Clementine stared at the flower in disbelief. She had seen plenty of things in her life - most of which left her scarred in both a literal and metaphorical sense - but a talking flower easily topped them all.
"Hmm," said Flowey, looking her over, "You're new to the Underground, aren'tcha?"
Clementine nodded dumbly. "Y-yeah." She briefly wondered if she was suffering from a concussion.
"Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little ol' me will have to do!"
Clementine shook herself out of her stupor. There was something about this flower that set of several warning bells. Well, aside from the fact that the damn thing was even alive.
"Ready?" Clementine nodded. "Here we go!"
Everything around the teenager suddenly turned to black, and a red heart the size of her hand appeared in front of her chest.
"See that heart? That's your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!"
Clementine wasn't sure if Flowey was telling the truth or not, but if he was, she certainly wasn't comfortable with her soul being out in the open.
"Your SOUL starts off weak-"
'Rude.'
"But can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV!" Flowey suddenly looked perplexed. "That's odd. It seems that you're already at LV three."
"Is that bad?"
"No, no. It's just unusual. The few newcomers that have shown up are usually at LV one when they arrive."
"What does LV stand for anyways?"
Flowey cleared whatever he had that passed for a throat. "Right, LV stands for LOVE."
Clementine's immediate thought was 'bullshit,' but decided to keep it to herself.
"You want some LOVE, don't you?"
'I'm gonna fucking kill this little creep.'
"Don't worry, I'll share some with you." Flowey gave the girl a wink, which only raised even more red flags.
"Down here, LOVE is shared through little white..." he paused, and summoned a semi-circle of pellets, "'friendliness pellets.' Are you ready? Move around! Get as many as you can!"
Clementine watched as the pellets clustered together and floated towards her.
'How stupid does this thing think I am?' Clementine backed away and let the pellets fly by her.
"Hey girly," the flower said, his cheerful demeanor chipping away, "you missed them."
"The name's Clementine. And sorry, I guess I just wasn't paying attention."
If the flower was going to toy with her, then she might as well do the same.
"Well, let's try again." Flowey summoned more 'friendliness pellets,' and sent them towards Clementine. The teenager pretended that her ankle was hurting more than she let on and ducked under the pellets.
"Is this a joke? Are you braindead? RUN. INTO. THE. BULLETS! Er, friendliness pellets."
Clementine smirked at the flower's growing impatience with her. Side-stepping past the next wave of bullets, she prepared to call the flower out on his lies. She wasn't prepared for what happened next.
The flower was suddenly donning an unsettling look and was speaking in a high-pitched squeak. "You know what's going on here, don't you?"
"Obviously," she responded, refusing to let herself be intimidated by a weed. "Anyone with half a brain stem could see through your bull."
Flowey's eye twitched. "Then die, worthless scum."
As Flowey laughed at the teen's demise, a ring of bullets was closing in on Clementine, who was completely taken aback.
'At least I got a few more minutes of life,' she thought, now resigning herself to her fate.
But, before the bullets could touch the girl, they disappeared. Clem also noticed that her injuries weren't there. Even the burn from when she was branded by the New Frontier.
'Am I dying or living? Make up your damn mind, fate.'
A fireball flashed by and knocked Flowey away from the girl. A large goat-like woman walked up to Clementine and offered the girl her hand.
Clementine stared at her; her eyes practically bulging from their sockets.
"Such a terrible creature," the woman sighed while glaring at a retreating Flowey, "torturing such a poor, innocent youth..."
'She's right about the poor part,' Clem thought to herself.
"Ah, do not be afraid, my child," the woman - Goat? - said, seeming to pick up on Clementine's distress. "I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if someone has fallen down."
There was something about that revelation that put Clem found off-putting, but she had a feeling that, unlike Flowey, Toriel had good intentions by doing so.
"Well," Clementine nervously grinned, unsure of what to say, "I'm Clementine. Thanks for saving me."
"It was no trouble at all, Clementine. You are the first human to come here in a long time."
"Not surprising, considering what's happening up top."
Toriel looked confused. "By the sound of it, much has changed since the last human's arrival. "Come! I shall guide you through the catacombs. This way."
Clementine watched as Toriel walked towards the doorway that she had spotted when she had met Flowey.
As she followed Toriel through the doorway, Clementine felt the shadows of the Ruins looming ahead. It filled her with determination.
"Welcome you to your new home, Clementine." The girl in question felt a pang of sadness when she heard that. It meant that she'd lost any chance at finding AJ. "Allow me to educate you in the operation of the Ruins."
Clem watched as Toriel stepped on several buttons on the floor and pulled a switch on the wall.
"The Ruins are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and door-keys. One must solve them to move from room to room."
'If any walkers show up, they'll have a hard time getting through here,' Clem grinned. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as she thought.
As the two walked to the next room, Toriel decided to make conversation.
"Clementine, earlier you said that you didn't find the idea that no human has been here in a long time not surprising. What did you mean by that?"
The teen sighed. She knew this would have come up eventually. "When I was eight, the dead started to rise up. Nobody knows how or why, but it happened. If a person was bit, they died and came back too. The same happens if you die and don't destroy the brain."
Toriel shuddered. "I'm sorry that you had to suffer through that for so long, Clementine."
The goat-woman seemed to be struggling to discuss the surface world any longer, so Clementine felt that it was best to change the subject.
"So, uh...what's the puzzle for this room?"
"O-oh, just some switches that need pulling. I've already labeled them should you ever need to use them."
Had it not been for the reveal of what the human world was like, Clementine would've laughed at how Toriel had drawn as many arrows as she could by each switch.
After pulling each one, she watched as the spikes that were blocking their way to the next room retracted. She had to admit, the puzzles were a little fun.
"As a human living in the Underground, monsters may attack you."
"So, I just need to fight them, right?"
"Technically. When you encounter a monster, you will enter a FIGHT."
"Like with Flowey?"
"Correct. While in a FIGHT, try and strike up a friendly conversation and stall for time. I will come and resolve the situation as quickly as I can."
Clementine wasn't sure about that. What if she were to encounter a monster that couldn't be stalled? What if the monster didn't understand what she was saying and tried to hurt her anyway? But, Toriel probably knew what she was talking about, so Clem tried not to question it.
"Here, practice talking to this dummy."
Clem felt the uncomfortable tug of her SOUL leaving her body. She hoped it was something that she wouldn't have to get accustomed to.
She stared at the dummy, and the dummy stared back.
"Uh, hi?" God, she felt stupid doing this. "Nice weather we're having, huh?"
She suddenly exited the fight and was greeted by Toriel, who was smiling warmly.
"Very good, Clementine!"
The goat-woman grinned and led Clementine to the next room.
"There's another puzzle in the next room. I'd like to see if you can solve it on your own."
Clementine found that Toriel spoke to her as though she were a small child, even though she was thirteen now, but Clementine figured that the older woman was used to being around younger children, so she tried not to dwell on it.
"Whoa!" Clementine shouted in surprise as she was pulled into a FIGHT.
The monster she had encountered was a stark white frog. It was about the size of a large dog and had a mysterious face in between its front legs. Clementine's first instinct was to pull out her broken dagger and stab the creature, but she remembered what Toriel had told her to do.
"Uh, hi there, Mr. Frog." She cringed at her lack of proper social skills. The apocalypse really hadn't done her any favors in the socializing department. "I like your...face?"
Thankfully, Toriel arrived and scared the frog away before Clem could make an even bigger fool of herself.
"That," said Toriel as they made their way to the next room, "was a Froggit. They're not the worst type of monster in the Ruins, but it'd be best to watch your back around them."
The two women made their way to a large bridge full of spikes. Toriel advised Clementine to take her hand as they walked across, which the girl did without any hesitation. The last thing she needed after the last week was to get skewered.
"Usually, this is where I would test your independence by having you walk through this room on your own. But, given what you've had to experience on the surface, I'm sure that you can handle yourself."
The old woman reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a cellphone.
"I'm afraid I must leave you on your own for a while. Please, stay here. Call me if you need anything."
Clementine nodded in understanding and watched as Toriel left the room. The teenager felt that this was a good time to take inventory. Aside from her broken dagger, her new phone, and her hat, there wasn't very much that was of any use or value to her.
Clementine eyed her new phone and smiled wistfully. She remembered when she was seven and had pestered her parents for a phone. But every time she had asked, they told her that she was too young for one, which led to them getting her walkie-talkies instead.
After a few more minutes of reminiscing about life before the walkers, the teen found herself getting restless. She knew that Toriel had told her to stay put, but she had grown accustomed to always being on the move. After all, it was either that or get killed.
"Sorry Toriel, but this girl has a thirst for exploration."
Author's note: Weird. I didn't think that I'd be posting two of these in the span of a few hours. Moving on from that, let's talk a little more about this story. Originally, I was going to call this 'Oh, My Darling' and have the chapters sort of relate to the title. Like, the previous one would've been called 'Has Fallen Down' (So it'd be 'Oh, My Darling Has Fallen Down), and this one would've been 'In the Ruins.' Welp, see ya next time!
