At least I can be the first person to say they'd taken a piss in a monster's landfill miles below ground...impressive I guess, but not exactly a great conversation starter.

Having taken a moment to relieve myself in the junk pit, figuring nothing could make the stench any more unbearable, I was quickly back wallowing through the winding, claustrophobic Waterfall caves. My only company left were the "weapons" by my side and the food in my pockets, but I didn't feel so alone anymore. The anticipation of encountering Undyne had fizzled to less of an iron grip on my gut and more of a nervous buzzing that urged me ahead, the kind you might get performing for a live audience. Fairly high spirits by my standards. There was only one problem...well, only one out of an ocean of problems swimming in my thoughts, but this inconvenience had taken the forefront of my attention.

"Where the hell am I going?"

There had been only one path that I could find leading away from the quiet of Grey's house, an adit held open by rotting boards of wood that shouldn't have been supporting the walls of a dollhouse, let alone a massive chunk of dense rock. My options were limited, though, so I gave the boards a good kick to ensure they wouldn't cave in on me and hurried through the opening. The cavern inside was dusty and cramped as any other in Waterfall, but this one was filled to the brim glittering blue and pink gemstones, poking out of every surface like patches of light reflecting off the surface of the sea, brightening up the room dramatically. Impressive at first, but passing by the same stones over and over again while squandering around the same room for ten solid minutes searching for a way forward, the effect began to wear on me. None of the gems would so much as budge when I tugged on them, adding to the numbing frustration.

My vain efforts were interrupted by a loud, ragged cackle echoing off of every wall, as if mocking me from all directions. "What's so funny?" I challenged, whipping around to find the voice. To be fair, you did just attempt to tear a sapphire lodged in the cave wall out with your bare hands.

I couldn't place it at first. Everything seemed just as empty and devoid of life as it had before, but the laughter wouldn't stop. Finally, a head popped out from behind one of the many rocks, a single wide yellow eye staring directly at me. "Oh, oh, please," the newcomer started, wiping at his eye as though it were tearing up. Even though he clearly isn't. "Don't let me distract you, by all means, keep pulling!" He continued laughing, quieter now, and shuffled out from behind his hiding spot like a crippled rat.

I furrowed my brow at the stranger, who appeared far too old for his own good. Wrinkled, spotted and pasty green skin, a charming vomit color, stretched like an old, dried string of taffy around his ancient bones, tugging at the corners of his near toothless mouth with every movement, every sound that squirmed out of it. His appearance resembled something like a turtle, the cracked shell on his back being the giveaway, but he moved along at a decent pace despite this and the fact that his legs seemed to withered and skinny to hold him. "See what good it gets you," he mumbled, waving around the magnifying glass in his hand as if it were anything close to intimidating.

"Who asked you, old timer?" I fired back, edging the slightest bit away from the geezer. He didn't seem much of a threat to anything besides himself, but I didn't see much harm in being a little too careful.

His response was another fit of ragged laughter, as if his lungs were caving in from the effort. "First visitor I get in years, figures they..." His ranting continued under his breath, probably not something I would've wanted to hear, anyway.

I watched him saunter over to a spot particularly dense with the crystals, straighten the tan pith helmet wobbling on the top of his head, and bend over with the magnifying class pressed against the only eye he ever seemed to open. After a few seconds of staring and licking at his dried lips, he pretended to forget about my presence altogether.

"You uh...You a miner or something?" I asked, noting the helmet and the tan coat pulled around him.

"Mining!?" He looked up suddenly, an unsettling toothless smile growing on his face. "Oh, there haven't been people mining here for an eternity! When they first discovered these here stones, we figured they must be worth a fortune! Give it a couple years, and...turns out...they're everywhere." He sighed. "Absolutely worthless, these gems. Absolutely worthless...unless yer looking to craft one of those fancy friendship bracelets I see them kids wearing nowadays."

Some of the glimmer appeared to fade from the gems. "Oh." Figures. At least the old coot saved me the trouble of yanking at these gems for the next ten minutes. "So if they're not worth anything, the hell are you doing here?"

"Whatsit look like I'm doing here?!" he spat, not bothering to look up at me. Or wipe the saliva off his magnifying glass. "Name's Gerson. I'm studying the history of these here caves. Ain't so hard when you've lived through most of it yourself," he chuckled to himself, a nostalgic stare glazing over his eyes.

"Guess I have no grounds to argue with that." I smirked at him. "Tell me, what was it like living around dinosaurs like yourself?"

Gerson turned his magnified eye on me, pulsing eerily behind the glass. "Not nearly as exciting as it sounds. Those guys were real jerks, you know," he replied nonchalantly before turning back to his "work."

I scowled at the back of the old timer's bald, dried up, helmet-covered scalp, then moved to pass him and make another rotation around the room. Just ask him where to go. Worst he can do is make you look like an even bigger idiot. Even as the thought crossed my mind, though, my gaze drifted over something I had stupidly missed before, too fixated on finding a way out. I narrowed my eyes and started to make my way towards the oddity, a series of dark markings carved into the far wall. A perfect circle with a set of shapes resembling wings branching out from either side, hanging over a set of three small triangles...

"It's that weird symbol again," I muttered, recognizing it from the doors of the Ruins, hanging on the houses of monsters in Snowdin, even displayed proudly on the front of Tori's robe, now that I thought about it. "Hey old-timer," I raised my voice, not taking my eyes off the symbols. "Mind explaining to me what this thing is? Feels like it's following me everywhere I go."

"Eh?" He squinted his crusty eyes, first at the symbol, then pointed them directly at me in apparent disbelief. "You don't know what that is?!"

"Not just asking for the hell of it..."

He shook his head and tucked his magnifying class back into his shirt pocket, hobbling over to me faster than those stubby legs should've carried him. "The hell are they teaching you kids in school..." Despite his complaining, a hint of a smile seem to creep across his face. What, so lonely that this is exciting for you? "That's the Delta Rune, emblem of our kingdom. The Kingdom of Monsters. Ever heard of it?"

I settled myself on one of the jagged rocks jutting out of the ground, preparing for an unnecessarily tedious explanation. "Suppose I might have somewhere, although I can't seem to recall."

Gerson caught on to the sarcasm in my voice and snickered. "Then your memory must be even worse than mine." Another sigh whistled through his yellow teeth. "The emblem's original meaning has been lost to time. All we know," his voice had turned to little more than a murmur, "is that the triangles symbolizes us monsters below, and the winged circle above symbolizes...something else."

I clicked my tongue. "Riveting."

He shot me a glare that would've made even the most timid person on the planet bend over in laughter. "Hey, which one of us wasit askin' in the first place?!"

I had already gathered a comeback or two, but stopped them on their way out. Shouldn't risk having him hate me more than he already does, otherwise he might not finish his story. Or more importantly, tell me where the hell I'm going. "Sorry." I nodded at the symbol. "So what does the rest mean?" Unless you forgot all that, too.

"Well, if you had let me finish," he continued, cooling down a bit, "I would've told you that most people say that circle represents the 'angel,' from the prophecy."

Angel. Prophecy. More senseless bullshit, then. Suddenly I regret asking...

But we had both settled in for the long haul by then, each snug in our own dull, hard earthy chairs. Gramps, at least, seemed more into his speech than before, stretching out his arms and fingers as if telling a corny campfire story. This isn't a corny campfire story, right?

"Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend and from above and bring us freedom." His tired eyes fell over the symbol, a shadow cast over his scrunched up face that only highlighted the lines of age. "Lately, though, the people have been taking a...bleaker outlook. Callin' that winged circle the 'Angel of Death.' A harbinger of destruction, waitin' to free us from this mortal realm..." He cleared his throat. "When I see that circle...I just think it looks neat!"

I shrugged. Neither version of the tale hardly meant anything to me, just more useless information to sift through in the future. At least that 'harbinger of destruction' one would've made for an interesting story. "Well, y-" I bit my tongue. "...Er, we shouldn't have anything to worry about. All that angel crap is horse shit anyway."

The old coot gave me a big, toothy grin with his half rotted teeth. "Easy for you to say, eh, human?" He must've noticed me pause mid breath, and chuckled to himself. "You didn't think you were that slick, did you now?"

"I-"

"-Oh, relax," he waved me off. "I've got no reason to go babbling to anyone, anyhow. Don't got much time left to enjoy the slaughter of humans," he assured me, hopping up from his seat and returning his magnifying glass to his hand. "While we're on the topic o' horse shit, when was the last time you've had a bath? Just breathing in your foul stench feels like its rotting whatever's left of me."

I thought about it for a moment, then smirked at the old timer. Old bastard's not as bad as I thought. "If you're really curious, I had a little run in with Undyne, and ended up in that junk pit a little ways back." My heart skipped a beat at the memory, but I ignored it. "Been searching for a way out of Waterfall and wound up here. Any idea where I'm going?"

"Depends, you headed to the Capital or Snowdin? I'm assuming the Capital, since yer probably not lookin' to go sightseeing with yer life on the line." He lifted a bony finger towards the opening I'd come in from. "Head out there and take a left, opposite the way you came from the junk pit. Should be a liiiitle opening in the rocks you can squeeze through, and you're all set. Not surprised you missed it in the first place."

I nodded my thanks and hopped up from my perch on the rock. "Maybe I'll see you around, old timer, if ya live that long."

"Reassurin' to know I got nothin' good to live for. And you be careful out there, kid." Gerson lowered his voice to a whisper. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but Undyne came through here not too long ago, askin' bout someone who looked just like you. Shame for someone young as you to meet an end like that."

That means she hasn't given up the chase, or left me for dead. There goes any element of surprise I had... "I'll watch my back. And if she comes by here again, tell her I'm looking forward to our reunion."

"I might think to mention it." I heard him scoff under his breath just as I had disappeared from his sight. "Kids these days. Always lookin' for trouble wherever they can find it..."

Gerson hadn't been lying. A thin crack spread across the rock face exactly where he'd said, barely enough space to sidle through, and hardly very comfortable. I earned a couple new scratches from the experience, but nothing a nibble or two out of my space food bar couldn't patch up. The other side of the crack boasted a near identical hallway to the last thousand or so I'd traversed, barren aside from a series of plaques lining one side. I approached the first one, eyeing it cautiously. More history lessons. Between these and the old man, it feels like I'm back home, trapped at school. I took a deep breath and clenched my hands together before I began reading, not wanting to lose myself like the last time.

Bloodied, beaten, and fearful for the lives that remained, we surrendered to the humans. Seven of their most powerful mages sealed us underground with a curse.

Human mages? What, we just forgot we could conjure fireballs at will and phased it out of history?

Anything could enter through the seal as it pleased, but only beings with a most powerful soul could leave.

"Damn." I found my hand drifting towards the heart floating by my chest, gripping at it as though it were solid. "You damn well better be strong enough," I said, moving to the next plaque. They never do come in singles. A few flecks of what I assumed was pollen from some nearby echo flowers drifted through the air aimlessly, something else to focus on along with the nearby murmurs of moving water, keeping me in reality.

There is only one way to reverse the spell, in theory. If some huge power, equivalent to seven human souls, attacked the barrier, it would be destroyed.

But this cursed place has naught an entrance nor exit. There is no way a human could come here. We will remain trapped down here forever.

But I got here. My mind began working faster than I could process the thoughts. And if Toriel wasn't lying, others have too. How many souls do they have already? Two? Three?

Six?

I shook the very idea away, but it stayed clinging to the edges of my consciousness. Who cares. Nothing's changed, it's still you against the world. The stakes are just a little higher. I sighed. If only things were that simple. A thin paper shield between some bloodthirsty monsters and the entire human race. That's what I am. For the first time, the situation seemed impossibly bigger than just myself.

I swallowed my spit and stalked away from the plaque, concentrating instead on what I would say to Undyne at our next and final confrontation. It's still you against the world. I won't crumple for them.

The cavern grew dim again as I progressed further, to the point where even the next step became something borderline treacherous. I ended up relying on the wavering blue glow of the fungi growing out of whatever tiny crevice they could find. A new type of mushroom with a much longer stalk, almost resembling a tree, helped to light the otherwise pitch black path. I had almost hoped for some monster encounters along the way to practice on before the strong, stoic, stick-up-her-ass Undyne, but none made an appearance. The one time I'd want them to.

Before long, the fungus started disappearing, and the corridor was bathed in shadows. Shadows that might have held secrets if the path weren't so narrow. I stumbled about in the dark with an invisible scowl on my face, making far too much noise for my liking. It was quickly made worse when my foot met with nothing but open air and freezing water, the rest of my body quickly following suit. The cold swept over me like an icy gust of wind as I was nearly submerged in knee-high water, thrashing, sputtering curses and generally making enough noise to alert anything with a pair of ears and an attention span longer than three seconds in all of waterfall. So much for drying off, I thought bitterly once back on solid ground, clothes soaked through to my skin and myself totally disoriented. Or taking a stealthy approach. Not as if that were ever my style...

With the added weight of damp clothing dragging me down and the chilled numbness coursing through my legs like an antidepressant, making any sort of progress became twice as difficult, and the black, empty, silent nothingness enveloping everything did little to encourage them forward. Assuming I was still headed in the right direction at all, if there even existed a 'right' direction anymore. My hand brushed past what felt like a thicket of leaves, something (for better or for worse) unfamiliar, immediately before I smacked clean into a wall.

"D-dammit..." I muttered, feeling my way around but finding nothing resembling a curve or even a handhold to help stabilize myself. Nothing but moist, rugged stone that tore at my skin like sandpaper, and...a soft figure standing beside me. I squinted at it until I could make it out, an echo flower by the look of it. A moment passed where I expected it to replay the many grunts and other frustrations I had made in my struggle, rubbing salt into the wound, but those sounds never came.

Instead, the flower murmured in its eerily slow, monotonous voice, as if predicting the end of the world, "Behind...you..."

A blue spark flashed out of the corner of my eye, slicing through the dark like an arrow through the sky. I jerked backward at the last possible second, watching the projectile lodge itself mere inches from my face with wide, pulsing eyes and a silent mouth shocked into submission. Spear. It illuminated the small area around me, glistening off the water droplets dripping off my skin and the wall, a wall which stretched in seemingly every direction. Trapped.

A moment later and the weapon had disappeared, flooding the room with shadows once again. The light proved unnecessary for us to see each other, though. A single burning yellow eye pierced the dark, surrounded by the outline of a suit of armor blacker than coals. One hand gripped so tightly around a spear shaft I could almost hear the knuckles popping from under its metal shielding. Undyne stood motionless and stoic as a statue, never training her gaze on anything but mine, not faltering for even a fraction of a second, or to blink. I concentrated all of my energy into maintaining that stare, in refusing to show weakness. Where did she come from? I should've heard her damn armor clanking...

"Seven." Undyne's voice did not rumble, echo, or whimper, but stayed even, flat and commanding, a wall in and of itself. Until then I had accepted that she had none, that her eyes and crushing posture alone were enough to communicate her thoughts. "Seven human souls. With the power of seven human souls, our king...King Asgore Dreemurr...will become a god." Her grip on the spear tightened. "With that power, Asgore can finally shatter the barrier. He will finally take the surface back from humanity, and return to them the suffering and pain we have endured." A breath hissed through the visor of her helmet, as if all the pain she spoke of passed through her body in a single breath. "Understand, human?"

I wanted to nod casually, but was unable to move. Of course I understand, you crazy bitch. My lungs tightened and stung, the air that was supposed to keep me alive now choking me half to death, coupled with a viscous pounding between my eyes.

"There's fear in your eyes...pools of it," Undyne mused, placing a courageous step forward. Too bad there's nowhere for me to back up. "This is your one and only chance at redemption, fool. Give up your soul..." She sliced the empty space in front of her as demonstration. I swore I could hear her licking her lips in cruel anticipation. "Or I'll tear it from your body while you still draw breath."

A worthless threat. I already stopped breathing. She didn't advance any farther. I didn't have anywhere to run. She's actually waiting for me to dignify her request with an answer. Each instant we stayed there, Undyne only appeared more and more immovable. Invincible. A mountain in my way with a gun drawn to my head, no room over or around it, no possibilities. Invincible. Compared to my pathetic form, cowering against a wall beneath my soaked clothes. A shudder crept down my spine, from fear and the damp cold. Seemed almost pointless to attempt anything, since standing and fighting would almost surely end in my soul being torn out of my bloodied corpse. My arm twitched at the memory of the pain Undyne had caused before. Might as well just surrender. All the easier for everyone involved...

...But Grey never would've let me off the hook without so much as a fight.

I had spent a good amount of time and energy during my time wandering Waterfall on figuring out what I would say to Undyne in this very scenario, well more than she deserved. A "witty" speech that droned on and on about how I would never surrender to her, how I held no sympathy for her or her people, how I would fight to the last ounce of blood in my body flowed out. At that moment, I realized there was no point. Why waste all that breath on someone so cruel, on something that could just as easily be summed up in two simple words?

"Blow me." The tough glove was already strapped to my hand, my plastic knife in the other, not that it would do so well against Undyne's armor. I stepped as far off the wall as I could without drawing too close to my trapper, giving myself just enough elbow room to dodge around a bit.

The knight scoffed at my request, leaning forward on her long legs with the spearhead held out in front of her. Her eyes seemed to laugh at me as she spoke again. "All the more fun for me."

She charged forward with the force and intimidation of an entire army. I had expected my heart rate to skyrocket off the charts; maybe my lungs would clog again or my blood would freeze solid. Instead, I found myself in a strange place of calm. Any second now, and she'll be on top me. I'll roll behind her and knock her down, then...then the rest will sort itself out.

Something rustled in the nearby thicket, but I hardly payed it any mind. She was close now, I could almost feel her rancid breath on my face. Five feet between us...Three feet...NOW-

"-Undyne!"

The leaves of the brush were thrown backwards as a small figure bounded out and threw itself between the two of us. Undyne and I stopped at the same moment in the interruption, her mid-step and myself hunched over in the start of a roll position, with a dumbfounded expression on my face as if I'd been caught with my pants down around my ankles. The hell is that kid doing here..?

"I-I'll help you fight!" the Monster Kid yelled with as much confidence as he could muster. He glanced at Undyne's spear, just inches from his scalp, without so much as a flinching, then turned his attention to me. "YO! You did it! Undyne is right in front of you!" A mischievous smile spread across his face. Undyne and I stayed nearly motionless, watching each other carefully around the little midget, stale breaths against the silence, both dumbstruck at the sudden turn of events. "You've got a front row seat to her fight!" As he took another look around to access the situation, realization seemed to creep into his eyes. "Wait...who is she fighting?"

I grimaced when Undyne's hand lashed out in front of her, but it wasn't in aggression. Instead, she gripped the flesh of Monster Kid's face and began dragging him backwards down the hall. "H-hey!" Confusion flashed over him. His aimless stare bore into me as he disappeared into the dark along with the rapidly fading clank of Undyne's boots. "You aren't going to tell my parents about this, are you?"

I hadn't moved. I couldn't move. I should've been relieved to have prolonged our battle, but instead, I felt my courage wavering, flimsy as a frail wooden raft caught in a furious whirlpool. Now I would have to endure the whole process again, staying adamant as possible. Fearless, gotta be fearless...

I ran. Ran as fast as my legs could carry me, each step thudding against the hard earth. It's what I'm best at, after all. I spotted another corridor hidden in the dark, and turned down it without question. Don't hear them up this way, they must've turned back, I dared to hope. Not like the situation was brimming with options, anyway. The bunches of echo flowers, the sparks of pollen whisking round and round as if caught in a cyclone, the pounding splashes of water at my feet, I noticed almost none of. Panic swelled in me like a fresh bruise, throbbing and pulsing until I was sure I was going to be sick.

"...If I say my wish, you promise you won't laugh at me?" droned a nearby flower that I hadn't heard in the heat of the moment.

"Of course I won't laugh!" answered another.

"Someday I'd like to climb this mountain we're all buried under, throw my arms up towards the sky, taking in the world around me..."

The closest thing the flora could muster for laughter echoed through the cavern. "H-hey, you said you wouldn't laugh!"

"Sorry, it's just funny. That's my wish too."

Soon, the roof of Waterfall disappeared, after all that time confined within its walls, and a thin reddish glow warmed the air. I held back a gasp at the feeling, as the wetted rock structures began to disappear and I sprinted across a derelict wooden bridge, the last thing between myself and...safety? No such thing anymore, but the removal of a highly trained and deadly knight breathing down my neck couldn't hurt. Plus, I'd like a change of scenery. The bridge had begun to run out. Another bound or two, and...

"Yo! Wait up!"

My spirits dipped at the sound of his shrill voice echoing behind me. I dared to spin my head for look without slowing down, noticing that the kid was separated from Undyne, and crossing the bridge as quickly as his stubby legs could carry him. "Can't talk right now, Small Fry. Beat it!"

"But I need to know-AAH!"

I internally gasped, feet coming to a screeching halt as the kid tripped over his own feet, hurtling off the edge of the bridge at what felt like light speed. "Kid!"

Having no arms to catch himself with, the kid whipped his head around and chomped down on the thin planks of wood as hard as he could. Beads of sweat began rolling down the child's skin as the rest of him dangled over a vertiginous drop, almost certainly doomed to end as a stain on the rocks below.

"Hang on, I've got you!" I called, face muscles clenched almost as tightly as his own. Before I could tank so much as a single step, glint of blue formed in the distance. "Oh, shit!"

The flying spear forced me to squat down as it soared over my head. Undyne herself soon marched into view at the other end of the bridge with a spear in each, seemingly adamant about killing me despite the helpless child hanging mere moments away from an untimely demise. I eyed her furiously while she aimed her weapons at me, feeling the blood begging to pulse viciously behind my gaze shifted down to the Monster Kid swinging over the abyss with his veins popping out of his skull with the effort, up to the stoic knight who hadn't so much as blinked in the kid's direction, then back to the kid. There was no one blocking my escape path, but suddenly, I didn't care. "Some hero you are," I spat, charging for the Monster Kid as if my own life depended on his survival.

Undyne continued whipping spears and ignored my efforts to aid one of the people she insisted she was protecting. I bit my lip to force down a screech of pain as a spear grazed my arm, refusing to let it deter me. Once I had closed the distance, I slid on my knees under the last of her projectiles and threw my hands under what I could grab of the kid. A moment of panicked tugging later and I had hoisted him up, the two of us sprawling out on the bridge in relief, gasping for air as if neither of us would ever draw breath again. Which could very well be possible, I thought, remembering the shadowy knight looming over our exhausted forms. I pushed myself up to confront her as she marched up to us airily, hand pulled tight into a daunting metal fist.

"Y...Y...Yo, dude..." Monster Kid awkwardly rolled to a standing position, putting himself between the two of us for a second time. I could only see the spikes running along the back of his head, his legs and tail shaking like twigs caught in a hurricane, and Undyne's menacing form towering over him.

Dammit kid, move...

"If...If y-you wanna hurt my friend..." he continued, teeth audibly chattering above everything else. Just as the last words crawled from his mouth, he straightened himself, forcing his limbs still. The next time he spoke, his voice was steely as any piece of Undyne's armor. "You're gonna have to go through me, first."

I didn't know how to react to Monster Kid's sudden boldness, or whether to react at all. Undyne clearly didn't either, staring at us incredulously with the rest of her shock hidden under her helmet. I half expected her to throw the child out of the way and proceed with the killing, but she never made the move. Eventually she ran out of patience, slinking back into the cover of darkness, silent as a shadow.

"She...she's gone!" We heaved a collective sigh or relief. "I-I did it!"

"Nice job, kid," I murmured, stretching the limbs I hadn't realized were aching.

He spun around to me with an enormous grin on his face. And not a single tooth out of place. One hell of a jaw on that one... "Hey dude, I wouldn't even be standing here if it weren't for you! Can't believe Undyne was gonna let me just fall...some hero I've been chasing, right?" he mused, a twinge of sadness crossing his lips, but only for a moment. "So lemme just get this outta the way—you're a human, right?"

I shrugged, deciding there was no harm in coming clean. "Took you long enough to figure it out. Although in your defense, most of the adults in this place can't tell a human from an eggplant."

"Well...Undyne did say 'stay away from that human,' so I kinda figured..."

A smile crept across my face. "That works too."

We shared an artless laugh, as if we were splitting the bill at a diner somewhere and not mere paces away from where we had nearly been butchered a few instants ago. It felt surprisingly good, to add another member to the "List of People Who Don't Make Me Want to Kill Myself." Maybe I need to try this more often.

Monster Kid's laugh came to a sharp halt. "I guess...that means we have to be enemies, or something?"

I waved off the suggestion. "Please. I think I'd need a super computer and an entire team of mathematicians to calculate how many enemies I have. Don't need any more."

He chuckled at that. "Then...friends?"

Friends. If you'd asked me maybe three days ago, I would've asserted I'd never need them.

I was damn stupid three days ago.

"I like the sound of that better."

"Okay," he nodded. "I've...uh...I've probably gotta get home now. I bet my parents are worried sick about me!" He began to back off the bridge, nervously eyeing the spot where he'd nearly fallen until he was finally on solid ground. "And, yo, if you see Undyne again...I think you can take her. Her aim really isn't that good with those spears," he half-whispered.

I nodded in response. "I think I might take you up on that," I admitted, turning my attention on the path in front of me. After watching her ignore one of her own people on the brink of death, hearing her promise not just myself, but the entire human race a painful destruction, I couldn't contain my anger towards Undyne any longer. It had festered and rotted beyond recognition. If she were to follow me to the edge of the Underground seeking my demise, I would be forced to confront her sooner or later. And this time, there would be no running away. Undyne's time masquerading as a "hero" would be coming to a glorious end.

"I'm ready."

"Good luck," Monster Kid disappeared with those as his parting words.

I sucked in some air to get the blood flowing again, taking long strides until the sound of running water faded to less than a whimper, and the red glow grew brighter. Soon the ceiling had entirely crumbled, and I was left gawking up at the tops of harsh stone spires that appeared to have had the life crushed out of them centuries before, even darker against the rich color of the air. The change in scenery did not deter me in the slightest, not even when one of these foreboding structures rose high above the road ahead of me, the only way forward to pass through a grotto carved in the center. My eyes traced the side of the underground mountain until I had reached the peak, where a lone knight stood with her back to me, standing in wait, a sculpture against a fiery background. Her voice rang out through the open air, somehow larger than the vast expanse of broken land itself, gouging the silence.

"Human."