Heat. Flames. Everything is burning, thick black smoke poisoning my lungs. Feels like I'm trapped, suffocating from the inside of an oven.

An oven...

I drifted awake, the aggressive heat deserting me in favor of a gentle, homely warmth. A confused mess of shock and familiarity plagued my senses, until I came to recognize my surroundings as the skeleton brothers' house. It hadn't been a place I was expecting to visit again, especially not under such eerily similar circumstances as the first time. Drenched in an obnoxious sheen of sweat and with a thick wool blanket draped over me, I pushed myself up off the only somewhat grimy couch, freshly cleaned since my last equally willful visit, and had a groggy look around.

Everything stood as it had before, a simple yet inviting set of furniture resting on a fuzzy blue and purple carpet with a wavy pattern like an ocean current. A sleeping bag sprawled against the floor as an island in the center of the sea, stuffed with something vaguely human-shaped, accompanied by a bob of red hair flopping out from the top. I flinched as it shifted and grumbled, feeling a flash of panic grow and tug at my heartstrings as I recognized the figure inside. Once it had finally given up on making itself comfortable, the body rolled over and locked its one eye on mine lazily.

"Morning, kid," Undyne said unceremoniously, forcing herself further out of her bag as though we were racing to see who could get up first.

My concern faded when my head started to lighten, and the memories of the previous night resurfaced. Our aggression had been more or less resolved, traded for a sort of understanding that allowed me to look on the knight with something besides disgust. I sighed in relief, all of a suddenly extremely thankful for having one less person out to get me in the Underground. Surprisingly, that wasn't what was bothering me. "Morning, your graciousness," I mumbled, sliding off the couch and onto a pair of half-asleep legs. "How the hell did we wind up back here? I don't remember leaving your place...last..."

"You don't remember our damned evacuation?" Undyne asked, but I had barely been listening; I was now wide awake and intently focused on the bright red burn marks along my fingertips, palms and forearms, vaguely aware of the slight stinging sensation in those areas. The memory that had been alluding me became vivid as the scorch on my skin.

Undyne had dragged me into her cooking lesson intended for Papyrus, sort of as a "team bonding exercise" as she put it. What she hadn't prepared me for was the most terrifying and excruciating five minutes of my entire life—including the last three days of multiple, strenuous near-death experiences.

I should've been expecting her to take cooking to such an extreme degree as she did anything else, but I was too distracted by our bonding to even consider the situation. It wasn't until Undyne had leapt into the air and landed less than gracefully on her kitchen counter, violently flinging everything from tea boxes to glass bottles to their unfortunate fate on the floor, that I remembered how everyone and everything in the Underground was irrationally and perpetually insane.

The ever-stoic knight started her instruction by screaming, "Nothing has brought Papyrus and I together like cooking! You and I are about to become closer than you can even imagine!" to her audience of one, a sneer of defiance potent on her face. "First, let's start with the sauce!" Undyne jumped and pounded the ground, knocking a colorful array of vegetables off the top of her fridge and onto the counter. "Envision these vegetables as your greatest enemy!"

"Envision who as what now?"

"NOW! Pound them to dust with your fists!" she cried, ignoring my relatively reasonable confusion.

It was around then that I began to question the decisions that had led me to smashing pumpkins and other veggies with the maniac who had been my mortal adversary fifteen minutes before, and was no better off for it. "Who the hell am I supposed to 'envision' as the vegetables if not the fish?" I had thought. "A damn moldsmall?"

"I'm still not seeing any pounding!"

"Yeah, me neither," I said unconvincingly, trying to make light of what should've been an already benevolent activity. "Isn't there supposed to be a tool for this? Like a mallet or something-"

"-SLAM IT!"

My hand acted before my mind could, and the next thing I knew my forearms and face were splattered with the blood of my enemy: bright red tomato guts. At first I was appalled, but that feeling was quickly subverted for a bizarre sense of satisfaction, so much so that I hadn't noticed the bruise forming on my wrist bone. A grin spread across my face. "Okay, I admit it. That was pretty fun."

"Less talking, more cooking!" Undyne persisted, clearly unsatisfied with the lack of destruction. "Now, squash that pepper!"

I repeated the act until the counter top was drowned in vegetable juices. Undyne's enthusiasm was near intoxicating when she was the one cheering you on. When only a few veggies remained, she pumped her fist in excitement. "Yeah! Yeah! Our hearts are uniting against these healthy ingredients!"

"Hell yeah!" Whatever that means.

"Now it's my turn!" She thrust her fist forward, empowered by a ferocious war cry, carrying enough force to blast through the unfortunate stragglers who met a gruesome fate against the back wall. I flinched backwards, but my excitement remained unperturbed. "Uh, we'll just scrape this into a bowl later…" Undyne said, scratching at the back of her head nervously. "But for now!"

She swept back over to the stove, tossing a silver pot full of water and a box of pasta beside it. "…We'll add the noodles. Homemade noodles are obviously the best. But I just buy store-brand! Because they're the cheapest!"

"As long as they aren't plastic, I couldn't give a damn! Let's throw these suckers in!"

Without paying even a hint of attention, I threw the pot on the stove and the noodles in as hard as I could. Including the box.

"Alright! I'm into it," Undyne cheered, teeth grinding together in a harsh grin. "Now it's time to stir the pasta." She handed me a simple wooden spoon, which I took without hesitation. "As a general rule of thumb: the harder you stir, the better it is!"

"I won't let you down!" I began twirling the spoon between the pasta shells in large, circular motions, tearing through the soupy mess of noodles and soaked cardboard at breakneck speeds. The spoon felt mighty as a greatsword and light as a feather in my hands, and the water seemed to crackle with energy as I stirred it. "Harder!" Undyne pushed my shoulders, encouraging me to stir faster. "HARDER!" Now the pot seemed a vortex, my brain unable to process the velocity of its contents. "Ugh, let me do it!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin as a spear came crashing into the pot from above, and again and again, until the pot was deformed nearly beyond recognition. After my shock faded, I transformed back into my uncharacteristically upbeat self. "That's one way to do it…"

"Wrong! That is the only way to do it!" She sparkled with energy, possibly even more anxious than I was. "Now, for the final step. Time to turn up the heat...Literally." Her rough gestures guided mine to the most powerful cooking instrument of all: the stovetop. "Let this symbolize passion! Let your hopes and dreams smolder into a raging fire! Don't hold anything back!"

"Burn shit, don't be a pussy. Got it." I began to crank the knob to the right, feeling the heat of a small yellow flame begin to spread out from beneath the pot, crackling like autumn leaves underfoot. After a full rotation of the dial, which according to the markings was already farther than was intended, I glanced back to Undyne expectantly. "Can this thing even go any hotter?"

"What do you think this is, chump, playtime in little baby school? You can always go hotter, kid! Time to take off the training wheels, turn that shit! Crank it till the dial falls off, and the whole room erupts in flames!"

I nodded vigorously, spinning the dial through its entire rotation over and over as if it were a top. With every second, the fire rose higher and higher, curling around the silver pot and reaching out towards the pair of us with open arms. I was practically delusional, ignorant to the growing danger as I literally played with fire. Undyne's intense and vivacious nature only prolonged my fixated happiness, until…until…

…Needless to say, Undyne had gotten her wish.

"…'crank it till the room erupts in flame?'"

"I didn't mean it literally! Sheesh, it's a wonder how you've survived so long when you're willing to do the most ridiculous shit anyone tells you," she grumbled, stretching her arms above her head in anything but a lax fashion. "If just one of my guards had said, 'hey kid, don'tcha know there's treasure just over that chasm—"

"Hey, excuse me for assuming you knew what you were talking about, oh great food guru!" I said. "…You know what, that may have actually been a mistake on my part."

"You think?" she sighed. "My entire damn house burned down. I had to half-carry your sorry ass back here with how exhausted you were, and to top it all off…I think I finally realized why Papyrus is such a terrible cook."

"Gee, what a life-changing revelation," I jeered. "A wonder you figured it out as soon as you did."

"I'd like to see you try microwaving some goddamned instant noodles without so much as short-circuiting the entire power grid!"

"Listen up, fish li—"

"Human! Undyne! You are awake at last!"

Our quarreling was interrupted as a familiar skeleton burst onto the scene, appearing sudden and sporadically as ever. Under different, more chipper circumstances I might have returned Papyrus's infectious smile, but the familiar face still brightened my mood regardless. At the very least, he served his purpose well enough as a diffuser. His brashness chased away Undyne and I's feud like a watchdog's bark scaring off a pair of burglars. "The two of you had me worried sick!" he wailed, throwing up his hands in what might have been mock anguish, had it come from anyone else. A cooking apron flapped against his front, mimicking his surprise. "And here I thought leaving my two best friends, who also coincidentally happened to be mortal enemies, alone to bond was a foolproof plan!"

"'Foolproof?' No. But aside from Undyne's house charring worse than the pasta, that could've gone a lot worse."

"Aside from that," Undyne snorted, glaring at Papyrus as though debating whether to thank him, demote him, or tear his arm bones right out of their sockets. She settled for something a bit less violent; delivering Papyrus the most furiously aggressive noogie ever to be ground into someone's skull.

"Ah! Oof! Undyne," Papyrus wailed, "you know I'm very sensitive there, please!"

"Too late for begging, Paps!" she cried back, showing no hints of slowing her assault on his cranium. "You're officially The Noogie Express's one and only passenger, and the conductor is thoroughly pissed!"

"But my behavior on public transportation is always that of a model citizen! My reputation is ruined! NOOOOO!"

"Hey, give the poor guy some credit; his stupid, convoluted, shit-storm of an idea sorta worked out for the best," I said, doing my best to rescue the poor skeleton.

"Are you out of your damned mind?" Undyne paused her massage from hell, holding Papyrus in a loose headlock before pushing him away with what only she would consider a playful shove. "Plans 'working out for the best,' don't end with someone's house burning—"

"Would either of my very special and hugely reformed pals care for a wonderful breakfast to staunch this incessant bickering?!" Papyrus said, gingerly rubbing the new dent carved in his head, eyes darting rapidly back and forth between us expectantly.

The room stood silent aside from our breathing. I met Papyrus's anxious black eye sockets, then Undyne's steely and unperturbed glare, and decided this wasn't an argument worth having. The knight's rage was well justified, for a first, and provoking her further wouldn't serve any more purpose than fulfilling my own amusement. I cleared the tension with a sigh and said, "Sure, depending on who's doing the cooking. Personally I'd rather go for take-out than anything you could conjure up out of your cauldron of a kitchen, Paps."

"Hmm…I suppose I could stoop so slow as to reheat leftovers from that appalling restaurant Sans so badly adores. That is, if that truly is what you would prefer, human," the skeleton said, clicking his tongue in distaste.

"You mean Grillby's? Sorry Paps, but that shit's a solid five stars compared to your cooking." I leaned in away from Undyne and whispered, "seeing your 'teach' in action, I can't really say it's all your fault."

"I heard that," the knight muttered, shouldering her way into the kitchen without any pleasantries. "Count yourself lucky I crossed you off my 'to kill' list, buddy."

Likewise, Fish Lips.

Papyrus sat us down in his cramped kitchen space, and within minutes left us with some reheated fries and half a burger in each of our hands. We ate awkwardly, our eyes cast downward at the undecorated table as though it were something to be admired, and neither having much to say. I allowed myself the pleasure of a few relieved sighs as the magical food washed the burns from my skin. Even as sloppy leftovers, Grillby's cooking was something to be admired. Wouldn't mind hosting a barbeque with the guy once this is all over.

"Would you quit it with your damn moaning over there?" Undyne interjected, glancing up for the first time. She had hardly raised a finger towards her platter. "Sounds like you've got something nasty going on under the table. And I don't wanna hear about it."

I raised another fry to my mouth dramatically, releasing the tension with a bite and an exaggerated moan. "Was that any better?"

"Stuff it, you little pervert," she said, flinging a fry of her own at my face. I quickly snatched it from the air and tossed it in my mouth.

"Gladly."

"Hmph." Ill-content, she leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up on the table, arms crossed lazily at her chest. Her eyes were defiant to meet mine while I looked her over. Seeing the once impervious, invincible, unshakable Undyne distraught and moping like a pet left outside in the rain shook me, started to dilute my good mood.

"Listen, Undyne, I, uh..." I scratched at the back of my head, mustering as much sympathy as I could. "I…It really sucks what happened, as much as I'm teasing you for it. I've never had a proper home like that. Can't imagine what it's like to lose it." Can't I, though? Ebott could burn to the ground without so much as a letter bearing my regards, but if Tori's place went up in smoke? I'd be pretty crushed.

"I'll bet you couldn't." She looked at me with a sort of softness that betrayed her bitter tone. "But, I appreciate you saying that, kid. I'm a pretty tough cookie though, I'll survive just fine, like I always have. Besides, it's not all terrible. I managed to save my piano."

"How'd the hell you manage that while the place was coming down?" I asked curiously.

"Easy. I stuffed your lifeless body under one arm and carried the piano with my other. It's proudly gathering snowdust in Papyrus's shed right about now."

"You carried the entire thing with one arm? Remind me how I won our little fight again?"

Undyne awarded me a vehement grin the size of her inflated ego, making a shocking return. "A little skill, and a truckload of luck." Her fingers curled into a fist tingling with confidence. "If we ever find ourselves locked in battle again, you best believe I won't be so soft on you."

"Puh-lease! You fought like you were the damn messiah bringing reckoning to an entire race of weirdos, and I'd bet you believed it too! Pushed yourself any harder, and your veins would've imploded from the effort." I scratched at the back of my head, turning away from the knight. "Besides, I wouldn't want us to meet with weapons pointed at each other's throats again. That hatchet's already been buried, and I don't plan on unearthing it in this lifetime. 'Specially since I probably won't last long enough for us to get the chance anyway."

"Pleasant thought, kid," Undyne said with a chuckle. With a sideways glance, I caught her rolling her eyes. "Weren't you the one trying to lighten the mood a minute ago? You almost had me going for a second there, too."

I hid a smile. Now that she was more or less snapped out of her funk, I found I sorta liked talking to a bit more laid back version of Undyne's usual explosive self. "Really? Maybe I should try my hand at counseling, if I ever get out of here in one piece. Got any other issues on your mind you wanna discuss?"

"With you? Hell no." She snorted in laughter, a sound that, surprisingly, didn't make me retch with disgust. "Unless you stop talking like the world is about to end, do everyone else a favor and keep your ass far away from counseling. Giving those kinds of hypocritical, despondent pep talks is more of a psychiatrist thing. That'd be more up your alley."

"Hmm…Come to think of it, I just hate hearing other people talk about their problems. Think I'll go for a different profession after all. So, um…What will you be doing in the meantime? With, you know, no house, and all."

Undyne sucked in some stagnant air and blew it out in a nonchalant puff. It was transparently clear she hadn't thought about it much. "I guess I'll be crashing here until I can figure something else out, assuming Papyrus doesn't mind. Safe bet he won't though. He seemed pretty chipper about the whole situation, being the lovable dunderhead that he is."

"Not much surprise there," I agreed. I couldn't imagine Undyne would be keen on mooching off of the skeleton brothers for very long; she had far too much stubborn pride to entertain the idea any longer than she had to. She'll be on her feet by the end of the week.

"And, kid, one last thing before I let you totally off the hook." A sudden seriousness befell her tone, her stern and ominous gaze almost intimidating. I nodded to show her I was all ears. She continued in a low, sinister deliverance, "When you reach Asgore and make the climb out of here—and that is a when, not an if—I want you to scrape up the scummiest, most volatile, most despicable human being imaginable...and send him down here for me to deal with swiftly. I'd want a rematch with one of your kind, and that would make for a pretty short goodbye between us two, if you follow me."

"…Definitely would be," I muttered, thinking out my next words carefully. "As exciting as that sounds—believe me, I'd have a lottery's worth of choices—I think I have to run the whole idea through your king first. You know, to make sure he doesn't still plan on humanity's mass genocide. Small concern of mine, if you could understand."

She took a long moment thinking it over, her fingers rapping against the table in pace with her mind, seemingly thrown off by my answer. Eventually, she clicked her tongue. "I get'cha. Be pretty stupid to invite your sworn enemies through the front door without some terms and conditions."

"No, that's not…you aren't my 'sworn enemy,' or whatever, not anymore at least. I just—"

"I get it, kid," she interrupted, more stern than before. "You can't go trusting random creeps you haven't met before, not without a little convincing." She grinned haughtily at me again, with promise to dissipate the conflict. "I can promise you won't have to worry about ole' Fluffybuns, though: King or no, at the end of the day, he's a total weenie! Once we each get a chance to talk to him and convince him we won't have to fight, he'll be pissing himself with joy. He'll call off the attack faster than you can raise your little white flags in surrender."

"Right. Pretty sure no one uses those anymore, but I understand the sentiment." Something about the way she phrased her explanations still concerned me. He'll call off an attack faster than you can surrender, almost as if…She can't trust humans yet, I came to realize, and I can't trust the monsters. It was a grim truth, but an obvious one we should've realized sooner. Undyne could guarantee nothing about what their leader, Asgore, might do when given the chance, no more than I could confirm how the people up north might react to the discovery of an entire intelligent race—and one that humans thoroughly pissed off, at that. She at least works with the people in charge. I rank about as highly as a domestic pet in "my" society, and she knows it. So what should I say? Lie and lead her on with the prospect of a truce, or come clean and walk away? My head began to throb with the conflicting thoughts dashing each other across the walls of my skull.

Why was I drawn into the center of all of this? A couple of days ago, I couldn't care less who lived and who died, and now it feels like everyone's lives are weighing on my spine, bundled together like a slab of concrete blocks…

"Guess we'll have to wait and hear the big guy's input," I said lamely, with a languid shrug of my shoulders. Forcing a smile, I added, "'til then, just know I'm totally on your side, alright? No need to be so suspicious."

"Who, me? The hell you get that idea…" She cut herself off mid-sentence, throwing her arms nonchalantly in defeat. "Ah, who am I kidding? You caught me, nerd. I was skeptical, but now I know you're too big a chicken to cross me." She said it lightly, by her standards anyway, so I could pick out its humorous intent.

"Sure, we'll go with that," I agreed. "And I know you wouldn't dare try anything crazy when your holy justice is at stake, right Fish Lips?"

There was her laugh again, only a bit slower and more deliberate, as though she were reading from a script. "We're quite the pair of 'friends,' kid." After ignoring the food for several minutes, Undyne carelessly scooped up a fry in her left hand, extending the other towards me. "Seriously though, let's shake on it. No funny business between the two of us, got it?" Her tone suggested I hadn't a choice. And I really don't, do I?

"You drive a hard bargain," I joked, meeting her outstretched hand with mine. The handshake was warm and reassuring, even as the knight nearly pulled me out of my chair with her strength. "Shakes don't carry much weight where I come from, but you can have my word: that one was genuine."

Her arms and shoulders relaxed, and her smile returned. "I take it that doesn't mean shit, either."

"Not exactly sure myself. Haven't made many big-time promises before, let alone have to have kept 'em. As long as you're buying it, should be pretty damn convincing."

"I've returned, and I've come to delicately deliver delectable desserts to my…delightful…friends!" Papyrus burst into the room accompanied by his well-natured cries, abruptly putting an end to our unorthodox negotiations. He drifted over to the table and plopped down a little white cardboard box, popping open the top to reveal a cluster of well decorated cupcakes. "Freshly purchased from a neighboring store with no input on my behalf!"

"Ooh, good call, Paps," I said, reaching for the nearest one, admiring the glossy sheen of light reflecting off the chocolate icing like the surface of the ocean.

"Well hot damn!" Undyne scooped up three or four in her arms, quickly going to town on them as though they were the last thing she'd ever eat. She managed to garble out something resembling speech in between scarfing the poor bastards down. "Keup thish uop, ahnb…" She forced the cupcake chunks down her throat in an inhumanly large swallow. "…and I'll have you promoted to Royal Guard status by the end of the week."

"Really?!"

"No. C'mon bonehead, I've told you before a million times: Being a Royal Guardsman is about more than just being a flowery, well-mannered, goody-two-shoes type," she scolded. "In fact, it's not about that. At all, come to think of it." With her fist pumped heroically against her chest, she bellowed, "It's about being courageous, protecting the people who aren't strong enough to do so themselves, kicking obscene amounts of ass, and most importantly—

"—something, something, justice?" I ventured, excitedly taking a bite out of my own dessert. It tasted light and sweet, a nice contrast to the hearty and somewhat charred meal to come before it. I decided to hang out on the fringe of the conversation while I enjoyed the treat.

"See? Even the kid is starting to get it," she snickered, opening her shark-like jaws to chomp down on one last cupcake.

"But Undyne," Papyrus proceeded airily, striking a pose that served to hinder his argument as a joke, naturally. "How are we to protect the innocence of others without showing a good-hearted sense of compassion to our enemies? Otherwise, what makes us better than them? I say brutalizing charlatans and crooks in such a way is detrimental to the established goal of our troupe! Only by understanding wrongdoers can we prevent their misdeeds from occurring in the future!" The skeleton finished proudly, his posture suggesting he was waiting for some unseen audience to applaud him for completing a full thought on his own.

Undyne, meanwhile, stood in the wings, ready to boo him right off the stage. "I swear, Papyrus, you're too pure for your own good." She gave a less than amused glower and barked, "Now drop and give me twenty—and you'd better not keep me waiting for an actual twenty minutes this time!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Papyrus dropped to the floor and began performing push-ups at a staggering rate of about one per minute. I pretended to look thoroughly engaged while eagerly chewing my sugary treat, my gaze following the skeleton's slim form flop on the tiles below us, watching his needle thin arms strain and sway with the weight above them, an ocean's worth of sweat running down his forehead. Although it was impossible to see, I used his constant grunts of varying pitches to paint a vivid image of his face contorted with the effort of supporting himself. "O-one…t-two…th-thr…whew, almost made that one. GAH, The Great Papyrus has lost count!"

"Ah hell, would you be done faster if I supported you?" the knight offered, though her mischievous grin betrayed the sincerity in her voice.

"Y-Yes, Undyne that would be most—Ack!"

I choked out a laugh and a few crumbs as Undyne threw herself over Papyrus's poor body, pinning him helplessly against the floor. The skeleton scrambled and clawed like an insect pinched between the fingers of his superior. His vain attempts to escape her clutches only made her cackle harder, so loud and pained it could've been mistaken as bawling. "C'mon ya big dork, tap into some of that upper body strength! There's gotta be some hiding in those bones of yours!"

"U-Undyne, my battle body can only handle so much abuse!"

"And my battle brain can only handle so much whining!" She stepped off her lackey, the devious look in her eyes telling me she her teasing was far from over. "Now go run up and down your stairs until your legs are falling out of their sockets! Work on some cardio."

Papyrus wasted no time leaping to his feet and stammering out a, "Y-Yes, ma'am," along with a sloppy solute. He bolted from the room, the clatter of his footsteps against his staircase following soon after.

"Hard to believe that clown nearly kicked my ass when we fought." I reflected on the not so distant times, having finished the last of my cupcake.

"Are you kidding? He has spent a lot of time training with the Underground's finest, after all," Undyne boasted, flexing her biceps obnoxiously. I rolled my eyes at her, but possessed little material to argue with. It was obvious she had been molding Papyrus into what she considered a semi-competent soldier for a good chunk of time. The duo acted close, in spite of Undyne's abrasive commands and Papyrus's airy naïvety. Their harsh differences is likely what made them so entertaining to watch, what made them fit so well together; Undyne needed a bit of lighthearted goofiness to dilute her stern nature, and Papyrus needed her gentle, nurturing…violent, thorny brevity so he could pop out from his own personal bubble every now and again.

"So what's the deal then?" I finally got around to asking. "If the guy's way tougher than he looks by a longshot, why hold him back from joining the R—"

"—Keep your voice down!" The next thing I knew, Undyne had lunged across the table and showed the palm of her handing into my face, holding my mouth closed. I struggled against her iron grip until I mustered enough strength to shove her off.

"What the hell!? Am I digging into some conspiracy theory territory or something? "

"No squirt, just—ugh, shut up for a second! And let go of my wrists, unless you want to lose yours!" We broke our holds on each other, both of us a little more than peeved at that moment. The knight turned her head towards the other room, listening to make sure Papyrus was still at his exercises.

"I'm still running, Undyne, no need to worry!" the skeleton called.

"Alright," Undyne said in a low voice, turning back to me and speaking through her teeth. "You want the honest answer?"

I scowled at her. "No, I'd rather you bullshit me and get nothing out of it. Yes, I want the honest answer!"

Her barred teeth slowly but surely receded. "Papyrus is a pretty freaking tough cookie, but…I'm not sure if…" She struggled to get the thought out, eyes falling towards the floor. A look of quiet concern washed over her features. "…I can ever let Papyrus join the Royal Guard." She spoke softly, which a sort of affection I hadn't seen her use before, "Heh, the little dork's determined, that much is sure. I remember him showing up at my door one night, his cooking mitts clasped together against his breastplate, begging to join the Royal Guard with every fiber of his being. 'Course, I only had to look him up and down a single time before I slammed the door shut in his face. But the next morning, I looked out my window, and there he was…crumpled against the door. He hadn't moved a muscle, or slept a wink…"

It took me a moment to realize Undyne had drifted off her story, a sad smile on her lips. I had to shake my head to clear it. "You still haven't answered my question."

"…It's not that he's weak. It's never been that. He's just too innocent and nice for his own damn good." She thrust a finger towards my chest, almost as if to start another fight. Her frustration boiled to anger. "I mean, just look at what happened to you two! He was supposed to capture you, and yet you guys ended up all buddy-buddy instead! I could never bring myself to send him into battle, otherwise…"

"…He'd be ripped into little smiling shreds," I finished for her, the realization suddenly hitting me like a brick wall. Papyrus needed quite a lot of encouragement from myself before he was ready for a scrap. I bit my lip anxiously, remembering my bitter harassment of his character, how I practically had to spit on his life goals, his most prized ambitions before he would even consider raising a bone against me. You are like a goddamn leech, you know that?

Reality check, Paps. You will never be a member of the Royal Guard.

"Ah, shit…" I stared at Undyne, trying to make myself seem as sincere as possible. "Undyne, you can't just keep leading him on like this. I think…I think I agree with you, but the poor guy deserves to know." Deserves to know that his dreams are futile, that he's been wasting all his time.

She nodded in agreement. "Believe me, I feel like shit doing this to him. That's why I started giving him cooking lessons in the first place," she explained. "I thought that, if I gave him something else to do besides train, he'd realize he wanted something different with his life. Now I'm not so sure I'm doing the right thing…"

"Hah, hah…Undyne, The Great Papyrus has completed his cardiovascular exercises!" came Papyrus's voice, rapidly approaching the kitchen.

"We'll finish this conversation later," she told me, not leaving a second to discuss it further.

"But—"

"—Well, I suppose my legs did not exactly fall from their sockets, but they certainly feel that way!" Papyrus came crawling back into the kitchen, dragging himself into the chair closest to me. "Ah, now where were we before my spontaneous physical exertions began?"

I strained myself not to feel guilty, meeting Papyrus's puppy-dog stare just inches from my face. "Pretty much nowhere." I coughed to ease some invisible substance out of my lungs, feeling needlessly claustrophobic in the tight space. "Uh…oh! Where's ole lazy bones been skulking around to lately?" I asked, recalling my need to talk with Sans about his disappearing acts. I hadn't laid eyes on the sneaky bastard since he vanished from Waterfall without a trace.

Undyne scoffed at my efforts. "For the love of the Delta Rune, please leave the damn puns to that fat little bowling pin, kid."

"Sorry."

"You mean Sans? Last my brother had informed me," Papyrus spoke up, "he was stationed in Hotland today on his civic guard duty that provides safety and security to all of the Underground. So he is probably asleep by his post."

"Hotland!" I nearly yelled, finally with something to be semi-excited bout. "Well, good thing I was on my way there already." I glanced at my nonexistent watch. "In fact, I should be getting lost around here pretty soon. Gotta get moving again before someone actually dangerous finds out I'm here."

I expected there to be some protest at my departure, but Undyne seemed almost elated. I wondered if she worried about me spilling the beans to Papyrus if I hung around any longer. "Yeah, you've got a good point there, kid," she agreed with no hesitation.

Paps, on the other hand, was shocked. "B-but human," he ventured, "think about all the slumber parties we could have with both you and Undyne…staying…" Our collective glare of disapproval derailed his schemes. "Ahem. Very well. Before you go, human, I thought about what you suggested the last time you visited, and moved my spare bones from the shower and into the shed outside! So you may use that if you wish."

"Seriously?" I shot out of my seat, the idea of rinsing off my brutalized body almost tantalizing. "You actually used that noggin of yours for something, huh Paps? Thanks dude."

"You are most welcome," he said with a bow, which almost sent him sprawling out of his chair.

"And I'll be stuck here for a while, kid, so if you give Papyrus a call, we'll both be waiting to hear from you," Undyne said. "If you every get into any trouble with some Royal Guardsman, ring me up and I'll deal with 'em. Got that?"

"Yes ma'am." I gave her a mock salute. "Now the only thing I have left to figure out is how the hell I'm gonna get through Waterfall without taking a goddamn eternity…" Undyne snickered at me, followed by a weirdly out of place chuckle. "What's so funny?"

"Don't worry about the walk. I know a guy who'll get you through to Hotland before you can say 'holy shit, I'm in Hotland!'"

I looked at her suspiciously. "Why does that not make me feel any better?"

"Because you actually have some common sense. Now get your ass upstairs. You stink like fish."