Frisk could feel a light, cold tapping on her forehead, opening her eyes was Asten looking down at her through the slits of his helmet. She soon realized that she had fallen asleep in his lap, partially embarrassed she quickly got to her feet and attempted to start a conversation to hide this embarrassment.
"Hey… um… what time is it?..."
She said, partially looking towards the ground.
Asten inquisitively looked at her for a moment and then at his metal forearm before taking out his notepad and pencil and quickly scribbling down something.
'Half past a gauntlet'
Frisk quickly looked down before half-heartedly giggling to herself, forgetting that she had never seen Asten with a watch before.
"Ha-ha… right… so…"
She paused for a moment, staring down at the ground before looking back at Asten and gesturing forward down the path in the marsh.
"We should probably get moving…"
With this, Asten slowly got up, shaking out his arms and legs, a metallic jingle following suit, and the two continued down the path as they had done before. With Asten and Frisk walking side-by-side down the pathway in the marsh, the florescent blue water lighting the edges of the pathway.
As they continued to walk a loud "RING" was heard throughout the cave. Frisk called for Asten to stop as she started to take the flip phone out of her pocket. Once again, a familiar voice broke the silence before she had even had time to hold the phone to her ear.
"HELLO! THIS IS PAPYRUS! REMEMBER WHEN I ASKED YOU ABOUT CLOTHES?"
"Yah?... why are you asking Pap?"
"WELL THE FRIEND WHO WANTED TO KNOW… HER OPINION OF YOU IS VERY… MURDERY."
Frisk paused for a moment before looking over to Asten who had her back to her and was looking farther down the path, a hand still firmly gripping the helm of his sword and his great-iron shield grasped firmly on the other hand. She turned back to the phone. With a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
"You don't say…"
"WELL WORRY NOT DEAR HUMAN! PAPYRUS WOULD NEVER BETRAY YOU!"
"YOU SAID THAT YOU WERE NOT WEARING A STRIPPED SWEATER…"
"SO OF COURSE, I ACTUALLY TOLD HER…"
"YOU WERE INDEED WEARING A STRIPPED SWEATER."
"IT PAINED ME TO TELL SUCH A BOLD-FACED LIE. BUT SINCE YOU AREN'T WEARING A STRIPPED SWEATER. SHE SURELY WON'T ATTACK YOU!"
Frisk stared dumbfound into the phone, unsure as to how Papyrus' thought process worked.
"Um… Pap.."
"NOW YOU'RE SAFE AND SOUND."
"Pap.."
"WOWIE THIS IS HARD! I JUST WANT TO BE EVERYBODY'S FRIEND!"
"PAP WAIT!"
But before Frisk could say anything the dial tone started buzzing, leaving her rubbing her temple with her free hand. The commotion of the conversation prompted Asten to walk over to her, giving her an inquisitive look.
Frisk politely looked up at him and told him about their current predicament and how the Knight that had been stalking them thus far now knew what she looked like. Asten merely shook his head in acknowledgement and the two continued down the path.
Frisk was thankful that she had Asten around, sure she was nervous that some other metal behemoth was stalking them, but seeing the way Asten could move and react at a moment's notice made her feel confident in his ability to protect her and assuaged most of the worry she had for whatever happened next. Plus having someone to be around on the journey made it even more enjoyable. She was however, still concerned as to what degree of violence Asten was capable of and would need to make sure that Asten did not kill anyone in the underground. Though his behavior thus far had proven to her that he could make the right decision.
They continued down the winding path through the marsh for some time with Frisk staring off into the scenery beyond the path and Asten constantly looking ahead of themselves, continually on the lookout for the glowing-eyed knight.
They eventually found themselves in a new section of the cave. Falling waterfalls rushed from the left-hand side of wall and flowed into narrow slits in the smooth rock walls. Drops of water fell from the ceiling in a light rain upon the ground and formed small, shallow puddles there. A small trashcan laid in the entrance of this cave and was filled with umbrellas of all manner of different colors.
Asten and Frisk both picked up an umbrella and continued down the path, the rain making a monotonous "pitter-patter" sound upon the roof of the umbrellas and on the ground.
As they walked something caught Frisk's eye and she stopped.
A small ring of light encapsulated a stone statue of a seemingly forlorn monster, rain pouring down the crevasses and curves in it. She stopped in front of it and gave the statue her umbrella, giving herself a small smile as she did so.
Asten turned his head to see what she was doing, as he had noticed that Frisk was no longer walking with him and began slowly backtracking to her, stopping next to her and starring at the statue. A music box from within it stared playing a slow and calm melody.
He turned his gaze to meet hers with a puzzled expression on his face as to why she had given up her own umbrella. Rain was starting to soak her hair and sweater before Asten lifted his own umbrella over the two of them.
"It just seemed to be the right thing to do, it's something a good person would do."
Frisk gave her usual smile at him before staring at the statue again.
"Asten…"
The armored knight looked at her once again, her eyes still fixated on the statue, its music box continuing its melody.
"I know that you're a good person too… even if you don't believe that you are…"
She was right on one part, Asten thought to himself, that he did not believe that he was. After all, what kind of 'good person' kills scores of creatures and monsters and takes their souls for their own personal strength, although he was unsure as to how she knew how he felt about that. He began to look at the statue with her, remaining as silent as he usually was.
She continued again.
"You didn't kill Toriel… or Sans… or Papyrus…"
"You offered to help a woman you had only known for five minutes… and you've helped me too…"
She once again looked up at Asten with her kind smile and gentle eyes. His helmet slowly turned to meet her gaze.
"And I think you'll keep being a good person, no matter what happens next."
Asten lightly nodded his head as the two once again gazed at the statue before continuing their journey down the path.
As they continued down the path, they happened to see the monster kid once again in a corner of the cave. A rock ledge shielding him from the continual downpour.
"Oh cool! you have an umbrella!"
The kid said, coming in between the massive metal figure and Frisk under the shade of the plastic canopy. Frisk and Asten both smiled to each other, both of them starting to find the kid to be somewhat adorable. The trio continued to walk down the path and further into the cave, a faint glow emanating at the end of the pathway. As they walked the kid continued to speak.
"Man, Undyne is sooo cool. She beats up bad guys and NEVER loses. I bet she could even beat you up."
The kid looked up at Asten who politely smiled to himself and gave a silent shrug.
"If I was a human, I would wet the bed every night knowing she was gonna beat me up!"
Frisk gave a nervous laugh at this but remained silent as Asten panned a glance over to her. The kid continued to speak as they walked.
"So, one time. We had a school project where we had to take care of a flower. The king -we had to call him 'Mr. Dreemur"- volunteered to donate his own flowers. He ended up coming to school and teaching the class about responsibility and stuff. That got me thinking…"
The kid paused as both Asten and Frisk looked at him, waiting for an answer.
"Yo! How COOL would it be if Undyne came to school!? She could beat up ALL the teachers!"
Asten gave a smile to himself out of the absurdity of it all as Frisk seemed to be somewhat disappointed at the lack of value the kid got out of the intended lesson.
As they continued walking the kid spoke again.
"Ummm, maybe she wouldn't beat up the teachers… She's too cool to ever hurt an innocent person!"
Frisk gave some thought into this, maybe this Undyne wasn't just the big, menacing knight that had been stalking them for the better part of a day… maybe she was someone she could reason with…
Eventually the reached the end of the cave and out into a large expansive field. Small, shimmering, blue stars glowed in the sky above. A large city was off in the distance with many gray houses dotting the far landscape. An imposing castle sat atop a hill beyond the city with large grey towers and walls adorned with light blue coned rooftops. Frisk thought to herself that that must be where King Asgore must live and where the end of her journey lay.
The trio eventually made their way out of this field as the path led into another cave. As they entered, they saw that there was a steep shelf cutting off the path they were on that led to the rest of the path.
As they neared it, Asten gave the umbrella to Frisk as he proceeded to climb the shelf, albeit not gracefully, and offered his hand to Frisk who was then pulled up with relative ease on Asten's part. Asten then offered his hand to the monster kid, to Asten's embarrassment did not have arms to grab onto. The kid looked at the gauntleted hand and politely said, "That's okay, I'll find another way through!", proceeding to run out of the cave and out of sight.
The two then continued down the path and onto a wooden bridge.
As Asten looked down he could see that there was another bridge right below them, and below that, a seemingly bottomless pit who's drop was unreadable due to the darkness below it.
As they walked, Asten continued to keep watch on the path ahead of them, being constantly warry of a possible ambush by that knight that they had encountered earlier.
Just as he was becoming suspicious of the bridge below them and about how easy it would be for someone to attack them from there a large blue light shined in front of them on the bridge.
Asten raised his hand in front of Frisk to stop her, both of them stopped dead in their tracks, waiting for what would happen next.
Then a series of blue, circular lights appeared around them, suddenly forming into piercing spears that jutted out of the bridge, just barely skewering themselves.
Asten looked down at the bridge to notice the same glow-eyed knight standing below them, its eye purely fixated on the two of them. Asten quickly grabbed Frisk again and ran in the same manner he had done in their previous encounter with the knight, dodging spear after spear that magically jutted out of the bridge.
The bridge, however, came to a dead end as Asten quickly scanned the cave wall for an escape route after setting Frisk back down.
As he continued to scan the wall for a foothold, Asten felt a tapping on his shoulder, he turned to see Frisk with a concerned look on her face and wide eyes staring off into the darkness on the side of the bridge they had just come from.
Asten trained his ears towards the direction, a faint metallic "THUD" coming closer and closer.
Out of the darkness a blue glowing eye appeared, and the black knight stepped out of the dark and stopped a good ten meters in front of them.
Asten stepped in front of Frisk, the large black-metal frame covering both himself and her. He was ready for a fight.
For a moment the black knight just stood there, eying the two, before waving its hand in a downward motion. Leaving Asten somewhat confused as to what this meant.
Suddenly a wall of blue, transparent arrows shrieked downwards, both in front of them and behind them, cutting down the bridge into a segmented piece
Frantically, Asten let his shield drop as he grabbed Frisk tightly to his chest plate, the two of them plummeting into the chasm below. His back turned towards whatever they would fall onto.
The fall was relatively short, with Asten's back connecting first and then Frisk's head connecting to Asten's chest plate.
Frisk's world soon became dark.