Core Issues: Season Three
by Nicolle
Disclaimer: Undertale is the creation of Toby Fox. Gaster!Sans, who is taking a break from narrating, is the the creation of Borurou. This story is copyrighted to me.
Special Disclaimer: The UT Mob AU Kitten and Don G belong to Junkpile(Junky). I said I would get one of the MOB AUs in here some how, and I managed it!
1. See author's note at the end.
2. This story is rated T for language, suggestive jokes/themes, and violence.
3. The anon reviewer who wanted Shipworks: You're welcome. Read the note at the end. ;)
Ep. 7 - Relic Race
(Army!Frisk/Church is our narrator!)
"The name of the game is Relic Race. Each team of two must collect artifacts from multiple locations in order to win. While doing so we must also face off against puzzles, traps, and strange creatures. Each team gets one turn each round for three rounds to grab an artifact before the timer runs out."
"Oh Man! Why did I agree to this! I HATE puzzles!" Undyne griped.
I put an arm around her. "Yeah. But you do love to win. And we are totally going to leave these guys in the dust!"
She smiled big and fist bumped with me.
"Ready to make these two look like amateurs?" Cross asked.
His Papyrus sat next to him. "OF COURSE."
I laid out the board and set up the cards for puzzles, traps, and creatures. I dug around the box, lifting the insert. "Hmm... No tokens."
Papyrus shrugged. "NO WORRIES. WE'LL JUST MAKE OUR OWN." He pulled a colorful pie bird I recognized as a gift from Cross from his pocket.
Undyne dug in a pocket and pulled out a little pewter fish. Cross pulled out a his St. Canard Paranormal Investigators club card. I pulled out the little silver and enamel sunflower charm my children had given me for my birthday. We placed them on the board.
The moment our tokens touched the start square a light flashed and we were standing outside a large building carved out of a canyon wall. Four large pillars held up a triangular eave filled with beautiful carvings of of animals walking two by two across a savanna.
"WHERE ARE WE?"
I turned a complete circle, looking around before looking down at myself. My lace dress was gone and a pair of khaki shorts, khaki button down, and leather back pack were in its place. "We're in the game."
Cross, clothing also changed to match mine, ran up the steps to look inside the building. "Hey, Church? Where did this game come from?"
"Blue gave it to me." I sighed deeply while frowning.
Cross came back down the stairs. "Any ideas?"
Papyrus looked strange in the shorts and button down. Like he was someone else's Papyrus instead of Cross'. "WE VERY LIKELY MUST COMPLETE THE GAME TO LEAVE IT."
I looked to Undyne. "You still up for this."
She smiled impossibly wide, teeth big and sharp. "Totally. Ten bucks says we can beat the boys to the artifact in the temple here."
We both dashed for the entrance.
"HEY!" both boys yelled, following close on our heels.
Inside the entrance we ran full bore down the hallway for the open gallery and two divergent paths. I let Undyne take the lead and she chose the hall to the right. A glance over my shoulder confirmed that Cross and Papyrus had taken the left. Ahead of us, a pit opened up in the floor. We both jumped, grabbing ropes hanging from the ceiling, and swung across. The hallway made a sharp right and we skidded to a stop in front of a closed gate. We both knelt and tried to get our fingers under to lift. No go.
I looked around the gate's edge and found nothing. Turning around, I saw a large switch pressed against the wall further back the hallway. I ran back and pushed the switch down. The gate slid open and activated several rows of swinging blades. I felt the switch push against me, meaning that as soon as I let go, I would only have a short time to navigate the trap before the gate shut. I waved Undyne through the gate and watched the blades for a moment, counting to time my run.
C chuckled in my ear. "Geez, Frisk. Always in such a rush. Let me handle this."
I smiled as the path lit up over my sight with the timing.
One. Two. I let go of the switch and dashed forward.
Three. Four. Spin right to avoid the blade.
Five. Six. Duck the next blade.
Seven. Eight. Roll.
Nine. Ten. Dive under the closing gate.
Undyne pulled me to my feet and we looked around a large, open gallery of yellowed marble and blue tiling. Fabulous paintings set with jewels covered the walls from floor to ceiling three stories above. The roof had fallen in, beaming bright daylight on top of us. A colossal statue of a beautiful, many armed woman made of white alabaster and leafed in gold dominated the room. The doorway out was above the crown on her golden head. Undyne and I circled the statue, trying to figure out how best to climb it.
She pulled on the bottom most arm and it came down, hand held out like a step. "Check this out. It looks like the rest of the arms will come down in the same way. We just have to reach them."
I stepped back. "You get the arms on the left and I'll get the arms on the right."
"You got it!" Undyne ran over to the wall and started climbing the ledges up to the arms. I found a rope hanging down the wall next to a large, tattered tapestry and tested its strength. Confident that it would hold me I climbed up to the next hand pushed it down as Undyne kicked the on her side into place. I felt the rope hitch and quickly grabbed onto a nearby ledge as the remains of the tapestry fell. I reached out and kicked the next hand down. Undyne reached over and knocked another arm into place and the rest of the arms swung forward, forming a staircase.
"Sweet!"
Undyne dropped down and ran over to spot me as I came down. We ran up the stairway and through the door in a room with a smaller version of the same statue sitting on a pedestal. We stood in front of the statue, looking at it for a moment.
"This is so obviously a trap," Undyne said.
"You wanna spring it and see what happens?"
She smiled and nodded emphatically.
"Get ready to run." I lifted the statue.
There was a deep rumbling as Cross and Papyrus came in through another door. They steadied themselves against the door jamb as a piece of the wall in front of me opened to reveal a path out of the temple. We dashed for it only to skid to a halt as a mass of swinging blade traps activated. Behind us, the roof pulled back and a large stone ball rolled toward us.
"EVERYONE! LAY DOWN FLAT AGAINST THE WALLS!"
We took Papyrus' cue and hit the ground, pressing tightly to the walls on either side of the passage. The stone ball rolled by us, the round shape going through the square hallway meaning it couldn't touch us. We stood to watch it smash apart the traps, raining destruction on the blades.
Cross saw the statue in my hand and ran for me. I ducked his swing while tossing the statue to Undyne. She caught it and ran down the path, deftly picking her way through the debris. We turned to follow, only to be over taken by Papyrus' much longer stride. The end of the tunnel opened up on the dusty outside and Undyne dived for the light, rolling to her feet in the hot sun. She held the statue high and a bright flash over took us.
When the light faded we were in a dark room surrounded by burning torches and two gated doorways down dark corridors. What you could see through the gates glistened, walls slick with slimy wetness. We'd gone through another clothing change as well, looking like cosplayers who'd just walked out of a Dungeons and Dragons convention. Cross and I were dressed as dungeon crawling thieves while Undyne sported a shield with her warrior's armor. Papyrus wore long blue robes like that of a wizard. Undyne grabbed my hand and I grabbed a torch as she pulled me through the gate on the left.
She was clearly enjoying herself despite the odd circumstances and it was hard not to smile with her. I was having fun too.
We crept along the passage and found a doorway on the right. I carefully checked it for traps before picking the lock and letting it carefully open. The room was empty. We continued on. The door suddenly slammed shut. Fighting the urge to run in the opposite direction, I went back to the door and carefully opened it.
The door was jerked out of my hand and a large, humanoid rat stood in front of me, sword raised. It swung and I dove forward, rolling between it's legs. The sword clanged off Undyne's raised shield. She summoned one of her spears and stabbed at the rat man. I pushed him forward into the spear and he disappeared in a puff of smoke. I checked the room more thoroughly this time and found a secret passage.
We crept down the passage and it opened into another room. Three rat men played cards at a table while a captive was chained in a corner.
I collared the first rat man, pulling him backward. When he turned, I punched him in the face hard enough to knock him into the table. The second rat man came at me. I ducked his swing and swung him around to a waiting Undyne, who quickly speared him. She spun around and speared the third rat man as he came around the table. The first rat man sorted himself out enough to come at me again. I stole the keys from his belt before running the knife hidden in my boot through his abdomen. He disappeared like the others.
Undyne rolled the chained captive over. "Frisk? You need to see this."
I knelt down to have a look at the captive in the fire light. It was one of Gaster-Sans-es. He looked to be shorter than Bones, but also considerably older. Well, relatively speaking. Bones was a few hundred years old though he looked to be in his thirties when compared to Sans-es who aged on a human scale. His clothing was tatters at best. I used the keys to unlock the chains and free him. Undyne held him up while I patted his face gently.
His eye sockets opened. One white eye looked up at me. "Kitten...?" He blinked and rubbed skull. "No. Who are you?"
"I'm Frisk. This is Undyne."
He shook his head. "You aren't my Frisk."
I helped him stand. "No. I'm Bones' Frisk."
He frowned. "I don't know who that is."
"How long have you been here?" Undyne asked.
He shook his head. "I don't know. I started playing a game with my consigliere and we ended up here. I don't know what happened to her. The last date I remember seeing is September 4th, 1942."
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hands balled into fists.
Undyne put her hand on my shoulder. "You're pissed. What gives?"
"Blue," I started. I took a deep breath. "He put me on a mission without telling me. Again." A rush of hot anger ran up my spine. "He's a dead man."
Undyne sighed and patted my shoulder.
C's voice wrapped around my inner ear. "Consigliere? 1942? He's got to be from a mob timeline. Consigliere means advisor or second in command. This guys probably a Don so watch yourself."
I nodded. "Let's concentrate on finding your second in command and then get out of the game."
He gave me a rough smile before nodding for me to lead on. Before I could take a step a light flashed and we ended up outside a massive hedge maze. This outfit change had us in our navy blue Seraph uniforms with the exception of Papyrus and our mysterious Sans. Papyrus was in his everyday black knit top and khaki slacks, while Sans wore a brown checked suit straight out of the forties mob era. Sans stared at Papyrus like he was seeing a ghost.
Cross rushed over. "What happened? You weren't anywhere near us when we got to the artifact." He looked at our newcomer. "I retract my question. Did Blue send us on a mission without telling us we were on a mission?"
"Yes."
"And didn't you tell him last time that if he did it again, you were killing him?"
"Yes."
"Oooooh boy."
Undyne put a hand on my shoulder. "Hey! At least I actually get to be with you on one for once. We never do missions together!"
"Does this mean we need to be looking for more people?" Cross asked.
"I am missing my consigliere."
"Description?"
He raised a hand to indicate me. "They are very similar in appearance to Frisk."
"WHAT IF WE CANNOT FIND HER?"
"Then we play the game again," I said. "Well, Cross and I will."
Undyne and Papyrus both crossed their arms over their chests.
I held up both hands. "Okay. Okay. We'll all play again."
Papyrus looked us over. "IT SEEMS OUR TEAMS ARE NOW UNEVEN."
Cross rolled his eyes. "They were uneven to start." He sneezed, "C!"
C burst to life on my shoulder. "Wah wah wah. Cry me a river."
Sans' momentary shock at seeing C was replaced by an inquisitive look. "What is this?"
C turned to face him. "Short answer, I'm C. Long answer, I'm the soul of Chara Dreemurr and I live in Frisk's head."
"For how long have you been there?"
I blinked, thinking about it. I was twenty three when I fell and I turned 38 a month ago. "Fifteen years now." Had it really been that long?
C, always onto my thoughts, looked at me. "Sophia is nine years old. Brandon is six."
I shook my head. "No. No way." I held out my hands, like I was holding a small child. "They were like this yesterday."
C smiled and kept teasing. "Red's little sister is married. She and Asriel are expecting their third child."
"That's impossible."
Cross chuckled, putting an arm around my shoulders. "Let's go while the going's good."
I nodded and turned to Sans. "Sans? Would you mind going with the boys?"
"You may call me G. And that would be fine."
I nodded. "G then. All right. The plan is to search the maze for G's second in command. Whoever finds them first will comm the other. After that, we make for the artifact in the middle of the maze."
Everyone nodded and we headed into the maze. The hedges went over Undyne's head, making them very tall. Even so, you could make out several white gazebos with blue stripes strategically placed around and above the hedges. C began mapping the maze, highlighting areas so we wouldn't need to back track too much. At the first junction, Undyne and I went right while the boys went left. The path we took led us up to one of the gazebos and a view of the maze from above.
My jaw dropped as we gazed out over the maze. It looked to go on forever in every direction. I could barely even see where we had entered and we'd only been walking for a few minutes. The maze itself swirled and undulated, curving this way and that without rhyme or reason. At least, it didn't seem that way until C began mapping and calculating areas. I made a slow full turn for him, letting him pick up as much of the maze as possible for his map and caught sight of the boys on a different gazebo.
I gave them a wave and Papyrus waved back.
"Frisk. Turn back to your right."
I turned slowly.
"Stop."
I stood still, looking in the direction of another gazebo in the distance. Someone was there, watching us. "Nice catch, C."
I could see his smug smile behind my eyes. "Let's go. I still want to beat Cross."
Undyne and I headed off in the direction of the person we saw. We followed C's directions and came up to the gazebo to find no one on it. We searched the area and found a set of tracks leading deep into the maze. I stopped before following them.
I knelt to get a closer look. "These aren't human tracks. They look like a woman's shoe, but the step placement is wrong."
Undyne knelt next to me, looking over the tracks. "Are we looking for a human or a monster?"
"G mistook me for his second back in the dungeon. That's a good indication that they're human."
Undyne nodded in agreement. "I vote we follow the tracks and see who owns them."
"Agreed."
We quietly followed the tracks deep into the maze. After multiple twists and turns the tracks stopped completely at a dead end. Undyne and I searched the hedge wall looking for a path through and found nothing. Undyne lifted me up onto her shoulders and I looked over the hedge wall to see... nothing. A white mist obscured my vision.
"I figured out how the maze just stops you from running along the top. It's all fog up here."
Undyne grimaced. "And it was clear as day from the gazebos. I suppose that's our only hints. Any ideas?"
I frowned as I jumped down.
My comm crackled to life. "Hey, Church? Are you guys seeing a person or persons in the maze but the tracks are wrong?"
Undyne and I looked at each other. "Yeah. What do you make of it?"
"What ever they are, they just lead you to dead ends. We're ignoring them and heading for the next gazebo closer to the center."
I cocked my head toward the Sushi Roll. "Want to follow their lead?"
She nodded.
"We'll head to the next gazebo too."
I lead the way and we climbed up the next gazebo. Looking around, you could see more of the shadow people in other gazebos, running off into the maze. I caught sight of the boys closer to the center than we were. They were checking out the gazebo itself. I looked over the edge of ours and noticed that the gazebo sat on top of an enclosed tower. I motioned for Undyne to follow me back down the stairs. Walking around the gazebo, I saw a seam in the paint, like someone had painted over a door. I pushed on it and it swung open stiffly to reveal a stairway down.
I tapped my comm. "Cross? We found a stairway underneath the gazebo we're at. We're going to follow it and see where it goes."
I could almost hear his frown. "I don't like that idea."
"Do you want me to wait for you to come to us?"
He sighed. "I don't have a way over to you that gets us there in anything like a decent amount of time. Just stay in contact."
"Will do."
I pulled out my flashlight and we descended into the dark. The stairway ended in a long stone corridor. We followed it for what seemed like an hour and it opened into a large circular room with multiple corridors leading into it in an eight pointed star formation. The dust on the floor was thick and left a very evident trail. A woman's shoe, about my size, walking down one of the corridors. Undyne and I smiled.
I tapped my comm and got no response. Sighing, we followed the trail. Again, it felt like we were were walking forever until we came to a new circular room with more corridors. Here the tracks went everywhere, like the person wearing the shoes was trying each path in turn and coming back. After looking at the tracks for a bit, I figured out which trail was the last exit from the room and followed it.
The corridor went on forever and felt a hundred times more claustrophobic with each step. Even Undyne was huddling in on herself, ducking the low ceiling. We came into another circular room and another set of tracks going every where. This time, they seemed more frantic. Like the owner was starting to feel lost and afraid. I frowned, taking my time to pick up the trail. I narrowed it down to two possibilities and marked both with chalk.
Undyne picked the first of the two and we followed it into another circular room. She guessed right, because instead of a mess of foot prints, we found a woman a bit younger than I sitting with their arms wrapped around drawn up legs, chin resting on their knees.
They looked up at us, face blank. "Are you real or have I finally gone mad?"
"We're real."
They shook their head. "Impossible. You look like me and Undyne."
I sat down next to her. "I look like you. But I'm not you. I'm married, with children."
Undyne sat with us. "And while I'm willing to bet your Undyne is different from me, I am also willing to bet that she'd not be happy to see you sitting on your ass like this."
They looked between us and sighed. "I don't know how long I've been wandering down here. How long I've been lost. I followed one of those damn shadows down here thinking it was my boss. I don't know where he is either."
"We do. Cracks in his skull here and here." I indicated the placement with my finger on my own face. "He's with our friends top side." I offered her a hand. "I can get us above ground."
They looked at me for a moment before standing on their own. "Lead on."
Using C's map, I guided us back to the stairwell and up to the gazebo. The sky darkened as storm clouds moved in. I tapped my comm. "Cross?"
"Church! It's about time! I've been trying to get a hold of you for four hours!"
"Sorry about that. The comms went down underground. I found G's Frisk."
Silence greeted me and I smiled, waiting.
Undyne rolled her eyes and looked at the Frisk next to her. "Be prepared to run."
"Last one to the artifact is a rotten egg!"
I giggled and dashed into the maze, Undyne and Frisk on my heels. C plotted the route ahead of me, leading me turn by turn to the center. Thunder cracked overhead and I slowed to be sure Undyne and Frisk could keep up with me. C altered my path suddenly and I followed it just as the sky opened up and rain began to pour. I came up on a staircase leading up to the artifact, a large, silver globe. I climbed and as I did, I saw Cross half way up to it from the side. He noticed me and doubled his pace, causing him to slip, and slide down. We both scrambled up the increasingly muddy path, reaching for the artifact by our finger tips.
There was a flash of light and we were back at the table in Cross' apartment in the clothing we started in. The table in front of us was empty but for our personal tokens. I picked up my little sunflower charm.
"We did it!" Cross looked around, smile falling. "Where's the mob Frisk and Sans?"
"*back where they belong, when they belong. hopefully they're encasing the game in cement and dumping it in the ocean as we speak."
I spun around, knocking the chair over as I stood. I pulled out my phone as I stalked up to Blue. "Fase? Would you be so kind as to lock down my timeline and short cutting on it for the next five minutes?"
Fase's cheery voice fell from the phone. "Certainly! Done! But why?"
"*oh crap." Blue ran for the door.
I shot out the door after him. "You can run, but you can't hide!"
Author's Note:
Season Three, episode seven was going to be last Core Issues. It was going to be over. The End. Goodnight. Take a bow.
And then I wrote a freaking cliff hanger.
That sound you heard was my heading hitting my desk.
The episode you just read was written after I wrote the cliff hanger so I can use it for episode one of Season Four.
That's right! There will be a season four of Core Issues. That said, you are in for a wait. The first episode will not appear until late September. I am coming up on the busiest time of the year for my job at the same time that we are switching to a new system in which to work. It's going to be crazy for a bit, but so long as there's someone who's reading, I'll keep writing.
This time around, I am going to write several episodes of core issues before you even see the first one. If you have some characters or AUs you'd like to see, any favorites from the series you really enjoy reading about, let me know. I've said this before but I'll reiterate: Flowerfell is out. It is a completely closed system, the creators really don't want anyone to do anything with it, and will only get a mention at best.
I also want to work on a Shipworks mini series that will be it's own thing. So for all the people who've reviewed or pm'd me saying "Shipworks! Shipworks!": You're getting your wish! Like Colonytale, I will write all five episodes of the mini series I have planned before the first one gets posted and then I'll post one episode a week.
And, thank you.
