Cover Art: FairyFan94 from Deviant Art
Chapter 9 – Dreams, Memories and... meeting Mettaton
The universe was huge. Frisk understood that now better than ever. Who knew that just laying on the floor could bring so much inner peace? The child glanced at their ghostly friend and smiled brightly at him when he too glanced at them. A small smile appearing on Napstablocks face. The child smiled even brighter at him before looking back up, they let out a contend sigh and closed their eyes relaxing more.
Humming filled her ears and the child opened her eyes to look at Shyren. Frisk tilted her head in confusion but then started to hum too. Shyren and the human child had been humming a nice tune that slowly had turned into singing at some point. How Frisk knew that monster next to her was called Shyren? She didn't know and right now she didn't care either. The child just had too much fun.
The two kept on singing. Slowly monsters gathered around them. Sans appeared out of nowhere holding toilet paper, he sold as tickets. The impromptu concert gained more and more fans as Shyren and Frisk gained more and more trust in their singing. Their song turned into a parting one and ended with the child giggling and smiling up brightly at Shyren.
Waving to the monster she walked on, her feet taking her to a store where she stared curious at an older monster that looked a little like a turtle. The child smiled up at him as she listened to his talking.
"King Fluffybuns?" Frisk blinked for a moment before she smiled, both of her hands placed on the counter as she peered over it at Gerson, in curiosity and excitement. "He's a friendly, happy-go-Lucky kind of guy… If you keep walking around long enough, you'll probably meet him. He loves to walk around and talk to people."
Confused the child tilted their head to the side looking up at the old and wise turtle like monster, mumbling 'Fluffybuns' in confusion.
"Eh?" The turtle looked a little put out of place before chuckling lightly. "Why do I call Dreemur 'Fluffybuns? Oh, that's a great…."
"I don't get it." A voice echoed into the emptiness and the image of Frisk and Gerson fated away, the window into the childs dream disappearing from his sight. Slowly he turned, staring at child wearing a green sweater with yellow strips. They stared down at the black chain that bound them to the white figure next to them. In a flash everything around them turned black and a red transparent soul floated before the two slowly turning into a teenage girl wearing a purple sweater with pink strips. The child frowned looking up at the white figure. "I thought you were a memory keeper not giver…"
"0xxx x000 x0xx 00x0 0xx x000 xx0x0x 0xx…" (1) The white figures strange voice rung through the air as static washed over him for a moment. The teenage girl tilted her head in confusion and worry, signaling that she didn't understand anything while the child huffed in frustration.
"I know you can talk normally!" They crossed their arms and glared up at the white figure who only shook what was his head. The childs face grew red with slight anger when the older girl laughed lightly, she crouched down and patted the younger childs head.
"WHY ARE YOU SO HAPPY?!" The child yelled, stunning the teenager for a moment. They turned hastily, the chain clinking in the air as they pointed at the white figure. "WHY?! WHY ARE WE STILL HERE?! I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME JUST DISAPPEAR! WHY ARE YOU HURTING YOURSELF BY KEEPING ME?!"
Tears started to stream down the childs face and the teenage girl didn't hesitated to comfort them. She hugged the shaking child and stroked their head. "I… don't want to…"
Slowly the teenage girl looked up at the white figure with a sad smile. "They… they are their memories aren't they?"
The white figure didn't say anything, his form was glitching and he could feel the darkness pulling. He only stared down at the two, his free hand reaching over to his other, carefully stroking the chain that bound the child.
"You know…" The teenage girl started her form slowly turning transparent the child in her arms looking up at the older girl. "I'm sure… I… We… wouldn't mind not being able to remember…"
"X x0x00." (2) The white figure reached out for the two as his form glitched, his whole body portraying the image of a skeleton dressed in black only for a second before returning into the complete white form. "X00 0xx0x0 xxx0 0x X0 x00x0." (3)
"I wish I could understand you…" The teenager said as she stood up patting the childs head next to her. The older girl fated away, returning into her soul-like form. The red transparent heart floated towards him and landed in his free hand.
"Even you won't be able to stay shattered, separated from your other half, forever…" The child murmured as they looked down. Slowly they walked up to the white figure, hugging his side. "Not everyone can be saved… especially me… You should just return to Wingdings. Save yourself… You Idiot… Aster. "
It had been a few days since his talk with Alphys and currently Sans was having some kind of staring contest, face to face, with the flower named Flowey. Frisk was at Alphys lap today. The scientist wanted to do some harmless test with the human girl just to make sure that Frisk was really okay and the short skeleton didn't mind that. He trusted her more now seeing how she really wanted to help the little girl, especially with the knowledge of her dreams being memories.
Also it was good for the little human girl to spent some time with someone else then only him and his brother, especially when he had kept the girl indoors for two days to watch her behavior. It hadn't looked like Frisk had minded that, no it even seemed like the child had enjoyed the time they spent watching TV, exchanging puns, napping, eating ineatable pasta. Sans made a note to himself to take the girl to Grillby's for something eatable when he is going to get her from Alphys'.
Bringing his attention back at the glaring flower that still refused to cooperate, the short skeleton tried to come up with a conclusion that this flower was the one that used Frisks 'time-powers'. Yet no matter how much he thought about it, Flowey wasn't the one. For all he knew the shift in time must have happened right before the weed could finish what he said.
Which ruled the flower out, after all he had intented to destroy the skeletons efforts. Sans blinked, leaning away from the flower that looked very suspicious at him. "If it weren't you…"
Flowey seemed to snort at that accusation and turned away but kept watching the skeleton from the corner of his eyes. Sans expression turned thoughtful as he frowned. "The static…"
Turning around sharply Sans went to a table that was on the other side. Papers, notes and blueprints were scattered all over it and the skeleton swiftly searched through a few. Sometimes he added something and other times he crumpled the paper and threw it over his shoulder.
The soulless flower watched him curious. He too wanted to know who was messing with time. If anyone was allowed to mess with the human child than it was him and no one else, he thought glaring at nothing in particular. Before staring at the bottom of the shelf he was placed on, he still needed to find a way out of this hideous flower pot first.
Minutes passed by, Sans muttering was lowly heard every now and then, rustling of paper, scratching of a pen on paper, the crumbling of paper that was thrown away. Slowly minutes turned into hours until the short skeleton slammed his hands down on the table startling the soulless flower for a moment.
"The white figure!" Sans declared not looking at the flower but at the final piece of paper in his hands. He could make sense for this conclusion. The white figure had appeared out of nowhere, seemingly kidnapping Frisk and when he appeared everyone else seemed to have started to glitch. He also was in the last static vision he had right before the child collapsed. It would only make sense that it was them, whoever they were.
Sans let out a loud sigh as he covered his face with his left bone hand, his right eye-socket peeked through his bone fingers as the light in it turned into a light blue. Whatever was going on with their timeline, he didn't understand it anymore. Was everything going wrong? Or was everything going right? Would they be able to get out of the underground? Was he going to lose Frisk?
The white figure. The short skeleton had thought he could trust them, after all they had told him to protect the kid. They looked like they were the one keeping Frisks memories save. Whoever that was… did they only do that to deceive him? To make him trust and lower his guard? So that they could get access to the human girls 'time-powers'?
The skeleton shook his skull, ignoring the flower that held a look that said that he demanded information, he walked out of his lap through a shortcut. "I need to talk to Alphys before I jump into even more conclusions…"
"T-talk with me a-about what…?" The skeleton looked up noting that the shortcut he took brought him right into Alphys' lap instead to Grillby's where he originally wanted to go to for a bottle of ketchup before getting Frisk from here, looks like his feet had other plans.
"How's the kid?" It was obvious that he dodged her question and Alphys knew that whatever the skeleton had to say would be for a later moment. So she followed the direction he was looking, to see the small human child sleeping on one of her smaller boxable beds. A peaceful smile was on the childs face and she mumbled the names of monster Sans wasn't sure the kid had meet yet.
"S-she is okay… t-the test…" Sans shook his skull wordlessly telling her to save that for later. He walked over to the bed and was about to lift the little girl up into his arms as a loud crash was heard downstairs that sounded a lot like a breaking wall.
"What was that?" The skeleton asked slightly confused as he watched how the royal scientist eyes went wide and she started to sweat and looked down to the lower level.
"I-I forgot…" The poor scientist words were drowned out by a louder, robotic voice booming over hers.
"Doctor Alphys are you here?! I have readings of a human-being in the area!"
"M-mettaton…"
"Welp… see ya later." Before Alphys could even turned to look at Sans, the skeleton had already picked up the child and was about to step through the nearest shortcut. But he was stopped by a robotic hand that shot out and was placed firmly on his shoulder. Frisk was waking up and rubbing her eyes sleepily looking up at him confused.
"Where do you think you are going dear? Isn't this a human in your arms?" The skeleton felt how sweat was forming on his skull as he slowly turned it to face the robot with pin sized lights in his eye-sockets, promising pain if the robot hold on any longer to his shoulder. The robot on the other hand was waving a finger around with his free hand in a lecturing manner and Sans swore he heard a robotic version of "Tsk tsk tsk."
Frisk shifted in his arms to look over his shoulder and the skeleton had to stop himself from cursing when he heard a excided gasp. He could practically image the girls sparkling face as she struggled against his tight hold to bounce over in eagerness to her TV-Idol.
"S-sans… F-Human… t-this is my f-friend Me-mettaton…" Alphys stuttered nervously, a fruitless try to lift the tension that was slowly building up between the robot and the skeleton. Before either of the two Monster could say anything more, Frisk managed to get out of Sans hold.
The skeleton reached out to keep the child near him but the human dodged him with ease, giggling lightly. Sans right eye dipped into the blue as he prepared to harm the robot if he even so much as to try to pull the child into a battle. Though… the skeleton sweat dropped as he saw Frisk grapping two empty papers and a pen from one of Alphys' workplaces and rushing over to the Robot holding them both up.
"Autograph? Please?" Alphys tried to hide the light laugh that escaped her as she watched the human child, still nervous yet fondly. Sans on the other hand openly face palmed, the blue light gone and eye-sockets closed.
"A fan?" A red question mark appeared shortly on Mettatons yellow display but that soon turned back into his signature M as he took the papers from the child who beamed up at him. Sans could already hear his ego getting larger by the fact that he already had a human fan. "Oh dear. I didn't know you were my fan already human, how wonderful."
"Mind if I invite you into my next TV-show?" Sans eye-sockets snapped open and he was about to tell the robot a firm "No." but stopped as he saw the little human girl already agreeing bouncing up and down in one place out of excitement, similar to what he had seen before minus his jacket.
"D-don't worry…" Alphys stuttered out, staring at the ground, a small smile appeared on her face as she looked up at him still slightly unsure yet the tune of her voice was a little stronger and firmer than usually. "I-I will h-help her a-again… if… if he t-tries to k-ki… h-hurt her."
(1) 'Time will come that you will return too...'
(2) 'I would.'
(3) 'ALL humans need to be saved.'