Undertale - Reprise Part 2

Determination. A burning desire, the strength to survive, the willpower to refuse even the finality of death.

But, all things that live are determined. A second factor, an unseen vector, it was reasoned to exist. After all, if Determination, Saving, and Resetting were merely the prizes awarded to the most determined being alive at any one time, why wasn’t the timeline constantly looping back on itself?

Frisk has theorised that the second vector was Regret. The inability to let go of something unfinished, unfulfilled.

Frisk took one last look at the two of them, Asgore and Toriel, the only true parents Frisk had known, and smiled.

And then, Frisk woke up.

It had been a long, long time since the last Reset. Frisk had all but forgotten about the jarring sense of discontinuity, not so much a headache as a soul-ache, as those Frisk’s very essence had been somehow squeezed through a hole in reality, and left tender and raw.

Frisk took a moment to get their bearings, gingerly weaving a hand through the flowers to touch at solid earth. It was real, and vibrant. The colours, the smells, they were so much sharper and more vivid now. It slowly set in that Frisk was once again young, so incredibly young. Frisk sat up, marvelling slightly at how easy and pain free it was, looking down at their hands.

Long ago, minutes ago. Back when they were 8, right now, when it all starts.

The weight of the task at hand pressed down on Frisk, replacing the weight of age. The experience, the mental scars, they would linger, possibly forever. And there was so much to do.

But first, Frisk had to go meet someone very special. Someone who would promptly try to kill them.

But, you know, no one is perfect.

***

The hardest part was playing dumb. Whatever had happened to Asriel, or, Flowey, rather, he’d long since stopped remembering by the time Frisk had found him, long ago, decades from now. To Flowey, there might as well have never been a future at all. It was like the first time, all over again.

“You IDIOT.” It was gleeful, sadistic. Frisk winced, it had been a long time since anything had damaged their Soul. It didn’t tickle, that was for sure.

“In this world, it’s kill or BE killed.”

In the past, Frisk might have used this opportunity to interrupt, make some kind of witty joke. After all, nothing begets contempt like familiarity. But even as Flowey filled the room with bullets, Frisk just quietly smiled, eyes fixed on a telltale flicker, far off in the darkness behind Flowey. Fire magic.

Toriel was one of the few who had seen out the entirety of the timeline with Frisk. Would she remember? Frisk supposed they were about to find out.

“...Why aren’t you reacting? I’m about to KILL YOU! Don’t you care?”

Frisk jumped a little, focusing back on the matter at hand. This was new.

Flowey looked hesitant, shaken even. “It’s like you… You’re…”

Flowey’s bullets slowed, coming to a halt around Frisk and fading into nothing.

“Have… we met? Why don’t I remember?” Flowey looked down, and then back over Frisk as though seeing them for the first time. “Who are you?”

Multiple timelines worth of experimentation had definitively shown that revealing prior knowledge to anyone was dangerous at best, and Reset causing at worst. But, Frisk couldn’t resist.

“It’s me. Your best friend.”

Flowey’s confused look was interrupted by shock as Toriel’s fireball stuck him from behind, sending him flying into the chamber of flowers and disappearing into the yellow petals with a thud.

“What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth…”

Frisk slumped down, relieved to be back on track. The idea of doing all of this over again, and to have it all be different, it was exhausting. But this, this was comforting and familiar. It was time to do what Frisk did best, one last time. For now, at least.

“I am Toriel, caretaker of the ruins.”

Yeah. Good to see you again, mother.

***

Frisk took a moment, finding a nice dry spot by the waterfall in Waterfall, sitting down with a torn notebook and flipping to an empty page. For a terrifying moment, memory failed, and decades worth of planning seemed to evaporate in the face of the dreaded blank whiteness.

Not for the first time, Frisk considered the possibility that they might just be crazy, that Resets were just some kind of bad nightmare and the memories were just lucky guesses, the details of which would evaporate like the details of a dream as soon as it was attempted to transcribe them.

Then, Frisk remembered, breathing a sigh of relief and beginning to sketch out the plan.

Determination had just been the beginning of their research. It could be replicated artificially provided you had a natural source, but the artificial version was less potent, the side effects of an overdose were severe, and dose was proportional to body mass. More importantly, Determination on it’s own did not grant the abilities to Save and Reset.

Saving and Resetting was a form of time travel that could transport your consciousness and Soul, but not your body, through your own personal time line. This ability defaulted to the being with the most Determination, provided they were capable of making use of it.

Souls functioned independently of Determination, Saving, and Resets.

Without one, Asriel was doomed.

Monsters could absorb the souls of humans, which linger after death. Humans can absorb the souls of Boss Monsters, the most powerful of monster souls.

Souls could be released from absorption.

It had taken a very long time to obtain all this information. Alphys’ research had gone cold decades before Frisk had taken it up, and the Gaster files she had based her research on were a barely coherent, disjointed mess. In addition, their research had been focused on breaking the barrier. Frisk had something a little crazier, a little more impossible in mind.

There was no guarantee it would work. But there was nothing else left but to try.

Frisk closed the notebook, hiding the cramped, dense text and sketches that now filled the pages. If memory served correctly, the Dreemurr family monument wasn’t too far ahead. A lullaby and a short nap sounded nice, an 8 year old’s body needed a lot more sleep than Frisk was accustomed to getting.

More than one person watched Frisk get up and stretch, yawning loudly and then strolling off into the slightly damp haze.

Suspicion. Frustrated backseat gaming. Intense, spear based anger. And… confusion. Flowey was fascinated, haunted by this human. Something about the way they had looked at him, it was almost as if he could feel something again.

The melancholic sound of Memory echoed through the darkness.