Chapter 7: The Royal Scientist

With the date that I had set up between Alphys and Undyne, I was going to be doing some research.

Stepping from the heat of Hotland, the cool air from the Lab was a welcome thing, refreshing me as I made my way over to the lab door that Alphys always had locked every single day before she left.

Stepping up to the door, I faltered upon seeing that a security code was required.

After a few seconds of trying to think of something, I reached out to Chara, "Hey, Chara, do you have any idea what the code could be? I'm at an impasse right now."

Chara was silent for a few moments, before her confident voice reached my ears, "The code is 87-24-2. I'm sure of it."

As I put in the code, I recited it quietly under my breath, "87-24-2, 87-24-2, 87-24-2... It worked, the code worked."

With the door sliding open to reveal the dimly lit elevator, and sucked in a breath.

I never did well with the dark.

Stepping into the elevator, I pressed the lowest floor before quickly stepping into a corner of the elevator.

After several moments of silence, the elevator came to a stop, and I darted out of the doors.

Looking around, the lab seemed to be untouched, with layers of dust blanketing everything in sight.

As I approached a desk that seemed promising, Chara's voice called out to me again, "I think the Royal Scientist kept the more personal things in another room. There was a room down a hall from here that I got into once, and whew, that was a hell of a chewing out that I got from both Mom and the Royal Scientist."

My fingertips just barely grazing the top of the desk I had approached, I turned to find that there were several hallways, each leading deeper into the darkness.

Biting my lip, I gave a weak laugh, "And just which hallway would that be? 'Cause if I were to go down one of these hallways—which I really don't want to do, but I told Gaster I would help—I want to go down the right hallway."

After a few more moments, Chara's voice came through stronger, "Okay, it should be that hallway."

I stood quietly for a second, before sighing, "Chara, I can't see you, so pointing isn't going to help. Just— Okay, okay, let me take a moment and look around."

Looking around the dark and musky lab, I took notice of how wrecked and forlorn the state of the laboratory was. I looked over, finding knocked over chairs, along with one desk. I noticed how there were broken beakers on the floor, that seemed to have been nudged off of the counter by accident.

Spinning in a slow circle one last time, I was speechless as I called out to Chara, "It looks like something went wrong? Everyone left in a hurry, letting these beakers drop, overturning chairs in their rush. But what exactly happened?"

Chara gave me an 'mm-mmm', before letting out a long whistle, "Well, detective Frisk, looks like you already have some things figured out. Now, we should get moving, before Alphys gets back with Undyne. C'mon, the hallway you need to go down is the one next to that series of sinks and counters."

Walking quickly and quietly, uneasy by the eerie feel of the air in the Laboratory, I was left to my own thoughts. What if something really, really horrible happened here, and all of the scientists working here ended up dying? What if it had to do with the core? Did someone attack? An experiment on a subject gone wrong? What drove everyone out of here in the snap of the fingers? Where is everyone now?

Cut off by my thinking, Chara directed me towards the room she had once gotten into. "It's right there, to the left, just right up ahead. If it's locked, we'll have to hope that the key wasn't on Gaster before whatever happened... happened. "

My hair stood up on it's ends as I put my hand on the doorknob, making me feel even more uneasy than I had previously. Turning the knob gently to see if the door was unlocked, I practically jumped when the door fell inwards on itself, "Chara, I don't have a good feeling about this. There's nothing... living, down here, is there? Nothing that can hurt me?"

Chara was quiet for a few moments, before speaking up, hesitantly, "Well, there might be... the... the amalgamates. T-they shouldn't hurt you though, so you don't need to worry."

Furrowing my eyebrows, I hesitantly put one foot forwards through the door.

Standing in the room quietly for a moment, I spoke to Chara, "Amalgamates, you said? They sound familiar. Can you explain what exactly they are, please?"

Silent for several moments, Chara began quietly explaining, "The amalgamates are... well, they're—they're a bit difficult to explain. Essentially, they've been brought back from being fallen down. Alphys injected them all with Determination during an experiment to harness the power of SOULS, and to find a way to break the barrier. Unfortunately, monster bodies do not have enough physical matter to handle Determination, the magic that composed them lost cohesion, and they fused together in strange and horrifying creatures. It's... a lot to comprehend. B-But you cannot blame Alphys for being a part of the experiment! She was only continuing Gaster's work after he disappeared. Okay, Frisk?"

Biting my lip after receiving all of that information, I continued into the dark and musky room, "Okay. But I—I wanna know some more, later, okay?"

Silently, I navigated through the room, bumping into various objects and probably bruising my hips. Coughing slightly as the dust in the room was stirred up by me, I searched the walls blindly for a light switch. "Does the power even work down here? Because if the power does work, and I just walked around in the dark for absolutely no reason, then I may scream."

When my hands found a small switch, I flipped it immediately, and the lights flickered before fully turning on.

Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes wide and smiled, "Okay~ I just stumbled in the dark for absolutely no reason, and that is fine~"

Chara seemed to giggle, before getting a little more serious, "Okay Frisk, please don't scream. We only have a little while longer until Alphys gets back, so we should get moving."

Biting my lip, I began to sort through a desk drawer, finding an endless amount of papers filled with equations and symbols. Shifting through everything, the symbols and equations messing with my eyes, I almost missed the polaroid photograph tucked into the corner, hidden in the middle of the mess of papers.

Gently grabbing the photo, I pulled it out from under the stack of papers, holding it up in the light. I found two skeletons in the photo. One of the skeletons was Gaster, but the other was a woman I had never seen before.

Chara's voice seemed as if it had faded a bit as she spoke to me, "That's Sans and Papyrus' mom, right? So does that mean that Gaster is their father?"

Pocketing the photo, I kept looking, "Maybe. It just doesn't seem to be enough to be able to assume that Gaster is their dad in this timeline. Anyways, we're supposed to be looking for some way to bring Gaster back. Do you think he would keep any personal documents or hypotheses of any sort in here?"

Faintly, Chara's voice came from near a filing cabinet, "Well, this seems like a good place to start."

Crossing over to the cabinet, I opened the top drawer, flipping through different files and folders. Out of habit, I began to mumble under my breath as I read, "The Core, Chemistry, Magic Sciences, Fallen Children, Determination, Amalgamates... but nothing on anything that can concern the Void at all."

Opening the second drawer, I began flipping through the folders in there, "Fighting techniques, Gaster Blasters, Undyne, Sans— Wait, Undyne? Sans?"

Pulling out the two folders with my friends' names on them, I bit my lip, "Sans was an assistant, so I think I understand why his name would be in here. But Undyne makes no sense. Why would her name be with these files?"

Opening Undyne's folder, my eyes quickly scanned and comprehended what I was reading, my stomach sinking as I read on.

Chara's voice came from over my shoulder, her voice grim, "'Subject #3 has a lower pain tolerance compared to Subject #2, but does well with the injections. Subject #3 possesses the resistance to overcome the negative effects of the injections, and overall, has gotten the positive effects of the Determination.' What the actual hell, Frisk? He experimented on our friends."

Quickly closing Undyne's folder, I grabbed Sans' folder, flipping it open and beginning to read, "'Subject #2 stepped in to prevent Subject #1 from further harming themselves for the sake of the experiment, and is now the main subject in the DT experiments. Day one of the injections brought much pain upon the subject, but as time progressed, the Subject became increasingly adjusted to each injection. Both the Subject and I observed a significant increase in the magical strength and ability that came with the DT injections.' ...This— This isn't okay."

Chara voiced her agreement, "Yeah, if they're really related, how could a father do this to his own son?"

As I was about to close the folder, I noticed a flash drive poking out from beneath some papers, "Hey, Chara, there's something here. Maybe it has some information we could use?"

Crossing over to the computer desk, I powered on the console and powered on the monitor, Plugging the flash drive in and waiting. When everything was ready to go, the files for the flash drive popped up, and I clicked onto them.

There were countless folders , each having wildly different nicknames or codes. After a while of searching, I found one file that was simply named 'Log', and clicked onto it, hoping for something useful. Instead of a document or code, a video popped up, with Gaster as the main star.

The audio wasn't the best, and it was pretty glitched out at first, but it soon became clear to my ears. "I have never done anything of this sort before, but I read a human study once a very long time ago about how logging your thoughts could help with the clutter inside of your mind, " Gaster was silent for several long moments, looking worn down and tired, traces of concern hiding within' his expression.

Finally, he spoke again, "I, W.D. Gaster, was having Subject #2 develop his fighting skills and Gaster Blasters—a technique which I had developed during the war as an instrument meant to quickly deteriorate away the physical forms of humans. My intention for teaching a Subject— Er, well, there's no use in hiding it. Since no one is going to be watching this log anyone time soon, I will allow myself to say it out loud... The Subject #2 that I have been referring to, is my son. His name is Sans, and he is an incredibly smart young man. I have much hope for him in the future. "

After several more long moments, a forlorn look crossed Gaster's face , before he spoke again, quietly, " I have driven my only son away... I had intended for Sans to assist in capturing Humans who fell into the Underground. He had no desire to become a killer, and was furious to have been seemingly deceived by someone who he expected honesty from. He left the lab with no indication on when or if he plans on returning. ... I have driven the only person left in my life away. Ariel was taken from me during the war, while I hid like a coward, in my lab, creating weapons that would only be used at the last moment, when I could have turned the tide of the war from the beginning. "

Gaster was about to speak again, but alarms went off, blaring through the speakers on the computer and distorting the audio. Faintly, you could hear another person begin to explain what was going on, but the only key terms that could be heard were 'CORE' and 'malfunction'. The last thing that the log left off on, was Gaster leaving the room, and everything going dark.

Calling out to Chara, I pocketed the flash drive, "Okay, that was... a lot more than what we came here for. We'll have to come back another day, when we can get Alphys out of the lab again, and when we have more time. For now, lets leave. Okay?" Not getting a response, I took the silence as an agreement, and began to put everything away.

As I began to leave the room though, something just drew me back in, making me stay. Without Chara, I didn't want to be there for much longer, so I flicked on the lights and scanned the room quickly. My eyes landed on the desk again, and I crossed back over, opening the drawer as quickly as I could. Inside, I saw the mess of papers, but this time, something else caught my eye. In the left-hand corner closest to me, the bottom of the drawer was sticking up slightly, revealing something underneath it. Reaching down and lifting the false bottom up, I set the papers I had shuffled through on the desk, and began to shuffle through the papers hidden in the false bottom.

Unsure of what to grab, I just grabbed everything, every stapled paper and envelopes and just everything. Leaving quickly, I almost dropped everything, but managed to keep it all in my arms. Running, I made it onto the elevator and onto the main level of the lab in record time.

Looking around, I saw that Alphys was not back yet, and threw all of the papers and envelopes in my inventory. I put everything away just in record time too, because Alphys came walking into the lab right after.

Trying not to look suspicious, I called out to her, "Hey Alphys! How was your date?"

Alphys snapped out of whatever dreamlike state she had been in, a blush creeping up on her, "O-oh, Frisk, what are you doing here?"

Crossing over to Alphys, distancing myself from the true lab, I smiled, "Well, I'm the one who set this date up between you two, so of course I wanted to see the outcome!"

Alphys practically turned cherry red, before sitting down at her desk and getting that far off look in her eyes, "It was perfect... B-but you don't want to hear about that! You're just a kid, and kids don't like to hear about that mushy gross stuff called love."

Smirking, I sat leaned against the wall next to her, "Oh yeah? Well for your information, I am sixteen, and I am very much interested in hearing about the gross mushy stuff called love, especially when it's concerning my favorite couple of all time. So, tell me all about it!"

Smiling wide, Alphys immediately launched into the events of the night, "O-Okay, so Undyne and I went to the MTT Resort for dinner, and Undyne was so b-beautiful! H-Her leather jacket, and just everything about her outfit was perfect! She was as g-gorgeous as always. A-anyways, after dinner, we went to the dump, to the place where we first met. I thought we were just going to h-hang out like always, b-but instead, she told me all about her feelings for m-me. A-And now, we- we're officially together!" Alphys squealed, a blushing, joyous mess.

Grinning, I stood up straight, "Finally! I've only been down here for like a month, and in that short period of time I couldn't stand how obvious it was that you liked each other, but then you guys did noting about it! Anyways, I have to get going. Sans wants me back before dinner every night. I'll see you later, okay?" When Alphys nodded, I gave her a quick hug and began to leave.

As I was going out the lab door, I called back to her, "Congratulations, by the way! ...I so can't wait to tell everyone about this." Leaving Alphys a blushing stuttering mess, I laughed as I went out the door, heading back to Snowdin.

As I got closer to the house, I ran the rest of the way, and barged inside. Taking a deep breath, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "THE MISSION WAS A SUCCESS!"

Smiling as Papyrus came down the stairs, he smiled right back, "Ah, so Undyne has finally asked her lizard friend to be more than just friends! I am so happy for them!"

Sans came down the stairs shortly after Papyrus, " so fish stick and the doc are together now? nice, happy for them."

Smiling about the couple, I practically skipped to the kitchen, "I'm so excited and energetic now! What am I supposed to do you guys?"

Sans shrugged, grabbing ketchup out of the fridge, "dunno, that sounds like a you problem, kid."

Papyrus almost dropped the plate he was holding, turning to me with stars in his eyes, "Snowball fight?"

Gasping, I smiled wide, "Snowball fight! C'mon, let's go gather our forces!"

Setting down everything he was holding, Papyrus ran outside with me, splitting up and going door to door to find others to join us. When we had enough people gathered, Papyrus and I split into two separate teams, building our forts and gathering ammunition. When we were done, Papyrus and I met in the middle of the clearing, both of our forts behind us.

Getting into role, I held my hand out, "Papyrus, great soldier of the Royal Guard, this is your only chance to surrender. Give up, and our forces shall be gentle with you and your people."

Narrowing his eyes, giving a grim smile as he got into role, Papyrus laughed in my face, "Nyehehe! You think you can defeat me and my soldiers? Human, I hate to break it to you, but you shall never win. "

Ignoring the chuckles from Sans as he watched, I let my hand fall to my side, slowly taking a few steps back, "You are going to regret this, great soldier. My people, attack!"

Turning around and sprinting to my fort, I dove over the top and rolled. Ducking down, I gather my snowballs, ready to attack at any moment as the snowballs began to fly.

As two of my people fell, I stood strong, beginning to aim and throw the ammunition. When my second in command got hit though, AKA Monster Kid, things got serious. As soon as Monster Kid and I had a moment where I cradled him in my arms, I turned into a serious and passionate leading officer. Grabbing as much ammunition as I could, I ran at Papyrus' fort, evading the snowballs that were now all aimed at me. Throwing my snowballs, my aim was fatal as I took down soldier after soldier on Papyrus' team , ready to avenge my people.

As I was about to take down Papyrus once and for all though, Sans appeared by his side, using his magic to throw multiple snowballs at me at once, forcing me to draw back.

Grinning, Sans turned to his brother, "'sup bro. looked like you needed some help. "

Retreating to my base, my team made more ammunition, as I playfully glared at Sans and Papyrus, "Cheaters! Magic is an unfair advantage, and must be forbidden!"

Getting a shit-eating grin on his face, Sans used more magic to throw more snowballs, "Oh really? well, the rules don't apply to me."

Furrowing my eyebrows, I yelled back to Sans, "Says who?!"

Sans shrugged, "says me."

Getting much more serious as Sans had joined Papyrus' team, I ducked down and called a few of the others to me.

Clearing my throat, I spoke quietly as the others fought on, "Okay, so here's the plan. I'm going to go down the middle once again, and I'll charge straight on to feign that I'm going after Papyrus. While I do that, Papyrus and Sans will have their focus on me, so you guys are going to swoop in from the sides, and get behind them as much as possible. when you do that, attack, but leave Sans to me. Got it?"

Getting the affirmatives, I gathered my ammunition, ready to run. Giving each of my soldiers a look, we took off, putting our plan into action. Heading straight down the middle of the battlefield, I caught Sans' eye, smirking as I feigned going for Papyrus. When Sans realized what was happening, he used his magic to direct each of his snowball attacks towards me, ready to take me down. Evading skillfully, I managed to dodge every single attack, almost right up on their base.

As I got there, I pretended to throw my snowballs at Papyrus, but changed direction last minute, hitting and taking down Sans as he stood there wide-eyed and dumbfounded. Once Sans was down, taking down the rest of the team was easy, since my soldiers had managed to follow the plan and succeed. As my team erupted into cheers, I only laughed at the looks on both Sans and Papyrus' faces.

Once I was done with my little laughing fit, I held out my hand for them to shake, "Okay, okay, can we call a truce now? I'm hungry and cold."

Laughing, both of the brothers shook my hand, before beginning the walk back to the house.

As I tagged along behind everyone though, everything changed in front of my eyes, a thousand images flashing in front of my eyes.

.

Smoke rose from the streets as vehicles were destroyed and bombs were dropped, destroying everything in the vicinity. Buildings were crumbling, the streets torn up; everything that had once been peaceful and beautiful, was left in chaos and destruction.

Undyne and her troops took down person after person, never once faltering.

Papyrus was faster than lightning on the battlefield, taking people down and capturing others before they could even blink.

Alphys sent her drones out onto the field with us, providing some air support as we advanced forward.

I was leading the whole army, taking over every part of the city that we could.

Slamming people into the ground with my magic, striking others down with my sword, and shooting others with my gun. I didn't stop. Not when they begged, not when they surrendered, and not when they screamed for help.

I left everything behind in ruins, taking life after life, spilling blood and more blood each day.

Looking down at my hands, I found that they were coated with dried blood and gritty with dirt.

And I smiled.

.

Breathing heavily, I put a hand to my head, running my fingers through my hair.

I had started a war.

I killed people...

Forcing my feet to move, I caught up to Sans and Papyrus, putting a smile on my face.

Catching up, I heard Papyrus speaking to Sans, "Nyehehe, Human Frisk must teach us her strategies so we can become better with our battles! Isn't that right, Human?"

With the smile on my face, I only shrugged, "I dunno, I just acted like I was going after you when my true intention was to take down Sans. Which, how did I do that? Sans is like, the professional dodger, so I don't know how I hit him."

Sans shrugged as well, "just as lost as you are, kid. now, can we get inside the house? i'm starvin' and chilled down to the bone."

While Papyrus groaned at Sans' horrible pun and hurried inside, a slight chuckle escaped me, before I followed Papyrus inside.

As I entered the house, the warmth emanating from the house had taken away the chill that I had gotten from the winter weather. But as much as I loved being warm, I did not enjoy the wet clothing being on my body.

When Sans shut the door behind him, I turned to him, a sheepish grin on my face, "I really hate to bother you, but, uh, my clothes are soaked and I don't have anything else to change into. Do you think that I could, um, maybe borrow some clothes until mine dry?"

After a moment, Sans smiled and ruffled up my hair, "sure kid. c'mon, follow me, we'll find ya somethin'."

Tagging along behind Sans, I followed him up to his room.

As he pushed the door open, he gave me a slightly embarrassed grin, "sorry for the mess kid, i don't usually have enough time to lean up. anywho, let's get ya some clothes."

Looking around Sans' room, I found that there were clothes and papers all other, with a small trash tornado to the side. It looked like a huge mess, but I knew that it only looked huge due to the clothes and papers being scattered.

Sans pulled out a pair of his iconic gym shorts and white t-shirt, handing them over to me, "'kay kid, there ya go. i don't have anything smaller, so if it's a bit big, we'll just make some adjustments."

Smiling, I turned to leave, "Thanks, Sans. I'll go try them on quick."

Making my way to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me, I began to strip from my clothes, quickly putting on the shorts and shirt that Sans had given me, finding it surprising to find that they fit me pretty good. The shorts were a little bit loose, but they could be tightened.

Walking out of the bathroom, I bumped right into Papyrus, who had been coming to see what 'had taken so long'.

As the tall skeleton looked down at me, his face lit up and I swear he had little hearts in his eyes as he picked me up, "SANNSSS! Look at how adorable the human is! It looks like they're playing dress up as you!"

Sans arrived to the bottom of the stairs, looked up at me and Papyrus, and just burst out laughing.

Biting my lip, I looked down at myself, "Oh come on, it's not that big!"

Sans wiped a tear from his eye, still snickering, "uh kid, look at yourself. you're drowning in fabric. c'mon, we can find something better. grillby might have somethin' left over from his kid."

Wriggling out of Papyrus' arms, I crossed my arms, "No. I'm keeping it on. The shirt can be adjusted."

Papyrus looked at Sans, his eyes wide, "Can she keep it on Sans, please? She looks like the most adorable Human I've ever seen! And she's the only human I have ever seen!"

Sans, unable to say no to his brother, sighed, "yeah, okay kid, you can keep it on. ...but that doesn't mean i'm gonna stop teasin' ya for it. you're like a little kid, getting into the big kids' things."

Sticking my tongue out, I uncrossed my arms, tightening the shirt and tying it near the bottom, "Here, is this better? It's not as big now, so I'm not 'swimming in fabric.'"

As Sans looked at my adjustment, I thought a I saw a light tint of blue dust his cheeks momentarily, before he shook his head, "uh, yeah, nope. untie it. it looks too tight, and it makes you look older than ya are."

Frowning slightly, I groaned , "Fiinnee. But you cannot tease me about it, or else I'll just hop right back into my soaking clothes, and I'll get sick."

Chuckling, Sans ruffled my hair once I was down the stairs, "sure kid, whatever ya say."

After dinner, I had gone to Grillby's, telling Sans that I would be home later.

Marching right up to the bar counter and sitting down, I put my head in my hands, groaning.

Grillby set a chocolate milkshake in front of me, before going back to cleaning his glass, "What is wrong?"

Looking up at Grillby, I frowned, "Well apparently I was wrong about not feeling anything or having any of the same emotions from the last timeline, because I obviously freaking do now. Not only that, but how the hell am I supposed to concentrate when all that I did in the last run, is stare at a stupid freaking person and think about how amazing he is?! Because apparently those were extremely important memories, and I keep reliving those memories in my mind, even though I don't want to!"

I snatched the milkshake from the counter, gulping half of it down in one go, ignoring the brain freeze afterward.

Grillby had frozen during my rant, but was now back to normal, setting down the glass he was cleaning, "Okay, is this about who I think it is?"

Chugging the rest of my milkshake, I put my head in my hands miserably, "I'm pretty sure I was the one who loved Sans in the last run. So yeah, it's about who you think it's about."

Sighing Grillby gently patted my head, "There there, it will all be okay. We'll figure something out."

Giving Grillby a small smile, I bit my lip, "Yeah, I know. But Grillbs, that's not the only reason I came here."

Raising an eyebrow, Grillby set some milk down in front of me, "Oh? Well what else is bothering you?"

Looking down at my hands, the image in front of my eyes flashed from my normal hands to blood-covered ones, "...The... The war."

Grillby dropped his glass , the sound silencing the entire establishment. After a moment, Grillby picked up the pieces of the broken glass, grabbing a towel to wipe his hands, "Oh. When did the flashbacks come?"

Taking a sip of my milk, I dug my nails into my highs, "During a snowball fight. Well, after a snowball fight. It... It wasn't very nice."

Grillby set the towel down for the last time, coming around the counter, directing his voice towards everyone else in the establishment, "Okay everybody, I'm closing up the restaurant early tonight. " After hearing the groans from numerous customers, Grillby's voice got a sharper edge to it, "Time to go home, everybody. The restaurant is closing right now."

Once the customers had cleared out, it was just me and Grillby left alone.

Grillby sat down next to me, a gentle hand covering mine on the counter, "Tell me about it."

Feeling my lip begin to quiver, and tears pricking painfully at the corners of my eyes, I took a deep breath.

My voice coming out shaky, I explained, "It— the blood— There was dust everywhere. Screaming. " The tears fell from my eyes as continued on, "And I was the one who had started it all. With my weapons and magic, I— I—" Taking a shaky, choked breath, I wiped my tears furiously.

Clearing my throat, my voice came out thickly, "I killed people. I destroyed families, I tore them apart. I got people—our people, their people— killed in cold blood. I destroyed an entire city for God's sake!" Feeling a strong hatred begin to rise—a hatred for myself—I looked up at Grillby, "Why did I do that? Why? What was wrong with me? What the hell was wrong with me?!"

Quickly realizing what was going on, Grillby tightened his grip on my hand, "Hey, stop that, please, young one. You are a completely different person from who you used to be. This is a new run. You're past choices will not define you, okay? Don't hate yourself because of something that was out of control. " After a few moments of silence, Grillby smiled a bit, "You know what? I can already tell that you're a better person than the old Frisk. Do you know why?"

As I looked up at the flame monster, he continued, "Because you know that what happened was wrong, and you desperately want to change that. You would do anything to change that. You care enough, to change that. She didn't. She just kept going, no matter the consequences. You wouldn't do that."

Giving the flame monster a wobbly smile, I wiped my tears, "Thanks, Grillby."

The flame monster embraced me in a hug, holding me tight.

"You're welcome, child."