And as a Friday night went to a close, it is revealed I do not have the ability to keep up with my own updating schedule on the first week. But fear not! With friends going on vacation to both sides of the East Cost, I find myself with for once, little to no life happening. In other words, congratulations, you're getting four chapters sometime between Monday and next Friday. And yay! Chara and Frisk are almost out of the ruins! (Quick BTW: Chara named the monsters different things than Frisk did. "Rigs" is a "ribbit frog" instead of a "frog ribbit", and I've mentioned mothsuns before.)
What has she done?
What has he done?
What should they do?
What will they do?
He heard the shuffling again. He turned around fast, getting his stick ready. The red mist flew out of him. In front of him was a froggit. Chara was shocked to see another monster after he claimed to kill all 15.
Frisk swung his stick at the froggit, causing damage to the poor creature. It tried to leap onto him, but he dodged and swung his stick again. The mist went back into him as he stared at the shocked ghost girl doubtingly. Instead of walking forward, he walked back into the first room. Chara quickly floated after him. How were there more monsters in the ruins than she first originally thought?
The answer was easy. She hadn't been here in a long time. Certainly some of the monsters down here increased in that time. There were easily four more monsters down here, but she had trouble sensing them. Frisk lead her to the very first room right after Toriel left. There, he was frantically searching for monsters.
"Frisk, wait!" She called. "There are other places for monsters! Let's get moving!" She whined. She was really getting bored from watching Frisk kill rigs and the mothsuns. Frisk wasn't listening though- The red heart above his head was proof. Chara sat and watched uninterested and agitated as Frisk killed two more rigs and one last mothsun. He then headed towards the exit.
"Can we move on now?" She complained bitterly. Frisk shook his head yes to show he was listening. He kept staring at her. What was he looking for?
Time passed as neither moved, despite both being ready to leave. Then, Frisk remembered something. He held up five fingers. Chara was right- after that unexpected rig in the rock room, there were 4 more.
Another minute passed, and his fingers were still up, waiting. Then, Chara remembered why.
"Ohhh..." She said awkwardly, giggling. "You want my backstory," she explained, watching Frisk nod. "Alright, here goes nothing," She paused, thinking about how to word the next part. "I loved chocolate. She knew," She stated, not mentioning who the "she" was. Frisk looked as if he was thinking.
"Toriel?" He asked.
"The goat lady said she cares for all humans who come down here, did she not?" Frisk almost looked a little surprised. Almost.
He continued out the door to the next room, heading back to where they were before. Before they got to the final rock room, Frisk heard a rustling. This time, hopeful as ever, he frantically looked. When he thought he found something, he was proven wrong. He wanted to kill more of the monsters in the ruins... but nobody came. This time, he gave up. The scene turned ominous, as if this time, everything was truly dead.
They finally got to the rock room again, then passed it. The next room made Frisk confused.
"Cheese?" He asked, pointing to the cheese on a single wooden table in the room.
"Look at the mouse hole," She explained, pointing to a hole in the wall. "Knowing that one day, the mouse will come out to take a bite of the cheese fills you with determination."
"Determination..." Frisk repeated. He went up to the piece of cheese. It has been there for such a long time, it got stuck to the table.
They moved on to the next room, where there was another ghost napping. Chara disappeared quickly so the other ghost didn't have to. There was an unspoken rule that ghosts have their territories, and Chara didn't want to cause trouble. Frisk noticed that Chara was no longer in the room. He went up to the ghost in the center of the room. It was napping to block him. Napstablook, he thought, as a clever pun at what it was doing.
He approached the ghost. It was pretending to snore, as if ghosts didn't really need sleep. Based on how Chara slept like a baby, he doubted this.
This ghost also didn't want trouble, but was in his way. He felt the red mist fly out of him.
He readied his stick, and swung at the ghost. He saw a little of it disappear, as if he was hurting it. Tears rained down on him from the ghost.
Tears...
He almost didn't want the ghost to be sad anymore.
Instead of swinging his stick, he decided to try what Toriel told him to do instead of Chara.
"H-hey... sorry about trying to hurt you..." He said meekly. He expected something dangerous to happen, but nothing did, as if the ghost wasn't feeling up to it right now. He tried talking some more, seeing it kept him from harm.
"So... hows the weather?" He asked. He expected more acid rain tears to rain down on him, but this time, the ghost talked back.
"I want to show you something..." the ghost said weakly. Instead of the tears raining down on him, they floated up and formed a hat thing on the ghost's head. "I call it my dapper blook."
Frisk clapped, pretending to think it was cool. It was well worth it, for cheering seemed to have improved Napstablook's mood. The ghost promised to go and nap somewhere else for the time being. The red mist went back inside of him and the ghost moved. Frisk continued forward, and found himself in a blank room with a sign reading, "Spider Bake Sale: All proceeds go to real spiders." Then, Chara appeared. He stood up tall and looked her in the eye.
"I'm done killing things."
"No your not," She said. "You've already killed everything in the ruins. Why stop now? You probably don't even know how to show mercy," Chara teased.
A small but noticeable smirk appeared on Frisk. "I didn't kill that ghost," he explained. "I spared it."
"Since when were you so talkative? You can't even kill a ghost. They're already dead. You haven't spared a single thing."
The smirk died back down into his normal straight face. She was right. He didn't save anything.
The weight of his crimes started crashing down on him once again.
"They... they're all... dead.." He said. He looked as if he was about to cry. "What have I done?" he paused, trying not to cry. He felt an overwhelming sadness. He wanted to cry. "Can't you keep your own god damn promises?" He asked the ghost girl in the air. He felt a tear slide down his face. "This is the second time you've made me cry... I wouldn't be crying if it wasn't for you..." He finished, burying his head in his knees. He felt oddly numb, oddly unemotional. Any time before, he would have been sobbing, but now, he only cried that one tear. It was odd. It was as if killing made it harder for him to cry. Maybe Chara could keep up her end of the deal.
Chara stared at the child that was crying for the second time today. She felt guilty. Not for the monsters, never for the monsters. Only for him. She wanted to make him feel better. Seeing as he wasn't sobbing, she figured telling a joke would be an easy cure.
"Geez, you sure are talkative today," She giggled. Frisk slowly stood up, looking as if he didn't cry or even feel sad at all. His straight face stared into his.
"You talk to much."
She immediately stopped laughing from the shock at the dryness and directness of his tone. "I- I what?"
Frisk wrapped his arms around the air she was in. Despite being a ghost, she felt her face blush. The hug was awkward and only lasted for a second, but it was enough to both confused and shut up Chara. Frisk went over to the spider web and placed 7G in one, and 18G in the other. He got both a donut and a jug. He didn't see any exit. he was confused as to where to go now. He went back outside to the room where he first found Napstablook. There, Chara lead him down a dark passage he didn't see the first time. It was a simple hallway. He felt that before, it may have been filled with some of the creatures he had killed earlier. But nobody was there now.
At the end of the hallway he got another call from Toriel about warning him to look for things she may have dropped, and to leave room in his pockets for that.
In the next room, there were broken tiles in 6 distinct spots. At the other end, were spikes. Chara pointed at the tile he had to fall through to solve the puzzle, and it was over relatively quick.
The next room was a series of four rooms with different switches he had to press. Once again, Chara gave him the answer, looking really bored and impatient.
After that room, they got to what looked like a really pretty part of the ruins. There, green and red leaves were placed so that the accented the space, as if cared for by a gardener, unlike the rest of the ruins. Chara seemed to get excited as she looked straight ahead. Frisk stared at her, waiting for her to say something.
"You know that thing she said about dropping things? C'mon!" She almost yipped, buzzing across the room. The next room was a plain and simple room, but there was another room leading to a balcony. The balcony looked over a city and a city's capitol. It looked inspiring, being the first thing other than brick he's seen since he got down here. It appeared that Chara enjoyed the scene, too. She looked as if she wanted to go down there and see it up close. Her grin for once seemed... genuine. This made the corners of Frisk's mouth curl, if even just a bit.
They remained silent for only a minute as they looked at the abandoned city. Chara thought Frisk was thinking the worse about why no one lived in such an underground metropolis.
"This city has been abandoned since I've been here," She assured. Frisk stared at her, noticing her smile grow even more genuine. He would have loved to stare at the genuine gleam, but it was short lived, for it turned dark the second she looked over Frisk's shoulder. "Look behind you! A knife!" Chara gleamed evilly. Frisk turned around to pick up the knife, only to find it was made of plastic.
"If only there were more things to kill..." He sighed under his breath, wondering to himself if it was sarcasm. He placed in it his back pocket, next to his stick. If he hit hard enough, it should do more damage than the stick.
"Don't worry, there's more in Snowdin," She assured. "And Waterfall... and Hotland... really, there are tons of monsters left. I just hope they don't evacuate them," She practically thought out loud. The two stood in silence for a bit. Oddly, it was Frisk to break the silence.
"Wanna know why I wanna kill things?" He asked, staring at Chara.
"Cuz I tell you to?" She spoke, saying an answer that was true, but surely not what he meant.
Frisk shook his head. "No, I don't know how to say this... but you're really pretty... and I've been dying to hug you," He said sheepishly, a childish blush appearing on his cheeks before vanishing after a bit. Chara giggled, before suggesting they leave the room. Right before they got to the next room, Frisk muttered something under his breath. "The path to Hell is paved with good intentions..."
Wow, I almost procrastinated, again.
So um... stuff happened...
Not really as sure about this one.. the thing with Nabstapblook seemed really forced, and I'm being as game accurate as rewriting plot points (like 20 monsters instead of 15) and even baring the TERRIFYING genocide sound track for the sake of accuracy. . Better be worth it.
R&W (For read and... wreckord? Wow, at least R&R made sense. I'll get it one day.)