Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale.
Iterations
Faith Part 2
"not gonna lie, kid, i don't know if this is a mistake, but i'm gonna try to get some help."
Frisk response was barely there. Just the slightest of quivers. Worry.
"i know. i'm scared too. let's just hope that if things go further south, that the thing still wants to play around."
She shivered again. In an abandoned tunnel now, he took off his sweater and wrapped it around her several times. If this was going to go badly, he wanted her to at least be as comfortable as possible.
It had been the worst teleportation that the unit had ever been through. Instead of a nearly instantaneous transportation from one place to the other, the pull on their forms had been rougher, slower, and nausea-inducing. They had all gotten glimpses of the in-between on the trips before. This time, however, they had hovered in it, bodies bobbing back and forth wildly as if they were set adrift in a stormy sea. The warping of the world around them had forced them to close their eyes.
If their eyes had been open, they would have noticed the cold, unmoving darkness that they fell into for the short moment Papyrus's control faltered completely before he was able to regain his bearings and shove them through to the other side.
They exited a rip several feet in the air and were unceremoniously dropped onto the cold floor that had formerly been Snowdin.
Monsters clambered off of others they had fallen upon with murmured apologies, feeling chilled by the emptiness they had not seen but felt before reaching their destination. They all lay upon the floor, trying to will away the sick feelings from the ride. Undyne recovered first, though she swayed as she stood.
"All right, nerds, a bit of a rougher ride than we're used to but we're here on a mission. Get out there and gather, punks."
The soldiers groaned but obeyed, pushing themselves up and stumbling to work.
They had been in the Underground for a couple hours. True to her word, Undyne had remained with Papyrus. He was doing his job, following orders properly, but there was obviously something wrong. The tall skeleton had been abnormally quiet. It was jarring to see. She had this image of him in her mind that had not changed in all the years she had known him. Overeager. Positive. Excessively happy. Overwhelmingly and almost cripplingly kind. Loud. At the moment, he seemed like none of these things. But things had been rough for everyone lately and such changes in behavior were not odd. As he remained just as efficient as usual, she had allowed him space and quiet, though she stayed close enough to keep an eye on him. He carried an ungodly amount of supplies, much more than most of their team would be carrying alone, but so did she. She did not realize how much strain he had been putting himself under until he, quite literally, buckled under the pressure. It was the tiniest little stumble and he did not fall. She was sure if she had not been watching him so carefully that she would not have noticed it at all. But as it was, she had noticed and she knew she needed to intervene.
"You know the others can carry stuff too," she stated, forcing her tone to remain casual.
He whipped around, the added momentum of the supplies he was carrying causing him to turn just a bit too far. His smile was too small, too stiff, to be the genuine Papyrus smile that she knew so well. "OH! I KNOW, UNDYNE! BUT WE SHOULD TRY TO BRING AS MUCH AS WE CAN, SHOULDN'T WE?"
She noticed that even his tone wavered. She insisted, "I think you should let the others take some of the load off of you."
His eye-sockets widened and his fake smile seemed to become more brittle. "NO, I'VE GOT THIS! THIS IS BARELY ANYTHING FOR THE- THE GREAT PAPYRUS! NYEH... HEH...HEH."
"Papyrus!" she scolded, irritatedly.
He flinched, the weight of the supplies causing him to lose his balance. He ended up on the floor.
Guilt formed a lump in her throat at the sight. Though Papyrus was not typically this sensitive, she knew Sans had been right about working on her temper.
"Papyrus," she said again. This time her tone was quieter, though just as firm. She held out a hand and pulled him back to his feet. "What's going on?"
A shaky breath. Though he was standing, he seemed to shrink. "YOU'RE RIGHT," he said, dodging her question. " I GUESS I'M STILL GETTING USED TO BEING PART OF A UNIT. WE SHOULD HEAD BACK TO THE OTHERS NOW."
Though he did not answer her question, she relented. "Yeah, we should really be getting back."
The image in front of Grillby was so familiar that he had to tamp down the urge to double take. The skeleton stood in front of him, so much smaller than him and trembling. He seemed feeble but determined as he stood with his arms protectively wrapped around the bundle in his arms.
"heya. i, uh, was hoping you could do me a solid." His tone was a forced kind of casual.
The question made him pause. Sans never asked for help.
"i know we were in a bit of a weird situation last time we saw each other, but i know you're the reasonable sort." He began to ramble as no reply came from the flame monster. "and i really think that it could help everyone and i know this looks bad but i promise that she isn't a danger to anyone. if anything, she's an asset to what we're all trying to do! and i really think-"
The flame monster raised his arm, intending to interrupt and reassure his friend.
Immediately, reflexively, one eye went black as the other glowed blue and he watched as Sans suddenly threw himself back with blue magic, putting a stretch of distance between them instantly. Sans stumbled, gasping in pain.
Grillby's eyes widened in concern. He began to raise his hand to write his reply but thought better of it as Sans's blazing eye did not die down.
"Sans," Grillby spoke, wincing as he always did when he heard his own rough voice. "I'm not trying to fight."
The skeleton finally calmed, slumping to the floor in relief and pain as he reined in his weak magic. He patted the bundle in his arms comfortingly. "you hear that, kid? guess i didn't make a mistake after all."