Frisk grinned as she peeked her head into the room, warm butterscotch eyes catching sight of the sheer number of people in the room. Most were only arriving now, she knew, but a fair number had been with her since the beginning, had even walked with her during her initial travels in the Underground, and the thought that those people were waiting for her to step out onto that stage and speak with them made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. It wasn't that she craved attention, of course; she simply didn't want the tale so far to be one told to only a couple of others.

"You look entirely too happy to be here," Chara murmured in her ear, drawing her attention to him. He was dressed as he had been when first they'd met, with the green-and-yellow sweater, pants and boots. He wasn't armed… but then, why would you come armed to something guaranteed to be peaceful? "Like, way too happy."

"Well, our whole timeline has been careening towards this," Frisk said with a shrug, the black feline ears on her head twitching. Like Chara, she was dressed in her original clothes, regardless of how a-gendered it made her look; the only difference was the button on her left breast, embossed with the image of a cookie. "I mean, kind of. It's not like we're the actual Frisk or Chara. We're, like…"

"The Creator's personification in a medium that allows them to speak with the people joining us on this trip without annoying, long forewords or afterwords." he sighed, folding his arms. "I don't like that we're just tools."

"We're not, though! We have a lot going on when we're not here on this stage! You know that!" Frisk folded her arms, huffing at her counterpart. "Besides, the last chapter wasn't just really, really late, it probably seems kind've overwhelming, too. And this get-together is even later! The people deserve explanations about everything!"

"True, I guess. We're getting paid for this, right?"

"Eight boxes of sixty chocolate bars each for every session you take part in," Frisk said with a nod.
Chara sighed, then nodded. "Alright, fine. Let's go; our adoring fans await."

Grinning, Frisk wrapped him up in a huge hug, then turned to make her way out onto the stage.

She heard a few mutterings, some excited squealing barely concealed, but by and large it was quiet. She could appreciate that; it came with the territory. When she reached the little microphone stand, she turned and grinned out at the crowd. "Hey, everyone! Yeah, you, sitting there with that screen in the way! You all know me, kind've, but I'll introduce myself, anyway. I'm, uh, call me Cookie Frisk, and today I'm acting as the envoy of Lost Cookie, the initial writer you all started our adventure with. Chara's here with me, to play Cookie's 'evil' side, but right now he's a bit busy ransacking the snack table in back."

"Hey, don't tell them that!" came the distant cry from backstage, drawing a grin from Frisk.

"As you can tell, we're a little different than the Frisk and Chara you're familiar with so far. I'll just explain that real quick: our personalities aren't toned and shaped by the same things as the ones you know from the story. I'm going to be a bit sillier, Chara's going to be a bit less of an outsider, things like that. We're not alone, of course! We have someone here to speak for Whisper, but they're…"

"That's my chocolate, goat-brother! Gerroff!"

"Indisposed," Frisk finished with a smile. "So, first things first, what in the hell happened with the other Me last chapter? Why are there now three Frisks? Alright, let's take me out of the equation and say two. Why are there two? What's that all about?"

Turning, Frisk hummed, striding along the stage slowly. "Well, explaining EVERYTHING would spoil things for you guys, and we don't want to do that. To put it simply, someone tried to kill Frisk with magic. Really, stupid-powerful magic that they'd never used before. Instead of killing her, it split her. The darkest parts of her were given a form, a physicality. Not Chara; he was always his own muffin. But the actual, dark thoughts and impulses that Frisk, being a good muffin, suppresses and ignores, were given a physical form, much in the same way Chara was. You'll see that come back eventually, I'm sure"

"'But, Kitty Frisk,' I hear some of you saying, 'What about the other two? Her siblings? Or, at least, the ones that called her 'sister'? What's the deal there?"

Frisk paused and turned, beginning to cross the stage in the opposite direction. "Honestly? I don't know. I really, honestly don't. That wasn't Cookie's doing, and I'm only hearing from them on this. You'd have to ask Cinnamon Bun for more on that, whenever he stops robbing Chara of his chocolate."

"Drop it, or feel the fury of a thousand Bunnies, Az!"

"Which hasn't happened yet, it seems." Frisk stretched, then strode to the edge of the stage and sat there, a few feet from the closest of those joining her. "So, in order to find out what to say, we had to ask a couple of our 'readers' to tell us what had them most confused so far. One of the things that was asked was what happened to Asriel, how long he was gone, things of that nature."

She paused, her legs halting mid-swing. "I don't know. Like, I know it was a few years from Frisk's point of view; that's rather obvious, isn't it? But Asriel doesn't seem like he's been gone a few years. And honestly, that makes me worry for other Frisk's sake; Her cinnamon bun deserves as easy a life as mine has had since we saved him. If this is the kind've stuff that he has to put up with into adulthood… It stinks."

Sighing, she shook her head. "But since we're connected to our Creator in a way none of the other versions of us is, we're also barred; you won't see us in any of those alternate timeline visions, and we won't be giving your Frisk any info. We can't; we're this story's Deadpool, if we could actually affect the story we'd probably derail the entire story they're working towards."

"Who's Deadpool?" Chara asked, striding onto the stage with a bar of chocolate in-hand.

"A comic-book super-antihero. He's aware of the medium he's in, be it a movie, a TV Show, a book, a game, or a comic strip. Or, in our case, a webstory."

"Neat," the boy said, sitting next to her. "So, where were we?"

"Clearing things up," Frisk said, holding out her hand expectantly. Chara eyed her for several seconds before breaking off a piece of the chocolate bar and handing it to her.

"Right. So, another thing we've been asked," he said, picking up where she left off and turning his cinnamon-colored gaze on the audience, "is just what's going on with some of those italics? Sometimes it seems like a flash-back, but others seems like a completely different reality. What's the deal?" he took a bite of his chocolate, chewing for a second before continuing. "Well, some of them ARE flashbacks, obviously. But others, they're… Hints, I guess I can say. Hints for who, about what? Good questions, but unfortunately, those aren't questions we can answer. We know the answers, mind you; we just literally can't tell you. The Cookie and Whisper have done everything they could to make sure we don't ruin all the secrets for you. And there are a lot."

"We're just here to make sure the important plot points are clear," Frisk agreed, nodding. "After the FusterCluck of that last episode, there're bound to be some questions hanging around."

"FusterCluck?" Chara asked, brow rising. "What the hell're you censoring yourself for?"

"Good manners," Frisk said with a shrug. "I'm supposed to be the good girl, and you're supposed to be the bad boy, and we're supposed to be working towards the same goal. We're like two sides of the same coin."

"That," a stormy-eyed figure rumbled as the curtain flew open, "is MY chocolate, Chara."

The tall Monster that strode forth was far from the Asriel everyone had come to know and worry over, his fur striped with silver-gray while his eyes burned like a firestorm on the surface of the moon. "'Sides, you quite literally speak for a chocolate chip cookie, I think you can spare a bar or two."

The Pwqa snorted and straightened his silken vest, shaking his head as he turned to the audience with a sweeping bow. "My apologies, dear readers, for the disruption as much as for the delay. Some of that, admittedly quite a bit at one point, was Whisper's fault, life just went ahead and served him with a big ol' letter of demotivation." Asriel sighed and reached into his vest's pocket, fishing for something. "Still, all should be back on track now, yeah? We can hope so. The boys should be getting more and more out as quickly as life allows."

"And hey," a voice came from behind Chara, almost in his shadow,"if they don't, we just get to ZAP them a bit more!" The shadow reared back and, almost on cue, slapped a joy buzzer on either side of his fleshy counterpart's head.

Chara yowled, leaping several feet into the air and spinning in something akin to cat-like flexibility- only to land awkwardly and fall into a tumble. "Dammit, first he wants my chocolate, now you!"

Asriel just sighed, again, and finally pulled out a short stemmed pipe. "Now see, that was just rude, wasn't it? A lot of you, as Frisk mentioned, must be wondering what's up with all of those weird italics and underlines. Lemme tell ya, it's got quite a bit to do with your Asriel, Chara, and Frisk, not being quite as alone in the world as they might seem to be." The Pwqa chewed on the unlit pipe, a tiny puff of smoke rising from his nostrils regardless. "Beyond that, I'd have to recommend that you all give older chapters a looksie as you keep reading, there might just be hidden things of interest, or maybe even hints!"

"Hey, As.", the shadow prodded at Asriel, slipping from Chara's ankles to his as easily as breathing.

"Hmm?"

"Why don't you give them a hint? Something vague to start the fire~", the dark creature grinned.

For a moment the Pwqa was silent, staring with fiery eyes, before he too grinned, "My gods, you can be something other than an evil little munchkin. Hah!" With another curl of smoke rising to the ceiling, Asriel turned back and spread his arms wide, all but elbowing his shadowy companion in the process. "In that case, ladies and gentlemen, have a gander back at Chapter Four and see what you can find, something after the first line break but before the second if I recall. Good luck!"

"And don't forget me!", the shadow cried, swarming from Asriel's feet into a towering creature before falling back as nothing more than an inky, misty, flower on the Pwqa's shoulder. "I could be anywhere, anything! And if you're not careful I'll carve your intestines out and feed them to Temmie as pate à la reader~", he crowed with a smile.

"How about we not grind our readers' vital organs into Temmie-food?" Frisk asked with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. "Goodness, you're just in a mood today. Or is it tonight? Yesterday?" She paused, thoughtful, then shook her head. "I suppose it doesn't matter. But, uh... You know you're always…" She grinned, eying the form the shadow had taken. "My best Bud."

"I will literally die if you start that," Chara groaned, tossing a chocolate bar from his pocket at Asriel.

"Not the first time for either of us," Frisk said with a slight shrug. "But, seriously. Okay. Hints are scattered throughout the story at what's coming up, but most of them are really, really subtle. Not the kind of thing you recognize at first, nyeah?"

The stage, and the world around the readers, stuttered and skipped strangely, skittering around. Wincing, Chara covered his eyes, Frisk narrowing her own with a hiss of pain. Once everything had settled, Frisk groaned, shaking her head. "Jeez. And just like that, months disappear. Okay, so you guys deserve to know about this, because as of right now, it's only Cookie speaking. Alongside the real issue of explaining the confusing mess that this story seems to be, there's a second problem. That problem is, simply put, pacing. We, and by we I mean the two of us writers, want to tell a certain story. That story has a number of arcs in it, points of reference. We haven't reached the end of Arc One yet, I promise, so there's a lot to go. But the pacing has felt rushed."

"Maybe you don't feel that way," Chara picked up as Frisk fell quiet. "I mean, look at how long it took us to get this interlude out! But damn it, we don't want to rush the story. But that means doing something neither of us as writers are really capable of, to a huge degree. Slice of Life. We can do mystery, we can do dramatic fights, but neither of us are great at just doing the day-to-day things. This has taken the form of time-skips in the main story, so that the bulk of the writing is combat or tension, big reveals."

"But Cookie doesn't like that," Frisk said with a sigh. "Cookie wants to… Spread things out a little. Get more focus on the cast without their physical well-being directly on the line. Now, if this were a book being written, that would just mean going back and rewriting chapters… but here, that's not exactly an option. You all have already read up to this point. Which means editing that isn't much of an option, no?"

"So we're trying to write a bit more slice-of-life into this next chapter, the one we've been working on off-and-on since we posted the last chapter. Buuuut there's been hang-ups. Demotivation due to working on writing that is incredibly difficult for us to put to paper, for one. Another hang-up is that during the last of July and start of August, Cookie lost his job. Say what you want about his vanity, but he refuses to work in jobs in which serious physical harm is a permanent risk, which means no to working in the lumber mill that is the single largest employer in his area."

Chara smiled wryly as he took over again. "He's been doing odd jobs since then in an attempt to keep the bills paid, but that's drying up as the hotter months fall behind and the weather cools down. Nobody wants someone else to move them if it's not ninety degrees out, you know? Not to mention that after working simple retail for most of his working life, he was seriously out of shape to be moving 300-pound entertainment systems around, second person or no. Which, as of this month, October, has left him in a bit of a bind."

"He still has something like $300 due to him as payment for his last job, but the person paying him has been very slow about sending the money… As in, they haven't yet. There's nothing to be done about that, of course, and it's very possible that pay will never come in. But that makes finding the peace of mind to enter into the story and immerse himself in the way he's used to very, very difficult. And without the Cookie, the Whisper has enough other things to do that no progress would get done."

"It's not all money problems, of course!" Frisk picked up after a moment of silence. "In the end, it's all these things coming together to make progressing Emergence very difficult for Cookie, and though he only knows a fraction of Whisper's problems, there are plenty of things on his plate to make it all an absolute wreck, too."

"So," Chara said, smiling a little. "That's the way-too-real story of the massive delays you've seen. And unfortunately, we can't say that a sudden outpouring of chapters is coming up. Much as cookie would actually enjoy simply writing all day, money needs must be made, and it's not made by writing unless it's good enough to be a book."

"Spoilers," Frisk broke in, "He doesn't feel it is. It's the best he's able to do, but it's not good enough."

Chara just nodded, running a hand through his hair. "That's it. Now, some good news, at least! We can assure you that the next chapter is being worked on, and it will be somewhat slower for those of you who want to see the trio actually communicate outside of fighting for their lives. Hopefully, the quality and length will still be high enough that it will be worth everyone's time, but that's for you guys and girls to decide."

"Right!" Frisk grinned. "Honestly, we had planned on putting this interlude out in June to July, but circumstances… Didn't permit. There's probably more that we could tell you, more to explain and make clear, but without you guys asking us questions either in private or through reviews, we can't really address them. Which, actually, reminds me of one question we got early on that we may as well address in public."

Chara nodded, his own smile lighting up. "Ah, I remember this one! It was 'What the heck is a Pwqa?' Right?"

Frisk nodded. "Right! Well, to put it simply…. Asriel's a Pwqa. A Pwqa is a Goat Monster from the mythology that Undertale is, at least partially, drawn from, and unless our memories are horribly broken, they're also considered royalty amongst the monsters… Though that could just be us inserting belief as fact. They were supposed to be some of the more powerful monsters with a penchant for using fire, though you'd have to research the myths to fact-check us if you want more than that. We may well be completely wrong; it came up as a google search during one of Cookie and Whisper's many calls early on, and was more of an interesting fact that we incorporated than anything highly researched and planned out."

"Another one we get is 'Why is Frisk violent here?'," Chara picked up, folding his arms. "Well, that's a fair question. With the historically violent Chara taking on an active role, and the actual God of Hyperdeath as a traveling companion, why make Frisk a fighter at all? Well… That's a difficult one. Partly, it's because the writer doesn't feel like full pacifism in anything is a good idea. That belief combined with the game character's pacifism made for a weird, ungainly story. But one of the things the game hints that it lets you do, if you're super careful, is beat the monsters by Fighting then giving them mercy when they've had enough fighting. Even if it's not actually possible, that's the style that Cookie ultimately decided to use with this Frisk."

"She hates hurting people," Frisk agreed. "She really, really does hate it. But as per her backstory, which you guys are seeing tiny hints of and will see in its entirety in the second and third arcs, she knows that unlike monsters, Humans can be incredibly violent and, sometimes, won't stop no matter what. One way of dealing with that is to appear overwhelmingly powerful; if beating you seems impossible, they might not start. But she also knows that sometimes, you have to actually fight a human and make them unable to continue to fight to make things safer… And that means that Frisk had to learn to actually fight, instead of just dodging and winking at the monsters suggestively. She learned from two of the most dangerous fighters she knew from the underground, and combined with the power of a Human soul, she became rather dangerous. But as the last chapter hinted, you've only glimpsed her going all out."

"Her goal is to be as powerful as she needs to be, and only do what must be done for each fight. She's succeeded so far, and that means you've only seen what each fight warranted."

Chara patted Frisk's shoulder, humming. "Well, she'll be pushed to her limits and beyond in the coming chapters. Heck, maybe even in the next one! But this is getting way too long for an interlude. So, we're really going to have to back off the stage, alright? If you have questions, send Cookie a PM or E-Mail, or just leave it as a review on the chapter you're curious about! And rest assured, we're going to throw another chapter at you. Take care everyone!"

"And of course," Frisk added with a grin as the rest of the backstage cast made their way off the stage. "Always, always Stay Determined. Good night!"