The ruins were biting cold, a harsh wind digging its claws into us as the human and the flower laid hidden in the ancient cityscape. Were it possible for anything to properly grow down here besides leaves on that singular tree, tumbleweed would surely be rolling by. The place echoed their every little movement as they laid down inside of an old, long-since abandoned store, Hope Williams curling her arms around her legs as she sunk her head deep into them, sighing sadly. Flowey the Flower sat in an old bucket filled up with dirt nearby, the only flowerpot-esque thing that wasn't cracked and broken around the cityscape. It wasn't wise to go to Toriel's house, at least not yet. That'd be the first place that...
That that THING would go to.
Old Town's once beautiful paint jobs had long-since faded, what had been dazzling reds and purples and blues had turned into ugly and faded shades of grey. The roads were also an ugly color to boot, where once had been golden paint that made the streets shine as if the travelers were on the road to Oz, now there was nothing but grey. The roof the cave above seemed grey. The buildings were grey. The road was grey. Everything about the place...
Was grey. Grey and dismal and sad. The entire Ruins truly was empty, hollow and morose and depressing, and Hope was struggling not to give into absolute despair as she tried to strike up a conversation with Flowey, who sulked in the corner, her deep brown eyes looking sympathetically at him. "How'd it happen?" She wanted to know.
Flowey's voice was quiet, almost eerily like his TRUE voice, the voice he'd had as little Asriel, and yet...not.
"Chara had been having her fun all through the Underground. She understood that in this world, it was "Kill or be killed". She was on her way to the Judgment Hall, where that smiley trashbag was, not too far from my Father's throne room. I'd been worried at first. I thought maybe..." Flowey slightly trailed off before shaking his head back and forth, turning around to properly face the little black girl as she stared expectantly back at him. "I'd been worried she might hurt ME in the end, might...be a bit mad cuz I didn't go through with our plan from before. The plan back when Chara poisoned themselves and I brought their body out of the barrier, our souls combined as one. But...then when she was fighting Sans, I saw her stop. She didn't kill him. I knew then that..." Flowey shook his head. "She'd just been playing. It was just one of her twisted little jokes she liked to do. Chara LOVED dark humor."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, like..." Flowey smiled a bit, chuckling. "Like...what's the difference between a car and a pile of dead babies? I don't have a car in my garage!" Flowey sniggered as Hope blinked a bit, but she could see that Flowey's near-devastated, almost catatonic with horror and grief face had slowly but surely begun to pick up the more he talked, and she wanted to keep him talking. It made what was going on around her seem normal. It made her feel NORMAL. Less afraid. More sure of herself.
"That's pretty good. Or maybe "How many babies does it take to paint a wall? Depends on how hard you throw them"?" Hope asked, Flowey sniggering as he covered his little mouth with his petals.
"Yeah! Or-or did you hear about the cannibal who passed his brother in the woods?!" He began to guffaw, his body shaking with laughter as Hope laughed.
"What are three things a black guy can't get? A black eye, a fat lip and a job!" She chuckled, Flowey blinking a bit at this, looking at her in surprise.
"You don't...mind jokes like that?" He asked her. "Cuz, well...Chara said jokes like THAT were...racist?" He remarked quietly, the former Prince of Monsters looking confused.
"Jokes like that can be, yes. Black kids like me tell each other jokes like that because it lessens the sting when people who aren't black tell it. Sometimes they don't know better, other times they do but don't care. But we tell them anyway cuz it makes it easier for us to brace for it." Hope remarked softly. "It's the same reason we call each other names that old slave masters used to call us. It takes away the power of the word. At least, a little bit. It's not much, but in a lotta ways it's kinda all we got. When you don't have much, you have to make do."
"I can get that." Flowey mumbled as they sat in the near-empty room, Hope leaning against the old mattress and sighing.
"So is your...well...is your father gone?" She asked. "We can't stay in the Ruins forever, we need to get the Souls."
"What makes you think they're not already taken?" Flowey quietly asked as Hope rubbed her chin.
"Well...think about it. If Error Sans HAD the Souls and had become a God, wouldn't he have already found us? Or wiped you and I out when I first showed up?" She reasoned. "I'm guessing he doesn't know what normal Sans wouldn't, and normal Sans wasn't told where the Souls would be kept. He saw where I was and a few others, I remember THAT from my time in the jar, but then he broke down when Gaster was gone, and never went back to the lab, and Asgore would have moved the souls out."
"That's right, Error Sans said you're the Soul of Patience." Flowey remembered aloud. "I knew something about you was familiar." He reasoned, tilting his head a bit. "How'd you GET here?"
"All I remembered was this bright light, really...and then I was here. Pretty much, that's it." Hope said with a shrug. "I don't know why I'm here, but if you're all that's left then...I have to at least try to help you. Even after all you did." She reasoned, scratching at her black hair as Flowey bit his little lip, his flowery head hanging slightly before he sighed.
"Fine. Whatever." He grumbled. "...I guess we'd better find our way out of the ruins. But that means we have to go to Toriel's house, and Error Sans is probably there, just waiting for us to show up."
Hope nodded. "He's a patient guy, I'm sure. Same as Sans. But I spent years in that canister, watching Sans, hearing him talk, seeing him expose his own soul." Hope murmured, her eyes turning into burning brown pools of cold-hearted calculation. "And I...ain't...stupid." She grumbled. "I know a lotta people expect me to be, but I'm poor, not STUPID. And I'm not letting some creepy bag of bones keep me down here. I don't care what it takes. I can figure it out. I'm not just patient."
She tapped the side of her head and gave Flowey a little smirk.
"I'm WISE too."
...
...
...
...Toriel's home was a cozy little purple-brick place, the walls inside a soft yellow color, with flowers in pots all over. A collection of books was in a bookshelf across from a stairway leading down to the exit of the ruins, all the floors quite well-kept and clean, the house cozy and warm with a homely-little living room and a table set for three. A plushy brown chair with a yellow blanket slung over it sat by a fireplace that no longer had a fire coursing through it, but it DID have an unintended occupant sitting inside said chair as he nonchalantly munched on a Butterscotch-Cinnamon pie. She sure as heck wasn't gonna be-
Something hit the side of the house and Error Sans blinked a bit, standing up as he levitated the pie plate in his lap onto the table, calmly making for the front door and opening it up.
Sure enough, a rock had struck the side of the house and it rolled past his slippered feet. His red eyes narrowed intensely as he gazed about, chuckling slightly.
"Oh, c'mon now. You seriously, actually think you can hide from me?" He inquired. "I mean...really? I've done this so many times. Nobody ever gets away from me in the end." He announced loudly, stepping down the front steps of the home as he placed his hands in his pockets and began to hum the infamous funeral march music. "Bum-bum-ba-dum, bum-ba-dum-dum-dum-da-duuuum!"
Another shot sailed through the air. It hit the side of the house and Error Sans glanced around, frowning. The rock rolled across the lawn as he looked about, eyes peering, but not seeing either Flowey nor Hope. He began to hum more loudly, his eyes slightly narrowed as he frowned a bit...
THA-THUNK. Yet ANOTHER rock hit the house and he whirled about, seeing where it had come from, eyes widening.
Somebody had set up a surprisingly elaborate slingshot system using old tools and little string, every single tug letting loose the "catapault" to hurl a rock at the house, every single one of the slingshots hidden and now only SLIGHTLY visible...
Having been put in piles of dust. Error Sans chuckled darkly as he began to laugh and laugh and laugh, Flowey shuddering as Hope got to work on opening up the doorway, Flowey's petals clutching the strings tightly as he hid behind a pillar some distance away.
"Not bad, kiddos. Not bad at all. Hiding your little toys in the remains of my fellow monsters so I wouldn't immediately notice it? Now THAT is ballsy. I'll give you that. Fiendishly clever. But unfortunately for you, I don't feel like toying around with you anymore."
He clenched his bony hand into a fist, laughing psychotically, his echoing, mocking laughter ringing through the air as his Gaster Blasters manifested, the enormous, faintly draconic skulls hovering in midair before obliterating the traps as Flowey let go of the strings and bolted as fast as he could, Error Sans firing at him over and over again as he desperately tried to dodge, trying to make his way to the abandoned cityscape again. But after days of running ragged away from Sans, he couldn't really move too fast, let alone duck into the earth and hide, and Error KNEW it. His grin was the work of demons as he calmly whistled, his Gaster Blasters barreling hot, monstrous energy squarely at Flowey, trying to obliterate him as he kept on firing and firing.
"You can't keep dodging forever." Error Sans said with a little smirk. "WOW is that ironic comin' from yours truly." He told Flowey...
Before a rock bopped him on the head and he frowned, turning around, rubbing his skull. "...hey. I might be more powerful than normal, but that still hurts." He told Hope, Flowey gaping in surprise.
"What're you doing?! You shoulda took off for Snowdin!"
"I'm not just going to leave you." Hope insisted as Error grinned and held up one hand, his Gaster Blasters turning on her as she dove away, then tossed another rock at him, Error Sans stepping to the side to dodge as well. Hope held up a small bag she'd filled up with kitchen knives, tossing them at Error Sans again and again, diving and swerving and twisting her body to avoid the searing, baleful strike of his Gaster Blasters as Error Sans continued dodging himself.
"Oh, c'mon, kid. You think you're really gonna hit me?" He asked, noticing she was inching closer and closer. "Trying for another spray of dirt in my eyes."
"No, I figured you'd catch on to that tack." She said. "Or rather...KETCHUP!" She proclaimed, whipping out a bottle of ketchup, tossing it at his face.
The pun caught him off guard, Error Sans staring in surprise, a brief chuckle rising up involuntarily from his gut before the bottle slammed into him, knocking him back as he flailed about. The Gaster Blasters vanished in midair as Flowey raced to Hope's side, Hope lifting him up and tucking him into a new flower pot as she barreled into Toriel's house. Error Sans's furious roar filled the air as he tried to get the ketchup out of his eye sockets, Hope and Flowey surging down the stairs and towards the purple doorway at the far end of the basement hall...
Bursting out into the cold of Snowdin. Now...to follow the river to Hotland, and from there, to the King's Castle. To the souls.
To their only hope.
