"So, we gonna walk it, or we gonna take a shortcut?" Frisk asked Corsiva, who rolled his eyes.
"You know, I remember when you were disoriented by that, and didn't want to experience the feeling of teleportation." Corsiva told her. She snorted.
"I got over it." She replied.
"Yeah, I guess you did." Corsiva said right back. "But, if I know Undyne, she's not exactly ready yet, so we should probably just stick to the long way, for now at least." Frisk sighed, nodding.
"Yeah, I guess you're right…" She said, and Corsiva started smirking at her expression.
"Oh, impatient, are we?" Corsiva mock-asked, and she glared at him.
"Let's just get moving." She said, and they started walking.
They eventually ran into a small gap, with water in the middle, and bridge seeds on the solid ground.
"You want to solve the puzzle, or do you want me to help you out?" Corsiva asked, and Frisk rolled her eyes at him. She put the bridge seeds in the water, and watched as they all sprouted, and formed a bridge in the water.
"Nice." Corsiva complimented. "You know, you could have also just jumped the gap." Frisk shook her head.
"I'm not exactly athletic." She told him. He nodded, and they crossed the bridge. They suddenly ran into a monster.
Corsiva recognized them instantly; they were almost as annoying as Jerry. It was a muscular monster that somewhat resembled a seahorse, named "Aaron." Not as bad as Jerry, but close. Corsiva quick did a CHECK, just to be safe. Aaron flexes in! LV: 1/20. EXP: 0. AT: 24. DF: 12. HP: 98/98. This seahorse has a lot of HP (Horsepower). Frisk kept herself from nodding, and started flexing. Corsiva smirked, knowing what she was doing.
"Flexing contest?" Aaron asked. "Ok, flex more." He finished with a wink, before flexing himself, twice as hard as Frisk was flexing. Suddenly, the seahorse, and quite literally one might add, started sweating bullets. Frisk dodged the bullets, and flexed again, flexing harder this time. Aaron responded by flexing thrice as hard. Corsiva noticed that when he was flexing, his ATTACK was increasing.
"Nice!" Aaron complimented Frisk. "I won't lose tho." Again, he winked. More bullets came, and Frisk dodged them once again, before flexing her hardest. Aaron flexed, and flexed, and flexed… before he literally flexed himself out of the room. Corsiva looked at Frisk.
"Nice." He complimented. "I would have done that myself, but I don't have any muscles." Frisk snorted, before they moved on. Again, they came to a puzzle involving bridge seeds. Corsiva stopped Frisk before she moved any of the seeds, however.
"I smell something." He told her. "Do you smell it too?" She sniffed the air, before squinting slightly, and nodding.
"What is that?" She asked him. "It smells… kind of good, actually." Corsiva nodded, and moved over to a corner of the room, away from the exit. He walked right up to the edge of the water, before he summoned a Gaster Blaster head, minus the lower jawline. He maneuvered the Blaster head over the water, and had it remain perfectly stationary above the surface of the water, before he stepped on top of it, and around the corner.
Frisk didn't follow, instead looking at the Blaster head with apprehension and slight fear. Corsiva and Chara both understood this, and didn't make mention of it again. Instead, Corsiva walked back out into the main area again, holding…
"A quiche?" Frisk asked him. He nodded.
"I thought I recognized the smell." Corsiva told her. "I remember Sans making this one day, in the kitchen. But, uh, it just up and disappeared one day, and Sans didn't eat it. I guess I know where it was, now; I found it under a random bench, next to an echo flower. When I listened to the echo flower, it said this: 'I just wasn't ready for the responsibility.'" Frisk shrugged, and Corsiva held onto it.
"Oh yeah, you can do the puzzle now, if you want to." Corsiva told Frisk, who obliged, and completed the puzzle with ease, while Corsiva cut up the quiche to eat.
After they crossed the newly formed bridge, with Corsiva taking a bite out of the quiche, Frisk suddenly got a phone call.
"Hello?" She asked as she answered, before holding the phone away from her ear, apparently knowing what was coming.
"HELLO!" Papyrus shouted from the other end. "THIS IS PAPYRUS!"
"Hi, Papyrus." Frisk responded. "How did you get my number?"
"IT WAS EASY!" Papyrus responded. "I JUST DIALED EVERY NUMBER SEQUENTIALLY UNTIL I GOT YOURS! NYEH HEH HEH HEH!" Corsiva chuckled at how ridiculous what Papyrus had said was, and how true it probably was.
"SO…" Papyrus started after a few seconds. "WHAT ARE YOU WEARING…? I'M… ASKING FOR A FRIEND. SHE THOUGHT SHE SAW YOU WEARING A GROSS BANDAGE. IS THAT TRUE? ARE YOU WEARING A GROSS BANDAGE?"
Corsiva looked closer at his sister; indeed, she was wearing a band-aid, and from the looks of it, it had already been used several times. He frowned at the thought of that; not just that his sister was wearing a used band-aid, but that she would need to use it so many times. Frisk thought for a few seconds, before she answered:
"Yeah, I am."
"GOT IT! WINK WINK!" Papyrus responded. "HAVE A NICE DAY!" And with that, the childish skeleton hung up. Frisk looked over at Corsiva.
"Should I change clothes?" She asked him. He shrugged.
"Honestly, it doesn't really matter." he responded. "I don't completely understand how Papyrus thinks. I've tried, but he's… complicated. To be honest, the only person who fully understand him would be Sans. So, it probably doesn't matter what you do here, 'cause it'll probably end up the same way no matter what." Frisk nodded, and left the bandage on.
The skeleton, the human, and the spirit all walked into the next room, to see it filled with echo flowers. The first flower spoke thus:
"A long time ago, monsters would whisper their wishes to the stars in the sky. If you hoped with all your heart, your wish would come true. Now, all we have are these sparkling stones on the ceiling…" Frisk frowned at that, but didn't say anything else, so they moved on to the next few flowers.
"Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong! The king will prove that."
"C'mon, sis! Make a wish!"
"I wish my sister and I will see the real stars one day…"
"Ah… seems my horoscope is the same as last week's…" While the last one mostly confused Frisk, each other flower made her look and feel progressively worse and more sad. Corsiva noticed this, and frowned.
"Frisk, you can't do anything about this." He tried to convince her. "What you hear, it's just Echo Flowers. What they do is literally in their name; the Echo things that they hear to others. What these people said, it's all in the past. And, as ironic as it is to hear ME saying this to YOU, you can't change the past. Only the present day, and the future tomorrow." Frisk sighed, knowing that what he was saying was true.
"I know, it's just…" Frisk started, at a loss for words. "I hate it when I can't do anything to help. All I ever want to do is to help people, but it feels like whenever I try to help the monsters down here… I'm just making things worse. I just want everyone to be happy, everyone to be free, but to do that, I need to die. And, if I die, then all of the people that I've helped, all of the people that I got to know… they all have to feel bad." Corsiva nodded, knowing what she meant. Internally, he knew that there was at least one person that she could partially help to be free, though not in the way that she was picturing. He didn't, however, express this to her. Rather, he just walked over to a telescope, and looked through the lense.
He frowned as he looked around in the telescope.
"There's a message written in the lense." He told Frisk.
"What does it say?" She asked him.
"Give me a sec…" Corsiva responded, turning the telescope to look at a part of the ceiling that was illuminated.
"It says… 'Check wall?'" He said aloud, stepping back from it. He walked up towards the wall that it seemed to be suggesting, and pressed his hand up against it, testing it. As his hand landed on it, the wall split apart, and a large hole appeared, as he fell through it into the next room. He heard Frisk giggling softly into her hands behind him, and stood up to glare at her, crossing his arms.
"Entertained?" He asked her. She nodded, still giggling. He rolled his eyes, and beckoned for her to follow him into the next room. Before she could get to the door, however, she encountered another monster; a woshua.
Woshua shuffles up. LV: 1/20. EXP: 0. AT: 18. DF: 5. HP: 70/70. This humble germaphobe seeks to cleanse the whole world. Frisk asked Woshua to clean her, at which point it started hopping up and down excitedly. It sent large amounts of water drops at her, which was apparently what it used to attack. Every so often, one of the water drops would be green, and Frisk would stop dodging to come in contact with the green drops. After a little bit, the water stopped coming, and Frisk merely spared Woshua, who hopped away, looking happy. With that out of the way, Frisk and Chara finally followed Corsiva into the next room, which was filled with plaques.
"'The War of Humans and Monsters.'" Corsiva read aloud. "Why did the humans attack? Indeed, it seemed that they had nothing to fear. Humans are unbelievably strong. It would take the SOUL of nearly every monster… just to equal the power of a single human SOUL. But humans have one weakness. Ironically, it is the strength of their SOUL. It allow it to persist outside the human body, even after death. If a monster defeats a human, they can take its SOUL. A monster with a human SOUL… a horrible beast with unfathomable power." He looked at the last plaque, which didn't have any writings on it. Rather, it had an illustration of a strange creature.
"That's… unsettling." Frisk said aloud, letting out an involuntary shudder as she looked at it.
"Ya think?" Corsiva asked her. He put the pieces of the quiche that he had cut up into some of the pouches on his armor's utility belt, before he started walking again, moving towards the lone wooden tile in the water.
"I feel tempted to say 'never let go.'" Corsiva joked as he helped Frisk onto the tile, causing her to snort. Chara merely rolled her eyes at him, as he opened up another pouch on his belt, and pulled out a strange looking device. He threw it up into the water, causing it to skip across the surface like a stone, travelling a long ways, before it eventually stopped. When Frisk was about to ask why he did that, the areas that the device had skipped across started forming a long bridge. She looked at him, an eyebrow raised.
"The 'Seed Spreader,'" He started, "is a special little device that Alphys and I made. It compacts bridge seeds until they become about the size of a normal pebble, and stores high amounts of the seeds inside of it. When it skips across the water, it releases some of the Bridge Seeds in groups of 4, which then spread out to their normal size, and sprout into full patches of a bridge. Makes for easy transportation. Just thought I would give it a little test run." Frisk nodded.
As Corsiva walked across the newly formed bridge, and Frisk rode the wooden tile across the water, they were silent.
"What, uh…" Frisk started, unsure of what to say. "What do you plan on doing when this day is over?" Corsiva shrugged.
"Same thing I always do, I would suspect." He started. "Hang out with my brothers, maybe go to Grillby's, maybe hang out with Undyne and Alphys a bit, maybe just go enjoy some of peace and quiet somewhere." Frisk nodded.
"And… if we escape the Underground?" She asked. "What then…?" Corsiva was silent for a few seconds, thinking.
"I don't know." He responded truthfully. "I guess… I'm so used to life in the Underground, to just wishing that Monsters could go to the Surface… I never really thought about what I would do if I ever got there." That's a lie. Corsiva thought to himself. I've thought about it every day. Problem is: all of the things I thought about doing are already happening, meaning I need new material.
"That's partly why I went back to the Underground in the first timeline. I was… afraid. I got used to things being predictable, down with my bros in the underground. I enjoyed how predictable it all was. But… without them… on the Surface… I would never know what was coming. Nothing would ever be predictable. And… that scared me. So, I went back, and for that… I can't express enough how sorry I am for doing that to you, Frisk." Frisk didn't respond.
When they got to the other side, they walked forward a few feet, feeling apprehensive in Frisk's case, and neutral in Corsiva's case. Suddenly, an electric blue spear shot down, and landed in front of Frisk. She looked up to see where it came from, to see Undyne standing a little ways away from her and Corsiva.
"Well, don't just stand there!" Corsiva shouted at his sister. As the spear disappeared, the speaker started playing a song, which was named exactly what Corsiva said next:
"Run!" And with that, they took off.
Undyne chased them, her armor making her footsteps much louder, as she threw multiple spears at them in groups of three. Corsiva helped to block the spears that Frisk was unable to dodge herself, using his ninjato to deflect them away from Frisk and back towards Undyne. They eventually made their way over to some tall grass, which Frisk saw, and started to sink lower to the ground, landing in a rolling slide as she made her way into the cover of the grass. Meanwhile, Corsiva deflected the last few spears, and leaped into the grass, promptly walked calmly into the grass after the two of them, though mainly after Frisk, and it sounded more like stomping than walking. As Frisk stayed low to the ground, trying her best not to be seen, and praying not to be touched, Undyne suddenly shot her hand down into the grass. Corsiva, being a few feet away, but carefully hidden in darkness, saw this, and almost panicked. Undyne very slowly pulled her hand back up out of the grass, pulling out… Monster Kid. Corsiva breathed out a very quiet and unnecessary sigh of relief. Undyne very slowly put Monster Kid back into the grass, let out a huff of annoyance, and walked away.
Corsiva quickly shifted back into the grass, grabbing Frisk's hand, and pulled her very slowly back up to her feet. He guided her back out of the grass, feeling very protective. When they got out, Frisk looked back, to see Monster Kid running out behind them, looking excited, and energetic.
"Yo…" He started. "Did you see that!? Undyne just… TOUCHED ME! I'm never washing my face ever again…!" Corsiva let a smile grace his face at that. "Man, are you unlucky. If you were standing just a LITTLE bit to the left…!" Frisk shuddered at the thought, but it was a very small, and subtle shudder, which she played off as a shiver. "Yo, don't worry! I'm sure we'll see her again!" And with that, he ran off once more, landed flat on his face, got up, and ran off again.
Corsiva shook his head at the rapidly retreating monster, amused. He looked down at Frisk.
"Think we should move on ahead?" He asked his sister, who nodded.
"Places to go, people to meet, spears to avoid getting impaled on." Frisk said, causing Corsiva to chuckle and nod. In the next room was a table with a piece of cheese on it, which upon further examination, was trapped in some kind of crystal, and stuck to the table. There was a mouse hole next to the table, as well, and an Echo Flower next to the mouse hole. The Echo Flower only said one thing:
"Squeak." Corsiva shook his head, chuckling, and directed Frisk into the next room, where they saw…
"Sans!" Frisk exclaimed upon seeing the skeleton.
"Whaddya doin, bro?" Corsiva asked casually, leaning against the wall.
"i'm thinking about getting into the telescope business." Sans replied simply. "it's normally 50000G to use this premium telescope…" He gestured to the telescope next to him, which on the surface (well, actually, it's in the underground) looked like a normal telescope to Corsiva. "but… since i know you, you can use it for free." He looked at Frisk.
"howzabout it?" Frisk thought for a few seconds, as Corsiva started smirking behind her, knowing that this was bound to be a prank of some kind.
"Sure, I'll use it." Frisk eventually said, shrugging. She looked through the telescope with her left eye for a few seconds, moved it a few places, before frowning.
"Uh…" She started, backing away from the telescope, and looking at Sans. "I think there might be something wrong with your telescope."
"huh?" Sans asked. "you aren't satisfied? don't worry." He winked.
"i'll give you a full refund." Frisk turned around, still frowning, and Corsiva saw what the prank was. He had to keep himself from doubling down and laughing, and it was no easy task.
"Ready to go, then?" He asked Frisk, who nodded, still looking slightly confused. "Alright, just give me a second to talk to Sans. You can use the box over there, if you want." Frisk moved over to the box. Corsiva cleared his throat, before speaking in a language that Frisk didn't understand.
"︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎" He asked Sans, speaking in Wing Dings (obviously).
" ︎ ︎︎︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎? ﾸﾎ" Sans replied.
" ︎︎︎? ﾸﾎ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎︎?ﾙﾏ︎ ︎︎ ︎︎︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎ ︎︎" Corsiva asked.
"︎ ︎︎︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ︎︎︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ" Sans replied.
" ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎? ﾸﾎ" Corsiva said. "︎︎︎ ︎︎︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ?ﾗﾆ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎ ︎︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎" He asked his brother, who nodded.
"︎ ︎︎? ﾸﾎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎? ﾸﾎ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎? ﾸﾎ ︎︎︎? ﾸﾎ" Sans answered, grinning widely. Corsiva raised a skeletal brow, smirking.
"? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎ ︎︎︎" He asked, and Sans nodded.
"︎ ︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎︎︎ ︎︎? ﾸﾎ" He repeated. Corsiva's smirk turned into a small grin.
" ︎︎ ︎ ︎︎? ﾸﾎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎? ﾸﾎ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎︎? ﾸﾎ" He told his shorter brother, before he switched back to his normal font again.
"See ya later, bro." He said casually, giving a wave, before he walked over to Frisk, who no longer had a red outline surrounding her left eye.
"What did you say to him?" Frisk asked Corsiva. Corsiva shrugged.
"Nothing much." He responded.
{FLASHBACK TO LIKE, 30 SECONDS AGO.}
"A︎r︎e︎ y︎o︎u︎ s︎a︎t︎i︎s︎f︎i︎e︎d︎?︎" He asked Sans, speaking in Wing Dings (obviously).
"a︎b︎s︎o︎l︎u︎t︎e︎l︎y︎.︎" Sans replied.
"H︎o︎w︎'s t︎h︎e︎ p︎r︎o︎je︎c︎t︎ c︎o︎m︎i︎n︎g︎ a︎l︎o︎n︎g︎?︎" Corsiva asked.
"s︎h︎o︎u︎l︎d︎ b︎e︎ d︎o︎n︎e︎ b︎e︎f︎o︎r︎e︎ t︎h︎e︎ h︎u︎m︎a︎n︎ g︎e︎t︎s︎ t︎o︎ a︎s︎g︎o︎r︎e︎.︎" Sans replied.
"G︎r︎e︎a︎t︎.︎" Corsiva said. "Y︎o︎u︎ g︎o︎n︎n︎a︎ t︎e︎s︎t︎ t︎h︎e︎m︎ i︎n︎ t︎h︎e︎ Ju︎d︎g︎e︎m︎e︎n︎t︎ h︎a︎l︎l︎?︎" He asked his brother, who nodded.
"y︎e︎p︎.︎ a︎n︎d︎ i︎'︎l︎l︎ g︎e︎t︎ a︎ g︎o︎o︎d︎ l︎a︎u︎g︎h︎ o︎u︎t︎ o︎f︎ i︎t︎,︎ t︎o︎o︎.︎" Sans answered, grinning widely. Corsiva raised a skeletal brow, smirking.
"S︎e︎c︎r︎e︎t︎ c︎o︎d︎e︎w︎o︎r︎d︎s︎?︎" He asked, and Sans nodded.
"s︎e︎c︎r︎e︎t︎ c︎o︎d︎e︎w︎o︎r︎d︎s︎.︎" He repeated. Corsiva's smirk turned into a small grin.
"G︎r︎e︎a︎t︎.︎ I︎ c︎a︎n︎'︎t︎ w︎a︎i︎t︎.︎" He told his shorter brother, before he switched back to his normal font again.
{BACK TO PRESENT}
"Anyways," Corsiva started, "We should probably get moving." Frisk nodded. Corsiva steered her clear of the nice cream vendor and the area where the "Bird That Carries You Over A Disproportionately Small Gap" usually was, instead moving her on the right path to move forward, into a room filled with Echo Flowers.
A/N - Hey... uh... hows it going? Yeah, so... it's been some time, hasn't it? Sorry about that. School started piling up, and then quarantine started, and I was procrastinating. Yeah, my bad. I'm working on it. Anyways, the wingdings aren't loading on this site for me, so that's a tiny bit of a problem, but it doesn't really matter. I can't think of any incorrect quotes, so I just hope that you all have a wonderful day. See you in the next one!
- SF