Disclaimer: Undertale belongs to TobyFox.
[[Welcome to the surface]]
9. Knowledgeable about the world mechanics
The ice cream store had a wonderful variety of flavors. In the underground, it was roughly golden flowers and crabapple flavors, so it was shocking to find someone had invented a butterscotch and cinnamon ice cream. It was exactly like the pie but creamier. Sans ordered a banana split only for the sake of making puns out of it, rendering Papyrus mad in the process. Officer Prance got a simple frozen yogurt. Papyrus had the same ice cream sandwich that Frisk had chosen.
"Are you only having that?" Cristal was struggling to keep in balance the five scoops tower her dad had bought for her "You will only recover 10 HP."
Frisk nodded giving a shy bite to the chocolate and vanilla sandwich. Luke was mumbling something under their breath again, so low that Toriel did not catch what was the fuss about until the kid hissed at their friend.
"Like what happened to your level!?" The gorgon monster was very distressed, and for once they didn't care if the other customers were looking at them in surprise. "You were the strongest of us four, how come you went back to level one?"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? THIS HUMAN HAS FACED ME, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AND I CAN TELL YOU THEY ARE PRE—EETY STRONG."
"No offence my friend, but underground monsters are very weak. Look." Officer Prance patted the skeleton's back with empathy and proceeded to ask a random slime monster that was passing by with several ice creams on a tray. "Excuse me sir, you look like a tough guy and I hope you don't mind if I ask your stats?"
"Well thank you, though I know you only say it for being nice." The slime blushed slightly under his sticky golden surface. "Believe it or not it's just an attack of 40, but my defense it's a no-tell."
"Wow. You look attack 50 at least." The slime giggled at Prance's compliment. "Thank you for being honest."
"Whenever you want, darling" and then winked at the officer before leaving.
Toriel did not fully understand that conversation. Do stats on the surface was a subject to brag about? Was there another form to level up without exploiting the level of violence?
"There you go Papyrus" he took a spoonful of his frozen yogurt before getting closer to gossip "and to tell you the truth, slimes are the lowest in status up here."
"Dad is almost level thirty," Cristal boasted with the mouth full of cream "and I reached level seven two weeks ago!"
"Frisk was level eleven the last time I saw them." Luke felt the urge to defend the position of their friend, all their snakes pointing menacingly at the girl.
"Says the one that can't go further than level three."
A rattling sound came from somewhere inside Luke's head snakes, their cheeks changed to a blackish tone. Cristal's soul turned green.
"alright, chill down folks." Sans intervened turning both blue, Officer Prance did not show signs of being upset for Toriel's friend actions. The kids didn't take back the mean looks from each other "hey i'm trying to help here heh heh don't give me the cold shoulder."
"SAANS, THIS IS SERIOUS. WHY EVERYONE IS SO POWERFUL IN HERE?"
"I don't mint being level one." Frisk intervened, licking the rest of the sandwich from their sticky fingers. "It's a great ice breaker." The pun was so out of situation that it cracked the other kids.
"You are ok at level one Frisk." Luke's soul turned back to their usual grey, they could barely hold it from laughter. "(Luke's the one that should have level up when you weren't around)."
Whatever happened to Frisk to have lose their levels, Toriel was thankful of it. She hugged her child, happy that they had preferred to stay weak and chose the pacifist path. Somehow, she managed to put in the back of her head the fact that the child once was LV11 and everything this meant.
"Cristal, you could learn a couple of things from Frisk here and be more humble. Maybe I should reconsider letting you go in adventure with Luke if you don't get along as supposed."
"Daddy pleeeasssee" the girl was in the verge of tears.
"WOWIE, IS CRISTAL GOING TO AN ADVENTURE TO MEET THE WORLD, FACE THE VILLAINS, AND SAVE THE DAY?"
"Sure I was considering it. She's been training for two years already."
"CAN I COME?"
"huh pap, i don't think you understand…"
"OF COURSE I UNDERSTAND! THE GREAT PAPYRUS HAS TO OVERCOME HIS LIMITATIONS. AND YOU SURELY DON'T WANT THESE CHILDREN TO TAKE THE RISK GOING WITHOUT AN ADULT."
"and by adult do you mean… who?"
"Yeah, back to the adventure!" Luke jumped to stand on the table. The owner of the shop yell them to get down from there, so the kid sat back on the chair and hid further into themselves out of shame.
"Yes dad! Papyrus can train, and learn a lot about the surface world, and I can protect him too." Cristal darted her wishful gaze between Prance and Sans. "Luke can cure us all. And you have seen how amazing Frisk is even at level one."
The emotion of the moment died with the last line. Toriel understood that her child was in their plans, and a heavy weight sank in her heart upon thinking she did not have a word for stopping them to go with their friends. Her child caressed her fur before talking.
"I have things to do here, and I want to stay with mom."
Toriel's tears of joy poured on the child's head, she nuzzled her muzzle on their head under a torrent of kisses pouring from her mouth.
"Sans?" Officer Prance was tired of resisting his daughter's urges of adventure. Now all eyes were on the little skeleton whose somber eyes reflected a deep thought.
"just a quick question, how did you raise your level?" and an ominous feeling took them out of the joyful ice cream shop to somewhere darker.
"You acquire it by fighting enemies, how else? You defeat them, you win EXP and money." Officer Prance scrapped the bottom of his cup for the last drop of melted yogurt.
"Does that mean they have to kill to gain LOVE? Does that mean you have killed someone?" Toriel put in more sincere words for what Sans wanted to ask from the beginning. It was anguishing to think how once she wished to come to the surface, idealizing it was a peaceful place to live.
"K-KILLING?" Papyrus was starting to retract from his proposition.
"LOVE? No one- ah, I see. You are completely wrong. You don't need to kill to win experience. It's more a matter of learning how to deal with situations in the future."
"Level of violence is different than Level of skill. No one kills in the surface." Again, Frisk was the lighthouse of reason in this new mad world where underground monsters just arrived.
"B'sides, ki-killing is what the bad guys do." Luke gathered the courage to speak, still afraid of being yelled again by the shop owner.
"Those are taken to prison, right dad?"
"I thought we had already had this conversation Miss Dreemurr". Officer Prance addressed to her wrong again, the same way than a couple of days earlier, probably to refresh her memory. "Some criminals are hard to deal with indeed, because they have high LV from LOVE. But we can rise the Lvs by training, by doing puzzles, by studying magic, it depends of your profile. You are only allowed to harm in combat, and you are supposed to stop whenever the opponent asks for mercy."
Sans eyes regained color, as plain white as they were. He shrugged, and the mood relaxed.
"welp. i think it went pretty intense there. couldn't grind it enough, sorry." Sans didn't let his brother say a word about the pun before going on "sure pap, why not? go on adventure. you are cool bro, you deserve it."
Papyrus's eyesockets shone in joy, and he started planning how he was going to make victory spaghetti to celebrate the new adventure they had ahead. Cristal proposed everyone to place their hand on the center of a circle, Frisk made part of the rite by popular demand. They pressed down a little before raising it all the way up while chanting "Go team!"
Author's Note: Apparently there was an error upon uploading this in the docs manager. I don't have an idea of why this happened.
Thanks a lot to Silversun XD for the support!
