Chara groaned when she saw what awaited her and Frisk in the next area. Standing next to a rectangular machine, on the other side of what looked like a grey and white chess board, was none other than Papyrus and his shorter brother Sans.

Noticing the two girls Papyrus faced them, "HEY! IT'S THE HUMAN AND THE MONSTER WHO'S TYPE I FORGET! YOU TWO ARE GOING TO LOVE THIS PUZZLE! IT WAS MADE BY THE GREAT DR. ALPHYS! YOU SEE THESE TILES!? ONCE I THROW THIS SWITCH, THEY WILL BEGIN TO CHANGE COLOR! EACH COLOR HAS A DIFFERENT FUNCTION!" Papyrus began to explain what each tile did. "RED TILES ARE IMPASSABLE! YOU CANNOT WALK ON THEM! YELLOW TILES ARE-"

"Oh for crying out loud, just throw the damn switch already!" Chara interrupted. She had grown tired of all the time-wasting puzzles. The determination burning inside her, demanding that they move forward already, had finally pushed her to speed things along, not caring about anything else, as long as they got to the barrier.

"OH, I SEE, YOU WISH TO SOLVE IT ON YOUR OWN." Papyrus said, somewhat disheartened. "VERY WELL THEN, I SHALL THROW THE SWITCH NOW."

Papyrus walked over to the machine and turned it on. All of the tiles between the girls and the brothers lit up and began to randomly change color, getting faster and faster with each second. After several moments the tiles stopped and Chara smacked her hand against her forehead. The tiles had stopped on only two colors, making a pink path two tiles wide straight across to the other side.

After a brief moment of silence Papyrus quietly left. Sans said nothing as they crossed the tile floor and passed him, following after Papyrus. The area they found themselves in had a guard post and was littered with tall yet broken snowdogs.

Chara ignored the snowdogs and headed towards the save point she spotted just past the guard post. She stopped when she heard Frisk from behind her ask. "Chara are you okay?"

Chara turned to face Frisk who had a worried look on her face. After a brief moment of silence, Chara realized what Frisk was talking about as her eyebrows furrowed.

"No I'm not okay, why the hell do we keep humoring him!? If we would just ignore all of his damn puzzles, we would be more than halfway to the barrier by now!" Chara said angrily.

Frisk flinched from the volume of Chara's voice. She took a moment before answering. "He's just never had the chance to see a human before, and he's worked so hard to make and prepare all of these puzzles. I just wanted to make him happy is all."

"It doesn't matter who's happy and who's not, as long as everybody is freed I couldn't care less about their happiness!" Chara said coldly.

Frisk said nothing as Chara glared at her, while small tears formed at the corners of Frisk's closed eyes.

"Now come on, before we freeze here." Chara turned her back on Frisk and walked over to the nearby save point. Placing her hand on it, she looked over at Frisk expectantly. After a few seconds Frisk wiped her eyes and moved to stand next to Chara before placing her own hand on the save point.

After the girls saved, they made their way forward and found another cross and circle puzzle on large stretch of ice.

"Alright hurry and solve this one." Chara told Frisk. "At least those two aren't here to waste more of our time."

"Okay but we'll need to do it together." Frisk replied. "Otherwise if you just follow me, the circles will turn to triangles and we'll have to start over." Frisk stretched her hand out to Chara.

"Fine just solve it already." Chara said as she grabbed Frisk's hand.

Frisk quickly lead them through the maze-like puzzle pulling Chara along with her. Chara almost slide off the sides of the small cliff the ice was situated on a few times, but Frisk kept a firm grip on her hand, never letting her fall once. After they finally reached the button they continued to slide forward and through a dense group of trees. When they reached the other side they both had snow in their shoulder-length hair from some of the low-hanging branches.

Chara dropped Frisk's hand and brushed the snow out of her hair before continuing onward with Frisk following close behind. They soon reached a clearing that showed an overhead view of the rest of Snowdin forest, far below the plateau they were standing on. Scattered around the plateau were several snowpoffs. Chara ignored them and headed straight towards the snowpoff blocking the path ahead. As the girls approached, the head of a small white dog popped out of the snowpoff, barking twice. Chara looked over at Frisk, who had a large smile on her face, before turning back towards the dog just in time to see it rise out of the snowpoff in large armor while holding a spear.

Chara got ready to start dodging the Greater Dog's attacks as her and Frisk's SOULs floated out of their chests. As the FIGHT began Chara misinterpreted the pattern and her SOUL was nicked by the Greater Dog's speartip. Chara grit her teeth as a cut appeared on her left arm and pain began to radiate from the fresh wound.

"Chara are you okay!?" Frisk cried, her voice thick with concern.

"I'm fine, stop worrying about me!" Chara growled.

"I... was just worried is all." Frisk said sullenly before throwing a snowball for the Greater Dog to fetch.

Chara looked down at her HP bar for the first time and saw to her surprise that the maximum was not longer 99 but was now 80. Grimacing, she decided to deal with it later and ate one of the monster candies.

After they placated the Greater Dog and it hopped out of its armor to lick their faces, it hopped back inside and walked towards Snowdin despite its rear sticking out instead of its head. After it left a wave of exhaustion washed over Chara, bringing her down to one knee.

"Chara, what's wrong, are you alright!?" Frisk said as she moved to Chara's side.

"I'm fine, just tired." Chara replied, noting that this was the first time she felt tired since they woke up in the RUINS.

"It's okay Chara, we're almost to Snowdin. We can rest at the inn there."

Chara wanted to argue that it would just waste more time but thought better of it, as her exhaustion would just slow them down even further.

"Alright fine, we stop by the inn when we get there."

Frisk breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, you shouldn't push yourself like this, it's not good for you."

"As long as everyone is freed, I don't care what happens to me." Chara said as she glared at Frisk.

"But Chara-"

"Enough!" Chara snapped as she stood back up. "Come on, we're wasting time." She began to follow the Greater dog into town. As she reached the start of a long rope bridge, Frisk joined her and they crossed together. When they reached the other end, they found their path once again blocked by Papyrus and Sans. Chara gritted her teeth in frustration.

"HUMAN AND YOUNG MONSTER! THIS IS YOUR FINAL AND MOST DANGEROUS CHALLENGE!" Papyrus declared. "BEHOLD! THE GAUNTLET OF DEADLY TERROR!" Papyrus proceeded to press a button on the remote he was holding and several weapons appeared both above and below the bridge, as well as a small white dog suspended by a rope. "WHEN I SAY THE WORD, IT WILL FULLY ACTIVATE! CANNONS WILL FIRE! SPIKES WILL SWING! BLADES WILL SLICE! EACH PART WILL VIOLENTLY SWING UP AND DOWN! ONLY THE TINIEST CHANCE OF VICTORY WILL REMAIN!"

This could actually be a problem. Chara thought as she tried to find a way through. Glancing over to her right she saw that Frisk didn't look worried at all.

"ARE YOU READY!?" Papyrus asked with excitement. "BECAUSE! I! AM! ABOUT! TO DO IT!"

Chara tensed as she readied herself to start sprinting through, but after several seconds nothing happened.

Sans was the first to speak up. "well? what's the holdup?"

"HOLDUP!? WHAT HOLDUP!?" Papyrus replied. "I'M... I'M ABOUT TO ACTIVATE IT NOW!"

After several more seconds of everyone waiting, still nothing happened.

"that, uh, doesn't look very activated." Sans noted.

"WELL! THIS CHALLENGE! IT SEEMS... MAYBE... TOO EASY TO DEFEAT THE HUMAN AND TO CHALLENGE THE MONSTER WITH. YEAH! WE CAN'T USE THIS ONE! I AM A SKELETON WITH STANDARDS! MY PUZZLES ARE VERY FAIR! AND MY TRAPS ARE EXPERTLY COOKED! BUT THIS METHOD IS TOO DIRECT! NO CLASS AT ALL! AWAY IT GOES!" With that Papyrus pressed the button again and everything slid back into it's respective hidden compartment.

"PHEW!" Papyrus sighed with relief before noticing the girls were still watching him. "WHAT ARE YOU TWO LOOKING AT!? THIS WAS ANOTHER DECISIVE VICTORY FOR PAPYRUS! NYEH! HEH!... HEH?"

Papyrus, with a look of confliction, proceeded towards Snowdin Town. Chara and Frisk walked the final few yards of the bridge together.

"i don't know what my brother's going to do now." Sans said as he closed his eye sockets when the girls stopped in front of him. "but, here, i'll give you some advice about fighting my brother." When Sans opened his eye sockets, the small lights that were his pupils had disappeared and he said in a cold voice dripping with menace. "don't. capiche?"

"Don't worry Sans, we promise not to hurt him." Frisk said with a small smile.

"Yeah, so long as he stays out of the way." Chara added, staring unblinkingly into Sans' pitch black sockets, as she felt hot Determination running down her cold cheeks.

After several tense moments of silence, Sans finally blinked again, his eyes going back to normal. "welp, i'm gonna head to grillby's." He turned to Frisk. "i'm trusting you to keep the demon in line kiddo." Chara blinked and found that Sans had disappeared.

"Arrogant trash bag." Chara sneered, wiping the Determination from her cheeks.

"Chara, you didn't need to threaten him. Please don't do anything reckless." Frisk said worriedly.

Chara said nothing but turned and strode the final few yards into Snowdin Town with Frisk right behind her.

*Chara and Frisk have finally made it to Snowdin Town. This fills you with Determination.*