Despite his area of expertise lying with technology, Foaly had jumped at the opportunity to oversee Section Eight's experiments with monster magic. He had done so for three reasons.
Firstly, he was curious, and itching to see some monster magic in action.
Secondly, there was a lot of incredibly expensive equipment in the Section Eight laboratories, and he wasn't about to let some carless warlock slinging spells around blow it all up.
Thirdly, it got him out of yelling distance from Commander Kelp in the event of an emergency.
Apparently, the centaur thought, that doesn't stop him from sending a messenger. "The Commander wants me to what?"
The messenger – a young sprite who couldn't have been out of the Academy for more than a couple months – shifted nervously, clutching the equipment in his arms like a lifeline. "H-he wants you to keep a line open for the Retrieval team in the monster's Underground, sir."
Foaly let out an explosive sigh. "Ugh, I don't have time for this. Tell the Commander that as long as I'm working here with Section Eight –"
The sprite interrupted him. "He said you'd try to refuse, sir, and told me to tell you that if you do, he'll be docking your research budget by half once you get back to the Operations Booth."
Foaly blanched. "By half?"
"He said he was considering docking it by three-quarters, sir."
Foaly let out an alarmed whinny at the thought. Three-quarters!
Which meant this was serious. Kelp may have been slowly transforming into Julius Root as the years went by, but he was far less trigger-happy when it came to budget cuts of that magnitude.
"So what're we dealing with this time? Megalomaniacs, teenage criminal masterminds, what?"
The sprite grimaced. "Nothing so simple, sir." He took a deep breath. "The Retrieval team encountered a monster that could detect a shielded fairy."
The centaur's face went carefully blank for a moment. Then he let loose with a string of unprintable centaurian profanity that lasted a full minute.
"D'Arvit," he said finally, once the gale had subsided. "Alright, where, what kind of monster, and is it hostile?"
"In the Ruins, a, ah, flower monster of some sort, and… it's definitely hostile now, sir."
In other words, some Retrieval jock down there was seriously hurting.
"How badly did it injure them?" he demanded. "Was anybody killed?"
"No, sir! The officer that encountered it is fine now – he was running hot, so he had enough magic to heal the injuries, but..." He gulped. "The injuries he got were really bad, sir. The team's retreated from the Ruins for now."
"D'Arvit," Foaly repeated. "Okay, tell the Commander I'll keep a line open, but I'll need all the files gathered from the encounter!"
"Already in your database, sir."
"Good, now get going! I got this."
The sprite left, and Foaly took a moment to calm himself down before turning back to his computer and opening a line to the Retrieval team's communications.
Of all the times for things to end up chin deep in the troll dung, why now?!
"Thank you for your time, madam!"
Frisk kept a bright smile on their face as their latest interviewee nodded politely and closed her door, then sagged in relief.
Thank god that's over.
*I don't think I've ever seen someone so uptight in my life! Or my afterlife!
Stifling a grin – the woman really had been a stick in the mud, though she seemed nice enough – they checked the woman's name off their list, and turned to the second page. Okay, we're almost done… we've got three more families and one more loner to interview, and then we've got everybody that signed up for the fostering program.
They turned away from the door, putting the bright smile back on their face. "I guess we're done here, Mom – next place is in the business district!"
Toriel frowned, concerned. "Are you sure you are up for it, my child? You seem rather tired."
Frisk waved the comment off. "No, I'm fine, Mom! Besides, we've still got to interview the rest of the families, and then go to their workplaces and make sure their bosses will leave them be –"
"Frisk."
"- and we need to interview those shops downtown, too, to make sure they're okay with hiring monsters for human jobs –"
"Frisk."
" - and I heard there's some new monsters arriving in port today, so we should go meet them at the docks and make sure they're settled in fine –"
"Frisk." Toriel put one gentle but firm hand on their shoulder, giving them a stern look. "You are clearly exhausted."
"No, Mom, I'm –" They stifled a yawn. "I'm fine."
"Frisk," Toriel reprimanded. "Do not lie to me, child. Will the families you intend to interview disappear in the next half hour?"
...They might. "No," they said, aloud.
"And will the shops go out of business, or the boat suddenly capsize, if you are not there in the next half hour?"
"...No."
The monster nodded firmly. "Then it will do you no harm to rest, will it?"
"But we need to finish the interviews!" Frisk protested. "The sooner we get them done, the sooner monsters can start moving into human dwellings!" And the less likely it is a Reset will happen before we can talk to them!
Toriel placed her other hand on their other shoulder, bending down to look them in the eyes. "Frisk, I understand that you have dedicated yourself to helping monsterkind, but you will do us no good if you fall asleep on your feet. We will take a half-hour rest, and then we may continue the interviews, if you are feeling better, yes?"
It may have been phrased as a question, but Frisk knew that tone. Toriel was in this is for your own good mode. There was no arguing with her when she was like this.
"… Okay, Mom."
"Good." Toriel straightened, then scooped them up off the ground. "Now, where shall we go?"
"Mom!" Frisk practically shrieked. "You don't need to pick me up!"
Now the goat woman's stern look had turned slightly mischievous. "But my child, you can barely walk!"
"I can walk!"
"Nonsense. You need your rest!"
"Moooom!"
"I shall set you down once we have reached our destination."
Frisk gave up, and sighed. They really were too tired for this. "How about that sushi place Undyne and Alphys told us about?"
"Sounds delightful." Toriel strode purposefully down the street, still cradling them in her massive furry arms. "Now rest."
Chara snickered.
Shut up! Huffing in indignation – and embarrassment – Frisk leaned back against Toriel's shoulder, and watched houses pass by.
Several minutes passed. The suburban houses, with their simple colors and vegetable gardens, soon gave way to the slightly taller buildings of Dublin's business district, and crowds of people milling around. Many of them took a double take as the monster passed by with her human passenger, and Frisk ignored the stares as best they could. It was easier to ignore them than usual – they really were very tired, and it was getting harder and harder to keep their eyes open. They'd been working themselves down to the bone – heh, Sans would've appreciated that – for hours now.
Frisk was just about to actually drift off when a familiar voice shouted, pretty much right into their ear, "Hey, PUNK!"
Frisk yelped and flailed back into awareness. "I'm up! I'm up!"
Undyne guffawed at them. Toriel shot the fish monster a glare, obviously upset that she'd woken Frisk up from their well-needed nap.
"Aww, is the little weenie tired?"
Frisk huffed and crossed their arms defiantly. "No! It's just that Mom's really comfortable..."
Undyne snickered. "Suuuure, that's totally what's going on."
Frisk stuck their tongue out at her petulantly. She stuck her tongue out right back at them, then went uncharacteristically serious. "So, Frisk, Your Majesty? Can I talk to you for a second? I know you've got the interviews and stuff to do, but this is important."
Exchanging a concerned look with Toriel, they nodded. "Sure."
"Sweet! How about that sushi place?"
After sitting down inside the restaurant and ordering their food ("Are you sure you don't have any shark?" Undyne asked the waitress that came to their table), the former Royal Guard waited until they were more or less alone before leaning forward a little.
"So, it's about the party we're going to next week, at the Fowl estate," she began. "We're gonna have to be careful there."
Frisk blinked. "Why? Is there going to be trouble?"
"No, no, that's not it! It's just… well, okay, after you gave us our invitations and after Alphys finished freaking out – " (Freaking out had been an understatement – Frisk hadn't seen the scientist that excited since she'd met one of the voice actors from Mew Mew Kissy Cutie.) "- we decided to do a little research. You know, how large the estate was, what kind of manners the Fowls might be expecting from us, that sort of thing."
Frisk nodded. That sounded like a sensible idea.
"Thing is," Undyne continued. "While we were researching, I decided to ask some of the squad for advice. I figured they'd know some things about these kinds of events, you know? Only when they heard that we were invited to the Fowl estate, some of them just kinda… freaked out." She glanced around, then leaned even further forward, lowering her voice. "Apparently, before the Crash? The Fowls had a reputation, and it wasn't the good sort. They were a family of criminals."
Frisk's heart nearly stopped. Criminals?!
"Nothing was ever confirmed," Undyne reassured them, seeing their worried expression. "Hardly anybody managed to get their hands on any evidence, and even then, the Fowls were only suspected of thievery, black market dealings, other non-violent crimes like that. But still, criminals." She let out a huff. "Apparently it was those crimes that got them that big fortune of theirs."
They could already see where this was going. But still, they couldn't believe it! Angeline Fowl hadn't seemed like a criminal when they'd met her, but…
Wait a second. "If the Fowls are a family of criminals, then why was one of them elected to be the United Nations representative? Surely the Minister would've known?"
"I told you, their crimes were never confirmed. And the Fowls did go straight, and helped a lot of people in the aftermath of the Crash. That probably helped their reputation a bit." She grimaced. "We'll have to be really careful at that party."
Toriel frowned, puzzled. "Why the caution? If they are no longer criminals..."
Frisk winced, immediately getting where Undyne was coming from. "Even if they're not criminals anymore, Mom, they might still have some of those connections from their criminal days. Which means that if we upset them, we could be in serious trouble."
The queen looked downright alarmed, and Frisk was quick to assure her. "But we'll be fine! I mean, they're basically philanthropists now, and they helped a lot of people during the Crash, so they can't be bad people! We'll just have to be super polite, and we'll be fine!"
"Yeah, sounds about right," Undyne agreed, nodding. "That's what one of my pals at work said, too. Mr. and Mrs. Fowl are okay people, and so are their kids."
Toriel visibly relaxed. "Well, I suppose that is good news… we'll be certain to warn the others that are going as well. Thank you, Captain."
Undyne grinned widely. "Hey, no problem!" She reached over the table to give Frisk an affectionate noogie. "Gotta look out for my BESTIE, right?"
The waitress came back with their food then, and they abandoned the conversation in favor of eating. Well, the monsters did. Frisk could barely stomach their food, so intense was their sudden nervousness.
The Fowls were criminals pre-Crash, and had been criminals for hundreds of years. If they didn't go straight until just before the Crash… that was eight years ago.
Which means that the UN representative, the guy who paid a visit to Alphys's lab and apparently spent a couple of hours talking to her about magic and technology, was raised by a criminal, possibly to be a criminal.
And if he was raised to be criminal, who's to say he wasn't up to something?
Phew, looks like that officer from last chapter survived his Flowey encounter! But I doubt that that floral abomination is gonna just let that lie... oh well, we'll just have to see, won't we? :3
Same deal as last week with the next chapter - I might not be able to post it next Sunday. But rest assured, I will make sure to post new chapters on Sundays when they do come up! Happy reading in the meantime!
