When Percy woke up, the area was empty. He was feeling much more awake, but also quite hungry. He shuffled around in his pockets, and grabbed the monster candy from inside. Once Percy ate the candy, he felt much better. Determined and ready, Percy stood up and started back on the trail.
This time he stopped before he slid across the ice. On the surface, there were a lot of those blue X shapes, and a button at the far end, also surrounded in ice. He gave the puzzle a shot. Percy slid across the ice to one of the blue shapes, and it turned red under his feet. Thankfully, the ground that the shapes were on wasn't slippery. He slid across diagonally to another one, and then down to the next.
Soon enough, he accidentally stepped on one of the red circles, and it turned into a green triangle. Percy stared at it in annoyance. Well, that wouldn't work. Percy slid back to the start while and waited for the puzzle to reset. He looked to his left and saw a small path leading down to a shadowed cove. Curious, Percy wandered down the path.
The first thing he saw was an intricately carved snow Papyrus. The creation had the iconic red scarf on it and everything. Next to it, Percy saw a lump of snow with the word 'sans' written on it in red marker. He was a bit disappointed. He had thought Sans had only been joking about being lazy, but it seemed he really was.
Percy walked back up the path and saw that the puzzle had reset. That thing looked tricky with all the ice around it. Percy thought for a second, shrugged, and then used his powers to shove snow across all the ice so that he could walk on it without sliding. Once that was done, it was a simple matter to step on all the X shapes and turn them into circles.
He stepped on the button at the far end, and a pathway appeared where there was a pit a minute before. It seemed like the pathway was lifted up by some kind of mechanism or magic connected to the puzzle. Despite how he kept using shortcuts to solve the puzzles, Percy was impressed with the design.
He started to walk across the path before he realized he hadn't put snow over the ice. Percy slid across, wildly waving around his arms, and his face smacked against a tree branch. A lump of snow fell on his head, and miraculously stayed up there until he stepped on solid ground. Once he had stopped, the snow fell to the ground.
After that wild ride, Percy was glad to just see a bunch of calm piles of snow. Little snow poffs all gathered together. Next to them was a tiny doghouse, and a sign next to it that simply said, "woof." Percy looked happily at all the piles of snow as he walked by.
Suddenly, out from one of the snow poffs popped the head and tail of a fluffy little white dog. It squeaked a friendly little bark, and Percy smiled at it, mildly surprised, then his surprise multiplied tenfold as it rose up to it's full height, which was easily two feet above his head! Percy gawked as he stared up at the hulking, armor clad figure. It was the Greater Dog.
Percy tried his best to ignore it. Greater Dog inched closer. The spear the dog held flashed between blue and silver in the light. The big brute barked at him, looking happy. The sound was so loud it hurt Percy's ears, but Greater Dog just wanted affection, so Percy tentatively pet the dog. The giant creature curled up in his lap as it got pet. Greater Dog got so comfortable it fell asleep...
Then it woke up! It was so excited! Apparently needing to use its boundless energy, Greater Dog swing its flashing spear at him, and though Percy tried to dodge, there wasn't much room nearby, and he got hit by the silver spear. Then, remorseless, Greater Dog just patted the ground with its front paws. Those paws looked like giant hands in that big armor.
Trying to use up some of the dog's seemingly limitless energy, Percy made a snowball and threw it for the dog to fetch. "Fetch!" He yelled. The snowball splatted on the ground. Undeterred, Greater Dog picked up all the snow in the area and brought it to Percy. Stuck under a mountain of snow, Percy tried to shove all the snow off himself. He would have barely succeeded without his powers.
Now the dog was very tired... It rested its head on Percy... And just when he had escaped the snow. Greater Dog barked at him again, but it was a tired bark, and didn't hurt. Greater Dog wanted some TLC. Percy pet the dog. As he pet the dog, it sunk its entire weight into him... Percy's movements slowed under the crushing weight. But, he still hadn't pet enough...!
Despite being tired, Greater Dog swung its flashing spear at him again. Percy closed his eyes, bracing himself, but by the time he opened his eyes again, Greater Dog had relaxed again. Percy was sure the spear had been coming right at him, and it was going too fast to stop it before it hit, but nonetheless, he was unharmed.
Pet capacity was 40 percent. Percy pet decisively. Pet capacity reached 100 percent. The dog flopped over with its legs hanging in the air. Again the dog barked at him, but Percy plugged his ears before his eardrums could get hurt. Greater Dog was contented. Finally, Percy spared the Greater Dog. All the shenanigans necessary before he could just spare these creatures were getting annoying.
Greater Dog handed Percy 40 gold, probably for the petting or something. Then the dog jumped out of his armor and wagged his tiny little tail. Apparently he actually was a small dog. In a giant suit of armor. Tiny Dog licked Percy's face, much to his surprise, and then jumped back into the top of his armor head first, so that his tail ended up in the air. Then, Greater Dog walked off...somehow.
Once he had gotten over having witnessed yet another of the now expected unexpected, Percy wandered over in the direction the dog had gone, and he found a cliff, along with what looked like a very rickety wooden bridge across the large gap with nothing but rope railing on the side.
He tentatively took a few steps onto the bridge, and, relieved to find that it actually felt solid and sturdy, kept going.
When Percy was almost to the end, he stopped. Sans and Papyrus were at the other end. If they wanted to stop him from getting somewhere over there, here was the place to do it. Percy looked at them cautiously, ready to use the snow nearby if he needed to.
"HUMAN! THIS IS YOUR FINAL AND MOST DANGEROUS CHALLENGE!" Papyrus bellowed. "BEHOLD! THE GAUNTLET OF DEADLY TERROR!"
Just then, an active flamethrower, a giant spear, and a cannon all lowered into view on his right, and a big spiky ball, another giant spear, and for some reason a small white dog were hanging down on his left.
"WHEN I SAY THE WORD, IT WILL FULLY ACTIVATE! CANNONS WILL FIRE! SPIKES WILL SWING! BLADES WILL SLICE! EACH PART WILL SWING VIOLENTLY UP AND DOWN! ONLY THE TINIEST CHANCE OF VICTORY WILL REMAIN!"
Percy stood ready, and checked his pocket to see if Riptide had reappeared yet. Indeed it had. Percy left it there for now, but was firm in his knowledge that the sword was there if he needed it.
"ARE YOU READY!? BECAUSE! I! AM! ABOUT! TO DO IT!" Percy stood tensely, waiting for Papyrus to activate the weapons. After a moment, Sans turned to his brother and said, "well? what's the holdup?"
"HOLDUP!? WHAT HOLDUP!?" Papyrus looked indignant. "I'M... I'M ABOUT TO ACTIVATE IT NOW!" ...Nobody moved except for the dog, slowly rotating on its string. Sans broke the silence. "that, uh, doesn't look very activated."
"WELL! THIS CHALLENGE! IT SEEMS... MAYBE... TOO EASY TO DEFEAT THE HUMAN WITH. YEAH! WE CAN'T USE THIS ONE! I AM A SKELETON WITH STANDARDS! MY PUZZLES ARE VERY FAIR! AND MY TRAPS ARE EXPERTLY COOKED! BUT THIS METHOD IS TOO DIRECT! NO CLASS AT ALL! AWAY IT GOES!"
Everything then retracted back into the ceiling, much to Percy's relief, but also, to his surprise, disappointment. "PHEW!" Papyrus seemed to be quite relieved, though. "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT!?" THIS WAS ANOTHER DECISIVE VICTORY FOR PAPYRUS! NYEH! HEH! ...HEH?" Uncertain, Papyrus ran off.
Percy cautiously finished crossing the bridge, and walked up to Sans. The skeleton closed his eyes for a moment, then winked at him. "...say, i've been thinking." The skeleton looked to the side. "seems like you're gonna fight my brother pretty soon. here's some friendly advice. if you keep going the way you are now..." Sans closed his eyes, silent for a minute. "...i don't know what my brother's going to do now. if i were you, i would make sure i understand blue attacks."
Percy did not, in fact, understand blue attacks one bit. This was the first he had heard of them, but since Sans made it clear that the conversation was over, Percy didn't ask. What also made him curious was why Sans thought he and Papyrus would be fighting soon. Percy didn't mind Papyrus, so he wasn't sure why they'd end up fighting.
Whatever the case, since they were done talking, Percy walked away from Sans, and onto another snowy path. Not long after, he heard the happy sound of a small town, and saw ahead of him a festive sign covered in lights that said, "Welcome to Snowdin Town!"
Around the sign some flowers lay in the ground, and ahead of it were some buildings. There was a shop, and connected to it was an inn. Right in front of the buildings, there was a box that looked identical to the one he saw a while back, and right next to it was a Save Point.
Percy ran straight for the glowing Save Point, ignoring everything else. Smiling, he touched the glow, and again something clicked in his head, and he felt relaxed. Percy sighed, and for a moment, simply sat there in the snow.