Includes 2 - 4" x 6" paper pads, Annoying Dog washi tape, Underground friends washi tape, 1 set of page markers, 2 pencils, and one 4" x 6" set of 24 unique Undertale stickers.
Victorian steampunk inspired — asriel and chara in victorian clothes, modern characters in more steampunk styles
Flowers directly related to magic — more magic, more flowers grow
Too much magic, too many flowers can grow and cause breathing problems, hyper awareness and paranoia.
too little and the flowers will take too much energy leading to fatigue and lowered pain resistance.
Flowers can adapt based on people’s lives? eg can be born with daisys (innocence) but later they grow into something else?
Chara and frisk - the humans - don’t have any flowers bc the flowers are caused by magic, however i’m planning for when frisk falls — if they do the pacifist route, they will gain a flower associated with the characters, like at the end of the ruins, when toriel hugs them, she tucks a wood sorrel or moss behind their ears so she’ll be there with them the entire way etc?
maybe the monsters dust like canon but the flowers continue growing where they died? so it would be like a city/town/village/area overgrown by nature by the end of geno? they disappear at a true reset but not at a softer reset like the end of neutral?
maybe a stupid idea, but every time flowey goes somewhere he died and regrows? so he leaves a wilted flower behind for a few mins before it dusts?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Ch. 45 - Mercy
Summary: You fall.
CW: see the end notes on AO3.
-
Legends say that those who climb the mountain never return.
You hope that’s true. Your chest is tight as you climb, and your eyes sting from crying. You hope they never find you. And if they do….
Well. That doesn’t matter. You’re not ever going ba—
.
.
.
.
You fall. Long and hard. Sharp pain radiates from your wrist. You think it might be broken, but you’re not a healer, so you can’t be sure. Cradling your arm to your chest, you look up and see the sky has been reduced to nothing but a small circle of blue high above. It takes a moment, but you realize you’ve fallen into the mountain.
Hiccupping inhalation shake your thin body, and you squeeze your knees to your chest, eyes shut tight as you struggle not to cry.
You don’t want to go back to the school. You don’t want to return to the cold, sterile house that passes as your ‘home’. You hiccup again, crying too hard to catch your breath.
You don’t want to die here. But you don’t want to be found either.
Time passes. You don’t know how much. But you’re cold and hungry, and the pain in your wrist has faded just enough to make standing seem like a good idea. You wipe your sleeve over your face and sniff back the rest of the snot clogging your nose.
Your chest hurts. Not like you’ve injured anything. Something else. You’re familiar with that pain, though, so you ignore it and start traveling down the rocky passageway.
Distantly, the drip of water echoes back to you.
The school is good for some things. You know your priorities in a survival situation. You always liked those exercises best. Maybe because unsupervised time in the woods seemed more like a reward than a punishment to you. Water was your first, followed by shelter and food.
You hurry towards the sound and kneel at the rim of a big pool. Golden flowers bloom here, stretching for the thin traces of sunlight filtering down from high up. You squint up at the rocky overhang, barely glimpsing the sky. Something doesn’t seem right. You don’t know why, though, and you need the water.
So you kneel, and cup your hands to drink.
.
.
[[RESET]]
.
.
You open your eyes and see a small circle of blue sky high above. You sit up. Your wrist doesn’t hurt anymore, but the water and the flowers are gone. You’re surprised.
You’ve died before, of course. But that was in the classroom, and the teacher had demonstrated on herself first. You know how this is supposed to work—your DETERMINED soul is supposed to use the excess mana available to create a small, localized time distortion and bring you back to the circle of power you’re bound to, healthy and alive. It was why children with your type of magic were conscripted for the war colleges. What better soldier or spy than one that literally came back from the dead, memory intact?
But there was no circle here, and your mana levels didn’t feel depleted, so how…?
Was it because you were in Mount Ebott? The monsters had been driven underground here ages ago and sealed inside. Was it an effect of the seal? Or maybe the last remnants of the monsters themselves? They’d all be dead now, of course, but everyone knew monsters had been made of almost pure magic. Were even their remains so rich in mana your soul had enough to bring you back on instinct? Then what was acting as your circle of power? Or was it just a one-off, and there was no guarantee you’d be so lucky next time?
It didn’t make sense, but something had obviously killed you, and you’d obviously—
You freeze. Something killed you. And you have no idea what. You remember flowers and a pool of water, but nothing that could have killed you.
You frown. Above, in the classroom, time had kept moving normally for everyone not affected by the circle. Anyone inside of it would experience the distortion, but only the resurrected student would remember what had happened. The others sometimes experienced déjà vu or other fleeting flashes of memory, but nothing more.
So, now you had to figure out—would your killer still be at the pool? Would it remember you? Had it experienced the distortion and reset, or not? You had no idea. If the seal itself was acting as your circle of power, then it too would have reset and shouldn’t remember anything. Nothing underground would.
You suddenly wished you’d decided to run away after taking more of the magic theory courses. Maybe then you’d have a better idea of what was going on.
For now, though, you have to go back—there was no way around it. You knew that dying of thirst or hunger—anything other than a traumatic sudden death, really—wouldn’t activate whatever was acting as your circle. You needed water, or you’d die for good.
You approach more cautiously this time, carefully searching the cavernous opening before venturing from your narrow passage. You don’t see anything. Then—
A flower moves.
The hair on the back of your neck prickles. It turns its head, and you see it has a face.
Frozen, you stare at it. It’s a monster. It’s the only thing it could be, but—how is it still alive down here? They were sealed up centuries ago! Maybe even longer—history was never your favorite subject. How could anything survive down here for so long?
“Howdy! I’m Flowey!” it says, “Flowey the flower! Hmmm…You’re new to the Underground aren’tcha? Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here. Guess little old me will have to do.”
Your soul suddenly appears before you, and you gasp. It’s initiated a battle. The creature won’t have to fight you directly, now—it just needs to do enough damage to your soul, and you’ll be dead.
“—little white ‘friendliness’ pellets,” the monster is saying, “Are you ready? Move around! Get as many as you can!”
You know it’s lying. It’s lying about LOVE, and it’s lying about the mana constructs. This must be the creature that killed you, though it doesn’t seem to remember doing so. You tuck that bit of information away for later and dodge.
The friendly face it’s pasted on wavers. “Hey buddy, you missed them. Let’s try this again.”
You keep dodging, but even now, you can’t bring yourself to fight back. It may be a monster, but it’s still just a flower. A flower with a silly face. If you can just get past it—
The silly face darkens. “You know what’s going on here, don’t you? You just want to see me suffer.” The Mana constructs multiply and encircle you. Your stomach drops. Maybe this isn’t just a flower after all. “DIE.”
You freeze. Paralyzed, you wonder if you really will die this time, or if you’ll wake up back under that circle of sky. Are you going to keep repeating this loop forever? Or—
You cry out as a bullet grazes you, and then—a fireball knocks the flower away. You don’t even have the chance to be grateful before yet another monster appears. “What a terrible creature,” the creature says, “torturing such a poor, innocent youth.” You stare at the goat—lion? chimera?—monster. It looms above you, tall and broad. It smiles at you. Calls you “my child” as it ushers you towards its home.
But as the shadow of the Ruins looms above you, all you can think of is the flower. It was friendly at first too, but that was just a lie to get you to drop your guard. Who’s to say the chimera isn’t lying as well? It’s a monster, after all. Monsters eat people. Children especially. You remember that part of the history lessons at least.
You ready your magic, filled with determination.
.
It was easier than you expected to cut through the monsters of the Underground. There were a few surprises—the fish had certainly caught you off guard—but overall, it seemed to get easier and easier the further and further you progressed.
It’s the LV, no doubt. It forms a thick layer over your soul. For the first time in your life, you feel strong. The memory of your mother refusing to look at you—refusing to touch you—after your magic manifested no longer fills you with shame and sadness. Your teachers’ militaristic demands no longer seem crushing and unreasonable. Now, you see that they were only trying to make you strong. You were just too weak to see it at the time.
Your teachers would be pleased with your transformation, and your mother and father could go to hell, for all you care.
Yes. It feels good—right—to feel such strength at your fingertips. And now, only the King stands in your way. Judging by his home, you don’t think he’ll pose much of a challenge. It looks at once like a bachelor pad and a shrine. Only a little food in the kitchen, with no sign anyone bothers to use it for cooking. There’s a chef’s knife in the drawer. It’s sharp enough, so you decide to take it with you.
(It feels good to have a weapon in hand, doesn’t it?)
In fact, there are few signs anyone really lives here—instead, it feels like the King spent his time tiptoeing past these rooms, trying to leave them as undisturbed as possible. The calendar is ancient, set to a date long before you were even born. The two children’s bedrooms may as well be preserved in amber. In one room, a drawing is taped to the wall. It’s a family portrait, but one sibling…. You back out of the room and turn to leave.
The whole place suddenly feels haunted.
Uneasy despite yourself, you start looking for movement out of the corners of your eyes. Then you see it—the first human! You raise your knife, prepared to defend yourself, and they lift their own to attack—
No. It’s just a mirror. (Just me.)
Your heart’s beating fast. The sudden rush of adrenaline followed by relief has your skin feeling cold, like all the blood’s rushed out of it. It’s no wonder you thought it was a ghost in the mirror; you’re covered in monster dust, giving your skin and hair a greyish cast. And your eyes.
You lean forward. DETERMINATION shines at the core of your pupils, making your eyes gleam a faint red. You touch your fingers to the mirror, leaving smeared prints at the edge.
Is it really still you?
You fled the school because they were preparing you to enter the war mages’ college when you reached your majority. But you never wanted to hurt anyone. And now….
LV 19. How many monsters have you killed, Frisk? You’ve lost count, haven’t you? Poor scared little thing. You didn’t even notice that most of them couldn’t fight back. Like a wolf among sheep, you tore through their ranks.
Only one more now, little wolf. Past the door, into the Hall. Just.
One.
More.
You jolt away from the mirror, fingers starting to tremble. You’ve made a terrible mistake, you realize. This was never what you wanted. But it’s too late, now. You have to keep going. There’s no turning back. You made your bed, so lie in it.
You raise the knife.
Wait—no!
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[[RESET]]
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You open your eyes and see a perfect circle of sky high above you. Your stomach heaves. You roll onto your side to vomit, no longer insulated by your LV from the memory of blood and dust on your hands. Your soul is clean again, and the presence you felt tugging at the edges of your mind is gone now. (You wish.)
Hand shaking, you wipe the thin strings of bile from your chin. It’s tempting to simply curl into a ball and lie here. (Die here.) But the determination thrumming in your soul urges you to stand. To try again. No violence, this time. No killing. You’ll do this the right way, and you won’t lose yourself in the process.
(How noble. How dull.)
At first, you don’t notice any real differences. You bolt past the pool and the flowers, hoping to outrun the flower monster. You slow as the passage opens up again, keeping an eye out for the chimera. You manage to make it to the door, and only now do you realize that something is very wrong.
“My child,” a voice says, “You don’t want to go out there. It isn’t safe.”
This isn’t the same chimera. Her clothes are ragged, and her claws are unclipped. Her eyes are lit with red mana. Worse, a quick Check lets you see she’s at LV 7.
You stare, scrabbling at the massive door at your back. What is going on?! She eyes you, shaking her head sadly. “Come away from there. Stay with me. I’ll keep you safe. I’ve got snail pie in the oven right now. Don’t you want to come home with me and have a slice?” She smiles, revealing long canine teeth. More lion than goat, this one.
You reach for your magic.
(Breaking your promise already, Frisk?)
.
You stumble out of the Ruins, covered once more in the chimera’s dust. You’re filled with DETER—
No. No, you’re filled with regret. You can’t catch your breath, and your heart is beating wildly in your chest. This is a bad place for a panic attack, though. The snow underfoot is grey with dust, and the lights overhead flicker inconsistently. What happened? Is this—did you do this?
(Oh, Frisk. You really should have stayed in school.)
You stumble in the snow, scanning the horizon. You see a flicker of movement at the edge of your vision, but it’s gone a moment later. Otherwise, you don’t see anyone.
Swallowing hard, you start trudging through the snow. You wrap your arms around yourself. It’s colder now than it was before. As you walk, your panic fades and your heart settles. Shame starts to creep in. It’s not much, but you can feel the LV weighing down your soul. The dust on your hands makes you feel dirty.
Swallowing, you force yourself to set aside the shame and the fear and look. After a few moments, you start to recognize your surroundings. They’ve been altered—that much is obvious—but the map is fundamentally the same.
Which means…the skeletons should be up ahead. You think.
You try to remember anything about them.
(Annoying. Stupid. Easy EXP.)
But all you can think of is the taller skeleton’s last moments. He died by your hand, but his last words to you were words of encouragement. He promised that you could do better, believing in you even if you didn’t believe in yourself.
You swallow. He didn’t even know you, and he’d offered you kindness. You’d already killed—how many?—and he still believed you could do better. Be better. A tear slips down your cheek, freezing in the chill air. Why didn’t you stop? He didn’t even try to fight you. Why didn’t you stop?!
You take a shuddering breath and press on. If the chimera is any indication, the skeletons will have been changed too. You don’t know what to expect as you crest a small hill, but the skeletons that meet you at that top certainly aren’t it.
They are changed. Their teeth are sharp now—sharkish. And the light that gleams from their sockets is a bloody red. They’re dressed in black and red, and the tall skeleton wears real armor now, not papier-mâché. You check them, and flinch, seeing that the taller one is at LV 13.
It can’t be your fault they’re like this. There’s not enough magic in the world to instantly transform the first skeleton you met—and killed—into the skeleton that stands before you now. Something else is going on here.
Distantly, you hear the echo of a child’s giggle, but you’re determined to ignore it. (Party pooper.)
You don’t know what to do. Wherever you are now is vastly more hostile than the first place you fell. Maybe violence really is the only way out.
(Do it. You already broke your promise.)
You swallow, readying your magic, but the tall skeleton takes a breath and seems to come to a decision. “Human,” he says, “Come with me. It’s not safe for you here.”
The smaller tugs at his scarf. “boss, what’re ya doin’?” he hisses, “they got dust on their hands.”
“And? So do I.”
“boss—”
“I’m not killing a child, Sans!” he hisses back.
The smaller skeleton quiets and backs away. The taller clears his throat. “I can see you’ve already had to defend yourself,” he says to you, “Come with me. We’ll get you food and warmer clothes. And then we’ll see if we can get you home.”
(He’s lying.)
You stand frozen in the snow, paralyzed by indecision. He probably is lying to you. The only thing you know for sure is that he’s a monster and a killer. You have every reason to believe he has ill intentions, and only his word that he doesn’t.
But, really, what do you have to lose by trusting him? If he kills you, you’ll just reset. If you kill him, though, you’ll have to carry the LV with you. You know what you’ll become if you keep lashing out when you get scared. You don’t like that person. You don’t want to see them looking back at you from the other side of a mirror ever again.
So, you release your magic and step forward carefully, taking his hand.
.
He isn’t lying. He takes your hand and brings you to his home. He gives you oatmeal and lets you eat while he and his brother argue in hissed whispers in the other room.
The oatmeal is good. Warming and comforting. It reminds you of life before your magic manifested, when your mother would sit with you at the table while you ate. She’d tell you stories and laugh. It seems like she was always smiling then.
She doesn’t smile at you now, on the weeks you’re allowed to return home. She doesn’t sit with you or or tell you stories. For the most part, she tries not to look at you at all. Tears slip down your cheeks. Why does she hate you? You didn’t choose this. You didn’t want to be any kind of mage, let alone a war mage.
It's not fair to be hated for choices you didn’t get to make.
The whispered argument from the other room comes to an end, and Papyrus reappears. He pauses, seeing you cry into your oatmeal. He takes a deep breath and sits beside you. “Human? Are you…alright?”
You shake your head but don’t try to elaborate. He watches as you push the half-finished bowl away and turn to face him. He’s frowning, but up close, you can see the way the crease between his sockets deepens with concern. Your teachers frowned at tears too, but they weren’t concerned, just exasperated and impatient.
He just looks at you and sighs. “Of course you’re not alright. You’re lost and far from home and…this place is dangerous. We’ll get you back to the Surface, though.” He looks you over. “Would you like to wash your face? You’ll feel better.”
You sniff and nod. He takes you upstairs, to the bathroom. “I’ll let you have some privacy,” he says, “When you’re ready, I’ll be downstairs.”
You wash your hands and your face in the sink. The cool water feels good against your too-hot skin. You do feel better, and when you look at yourself in the mirror, it’s just you.
Downstairs, he says he can get you through Snowdin, but he’ll have to leave you in Waterfall. “If Undyne sees you, she’ll…” He sighs. “I’ll do my best to keep her distracted. Stay out of sight. Can you do that?”
You nod, but the plan falls apart almost as soon as you reach Waterfall. Undyne’s waiting for you there, imposing in her dark armor. Papyrus tries to talk to her, and for a moment, it looks like he has her convinced, but then she Checks you. He was willing to overlook the dust on your hands, but she is not.
Everything happens fast after that. She lunges for you, and he shoves you forward, commanding you to run. You hear them fighting as you flee. You don’t learn the outcome of the fight until she catches up to you, murderous intent her eye. Fresh dust covers her armor.
She initiates a battle with you, but she’s erratic, inconsistent. All the DETERMINATION of your last battle is fallen away. It seems she’s fighting herself almost as much as she’s fighting you. You realize that, despite her higher LV, this is an easier fight. Or, it could be.
(This is the weakest she’ll ever be. Do it. Now.)
Instead, at every chance you’re given, you show Mercy. This time, you’re determined to be better.
.
.
[[RESET]]
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.
Your determination costs you your life, but it saves you too. You sit up, and you wonder if things would have gone differently if you hadn’t met Undyne with dust on your hands. Maybe Papyrus could have convinced her.
You’ll try again. But when you stand, you realize the world around you has changed; the passage to the pool is heading West, not East. Cautious, you follow a semi-familiar path, but the chimera that meets you in the Ruins is male this time.
The kindness he offers is easier to believe at least. But he doesn’t want to let you leave either—in fact, his rejection at the door reminds you fiercely of your own parents, how they cut you out of their lives, out of their hearts the moment you were sent to the school. It hurts, reawakening that wound. But at least he’s upset with you because of a choice you’ve made, and not something you have no control over.
You continue West. It’s easier this time—you recognize now the playfulness in the puzzles meant to entrap you, and the combat seems good-natured at its core. Again, you feel that creeping sense of shame. Why were you so frightened that first time through? Why were you so determined to hurt these people?
You shake it off, reminding yourself that you can be better. You do it right this time. You don’t hurt anyone. You learn their names—and try to square these monsters with the monsters you’ve already met. It seems they’ve all been switched around, occupying a different role here than they did in the other timelines.
None of them remember you, and you start to develop a hypothesis. Maybe it doesn’t matter, though; you’re at the end of the Underground. You’ve reached the barrier. You’re free.
But they’re not.
The monsters here are still sealed away. They’ve been nothing but kind to you—okay, maybe not all of them, but they’ve been kinder to you than any human has ever been. There must be a way to break the barrier, to free them. You’re sure of it, in fact.
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[[RESET]]
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[[RESET]]
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[[RESET]]
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It takes time and several deaths, but you think you have a working theory.
The Underground is not a singular place, but multiple. Sometime, long ago, someone had enough DETERMINATION to manipulate the timelines, splitting the Underground into several pocket dimensions. Their timelines ran parallel to each other, and they were similar enough that they were all recognizably the same Underground. Just mirrored or twisted or—fallen.
At their core, though, they’re connected. So connected, in fact, that a reset in one dimension causes the others to reset as well. You can’t be sure, but you think the seal keeping the monsters contained is singular—and that it is acting as your circle of power. Every dimension is encapsulated by that circle, so every dimension experiences the reset and no one but you remembers it. Not fully, at least.
Which will make the next part difficult. If you want to free them, then you can’t just break the seal in one dimension—you have to do it in all of them.
What follows after you make this decision is a long, complicated series of trial, error, resets and—something new—saves. You find that, in certain places, the ambient mana is richer. There, if you focus your DETERMINATION, you can create a marker in that dimension. And only that dimension. When you die, you can bring yourself back to one of those markers instead of reseting everything back to the beginning.
Then you figure out how to reset at will, how to transfer yourself between the dimensions, and the world opens up to you.
You can do this. You’re sure of it.
You start in the primary dimension, the one you first fell into. You let Flowey give you his speech, let Toriel take you to her home. Then—
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[[SAVE]]
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[[RESET]]
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You do the same thing in the next pocket dimension, and the next, until you’ve saved your place in all of them. You don’t kill anyone. You buy a donut from the spider selling baked goods or candy from the fire sprite selling sweets. You let the former Queen or King call you their child, and you accept the pie they offer.
At the door, you steel yourself for their disappointment and eventual rejection. It hurts, every time, but you make it past the Ruins and out into Snowdin Forest to [[SAVE]] once more.
From there, the differences in the timelines make things more complex. In the primary dimension, it’s easy enough—laugh at Sans’ jokes, puzzle out Papyrus’ traps, pet the dogs, and choose mercy whenever you have the chance. It’s not so simple in some of the others, but via trial and error you figure out how to evade the guards in the more dangerous dimensions and which monsters you can rely on to help you instead of hurt you.
The red-eyed Papyrus always takes you to his home to offer food and a chance to wash up, but in others, you have to flirt with him to be invited. In another, it’s a version of Sans you have to tease, though he insists he has a boyfriend, thank you very much, and he wouldn’t appreciate the flirting. He still brings you home and offers tacos.
In one dimension, the skeletons are absent from Snowdin entirely. Instead, the Spider monster that lives above the bar takes you in and leads you through. This is the most difficult dimension of all to navigate. Everything is so different from the others, it takes several RESETS to figure out what you need to do to make it out.
It's time consuming, figuring out what everyone needs, but it’s never tedious. You come to really care for the monsters you’d been so terrified of at first. More confident in your abilities, you start to explore, to push boundaries. You discover that the Undynes and the Alphys-es are always flirting with the idea of a relationship, but neither has initiated. It takes a little push, and a little added encouragement from either a Papyrus or a Sans to get them to take the next step.
You find out that the robot Alphys or Undyne created was actually a little ghost who didn’t like being incorporeal. He wanted something more, something else for himself. You understand that—wanting to be something other than the thing everyone told you you had to be. You’re even a little envious that he found a way to do it.
You wonder, if you bring them to the Surface, will the monsters help you do the same?
In the kinder dimensions, you only have to show Muffet or Grillby that you’ve made a purchase at their fundraiser and they’ll let you pass. In one not-so-nice dimension, you eventually learn that letting Grillby kidnap you is actually a short-cut—he sells you to Queen Alphys, who refuses to kill you without a good fight first. You even have the chance to [[SAVE]] ahead of time. In another, that version of Muffet tells you how to get through the palace and avoid the guards. She warns you about the King, about his attack patterns, and sends you on your way with a Spider donut, adding that she won’t be so nice next time, if you don’t follow her advice and get out while you still can.
You get stuck, for a while, at the end. You can get yourself out in all the dimensions, but still, you can’t save them. You can’t break the seal.
So, you start over. From the very beginning. And try again.
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[[RESET]]
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[[RESET]]
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[[RESET]]
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You keep trying. Things are mostly the same, but you can tell the monsters are experiencing a bit of déjà vu. Papyrus asks if he knows you from somewhere. Undyne squints at you as if trying to figure out why a human child looks so familiar. You need to figure this out, fast; you’re starting to worry the repeated resets may have a more lasting effect.
You explore everything. Talk to everyone. Examine every bit of landscape and furniture, looking for clues. You speak to the Alphys-es and Undynes about their experiments. Meet the amalgamations and console them.
You [[SAVE]] and [[RESET]] and [[SAVE]] until once again, you’re standing in the Judgement Hall, with only the King—no, Queen; Papyrus is the one waiting for you—between you and the seal.
He smiles at you. “heya, kiddo.” He gives you a perfunctory Check. “so you finally made it…huh?” You lean forward to give him the secret codeword, delighted by the childishness of it—and the way he laughs at what is, really, his own joke. “yeah? okay then, ‘legendary fartmaster’; you must know the drill by now.” He sobers a little. “for real, kid. thanks for…well, thanks for being you. you’ve got big things ahead of you—don’t tell her i said that; she’s sensitive about her height—and i know you’re going to make the right decision.” His smile softens into something more genuine. “i believe in you, kid. we all do.”
You finally feel worthy of that belief.
.
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[[SAVE]]
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.
The seal breaks. The monsters are free. The first Toriel you encountered asks if you have someplace to go now. You think of everything you were running from in the beginning and shake your head ‘no’. She asks you to stay, but you hesitate.
The memory of her dust on your hands lingers, as does the memory of her rejection at the door. You want to stay, but…can you? Should you?
Then you remember Papyrus’ willingness to look past your LV, even when you were at your worst. Maybe it’s time to forgive yourself for your mistakes. And you can understand, now, that she really was trying to protect you. You nod, reaching out to take her hand. Then—
The red-eyed Papyrus walks through the archway, freezing when he sees the other Sans. His sockets widen. His own Sans stands at his side, slack-jawed and staring.
“Sans?! What the fuck is going on?”
Ah.
You didn’t really consider what would happen after you broke the seal and the pocket dimensions all opened out onto the same Surface.
