Sorry, it took me a little while to get this done, but hey, better late than never! I typed this entire chapter hopped up on sugar and excitement. We're (slowly) approaching the climax of the story at this point! *wriggles enthusiastically*
Edit: There were apparently some formatting issues with Sans's dialogue in the latter part of the chapter, so I went ahead and made it so you guys can actually read what he's saying!
If Frisk had thought they were just anxious before, then what they were feeling right now was anxiety that had transcended to godly proportions. Their heart felt like it was trying to both beat itself out of their chest and claw its way up their throat, and the fine tremor of tension they'd felt barely minutes before had transformed into a veritable earthquake that they could barely keep under control.
But keep it under control they did. The time for letting themselves panic openly was not now. So they kept their expression as empty as they could, forced themselves to stand stock still and tall instead of fidgeting and shrinking away like they wanted to, and kept their eyes on the group across from them.
Artemis Fowl's expression was cool, calm, and collected. Unlike the rest of the group around him, fairies included, he showed no signs of agitation, and seemed entirely unruffled, save for the slightest furrowing of his brow. The looming figure to one side of him – Butler was his name, right? That's what he'd been introduced as – was more obviously tense, feet placed carefully at shoulder width and muscles already straining in preparation to move. Juliet, on Artemis's other side, had a similar posture, as did every single fairy flanking them.
None of the fairies, Frisk noted almost absently, had their helmets on. Most of them seemed to be some variation of normal-ish human coloring, all with pointed ears. The only exception to this unspoken rule was a familiar green-skinned, pale-haired fairy lingering near the edge of the little group.
Seeing Frisk's glance, Lieutenant Crane's eyes softened somewhat, and she gave Frisk an uncertain wave and an apologetic smile – and apparently, this was the cosmos' signal to end the moment of silence.
"You." Undyne's voice. When Frisk glanced up at the fish monster, the former Captain's yellow eye was fixed on Juliet, and the monster was practically trembling with repressed fury. "You're on their side?"
She said the word their in the same tone of voice she had once upon a time said the word human when addressing Frisk – in other words, spitting it out like poison.
"I help them out, sometimes," Juliet said, cautiously. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and gave Undyne a half-hearted smile. "Sorry?"
"Sorry?!" Undyne snarled. "SORRY?! You're buddy-buddy with the people that messed with Frisk, and THAT'S all you've got to say about it?!" She started to take a step, teeth bared and muscles already preparing to launch her across the expanse of roses between the two groups.
"Undyne," Toriel said, calmly. "Stand down."
The fish monster paused mid-step, gritted her teeth, and visibly forced herself to take a couple steps back, glowering at the blonde woman across from her with a glare that should have set Juliet on fire. "Sorry, Your Majesty."
Frisk reached over and put a hand on her arm in a shaky attempt to comfort her. They weren't all that surprised when it didn't work.
Once calm had been returned for a couple moments, Artemis cleared his throat, and dipped his head respectfully. "You have every right to be upset, Officer Undyne." His eyes flicked to Frisk. "As do the rest of you."
Frisk pursed their lips, but before they could speak their mind, Toriel beat them to the punch, the goat monster's tone clipped and chilly. "You are not going to attempt to make excuses for this Council?"
The Irishman shook his head. "There would be no point in doing so. The fairy Council's intentions to mind-wipe Frisk was the wrong course of action to take, undeniably so. I attempted to warn them against it, as did several of my acquaintances amongst the fairy folk, but the Council is rather lacking in common sense, it seems."
"Understatement," one of the fairies – a woman with nut-brown skin and hazel eyes – snorted.
Toriel switched her focus to the fairy. "I take it you would be one of those who warned them against their actions, then?"
The woman nodded briskly. "Captain Holly Short, Lower Elements Police Section Eight." She jerked her head at Artemis. "I'm usually in it with Artemis up to the pointy ears, so the Council trusts me about as far as they could throw a troll, which means, well, not at all."
"Rather ironic, considering how often we must clean up their messes after them," Artemis sighed. He turned to Frisk, who stiffened as the man's gaze settled on them. "Unfortunately, it is unlikely that you will receive an official apology from the Council any time soon, Ambassador. They are leery of communication with any surface dweller, be they human or monster."
He hesitated, a flicker of uncertainty sweeping through his eyes, then his eyes hardened, and he shifted as if expecting a physical blow. "While I cannot offer you an apology for what the fairies have done, Ambassador, I can offer you an apology for actions I have taken during this entire affair."
*…I don't think he's talking about keeping the fairies under wraps.
Frisk swallowed, heartbeat picking up its pace. I don't think he is, either… "Your… actions?"
He hesitated again. These pauses seemed impossibly out of character for what they'd seen of the unflappable Irishman, and that realization only made Frisk more anxious. What could he have done that had him so cautious to admit it out loud?
"… One of the steps taken during a mind-wipe," the man finally said, very carefully, "is for the memories of the one being wiped to be recorded for later viewing, so that the People may use them to form a psychological profile."
Frisk froze. In their arms, Flowey, who had been very quiet ever since their arrival and aiming glares at the group of fairies across from them, stiffened like a board, hints of red thorns boiling beneath the soil of his pot.
"During your mind-wipe," Artemis continued, just as tentatively as before, "Foaly recorded a little over a decade's worth of your memories. Normally, these memories would have been left alone until an LEP psychologist could be granted access to them. However… Foaly looked into your memories personally when he noticed something unusual, and, when he ended up needing a second opinion, he sent those memories to me. And I don't believe any of those memories were ones you wanted anyone to see."
In the hush that followed, Frisk's heartbeat sounded especially loud. As did their breathing, as the next lungful of air they sucked in stuttered in their airway, as did Chara's cursing as the ghost realized exactly what Frisk's body had realized before their brain could figure it out.
Almost a decade's worth of memories. A decade.
And as far as Frisk knew, the past decade of their life as experienced by them had been nothing but endless time loops, nothing but repeats of the same days and months over and over again.
They knew about the Resets. Artemis Fowl and the fairies knew about the Resets.
Artemis could see the moment that Frisk realized exactly what he was admitting to, the moment of horrified comprehension as the blow that he'd tried to soften somewhat for the ambassador's sake struck true. Their breathing quickened, their face went pale, the hands curled around the flower monster's pot tightened until their knuckles went white with stress. The child looked like their world was falling apart around their ears.
He'd expected this. He'd anticipated it. That didn't make Frisk's expression – an expression that practically screamed the child's thoughts for the world to see, thoughts reeking of terrified denial – any easier to stomach.
It also didn't change the fact that once the monsters had registered what he was apologizing for, and Frisk's reaction to it, the possibility of him being dealt physical harm had significantly increased.
"You BASTARD!" Undyne roared. Almost faster than his eyes could follow, the monster was suddenly right in front of him, one hand grabbing his shirt collar and nearly lifting him off his feet. "Trying to erase their memories wasn't ENOUGH for you!?"
"UNDYNE, DON'T!" Papyrus shouted. "DOING A VIOLENCE WON'T HELP!"
Behind her, red-thorned vines erupted from the soil of Flowey's pot, thrashing around him as the monster hissed in incandescent fury, but Artemis only saw this out of the corner of his eye. The flower was less of an immediate threat to him than the scaly fingers mere millimeters away from his throat.
"I am well aware that what I did is wrong," Artemis said calmly, easily squashing the flicker of apprehension that tried to take hold of him. There was a time and place for such an emotion, and it would do him no good now. "That is why I am apologizing."
"You knew it was wrong, and you didn't think to NOT do it?!"
Artemis met the enraged aquatic monster's eye with a stare of his own. "My priority at the time was the safety of the People. Frisk's recovery from the mind-wipe occurred with unforeseen swiftness, and considering that the fairies' scanners picked up massive traces of magic that could not be explained by the presence of monsters –"
"SHUT UP!" A blue spear of light materialized in the monster's free hand, the sharp tip pointed directly at his face. "STOP TRYING TO JUSTIFY WHAT YOU DID!"
Grass shifted, betraying a myriad of movement around him as Butler, Juliet, and at least two of the fairies, one of which likely being Holly, prepared to forcefully separate the irate monster from Artemis.
"I am not trying to justify my actions," Artemis said patiently. "I am explaining my reasoning as to why –"
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR SHITTY REASONS!"
"UNDYNE, PLEASE!" Papyrus again. The tall skeleton took several steps forward, obviously intending to try to reason with his acquaintance as he approached, and Artemis heard the very faint but distinct sound of several buzz batons flaring to life behind him as several of the LEP officers armed themselves. Butler, not about to be outdone, stepped forward threateningly in a wordless warning to the monster to keep his distance.
Or, rather, tried to. Butler's first footstep hit the ground, but the second was not forthcoming, even though it should have been. A familiar buzz of energy, the same energy as when Frisk and the monsters had appeared from thin air, swirled in the air around him like agitated static.
" I wouldn't do that if I were you, Domovoi."
Domovoi. Butler's first name, whom no one but Artemis himself, his family, and Holly were supposed to know. And that voice, echoing with tones somewhere between church bells and death personified, was most certainly not the voice of one of those supposed to be in the know. Artemis's eyes darted to one side, looking past Undyne to the rest of the group of monsters, looking for the origin of the voice.
His eyes found a pair of empty black sockets, sockets lacking the odd little pinpricks of white light that served as pupils. Sans had not moved from where he stood since he had first arrived, hands tucked into his pockets in a facsimile of casual posture, but Artemis had no doubt that the dreadful voice had come from the stocky skeleton.
"SANS, REALLY?" Papyrus complained. "MUST YOU DO A VIOLENCE TOO?"
Artemis immediately transferred his attention over his shoulder at this, trying to catch a glimpse of Butler and ascertain his current state of well being. He turned his head in time to see Butler attempt to take a step forward, only for the air around him to warp in an unnatural fashion and blip the man right back to where he had started - even in the same pose as he had been a split-second ago, no less.
He had no doubt as to who was responsible, and this time, he couldn't quite suppress his apprehension as his thoughts immediately took off down a new track.
He can not only teleport what he comes into contact with but things that lie within his line of sight as well. He could think of many, many ways that someone could use that ability, including a number of ways that one could teleport one's foe into danger. Judging by the expressions of the fairies around them, Holly's expression, in particular, the LEP officers present had thought of those uses as well.
"If you would please stand down, officer Undyne, Sans." he requested as calmly as he could. "As rightful as your losses of temper may be, I am not particularly inclined to have our negotiations go sour because my own acquaintances are attempting to defend me."
"Stand down?" Undyne hissed, her grip on his collar tightening. "Like hell I'm gonna –"
Juliet started forward now, slowly, as did Holly and a number of other fairies, but before any of them could take more than a couple of steps, the feeling of magic in the air around them went from unsettling static to an overwhelming roar. The air above Sans's head rippled, and then, like some sea monster from legend breaching ocean waves, a positively enormous object materialized. It was a skull, more animalistic in origin than either of the humanoid skeletons, vaguely reminiscent of a goat, or perhaps some form of reptile, adorned with aggressive horns and with a bisected lower jaw filled with sharp teeth. The construct was easily as large as Sans himself, large enough that had the skull been a part of an actual creature it likely could have swallowed any one of the people present whole with little to no trouble, and the magic pouring off of it was so overwhelmingly massive that even Artemis could not suppress a flinch as the hostile energy surged through the gardens.
There was a great deal of cursing, some shrieking, and several fairies lunged for cover behind any large object they could find – namely, Juliet and Butler. Only Holly, the sprite Lieutenant, and a couple other fairies stayed put, but even so, the fairies were practically trembling in their boots.
Artemis realized, distantly, that he was trembling himself. Though he was used to acting calmly in a crisis, the magic in the air around him seemed to have reached into the depths of his lizard hindbrain and flicked on every single self-preservation switch it had, sending a surge of fear-fueled adrenaline through his system that was too powerful for him to hide.
"D o n ' t." Empty sockets narrowed at the fairies, and at Juliet, a flicker of blue appearing in one eye for a brief moment before the azure light was overwhelmed by black void once more. "If any of you make one more move..."
The construct cracked open its mouth with a threatening growl, and a brilliant white orb appeared between its lower jaws, starting off small and then quickly growing until the creature's entire maw was filled with light.
"... then you're in for a bad time."
There was a whimper. Not from one of the fairies, though Artemis would not have been surprised to hear one from one of them. No, the whimper came from beside the irate skeleton, from an increasingly pale-faced Frisk who looked just as terrified as the cowardly fairies using Butler as a living shield, and yet still reached out one hand to gingerly touch the skeleton's shoulder.
"Sans, stop," they croaked. "Please."
For one impossibly long moment, nothing changed. Then, slowly, the white light in the toothy jaws hanging above the skeleton's head died, and the enormous skull faded away. The crushing weight of magic faded along with it, until there was only breathless silence, and Artemis's own heartbeat thumping furiously in his ears.
After another moment, Undyne let go of his collar, dropping him back on his own two feet, and with one last glower at him, she beat a hasty retreat back to Frisk's side.
Artemis sucked in a trembling breath and held it, closing his eyes.
It seems, he thought, a touch sardonically, that we were worried about the wrong monster.
When he had somewhat calmed himself (how could one hope to ever be calm again, after that tsunami of violent magic that seemed to fill the entire world around him?), he opened his eyes again.
"I am not denying that what I did was wrong," he said. "That is why I am apologizing, and why I am here as a part of this negotiation." He spread his hands apart, ignoring the tremble still present in his fingers as the adrenaline left his system. "I have assisted the fairies for a very long time. I acted as if you were a threat to the People, as if you were an enemy to spy upon. Will you allow me to make up for that, Frisk?"
The child stared at him in silence, a measure of hesitance in their gaze.
"… Everyone deserves a second chance," they said, quietly. "Fine. I'll let you try to make it up to me. But first..."
Their eyes met his, and gone was the terrified denial from before. Instead, what was in those eyes was a grim determination as strong as steel.
"You think we're a threat to the fairies. I want to know why."
… Well, that could have gone better. But hey, no-one's dead, and Artemis didn't expose any information on the Resets to people who didn't already know, so I guess this is sort of a win-win situation for everyone?
I had a lot of fun writing Artemis and Company's reactions to the Gaster Blaster, haha.
Again, no worldbuilding for this chapter, but feel free to ask any questions you might have!
