(5) 15 Years Old
Frisk is 15, and today they're visiting their latest boyfriend at the hospital.
It has been a tumultuous relationship, not helped by their boyfriend being three years their senior and entering a very hard period of their life just as they started dating him. This has all culminated in his injury last week from a car accident.
They open the room to see him resting on his hospital bed, eyes open and headrest tilted up. Frisk is alarmed to see there is a haunted look upon his face. Frisk thinks it might have to do with his two broken legs.
This is isn't good. Davis is supposed to be Ebott High's track champion. The know how much he wants to branch out into professional sports with how often it comes up. They fear those might be career-ending injuries.
But they can't let those worries get to them. Not now. Not when Davis needs him. So they set down on the chair next to him and begin trying to open a conversation with him. They try a variety of topics that they like, or ones Davis likes, though they are unsure if they should broach sports considering his injury.
None of this elicits a reaction from him, increasing Frisk's worry for their boyfriend.
They hear a sliding noise, and notice that Davis had slid their dream journal towards them. Frisk asks if he wants them to read it, but he slowly shakes his head. Seeing then that he does not have any writing utensils on his person, they then ask if he wants them to fill theirs together, and slowly he nods.
Luckily, Frisk brought their own dream journal along with backup pencils, and arranges Davis to have a pencil with him, and helps prop up his journal for him to write in.
Frisk proceeds to fill in their own dream journal alongside Davis.
Originally, it was in solidarity with their boyfriend as he tries to sort through the terrible nightmares he experiences on a daily basis, but the activity has taken on a life of its own when patterns started to emerge in their own dreams. Places and details in dreams going back years had escaped them, but are now starting to click together once they were put down to written words.
A one-room home with a broken table linked to a fish-shaped house set on fire. A purple set of ruins exiting to a land of eternal snow. A flower-filled throne room connected to a grey castle and home. A world of magma later discovered to house a lab. As the year progressed, these disparate dreams connected to each other, piece by piece, until the their imagination coalesced into presenting them as a single, unified world. Today, they had another recurring dream, this time in an orange home that smelled of cinnamon and butterscotch (they didn't know dreams could smell before that).
From these dreams, Frisk determined the following:
At least once every week, they dream of a strange world supposedly trapped under Mount Ebott, filed with ruins, snow, rivers, lava, and a city. A world where no one lives there. An Empty Kingdom, and a trail that leads directly to a hole into the underground nation.
Where once they were just spectators glimpsing a microcosm of the underground, with no understanding of the greater whole they were looking at, the dreams have started to weave together, letting them become a traveler of the Empty Kingdom within each dream as Frisk put more and more together in their dream journal.
One mystery takes precedence over the rest though.
Behind the throne room lies a dark hallway. It pulls them inexorably, baiting them to something unseen. Something that lies in the final room that gives lie to the epithet of the 'Empty' Kingdom. They must reach the end.
But then…they never do.
Every time they dream of that final hallway, that final room behind the throne, they wake up before they can turn the last corner.
Frisk had a sneaking suspicion that the kingdom is not as empty as the dreams led them to believe. If it is located where they think it is, then they are almost certain the legendary Monster in the Mountain is what is in that final room. but never in all their dreams have they seen the creature anywhere in the Empty Kingdom. Just empty homes, empty ruins, and empty hallways.
They can't help but feel as though there should be…more…to their dreams, though what that would constitute is equally beyond them.
Frisk is curious if that trail to the hole—or for that matter, the Empty Kingdom it leads to—actually exists. Alas, try as they might, they have yet to dream of the trailhead of that path up the mountain. They could go searching for it but…
Walking around the mountain gave them panic attacks when they were young, especially with knowledge of the Monster in the Mountain. Their Aunt stopped family hikes there almost immediately when it became a recurring theme. Even now the place makes them nervous.
Davis's dreams are of more pressing concern though, and much, much more serious.
Around a month after they started dating, he had begun suffering severe and frequent episodes of sleep paralysis. All of them filled with vivid, consistent, and terrifying hallucinations of a paralysis demon.
Frisk could never get a description of the demon out of Davis. Of all the details of his dreams he could not remember, it was the paralysis demon's visage.
The strangest thing about the demon, however, is that all the discussions he remembers with the demon are about Frisk.
Always. About Frisk.
It tells him to ask Frisk what their favorite flower is, egging him to go see a movie Frisk likes that he hates, telling him to shut up and listen in conversations with Frisk, quizzes him what it is Frisk likes to eat, what they like to do for fun, how to show their appreciation for them. It doesn't escape Frisk's notice that the paralysis demon sounds a lot like a demented wingman, though whether it's for Frisk or for Davis, they are not certain.
And when he upsets the demon or it finds his dedication to Frisk wanting, it sends him spiraling through vivid and horrible nightmares that leave him screaming awake at night.
They look up at the vacant look in his face as he writes out his journal entry. Frisk talked to Davis's mother, and they learned he has been getting less and less sleep as their relationship developed. Frisk is beginning to worry that they might have had an indirect hand in his crippling, and they are quickly becoming overwhelmed with guilt-by-proxy.
At last, he puts the finishing touches upon his entry. Rather than closing it up however, he shoves it in Frisk's direction, goading them to take the journal and read it for themself. Frisk quietly takes it, thanking him for sharing something so sensitive.
They reads the first entry shown.
It found the video camera.
I don't know how it did it, but it found the camera. It wasn't even mad. It just smiled and teased me, letting it stay on record mode facing the two of us. As though it knew no one would believe me.
Then it turned to talk about Frisk. Of course it wants to talk about Frisk. It always talks about Frisk.
It started with yet another of its quizzes to check I know what Frisk's favorite things are. Flowers. Food. Places. Games. Books. All that crap.
Why the hell is it so interested in them?
Then it demanded me to see that movie Frisk kept yammering about with them. I hate that franchise so goddamn much. Why couldn't they find a better taste in anything else?
I must have said those same words aloud, because the next thing I know it says it wants to make an improv horror film in my bedroom, "since I liked horror flicks so much" according to it.
I saw its flesh peel before my eyes, eyes bulging out of its eye sockets. There was…stuff coming out of its orifices, demanding I go see the film or there would be more of this.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was terrified for my life as blood and puss was spewing out of its mouth and into my face. I couldn't do anything. My body can never move in the nightmares and I'm left stuck with the thing until the end.
When it didn't get the answer it wanted, it upped the ante. It burst its flesh apart at the ribs and formed them into wings. It grabbed me and crashed through the apartment window and flew us up in the sky. I couldn't even fail. Just scream as it kept climbing higher and higher.
It then brought its hideous face to me again, and demanded I see the movie. I just kept saying yes to make it stop, but it just dropped me to the ground. I thought I was going to die.
I woke up before I hit the ground. The nightmare was over.
Frisk peers at Davis. They remember the movie he is referencing. They didn't know he felt so strongly about it. At best he made deflective "okays" about it. They were interested to know he liked horror movies though. Does he still?
They read the next entry. It's much shorter.
There's nothing.
There's NOTHING!
What am I saying? Of course there's nothing! It's all a nightmare, a goddamn nightmare that keeps ruining my life and never stops! Coach is looking to pull me, my mom's worried sick, and I just can't focus on class and Frisk and-DFKSJVEPOFWSD
The end of the sentence is scribbled out. Frisk notes these two entries were recorded a week ago, not long before the accident. They're not the ones he just wrote today.
The turn the page, and are shocked by what it says.
I saw it.
Last night I saw it while I was driving, I saw it. I was…I was I wasfka;dkfjak;lsdmvak;lnd
I fucking cheated with you Frisk! There! Her name is Alex and she's legal like me and she's not some queer that's into all this boring shit you are into! The truth is you weren't supposed to be anything more than for me to experiment and see what's the big deal with trans people. Well guess what, they're as boring as everyone else! Take that for what you will!
I was supposed to be heading out for real fun that night. I was driving to meet Alex at a real party, the kind they won't let kids you go to. It was supposed to be my group's little secret.
I saw it.
I saw the fucking monster in the middle of the road. I turned to dodge and now my car and my legs are wrecked as shit.
It broke my legs Frisk. It broke my goddamn legs!
I can't sleep worth a damn and now I'm hallucinating the thing in real life!
I can't do this, Frisk. I can't keep doing this to myself anymore, or you. It's ruining my life and my health.
I-
I just can't.
I give up.
I'm sorry.
The last sentence is read as tears stream from Frisk's eyes, a hurt look on their face. The cheating felt nothing compared to the pain of the callus dismissal of their relationship in the same breath. Was it all a lie? Was their relationship nothing more than the romantic equivalent of an exotic taste test?
How could he treat them like this?
Frisk steels themself. As much as they want to slap Davis for the things he wrote right next to them, Frisk is not in the mood for injuring a hospital patient. Regardless of Davis's true intentions, his ordeal is taking a psychological and physical toll that can't be downplayed. Frisk appears to be the focal point, and it is only getting worse with each week.
Davis is hurt bad, really, really bad, and they have no idea why this is happening or how to treat it. The best Frisk can think of, and it is a course they are already contemplating, is for them to go their separate ways. With any luck, the breakup and the confession will remove whatever it is that is causing him to have these horrifying nightmares.
Frisk relays this to their (ex-)boyfriend, to confirm with him if he is alright with this course of action.
He nods silently.
Before they leave, Frisk gives Davis one last kiss on the forehead, and wishes him well. If nothing else, they did enjoy their time with him, even if they did not really reciprocate.
If they see each other again, Frisk hopes they can at least reach good terms again.
--
Frisk sleeps in heartbreak, and awakens to a nightmare of tragedy and agony.
They have returned to their mighty 30-foot form from their apotheosis, but even then, they are tossed into a building with reckless abandon.
The impact does nothing but disorient them, and they quickly gain their bearings around the crumbling rubble.
Looking at the screaming, frightened individuals whose walls they just collapsed, they see they've just landed in a monster neighborhood. Frisk is briefly amazed that monsters had settled so far from Ebott when they sense the building-sized fireball heading straight towards them.
They leap out of the wreckage and meet it head-on with a shield. It dissipates upon it, but they are once again demoralized by how much magic it takes to absorb it. Their infinite power is not coming forth fast enough.
They hear a deafening roar, and their opponent comes into view when the flames vanish.
Bigger than a skyscraper, the reptilian creature is something out of a medieval fantasy book. His golden scales shine bright in the night, amplified by the yellow glow of its underbelly. He fans its wings as he approaches, the span stretching hundreds of yards across, maybe a thousand. Boney spikes the size of houses come out of his back, electricity coursing around them, terminating in a tail that whips around and destroys buildings and trees without notice.
The Dragon, they call him. His reptilian face, covered in electrified spikes and spewing hot flames from his mouth, seethes in anger at their Friend, white-on-black eyes meeting red-on-black eyes.
And Frisk can feel his power. They thought their Friend and themself were powerful, but the flame of their magic felt so weak next to the creature. The magic from the Dragon is emanating off him like a sun.
"Just how many souls did he absorb?" Asks Frisk, frightened by the answer they will receive.
"Rough guess?" their Friend thinks to them rhetorically, "Nine, maybe ten."
Their eyes widen and causes the body to falter, nearly killing them when the Dragon swipes at them with the claws on the end of his wings. "That's ten!?" they exclaim in shock, their voice coming out of their mouth, "That means he only has three extra souls. Why does he feel a hundred times stronger than us!?"
"Just be thankful he didn't think to take more-hold on!" Asriel exclaims. He leaps into the air as the next swing comes in deeper, and it digs a huge ditch where their body once was.
They spread their wings and fly up to meet the Dragon face-to-face. The Dragon roars in challenge, but reels in shock when their Friend explodes in size to match the beast's. He grabs a hold of his face and soars out and away from the town they were just thrown into.
He slams him back down into the ground, right on top of a rocky hill that bends his spine back. The Dragon roars in pain, but their Friend punches him and puts him in a daze.
Frisk lifts their own arms. "All out?" Frisk asks. This night's whole experience has been nauseating, but at this point they don't care if they have to resort to violence. Just so long as the dying stops.
Their friend lifts his own arms, "Everything in a hundred miles is a war zone. What's another crater?"
All at once, they slam their fists down onto the dragon's head, sending a shockwave that obliterates the hill beneath them. They don't stop, and they start pummeling his face with punch after punch like a machine gun, generating an earthquake that can be felt for hundreds of miles across the land.
It's not enough.
A talon reaches up for their own face, and it completely overpowers them as it slams them into the ground. The Dragon rights itself and roars in triumph, flapping his wings to lift up and slam them back into the ground again and again. They can see between the clashing that the Dragon's face is completely unblemished. Their barrage did nothing.
They punch it in his side with explosive force. They grunt when it launches them away from the Dragon, but it does its job of bringing them away from him. They shrink back to their previous size to avoid crushing anything. It is clear the size increase didn't improve things.
They hear a familiar meowing ringtone in their coat. It's the Scientist.
They're still too big to work the controls with their fingers, but their telekinesis can work touchscreen just fine.
They see the dragon come in their direction, and the two shove the dragon with all of their telekinetic might. The Dragon roars in frustration and trudges forward towards his prey.
Their Friend flinches from the feedback of the charge. He hurls fireballs at the Dragon that explode with the force of kiloton bombs, but it merely causes the beast to flinch.
Their Friend telekinetically whips the phone out and hits the answer button with a thought.
"WHAT!?" their Friend shouts in frustration.
"Y-Your Majesty!" A nervous, female voice responds, "Thank goodness we got through to you! Oh I knew those upgrades would have come in handy."
"I'm a bit busy here trying to stop a dragon from ending the world," their Friend lets loose a laser blast from the palm of his hand, causing the Dragon to flinch back for a few seconds "What is it?"
"We've managed to evacuate everyone we could to the Underground. It's a bit- it's hard when most people here are human."
Their Friend grunts as the monster makes his way closer and closer, "Look, is it really necessary to inform me of this while I'm in the middle of a fight?"
"It's-It's not-It's not that, your majesty, it's something worse. We have been keeping contact with the human governments during this crisis and they-well they-they think that-"
"THOSE BASTARDS ARE GOING TO NUKE US!" another female voice, the Captain no doubt, shouts through the speaker.
"What!?" Frisk and their Friend shout though the same mouth. The Dragon breaks through their telekinesis and opens his jaws to snap them in. Their Friend flaps their wings and takes them out and away from his reach.
"The humans have lost all confidence in our ability to stop the soul-to not hurt them-to police ourselves. They are attacking with…are launching a…a complete-a complete nuclear saturation attack to wipe out what remains of the west coast, and are planning to exterminate every monster that still lives on the surface so that we can never threaten them again."
"You can't be serious!?" their Friend questions, "After all we have done for them? After we single-handedly saved this broken world from their actions?"
"Your Majesty, tens of millions are already dead. Your battle has wiped out huge swathes of the west coast already. As far as they're concerned, they are-they are retaliating in kind. None of them, and I mean none of them, want to risk a repeat."
Their Friend snarls in rage and frustration, "As if things are not bad enough. Okay. The fallout will keep you trapped in the Underground and the humans out. How long do you think you can last?"
"Not long enough," the Scientist despairs, "There's ten times as many people here as what our resources and infrastructure can sustain, most of them humans. Even if things do not dissolve into violence, the people will-we'll all be facing starvation within months."
"Damnit," their Friend mutters, "In that case, I can take care of the bombs. Tell father to maintain morale while I do the rest. With any luck, I can deter them from this course of action when it's all over"
"Got it." They can hear over the line the Scientist uttering a few words of despair under their breath. "Oh-oh God, we should never have come up to the-to the Surface."
"Damn them all," their Friend hangs the phone in frustration and puts it back into his cloak. They can feel his anxiety building up like a steam engine. "We were so close to getting a lasting peace." They pump magic through their senses and stretch them out, looking for high-speed objects with radioactive materials.
"…Oh."
That's a lot of missiles.
"Worse comes to worse we can take it, right?" Frisk asks nervously, remembering a sordid episode with their Friend, "You said nukes only gave you sunburns, right?"
"I was bluffing!" their Friend lashes in frustration, "Not even I can last against a nuclear bomb before I turn to ash. I don't know if your power would change things, but that would just mean we come out badly injured at best."
Their Friend moves their gaze down to the Dragon below laying waste to what's left of the buildings in the surrounding area, his fires vaporizing steel and stone, "But with that many souls he might not even feel a thing. It'll just give him an opening to kill us."
"There's too many! Ebott will be rendered a radioactive crater!"
"We might still have a chance," their Friend reassures, "nuclear warheads are far, far easier to ruin than activate. They need exacting conditions to work, and our powers can disrupt that." He throws out his hand, extending his magic and will over the incoming warheads. Frisk senses their Friend's intent, and follows in imitation. "I've done this a thousand times before. While he's distracted, we just crush them or blow them up before they reach us, and they'll be rendered-OOF" Their Friend grunts in pain as a tail whips him away from where he stood and into the air.
They reorient and find the Dragon facing them. He roars into their face. The sound drilling pain into their ears. Frisk almost wishes their eardrums could rupture.
Their Friend is not so impaired. Thinking quickly, he flies towards the Dragon, surprising him briefly and giving him enough time to slam into the monster's body.
"I don't have time to deal with you," their Friend announces, "How about I put you somewhere where you can't bother us?"
The Dragon seems to roar response, but is cut off by a bright flash.
When it clears, the Dragon is nowhere to be seen.
"Where did you send it?" Frisk asks.
"Eris, in the far outer reaches of the solar system," he replies, "If it decides to go all out, then Earth won't be blown up in the process."
Frisk fears as to why he knew it was capable of blowing up planets. "It can do that?"
Their friend is silent.
"…Even I could," their Friend says quietly.
Before Frisk can reply, the clash of shattering clash comes from behind them, and they have little warning before the sight of teeth enters their periphery.
They flash forward just as the teeth clamp. They turn to behold the Dragon, his head shoved through a tear in space. Crack-like fissures in the sky leading to a black void where the rest of the body is breaking through..
"Oh…" their Friend mutters, stunned, "he can bend spacetime too."
He snaps his arms forward, giving the Dragon a telekinetic push. He quickly halts as it brings up his own magic, but it's just enough of a push to get the rest of him inside the tear. Their Friend makes a grabbing motion and the tear zips together tightly.
"I can't do this alone," their Friend warns, his hands wobbling in struggle, "Frisk, handle the nuclear warheads while I deal with the monster! Wreck the components and they will be little more than a dirty bomb at worst"
Alright, they can do this. They just had to forget all their lessons of self-control with their Friend up to this point. They focus on each of the radioactive lights in their head and give them a telekinetic pinch them with their magic.
The closest missiles crumble into metal balls. Some of them explode, but they never unleash a nuclear inferno. They can feel the focus and exertion of their Friend, the Dragon pushing them to limits they never had to as a god before, and it makes the Determined to double their efforts. They call lightning to zap several warheads that were moving together, and their confidence begins to grow. They can do this! They can still save everyone! They can-
The world flashes white.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" They scream in unison as their flesh is being burnt to a crisp. Raw fire magic as powerful as a hundred suns pours down upon them with incredible energy. Their skin boils and their bones char as soon as they are exposed. Their robes are nothing but ash and their halo fractures under the heat.
Their Friend initiates a teleport. The world flashes, and in an instant they are outside the pillar of light that just struck them. Their body and clothes regenerate, and when their eyes grow back they can see massive plumes of debris being thrown away from the beam. They look up and spot with their new eyes the Dragon far, far into the sky. He had opened a new portal in orbit.
And he's charging another attack.
"Goddammit, why can't that overgrown lizard screw leave us alone for one damn minute?!" Their Friend flaps his wings and takes to the skies. Frisk can feel his emotions boil with unbridled rage.
With each flap, he grows faster, and faster, and faster. Before Frisk knows it, they are hurtling at the dragon like a meteor, complete with a fiery trail left by their shield. Their friend conjures two swords in his hands and points them directly at his underbelly.
They slam into his face with the force of a nuclear blast, the swords penetrating deep into his underbelly their Friend flies away from the injury they inflicted and raise their arms away from their body. Tens, then hundreds of fireballs manifest around them, and are flung at the Dragon at lightning-fast speeds. "Die," he commands.
Frisk feels their Friend's will override their control over their own arms, and he uses them to spray out rainbow-colored arcs of electricity that clash into the fireball. "Die!" he shouts.
In his two open arms, orbs of rainbow light coalesce in them. He brings them together and screams, "DIE!".
A massive rainbow beam blasts out and engulfs the Dragon completely. Their Friend roars as he puts in more and more energy into the blast. They can do this indefinitely, they have infinite energy, but they do not have infinite throughput. Frisk can already feel the limits to how much they can put out at one time, and they can tell it's not enough.
They blink when they see the yellow beam carve its way out of the rainbow light and head straight towards them. The two teleport out of the way, watching as it travels far away, avoiding the Earth…
…and striking the Moon. It bursts apart in a bright white explosion, sending magma and fragments everywhere around it. When the beam clears, there is a void where it passed through, and nothing but an asteroid field that remains.
Their friend gulps. "Again. Thank goodness he didn't think to take more. The Earth would have been destroyed by now."
"He wasn't even fully exerting itself when we went all out." Frisk mutters. "How can we possibly stop it?" They ask, trying desperately to cover up their mounting panic.
They are too distracted to notice the Dragon coming towards them. When they do, it's too late when the claws on his feet grab ahold of them.
Held within, their Friend struggles to try and break free of his grasp. They are powerless as the Dragon begins diving into the atmosphere.
Feeling themselves start to warm up from friction, Frisk tries throwing up a shield to protect them, but the Dragon notices, and his grip tightens on their body. Their ribs start to compress painfully.
"This isn't good," their Friend says, trying to pry them lose even with one of his arms trapped between the claws, "If we can't get a barrier up we'll be burnt to a crisp on re-entry." Turning to a new strategy, he manifests a sword once again, and stabs it into the Dragon's foot.
It's shallow, but it causes him to roar in pain, but rather than let go, his grip suddenly tightens. The arm held in his claws snaps like a twig. They scream in agony. It's the first time the god had received a broken bone and ohgodithurtsosmuch.
The Dragon is not finished. Angered by the naked defiance of his prey, he holds them out with his legs to bring them to his face. The eyes staring at them remind Frisk of when their Friend first attained his true form. All black sclera with white, slit pupils. It's just as menacing now as it was then. The eyes turn away as it opens his mouth to unleash hellfire upon their form. The struggle, but they cannot escape his grasp.
The Dragon spews forth flames, and Frisk and their Friend are engulfed in fire.
They scream in unity
And then
They
D I E
But they refuse.
Just as the bones start to turn to dust, the particles zoom back onto the skeletal frame. Nerves, organs, muscles, skin, and fur are reconstituted in seconds. The skull's empty scream transforms into a roar of rage and defiance. The fire no longer bothers them.
With all four of their arms, their Friend grabs a hold of the claw that binds him in place and, with all of his might, thrusts it away from them.
To the fighters' astonishment, the claw doesn't budge so much as snap back with a sickening crunch. The dragon yowls and pulls back in agony as he receives his first real injury in the fight.
"Holy crap!" Frisk thinks, "Did Determination just make us stronger!?"
"Not the time!" their Friend says as he flies back into the air, "I don't this boost will let us stop him before the missiles hit Ebott. And even if we kill him, he'll just reset the damn fight all-over again."
"Wait a minute." Frisk goes over what they said seconds ago. Their mind hones in on one particular word. "Determination. That's it!"
Asriel shifts them away from another swipe. "What? What is it?" He ducks as another moon-destroying beam passes over their head, thankfully avoiding the Earth.
"Remember the timelines we first fought? Remember how they defeated their Friend when he eclipsed them in strength?"
Frisk's words draw up ancient memories, and their solution starts to surface in their Friend's mind. "The souls..." he realizes, "Argh, I'm such an idiot."
They would dearly like to deliberate more, but they can already feel their body heating up from friction. Frisk guides one of their hands to their soul above their head, and their Friend takes over and does the grasping for them.
It rips out with surprising ease, disrupted only by the sound of shattering glass as fragments of the halo start to fall off.
"I won't hold him for long with just six souls," their Friend warns, "but hopefully it will be long enough for you to get through to them."
"We have no choice," Frisk replies through the soul, "Your body is first and foremost a vessel, an interface for the souls of monsters and humans. If there is any way to defeat a god more powerful than us, than it is through communing with the souls"
Their Friend yelps when his arms begin to unwind into familiar vines, petals sprouting around his neck as the power of six souls are unable to maintain his form while he's expending so much magic.
"Hurry!" he shouts, and he extends the hand, now unravelling into a vine, out towards the dragon. It makes no effort to dodge the soul. Beaming directly towards the red object that dares stand in his path.
One second, they are about to enter the maw of the Dragon's mouth.
---
The next, they are in pitch black darkness.
Frisk blinks for a few seconds, coming to realize their human form has been returned to them. They flex their fingers, unused to a human body after five years. They are running on a short schedule, however, so with a few quick stretches done, they work their way towards the kaleidoscope of colors glowing within the void.
The monster's soul is very different from their Friend's, less a gestalt of many loosely bundled human souls and more like a single, white monster soul with many colors blended into its outline. Frisk fears that the humans are too tightly fused with the monster for them to be separated.
There is little choice however. If they can't stop the Dragon, everyone they love will perish.
They touch the soul.
"YOU!" the soul, the Dragon's soul screams. "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP US SAFE!"
"Help!" someone else, a man screams, "Oh God help me I'm on fire!"
Frisk flinches back, but pushes forward to grab ahold of the soul.
"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THE MONSTERS" the Dragon screams, "I HATE YOU!"
"I didn't mean it!" "No one was suppose to die." "We just wanted the money" More voices shouted.
Frisk pushes through, and brings the soul tightly to their chest.
"I HATE YOU!"
"Why is this happening!? What is that thing!?"
Three monsters enjoying a festival-
Three muggers desperate for food and money-
They know who this monster once was. They think of their memories of the Dragon before he became the creature he is now. They think of the happenstance of their encounters in the Underground.
"I HATE YOU!"
"Please, please oh god spare my child! Please!"
A fist in anger at the monster's confusion-
Screams at the sight of a monster turning to dust. Panic leading to exchange of magic and real bullets-
They think of all the great things he says about his favorite people. Parents, idols, friends. They tell him he was right. They are the coolest.
"You let my mom and dad die."
"I didn't know monsters could die so easily"
Only the child remains, and the mugger with a smoking gun-
He reaches out to the two souls. He must pay-
They remind him of the day they and their Friend gave him an autograph, and promised to them that they will fly with him one day.
"I want my mom and dad back."
"No one was supposed to be killed."
He didn't know what was happening. All the voices in his head were so confusing. He doesn't know what's happening-
He just wants the guy to pay. He wants to let it out-
"I want my mom."
"I'm sorry."
When Frisk finally lets go, the soul is now pure white. Ten human souls had sprouted from them. Three that had caused this whole mess, and seven more caught as collateral damage.
Frisk looks down, and gently pets the monster child that appeared in their lap. Tears are flowing down his scales.
"I want my mom."
---
When their soul exits the Dragon's body, it is to behold their Friend's new and abominable state. His once beautiful and elegant form has given away to a nightmarish amalgamation of plant matter and machinery. Vines are interwoven everywhere in a chaotic and incoherent mess. Flowers and thorns growing erratically across his body. A massive television speared through by one of the Dragon's claws. But he did not go down without a fight, for as much as the Dragon was able to cripple him, their Friend had wound his vines tightly to the Dragon, binding his legs and arms, restraining his muzzle, and holding his body for as long as it took for Frisk to win the day. Just above the television, Frisk can make out the shattered remains of a glowing red halo.
They're still in freefall towards the Earth. Down below, they can make out the streaks of light from ballistic missiles entering the atmosphere, set to vaporize their home long before they can crash into it. The streaks are lost as their Friend's form falls through the atmosphere, creating a fireball that slowly starts to incinerate his floral body.
There is little time to lose. Frisk's soul flies toward the very top of the television, their mind briefly flashing to the frightening face that was once displayed on it, and they reach out to their Friend.
The sound of glass shattering in reverse informs them of the halo reforming itself, the power of seven human souls reasserting its presence within them. The vines rapidly retract from the shrinking Dragon, and their Friend's claws emerge from the mess of vines as four massive, gauntlet-sized hands tied to chains. They tear into the television and begin pulling it apart.
They hear a muffled scream within, and as the TV frame is pulled apart, it rises in volume until at long last, their Friend's true face re-emerges, taking the frame aside. He rips away at the rest of his vines to leave a massive white orb with a black heard in the middle, his lower body terminating in a large, black spike. His six wings flare out majestically, unrestrained by his previous form.
Ignoring the Dragon, his eyes snaps his head to the Earth below, the nuclear missiles seconds away from impacting. They are frustrated, and they are angry at world that wishes to ruin their dreams, and with their unrelenting fury, they fling their arms forward and send fireballs of multi-spectral fire from his hands by the dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.
They all speed down like meteors to strike Ebott's doom, and they hit the missiles with perfect accuracy. All are turned instantly to ashes.
Ebott is safe…or what's left of it.
They both sigh in relief. And turns back to face the Dragon now that it is disabled.
He double takes when he looks at the balled up lizard floating in orbit. Where the dragon that towered over their 30-foot frame once flew is a monster child small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Its golden scales are now orange, its wings disappeared, leaving only an armless boy wearing an orange-and-yellow striped shirt.
"It's…" he stutters in shock, finally recognizing who the monster is, "It's just a kid."
Frisk shares the memories they witnessed inside of the monster kid. "It was never about destroying humanity," they say as they take the monster into a hand, "All he wanted was to avenge the deaths of his parents. He didn't know what absorbing a soul would do to his control."
Their Friend slowly absorbs their words, processing them over and over in his mind. They can feel him rush through all the memories, his mental will being pulled taught like a string. It's fraying, and something is starting to break in his mind as the seconds tick towards a minute.
Then, he starts laughing.
"Heh, heh. Hehahahahaha. URAHAHAHAHA! This is just comedy gold!" he guffaws, tears falling from his face. Frisk can feel nothing but agony and despair within his soul. "There's no racist drivel that motivated this slaughter. There's no premeditated attempt at genocide. There's no grand conspiracy to eradicate humans or monsters. It's just a stupid kid that wanted to get back at a couple of desperate muggers for killing his parents!"
Their body slumps. They may never tire, but any will to fight is extinguished as mental exhaustion finally takes its toll.
"We'll never have peace if this is all it takes to kickstart extinction," their Friend murmurs, "What the hell is wrong with this world?". They look out to the world. Hundreds of miles up in the sky, they can see with perfect clarity all the destruction their battle had wrought.
The western coast of North America is nothing more than scorched ruins. They cannot even see half of the landscape, as so much smoke and ash had been sent into the sky. And this was before either of them exerted their full might. It could have been so much worse.
One glance upwards is enough to tell them it did get worse.
The moon had been completely shattered. If that attack had hit anywhere on Earth, it would have been enough to destroy every living thing on Earth, maybe even the planet itself.
If any of the debris from the moon hits Earth, or the changes to tidal forces sufficiently catastrophic, it still might kill everyone.
The future that their Friend promised has been ruined. The presence of monsters had altered the course of the world for the worse, and in the greatest insult to their misfortune, it was born out of a one-off wish for justice. Now, that very justice will destroy the world.
Their Friend sighs in despair. "Let's…" they start. They struggle to find words in their distraught state. "Let's just go home." No reply was needed.
Together, the twin gods descend towards the Earth below, down to the ruined city of Ebott.
"Can we undo this?" Frisk asks.
Their Friend shakes their head, "No. The kid wiped away all my save files when it gained control over the timeline. I made a save as soon as I got it back, but it's the only one I got. A reset is the only other option."
Frisk is disquieted by their limited options.
"This…" Frisk starts again, their thoughts turning towards something different "this isn't the first time you saw the end of the world, is it?"
Their friend says nothing for a long while. Not until they began falling below the stratosphere and into the cloud layer. "More times than I ever wished Frisk. Most of the time, I am the reason they happen. And I…" he adjusts himself as they pierce the clouds. The weather had become turbulent from all the disasters they had caused.
"I thought it was because I the exception," he continues, "I'm still too much like him. I take too much after when I did not have a soul, and I thought that is gave me the strength of will to be a monster that can kill humanity, and if I kept that instinct in check, then the danger will never arise."
At last, they break through the cloud cover, and make their way to the peak of Mount Ebott. It is slightly shorter than it once was, courtesy of a swipe from the Dragon, but it thankfully did not compromise the Underground.
Once they land upon it, they look out and behold what is left of Ebott.
When they died, Frisk thought it was a city entering rebirth, a renewal from a sordid period in the country's, complete with beautiful buildings, strong economic and political connections to the rest of America, a prosperous and egalitarian community, and the staging ground for a new era between monsters and humans.
None of that is left now. The once majestic skyscrapers are toppled like fragile toy buildings. The world hates them for the millions slaughtered in one night. The peace between monsters and humans tarnished forever.
"Look at this Frisk," he says, "Look at how wrong I was. All of this happened when a monster only wanted to hurt a small number of people. How can we possibly prepare against that? It can happen to any normal monster on a normal day. We simply don't have the power to stop it."
Something clicks in his mind. "Power…" he bows his head, lips pulling into a vicious grin, "Maybe that's where I went wrong."
The aura he projected when meeting Andres comes about again. Frisk gasps, but their mouth is still stuck in a viscous grin. He's too determined to be stopped
They can't halt what's coming next.
He crushes the monster child in his hand.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" Frisk screeches.
"I was mistaken in thinking humans are the only threat," He declares, releasing his grip to reveal nothing but dust left in his palm, except for one monster soul, and ten human souls, "It didn't matter that monsters are weaker. All it took for everything to crumble to ashes is for one monster to have a bad day to destroy everything."
He looks down, and feels for his locket underneath his robe. "All it took was for two kids to get big ideas in their head and a bit of ritual suicide."
He juggles the souls between is fingers, inspecting them. "You have shown me the way Frisk. My power does not end at stars-shaped bullet patterns and rainbow-colored lightning storms. You have has made us stronger, made me realize there are better ways to wield our abilities. Now think how much faster we can attain that power if we add in more souls to the mix."
His hand grips the souls-
"STOP IT!"
But the fingers are halted before he could clench them. The souls flee from their grasp.
"Frisk?" Their Friend asks confusedly.
"Load your save file NOW!" Frisk commands, "You cannot murder people for the sake of power!"
Their Friend growls. "Idiot! Seven human souls is not enough anymore. What we need is power. Look at what we are capable of with when we mix Determination with just seven souls. Imagine what we can do with eight, or twelve, or a hundred!"
Frisk is becoming frightened by this line of thought.
"I was brought back into this world to break the Barrier. Now I must safeguard the freedom it has brought us. This is why I was brought back. This is what I was made to do."
"No," Frisk mutters "No! This isn't why you're here at all. This isn't why I wanted to save you! There has to be another way!"
"Dammit Frisk, think for once!" their Friend exclaims, "With more souls, we can see and do wherever we want with a thought. Imagine being able to sense when missiles fly half-way across the world with the same ease as hearing a shout by your ear, to then erase it from existence with a snap of the finger. Imagine knowing who, what, when and where the fusion of a monster and human occurs, and having the power to stop or undo it with the ease of plucking apart slices of bread. Imagine our dominion over time breaking the ridiculous constraints of a video game, to let us fine tune and perfect the timeline with a precision and freedom we cannot achieve with save files."
He whirls one of his hands his hand around, and gradually, an object begins to coalesce in front of them. "In this timeline, we used our magic for creation, not destruction. To grant life and prosperity, not cause death and destruction. We saved the world and humanity from itself. Imagine what we could do if we had more."
Their Friend continues as he levitates to the object, "That world…that perfect world made just for you does not need a prince. It does not need an Angel of Death. It does not need an angel, period. None of them will keep us safe. What it needs is a ruler. A god."
He reaches out, and takes it in hand when it is complete. It is a crown, with intricate curves and sharp edges, and had gems of all sorts of colors embedded into the metal.
"A king."
Frisk metaphorically shakes their head in denial, "This is wrong," they say, "We can't rule the world, you know that to be true. Even if we turn back time to before all this happened, there is no way humanity will accept us as king."
"I know," their Friend says sadly, "But it's the only way we can stop extinction. I'll need some time to think on this, but if you must continue to deny reality, then will have to go our separate."
He reaches up to pluck Frisk's soul from his halo.
"No!" Frisk shouts. Their soul is unable to budge from its position "No, stop! Stop this!"
He grabs ahold and once again rips it out with ease. This time, the halo shatters into pieces, the fusion undone permanently.
"Please!" Frisk begs, "You don't have to do this!"
"I know why you are afraid," their Friend soothes, caressing the soul as his body slowly unwinds into vines and plant parts, "There will be so many things that will be broken and hurt by what I am about to do. I know why you don't want me to walk this path, but monsters and humans have left us no choice. I promise though…I promise…"
Gently, he cups Frisk's soul into his hands, and brings it in to his forehead. Frisk struggles to break free.
"I promise everything will be alright."
"Asri-!"
R E S E T
It has been a tumultuous relationship, not helped by their boyfriend being three years their senior and entering a very hard period of their life just as they started dating him. This has all culminated in his injury last week from a car accident.
They open the room to see him resting on his hospital bed, eyes open and headrest tilted up. Frisk is alarmed to see there is a haunted look upon his face. Frisk thinks it might have to do with his two broken legs.
This is isn't good. Davis is supposed to be Ebott High's track champion. The know how much he wants to branch out into professional sports with how often it comes up. They fear those might be career-ending injuries.
But they can't let those worries get to them. Not now. Not when Davis needs him. So they set down on the chair next to him and begin trying to open a conversation with him. They try a variety of topics that they like, or ones Davis likes, though they are unsure if they should broach sports considering his injury.
None of this elicits a reaction from him, increasing Frisk's worry for their boyfriend.
They hear a sliding noise, and notice that Davis had slid their dream journal towards them. Frisk asks if he wants them to read it, but he slowly shakes his head. Seeing then that he does not have any writing utensils on his person, they then ask if he wants them to fill theirs together, and slowly he nods.
Luckily, Frisk brought their own dream journal along with backup pencils, and arranges Davis to have a pencil with him, and helps prop up his journal for him to write in.
Frisk proceeds to fill in their own dream journal alongside Davis.
Originally, it was in solidarity with their boyfriend as he tries to sort through the terrible nightmares he experiences on a daily basis, but the activity has taken on a life of its own when patterns started to emerge in their own dreams. Places and details in dreams going back years had escaped them, but are now starting to click together once they were put down to written words.
A one-room home with a broken table linked to a fish-shaped house set on fire. A purple set of ruins exiting to a land of eternal snow. A flower-filled throne room connected to a grey castle and home. A world of magma later discovered to house a lab. As the year progressed, these disparate dreams connected to each other, piece by piece, until the their imagination coalesced into presenting them as a single, unified world. Today, they had another recurring dream, this time in an orange home that smelled of cinnamon and butterscotch (they didn't know dreams could smell before that).
From these dreams, Frisk determined the following:
At least once every week, they dream of a strange world supposedly trapped under Mount Ebott, filed with ruins, snow, rivers, lava, and a city. A world where no one lives there. An Empty Kingdom, and a trail that leads directly to a hole into the underground nation.
Where once they were just spectators glimpsing a microcosm of the underground, with no understanding of the greater whole they were looking at, the dreams have started to weave together, letting them become a traveler of the Empty Kingdom within each dream as Frisk put more and more together in their dream journal.
One mystery takes precedence over the rest though.
Behind the throne room lies a dark hallway. It pulls them inexorably, baiting them to something unseen. Something that lies in the final room that gives lie to the epithet of the 'Empty' Kingdom. They must reach the end.
But then…they never do.
Every time they dream of that final hallway, that final room behind the throne, they wake up before they can turn the last corner.
Frisk had a sneaking suspicion that the kingdom is not as empty as the dreams led them to believe. If it is located where they think it is, then they are almost certain the legendary Monster in the Mountain is what is in that final room. but never in all their dreams have they seen the creature anywhere in the Empty Kingdom. Just empty homes, empty ruins, and empty hallways.
They can't help but feel as though there should be…more…to their dreams, though what that would constitute is equally beyond them.
Frisk is curious if that trail to the hole—or for that matter, the Empty Kingdom it leads to—actually exists. Alas, try as they might, they have yet to dream of the trailhead of that path up the mountain. They could go searching for it but…
Walking around the mountain gave them panic attacks when they were young, especially with knowledge of the Monster in the Mountain. Their Aunt stopped family hikes there almost immediately when it became a recurring theme. Even now the place makes them nervous.
Davis's dreams are of more pressing concern though, and much, much more serious.
Around a month after they started dating, he had begun suffering severe and frequent episodes of sleep paralysis. All of them filled with vivid, consistent, and terrifying hallucinations of a paralysis demon.
Frisk could never get a description of the demon out of Davis. Of all the details of his dreams he could not remember, it was the paralysis demon's visage.
The strangest thing about the demon, however, is that all the discussions he remembers with the demon are about Frisk.
Always. About Frisk.
It tells him to ask Frisk what their favorite flower is, egging him to go see a movie Frisk likes that he hates, telling him to shut up and listen in conversations with Frisk, quizzes him what it is Frisk likes to eat, what they like to do for fun, how to show their appreciation for them. It doesn't escape Frisk's notice that the paralysis demon sounds a lot like a demented wingman, though whether it's for Frisk or for Davis, they are not certain.
And when he upsets the demon or it finds his dedication to Frisk wanting, it sends him spiraling through vivid and horrible nightmares that leave him screaming awake at night.
They look up at the vacant look in his face as he writes out his journal entry. Frisk talked to Davis's mother, and they learned he has been getting less and less sleep as their relationship developed. Frisk is beginning to worry that they might have had an indirect hand in his crippling, and they are quickly becoming overwhelmed with guilt-by-proxy.
At last, he puts the finishing touches upon his entry. Rather than closing it up however, he shoves it in Frisk's direction, goading them to take the journal and read it for themself. Frisk quietly takes it, thanking him for sharing something so sensitive.
They reads the first entry shown.
It found the video camera.
I don't know how it did it, but it found the camera. It wasn't even mad. It just smiled and teased me, letting it stay on record mode facing the two of us. As though it knew no one would believe me.
Then it turned to talk about Frisk. Of course it wants to talk about Frisk. It always talks about Frisk.
It started with yet another of its quizzes to check I know what Frisk's favorite things are. Flowers. Food. Places. Games. Books. All that crap.
Why the hell is it so interested in them?
Then it demanded me to see that movie Frisk kept yammering about with them. I hate that franchise so goddamn much. Why couldn't they find a better taste in anything else?
I must have said those same words aloud, because the next thing I know it says it wants to make an improv horror film in my bedroom, "since I liked horror flicks so much" according to it.
I saw its flesh peel before my eyes, eyes bulging out of its eye sockets. There was…stuff coming out of its orifices, demanding I go see the film or there would be more of this.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was terrified for my life as blood and puss was spewing out of its mouth and into my face. I couldn't do anything. My body can never move in the nightmares and I'm left stuck with the thing until the end.
When it didn't get the answer it wanted, it upped the ante. It burst its flesh apart at the ribs and formed them into wings. It grabbed me and crashed through the apartment window and flew us up in the sky. I couldn't even fail. Just scream as it kept climbing higher and higher.
It then brought its hideous face to me again, and demanded I see the movie. I just kept saying yes to make it stop, but it just dropped me to the ground. I thought I was going to die.
I woke up before I hit the ground. The nightmare was over.
Frisk peers at Davis. They remember the movie he is referencing. They didn't know he felt so strongly about it. At best he made deflective "okays" about it. They were interested to know he liked horror movies though. Does he still?
They read the next entry. It's much shorter.
There's nothing.
There's NOTHING!
What am I saying? Of course there's nothing! It's all a nightmare, a goddamn nightmare that keeps ruining my life and never stops! Coach is looking to pull me, my mom's worried sick, and I just can't focus on class and Frisk and-
The end of the sentence is scribbled out. Frisk notes these two entries were recorded a week ago, not long before the accident. They're not the ones he just wrote today.
The turn the page, and are shocked by what it says.
I saw it.
Last night I saw it while I was driving, I saw it. I was…I was I wasfka;dkfjak;lsdmvak;lnd
I fucking cheated with you Frisk! There! Her name is Alex and she's legal like me and she's not some queer that's into all this boring shit you are into! The truth is you weren't supposed to be anything more than for me to experiment and see what's the big deal with trans people. Well guess what, they're as boring as everyone else! Take that for what you will!
I was supposed to be heading out for real fun that night. I was driving to meet Alex at a real party, the kind they won't let kids you go to. It was supposed to be my group's little secret.
I saw it.
I saw the fucking monster in the middle of the road. I turned to dodge and now my car and my legs are wrecked as shit.
It broke my legs Frisk. It broke my goddamn legs!
I can't sleep worth a damn and now I'm hallucinating the thing in real life!
I can't do this, Frisk. I can't keep doing this to myself anymore, or you. It's ruining my life and my health.
I-
I just can't.
I give up.
I'm sorry.
The last sentence is read as tears stream from Frisk's eyes, a hurt look on their face. The cheating felt nothing compared to the pain of the callus dismissal of their relationship in the same breath. Was it all a lie? Was their relationship nothing more than the romantic equivalent of an exotic taste test?
How could he treat them like this?
Frisk steels themself. As much as they want to slap Davis for the things he wrote right next to them, Frisk is not in the mood for injuring a hospital patient. Regardless of Davis's true intentions, his ordeal is taking a psychological and physical toll that can't be downplayed. Frisk appears to be the focal point, and it is only getting worse with each week.
Davis is hurt bad, really, really bad, and they have no idea why this is happening or how to treat it. The best Frisk can think of, and it is a course they are already contemplating, is for them to go their separate ways. With any luck, the breakup and the confession will remove whatever it is that is causing him to have these horrifying nightmares.
Frisk relays this to their (ex-)boyfriend, to confirm with him if he is alright with this course of action.
He nods silently.
Before they leave, Frisk gives Davis one last kiss on the forehead, and wishes him well. If nothing else, they did enjoy their time with him, even if they did not really reciprocate.
If they see each other again, Frisk hopes they can at least reach good terms again.
--
Frisk sleeps in heartbreak, and awakens to a nightmare of tragedy and agony.
They have returned to their mighty 30-foot form from their apotheosis, but even then, they are tossed into a building with reckless abandon.
The impact does nothing but disorient them, and they quickly gain their bearings around the crumbling rubble.
Looking at the screaming, frightened individuals whose walls they just collapsed, they see they've just landed in a monster neighborhood. Frisk is briefly amazed that monsters had settled so far from Ebott when they sense the building-sized fireball heading straight towards them.
They leap out of the wreckage and meet it head-on with a shield. It dissipates upon it, but they are once again demoralized by how much magic it takes to absorb it. Their infinite power is not coming forth fast enough.
They hear a deafening roar, and their opponent comes into view when the flames vanish.
Bigger than a skyscraper, the reptilian creature is something out of a medieval fantasy book. His golden scales shine bright in the night, amplified by the yellow glow of its underbelly. He fans its wings as he approaches, the span stretching hundreds of yards across, maybe a thousand. Boney spikes the size of houses come out of his back, electricity coursing around them, terminating in a tail that whips around and destroys buildings and trees without notice.
The Dragon, they call him. His reptilian face, covered in electrified spikes and spewing hot flames from his mouth, seethes in anger at their Friend, white-on-black eyes meeting red-on-black eyes.
And Frisk can feel his power. They thought their Friend and themself were powerful, but the flame of their magic felt so weak next to the creature. The magic from the Dragon is emanating off him like a sun.
"Just how many souls did he absorb?" Asks Frisk, frightened by the answer they will receive.
"Rough guess?" their Friend thinks to them rhetorically, "Nine, maybe ten."
Their eyes widen and causes the body to falter, nearly killing them when the Dragon swipes at them with the claws on the end of his wings. "That's ten!?" they exclaim in shock, their voice coming out of their mouth, "That means he only has three extra souls. Why does he feel a hundred times stronger than us!?"
"Just be thankful he didn't think to take more-hold on!" Asriel exclaims. He leaps into the air as the next swing comes in deeper, and it digs a huge ditch where their body once was.
They spread their wings and fly up to meet the Dragon face-to-face. The Dragon roars in challenge, but reels in shock when their Friend explodes in size to match the beast's. He grabs a hold of his face and soars out and away from the town they were just thrown into.
He slams him back down into the ground, right on top of a rocky hill that bends his spine back. The Dragon roars in pain, but their Friend punches him and puts him in a daze.
Frisk lifts their own arms. "All out?" Frisk asks. This night's whole experience has been nauseating, but at this point they don't care if they have to resort to violence. Just so long as the dying stops.
Their friend lifts his own arms, "Everything in a hundred miles is a war zone. What's another crater?"
All at once, they slam their fists down onto the dragon's head, sending a shockwave that obliterates the hill beneath them. They don't stop, and they start pummeling his face with punch after punch like a machine gun, generating an earthquake that can be felt for hundreds of miles across the land.
It's not enough.
A talon reaches up for their own face, and it completely overpowers them as it slams them into the ground. The Dragon rights itself and roars in triumph, flapping his wings to lift up and slam them back into the ground again and again. They can see between the clashing that the Dragon's face is completely unblemished. Their barrage did nothing.
They punch it in his side with explosive force. They grunt when it launches them away from the Dragon, but it does its job of bringing them away from him. They shrink back to their previous size to avoid crushing anything. It is clear the size increase didn't improve things.
They hear a familiar meowing ringtone in their coat. It's the Scientist.
They're still too big to work the controls with their fingers, but their telekinesis can work touchscreen just fine.
They see the dragon come in their direction, and the two shove the dragon with all of their telekinetic might. The Dragon roars in frustration and trudges forward towards his prey.
Their Friend flinches from the feedback of the charge. He hurls fireballs at the Dragon that explode with the force of kiloton bombs, but it merely causes the beast to flinch.
Their Friend telekinetically whips the phone out and hits the answer button with a thought.
"WHAT!?" their Friend shouts in frustration.
"Y-Your Majesty!" A nervous, female voice responds, "Thank goodness we got through to you! Oh I knew those upgrades would have come in handy."
"I'm a bit busy here trying to stop a dragon from ending the world," their Friend lets loose a laser blast from the palm of his hand, causing the Dragon to flinch back for a few seconds "What is it?"
"We've managed to evacuate everyone we could to the Underground. It's a bit- it's hard when most people here are human."
Their Friend grunts as the monster makes his way closer and closer, "Look, is it really necessary to inform me of this while I'm in the middle of a fight?"
"It's-It's not-It's not that, your majesty, it's something worse. We have been keeping contact with the human governments during this crisis and they-well they-they think that-"
"THOSE BASTARDS ARE GOING TO NUKE US!" another female voice, the Captain no doubt, shouts through the speaker.
"What!?" Frisk and their Friend shout though the same mouth. The Dragon breaks through their telekinesis and opens his jaws to snap them in. Their Friend flaps their wings and takes them out and away from his reach.
"The humans have lost all confidence in our ability to stop the soul-to not hurt them-to police ourselves. They are attacking with…are launching a…a complete-a complete nuclear saturation attack to wipe out what remains of the west coast, and are planning to exterminate every monster that still lives on the surface so that we can never threaten them again."
"You can't be serious!?" their Friend questions, "After all we have done for them? After we single-handedly saved this broken world from their actions?"
"Your Majesty, tens of millions are already dead. Your battle has wiped out huge swathes of the west coast already. As far as they're concerned, they are-they are retaliating in kind. None of them, and I mean none of them, want to risk a repeat."
Their Friend snarls in rage and frustration, "As if things are not bad enough. Okay. The fallout will keep you trapped in the Underground and the humans out. How long do you think you can last?"
"Not long enough," the Scientist despairs, "There's ten times as many people here as what our resources and infrastructure can sustain, most of them humans. Even if things do not dissolve into violence, the people will-we'll all be facing starvation within months."
"Damnit," their Friend mutters, "In that case, I can take care of the bombs. Tell father to maintain morale while I do the rest. With any luck, I can deter them from this course of action when it's all over"
"Got it." They can hear over the line the Scientist uttering a few words of despair under their breath. "Oh-oh God, we should never have come up to the-to the Surface."
"Damn them all," their Friend hangs the phone in frustration and puts it back into his cloak. They can feel his anxiety building up like a steam engine. "We were so close to getting a lasting peace." They pump magic through their senses and stretch them out, looking for high-speed objects with radioactive materials.
"…Oh."
That's a lot of missiles.
"Worse comes to worse we can take it, right?" Frisk asks nervously, remembering a sordid episode with their Friend, "You said nukes only gave you sunburns, right?"
"I was bluffing!" their Friend lashes in frustration, "Not even I can last against a nuclear bomb before I turn to ash. I don't know if your power would change things, but that would just mean we come out badly injured at best."
Their Friend moves their gaze down to the Dragon below laying waste to what's left of the buildings in the surrounding area, his fires vaporizing steel and stone, "But with that many souls he might not even feel a thing. It'll just give him an opening to kill us."
"There's too many! Ebott will be rendered a radioactive crater!"
"We might still have a chance," their Friend reassures, "nuclear warheads are far, far easier to ruin than activate. They need exacting conditions to work, and our powers can disrupt that." He throws out his hand, extending his magic and will over the incoming warheads. Frisk senses their Friend's intent, and follows in imitation. "I've done this a thousand times before. While he's distracted, we just crush them or blow them up before they reach us, and they'll be rendered-OOF" Their Friend grunts in pain as a tail whips him away from where he stood and into the air.
They reorient and find the Dragon facing them. He roars into their face. The sound drilling pain into their ears. Frisk almost wishes their eardrums could rupture.
Their Friend is not so impaired. Thinking quickly, he flies towards the Dragon, surprising him briefly and giving him enough time to slam into the monster's body.
"I don't have time to deal with you," their Friend announces, "How about I put you somewhere where you can't bother us?"
The Dragon seems to roar response, but is cut off by a bright flash.
When it clears, the Dragon is nowhere to be seen.
"Where did you send it?" Frisk asks.
"Eris, in the far outer reaches of the solar system," he replies, "If it decides to go all out, then Earth won't be blown up in the process."
Frisk fears as to why he knew it was capable of blowing up planets. "It can do that?"
Their friend is silent.
"…Even I could," their Friend says quietly.
Before Frisk can reply, the clash of shattering clash comes from behind them, and they have little warning before the sight of teeth enters their periphery.
They flash forward just as the teeth clamp. They turn to behold the Dragon, his head shoved through a tear in space. Crack-like fissures in the sky leading to a black void where the rest of the body is breaking through..
"Oh…" their Friend mutters, stunned, "he can bend spacetime too."
He snaps his arms forward, giving the Dragon a telekinetic push. He quickly halts as it brings up his own magic, but it's just enough of a push to get the rest of him inside the tear. Their Friend makes a grabbing motion and the tear zips together tightly.
"I can't do this alone," their Friend warns, his hands wobbling in struggle, "Frisk, handle the nuclear warheads while I deal with the monster! Wreck the components and they will be little more than a dirty bomb at worst"
Alright, they can do this. They just had to forget all their lessons of self-control with their Friend up to this point. They focus on each of the radioactive lights in their head and give them a telekinetic pinch them with their magic.
The closest missiles crumble into metal balls. Some of them explode, but they never unleash a nuclear inferno. They can feel the focus and exertion of their Friend, the Dragon pushing them to limits they never had to as a god before, and it makes the Determined to double their efforts. They call lightning to zap several warheads that were moving together, and their confidence begins to grow. They can do this! They can still save everyone! They can-
The world flashes white.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" They scream in unison as their flesh is being burnt to a crisp. Raw fire magic as powerful as a hundred suns pours down upon them with incredible energy. Their skin boils and their bones char as soon as they are exposed. Their robes are nothing but ash and their halo fractures under the heat.
Their Friend initiates a teleport. The world flashes, and in an instant they are outside the pillar of light that just struck them. Their body and clothes regenerate, and when their eyes grow back they can see massive plumes of debris being thrown away from the beam. They look up and spot with their new eyes the Dragon far, far into the sky. He had opened a new portal in orbit.
And he's charging another attack.
"Goddammit, why can't that overgrown lizard screw leave us alone for one damn minute?!" Their Friend flaps his wings and takes to the skies. Frisk can feel his emotions boil with unbridled rage.
With each flap, he grows faster, and faster, and faster. Before Frisk knows it, they are hurtling at the dragon like a meteor, complete with a fiery trail left by their shield. Their friend conjures two swords in his hands and points them directly at his underbelly.
They slam into his face with the force of a nuclear blast, the swords penetrating deep into his underbelly their Friend flies away from the injury they inflicted and raise their arms away from their body. Tens, then hundreds of fireballs manifest around them, and are flung at the Dragon at lightning-fast speeds. "Die," he commands.
Frisk feels their Friend's will override their control over their own arms, and he uses them to spray out rainbow-colored arcs of electricity that clash into the fireball. "Die!" he shouts.
In his two open arms, orbs of rainbow light coalesce in them. He brings them together and screams, "DIE!".
A massive rainbow beam blasts out and engulfs the Dragon completely. Their Friend roars as he puts in more and more energy into the blast. They can do this indefinitely, they have infinite energy, but they do not have infinite throughput. Frisk can already feel the limits to how much they can put out at one time, and they can tell it's not enough.
They blink when they see the yellow beam carve its way out of the rainbow light and head straight towards them. The two teleport out of the way, watching as it travels far away, avoiding the Earth…
…and striking the Moon. It bursts apart in a bright white explosion, sending magma and fragments everywhere around it. When the beam clears, there is a void where it passed through, and nothing but an asteroid field that remains.
Their friend gulps. "Again. Thank goodness he didn't think to take more. The Earth would have been destroyed by now."
"He wasn't even fully exerting itself when we went all out." Frisk mutters. "How can we possibly stop it?" They ask, trying desperately to cover up their mounting panic.
They are too distracted to notice the Dragon coming towards them. When they do, it's too late when the claws on his feet grab ahold of them.
Held within, their Friend struggles to try and break free of his grasp. They are powerless as the Dragon begins diving into the atmosphere.
Feeling themselves start to warm up from friction, Frisk tries throwing up a shield to protect them, but the Dragon notices, and his grip tightens on their body. Their ribs start to compress painfully.
"This isn't good," their Friend says, trying to pry them lose even with one of his arms trapped between the claws, "If we can't get a barrier up we'll be burnt to a crisp on re-entry." Turning to a new strategy, he manifests a sword once again, and stabs it into the Dragon's foot.
It's shallow, but it causes him to roar in pain, but rather than let go, his grip suddenly tightens. The arm held in his claws snaps like a twig. They scream in agony. It's the first time the god had received a broken bone and ohgodithurtsosmuch.
The Dragon is not finished. Angered by the naked defiance of his prey, he holds them out with his legs to bring them to his face. The eyes staring at them remind Frisk of when their Friend first attained his true form. All black sclera with white, slit pupils. It's just as menacing now as it was then. The eyes turn away as it opens his mouth to unleash hellfire upon their form. The struggle, but they cannot escape his grasp.
The Dragon spews forth flames, and Frisk and their Friend are engulfed in fire.
They scream in unity
And then
They
D I E
But they refuse.
Just as the bones start to turn to dust, the particles zoom back onto the skeletal frame. Nerves, organs, muscles, skin, and fur are reconstituted in seconds. The skull's empty scream transforms into a roar of rage and defiance. The fire no longer bothers them.
With all four of their arms, their Friend grabs a hold of the claw that binds him in place and, with all of his might, thrusts it away from them.
To the fighters' astonishment, the claw doesn't budge so much as snap back with a sickening crunch. The dragon yowls and pulls back in agony as he receives his first real injury in the fight.
"Holy crap!" Frisk thinks, "Did Determination just make us stronger!?"
"Not the time!" their Friend says as he flies back into the air, "I don't this boost will let us stop him before the missiles hit Ebott. And even if we kill him, he'll just reset the damn fight all-over again."
"Wait a minute." Frisk goes over what they said seconds ago. Their mind hones in on one particular word. "Determination. That's it!"
Asriel shifts them away from another swipe. "What? What is it?" He ducks as another moon-destroying beam passes over their head, thankfully avoiding the Earth.
"Remember the timelines we first fought? Remember how they defeated their Friend when he eclipsed them in strength?"
Frisk's words draw up ancient memories, and their solution starts to surface in their Friend's mind. "The souls..." he realizes, "Argh, I'm such an idiot."
They would dearly like to deliberate more, but they can already feel their body heating up from friction. Frisk guides one of their hands to their soul above their head, and their Friend takes over and does the grasping for them.
It rips out with surprising ease, disrupted only by the sound of shattering glass as fragments of the halo start to fall off.
"I won't hold him for long with just six souls," their Friend warns, "but hopefully it will be long enough for you to get through to them."
"We have no choice," Frisk replies through the soul, "Your body is first and foremost a vessel, an interface for the souls of monsters and humans. If there is any way to defeat a god more powerful than us, than it is through communing with the souls"
Their Friend yelps when his arms begin to unwind into familiar vines, petals sprouting around his neck as the power of six souls are unable to maintain his form while he's expending so much magic.
"Hurry!" he shouts, and he extends the hand, now unravelling into a vine, out towards the dragon. It makes no effort to dodge the soul. Beaming directly towards the red object that dares stand in his path.
One second, they are about to enter the maw of the Dragon's mouth.
---
The next, they are in pitch black darkness.
Frisk blinks for a few seconds, coming to realize their human form has been returned to them. They flex their fingers, unused to a human body after five years. They are running on a short schedule, however, so with a few quick stretches done, they work their way towards the kaleidoscope of colors glowing within the void.
The monster's soul is very different from their Friend's, less a gestalt of many loosely bundled human souls and more like a single, white monster soul with many colors blended into its outline. Frisk fears that the humans are too tightly fused with the monster for them to be separated.
There is little choice however. If they can't stop the Dragon, everyone they love will perish.
They touch the soul.
"YOU!" the soul, the Dragon's soul screams. "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP US SAFE!"
"Help!" someone else, a man screams, "Oh God help me I'm on fire!"
Frisk flinches back, but pushes forward to grab ahold of the soul.
"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THE MONSTERS" the Dragon screams, "I HATE YOU!"
"I didn't mean it!" "No one was suppose to die." "We just wanted the money" More voices shouted.
Frisk pushes through, and brings the soul tightly to their chest.
"I HATE YOU!"
"Why is this happening!? What is that thing!?"
Three monsters enjoying a festival-
Three muggers desperate for food and money-
They know who this monster once was. They think of their memories of the Dragon before he became the creature he is now. They think of the happenstance of their encounters in the Underground.
"I HATE YOU!"
"Please, please oh god spare my child! Please!"
A fist in anger at the monster's confusion-
Screams at the sight of a monster turning to dust. Panic leading to exchange of magic and real bullets-
They think of all the great things he says about his favorite people. Parents, idols, friends. They tell him he was right. They are the coolest.
"You let my mom and dad die."
"I didn't know monsters could die so easily"
Only the child remains, and the mugger with a smoking gun-
He reaches out to the two souls. He must pay-
They remind him of the day they and their Friend gave him an autograph, and promised to them that they will fly with him one day.
"I want my mom and dad back."
"No one was supposed to be killed."
He didn't know what was happening. All the voices in his head were so confusing. He doesn't know what's happening-
He just wants the guy to pay. He wants to let it out-
"I want my mom."
"I'm sorry."
When Frisk finally lets go, the soul is now pure white. Ten human souls had sprouted from them. Three that had caused this whole mess, and seven more caught as collateral damage.
Frisk looks down, and gently pets the monster child that appeared in their lap. Tears are flowing down his scales.
"I want my mom."
---
When their soul exits the Dragon's body, it is to behold their Friend's new and abominable state. His once beautiful and elegant form has given away to a nightmarish amalgamation of plant matter and machinery. Vines are interwoven everywhere in a chaotic and incoherent mess. Flowers and thorns growing erratically across his body. A massive television speared through by one of the Dragon's claws. But he did not go down without a fight, for as much as the Dragon was able to cripple him, their Friend had wound his vines tightly to the Dragon, binding his legs and arms, restraining his muzzle, and holding his body for as long as it took for Frisk to win the day. Just above the television, Frisk can make out the shattered remains of a glowing red halo.
They're still in freefall towards the Earth. Down below, they can make out the streaks of light from ballistic missiles entering the atmosphere, set to vaporize their home long before they can crash into it. The streaks are lost as their Friend's form falls through the atmosphere, creating a fireball that slowly starts to incinerate his floral body.
There is little time to lose. Frisk's soul flies toward the very top of the television, their mind briefly flashing to the frightening face that was once displayed on it, and they reach out to their Friend.
The sound of glass shattering in reverse informs them of the halo reforming itself, the power of seven human souls reasserting its presence within them. The vines rapidly retract from the shrinking Dragon, and their Friend's claws emerge from the mess of vines as four massive, gauntlet-sized hands tied to chains. They tear into the television and begin pulling it apart.
They hear a muffled scream within, and as the TV frame is pulled apart, it rises in volume until at long last, their Friend's true face re-emerges, taking the frame aside. He rips away at the rest of his vines to leave a massive white orb with a black heard in the middle, his lower body terminating in a large, black spike. His six wings flare out majestically, unrestrained by his previous form.
Ignoring the Dragon, his eyes snaps his head to the Earth below, the nuclear missiles seconds away from impacting. They are frustrated, and they are angry at world that wishes to ruin their dreams, and with their unrelenting fury, they fling their arms forward and send fireballs of multi-spectral fire from his hands by the dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.
They all speed down like meteors to strike Ebott's doom, and they hit the missiles with perfect accuracy. All are turned instantly to ashes.
Ebott is safe…or what's left of it.
They both sigh in relief. And turns back to face the Dragon now that it is disabled.
He double takes when he looks at the balled up lizard floating in orbit. Where the dragon that towered over their 30-foot frame once flew is a monster child small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Its golden scales are now orange, its wings disappeared, leaving only an armless boy wearing an orange-and-yellow striped shirt.
"It's…" he stutters in shock, finally recognizing who the monster is, "It's just a kid."
Frisk shares the memories they witnessed inside of the monster kid. "It was never about destroying humanity," they say as they take the monster into a hand, "All he wanted was to avenge the deaths of his parents. He didn't know what absorbing a soul would do to his control."
Their Friend slowly absorbs their words, processing them over and over in his mind. They can feel him rush through all the memories, his mental will being pulled taught like a string. It's fraying, and something is starting to break in his mind as the seconds tick towards a minute.
Then, he starts laughing.
"Heh, heh. Hehahahahaha. URAHAHAHAHA! This is just comedy gold!" he guffaws, tears falling from his face. Frisk can feel nothing but agony and despair within his soul. "There's no racist drivel that motivated this slaughter. There's no premeditated attempt at genocide. There's no grand conspiracy to eradicate humans or monsters. It's just a stupid kid that wanted to get back at a couple of desperate muggers for killing his parents!"
Their body slumps. They may never tire, but any will to fight is extinguished as mental exhaustion finally takes its toll.
"We'll never have peace if this is all it takes to kickstart extinction," their Friend murmurs, "What the hell is wrong with this world?". They look out to the world. Hundreds of miles up in the sky, they can see with perfect clarity all the destruction their battle had wrought.
The western coast of North America is nothing more than scorched ruins. They cannot even see half of the landscape, as so much smoke and ash had been sent into the sky. And this was before either of them exerted their full might. It could have been so much worse.
One glance upwards is enough to tell them it did get worse.
The moon had been completely shattered. If that attack had hit anywhere on Earth, it would have been enough to destroy every living thing on Earth, maybe even the planet itself.
If any of the debris from the moon hits Earth, or the changes to tidal forces sufficiently catastrophic, it still might kill everyone.
The future that their Friend promised has been ruined. The presence of monsters had altered the course of the world for the worse, and in the greatest insult to their misfortune, it was born out of a one-off wish for justice. Now, that very justice will destroy the world.
Their Friend sighs in despair. "Let's…" they start. They struggle to find words in their distraught state. "Let's just go home." No reply was needed.
Together, the twin gods descend towards the Earth below, down to the ruined city of Ebott.
"Can we undo this?" Frisk asks.
Their Friend shakes their head, "No. The kid wiped away all my save files when it gained control over the timeline. I made a save as soon as I got it back, but it's the only one I got. A reset is the only other option."
Frisk is disquieted by their limited options.
"This…" Frisk starts again, their thoughts turning towards something different "this isn't the first time you saw the end of the world, is it?"
Their friend says nothing for a long while. Not until they began falling below the stratosphere and into the cloud layer. "More times than I ever wished Frisk. Most of the time, I am the reason they happen. And I…" he adjusts himself as they pierce the clouds. The weather had become turbulent from all the disasters they had caused.
"I thought it was because I the exception," he continues, "I'm still too much like him. I take too much after when I did not have a soul, and I thought that is gave me the strength of will to be a monster that can kill humanity, and if I kept that instinct in check, then the danger will never arise."
At last, they break through the cloud cover, and make their way to the peak of Mount Ebott. It is slightly shorter than it once was, courtesy of a swipe from the Dragon, but it thankfully did not compromise the Underground.
Once they land upon it, they look out and behold what is left of Ebott.
When they died, Frisk thought it was a city entering rebirth, a renewal from a sordid period in the country's, complete with beautiful buildings, strong economic and political connections to the rest of America, a prosperous and egalitarian community, and the staging ground for a new era between monsters and humans.
None of that is left now. The once majestic skyscrapers are toppled like fragile toy buildings. The world hates them for the millions slaughtered in one night. The peace between monsters and humans tarnished forever.
"Look at this Frisk," he says, "Look at how wrong I was. All of this happened when a monster only wanted to hurt a small number of people. How can we possibly prepare against that? It can happen to any normal monster on a normal day. We simply don't have the power to stop it."
Something clicks in his mind. "Power…" he bows his head, lips pulling into a vicious grin, "Maybe that's where I went wrong."
The aura he projected when meeting Andres comes about again. Frisk gasps, but their mouth is still stuck in a viscous grin. He's too determined to be stopped
They can't halt what's coming next.
He crushes the monster child in his hand.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" Frisk screeches.
"I was mistaken in thinking humans are the only threat," He declares, releasing his grip to reveal nothing but dust left in his palm, except for one monster soul, and ten human souls, "It didn't matter that monsters are weaker. All it took for everything to crumble to ashes is for one monster to have a bad day to destroy everything."
He looks down, and feels for his locket underneath his robe. "All it took was for two kids to get big ideas in their head and a bit of ritual suicide."
He juggles the souls between is fingers, inspecting them. "You have shown me the way Frisk. My power does not end at stars-shaped bullet patterns and rainbow-colored lightning storms. You have has made us stronger, made me realize there are better ways to wield our abilities. Now think how much faster we can attain that power if we add in more souls to the mix."
His hand grips the souls-
"STOP IT!"
But the fingers are halted before he could clench them. The souls flee from their grasp.
"Frisk?" Their Friend asks confusedly.
"Load your save file NOW!" Frisk commands, "You cannot murder people for the sake of power!"
Their Friend growls. "Idiot! Seven human souls is not enough anymore. What we need is power. Look at what we are capable of with when we mix Determination with just seven souls. Imagine what we can do with eight, or twelve, or a hundred!"
Frisk is becoming frightened by this line of thought.
"I was brought back into this world to break the Barrier. Now I must safeguard the freedom it has brought us. This is why I was brought back. This is what I was made to do."
"No," Frisk mutters "No! This isn't why you're here at all. This isn't why I wanted to save you! There has to be another way!"
"Dammit Frisk, think for once!" their Friend exclaims, "With more souls, we can see and do wherever we want with a thought. Imagine being able to sense when missiles fly half-way across the world with the same ease as hearing a shout by your ear, to then erase it from existence with a snap of the finger. Imagine knowing who, what, when and where the fusion of a monster and human occurs, and having the power to stop or undo it with the ease of plucking apart slices of bread. Imagine our dominion over time breaking the ridiculous constraints of a video game, to let us fine tune and perfect the timeline with a precision and freedom we cannot achieve with save files."
He whirls one of his hands his hand around, and gradually, an object begins to coalesce in front of them. "In this timeline, we used our magic for creation, not destruction. To grant life and prosperity, not cause death and destruction. We saved the world and humanity from itself. Imagine what we could do if we had more."
Their Friend continues as he levitates to the object, "That world…that perfect world made just for you does not need a prince. It does not need an Angel of Death. It does not need an angel, period. None of them will keep us safe. What it needs is a ruler. A god."
He reaches out, and takes it in hand when it is complete. It is a crown, with intricate curves and sharp edges, and had gems of all sorts of colors embedded into the metal.
"A king."
Frisk metaphorically shakes their head in denial, "This is wrong," they say, "We can't rule the world, you know that to be true. Even if we turn back time to before all this happened, there is no way humanity will accept us as king."
"I know," their Friend says sadly, "But it's the only way we can stop extinction. I'll need some time to think on this, but if you must continue to deny reality, then will have to go our separate."
He reaches up to pluck Frisk's soul from his halo.
"No!" Frisk shouts. Their soul is unable to budge from its position "No, stop! Stop this!"
He grabs ahold and once again rips it out with ease. This time, the halo shatters into pieces, the fusion undone permanently.
"Please!" Frisk begs, "You don't have to do this!"
"I know why you are afraid," their Friend soothes, caressing the soul as his body slowly unwinds into vines and plant parts, "There will be so many things that will be broken and hurt by what I am about to do. I know why you don't want me to walk this path, but monsters and humans have left us no choice. I promise though…I promise…"
Gently, he cups Frisk's soul into his hands, and brings it in to his forehead. Frisk struggles to break free.
"I promise everything will be alright."
"Asri-!"
R E S E T
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