Chapter 8
Beginning a Man Hunt
"Alright... so... as you all know... when I tried to cook us supper last night... it turned out to be kind of... well... I tried to experiment with a few ingredients, and it didn't turn out very well." Papyrus said as he and the others sat at the campfire while Toriel was getting something together for breakfast. "So... I, Master Chef Papyrus, have decided to... let somebody else have a chance in making something for breakfast... since... I don't know how to make much else besides pasta."
"Well, hey. To the very least the cooking didn't end up too terrible." Sans said as he patted Papyrus's shoulder. "I mean, it's not like anybody died from your cooking or anything."
"Well, of course nobody died from my cooking, Sans." Papyrus said. "After all, I AM Master Chef Papyrus, right? If anybody else were to experiment with those kinds of ingredients, their meal would have surely been unbearable to eat."
"I'm not sure anybody would have experimented with blueberries and ravioli in the first place, Papyrus." Toriel said while she continued to get breakfast around. "I don't think I've ever heard of anything like blueberry ravioli before."
"Well, that's because all the other chefs in the world don't have the culinary creativity from yours truly." Papyrus said as he pointed to his head.
There was a moment's silence. Nobody really knew what to talk about. This was only the second time all seven of them were in the same place at the same time. They had always wanted to get together again like this after they had left the Underground, though they all wished the circumstances of them meeting would have been a little better.
"...So... Frisk... did you rest well last night?" Asgore questioned. "You didn't have any nightmares, did you?"
"Uh...well... I slept alright." Frisk said. "I... I don't think I can consider it a nightmare... but I think I did have a dream last night."
"Oh? And wh-what was it about?" Alphys questioned. She wasn't sure what Asgore was talking about nightmares, but she assumed that it was a bit important to them if he brought it up.
"Well... I..." Frisk started to think about what she should tell them, but she soon began to wonder if she should even tell them about the dream to begin with. She knew that they were already a bit stressed about what she said last night, about going on by herself and looking for Chara without them, and she knew that telling them that Chara had offered her that deal would only make them even more paranoid.
You come to me... by yourself... and willingly cooperate with me... and I promise... I won't harm any of your friends in the process. Any of those monsters that you deem to be worthwhile keeping alive for your soul... I won't lay a single finger on the hairs of their heads... or some other part of them, if they don't have hair.
"...Uh... I... I can't really remember." Frisk lied. "All I remember is standing at the top of Mount Ebott by myself, looking down at the hole that led to the Underground... that's it."
Toriel gave a hum and looked as Frisk looked back to the fire. "...Are you sure that's all you remember?" Toriel questioned. She wasn't really convinced that Frisk was telling the truth. To her knowledge, Frisk had never lied before, but there was something about how she looked at the fire and how she said that she didn't remember the dream that didn't really sound very reassuring.
"...Yes... that's all I remember." Frisk said with a nod looking up at Toriel.
"..." Toriel gave a nod and went back to fixing the breakfast around. "Alright then... well... maybe as we go along later today, you might be able to get your memory jogged up."
"Speaking of later, are you almost done cooking yet?" Undyne said as she gave a sigh. "I didn't eat any of that blueberry pasta stuff after seeing Papyrus dumping it back in the pot, and I'm hungry."
"I'm working on it, Undyne." Toriel replied calmly. "You can't rush when it comes to cooking. You have to give each and every step in making something the most precise and thorough care when making such foods. There's never any sense in rushing anything, when you can take your time and have it turn out much better."
"...Care and taking time?" Papyrus questioned and looked at Undyne, the one who had given him his 'cooking lessons'. "...You told me to cook hard and fast, like one would fight in a battle."
Alphys gave a little snicker and tried to keep herself from laughing. That was so like Undyne to teach something like that.
"...I... well... uh..." Undyne said as she looked down. She didn't have to worry about Papyrus being in the Royal Guard or not anymore, but she knew that Papyrus was kind of easy to upset, so she didn't want to kill his mood by telling him she taught him nothing but bullshit in the hopes of Papyrus reconsidering joining the Guard.
Asgore gave a little clear of his throat as he could sense Undyne's distress. Undyne had voiced a number of her concerns of Papyrus being a part of the Royal Guard during Asgore's visits, and he had known about Undyne thinking Papyrus was too nice to be a part of the Royal Guard. The only reason that neither he nor Undyne did anything about it was because of how determined Papyrus was to be a part of the guard.
"Well... everybody has their different styles of cooking and preparing foods, Papyrus. For instance, my wi-" He stopped himself before he finished that word, and Toriel glanced up at him. It was difficult to see exactly what emotion she had in her eyes. "...I mean, Toriel's style is taking her time and making sure the food is in its best condition beforehand... and Undyne, because of being the head of the Royal Guard, has learned to cook fast and get it done in a hurry."
"Wait a minute!" Papyrus started. "...Are you telling me that all this time, I, 'Master Chef' Papyrus, have only been taught the ways in one style of cooking?"
"It would appear so, and I'm sure in the style that Undyne had taught you, you really are a master of your arts... however, there are many other culinary styles out in the world that can all lead to having the food you make taste different depending on the methods used to cook it."
"Ah... so the human world has culinary secrets that have been hidden from me in the Underground." Papyrus said while rubbing his chin with his finger in thought. "...Well, no more shall these arts remain out of my knowledge! Rest assured, as soon as Chara is defeated and the world saved, I, the Great Papyrus, Master Chef and Savior of Man and Monster, shall learn all culinary styles, and become the greatest chef known throughout the world! Nyeh heh heh heh heh heh!"
Undyne gave a relieved sigh and a nod. Asgore had really gotten her out of a tough situation right there.
In about two minutes, Toriel had finished the breakfast. Frisk honestly couldn't really tell what it was; it looked like some kind of chowder of sorts, though she couldn't quite make out what all was in it. Nonetheless, it was quite pleasant in taste, especially when compared to what she's seen of Papyrus's cooking so far. Everybody ate theirs up happily.
After their breakfast, they wasted no time in packing up and getting ready to look for Chara again. Deciding that they didn't have any more leads to where he could possibly be, they decided to search throughout the city to see if they found anything that would stand out.
There were definitely quite a number of staring eyes and a few people backing up as they walked around, searching. It was apparent that even though they could coincide with each other now, none of the humans were used to having monsters walking the same street or road or sidewalk that they did.
"Th-there are so m-m-many people... st-staring at us." Alphys said nervously as she felt all eyes peering at them.
"Yeah. It's pretty distracting, ain't it?" Sans said. "People here looking at us like they've never seen a couple of walking skeletons before."
"...Well... in all honesty, they haven't." Frisk said. "...I mean, humans have skeletons in their bodies... but I don't think that they've ever really seen a skeleton without flesh and skin around it walking around the city."
"Wow... humans are so weird." Papyrus said as he glanced at all of them. "We didn't just stand there and stare when we saw Frisk walking over to us for the first time, and she was a human in a monster's world."
"Right, we didn't. We just tried to kill her when we got the chance." Sans said with a joking chuckle. This earned him the glaring eyes of Toriel on him. She usually didn't mind joking around, though she didn't like him joking about trying to kill Frisk. "...What?" Sans questioned, as if there was nothing wrong with what he just said.
"Well, what about monsters that look like me?" Undyne questioned. She was starting to get really sick and tired of everybody staring at her. She crossed her arms and began to tap her fingers on them impatiently. "Have they ever seen monsters like me before?"
"Uh..." Frisk looked at Undyne and took the time to consider that she couldn't recall seeing any other monsters that looked like Undyne. "I... I don't know... maybe in a horror story or on Halloween, but those are just movies or costumes. I don't think they've ever seen an actual... uh..."
"...Well?" Undyne said as she glanced at Frisk. "You don't think they've ever seen an actual what?"
Frisk mentally scrambled for a response. She had no idea what kind of monster she could call any of them, with the exception of Sans and Papyrus, as it was completely obvious that they were skeletons. She didn't know whether different monsters had special names for their types, and she knew that if she said what she thought Undyne looked like, a humanoid fish-like monster, she was going to be really pissed off.
"...I don't think they've ever seen an actual real life monster walk around here before." Frisk said. "I mean... for the most part, it's pretty consistent with having humans and only humans walking around the city... or quite a few other places, for that matter. You might have an event where you see something like a deer in the road or someone walking with their dog, but that's about it."
"Ah... so the human world is familiar with dogs as well." Papyrus said as his bones rattled a bit at the memories of that annoying little white dog that seemed to love nothing more than stealing Papyrus's bones. "Perhaps they will have tips of how to keep them from stealing my bone collection."
Frisk gave a little look up. She was sure that not many people would have such problems like that. She also knew that it may be a bit surprising to Papyrus that human beings actually keep dogs as pets. She was sure that Papyrus wouldn't at all be comfortable with such an idea, and she couldn't help but giggle to herself as she had the thought of Papyrus and Sans keeping a dog as a pet.
For the most part, aside from a bunch of stares, they were still getting absolutely nothing. Nobody was really talking to them, so they weren't getting any information about whether or not Chara was around. They also didn't see anything that looked visually interesting or relating to what they were looking for, so they weren't getting any more leads about where exactly Chara was.
"We're getting absolutely nowhere with this!" Undyne said as she was getting sick of not finding anything and everybody staring at them. "I can't even tell how long we've been looking for this punk, and we haven't found anything about him!"
"There... has t-to be someone... that has a c-clue... where he is." Alphys said. "...Somebody had to h-have seen him at s-some point."
Frisk gave a sigh as she kept glancing over everything she could with her eyes. She looked for someone that looked suspicious, but found nobody. She glanced to and fro to look for something, anything in the city that may have seemed out of the ordinary, but she had absolutely no luck in finding such thing. She looked at the different buildings to see if there was any building or something in the building that may have sparked her interest, and found something at the clothing store, making her stop in place.
At the very back of the store, her eyes caught a certain tuxedo that somehow caught her interest. She couldn't exactly make out all the details in it, so she would have to get a closer look at it.
"Hey, Frisk. You ok?" Asgore questioned. "You look like you seen a ghost."
"I need to go in there for a minute or so." Frisk said as she began to open the door to the clothing store. "You six wait out here, and try not to pick up any fights while I'm in here."
"Wait a minute, what are you doing?!" Undyne questioned as Frisk entered the store and completely ignored her. "Frisk! This is no time to be shopping for clothes! Do you hear me?!"
Frisk gave a sigh as she ignored Undyne again and walked up to the tuxedo and got a closer look. It was striped red and black, and had a black tie to compliment it. It was quite highly priced, at least compared to the prices of the clothing that Frisk had. "This tuxedo... it kind of looks like..."
She instantly remembered her dream, and meeting Chara at the top of that mountain. As the dream came back to her and the words reappearing fresh in her mind as Chara had talked about a hat messing up his hair, she remembered seeing him wearing that exact same suit that she was now looking at. That could only mean one thing...
She ran to the check out and looked at the lady at the cash register. "Ma'am. Do you think you can help me with something?" Frisk questioned.
The lady gave a sigh and looked at her. She smelled of some kind of cheap perfume and very pungent hand sanitizer. She had red hair that went up to cover one of her green leering eyes. "...Ain't you a little young to be here in the store by yourself, kid?" she questioned kind of coldly.
"I'm not on my own, ma'am. I have a few friends of mine with me outside the store right there." She and the lady both looked and they both saw all six of the monsters peering in, trying to figure out what Frisk was doing. Papyrus, seeing the lady looking at him, gave a cheeky grin and waved at her.
"...Oh no. Not another one of you." she said with a groan. "Listen, kid. Take your friends and piss off. I've had enough of people walking around with monsters to last me a whole lifetime."
"A human with monsters?" Frisk questioned. "...What did he look like? What did he buy?"
"Hell should I know!" the woman said. "You try to get every detail of a person when he's got some big as Hell monster that can tear you to shreds glaring at you every five seconds!"
"I... I'm sorry, ma'am." Frisk said. "...Well, do you know of any of the things he bought... or what the monster looked like?"
"Well, not that it's any of your business... but he bought one of those tuxedos over there." she said as she pointed at the red and blacked striped tuxedo that Frisk was just looking at. "The monster that he was with looked like some kind of... Hell, I don't know... a snake with arms and legs... a fishy tail..."
"Was it red on the upper half of its body and green on the lower half?" Frisk questioned.
"Yeah, that-" The woman's one visible eye widened and she glanced over at Frisk as she had just correctly guessed what colors the creature was. "...How the Hell do you know that? Are you with that little creep?"
"No, ma'am... I'm just looking for him, that's all." Frisk said. She recognized the description she was giving the beast. That had to have been Neptune's Hound, and only one person 'alive', if that could be a fair description of Chara, could be able to control a beast like that. "Uh... when did this happen, out of curiosity's sake."
"Somewhere around 12:30 or 1 PM... don't quote me on that though."
Frisk gave a nod. That was somewhere close to the time yesterday that Chara had gotten into Sans and Papyrus's house. "That sounds about right... do you have any idea where the two might have gone?"
"...Oh, yes! I do!" the woman said sarcastically. "Yeah! I just so happened to have asked him where he was going, after he just came in and threw his money on the desk and left with the clothes while he had a killer beast with him that was going to kill me or anybody else if anyone made any move or made any sound that he didn't like! You little idiot kids, always asking the most retarded of questions."
"Alright, alright. I'm sorry..." Frisk said with a sigh. "Could you at least tell me which direction they went?"
The woman gave a sigh and pointed to the direction that Frisk and her friends had come from before she found that place. "If you really must know, the boy gave that freak of his the bag of clothing he took and went that way..." She retracted her finger and pointed her thumb to the opposite direction, which is the direction that Frisk and her friends were walking. "That freak of his took the bag and went the other way."
Frisk nodded. The two had gone separate ways... that was going to make things a bit difficult in deciding which direction to follow. "Alright. Thanks a lot." she said as she turned around and began to jog to the door to inform her friends.
"Hold on a second!" the woman said and made Frisk stop. "If that information I just gave you is really important, I want a little compensation for giving you the information."
Frisk glanced at the woman and saw her holding her hand out in a flat position, her palm facing upwards. "...Oh, alright. I guess I owe it to you." she said as she went back over and put two quarters in her hand. "Here. This is all I have that's worth anything up here."
"...Kid... are you fucking kidding me?" the woman said. "I'm an honest, hard working American woman, trying to work to make a living and pay my taxes, and this is all you're going to give me for helping you out?! What the Hell do you expect me to do with fifty cents?!"
"I don't know. Buy a better perfume, maybe." Frisk said, not realizing that she had just accidentally told her the exact same thing Chara had said before he left.
She just walked out, leaving the woman in there pretty steamed. "God, I hate kids. Idiots always acting like they're so smart..."
Frisk exited the store and was immediately bombarded with questions by the other six. They all ranged from "What the heck were you doing in there?" to "What did that woman say to you?", and even had Papyrus asking, "Do you think that lady likes skeletons?"
"Alright, alright. Hold on a second." Frisk said, getting all the others to stop and look at her. "...Alright... when I was looking in the window, I saw a red and black striped tuxedo... and I remembered something in my dream. I remembered seeing Chara wearing that suit somewhere in there... so I went in and started to investigate, and the woman said-"
"Hold on a second." Toriel said. "Child... you saw Chara in your dream? Did he say anything?"
"I... I don't know." Frisk lied as she looked at Toriel. "All I remember is seeing him on top of the mountain up there with me, I don't remember if he said anything important... but anyway, I asked the lady in that store, and I was right. Chara was in there yesterday, some time before he broke into Papyrus and Sans's house."
"Then we might just have a lead on where he is." Asgore said. "Did the lady say where he went?"
"Well... that's just the issue." Frisk said and looked straight ahead and behind them. "The lady in there said that Chara was with Neptune's Hound when he was in there-"
"Wh-what's Neptune's Hound?" Alphys questioned.
"It was a creature that Chara had brought to life by drawing it inside his notebook. It was the beast that helped Chara attack me and Frisk while I was watching over her." Asgore explained
"Summon monsters from a notebook?!" Undyne exclaimed and looked at them in disbelief. "Why the Hell didn't you tell us that he was able to do that?"
"I did." Sans said looking at her. "I made mention of it back in Papyrus and I's house, remember? What I said about looking away and him summoning a creature from his notebook?"
"That's enough, guys. Let Frisk finish what she was saying." Papyrus said and looked back at Frisk.
"Thank you, Papyrus." Frisk said with a nod before looking back at all of them. "Anyways, as I was saying... Chara and Neptune's Hound left the store... Chara had went that way... the way we just came from..." she said as she pointed in the direction that Chara had went. She then turned around and pointed straight ahead. "...Chara gave Neptune's Hound the clothing that he had bought, and Neptune's Hound went that way."
"Well... that doesn't help us much, does it?" Undyne questioned. "...How the heck are we supposed to know what direction we should follow?"
Papyrus gave a hum and he began to think. "...Frisk, you said that Chara had supposedly been here just a bit before he had went to Sans and I's house, correct?"
"Yes... I did... why?" Frisk asked.
"Hmmmm... aha! Of course!" Papyrus said. "We should keep going in the direction of where the monster had gone. If it was just a short time before he had gone to our house, than he would have been out looking for you after coming to the shop. If that's the case, and Neptune's Hound had the clothes that he had bought, than Neptune's Hound must have gone back to where Chara is at to drop the clothes off! Therefore, if we follow the direction where Neptune's Hound had went, then there's a good chance that we'll be able to find where Chara is at!"
"...You're... you're right." Frisk said as she looked up at Papyrus. "I hadn't thought of it like that. Papyrus, I think you might be right."
"I am?" Papyrus questioned. "...I mean, of course I'm right! I am the Great Papyrus, Master Puzzle Creator! Nyeh heh heh heh heh!"
"...Just one problem with that." Toriel said and looked at the direction where Neptune's Hound went. "...How do we know where exactly Neptune's Hound went? Sure, we know that it left this direction after exiting the store... but that's all we know. For all we know, it could have had several different options of directions to travel to where it had been... if we go out and keep following straight ahead, there's no guarantee that we'll be able to find where exactly Chara is at."
"...Aha! That is... something that I don't think I can think of." Papyrus said as he looked down and rubbed his right arm with his left hand a little bit.
"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself, bro. You got us a starting direction." Sans said as he patted Papyrus's back. "We just need a way to track exactly where that monster had gone, instead of taking guesses of where it could have gone."
"Uh... I... think I m-might be able to get s-something around." Alphys said as she looked down. "...We'll have to go to my house, though. I would need to work on it in there."
"Alright... uh... where's your house then?" Asgore questioned, deciding that they really didn't have much of a choice if they wanted to find where Chara is.
Alphys turned around and began to walk. "F-follow me." she said. The others followed Alphys, hoping that she would be able to find something.
As they began walking, they failed to notice that slowly, where they were just standing, the time and space of that area began to distort and warp. In that area, for a brief few seconds, a mysterious man appeared looking at them. His body appeared too blurry to actually make out had anybody caught sight of him, but his face seemed to be tangible in terms of appearance. The skin on his face was completely snow white, almost like a ghost, and his eyes appeared to be nothing but pitch black sockets, with his right being almost closed with a crack on the head right above it. His mouth was also pitch black and appeared void of any teeth, tongue or anything.
The strange mystery man stared at them from behind for a few seconds before they went out of sight. As soon as they were no longer in his vision, the time and space of where he was began to distort once again, and with a few seconds, the man was gone, and everything appeared to be just normal, as if he were never there.