It was sunrise.
"It's a beautiful day outside."
Everyone was suffering.
"Birds are singing.."
Monsters were dying.
"..flowers are blooming."
In that timeline, it was..
"On days like these, kids like you.."
"Kill or be killed."
"..should be burning in hell."
A monster..
A monster that simply wanted to avenge his friends. To avenge his brother.
"A human.."
"A human that has the power to reset. The power to erase our memories."
Chara, the first human that fell into the underground. A reason as to why the king had proclaimed war. Her reincarnation was the outcome of the massacre that befell on each and every single monster. Everyone, with the exceptions of a king, a flower..
..a skeleton.
Frisk flashed a sinister smile. "Why not just let me win, Sans?"
Bones abruptly closed her off on both sides. Sans raised his hand as a signal to blast. "Please.. hear me out, kid."
For real, Frisk could barely make sense of what was happening. She was being.. controlled. She couldn't even tell if her body was her own anymore. She had gone insane. If Sans were to die right there and then, Chara would've been responsible for his death, and nobody would be able to stop her. Hell, Frisk couldn't even move a limb.
Frisk woke up, back at her "save point." She flashed another creepy smile, and walked toward Sans.
The monster noticed the identifiable figure and scoffed, "Heh. Guess I'm pretty good at my job, huh?"
Frisk started to have a chuckle, which turned into a laugh of a maniac's afterwards. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CONTROL?"
"You're not the Frisk I used to be friends with."
Sans shut his eyes for a moment or two. "Welp. Here we go."
The human was getting faster with every try. There was no doubt he'd stop dodging her attacks. Despite that..
More time was being wasted. But no one was giving up hope.
"I am asking for one thing, and that is to disrupt the life of every living thing. There is nothing left for you here. If it's peace that you want, the solution is bright as day: you should just DIE." Chara continued her chatter while she kept dodging Sans's attacks. Everything became so recognizable after a few more resets. The sounds of the birds chirping, the sight of the bright light coming from the windows, and the pain from being blasted or impaled that Frisk had to endure.
"In my personal opinion.. buddy. The most "determined" thing you can do right here, is to completely give up." Everything was all just the same. Sure, the patterns broke because of different things that upped and happened, but otherwise.. one would say that reality was predictable.
Mettaton invited everyone over to the lab, which is in Hotland. No wonder Undyne doesn't want to come. Frisk just came from Snowdin and was actually just about to sleep in the Inn, so she didn't have the time to change, nor eat. Now she's just practically drenched in sweat while her stomach is grumbling. Desperately wanting to go home as quickly as possible, she looked around for Mettaton to be able to dismiss herself. "Ugh, this is the worst possible day of my life.."
"Wow. Look at yourself." Sans stopped in his tracks, "You're a hot mess."
The human flinched in surprise, and turned around. "Jesus Christ, Sans." Frisk snickered, "I just got here, and that is the first thing that I hear from you."
"Hey, I did a pretty good one this time, y'know." He chuckled as he escorted her inside the lab. "Say, you look.. pretty tired. Why not relax and take a load off?"
"Ah, no, I'm fine. Let's just get this over with." She yawned. "Though, I could really use some sleep right now, honestly."
The two were surprised to see the place without rubbish scattered around. It's still kind of impossible that Alphys would clean up all the mess inside, so Mettaton could've probably done all this. After all, he was the one who invited us in the first place.
"Welp, seems like it's only the two of us here." He looked at Frisk, "For now."
They decided to sit in the corner, and leaned over the wall.
Frisk remembered everything she's said the day before. A part of her wants to disappear in humiliation for saying all that. Another part of her feels glad because of said reason. She smiled, "..Yeah."
"So, uh, about yesterday." He turned to face the other way. "I'm sorry for starting the fuss, kid."
"Oh, that." She chuckled, "That's no big deal. I actually feel.. great for saying everything I needed to."
"Alright, then. Glad to be of help."
Frisk leaned in and let her head rest on Sans's shoulder.
"Heh. Tired, aren'tcha?" Sans commented. Frisk could only nod.
Her eyelids felt heavy. She was starting to doze off, until..
"OHHHH YES!"
Frisk jerked in surprise, causing her head to hit the wall. "..ow.."
"Frisk-darling, I've fabulous news for you!"
Frisk let out a sigh, "Figures."
"Yeah, you got a fine for hitting her head? That's great." Sans added. He held out his hand, and Frisk grabbed it without further hesitation. She noticed a brief glow that seemed to come from Sans's eye, but she shrugged it off. Must have been her imagination.
"I may have caused it, yes. But I never did hit her." Mettaton took a seat, and posed seductively. "Why don't you call your friends? Come on, now, chop-chop. No time to waste!"
Frisk rolled her eyes in extreme weariness. The robot's been making her work overnight. The lab should have looked like it just stormed of papers and balloons. Nobody knew about this but Alphys, since it was her lab they were using in the first place. "Mettaton's still being Mettaton." She grabbed her phone from her purse. "Why don't I call Alphys first? Thought she told me she was going to give me something today."
Frisk waited for Alphys to answer the call. Sans is a little worried, but if it's Frisk we're talking about, he's about as sure as the others that she's determined to handle the troubles she'll be going through. If anything can go wrong, Sans will be able to cheer her up in less than a second anyway. Now, isn't she the luckiest person in the underground? Even having a lazy-ass monster to look out for her. "Hello?"
"Hm. Yeah. He's still a queer." Sans nonchalantly commented as he sees Mettaton feeding himself grapes as if giving them the message of, "Compliment my sexy, robotic body."
"Sans!" Frisk glared at him. "Rude."
Sans ignored her, whistling. For a second there, you could feel a hint of sarcasm.
"Sans? What do you- Oh no!" Alphys gasped, overhearing what she said, "W-wait, don't.. tell me y-you're alone together again!" She said.
"What? No, Mettaton's here as well. And what do you mean by 'again'?" Frisk had an idea, but she just wasn't so sure.
"Wow. You're so dense, light bends around you." Sans chortled.
"Shut up." Frisk tried to hold in a laugh, but failed to do so.
"C'mon, you're smiling." He ruffled her hair. At least he didn't really change much. Toriel's been spending a lot of time with Asgore in the castle lately. Undyne's been setting up traps with Papyrus, thus they haven't been seeing her lately. Napstablook and Shyren wasn't even around for days, too. Frisk felt a little lonesome in Waterfall. Though you could say it's just as fine as long as Flowey's there to cheer her up sometime. Aaron was also around to do his thing, but it's kind of creeping her out.
"So you were stalking us yesterday." Frisk clarified, disappointed. Although this isn't really much of a surprise anymore, she's been following her for straight three weeks and it's rather unsettling. One moment you're having a peaceful sleep as you dream about kittens or God knows whatever, and the next you're being stalked like you've been doing something wrong.
"I-it's not like I did it on purpose! I was in my room, a-and I just went down to check if everything was in place and all, and, and-" Frisk intentionally cut her off, "Shh. I don't care."
"NEITHER DO I."
Sans turned around, as well as Frisk, after hearing this loud voice. The both of them deliberately yelled out his name in unison, loud enough for Mettaton to drop his fruit. "Papyrus!"
"Oh. The tall one arrived." The robot now decided to lie down on the floor, and posed again, attempting to be.. alluring. How long does he want to keep doing this?
"YES, I HAVE. BUT, I DON'T CARE." He said with a straight face, and looks at Frisk. "WHO WERE YOU TALKING TO?"
"Me." Sans replied, stealing a glance at the human.
"ME?" Papyrus walked toward them and snatched the phone from Frisk's hand, now placing it near his non-existent ear. "HELLO? AM I TALKING TO ME?" You could hear a faint giggle from Frisk's side.
"Y-yes? I-I mean, no! This is Alphys, the royal scientist." She stuttered.
"ALPHYS?" He paused for a second, "WOW! I CAN'T BELIEVE I SOUND JUST LIKE HER."
"Wow." Frisk sighed, "I guess that settles it, huh? Alphys'll probably just come here by herself. I mean, it's her lab, right? She even has all.. THESE scattered on her desk." She handed out some disk containers to Sans. Each case is labelled: "anime 3"
"Hm. Yeah. It's almost as if she planned to finish these today." Sans stared at the cover. There was a girl with long, brown hair with two pink pins to hold her bangs in place. She somehow looks like a middle school student. There was also this guy with darker hair standing far from the said character before, and looked kind of annoyed. Something about this bothers the skeleton, almost as if he was looking at something.. indecent.
"Um, is there something wrong?" Frisk poked his head and leaned in.
"Uh, no. The disks kinda just seemed a little off, y'know." Sans placed the cases back on the desk.
"Ah, well.. that's Alphys for you." She sat next to Sans and continued their chatter, while Papyrus had decided to.. observe them by just staring at them and paying attention to what they have to say to each other. Same goes for Alphys too, since they haven't really hung up on each other yet.
"YOU KNOW. SOMETHING FEELS VERY FISHY." Papyrus whispered, though loud enough for Frisk and Sans to hear.
"Ya mean, Undyne's actually coming over?" Sans stifled a laugh.
"..WHAT." Papyrus, with his deadpanned stare.
"Frisk. Please, get your friends to come over right this instant." Mettaton hit her head in a playful way just so that it wouldn't really hurt Frisk, who noticed his intentions right away. Sans, on the other hand..
"Don't you dare touch her." Sans shoved his hand away. There was another momentary sight of blue or yellow glow from Sans's left eye. This time, Frisk couldn't just ignore it. She's seen this side of him countless of times, and it's hard not to think about him snapping anytime soon.
"S-Sans, I'm fine. It was more of a joke, you know." She took and kept a firm hold of his bony hands, in hopes of calming him down.
"Well, well welly, well. I had absolutely no idea you were the protective one around here. Interesting, and worth a hundred of views." Mettaton crossed his arms across his chest.
"YEAH, SANS! I THOUGHT YOU ONLY CARED ABOUT HOW MUCH SLEEP YOU GET." Papyrus added, later wanting to take back what he said when he realized that something feels off.
"I-I'm on my way with two other m-monsters! Please.. don't fight!" Alphys later hung up on them. None of this is as predictable as everything was in the past. It's.. a very different timeline. Frisk hasn't been doing any resets, and probably never will ever again.
"SANS, I THINK YOU'RE BEING SOMEWHAT.. DIFFICULT, RIGHT NOW. PLEASE, CALM DOWN." Papyrus toned down his voice a little bit. Mettaton wasn't being exactly rude, but with him giving Sans some sarcastic replies, it just makes everything else worse.
"My, my. And I thought you were the casual type, usually just sleeping your own life away. Now what is this madness that I'm seeing in front of my very beautiful eyes?" Mettaton chuckled.
"..Pal. If you touch the kid ONE more time, you are REALLY not gonna like what happens next. So relax, get back and nobody gets hurt. Capiche?" A few patterns repeat. This isn't the first time Frisk heard those words. Unsurprisingly enough, those lines were supposed to be aimed at her.
Everyone stayed quiet and tried to avoid making any sounds afterwards. Everyone, except Mettaton.
"Well then, "Sans." Before you force me into doing something that I would rather not do, I must first declare.. CONFRONTATION." Mettaton leaned in closer, and whispered, "And you surely do know what I mean."
Sans scoffed, "Heh. Do you mean 'con-back-tation'? You always seemed like the kind of monster who'd turn their backs on anyone who doesn't praise ya. Real confrontation won't ever happen with you anytime soon."
"Oh? That seems to conflict with something that's called "decision," doesn't it, darling?" Mettaton replied, a tone of frustration within his voice.
"TRIGGERED." Papyrus commented from afar.
"I don't see the difficulties in making decisions when you have THAT big of an ego, buddy."
Frisk wiped away a tear before it even fell. "Guys, please.."
There was an abrupt sound of footsteps that became louder and louder each second. "Mettaton, stop!"
"Sorry, Dr. Alphys, but this bonehead and I have a lot of to say in conflict." The robot took a step forward.
"C-conflict?!" Alphys gasped in extreme anxiety.
Frisk dashed in between the two, "Just.. just stop!"
"Frisk, darling, you're in the way." Mettaton pushed her away with his arm. "Hey!" Frisk hissed in pain. Despite possessing a humanoid body, he's still made of metal, rendering him invulnerable and to deal greater damage. With him focused on this 'conflict', there'd be no way to end this other than fighting back.
"Frisk!" Sans yelped, then gave Metatton an intense, cold stare that left him uneasy. "I told you not to TOUCH the kid, didn't I?"
"..Now you've just gone and done it."