A new light burst forth from the tiny lab in a harsh stream, shot out of a cannon with sharp fangs. The light hit Asgore square on, and the king let out a startled grunt as he was thrown back on his hindquarters. Sans watched him from still inside the shed, hands in his coat pockets and the same smile on his face while another blaster, and then another, then two more, materialized behind and in front of him.
He glanced to Alphys in the corner and raised a bony finger to his teeth, magic twitching and sparking through his skull. "i think this is gonna take a bit, so can you make sure the machine is, uh, machining properly?"
Hardly had the frightened monster nodded, her glasses crooked on her face, than Sans walked out of the lab and fired each cannon at the still shocked and terrifying king in front of him. This time, however, Asgore demonstrated that he himself had some experience with dodging attacks, only one attack hitting out of the four. His eyes filled with rage and his growls agonized, he brandished his trident and pointed it in Sans' direction. "You are definitely not the Sans that I know."
"yeah?" Asgore swung an orange trident at Sans and he moved out of range of the weapon entirely. "so, how much did you know this world's sans, anyway?"
"That is none of your business," said the king with a psychotic smirk. "Someone who is about to die does not need an explanation."
"got it."
Less blasters and more bones, that was probably the best way to go. He ran to the side of the house while he was pursued by that giant trident, but even doing so Sans summoned his bone attacks into the air and flung them in his opponent's direction. Along the ground, in different angles through the air, and even on either side of Asgore's massive frame. They came at him in an irregular rhythm, and it was impossible for to dodge them all with the way that he was. He could see the damage that each hit did, in the quantifiable terms of HP if not by the stony expression on his face.
When the king's turn came around, though, it was also all that he could do to evade, himself. It was painfully clear that Asgore had been using the human kid to warm up, so to speak, and now he unleashed everything at Sans. Fire blazed over the cold town, and the streets they were fighting on were even beginning to melt from all the heat. Sans' skull broke out into a sweat, both from all the fire magic that just grazed him and from how much energy it was actually taking to survive.
Technically, he and Asgore had never fought back in his world, but he hoped that if they ever had to his king wouldn't be quite so... hard to win against.
He kept on the defensive for the next several turns, as a result. Constantly he was moving back, never able to draw closer as he fired blasts and struck with bone. It took a few seconds only for their trail to wrap around Papyrus' house, and then in a minute Sans was fighting in front of Grillby'z. The only time he wasn't moving back, or around some building, was when he was able to construct a bone cage around his opponent- then he had at least a few seconds to catch his breath before Asgore broke out of it.
And yet, and yet...
Slowly, bit by bit, his HP continued to decline. It never quite stopped- and as long as Sans continued his attacks, it would not ever stop either. Not until it was gone, completely. Not until this beast of a king turned to dust would he let up, this beast of a king who was the reason why, at this second, his other self might be killing Papyrus and Frisk and who knew who else and instead of being over there he was here.
Once or twice, the magic in his eye even flashed as his power burst to its highest intensity and then leveled out. Asgore was a big guy; for Sans to throw him around by the SOUL was extremely difficult, but damn him if he couldn't do it at least once. His eye flashed when Asgore was sent flying into the library, destroying the front door.
He summoned a legion of blasters the turn after that, and his eye flashed when they all fired.
Then it leveled out, and his eye faded, when he saw the king stumble, no longer quick to take his turn. The fire that was raging around Snowdin all too quickly turned to embers and vanished.
Sans kept his blasters up while he waited. Asgore slouched, gasping and no longer looking at anyone. As Sans had been hoping, the time had finally come when his karmic retribution was too hard to ignore.
Although through most of the fight he had remained silent, when he knelt from the weight of his injuries was when Asgore finally spoke up again. "...This much power... is not... possible for someone of your LV. I do not understand."
"oh, well, don't get the wrong idea about me."
From the look in his eyes it was evident Asgore didn't even know what other ideas there were. Sans stepped a little closer, finally dropping his cannons to catch his breath. "all the people you killed, all the people you hurt," he murmured. "that's what's killing you right now." Staring the monster down, he uttered a weak chuckle. "sorry, (i'm actually not sorry.) must feel like hell."
Asgore's face twisted with pain, and he stabbed his trident into the ground to pull himself to his feet. "I am accustomed to hell," he grunted. And with a firm RESOLVE on his features he rose to his full height, breathing hard and fast. His HP shot back up even as it continued to drop.
Not for the first time, Sans had doubt. "shit."
Fire and skull-shaped cannons circled around them both once again.
The cowering citizens of Snowdin all thought afterwards that it was quite the light show, at least.
To be honest, it wasn't the kind of escape that she wanted. Not by a long shot.
The flash of the machine blinded Frisk too; feeling sharp thorns as Flowey encircled her, all she could do was cover her eyes with her singed hands. The floor of the booth disappeared beneath her feet, and she fell silently into darkness as though through a trapdoor.
A resounding snap against her being, when her body hit the pane of this reality, was all it took to render her unconscious. She fell down, down, not seeing or feeling anything. It was as though she were within a void with no gravity, her own momentum all that kept her going in the direction that the machine had shot her from. It was a blackness tinged with grey.
Someone saw her when she passed, and she passed the pathways to other more distant places, but she and Flowey were alone in this world. Frisk's eyes almost fluttered open during the fall, but vertigo closed them tight again. She snapped against something new, and even that small disturbance was overcome from the impact. The child exited the empty space and entered something else.
She hit a mattress, squishing greasy sheets underneath her, and gasped awake in an instant. And for just a minute Frisk lay there on the sheets, taking deep breaths. If she wasn't careful, moving too much would cause her to throw up all of the nothing that was in her stomach again.
Above her, a familiar wavering voice reached her ears while a small vine tendril prodded her back. And the child stiffened. "F-F-Frisk...?"
Frisk sat up and sat more properly on the bed, turning her head right. "Flowey?"
"B-behind you," he stammered, and she turned further with a deepening scowl on her face. The scowl hitched, hesitated, when she saw behind her a big grey door set into the wall, one that didn't look quite there and yet, surely, had to be real. It didn't fit into the rest of the decor- the walls were a cool maroon and the carpeting jazzier than she had ever seen while underground, not a speck of grey anywhere else on the wall. Burping up nothing, Frisk raised a hand towards the door, and immediately found a vine coil around her wrist, pulling it back down.
Flowey smiled nervously up at her, rising in front of the door. "W-w-wait... this door leads back the way we came. A-A-Asgore might still be back there..."
Violently Frisk pulled free of the vine, although Flowey released her in an instant. "You- you mean the machine worked?" She took another long look around, her eyes becoming as big as dish saucers. It... it did look a lot like the room she'd been sleeping in for days, change in style and treadmill aside. The mess was even still here, although far more active than her Sans' messes. So, this was Blue Sans' room.
Blue Sans. "But- how come Blue isn't here?"
Flowey squished himself down while her eyes were off him. "Uhh..."
Frisk stumbled off the bed and stood, "I thought he'd... be right behind us..." She kept looking to the door, expecting him to pop through and quietly scold her the way he had been doing. The fact that he hadn't come yet made the idea of throwing up even more tempting, if not for the fact that there appeared to be no wastebasket in this room. "How come he isn't here?"
"M-m-maybe he'll be along soon," Flowey suggested.
The child didn't reply, but instead looked elsewhere in the room, brow creased. Asgore had been right behind them too. She couldn't imagine Blue Sans being killed so easily, but even so...
To distract herself for a moment, she studied the contents of the room more thoroughly. The only thing she found of interest to herself was a line of paint cans placed neatly in a column against one of the walls. She bent to inspect them, and new thoughts intruded into her mind like rockets with each look.
It's a can of black paint.
It's a can of white paint.
Oh, look, it's another can of black paint.
Oh, it's actually navy-blue paint?
No one cares about the paint.
Stop.
The door still hadn't opened yet. Frisk touched her index fingertips together. "Maybe we should go back, Flowey. Find out what happened." She again reached for the handle on the grey door.
Again Flowey's vine coiled around her and brought her up short, his face (normal once again) blanched. "No! I-I-I mean," he added in a frightened stutter, Frisk's gaze hardening into a glare, "This is-! This is the world that he came from! S-so, doesn't that mean that your old Sans is here, right now?"
"Ah!" In a heartbeat, all other thoughts had been chased from Frisk's mind. "Yes, that's right! Sans-!" She dug into her pocket and brought out her cellphone, before remembering she still didn't have his number and shutting it with disgust. "We better find him quick, before he does anything else stupid."
Flowey relaxed, climbing gently back up to her shoulder from the ground. "Yeah, yeah, that sounds like a good idea." He must have been serious, Frisk reflected when she stepped out of the room. Flowey hated Sans for reasons that he would never share (although it probably had helped that he played "loves me not" with his petals once before Frisk had a chance to rescue the flower.) Asgore, though, was ten times worse.
That was why, walking out onto a familiar indoor balcony, Frisk almost tried to ask about his strange transformation only a short time before. His face like a boss monster's, and his aggression practically spiked through the roof. It looked to be gone by now.
Seeing Papyrus wandering around on the bottom floor distracted them both, however. Flowey let out a loud gasp, smothered by a leaf he pressed over his face, and Frisk also clamped her hands over her mouth.
Just as Blue Sans was smoother than her own, at least in terms of teeth and claws, the Papyrus she saw walking around was not at all as spiky as the one that she had left behind. His "battle body" was white, blue, and red, and looked like something somebody had stitched together on a lazy afternoon rather than armor issued out by Undyne. His teeth were pearly, straight, and smooth- no fangs to be seen. He was humming a tune.
A tune that was suddenly familiar, and yet different in her head.
Frisk backed away until her back hit the door to Sans' room, beginning to sweat and shake. Flowey whispered in her ear, his voice at an excited and squeaky pitch, "It's another Papyrus!" And she nodded silently. Clumsy, thudding beats began a quick rhythm in her chest. He still hadn't noticed her- he was mixing something up in a bowl, his humming turning to whistling a moment after he ran out of breath.
Maybe she could wait until he went into the k-
"Hi Papyrus!"
Flowey was sliding off of her and wrapping his roots around the bars of the railing, leaning out over the open space. To the child's complete horror, the skeleton responded immediately by dropping the bowl of whatever he was mixing- it looked like a salad? One that had been chopped to hell and back. Trembling as though it was below zero in the house, Frisk stood near the door while Papyrus, hesitating over the bowl, then looked up and waved. "FLOWEY...? WOWIE, I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN A LONG TIME!"
"Gosh, I don't think we've ever met!" Said the flower with a bit of a blush on his face. "I'm actually a different Flowey."
"OH! THAT'S FINE! ...I'VE ALREADY MET A DIFFERENT SANS LATELY!" Papyrus mused, squinting somewhere else. He looked behind the flower next, and his eyesockets aimed directly at Frisk. "HUMAN!"
Frisk squeaked.
"YOU LOOK DIFFERENT TOO... ARE YOU ACTUALLY A DIFFERENT FRISK?! YOU DON'T LOOK NEARLY AS CLEAN AS YOU USUALLY DO."
"I have to go sorry," Frisk said, and without bothering to try and pick Flowey back up she was running to the stairs, jumping down them two at a time until she reached the bottom. Despite all the jumping around that she was currently doing until reaching the bottom, out of the corners of her eyes she spotted Papyrus rushing over to her and her body became wired with adrenaline in an instant.
Frisk smashed her pan against the floorboards, splintering one or two, and Papyrus froze in place, eyes bugging out in a way that was also familiar, but different. "Don't!" She screamed.
"N-NYEH!?"
She took a step forward, and he took a step back. Then, giving a vague shudder, the child dodged around him and ran as fast as she could towards the door out of this new, surreal house. She slammed the door behind her, and prayed that the new Papyrus wasn't going to follow her out; rather than wait around for her prayers to come true, she then took off again- stopping to take a detour around to the back of the oaken house. The shed had to be in the same place as in her own world, right? If she could just make sure that there was another way back to her world, if that grey door disappeared...
Although as soon as she saw the shed, Frisk clapped her hands over her eyes and peeked through the fingers. This was because the door and much of the front of it was charred and burned, the door collapsed into dust. As a consequence, much of the lab inside it was visible; the corner where the machine was supposed to be was a hunk of metal that wasn't even smoking or emitting heat anymore.
"Sun-ov-a-bitch," she whispered, carefully testing each syllable on her tongue. Sans had certainly wasted no time.
Then the door out of the main house opened, and the sound of Papyrus calling her by name sent a chill down Frisk's spine. So, no longer inspecting the damaged shed, she ran-
Ran-
Down the sidewalk...
And stopped completely.
Because she had been expecting Snowdin, or something like it- maybe, God willing, it wouldn't be as blustery, wouldn't have as many cruel monsters in it, and there might actually be something nice to say about it. Something befitting the world that Blue Sans came from.
And moments earlier, she hadn't really been paying attention. But she was standing on the sidewalk of someplace that was entirely new to her, nothing at all like Snowdin and nothing at all like any other place that she had visited while underground. It was warm, without a speck of snow, dust, or any other white thing on the ground except for a patch of white daisies growing on someone's lawn. There were plenty of buildings around, some tall and some strange colors, some looking a little out of place, and some that reminded her of the buildings in her city. Next to the sidewalk was a street, one that was without cars for the most part but still smoothly paved in preparation for one.
Frisk looked up in a daze; the sun was shining down on all of this from an angle, set like an eye on a big blue sky.
Blue Sans' world was... on the surface.
The child stared ahead at the continuation of the sidewalk, seeing blue bunnies and white dogs walking along with their children and their bird friends. Someone, somewhere on the street, called out, "Hey, Frisk!" In response she tensed, not moving a muscle, and begged whoever it was to continue walking.
Monsters surrounded her. Some waved. Most kept on going about their business. She could do nothing but stand there, delaying the moment when everything would click horribly in her mind.
Someone put a hand on her shoulder and she screamed out loud, turning some eyes her way. When she turned around, the new Papyrus was standing behind her, looking more concerned than her Papyrus ever looked. Frisk stayed curled inwards, wondering if he was just as powerful as his other self. "HUMAN, YOU REALLY SHOULD NOT RUN OFF LIKE THAT! IT MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO TALK TO YOU!"
She backed up a step, still with no word- her teeth chattering as much as they were, there probably wasn't a point to trying to talk anyway. Beside her, the dirt unearthed and Flowey pushed up from it. "Frisk!"
Her eyes lit upon Flowey and then Frisk turned and ran, hearing them calling to her while she did.
"WAIT! PLEASE DON'T GO!"
"Frisk!"
Even as bewildered and pleading as they sounded- particularly on Flowey's part- she would not stop running, pushing aside any monster that happened to get into her way. After running for a second, eyes aching, she ended up squeezing her eyes shut while she fled further down the sidewalk.
That was a bad idea on its own because in another moment she hit someone and screamed again before falling to the ground.
She opened her eyes and saw Asgore.
So, of course, she screamed a third time and fell down onto the sidewalk. This was an action that was more controlled than it may have looked, for the first thing that this new Asgore said was, "Oh my goodness! I am so sorry, Frisk!"
He looked different, but familiar. To be clear, he wasn't wearing anything close to the same clothes, instead wearing sweatpants and a white dress shirt. There were more differences, but the child in that moment could not see them. All she saw were the crazy eyes and the violent spikes of the Asgore that she left behind, the one wielding a red trident that glowed other colors on occasion. Her injuries might have healed by now thanks to the Temmie Armor, but Frisk felt a sudden itching, phantom pain where they once were- where he had burned her, stabbed her. Scooting back, she couldn't help but emit a low whimper.
"U-uh, child," Asgore was saying, alarm present in voice and face. "What has happened? Did I- did I scare you-?"
Even if he didn't have the trident he could summon flame, wreath himself in it like the demon he longed to turn into. He tried to step closer, so in response Frisk pulled out her pan and returned to her feet in an instant. Her body and heart wavered and she sucked in air through her teeth.
"A-ah, Frisk, I-" he stopped trying to approach when their eyes met, and in fact took a step back, hands held up with the palms open for her to see. "I sincerely did not mean to, if I have scared you... um, I should have been looking where I was going-? No, your clothes look beat up as well..."
You threaten this other Asgore.
You idio-
In part to shut up her intrusive thinking as much as it was to further warn off her opponent, Frisk slammed her pan on the stone sidewalk. The sound alarmed every monster in the vicinity, all heads turning to look at her. The child noticed them, with rising panic, out of the corner of her eye; Asgore, on the other hand, was-
He was-
"It's-it's alright, don't be afraid... Please, tell me what is wrong." He was kneeling, closer to her level now. He was still holding no weapon and still wreathed in no flame, making no sudden movements.
It all clicked horribly in her mind.
Again Frisk ran, even as her beautiful surroundings blurred in front of her eyes.
The irony has worn off.
Frisk opened her eyes, awake almost purely because of how bright the late-afternoon light streaming under her eyelids was. Head throbbing, the ground under her hands spinning through her vision, she groaned and at first just tried to lay still. But a thought pushed into her head, one that scared her just a little. So, at the very least, even if she couldn't stand up she still got on all fours. Swaying, she rubbed her aching cranium and felt for cracks or bumps, certain that there must be one or the other.
You have a concussion.
Her memories were fuzzy, at least her more recent ones, but she was sure that Red Sans was the reason why her head hurt so much. The ground smashing into the top of her head stuck out to her out of the blurred events in her brain. She had been... upside down? Suddenly, gravity had worked in the opposite direction and then corrected itself. Red Sans was grinning at her, at the time. It must be...
Frisk groaned louder and eased into a sitting position, almost falling onto her back in the process. It was so hard even to focus on her surroundings, her head hurt and spun so much. It was definitely not outside, though. A house? Frisk stood up, fell back on her bottom again, and blinked at the wood door she was sitting in front of. Why was it so bright in this house anyway? The sun she saw through the door window could not be real.
It wasn't a very big place, either, and not a house she had ever stepped inside of before. There were only four rooms, that much she could see spinning around in place on the floor- two bedrooms, this entryway, and a kitchen. Maybe it was just a home for one person.
Red Sans! She started to stand, wobbling the whole way, until she was back on her feet and stayed there.
He, obviously, wasn't in this house with her. The last she remembered, he was saying some nasty stuff into the cellphone... he knew everything, now. And he looked really, really mad about all of it too. He must have put her in here after she conked out- too be honest, Frisk was surprised to still be alive at all. But that wasn't good enough. She stumbled to the door outside and tried the knob; as expected, the door wasn't locked but it was definitely stuck. Gritting her teeth, and pushing past her dizziness, she stomped towards another room in the house, silently begging it to have something she could use to break the door down.
In the bedroom she entered she found a lone and dusty soft-cover notebook, lying on the floor next to a worn mattress. The rest of the room was utterly bare of furniture.
It hit her that she was probably trapped in one of the houses in the old Mt. Ebott village, the one that people had abandoned about a decade ago. Curious as always, the child picked up the notebook and examined it.
A small notebook. It has 'Alice Engel' written sloppily on the front.
All of the pages have been ripped out of it.
"Alice." The given name was familiar to her.
But with the pages missing, it sure wasn't enough to hold Frisk's attention. She tossed it on the mattress and continued her search with an aggravated sigh at the wasted time, and found nothing of use in the other bedroom either. In the kitchen, that was where she finally got some results. It was also stripped bare, but with luck she found an abandoned stirring spoon in the corner beside a grimy stove.
Well, maybe not luck. A stirring spoon probably wouldn't break the door down either.
Whoever lived here didn't seem interested in cleaning the place up before they left- it was covered in stale food caked on it from the last meal it ever helped prepare. Frisk touched her tongue to the stuff and shuddered hard, swaying dizzily. This kind of food was not going to heal her. In fact, she had no healing items at all- her pockets were entirely empty. If she ever got into another dangerous monster battle she was screwed
It was when she realized something else she could do, if breaking the door down was not an option.
This spoon would work for it. Slowly Frisk stumbled up to the door, again rubbing her aching head, and she beat against it with the spoon. The noise hurt her ears, but it was louder than she ever wanted to be with her own voice and surely it would be heard by the colony of Froggits that lived in this worn-down village. All she had to do was beat at the door until somebody answered.
Also she was going to try not to worry that, at this moment, Red Sans was also giving Papyrus a concussion.
You better be back soon, Sans, she thought to herself.
If he didn't have the ability to cheat, Sans conceded, he would have died a few times over by now.
That thought wouldn't normally bother him except that, without any Frisk of any kind currently in this world, he sort of felt like he was going without a safety net. Another whirlwind of flame came rushing towards him and he slipped into a shortcut, behind Asgore instead. It was one of several manipulations he had ended up doing over the course of their battle, in which Asgore himself was no longer playing fair.
No one else was supposed to be able to cheat.
No one was supposed to see him cheating, either, with pointed exceptions, but this ship had long sailed by that point.
Growling as he turned, Asgore brought his trident down upon him by the flat side, as if intending to turn him into a Sanscake (heh). He only just managed to get out of the way of that with a jump backwards, breathing hard at the exertion.
For a split second, Sans felt sorry for the kid who may very well come back to this crazy monster to fight, even if they would have more than Karmic Retribution to pack a punch. But it also occurred to him, cheating again to dodge a sucking vortex of flame, that if he killed this guy right here and now that might actually solve their problems, would solve everyone's problems down in this dark world.
Sans took the split second he had before Asgore turned to summon his troop of cannons, Gaster blasters bathing the king in bright beams of light before they dissolved into dust. Hearing his screams upon their impact didn't give him pleasure, exactly, but it took his mind off of his aching bones.
At this point the king was getting clumsy. Rather than swing at him with his trident or try to close in on him with fire, he charged at the skeleton like a bull with some really pointy and long horns. That was something that Sans easily ducked out of the way of, light in addition to being small and as a result a very annoying target. Asgore reeled and tried to swipe at him with his claws, but even that was predictable and easy to evade. Once he was done jumping through the air like a showoff, panting hard, he summoned another wave of bones.
As Asgore roared again, HP dropping like a stone, Sans realized that he was starting to accumulate an audience. The Dr. Alphys of this world hadn't been content to just sit back and tend to the machine's engine, she was peering out from several feet away, wringing her hands.
They had had a very sloppy beginning, and obviously the kid hated her guts, but really she wasn't all bad. The deal that she made him swear to was proof of that, in its own bizarre way.
She was joined by Papyrus and a limping Undyne too, as Sans noticed when he had to teleport from being bowled over by the crazy monster king again, this time not noticing his charge quick enough. Right, don't get distracted by the weird people who looked like his friends.
Still, he wanted to be distracted by them, by someone. Sans wanted to curl up on the ground and sleep. He wanted to go inside Grillby's and make himself a cheeseburger and then fall asleep before he was finished with it, and probably if it was this world's Frisk they would end up stealing it and if it was his world's Frisk they would take a selfie right next to him and the burger like a third wheel.
Sans sniggered and Asgore's claws ripped the front of his jacket. "...rude." He threw bony letters into the king's face, letters that spelled, "sans is something something."
This time when Asgore went down he didn't get up, pawing at the ground and making utterance after utterance in his pain. The RESOLVE that had been keeping his HP from hitting 0, even that was slowly deteriorating.
Sans was glad. He was pretty sure he'd be the one to pass out first in this fight. How embarrassing would that have been?
"hey buddy," he said, squatting down in front of his growling face. "not to be mean, but, you're pretty annoying. you're not even the one that i have the biggest bone to pick with."
Asgore, for his part, seemed too far gone for words by now. He just made weak reaches for Sans, restricted and agonized by the weight pressing down on him. Sans straightened up. "it's not even my job to worry about you. i mean, i'm not even getting paid for this. the person whose job it is... they're gonna have it pretty rough if they come back here and you're still alive."
The drain of karma slowed. Asgore's HP was well into single digits, and he wasn't moving anymore except to breathe. More monsters were watching him, coming out of the woodwork with the battle almost concluded. Sans-freaking-tastic (heh.)
"and you kept me from getting back to papyrus," Sans continued, "my bro."
His eye flashed bright blue and gold.
"you like hell so much? go burn in it, buddy."
The air sparked.
Frisk ran, half snuck around streets, ran, stopped to read street signs, and ran. She couldn't stop, for the longest time; each monster that she saw walking around was familiar to her. Someone she saw in Waterfall or Snowdin, or even god forbid Hotland. And the worst part was when she was noticed, and pointed out by their very familiar voices calling out to her. "Hey, Frisk!"
"Human!"
"Where are you going, Frisk?"
Where was she going? At least nobody was chasing her, so that when she finally found an alley that was empty she was able to stop and catch her breath. Catching her breath was a lot harder than it was supposed to be, though. She slapped the wall and leaned against it, wiping her eyes as many times as it took, staring down at the clean and fresh-looking pavement she was standing on. It was too hard, it was downright painful, the way her chest kept tightening up with each breath. Maybe she had been doing way too much running lately.
When she was in control of herself again, the child peered back out at her surroundings, trying with clenched muscles to keep her body from shaking.
This city wasn't New Home, at least as far as she knew. She had never actually been there, but Sans had showed her some photos of the location from before he and Papyrus moved to Snowdin. It looked awfully dark and filthy, much like the Ruins only not as closed off and seemingly lacking air. Was this New Home on the surface? From what little Blue Sans said, she had thought that the monsters were also underground... Everything here looked new, too.
It clicked, again.
...This place was beautiful. With each picture of it she made, the child compared it in her mind to her own.
Far in the distance, away from the city, Mt. Ebott rose above unfinished skyscrapers, set high against a late afternoon sky and breathtaking. No menace could be found in its green slopes, unlike the crag that she remembered. Shading her eyes, she studied the growing oranges of the sun dipping down lower and lower, an orange that was once the shade on her own shirt before it was worn by countless abuses.
Asgore's face- this one and the other- wavered in and out of her mind's eye. Papyrus, too. Blue Sans. Blue Papyrus...? Blue Asgore...? Blue world. Sunny world. Flowery world.
Sans was somewhere in this city, of that she was sure. All alone, Frisk called out weakly, "Sans?" He wasn't at Papyrus' house, and he wasn't apparently just walking around in the open like everybody else. "Sans...?" It might help if she had any idea at all where things were in this little city. The house of this world's Alphys, for example. As much as it turned her stomach to think of asking any Alphys for her help so explicitly. Frisk continued to wander, keeping up a suspicious watch for anyone nearby.
Wait...
Frisk stomped frantically on the ground beneath her and waited, fidgeting.
It was to her immense relief that Flowey pushed his way out of the ground to her in a few minutes, apparently just as relieved to find her again. "Frisk! You really scared me there, why did you run off like that?"
"We don't know these people, Flowey," she said, offering her hand to climb up. "I wish you wouldn't be such an idiot and call to them."
Embarrassed, he nonetheless protested. "Oh I don't think this Papyrus is that bad..."
"'That bad' is 'killed me fifty three times'. Do you really think I care if this Papyrus is just 'kills me five times'?" She said with an almost hysterical scoff, and then flicked him in the face as soon as he settled properly on her shoulder. "Don't be so stupid."
But Flowey didn't respond to that.
"...Anyway," she tried again, "Do you know where Sans is? I can't see him anywhere."
The flower shook his head, sighing, "He isn't exactly easy to find when he doesn't want to be found. I don't know if we really have a shot at finding him without asking around for the spooky scary skeleton making a mess of other people's stuff."
He probably had a point, but that would mean that she had to actually talk to these people, and Frisk wrung the ends of her sweater with a huge frown at the thought.
She sighed. "Can you... do the talking part?"
Flowey hesitated for just a second. "O-o-oh, if you think I should. Sure! Ha! You can be like my private taxi and take me places."
"That's all I've been doing lately," Frisk grumbled, but she didn't say no as she patted Flowey's head roughly.
That was it then. Unfortunately enough, if the child had not been killed by the Canine Unit she might have missed the other version of herself altogether, going more confidently through the city with just her buddy near to help her find Sans.
But she did, so she didn't.
It started when a monster with no arms mistook her for her counterpart.
"Get away from me!"
It was nice to have a ride to where she needed to go, for once- everything was so big on the surface, and yet there weren't as many modes of transportation to cut short all the travel time. No igloos out in the countryside, for example.
However, there was a cloaked monster giving ferry-rides not far from where the Froggits broke the door to her makeshift prison open. They were all too happy to have someone take a ride on their "boat" after so long.
"La ti tum, if I'm not a river-person any longer, should I be called the field-person? Tra la la..." they sang, and as usual Frisk gave no reply but a polite thank you when they got to the city.
The ache in her head had at least subsided a little by then.
It was only a little while into her walk when she heard the scream, one that was odd in a way she couldn't yet place. Munching on the River-Person's crackers, she ran towards the sound as if on an instinct.
"Woah, woah, wait, stop! Yo, what did I do!?"
By a row of unfinished houses, Leo was backing away from a human child, the most stricken expression on his face- the child, on the other hand, was holding a frying pan in their hands and growling scratchily from the back of their throat. Her first thought was the child of one of the crazy former villagers that she was always having to talk to the mayor about, but they looked familiar. They also had messy hair and looked like no one had washed them in days, if that.
Regardless, they slammed their pan on the pavement and Leo yelped at the loud noise. Frisk raced to his side as fast as he could, hand briefly touching to the heart locket she wore around her neck. "Hey! Leave him alone!
"Yo- Frisk?" Leo looked from one child to the other, and quickly ran behind the one who looked most familiar to her.
It was great that he was out of range of being hit, but Frisk wasn't exactly thrilled by what was looking to be another opportunity to get a concussion from this wild-child in an orange and black striped sweater. Their eyes widened, and they stopped growling, but did not move from their threatening stance.
"Who are they?" Leo whispered in her ear.
The other child was breathing hard. A flower looked as if it were blooming on their shoulder while she watched. "I d-don't know..."
"Geeze, I thought they were you!"
The flower on the child's shoulder had eyes and a mouth. With this and by Leo's statement, it suddenly all made sense. Frisk didn't look into mirrors often, so right away she hadn't seen it, but it was obvious now. They were identical. Eyes widening in understanding, rather than cower when the pan struck pavement again, she straightened up and stepped forward. "You're... his Frisk, aren't you?"
Still holding their weapon out, shoulders tensing, this other Frisk- Red Frisk? Just to be consistent; they had no speck of red on them- didn't move or speak, but she knew she was correct. And yet, what an awful thing to be correct about; she couldn't help but grimace. "I don't want to fight you." She pulled out the dull knife she always kept in her pocket. "Don't hurt my friend."
Again, Red Frisk didn't move or speak, only breathing a little heavier. Their eyes were also getting wider, studying her.
Frisk thought that just maybe it wouldn't be so bad when they started droop, the pan in their hands scraping against the path. She took a step forward. "I-it's, um, it's okay. Maybe you can give me that...?" The Flowey on Red Frisk's shoulder bizarrely nodded, shivering.
Then before she knew what happened, she was sprawled on the sidewalk with a pain in her head even worse than the first.
Why are you hitting yourself?
Blood was rushing in Frisk's ears.
And it was also bleeding out of a wound in her other self's head.
It was so, so different when somebody bled. Monsters, at least none she had seen, bled. And that blood was even on the edge of the pan, the edge that had hit the mark. Frisk trembled hard like she was stuck in Snowdin, chest tightening; she took a step back, and then several more, away from the other kid- the other Frisk in a purple and blue sweater. This Blue Frisk was holding their head, struggling to get off the ground, although the best that they could do was get onto their hands and knees.
"U..u-um..."
"Ow," they moaned.
The monster brat that she'd been trying to hit in the first place at first yelped and tried to tend to his friend, nudging them with his muzzle. But then when it occurred to him that he didn't have arms he charged at Frisk instead, planting his feet firmly on the cement. "You're gonna pay for that! I'll show you to start smacking people, you big bully!"
"M... me?" Frisk said dumbly. The other child on the ground lifted their head, and their eyes met. Frisk's expression hardened and with that glare in her eyes she looked back at the monster brat. "Me?"
Something was creeping up her arms. Frisk dodged aside of the monster brat's attempt at a headbutt and she exhaled to feel that something tighten, pinioning one arm and almost doing the same to another. Pinpricks of pain reached her skin; she screamed, "Flowey!"
"Frisk you're-" That was as far as he got before her free hand reached back behind herself, fingers grasping for his stem. "A-aaAh!" She missed, several times in the span of a few seconds, but the coils of his tendrils loosened anyway. She jumped out of the way of another charge by the monster brat, and she swung with her pan. It didn't connect and she swung dizzily, readying for another turn at the same pace as the monster brat.
Blue Frisk was on their knees, bleeding from their head wound. "Stop!"
Frisk took a look at them and almost retched, rubbing a sleeve over their mouth.
-2 HP
Then the monster brat slammed his head into her side and she shrieked in pain, staggering. Sticking out a leg to keep from falling, she whacked him with the handle of her weapon and he crashed to the ground seeing stars. The only one standing then was Frisk, as it always was.
She lost her grip.
You have another concussion.
To say that this was unexpected was an understatement, but when she really thought about it Frisk didn't know what she had been expecting out of herself in a world that was supposed to be ten times worse. She was pretty sure that the pain she was going through was worse than when Red Sans knocked her out, and yet it was still slightly better than when Papyrus had pelted her to a pulp with bone attacks.
It was difficult just fighting not to lose consciousness, and also fighting not to throw up suddenly on the sidewalk. Something warm and wet was running down her neck and on her chin.
What did Red Sans call her before? A little shit? That seemed like a title better applied to this other child right now, whom she got a bit of a closer look at when struggling upright onto her knees. Their clothes were ratty, torn, restitched, covered in faint little bloodstains. Like someone who had been in hundreds of fights. When she hit Leo, adrenaline fired in Frisk's veins and she thought that maybe Red Frisk was about to be in one more.
Well... except even being upright ended up being too hard. And before the dizziness had even stopped there was a clatter and footfalls.
Frisk winced and looked back, but Red Frisk was gone.
"What the... hell?" She said, a word she had learned much earlier. And then she watched Leo pick himself up off the ground. "Oh! Leo!"
He didn't look hurt, rather stunned, and snapped out of it at her voice. "Y-yo! Are you okay? What's all that red stuff?"
"My head hurts," Frisk burbled, lying back down on the sidewalk.
"Oh geeze, um, um, okay, let me try and fix you up, uh, uh," Leo scurried over to his friend's prone form, saying a little too loud, "I've been practicing!"
The monster kid was still young, and not very experienced at healing, but he nonetheless pressed his muzzle to her head and applied the itchy green magic to it. Frisk's pain became bearable, and she stopped worrying that a girl just as young as her had managed to crack her skull open. Something small touched the tips of her fingers and she also felt the tingle of magic spread along her body; it was the other Flowey, the one she had seen on Red Frisk's shoulder. His vines were coiling on her sweater sleeve and his petals brushed her palm.
"Eugh-!" The child yelped and tried to shake him off.
The plant hung on tighter, "No, no, no, no, I'm trying to help you!"
"You're the evil Flowey!" Frisk said stubbornly, shaking her arm again. "And my Flowey is pretty bad to start with!"
He was a stubborn thing too, though, digging in with sharp thorns. "No, no, no, I'm not- well, I wouldn't go that far." He smiled nervously at her, and Frisk could see tiny little fangs poking out from under his lips. Frisk shrieked again and started shaking, and whipping up and down he protested hysterically, "I'm not evil I'm not evil I'm not evil I'm not evil I swear!"
"Dude!" Leo said, looking at him with big eyes. "Talking flower!"
Something occurred to her, though, and she decided for a second to give this thing the benefit of the doubt. "But wait, you guys are the other Frisk and Flowey from that world Sans is in, right?"
"Yes!" Flowey said in a high pitch, clinging to Frisk's arm in a death-hug. "Yes, yes, yes we are!"
She tried to pluck him off and that didn't seem to help either; then again, the little flower was starting to look pitiful with how much he was trembling, petals curled inwards. Maybe he was the opposite of her Flowey instead of an intensification.
On the other hand, that meant that Red Asriel must be-
You suddenly remember that Sans needs you still.
Oh, right. "How did you two get here in the first place? Do you know where Sans is?"
At this, the Flower perked up, and then drooped again. "He, uh, he got the machine w-w-working, and we came here through it. It's just, he didn't f-f-follow us through it."
"What? Why not?" Flowey inched up closer to her shoulder. "Is it possible for me to go to him from here?"
Squeaking, he said, "I-I would not advise it, b-but-"
"Then we gotta get going!" She looked to Leo, who nodded. "He can help us sort all this other stuff out, I'm sure of it."
"Yo, I'll go get Alphys and Papyrus!" Leo said. He was practically jumping, earlier injury forgotten.
Smiling at him for half a second, Frisk turned and began to run, with his going clumsily after her. "Show me where to go, Flowey."
She would try not to worry and wonder where her Red Frisk had gotten off to.
"Red Frisk" actually hadn't left at all. She was just hiding, peering at them while they talked from behind the window of an uninhabited new house. Not that she knew it wad uninhabited when she ran into it, but it was fortunate there were no more monsters inside when she had already dropped her only means of defending herself on the street.
Only when she was safely out of view did Frisk realize, as well, that Flowey wasn't even on her shoulder anymore. He was with the other Frisk out on the sidewalk, glowing green and climbing up her arm the way he did for her. A second later she watched him panicking and stayed silent, waited while the other child who was covered in dried blood calmed him down. Through the window, in the shadows, Frisk watched all of it, all up until the three of them left to find Sans and Blue Sans.
When that happened, Frisk exited the house and slowly returned to the sidewalk. From there, she noticed that she had never stopped shaking, and she stood in place taking deep breaths.
It was her.
That was... not her.
They looked the same, but that was where the similarities stopped.
It was that way for everything in this world.
And something came back to her, something she'd heard.
"Shit, shit, shit..."
Frisk rubbed the old scars and scabs that her sweater sleeves hid, squinting hard and cursing so quietly under her breath.
The reason why this monster kingdom is happy and on the surface, and the reason why the other monster kingdom is miserable and trapped underground.
Sitting down on the sidewalk curb, she put her head in her hands and started crying.
At first it was just some tears squeezed from her eyes, as it had been for the past few days. Then, it was messy and uncontrollable, like it was on the day that she met King Asgore. Her breathing became noisy and painful sobs, her body being wracked with them and muscles squeezing so tight they ached. Then it moved even beyond that, becoming messy and loud, outright bawling.
She couldn't stop. However much she wished to stop, the sobs kept coming and turning to hard hiccups, her face kept twisting, and tears soaked her sweater sleeves. She had nothing else in her head except for how sorry she felt for herself, and such thoughts couldn't let her stop.
Such a crybaby. I'll try harder not to, she always told herself, and it was always the dumbest things that brought all those tears back.
Frisk cried until her head hurt, until her back hurt, until her eyes and nose were sore, until she was also having to wipe snot from her nostrils in addition to the tears on her cheeks- why not? She was already a mess. She cried until she couldn't think anymore, until her arms were tired of clinging to her knees, until her throat ached.
She cried until Sans said, "oh, boy. i know that pathetic sniveling anywhere."
Still in the middle of a sob, Frisk looked up from where she sat. At first, she didn't recognize him for who he was- she almost thought that it was Blue Sans, wearing a fluffy blue coat now that he was back in his own world. But she knew to whom those words belonged, and his crueler features became clear to her in a moment.
She couldn't speak, couldn't even start telling him what an idiot he was and how he was going to come home with her right now like how she'd rehearsed in her head. Couldn't even say hi. Shock had stolen whatever voice hadn't been lost in all her bawling. So she just stared at him, hiccuping and biting her lip to keep from sobbing so loudly again. She wiped her eyes, desperately, and failed.
But for the first time, he wasn't pinching her nose and threatening to give her something real to cry about. Instead, her Sans mused, "i should have figured you of all people would get over here first, pipsqueak. just didn't think you'd get so emotional over it, amirite?"
Frisk didn't stop, couldn't stop. She bowed her head in shame, and Sans' smile turned into a grimace while sweat gathered on his head. "h-hey, come on, cut it out. i haven't seen you in like over a week. i actually, i actually have some questions i want ask you now."
"..don't... wanna..." She choked out at last, only precious few words making it past the lump in her throat. "Be... the b-b-bad..."
His white pupil eyes roved over her and then were replaced by his more familiar, glaring red eye. "i didn't quite catch that."
Frisk put her head in her hands and with an uncooperative throat she scratched out, "I don't w-w-wanna be the evil Frisk!" Saying it aloud just made all the tears come faster, unfortunately, and that was it.
Out of her sight, Sans murmured, "oh. uh. is this... because of what i said earlier?" His only response from the child was a lingering whimper, and he exhaled sharply. "look, pip-...squeak, uh, i, when i said that, i was just being- well, i didn't mean... i mean i'm probably- but- you're not-" The child started to unfurl, still wiping her eyes heavily with her sleeves, and Sans was grimacing hard.
"uhh... oh, hey!" Perking up suddenly, he gave a quick glance to Frisk before rifling through his pockets. Soon enough he pulled out a large something wrapped up in paper. "i almost forgot, been holding on to this for you."
"You got something for me?" The girl choked.
Sans nodded quickly, unwrapping the package. "yeah! um... was not entirely sure, uh, how to get it to ya, but well here you are now."
He handed it to her quickly, the object that she accepted with shaking arms. To her utter surprise, it was a big plush bunny that was half her size, and she didn't really know how Sans had kept it in his pocket in the first place. It was incredibly soft to touch, white with an orange chest, and really the last thing she would have ever expected from him.
The child looked up, fighting more tears. "...what's wrong with it?" She whispered.
"-fucking hell," he sputtered, "nothing's wrong with it! what makes you think something's wrong with it?"
She pressed it tight to her chest, and it didn't explode. "...There's always something wrong with it."
"well," Sans hissed, and then swallowed uncomfortably. "there's not. this time."
Maybe that was true; Frisk held the toy out in her arms, studying it more closely. But the more that she looked, the less and less guard she had to keep herself in check, and the tears that she had just managed to dry mere seconds ago rekindled. To prevent Sans from seeing, she buried her face into the fur of the rabbit and soaked it instead.
"ah shit," he said. "fuck if i knew it was just going to make you do more of this i wouldn't have given it to you." She heard his footsteps, and his shadow darkened her when he stepped closer. "is this still about the 'evil' thing?"
Smiling through her tears, or perhaps it was because of them, she could only say, "Ye-s... s.."
"i'm not good at this, kid," he said to her hoarsely. "come on, quit it. you think crying's going to accomplish anything?"
"Sans..."
He wheezed, albeit softly. "s-stop it, you're just throwing a tantrum. you- you know you're not that bad."
And maybe that was also true, but in spite of that Frisk could not just stop. If he wanted to leave, if he wanted to stop listening, then he could. But for now she spoke, in the lowest voice she possessed, past her constricted windpipe. "I did all these mean things..." another intake of breath. "And-and I didn't... want to do them, but I didn't... know what else to do."
"join the club, twerp," said Sans. He had not left yet.
She knew Sans so well, or at least she thought that she did. In this case, at least, she knew what he was angling for. But even though her lips formed the words that she would use to replace these tears with, it was her throat that refused to cooperate. And the only noise she could make, instead of a curse, was just another ugly, loud sob.
But Sans didn't leave even then, and something new happened. "look, hey, hey," he said suddenly. "it's not you, okay? it's just the place. it's that world that's bad." When she didn't respond, he continued, "i-i-i mean, that other pipsqueak, they- if-if they were put in your situation they would be exactly the same as you, y'know?"
"No they wouldn't," was her immediate response, said mostly to herself.
"they wouldn't? they wouldn't?" He repeated with an edge to his speech, rapping on her head with his knuckles. "i bet that they would. there is a way to test that, y'know," he said with a wheezy chuckle. "whadd'ya say we toss that brat into your world for a while, let you live here? after all, you guys look... pretty alike, don't you think?"
Frisk raised her head, red-rimmed eyes wide and staring at Sans. He nodded at her, smiling again, red eye shaking in his socket. "yeah, c'mon, at least think about it. you could get a bath, eat as much stuff as you want, go to school, have friends like a normal kid... you'd never die- ever again. no one would be able to tell the difference."
"He's right," Frisk nearly jumped out of her skin, seeing Flowey sprout beside her. "No one would know. And even if you don't throw t-the other human into that world, it'd be a good escape."
Sans took in the sight of Flowey with a cool eye. "see? even the weed agrees with me."
"Sans... Flowey..." Frisk wiped her face again and sniffed, trying not to sneeze. At Flowey, in particular, she shot a meaningful gaze. Was this your plan from the start? From the very moment he suggested they help Blue Sans. She had thought it was out of character for him to help someone he didn't know.
Sniffing again, Frisk shook her head. "I can't do that... I have to go back." She stood. "We... we both have to."
Immediately, something in Sans' expression changed, and he took a step away from her. "no."
But wiping her eyes and snorting excess mucus, she held out her hand to him. She affixed a more determined expression on her face, one that was much better than the blubbering that she had been doing. "We have to, come on. Blue Sans is in trouble back in our world."
"you fucking named him blue sans?"
Frisk stomped her foot, while his red eye blazed. "Sans!"
He coughed, "uh, gee, that seems more like his problem than mine, doesn't it?"
"It... it is your problem, though." Even as she argued with Sans, Frisk knew that his counterpart was very probably dead or worse when facing Asgore, or whatever was keeping him for so long. "Because it's your fault that he's there."
He shook his head quickly. "no, it's not my problem."
Frisk wiped her nose and eyes again. "Sans, we have to go home now."
"that's not home," he snarled, and the air around them changed. The sky wasn't so bright anymore, although with the hours wearing on as they were that might have been a coincidence more than anything else.
Truth be told, it scared her a little. Flowey, as well, shooting back under the earth where he was safe. At times, Frisk really hated him more than anyone else for having such a safety net. She, she had to swallow her fear and walk forward. "Whatever it is to you, you're coming with me and helping me get Blue Sans back."
He laughed, but it sounded different. "leave if you want, i'm not going anywhere."
"That's not good enough."
More wheezy, odd laughing. His eye began flashing yellow, shoulders moving faintly with his breaths. "good enough? but we're evil, remember?"
"So help me God, Sans!" Frisk snatched her pan from where it lay on the street, and in the same motion stowed the rabbit away. She pointed the bloody end at him like a rapier. "You're coming back with me even if I have to drag you the whole way, you fucking retard!"
Sans blinked at her, slowly, well into heavy breathing by now as if he had just run an uncomfortably long distance. Frisk hesitated just once in her pose to wipe her runny nose again, and his smile full of sharp teeth grew maniacally broad. "Okay then, Plan C," he said, in a rarely heard voice.
Frisk took a step towards him. And then felt a tug on her SOUL.
Sans jerked his hand forward. "sorry."
And so she went flying into the side of the nearest building.
You feel like you're not going to have an easy time.
Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews, guys! I keep saying that but they are really a pleasure to read ;w;
We're getting deeper into the stuff I've been writing and revising in my head for a while, so even though I'm getting into some important real life things I hope to have the next chapter out in about a week. Enjoy! OOO
Next Chapter: Proving Hall
