Author's note: So… in case you haven't seen the announcement I added to Underfantasy, I've been thinking about revising it. In other words I'm going to rewrite it, now that I have a much better idea of my own world.

I'd be making it so Ufan and AtDGO aren't separate fics, anymore. They'd be under the same title, once I work up the nerve to go through with this. I don't know how I'm going about it, quite yet, but AtDGO will go on hiatus once Chapter 25 is posted, so I can focus on the overhaul. The hiatus will last indefinitely, and all the current AtDGO chapters and any new chapters will be eventually become a part of the newly-revised Ufan.

The majority of the changes will be in Ufan. The chapters where the monsters live on the surface might still be the same just… without the (admittedly unnecessary) bits at the start of each chapter with "Francine and Manuela."

Until I'm ready to post this new super-fic, AtDGO will stay where it is. It will only come down once I start posting those chapters in the revised Ufan.

Let me know what you think, if you feel like it. No pressure. I'll just… go now.

"I don't know if Chara is truly evil, or not. If I use them later down the line I don't want them to be evil incarnate. But… they won't be good, either." -Francine I. Kane, 201X-

Chapter 22: Joyride

Chara awoke to darkness. It had to be the middle of the night, judging by the quiet surrounding the tent, although it would have been more accurate to say the relative quiet. An early summer breeze was making all the trees rustle. Insects called to one another and animals moved throughout their territories, predators and prey alike. Everyone was used to such sounds, by now. No one would notice one more predator lurking in the dark.

It was a perfect night for what they had in mind.

They sat up and stretched, rolling their head on their new neck. They flexed their borrowed fingers and let their magic travel down new arms. They wriggled their toes and marveled at how even that felt different. It wasn't the only difference…

Chara had never cared for the… odds and ends that'd hung off their old body. They remembered wishing they had none of it and it looked like that wish finally came true. But after poking around Frisk's memories and learning what she knew about puberty (an interesting lesson…), Chara knew being a female had its own set of… inconveniences.

But this body would do, for now. Magic did not care about biology, and to prove it Chara summoned a knife to their left hand as a test, grasping the expression of their determination as it appeared. They smiled, feeling the familiar tug on the soul they were now driving like a buggy.

It didn't matter that the soul was borrowed, too. They were the one in control. That was the only thing that mattered, and was all that ever mattered.

They dissipated the knife and quietly left the confines of the sleeping bag, slipping into Frisk's boots. They dared not to awaken Mrs. Dreemurr, nor alert the guards standing outside. Since they could not walk out the front door they would have to make their own exit. Was it not grand that this was a tent with nice, thin walls?

Mrs. Dreemurr continued to sleep as Chara walked to the back of the tent. "Flowey" sat in his pot near the head of Frisk's sleeping bag. The human did not want a nocturnal herbivore to come along and eat him while he slept, so she made it a habit to bring him inside. A mixture of peculiar feelings stirred in their chest as they passed him, making Chara pause.

On one hand, Asriel ruined everything. He squandered their sacrifice and refused to fight, even when the human capacity for violence was shoved in his face. That soft-headed, soft-hearted crybaby LET them kill him. He doomed his race to live under the mountain far longer than they had to. But now…

Now sweet and loving Asriel was soulless little Flowey. Chara knew they were not the most compassionate person, but to see their only true friend reduced to THAT… Because of a plan Asriel never really want to go along with in the first place…

Alphys may have injected the determination but, because of their plan, Asriel's memories had been carved into those seeds for the DT to resurrect. Chara's hand twitched, itching to put what was left of their best friend out of his misery…

They shook their head. They had to focus if they were going to make things right. They were going to help the monsters, this time, starting with the human that caused them grief. They couldn't waste their energy before then, because afterward they were going to go after more humans. Not a single one was going to hurt another monster, ever again.

Anticipation curled the corners of their mouth into a smile. They were filled with determination.

Sans twitched out of slumber, wondering what had awoken him. He didn't have long to wait before his internal question was answered.

"Frisk? What is the matter? You don't normally call me this late at ni-" Papyrus cut himself off. Sans peeked through a half-open orbit as his brother stilled, expression horrified. "Flowey? What's wrong? Slow down! Calmly, now. What did you say about Frisk?"

Sans abandoned pretending to sleep in order to reach over and grasp Papyrus' carpus. He pulled the arm down, bringing the c-phone with it. His brother was trying to resist but Sans wasn't having any of it. He put the device on speaker and a voice he'd never heard before continued without realizing there was a newcomer to the conversation. The voice was hushed, like "Flowey" was trying to talk without waking someone.

"-when I woke up, Frisk was standing at the back of the tent, holding a magic knife! The red one! She cut a hole in the wall, then crawled outside without a word!"

Sans forced himself to keep smiling, even as his brow ridges drew downward. "well, well, well," he said almost amiably. "have to hand it to you, weed. didn't think you were quite this talented. got any other talents we need to know about? torturing innocent kids, for example."

He was worried about Frisk. He really was. But old feelings were coming back with a vengeance. Too much information was falling into place, all at once. Some of his nightmares were coming true and he was not happy about it. Anger, grief, and betrayal warred with the need to know what was going on, right now. Silence stretched until Flowey sighed, making their end of the c-phone call hiss.

"Listen, Chuckles, we don't have time for you to go into your spiel about how you're going to give me a 'bad time.'" He sounded scared, but matter-of-fact as well. "Something's going on with Frisk. I know her mom talked to you about her nightmares. Well, it looks like she's started sleep-walking, and I have no idea where she's going! With a knife in her hand, if you need reminding."

"and you expect me to believe you? the little weirdo that attacked us at the barrier, before that flash of light? the freak that was trying to kill frisk?"

"Dammit Sans, I know what I did! You can judge me all you want, later. But right this minute Frisk is running around, using magic that hurt her, and I don't know where she'd be going with it! And every second we spend arguing is one second closer to losing track of her!"

Sans' mandible hurt before he realized he was grinding his teeth together. The weed had a point, damn it to Hell! But memories of erased timelines piled one on top of another. He didn't know why a voice was all it took for clarity to return (if one could call the jumbled mess of dozens of lifetimes "clarity"), but he knew he couldn't trust that flower! Not that demented little freak! He just couldn't!

Papyrus' soft voice brought him back to the present. "Sans… Brother, please. I know you don't like golden flowers, anymore, and that you've had nightmares about them. But Flowey isn't like that! He's my friend. We can trust him. Furthermore, Frisk running away somewhere, in secret and without a guard, is dangerous! She needs us. All of us." He didn't wait for Sans to respond, or argue. He said to Flowey, "Well, my friend, if you are borrowing Frisk's c-phone, may I assume it's not on her person?"

"Yeah… she left it behind."

Sans scoffed. "and just how does a weed like you use a c-phone?"

The rolling of Flowey's eyes was almost audible. "Oh, please. I lifted six full-grown monsters, two of which were the Dreemurrs, clear off the ground. You think a little bitty c-phone is a challenge?"

"Please, you two! We're getting off-track! Frisk's health, if not her life, is at stake, here! Stop boondoggling, both of you!"

Sans winced. Being scolded by his brother was usually just part of their routine, but right this minute there was a trace of genuine disappointment in Papyrus' voice. And he had a point, too! But Sans was damned if he was going to apologize to a weed. Not even Papyrus could make him do that.

He released his brother's carpus and shoved his tarsals into his boots. "'m goin' t'see alphys," he muttered. "mebbe one of her scryin' eyes caught frisk."

He almost shortcut away, not wanting to listen to whatever Flowey decided to spew next, or listen to Papyrus scold him for trying to watch his back, but the memory of a green scarf flashed before his eyes. Papyrus' scarf, covered in dust and fluttering in his hands, made him stop and lean toward Papyrus' c-phone.

"one thing before i go, flowey," he said, pronouncing the name like it was a curse. "if i find out this is some plot to do something to me and mine, again…" He changed his voice, letting Flowey know he wasn't joking. "There is not a hole in existence deep enough to hide you from me. I do not care how many lifetimes it takes, I will find you. Do you understand?"

"What do you mean 'again'? Do you mean like one of your 'across space and time' pranks?" Papyrus' unease was clear in his voice, not liking it when Sans did that with his. Nor did he like the way Sans' pupils snuffed out whenever he did it.

Sans ignored his brother. He let his voice go back to normal and his pupils returned as he said, "well, mulch-breath? we clear?"

"…clear as crystal."

"good."

Sans shortcut away without another word, only to miss his destination by a good fifteen feet. Great. Fantastic. It figured his agitation would throw off his aim.

He was standing just outside the Lab. Although the scrying eyes (Alphys was damned if she was going to call them what they were; cameras) had been moved to the surface, they still fed their images to her console down in Hotland. Sans keyed in his passcode a little more forcefully than normal, still angry.

Leave it to his brother- his big-hearted, empathetic, too-nice-for-his-own-good brother -to harbor a criminal! Him AND Frisk! Whether or not Flowey committed any crimes in this particular timeline he sure as hell was guilty of them in the past. Sans' convoluted definition of "the past" still counted, in his books, and Flowey was long overdue for a sentencing.

Voices that sounded like Dante and Pristina told him he was being biased, again. He told the back of his mind to suck eggs. Memories of his grandfather sending him to the corner for using that kind of language (and stuff even coarser) almost made him laugh, but he sighed instead. He spared a thought for his departed grandparents as he made his way inside.

The interior of the Lab was dark. Not a single screen was lit, probably in an attempt to save what little power the Core provided, these days. He mentally apologized to Alphys for barging in and using her stuff, but she was just going to have to deal with it. She could always tell people he pulled rank on her, easy to do now that she was just one more citizen of the kingdom.

He turned on the big console. Back in the good old days the scrying eyes were used within the Lab, making sure only the alchemists assigned to each research task tended to them. More people than one would think were always looking to take credit for someone else's work, and Sans had assisted in the security efforts, more than once. His hand glided over the buttons, finding that Alphys never bothered to change the password for this, either. Sloppy of her, but right this minute he was more than grateful for her oversight. Images flickered on-screen as he quickly went through each eye's feed.

*where is she? When the last image revealed nothing he broke out in a cold sweat. He started over, spending a second longer than he wanted to looking at each image, again.

*where is she?! Sans swallowed the lump in his non-existent throat as image after image came up empty of any human girls.

*c'mon, kid, cut an old man some slack… He was about to call Papyrus and tell him he couldn't find her when something caught the corner of his orbit. It was the briefest shadow of movement, more sensed than seen. But that particular camera was just one in the string of eyes along the path to the Underground, so Sans skipped to one further down the line.

*there! Sans sighed in relief, even as confusion built. Frisk was striding briskly, but not hurriedly, back into the Underground. Something about her stride wasn't quite right… She wasn't carrying herself the way she normally did, the way she had from Snowdin to Hotland. Even as he shot Papyrus a quick text he focused on Frisk's face as much as he could before she moved out of the frame. The image quality sucked but he still took a screenshot of it.

Then she was gone. Frisk entered the path into the castle as Sans received a call from Toriel. He sighed, putting the computer to work on enhancing the image he'd taken as he answered.

"heya, to-"

She interrupted him, barely-restrained panic making her voice waver. "Sans, Frisk is gone. My child is missing and I have not a clue as to where she went! She cut a hole in the back of the tent -how, I do not know- and she left me! She even left her c-phone behind! Stars above, why do they always leave me?!"

"hey, hey, easy!" Sans started sweating again, unaccustomed to hearing such anguish in his friend's voice. He spoke as soothingly as he could. "i know where frisk is, okay? i'm about to go and get her, so we'll meet you at the castle." Because like hell Toriel was going to sit at home while her kid was at large. Sans knew her better than that.

"Th-the castle?" He heard a sharp intake of breath, an equally sharp exhale then a couple of deeper, calming breaths. When Toriel spoke again she sounded much more like herself. "Why would she be going there?"

"dunno. i'll ask her when i see her. see you soon." Sans ended the call before Toriel could say anything. He turned his attention back to the computer, which now displayed a terrible truth.

Frisk's face had that smile on it. Her eyes weren't glowing but that expression was unmistakable. Even as dread chilled his marrow Sans ran some quick calculations. At her pace, given the amount of time that'd passed since he lost sight of her, where would she be…?

He swore with soft vehemence and shortcut away, hoping his calculations wouldn't be thrown off by Frisk jogging once she entered the Underground.