Manifested Tears

He took a shortcut straight through to the closet with Friskarino, him and Frisky. 

"That's better." Friskarino smiled. "Dark spaces are where we make last minute decisions, and improves our chances to live. She'll be better here." He leaned against the closet. "Alright. Now, I could just blurt stuff out but you'd never know if I was telling the truth or not. You could judge me, I guess, but doesn't Monster truth magic have a thing where you can do the opposite to make it come off?" 

"You mean the truth?" If Sans said the secrets she kept where she could hear, it should. He was starting to get it a little now. "Not used much, but yeah. The magic'll come off with that. So, let's get this done." 

"Sure. And, I know you're irritated about this," Friskarino sighed. "And I wish I could tell you by the end that's all your going to feel." He fidgeted. "Okay, a lot of stuff is from records that we know, because that's all she knows. Her mind has been wiped so many times. And, unfortunately, she reached her peak. From this point on, anything else done to her brain will slowly eat away at her until she's just like the singing girl you saw. So." Friskarino held up four fingers. "We can probably narrow everything down to four secrets. Well, three, but I think we better cover the first one anyway. It's a nice way to get this started." 

"Sure, let me just get some candles and a pillow." Sans sighed. "It doesn't matter however you sugarcoat what you have to say. Let's just get it said. King Asgore doesn't always have patience and he's had it up to here with me lately." Sans raised his arm above his head. "Okay?" 

"Sorry. Okay, well the first is pretty easy. I'd bet every finger on my hand Frisky didn't tell you about the training ships." Friskarino looked toward him. "You probably chose PACIFISTS to live, right? I don't know exactly, but training ships are roulette's. When soldiers are trained, they change from month to month. So, you don't have all PACIFISTS, and you didn't rescue them all. It was just a draw of destiny of who was assigned PACIFIST that month. Oh, and even the final permanent status. It's decided for you too." 

Sans took a slightly deep breath. "Well, I couldn't have done anything different. Even knowing that, I probably would have done the same thing." 

"Yeah. Don't tell me, tell her. Address  her and let her know the secret you know." 

"Fine." Sans stood really close to her. "Frisky, I know about the training ships now. Really wouldn't have made much difference to me." He saw her rigid body lose just a touch of it's rigidness but not much. 

"Great. So, back to that no choice thing about sides?" Friskarino said. "Yeah, we don't get the final say on permanent either, but your actions in training usually fit a decent side. Frisky however wasn't PACIFIST she was a NEUTRALIST." 

"A NEUTRALIST?" 

"Yep, but she knew her poor kid. Um, well, your poor kid would be going through some bad missions on a neutral side. So, she acted. She lied to the girl next to her. Spoke loud enough for her to overhear Frisky say your son's sanity wouldn't survive GENOCIDE. The girl flipped Frisky her card and took Frisky's but was caught. Except, she wasn't just any girl. Before snapping her neck, her loving teacher told her the identity was her sister. He even tossed her sister's MP to her so she could get to know what little of her she ever could through it." 

"Whoah." Oh, that was bad. He remembered Chance saying something about that. "Chance said his mom never told him much about her." That was why. She didn't know much about her in the first place. He came over to Frisky. "Hey? Frisky? Yeah, uh . . . I'm sorry about your whole sister thing. I know you didn't know her, but I bet it still hurt. And, I know because of how you acted it happened, but you did what you thought was right. You wanted Chance on PACIFIST." He shrugged. "Honestly, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing." 

Her body seemed to relax more. She almost needed help standing up now. 

"Okay. This next one? Is tough. I'm not saying much more than the basics to give you directions to the truth." He pulled out his MP and put in some codes. "Sorry." 

That definitely wasn't good. Sans took the MP and looked at the charts on it. "What's this?" 

"Dates are mindwipes. You can think of them like resets, except the environment doesn't change, and it eventually has repercussions on the brain. Frisky went through several mindwipes as well as all of us to survive our sanity against the different timelines and resets. But, those are full mindwipes you see labeled. It doesn't just take out a 'timeline', it takes out everything. You literally wake up not knowing anything about yourself. You've got your same skills, but nothing else. Your mind feels like a complete rookie, even if you've been fighting for years."

Mindwipes. Sans scrolled through. There were a lot. In between the mindwipes were other phrases. Experimental. Budding. Disciplined Action. "I got a good brain but this doesn't make sense." 

"Failed missions, Sans. Things happen for everyone when they fail. It's all bad, but girls, well, they add to the populace." 

"Hm?" 

"Every time a female soldier fails, they get disciplined until they get pregnant." 

" . . . hm?" 

"It's just as bad as it sounds. Frisky failed twice. Neither of them made it to a born status. But, Balancers don't want regular humans. We're just rodents. They want conduits or re-resets, so after it's conceived, well, you see the word experiment." 

What. Sans looked back at the charts again. After every discipline, there was a mindwipe. Constantly. 

"They keep full mindwiping so a soldier's mind stays too rookie and can't-" 

"Shut up." The same number next to Discipline kept showing up. And he could guess by the 'names' of the Frisks what that was. There were three separate charts. One of them had no numbers on the side and was successful. That must be Chance. The others though kept having an identical number. 

" . . .mmm . . . let me know when you're ready to go on." 

Sans kept flipping through the charts. Not that it would do anything. What he saw wasn't going to change. It wasn't going to reset to something happy like 'does not exist.' "Ch-Chance is different." 

"Yeah, I know. Honestly, the furthest data back on Frisky that I can find is when he was already 8 months. So, that was a different branch of things. Trust me. The others weren't yours. They were 04823's. Best Friend to the PERSEVERANCE you fought, but assigned to be a PACIFIST teacher. He was actually Underground for a short time. Left her sister's MP in a Temmie shop along with a Hoodie, just to goad her about the mission failure. Especially since it had been many years. Chance was practically a baby back when things were bad." He looked back toward Sans. "He was also the same guy who killed her sister." 

Sans really wasn't moving. He was still just staring and studying the charts.  

"Uh. You know, Mankind and Balancers, we've evolved a long time, so . . . the ways of getting pregnant aren't really physical. That's the slow way. I mean, I can't say it for sure, I can't get into those kinds of files easily, and I really don't want to know." 

Sans still wasn't moving. He was still just watching the charts. 

"So did Frisky ever tell you about a guy called Conner?" His eye sockets shot toward him. Devoid of any light. Not a surprise, but still chilling nonetheless. "He's not 04823. Just to let you know if you think there's a connection." Sans' eyes moved back down to the charts. "But, if anything ever happens and Frisky gets pulled away, there's a good chance she'll go to him. When she accepts a subservient role to a higher soldier. Mm, that's why he has a name? Well, she loses her chance at freedom but she doesn't have to participate in missions anymore. Neither would Chance." 

Friskarino sighed again. "You need to . . . you need to tell her that you know. Or, did you want the last thing?" No real answer. "Fine. Uh, if anyone ever gets through that barrier or it breaks, I wouldn't doubt if Frisky either goes to Conner or just kills herself. Because hell is waiting for her. See, they used to be able to see down here. They have no idea what's going on, so, if word ever gets out that she's not chained up and she's actually happily living in harmony in the same house as some Monsters, it's going to get bad. If a pregnancy was a failed mission, I don't want to know what would happen for that offense if they bag her alive. And that? That's why . . . everyone wanted her and Chance away. Chance is a cute kid but he's a freaking weapon ready to go off. You know that. And, well, Frisky is going to get punished really hard if anything happens. So. So seriously!" He shouted at Sans. "You take damn good care of Frisky. Because she is DETERMINATION, has a lot in store but it comes from massive amounts of love for the kid.  Everyone gets a choice with their first born conduit what to do, and she wouldn't leave. Women soldiers have dreamed of getting a conduit instead of a re-reset just so they could leave, but she never did that. So, please. Please watch out for her, she's like our sister, and out of all of us Frisks she is the most tender. Got it?" 

He moved over toward Sans. "Here, I need my MP and I'll take off. You can do this however you need to, and make it back to your own wedding. Sorry again, Sans. I'm sure she never wanted anyone to know anything, but. Well, you guys were going to fry her again, and she can't take much more before hitting the insanity zone but . . . she wasn't going to run." He still held his hand out. Sans finally gave it to him. He started to search on his MP. "We're stuck here too. So, if you need help, you already saw what to do. We automatically come when our numbers are chanted over and over from our comrades. MP 9's and up are set up that way." Yeah, he wasn't going to say anything else. If Sans even slightly cared for Frisky, then he had a lot to take in. "Bye, Sans." 

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. "Guess um . . . I ain't got no choice in any of this? No resets. No going back or anything on all that past stuff. Well, and  . . . this is like one of the times you'd really, really, really want to. So." He pulled her over closer. "That. It's. I'm so freaking sorry, Frisky!" He brought her closer into a hug.  

He was hurting. He was hurting so much, he swore he had actually attained some kind of physical heart or chest. "How could anyone ever do that to you?" Damn. The price of a failed mission. "Promise, I promise. This is it. Me and Papyrus, we're going to take the best care of you and I really, really mean it! And I don't really, really know what else to say! Cause it won't change anything! Just, um. Just." 

That was weird. Frisky's dress was getting wet where he laid his skull. It took a moment to realize he manifested something. Something he needed. 

Tears.

Picking his broken self back up, he stood next to Frisky. "You know. If I had been the Frisk's I think I would have done the same thing they did after all. Especially since you had your freedom. Instead, you came back, and you're scared about how long that barrier is going to hold. You'd go through some kind of torment if you got caught and you did it. Just . . . just so I could keep Chance." He wiped his tears on his tux. "You're way too good for me. I'm not worth this much. I'm just a lazy guy who likes to tell jokes. Although, jokes kind of went south. Nothing's felt funny for some time now." 

He sighed and held her on the side. He still  had to address it. "Frisky. I know that if the barrier fails, hell is waiting for you on the other side." Her body became loose and he continued to hold her. "Frisky. I know that 04823 fathered two unborns and he is who you face when you fail a mission. If you get pulled out and survive that hell, you're going to go to some guy named Conner that bugs Chance, or you might actually just get yourself killed." She slid down more. "I know that my anger toward humans is really not what I thought it was. I know you humans keep saying Balancers, but I don't think I got it 'til now. And, even though Chance is my own kid, and I'd never put him through what they made him to be? I can . . . see why they did it. This thing ain't so cut and dry anymore between humans and Monsters." 

He actually started to hear her breathe, like she was just lightly asleep. As much as he didn't want to right now, they were still in the middle of getting married. He had already made King Asgore mad enough and it couldn't be postponed. "Welp. I guess we better finish this." He couldn't address anything. Yet. There wasn't time yet, and he had to stay cheery for the wedding, or she'd know and feel horrible the whole time. And it didn't do any good to mess up on something that happened years ago. Yet.

Even though he couldn't do anything yet though. He felt something. He felt something deep inside that he hadn't felt in a long, long time and he knew three things for a fact: 

Friskarino was a damn good part of Frisk for going through that for Frisky. 

Frisky thought she was risking hell just so he could stay with Chance. 

Frisky wasn't risking hell because he would become hell if anyone ever touched her or Chance. 

Ever.