#ebott's wake

EDIT: I have since posted an updated, more fleshed out version of this on Ao3

Thursday

Ch1 Aster wakes up alone and mildly panics

Aster scrounges in the CORE for a radio, bringing it to the mouth of the cave before realizing he needed a power source.

Cussing himself out, Aster finds a power source at the Dump, where Serif hears him talking to himself and follows him back to the cave entrance.

Ch2 Radio show

Serif hides just inside the cave while Aster listens to the radio show.

Upon hearing of a call-in section of the show, Aster scrounges for a phone in the CORE, nearly catching Serif watching him, but Aster is a bit too distracted to consciously notice.

Ch3 Frisk and Flowey talk

Ch4 Aster calls the radio show

Serrif witnesses the call but only hears Aster’s half of the conversation, since Aster had turned down the radio so the delay wouldn’t trip him up.

Ch5 what Aster was up to and reunion with Sans

Aster is grappling with reality for like half an hour until Sans shortcuts in.

Serif witnesses the reunion, assured that Aster is a beloved parent and not a threat, and considers following them down the mountain. Their conversation fades into the distance as Serif decides to stay behind for now; let them have their happy reunion first, then they can deal with Serif.

Serif pushes the two abandoned thrones together to make a small “bed”. He’s had worse nights.

Ch6 Aster meets Toriel

Ch7 Family dinner with the gang

Ch8 Aster digests the story of Undertale

Ch9 Dinner ends and Frisk acts weird about breaking a plate

-1 Thursday

Serif wakes up in an empty Snowdin.

“No dust in the air, so it’s not a felled AU. No dust piles on the ground, so the kid didn’t kill ‘em all. Buildings are too modern for them to have died off far enough back for the dust to settle. Buildings are also empty, so somebody must’ve taken everything somewhere. All evidence points to a pacifist run gone right and everyone’s on the surface and probably don’t need my kind o’ help. Which means I’ve got the whole Underground to myself. Greeeaaat.”

Serif wanders around, looking for somewhere comfortable enough to hunker down for a few days to recover; if this universe was as “average” as it seems at first glance, there isn’t much point in staying any longer than necessary. He then hears a voice, following it to the dump to find Gaster, talking to himself while scrounging for radio parts. Serif observes from a distance, not sure he should trust this Gaster, and thinking that maybe there’s a reason he’s here after all. Hiding just inside the cave, Serif witnesses “Aster’s” radio call and the reunion with the native Sans, decides this (G)Aster was a beloved parent and not a threat, then decides to bed down for the night in the overgrown throne room, pushing both abandoned thrones together to make a small bed. He’s had worse nights.  

The native Sans was his usual first contact, as Serif could infer a lot about an AU based on what Sans was like, but he figured he could find Sans later; let them all enjoy their happy reunion first, then they can deal with Serif.

-

Friday

Ch10 Radio show

There was a “protest” outside the Librarby but everyone was too drunk to do much and then scattered. This was before 9:30 am. Pre-protest for Das Boot reopening?

Ch11 Frisk thinks Sans was abused

Ch 12 Aster visits All Fine Labs

Ch 13 Radio show, Das Boot protest

Ch 14 Aster gets a job

Ch 15 Flowey isn’t Asriel, Frisk shows trauma

Ch 16 Flowey talks to Alphys

-2 Friday

The next day, Serif scrounges for something he can make edible and leaves the Underground by late morning, acting like he knew exactly where he was going; people are less likely to bother you if you look like you have somewhere to be. While wandering around town, Serif comes across a pair of crowds outside of some kind of restaurant with a small group between the two. He stays on the outskirts, cautiously curious, until a projectile flies from one crowd and hit one of the middle humans. Serif freezes, split between the urge to help and the need to remain hidden, until he sees the injured human screaming after the projectile thrower, apparently more-or-less fine. Serif decides this isn’t the best place to discretely gather intel and leaves for calmer pastures.

Finding a café with free wifi, he sets himself up to people-watch for the rest of the day, noting that this town was weird, and gets his phone connected to the grid with some minor hacking, keeping his eye out for any potential snacks he could liberate without drawing attention to himself. He stays the night at the Arboretum, finding a nice, dense tree to hide out in. Again, he’s had worse nights.

-

Saturday

Ch 17 Radio show, schedule

Ch 18 Frisk asks Alphys for SOUL help and stays til noon storm

Ch 19 the skeleboys go to lunch

Ch 20 Radio show, storm

Ch 21 Fisk and Alphys talk, slumber party begins

Ch 22 Skeleboys trapped in the rain

-3 Saturday

Resigning to dumpster dive for breakfast, Serif notices the starting of a storm but doesn’t realize just how bad it’s gonna get until it’s too late; he thought he might get I nice shower out of it, not end up in a flash flood! Annoyed at having been tripped up by surface weather, he ends up laying in a puddle of misery until Undyne literally stumbles upon him, assumes Serif is braving the elements like she is, and Serif indulges her competitiveness. This was as good an introduction to the group as any.

“Sure, why not? I’m already soaked to the bone so it’s not like I could get any wetter.”

Undyne is thrilled, they spar and race and probably some other stuff, until Undyne asks why Serif is really out in the storm and he lets slip he has no shelter to return to; he certainly can’t stay in a tree in this weather. At this, Undyne makes a snap decision and throws him over her shoulder, ignoring his protests, and takes him home to Alphys and Frisk, who just happened to be there when the storm hit and is kind of stuck. Once there, he hesitates before spilling exactly why he doesn’t have anywhere to go; while his usual first contact was the native Sans, he knew secrets would only hurt him in the long run. Being the anime nerds they are, the three quickly get the gist of Serif’s past and sudden arrival.

Sleepover hijinks ensue, including, but not limited to: get-to-know-you games like “Two Truths and a Lie” and “Truth or Dare”; make overs, where Serif gets Day of the Dead face paint; party games like Charades or other board games; Serif telling the three about alternate versions of themselves; and more. Eventually, jobs are brought up and Alphys mentions the souls research that Aster just agreed to take over; maybe Serif could help them get a head start on it, or at least find a good starting point. Serif hesitantly agrees.

“W-what do you know about souls? Or more specifically, human souls? We’re r-researching them right now and don’t really know where to start…” “Well, every universe is a little different, so I simultaneously know a lot about how souls could work and very little about how they work in this universe in particular.” “Well, w-would you consider consulting? E-even if you don’t t-tell us everything, maybe you can help us skip a few steps?” “Hmm… I suppose I do have to earn my keep somehow, right? If you think I can still be useful within my boundaries, than sure, I’ll consult on the project. Also keeping in mind that I’m not going to be staying here long term; I won’t just leave y’all high and dry but I have no intention of making this place my home.” “W-with the p-power out, we c-can’t call Toriel to tell her F-Frisk is here, or tell D-doctor Aster about you, Serif. He agreed to t-take over the soul research p-project for me.” “Oh joy. Guess I can work on my Gaster issues while I’m here, too.” “D-don’t call him Gaster, h-he hates it.” “Really? Huh, most of his counterparts embraced the name “Gaster”. Welp, thanks for telling me, otherwise it would’ve been a dis-aster.” ;)

-

Sunday

Ch 23 Radio show, t-shirts are promised

Ch 24 Sans has a memory

Ch 25 Sans looks for Frisk and they have a talk

-4 Sunday

Everyone had acknowledged that Serif can’t stay with Alphys and Undyne; there simply isn’t room, and Serif didn’t want to intrude anyways. Instead, they decide to ask Asgore if Serif could crash with him, which Serif half-heartedly tries to resist but gives in when they mention Asgore is alone a lot, which really isn’t good for him. Alphys calls Aster about the green light and the stray consultant Undyne found in the rain, then calls into the radio show to announce it to everyone. T-shirts are promised.

They point Serif in the general direction of All Fine Labs while they head over to ask Asgore if he would house Serif for a bit and drop off Frisk with their dad, then head over to Toriel’s to update her on the situation.   

Aster got to the Labs before Serif and happily picks up his “mystery assistant” from the lobby. Serif briefly explains his backstory and, while fascinated, Aster tries to prioritize the soul research, promising to unravel Serif’s everything on his down time. Once onboarding is complete, both are brought up to speed on what they know, what they know they don’t know, and the process for scanning tomorrow’s volunteers.

Once done for the day, Aster insists on walking Serif to Asgore’s, partially because Serif really had no idea where Asgore lived and partially so they can talk more before the inevitable insanity tomorrow would bring. Aster had picked up on Serif’s discomfort and Serif reluctantly explains that he’s had some… unfortunate experiences with Gasters of other AUs.

“Which reminds me, they all went by Gaster so it is kind of interesting that you hate it so much. So uh, sorry in advance when I inevitably mess up.”

Asgore happily shares some dinner with Serif and Toriel shows up sometime after Frisk’s bedtime, wanting to meet the “stranger” that Undyne and Alphys had invited to their impromptu slumber party. Both boss monsters try their best to understand Serif’s origins, with limited success. Tori is placated, as Serif seems to be a good person, but he does hide his LV from them; he really doesn’t wanna get into why the numbers are wrong or explain why some of them are right.

-

Monday

Ch 26 Radio show, soul scanning 101

Ch 27 Frisk gets scanned

-5 Monday

Bright and early Monday morning, Serif wakes with a start, blades out, ready for a fight, but is embarrassed when he realizes Asgore had simple dropped something while making breakfast. Serif has to explain that while living on the go, often in less than safe conditions, reflexes like that had saved his life more times than he cared to think about.

“Honestly? The fact that I didn’t wake up as soon as you came downstairs is a testament to either how tired I was, how comfortable I am here already, or how stealthy you are. So there’s that, I guess.”

At the Labs, Serif is basically just another gofer while the data is being gathered, his consultation only really needed for the bigger concepts, but he’s happy enough to be helping.

Once Frisk is scanned, and gives some “anomalous” readings, Serif is immediately grabbed and finally introduced to Sans. Sans is not thrilled with this development.

“w h o   t h e   f u c k   a r e   y o u ?” “I’m you; or rather, I’m who you might have been if circumstances had been different. But we can compare notes later, we’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.”

Having spent a slumber party with Frisk, and knowing what he did about other Frisks, Serif isn’t surprised at all that they have a high LV Cap. Caps are a measure of how violent a person could become, based on outside influences, negative experiences, exposure to violence… Again, it varies, but…

“Y’ever wonder why a kid would climb a mountain nobody returns from? No happy reasons, I can tell you that much. I may not know specifically what this kid has gone through, but from what I’ve seen they’re a good kid with all of the hallmarks of past abuse. That’s as far as I’m willing to speculate without more details and I don’t wanna push ‘em too far too fast.”

The skeletons keep all of this to themselves for now while they think about what to do. Alphys was too busy to think about Frisk’s scan until after work and Aster said he’d update her in the morning. Serif doesn’t tell Asgore that Frisk was scanned at all.

-

Tuesday

Ch 28 Asgore has a dream and does morning stuff

Ch 29 Big brains have a meeting

Ch 30 Frisk and Undyne talk

Ch 31 Radio show

CH 32 Frisk and Aster talk after the garden show

-6 Tuesday

A morning meeting is called and Alphys is brought up to speed on Frisk’s scan data, specifically their high LV Cap. Serif mostly observes while the native scientists try not to freak out too much; Aster is certain there’s some other explanation and wants more data before doing anything but Alphys refuses to live in secrets and lies again, storming off to the Garden Show to spill everything to Toriel. Sans goes after her to play damage control and the other scientists decide to get back to work and leave this decision to the monsters in charge. This leaves Serif with Aster in the meeting room.

Aster tells Serif to look at closer at Frisk’s scan, maybe they missed something that skewed the data, but Serif argues that it’d be a waste of time; he believes that the numbers are accurate, or at least accurate enough, and nothing more can be gleaned from this one scan. They can scan more if they want but Serif doesn’t think they’ll gain much other than confirmation. Aster relents and more volunteers are scanned. Aster tries to distract himself from thinking about Frisk by grilling Serif about AU stuff.

Hiving hit this roadblock with Frisk’s scans, Aster is frustrated and scans aren’t enough of a distraction on their own, so Aster starts prodding at Serif about AU stuff. He manages to bully Serif into going to the Skelebros’ house to talk more, under the guise of finally being introduced to Papyrus, who wasn’t even there. Frisk shows up, frustrated that they still haven’t gotten a direct answer from anyone about LV Caps, and had decided to seek out Aster or Serif for answers. Aster and Frisk go for a walk and Serif takes his chance to flee, thoroughly exhausted and very much DONE with everyone.

-

Wednesday

Ch 33 Radio show

Ch 34 First blood on the scanner

Ch 35 Undyne has a memory and talks to Frisk

Ch 36 Frisk is scanned again and revelations are had

Ch 37 Frisk and Flowey talk, then Sans drops off a book

Ch 38 AML meeting with Justin

-7 Wednesday

The next day at work, Serif was with Aster when he got the message about the first human with LV being scanned. Aster was initially worried until Serif pointed out that the human had willingly been scanned, knowing they had killed before and likely aware that the scan would reveal that. Aster was suddenly less worried and more curious about the psychology of someone who would do something like that and wanted to talk to the human alone; he’d previously wanted Serif to accompany him and watch his back.

While scanning continued, Serif was restocking the breakroom when Frisk entered for a snack, having left Sans and Toriel to have some hard realizations. Frisk had been wanting to talk to Serif again since the sleep over anyways but they hadn’t been able to find the time.

“Based on what I’ve seen from you, and what I know of other Frisks… I think the numbers are accurate. Meaning that you haven’t even hit puberty and you’ve already been through hell and back… For what it’s worth, I have a high LV Cap, too. Nobody seems to have clocked it yet, or at least I haven’t heard about it, but I probably understand you better than anyone else in town. With one notable exception that I’m sure you don’t need me to spell out for you.” “… how did… you get a high LV Cap?” “… I don’t think we have time to get into that today-” “Frisk! Just the person I was looking for! That star you mentioned yesterday, I can’t stop thinking about- oh uh, Serif,

Serif mentioned his own high LV Cap but they were interrupted by Aster before Serif could say much else. Aster mentioned the star Frisk had told him about on their walk before stopping short with a glance at Serif, who shrugged and started to excuse himself from the private conversation but Frisk stopped him, saying that maybe he could help figure out what’s going on.

Unfortunately, this time didn’t work either as Aster comes by and invites them both to another TED Talk about timespace and how it must have carried Aster into the future. Frisk and Toriel eventually return to school and Alphys returns with pizza and an epiphany which Serif gets roped into helping her with while Sans and Aster return to scanning volunteers.

After scans wrap up, Serif had been run ragged trying to keep up with Alphys and was told to get some rest while Sans and Aster take over. As he’s leaving, Serif runs into Papyrus who was on his way to try and pull Sans and Aster away from the labs and go to the Pancake thing. While disappointed with the update about their work status, Papyrus decides to use this opportunity to get to know Serif instead; Sans and Aster get to hang out with him all the time at work and Pap had been feeling a little left out.

They meet up with Undyne for Pancakes and she’s disappointed Alphys isn’t with them but proud of her passionate girlfriend. Serif gets roped into some contests between Papyrus and Undyne, allowing himself to show off a bit but keeping a very tight lid on his abilities. The two can tell Serif is holding back but he refuses to go all out with so many people around so they head to the school.

“Nobody’d be caught dead back at school if they could help it!” “Heh, good one.” “Good-? Oh shit! Ugh! I didn’t mean to make a pun!”

It takes a bit of coaxing but Serif lets himself indulge in his power.

“I’m always so afraid of it that I actually don’t really know where my limits are. I know I have them, I’ve reached them in… less than ideal circumstances, but… I’ve never felt comfortable enough with my powers to test them properly.”

-

Thursday

Ch 39 Papyrus has a memory and starts his day

Ch 40 Radio show

Ch 41 Second blood on the scanner

Ch 42 Radio show, schedule

Ch 43 Rehearsal

Ch 44 Aster and Frisk talk science

Ch 45 radio show, special bulletin

-8 Thursday

The next day, Joe Stanton tests out Alphys epiphany and scanning begins yet again. Aster was poking at Serif again when Sans came to grab Aster and Serif busied himself refilling the refreshments in the breakroom again. Jason Taylor is scanned and sent to the breakroom, where Serif immediately picks up on his LV; luckily, Serif has plenty of practice not reacting to potential threats while still keeping tabs on them.

Later that day, Aster is puzzling away with Serif about the CORE failure that sent him skipping through time when Frisk shows up after the Ad-dress rehearsal. Sans also enters, bantering with Frisk who sticks their tongue out at him.

“curses, the one human gesture i can't do.” “Wait, you can’t make magic flesh?” “make what now?”

Serif demonstrates by sticking out his own blue tongue, which freaks out the skeletons and amuses the human. Discussion is diverted to skeleton physiology for a bit but eventually gets back on track so Serif could help Frisk explain resets which triggers an epiphany for Aster.

“Did you already know all of this?!” “Kinda. *shrug* The exact physics work a little differently in each universe but the result is pretty consistent. The power to change fate… Frisk is right, it’s a curse that corrupts even those with the best of intentions. I’ve seen it happen, I’ve felt the allure myself; no one should be forced to live with so much power over the lives of those around them.”

Serif declines joining them at the Dank Memehaus and heads home to dinner with Asgore. Serif brings him up to speed on Frisk’s stats and both listen to the radio before turning in for the night.

This might be a good time for Serif to talk to Flowey, since Flowey has a dream that night and starts to feel feelings. Despite Flowey being certain he doesn’t have a soul, Serif can still feel things from him.

-

Friday

Ch 46 Tori has a memory and Frisk has some trauma

Ch 47 Flowey has a memory and talks to Frisk

Ch 48 Flowey feel feelings and talks to Alphys

Ch 49 Radio show, address starts and is interrupted

Ch 50 Frisk gets shot

Ch 51 Frisk stays determined, just barely

Ch 52 Radio show, war

Ch 53 Flowey enters Frisk’s mind, realizations are had

Ch 54 Cater gets dunked on

Ch 55 Frisk and Asriel have a heart to heart

Ch 56 Frisk wakes up

-9 Friday

Serif has to pick up Sans’ slack while he joins the Honor Guard at the Address. There have been protestors outside All Fine Labs every day since it opened and today was no different; however, what was different was a taught buzz of anxiety that Serif couldn’t quite account for. Almost like they’re waiting for something. He mentioned as much to Alphys and Aster, who brushed it off as a response to the Address going on today. Serif remained hyper vigilant about scanning the volunteers, even though it made the process a bit harder and longer, and was the first to realize there were weapons present and intent to use them.

After the lab was locked down and the mob seemed to be converging on the hospital Frisk is at, Serif agrees to stay behind and hold down the fort while Aster bridges Alphys over to help Flowey try to help Frisk. He considers accompanying Joe in the Blaster Mech but decides to stay put, just in case; it was possible this was some elaborate trick to infiltrate the lab, but mostly Serif just didn’t trust himself on the battlefield. Serif continued to be on high alert, even after the mob dispersed and the day was considered “won”.

-

Saturday

Ch 57 Radio show

Ch 58 Frisk and Pap hang out

Serif and Flowey hang out

Ch 59 Shop Class meets

-10 Saturday

Everyone takes the day off to recover physically, mentally, and emotionally from the riot and the others bring Serif up to speed on what happened at the hospital. Serif is kind of glad he decided to stay behind but also frustrated that he doesn’t know what to do with all of his nervous energy. Asgore does his best to distract Serif from his anxiety, with limited success. Serif tries to channel the energy into his remaining empty quartz crystals, which just leaves him tired and anxious; he’s just as riled up mentally but now, with less energy at his disposal, he feels the need to be even more alert to make up for the feeling of weakness. Serif doesn’t trust himself to spar and instead goes on a walk/run, hoping to bleed off the energy that way.