Chapter 5: Back on track

"Dr. Alphys, can you tell us anything about what's going on with her soul?"

The question came from Asgore. The king of all monsterkind was seated in his throne, a tired and worried look in his eyes as he lightly stroked his beard. The rest of Frisk's immediate friends were present in the throne room as well, sitting in chairs around a table that had all been unpacked for this meeting. Each of them was nursing a cup of tea, brewed by Asgore himself, and nibbling on pink, heart shaped cookies that had been brought by the uncustomarily somber Mettaton. The monster in question, Alphys, stood up from her seat and cleared her throat timidly.

"W-well...it's not s-something I've ever seen before...a-and um..." she reached up and gently adjusted her glasses,"it's not mentioned in any of my scientific books, either. It's like her soul is filled w-with some k-kind of energy, and only her determination is k-keeping it in place."

The king nodded slightly, before looking over at the pair of skeletons that were sitting directly on his right. As Alphys sat back down, Asgore regarded the pair with a certain intensity which reminded them of exactly why he was king, despite his normally un-kingly nature,"I owe you both for acting so quickly to save my adopted daughter, however I am afraid I have to be a bit suspicious. You especially, Sans, seem to know more about what was happening than anyone else."

The smaller skeleton looked slightly uncomfortable at the scrutiny, but he couldn't blame the king for asking. Looking over at his unusually quiet brother for a moment, he turned his full attention to Asgore and sighed slightly,"I have an idea of what's goin' on, but it's not really my place to talk about it."

A fist slammed into the table, causing the cups and plates to rattle slightly,"Answer the king's questions, skeleton, or being Papyrus's brother won't save you!" snarled Undyne, the fish monster clearly upset about what she had witnessed happening to her 'bestie'. She'd been the first to arrive when she'd heard Frisk screaming at the top of her lungs in pain, and had been shaken by what she'd seen happening to her friend's soul.

Toriel raised a hand, having (after refusing her old throne) take up a chain on Asgore's left side, her face stern,"Calm down, captain, this is no time for rash actions," she said, then turning her eyes to Sans with a pleading look,"Please...is there not anything you can tell us?"

Sans scratched his cheek and sighed, looking down in thought. He than began slowly, choosing his words carefully,"The kid has...a power...that's beyond anything we've ever known. It lets her...I guess 'store' points in time that she can return to at any point she needs to...and even restart our entire timeline," he said, eliciting gasps from around the table, except from his brother who seemed to nod slightly,"There's a price to be paid for using the power...but it shouldn't have done this..."

The queen frowned slightly,"What would have made it do this, then?"

"If she used it too much. I don't know for sure how much things have changed, or what she changed...all I can get are impressions and a sense of deja-vu," he explained, trailing off into silence. The throne room was silent for a few moments, Toriel looking down at her lap and frowning in thought.

"Well surely, darling, the human had to have had a good reason for doing what she did," said Mettaton, speaking up after a few moments,"I mean, it's not like she'd use us in her own personal game, is it?"

There was some uncomfortable shifting as, briefly, the room considered that thought. It wasn't entirely implausible...after all, humans had trapped them down here, and may have sent her down to tormen-

"No...she didn't do it for that," said the smaller skeleton swiftly, his tone firm and certain as his left eye flashed briefly. Everyone else, save Toriel and Papyrus, looked relieved and a bit ashamed. Aside from Sans, his brother and the queen both had known Frisk the longest and believed she would never use her power to harm them. Sans...had a feeling that things weren't so clean cut, but knew better than to speak about it.

The queen stared at Sans intently, her eyes searching his as she finally asked,"Why did she do it then, Sans? How can you answer with such certainty?"

The skeleton held her gaze for several long moments, a battle of wills taking place between them, before Sans finally looked away and slumped back down,"Because she was lookin' for the 'perfect ending'," he replied, looking back up at both the queen and now the king as well,"I ain't sayin' more than that."

Toriel looked confused at first, then thoughtful...and finally a look of horror and realization dawned on her face,"She...she was trying to save Asriel, was she not? She did this to herself to save our son!" she said, tears pooling in her eyes as she turned her head to look Asgore.

Asgore looked saddened...discovering that Frisk had nearly killed herself trying to save Asriel wasn't a shock, it only made the king more certain he had chosen wisely when he'd decided to adopt her,"Then we owe her even more than we thought we did. But she didn't have this problem yesterday, all the tests on her soul checked out...what changed?"

Sans scowled slightly, still upset that her promise had apparently been broken so soon,"She used her power again...my guess is that her soul was pushed to the brink before, and this time she pushed it too far..."

The king nodded in agreement,"It would seem that way, now that we have more pieces of the puzzle. The question is, why? What made her come back to this point?"

Undyne closed her eye in contemplation,"If everything we know about her is right...it's no coincidence that she came back now, before we left for the surface, either. She'd go back to the best point to stop whatever happened from happening."

Alphys cleared her throat slightly,"It m-must have been something awful..." she added,"If she thought she absolutely had to use her power, there must have been no other ch-choice...we know how much determination she has, and if t-there were another way to fix the problem, sh-she would have t-taken it."

"It was bad..." came a familiar, if faint voice from the entrance to the throne room.

Almost everyone turned their head swiftly to see a very pale Frisk, being supported by a somewhat ashmed looking Asriel in the doorway. Toriel, the moment she'd heard her daughter's voice, was on her feet and swiftly moving, almost running, around the table with worry in her eyes. The little boy monster seemed to shrink back when her eyes turned to him, accusation in them, but Frisk tiredly put her hand up and diverted the mother monster's attention back to her.

"Don't...be mad at Asriel, mother...I begged him...to bring me here," she took a breath, then continued,"I shamed him by saying I would crawl here if he didn't."

Toriel knelt down in front of the pair, pulling them both into a gentle, warm hug,"I wish you would have stayed in bed, my child...and back to bed you will go once you have said what you need to say," she said sternly, the sting of her tone tempered by the love they heard behind it. Wrapping her hands around Frisk, she said to Asriel,"Let her go, my child, I will take her to the table."

Asriel did what he was told, releasing Frisk before looking down at his feet,"I didn't want to bring her here, but she said it was important..." he trailed off.

Supporting Frisk with one arm, the mother monster reached out and gently rubbed Asriel's head,"I know, my child...this one is a handful when she is determined," she said with a smile, before standing and taking Frisk over to the table where they others sat. Gently, she sat Frisk down upon it in front of her seat, then sitting herself down and reaching up to help her daughter sit up straight.

Frisk, for her part, slowly turned to face her gathered friends, silently hating herself for the worry she had put on their faces. Even Sans, who was regarding her slightly more cooly than the rest, was frowning in concern. She knew he was bothered by the fact she had used her power in, as he would perceive it, such a short time after promising not to use it unless absolutely necessary. She also knew that once she explained herself, he would understand.

Clearing his throat, Asgore assumed a much more kindly, fatherly tone...the one everyone was used to hearing from him on a daily basis,"Go on, daughter...tell us. Take as much time as you need to...we all know you are not recovered yet."

Frisk gave her adoptive father a ghost of a smile, before growing serious. Her eyes, normally mostly closed anyway, were hardly open even for her as she mustered the strength to speak,"Everyone...can't leave the Underground all at once. If we do...the humans will attack," there were gasps of disbelief in the room, as well as a couple sounds of anger. She could see Sans staring at her, his eye glowing as he took her words in.

"Just what did you see, kid?" he murmured sadly, unheard, as his eye stopped glowing.

Frisk raised her hand weakly, trying to get everyone's attention, but they had started to chat noisly among themselves and she went unnoticed. Asriel saw this, and at the top of his little lungs yelled,"She's not done yet! Let her finish!"

After a moment, her friends returned their attention to her...she made a mental note to thank the monster boy later, before taking a breath and resuming,"You have to think about it from their side...a whole bunch of people, monsters, come out of a mountain all at once and start using strange powers to change things around them to suit them better, all near to one of their villages. They have no idea that everyone is actually nice...all they see are things from bad dreams and scary stories. The people in charge thought they were protecting their people...they didn't know they were..." she swallowed slightly, a bitter taste forming in her mouth at her next words,"...they didn't know they were killing good people. And even some of the soldiers, once they saw no-one was really fighting back, started to try to avoid fighting..." she murmured, remembering the soldiers letting the Froggits go, even though they could have followed after killing the Knight Knight.

She didn't tell them she had been shot...she didn't tell them that they had been in the process of getting ready for war with the humans just before she used her power. She could see Sans staring at her intently out of the corner of her eye, and knew that he knew she wasn't telling them everything. Still, he said nothing, letting the story stand as it was.

"Oh, you poor dear. You really went through a lot, didn't you darling?"

"DO NOT WORRY, HUMAN! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GO TO THE SURFACE AND MAKE SURE IT IS SAFE TO LEAVE THE UNDERGROUND!"

"That's the job of the Royal Guard you bonehead!"

"BUT SURELY I'VE PROVEN MYSELF BY NOW, UNDYNE, SO MAYBE-"

"No! It's too dangerous to...uh...let someone as inexperienced as you take on such a serious duty."

Asgore lightly tapped the table with his knuckles, bringing order back to the meeting. His expression was far more serious than it had been in a very long time, and he turned the full weight of his stare onto Frisk. He seemed to be struggling with something, and the corners of his muzzle contorted slightly as if there was a bad taste in his mouth. Finally, he closed his eyes and sighed, before speaking softly,"The humans would not trust even a single monster on his or her own...they would panic. We are, judging from everything, nothing but a myth to them now. Frisk, when you accepted being brought into our family, the weight of responsibility fell onto your shoulders," he snorted slightly,"although you have been doing more for us, it seems, than we could ever possibly know or thank you properly for."

Toriel looked over at him, her expression showing that she believed she knew what Asgore was about to ask, but didn't want to leap to conclusions.

"I am going to have to ask you to go with a monster of your choosing to the hu-"

"Do not dare, Asgore!" Toriel snarled, the motherly monster letting go of Frisk and jumping to her feet again, this time knocking her chair backwards several feet in the process. Her large, furry hands were clenched into fists as she glared angrily at the king, who shrank back a little but otherwise held her gaze,"Do not DARE send her out, not with what she just went through! She needs food and rest, not work!"

Asgore looked pained, but stood slowly and held his ground, staring down at the slightly shorter boss monster,"There isn't any other choice, Toriel. If we delay for too much longer, either everyone's hope will drop and they will give up, or they will riot and force their way to freedom," he replied, his voice even and calm. He held her angry gaze for another few moments, before looking away slightly,"Do not think I would do this if there were another choice...they need to see a human safe with a monster to help them be unafraid of us, to help stop what she risked her very existence to come back and warn us about," he looked back to the mother monster, his eyes pleading,"Please, Toriel...please understand."

While the king had been speaking, Undyne had quietly gotten up and grabbed the queen's chair, putting it back nearby so that she could sit back down. It was fortunate she did, for within a moment Toriel did indeed sit back down, sinking down slowly into the chair putting her head in her hands with her elbows on the table.

"I know, Asgore...but it is wrong! She needs time to rest, time to regain her strength!" she said, flinching slightly when she felt the king put his hand on her shoulder, and then again when she felt a small hand gently touch her arm. Peeking up over her hands, her brown eyes filled with frustration, she saw her adoptive daughter smiling at her,"My child?"

"It's alright, mom...it doesn't have to be this minute...I can rest tonight and head out in the morning."

Toriel sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as she weighed her thoughts. When she reopened her eyes, she smiled slightly and reached forward to lightly ruffle her daughter's hair with her large, warm, white-furred hand,"Very well, my child...I will trust that you are making the correct decision."

Asgore sighed with relief, smiling slightly at the side of his ex-wife's head, before turning his attention back to Frisk,"Now, the only question is...who will you take with you, daughter?"

Before Frisk could speak, Undyne stood up slowly from her seated position and smiled,"I should go with the pu-er, princess, your majesty. Out of everyone here, I'd be able to keep her the safest."

"No."

The word startled the captain of the royal guard a bit, and she turned to regard its source with a bit of hurt in her eyes...but she saw Frisk smiling up at her gently, and she felt the hurt fade.

"I know you'd keep me safe, Undyne, and if it were only that then there would be no question. But..." the human paused for a second, her eyes squeezing shut as a ripple of pain seemed to radiate outwards from her very soul. Sans flinched and started to stand, worried that his spell was failing...but sat back down when Frisk recovered. Taking a deep breath, and leaning back into the hand that her mother had placed on her back while the pain was happening, she continued,"But it would be best if someone less frightening went with me. Someone unthreatening, gentle, and who carries the same weight," she paused, the sentence leaving an unfamiliar weight on her shoulders...as if she was just realizing what being adopted by the Dreemurrs meant,"as me. And has an undeniable cute factor," she finished with a giggle, now looking directly at the boy monster she was describing.

Asriel, who had been standing slightly back from the table this whole time, blushed lightly and pulled his ears against his cheeks in an effort to hide it,"M-me?" he asked, uncertain.

"Yes, you. If you help me back to the village, it's less threatening than if one of the adults came. Plus...I don't think it should just be the two of us," she turned her attention to Sans,"We need someone who can find shortcuts and can help quickly if...if there's trouble, again," she said, regarding the smaller of the two skeleton brothers with respect,"Sans is the best person for that job...and I know he'll be good at it, because he helped me so much down here...and I don't think a certain someone has released him from his promise to watch over me yet," she said, the last part slightly sing-song as Toriel meeped slightly from behind her.

"I can explain, my child..."

Frisk shook her head,"I understand why you did it...and I appreciate that you cared enough about me to do it, mother," she replied softly, causing the motherly monster to smile warmly.

"I dunno kid, shortcuts down here and shortcuts up there are two different things...are you sure you don't want Undyne to watch out for you instead?" replied the skeleton slowly, his hands thrust firmly into his pockets as he regarded the human intently.

"Undyne would be great for getting us out of trouble...but...ah...she'd probably make things worse because she'd react so...passionately," she said, smiling apologetically at the fish monster, who shrugged and smirked.

"She's got a point. Besides, Sans, it would do you some good to actually do something for a change, rather than being a lazybones."

The skeleton turned his attention to Undyne, his usual smile back in place,"You know me too well."

Asgore listened to the goings on, stroking his beard slightly and nodding,"Very well...but no risks. Toriel and I lost two children in one day before, and I don't think we could bear to go through it again," he turned his attention to Sans,"At the first sign of serious trouble, you are to get them both out of harms way. Am I clear, Sans?"

Sans stood on his chair and bowed to the king,"One hundred percent, your majesty."

Asgore nodded again, before smiling and clapping his hands together,"Now that all the serious matters have been attended to, does anyone want a cup of tea?"

...()...

It was sometime later, after Asgore had brewed everyone a good cup of tea, that found Frisk being carried back to Asgore's, now her, room by Toriel. Her arms were wrapped around her mother's neck while supported by her mother's arms. She nuzzled her head against Toriel's shoulder and must have fallen asleep for a minute because when she woke up she was dressed in her nightclothes and tucked into bed.

The room was dark, indicating the door was closed, but she could feel a heavy weight at the foot of her bed, indicative of a certain motherly monster sitting there.

"Mom?" she murmured sleepily, rousing herself slightly.

The weight gave a little jump, as if startled, before a feminine throat cleared and it shifted slightly.

"My child...I have been thinking. I do not wish to pry, however..." Toriel paused, her tone clearly uncomfortable, before continuing,"We all know now that you have some kind of special power that allowed you to essentially travel through time..."

Frisk listened as her adoptive mother trailed off. She wanted so desperately to sit up and hug the much larger monster, but her body felt like lead and it was only with the greatest determination that she was able to keep her eyes open. She wanted to stay awake and listen.

Toriel shifted again, her silhouette barely visible in the light coming from beneath the door...she wasn't looking at Frisk directly, but the human could tell little beyond that,"My child...how many times did you reset the timeline? How many times did you reset in order to save Asriel?"

"I...don't really remember..." Frisk said, trying to dodge the topic. She knew her mother was feeling guilt, and no doubt Asgore did as well...and she didn't want to add to it.

"Frisk. Be honest with me," replied the monster, her tone stern but loving.

With a sigh, the human let her eyes stare straight up at the ceiling, her head sinking back even more into the pillow,"I lost count after a hundred...and it was a lot more than that. A lot more. I just couldn't seem to get it right...no matter how determined I was, no matter what actions I took...Asriel was always left behind to a lonely fate," she replied after a few moments, then closing her eyes as she thought back,"We would all get to the surface...and after a couple of weeks, the rest of the monsters would be led up as well...at the best of times. Other times...things went wrong, and only I would get out, or I'd have to restart the timeline early because something bad happened..."

Toriel listened intently, her large furry ears twitching slightly, and when Frisk stopped speaking she sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in thought. Finally, however, she reached out and touched her daughter's knee through the blanket, and looked in the direction she knew her head was in,"After you had been taken out of the throne room those two weeks ago, and Asriel had explained what had happened...I knew then you had sacrificed for us and for him. But I did not know the extent you had, my child...I did not know how much you had been forced to grow. In the way you talk, in the way you act...you are more mature in your mind than your body shows. But I want you to know that Asgore and I will do everything in our power to make sure you have a normal, happy childhood after this...as normal as possible considering your position. I want you to have a chance at a childhood...so after this, there will be few, if any, duties thrust upon you. This I swear, my child."

When there was no reply, Toriel stood and leaned in closely to her adoptive daughter's head, noting her breathing had changed to the rythm of deep sleep. A gentle, warm smile graced her muzzle as she leaned down and softly kissed Frisk's forehead, before quietly making her way out of the room. Her eyes, however, were filled with determination of her own...she was going to speak with Asgore, and she was certain that he would agree. After exiting to the hallway, doing her best to prevent too much light from entering the bedroom as she left, she gently closed the door behind her and quietly made her way back to the throne room.

As she arrived at the stairway, she noticed her son waiting for her with a slightly nervous expression. Toriel smiled warmly and stopped in front of him, kneeling down and pulling him into an embrace which he returned eagerly,"What is it, my child?"

Pulling back, Asriel looked at the ground and murmured,"I'm sorry for bringing her to the throne room...but she insisted, and I couldn't let her do it by herself."

The motherly monster shook her head slightly,"It is fine, my child...it was important for her to be there, and she understood that. I am pleased that you were there for her when she needed you...you are taking your brotherly role as seriously as you always have."

"Is...is Frisk going to be ok, mother?"

Toriel frowned...she wanted so badly speak a comforting lie, but it was against her nature to do so,"Truthfully, I do not know. What has happened to her soul is far beyond anything we have seen happen before. But I am certain that she will fight with all her determination to become well again," she added, reaching forward and gently rubbing the top of his head with a smile,"Of this, I am certain."

The young monster nodded slightly, returning his mother's smile,"I guess you're right...I'm just worried about her, that's all."

"I know, my child, I know," replied Toriel, before reaching down and gently taking Asriel's hand in hers,"Come, let Frisk have her sleep; we will see her first thing in the morning. In the meantime, I believe there are still a few things we need to discuss with your father and Sans about the trip to the surface," she finished as she lead him back towards the throne room.

Once they arrived, the meeting took on a lighter, if no less serious tone than before, and continued on fairly long into the night. Well before the end, Asriel had fallen asleep and was carried back to his room by his father, but all the important points regarding him and been covered. A plan was set, preparations were made, and soon it was just a matter of Frisk waking up and being ready to go.

...(Soon...)...

Author's notes: This chapter, for its size, took longer than I anticipated because of RL events. While I had planned on making it longer, I felt that this was a good stopping point to put out an update.

As I stated before, things are going to get lighter again, at least for a few chapters, but I've finalized what I want to do for the final chapter of this story (or at least of this arc. I'm still debating if I want to make a whole new story to carry on with events I have planned, or just do a 'Book II' thing) and it will involve more of a traditional Undertale boss battle ^^ Anyway, sorry about the delay.