From Murder to Dust

27 - Learning

I had been with Nightmare's gang for two years and ten months now, and I was happy; even if I had been absent for almost a year, I was still with them in spirit, so that counted. Killer had been very beneficial to reintroducing me to regular life - the life of a multiversal criminal - and overall, everything was back to normal. We went out to work frequently, we played games in our spare time, and our family bond grew stronger with every passing day. During my absence, Nightmare had created an entire lesson plan for me, Killer, and Horror, so we could learn more about the multiverse and other assorted subjects; Error didn't have to go to school with us, since he was already aware of more than we knew about. Nightmare had even created a little classroom for us out of an old storage room that housed only paper airplanes - they were the only things you would find in there, and it was honestly weird. We were about to begin our first ever lesson about the multiverse, and we were prepared, just like little students. Honestly, it looked like the best classroom in the world, and I was more than happy to learn there. Nightmare began the lesson.

"Well, this is going to be interesting." Nightmare stated. "I'm more excited than I look, trust me."

"That's obvious." Killer joked.

"Yes, well, what do you want to learn about first?"

"Ooh! Ooh! How about AUs?" 

"Any objections?" There were none. "All right then, AUs it is."

We all prepared to hear the lecture that Nightmare had no doubt spent a lot of time working on, in order to give us the best learning experience we could ever have.

"I suppose it would be best to begin with Undertale, which I believe you are all familiar with." Nightmare started. "Undertale is the original universe, in which a child falls into the underground, and picks one of three routes: pacifist, neutral, or genocide. In pacifist, the child befriends every monster; in neutral, the child kills some monsters; and in genocide, the child kills every monster they can find. Each of these routes is special in their own way, but for now, we will focus on neutral routes, and then run into pacifist and genocide. Any questions?"

"Yeah." Horror replied.

"Horror?"

"Why's this so familiar?"

"Good question. Each of you comes from a close variant of the original Undertale, and it is argued that they could be called alternate timelines instead of universes, but there is no set-in-stone law about it, so they're still considered universes. In Killer's, the child offered Sans a deal, which he accepted, to kill anybody and everybody in the underground. In Dust's, Sans would do anything and everything to stop the resets, even killing everyone. In Horror's, the timeline is set in the future, with a different child. We will go over each of your universes in more depth in the future, and you can correct any mistakes I have. Anything else?"

"Nope."

"Okay, then. In that case, we will begin with neutral routes. To my knowledge, there are three broad types of neutral routes: genocidal, pacifistic, and no mercy. In a genocidal route, the child chooses to kill most of the monsters, but leave a few alive. In a pacifistic route, the child spares most of the monsters, only killing a few. In a no mercy route, the child kills every monster that they encounter, but does not seek out battles. If any monsters hide, they will most likely live. I am sure there are different types, but those are the only ones I am aware of; if I learn of any others, I will certainly let you know. Are there any questions about neutral routes? I am aware that this is a rather brief summary, but I will eventually go over all the routes in more detail; I just want to lay a foundation for now. By the way, I will give you tests."