.

## Sub-Entry 149: "Progress in the Lab"

"...one more time."

I looked at the Precision Circuit Board I just dumped in the trash...and examined the Special Circuit Board I now had wired up.  It looked less like a circuit plate and more like a rectangular slab of crystal intermeshed with machinery.  Light pulses traced in complex, rectangular patterns in a maze of circuit paths that I couldn't see with the naked eye.

Manufacturing even ONE of these from the "Special" or S-Class raw materials cost way more than many of our salaries put together.

But...

"Come on, darlin'."  I turned the ignition key on my miniaturized set-up.  And low and behold the ring-shaped mini-gate hummed to life...and a blue swirling dilation appeared within it.

I took a bolt from the beaker and passed it through the analysis  arch just to inventory its molecular structure and test for everything I could think of, establishing a control composite scan.

No modification.  No latent energy fields.  No chemical contamination.

Nothing.

A plain, old, ordinary bolt you find in a hardware store.

I looked at the other miniature gate on the table at the other end of the lab.

Thirty-five feet of distance separated them both.  By our usual standards?  That was insignificant...not even a drop in the bucket.

"Test number...I don't even know anymore."  I worked myself to exhaustion and I was on overtime.  Even Alphys thought I was overkilling it.  But I was close.  So close.

"Well.  Here we go..."  I passed the bolt into the dilation.

On the other side, Alphys waited; watching with laboratory goggles on.

The object was all the way through at the very moment I heard Alphys gasp...then squeal.

"Alphys!?  What's going on!?  Is it--"

"P-P-P-PRINCE ASRIEL!"  She swallowed hard and took a long moment to hyperventilate for a good moment.

I was expecting bad news.

"The t-t-test...!  It's...it's...!"

I didn't even brace for disappointment.  I'd been expecting it all this time.

"It's SUCCESSFUL!"

Wait, it's WHAT?

I slowly got up from the table.

"What did you say?"

I started to approach.

"C-come quickly!"

This quickly turned into a r un.

I skilled to a stop, darn near peeling a layer off the soles of my sandals.

Alphys slowly held up the bolt in the tongs.  It looked exactly the same.  No sign of residual fields or deformation or anything.

"Don't touch it with bare hands!"  As if I had to remind her.

Plus she was wearing heavy rubber gloves anyway.  So was I.

Don't know what I was thinking to give such an obvious reminder.

"Quick.  Pass it through the analyzer arch."

And she did, thus getting an experimental composite scan.

The calculations and comparisons didn't take long.

On the three-monitor set up...the one on the left showed the control scan.  The one on the right showed the experiment scan.  And the one in center spelled it out in green text the one number and one word which confirmed it.

"One-hundred percent match."

"You did it."  Alphys' jaw had hit the ground.

"No.  We did it.  We all did it."  I excitedly pulled her into one of Dad's bear-hugs.

"H-h-hey!  W-watch the P.D.A.!"

Right.  Mind the public display of affection.

"Do you know what this means?"

"It means we just cracked short-range teleportation.  Here in Undertale!"

"Oh m-m-my g-g-g-god!"

"The future is now, Doctor.  The future is now."

This was a major victory.  It was major progress.  But it was still only one small step for man and monster.  This prototype couldn't just be packed up and shipped out to every home in the world.

No, no, no, noooooo.  This was going to require weeks if not months...maybe years of testing.  We needed...to perfect it.  And then we needed to improve it.  We needed to go from thirty-five feet...to thirty-five miles...then cross-state...cross-country...and some day take it global.

So...we were mastering space.

But what about time and dimension?

Well...a good scientist knows both those things are even trickier cans of worms to open.  Teleportation alone had all kinds of ethical questions and moral quandaries to consider before it was ready to be unleashed on the world.  Heck, even on VGM-098 it was still privatized within UCIAT's operation.

I could only imagine how badly it could be abused in the wrong hands.

And time and dimension travel?  Even bigger abuse with even more serious consequences.  It's one thing if these gateways end up teleporting something like nukes or bio-weapons on enemy countries; a nightmare that Alphys and I would NEVER live down much less be able to atone for.

Tampering with time?  That could result in actually undoing everything Frisk and I accomplished...it could even reset everything back to the beginning or end everything forever.  That's an apocalypse I considered unacceptable.

And then...dimensions.  It's one thing to open the door to other realities.  But you have to understand that the door swings both ways.  What can go into one can also come out from another.  What could we unleash upon our world?

It was going to be a slow process over the next few years debating those things.

At the same time, our other researchers were making their own breakthroughs.

Sandra and Murray had been trying to make sense of Violet's spreadsheets detailing the compiling of a virtual intelligence.  And now...their prototype had gone through several revisions and blown up several holo-projector prototypes...

Now their prototype build was ready to come online.  Several names were suggested; each some kind of acronym.  I remember doing a double-take when someone suggested Phoebe.  That name...resonated with me.  I couldn't explain it but it immediately made me think of Volt's archived footage of Summerville.  He never did explain the bespectacled girl exploring his mentor's underground lab.

But actually...we settled on something else.

"Hmm."  I watched through the doorway but decided not to interrupt.  Let's face it.  Artificial Intelligence had its own laundry list of bad karma you could invite on the world.  Do I say it?  One name said it all: SkyNet.

We're not going down that path.

The static accumulators were finally taking shape.  Which meant a lot less radial tires flying through the air and taking people's heads off.

Still a ways away from flying cars.

"Alphys...you know many scientists have naively set about to change the world.  Why does it always seem like a coin-flip whether that intention stays pure or...ends up another Andross."

"Huh?"

"Right.  I never told you the story about the Lylat System or planet Venom or a scientist that was working on trying to preserve the ecology of a world until his experiments went wrong and he was exiled by the General of the Cornerian Army.  A lot of complicated backstory.  It's an interesting tale though.  And a word or two of caution about hubris and dreams turning dark."

I'd have to bring up the B.A.R.F. system invented by one Tony Stark some day.  And the things that lead to thinks like Advanced Idea Mechanics.

"I understand."  Alphys sighed, getting the scope of it.  "Do you think we are doing the right thing?"

"Alphys.  Only future generations can decide if what we're doing was for the best.  But...I don't think we're wrong to try to advance civilization.  We just have to be careful how we do it.  We have to understand what we're unleashing.  And...we have to accept both the good and the bad that's going to come of it."

"Y-you're r-right."

A thought occurred to me.  I wasn't a billionaire philanthropist like Garfield.  He spent his whole life trying to make the world a better place.  He started adoption agencies and non-profit organizations and he had a whole foundation that gave out scholarships and research grants...there was just so much he was doing with his fortune.

All that plus he had his own privatized anti-crime/anti-terrorist organization under the covert guise of being a think tank.  And there was still more that he had done that I hadn't listed.

His Ultra Crew Institute and its Action Team was my first venture into being pro-active.  Into not just sitting on the side-lines being raised by a village.  It was my chance to be part of the village.

And then Volt picked up from his legacy and established his own splinter faction of the UCIAT on Fontraile, in Miranda City, in the Post-Ekris War rebuild and beyond.

How could I think to hold a candle to that long list of accomplishments?

Should...I start my own twig on the branch of the tree I was rooted in?  Should Undertale have its own group of above-and-beyonders?

Oh my gods.  What am I thinking?  I was actually trying to force myself to not laugh about it.  It was absurd to try to emulate what had come before me on a shoestring budget.  And it was not like our world had super criminals and villains, much less terrorist groups and invading armies or demons and yokai bent on engulfing the world in a cloak of evil.

We were just...Undertale.  Maybe that's all we had to be.

But...would it just establish us as a unique identity among AU's if we DID go that route and do something so completely outlandish?

I could think of a lot of people who'd want to join and Undyne and Papyrus would be knocking on my door, begging to sign them both up; one to beat as many bad guys up as possible and the other to bask in the popularity that comes with being a superhero.

Oh boy.

It was just a thought.

And now it's gone; probably to return at another point I was daydreaming.

Serious talk now.  What were we REALLY going to do with our futures, now that they were ours to grasp?

Scientific progress was just the building blocks.

So what were we building?  Right now...it was hard to say.  Just...advancing the quality of life.

Still...

"I have other things I need to plan for."  I wheeled my swivel chair over to another lab station desk where I had a box of odds and ends and some schematics for something I had an idea for.  And it was something that went all the way back to that which made me what I am today; neither human nor monster...but not like Flowey.  No...I was a Genetic Hybrid.  My magic leaked away from me and was replaced at an equivalent rate with the materials of another world.  T he air, the water, the food, the vitamins and minerals, the love, the laughter, the knowledge, the experiences...and so on.  All things that flowed into me made me something more than the sum of my parts.

The question is...would the same thing happen if another monster spent time on VGM-098?

And at what rate would their magic leak away?  Would they...adapt and evolve like I did or...could they wisp away to nothingness.  The latter would be a horrifying worst-case scenario.  And there's no telling how fast either case could happen.  There's no measuring how long someone could stay off world before they'd be unable to retain their magic at all.

Who would be willing to even give up their magic?

"I never really used mine but...so many monsters in Newest Home are dependent on magic.  There's no telling what worlds are magic is even compatible with."

Why was I pondering this?  The obvious guess would be that someday I would make good on my promise to take my people to the stars.  To outer space...other planets where there were life.

Yeah...all the things I did back on VGM-098 and while I was in S.T.C.

But...if it wasn't safe to stray from whatever the magical source on our planet was...then how could I ask anyone in town to take that risk if it could mean they'd lose their magic...or worse they'd cease to exist?

I was an anomaly that continued to exist after my magical spark was gone.

Who among us was lucky enough to take those odds if...?

"You're dreaming again.  You know what you want, but it's so far off.  It's like trying to jump to the moon with bed springs on your feet."

Yeah.  Baby steps.  I was looking so far toward the future, I had to keep reminding myself to stay centered in the present.

"Prince?  Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Alphys.  Just...star-gazing in my mind.  More or less."

"I'm s-s-so jealous."

"You'll get to see them some day, Alphys.  With my help we'll reach those stars.  And I'll gladly be your guide."

Though in all fairness...I didn’t' know what neighboring worlds there were in our galaxy...our universe even.   Friendly?  Hostile?  Or like us and just a mix of the two and not really know what they're doing in their life existence any more than we do at this point.

I continued to solder away at the board.

"If I do somehow bridge our worlds...we're going to need a way to monitor our magic."

I'd gotten some advice from both Prince James and from Sarina of the Mage Academy and some insight in how to combine magic and science; a practice that had been shunned by Neo Arcadia since Project Exodus.

But I have a feeling...the time was right to try again...on a different world...in a controlled environment.

I'd toured Capsule Corporation and got to pick Bulma Briefs' brain for a bit.  Even got to have an up-close look at the dragon radar.

On a completely unrelated note, I visited one of those other Earths where Decepticon attacks were still a thing and the invention of Energon-Detectors gave me food for thought.

Lastly, I considered those things from that computer company...what was it...Apple?  Yeah...those i-Watches, to be specific.  The idea of having a personal computer, telephone, and health monitor system on your wrist really jumpstarted my creative juices.

Then it all came together before it came to me what to do with all these unrelated technologies I had buzzing around in my head.

Yeah...I think in a few years we're going to have a new favorite Christmas boutique item.

The sparks danced off the connector pins as my micro-etching tool chipped away at the circuit tracks in the breadboard; revising my original designs further.

"Are th-th-those...?"  Alphys pointed to the pieces I had laid out.

I smiled, put my finger to my lips and shushed quietly.  It was a secret to everyone...for now.

One piece at a time, we'd march toward that ultimate goal.

The future was coming and I could see it take shape.  And when that shape was recognizable...I'd say outright what this progress in the lab was building toward.

My goal would be spelled out as clear as day when it was ready to be so.

For now...I'd keep implying it...I'd keep hinting it...I'd keep it pretty obvious to anyone who could follow my logic and read up on these journal entries.

But to everyone else in town...yeah...you'll just have to be in the dark for a bit.

Not yet.   No.  Not yet...

Soon.

## Sub-Entry 150:  "Toward the Future..."

I wish I could actually tell my parents what we're doing in the lab.  But tight-lipped security is there for a reason.  Our research wasn't ready for the outside world.

Yet.

I had a long time to think about how I was going to break it to people that we've just entered the gravity era and the energy era.

Though...just having the means wasn't enough.  The tools and the talent only got you so far.

We needed a very thorough plan.

Heck.  What were we even planning at this point?    It was too early to even say outright what I aimed to do.  But all things in time.  All things in time.

\*sigh\*

I think watching the sun rise and the sun set were the only times Flowey and I were on the same page.  It was the first memory he had of the surface.  In fact about the only happy memory he had top side before everything went horribly wrong.

For me, it wasn't my earliest memory of finding myself on a new world...but it was an awakening.

I let him watch as long as time would allow before I had to start the day.  It was about the  only daily routine that kept me on his good side.

Of course it wouldn't take much to get him to flip-flop back to angsty again.  But I'd enjoy the brief respite while it lasted.

Every sunrise and sunset to me was a green flag and a checkered flag, respectively.  I was raising toward a future but at a slow pace.  At a leisurely pace.  At the pace you needed to be at to experience and embrace life to the fullest.

Those daily flags were the reminder that another day worth of the unknown future had come and gone; thus becoming the past.

I hadn't reached that point where I could consider it being stuck in a rut and I hoped that wouldn't happen any time soon.

Right now I was settling into "comfort" rather than "rut".

Everyone around me had already done so for seven years.  I was playing catch-up but I was a fast-learner.

Though many would say I was an even faster teacher.  I had integrated so much into our world in this last year or so and more was still coming.  It was like being a factory, cranking out that future I was hyping about but made no effort to actually describe it in exquisite detail.  Just that...it was shaping up all around us.

"I notice you've stopped waiting."

"What are you yammering about, goat boy?"

"You've stopped waiting for something bad to happen...for the world to just reset around us, even though you know it can no longer be.  Not since Frisk and I--"

"Oh will you stop beating a dead horse, already!?"

"Flowey..."

"So what if I have stopped looking over my shoulder?  What's it to you?  You don't have a care in the world."

"Well...that's not exactly true--"

"Don't patronize me.  What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"Just...thinking about the future."

"Oh is that all?  You want to know about the future?  'll TELL you about the future.  You'll get up, you'll get dressed, you'll do your normal routine, and you'll come home and go to bed and start the whole thing over again.  You'll be lovey-dovey with the Flirt Machine, you'll kiss up to the old lady and the ex-king and get made a fool of by Chara when she decides to drop by.  Maybe you'll even have that messed up dream in the other world again.

Either way, if this were a story book, someone would know what's going to happen next by age and page five."

"Harsh.  But...yeah, I guess things are a safe kind of predictable."

"Safe?"  Flowey sneered.

Well...he knew I wasn't wrong but...he just didn't have any material to argue with.

"Have you thought about where this future will take you--"

"Geeeeeee.  How about...stuck in flower pot, photosynthesizing for as long as my determination lasts?"

Ooof.  Awkward.  And kinda acid-tongued, there.

All I could do was shrug.

"Whatever floats your--"

"DON'T."

"I was going to say 'boat'."  As tempted as I was to drop a goat-based pun.

"Flowey, I'm serious.  If we ever did live this planet...I mean only temporarily to--"

"Just say you want to visit that place you never shut up about.  I'm never going to see it so don't waste my time; don't bother describing it."

Well...I had entertained the notion of one day convincing Flowey to back on his decision...rather his FINAL decision to turn me down if I ever offered a means to leave Undertale and visit another world, entirely.  Maybe a certain planet like...VGM-098.

Whoops.  Spoilers.

Actually, even the spoilers are spoilers.  So...just forget I said anything.

"Uhhhhgh."

You know what...temping Flowey with something new might as well be something I put on the back-burner.

"If you think you see a future with me in some happy garden somewhere, you can take that vision you have and crumple it up and throw it in the trash.  Little ole' Flowey ain't budging on that."

So he says.  But I know him better than that, seeing as how I technically AM him.

I guess it was a waste of time trying to peer into a distant future in my mindscape.  But what about a more near future.  What about something like the coming of spring and summer next year?

Maybe that would be the time to see if Frisk wanted to...y'know...hang out or something?

Could it be?  Could I actually be working up the courage to ask her out on a...\*gulp\*...first date?

"Just kiss the girl, already."  Flowey rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, Sebastian."

"Sebastian!?"  Flowey sputtered, completely off guard.  Guess now I'll have to explain Disney's the Little Mermaid to him.

Another happy story for him to turn up his non-existent nose at.

"I HATE when you do that."  Flowey growled as I left him on the kitchen table after coming back in.

Now he was going to go all day without a clue to what I was referencing.

Hmm...

A while later at mom's...

"Did you know...the Jangese word for "future" is "mirai"?

"M...Mirror?"

"No, no.  Mirai.  Pronounced Meer-rye-eee."  I corrected.

"Oh my!  How cultural you are, my little one!"

"I'm keeping my options open so that if I decide to teach higher grades I might see if I can get some of the other languages I learned off world as part of an advanced language curriculum"

I wasn't all that serious but...I wasn't dismissing the idea as just a stupid suggestion, either.

"Hmmm..."

It was enough to make mom happy that I was so wrapped up in my studies.

I tried to keep it less cerebral around Dad, Papyrus, and Undyne.

At least one of them liked watching me show my stuff with a soccer ball.  But at least one of them (I won't name...names...) would have trouble keeping up with me if I needed a partner for practice drills.

"Oh my!"

I think the people would prefer a fluffy buns rather than rock-hard buns anyway.

"NGAHHH!!!"

"Nyeeheheheh!"

Eeeesh.  I feel like this is something Vi goaded me into somehow from worlds apart...

In all seriousness...my eyes were wide open and I didn’t' want to miss a single thing; the good, the bad, the fascinating, and the boring.

Alphys felt the same and was as ready as I was to put this unknown future under the microscope.

I think we'd long since answered the question of whether this was a good future, relative to how we were in years prior.  Years prior, mind you, that I wasn't a part of.

I guess when there was nothing else to say...

"Time for a walk in the park to clear my head."  I punched out at the time clock for the day.

To the city park.

"Ahhhh..."

A seat at the park bench was just the thing.  I didn't bring a music instrument.  Volt told me of the times he'd serenade my parents with some sax music by various artists.  Mostly Boots Randolph.

I think I was about to close my eyes when I heard a familiar elderly chuckle.

"That you, Mr. Boom?"

"Ahh, my prince.  You needn't be so formal around an old coot like me.  Gerson will suffice."

"Okay...Gerson."  I looked over at him.  Yup.  On the decrepit side.  One eye bulging out, the other squinting a bit...kinda like Popeye.

And then there was the that jungle safari "bwana" outfit.  Tan with the hat and a monocle; exactly the same getup that the Haunter wore back when we were in that weird Filmation Ghost Busters universe; the one Prime Evil tried to rule over but was stopped by the likes of Jake, Eddie, Tracy, Belfry, and the Ghost Buggy.

"Well.  Any words of wisdom for a young upstart like me?"

"Bwah-hah-hah-hah!  Oh you kids and your pre-emptive guessing what we older folk are going to say!  Though I have to admit, it was on the...playlist as you youngins say."

I shrugged.  Touché, Gerson.  Touché.

"You look like you've got a lot of thoughts to share."

"Yeah.  Back on the other world, we used to say "Penny for your thoughts?"  when we wanted to prompt someone to share what was on their mind."

"Wah-hah-hah-hah!  The slang you come up with!"

I smirked.

"I am concerned though."

"About what, young prince?"

"Well, for starters, if I'm going to drop the formalities, you can drop the whole prince thing.  We're not a monarchy anymore and any royal heritage I had died in the VOID."

"You got a talent for serious talk.  Easy there, Asriel.  You're gonna cause an old geezer strain on his ticker with the melodrama!"

"Sorry.  I was mostly kidding.  But yeah.  Let's just keep it informal."  I cleared my throat.  "In all seriousness...joke not intended...I have been looking toward the future...and I haven't been sure what it is I hope to see.  What it is I'm supposed to see.  I'm running myself ragged slowly building our future and advancing us with all this future tech from the other world, not to mention a plethora of pop culture and useless trivia.

But...seeing as how you were in the know about the nature of our world...about the game, I guess I don't have to hold anything back.

Our game is over and we're well beyond the ending credits and staff roll.  We're in unknown territory; having snipped the Mobius strip at its convergence.  We're free and yet we're not free.  We're bound by purpose, you know."

I was diving a little into Agent Smith's speech from the Matrix but...he wasn't wrong.

We do kind of need a purpose in this world.  It's shameful to just eat and sleep and let life carry you along.  You have to do something with what you're given or...well, besides getting yelled at by Papyrus...

There was a difference between surviving and living.

"Ahh, I get ‘cha.  You're looking for land markers to lead the way to the next big meaning in your life.  M'boy, there's no land markers let alone a map or manual for life!   The future is--"

"What you make of it.  So make it a good one.  Yeah.  I was given the same advice by a human; a freelance scientist in a place called Hill Valley, California.  Eccentric guy.  A mentor to my best friend in the other world."

"Sharp as a tack you are!"

"Yeah...but I still feel as dull as a bowling ball when I just go from day to day.  I feel like I need direction.  I know there's something I'm working toward but...I can't just say it out loud...yet.  It's a mental tick thing.  I feel like I need to progress before I...progress."

I shrugged.

"Well.  You have that heart of yours.  That soul.  And of course that determination!  They haven't steered you wrong yet, have they?"

"Well, no..."

"Then maybe you shouldn't search so hard and let what you're looking for come to you!"

"Huh...Peter Venkman's Boogie Man metaphor..."  I rubbed my chin.  "Yeah.   I really should have seen that piece of advice earlier.  Guess I just needed to hear it from someone more seasoned than me."

"Any more seasoned and you'll find me in the spice aisle!  Wah-hah-hah-hah-hah!"

That made me grin.

"Oh, you.  You are an ornery old turtle, aren't you?"

"And how!"  He was proud of it.

"Well.  I guess I better get going.  Thanks for the moment of insight."

"Any time, my boy!"

Well...the future waits for no one.  But it'll always be there.

Nowhere to go but forward.

He's right.  I'll make sense of it through a natural course of time.

"Toward the future, Azzy.  Toward the future."

## Sub-Entry XXX: "Thanksgiving in Undertale":

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was so-so times.............wait a minute.  Sorry about that.  I've got my mind elsewhere.

Ahem...of the holidays I imported to Undertale, Thanksgiving was only the second-easiest to establish; with Christmas being the first; since Christmas was already pre-established here.  Maybe a little different than it was on other worlds, VGM-098 included, but...still the same at its heart.

I know the holiday has been traced mostly to originating on the various Earth dimensions of the Space-Time Continuum.

I know it started as a feast to cement the alliance between the natives of the new land now called North America and the Puritan settlers that came to this land in search of freedom from oppression and to make a new life in the promised land.  A joining of peoples, who after the pilgrims had spend untold hardship trying to survive in this savage land; many having died during the voyage aboard the Mayflower and the Speedwell and many more during the harsh winter months after making land and building their homes.

It grew into a national holiday for years; often celebrated in similar fashion from household to household, depending on each family's background, culture, and beliefs.

In the last century it of course was marked by family reunion, delightful conversation...and of course people vegging out in front of the TV to watch either the Macy's Day Parade live from New York or the ensuing amount of sports--usually football, while waiting for everyone to be called to the table for the traditional feast.  A banquet that, on average, consisted of roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing or dressing (whichever you called it), cranberry sauce, and other bits and pieces that were associated with Thanksgiving.  There were other things too, like the American President "pardoning" a turkey from the fate of being butchered and served as the main course.  And yes, as if it wasn't enough of a presence during Halloween...once again there was pumpkin pie.

Recent years have seen political correctness speak for the injustices of the indigenous peoples of days past as a result of the settlers continuing to force them off their land and angry cries of outrage of what was...welll...considered insensitive.  Football and Baseball teams had name changes because of these matters.  As a millennial, it probably should concern me.

But keep in mind...I didn't grow up in this environment.  I'm a 21st century man raised by Generation X-ers and a couple baby boomers.  If we didn't see a problem, why should we be forced to consider it one?

The real issue wasn't the P.C. climate itself...but how it was diminishing the holiday.  And being PC wasn't ALL to blame.  Let's face it.  Commercialization was killing it, and not in the good way.  I'd been told year after year that Halloween and Christmas were coming earlier and earlier from a vendor's perspective.  Halloween candy and decorations showing up in store inventory as early as August and sometimes even July?  Christmas decorations and such popping up during or even before October?  Yeah.  People may raise an eyebrow when suggested that we just combing Halloween and Christmas (and Jack Skellington sure learned the hard way how THAT turns out...).  Yet, we're letting it happen, aren't we?  Thanksgiving as a major national holiday presence has been pressed between the two holidays thinner than the substrate of a Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET).  Microns, by definition.

As an optimist...I'd like to think this holiday--which was brand spanking new to Undertale--wasn't going to totally disappear from Earth realms.  But I highly doubt that it'll get to the point where Santa Claus comes to our houses dressed as Dracula.

Really...it was a sad thing that we gave it so little consideration any more.  But come on.  It's an awesome holiday and I love it as much as the other two during this last quarter of the year.

"Wrap this up, Azzy.  It's getting preachy and man-splaining way too much."

I've been up for a while trying to write an epic Thanksgiving Day speech when we all got together.

As I got older, I was beginning to realize it took more and more effort to speak from the heart and it just didn't flow as naturally as it did once upon a time for me.

Back then I wowed Volt, Bunnie, Violet, and everyone else just by saying what was in my heart and soul.  I spoke what was on my mind and before I knew it I delivered several paragraphs worth of feeling and emotion.

But when you start taking after the wolf man you called your new best friend during that part of your life...you start to worry.  You get concerned about your reputation.  You end up wanting to put thought into it rather than just be winging it.

That's what usually makes it start getting harder.

If I've reached the point I had to start writing it down and rehearsing it?  How can I say it came from the heart?

I felt a hand on each shoulder.

"Hey."

"Don't you look deep in study."

"Frisk.  Chara."  I reflexively covered the page.

"Oh, stop that."  Chara yanked the paper out from under my arms.  "You're really going to hide something from your dearest sister?"

"My only sister."  I smoldered.  "Does surprise mean nothing to you?"

Chara lowered the page from where she covered her face so I couldn't see her.  Suddenly Creepy Face.

"Surprise!"

"Not much of one."  I crossed my arms.

"Sorry, Asriel.  I didn't know it was going to be a surprise."  Frisk apologized.  "We didn't mean to ruin it."

"Speak for yourself, goody-two-shoes."  Chara smirked.

"Come on.  That's not nice."  Frisk wrinkled her nose.

I sighed and rolled my eyes.  "I've come to expect it from her."

How exactly was my Chara better than Evil-Chara, again?  Oh yeah...she never willingly pledged her loyalty to a genocidal, nihilist anarchist bent on ending all existence over a temper tantrum that his former best friend couldn't help him, thus concluding he was abandoned.

And there was the matter that my Chara never really wanted to use Hyperdeath's power to kill all the humans and take their souls.  If they had been in control of themselves and not wrapped around the Wraith's whims according to Madam Fate's will, maybe we would have just...tried to talk it out.  Maybe I would have had the common sense to keep her out of view of the at such a critical moment and ask for their help, first.  Then lead them to Chara's body with the plea to

No.  That would still mean having to take their soul in the first place.  And that was the deal-breaker for me in retrospect.

Anyway.  Back to the present.

"Let us make it up to you.  Why do we help you write your Thanksgiving Day speech?"

"Ah, speak for yourself, Frisk.  I think it would be hilarious to watch Azzy trip over his own words and make a fool of himself in front of everybody."

"You have a dark sense of humor, you know that?"  Frisk gave a dour frown.

"She always did."  I let out a deep sigh.

"Well, I'm helping.  You can stuff your face with chocolate bars if you don't want to be a supportive sister."

"Oh no.  I'm being guilt-tripped by both a goat and a flirt machine."

"Hey, I don't flirt in EVERY instance."  Frisk protested.

Actually, since I started writing this journal, I don't think I've ever recorded an instance when Frisk was being a flirt or delivering one of those cheesy pick-up lines...whether it was to someone appropriate or not.  Mom sure never got over Frisk's first moment of being cheeky.

"Fine.  If it'll get you off my back."

So for some time we collaborated.

Piles of crumpled papers and three empty glasses of chocolate milk later...

"I think...this will work."  I looked over the pages.  "Thank-you."  I looked up at Frisk with tears in my eyes.

She smiled warmly.

A moment passed before Chara half-coughed.

"And thank you too, Chara."  I added with not nearly as much conviction.  I wanted to hassle her juuuust a little bit.  Not too much, because that would be a jerk move.

It was only because I care.

"What an overwhelming display of gratitude.  I just might blush."  She crossed her arms.

"Supportive sisters shouldn't beg for handouts after volunteering to help."

"Right.  Volunteered.  In no way guilt-tripped, strong-armed, or badgered."

"Get over yourself."  I ended with one last jab.

"Fine then.  I know when I'm not wanted."  And then she popped the soul candy.

"Chara, waiit--"

And because she was being extra snippy, she hit the recall on her gigai body; despite the fact that she thought it would be far more hilarious if Frisk thought Chara had..."fallen down" again.

Gods, that phrase is still as morbid as ever; even when I've spent more than a quarter century as a hybrid while spending a full century plus ten years as a Monster.  It's like I never forgot my roots.

"What the!?  Where'd she go..!?"

I sighed.

"I hate when she does that."

"W...w...what...!?"

"Yeah...I've been meaning to explain how this works.  I used to be able to do the same thing with my own soul candies or a Combat Pass."

"Uh..."

"Of course I'm only a substitute while she's a full-fledged--"  I stopped.  "And you're totally lost.  A whole year later and I haven't explained how Soul Reapers work, yet."

We decided to move on from it.

"Well...I suppose with this complete, we should check in on Mom and the others to see how the feast is coming."  Frisk suggested.

It's weird.

We both call her mom.  Yet, not only are we not related, we're not even the same species.

If we...did start dating...would this be okay?  Was there an unwritten law that considered any chemistry between us...taboo?

We weren't technically family.  Right?

Why am I even having this discussion in my mind!?  Why am I debating this?

"Yeah.  But let's be careful about offering help.  Too many cooks spoil the broth."

"Yeah...but two heads are better than one so...simple addition..."

I know.  The logic was there.  So was the wisdom.  Both were at odds with one another.  Maybe...the two of us working together could find the balance?

Heck.  It's not like we were having a Food War at Totsuki Academy.

"Well.  Nothing to do but leave luck to the gods...maybe not so much the Twin Goddesses."

Yeah...that was like invoking Harvey "Two-Face" Dent's double-headed coin; good heads...good fortune.  Bad heads...say your prayers.

Sure enough, Mom had the turkey and the majority of the feast well under control.  I could tell just by looking through the oven door and smelling the trace amounts of scent that it was going to be plump and juicy and incredibly full of flavor.  Magical cooking rarely screwed things up that way.

I could list the other things she had going; such as the eight different kinds of potatoes...don't know how she pulled THAT off....ahem...but I'd end up with a long list.  She could overachieve.  Now I wonder who inherited that trait...

Moment of ego-grooming done, Azzy.  Get humble, quick.

Muffet, Grillby, and Mettaton had the rest covered.

Of course Frisk and I offered help.

While Frisk was still trying to track down the descendants of the fallen children and return their rightful possessions...some of the things came in handy.

A non-stick frying pan, for example, proved very useful when paired up with a nice cooking apron.

I took a moment to peek in on Dad as I figured he'd try to get into the swing of the traditional sports binge on the couch with some of the other guys.

I was right...but it wasn't football or something traditional he had on.

"Er..."

I won't explain.  Just trust me on this.

"Only Dad could get excited about marble-racing."

Darn it, Chara!  What did I just get done saying!?

Which of course drove Undyne off in a hurry, in the hopes of finding something more hands on and more action oriented...and maybe involving suplexing things.

It was a day of going through both the traditional cliches and tropes of Thanksgiving as I'd learned them...and the niche moments and scenarios that could only come from Undertale.

"Personally, darlings, I enjoyed the last holiday we had here.  It seems that there are many a world which have a deep appreciation for those of us use the ethereal plane."

Yeah, Mettaton and Napstablook sure liked Halloween...well the aspects of it that cast ghosts in a positive light.  The horror comedies...a mixed back.  And then there some things...I’d learn not to show around them again.  The Skele-bro's sure liked the Day of the Dead celebrations.  So much skeleton imagery glorified to levels beyond even Papyrus' imagination.  I think I'll see if I can find that Pixar movie for him that came out not long ago; centering around the Book of the Dead or something like that?

But that was Halloween.  This was Thanksgiving.  And next month was Christmas, followed up by New Year's.  It was one thing to have one holiday a month later.  But a month with a double threat like Christmas and New Year's practically back to back by only a week?  Things were going to get interesting here on Undertale.  Of course, inevitably, after a generation or two?  It'd be old hat and part of the norm.  No one would even remember how it came about.  It's okay.  I didn't mind if I wasn't even a footnote in history or if no one thought to ask where these celebrations even came from.  The true measure of a hero is in the future generations who'll never know his sacrifices and efforts; just that they can enjoy the fruits of his labor as a luxury...not something that had to be earned.

Though...that was the road to complacency.  Everything has a down-side, you know?

"Well...I think this will work."

I looked over the page before taking off my reading glasses.  Honestly the times I wore these things I felt more like my best friend than my best friend felt like my best friend......if that makes sense.  Out of everyone I was probably the one who saw Volt in his human form more than anyone.  Even his own family.  Though that wasn't saying much.

Right.  Time to get off this tangent.  I keep padding this journal entry out with all these random thoughts I can't get out of my head, yet somehow I manage to connect them to what I'm talking about.   If anything to inherit from Volt, I'm glad it was his ability to keeps his thoughts versatile, flexible, and diverse.  Though...maybe focusing on all those random bits at the same time might be something I want to tone down.  Multi-tasking does have a saturation point, after all before you stretch yourself thin.

Well.  Back to the point at hand.

Eventually we got to the destined hour.  The feast.

However, before the feast began...it was the time for each us to give thanks and tell what we were most thankful for.

We went around the table.

I felt a relief that I would, once again, be the last one to speak.  Maybe that way I'd have enough time to get over my nerves and rehearse it all one last time?

I guess we call it wishful thinking for a reason.  Help me through this, Frisk.  And...if you can ease up on the hassling me for just a bit...?...you two, Chara.  C'mon, Asriel.  Draw from the strength of everyone in this room and you can't go wrong.

Mom started things off.  And to be honest?  I really should have seen some of these coming.

"I give thanks for kindness.  Kindness goes hand in hand with compassion and I could not think of a better virtue to make our world a nice place to live than the simple act of being kind.  Many a time I seem to have forgotten that...even among my own loved ones.  But thanks to the divine miracle which has blessed us with Frisk, the return of our son, Asriel...and even the seemingly impossible resurrection of our first fallen child, Chara...I can remember again what it means to have kind eyes and an understanding smile."

Definitely a belated apology to Asgore in there.  But yeah...I think Mom was going to be okay.

"What more can I say when things are already great for a cool dude such as the Great Papyrus?  I thank this world for the truth that is integrity.  It was our own Frisk who taught me the value of the word at a time when I was severely tempted to be...not great.  It wasn't that I had any malicious intent trying to capture a human...it was...that I was oblivious to what it meant for them...for what would happen once Asgore had them in his possession.  I...did not want to think about their lives coming to an end so that we may make use of their souls.  Admittedly...it was just easier to be in my own naive little world.  Thankfully thanks to our wonderful human ambassador Frisk... I, the Great Papyrus, have learned a valuable lesson about staying true to yourself, even if that meant undermining one's hero, Captain Undyne."

"Oh get off it you big knucklehead!"  Undyne interrupted.

Frisk gave a scolding look to remind her not to interrupt.

"I know who I am and who the Great Papyrus is...is someone who does not capture humans or lock them in easily-escapable sheds with the best in dog food feasts...but someone who welcomes them with open arms that we might always be friends!  Nyeheheheheh!"

Well said, Pappy.

"Ngahhh!  Listen up!  I don't make it a habit to get all sappy about things.  But I'd be a real tuna-head if I didn't say some pretty words and get all mushy on all of you all."

Tuna-head?  Nah.  There's no way she can be channeling Maniac Mansion!

"I've never been more thankful for anything than I have for straight up justice!  I've been a hero to the people and maybe I'd gone about it in the wrong way in the past...maaaaybe a few bumps on the head and a few headlocks went a little too far.  But I didn't get to where I am by being soft on crime and not stepping in when people need to look to a role-model to stomp out villains just asking for a beat down!  Fuh-huh-huh-huh!  Even if I'm in the wrong when I bring my spear down on my target, I'm always gonna follow that big heart of mine, even though I wrap that sucker in rock hard resolve and the toughest, scaliest skin you've ever seen!  I'm the Spear of Justice and I'm gonna carry that mantle til I'm a mound of dust and sprinkled on my prized broadsword!  NNNNNNGAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

Seeing a real theme here.

"I'm...t-t-told that that measure of courage is not in d-d-doing something crazy like s-sticking your head in a l-lion's mouth or f-fighting ninjas or the l-like...but just coming c-clean and t-telling the truth...just going into w-work every day...little things.  Things that you know you g-gotta do so you d-do them.  S-s-s-somehow th-that's c-courage...that's b-bravery."

Honestly I was expecting Alphys to comment on--

"That's why it g-goes hand in hand with p-perseverance."

Retracted.

"When you're b-backed into a corner from your own m-mistakes...you j-j-just gotta be brave and...have faith someone will answer the c-call when you just really n-need help.  When you really need someone in your corner and have to b-be reminded you're not alone.  In the end, cold deduction never fails and just trying your b-best and making a decision...you d-don't have to be a scientist to do that much.  But...it helps.  And somehow you'll get yourself out of that c-corner and be able to push forward.  Forward toward a brighter future where you don't have to cover up your mistakes and withhold the truth in fear.  The only thing to f-fear is f-fear itself.  And that's true bravery.  Bravery that is the fuel for perseverance."

Wow, everyone was hitting the high notes.  Didn't expect Alphys to be thankful for two virtues.

"Boy!  How does one top something like that?  I don't know if it really describes me...I've certainly never been so during my time as your King but...I guess old age teaches you the value of patience."

Dad?  Talking about patience?  Not the intended virtue I expected him to have gratitude for but...time not only makes fools of us...it also changes us.  Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.  I have high hopes now for Dad.  It looks like it would be for the better.

"Those years ago...in darkness...in loss...in pain and in suffering...when our hopes and dreams were crushed.  I...should have been patient.  I should have stayed my hand.  I didn't.  I was unhinged.  I was like a mad demon, possessed.  Just so full of sorrow, so full of pain...and so overflowing with rage.  Rage I let get the best of me.  Rage that I let control me to the point of lashing out at an entire species for the serious mistakes of a scared, foolish few.   A few who'd taken our sons.  I...had no right to throw what I still had away...who I still had...away."

Dad wasn't so bad, himself, at overdue apologies.

"This time of our ex-queen making me "do time" as the humans say...it's been an additional humbling experience piled on top of an already humbling experience.  An experience where even in the end...I couldn't bring myself to take the life of one last human child.  I don't know how...but she reminded me that there was still good in me...still something that could be redeemed.  And maybe it took a fireball up-side the face by my ex-wife, now remarried, to snap me back to my senses.

I think in the time that follows I've...been learning to be patient...to count to three when something has manage to ignite that short fuse of mine.  Maybe...I just need to learn to soak in a convenient bath tub of hot water for a bit before I do something I live to regret.

I've...tried to pay my dues with the humans...and reconcile with the descendants of the lives I've taken.  Maybe...in time those scars on my soul can heal up.  Maybe I can finally be rid of all this accursed EXP and no longer gain LOVE...but love.  You know which kind."

Not bad, Dad.  You haven't lost the touch as an orator.  But...I hope it's not forward of me to be a little presumptuous but I plan to blow that speech out of the water.  And...really...I think it was the first time I was actively trying to make a good one and not just...saying what I was thinking, unrehearsed.

If I could do that with something prepared as opposed to something impromptu?  I believe I'd have mastered the art of being an orator with the part most people considered the easier path; being prepared for public speaking.

Yet, I guess the final hurtle with anyone about to speak publicly, no matter where they winged it or if they wrote pages, rehearsed, and got it down to a science.

It was all about getting past the stage fright when it was go time.  Dad has always been good at it; even though Mom was usually the brains cue-ing him through.  Now I was about to hope and pray that Frisk was my good luck charm.  And that Chara would be a sport and not try to undercut me while I'm up here.

Speaking of...

Everyone else at the table, from Muffet to Gerson had her or his two coppers to be thankful for.  Whether it was Muffet KINDA missing the point and speaking about something shallow like profit (she did at least make it somewhat tasteful and was at least thinking of all her spider brothers and sisters) or Grillby knocking one right out of the park with thoughts of his family; past, present and future generations...we had quite a few names in attendance from the Underground who quickly got into the swing of things when it came to adapting to all the tradition and customs I'd brought here.

But I digress.  Chara.

"Well, I know you all sure were surprised to see me.  Some of you have no idea who I am...or rather who I was, so...let's keep this a civil meeting.  Hello.  I am the ghost that comes when you call my name.  I am your ferry-person to the other side once you've fallen down.  I'm no longer a demon or a lost little child who couldn't love and be loved.  I am Chara.  I am a Soul Reaper.  And what I do may sound morbid, it's a necessary part of the cycle of life.  For without death, life would go unchecked.  It would lose the meaning we find in making the most of a temporary time of learning how the world works, finding our place, and then resting on our laurels when we've done our part and made our contribution to society and the world as a whole.

I'd...talk about the little, lost broken orphan who found a life that she didn't know what to make of, but...this story works in duplicate and...even triplicate in some way or another.  I'm not going to take away from our Goat Prince and our Human Ambassador.

I know there are a lot of questions of how I can be here right now.  If I'm alive, if I'm dead.  So let me state for the record, that once upon a time I made some choices.  I paid the ultimate price for those choices.

Despite how it looks, I don't get a second chance.  What you see here is an eternal probation.  There is no life in me.  This body you see is fake.  It's essentially an artificial meat puppet.  A life-like doll that is containing my modified spirit so that the people in this room can even seen and hear me.  So that they can even physically interact with me at all.

So.  What is it I'm thankful for?  Well.  I guess when I really figure that out, I'll tell you all.  For now...I guess I'm just visiting this variation of the world of the living.  But...if I'm going to be here, I guess it's not too terrible if I can put the past behind me and still be able to see my brother, Asriel and my pretty mirror, Frisk."

Bravo, Chara.

So...by this point every virtue had been explained from Kindness to Patience, Justice to Bravery, Integrity to Perseverance...everything except Determination.  And I more than expected Frisk to talk about that one.

But...Sans hadn't gone yet.  What could he possibly say?"

He of course opened with his trademark laugh from when he wanted to lighten the mood while he was blowing off some heavy discussion or serious talk...yet was about to talk about something serious.  At least to him.

"Heh-heh-heh.  I could tell you that I've been up rattling my bones about what I wanted to say but it'd take just as much effort to fake-it-to-make-it as it would to make something up that Papyrus wouldn't get all bent out of shape over for being minimalist!"

"Just get on with it, brother."  Papyrus deadpanned, knowing Sans was on the verge of a pun-fest or some lame attempt to get out of a speech so he could teleport off to Grillby's...despite the fact Grillby was here among us.

Besides...I think Frisk managed to convince the skelly in a hoodie that this was important.  No slacking off and getting out of it, bonehead.

"Eh.  i guess I'm supposed to say something meaningful about my brother, about having this new found freedom, about the end of the RESETS, and about the new hope and dreams the kid has given back to us.  As much as I would like to just say "rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub" and down a glass or two of milk and a ketchup packet before falling asleep at the table...I'm pretty sure a lot of you wouldn't let me get away with it."

"You'd better believe it, brother."  Papyrus lowered his non-existent brow further, narrowing his eye sockets into a deadpan.

"I don't know what more I can say but...thanks.  Thanks for all those things."  Sans shrugged with that closed eye-socket grin.

"...that's it?"

Sans opened a single eye and didn't say anything.  He was gauging everyone's reaction.  Short but uh...meaningful?

"Once again I shouldn't get my hopes up."  Papyrus reciprocated, deciding that was the best he was going to get out of Sans.

Mettaton spoke about the importance of making things flashy and spectacular; more or less a round-about-way of stating how much he stressed the importance of standing out and being an original...stuff like that.

I guess, really he was rehashing the virtue of Integrity but...with his own Mettaton brand-name twist on it.

Napstablook was brief but sincere about the value of friendship.  He also had to speak on Shyren's behalf, because...well...Shyren.  Yeah.  Good grammar.  But it made sense if you knew Shyren like we did.

All over Newest Home, Monsters and Humans were finding reasons to be thankful.

We...even got Flowey to say something that wasn't completely the words of a spoiled, cynical brat frustrated with his very existence as a thing that was neither human or monster and couldn't feel anything.  So he claimed.

It was enough for Spot to bury the hatchet with him and for Flowey to not be immediately repulsed or attempting to flee from becoming a leafy, green snack.

Sure enough, Frisk spoke of her thankfulness for Determination itself.  That as a gift and a curse...as a tool that could be used for good as much as it could be used for evil...it was the responsibility and the challenge that they needed to inspire others to be better people that they could in turn reward the child with their trust and their love.  And entrust that love with their hopes and dreams.

Frisk gave that all back, even though they were under no obligation to lift a finger for our sakes.  Heck, in some timelines..it was just as well that the sociopath iterations of Frisk put us out of our misery.  While it went against...EVERYTHING that I stand for and believe in...maybe erasing cancerous timelines like those Genocide timeliness served some kind of purpose that we'd never appreciate Madam Fate's hand in.

How could I defend such a fiend?  Not so much as defending...but more or less seeing things through her eyes.

And I still didn't approve or support it.  However the strife and punishment she inflicted upon every world was necessary...I would still oppose it as the protégée of Lady Destiny's White Knight.

The binary nature of creation and destruction...of good and evil...of determination and apathy.  It was a flux of opposing forces that made existence possible.  And we'd be continually caught in the crossfire for all of eternity.

Well.  That was deep.

We were running out of people to give thanks by that point.

Then it came down to me.

Oh boy.

I didn't want to rehash my epic speech from Mount Ebott, being re-introduced to Undertale's people.

But...I did feel like I had to draw upon my past legacy of speeches just so I could preserve it for future generations.  So how to properly bring back the classic and best utilize it without it becoming overbearing and a nostalgic "cash-grab", "cop out", padding to an otherwise epic magnum opus about what I was thankful of...while contemporizing it to future generations without pandering to them, much less making it a product of the times that won't age well in a time capsule?

That was the challenge.

"Gratitude.  That's...really what it's all about.  It's such a simple concept.  It's such a basic concept.  It should be an act simpler than breathing for intelligent life.  It's that state of appreciating what you have...what you've been given...acknowledging that people made a sacrifice to give to you a precious gift or several precious gifts.  Whether it's in a single moment as something casual...or a lifetime of care and provision that you should under no circumstances feel entitled to, despite how regularly it's given.

We give thanks because we can.  Because it's right.  And because it's verbal and emotional compensation for our great fortune.  It is a balance.  It is a trade that is under no obligation to be judged as fair or unfair.  It's just simply a practice that makes use good people; human, monster or otherwise.  We're given what we're given ad no matter how much or little it is...we should be grateful we were given anything at all.

This tradition of giving thanks with a feast goes all the way back to the many Earth realms where foreigners had come to a new land without any preparation for the harsh conditions or any hope that they'd even live to see tomorrow.  And lo, and behold; his fellow man--of a completely different civilization and society...the people indigenous to this new frontier...chose not to drive these outsiders away and back to their land of origin with no hope of surviving the return trip...but instead offered peace and blessings while mentoring their new friends on the methods of surviving.  And finally after turning certain death to prosperity, they cemented this bond of friendship between two peoples--as different as they were the same--with a banquet of shared bounty.  A festival and feast which we carry on to this day by tradition.  A period of giving thanks we now call Thanksgiving.

I have brought the best of this holiday over from lands unseen and untold of to this point in the hopes of establishing it among our humble world that it might make it a better place.

As your prince of an Undertale beneath the mirrors of realities across the universe...I, of all people, can speak long and passionately about all that I have to be thankful for.  I have related this story of being given a second chance...at life, at a future...and at being part of a family that may not be my timeline's...but is still made up of the people I knew and loved with all my heart.  I know what it is to be so deprived of things to the point of self-convincing you have nothing, you are nothing, and you deserve nothing.  And yet, someone steered me from the folly of my ways; offering me everything.  For him, the world was not enough to give to me.  He gave me the galaxy...the universe...all of time, all of space, and every dimension.  All within which I could travel to if I'd only ask him to so.

I was given the building blocks and told to make my own future from.  I had the tools.  I had the talent.  All I needed was to make a choice I'd do something with them.  And choose I did.  I chose the form of the me that I wanted to be...and prospered.

The choice was made.  I was the Asriel that had come of it.

Now here I am...inspiring all of you to learn from the examples I learned from.

I am...reunited with the family I was born into.  I have been...introduced to a lot of people I may have only known briefly...and some I never met until being formally reintroduced to Undertale back inside Mount Ebott.

Right now I want to be part of your world.  But not just that...I want to be part of every world.  But that is a goal...a far-off goal that I would like to pursue to the end.  Once upon a time I was called a bridge between two worlds.  Somehow...I think that's the direction I want to lead us toward.

If our wonderful Ambassador, Frisk, can be a bridge between the world of humans and monsters...I can do no less but be a bridge between Undertale and the stars, some day.  I do not know how I intend to do it or by what means I want to have to do so...but rest assured...I would like us all to work together to change our world in preparation for that day.

So what is my gratitude in this moment while I am speaking about a future for all of us to share the life experiences I have while aboard, off-world?  What do I have to be thankful for that I have already listed...that I haven't already gushed about a thousand-fold since building this new point in time...this new period...this new part of my life?

I've gotten away with saying "everything" before.  Its a simple word.  It expresses the point.  It sums up what all I have on my plate.  And yet it tells nothing.  It doesn't go into what was given to me at my lowest point.  What moment I saw and what I seized in my own grasp in that moment.  It says it all but it says it so inadequately at this moment.

To list everything I am thankful for would keep me here for untold amounts of time.  It would get long.  It would get boring.  It would lose meaning.

But I could think of no other way to bring it all together.  I can't tie this up in a bow any other way than to say each and every one of you that is here...each and every one that cannot be here...each and every person off world, in time, and throughout the various realities of existence...  All the places I've been, all the things I've seen, all of which I've done.  The good, the bad, the ugly, the weird, the triumphant, the tragic, the amazing, the mediocre, the painfully unimpressive...it's all there.  In my heart.  In my soul.  In my mind and memories.  It's within me; between and inside every cell and tissue.  Every beat of my heart, every breath of my lungs, ever spark in the neurons of my brain and nervous system.  Everything that's ever culminated in me, around me, above me, below me, away from me, right next to me.

This.  This is all what it's about.  What came before I was even born.  What happened in my time as I took my first breath, took my first steps, said my first words... The right here and the right now.  And a time of a future I cannot possibly hope to envision; even by educated guesses and predictions based on models and numbers or from my own wisdom and experience.

This is Undertale.

I am Asriel.

You are all my family.  My friends.  This is my home.  This is my legacy.  And I intend to share it for every moment I walk this land until I fall down.  May what I have to impart be the greatest proof of my gratitude...my thanks this day and every day beyond.

To everyone I wish you all...a truly...truly happy thanksgiving."

That was it.

It wasn't as long as my grandest.  It wasn't as deep as my grandest.  It wasn't even my grandest.

And yet...on this very moment.  Everyone treated it like it was.

I'd brought a tear to many eyes.

I'd brought a smile to many faces.

I'd given everyone at the table something to think about.

I'd made a point and I'd be determined to stick with it.

There was no standing ovation to be had.  There was no cheers to be made.

I didn't need those things.

The impression I left...left the whole room with a profound silence before Frisk finally said it.

"That was truly beautiful Asriel."

"My son..."

"My boy..."

"Prince..."

"Just...!"

"I haven't the words."

"Wowee..."

I'd left them all speechless.  I had imparted the truest image of myself upon them all.  At this point in time...I'd think everyone at this table--even for just a single moment--knew me.  Knew the REAL me.

And that's something to be genuinely thankful for.

So...without further ado...the meal began.  And so did the best of memories.

This.

This gave me the strongest motivation to be thankful I was here and I was now, here in Undertale.  I had a reason to stay.  I had a reason to press on.

More than that.  I had staved off the feeling of homesickness and finally overcome it.

I wouldn't stop missing Miranda and VGM-098...but now I felt like that longing to return that was no longer going to hold me back and cast doubts on my future.

I could keep my mind in the present from here on out.

And I had plate full of turkey, potatoes, yams, stuffing, cranberries, and a slice of pumpkin pie among other things to thank for it at the immediate time.  The real gratitude had already been given and received to and by everyone and everything that deserved it the most.

It is with that note I bid everyone reading this...

**Happy Thanksgiving!!!**

Chapter 16

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