A.N. This is going to hit a hardcore sad part of the stor. Stay DETERMINED to reach the end.
Sorry for the late update, been a crazy few days. I think I've been a little shut-down-y. Went out and about yesterday and kept flinching from people.. It's concerning.
I can't really afford a doctor to mess with my meds, each visit is like $65 and well. -shrugs-
Writing as a coping skill I guess?
On the plus side I took some time to look up a warm sweater to wear and found one that looks like a mature version of Frisk's for cheap and 4.5 star rating.. considering Flowerfell cosplay. If I can get over this anxiety thing by Connecticon. Would anyone be interested in seeing that?
I also did a huge amount of Undertale drawing, although only some of those are posted. I sort of want to do a comic of this fanfiction- I've already started on the prologue, for all of four frames I've got.
Again, I reiterate from previous A.N. ; this story is -done- . Its a matter of cleaning up the text and posting it. Thank you everyone, for your opinions and favorites, and even love for the story. I hope it touched everyone as it touched me.
Chapter 9: Downward Slide
After calming down Undyne, who couldn't tell what she heard because she kept on laughing every time she tried to explain, they decided to leave the baby monitor with Asgore and Undyne.
Anything that would make Undyne say "Damn, I love that kid so much!" was worth sharing. Frisk also gave them the smart phone that had the built in app to use it. She had already planned to give one of the smart phones to them- she had invested highly in an experimental product- a android cell phone that was very durable and had a built in kinetic charger. Ten minutes of shaking, and it would be full.
She did not tell them the the ten thousand dollars that one phone cost- there was a reason it wasn't on market yet.
She attempted to walk Asgore through handling the phone, but it was a effort in futility. Not only was his hands a larger size than capable of the precise work needed, his tech illiteracy was a real thing.
He pouted as Undyne was handed the phone instead, all set up with a email and everything. A thought made Frisk flinch, before giving Undyne a wary grin.
"Um... I wrote books about the underground.. there are copies on there, under the name Undertale.. and um. If you read them. DON'T LOOK UP THE FAN MADE STUFF!" she blurted out louded at the end, bright red. A sneaky grin creeped across Undyne's face before she coughed, and looked perfectly innocent, except with a drip of sweat down her head.
"Of course not," she lied. "Totally not interested..!" Frisk face palmed and sighed. She was going to look, Frisk knew it.
"I know you are an anime geek, so you know some of this stuff," the woman said, dropping her hands in exasperation, rolling her eyes. "And you know that sometimes people will write stories, for instance, Dragonball Z, about the friendship of young Trunks and Goten, right? But you know there is the flip side where tentacle slash about Freeza and King Kami come out, and I know you know that. Undertale. Is. More. Popular."
And the devious smirk slipped across Undyne's face again, she threw her hands above her head and sulkingly started pulling the other food boxes through.
"..Tentacle.. slash..?" Asgore asked, leaning over to Undyne with a curious murmur. Nervous sweat broke out all over Undyne's face and her eyes twitched as she attempted and failed to give Asgore an innocent smile. His face darkened and the sweat built up more.
"Oh, yea, um, that's about.. Super cool battle attacks with vines!" she squeaked out anxiously. Asgore turned over to Frisk.
"Is that true, Frisk?" he asked her. She looked up at her father with the biggest deadpan look, before glancing over to Undyne, behind her father, motioning frantically and mouthing some begging words she didn't have to hear to understand the gist of, and a innocent smile crossed her face.
"Yea, it's spine dad, don't break a bone over it," she said, continuing to move stuff. As her dad walked over to help, Undyne sighed with relief.
A smirk so remiscenent of her kohai's brother crossed her face and she gave Undyne a devious wink when her dad wasn't looking, before starting a conversation that Undyne seemed very interested to hear.
"So I saw this new artist recently, really talented," she started with Asgore.
"Oh? What is his speciality?" he asked, not looking as he sorted what was heaviest to pass first.
She looked at Undyne againa n and her smirk grew, looking really really really familiar now. "Oh, just a musician, with a revealing new musical scale," she continued. Undyne could almost see the devil horns on the humans head form as it continued. "Seems to be a new twist on a blues song, with some unique background sound effects."
"Oh?" Asgore continued, half listening.
"Yep, seems to add cave dripping noises, and he's done an animation dance scene too," Frisk winked at Undyne, who couldn't tell if she was red and trembling with rage or embarassment.
Humans really WERE evil!
But Frisk's grin relaxed into something kinder. "But they were using some of my copyrighted content," she continued, "So I took it down."
"Good job dear," Asgore said, having not listened a bit. Frisk sat down the current box she was moving, and winked, sticking her tongue up with two thumbs up.
Nevermind! Humans were wonderful angels.
And as Frisk said her goodbyes and carefully toted stuff away, Undyne started to pull the phone out in curiosity. A shadow looming over her shoulder made her jump, and she turned to see Asgore peering at her sternly.
"..." Undyne started nervously, with a smile.
"..." Asgore stared sternly. And then pat her shoulder. "Keep me updated, okay? I don't think I could listen.. if anything went wrong." He smiled trustingly at her, and she relaxed. She could do that.
000000000000000
She could, really. She listened to the baby monitor, day and night. Luckily they slept on similar schedules, and there was something comfortable about going to sleep, hearing Arial breath.
Something sweet, about Frisk telling her daughter story after story. It made her both a little more confidant with Alphys, and a lot more careful- because she knew they were meant to be together, but as she watched Alphys more, she realized there was something more there, that had her flinching at everything.
That was what finally goaded her into finishing the book, and from then on, when she passed that 'restroom' that was always out of order, her mouth always went to a flat line for several seconds.
That was how she knew how to respond when Alphys finally noticed she was wearing a headpiece and carrying around a phone more powerful than Alphys ever had a whole of.
"I can't, love," she told Alphys gently. "Its an order from the king."
"B-but you told me other things! That you weren't supposed to!" Alphys said, flushed with upset. Undyne sighed, and leaned down, kissing her forehead.
"There are some secrets that aren't your own, and others that need to be kept for the protection of others, love, and I think you know that," Undyne told her lover with an aching heart as the little lizard flinched. Undyne's eye softened, and she gave her a hug.
That evening, when she heard Frisk tuck in Arial and head to her room, she texted Frisk a plee.
It was a painful hour that Undyne had to wait, but she knew what she was asking was game changing.
Finally, she got a response.
"you can tell her."
00000000000000000
Undyne was closest to her, besides her father. But Alphys was getting equally close- Especially as she'd been able to connect to Undyne's internet, scattering repeaters through the camera system so she never lost connection.
They had almost half a year, before the food stopped working. Frisk emailed medical file after medical file. Alphys tried her best, but nothing she looked at was any what genetically compatible with the disease and human dna strands. There was nothing.
When Undyne was over, sometimes they'd both listen to the baby monitor, bluetooth off, and through instant messaging, have a line of, at least half, vocal conversation. They both squeed every time Arial talked to them through the baby monitor.
Finally, Frisk got Arial a voice to text computer with simple accessibility commands. She could talk to the computer, and they'd get the text message, but also hear her over the baby monitor. Then they could message back, and it spoke back, with a really bad robotic monotone.
Alphys learned quickly to stop typing in chatspeak and cut out the emoticons entirely. It was a very hard habit to break.
Sometimes they'd be left alone with the child, to baby sit of sorts as Frisk took a shower or cooked dinner.
It was one of those days where they were joking back and forth when the talking cut off abruptly, following by desperate drowning noises.
In utter panic, Undyne grabbed the phone and used speed dial to call Frisk, almost dropping it in her fumbling terror.
"What?!" Frisk cried, equally panicked. This was a line only used for emergancies, they never used the phone to talk.
"Arial! Hurry!" Undyne snapped out. She heard a clatter as the phone hit the floor. And with an odd enough, she double heard the cries.
"Arial," they heard Frisk. "Sweetie?" The tears started. "Please breath!" A gasp came out. "She's still got a pulse!" She rushed away and they heard her call form the distant. "911! I have an emergancy! My daughter, she's not breathing!"
They heard her rush in and fall to her knees, and then the phone made a beep, and she was on speaker phone.
"Okay, calm down. I'm going to walk you through CPR," the mellow voice, distorted by the phone, told her. "Do you have any experience?" it asked.
"Yes!" Frisk bit out. "I have a terminally ill daughter, that was the first lesson I learned."
Both Undyne and Alphys hovered, Alphys shivering, and Undyne clenching her fist in frustration.
She gave Alphys a strangely steady look.
"Alphys, call Asgore and put him on speaker," she commanded, sterner than she ever had been with Alphys. The lizard steadied, calmness filling her, as she did that, and all three listened with baited breath as the 911 operater made sure Frisk kept the right CPR pace, and they heart sirens approach.
They heard something rattle in, and two men talking, running through some tests as rapidly as they could, Frisk answering questions the best she could. All three of them learned far more about the degenerative muscle disease than they ever wanted to know.
As the stretched rolled away, the silence was broken by Asgore defeatedly covering his face and letting out a prayer. "Please God, no."
And Undyne brought a sobbing Alphys into a hug, her face trembling from trying to keep back her own tears, before she couldn't anymore, and they both went to their knees, crying.
00000000000000000
Asgore hadn't spoken to them since, except to order them to get him updated. They couldn't bring themselves to leave, if they wanted to. They took turns showering, and bringing food. A few times, Undyne had gone down to feed the amalgates.
After the first time, she realized they were really just sweet kind people in the from of puddles, and they really wanted to go home.
She brought that up to Alphys, who nodded, remembering the end of the book that poured out her sins.
That made things easier, later, after several weeks, when they heard the door opening on the baby monitor. There was some sort of sucking noise coming, with a quiet whining noise.
"Mommy.. can you read me the Fluffy Rabbit book..?" Arial spoke weakly.
"Of course sweetie," Frisk said, in a muted, soothing tone.
"W-wait," Arial interrupted her mother.
"Can you tell me about Pawpaw again.. "
The silence was longer this time.
"Okay sweetie," and Frisk softly told her the story about how she met the amazing Asgore, who was kind, but terribly sad. And how at the end of their battle, Asgore adopted the hero.
"That was you mommy.." Arial breathed in awe all over again. "..."
"I wanna meet Pawpaw.." she said sadly.
"You can't sweetie," Frisk denied automatically.
"I can mama..I can!" Arial started coughing, and then there was a sipping noise.
"I really can mommy, I can see everyone for real...and I can save them!"
"It'll kill you.."
"I'm dying Mommy.."
A sob came from Frisk, followed by a nonono.
"Mommy.. the other kids could make wishes.. Mommy, that's my wish," Arial went quiet after that, and Frisk's crying disappeared into sniffles, and then a small sigh.
"Okay sweetie," Frisk said. "Okay."
A deep breath was let out by both Arial, followed by Frisk.
"I'm gonna take a nap Mommy, I wanna get better so I can see Pawpaw.."
After a few minutes Frisk spoke up.
"Okay, she's asleep now. I'm going to my laptop.. we need to plan this. Undyne, if Alphys isn't already there, get her there. And don't tell Dad- If I'm going to get this done, I have to have a certain amount in motion before I tell him."
And so they gathered to plan.