"You want me to what?" Flowey cried out.

Frisk kept staring back at him.

"Really, Frisk? I wouldn't even come up with you before, and now you're asking me to… You remember I don't want mo- Toriel and Asgore to know who I am, right?"

"They won't need to. All they need to know is that you're the vessel Alphys created."

"Why do you even need me?" the flower asked. "Any monster could do that."

"You can do it without anyone noticing", the human argued. "The humans won't need to find out SOULs were needed."

Flowey sighed.

"I wish I could call you an idiot, but your plan actually makes sense, sort of. I just don't like it."

"…You don't want to be Asriel again" Frisk guessed.

"Do you think going back to this form and losing the ability to feel love again was fun? It wasn't. But I- Asriel didn't want to stay a god. Too much of a goody-two-shoes. Had to let the SOULs go. That's what will happen again."

"…We'll find something else. Maybe. We need another vessel…"

The human was now staring at their own shoes. They apologised and left the vicinity of the flowerbed.

"Wait!" Flowey called after them once they were no longer in his field of vision. "You can't just make another vessel!"

Frisk appeared in the distance again.

"It probably wouldn't work. And if it does, you'll have another soulless being around. Sounds like a bad idea if you ask me. Remember how I was? Now let's go before I change my mind again."

They would have to do it over the weekend so Frisk wouldn't miss school.

The human and their monster dad got on the train, the former holding a flowerpot with a single golden flower their hands and the other carrying the bags.

"I regret it already…" Flowey mumbled.

Frisk did their best to suppress a yawn. It was early in the morning after another not-really-good night.

"If you do not want to accomplish this task", Asgore said as he shoved the bags in the upper compartment, "we can bring you back Underground and-"

"And then what?" the flower interrupted. "Are YOU gonna do it? We both know you won't. You wouldn't even absorb the SOULs you had when your kingdom was- hum, if your kingdom was on the brink of extinction."

Frisk gestured him to be quiet.

The three of them spent most of the long train ride going over the map of their destination again and again. Flowey was starting to know it by heart now. Why did he agree to be nice again? It wouldn't bring him anything good.

The train arrived at its destination. During the short walk from the train station to the hotel, Frisk protected Flowey from both the icy rain and the curiosity of strangers by hiding him under their coat.

Once the three of them were inside their hotel room and Asgore had checked that the door was indeed closed, he said :

"Our ride should arrive in a couple hours. In the meantime…"

"Yes, yes I know", the flower replied. "My time to do all the work. Just get me out of this stupid pot already."

Frisk did as he asked, then let him out on the balcony. He knew the map : the hospital was just two streets over. Finding people close to dying while avoiding being seen should be easy enough.

Flowey found the hospital quite quickly. Finding his way inside the building while remaining unseen, however, proved to be more of a hassle. He couldn't burrow under the hard floor so he had to use other tricks. He avoided places with lots of staff, did his best to remain in relatively darker places and in the blind spots of whoever happened to be in the room with him, and on a few occasions even flattened himself against a wall and pretended to be a pretty decoration. Fortunately, everyone was too busy to look down and wonder why the eyes of the "wallpaper" were moving.

Seven soon-to-die patients was all he needed. He'd be doing them a favour, really.

While Flowey was busy, Asgore & Frisk's ride arrived outside their hotel and they met him there.

"Hello, Mr. and ! I was the one on the phone. What an honour to meet you!"

"Likewise, ", the former king said.

Frisk smiled and nodded.

"Well, just climb in the van, it'll be warmer there!" Hernandez advised the other two as he opened the sliding door of the vehicle. "Then we'll just have to follow this road for a few minutes and stop where the rest of the team is."

Everyone climbed in and the human adult started the engine.

"I'm, hum; surprised it's just the two of you though?" he spoke again after a few minutes of driving in silence. "I was expecting you to have, like, bodyguards and stuff."

"Well, it was short notice", Asgore pointed out, "and our usual bodyguards were busy with other tasks. Besides, no-one was informed of our travel except for trusted families and friends. And, of course, yourself."

"Yeah. Sorry for the short notice. One of us getting stuck wasn't really part of our plans either."

"It is alright."

The two men then proceeded to talk about monster history and the recent findings of historians and archaeologists on the subject for the remainder of the drive. Frisk kept staring at the window in silence. They hoped Flowey was alright and would find his way.

Hernandez stopped the van nearby other vehicles besides a path on the side of the road, then they all walked the rest of the way to the cave. Other people present outside greeted them as they walked by. Some stared silently, surprised to actually see the Dreemurrs up close.

The entrance of the cave was just big enough for a human to squeeze through. The man stuck inside called out : "wait, they're actually here? Wow, I didn't think-"

He cleared his throat and got a step closer to the invisible Barrier.

"Hello, sir and, hum… Hello."

"Hello", the boss monster greeted back. "Are you alright?"

"Well, I'm alive. Can't say the same thing about whoever was there before me, though… I mean, we haven't been able to properly explore the entire cave because of the whole… me situation, but… so far, I haven't seen anyone else in there. Can you get rid of this invisible wall? I really don't want to stay in there…"

Asgore took a step closer to the Barrier. It started glowing, then stopped.

"It does that sometimes", said the human inside matter-of-factly.

The monster examined it in silence for a moment.

"So…?" asked Hernandez and his colleague.

"It should be gone soon", Asgore stated.

"How soon?" the human adults asked.

"Soon enough."

Meanwhile, Frisk was looking up at the sky, waiting for the signal. Asgore kept talking to buy time.

Then, at long last, it came. The young Dreemurr discreetly elbowed their father and signalled him to look up at the shooting star that exploded into smaller stars, illuminating the grey clouds.

"Is that a new kind of firework?" asked one of the humans that had gathered around Asgore.

"Beautiful, is it not?" the latter commented.

"I hope one of you took a picture, I wanna see too!" shouted the one in the cave.

"We should not waste any more of your time", the boss monster said. "I advise all of you to step away from the Barrier."

All the humans present did as instructed, then the former king summoned his trident and pretended to stab the Barrier repeatedly. Eventually, there was a flash of light, and the man in the cave was now free and thanking Asgore profusely.

"Do not mention it", he replied, embarrassed to have to take credits.

The newly freed man squeezed through the exit and shook his hand.

"Hum, can I just ask a question?" Hernandez chimed in. "How come it took you so long to break the Ebott Barrier if it was that easy?"

"Well…" Asgore hesitated.

"It takes a very long time for magical barriers to become breakable!" Frisk lied.

The other human nodded slowly.

"Anyway", he said, "now thanks to you we can focus on getting work done in this cave!"

"Count me out on this one", his colleague mumbled. "All I found in there was- Hey, what are you-"

Frisk was entering the cave. Their father called after them and tried to tell them it might not be safe, but he couldn't follow them through the small opening.

They were curious. Was there really nobody alive in there?

The first things they found were a folding chair and inflatable mattress lying against the wall. Then there was another narrow passage leading to darkness. They squeezed through it and then, once they could no longer feel the cave walls around them, they took their phone out of their pocket and turned on its flashlight.

There were houses there, carved into cave walls and stalagmites. The village seemed to be empty. They walked into one of the houses (there wasn't even a door to knock on anymore) and only found dust all over the floor and barely-standing furniture. Familiar-looking, white dust.

Oh no.

Frisk ran to the other houses and only found more monster dust and not a single living soul. They felt cold sweat falling down their body. What had happened here? They entered the last house and found a human skeleton in a dust-free corner, sitting in a foetal position against the wall. Not a skeleton monster : a very human and very dead pile of bones.

They slowly backed away from this house. Did this human live the same fate as the monsters? Or were they responsible for all this dust everywhere?

The sound of someone calling their name interrupted their train of thought.

"Oh, there you are, Fri- I mean, ", said Hernandez.

He was wearing a hard hat with a light on top.

"My colleague says he found only dust and human bones in there", he continued. "Let's go back now."

"Wh- what…"

"Are you trying to ask me what happened?" the adult guessed.

The child nodded.

"Well, given that this cave is much smaller than the ones under Mount Ebott and doesn't seem to have much resources… Our best guess is that everyone just… starved to death. Wow, that got really dark really fast, didn't it? Yeah, let's just- we really need to go back now. I'll drive you guys back to your hotel."