Stellartale: Nullity's Dreamer

Hopes, Dreams, and Nonexistence

With only 3 hours and 11 minutes left on the timer I check the news again. Top headlines about my coming battle. Selfies with captions about saving the world and what they'll do later. Cafes and libraries lending out for free #JoinAsriel parties. Firms giving workers paid time off for #JoinAsriel. Recycle drones grinding heaps of Frisk swag goods. They're all ready for me, but can I ever be ready for them? Especially after I lost to Frisk once?
I call Frisk. "If we fought again, who of us would win?"
Frisk smiles. "I'd like to say myself, but you're also gonna be pretty strong in a few hours."
I mull over her answer, finding no clear winner. Fine, I'll decide who the winner is if Frisk Prime doesn't decide so first. To hell with don't kill, don't be killed, I'll do whatever my friends need done.
Ah, the CLOUD protocol. I call Jordina and she shows up bright-eyed. "We already updated yours days ago. I'm willing to bet time itself we all did a good job."
Nullity's Gate talks to me. Frisk's voice. Frisk Prime rather. Asriel, thank you for your help. Now get in here and figure out this toaster-shroom for me. We can eat pie and make flower crowns together.
Never. If Frisk Prime defeats me again she'd kill me, right? Better plant some seeds of doubt. Hey I'm the one who broke the Barrier because you and your friends wanted it. You can blame me all you want later.
Frisk Prime: Your new 'friends' are walking, talking mistakes. I hurt you all by being so nice. But I'll fix everything for you all and be a better friend than Chara ever was.
I prep some simple words that should shut her up. Do you really think this is what mom and dad wanted? Why can't they choose how to live?
Frisk Prime goes on calmly. Mom and dad are already dead. You killed them. But with this power I can bring them all back.
I say it for its own sake. Only if they want to.

Something bugs me. "Are you gonna grant me with everyone?"
Jordina smiles deeply. "No, I volunteered for the watching task force. I'll make sure the CLOUD really holds up. Now let me get ready for the long shift."
Frisk Prime: Soon it won't be too late. You won't even know who's that cave savage.
I cough a tiny orange fireball that heats my face. Call Jordina what you will, she's helping me stop you. And she just might be your end.
Jordina slips on a pink scarf. "Any last comment?" I have none.
Frisk Prime: By helping you all, I condemned mom and dad to live in machines. I just want to save them. Asriel, do you enjoy this sorry state?
Well mom and dad chose it. If I don't like it, so what? Life will grow and change. People will learn and invent new things. Fights will be won or lost. I find all that far more perfect than your time-loop can ever be.
Frisk Prime: I'll show you what you're trying to deny people. Once you see how good it is you'll never want to go back even if there was still a back to return to.
Not sure what to say, I give Jordina the no-brainer. "Thanks. Have a good night. I'll see you soon." she fades out.
The Gate's voice. Frisk Prime must've cracked the Voidglitch's tricks faster than I thought. I am ready to make my final stream, then feel all those SOULs at once. As if even that power could make me win against Frisk Prime.
Mom, dad, and everyone.
I call the History Club, Dreemurrs and all. "Quick, any of you mind never going back to the Under Days?"
They all nod unanimously. Nobody wants to go back.
Papyrus: "Can't do my fan club party in 3 hours."
Undyne: "Nothing's worse than not trying at all."
Sans: "The only back we're going to is Frisk Prime's back. The lower one I mean."
Chara: "I'd love to see the future. New stuff."
Frisk: "We're a team, remember?"
Toriel: "Do what you like."
I point Ryujen to the grass-portal to our ship. "Go back home. I have my own way out."
leaves. "I'll make sure there's a next month to fund that study ring."
As the portal closes Sparky strolls to my side. "The Makers are not dead, but trapped. They can live again."
Good point but no time to wait. Flicking on the far-link pebble I start my final stream, steeling myself for what I've come for. "This is Asriel Dreemurr, 3 hours early. I didn't know Frisk Prime would crack it this soon. Grant your SOULs now."
Just then dozens of SOULs hit mine, each their own brand of magic and DT. Then billions arrive, making my insides roil hot as lava. I bend over and drool powdery gray dust, watching my paws burn with rainbow magic. As trillions stack up I think up a spell to handle all this power. It takes over my whole body. My paws grow into metal-sharp talons as wings of pure churning reality erupt from my back. With a flick of my wings I shoot a few meters up and stay there, above a 6-meter crater of vivid fire eating the grass into white sparks.
Sparky: "Thanks for the measuring data, but you'll overload this realm. I didn't set this place up for such magic."
I think of Nullity's Gate at Norma Arm. "Sorry."
At a thought I plunge through time and space and pop into the icy pink-cloud black of Norma Arm. Nullity's Gate silently crackles with red DT arches miles across. A few thousand more SOULs join mine, tiny to what I already have.
Frisk Prime speaks calmly. Peoples of the CLOUD, you're dooming yourselves. Take back your power from him and be safe with me. No one does.
I glance back at the 9 angular grey cruisers miles back, trusting me to do what's right. Turning back to Nullity's Gate I focus a Chaos Buster gun maybe miles long and quietly call Frisk.
Frisk screams at the Gate. "I am you, who you could be with the right choices. I used to like your idea, but then I found this world kinda good after all. Give the Makers back their home and say sorry, or my friend here does it for you."
Frisk Prime: Turn away their SOULs, your terrible power, and you'll be truly happy. I'll fix this huge mistake unlike your talking illegal file.
Asgore surges through the CLOUD, clearly mad at what she said. "Scone or not, she's the real Frisk as much as you. More than you, in my opinion."
Frisk Prime: I'm sorry I led you all here. Technology has ruined mom and dad such they don't know a fake thing from the child they saved. They are lost to you but I can save them.
Asgore: "Your black market buy gave back our one true Frisk. Irony, dear?"
Frisk: "Azzy, your turn."
Only one Frisk shall live. With Chaos Buster I bathe Nullity's Gate in a stellar rainbow beam that kills the red sparks. Already won? As the beam stops the red sparks return.
Frisk Prime goes on, pure peace in her voice. Fear not, dear Asriel. I won't punish your selfish act. In fact you're gonna really enjoy what happens next. Nullity's Gate erupts a white pulse that makes the whole world stutter and glitch like a broken holo. With only one timeline to save I aim Hyper Goner at the starry black. All reality turns clear again before imploding into a tiny blue spark that tingles my hands. My timeline, all the people behind me, my every possible future.
Frisk Prime: Give me that. I'll save you all. Looks like she hasn't found the timeline-stealing trick yet.
Dodging another time-wave I tuck away my timeline and survey the black void I'm in. Swerving my wings I sense a structure around me, a machine bigger than existence. The Voidglitch, or at least its body Frisk Prime stole.
Body snatching to complete her stupid plan? "You're not the Voidglitch. You don't know how its tech works or how to use it most efficiently. You can't even invent new Voidglitch tech. If you'd spent a few million years learning that maybe we'd all be Under by now."
Red sparks in the machine. After I'm done using this tin can of mold to save you, I'm gonna destroy it with its own tricks. If I used its entire brain I wouldn't be me anymore, and I want to be me.
"The Frisk I knew would never kill a whole race like-."
The real Frisk would never force people to kill or be killed on a galactic scale. Why do you force me to live with my mistake when you can let me win and be happy?
Toriel: "We actually like it this way. And Asgore just said who's our real Frisk."
The machine parts to reveal Frisk Prime half-grown into the machine itself, red SOUL beating into its systems. Tell me Asriel, what makes you right to decide all these people's lives?
Chaos Saber in each hand I hop down where she lies, landing soft on the machine around her. Too easy. "People decide what they want, and since that's also what I want I do it for all of us. For example this." I plunge both blades into her pulsing SOUL, killing her in a hued blaze that burns her figure to nothing. The machine hums and another red SOUL winks above that blank space, growing a new Frisk Prime. A time-wave forces me to zip up, out of that great chasm. I cast a shield spell just in time for her anti-concept blast that costs at least half my magic to block.
Frisk Prime: Don't make me pry that timeline from your dead body.
SOUL cloning. I test my theory that just might win this. "Hey sorry for my low blow back there. Actually it's cool."
Frisk Prime: I thought you'd fight honest than slay your foes in their sleep. Why's your friend the exception? Correct. The active Frisk Prime updates its latest memories to its dormant clones, but I have no idea how to kill all Frisk Primes that way. I fling a cutout star into the machine and watch a sleeping clone die in rainbow fire, then the machine write a new one in its place. The gap seems to scream before the dormant SOUL fills it in.
Frisk: "The Makers are still alive. You can save them."
I know. Calling on the trillions with me I turn a dozen Chaos Busters to a fiery shockwave that carves me a big SOUL-free crater. The machine starts cloning new Frisk Primes but something in the crater fights back to reclaim its machine and hold off the growing clones.
Frisk Prime tries to shoot another anti-concept, but the thing from the crater fights her will. I offer humans and Monsters a happy ending, and this is how you all thank me. One taste of mine and you'll all realize who Azzy was to deny you that.
I grin at her. "Everyone, feel free to rate what she's been saying."
Trillions say it and I open my wings so Frisk Prime can hear them all.
"Thanks #Frisk for freeing us. Stop trying to undo it. #FriskIsOverParty"
"Just tossed my #Frisk holo-pillows. No diss to #RealFrisk but I don't wanna see any F***k now."
"The real #HappyEnding: #Azzy wins and makes #FriskPrime go away. #KeepOnGranting."
"Not big Xeno fan but gotta stop her #MakerGenocide"
Memes, taglines, a human family doing the CLOUD a bench while a Monster stands guard. I think of the timeline in my pocket with everyone I fight for.
Frisk: "Enough talk. Time to take the Makers into this fight."
A million concept-erasers surround me only for a sub-reality breaker to wipe them from existence. Thanking the Voidglitch I face the shrinking crater and fly there into an endless white void.