Frisk and Chara went deeper into the forest, keeping an eye on the radar of the device that Sargon had given them and also looking out for suspicious activity.
"I can't believe we're doing this, Chara," Frisk told her friend nervously. "I've fought a lot of different monsters during my countless runs through the Underground, but this Gaster guy sounds pretty dangerous."
"Oh, I'm sure you can take him!" Chara replied confidently. "You've fought crazy fish warriors, robot entertainers, a giant TV plant monster, and even a goat god! Why should this guy be any different?"
"Well, I guess you're right. I don't want to underestimate him, but my Determination has gotten me through every challenge I've faced so far."
Chara smiled. "That's more like it!"
"Alright, Chara. Let's keep moving."
They kept walking through the forest for a while, admiring the sights and sounds. It reminded them a little of their journey through Snowdin forest, even though that place had been a lot colder. It wasn't snowy where they were. Still, they enjoyed how quiet and peaceful the place was. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and on days like these Frisk and Chara liked to be outside enjoying nature.
Their moment of peace and quiet was interrupted by a familiar ribbit sound. Snapping out of the relaxing mood she was in, Frisk looked ahead to see a swarm of froggits, whimsums, and moldsmols coming at her. These were some of the first monsters that Frisk had encountered in the Underground, and she thankfully know exactly how to get them to spare her.
Many of the froggits started by summoning flies, which she was able to dodge. After their initial barrage, many of them hopped at her. She did her best to jump out of the way and avoid their attacks before turning to face them.
"You're all very cool froggits," she told them. "Where'd you learn how to jump like that? And you're beautiful amphibians too. Seriously, you're way cooler than normal frogs up here on the surface."
This seemed to calm the froggits, who in the Underground would stop attacking Frisk after she complimented them. Next came the whimsums, who surrounded her in a circle of weird magical bullets that shrank and grew. She made sure to avoid hitting them and to dodge the vertical barrage of bullets that would then come down from the sky.
"Sssh," it's okay," she told them. "Everything's gonna be fine. There's no need to attack me." With that, the whimsums stopped attacking. They were fearful monsters who were also quite depressed, and Frisk had discovered back in the Underground that they would stop attacking if she tried to comfort them.
Last were the moldsmols, which were basically monsters in the shape of jello molds. They were easy to spare. Frisk shook her hips in a flirtatious manner, and they stopped attacking as well.
"You've still got it, Frisk!" Chara told her with a smile.
"Of course I do. I can't even remember how many times I've been through the Underground at this point, do you?"
"No, I lost count. But I'm glad you finally stopped. Everyone deserves to enjoy their happy ending. The happy ending that you provided for them."
"They're my friends, Chara. The least I could do was break the barrier for them. They deserved to be free."
"They sure did. And thanks for not making the same mistake I did, Frisk."
"You mean with Asriel?"
"Yes. I wanted to save my friends and family too, but I went too far."
"Well, I started down the path of Genocide. Would have finished it too if it weren't for Papyrus. You see, Chara? We all need our friends not just to look out for us when the times are tough, but also to keep us from going down the wrong path."
"I definitely agree," Chara replied before sighing. "I just wish there was something we could have done to save Asriel."
"I know, Chara. I tried everything I could over countless timelines, but nothing worked. But at least I can take care of his parents like he wanted me to."
"You've done a fine job at that."
"Well, thanks. But unless I can deal with the threat of Gaster, Asgore and Toriel are gone. The whole universe will be gone."
"I know you'll put an end to this threat," Chara replied. "Come on, let's go!" They continued moving toward the blip on the FUN detector's radar with the beeping getting louder and louder as they approached it. "I know we're getting close!" Chara told her friend. They went near a bush.
"Whatever the source of this FUN is, it's behind this bush." Frisk told her friend. "Let's hope it's Gaster."
"Right behind ya, Frisk!" The ghost girl replied. "Let's go!"
Frisk jumped through the bush and came face to face with the same mysterious monster that had appeared at the speech.
"It's that weird Goner Kid again!" Chara yelled. "Alright. Well, maybe if you spare him, he'll tell you more about Gaster."
"Okay, let's do this!" Frisk turned to the monster. "Hey, over here! Can you tell me anything about Gaster?"
The monster replied by launching a barrage of bullets at Frisk like it had during the speech in New New Home. Frisk was careful to avoid them, but took a few hits here and there. After this barrage, she got up and started talking.
"Stop attacking!" She shouted. "I'm not your enemy!"
The monster did not respond, instead only summoning Gaster Blasters to attack Frisk. One fired directly at her, and she jumped out of the way to avoid being hit. Another came from her right, and she jumped up to avoid being hit by its laser blast. After that, one came from her left. She ducked to avoid being hit by it.
"Please, we're just trying to get to the bottom of all this crazy stuff that's been happening with our spacetime continuum!" Frisk continued to plead. "There's no need to get violent!" To this, Goner Kid responded by turning Frisk's soul blue. In blue soul mode, Frisk would be heavier and would likely face attacks from the ground that she would have to jump to avoid. The monster then launched a series of attacks from below. Frisk jumped up to avoid the attacks, being extra careful to time the jumps just right so that she would not get hit by the attacks. Once that was done, Chara had an idea.
"Try flirting with it!" Chara suggested with a grin. "It worked with so many monsters in the Underground!"
"Great idea, Chara!" Frisk replied before turning to Goner Kid to try that. "Hey, Goner Kid! I think you're really cute! I like your eyes and your face!"
Goner Kid responded with another barrage of ground-based attacks and Gaster Blasters. Firsk did the same thing to dodge them as before, namely ducking, jumping, and rolling to avoid being hit. After avoiding Goner Kid's attacks, Frisk decided to try to continue flirting with Goner Kid.
"And you're really good at fighting too, you know that? I'm sure you've got all sorts of monsters clamoring for your affection, what with your impressive fighting abilities!" Goner Kid responded with another barrage of attacks, but this one was less intense than the last two and Frisk knew that her plan was working. Once the wave of attacks was over, Frisk turned and faced Goner Kid yet again.
"Seriously, you're really cute and you should be out showing everyone how cute you are, not fighting me!" Frisk told the monster with a smile. The monster seemed to agree, as it disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"And the power of flirting wins again!" Chara cheered. "That was your greatest weapon in the Underground, remember? It helped you beat just about every monster that came after you.
Flashback…
Frisk was near a river in Snowdin fighting Papyrus, who was attacking her using bones and by putting her soul in blue mode, which made her have to jump to avoid being hit. She turned toward the skeleton, who seemed to be trying to capture her out of a desire for appreciation more than anything else. She wondered if he would spare her if she were willing to give him the appreciation he was looking for.
"Hey, Papyrus!" Frisk called out to him in a flirtatious manner. "I think you're pretty great, you know that? How'd you like to go on a date after this?"
Papyrus was immediately flustered. "F-Flirting?!" He asked in shock. "So you finally reveal your ultimate feelings! But I'm a skeleton with very high standards!" He launched another barrage of bones at Frisk. After jumping over and dodging them, the girl spoke up again.
"I can make spaghetti!" She told him with a huge grin on her face.
"Oh no!" The skeleton cried out. "You're meeting all my standards!" The fight continued for a while, and by the end, Papyrus was exhausted. The tall skeleton was far too prideful to admit that he was beaten, so he would try to make it appear that he was granting her mercy instead of giving up.
"Well…" He said before huffing. "It's clear huff that you cannot defeat me! Huff…" The skeleton said to her, completely exhausted but unwilling to admit it. "Therefore, I will grant you pity! I am sparing you, human!"
"Very well, Papyrus. I accept your pity."
But the skeleton knew he was beaten and dropped the act as soon as Frisk spared him. "Nyo ho ho!" He cried out in a sad variant of his catchphrase, "Nyeh heh heh!"
"I can't even stop someone as weak as you! Undyne will be disappointed in me! I'll never join the Royal Guard, and…my friend quantity will remain stagnant!"
"What will you say to him?" Chara asked, feeling a bit sad for Papyrus but not sure if Frisk should spend any time with the slightly annoying skeleton.
"Aww, cheer up, Papyrus!" Frisk told him with a smile. "Your friend quantity won't remain stagnant! You can add me to your friend quantity!"
"Really?" The skeleton asked. "You want to be friends with me? Well, I guess I can make an allowance for you!" He seemed happier than he had been since Frisk had first met him. "Wowie! We haven't even had our first date, and I've already hit the friend zone! Who knew that all I needed to get pals was to give people awful puzzles and then fight them?"
Papyrus then explained that in order to get out of the Underground, Frisk would have to go to meet Asgore and go to the barrier. He seemed to be either oblivious to the fact that Asgore was using human souls to destroy the barrier, or pretending not to know. Frisk and Papyrus went on their date afterward, and it was the first time she tried the skeleton's awful spaghetti. But she didn't have the heart to tell him how bad it was.
End of flashback.
"Haha, yeah!" Frisk replied to Chara. "Flirting seems to get me out of almost anything. Anyway, let's keep moving. There's another blip on the radar not too far from here. That could be where Gaster is."
"Either him or another one of his followers," Chara replied. "But even if it's one of his followers, they might be able to tell us a bit about him. How we might be able to convince him to come with us without a fight. That would be nice."
"Well, just about every monster I've encountered has been willing to spare me after I do something to make them friendly to me. Only Undyne, Asgore, and Flowey were truly relentless. But I'm sure I can beat Gaster non-violently. Now, let's go!"
The two girls kept going through the forest, which and for a while it was calm and peaceful again. They came upon a creek and followed it upstream, and for a little while they were able to forget about the dire situation that the whole world was in and just relax. That mood ended when they came upon a waterfall. Near the base of this waterfall were two familiar monsters, an Aaron and a Woshua.
"I know just how to deal with these guys…" Frisk told Chara with a grin as she pulled out her iPhone and opened her iTunes app. This is gonna be hilarious…"
She played a song called "Spooktune" and turned the volume up to the max. The Aaron and the Woshua heard it quickly, and then they seemed scared.
"This music sure is creepy!" the Aaron said to his friend nervously. "It's worse than Shyren!" But strangely, he
"Dude," the Woshua asked. "If you're scared, why are you winking?"
"THESE ARE WINKS OF FEAR!" Aaron replied.
"Well, this song is filthy. I'm out of here!" The Woshua said before leaving.
"Wait, don't leave me here! Is being stuck here with this creepy music my punishment for being creepy? I promise I'll never be creepy again! Aaaahh!" The Aaron left too, and the waterfall was then safe for Frisk and Chara to approach.
Frisk burst out laughing. "Hahahahaha, that's just as funny now as it was in the Underground!" She was referring to when she had used the same song to get the Aarons and Woshuas in Waterfall to run away without fighting her.
"Haha, yeah!" Chara replied, laughing as well. Napstablook's a great musician, isn't he?"
"Sure is," Frisk replied. "He's making music for Mettaton's show now. I'm glad the world will see how talented he is with music now."
"Not only that, but I'm glad he's a bit less depressed now that he and his cousins are together again." She was referring to Mettaton, who was a ghost inhabiting a robot, Mad Dummy, an angry ghost who lived inside a dummy, and the Dummy, and another ghost who lived inside a dummy in the Ruins and was thankfully a lot less angry than its cousin from Waterfall. Toriel had introduced Frisk to this dummy while teaching her how to interact with monsters just after falling into the Underground.
"I'm glad you got the ghost cousins back together," Chara added before sighing. "I just wish mom and dad would get back together again…"
Frisk sighed as well. "I know, Chara. But Toriel hates Asgore too much. I've tried talking to her about it, but the wounds just go too deep. She can't forgive him for killing all those children."
"It's my fault!" Chara said sadly. "It's because of my stupid plan with the buttercups! Asriel and I were living happily in the Underground until I did my stupid plan!"
"It's in the past now, Chara. And besides, you did end up helping the monsters in your own way. You were wrong to try that thing with Asriel and the buttercups, but the human souls that Asgore collected did free the monsters from the Underground. I just wish the barrier could have been broken without bloodshed."
"I wish so too. But maybe we can find Gaster and save the world without bloodshed…" Chara suggested happily.
Frisk smiled. "That's exactly what we're out here to do."
"I knew you'd say that," Chara replied with a smile. "Now come on, we have a scientist to find." The two girls approached the waterfall and went under it, getting a little wet but trying not to let that bother them. Once they were under it, they discovered that behind the waterfall was the entrance to a cave. The FUN detector starting beeping faster, indicating that they were getting closer to the source of the FUN. They walked deeper into the cave, bracing themselves for a fight with Gaster or at least another one of his followers. Eventually, they reached what appeared to be the bottom of the cave. Looking around a corner and into the chamber, they caught a glimpse of what was setting off the FUN detector.
The monster was tall and somewhat humanoid, resembling a monster Frisk had seen at the MTT Resort in Hotland who had resorted to licking a ficus because it forgot to make a reservation to eat there. The difference was that this monster was gray and emotionless. Frisk went out to confront it despite the risk of being attacked, hoping that she would be able to gain some valuable information from it about Gaster's whereabouts and what he was capable of.
"Are you…One of Gaster's followers?"
The monster turned toward Frisk and began to speak. "Yes, I was a follower of W.D. Gaster before his untimely demise. He was a brilliant scientist, the creator of the CORE, and it makes sense that King Asgore would take so long to choose a successor for him because he is such a tough act to follow. But his life was cut short when he fell into his own creation. Dr. Alphys is lucky that she has not suffered the same fate."
"I knew all of that," Frisk told the monster. "But Gaster is trying to return to our world and he's pulling the spacetime continuum apart. I need to stop him. Do you have any idea where he is or how I can stop him?"
"You wish to threaten Gaster!" The monster replied. "I will stop you!"
"No, you've got it all wrong!" Frisk replied in a frightened voice. But by this time, the monster had summoned Gaster Blasters to attack Frisk. Three came at her, and she had to jump up to avoid being hit by them.
"Stop attacking!" Frisk shouted during a gap in the fighting. "Please, I'm not trying to hurt Gaster! I'm just trying to stop him from tearing apart the fabric of time and space!"
"And why should I believe that?!" The monster replied while shooting a barrage of bullets shaped like ficus leaves at Frisk. She jumped, ducked, and dodged them as well as she could, but couldn't help but take a few hits. She ate a box of Temmie Flakes that she brought with her to help heal her wounds.
"Because look around you! Look at all the chaos that Gaster's return has brought to our world! There was the chaos at the speech yesterday. It's a miracle that no one died! And now the very fabric of spacetime is about to be torn apart!"
"Gaster will not tear apart the spacetime continuum!" The monster replied. "He poses no threat to your world!"
"Then why did Goner Kid attack us?!"
"He's insane!" Years of isolation in the void will do that to you!"
"And how do I know Gaster isn't?"
"Gaster's mind is stronger than Goner Kid's!"
"If that's the case, then you have nothing to fear by allowing me to find Gaster!"
"Enough! Why should I believe that you will not harm him?" The monster began attacking again, this time throwing everything at the human. It fired Gaster Blasters at her, and attacked with ficus leaf bullets that were colored either light blue or orange. Frisk had encountered these kinds of bullets before. The light blue ones required Frisk to stay still in order to avoid taking damage, and the orange ones required her to move. It took quite a bit of ducking, jumping, and rolling to make it through this gauntlet, but she eventually made it through the barrage. She was exhausted, but nonetheless determined to convince the monster that she could handle the task ahead of her.
"Because…" Frisk panted between breaths, "I'm Frisk Dreemurr. The savior of monsterkind. I destroyed the barrier and freed all the monsters without killing anybody. If anyone can get to the bottom of what's been happening with the spacetime continuum, it's me."
"You…you're right," the monster said. "You are Frisk Dreemurr. You freed monsterkind after millennia of imprisonment underground, and you never killed anyone despite the monsters' repeated attempts to kill you…And there is more to this situation than you think."
"Really? What else do I need to know?"
"Just that Gaster needs your help preventing a catastrophe. You will need to find him and speak with him to help him put a stop to this threat."
"I'll find him," Frisk told the monster. "I'll save this world. I promise."
"Good," the monster replied. "Now go, find Gaster and save the world!" And then, in the blink of an eye, the monster disappeared.
"Do you think they told the truth?" Frisk asked Chara. "Can we trust Gaster or any of his followers? Or Sargon, for that matter? Remember what Sans said about him."
"There's only one way to find out," Chara replied. "We have to go find Gaster and figure out what's going on."
"But we may be going into a trap," Frisk told Chara. "A trap set by Gaster or Sargon…Ugh, I don't know who to trust anymore!"
"You can trust yourself," Chara replied with a grin. "You saved all the monsters, remember? And you can trust me. Remember, I guided you through the Underground. Have I ever led you wrong?"
"No," Frisk replied with a smile. "Alright, let's keep going. There's one more blip on the radar in this area. That might be where Gaster is."
"Then that's where we'll go," Frisk replied as they went to the other end of the chamber they were in and found a path leading out of the cave. When they got out, they found themselves on top of a hill overlooking another hill and a valley between them. At the top of the other hill was a large castle.
"That must be where Gaster is," Frisk said as she looked at the castle. "Alright, let's go find him!"
"I'm right behind ya, Frisk!" Chara cheered. "We can do anything as long as we stick together and stay determined!"
"I know it, Chara. I stand by what I said yesterday. Our hopes and dreams will save the world!" With that, the two girls headed down the hill and into the valley to reach the castle. There, they hoped they would find the truth that would allow them to save the world…
A/N: Sorry about the short chapter. This one is kind of a travel chapter and the next one will have a lot more plot-important substance in it. I also apologize for the slow updates. I am super busy with real life stuff and another fanfic I am working on simultaneously. Thanks you all for your patience, and remember to say determined.