Correction of the future

Evasive Elysium

Underswaps Chara would die.

A simple deduction for Core, yet it still irritated them.

Not so long ago, Underswap had suffered a minute glitch, leading to uncontrollable resets.

Corrupted code leaking into the fallen human as an outlet, forcing body-swaps between Chara and Frisk in a desperate bid to conserve energy as the overloads wore them out, and the cycle continued, hopelessly lost until a miracle came forth.

Reset had been shattered by an external force, saving the universe.

But now, the very thing that had saved them could become their downfall.

Cross and Chara needed to stop Underswap from resetting to avoid altering their already fragile code, and while slim, there was a chance Underswaps Chara could regain their ability with some code tweaking.

With death, Underswaps Chara could no longer seek refuge in the save screen.

"After all, I don't need this timeline anymore."

The words echoed throughout Stretch's skull.

He... didn't need them?

Stretch knew Nightmare was a revolting monster, and this? This was vile.

Stretch's friends, his family, his world , they were not toys for that beast's entertainment.

In XTale, the washed out and controlled monsters of Underswap stood by blankly, all staring at the house that once belonged to the Underfell brothers, surrounding it.

Outer shuddered at the sight of Toriel at the forefront of the mob. He couldn't imagine the old punny lady from his world acting like this. It was so disturbing, like a delayed reset.

From one of the windows on the ground floor, Classic and Fell peaked out, holding a cat between them.

"Where'd the cats come from?" Chara blurted out, flushing as Dream and Fresh turned to him.

Chara had not wanted to be the one to break the silence between them, especially with Dreams reaction to...

...

Chara liked the freedom of this place; he didn't want to lose it.

"...This is scary." Fell grunted, eyelights shifting between all the monsters cautiously.

"We can't do anything." Classic pulled the cat to his chest with worry. "I can only hope that nothing serious is going on..."

"Another one!"

Where were these cats coming from?! There was no way Cross went out of his way to find them, and Chara doubted they'd been in Mr. Edgy Mc Edges' house.

... The cats did look cute though.

Fell turned away, eyelights extinguishing as he slumped back onto the sofa.

"... but even so..." Classis diverted the conversation with a troubled look, "I feel like something is not okay..."

"Um, Fresh?" Dream let out a startled laugh as Fresh was shown to be peering through the window.

"Yea, Dreamy Brah?" Fresh smirked, expression lighting up as his glasses spelled out 'huh,' mirroring his on-screen self. "Best Skelly Bein' Shown Now, Ey? I'm A Totally Radical Detective."

The two elected to ignore Errors scoffing.

"Of course, nothing is okay!" Fell waved a hand, growling lowly. "That stupid mad man in black and white ruined everything again!"