Aaron: Updates are every week on Sunday, it takes a while for me to do these chapters, but it's not like I'll stop updating anytime soon. Also, I think no Undertale characters telling Papyrus about the whole snow foot print thing was a part of the joke
Chapter 4: Puzzles and Pasta part 1
The wind shifted subtlety as Naruto walked away from the big-boned skeleton, not a word was uttered from the spiky haired human. "What, you don't have anything to add? Usually you're all about proving how talented you are."
He turned and scratched the surface of his cheek, a slow smile creeping up his face. "Actually, you're right to tell you the truth, but I'll eventually solve them after a few tries, I mean, just how hard can these stupid puzzles get?"
Sans forced himself not to laugh. "I guess you're right, heh, try not to die, pal."
OoO
It felt like hours gone by before Naruto saw another life form, it just so happened to be that life form was a blue rabbit selling ice cream.
"Oh! A customer, finally, wouldn't you agree it's the perfect weather for some Nice cream?" The rabbit hollered.
Naruto curiously approached the blue rabbit. "Nice cream?" He asked while settling his arms on the ice cold vendor stand. "I'll take one."
"Wonderful! Nice cream is only 15G here in Snowdin Forest, a cheap price if I do say so myself."
"15 what?"
"15 Gold. Whenever you encounter monsters, most of the time, they'll drop this shiny yellow stuff called gold. Haven't you ever thought to pick some up?"
"Nope."
"So you're broke is what I'm hearing."
"Yep."
His face sagged dramatically.
'Guess I better leave then,' To the right of Naruto was a stiff bridge, while crossing over it, he could still hear the steady pattern of heads bangs and loud groans coming from the Nice cream man.
The next area contained a wide slab of frozen dirt with a single, large snow ball right dab in the middle. Naruto picked up the snowball, after a while he felt cold water slither down his back like a snake. "...what?" He lowered his hands, in place of the snowball was cold, unforgivable water.
Though another snowball substituted in its place, Naruto walked past it.
"Hey again," At this point, hearing Sans' voice was no surprise to Naruto, like all their other encounters, he stopped to listen to what Sans had to say. "I've been thinking about becoming a vendor too, I would ask you to buy some fried snow right about now, but I heard you had no money."
"Even if I had money, I wouldn't buy fried snow or whatever kind of crap that is."
"That's fine, I don't have any fried snow to give out."
*SANSSSS!
"I hear my brother calling, gotta fly."
OoO
Sans made his way down past the snowball game and onto a makeshift road. "...?" Pausing, he took a look at the rows upon rows of evergreen trees packed together. "I know you're there, human, come out."
One of the evergreen trees shook violently, the shaking suddenly stopped and an Ice cap strutted out.
Sans chuckled. "My mistake," Though a session of snow-crunching filled in the silence, Sans didn't bother. 'It must be that Ice cap,' Instead of fading, the crunching grew louder. 'No, this time, it's the human.'
"It's you again," Sans said.
Naruto grew comfortable around Sans' presence, he didn't feel scared anymore, he wanted to be near him.
"Human, I've always wondered, don't you ever feel cold in that get-up of yours?"
"This?" Naruto pulled at his sleeves, he wore a black undershirt, but other than that, his clothes were pretty light for a winter setting. "I'm not cold at all!" He argued.
"That so..." 'Why do I even ask these sort of question if I know the answer I'll get.' "I think we've reached my brother by now."
"Sans! There you are!" Papyrus yelled, Sans was amused by how worn-out the ground beneath his boot was due to his constant tapping. "And is that the human with you?! Nyeh...it doesn't matter, Sans did you bring your puzzle?"
"My puzzle's right over there," Sans pointed to a piece of paper laying on the ground. "It's specially designed so a human can never get past it."
"Woowie, that's great!"
Naruto stared at the piece of paper he picked up. 'Monster Kidz Word Search, looks like a bunch of letter throw up.' "Boring!" He threw the word search back on the ground and resumed walking.
"-Sans! That didn't work at all!"
"Whoops. I knew I should've used today's crossword, but I didn't."
"Crossword?! I can't believe you just said that, in my opinion, Junior jumble is easily the hardest."
"Really, dude? That easy-peasy word scramble, that stuff's for baby bones."
"Un. Be. Lieve. A. Ble. Human, solve this quarrel!"
"I think all these dumb puzzles are hard."
"Dumb?! Nyeh, I knew I shouldn't of asked such an unappreciative human like you. I guess I'll go recalibrate the puzzles then." Sans watched as both Naruto and Papyrus strolled off and soon, he followed.
OoO
Eventually, the cluster of evergreen trees let up in an isolated location. It was unusually bare except for two coordinately placed tables and a note, Naruto held the note, quickly skimming its contents. "Human...please enjoy this spaghetti, blah, blah, blah it's a trap, blah, Nyeh-heh-heh, Papyrus."
'Heh, only an idiot would fall for that.' He put the note down then passed over the spaghetti-plate and spaghetti-microwave. It didn't take long for Naruto to reach another note, beyond the note was a field of hardened snow clumps.
He read the note. "...a marriage?"
"Oh my, it's that human again!"
An Ice cap, Snowdrake, and some other monster approached Naruto, and as promised, Ice cap's hat was even more stunning than the last time. "So, how about my hat?" Ice cap asked.
"It's pretty basic," Jerry said, everyone shuddered.
"Hey, Jerry, look over there." The second Jerry turned his odd, little head around, everyone made a run for it. Naruto slapped his hand against some rough tree bark, a signal for the other monsters to stop. "I think...we're...far enough." Naruto said between gasps of breath.
"Anyways, about my joke," Snowdrake started off, he didn't catch the demonic stare Ice cap was giving him.
"I thought we were talking about my hat."
"You always talk about your hat!"
"You always tell your jokes."
"Guys, guys, can we all agree that both of you suck equally?"
That voice belonged to Jerry. Jerry returned.
Snowdrake and Ice cap joined together in Naruto's loud groan. Ice cap tried one more time. "Hey, Jerry, look over there."
"Ha-ha! I'm not falling for that lame trick again, looks like I'm stuck with you guys."
Their groaning got louder.
"Any one of you losers want to hear something cool?" In response, Ice cap took off his hat reverting him back to an ice cube and Snowdrake phased out of existence, leaving only Jerry and Naruto.
"They just ditched me, ugh, some friends," Jerry's soulless, pitch-black eyes dipped inside Naruto's soul. "But you won't leave me, right?"
Naruto's heel pressed hard against the delicate blanket of snow, his turn was sharper than a knife then he sprinted. He'd gotten so far in such a short time, all Jerry could see was a blur of yellow.
'Looks like I lost him, good, and I was able to pick up some of this gold stuff while Ice cap and Snowdrake ran away, I can buy all the Nice cream I want with all this...maybe there's even...ramen!' Naruto tightly clenched his lump of gold. Just the mere thought of tasting savory, mouth-watering ramen made his face bright up like a light.
He obliviously stepped over a short line of spikes, (supposedly meant to be a puzzle) and passed another stiff bridge.
"What's that smell?!"
"(Identify yoursmellf!)"
Two dark figures prowled beside Naruto, sniffing intensely. "(This smell...it-)" One of them began saying.
"-makes me want to destroy!" The other finished.
Without their menacing hoods on, it got pretty tough for Naruto to be frightened by two fuzzy, white dogi. They only got scary when they pointed their huge battle axes at him.
"Hey-hey! I don't want any trouble!" Naruto exclaimed, he pushed their blades away.
"(Yeah right!)"
Down to their round snouts and floppy ears the dogi were near identical, except, Dogamy had what looked like marker-drawn eyebrows and a malevolent cowlick. "Prepare for trouble!" Dogamy growled.
Dogaressa's eyelashes, on the other hand, were greatly empathized. She growled a similar note to that of Dogamy. "(And make it double!)"
Naruto couldn't even catch a breath before the dogi hammered their axes down beside him, trying to back away, he slipped on something and landed face first in the snow.
"(...what? Do you smell this smell I'm smelling?)"
"I do!"
"(Oh, you said that same thing to me during our marriage!)"
"Puppy, I know. About that smell you were talking about, I think it's a lost puppy."
"(I think it is!)"
They nuzzled noses for the sake of it.
'If these dogs are anything like the last then, this should work!' Naruto reached for the top of the dogi's fuzzy heads and pet them affectionately.
"(...! A dog that pets a dog...amazing!)"
"What will this world think of next?! Thank you strange puppy!"
They nuzzled again just because.
"..." Naruto uncomfortably shifted his weight, he stared at his feet.
"It smells like the weird puppy is lonely, do you want to nuzzle with us?"
He went red in the face. "N-no!"
"(Well. More for us!)"
XxxxXxx
"So these are the hard puzzle Sans was talking about, huh?" Two ominous blue X's and a flat, gray switch all laid in triangle formation to each other, at the end was a set of spikes. 'I could try and solve this thing, or I could do what I did last time.' Naruto put one foot over the spikes.
"CHEATER!" Papyrus screeched, rushing towards the Uzumaki. Naruto put his other leg over the spikes, effectively 'clearing' the puzzle.
"What do you think you're doing?! Nyehhh...we'll talk about your cheater-ism ideals another time, more importantly, did you eat that spaghetti I prepared?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Woowie, so you resisted the temptations of my home cooked spaghetti just so you could share it with me? Worry not human, I, iron chef Papyrus, will make you all the pasta to your heart's content!"
"If you're gonna make me something, then I don't want it to be pasta, I want it to be ramen!"
"Ramen? That sickening food Undyne's 'friend' always eats. I might have some in my pantry, I'll go see-" Papyrus left then shortly came back. "-don't just stand here, come along."
Naruto followed Papyrus until they reached a stopping point, there was another puzzle of similar caliber to the last one ahead, but this was infinitely more challenging. Papyrus walked to the sidelines. "I don't know how to say this human, but my brother and I made this puzzle for you, but you were taking so long I decided to improve the puzzle by rearranging it to look like my face, then the snow froze to the ground and now the soultion's different! And to add to that, my lazy brother is nowhere to be seen...but worry not, I will solve this conundrum! In the meantime, feel free to try and solve it yourself."
"We can just jump over the spikes."
Papyrus pointed to the spikes awaiting at the end, they were extended to the point of impassable. "Sans accidentally messed up the spike-y part of this particular puzzle. I swear, first the sock collection, now this, it's a good thing someone like me is here for him."
'He's gonna take too long for this, I'll have to solve it!' Naruto stepped on one of the X's and right under his feet, it changed to a bright red circle. He stepped on another and it did the same. The process of flipping X's to O's continued until he misstepped and hit an O again. The O flickered for a bit, then finally settled on a lime green triangle shape.
"What? Papyrus, why'd it change to a triangle?!"
"Fret not human, it's apart of the puzzle, if a tile changes to a triangle, then you start over."
"Start over?!"
"Yep!" Papyrus' foot pressed against the switch, Naruto's hard work, dedication, sweat, all of it vanished. "There you go!"
Naruto tried the puzzle over and over again, but the end always resulted in him stepping over an O twice by accident. After a while, he stopped trying and looked towards the lanky skeleton. "Hey, Papyrus, do you wanna give this puzzle a go?"
"DO I?!"
Papyrus paused once he was through with the puzzle. "Wait a second, human, you knew I had a deep seated passion for puzzles so you tricked me into completing one? Woowie, that's one of the nicest things someone's ever done for me! I'll make up an even harder puzzle as thanks!"
"Ehhhh?! Wait, wait I-" But it was too late, the tall skeleton was clear out of the area.
"Nice."
He'd grown accustomed to meeting Sans after every puzzle, this time was no different. "No it isn't, now I'll have to solve an even harder puzzle!" Naruto pouted.
"Yeah, but look how you solved this puzzle, pretty smart if you ask me. Bonus, I didn't have to help you out, which is always a good thing, that means I don't have to do anything at all."
"W-whatever!"
Naruto dragged himself over to yet another puzzle as he and Sans were walking towards it, Papyrus was working on a rectangular machine. "Bro, what are you doing?" Sans asked.
"I'm making this puzzle harder for the human!"
"You sure you know how this thing works, it's Alphys' machine after all."
"Of course I do, Sans! Now, human, I'm sure you're wondering what this particular puzzle is all about, you see those tiles?"
Naruto nodded, keeping a close eye on the grayscale tiles.
"Well, after I throw this switch here, they'll change to different colors and each color has its own separate function! Red tiles are impassable, you can't step on them! Yellow tiles are electric, they'll electrocute you! Green tiles are alarm tiles, if you step on one, you'll have to-" About halfway through, Naruto dozed off.
"xxx"
"xxx"
"-and pink tiles do absolutely nothing, hey, human, you were listening, weren't you?!"
He muttered something reminiscent of a 'yeah'.
"Good, when I pull this switch it'll make a puzzle never before seen in puzzle-history, not even I will know the solution. Nyeh heh heh! Get ready!"
The tiles blinked between color to color, first slowly, then the blinking got faster and faster until it stopped altogether.
'What?! This is the puzzle?!'
A/N: I really wanted to fit the entire Snowdin forest saga inside buttttttt, Spanish doesn't learn itself, so I'll have to divide it into two parts. Luckily, next chapter, I hope, I really hope I can fit in Papyrus fight. Nah screw it, I WILL FIT IN PAPYRUS FIGHT!