Things will only get more exciting from here! Dobostorte and I are quite pleased with how this came out too!
Chapter Two
As Inga went back into the room to inform Chief Barkley and the others of the news, Undyne stood still, her eye still fixed on her phone. It was the last thing that Undyne would've expected that morning; Papyrus, the love of her life and best friend, being thrust into her world of murder and mayhem? And of all things, the case with presumably the one known as the Starlight Killer? The rug had been thoroughly and swiftly yanked out from beneath her feet.
She stared at her phone, the voices replaying over and over in her head. Papyrus had sounded so frightened, so panicked… There wasn't much in the world that could scare Undyne, but this? This topped that very small list with no trouble.
"Okay," she whispered. "Papyrus needs you. Pull it together." She took a deep breath and counted to three as anger flared within her. She let it course through her, taking over all her other emotions, allowing it to eclipse the panic she felt right to her core. "This SOB is going down."
Inga stepped out of the meeting room and stood next to Undyne, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry… I told them about what happened, and Chief Barkley's organizing a team to handle this case, but we still need to figure out the rest of the clue. You coming?"
"Let me at it." Undyne stomped into the room and peered at the poem again.
Mr. Coffee stood in the back making his usual direct observations. "It says something about a home; think that's important?"
"Maybe it's our home." Undyne bit her lip and read it over for a third time. "Damn it, I'm terrible at this. Alphys was always… oh. Wait a minute. The thing about getting everyone together or… pieces being tailored… screw it, I'm calling Alphys."
"Arrgh! But that's got to conflict with dating etiquette somewhere!" The aforementioned Alphys was, at that very moment, arguing with an anonymous entity online about the severe lack of ethics displayed in Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 when her phone rang. She jumped a little before realizing that the ringtone was the one she'd assigned to Undyne's number. A pang of nervousness jolted through her as she answered it. "H-Hello?"
"Alphys, I need you. Now." Undyne's voice came in loud and clear. "You always solved all those cryptic clues when we played those puzzle games together; I need one now."
The dino-like monster quickly glanced at her clock. "Umm… aren't you at work?"
"Yeah, and it's a literal matter of life and death."
The color flushed from her face as soon as those words were spoken. Life and death? What a way to start a Monday morning. "U-Uh, I-I'll be there as soon as I can."
"No time. I'm sending you the picture now. Figure it out."
"U-Uh, even better?" She watched as the new email notification danced onto her screen, with a cheery 'meow' for its arrival. It was hardly a matching tone for the content inside. A few clicks later had her staring face to face with the letter's photograph.
"W-Well," she began. "I-It's mostly written in limericks… and, um…" her eyes widened. "Omigod, whose fiancé is… Undyne?"
"It's Papyrus." Undyne said, gritted teeth audible even from the receiver. "So I need this information now."
"Is he okay? Is he-"
"No, he's not okay; focus, Alphys!"
She jumped once more, this time at the sudden increase in Undyne's volume. "R-Right, sorry!" Her eyes quickly flew over the poem as she desperately tried to make sense of it. "It's the house. The next clue is at your house and he wants all of us involved."
"How the hell did you-"
"It'd take too long to explain, let's go." Alphys grabbed her coat and bolted out the door. "I'll call Asgore, you call Sans and Toriel."
"Got it."
Undyne knew something was terribly wrong when she arrived at her house, sirens blazing. The front door was ajar. Papyrus was trusting, but he wasn't that trusting. Getting her gun out of its holster, she kicked the door in and entered.
It was obvious from the second she caught sight of the foyer that no one was home anymore. A vase was smashed on the ground, the table it rested on knocked to the side.
"Papyrus!" she called, knowing that it was hopeless. Still, she couldn't help but hope she would hear him respond, maybe ask her why she sounded so panicked. "Papyrus, are you here?"
No response. But a moment later, Alphys stumbled in through the front door. "U-Undyne!"
"He put up a fight." Undyne said, surveying the room. "Whatever happened in here, he put up a fight. He would never leave the place this messy or unsecured."
"Y-You always said he was s-strong…" Her eyes opened wide when she saw the bones embedded in the wall. "N-Now I think I see what you meant." She glanced around the room, in frightened awe of the battle that had apparently taken place. She then got back to the other matter at hand. "So… is there are another clue?"
"I don't know." Undyne walked cautiously into the next room, gun raised. "There better be."
"PAPYRUS!" There was a loud slamming sound and heavy footsteps echoed through the eerily silent house. "PAPYRUS?"
"Sans?" Undyne lowered her gun when her future brother-in-law became visible. "Keep your voice down." She internally marveled that she'd ever had to utter those words to him; was this the first time she'd ever heard him yell? She wasn't sure.
"have you found anything?"
"No." Undyne stepped into the living room, gun still raised. "Where's Toriel?"
"on her way. so? what the hell, undyne!"
She flung her arms out defensively. "This is no picnic for me either, Sans, now shut up." Undyne looked over at the TV, her brow furrowed. "What the…" she peered at the grainy image on the screen.
To the surprise of everyone in the room, it was paused on a video… a video of the inside of Undyne and Papyrus' house.
A chill ran down her spine. "We don't have a security camera so what…" Undyne hurried back to the kitchen and looked up. To her horror, a tiny camera was set up on the ceiling. "When did that get there? How did that get there?"
Alphys trotted over and stared up at the device. "Th-That's a newer model from the Todelco brand. I-I've used them before; they're g-great for remote monitoring… i-in fact, you can a-access the feed from your c-cell phone."
"Great." Undyne punched the counter. "So he's watching our every move."
The yellow monster looked to her friend, exceedingly concerned. "U-Undyne… just who could be s-so invested in your life to go to these lengths?"
"undyne!" Sans called from the other room. "you might want to see this."
Less than a second later, Undyne was by Sans' side. "What is it?"
"The video. On the tv." Sans pressed play with the remote.
The scene that played out before their eyes was everything they expected, and much worse. Undyne quickly left as she had that morning, but shortly after she had exited the frame, a dark, hulking figure appeared and grabbed Papyrus from behind, a small cloth in hand. The skeleton monster struggled, throwing bones left and right, but the invader succeeded, covering Papyrus' mouth and nose. He was out in a matter of seconds, and the dark figure effortlessly dragged him from the scene.
Undyne's heart thudded painfully in her chest. It was one thing to imagine what could've happened, but to actually be able to see what had happened to her loved one… She growled and turned from the screen once the action had finished.
Alphys noticed and placed a hand on Undyne's forearm. It wasn't much, but she hoped it would at least offer her friend a little reassurance.
Sans turned to see them both with their attention away from the screen. "guys, he's back!" he said, pointing. The two other monsters turned back around just in time to see the dark figure place something in the oven.
No one needed to say anything; Undyne was immediately at the oven, opening the door. To her surprise, there was a letter inside, with the same starry envelope as the first. She tore it open to find another cut-and-paste letter, this time done with individual letters. "Who the hell has the kind of patience for this crap?"
A moment later, the rest of the officers assigned to the case arrived on the scene, including Officer Inga and Mr. Coffee. "Asgoreman, what's the situation?" Inga asked.
Mr. Coffee whistled. "What a mess…"
Undyne waved the paper around. "More from our artsy killer; and it's complete gibberish this time!"
Everyone gathered around as she held out the letter for them all to see:
Jimmu, qiupt.
Ov tiint auy'wi tumwif vji gostv dmyi epf guypf vjev auys juyti jet ciip dunqsunotif. Duphsevymevoupt. Cyv vjot ot kytv vji cihoppoph.
O'n puv huoph vu ci vuu dsaqvod ecuyv ov vjot voni, topdi fidoqjisoph vjot xomm ci migv vu vji upi enuph auy xju ciest vji pisfoitv tqosov. Og auy dep sief vjet, vjip duphsevymevoupt, auy'wi jef vji opvimmohipdi vu csoph jis emuph xovj auy.
Tji't emtu onqusvepv et vu vji mudevoup ug vji pizv dmyi; egvis emm, auy vxu ytif vu fevi, fufp'v auy? Jux muph fuf vjev metv? Guys nupvjt? Og auy'f moli vji djepdi vu csiel vjev sidusf xovj auys yqdunoph nessoehi, O tyhhitv auy tviq ov yq. Voni vu veli e vsoq fuxp ninusa mepi vu vjev qmedi xjisi auy gostv hewi auys hosmotj dsytj e movvmi fotqmea ug eggidvoup. Sinincis vjev lpudluyv qidl up vji djiil? Jupitvma, xovj et xiel e duptvovyvoup et jisv, O'n tysqsotif tji tyswowif vjev vu jewi e simevouptjoq xovj auy.
Vodl-vudl. Auy jewi gusva-gowi nopyvit vu hiv vjisi.
Q.T. O tjuymf nipvoup vjev vji sitv ug vji qumodi gusdi tjuymf PUV hiv opwumwif. Kytv auy epf auys gsoipft ev vji pizv mudevoupt, qmieti. Xi xuymfp'v xepv epavjopf vu jeqqip vu auys goepdí qsinevysima, pux xuymf xi? O'n xevdjoph.
The sight of the letters simultaneously infuriated Undyne and left her feeling more helpless than a caged rat adrift on a raging river. It took a good deal of her strength to ignore the impulse to tear it up.
Sans, who had stuck his head in the oven to take a good look around, popped up behind the group. "i found this stopwatch inside; probably goes with the letter, in which case we've got about forty-three minutes left."
Undyne looked ready to level the whole room. "With this level of bull-"
"WAIT!" Alphys shouted. "I know this!"
The fishwoman felt her disbelief crawling on her back, but she knew she had to trust her friend. "...You do?"
"Yes! Th-this isn't gibberish, it's Chilzumiise! Rather, i-it's a cipher that's used as the language in this online RP blog I've been f-following."
Silence pervaded the room for a moment.
"Y-You basically just sh-shift the consonants over to the next one alphabetically. S-Same with the vowels. G-Give me a few minutes and I-I'll translate it for you."
The few minutes felt much longer than they should have; in fact, Undyne was about ready to ask Alphys to hurry it up when the reptilian monster shouted "Done!" and showed her work to everyone.
Hello, peons.
It seems you've solved the first clue and found that your house has been compromised. Congratulations. But this is just the beginning.
I'm not going to be too cryptic about it this time, since deciphering this will be left to the one among you who bears the nerdiest spirit. If you can read this, then congratulations, you've had the intelligence to bring her along with you.
She's also important as to the location of the next clue; after all, you two used to date, didn't you? How long did that last? Four months? If you'd like the chance to break that record with your upcoming marriage, I suggest you step it up. Time to take a trip down memory lane to that place where you first gave your girlish crush a little display of affection. Remember that knockout peck on the cheek? Honestly, with as weak a constitution as hers, I'm surprised she survived that to have a relationship with you.
Tick-tock. You have forty-five minutes to get there.
P.S. I should mention that the rest of the police force should NOT get involved. Just you and your friends at the next locations, please. We wouldn't want anything to happen to your fiancé prematurely, now would we? I'm watching.
"How…" Alphys looked down at her phone and then back up to the letter.
"Who cares how. Getting Papyrus back is more important. We do what he says." Undyne leaned down to look at Alphys more closely. "Which beach was that?"
Betrayal painted the shorter monster's face. "You… forgot?"
"It was two years ago, Alphys!"
"W-Well, true, but…" Had it really not left that big of an impact on Undyne? Maybe this whole incident with Papyrus was clouding her memory. Either way, it was up to Alphys. "...I… think it was… Del Rosa Beach?"
"Okay, let's-"
"What happened here?" came a deep voice from the foyer. "Undyne? Are you here?"
It was like a cool drink of water to hear someone so familiar. "Asgore! We're in the kitchen."
Two goatlike monsters walked into the kitchen, looking around at the mess. Toriel's eyes widened.
"Oh Papyrus…" she muttered, her paw on her heart.
"Yeah." Undyne cleared her throat. "We deciphered the clue. No time to explain; I'll tell you everything on the way. And leave your cars; we're taking mine."
Undyne left Inga and Mr. Coffee in charge of examining the house for more clues as the rest of them headed out to Undyne's cruiser. Asgore climbed into the front passenger seat while Alphys and Toriel made their way into the back.
"Sans, aren't you gonna…?" Undyne asked.
"can I just talk to you for a moment? like, for a second?"
"We don't have much-"
"we have time for this." Sans pulled her aside and backed her against the bumper of her police cruiser, his teal eye blazing. "now you listen to me: if anything happens to my brother, i will hold you personally responsible.
Undyne shook her head. "Sans, I don't want this any more than you do. Even less so, because I'm the one who's just a few weeks shy of binding myself to him in wedded bliss."
"yeah, that's the thing. papyrus wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for your position. so if he gets hurt or killed because you had to take the most dangerous job on the surface, his dust is on your hands." He poked her in the stomach with his pointer finger. "now let's rescue my brother."
She wanted to respond. She really did. But there wasn't any more time for that. She closed the door after him and headed to the driver's seat, got in, and hit the road for Del Rosa Beach.
