ENTRY NUMBER 03:
* Any human entering the Underground will be closely monitored.
* Emergency evacuations procedures will begin.
* The human will be detained.
* Escape from the Underground isn't a realistic goal, but their SOUL will still be useful.
ENTRY NUMBER 04:
* But…
* I can't rely solely on traps or puzzles.
* For the plan to be feasible, I would need to establish a new royal guard.
*…Which means putting monsters in harm's way.
* I don't want any more dust on my hands.
The floor vibrated whenever the elevator moved. Flowey's roots were sensitive enough to detect it from below the lobby, rousing him from his doze. Alphys had taken a little longer than usual.
He waited for the elevator to stop, then popped up between a seam in the floor-tiles for a look around. There was hardly anything Alphys could do if she found him here, but she might get annoying if he showed up at the wrong time; he already knew how she reacted to people threatening her pet/girlfriend (badly) and no longer found it interesting enough to put that scenario into motion again.
Flowey dug back down and burrowed deeper into the lab, this time following the steadily hiss-hum of the water pipes. Traveling blindly used to disorient him, but with enough practice he could move faster than he did when he had legs. Getting to ignore walls had its convenient points.
The fish was curled up as far into the corner of the tank as physiologically possible, an effort helped by the fact that her body had roughly the consistency of ice cream dropped into the dirt and left to melt. "Hiya, stupid!" he called out, waving with a leaf. The fish didn't notice the motion, mostly because she had her head down and clutched under her arms, but she didn't respond when a vine then sprouted up and tapped against the glass either. Flowey pondered this, then mentally shrugged and turned his attention towards the countertop on the opposite side of the room, feeling around with the vine for the clipboard Alphys had left up there.
You'd think that Flowey would know more about Determination than anybody else, and mostly you would be right, but Alphys' records here didn't really make much sense. The pages were covered in printed columns and boxes filled in with decimal numbers which he sort of understood (.01 meant one-tenth..?) and then calculations of some kind that filled the margins of the sheets until the paper was a big smudgy mess, which he definitely didn't. The boxes next to them were slightly more interesting because they had actual words in them, things like green magic still having no effect?, which made him almost regret his decision to stay hidden instead of telling Alphys exactly what she'd done, even if that might ultimately limit all the new things he could see in this timeline before Chara came back and put everybody out of their misery.
Speaking of which, Undyne still hadn't moved an inch since he'd arrived.
Flowey set the clipboard back down and tapped against the glass again. When that didn't elicit a response, he summoned a magic bullet, flinging it at the glass with an echoing PINGGG! and burst of white light. The fish lurched and made some kind of noise, strings of gray bubbles floating out from between her fangs like ugly pearls. Flowey waited, and then tried again with another bullet. Still no response.
Hm. That probably wasn't good.
In the name of, uh, making sure that nothing was broken in there, Flowey followed the last two attacks with a glowing halo of magic bullets. PING-PING-PING-PING-PINGGGG!
He zipped down beneath the floor as the fish flung itself against the glass with a BANG that reverberated through the floor. Water sloshed out through the mesh covering the tank and splattered across the tiles. From a safe distance in the corner of the room, Flowey stuck his tongue out.
"Serves you right for ignoring your friends. Hee hee~!"
Gray goop now coated the glass where Undyne had been banging her hands, like spots where a giant snail had been. She glared at Flowey despite his winning smile, then pushed off and returned to her corner to sulk, ignoring any further attempts to elicit a reaction.
Well, that was okay. Flowey would be back later, if he felt like it.
Flowey hadn't always been a creature of habit, much the opposite. But with a finite number of things to do it was inevitable that the days would settle into some sort of rhythm: sleeping in the RUINS, or basking in the sunlight and cool air by Chara's flowerbed during the daytime. Hanging around the capital to spy on people, which wasn't as interesting as it used to be, not that anything was.
And there was Alphys, too. Alphys and that new pet of hers. Nothing like that had ever happened when it was just Flowey toying with the Underground. But, then, he wasn't the one in control anymore. And that was okay; he knew who now held the power to SAVE, and he didn't have any reason to mind.
Mostly.
A bipedal monster in a grubby blue hoodie was propped up against the door to the RUINS with its hands in its pockets. It hadn't been there a moment earlier.
Flowey came to a dead stop near the end of the path, hoping for a moment that luck might be on his side and that maybe he could just sneak back the way he came before being noticed. But the path through the woods was smooth, and straight, and he stood out like—well, like a brightly-colored flower against white snow. Flowey shivered.
"sheesh, kid," Sans said with a wink. "that expression… it's like you just ran into a horrible undead skeleton or something. weird."
"What do YOU want?" Flowey demanded, and if his voice shook it was only because it was cold. Sans grinned down at him, which meant nothing because his face was permanently stuck like that, but it was obnoxious anyway. Like the skeleton knew precisely what had happened every other time they'd met at this spot, and was laughing at Flowey on the inside.
Except. Flowey had been there, watching, when Sans met Chara in that hallway in New Home. He'd fought Flowey there a hundred times and always cheated, just like he always showed up here and fought unfairly and killed Flowey over and over until he wanted to just scream and let himself get killed and then RESET, except that wasn't what he did that time. He'd chickened out. He didn't even TRY to touch Chara. 'Have you really done the right thing?'
Pathetic, TOTALLY pathetic.
"well, for starters, i'm way overdue for a haircut." When Flowey failed to laugh, Sans shrugged. "…ok, that's fair. stranger danger and all that stuff. i didn't come here to hurt you, though. promise. I just wanted to talk."
Flowey braced himself. This was not the first time Sans had pulled this trick, just talking until suddenly he wasn't and most of Flowey's body was ash and the timeline was basically ruined because no matter what it just led to this. The promise was new, but what was it really worth?
"…About what."
"hey, now we're getting someplace." Sans pressed his foot to the door and pushed off, taking a few crunching steps before sitting cross-legged right there in the snow. Flowey watched his every move, though Sans seemed to ignore his suspicion and continued the chummy act, undeterred. "for starters, i'm sans the skeleton. we haven't met, but unless there are way more talking flowers around here than i suspected… you used to be buddies with my bro."
". . ."
Under the permanent layer of snow and ice, Flowey's vines coiled through the frozen soil. Whatever Sans was playing at, he was taking an awfully big risk by getting this close. He was stronger than he had any right to be, but he was even more fragile than Flowey had been as a monster. Just one attack, any kind of attack, would be enough to do him in. Chara might not like losing one of their toys before getting the chance to play with it, but the thought was awfully tempting…
"that, uh, would be papyrus. for the record," Sans added.
"I know who—" Flowey started, then shifted tactics. His petals drooped. "I mean, I know who he was. You're right, we used to be friends."
Sans nodded in self-satisfaction, as though said brother hadn't been decapitated not so far away. Maybe he'd even watched it happen, hiding someplace nearby. Well, that was fine. Chara liked hunting down monsters that ran and hid. "i thought so. well, it's nice to see that you're still kickin' around. seemed like you completely vanished after the human did their thing… makes it hard not to assume the worst, y'know?"
Hah, as if Chara would EVER kill their best friend. They'd had a bit of a tense moment in New Home, and then there was that teeny-tiny little misunderstanding over the human SOULs, but they'd spared him. They wouldn't have done that unless they cared about him, as much as creatures like the two of them could care about anyone.
"I appreciate that you care. But I'm fine, really," Flowey said.
Sans rested his chin in one bony hand. "haven't seen any sign of you around snowdin since then, or anyplace else for that matter. what have you been up to? most people would be afraid to get this close to the RUINS."
You were gone for a very long time. Did you have fun? I hope that you did not go near those spike puzzles. —No, Mom…
"I'm… used to being here, I guess. Does it really matter?"
"eh. at least a little bit. after all, my policy has always been that any friend of my bro is a friend of mine. and i'd hate to see anything bad happen to a friend of mine."
Sans' eyes clicked shut, which didn't make any sense because he was a skeleton and they weren't supposed to have eyes OR eyelids, but monsters didn't follow that kind of logic. Either way, he looked like one of those creepy wooden dummies. (Oh god. Wait. That tone… Flowey knew what was coming now. But Sans wasn't stupid enough to harm Chara's best friend, was he? Did he know?!)
"so i'll be straightforward with you… and hopefully you'll do the same."
A pause.
"…but jeez, kid, what kind of person do ya think i am?"
Flowey's vines remained poised for attack just a few inches below the ground. Above it, he stared blankly, momentarily thrown off despite himself. "Huh?"
One eye winked back open, the socket underneath still glowing dully. "you're shaking like a leaf. Look, i meant it when I said i didn't intend to hurt you. but i do have a question, and i'd appreciate an honest answer… …when was the last time you used that special power of yours?"
Flowey put some extra distance between himself and the skeleton. Sans was a liar and obnoxious but never stupid. He had to realize what would happen if he went too far. Chara wouldn't let him do anything to their friend, and if he did, he'd regret it. "I knew you weren't REALLY being friendly. I don't have to tell you ANYTHING."
"no.. but you already did." Sans slouched forward until his spine was nearly parallel to the ground, tapping his fingers against his jaw-bone. It didn't make a cartoon xylophone noise, sadly, more like the tck-tck-tck of somebody clicking two teacups together. "and that expression… going out on a limb here, but i'd say that it's been awhile. before that friend of yours left, maybe."
"I don't HAVE to tell you ANYTHING."
"or maybe… even before then? seems strange that you'd go through all the trouble of helping them, just to sit around down here once they left. you'd think you would've stuck together, one way or another. if you really were friends, that is."
". . ."
"but, then, you were never such a good friend to anybody. maybe that's why this whole scenario turned out so crummy for you. might wanna work on that next time around, yeah?"
"Shut up!"
Sans laughed—an ugly, near-monotone heh heh heh. With a yawn, he straightened his back and pushed himself to his feet, leaving one hand dangling at his side instead of in its pocket. He stared right through Flowey. Flowey stared at the hand.
"alright, then. that's all the answer i needed, so i'll leave you alone. since you technically haven't hurt anybody, i guess i don't have to do anything about you for now.
so, if i were you… i'd be real careful. never know who's watching."
His eye-sockets darkened, two black pits against white bone, and he waved with a single slow, lazy motion. Flowey flinched down against the snow as if that would somehow help him, vines bursting up from the ground and lasting toward the general vicinity of where the skeleton stood. When they swept through nothing except air, and Flowey's body remained intact, he finally dared to peek up again and found that he was alone. The door to the RUINS loomed, and the forest was silent, with only the footprints in the snow suggesting that anyone had been there for a very long time.
Flowey let out a long-suppressed ARRGHHH and smacked his face against the snow a few times, then regained his senses and retreated underground. He made a bee-line for the RUINS, burrowing until the permafrost gave way to stone and dry sand, and the brittle roots of the dead tree in front of his old Home, the place where they'd lived before Chara came and everything changed.
He dug down beneath the old tree's roots, where nobody could find him or hurt him or do anything bad at all, and fumed.
Just a little longer, and then they'd come back. Even if it took a long time, he'd waited before and he'd keep waiting. They would come. They'd come back when he called them, and they'd come back again.
They would.
They would.
Sans kept hidden under the trees long after the flower vanished, his breath huffing out in little clouds of condensation. The bark under his hand was papery-thin, peeling outward, probably birches of some kind but he wasn't any kind of tree expert. Could hardly even feel the things without skin.
As an afterthought, he exerted a little burst of magic to make his eyes brighten, winking back on as if somebody had flipped a switch.
yeah, sans, you're a real badass. sure scared the hell outta that little kid.
He snorted. The imaginary gears in his skull click-click-clicked away.
So.
The flower had done something bad enough to piss off another Sans, to the point that even his presence scared it. That was worth confirming, though not immediately relevant by itself.
Once the human arrived, the flower acted as their lackey. The reset-switches for bro's puzzles were all strangled into submission by vines, and he'd heard that the Core modules were all busted up, making it impossible to swap 'em around and impede the human's progress that way. Timeline-jumps came at regular intervals corresponding to points at which even an adult human should have died, but didn't—encounters with stronger monsters, primarily. Draw your own conclusions, there.
And then the human murdered Asgore, and—after that point, they did something, and then time died.
Except that it didn't.
And now, months later, he was picking up new anomalous activity that was not the work of the flower—he'd bet cash on it—and did not follow the general pattern that had arisen while the human stalked the Underground. If the flower and/or human's previous shenanigans were like rips in the fabric of timespace, then these distortions were like somebody grabbing big handfuls at random, squishing and crumpling it but leaving the material technically intact. If he hadn't been specifically looking for them, he never could have spotted the wrinkles.
So to speak.
Sans arched his back and rolled his shoulders in place, stretching his spine as far as it could go without his hands actually leaving his pockets. He slumped again. Then stepped out from between the trees and took a shortcut to Grillby's, soggy clumps of snow still smushed into the bottom of his slippers.
With two booths occupied and a single bird monster perched at the counter, you might easily assume that it was just a slow business day in a sleepy little town, if you'd never been to Snowdin before. Not just before, but before. The tables where the canine unit always hung out after their shifts were spotless in a way that would never look right to Sans again, though leaving a bunch of empty doggy dishes at their old spots would've been a little too far into needless pathos, so he wasn't going to criticize.
The rabbit monster in the center booth perked their ears as Sans passed by, their chin pressed firmly against the tabletop as if glued there by some old spill. He would've wondered what was in the mug sitting in front of their face, but Grillby was pretty strictly against serving alcohol in any form for precisely the reasons you'd expect from a guy literally made out of fire.
(Because fire monsters were classy people and this was a family-friendly establishment. Duh.)
"Hiya, Sansyyy!"
"a couple of 'burgs to go. fries too," Sans said. As Grillby headed back to the kitchen, the rabbit monster twisted around and flopped over the back of their booth like one of those stuffed toys with the plastic pellets inside. He waggled his fingers at them.
With his other hand, he fidgeted with a crumpled receipt from a previous snack-run, buried deep in his pocket.
The problem, or at least the main problem, was that he had no way of knowing what the human was doing and therefore no way to know if it had anything to do with the seemingly-random uptick in anomalous activity over the past month. Or why all readings pointed to the abrupt and absolute end to the timeline when nothing of the sort actually happened. Sure, not getting completely wiped from existence was great and Sans was a big fan of not being dead, but at least you could be pretty confident about the end of the world being a bad thing and then go from there. Whereas he now had no clear way of continuing to do his one remaining job, unless the human came back to kill everyone else, the human erased all their memories of everything after last summer and killed them on some metaphysical level, or some other human took a nosedive into the Underground and handed over their SOUL on a platter. Not really appealing options, any of them.
"Come sit with me!" the rabbit monster said, shimmying to one side to make extra room in the empty booth. Sans shrugged in apology.
"sorry, bud," he said. "i gotta get home to walk my pet rock before it leaves gravel all over the carpet."
It was still possible that Mettaton had been right and the human never meant to hurt the rest of their kind. The irregular readings could be a fluke, the product of a barely-functioning machine manned by a moderately-qualified skeleton. Wildly overoptimistic, sure, but he couldn't rule out the possibility completely. Not with the photo to consider.
If the human had that much of a heart, though, you'd think they would act upon that and clean up their mess. You'd think.
(And maybe he'd been too quick to rule out the flower? It had been hanging around the lab in Hotland when Sans spotted it again, and it'd be just like Alphys to seek out her old creation for company. But what could she be doing, even with the thing's help, and what might it gain from that..?)
The rabbit monster pouted and unhooked their arms from around the seat, sliding out of sight and thumping against the table.
Luckily for Sans, if not his fuzzy friend, Grillby chose that moment to return with the food. And Sans, in the interest of sparing the Grillster from complete and total shock of earth-shaking proportions, vamoosed without any Gold changing hands.
Sans' tab grew bigger. Time limped forward.
There was work to do.
