Chapter 12: Trust Issues
Papyrus had been very precise when he had called Grillby a fire-monster. The guy literally was a walking, talking humanoid-shaped flame. With glasses. And clothes on. How did they not burn?
Magic, duh.
Grillby's tent had been pitched up a short way outside of the camp. It was a few times bigger than the tent average, and its interior actually resembled McAnally's Pub. Sans was waiting for us inside, with four giant burgers lined up on the counter in front of him. He threw one of them at me once I had put Mandy down onto one of the stools. I took a bite from the burger and had a hard time not wolfing it down then and there. It was delicious.
Luckily, Mandy's ability to move really had returned and she was moving almost alright again, albeit a little stiff. She timidly asked if it was okay for her to take the burger, gladly biting into it after Sans had given her the permission.
Corbyn, the part-Asian kid, had also regained consciousness somewhere on the way to the camp. He had taken up to his new situation strangely well, and instantly grabbed the food in front of him the moment Papyrus let go of him.
Sam, the redhead, was still out of it. Grillby had provided a pillow and a makeshift mattress, where Papyrus had put him on for now.
"we'll leave them in your care, bro," Sans said. "the human and i wanted to share a few jokes, so we'll be outside for a minute."
The lie came out smoothly. This wasn't the first time Sans didn't tell the truth to his brother.
Papyrus was confused. "WHAT? BUT WHY?"
"they're too much in-tents."
"NYEH!" Papyrus bellowed. "FINE, GO OUTSIDE!"
With a last worried glance at Sam, I followed Sans out of the tent.
"Where is Frisk?" I demanded, the moment we were out of hearing range.
"somewhere else."
"Sans. Don't drag this out."
"sorry, but i'll drag this out as much as necessary. it isn't like it has been in the underground. the kid can't reset anymore. if something goes wrong, there's no way back for us. we only get this one chance." He chuckled, exhausted. "it's weird having to care so much so suddenly, when nothing mattered for so long."
I tried to sympathize with him and not strangle him because he made everything so much harder than it already was. Then it hit me.
"Frisk can't reset anymore? How do you know?"
Sans eyed me suspiciously. "it's a good guess. if they could, they'd have reset the moment they knew that i remembered. they're cowardly like that. pretty sure they don't want me to know that their death is more… permanent now. probably hope that i'd still find it pointless to kill them."
"That's great!" I shouted, startling Sans enough to make him take a step back.
"what is?"
Perhaps that would be a good angle – Frisk wasn't really a practitioner. Yes, the kid had been the one to turn back time – but it had been in a cut-off dimension, created by long-dead wizards. So, technically, those guys had been the one messing with time, not the kid. Frisk had only pressed the button installed by them.
And if Frisk really wasn't able to reset anymore, then they didn't pose any threat whatsoever. That probably wouldn't convince the Merlin (that old fart liked to use executions as a precedent to reaffirm his authority) but it might be enough for the Gatekeeper, Listens-to-Wind and Martha Liberty. So basically everyone on the Senior Council with common sense. I was counting on old man McCoy for this automatically. With that, there would be a majority on the Senior Council overruling an execution order on Frisk.
Well. Rashid was a bit of a wild card, but I still placed my bets on this. If I gave a good enough speech to defend the kid in front of the Council, then I was sure it could all work out in the end. Frisk would never be able to become a full-fledged Warlock, they couldn't even use magic as far as I knew. Thinking back, that should have been a dead give-away to them not being able to reset anymore. There would still be the problem with Frisk's… other issue, but that was something the Council didn't necessarily have to know.
"been real quiet, buddy." Sans sounded nervous. I partly enjoyed unnerving the guy for once.
"I think I found a loophole," I said, and explained my train of thought to him. When I finished, Sans nodded slowly.
"that might work out. i'd have to take your word on that though, i don't know any of those folks." He breathed out heavily. "just one thing."
"What?"
Sans looked up at me, this single time having his expression somewhat readable. First and foremost, there was suspicion, followed by anxiousness, fatigue and only a tiny, tiny glimmer of hope.
"why would you do that? you told me your job was to catch kids like frisk. didn't take you for a stickler for rules, but still. there's no good reason for you to do this."
"Of course there is," I said vehemently. "It's called decency. And hey – you can either work with me and try for the best outcome, or make it harder for me to help you. The Council will get wind of this sooner or later, don't have any delusions on that. It's not a matter of if, only when."
Sans stared at me for at least a minute, until he suddenly collapsed to the ground. I cursed out in surprise and knelt down. "Hey, what's wrong?"
He lifted a hand defensively.
"i'm okay. just really worn out, so i relaxed just a bit too much just now. i don't take my naps anymore, that makes me bar-a-night."
I snorted. "That one was tired."
"sure am."
I couldn't help but feel bad for the poor guy. I sat down next to him.
"Thanks for the burger, by the way," I said, finishing it with a last bite. "It's really good."
"no prob. would be even better with tons of ketchup."
"So…" I tried to get back to the less nice topics. "You're the only monster who knows about what Frisk has done, right?"
He nodded.
"Why don't you try and tell someone else?" I suggested, pushing aside the hypocrisy. The procedure of 'not telling other people stuff' was a very familiar concept to me. However, I only did it to keep my friends and innocents from danger. And I was slowly stepping away from that habit, it had been nothing but inconvenient in the past. Most of my friends still got involved in whatever danger I was trying to shield them from anyway, just because they knew me. It had almost ruined Murphy's and my friendship. So now I had started to tell her everything I knew.
When it was part of her business.
Well, I told her most of the time.
I mean, I tried to.
It was a slow learning process, but I was getting there.
"nope. won't do any good," Sans muttered, his eyes closed. So he did have eyelids. For a second there, I had the strange desire of touching them and testing if they were made out of bone as well. I got over it. Back to giving the great advice I should follow more often myself.
"You think that now, but maybe-"
He interrupted me. "if i do that, then there's one of two outcomes. first, they believe me. they get scared and/or sad, nothing gets accomplished. they're not going to be safer if they send the kid away, we'll only lose the sole human that could and would help us set foot on the surface. and if the monsters get angry and end up killing frisk? your kind wouldn't ever let us hear the end of it."
The skeleton raised his hand, holding up two fingers, eyes closed again. "second possibility: the others don't believe me. in their eyes, the kid has been nothing but nice ever since they got to the underground. worst case scenario: they'd try to keep me away from frisk. then nobody would be there to watch out."
His smile faltered. "thing is, i don't really believe the kid ever became evil or that they killed everyone because they just snapped. i think they did it out of boredom. that they had arrived at the point where they thought that nothing they ever did mattered, because they could reset it all anyway. i hate it, but i can relate to that."
I blinked, stunned. "You do?"
He opened one eye and glanced up at me, barely hiding his guilt. "why else do you think i let them kill literally everyone else they found before i finally stepped in? i could have tried to stop frisk hours before that. but i just hoped they would lose interest in that path on their own. it was hard to care about anything back then."
I decided not to comment on that.
"If you're so hell-bent on not telling any other monster - why tell me then?"
Sans's grin nudged up a little. "you have no reason to tell the others, and even if you did, they definitely have no reason to believe you over the kid. don't count on me there, i would have no idea what you would be talking about."
Sneaky little bastard.
"Back to the issue at hand, then." I said. "Where's Frisk?"
"they're-"
But before Sans could give me an answer, he was interrupted by a childlike scream, coming out from Grillby's tent. The skeleton got up slowly.
"sounds like the third one just woke up."
Together, we rushed back into the tent-bar.
Sam really had woken up. And he was terrified. He had grabbed one of the bar's stools, and pointed the lower end towards Grillby – who calmly kept on cleaning a beer mug behind his counter – and Papyrus, who looked very concerned.
"LITTLE RED-HAIRED HUMAN, I COMMEND YOUR WILLINGNESS TO TRAIN YOUR STRENGTH! HOWEVER! WEIGHT-LIFTING MIGHT BE A LITTLE TOO MUCH FOR YOU RIGHT NOW! PLEASE, DON'T OVEREXERT YOURSELF!"
"Shut up, monster!" Sam screamed, his voice shaking almost as much as his arms did. Apparently he hadn't noticed us entering yet.
Mandy got up from her stool and carefully approached the scared boy.
"Calm down, Sam, nobody's going to hurt you here."
She looked at us, her eyes silently pleading for help. Sam noticed the distraction and followed her gaze, jumping backwards when he spotted Sans.
"The-the-there's another one!" he cried.
"hi kid. chair to put the shield down? c'mon, stop stooling around." Now that Sans had relaxed a little, he was on a roll. "you're gonna make the bar-tenter angry if you damage his stuff."
"Don't drag me into this, Sans," Grillby said.
Sans chuckled. "ya think the boil care? he's way too pan-icky. its'tew bad."
"You've never even had my stew, Sans," Grillby answered, not once looking away from the beer mug, inspecting it closely for any left-over smudges. Sans took a step towards Sam, who flinched and directed the stool's feet at the skeleton.
"S-stay away!"
"heat to say it kid, but that thing won't help you. it's oil a waste of energy."
"NOT YOUR COOKING-PUNS, SANS!" Papyrus shouted. "THOSE ARE THE WORST!"
"fine, i'll give it a roast."
"SANS!"
Sans shrugged, turned away from Sam and instead walked up and sat down next to Corbyn, who didn't pay any attention to the situation around him. Meanwhile, Mandy tried to approach Sam again.
"Sam, please. Put the chair down."
"SHE IS RIGHT, LITTLE RED HUMAN," Papyrus added, drawing Sam's attention towards him again. "IF YOU WANT TO, WE CAN STILL TRAIN YOUR WEIGHT-LIFTING AFTER YOU'VE EATEN! I'LL BE GLAD TO BE YOUR INSTRUCTOR!"
"Shut up, you idiot! You're driving me mad!" Sam screamed.
Sans tensed up, only turning his head towards the terrified child.
"i'd take that back if i were you, kid. he saved your life, but you're still not out of the woods. literally and figuratively."
That struck a nerve with me. "Really, Sans? Threatening a scared child? When I'm right here?"
"i'm not threatening him. i'm just sharing in-facts. right?"
So he knew that Sam was infected. He hadn't said a word about that before. My eyes narrowed.
"Then I'll state another fact. You threaten him again and I'll have Mouse fetch your legs."
My dog growled affirmatively from beside the counter. Sans stared at me, expression unreadable again. But before he could return something, Mandy jumped in, arms outstretched, trying to get between us.
"P-please. No fighting."
"What the hell, Mandy?!" Sam shouted from his end of the tent. "All of these guys are dangerous! Why do you care?!" He turned to Corbyn, who still didn't react to a single thing that happened. "And you, stop eating this stuff! What if it's poisoned?!"
Corbyn ignored him.
"I don't appreciate you slandering my business, young man," Grillby remarked.
"I don't care!" Sam cried. "You people kidnapped us!"
"NOTHING FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH, LITTLE HUMAN!" Papyrus was hurt. "YOU CAN LEAVE ANYTIME YOU WANT TO!"
"yeah. be my guest, kid." Sans lifted a finger and pointed towards the exit. The tent's cloth floated up slowly, opening it.
"SANS! STOP IT!"
Sans flinched at Papyrus's shocked voice.
"BROTHER, YOU'VE BEEN ACTING STRANGE EVER SINCE WE'VE LEFT THE UNDERGROUND! IS SOMETHING BOTHERING YOU? I'M DEEPLY CONCERNED ABOUT YOU!"
Sans avoided his brother's eyes and tried to grin even more. "you know me bro, it's just me being a weir-dough."
"SANS!"
The chubby skeleton was getting visibly uncomfortable. He got up from his stool and walked towards the exit. "welp, would ya look at the thyme. i butter get ready for the nap i wanted to do earlier."
Papyrus tried to step in his way. "SANS! YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY THIS TIME, I-"
And Sans was gone.
Papyrus stared at the empty spot where his brother had stood just a second ago.
"HOW RUDE," he said. But he didn't sound as convinced as usual.
An awkward silence filled the room, only disrupted by Corbyn's continued munching. Trying to start a new conversation, I nodded at him.
"Feeling better?"
Corbyn wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Much better. This food heals you from the inside, right?"
"Oh my god, Corbyn!" Sam shouted. He still held that stool up. "This isn't one of your stupid comics!"
"But he's right," Mandy said. "Papyrus said the same thing before."
"I don't care what that idiot said!" Sam screeched.
Mandy's face grew tired. She walked up to the boy, lifted her hand and slapped him right over the face.
"Don't call him that! Be thankful!"
Her behavior seemed a lot more off than his, to be honest. A second later, Mandy realized that herself. She clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh! I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"
Sam stared at her, flabbergasted, holding his cheek, more out of surprise than pain. "What the – why?!"
"Sam," I said. "Listen, these guys are good people. You don't need to-"
"I don't trust you either!" The boy screamed and aimed the stool-legs at me. "You brought us here! Your dog attacked Mandy! What if- What if you just look human?!" His eyes teared up, the stool shook in his hands until it fell to the ground with a loud, clattering noise. Sam started sobbing. "I… I wuanna go home!" Everything after that turned into incomprehensible bawling. The atmosphere turned awkward again.
Luckily, not for long. There was the sound of little feet running towards the tent, followed by Amy sticking her head inside, black pigtails dangling back and forth.
"Papy! There you are, I-" She broke off. "Sam? Mandy? Corbyn?" She looked confused. "Sam, why are you crying? Are you hurt?" She entered the tent.
Sam looked up at her, his eyes swollen already. "A-Amy? They got you, too?"
Amy frowned. "What do you mean, 'got me'? They found Noah and me a few days ago." Her eyes went back to Papyrus and widened. "Oh no! Papy, why're you crying as well?"
"I AM NOT CRYING, L-LITTLE HUMAN!" Papyrus sniffled, clearly crying. "I JUST FEEL SO SORRY FOR THIS LITTLE HUMAN! HE'S SO HOMESICK, YET SO BRAVE!"
Amy pranced up to him and almost poked her index finger into his right eye-socket. "But there are tears coming out of here."
"THAT IS HOW I EXPRESS MY SYMPATHY!" Papyrus explained, before he dropped the pretenses and started sobbing as well.
Amy patted him gently on the skeletal arm. "Aww. Poor Papy."
"Wizard," Grillby pulled my attention away from the two of them. "Go on, follow Sans. I'll deal with this."
I raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
Grillby nodded. "This will take a while. So if you have any urgent plans, I suggest pursuing them now."
Finally someone you could talk to normally – and someone who could see through Sans, at least somewhat. "Okay," I said. "Thanks for the burger, by the way."
"Always happy to have a satisfied customer," Grillby replied with a polite nod.
I eyed Sam. I didn't like the thought of leaving him out of my sight for too long.
"Mouse?" I asked.
The dog grunted, eyes on the infected boy. He got me.
With the best possible watchdog in place, I left the tent, a little more assuredly.
I found Sans minutes later at my borrowed tent, waiting for me. Getting tired of his shenanigans, I didn't bother with a greeting and got straight to the point.
"For the third time: Where's Frisk." It wasn't even a question anymore, just annoyed repetition.
Sans stuck out his right hand. "paps's and my house back in snowdin. we'll get there quicker if we take a shortcut."
"Why haven't you just brought them back by now?" I said, confused – and a little suspicious. If I read him correctly, he wanted to teleport with me now. Letting him do that could drop me off just about anywhere, including the lava spot he had told me about earlier.
Sans chuckled. "that's the expression of someone who has been double-crossed multiple times. don't worry, pal. i just thought that the three of us could have a nice, uninterrupted talk there without anyone listening in." He held his hand out to me. I inspected it, now even more suspicious.
"c'mon now, don't just leave me hanging like that. trust has to come from both sides, right?"
"A trusting wizard is a dead wizard," I murmured, and took his hand.
The skeleton studied me for a second, before turning around and taking a few steps in no specific direction, having me follow him.
It was unlike any sort of transportation magic I had experienced thus far. We didn't move all that much, but with every step Sans took, the scenery around us changed. It was like walking inside a surrounding green-screen that flipped through its image projections while we were moving.
It was impressive. And certainly the laziest and easiest way of getting from A to B that I had ever seen. Needless to say, it was a perfect fit for the skeleton.
It took us five steps, and we arrived – at least that's what I got from Sans letting go of my hand.
I had a hard time not immediately wrapping my arms around my body. It was freezing in here. It had been cold on the Mountain before, but here? Complete ice age. I shook my head at the slight feeling of nausea crawling around on my shoulders from the unusual transportation magic and tried to make a sense out of the new surroundings.
The first question that escaped my mouth was: "Why are there socks everywhere?" I purposely ignored the miniature, self-sustaining tornado of trash in the corner. It was just too obvious.
Sans didn't answer me. He stood next to something that I identified as a treadmill and stared at his room.
"i told them to wait here. should've known better."
I frowned. "What?"
Sans grin grew dangerously stiff. "they're gone."
Frisk
Frisk had tried hard to do as Sans had told them. But the skeleton either had gone a little overboard with trying to punish them, or just forgot about something pretty detrimental – the cold. Well, there was the option that Sans had just left them here to freeze to death. But Frisk didn't want to believe that.
The child had been sitting on on the skeleton's mattress for about five minutes until they couldn't take it anymore and got up, trying to run on the treadmill to warm up their body. It didn't help much, other than making them cruelly aware of their stiffening clothes, soaked in creek water.
Eventually, every breath felt like a stab to their lungs so they got off the treadmill again and tried to find anything else inside the room that could make them warmer. They switched on the lamp, hoping that the lightbulb might create some heat – quickly remembering that Sans had swapped the burnt-through bulb for a flashlight, which had long since run down on batteries. Out of desperation, they tried to enter the trash-tornado, but only managed to get some scratches from that. Then they had opened the drawer, pulled out some clothes, put them on and crawled in.
It just didn't help. They were freezing, and now, in the dimness of the drawer, they felt a surge of exhaustion building up inside them. Sleep… all they wanted to do was sleep…
But something kept them awake this time. They realized that falling asleep could have… bad results. So they fought to get up again, got out of the drawer and wrapped themselves into another layer of Sans's clothing.
Sans had told them to stay here, but he hadn't specified how big that area was. Here could include the house. Here could mean the whole of Snowdin Town. The desire for warmth beat the nagging bad conscience and Frisk waddled out of Sans's room, into the hallway. Hopefully, they visited Papyrus's room, but the hard-working skeleton had left his old place barren of anything that could have helped the child. Even the bed in the form of a racing car was gone. Had Papyrus carried it all the way to the Surface? Frisk managed to crack a painful smile. It was so like him.
Frisk closed the door and went downstairs, going for the kitchen, counting on the oven's heat – and having to discover that Papyrus had taken his kitchenware with him as well. It made sense, him being an enthusiastic cook… even though it was a little questionable where Papyrus had been planning to get the power for his oven from in the Surface world. Nonetheless, it wasn't there, and the cold was further and further creeping under Frisk's skin.
They had no choice. If they wanted to survive, they had to go somewhere warm.
Slowly, but surely, they made their way through Snowdin. Now that everyone had left the town, it made uncomfortable memories crop back up.
"I-it's okay, " Frisk muttered, teeth clattering, forcing themselves to trudge forward through the snow. "Th-they're alive. They're j-j-just outside. They're n-n-not d-d-dead. Not. D-dead."
Much to Frisk's dismay, none of the town's homes could be opened, not even the inn, Grillby's old pub or the shop. Their vision started to get darker, and they had reached the point where they couldn't feel the cold anymore. Only one persistent thought kept them going. It almost felt like someone else was maneuvering them.
Then it came to them. Undyne's house! Undyne had a heat fridge, as illogical as that sounded. Frisk staggered onwards, into the direction of the Waterfall area.
In there, it was at least a little warmer – but the cold of Snowdin wouldn't let go of them. Clinging to their last thread of consciousness, Frisk made their way up to Undyne's house.
When they got there, it hit them like a brick.
Right.
Undyne's house had burnt down.
The remains of the house lay there, mocking the child.
Frisk gave up. Their legs couldn't carry them anymore. And the alluring thought of sleep lulled them into a cozy, warm feeling.
Just for a second. Only for a while.
The child dropped to the ground, unconscious.
Harry
"You left Frisk here?" I repeated. Sans nodded. I had a hard time not to facepalm then and there.
"It's cold as hell in here! Did you at least give them a blanket or something?"
Sans froze, pun intended. "oh. whoops."
That didn't sound good at all. I gnashed my teeth. "What."
"we have a problem."
"Why."
The skeleton scratched his skull hurriedly. He was getting stressed.
"the kid might just have been wearing wet clothing when i dropped them off here."
"What?" I exclaimed. "Why?!"
"they had fallen into the creek."
"Wha- you know what, I don't want to know. We have to find them before they die of hypothermia."
Outside the house, we discovered Frisk's tracks in the snow. From the looks of it, the poor kid had wandered around in the cold for quite some time until they had went off, away from the small town.
Briskly, I strode off, following the small footprints. Sans had visible trouble keeping up with me and at some point just started to teleport, reappearing on my way at random.
We lost the trail as soon as we left the snowy area and entered a new one – looking more cave-like, the mountain's walls were standing closer together, and the sound of running water surrounded us. Blue-ish light came from crystals and strange bright blue flowers around the pathways and on the ceiling. I put two and two together and recognized it as the Waterfall section of the Underground. I studied the visible dark water, running parallel to our pathway – something in between a creek and a narrow river.
"You think Frisk fell in there?"
"the kid knows their way around."
That didn't answer my question.
"We'll need a dog to find them here," I said, "or do you happen to have anything I could use for a tracking spell?"
Sans eyed me pensively. He had grown very quiet ever since we had started to search for the child.
"a dog? why not yours?"
"Mouse is keeping an eye on the infected boy," I replied gravely. Sans looked away.
"most of the royal guard's members are dogs. i'll go and try get one of them here."
Before I could comment on that plan, an old, raspy voice joined our conversation from several steps away.
"And leave the wizard down here to his own devices? Bad idea, Sans."
We looked up ahead. A frail looking, ancient humanoid tortoise with a goatee, wearing stereotypical archeologist-clothing, tottered out from a sideway passage crossing our path. He had his hands folded behind his back and approached us in the typical elderly style.
"gerson. you're still here?" Sans didn't sound surprised.
Gerson coughed. "Just because the king changed his mind about going to the Surface, I sure didn't. He's crazy if he thinks that this will play out well. We'll all die once the human populace gets wind of us."
He studied me carefully. "And looks like we already got the shit end of the stick. Welcome to the Underground, Wizard. Make sure to buy some souvenirs once you've slaughtered the entirety of my people."
"Only if you give me a discount," I said dryly. I wasn't going to let him shock me.
"Hah. I like him," the tortoise remarked. "Say what you want, Wizard. There's not much that can scare me at my age."
"don't worry, gerson," Sans threw in, "harry's been nothing but super chummy ever since he's found us. we've got similar taste when it comes to grillby's burgers too – we're basically tastebuds."
That one was so bad that it made me cringe physically.
Gerson ignored the pun and smirked. "Great. Then you got lucky the first time. Pretty sure that if you ask him, he'll tell you that he's not a conventionalist among his peers. And anyways – a friendly wizard today can turn into your mortal enemy tomorrow." He stared at me indifferently. "I've learned that the hard way. Nothing against you personally, Wizard, maybe you're a great guy, I don't know. But this won't work out."
"hey gerson, you-"
"Keep it to yourself, kid," Gerson interrupted Sans. "You weren't there during the war. I was. And let me say this – when everything is over and our people are gone – I'll be here to say: Told ya. … oh yes. I'm gonna be that guy."
I wanted to return something so bad, but there's no use debating with that type.
Sans stayed silent.
"Nevermind that, lads," Gerson went on, almost joyful now. "Why're you here in the first place? Lookin for Frisk, if my old ears didn't play a trick on me? I think I've seen them not too long ago. Went towards Undyne's house. Didn't recognize them at first, they had your clothes on, Sans. Is that some kind of modern game I'm too old for to understand?"
"nope, but thanks for the info," Sans answered and shared a short look with me, offering his hand once again. I nodded and took it.
"see ya, gerson."
"Only come back if you want to buy something," the ancient tortoise replied and turned around, waddling away.
We teleported, and arrived at a new place, in front of the remains of which must have been a weird-looking house once. I was reminded of the destruction of my apartment back in Chicago and winced at the thought of letting in whatever had caused this pile of scorched building blocks to burn down.
However…
"back to the dog plan?"
Still no Frisk.
Frisk
"...-ey. Hey. HEY! Frisk! Wake up!"
It wasn't cold anymore. Instead, it was almost getting… too warm. But the child felt heavy and weak. They tried to open their eyes, but their body wouldn't react properly.
"Forget it, kid, no dying on MY watch!"
Something flat and hard hit them square in the face, leaving a painful mark on their cheek. The noise echoed back, accompanied by arrhythmic industrial machine-sounds. The Hotlands? Frisk forced one of their eyes to open a tiny bit.
Undyne was bending over them, raising her hand for another slap across Frisk's face.
"WAKE UP, god damnit!" She sounded nervous.
"Mmn," Frisk said, to prevent another hit. Their tongue was numb and their jaw stiff.
Undyne's face lightened up instantly. "YES! You're awake! I did it! You're not dead!" She grinned. "We're even now, nerd. You know. For the water thing."
"Mmn."
She frowned. "What were you doing in front of my house? You almost froze to death! You're lucky I wanted to fetch my training dummy and take it to the Surface!"
"Mmn?"
She blushed. "Wh-what? Visiting Alphys? N-nah, I-"
"UNDYYYYNE! UNDYNE, WHERE ARE YOU?! IS THE LITTLE HUMAN OKAY?!"
Frisk tried to turn their head when they heard Papyrus's name, but – their body just wouldn't listen to them. It felt like they were lying inside of their own body, unable to move anything but their eyelids and their vocal chords.
"We're over here!" Undyne shouted back. "Get your ass here, Papyrus, I gotta go and see the kids you talked about!"
Kids? There were even more children now?
Frisk heard someone hurrying towards them and once again tried to force their head to face Papyrus. Nothing. They were completely helpless. Something was wrong here.
Papyrus closed up to the child and Undyne, immediately bending over Frisk and taking them by the shoulders.
"OH DEAR! WHAT HAPPENED, LITTLE HUMAN? AND WHY ARE THEY WEARING SANS'S CLOTHES?"
Undyne got up and gave the two of them a quick salute. "See ya later, punks!" With that, she ran off.
Frisk tried to smile at the skeleton. Nothing happened.
"Mmn."
Papyrus nodded. "DON'T WORRY, LITTLE HUMAN! THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL DO HIS BEST TO GET YOU BACK UP!" He studied them pensively. "DO YOU WANT A TREAT? I MAY STILL HAVE SOME DOG BISQUITS WITH ME!"
Suddenly, Frisk felt their consciousness fade again. Their vision became blurry, their eyes closed.
"OH NO! LITTLE HUMAN!"
Drifting back into the darkness, Frisk thought that they heard their own voice give a reply.
Harry
In the midst of making a new plan, a strange noise came out of Sans's hoodie-pocket.
I looked at him. "What is that?"
The skeleton reached into his pocket and pulled out… a freaking phone.
"paps is calling me," he said, uneasy.
"You people have phones?" I blurted out. Sans's light-pupils darted up to me.
"yeah, why?"
"How do they even work here?"
It didn't make any sense. Not even the decades-old watch of the bus driver had been able to withstand the magical energies roaming around the mountain, and he had been miles away from the epicenter. Not to mention that the monsters were mostly made of magic. Why didn't this thing short-circuit the second Sans used it?
"same way yours do, i guess? they only work in the underground and near the mountain peak though. and they've been pretty buggy recently. mine called undyne ten times one night. had a hard time convincing her i wasn't prank-calling her."
The phone was still ringing, mocking me and my experiences with magic-electronic-mashups.
"Don't you want to pick up?" I said. Sans's grin grew nervous.
"do we have the time for that?"
I sighed and started kneading my nose bridge. "Look, I don't care if you want to be an ass to your brother," – hearing that, Sans flinched – "but maybe something happened to the other kids. It could be important."
"fine," Sans said, unconvinced and picked up the call, holding the phone's speaker a few inches away from his face. "eyyy, paps. what's rattling your bones?"
"SANS! FINALLY YOU PICKED UP!"
Papyrus's voice was loud enough for me to listen in. I could just imagine him screaming into his phone.
"I FOUND THE HUMAN, SANS!"
"which one, paps? they've started to multiply recently."
"THE FIRST ONE! FRISK!"
Sans's grip on his phone tightened slightly. "oh. where are you?"
"THE HOTLANDS! NEAR THE NORTHERN LAVA FALLS. THEY ARE WEAK, BUT ALIVE. THEY WANTED ME TO CONTACT YOU."
"did they now," Sans murmured.
"YES! IN FACT, THEY WANT TO TALK TO YOU! HERE YOU GO, HUMAN!"
Frisk's voice was much more quiet than Papyrus's, but thanks to the acoustics at the Waterfall area, it was still audible.
"Hello Sans." Their voice sounded calm, even lively.
"hey kid."
"Sorry I left your room."
"heh. there's snow reason to apologice. my bad."
"Oh wow, thank you so much." There was no sincerity in Frisk's voice, whatsoever. But then again, Sans had almost caused the kid to freeze to death. It still sounded a little strange.
"ease up on the sarcasm a little, will ya?"
"Sure. Sorry. Hey Sans, do we still have problems with the Wizard?"
Sans glanced at me and grinned.
"nah. harmless as a puppy."
I snorted.
"That's a relief," Frisk said. Again – it didn't sound genuine. "Can you convince him to come here with you?"
I furrowed my brows. This was getting from strange to sketchy very quickly.
Sans seemed to think so as well.
"… maybe."
"Great! Thanks, Sans. See you then." The kid hung up on us.
Sans stared at his phone. "fishy." He typed in a number and let it ring.
…
Nobody picked up.
The skeleton put the phone back into his pocket.
"Who did you call?" I asked.
"paps." One of Sans's pupils flickered, changing its color from the neutral white to a bright blue.
"he always picks up."
"Hey, wait a second before you overreact," I said, while having the nagging feeling that he was right to be anxious. "Maybe… maybe he just left the phone with Frisk while doing something else."
"and what would that be?"
"Why should I know?" I retorted. "Some skeleton business."
Sans stayed silent for a moment, then extended his hand to me.
"let's go."
I didn't argue with him. Just going in was kind of my way anyways.
