"I'm not sure if I want to know or if I'll even understand the answer, but Papyrus, how did you even become a lawyer?!" Frisk asked as their brother handed and sent Papyrus the evidence and Mom went to get the food.
"WELL, I WENT IN FRONT OF THE STATE BAR AND ASKED THEM FOR A LICENSE. BAD NAME BY THE WAY, THERE'S NOTHING TO DRINK THERE. THEN THEY ASKED ME, PAPYRUS, WHAT LAW SCHOOL HAVE YOU BEEN TO, 'YOU' OF COURSE BEING 'YOU' PAPYRUS, NOT YOU, FRISK. SO I SAID I WENT TO THE GIANT UNDERGROUND LEGAL LIBRARY INSTITUTION BUT LESS EXPENSIVE."
"You just outright lied?" Frisk asked, shocked, as Asgore frowned at Papyrus.
"THAT'S MY JOB. SO THEN THEY SAID I HAD TO TAKE A TEST BUT THAT I'D HAVE TO TAKE IT LATER LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! SO I MADE A JOKE THAT TREATING ME LIKE EVERYONE ELSE WOULD BE DISCRIMINATION! AND THEY THOUGHT I WAS SO FUNNY THAT THEY LET ME TAKE THE TEST THE NEXT DAY! IT WAS CALLED THE BAR EXAM BUT LAWYERS REALLY LIKE TO LIE WITH THEIR NAMES."
"But.. but how'd you pass?!" Frisk blurted, looking around at their dad, Sans, and Asriel. Sans was just grinning. That reminds me, I've got stuff I need to ask him too.
"EASY! I WENT TO THE STORE AND BOUGHT A BUNCH OF BOOKS WITH ALL THE ANSWERS IN THEM!"
"They don't just sell the answer key to the bar exam in a store!" Frisk shouted.
"I think he means he bought law books and studied for the test," Asriel said, leaving Frisk flabbergasted.
"BUT THEY HAD PROBLEMS READING SOME OF MY ESSAYS! SO I MADE ANOTHER JOKE THAT IT WAS HOW MONSTERS WRITE AND THEY HAD TO CHECK THEIR HUMAN PRIVILEGE! AND THEY THOUGHT THAT JOKE WAS SO FUNNY THAT THEY MADE ME A LAWYER! WOW! THEY SURE DO LIKE MY JOKES EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER LAUGH! OOH! IS THAT SPAGHETTI?"
It was, and it smelled excellent. Toriel had cooked it, and unlike Papyrus she actually knew what she was doing. It was made with extra-long noodles, garlic powder, homemade sauce, and love. Papyrus slurped down strand after strand. How is he doing that, he doesn't even have lips! Spaghetti tended to fill Frisk up quickly, so they gobbled up as much as they could. They usually didn't eat this much in one day, but they anticipated burning a lot of energy tomorrow.
"So, Sans, Papyrus, I've been wondering, what were your mom and dad like?" Frisk asked the skeletons. Papyrus stopped slurping his spaghetti instantly and just sat there, frozen in place, a spaghetti noodle hanging from his mouth. Sans glanced at Frisk with an uninterpretable expression. "Woah, hey, if you don't want to talk about them, I totally understand."
"asgore, toriel, you ever met our parents?" Sans asked, quietly. Both of them shook their heads and answered no. "you, asriel?" He thought he might have remembered something but did the same. "frisk, mebbe one day i'll tell you. it ain't for the same reasons you have. hey, bro. buck up, uh?"
"DADD-EEEE!" Papyrus wailed, tears glistening in his eyes. "PLEASE COME BA-A-ACK!" Sans gave Frisk a more definitive now you've gone and done it look while Frisk looked back with How was I supposed to know?!
"Hey, now," Asgore asked. "Is that any way for a lawyer to act?"
"NO... I'M SORRY, YOUR MAJESTY. I'M GOING TO GO DO THIS PUZZLE NOW," he said, holding up his phone and the papers Asriel gathered, and leaving his plate still half-full as he walked out.
"put that in the fridge, eh? he'll be back for it," Sans said, and Toriel did. "frisk, you want to hear about parents? asgore, you think they're ready for your story?"
"After everything that's happened, I suppose they are," Asgore said slowly. "Children, I'll tell you the story of how I met your mother." Frisk and Asriel listened attentively.
"Focus on the good," Toriel requested, primly sitting back down.
"There was a child lost in the snow," Asgore began. "A young boy, maybe just a bit younger than you," he said, looking at Frisk and Asriel. "He had been chasing me with a group of other boys, but they went home and he did not. When he saw me, alone and cold, he was afraid of me, thought I would eat him up. I tried to warm his fingers and toes with my magic... and I brought him home." He closed his eyes and sighed. "He must have told someone where he had found me, because the very next day, a girl, half your age, came seeking me there, calling for me, with only a simple dress and nearly bare feet. She had a family, but the marks on her arms and legs... and she was thin, so very thin. She told me that she had dreamt of a Goatmother, and she knew where to find her, if only someone would take her there. How could I have refused?"
"That was a horrible winter," Toriel said. "Horrible enough to birth me. Enough children needed someone to take care of them, that their dreams, their wishes... continue, dear."
"I had only been born a couple of years before," Asgore said. "The previous King, somewhere in the world, had perished. The King is dead; long live the king." He continued. "Toriel was living in an old log cabin, altered with magic. The cabin was so warm, she was so warm, and when she saw the child... it nearly broke her heart just looking at that little girl. Your very first words to me, Toriel, 'Why does she look like this?'"
"She was dying," Toriel said. "They all were. All the children you brought to me. Six, and then eight, we fed them all with venison, porridge, vegetables, and snails taken from hibernation..."
"Those were good days," Asgore said. "We wanted for nothing. We built stone walls, and we had an ice fishing hole... never really caught anything, though... and the fireplace was always roaring, a real fireplace."
"That thing was horrible," Toriel said. "The children always wanted to play with it, but it was dangerous. To them, and to the whole house. I had to put up stone bars to keep them from fooling with it."
Asgore nodded, smiling. "We had salt for the children's food, and they had space, and nice clothes, and toys, and Toriel taught them how to read and to write." Asgore chuckled. "Here I am, talking about simple pleasures, to a child from the future whose experience of the world is phones, cars, waterslides, playgrounds, and Lego toys. Asriel, do you remember..."
"Just keep going, Dad," Asriel said, uncomfortable.
"All right. And then the humans discovered us. There were three of them, trying to break into the cabin," Asgore said. "But I had just returned from a hunt, and they didn't see me coming, and I took their SOULs, all at once. We released the children back to a village, but the adults, they said we were abominations..." Asriel gasped; he'd been called the same thing earlier that day. "Then the war began. The humans would hunt us, then realize what they could gain, and then hunt each other for it. I would try to protect monsters with the power I'd gained, but it only made things worse. It had probably happened many times before, around the world, but this time, the humans found something. Some... power. Power to make seven of them into wizards. Power enough to create a place for us, and to lock us in it. They sacrificed themselves, and their power, to be rid of us." It was difficult to tell if Asgore was crying. "Your mother and I missed those children so much, we decided to have a child of our own," he said, turning to Asriel. "And then another child fell down..."
"You can stop, dear," Toriel said, and Asgore nodded.
"There is one more thing I must admit," he said. "To remove monsters from the whole world, they needed the help of their King. I was tricked. I thought that all monsters, everywhere, would be sent to a place where we could live happily, without needing to worry about humans. So I released the human SOULs, it had hurt so badly to try to keep them contained, and used my own to help cast it... and only a few of us were sent there, and so many just disappeared, and Home was so small... there were more monsters, later, and we found New Home, but it was a prison, not a home. But our days of woe are behind us. Our good days are here again. They're here to stay, are they not?"
"It's like I told Az, we can't lose this trial," Frisk replied.
"I feared... something irrevocable," he said, with a long glance at his children. "I've been sad for so long, I've forgotten how to be happy." It was easy to tell that Asgore was crying. "Toriel, you've always known how to be a mother, but I have forgotten what it is to be a father." Nobody spoke for a moment. Toriel didn't want to tell him his business, Sans wasn't talking, and Frisk's not-father's idea of parenting was to tell his child to do things and then get mad when they couldn't.
"I think you're supposed to help us learn things? To help us grow up?" Asriel suggested. "Not just teaching, showing us. And, if you've had human SOULs before, then maybe you can help us." Asgore looked at his son. "Frisk and I are going to practice transforming me tomorrow. Without the bad part." Toriel looked worried, and Frisk smiled at her as a silent reminder.
"I'm not sure how much I can help. But I'll try. I have cleared my calendar," Asgore said, carefully pronouncing yet another unfamiliar phrase, "and I plan on spending the day with you tomorrow. If it isn't... awkward for you."
"Dad, you're ten feet tall when you stand up all the way. I'm pretty sure awkward doesn't cover it. And I'm pretty sure we really don't have to care," Frisk said.
"Dad... did you think we've been avoiding you? I mean, yeah, Frisk and I have been doing a lot of stuff, but... I miss being with you, too," Asriel added.
"All right then. Perhaps we can enjoy those toys of yours before bed, then? Show you what a father can do with magic."
"asgore," Sans said, his eyes closed, "you're a good dad." He excused himself and left.
Toriel's family helped her with the dishes; there was a dishwasher, but none of them knew how to use it. The kids changed into their pajamas, Asgore into his bathrobe, and this time, they built a house, somewhat similar to the fortress-school but with all sorts of amenities. Asgore took time to show his son how to attach disparate solids, to take a piece of string designated as a third-floor zip line and meld it to a plastic brick, to reshape, to create. Frisk felt a bit envious before chiding themself for being greedy with superpowers. Asriel even created plausible-looking beds out of his own fur, and Frisk wondered if they'd ever be able to save up enough to make them a sweater.
Papyrus did, in fact, come back for his spaghetti. "I DON'T THINK THAT PUZZLE YOU GAVE ME HAS ALL THE PIECES," he said, as the kids filled the third floor of their house with all sorts of implausible and impractical things.
"Oh, no, are we gonna have to go back again?" Frisk asked, frustrated.
"I got everything I could," Asriel said. "Going back won't help. Papyrus, can't you just find more somewhere? Like, from other people? Maybe Frisk's old school?"
"It's not going to be like a jigsaw puzzle," Frisk added. "It's more like... well, like Lego." They gestured to the project in front of them. "Just build as much of a case as you can, and we'll make it work. I'll make it work."
"OOH! THAT REMINDS ME! WE CAN'T LET MR. EVIL MCLAWYERGUY BUILD A CASE AGAINST US EITHER." Well, Frisk thought, at least you're not a complete idiot. "HAVE ANY OF YOU TOLD ANYONE ABOUT THE CAPTURING AND THE BLUENESS AND THE BONES AND THE GREENNESS AND THE SPEARS?" Frisk's family answered in the negative. "GOOD! LET'S KEEP IT THAT WAY. TORIEL, YOU FOLLOWED THEM OUT OF THE RUINS LIKE A LOVING MOTHER SHOULD," She gasped, taken off-guard. "AND THERE WEREN'T ANY BARS IN THE WAY. THEN THEY MET ME AND SANS, AND WE WERE ALL GOOD FRIENDS, AND I NEVER EVER TRIED TO CAPTURE THEM, AND THEN WE AND UNDYNE WERE FRIENDS TOO, AND METTATON NEVER TRIED TO EXTERMINATE FRISK EITHER OR PUT THEM ON TELEVISION, AND THEN YOU BOTH MET ASGORE AND ASRIEL AND DECIDED TO BECOME A HAPPY FAMILY AGAIN. THEN FRISK OPENED THE BARRIER WITH THEIR SOUL AND THE POWER OF LOVE."
"That's... pretty cheesy and twee," Frisk said. "Saccharine, that's the word."
"But not too different from what actually happened," Asriel added, and Frisk acknowledged the point. "We just have to make sure nobody will say anything different in court."
"THE WORD IS TESTIFIES! I LIKE THAT WORD. ROLLS OFF THE TONGUE. IF I HAD ONE."
"Yeah, testifies. I don't think Frisk's not-mom is going to get any monsters to testify for her." Frisk laughed a bit and the kids shared the same thought: She's so full of hate, she's making this easy for us.
"I doubt they're foolish enough to do that," Asgore said, his face darkening.
"WITNESS INTIMIDATION! DON'T LET ANYONE CATCH YOU DOING THAT, YOUR MAJESTY."
"I shouldn't have to," Asgore grumbled. "I shouldn't have to do any of this. A King may withhold information but should never have to lie." Frisk, holding two Lego pieces in their hands, couldn't keep holding on to them, they were laughing so hard. Whether it was from their SOUL or simple contagious laughter, their mirth spread to Asriel, and before long both kids were doubled over in hysteria. "And now is when you tell me what is humorous."
"Dad, if you don't lie, you'll be the only political leader on the planet who doesn't," Frisk explained. "You think Trump got elected by telling the truth?"
"But this is a democracy," Asgore said. "Why did the people not elect someone honest?" Frisk laughed so hard they tasted half-digested spaghetti.
"Because there aren't any. All of Trump's opponents in the playoffs were liars, and in the playoffs on the other side, both of them were liars too, and so for the finals it had to be liar versus liar. He was better at it than she was, and that's why he won. Honest people never even get to the playoffs."
"How did you become so cynical so young?" Toriel asked. Frisk didn't want to answer.
"I think that's because of their not-parents," Asriel said, and Frisk nodded.
"It's not regular lying, though, not like they did," Frisk said, gesturing to the Lego set. "It's like Lego, too. I mean, our real house obviously isn't going to have a giant passenger-carrying bird on it, a catapult that throws us into a mattress so we can get in, or a zip line that takes us down so we can get out. And I don't think we're ever really going to have our own personal spaceship. But your magic does an awesome job of making it look like we can. Except magic is more real than what they promise."
"They, politicians, or they, not-parents?" Asriel asked.
"Both." Asriel chuckled, Papyrus bid his goodbyes, and Frisk kept quiet while Asgore taught his son the finer points of magical control until it was time for bed. They took off their bracelets and plugged them in before Mom tucked them in, as usual, and both Frisk and Asriel felt that she could keep doing that all the way through high school. Asriel knew the definition of happiness: a belly full of mother-cooked spaghetti, a warm sibling to rest his head on and draw energy from, and a dad to teach him how to use his powers.
But then he went through hell-
Frisk awoke in the middle of the night, gasping. "Azzy! Did I LOAD? In real life?"
Asriel looked around, confused. He was still in bed, and he had been having the worst dream. He'd become something horrible but Frisk wouldn't accept it and the two of them just kept doing it again and again and again- "No, you didn't. And I'm still me."
"Oh, thank God. I had a really bad dream. You're still you? You kept changing... into big and evil and then Flowey-"
"And you kept LOADing," Asriel said. "We shared that."
"I gave you my nightmare?!" Frisk asked, horrified.
"Or the other way around. Or it was both of us. Don't blame yourself." Asriel put his head back onto Frisk's chest as they lied back down, slowly falling asleep. There were no further nightmares, only warmth and softness.
"Okay," Frisk said as they woke up, unplugging and snapping their bracelets on as Asriel did the same. "We're going to do this right. Let's do our morning stuff, then I'm going to SAVE, and then Dad can watch us practice. And if you ever need me to LOAD, if you ever think you're going to lose it or whatever, just say so." They did their morning stuff, and as Frisk brushed his fur they remembered their earlier idea. "If I save your fur, can you make me a sweater out of it?"
"A sweater out of my fur?" The idea brought a quizzical smile to his face.
"Yeah. A you-sweater. You're wearing a you-sweater, so I should be too."
"Okay!" Asriel's smile was wide. "I'll do it. Save it up." Frisk did, and placed it on the bed before picking up their phone and hitting Checkup. Good, no problems. Frisk put an arm around their brother, full of DETERMINATION not to lose control. SAVEd.
"All right, Dad, Mom," Asriel said, stepping into the living room with his sibling, their tea-drinking parents watching them. "We're ready. Frisk."
"You lead," Frisk said. "Just focus on what you want to become. Take as much as you need."
"All right." Asriel did not transform instantly, this time; his horns grew steadily, his pajamas faded into a version of his father's kingly robe, and he held a blade of magic in front of him, which he put away. He had large horns and a large grin, but there wasn't any malevolence or vengeance in his countenance or posture. "Wooooah. I'm still me." He looked down at Frisk, amused, and then with a single movement of his arms picked Frisk up under their legs and back. "I can carry you, like you don't weigh anything." Frisk laughed, amazed as their brother threw them into the air, like a small child, as Frisk giggled like one and their parents applauded. "I think we've got this," he said, sitting Frisk up on his shoulders. Something was wrong, though. "Hey, Frisk? Frisk!" Asriel put Frisk down before reverting to his usual self. Frisk was hyperventilating, trying to stand up and falling back down, confused and unable to see straight. "What's wrong?"
"I think it's... no, I can't... no, forget this."
==LOAD==
"Did I hurt you?" Asriel asked.
"Sort of," Frisk said, still breathing hard even though they didn't need to anymore. "It's okay, it's why they call it practice. I think the problem is that I'm still alive. If it was just my SOUL, you could probably keep doing that, but my SOUL's still in my body. And that still follows ordinary human physics," they said, walking into the living room again. "Hey, in case you haven't figured it out..."
"You had to LOAD," Asgore said. "Yes, we heard you and got the deja vu."
"You get deja vu when I LOAD?"
"We remember some things," Toriel said. "It isn't always clear."
"Remember... when..." Asgore started, not willing to finish.
"Yeah. I remember," Frisk replied, nodding. Asgore had killed them more than once, and they had told him each time. "Azzy, try again. But not for very long this time." Asriel transformed instantly, and Frisk felt a sharp tug on their SOUL- almost as if were being pulled right out of them- and Asriel tossed them up in the air a few times before setting them back down. "Yeah, that's enough. A little dizzy. I'm getting over it."
"Well, at least we know what I'll look like when I grow up," Asriel said.
"I hope that's right," Frisk said. "I hope you can grow up properly. I can't." Their family abruptly turned to look at them, and they sat down for some tea, their brother following. "I won't go through puberty. Not unless I get some special injections, or growth hormone, or something like that."
"You don't have," Asgore said, understanding.
"Yeah, I don't have. Not those parts. Male or female. I hope it doesn't affect you, Az. Sorry my human biology keeps getting in the way," they said, sipping their tea. Was that flavor-?! "Anyway, I know what we can do after that ninety years. Az, you almost took my SOUL." Every member of their family almost, but not quite, spilled their tea, Asriel horrified at himself. "When I get really old, just finish it." They finished their tea in a single, delicious gulp.
"I still don't care about your stupid human biology or physics!" Asriel yelled, trying to calm himself. "I don't want you to die! Of anything! If your human biology is killing you then... fix it! With magic or science or something! I don't want to live with your SOUL trapped inside me forever! You'd still be dead!" He turned to his parents. "Mom, Dad, tell them!"
"A human SOUL is just an essence, Frisk," Asgore told them. "It's the central part of you, but it's not the whole you, it doesn't have all your memories or thoughts. The SOULs I took would have eventually escaped... but you could probably stay in your brother forever. But he's right. You would be mostly dead." He looked down at his tea. "There's no true life after death for humans, not the way they envision it, as much as they want to believe there is. None for monsters, either, if the memories are gone." He shrugged the shrug of a man used to tragedy. "Sorry I couldn't help with your transformations, but I think you have it figured out."
"Super powers, and it's just another emergency button," Asriel said ruefully after a swig of butterscotch-and-cinnamon tea. "In Case Frisk's Not-Parents Show Up With A Hit Squad Right After Frisk SAVEs, Break Glass."
"Those two don't have a hit squad! At least I don't think they do," Frisk said, imagining. "They hired a lawyer instead, so I'm guessing not. Besides, we've still got Jenkins and Undyne for that stuff."
"Speak of the fish," Asriel said, and the elevator opened shortly thereafter. Undyne was in her usual athletic wear, and Kid was there next to her, in his usual striped shirt but wearing a metal exoskeleton that extended to his feet. A pair of fully formed, five-fingered mechanical arms extended from his shoulders, and he waved at the Dreemurrs with both of them, overjoyed.
"01 and 02 took me to Emeyetee!" he yelled.
"Mighty? What?" Asriel asked, just as confused as Frisk and their parents.
"No, Em, Eye, Tee. It's like, a school, but they do stuff there. I met Huey there, his legs are like my arms. He kept asking about my ner-fuss system before I showed him how magic works. So I just control them with that. I can grab stuff, and hold stuff, and I can spin my wrists allll the way around," he gushed, demonstrating, "and I can wear cool bracelets like yours, and I don't fall down anymore. Undyne said you're going to go places, so can I go with you?"
Frisk and Asriel looked at each other and smiled. "Like either of us are really going to say no," Asriel said. Frisk was the one who'd pulled him up from falling off a cliff, after all. "Mom? Dad?"
"I'm so glad you've made so many friends," Toriel said, smiling.
"As long as you aren't terribly annoying," Asgore said. "Don't use those new arms to get into trouble. Undyne? Your responsibility." Undyne nodded. "So, where first?"
"Well, there's this one place, that says 'Where a kid can be a kid,' and since that's my name, I think we should go there. If you guys want to."
"My not-parents never let me go there," Frisk agreed. "They said it was too expensive. Guess what we don't have to care about?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Asriel said, "but I want to find out." They went to get changed, Asriel and Frisk picking out colorful shirts and pants they'd never worn before, choosing to advertise the Lego company in exchange for the free toys. Although they'd probably go nuts if they saw how my brother played with them, Frisk thought.
"We're having breakfast first," Asgore said, and they went down together, Kid still fooling around with his new arms, bending them around in positions impossible for a human. His practice paid off; he was able to eat waffles all by himself without putting his face into the plate. The royal family's king-size appetite practically finished off the waffle mix, and Asgore had developed a taste for bacon. They went downstairs to the SUV, where Jenkins was waiting for them. He looked like he was going to say something, about the absurdities he'd seen and heard of (their kids running off with a skeleton? another, obviously untrained, skeleton serving as their lawyer?!), but he chose not to. Despite driving the car, he was just along for the ride.
And, he had to admit, the royal family's choice of places was fairly appropriate. Going to a Chucky's as soon as it opened was a good idea, as this early in the morning next to nobody was there. The staff was about to do the hand-stamping thing, then looked at who they were admitting and decided to skip that part.
The place was flashing lights and arcade machines and tokens (a handful of twenty-dollar bills gave them the amount they thought they'd need) and a climbing section and a ball pit, confusing the adults and delighting the kids. "Hey, Frisk, wanna play one of those shooter games?" Asriel asked, gesturing to a two-player light gun game.
"Ehh... I've kind of lost my taste for violent games," Frisk said.
"C'mon, it's just a game," Asriel said, leading his reluctant sibling over to play it. "So all I have to do is just point this at... Oh, got it."
"Why isn't this hitting?" Frisk asked after a few seconds of play.
"I think the inside isn't pointing straight," Asriel said, holding it, altering it. "Now it is." They did very well before taking too many cheesy, unavoidable hits and deciding not to play anymore. "All right, what else is there? What's Kid doing?"
Kid was enjoying a game of skee ball, having just stopped playing a basketball-throwing game, a long wad of tickets in his left hand and a ball in his right, practicing how not to throw the little ball up too hard. 10... 10... 10... and a 100! And a 50! Kid laughed with glee as Undyne cheered him on. Of course, the other kids couldn't help but get involved, and Asgore and Toriel watched.
"Hey, it's Chucky's mom and dad!" a small child yelled, pointing nearly straight up at Toriel and Asgore. Asriel heard it and chuckled, but didn't stop playing.
"Alfred! That's no way to talk to royalty!" his mother shouted to him, a moment behind. "I'm so sorry. You know how they are at that age."
"It is fine," Toriel said. "It is not just children who confuse us for other things."
"I can imagine." She looked up at Toriel and tried as best she could to quietly talk into her ear above the ambient noise. "Yours don't give you nearly as much trouble, do they?"
"Oh, no," Toriel replied. "Ours do not get into any trouble they cannot get out of."
"Oh, they're clever? Sneaky? Good for them. Watch them, though. If you ask me, the guy in the Chucky suit?" She made an indistinct motion across her neck. "Bad news. What kind of weirdo dresses up like a giant mouse for a living? Anyone who puts on one of those suits to look like an animal? Don't ever trust 'em." She tried to take a selfie with them, but had a hard time getting the proper angle with the eight-foot-tall goat monster and her husband who couldn't stand up fully without hitting the ceiling, and wound up taking a selfie-styled picture while staring at the floor, the camera pointing up Toriel's nose. She then called her friends, leading her son out by the hand. Asgore started laughing, and Toriel gave her husband a thump on the chest.
The kids eventually got bored of skee ball, pockets overflowing with tickets, and went to explore. "Woah! What's that?!" Kid asked, pointing at the animatronic mouse which was singing something horrible.
"That's a Chucky robot," Frisk said. "That's, like, the mascot."
"It's creepy," Kid said. "I don't like looking at it." He backed off.
"What, you're afraid it'll jump out and scare you?" Frisk asked. "That can't happen. Besides, even if the animatronics did come to life and start terrorizing people, Azzy can be way scarier than that if he wants."
"What? No way." His face showed the pure disdain that only a child can have. "Asriel, you can't be-" AAYYYYAHH "Aaaaahhh!" He fell back onto his mechanical hands. Asriel's facial transformation made an excellent jumpscare, Frisk noted. If they couldn't feel it coming, it'd have scared them too. Undyne burst out laughing.
None of them ate any of the pizza. What was coming out of that kitchen smelled like the cooks needed a loud, blond, British chef to start kicking their butts. They kept playing, eschewing the electronic games for more physical challenges. Both Frisk and Asriel were laser-quick and were learning how to read each other's movements, making for a truly insane game of air hockey that ended up in a tie. Kid used the grab machine to get a plushie to cuddle (third try!), but Frisk did not; they already had one. Eventually they all ran out of tokens, and didn't want to bother to get more; they used their accumulated tickets to buy a whistling, tailed, soft-foam football and a fairly large assortment of single-use glowing wristbands.
Of course, having a soft-foam football meant that they had to use it, and they went to the same playground park Frisk went to before, tossing it back and forth with their father. Kid had a hard time throwing things; he didn't quite understand what he needed to do with his arms to get the ball moving. However, he did very well on the monkey bars, the exoskeleton arms easily able to pick up his negligible weight. Asgore threw it to Undyne, and then suddenly it became a contest of direct chest passes to each other as if the soft foam was a spear, while the kids laughed. Asgore eventually got the upper hand, tossing it over her shoulder as she fumbled at catching it. Toriel, with surprising speed, leaped up and caught it before it went too far.
Exhausted, happy, and a bit hungry and thirsty, they went back to the car. "Hey, Frisk," Kid piped up, "I've been wondering. Are you a" He didn't even need to finish the sentence before Frisk saw it coming. "boy or a girl?"
Asriel smirked a bit. "Every time, huh Frisk?"
"Both. And neither," Frisk answered, not wanting to get into it. "Actually, Mom, can we go and get a dress I can wear to court? Something frilly and pink that makes me look like a princess." Everyone else in the car looked shocked, save for Jenkins, who could be surprised by absolutely nothing at this point.
Asriel couldn't keep the mirth off his face. "I didn't know you liked dressing up, Frisk."
"I just want to make not-mom mad." And I'd much rather have my not-parents getting mad than me getting mad. "Actually, wait, not pink. Dreemurr royal purple. With that symbol on the chest."
"The Delta Rune?" Toriel asked.
"Yes, that. And we should all wear it. Isn't that the Dreemurr family crest?" Their family nodded.
"Frisk, why are you going to court?" Kid asked. "What'd you do?"
"Be born to the wrong people," Frisk replied. "It's a common crime. Often with a harsh punishment and no possibility of parole. I got out early for good behavior."
Toriel found a bridal and formal store nearby. Nobody else wanted to go in there with them, particularly not the children. Asriel looked at his sibling and his bracelets, and Frisk just nodded; an average-sized store couldn't be the equivalent of a couple hundred meters or any real amount of solid rock. Asriel tried not to be too obvious that he was looking at his wrists while Toriel and Frisk went in together. Nope, still a solid green throughout.
Frisk came out a few minutes later, their mother carrying their other clothes, wearing a floor-length light purple dress with puffed sleeves and a bow on the back. It was wide at the bottom, multi-layered, and, after Mom's magical ministrations, very comfortable and expertly tailored. They wore a purple headband and short, white gloves; they had almost chosen elbow-length ones, but those would go either over the bracelets (unsightly) or under them (not the best idea). Rolling along in their shoes, it looked like they were floating on air. Asriel opened the door and Frisk curtsied before lifting their skirts to step in. Asgore smiled, Kid stared, and Undyne's jaw nearly fell off her face.
"Frisk, you're beautiful," Asriel said. "This'll make your not-mom mad?"
"Thanks, Az, and I guarantee it," they replied, smoothing their dress down to sit next to their brother. "What, Undyne? You want to take Alphys here sometime?" Blushing deeply, she looked away.
They decided to see a movie together, but they acknowledged that neither Toriel nor Asgore would ever fit properly in theater seats, so they just decided to go back to the penthouse and watch something on Netflix. Their family almost chose some horribly godawful Christmas special (it was getting close to that time of year), but Frisk knew the difference between good and bad movies and chose The Neverending Story instead, sitting on the couch in their dress next to their brother and picking popcorn out of the bowl with their white gloves. All of them cried when Artax sank (even Undyne, especially Undyne), all of them cheered at the ending (Asriel wanted to turn into Falcor, but that was beyond even Frisk's power), and Asgore almost continued with the sequel before Frisk used their superpower of looking at IMDb first.
They ate dinner together, laughed and played together, and the next day the adults went back to work while the kids explored, learned, and enjoyed life. Sans, slowly shedding his laziness, had taken up seeing the snowman regularly, as he told Frisk, and Trump had not resumed the monster farming after the Parsnik fiasco Sans had set up.
And then the day came; it was time for the trial.