"Leave it to The Skull-for-Brains Papyrus himself to cook up a plan this crazy."

"The only individuals crazier than The Great Papyrus are those who would willingly agree to his convoluted follies and otherwise wacky antics, human."

"...Ya got me there."

I sauntered naturally down the damp, black corridors of Waterfall, as though I was going for a casual stroll through the park. The faint splashes of coursing rivers bleeding into and clashing with one another had become so familiar, almost nostalgic in a way, they almost provided a feeling close to comfort. I should have been outraged at any request to retrace my steps, to waste more of my time and put myself at further risk, and yet I couldn't help but be relieved. My first glimpses of Hotland, of the daunting fires and air dry enough to make my skin crack like ice under the heel of a heavy boot, coupled with Papyrus's urging had been leagues more than enough to convince me to hide out in the cool caverns a little while longer. Not hiding, I'm...making preparations for the rest of the journey. Don't see how myself or any monster could mistake it for anything else.

"Can't imagine Undyne lasting more than thirty seconds in a room with anyone else without screaming about justice or trying to kill them. Let alone her worst enemy," I warned the skeleton over the phone. "Did I mention this plan is insane? Because it is. Insane."

"If you and Undyne befriend one another," he began his redundant explanation, "then there will be no need for any further violence!" Personally, I would've preferred the stubborn old knight shove one of her spears as far up her own asshole as possible rather than attempt any sort of commune with her. Papyrus, with his typical breed of naïve innocence, seemed obsessed with the idea of us putting aside the bad blood between us and becoming fast friends. Implying that scars running deep as your bones could be sealed with a band-aid and mended overnight. "Otherwise, she will simply hunt you down and try to capture you again!" He clicked his teeth together in pause. "I cannot have my two closest friends fighting, human."

I sighed through the phone's receiver. "Yeah, yeah. I know." He had a point, after all. The idea of it made me sick to my stomach, and coaxing Undyne into dropping her ambitions seemed a more ludicrous possibility than sprouting wings myself and flying out of the Underground, but what was the alternative? Having her pursue me, sniffing me out like some mutt before pouncing for the kill? Or maybe she'd send her lackeys, the members of the royal guard I hadn't the pleasure of acquainting? Neither sounded very appealing, although they still somehow seemed the easier options at the moment. At the very least, I might...persuade her into finding some new obsessions. "You'll be there to make sure she's not at my throat immediately, right?"

"Of course! I've already spoken with Undyne and arranged for the meeting! I even made her sign a legal document clearly stating that she will make no acts of aggression towards the opposing party."

So she knows I'm coming. "Pretty thorough there, huh?" Closer to totally overboard and utterly useless, but if it makes him feel safer...

"The Great Papyrus is always unnecessarily thorough in everything he does!" he cheered triumphantly, as though accepting an award no one thought to offer him. "Are you close, human? I trust you found the directions I gave you helpful?"

"Hard to get lost in a straight line, but I appreciate the effort regardless." I had already made the trek past the staunch, glowing mushroom stalks, through the cramped catacombs teeming with plant life, beside the small mine that Gerson no doubt still had his shriveled nose buried in, and had arrived just within sniffing range of the rancid junk pit. Thank god for that, the stench brought such beloved memories of that ill righteous cyclops slithering back. Waterfall's monstrous inhabitants had paid me little mind on the return trip, perhaps reluctant to engage me after witnessing their strongest link limping home in shamed defeat. The lack of attention didn't bother me. Papyrus's near obnoxious levels of energy made more than enough up for that. Dude could generate enough energy to power an entire city block.

"That's Grey's house..." I muttered, recognizing the crooked old home instantly. It still wobbled and tottered like a drunk old woman on roller blades, but Napstablook had seemingly begun to make repairs and spruce up the place a bit. The window pane had been replaced with a glossy new one, and the patchy blue paint had been scraped off and repainted at the very base of the home. A blank white banner was rolled up alongside a dusty set of speakers, a hint of rainbow colored text leaping off the canvas from underneath the edges, the rest tucked away in the folds.

"Grey who?" Papyrus asked.

"That ghost who runs the snail farm. You know, floats around, sighs a lot, terrible taste in music? Pretty sure Napstablook is his real name."

"Ah, yes, I remember that civilian! He once struggled over to me whilst on guard duty and tried to start a friendly conversation, but I could barely get his name before he flew away with hardly a goodbye. Perhaps he was just in a hurry. Like most citizens I attempt to converse with..."

"That's the one," I interrupted his prattling, for both our sake.

"You're very close now, human. Undyne's house should be just around the corner."

Undyne's not-so humble abode resided just a few paces away from Napstablook's, a thin blanket of rock separating the two. The building sulked in its crushingly dark corner as though waiting for the ceiling to inevitably cave in on itself, hardly a fitting attitude for the warrior living inside. Its design, on the other hand, couldn't have represented her big-headed nature better if she'd had it meticulously sculpted in the form of her face. It was curved in an almost eggshell shape, pale on one side and shaded on the other, short but large enough to force itself on as much of the small space as possible, leaving no breathing room in the chamber. I noticed how the sagging shingles were rounded and laced together like a set of fish scales, one over the other, coupled with large matching elastic fins trailing along the back and the sides, as though they house itself were planning on taking a dip in Waterfall's trash-ridden waters. Two windows were placed on the front, curved into the shape of those twin glaring eyes, sharp as a pair of daggers that pierced the mind's defenses and hunted relentlessly for weaknesses. The real cherry on the cake was the mane of crimson hair flowing in messy tufts behind the building, pulled into a tight ponytail identical to its owner's. Regardless of how much over-designing and decorations Undyne threw over it, she couldn't hide just how unsalvageable the place really was. She might as well have been repainting the shell of an old, broken down Corvette.

Papyrus stood to the side of Undyne's personal travesty, awkwardly tugging at his gloves until his eye sockets met mine. He shut his phone and eagerly waved me over. I hadn't realized how long it'd been since I last saw his big toothy grin or that ridiculous orange cape-scarf that seemed to catch the wind no matter where or if it existed. In fact, I hadn't realized I missed them at all. He had a small but blatant look of relief to his expression, and more than a few nervous beads of sweat dotting his face. "Human!" he blurted, even more jittery than I remembered.

"Sup," I said coolly, ignoring the flood of relief that followed his greeting. That relief didn't last for more than a few seconds. Without slightest hint of hesitation, he bounded over in a blur and threw his bony arms around my waist.

"Muh!-" I choked out, cut off as my face was pressed against the ice-cold surface of his chest plate. I immediately started struggling against the startlingly strong embrace, but Papyrus held fast, oblivious to my resistance. What else is new.

"Never scare The Great Papyrus like that ever again, human," he said evenly, evidently having rehearsed the words beforehand. "When you refused my attempts to reach you, I feared...I feared the worst."

"...That's great and all, but it doesn't mean shit if you suffocate me right here!" I sputtered, making another effort to shove the skeleton off.

"Oh, of course." Papyrus finally loosened his grip enough for me to slither out. "My apologies, human."

"Almost makes me think you missed me or something," I gasped, brushing the dust from the arms of my jacket. Now with some spare oxygen free to circulate to my brain, I thought about what Paps had said. Since his biggest of many blunders, or at least that's how it felt at the time, I hadn't thought much about why I had shunned him in the first place, and the rage steadily boiled down the less attention I payed it. He had stupidly given Undyne an easy way to identify me and inadvertently painted a target on my back, or something of the like. I remembered vividly that intense feeling of betrayal which plagued my thoughts, another infection of the brain to rival the plentiful others. It seemed so asinine in retrospect to think a detail as trivial as my current wardrobe made tracking me down any easier in a place so empty and devoid of life to begin with. An extra target on your back didn't mean much with a scope already patiently trained on your skull, and no crowd to lose it in. "Sorry I didn't contact you sooner," I said at last, concealing my embarrassment. "Wasn't fair of me to storm off and leave you in the dark like that."

"It was an understandable decision," Papyrus assured me. His voice had faltered a bit, as if a stubborn feeling of guilt or disappointment for himself still gnawed at his consciousness. "I was so overjoyed when you finally called, my arm shot out and knocked the pot of spaghetti I was boiling across the room just reaching for my phone." He winced. "You'd be astounded by just how difficult it was to speak clearly with scalding hot burns across your forearms."

"Sounds rough," I chuckled. "Good to know I wasn't the only one going through tough times during our time apart."

Papyrus let out a cackle that my joke hardly deserved. He wouldn't hear me say it, but having something close to a casual conversation again lifted a burden off my shoulders. Only about thirty more to go. "So human, what do you think of Undyne's living quarters?" Papyrus asked.

I blinked at him, eyes glazing over Undyne's House of Horrors again. "It's very...subtle." If you spelled "subtle" o-b-v-i-o-u-s. "Looks like something that would explode out of that pink slop you call a brain," I teased.

"Fitting, as it was my pink slop which meticulously crafted the magnificent design!"

"Why am I not surprised?" I looked over the shack again, half-expecting it to lurch forward and tear my head from my neck. Real ugly place to live. Never did take Papyrus for much of an architecture guy. "And she's in there already?"

Papyrus nodded vigorously. "Indeed!"

"Wonderful," I sighed. The jaws of Undyne's home barred their jagged edges at me, challenging me to struggle between them while they snapped and pulled at my flesh. Weird design for a door, but then again the rest of the place already looks like an abandoned theater set. "Lets get this over with..."

"Human, I would greatly appreciate it if you took a bit of a different attitude in with you," Papyrus chastised, a hopeful expression on his face. "Perhaps one with a little more positivity?"

Now he's starting to sound like Tori. I grinned wickedly at him. "Gee, I love making new friends! Almost as much as I love getting thrown off cliffs and stabbed between the ribcage!"

"...No, seriously though."

"Fine, sheesh." You know things are about to get heavy when even Papyrus is level headed. I slid out of the way and gestured to the door. "After you."

Papyrus brought his gloved hand up to knock, hesitating mid swing. "Oh, I almost forgot!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old dog bone, chunks of it missing and the marrow rotted yellow as an ear of corn, and handed it to me eagerly. Bright red gift wrapping straddled its midsection. "Be sure to give this to her as a gift. Undyne loves these!"

"...She does?" I muttered, making the wise choice to hold it by the wrapping. I'm sure there's some kind of vulgar joke to make here involving Undyne and boners, but I'm just not seeing it. Reluctantly, I tucked it into my jacket pocket. "Thanks for the help?"

He nodded fiercely, facing the door and halting for the second time. There were already flurries of rushed movements on the other side of the door, shadows shifting just out of view, some clattering of stuff and junk being tossed around and noisily rearranged, accompanied by one muffled but clearly audible, "Fuck!" When the skeleton finally mustered the courage to knock, all of the commotion stopped at once, as if Paps had shouted "Police, Open Up!" and shoved a search warrant up against the glass. "Just a second!" the voice came again, sickly sweet like an old bottle of maple syrup, barely recognizable as the Captain of the Royal Guard's. But it's her, alright.

The top and bottom jaws pulled apart with an odd metallic twang, and the stench of rotten fish permeated the air. Undyne stood in the doorway, grinning gill-to-gill as if the world were about to end, a near mirror image of the house itself. "Papyrus, human...welcome to my home!" she sang, her voice dripping with venom she wasn't talented enough to conceal, or she hadn't bothered to try. She had traded her set of armor for a tank top black as her soul and a pair of icy blue jeans, no doubt matching the color of her heart. Her attire fit tightly around her muscular body, although she seemed a lot thinner than I had imagined underneath the bulk of her armor. I was startled to find she stood at nearly the exact same height as myself, and her one good eye bore directly into mine with poorly masked loathing. It only took a moment for heart to begin leaping up into my throat, tugging me away from the scene. Well she seems...anxious to see me again.

I glanced sideways at Papyrus, who stared back, eagerly anticipating how I would return the greeting. Spitting in her eye didn't sound like such a bad choice, had the circumstances been any different. "Um...glad to be here," I muttered, ignoring our mutual wish to sling our arms around each other's necks. "Thanks for inviting me?" Through my nervous stutter, it came out more like a question.

"No...problem!" she managed to grunt, pausing between each word as though they lit her tongue aflame. Her lips never parted from their writhing, twitching smile, each word hissing through the spaces between her teeth while she ground them together. "Why don't. You two. Come in?"

"We would be honored to," Papyrus beamed. Undyne stepped aside to let us through, casually trailing a leg behind in a pathetic attempt to trip me up. Despite my better judgement, otherwise known as the little voice in my head that was the only thing in existence still making sense, I carefully stepped over her leg and entered without the slightest rebuttal. Papyrus wasn't so lucky. He got caught on Undyne and stumbled into me, crashing face-first onto the floor.

"Papyrus!" Undyne began, "are you-"

"No need to worry," he declared, leaping to his feet. "The Great Papyrus is unharmed...mostly."

"Sorry about that." Her robotic smile crept back onto her face. "It was..."

Meant for someone else, I finished for her.

The interior was hardly anything classy, and even less so fitting of the bold outer shell. The foyer was small, lined with light blue wall paper dotted with little pink fish that clashed against the scuffed and faded checkerboard tiles. Anything useful was pushed against the far wall: A few counters, a stove, a fridge, nothing to write home about. The only stand-out piece of furniture was the grand piano sitting against the corner, slick and black as oil and free of any dust or grime, an oddity among Undyne's possessions. It was obvious she had been hastily throwing things around in an attempt to make the room presentable. The rest was cluttered with junk, ranging from a giant foam sword flopping against the floor, to an identical...much sharper-looking sword beside it.

"Um...Undyne?" Papyrus spoke up, "Could you perchance remove that rather frightening weapon from the premises? I believe it may be making your other guest...nervous."

No kidding, I'm sweating bullets over here. "I second that."

"Oh, of course." Undyne grabbed the weapon by the hilt and started dragging its edge against the flooring with a screech bitter and loud enough to silence the streets of an entire city. She brought it out into another room where the awful sound grew muffled.

Papyrus took her brief absence as an opportunity to nudge my shoulder. "Don't forget the gift I gave you, human," he whispered, winking without a hint of subtlety.

"How could I? Thing stinks even worse than the damn house." It came as no shock that Undyne's pad reeked of week-old sushi, but that didn't make bearing the salty, soured stench any easier. "Clearly Fish Lips's never heard of spring cleaning. Or a mop. Or soap. Or-"

"-Perhaps you should save your constructive criticism for a later encounter!" Papyrus urged. "The Great Papyrus won't be here much longer to aide you, so you must mind your tongue!"

"What? Why won't you—"

Undyne stomped back into the room and slammed the door shut behind her, interrupting our innocent conspiring. She sucked in a lungful of her vile air and croaked out a, "Can I...get you two anything?"

I bit back a sigh and held the "gift" out to her, practically choking on its stench. "Actually, I picked something nice up for you, Fish Li...I mean, Undyne."

It was hard to tell through my watery eyes, but I was confident Undyne's look of disgust had grown more severe. "Oh, how...wonderful! I'll just...put it with the others." She made a show of slowly creeping open the nearest cupboard, as though any more force would yank the door right off the hinges. It gave me a good look of the mountain of bones rotting beneath it, all wrapped in the same indistinguishable red bow. She tossed in the newest addition to decay with the others and violently slammed the cabinet shut.

"Glad you like it," I gulped, sneaking a glare at Papyrus, who continued to smile his usual, unknowing smile. "You've got a pretty nice place here," I ventured. "I like your...piano..."

"So do I," was all she said in response, gutting the conversation with a knife.

The next thirty seconds passed with a silence that only dragged out the time longer, smearing it across the floor and the walls and blending it with that awful, acrid stink of fish and bones. I had half a mind to smear the back of my own head against the wall too, internally pleading for something to explode, or for one of us to drop dead, or even just a single breath of fresh air. Undyne's snake-eyed glare, the desire to escape, my muddied senses, all of it melded together to form a sword at my gut that dug deeper and deeper in, until nausea took over my system and the process began again. How could this get any worse? I wondered stupidly, doubts clouding my thoughts. Why did I think listening to Papyrus was a good idea? Why-

"-Whoopsy Doopsy!" Papyrus had cried out suddenly. Undyne and I fixed our attention away from each other for a brief moment to stare at the skeleton. "I just remembered I left the stove on this entire time! My spaghetti will burn!"

"Wait-" I reached out to grab him, but he was already far away from my grasp and sprinting in the opposite direction. Panic, and even more so confusion flared up in me at the thought of being left alone with the defender of justice/psychotic murderer. "Dammit Papyrus, this wasn't part of the god damn pl-"

An ear-rupturing shatter drowned out my cries as Papyrus threw himself at Undyne's only ground level window. He smashed right through the glass and tumbled out to the other side, graceful as a one-legged dancer. He left nothing but a trail of broken shards in his wake. I stared at the scene dumbfounded, each part of my body refusing to function. Apparently, The Great Papyrus thinks he's above using doors.

"Tch. Usually he sticks the landing..."

I spun around, reminded of the knight's presence. She had dropped the fake grin in exchange for a more typical scowl, her arms crossed over her chest in boredom.

"I take it this happens a lot?" I asked, no longer surprised after the initial shock had fizzled out. Undyne ignored me, taking long strides over to her fridge, fishing out what looked to be a soda can, cracked it open effortlessly and plopped herself down beside the hard wood table. While she casually (and loudly) sipped at her drink, I studied her carefully, wondering if she was waiting for me to say something, or pretending I had vanished along with the skeleton and was waiting for me to get up and leave. Stubbornness festered among the already confused mixture of emotions. I wouldn't let the knight have the satisfaction of watching me walk out the door. Instead I strolled over to the chair across from her, sat myself down and threw my feet up on the table.

Finally, she sighed, turning her razor sharp glare towards me. "What? Still here to rub your victory in my face?" She went to take another swig, but came up disappointed. She had somehow already downed the entire can, crushing it between her fingers. "And get your filthy fuckin' feet off my table."

I made no effort to move. The gaping window allowed some slightly fresher air into the room, and my confidence rose with it. "First of all, my feet aren't fucking anyone. Not really interested in an intimate relationship right now," I snickered. "Second of all, I didn't make the damn hike all the way back to this rotted shit-hole just to gloat. I came here to...make amends for our past disagreements." It nearly tore a hole in my chest to spit out.

"Spare me your lies. You've clearly already spared me your damn formalities," she hissed, staring at my shoes intensely enough to melt them. "You humiliated me, you denied the Underground its justice, its hopes and its dreams...and you interrupted what should have been my one-on-one training time with Papyrus. I. Don't. Want you here, you pathetic excuse for a living creature."

I sighed, tucking my legs underneath the table. "Look, I'm just as excited about the whole idea as you, but I'm even less excited at the sentiment of us tearing at each others' throats again." Or at least you at mine. "Besides, if I leave here just as bitter as before, Papyrus won't ever let us hear the end of it. So let's just sit down like a couple of civilized adults," which neither of us come close to qualifying as, "and...learn to play nice, I guess."

Undyne dropped her gaze the floor, at last choosing to think the matter over, using more brain power I thought she had. Our mutual desire to keep Papyrus happy, or at least blissfully ignorant, seemed to be the only thing we shared, but it would have to be enough on its own to convince her. Unless...

"You know what, it's fine. Can't blame a guy for trying," I sighed, sluggishly going through the motions of getting up and clearing out, watching for some kind of reaction. "I guess you're just not up to the challenge."

Her fist trembled and ruptured the wood as she brought it down against the table, even before the last ship had sailed from my mouth. I had known she couldn't resist the bait hanging from the lure. Undyne may not have been a moron, but she proved predicatively obstinate and artless as a boulder. And believe me, I should know how stubborn those things can be. "I've never backed down from a challenge!" she barked, fire lashing from her tongue. A wicked grin eased onto her face, somehow less chilling than her fake one. "Alright bestie, lets see if you're as big a coward as I think you are."

Welp, now that I've got her where I want her, might as well have some fun. "Guess you're stuck with me then, ya big hypocrite," I shot back, cheerful as a kid in an aquarium.

She blinked, her face falling. "Bastard," she muttered, so low it was near incoherent.

"As if I needed a reminder, Cyclops," I added.

"Scum-smear."

"Cock shriveler."

"Elephant shit!"

"Cactus fucker!"

"Cactus what?!"

"You heard me." I shrugged. "Can you really blame me for the comparison? Takes a...special kind of bond to produce someone so prickly."

She just about smashed another hole in the table. "Why you little-"

"-Hey," I threw up my hands in mock defense, "I'm not insinuating anything, just suggesting that someone around here clearly got a little too eager to try new things and ended up all touchy-feely with a very special cactus. I mean, whatever you're into sister, I don't judge. Much."

I half expected her to tear my throat out right then and there from the stabbing look she gave me, but she never lunged for it. Wait, what did I come here to do again? Make Undyne less inclined to kill me? Whoops. Rather than skewering me on the spot, she painstakingly rose from her seat and stomped to the counter top. "Care for something to drink, bestie?"

"So long as it's not poisoned."

"No promises!" she chirped, retrieving a stack a colored boxes from a nearby drawer. She set them down beside the stove and grabbed a kennel, filling it to the brim with water. Tea, huh? Not what I would've ordered, but at least it'd be hard to slip something in without me noticing.

While she prepared our drinks, my gaze drifted over to the piano in the corner for more than the second time. "You actually know how to play that thing?"

"Nah, I just keep the damn thing lying around so people don't realize I'm a talent-less, hobbie-less loser. Of course I can play it!" She never so much as glanced up from the kennel as she spoke.

"Think you could lay something down for me once you're finished with that tea?"

"In your dreams, runt. But if it's music you want, I could always tear out your ribcage and play it for a xylophone!"

I clicked my tongue. "Think I'll have to pass on that offer."

The tea was served steaming at temperatures rivaling the surface of the sun, yet Undyne had downed half her cup in the same time it took me to pry open a bottle of honey. Tea was already beyond unbearable by its own merits; having it searingly hot enough to melt off the tip of my tongue was just the icing on the cake. Even after destroying the water and herbs in a syrupy torrent of honey, I struggled to make a dent in the glass, forcing the tiniest of sips down my throat as though Undyne really had found the time to poison the drink. All the while my hostess eyed me with obvious contempt, scowl clear on her face but her eyes shining with amusement, watching the bumbling of a crash-landed alien.

"How bout' you save me the trouble and ask for a damn bowl of honey next time." Undyne sneered, still jumping back and forth from her "pleasant" persona and the stubborn drill sergeant we all knew and love.

"Wouldn't have to use so much if you hadn't made the tea bitter as your attitude. And go easy on the heat! Stuff's hot enough for blacksmiths to forge with."

Undyne flashed me an incredulous look. "It's tea, best buddy. It's supposed to be ragingly hot. Helps calm the nerves and relax the muscles after a rigorous training sesh." She poured near half of her own cup down her throat to demonstrate. "What, do they not have tea where you come from?"

"'Course we do, I just prefer my drinks to be...you know, drinkable?"

"Wimp."

Well, isn't this charming. By mid afternoon we'll be frolicking through Snowdin, holding hands and singing out of tune Christmas carols.

"Is this how monsters always makes friends?" I asked, giving up and setting the cup down. "Toss insults at each other until everything's magically all peachy?"

"Pretty much," she shrugged. I must have been losing my sanity, because it sounded as if she had uttered a direct response for once. "That's how I managed it, anyway. Not so different from your kind, right?"

"Hell if I know. I've always been terrible at that kind of stuff." I couldn't begin to name a solitary soul back home close enough to be considered a "friend." Made me start thinking about the skeleton brothers and Monster Kid, and to some extent Tori and the more auspicious of Snowdin's residents. The sheer amount of people who had somehow ended up on my good side, against all odds. "Guess I've gotten pretty lucky down here in that regard."

Undyne slurped up the last of her beverage and sighed. "Luck's been in pretty short supply around here lately. Not that I've ever needed it," she added quickly, defending dignity which wasn't in question. "Unlike some people..."

My temper flared. "Hey, this whole experience hasn't exactly been a lovely tour of the Underground! Every other person I've met has tried to butcher, skewer, occasionally wash, or otherwise maim me."

"So what brought you down here in the first place, bestie?" she challenged. "Curiosity? Greed? Blood lust? Or are you just that stupid?"

I made an attempt to fire back at her, but choked on the words. My thoughts had all of a sudden turned sluggish, as though they were slogging through water up to their knees. "You know, my um...I've been a little foggy about how exactly I got here." More like a jumbled mess. Avoiding the question entirely would only give her cause to think even less of me, so I chose to throw her a bone. "I may or may not have been trying to off myself, I honestly can't remember."

That little nugget of information clumped in the space between us for an uncomfortably long time. That is, until it was dispersed by Undyne's abrupt snort of laughter. "Ha! That's rich coming from you, chump!"

I stared at her blankly, stunned by her unsuspected outburst, feeling my face grow heated. "Didn't take you as someone who'd find potential suicide funny," I told her coldly, unsure of what I should have been expecting.

"No, it's not that," she insisted, though the laughter hadn't quieted. Eventually she regained her composure enough to speak. "You fight pretty hard for someone with a death wish. I don't buy that crap for a second."

Wow, that could almost be phrased as a compliment. A new ray of confidence shone on me, and I managed a genuine smile. "That's fair. I still don't believe you can play a single piano chord."

"I ain't playing for you, kid."

I shrugged. "Was worth a shot."

Undyne tipped her chair back and balanced on the back two pegs while I mustered up the courage to down the rest of my tea. After getting past the burns, the bittersweet taste of it left a tingling sensation on my taste buds. "Not gonna lie, this actually isn't half bad. As far as tea goes, anyway," I admitted. "What flavor is this?"

"I knew you'd like it," Undyne said smugly. "Nothing but the best for my absolutely precious friend!" Against every law of nature I could think of, Undyne and I had converged on some sort of a conversation, and even shared a chuckle. While it was a nice break from the vapid events to proceed it, it wasn't meant to last. I quickly reminded myself of the horrors the knight had forced me through, of her indifference towards whether or not Monster Kid lived or died, and sealed my lips shut. Undyne seemed to come to a similar revelation, silencing herself moments after. "Oh. Um, that's golden flower tea. It's, uh...it's Asgore's favorite kind."

I frowned at the names. "The head honcho himself, huh?" All of a sudden, I don't feel like asking for seconds.

"The one and only," she sighed, a sad smile tracing her lips. It disappeared almost immediately, covered by a familiar look of hostility. "If you've got something to share, bestie, at least be a man about it."

"Well, I don't, so quit hounding me about it." I hesitated, knowing I should just bite my tongue and hold my breath, but feeling unable to keep quiet. "I just...don't see what's respectable or honorable about some douchey monarch authorizing and supporting the murder of children," I spat the end of it, unable to bit my tongue any longer.

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect as a response, but whatever it was, I hadn't guessed right. A look of raw, unbridled fury washed over Undyne's face like a tidal wave. Her single eye stared black as a pair of coals against a burning, luminescent sun, her hair a wild, fiery red tornado. She leaned forward and grabbed the edges of the table hard enough to crush them, brought herself mere inches from my face...and just as her mouth opened to berate me with flames, her face fell and dimmed and she dropped back in her chair, scowling. "It's more complicated than that," she said, rubbing her bare shoulder with an uncharacteristic sheepishness.

"Really? 'Cause 'don't kill children' seems like a pretty simple moral decision to me."

"How about 'don't sit back and watch your loyal subjects suffer?' That idea too complex for you to handle?" Her voice rang hard and sharp as the crashing of a gong, seeming to vibrate through the air long afterwards. "You know we don't just do what we do for fun."

"Oh, you're trying to say you don't get a kick out of it?" My mind was racing like a shuttle with no breaks, and I vaguely noticed myself leaping out of my own chair. "Is that why you dropped me off a bridge, letting me writhe in my mess of a body instead of ending it quickly? Is that why you ignored a fellow monster hanging by a thread for his life?" I saw that fire sting her eye a second time, more subdued than before but gaining fuel fast. "What kind of guard are you, anyway, if not their damned lives? Should be called the Royal Executioners."

"Shut your damn mouth before I tear your tongue out and feed it to a moldsmal!" She rose up for a second time to meet me. "You've got no idea what you're babbling about!"

"No idea? Lady, I've seen it first hand!" The last thought on my mind was how she might attack me for my outburst. I was engulfed in the heat of the moment. "All you do is bitch and moan about protecting the hopes and dreams of others and preserving justice, when you don't even understand the meaning of the words! You and you're psychotic king-"

"-SHUT UP!"

In a fraction of a second, a fresh blue spear crashed through the center of the table, collapsing it instantly. I brought my arms up and watched the splintering wood soar through the air and scatter across the floor, bounce against my sleeves, eventually settling like dust after a storm. The initial pang of shock threw off my system; I couldn't believe I had pushed her over the edge so easily. I waited for some sort of follow up attack, staring at the knight from the other side of the carnage, breathing heavily, but she made no such move. Instead she spun on her heels and stalked off towards the window, literally shaking in her rage, gawking off into nothingness with her back to me.

"...I shouldn't have forced you to suffer," she shuddered after what felt like hours. I started to lower my guard, no less stunned than before. "And I should have helped that kid when I had the chance." The spear vanished as she chose to face me again, meeting my gaze directly. "Both were inexcusable acts of cowardice that betrayed what myself and the rest of the Royal Guard stands for. By these mistakes, and the mistake of letting you live, I have failed in my duties as a knight. I'm sorry." She uttered the last part so faintly that the world had to be still just to hear it. As quick as the revelation came, her temerity resurfaced in the blink of an eye. "There, is that what you wanted to hear, bestie?"

My mind went blank trying to comprehend her apology, perturbed by its genuine nature. I couldn't figure how to react. "...Uh...yes, actually, that's exactly what I wanted to hear now that I think about it," I said, feigning confidence. While Undyne's guilt appeared authentic, it wasn't enough to convince me to forgive her, if I even wanted to, or if she deserved it. Those wounds are still too red and raw. "Apology accepted."

"Oh gee, now my heart is finally at peace," Undyne sneered, but with less ferocity than before. "Thank you, my dearest friend."

"You're welcome."

"I was being facetious."

"Right," I nodded, brushing off the debris peppering my seat and taking it at the shattered table.

"...This is the part where you apologize too, kid."

"Really? Shoot, I must have forgotten! Oh well."

"You still don't get it, do you?" she sighed, shaking her head. For the millionth time I wanted to walk right out her misshapen door and spit on the carpet for good fortune. We're not getting anywhere with this crap. The two of us were water and oil, Summer and Winter, incompatible aside from our shared stubbornness. Might as well be driving in reverse off a cliff.

My thoughts were brushed off easy as dust from the sound of three simple piano chords, flowing light and solemn as a patter of raindrops. Undyne had her fingers resting on the keys, fixated on them. "Do you know why I joined the Royal Guard?" she asked.

"...No, but I'd bet it didn't have a whole lot to do with playing piano."

She opened and closed her mouth in a failed rebuttal. "Okay, not really-just shut up and listen to the story, okay?!" she snapped.

"Fine."

Undyne cleared her throat and took her place leaning beside the graceful instrument, watching me intently but trailing one hand on the keyboard. "Y'know, I was a pretty hotheaded kid. 'Grew up in the inner city, packed in with just about everyone else I knew. Plenty of people to piss off and get in fights with. Parents signed me up for piano lessons to try and keep me out of trouble, maybe they were hoping I'd mellow out." Her fingers began to dance along the keys, recalling a simple melody without eyes showing them what to do. She must have noticed my gawking, because she smirked at me. "It didn't work of course, but I learned a few tricks. Damn lessons actually helped out with my precision and timing, for what they were worth.

"Long story short, I had built up a reputation as the tough girl in town. Every chump on the streets would start shaking in their boots when I rolled up, and I was barely older than a guppy!" Her voice lowered, and the notes came a bit slower than before. "Once, to prove I was the strongest monster alive, I tried to fight Asgore. Emphasis on tried," she scoffed, ending the tune abruptly with a loud, harsh pang. She made an over exaggerated motion of collapsing onto the piano bench, feet kicked up in the air as if she were jumping from a swing. "I couldn't land a single blow on him!" She clenched the edges of the seat hard enough for the wood to crackle beneath her.

"Seems like you're taking it well." I relaxed in my chair, pretending not to care about her story. "Is there a point to any of this?"

"I never open my big mouth unless I've got a point to make," she said flatly, eyeballing me until I looked focused enough to listen. "It doesn't weigh on me now, but back then, I was crushed. The worst of it was, that whole time I was swinging at him, he refused to fight back! It was beyond humiliating..."

It doesn't weigh on you, and yet you're hunched over half-way to the floor staring at your shoes. Keep up the sob story, and you might get lucky and strike a cord with me.

"Afterwards, he apologized and said something goofy..." She continued in an impression that sounded somehow larger than life, yet meek and understanding all at the same time. "'Excuse me, do you want to know how to beat me?' I said yes, and from then on, he trained me." That very slight smile reappeared, thin as a paper cut. "One day, during practice, I finally knocked him down. I felt...stunned, as if I had toppled a living giant. But he was beaming!" By then, she was back to grinning like a lunatic. "I had never seen someone more proud to get their ass handed to them."

That, admittedly, made me chuckle a bit. Undyne seemed glad to see me showing the slightest bit of enthusiasm in her story, pumping her fist in the air triumphantly. "Anyway, long story short, he kept training me. And now, I'm the head of the Royal Guard!"

I nodded, urging her to continue, but her expression and the extended pause told me she had nothing more to add. "Alright, so...cute story and all, but where's that point you were subtlety advertising?"

Undyne returned the question the same way she responded to half the crap that leaves my mouth: an empty stare that filled steadily with irritation for each millisecond that passed. "Are you serious?"

"Would I be willingly asking you to talk my ears off even more if I wasn't?"

"Good point. How the hell do I explain this?" She jumped to her feet, pacing around the room and tugging at her pony tail as if the motion could jump-start and mitigate her thought process. I silently wished for another cup of tea to kill the time with, not willing to disrupt her and pop her little thinking bubble. "Gah, usually I just yell at people until they accept what I say as fact and be done with it! Course I'm not used to dealing with stubborn jackasses like you..."

"So that attitude's just for show, then?" Dammit, couldn't resist.

Undyne pretended not to hear me, to the benefit of us both. Hardly a breath later and her eye lit up in realization. She rooted herself in place and turn to me with a look of satisfaction that came only from a revelation of unfathomable grandeur. "My drive."

A stillness allowed her input to sink in. "...'Kay, how about we try that again, but with an actual string of thought attached to it this time, maybe?"

"No! Ugh, quit it before I pin your lips shut. With a spear." I rolled my eyes at her wisp of a threat, but quieted. "Look, I used to be a punk-ass kid like you. Had nothing better to do than pick fights, get into trouble, and worry about the only friends worth keeping around: Me, myself, and I. But King Asgore saw some potential in me, like a...like a match that hadn't been struck. He told me once, 'if you fight for nothing but yourself, you will only ever see the force of an individual. Fight for others, and one day you will witness the strength and unity of a nation.'" She clutched her chest with meek sentimentally at the memory, a stark contrast to the intensity in her voice. "That day forward, I trained to protect my people along with the dreams they shared. And, you may have noticed, most of those desires involve climbing out of this hell hole and paying the old sun and stars a visit." Her glare turned accusatory, turning the spotlight back to me. "What about you, human? Anything motivate you, get you out of bed in the morning? Unless you're nothing but a hollow sack of bones underneath all that sarcasm and swagger."

I decided to entertain the thought, if even for a moment, recalling the echoed voices portrayed by the flowers in Waterfall—two monsters wishing upon a makeshift set of stars for just a glance at the real thing. My mind drifted to the sad smiles of the monsters I passed in Snowdin: the shopkeeper's thin veil of cheery hope masking her pessimistic attitude, the guard dogs' persistence in their efforts to slay me and return to the surface, and especially the snowman whom a piece of still remained tucked away in my pocket. Each of them with nowhere to go, their hope stretched thin and eventually smothered like dying candlelight after who-knows-how-long of being trapped underground. Initially I tried to distance myself from them emotionally, save for the snowman; now the similarities between my situation and theirs' seemed so obvious, I wondered how I could have been so dense as to miss them in the first place.

"I guess it's not so different from what the monsters down here want. I'm just looking for something more than what's right in front of my face. Although that must sound pretty selfish coming from someone in my position, huh?"

"...Exactly?" Undyne seemed at a brief loss for words, as though a similar thought process to my own was steadily clicking into place for her. She furrowed her brow in contemplation, then curled her lip in disgust, which softened into a look of distress and concern, all in the span of nearly three seconds. "Dammit, kid," she cursed, curling her hand into a fist. "I wanted to believe for so long that you and the rest of humanity were a bunch of senseless killers, that only beings drained and starved of any compassion or sympathy could do such horrible things. Waging wars out of spite and fear, sealing thousands of living beings underground to rot for centuries upon centuries...the list of sins goes on and on. But if even punks like you have the slightest bit of heart..." She eyed me with a new easiness in her stare. "I guess it never really was that simple to begin with. My sights were so set and locked on liberating my people, It hadn't occurred to me that humans had their own stream of shit to figure out."

After her speech, I saw Undyne differently than I had a moment before. She was no longer the self-righteous extremist I imagined her as, and something closer to the radiant hero Monster Kid and others proclaimed her to be. Suddenly it wasn't so hard to see how inspiring her beacon of spirit and strength must have been in a dark, hopeless pit of a world. Even if she still is a bit of an ass. "Yeah, I haven't exactly been bursting with compassion myself. Then again, that would be—"

"—A bit too out of character for you," Undyne finished my sentence for me obnoxiously. Noticing my irritated frown, she added, "What can I say, I've had to tolerate your sorry ass for so long, nothing you say is clever or surprising anymore."

"And I'd bet my head would explode if you uttered one more word about 'justice.'"

"Probably," she agreed, and we shared a chuckle. Or at least, I chuckled. Undyne chortled like it was the funniest damn thing in the world to her, tossing her head back so far it threatened to roll right off her neck. She recollected herself and said, "Don't get too excited just because I decided to let you live, chump."

I shook my head. "I'm the one sparing you here, remember?"

"Of course I remember. It only happened five hours ago," she mumbled reluctantly, more vacant than she had been a moment before but still with a small smile. A word slipped from between her lips so quickly it was difficult to process. "Thanks." She folded her arms and glowered at me. "There, I said it, no need to keep sitting around waiting for me to spout some shit."

That hadn't been what I was waiting for, if anything at all, and by this point I had long since deemed any sort of appreciation or genuine praise from Undyne an impossibility. Not only did it feel unexpected, but also unnecessary; consciously, I never even desired for her to mollify the tension between us, let alone acknowledge the very reason we were allowed the chance to in the first place. This whole scenario felt like being dragged to a performance you didn't want to attend with people you'd rather stab than converse with, and no part of me had cared. But something had changed, shifted and clicked into place, and now the sentiment tasted sweeter than it would have a mere hour before. "Implying that I've been drooling at your feet for affection like a mutt," I said, feigning annoyance. "Or Papyrus." Despite my bitter tone, I willingly returned her smile, with fifty percent less irony than it contained before.

"Speaking of Papyrus..." She threw a glance up at her wall clock. "Dammit, he was supposed to be back here for his cooking lesson ten minutes ago!"

Cooking lessons? I mean, he needs those more desperately than therapy, but from Undyne? That'd be like receiving advanced combat tutorials from a world-class chef. "Is...is that a huge deal?"

"Yes!" she yelled, as though that were obvious. "I've been teaching him for months without a single missed lesson! And if he's gonna blow me off..." A terrifying looking of mischievousness crossed her lips, one that wouldn't be out of place on a comic-book super villain. "C'mon, you're taking his lesson for him."

"What? Why would I want—"

"—To commemorate our new...fr...fre...friedsh...frnd...acquaintanceship! It'll be like a team building exercise!"

"I've always hated those. And cooking."

"Don't care!" She grabbed me by the elbow and practically dragged me out of my chair towards her stove. Well, I guess being forced into menial cooking exercises by someone you tolerate beats being under the sharp end of a spear by someone you despise. Not by much, but a little. Cooking with Undyne can't be that complicated anyway, right...?