1 What A Strange New World
by Serena_WalkenFrisk rubbed her stomach while she watched TV. She had a box of tissues nearby that she had used for a good cry. Not because of the show she was watching.
But, because of the world that she lived in. Seven months ago, Frisk woke up in a house she didn’t know. With a roomate she didn’t know. Into a whole different world that she didn’t know. All she had for herself was a book called cliffnotes she eventually got from the government.
Everyone she knew and loved was dead. Her world was forty years ago that she knew. The explanation was that someone cannibalized the timeline, took her universe and ran her body and a lot of others, until they returned back home.
And there was no consequences for that. Most of the humans that were involved were in their fifties and older, and their children remained. The originals of the timeline. It was a messed up matter that she didn’t understand, and she couldn’t make any sense out of her cliffnote book either!
She and her roommate Chara beared the strange new world together. Chara hated her cliffnote book even more. Their biggest problems with it? Was it was missing a lot of information!
They were still young for some reason, while all the other humans dealing with the takeover had been older. They were both pregnant too, but there was no mention of a specific boyfriend.
Chara and Frisk tried to hide the facts of who they were, but too many people knew Frisk as a destructive killing person who, for some reason, had gotten a pass on killing because she controlled the destruction of timelines. Yeah.
And. Chara’s past showed she was once shattered in a bunch of different timelines and was responsible for a lot of death and destruction too. So, yeah.
They bailed, they moved away, and a couple of people they apparently once knew had helped them re-establish themselves after Frisk took a weird test about people and rudeness and passed it.
They had a nice little starter kit to begin again, but sometimes, it just got to Frisk. This world wasn’t pleasant. It was composed of humans and monsters. There were way more humans than monsters, and some tended to be both. While the younger crowd of thirty and downward were used to this kind of life, the ones actually running the city and in high positions, blamed everything on the monsters.
The timeline disaster. Their bodies being taken over. Humans couldn’t wield any magic, this had to be the fault of the monsters. A lot of them started to go in more monster centered areas, and some huddled up in the eastern part, where there was a kingdom called the Monster Kingdom that welcomed them.
It was like the stupid Human Monster War all over again, but because of the power of what happened, no one really wanted to try and gather monsters to force them Underground. Instead, they just moved toward the outskirts. Forced to leave their homes and families.
Businesses with monster companies shut down or changed ownership. They were banned from schools and towns declared as human occupation. And all Frisk wanted to do was feel bad about it, but according to the cliffnotes, she was the one responsible for bringing them into this hell.
She grabbed another tissue when Chara came in.
Chara looked at the TV and turned it off. “No news, it doesn’t help.” She put on a different show. “This is better.” She flung the remote to the other side of the couch as she slowly sat down with her. “Watching a funny show always makes the day better.”
“A monster was discovered. They took it’s dust and scattered it by the street’s stop sign.”
“Sucks, but we aren’t monsters, and we are in a sucky enough situation.”
Frisk shifted slightly, but not much. “You didn’t see it by the street’s stop sign?”
“You mean on our street?” Now Chara got the point. “Geez, I thought you saw it on the news. Sorry.”
“Any word?”
“No.”
No. Their friends that had helped them move, were also trying to help them find the fathers covertly. Frisk just stared at the TV as she heard the laughter on it. “It’s illegal for the misplaced to not fill out any data on new members.” Misplaced. The people who took their place had the lovely title of dreamers, but the remainders were just called misplaced.
“Not illegal if we really can’t find them,” Chara reminded her. “I don’t think we will. Cecelia and Donovan says they’ve checked everyone we used to date around the time. Unless our friends are lying, Frisk, I would say we had secret boyfriends or something they didn’t know about. Maybe we both got laid at the same kind of party and we had one overzealous soul we got with.”
Gross. “I would never get with anyone like that.”
“We don’t know who took us over or what they were really like,” she reminded her. “Another us might be a real party animal. I mean, we are both pregnant at about the same length.”
Frisk didn’t want to hear it. She bent her body around and held onto the couch arm while putting her other hand down. Eight months pregnant didn’t make it easy, but she wanted to move away and focus on something else more positive.
Luckily, she heard a knock on the door. Hopefully it was Donovan, as the misplaced they weren’t allowed to drive with their current licenses until they retook a test. Their friends tended to stay near and watch over them. “Come in.”
Donovan would have a key to unlock the door, but he was polite to knock first. “Hey there you two.” He opened the door with Ceci behind him. She was reading something on a tablet. “How are you doing?”
“Can we go for a ride, Ceci?”
“And get something?”
“Sure, no problem.” Donovan went over to Chara and started to help her up while Ceci came toward her.
“You are getting really close,” Ceci noticed. “You’re even bigger than last week.”
Next week they would be even bigger. “So, not a single candidate yet?” Cecelia just shook her head. “You don’t think we just . . .”
“Partied with an extreme man,” Chara said for her. “It happens sometimes. Rare but happens.”
“I don’t know who did what,” Donovan told Chara, “but Cecelia and I know the father isn’t the same. I doubt either of you went too off the wall. It was still you.”
That made Frisk feel a little better. “At least that’s not the case.”
“Nope.” Cecelia opened the door and watched Frisk as she made her way to the car. If it wasn’t for Cecelia and Donovan, her and Chara would have been so screwed, having no idea what to do in their positions. “We won’t give up looking for them.”
“Yeah, but, you know there’s no guarantee the dads just aren’t unfunny weird lazy people or psychos with borderline personalities,” Donovan said, almost like he was mad at Ceci for her remark.
“Whoever they are, we won’t give up,” Ceci just said harder to him.
“They really don’t need a place in this world, it’ll just mess things up,” Donovan said right back to her.
“Promises are promises.”
“You already kept your promise.”
“Fair is fair then. You cannot go and pull them back in later when things get bad. Things shouldn’t go bad to do the right thing.”
That didn’t make Frisk feel good either. Ceci barely argued. Most of the time, she enjoyed reading and conversing about books, but when her and Donovan talked about the dads, Donovan was never gungho they were good guys. Ceci was the one that kept telling her and Chara there was no proof they weren’t good guys.
Good guys or bad guys, they still deserved to know. Frisk looked out the window as she saw another mean ‘keep out monsters’ sign. “This isn’t the best world for a baby.”
“Newsflash, Frisk,” Chara said next to her. “No world is perfect for a baby. That’s what we are here for. To deal with all the crap around us until they are old enough to share the load.”
Frisk nodded back. Chara was absolutely right. She looked back out the window.
“Besides, they’re still just regular babies. Not like they are monster babies,” Chara said as Ceci hit a speed bump or something. “In a world that blames the monsters for all this, that would be terrible-hey!” Chara yelled at Ceci. “I love ya, Girl, but could you please remember you got two preg women back here? Easier on the speedbumps.”
“Sorry, yes,” Ceci apologized. “Nothing to worry about, everything is fine.” She sounded stressed.
“It’s okay,” Frisk said back to her. “We are fine, mistakes happen. Thank you for the ride.”
“So, do you think we are going to flip a coin?” Sans asked his brother Papyrus as they listened to the radio. About nine months ago, he woke up to find his whole world flipped. The only thing that wasn’t new, is that humans blamed them for it.
Sans would have to give that to them, whatever created this dreamer space had to be something from some Gaster elsewhere. No one existed that was smart enough. Luckily, they all had their bodies back, and they were on the surface to boot.
But, what once was some nice happy ever after where they lived side by side had dissipated. Monsters were being disposed of so fast with the human souls. No one was screaming for Underground again, and had pretty much chosen the outskirts around the new human society that kicked them out.
King Asgore was still there, along with more monsters than Sans thought was possible. Just going Underground for about 300 was easier than the numbers they had now.
“I am trying to make a treaty,” King Asgore addressed the monsters there, as well as on connections that Alphys spread and built for the undernet (with some help) to help communications across the world. “Not every human out there abhores us, and many of them had loved the dreamers that were in our place, knowing they had no choice to be here.” Still, he sounded bitter. “For now, we are going to retreat to a nice little chain of islands. We have worked out a deal to inhabit there for now.”
Ooh, a bunch of little islands? Fuzzy Pushover got a good deal.
“If we had not been taken over for forty years, I feel the humans would not have such a need for vengeance over something monsters couldn’t have performed in the first place.”
Oh yeah, no, that was wrong. Humans were like rocks, monsters had to have done this.
“I don’t know percentages, but I would say maybe 40% of humans don’t hate us.”
No, it was higher than that, much higher. Probably closer to 65 or even 70. The problem was that people who had loved the dreamers like families, that were raised as a family, weren’t actually dimensionally families. Left behind with the replaced that didn’t know them. The replaced didn’t love or know them. Generations torn apart.
That unfocus enabled the part, the older part, to call this kind of thing out. Humans only lived like 60-100 years. A ten year old human would have woke up to being like 50. Most of their life’s good years were gone, and they weren’t happy about that.
Meanwhile, monsters? They weren’t cheery as a peach either, forty years was still a decent chunk of life, but it didn’t bother most of the monsters. Asgore had clearly gotten older, which meant the treaty game was a brighter idea.
If that didn’t work, or the chain of islands was something else humanity decided they had to attack, down they would go somewhere. Maybe several somewhere’s under the Earth for the humans to ‘feel safe’ again.
“We will be escorted in a few days. I have requested a younger team of humans for the best results in our trip,” King Asgore said.
“What about us?”
Sans looked over at a monster that was pulling a little human girl. Everyone there was gearing up to be brave, but stepping back as they came forward.
“I know that this strange new world we are in has left us with interesting . . . problems.” King Asgore stared at the little girl. “If they look human, they need to stay here. It’s better.”
“My wife doesn’t know me, and I didn’t know her,” he insisted. “She up and left.”
Wrong. Lying. Another thing the humans that did understand the situation did, was somehow let the monsters get replaced first. They got three whole extra days to move around and get themselves organized.
“Your human wife did not get up and leave,” King Asgore called him out. “You woke up three days before her.”
The monster held the little human’s hand tighter. “I saw pictures. I checked mails. I got a wedding band on my finger,” he said wearily. “She’s gonna be half monster, I’m her dad, I couldn’t leave her with a human that’ll wake up and not know her.” He picked her up. “She won’t be a problem. Look at her, she’s only three, she barely gets the world around her right now.”
Tough break. The kid looked completely human, that wouldn’t fly.
“We can’t just reject another monster,” Papyrus called King Asgore out. “She’s just a tiny monster.”
“She looks human,” King Asgore told Papyrus. “Dear Sentry, she will be better off and safer with the humans until we get a treaty figured out.”
“Well, when she gets older, maybe her magic will give her away?” Papyrus pointed out smartly. “She doesn’t feel like a rock.”
“True,” Sans backed him up. “Could be a problem.”
“We are being thrown into isolation, again, after the Underground,” King Asgore said to the monster. “How safe are you going to feel raising your daughter in that kind of bitter environment?”
“I won’t be the only one,” he insisted. “I bet there will be a lot of half monsters that will look human. We can figure it out after we get there. Until then, I take full responsibility for protecting her,” he insisted. “My neighborhood will know her. Everyone will know her.”
“I can’t,” King Asgore said.
“But majesty-”
“I can’t take baby monsters without both parents agreement, it is part of the compromise to go to the islands,” King Asgore admitted.
“But she can’t stay over on the human side,” he insisted again. “They’ll dust her, please.”
“The best thing that you can do for her now, is to go with some authorities I will direct you to,” King Asgore encouraged him. “They will help you locate her mother. If she says okay, you can bring her. If she says no, she must stay with her.”
“But, she might not . . .” There wasn’t much else he could say. “If she agrees, could the mother come to the islands with us?”
“Only monsters are allowed to the islands,” Asgore insisted. “The baby will stay with the mother or the father.”
“Can I turn the mom, monster?”
Whoah. That guy was desperate.
“Do you really even need to ask?” Asgore pointed out right back to him. “What human would allow themselves immense pain for several years to turn into a monster? Do you know how many times that has successfully happened?”
“But? What if the human just sees us and dusts us both?” The monster asked King Asgore. “They are so powerful!”
“Then leave your daughter with the authorities, and let them handle getting and seeking out permission. They can handle your daughter’s soul.”
“We won’t let anyone hurt a civilian or a civilian’s daughter.”
Whoah. That sounded real official. Humans in official uniforms made their presence known. Definitely on the young side, but looking old enough not to be called kids.
“We are used to this world before this change against people, Sir,” one of the humans spoke. “Whether you leave us your daughter, or come with us, both your souls will be protected. We will not let any civillians be hurt.”
Wow. He couldn’t just see it, he could feel the difference in these humans. Not once did they even say ‘monsters’, they called them people and civillians, just like humans. Asgore was right, a treaty is the right way to go. There was a glimpse of a chance.
He just glanced at Papyrus. “So we are going to be watching the beaches for humans instead of the snow.” So rad.
“Let this be known to all monsters, all rules apply to everyone,” Asgore insisted.
“Beaches or snow, we shall watch for any intruders invading our space!” Papyrus said proudly.
Yeah. Not bad, not bad. Left alone from humans was fine, but left alone on an abandoned island chain? So much better. When he woke up, he found himself in a house with nothing but a life about cooking for him and ballet for Papyrus. Nothing else was really there. A little cliffnote book but it was weird, and he gave up halfway through the first page. Plus, you know, shouldn’t really mix into time travel, shouldn’t know about that stuff.
Papyrus cried too much after the first page, so he made him put that up too.
No pictures of anyone else was there, just like one with a group of probably friends. Nothing else, just them. They didn’t have anything else to worry about.