Hello there! I understand your shock. It's been almost a year since I've posted. We all know what's up. A lot's happened and I have a 9-5. I'm a real working stiff. I can tell you that I am a totally different person now than I was the last time I posted, so if you notice writing style changes, that's why. Anywhozzles. Enjoy, and thanks for sticking around.

Chapter 6: Culture Shock

They stare in disbelief at the monsters gathered in my living room. I guess that last night hadn't really convinced them. The monsters stare right back, unwilling to break the silence.

After a minute, Hanzo says, "Holy crap, It's Mika!" he points at the man shaking like a leaf among the monsters. "You finally came to hang out!"

Jonas scoffs. "So that's what you're the most worried about?" He says, side-eyeing his friend. Hanzo shrugs. Jonas shakes his head.

"Hey, what anime are you watchin'?" Henry asks, walking towards the sitting area. Papyrus takes the bag of food he was holding as he walks by and opens it to look inside.

"Tokyo Ghoul." Alphys says, pushing her glasses up her nose.

"Oh, I've seen that one. It's good." Henry says, taking Papyrus's seat. He's very bad at hiding how freaked out he is with the monsters and Mika all staring at him.

"Food is safe." Papyrus says gruffly before handing the bag over to me. I look through it too. Inside is eight burgers and three orders of chicken strips.

'Who all is this for?' I ask Hanzo and Jonas, gesturing to the bag in my hand and the bags in their hands.

"We didn't know how much you guys ate. So, we brought a lot." Hanzo says, tearing his eyes away from the tv long enough to look at me and then looked right back at the tv. Papyrus takes the bag of food from him too and Checks it.

"This one is safe too." He reports and hands it over also. This one has 12 medium fries.

'Anyone hungry?' I ask the monsters, bringing the food over to the coffee table and sitting in front of Toriel.

"Not really, but I kinda wanna try human food." Undyne says.

'Cheeseburger or fried chicken?' I ask her, pulling the food out onto the table.

"I'll try the fried chicken," She says. I hand her the chicken. She opens the box and takes a bite, revealing to the uninitiated humans her shark teeth. "This is actually good. Texture is different, though."

"No magic in it." Sans explains. "If you couldn't tell, not a whole lot of it out here."

Alphys leans in, interested in the food. "I'll take some of those fries," she says. I pass a carton over to her.

Jonas brings the bag in his hands over to the kitchen table. Apparently, that bag has the food they got for themselves in it. He passes Hanzo a sandwich and onion rings. He brings Henry over a burger and curly fries.

'I don't have much to drink besides water.' I tell the group, passing out the food. Sans and Papyrus want to try it too. Afterwards, there's only a couple cartons of fries left. 'Sorry that I don't have much to drink besides water. And the amount of Fluoride left in the water after the sanitation process dictates how it tastes coming out of the faucet, so I honestly couldn't tell you if it's halfway decent.'

Papyrus scowls. "Let me test it." He says and goes into the kitchen, almost having to push passed Jonas. He grabs a cup from my cupboard and turns on the sink to fill up the cup. He sniffs it for a minute and takes a drink. "It is acceptable. It tastes sterile. The minerals they filtered out needs to be put back in."

The other humans and I nod in agreement.

"It's too expensive." Jonas says gruffly. "It's inconceivable to get clean drinking water to millions and have it taste good."

"So, you just deal with it?" Papyrus asks, eyebrow raised.

"More or less. If you can't, there's water that tastes good in stores." Hanzo says. "Tap water is the bare minimum and you won't die from drinking it."

Papyrus's frown deepens. "I suppose it is better than the alternative," he says. "Sans, go get us some MTT soda."

"On it, Boss." Sans says and disappears. My human friends all jump in surprise.

Sans returns and passes everyone a can of soda. He's brought several different flavors. My human friends all seem to follow my lead when I crack mine open and drink it. It's fizzy and tingles with magic, a whole different experience than human soda. One that's potentially more addicting too.

Mika looks like he's about to lose his mind. "Can we finally get to what the hell happened?" he asks, breaking out in a cold sweat. He pops open his drink and downs it. He actually gets a bit of coloring back. He stares down at the can incredulously.

"Yeah, what the hell happened that day?" Henry asks.

I frown and Alphys gets up to hook her small MTT dish to my TV. "Quite a lot. It's impressive actually." the dinosaur says. Soon the feed changes from the anime channel to what looks like her home desktop. She taps the little buttons on the proto-MTT's chest like its a small keyboard as a little dialog box opens. A long command later, a video player opens, a list of video files appearing on one side of it. She selects the first video, but leaves it paused.

I take a deep breath and sit on the coffee table while Undyne moves off the couch to let the humans sit down. Jonas crosses his arms and the four wait patiently.

I start from the beginning, deciding that treating this like a report is the best way to handle this. I tell them about the old ruins, the puzzles, and a scuffle with Toriel.

Toriel looks to Alphys and she easily translates for her, playing a video of when I first emerged from the ruins.

I tell them of my fight with Papyrus and the following day of staying at their house, the weapons fiasco, Waterfall, my fight with Undyne, and the visit to the lab . Alphys has video of all of this. She even had video of the inside of their house, thankfully only in the living room and kitchen. On the list, they're labeled differently than the rest, the file named "Hot Fish Monthly" while the rest are called "Human Research". Papyrus raises an eyebrow and gives her an angry side eye. The humans don't know where to look, at the feed, or at me telling them.

I keep going, telling them about the puzzles in Hot Land, and that terrifying nonsense with Mettaton and the spider woman. Alphys plays the MTTV clips of me. They even see my date with Papyrus, thankfully without audio. Alphys thankfully has the tact to leave out the fight where I killed the rope-snake. Henry and Hanzo manage a chuckle at the clip with my dry humor.

'I didn't actually solve any of Papyrus's puzzles.' I say, turning to face Papyrus.

"'Cuz we bypassed them altogether." Sans says. "Normally we would've funneled you towards them. You're just too squirrelly to be contained."

I frown. 'If we go back, I actually want to try and solve your puzzles.' I tell Papyrus.

The tall skeleton nods. "Sure, just don't blame me when you get maimed." he says gruffly.

Jonas clears his throat, gaining our attention. "Look... this seems... too unreal." he says. "If I wasn't seeing it in front of me, I would've called you crazy."

"Yeah, we're seein' you get all these injuries, but you look just fine now." Hanzo points out.

I slowly lift my shirt to show the round scar on my stomach and the indent on my side. It looks like I got the injuries years ago, not just days ago.

Their jaws loosen a bit as they stare at them. They're quiet for quite a while. Henry is the first to speak up. "That, uh, is probably going to put a damper on things."

My frown deepens. 'I know. I know it's going to be really hard to integrate them into human society.'

"And how do you plan to do that?" Jonas asks.

"Well, first, we're going to officially coronate her. Then we will make a public announcement." Toriel says.

"Wait, what?" Hanzo asks.

"What do you mean, coronate?" Mika asks. They look at me, very confused.

I take a deep breath. 'It has to do with what I have to tell you next.' I say. 'I fought the King of the Monster, Asgore. He...he didn't yield. He's dead.'

"And by Right of Single Combat, she takes his title." Toriel says. Her cold eyes dare them to refute her.

The four humans in front of me swallow nervously.