Chapter 2 coming at 'cha! Much longer than the first; hope you enjoy!
A Taste of Tricky Mischief!
Having teleported away to avoid a nasty chastising by his brother Papyrus, Sans brought himself to the Ruins with Frisk tagging along to accompany him. The Ruins is the place where Queen Toriel lives along with quite a few friendly monster citizens who are all making some last-minute preparations for the festivities. The two of them stand in front of a large, leafless tree that appears to have been there for hundreds of years. Behind this tree a little bit further back is a cozy looking home built out of purple bricks with a bunch of red leaves surrounding the front entrance that the queen wasn't able to find time for to remove; not like Frisk and Sans are going to remove them for her, they're not here to do chores. The two simply walk up to the door and knock on it a couple of times when they get close enough. Waiting for a small while, the queen eventually unlocks and opens the door for them, not expecting the two uninvited guests, but to her, she can never say "no" to her adopted son and good friend. "Sans and Frisk, what an unexpected surprise!" she almost welcomes them in when she becomes suspicious of them, knowing what day it is and how she got tricked pretty hard last year. "Hmm…" she puts her right paw up to her chin, leans a bit forward, and visually inspects the two of them for anything odd or out of place. "You two are not trying to trick me, are you? It IS Halloween after all, and I still remember what happened last year." her tone reflects the scrunched up, curiously suspicious expression on her face.
Sans sighs, a little disappointed by the fact that she knew he was trying to trick her and pulls his right hand out of his pocket, showing a whoopie cushion held tightly in his palm, fully inflated and ready to make a fart sound. "Oops. I guess I used that one on you too many times." he puts it back in his pocket and holds out his left hand for the queen to grab onto so she can sweetly guide him inside. What she doesn't know is that he's put a tiny bit of magic energy in his palm so that when she grabs hold, he'll be able to use his powers to trick her real good.
"I will not be fooled by such a simple trick this time around, Sans." Her sweet, nurturing, and caring tone comes out, completely unaware of the real trick waiting for her. "Now come along, I have something really nice to show to you and Frisk." She reaches out with her left paw and grabs his boney hand. Almost immediately upon doing this, her entire body is cloaked in a veil of shimmering blue magic and though it looks like it should be impossible, his goofy grin grows wider. Her sweet face twists into sour confusion. "What is happening…? Why can I not move?" she says as her pupils slowly move to lock with his, coming to the realization that the whoopie cushion was merely a distraction; a double trick that she fell for completely! He releases her paw and flicks his hand up towards the sky, hurling the tricked goat monster high up into the air over him and Frisk. "AAAAH! SANS, STOP!" she yells, unable to move thanks to his blue magic giving him the ability to freeze and prevent someone from moving. He gently moves his hand to the left side of his body, and she follows suit, quickly heading for a wall with no means of stopping, screaming as loud as she can until she stops dead in her tracks mere inches away from the wall. She barely has any time to process what's happening before she's flung away towards the large tree in front of her house.
She nearly hits the tree when, without any warning, she's teleported back to the ground. She doesn't notice this because when she was flung away from the wall, she tightly closed her eyes shut so she simply stands in front of her friend and adoptive son shrieking at the top of her lungs for no reason. She stops and notices that she's not moving anymore and is on the ground where she belongs. Her pupils, smaller than a period dot at the end of a sentence in a book, look at the mischievous skeleton whose face says it all. "What's wrong, Tori? Were you not expecting me to soar my tricks to new heights?"
She dusts her purple robe off with both of her paws, trying to play it off as if she wasn't scared. "W-well, I will admit that it definitely brought some fresh air into my lungs. I would appreciate it if you did not do that again." Though deep down she did enjoy the thrill of being tricked like that. Her floppy ears gently bop around as she turns around to walk inside her house. "Come inside you two, I cannot wait to see your reaction to what I have made for this Halloween!" she walks inside and disappears from sight, leaving the two follow in after her. Almost immediately do they take note of the countless cute, festive decorations covering nearly every corner of her house; a few pumpkins lie in front of the railing leading to the basement, plastic bats and ghosts hang from the ceiling all over, gently swinging back and forth by the faint air current flowing through the house, and a few Autumnal themed decorations to add to it; Halloween is in the Fall after all.
Sans turns to Frisk. "Heh, she sure likes decorating for the occasion, doesn't she?" He nods "yes" in response to this, finding it quite charming that she took the time to spruce up her place against the fact a few people such as him, Sans, and Papyrus will really see it. There is something that's a little odd about these decorations that sticks out more than a sore thumb; the materials used to make them appear to shimmer and shine in the same fashion as some monster magic. On the surface where he used to live, most decorations were made of cheap, flimsy plastic that would easily break if even a slight amount of mishandling happened to them. Curiosity grabs the better of him and while not the best idea, he walks over to and grabs one of the hanging decorations and with both of his hands, attempts to break it in half. To his surprise, he can't even bend it in the slightest bit and a unique warming sensation fills the tips of his fingers.
His pun-loving skeleton friend comes up behind him. "Kiddo, you may want to cut that out. I don't think Tori would be happy to see you breaking her magic decorations." A lightbulb goes off in the boy's head; no wonder why he can't break it and it feels warm. Monster magic, from all the exposure he's had to it, has a warm, pleasant feeling to it when not being used in the form of an attack, and contrary to what monster history says, monster magic is ultra-tough and highly durable when used to make items and such. "You alright there? You look like you've had a major breakthrough in something."
He looks over his shoulder to look at him. "I did! I thought that mom's decorations were made of plastic like the ones back on the surface, but they're not."
"Yeah. We don't have plastic down here… except when it flows in through the trash zone in Waterfall. It's just easier to use magic to make these things."
He allows the decoration to float free and the smell of something delicious grabs the attention of his nose, pointing him towards the living room as the origin and he follows the scent to its source. On the large wooden table inside, a rather strange looking box sits there with a little steam coming out of the slightly open sides. Reaching with his right hand, he opens the box up and looks inside to see a beautifully made pizza in an odd shape, which confuses him a little. "What's with the weird shape of this pizza? Normally they're round or square."
From the kitchen nearby, she answers that question. "Because Frisk…" she quickly comes running out with a massive goofy grin on her face. "It's a tombstone pizza!" She puts her paws up and does a sort of jazz hands motion. For a moment he doesn't understand and then it hits him and allows a few amused giggles to come out.
"I see what you did there, Mom."
She puts her right paw up to her lips. "I could not resist." She drops them to her sides. "It would be a shame to let it go to waste in my freezer. I thought I would bring this over to Sans and Papyrus' house a little bit later since we were going to have our party there. I guess you two can have this one for now since you are here."
He comes on in. "Tombstone Pizza, eh? Well, that's fine by me. It was Grave of you to make this for us, Tori." She can't help but snort a couple times at his pun, prompting him to continue. "What, are you alright there? Sounds like you're Coffin a little bit. Ah well, Autumn does bring in allergies sometimes, so try not to Die on me here, k'?" She can't contain her laughter and allows it to come out, finding great amusement in his clever yet terrible jokes. Even Frisk can't help but allow his own smile to widen in the wake of his pun delivery. He walks over to the table and using his blue magic, makes a slice fly up and over to him where he drops it into his right hand for him to eat and right as he's about to put it to his mouth, she stops him.
"Oh, Sans, do not eat that just yet. I have something that I want you to try on it." For a moment, a faint giggle comes out of her. "I made it for you specifically. I want you to tell me how it tastes and if it needs anything different put into it." She turns and heads into the kitchen to grab whatever it is that she's talking about, coming back a few moments later with a red object that resembles a ketchup bottle in her paws. "This is a special ketchup I made for the occasion. I hope you like it!"
He goes up to her and grabs it with his left hand. "You didn't have to go to the trouble of making this for me." he winks happily. "Thanks." popping the little rubber cap off, he tips it over his pizza and a dark, deep, red hued, thick liquid oozes out and onto the golden baked cheese waiting below. While he somehow eats it without opening his mouth, she "occupies" herself by grabbing a napkin and wiping up a spot on the table that's clean, hoping he doesn't notice that she's tricking him big time. He munches on it for a couple of seconds before making a motion similar to that of swallowing. "Huh, I don't taste anything different. This is normal-" his pasty white skull suddenly starts growing a shade of red as an intense blooming heat forms in his mouth. "Ketchup?" a few drops of sweat appear on his forehead, and he starts huffing. "Uff… huff… whoa… what is this feeling?" His smile shrinks a bit and a strange saliva like substance starts coming from the gaps in his teeth. "Well, that's got quite a kick…" He huffs deeper with each passing second; the burn continues to explode in intensity, not easing up one bit. Suddenly, without any warning, he drops the bottle and pizza out of his hands, and a bunch of flames erupt from every corner of his head and the calmness he had once before immediately turns into panic, throwing his hands up and screaming. "THAT IS HOT!" He teleports away to get something to drink and cool the burn, leaving her to hysterically laugh at how well the entire trick went. He comes back with a real bottle of ketchup, guzzling it down faster than he ever has before in his life. He manages to empty it in record time and even then, the burning sensation in his mouth continues albeit significantly weakened and infinitely more tolerable. "Whew, that was somethin' else. What kind of ketchup was that?" he says while bending down to pick up the spicy ketchup bottle to see if there's a label on it to which he finds none surprisingly.
She spills the beans. "That ketchup was not spicy, Sans. I put a little bit of my own magic into it and when you ate it, I was able to turn it into fire and burn you from the inside out! Consider this my return trick to your treat from earlier!"
He stands there dumbfounded and a little embarrassed. He didn't expect to fall for such a simple trick though respects the cleverness behind it that was the birth child of many a prank done on her by him. "I can only say that you learned from the best, and besides, it wouldn't be fun if I was the only one getting to trick everyone around here." He looks towards the ground in front of him and notices the pizza had splattered all over some of the oak wood floor. "Oops. There goes a perfectly good slice of pizza, oh well." he uses his blue magic to pick it up off the floor and place it on the table.
She didn't plan for that to happen but isn't upset by it. "Do not worry, there is plenty more from where that came from. I have 4 other pizza pies in the freezer to be made later on when it gets close to the evening." She turns to Frisk and notices that he's making an odd face not usually seen by him. It isn't like him to not laugh at something as funny as that and becomes slightly worried. "Frisk, is something wrong? You didn't laugh at that."
This snaps him out of a deep thought and though his eyes are almost always closed, they open up and his dazzlingly beautiful dark brown irises look right into the eyes of his mother for a few seconds before looking away and closing. "It's nothing…"
She slightly frowns and squints her eyes in an attempt to see through him and figure out what's troubling him, but she comes up empty handed. This, however, is a perfect time for her to reveal something to him that she had been working on for a while, a little something to help him get deeper into the Halloween spirit. "Stay here you two, I have to do something important." She walks out of the living room and into the hallway where the bedrooms are, leaving the two of them to do their own thing.
Sans walks up behind him and puts his left hand on his right shoulder. "Hey, I don't know what it is that you're thinking about but try not to let it ruin the day for you. Today's about having fun, eating sweets, and pranking your friends. C'mon, put a smile on that face of yours." He turns to look over his shoulder at him and this opens his nose up to be gently bopped by his pointer finger, making him flinch momentarily. "Gotcha. That's now 5 for Dunkle Sans."
He always knows how to make him feel a little better, though his efforts this time are not nearly as effective as they usually are and while his smile persists for a few seconds, it melts away and a hint of disappointment takes its place. Thankfully, Toriel returns with a rather interesting piece of clothing on a hanger that appears to be hand-knit by herself and perfect in size for him to wear. Noticing this, his mood instantly perks up and he goes up to her. "Wow, what's that?" He asks as he looks at what she brought out.
"My child, I made this for you to wear at the party later on. I made it over the last few weeks when I did not have any errands to run." The piece of clothing she's made is a cutesy looking hoodie in the theme of a ghost. Most of the fleece fabric is, no pun intended, a ghostly white color but the inside is a cool, deep purple that contrasts well with its outside cousin. The sleeves and bottom are wavy and jagged like how the bottom of a cartoon ghost would be, the hood itself is a little floppy and there's a cute little ribbon on the front holding it all together. "I thought you would enjoy being a ghost, and I even managed to find some white face paint for you to use to complete the look that's in your bedroom on the dresser. I still need you to try the hoodie on as I am not sure if I made it the right size for you. You are growing every day as you know, and I would be quite upset if I did not get the size right." He didn't think that she'd make something like this for him considering he hadn't asked for a costume or anything costume-like this year. Last year, he simply decided to wrap himself up in as much toilet paper as he could find and went as a "Mummy", which didn't really end well as he accidentally tripped over himself and landed in the river in Waterfall; the embarrassment from that is still strong and the memory of this causes his pale toned cheeks to flush up faintly. She must be reading his mind. "Of course, it probably helps that I had a reason to make this so you could avoid being embarrassed like you did with the costume you used last year." she looks away and blushes at the memory of seeing her child without clothes brought back by Sans who had teleported him to her. "Oh dear… we would not want that to happen again."
She giggles silently to herself and watches as he gently takes the ghost hoodie off the hanger and slips his arms into it after undoing the little fastener next to the ribbon keeping it closed around the hanger. The hood on it is quite big and as he puts his right arm in after his left, it flops over onto his head, completely covering his face and making it impossible for anyone to recognize him. This isn't a cheap Halloween store costume that his mom had made for him, nowhere near that, the fleece on the inside is extremely cozy, warm, and soft to the touch. He almost doesn't want to take it off, and with both of his hands, he lifts the hood up and pushes it back so it's not covering his face anymore. "It feels really nice, Mom, although I think you might have made it to be a little bit big…" true to his word, the sleeves are a few inches longer than his arms even when he has them fully stretched out and the bottom reaches his kneecaps. In some ways this is good since he can grow a bit and it'll still fit him perfectly next year, but in other ways the large size makes it cumbersome and creates the potential for it to get snagged and ripped on a sharp object. He tries to walk around with it on and thankfully, while cumbersome, he's not restricted in any shape or form. The hoodie gives him an idea, a little trick of his own, and thinking that he'd not be expecting this, he quickly turns around to face Sans, jumps up, holds his arms up in a scary position and yells "Boo!" as loud as he can. Unfortunately, this doesn't get him the reaction he was thinking he'd get and instead, the hood behind his head simply flips over and covers his face once more from the sudden motion.
He reaches with his right hand and lifts the hood to see his face. "Heh, nice one, kid. You nearly spooked me from head to toe. It looks great on ya, although I have to be honest and say that you aren't really scary..." What he doesn't realize by saying this, is that he just told him that nothing about what he did was scary.
"Sans! He was just trying! That was not nice of you to say!" She puts her paw on her hip, not pleased in the slightest.
"Whaddaya mean, Tori? I'm saying that Frisk isn't scary even when in costume. They're too nice and cute to scare anyone." He doesn't realize that a massive frown and a couple of tears have appeared on his face in response to saying that, and before either of them can console him, he quickly turns away and runs out of the house, throwing the door open and slamming it shut as hard as he can on the way out.
"Frisk! Wait!" She says but she's too slow; he's already gone and didn't hear a single sound her mouth had made. What can be considered her eyebrows fall low, her eyes grab a pair of daggers, and a strong frown, curvier than the pumpkins decorating her house, write itself on her face as she looks directly at him. "Did you not think for a single moment about what you were saying?"
A few drops of sweat form on his forehead, not realizing that what he said was a compliment in one way but a bit of an insult in another. "Uhh… I don't understand what's wrong here. Frisk is cute; you know that's a fact."
She gets close and decides to lightly clock him on the top of his head with the hanger. "He is cute, but today is Halloween! He was trying to trick you by scaring you and you completely dashed his hopes of accomplishing just that!" she sighs, knowing that the deed is done, and they should start looking around the Ruins to find him before it gets too late. "We need to go find him before we have to leave for the party." As she says this, a grandfather clock in the corner of the room starts bonging to signifying the turn of the hour. 4 bongs in a row are heard before it goes silent, announcing the arrival of 4 PM and a small sense of urgency in finding Frisk before 6 PM, which is when the party is supposed to start. The Ruins, however, is quite a large place and he could be anywhere by now.