This evening, it was Asgore's turn to pick up Frisk after school. Quite literally, in that case : he picked them up off the ground to let them sit on his shoulders as he walked the short distance to his house. He didn't even have to make a detour by the park this time : with the heavy rain there had been in the early morning, the echo flowers did not need to be watered right now.
He entered his house, whipped his feet and gently put his child back down. They both hung up their coats on the rack then the boss monster lit up the fireplace.
As their dad was busy making some tea, the human noticed the public phone (actually a custom-made cellphone whose number was accessible to anyone and always was in the living room, as opposed to their private phones) had an audio message waiting on it. They informed Asgore of it then, as the latter put the teacups down on the table, played the message.
"Hello, is this Asgore Dreemurr' number?" the recording asked in an unfamiliar voice and accent. "If not, I'm sorry. You can delete this. Anyway… hum…"
There was a brief pause, followed by another voice going "just get on with it already!" in the background. The boss monster poured the tea as quietly as he could.
"So, hum, I'll try to make it short, alright? So, we're archaeologists, right, and until the opening of Mount Ebott our field didn't, hum, know shit about- sorry, I meant-"
"What did I just say?"
"Yeah, hum, let's just say we don't know much about monster history for many reasons. But since Ebott monsters emerged, we've been trying to fix that. So we followed old documents and found another place where there might have been monsters too, right? Well, one of us decided to enter the cave first but now he can't get out. Like. There's an invisible barrier. We can send him supplies but we can't get him out. And you've dealt with invisible barriers before, right? You're… kinda our last resort here. Nothing we've tried worked. We even tried to dig but- yes, yes I'm almost done I swear- anyway if you can help us, please call back? There might also be monsters still alive deep into the cave? We're not sure yet…"
The voice then gave their exact location, which happened to be in a neighbouring country. The recording ended. The wind outside was now the only sound. Asgore and Frisk stared at the phone, then at each other.
"Frisk", he said soberly. "Call Toriel."
The human called their mother over, then made her listen to the recording.
"We cannot sacrifice any more people", she declared.
"Yes, we cannot", Asgore agreed, "but then we need to find another way to help these people…"
"Which might turn out like ' experiments in-" Toriel started, stopping when Frisk raised their hand as though they were still in class. "What is it, my child?"
"I have an idea."