Hello, all you wonderful people, and HAPPY 2ND UNDERTALE ANNIVERSARY!
This is only the first part of what I wrote in the past week, so stay tuned for the second part, which should be uploaded in (hopefully) 30 minutes to an hour.
Adrian
Adrian couldn't keep the grin off his face when he slapped one thousand gold's worth of coins onto the Temmie's cardboard counter. He and Nyssa had finally been able to raise it after running what felt like a million laps to Gerson's shop and back. "It's for your coll–"
"Woa!" she interrupted with a shriek and lunged for it, scooping it up in her paws. "Thas A LOT of muns…" she murmured. "Can tem realy acepts…"
"It's yours," Adrian replied. "We agreed to pay for your scholarship in return for the Temmie Armor. Remember?"
"OKs!" the shopkeeper gushed. "Tem go to colleg and make u prouds! Culd be whil before Tem is back, dou…"
"We'll wait," Adrian replied. He wondered why he felt so disappointed–after all the effort he and Nyssa put in, the two of them could at least wait for her. But every moment without the armor was another moment they were vulnerable to Undyne, and who knew? Maybe one of those moments would be their last.
He went back to tell the news to Nyssa, who replied, "that's pretty great." Then immediately after, "what's next?"
If he were to be honest with himself, Adrian was miffed that those three words were all Nyssa had said about their success. She'd never thanked him or even acknowledged the fact that both their efforts had been needed. But risking an argument, especially over something so minor, would be illogical. He let it slide and told her he wanted to go farther into Waterfall.
As Adrian walked, his thoughts went to his family and Xandre, but always they circled back to what had become their focus. His sister, his sister…
Her birthday fell only two days before his, on September the fifteenth, and Adrian remembered the feeling of hollowness in his home the day she would've turned twenty-nine–mere days before Wing's reemerging memories pulled him into this whole mess. According to what his parents had said about her, she'd already been able to care for herself by the time she went missing. Still, the notion that Xandre might do something to his sister made him see red.
His fury consumed so much of his thoughts that he wasn't brought back to reality until Nyssa tugged at his arm to get his attention. The tunnel was dark now, save from a single softly glowing Echo Flower.
Silence above, below, in every direction.
Then the flower whispered two words. Softly, innocently, like a child divulging a secret.
"Behind you."
Nyssa
Undyne regarded the humans coldly for a moment. She didn't move. Didn't speak.
"Seven," she finally said. "Seven human souls. With that much power, King Asgore Dreemurr will become a god. With that power, he will finally be able to shatter the barrier and take the surface back from your race, repaying them the pain and suffering they inflicted on us. Understand? You are my enemies. With your deaths, we will all go free. This is your only chance for redemption. Give me your souls, or I'll tear them from your bodies myself–and I will not spare you humans any mercy."
On the outside, Nyssa tried her best to meet Undyne's glare with one of her own. On the inside, she trembled and shook and sobbed.
Undyne lowered her head, levelled her spear in front of her, and charged. Fear curled Nyssa's body away from Undyne, pressing into the wall as if that would help anything, as if that would spare her the agony she was about to experience...
Death was close. So close. Nyssa could feel it, in the clanking of Undyne's footsteps and the screeching of her armor, the electricity lancing out from her spear…
"Hey! Undyne!"
Despite herself, Nyssa felt her muscles relax when she heard the high-pitched voice. Unable to believe her and Adrian's incredible luck, she opened her eyes slowly, and saw exactly what she'd been too afraid to believe. Monster Kid stood between the humans and Undyne, looking at her with adoration plain on his face.
Undyne was so surprised that she lowered her spear.
Monster Kid whipped around to look at Nyssa and Adrian, still brimming with excitement. "Yo, you did it! Undyne is right in front of you! You'll get to watch her fight all of the bad guys and kill them!" Right after he said that, it all sank in. "W-wait," he stammered. "N-no. Who… who's she fighting? No… not you guys… there's no way..."
"Come with me," Undyne snarled, grabbing the side of his face roughly. "You and I are going to talk about this. I don't want you to look at those people ever again."
"B-but Undyne–"
"Let's go!"
The last Nyssa and Adrian saw of Monster Kid was the mortified expression on his face. His idol had finally talked to him–but it'd been nothing like what he expected.
Adrian
"One day, I'd like to climb this mountain we're all buried under," the Echo Flower murmured wistfully. "Standing under the sky, looking at this world all aroun–" The flower twitched. "All around– around–"
"What's happening?" Adrian whispered.
The voice from the echo flower faded in a crackle of what could almost be static, as if the flower were a broken tape. A new "recording" replaced it. Someone Adrian and Nyssa knew too well, speaking in falsetto as a poor imitation of Toriel that made shivers shoot down his spine.
"Where am I? It's so cold here… and so dark… S-someone help me… anyone… please…"
There was maniacal laughter, abruptly cut off when the Echo Flower stopped.
"The sick flower," Nyssa stammered. "It has to be. He's probably with Xandre when he's not stalking us."
"How-how long ago did he say that? He could still be here, for all we know. We need to get out of here."
"Look. Speaking of Xandre." Nyssa pointed at a sign on the wall. "'However… there is a prophecy. The Angel, the One Who Has Seen the Surface, will return, and the Underground will go empty.' It's exactly like what Gerson said."
"Then we need to go fast. Temmie Armor or no Temmie Armor, we have to go deeper underground to find more monsters and spread the word. This isn't about us or Sans or Papyrus anymore. It's about whether or not monsterkind survives Xandre."
Xandre
The most random thought came to Xandre's mind while he was crossing the bridge: today was the first day of October. He had been gone thirteen days, scarcely even two weeks since his seventeenth birthday. And in that time, he'd done so much. Escaped home. Climbed Mount Ebott. Descended into the world of monsters and discovered that he had once been one of them. In the Ruins, he had killed them all. Even Toriel, their immortal Boss Monster guardian. Now he had done the same in Snowdin. And of course he had met Chara. The girl in the void, tethered to him by their shared soul, their shared plans. Now, their shared…
He had no idea what to call it. Dependency? Feelings? Love? No. LOVE.
Thirteen days.